Red Hook Road

by Ayelet Waldman

Clutching the bathing suit to her heart, Iris turned the tote bag upside down, sending a hail of sand skittering across the tile floor along with a tube of Iris’s own French sunscreen, a wide-toothed tortoiseshell comb, a hair band, and a small clamshell case for CDs. And there, balled up in the bottom of the bag, crumpled and smelly but miraculously unstained, was Iris’s silvery-blue tunic.

  Iris shook the tears from her eyes and put the tunic in the washing machine. She hesitated for a moment, looking at the towel on the ground and at the bathing suit in her hand. With a snap of her wrist she slammed closed the lid of the washer and gathered the contents of Becca’s beach bag. She threw away almost everything but the box of CDs, even the bathing suit, taking care to push it all down into the bin so that it wouldn’t catch Daniel by surprise when he went to take the trash to the dump. The bag itself she couldn’t bring herself to throw away. Instead, she hung it back on its hook, buried behind all the others.

  While she waited for the washer’s cycle to end, Iris took the box of CDs into the kitchen and flipped through it. Who’s Greatest Hits, Nevermind by Nirvana, Sparkle and Fade by Everclear, and Walk On by U2. John’s music. Rattling loose in the box, missing its plastic case, was a cassette tape labeled in black marker: “Becca, New England Conservatory of Music Audition.”

  Iris held it in her hand for a few moments. Then she took it into the living room and tucked it behind a random stack of CDs that had teetered on a side table, untouched, for years.

  There are only so many ways to set a picnic table, and in spite of Iris’s best efforts the backyard looked almost exactly as it had on the night of the rehearsal dinner and on the dozen or so Fourth of July picnics before that. They were using the same tin plates, which Iris had bought at various yard sales and secondhand stores and always used for the picnic. Ruthie had strung fairy lights in the apple tree, although Iris had managed to prevail upon her to refrain from lining the driveway with paper bag luminaria. They’d only ever done that once—last year—and it felt wrong, ghoulish even, to try it again. Just as he did every year, Daniel picked up three dozen steamed lobsters from the pound at the end of Swainsbury Neck. Iris made coleslaw. Tumbling the eight cabbage heads out onto the kitchen counter she tried to remind herself that she’d sliced this many cabbages before, for the picnics, for village gatherings, for library fund-raisers. The rehearsal dinner was not the only time she had ever made coleslaw.

  Daniel, too, seemed uncomfortable with how reminiscent the scene was of last year’s happy occasion. He stood on the porch holding a massive platter heaped with bright red lobsters, and stared through the screens out to the yard. Ruthie was busily setting up the twenty folding chairs she borrowed from all their neighbors. The same chairs, he thought, that they’d borrowed last year.

  “Jesus Christ,” he said, when Iris joined him on the porch.

  “I know,” she said.

  “But it doesn’t seem to be bothering her.”

  “It’s what she wanted,” Iris said. “She’s doing everything she can to make it look the same.”

  “And then what?” Daniel said. “What happens when she realizes that she can’t turn back the clock?”

  Out in the yard Ruthie cast a critical eye over the seating arrangements and then shifted a few chairs around.

  “This was a bad idea,” Daniel said.

  At that moment Ruthie noticed them and called, “Dad, I’ve cleared a space for the lobsters. You can put them at the end of the table. And Mom, do you want to start melting the butter?”

  “It’s on the stove,” Iris called back.

  “Don’t forget to skim it,” Ruthie said.

  “I won’t,” Iris called. To Daniel she said softly, “Suddenly she’s Martha Stewart?”

  “Jesus Christ,” Daniel repeated, shaking his head.

  “It’ll be all right,” she said. “In a few hours it’ll all be over.”

  “No,” Daniel said. “It won’t.”

