What is Ivy doing with her money? Elise wonders. The irony being that, of all the siblings, Ivy now needs cash the least. Her band, Choked by Kudzu, which Elise dismissed for so many years, deciding it was an excuse for Ivy to stick around Vidalia with her high school buddies, get high, and “write music,” has had considerable regional success. Elise watched Ivy perform the last time she was in Vidalia, and Ivy is rapturous in front of a crowd, her red hair long now, her voice alternately crooning and harsh, belting out the band’s mix of bluegrass, roots, and rock. Offstage, Elise isn’t sure how Ivy is doing. It’s hard to catch her sister sober; that’s for sure. Then again, Elise thinks, maybe she’s just looking for ways to deny Ivy’s success now, the way she dismissed the band’s potential before. After all, Ivy is still young, in her early twenties, having a blast. You’re just jealous, Elise scolds herself.
While this theory is hardly flattering, painting Elise as the uptight, petty older sister, Elise settles on it because it reassures her that she doesn’t have to go back down South to check on Ivy, doesn’t have to go into guardian-angel mode. A role that’s never worked anyways, Elise thinks, a tight, bitter smile flickering across her face, remembering Paps’s visits, how Elise would make sure to skip choir and rush home from school to check on her sister, only to find the two of them innocently perched on the sofa, Paps reading A Hundred and One Dalmations, Ivy gnawing on a Snickers bar. In response to Elise’s hesitant inquiries over the years, Ivy has always insisted that Paps never laid a hand on her. But Elise has her doubts.
Such thoughts make it difficult to concentrate on the paper. Elise puts it down and turns her attention to the French toast and the breakfast room. Thankfully, the antiques here are tasteful and restrained, the dining room shelves lined with crystal wineglasses, not crowded with potpourri sacks and mildewing teddy bears, like the old plantation homes-turned-inns in Mississippi. That’s another thing that Elise likes about the North: the interiors don’t suffocate.
The crotchety couple across from Elise is rising now, arguing about their morning schedule. The man wants a walk; the woman is pushing for the private zoo in town. Elise shudders: she saw a billboard for the zoo on the drive through town yesterday. The sign featured a photograph of cougars that looked like alcoholics and tired, gray flamingos. Elise revels in the only debate about her day being an inner one: Hike in the state park or read in the sun?
There are always men who approach her on these “field trips,” as she calls her excursions. That is another forbidden pleasure to them. Older men, younger men, usually unsure of themselves, clearing their throats as they walk over, their hands anxiously balling and unballing a napkin. She consistently sends them away after a beguiling chat, relishing their starved glances from across the room. It is unclear why her recklessness always stops here, why she never kisses anyone or accepts a drink. Perhaps Chris, after all, is accepting such invitations across the world, even as she is turning them down. The thought rather thrills her. But following through with it seems boring somehow to Elise; she is after something slightly wilder, a fling being too predictable. Sex does not seem dangerous. Being alone does, so that’s what she chooses.
She will go on a hike with a book in her backpack, she decides, scraping her chair from the table. She grabs an apple from the fruit bowl and returns to her room feeling giddy, the way she imagines the bad kids at Vidalia High—her mother called them the “dead-end crowd,” until Ivy was one of them—must have felt playing hooky.
* * *
Chris’s presentation the following day does not go well. Not my fault, he insists to himself, but he still feels guilty. He often rates himself—after presentations, board meetings, sex—and this time he got a four out of ten. The Indian clients wouldn’t let him finish. They began barging in with questions halfway through and then argued among themselves. He stood at the front of the room feeling like a helpless substitute teacher, trying to bring them back to the subject at hand: how his company’s product could dramatically reduce pollutants during crude-oil extraction. Nobody was listening. When the hour and a half was up, they were still arguing, and he slipped out with his briefcase and the slides.
