Jesse was with Caroline this very minute, she rationalized. Doing this very thing. She ran her hand under Minor’s flannel shirt. His nipples hardened.
“Howdy, lady,” he whispered and kissed her gently. Then, in a while, not so gently.
She took the hand he’d offered her and led him into the bedroom. The room was cold, but neither of them felt the chill.
“Come to me, Emma.” He smiled, leaning back as she fell upon him. “Come on home.”
* * *
Winter rolled into spring. Along the highways the ice plant and acacia and mustard bloomed. Then in May the rains stopped. By the last week of June the hills were golden, edging toward brown, and dry. The threat of fire in the mountains was constant.
Emma and Minor saw each other almost every week, though never in the canyon again, always aboard his boat. While they bobbed happily in the ocean, Minor strummed his guitar and sang, “Lay, Lady, Lay.” They smoked grass and made love.
The drill went like this: the minute Jesse left for Caroline’s, one of them called the other. “All clear. Let’s go.”
Then came the day when Jesse forgot something and doubled back up the canyon road just as they were heading out. They met on the second wooden bridge, a sandwich with Emma in the middle.
Jesse got out of his truck.
“Where you headed?” he asked Emma. “I thought you were staying in.” Then he looked behind her at Minor, who waved.
Emma mumbled, “I need some things at the store. Got to get ready for the Fourth.”
“Hi, stranger,” Jesse called. “Haven’t seen you since you fell in our ditch. Been almost a year, hasn’t it?”
“I’ve been real busy,” Minor answered with his easy drawl. “You know how it is when you’re having a good time.” Then he reached out his van window and shook Jesse’s hand. They talked for a few minutes about the canyon waterlines, the potholes in the road that needed fixing.
“Well, we haven’t been very neighborly ourselves,” Jesse was saying. He turned back to Emma, who was leaning out the window of her car. “We ought to have Minor for dinner. How about next week?”
“Sure,” said Emma, swallowing hard. “Great.”
“Monday?”
Emma and Minor traded glances and answered in chorus. “Monday’s fine.”
“Okay.” Jesse smiled at both of them and headed back to his truck. “Let me pull off here and let you both by.” He waved as the two vehicles passed.
Emma trembled all the way down to the bottom of the road. At the foot of it, she signaled a left turn to Minor, down toward Los Gatos.
Jesse had found them out, she knew it. He was going to catch them and kill her.
Minor nodded and turned right, in the other direction, headed over the hill alone to Santa Cruz. When Emma pulled off the highway into Los Gatos, she looked into her rearview mirror. Jesse waved and smiled and kept going.
* * *
“Emma sure is a fine cook,” Minor said, helping himself to seconds of fried chicken and potato salad. “I thought I made some good chicken myself, but I take off my hat to you.” He tipped an imaginary one to Emma, then turned back to her husband. “You’re a lucky man, Jesse Tree.”
“Yes, I am.” Jesse smiled as he answered, slowly and deliberately, as if he meant what he was saying, but something else too.
Emma’s hands were clenched in her lap. She didn’t dare smoke, because she couldn’t hold a cigarette still.
I don’t know this man, she kept reminding herself. I don’t know a thing about him. She’d been chanting that thought like a rosary for the past two days.
“What part of the South are you from?” Jesse asked Minor as they pushed back from the table and retired to the living room.
“Georgia.”
“Emma lived in Georgia, too.”
“Really? Where?” He turned to Emma, his eyes big and green.
“Atlanta.” Don’t ask me where I went to school, Minor, she willed him. I can’t waltz through this charade. Keep it simple, please.
“You ever been to the South, Jesse?” Minor veered off as if he could read her mind.
“Nope. Never really wanted to.”
“Well, there’s some beautiful country. Great fishing and hunting. Funny people, wonderful sense of humor.”
Jesse concentrated on pouring glasses of cognac. “I guess I’d have a hard time finding much amusing.”
Minor pushed his imaginary hat back on the top of his head. “Well, I grant you there’s lots of assholes in the South. But you can’t lump them all together. Some of us are worse than others.” His big grin kept grinning.
