by Anne Lamott
Al watched, fidgeting, trying to wash something painful off his hands. “I don’t think either of us should go into town. This was a bad omen. I have a bad feeling about the whole thing.”
Mattie watched the waves. “What’s your bad feeling, Al?”
“My bad feeling is, maybe Daddy was involved with Abby somehow.” He pulled at his nose like an old man. “I saw them on the beach here once. My friends and I had come out to drop acid, and sleep on the beach during a minus tide. We were hiking through the dune grass, and I saw Daddy sitting on a blanket with Abby.”
“Are you sure it was them? Why haven’t you ever told me?”
“Because it was so fucking weird. And I’m positive it was Abby and Daddy. Her hair was so distinctive.”
“How old do you think she was?”
“Fourteen or fifteen.”
“You should have told me that earlier, big brother.”
“They were passing a bottle of wine back and forth.”
“Did they kiss or anything? Or see you?”
Al shook his head. “They were sitting there. Drinking straight from a bottle. Daddy and a fourteen-year-old girl. I mean, what is wrong with this picture?”
• • •
Isa and the children were screaming for Mattie and Al to walk faster. They had constructed a house made mostly of stones, balanced one on top of another, a big flat rock on the boulder, a smaller one on top of that, nestly and balanced, lumpy and delicate all at once, solid and also full of motion, surrounded by a fence of twigs stuck in sand.
“That is so amazing,” said Mattie, noticing how solid it looked. One little bump, though, and it would all tumble over.
She volunteered to drive into town to pick up lunch at the superette. The man at the butcher counter squinted at her.
“Mattie Ryder?” She looked more closely at the handsome man with the resonant voice.
“Yes,” she said. “Do I know you?”
“Eighth grade, Del Mar School. William Allen.”
“No way.” But she could see that this was in fact Billy Allen, former classmate, a hoodlum in the Summer of Love. He’d been so short, the smallest boy in the class. But now he stood about six feet, and he was rumpled, nice-looking, with thick brown hair and glasses. She managed a half-smile and shook her head. Interest fluttered through her. Was this him?
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“My old man owns this store, remember? That’s him over there,” and he jutted his chin toward the older man behind the register. “I saw you once, years ago. But I was too shy to say hello.”
“Too shy to talk to me?” Mattie asked.
“You were with your husband and your boy.”
“I have two kids now. And I’m divorced.”
“So am I. Well, what kind of sandwiches do you want?” William was all business now, waving his hand over the lunch meats and cheese.
He had nice grayish eyes behind the glasses, and he watched her even as he spread mayonnaise and mustard on ten slices of bread.
“Let me ask you something,” she said, partly just to keep a conversation going. “I grew up with Abby Grann. Her dad and mine were best friends. I was sort of hoping to run into her one of these days. I have something of her dad’s I thought she might like to have.”
William smiled. “Abby Grann. She lived out here until a few years ago. My dad always had a soft spot for her. She knew to come here when she was hard up. Hey, Pop.” The older man did not look up from his newspaper. “Dad. Get your old carcass over here.” He folded his paper and came over. “What ever happened to Abby Grann?”
“Who’s asking?” He extended his hand.
Mattie shook it. “Mattie Ryder. William and I were in school together. I grew up with Abby. I’ve got something of hers to return.”
“Well, in that case—Actually, I have no idea. But Noah still lives in the same old house, out past Marshall.”
“Who’s Noah?” Mattie asked.
“Her kid. He’s the librarian here.”
“How could she have a kid who’s old enough to be a librarian?”
“She had him when she was young, in her teens.”
Mattie’s heart was pounding so hard she stopped flirting with William. “When is the library open?”
“Now, if you hurry. On Saturdays, ten till one.”
