Greenville

by Dale Peck

  The girl dumps the pineapple juice down the sink, empties the sliced rings onto the cutting board. With a few swift strokes, she cuts them into evenly sized chunks.

  Carly, grab the skewers would you?

  She already has them.

  Aren’t you supposed to marinate the meat? In the pineapple juice?

  Oh shit.

  The girl looks up and realizes the son has said the names of his books and she hasn’t heard them.

  I’m sorry, I don’t really read much besides school stuff.

  That’s okay, he says smiling. No one really reads them much.

  You could get them off the Internet if you were interested, the boy’s father says. Do you get on the Internet much?

  We’ll just put barbecue sauce on them, the girl says to Carly. Then, to the father: I know you’re not going to believe me, but I’ve never used the Internet. I don’t even have email. Even as she says this she is grabbing the aluminum foil for the asparagus. She peels off a big piece and spreads it flat on the counter, Christine and Carly are assembly-lining the meat and peppers and onions and tomatoes and pineapple onto skewers.

  Just a country girl at heart, she hears the father say, and despite herself she makes a little face.

  Just lazy really, she says, spreading the asparagus heel-tip, heel-tip on the foil. Or not interested. I’m studying to be a schoolteacher so I guess I’m going to have to learn how to use it eventually. She cuts several chunks of butter and drops them on top of the asparagus. It’s the future, right?

  My son teaches.

  Writing, the son says. He shrugs.

  That makes sense, the girl says absently. She has just folded up the foil when she realizes she’s forgotten the marjoram. She unfolds the foil and sprinkles the marjoram on, adds salt and pepper and kind of crimps the foil back together. Christine and Carly have finished the skewers in record time. She glances at her watch. It’s a quarter to one.

  Would you excuse me? I have to get this on the grill.

  Of course, of course, the father says. Smells delicious already. He smiles at her like a teenager.

  Christine and Carly follow her outside with the kebobs and the asparagus.

  Okay, so, like, who are they? Christine says as soon as they’re outside.

  The girl opens the grill.

  I’m not really sure. I guess the dad knew Donnie or something, when they were kids.

  The coals are still flaming a little, but she doesn’t have time to let them burn down. As she lays the skewers on the rack the meat juice causes them to flame even more, and she has to drop the skewers from a couple of inches to keep from getting burned.

  Carly laughs a little. Do you think the son’s gay?

  That was it. That was how the son was looking at the house. He wasn’t appraising it. He was decorating it. But all she says is Oh hush. You’re too young to know about these things, and then she sets the foil-wrapped asparagus at the end of the grill, as far from the flames as possible.

  Um, our own brother, Christine says.

  And sister, Carly says.

  You know about Brian? And Darcy?

  Um, duh, Christine says. You didn’t think we actually fell for that roommate line did you?

  Like, twice? Carly says.

  The girl shakes her head. You kids these days, she says, you’re growing up too fast, but by now she is distracted by the barbecue. She’s afraid the coals are too hot and everything will burn. Already butter is seeping out of the aluminum foil that holds the asparagus. She reaches for the tongs.

  The phone rings inside.

  I’ve got it! Christine says, but Carly is closer to the door. She dashes in, reappears a moment later with the cordless.

  I bet it was fun, she is saying. Gloria didn’t sneak in until two o’clock. She covers the mouthpiece with her hand. It’s Justin, she whispers. Then, into the phone: So, how much is my silence worth to you? What? Well, just because she doesn’t live here anymore doesn’t mean Mom can’t ground her. Huh? Oh, I guess you’re right. It does.

  The flames are licking the kebobs and the girl is afraid they’re going to be burnt to a crisp, so she goes down the line, using the tongs to turn them over. She nudges the asparagus further toward the edge of the rack.

  Give me that, she says then, grabbing the phone from Carly and passing off the tongs to Christine. And keep turning them or they’ll get all black. And you, she says to Carly. Go grab the barbecue sauce and baste baste baste.

  The girl presses the phone into her ear and wanders up the driveway and around the garage.

  Someone stole the C again, Justin says, and she laughs.

