Higher, Angela. Faster. Better better better.
Practice makes perfect, Angela. It wouldn’t be a saying if it weren’t true.
More.
CHAPTER 43
GABE
It became easier for Gabe to be away from the office than it was for him to be there. He’d checked with HR about the possibility of hiring Abby Freeman full-time when her internship ended in December; he’d even gently floated the idea by two of the senior partners, and he’d gotten the same answer from all of them: Elpis wasn’t hiring recent grads, no matter how good they were, no matter what a phenomenal job they’d done (as Abby had) of handling the beginning of the Bizzvara presentation. The internship program at Elpis was meant to be finite—a stepping-stone to business school, perhaps—and they might welcome the return of those interns once they had their MBAs, particularly if they had MBAs from the top schools. But not before.
The world had changed dramatically since that grubby little office in Outer Sunset.
And they wouldn’t consider making an exception? For an extremely bright intern?
No, Joe Stone told Gabe, no, they wouldn’t. And why, might Joe Stone ask, was Gabe taking such an interest in the career of Abby Freeman?
No reason, said Gabe, except he thought she was very talented.
He did not like the look Joe Stone gave him.
If he had a client meeting, obviously, Gabe’s presence was expected, and he showed. But when he didn’t, it was simple enough to disengage. Disappear. Hide out. A matinee, once. Captain Phillips, a nice long movie, though riveting all the same: he bought Junior Mints and Twizzlers both and chased them with a large Dr Pepper. Another time he met Skip Moynihan at his club in Novato for a leisurely nine holes, followed by drinks and lunch in the grill room. Three hours gone, just like that. It was easy, in the digital age, to disappear for long periods of time and yet be instantly accessible. It was so easy, in fact, that Gabe wondered why he’d never thought of it before. Look at all he’d been missing.
One day in early December he crossed the Bay Bridge and headed out to the East Bay. He rarely had reason to cross the Bay Bridge, but a guy from the Bizzvara team had mentioned some good hiking out that way.
In the olden days, when he and Nora were new to each other, and new to the Bay Area, they’d been inexhaustible: Stinson Beach to Mount Tam, Bonita Park, Pedro Point Headlands, an overnight camping trip once to Point Reyes, where they’d made it to the northernmost tip of Tomales Point and had seen two red-beaked, red-eyed oyster catchers. Since the kids, the hiking had slowed considerably, and now they hardly ever went.
Gabe had researched a few possible hikes carefully on his laptop at work. Yelpers, it turned out, were quite prolific with their reviews of hiking trails; it was surprising to Gabe that so many people had so much time not only to hike but also to post comprehensive reviews and even photographs of their hikes.
Eventually he chose Las Trampas because the Yelpers (Chloe C. from San Ramon, Larry B. from Walnut Creek, Stephanie H. from Alamo) talked a lot about the trails being quiet, sometimes nearly deserted. Gabe was about as anxious as he remembered being anytime in his life, so quiet and deserted seemed like just the ticket. He was anxious about Angela. Had they done everything, every single thing, they possibly could have? Should she have stayed on the swim team longer, learned more languages? What had happened to her in that last cross-country race, which she should have won handily? Was it the Adderall? He was anxious about that, too, and about the fact that he hadn’t told Nora yet—he should have, but he was worried that Nora would blame him for pushing Angela to a point where she became a felon. A felon! Geez. Then, of course, he was anxious about the situation at work, so anxious that he hardly wanted to think about it. He was anxious about Maya; should they get her tested for a learning disability again?
No shade, and very hot in the summer (everybody on Yelp talked about the heat), but in December he should be fine hiking Las Trampas. The rains hadn’t come yet; it wouldn’t be slippery. (The Yelpers had warned about the slipperiness after the rains. The Yelpers had thought of everything.) In fact he had heard in a piece on NPR that the rains might not be coming at all this year. The snowpack in the Sierra Nevada was lower than it had been in decades. California had a severe drought coming. It was gold rush dry.
Gabe was no stranger to drought; Wyoming was the fifth-driest state in the Union.
He parked in a residential neighborhood on a street named Camille. Pretty houses, lots of renovation going on. Nora would have something to say about that. She’d be able to look at the houses and pinpoint which renovations would increase the curb appeal and which would not.
