Plan B: A Novel by Tropper Jonathan

Author:Tropper, Jonathan [Tropper, Jonathan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2010-05-11T00:00:00+00:00

There’s something about the rain in the country that I find viscerally satisfying. The rain in the Catskills doesn’t screw around. It comes down harder and more violently than in the city, with little concrete infrastructure to absorb its wrath. The trees hiss under the deluge, and it’s as if you’re hearing the collective sighs of all the leaves slaking their thirst, interrupted only by the thunder, which reverberates powerfully across the sky and rattles the windows. You’re one with the trees and the grass, part of a living tapestry, unlike in the city where you’re insulated and separated. Lindsey and I brought two chairs out onto the porch and sat there quietly, watching the rain and looking for lightning bolts over the lake. It was the first quiet time we’d shared since our ill-fated walk through town two days before.

“I’m sorry about our argument the other day,” she said, putting her hand on my arm. “I overreacted.”

“God, that seems like a long time ago,” I said. “It was my fault. Don’t worry about it.”

“You’ve been distant to me ever since.”

“I don’t mean to be.”

We sat there for a few moments and then she reached for my hand and I watched our fingers combine. I felt myself tremble slightly and realized that, despite the last few days’ distractions, I’d still been seriously depressed about what she’d said and how it had left us. I opened my mouth to say something else, but then willed myself to stay silent, to hold onto her hand, listen to the rain, and be in the moment. And I was.

An hour or so later the clouds broke and the sky reasserted itself. I brought Lindsey down to the lake to see the geese. The sun was disappearing behind the trees, causing reflective glints on the dripping leaves and bleeding crimson streaks into the low clouds on the horizon. The still, dark water of the lake reflected the sunset perfectly. We sat on the bench, my right knee against her left, watching the geese go about the business of finishing off the day. Some continued to hunt for food, their posteriors pointed comically at the sky as they submerged their heads. Most of them, though, were selecting spots on the shore to turn in for the night. They would swim up to the shore and then, with a thrashing of their wings, leap up onto the land. The whooshing sound the geese’s wings made was like a concentrated blast of wind, powerful and elemental.

“It’s such a simple existence,” Lindsey marveled. “They wake up with the sun, and they go to bed with the sun.”

“And in between, all they do is swim, eat, and rest,” I said.

“Not exactly a complicated lifestyle.”

“You sound envious.”

“I am.”

“Are you worried?” I asked her. “About the whole thing with Jack, now that it has gone public?”

She thought about it for a minute. “Not really. I guess I just feel like it would be so absurd for us to end up in jail, you know? Who would waste their time putting us in jail?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

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