Willard Notch
Willard Notch - book excerpt
Chapter One - Jan and Rob
Jan Poschner emphatically pushed the jade green glass ashtray away from her and toward Rob Zanermann as he started to light up a joint, her way of saying "Not me, thank you" without having to say it.
“Oh, man, this weed is good,” he said, after a deep inhalation of that delightfully pungent smoke that makes cottage cheese taste great, and "cutting the cheese" hilarious.
"Look,” said Jan, “I don’t intend to sit here with you and listen to your floating brain spit out giggles and goofy comments... Either you toss that weed, or I’m leaving. I thought we were really getting down to talking about us, our deeper shit. And now you’re doing your typical escape thing as soon as it gets down to real feelings. Why are you doing that?"
Fifteen or twenty seconds elapsed before Rob responded, “I’m scared.”
"Of what? Scared of what, Rob? The truth?"
"Oh yeah, the truth. And what truth is that, my dearest Janice?"
"Don’t call me that. You know I hate it. "
"What truth?” Rob repeated, without using the name Jan’s parents would use when doing reprimands.
"That you don’t really love me, Rob. I know you don’t. I know you care about me a lot, but you care about Wendy, also, and it should be different with us. “Jan’s mentioning Rob’s younger sister slowed down his response, making him pause and think for a moment. ”You’re wrong,” he finally replied. "You don’t understand how I feel about you. You don’t. "
"Then tell me! And not when you’re in an ‘I love everyone’ happy haze!"
Jan jumped up from Rob’s back porch patio table and strode off into his apartment, and then left through the front entrance.
As Rob heard her turning on her car and racing away, tires screeching a little, he felt helpless, stupid…and sad. His blue eyes, that Jan always called his "people-pleasing peepers" were now moist with tears and he had a terrible dull ache in his chest.
He thought to himself, “Dear God, I adore her... I love her so much... why can’t I do a better job of telling her?" His mind flashed to a few things he loved about her that weren’t exactly brother and sisterly, and he blushed. He spent many hours every day thinking about her, picturing her, and she was so clearly the most important thing in his life... and she didn’t know it?
The weed haze he ordinarily loved was annoying him now, blocking him from truly embracing whatever it was that he was feeling.
"Fuck! Fuck, fuck it!” he exclaimed in a whispery shout, and then started to sob. He momentarily pictured himself as the hero guy in a romantic movie who takes off running after his girl’s car, and actually catches up to it, pulls her out and kisses her passionately, telling her he does love her and will forever, and she cries as she allows his kiss to penetrate her soul. His arms moved as though he was wrapping them around her, leaning forward in the rusty green patio chair with the tubular white arms.
A cool breeze started blowing on this already cold, drizzly day, and Rob got up and went indoors, slamming the screen door.
***
It had been three years since the two had met, not all that long in terms of the big picture of one’s life. The view from the helicopter, Rob’s dad liked to call it. Ed Zanermann used to use that idea as a way to help Rob and Wendy not get too upset when something negative happened, such as when Marsha, their mom and his wife, suddenly, with no warning, left home, left Willard Notch, and even left New Hampshire, with Andy Hauser, her personal trainer (Ed, Rob, and Wendy all got to hate that slightly ironic title, and snickered when hearing it from anyone). Andy, who was only eight years older than Wendy (and "unbearably cute,”Wendy’s friends would say), had moved to Willard Notch the year before from Rochester, New York, and seemed to have made a beeline for Ed Zanermann’s beautiful wife. This all happened ten years ago.
"I know this must feel like a humongous tragedy in your lives right now—and in mine, too—but someday, when you’re looking at the big picture of your life from that helicopter in the sky, it won’t seem as big, and your lives will have so many other things happening, some good, mostly, and some bad, too. You’ll see it from a different perspective, and it won’t feel as awful as it does now. "
The first few times Ed told his kids that, he couldn’t help breaking into tears, but over the years all three of them managed to talk about it dry-eyed. Wendy and Rob were helped by lots of letters and occasional visits from their mom and Andy (with whom they still never felt comfortable), but their dad? Well, that was a different story. Everyone in Willard Notch all agreed that Ed Zanermann had never recovered from that big blow he received ten years earlier, and they were right.
It was now three years for Rob and Jan, and while it really only took him two months to know that she was the woman he wanted to marry and be with forever, it took her quite a bit longer.
She, as women tend to do, needed time to sort out some issues about Rob, in terms of what kind of father he would be (his role model, his dad, was a kind man, a sweet man, and one who certainly took his kids’ feelings more seriously than his deserting wife did), his career aspirations and life goals (she didn’t know those because he himself didn’t know them), his pot smoking, (which he appeared to have pretty well under control), and the kind of lover he was (which was very attentive and giving, and someone with whom she always felt safe). Over time she grew convinced she loved this good man, and knew she wanted to be his wife someday. So with Rob, what mattered was how much he wanted her, more than any other girl he had ever known, and with Jan it was what a good life partner he would make. They were both Jewish, although not very religious, and both families felt good about their being in an exclusive relationship.
