The Audacity of Goats Page 7

  The crowd became respectfully silent, awed by what fell before them. Fiona felt that the glory of it was almost terrifying, as if the earth had come to an end and some new universe had come into being. They watched, together, unified by this phenomenon before them.

  It was at this moment that Fiona became aware of a different source of red light, and she realized that it was the circling strobe of a police car pulled up at the side of the house. She moved toward it and found her old friend, Sergeant Johnsson, approaching the house.

  He nodded politely to her. “Good evening,” he said.

  “Good evening,” said Fiona, and checked herself before she could ask: Is there a problem? Instead she said: “It’s spectacular, isn’t it?”

  “Sure is,” he said. And then, “I’m afraid we’ve had a complaint.”

  Fiona was genuinely puzzled. “About what?”

  “Well, noise for one thing.”

  Fiona gestured toward her somber and wondering guests. “There’s your noise.”

  The Sergeant almost smiled, but he responded in a deadpan. “We have to investigate.”

  “I can imagine who called.”

  “It’s a matter of public record, ma’am.”

  “It was my neighbor.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Well, thank you for doing your job, Sergeant,” said Fiona, about to go.

  “But there’s another thing,” he said. “It’s the parking.”

  Fiona waited respectfully, restraining her sigh.

  “You can’t have this many cars parked after midnight. It’s against town ordinance.”

  Fiona looked at him steadily.

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “I’m afraid I am.”

  “Are you giving everyone a ticket?”

  “I’m afraid so. And you.”

  “Me?” asked Fiona. “For what?”

  “Constituting a public nuisance.”

  “A nuisance?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “What nuisance?”

  “The party and parking, ma’am.”

  “Please stop calling me ma’am,” said Fiona. She knew she shouldn’t make things worse for herself, but ma’am was a word she detested.

  The Sergeant looked at her steadily.

  A thought came to her, inspired by her experience as a reporter in Chicago.

  “I suppose I ought to know this by now, but what constitutes the designation of a nuisance property here on the Island?”

  “Three citations, ma—” he broke off. “Three citations.”

  Fiona nodded slowly. “I see.” She was silent for a moment. “Do my guests all have to move their cars?”

  “They already have tickets.”

  “You have had a very busy night, Sergeant.”

  He shrugged philosophically.

  “Okay, Sergeant. Carry on.” Resigned to her fate, Fiona turned to go announce the news to her guests.

  “Uh, Ma’am?”

  Her back to him, Fiona rolled her eyes and turned toward him politely. “Yes?”

  “I need to write out your ticket.”

  It was Fiona’s turn to deadpan. “Write away, Sergeant.” She stood stoically as he wrote on his clipboard.

  He started to write her name, which, by now, he knew very well, but he paused and looked up.

  “I’ve forgotten your middle initial.”

  “A,” said Fiona.

  “Oh, yes. For… ?” He looked up curiously. “It’s something unusual.”

  “Ainsley.”

  “Oh, right!” he said, delighted.

  She stood with him, contemplating the juxtaposition of the spectacle above them and the mundane before them. When he was finished, he gave her a copy of the citation and explained about a court appearance.

  As he was leaving, he broke, for just a moment, his official demeanor and leaned forward confidingly.

  “Maybe next time you should invite her.”

  Fiona did not feel like laughing, but she made a brief noise. “You do know her, right?”

  This time the Sergeant smiled. “Yes, ma’am.”

  The Northern Lights swirled above their heads as they each parted to their separate duties. Fiona found herself looking forward to the new book of essays that lay on her bedside table, William Hazlitt’s On the Pleasure of Hating.

  Fiona was wandering the streets of a foreign city with a group of friends, but no one whose names she knew. Everyone was urgently going somewhere, but they were all cautioned to be careful of the snakes, which were extremely poisonous. Looking down at the sidewalk, Fiona realized that the snakes were everywhere: on the streets, hanging from trees, slithering out of sewer grates. They were an iridescent blue and their yellow eyes glittered.

