by Anita Shreve
When the screen door opens again, Tullus leaps out, as if having been imprisoned for years. He gives Sydney’s bare leg a sniff with his cold nose, and then sprints the length of the boardwalk. At the deck, he waits, panting.
“Want to come?” Jeff asks. In his hand is the purple leash. The invitation is a casual one, made more so by Jeff’s nimble descent of the front steps as he speaks.
“Sure,” Sydney says, setting down her coffee cup. She is not expected to work on weekends.
Sydney follows Jeff out to the deck, where Tullus is running in a tight circle.
“Stay,” Jeff says, struggling to snag the collar so that he can fasten the clip. But Tullus, in his excitement, won’t be still.
“You have to wonder how smart he is,” Jeff says. “He knows we can’t go for the walk until I get the leash on. He wants to go for the walk more than anything in the world. But he won’t let me put it on him.”
“Does he need a leash?” she asks.
“He’d chase a gull, and we wouldn’t see him again for hours. Worse, he’d eat it.”
Tullus demands a brisk pace, and Sydney digs her toes into the cool sand. She is surprised to see that Jeff has on the same shirt and bathing trunks he wore the day before. When Sydney catches up to him, he gives off the unwashed scent of a man who hasn’t had his shower yet.
“What a day,” Jeff says, unwittingly echoing his brother.
For a time, Sydney and Jeff walk in silence. The brilliance of the water is almost too painful to look at, but something about its visual fizz contributes directly to Sydney’s sense of well-being.
Along the seawall, people emerge from cottages. A woman in a white bathrobe and sunglasses scans the horizon. A man sits on a bench and rigs a fly rod. A couple stand on the steps with coffee cups in hand. It would be impossible, Sydney thinks, to greet this day and not remark upon its clarity.
“Where do you live?” Jeff asks after a time.
“Waltham.”
“I’m sorry about your husband.”
“Thank you.”
“What will you do in the fall?”
Tullus noses a clump of seaweed. Jeff and Sydney pause beside him.
“I’m not sure,” Sydney says. “I should go back to school and finish my degree. But I don’t know that I want to return to Brandeis.”
“Why is that?”
“I’d rather be in the city. I’m an old enough student as it is.”
“I’ve got one student who’s forty-two.”
Jeff pauses while Tullus attends to his business. Sydney turns discreetly away and studies the horizon.
“What drew you to academia?” Sydney asks.
“I’m not sure exactly. Sometimes I think it’s not so much being drawn to academia as never getting off the bus.”
She tries to picture Jeff in a classroom, a piece of chalk in hand, culled words on a blackboard, dust on the cuffs of his sweater. The image is appealing.
“I really like Julie,” she says. “It’s interesting that there are so many years between you.”
Jeff is silent a moment, and Sydney wonders if she has made too personal a comment.
“We were always encouraged to believe that Julie was not an accident,” Jeff says finally, burying the pile with a toy shovel he’s had in his pocket. He digs the shovel into clean sand, scouring it. “It’s part of the family mythology.”
Sydney wants to ask what happened to Julie to make her slow but can think of no good way to phrase the question.
“My father says you’re terrific with her,” Jeff offers, letting Tullus reestablish the pace.
“She’s easy to be with.”
“My mother was forty-one when she had Julie. My dad was fifty.”
Is this an explanation? A dedicated breeze makes Sydney’s hair fly in wings above her ears. “What does Julie love to do?” she asks suddenly. “I ask because it might not be possible for her to go to the kind of school your parents want for her.”
“Love?” Jeff turns, surprised by the question. His skin is lightly freckled. He has the coloring of a northern man. “Gardening,” he answers after a minute. “Walking Tullus.” He pauses. “Anyway, it’s my mother with the hopes. I think my father pretty much gets the picture.”
“I notice that Julie’s often in the rose garden.”
“She’ll find a man,” Jeff announces. “She’ll be all right.”
Sydney is taken aback. Though, possibly, in Julie’s case, an independent life is not a reasonable expectation.
“I think the man will find her,” Sydney corrects.