Now he is trying to psych himself up for dinner with his Indian joint-venture partner, although he has a strong urge to order room service and watch ESPN. You’ve got this, no problem, he tells the mirror as he shaves. But does he? The doorbell rings. A lovely hotel worker—gleaming black hair, turquoise and gold sari—stands there with a bouquet of orchids. From Eastern Energy Incorporated, she says, inclining her head. Chris smiles and accepts the flowers, enjoying her appreciative gaze at his physique, his American friendliness. He’d hoped the bouquet was from Elise. But she isn’t really the flower-sending type. He glances at the clock. He is late.
Dinner actually helps. The wine, and then the gin and tonics, and the smooth, even tones of the tan-hued bar soothe Chris the way luxury is meant to soothe. He lets himself be flattered by the CEO, he flatters back, the game as familiar, by now, as flirting. He is reminded of how much better he is one-on-one than with groups. Eight out of ten, he tells himself, brushing his teeth. Maybe even an 8.5.
The next day, Chris wakes up early, thanks to jet lag. The clock blinks five a.m. He flips through the channels to kill time before the breakfast buffet in the hotel restaurant opens at seven. After breakfast, with five hours to go until his meeting, he decides to walk around Bombay a bit. He is soon sweating, so he meanders to the dusty shade of a park and watches the morning slide by. One of the best things about his travel schedule is the constant momentum. Like his first basketball season as a freshman, Chris finds, work demands leave him exhausted. But such a ruthless schedule keeps him on his toes, and he relishes the challenge. Right now, for instance, as he sits here, watching India, his mind is also on the factory tour he will take at three, and which questions he should ask. Sure, you could call him distracted, but that’s how he works best: multitasking. Chris spends the next ten minutes brainstorming questions he might be asked on Logan’s profit margins. But it’s impossible to concentrate in the heat. He gives up, feeling suddenly jet-lagged, listless, and a little lonely.
His mind wanders to the States: to Elise, Leah, his parents. What is his father doing now? This is one of Chris’s favorite mental games to play, and it always cheers him up. Eight a.m. in India: six p.m. in Chariton. Mom and Dad must be sitting down to dinner, Chris thinks, the same kind of thing they always eat this time of year, sloppy joes on white buns, corn on the cob, and Jell-O salad. His sister might drive over and join them. Then prime-time news and bed. While I, Chris thinks, am securing the future of business in India for my firm. Exploring Bombay, one of the world’s largest cities. Representing my country overseas. Chris loves playing this game of comparative realities because he always wins.
Chris’s pride at the miles he’s put between himself and his hometown is an ease Elise does not share; something he has often tried to impress upon her, with no luck: there’s no need to feel guilty for getting out when they did. They both escaped their small towns, both dodged the pointed finger of their respective fates: Chris, as the eldest, the only son, narrowly eluded farming; and Elise, just as mercifully, skirted becoming a preacher’s wife, handing out lemonade at prayer meetings, or God knows what she would have done down there. But whereas Elise frets about having “abandoned” her family, Chris sees their absences in the family pews of First Baptist and Pilgrim Lutheran, respectively, as cause for celebration. We’re American, Chris tells Elise, we do whatever the hell we want, and we do it better than the last generation.
What Chris does not tell Elise, what he himself could not put into words, is that every day he shows up to work at Logan he is nonetheless obeying his father’s commands, a stern inner voice with a slightly nasal midwestern accent: Work your tail off. Don’t take a thing for granted. Forget the easy way out. Don’t blame others for your mistakes. Even though his current white-collar tasks are a far cry from his teenage chores (hoisting hay bales in
to trailers, cleaning cow stalls), Chris is following in his father’s footsteps, and he knows that he has made Frank Kriegstein proud. (It is only thirty years later, when the farm is finally sold, and his father’s voice, over the phone, is heavy with grief, that Chris will come to understand Elise’s dull guilt, and the once stern, authoritative voice in his head will grow petulant, accusing, cracked with sorrow.)