  Iris watched him slide sideways through the screen door, propping it open with his foot and carefully balancing the platter in his hands. By the time she reached the door to help, he had banged it shut behind him. He put the platter down on the table, and Ruthie adjusted its position once, and then again, before she was satisfied. Daniel suddenly grabbed Ruthie, clasped her close to his chest, and kissed the top of her head. Iris wished at that moment that their embrace could open and include her, just as it had when the girls were little and they would have what they called “four-way hugs.” But a three-way hug would seem too poignant, wouldn’t it? And at any rate, she could barely remember the last time she and Daniel had embraced.

  The guests began arriving, neighbors and people from the village and from Red Hook, friends from the yacht club and from Iris’s various boards and committees, the members of the lawn bowling club whose matches Daniel had, for the first time in a dozen years, stopped attending. They were the same people who came every year to the Copakens’ Fourth of July picnic, although this year they stood around awkwardly, unsure what behavior was called for under these odd circumstances. Was this a memorial, akin to a funeral? Or was it just the same old party the Copakens threw every year? Were they meant to talk about Becca and John, or to avoid bringing up their names? Was it okay to make chitchat about inconsequential things, or should they keep their voices low and somber?

  Iris, no surer of what the occasion demanded than her guests were, avoided conversation beyond the most bland and simple of greetings; she kept herself busy handing out drinks. After a while the gin and beer had their effect, and people began to loosen up, choosing, in the end, to behave as if this were a Fourth of July picnic like any other, which Iris supposed was for the best, and the handy thing about gin and beer.

  The Tetherlys were the last to arrive, and by the time they rounded the corner of the Copakens’ house, Iris had begun to despair of them coming. Ruthie rushed up to them.

  “You came!” Ruthie said. “And look at everything you brought!” Matt was hiding behind two cases of beer piled high in his arms. She tried to wrest one of the cases from him, but he resisted. Finally, laughing, she pointed out the galvanized ice chest. “Did you bring the fireworks?” she called after him.

  “They’re in the car,” he said over his shoulder.

  “I was worried you wouldn’t have a chance to drive all the way to New Hampshire.”

  “I was happy to go,” he said. “It was a nice ride.”

  Jane was holding a huge foil baking pan, big enough to roast a tom turkey. She looked over the spread, at the row of glistening pies. She recognized the heavy ceramic pie plates; she had scrubbed them herself. She looked down at her rectangular foil pan and said, “You don’t need this.”

  “No!” Ruthie said. “We do. I loved it last year; it’s always been one of my favorites. That’s why we asked you to bring it. Let me.” She moved the pies aside, took the pan from Jane, and set it down with a flourish.

  “Mom!” Ruthie called. “The Tetherlys are here.”

  Iris greeted Jane and Samantha. “Welcome,” she said. “I’m so glad you made it.”

  Jane nodded, looking around the yard. “Big party,” she said.

  Samantha spied Mr. Kimmelbrod sitting on the other side of the yard. She tugged on her great-aunt’s sleeve. “Can I go over there and say hi to him?”

  “To who?” Jane said.

  “The old man.”

  “Samantha!” Jane said. “Watch yourself!”

  Iris laughed. “Oh, Mr. Kimmelbrod knows he’s old. Go on, honey. He could probably use some company.”

  “I’ll take her over,” Jane said, and she followed Samantha across the grass. They found Mr. Kimmelbrod struggling out of his webbed patio chair.

  Without asking, Jane helped him to his feet.

  “I understand the young lady would like to see my violin,” he said. “May I take her inside?”

  “I don’t want her to trouble you,” Jane said.

  “It’s no trouble,” Mr. Kimmelbrod said.
“On the contrary. I brought it only because Iris told me she was coming. And if you would care to, Samantha, I would very much like to hear you play the piano.”

  “Please, Aunt Jane,” Samantha said.

  Jane shrugged her assent and followed the two of them into the house, to the piano that she had arranged to have tuned two months back. This past winter Jane had resumed the caretaking responsibilities for the house that she’d deferred to Becca and John the year before. She’d gotten the oil furnace and the propane tank filled, turned on the water, taken down the storm windows and put up the screens, mowed the meadow and lawn, replaced the water filter, had the piano tuned, and replenished staples like flour, sugar, and the fancy teas Iris liked. Jane had been taking care of this house since long before Iris had inherited it, just as her mother had done before that.

