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2
It was a different desk clerk, but she gave me the same room. Of course she did. The rate was a little
higher and the old TV had been replaced by a newer one, but the same sign was propped against the
rabbit ears on top: DO NOT USE “TINFOIL!” The reception was still shitty. There was no news, only
soap operas.
I turned it off. I put the DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door. I drew the curtains. Then I stripped
and crawled into bed, where—aside from a dreamlike stumble to the bathroom to relieve my bladder
—I slept for twelve hours. When I woke up, it was the middle of the night, the power was off, and a
strong northwest wind was blowing outside. A brilliant crescent moon rode high in the sky. I got the
extra blanket from the closet and slept for another five hours.
When I woke up, dawn lit the Tamarack Motor Court with the clear hues and shadows of a
National Geographic photograph. There was frost on the cars pulled up in front of a scattering of units,
and I could see my breath. I tried the phone, expecting nothing, but a young man in the office
answered promptly, although he sounded as if he were still half-asleep. Sure, he said, the phones were
fine and he’d be happy to call me a taxi—where did I want to go?
Lisbon Falls, I told him. Corner of Main Street and the Old Lewiston Road.
“The Fruit?” he asked.
I’d been away so long that for a moment it seemed like a total non sequitur. Then it clicked.
“That’s right. The Kennebec Fruit.”
Going home, I told myself. God help me, I’m going home.
Only that was wrong—2011 wasn’t home, and I would only be staying there a short time—
assuming, that was, I could get there at all. Perhaps only minutes. Jodie was home now. Or would be,
once Sadie arrived there. Sadie the virgin. Sadie with her long legs and long hair and her propensity to
trip over anything that might be in the way . . . only at the critical moment, I was the one who had
taken the fall.
Sadie, with her unmarked face.
She was home.
3
That morning’s taxi driver was a solidly built woman in her fifties, bundled into an old black parka
and wearing a Red Sox hat instead of one with a badge reading LICENSED LIVERY. As we turned left
onto 196, in the direction of The Falls, she said: “D’ja hear the news? I bet you didn’t—the power’s off
up this way, ennit?”
“What news is that?” I asked, although a dreadful certainty had already stolen into my bones:
Kennedy was dead. I didn’t know if it had been an accident, a heart attack, or an assassination after all,
but he was dead. The past was obdurate and Kennedy was dead.
“Earthquake in Los Angeles.” She pronounced it Las Angle-ees. “People been sayin for years that
California was just gonna drop off into the ocean, and it seems like maybe they’re gonna turn out to be
right.” She shook her head. “I ain’t gonna say it’s because of the loose way they live—those movie stars
and all—but I’m a pretty good Baptist, and I ain’t gonna say it’s not.”
We were passing the Lisbon Drive-In now. CLOSED FOR THE SEASON, the marquee read. SEE
YOU WITH LOTS MORE IN ’64!
“How bad was it?”