Local Knowledge

by Liza Gyllenhaal

  I believe I took the right approach with Paul. I laid the situation out in strictly financial terms. How could Rachel go on working for Kathy when she had such a better offer? I implied, too, that working for the Zellers would be more of a challenge for her, more difficult and demanding. She’d been helping out at Kathy’s on and off for several years now, wasn’t it time for her to take on something new and different? If he saw through me and my arguments, he didn’t say so. We’d been avoiding even minor disagreements since our blowup the other night. I think we both recognized that the Zellers—individually and as a couple—represented a serious, unresolved conflict between us. Paul probably realized that if he raised objections about Rachel working for them, we’d soon be wading back into those treacherous waters.

  “Twelve an hour? That’s more than I’m paying my Sheetrock guy! I guess she does have to go for it, right? You’re sure she’s okay with this? I mean, this is a real job. She won’t have Kathy around to make sure everything runs smoothly.”

  “She’s babysat before,” I pointed out. “But you’re right. This is different. It’s a lot more responsibility. But I think it will be good for her, don’t you?”

  Typically, Kathy didn’t show much of a reaction when I told her that Rachel had been offered an amazing opportunity, one both Paul and I agreed she shouldn’t pass up. I was nervous about having to break the news and probably told her more than was necessary. About Anne. The house. How it had been my first big sale. How great Anne and her kids were. Not like so many weekenders.

  “Sure, the Zellers. Bob told me about them. Well, you know I can’t pay that kind of money. It was sweet of Rachel to line someone else up.”

  “And Anne said that Rachel could bring Beanie and Lia, too. Max and Katie Zeller get along so well with my girls.”

  “Oh,” Kathy said. “I see. That’s great. I took on too many kids this summer for sure. This will help lighten the load.”

  I thought it had gone well, and told Paul so that night.

  “Yeah, Bob gave me a call on the cell this afternoon. Wanted to touch base and make sure everything was okay.”

  “Meaning what? Did I somehow give Kathy the impression that it wasn’t? She said she was relieved, for heaven’s sakes. Fewer kids to worry about.”

  “Right,” Paul said. “That’s what Bob said, too. Apparently Kathy was a little surprised when you pulled Lia and Beanie out as well. I guess I didn’t realize that was part of the deal.”

  “I’m sure I told you. I thought it was so generous of Anne to make that offer. Frankly, I’m a lot happier knowing Rachel will be watching them, rather than having them running around—” I stopped myself before I said anything disparaging about Kathy’s day camp. Lately, I’d been doing more of that, I realized, being selective about what I said to Paul, especially when it came to the Zellers. This was for Paul’s sake, I told myself; I was trying to be sensitive to his feelings. But I also knew that I didn’t want to hear anything negative about Anne from him.

  So Paul began to drop the girls off at the Zellers’ every morning on his way to Covington, and, generally, I picked them up. On the following Thursday evening, when I stopped by after work, Anne invited us to stay for supper. She seemed agitated and even chattier than usual and she finally got around to telling me that Richard was insisting that they host a huge party on the Fourth of July, now just a few weeks off, and essentially throw open their doors to the whole town.

  “He has no idea how much work this is for me,” Anne said. “I mean, I’m still unpacking things, still waiting for the downstairs carpets to go in. He’s used to just snapping his fingers at work and getting whatever he wants. He went around last weekend, dropping in on complete strangers who just happen to live near us and inviting them to this. He keeps saying that it doesn’t matter how much it costs—but that’s not the point, is it? I mean, hiring a caterer, lining up a waitstaff, all of this takes time—and it’s exhausting.”

  Anne did look tired that night and preoccupied in a way that I’d never seen before. Rachel had taken the younger kids downstairs to play air hockey while Anne and I cleared the table and had coffee.

  “I’m sure Rachel will be happy to help,” I told her.

