Granddad was teasing Filo about her newly pierced ears. She kept reaching up to touch them. “Do people mistake you for a gypsy?” he was saying. “Many people think they long to be gypsies, without the slightest notion of what that actually means. Let me tell you a thing or two about gypsies.”
And then, to Robert’s left, Sarah spoke. “Are you really on the path to becoming a doctor? Because I’ve looked at that tree house and I’m skeptical. I think you’re a born artisan.”
This close, she had shockingly fantastic eyes: blue but also gray. Atlantic Ocean eyes. She had a lot of lines around those eyes, half worry, half laughter. Wild, wiry hair, like Clover’s but dark. A big, Carrie Bradshaw nose.
“You think so,” said Robert.
“Know so,” said Sarah.
“Tell it to my parents, who probably expect a return on their investment. And for the record, I was the contractor, not the designer.”
She looked at him steadily, smiling.
“You’re giving me that ‘oh to be young again’ look,” he said.
“You’re right,” said Sarah. “Because I started out sure of becoming a lawyer. Change the world by changing the rules. But I had a smart, intrusive mentor, this sculpture teacher in college. He convinced me that, in the end, the rules—those kinds of rules—don’t budge. Or not much. Most of the time, the rules change the lawmakers more than vice versa.”
“So I’ve heard.” Robert glanced at Turo. He was debating something, intently, with Dad and Mr. Sorenson. “But with medicine, the diseases don’t treat the physicians. And physicians work with actual people, not words meant to, like, regulate those people’s lives. People, sooner or later, they do budge.”
“Or die.” Sarah had a great laugh. She laughed from deep inside, the way a singer would laugh.
“There’s a business to medicine, but that’s something else.” He sensed that his mother was listening in. Except when she’d asked him to fetch a load of firewood that morning, they hadn’t spoken since the trip to Ledgely. He couldn’t tell if she was avoiding him, but boy was she avoiding her sister. (Would everything feel different now if Granddad hadn’t forgotten the wine?)
Next to his mother, Lee looked completely bored. He was trailing his fork through the gingered yams and humming Coldplay. Robert leaned across. “So hey. Want to go cross-country skiing with me and Turo? Tonight?” To Robert’s surprise, Granddad had mentioned the ski-and-boots dilemma to Mr. Sorenson, and he’d brought along three pairs of skis and boots.
“Never done that,” said Lee.
“Piece of cake,” said Robert. “The trail out back is mostly flat.”
“Cool.” He resumed sculpting his yams.
Robert said, “That’s great about the soccer team.”
“Yeah.”
“You still doing the soup kitchen thing with your dad?”
“Yeah. Building my character.” He smirked.
“Seconds, anyone?” Robert’s dad announced. “No one’s holding me back.” One by one, people stood, holding their plates. They groaned and went through that ritual of saying they shouldn’t but it was all just too good.…
As Robert stood, his mother called to him. She’d gone to the living room to put a log on the fire. “Robert, could you help me out a minute?”
She was using the tongs, trying to maneuver the log into place. As she handed the tongs to Robert, the brief look she gave him was sad. She said quietly, “I was harsh with you last night. I’m sorry.”
“Mom, forget it. You were right about a lot of stuff.”
“Sometimes I think I’m too right for my own good.”
He lowered his voice. “So give Aunt Clover a break, will you?”
She stood up and looked at him. “That is not a matter for negotiation between us. Between you and me.”
Robert’s dad entered the room and said, “Hey, you two. I made enough for everyone to eat themselves into a stupor. Get with the program!”
Obedient, they took their plates to the kitchen.
And somehow, through dessert and coffee, and more dessert, and the sky going dark, and a dozen more logs thrown on the fire, no one got into a fight.
The only tension, possibly experienced by Robert alone, was when his dad brought up the latest story related to the DOGS. Another suburban home, but this one out near Northampton. The entire façade of a very large house had been papered, seamlessly, with pages from the New York Times (allegedly taken from stacks in the garage). One by one, the sheets had been staple-gunned to the clapboards and window frames. Across the vast expanse of newsprint, someone had painted, in lime green, ALL THE NEWS THAT’S FIT TO PULP A FOREST.
