by Sarah S.
He’d tried, once. When Charles was in eighth grade and Scott was in sixth, their father proposed a camping trip in the Poconos. It was the first trip of its kind, and their father had bought an industrial tent, big enough for three people. He wanted to practice assembling it in the backyard before they set out, and he had asked Charles to help. Charles was delighted to be included, but as hard as he puzzled over the instructions, it just made no sense. He couldn’t figure out which posts went where. “Come on,” Charles’s father goaded. “What do we do first?”
The directions shook in Charles’s hands. The pole he held slipped from his grip, clattering loudly to the ground.
“Just give it here,” his father said, his voice ice. He yanked the instructions from him and picked up the post. When he glanced at Charles again, there were blotches of red on his cheeks and his neck. Charles backed away slowly, his heart a jackhammer. It was ten steps to the side door of the house.
His father didn’t summon him back. After a few minutes, Scott emerged up the driveway—he’d been playing basketball with friends. The two of them built the tent together; Scott understood the schematic right away. The worst part was that Scott, the younger brother, stepped inside halfway through to see if Charles wanted to help, which Charles saw as pedantic and condescending. Scott didn’t want Charles to help any more than his father did. As Charles peered out the window at the two of them easily building, their rapport light and easy, he knew exactly what the camping trip would be like.
The next morning, he told his mother he had a fever. She reached out to feel his forehead, but he caught her eye. Understanding flooded her face fast, and she patted his hand and turned. “Charles is sick,” she announced at the breakfast table. “You boys will have to go camping by yourselves.”
Their father stared at Charles for a few long beats, his mouth taut, one eyebrow slightly raised. Then he shrugged, turned, and hefted his backpack over his shoulder. And off they went, loading the tent and supplies into the back of the car. Charles spent the weekend reading and watching TV with his mother. She didn’t mention that he seemed to have miraculously recovered.
Charles wondered if, in a way, that was what made him really fall in love with Joanna. He’d begun dating her because she was beautiful and because she’d struck up a conversation with him at a bar near his office, capping off the night with an open-mouthed kiss. She was so different than Bronwyn: not as rigorously mannered, not as prudish. What really sealed the deal, though, was when Charles brought her to meet his parents. Though Joanna seemed antsy with his mom, freaking out as if she’d done some great damage to the house when a paper towel she’d thrown into the trash missed the can and landed on the floor, she seemed at ease with his dad. James struck up a conversation about Scotch with Joanna after she admitted that she’d tended bar during college at Temple. She told him about a beer-making course she’d taken at Temple, bored with philosophy electives. Her final beer project was pretty decent; she’d like to try making it again some time. “Bring it over with you if you do,” Charles’s father had said. “I’d like to give it a try.”
Charles had been flabbergasted. His father hadn’t paid a mote of attention to any other girl he’d ever brought home, though of course, they weren’t serious. At one point, his dad even met Charles’s eye and gave him a terse, approving nod. Charles felt a little lift inside him, as if he were eight years old again, showing his father his report card. On the drive home from the house that day, he’d asked Joanna if she wanted to go on a trip with him. They went to Jamaica, lying on the sand, eating goat and organic vegetables, watching movies under mosquito netting. Joanna was the type of girl who plunged right off the cliff into the ocean without looking down. She didn’t tell Charles what shirt to wear for dinner. She didn’t mind when he got a little loud after drinking too many Red Stripes. She made friends with the wait staff and the bartender but not in a slightly condescending sort of way, as Bronwyn might have done, and one of the bartenders invited them to an after-hours, staff-only party in one of the caves. On that trip, Charles fell more and more in love with Joanna. She was refreshing and intoxicating, a cool gin and tonic after years of heavy red wine. He still had dreams about them in Jamaica, swimming in that clear water, their legs entwined in that small, hot room. They were their ideal selves there. Funny how remoteness could do that.
bus huffed from the curb, giving way to a fleshy, apple-shaped cleaning woman in a pink cleaning uniform leaning against the glassed-in elevator that led to Suburban Station. Her face was red, as if scoured with steel wool. Her smock stretched across her breasts and stomach, the skirt stopping just above her square, blockish knees. Now that Charles was on a search for cleaning women, they were suddenly everywhere.
