Read Online Calvin by Martine Leavitt - Free Book Online Page A

just out of my line of vision.
    Noah: Figure you two have a reason.
    Susie: We’re hiking across the lake.
    She pointed at the door to the privy.
    Susie: May I?
    Noah: It’s basic.
    The minute she shut the door he looked hard at me.
    Noah: Walking across the lake is something only seasoned hikers would do, boy, and only after they studied maps and depth charts and weather reports. And even then they wouldn’t do it.
    Me: I know how far it is south to the Ohio shore. And I know the lake is the shallowest of the Great Lakes, but still plenty deep enough to drown in. And I know it’s cold outside.
    Noah (not looking at me, speaking to the fire): Worse than an idiot to bring a girl out here.
    Me: I know.
    Noah stood up, opened a door in the back, and returned with a big chunk of wood and a loaf of bread. He threw the wood into the belly of the woodstove and put the bread to warm on top.
    Noah: You got a story. Why you wanna do the lake? And you’d better talk to me or I’ll be notifying the coast guard, you can bet on that.
    Me: I’m on a pilgrimage.
    Noah: And you didn’t want to go alone.
    Me: She … she wanted to …
    He looked at me like I was a big, disgusting insect.
    Susie came out and sat next to me.
    Noah glowered at me.
    Me: So you live here, Noah? Year-round?
    He ignored me.
    Susie: Do you?
    Noah: I come here off-season. Do a little ice fishing. Do a little poetry.
    Me: Poetry?
    Noah (to the air): I’m talking to the little lady.
    He didn’t look like a poet. Not that I’d ever seen one before.
    Susie: No one at home to care that you’re out here all alone?
    Noah: My wife cares. Cared. She’s divorcing me.
    Susie: I’m sorry.
    Noah drew his arm across his nose, and I realized he’d started to cry. His facial hair was soaking his tears up like a sponge.
    Noah: She said she’d take me back if I figured it out.
    Susie: Figured what out?
    Noah: She said I’d have so much time out here alone, she was sure I’d figure it out. It’s like she gave me a puzzle to solve, but I just sit here and think about it for hours and never figure it out.
    Susie shook her head sadly.
    Noah: The only clue she gave me was that I spent all my time digging around inside myself for poems, but I didn’t think about the inside of her. She said, stop stuffing metaphors between you and me. What does that mean?
    He opened a huge can of beans and dumped them into the dirty frying pan on the stove beside the bread and put a kettle on, too.
    Noah: She’s my muse, you see. If I lose her, I lose what makes the poems in me.
    Susie: Maybe she wants you to be with her, instead of here.
    He shrugged.
    Noah: Can’t live among the civilized all year. Can’t bring a woman out here.
    He glared at me, his eyebrows almost covering his eyes.
    Noah: Unlike some people. And you, little lady? What’s your story?
    So Susie explained everything to him, about how we’d known each other all our lives and how I talked to an invisible tiger and got diagnosed with schizophrenia, and I had decided that if Bill Watterson would draw another cartoon with Calvin okay in it, and no Hobbes, I would be okay, too, and how I knew I had to walk to Bill like a pilgrimage, but not an ordinary walk, it had to be big, and I came up with this stupid idea, and how she wouldn’t let me go without her because I didn’t have a clue.
    She talked about me like I wasn’t sitting right there, and he listened like I wasn’t sitting right there.
    When she stopped, he was silent for a minute. Then he scooped most of the beans into a big bowl and gave us two spoons. He tore a hunk of bread off for himself and gave us the rest. I was so hungry I dived in. He ate his beans out of the pan.
    I’d never tasted anything as good as those beans and bread, ever.
    Me: Thank you.
    He ignored me.
    Susie: Yes, thank you.
    Noah: You’re welcome.
    We ate in silence for a