by Lise Saffran
“It’s not a question of me letting her,” said Theresa, defensive. “I gave her the choice, and it’s Phoenix who wants to go to Chelan. I can’t make her go to San Juan.”
“Yes, you can, Theresa. You can tell her that her friend is counting on her coming, that it will …” Jenny’s voice cracked here, and she brought her fist to her mouth, “that it will hurt her terribly if she doesn’t come. You can make her.”
“That sounds a little extreme, Jenny. It’s just one show, after all.”
“I’m begging you.” Tears were running down Jenny’s face now. She wiped at them with her sleeve. “I don’t know what to do besides beg.”
Theresa sighed. “You’re making this so hard.”
“Maybe if I talk to Phoenix myself,” said Jenny. “Is she there?”
“No.” Theresa’s voice grew sharp. “She’s not. And that’s enough. It really is. I’m sorry.” The phone went dead.
There was a noise behind Jenny. She turned. Frankie stood just inside the front door holding a piece of driftwood the size of her arm. Her hair was coming out of its braids, spilling around the collar of a jacket that looked like it had been thrown down on the sand and then put on again without a shaking.
She said, “Who was on the phone? Why do you look like that? Is Lilly okay?”
“That was Theresa.” Jenny walked forward with one hand outstretched, as if trying to keep a deer from bolting. “Phoenix isn’t coming, sweetheart. She can’t …”
Frankie’s face crumpled. It simply collapsed in on itself like a sand castle while Jenny watched. Jenny couldn’t finish the sentence, and from the look in Frankie’s eyes it was clear she didn’t have to. They might never know whether it was Theresa who had proposed the trip to Lake Chelan or whether it was something Phoenix came up with free and clear. Either way, it wasn’t that she couldn’t come, it was that she wouldn’t.
Frankie gasped and then sobbed. Jenny wrapped herself around her and rocked, trying to contain the storm of the girl’s anguish within the bounds of her own ordinary arms. She writhed as if the air itself burned her skin. It seemed unlikely that such rage and grief could come from this small, compact package. It always had. Two, three, four times a day it used to happen like this. When first Lilly and then Frankie were small, any broken toy or squashed finger or bee sting would send them careening onto their mother’s lap, shaking and wailing as if the one thing they truly loved, the only thing they could not live without, had vanished from the earth. Just weeks before Jenny had pitched herself against Frankie’s sorrow near the downtown playground. After years of mostly blue skies, now here she was again, steeling herself for another storm.
Jenny pressed her lips against Frankie’s wet cheek. The very core of her body ached. She contracted her muscles around her fear, fighting the long-forgotten sense that she could split straight down the center into two jagged pieces. Don’t shrink from the pain, she could remember the midwife saying when Frankie was born. You won’t break. This time she was not so sure. Back then when they were small enough to cradle and her children howled this way, she could not have predicted how their anguish would sound in her ears when they grew to almost her own size. She had not understood that, years later, when they cried as if their hearts were breaking, it would be because it was true.
The kettle whistled and Jenny took it off the stove and grabbed a mug from the cupboard. She carried a cup of chamomile tea into Frankie’s room, where she found her lying on her stomach on the bed, staring at the wall. “Tea?”
“No, thanks.”
Jenny set down her cup. “I’m getting ready to do a fringe on this scarf. Do you want to help?”
“No, thanks.”
“What about tying up some yarn butterflies from the new alpaca? You’re so good at that.”
“No, thanks.”
“Want to talk?”
Frankie shook her head.
“Okay, well, I’ll be right out here in case you change your mind.”
The phone on the table vibrated and Jenny lunged for it before it rang. She closed her eyes and said a little prayer that the caller was Phoenix, phoning to say that she had changed her mind.
“Jenny?”
Her eyes flew open and she felt a zip of electricity in her spine. The voice was Trinculo’s.
“Yes. Hi.”
He said, “You three sound surprisingly alike. And it would be just my luck to call and think it was you and ask how the most beautiful woman on the island was doing and to get, say, Lilly.” Trinculo waited for a laugh, and when none came he said, “Everything okay?”