He could hear her barking into her cell phone in Russian. There
was something utterly capable about the way she stood, the way she spoke, the manner in which she glared across the street, daring someone to make fun of her outfit. She definitely wasn’t the woman who’d found his father in the bathroom, who held captive the secret of those final intimate moments. For if this woman would have found him, Charles knew, his dad would have lived.
When he got back to the office, they were all in the conference room: Jake, Jessica, Becky, and Steven. The Back to the Land woman was in there, too. Just a woman. Not a large mountain man, not a small Indian elder, not a small girl walking a deer on a leash. The woman wore a tweed business suit and leather pumps and carried a brown suede bag.
“Sorry I’m late,” Charles said. Everyone had their notebooks out, and there were business cards strewn across the table like confetti. “I had to run out for something, and …”
“This is Charles Bates-McAllister,” Jake interrupted, a bit wearily. “Another editor on the team.”
The woman stood up and introduced herself as Mirabelle DeLong. She was barely five feet tall, with a pointy chin and bright eyes that reminded Charles of a fox. Sitting back down, she said how happy she was to be working with them and how she admired their other projects and was certain they could do wonders for Back to the Land, which had been a brainchild of two businessmen in the eighties. Their hope was to build Back to the Land communities in all fifty states, providing a sort of anti-housing development—an alternate way of living.
Charles bit back his skepticism, picking at a dry piece of skin on the inside of his palm. Looking over, he noticed that Steven was doodling crosses in his notebook.
Jake took Mirabelle through the lineup they’d developed. When he finished, Mirabelle said she’d like to add a final story: a profile of one of the current Back to the Land pioneers. “I have a few candidates in mind,” she said. “There’s a couple you could speak to who moved there very recently. They’re both very sweet, really excited to be there. Just got their house up and running.”
“We’ll use your discretion,” Jake said quickly.
“Do you have a writer in mind for that?” Charles asked Jake. “I could call them after the meeting, make sure they’re free.”
“Why don’t you write it?” Jake said.
“Me?” Charles thumbed his chest.
“You’re always asking to write things. Plus, you live out that way. A lot closer to where the community is.”
Mirabelle smiled and pushed a pamphlet across the table to Charles. It was different from the one he’d seen yesterday, with only a simple log cabin on the cover. “The directions to the homesteads are there,” Mirabelle explained, turning the shiny pages and pointing. “That’s probably where we’ll set up the interview, and then they’ll take you to their cabin and show you around.”
Not knowing what else to do, Charles opened the pamphlet. On the first page was a group of adults sitting in a circle, talking. It must have been pre-Back to the Land, for they were all wearing Ralph Lauren polo shirts and sneakers and lipstick. “Life can be simpler than this,” said the caption.
He flipped to the next page, which described the training process of becoming an
intrepid frontiersman. Now the same people were sitting outside on logs and tree stumps, dressed in rags. A woman was holding a long, wobbly saw, examining a tree trunk. Someone else was hovering over a smoldering fire, grinning.
Charles turned to the next photo, his eyes skidding over it. Then he turned back; a chilly hand squeezed his heart. A woman was leaning over a square of soil, pulling at a stalk. She wore a long skirt, frayed at the ends, and an oversize cotton shirt. Her mouth was half open, and there was a smudge of dirt on her cheek. Charles blinked at her oval face, her slender nose, and her full lips. The photo was in black and white, but if it were color, Charles was sure her eyes would be blue.
He tapped the photo, the words dried up in his throat. He read the caption. Her name.
Mirabelle leaned forward. “Oh, she’s wonderful.”
Her name was Bronwyn Pembroke.
