North of the Tension Line

  NORTH

  of the

  TENSION LINE

  NORTH

  of the

  TENSION LINE

  A Novel

  J.F. RIORDAN

  Copyright © 2014 by J.F. Riordan

  FIRST EDITION

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  “The Sloth,” copyright © 1950 by Theodore Roethke; from COLLECTED POEMS by Theodore Roethke. Used by permission of Doubleday, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Riordan, J. F.

  North of the tension line / by J. F. Riordan. – First edition.

  pages cm

  ISBN 978-0-8253-0734-8 (hardcover : alk. paper)

  1. Single women–Fiction. 2. Wilderness survival–Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3618.1565N67 2014

  813’.6-dc23

  2014009539

  For inquiries about volume orders, please contact:

  Beaufort Books

  27 West 20th Street, Suite 1102

  New York, NY 10011

  sales@beaufortbooks.com

  Published in the United States by Beaufort Books

  www.beaufortbooks.com

  Distributed by Midpoint Trade Books

  www.midpointtrade.com

  Printed in the United States of America

  Interior design by Jane Perini

  Cover Design by Oliver Munday

  To CJS, my own Deus Ex Machina

  with all my love

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Visitors to foreign lands require guides, and I have been extremely lucky to have had many excellent ones to whom I owe my thanks.

  My friends of the Breakfast Club, Lucia and Pete Petrie, Betty and Leon Shellswick, and Chari and Ham Rutledge, who very early on spent time with me reminiscing and telling stories about life on the island.

  Captain Bill Jorgenson and his crew who permitted me to spend a day on the ferry with them watching them at work, and sharing their chocolate doughnuts, and later, to Captain Bill for reading my manuscript and pointing out that the trees at School House Beach are cedars.

  My gracious and delightful hosts, Susan and George Ulm, who know the precise recipe for leaving me alone while making me feel welcome, and Bosun, who allows usurpers to play in his yard.

  LeRoy, Bill, and Kay, who came on a Sunday afternoon to pull my car out of the mud.

  The friendly and generous people of Washington Island who wave at me whenever our cars pass on the road even when they have no idea who I am.

  Mike Nichols, the only novelist I knew, who read with understanding and gave good advice.

  My publisher, Eric Kampmann, who called me the same day I wrote to him.

  My editor Megan Trank, who demonstrates her Midwestern roots in her kindness, good cheer, support, and professionalism.

  Felicia Minerva, my publicist, for her enthusiasm and good advice, but who, to my disappointment, is not a mermaid.

  My dear friend, Mary Beth, who has always told me I was a writer.

  My husband, Charlie, for his unfailing love, patience, and encouragement, and for laughing in all the right places.

  And finally, my friend Roger Kimball, who, beyond all calls of duty or reason, made it his business to see that my manuscript found its way to a publisher. I am deeply grateful.

  – J.F. Riordan

  NORTH

  of the

  TENSION LINE

  Chapter One

  After she had shut the drawer on her finger, spilled the coffee beans, and torn her bathrobe pocket on the stove handle, Fiona decided that it would be better to go out for breakfast. There were still a few beans scattered here and there on the kitchen counter and on the floor when she pulled on a hooded sweatshirt and headed out. It was a short walk from her small cottage on the bluffs down to the village, and the late summer morning was pleasant. She walked slowly, unconsciously timing her steps to a poem about a sloth she had memorized as a child. Irritatingly, she couldn’t remember the beginning, only the last two stanzas.

  A most Ex-as-per-at-ing Lug.

  But should you call his manner Smug,

  He’ll sigh and give his Branch a Hug;

  Then off again to Sleep he goes,

  Still swaying gently by his Toes,

  And you just know he knows he knows.

  For some reason, she’d woken up with these lines in her head, and now they were repeating themselves unceasingly. She knew from long experience that the only remedy was to replace the lines with something equally persistent.

