“My wife works for Nana Osserman.”
“Oh, right. Well, Dan has the most incredible wine setup you’ll ever see. Temperature controlled, the whole business, plus about half an acre of the most amazing stuff. I’d love to put in something like that someday.”
We ate in the Zellers’ dining room around the oversized bird’s-eye maple table, the kids and Anne and me grouped at one end, Paul and Richard sitting across from each other at the other.
“It’s not the money, it’s just not having the time to keep an eye on everything,” Richard was saying between bites of his sandwich. “I’m spending half my life in airports these days. The airline industry in this country is a total mess, let me tell you. You fly much, Paul?”
“No, I really don’t have—”
“Well, it’s a disaster. Price gouging. Security bullshit. And first class these days? What a joke! I’m seriously thinking about taking some flying lessons. Get a little Cessna maybe. Combine business with some fun. I’ve a good friend who …”
I should have been paying more attention. I should have kept half an ear out to track the tenor of Richard and Paul’s discussion, but in truth it was really more of a monologue on Richard’s part. Him buying this. Thinking of doing that. Hoping to put in a pool. A tennis court. And I was carrying on my own conversation with Anne at the same time I was trying to find something that Lia, my picky eater, would deign to consume for lunch. I finally scraped off the inside of a turkey sandwich, spread a little butter on the denuded roll, and cut it up into bite-size pieces for her.
“It’s amazing they survive, isn’t it?” Anne said while we both watched Lia start to chew tentatively, then hack up the sodden cube of bread into my hand as if it had been poisoned. “And somehow thrive. Max went through a period when he refused to eat anything that was green. So, of course, most vegetables were out, along with grapes, watermelon—not even a speck of green, and no green touching nongreen! A slice of pickle could ruin a perfectly good hamburger for him. I finally won him back over with Lucky Charms cereal—that truly disgusting … ”
“Well, maybe you know someone, Paul,” I heard Richard saying. “The house still needs a lot of work. I’ve got a long list of improvements I’d like to get going on. And I’m willing to pay whatever’s necessary. But the problem is finding someone you can trust. You would not believe some of the horror stories I’ve been hearing. And today with that … ” I didn’t catch the rest of Richard’s sentence, because I talked right over it:
“Paul’s in construction,” I called down the table. “In fact, I guess you don’t realize it, but—”
“I’m booked straight through to the end of the year.” My husband, who rarely raises his voice even when he’s angry, almost shouted this. Our three girls looked up, alarmed. I was on instant alert. How had I let this happen? Why hadn’t I noticed? Paul, usually so careful about keeping his feelings submerged, looked flushed and sweaty, shoulders hunched, ready to blow. What had Richard said? Something about trust. But what else? Paul’s used to clients making thoughtless, often demeaning remarks. He prides himself on letting that sort of thing roll off his back.
“Sorry, but, actually, I should be getting back to work now,” he added, awkwardly pushing back his chair and standing up. For the first time since coming inside, I noticed that his shirtfront was dusted with dirt and his cap had matted his hair in an unflattering way against the top of his head. I felt embarrassed for him; he looked so unhappy and out of place in the sunlit, high-ceilinged room he’d spent so many months helping to build.
“But I thought we—”
“I’ve really got to work, Maddie. Sorry,” he said, picking up his plate and carrying it out to the kitchen.
“But you and the girls can stay, right?” Anne asked, getting up as well. “I was planning on you helping us finally get those tomato plants in the ground. And finding the perfect place for that trellis, okay?”
We all walked Paul out to his truck, Richard chatting amicably away, obviously unaware that he’d aroused my husband’s ire. When Paul got in and slammed the door, Richard leaned his elbow on the open window.
“Maybe you can fill me in on something. That junkyard down there at the end of my drive? What’s the story? Can’t this town do something about it?”
Paul took a long moment to look down the hill toward Luke’s place, now entirely hidden by underbrush and fully leafed-out trees. He turned on the ignition.
“Well, actually, we’ve tried,” he said, putting the truck into gear. “Law says everyone has a right to live the way they want.”
“Sure, but, honestly, this is kind of like living next to a dump, Paul,” Richard went on. “I bet it’s a fire hazard. Maybe a health hazard, as well.”
