The room was nice in the same way the best dorm room can seem nice: a double bed, my own tiny bathroom, and a window that was open and overlooked the lake.
“I’ll have someone bring the schedule by,” he said. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to hit the ground running.”
I unpacked as soon as he left, hanging up my dresses and putting my shoes in a line on the closet floor. I arranged my travel clock and a small pile of books on the nightstand. The girls I’d gone to high school with were married now. They had little houses in New Hampshire with sofa sets and televisions, forks and knives and spoons, maybe a kid or two. During those years when they were hanging wallpaper in the nursery, I’d been living in a furnished studio in Los Angeles, a place that came with everything—-sheets, towels, a dish rack. I had money but no idea of how to spend it, so I didn’t spend it. I liked the lightness of my life, the feeling that I could leave tomorrow and go where they needed me: New York, Michigan. Not counting my winter clothes, which were still in the closet of my grandmother’s spare room, my worldly possessions amounted to the contents of these two bags, more or less. I hadn’t had any real success but every one of those high school girls knew about my life, and as much as they may have had the story wrong, they wished they were me. In their place, I would have wished I were me, because this unremarkable room with the remarkable view in Middle--of--Nowhere, Michigan, was everything that had ever been written about freedom and possibility. I pushed the empty suitcases under the bed with my foot, then stood at the window staring, thinking how nice it would be to use the word lush again after such a long time in California. The light was so much softer here, and still so much brighter than New Hampshire’s. I would send postcards to Charlie and Ripley tomorrow. I would tell them both how grateful I was, how much I already loved the place.
Eric had left the door to my room open behind him, maybe so I could get a cross breeze, and when I turned around a tall, slender man was leaning against the doorway. He had been watching me watch the lake.
“Pretty grand, right?” he said.
My mind did that quick mental calculation women must make when they find their exit blocked by a man they don’t know. How far down if I had to go out the window? Too far, I was guessing.
He saw me, he caught it, and took a step back into the hall. He held up a piece of paper. “Schedule,” he said.
“Ah.”
“You can come out or I can come in or I can lay it here on the floor between us.” He leaned over partway to pantomime his intention. His eyes were dark and overlarge in his thin face, his black hair long and pushed behind his ears. He stood up suddenly and very straight, the paper still in his hand. He was wearing a linen T--shirt and very long surgical scrub pants. “If you invite me in I’ll tell you a story.”
“Come in then,” I said. His ancient espadrilles were dirty and folded at the heels. “I’ll risk it.”
He smiled. “Oh, good, good.” But he barely came into the room at all. He left the door open wide and leaned against the wall beside it, as if it were exactly the spot he was meant for. “Who picked you up at the airport?”
“Eric.”
He puzzled over this. “Eric who?”
I hadn’t asked his last name, proof that I’d been in California too long. “Eric the Executive Director.”
This seemed to impress him. “I’ve never even seen the Executive Director. I’m assuming he didn’t tell you anything about the lake.”
“He did not.”
“He wouldn’t know how lucky it is to be the one to tell it to a newcomer. Actors are all about luck. Executive Directors are all about spreadsheets. People are going to be rushing you from every direction wanting to tell you but I’m the one who got here first, or first after Eric.”
“You’re an actor?”
He looked down at himself: scrub pants, espadrilles. “It isn’t obvious?”
“No, I mean, of course, but actors don’t usually deliver schedules.” No one seemed to be confined to their regular jobs in this place.
“They do when the errand is presented as a personal favor to the very busy assistant stage manager.”
“Checking out the new blood?”
“I call it being thoughtful. Plus I wanted to be the one to tell you the story.”
“Did you tell the last Emily?”
“Unfortunately, no. Someone beat me to it, which makes this a sort of redemption.”
“Well, it wouldn’t be fair really.”
“What wouldn’t be fair?”
“If you got to tell all the Emilys.”
He nodded. “I hadn’t thought of it that way. So you’ve seen the lake?”
“I have.”
“And you know what it’s called?”
“Tom Lake,” I said. “But that’s a guess.”
He smiled again, showing off the wonkiness of his size XL teeth. I’d been told that wonky teeth, like unpierced ears, were valuable human relics from another time. “Excellent guess!” He gave a single clap. “The lake does have an official name, the name they put on maps and watertable records, but that’s no concern of ours.”
“I wouldn’t think so.”
“What you need to know is that all this land was once owned by a very wealthy family, Vanderbilts of some sort, though I’m not sure what sort. Railroad money, oil money, money money—-you know the type.”
I gave a slight nod, though I didn’t know the type from Adam.
“They spent their summers here, or a very small part of their summers, the part when they weren’t on a ship or in Scotland. They had a castle in Scotland, which isn’t quite as impressive as it sounds because you frankly can’t swing a cat without hitting a castle in Scotland. The many children were overseen by many Scottish nannies. I should tell you that these were the friendly ones. Scottish nannies get a terrible rap.”
“They do.” I sat down on the windowsill, thinking this might be a long one.
He stopped. “Would you not do that, please?”
“What?”
“The windowsill. Not when the window’s open.”
“Really?”
“We’ve already lost one Emily.”
“She didn’t fall out the window.” I looked down at the ground, as if to check.
He shook his head and pointed to the corner of the room.
“Isn’t that a nice chair?”
I was sorry to give up the view but went and pulled over the chair nevertheless.
“Thank you,” he said.
“What about you?” The room lacked a second chair, and the windowsill was out, and I didn’t feel like offering him the bed.
“I’m a stander by nature. I do better standing.”
“Okay.”
“Where was I?”
“Scottish nannies.” Such a big, goofy smile, I thought. A movie star’s smile.
He stopped again. “You’re a wonderful listener.”
“Thank you,” I said. “Occupational hazard.”
“Hah! Well, that tells me how long you’ve been acting if you think actors are good listeners.”