“We’re making all kinds of headway in gender equity,” I agree, with only the barest note of sarcasm. She doesn’t really hear me; I’ve always spoken too quickly, and I suspect Opal catches only half of the words I say.
“But I wonder about this little…undertaking. What is it you’re doing? French literature?”
“I’m actually looking at a French literary movement, OuLiPo, and the American author Edgar Allan Poe. Particularly in how they think about constraint. Both Poe and the OuLiPo authors place formal restrictions on how they write, believing that these imposed rules actually produce more creative insight. Being limited forces you to become more creative. I’m interested in possible intersections—”
“I mean, I’m sure it’s very interesting, but what practical use is it?” Opal interrupts. “I know we all tolerated Zelda’s adventures, her experiments in the humanities, but Zelda was…artistic and, frankly…not all that practical. Without her, it’s especially important that you be realistic. I mean, what sort of job are you going to be able to get?”
“Probably none at all. I was hoping to marry some French count.”
She frowns. “Well, I’m just not sure that’s reasonable. You’ve been in France for, what, twenty-one months?” She says this casually enough, but I realize that she’s been counting quite closely. I wonder if the coffers aren’t quite as deep as we’ve always assumed. But Opal has always been parsimonious with her cash.
“About that long.”
“I just think maybe with Zelda…gone, it’s time to think about the future. Really consider your options.” Her fingers are stroking my knuckles. I want to scream.
“I have been, a bit. I’m just…not in a good place to make decisions right now. The shock,” I say.
Marlon finally speaks: “Ma, let her be for a minute.” He sounds tired. “None of us can really make much of a plan right now. I’m sure Ava will be here for a few weeks, taking care of business, and you’ll have plenty of time to consider…”
I wince. I don’t want to be here for a few weeks. I want out.
“Yes, I’m sure after you’ve gone back to Napa,” Opal says, “we’ll have lots of girl time to really talk about what’s important. And I’m sure Ava has some stories about French men to share when her father’s not around.” Opal winks at me, giving my hand another squeeze.
“When are you going back to California?” I say, trying to keep the note of panic out of my voice.
Marlon avoids eye contact. “I, uh, well, have to go back for some business stuff. The police are still wrapping up loose ends, and I thought I could fly back for a funeral, once they’ve, uh…”
“I see. Okay.” I toss back the rest of my glass. I’m suddenly shattered, utterly spent. These people. Family fatigue, the pervasive companion of my weary, exhausted heart, that organ that I cannot exorcize of its boundless, quaking dejection. I have to get away from here. “Well, I’ve got plans.” I stand up clumsily.
“You’re not driving anywhere, are you?” Opal says in concern, peering into my eyes. I’m sure she’s practiced in assessing Antipovan inebriation.
“Nope,” I answer. I saunter toward the door, realizing vaguely that I haven’t eaten all day. But I know I can’t. Food would only fill me with despair and a strong sense of failure, and I would just be tempted to go puke it up. And I promised Zelda that I would stop that. Not that the promise always prevents me, but right now, it feels more important. Just as I’m walking out the door, Opal calls after me.
“Your phone, Ava! You’ve left your phone!”
I frown in confusion; I can feel my phone in the bag slung over my shoulder. I’ve left Zelda’s phone out on the counter, for everyone to see. Idiot.
“Thanks, Grandma,” I say, going back to claim it in relief. Jesus, what if someone realized it was Zelda’s other, secret phone? I must be losing my mind. I wave good night, and though I’m tempted to snag a bottle of wine from the fridge, I’m reluctant to do it in front of Opal. I feel like I’m sixteen, trying so hard to play by everyone’s rules.
Outside, the sun is setting, and the fireflies are blinking along the path to Zelda’s trailer. I head there automatically, unsure of what to do. I refresh her email, hoping for another missive that will point me toward this Jason guy, but there’s nothing there. I open the Facebook app and flip through all the photos she’s posted in the last six months; there’s no one who could be a Jason in any of the photos. I stare at the shots of Holly Whitaker, hoping her face or body will jar some memory loose, but I genuinely can’t recognize her.
