Red Hook Road

by Ayelet Waldman

  She thought about Matt, about how distraught he’d been, about how she’d assumed that he was upset about his mother and how it had turned out that the Alden was his true concern. She should have known that. After all, she’d been watching him laboriously restore the boat. But Jane’s face had been so awful—pinched and furious—it was hard to see how any amount of reconstruction could be worse than facing that.

  Finally, the author reached the end of a chapter, placed his finger in the book to mark his place, and said, “Are you sick of me, or should I read just a little more?”

  With no choice but to express polite eagerness to have their torment prolonged, the audience put their purses back on the floor, draped their jackets over the backs of their chairs, and settled themselves for another round. Ruthie took this opportunity to slip out the back of the reading room and tiptoed down the hall to the stacks, where she found Mary Lou Curran shelving books and sipping from a plastic wineglass.

  “Ruthie!” Mary Lou said. “How delightful to see you. You’re welcome to take refuge from the tedium here with me, but I warn you, I’m going to draft you to help me shelve. Do you do Dewey? We’re still in the gaslight era here, I’m afraid.”

  Ruthie said, “My work-study job in college was at the Schlesinger Library.”

  “A trained professional. Excellent.” Mary Lou pointed to a cart. “Start with this one. You strike me as an 823.7 kind of girl. And mind you keep my secret.” She lifted her wineglass. “No food or drinks in the stacks, of course.”

  Ruthie would have known where Emma resided even without the labels affixed to the ends of each row of shelves. Periodically Ruthie would go through a voracious Jane Austen period and spend a month rereading everything, even Mansfield Park, which she knew some considered the most accomplished of Austen’s novels but which she hated because Fanny Price was an insipid little prig. Emma was her favorite, and over the years she had checked out this very volume nearly a dozen times.

  There was something soothing about shelving books. She took an extra moment with every one, glancing at the card in the back and indulging in idle curiosity about who had checked it out. Many of the books she had read herself, and she greeted them with the warmth due to old friends. The ones she hadn’t read seemed suddenly more appealing to her, for having garnered someone’s interest. When she’d emptied the cart she wheeled it back to where Mary Lou was working on another.

  “What do you think?” Mary Lou asked. “Is it safe to go back?”

  “Isn’t there usually a question-and-answer period?”

  “Indeed. And then after that he’ll expect us all to purchase copies and wait patiently in line for the honor of having him scribble something banal on the title page. Let’s stay here for a bit longer.”

  Mary Lou perched on a radiator and patted the spot next to her. Ruthie joined her and the two of them leaned back against the window and prepared to wait it out.

  Mary Lou said, “You’re back to Oxford at the end of the summer, aren’t you? That must be terribly exciting for you.”

  “Not really,” Ruthie said.

  “Oh?”

  “I mean, yes. Or, rather, it should be. I had a pretty bad year.”

  Mary Lou patted her hand. “I imagine it might have been lonely, to be so far from home.”

  “Yes.”

  The older woman drained the last sip of wine from her glass and said, “I’ve found in my life that the only kind of unpleasantness worth suffering through is one that is both brief and serves some greater good.”

  “I guess the trick is figuring out if the greater good is good enough,” Ruthie said. “Or great enough.”

  “Indeed. Hindsight is the only reliable indicator, but that’s hardly helpful.”

  “No.” The windowpane was cool against Ruthie’s back, and she shivered. She wanted suddenly to tell Mary Lou about Matt. To test her reaction as a barometer, perhaps, of Iris’s. But if Iris were to find out that she’d confided first in someone else, she’d be furious.

  Mary Lou said, “As long as I’m distributing pearls of ambiguous wisdom, I’ll also say that, having lived for a very long time …”

  “Not that long,” Ruthie said.

  “You’re very kind, dear. But as I was saying, another thing I have learned in my life is that nothing one does in one’s twenties, short of having a child, is irrevocable. You could, if you wanted to, simply choose not to return to England, or you could take a year off.”