  Cautiously, she made her way toward a distant hill outside of the city, but as she was stepping from a bus onto the curb, she looked down into the gutter, and there was a snake, moving toward her, about to strike. In a quick movement, she grabbed the snake behind its head, holding tightly, so that it could not turn its head to bite her. The rest of its muscular body writhed furiously and she used her other hand to grab it. The snake was terrifyingly powerful, and she knew that if she loosed her grip, it would turn and bite and she would die. Desperately, she squeezed the neck of the snake, hoping to kill it, but it fought hard. The snake’s tail thrashed with so much power that she could barely hold it, even as it struggled to turn its head to bite her arms. Her hands were aching from the struggle, and she did not know if she could hold on long enough. She squeezed harder and the snake’s eyes began to pop, but it did not lessen its strength in the fight. Harder and harder she squeezed with both her hands, knowing that her only hope of saving herself was to strangle the snake. It was horrifying and it disgusted her, but she did not have any choice.

  Fiona felt her strength failing, and even as it strangled, the snake renewed its battle to kill her. Finally, just as Fiona began to doubt that she could hold on, the snake went limp.

  Unsure that it was dead, and afraid to let go, she continued to strangle the snake with both hands, looking for a safe way to release it and get away quickly. At last, in a clear space on the sidewalk, with no one else near, Fiona flung the limp snake away from her, and as she had feared, it began again to move. Suddenly, a hole opened in the sidewalk, and in one moment the snake slithered down it, disappearing into the dark. The hole disappeared in a small bright flash, and the sidewalk was clear.

  Fiona woke with aching hands. In her sleep she had been acting out her dreams and her hands were stiff from clenching the dream snake. Feeling slightly sick in her heart, she looked at the clock. 3:17. Sighing, she turned on the light and reached for the book at her bedside. It was unlikely that she would sleep anymore tonight. Even with the light on, she couldn’t help imagining snakes coiled in her slippers next to the bed, or hidden under the covers. Chiding herself, and with great effort, she turned her mind away from the dream and concentrated on her book, On The Pleasure of Hating. Hating, she found, was becoming increasingly easy.

  “So how’s married life, Roger?” asked Terry one morning. Roger looked clean, and rumpled as usual, but he also had dark circles under his eyes.

  “Fine,” he said.

  His friends had not expected a paean to wedded bliss from Roger, but there was something defensive in his manner that made them both suspicious.

  Mike took in the expression on Roger’s face and put some things together.

  “Women can be hard to understand,” he said in his quiet way. Roger glanced at Mike with a look of recognition.

  “First year is rough,” added Terry. “You need to learn to work together as a team, not to keep pulling your own way.” He looked with sympathy at Roger. He had doubted all along that Roger was capable of the kind of personal interaction required for a successful marriage, but, of course, it had not been his place to say so. He felt sorry, too, for Elisabeth, who surely deserved more.

  Roger burst out unexpectedly, “
I want her to be happy. I don’t think I make her happy.”

  There was an astonished silence after this, and everyone felt a bit embarrassed at this unwonted intimacy.

  The Angel Joshua, who had not been invited to participate in the discussion, looked up from polishing the Italian coffee machine, and turned a beatific gaze of peace and beauty at Roger. “You need to get in touch with your feminine side to help you communicate. You should come to yoga with me.”

  “Now, that’s something I’d like to see,” said Terry. “Let me know, so I can clear my schedule.” Mike smiled, and watched the expressions on his friends’ faces without speaking.

  Roger turned his back on all of them and stalked into the back room. Terry and Mike stood up to go, taking out their wallets and putting bills next to their empty plates.

  “Got to get down to Sturgeon Bay to the lumber yard,” said Terry. “Anybody need anything while I’m there?”

  Mike and Joshua shook their heads and expressed their thanks, but from the back room came a kind of bellow.

  “Paper towels!”

  “Got it,” called Terry, and the door closed behind them as Terry and Mike headed out to their trucks and their separate ways.