“Frankie’s best friend backed out of coming to the show. She’s crushed.”
And here Jenny’s own heart was fluttering. It was an organ that was capable of such betrayal. She slipped her hand under the loose linen blouse she was wearing and pressed her palm against her bare chest. It was as if she had caught a frightened bird in her hand.
“I could bring over some dinner, if you wanted,” he said. “If you don’t feel like cooking this evening, I mean. Maybe a barbecued chicken from the market? Do you think Lilly would let me cross the threshold if I brought a chicken?”
“Lilly would ignore you, most likely, just like she’s ignoring me, but she’s hiking on Mount Constitution, anyway. It’s Frankie. I’m not sure she’s up for company.”
“I understand if she wants to be alone with her mom.”
“I’d need to ask her.”
“Of course.”
There was a pause, and neither one of them set down the phone immediately. They sat quietly, listening to each other breathe.
Trinculo said, “What if Ariel came, too?”
Jenny glanced out the window. The wind had died and a subtle rose color had begun to seep into the sky. “He’s not with Ferdinand tonight?”
“Apparently Ferdinand has begun to pray for guidance about their relationship.”
“That doesn’t sound like a good sign.”
“It’s not,” said Trinculo. “I’m beginning to think that our Ariel has a weakness for fundamentally unavailable men.”
Jenny knew what that was like. She shifted the phone to her other ear and stood up from the stool. “Well, if Ariel were to come, I think that would make the whole enterprise more likely.”
“Okay, then.”
Jenny listened to him calling out in the background. She could not hear the other man’s answer.
“It’s a go,” said Trinculo, returning to the phone. “I mean, if Frankie says yes.”
“Give me a second.”
Frankie still lay on her stomach on her bed, staring straight ahead at the wall. She looked up when Jenny entered the room.
Jenny sat down on the edge of the bed. “What would you think if Trinculo came over with dinner for us tonight?”
She wasn’t sure why she didn’t say right away that Ariel was coming, too. Perhaps she wanted to see Frankie’s reaction to Trinculo first.
“No, Mom. Please? After everything that’s gone on with him and you and Lilly, I’d really just rather not see anyone tonight, okay?”
“Ariel would be coming with him.”
Jenny watched Frankie’s expression change. She did not feel any satisfaction at witnessing the conflict of emotions that she saw on her daughter’s face but was not surprised either when she said, “Well, okay. If you want them to come. But, Mom …”
“What is it, sweet pea?”
“Don’t have him stay, okay? When Ariel goes home, have Trinculo go home, too.”
Jenny flushed and tried to squash the burst of annoyance she felt. “Geez, Frankie. They’re just coming for dinner. Give me a break, okay?” She stood up from the bedside and left the room without waiting for Frankie’s response.
Trinculo and Ariel arrived about an hour later with a chicken, a bottle of wine, and a bag of kettle corn. Ariel held this last thing, purchased from the ice cream shop downtown and known by all to be Frankie’s favorite, out to her with a feigned expression of
distaste.
She lunged for it. “Mom, can I eat some now?”
“Sure. But don’t finish it.”
“Heaven forbid,” said Ariel, going for the corkscrew in the drawer.
Ariel had been a frequent visitor since his arrival with the leotard, and by now he had developed a routine. A glass of wine in hand, he would then head straight to the most comfortable wicker chair on the porch and sit in the sun until dinner. Frankie, of course, would follow him out.
Jenny noticed how her daughter brightened at the sight of Ariel, how her cheeks flushed and her eyes glittered and even her chest seemed to fill with air, tilting her shoulders back. After the news about Phoenix, the contrast between before and after Ariel’s arrival was even more pronounced. Moments ago she had appeared to be fighting against gravity; suddenly she was two inches taller and rocking on the balls of her feet. Practical or not, requited or not, thirteen or not, Jenny had to admit that what Frankie was experiencing looked an awful lot like love.
