Halley and Martha twisted to look. Jack, standing under a broad maple for shade, turned our way. Andy was on the cabin porch, behind Stick, but listening. Gould and Hanson were over by the rowboats, holding oars; they weren’t facing us, but their backs were stiff and they were quiet.
Stick snorted. The sun was on his lined gaunt face, his prominent forehead shadowing his eyes. He put his hands in the same Bermuda shorts he had worn yesterday to the pool. “Okay,” he mumbled. “Forget it.”
“No,” I persisted in a loud annoyed tone. “Everybody here has been told you put me in authority. If that’s not true, then this is even more of a farce than you say it is—”
“I didn’t say it was a farce,” he complained. He raised his hand. “Enough. I made a mistake.”
“I want you to tell everyone what’s on your mind. Do you think I’m wasting your time?”
“I’m disappointed,” he said, taking his hands out of his pockets, turning away to the porch. He noticed Andy staring at him. Stick frowned, put a sandal on the cabin’s granite step, and rocked on the foot. “Disappointed by what?”
Stick took a long breath. He exhaled it as a sigh. “Doesn’t seem very original, that’s all.” He kicked the step with his heel, walked up to the porch, and sat on its banister.
“Original?” I was openly scornful. “What do you know about psychology? Your idea of psychology is to promise people raises.”
It was Hanson (I think, my back was to him) who couldn’t help but laugh — a very abbreviated laugh to be sure.
“I can cancel this,” Stick said, not in a threatening tone, an idle comment.
“Then we can name you Quitter,” I said. “Or maybe Welcher. How about Indian Giver?”
“I don’t believe in it, that’s all.”
“Oh!” I opened my arms and swiveled a half turn as I spoke each sentence, eventually taking them all in. “You don’t believe in it. So it must be worthless. There’s no doubt! If you don’t believe it, who will?” I appeared to have lost control.
“Nobody believes in it.” Stick got calmer in answer to my show of temper. He swung a leg, his leather sandal brushing the porch deck. He nodded toward the far shore. “We can humor poor Tim and call him Hunter, but we all know he’s …” Stick paused. He turned from the meadow to look at us. He saw me, of course, arms still out, sneering at him, but-he also realized the group was listening.
“He’s what?” I demanded. “Garbage? Something you can throw out whenever you want?”
“No, of course not. Don’t play games. I never said anything like that.” Stick stood up, stretched. “As long as we’re waiting by the pond, let’s take advantage of it. Jack, go ahead and get a rod. I’ll get towels and—”
“Scared to finish the conversation, aren’t you?” I asked. Stick’s thin lips disappeared altogether. He had come down to the granite step to give his orders and got stuck there.
“Make up your mind, Prince,” I said. “Who’s in charge? You told them I was. You promised them I was. Are you taking it back? Were you lying?”
Abruptly, Stick dropped his head in mock surrender and laughed. “Okay, you’re right. In for a penny, in for a pound.” He sat down on the step. “I apologize, Witch Doctor.” He was positively charming. “You’re in charge.”
“Good. Then finish your sentence. Tim is … what? If he’s not the Hunter, what is he?”
That sustained the tension he wanted to slacken. Stick glanced at Halley, saw only an impassive young woman, squinted at the sky and appeared to think. “He’s a nerd,” he said at last. No one laughed. Stick was surprised. After a moment of awkward silence, he tried a laugh, but it was more of a cackle. “I’m joking,” he added, lamely.
“Maybe that’s what we’ll call you,” I answered. “The Joker.”
A heavy silence followed. Human silence, that is. A loon called across the pond. Breezes rustled the maple above Jack’s head and rippled the water. I moved to the step, used it to help stretch my tight hamstring, and then sat down next to Stick. He stared at his sandals, smoothing his slick hair with both hands. I kept my eyes on him until he met them. His were dead, to prove to me that I hadn’t hurt him. Eventually, Gould and Hanson resumed their discussion of proper rowing technique in low voices. Martha groaned, rolled on her side, and said to Halley, “I know what I want my name to be.”
Halley smiled. She appeared completely at ease. “What’s that?”
“Mama Cass.”
“Oh, Martha—”
“Leech.”
“Sorry. You’re not fat, Leech.”
“I wasn’t talking about being fat, Miss — excuse it, I mean Prince Hal. I was talking about my beautiful singing voice.”
Meanwhile, Jack had idly strolled toward the porch. He asked Andy, who was backed against the cabin’s door, “Do you fish?”
“No.”
“You’d like it. Great for thinking through a problem …”
With three conversations going, I whispered into Stick’s ear in a rush, “I have to be the one to attack you. I’m acting out their secret resentments.” I looked at the others to check if anyone heard or noticed. They hadn’t.
Stick whispered, “You’re doing too good a job.”
I squeezed his shoulder. He suffered the contact, although he had to purse his lips to endure it. “Okay,” I called. “Everybody back in the cabin while we’re waiting.” There were protests — the day was sunny and mild, couldn’t we stay outside? I was stern and herded them in.
I told Martha to sit in front of the blackboard and ordered the others to face her.
“Since we’re going to have to rename everyone, maybe we’d better learn more about each other. I’m going to ask you questions, Martha. If you don’t want to answer a question, just say, ‘No,’ or, ‘No Comment,’ or, ‘Tuck off.’ If you want to answer partially, then answer partially. Understood?”
“Fuck off,” Martha said and there was long sustained laughter from everyone, including Stick.
“Okay, you’ve got the idea. How many diets have you tried, Martha?”
I had picked her because I was sure she would be facile at intimacies, even if they were mostly banal. She was. My questions merely asked for the surface of personal truth, convinced the core would be exposed anyway because of the earlier flexing of emotion. I had misbehaved, so had Tim. Our extravagance would encourage them to spend more of themselves than was typical. Martha, in fact, eventually made a deeply felt speech about the death of her father. By then, all of them had asked her questions, except, of course, for Stick.
I had moved Gould to the inquisition spot when we heard a voice calling from the pond. We rushed out to the cabin porch. Jonathan and Tim were in the rowboat, going in a circle for the most part, since Jonathan kept abandoning his oar to call, “I’m Trans …” and the rest was too faint to understand.
“He’s a transistor?” Gould asked.
Hanson yelled, “Pick up your oar or you’ll never get here!”
Eventually, they were close enough for us to hear, “I’m Translator.”
“Translator?” Martha called, openly skeptical.
“I make sure that man and machine can talk,” Jonathan explained.
Stick turned his back to the others. He rolled his eyes to show his contempt.
“The point is they worked it out,” I said.
“If I were you,” he mumbled, “I would break for lunch.”
I didn’t. I did provide lunch (prearranged to arrive in picnic baskets that were discreetly left at the head of the pond’s path to the hotel) but no break. I sent Martha across with Jonathan, returned Gould to his inquisition, and we proceeded in that manner, until all had been rechristened except for Halley, Stick, and me, and all had been questioned but for me and Stick. The sun crossed above and behind the cabin. The northern part of Green Mountain pond was dyed amber by the late afternoon sun when I sent Halley across to be named by Andy — but I am getting ahead of myself.