“We held hands,” says Brandt. “Down at the lab.”
Oh my gosh! How did I miss this one? A good gambler is supposed to observe the behavior of all the players, and to be on guard for any changes, no matter how small. Is it possible that I was so wrapped up in Ray and Auggie and then getting Bernard and Gil back together that Louise and Brandt had managed to slip under my radar screen? And is he actually a secret dude? Or has my sister been scientifically transformed into a Trekkie down at the laboratory?
“Holding hands counts,” I hear myself saying. “I guess you’re well on your way. But, um, Brandt, there’s something you should know . . . I mean, you need to be careful, because . . . I don’t know if I should be the one to say anything, but Louise had a bad experience. . . .”
“Yeah, don’t worry. She told me all about it.” Brandt exudes a self-confidence that I have to admit does make him seem rather attractive.
“Okay, then, I was just sort of worried that if anyone pressured her, you know, she might have a flashback and go berserk, or something.”
“Actually, I, uh, I don’t believe in premarital sex.”
He what?
“Sure,” I say, as if maybe I don’t, either. Meantime, I’m wracking my brains to remember his family’s religion. Or possibly he took some sort of abstinence pledge after his sister got knocked up senior year of high school.
But it’s as if Brandt reads my mind.
“I’m not just looking for a mate. I’m searching for a soul mate. The soul is what divides us from the animal kingdom. Species in the wild are only following the laws of nature that are necessary for their survival. They’re not even cognizant of their own mortality.”
Now the proof is in, I’m obviously a species destined to live in the wild, incapable of ever finding a soul mate. Maybe working as a yard person for so long has put me too in touch with nature.
“My behavioral sciences studies also lead me to conclude that you produce better offspring from monogamy,” Brandt continues to explain his theory. “Take birds, for example. Some of the most famously faithful are penguins, cranes, pigeons, and parrots. In fact, geese, swans, and doves, and albatrosses are generally believed to remain with one partner throughout their entire lives. You see, one bird is needed to incubate the eggs in the nest, keeping them warm and safe from predators, while the mate gathers food to bring back to the nest, a task that may require flying a great distance out to sea to catch fish. In contrast, mammal mothers have the required milk and so the father is free. What contribution to the family is made by an animal constantly in search of a new mate? Though a female preying mantis eats the male after mating, and so she of course needs a fresh partner every time.”
“Of course.” It sounds as if maybe I should start researching the lifestyles of creatures that need a new partner for every date, since that appears to be my future. “Well then, I’m sure you two will have a terrific time together.”
“Hallie, I’m so glad there are no hard feelings about, you know, us not ending up together.”
“Oh, sure, life has lots of disappointments,” I say. “But I guess you really do have to be like Abraham Lincoln, and never give up. I’m sure Mr. Right is out there somewhere. Maybe even on Jupiter, and it’s only a matter of getting there.”
Brandt appears doubtful about finding life on Jupiter. I probably should have said Mars. But then he suddenly looks happy again. “Actually, this is even better because, who knows, you could be my sister-in-law, and you could be the aunt to my children! Isn’t the universe amazing?”
Holy Hobbits! Brother-in-law Brandt? The next forty Thanksgivings together! I think my contribution to science will be changing the longest day of the year from the Summer Solstice to the third Thursday in November.
Actually, starting immediately, I have to forget about middle-school Brandt. Brandt is okay now. He’s more than okay. He’s tall, cute, sweet, smart, and he has a brilliant future ahead of him.
“Yeah, the universe works in mysterious ways,” I agree.
Yet deep down I realize that I might miss the Brandt infatuation. Or, alternatively, if I’m suddenly categorizing his defection as a lost opportunity, this could serve to prove that I’ve indeed turned into a sex maniac. But there’s no denying that Brandt had been a constant in my life. I mean, The Crush has been going on since fourth grade, when he’d sent me a whole box of cut-out valentines, the kind meant for the entire class. We were fast approaching our tenth anniversary of unrequited love. I wonder what the suggested gift is for that—night-vision goggles? No matter, it feels as if a cold autumn wind has just blown another page off the calendar of childhood. My frog had suddenly turned into a prince. Only I’m not his princess.