  “It’s not that, Maddie. I just don’t want to have to entertain a lot of people I don’t know and don’t want to know. Richard likes to be surrounded by a cast of thousands. I’m sure you’ve noticed how much he glories in playing the lord of the manor. He’s even arranged for fireworks that night. Isn’t that just so typical? He loves these elaborate displays. He needs to call attention to himself all the time, to feel important, do you know what I mean? I prefer everything on a smaller, more intimate scale. I don’t want more than this right now. All I need is one close, true friend—like you—while Richard insists on the adoration of the sycophantic masses.”

  Though Anne now had Rachel working for her on a daily basis, I couldn’t help but notice that the house looked like Anne and the kids were still just camping out in it. We visited often enough for me to realize that Anne wasn’t making much progress organizing their lives there. Boxes remained piled up, left untouched where the movers had dumped them, in the room next to the master bedroom that was supposed to become Richard’s home office. There were unopened boxes downstairs in the children’s room, as well, and Max and Katie were still sleeping in sleeping bags despite Anne’s claim that she’d ordered new beds for them weeks before.

  “What does Mrs. Zeller do all day when you take care of the kids?” I asked Rachel as we drove home that night.

  “I’m not really sure. But she seems to sleep a lot.”

  What Anne said about me being a close, true friend emboldened me to call her later that night, after the girls had gone out to the tent and Paul was taking a shower. I phoned her from the kitchen, the pleasantly domestic hum of the refrigerator in the background.

  “You kind of worried me tonight,” I told her. “You looked tired. And Rachel mentioned that you sometimes sleep during the day. I don’t mean to pry, but I’m concerned, Anne. Is there anything I can do?”

  She didn’t say anything for several seconds, though it seemed like much longer than that to me. Anne’s usually so quick to respond, I knew I’d hit a nerve. I could hear her breathing into the receiver, and I imagined that she was weighing something in her mind. From Anne’s point of view, I suppose, our relationship up until then had been upbeat and fairly superficial, our children getting on well, the two of us finding enough common ground to enjoy each other’s company and conversation. There’d been no real downside, no dark side, no test of understanding and compassion.

  “I’m an insomniac,” she said finally. “I’ve been that way off and on since I was a little girl. And since moving up here, it’s been mostly on. I’ll wake up at two or three in the morning and start to turn everything over in my mind. And all the little worries start to snowball into—well, I’m sure you’ve had that happen to you. But for me, it’s every night.”

  “I’m so sorry, Anne. Can’t you take something?”

  “I’m taking it. Believe me, I’ve tried everything. Nothing really works for more than a night or two. But that’s why I have to nap during the day. That’s one reason I wanted Rachel so badly. Why this party seems like such an ordeal. I’m still pretty wiped out, but I’m feeling a lot less guilty knowing Max and Katie are being taken care of. Actually, now, for the first time, I really don’t mind it so much. Being here—being awake in the middle of the night, in the thick of the summer, with the crickets singing away and the moonlight coming through the trees—it’s really kind of amazing. And you know, last night, I couldn’t help myself: I went outside and I rolled all the way down the hill at three o’clock in the morning! I felt so free, truly alive, do you know what I mean?”

  I could hear the crickets, too. And outside the kitchen window, a waxing moon cast the field and the tent where the girls were sleeping in an otherworldly light—like a snowscape or the surface of the moon. I don’t kn
ow if, ragged from lack of sleep, I would have been able to see all of this with Anne’s sense of wonder. I had my own worries, but I knew I wasn’t troubled in the deeper way that she seemed to be. And if I was, I doubted I would have had the fortitude to handle it the way Anne was doing. On her own, in a strange town, entranced by, rather than afraid of, the night. Of course, I would never leave young children alone in a house to roam around outside, to roll down a hill, for heaven’s sake! I was too practical for that, too cautious. At the same time, I realized that I wasn’t put off by Anne’s behavior. I was drawn to it. She said she felt free. Truly alive! Did I? Was I? Maybe Paul was right. But if there was something out of control about Anne, it didn’t seem dangerous to me. Instead, it was mesmerizing: a bright flame that beckoned.

