Local Knowledge

by Liza Gyllenhaal

  “But that’s what I’m saying, Anne. If he’s like that about something so trivial, how is he going to react to the news that you’re leaving him?”

  “Oh, he’s going to go ballistic, of course,” Anne said. She got up from the chair and walked over to the deck railing. She turned around to face me, her white hair backlit by the sun. “There’s not a whole lot I can do to prepare for that, Maddie, do you know what I mean? All the thinking and planning in the world aren’t going to make it any easier. I’ll just have to find a way to get through it. But this time, I’ll have Luke. This time, I know I’m doing the right thing. So nothing Richard says or does is going to make a damn bit of difference. Let him huff and puff until he blows the house down. The truth is, I’m just not there to frighten anymore. I’m already gone.”

  Both Paul and I needed to work that afternoon, so I’d been relieved when Anne had called soon after Richard left to ask if Rachel would come over to babysit. Now, though, as I got up to go, I found myself tempted to ask Anne what her plans were exactly. Why did she need someone to help with the kids on a Saturday? But I worried that it would sound too much like I didn’t trust her, that I thought she was going to find a way to be with Luke. So I just called down my good-byes to Rachel and the kids; they all waved back. In my rearview mirror I saw that Anne was still standing on the deck where I’d left her, watching me go. She seemed so contained and solitary, her arms crossed on her chest. Maybe all she wanted, I told myself, was to have the time to be alone with her happiness.

  As I drove back to the office, it occurred to me that Luke needn’t have worried that Anne would ask specific questions about his past, or his troubled history with Paul. Though Anne was well aware that we had all grown up in the same small farming community, she seemed to have a deeply romanticized impression of what that had been like. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she half believed that we’d lived the kind of life she’d seen in that sepia photograph of Luke’s. Sometimes I felt she was almost willfully blind to the blue-collar realities of my own background and upbringing.

  And now? Did she allow herself to look around and really see the impoverished circumstances in which Luke was living? I could only guess that she let herself confuse the glamour of the Barnetts’ lost fortune and social status with Luke’s current situation, casting him as a kind of tragic hero and rebel artist. I couldn’t help but worry that her feelings for him were seriously over-idealized. She seemed to view Luke as almost newly born when they met, the miraculous answer to all her physical and emotional needs.

  But wasn’t that just what falling in love usually entailed? I asked myself. Don’t we always imagine the loved one as the best possible version of who he or she can be? And, in many ways, isn’t it just this—the vision of the perfect other—that helps sustain our feelings and commitment when faced with reality?

  Both Nana’s Mercedes and Linda’s Explorer were already parked when I pulled into the lot. It had been a hectic month for all of us and, even with Alice Tolland’s help, I was falling behind on my paperwork. I was hoping to spend the hour or two before my first showing that afternoon going over the contract for a closing that was scheduled for the following Monday afternoon. I also wanted to tell Nana what had happened with the Pattersons earlier in the week.

  “I was just going to phone you,” I told Marge Patterson when I heard her voice on the other end of my line. She was a good friend of Paul’s younger sister Louise. A year or so ago, when we first started to search, the Pattersons had represented the upper tier, money-wise, of my client roster. And they meant a double commission for me; two sales in one, if all went according to plan. But, despite feeling we were close on several occasions, nothing had worked out as of yet. Earlier in the summer, we’d been in contract on a pretty Colonial in Lakeview, but Gary had finally decided that the commute to his office in Harringdale would be too much of a grind.

  “Really?” Marge said. “I thought you said you were going to get back to us last week.”

  “It took a little longer to pull together the listings than I anticipated. That happens when you’ve already seen so much of what’s out there. And when I know so well what it is you’re looking for. We’ve talked about this; inventory is tight. But I do think I have three places you’ll be really interested in. So when—”

  “Well, that’s why I’m calling you, Maddie. You know, we’ve been working with you for over a year now. In the beginning, both Gary and I were pretty impressed with your enthusiasm. You seemed so willing to go the extra mile for us.”

