by Monica Ali
Chapter Eight
On Sunday morning Lydia awoke to the smell of coffee and the sound of a chain saw. When she looked out of the window she saw Carson cutting down the dead oak. He stepped well back and raised his visor. The tree held its breath for a moment or two and then fell in a slow swoon across the lawn.
Lydia opened the window and poked her head out. “You forgot to say ‘timber,’” she called.
“Did I wake you?” said Carson. “Good. It’s breakfast time.”
He had the pancake mixture ready and they ate them with blueberries and syrup at the kitchen counter.
“Who taught you to cook?” said Lydia.
“The television,” said Carson. “What? I’m serious. Who taught you? Your mom?”
“No, she wasn’t . . . I went on a Cordon Bleu cookery course when I was young, and then I didn’t cook for years and years. I don’t know. I taught myself.”
“Okay, that goes in the dossier. Cordon Bleu course.”
“What dossier?”
“The one I’m compiling. You hardly tell me anything, so it’s a very slim document.”
“What do you want to know?”
He folded his arms. “How about you start at the beginning and don’t leave anything out?”
“You’d be bored to death,” said Lydia. “Are you going to chop up that tree?”
“I’ll chop it and stack it and when it’s dried you can use it on the fire. You use the fireplace in winter, right?”
“You do come in handy.”
“Thanks. Now, nice try with the distraction technique, but it didn’t work.”
Lydia started to clear the plates. He put a hand on her arm. She said, “I don’t think I can do this.”
“Once you stop holding back, it’ll just get easier. It won’t be so bad, you’ll see. I’m a darn good listener.”
“No, I mean, this whole thing. Us.”
“Hey,” he said, “come on.”
“Really,” said Lydia, surprised at how fast the tears had formed. “I don’t.”
He took his hand away and sat there with a dazed expression. “Okay.”
She wanted him to argue with her but he didn’t. She wanted him to tell her to stop being so ridiculous.
“Well,” he said, finally. “Is it something I did? Something I said?”
“No, it’s not you . . .”
He laughed. “‘It’s not you, it’s me.’ Don’t I deserve better than that? Guess not.”
She held on to her tears. He was getting up, and in another few moments he’d be gone and that would be for the best. It wasn’t fair to him to let it drag on. And she wasn’t going to get into a situation where she would be vulnerable. She liked her life the way it was.
“I’ll chop the wood,” he said, “and stack it, and then I’ll be out of your way.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
He shook his head. “I don’t like to leave a job half done.”
She could see him through the back door, which stood open. Rufus ran in circles around Madeleine, who had taken up a position close to her master and was getting her long red coat covered in sawdust. It would be a job to brush it out.
Carson stopped the saw for a moment and wiped his forearm along his brow. She felt her stomach contract with longing. At least she should go out there and talk to him, not let him leave without saying a proper good-bye.
When he’d walked into the shelter the first time, he’d been dressed in those same jeans and boots and checked shirt. She’d assumed he worked at something outdoors or manual. He looked like a carpenter. He told her he worked as a claims adjuster for an insurance company in the city. So will your wife be walking the dog? she asked, although he didn’t wear a wedding ring. He told her, no, he didn’t have a wife. If you’re at the office all day, she explained, you wouldn’t be a good candidate for a dog. They’re social creatures, they get anxious if they’re left alone too long. He surprised her again by saying he worked from home. That’s the miracle of e-mail, he said. And when he went out to investigate a claim, he reckoned most times the dog could come along for the ride.
She took him a glass of water. “You looked thirsty,” she said when the saw had juddered to a halt.
“You’re not coming out here to give me the ‘we can still be friends’ speech?”
“No.”
“I was going to tell you something,” he said.
He drank the water and she waited while he finished.
“Is that allowed?” he said. “Okay. When I was twenty-two, just out of college, I went traveling in Asia. I met a girl.” He looked away to the side, to the line of sugar maples at the edge of the yard. “She was Australian, backpacking her way around the world.”
“You don’t have to tell me,” said Lydia. “Whatever happened, it was a long time ago.”
