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Wes Boyd’s Spearfish Lake Tales Contemporary Mainstream Books and Serials Online |
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Wes Boyd’s Spearfish Lake Tales Contemporary Mainstream Books and Serials Online |
Kirsten got in her car, which was hot from sitting out in the summer sun, fired it up, and went out to the West Turtle Lake Club. The sun was still high enough that she could work on her tan a bit, and she had gotten hooked on the hot tub, just like the Evachevskis had.
It was too bad, she thought, that the summer was quickly coming to an end. It had been nice for Gil and Carrie to let her hang around as much as she had this summer, for she truly enjoyed being out at the club. Another year, she knew, even though it was not cheap she would have to buy a basic membership in the club, if only to be fair. If she was only going out there in the day, she would not have to purchase a cabin, although she wanted to someday.
One thing was clear: if she ever got interested – really interested – in a guy again, he would have to be able to adapt to the club, too. She had surprised herself when she had learned to enjoy the place, even leaving her friendship with Gil and Carrie to the side.
Mike had proved himself to be a nice guy, she thought, not too forward. It might be a good idea to get a little closer to him, but not too close, and not real fast. Kirsten knew that she had been through a lot of instant relationships in the past, and pretty well knew why they blew up, too. Maybe, she thought, if we take this nice and easy, it might be different.
She parked her car at the Evachevski cottage and went inside to take her clothes off. Carrie had left work earlier, and Kirsten was soon beside her, lying in another chaise lounge on the lawn. “Gil here yet?” she asked.
“Been here and left, already,” Carrie said. “He and Frank are out on the golf course, getting in a practice round while the light is right.”
“They are really taking this seriously, aren’t they?” Kirsten asked.
“They are, indeed,” Carrie said. “You’d think they had money riding on it. Men!”
“I can’t blame them,” Kirsten commented. “That Sam LeBlanc is really a pig.”
“Male chauvinist variety?” Carrie smiled.
“Yeah, but mostly the pig part,” Kirsten said. “I don’t even like to go into LeBlanc’s to sell an ad, and when I have to buy flowers, I get them in Albany River. Have they really got a chance to beat him?”
“I don’t know,” Carrie said. “He’s a lot better golfer than either Gil or Frank, but they’ve got some things on their side.”
“I’d like to see them win. He needs to be put in his place.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Carrie said, and changed the subject: “Are you and Mike about ready to face the gut bombs tomorrow?”
“I’m not sure if I am or not,” Kirsten said. “Mike seems ready, or else he doesn’t know what he’s getting into, but you heard him, he likes hot stuff.”
“If everything I’ve heard about the chili contest is right, he’ll find out if he likes stuff hot or not,” Carrie smirked.
“You know,” Kirsten said, “Mike seems to be a pretty nice guy.”
“He’s not full of know-it-all shit like most young reporters are,” Carrie agreed. “Seems to be pretty level-headed. Once he learns his way around, he ought to do all right.”
“What would you think if I brought him out here?” Kirsten asked.
“Do you think he’s ready for that?” Carrie wanted to know. “It might seem kind of, well, forward.”
“It might put some things on the back burner, too,” Kirsten said. “If I’m going to get something going with Mike, I need to be sure that he’ll go for this.”
“I don’t think you’re that far along in a relationship,” Carrie cautioned.
“Yeah, but summer will be over, soon, and it’ll be next year before I could find out, and then it might be too late.”
“Well,” Carrie said, “As far as I’m concerned, it’s up to you, but do you think he knows what he’s getting into? I’m not sure he knows that this place is a nudist resort.”
“He must know,” Kirsten said. “Everyone does.”
Carrie shook her head. “He’s never said anything about it, at least not around the office,” she said. “Not even anything real oblique, no wisecrack or anything.”
Kirsten shrugged. “He’s probably just being polite, or maybe he doesn’t want to stick his foot in his mouth.”
* * *
Mike rolled a sheet of newsprint into his typewriter, and began to work on the story of the Garth Matson-Donna Clark feud. Mike had his story pretty well thought out, and he was a fast writer and typist, anyway, so the typewriter carriage flew back and forth to the sound of the typebars hitting the paper on the platen.
