Long Shot by Paul Monette

Author:Paul Monette
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781480473829
Publisher: Open Road Media

chapter 5

Oh, it’s all my fault, he thought ruefully, as he inched the minuscule Dodge from Hertz up the muddy road to the inn. But he simply couldn’t help it. He hated this gray and lunar weather. He’d probably been in the sun too long. For all he knew, he’d developed a toothy grin as well, like an overage surfer.

If only the clouds would be done with it and rain. They’d settled in so low, they threatened any moment to sweep down like a plague. The bare black limbs of wintered trees were hung with drops of condensation. They would have looked terrific with the light refracted through them, but there was no light to speak of. The night came down a little after five—the regulation time—yet the day had made so little headway, the gesture hardly mattered.

He had in his head, he realized now, what amounted to a coffee-table book. He passed the main lodge, in its oaken gloom, and went through a tunnel of graveyard trees. He’d always thought Vermont was a mix of covered bridges and barns in pastures, with the forest floored in red and yellow leaves. The Vermont of the national anthem. But now he was here for real, he hated it. It was cold as Eastern Europe, and Appalachian-poor. Dotted with mingy local markets that stocked the meanest, drabbest goods. He was practically sprouting moss from two straight days of lowering skies. Still, he grew faint from thirst for want of a little Perrier.

He turned off at the one-lane track that led to his peak-roofed cabin. He parked on a bed of wet brown needles. A sign on a stake beside his porch read: Old Mill Stream. It took its name from the swollen water that coursed through the black-grass meadow behind the house. The mill was nowhere in evidence.

He kicked the car door shut behind him, registering a blow that seemed to go straight to the Dodge’s heart. He got a lot of satisfaction out of the fact that the car was coming apart before it had gone two hundred miles. He had worked at banging the newness out, whenever he had the chance. Besides, he hated to drive at the best of times. He only got in a car when he’d exhausted every public means of transport. Thus, it usually required both Sid and Edna riding shotgun—one with a map, the other calling out landmarks—to get him from A to B.

He let himself in and drew the drapes against the desolate woodland view. He had nothing at all to look forward to. Dinner was served in the lodge from seven to nine, but he couldn’t get too excited over that, since the dozen other guests had all become fast friends before he came. They traded snapshots and recipes with a vengeance, till he felt like David Niven in Separate Tables. Even now, they were crossing back and forth along the ridge, having drinks in one another’s cutely nicknamed cabins.

All Greg had was a bottle of rye and his tooth glass.

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