  Fourth of July in Red River is a pretty modest affair. There’s a parade of homemade floats with patriotic themes, usually comprised of a dozen or so kids on bikes decorated with flags, Owen Phelps in his antique Ford truck draped in bunting, followed by the town’s two fire engines and the ambulance we share with Covington. There’s an address by some local notable, an army reservist or a state representative, at the flagpole in front of the town hall, and then foot races and a picnic behind the old high school. But if you want to see fireworks, you have to drive down to Northridge or up to Harringdale, and even then, you usually get stuck in all the traffic on Route 206 and the kids get cranky and fall asleep in the car before the first explosive shoots off.

  This year, though, all anyone could talk about in the week leading up to Independence Day was the Zeller open house. Anne was right: Richard seemed intent on inviting everyone in the vicinity. He put notices up at the general store, the post office, on various prominent lampposts, even over at the dump. The posters looked professionally designed and featured a red, white, and blue burst of fireworks. Rachel, who was eagerly helping Anne out with the party arrangements, gave us nightly updates about the plans. A Cajun band was going to play downstairs in the unfinished basement, where a dance floor had been erected especially for the occasion. Green Goddess, the catering outfit in Northridge who handled the bigger weddings and fund-raisers in the area, had created an old-fashioned July Fourth menu of finger food with a gourmet twist: deviled eggs with pickled jalapeno peppers; miniature grilled hamburgers with fois gras; blueberry and strawberry tartlets.

  “Sounds a little too fancy for my taste,” Paul said a couple of nights before the big event. “I think I’ll just stay here and watch the Macy’s thing on TV.”

  “But you’ve got to come, Daddy!” Rachel said. “Everyone’s going to be there. And Mr. Zeller had the fireworks specially ordered. They’re supposed to go on for like ten minutes or something. It’s going to be great.”

  But Paul continued to grouse to me about it until he found out that Bob, Kathy, and the kids were going.

  “I couldn’t believe it—after the way Zeller treated him!” Paul told me. “But Bob says Kathy wants to see what the house looks like on the inside. And he says he has nothing against free food and some decent fireworks. I guess he’s right. Why not take advantage of the son of a bitch’s hospitality?”

  Cars were parked up and down the driveway by the time we arrived. The house was ablaze with lights. I could already see a crowd silhouetted on the deck and more people on the sloping lawn, which was ringed with citronella torches. I spotted Bob’s pickup truck as we made our way up the driveway. Inside, the house was mobbed. I knew almost everybody there, at least by sight, and many were people I had grown up with, gone to school with, and were now our neighbors, fellow volunteers at the fire department picnic, PTA comrades, the local crowd. Others, like the Ossermans and the Naylors, were part of the new elite, weekenders who straddled at least two worlds and lived among us, but not with us. Richard was holding forth in the kitchen, surrounded by a group of men who were older, tanned, dressed in faded polo shirts and chinos—clearly part of the second-home contingent.

  “So, I say to the guy, listen, you ever actually seen an XKG before, let alone fooled around under its hood? ’Cause I’m not turning this baby over to some virgin … Hey, Paul! Get over here. What’ll you have to drink?” Richard put his arm around Paul’s shoulder when he approached and, in the same expansive tone, went on: “You know everybody here? This is Fred Dwyer, Dan Osserman …”

  Beanie and Lia went downstairs to find Rachel, who was in charge of games and supper for the children. I made my way through the crowded rooms, keeping an eye out for Anne and stopping to chat with people along the way.

  “I was surprised when she called,” I overheard Nana saying to a woman I didn’t know. “She’s been so standoffish—oh, hi, Maddie. Do you know Sheila Lombardi? She runs the Century Twenty-one office in Northridge. This is Maddie Alden, my superstar sales associate of the summer.”

  “Nana’s the best,” I said.

  “Who were you with before this?” Sheila asked. It wasn’t just her expensive haircut and jewelry, it was something in her balletic stance and slightly aggressive tone that convinced me Sheila was another ex-urbanite.

  “I started out as Nana’s assistant,” I told her. “I grew up in Red River.”