As the story began to take shape, he could see that his theory that Donna Clark was outraged at being blackballed from the exclusive West Turtle Lake Club made sense, at least as much sense as any other such personal squabbles. At the same time, being a personal issue and George’s reluctance to printing those, he could see how only bits and pieces of it would show up in the paper.
Mike continued banging away on the story, even after Virginia told him it was quitting time and turned out the lights in the side office. “I’ll lock up when I’m done,” Mike told her absently, and heard her lock the front door. Mike took off his tie, and continued banging away at the typewriter keys in the late afternoon.
The story was a lot longer than he had anticipated; he realized that he had learned a lot in his talks here and there, even if much of it was only circumstantial. Well, he hadn’t wanted to interview the actual participants, and had, in fact, been all but told not to, and this story wasn’t for print, anyway.
At last, on his third sheet of newsprint, he had the story pretty well worked out. He rolled it out of his typewriter and read it over, checking a few spelling errors and making a few corrections. All in all, a pretty good story, he thought.
It was good to have the story done, right or wrong. He had spent much of his spare time for the past week dredging around among bits and pieces of an age-old feud that he was not much interested in, anyway. Now that he had it done, though, what should he do with it?
Mike thought about sticking it in his desk drawer, and giving it to Webb on Monday, but realized that if he didn’t cut it off, he’d waste the weekend piddling away on little bits and pieces, enough to the point where he’d want to rewrite it. There weren’t many nice weekends left, and he intended to get some good out of this one. Maybe go out to the municipal beach again after the chili festival. Who knew? He might meet a girl and make the weekend worthwhile.
Thinking that make him think of Kirsten, and all of a sudden, he realized that something in his theory didn’t fit. If Kirsten got such a charge out of hanging around those rich dudes out at the West Turtle Lake Club, then why did she all but invite herself out on a date with him next week? It didn’t jibe with the theory that she was hunting for bigger game, but there were other things that didn’t jibe about Kirsten, either. So what? She wasn’t in the story he had just written, and he knew that Kirsten would make as much sense as any woman ever does, given time, if he ever needed to find out.
Just thinking about Kirsten, and how she fitted into the whole picture of the Matson-Clark story made him realize how glad he was to be done with the story. He thought about it for a moment, and realized that getting irrevocably rid of the story was the right thing to do. With that in mind, he folded the story, put it in an envelope, wrote “George Webb” on the outside, and sealed it.
Mike got up from his desk, and slipped the envelope under Webb’s locked door, thinking, “So much for that.” He knew that it was still early enough to go back to his apartment, get on his swimsuit, and go to the municipal beach for a swim. After that, he could go over to the Spearfish Lake Bar and Grill and have a hamburger and a couple of beers. It offered to be about as good an evening as he had experienced in Spearfish Lake, except maybe for his dinner with Kirsten the week before.
* * *
Spearfish Lake Record-Herald, August 27, 1975
SPEARFISH LAKE NOTES
by Virginia Meyers
Record-Herald Social Editor* * *
Donna Clark, a patient at Camden Memorial Hospital, is reported to be recovering slowly from the effects of her auto accident two weeks ago. She thanks everyone for the cards and letters she has received, but says she isn’t up to having visitors yet, outside of immediate family.
* * *
Mrs. Garth Matson reports that her parents ended up a one-week visit from their New Jersey home last weekend. Mr. and Mrs. Inghulsen stayed with the Matsons at their West Turtle Lake cottage as usual during their annual visit.
Mike McMahon tried to sleep in on Saturday morning, but it soon got too warm in his apartment, so that was what drove him out of bed. Lacking anything better to do, he got dressed and drove downtown to Rick’s Café for breakfast about 9:30. He’d heard that the food there was pretty good, and he found it adequate.
He sat alone in a booth over against the wall and wondered about the breakfast table discussions he had heard of that happened here, but the big table was all but empty except for a couple of old men he didn’t know, talking about the prospects for the Marlins. Football season didn’t start for almost two weeks, and already football was the main topic of discussion.
