Obsessions

1

Monona Quinn emerges from the tiny bathroom, a frayed bath towel wrapped around her. She hurries across the small living room and stands shivering in front of the fire, drying her hair with a washcloth.

Breakfast will be ready in a minute, Doug says from the kitchenette a few feet away, where he works at the stove, scrambling eggs.

Thank you. For making a fire, too. How was your run?

Invigorating. I saw three deer by the side of the road, a mother and two deerlets. They stood still until I was almost on them. I thought they were going to let me pet them. They finally turned and ran into the woods—not ran—bounded!

Mo walks over, still dripping from the shower, and kisses him. They’re called ‘fawns,’ she says, snuggling into his one-armed hug. I’m so glad we’re here.

Me, too.

What gave you the idea to give me a writers’ conference as a birthday present? How did you even know about the conference?

One of my clients—he’d kill me if I told you his name—writes romance novels as a hobby. He comes up here for two weeks every summer. I thought it would be a nice break for you—for us—and you could take a couple of classes.

He turns back to the stove, but she turns him back around and hugs him.

The best part is your coming along, too. I’m surprised you’d take the time off from work.

Look who’s talking.

My. You are invigorated.

What do you expect, when my wife prances up to me, wearing nothing but a dish towel, and throws herself at me?

I was not prancing.

More of a seductive strut, then. But I …

Her kiss interrupts him. He breaks the kiss and tries to turn back to the stove, but she holds him tightly.

The eggs will burn.

We’ve got more eggs.

Don’t you have to get to school? You don’t want to be late for your second day of classes.

I’ve got time.

At least let me …

She again stills him with a kiss, and he responds, his lips brushing her cheek and caressing her neck.

An egg is just an egg, he concedes.

He turns and snaps off the stove, deftly removing the pan from the burner.

They walk together into the tiny bedroom, and Mo sheds her towel and throws it at him as she dives under the covers, peeking out over the blanket to watch as Doug pulls off his sweatshirt and sits on the bed to unlace his running shoes.

Mo’s heart pounds. It has been a long time since they’ve made love spontaneously. Before she left for her sister’s farm, they’d allowed themselves to become so busy, sex was by appointment only. And when she came back, things were so strained between them, their infrequent lovemaking had been more about negotiation than passion.

He crawls in under the covers. His hands, warm from being near the stove, stroke her bare skin, his touch so thrilling, she forgets to be self-conscious about her goose flesh. When his lips find hers, she gives herself to him.

2

Fletcher Downs opens one eye, finds the view wanting, rolls over, and pulls the covers up over his head. Something nudges him—an arm. He pushes at it vaguely. It nudges again.

He forces both eyes open, vision blurry, expectations bleak, and beholds a terrifying face. All faces, especially unfamiliar ones, provoke terror at such close range and so early in the morning. This one—pale skin topped by spiky blonde hair—belongs to a woman of no less than thirty-five and perhaps as much as forty-five. Her eyes move beneath her puffy eyelids; her lips purse as if preparing to blow.

Myrna? Yes. That was the name, however unlikely. Myrna. She had dotted each ‘i’ with a heart on the note she’d left on his desk yesterday. First day of class. This one didn’t waste any time.

Myrna. Repulsive name. Like some screeching jungle bird. Divorced almost a year, she’d said. Three kids, staying with their father, Marvin or Melvin—who is, of course, a cold, controlling bastard. She came to the conference to keep a promise I’d made to myself years ago to be a real writer.

Just what the world needs, another revenge lit novel from a hausfrau who dumped her husband because the thrill was gone.

This one is no mere naïve suburban divorcee, however. He’d seen cold calculation in her eyes. She believes she’s using him, believes he will be her key to getting published. She is, of course, deluded.

He rolls away from her. The clock radio on the nightstand shows 6:28, a desolate time of day fit only for people who deliver things we want and take away things we don’t.

He closes his eyes, hoping that sleep will reclaim him. At his age, the agonies of the morning after are beginning to outweigh the pleasures of the night before.

She begins to snore. Loudly. A blunt chain saw biting into sheet metal. Anger stings him fully awake; mocking sleep dances out of reach.