  “Thanks, Marge. You know I love working with you guys,” I said, keeping my tone purposefully upbeat, though I was pretty sure I knew what was coming. And I was already smarting from the injustice of it; I’d worked my tail off for them! I hadn’t made a peep when their oldest son, Jason, spilled Snapple all over my backseat. I’d been more than accommodating when they’d pulled out of the Lakeview house at the last minute. I’d put up with their nit-picking complaints about a number of listings that seemed to me to fit their needs.

  “I think maybe you used to,” she told me. “But right now both Gary and I have the feeling that you have bigger fish to fry. Louise and Mike told us about that million-dollar sale you made in Red River. We really can’t begin to compete for your attention with—”

  “It was more like nine-fifty, and that’s just ridiculous! We’ve put in a lot of time together. I think I have a really good sense of what you guys need, the kind of place that would make you happy. I bet that if Mike and Louise hadn’t told you about—”

  “It’s not just that,” she cut in. “Do you really want me to make this harder than it has to be?”

  “We’ve worked together for a year, Marge. Yes, I think I deserve to know what you think the problems are.”

  “Okay. You don’t return my calls. You keep showing us places that are out of our price range. We’ve mentioned to you three times that we don’t want another ranch, and yet you took us back to—”

  “You can’t have it both ways, you know. Maybe you don’t want to face it, but perhaps the truth is you really can’t afford anything other than a ranch right now. Maybe you’ve just set your sights too high. You know how prices have gone through the roof—”

  “A Century Twenty-one agent showed us something we really liked last night. First time out. It’s perfect for us. And it finally made us realize that the problem isn’t us—it’s you. It’s been over a year, so we’ve met our legal obligation. I’m tearing up the contract; I assume you’ll do the same.”

  She’d hung up on me before I had a chance to say another word. One of my first clients. Not to mention a friend of the family. Of course, word of this would filter right back to Louise and Mike, then spread outward to the rest of the family. I could already imagine them talking about how I’d let my success go to my head. How I’d overreached. I could hear Nelwyn at the Alden picnic, saying: “It’s easy to forget who your real friends are, when you’re so busy making new ones.” Of course, I felt hurt by the call. It was my first rejection. I’d become so used to the upward trajectory of my work life, the ever-growing numbers on my sales chart. Yes, I knew that things would have to level off. Nana kept warning us about how the market was softening in the city, that we were bound to feel its effects soon. But the funny thing was, none of this really bothered me as much as I assumed it would.

  The more I thought about what had happened, the more I realized that I wasn’t as humiliated as I might have been even a few months ago. In fact, I actually felt a certain amount of relief. Marge was right. I really had lost interest. She and Gary had been demanding and particular, and yet I felt they were looking for the kind of house I now thought of as utterly conventional; nothing special. I realized that I had stopped working so hard for my lower-income clients, the local families I’d grown up with, who’d formed my initial customer base. It was the Naylors and Zellers, the Barrys and Teds whom I was trying my best to please and impress now. This was where the big money and ex
citement was, after all, and where I saw my future headed. And, yes, it was more than just about real estate sales. Nelwyn was right: these were the people I wanted for friends. By the time I got around to talking to Nana about the situation later that afternoon, I felt I’d gotten the whole thing in a better perspective. And what she said only confirmed this for me:

  “You cut your teeth on them. Think of it that way,” Nana said. “This whole area is upgrading so quickly, I’m actually surprised they were able to find anything in that price range. I know a lot of local people are complaining that they’re being priced right out of this market. That their kids can’t afford to stay here, get a starter house. Well, what can you do? It’s all a matter of supply and demand. You know you tried your best, sweetie. You don’t need them anymore. And they really weren’t my idea of our kind of client anyway, if you want to know the truth.”