“Not too soon, I hope.”
Sydney smiles. “No, not too soon.”
Sydney notes that the topography of the beach is vastly different in the daylight. The night before, while she stood at the water’s edge, the houses seemed far away. This morning, they are so close as to be intrusive.
“What do you love?” Jeff asks.
“What do I love?”
Unprepared for the volley and return, Sydney cannot think. She puts a hand to her temple. She could say with ease what she used to love, but Daniel is gone now.
“I like this,” she says, gesturing.
“The beach?”
“Walking on it. Looking at it.” She feels heat in her face. Her response is lame at best, uninspired. “I like being with Julie and your father. I like kayaking. . .”
About to say body surfing, Sydney stops herself, not wanting to be reminded of the night before, that slithering touch. She is aware that she has not listed Ben or Mrs. Edwards as among the people or things she likes. If she had, she doubts Jeff would have believed her. After an evening and a night spent in the house, Jeff cannot fail to be aware of a certain dismissive tone in Mrs. Edwards’s voice when speaking to Sydney, a certain disingenuousness in Sydney’s when replying.
Sydney decides not to ask Jeff what he loves. She wonders if he would say Victoria.
“Presumably you liked school,” Jeff says after a time.
“I did.”
“Will you go back?”
“Not sure. I did like the idea that my life was based on asking questions. And finding answers to those questions. I suppose I believe that being wise is more important in the long run than having a lot of money.” Sydney laughs. “Which is good because I’m never going to have any.”
Jeff smiles.
“I suppose I could have achieved that goal in any field if I’d worked hard enough,” she continues. “Biology or chemistry, say. So it’s probably more that I’m fascinated by what makes humans tick.” She shrugs her shoulders. “Or maybe it’s simply that I had a grandiose idea of adding in my small way to the collective sum of human knowledge.”
“I know all about grandiose fantasies,” Jeff says.
Sydney tries to match her stride to Jeff’s. “What does your dad do?” she asks.
Remarkably, no one has told her. She hasn’t wanted to inquire in case Mr. Edwards is unemployed—too well-off to have to work, recently downsized from a hefty corporate job, or simply retired.
“He’s an architect.”
Sydney stops, reined in by surprise. She does a quick mental tour of the house. No architectural models, no framed drawings— at least none that she has noticed. “I’d never have guessed that,” she says.
“He has his own practice in Boston. Or did. He works from home most of the time now.”
“I’d love to see something he’s done.”
“It’s possible he has some work with him in his room. You’d have to go to Needham, though, to see the models and the drawings. They’re very beautiful.”
“I’m not sure I’ve ever met a man capable of going weeks without once mentioning his profession.”
“You could know my father two years and he wouldn’t tell you if you didn’t ask.”
“Unusual these days, when a man is often measured by what he does, by how successful he is.”
“Not Dad. He couldn’t care less.”
“And
you?”
“Me? Oh, you’d know within the week.”
“And Ben?”
“Before the day was over.”
Sydney and Jeff reach the far end of the beach, at which there seems to be a lot of seaweed. When they turn around, Tullus is panting hard, the leash less taut, their pace slower.
“I was just wondering,” Jeff says. “Can you really quantify emotional development?”
“Can you make politics scientific?” Sydney asks.
Jeff bends down and lets Tullus go. The dog, unleashed, heads for the water, chasing a gull. When he comes out, he shakes himself, spraying droplets everywhere.
“Thing I love about dogs,” Jeff says, “they’re so predictable.”
As they near the house, Sydney notices that families have begun to spread out along the beach. They pass a woman reading in a low plastic chair. Three small children are digging a hole at her feet.
“When is Victoria coming?” Sydney asks.
“Vicki,” Jeff says. “I’m picking her up at eleven-fifteen at the bus station.”
Sydney makes a slight adjustment to her mental portrait of Victoria. Someone willing to take a bus.
“Have you known her long?” Sydney asks.
“All my life. Her family has been coming here for years. I think I first became aware of her in sailing class when I was six or seven. We used to rent cottages then.”