“Kind of doubt that,” Paul said mildly enough, though I could only guess what it was costing him to keep his equanimity. “Listen, I’m not partial to those damned icicle lights you see hanging off people’s eaves year-round these days. But what can I do?”
“Tear the fucking things down in the middle of the night,” Richard said with a laugh, slapping the side of the truck. Then he reached into his pants pocket. “What’s the damage for the garden, Paul? I assume you guys prefer cash, right?”
“I believe it’s all been taken care of,” Paul said, refusing to meet my gaze as he backed the truck around and headed down the driveway.
Dinner was subdued. The girls seemed tired out, probably from working in the garden in all that heat. After a while, the straw hats had grown itchy and uncomfortable and, one by one, we’d been forced to take them off. Even a late-afternoon trip up to the pond hadn’t done much to revive my daughters’ flagging energies. Or, maybe they’d picked up on the tension that pulsed between Paul and me. He’d stopped somewhere to have a beer with his crew, coming home just as we were sitting down at the table. Paul’s not much of a drinker these days; it makes him tired and morose. I think alcohol also serves to loosen the tight rein he keeps on himself—and he dislikes feeling that his control is slipping.
In the summertime, the girls prefer to sleep outside in a tent we pitch for them in the wildflower field. It’s their way of getting away, I suppose, without having to leave home. And Paul and I encourage it because we get to make love as often as we like. But that night, after the girls had changed into their pajamas and Paul had walked them out to their sleeping bags and tucked them in, I waited for him in the kitchen, dreading what was coming.
“Hey,” he said, the screen door slamming behind him.
“They have a flashlight out there?” I asked, stalling for time.
“Yeah. They’re fine, Maddie.”
“Paul.”
“Listen.”
“I’m sorry. Really.”
“No, listen to me. This is—” Paul folded his arms on his chest. He’s a big man, powerfully built, eighty or so pounds heavier than me. But his physical strength has never scared me. It’s his unbending, unyielding, almost unfathomably dense moral core that I find terrifying. He’s not preachy or judgmental, but his righteousness is like a ramrod. “This isn’t easy for me to say. But what are you thinking? He’s such a prick! So entitled and full of himself. I can’t believe you actually believe we could be their friends.”
“No,” I said. “Not him. Not with Richard. I agree with you—he’s not our kind of person. But Anne is. She’s fun and funny and we—we just really hit it off. And the kids all like each other. You saw how well they got along today, didn’t you? How much the Zeller kids adore Rachel?” I could hear the pleading in my voice, and I resented it. Why should I be forced to justify any of this to Paul?
“So, it’s just her then? Anne and the kids? Husbands not included? I don’t have to go fly-fishing with that son of a bitch?”
“You really don’t like him, do you.”
“You didn’t hear what he said about Bob, did you? At lunch? He said he thought Bob looked like a crook.”
“Oh, Paul, I’m sorry. I didn’t—”
&nbs
p; “He obviously had no idea the guy was my brother. Or who knows? Maybe he did. But just because Bob refused to kiss his wife’s ass—the way I did. Goddamn it, Maddie, sometimes I—”
I made a move toward him, but he waved me off.
“And I’ll tell you what else. I can’t honestly get a read on her. She seems a little—I don’t know—out of control or something. She talks a mile a minute. And I didn’t like the way you acted with her today.”
“What way? What do you mean?”
“Christ,” Paul said, turning away from me and toward the sink. He took a glass out of the drainer, filled it with water from the tap, and took a gulp.
“What the hell do you mean?” I asked again.
“Okay. I mean that you were mimicking her gestures, the way she talks. I’ve been noticing that you’ve been using new words and phrases. I don’t think you’re aware of it, but suddenly you’ve been saying ‘do you know what I mean?’ all the time. Then today, listening to her, to the two of you, I realized where you’d been picking it up. From Anne.”