  You should just make it official. The Winter Love.

  I don’t think that’s the kind of resort my parents want to run, Justin says, and they both laugh.

  When she gets to the woodshed she dusts the cobwebs and sawdust off a low stack and sits down. Justin’s voice is a low soothing drone in her ear, her own voice sounds silly and giggly when it bubbles out of her mouth. She lets him talk, and somehow she doesn’t quite get around to mentioning oversleeping and missing her parents before they headed off to the hospital or the two men who are sitting at her kitchen table waiting for her to cook them lunch. She only tells him the asparagus was ready today, that she is trying his mom’s recipe. When he says, Yum, I wish I could be there, she says, I wish you could be here too, and it seems like they’ve only been on the phone for a few seconds when Christine comes running around the garage.

  It’s on fire! It’s on fire!

  The girl panics.

  I’ll be home tonight, she says, practically hanging up on Justin at the same time. She runs after Christine, half expecting to see flames spouting from the roof of the house. But it’s worse than that.

  My asparagus!

  Flames are coming out of either end of the shiny foil bundle, as if the asparagus were a flaming baton.

  It just like burst, Carly says.

  You were supposed to be watching it, the girl says, grabbing the flaming bundle and pulling it off the fire. But even as she grabs it she is thinking, I called Justin’s place home.

  You just said to turn the kebobs, Christine said. You didn’t say anything about the asparagus.

  The girl shakes her head.

  I didn’t tell you to get that haircut either, but that didn’t stop you—ow!

  With the tongs, she tosses the asparagus onto the wooden table, even as she swats at what feels like a bee stinging the back of her neck. Her loose hair clues her in: the rubberband has snapped, leaving her hair free to fly around her neck and cheeks and forehead.

  Meanwhile the foil bundle has landed on the picnic table in a shower of sparks and now smokes desultorily. It could almost be a baked potato fresh from the oven. Please let it be a baked potato, the girl thinks as she pushes her hair off her face with one hand, holds the tongs in the other and prods at the foil. Just a small miracle. That’s all she’s asking for. Just one little act of transubstantiation.

  She has to use her fingernails to pry open the blistering bundle. When she finally pulls the foil apart she sees that the stuff inside has indeed been transformed: it looks like a pile of spent logs in the fireplace, and as the girl looks at it she realizes that she forgot to put the garlic in. Her cheeks burn, and for a moment she thinks she might cry.

  Oh damn it, she says quietly, and just then Donnie’s truck pulls into the driveway.

  She waves at him, but as soon as he gets out of the truck he trots across the road to the barn, the boy clambering out of the passenger’s side and running after him without bothering to close his door. She can hear a buzzer in the cab faintly, reminding Donnie he’s left his keys in the ignition.

  The girl looks down at the smoking mass on the picnic table, then back up at Donnie and the boy. For a moment everything seems far away, like a painting at the other end of a gallery: the tiny rectangle of Donnie’s truck, dun colored, the bigger rectangle of the barn, red and listing slightly to the east, a
nd then the pale blue sky framing the scene on three sides and reaching out endlessly in all directions. Measured against that sky, the barn and Donnie’s truck and Donnie and the boy himself seem impossibly small and fragile. What was it the father had said? They tore down the barn. I guess they just wanted a place to live. The barn seems insubstantial, but all at once the men in the kitchen—well, the father anyway—become hard. Real. She can see them sitting at the table as if they were right in front of her, waiting patiently for her to serve the lunch she promised them.

  The girl looks down at the burned asparagus. She grabs it with the tongs and dumps it in the ash bucket with the spent coals.

  Right, she says. You, and she points at Christine. Get the kebobs off the grill before they burn up too. And you—she grabs Carly by a loop of her shorts—come help me inside.

  Ow, pinching! Carly says as she shuffles along behind the girl. Gloria!

  As they come down the hall she can hear the father’s voice in the kitchen.