Summer was almost over, and this far north, summer was brief indeed. The swim last night had been welcome, and Mike realized that he’d better grab what summer was left while it lasted. There wouldn’t be a lot of activity at the beach this early in the day, but he had to be back downtown at eleven and probably wouldn’t get a chance to go swimming again before late. Once he finished his breakfast, he got back in his car, returned to his apartment, and then set off for another swim.
It was still cool on the lakefront, and there were not a lot of people out, so Mike kept the swim short. Once again, he realized how much he hated being alone; it was boring, if nothing else. After a while, he brightened for a minute. Perhaps he could talk Kirsten into going for a swim with him after the chili judging. Again, visions of her in a bikini rose in his mind, until he realized that she had said she would be going out to the West Turtle Lake Club after the contest for the big golf grudge match, whatever the hell that was.
Once again at his apartment he got dressed and drove down to the office. It was hot and still in there, the same as it had been the weekend before, but he didn’t bother to turn on the scanner; he merely took a camera and a few rolls of film. Locking up again, he walked down the street to the main four corners, where a handful of people were beginning to gather for the Chili Parade.
As advertised, the parade wasn’t much; a handful of men from the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars carrying flags, the school band wearing shorts and t-shirts instead of uniforms, a couple of lackluster floats, and most of the equipment of the Spearfish Lake Volunteer Fire Department, including the World War II vintage Studebaker pumper they kept around to take to waterball meets. All of them had sirens going loud enough to sterilize dogs at forty paces.
There were also three or four convertibles carrying candidates for Miss Chili Queen, a last-minute addition to the activities. From what Mike had heard from Kate Ellsberg, it had only been dreamed up Thursday afternoon, so he hadn’t had any prior warning. The girls ranged in age from thirteen to maybe twenty and all wore nice dresses, although nothing spectacular, and Mike knew he would have to add a picture of one of them to his collection for the weekend.
With some degree of reluctance, Mike walked up the street to the park, where a row of charcoal grills was set up, and some pots were already bubbling, making the air rich with an odor that was indescribably tangy.
“There you are,” Kate Ellsberg said, bustling around the place. “How was the parade?”
Mike knew better than to tell the truth. “Oh, pretty good,” he said, biting his tongue.
Kate handed him a pin with a blue ribbon with the word “JUDGE” on it, and said, “Have you seen the Langenderfer girl? Kirsten?”
“Not since yesterday afternoon,” Mike told her. “She doesn’t have to be here for a while, yet.”
“I hope she doesn’t come at the last minute,” Kate said. “You judges have to judge the beauty pageant, too.”
“Didn’t even think about that,” Mike said. “Is there going to be some kind of talent competition or something?” He rather thought it was too much to hope that there would be a swimsuit competition. That young blonde in the red Corvette convertible in the parade would be dynamite in a swimsuit.
“We didn’t have time to put much together,” Kate admitted, but not telling Mike that holding the beauty pageant had only become possible when Donna Clark went into the hospital. “The girls are supposed to do a little talent thing, a song or something, but I don’t expect much.”
“It’ll make things a little more interesting,” Mike said, writing off hopes of a swimsuit competition. While the girls were pretty enough, only the young blonde would have given Kirsten any competition at all, especially in a swimsuit. “I’m going to wander around and get some pictures.”
“Well, be over by the bandstand around 1:30 for the Queen contest. We’ll have the judging about two.”
The park was pretty much empty when Mike started taking pictures, gathering recipes and smelling chili, but in the first half hour or so people began to drift in while the band tuned up on the bandstand. Right at noon, a horrible, wrenching screech filled the park as the band began to play.
In a minute or so Mike was able to identify the song the band was playing: “Proud Mary.” Mike was rather partial to the Ike and Tina Turner version of the bar band specialty, and there was at least one comparison: the Lazy River Band “don’t do nuthin’ nice and easy.” What they mostly did was rock hard and loud, if poorly, but the beat was heavy, and that helped. Mike bought a beer from the beer tent, and drifted as far away from the bandstand as he could manage while still staying in the park.