Jesse had on what Emma called his bull look. Made him look twice as big and four times as scary. “It’s hard to know, isn’t it? I guess to me all Southerners look alike.”
Emma wanted to scream, Okay, you caught us. Now what are you going to do about it? She opened her mouth.
But before she could say anything, Minor, like a Southern gentleman avoiding an unpleasantry, changed the subject.
“You do that mighty handsome portrait over the fireplace?”
Jesse nodded. “A long time ago.”
“Beautiful woman.”
“My mother.”
“She looks a little like my wife, Kit.”
Emma sat up. Well, that was news to her.
“Your wife’s black?” Jesse asked, then his eyes narrowed, as if he was taking some new measure of this man sitting in his living room.
“No, but she’s part Spanish. Her skin has that same golden tint.”
Emma never asked questions about Kit, and Minor never mentioned her, except to say he was flying to LA or she was coming home.
Emma felt a little twitch of jealousy then, but that was silly— wasn’t it?
She and Minor had talked about it. Minor wasn’t interested in leaving his wife, and Emma didn’t know what the hell she was doing, she’d said, except enjoying him, enjoying sex again, as if Jesse’s need for her had made that part of her numb and Minor had warmed it up again. They were good friends—and lovers.
“Tell me, Emma,” Minor was saying now, drawing her back into the conversation. “I understand you teach at a junior college.”
She couldn’t seem to find her voice just then. She nodded.
“Great vacations, huh?” he filled in the space for her.
“Yes,” she managed to agree. “Especially this year.” Then, as if Minor didn’t know, she explained about her cooking, that after summer school she was taking the whole next school year off to apprentice in kitchens in Italy and France, that she hoped never to teach again.
“Maybe I’ll join her for a couple of months after Christmas,” Jesse said. “It’s been far too long since we’ve been in Europe.”
Emma stared at him, her mouth open. They’d never been to Europe—together. They’d never even been to New York. She hadn’t been able to get him off this goddamned hill, away from Skytop. What was this, a pissing contest?
“Emma’s been so busy with her friend Tony Boccia, we never go anywhere.”
Her mouth flopped open and shut. She’d been busy! She never wanted to go anywhere? She wanted to scream: What the fuck are you talking about?
Instead she smiled at Minor and said, “Jesse’s jealous of Tony because we’ve been testing recipes and I haven’t been cooking at home much.” She turned to Jesse. “But you know he’s gay, sugar.”
“Couldn’t prove it by me.” He turned to Minor. “I’ve never laid eyes on him. Could be Tarzan for all I know.”
“You’re going to be very embarrassed when you meet him, Jesse. I’ve been trying for ages to get you to come down and join us for lunch.”
“Let’s have him up here,” Jesse said, waving his cognac glass and spilling a little. Uh-oh, Emma thought. “Let’s see this Tony.” She blinked. Was he really jealous of her friend? Was she missing something?
“You ought to have a wife who spends all her time in LA kissing other men for a living,” said
Minor. “That’d give you something to think about.” Then he explained about Kit’s acting.
“Doesn’t bother you?” Jesse swung his head in Minor’s direction.
“No more than it would bother Emma, I guess, for you to use life models.”
“I used to use nudes years ago, when I sketched and painted some,” Jesse said. “But not anymore.”
“What about that newel post?” Emma asked. “Didn’t you use a girl for that?”
He had indeed—used one. He’d forgotten.
“What was her name?” Emma was staring at him. Had she suspected something then? That was over a year ago.
“I can’t remember.” And he couldn’t.
Minor laughed. “See, that proves my point. Nudity in the name of art, doesn’t mean a thing, does it?”
And then Minor went on to admire Jesse’s furniture in the living room. They started talking about wood, which it seemed Minor knew quite a bit about, having enjoyed woodworking as a boy. The next thing Emma knew, Jesse was inviting Minor to visit him up at Skytop soon. Great, she thought. Then we can invite him and Kit over the next time she’s home, and we can all become great friends. Maybe she and Jesse could have an affair. Maybe we could all get into bed together. Maybe I’ll fall in love with her.