Gabe had found a reasonable hike, four miles, steep, but (so said the Yelpers) worth it for the view from the ridge.
He didn’t bring his phone, didn’t bring his wallet, locked his car. Didn’t even bring a bottle of water, because he didn’t have one with him. Bad hiking form. He started up the trail, which didn’t, in fact, seem so steep after all. Had the Yelpers exaggerated? He paused at the trailhead to read the sign about what to do if you saw a mountain lion. These were things he already knew, having grown up in a mountain lion state. But he read it anyway, as a refresher. Make yourself appear as large as possible. Make noise. Act like a predator. Throw stones or branches. Don’t turn your back, don’t run. Back away slowly. If attacked, protect yourself. (Not bad advice for dealing with Abby Freeman either, was it?) He had seen signs like that all over California, but he had never seen an actual mountain lion here. In Wyoming you could hunt them. In California, of course, land of the liberals, you could not.
He paused and squinted—it was midday, and, despite the season, the sun was strong. He began the ascent.
Okay. Now he saw what the Yelpers were yelping about. The trail went from flat to incredibly steep in three seconds. He had read about people trail running, even mountain biking, up here, but for the life of him he couldn’t imagine that. He could hardly walk.
It felt good, though, working his quads like this, up and up and up. His calves were straining. He was starting to sweat. He was overdressed, to be sure, in his work clothes, but he’d found a pair of sneakers in the trunk of his car. So that was something.
He seemed to have the place to himself. The rocky trail was bordered by trees in the beginning, live oak, bay laurel. Farther on, the trail opened up and the trees gave way to more varied vegetation—he recognized black sage and buck brush but there were others that he did not know.
He was breathing hard, working hard. He felt the knot of anxiety begin to loosen. He let his thoughts wander. He thought of the first time he’d seen Nora, at that bar in Noe Valley. She’d been so beautiful—she still was! Love of his life. He thought of the births of each of his children, he thought of the day he’d gotten the job at Elpis. Happy moments, all of them, joy, joy. He was a lucky man. (But what if you lose it? asked the bothersome voice inside his head. What then?)
In some parts the ascent was so steep that Gabe had to grasp for tree roots and make his way up on his hands and knees. He passed a woman walking two golden retrievers. The woman and the dogs all eyed him warily, and he supposed that in his untraditional hiking clothes (khakis and a dress shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, the sneakers) he probably looked like some sort of pervert trolling the trails, the Pee-wee Herman of the East Bay. No matter. His lungs were filling and expanding, the December sunshine was now joyously unrelenting. The bothersome voice was receding. This was the California dream, right here, a piece of unpopulated land, his for the taking.
Halfway through the ascent he passed a cluster of cows. If the Yelpers hadn’t mentioned the cows he would have been wholly taken aback, but he knew from his Internet research that the parks service leased out part of the land for cattle grazing. It didn’t look like much to graze on to Gabe’s eye, all this scrub, but he supposed the cows knew what they were doing. California cows, like California people, were probably more adventurous, more accustomed to ad
apting to changing circumstances, than those from Wyoming. One of the cows looked at Gabe and made a halfhearted lunge toward him, then seemed to change her mind and turn away.
“Easy does it,” said Gabe, which was what he used to say on the ranch. He’d learned that from his father. He could practically hear his father talking to the cattle in that gentle and encouraging way he had—as though he understood what they were going through, what they were up against.
More sweating, more breathing, in and out, in and out. Gabe’s father had died from kidney failure, one year after Gabe and Nora started dating. Gabe tried not to think about the fact that he was only a decade away from the age his father was when he died—his father had seemed downright ancient to Gabe in the last year of his life—and concentrated instead on the trail in front of him. It was easier to ascend if you didn’t look more than three steps ahead. He tripped once on a tree root and went down on one knee, but no harm done, he recovered, though now there was a hole in his khakis.
Angela could have flown up this mountain; she was in the shape of her life. Cecily could have slip-jigged up it. Maya would have walked for about six minutes and wanted to turn back. What about Nora? She would probably have a showing, wouldn’t be able to make it.