I’m walking along the driveway, barefoot, and I can feel dirt and crud accumulating in the cut on my foot. Normally, I’m the sort of person who goes straight for the disinfectant, followed by antibiotic cream, followed by Band-Aids changed regularly. But not tonight. I realize I haven’t showered in a while either. Tonight, I glory in my grime. Or, rather, I wish I did. Which is close enough.
After striking out with the Facebook pictures, I pause. Could there be an actual, physical photo out there? Should I have stayed up at the house to look through the photo albums? That seems all wrong, though; Nadine kept those albums. She had gone through a period of photographic frenzy, obsessively documenting our growth, our activities. She took snapshots of us swimming, eating, playing dress-up. The photos would all be printed, and neatly arranged in clean, black-and-white albums, which she would crack out whenever anyone accused her of being a bad parent; it was her proof, her evidence that she must love us. Otherwise, why would she have bothered taking so many pictures? I reflect that she would have loved Facebook; she could have posted picture after picture of her pretty twin daughters, wearing her most recent costumes, immersed in the most recent, glamorous adventure. People would have liked her photos, and she would have received the affirmation of her superior mothering that she craved, that she felt was her reward for submitting to the indecency of motherhood. I realize that I’m thinking of her in the past tense. Or maybe it’s conditional; I don’t know. The mother that could have been.
She’d stopped taking pictures when we hit puberty, though, and went through a chubby patch. Or, rather, when I did. My childish, sharp angles softened, my once-spindly arms looked swollen, my breasts grew fleshy and my belly rounded. The camera disappeared into a closet, and suddenly we found ourselves eating kale salads for dinner most nights. Zelda remained angular and fairy-like, but I looked puffy and plump. The phase didn’t last very long. I was a quick study, and I soon realized that home life was markedly less tempestuous if I ate my mother’s tiny green portions without complaint. Without noting that Zelda was given a small heap of pasta alongside her kale. Zelda, pitying me and my Spartan portions, sometimes secreted away starchy treats, which she would sneak into my room at night. Though this was probably motivated by kindness, my competitive self couldn’t help seeing it as sabotage.
For our fourteenth birthday, Zelda was given a beautiful green vintage Chanel dress (size 2) and I was given a two-year subscription to Health magazine and a very expensive juicer. By our fifteenth birthday, I was borrowing Zelda’s Chanel dress, which she usually left in a heap of dirty clothes, and she barely even noticed when I tugged it on over my newly slimmed hips. My mother didn’t comment when I descended the steps in Zelda’s party gown. She did, however, pour me a glass of Champagne and congratulate me on a “very good, disciplined year.”
The memory of that birthday makes me feel relieved and pleased that I haven’t eaten dinner; the dull ache in my belly fills me with warmth, and I smile quietly in the dark. I continue to fiddle with Zelda’s phone, flipping through the screens. I look at all the open tabs on Safari and search through the photos on her photo app. Nothing. Finally, I notice that she had installed the Instagram app.
I tap it open and am greeted with a series of pictures glimmering with filtered light. She has photos taken from Silenus’s deck at sunset, a few pictures of our mother in unflattering poses, one shot of Wyatt. In the most recent photo, I recognize Holly Wh
itaker, and I squint at it. It looks like she’s in a bar. The next photo is also of her, with her arm draped around a shortish, beefy guy with a crew cut. They’re standing in front of a bar that I immediately recognize. Kuma’s. Or Kuma Charmers, as it is officially named. It’s a strip club located about halfway between Seneca and Cayuga Lakes. I’ve never been inside, but I’ve driven by it on many a Saturday night, when rusty pickups cram into the parking lot just off the county highway, on display for everyone to see. I wonder if this is Jason, if this is what Zelda wants me to find. Walking down the hill, I flick through the rest of the photos but find nothing else that raises eyebrows. I flip back to the picture, studying it for any other details. On closer inspection, Holly has glazed eyes, and “Jason” looks like he might be holding her upright. The way she’s dressed makes me wonder if she could be an employee of Kuma’s.