“We fell in love,” said Carson. She knew she would miss the sound of his voice, the way it seemed to come from within his chest and resonate in her own. “I took her back to Oakland, my hometown, and within six months she was pregnant so we got married. I quit graduate school and got a job. We had a beautiful little daughter named Ava, and she was just perfect, you know, the way babies are.”
“I’ll bet she was,” said Lydia softly.
“By the time she was a few months old, her mother and I were fighting. It went on like that for two years. It shouldn’t have come as any surprise but one day when I got back from work she said that she was leaving and taking Ava. I said, No, you stay, I’ll go. She said, I’m taking Ava home. What do you mean, home? I said. I still hadn’t understood. Her parents had sent the plane tickets. They were going back to Sydney, and that was that.”
“Carson,” said Lydia. He was looking at the empty glass in his hand.
“I kept in touch,” he said. “I called, I sent letters and cards and presents. Sarah sent me a couple of photos of Ava, and she put paint all over her little hand and pressed it on a piece of paper and mailed it to me. Then about eighteen months later, when I’d saved up finally for a ticket, Sarah called. Said she’d met someone and wanted to marry him. Our divorce was nearly final. I said, congratulations, maybe I’ll make it over in time for the wedding. I didn’t mind. I’d stopped feeling that way about her. She was silent for the longest time.
“Then she just came out and said it. She thought it would be confusing for Ava to have two dads. She wanted me to stop all contact. And Gary wanted to adopt Ava, he really loved her already, treated her like his own.”
“You gave her up,” said Lydia. She’d given up her boys. If there was one person who would ever be able to understand that . . . but even Lawrence had never really understood.
“I thought about it. I called Sarah back the next week. I said, put Ava on the phone. I talked to her for a little while, she wasn’t even four, and she babbled at me sometimes and sometimes she was talking to her doll. I made silly noises to make her laugh. Then I told her that I loved her and to go and get her mom. I told Sarah I was going to do what was best for Ava. I’d give up my legal rights.”
She reached out her hand but he didn’t take it. He stooped to put down the glass. Before he straightened up he rested for a moment with his hands on his knees, as if he had just been winded. “Today is Ava’s birthday,” he said. “She’ll be twenty-five.”
She wanted to tell him that she knew what he was going through. All she could offer was a platitude. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”
“It’s all right,” said Carson. “I wanted to tell you, that’s all. I’m just going to finish this up.” He started the saw and lowered his visor, and there was nothing she could say to him over the noise.
Lydia made a potato salad and took it over to Suzie’s house. The kitchen had the air of a yard sale in preparation, the children’s toys, books, and clothes stacked everywhere. Tevis had already arrived and was showing off the marks she had down her back.
“It’s called cupping,” she said. “It’s a really ancient practic
e.”
“So’s leeching,” said Suzie. “And it probably does you about as much good.”
“Suzie, you are the most closed-minded person I have ever met,” said Tevis.
“I have an open mind,” said Suzie. “I just don’t fill it with junk.”
“No,” said Tevis, “that’s what you fill your stomach with.”
“Oooh,” said Suzie, “you are bitchy today. Weren’t those cups supposed to suck all the negative energy out of you?”
“What am I missing?” said Amber, letting herself in through the back door. “I brought an apple tart. The kids are out in the yard with yours. They’ve brought a frog.”
Suzie gave Amber a hug. “We’re discussing cupping.”
“Oh, like coffee tasting?” said Amber.
“No, like voodoo rituals. Tevis, show her your back.”
Tevis pulled up her top.
“Oh my God,” squealed Amber. “What happened to you?”
Tevis explained it all over again, how the air in the glass cups was heated with a flame to create suction against the skin when the cup was placed firmly against the flesh. The marks would be gone in a few days, and the benefits, in terms of relaxation and invigoration, would last for weeks.
“Well, you look relaxed,” said Amber. It was true. Tevis was sitting on the grungy old kitchen sofa with her feet up, in cutoff jeans and a T-shirt, her auburn hair tumbled about her shoulders.
