by Zadie Smith
Within minutes, two men were standing near their bar stools. Gabrielle went to the bathroom and returned to find one of them had taken her seat. She tapped Soleil on the shoulder. ‘The hostess said because I’m underage we have to sit at a table,’ she lied. She pointed to one by the window with room for only two.
‘Nice meeting you gentlemen,’ Soleil said, and inexplicably saluted them before following Gabrielle to the table. Soleil ordered appetizers as main courses, and over dinner she talked to Gabrielle about marriage (she had been married at twenty-four, for three months), the merits of reading Ayn Rand ( just by pronouncing her first name correctly you could intimidate people, Soleil claimed), and the serious decision as to whether or not a woman should ever start using deodorant.
‘I never use it and smell me,’ Soleil instructed.
‘Now?’
‘No,’ she said, rolling her eyes, ‘ten years from now.’
Gabrielle leaned in toward her.
‘What do I smell like?’
‘Sweet, like strawberries,’ Gabrielle said. It was true, she did smell like strawberries, but she also smelled like sweat. Not in a bad way, and not in a French way - there was just a trace of something fermenting.
‘You’re sweet, too, Bree,’ Soleil said. Over dinner, Soleil had started calling her Bree without ever asking if she liked it. She did like it.
‘Thank you, you’re too kind,’ Gabrielle said, sounding like someone else.
‘That took longer than I thought it would,’ Soleil said, as they walked hurriedly back to Gabrielle’s house. ‘How mad will your parents be?’
‘Beats me,’ Gabrielle said. ‘We don’t have guests that often.’
Gabrielle’s parents were sitting in the kitchen, facing each other. Her mother’s foot was propped on her father’s lap. He was massaging it.
‘Oh, there you are,’ Gabrielle’s mother said, as though she was addressing a pair of misplaced sunglasses that had turned up.
‘Long day on her feet,’ Gabrielle’s father explained, replacing the shoe on his wife’s foot.
‘Look at you,’ Soleil said. ‘Cinderella.’
Gabrielle’s mother smiled and stood and Soleil hugged her. Then Soleil hugged Gabrielle’s father for several seconds longer, until he broke away.
‘Welcome,’ her father rasped.
Gabrielle’s mother looked Soleil up and down. ‘You look great,’ she said.
‘Thank you, Dorothy,’ Soleil said. Everyone waited a moment for Soleil to return the compliment. She didn’t.
In the living room, Gabrielle’s father and mother sat in the loveseat, like they always did, side by side and facing the same direction, as though riding in a bus. Gabrielle and Soleil sat in arm-less chairs. Gabrielle’s father was wearing a blazer, and Gabrielle could not understand why; he owned a furniture store and never dressed up for work. He poured each of the women a large glass of wine.
Gabrielle’s father called the Thai restaurant and announced his order so loudly no one else could talk. Soleil adjusted her rings so their stones were centered on her long fingers.
Gabrielle’s father hung up the phone and looked at Gabrielle: ‘I got the rice you like.’
‘I heard,’ Gabrielle wanted to say, but didn’t. Things already seemed tense.
‘Can I ask you a favor?’ Gabrielle’s mother said to Soleil.
‘Anything,’ Soleil said, discouragingly.
‘Can you turn off that pin?’
‘This? It’s my heartlight.’
There was a pulsating silence.
‘Turn off your heartlight,’ Gabrielle’s father sang. He was prone to quick bouts of song.
‘I just get panic attacks sometimes from blinking lights,’ Gabrielle’s mother said.
‘It happened last week,’ Gabrielle added. ‘With an ambulance.’
Soleil didn’t turn off the light. Instead she removed her blazer. Her camisole was thin, the pattern of her lace bra easy to see. Her oddly triangular breasts were medium sized, and her arms, Gabrielle noticed, were hairless, waxed. Gabrielle’s father’s eyes stayed fixed on Soleil’s forehead.
The adults talked about Hawaii but they didn’t talk about what everyone had been doing in the years after they left Hawaii. When Gabrielle’s father disappeared into the kitchen to get more wine, Gabrielle’s mother leaned forward. ‘I don’t want to embarrass you, Sol, but how did you get rid of your stutter?’