At last—at last—he reached the ridge. And it was worth it, every drop of sweat, every uncertain breath, the cows, the judgmental dogs, all of it. To the east, he could see the majestic Mt. Diablo, bright green at the base, brown at the top. To the west, the darker green Oakland hills. Breathtaking, in every possible way.
Under his feet the dirt was dusty and dry. He sat for a moment on a little patch of scrubby grass—the khakis were now mostly a loss. He was definitely regretting not bringing water. But it was beautiful here, and in almost every way more similar to Wyoming than any place he was likely to find in Marin. Why had he never hiked in the East Bay before? He felt, after so many years away, like he was home.
Maybe it was the familiarity of the landscape, and maybe it was the cow sighting, but there on the ridge Gabe experienced a sensation he hadn’t had since his boyhood, when sometimes he would look around the ranch, at the cattle grazing in the distance, at the long low ranch house where his mother cooked stews and chili, the two bedrooms he and his brothers shared, and revel in and marvel at the smallness of his place in the world. One person, one person’s troubles or decisions, took up such an insignificant amount of space.
By the same token (the hills in the distance seemed to say), you got only one chance on this big green earth. You had to make the most of it. You had to do it right.
Have you done it right? the voice asked him. Not exactly, he told the voice. Not entirely. But I’ll make amends. When he got home, that very day, he would tell Nora everything. Open a bottle of wine, pour them each a glass, spill the tale of his shame and woe while she fixed him with that empathetic look that made her so good at her job. He’d ask for her forgiveness, maybe even her sympathy. Definitely her advice. He’d take whatever it was he had coming. Would she still love him? He wasn’t sure. He didn’t know what he’d do if she didn’t.
That felt better. That felt really good. The decision made, he stood, stretched his arms above his head, bent down, and rubbed at his tight calf, ready to begin his descent.
And then he saw the mountain lion.
CHAPTER 44
NORA
Midnight
M—
Do not go crazy on Christmas gifts this year. I still think it’s ridiculous what you spent on Angela’s birthday last year. I feel like I should pay you back…
Remember that genie we used to talk about when we were kids?
I really could use him right now.
Where the hell is he?
Xo.
Typically Nora loved going to Arthur and Linda’s house. She loved Arthur and Linda separately, and she loved them as a couple. She loved the food Linda served when she wasn’t on one of her restrictive diets and she loved the way they talked to her children, with interest and respect and the assumption that they could carry on an adult conversation without being talked down to. She loved the way Arthur and Linda still linked fingers when they were walking down the street, and the way Arthur stood if Linda entered a room he was in, and gave an odd little formal bow, like Carson on Downton Abbey. She loved the house itself: prime real estate right on Marina Boulevard, meticulously decorated and perfectly kept up and absolutely free from clutter in a way that a home with children could never be, not in its wildest dreams. No matter how much Nora tried to keep her home looking like that she simply couldn’t do it. Her children were too prodigious with the bobby pins and hair elastics, the glasses of lukewarm water left around, the Rorschach-test globs of toothpaste abandoned to dry in the sink. It was hopeless, it would be hopeless until they all went off on their own, and by then Nora would be too old and too sad and too lonely to care about tidiness.
Nora was hoping Linda would be there too, to break up the tension a little bit. But no, Arthur said, Linda was out at a yoga class. Hot yoga three times a week, and some other type of yoga whose name he could never remember three other days. Sundays off sometimes, but not always. Over the past few years Linda had become very serious about her yoga. You could practically see the tendons in Linda’s neck present themselves, a new tendon every time Nora saw her. It made Nora feel positively fleshy.
At the moment, though, rather than fleshy, Nora was feeling extremely tense. Her own neck muscles were tied up in such a knot that she could feel them bunched under her skin, like an actual knot in an actual rope. A bowline, or maybe a clove hitch. She had learned all sorts of knots in the Girl Scouts back in Rhode Island. Not that she’d ever had to use any of them in any real-life situation. (The paperwork is due to the mortgage counselor! Quick, somebody tie a cow hitch!)
