B0042JSO2G EBOK

by Minot, Susan

  Are you worried about her? Ann said into his ear.

  Not now.

  Was that, don’t ask now or no I’m not worried now? He shifted his hand to envelop her hand in his. She felt the pressure of his other hand on her back. He turned her a little this way, a little that. He stepped her back suddenly and it seemed to flip her into another dimension. Her forehead rested on the skin above his collar.

  Ann, he murmured.

  Through his shirt she could feel his heart beating. Or was it hers? The song ended and immediately went into another and they danced the next song, not speaking. When the music stopped she heard clapping around her and stood in front of him limp and radiant.

  I better go check on her, he said.

  It was like a stab. She smiled nevertheless. He walked head bowed off the dance floor.

  Night fell suddenly and the striped light of the tent became a lantern one. The cake was carried out on a table and Lila and Carl fed it to each other with their fingers. Lila’s hair had come unraveled and she looked herself again.

  I’m glad that’s over. It was like a job, she said. Carl was behind her talking to his cousin and Ann saw how he and Lila were joined but separate and wondered if Lila had found a superior love. Ann’s idea of love had to do with merging and at the moment she thought nothing could be greater than that overwhelming feeling.

  He was gone a long time.

  Ann danced with Buddy till he fell down, then with Ollie Granger after he cut in on her and Ralph Eastman. Ollie had flair and twirled her around, making a space in the center of the dancers. She danced with Carl who was making sure to dance with each bridesmaid, though his eye always followed Lila. Ann kept glancing out into the dark. Still he didn’t come. Some older guests left. Mr. and Mrs. Wittenborn danced with each other, looking over each other’s shoulders, holding on as if they were strangers. Ann danced with a blond man who asked for advice about his girlfriend and Ann found herself feeling wise and she asked the man questions about love and how he felt and answering them for herself passed the test with Harris and felt this man, this blond man whose name she did not know, was just another element pointing her toward Harris and she felt she gave him something back too, whoever he was, and he nodded thoughtfully. She danced with Buddy again during a slow song and he leaned against her. Do you remember when we stole the plums? he said, and she looked up and was surprised by the eyes looking at her which if she had not known better would have said were full of meaning. But she did know better, Buddy had been drinking for days. She returned her cheek to his shoulder and he stopped moving and stayed still and she felt a sudden disturbance which it was hard to know if it was good or bad. I better go, he said, and left her alone on the dance floor trembling a little.

  Then Harris appeared out of the darkness. Before he saw Ann he was whisked along by Gigi who ignored his worried look and pulled him by the arm over to the band where his face lit up with relief as he strapped on a saxophone handed to him by one of the band members. He stayed off to the side and Ann saw a new aspect to him as he pressed the keys and stood with his neck hung forward. The music came out smooth and humming and she felt the vibration in her rib cage. He straightened up then bent back and hit a high note which he held and held till someone hooted and everyone started clapping.

  In no time the dance floor was swirling. Lizzie Tull pulled Monty over and Gail Slater’s sharp elbows jutted upward and Buddy hopped like a pogo stick. Ann was swept in and twirled around and through the figures saw Harris clasping the saxophone concentrating and the music spread out into all of them. Buddy’s shirttails were untucked and Lizzie’s straps fallen. Vernon Tobin stamped his feet as if he were killing bugs and Kingie swung side to side gazing mutely upward. Ralph was not so overcome that he didn’t pause to right an overturned glass on a table but his shirt was soaked through. Carl had Lila pulled close with her skirt swelled out behind and they rocked at a slower tempo. People glanced over, proprietary, and Harris kept playing.

  While Ann was growing up her mother often repeated to her, Don’t be absurd. Sometimes the phrase was Don’t be ridiculous. Don’t be absurd usually followed an expression of emotion from Ann. In order to spare herself the embarrassment of emotion Ann had learned to rein in the expression of feelings and eventually the feelings themselves, treating them as if they were unruly children who ought to be tamed instead of allowing them free expression as a sort of fuel drawing her into life. On this night in July that habit of control was challenged by the music and the dancing in the lantern light of the wedding tent. The feeling she had was too great to check and she did not check it. The music howled in the night.