  “I’m on a Fulbright,” Ruthie said. “I think not going back to Oxford would be fairly irrevocable.”

  “Yes, I know about your Fulbright. Your mother told me. She’s quite proud of you.”

  Was she? Ruthie wondered. Was Iris really proud of her? She certainly expected things from her, things like doing well in school, earning fellowships. When Ruthie conformed to these expectations her mother didn’t seem so much proud as satisfied. For instance, Iris hadn’t made a fuss when Ruthie graduated with honors from Harvard. It had been no more, Ruthie supposed, than what her mother had expected.

  Mary Lou said, “I’m sure even the administrators of the Fulbright fellowships would understand if you requested a year’s hiatus. Or even just one term’s. Certainly you should try to find out if that’s an option.”

  “What would I do if I didn’t go back to Oxford?”

  “Oh for goodness’ sake, Ruthie. You’re, what? Twenty-five years old? Surely you can come up with a way to fill your time.”

  “Twenty-three.”

  “Even better. Travel. Work. You could work here, and I could travel. You’re already a recognized authority on the Dewey decimal system. You could shelve novels in the day, and read them at night. Which is, come to think of it, more or less how I spend my days. It’s quite a nice life. Liven it up with the odd excursion to the movies or an afternoon’s sailing and you’ll find you pass the time quite easily.”

  “I don’t sail,” Ruthie said. “The rest of it sounds kind of not bad.”

  “You’re only twenty-three. God love you.” She sighed, and then stood up, grunting a little, as if her knees had stiffened up on her. “We’d best make our way back. I can’t imagine the reading is still going on. He’s written about Canada, for God’s sake. How much can there be to say?”

  V

  Late that night, Jane sat at her kitchen table in front of a half-eaten blueberry pie, tracing a finger through the grains of sugar she’d spilled when she’d fixed her third cup of tea. She had skipped her pill tonight, to wait up for Matt, though she knew this meant she would be exhausted tomorrow morning. She had to wake up hours earlier than normal if she was to finish work early enough to take Samantha, as promised, down to visit her mother at the state hospital. Jane had already canceled Samantha’s visit once this month when two of her crew came down with summer colds (or claimed they had; Maureen swore she saw them in Wal-Mart that very day). Still, while Connie would be upset at not seeing her daughter, Samantha was not likely to be disappointed if they had to postpone the visit again; last time she had not appeared to mind in the least. Samantha barely mentioned her mother these days. She had no time for anything besides her practicing and her lessons. She had started spending most of her days at the Copakens’ house, insisting that it was too loud here, what with the girls coming in and out to get their assignments and stock up on supplies, and Matt banging away on that damn Alden every night and all weekend long. But Jane suspected the truth was that the girl just preferred being at the Copakens’.

  Jane slivered off another piece of pie and ate it directly out of the tin. Delicately, so as not to cut herself, she licked the berry juice and crumbs of crust off the knife. Then she cut herself another sliver.

  At one in the morning, Matt slipped quietly into the house, holding the screen to keep it from banging, and crept on stocking feet past the kitchen. Foolish boy, Jane thought as she watched him slither past the kitchen. So foolish he didn’t bother to glance into the room and see her sitting in the dark, waiting to give h
im a piece of her mind. So foolish he tried to fit himself into his brother’s shoes, take his brother’s job, fix up his brother’s boat, and now, worst of all, come as close as he could to having his brother’s girl. Another child in thrall to the goddamn Copakens.

  She watched him try to make his way silently through the house, taking slow, measured steps, freezing every time the floor creaked beneath his feet. She recalled how when he first learned to walk he would do it on tiptoe, his skinny little body balanced on the balls of his feet and on his tiny toes. He had looked so unstable, like even a breeze could topple him from his perch. She would hover over him, afraid he would fall. Then, when she was unable to stand it any longer, she would scoop him up and carry him around on her hip. She could almost feel his weight there now.

  She called out, “You look like a gawmy idiot, tiptoeing around like that.”

