by Lise Saffran
Dale held his hands out for the lasagna. “Can I take that in for you?”
“That’s okay, I’ll get it. Peg in the house?”
He nodded. “Making mulled wine. We brought a bag of cinnamon sticks back with us from Sri Lanka. Formerly Ceylon.” He leaned in close. “The American customs agents were very suspicious.”
She laughed. “And they had every reason to be.” Jenny shifted the casserole dish to her other side and started toward the house. “Watch yourselves around the fire,” she called back to Phinneas and David, who were playing keep-away with Frankie’s cap.
“Yes, Mother,” called Phinneas, before being tackled onto the tall grass.
Dale and Peg’s ancient dog, a half-paralyzed chocolate Lab named Alice, wagged its tail at her and struggled to rise as she walked by.
“Stay right where you are, old woman,” she cooed, and set the lasagna on the grass for a moment so she could scratch Alice behind the ears. “You understand that some people have responsibilities to attend to,” she said. “Not like some silly potters we know.”
Alice thumped her tail and then laid her head back on the cool earth.
Jenny lifted her dish and approached the girl on the porch, who was looking out over Dale and Peg’s property to the horses on their neighbors’ pasture. Jenny guessed her to be about twenty-three or twenty-four.
“Hi, I’m Jenny. Are you Miranda?”
The girl nodded. “I guess I should be grateful you didn’t guess Sycorax.” Her eyes were pale blue and her skin was very fair.
“Or Caliban.”
She laughed. “I know Caliban from New York. You should have seen him as Valmont in Les Liaisons Dangereuses. He was alluring. You won’t believe it when you meet him. He’s the pudgy one at the bar.” She inclined her head toward the house. Several people standing around in the kitchen were visible through the large picture window behind Miranda. One of them appeared to be the willowy African American man from the grocer’s.
Jenny felt her pulse quicken. She tilted her head slightly to see if she could see his companion from the store, but she could not.
Suddenly the front door opened and Peg emerged with her arms outstretched. “Jenny, darling. Come in. Come in. I see you’ve met Miranda. Let me introduce you to Caliban, Ferdinand, and our charming, charming Ariel.”
Peg lifted the lasagna out of Jenny’s arms with one hand and pulled her in with the other. She wore a green sari that appeared huge on her tiny frame and had a row of silver bracelets jingling on her arm. She was barely five feet tall and at fifty-something still had the body of a thirteen-year-old boy. Her nose was pointy and always appeared to be crinkled up in mirth or skepticism. The straight hair that reached to her shoulders was a red that no one would have believed was possible in nature if they did not know that Dale and Peg’s grown daughter, a banker in Charlotte, North Carolina, had had hair that same color all her life.
Once inside Peg propelled Jenny in front of the small crowd in the kitchen with a little push to her behind. “Let me present the lovely and talented Jennifer Alexander. In addition to making positively wonderful creations on her loom, Jenny is an indispensable part of our stage set team. And, she is the mother of two equally gorgeous girls who, you will find this hard to believe, are almost grown.” With this she cast a stern glance at a heavyset man of about thirty-five who leaned against the sink with a bottle of beer in his hand. He was wearing a sport coat and a skinny little tie. “Please note that I said almost grown.”
He lifted the bottle to his lips without speaking. Was this Caliban, Jenny wondered, really someone who had been so alluring as Valmont in Les Liaisons Dangereuses? He seemed pretty uptight. Well, that was the magic of the theater, she supposed, that it could transform a pinched party guest into the uncivilized offspring of a witch and a demon.
A boyish blond beside him wearing a T-shirt that said JC Rocks lifted a hand from his side in a bashful wave. Clearly this was Ferdinand, who falls hopelessly in love with Miranda the moment he sees her. She made a note to herself to keep an eye on him around Lilly.
Jenny craned her neck to look behind him down the long hallway. She wondered if the man in the Nikes could be somewhere on the sunporch in back. It would be a level of self-deception that Jenny could not reach to try to convince herself that she had worn glittering earrings (that David had once referred to only half-jokingly as lures) for anyone else.