  Caretaking for the summer residents was Jane’s primary source of winter income. It was what kept her from having to resort to making Christmas wreaths or going south to work at one of the canneries, like other people did. It never used to bother Jane to perform any of the various caretaking tasks, menial or otherwise. But this year she had resented every hour she had spent in the Copaken house, every curtain she had taken down and laundered, every pipe she had drained, every lightbulb she had changed. She had wished she could afford to keep her summer girls on, so that she could foist the job off on one of them. But money was money, and she was not so rich that she could turn her nose up at one hundred dollars a month.

  Mr. Kimmelbrod sat down at the piano and directed Samantha to a stool next to him. He said, “I will play for you a little song and I would like for you to hum it. Can you do that?”

  “Yes,” Samantha said.

  He launched into the same piece of music Samantha had been plonking away at for the last ten days.

  “This is the Trout Quintet,” he said. “What we heard on the radio.”

  Samantha had already started humming the music. He stopped playing but she continued humming.

  “You remember?” he said.

  Jane said, “She’s been playing it on her electric piano. Night and day. I told you, she hears something once and then she can play it.”

  “Fascinating,” he said. “Samantha, can you tell me anything about these two notes?” He played one, and then another an octave higher.

  “They’re the same,” she said. “Just, one’s higher.”

  “Very good. Now I’m going to play two sets of notes. You tell me if the second set is the same as the first.”

  He played three notes, moved up the keyboard, and then played another three.

  “Same,” she said.

  “And this?”

  “Same.”

  “And this?”

  Before he’d even played the third note she waved her hand as if dismissing something unpleasant. “Different.”

  “Manners,” Jane said, warningly.

  Mr. Kimmelbrod waved a hand at Jane, dismissing her just as Samantha had dismissed the incorrect notes.

  He played another phrase, this one five notes. He paused and played it again.

  “Same,” Samantha said.

  “And again?”

  “Different.”

  “Very good. Now I will play a slightly longer melody. The second time I play it I will change one note. You tell me which note I changed. The first, third, like that.”

  He played a short tune.

  “Fifth,” she said.

  The next time, she stopped him after the first note. The next time, only at the very end, on the last note.

  “That’s easy,” she said.

  “Was the note I changed higher or lower?”

  “Higher.”

  “Correct.”

  Jane was incredulous. It was not merely that what Samantha was hearing was beyond Jane’s ken—she could tell that the bits of music were different from one another, but she could never have articulated why—it was Samantha’s authority. She was normally so quiet and polite, all too conscious of her status as guest in Jane’s house. If asked to express a preference, she deferred until absolutely forced to make up her mind. How many times had Jane stood over her at dinnertime holding two bottles of soda in her hands and saying, “It doesn’t make a damn bit of difference to me whether you drink Pepsi or Diet Pepsi, girl. Just pick one!”? And yet here she was, answering every question correctly. Jane felt a surge of something suspiciously like pride.

  Now Mr. Kimmelbrod said, “The notes have names. For example, this note”—he played one in the middle of the keyboard—“is a C.”

  “Like doe,” Samantha said.

  He raised his eyebrows in surprise. “You have been taught solfège?”

  “Solfège?” Samantha repeated.

  “The names for the notes? Someone has taught you this? You have studied sight-singing?”

  “She hasn’t studied anything,” Jane said. “Like I said, she doesn’t take lessons. Unless maybe they taught her at school.”

  “The Sound of Music,” Samantha said. “You know, the movie. ‘Doe a deer, a female deer.’” She sang a clear and perfectly pitched C.

  Mr. Kimmelbrod laughed. “The Sound of Music, God help us. Well, then, what note is this?”

  “Re.”

  “And this?”

  “Fa.”

  Mr. Kimmelbrod pressed a number of keys together. “This is a chord. What notes do you hear?”

  “Re, fa, la. But two re’s.”

  “Turn your back to me.”

  Samantha scooted around on her stool so that she was looking at Jane instead of at Mr. Kimmelbrod.