She sat in the car trying to decide what to do. The children had to be really hungry by now. She started the car and drove too fast through town, past the old depot for the North Pacific train, a curio shop, a diner, a boatyard, more cabins, a pasture full of cows, and then she saw the old library, squat, white, falling into disrepair, paint flaking, but with a new sign out front. Mattie looked at her watch. It was nearly one. The small parking lot was empty except for a white truck. She pulled into a space next to it, turned off the engine, and sat still. She rubbed the blue shoe in her pocket and looked out at the foggy day. You couldn’t see much beyond the library; fog let you see only what it wanted you to see. After a while, the door of the building swung open, and a young man stepped out. He was a dead ringer for Neil Grann: tall, with thick chestnut-brown hair, glasses, and a broad, flat nose. In his hands was a book, which he read as he walked, held open on his palms like a hymnal.
six
William called the next night. Al was over, helping Mattie put the kids to bed, so she wrote down his number and promised to call later. After Al left, the house was quiet enough to call back, but before she did, she stretched out on the couch and held the cordless phone in her clasped hand. She closed her eyes to pray. Look, she said. I think You’re aware that dating is not one of my strong suits. So please: save me from the disaster of my own thinking.
She and William talked for half an hour. He was quite gregarious. Okay, she thought after she hung up, maybe he’s not funny, like I was hoping, but he laughs when I’m funny. We can give him a partial credit there. Who’d have thought that little Billy Allen, in those pegged black jeans, who smoked at eleven and barely passed eighth grade, would grow to be a man so fluent in culture, in music and books, in politics.
They went out two nights later. They arranged to meet at her favorite restaurant. Things were made bittersweet by the fact that for the first time Isa wouldn’t be able to baby-sit. No matter how well Isa appeared some days, Mattie felt that she could not be left alone with the children, not at Mattie’s home, not at her own. Al and Katherine were staying with the kids.
William looked wonderful in the soft light of the Royal Thai. They shook hands and she looked at her feet. She wore her hair up, and as much makeup as she could without appearing to be wearing any. They ordered beers, and in the course of the meal two more each; she used hers to wash down the spicy Chilean sea bass. William was easy to talk to, was recently divorced, had never had children, was doing well financially. He gave her a quick teenage kiss on the lips when they said good-bye on the street.
In bed that night, she had a talk with herself. Let’s go slow, let’s keep this in the soda-shop stage for a while.
He called the next morning. “Can we have coffee today?”
“Sure,” she said. Then she lied and said that she had been headed to Samuel P. Taylor Park—there was a redwood tree she liked to sit inside. Maybe they could meet for coffee there. Even as she spoke the words, she knew it was too intimate a setting for a second date. Oh well, she shrugged cheerfully.
She wore her clean hair loose, fanned out between her shoulders, over a long-sleeved black T-shirt with a scooped neckline. She had stuffed the blue shoe in her jeans pocket.
April was fragrant and full of whirling blossoms, and the clouds, though dark, were shot through with light, constantly moving and rearranging themselves—God the great scribble artist in the sky.
William brought lattes from the market in Lagunitas, and she led the way to the great family-circle redwood. Sunlight wafted in through a long oval slit in the wood, and the dust motes and tiny insects sparkled. She and William sat near each
other with their backs against the tree, not touching, drinking their coffee. They were shyer here than they’d been at the restaurant. Mattie nervously touched the hollows and crevices of the tree like a blind person. William asked such good questions: What were the kids like? Ella was quiet and mellow and sweet, Harry took things more seriously. Who was Mattie’s best friend? Well, she had two: Angela, who’d moved away, and Daniel, with whom she worked sometimes. How did she get along with her ex-husband? Oh, she said, pretty well.
She felt that she was hiding—but also that she’d been found. Spider webs hung from the bark like lace. He asked how her mother was doing, and she was afraid to say that her mother was spiraling downward, so she lied. “Slowing down a little. A little forgetful.” “What about your father?” she asked. “Ned’s great,” William said. “He’s still got all his wits about him. Working too hard, though.” When sunlight hit the charred parts of the tree, they turned green, like the feathers of a grackle, iridescent. She and William kissed for a bit longer this time when they parted.
