Whole World Over

by Julia Glass

  Saga unfolded the slip of paper. In thin, spidery letters, it read, Miss Sea Urchin pines for your la la la luscious tongue. Lick her till she’s a razzmatazz rose, a big wet shiny rose. Tonight. Alice in Wonderland, under the mushroom-roomba. Xxxxx you know exactly WHERE.

  Quickly, Saga refolded the paper. Unsure what to do with it, she let it fall to the floor of the van. She walked The Bruce around the block, stopping whenever he wanted to stop, trying not to think about the message under his collar. Had it been written by Sonya? Was it for…for Walter?

  Sonya was waiting by the van. Crated in the back, a surprisingly small dog, quite nondescript and harmless-looking, whined and scratched at the bars.

  “Hey, thanks a mil,” Sonya said. She unsnapped the leash and helped The Bruce up to the front seat.

  “You’re welcome,” said Saga.

  “Want a ride into the city?”

  “No. I’ve got something I need to ask Stan,” she said, a lie. She felt herself blushing. Sonya drove off with a wave.

  “Hey, Story Girl, come in and have a beer,” said Stan when he opened the door. He walked to the kitchen. “You could hear a pin drop now.”

  “I just need my knapsack,” she said. Everything that day seemed off balance, thought Saga. What made Stan so suddenly cheerful?

  He saw her suspicion and laughed. “Hey, business, all business.”

  She blushed and accepted a Coke. It turned out that Stan meant business about the business. He’d found out about an intensive seminar, less than a week long, for people who wanted to establish a not-for-profit group. The only problem was that the seminar was held in Washington, D.C. He could easily take the vacation time, but who would look after the animals?

  “And then I figured, you and Sonya could do it together,” he said, looking pleased with himself.

  “Me?” said Saga.

  “With Sonya, yeah, sure. She’d be the brains, you’d be the brawn, right?”

  Saga said nothing.

  He reached across the table and shook her arm gently. “Story Girl, I am kidding. You could stay here, you know the routines. And Sonya’s got wheels. Hey, how ’bout I even change the sheets?” The first seminar with an opening was six months away, so they’d have plenty of time to plan.

  SHE THREW HER JACKET over the fence and climbed after. She worried for a moment when her hem caught on the iron spears at the top, but she managed to disentangle the skirt without tearing it, without losing her balance either. When she landed on the other side, she looked up quickly at the windows in the buildings across the street to make sure no one was watching.

  The night wasn’t as chilly as it might have been, but she was sorry she did not have pants and a heavier jacket—or her sleeping roll. She hadn’t been drawn to this place, to sleep here, since the fall. What had changed? It had to be the bookstore; this was the first thing that came to mind. Despite Michael’s bad news—which she had expected, so it wasn’t really news, not the part of it that mattered—she knew there was plenty for which she could be thankful. (Though, really, when your skull had survived collision with a tree, that would always be the case, wouldn’t it? In some ways, that was annoying, the way you knew you should always feel grateful, even when you had good reason not to.) Saga helped Fenno two or three times a week now, for which he paid her fifteen dollars an hour. She had told Uncle Marsden about the shop, that it was a place she liked, where she helped out a little, but she hadn’t told him about the money. She hadn’t wanted him to have more cause to agree with Michael, to feel that Saga might need him less somehow.

  Because she didn’t need him less. At the same time, she found now that she was finally furious with Uncle Marsden. How could he not have warned her, at least, about what Michael intended to tell her at that lunch? (“Save your appetite! I bet he’ll take you somewhere swanky,” Uncle Marsden had told her at breakfast. And he had known exactly why!) Was he such a coward that he had to hide behind his son? All those times she’d seen him stand up to Michael’s cranky bursts of temper, had he been little more than a rooster showing off his tail? When things really mattered, did he scuttle away to the henhouse?