Granddad laughed wickedly. “The crusaders appear to be migrating west.”
Robert’s mother sighed. “The crusaders appear to be getting redundant.”
“A bit sophomoric, that one,” said Mrs. Sorenson.
“They might have had an easier time wrapping the house in toilet paper. Same message, less effort,” said Mom. “And really, newsprint these days is largely postconsumer, isn’t it?”
Robert made every effort not to look at Turo, but then Turo spoke. “You’re forgetting about the inks and their by-products—and have you ever seen a plant that creates ‘recycled’ paper? Or smelled it?” Turo’s smile was arch. “You’d be deluding yourself to think it’s a process low on energy or pollutants.”
Robert felt a pulsating heat in his cheeks and forehead.
“One more incident like that in Matlock,” said Clover, “and Katy bar the door. I hear the selectpersons have started a fund to hire an investigative team.”
“Ooh, CSI in Matlock! Way cool, dudes,” said Robert’s father.
To Robert’s horror, Dad actually winked at him. The smile Robert returned made his face feel like a rubber Halloween mask.
He knew there was no way Turo had been involved in that particular mission, at least not in terms of his presence. This made the whole DOGS operation suddenly more real to Robert. At one point, he had entertained the notion that Turo was it, the whole shebang. Like one of those circus musicians who plays a dozen instruments at once.
Now, if the “it” was something major—a countercultural machine in which he, Robert, had been a cog—the whole thing felt more frightening than thrilling. The truth was, Robert didn’t have the stomach to be a guerrilla. On the other hand—and this was verified by a single glance down the table at his friend’s glowing face—Turo so totally did. Totally.
“Yo,” said Robert, “who’s up for skiing off even one bite of that wicked fine tiramisu?”
The moon stood out from the sky like a medal. It cruised along beside them, calm and vigilant, passing behind tree after tree as their skis hissed through snow on the path that skirted the pond and then branched away into acres of trails winding through Matlock’s fairy-tale forest.
Robert knew these paths in every shading of every season. Clover was the one who’d taken him on walks when he was too young to go on his own (the only danger that he might lose his bearings). Once he could wander the woods alone, he had loved the solitude. You could walk an hour out, an hour back, with only a distant, parenthetical flash of house or barn. You might run into a jogger or someone walking a dog. Everyone smiled, spoke a word of greeting, but no one stopped you to talk. That was the unspoken rule.
As if sensing this protocol, Turo followed Robert in virtual silence. Lee brought up the rear. Robert could have left them both in a wake of powder, but he moved along slowly, to make it easy for them. After twenty minutes, he could hear the two novices breathing more quickly. He slowed his pace further.
“Go,” said Turo. “Don’t let the city dudes hold you back. If we give up, we can retrace our tracks.”
Robert stopped and turned. “Sure?”
“Vamoose,” said Turo. “Let the tourists tour.”
“Yeah, cool by me,” said Lee.
So Robert leaned forward and raced ahead on his own, leaving behind the merciless small tal
k of the long afternoon, pushing against the stupor of his overfed body. Where the path veered left, departing from its circuit of the pond, he struck off through the trees, to stay along the shore. Soon he broke out onto the great lawn shared by the Three Greeks. If anyone in these houses should see him, they wouldn’t think twice. Even though they didn’t know him, they might wave. This was safe, protected Matlock—or was it, now? How unnerved had people become by Turo and his fellow mischief makers?
Robert stopped to enjoy the view across the pond to Granddad’s. How odd the barn looked, all those new modern windows. Just over its roof, he saw the kitchen window, the figures of his family, spending more effort to clean up the leavings of the meal than they had to sit down and consume it. What did you buy with all that effort? What was the cost/benefit ratio? Was there, behind all the courteous conversation, a mysterious way in which people really drew closer? Had all that sugar in half a dozen desserts sweetened his mother’s anger toward Clover? God, he hoped so.
He continued his orbit of the pond. The return side was dense with brush, especially as he approached the barn. He stopped to release his bindings, carrying the skis as he picked through a tangle of juniper and bittersweet.
