by Ann Packer
She picks up his hand and pats it, then laces her fingers through his. “It's like this,” she says. “You and Mom were driving from Sacramento to South Lake Tahoe—you were going gambling. And you hit Placerville and she needed to pee, so you got off the road and you drove until you found her a good place to pee, and this was it, so you bought it and built a house here.”
He nods. “And your mother?”
“She's dead, Louie. She died a while ago.”
“That's right,” he says. “That's right—I knew that.”
She kisses his cheek. “There's some people out there who want to say hello,” she says. “What about putting on some pants and we'll go out and try one of Don's burgers?”
“I don't like pants.”
Louisa turns away from him; she doesn't want him to see her tears.
“I'll wear shorts,” he says. “And my baseball cap.”
PANSY AND MIRIAM sit on the back steps, their four feet lined up like soldiers. Pansy thinks of their mother: it wasn't ladylike to refer to your feet—you could say “My foot hurts,” or, better, “I have a sore toe,” but never “My feet hurt.” Pansy's feet are still ladylike—71½ AAA she wears, at sixty!—but Miriam's seem to be spreading; or maybe it's just the spindly little sandals she has on.
“There's Ellen,” Miriam says. “In the orchard, coming this way. Don't say anything about the baby.”
“I won't,” Pansy says. How could Miriam even think she would?
They're both thinking: Poor Ellen. What they really mean is: Poor Louisa. Louisa suffers over things.
“I don't see why she doesn't just go ahead and try again,” Miriam says. “Remember how she'd bring her dolls up and set them in the dining room chairs? And Mom would make real tea for them? She should have six babies.”
“She loved her dolls,” Pansy says. She remembers one time—she was so embarrassed!—Stuart stole one of the dolls and ran down to the pond and threw it in. Ellen cried and cried; in a way, Pansy thinks, Ellen never did forgive him for that.
Now Ellen is before them, in shorts that hang off her. She looks terrible. Behind her is Matt—handsome Matt, that's how Pansy's always thought of him. He's tall and shy, and you can tell just by looking at him that he's miserable.
Miriam stands up. “Ellen, honey—how wonderful.” She puts her arms around her niece, who holds herself absolutely rigid, and Miriam feels just as awkward as she did when her sisters' children were small and submitted to her clumsy hugs.
“Is Mom inside?” Ellen says.
“She's in with Papa Louie, hon,” Pansy says, and Ellen slips between them and enters the house.
“I wish you wouldn't call him that,” Miriam says. Both her sisters do it, as if they were the kids. He's their dad.
But Pansy's watching Matt. Over by the path to the pond is an old swing set, and Elias has been standing near it for several minutes. Now Matt walks over there and says something to him. Pansy finds she's holding her breath waiting for Elias to get on the swing, for Matt to push him. But they just look at each other, and then Matt disappears around the side of the house.
IT'S TWO O'CLOCK, and Don's ready to start cooking the burgers. No one seems interested, though—they're spread out around the pool, talking away, and a little while ago six or eight kids went racing down the path to the pond: he can hear them splashing. Pansy's Jeremy appears from the house, sniffling and looking around, something sneaky about him—but then he sees Don looking at him and he comes over and offers Don his hand.
“Going to cook some burgers, Uncle Don?” he says.
No, Don thinks, I'm just standing here because I like the heat. “That's the program,” he says. “Time for the big feed.” This strikes him as pretty damned funny, and he laughs.
“Want a hand?” Jeremy says. “I've flipped the odd burger in my time.”
“No,” Don says. “I don't begrudge it, not a bit. Your grandfather's been good to me.”
“See over there?” Jeremy says, pointing at a skinny girl by the pool.
“The lady there?”
“I'm going to marry her,” Jeremy says. “What do you think of that?”
Don laughs—what a mistake he's made! “Hell,” he says, “I've been talking to you all this time and I thought you were the other one, I thought you were Jeremy. Ha! Identical twins, you boys fool me most every time I see you.”
“I am Jeremy,” Jeremy says. “And we're not identical, we're fraternal.” He turns to leave, wondering why he was talking to Uncle Don in the first place: he and Lucy used to call him The Uncle Don Trap—they'd hide from him when they were little.