The edges of Soleil’s wide lips trembled for a second, and then were still. ‘What stutter?’ she said.
‘You used to complain about it. You used to say you were going to go to an institute in Minnesota where they worked with people with your - ’
‘I think you’re confusing me with someone else,’ Soleil said.
Gabrielle’s father returned to the room with a bottle of wine in each hand. ‘Red or white?’ he asked, holding them up like trophy fish.
‘Red,’ said both women simultaneously, and then laughed.
‘See, Gabrielle,’ Soleil said. ‘Your mother and I aren’t that different.’
Gabrielle’s mother looked as though she was about to disagree, but instead she took a final sip of her wine, and held her glass up to her husband for a refill.
‘Do you think they’re natural around each other?’ Soleil asked, later that night. Soleil was staying in Gabrielle’s room, in her bed, while Gabrielle slept on the trundle below. There was no guest bedroom in Gabrielle’s house - further proof, she thought, that they weren’t rich.
‘What do you mean?’ Gabrielle asked.
‘I mean, do you think they’re putting on a show?’
‘For who?’ Gabrielle asked. Then corrected herself. ‘For whom?’
‘For me. Trying to show how in love they are.’ Soleil said ‘in love’ like a boy in Gabrielle’s class did, with a guttural emphasis on ‘love’.
‘No,’ Gabrielle said truthfully. ‘They’re acting the way they always do.’
Soleil fell asleep a few seconds later, as if only the whiff of scandal or deception could keep her awake. Gabrielle sat up watching her, the light of the moon sliding through the blinds, striping their bodies. Soleil slept on her stomach with one leg falling off the side of the bed, like she had been poisoned.
By Thursday it was clear Soleil was bored. She walked around the house balancing water glasses on her head and turning the flowers in vases upside down. ‘I learned this from a florist in Denmark,’ she said. She had learned everything - candle-making, Tai Chi, Portuguese - somewhere else.
That afternoon, Soleil decided she and Gabrielle and Gabrielle’s mother should go to Lake Tahoe for the weekend, for what she called a ‘girls’ getaway.’ She had a friend there, a woman named Katy, who owned a café on the water.
‘You’ll like Katy,’ Soleil said, now sunning herself in the back yard. ‘She’s a free spirit. Very sexy.’
Gabrielle was sitting on the grass next to her. ‘So all your friends are pretty then? My mom, Katy . . .’ Gabrielle was testing. She knew her mother was attractive. ‘Your mother’s a good-looking woman,’ her father was fond of saying. Then he would break into song.
But Soleil hesitated. Gabrielle immediately regretted saying anything. ‘Your mother’s cute,’ she said, wrinkling her nose, ‘but she’s not sexy. She just doesn’t have that vibe about her.’
‘I can’t leave Jack alone for the weekend,’ Gabrielle’s mother said flatly that evening. They were sitting in the living room and Soleil had laid out her Lake Tahoe plan.
‘Well, he can come too,’ Soleil said.
‘I don’t think he can,’ Gabrielle’s mother said, without offering an explanation. She appeared beleaguered by Soleil’s visit, and had gone to bed early every night since Soleil had arrived.
The plan seemed dead to both Soleil and Gabrielle’s mother, but Gabrielle found herself desperate to save it.
‘Can I go with Soleil even if you don’t come?’ she said.
‘Let me think about it,’ said her mother.
Her father entered the room, waltzing with an imaginary partner. ‘What’s going on?’ he said, looking at their faces. He stopped waltzing. ‘A summit meeting?’
Gabrielle told him about the trip, and appealed to him to let her go. ‘I want to see how self-sufficient a single woman has to be,’ Gabrielle said. She had picked this up from Mrs Terwilliger, her history teacher, who was newly divorced.
‘Sounds like a good plan,’ her father said.
Gabrielle smiled at him, and forced herself not to look at her mother. She stared at her father even as she heard her mother stand up and walk out of the room, the sound of her practical heels heavy on the hardwood floor.
‘Dorothy?’ Gabrielle’s father called after her.
‘I’m just checking the fridge to see what I’m going to make us for dinner,’ her mother replied, but Gabrielle could tell by her footsteps that she was in the study, not the kitchen.