  You were great, she said.

  Thank you.

  You really were, great.

  Thank you really. He ran his hand through his hair. Can we talk somewhere?

  Yes.

  At the cottage?

  O.K.

  In fifteen minutes?

  She nodded.

  What is it? he said.

  Nothing.

  Ann?

  I’m sorry. I just—

  I know, he said. I’m the one who’s sorry.

  She looked away from him. I just don’t like it, she said.

  I know. It shows.

  What?

  In your mouth. It shows around your mouth. He was smiling for the first time all night.

  She pressed her lips together. I’m not sure I like that.

  You can’t help it, he said. Then his figure was engulfed in the darkness beyond the tent and Ann stood with a heart having grown huge and wide and felt most of it go into the dark with him.

  The musicians were packing up and Ann went over to the bandleader who was red-faced from his exertions.

  She went over with her big heart. I wanted to thank you for the wonderful music. She put out her hand.

  I don’t shake hands with girls, the bandleader said, and he kissed her on the mouth.

  She heard something soft on the rug in the hall. Please don’t be anyone. Don’t come. They mustn’t come yet. She could not have them here with their eyes asking. She could not answer anymore. She could not answer their eyes. She could not have them pressing near. She could not even say no. She could not be where they were.

  They bent down and she knew what they saw, the dent she made in the bed, the shrinking dent. She was growing smaller and smaller. She couldn’t help it and she couldn’t help them. She couldn’t help anything anymore. She didn’t want to see their worry. She wanted them to go away and yet wanted them near. She wanted his hand, she wanted someone to take her hand and take her away, but he was not there and all the someones were gone.

  Small flames in paper bags flickered on the dark lawn. Above in Lila Wittenborn Cutler’s room the bride was changing into her traveling suit for the drive to the inn less than a mile away. In the morning she and Carl would fly off to another island, a brighter palmier one in the Caribbean.

  One after the other the bridesmaids embraced Lila. Then Lizzie Tull pushed Ann Grant and Gail Slater out of the room so Gigi could have a last moment with her sister. The three green attendants clipped their way down the back stairs of the bright empty house into the bustling kitchen where glasses were being dried and fitted into cardboard boxes and the top of the wedding cake with the spun sugar birds attached cheek to cheek was being wrapped for the freezer. A woman with a red nose scrubbed in a foamy sink and two stooped boys carried a crate. The girls swept through the pantry where a man was stacking wine bottles and a woman in an apron scraped food into a bin through to the hallway with the hooks and into the larder where a lightbulb blazed. On the shelf beside the gold-labeled marmalade and rusted tea tins and cans of potato sticks sat the boxes of rice.

  Lizzie was saying, I found out that his real name is Volentine Montgomery.

  No wonder he goes by Monty, said Gail.

  Shadows stretched from the milling figures and threw bars of light over Lila and Carl as they ran down the slope in a hail of rice to the car.
Silhouetted in the doorway behind stood Gigi with red eyes looking rapt and lost. The last thing Ann saw of Lila was her calf and the navy blue shoes they’d bought together at Bonwit’s pointed into the driveway dirt before being tucked up behind the door. Buddy held onto the handle and ran alongside the car as it went faster and faster till he could hold on no more and had to let them go.

  12. THE WEDDING NIGHT

  She was being twisted this way and that a man was twisting her there were hands and arms turning her and old stirrings and they were all echoes of the first strong one the time when all of her was there engaged and all the ones after were references to that so as she lay on this white leaf nearly transparent and felt again the dark hill where she’d lain and finding it still there thought what else had she known but his voice his shadow his skin his look at me his hands on her waist and how quiet he was in love what else had life been but a night in the dark on the ground turning in a stranger’s arms

  Is that you?

