Far-Flung by Peter Cameron Page B

town and shopped. Jane went for a walk on the bridle path, saw no horses, saw deer, came back to their room, packed their bags, and went down to the terrace and waited. When Ethan had not returned in an hour and a half she mentioned this to the hotel owner, Mr. Fitzgibbon. He told her the stores didn’t open till ten; her husband would return by eleven. At noon Mr. Fitzgibbon called the police in Dingle; they told him yes, an American had been in an accident. Driving on the wrong side of the road. Hit by a truck. Deader than—well, dead.
    I had been the best man at their wedding. I am—was—Ethan’s brother. I had introduced him to Jane Hobard, who had been my friend in college. I stood beside Ethan and watched Jane walk down the aisle. I gave him the ring; I gave it to him, and he gave it to Jane. I watched him slip it down her finger. I woke them at four o’clock the following morning and drove them down the deserted highways to the airport. I helped them unload their bags and then I left them. I kissed Jane good-bye, but I didn’t kiss Ethan. Did I shake his hand? Did I touch his shoulder? I don’t remember. Probably not.
    Jane did not come to the memorial service. She quit her job and moved to her parents’ house on an island in a lake in Canada. I sent her a letter and waited, but got no answer. The summer passed. The week before Labor Day, her brother, Teddy, called me at work in Washington.
    “Tom?” he said. “I have a mission that involves you.”
    “What?” I asked.
    “I have been instructed to bring you to Château Hobard this weekend. I am driving up Friday evening and I am not supposed to arrive without you. What are you doing this weekend?”
    “Nothing,” I said.
    “It’s Labor Day, you know,” said Teddy.
    “I know.”
    “And you don’t have plans?”
    “No. Well, I was going to Maryland, to my parents’. But … Is this Jane’s idea?”
    “Yes,” said Teddy.
    “How is she?” I asked.
    “I haven’t been up in a while. She doesn’t talk on the phone. Can you come? If you can get to New York Friday afternoon, I’ll drive you the rest of the way.”
    That night I told Charles about Teddy’s mission. “I take it,” Charles said, “that I wasn’t invited.”
    “Teddy didn’t mention you.”
    “Château Hobard,” Charles said. “Do they really call it that?”
    “Yes,” I said. “As a joke.”
    “Well, you should go,” said Charles. “You’ve been summoned.” Charles didn’t like Jane. I had made the mistake of telling him that if I weren’t gay I might have liked to marry Jane myself.
    “What will you do?” I asked.
    “Nothing,” he said. “But don’t feel that you’re abandoning me.”
    “You could go out to my parents’,” I said.
    “You mean spend the weekend with Chester and Ileen? At Chateau Kildare?”
    “Yes,” I said.
    “You are so wonderfully and pathetically naïve,” Charles said.
    Château Hobard was reached via a ferry from a small town called Big Bay. Teddy and I arrived there about three o’clock Saturday morning. We had breakfast in a diner and sat in the car, waiting for the first ferry. “Last summer I did this with Ethan,” Teddy said. “It was Labor Day, too.”
    “I remember,” I said. “It was when they got engaged.”
    “It’s a shame,” said Teddy.
    I didn’t say anything.
    “I taught him how to wind-surf that weekend. He was terrible.”
    “He wasn’t an athlete,” I said. “I got all the athletic genes.”
    “That’s funny,” said Teddy. After a while he fell asleep; at least he slumped forward and drooled. I liked Teddy. I reclined his seat and pushed him back into it; he woke for a second and smiled at me, wiped the spittle from his face, and fell back asleep. I got out of the car and walked through the deserted town, looking in the shop windows at the mannequins and lawn mowers and books. In the half-darkness they all looked vaguely alike. Everything seemed just on the verge of being alive, poised on