  Matt gasped and clutched his chest. “Jesus Christ, you scared me.” He stood in the hallway, as if he were afraid to come into the room.

  “Sit down,” Jane said, motioning to an empty chair.

  After a longing glance up the dark hallway to the stairs and the safety of his bedroom, Matt joined her at the table.

  “You’re not planning on sleeping in the barn tonight?” she said.

  He shook his head.

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You embarrassed about the mess you made out there?”

  “I’m not embarrassed.”

  “Don’t you go biting my head off. Here.” She pushed the pie tin across the table. “There’s pie.”

  “You made a pie?”

  “Couldn’t sleep. Waiting up for you.”

  “Oh.”

  She could tell he was bracing himself for the dressing down they both knew was coming. Matt had always been the more tractable of her two boys. John had never sought approval or permission from anyone. He did what he wanted, trusting the knowledge that his instincts were generally right. He had that kind of confidence. As soon as he was big enough, John defended himself both from his mother’s criticism and from his father’s brutish attacks, but with restraint, with no more force than was necessary. Matt never had that kind of fortitude. Reproach, criticism, or a whupping left him in tears, but in general such techniques were never even needed. The first time that Jane could honestly remember Matt refusing to do what he was told was last year, when he dropped out of college.

  “Won’t you have a little pie?”

  “Oh, no thanks, Mum, I’m not really—”

  “Have some goddamn pie.”

  Matt jumped, startled, as if he hadn’t been waiting for her to explode from the moment she walked into the barn and found the boat in ruins and Ruthie half-naked, wearing only John’s shirt. Jane sniffed. He smelled like beer.

  Matt reached behind him and took a fork from the drain board. He pulled the pie tin toward him.

  “Use a plate.”

  He got himself a plate and started to slice a narrow slice of pie. She took the knife out of his hand, cut a hefty piece, and served it to him brusquely. She had not cut all the way through, so part of the crust remained behind in the tin. With her fingers she pried it loose and dumped it on top of the misshapen lump of filling and crust on his plate.

  “Dig in,” she said.

  Dutifully, he forked up a large bite and put it in his mouth. He chewed.

  “Good?”

  He nodded, looking so miserable she felt a sudden pity for him.

  “The Citgo had berries today,” she said, keeping her tone matter-of-fact. As though they were having any old conversation. As though it were not the middle of the night, and she had not been waiting for him for hours. “I bought enough to put up some jam, too,” she continued.

  “You planning on staying up all night?” He gave a nervous smile, revealing purple-stained teeth.

  “Close your mouth. No, no, I’m hoping to sleep tonight. But considering the way things are going, I might get to the jam and still have a few hours to put up the first of the tomatoes. Where’ve you been?”

  Matt slid his plate away and leaned back, hand on his belly, in a show that he was too stuffed to eat any more.

  “Finish your food,” Jane said.

  There was a pause, and for one instant defiance flared in his eyes. Then he took up his fork again. As he shoveled up the rest of the pie she repeated, “Where have you been?”

  “Driving around,” he said, with his mouth full.

  She licked her finger and dabbed at some sugar that had spilled on the table. Then she put her finger in her mouth, wincing slightly at the sweetness. “Driving by the Neptune, by the stink of it. What is it you think you’re doing, son?”

  He sighed, and pushed away his plate. “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Surely the boy knew her well enough to know that she was not the kind of mother to be satisfied with that kind of answer. “You’re sleeping with that girl, I don’t call that nothing. And let’s not even talk about what you’ve gone and done to John’s boat.”

  Matt pushed his chair back and got to his feet. “I’m tired. I’m going to bed.”

  “You’ll sit your narrow behind down. We’re going to talk about this. You don’t want to be seeing Ruthie, Matt. You know you don’t.”

  Matt braced his hands on the back of the kitchen chair, digging the pads of his fingers into the vinyl-covered upholstery. He rocked the chair back and forth a few times. “Why not?”