“Do you mind?” A middle-aged Indian gentleman with glasses and a newspaper indicates the space next to Chris. Chris does, but there’s no way to politely refuse, so he simply nods. He considers standing up and continuing his walk, but his new sense of satisfaction feels somehow tied to the bench, and he is loath to leave it.
The man unfolds the paper. He reads as though he is listening to a friend relate a story of deep misfortune, shaking his head ruefully, clicking his tongue, sighing deeply. This man, Chris thinks, is probably a member of India’s rising middle class. His clothes suggest he has a good job; the English paper he’s reading is proof of his cosmopolitanism. If I can speak with him, Chris thinks, growing excited, I can get some man-on-the-street insights into the joint venture, see it from a different angle, come up with a good question for the factory tour. But how to initiate such an exchange? Chris is skilled when the script is predetermined, the roles clear, less so with improvised conversations with strangers. That’s Elise’s terrain: after church, at the playground, on the airplane.
Chris clears his throat. “So,” he begins after a pause. The man is still reading. “I’m new here. Any suggestions on what I should see in town?”
“Wouldn’t know.” The man folds his paper crisply and turns to Chris. “I’m not from here either. I’m on a business trip from Singapore. Bloody Bombay,” he grumbles, looking around the park. “It gets filthier every time I visit.”
“What’s your line of work?”
“Biotechnology,” the man says. “We just discovered how to extract an enzyme from papaya.”
Chris stifles a yawn. Ever the diplomat, however, he masks his boredom with flattery: “That sounds important.”
The man shrugs. “It pays well. But I’m counting down the days until my plane lands in Changi. Have you spent time in Singapore?”
Chris nods, about to reply, but the man is no longer interested. “Singapore’s the only country in Asia that’s really got it together. China’s booming, but it will explode in everyone’s faces. Japan is like an old retiree who still shows up to work in a tie. And India…” He shakes his head as a beggar approaches them. “Too bloody populated.”
“I’m from America,” Chris offers, though the man hasn’t asked.
“America is a continent, my friend,” the man observes snippily. “Do you mean the United States?”
“Exactly,” Chris says, and falls silent.
“I admire Reagan very much,” the man says. “It was the media’s fault that the business with Nicaragua got out of control. In Singapore this would never happen. What Lee Kuan Yew sees fit to do, we trust as the right outcome. None of this obsession with hush-hush security.”
Chris doubts everyone in Singapore feels this way but is cowed by the man’s aggressive confidence.
“It’s your Christian guilt. That’s the problem. We Indians have Hinduism. Much more forgiving. Much more modern.”
“I thought you said you weren’t Indian.”
The man glares at Chris. “Well, do I look Malay to you? Of course I’m Indian. Just not Indian Indian.”
The man opens his paper again. Chris rises, irritated that he has gained no more insight about the Indian middle class than when he began. “Well, have a good day,” he tells the man.
“Are you on business here?” the man asks him, oddly invested now that Chris is departing.
“Yes.”
“One piece of advice. Don’t be the American nice guy. It always fails. I’ve seen it a million times. They’ll eat you alive.”
Chris has an urge to respond with something equally cutting and condescending, but all he can think of is “Shut up,” so he simply nods and says, “I’ll keep that in mind,” in a tone that he hopes is sarcastic.
“Very good, very good,” the man says absently, and returns to the paper, dismissing Chris before Chris has a chance to leave first.
But at the factory, Chris takes the man’s advice. He is cruelly scrutinizing of sloppy mistakes he observes, complains about the behavior of the Indian colleagues yesterday, and leaves halfway through dinner, simply saying he is tired. His new sharp, uncompromising self is thrilling. Emboldened, Chris dials home, only to get the answering machine. Again. “Hey there. Give me a call,” Chris says, and hangs up, not even saying, “I love you,” as he always does on overseas trips. The man on the bench was an asshole, Chris thinks, but he might have been on to something. Chris has been too nice, too lenient, too accepting. That was always his problem in basketball, too: passing too much. “Get a little more selfish, Chris,” his high school coach would say. “Why the hell did you give up the ball?” his college coach would yell, and bench him. Raised on a strict diet of Lutheran modesty, Chris had always piously assumed this behavior would reward him in the end. But that was bullshit. That night he dreams of robbing banks and kicking things until they crumple.