“In any event, you must be very kind to Jenny,” continued Peg, “because she is a great favorite of ours.”
“And particularly of Dale’s,” added Phinneas, who had managed to slip in unheard behind them. “But Peg, being Peg, forgives him for that.”
“Don’t mind Phinneas,” said Peg, swatting at him with a dishtowel and missing as he ducked. “He hasn’t gotten laid in who knows how long, and his sexual frustration gets translated into snarkiness.”
“You know exactly how long. Or did I say something I shouldn’t have,” countered Phinneas, wisely dodging back out the front door with a beer in his hand.
The personage who Jenny had by now deduced to be Ariel shifted his weight against the counter. His hips were almost as narrow as Frankie’s. “Well,” he drawled, looking at the door through which Phinneas had disappeared, “I might be able to be of some assistance to that young man.”
“I don’t know about that,” said Mary Ann, emerging from the back to give Jenny a quick squeeze with an arm around her shoulder. “Phinneas is a bit of a caveman under all that clay dust and glaze. I don’t think they make ’em much straighter.”
“A bit?” Peg chortled, and set Jenny’s lasagna on the kitchen table next to platters of salmon, homemade banana bread, and pita chips with hummus. “He’s the original Hetero Erectus.” She leaned in and whispered to Ferdinand. “Get yourself a cup of that mulled wine, dear, and no one will be able to tell that you’re blushing.”
Jenny followed Ferdinand to the mulled wine and allowed the first sip to travel through her body on a warm current. She smiled at Ferdinand, who nodded at her shyly and ducked out the door.
Caliban raised his eyebrows and looked after him. “First show, you know. Ariel will have him on his knees in no time.”
Jenny tried not to appear shocked by what he’d said. “You’re from New York City?”
She could feel him sizing her up from half-lowered lids and got the distinct feeling that he was not impressed with what he saw. Well, let him gape. By July he’d be wearing fleece, too. Starlets who arrived at the dock in full makeup often left wearing Birkenstocks with their hair in braids. There was no telling what might happen to a guy, she thought as she cast a wry glance at Caliban’s outfit, who would wear a tie to a bonfire.
He said, “I’m from Brooklyn, actually.” He took another swig and added, unnecessarily, “Do you know where that is?”
She gave him a wide-eyed stare. “Near Manhattan, right?”
“Across the bridge. The Brooklyn Bridge.”
“I’ve heard of that.”
Any one of the island residents walking through the kitchen right then would have seen the look of mischief on Jenny’s face and paused. She was well-behaved, was Jenny, except for those moments when she wasn’t. Those were always worth staying around for.
Ariel pushed himself off from the counter and practically glided toward the front door. Jenny had taken ballet for seven years as a child and it had been three times that long since she’d seen a dancer’s gait. “Mr. man here is from Tacoma. Double-you. A.”
Caliban sighed. “I spent a summer vacation up here in the San Juans once, as a child.”
Jenny took another sip. “Fond memories?”
He met her eyes. “Well, memories, in any case.”
Frankie pushed into the kitchen on a cool draft, her hair wild around her face, and grabbed Jenny’s hand. “We’re singing ‘Way Downtown’ next. You love that song.” Seeing Caliban, she ducked her head shyly. “Hi.”
“Hello.” From the way he looked at Frankie,
Jenny deduced that children were not a regular occurrence in his world.
“All right, sweet pea,” said Jenny. “Let me get a refill.” She ladled more wine into her cup and smiled fondly at her baby. Her rescuer.
Frankie grabbed a corn muffin from the table on her way out the door. After the warm kitchen and Caliban’s contempt, the evening air hit Jenny’s face like a splash of water. A chorus of male voices rose over the snapping of burning wood.
