Songs Without Words

by Ann Packer

  Brody stepped away from the crowd and watched as Russ moved to a group from sales. He answered.

  “Is it crazy there?” Liz said.

  “Not particularly. We’re having our Friday kegger. How’re things there?”

  “Fine, but we have a wrinkle for North Beach tonight. Joe’s game got moved to eight a.m. tomorrow. I’m thinking we should put it off.”

  “Eight a.m.?”

  “I know.”

  Actually, Brody enjoyed early morning soccer games; that wasn’t the issue. He said, “Joe doesn’t want to go?”

  “Well, he didn’t say so. But you know we wouldn’t get home till eleven or so. He’s got to be at warm-ups at seven.”

  “True.”

  “So don’t you think?”

  Brody considered. Of course it would be best for Joe to get a good night’s sleep, but he and Liz had a history of differing on whether or not best mattered all that much. In the grand scheme of things, how important was it for a thirteen-year-old boy to play a soccer game under optimal conditions? When Brody was a kid playing Little League, his parents had barely known when he had a game, let alone made sure he got enough sleep the night before. This was tricky ground, though, because he didn’t want to seem like—he wasn’t—an uncaring father.

  “Yeah, you’re right,” he said. “We’ll do it another time.”

  “You sure?”

  “Definitely.”

  He put his phone away and looked at the crowd. Just opposite him, a trio of engineers peered down at someone’s Palm. They looked as if they’d slept in their clothes, which in fact they might have: there was a big deadline next week, and the feeling of barely controlled frenzy on the third floor was getting stronger with each passing day. It was all Red Bull up there now, and the sharp smells of garlic and sweat. These three guys would each drink a Diet Coke and then go back upstairs, probably be here all weekend. Brody knew that drill inside out: working seventy or eighty hours a week without giving it a second thought because that was what you did if you wanted to go places. Then one day you woke up and went: Oh. This is my life I’m living at this desk.

  The morning air was bright, the grass sopping. Brody helped Joe’s coaches drag the goals into place and then watched the boys warm up: stretches, drills, a couple good laps around the field. They were at a park high in the hills, with a clear view west of the coastal range: the rise and rise of its thickly forested flanks. Somehow, you could tell the ocean was right on the other side—maybe because the sky at the top of the mountain was so brilliant. If Liz were along they’d have walked the park’s trails until the game began, but these days she tended to skip the early games—so she’d be home when Lauren got up.

  There was this thing Brody did sometimes, thinking about Joe: he ran the movie of Joe’s life, but sped up. It went slippery infant, chubby baby, toddler, truck lover, math guy, smart aleck, athlete. It was Joe-through-the-ages. Like those old Wonder Bread ads from his own childhood: helps build strong bodies twelve ways. And you’d see a flash series of one kid through the years, wearing the same clothes but getting bigger and bigger.

  Right now, Joe was all athlete. The game about to begin, Brody watched him jog in place, touch his toes, jog again. Ready, he seemed to be saying. Ready now.

  The whistle blew, and Joe leaped into play, running wide and receiving a pass from Trent, then dribbling up the side with the opposition giving chase. Joe had moves—he could dodge and feint—and he was fast on his feet, but near the goal something sometimes took over, a hesitation, a lack of focus, and Brody realized he was holding his breath and let it go in a rush.

  He headed toward a couple of the other fathers. “Beautiful morning,” he said.

  “Beautiful,” one guy agreed. His son was in the goal, and he seemed to bear some of the tension in his own body: he appeared coiled, ready to spring.

  “Got to love these eight a.m. games,” said another. He jiggled the keys in his pocket. “This is my twentieth year doing this,” he added, almost to himself.

  Brody had clocked far less than that, but he was pretty sure he was going on a decade. When had Joe started, kindergarten? Back then Brody had never imagined Joe would continue to play year after year, that soccer itself, the blunt, running, back and forth of the game, would so engage him. In the early years it had been as much about the snack as the game—more, probably. He vividly remembered walking across a muddy field—maybe half the size of this one—carrying a huge pink bakery box while Joe charged ahead and called to the other boys, “We brought doughnuts! You can have glazed, cinnamon, or chocolate with sprinkles, but if you have chocolate with sprinkles you have to finish before you get in your car!” Then, when the game was over, the boys crowded around the box and grabbed. Jostling, sweaty, muddy—like pigs in a litter. Brody felt a great kinship with them, intermingled with a kind of finicky adult remonstrance.