“Nice fellow,” Jesse said when Minor was gone. “We should have gotten to know him sooner.”
“Yes,” Emma said.
“Didn’t you like him?”
“Sure. Why?”
“You don’t sound very enthusiastic. I think he’d be someone you’d be curious about. Want to collect—as one of your specimens.”
Determined not to rise to the bait, she changed the subject. “That’s one dinner party down this week, another to go. You sure you want to do this on the Fourth?”
“Yes.” He seemed willing to move on to another subject, too, now that he’d fired his shot. “We’ll barbecue like we’ve always done.”
* * *
The day, no different from any other July day in California, was sunny and bright. Three couples gathered again—Maria and Clifton, she and Jesse, Rupert and, this year, Lowie.
“I can’t believe I missed last Fourth. No summer colds for me, ever again.” The three women were in the kitchen while their husbands were out in the lanai, stirring the coals.
“Can you just wish them away like that?” Emma asked.
“A woman can do anything she puts her mind to,” Lowie answered.
Maria and Emma exchanged looks. What did Lowie know about the last get-together when Caroline had been on Rupert’s arm?
“Ain’t that the truth?” Maria said with a smile.
Lowie laughed. “You’ve been so long with Clifton, you’re starting to talk black.”
“Well, Emma always does.” Maria defended herself. “I don’t hear you teasing her.”
“Nope. Emma talks Southern.”
“Sounds like the same thing to me.”
“Well, you may have a point there.” Then Lowie handed a bowl of her Waldorf salad to Emma to put into the refrigerator. “You know what, Emma, I think the only person here who doesn’t talk black is Jesse. He’s always sounded like a white man to me.”
“I know. He does, except when he’s playing. My stepmother, Rosalie, thinks he’s white when she’s talked to him on the phone.”
Lowie laughed. Her orange halo of hair wobbled. “You still playing that charade?”
“Sure am. It’s not hard, Lowie. My parents never visit.”
“But they call?”
“Mostly we write. But Rosalie calls every once in a while, and a couple of times when I wasn’t home she’s gotten Jesse. She’s never asked who he was.”
“Maybe she’s smarter than you think she is. You can never tell with these old gals. Maybe she’d just rather not know.”
“How’s your dad?” Maria asked.
“He’s doing fine. My friend who’s Daddy’s doctor was right. The medication fixed him right up. Rosalie’s been letting him out of the house again at night to play dominoes for almost six months. He walks home just like he used to.”
“I expect the exercise is good for him,” Lowie said.
“Yes, it’s good for him to get out,” Emma agreed. Then, as she said the words, she remembered again, as she had many times, Hattie smiling at her father in the airport. She’d gnawed on that smile a lot in the past year. No, it had to be her imagination. Her father was an old man. And Hattie was a colored woman. In West Cypress?
After dinner, Maria and Clifton left early for the drive back up to Berkeley. And true to form, as usual, Rupert wanted to stay for a while. Everything changes, Emma thought—Caroline and Jesse, Minor and me, Rupert and Lowie—and yet nothing. And, as always, I want everybody to go home.
“Come on.” Lowie took Emma by the arm. “Let’s leave the men to their drinks. I need to take a walk.”
Emma held back. She’d seen Lowie only once during the past year, and that had been at a party where they’d never been alone. What if Lowie had found out about Caroline and Rupert?
“It’s too dark,” she said.
“Don’t be such a sissy. Come on.”
“Go ahead,” Jesse said. “Just holler really loud, and we’ll come to the rescue if the boogeyman gets after you.”
Emma capitulated.
“Let’s go this way,” Lowie said, heading up the hill. Emma never walked in that direction, up the road which dead-ended at Minor’s house. She couldn’t think of a good excuse not to. Then Elmer wagged his way out from under their house, carrying a rock.
“You want to go, boy? Give it here.”
Elmer dropped it. Emma threw it up the one-lane road, and Elmer scampered on ahead, wriggling.
“Takes so little to make that dog happy,” she said.
