The Lucy Variations

by Sara Zarr

  “You left them in the car.” Reyna was limping, holding one of Carson’s arms.

  They got to a railing and checked out the water below, lapping against the pilings, scummy at the edges. “It doesn’t exactly say ‘sacred burial ground’, I guess,” Lucy said.

  Carson disentangled Reyna’s arm and climbed up onto the bottom slat of the railing and spat into the water.

  “Gross!” Reyna exclaimed. “Why’d you do that?”

  He stared down into the water. “I don’t know.”

  “Sick.”

  Lucy, careful in her heels, joined Carson at the rail, climbing one slat higher than him. She leaned over as far as she could and spat, too, and then laughed because it all suddenly seemed hysterical. How could she have ever thought her grandpa, her mom, anyone but her had c bucouontrol over her life? She could make things happen, all on her own.

  Reyna shrieked. “Did you just spit, Lucy? You guys are freaks! I don’t know you. I’m walking away.” She stalked further down the railing and found her own section to lean on.

  Lucy felt Carson’s eyes on her. A gust of wind came hard and cold, blowing a curtain of hair over her face. When she lifted her arm to sweep it out of her eyes, she lost her balance and teetered forwards, still high up on the rail. Carson grabbed her around the waist and pulled her down.

  “Jeez, Lucy.” He dropped his arms, letting her go. “What was that?”

  She knew he didn’t mean about climbing the rail. “Just showing my gratitude to our military forces. It’s Thanksgiving, after all.”

  “Remember how I just saved you from falling into the water? Feel free to thank me.”

  She put her arms around his neck. “Cheek or lips?” she asked, still laughing.

  He took her shoulders and pushed her back gently, unamused. “Don’t do that.”

  She let go.

  “You guys,” Reyna called. “I’m sorry, but my feet.”

  They drove out to Seal Rock – not a short trip. Reyna chattered most of the way, about how much her feet hurt and about how she and Abby were going to have to leave Lucy’s house early the next day to go to two separate family desserts. Carson spent most of the time looking stuff up on his phone, silent.

  The night had gotten bitter. The same cold air that had made Lucy feel so alive at the pier now just hurt her face. The three of them went down the deserted stairs at the Cliff House to the overlook, Lucy and Reyna walking carefully without their shoes. “I’m getting frostbite,” Reyna said. “My toes feel like they’ve been chopped off.”

  “You can’t get frostbite in this weather,” Carson said. “The temperature has to be at least literally freezing, which it is not.” He consulted his phone. “It’s just above. You’re good.”

  Lucy surveyed the beach, holding the container of ashes to her chest. High tide. The waves crashed, roared back, crashed again. “I’m going down to the water,” she told Reyna and Carson. “You guys stay here.” She took the next flight of steps until her bare feet hit sand, grainy and damp.

  “Be careful!” Reyna shouted.

  When she felt the sand harden and ooze seawater, she stopped. She opened the container. Her giddiness had turned to an ache, and she thought of something Grandma Beck had always said whenever anyone else in the family was all stressed out. I tell you what my mother told me: “Das wird sich alles finden.” Everything will be okay.

  Maybe it was true.

  Lucy held the container to her body.

  Her grandmother would like this. The wild wind, the waves. She’d even like that Lucy had kissed a sailor on this

  particular occasion.

  And she’d like Will. Lucy was certain Martin had been right about that.

  The edge of a wave swirled around Lucy’s feet, numbing them, as she stared at the barely visible horizon. She inhaled and let the thick air fill her.

  “Das wird sich alles finden.”

  She fluntif steps ug the ashes into the blue-black night.

  Lucy woke to the smell of turkey, and it made her happy. Thanksgiving, as holidays went, wasn’t the worst. This year, especially. She’d get to eat, and hang out with her favourite people: Reyna, Gus, and, now, Will.

  She closed her eyes and thought about that.

  Okay, so maybe it was a little soon to call him a favourite person. She hadn’t known him long at all. But that’s how she felt. Anyway, there was the kind of bond that comes from years of spending time together and then the kind that was nearly instant, because you just knew.