  After a while it was halftime. Joe stood with his teammates chugging water, his face red as a steak. Brody gave him a thumbs-up, and he smiled and gave Brody a little wave. He was a good boy, a good son. All the previous Joes lived directly under his skin. It was different with Lauren—or maybe Brody was different. He didn’t do the movie thing with her. What he returned to again and again was a certain time in her very young life, when Joe was a newborn, always on Liz’s breast, and he and Lauren were their own pair. It was the era when she liked to clomp around the house in his shoes. He read Dr. Seuss to her and cut up cheese and apples for her to eat. She had a special rubber whale, and she squealed with laughter when he made it swim around at bathtime. He loved to make her laugh, he loved to think that she was thinking. But at night, sitting by her crib for a few minutes once the light was off, he’d watch her little body move around, her rump go into the air, thumb into her mouth, and he’d be nearly breathless with the thought that she was still just a baby. He was afraid he asked too much of her. The urge to protect her was enormous.

  In the last seconds of play, Joe scored the game’s winning goal off a pass from his friend Conor, and all the boys pounded one another with excitement. Crowded together afterward, mud spattered and happy, they did their two-four-six-eight for the other team in a near frenzy of exuberance.

  Brody waited for Joe to pack up, and they walked to the parking lot. “Did you see Conor?” Joe exclaimed. “He set that up so perfectly.”

  “Wouldn’t’ve gone anywhere if you hadn’t been ready.”

  Joe grinned, and Brody squeezed the back of his neck, let his hand rest on Joe’s shoulder as they continued to the car.

  At home, Liz was at the kitchen table with coffee and the newspaper, her dark hair glinting red and blond in the sunlight coming through the window. She looked over her shoulder, then stood and smiled at Joe. “So?”

  “We won, four to three.”

  “And guess who scored the winning goal,” Brody said.

  “Way to go!” Liz held out her palm for Joe to slap. “I’m sorry I missed it.”

  Joe sank onto a chair and peeled off his socks, then unstrapped his shin guards with a groan. His feet were pocked with terry marks, the fine new hairs on his toes sticking to the skin.

  Brody looked at the clock: almost ten. “She’s not up yet?”

  “Not yet.” Liz bent over Joe and kissed the top of his head. “Teenagers need their sleep,” she murmured into his hair. “In fact, I have a feeling a certain person might crash this afternoon.”

  “Mom,” Joe said, but he was smiling.

  Once he’d headed upstairs to shower, Brody sat at the table, and all at once the morning caught up with him. There was a dull ache in his right shoulder—his tennis shoulder—and even his legs felt heavy. “Actually I’m beat, too,” he said, and Liz gave him a sympathetic smile.

  “Nothing like getting up at six-thirty on a Saturday.”

  He smiled back at her, but for a strange moment he felt close to tears: something to do with how tired he was, or perhaps with her kindness. She even looked kind: it was in her mouth, i
n the unassuming gray of her eyes. The first time he ever saw her, this knockout girl with long legs and great hair and a fantastic smile, standing across a crowded bar in the Marina, what he really thought was: She looks nice.

  He rotated one ankle, then the other. He could do with a shower himself, or a long nap. A long nap with her: the house empty, the two of them lying together. He saw her on top of him, her breasts filling his hands, her face as light as the moon.

  “What?” she said. “You OK?”

  “Sure. Nothing a cup of coffee won’t fix.”

  They both looked at the coffeemaker: empty. “I’ll make a new pot,” she said, but he shook his head.

  “Actually, don’t bother. I’m better off without it. Any plans for today?”

  “Just Sarabeth coming for dinner.”

  “Oh, right.” He’d forgotten about Sarabeth—kind of like forgetting about a dentist appointment. Liz was watching him, and he stretched his arms out in front of him, pulled the paper closer for a glimpse of the headlines. He said, “Hey, maybe I’ll sand that bench today.”

  It had been weeks that he’d been promising, and a smile lit her face. “Really?”