He could nudge her just enough to induce her to shift positions and perhaps cease her incessant braying. Ah, but he might wake her! Aye, there’s the rub.

Sleep now impossible, he considers trying to read or even to write a little, but the thought of Myrna waking up and having to be spoken to is more than he wishes to contemplate.

He slips from under the covers and steals to the bathroom, a cold expanse of porcelain efficiency as inviting as a doctor’s waiting room. He urinates copiously, passes discreet gas, and runs his hands through his hair, which is still plentiful, Allah be praised, and a distinguished silver rather than gray.

But the face that looks back at him balefully from the mirror shows considerable wear.

Coffee. Surely they have coffee in the lodge downstairs. Perhaps they might even have heard of the New York Times in this wilderness, but he isn’t hopeful.

Something edible, a morning bun or scone perhaps. Perhaps the bookshelves lining the fake fireplace will offer something besides Reader’s Digest homogenized cream of novel to read while he eats a little something.

It’s not as if he’d had much choice. Heavenly Acres is the only accommodation remotely resembling a decent hotel in a land blighted by campgrounds and cabins boasting of such amenities as fish-cleaning sheds and outboard motorboat rentals by hour, day or week.

Northern Wisconsin, where modern resort means the toilets flush most of the time.

His clothes are folded neatly at the foot of the bed where he left them.

Quietly he pulls on his khaki shorts, sits ungracefully on the floor to slip on his socks, wriggles his feet into his deck shoes, and carefully avoids bumping the bed as he stands and writhes into his polo shirt.

He is being as quiet as—What? As quiet as a fart in a mitten. Just the sort of thing Lowell Hall, private detective, would say. He pulls a notebook and pen out of his pants pocket and writes down the phrase.

She stirs. He turns quickly to find her breathing deeply, eyes closed, mouth slightly open. Watching her, he wrestles into his windbreaker.

A Do Not Disturb sign hangs from the outside door handle. What he needs now is one that says, Please disturb. Better still: Please get this whorish strumpet out of my bed and far away from here before I return.

He eases the door shut behind him and limps—an old man when nobody’s looking—to the elevator.

3

She hustles into shorts and a T—the conference catalog made it very clear that dress was to be Northwoods casual. It will be chilly outside until the sun crests the trees, when the day will offer stifling heat. She grabs up her flannel shirt to counter the morning chill and the school’s overzealous air conditioning. If she hurries, she’ll still have a few minutes to go over her homework before class. She slips into her sandals and stands at the mirror over the rustic chest of drawers, teasing her summer-short blonde hair. She decides to let it finish drying au naturel.

Breakfast is served, Doug announces as she emerges from the bedroom.

She slides onto the bench at the redwood table separating the kitchenette from the living room, and Doug hands her a plate of scrambled eggs and wheat toast, the eggs laced with chopped red peppers, green onions, and tomato.

Looks great!

I hope they’re OK. I’m not used to cooking over gas, and everything seems to take longer up here.

She smiles at the up here. Although they are in the north woods, up on the map, and in the midst of a patchy forest of Norway pines, birch, oak, maple, and cottonwood, the elevation is only slightly higher than back down in Mitchell.

He slides in next to her on the bench with his own breakfast, and they sit side by side, eating and looking out at the lake. A thin mist hangs over the water. A crane stands on one spindly leg near the reeds by the shore. Two fishermen hunch over their poles in a dinghy a couple of hundred feet off shore. A small armada of ducks cruises the shoreline.

The fire pops and crackles. She holds her coffee mug in both hands, enjoying its warmth. He puts his arm around her, and they kiss.

We should get a little cabin up here. Come up on weekends.

Long walks in the woods. Quiet evenings by the fire. I guess I could stand it.

How are the eggs?

They’re good.

Not too dry?

Just right.

For a while the only sounds are the clinkings of fork on plate, the gentle thump of coffee mug on table, and the sparking and fizzing of the fire. Outside, someone calls out from across the lake, the voice echoing in the morning air, and a voice answers from the near shore.

What’s on the agenda in school today?

We read our descriptions aloud in creative nonfiction. I’m nervous about it!