  “Now what do you hear?” he said, playing another.

  “Re and la. And the third is the note right between fa and so. I don’t know the name of it.”

  “F sharp,” Mr. Kimmelbrod said. “And now? Do you recognize the chord?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Like in the Trout.”

  He turned to Jane. “Your grand-niece appears to possess absolute pitch. Perfect pitch.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means, essentially, that if she hears a note she can name it. And vice versa. She can reproduce a note without a reference. Like she did just now. Especially interesting is her ability to recognize the various notes within a chord. I find it curious, because most children who do not receive early musical training lose their capacity for absolute pitch.”

  “She’s been playing that piano of hers for a long time.”

  “But without a teacher, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Just the little electric piano?” he asked.

  “Right.”

  “Marvelous,” he said. “Although I am quite frankly even more impressed with her feel for rhythm and melody. Absolute pitch is interesting, but not necessarily a sign of musical talent. It is something like being able instinctively to identify the parts of speech. Just because a person knows a word is a noun does not mean he will be a great writer. Samantha? Shall we keep playing?”

  “Yes!” she said.

  “Yes, sir,” Jane said.

  Mr. Kimmelbrod played the opening melody from the fourth movement. His hands, far too stiff to play the violin with any competence, could still make music on the piano. “I’d like you to hum it in a different key. Do you know what I mean by that? The different notes are the building blocks of the melody. So instead of this key”—he played the same chord he’d played before—“you’d center the melody on this.” He played something else. Samantha closed her eyes for a moment, and then began humming again.

  “Perfect,” he said. “Can you tell me what note you started with?”

  “La.”

  “Very good. Now start the melody on re.”

  “Should I make it happy or sad?”

  Mr. Kimmelbrod smiled. “Make it sad first, and then happy.”

  Samantha intoned a perfectly pitched D, and then proceeded to hum a flawless melody. After a few moments she modulated to the major key and hummed it through.
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  “Now try to make it fit with what I’m playing. It’s from the third variation.” He began to play a darting accompaniment. Samantha joined him, in perfect sync, both rhythmically and tonally. After a few moments he stopped and clasped his fingers. “Wonderful,” he said.

  “Mr. Kimmelbrod?” Samantha said shyly.

  “Yes?” he said.

  “You said I could see your violin?”

  “Yes, I did,” he said. He reached behind the piano and took out a violin in a battered case.

  His tremor made it difficult to unclasp the buckles on the case, but finally he got it open and took the violin from the velvet lining. “It’s very old,” he said.

  She stared at it, her hands twitching by her side.

  “Go ahead,” he said, holding it out to her. The violin jumped in his hands and he lowered it to his lap so as not to drop it.

  Holding her breath, the girl wiped her palms on her shorts and took the violin. She held it as though with the slightest touch it would shatter into a million pieces.

  “Will you play it for me?” she said.

  He showed her his trembling hands. “You see, my hands no longer work very well.”

  “Please?”

  “Samantha!” Jane said.

  “No,” he said. “It’s all right. I will try.” He took the instrument back and lifted it to his chin. Then he hesitated and looked at Jane. “Might I ask you …” He paused. “I no longer play in public.”

  Jane said, “She doesn’t need to hear you. She got your record out from the library, that’s enough.”

  “No,” he said. “I don’t mind playing for the child.”

  Jane hesitated, but then realized what he meant. She rose hurriedly to her feet. “I’ll be outside,” she said.

  Iris opened the door of the bathroom in time to see Jane leave the living room. Iris had retreated to the bathroom because she hadn’t been able to tolerate another moment of standing around making small talk, gossiping about real estate prices and divorces, being updated on the doings of other people’s children, pretending that there was anything normal about this picnic. Yet neither could she bring herself to talk about Becca. Whenever anyone placed a condoling hand on her arm, peered into her eyes, and dropped their voice to ask how she really was, Iris could answer only, “Fine.” As if that one word would satisfy them. As if that one word had anything to do with the roiling confusion of emotions Ruthie’s celebration had stirred up.