Jessie had come to the end of a lap and did a quick flip turn, launching herself from the wall, shimmering underwater like a glittering fish until she burst again through the surface. Amazing creature. How untroubled she looked, speeding through the water, when really her entire world might be about to capsize. And only Remy knew—Remy who was the cause of all the trouble that had ever happened in this girl’s life.
Weak with the thought, Remy pulled herself out of the pool, stepped into her flip-flops, and went over to the bench where her towel lay next to Jessie’s. She hadn’t the strength to dry herself, just wrapped the old green towel around her shoulders and sat watching Jessie and Allison complete their laps. When a wave of now-familiar nausea surged through her, Remy bent forward and focused on the wet tile floor, waiting for the queasiness to pass. Already she felt, incredibly, a protective impulse for this other child inside her. Amazing, how automatically that happened.
When she looked up again, Jessie had finished swimming and was chatting with Allison, the two of them bobbing in the water like seals. Then something must have struck them as funny; they shook in paroxysms of laughter, the physically grueling kind that only happens when you’re thirteen. Remy laughed at the sight, then felt the stab inside her, her own awfulness. To disrupt such hilarity, the warmth of this very routine, this pool, this laughter . . . How could she even consider such a thing?
Now Jessie and Allison had climbed out of the pool and were padding wetly toward her. Remy saw again, if with diminished shock, how Jessie’s body was changing—the budding breasts, the discernible hips. Like Remy, she had pulled her goggles up onto the top of her swim cap. Allison didn’t wear goggles; her eyes were tinged red.
“What were you two cackling about over there?”
“Jessie’s going on a date!” Allison said.
Jessie was grinning so widely, the silver band of her retainer showed. “Kevin invited me to go see The Nutcracker with him. His parents are taking us.” Though she was clearly trying to appear nonchalant, her eyes shone.
“That’s a pretty suave Christmas present,” Remy said.
Allison said, “We were trying to figure out what she should get for him.”
“Why don’t you bring him to the Symphony for our Christmas concert?”
Jessie rolled her eyes. “That’s so gay, Remy.”
“Oh, and going to the ballet isn’t?” Remy couldn’t help laughing.
Diplomatically, Allison explained, “It’s different if the guy is inviting the girl.”
Remy gave each of the girls a pinch on the shoulder. “C’mon, you two, I’m getting cold.”
As they headed toward the locker room, Remy thought how odd life was. She would not even be here with Jessie if Nicholas hadn’t made up his mind—if he hadn’t returned from Italy saying he knew what he had to do. He might just as easily have decided to stay with Hazel, to turn away from Remy instead.
The mere thought caused a small flip of panic inside her as she stepped into one of the shower stalls. She let the blast of water warm her. Jessie and Allison were showering on the other side of the locker room, jabbering away.
This time, Remy told herself, the decision was hers to make. This time she was choosing. Yes, this time she would decide.
But across from her the girls had begun laughing again—reminding Remy that, really, she already had decided.
AT GARY AND ADELE’S THAT EVENING, NICHOLAS AND REMY ATE Adele’s angel food cake and listened to stories from their trip to South America.
Nicholas found it charming the way Adele urged Gary to tell his various anecdotes. They had been married last May, during a hailstorm, by a priest who kept calling Gary “Greg.” Theirs had been a quick courtship. In fact, Nicholas and Remy had made bets on how long the marriage would last. Remy said a year and a half; Nicholas said forever. When he asked why she had made such a cruel prediction, Remy explained that Adele didn’t know what she was getting in to. “She’s stepping into a life that has just barely enough room for her,” Remy had said, though she spent much less time with Gary than Nicholas did and couldn’t fully know. “That apartment barely has enough room for her. It’s only a matter of time.”
Now they sat across from them on a lumpy couch and ate rubbery wedges of cake. Normally Nicholas would have enjoyed such a visit. He liked to relax with a beer or two and discuss local politics or some other subject on which Gary was an unofficial expert. But this evening he was unable to fully relax; his mind kept returning to Sylvane.