“But I thought you were already married,” Don says.
“Ever hear of divorce?” Jeremy says. “It runs in the family, you know. Mom and Dad, my wife and me—I've got a kid and I'm doing everything I can to make sure he grows up and ruins some-one's life, too.” He stalks away.
Don turns back to the barbeque and begins slapping hamburger patties on it. They can eat 'em now, he thinks, or they can eat 'em cold.
MATT WANTS TO find Lucy. He decides to check the pond, but on his way down the path he sees an unfamiliar woman sitting on a bench that rings a tall pine tree, and something about her makes him stop—maybe that she's incredibly dressed up, over dressed.
“Hi, there,” Matt says.
She looks up and squints at him. “Hello. Do you know what time it is?” She's about thirty-five, he thinks, but looks about forty-five.
He checks his watch. “Two-fifteen.”
“What do you think?” she says. “About two more hours?”
“I don't know,” Matt says. “Two or three.”
She opens her purse; it's small and white and—lizard? Ellen would know. She withdraws a pack of cigarettes and pulls one out. “Do you have a light?”
Matt pats his front pockets, although he knows he doesn't. “Sorry,” he says. “Would you like—would you like me to get you a drink?”
She laughs. “No,” she says. “I'm just fine.” She pulls a lighter from her purse and lights her own cigarette.
“Well, bye,” Matt says. “See you later.”
THE CHILDREN HAVE divided into three groups. The largest contains most of the boys and two or three girls; they've taken the opportunity to shed their parents and their clothes, and they're running in their swimsuits between the pond and the table up by the house, where the potato chips are. They send two emissaries at a time; as soon as one pair returns to the pond with a paper plate full of chips, the next sets off at a run, so they are almost never without provisions.
The second group is four or five girls who have their swimsuits on under their clothes but don't want to swim in the pond, because it's murky, or in the pool, because all the grown-ups are sitting or standing near it. They sit at the one picnic table, which is shaded by an umbrella, and talk about the counselors they had at camp this summer.
The last group isn't really a group at all: a few toddlers playing in the sandbox Papa Louie built long ago for Lucy, his first grandchild; two serious little boys who found a checkers game in the house and are lying on the living room rug, talking about the best openings; and Elias.
Elias has finally gathered the courage to lean against the swing. He's not quite tall enough to climb on it, but he thinks that sooner or later his dad will come along and lift him up. A while ago a man asked him if he was having fun, and he said yes, but the man didn't seem to care one way or the other—he stood there for a while and then walked away. Elias knows he's supposed to have fun—his mother told him he would have a blast.
Just when he's thinking of her, up walks his uncle Stuart, whom Elias knows she doesn't like—she said once that Stuart was a little devil on his dad's shoulder. Stuart is just as tall as his dad, though: Elias checked.
“Elias, my man,” Stuart says. “Lunchtime! What do you say to a burger?”
“OK,” Elias says.
Stuart is wearing a shirt just like his dad's—just like Elias's, too, only big
ger. It's a special kind of shirt that has to be dry-cleaned. Once Elias saw Stuart sitting at his dad's desk and he thought Stuart was his dad. He stood in the doorway and said, “Hi, Dad,” and Stuart laughed—with him, his dad said later, not at him. Elias will never make that mistake again.
LOUISA FINDS ELLEN upstairs, in the bunk room. She's got the shades drawn; she's lying on one of the little iron beds.
“Can I bring you anything?” Louisa says. “Iced tea? A pear?”
Ellen smiles wanly, but she doesn't make the family joke: Oh, are there pears? “No, thanks,” she says.
Louisa sits on the edge of the bed and pats her daughter's hip. “I was thinking about what you said on the phone last night, hon. About you and Matt maybe going away for six months or something? I think that's very smart, and Dad and I would be happy to help out. You could go somewhere exotic and wonderful.”
Ellen rolls over so she's facing the wall. “What would be the point?”
“Well,” Louisa says, “it might give you something else to think about.”
Now Ellen doesn't say anything.