  “Which has been a godsend,” Nana added. “Maddie knows every little nook and cranny in the county. It was Maddie, actually, who caught wind of the fact that the man who used to own all this property—the fifty or so acres that Frank and Nicky helped me develop into these amazing places—was ready to sell. She has marvelous instincts.”

  “Really,” Sheila said, looking me over with new interest.

  “Don’t you even think about it, Sheila.”

  I kept looking for Anne, and, though I heard her laughter at one point, I didn’t see her in the crowd. I talked to the Naylors, who had brought their silly little dogs. I ran into Kathy and her youngest, Danny, who were waiting to use the downstairs guest bathroom.

  “God, what a place!” she whispered. “It must have cost a fortune! And all that food! I think half of it is going to go to waste. But I guess for people like this money doesn’t mean a thing.” Her tone carried a combination of resentment and envy that I often hear around town, and used to feel a lot more myself. But that’s changing for me. I’m no longer so intimidated by the Ossermans and Naylors of this world. Even Richard Zeller, for all his bombast and bluster, was slowly beginning to seem less fearsome to me.

  I wandered out onto the deck, a fresh glass of wine in my hand. Below me, children ran down the hill, weaving around the torches, screaming with excitement. I could make out my daughters in the crowd, as well as Katie and Max, their pale faces and limbs almost phosphorescent against the dense encroachment of lawn, trees, night. The fireworks started with a resounding thud, then exploded above the tree line in a fiery cascade of oranges and blues.

  “There you are,” Paul said, materializing next to me in the dark. “Some party.”

  “Aren’t you glad you came?” I asked him. He didn’t say anything, but he took my hand and squeezed it. We watched the rest of the fireworks like that, hand in hand, and it seemed at that moment that we had never been closer. That our dreams had never been more possible. We were making headway, at last, against the stiff current that had worked against us for so long. And it seemed to me that the party was the fruition of all Paul had hoped Red River could be: the new and old divisions blurring, the town coming together at last. I heard people crying “Ooooooh” with each new explosion and I looked down to see our children, spread-eagled on the hill, enraptured by the sight.

  I didn’t see Anne until just as we were leaving.

  “Great party,” Paul told her as she came up to us with a flashlight on the turnaround. I assumed she was helping to guide guests to their cars. The night had turned overcast and ominously humid; we’d probably have a thunderstorm later on.

  “Thanks,” she said. “We couldn’t have pulled it off without Rachel. She’s been so wonderful, I can’t begin to tell you.”

  “She told me she’s staying to help clean up
,” Paul said. “Give me a call later and I’ll come pick her up.”

  “Or Richard will drive her home. I just don’t know how long some of these people plan on staying.” She walked down the hill with us, her flashlight flitting back and forth from the graveled drive in front of us to the trees. “Oh, look, Beanie: I think I saw a fairy over there.”

  “No way,” my shy realist replied. “You know I don’t believe in them.”

  “It’s not a matter of belief, Beanie,” Anne told her as we reached our car. “It’s a matter of keeping your eyes open.” Anne waited until we were all in the car, then waved as we pulled off. I noticed that she was continuing on down the drive behind us, though she’d turned her flashlight off now. I wondered briefly where she was going.

  The girls fell asleep as soon as we started moving. Other cars were pulling out with us. We drove slowly down the steep incline. I looked in the rearview mirror but saw no sign of Anne. We braked behind a Hummer at the end of the driveway, and as we waited to turn, I saw something flash through the trees below. It was coming from Luke’s basement windows: a spray of sparks from somewhere deep inside. Luke hadn’t come to the party, of course. He’d cut himself off long ago from everybody, not just us. Paul told me he’d heard that Luke would drive all the way into Albany to do his shopping so that he wouldn’t run into anyone he knew. Though we hadn’t spoken to him for more than a year, I was certain that nothing had changed with him. He fed on bitterness, burrowing into the past. While we were moving ahead, I told myself. Yes, we were finally getting somewhere. Though my pride in our progress was tinged with sadness; you rarely get to move ahead without leaving something behind.