“We thought it was some mistranslation in Spanish,” Gary was saying, weaving his way through an anecdote set in Guatemala. “So then the guy tells me that he did work there, but he was on his lunch break.”
Though Nicholas hadn’t bothered to follow the story, he was pleased to see Remy laugh. She had looked so worn-out earlier today. But Remy had always found comedy in Gary and his household—the newspapers and magazines in piles everywhere, the television always on, the random books splayed open to whatever esoteric subject Gary was currently researching, and now Adele’s exercise equipment tucked in the living room corner.
Now Adele asked, “So how’s Jessie liking middle school?”
“She has a boyfriend!” Nicholas hadn’t intended to say it aloud.
“No longer a little girl, huh?” Gary said.
“She’s even going to her first dance,” Remy said. “The Holiday Gala.”
“With an older boy,” Nicholas added, astonished again by the very fact.
“All of fourteen years old,” Remy said. “It’s very sweet, actually. His parents are taking them to see The Nutcracker.”
“It’s a big deal,” Nicholas said, to explain his own alarm. “Her first boyfriend.”
“Well, don’t make too big a deal of it,” Adele said. “My parents always turned everything into an issue, you know, and as a result I just became rebellious. It can all change, no matter how well you’ve done in the past.”
Now Remy was looking down, somehow distraught. Such an odd, troubling day. Just a few hours earlier, Nicholas had opened a letter from a composer who mentioned—as a casual aside, in the gossipy, one-upping manner he was known for—that “our mutual amie Sylvane” had attempted suicide.
They’re calling it “exhaustion,” the friend had written, but Benjamin Sittinger tells me pills were involved. She’s doing better now . . . . And then he had gone on for a whole paragraph about his carpal tunnel syndrome.
Nicholas had read the tucked-in sentences over and over, trying to understand. Well, that explained why she hadn’t returned his telephone call. Though he had left a message, weeks had passed. Now he had to wonder: Had the attempt already been made when he called? And there he was blathering on about himself, how he hoped to chat with her when she had a moment, don’t worry about the cost, I have unlimited overseas calls on my telephone plan. . . .
How could Sylvane have tried to do such a thing? What about her children, and her husband? And her music, the lush, dark tangle of her music. They might have lost that, too.
Or perhaps that was the very source of her despair. The repeated small failures. In the past Nicholas might not have understood; but lately, wrestling with his own symphony, he knew how it felt to experience pangs of hopelessness. The pangs were brief, and always passed, but he could imagine how it might feel to be caught inside. Why, his own mother must have felt that, when she drove onto the tracks. And now Sylvane . . . Had she been feeling that way even during her visit to Boston, when he saw her last?
“You all right?” Adele was asking.
“Oh, well, I had a disturbing bit of news this afternoon,” Nicholas said. “A composer friend of mine tried to kill herself.”
“What?” Remy turned to face Nicholas. “You didn’t tell me that.”
“Sylvane,” Nicholas said. “I only just found out. I suppose I’m still processing it.”
“How awful,” Remy and Adele said at the same time.
“She’s apparently recovering just f
ine,” Nicholas said. But what did that mean, really?
Gary said, “Sounds like a cry for help.”
Adele said, “I always wonder what could drive a person to do that.”
“Sometimes you feel stuck,” Remy said. “Sometimes it feels like there’s no way out. Maybe that was how she was feeling.”
“But that’s just a feeling,” Adele said. “Believe me; I know. There’s always a way out.”
“Still,” Remy said, “there must be plenty of situations where the right decision doesn’t feel right. I mean, where nothing you can do seems right.”
Thinking aloud, Nicholas said, “It’s odd, but when I heard the news, I first felt shock, you know how you don’t want to believe something horrible has happened. But then I felt something else. And, you know, I think it was shame.”
Remy frowned. “How do you mean?”
“At not having noticed that anything was wrong,” Nicholas said. “I saw her just last month or so. Only briefly, but I didn’t think anything was wrong. Not that she seemed happy, but she didn’t seem any different than usual.”