“I didn’t even think of her,” Mirabelle went on, “but she’d be a great person to profile. Young, intelligent, articulate, and really exemplary of what we’re trying to accomplish.”
“Done,” Jake said, brushing his hands together. “Let’s use her.”
Charles pressed his lips together, trying to conceal his panic. It was her. Bronwyn. His Bronwyn.
“Are you all right?” Mirabelle said.
Charles looked up. Everyone was staring at him, and he wondered if he’d made some sort of sound. He nodded and reached for his water glass but missed it, tipping the whole thing over. Everyone leapt up and grabbed their papers. “I’ll get a paper towel,” one of the assistants cried and ran out of the conference room. Charles mopped up the water with napkins as best he could, apologizing. His hands felt so clammy.
The assistant returned with a roll of paper towels. The conversation rushed on without him. It had been settled; Mirabelle told Charles that she would contact Bronwyn—Bronwyn!—and they’d set up an interview for early next week. In no time, Mirabelle was standing to leave. She shook everyone’s hands. Jake held the conference room door for her, and Charles followed them out.
When the elevator doors closed, Mirabelle safely gone, Charles turned back to the conference room. The pamphlet was still there in the middle of the table. He rushed back in and practically pounced on it, whipping to the photo again, eager to scrutinize it without restraint. Bronwyn looked so plain. Older, too, and she’d gained some weight. Her hair was pulled back in a sloppy ponytail, a few pieces hanging in her eyes, and there was a pile of what looked like carrots next to her, dirty, teardrop-shaped things just lying there on the filthy ground.
He closed his eyes and saw Bronwyn softly talking to Scott on the patio at his parents’ house, trying so desperately to draw him into their world. He remembered the last day they’d ever spoken, how she’d pulled his hand to get him to sit back down, nudged him to clap at the Swithin awards ceremony. He recalled the horror in her eyes when he’d said all those foul, putrid things to Scott, the pain on her face when she broke it off with him a blink later.
There was a knock on the glass, causing Charles to jump and look up. Jake opened the door and poked his head inside. “Everything all right?”
Charles swallowed, running his fingers along the sides of his pants. “Uh-huh.”
Jake hesitated, then walked in and put his hands on the back of one of the swivel chairs. “What’s up?”
Charles’s throat felt tight. “It’s just that … I’m not sure I’m the right person to write this story.”
“Why not?”
For a moment, Charles considered confiding in Jake. But they’d never had anything close to a personal relationship. Charles fiddled with his shirt collar. “I just … I think it’s weird, that’s all. I think a different kind of person should write this. Someone who hunts, maybe. Someone who’s more … eco.”
Jake laughed. “You said you wanted to write more.” He shifted his weight. “What, do you know that girl or something?” He pointed at the picture of Bronwyn.
Charles sucked in his stomach, horrified that Jake had guessed. “No. Of course not.”
“Then what is it? Because I don’t think they care about whether you’re eco or not. All that matters is that you make Back to the Land look good.”
Charles shrugged.
“You said you wanted to write a piece. This is your chance. We’ll pay you, of course, and you’ll get a byline, for what it’s worth.” Jake pressed his palm against the glass wall that separated the conference room from the lobby. “But if you don’t want to do it, there are plenty of other people who would jump at the money.”
Charles bristled and looked away. “No, it’s all right. I’m sorry; I’ll do it.”
Jake rubbed his hands together. “Okay, then.”
The door swished shut, and Charles put his head in his hands. Why had he said anything? He could handle Bronwyn, couldn’t he? He was older, married, his life had changed. He would go and it would mean nothing. He would watch her garden and chop wood. He would be professional and polite, interviewing her about what life is like without real toilets. Bronwyn who could do complicated math problems in her head, the girl who everyone envied because she was beautiful and smartand had amazing parents who gave her every opportunity imaginable, now stomping on her good genes and upbringing, traipsing off to live on Walden Pond.