  “Why not?” Surely he didn’t need her to explain to him what was wrong with what he was doing. Jane’s head started to hurt, a dull throb that began at the base of her skull and crept over the top of her head.

  “Yeah, why not? I like her. I like being with her. She gets me, you know? She feels the same kinds of things I do. We’re alike.”

  If he’d finished college, if he had gotten his degree, gone on to study marine biology like he had always said he was going to, then he might have had something in common with that girl. But now he was nothing more than a dropout working down at the boatyard. He wasn’t even a designer, like his brother had been. “She’s nothing like you, boy.”

  “You’re just saying that because you have a chip on your shoulder about her parents. But you need to get over that, Mum. Look what they’re doing for Samantha. Ruthie’s mom gave her a fucking violin! The old man is giving her free lessons. Do you even get who he is? He was one of the most famous violinists of his time. He played for, like, JFK. He even played for the fucking queen of England! Do you know how much he would charge for lessons, if he even gives them anymore? Like, I don’t know, a hundred bucks an hour!”

  Jane slapped her hands down on the table, making the pie tin and forks jump. “Watch your language! I’ve known Mr. Kimmelbrod for forty years. You don’t need to tell me who he is. Samantha doesn’t have anything to do with this. What’s going on between Samantha and Mr. Kimmelbrod is a whole nother problem. This is about you and that girl.”

  “Why is what’s going on with Samantha a problem? She’s lucky. If it weren’t for Iris and Mr. Kimmelbrod, we never would have even known Samantha had talent.”

  “I knew.”

  “Oh, yeah, right. You knew. Before the Copakens came along, the kid was playing on some little toy Barbie piano. Now she’s studying violin with a world-famous virtuoso.”

  Jane didn’t need Matt to tell her that Mr. Kimmelbrod was giving Samantha a tremendous gift, that if not for him, Samantha’s talent would have been little more than a party trick. Jane was, in fact, keenly aware of how much she owed the old man and his daughter, of the depth of the emotional and financial hock she was in to the Copaken family. The lessons, and before that the burial plot, and before that the wedding. She could never repay them, even if they would allow her the dignity of trying.

  Jane said, “We’re not talking about that now. The problem we’re dealing with right here and now is you and that girl. I want it to stop.”

>   Matt raised his voice. “Why?”

  “Because I said so.”

  “That’s not a good enough reason.” Saliva sprayed from his mouth, and with a rough swipe he passed the back of his hand over his lips.

  “While you live under my roof that is the best reason there is.”

  Matt pushed the chair into the table with a bang. “I’m going to bed.”

  Jane stood up, braced her hands on the edge of the table, and leaned forward until her face was close to Matt’s. “We’re not done,” she said. Her scowl operated on him as it always had. It froze him in place.

  For a long minute they faced each other across the expanse of the pockmarked old table, neither one of them moving. The room was silent but for the airplane drone of the cicadas, the occasional booming of a toad, and the hum of the electric clock above the stove.

  Finally, Matt said softly, “I’m not sixteen anymore. You can’t tell me who I can and can’t date. I’m a man.” Matt’s eyes were wet and Jane was afraid that he was going to cry. Instead, he turned away and walked out of the room. In the doorway he stopped. Without turning to look at her, he said, “I’m sorry, Mum.”

  “Don’t be sorry. Do the right thing.”

  “I’m sorry,” he repeated, and left her alone in the dark kitchen.

  As she listened to his heavy tread on the stairs, Jane sat down, put her head in her hands, and rubbed her eyes with her fingertips. She missed John. If he were here she could have thrown up her hands and said, “I have no idea how to get through to that boy. You deal with him,” just as she used to whenever Matt would sink into one of his adolescent sulks. Then John would have smiled, given her shoulder a squeeze, and teased her for getting so upset. “Take it easy, Mum,” he would have said. “You’re going to give yourself a stroke.” Then he would have gone to Matt’s room, shut the door, and within minutes the two of them would be listening to their music and laughing like fools.