  “Yeah. It’s Saturday, and I’m a man with a power tool. What could be better?”

  Upstairs, Lauren heard Joe’s shower go on, and she looked at her clock: 10:17. She’d been awake since eight something, but she was still in bed, or actually in bed again, having gotten up to discover that the only clean jeans she had were a pair she hated. They made her ass look fat, which meant an ugly day. Back under the covers, she’d pulled her nightgown over her nose and sniffed, and though she couldn’t smell anything she was sure she stank, because her pits were slick with sweat. It was such a joke that Jeff Shannon would ever look twice at her. He might look twice to bark. She hated how easily she cried—she was doing it again. Tears all over her face. Snot streaming from her nose. She cried without even crying. These days she did. Just quietly, all this stuff sliding out of her.

  She sat up and then had to wait for the dizziness to stop before she could stand. Her room had the awful darkness of closed curtains in daytime. She went over and pulled one curtain to the side. It was sunny out, the sky so clear and blue it hurt her eyes. She’d prefer rain or at least clouds. She thought of how her dad used to take her and Joe bike riding: on Saturdays like this, if he didn’t have to work, they’d go on these megarides by the reservoir. When Joe was moving along OK, Lauren and her dad would race to the moon. That was what he said: “Let’s race to the moon.” He always let her win. She knew but didn’t know. He’d be panting, he’d be all, “I almost had you.” Pretending to wipe sweat from his forehead. And she believed him. It wasn’t even like she had to choose to believe him; it just happened. So how did she know now that he’d been faking?

  She hardly saw her dad these days. Well, that wasn’t really true, she saw him all the time, and for some reason this made her feel worse. Now her shoulders shook a little. Now she was really crying. She got up onto her desk and stared out the window. From the second floor it would be so easy to fall. She meant jump but pretend she’d fallen. She hated these thoughts. She hadn’t been thinking about anything before, but now she was thinking horrible stuff. She was crying and crying. She realized that she was pounding her fists against her thighs. If only there were somewhere to go, she needed somewhere to go. She slid off the desk and crumpled to her knees, then lowered her head to the rug. She was crying and crying, as quietly as she could but so hard she felt sick. Her parents were downstairs, Joe was in the bathroom. She couldn’t go anywhere.

  The picture came to her then, the picture of herself under a heavy blanket, this stiff, hairy blanket like something from the army. It stretched over her, taut like Saran Wrap on a dish in the fridge. Her body was a lump underneath it. She sat up quickly, and bright lights swarmed around her. She crawled toward her closet. She crawled inside, slid the door closed, and sat against the wall, in the space she’d cleared among her shoes. Her stupid blue dress from last year brushed her shoulder. Life was endless, endless.

  4

  We’ll have an early dinner, Liz had told Sarabeth, very casual, don’t bring anything, but Sarabeth couldn’t not bring anything, so on her way out of town she’d stopped at the Cheese Board for half a dozen cheese rolls. Slowing as she approached the toll plaza on the San Mateo Bridge, she reached onto the passenger seat for the bag and tore off a little bit of one of the rolls—the same one she’d already molested, she fervently hoped. She put it in her mouth and savored the delicious tang, the way it was both soft and crunchy at the same time. These cheese rolls were such a reliable pleasure. She handed her money to the toll taker and floored it out of the gate: water on both sides, the city far to the right in deep shadow, the sun going down behind the mountains.

  Joe answered the door, looking about two years older than when she’d last seen him, in August. He was beautiful: Brody’s blue eyes, Liz’s cheekbones and gorgeous brown hair, her dad’s handsome, squared-off chin.

  “Hi, there,” she said, and he gave her a cute little wave as he stepped back to let her in. “How’s life? Are the girls leaving you any time for yourself?”

  “It’s OK,” he said. “You know, school and stuff.”

  “You playing soccer this year?”

  He hesitated. “Yeah.”

  “Oh, duh,” she said. “Of course you are.”

  Liz came in from the kitchen, smiling widely and wiping her hands on her jeans and then pulling Sarabeth close. She smelled of the moisturizer she’d been using since high school; she smelled of Liz.

  She took a step back and looked Sarabeth over. “As usual,” she said, plucking at Sarabeth’s scarf. “Where do you find these things? I feel so matronly around you.”