  When she rolled over and opened her eyes, there was the red dress, along with her heels and coat, piled by the bed. Had that really been her, in those things? She hung the dress in the back of the closet with Reyna’s other clothes and straightened her room. After her shower she put on comfortable jeans and an oversized sweater and fuzzy blue socks with the little nubs on the bottom that kept her from slipping on the hardwood floors.

  There were red-cocktail-dress days; then there was the rest of the time.

  Her dad sat at the kitchen island, talking to Martin and drinking coffee. He’d dressed almost exactly as she had: old jeans, soft sweater, slippers. She draped her arms over his shoulders from behind, and he patted her hand against his chest, the whole incident with his earbud-yanking and her refusing to say goodbye to her mom forgiven.

  “Have fun last night?” he asked, and she pulled away from him, feeling caught at something.

  “I was just out with Reyna.”

  He turned around and smiled. “I know. I saw your note. But did you have fun?”

  “Yeah. I did.”

  “Good.” He put his hand under her chin and studied her face. Like he could see something different there.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “Ohhhkay.” Lucy went to the coffee pot. “Where’s Gus?”

  “Already at the Wii. I told him no limits today.”

  Martin touched her back. “Shall I make you a couple of eggs, doll?”

  “No.” Lucy’s father got up. “Let me.” Lucy and Martin exchanged a glance, as if to see if they’d heard him right. They had – he was shooing them away from the fridge and taking out eggs, butter, cream.

  “Oh, I don’t know if there’s room…” Martin said, nervous.

  “Room for what?”

  “For both of us in the kitchen?”

  Lucy carried her coffee to the island, to get out of the way.

  “Nonsense,” her father said. “It will take me five minutes to make, take us two minutes to eat, one to clean up, and we’ll be gone. The French invented the omelette, you know.”

  Martin backed away. “I surrender. I’ll make myself scarce.”

  He left the kitchen, and Lucy watched her father set up across from her at the island and crack eggs into a bowl. He tried to do the first one using only tif sligone hand but dropped the shell. As he picked it out, he asked, “Did you call your mom?”

  “No. But she didn’t call me, either.” Though she’d threatened to, there were still no messages on Lucy’s phone.

  “I want you to call her.”

  Lucy sighed. He ground pepper into the bowl and said, “Don’t sigh at me, poulette. I want my family to get along.”

  “Dad, she—”

  “She’s my wife. And the mother of my two beautiful, talented children.” He whisked eggs, and Lucy tried to imagine her mom as the object of his affection, his partner, the love of his life. “It hurts me,” he continued, “that you can’t get along. I don’t want to take sides.”

  “Because you’re scared of her. Them.”

  “No.” He stopped whisking. “I’m the only one in this family who’s not a musician, Lucy. I married into this…” He stared at the ceiling for a few seconds. “This incredibly beautiful world of talent and art that I don’t even begin to understand. It’s like magic to me. I feel lucky to be a part of it, to just be able to sit back and watch and listen and marvel: these are my children. That’s my daughter. How did
it happen?” He gestured at his bowl of eggs. “I can make an omelette. I can manage money. I can keep a calendar. But I’m not like your mom, or like you, or like Gus. I’m not…special. Sometimes I’m not sure what I contribute.”

  “Half our genes, Dad.”

  “True, yes, thank you.”

  She’d never, ever given one brief thought to what it might be like for him as an outsider to music and their family in that way.

  “What did you think,” she asked, “when I walked off in Prague? What did you really think?”

  He whisked. Poured in a little cream. Cleaned a drip off the rim of the bowl.

  “Tell me,” she said.

  “I thought I should have never let you go on stage that day to begin with. I thought I should have told you about Grandma the second I knew. And I also thought you had the right to do what you wanted. Including quitting, full stop.”

  “You did?” That was news to Lucy. “You could have said so.”

  “I did,” he said. “I talked about it with Mom.”

  “I wish you’d said it to me.”

  “Maybe I should have.”

  She watched him get out a pan. “All I’m asking from Mom is for her to…I don’t know…acknowledge that it’s my life. Like you just said, I had the right to make that decision.”

  He sighed. “Yes, I thought you had the right to quit if you wanted. But I wish you hadn’t wanted that. Mom wishes you hadn’t wanted that. She can acknowledge it’s your life and still feel disappointed by what you choose to do with it. That’s her right. Grandpa’s, too.”