They slept together the next Friday at Mattie’s house. The children had gone to Nicky’s, and William arrived for dinner—roast chicken and asparagus, with wine, and then cupcakes that Harry had helped her make that afternoon while Ella slept. They ate and drank, resisting the pull as long as they could before tearing to the bedroom to throw off their clothes. He put his glasses on the bedside table, and took off his watch while she took off hers.
They lay facing each other, shyly at first. But he was a wonderful kisser, and they slowly began to investigate each other in the dark. He sculpted her body with his large warm hands and she opened her legs. He felt her delicately, as if he had lost something small and fragile that he wanted to find but didn’t want to break when he did. The tension, the coiling inside her, was exquisite.
Afterward they lay entangled, and she put her face against his soft, furry chest. They talked quietly in the dark for a long time, drifted off, woke to make love again. It was all so lovely, but when she gave his head a gentle nudge when he began to kiss her belly button, he seemed to resist, and when he finally went down, it was just for a moment.
In the morning, when they made love again, he did not go down on her at all.
“It was wonderful, delicious,” she told Angela after he had left. “I really like this guy. Everything about him is terrific but—well. He’s not heavily into giving head. Nicky loved it. Maybe I’m just spoiled.”
“No you’re not. You like what you like. And I tell you, it would be a real deal-breaker for me.”
• • •
Mattie wondered: If you do the right thing for all the wrong reasons, does it count? If you stop sinning because something better has come along, does this reflect well on you in God’s favor? If you finally stop sleeping with your ex-husband, who has a baby with his new ten-year-old wife, because someone cool and available has come along, do you get a partial credit?
She started talking to William on the phone twice a day, making a plan for the following weekend. Two days after they first slept together, he called from San Rafael to say that he was passing through on his way back home and wondered if he could stop by and say hello, and she said, “Yeah, why don’t you stay for dinner?” and he said, “No, I just want to come by and flirt with you for a while.”
He came by and they had a glass of red wine in the garden. Ella clung to Mattie like a drowning cat all through William’s visit. But Harry seemed intrigued, asking William to play catch, and then signaled his approval by giving him a tour of his room. William stayed for dinner. He was so easy to be with, and looked at Mattie often with appreciation. She felt pretty again. It had been a while. The kids would not go to sleep. Mattie tucked them in at nine but they needed water, they needed to pee, and to talk, and by the time she got them to sleep, William had to leave because he was getting up at dawn to go fishing. She hated saying good-bye. She got out Nicky’s movies.
It was hard to break the news to Daniel that she’d begun sleeping with William. She felt as if she were being unfaithful to him. Finally one day when he was over she managed to blurt it out. Daniel was putting up a white lattice wall between her house and the neighbor’s. She was going to grow purple potato vines on it, partly as a privacy screen, partly for the beauty of a lavender curtain instead of ugly brown siding. Birds sang sweet liquid notes. From the far end of the yard she could hear Harry at Stefan’s. They were building something in the backyard with two other neighborhood boys, Evan and Chris. Ella was at the park with a chattery new girlfriend from preschool named Pearl.
“So you know William, the guy I ran into at the Cove that day, when I saw Abby’s son?” Mattie said haltingly. Daniel nodded. “He called, and we’ve gone out a couple of times, for coffee. I kind of like him.”
Daniel, shoveling concrete into a posthole, grunted noncommittally. “Really.” His face showed only the vaguest interest.
She glanced idly around. Tree swallows, blue-black on top and white underneath, flew in and out of an abandoned woodpecker’s hole in the cypress. She looked back at Daniel. His eyes were triangles, like a concerned clown’s.
“What’s the matter?”
He shrugged. “Have you slept with him yet?”
“Yeah.”
Daniel plunged a dagger into his chest. “Oh, God,” he exclaimed. Then he laughed at himself. “It’s so scary that you like someone,” he admitted. “We haven’t had to share you—me, Al, and your kids.”
