The Whole World Over

by Julia Glass

  She has heard Walter tell the tale of how he was certain for many hours that his nephew had taken the flight that crashed in Pennsylvania: how Scott—“typical lame-brain testosterone slave!”—overslept that morning at his girlfriend’s apartment and so did not bother to go to the airport as planned; how, once it got through his blithe young skull that the whole world was watching, he called his mother in California but not his uncle right there in New York. Greenie pointed out that Walter had evicted Scott; why should he have called? “Because family is family!” Walter snapped. “Honestly now, did he think I wished he’d go down in flames?” Only when Walter found the courage to call his brother did he find out that Scott was alive, stuck in Brooklyn with the girlfriend on whom Walter still liked to blame Scott’s every bit of thoughtless behavior. The Bruce was stranded right along with them. (“Did she call to reassure me? I rest my case.”)

  Almost as soon as they’d heard about the first plane, Walter, Hugo, and Ben had gone down the street to the bookshop in search of a television; Fenno had no TV, but they wound up lingering there, for the company. “That’s where I heard about the flight from Newark—and went ballistic,” Walter confessed. Greenie doesn’t have the details straight on all the comings and goings on Bank Street that day, but she does know how Fenno showed up at the restaurant much later, just to check on Walter, and found him collapsed in hysteria, exhausted with abject humiliation and grateful relief after speaking with Werner, the older brother who, once again, knew more and had known it first. “As if pride had a place in anything that day!” Walter said when he told his tale to Greenie. Only when Fenno urged him to lock up the restaurant did Walter realize that Ben and Hugo should go home—and that they would not go until he did.

  Once they had said good-bye to the other men, Fenno convinced Walter, firmly and gently, that he shouldn’t be alone. They went up to Fenno’s apartment, where they ate scrambled eggs and fried tomatoes, drank Scotch, and watched a romantic old black-and-white movie called I Know Where I’m Going.

  “The eggs were overcooked, I loathe Scotch, and the movie was like this bizarre dream sequence with everybody trilling away in brogue on some craggy quaint island,” Walter said, “but I couldn’t begin to imagine going home, especially without T.B.” He told Greenie that he and Fenno had spent virtually the entire evening in silence (“Can you imagine me silent for more than about three seconds?”), talking now and then only about the most insignificant things—food, Fenno’s parrot, the pictures of his family that stood about on shelves—until partway through the movie.

  “I think I might have dozed off,” said Walter, “and when I came to, it was in the middle of this weird dramatic scene where a wedding dress flies off a boat in a storm and gets sucked down into a whirlpool—don’t ask!—and Fenno’s looking at me, smiling, and he doesn’t look away. I said something nervous and stupid about what a terrible, terrible day it was, how I couldn’t remember a worse day in my whole life, and do you know what he said?

  “He stopped smiling, and he said he agreed with me, it was an unimaginably terrible day, but…‘But as I sit here beside you, ’tis a day I wouldn’t trade for any other, not a one.’ That’s exactly what he said, in that beautiful Old World voice of his. And I couldn’t say a thing more, and we watched the rest of the movie, and then we went to bed.” Walter did not bother to fight back tears when he told this bit to Greenie, but then, embarrassed, he laughed and said, “You should see this movie, though. It’s totally wacky and totally old-fashioned but wonderful. Wonderful.” Walter is so happy these days that “wonderful” is a judgment he passes on all manner of things several times an hour.

  Greenie has never heard of this movie, but I Know Where I’m Going could have been the title of her bygone life. She is aware that she remains a deeply fortunate woman, but her inner certainty, the logic of that former self, is gone. Fate, or responsibility—or maybe Ford’s ubiquitous God—has caught up with Greenie at last.

  George is fine, almost irritatingly fine. He is matter-of-fact when he talks about that day—“the day those men crashed the towers with their planes”—and asks questions about it as if he is a child researching a school report on a war that took place long before he was born, but Greenie knows she will never look at her son’s future the same way again. For the first time, she imagines him as a soldier going to war. She can even fear that he might choose to fight. She still feels the urge toward a second child, but how do you bear the anxiety of sending two children out into a world with so many new (or newly discovered) perils? Of course, hasn’t it been this way for most mothers in most places at most times? Such silent debate exhausts her.