  Saga had never stayed in the open on a winter night—her risky behavior had limits—but a certain amount of cold she could take, in exchange for perfect solitude, a place where no one could find her. Especially when she couldn’t bear to go home. She buttoned the top button and the cuffs of her blouse (the doctor had just observed how much better she was at this very task). She put on the sweater she kept in her knapsack and, over that, her jacket. She turned up the collar.

  She wriggled back till she’d wedged herself between the two great flowerpots that held the trees. She looked up at the sky. It was the usual chocolate brown of city sky: no stars, alas no moon, just the occasional winking plane. She was thirty-four years old; what would become of the rest of her life? If she moved with Uncle Marsden to the Cute House, it wouldn’t be the same, not at all, as simply staying on at the big house. That was the real problem. She would be telling the world that she was helpless, which wasn’t true. She wasn’t helpless. She was directionless, that’s what she was. She lived the way dogs did, trusting in food, the next day, the next sleep, taking small expeditions, short-term missions. In truth, dogs were smart, resourceful, and strong if they had to go their own way. They were dependent because it’s what they knew and it was easier, not because it was necessary. She closed her eyes.

  SEVENTEEN

  Dear Marion,

  Forgive me if I have to say this protracted silence has become absurd. I understand and respect your need to consider so many things, and I know that my own behavior, when we saw each other last, must have seemed belligerent, confused, even paternalis

  Just as belligerent, confused, and paternalistic as this letter itself. How about hostile? Did he neglect to mention hostile?

  Dear Marion,

  I was determined to let you decide when we should be in touch again, but several months have passed now, and events in my life have recently been so tumultuous that I feel a renewed urgency to open up the lines between us. If that seems selfish, and I know it must, then please

  Oh God. He felt as if he were writing to a patient who had quit in a huff, walked out the door in a peremptory snub (not that Alan would ever have written to a patient who did that, and not that any patient ever had; not quite).

  Dear Marion,

  I hope you won’t consider this letter an intrusion on whatever process you are going through. I can’t help worrying that you fear I would enlist a lawyer or make threats of some kind. Believe me, I would never do such a thing. I know that I’ve behaved badly enough already. Whatever decisions you are thinking of making about Jacob, all I wish is that we, you and I, could at least discuss them, or perhaps exchange e-mails if that

  Why should she care what he wished? What if, after all, Jacob were not “his” child? But somehow her silence, as time went on, only proved to him that the opposite was true.

  He still had two blank sheets of paper, but at this rate they, too, would shortly lie crumpled at his feet. He’d grabbed the slim sheaf in his printer, a last-minute notion as he raced around the apartment packing clothes, rinsing dishes, trying to figure out what to do with Treehorn. Fenno had answered the phone at the bookstore but told Alan he was about to leave the country for a week, to attend a family christening. To Alan’s uneasy surprise, Fenno gave him a phone number for Saga, in Connecticut. There had been an awkward confusion over her name; Fenno apparently knew her as Emily. What else, Alan had wondered, did Fenno know about her that Alan did not? (Why did he feel a spark of jealousy over a woman who, by objective standards, seemed vaguely pathetic?) After speaking to a man who sounded older and rather imperious—Saga’s father? surely not a husband—Alan had been relieved to hear her voice. She would pick up his keys from Fenno’s assistant at the store. Treehorn would be fine.

  Other than the bond he had forged with his dearly predictable dog, every close relationship in Al
an’s life seemed tattered or bruised. So then, why not smash this one to smithereens? Perhaps Marion would change her name and move to Las Vegas, consigning Alan to the oblivion he probably deserved. Didn’t bad omens, daunting ordeals, and personal catastrophes come in threes?

  He raised the plastic window shade, which he had closed soon after takeoff. Already they were over the desert. Ah, talk about omens! When he turned back, he saw the flight attendant making her way up the aisle. She acknowledged Alan’s wave with a Styrofoam smile.

  “May I get you something, sir?”

  “Do you by any chance have paper?”

  “I think I saw a spare copy of USA Today. Will that do?”

  “No, just paper. Blank paper.”

  Her smile looked like a patch sewn on her face.

  He said, “To write on.”

