Addled

by JoeAnn Hart

  “I don’t understand,” said Madeline.

  “You are slow on the uptake sometimes.” Arietta watched as Ellen filled in the space provided on the page with information: “Rowan Whiting, manager of the Eden Rock from 11/1/99 to 5/1/00, delivered of a male child on 12/22/00. Husband: None. Biological father: Humphrey Clendenning.”

  Then Arietta signed underneath, the common procedure for third-party registries. “I was always a little suspicious when Humpy hustled Rowan out of here so fast. The hateful things he said about her, you just knew she’d been screwed, one way or another.”

  Madeline picked up the paper Arietta had put down. “But you don’t have proof. It’s just Ms. Whiting’s word that he’s the father.”

  “We will have the truth soon enough.” Ellen clamped down on Rowan Whiting’s entry with her notary stamp, then put it in her briefcase, along with the papers, removing the one from Madeline’s hands. “The state has an abiding interest in identifying paternity so that it doesn’t get stuck with child-raising costs. But we can bypass court-ordered testing if this problem can be settled sooner. If Clendenning makes it worth our while.”

  But he was so old, Madeline wanted to say, only not in front of Arietta. And in spite of what he’d done, she felt a stab of pity for him, knowing that Ellen would soon be at him like a dog on a bone. “How could he have done this to Brenda? Five beautiful grandchildren. To put everything at risk for sex.”

  “A powerful force, is it not?” Arietta picked at a corner of a lemon square with her fork.

  “You don’t have to yield to it,” said Madeline, blushing uncontrollably. “Not everyone has the sexual mores of a monkey.”

  “No,” said Arietta, without looking up. “Not everyone, by any means.”

  Madeline felt the sting of insult on her cheek and could not even say why.

  “My bet is there’ll be an open space on the board soon,” Ellen mused, tucking her briefcase under her arm. “I think Alex might run for it. Being on a prestigious board is good for business. Look how much interesting work we’ve gotten just by being members.”

  “Oh, yes.” Arietta rubbed the sugary fingertips of one hand together. “Sharks need a good quantity of meat, don’t they?”

  Ellen and Arietta laughed together like two old cons and exchanged air kisses good bye. Ellen held out her hand to Madeline. “Please call me if you need any legal help. Any at all.”

  Madeline could barely bring herself to take the hand. Ellen kept her colorless eyes steady on hers as they shook, and Madeline felt the words divorce case hanging in the air between them.

  After the door shut, Madeline stood in a catatonic posture until Arietta began to rearrange the furniture as if nothing untoward had happened.

  “That went well, don’t you think?”

  “No, Arietta, I don’t think.” Madeline’s voice quavered. “Don’t you realize what happened? We killed love over nothing. If it weren’t for the book, Eliot and Nina would be getting married this fall. Don’t you see what unhappiness we’ve caused?”

  “We cannot blame ourselves. Karen and Willard are responsible for this mess. We were only doing our duty. Put the book away.”

  Madeline picked it up, the legal and medical slips sticking out like a bad haircut.

  “This could be a very good thing,” Arietta said, more to herself than to Madeline. “We won’t have to worry about mistakes in the future. All we’ll have to do is figure out how to collect samples.”

  Madeline’s sandals slapped the bottom of her heels as she walked. “Any system that after a hundred years suddenly needs lawyers and doctors is hardly worth keeping.” She bent over to struggle with the cabinet door. “Besides, even a normal pregnancy goes through the wringer now, with ultrasounds and amnio. Any genetic problem that might have come from close breeding will get caught.”

  “Caught, yes. But not prevented.” Arietta paused, her papery hands clutching the back of a chair, and she looked up at the coffered ceiling, thinking how a simple swab might have prevented her marriage to Binkie and spared her a lifetime of disappointment. For certainly her mother, if she had known they had genetic similarities, would have tried to protect her, as Arietta had, in turn, protected her own daughters. It was all done for love. Even the way she kept track of Binkie’s illegitimate spawn, celebrating the births of grandchildren and great-grandchildren as if they were her own. A dry sob escaped her throat, which she muffled with a hacking cough.