  Greenie closes and tapes up a second box. Walter sprays disinfectant on the counters, the drawer pulls, the faucets. “How is Saga?” she asks him. Saga is staying in Walter’s apartment, taking care of The Bruce.

  “One thing’s for sure,” he says. “She’s got to stay in New York. The uncle’s going into some kind of home, one of those morbid assistance condos, and the huge, incredible house where they lived together has become this female family fortress—sisters, widows, babies; something out of Ingmar Bergman. Except that Saga’s been shut out. She doesn’t seem all that sad, but Fenno says not to be fooled. He’s keeping an eye on her.” Walter looks up and smiles at Greenie. “He’s good at that.”

  Greenie carries the boxes into her office, where she has already packed up her books and files. Glancing around, she sees, on the windowsill, nearly hidden by a curtain, the flat stone from Circe, the one Charlie placed there the day he came in from lunch and surrendered to her. She clasps it tightly in one hand, then puts it in her pocket.

  Back in the kitchen, she takes the spray bottle away from Walter. “Enough. It’s too lovely to stay in here.”

  They silence Rex Harrison and go back through the empty dining room; two hours ago, it was filled with uninhibited dancing. The French doors stand ajar, admitting a pine-scented breeze and the bright prospect of Ray’s plush, well-watered lawn. Remarkably, nearly everything’s been cleared away: tables and chairs, television cameras, flower arrangements. Beneath the tent, all that remains is a grand piano. Greenie and Walter carry the piano bench into the sun. They sit, facing the mountains.

  Walter is still talking about Saga. “She’s going to work for Fenno part-time, and he’s going to help her put out a newsletter for that militant animal group, which is going legit. Scott’s vixen works for them, too—though let me tell you, T.B.’s days in her clutches are over. Like, man, so totally over. As she would say if she could ever stop snapping her gum.”

  “Walter.”

  “I know. I promised not to get bitchy. I promised to even be civil to her.”

  “Once Scott comes back, you’ll have to be.”

  “Unless they break up! Don’t you know any nice little pâtisserie mademoiselles?”

  “Don’t let her bother you, Walter,” says Greenie. “She’s nothing more than a restless middle-class girl dolled up as a punkster princess.”

  “In case she hasn’t heard,” says Walter, “Halloween lasts for just one day a year.” He stands up to stretch. “I think I have a name, by the way. It came to me last night, walking around under this gorgeous sky. Blue Yonder. No ‘wild’ because I think we’re both past wild by now.”

  “Do you think references to the sky are a good idea these days?” Greenie remembers that Wild Blue was the name of the fancier restaurant at the top of the towers—but she will not mention that now. She looks up; the actual sky above them is fading, passing through the soft linen colors of late afternoon.

  “Oh, listen,” says Walter. “The blooming sky will be there when the planet has been burnt to a raisin thanks to no more ozone layer. And maybe blue is a word for the times. How about Greenie’s Blue Yonder? How do you like that?”

  “A clever way to keep me from backing out.”

  “You won’t. You’re mine now. I know it in my aging bones.”

  Greenie would tell him not to j
oke about possessing her, but she doesn’t want to talk about possession. For now, she wants to be owned by no one, not even her son. She says, “That’s sweet of you, Walter. Let’s figure it out when we get back.”

  Walter reminds her that they need to get cracking. He wants to open the new restaurant well before Thanksgiving. He wants a name, so that word of mouth can spread even before they finish the storefront. He longs to commission a sign, to dream up a look for the menu.

  She tells him it will be a success, no matter what they name it. “You decide,” she says. “I trust your instincts far more than my own right now.”

  Walter strokes her back. “Your instincts are just fine,” he says.

