Tilting at Windmills Read online

  But I left that home on Wednesday morning with the idea of spreading my wings, seeing more of Columbia County, exploring what the Hudson River Valley had to offer its newest resident. With my Grand Am freshly washed and gleaming in the sunlight, I began to head out of town—before I met with a distraction almost immediately. Darla’s Trading Post and Marla’s Groceries were neighboring stores that shared the same building, and in front of it were several items on display that were meant to entice folks to pull over. One of the items was a spinning rack, filled with postcards.

  I pulled the car into the unpaved lot and shut off the engine.

  A woman was sitting outside the stores on a wooden bench that was chained to the building. Squinting through thick-lensed glasses, she stared at me, trying to figure out if she knew me or not. Not would have been the answer had she asked, but she didn’t. Just kept staring. She was probably my age, with a pear-shaped body and brown hair that fell halfway down her back.

  “Help you with something?” she asked me. “Something caught your eye, the way you suddenly stopped here. Maybe the lamp?”

  There were a few items set out on a folding table, one of them a lava lamp. The sticker quoted a price of twenty-five dollars.

  “Doesn’t quite go with my decor,” I replied, and she bristled with annoyance, clearly not happy that her amazing sales pitch didn’t work. Heck, a store like the trading post, I could be its only customer today, and so any savvy entrepreneur would make the best of the situation. Savvy wasn’t the word that came to mind to describe her, though.

  I moved beyond the table to the rack of postcards.

  “You like the postcards?” she asked.

  “Yes. How much?”

  “Gotta ask Marla,” she said.

  Oh, of course, the Gregory twins, Darla and Marla. I guessed that the one I’d been speaking to was Darla. George had filled me in the other night about various members of the Linden Corners business community, and the story that stuck with me the most was the one about the twins who went into business together. Darla owned the Trading Post, which was really just a collection of old junk and unwanted items that were resold for whatever price they might fetch. A handy store, George informed me, for setting up a new apartment on the cheap. Marla, on the other hand, owned the grocery store, which carried the staples of life—milk, eggs, cheese, cold cuts, soda, the like. In Linden Corners, this was the only convenience store I’d seen, so no doubt it did a fair business.

  The story went that the Gregory twins had separately expressed interest in taking over both stores, though neither could afford it alone. So they pooled their limited resources, each picked a store to run, and the rest was history. They’d grown up apart, one with the mother, one with the father, and reunited in high school—and started dressing alike and talking alike, just to get back at their parents. The story went that despite this battle plan, they never really bonded as most twins do, but habit had set in, and they were still together.

  Just then, Marla appeared in the doorway of the grocery store, no doubt having heard her name.

  “Hi,” she said, her voice friendly, more like that of other Linden Corners folk and less like her sister’s. But her look was exactly the same as Darla’s, the long hair, the pear-shaped body, the thick glasses. Identical twins. There was only one way to tell them apart—their demeanor. “I’m Marla Gregory; that’s my sister, Darla.”

  I introduced myself, and they nodded, acknowledging they’d heard of me, from Martha Martinson.

  “At the Five-O,” I said.

  Marla nodded approvingly. Darla frowned.

  For a couple minutes, I spun the rack while Marla chirped in with recommendations, and I ended up with three postcards that featured certain parts of the Hudson River Valley, including one aerial view of the river that was truly spectacular. Darla watched with contempt as her sister happily pointed to others.

  “Oh, this one down here is nice, more local than the river,” she said, indicating a card on the bottom rack. I crouched down to check it out and found, to my surprise, that it was a postcard of the windmill, one of just three left. The first had bent corners, but the other two were perfect and I grabbed them both, added them to the others, and brought them to Marla.

  “Five postcards—that’ll be a dollar thirty-five,” she said. “Come on in so I can ring you up.”

  I joined Marla in the grocery store, where I added a Coke to my purchase.

  “You know you’ve got two of the same here?” she asked me.

  “I know; that’s fine.”

  She gazed up at me through her thick glasses. “You like windmills?”

  “I like that windmill.”