  The scarf was a larky thing Sarabeth had bought at a boutique on College—sheer and stretchy, and imprinted with images and text that looked as if they came from a tabloid newspaper. “California Teen Dating Einstein’s Brain” screamed one headline. She’d worn it for Lauren, really. She’d thought Lauren would get a kick out of it.

  “Please,” she said to Liz. “You’re about as matronly as Michelle Pfeiffer.” In fact, Liz was a little matronly—or if not matronly at least square. Tonight, she was wearing a powder-blue sweater set that could have come from Ann Taylor, even Talbots. “You look great.”

  Joe was heading away from them, and Liz called, “Did you say hi to Sarabeth?”

  “No, Mom,” he said, turning back. “I opened the door and just stood there like an idiot.”

  “Yeah, Mom,” Sarabeth said.

  “Sorry, sweetie,” Liz called, and they both watched as he made the stairs and took them in a few leaps.

  “He is too cute,” Sarabeth said.

  “Isn’t he? It actually kills me; I’m afraid he knows it.”

  “Joe? I don’t think of him as conceited.”

  “No, I’m afraid he knows it and feels he has to be. Like it’s his job. Come on,” Liz said, and as they headed for the kitchen Sarabeth marveled—not for the first time—at the subtlety of the things Liz worried about.

  Brody was standing at the counter opening wine, dressed in khakis and a navy-blue crew-neck sweater. Even now, after all these years, Sarabeth was still sometimes taken aback by his—“dullness” wasn’t the word, he wasn’t dull—his plainness, though not in the physical sense but rather in his being just a guy, a clean-shaven guy who wore khakis and played a lot of tennis. What did it mean that he was the husband Liz had chosen?

  He and Sarabeth greeted each other, and the three of them chatted while Liz set out cheese and crackers. The kitchen smelled of beef cooking in wine, and there were expensive ceramics displayed on shelves, and pots of herbs growing on a ledge in a south-facing window. Sarabeth had to settle in each time, take in the Sunset magazine perfection of it all, recognize her own scorn, her own envy—and then take all of that and throw it off so she could see Liz; see Liz and herself.

  “So how’s business
these days?” Brody asked her.

  “Oh, thriving.”

  “You got that Web site up and running yet?”

  Sarabeth looked at Liz, and Liz tilted her head sideways and mock-glared at Brody. “He’s kidding,” she said to Sarabeth. “Aren’t you, honey?”

  Sarabeth didn’t care. One of these days she’d enter the twenty-first century, and when she did she’d ask him for help, or ask Liz’s older brother….

  “Oh, my God,” she said, suddenly remembering. “Did I tell you? I somehow got on John’s mass e-mail list, and he’s forwarding me dirty jokes practically every day!”

  “No!” Liz said. “He’ll be so embarrassed.”

  “Don’t tell him.”

  “Of course I’ll tell him.”

  “I want to be on that list,” Brody said. “No fair.”

  Liz flapped her hand at him, then turned back and told Sarabeth that John had called that very morning to report that his oldest had gotten engaged—the first Castleberry grandchild to tie the knot.

  “God,” Sarabeth said.

  “What?”

  “I just think it’s wrong that someone in my generation could have a child ready for marriage.”

  “Who says he’s ready?” Brody said.

  “Touché.”

  “You know,” he went on, speaking mostly to Liz now, “I think maybe I’ll head upstairs and check on the game.”

  “It could use your help.”

  “That’s what I’m thinking.”

  He took his wine with him, and Sarabeth listened to his footsteps until he’d reached the top of the stairs. The game was a pro forma excuse even if it was a real one: he always gave the two of them time alone. Whether this was for his benefit or for hers and Liz’s, she didn’t know and didn’t much care. What mattered was that she had Liz to herself for a while.

  “So tell me,” Liz said.

  “Tell you what?”

  “Everything!”

  Their friendship was a story of stories told, going all the way back to childhood. Sarabeth could still remember the summer day when Liz’s family arrived on Cowper Street, when she and Liz were eight. Liz’s first story, told that afternoon as the two of them sat on the curb eating Creamsicles: during the long drive across country from Pennsylvania, her little brother had thrown up seven times.