* * *
Annoyingly, Big Pocono State Park, which Elise has driven an hour to reach, is crowded and noisy. It is Saturday, after all. Kids everywhere. Elise feels a tug of missing for Leah, which surprises and pleases her, and she impulsively calls home from a pay phone near the parking lot. Becky puts Leah on, but the second Elise hears “Mama?” she has an urge to hang up. She tries to keep her voice kind and interested when Becky gets back on the phone and describes their day at the playground. “I’m out of coins, Becky—better run,” Elise lies, and hangs up after one minute.
Elise had only planned to do the loop trail, but the phone call has rattled her, and so she follows a sign to a higher summit, a farther two miles up. There are fewer people here. Elise moves quickly, trying to leave thoughts behind. She is glad she has brought along a large bottle of water by the time she reaches the top. She is alone, and she stretches out over the rocks. With the sun’s warmth and all the exercise, she begins drowsing, flitting in and out of dreams. In the first one, she is back in Hamburg, trying to return a dress in a department store, trying to remember the German word for “receipt,” then in Vidalia, in Charles Ebert’s study, the lights off, struggling to concentrate on the patterns of light from the shutters, her nails digging into her palms, breath close to her face, sniffing near her right thigh. She scrambles, terrified, into a sitting position, stifling a scream. But it is just a dog.
Elise laughs shakily. “Hey there,” she says. It looks like a mutt but has a Lab’s friendly-dumb disposition. He pants at her, smiling. He has a collar that Elise examines. “Robo Cop.” That is unquestionably the worst name she’s ever heard for a dog. As though he agrees, the dog lies down mournfully next to her and closes his eyes.
“Robo?” Elise hears through the woods. “Robo!”
The dog doesn’t stir. They are on an enclave jutting out from the mountain. He’s here! Elise knows she should call out, but she doesn’t. Robo Cop’s owners don’t try very hard to find him. There came a few more halfhearted “Robos” and then there is just the sound of sparrows chattering, Robo’s panting, and the faint whine of cars from the road far below. This is not good thinking on her part, Elise knows. Lately, she’s been shedding responsibilities, connections, as though they are clothes and she is bent on skinny-dipping. She couldn’t even talk to her own child on the phone an hour ago. So why not reunite Ro (she can’t bring herself to call him Robo) with his owners? Why end up disappointing and abandoning another creature?
He is beautiful. Marmalade tiger stripes over dark brown fur that glints gold when the sun hits it. He looks to be around three or four. Back in Vidalia, Elise loved the two Dalmatians her neighbors owned. She’s always wanted a dog with Chris, but they’ve moved around too much. H
onestly, Elise wanted a dog more than a baby. She kept this to herself. Maybe she shouldn’t have. One of Elise’s favorite lines from the Bible is at the beginning of the Christmas story: “Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.” It doesn’t read, “Mary called Joseph and asked what he thought of Immaculate Conception.” Elise loves the hallowed privacy of that verse, but it does have its pitfalls.
“You thirsty?” Ro looks up at her expectantly. She pours what is left of the bottle near his mouth, and he laps and catches about one-third of it.
“Okay, buddy,” Elise says. “Let’s head back down.” Ro rises enthusiastically, turning in circles a few times joyfully before continuing on the trail ahead of her. On the way down, he darts in and out of the woods but always comes trotting back. At the foot of the trail, near the parking lot, his owners are waiting.
“Robo,” an overweight woman in her fifties cries. The dog trots over to her, tail wagging. So much for thinking he needs a new family, thinks Elise, feeling strangely betrayed by the dog’s goodwill.
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