by Maile Meloy
Jimmy said, “I liked Catholic girls, but I never really got the lingo.” He thought of Clarissa coming to his house after Mass one Sunday, dropping to the sofa in disgust in her pleated skirt and saying he was so lucky to be a Protestant and already damned. It had gone well that day, on the sofa. Clarissa Santerre at seventeen—it hurt his heart that such things were no more.
O’Brian was studying the couple across the room. “There’s been talk about Jay,” he said. “He had a nasty divorce, and now—I guess I shouldn’t spread rumors.”
“Who do I know to tell?”
O’Brian laughed. “No chance to spread gossip when you live off the grid? I envy your life.”
Jimmy lived alone on a leaky sailboat and was tired of denying the romance of it. He said, “But the rumors?”
“He’s stopped practicing law,” O’Brian said, “though he still has an office. His paralegal works for us now, and she seemed a little shell-shocked when she came.”
“In what way?”
“No one’s really sure, and the girl from his office isn’t talking. It might be drugs. I can’t tell if she was fucking him.”
Jimmy waited.
“But it seems like more than that,” O’Brian said. “Like maybe he was really a little nuts.”
Jimmy pretended to be wholly engrossed in spreading green-flecked herb butter on his bread. “Anyone else here?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” O’Brian said. “No one of interest. You know, we could go say hello to Jay and check it out.”
“I don’t think so,” Jimmy said, too quickly. He couldn’t imagine catching Margot out on a date.
“You’re right,” O’Brian said. “He was a nice guy. I always wondered if straight guys joined the Jebbies, but he seemed like one.” He laughed. “Maybe he’s no worse than the rest of us—you never know.”
65
CLARISSA HAD JUST come from the screening of the student films, where she stood and explained to the class that hers had become a movie about not coming out to her father. The teacher, who was raised Catholic, had talked afterward about the confessional and the documentary film camera—how sometimes telling things to a camera feels private when it’s exactly the opposite.
At home, Clarissa had gone outside to think about the experience, taking the phone with her, and she was deadheading the last roses for the winter when Jimmy Vaughan called. She hadn’t talked to him since Margot’s wedding, when she was nineteen and already going with Henry, and it had been awkward and sad. She couldn’t believe, now, that it was really Jimmy Vaughan.
“I just wanted to ask if Margot’s okay,” Jimmy said.
In Clarissa’s fantasy of her first love from Hermosa High tracking her down, he had not asked about her sister first. “Margot’s fine,” she said, a little annoyed. “You know Margot. She’s with my parents.”
“I saw her in Santa Barbara the other night,” he said.
“With my parents?” Clarissa thought if they had come even a little bit north, she should have been invited.
“No,” he said.
“Who was she with?”
Jimmy paused. “I’m not sure.”
“Did she say why she was there?”
“I didn’t talk to her.”
Clarissa was confused and impatient. “Why not?”
“She’s probably fine,” Jimmy said. “She looked good.”
“I don’t understand.”
Finally Jimmy told her about the man Margot had been with, and it seemed to Clarissa that an alien must be masquerading as her sister.
“I got a bad feeling about this guy,” Jimmy said, “and I thought you could keep the secret for her, if it turned out it was no big deal. But don’t tell anyone. I’m sure she’s fine.”
“It’s so strange to hear your voice. I met a friend of yours in the grocery store.”
“That’s how I knew where you lived.”
Clarissa laughed. “This is what we get for staying in California. My poor sister can’t even go on a date here.”
“You know that if I hadn’t heard things about this guy,” Jimmy said, “I would never say anything.”
“I know. It’s just too bad that the first time in her whole life Margot does something wrong, she gets caught. God wants her to be good.”
“It’s God, is it?” he said. “Do you still go to Mass?”
“Oh, no,” she said. “I’ve been doing a lot of tantric yoga.” She meant it as a description of her spiritual state, but it sounded like a sexual come-on. She wondered if subconsciously it had been.
