Beyond Deserving

by Sandra Scofield

  “Come on Pop,” Michael says gently, taking his father’s elbow.

  “Now what’s that?” Gully asks in a shaky voice. He points down the road toward where he lives, a mile away. “See that smoke?”

  “Probably somebody burning trash,” Michael says, but Gully won’t budge. The smoke is only a wispy plume, like Gully’s pony tail turned upside down. You could almost take it for a campfire.

  Ursula, now anxious, makes a face to Michael as he glances her way, a why-can’t-you-take-charge look that makes Michael swivel away in annoyance.

  “As soon as we’re through here we’ll go take a look,” Michael says to his father. He crosses in front of the old man, to turn him back toward the building. They have reached the bottom step when they all jump at the sound of tires screeching on the highway. A logging truck has come to a desperate stop as a shiny RV cuts left in front of it and pulls in to the wide part of the drive by the hall. Ursula’s hands are fluttering like birds let out of a cage, taking all her energy. She doesn’t know what to say next.

  “Let’s get it over with,” she hears Michael say. It seems a mean way to look at things, but they are all making special efforts for Geneva’s sake, that is no secret.

  “Gulsvig Fisher! You’ve gone and shrunk up!”

  Ruby Hammond’s voice hangs in the air like the lowing of a cow. She steps down from the Marauder, livid in turquoise knit, but a good-looking woman who has had a much better life than her sister. She is widowed and well-off. As she comes toward the men, Gully turns and sprints up the stairs, suddenly spry.

  Michael follows his father, brushing past Ursula without a word. Ursula waits for Ruby and awkwardly exchanges kisses, not quite on cheeks, not on mouths. “We were starting to worry,” she says.

  Ruby tosses off their concern with extravagant waves of her arms. “I thought I had all the time in the world. I was only coming from Salem this morning, but the highway was an endless parade of poke-ass drivers. Oh, come on, where’s that sis of mine?” She holds Ursula’s arm tightly and starts up the stairs. “Fifty years! How has she stood it?” Ruby is half a foot taller than Ursula, and the effect is that Ursula feels like a schoolgirl in for a scolding. As soon as Ruby spots Geneva she lets go of Ursula and, with the same long braying as outside, calls to Geneva.

  “Come and see my slick Marauder!” she says as she and Geneva unwind from smacking kisses and great hugs. She sees that a number of guests have turned to stare at her. “Anybody else want to come?” she says rather grandly, and indeed, as she turns, pulling Geneva with her down the stairs to the camper, she is followed by a small parade of the curious. In the yard, everybody stands around while the sisters go in and out of the fancy camper. Geneva pauses at the door of it to say, “It’s so tidy, and handy, and cute!” She steps down, and speaks directly to the minister’s wife. “I’d give anything to have a little house on wheels like that. You could go anywhere you wanted.” The minister’s wife kindly agrees. Geneva does look yearning.

  They all troop back inside and eat in a frenzy, jazzed up by Ruby’s arrival. Ruby keeps Geneva close by her, but drags her around the room, demanding to be introduced to everyone. The volume in the room is way up, a good sign. Ursula starts around with a big bag, picking up abandoned spinach tarts and plates. Katie has found several pitchers and has set out water. Here and there, cups have overturned and made puddles. Ursula sees that the musicians are exhausted. A violinist takes out a handkerchief and wipes his face. Suddenly everyone has that semi-desperate look of readiness to depart.

  “Okay, everyone!” Ursula announces. “Come around the table and have some cake!” They all do as she asks. A lot of the guests will be up for similar celebrations, if not for their own funerals, soon enough. Ursula resolves on the spot to see to it that her July Fourth picnic will be a real bash. She won’t care if everyone gets falling-down drunk, as long as it is lively.

  Gully has been gathered in like laundry off the line. Guests crowd in to offer congratulations one more time. Ursula rushes into the kitchen for the cake. Katie has found a big butcher knife.

  “That’ll do,” Ursula says firmly, and, cake balanced on her hands, she prances back to the party.

  Geneva takes the butcher knife and applies it with a flourish to the cake. She is good at making do. Gully looks mortified, caught between his wife and sister-in-law behind the table, but at least no one is holding on to him anymore, and he has not bolted.