  His head was a dark shape against deeper darkness and his white shirt was solid when she touched it.

  There’s someone in there, he said.

  A flash of green went by the cottage window.

  Gail, she said. He touched her arm loosely then his fingers fell. So he’s come from the other one, Ann thought. She did not want to talk about that or to think about it or to know anything of it. So she said, How is she?

  Sleeping.

  She alright then? The words dropped dull as stones. She dropped small stones on the subject of Maria.

  The screen door opened above them and Gail came out in slacks. She saw Ann and Harris in the darkness and walked by matter-of-factly saying, Now I feel normal again, and left them alone, something which made Ann always love her. But Ann didn’t care so much if they were seen together. It was past that now.

  Then Gigi appeared out of the dark, breathless. We’re going to the Plunge, she said, pulling at Harris and her head tilted as she took in Ann’s position beside Harris. In a level voice Harris said, We’ll meet you there, and she sprung back as if he’d given her a shock. She ran up through the striped shadows in her bare feet and looked back once as if to remember something then turned forward, hair streaming behind. Buddy standing with the others near the truck called down, Forget you two! He made the motion of throwing a ball. Ann remembered that. Forget you two.

  This was the last story she’d ever tell.

  He took her hand and they started across the field then turned down the dirt drive with the grass in a darker strip sprouting up the middle.

  I have something to tell you.

  He was solemn. But if it came from him, she thought, it could only be good, and she didn’t worry. His hand was in hers and as long as his hand was in hers she could hear anything. She was thoroughly strong with his hand. She waited.

  O.K., she said, and still he did not speak.

  They walked through a dark patch of trees and suddenly a branch creaked and something whooshed over their heads. It swooped near flapping silently into the dark. Ann knew: it was the owl, she told him an owl lived there. She stayed near to Harris, touching him. He said he’d never seen an owl before and stopped walking and stared into the black place where the branch had sprung. Not that I even saw that one, he said. His voice was worn out.

  She walked beside him feeling the pebbles through the soft soles of her shoes and her heel grinding the dirt. Light from the tent lit up the field to their right like theatre lights reflected from a stage cutting the trees around the edge in half with shadow and still he didn’t say anything. He was troubled. Whatever it was, she thought, I won’t think it so bad. It wasn’t always obvious what other people cared about or wanted or how other people would react to the same thing or what would make people happy or what they wouldn’t like. Often something mattered a lot to another person which was hardly anything to you, often you were surprised.

  She said his name to herself and felt it inside her as something full. Harris.

  Can we get to the water from here? he said.

  Yes, there was the Lorings’ dock and she led him to the narrow path and thought how often they were on gnarled paths stepping through the dark. A damp coolness blew on her ankles as the path opened up to framed black branches with the black water beyond and the liquid dots of light reflected. They stood at the top of a ramp and stars fanned out into a milkier sky and here and there hung luminous clouds in patches and the air was subtle around them and she could see becoming sharper the white of his teeth and his eyes and his shirt. They stood on the sandpaper ramp facing the inner harbor swollen with high tide and the float further out a thin black silhouette with a rowboat overturned on top. He rested his elbows on the railing and bowed his head and she stood beside him with the bone of her ribs against the wood. The sheen in the silk of her dress shone in the dim light like a plant underwater.

  It will be different after I tell you, he said. I don’t want that.

  So don’t tell me, she said. She smiled at him sideways, knowing that she shouldn’t smile and that this was serious but she was happy and didn’t care. Being there with him made her happy and if she was being ridiculous she didn’t care. She didn’t care if she was absurd.

  He was looking awfully grave.

  One thing won’t change, she said. He looked at her gratefully and stepped behind her and slipped his arms around her front so they faced the same way and she was surrounded by him.

  I’d like to stay this way forever, he said.

  It cracked. Time came at her like a dart and hit her and something cracked and she knew suddenly that it was a terrible thing he was going to say and already felt the pain of it spread across her chest before knowing what it was.

  Tell me.

  Maria doesn’t have food poisoning.