Jimmy said, “I was thinking about sailing up north for a few days. I have a little boat. That’s where you are, right? You’re near Bodega Bay?”
“Sort of.”
“I remember you not getting seasick.”
“I never get seasick.”
“Would you want to come out on the boat, if there’s wind?”
Clarissa stood in her garden with one glove off and the pruning shears still in her hand. It was a beautiful fall day, and she felt the light breeze through her clothes, against her body. “I’m not seventeen anymore,” she said.
“Neither am I,” he said. “I think we’re still allowed to sail.”
“Okay,” she said. “If there’s wind.”
66
PETER SAT IN THE passenger seat while Abby drove them north to Teddy and Yvette’s for Thanksgiving dinner. It was only midday, and the freeway traffic wasn’t bad yet. Peter had the sense that everyone on the road was driving to meet the families of the people they were sleeping with. Abby’s mother had gone sailing, but the rest of them would be there.
“Tell me what you’re missing, at home,” Abby said.
“Is this to keep my mind off seeing your family, or yours?”
“I just want to know.”
“My mother has stuffy relatives and crazy ones,” he said, “and she’s chosen the crazy ones to be friends with. Her cousin Sylvia in New Hampshire teaches belly dancing and has a big studio lined with mirrors. Twenty-seven relatives go there for Thanksgiving—twenty-six this year without me—and with the mirrors it looks like there are fifty-four. Sylvia covers these long folding tables with clipped-down plastic tablecloths, and there’s turkey with stuffing, and sweet potatoes with marshmallows, the whole deal. After dinner, the men and children and the misfit women play speed charades on one side of the studio—or some other game, sometimes it changes. They scream out words and grab at some kind of plastic timer. The rest of the women spread newspapers on the tables on the other side of the room, reading the sale announcements, because at dawn they go to the stores to get free prizes for getting there first.”
“There are prizes at the stores?”
“You should come some year,” he said. “The whole thing reminds you why Americans like America so much.”
“Our dinner will be more subdued and French Canadian.”
“Are your grandparents going to be bothered that you’re living with me?”
“I don’t think they know.”
“Will they be bothered that I’m a Jewish Lutheran?”
“Maybe you shouldn’t mention the Lutheranism.”
“I’m actually serious.”
“No,” she said. “They’re Vatican II Catholics.”
“Jamie can’t be happy about me.”
“He’s my uncle, he doesn’t have any rights.”
“He got rights when you slept with him.”
“I didn’t. That’s just in the book.”
“Abby,” he said. “You’re staying on message with me ?”
They left the freeway and took surface streets into Hermosa Beach, and then they were in a neat residential neighborhood of small houses with trimmed lawns. The haze had burned off, and the day was sunny and blue. Abby parked the car.
“It was the hottest summer in years when I had the chicken pox here,” she said. “God, I was miserable. Until Jamie came.”
“Nothing happened then, did it?”
/> “No!” she said. “That’s disgusting.”
“Just asking.”
She pointed out a yellow board-and-batten house. “That’s where Cara Ferris lived. She could twirl a baton, and she was Miss Hermosa Beach Recreation. I would have given anything to be her.”
They walked up to the house, Peter carrying the pumpkin pie. He hadn’t been so nervous in a long time, and he felt himself sweating in the sun. Back in Pennsylvania it would be cold and crisp. Abby rang the doorbell.
“Sweetheart!” Yvette said when she opened the door. “I’m so glad you’re here.” She was a lot like Peter had expected: she wasn’t trying to hide her age, but she must have been something when she was young. She kissed him and said, “Thank you for taking care of Abby. What a beautiful pie.”
“Abby made it.”
Abby said, “I left the other one with Peter’s Punjabi neighbors.”
Peter noticed that she didn’t say our Punjabi neighbors, and he reminded himself to be consistent with that. In the living room, he was introduced to T.J., who was reading a comic book and seemed like a normal kid. The grandfather stood from a chair and shook Peter’s hand. He was short, and Peter thought maybe it was good for pilots to be small. No one else was in the room, which was as neat and orderly as the neighborhood. He felt like he’d walked back into the fifties.