“And you’ve been together all that time?” Sydney asks, astonished.
“No,” Jeff says, laughing. “We met again last year at a fund-raiser in Boston. She works for the Jimmy Fund. It’s a cancer foundation.”
“I know what the Jimmy Fund is,” Sydney says, and even she can hear the slight churlishness in her voice. She feels distracted by the constantly shifting portrait of Victoria—who rides a bus, who is really called Vicki, who took sailing lessons at six, who works for a nonprofit organization—as if a crime artist kept adjusting a computer image based on a witness’s testimony.
“I’ll bet she gets great seats at Fenway,” Sydney offers, consciously lightening her tone.
“Best part of her job,” Jeff says.
Jeff calls to Tullus, who joins them at the foot of the wooden steps.
“Now he’ll want a treat,” Jeff explains. “He thinks he’s just taken us for a walk.”
Sydney climbs the steps with sandy feet, aware of Jeff just inches behind her.
The announcement of Victoria’s arrival can be heard throughout the house. Raised voices. A call. A greeting. Sydney is contentedly hulling strawberries in the kitchen. Mr. Edwards is reading the directions for a new panini maker recently delivered by Federal Express. Sydney likes the small frown of concentration between his eyes. Mr. Edwards sets the pamphlet on the counter; Sydney abandons the strawberries in the colander. They walk into the hallway to see what the commotion is all about, even though they both know perfectly well what the commotion is all about.
Victoria, with long, dark, wavy hair, stands just inside the front door. Over her shoulder is a white canvas bag with leather trim. She has on a pale summer skirt, cut on the bias, the material thin. A tiny aqua sweater with pearl buttons is casually draped over a tank top. At the ends of her long, tanned legs are white flip-flops with a jewel at each big toe. Her nose is aquiline, almost masculine, her mouth bare. It is apparent immediately that Victoria is possessed of both gravity and beauty, a winning combination. Sydney wonders where the woman is sleeping.
Victoria embraces Mrs. Edwards. An elaborate and gushing introduction is made to Wendy and Art, who seem to have caught a kind of contagious beaming from Mrs. Edwards. Victoria extends one long, straight bare arm, the wrist slightly bent, seemingly drawing the other person toward her. It is a marvelous gesture, one Sydney admires.
Sydney waits, arms crossed against her chest. Mrs. Edwards says, “You remember Julie.” Victoria gives the girl a quick hug and in doing so catches Sydney’s eye. Sydney smiles and steps forward, her own hand extended.
“I’m Sydney Sklar,” she says.
“Sydney’s here for Julie,” Mrs. Edwards says quickly, an extraordinary lapse in manners that Mr. Edwards immediately seeks to redress.
“I hope for all of us,” he says.
Mrs. Edwards appears not to have heard. A moment of awkward silence is blessedly broken by Ben. “I’ll take that up,” he says, gesturing toward Victoria’s bag.
Up where? Sydney wonders again.
With mumbled excuses, Victoria slips away from the gathering. Though willing to travel by bus, the woman was apparently unable to use that vehicle’s facilities.
It is impossible not to hear, from the front-hall bathroom, the sounds of tinkling, an unmistakable sigh of relief, and the wobbling of the loose toilet-paper roll. To cover the noise, Mr. Edwards clears his throat and then blows his nose into a white handkerchief he keeps in his back pocket.
“You made good time,” he says to Jeff.
Having discovered the unfortunate acoustics early in her stay with the Edwardses, Sydney has contrived never to have to use the front-hall bathroom.
When Victoria emerges, she gives a shy smile and walks directly through the house to the porch door. Jeff joins her.
“My god,” she says of a view she must have seen a thousand times.
From the front hallway, Wendy and Art and Mrs. Edwards study Victoria’s narrow back.
“She’s lovely,” Wendy says.
“A looker,” Art agrees.
“Mark and I are hoping either this weekend or the next. . .,” Mrs. Edwards confides.
“An announcement?” Art inquires.
“Really?” Julie asks, surprised.