Chapter Sixty-two
“HALLIE!” GIL CALLS OUT TO THE BACKYARD. “THERE’S A FedEx for you.”
Nobody has ever sent me a FedEx in my life. It must be the signed copy of my apartment lease for fall. Then I remember the detergent contest and go racing inside.
Sure enough, on the outside of the big envelope is clearly printed:
THE MARKUM CORPORATION.
Gil and Bernard and Brandt surround me as I tear it open. “You must have won the competition!” enthuses Bernard. “We’ll cook a celebratory dinner—I have a new recipe for pork tenderloin that would be perfect with a three-bean salad, and sautéed root vegetables in contrasting colors. I’m thinking turnips, purple potatoes, kohlrabi, parsnips, sweet potatoes—”
“Bernard, how about she reads the letter before you start flambéing kohlrabi?” Gil chides him as I unfold the letter and start to scan the contents for anything about a scholarship.
“Look who’s talking—Mr. How to Lose Fifteen Pounds by Living on Your Own in Cleveland,” retorts Bernard.
“I was exercising more then,” Gil defends himself.
“I won second place,” I say rather excitedly, because even though it’s not first, it’s thrilling to win something.
“Congratulations!” Gil and Bernard both hug me.
“Mother, Ottavio, Louise—Hallie won second place in the contest!” shouts Bernard.
They all rush into the kitchen to congratulate me.
“What did you win?” asks Louise.
While I flip through the attached pages, Brandt the Brain deduces, “If first place is a scholarship for an entire year, then maybe second prize is half of that—a free semester.”
I finally locate the paragraph on the back about my prize. “A pen,” I say gloomily. “They’re mailing me a calligraphy pen.”
“That’s all?” asks Louise.
I read aloud from the letter: “Your prize of a Stephens calligraphy pen will be mailed to your home address following receipt of the attached waiver. . . .” My voice trails off in disappointment.
Bernard persists in being upbeat. “I can sell it for you down at the shop if you’d like. I’m sure it’s worth fifty dollars or so.”
I feel like crying and hurry back outside to drown my sorrows in weed whacking. What rotten luck. I should have taken that job running Cappy’s sports betting operation when I had the chance, worked for a year, and then gone to college with plenty of money in my pockets. Where am I going to find six thousand dollars by the end of November, when tuition is due for second semester? And I’ll have no way to pay for housing starting in January, either. On top of that, the day after my car was finally fixed, my secondhand computer began exhibiting psychotic tendencies.
While refilling the birdfeeders I lecture the impatient sparrows on how easy they have it, flying around all day and then rocking up at the birdfeeders for free meals. Eventually Bernard calls me inside for dinner. He’s had a recent fascination with Belgian cooking and tonight there’s a salad of Belgian endive, meatballs baked in beer, fries (which he informs us all did not originate in France, but Belgium), and for dessert he’s planning Gaugres Bruxelloises—crisp waffles topped with sweetened whipped cream and strawberries.
Olivia’s favorite lyric pieces by Edvard G
rieg play softly on the stereo while Bernard lights the candles on the table as well as the ones in the gold sconces on the wall, giving the room a warm glow.
Louise stays for dinner and Brandt actually joins us instead of returning to the lab. The conversation flows as easily as the music and everyone laughs and enjoys their food and seems to be in love. Except for me, that is.
When dinner is over and the dishes are cleaned and put away I head back to the summerhouse. There was a thunderstorm while we were eating so I tramp through puddles and under showery trees while breathing deeply of the air that’s now gentle and cool. Above me the sky is a deep crystalline blue and the stars are few and faint. It’s the time of day when most creatures head home, and as the shadows deepen and converge, the yard seems very still. Meantime, everything inside me feels so very wide-awake.