  They look straight ahead at the view, as if they’re attending a concert. In its own way, the landscape does rival a symphony. Three mountain ranges—the Sandias, the Sangre de Cristos, and the Jemez—enclose a valley, cities and villages built along a river. Steadfast against the tentatively colored sky, they give the illusion of witnessing and sheltering the lives of those who see them every day. Greenie feels the stone in her pocket and holds it fast, like a secret. If Charlie were here, he might remind her that the mountains are indifferent. Well, of course they are—but they are stirring, even comforting, all the same. It is Alan, though, to whom she will replay this vision, along with everything else: the wedding, the cake, the drunken dancing, the pompous toasts; the way Walter, with his wry, playful authority, made it run so smoothly. Suddenly, she cannot wait to tell him.

  “Walter, do you know what I’ve never asked you?” She looks directly at him. “What exactly did you say to Ray?”

  “I said, ‘Congratulations. May you have a hootenanny of a married life together and a caboodle of little Roys and Dales.’”

  “I mean in New York, way back when he ate at your restaurant.”

  “Do you really want to know?”

  “Yes.”

  “I told him you were a monstrously talented cook. I told him you sang like an angel. I told him you were looking for a change to shake up your life. He said, ‘Sings like an angel?’ He thought that was funny. I told him about your show-tune mornings, how I liked to walk by your kitchen and eavesdrop.”

  “You did not.”

  “Eavesdrop? Oh yes I did. And will again. I won’t even have to sneak. Because there you’ll be, working beside me every day.”

  “Walter, you did not tell him that.”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Walter.”

  “Do you know what my beloved nephew has tried in vain to teach me?” Walter says. “Live in the here and now. So here and now, I have to ask, is there more of that amazing cake? I’m hungry again already.”

  Greenie’s consent is a murmur. As she stands, someone calls out their names from the house. Walter rises quickly, turns around, and waves energetically. “Hello, you!” he exclaims. He remains beside Greenie, but she can feel his emotions, his tenderness and excitement, radiating as tangibly as heat.

  Fenno waves back as he steps from the French doors and crosses the grass. “Hello to both of you!” he calls in return. “How did it go, your grand event?”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  A grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, a fellowship at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, and membership in the Writers Room of New York City enabled me to complete this book more quickly and under more privileged circumstances than I would have been able to afford on my own; my deepest thanks go out to these generous institutions.

  I thank Barbara Burg and Pamela Matz of Harvard’s Widener Library for their terrierlike detective skills; Ann and Charlie Harriman for the twin inspiration of their island retreat and their epic rivalry at cribbage; Bette Brown Slayton for calving tales; Larry Olson of Wiley & Sons for culinary texts; Dr. Andrew Wilner for early counsel on the effects of head trauma; Lucy White for the porcupine lamp; Archie Ferguson for the rare combination of a brilliant eye and an open ear; Shelley Henderson for life-changing conversations; and my sons, Alec and Oliver, for enriching my work far more than they interrupt it. For help with crucial details, especially in the final stages, I thank Millicent Bennett, Joanne Brownstein, Matthew Iribarne, Margot Livesey, Maria Massey, Ann Marie Romanczyk, Katherine Vaz, and Joan Wickersham.

  The political New Mexico that I portray in this novel—its governor, the workings of his household, and his professional challenges—is pure invention, though for helping me ground the virtual in the actual, I am indebted to Lorraine Rotunno, director of the Governor’s Mansion in Santa Fe, docent Florence Lloyd, and First Lady Barbara Richardson, who graciously welcomed me into the real-life mansion. My dear friends Lisa Wederquist and Larry Keller also supplied much local color. For background on the 2000 Cerro Grande fire, “The Shape of Things to Come,” by Keith East-house, was most helpful, while Marc Reisner’s astonishing book Cadillac Desert opened my eyes to the western water crisis. On both fire and water, articles in the New York Times and the New Mexican provided more timely details.