By the time he reached the lawn, the sweat between his shoulder blades had cooled. Yet the shivering was pleasant, and he didn’t feel like going in. He could see the faces of his father, Sarah, and Clover through the kitchen window. Quietly, he leaned the skis against the porch.
He hadn’t been up into the tree house since the day of the “inauguration.” Wiping snow off the ladder, he climbed slowly, careful not to slip on the rungs in his stiff boots. He climbed all the way to the third tier, the very top. There was enough moonlight that he could see the bright shapes the children had applied to the interior, to the plywood fixed against the cleverly pieced branches that formed the outer walls. He could make out crude animals, striped and spotted in lollipop hues; the great happy faces of daisies: all the usual motifs of childhood art. Matlock children might be favored by fate, but they were ordinary, too.
What a revelation to see the vista from aloft now that the beech had dropped its leaves. Robert could see not only the Three Greeks but the low hills beyond them, the few houses tucked into the sumptuous woods. In another direction, he saw the roof of the Old Artillery, the steeples of the churches on the green. Clouds moved vaguely across the sky, glowing like the fur of a tabby cat whenever they crossed the moon.
Turo and Lee emerged from the woods, from the path they had taken on their way out. They skied slowly, sluggish on their tired legs. They were laughing and talking. Lee looked downright expressive. Leave it to Turo to draw out even a sullen, withholding adolescent kid. Robert’s worries about his friend were probably a waste of time. Even if Turo failed to turn in papers or show up at an exam, how well Robert could imagine the guy aiming a blast of his persuasive charm at some professor’s flimsy disapproval. Whammo. Failure? Negativo, dude.
Turo could talk to anyone. You could even say he liked talking to everyone. (Politician syndrome, Granddad called it.) Like that time he’d joined Robert for the interview with Celestino. The language bond was minor; Robert understood that, classwise, there was a huge divide between those guys. Robert hadn’t seen Celestino since the interview (he got a B plus on the paper, the professor wishing for more detail on family ties/hierarchy/obligations), but Turo had mentioned sticking around at the pizza place for another hour or so. “A good man,” Turo had said. “Ought to have a chip or two on his shoulder, but he doesn’t. Or seems like he doesn’t.”
Had Turo stayed in touch with Celestino? Were they actually friends?
Robert had to wonder about himself. He was acting like he was married to Turo, as if he had to know what the guy did, who he hung out with, 24/7. And now, here he was practically spying on his friend, straining to hear the conversation between Turo and Lee.
“Hey,” he called down when they stopped at the house to take off their skis. “Up here,” he called again when they looked around, confused at the source of his voice. “You gotta come see this view.”
11
You have reached the home of Sarah Straight, Halcyon Glassworks, and, last but never least, Rico. Leave a message and we’ll be in touch.
I had listened to this recording at least twenty times in three days. I knew its every lilt and stress, from the breathy ascent in the single syllable of home to the lambent tenderness in Rico to the remorseful, and in my case unfulfilled, promise to be in touch.
I had stopped addressing the beep after my second message. I continued to telephone because I was a wishful fool, listening to the entire message because it was the only way to hear her voice. Was she there, listening to herself as well? (Add to my long list of modern vexations the invention of caller ID.) I knew she knew I wanted to speak with her—good God, to be with her! I contemplated driving to Packard, standing in the rain at the entrance to her building, abusing her buzzer until she came down. Though no doubt she’d hold out on me.
For five days, with little respite, we’d been enduring an onslaught of rain, sleet, mist, and slush; the miserly sky withheld even from charmed Matlock the consolation of snow. The house tour had taken place on day one of this deluge, a Sunday; Sarah’s diagnosis the day after that. Rico hadn’t missed a day of school since, yet my twice-daily vigil for Sarah’s car was futile—for, as I found out at last from Ira, once desperation trumped my discretion, other moms were taking turns ferrying Rico to and from school.
