Cold Comfort: Friday, July 5, 2024 – Alyssa

Friday nights are bonfire nights. I’m off, and even Truman’s off by the time I show up, but he’s here, too. I think Jonathan likes doing it because of the fire aspect, something primal and manly, and Truman’s down with it to the point where he’ll even bring deadfall or whatever back from the woods for fuel. I don’t know what he does, exactly, but I guess it’s good forest husbandry. Either that or he’s fooled himself into thinking it is. He’s never told me if you can get state-certified for that sort of thing the way you can for mycology.

I didn’t go back into town today. Any town. Copper Harbor’s much closer, but it’s still the weekend of the fourth, and I just didn’t feel like being around people again. Those trips can be depressing, because even email updates from loved ones just help indicate that time is, in fact, moving forward. Life goes on even when we don’t really feel like we’re living it.

I didn’t spend all day in my cabin, thank you very much, because I’ve got a hammock I can string between the trees behind it where no one will see me unless they come all the way around. I’d hear someone knocking at the front door, but even Jonathan respects our days off, maybe even more so because he just doesn’t take any. It’s shady, I’ve got a cache of drinks and snacks in my cabin, and Agatha Christie was freaking prolific. I’ve dabbled in her stuff before, but sheesh. They’ve got the whole set here, the collected works, and it’s kind of annoying because I did have to print out the Poirot reading order on one of my Houghton trips, but I’ve got that, and the Miss Marple stories, and even a list of when the rest of her stuff was published. They’re on the shelf alphabetical by title, for the most part, so that just isn’t helpful.

Poirot solves everything, but he mostly does it by very clearly being a strange little foreigner everyone ignores. He apparently bumbles around and makes odd remarks, but the stranger a thing he says, the more you have to pay attention to it. Yes, I’m still stuck on Percy’s comment about how these are perfect days.

It’s cool in the evenings, especially here on the water, so I’m in jeans and a hoodie and I’ve brought a blanket. Truman’s sitting on the log with me, and even though he’s still in board shorts, he’s got a hoodie, too. I don’t know if this one’s also got an SPF rating. The lightweight stuff makes sense, because a lot of people are outside in the summer, but do they make SPF fleece? Is there a market for that?

Truman leans over and nudges my shoulder. “Penny for your thoughts.”

“I have no thoughts,” I murmur.

“Liar,” He grins at me, the one he doesn’t break out around the guests. It’s just the two of us on this side of the fire and Jonathan on the other, occasionally poking at it or feeding it. “You always overthink everything.”

Okay that’s true, but he doesn’t have to say it. “Have you seen Mary?”

“Nope. She’s still dead.” The grin turns wicked. “Or my theory.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Shoot.”

“Mary’s not really with Percy. She’s Edgar’s long-term relationship, except nobody knows he’s in a long-term relationship, so they’re going through this whole charade to get the two of them together for a month, but it can’t look like they’re together, so here we are.” He looks at me, but apparently I’m not reacting properly because his face falls. “You got something better?”

Actually I think mine’s worse. “Edgar was in a secret long-term relationship, but they split, so now he can’t go through a painful breakup in public and he has to wonder if anyone’s ever going to want a relationship with him for who he is and not who he plays.”

Truman wrinkles his nose and glares at the fire. “Damn. Yours is more likely. And it sucks, because I like him.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Edgar, or his other name?”

“All his other names,” he laughs. “He’s excellent. You ever seen him in anything?”

I shake my head. “Just that one short film.”

He laughs and raises his mug in a toast. I don’t know what he’s got in there, or if the drink’s even hot. “That’s why he likes you.”

Okay, having one conversation about identifying bird song among the other niceties doesn’t really qualify as liking someone.

Truman tilts his head. “I’m kind of surprised Henry hasn’t been all over him.”

I blink. Henry and Edgar? That never crossed my mind. “Oh?”

“He’s done all he can to talk to the others,” he points out.

“You mean the women,” I add quickly.

But Truman shakes his head. “He talked to Percy, too.”

I shake mine right back. “But mostly the women.”

He points to our left with his chin. “Emily laid out in the sun in the tiniest bikini I’ve ever seen today, and he talked to her, but that was a ploy if I’ve ever seen one.”

“Henry’s knitting is a ploy if you’ve ever seen one,” I mutter.

Truman frowns again. “What’s wrong with a man knitting?”

“There’s nothing wrong with a man knitting,” I correct. “It’s when he knits in public and leans into all those headlines about how men are saving knitting from obscurity because they’re producing supposedly amazing finished objects that are just basic.”

He whistles silently. “You don’t like Henry.”

“There’s something weird about Henry,” I insist.

Truman clucks his tongue. “Alyssa Beatrice. There’s something weird about all of us.”

Well, yes.

Truman leans back on one hand, and at first I think it’s because we’re avoiding this subject again, but he takes a nearly-casual look around and tilts his head toward me. “My brother killed himself in prison after he killed his wife and his stepsons.”

I suck in a breath. “Shit, Tru.”

He nods, eyes on the fire. “I’ve worked here every summer since. My mom’s dead, too. She started drinking too much and choked to death on her own vomit one night. My dad’s long gone. He took off when we were little. So, you know.” Truman—handsome, charming, perfect smile—shakes his head slowly. “I’ve got all these questions about what’s hereditary and what I’m carrying in my genes. That’s heavy. Edgar’s got something heavy. Jane and Agatha? Heavy.”

“Emily?” I ask, because I don’t think I’ve seen that in her.

“Hides it,” he responds immediately. “Pretending it’s not heavy.”

“Percy?” I prompt.

This head shake is firmer. “Dude’s hiding something. I don’t think it’s a dead wife, but it’s shadowy.”

Henry’s neither shadowy nor heavy. He’s dangerous. I shiver, because I didn’t mean to think that.

Truman raises an eyebrow, but I don’t want to say the thing that’s only a gut feeling. And he’s just told me his own heavy thing, so that’s an invitation.

“A loss,” I blurt. “In my … my inner circle, I’d say, but it’s more of a polygon, and now one of the points is missing, so it’s unstable, and the whole thing feels like it’s collapsing.”

He licks his lips. “Sudden?”

“The kind of sudden that makes everyone else turn on each other, suspicious, because that’s somehow better than saying it was a pure accident and it was completely out of anyone’s control.” And just like that, it’s all neatly summed up, with the sharp edges filed off.

“I’m sorry.” Tru shifts a bit. “Are you going back? After September?”

Loon Lake is only open through September. They frequently get snow in October, but September’s still booked. “Right now I’m not really sure what’s happening after September. Why?” I turn to look at him more fully. “What do you do?”

“I’ve got a place not too far from here. Sort of a tiny house situation. It was built as a summer home, so I had to add insulation and the wood stove, but it’s all right.” It’s hard to tell with the firelight and the lingering sunset, but I think he’s blushing. “I sell art. I’ve got stuff in the galleries around here. So between that and Loon Lake, I make it through. I survive.”

Okay, but he said years, right? Years, and he’s still only just surviving?

“Look, it’s, um …” Sighing, Truman leans back on one hand, but this time it’s his left hand and it means angling closer to me. “There’s a world of difference between suffering a loss that was just an accident and sitting here, wondering if you’re destined to kill someone someday because it’s in your blood.”

I shake my head. “You don’t seem capable.” “Alyssa.” This head tilt almost brings our foreheads into contact. “Before that day I wouldn’t have said he was, either.”

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Cold Comfort: Saturday, July 6, 2024 – Henry, coming July 16