“That’s because she’s not doing any of the work around here,” said Suzie. “Lydia and I have been slaving away.”
“Let me help,” said Amber. “What can I do?”
“You can fix us a drink for a start, and then you can tell us all about your date.”
“I don’t know if it was a date,” said Amber. “It was lunch.”
“Lunch can be a date,” said Suzie.
“Of course it can,” said Tevis.
Suzie said, “Hey, break out the champagne, someone. Me and Tevis just agreed on something.”
“I see Pinot Grigio,” said Amber. “I don’t see champagne.” She pulled a bottle out of the fridge.
“Let’s sit down and concentrate,” said Suzie, abandoning her knife. “Lydia, you can leave that to simmer, come on, sit down.”
They all sat around the table. “Now,” said Suzie, “spill.”
“We went to Tiggi’s,” said Amber. She tucked her hair behind her ears, although it was already tucked. “I had the pea soup to start and he had the tomato and mozzarella salad.”
“Don’t give us the menu, Amber,” said Suzie. “Give us the dirt. What’s he like?”
“He’s kinda nice,” said Amber.
“So you had sex with him?” You could always rely on Suzie to get straight down to business.
And on Amber to get embarrassed. “No! Suzie, please!”
“Did you kiss?” said Tevis.
“No, I told you, I don’t even know if it was a date. He’s a neighbor, maybe he’s just being neighborly.”
“We sat down for this?” said Suzie. “Aren’t you going to tell us anything juicy?”
Tevis said, “You know what I read the other day? If a man’s ring finger is longer than his index finger that means he’s got high testosterone. That is actually a scientifically proven fact.”
“Really? A long ring finger means he’s highly sexed? Amber, has what’s-his-name got a rinky-dinky ring finger, or is he well endowed?”
“Suzie, you are so smutty,” said Amber. She was smiling her slightly gummy, slightly daffy smile. “And his name is Phil, by the way.”
“I’ve been married fifteen years,” said Suzie, “to the man I dated in high school. I get my kicks vicariously.”
“Well, I’ll take my ruler along and measure all his limbs and digits next time,” said Amber.
“Ah, so there’s going to be a next time.”
Amber sighed. She wore a wraparound blue cotton dress printed with white flower sprigs. Suzie wore khakis and Tevis was in cutoffs, and Lydia had on jeans as usual. But Amber always said she had to do her best to advertise Closet by making an effort with her wardrobe. “Yes, I think so. At least he said we should do it again.”
“You don’t sound too thrilled.”
“I’d definitely go,” said Amber. “But you know it’s been so long since I’ve had—” She lowered her voice. “Sex. All my parts have probably dried up.”
“Listen,” said Suzie. “You are a very attractive woman. He’d be lucky to have you, this what’s-his-name.”
“I was out running the other day,” said Amber. “You know, I go when I’ve dropped the kids off at school and before I open up the store. And I’m running along and I pass this woman going in the opposite direction, then another, we sort of half say hi, the way you do when someone’s doing the same thing as you. I’m thinking something in the back of my head, some thought is forming, but I don’t know what it is. And then I pass a third woman and bam! it hits me. These women’s breasts don’t move. I’m talking about women with good-sized breasts and they just don’t move, and I’m wearing two goddamn bras and I’m, like, flop, bounce, flop.”
“They’ve been done,” said Tevis.
“Here in Kensington,” said Amber, “women are having their breasts done. What’s Phil going to think when, if—I mean if—he sees mine? They don’t point up at the ceiling. They roll under my arms!”
They got back to the cooking. There’d be ten, including the children, for lunch. Mike was out on patrol and called to say he’d be home by four and to save some of the chicken fritters for him. Lydia chopped lettuce and cucumber and tomatoes, Amber shelled peas, and Suzie mixed eggs, half-and-half, and grated cheese for the quiche. Tevis sat in lotus position on the couch.