I broke down on Thursday afternoon, heading down the hill once I was sure the last child had left. Ira was still in his classroom. “We know about the cancer,” he said. “Our class parents are joining forces to help out with Rico while Sarah goes through this ghastly ordeal of testing. Once she’s scheduled for surgery, we’ll create a meal chain. Both of you must be going through hell. I’m so sorry.” Apparently, my relationship with Sarah was now out in the open at Elves & Fairies; why this did not come as a relief, I would have to examine later.
Ira resumed sweeping. I was about to make my retreat when he stopped again. “Something else.” He reached down to rub at a pink blemish on a small white tabletop.
“Yes?”
“The one person who doesn’t know yet is Rico. I wonder if you might talk to her about how important it is to discuss this with him right away. He’s very sensitive—and what he doesn’t do in talking he makes up for in listening! I’ve sent her a note that I’m happy to help her figure out what to say—sadly, I’ve been through this before—but I can’t really bug her further.…”
He was fishing for assurance that I, as the trusted companion, would persuade Sarah to chat about this catastrophe with her child. What he did not know, and what I was only beginning to discover, was that inside the otherwise outspoken, generous, free-spirited Sarah lurked another woman: obstinate, fortress building, and (though I knew she’d deny it till kingdom come) surreptitiously fearful.
“I’ll do my Yankee best,” I said, simply to end our exchange.
I held my raincoat over my head as I dashed from barn to house.
Oh my poor, sodden, enthusiastically trampled house. Had it come to life in human form that day, it would have been a bride as she wakes the morning after an intemperately festive wedding. Cast me as the bridegroom, Mistress Lorelei as the wedding planner, Clover as the maid of honor, and half the citizenry of the twelve surrounding towns as the celebrants, adoring and approving yet buffoonishly overindulgent.
Except that the groom, at the advice of the wedding planner, had decamped for the occasion itself. Imagine the bride’s despair.
After reading the forecast on Saturday, Laurel (call that woman anything but unprepared!) had distributed throughout the chosen houses dozens of clear plastic runners, which she had reserved “just in case” at a local rental agency. Yet since these houses were not alarmed and guarded museums, the people who crooned their way through the rooms strayed onto carpets, jostled tables, knocked over lamps, ran their
oily fingers across ancient paneling, and, on departing, carved muddy ruts across the yards. (At least Laurel had thought to transport the tourees in groups via shuttle bus from the public library.)
The fingerprints could be scrubbed away, as could the muddy footprints on my front-hall floorboards, but a framed watercolor knocked to the floor had suffered broken glass that nicked the painting itself, and a tiny crystal bud vase that belonged to my mother had vanished. On my desk in the study, a pile of books had fallen against a pitcher of flowers (courtesy of Laurel’s “committee”), sending a cascade of water into a basket on the floor containing old photo albums put together by Poppy. I did not discover the mishap until Tuesday, by which time the album on the bottom, featuring those old-timey black-paper pages, had congealed into a mush of tarlike paste and disintegrating snapshots.
Though I would never call it a blessing, a significant distraction from this minor nightmare had been Sarah’s scheduled biopsy on Monday, in the office of Trudy’s surgical colleague Dr. Wang. The drama I had already endured to get Sarah to consent to mammograms, to get Trudy to pull the strings to get her slipped into the schedule the week after Thanksgiving—well, I deserved a Tony for persistence if nothing else.
“If it will get you to finally, once and for all, change the subject,” Sarah had said, “then I will do it. I know I’m fine, and I’ll just have to prove it. Then we will figure out your penance.” She’d said this to me while I cooked her a dinner to celebrate the completion of the willow window. I even cooked the meal at her loft, in part so I could see the window before it was taken away to its swanky home, yet also in part so I could (after Rico was sound asleep) broach the subject of her health in a setting she could not flee. That night, however, she was in a bright mood, thrilled at how the window had turned out, excited at the hope that it would bring her more commissions, possibly even institutional work.
I did not accompany her into town for the mammograms, nor did I ask if I might. For one thing, that appointment fell during the final week of preparation for the house tour, and Mistress Lorelei, clipboard in hand, girl sergeants in tow, was prone to showing up for surprise inspections.