“But how could you have known?” Remy asked. “Doesn’t she live in France?” She was looking into his eyes, as if searching for something.
Nicholas said, “I suppose I’m ashamed that I didn’t notice anything.”
Remy touched the side of his face with her hand. “How could you have noticed?” Her eyes continued to search his, and then it was as if she had found what she was looking for. She began laughing, if in a sad way.
“What’s funny?” Nicholas asked.
“That you think you’re that observant—” She laughed again, shaking her head, so hard that tears came. Adele and Gary had begun laughing, too. “Sweetheart.” Remy cupped his face with her hands. “There’s so much you don’t notice!” Still laughing, tears streaming, she was quick to add, “It’s not a . . . fault. It’s just who you are.” She laughed again, wiped her eyes, and kissed his mouth decisively.
In her kiss Nicholas felt, just briefly, like a sting, the familiar surprise—that she had agreed, all those years ago, to love him.
TWO WEEKS LATER, REMY STOOD IN THE KITCHEN, STIRRING A POT of stew, her one winter talent, while Jessie sat across from her, flipping through a magazine, just the two of them silent together. Remy basked in the silence, the normalcy of it, the relief of having put things right again.
That she could have disrupted this—the clumsy perfection of their life together, she and Nicholas and Jessie alive and well, without illness or tragedy, just the easy flow of day after day. That she might have hurt this girl she adored. She thought again of Sylvane, of how everyone had some painful dark thing hidden inside them. Sometimes the pain was visible, like Yoni’s mangled hand, but for most people it was tucked away somewhere.
“Your dad will be back soon. How about setting the table?”
“I don’t want to!”
“Whoa, where did that come from?” Remy turned around.
“I’m mad at him.”
“Again? What is it now?”
Jessie was silent; she looked somehow embarrassed. “I just get mad sometimes.”
“But why? Why be mad at him?”
Jessie shrugged her shoulders. Then she said, “For making Mom the way she is.”
Remy took a breath. That Jessie had never blamed her—that Hazel had never sat Jessie down to explain the exact sequence of events, and Jessie had not on her own come to any accusatory conclusions—was a reprieve Remy supposed would not last forever.
“What do you mean, ‘the way she is’?” She pictured Hazel at the parent-teacher meeting last month, cheery and put together as always. But, then, that was probably exactly what Jessie meant: that escutcheon of good cheer, that pained—painful—brightness.
Jessie said, “It’s his fault. It’s his fault she’s . . . that way.”
“Is something going on?” Remy asked. “Is something happening that your dad and I don’t know about?”
Jessie was shaking her head, as if unable to explain.
“Oh.” Remy felt something stretch inside her rib cage. “Come here, baby.” She put her arm around her.
Jessie must have decided it was too much. “And then he’s being so weird about Kevin,” she said in her usual manner, as if the two offences weren’t very different at all.
Remy wondered if she ought to allow the conversation to be so easily derailed, or if she should try to find out more concerning Hazel. “Your dad’s just discovering what it’s like to be the father of a teenager,” she said. “None of us have ever done this before, remember. We’re all figuring it out. I know it’s a burden, to have him so concerned about you going out with a boy.” It was true; it really wasn’t like Nicholas to worry, especially about something so innocent. Really it was Remy’s mischief he ought to have worried about. Instead he was focusing on Jessie, as if she were the one about to misbehave.
Remy stood up straight at the realization. Of course. Nicholas had sensed something. He wasn’t as immune to these things as she had always assumed. He knew, deep down, perhaps not even consciously—but had worried about Jessie instead. “I’m sorry, Jess,” Remy said again. “I feel responsible.”
Jessie’s voice sounded calm now. “I’m not really angry at him anymore. Just sometimes.”
Because of me, Remy thought.
As if to punctuate this, the telephone rang. The sound made Remy jump.
It was Allison calling for Jessie.
“I need to talk to her in private,” Jessie said. “I’m taking this call upstairs. Hang up when I tell you, okay?” She ran up to the study and called down to Remy, “Okay, you can hang up now.”