  “Oh, Arietta.” Madeline reached out, but Arietta had already turned away, busying herself with the chairs.

  Madeline did not want to intrude on Arietta’s private grief, what-ever that might be. She went back to the cabinet door, which was firmly stuck shut with all the humidity, but when she gave it a yank, it popped open so suddenly she almost lost her balance. Arietta continued to straighten chairs in silence, until she got to the far end of the table, where she stopped to give the globe a gentle spin, continuing their discussion. “The book serves an important bonding service, besides. Remember when McWhorter and Swanson went at each other with putters, all because Emma jumped the fence to McWhorter’s pasture? I had a talk with both men and explained that they had more in common than not. Oh, they got my meaning. They understood I was saying there was blood between them. That knowledge kept them civil in the face of the divorce proceedings, and they never missed a beat when it came to Club events. Unlike some people.”

  Madeline heard laughter rise up from the lounge down the hall. The weekend festivities were beginning. Away from the Club social scene for so long, she thought the shrieks and howls sounded more threatening than inviting. She finished secreting away the book and forced the cabinet door closed. “I should get home,” she said, standing with effort. “Maybe I can talk Phoebe into coming back to the house with me.”

  “Forget her.” Arietta held up her hand when Madeline began to argue. “You’re coming with me for a drink, and that’s that. We both need it. And deserve it.”

  Madeline considered. She didn’t really want to go home, what with Charles in the garage and Phoebe under a tree. Maybe it was time to get another dog so there would always be at least one house-hold member who wanted to see her. “All right, a quick one.”

  “I’m going to the powder room to freshen up. I’ll meet you inside.”

  Madeline listened as the cane tapping faded away down the marble hall. Then she looked at the key in her hand. Arietta must have been more flustered than she let on, not to snatch it from her. Madeline stood on tiptoes and put the key on a high shelf, behind an aged collection of Thomas Mann. Let Arietta panic when she realized she forgot it. Let her be the one to suffer for a while.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Lucky Putts

  GERARD, sitting against the tree, had his shirt unbuttoned to allow for a more intimate contact with the sun-filled universe, and as he crumpled the empty Cherry Garcia container a drop of ice cream fell onto his bare chest. He rubbed it into the hair until it disappeared. Phoebe continued to pace back and forth like a tethered animal, dragging her chain behind her, then stopped to examine the bottom of her foot. She wrinkled her nose. “Next time Barry comes,” she said as she wiped her heel vigorously on the grass, “tell him to keep his little friend from pooping in my area, okay?”

  Gerard smiled. It was funny, how the very sight of Forbes used to drive him into a rage, and now he didn’t even notice him. Didn’t care where he pooped. Forbes was just another part of the natural landscape, like Phoebe. Like himself. All oddly shaped pieces of a giant puzzle whose grand design remained a mystery. He balled up his jacket for a pillow, then nuzzled closer to the earth, folding his hands neatly on top of his chest and gazing at the branches above. He’d given up cigarettes for Phoebe’s sake, but it would be nice to blow some smoke rings right now and watch a part of himself dissolve into the atmosphere.

  “Hey, dude, did you hear me?” Phoebe stood over Gerard, scratching her arm. She was getting worried about this guy, with his hair sticki
ng out all over and that stubble scene on his face. The weird thing was, the mangier he got, the more familiar he became. But who did he remind her of? “You seem, you know, a little out there.”

  “It’s a peaceful place out here. You should join me.”

  She raised her arms to beseech the leaves, then, with a rattle of chains, collapsed in frustration, landing butt-first on an acorn. Ouch. She couldn’t even pick the right species of tree to tie herself to. She punched her damp sleeping bag into a chair of sorts and folded her arms. Where was all the good Karma that was supposed to rain down on her for putting the gun back where she’d found it? What had gone wrong? This whole tree-sit thing got buzz in other places. Here, nothing. She thought maybe when the rain stopped everyone would show up, but no.

  Gerard giggled to himself, and she gave him a sidelong glance. This dude was gone, so why wouldn’t he just go?

  A single crow soared in a circle before coming to land on the highest branch of the tree, looking down at them. “Why, hello bird,” Gerard called out, causing Phoebe to groan.