I stretch out on the bed and rethink my entry for the competition. Maybe I should have used hip-hop music, or created a dishwasher rap number with all the pots, dishes, and silverware taking different parts and dressing like they’re from The Hood. But it feels as if everybody has already done that in one way or another. However, I can’t help but wonder what sort of idea took first prize and how the storyboard looked.
My thoughts eventually turn to Ray, and all the other guys I briefly dated during the school year. And then to Auggie, whose heart yearns for Svetlana. And finally to Brandt, who is so certain that Louise is his soul mate. Why haven’t I ever felt that way about anyone? Is it like Olivia said, that I’m just not reaching out enough?
Finally I give up and lie back on the bed and stare into the darkness. Drifting through the windows comes the scent of apple and cherry trees after the rain, a sort of bitter sweetness.
Closing my eyes I touch myself in secret places and in that foggy courtyard between dreams and consciousness I imagine my hand is his hand and the pillow I kiss is his face. And even though I don’t know who he is, my shipwrecked heart pounds with impatience and longing like African drums.
Chapter Sixty-three
MAYBE BRANDT IS RIGHT AND THERE REALLY IS A COSMIC FORCE at work in the universe. The next morning when I check my E-mails, there’s one from Ray saying that he’s coming to Cleveland next weekend and asking if I want to get together. Apparently Ray’s mother is having a show of her watercolors that he’s supposed to attend. She paints vegetables. I’d seen one, an eggplant, specifically, and though I’m no art critic, it’s probably a good thing that Ray’s father is the primary donor to the small museum where they’ve offered to display her work.
Anyway, the Auggie disaster did serve at least one purpose, and that was to make me realize that maybe Ray has more potential than I thought. He’s nice, a good conversationalist, and unlike Auggie, he’s focused on becoming successful. Eventually he wants to have his own construction company and build entire communities and office parks from the ground up. Ray is the kind of guy who will provide for his family and not waste his life chasing after pipe dreams. Sure, a boyfriend who enjoys poetry and wants to be a professional writer is all very romantic, but it doesn’t pay the bills. And if I learned one thing growing up in a household with seven kids, there’s nothing like a pile of unpaid bills to take the fun out of life. Oh my gosh, I sound exactly like my father!
“Is it okay if Ray stays over Saturday night?” I ask at the breakfast table. “He’s going to be in Cleveland for the weekend.”
“That’s a wonderful idea,” says Olivia.
“We promise not to show any naked baby pictures,” says Gil. “But only because we don’t have any.”
“Certainly it’s all right,” Bernard assures me. “Though I was starting to wonder if this attachment wasn’t merely a mirage.”
“Don’t joke,” I warn him. “Imaginary boyfriends are the next step for me.”
“We’ll make up the sunroom,” says Bernard. “I’ve put in some new blackout shades, so it can be made nice and dark for sleeping.”
But Olivia shoots him a look. “I’m sure that whatever sleeping arrangements Hallie works out with Ray will be perfectly suitable.”
After everyone else has left the table except Olivia, I say, “The strangest thing happened. Yesterday Joanne from the garden center called and asked me out.”
“What’s so unusual about that?” asks Olivia. “Obviously you both have a lot in common, working with flora and fertilizer.”
“No, I mean out, out on a date.”
“Oh!” says Olivia. “Well, as they say, it never hurts to ask.”
“But do you think it’s possible that she sensed something? I mean, maybe I can’t manage to hold on to a boyfriend because I’m . . . gay?” I think back to Auggie just casually dropping how he’d “been with guys,” and how Gil tried unsuccessfully to date a few women in college. And then again with Doris.
“During ancient times homosexuality wasn’t the opposite of heterosexuality,” says Olivia. “In ancient Greece older men went into battle alongside their younger lovers. The idea was that they’d fight more courageously. Plato once said the greatest army is made up of lovers. Though that doesn’t mean the Greeks were right about everything. Their poetry about women is very misogynistic.”
“But what about in peacetime?” I try not to sound as bewildered as I feel. “And right now, in modern-day America?”
