The Point of Vanishing - Maryka Biaggio (large ebook reader TXT) 📗

one side, and a sagging porch spanned its width. In front of the cabin, a treeless area spilled down to the sandy beach, some sixty feet away, where the lake lapped lazily at the shore.

“Nothing fancy, but it’s been in the family for almost forty years.” Nick pulled Helen’s suitcase out of the trunk and signaled them to follow him.

As they fell in behind Nick, Barbara looked up at the treetops playing against the soft blue sky and gauzy clouds. Needles crunched underfoot, and the scent of pine filled her nostrils. Two days with her mother, just two days, and then she’d escape the drag and drudge of her old life.

Her mother caught up to her and spoke, more to Nick than her. “What a charming spot.”

“My tent’s pitched over there.” Nick motioned toward a clearing thirty feet to the side of the cabin. “Some nights, I sleep under the stars.”

Inside, Barbara dropped her pack on a hand-hewn pine table and glanced around the cramped room. “Looks well outfitted.”

A built-in storage bench jutted from one wall. Beside it, a three-foot counter of pocked linoleum held a rust-stained sink with a hand pump perched over it. On the other side of the room, two cane-seat chairs and a clunky rocker clustered around a cast-iron stove.

“It’s cozy,” said Helen, smiling at Nick.

Nick motioned them to follow him down the short hall. “You two get the bedroom.”

An iron-frame bed with a faded quilt crammed against one wall. Opposite it stood a scratched-up pine dresser.

Helen looked around, her gaze landing on the candle on the dresser top. “I’m sure we’ll be quite comfortable.”

But Barbara knew her mother was probably thinking she’d miss having electricity to read by at night.

Nick placed Helen’s suitcase by the dresser and pointed down the hall. “That’s the bathroom. But it’s just a toilet and sink.”

Barbara looked out the bedroom’s rear window. A trail led to a clearing with a tin tub latched to a beam between two trees. “What’s that contraption?”

“A shower my father and I rigged up. There’s a watering spout welded on the other side. You let the sun warm the water and tip it with a cord. Not what you’d call luxurious, but it does the trick.”

“Speaking of which, I’m thirsty for some cold well water,” said Helen.

“I’ll pump us some,” Nick said, and they all headed to the main room.

“Then let’s go exploring,” said Barbara.

Helen brushed back the hair straggling over her brow. “You two go on ahead without me. I believe I’ll unpack and have a rest.”

At dusk, the three of them gathered around the fire pit outside the cabin. They munched on the cheese, now limp and sweating, and bread and apples Barbara and her mother had brought.

Helen, seated at the place of honor, the sturdiest of four homemade Westport chairs, sipped cocoa they’d warmed over the fire. “Tell me, Nick, how’d you come to study at Dartmouth?”

“My father graduated there. When the time came, he insisted I go, too.”

“What are your plans now?”

“I started looking for a job,” he said, hunching a shoulder. “But my father told me I’m too serious for my own good and ought to take a year to wander about.”

“How many classes did you take from Oxford Meservey?”

“Three. He was a wonderful professor.”

“Yes, I’m sure Barbara has told you how close our families are.”

Barbara frowned at her mother. “Of course, I have.”

Darkness had crept in, and Barbara watched the fire flicker over Nick’s arch, bushy eyebrows, accenting the square jut of his jaw and deep set of his eyes. His faux-sinister appearance filled her with deliciously daring pleasure.

Now, if only her mother would relax and enjoy the crackling fire. But no, she persisted with her questions.

“Did you have many literature courses? At one time, I knew all the faculty in the English department.”

“A few,” said Nick. “I especially remember Professor Peterson.”

“He must be new.” Helen smacked a mosquito on her neck. “Who are your favorite authors?”

Nick hesitated, as if weighing his choices, then blurted out, “I like that new writer, Dashiell Hammett. Especially The Maltese Falcon.”

“Oh? I’ve not read him.”

Helen might as well have rolled her eyes, Barbara thought, for all the disdain in her clipped response. She thumped her cup down on the arm of her chair and turned to Nick. “I’ll have to give him a try.”

Her mother barely missed a beat. “Do you want to teach, Nick?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Probably not. My cousin works at Polaroid, and he said they like to hire people in physics.”

“Have you applied to them?”

“No, my father told me to wait.” Nick dodged a swirl of campfire smoke. “After he finished college, he took a train to the West Coast and back. Said he learned more doing that than all his years at Dartmouth.”

Her mother angled her body to the side, looking askance at Nick. “And for you, that means hiking the Appalachian Trail?”

“Yes, and maybe some other travel after that.”

“Your mother’s not worried about you?”

Nick clapped his hands over his knees. “Mother’s got my little brother and sister to keep her busy.”

“Yes, well, it’s easier for young men to be on their own.”

Ugh, Barbara thought, here I am, striking out on a woodlands adventure and mother’s harping about school and work and obligations. Well, I’ll just have to distract and reassure her—better that than let her spoil my newfound freedom and friendship with Nick.

Over their campfire the next morning, Barbara took charge of the pancakes and served her mother first. When they hiked around the lake, she made a point of showing off her foraging prowess: “Look at that patch of wild strawberries” and “I’m looking forward to feasting on fiddlehead ferns boiled and fried with cornmeal.” As they contemplated the evening stars, she pointed out the constellations and explained how one could navigate by them as well on land as at sea. And to show off Nick’s scientist side, she drew him out on gravity and electricity and as many other topics as she could muster from