I eat my pie, and we head back to Stillhouse Lake.
That afternoon, I take a short walk up the hill to the neat little rustic box of Sam Cade’s place and knock. It’s 3:00 p.m., which around the lake seems a reasonable time to come calling, and sure enough, I catch him in the cabin.
Sam seems surprised to see me, but he manages to keep it polite. He hasn’t shaved, and the golden stubble on his chin glints in the light. He’s got on a lightweight denim shirt, old jeans, and waffle-stomper boots, and he waves me inside as he heads back toward the kitchen I can clearly see over a pass-through counter. “Sorry,” he says. “Close it, will you? I’ve got pancakes to turn.”
“Pancakes?” I echo. “Seriously? At this hour?”
“Never too late or too early for pancakes. If you don’t believe that, you can turn around and go, because we are never going to be friends.”
It’s a funny, quirky thing to say, and I find myself laughing while I’m closing the door behind me. The laugh dies as I realize I’ve stepped inside a cabin with a man I hardly know, and the door is closed, and anything can happen now. Anything.
I take a quick look around. It’s small, and he doesn’t have much: a couch, an armchair, a laptop parked on a small wooden desk that fits in the corner. The laptop’s lid is up, and the display shows one of those northern lights wavy screensavers. Sam has no television that I can see, but a nice vinyl stereo setup, with an impressive record collection that must be hell to move with. Bookcases on one wall, crammed full. Not the lifestyle I’ve developed, where nothing is cherished or necessary. I get a real sense of him having . . . a life. Small, self-contained, but real and vital.
The pancakes smell delicious. I follow him into a small galley kitchen and watch as he teases one loose from the pan and flips it in the air with the showmanship and dexterity of someone who’s practiced that move a lot. It’s impressive. He puts the pan back on the gas fire and gives me an unguarded smile. “So,” he says. “You like blueberry pancakes?”
“Sure,” I say, because I do, not because of the smile. I am immune to the smile. “That offer you made about helping me out with the house―is that still on the table?”
“Absolutely. I like working with my hands, and that roof needs replacing. We can negotiate a good price.”
“If the blueberry pancakes are your negotiating move, it might not work. I ate pie today.”
“I’ll take my chances.” He watches the pancake that’s on the fire and removes it when it’s perfectly toasted. It gets added to a pile of three already done, and he hands me the plate.
“No, no, you made those for you!”
“And I’ll make some more. Go on, eat. They’ll just get cold while I make the next set.”
I use the butter and syrup set out on the table, and when he says it’s fine, I pour myself a cup of coffee from the pot that’s on the warmer. It’s strong, and I add a swirl of sugar.
I’m halfway through the pancakes—and damn they are warm, fluffy, and tasty, with sweet/tart bursts of flavor from the fresh blueberries—when he pulls up a chair across from me and gets his own coffee. “They’re okay?” he asks.
I swallow the bite I’ve taken and say, “Where the hell did you learn to cook? These are amazing.”
He shrugs. “My mom taught me. I was the oldest, and she needed the help.” Something comes across his face when he says that, but he’s looking down at the pancakes, and I can’t tell if it’s wistfulness, or a sign that he misses her, or something else entirely.
Then the moment’s gone, and he digs in with real appetite.
Works with his hands, loves to cook, decent to look at . . . I start to wonder why he’s on his own out here at the lake. But then, not everybody conforms to the love/marriage/baby life path. I don’t regret my kids. I only regret the marriage that produced them. Still, I can understand the lonely, solitary life better than most.
And how harshly others can judge it.
We eat in companionable silence for the most part, though he asks me about the budget for the roof and discusses the possibility of putting a nice deck on the back of the house, which is something I’ve been thinking of in my rich fantasy life. It’s a big step—not just repairing the house, but actually improving it. It sounds suspiciously like putting down real roots. We haggle easily over the roof repair pricing, and I balk at the deck.
Commitment is not my strong suit. Nor, I suspect, is it Sam Cade’s, because when I ask how long he’s going to be around, he says, “Not sure. My lease is up in November. I might be heading on. Depends on how I feel. I like the place, though, so we’ll see.”
I wonder if he’s including me in the place. I scan him for signs of flirting, but I don’t read any. He seems like a human dealing with a human, not a man sniffing around after a maybe-available woman. Good. I’m not looking for a relationship, and I can’t stand pickup artists.
I finish my pancakes before him and, without asking, take my sticky plate and fork and cup to the sink, where I hand-wash them squeaky clean and put them on the drain board. There’s no automatic dishwasher. He doesn’t say anything until I reach for the cooled pan and the batter bowl.
“No need,” he says. “I’ll take care of that, but thanks.”
I take him at his word and turn to look at him as I dry my hands on a lemon-yellow dishtowel. He seems perfectly at ease, focused on his pancakes, which are on the verge of disappearing.
I say, “What are you really doing here, Sam?”
He arrests the motion of his fork and leaves the pancake bite dripping syrup in the air for a few seconds, then deliberately finishes the journey to his mouth. He chews, swallows, takes a deep swig of coffee, and then puts his fork down to push back in his chair and meet my gaze.
He looks honest. And a little pissed.
“Writing. A. Book. I think the question is, what are you?” he asks me. “Because damn if I don’t think you’ve got a hell of a lot of secrets, Ms. Proctor. And maybe I shouldn’t get involved, even if it’s just climbing all over your roof for money. Your neighbors don’t know much about you, you know. Old Mr. Claremont ’round the lake, he says you’re skittish. A little standoffish. I can’t say I disagree with him, even if you did sit like a good guest and eat my pancakes and make decent conversation.”
His response, I think, is a marvel of deflection. I feel defensive, when just an instant ago I was on offense, hoping to score some kind of telling reaction in the event that Sam Cade isn’t who he claims to be. Instead, he’s turned the mirror on me and put me on my back foot, and I . . . admire that. Don’t trust it, per se, but oddly enough I give him points for it.
I’m almost amused as I say, “Oh, I’m standoffish, all right. And as to why I’m here, I guess it’s none of your business, Mr. Cade.”
“Then let’s just keep our mysteries, Ms. Proctor.” He scrapes up some syrup and sucks it off the fork, then carries his dishes toward the sink. “Excuse me.”
I step aside. He washes things with efficient motions, takes on the batter bowl and the pan and spatula. I let the running water fill the silence, cross my arms, and wait until he shuts the tap off, slots items in the drain board, and picks up the dish towel to dry off. Then I say, “Fair enough. I’ll see you tomorrow about the roof. Nine in the morning all right?”
His expression, still calm and mobile and unreadable, doesn’t shift much when he smiles. “Sure,” he says. “Nine it is. Cash the end of every day until I’m done?”
“Sure.”
I nod. He doesn’t make an effort to shake my hand, so I don’t offer, and I let myself out. I walk down the steps of his cabin and pause on the downhill winding path to take in a slow breath of thick lake air. It’s muggy and heavy out here in the slow Tennessee heat. When I let my breath out, I still smell the pancakes.
He really is an amazing cook.