An Eastergaard Appears

the seventh chapter in the "She Died with Two Subscribers" series

photo credit to David Halpert

Happiness can make a cabin seem sturdier, a job more tolerable and a garnet 1984 Buick Skyhawk appear to run like new.

Or so Will Northcutt thought as the red heart of his Skyhawk pulsated through the roadways of Masardis on his way back to Oxbow. He was returning to his cabin after work on the Tuesday following his magical date with Nadine Nadeau. Each night since then, he’d fallen asleep with the image of her smiling at him, her wavy chestnut hair blowing behind her as they held pinkies together while sitting crosslegged on her faded green picnic blanket.

To tell the truth, he hadn’t slept too well since then, but it was a good type of tired. Work had flown by the past two days. When his coworkers occasionally tried to engage him in idle chatter, he was even less present than he normally was.

As he motored down—or up and down would be a more accurate term given the hills and dips in the dirt combined with the Skyhawk’s lackluster suspension—the roadway leading to his cabin, Will approached the Eastergaard residence which had lain dormant since the police had cordoned it off many months ago after they closed their investigation.

Weeds and saplings have a tendency to act with surprising alacrity to shield abandoned dwellings from the general public. True to form, young locust trees had sprouted from nowhere on the periphery of the stately but aged pale blue Victorian home, and young invasive honeysuckles had emerged to link arms in the driveway as if to say that “this property now belongs to the wild.”

Will had become accustomed to see nothing except the house, with some yellow and black police tape still stretched across the front door, and the yellow sunflower Volkswagen bus sitting where Mrs. Eastergaard had parked it after her final ride on planet Earth.

It was an uncommonly warm day for early May, and the Skyhawk’s air conditioner had not even been impressive when the vehicle first rolled off the assembly line in Leeds, Missouri over four decades ago. These days, it lisped lukewarm air in Will’s face as he rode over the endless bumps in the lumpy spine of the road, so he rolled down the window to allow the heat to escape.

It was then that he saw it—a second vehicle was parked behind Mrs. Eastergaard’s Volkswagen sunflower bus. It was a black Buick Century, likely circa 2000. He also noticed that the police tape had been removed from the front door.

He slowed down as he approached the stretch of the road that bisected the Eastergaard driveway. He could not see a human, just the Century. He stopped his car and thought about whether he should go in and introduce himself to the new occupant.

He was a loner, so he generally did not welcome unexpected intrusions. In fact, in the half year or so that he’d lived in his cabin, aside from Stevie Perrault coming to give him a ride to work during nasty weather, he’d only encountered a few hunters transiting through his land. He’s not sure that he’d react warmly to an uninvited guest.

While he pondered whether to tap the accelerator and motor onward, the front door opened and a woman stared at him, shielding her eyes from the sun in a sort of salute. She was tall—extremely tall—with a statuesque build and long straight blonde hair. She waved at Will.

Will saluted back at her. She then made a motion to beckon him to the house, but remained standing on the landing above the front stairs.

Will shifted his car into park and turned off the engine. He climbed out of his Skyhawk and walked across the slates that had sizable weeds sprouting around them as he neared the front steps.

As he drew closer, he could see that his initial impression of her height was faulty. He had underestimated her stature by quite some measure. Will was a shade over six foot tall. This woman had to be at least a few inches taller than him.

She looked to be in her early thirties. Will could see no dark roots in her long blonde hair that fell as far as her waist, leading him to believe that the color of her locks was natural. She wore a blue shirt with the white silhouette of a volleyball player on it and the word The Great Dane printed in red block letters across her ample chest. She stood a few paces outside the Eastergaard front door, hands on hips, as she watched him approach.

As he climbed the steps that lead to the landing on which she stood, Will smiled at her and extended his right hand to shake hers. She stepped toward Will to accept his right hand with hers. “I’m Will, your neighbor,” he said as he greeted her.

As she moved forward and they grasped hands, she appeared to trip and lurched forward. Will tried to prevent her from stumbling, but wound up falling backward due to her momentum, and momentarily teetered on the edge above the four steps that led from the front path to the front porch.

The tall woman grabbed his right shoulder with her left hand to help him steady himself, but Will was already falling backward. As he fell, his body turned and she came with him, the duo spinning twice in rapid succession like champion ballroom dancers before Will fell hard on his back with her on top of him.

The speed at which they fell resulted in the tall woman landing on top of Will with the force of her full weight, knocking the wind out of him and slamming his head against one of the large slates.

He lost consciousness for a few moments and, as his eyes fluttered open, he could not see anything since her blond tresses formed a canopy around his face. Her large bosom pressed into him as he struggled to regain his breath and he felt her hands tighten around his as her full lips pressed into his.

“I know,” she said underneath the blonde canopy that enveloped them like a sunflower-hued shroud.

“Know what?” asked Will, as he turned his head to free himself from her lips. He gasped as air began to flow into his lungs again.

“That you’re Will!” she chuckled, as she looked into his brown eyes. Hers were green.

“And who are you?”

“I’m the great Dane!” she smiled at him. “Dane Eastergaard!” she said.

He wondered how she could be so comfortable lying on top of a grown man that she’d never met before.