  27

  “Where’s Rachel?” I asked when Paul pulled his pickup in beside my car in the parking lot. Lia and Beanie were riding in the jump space in the rear of the cab and the passenger seat was empty. We’d arranged earlier in the day that Paul would collect the girls from the Zellers’ when he was done with work and meet me at my office, where we’d switch over to my car, which could accommodate all of us, for the drive over to Bob’s farm. This was the second day of BlueFest, the bluegrass festival that Bob had started organizing the year after he shut down the dairy operation, and, being Saturday, the night with the biggest name acts. The festival’s attendance numbers and reputation had been growing steadily each August, and last year, despite a deluge during the second night of the three-day festival, Bob told us that he had finally started to turn a profit. This summer, both the River City Ramblers and the Gil McNally Band were headlining. Bob had confided to Paul last week that advance ticket sales were the strongest yet. And the weather was going to be beautiful.

  “Anne asked her to stay on through the evening,” Paul said as he climbed out of the cab and turned around to unlock Lia from her car seat. “She offered her more money because of the short notice. I wasn’t happy about it, but what could I do?”

  “What a shame. Rachel loves BlueFest,” I said as I helped strap Beanie into her bumper seat in the back of my car. “Did Anne say if she was going out?”

  Of course, my suspicions were aroused. Richard was away on business; why did Anne need Rachel on a Saturday night? When we talked that morning, she’d sounded so desperate to be with Luke. I knew her well enough to guess that she would see keeping Rachel on as an easy solution to my concerns: Katie and Max cared for by my responsible oldest daughter. What more could I ask of her?

  “I didn’t actually talk to Anne. It was Rachel who came to the door, and she didn’t say. Did you talk to Kathy? Is Bob going to have time to meet us for dinner?”

  “Damn, I’m sorry,” I said, as I started to back around. “I forgot to call. But we’ll see them; we always do, don’t we? It’s a tradition, isn’t it?”

  “Just like our going as a family,” Paul said as I edged out onto Route 198. “For all that means to some of us these days.” It was unlike Paul to sulk or complain, so I knew that Rachel’s decision not to come with us had really hurt him. Had something more been said between the two of them that he wasn’t telling me about? Or was it just that, like me, Paul was seeing Rachel starting to pull away from us? With each argument Rachel and I had, every sharp word, she was drifting a little further beyond my reach, away from the safe haven we’d worked so hard to create for her. Paul and I have never minded going with less to give our children more. I think that good parenting is all about restraint, patience, holding back. But letting go? It seems to go against every instinct of being a parent. And it feels like such a terrible price to have to pay for loving a child.

  The traffic began to slow about a quarter mile before the turnoff to the farm, and we could see the campers and RVs, the brightly colored tents and tarps dotting the long hill above the barn and sheds. About half the audience camped out during the festival, many of them families. There was an ongoing joke about all the babies born in May. We had our windows down and, as we inched our way along, we could hear the strengthening sound of music above the underlying murmur of the crowd.

  In addition to the main stage, a raised wooden platform in the meadow that Bob now left up all year, there was a tent for bluegrass jams, another for children’s entertainment, and a large tarpaulin-topped arena for contra dancing. The long roadway from the parking area and ticketing booth to the main stage was lined with concession stands selling German bratwurst, funnel cakes, cotton candy, pizza slices, curly French fries, old-fashioned lemonade, and frozen desserts. A couple of years back, Bob had invited some local artisans to sell their wares, and that had grown quickly into an outdoor bazaar of jewelry, pottery, tie-dyed T-shirts and skirts, stained-glass panels, wooden utensils and bowls, wind chimes, kites, and musical instruments made by crafts workers from all over southern New England.

  Carl Linden, who served on the volunteer fire department with Paul, waved us into the parking area, and as we made our way up to the house, we ran into a lot of people we knew. Paul carried Lia on his shoulders. I held Beanie’s hand. I couldn’t help but think that we must have looked like a handsome family, walking along like that. That we belonged here, surrounded by neighbors and friends. Just as we were about to turn in at the gate to the house, Paul spotted Jeb Halsman, a fellow selectman, ahead of him in the crowd.