After a horribly mangled version of “Light My Fire” and a similar rendition of “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction,” the band took another ragged stab at “Proud Mary,” and Mike clenched his teeth. This was going to be a long afternoon, and maybe Kirsten knew what she was doing. Mike glanced over toward the beer tent and saw Sam LeBlanc, who bought three beers at once. As Mike watched, he gulped them down, one right after another, just like he was pouring them down a drainpipe.
Behind a large tree, the sound from the band was somewhat deadened, and Mike sat down to wait out the hands of his watch as they dragged their way around, wondering where Kirsten might be. As time passed, Mike confirmed his earlier suspicion: the Lazy River Band only knew about twelve songs, and a couple of them they knew less well than they didn’t know the rest, and about half the songs they did know were either “Proud Mary” or at least sounded sort of like it.
About one, while the band was taking a break, Mike took a look around. The park was filling up; there were several hundred people milling around, playing games, talking to each other now that the band was silent, and getting pop and beer from the beer tent. The beer at least helped deaden the sound of the music. He took a few pictures of the growing crowd, but when the band started again, he returned to the dead spot behind the tree.
While he was settling back down behind the tree, he saw a strange car pull up, and Kirsten got out of the passenger side.
She looked stunning: she wore a print shirt, unbuttoned, but with the tails tied together, and it barely managed to stand up to the pressure of her chest. She wore a pair of white pants, so tight they looked like they had been painted on, and a pair of red pumps. “You look like you came dressed for the party,” he said loudly, over the noise of the band.
“My car wouldn’t start,” she told him, rather loudly, so he could hear. “I had my mother drive me in, and she doesn’t like to drive if she can help it, especially in this much traffic.”
“What’s wrong with your car?” Mike asked.
“Don’t know. It would turn over, but it wouldn’t start. I tried and tried, but finally the battery went dead.”
“I know this is going to sound chauvinistically male,” Mike said, “but was there any gas in it?”
“Half a tank,” she said. “I called the shop, and they’re going to send out a wrecker. Look, once we get done with this judging thing, can I ask a favor of you?”
“Sure,” Mike said. “What? I’d thought about inviting you out for a swim after this is over, but then I remembered that you were going out for that golf match, so I suppose that’s out.”
“I need a lift out to the West Turtle Lake Club. I’m a caddie for the big grudge match.”
“No problem,” Mike said, adding, “It’s not going to be much of a match,” He pointed toward the beer tent, where LeBlanc was again getting a couple of beers drawn. “Not if he keeps stacking it away like that. Can I buy you one?”
“Sure,” she said.
“Good, I could stand another one myself. Why don’t you stay here? There’s no need for both of to risk permanent hearing impairment.”
While Mike was waiting in line, he revised his assessment of Kirsten yet again. So she went out to the West Turtle Lake Club to caddie, huh? Probably raked in a good many dollars, in a place as ritzy as that. Maybe she was trolling for a rich guy, but probably the money was appealing, too. It could be a good deal for a pretty girl like her.
What Mike couldn’t figure out was why LeBlanc was hitting the beer pretty hard if he was facing a tough golf match in a few hours. He was supposed to be a damn good golfer, but Mike understood that there was a lot riding on this game, although no one he had overheard talking about it had mentioned what it was.
As Mike walked back to the tree with a couple of beers, he was intercepted by Kate Ellsberg. “Have you seen Kirsten?” she said. “I’m starting to get worried?”
“Follow me,” Mike told her, and went around behind the tree, where he handed Kirsten a beer.
“It’s good to see you,” Kate told Kirsten. “I’m glad you’re here. Did Mike tell you about judging the beauty pageant?”
“I hadn’t gotten to it, yet,” Mike said.
Kate pinned a “JUDGE” ribbon on Kirsten’s shirt, and explained about the pageant again. She told the two to be over at the bandstand in about fifteen minutes for the judging.
“God, the dentists in this town are going to make out like bandits, after today,” Mike said. “Think of all the fillings that are getting knocked out.”
“They do play rather loud,” Kirsten admitted.
“They also play rather bad,” Mike said. “But I suppose if you play loud enough, with a heavy enough beat, no one cares too much about bad.”
In a few minutes, it was twenty after one. “I suppose we’d better be working our way on over to the bandstand,” Mike said. “Risking the noise and all.”
