Autobiography of Us (11 page)

“You don’t know the first thing about me,” I said. His hand when I reached for it already waiting.

WE must have all driven back from the wedding in Betsy’s car, exactly the way we arrived. The sky would have been that particular blue, the blue that runs the length of my childhood like some brilliant animal spine. Say the car was oddly quiet. Say the radio jangled in the background, the tin-can strains of a piano rattling out into the hot air. Say Betsy and Lindsey spoke to each other occasionally at first and even to me, that Alex snapped her glasses off at a certain point and turned to the window, that the car went silent then and that she did not look my way again, not even when I gathered my things and stepped out of the car, mumbling goodbye. The truth is that I don’t remember any of it, only that by the end of the ride I knew. Everything had changed.

Not that you ever would have known it to see me that first afternoon. I went straight to the patio when I got home and spent the rest of the day in one of our old deck chairs, flipping through a stack of my mother’s magazines and pouring myself glass after glass of lemonade. It was Sunday, I reminded myself. School was done. Summer stretched before me, a vast, uninterrupted vista of time with which I could do what I liked. I tried to remember how I’d felt at that thought just a day or so before, my joy at the prospect of being able to do as I pleased for three whole months. I reminded myself of the books I meant to study in preparation for the fall; entrance exams for medical school were scheduled for November, and I had a stack of practice tests to work through between now and then. There was a dress I’d planned on sewing to make my mother happy, the pattern clipped from the pages of her
Vogue
. I had plenty to keep me busy.

But the longer I sat in the deck chair and tried to read, the less I understood of the words running across the pages. I might blink and find myself trapped in a moment from the night before, turn a page and catch a flash of Lindsey’s red hair across the circle of chairs. I put down my glass and there were Alex and Bertrand, laughing across the table. Sometimes it got so bad I had to get up from the chair and lean my head between the branches of the orange tree, breathing in the sweet air, or I’d go into the kitchen and stand in front of the refrigerator with the door wide open—something my mother had expressly forbidden me to do—as though the memory of that night was a fever I could cool. Mostly, though, I just sat, listening to the house sparrows chatter back and forth and staring down at the pictures of the models smiling up from the pages. The sun hung in the sky, the heat even in the shade stifling. I would have moved if I’d thought I could, but my body felt like something that hardly belonged to me anymore, my legs, when I glanced down, the legs of a stranger.

At a certain point late in the afternoon, my father came out into the garden with a drink. “She’s home,” he said, looking pleased. “The intrepid coed.”

“She is.”

“The report?”

“Favorable.” I did my best to smile as he settled into the chair next to mine. “Clear skies for the happy couple. Champagne and ice cream. Dancing till all hours.”

“Bride?”

“Blushing.”

“Daughter?”

I felt my chin quiver unexpectedly. “Making do.”

He was quiet a moment. “Your mother pushes sometimes.”

“Do you think—” I stopped. “That is, do you ever wonder if we wouldn’t all be happier somewhere else?”

He gave me a wry smile. “If only it were that simple.
Let us dare to read, think, speak, write
,” he recited. “Let us dare, in other words, to live however we please.”

“Lincoln?”

“Adams.” He tapped the arm of his chair. “I have always found him to be unparalleled when it comes to questions of personal freedom.”

“We have the right to be here and therefore here we are.”

“An odd sort of logic when you put words to it.” He settled back and crossed his long legs at the ankle. “We’re in the position of being able to choose, which is what our forefathers fought for, after all. The American dream. Whether it’s a curse or blessing is open for debate.”

“Both, maybe.”

He looked at me over the top of his glasses. “Has it gotten that bad?”

I sank deeper into my chair. “I’m fine.”

“That doesn’t sound very convincing.”

“Really, everything’s fine.”

He frowned. “You don’t feel burdened by our life here?”

“No, sir.”

“Weighed down?”

“No.”

“Unduly put upon? Afflicted? Oppressed?”

I couldn’t help smiling. “No, no, and no.”

“I’ve always operated under the assumption that this is the best available option,” he said slowly. “That despite certain … shall we say
disadvantages
, we feel ourselves to be living the fullest possible life under the circumstances with which we have been provided. Would you say that’s an accurate description?”