“I need to, need…” said Will, as he tried to push himself up and extricate himself from the full force of Dane Eastergaard.

“You’ve got needs?” laughed Dane. “You’re just like every other guy!” She still was clutching his hands.

More air flowed into Will’s lungs. “I need to sit up!” he whispered, as he still hadn’t recaptured his full voice.

Dane leaned back and released his hands, removing the weight of her breasts from Will’s chest and allowing him to push his arms behind him and prop himself up to a degree. Dane still sat astride his midsection, unable or unwilling to fully free him.

He drew in several deep breaths, and felt his head beginning to clear as Dane eyed him.

“Is this how you greet all of your neighbors?” she smiled rather seductively.

“I was just trying to catch you,” Will said, wondering if she’d decided to indefinitely hold him in place.

She was not some small daisy that he could just turn his hips and extricate himself from her. Given that she was two maybe three inches taller than him and full-figured, she was probably only about twenty pounds less than him and still had him effectively pinned. The only way he could shake loose without her consent was to push her, and he would never push a woman.

“Sure you were. Looked to me that you just wanted to drag me down to the ground with you,” Dane smiled. “Well you got your wish.”

“My wish is to get up and clear my head.”

Dane reluctantly moved her hips, and got up. She was very graceful for her size. She reached a hand to help Will get to his feet. He was reluctant to take it. “C’mon. I’ll just trust that you’re done wrestling with girls today!” she said as she smiled at him.

Will took her hand and she helped him up. Although unstuck from Dane, he was covered from burrs from the weeds that they had tumbled into. Why I am always getting into messes with women? Will thought. Even the female plants latch onto me despite my desire to just be left alone.

“Come inside,” said Dane. “You look hot and thirsty.”

It sounded more like an order than an invitation.

A minute later, Will was sitting at Mrs. Eastergaard’s kitchen table, looking forlornly at the bottle of maple syrup on the counter—the one that he’d hoped Dane’s grandmother would have used a half year ago when she’d invited him to join her for a breakfast of maple pancakes that they’d planned to share in this very room.

Dane moved gracefully to the fridge and removed a pitcher of lemonade. She poured Will a tall glass of lemonade and one for herself. The glasses perspired just like Will, perhaps sharing his uneasiness at Dane’s physically aggressive bent. She looked at him like an entomologist studies a beetle under a glass.

Will decided to break the uncomfortable silence. “How’d ya know I’m Will?”

Dane smiled, and closed her eyes. “Just because an elderly woman lives out here in the middle of nowhere, doesn’t mean that she doesn’t have loved ones with eyes on her.” The Great Dane took a big swig of her lemonade and some droplets fell on her chest.

“And how does that implicate me?”

“My brother helped her to set up her Substack since he’s a tech geek. Then he was done with grandma. Not me. I was closer to her than anyone in the family. She was my fave person ever.”

Dane paused. All of a sudden she somehow looked smaller—and vulnerable. A single tear formed and hung precariously in the corner of her right eye.

She looked away from Will. Her eyes fixated at some spot up on the far wall where a picture of a middle-aged Ernie and Astrid Eastergaard hung, showing them dangling their feet off the end of a wharf.

“She was very lonely after Grandpa died. They’d done everything together since they were teenagers. Everything.”

Dane brought her eyes back down to meet Will’s. The tear was still stuck in the corner of her eye, waiting to be dabbed or to liberate itself. But just like when he fell in a heap on the Eastergaard front path, it couldn’t free itself. Will respectfully waited for Dane to regain her composure.

“I previously told Grandma that she should journal after Gramps died. But then when Substack came along, it was a chance for her not just to record her daily doings but to share them with us grandkids.” The tear in the corner of her eye quivered, plump and full, but remained stuck.

“That was a nice idea,” Will said and then took another drink of the lemonade.

“In theory, yes,” Dane shook her head. “But the problem was that my brother Kenny and me were so busy with our own lives that we didn’t hardly pay attention to Grandma. When Grandpa died, Kenny struggled with it, and he tuned out. He never called her. I called initially, but honestly I petered out. The Substack idea was a bit of a cop out. I could check on her being O.K. without calling. But I never responded to any of her notes.”

“It’s hard,” said Will. “I can’t say I call my parents much. And when they call me, it often never occurs to me to remember that I should ask them how they’re doing.”

“We’re generally all guilty,” Dane nodded. “Anyhow, I wasn’t paying much attention to what she wrote on Substack for the first month or two since she was just basically stating the obvious things she was doing like making pancakes for breakfast, and I already knew her routine.”

“Fair enough,” said Will. He’d now drained his lemonade as the whole ordeal with being tackled by The Great Dane had dehydrated him.

“But then I checked some weeks later and saw that someone had finally responded to one of her posts—you,” Dane looked at Will and the pregnant tear finally dropped and splattered on the table.

“I was wondering who this guy was that was chatting with my grandma. He seemed harmless, actually quite charming and playful.”

“Um, I’m not sure that’s really the case,” shrugged Will, uncomfortable at the compliment

Dane continued as if Will had not spoken. “I decided to check you out just in case to ensure that Grandma was safe. It was easy to do, as I followed your Substack info to Google, and saw you were a roofer and a writer, and also, ahem, a bit easy on the eyes.”