  Mary Courter says, “I say fifty years is reason to cheer!” All oblige, bringing tears to Geneva’s eyes. She takes the first gooey bite. She offers the next to Gully from her hand. His eyes are wild, but he takes one small morsel, with the enthusiasm of someone eating a sock. Ruby guffaws. “This cake is a gas!” she says. Geneva doesn’t seem to notice, or mind. Guests come in to get their servings, then back away to other parts of the room. Ursula, amazed, realizes she has tears in her eyes. Michael comes to stand beside her, puts his arm around her waist, squeezes, and slides away. For him, it is a large gesture.

  Still buoyant, Geneva calls out, “Goodbye, goodbye!” to the first couple out the door. They have a slightly guilty look, but when they make an easy escape, others follow. Ursula rushes over to Geneva to tell her she looks radiant. “Have you still got film?” she asks, taking Geneva’s camera and urging Gully in close beside his wife. Gully says, “She’s worn real well for an old gal, ain’t she?” Geneva, pleased, makes a face at him and rolls her eyes. This is the expression Ursula catches, and then she realizes it is Geneva’s last shot. Michael and Katie are making the rounds to pick up trash. A few guests linger, licking their fingers and chatting.

  In walk Fish and Juliette. Fish is wearing the shirt Katie bought him for court last year. (He chose to wear instead the clear shame of jail garb, green coveralls.) The shirt is white with tiny red stripes; Fish looks like a stick of peppermint. He is fresh-scrubbed and combed, his hair still damp from washing. He has his head tucked, not looking at anyone. Juliette is in her dance garb, a black leotard with a black gauzy skirt that hangs in a swoop around her legs and flares as she moves.

  Geneva stops in the middle of a word as Fish enters the hall. Her face falls. Ursula thinks, But he came! Then she looks at Fish and sees what Geneva sees, his uneasiness that can turn sullen and swollen as a flash flood. Juliette, with her hair caught up in a loose French roll from which long curling hairs have escaped, looks quite pretty. She has none of her bad mood left today, or at least she is not showing it.

  Ursula has the sudden uncontrollable urge to escape. She turns and runs back to the kitchen. At the door she runs into Katie, both of them gasping at the impact which is, fortunately, aglance and not head-on. “Oh God!” Katie says, looking into the room, and “Oh!” again. Ursula reaches for Katie’s hand and presses it. She is facing the kitchen. With her eyes she hints at escape, but Katie takes a step forward, moving Ursula backwards in the same move. “I’m the one who doesn’t belong here,” she says. Her chin quivers.

  “It’s okay, Katie,” Ursula whispers. “He knew you’d be here. Don’t worry.”

  Katie moves past Ursula and walks up to Fish. She reaches him, with Ursula behind her, as he says to his mother, “I’m a nonperson now. For a year I was a number. Now I’m nothing.” Geneva is bewildered. “Not a father, not a husband, nobody’s breadwinner. NOBODY. I can’t even live in my own house because it’s rented.” He bangs a fist into the other hand. Geneva’s face has crumpled. Her collar is crooked. The button at her waist is undone, setting the scoop of her peplum askew. Katie bursts into tears. “This was going fine!” she half screeches. “Why didn’t you stay away?!”

  “Whose party is this?” Fish asks sarcastically. “Whose parents are these?” He is clenching his hand so tight the veins stand out. “Have you given Ma your little present yet? Your news?”

  Ursula looks around for Michael. Both he and Gully have disappeared. Everyone else has gone, except for the musicians, who are gathering up their music stands and loading their c
ar. Ursula considers fainting, but she doesn’t think she can pull it off. She can see what is coming, and it makes her sick: Fish, wilted and self-pitying (his anger will lose momentum in a while), desperate and bitter, will be beaten by Katie’s mounting hysteria, her accusations, all the things she has not said to him before he went to jail, or after he got out.

  “What would you know about marriage?” Katie screams. “When did you ever keep a promise? When did you pay any attention? I had to take a goddamned TAXI to go have a BABY because you were DRUNK!”