Jan’s parents still seemed to be a happily married couple after twenty-two years of marriage, and both lavished lots of love and attention on their only child. Carl and Beverly Poschner were one of the most popular couples in Willard Notch, being very outgoing and active in the community, and while Beverly had served for thirteen years on the District 14 School Board, quitting only after Janice had gone off to UNH in Dover, Carl still served as the Menard County Commissioner of Public Safety, a role he truly relished. When there had been talk of Ed Zanermann going after Andy Hauser with a rifle, it was Carl who got to Ed and talked him out of it before the County Sheriff, Troy Dobson, got to him. Ed, who owned the town’s only men’s clothing store, eventually expressed to Carl his feelings of gratitude, but it took him a while. Since the big scandal years ago with Marsha and Andy, Ed had been rather subdued in any matters dealing with women and dating—unenthusiastic, people would say—but most also knew that he had a huge "soft spot" (or "hard on,” depending who was talking) for Beverly Poschner, a fact that had grown extremely awkward for him with the development of Rob’s and Jan’s romance. That Beverly tended to think of Ed only as a "very nice man" kept that awkwardness to a minimum, and neither Rob nor Jan knew anything of Ed’s secret yearning.
***
Jan was hoping Rob would call or text her or even come to the house, but she also knew how unlike him that would be.
She knew she would have to be the one to reach out, apologize for leaving so abruptly, and ask him how he was doing since their "talk". Only this time, she wasn’t sure she was going to do that. For once, she thought, he should "man up" and reach out to her, and if he wasn’t willing to do that, let there be silence... for as long as he needed to avoid her. Jan was keenly aware of how easy she had been making things for him over the course of their relationship. Too easy... so easy that he’s never had to come face to face with his feelings for her, and what losing her would mean to him. Perhaps it was time to change all that. Determined to resist reaching out to Rob, she called her best friend, Ashley Seznicky, and simply said, “I’m on my way over.”
Ashley Seznicky was considered by everyone to be the most beautiful young woman in Willard Notch. Her Polish father and Colombian mother had produced three gorgeous children, two drop dead gorgeous boys, and then Ashley. She was not in a relationship these days, but was developing a crush on Larry Boynton, Willard Notch’s premier athlete (quarterbacked three years at UNH and one of the best golfers in school history). Larry was a ruggedly handsome African American young man, and while powerfully built, was unusually gentle and respectful toward the many females pursuing him, many of whom wished he was less gentle with them. Being black in New Hampshire was not much different than in any other place, with a very mixed bag of experiences. While he was revered and rewarded whenever athletics was involved, long unpleasant stares and occasional racist remarks were common when one of Willard Notch’s supposedly virginal white girls (and clearly non-virginal women) was flirting with him. That complication had kept him rather low key about females when in town (although that beautiful Seznicky girl had begun to get his attention), and his only romance had been with a black girl in nearby Benson, a relationship that lasted a year until she and her family moved to Connecticut a year ago. As for sexual relationships, there had been a multitude of those on campus in Dover. He, like most other handsome college sports stars had a veritable playground spread out (pardon the pun) before him.
"So what’s goin’ on?” Ashley asked Jan, as they sat on a two-seater swing sofa on her front porch.
"Guess!” Jan retorted.
"Rob,” Ashley surmised. Jan responded only with a feeble smile.
***
Rob was sitting on the edge of his bed with his head in his hands, and still muttering to himself about being such a disgusting wimp with Jan. Thinking of losing her, of her rejecting him in disgust, was making him nauseous, literally... and he didn’t dare leave the house feeling that way. He knew he needed to call his dad at the store and tell him he wouldn’t be doing his usual late Wednesday shift at Zanermann’s Men’s Shop. Wednesday was the only night they stayed open until 9:00 in an attempt to push back a little at the Notch Mall’s big box stores that stayed open until 9:00 six nights a week. He felt bad about doing it because he knew his dad would then call Wendy, ask her to fill in for Rob, and she would say she couldn’t, that she had plans with her friends (probably a weed party) she couldn’t break.
Rob knew his dad would not argue with her, and not complain to her about having to work a twelve hour day. He never did either of those with Wendy. He always seemed to be afraid to fight with her, afraid she would shut him out, a fear he didn’t seem to have whenever he argued with Rob, which they did sometimes, but not that often. He knew his dad wouldn’t complain about long hours in the store, because ever since his wife ran off with that piece of "Handy Dandy Randy Andy Candy" as he like to call him, he sometimes seemed happier in the store than at home. With business down quite a bit, it could be deadly boring at the store, and Rob wondered how his dad spent his time in the often empty store. Rob knew his dad felt very attached to the store because his grandfather had started the business, and passed it on to Ed at a time when business was very good, and Ed never said a bad word about his father. Rob was aware that he himself was very connected to his dad, also, but he was never really aware of just how deeply.
Rob got an apple out of the refrigerator, and went back out to the porch, where he could still feel Jan’s aura.
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