  “I’m sorry, we don’t have that,” she said. “Could you write on a napkin? Or…” She reached into the seat pocket next to him and, pleased with her resourcefulness, presented him with the paper bag designed for airsick passengers. “Would this do in a pinch?”

  Alan shook his head. On impulse, he asked if he could still order a drink.

  “Why sure,” she said. “That I can get you. What’ll it be?”

  “Vodka,” he said. He never drank on planes. He never, out of habit, did anything he was doing at this moment in his life.

  The previous morning, barely two weeks after letting him know she was in love with somebody else, Greenie had called with more bad news. Whether it was worse news remained to be seen. George and his friend Diego, wearing primitive animal masks, had opened Diego’s window after his parents fell asleep, climbed down over the roof where he fed his tame squirrel, slipped under the rail fences that bordered the corrals of the ranch where Diego’s father worked, crept into the barn, and unlatched the doors to the stalls of three horses, urging them out of the barn, then out a back gate into the wider world, where they were lost, confused, and possibly panicked, running not toward the mountains, where the boys intended them to run, but toward the road—perhaps because civilization, however dangerous it might be, was far more familiar to them than wilderness of any kind.

  Only then, on hearing this news, did Alan’s fury at his wife begin to blossom, spreading through him steadily, quietly, outward in all directions, like the red stain from a glass of wine spilled on a white tablecloth.

  Alan gazed again at the parched, unpopulated land beneath him; would that he could will his mind to be so blank, his emotions so neutral in color, his temper so flat. When the attendant returned, he gave her a handful of singles; she gave him the tiny bottle, a tiny napkin, and a plastic cup filled with ice. Alan could actually smell the ice, how old it was. It smelled like a closet. He twisted the tiny bottlecap and poured out the crystalline liquid. His nose stung and his eyes watered slightly as he raised the cup to his mouth. Through the gap behind the tray, he fished in the seat pocket and pulled out the airline magazine.

  “The Tetons!” he cried out softly when he found the table of contents. “Oh do let’s read about the Tetons.” Among the smallest of blessings he could count, both seats beside him were empty. He was free to mutter (or laugh maniacally, or growl, or weep) without visible censure.

  THE UNEXPECTED WARMTH STRUCK HIM FIRST, then the sight of Greenie. After pulling up to the curb and leaning across the passenger seat to catch his attention, she opened her door to come around and greet him.

  “Don’t get out.” He threw his bag on the backseat. “Where’s George?”

  Greenie stared at Alan. She sat there without driving, though he had closed his door and fastened his belt.

  “He’s back at the house. He’s with—”

  “Your beloved Chuck?”

  “Consuelo,” she said quietly.

  “Your fabulous, attentive nanny?”

  “It’s not her fault, Alan. It’s completely my fault. I’ve been—”

  “Let’s go. Let’s just get there.” He would not look at her. He had seen in one glance that Greenie’s face was drawn and swollen from crying.

  As she drove them through the airport catacombs, leaning forward to see every sign, she said nothing. She’d switched off the radio when he got in.

  He looked out at the mountains flanking the city. Snow covered the peaks, though the air around the car was hot. Alan opened his window.

  “Sorry. The weather is a fluke,” said Greenie.

  “Sorry for the weather?” Sorry. How many times had she said that inadequate word in the course of their recent conversations? Eat your heart out, Erich Segal.

  They had been driving for ten minutes when Greenie said, “Alan, we can’t make this whole trip in silence. You have every right to be very, very angry at me, not to want to say a word to me ever again, but we have to figure things out, and we can’t look like this to George, especially not now.”

  “Look like what? His parents who are about to split up? Or did he figure that out a long time ago, before we did? Maybe we’re the childish ones here. Maybe we’re the delinquents, the guilty ones, the ones who’ve let the animals loose. Whatever sins you want to claim, let me be the first to claim stupidity.”