“As nice and economical as it would be to have a partner with whom you could share clothes, shoes, and cosmetics, I don’t believe that you’re gay,” concludes Olivia. Though I notice she takes another look at my shitkicker boots over white sweat socks with cutoff shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt that says LEN’S TRACTOR PARTS on the front.
“No, I suppose not,” I say. I’ve never thought about a woman in that way before. And certainly none of those X-rated movies that Debbie’s boyfriend liked her to watch with him did anything for me.
“Just remember what I told you about safe sex. Some women say condoms aren’t so bad if they put them on, thereby incorporating the ritual into the mood.”
“Thanks.” I rise to go and water the gardens and the grass before the sun gets too hot.
As I’m leaving, Olivia calls after me. “Hallie.”
I stick my head back into the dining room.
“Do think carefully about this.” She pauses for a second as if she’s been debating whether or not to say this next part, but there’s a soft confiding expression in her eyes and she apparently decides to continue. “Something is gained, but something is also lost, and there’s no going back. It’s like building a beautiful temple—you can’t reclaim the grass, trees, and wildflowers that used to be there. It leaves a little indentation on the heart and soul, like a watermark on a good piece of stationery.”
But I don’t really feel as if there is a choice. It’s more like I’m already on a galloping horse that’s rushing headlong into the wind, and despite my anxiety, there’s no turning back.
Chapter Sixty-four
TODAY TURNS OUT TO BE ONE OF THOSE RARE INSTANCES WHERE everybody has someplace to go, and so by lunchtime I actually have the house to myself. Louise had aced her exams, although she continues to take Brandt his lunch down at the lab every day and often hangs out there while he works. Apparently she’s developed an interest in genetics and maintains charts on a professor’s rabbit experiment—crossing rabbits with different eye colors and then recording how the offspring turn out.
Even though it’s only Monday I’m a nervous wreck about the weekend. I mean, how much of what you read in books and see in movies is actually the way sex happens? Is there some sort of schedule where you go from A to B, and after fifteen minutes from B to C, and so forth? And what about Olivia’s suggestion about putting on the condom myself? How am I supposed to know how to put on a condom? I’ve never even looked at one before.
From underneath the bed in the summerhouse I retrieve the box of condoms that Herb gave me when I bought Louise’s pregnancy test. Carefully tearing open a purple foil package, I take out what appears to be a large rubber bottl
e cap. I try to unroll it but can’t figure out which way it’s supposed to open. Searching the back of the box for directions, all I find are a bunch of warnings. Apparently a condom is like shampoo and the makers assume that everyone automatically knows how to use it.
I’ve seen kids using condoms as balloons at school. So I decide to blow into it as a way of finding the right side. Only there’s some kind of slimy stuff covering the top that I didn’t see and my lips start to go numb, as if I’ve just had a shot of Novocain. Not only that, but it tastes terrible!
I go back to the house and rinse my mouth out with warm water. My lips feel as if they’re getting puffy. I dig through the crisper in the refrigerator until I find a zucchini. Pretending that it’s Ray, I attempt to unfurl the condom and get it onto the zucchini.
“Hallie, is that you?” Bernard rushes into the kitchen. “I forgot my checkbook and there’s an estate sale. . . .”
Shit. I must have been in the summerhouse when he came back. I drop the half-covered zucchini into the sink while I feel my cheeks catching fire.
Bernard digs his checkbook out from between several packages of nuts piled next to the bread machine. “They have a case of Staffordshire plates and platters. You know how August is, between the weddings and the garden parties, everyone’s thinking serve, serve, serve!”
I finally exhale, feeling safe that Bernard didn’t see what I was doing. “Right. I’m uh . . .”
The places on my lips and tongue where the gooey stuff hit has partially numbed them and I suddenly sound like my little sister Darlene. “I’m juhtt about to edgthe the front walk.”
“Right,” says Bernard. “Then I’ll see you at dinner.” He moves toward the archway that exits through the dining room.
“Thee you later,” I say.
He pokes his head back in. “It’s very responsible of you to make sure that the squash aren’t propagating in the crisper. Vegetable control is so important these days.”
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