Will knew that at thirty-five, divorced and dating another woman, he should not blush in any way, shape or form. And yet he did.

“Aw, you’re blushing!” said Dane, relishing Will’s reaction and, to his horror, prompting him to become as garnet as his Skyhawk. She pointed her right shoe and gently nudged his pants leg under the table, and he quickly withdrew his leg.

“I’m actually dating someone now,” offered Will, as if to put a garlic necklace around himself that might ward off the vampirish Dane.

“Sure you are,” said Dane, playfully. “Of course, when I got word of Grandma’s death, I wondered whether you were all so innocent and kicked myself for not coming out here personally at any point to visit her before she passed. But the police and coroner were all very clear that it was a natural causes situation.”

“It was tragic. Other than spotting her in Mama Lou’s my first time there, I never personally met her or spoke to her, and yet I felt I had built this amazing personal connection with her.”

“I know. It was obvious in the ongoing dialogue the two of you had.”

“And when I found her that morning, my excitement over finally meeting her for breakfast turned into horror—and grief.” Will paused, trying not to grow a tear himself. “I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but I felt guilty. I felt this tremendous sense of loss in the aftermath of your grandma’s death, yet I barely mourned my own grandparents when they died.”

“I can relate,” said Dane. “She was a special woman—quite complex and often contradictory, but joyful, robust and very real.”

“Indeed,” said Will. “I don’t pretend to understand anything about people, including myself. Some folks you just never can connect with no matter how hard you try. Others you have a longtime connection to, but you just drift away from because you’re just sailing through life and you change and grow apart from them. And some, like her, there is just some magical connection that is organic, and it just happens effortlessly.”

Dane leaned in toward Will, and put her head on her hands as she gazed into his eyes. “I think we had a magical connection earlier today,” she purred at him. “I know you felt it too.”

Will averted his eyes, and stood up. “I’m happy to make your acquaintance, Dane. And eager to be a good neighbor. But like I said, I’m in a relationship.”

“So you said,” smiled Dane. “I’ve inherited this place, and work remotely. My door is always open to you.”

“Many thanks for that, and the lemonade,” Will said as he stood up.

He reached out his hand to shake hers, and she drew him nearer with a strong pull. This time Will was ready and didn’t let her drag him down.

“Sure thing,” Dane said, as he turned and walked out the door. Will felt perspiration, and her eyes, moving down his back as he moved down the steps.

That night, Will sat at his rough-hewn maple desk, trying to compose a message to Nadine Nadeau.

His thoughts were complicated by what had transpired earlier in the day with Dane Eastergaard. He had literally been dragged into a situation that felt somewhat dangerous and that he was not fully in control of.

Should he tell Nadine about what had happened? Was it really necessary to do so? He’d done nothing wrong. But what if he didn’t tell her and then Dane ran into Nadine?

Dane did not appear to respect personal boundaries and she didn’t seem like someone who would refrain from spilling out their (possibly) accidental physical contact to anyone she might encounter in town. And the town was so dang small, everyone knew everybody else.

She apparently was setting up shop in the Eastergaard home. So she wasn’t going anywhere. And she apparently had designs on him, for whatever reason. So maybe he should call Nadine right now and confess.

Well wait a second! Will thought. That would probably be a colossal mistake, and make him sound guilty. It’s probably also the best way to ruin the wonderful ambrosia generated by their third and best date—the picnic. Why would he even think that this would be a sane thing to do?

Yes, it was probably best to just ignore the whole thing, and just deal with it as “not a big deal” if and when it came up in the future. Yes, that’s it, Will thought. Except is Nadine really going to buy that Dane dragged Will to the ground and then pinned him underneath her body, kissed him on the lips, and then held him there for minutes?

Will started to sweat, even though he was cold. Why were relationships so hard? Why was he so bad at them? Could it have something to do with his being so hopelessly indecisive?

He decided to do what he always had done in the past in these situations—call his sister, Charlotte. Charlotte was his go-to expert on all things female. And about fifty percent of the time, her read on such situations turned out to be correct. This was at least a twenty-five percent improvement on his track record of success in navigating relationships with the other gender. So calling her was a no-brainer.

A half hour later, after he’d spilled the beans, a female voice sighed on the other end of the phone.

“Another fine mess you’ve gotten yourself into! Though the first woman sounds saner than anyone you’ve dated in years. Lemme help you to not screw this one up, Willy. She sounds like a keeper, at least compared to the Amazon who lives down your street.”

Will was all ears. After Charlotte laid out a road map that she said even the densest man should be able to follow, he thanked her and hung up. He’d been thoroughly briefed on what to say to Nadine about Dane when they had their next date, and he’d typed out the below message in Substack chat to Nadine.

That afternoon picnic by the river was the best time I’ve had in years, and I’m still replaying the whole thing on endless loop. How about I pick you up next Saturday at eleven a.m. to take you on a date to a secure, undisclosed location?

To read the previous chapter of the Starting After Zero series, please click here. To start at the beginning, click here.