  Roger returned from the back, picked up a rag, and began wiping the counter. Soft jazz played tunelessly in the background.

  “When is this class?” he asked, casually.

  “There’s one at two o’clock today,” said Josh. “St. Anatole’s community room. Wear loose clothing. You know, like sweats.”

  Roger nodded. The two men worked in silence until the next customers arrived.

  “So is that it? You’re leaving us?”

  Nancy Iverssen’s frank blue eyes bored into Fiona with such intensity that Fiona looked down in embarrassment. She felt like a schoolgirl caught in some underhanded endeavor.

  It was the morning after Fiona’s party, and the house was in a reasonable state of post-party restoration. The only signs remaining were the random placement of chairs in the living room, the peculiar tilt of one of the lampshades, the prodigious array of empty bottles on the back porch, and the long row of newly washed glasses and dishes, neatly arranged along the kitchen counter waiting to be put away.

  Nancy had stopped by on one of her random and unsolicited social calls, which Fiona generally enjoyed. They were sitting in Fiona’s kitchen drinking coffee. Fiona, who had been too busy at the party for even one drink, felt nevertheless as if she were nursing a hangover. If anything, she thought, the hangover came from her dream.

  On top of that, the prospect of Stella DesRosiers running the Island crouched like an ugly toad in the corner of Fiona’s consciousness, making her head feel even worse. Stella would be capricious, petty, vindictive, and mercilessly efficient. She would seek out those whom she considered her enemies—chief among these would be Fiona herself—and find every means possible to make their lives a misery. The prospects for Fiona’s future happiness on the Island, she felt, were small indeed.

  “Well,” began Fiona, weakly. “It was only supposed to be for the winter. I just felt that if I made it a year, no one would be able to quibble.”

  Nancy harrumphed impatiently. “Damn fool idea. Moving to the island on a dare. But now you’re here, you might as well stay.” She paused, frowned, and pursed her lips as if considering some very serious proposition. “We’re kind of used to you.”

  Fiona got up and stood at the window. This, she knew, was high praise coming from Nancy. She looked out at the autumn leaves falling from the big, old maple tree in the yard. There was a blank space beyond, where the barn used to be, and Fiona instinctively averted her gaze.

  From the beginning, Fiona had had no intention of staying on the island for another winter. She had won her dare—with nothing but her own self-respect to show for it—and had been prepared to pack up and go back to the relative comforts of Ephraim on the mainland of Wisconsin’s Door County Peninsula. For a few brief and wild moments, she had even considered returning to Chicago where she had worked for some years as a reporter for a major newspaper.

  But now that the time had come to make the move away, Fiona wasn’t sure that she could do it.

  Moving back to the mainland felt like some form of disloyalty or betrayal, even though she wasn’t quite sure of what or of whom. But the trump card was Stella’s candidacy. That would change everything. Life here would be most unpleasant. Fiona shrugged her shoulders in a gesture of helplessness and turned back to her guest.

  “The truth is, I don’t know if I can sell. The real estate market is pretty soft everywhere, but especially on the island.” She picked up an apple from the basket on the table and turned it idly in her hand. “I really can’t afford to leave if I don’t sell the place.”

  Nancy grunted. “No doubt Stella would buy it,” she commented shrewdly.

  Fiona nodded. She had thought of Stella buying her house, and she hated the idea, as Nancy had known she would. Stella desperately wanted Fiona’s property, and had schemed ruthlessly to acquire it. So ruthlessly, in fact, that Fiona couldn’t help suspecting that she had been involved in the barn fire. Would Stella have been capable even of that? It was no secret that she had feared and despised Robert, Fiona’s unwanted but oddly beguiling goat, who had been lost in the fire. And Stella no doubt blamed Fiona for the public victory she had won last June in front of the town board. But arson? “Surely not,” thought Fiona for the thousandth time. No, even Stella could not have done such a thing. Surely not.

