down an ashtray, and set it on the table where he could reach it.
With that tacit permission, he pulled out a pack of Camels and held it toward her. She took one and noticed it was slightly wet from his heavy perspiring. Same routine. He held the gold Zippo, she touched his hand to steady it, felt his skin with her fingertips, and sat back. The cigarette tasted wonderful, and she smiled.
“What is it you do, exactly—I mean with the photography?”
He looked at his cigarette and spoke quietly. “I’m a contract shooter—uh, photographer—for
“Sometimes I write poetry, just for myself. Now and then I try to write a little fiction, but I don’t seem to have a feeling for it. I live north of Seattle and work around that area quite a bit. I like shooting the fishing boats and Indian settlements and landscapes.
“The
Francesca hadn’t expected him to ask. She stammered for a moment. “Oh, gosh, nothing like you do. I got my degree in comparative literature. Winterset was having trouble finding teachers when I arrived here in 1946, and the fact that I was married to a local man who was a veteran made me acceptable. So I picked up a teaching certificate and taught high school English for a few years. But Richard didn’t like the idea of me working. He said he could support us, and there was no need for it, particularly when our two children were growing. So I stopped and became a farm wife full-time. That’s it.”
She noticed his iced tea was almost gone and poured him some more from the jug.
“Thanks. How do you like it here in Iowa?”
There was a moment of truth in this. She knew it. The standard reply was, “Just fine. It’s quiet. The people are real nice.”
She didn’t answer immediately. “Could I have another cigarette?” Again the pack of Camels, again the lighter, again touching his hand, lightly. Sunlight walked across the back porch floor and onto the dog, who got up and moved out of sight. Francesca, for the first time, looked into the eyes of Robert Kincaid.
“I’m supposed to say, ‘Just fine. It’s quiet. The people are real nice.’ All of that’s true, mostly. It is quiet. And the people are nice, in certain ways. We all help each other out. If someone gets sick or hurt, the neighbors pitch in and pick corn or harvest oats or do whatever needs to be done. In town, you can leave your car unlocked and let your children run without worrying about them. There are a lot of good things about the people here, and I respect them for those qualities.
“But”—she hesitated, smoked, looked across the table at Robert Kincaid—“it’s not what I dreamed about as a girl.” The confession, at last. The words had been there for years, and she had never said them. She had said them now to a man with a green pickup truck from Bellingham, Washington.
He said nothing for a moment. Then: “I scribbled something in my notebook the other day for future use, just had the idea while driving along; that happens a lot. It goes like this: ‘The old dreams were good dreams; they didn’t work out, but I’m glad I had them.’ I’m not sure what that means, but I’ll use it somewhere. So I think I kind of know how you feel.”
Francesca smiled at him then. For the first time, she smiled warm and deep. And the gambler’s instincts took over. “Would you like to stay for supper? My family’s away, so I don’t have too much on hand, but I can figure out something.”
“Well, I get pretty tired of grocery stores and restaurants. That’s for sure. So if it’s not too much bother, I’d like that.”
“You like pork chops? I could fix that with some vegetables from the garden.”
“Just the vegetables would be fine for me. I don’t eat meat. Haven’t for years. No big deal, I just feel better that way.”
Francesca smiled again. “Around here that point of view would not be popular. Richard and his friends would say you’re trying to destroy their livelihood. I don’t eat much meat myself; I’m not sure why, I just don’t care for it. But every time I try a meatless supper on the family, there are howls of rebellion. So I’ve pretty much given up trying. It’ll be fun figuring out something different for a change.”
“Okay, but don’t go to a lot of trouble on my account. Listen, I’ve got a bunch of film in my cooler. I need to dump out the melted ice water and organize things a bit. It’ll take me a little while.” He stood up and drank the last of his tea.
She watched him go through the kitchen doorway, across the porch, and into the yard. He didn’t let the screen door bang like everyone else did but instead shut it gently. Just before he went out, he squatted down to pet the collie, who acknowledged the attention with several sloppy licks along his arms.
Upstairs, Francesca ran a quick bath and, while drying off, peered over the top of the cafe curtain toward the farmyard. His suitcase was open, and he was washing himself, using the old hand pump. She should have told him he could shower in the house if he wanted. She had meant to, balked for a moment at the level of familiarity that implied to her, and then, floating around in her own confusion, forgot to say anything.
But Robert Kincaid had washed up under worse conditions. Out of buckets of rancid water in tiger country, out of his canteen in the desert. In her farmyard, he had stripped to the waist and was using his dirty shirt as a combination washcloth and towel. “A towel,” she scolded herself. “At least a towel; I could have done that for him.”
His razor caught the sunlight, where it lay on cement beside the pump, and she watched him soap his face and shave. He was—there’s the word again, she thought—hard. He wasn’t big-bodied, a little over six feet, a little toward thin. But he had large shoulder muscles for his size, and his belly was flat as a knife blade. He didn’t look however old he was, and he didn’t look like the local men with too much gravy over biscuits in the morning.
During the last shopping trip to Des Moines, she had bought new perfume—Wind Song—and she used it now, sparingly. What to put on? It didn’t seem right for her to dress up too much, since he was still in his working clothes. Long-sleeved white shirt, sleeves rolled to just below the elbows, a clean pair of jeans, sandals. The gold hoop earrings Richard said made her look like a hussy and a gold bracelet. Hair pulled back with a clip, hanging down her back. That felt right.
When she came into the kitchen, he was sitting there with his knapsacks and cooler, wearing a clean khaki shirt, with the orange suspenders running over it. On the table were three cameras and five lenses, and a fresh package of Camels. The cameras all said “Nikon” on them. So did the black lenses, short ones and middling ones and a longer one. The equipment was scratched, dented in places. But he handled it carefully, yet casually, wiping and brushing and blowing.
He looked up at her, serious face again, shy face. “I have some beer in the cooler. Like one?”
“Yes, that would be nice.”
He took out two bottles of Budweiser. When he lifted the lid, she could see clear plastic boxes with film stacked like cordwood in them. There were four more bottles of beer besides the two he removed.
Francesca slid open a drawer to look for an opener. But he said, “I’ve got it.” He took the Swiss Army knife from its case on his belt and flicked out the bottle opener on it, using it expertly.
He handed her a bottle and raised his in a half salute: “To covered bridges in the late afternoon or, better yet, on warm, red mornings.” He grinned.
Francesca said nothing but smiled softly and raised her bottle a little, hesitantly, awkwardly. A strange stranger, flowers, perfume, beer, and a toast on a hot Monday in late summer. It was almost more than she could deal with.
“There was somebody a long time ago who was thirsty on an August afternoon. Whoever it was studied their thirst, rigged up some stuff, and invented beer. That’s where it came from, and a problem was solved.” He was working on a camera, almost talking to it as he tightened a screw on its top with a jewelers screwdriver.
“I’m going out to the garden for a minute. I’ll be right back.”
He looked up. “Need help?”
