Olivia came into the kitchen wearing her dance tights, a pair of boxer shorts, and a T-shirt that read, “Fat Jack’s: If You Can’t Eat the Meat, Then Beat It.” It took Cece a minute to get the joke.
“Beat the meat,” she said. “That’s funny.”
“Mom,” Olivia said, horrified. She took four cookies from the cooling rack. “I can’t eat these,” she informed Cece. “I’m taking them up for Max and Jasmine.”
Ordinarily she would have encouraged Olivia to take a cookie for herself. She would’ve encouraged Gordon to notice the way that their daughter seemed to be shrinking before their eyes.
“That’s a good idea,” she said instead. “Should I take a couple out to Phil?”
Olivia looked at her strangely. “I guess.”
“OK,” Cece said, picking up the plate. “That’s where I’ll be, if you need me.”
43.
ST. ANSELM’S WAS NOT DESIGNED FOR RAIN. THE GIRLS DARTED UP AND down the open staircases, so you were afraid they would slip on the smooth cement. They ate lunch in the auditorium, leaving behind the strong smell of wet flannel and tuna fish. They shivered in their short skirts and sheer navy blue tights rather than don tailored gray slacks, the official cold-weather alternative. The rain was a reminder that the whole concept of a school like this had been imported from another climate, somewhere colder and grayer, with an even longer history.
Cece sat in her office in the library, watching the cold rain drip from the jacarandas. She was supposed to be reading application essays, in which the girls wrote about their internship preferences: child psychology and marine biology were the most popular fields. Next semester Olivia would apply for an internship. Cece was fairly certain that her daughter didn’t want to be a marine biologist or a child psychologist, but she had no idea what Olivia would choose instead. She was beginning to wonder whether the internship program was what the girls needed. She sometimes thought they might do better to get ordinary after-school jobs, waiting tables and scooping ice cream.
She was interrupted by a knock on the door, which was usual during lunchtime. The girls would begin with a question about internships or college admissions, and then, with an awkward segue, move on to their problems with boys.
“Come in,” Cece called, but she was surprised when the door opened. She hadn’t seen Emily Alderman since the incident by the pool. Olivia’s friend hesitated, as if she expected Cece to turn her away. In spite of the rain, her hair hung loose and shiny around her shoulders.
“Have a seat, Emily,” Cece said, trying her best to be welcoming. “Would you like some hot chocolate?”
“Oh—no, thanks. I have to be careful what I eat, now that we’ve started rehearsing for the dance concert.”
“When is that?” Cece asked.
“Before Christmas,” Emily said. “We have so much work to do.”
“Well, I’m looking forward to it,” Cece said. “We’ll definitely be there.”
“All of you?” Emily looked concerned.
“I mean, Olivia’s father and I, and her brother.” It occurred to Cece that Emily might actually be asking about Phil.
Emily looked down, picking at her cuticles. Underneath her Dance Directions sweatshirt, she was wearing a pink Armani Exchange T-shirt, a uniform infraction worth two demerits—not to mention the fact that it was probably stolen. Emily’s hair almost covered her face. Cece didn’t trust her for a second.
“I wanted to talk to you about something, but I was worried you’d be mad.”
Cece’s stomach growled, whether from nerves or hunger she didn’t know. Often when she was nervous, she got suddenly ravenous. She thought it was her body’s trick, to try to make her eat when she wasn’t paying attention.
“Mad about what?” she said, as gently as possible. The girl, however unpleasant, was barely more than a child. If she had a crush on Phil, it was simply that. It was no big deal. She looked at Emily, whose face was flushed from the rain. She sat with both feet on the floor, her pink knees pressed together under her skirt.
Let it not be that, Cece thought. Let it be anything else.
“It’s about Mr. Jow,” Emily said.
It took Cece a minute. “You mean, Mr. Yuan?”
Emily nodded. “I’m in AP art with him.”
“Oh, I know.” Cece’s relief was so great that she felt generous. She smiled at her daughter’s friend: “Olivia says you’re very talented.”
