A Soft Place to Land: A Novel

by Susan Rebecca White

  Ruthie knew she should be over it by now, that it had been years since the betrayal, but she never forgave Julia for writing about her abortion, for “outing” Ruthie to Gabe. Even though Ruthie and Gabe had worked through it, even though it was important that they did work through it, Ruthie had lost all sense of trust in her sister. Ever since she read the epilogue to Straight. And apparently Julia had lost her warm feelings toward Ruthie, too. Perhaps because Ruthie accused her of having “narcissistic personality disorder” when Julia telephoned to apologize again for referring to Ruthie’s abortion in her memoir. Or perhaps because when Ruthie and Gabe got married, two years after they graduated from Berkeley, they eloped in order not to have to invite Julia. In order not to have to deal with her.

  Once on the porch Ruthie noted that the Christmas wreath was still hanging from their front door. She was pretty sure that if left to Gabe, the wreath would remain until Christmas 2009. She dumped the mail on the front swing, lifted the wreath off the nail it hung from, and walked it to the trash. She should have driven the wreath over to the chipper at Agnes Scott College, where it would be chopped into mulch and used to landscape people’s yards, but she just didn’t have the energy to do the environmentally responsible thing. Besides which, she was pretty sure that she was too late, that the chipper had been put away for the season.

  Instead she dumped the wreath into the Herbie Curbie, first peering inside to make sure that the baby opossum that sometimes nested there was gone. If she and Gabe could find the lid to the Herbie Curbie, the opossum wouldn’t be able to climb inside it, but being who they were, Ruthie knew that the lid would remain missing, in perpetuity. And Gabe being who he was (a fanatical animal lover), Ruthie could not call animal control to take the opossum away.

  “He’s adorable,” Gabe had said the first time they spotted the marsupial.

  “He’s disgusting,” said Ruthie. “Like a white rat. Do not bring him into the house.”

  Ruthie walked back to the porch, scooped the mail off the swing, balanced it in one hand while unlocking the door with the other, and stepped inside. Gabe was in the living room, lying on the couch, their chocolate Lab, named Berger (short for Scharffen Berger), settled on the floor below him.

  “Honey, I’m home!” said Ruthie, an ironic nod to the fifties couple they had not become.

  Berger jumped up to greet her, and Gabe, following the dog’s lead, jumped up, too, running toward her, putting his hands in front of his face as if they were paws, sticking his tongue out and panting like the dog. This was all part of their shtick, a routine they performed often.

  “Down, boy,” she said to her husband, which was also part of the shtick. “Let me just put this stuff down, and I’ll give you a real hello.” Walking into the kitchen, she dumped the mail on the counter.

  “What’s this white crap stuck on here?” she asked, knowing the answer. It was dried-up blobs of Greek yogurt that Gabe had smeared on the counter for Solomon to eat. Gabe had a thing about not eating in front of the animals without sharing.

  “I’ll get it up,” said Gabe, following her into the kitchen and walking to the sink to get a sponge. “How was your day?”

  She told him about the latest missive from Chef A.J., trying not to get too worked up in the telling, for Gabe became upset when she got too riled.

  “Tell him if he keeps messing with you, I’ll kick his ass,” Gabe said pleasantly, dabbing at the counter with the sponge.

  (Gabe used to try to reason Ruthie out of her fits of agitation, which only ended up agitating her further. “What do you want me to do?” he had asked when she barked at him to stop minimizing her feelings. “Tell you that if people don’t stop messing with you I’ll kick their ass?” “Yes,” said Ruthie. “That’s exactly what I want you to do.”)

  He glanced at the mail, noticed the blue envelope with Julia’s slanty script. Picking the envelope up, he studied the Red Hook address in the upper right-hand corner.

  “This is a surprise,” he said. “Are you expecting anything from her?”

  “Nothin’ but trouble,” Ruthie said, as if her feelings about Julia were breezy.

  “Perhaps it’s an essay she plans to publish detailing our dilemma over whether or not to have a baby.”