“I would.”

“Then you feel free in your everyday choices. Unencumbered.” He waved his hand. “You feel you can do as you please.”

“Belgium.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m Belgium,” I said. “Sovereign of my own land.”

“Belgium,” he repeated. “That’s my girl.”

“Dinner, you two.” My mother stood in the doorway, snapping her apron. Her cheeks were flushed from standing over the stove and her arms were bare, the sleeves of her dress pushed up past her elbows; she looked young, girlish almost. She might have been any one of my classmates, just another pretty coed busily ticking off the requirements for home ec. She caught me looking at her and winked. “And here I thought
I
was your girl.”

“The one and only,” my father said, a smile breaking across his face, and I thought for a moment I might weep.

* * *

Let me say first that when my period went missing—that was the word that came to me when I checked the calendar two weeks later,
missing
, as though it might still be found—my thoughts were entirely selfish. This is what they tell you about becoming a mother, that you forget yourself completely. But I was twenty-one; I couldn’t have forgotten myself if I tried. I looked down at my flat stomach that night as I sat on the bathroom floor and dug my fists into my abdomen until I thought I might be sick. I had the wild thought that I could somehow still get it out of me. I sat on the floor, holding my head in my hands, and then—like a child—I waited: One day, two. Five days, a week.

I took the city bus out to Arroyo Seco one afternoon and walked the trails that ran back and forth along the edge of the canyon. I have always preferred being alone in nature, and as soon as I was old enough to go off on my own, I got in the habit of heading to the canyon on those rare occasions I tired of reading at home or felt, as my mother put it, like clearing my head. The bus stopped not too far from the entrance to the trails; I didn’t mind the ride. In high school I often brought along a book or my study materials, lugging my beloved
Gray’s
or
Grant’s
in a shoulder bag and walking until I found a good patch of shade. But that afternoon, I simply walked—up past the first plateau and down into the open plain, where a pair of hawks circled above me, keening. Sunlight slanted down across the hills as I circled around a row of oak trees, their branches spread wide and crooked. By the time I turned on to the mouth of a trail that led up the side of the canyon, my legs had begun to ache in earnest. I stopped to rest on the edge of the lookout, next to the cheap telescope that wobbled slightly in the wind, and as I stood there, breathing hard, I thought about jumping.

You understand: In those days, to be pregnant and unmarried was the end of everything.

However. I did not jump. Not that afternoon or any other. I walked back to the stop and caught the last bus home. My mother was standing in front of the mirror in the front hallway when I came through the door, giving herself a critical glance; she winced when she saw me—my legs covered with red dust, my arms—and then smiled to cover it up.

“There you are!” She looked fresh and lovely in her cream-colored blouse and pleated skirt. “Don’t tell me you’ve been out playing tennis in this heat.”

“I went for a walk through the canyon. I thought I’d get a little sun.”

“With?” She waited. “Betsy? She always does have such a nice glow about her.”

“That’s right,” I said slowly. “Betsy and I. We made an afternoon of it.”

“Isn’t that nice.” She hesitated. “Of course, you’ll want to be careful you don’t develop the muscles in your legs
too
much. Betsy’s quite petite, but you’ve got your height to think about. Great-Aunt Beatrice used to tell us we should be able to close our hands around the widest part, like this—” She held both hands up, pinkies and thumbs touching so her hands formed a perfect
O
.

“Yes,” I said. “I mean, no, I won’t.”

She looked at me thoughtfully. “You don’t think you might want to pop on over to the club for a bit? It’s been ages now since you went for a swim, though it’s wonderful you’re getting outside. You know I hate to see you cooped up.” She stood there a moment longer, looking at me in that appraising way as she knotted a scarf around her neck. I was all at once gripped by fear—fear that I might bury my head in her shoulder and confess, not just Bertrand but everything: the envy I felt watching the other girls throw their new things carelessly on the floor, wearing dresses once, twice, before declaring them old
;
the joy I went around swallowing after mornings at the lab, telling my parents when we spoke Sunday nights that I was having an awful time of it in Bio, that if it weren’t for Oliver or whoever I’d have failed by now for sure.
Stupid,
I told them.
You wouldn’t believe how stupid I am at it.
“I thought we might have lunch together one of these days,” she said finally. “Just the two of us. I think we deserve a treat, don’t you?” She pressed her blouse down over her trim waist. “My goodness—a senior! You’ll be gone before we know it. Starting a family of your own.”