She’d been really good at the knots, which was sort of ironic, since these days she couldn’t untie a knot to save her life: not a knot in a shoelace or a necklace or even the string that held up the ancient, hopelessly unfashionable pair of gray sweatpants that she’d donned regularly as maternity wear when she was pregnant with Cecily and which Gabe had politely asked her to burn after the fact. (She hadn’t. They were ridiculously comfortable.)
On the other hand, she was feeling oddly un-tense, sort of the way she imagined a prisoner on death row might feel when, after years and years of imagining the event, he was finally asked to choose his last meal. (Spaghetti carbonara, Nora would choose, with a green salad and a large glass of Chianti. Espresso crème brûlée for dessert. Because it wouldn’t really matter if it kept you up. Ba-da-dum. This question came up in their family a surprising amount. Gabe would have ribs and a bourbon—ever the ranch boy—and Cecily would have a Double-Double from In-N-Out, with fries and a chocolate shake. Pizza for Maya. Come to think of it, Nora couldn’t remember what Angela would have. She’d have to ask her later. It seemed suddenly like a very bad sign, that she couldn’t remember this important fact about Angela.)
After Arthur greeted Nora at the door he left her for a moment without apology or explanation (she hadn’t heard a phone ring, no summons from the hallowed offices of Sutton and Wainwright), so she stood at the front window and looked out onto Marina Boulevard. Maybe he just needed the bathroom. Although Arthur never seemed to need the bathroom—he seemed somehow above and separate from the basic operations of the human body. She’d seen him eat, of course, many times, but he never expressed hunger before the fact nor satiety after it.
Arthur and Linda’s home was detached, though the neighboring houses were so close that if you were upstairs and your neighbor was too and you cared to pass a cup of coffee from one house to the other you could both lean out of the window and accomplish this with little to no incident. Theirs was Spanish-style stucco, tan in color, though farther down the street some of the attached homes bore bright pinks and yellows.
It was a beautiful neighborhood, unpretentious (yet still expensive), neither edgy nor progressive, but simply beautif
ul, with the gulls crying overhead and the boats rocking in the water and the Palace of Fine Arts rising in the distance. Standing here, Nora could allow herself to imagine the area thousands and thousands of years ago, when American Indians lived on the dunes where the homes now stood, and then, more recently, after the big quake in 1906, when real development first began in preparation for the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915. If Nora could travel back in time she’d like to see that. The Liberty Bell, all the way from Pennsylvania for a visit. The Tower of Jewels, covered with cut glass, but underneath, of course, just plaster and burlap, easily demolished after the fair. Then came the Loma Prieta quake in 1989—Nora was twenty then, happily partying at the University of Rhode Island, the quake didn’t register with her—and a lot of the neighborhood crumbled. Whole buildings, flattened. The marina even had its own personal firestorm. Now everything was rebuilt, earthquake-sturdy, reinforced and then doubly reinforced, with the price tags to prove it.
It was a glorious day, the sun was high in a sky that looked like gossamer, the light clear and almost springlike, although in less than a month it would be Christmas. The marina was plump with sailboats, and the bridge watched over the entire scene, like a benevolent parent, a good and wholesome nanny. Maybe even a god, if you believed in such things.
The genie grants you three wishes. First wish: Let me keep my job. Second wish: Let me keep my house. Third wish: Let me keep my sanity.
“Drink?” said Arthur. He appeared out of nowhere, like a ghost. The ghost, thought Nora, of employment past.
Nora said, “Um.” It was just before noon. While she was equivocating Arthur moved toward the bar. Ever graceful, he didn’t walk there so much as he floated, and Nora thought of the old dance studio in a shopping center not far from her childhood home, surrounded by an insurance company, a nail salon, a FedEx office. Sometimes her mother had to go there for various errands—though certainly not the nail salon; Nora’s mother had had exactly one manicure in her life, the day before Nora’s wedding—and Marianne and Nora would sit in the car and watch the ballroom dancers sail by the windows. Older couples, mostly, though sometimes they would see a bride and groom in training, or, once, hilariously, a pair of blushing teenage girls. Nora would bet real money that Arthur Sutton had grown up taking ballroom dancing lessons, and not in a grim little suburban shopping center, either.
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