Way downtown, foolin’ around
They put me in the jail
Oh me and it’s oh my
Ain’t no one to go my bail
David was picking on the banjo and Phinneas, one boot propped on the plastic tub that formed the base of his instrument, was plucking away at the string. Dale sat on one of the kitchen chairs that had been dragged into the pasture and did the fancy guitar work he had become famous for, the product of what he liked to call his misspent youth. Around the fire and in clumps on the grass there were a couple more unfamiliar faces amid the neighbors, waiters, gas station attendants, librarians, and salespeople among whom Jenny and her daughters spent their days. But still no sign of the man she had seen with Ariel that afternoon. She began to doubt that he was part of the company after all. Perhaps he had just been standing next to Ariel by accident, waiting for a cut of beef to take home to his vacation rental. And his children. And his beautiful wife.
Frankie waited for Jenny to start on the next verse before she joined in, her voice tentative and yet truer than Jenny’s would ever be.
Wishing I was at my sweet baby’s house
Sittin’ in that old arm chair
With one arm around this big guitar
And the other one around my dear
During the course of the song, headlights shone briefly on the circle of people, and in the pasture, car doors slammed. The people in the house came out with overflowing paper plates as the people outside went in. Hellos were shouted and chairs pulled away from the fire for private conversations. The sky grew dark and cigarettes, only some of which smelled like tobacco, gave the illusion of alien spacecraft hovering in the distance. Miranda stood with Jenny and Frankie and flipped through the songbook looking for something they all knew. They finally settled on “Will the Circle Be Unbroken.” Dale strummed the first few chords. Jenny put her arm around Frankie, knowing that this song about a dying mother always made her tear up.
The bartender from Herb’s held the last note a moment longer than everyone else, letting his voice warble on past Dale’s last chord. Phinneas cracked a joke, and the guy sheepishly adjusted his knit cap on his head, mussing his shaggy hair in the process. Dale handed him a beer and, with Mary Ann looking over his shoulder, flipped through the pages of a book for another song. Jenny smiled. The island wasn’t perfect, but she could not deny that it was the best place she’d found.
Suddenly, Frankie pulled away and ran into the field after a glow-in-the-dark Frisbee. Jenny turned back to the fire just in time to see Lilly lean in to whisper something to an uncommonly handsome man in a turtleneck and Nikes. The man from the store. Trinculo. Of course.
Jenny flushed, both delighted to see him and horrified that he should be arriving at the party with Lilly, of all people. She stole another glance at him. He was laughing in the fire-light, turning to first one and then another person as he was introduced. He had not, she was sure, noticed her yet. Perhaps his arriving with Lilly was just a coincidence? He was at least twenty years older than she was, after all. She turned her eyes back to her daughter and her heart sank. Lilly stood draped in an unfamiliar leather jacket, the light of conquest already shining bright in her eyes.
Mary Ann came up behind Jenny. A chill was spreading with every star that popped into the sky and she edged in to warm herself in the glow of the fire. A shout of triumph traveled from the field, where Frankie must have caught the Frisbee, followed by another teenager’s whoop of congratulation.
Jenny hoped Frankie wouldn’t step into a crevice and break her ankle. Half expecting to have to run to her in the dark, she whispered in Mary Ann’s ear, “What do you think of that one?”
Mary Ann glanced at Trinculo. “Very cute.”
“Is he forty, do you think? Thirty-five?”
Mary Ann cocked her head. “Hard to say. He’s way too old for Lil, in any case.”
“Well, sure. Of course.”
Mary Ann lifted Jenny’s mug out of her hand and took a pull from it. Her graying hair was pushed back from her face with a headband and the wrinkles on her forehead were deep. “You’re not thinking of getting involved in all that summer nonsense, are you? The intrigue? The late-night sex on the beach?”
Chad looked up sharply from the log on which he was sitting, warming his feet at the fire, and Mary Ann and Jenny both giggled. Mary Ann leaned in to Jenny and whispered, “And here he thought we didn’t know about that night on Shaw last summer. Poor Chad.” The song ended and she glanced at Jenny with a touch of concern. “They always leave, you know. After the play is over. Always.”
Jenny raised her eyebrows. “And the bad news is?”
Mary Ann shrugged. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
They both watched as Lilly drank something mysterious from a cup and then held it up to the strange man’s mouth. Lilly, who after escaping to a nightclub in Seattle at sixteen, returned home and regaled her sister with a story of how a man in his forties came up out of nowhere, wrapped his arms around her, and licked her face.