  Katie’s anger hangs in the air. Geneva’s face shows that she knows Gully is gone, that love does not work out, that Fish is in for a sorry fate. The cake, mostly gone, lies in a mound of slimy frosting. Ruby looks aghast, though she still looks full of energy. She does not retreat, as Fishers do. She is all attention.

  Juliette runs out of the hall down to the musicians. Ursula sees her gesturing and talking excitedly. Fish says to Katie, “You did this with a lot of class. You really thought it over, didn’t you?” Ruby takes charge of Geneva, putting her arms around her. Katie pulls Fish away to the corner of the room. There is a buzz in the room, but Ursula doesn’t think anything is really being said. She watches Fish and Katie, wondering if Fish might lunge at Katie and hit her without thinking. But Fish and Katie move together, against the wall, like high school sweethearts in a crowded hallway. Katie is talking in rushes, punctuated by her crying. Ursula sees her punch Fish once in the chest. He doesn’t move. Geneva is sobbing. She sees what Ursula sees, her son’s defeated posture.

  Fish reaches up and touches Katie’s hair. Ursula holds her breath, afraid Katie will begin to scream again. Instead she bends her head close to Fish and, finally, with a sigh, leans against him.

  The two boys with their violins come back in, followed by four or five of the guests who have not driven away yet. The other musicians stand outside, fanning themselves with sheets of music.

  The boys begin to play a lively and sweet gavotte. Their violins are tucked under their chins, their necks are curved and long. Their bodies—they are standing—quiver slightly, like reeds in a breeze.

  Juliette begins to dance. At first she takes only a small space. She moves, almost like the musicians, in a flutter. Then her arms move out from her like a flower unfolding. Her head rises and her face, sweet and pale, is sad and yearning. She turns gently, once, and again, venturing out away from the music, into the center of the hall. Her arms wind up and pull her heavenward, beyond the building, away from their quarrels. This is unlike any dance Ursula has seen her daughter do. It is fragile and strong at the same time, lively, in the 4-4 beat of the song, and at the same time it is tender and sad.

  The music changes tempo, suddenly faster, and Juliette twirls and dips. Katie peeks out from around Fish’s shoulder. Geneva is sagging against Ruby, one hand on the table in front of her for more support.

  For fifty years the Fishers have been saying wrong things, or nothing at all, or pretending to talk while they speak riddles and small deceits. Here, though, is a Fisher who with a few deft moves has rescued them from a day’s spite. Fish is grounded. Katie’s fury and embarrassment have leaked away with her tears. Geneva is still on her feet.

  In the instant the music is over it seems the musicians and the odd guests vanish. Juliette moves quickly past Ursula and, across the table from Geneva, she curtsies. They are all frozen. Ruby breaks the silence. “Did you see that? An angel!” She claps her hands for a long moment, all alone.

  Juliette, suddenly shy as a child, rises. Geneva has never known how, or wanted, to love Ursula’s children; her own children burned up all the fuel of her love, singed away all the affection and sweetness. Yet Juliette has given something of herself to this grandmother, whose face is splotched with tears, whose mouth is sticky with the residue of cake; has given as children never do when they are asked. Unless, of course—and Ursula does not want to think this true—Juliette has simply learned the power of performance. Whatever her reason, Juliette has saved the day.

  Ursula runs from the hall and stands in the yard and bawls. If someone demanded to know whom she loves best just then, her husband or her daughter, she could not say. If someone condemned them all, a family of trees with no branches, she would defend them.

  To the north, around the curve of highway, she sees smoke again, feathering above rooftops and trees, a gray curl against the sky. Around that same curve, she sees the small figures of her husband and his father, walking along the road toward her.

  She cannot help herself. She runs to meet them.

  28

  Fish pushes Katie’s car to get it going. He follows her back to Michael’s in his snub-nosed Econoline. Katie tries not to look in the rearview mirror; having him behind her makes her nervous. She knows she isn’t driving fast enough and he will be back there, slapping his steering wheel and muttering, telling her to get on with it.

  Juliette rides with her. Her parents are behind in River Cove, closing up the hall.