  Ruthie humphed at his gallows humor but was relieved that at least on this particular day he could joke about Their Big Issue.

  “I think it’s a photo,” she said. “See the DO NOT BEND?”

  She walked to the refrigerator and took out a Sweetwater 420 lager. Ruthie was just a tiny bit concerned that she depended too much on her evening drink (or two, or sometimes—but not very often—three). Indeed, having to cut out alcohol for nine months was just one of the many reasons why she was ambivalent about having a baby.

  She always had thought she wanted to have a child with Gabe, but now that it was time to actually do so, she was deeply resistant.

  “Are you going to open it?” Gabe asked.

  “My beer? Why, yes. Yes, I am.”

  “Ha. The letter—or whatever it is—from Julia.”

  Ruthie twisted the top off her beer and took a long sip. “I will later. I can’t deal with it right now.”

  “Oh, come on, Ruthie. You have to see what she sent.” He picked up the envelope, breaking its seal with his pointer finger.

  “At least let me do it,” she said, grabbing it from him.

  She opened the flap, turned the envelope upside down. Two photos landed on top of the wood counter. The first was of Julia and her. Ruthie couldn’t be older than five in it, which would make Julia eight. They were standing in the dining room of Wymberly Way. (All of these years later and Ruthie still recognized the elaborate moldings on the crème-colored walls, the green marble fireplace with the brass screen in front of it.) Julia, her auburn curls pulled into two pigtails, wore shorts and a yellow-and-pink-striped Izod shirt. She stood behind Ruthie, her hands resting on her little sister’s shoulders. Ruthie, her hair parted on the far side and held back with a green barrette, wore an emerald bathing suit with pale green stripes. Her hands rested, embarrassingly, along the sides of her crotch.

  The second photo was of Ruthie and Naomi. Ruthie was younger in this one, only two or three. She had on a blue-tiered dress with tiny Swiss dots, each tier trimmed with white lace. Naomi was holding her, wearing a yellow silk shirt with an oversized collar, a black sweater-vest on top. Both Ruthie and Naomi had variations of a bowl cut, though Ruthie’s hair was plain and brown while Naomi’s was auburn and vibrant. Ruthie looked so tiny in her mother’s arms, almost as if she were a little doll. On the back of the photo Julia had stuck a Post-it note that read: “Was going through old photos and found these. Thought you might like. Will talk soon. XO, J.”

  “Why do you think she sent me these?” asked Ruthie.

  “Maybe she misses you,” said Gabe.

  “Look at her hands on my shoulders in this one. Like I’m hers.”

  Gabe took the photo out of her hands, studied it. “She looks like she’s being protective of you. Like she’s your bodyguard.”

  “That was Julia. My protector.” She put the photos back in the envelope. Shook her head as if to rid herself of them. “Weird. Anyway. What do you want to do for dinner? Pasta or go out?”

  On days when Ruthie worked at Pasture she was never up for cooking much at home. The same had been true when she was at cooking school at Tante Marie, where she learned everything from butchering large cuts of meat to pressing thin layers of butter into a dough made of flour and water in order to make puff pastry. For most of that year all she ate at night was plain pasta with a little butter and Parmesan cheese.

  “What do you think, Berger? Huh? Should we have pasta or go out?” Gabe pulled on the dog’s ears while he spoke to him. Ruthie knew that Gabe did this in part because he wanted Berger to be desensitized so that if they ever had a child ear and tail pulling wouldn’t rile the dog.

  “Let’s go out,” she said.

  They dec
ided to eat at Mofongo, a Latin American restaurant nearby on North Highland. Mofongo would have been a splurge, but in the last few months Ruthie had become friends with the chef, Armando Sanchez, and he often gave them free food. Indeed, they received free appetizers, drinks, and desserts at many of their favorite restaurants now, because the Atlanta chefs—with the notable exception of her own boss—were supportive of each other. Her friend Billy Allin, whom she had known from Chez Panisse, had opened a great restaurant in Decatur the previous year. It killed her to think that if the timing had been right, she could have worked with him.