Mrs. Edwards glances with some alarm at her daughter, whom she has apparently forgotten. The mother mimes “sealed lips” in Julie’s direction.
Sydney, too, gazes at the lovely woman in the porch doorway. What is there not to like about Victoria? Vicki, actually, who does not resemble in the slightest the computer image of earlier, even with its many alterations. The crime artist will have to be fired.
Mr. Edwards announces that lunch will be served on the porch. He retreats to the kitchen, and Sydney willingly follows. Mr. Edwards appears to like the challenge of cooking, a skill he learned only later in life. In Troy, her father never went near the kitchen.
Sydney offers, when she has finished hulling the strawberries, to set the table, a task that requires carrying armloads of dishes and glasses and silverware out to the round teak table in the corner of the porch. A tricky screen door that wants to catch the back of her ankle has to be negotiated. Napkins have to be anchored in the stiff breeze.
When she makes her last trip, Sydney discovers that Ben and Victoria and Jeff are sitting in the heavy teak chairs around the table.
“Can I help?” Victoria asks.
“Thanks, but I’m all done,” Sydney says.
“Join us, then,” Ben says.
Jeff catches Sydney’s eye. An invitation or a warning? The moment passes before it has fully registered.
Sydney sits, not liking the rudimentary math. Jeff and Victoria. Ben and Sydney. She wishes for the emergence of one other person, even Mrs. Edwards (perhaps especially Mrs. Edwards, with her knack for rendering Sydney invisible) to change the sum.
Ever since Victoria arrived, Sydney has been aware of shifting configurations. Mrs. Edwards, hands clasped together at her breast, her posture slightly tilted back, presenting Victoria as if the young woman might have distant royal blood. Mr. Edwards, casually draping an arm around Julie. Jeff discreet, not needing to hover over or touch his girlfriend; perhaps they already kissed passionately in the Land Rover on the way back from the bus station. Ben, Diet Coke in hand, perched on the landing of the stairs, surveying the scene from on high.
Because of the bright sunshine, dark glasses are de rigueur on the porch at lunch. An entire family incognito. The sandwiches that Mr. Edwards delivers are sublime—confections of mozzarella, tomato, basil, and olive oil between slices o
f crusty bread. Mrs. Edwards stares at the panini her husband sets in front of her as if to ask, What am I supposed to do with this? Doubtless she would like to pry apart the slices of bread and scrape out only the cheese, but she cannot do so in polite company. Certainly not in Victoria’s presence.
Victoria is asked about numbers, and she names a fabulous sum. She speaks with confidence about baseball, acute myeloid leukemia, and a restaurant failure on St. Botolph Street. Ben perks up noticeably at the mention of possible real estate for sale.
Sydney observes Julie from across the table. The girl seems subdued. Perhaps Julie sees in Victoria a woman she will never be. Maybe she minds an outsider’s claim on her brother. Or is it simply that she already hears the sounds of everyone leaving her for activities to which she will not be invited? Sydney makes a mental note to ask the girl for a walk after lunch.
Sydney is seldom told directly of future household events. Rather, she is meant to deduce them as the day progresses—from bits of conversation, from extra bags of produce on the granite counter, or, more subtly, from Mrs. Edwards’s second shower at three o’clock so that her hair will be fresh for the evening’s festivities.
Today, at lunch, a reference is made to needing two more bottles of Shiraz for dinner. A debate is held regarding the strength of the breeze and whether or not having drinks on the porch is even feasible. But it is this sequence of sentences—Ferris doesn’t drink; Marissa likes Pellegrino; Claire said Will can come after all—that leads Sydney to arrive at the sum of thirteen for dinner long before she passes the dining room, elaborately set three hours ahead of time with etched glasses, mismatched antique china, and damask linens (all Emporia finds) for precisely that number.
Victoria delicately wipes her mouth and praises the lunch. She and Jeff and Ben are going to play tennis. Jeff extends an invitation to Sydney, but she begs off, declaring that she’s a terrible player, which is, more or less, an accurate statement. But once again, the rudimentary math is troublesome.