  Well, I don’t know, Dale. I spoke to him last Friday. You know he’s retired now and he says money’s a bit tight but he’s gonna try to be there. It sure would be nice to meet my own brother after all these years. But hell, I almost didn’t come myself. Can’t hardly afford to miss the work. Well hello again, he says when he sees the girl. Either the sun just came out from behind a cloud or a pretty girl just walked into the room.

  The girl can’t decide who blushes more: her or the son. Of course he’s gay, she thinks. I mean, baby blue pants?

  Looks like someone let her hair down, the father says, and she definitely blushes more than the son.

  Donnie just got here, she says, pushing at her hair, rummaging through the canned goods in the cabinet. He’s out in the barn, should be right in. To Carly she says, Set the table. Make sure to put out a plate for the boy. She finds a dusty can of asparagus at the back of the cabinet.

  My God, the father is saying as she turns around, and she pauses, caught by the awe in his voice, the look of wonder on his face. Donnie Sutton. I haven’t seen him in forty-five years. She can see the barn through the window behind him, rendered even hazier by her mother’s gauzy white curtains. She can hear the son shift in his creaky wooden chair, but he doesn’t say anything. She realizes then that the emotion in the father’s voice is as mysterious to the son as it is to her. She has never met the father before, the kitchen table that separates her from him could as well be a brick wall. But what, she wonders, divides this son from his father?

  Suddenly the father turns. He looks her full in the face but doesn’t quite seem to see her.

  My God.

  The girl feels a blush rise to her cheeks as if she has been caught peeping.

  I, I’m sure he’ll be pleased to see you too, she says, practically hiding her face in the drawer as she hunts for the can opener. Forty-five years is a long time, she adds, feeling the need to keep talking against the father’s blank gaze, the son’s strained silence. You should have a lot to say to each other. Is there any of that macaroni salad left? she says to Christine, who is walking in with the kebobs on a platter.

  How should I know?

  By opening the fridge and looking, the girl says, brandishing the can of asparagus like a grenade. Come on, we’re late enough as it is.

  There’s macaroni, Carly says now. And it looks like Mom made a regular salad too. Should I put them both out?

  Might as well, the girl says. She is emptying the canned asparagus into a pot on the stove and trying not to think about the fact that it is the color and consistency of snot. On an impulse she cuts up a few cloves of raw garlic and drops them into the soupy mixture, sprinkles some marjoram on top. It floats in the briny liquid like fish flakes.

  Is that asparagus? the son says now.

  She looks up guiltily.

  Yup!

  Yum! the son says.

  You like asparagus? the father says.

  I love asparagus.

  You hated it when you was a kid.

  Dad, the son says. I’m thirty-four.

  When the father nods his head, his chin disappears in a cowl of loose flesh and gray beard. The weight of time seems to be particularly heavy on his head. It takes a moment before he looks up, smiles brightly.

  A home-cooked meal, he says. If I’d known I was in for such a treat when I got up this morning I’d’ve dressed better.

  The girl smiles back at him, stirring the canned asparagus a little viciously. The colorless stalks tangle around her spoon like ropy pasta.

  The screen door bangs down at the end of the hall.

  Go wash up now, she hears Donnie say. His boots clump down the hall. Seventy years old, and he never has learned how to comport himself inside a house.

  She steals a look at the father, sees the son is looking at him as well. He is sitting very still in his chair, a half smile set into his face like you give to a dog in a strange yard.

  When Donnie reaches the doorway he pulls up short, and for the first time the girl considers the reunion from Donnie’s point of view, realizes she has no idea what kind of effect it will have on him. Maybe he hated this man, forty-five years ago?

  Hey Donnie, she says, trying to keep her voice light. You’ve got a visitor.

  She realizes, again, that she has excluded the son from the scene. Donnie does the same. His eyes pass between son and father, settle on the older man.

  Howdy, he says warily.

  A grin cracks the father’s face.

  Well hey, Donnie, how are you doing?

  There is a pause before Donnie answers, his voice still cautious, quiet. The girl is acutely aware of the fact that she and Christine and Carly have all stopped what they are doing and are staring at him, as is the son.

  I’m pretty fine, and yourself?