  “I’ve got to talk to him about Friday,” he told me. “Go in and see if you can find Kathy. I’ll meet you at the food tent, okay? Lia and I will save us all a table.”

  So it was Beanie and I who went into the house, shaded in the late afternoon by the stand of hemlocks on its western side, to look for Kathy. We entered a cool front hall that felt still and gloomy; all the noise, excitement, and activity was taking place outside. Kathy hated BlueFest. She’s never liked crowds, and she resented the swarms of strangers who treated her home like public property. But the worst of it was—and this was a secret she’d never confided to Bob—Kathy couldn’t stand bluegrass music. She’d told me this the second season of BlueFest when it finally occurred to me that she kept finding excuses not to attend the actual performances. There was always a baby to feed or a meal to prepare. But she finally told me the truth.

  “It gives me such a headache. But I can’t tell Bob that now after claiming before we got married that I loved it. I thought maybe I could grow to. But you know, on my wedding night? My head was pounding! I thought maybe it was just nerves, all the excitement. I figured out later that it had been that damned band he wanted so badly. And now this—every summer—but I can’t tell him. It makes him so happy. Sometimes I think it’s the only thing that makes him happy anymore.”

  “Kathy? Aunt Kathy?” Beanie and I called now as we walked through the messy downstairs. Kathy had never really gotten the hang of housekeeping, and after a certain point, I guess about the time B.J. was born, she’d basically given up. Having the day-care center didn’t help matters. The living room, which in Clara’s heyday had been a showplace of chintz-covered order and gleaming mahogany furniture, had essentially been turned into an enormous playpen: couches pushed against the wall, the floor a wasteland of board games, Legos, remote-controlled cars, trucks, and robots. A miniature basketball hoop on its pole stood in one corner. A scuffed plastic hopscotch board had been taped to the floor.

  We walked down the hall into the kitchen. Dishes sat stacked in the sink and a carton of milk stood open on the counter surrounded by a little colony of half-filled cereal bowls. The yellow ruffled curtains that Clara had sewn years ago for the windows over the sink were pulled tight; they looked faded and water-spotted.

  “Kathy?”

  “I’m in the basement,” she called back. We went down, me having to duck under the electrical wiring that sagged from overhead and Beanie holding tight, as I’d long ago trained her, to the wooden railing.

  “Back here,” she said when we rea
ched the bottom. “I’m doing laundry.”

  “It’s so dark. Is the bulb out?” I asked, taking Beanie’s hand as we walked around the stairs and down the short hallway lined with metal shelves to the cramped laundry room.

  “No, I like it this way. It feels cooler somehow. Hey there, Beanie.”

  She was sitting on a plastic folding chair in the dark. None of the machines were running, and I didn’t see any sign of clothes, dirty or otherwise. I hadn’t spoken to Kathy since the picnic in mid-July, and I was astounded by how heavy she’d gotten. She looked pasty and bloated, and she clutched her stomach to her like a pillow. Of course. I should have known. Kathy was pregnant again. This couldn’t have been planned. She’d told me outright that Danny had been an accident, one they could hardly afford. I knew, though she’d never come right out and talked to me about it, that she’d suffered through intense mood swings when she’d had the other kids. And the money was still so tight.

  “Beanie, honey, go on out to the playroom and make a pretty picture for me and Aunt Kathy, okay?”

  “Why, Mom? I thought we were going to go have dinner and hear Johnny Johnnycakes.” He was a favorite of Beanie’s: a clownish one-man band with a washboard and harmonica contraption who entertained in the children’s tent every year.

  “I just want to talk to Aunt Kathy alone for a little bit, and then we will.” Lia would have objected or demanded more of an explanation, but Beanie probably picked up on the tension. Without another word, she turned and walked back to the open area where Kathy ran the day-care operation.