  Ten years of reading to and with my sons have reawakened me to the stimulating language and vision of children’s books, some of which I have folded into this story. Over my entire life, few authors have given me as much delight as the peerless Dr. Seuss, whose books need no special mention. I would, however, like to cite, in admiration, a few less celebrated books to which I refer: The Important Book, by Margaret Wise Brown; The Selkie Girl, a legend retold by Susan Cooper; Mordant’s Wish, by Valerie Coursen; My Life With the Wave, by Catherine Cowan (inspired by Octavio Paz); The Shrinking of Treehorn, by Florence Parry Heide; Album of Horses, by Marguerite Henry; Bronco Busters, by Alison Cragin Herzig; Roar and More, by Karla Kuskin; Wee Gillis, by Munro Leaf; Owl at Home, by Arnold Lobel; and Me and My Amazing Body, by Joan Sweeney.

  My good fortune as a writer over the past few years I owe to much more than my own abilities. I owe it to the enthusiasm of my readers, many of whom have come to readings, written me perceptive and moving letters—even stopped me on the street—and to the loyalty, wisdom, and kindness of my agent, Gail Hochman; my publisher, Janice Goldklang; and Deb Garrison, my incomparably talented and generous editor. Thank you all.

  PERMISSIONS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material:

  CROWN PUBLISHERS: Excerpt from Me and My Amazing Body by Joan Sweeney. Copyright © 1999 by Joan Sweeney. Illustrations copyright © 1999 by Annette Cable. Reprinted by permission of Crown Publishers, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House.

  HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS: “I have no life but this” (poem 1398) by Emily Dickinson, from The Poems of Emily Dickinson edited by Thomas H. Johnson (Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press). Copyright © 1951, 1955, 1979, 1983 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Reprinted by permission of the publishers and Trustees of Amherst College.

  RANDOM HOUSE CHILDREN’S BOOKS AND DR. SEUSS ENTERPRISES, L.P.: Excerpt from The Cat in the Hat Comes Back by Dr. Seuss. TM and copyright © by Dr. Seuss Enterprises, L.P., 1958, renewed, 1986. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., and Dr. Seuss Enterprises, L.P.

  SCOTT TREIMEL: Excerpt from Roar and More by Karla Kuskin. Copyright © 1956, 1990 by Karla Kuskin. Reprinted by permission of Scott Treimel.

  VIKING PENGUIN: Excerpt from Wee Gillis by Munro Leaf, illustrated by Robert Lawson. Copyright © 1938 by Munro Leaf and Robert Lawson, renewed copyright © 1966 by Munro Leaf and John W. Boyd, Executor of the Estate of Robert Lawson. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of Viking Penguin, A Division of Penguin Young Readers Group, A Member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 345 Hudson Street, New York, N.Y. 10014.

  A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  JULIA GLASS, winner of the National Book Award for her novel Three Junes, was a 2004–2005 fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. She has received gra
nts from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts, and her short stories have been honored with three Nelson Algren Awards and the Tobias Wolff Award. Until recently a longtime New Yorker, she now lives with her family in Massachusetts.

  ALSO BY JULIA GLASS

  Three Junes

  THIS IS A WORK OF FICTION. NAMES, CHARACTERS, PLACES, AND INCIDENTS EITHER ARE THE PRODUCT OF THE AUTHORS IMAGINATION OR ARE USED FICTITIOUSLY. ANY RESEMBLANCE TO ACTUAL PERSONS, LIVING OR DEAD, EVENTS, OR LOCALES IS ENTIRELY COINCIDENTAL.

  Copyright © 2006 by Julia Glass

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Pantheon Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

  Pantheon Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  Due to limitations of space, permissions to print previously published material can be found following the acknowledgments.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Glass, Julia, [date].

  The Whole World Over / Julia Glass.

  p. cm.

  1. Women cooks—Fiction. 2. September 11 Terrorist Attacks, 2001—Fiction. 3. Marital conflict—Fiction. 4. New York (N.Y.)—Fiction. 5. Pastry industry—Fiction. 6. New Mexico—Fiction. 7. Governors—Fiction. 8. Maine—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3607.l37p54 2006 813'.6—dc22 2005054043

  www.pantheonbooks.com

  eISBN: 978-0-375-42438-0

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