As for Trinculo, it was some trick of memory that her mind, in his absence, could never retain how handsome he truly was. Even if it had been a half hour since she’d seen him last, she was always taken by surprise by his blue eyes and jaw and smile and the artfully tousled hair. Good grief, she said to herself now, even as her heart beat faster at the sight of him, an actor. What could she possibly be thinking?
“Here’s the bird.” He lifted the bagged chicken. “Caught it myself.”
Jenny took it from his hands and carried it into the kitchen. “I didn’t take you for a hunter.”
He followed. “Well, it couldn’t run all that fast. Those plastic things holding the ankles together slow them down quite a bit.”
“Want a glass of wine?” Jenny poured them each one from the bottle that Ariel had opened.
“Thanks.”
Their fingers touched when he accepted the glass. Jenny’s desire was so powerful it was like nausea, like seasickness. She hadn’t promised Frankie that Trinculo wouldn’t spend the night, had she? She wished she could think straight.
Trinculo rubbed his palm against the stubble on his cheek and looked pointedly down the hallway. “Do you want to slip into your bedroom? Just for a brief chat?”
“Oh. Yes.” Jenny glanced toward the door through which Ariel and Frankie had disappeared. Ariel was on the porch in the chair he liked. Frankie was pointing things out to him in the garden.
“Good,” he said. “Because I couldn’t eat anything, otherwise.”
“Me neither.”
The door closed behind them with a gentle click and they tumbled on the bed together, knocking noses and chins, pressing lips against skin, loosening buckles, zippers, and straps. An image of Frankie flashed into her mind, the moment before she’d slapped her. Desperate? she thought. Oh, yes.
They ate outside on the porch. Trinculo and Jenny sat on the step and balanced their plates on their knees. Frankie carried a kitchen chair out the door and set it on the porch next to Ariel’s. The last reds of the sunset lit wisps of clouds visible over the ridge. Jenny thought it might have been warm enough that afternoon for Lilly and the other hikers to have taken a swim in Cascade Lake after their climb. Even now, at sunset, it was cool rather than cold. Bullfrogs started croaking from their hiding places in the mud of the nearest neighbor’s pond.
“It’s like night and day,” said Jenny. They were discussing the differences between the Waldron audience and the ones on Shaw. “You saw everyone in jeans and fleece and all, but they were sipping Chardonnay, expensive Chardonnay, instead of homebrew, and they drove home in Mercedeses and BMWs. To vacation houses worth millions of dollars.”
Frankie said, “Jewel has a house there. Do you know Jewel? The singer?”
“Really?” said Trinculo. “Wow.”
Frankie pretended not to have heard him and took a bite from a piece of bread.
“They’re used to good theater,” said Ariel.
“Oh, they are,” mumbled Frankie, mouth full. Her selective hearing was demonstrably complete.
Trinculo drained the wine in his glass. “This is good theater.”
Ariel met his gaze. “Of course it is.”
Jenny said, “They loved it. You should have seen the paper.”
“I never read reviews,” sniffed Ariel.
Frankie wiped a bit of grease off her cheek with her hand and then wiped her hand on her T-shirt. “One more on Lopez. Then seven on San Juan. And then it’s over.”
Suddenly the little party on the porch was lit up by the brights from a vehicle pulling into the drive.
Jenny shaded her eyes and saw a blue 1979 camper van with a large steal-your-face decal on the side window. She looked at Frankie. “Is that Kevin driving Lilly home?”
Frankie shook her head. “It’s Devoney’s van now. She bought it from him last month.”
“Oh, Lilly, is it?” Ariel stretched his arms over his head with an exaggerated yawn. “Well, it’s getting late.”
“Too late now,” said Trinculo, under his breath, just as the back door slid open with a loud thump and disgorged Lilly in hiking boots, shorts, and a hoodie.
She met the chorus of good-byes from the van with some loud kissing noises and pretended to reel under the few pieces of additional clothing that were tossed at her from inside. Frankie, Jenny, Trinculo, and Ariel sat silently on the porch and watched her. Jenny was quite sure that Lilly was aware of them watching. When the van finally started backing out, she turned and shuffled toward the front steps, dramatically exhausted. She didn’t look up until she was practically upon them.