  “Beautiful thing, isn’t it? Can’t tell you how many people stop in for a cold drink, tell me they had to stop ’cause of that windmill. Only one in the valley, so it’s unique, you know? These cards were done a few years back, so you’re getting the last of them.”

  I noticed that Darla had gotten up, listening to our exchange from the edge of the store. She hadn’t stepped inside. “If you ask me, that windmill’s just a creaky old thing that doesn’t serve any purpose.”

  “What purpose should it serve?” I asked, my tone somehow defensive.

  “Well, heck, the thing don’t work—hasn’t for years.” She paused, as though waiting for me to challenge her. I wouldn’t take the bait. She wasn’t going to win this argument.

  “Darla, leave the nice man alone, will you? Couldn’t sell him that lava lamp, don’t take it out on him. Or on the windmill.” To me she added, “Darla doesn’t always appreciate the beauty in life.”

  Darla seemed to take that as a challenge. “Uh, Mr. . . . you know what, don’t leave yet. I think I’ve got something for you after all in my store.”

  “That’s really not necessary . . .”

  But apparently she thought it was, and she left me with Marla, who was rolling her eyes at her sister’s attempt to win my favor. Competition was tough between ordinary siblings; these two had raised it to an art form.

  A couple of minutes went by before she came back, still not stepping into her sister’s store, her hands hidden behind her back, a satisfied grin on her face. She thrust out her prize with great dramatic flair, and I stepped back in surprise. “Oh . . .” I said, staring at her found treasure. “What is it?”

  “Silly, it’s a windmill! You said you liked them.”

  I suppose I had, and I suppose it was. This was a child’s toy, made of a series of colorful pieces of foil, curled outward and then woven together at the center. Darla held it by a long stick. “You hold it to the wind and the wheel turns. Just like a windmill. Sure, it’s not like that fancy windmill over the hill, but it’s your very own.”

  “I think I’m a little old for it, don’t you think?”

  She wasn’t going to be satisfied until she’d made the sale. “There must be some little girl in your life you’d like to give it to. What do you say, Windmill Man—five dollars?”

  Darla’s use of the name Windmill Man took me by total surprise. This was silly, really, all this talk of the windmill and my association with it. Before coming to Linden Corners, I’d never even given windmills any thought, and apparently it was fast becoming an obsession I had little control over.

  “Three dollars,” I found myself saying, and then heard Darla’s loud voice accepting the deal, like an overeager auctioneer. Marla stood there, obviously not pleased to have had her sale undermined by Darla’s preying on my sympathies. She jumped in with her own offer.

  “You want, I’ll give you a pen and you can fill out your postcards now, and for a small fee I’ll take care of mailing them. I got stamps.”

  “That’s very kind of you, Marla,” I said, much to her pleasure.

  Ten minutes passed as I filled out two of the postcards, one to my family back in Philadelphia and one to John Oliver back in New York. Since I’d been gone, I’d sent him several postcards, from Niagara Falls, from Toronto, from other sights along the
way, keeping my friend informed of my whereabouts without having to call. He got one of the windmill postcards; the other, I kept for myself.

  I finished my business with the Gregory twins and left them to their bickering about who had made more money on their individual sales (Marla had, but only because of her clever mail scam). As I headed out of town, I drank the Coke I’d bought. Three miles later, I turned the Grand Am off onto a narrow, two-lane stretch of road. On either side of me were wide-open fields and the occasional driveway leading to a house that couldn’t be seen from the road. I was driving slowly, enjoying my surroundings and not really in a rush to get anyplace in particular. It was this aimless wandering that had led me to Linden Corners, and I saw no reason to alter my habits.

  A sharp incline was up ahead, and I pressed hard on the accelerator for more power. Atop the hill, I saw a mailbox on my left, noticed the name SULLIVAN painted on it, and wondered if this was Annie and Janey’s driveway. I remembered the child’s windmill Darla had made me buy, and I thought it would be a nice gift for Janey—and perhaps a peace offering to Annie.