Emily hesitated. “I used to like art. But I’m not very good.”
“It’s hard to say who’s good and who’s not,” Cece said. “Especially at your age. I would say it’s important not to rule anything out.”
“I can’t concentrate in Mr. Jow’s class.”
The rain was coming harder now. Outside the girls shrieked as they ran up and down the stairs. The plants on her windowsill released a damp, earthy smell, and Cece had a sudden, thirty-year-old memory: a rainy day in a high school classroom, the fluorescent lights, the smell of chalk, the sawed-off wooden rods propping the windows open for air.
“He makes us feel—” Emily was playing with the hem of her uniform skirt, flipping it up and back, revealing a cluster of freckles on her right thigh. Cece saw herself at that age, preoccupied and distracted by her own body.
“Feel how?” she prompted.
Emily looked up, and Cece was surprised to see that her eyes were full of tears.
“Tell me,” Cece said.
“He makes us feel uncomfortable,” Emily whispered.
“Uncomfortable how?”
“The way he looks at us.”
“What do you mean, the way he looks at you?”
Emily didn’t say anything, just stared back at Cece with those doll-like green eyes. Cece was angry, and at the same time aware that she hadn’t questioned the same accusation when it had come from Jasmine. When it had been about a man she didn’t know, she hadn’t hesitated to believe the girl.
Cece thought back to the first time Harry Lin had told her about the dissident, at the Dean’s Commencement Cocktail in the spring. They had been talking about the new Japanese wing of the L.A. County Museum, and she’d been flattered that the professor was interested in her opinion. When he asked whether they might like to host a famous Chinese artist, Cece was enthusiastic, but she told him it depended on Gordon and the children. That was when Harry had suggested that Yuan Zhao might agree to volunteer his time at the school. It had been the professor’s idea, and so Cece hadn’t questioned it. She had assumed that the St. Anselm’s girls would make Yuan Zhao feel useful; she imagined that they might even inspire him.
That idea had a different connotation now. But wouldn’t Cece know, if something like that was going on? Wouldn’t she be able to see it in Mr. Yuan’s attitude toward Olivia? (In fact, in the nearly two months Mr. Yuan had been with them, she couldn’t remember seeing the two of them exchange more than a few words.) Emily’s accusation was exactly the kind of fantasy that an intelligent but sheltered teenager would dream up to amuse herself. Cece thought suddenly of everything that would happen should the girl decide to make this information public.
“Have you told anyone else about this?”
Emily seemed to hesitate a moment; then she shook her head.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“You realize that what you’re saying is very serious. Mr. Yuan would have to leave the school.” It might be a great deal more serious, Cece thought, but she didn’t want to suggest that to Emily. She didn’t think Emily needed any stronger a sense of her own influence.
Emily had crossed her arms over her chest, and was looking hurt. It didn’t matter. Cece was lucky the girl had come to her first. She had an opportunity to fix all of this, before it got out of control. No one else would have to hear about it.
“You would have to be absolutely sure, before you—”
“What ever.” Emily stood up. “I wanted to talk to you before I talked to Ms. Diller. But I guess it was a waste. Forget
it.”
“I’m willing to listen to you,” Cece said, too quickly. “But you’re going to have to be more clear.”
Emily was moving toward the door.
“You can’t say something like that and not explain.”
Emily shrugged and opened the door. The weather had driven the girls inside, and the library was noisier than usual. The sound of girls’ voices blended with the whirr of the copy machine and the fans.
“Let’s handle this together,” Cece begged.
“I have class.”
“Can you come back tomorrow then? When’s your free period?”
Her daughter’s friend picked up a pink leather bag and tossed it over one shoulder. She seemed to have regained total composure.
“If you want to know,” she said, “you should ask June Wang.”
44.
IT WAS TERRIBLE TO BE THE ONLY ONE AWAKE. THE DIGITAL CLOCK FLUTTERED its eyelids: 2:21. Three and a half more hours until she could plausibly get up. By lifting her head just slightly from the pillow, Cece could look out the south-facing window: there was a light in the pool house. Either Phil hadn’t come home yet, or he was awake.