“So what?” I was hurt and shocked. I was also horribly embarrassed. Had Anne noticed that I’d begun to imitate her? Had Richard? I could feel my sense of self start to slow, like a top beginning to wobble. Who was I? I hated having to think that I wasn’t who I thought I was. That every time I was sure I was getting somewhere, finally finding my footing and striding forward, I’d get kicked back down again. And to have Paul be the one who did the kicking! I was furious with myself. No—I was furious with him.
Paul could be so cautious at times, so plodding. So what if I tried out a new phrase or two? Why should it bother him? But I knew why, didn’t I? He needed his world to be absolutely black and white. Good guys here, bad guys over there. Everything set and fixed in its place. He had trained himself to think this way. He long ago decided that his life was something he was going to have to build by himself, one plank at a time, consulting the blueprint in his head, knowing exactly what it should look like in the end. But I was discovering that I no longer wanted to limit myself the way Paul did. I liked the idea of being open to new possibilities. New opportunities. While Paul kept moving along in the same old direction, at the same speed. Afraid to deviate. Unwilling to change. I wanted to shake him up, the way he had me. I wanted to hurt him.
“I think you’re just upset that I’ve made this connection, that I can actually be close to someone like her. You say you hate it when people around here talk about ‘us’ and ‘them’ when it comes to the weekenders. But when you get right down to it, I think you really believe we should stay separate.”
“No, I don’t,” he said, putting down his glass and turning to face me. He looked tired and sad. Fighting like this took too much out of us. I could feel him struggling to explain himself, to find the right words. “I just don’t want you to get hurt. I don’t know what this woman wants from you.”
“That’s exactly my point!” I said, upset by how badly he’d blundered, how little he understood what I was feeling. “You can’t believe that someone like Anne would want someone like me—simply to be her friend.”
I went to bed in Rachel’s room that night. I lay there sleepless for a long time, replaying the argument in my head, until the words started to lose their heat. The whole outburst began to seem ridiculous, overblown. The bottom line was that Paul didn’t like Richard Zeller, and who could blame him? I would have been furious, too, if I’d heard him make that remark about Bob. So Paul had allowed his negative feelings toward Richard to spill over to Anne as well. He didn’t know her the way I did. He’d only met her for the first time that day, in Richard’s presence, and I was beginning to notice that she wasn’t at her best then. I sensed that Richard made Anne edgier, more “on,” than when it was just the kids and us. I could see Paul’s point: she had seemed a little manic and flakey. But that was due to Richard. The man really was pretty odious. I agreed with Paul on that, as I did on most things.
By four thirty, when Paul climbed into bed beside me, I’d fallen asleep and momentarily forgotten what had happened between us. I automatically nestled up against him. Then, when the argument began to come back to me, it seemed ridiculous to pull away. Our disagreements never last long. Most, like this one, tend to blow over without any lasting damage. But that’s how love works, I think, how we all manage to keep soldiering on together. At some subconscious, microcosmic level, we’re busy shifting, realigning, rearranging our differences. Breaking everything down, leveling things off, smoothing it all over. So that when we wake up in the morning, it’s difficult to recall with any clarity what had seemed so important and divisive the night before.
10
“Mom, you got a minute?” Rachel asked a few nights later. We’d finished supper and Rachel had, somewhat surprisingly, volunteered to take Lia and Beanie upstairs to brush their teeth and get them into their pj’s. I was catching up on the household accounts, bills and envelopes spread out in front of me across the kitchen table. Paul wouldn’t be home until after dark. Now, around eight o’clock on a warm June night, that was at least another hour off.
“Sure,” I said, putting down my pen and closing the checkbook. Rachel remained slouched against the door frame, her arms folded across her chest. She’s so like her father at times: the same round, hopeful face, that gray, discerning gaze. And I often feel that, like Paul, she can read me far better than I can her. This past spring, I began to sense that she was distracted a lot of the time, that something had changed in the rhythm of her days, the number and timing of the endless phone calls to and from her friends. And then I saw her one afternoon in Northridge, walking along the street with Aaron Neissen, a senior, two years ahead of her in the large regional high school she attends, and one of the shining lights of the basketball team. He’s tall, lanky, a little geeky-looking, but with a rich bass rumble of a voice and a smile that lights up his still-evolving face.