  Even though it was January, the night was pleasant. Gabe suggested walking, but Ruthie said no. Just a week ago a man was walking home from a bar in Little Five Points when a car came to a screeching stop beside him. Two young men—boys, really—jumped out, one waving a gun, while the third stayed inside the car, keeping the engine going. The boys took the man’s wallet, made him lie facedown against the pavement, and sped away.

  “Did you not read about it on the Inman Park Yahoo! group?” Ruthie asked.

  “I stopped reading that thing,” said Gabe. “You should, too.”

  “Yeah, ’cause that will make the crime stop.”

  Gabe shrugged. “There’s crime everywhere. Though I swear, there were no armed muggings when I was growing up here. Plenty of people asking for handouts, but no muggings.”

  They drove the Volvo because it had more gas in it than the Camry. Not that it mattered. They were only driving half a mile. It made Ruthie crazy how much they had to drive now that they lived in Atlanta. In San Francisco they had only owned one car—the Camry—and they only used it once or twice a week, to go grocery shopping, or to drive to Ocean Beach.

  Sometimes Ruthie missed San Francisco so much it made her chest ache. As if San Francisco were a person, one in a series of people that she had lost.

  Once at Mofongo they sat at the bar and ordered mojitos. As soon as the bartender plunked her drink down before her, Ruthie found herself wishing that she could just hide away in this welcoming place forever, just suck down sweet rum drinks stuffed with mint and avoid ever facing another Post-it note from her boss or an unexpected mailing from her sister.

  Her drink safely in hand, she turned to Gabe, eager to further discuss their days.

  “How was school?”

  “My students are fucking geniuses. Every single one of them is smarter than me.”

  “You don’t really believe that.”

  Gabe grinned. “You’re right. But they are really, really smart.”

  Gabe taught high school English at White Oaks, his alma mater, so to compliment his students was, in a way, to compliment himself.

  Ruthie sucked down more of her mojito and, knowing that they took a few minutes to prepare, signaled to the bartender that she would like another.

  “And why don’t we get some of those bacon-wrapped dates, and those little Cuban sandwiches, and maybe a salad, the frisée with the poached egg and the jamón. . . .” She looked at Gabe. “Do you want to try the pineapple chicken wings?”

  “Sure, whatever you want.”

  “And the pineapple chicken wings.”

  “Can I get you another drink?” the bartender asked Gabe, but Gabe shook his head. He didn’t drink nearly as much as Ruthie did.

  “Do you ever feel as if you’ve regressed by going back to White Oaks?” she asked, knowing that the question was a little mean but not being able to help herself. The day had left her in a punchy mood.

  Gabe looked down at his T-shirt, which he got at an REM concert Schwartzy took him to in 1992. “I’m a regressive sort of a guy,” he said. “When I find something good, I stick with it.”

  He looked at her and smiled.

  She kissed him on the cheek, to acknowledge that he was referring to her as well as to White Oaks and REM.

  “So Ruthie, anything interesting happen at the restaurant today besides A.J.’s usual passive-aggressive Post-it?” she asked.

  “So, Ruthie, anything interesting happen at the restaurant today?” he asked.

  “The big news is, last night Big Steve kicked out a couple who were a no-show two weeks before. He recognized their name from the reservation list, and he told them they weren’t welcome.”

  Gabe grinned. “You’re kidding me. First of all, couldn’t they have had the same name as the no-show but been different people?”

  The bartender placed Ruthie’s new drink before her. She took a generous sip. God, if it weren’t for the hangover, she’d drink mojitos every night.

  “The guy’s name was Luther Giovinazo, which is pretty unusual, so it probably was the same person as the no-show, but that’s not really the point. The point is: why in God’s name is Steve turning away people when our reservations are down thirty percent? And you can bet A.J. didn’t say a damn thing about it, either. He’s convinced that Big Steve is this major asset to Pasture, even though he’s totally abusive to customers. He keeps giving him more and more power while I keep getting these maddening Post-it notes blaming me for slow nights.”