On Friday, Soleil dressed in a snug white shirt and white pants, no panty lines visible. Or maybe, Gabrielle thought, she wasn’t wearing any. Soleil was big-boned and tall, and the whiteness of her outfit highlighted her size. She looked like a small ship.
Soleil’s van was also white. ‘I hate this car,’ Soleil said, as they pulled out onto the road. ‘But I need it for my job.’
Gabrielle realized she didn’t know what Soleil did for a living. She didn’t seem like someone with a job.
‘What is your profession?’ Gabrielle asked.
Soleil laughed. ‘Why so formal? Do you work at passport control?’
Gabrielle shook her head. Soleil laughed again.
‘I’m an antique collector,’ Soleil said. ‘I specialize in Coca-Cola merchandise.’
‘Oh, like old bottles,’ Gabrielle said, too quickly.
‘Not bottles,’ said Soleil, and Gabrielle saw the skin around her eyes tighten. ‘I collect beautiful mirrors and old vending machines from the twenties and sell them at Coca-Cola conventions. You wouldn’t believe how many people are into that stuff. When I lived in Minnesota I made a really good living.’
‘You lived in Minnesota?’ Gabrielle asked.
‘Yes,’ Soleil said, and Gabrielle detected a slight stutter, a repetitive ‘Y’.
A billboard advertised an upcoming refreshment center called the Nut House. ‘I think I have a few ex-lovers who live there,’ Soleil said. Then she turned to Gabrielle and grew very serious. ‘If anyone ever invites you to Belgium, please promise me you won’t go.’
‘Did something bad happen there?’ Gabrielle asked.
‘No, nothing happens there. That’s the point. It’s Belgium.’
‘Oh shit,’ Soleil called out, waking Gabrielle.
‘What?’
‘We’re almost at Katy’s house, and we didn’t go grocery shopping. That’s what you do when you stay with someone - you stock their fridge.’
‘Oh,’ Gabrielle said, though Soleil hadn’t brought anything into her mother’s kitchen.
They stopped at a grocery store designed to look like a log cabin. Soleil pulled out a shopping cart.
‘Do we need a cart?’ Gabrielle said.
‘We’re buying for the whole weekend,’ Soleil said. ‘The wine alone would break your arm.’
In the far corner of the cart, Gabrielle saw something brown. Square. A wallet. She gave it to Soleil, who quickly flipped through it. ‘Henry Sam Stewart,’ she read. ‘Blue eyes, overweight. Lives on the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe.’ She looked at Gabrielle. ‘You know what that means?’
‘He’s a gambler.’
‘No,’ Soleil said. ‘It means you’ll get a big reward.’
‘Because he’s a gambler.’
‘No, stop with that. Because, Bree, he lives far away. He’ll be really grateful we made the effort.’
Soleil bought a map along with the groceries, and they climbed back into the van and set out to find Henry Sam Stewart. The wallet sat between them in the cup-holder.
‘How much do you think we’ll get?’
‘You’ll get it. You found the wallet,’ Soleil said. ‘And I would say fifty dollars would be a fair reward.’
‘Fifty!’ Gabrielle didn’t know what she’d spend it on. Maybe a present for Soleil.
It took over an hour to get to the house of Henry Sam Stewart.
‘We’re getting close,’ Soleil said as they turned off onto his street. ‘Hand me my lipstick.’
Soleil could apply lipstick - she was partial to a dark plum shade - to her wide, thin lips without looking. Gabrielle tucked her hair behind her ears.
‘Hmm,’ Soleil said, as they pulled up to the house.
‘What?’ said Gabrielle, but she saw what Soleil was seeing. The house was falling apart. They got out of the car. The wooden stairs leading up to the front door creaked like they might collapse beneath their feet.
Henry Sam Stewart answered the door. He looked remarkably like the picture on his driver’s license. He was wearing shiny blue jogging shorts and a white turtleneck. ‘What can I do you for?’ he said.
‘Hi,’ Soleil said. ‘We have something we think you might want.’
‘I can see that,’ he said, staring at Soleil’s chest.
‘Your wallet,’ Soleil said. She held out her hand toward Gabrielle. Gabrielle placed the wallet in Soleil’s hand, and she put it in Henry’s.