She was tight-lipped and dismissive when I asked her about him. But I remembered what it was like at her age. Her very refusal to share him with me convinced me that he was important to her. Her secret. The beginning of her own separate existence. I’ve kept my prying to a minimum and have been rewarded with brief updates: he’s been accepted at Dartmouth on an academic scholarship; he’s spending the summer as a counselor in Maine, where he’s worked for the past three years; when the phone rings past ten o’clock, it’s Aaron calling, and she likes to be the one who answers.
“What’s up, honey?” I asked when she didn’t budge from her spot in the doorway.
“I’ve made a decision about something,” she said, hugging her chest. “You and Dad have been telling me that I should start thinking on my own. Working through what I want, what I believe is right.”
“Yes,” I said, trying not to show my growing apprehension. It was unlike Rachel to stand on ceremony—literally—the way she was doing. “Do you want to tell me what this is all about?”
“Okay. Well, I think you know that I haven’t exactly been having the best time working at Aunt Kathy’s this summer, right? I mean, it’s boring doing the same stupid craft things every morning, then trying to keep the peace in the afternoons when the kids begin to run wild. The problem is, Mom, there’s really not enough to do to keep everyone occupied all day. They should put in a pool or something.”
“You know they don’t have the money for that.”
“Yeah, well, I’m sorry, but it’s gotten to the point where I really dread going over there. And I know Beanie’s unhappy, too. That Tova picks on her all the time. And the thing is, I’d find a way of putting up with it if there was nothing else to do. But last Saturday, Mrs. Zeller offered to pay me twelve dollars an hour to babysit Max and Katie during the day. Do you know what that means? I could be making a hundred dollars a day! That’s what Aunt Kathy’s giving me for a whole week—and Mrs. Zeller said it would be fine with her if Beanie and Lia came along, too.”
“Came along where?” I asked, a little upset that Anne h
adn’t broached the subject first to me.
“To the Zellers’. Or the pond. She said she’d drive us wherever I wanted to take them. She just really needs some totally free, uninterrupted time to unpack everything, get the house in shape. She told me to think about it. She said that she’s never known anyone who could handle Katie and Max the way I do. But she didn’t want to pressure me, you know? Then, if I decided to do it, she said she’d ask you if it was okay. And I’ve made up my mind. I really like Max and Katie. I want to do it, plus I think Lia and Beanie would be a whole lot happier with me and the Zeller kids than at Aunt Kathy’s. So. That’s my decision.”
“I see,” I said, recognizing in her nervousness what was left unsaid: how to explain all of this to Kathy. How to break away without hurting her aunt and uncle. What to tell Paul. The Aldens could be so prickly and full of pride. No way that Rachel should even hint that the farm itself, or Kathy’s less-than-creative approach to child care, were factors in her thinking.
“I understand,” I told her. “The money is fantastic. It would be a little crazy to turn it down. And, of course, you don’t want to put Aunt Kathy in the position of trying to match that kind of pay. On the other hand, you don’t want to leave her high and dry. Do you know of anybody who might want to help out there?”
“Yes!” Rachel said, finally leaving her post and sitting down across from me. “I called Susie. She’s willing to take over. You think this is okay, then, Mom? Is it like, going back on my word or anything? Is Dad going to be mad, do you think?”
“I don’t know,” I told her. “Let me talk to him about it. But as you said, you’ve made up your mind. It’s your decision. And you’re right, we’ve been encouraging you to think for yourself.” Though I couldn’t help but wonder how much of Rachel’s eagerness to work for Anne was predicated on my friendship with her. Rachel had been witness to its development. The way Anne had showered me with her compliments and praise. Disarmed me with her eagerness for my company, with her overt affection for my children. Not that her wooing of us felt orchestrated or manipulative. I had drifted willingly under her spell. After all, she was exciting and exotic. She was everything that I had, up until this time, always envied. But, perhaps even more important, she obviously viewed me and my family as worthy, indeed exceptional, as well. I think both Rachel and I looked into the approving mirror that Anne held out to us and were seduced by what we saw. It was not Anne so much as our own reflections that attracted us: the beautiful, brighter creatures that, by virtue of Anne’s interest and insistence, we saw that we could be.
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