  Ruthie sucked down more of her drink. A server arrived with the bacon-wrapped dates and Cuban sandwiches. Ruthie grabbed one of the dates, popped it in her mouth. There was a salty little bite of manchego cheese stuffed in its center.

  “He’s an ass,” said Gabe, biting into a sandwich. “Do you remember how I had to stuff my leftover pork terrine into my cloth napkin because Big Steve wouldn’t stop bullying me into eating all of it?”

  “He does that to everyone. It’s his little song and dance. He says that the pork terrine is a labor of love and to not eat it all is an act of aggression equaling war. And A.J. has such a fat fucking ego he lets him get away with it! Honestly, it’s Big Steve who is driving the customers away more than the shitty economy.”

  Ruthie realized she was getting too worked up. Her heart was beating fast and she was tearing her cocktail napkin into little bits.

  “Why don’t you just quit?” said Gabe.

  “And do what?”

  Gabe pretended to rock a baby in his arms.

  “Nice,” said Ruthie, genuinely annoyed. “So glad you brought that up. Just the discussion I need to have at the end of a shitty day.”

  She ate another date, trying to remain calm. She smiled at the server who dropped off their frisée salad and chicken wings. She took another sip of her drink. She didn’t want to get in a fight with Gabe, didn’t want to risk that this would be one of their big ones, after which they would be prickly and short with each other for days. But why would Gabe bring up their unresolved baby dilemma in the middle of her venting work frustrations? And on the same day that Julia made contact for the first time in nearly a year, since she had e-mailed to share news of her move to Red Hook and the fact that her novel was being remaindered?

  “I just think we should go for it. You’re about to turn twenty-nine. You’ve been to culinary school, you’ve worked at Chez Panisse and Quince, and now you can add Pasture to your résumé. You’re established, babe. After you have the kid and go on maternity leave, you can write your own ticket. Start your own café, be a caterer, write cookbooks, whatever.”

  “And how would we pay for this kid during the time I quit my job?”

  “You’ve got your trust fund.”

  “Yeah, and that’s great, but twenty thousand dollars a year doesn’t exactly make me Paris Hilton,” she said.

  Gabe ran his hands through his hair, excited by his plans. If he sensed her irritation, it didn’t show.

  “The point is there’s a cushion. We’d figure it out. And since you’re dissatisfied with your job and Big Steve isn’t going anywhere, why not take this opportunity to, you know, start a family? Besides which, I heard Paris Hilton isn’t worth all that much.”

  He smiled, teasing, but Ruthie was in no mood to riff on his joke.

  “Really? This is the pep talk you want to be giving me? On this day of all days?”

  She picked up a chicken w
ing, tore into the meat.

  Gabe put his hand on her thigh, and when she looked down at it, looked down at his raggedy nails and the silver wedding band that matched her own, she realized that she was still wearing her chocolate-stained pants from work.

  “Ruthie, I really, really want to have a baby.”

  Dara had a child last year, and when Ruthie went to San Francisco to visit Mimi and Robert a few months ago Dara drove over from Berkeley with little Theo. She brought so much baby paraphernalia with her that it took up the entire trunk of her car. As Dara unfolded the stroller so they could walk Theo to La Med on Noe, Ruthie found herself thinking, Thank God I don’t have to lug one of those around all of the time. After Ruthie returned to Atlanta she tried to express her feelings about Dara’s transition into being a mommy to Gabe. She told him of the heaviness she felt in her own heart watching Dara unfold that baby stroller.

  He pooh-poohed her. “We’ll get a BabyBjörn then,” he said. “Hands free.”

  Gabe was rubbing her leg with his hand, using too much pressure.

  “Ruthie, I really need for us to take this step.”

  It was at that moment that Chef Armando, rotund, bald, and effusive, came bounding out of the kitchen to say hello. He and Ruthie kissed on both cheeks and he asked how she liked the wings, which were new on the menu.

  “They’re amazing,” she said. “So sweet and meaty. I could eat another dozen of them, easily.”

  She had turned as far as possible away from Gabe and was directing all of her energy onto Armando.