“You’re Artie’s brother? Play the squeeze box?” Their high school careers didn’t offer any other conversational gambits. Lowell had stringy dirt-blond hair, cracked lips, a concave chest. He looked lean to the point of emaciation. “I’d ask you in for coffee or somethin’ but the place is kind of a wreck.”
“I’m coffee’d up, thanks.” Jonny looked around again. “Lowell, did some college kids come out here counting bees in your orchard?”
He nodded slowly, maybe still groggy with sleep. “Few days ago.”
“Did you talk to them?”
“Just the one. Short hair. The leader?”
“Isabel?”
“She came into the barn when I was milking the cow. Just got the one these days.” He looked down at his bare feet, pale and bony. “Things ain’t so great around here.”
“Not just your place, Lowell. All the farmers are having a hard go.”
“If I had a wife, you know? Can’t afford help. A woman would make things easier.”
“You didn’t pick out one of those college girls?”
Lowell snorted, looked at Jonny twice, and laughed. He was missing a few teeth. A wife might also recommend a dentist.
“Did the girl ask you about anything in particular?” Jonny asked.
Lowell rubbed one eye. “Let me get my boots.”
The grain bin was not a beauty. Set on a high piece of land, directly on the peaty ground without a foundation, one side had sunk into the earth. Slabs of rock had been wedged under the base, and rust had set in, creeping in ugly streaks from the roof down and the base up. Fourteen feet across and twelve at the walls, the roof was amazingly intact.
Lowell seemed positive he had no use for it. The cornfields had been done over into apple orchards in the fifties. His father once tried to raise hogs in it but only one season.
“Don’t know how you’d move it.” They stood inside, peering up at the light coming through the cracks. The scent of mold and manure was almost sweet. “Probably fold up on ya.”
Jonny leaned against the side, testing its strength. It was surprisingly solid. He walked the inside perimeter, then the outside. The rust appeared superficial. The galvanized metal had held up well considering how many wet Minnesota winters it had weathered. “How much would you take for it?”
“Take? It’s worth nothing.”
“How does fifty bucks sound?”
“It ain’t gonna save the farm, Knobel. Take the eyesore. It’s yours.”
“You’re sure?”
Lowell snorted again. “Get it the heck out of here.”
——
Daria knelt beside the blueberry bush and focused the lens of the camera on a fat blue mason bee on a low branch. Two rows over Isabel watched. Her sister had donned the beekeeper’s helmet and veil reluctantly and showed no fear of being stung. Plus she had agreed to play photographer for the day without a hint of complaint. Here she was, mucking around in the slick morning dew, clicking away. In wrinkled cargoes and Isabel’s rundown running shoes, no less.
Last night Daria looked the part of the Chicago socialite in stilettos and gold. She’d brought a bottle of tequila and a bag of limes and they’d done a couple shots sitting on the sagging mattress in the motel. She never stopped talking except to suck on a slice of lime.
It was the most sisterly thing Daria had done in years. Isabel didn’t know what to make of it.
At first Daria talked about the guy she was seeing— not a boyfriend, she insisted. His name was Will and he even looked like Princess Diana’s son, handsome and good-natured. He was an architect, still struggling, still making lousy money and working horrendous hours. Dating him was an exercise in futility, Daria claimed, as he was always canceling because he had to work late.
Daria downed another shot. Eventually she came to the point. She was to be a bridesmaid, again. Her fifth time in two years. Her best friend Lily was getting married at Christmas. Hardly any time to do all the maid of honor crap! Parties to arrange, dresses to order, people to cajole, caterers, favors, et cetera, et cetera. And new bachelorette party ideas? All known themes had been done to death.
Lily probably didn’t care about that, Isabel tried to tell her. She just wanted her best friend to help her with her wedding. But Daria wasn’t having it. She had a reputation for creativity. She had to have something surprising and innovative for dearest Lily.
“You’re the only one I can tell all this,” Daria said, flinging herself horizontal. “Because you don’t care.”
“I like Lily,” Isabel said. She was one of the few friends of Daria she could honestly say that about. Lily was an old friend, loyal and fairly normal.
