Ragnarök

Three: The Outage

Mildred is dimly aware of him whistling beside her, one of those Sousa marches that never fails to get stuck in his head. They're meandering down a blacktop path in Rochester Park, her eyes startled by the pearly light showering from the treetops. A glaze of frost encrusts everything, every blade of grass, every silver tree trunk. Winter teasing its arrival.

The park is abandoned, save for across the lagoon, where she sees the bright-colored parkas of children clambering over playground equipment. To the right of that, a wooden park shelter, with its boarded up windows and rough empty picnic tables. She knows some seminal moment of her life took place there. Faces materialize, the beaming smiles of wellwishers, the matching champagne dresses of bridesmaids, each with a white Madonna lily in her hair. She sees her parents, her humongous father in his favorite powder-blue suit, and her mother leaning in fussily to straighten his bolo tie. They exchange some irritated remarks with each other. When they catch sight of Mildred watching, their expressions change.

The lagoon is high, leaving only a few inches between its surface and the footing of the tiny arch bridge, the one she always thought so cute, like out of a storybook. He stands there flipping his hat onto his head, a gray felt fedora with a baby peacock feather, acting oblivious to her presence. But she swears a teasing smile plays at the corner of his lips.

Forgetting the walker's handles in her grip, she approaches. She can only go at a snail's pace, trailing inch by inch (like a wedding procession) and is startled to feel the weight of an arm slipping through her own. Without turning her head to look, she knows by the punch of cologne that it's her father escorting her toward the bridge. The cold air makes the tears in her eyes sting.

Why? Why so cold?

Hadn't they planned for a spring wedding?

When the apple blossoms would be in bloom?

Liza confronts Mason at his locker as he's swapping textbooks after lunch. When he slams the door, there she is in her trademark pleather jacket. Her hair isn't spiked today but falls limp over her eyes. She nibbles on the red plastic temple of a pair of sunglasses, her gaze often drifting to the ceiling as she speaks, as if trying to envision a diagram, a play-by-play schematic of how tonight should unfold.

"You don't have a car, do you?"

Mason shakes his head. The rat pelts are gone. A teacher from a nearby classroom demanded earlier, with revulsion, that he take them down.

"Me neither. Why don't we just agree to meet at the school, say, around eight?"

"I thought—" he begins. "I mean, the flyers say it starts at seven."

"I know, but I won't be ready by then. Eight o'clock. And if I'm a little late, just go in without me. Let me give you my number. If it turns out to be as lame as it sounds, text me a warning ahead of time and we can—oh, I don't know—go get pancakes or something."

Mason is forced to admit he doesn't own a cellphone. Fortunately, unlike every other student he's confided this to, she doesn't dwell on the anomaly. They plan (or rather, he yields to her specifications) to meet outside the school's main entrance at the agreed-upon time, barring any complications.

At around six, working from a well-worn cookbook, Mason makes the widow dinner. Spaghetti carbonara, something he considered to be within his skill bracket, but the instructions are very precise and he doesn't want to screw it up. Today is the anniversary, as Father Rourke mentioned, and Mason can't help feeling a little guilty that he will bail on Mildred soon, albeit guilty in a vague superstitious way, like stepping on a butterfly.