  Having managed to survive the morning thus far, Fiona was particularly careful to hold the handrail as she walked down the steep steps to the village. It was actually two long stairways from the bluffs down to the water’s level, with a street between the two, a nearly vertical drop, and not one Fiona cared to make on her head. Grace had never been her strong suit.

  Because, even on good days, Fiona was usually looking down to watch the placement of each foot on the uneven steps, she rarely had the opportunity to appreciate the beauty around her from the stairs. If you were looking up, the view encompassed the whole harbor out to the northern horizon, where Horseshoe Island lay silent and unpopulated. Beyond the Island you could see to the far side of Green Bay, to the bluffs of the state park on the western side. Below, in the village, sailboats were gently drifting at anchor, and on the south side of Eagle Harbor lay a cluster of vintage cottages. The narrow roads of the village snaked up the sides of the bluffs to the modest houses where Fiona’s own cottage stood, its owners having been fortunate enough to have obtained an early stakehold in this prime real estate.

  Thick shrubs of rugosa roses grew in profusion on either side of the old and precarious cement stairs, poking their branches under the painted metal pipework which formed the railing. Their scent, released by the moisture in the air, rose with the morning mist.

  It was a soft, humid morning, and a slight haziness muted the sunlight over the harbor. The tourists were not yet awake, except for the senior citizens who walked determinedly, if a bit aimlessly, around the irregular blocks of the village. Ephraim, lying below and around her, was a picturesque Moravian village which had remained virtually unchanged since the 1850s, when it had been settled in the remote outposts of Door County. The white frame structures of the village: the church steeples, the cottages built into the steep hill, and the nineteenth-century inns for sailors—once ordinary bed and board places, but now decorated with floral quilts and gas fireplaces and whirlpool tubs for two—appealed to the vision of small town life generally held by fashionable Chicago vacationers.

  It was an irony, in Fiona’s opinion, that the very thing which had preserved Ephraim like a time capsule, preventing the fancy restaurants and chic resorts from taking over, was the village’s greatest flaw: Ephraim was dry, and the simple desire for scotch required a drive to the next village.

  None of this mattered particularly at the moment, however. It was far too early to think of scotch—even for Fiona—but coffee was a requirement.

  Fiona was struck by an intense joy as she looked out over the pristine serenity of the harbor. The sailboats rocked at their moorings, their gleaming white hulls in sharp contrast to the blue of the water, the wooded rocky bluffs rising behind them. The gulls, relentless in their greed, soared over the docks, looking for anything that even remotely qualified as food. Looking out over the scene, Fiona fe
lt the tight places in her heart and mind ease. Even the demons that regularly plagued her sleep, seemed small and foolish.

  The smell of coffee drifted around the corner from the shop, and a few tourists were sitting at the outdoor tables reading out-of-town papers. Locals rarely sat outside. They went in where they could talk among themselves, and there was less danger of swallowing a yellow jacket with your coffee.

  The establishment was not a trendy coffee bar. In fact, its proprietor was so thoroughly dedicated to utilitarian living that it had no actual name. The word Coffee—in black and gold stick-on letters he had purchased at the hardware store—was pasted rather crookedly across the glass door as its only identifying marker. Locals arranging to meet there simply said “I’ll see you at Coffee,” or “I’m going down to Coffee,” as if it were a proper name.

  There were no glazed pottery mugs for sale, no jazz CDs, and no after-coffee mints. There were old-fashioned swiveling counter stools, and a few tables with hard upright chairs. The walls were white, without ornaments, and the interior had the austerity of purpose one might expect in a laboratory. The lighting was harsh and fluorescent. You could have an egg sandwich, or toast, or a doughnut in the morning, and occasionally, in Roger’s concession to fashion, a bagel. There were no scones, no biscotti, and just plain, homogenized full-fat milk. In the afternoon, you could have a slice of pie.