I stop short in front of Zelda’s trailer when I realize there’s another truck parked outside. Wyatt. He’s sitting on the steps of the trailer, leaning back and looking up at the sky. His jeans are snug, and he’s wearing a tight V-neck T-shirt. Zelda’s work, I suspect.
“Can’t stay away?” I say, wishing I had something wittier to offer.
“I figured you wouldn’t want to stay in the house with your momma, especially with Marlon up there. Thought you might want company.”
“I’ve had an awful lot of company today.”
“I’ll go, if you want. I just thought you might appreciate conversation with someone who doesn’t share any genes with you. To remind you that crazy as you are, you’re the sane one,” he says.
I can’t help smiling. It might be flattery, but I believe him, and it’s what I need to hear. “Well, it is nice to have some confirmation.”
“It must be a madhouse up there.”
“Even my grandmother is here.”
He makes a face; he doesn’t much care for Opal. She’s touchy-feely with him, too, and I suspect she may have been too appreciative of his biceps when she visited for our high school graduation. She hadn’t stopped fussing at me that whole weekend: “Is that lovely boy your boyfriend? He certainly is good-looking. Don’t string him along too long, Ava.” I suspected Zelda of oversharing, but in retrospect, Wyatt’s and my taut game of sexual tension and emotional withholding had probably been painfully obvious to anyone not caught in the throes of high school hormones.
“Icing on the cake. Your mom drinking?” he asks.
I snort. “What do you think?”
“And you?” He knows he’s on thin ice here, so he’s keeping his tone very light.
“A bit.”
“Did you eat any dinner?” I look at him sullenly, guiltily. “You look thin, Ava.” I know it’s not meant as a compliment, but I can’t help it. I’m pleased. “Let me take you for a bite to eat.”
“I’m afraid I have errands to run,” I say in irritation. I fumble in my bag for the keys to the truck, but I drop them on the dark ground. Wyatt moves catlike from his perch on the steps and has them between his fingers before I can bend down and scoop them up.
“Ava, don’t be stupid. You trying to kill yourself with carelessness?”
“Runs in the family. I always was just a little behind Zelda,” I say petulantly.
He squints. “Don’t you fucking say stuff like that. You have to take better care of yourself. Hey, you hear me?” he says when I start to turn away from him.
“Thanks for your patronizing suggestions. Noted.”
He softens. Wyatt hates to fight. “Hey, I’m just worried, Pea.” His casual use of that old nickname makes my breath catch in my throat. Pea, short for “Sweet Pea.” Corny as hell, but it hits home, like nicknames are supposed to. Shortcuts to intimacy. “Let me take you for a snack, and then we’ll do your errands together. Though I’m afraid to ask what errands you might be doing at this time of night,” he adds with a nervous quirk of his mouth.
I look at him, considering. I am a bit tipsy, and even though it’s all back roads to Kuma’s, given my druthers, I would still prefer not to drive drunk. It also crosses my mind that having him along when I head to the strip club might not be the worst idea. And, if I were to be candid with myself, a glimmer of something else flickers through my mind. I miss him.
“What’s for dinner?” I ask.
12
Like everyone else in Hector, we get dinner from Stonecat, up the road from Silenus. It’s a simple barn-shaped building that appears deceptively hick. Inside, though, there’s a rustic bar, a raised back deck that looks out onto the lake, and a shockingly capable kitchen that whips up gourmet country food. I always struggle to describe Hector to anyone not from here; it is slippery in its distillation of bumpkins, rednecks, foodies, right-wingers, and wine snobs. Some of the people I see at the bar tonight work outdoors with their hands all day and have never left the county. I recognize a neighbor who I know for a fact went to Ithaca for the first time two years ago and celebrated the journey as though he’d ventured halfway across the world. At the other end of the bar is someone who, rarely enough, made some money in the wine business and has a second home in Tuscany.