  That wasn’t so bad. No? Ann said.

  No, it’s something else.

  Ann’s mind spun. Something else. Suddenly she didn’t know anything. There were hidden things and the panic which follows a lie rose up like a flock of birds and scattered through her. There had been a lie somewhere. Who had lied? Had Harris lied, or Maria? Who had not understood? The vastness of all one did not know rushed at her like the opening of a black tunnel. One minute before she’d been prepared for anything, now suddenly she was struck with how many things could be hidden and how whether she liked it or not those things were going to matter to her and most likely hurt her and she thought with uncharacteristic panic quite possibly destroy her. She braced herself for whoever it was Maria was about to change into. She was about to take on a different meaning. The image appeared to her of Maria lying pale on the bed in the children’s house with Harris leaning over her and Maria’s hand reaching for his lapel…

  What? Ann said in a flat voice.

  She’s having a baby. His voice was small, telling himself. That is, we are. We’re having a baby.

  And everything did change. The sky sort of jolted to a stop. The stars became negative black dots, the water solid. The trees bristled where they stood but their attitude was changed. Everything switched into something else, something sharper and more clear. Truth had that effect and it seemed this was the most true thing anyone had ever said. The future she’d pictured before her slammed down like a blade and the night parted onto another future, one without her in it, and Harris behind her with his arms still holding onto her was not the same man. He was altogether not the same man. He was a man having a baby with a woman named Maria and Maria was an altogether greater thing than Ann could ever be. Ann was suffocating. His arms were crushing her, she couldn’t breathe.

  She pushed him off.

  She stepped away and held onto the railing. There was no air here either. She needed another harbor to breathe in, she needed another planet.

  For a long time neither of them spoke. Finally she managed a word. God, she said.

  Night, sky, water. They were all still there. She never wanted to see stars again. She never wanted to see black water at night. She wa
s out of his arms and could never go back into them.

  When did you know? she said.

  Tonight. She told me.

  After the wedding?

  Before, he said.

  Before the wedding … so he knew that afternoon. He knew during the wink in the church. He knew beside her in the tent when he’d been unable to eat.

  She found out in Chicago. She wanted to wait before telling me but—

  He knew while they were dancing when she thought she’d passed into another dimension. He had not been with her. He was thinking of someone else, of something else. Then it occurred to her that he might be happy. He was going to have a child and he loved Maria. He had said he loved Maria. Maybe he was overjoyed.

  Are you glad? she said. She didn’t know it was there till she heard it out loud and was surprised to find the hate in her voice.

  Ann, he said.

  She looked at his face turned away. He was at the end of a long tunnel in the darkness and she could hardly hear him he spoke so softly. It’s awful, he said, and a wind came blasting from where he stood and she didn’t know which way to face. He was not going to be hers, he belonged to someone else, there was nothing to be done and yet … what was she going to do? That is we are we’re having a baby. At the end of the long tunnel in a howling wind she barely heard, I can’t leave her.

  No, said Ann. It was just a sound to show she was still there. No. But why ever speak again? What was worth saying? Harris, she thought. She certainly couldn’t say my Harris now.

  Starkly in an instant she saw herself as she really was—alone in a wood standing among blue shadows with no sounds and the air a sort of black ice. She had no coat. All the people she’d known had forgotten her. Her mother, biting off thread between her teeth, couldn’t hear her, and her father with his eyes turned sorrowfully inward did not see her. They never had. Those she loved did not need her. Lila and Carl danced together in a bubble. Ralph Eastman picked lint from his sleeve. Buddy tucked in his shirttails, jumped in a truck and drove away. Fiona Speed showed the back of her hat, heading downtown in a cab. They all had more important concerns, they were all in their own lives, and there was no room for her. At night their doors were shut and through lit windows she could see them consulting one another, checking the baby, looking after business, licking envelopes, turning back the bedcover, shutting off the light switch, while she was left stranded out in the chill night in the true human state, lost, in the dark, alone.