“I mean the wedding stuff. You don’t care if she has a pink theme, or a polka dot theme, or hot guys jump out of a cake, or— what was Andrea’s? Oh yeah, gay belly dancers in drag— or no theme at all.”
“She could do everybody a favor and elope like Alec and whatsherface.”
Daria shot her a look. “Let’s not talk about them.” Another sigh. “I’ll probably never get married.”
“Of course you will.”
“You haven’t been around.” Daria tapped the tequila bottle with her nails. “Edie scares them all away. They look at her and their eyes go wide with horror. They think, that’s what Daria is going to be like in twenty years. And they run for the door. Fast.” She rolled over to face Isabel. “You figured that out years ago, didn’t you?”
“Except for Alec. He was weirdly turned on by Edie and Max.”
“A very good reason for dumping him.”
This whole discussion was very un-Daria. What had brought on this crisis in confidence? Isabel always thought Edie and Daria so close in temperament, shoe obsessions, and everything else.
“Mother isn’t taking Egon’s dying very well, you know,” Daria said. “I caught her crying in the morning. In the kitchen.”
“Shocking. In front of the staff?”
“Of course not.” Daria grinned and swatted her. “You’re so bad. She puts up a good front most of the time.”
“I didn’t think there was anything but ice behind the front.”
Late into the night, as they lay under the covers, Isabel asked Daria exactly why she made the tequila run here to Dogpatch, Minnesota. It couldn’t be just the bridesmaid problem. The truth came out. The boyfriend-by-any-other-name had flown off to LA at the last minute for a presentation to a client, with his boss. A woman. Daria was sure there was more than structural struts involved even though the woman was fifty, married, and sported chin hairs. Just the mental picture of them sipping martinis onboard the airplane, elbow to elbow, made Daria mad with jealousy-by-any-other-name.
“So you love him,” Isabel said. “Otherwise you wouldn’t care who he sipped martinis with.”
“I care. Of course I care.” She frowned into the bottle at the worm. “But love? How do you know if you love someone? Does it just come to you in a flash? Like a light bulb over your head?” She raised the shot glass toward the ceiling. “I can’t believe I’m asking you this. My nerdy little sister.”
Neither can I.
What did Isabel Yancey know about love? She imagined she’d been in a love a couple times but in retrospect it was more like a mad crush. Does being sick as a dog and wanting to tear your hair out afterward mean it was love? Sounds more like the flu.
Daria turned to her on the pillow, worry in her big blue eyes. Isabel muttered, “I don’t know, Dar. Maybe in a flash.”
“I just don’t want to get my heart broken. I know, I know, but I do have one. What if they’re all just after Daddy’s money and don’t give a fuck about me?”
“Some of those swizzle-sticks you’ve been with, yeah. But Will doesn’t sound like the type. You’re psyching yourself out. You’re afraid of getting dumped.”
“Because I care?”
“Some might say ‘love.’”
In the field Isabel shook a branch and straightened, counting the bees that had fal
len from the bush onto the screen. Only three. She searched the bush for more, the stronger ones that held tight. A couple more. The blossoms were almost gone. The pollen would float away, then the bees. Soon the season— and the field study— would be done.
A chuckle, click-click. Daria stood behind her, camera to her eye.
“You look pretty funny, your head inside a bush. Sort of like you have your head up your ass.” She plucked a berry and popped it in her mouth. “God, I love blueberries.”
“Don’t eat them. That’s part of our deal with the owners.”
“Everybody’s doing it. Check their tongues. Is it time for lunch yet?”
They ate on the ground, digging through sandwiches and sodas, then worked another hour, counting bees on every tall bush in the blueberry field owned by the McDonald sisters living in a nursing home in Mankato. This second day here finished up the blueberry fields east of Spoon River and west of State 62. Isabel walked the rows one last time, making sure all the bushes were left in good condition and the screens collected. Her team had done a good job today, and having Daria along to document it was a plus. She could send a few photos to Professor Mendel. And she didn’t have to be embarrassed by what her sister would report back to Edie and Max about her activities.