  Oh, I’m doing great, Donnie. Just great. You don’t remember me, do you?

  Donnie takes hold of the doorframe with one hand. Pinches the trim like a woman scrutinizing dress fabric, speaks to it instead of the father.

  Can’t say as I do, no.

  There is another beat then. It goes on a moment too long, and the girl feels genuine tension fill the room. She looks at the son again, and he makes a little face at her like, Uh-oh. But there is a half smile on his face as well, and as the girl looks at the son she suddenly feels the drama of the moment as he must, its simultaneous uniqueness and universality, the stranger who turns out to be a long-lost friend. God, she hopes he was a friend. For a few seconds she understands what it is to feel like a character in a book, and then:

  Donnie, the father says, almost chastising the man in the door.

  The girl looks back at Donnie, sees him clearly for the first time in years. A tiny man, shorter than she is, with bowlegs and worn jeans that ride too low on his waist and a little potbelly that spills over his belt. He toes the floor with a boot that seems composed of equal parts dirt and leather.

  Can’t say as I remember you, he says to the floor. No sir, I can’t.

  Just then the boy appears, squeezing between Donnie’s hip and the doorframe and slipping into the room and then stopping dead in his tracks. The upright bodies crowding the tiny kitchen remind the girl of something—the hair products on her dresser, crowded together like a city skyline. Now why is that?

  A sizzle distracts her: it’s her asparagus, starting to burn in the pot beneath her face. She yanks it off the stove and turns toward the sink as if she is going to run cold water on it, but even as she turns she hears the father speak.

  It’s Dale, Donnie. Dale Peck.

  The way people say their names sometimes: not I’m Dale Peck but It’s Dale Peck. Of course it’s Dale Peck. Who else would it be?

  She pauses then. Holding the sizzling pan over the sink with both hands, she turns and looks at Donnie.

  Well I’ll be, Donnie says then. He doesn’t say it very loud. A smile cracks his face, and the girl practically sighs with relief. I’ll be. It is Dale Peck.

  Chairs scrape then
, hands are shaken, introductions made. This is my son, Dale Jr., the girl hears even as she turns back to her pan, peeks in. The asparagus is a little dried out but not burned, she sees, although it looks a bit like something you’d eat with a spoon instead of a fork.

  She is just turning back to the table when the son says,

  And what’s your brother’s name?

  Brian, what? she says, then realizes he means the boy. Oh, that’s, um, that’s Tommy, she says, having to think for a moment. He’s not our brother, she says. He just showed up here one day wanting to work. Isn’t that right, boy?

  The boy’s eyes dart between hers and the son’s, not sure if he is being mocked.

  Yep, he says warily.

  I call him boy because there was another one before him, they come and go. But this one’s a good one, Donnie says he works hard. Isn’t that right, boy?

  Now the boy looks between Donnie and the son.

  Yep.

  Boy, why don’t you sit on that end by Christine and Carly. We’ll put Donnie there next to Dale Jr.

  Oh God please, the son says. Coming from your lips that makes me sound so old.

  The girl smiles.

  We do have a brother. Brian. He lives down in the city too. In Queens. She looks at the table separating the son and his father, set with empty plates and full dishes of food. Oh. Duh. Eat, please, she says then. Come on, it’s getting cold.

  Thank God for Tommy. For a moment it looks like nobody is going to touch the food, then he reaches across the table and grabs a kebob. Grabs two kebobs. In a moment there is the pleasant sound of forks scraping dishes, things being passed. Bowls empty, plates fill up in hourglass exchange.

  The girl puts the asparagus in a bowl and brings it to the table when she sits down. The son is just to her left and she hands it to him.

  Asparagus?

  Love it, he says. He spoons all of two pieces on his plate, where they lie gray and limply crisscrossed like shoelaces that have come untied.

  The girl pushes at her hair.

  Please, eat up, she says.

  Just want to make sure there’s enough to go around, the son says, passing the bowl to Donnie.

  Eh? Can’t stand asparagus, Donnie says, handing the bowl on to Christine, who spoons some onto her plate without looking and hands it off to Carly.