The Story About the Lake
There is a white moon and a partially frozen lake, and ripples and reflections where the water still moves. That is what you need to know, all you need to know. There is wind. There are scarves and socks and cigarettes. These are just details. They do not stand near each other. This is where they come in, but who cares about them?
The road between the balcony they are on and the frozen lake is quiet, black, white at the edges from snow and ice. It winds around the lake, through the rural towns, past lone general stores, dilapidated barns, sheds, farms. Maybe it goes on forever. Probably. Or it ends in a single flat line. Where she lives would never be this quiet, even at five a.m. He says where he lives is okay. Okay reminds her of vanilla ice cream. She pictures his town as white hills shaped by ice cream scoops.
-You have nice tits.
-I know.
-They taste nice, too.
-Like what?
-Vanilla.
-Really?
-No.
They laugh. He calls her laugh full and tells her that it is how people know she is crazy. He is crazy, too, he says, and their relationship is easy to maintain because they don’t often see each other, and are simply crazy at one another when they do.
But the lake. This is really what I want you to think about. It is like a black and white photograph. Sky, black. Stars, white. Moon, white. Lake, black. Ice, white. Road, black. Christmas lights, white. A stippled line drawing. Flat and black and white except for the motion of the ripples and the three dimensions of the wind. Put your mind there. The kids, their scarves, their socks, they are to this story what the tiny hairs across your skin are to your body. They’re yours, but who cares? Do you think about them? Why should you? Just let them be. You should go to the lake. See just its black and white, not the brown of his eyes, the orange of her scarf, the sickly, dying rose of their lips. Forget all that.
There’s a story about the lake. Hundreds of years ago, when the area was settled, a family in a covered wagon came upon it in the winter. Instead of circling around its expanse, they drove their horses straight onto the ice. When they reached the middle of the lake, the ice broke. That’s how such stories go. Lights beneath the water are the glowing eyes of the family whose bodies were never found. This is a story for summer nights sitting out on one of the docks, peering into the dark water. No one tells it in the winter.
He is telling a story about the girl he still loves. It’s not as interesting as the story about the lake. Nothing they have done or said is. They’re really just some kids, not young enough to believe any of it matters, old enough to be carrying around a lot of hurt and fear and mixed-up emotion. But they’re okay, really. They’re happy, right now, looking at the lake. They’ll be fine.
-I’m glad you’re going tomorrow. That way I won’t fall for you and you won’t get distant and cryptic and I won’t get hurt and act like a complete bitch.
-Distant and cryptic is a good way to put it.
-That’s usually how it goes.
-I’m a pretty awful person.
-I’m a decent person who has no idea how to love correctly.
-I don’t want any part of that.
-Me either.
It is so cold over the lake that it is hard to tell cigarette smoke from simple exhalation. The two twist off together, dancing apart into nothingness, more white and black. In the spring, just after dawn, steam rises up from the cold lake into the hot air above it. Watching it is the closest you’ll ever come to seeing the earth birth its magic. The magic is invisible. The rising swirls of white coming off the blue water are just the traces it leaves behind.
The stars above the lake are stunning, middle-of-nowhere stars. People who live in cities never see such things. The lights of a city steal the lights of the stars. Above the lake, they are jewels positioned on black velvet by a virtuoso salesman. You would buy the whole sky if you saw it in a glass case, I promise you.
They claim to be buying none of it. They go back inside, where it is warm, where there are thick rugs and plaid couches and enormous hunting trophies with glass eyes. These things are nothing. This is not where I want you. You are not allowed inside. I want you in the cold, by the lake. Let them alone as they tangle up again. Stay on the balcony. Feel the astringency of the cold air in your nose, your throat, your lungs. It’s pure, isn’t it? It’s like you are drinking the ice of that black lake. Don’t peer in the window as he tells her for the second time how he does math when he’s inside of her to distract himself from coming. Don’t feel bad when she tells him she could never date him, even if it were an option, because she doesn’t date men she likes. It’s not as tragic as it sounds, she is quick to explain. It’s just a way for no one to feel badly when it’s over.
-I wish I didn’t have to leave so early. It would be nice to sleep next to you.
-I think it’s creepy that you want to sleep next to me.
-Really?
-No. It would be nice to sleep next to you.
It is warm with yellow light inside, but where you want to be is the lake. The blacks and whites, remember? Some art photograph, some canvas from a color-blind painter. The cold and the clearness and the purity. Those are the things that matter, all that happened. I gave you the water and ice and the empty roads and five a.m. Weren’t those enough? I gave you the Christmas lights, the stars; you don’t need a story. Oh, but you have to have something, don’t you? Well, I won’t give you them. I won’t tell you who they are or what they’ve been or what will happen. I will not.
If you want a story, go to those people under the ice, the family in the lake. The parents met, probably when they were younger than the kids on the balcony, and fell in some old-fashioned sort of love. They were virgins when they married, I’m sure. Neither told stories about who they really loved. They didn’t use condoms, or the word “tits.” They had their children, and those children had to have clothes and food, the same as children do now. The father heard of work in mines near that lake. They packed everything in a wagon. It was winter, but children can’t wait until better weather to eat. They traveled on and on. Then they came to the edge of that lake.
-We’ll go ahead. It should be fine.
One decision, one bad decision. All their hokey old love and hard work and ideals trapped forever under that ice. Their eyes glowing up forever and ever. They went ahead and then, later, in and under.
There’s your story about the lake. And while you heard it those kids from the balcony left the house, drove away, had a goodbye kiss. I’m glad you didn’t see it. There wasn’t much to see, just the touching of some soft lips that tasted like candy canes from winter Chapstick. No one said, “I love you” or even that they would call. I promise you, you didn’t miss anything.
Copyright © 2008 by Pamela DiFrancesco