  Lucy stayed quiet while he made the omelette. Maybe she hadn’t tried hard enough to see her mother’s perspective. Her grandfather’s. She didn’t want to apologize, exactly. She believed in what she’d done in Prague, and being sorry wouldn’t change anything.

  Bgn=t want ut her dad had a point.

  They ate without saying much else, and when they finished, he reminded her, “Call Mom.”

  “They might not even be there yet.”

  “Leave her a message, then.”

  “Hi, Mom. I’m sorry I didn’t say goodbye to you and Grandpa. I hope you had an easy flight. I…everything smells really good. Happy Thanksgiving, okay? Bye for now.”

  Reyna and Abby showed up around noon, and Gus took Abby straight to the Wii.

  “You look fresh and innocent,” Reyna said to Lucy, once they were alone in the hallway. “Carson told me you kissed some random sailor in the candy shop?”

  “A cheek kiss.”

  “A stranger’s cheek.” She walked towards the kitchen.

  Lucy followed her. “Wait. Are you mad?”

  “No.”

  “Yes, you are. What?”

  Reyna turned. “It’s just…hearing all this stuff about my dad’s affairs. Maybe that’s how it starts, you know? Some girl in a tight red dress who thinks she’s being cute kisses you on the cheek, and next thing you know you’re cheating on your wife.”

  Lucy laughed. “That’s…his girlfriend had just broken up with him. The sailor.”

  “So he said.” Reyna sighed. “Sorry. Maybe I’m being too judgey. But also the thing with Carson. You shouldn’t toy with him, because he actually likes you.”

  “Likes me how?” Lucy asked, confused.

  “How do you think?”

  She remembered his face when she’d put her arms around him. “He said that?”

  “He doesn’t have to. I have eyes.”

  “But he’s always talking about who he likes. And my name hasn’t come up.”

  “I know. Just…don’t be that girl, is all I’m saying.” She pulled Lucy’s hand. “Come on. Let’s forget it. I want to see Martin.”

  They made a big entrance into the kitchen, and Reyna gushed over Martin and the great smells coming from the ovens while Martin petted Reyna’s hair jealously. “If I had your looks…”

  He put them to work getting out serving platters and bowls, and chopping garnishes. Lucy thought back to the night before, how good she’d felt. How alive. She hadn’t meant to hurt Carson or anyone else. Only to express…it wasn’t happiness, exactly. More a kind of fullness. Like if she didn’t do something, she’d explode. Like on the drive to Half Moon Bay.

  Since quitting, she realized, she’d had nowhere to put that feeling.

  And she was about to change that.

  When the doorbell rang, Gus came tearing down the stairs from the game room. “I’ll get it!” Lucy and Reyna and Martin came out from the kitchen, and Gus pushed past them to fling open the door. Will and Aruna smiled big at him. Aruna held a potted plant and was gorgeous in a flowery kind of blouse that no one else Lucy knew could pull off without looking like an old lady. She handed the plant to Martin. “It’s rosemary.”

  “It sure is,uo;l off ” he said, smelling it. “Thank you.”

  They came in, and Aruna surprised Lucy by giving her a squeeze. She wore some kind of spicy perfume, not too much, just right. Will waved hello and stuck out his hand to Reyna. “Hi. I’m Will.”

  “Reyna,” Lucy said, pointing at her. “Best friend.”

  “And best friend’s sister,” Reyna added as Abby sidled up to her. “Nice to meet you.”

  Gus dragged Will off somewhere, and Aruna went into the kitchen to hang out with Martin. Lucy’s dad had gone to the wine cellar.

  When Reyna and Lucy were left alone in the hall, Reyna said, “That’s the same guy from the Internet?”

  “Will? Yeah.”

  “Cuter in person.”

  Lucy shrugged, and Reyna shook her head. “Like you didn’t notice.”

  An hour later they were all at the table, Martin too. Lucy’s dad held up the bottle of wine. “It’s the first Beaujolais,” he said. Then to Lucy, “I’d be betraying my ancestry if I didn’t insist you have a glass. Only to sip from, to taste.”