  Gerard smiled at her. He remembered being wound up as tightly as that once. He pulled out the goose feather he kept behind his ear and gazed up at the crow through finely constructed wisps. A quill. He could strip some bark for paper, make ink from his urine and vegetable matter—weren’t prisoners always doing clever things with their urine?—and write a book about his experience. His father, that old college professor who never quite understood Gerard’s chosen path, would understand a book.

  Unfortunately, a couple of days in the shade with a Porta John and food service was not going to cut it as a narrative. He’d have to suffer more. He could only do so much with a day of drizzle. With some fiddling, he stuck the feather back behind his ear and looked at Phoebe. He would need more material. More conflict.

  He rolled over on his stomach and propped himself up on his elbows, so that his white shirt spread across his back like rumpled wings. He flicked an acorn at her, and her upper lip curled in warning.

  “Did you know that the first golf balls were made of cowhide stuffed with goose down?” he asked. “In fact, regulations stated that the volume of feathers be not less than a beaver-hatful.”

  “Isn’t anyone going to start looking for you? Don’t you have any friends or family on the outside getting worried? Isn’t anyone ever going to call the police and the press?”

  “That’s three species.” He held up his fingers. “A cow, a goose, and a beaver.”

  Phoebe brought her knees to her chest, dragging the chain. Her stomach rumbled. She should have taken the ice cream from her mom. Who cared what Gerard thought? Who cared what anyone thought? She looked at the cooler but decided against any more trail mix. The raisins only got stuck in her molars and tasted like dried turnips. She wanted to brush her teeth.

  “Next time Barry checks in on you,” she said, “let’s ask him for a toothbrush and some magazines, okay?”

  “Yes, he could bring BusinessWeek. A trademarked three-syllable word that starts with B and ends with K.”

  “That’s four syllables, doofus.”

  She called him doofus. They were getting more intimate by the day. “Okay, if you don’t think the i is silent, what is the answer then?”

  She opened her mouth, but closed it at the cracking sound of a club against a ball, then a swell of voices. Then nothing. She tightened her mouth. Not so far away, golfers were slashing and hacking across the fairway, but they were too focused on their stupid game to wonder what had happened to old Hole #11. It was just poof! Gone! No curiosity at all. They were off, following a new course laid down by a higher power.

  “It still all just goes on, doesn’t it?” Gerard said. “With us or without us.”

  Phoebe was surprised that their minds were so in sync, another depressing thought. She stared up at the ridge lined with pudding stone, like teeth along a jawline. It would be dark in a few hours. Another day gone with nothing to show for it. “My friends will be back soon,” she said in a sickly voice.

  “No one’s going to rescue us,” said Gerard. “You must learn to live without hope, as I have.” (Was that too dour a thought to use in his book?)

  She snatched at a clump of turf and pulled at it, like hair. “This demonstration is going to work. Chaining yourself to a tree always works. It gets in the paper. TV. We’re going to save animals.”

  “I like animals. Maybe I could raise mink, for coats. Your mother has a real beauty, if memory serves. Of course, the little critters would have to die, eventually. But so don’t we all? I think I could handle that part with a clear conscience.”

  “A clear conscience is no conscience,” she hissed.

  Wasn’t she darling? It was amazing how everything in the world seemed so beautiful when there was nothing, except this chain, to tie him to it. (That was very profound. He would have to remember to put that in the book.) “Or I could raise laboratory rabbits. I like rabbit. Have you ever had one grilled under a brick, the way Vita prepares it?”

  Phoebe could almost taste it, and she’d never even had it. The first thing she would do when this was resolved—and with a shudder she wondered just how and if that would happen—was head to Falafel Queen for a double order, extra tahini.

  “If you think there’s nothing wrong with testing lethal products,” she said, “why don’t you volunteer for the job?”

  Gerard ran his hand over the mat of dark hair on his chest, then smelled his palm. “I wouldn’t mind testing out a little soap right now.”

  Phoebe took her eyes from his body. “Well, if your stupid boss would just pony up to my demands, we could be in the shower right now.”

  Gerard propped himself up. “Could we?”

  “Stop that.”

  “I’m not doing anything.”