  Roger Mason, the owner and a retired physicist, claimed that these other things were distractions from the coffee, and besides, just attracted the wrong sort of people. People who asked for froufrou things like skim milk or a latte were frightened into silence by one look from Roger. There were no franchise operations in Door County, just as there were no neon signs. And if you wanted trendy coffee, you were just going to have to go back to Sturgeon Bay, or better yet, Chicago. This was not a choice of style for Roger. It was a personal philosophy.

  Roger had left his original line of work for what he described as political reasons, and although he had never told anyone what they were, Fiona suspected that he had irritated someone important. Having known Roger for a year or so, she thought this seemed a likely explanation.

  Despite having retired from his first profession, he was a young man, in his thirties, and a distant observer might have called him handsome. But this impression tended to diminish upon acquaintance. He was dressed this morning, as he was every morning, in a white T-shirt, jeans, and boat shoes. His hair stood out at odd angles, and he hadn’t shaved. Fiona often studied him, wondering how it was that celebrities could pull off exactly the same hairstyle with a completely different effect. The look on his face was one of simple rage. It was his normal face, not a mood. Fiona had noted that it was intimidating to tourists, but had varying degrees of impact on the locals. She had learned, with some effort, to ignore it.

  “Good morning,” she said carefully, as the screen door sprang shut behind her. It wouldn’t do to be too cheerful around Roger. Peppiness annoyed him, especially in the morning.

  “Usual?” Roger didn’t bother to turn around or look up.

  “Please,” Fiona said. Seating herself at the counter on her usual wobbly stool, she picked up the New York Times that had been lying nearby. There was a grease stain, and possibly some cherry preserves on the front page, but it looked more or less intact. Fiona enjoyed—mostly—the leisure and the science sections of the Times, occasionally the crossword, and especially the Real Estate listings, but avoided everything else. The preening arrogance of that paper had an immediate and measurable effect on her blood pressure, and she was trying to avoid drugs. Besides alcohol, of course.

  The shop was empty at the moment, and Roger never bothered with chitchat. The low hum of the cooler behind the counter was almost soothing in its presence. Occasionally, there was the clatter of cups as Roger went about his work. Fiona felt completely at ease in the familiarity, if not exactly the warmth, of her surroundings.

  She had finished her egg sandwich and was drinking her coffee, absorbed in the listings of New Haven Cape Cods for millions of dollars, and pondering the distinction between “newer” and needing to be replaced, when the door of the shop opened, and she felt a hand on her shoulder.

  “Elisabeth. When did you get back?”

  “I’ve only just arrived. I couldn’t wait to get down here and get back to normal. Besides, there’s no milk in the house.”

  Elizabeth’s enormous dog sat patiently, waiting for Fiona to notice him, his tail thumping.

  “And Rocco. How are you, Rocco?” Rocco’s tail wagged faster, and he dropped one massive paw on Fiona’s leg.

  Rocco was an enormous, shaggy kind of German Shepherd, with a huge black head, the intellectual capacity of a young child, and the disposition of one of the milder-mannered breeds of cattle. Fiona privately found him to be smarter than most of the children she knew, and an astute judge of human character.

  “I ate my egg already, Rocco, but there’s a crust. Would you like to lick the plate?” Roger looked darkly at Fiona, but said nothing. She gave him a sunny smile, put the plate on the floor, and kissed Rocco on the muzzle.

  “What a good dog,” she said softly, smoothing his ears.

  Her seat wobbled dangerously as Fiona turned back to Elisabeth, gave her a perfunctory hug, and made room for her at the counter, sliding her plate away. Real estate snooping, as they called it, had become a game for Fiona and Elisabeth, and they spent many hours pouring over real estate listings, visiting open houses, and fantasizing about remodeling them.

  “Look at this,” she said, pushing the paper through some spilled coffee. “$2.6 million for a beach cottage with two bedrooms, midcentury appliances, and a veranda. What kind of idiot would spend that much for a place like this?”

  “Presumably one with $2.6 million. Anyway, as you know, it’s all about the beach.”

  “It’s not a lot of beach.”