Daniel let go of the post. It held. He pushed on it lightly and it didn’t move. He threw his hands up. “So, fine! Go off with this corduroy guy.” They sat on the ground to watch the swallows. He made the face of a furious child.
• • •
Her children were growing up fast. Ella would be dating soon. In the meantime, she made quiet art: people of clay; villages in the dirt outside, with twigs and pebbles for walls and bits of broken glass for tiled walkways; a small bone turned into a vase, upright in the dirt and holding a daisy.
Harry played loud inside; he got out his army men and drafted them into terrible battles. Sometimes all the soldiers were killed at once, pitched against the wall, kicked to every corner of his room. When he grew bored, he brought in bowls, which he set up at one end of his room and flipped playing cards into from the other end. His room was a disaster, army men and cards everywhere. He roughhoused with the cats and made them cry, squishing them like whoopee cushions, and Mattie yelled at him, afraid for everyone, the cats, Harry, herself.
And yet, one afternoon while she napped on the couch with Ella and the cats, she heard Harry come into the room and walk over to the couch, and felt him pull the covers up and tuck them in around her.
• • •
Mattie noticed how many secrets she kept from William, so that he wouldn’t see her as someone with a lot of problems. She wanted him to see her as someone with just a few pieces of colorful carry-on luggage, instead of multiple body bags requiring special cargo fees and handling. What if he found out she’d been sleeping with Nicky until he’d come along? What if he found out about her father, drinking with Abby on the beach? What if he found out that her mother’s mind was dissolving, and that she could no longer take care of herself?
“This is home for me, Angela,” Mattie said on the phone. “I’ve held my breath my whole life, waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
There was a silence. “God only has one shoe,” Angela told her.
• • •
She missed Angela terribly, and called every other day. And she bitterly missed Marjorie. She’d always felt safer with a dog, as if an armed intruder would back away upon seeing a panicky Cavalier King Charles spaniel. She heard noises in the night, in the garage, and when she poked her head into the garage, she imagined bony hands grasping her wrist. But when William called late each night, it quieted her. She was able to fall asleep more easily after their conversations. Angela offered the relationship her blessing over the phone, although Mattie believed t
hat her approval was based almost entirely on William’s not being Nicky. When she accused her of this, Angela said, “Yeah, well, but that’s a lot.”
• • •
It was one of those long golden May evenings warm enough to sit outside for a few glasses of wine, the light lasting longer now. The night did not close in on you. A soft breeze wafted through the garden, and they sipped a good California red, courtesy of William’s father, and got a bit drunk. Mattie nearly told William about Isa, and Abby, and Noah, her tongue was so loose. But the night seemed too lovely for that kind of talk. She reminded herself not to sabotage the moment. She could see movement in the air all around her, could see that the wind had breath in it, a ripple, a warm exhalation. This month brought the sense of a light scarf being blown about, on the muscle of the wind. The scarf was long and loose and floating, and the light shone through it and it had its own color, and if you wrapped it and draped it just right around your neck, it could keep you warm.
• • •
They lay on top of the sheets in their underpants and T-shirts, kissing. Mattie felt his warm, sweet pony’s breath on her and smelled his clean body. She felt like a teenager in love, radiating shyness and lust, and told herself not to expect too much, that expectations were premeditated resentments. But after ten minutes of the most wonderful kissing, he started licking her neck, and her breasts, and then her belly button, and she opened her legs for him to go on with his grazing. He moved slowly downward for a nice kiss, and she tried to hold his head down like a person in the movies who is drowning someone, but then he moved up and in a few moments slid inside her.
After they made love, she made grilled cheese sandwiches with sliced tomatoes. They drank wine and ate their sandwiches in bed. It was all fine, she insisted to herself. Sleeping together was heaven—to spoon, and sleep, and watch him sleep.
It felt so natural, so quickly, to put on her robe while he put on his boxers and T-shirt, and go to the kitchen together. One morning when she made coffee, she noticed that there were six messages on the answering machine. She hit the Play button.