  She didn’t hesitate to hold out her glass, catching Martin’s eye for a second to see if he approved. He made a non-committal gesture. “It’s Thanksgiving.”

  “Me too?” Reyna asked.

  “If you call your mom and get permission.”

  “Never mind.”

  He tipped wine into Lucy’s glass, filling it. More than a sip or a taste. “Make a toast, poulette. Earn your Beaujolais.”

  She held up her glass; everyone followed. The feeling at the table was about a hundred times more relaxed than it had been the last time Will and Aruna were there. Maybe Lucy should toast Mom and Grandpa, but she didn’t miss them.

  “To Grandma.”

  Martin touched his glass to Lucy’s. “Hear, hear.”

  After they all sipped, Aruna said, “Tell us about her, Lucy.”

  “She…” She was just here last Thanksgiving. She had on a blue dress. She loved me. Lucy looked to Martin, hoping he’d see she couldn’t talk. “Sorry.” Her voice broke, and she found herself glancing at Will. He made a sympathetic face and very slightly lifted his water glass to her.

  Martin and Lucy’s dad talked a little bit about Grandma Beck; Lucy listened and sipped her wine, which was already making a warm path through her body. Martin told a couple of stories Lucy hadn’t heard before; then Abby started to fidget, and Gus asked about dessert. Aruna offered to help Martin clear, insisting the rest of them stay put. Lucy’s dad refilled her glass, then excused himself to get another bottle.

  That left Will and Lucy, and Reyna and Gus and Abby, at the table. Reyna had gone shy around Will. “So how about you?” he asked her. “What’s your thing?”

  Reyna shrugged. “No thing.”

  Abby piped up in her adorably husky voice: “She can count backwards from a hundred without even having to stop and think.”

  “That must come in handy,” Will said.

  “Yeah, well, I don’t like to brag.&rdke

  Lucy’s father came back with the wine and spent what seemed like five minutes hunting for the corkscrew until Gus pointed out it was in his shirt pocket. Martin brought out dessert: chocolate pecan pie,
pumpkin pie, a fruit-and-cheese plate, ice cream. Three trips to and from the kitchen. “This one is vegan,” Martin said, indicating the pumpkin pie.

  “Thank you,” Will said. “Looks great.”

  While dessert got passed around, Lucy caught Gus gazing at Will with complete adoration. Star-struck. The way Will fitted right into things so quickly, without any kind of effort or drama, was a miraculous occurrence for the Beck-Moreaus. As a teacher, great with Gus. Nice to Lucy’s friends. He didn’t treat Martin like the help. He didn’t kiss up to Lucy’s dad.

  And he was willing to be Lucy’s friend.

  The wine made her tongue pleasantly dry and her thoughts a little gooey. She watched him dig into his vegan pumpkin pie with a wink at Abby.

  He was kind of perfect.

  Reyna and Abby left around seven. “And now we have to go to two more desserts,” Reyna said. “One with my dad at my aunt’s house, and then with my mom at ours.”

  “Aw, ma chère,” Lucy’s dad said blearily. “I’m glad you could be with us today.” He gave her a Euro-style kiss on both cheeks, his French manners coming out with the Beaujolais.

  Lucy, too, felt bleary. The cartilage in her knees had been replaced with wine. Her head spun a little, and she gave Reyna a long hug and a wet kiss on the neck. “You’re my best friend,” she murmured.

  “Yeah, I know,” Reyna said, pushing her gently away.

  “Nice to meet you guys,” Will said.

  When the door closed behind Reyna and Abby, the rest of them loitered awkwardly in the hall until there didn’t seem to be anything to do but migrate to the piano room. Somehow, Lucy was leading the way.

  “I’ve got clean-up,” Martin said, excusing himself to the kitchen.

  Gus stopped in the hall and said, “I don’t want to play.”

  He’d never said that before.

  “Come on.” Lucy nudged his shoulder and immediately wanted to take it back. She’d never, ever cajoled him about piano.

  “It’s my day off.”

  Maybe now that Grandpa Beck and Mom were away, she was seeing the real Gus. Maybe he’d been faking his willingness all along. Impossible, she thought. I’d know. She looked to Will.