  Why, Fiona asked herself, should she even care whether Stella bought the place? Why should she care what Stella did or didn’t do? Let Stella find whatever warped victory she wanted. Let her run the Island. Why give Stella control of her life by letting her determine Fiona’s path?

  Fiona recalled one of her favorite lines from Marcus Aurelius: You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.

  She turned from the window, smiled at Nancy, and shrugged. “More coffee?” she asked.

  Nancy was not to be deterred. “Maybe you’re planning to follow Pete to wherever he is.” She smiled wickedly. “He’s one probably worth following.” She nodded to herself in recollection. “I liked him. Capable, direct, and just a bit wily.” She looked at Fiona over the tops of her glasses. “Definitely a keeper, I’d say.”

  Nancy paused for a moment, seeming to catch herself in a reverie, then shook her head as if shaking a strand of hair from her eyes, and smiled a bit regretfully.

  “Well, time I was off. Those apples won’t pick themselves.” And with a nod of thanks, she was out of her chair, out the door, and down the path to her truck in her usual blaze of energy.

  Rather dazedly, Fiona watched her go, and went slowly back to the kitchen to wash the coffee cups. She smiled to herself, remembering Nancy’s description of Pete. “A bit wily, indeed,” she thought.

  Finishing in the kitchen, Fiona sat down at her desk to work on an article she had due, but her mind was preoccupied.

  Despite what Nancy and Island gossip seemed to presume, Pete Landry—though ever charming—had not invited her to follow him anywhere. Even if he had, Fiona was not at all certain whether she would want to. To be fair, they had only really known one another a few months. He led a busy life, travelling all over the world for the energy company he worked for, often to remote and unfriendly places, and for months at a time. If she went to London, where he was based, she’d be alone most of the time anyway. Fiona had drastically uprooted herself twice recently: once when she moved to Ephraim from Chicago, and again last year when she had accepted the dare. Pete’s absence had left a hole in her life, but she was tired of upheaval. She wanted routine and normalcy and calm.

  She sighed and turned her attention to her work. So far, nothing of her life on the Island—or anywhere else for that matter—had included any of those things.

  At one-forty-five, Roger walked down the steps into St. Anatole’s basement community room to discover t
hat he was the only one there. The light in the stairway was sufficient for him to find the wall switch, and he flipped it on. The room still smelled of the coffee and cake that had been served there for Bible study that morning. Folding chairs and tables had been stored neatly against the wall; and a series of posters announcing day care, rummage sales, and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings covered the wall near the big double doors that led upstairs to the church.

  He was just in the process of deciding whether to sit somewhere or flee when he heard the voices in the stairwell, and two women clad in form-fitting clothing came in, followed closely by The Angel Joshua. The newcomers all knew one another, and Joshua introduced Roger to them. Roger gave a curt nod, but said nothing.

  “I brought an extra mat for you,” Joshua told Roger. Roger accepted the mat, and following Joshua’s example, spread it out on the floor.

  “I like to be toward the back,” said Joshua, “so I can follow the movements if I get lost.”

  Still silent, Roger sat on his mat, and watched the others go through a series of similar, but, to Roger, impossible stretching and swaying movements. The room was beginning to fill, and the sound of women’s voices began to reverberate in the cinder block walls of the room.

  Then, in a rush of energy, the instructor swept into the room, carrying a big tote bag and apologizing fluently for being late. She was a lithe, blonde woman, about forty. She was not beautiful, but she had an animal grace and vivacity that made her striking. Her wild blonde hair seemed to surround her face and shoulders like an aura.

  She shed her boots and set up her mat quickly, then turned her attention to fidgeting with a small portable speaker that was wirelessly connected to her phone. This whirlwind of activity completed, she sat on her mat facing the class and began a little monologue of greeting.

  “I’m so sorry for being late, everybody, but I had to take my car in for service down in Sturgeon Bay, and they didn’t have the right part, and it was just barely completed in time, and then I still needed to grab a couple of essentials down there, and, well, you know how it is. Time just got away from me, and I missed the ferry.”