“I was in the bath the other day,” said Suzie, “when Oscar walks in.” Oscar was Suzie’s five-year-old. “He takes a pee, and he’s babbling away. He says, Mom, you know God? I say, yes, baby, I do. He says, how big is he? Is he, like, really, really huge? I start giving him this long answer, but he’s not even listening, he’s looking at my boobs. He says, Mom, you know your boobies? I say, yes, baby, I know those too. He says, well, like, why are they down on your belly?”
“Did you tell him, this is how a real woman looks?” said Amber.
“What I didn’t say,” said Suzie, “what I wanted to say but didn’t, was because I breast-fed you and your brother and sisters, and this is what you did to them.”
“Ha! But you stopped yourself.”
Lydia thought about Carson sawing the wood, the flex of muscle where his shirt was open as his arm moved back and forth. Lawrence would like him. Of all the men she’d ever dated, he’d definitely like Carson. “But, ma’am,” he would say, “as always I would counsel that it is preferable, in such situations, to err on the side of caution.” She never listened. Or she’d listen, and then hurtle right ahead.
“Breast-feeding doesn’t cause your boobs to sag,” said Tevis. “There’s no evidence for that.”
“I don’t know what makes you an expert,” said Suzie. “I got all the evidence I need. I’m having a cookie. Anyone else want one?”
They all shook their heads.
“Man, you are self-controlled,” said Suzie. “I’m starting a diet tomorrow. New week, new leaf, new me.”
She was always starting diets, always wanting to lose a few pounds, just a few. Lydia looked up from her chopping board and appraised her friend. She was stocky, a little round across the middle but it sat naturally on her. In her khaki pants and white shirt, with her black hair cut into a crop, she looked attractive, full of mischief and energy.
“What’s it this time,” said Tevis, “cabbage soup?”
“You are so stuck in the nineties,” said Suzie. “I know it seems like I’m on a different one every week, but you gotta try new things. What about you, Lydia? I bet you never dieted in your life. You’re so lucky with your body shape.”
Body shape didn’t come into it, that much Lydia knew. She thought
about the bowls of custard that the chef, on her instructions, would leave in the fridge before he went home at night. “I don’t diet anymore. Suzie, you look just right as you are.” She’d spend an hour or so bingeing. Eating the custard made it easier for it all to come up. Ice cream, too, was good for that. Much easier to purge your stomach than to purge your entire life.
“You okay?” said Suzie. “You’re a bit quiet today.”
“I’m fine, really, I am.”
Suzie looked at her skeptically. “Everything all right with Carson?”
“Yes,” she said, “he stayed last night, chopped down a dead tree for me this morning.” She didn’t want to talk about it yet, didn’t want to have red eyes when the kids came in from the yard.
“Hey,” said Suzie, “his ring finger must be long. What about Steve?” she said to Tevis. “How does he measure up?”
“He is perfectly balanced,” said Tevis. “He has a feminine side. Personally, I have no desire for a caveman.”
Amber started setting the table. “Do you want place mats, Suzie? Tevis, when are you and Steve going to take the next step? How long has it been, four years?”
Tevis unfolded her legs out of lotus and turned circles with her feet to give her ankles a stretch. “We’ve been dating four years, and I like going out on dates with him. I’m not moving in and he’s not moving in with me. I don’t need a man as the center of my life to make me whole.”
“I do,” blurted Amber. She giggled. “No, I don’t. Well, maybe. It would be nice.”
Four years of dating, thought Lydia. No need to change anything. Sounded perfect. If only Carson were around to hear that.
“I’ve got some news,” said Tevis. She reached into her purse and pulled out a printed brochure. “I’ve been looking to buy a little retreat place for ages, and I’ve found somewhere up by the lake.”
“Oh, it’s so sweet,” said Amber. “Did you get it? Is it yours? A log cabin, how romantic, and look how wild it is, there’s deer up there, I think.”
“Careful the bears don’t getcha,” said Suzie, taking a look. “Wow, it’s really neat. When are we all going?”
“I thought we could go for Lydia’s birthday, the weekend right after it. Amber, think you can get a sitter for the kids?”