He had been out when they’d gotten home, to Cece’s disappointment. She and Gordon had been at a benefit at the museum, and she was wearing a new black cocktail dress. It was an extravagant dress, and she almost hadn’t bought it, but when she’d put it on the salesgirl seemed genuinely enthusiastic, as opposed to the way they usually acted: forced by economics to help you, but secretly appalled by the brazenness of a middle-aged person who was not a size four attempting to buy clothing in their city.
“That was made for you,” the girl had said.
Cece looked in the mirror, and as once happened all the time, she slipped into Phil’s head. It was as if he were standing right behind her, not touching her but close enough that she could feel his cool presence on the exposed skin of her arms and shoulders. It was Phil looking at the neckline of the dress, a deep V accentuated by silver beads, and her bare legs in the shoes the girl had found for her: slate-gray satin, with a very thin black leather strap around the ankle. The salesgirl had also given her a black bra to try, and when she adjusted the strap, moving the cap sleeve off Cece’s shoulder for just a moment, she felt a tremor, as if Phil had pushed the girl aside and was dressing her himself.
She had bought the dress so that Phil would look at her, but the only person who was around when they left for the benefit was Yuan Zhao.
“That is a very nice dress and pumps,” he had said, before shyly escaping to his room. That was at least an improvement on her husband’s reaction: Cece was pretty sure that there was no dress in all of Los Angeles that would make Gordon notice her. After nearly two decades of marriage, she couldn’t necessarily blame him. When she came downstairs, Gordon had been standing by the door in his suit, with the car keys in his hand.
“Don’t you look festive!” he had remarked.
Now Gordon was grinding his teeth. It was an unnerving sound, like a mouse scratching inside a wall, and it was bad for his teeth and jaws. She patted him on the shoulder, as he had instructed her to do.
“Am I grinding my teeth?” Gordon had the amazing ability to speak perfectly coherently from sleep.
“A little.” Immediately the grinding stopped.
“Thank you,” Gordon said, and the next breath was a whistling sigh.
At 2:47 Cece got up. Her body felt buoyant compared to the exhausted heaviness in her head. She seemed to glide across the rug. All of her clothes were still lying on the narrow loveseat underneath the window; it was no trouble to slip into them again. She picked up her shoes and padded barefoot toward the door. As she crossed the threshold, Gordon began to wheeze, as if her absence had registered and allowed his body to relax. Cece closed the door quietly behind her.
The news had predicted that rain would begin around midnight, but Cece couldn’t hear anything yet. She thought of the bush baby: could Fionnula somehow sense the weather coming, and had she found a dry, protected place? Cece switched on only one of the backyard lights, just enough to see by, and took a ripe avocado from a bowl on the counter. Regretfully, she slipped into her gardening clogs, leaving her heels just inside the door.
As she climbed the steps to the garden, the rain started, just a mist at first, from the direction of the ocean. Cece had a feeling that the bush baby was still in the vicinity. She’d escaped from her cage, but she was hiding somewhere in the rich foliage of the backyard. Cece hadn’t brought a knife, and so she began peeling the avocado with her nails, dropping bits of soft green fruit around the perimeter of the garden. The only sound was a dry rattle in the palms. The wind was picking up.
She heard a noise behind her, and for a moment she thought it was the animal.
“What a coincidence,” Phil said. “I, too, was thinking of coming out here at two-thirty in the morning to eat an avocado in my formal wear. I almost put on my tuxedo, but…”
“It’s for the bush baby,” Cece said.
“That dress?”
“The avocado. The dress was for a benefit.”
“It’s very beneficial,” Phil said. “I feel a hundred times better already. Can I see the back?”
She turned once. He didn’t smile or say anything, or hide the fact that he wasn’t looking at her face. Nothing’s happened, Cece thought, with satisfaction. This is it, and it’s enough.
“Do you know what I think about?” Phil asked.