  So without much further thought, I turned the car off the road and up the driveway, riding the bumpy dirt path until I emerged from under a gathering of low-hanging trees. Before me stood a large farmhouse, a pointed turret perched atop the second floor and a wraparound porch hugging the main structure. Painted white with sky blue trim, the house was beautifully and lovingly restored.

  I pulled in beside the truck that was there, got out of my car, grabbed the toy windmill, and then wondered exactly what it was I was doing here. Annie Sullivan had made clear her opinion of me in the parking lot of the fruit stand. In front of witnesses, she called me a stranger, the nearest thing to a curse word in Linden Corners. And here I was, dropping by for an unannounced visit based on a whim. And a windmill.

  I pushed all nervousness aside and hopped up the couple of steps to the porch, then rang the bell. A deep chime sounded throughout the house, and I heard the scrape of a chair against the floor. Someone was coming.

  That someone was Annie, of course, looking not unlike I’d first seen her, wearing clothes that were splattered with paint. The expression on her face was similar, too, a mixture of annoyance and curiosity, at least as far as I could see through the screen door. Annie stared at me without saying a word. I’d come by and rung the bell. Now what? Now what, indeed.

  With sudden inspiration and a bit of a flourish, I pulled the toy windmill out. I said nothing, and didn’t need to, as a passing breeze caught the windmill’s spokes, making them spin and spin. Perfect timing, I had to admit.

  Annie’s taut expression suddenly softened, and she smiled with obvious and unexpected delight.

  “What am I going to do with you?” she asked, annoyance giving way to a tinge of a grin.

  Her question was rhetorical, I assumed, because she failed to offer up an answer, and so did I, opting instead for a placating shrug. Since our acquaintance had gotten off on the wrong foot, I figured the less said, the better. So I stood in silence, waiting for her to make the next move. Closing the door on me probably came to mind. Instead, I found myself hearing an invitation for coffee.

  Having just had a Coke, I wasn’t thirsty. “I’d love some coffee,” I said.

  Annie opened the screen door and led me through a tastefully decorated hallway, past a cherrywood grandfather clock and an assortment of knickknacks on the wall, and we emerged into a country-style kitchen that spoke of warmth and family, with rich baking smells and the aroma of fresh-brewed coffee filling the air. She offered me a chair, but I opted for leaning against the island in the middle of the room, and accepted a steaming cup of black coffee. Coffee’s taste can often be a disappointment to me, especially after its rich smell, but here, I was rewarded with a superior cup, and I told her so.

  “Thanks. I’m addicted. All day long, cup after cup. It’s any wonder I sleep.”

  We both drank, and an awkward silence fell over us.

  “Where’s Janey?” I asked.

  “School. Second grade—it’s hard to believe it.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Of course she’s in school. I forget, sometimes, what time of year it is.”

  “It’s spring,” she reminded me, “and so last week was spring break—she had the days to herself.”

  “What, no Daytona Beach for her?”

  “She’s seven,” she informed me, but she knew I’d been kidding. Still, we’d exhausted this particular avenue of conversation, and again, we were left with silence. We sipped our coffee simultaneously, exchanged mutual grins, and immediately went back to the safety of sipping.

  “So . . . you’re being nice to me,” I said after a while.

  She paused before setting the cup down. She wore a conciliatory expression. “Yes, well, I suppose I owe you an apology.”

  “No, no—I was just kidding you . . .”

  “Really, Brian, you’ve been nothing but kind—caring, too, and, I have to say, quick on your reflexes. My actions the other day over at the fruit stand were horrible, the way I lashed out at you. I drove home cursing myself—silently, of course. Can’t be too careful around a seven-year-old.”

  “Must be a fun age.”

  “Fun is one word,” she said, with a hint of sarcasm. “Impressionable is another.”

  “A real handful, huh?”

  “You tell me—you’ve seen her in action,” Annie said, setting down her coffee mug. It had a windmill design, I noted, just like mine.

  “May I ask you a question, Brian Duncan? Without your thinking me rude?”

  “That’s a loaded question—but sure. You’ve intrigued me.”

  “Who are you?”