  “That was something you did back there,” Katie tells her as they hit the stretch of road outside River Cove, before the heavy equipment, hardware, fast food, storage buildings, and junk yards. Where there is irrigation, there are green fields, but already there are patches of dry grass, too. Or maybe it is always like that. Katie has no eye for the great outdoors all the Fishers love so much. She is like a child in kindergarten. She knows a generic landscape of hill and mountain, river and creek, tree, flower, road.

  There have been summers she and Fish drove through the eastern part of the state to camp and hike. They came upon whole fields of white and purple flowers. Then, south of here, over the mountains into California, they used to drive where the sides of the road were thick with clumps of bushes, orange-red, as though they were already on fire. They took drives in the relentless summer heat, following a river, looking for a secluded spot with no campers or dredgers.

  They always got along in the country unless something went wrong with the car.

  Along here there are only yellow-headed weeds, ugly things. The beauty is in the horizon of blue and violet hills. In winter, they disappear into fog or haze.

  Juliette stares out of the window on her side. Her face has a long grieving look to it. Hot wind whips through the car.

  Katie says, “I thought there would be a disaster. I thought your grandmother had her hopes too high. Then Fish showed up and I thought, Oh boy. But you, too. You saved the day.” She glances at Juliette to see if she is pleased. Don’t teenagers like to be praised?

  Juliette says, “It was just a stupid dance.”

  “I never saw one like it.”

  “It’s not like it was choreographed.”

  “Not a ballet, you mean?”

  “No.”

  “I never saw a dance until I started going with your mother to your recitals.”

  “You don’t call them recitals. God.”

  “Oh?”

  “I’m not a little girl. Petunias and fairies and that stuff.”

  “What do you call them?”

  Juliette gives her a withering look. “Concerts.”

  “I remember you in tutus, with your tummy sticking out.” Is she sounding like an old lady talking to a kid? Is she so far gone?

  Juliette sighs audibly. She hangs her hand along the windowpane and looks out. Her hair blows loose from its roll into long wavy tendrils. In a moment she slumps back against the seat again. “I’m so tired of Brian and small-town dance. I want to do modern, for one thing, but Brian says it makes your butt muscles clump up, and wrecks your line. I don’t know. He’s not God. Ballet’s not all there is.”

  “You don’t have to dance, do you?”

  “What would I do?” That look again.

  “See that little hamburger stand over there?” Katie asks. “A worker there had hepatitis, and nine hundred people had to have shots.”

  “We can just ride, Katie, okay?”

  Juliette turns her head to lie against the sea
t, looking away from Katie. Katie is sorry she doesn’t know anything to say. She thinks of Juliette as a little girl, when she isn’t anymore. It is hard for her to talk to Rhea now; what it will be like in a few years can be imagined. She will be mute, stuck between her mother and her child in stupid silence.

  Katie sees Fish behind her, coming close as they near the freeway entrance. He sees her look in her mirror, and he grins. She never doubts him when he looks like that, never doubts the moment’s pleasure for him, or his desire to please. He is incapable of pretense. He can’t be bothered.

  She wonders if she is doing something foolish by letting him repair her car. If she takes it to a garage, it will cost her money, and besides, Fish wants to do it. Fixing cars is in his repertoire, something he is good at.

  They go onto the freeway, and a car comes between them.

  “Will you go to Texas now?” Juliette asks.

  “I might go see Rhea this summer. I haven’t made plans.”

  “I mean to live.”

  “Why no.”

  “Will you still be my aunt?”

  “When I’m divorced?” So that’s it.

  “Yeah. What’ll you be when you’re not married to Fish?”

  His ex-wife, she thinks. It sounds fakey, like a character on a soap opera. “I’ll be Katie Fisher, same as ever. I’m not going to disappear, or stop loving you guys. I’ll still want to come to your concerts.” She tries to smile at Juliette, but she feels a terrible wave of sadness come over her. She didn’t really consider what it would mean, the possibility of not seeing Fish anymore, let alone Ursula, Michael, their children. What did she envision? Maybe it is as simple as this: not having Fish to worry about, his not being her worry any more than anybody’s else’s. Will a divorce accomplish that? Will it change her so much?

  She hated him today when he started in on Geneva with his little poor-me rap. Then he took her aside and whispered things to her, Katie, just to her. Her anger dissolved. She felt his breath on her shoulder as he bent to speak, not looking at her.