My cheeks grew hot. “I have a little while longer.”

She ignored me, fussing with her gloves next. “What in the world am I going to do with myself? I still remember Mother’s face the day I got on that bus. One look at my suitcase and she burst into tears. And
she
had both my sisters to keep her company.”

“You’ll have Daddy, won’t you?”

She brushed at my shoulder, removing an invisible thread. “It’s not the same for men. They have their work.”

“It’s awful, isn’t it?” I was horrified to feel a sob rising in my throat. “Daddy working so hard all the time.”

“There now,” she said soothingly. “You
are
tired. What do you say to a nice shower, hmm? A cold glass of juice?” I nodded as best I could. “What is it, sweetheart?”

“Nothing,” I managed. “I don’t thank him enough, that’s all. Or you.” I stared at her through the tears already blurring my sight. “You must think I’m horribly ungrateful.”

“Hush.” She patted my shoulder; I wanted desperately for her to stop. “You’ll give yourself a headache.”

“I really have had the most wonderful year.”

Her hand went to her hair next, tucking a few invisible strands back behind her ears. “I don’t suppose we have anyone in particular to thank for that?” I looked at her; now she was the one to color a little. “I happened to run into Frank Hinden the other day at the store. He mentioned that Oliver speaks very highly of you.”

“Oliver?”

“Such a nice young man—polite. Beautiful manners. Of course, you’ve known each other all your lives. I thought perhaps—”

“We’re just friends,” I interrupted. “I don’t see why that seems to be so difficult for everyone to grasp.”

“I don’t care for that tone, young lady.” She gave me a look. “There are worse things than people thinking the two of you are paired off, but never mind. He’ll make some lucky girl very happy one of these days. Frank told me Oliver hopes to follow in his footsteps,” she went on, taking a compact from her purse and inspecting herself in it. “Seemed pleased as punch about it.”

“I’ve never heard Oliver say anything about being a doctor.”

“Perhaps it didn’t come up in conversation—”

“He would have told me,” I insisted.

She looked at me a moment, her expression unreadable, and then she dropped her compact back into her purse and squared her shoulders in that way that meant she was done with the conversation. “Alright, then, Rebecca.” She sighed one of her sighs. “Lunch at the club. What do you say?”

“That sounds nice.”

“Then run along and take a nice hot shower, there’s a good girl.” She straightened her jacket as she turned toward the door. “I’ll be back in a flash.”

* * *

Early the next morning, I borrowed the car under the pretext of a day at the beach, Mother giving me an approving smile from across the table as I left. The owners of the house a few doors down and across the street from Alex had planted a row of loquat trees along the edge of their property, and I drove around the block a few times before pulling over and nestling the car in beneath the branches. The car stayed cooler in the shade than the outside air, but even with all the windows rolled down I had to shift back and forth in the upholstered seat to keep myself from melting, peeling one leg off and then the other. The loquats barely smelled that time of year—it was too late for the little white flowers that appeared all along Pasadena’s wide avenues and then dropped one day like a troop of synchronized parachuters—but every now and then an overripe fruit dropped onto the roof, landing with a soft thud.

Isn’t it funny? I remember exactly what she was wearing that morning when she finally emerged, a little before noon: a thin blouse, pale, pale blue, a pair of sunglasses pushed high on her head, and red shorts that stopped so high on her legs her mother must have torn her hair out, watching her leave. She carried an enormous bag on one shoulder—headed for the beach, no doubt, the end of a rolled towel sticking out just behind one crooked elbow; she cradled a book against her chest as if it were a nursing child.
I’m reading
, she’d tell the boys coolly even as she crossed and uncrossed her slender legs, aware of how that small gesture undid them.
Higher learning—ever heard of it?
She ducked into her car. A moment later, the motor purred. She cranked the window down and leaned out, adjusting the mirror as she ran a lipstick around her mouth, the red of it bright as a poppy.