‘Jeez. Where’d you find this?’ he said. ‘I didn’t know it was gone.’
‘At the grocery store,’ Soleil said.
‘On the other side of the lake,’ Gabrielle added.
‘Well, thank you, ladies,’ he said. He tipped an imaginary hat toward them.
‘That’s it?’ Soleil said.
‘You want to come in?’ he said, his eyes on Soleil’s mouth.
‘No, thank you. I’m just wondering where this young woman’s reward money is.’
‘Reward?’
‘Yes, that’s customary when someone returns a wallet.’
‘I don’t like beggars,’ Henry Sam Stewart said. ‘I might have given you a reward if you hadn’t been so pushy.’
‘The reward’s not for me. It’s for Bree here. An eleven-year-old girl who’s too honest to take the money from your cheap wallet.’
‘Well, thank you, Bree,’ he said to Gabrielle. ‘Sometimes kindness is its own reward. Maybe your mother hasn’t learned that yet?’
Gabrielle looked at Soleil. Her hair was wild, her eyes glazed over. She looked beautiful.
‘Do you know what kind of lesson you’re teaching this child?’ Soleil said. ‘I can’t stand people who think they don’t owe people anything. What kind of world is that? I’m going to write down her address here and when you become a decent person, I want you to send her the reward money.’
Soleil took a piece of paper from her purse. ‘What’s your address again, Bree?’ she asked.
Henry Sam Stewart shut the door on them.
Soleil clenched her fists, tilted her head to the sky and mimed screaming. Then, composing herself, she wrote down Gabrielle’s address and pushed the paper under the door.
‘Moron!’ she yelled.
Gabrielle first saw Katy through the window of her living room. She was bent over, brushing the underside of her blonde hair furiously, as if beating a rug.
Soleil knocked on the door and walked in. Katy turned upright, her face pink, her hair enormous.
Soleil and Katy kissed each other on both cheeks, and then Katy kissed Gabrielle on both cheeks. Katy had the air of being pretty, with a small nose and a golden tan.
‘We brought groceries,’ Soleil said.
‘You’re always the best guest,’ Katy said.
‘I’m always a guest.’
‘Not settled down yet?’
‘Catch me if you can.’
‘Gin and tonic?’
Soleil answered by clapping her hands together.
‘Bree?’ Soleil said. ‘You want a Coke?’
An hour later Soleil and Katy were drunk. Rod Stewart
sang from the record player, and Katy and Soleil were trying on clothes and dancing around the green-carpeted living room. Gabrielle sat on an itchy plaid couch. Her job, the women said, was to rate their outfits. They were taking a dinner-boat cruise on the lake that night.
‘We want to look like a million bucks,’ Soleil said.
‘It’s a fine line,’ Katy added, ‘between looking like a million and looking like you cost a million.’
Soleil laughed. If this was a joke, Gabrielle didn’t get it. Soleil and Katy modeled outfits that would have been right for an opera; they modeled outfits that would have looked appropriate on the moon. Finally, they settled on dresses that required them to adjust their bra straps with safety pins. Katy’s hemline was high; Soleil’s neckline was low; watching them standing side by side, Gabrielle thought they looked like they’d gone crazy with a pair of scissors.
‘Now it’s time for us to dress you up,’ Katy said.
‘It sure is,’ said Soleil and pulled Gabrielle into Katy’s bedroom with a force that scared her.
Katy followed them, and she and Soleil stood looking at Gabrielle’s reflection in the closet mirror.
‘You would look so good in ivory,’ Katy said. ‘Your skin is so olive-y.’
‘It’s her dad’s skin,’ Soleil said.
‘Jack?’ Katy said to Soleil in a hushed tone.
Soleil nodded, and closed her lips tight. Gabrielle watched the women’s faces, and saw the stern look that passed between their inebriated eyes. She felt as though she’d swallowed a stone and it was making its way to her stomach.
‘If I were you, I’d show off those legs,’ Katy said, turning her attention back to Gabrielle. ‘I have just the thing.’
Katy pulled an ivory slip out of her dresser drawer and draped it over Gabrielle’s head.
Soleil examined her with one eye closed. ‘I think you need a piece of jewelry so it’s clear you’re wearing it as a dress. Hold on a second.’ She left the room.