“Oh. Hey everyone. I didn’t notice you there.”
Ariel crossed his legs and raised his chin with a snort.
Jenny set down her plate and stood up. “Did you have a nice hike?”
“It was a blast.” She shifted the things in her arms, which looked like a battered daypack, a beach towel, and a couple of Tshirts or leggings and glanced casually in Ariel’s direction. “Ferdinand was there. He is such a crack-up. I couldn’t stop laughing all afternoon.”
Ariel’s spine straightened. He looked past Lilly into the woods as if weighing, for Frankie’s sake, what it would be worth to him exactly to separate Lilly’s head from her body.
Jenny appreciated his apparent restraint. “There’s hot water, Lil, if you want to take a bath.” She took a step to the side in order to allow Lilly to pass by them into the house.
Instead, Lilly leaned against the post on the porch.
Trinculo made a motion toward the house. “Do you want a chair?”
She looked at him coldly. “No, thank you.”
Jenny wished she had filled up her glass and maybe had one or two more, for good measure. Lilly had not slowed down since the revelation about her mother and Trinculo; quite the opposite. They had seen very little of her; she rarely appeared in a group as small as this. She had been holding court at the after-parties on Shaw and sleeping on the beach on Orcas with an ever-changing crowd of young actors and islanders. She had been zipping around the islands like a first-time tourist, in fact. Doe Bay, Jakle’s Lagoon, Lopez Village, Mount Constitution. Like a tourist, thought Jenny, or a girl who knew this summer on the island was to be her last.
“What part of Seattle do you live in, Ariel?” asked Jenny, wishing that Lilly would just go inside.
“My hovel is in the La Salle on Harvard Avenue, Capitol Hill.”
Lilly said, “I know Capitol Hill. Ever been to Venom?”
Ariel rolled his eyes. “I know it.” He looked at Frankie. “Honey, you are not missing anything,” he said. “Believe me. That place is totally ghetto.”
Lilly stood up straight. “It is not.”
“Oh, but it is.” Ariel smiled sweetly at her. “I can see where you wouldn’t be able to tell, though, being a girl who’s grown up in the woods.”
“Jesus, Ariel!” Trinculo sputtered, after nearly choking on a sip of wine.
“Don’t you Jesus me,” said A
riel softly. “She’s not after your girlfriend.”
Lilly looked like she was about to spit. Jenny could not help but watch in fascination as Lilly’s anger washed over her and then ebbed and then turned into something else entirely. Determination, with a hint of pride.
“I’m moving to California in two weeks.”
“What?” Frankie had been looking at Ariel. When Lilly spoke she swung herself around.
“To Marin County, California.” Lilly did not seem to be aware that Frankie was even there. She was talking to Ariel. “Maybe you’ve heard of it?”
“Well, that is so nice for you,” said Ariel. “I couldn’t be happier.”
“What do you mean you’re moving?” Frankie stood up and made a motion to go toward Lilly. Halfway there she stopped and looked at Jenny. “She’s making that up, right?”
Jenny leaned toward her. “Sue invited her to stay with them and go to College of Marin.”
Frankie shrank back. She looked from her mother to Lilly and back again. “You were keeping it a secret?”
Jenny said, “It never seemed like the right time to tell you.”
“Your mother …” began Trinculo.
Jenny, Frankie, and Lilly all turned to him with the same look of warning. Shut up. It could not have been more clear if they’d said it aloud.
Ariel pulled himself up and collected the scattered glasses from the porch. He lifted Trinculo’s directly from his hand. “It’s been a very long day,” he said. “And I really could not eat another bite.”
“You’re leaving?” Frankie looked positively stricken.
Ariel paused and then slowly lowered himself back down to the porch. “Soon,” he said softly.
Lilly rolled her eyes and let her shoulders rise and fall with an elaborate expression of bored exasperation. “Well, I’ll have to catch you all later,” she said. “I’m going to bed.”
Jenny reached out to touch Frankie lightly on the ankle. Frankie moved her leg away. She was suddenly at Ariel’s side again. She was his shadow. “What do you mean by that, anyway? Ghetto?”