She opened the back door to the van and threw in her helmet. The day was warm with a low haze of clouds making a bright white glow in the sky. She looked at the western horizon for storm clouds. Only a dazzling streak of aquamarine. The students sat slumped on the seats, sticky with heat. She gathered the damp report sheets and fastened them to her clipboard. Her sister squeezed in next to Kate like one of the crew, camera case on her lap.
Isabel put her hands on her hips. “You all look plum tuckered out. We can cancel on that party.”
Daria tsked. “Get your carcass moving. Word is polka boy’s a hottie.”
Chapter 13
By the time Isabel and Daria arrived at the Rose Rave things had been underway for some time. Through the walls of the motel they could hear the shrieks of the organizers as panic set in, simmering to laughter and chatter, then ramping up to the sounds of the polka band. Isabel argued with Daria about what to wear, whether to bother with makeup in this humidity, and whether a nap wouldn’t be a better option than a tiny bit more tequila.
For Jonny a nap was out of the question. His father laid out a burgundy tuxedo jacket with pants, pleated shirt, and cummerbund on his bed while his mother sent him on last minute runs for ice. In the garden a large rug of green artificial turf was staked out over the dirt. Lights were strung from the motel to the trees to the house. Ladders were held, blossoms were spritzed. Kiki and Frances came early to help. Kiki was drafted to slice up a batch of Rose Petal Sandwiches while Frances searched the town for spare lamps for the twinkle lights. You would have thought it was Christmas, except for fireflies, mosquitoes, and ninety-nine-percent humidity.
Ozzie arrived, wearing an identical burgundy tux with voluminous black pants and patent leather shoes. He made a show of setting up his drum set as the rose aficionados arrived, waiting for them to part like the Red Sea for the newly-repaired snare drum. Rose club members weren’t the only guests. Old friends, relatives, and a good chunk of the town’s ambulatory population were expected, and most brought a spare sister-in-law, cousin, or niece.
By seven most of the food was laid out. Pies, cakes, chips and dips, baked beans, green beans, salads, cucumbers, corn on the cob, strawberries, cheeses, sausages, and a few unidentifiable hot dish casseroles, spread down the rickety long table like a Roman feast. The crowd was sixty strong and in a party mood.
Jonny looked over the yard from the kitchen window. Besides the college students most were over fifty. Nobody his own age. Lenny hadn’t showed yet, he knew better, but there was Norm Norman, his rival for the mayor’s seat, gorging himself on three bean salad. The students stood around looking bewildered as Margaret clinked a beer bottle for attention. She welcomed everyone, then turned things over to Carol Chichester, official party maven.
Carol encouraged mingling among Margaret’s wonderland of roses. “No snipping. Only sniffing.” A mutter of appreciation, Margaret’s bowed head, then the drinking commenced a second time. And cries for music.
The sky was turning purple. Jonny stepped out onto the back porch. Ozzie waved him over and handed him a play list. Jonny squinted at the chicken scratches and slipped it into his pocket. His father was three feet away. It’s possible they could speak. As he strapped on his accordion he spotted Claude, leaning on his walker. Nora beside him, an odd look on her face, half happy, half terrified. Jonny waved at them as his father clacked the drumsticks together. They were off.
The best part of being a musician was the ability to go completely away. No troubles, no relationships, not even excitement while the pureness of the music flowed through you. You were a vessel for something as unexplainable as music. Was it a coincidence that the word music was so close to the word magic? It took you into a different space in your head where the synapses fired automatically. But with your concentration, your passion, your heart.
And your tux. Jonny squirmed out of the bowtie, throwing it onto the ground, then moved on to the buttons. He had lost the cummerbund before he left the house and declined to wear pants that made him look like a mariachi singer. Between songs he pulled the tails of the shirt out of his jeans. If it wasn’t for the smell of dry cleaning chemicals and cigarettes on the jacket, he would be happy.
Dusk descended. Dancing began. The polka songs were familiar as old socks on a cold night. A little worn but still warm, some life left in them. More students arrived, watching from the edges of the blue-hair crowd, near the beer. The flirty one wiggled her fingers at him.