“Might as well,” Kirsten agreed.
At the bandstand, they found a rather unhappy-looking Bud Ellsberg; unhappy, Mike presumed, because he had been waiting at the bandstand for them, right close to the large stack of speakers. As they stood there waiting, the bank murdered “Proud Mary” one more time, then thankfully fell silent, except for the leader, who said into his microphone, booming across the park and the rest of the county, “Now we’re going to see who’s Queen of the Spearfish Lake scene. It’s the time we’ve all been waiting for, the judging of the Spearfish Lake Chili Queen.”
Everything considered, especially the speed that the contest had gone together, it didn’t go too badly. Each of the girls paraded up onto the bandstand and said a little something about themselves, then did their talent presentation. The oldest girl, who was maybe nineteen or twenty, wore a low-cut red dress, and did an a cappella version of “Harper Valley PTA.” With a halfway decent band, in a smoky honky-tonk, it might not have been half bad, but it just didn’t have the impact it needed for this crowd, although there was a courteous round of applause.
The next girl was the youngest, with a flat chest and a button nose and freckles. She stood up and sang, in a slightly squeaky soprano, “Amazing Grace.” It really wasn’t a bad performance, everything taken.
“Nice applause,” Mike noted.
“All from Methodists,” Bud commented sardonically.
The third girl also had on a dress that was rather low cut, and Mike thought that she was overdoing it a bit. She was a rather big girl, heavy set, and though she was pretty in the face, there was a sharpness in it that signaled she was going to make life a living hell for some man in the not too distant future. The words “battle ax” came easily to mind. She didn’t sing, but played the saxophone: “Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White,” and managed to keep the wrong notes to only a dozen or so.
The final girl was the young blonde who Mike had noted earlier, with a sweet face and long hair falling to her waist. She wore a long, black dress, and took the microphone with professional poise, and in a husky, sexy voice, began to sing “Fever,” not quite the way the composer had written it, but with a lustiness and power that made Mike wonder that if she was lip-synching to some torch singer’s recording. As the last notes died out across the crowd, there was a lot of loud applause, more perhaps from the men than from the women there.
Kate Ellsberg took the microphone. “While the judges are conferring and making their decision, perhaps we can have a little music from the band,” she said. Mike cringed. The band, who had taken advantage of their break to top off their beers, hustled back to their seats and swung into their trademark rendition of “Proud Mary.”
It was a little quieter behind the bandstand, and if Bud, Kirsten and Mike got close enough together and yelled at each other, they could make themselves understood.
“The last kid, the one in black, for sure,” Bud said in a loud voice. “She’s way the hell out front of the others. They’re just filling out the field.”
“Can’t pick her,” Kirsten replied, just as loud. “She’s Carrie Evachevski’s daughter.”
“You’re kidding,” Mike said. “She can’t be that old.”
“We can’t pick her,” Kirsten repeated. “With both Mike and me working at the Record-Herald, it’d look like a setup. Besides, Kathy Webb would split a gut.”
“Why?” Mike said.
“Don’t you know about her career plans?” Kirsten asked.
Mike shook his head and yelled back, “Nobody in this town ever tells me anything. What about her career plans?”
“I’ll tell you later,” Kirsten said, realizing that Bud might not have heard about Jennifer Evachevski and her chosen profession; after all, Mike had not.
“Who else could we pick if we didn’t pick her?” Ellsberg said. “This ain’t no contest.”
“How about the one who sang ‘Harper Valley PTA’?” Kirsten asked.
“No way in hell,” Ellsberg said loudly. “Her mother is in the North Spearfish Lake Woman’s Club. I’d never hear the end of it from Kate.”
“I’m tempted to vote with Kirsten,” Mike said, “But if we don’t go for the Evachevski kid, it’s really going to look like a setup. She’s an absolute doll and can really sing. That crowd knows who won.”
“Except for some Methodists,” Bud commented.
“Let’s say it was a split decision,” Kirsten said. “That way, if anybody gives any one of us hell, we can say we were outvoted.”
“That might work,” Bud said, “if no one asks too many of us.”
* * *