“You know?” Louisa strokes Ellen's hair, her pretty dark hair.
“I'd kind of like to be alone, Mom,” Ellen says.
Louisa pulls her hand away and stands up. “OK,” she says. “I'll be outside if you want me.”
She closes the door behind her, but hesitates before starting down the narrow staircase. Last night Ellen was so open with her—Louisa felt that perhaps she had finally reached a turning point. Today it's as if they never even had that conversation. It's strange to Louisa—strange and sad—that the best talks she's ever had with either of her daughters have all been on the telephone.
LUCY'S OUT ON the raft in the middle of the pond, motioning for Matt to join her. He didn't bring his swimming trunks, but he thinks, Oh, who cares?, and he takes off his shoes and shirt and dives in. The water is warm and green, mucky: he's never understood why everyone swims here when there's a perfectly good pool up by the house.
He pulls himself onto the raft, but suddenly he feels shy; since Ellen lost the baby he and Lucy have taken to doing this, going off and talking, and he feels at once protective of and a little guilty about this new standing with his sister-in-law.
“Hey,” Lucy says. “How are you?”
“Mezzo,” he says. “Mezzo-soprano.”
She smiles and scoots over so he can lie next to her. “Is it burger time yet up there?” she says. “I felt a hunger pang a while back.”
“Any minute now.”
“Ellen's inside?”
“Upstairs.”
They lie quietly. The sun feels nice on Matt's back; he even likes the thick green smell of the water drying on his skin.
“Hey, did you see Elias up there?” Lucy says. “In that little Hawaiian shirt?”
“I didn't know they made them that small.”
“They probably don't. Jeremy probably had it made—at considerable expense.” She lowers her voice, although of course no one can hear them. “I have this horrible feeling that someone made him get a perm. His hair wasn't that curly at Pansy's birthday party.”
“Really?” Matt says. “You're kidding.”
“I wish.”
“He doesn't really seem like the happiest kid in the world, does he?”
“No,” Lucy says, “and you know what? I'm not sure Jeremy's the happiest man in the world, either.”
“I'd trade him my mood for his car.”
She laughs. “What a deal.”
They're quiet again. The stillness of the day, the pond—it feels to Lucy like something breakable.
“She won't sleep with me,” Matt says.
Lucy raises herself onto her elbows and looks at him.
“No,” he says quickly, “I mean sleep sleep. She's started sleeping in the living room—except I don't think she really does. Last night I swear I heard her wandering around for hours.”
“God,” Lucy says. “God.”
“I know.” Matt sits up and gazes across the pond: at the dock, at the pear trees behind it. He looks back at Lucy. “Did I tell you Dr. Berg suggested we try imaging?”
She raises her eyebrows.
“You know—that horseshit about picturing your unhappiness, giving it physical attributes so you can be the master of it? Well, I did it, and now I can't get the stupid thing out of my mind.”
“What is it?”
“A solid block of ice—black ice, don't ask me. We've both got one, me and Ellen. Mine's sitting behind my lungs—just sitting there mostly, but every so often it bumps me with its sharp corners.”
“And Ellen's?”
“Ellen's melted,” Matt says. “It melted and now her whole body's full of cold, grey water.” He laughs a little and lies back again. “Heavy, huh?”
“It is,” Lucy says. “It all is.”
JADE IS BY herself—sitting in the sun, leaning against the pool house. A few feet from her several little girls sit in a circle on the grass, and Jade has been trying to decide which of them is most like her former self. She's giving up, though—they're all too poised and self-confident. When Jade was their age, seven or eight, she was gawky and shy, so gawky and shy that she only had one friend: Gretchen Spengler. The hours, the years she spent in thrall to Gretchen Spengler! Gretchen, who today is probably some dumpy little housewife in the Valley. It's not that Jade thinks she's so great, but she'd love to run into Gretchen one time—at Ma Maison or one of those places Jeremy always wants to go. If Stuart were along, too, it would be even better; Gretchen could think Jade was with both of them. She'd love to see Gretchen's round, freckled face just fall.