Lenny’s head above the crowd, hair frizzy. He made a beeline for Kiki and Frances. It was nice seeing Kiki again. This afternoon she helped him put ice in the coolers and unfold the tablecloths. Now as Lenny chatted her up, giving her his body dance flirtation, Jonny felt a stab of jealousy and was surprised. Was it Kiki or was it just being the musician while everyone else was having fun? He’d be heading back to Minneapolis soon. The parties were done and sitting around his childhood room ruminating about the future had gotten him nowhere. His parents, well, they would miss each other sooner or later. But what about the grain bin? He hadn’t gotten it moved. Did he really want to tackle remodeling it? Maybe let sleeping bins lie. If Lenny wanted it as an office he could stack his own hay bale walls and blowtorch his own windows.
Jonny closed his eyes against the spots of lights strung through the trees and played the buttons with his left hand. Push and pull, in and out. The accordion had come back to him, like a forgotten photograph unrecognized at first then as close as your own skin, as familiar as the lines in your palm. He had accomplished what he’d set out to, to come back to the band, to the family, to the polka. Yet his father was still a stranger, obsessed with his own demons. Jonny looked back at him, sweating through the tux, flailing at the drums, beating the skins like a twenty-year-old, his pompadour flopping over his forehead.
He played the chorus of ‘Smack It Polka.’ Nora and Claude were dancing. Okay, he’d done the right thing. The polka lived through him, reached through the generations. How could being right be so confusing? He knew less about his own life than when he started the summer. Polka had grounded him, taken him back to his roots, the rhythms of this small town. To his grandfather and the old instrument of joy, the squeeze box. But polka also picked him up by the scruff of the neck and shook him, asking, Is this what you want? Go find it. Whatever it is.
Go.
“Polka, polka, all night long? Come on.” Lenny passed Jonny a beer. Nine-thirty and their second break. “What about some of that stuff you played with Audri?”
“Is she here?” Jonny threw the tux jacket on a chair, hoping someone would walk off with it. “I’m not singing if I can help it.”
Lenny looked over the girls. “Kiki’s looking hot tonight. Too bad sh
e can’t shake loose from Frances. That girl is the weirdest wet blanket.”
“She’s Frances’s bodyguard.”
“Keeping the crowd safe from Frances is more like it.”
Older couples wandered through the rose bushes. In the damp evening the scents rose, sweet and musky. His mother was showing off her prize specimens, her voice high and anxious. Ozzie disappeared during the break, maybe to call his girlfriend who had not come, thank God. There was drama enough.
“The Chicago girls are checking you out, Jack,” Lenny whispered. Isabel and another girl huddled near the food table, arms crossed and heads together. When he looked over they both looked away.
“Who’s that with the long hair?”
“Queen Bee’s sister. Oh yeah.”
“You talk to her?”
“Not yet. Come on.”
Jonny chucked his beer bottle in the trash on the way. He’d had enough of these college girls but wasn’t opposed to helping Lenny get some action. Lenny was shaking the sister’s hand and she was giving him a look of what-the-hell.
“My sister Daria,” Isabel said soberly. She seemed on edge. “Lenny and Jon. The local boys.”
“Thunder Rhodes, to you, mademoiselle. Future mayor. Welcome to Red Vine,” Lenny said. “Up for the weekend to see how the other half lives?”
“Something like that,” Daria said, squinting at him, then asked Jonny: “You don’t live here, do you? Isabel told me you live in Minneapolis and work for an architect? My boyfriend is an architect in Chicago.”
Jonny glanced at Isabel. No answers required with Daria, apparently. The older sister took his arm, leading him to the cooler, and made him fish around in the icy water for a beer for her. “What do people do here? Is this considered, like, the social pinnacle of the summer? Mucking around in the garden mud? Smelling roses? Doing the Polish cha-cha? No offense, of course, but I have heard enough polka in Chicago to last me a lifetime.”
All Your Pretty Dreams Page 11