Good Lord, what did her parents think about this? Mr. and Mrs. Pembroke had given their children, Bronwyn and her older brother, Roman, every opportunity in the world, encouraging them all the time that it was their duty to become something great. So why had she become a farmer? Was there something wrong with having chances? Wasn’t she supposed to use the gifts she’d been lucky enough to receive instead of wasting them? Or did something from her previous life leave a sour taste in her mouth? A certain someone she’d dated, perhaps, a boy who was similarly privileged, who had said certain scathing things she wanted absolutely no ties to?
But no, that was projecting. It was both naive and arrogant for him to think he had something to do with the person she’d become. Still. It felt as though the rules of the universe were suddenly thrown into doubt.
Charles stood up and walked to the conference-room window, rapidly blinking over and over again. A bunch of guys in yellow hard hats were jack hammering a hole in the ground. Eleven flights up, behind all this glass, it was only a muffled groan.
………………………………………………………… seven
Just as she didn’t yet have her bearings in her new house, Joanna had no sense of direction in her new community. Even though she’d grown up fifteen miles from here, it might as well have
been Egypt, things seemed so alien. Every bright, massive shopping center looked the same. The Revolutionary-era stone house on one corner was identical to the Revolutionary-era stone house a half-mile down. It seemed as though there was a one-lane bridge on every side street, treacherously narrow and seemingly not spanning any water as far as she could see.
Even before Joanna and Charles had moved here, Sylvie told them that their town was getting a La Marquette grocery store. Although Joanna had no idea what this really meant—for the last ten years, she’d either been shopping at cramped Philadelphia groceries or outdoor farmers’ markets—her curiosity was piqued. So on Thursday afternoon, she printed out directions to the new store and got in the car. Mrs. Cox and Mrs. Batten were talking in the yard as usual, but she didn’t look over. She’d started calling both of them Mrs. in her head—if she couldn’t know them intimately, then she would think of them as formal schoolmarms, or as strict, scary piano teachers.
The grand opening banner was still hanging over the grocery store’s automatic doors, which opened accordion style into a bakery. From there, Joanna could see a separate room for cheese, a whole aisle of salad dressings, and a large sign in the back that shouted organic, although she wasn’t sure what was organic. An older, stylishly thin woman stood at a table, handing out mini tomato-and-mozzarella tarts. “The recipe is in my book,” she crowed at Joanna as she pas
sed, gesturing to a glossy cookbook by her side.
Joanna did a lap of the place, marveling at how many types of barley there were to choose from, ogling the flowers in the extensive plant nursery tucked away in the corner of the store, perusing the pottery, handblown glass, and folk-art weather vanes that were displayed near the fruits and vegetables. She sampled everything: all the cheese on toothpicks, little slices of right-out-of-the-rotisserie-oven rosemary chicken, crackers accompanied by thimble-size dipping cups of olive oil. On her second lap, she began to notice something. The aisles were clogged with women in pairs, their carts side by side, and baskets swinging in their arms. Women her age, in yoga pants and T-shirts, laughing together. Women Sylvie’s age, cluttered at the waitstaffed cafe tables, picking at Cobb salads. Clusters of women at the bakery counter, clucking at the cheesecake and the chocolate-chunk muffins and the lemon-mousse tartlets. There were too many baby carriages to count.
Suddenly, Joanna felt overtly singular. She began to make a game of it, finding someone like her, someone who was simply here for the utilitarian purpose of shopping for food, not to hang out. No luck. Was there an unwritten subtext about La Marquette, like the old adage about gay men and highway rest stops? She pushed her hair out of her eyes, pretending to concentrate on her list. How did these women know one another? How did one make friends here? She’d had a growing snowball of friends in the city, gathering them as she rolled, but now it felt impossible to even talk to anyone. She looked down at her unpolished fingernails, her ripped jeans, and Charles’s parka that she’d plucked out of the closet because it was the only other coat besides his good work trench that had been unpacked. She should have showered, put on makeup, blow-dried her hair, and ironed her clothes.