I can tell from the way the bartender looks at me that Zelda must come here often, possibly with Wyatt; I recognize him from high school and wiggle my fingers in greeting. He squints back at me suspiciously, and without greeting me in return he asks if I also want no red onion on my falafel sandwich. I don’t want onion, but perversely I tell him I’ll have it. I feel like I have to eat it, because Zelda doesn’t. Wyatt squints at me strangely.
“You know, she liked red onion,” he says when I raise my eyebrow at his expression. “She stopped eating it ’cause of you.”
“She did?” I furrow my brows, trying to remember her eating it. “No, she always asked if there was red onion before she ordered tuna salad sandwiches. She said it ruined it.”
“That was for you. You guys usually split your food.”
He’s right. I’m caught off guard, having been so blind to a small generosity. I wonder if there are others I have failed to catch.
As we wait for our sandwiches, we decide to order wine. This, too, is new for Wyatt; in high school he was definitely a beer guy. He orders me a glass of dry Sauvignon Blanc without asking, which both irritates and charms me. Wyatt drinks a red, even though it’s still hot out. The bar buzzes with summer and alcohol. His thigh brushes up against my own, hot and solid, and I feel a tremor deep behind my navel that I’m desperate to ignore.
“So, Wyatt, what are you up to these days?” I say, scooting away from him. I’m grateful when the bartender slides my glass of wine across the old cherrywood bar. The twin of this bar, an identical slab of wood, split from the same tree, props up similarly rural barflies in Trumansburg, a scant fourteen miles away.
“I thought Zelda would have told you.”
“Zelda detected that it was a sensitive subject. She didn’t mention you too much. In the emails.”
“Ah. I knew she was writing you. I assumed it was to, uh, explain. I figured I’d better let her handle it.” I squint at him, wondering if there’s subtext to the comment.
“Nope. I think it was to guilt me into coming home.” I shrug. “Finally worked.”
“Well, I finished up my degree. Environmental science and sustainability.”
“I remember,” I say testily.
“I’ve been at Silenus a lot. Helping out. You know. With the grapes.”
“I figured.”
“Zelda’s done okay, you know. She learned a whole lot, worked her ass off. She can really commit to something when she wants to.” I don’t answer, just swish the wine in my glass. “And the rest of the time, I’m working on the farm with the ’rents,” he continues.
“Soybeans still?”
“And some veggies now. We want to start a CSA, maybe. Eventually.”
I nod. Wyatt’s parents are old hippie farmers who have been out in Hector for decades. When they’re not farming, they run a meditation retreat center that
attracts primarily other old hippie farmers. They’re nice people, but they never liked me much. They (quite rightly) thought I wasn’t very good for their son.
“And you don’t mind working with them?” I ask casually.
“It’s been…a little strange,” he admits. “But it feels good too. Knowing they can rely on me as they get older.” He blushes suddenly and looks away.
“It’s okay, Wy. I’ve made my peace with abandoning my mother and my responsibilities. I had to do it.” He nods, unconvinced. “Have they at least gotten less passive-aggressive with their disapproval?” I ask.
He laughs. “Not entirely, but they’ve toned it down. Strangely enough, they liked Zelda. Superficially, at least, she was more their kind of girl.”
I’m hurt, but not surprised. Wyatt was unapologetically preppy in high school: neat haircut; clean, boring clothes. He played sports, made good grades, and was an all-around Goody Two-shoes. His bedraggled, pot-smoking leftist parents were alarmed and dismayed that their only child turned out to be so straitlaced. They wanted him to rebel, do mushrooms, start a political newspaper, date men, grow his hair. Wyatt was the antithesis of their flower-child fantasy, with his strong chin and lack of imagination. When he brought me home, I could see their internal shudder; I could be wrong, but I think I was even wearing pearls when he introduced me to them. I was another confirmation that Wyatt had been corrupted by the conservatives in the school district, that he would live out a life of commercial conformity and would throw away everything they had fought so hard for.
“I imagine Zelda won over their hearts and minds pretty easily. What, did she bring a joint?” I ask in amusement.
“She told you?” he says, surprised.
Dead Letters Page 14