Remy could hear Jessie’s voice upstairs, her tone chatty as always, as if no emotional confession had taken place. The thought of Jessie worrying for her mother made Remy want to cry. As though to put a thorough end to any contemplation, the doorbell rang.
There was Yoni, looking weather-beaten, the scruff of his cheeks that of a nomad. “Oh, good, you’re home,” he said, as he had so many times in the past, whenever he was in need of comforting, each time a romance ended or a relationship derailed. No matter that this time it was their relationship; still there was only Remy and Nicholas to come to for comfort. Remy understood this.
“I was in the area and thought I could use some company.”
He knew Nicholas wouldn’t be home yet, of course. Remy said, “Come here,” and held out her arms. He stepped into them, and gripped her firmly. She felt his shoulders moving, and, almost imperceptibly, silent sobs. All over again she was horrified at what she had done. He had already suffered—why, his entire being was defined by that suffering—and now she had caused him to suffer again. She stood unmoving, pummeled by her own heartbeat. Then Yoni released his arms, as if aware that it was too much for her. “I’m sorry,” he said, wiping his reddened eyes. “I’ll stop now.”
Remy felt her own tears. “Come and have some hot cocoa,” she said, as naturally as possible. She called out, to make it all feel more normal, “Jessie, want some cocoa?”
“I’m on the phone!”
“The secrets of middle school,” Remy said as they walked to the kitchen, still trying to convince herself that they could find their way back to the way it had once been. Her tears had receded. “I do wonder what they’re discussing, actually.”
Yoni said, “She’ll come down when she smells the chocolate.” The bags under his eyes were nothing Remy had ever seen on his face before.
“We’ll see.” Remy poured milk into a saucepan, stirred in sugar and cocoa powder, watching that the flame wasn’t too strong. Meanwhile her chest clenched. She had made her decision. It was over now. She would stop feeling sorry for herself, stop berating herself. All around were the huge, shifting movements of the planet, its daily avalanches, while her own worries were small enough to fit into this room.
The cocoa began to steam. “This will make you feel much better,” she said.
“I already feel better,” Yoni told her, though really he looked worn-out. Remy turned away, concentrated on the cocoa. Yoni said, “Tell me something funny.”
Remy thought for a moment, and poured the cocoa into two mugs. “I used to want to be Oscar Wilde.”
Yoni said, “The poor man ended up in prison!” He took one of the mugs from her.
“But he lived richly,” she told him.
“So do you.”
She thought about this. “It’s true.”
Yoni said, “Here I am, in the middle of the afternoon, drinking Dutch cocoa with the woman I love. What could be richer than that?”
Remy sat down heavily, feeling the pain inside her. “I know we’re spoiled. But why does it always feel like other people are doing more exciting things? Sowing their wild oats. Living large.” She looked down at her mug of cocoa. “I always wanted to have a big life.”
Yoni said, “Even the grandest lives come down to a few people and places. Loved ones, your daily work, your neighborhood. I don’t mean that in a belittling way. I’ve been realizing that lately. How complete our lives can be with just the few people and activities you most love.”
Remy nodded. “So many evenings every week I put on the same skirt and blouse. I go play beautiful music and come home and take off the skirt and the blouse. Over and over. But it doesn’t feel ceremonious.” In a way her life was a blur of repeated gestures, twisting the pearly end of her bow and watching the horsehair straighten, slacken. Blowing lightly at a faint layer of rosin, wiping the excess with a chamois cloth. If she were to calculate how many times she had repeated these small movements, the number would surely floor her. And yet this was what she had chosen to do, keeping her fingers limber with the same scales she had been playing since the age of nine. It was why she still wasn’t sure she wanted to try for the associate concertmaster slot. Because even that would be just another version of the same thing.
“Why is it that repetition dulls things?” After all, wasn’t that what this was all about, these small flailing attempts at change? Switching from the second violins to the firsts . . . really it was just some sort of protest against time, a tiny fist railing at the face of time itself.
Sight Reading Page 21