"Really? The renowned page-two columnist for the Chicago Trib?"

Former columnist. And I still have a lot to learn. In research methods, she’s going to give us ten questions, and we have to find the answers by Friday.

Sounds suitably rigorous. What about the mystery writing class?

He didn’t give us homework.

Bully for him!

I think it’s just because he doesn’t want to have to read anything we write. His heart doesn’t seem to be in his teaching.

You’re just taking this class for a lark anyway, right?

Well, yes, but still …

This is the great one himself? Fletcher Downs?

The same.

A bit of a prima donna, is he?

Honestly, Doug, the way he acted yesterday, you’d think he wrote the Bible.

He did write a string of bestsellers.

I believe he mentioned that once or twice. There are rumors about which student—or students—he’s bedding.

Oh, yeah? Should I keep an eye on this guy?

I find him rather revolting.

That wavy silver hair, the authorial goatee, those penetrating blue eyes—

How do you know what he looks like?

I got his latest book out of the library. The Mitchell branch even had a copy, so you know this guy’s famous. Wait a minute. It’s here someplace.

Doug pulls a thick hardcover book from the stack on the table and shows it to her.

Blood Brothers, she reads off the cover. Any good?

I guess you’d call it a page-turner. Not my kind of thing, really. I’ll finish it, though.

I’ll read it when you’re done. But if you don’t like it, why keep reading?

I dunno. It just seems like you ought to finish a book once you start it.

Life’s too short. She kisses him on the nose.

We have to work in teams in research methods, she adds, finishing the last of her eggs and mopping the dish with a half piece of toast. My partner is going to be a bit of a challenge.

How so?

He’s a high school kid, supposedly a gifted writer. They send one student to the conference on scholarship every year. He came out with fairly outrageous comments yesterday.

Sounds full of himself.

He’s really quite remarkable. Seems to remember every word of every book he’s ever read. Sci-fi, mostly. And Sherlock Holmes.

A Baker Street Irregular, huh? Are you coming home for lunch?

I should go to the noon forum. I’m going to try to go every day. And if I do that, I won’t have time to get home and back before mystery writing.

What’s the noon forum?

It’s a different speaker every day, one of the teachers from the conference. Today, in fact, it’s Fletcher Downs.

The man himself. Don’t get trampled by his groupies.

I won’t. I’d better do the dishes and get going.

I’ll clean up.

Thanks. Is Fred going to take you out fishing again?

I’m on my own this morning. He’s taking his grandkids to Hawks’ Lake to go miniature golfing. He says I’m ready to solo. In fact, I really think I’ll catch one. I’ve got a good feeling.

I’m rooting for you.

Doug approached learning how to fish the same way he approaches everything, she reflects as she brushes her teeth. With his typical combination of boyish enthusiasm and a CPA’s love of order and systems, he had searched online Web sites with an intensity he usually reserved for the stock market and his fantasy baseball team.

She puts on lipstick and blush. Any more makeup would feel out of place in this rustic setting. When she comes out, Doug is out at the table on the deck, carefully threading line through the eyes of his fishing rod.

You’d better bring a club, in case you snag one of those monster muskies Fred was talking about.

For that I’d need a rifle.

He stands, and she takes him by the shoulders and gives him a lingering kiss.

Thank you so much. I really needed this, she says.

We both did. His eyes smile at her in a way she hasn’t seen in months.

Hurry home, he says.

I will, she promises.

And with that she hustles to the car to drive to the campus.

4

Predictably, the Continental Breakfast in the hotel lobby is a total loss. Dried out-looking bagels in cellophane and teeny plastic tubs of butter (margarine having apparently been outlawed in The Dairy State) and cream-cheese-like-substance, to be spread with little plastic knives. Six or seven of the saddest-looking bananas he has ever beheld, adrift in the bottom of a huge plastic bowl. A bleak dispenser of murky cranberry juice. Two industrial-sized coffee urns, one with the black handle for high-test, the other with the red handle for why-bother.