  Elizabeth smiled and shrugged, and ordered a cup of coffee. “A fool and his money?” she suggested.

  “More money than brains, my father would say.”

  Fiona acknowledged to herself that this robust sensibility was not in her own nature. Her father wouldn’t approve of many of Fiona’s own purchases. She looked down admiringly at the Italian sandals she was wearing for the first time. They made her legs look longer.

  “And ‘midcentury.’ When did 1960s kitsch get an upgrade? What possible interest could anyone have in fifty-year-old appliances?”

  Elisabeth smiled serenely, her gaze following Roger as he thumped a basket of empty grounds into a bucket. “Maybe I should try selling that refrigerator in the garage,” she said. “It’s a pink Kelvinator, you know. All the rage.”

  Roger put a cup on the counter in front of Elisabeth with a slightly smaller thud than usual. Roger liked Elisabeth, and he looked at her now with eyes which reminded Fiona quite distinctly of Rocco, but still with a Roger-like aura of brusqueness surrounding him.

  “How was your trip?” he asked, an uncharacteristic note in his voice, which Fiona could have sworn was sympathy. She noticed that he was fidgeting with his counter rag, an unusual thing for Roger, who normally practiced an admirable economy of effort, Fiona felt.

  “Not so bad this time,” said Elisabeth, reaching for the cup. “Every time I go back, it hurts a little less, but I will be glad when I have the last of Mom’s business taken care of. I’ve put the house on the market—and that midcentury kitchen should be a big selling point.” She smiled again, and pushed a strand of hair from her face.

  Elisabeth Wright was a little older than Fiona, and in many ways her opposite. Whereas Fiona was slim, quick, and impatient, Elisabeth was a tall, zaftig woman of about thirty-two. She had brown eyes, wavy auburn hair, creamy smooth skin, and an innate elegance which gave her an almost queenly aura. Fiona thought she was pretty, even beautiful sometimes. But today she looked faded. There was a heaviness around Elisabeth’s eyes which showed the strain she’d been under since the long illness and death of her mother last
year from cancer.

  Elisabeth had a tendency to be outspoken—like Fiona—but in a rough-and-tumble way that came from growing up with five brothers. Her humor tended toward sarcasm, and she laughed a lot. Occasionally, she could be pushy, but that, Fiona believed, came from being the oldest in a large family. Once Elisabeth had an idea, she was convinced that it was the best, and it was difficult to shake it from her. They had been friends in college, but had lost track of each other for many years until just this past year, when they had literally run into each other at a wedding on a Sturgeon Bay dock.

  Seeing the fatigue on Elisabeth’s face, Fiona sensed the need to change the conversation.

  “What’s in the plans? Want to go up to the Island? I’m in the mood for a day on the Rocks.” This was their name for School House Beach, a shore hidden behind a cedar forest on the north side of Washington Island. The beach had no sand, only hundreds of feet of Lake Michigan shoreline, covered with smooth, lake-contoured stones on the beach and under the water. It was barely known even in Wisconsin, but apparently heavily advertised elsewhere in the world, because you couldn’t step anywhere without hearing a different language being spoken there. Walking on it was tricky, lying on it was lumpy, and unlike other Door County beaches, which tended to be shallow enough to wade out very far, the water was cold and deep. But there were rafts to swim out to and dive from, the tiny bay was protected, and best of all, dogs were allowed. Rocco stirred and wagged, recognizing the name of his favorite place. He put his face in his mistress’s lap.

  “Rocco, off.” Elisabeth was rummaging in her bag, looking for something as she spoke. Rocco lay back down and sighed. Roger was lingering, wiping off the counter nearby. Elisabeth stopped rummaging and looked up.

  “Listen Fi, I’ve been thinking. What do you want to do when you grow up?”

  Fiona tilted her head and looked quizzically at Elisabeth. Was she being facetious? Fiona was accustomed to her friend’s non sequiturs, but this one seemed purposeful. “I guess I thought I was doing it.”