Jenny watched Lilly, and Mary Ann watched Jenny. This is so wrong, thought Jenny, in so many ways. She took a drink from her cup and the wine was unpleasantly tepid.
Jenny caught Lilly’s eye and gestured to her to come over. Lilly stared defiantly back and then, glancing at Trinculo, must have decided that failing to obey might result in a more embarrassing scene than coming when her mother beckoned. She obliged, but in her most nonchalant way, shoulders rocking, arms swinging, as if every move she made was all her own idea.
Trinculo’s eyes followed Lilly around the fire, and then suddenly, with a start, he saw Jenny, too. Jenny watched recognition cross his face, and when it did, warmth traveled up her spine. She had not imagined his interest at the grocery, after all. Perhaps he, too, had been scanning the crowd for her face. She reached for Lilly’s arm and drew her close, noting that Trinculo was still watching.
Mary Ann said under her breath, “Probably the only man on this island who doesn’t know the child is yours.”
“What do you think you’re doing?” whispered Jenny into Lilly’s ear.
Lilly smirked. “Making friends.”
“Well, stop it right now.”
Lilly waved to Trinculo, who appeared not to see. “He’s adorable, isn’t he? I always like guys whose hair looks like they just crawled out of bed.”
“Lilly!”
Jenny’s eyes followed her daughter’s. Trinculo was pretending not to notice either one of them now. He was nodding at something that Dale was saying and reaching for a cup handed to him by Sally, who couldn’t stop being a waitress even when she was not working at the Backdoor Kitchen. Someone said something to make him laugh, and he threw his head back and flashed a row of teeth so white you could see the flames dancing in them. He ducked his head fetchingly and let a lock of sandy hair fall into his eyes. He glanced up briefly, fixing Jenny in his gaze, and then looked away.
Jenny smiled and then turned her head. Damn it, he was beautiful.
“Don’t do that, Mom,” hissed Lilly.
“Do what?”
“Make him like you.”
“For heaven’s sake, Lilly. The man is old enough to be your father.”
Lilly narrowed her eyes. “You aren’t even going to deny it then? That you just smiled at him?”
Jenny wiped a smudge of ash from her daughter’s chin with the pad of her thumb. “Why don’t you go inside and ask Peg if she needs any help.”
Lilly brushed off her mother’s touch. “God, I can’t stand this any
more. I can’t stand it.” She stomped her foot then, which conveyed her anger well enough but did not exactly strengthen her case as far as being treated like an adult.
Jenny sighed. “So get a ride home.”
“I’m not talking about Dale and Peg’s,” she tossed over her shoulder.
“What, then?” said Jenny, under her breath. “This planet?”
“This island! Where else in the entire world would you go to the most happening party in town and have to hang out with your mother? Living on San Juan is like growing up in an elevator. It’s a prison!”
Jenny shook her head. “Poor Lil.”
Frankie trotted by the fire carrying the Frisbee in her teeth like a dog. When she saw her sister she let it drop and ran over. “I was wondering when you would get here.” She grabbed Lilly’s arm and pulled. “Come meet Miranda. She is so cool. You’re going to love her.”
Lilly looked tempted but glanced again at Trinculo, clearly torn. “My bag is over there,” she said, inclining her head in his direction.
Jenny said, “Go with your sister. I’ll keep an eye on your bag.” And on you, she wanted to add, but she let her go without another word.
Miranda sat on the stump of a tree that Dale had felled the year before after a big storm. Her hair and pale wrists shone like moth wings in the remaining light. A small clump of young island men stood around her talking, Jenny guessed, about fish they had caught, sheds they had built by hand, and cars they had repaired with nothing more than a pocket knife and gasket paper. The boys parted like the Red Sea to let the two girls through. They were used to doing that when Lilly arrived.
“Here’s my sister who I was telling you about,” said Frankie, pushing Lilly forward. “She just graduated.”
“Hello.” The one word was all the poor girl could manage, though her smile was very convincing. She was an actress, after all.