Lowie took slower steps now, scuffing up dirt. “Takes a lot more for people, doesn’t it?”
Uh-oh. Emma’s stomach lurched. Here it comes. She’s going to ask me about Caroline. She willed her not to. God, I don’t want to be the one to break her heart.
“Are you happy, Emma?”
Emma relaxed. She hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath. She could answer this. One word. Easy. “Sure,” she said.
Lowie kicked at a rock, then took a deep breath and looked Emma straight in the eye. “There’s something I think someone ought to tell you.”
Emma froze. Elmer was waiting patiently for her to throw his rock again. Finally he barked.
Oh, shit, she thought. This isn’t what I suspected it was at all. She’s not asking me about Caroline. She’s going to tell me—about her and Jesse.
“I don’t think I want to know.”
“But you ought to.” Lowie’s voice was eager, almost as if she were delivering good news.
Don’t tell me, please don’t. If you tell me, I have to do something about it. I have to figure out what I want.
Then Lowie let her have it, all in a rush. “Jesse’s making a fool of you with a woman named Caroline. Everybody knows it.”
There. There it was. She’d pretended ignorance for a whole goddamned year, and now Lowie had laid it out for her to see as clearly as if she’d written the words here in the dust.
She was cold, clammy. Something acrid burned her nose. She felt as though she was going to throw up.
“I know Caroline,” Emma finally answered in a thin tight voice.
“Yes, she was here, last Fourth of July, wasn’t she? I’d forgotten that.”
“Forgotten it?” Emma turned to her. “How could you forget it if you knew she was with Rupert?”
“Oh, Rupert,” Lowie said with disdain as if she were naming a little-loved pet. “He’s always played around. I don’t let it bother me anymore.”
“Then why are you telling me about Jesse?” Emma’s voice rose. “Isn’t it the same thing?”
Lowie shrugged and looked away, up the road. Then Emma understood. Lowie wasn’t telling her this because she wanted to save her or her ma
rriage. And it wasn’t that she didn’t care about Rupert. She cared, all right. She wanted Emma to care, too. She wanted Emma to feel exactly what she felt. She wanted to spread the hurt around.
“They meet at our house sometimes,” Lowie said in a conspiratorial tone, as if she were gossiping about someone else’s life.
Emma tried not to rise to the bait but failed. “In Oakland? All the way up there? They involve you and Rupert—after he and Caroline…” She let it trail off.
No, Lowie wasn’t going to have any answers. That wasn’t in the bag of tricks she’d brought with her to unload on Emma’s doorstep. She’d already done what she came to do.
“It’s been going on for a long time,” Lowie said. “I’m surprised you haven’t figured it out.”
They were at the last big loop in the road now. Above them gleamed Minor’s living-room windows which looked across the canyon and down toward the Trees’. Inside there somewhere was Minor’s telescope. Was he looking at them now? Could he see how masklike, how closed, her face had become?
Emma felt exactly the way she did in an emergency, cold and calm.
Lowie wanted an answer, and until she had it she was like Elmer worrying a bone. “Didn’t you even suspect?”
Emma turned and stared at her. She felt she hardly even knew this woman, an acquaintance, not a friend, who was serving up the cold remains of her marriage to her on a platter and asking, “How do you like it? Does it taste good?”
“No,” she answered, “I never knew a thing.” Then she turned her back, her hands clenched so tightly her nails cut her palms. Had she been fooling herself all this time, thinking that she really didn’t care? Then why did she feel so awful inside? She understood now why kings once killed the bearers of bad news, and it wouldn’t take much more for her to push Lowie off this mountain. Then the messenger reached out to her with a small neat hand, which Emma shrugged off, saying, “I’m going back home now.”
“Well, you needn’t be so…I mean, it’s not my fault.” Lowie’s big eyes were full of tears.
For whose hurt is she crying, Emma wondered, mine or hers?
“No,” Emma said. Her voice seemed to her to have the most peculiar ring, like high heels clicking on marble, cold gray marble tombstones laid side by side. “No, it’s not your fault at all.”
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