“You know Clarissa isn’t coming,” Yvette said. “And Margot was here, but—” She looked nervously at Teddy. “She’s up in Santa Barbara. We don’t really know why.”
Teddy clapped Abby on the back. “How are sales of your book?”
“Fine, I guess. They’re doing another printing.”
Yvette laughed. “Oh, isn’t that wild,” she said. “I don’t know why anyone would want to read that thing.”
“It’s a small printing,” Abby said.
“Can we do something?” Peter asked. “Set the table?”
“It’s all set, sweetheart,” Yvette said. “Come sit down. Can I get you a drink? We’ve already started.”
As soon as they sat down on the couch, Jamie came in hugging two bags of groceries. Peter stood to say hello, relieved that the uncle wasn’t as good-looking as he had imagined, but Jamie said, “Come help me unload, Ab.”
Abby gave Peter an apologetic look and followed her uncle to the kitchen, and Peter was left stupidly standing. He sat back down on the couch.
“They’ve always been close,” Yvette said. “I’m sure they’ll be back in a minute.”
“That’s all right.” Peter turned to Teddy. “So what did you fly in the Pacific?”
They talked about fighter planes until Jamie and Abby came back. Abby must have said something to him, because Jamie came straight over to shake hands, looking Peter in the eye like someone in a training video about business introductions.
“It’s good to have you here,” he said. “Will you join us for batting practice?”
T.J. yelped with pleasure and scrambled up off the floor.
“Peter can catch,” Jamie said.
Abby crossed the lawn to the outfield by the rosebushes. The neighbors across the street watched from deck chairs on their front patio. Jamie gave two little shakes of the head, then a nod, as if Peter were calling for pitches, and then tossed an easy underhand throw. T.J. swung and missed, and Peter caught the ball and threw it back to the uncle who had fucked Abby when she was twenty. Who was now a cheerful dad with a young son. Peter understood why he was likable without really liking him.
Jamie pitched, and T.J. hit the ball.
“Home run!”Jamie cried, letting it go past him. Abby got the ball out from under the bushes while T.J. tore around the lawn. Peter applauded, and so did the people across the street. T.J. rounded home grinning.
After two more strikes, T.J. hit the ball and ran again.
“He’s Babe Ruth!” Jamie cried. “Look at him go!” It went on like that until Yvette called them in for dinner.
In the house, Peter followed Abby into the bathroom and shut the door.
“My grandparents are out there,” she said.
“If you can be alone in the kitchen with Jamie, you can be in the bathroom with me.” He helped her sit up on the counter, wondering what they had time for.
“He was telling me about Margot,” Abby said, letting him stand between her knees and untuck her shirt but not paying any attention. “She thought my novel was about an affair she had once, and then she got obsessed with the guy and tracked him down in Santa Barbara. That’s where she is.”
He stopped with the shirt. “Oh, Abby,” he said.
“Margot swore my mother to secrecy, but my mother told Jamie. It’s funny that the novel is about a family keeping secrets.”
“And you think Margot leaving is your fault.”
“Things are causal,” Abby said. “If I hadn’t written the book, she wouldn’t have left.”
“Abby of the Universe,” he said. “You’re being psychotic.”
“I’m being honest.”
“What would Leila say?”
“I don’t know. But we can’t stay in here.” She tucked in her shirt, pushed herself off the counter, and gave him a depressing kiss on the way out.
At the table, Teddy clasped his hands and said, “Lord, we thank You for this food and for our health and our total well-being, and for giving us Abby and Peter and Jamie and T.J. today. We wish Clarissa and Margot could be here with us, and we pray for them. Also for Owen and Bennett and Danny and Katya, and Your children everywhere. Amen.”
Yvette and Jamie said “Amen,” and then they started passing the food. Yvette held the green beans for Peter and said, “So what kinds of books do you teach?”