  Greenie cried silently. He could tell without looking at her, just from the way she was breathing. “Stop crying,” he said, willing his voice to sound gentle. “Please stop crying.” He opened the glove compartment and found a paper napkin. When he handed it to Greenie, she apologized again.

  He said, “Tell me again what happened. I want to get the story straight.”

  “Okay.” She blew her nose. She was driving fast, possibly too fast, but Alan made no comment.

  “George was overnight at Diego’s. Consuelo drove him there because I had a dinner party at the mansion. Consuelo told me—yesterday, after everything happened—that he was very excited before he went. He told her they were going to play a special game and he needed…black clothes.” More tears.

  Alan wanted to put a hand on her shoulder, to stop her more than to console her, but he didn’t.

  “So—I told you—the police phoned at two in the morning. They had a call from someone driving on Bishop’s Lodge Road who had to swerve to avoid a horse. And then there was…By the time they got out there, one horse had been hit.” Her voice broke. “So now they’d had other calls, and they went to the nearest ranch; they found the open stalls. It took an hour for someone to mention how the boys were hanging around that evening, so they went straight—”

  “The horse,” said Alan. “Tell me about the horse, the one that was hit. Before we cope with everything else, I want to know what we’re dealing with, the liability.”

  “What is your problem!” shouted Greenie. “‘Everything else’ just happens to be your son! Don’t you care how George is? What matters more to you, George or some horse, some goddamn potential lawsuit?”

  “I might ask you, Greenie, what matters more to you, George or some goddamn…what should I call him, childhood sweetheart? This guy you’ve been running around with, ignoring what anybody else could see was an intense if not bizarre situation with this other child!”

  “At least I haven’t thrown any illegitimate children into the fray!”

  “Good for you. And please be sure that if—if that’s what I’ve done, I’ve done it with great delight. I said to myself, Let’s see, what’s missing from my life? I know! What I need is another child, with a different mother, one who will vanish, have that baby in secret, and never speak to me again. That’s what I need!”

  Greenie turned to glance at him for a moment, and she actually tried to smile when he met her eyes. “I guess this is what they call clearing the air,” she said. “So, do we hate each other now? Is that where we are?”

  Alan wished they were anywhere but in a speeding car. He wanted to grab her, with longing as much as rage, to shake her. He understood what it meant to want to shake sense into someone. “I can’t speak for you, Greenie, but it would take a great deal for me to hate you. Or a great
deal more than this, which I can’t begin to imagine.” He stared at her. She kept her eyes on the road.

  “The horse,” she said slowly, “is going to be all right. The leg is badly bruised but not broken. I’ve offered, through the police, to pay the vet bill. I haven’t spoken yet with anyone from the ranch. Mary Bliss said it’s not a good idea, not yet. Ray’s vet, the one who takes care of his horses, is going to double-check the X-rays, free of charge.”

  “What about Diego’s parents? Are they taking no responsibility here? Their son was the instigator, that has to be obvious even to them.”

  “Diego’s father will be lucky to keep his job, Alan. The mother feels terrible, I know she does, but her English isn’t so terrific, and I think the father won’t let her tell anyone how sorry she is about all this.”

  Alan was aware of the cruel, even racist remarks ready to leap from his mouth. As if to mock him, four dark-skinned men crowded in a pickup truck, jostling one another, their radio blaring, passed Alan and Greenie on the right. Through Alan’s open window, the music hit him, briefly, like a shock wave.

  Greenie said quietly, “Isn’t George the most important thing right now?”

  “Of course he is. When I see George, I want to have a fix on everything that’s going on around him so that I pay attention just to him.”

  “I think George is terrified.”

  “Greenie, he should be.”

  “Alan, he’s five.”

  “Yes. And for that, in some ways, we are lucky. And I intend to be as reassuring to him as I can. But he needs to know how serious this is. It doesn’t matter if the horses were unscathed, if they returned happily to their own stalls, tucked themselves in, and turned off the lights. We need to figure out how a kid so smart could do something so reckless. He’s not so young he could really believe those horses wouldn’t be in danger, set free near those roads. Unless…”