  “You’re, you know, thinking.”

  “You might have control of my body, but not my mind.” (That sentence was very good. Maybe the time had come to make ink.)

  “I don’t have control of your body! I don’t have control of a thing around here. Untie yourself and go.” Phoebe put her forehead to her knees, her dirty, bug-bitten, green-stained, scratched knees. Everything was just so messed up.

  Gerard picked at the tree bark. How did people write on this stuff? It was an inch thick and came off in chunks, not sheets. Yet another obstacle to overcome in his journey!

  Phoebe opened her fist and contemplated the hard green ball of grass in her palm. She threw it at the plastic water bottle on the cooler and knocked it over.

  “Nice shot,” a voice called from the top of the incline. It was Dr. Nicastro, silhouetted against the sun and swathed in wisps of steam that rose from the turf.

  The sight of a Club member set off Gerard’s professional reflexes, and as if jolted by a cattle prod, he got to his feet. “Welcome!”

  With some clicking of metal, Phoebe stood up too. “Sweet.”

  “What in blazes is going on here?” Nicastro took off his Red Sox cap, moved his damp hair off his forehead, then put it back on. He picked his way past the grazing geese, stepping gingerly through the grass, down the slippery slope toward the chained couple. One large gander made a feeble attempt to rear up and flap his wings at the doctor, but it was too hot, and the flock soon settled down again to the business of eating.

  Gerard tucked in his open shirt, giving him a piratey sort of air, what with the feather behind his ear. “Dr. Nicastro, how nice of you to stop by.” He held out his sticky hand.

  Nicastro, breathing hard from his walk, shook it with hesitation. “I hope I’m not disturbing anything.” He examined the shambles around him. Unrolled sleeping bags, nylon tarps, coolers, paper cups, bug repellent, scattered shoes. Just like any other poorly organized campsite except for the chains connecting the campers to the tree and the hand-lettered sign tacked to the tree trunk, whose red ink ran like blood: ERCC! SAVE THE WORLD! GO VEGAN! He smiled broadly as the situation dawned on him.

  “It’s a demonstration,”
said Phoebe. “You know, a tree-sit thing.”

  His eyes were drawn to her chest, and he examined the logo on her shirt. “I’ve got a PETA T-shirt too,” he said. “Except it stands for People Eating Tasty Animals.” He put a hand on his ribs while he laughed.

  Phoebe stiffened. “That’s not funny.”

  Nicastro wiped his eyes. “By God, you sound just like your mother. Does she know you’re here?”

  Phoebe’s right eye twitched. Her mother? “She just left. She’s supposed to be calling the TV stations.” She lowered her voice. “Maybe you can call them.”

  “Why don’t you?”

  “I can’t report myself.” She picked up her chain and shook it. “Can’t you see I’m tied up? Aren’t you going to help?”

  Nicastro looked Gerard over. “Everything okay here?”

  “Fine, super.” Gerard rubbed his hands together.

  Nicastro massaged his stomach, which bulged out from between the top of his green Bermuda shorts and the bottom of his yellow Hawaiian shirt. “Didn’t there used to be a golf green nearby?”

  “Mr. Clendenning decided the hole was better off elsewhere. He didn’t want to disturb Ms. Lambert’s demonstration. Please, Doctor, have a seat.” Gerard held his hand out to one of the coolers. Barry had taken the bench away to repair the crack.

  Nicastro opened the lid of the cooler, drained the contents of a bottle of Evian, then closed it up again. He sat down with a loud grunt and a slosh, then splayed his legs, balancing his paunch between his spread knees. Phoebe and Gerard sat back down against the tree trunk, and he took the two of them in. “How long has this been going on?”

  Gerard wiped the mud off his watch. “Three days.”

  “He’s not with me.” Phoebe edged away from Gerard. “I don’t know what he’s doing here.”

  “I’m here for her,” said Gerard.

  Nicastro pulled a Mars Bar from his shirt pocket, then peeled a narrow strip of wrapping off one end while he eyed their chains. Yes, indeed. Phoebe was locked tight, but Gerard had to keep fussing with the chain to keep it tied to his ankle. “I think you should both call it a day.”