“Whatever they’ll pay me for,” he said. “The Americans when I can. My dissertation is on Poe.”
“Oh, he’s very dark, isn’t he?” she said.
Peter took a bread roll from Jamie and said, “Yes.”
“I like books with happy endings,” Yvette said. “That’s what I didn’t like about Abby’s book, when I finally got through it.”
Abby was helping T.J. choose a piece of turkey and didn’t look up.
“You know what my favorite poem is?” Yvette said. “Evangeline.”
“That’s Longfellow?”
“Oh, it’s such a beautiful story,” she said. “ ‘This is the forest primeval.’ That’s how it begins. They’re in a French settlement in Nova Scotia—what’s now Nova Scotia—and Evangeline is the beautiful and virtuous daughter of the seigneur. She’s so good to the poor and everyone loves her, and then the English soldiers tell them they have to leave, because they don’t want the French in Canada. But these people aren’t political—all they want to do is farm, and have babies, and live their lives.”
“In disputed territory,” Jamie said. “Can I have the potatoes?”
“Oh, it’s just this harmless little town on this island,” Yvette said. “And the English load them all onto ships and send them away. It’s so cruel, and they’re all on different ships. And then France doesn’t want them back, and some are lost at sea, or in the forest, and some go to Louisiana, and they become the Cajuns.” She smoothed the tablecloth under her wineglass. “And in the dispersal, Evangeline loses her true love. She spends the rest of her life looking for him, all over the country, in the forests and in Louisiana. When she finally finds him, many years later, he’s on his deathbed. Oh, that poem used to make me cry.”
Peter couldn’t help himself. “I thought you liked happy endings,” he said.
“I do.”
“But your favorite story is about territorial war on civilians, and dispersals of people, and lives that go unfulfilled, and people dying.”
“Oh, well,” she said. “It was so romantic.”
Abby said, “It’s because the girl was like you.”
Yvette smiled and said, “Oh, no.”
“Maybe,” Peter said, “it’s because it’s the hard things that make people interesting, in stories—more intere
sting than if everything were happy.”
Yvette looked at him as if deciding whether to accept the challenge or not. Her eyes, from wine or the hour, had lost some of the brightness they had before dinner. She said, “I don’t know. I was younger then, I guess. Let’s talk about something else.” She looked around the table for a topic.
“Like Jamie’s friend Saffron having a baby!” she said.
“Go ahead, Ma, turn the knife,” Jamie said.
“It’s a happy thing.”
“For who? Not for the baby.”
T.J. had been mostly silent to that point, but now he asked Abby, “Did you have a baby?”
Abby seemed surprised. “No,” she said.
“Katya said it was in the book.”
“That I had a baby?” Abby asked cautiously.
“Yes.”
Abby paused and then said, “I can see how she might think that, but the book is about made-up people. I don’t have any children.”
“Are you in love with Jamie?”
“No,” Abby said.
“Why not?” There was silence at the table, and Peter didn’t know where to look.
“Because Jamie’s my uncle,” she said.
“So?”
“I do love him,” Abby said, “like I love you and…Yvette.”
“Can you marry him?”
“No.”
T.J. seemed to think about that. “Can I go live with Magdalena again?”
“Come here,” Abby said, and T.J. climbed down from his chair and into her lap. She put her arms around him. “Magdalena loves you so much that she wanted to be sure, before she started her own family, that you were taken care of, and went to a school you like, and made friends. You’ve done all that, right?”
T.J. nodded.
“Do you think, if you went back to Argentina, you would miss playing baseball with Jamie, and seeing Yvette?”
T.J. nodded again.
“It’s confusing,” Abby said. “It would be easier to have one place where all the people you love are. But you have so many people that you’re going to miss some of them wherever you are.”
Jamie and Yvette got up to clear dishes, and T.J. seemed to have run himself out. He accepted a promise of pumpkin pie for breakfast, and Abby took him to brush his teeth and go to bed in her mother’s old room. The water was running in the kitchen, and Jamie and Yvette were in low conversation there.