For reading material, something called the Northwoods Summer Recreation Guide, put out by The Shepherdstown Daily Dispatch. The damn thing doesn’t even carry a crossword puzzle. The shelves lining the fireplace hold old VHS tapes of Disney movies and third-rate comedies. Two shelves hold battered boxes of jigsaw puzzles that positively scream pieces missing. The single shelf of books offers bodice-rippers, historicals, the inevitable Reader’s Digest Pureed Abominations, and, for his morning dose of humility, a battered paperback copy of one of his thrillers.

He decides to take a walk. Isn’t that what one does when confronted with the great outdoors?

He can endure a little deprivation. After all, the price is right. In enticing him to come, Herman Chandler instantly agreed to his ridiculous speaking fee. As Author-in-Residence, he has only to conduct a two-week mystery/thriller writing seminar, deliver a noon forum talk on the writing life, which will be a pitch for his books, and give an evening reading/signing. That leaves plenty of time to take his pick among the willing female writer-wannabes.

Perhaps, too, the two weeks away from home will get him going again. He hasn’t written anything in over three months, and every time he straps himself in at the computer and attempts to launch another Spirit Sorenson or Lowell Hall, he literally feels like retching. He’s sick to bloody death of both of them; his only inspirations involve clever ways to kill them off.

With his agent’s approval, he even tried starting a crossover novel starring both of them, one of those Superman and Batman in one great comic book gimmicks. It made him doubly sick.

He supposes he’s burned out from staying in a succession of same Sheratons and Hiltons, getting up each morning to don Fletcher Downs, Author like a bulletproof vest, and making nice-nice with the book-buying masses.

Two weeks in the Northwoods of Wisconsin, along with a hefty paycheck for very little work, might be just what he needs.

He finds himself on a flat, two-lane dirt road, wadding through wisps of thigh-high fog from the slough at the side of the road. He jams his hands deeply into the pockets of his windbreaker, wishing he’d brought something more substantial. How can it be so bloody cold in late July? Reeds and shrubs line the road, with forest starting perhaps fifteen feet back on each side. The trees seem to be of all sorts: firs—or pines, he can never remember which is which—birch, what he assumes are oaks, and some others.

He can’t remember if he passed a convenience store on his way in from the campus the day before. They seem to have them everywhere now, and some of them even have drinkable coffee and the nearest metro newspaper. What would it be up here, Milwaukee? Minneapolis? Dare he hope for the Chicago Trib?

The slough on his right twists off into the trees. He hears rustlings—Birds? Squirrels? What other creatures do these woods contain?

He shivers. Why in hell doesn’t he just go get the keys to the rental car and drive into town? But what if the braying Myrna is awake? He decides not to risk it and walks faster to warm up.

A noise to his left startles him; he whirls to see a flash of white disappear into the trees. A deer? At least the hind end of one. He feels a flush of satisfaction.

Not a bad setting for a thriller. All the Lowell Hall books are set in Chicago (Hall is, of course, a White Sox fan like his progenitor), the Spirit Sorenson series in the Paradise Valley of Montana, where the author maintains a second home. Rustic northern Wisconsin might provide a nice change of pace for Hall.

There’s something elemental and dangerous about the woods. The locals have even concocted a forest creature, the Humdrung, a cross between a T-Rex and a Gila monster, with scales, a tail, fangs and crossed eyes. They sell little stuffed Humdrungs in all the stores. Humbug would be more like it.

He rounds a bend only to discover more of the same nothing he’s been walking through. He’s cold in earnest now, and the prospects of finding a clean, well-lighted place seem dim.

He turns and starts back, crossing over to the other side of the road. A pickup truck rumbles toward him, slowing and swinging to the far side of the road to give him a wide berth. The driver surprises him by waving, and Fletcher belatedly waves back.

They could at least have some sort of mom and pop general store. Everything seems to be mom and pop here. Fuzz and Doris’ Bide-a-Wee Lodge.

Red and Ruthie’s Humbug Supper Club.

Pete and Brenda’s Do-Drop-Inn.

He hears a dog’s frantic barking from not far away and freezes, scanning the roadside for something to use as a weapon to defend himself. For a moment, the barking seems to be coming closer, but then it stops suddenly. Fletcher stands another minute before beginning to walk again.

He passes the billboard announcing his resort a quarter