A shadow crosses over Jade, and she looks up: standing there is a man dressed in white linen pants and a pale yellow washed-silk shirt with terrible sweat stains in the pits. He hunches down next to her. “You look like you're thinking of something delicious and naughty,” he says.
Jade gives him a medium smile—she's suddenly realized that if Gretchen were a dumpy little housewife in the Valley she wouldn't be at Ma Maison. She wishes this guy would leave so she could think of some other way.
“Are you one of Lou's grandchildren?” the man says.
“No,” she says. “Are you?”
“That's great,” he says, laughing. “Funny lady.”
It was just a question, not really funny at all, but Jade's come to expect men to react strangely to what she says: it's because of how she looks.
“My old man worked with Lou,” the man says. “For Lou, I should say. I'm really looking forward to meeting him, getting to know him a little. Have you seen him?”
“No,” Jade says. “I think he's pretty old, though.” She sees Stuart over by the keg of beer, and she points and says, “See that guy? He's one of the grandchildren.”
The man stands up and runs his arm across his forehead—he's really sweating. Jade's so glad she doesn't sweat: she used to, but it was one of those mind over matter things and she doesn't anymore.
LOUISA FINDS PANSY talking to a boy of eighteen or nine-teen—he's someone's son, she can't remember whose. “Pansy,” she says, “can I borrow you for a minute?”
Pansy follows her away from the crowd. “He'd like to be shaved before he comes out,” Louisa says. “Do you mind?”
“Of course not,” Pansy says—she would have done it before, but he said he wasn't ready. Why do Miriam and Louisa act as if she's stupid or mean?
“I just meant do you mind doing it now,” Louisa says. “You were talking to that boy and I interrupted you.” She glances over Pansy's shoulder and the boy's still there: longish hair and no shirt. He smiles and she smiles back at him. “Who is he, anyway?”
“I don't know,” Pansy says. She shrugs her shoulders and holds up her hands as if to say No idea, and in a moment they're both laughing: laughing and laughing.
MIRIAM GETS A cold Bud for Uncle Don and goes outside. The table with the burger fixings is mobbed, but she can see that her bread and bu
tter pickles are going like racehorses—as usual!
Don spots her from across the yard and when she holds the can of beer up for him to see, he waves and smiles. “You're a mind reader, Mim,” he says when she gets to him. He puts his arm around her and squeezes. “What a gal.”
Wouldn't it be nice, Miriam thinks, if her father were so easy to please?
“What's Louie doing in there, anyways?” Don says. “Should I put one on for him yet?”
“It'll be about ten more minutes,” she says. “Better wait. He likes them very rare.”
“I know that,” Don says. “Sheesh—I've done this before, you know.”
“I know,” Miriam says. “And I appreciate it.”
Don stands a little straighter. “I don't begrudge it,” he says. “Not a bit.”
A MAN JEREMY doesn't know is shaking Stuart's hand—he walks away from Stuart just as Jeremy reaches him.
“Have you seen Papa Louie?” Stuart says.
Jeremy shakes his head. “Still in the house, I think. Why?”
“Guy wants to meet him.”
“Good luck. I'm not even going to try to introduce Jade—I figure it would just go over his head.”
“Or hers.”
“Fuck you,” Jeremy says. “Fuck you.”
“Touchy, touchy. You yourself said she's not exactly brilliant.”
“Go to hell.”
Jeremy steps around Stuart and fills his cup at the keg. When he turns back Lucy has arrived, wet and smelling of the pond, and he doesn't know what to do but join them.
“How's the water?” Stuart asks her.
“Divine,” she says, and she and Stuart laugh—it's what their grandmother always said about it, although no one ever knew her to get past the dock.
“Where's Ellen?” Jeremy asks Lucy. “How's she doing?”
“I think she's upstairs,” Lucy says. “I'm going to go in in a minute and check on her.”
Jeremy nods. “Hey, where's Elias?” he says to Stuart. “I thought you were getting him some lunch.”
“He wanted to eat by the swing,” Stuart says. “I actually just came over here for a beer—I was going to go back and sit with him.”
“That's really not good enough,” Jeremy says, and he turns and leaves the two of them standing there.