  I might have taken offense at such a blunt question, except her tone wasn’t accusatory. Rather, she was genuinely curious about me; here I was, this stranger who had come from nowhere and managed to become a fixture in her daughter’s life.

  “Just some guy who happened to be passing through,” I said, using the description Martha had bestowed on me. “A man who got lured in by the simple life. This place, Linden Corners, has quite a pull on strangers, or at least it has on me.”

  “How long have you been here?”

  “Barely a week,” I said. “I’d never even heard of Linden Corners until I drove through it that day we, uh, met. I was on my way from one place and headed for another, and I guess timing was on my side. I stopped for lunch at the Five-O, and next thing I know, I’m taking a room at the Solemn Nights and working at Connors’ Corners as a relief bartender—a job I don’t exactly have much experience with.” I shrugged. “Kind of odd, if you think about it. And to tell you the truth, it’s your fault.”

  “Mine?”

  “Well, Janey’s.”

  “Janey’s?”

  “Well, actually, the windmill’s.”

  The corners of her mouth widened at the mention of the windmill, giving her face a pleasant glow. “How exactly did my windmill influence you?”

  How indeed? I told her I couldn’t say, that it was more of a feeling, really. There I was just innocently driving down a road, no idea which road I was on or where I was going, just . . . driving, and next thing I know there’s this amazing sight before me, this windmill, and I described the sensation that washed over me, of slipping through time to a world unlike any I’d known before. All the while, she listened with great intent, taking in my enthusiasm and nodding when I spoke of the windmill’s elusive and magical hold.

  When I finished, Annie said to me, “Are you in a hurry?”

  “These days, I’m never in a hurry,” I replied.

  “Would you like to see my windmill?”

  “I’ve seen the windmill,” I said.

  “Let me rephrase it, then,” she said. “Would you like to go up inside my windmill? Come on—it’ll be fun. I haven’t shown it in a long time, and it’s high time I did.”

  “You keep calling it your windmill,” I said, “and you speak of it with such passion,
Annie. Such energy. It must be true what I’ve heard—you really are the woman who loves the windmill.”

  “That’s a silly old name,” she said, though clearly she was pleased to have heard it again, “and it was given to me by a man so sweet and wonderful and caring, he gave me two amazing gifts. The windmill and—”

  “And Janey,” I said. “You sound like you miss your husband very much.” I paused, seeing the smile on her face waver slightly, and a feeling of remorse swept over me. “Oh, Annie, I’m sorry if I’ve intruded. . . . Can’t seem to get away from doing that, huh? So, well, maybe it’s time I left. There’s this thing I had planned . . .”

  “Brian, please—you haven’t upset me, if that’s what you’re worried about. It’s just . . . well, let’s say we drop the subject. Forget whatever you had planned—which I don’t believe for a minute—and let me show you my windmill.”

  So I accepted her offer, and without further delay she took me out the back door and into the fresh morning air. Above us, the sun was almost at high noon, and its rays cast a long, languid shine all around us, reflecting off the expansive lawn and exposing hidden golden flecks in Annie’s chestnut-colored hair. As we walked, Annie spoke about the day, talking about how the rain had delayed her hopping on the mower and slicing through the long grass.

  “Maybe tomorrow,” she said.

  “Are you sure I’m not keeping you from your work?” I asked. “It’s a big lawn and probably takes you a while. Plus, you look like you were in the middle of something.” I indicated her shirt, the paint splatters.

  “Oh, that . . . well, I suppose you’ll see for yourself,” she answered, but said nothing further on the subject.

  To get to the windmill we had to walk across the lawn, past the barn and a sandbox and a swing set that looked handmade, thick pieces of dark wood held together with strong metal fixtures. Once beyond the confines of the house and yard, we steadily climbed a small hill that, from our perspective, meshed with the distant horizon at its top. At its top, though, we had a magnificent view of the valley, its velvety lawns and small forests of trees, its homes and barns and silos. The countryside revealed a world lush and welcoming. And in the center of it all, in a deepening valley, unlike any other object in our vision, stood the windmill. Lonely and majestic, its sails turned slowly, nearly at rest in the cool calm of this glorious spring day.