She wished her hands weren’t full of avocado. She had to be sure to keep them away from her dress.
“That apartment in Mount Washington. Do you remember the curtains?”
Cece didn’t say anything.
“We always used to keep them closed,” Phil said. “Remember? I mean, it’s not like anyone was going to see us. It was always the middle of the day. Why did we do that?”
“I don’t remember the curtains,” Cece said.
Phil was wearing an untucked white shirt and jeans. He hadn’t even tried to go to sleep yet. He’d probably been reading in bed in his clothes, the worst thing an insomniac could do. If they were together, they would only exacerbate each other’s terrible sleep patterns, among many other problems.
“Yeah you do,” Phil said. “They were green—some kind of ugly seventies pattern. They made us sort of green.”
“How flattering,” Cece said.
“It was, though.” In this light, you couldn’t see that his eyes were blue. They looked black. He pushed her hair away from her face and touched her earring. “Pretty,” he said.
It was incredible, and they hadn’t done anything. It was perfect. “Phil.”
He stepped away. “Sorry,” he said lightly. “Here, I have something for you.”
Maybe it was not quite enough, Cece thought. She would give herself just a few more minutes, and then she would go inside.
Phil reached into the pocket of his jeans, and handed her a folded piece of paper.
“We should go in,” she said.
“At least look at it.”
It was a printed flier on high-quality paper, with three photographs and a description: 1375 Coldwater Drive. Modern hacienda w/spectacular park views! Most desirable Coldwater location! 3 BD/2 BA/WBFP/EIK—emotional and breathtaking!
“What’s this for?”
“I met a good broker,” Phil said. “I was just looking around.”
“You have a broker in L.A.?”
Phil shrugged.
“This is a big house for one person.”
“Maybe it wouldn’t be for one person.”
“Because Aubrey would be here.”
Phil stared at her. “That’s not what I meant.”
Cece looked back down at the flier to keep from looking at Phil. “Emotional and breathtaking,” she joked, but it didn’t come out right.
“Like you,” Phil said.
“How about hysterical and breathless,” Cece said. “Do they have anything like that?”
“Neurotic and sleepless?”
“Young and restless?”
“We’re not getting any younger,” Cece said.
“That’s right.”
She’d forgotten how it always happened. She would promise herself that it wouldn’t, in exchange for allowing other, less serious things to happen. But once she was as close to him as she was now, a sort of impulse took over, more powerful than sex. It was a kind of momentum. Just finish, the impulse instructed, as if the only way to get out of danger was to go straight through it.
“Cece,” Phil said. He was holding her now, his arms around her waist. She put her face on his shoulder. All she had to do was look up, and it would begin all over again. She had to decide right now because the moment was threatening to become awkward, and a great deal depended on this moment’s being memorable. It was possible that she would spend the next ten years thinking about it.
She looked up at Phil, and there was a noise in the yard. They stepped clumsily apart: someone was watching in the shadows by the pool.
“Who is it?”
But Phil pushed her roughly away, so that she was concealed by the hedge.
“Shh,” he said. “Hold on.” He took a step forward, so that he was in the light.
“Phil!” she whispered.
“Stay there,” he said, and then jogged down the steps. She stepped closer to the hedge, but the eugenia was still thick enough that you couldn’t see through it. Please God, she asked, let it not be Max. But who else would be in the yard at three in the morning? What if he had gotten up to go to the bathroom, and seen that the alarm was off? What if he’d seized the chance to sneak out and, hearing voices in the yard, had decided to investigate?
She began offering things to God, in whom she did not believe, and who probably knew it. All of her material possessions first, of course. Their house, their savings, and if that were not enough, her marriage. Let it be Gordon, she thought. Let him finally discover it, in a way that’s impossible to ignore, and let him divorce me; only let him not tell the children. The garden was silent. She had the feeling God was listening, unimpressed. If it has to be one of the children, she thought recklessly, let it be Olivia. Her daughter might stop speaking to her, but she would be fine. I will do anything, Cece promised, if only it isn’t Max.
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