Her Name Is Rose (20 page)

What was she doing? She grabbed her hair, which uncharacteristically, she had braided loosely that morning. Like a schoolgirl's. She began to untie it. She was looking for Hilary Barrett—that's what she was doing. Focus, Iris.

A horn blared from behind. Hector's eyes darted sideways and his head turned over his right shoulder. He was in the wrong lane. He flicked on the indicator, veered sharply off under the large green sign,
MASSACHUSETTS
TURNPIKE,
and swung the car down the ramp onto the highway. It had happened too quickly for Iris to be scared. Hector was shaking his head and mumbling. Iris rubbed her elbow, which had struck the window.

“You hurt?”

“No. It's okay.”

“I'm really sorry. God. I'm usually a good driver. Just a bit out of practice.” He slowed and settled into the middle lane. “I usually bike to work from where I live.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, I teach composition at the conservatory in San Francisco. I'm just here in Boston in the summer.” He looked at her like he was going to say something more, like he was searching for words to explain himself, but he didn't.

They drove west on the interstate, cutting through an abundant landscape of cedar trees at the edge of the city. And because she didn't want only Hilary Barrett running in her mind, Iris said, “Tell me about Berklee?”

Hector hesitated only for a moment. “Really?”

“Really. I do know a little bit about music schools.”

“Of course you do. Right. I forgot. Rose. Well … for me, jazz is the thing. Not classical. Sorry. I eat, drink, sleep it. Berklee's like the best jazz place for students in this country. Maybe the world.” He paused, but only for a second. “Ever hear of Quincy Jones? He was there before my time, but what an inspiration. ‘Dream a dream so big that if you just get half of it, you'll still do okay.' Pure Quincy. When I was a student”—Hector laughed—“actually … when I was at Grace and Bob's, in the room you're in, I'd lay awake at night and think what was the biggest dream I could dream.”

“Why don't you teach there all the time?” As soon as she'd said it, the penny dropped. Oh God, he's married. She turned to the window. That's what the look on Grace's face was about! She turned back. “Are you—?” She stopped herself, then realized she had to ask. “Are you married?”

“No. No. I'm not.” He glanced across at her. “I was. Once.”

“Children?”

“No.”

Iris didn't want to know anymore right then, although his “once” lingered on the air like an echo.

Hector turned on the radio. Jazz with Eric Somebody or Other and soon he was drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. Inside the music, his driving improved. The Jag's old air-conditioning made spurting noises so they turned it off and opened the windows. Iris's hair curled about her face and she reached for it, tying it back again.

“In answer to your first question”—he looked over to her—“I love teaching at Berklee and a lot of great things happened there and came from there, but I love California. More.” His face was tan and nearly handsome but his eyes were timid, shylike. In having returned his gaze Iris sensed he was infatuated with her. She could feel it in her body, somewhere in her center, and it sent signals up and down, like sunrays lighting the dark.

Sitting as a passenger in a car gave her more comfort than just about anything else. Responsibility deferred to the driver and all other thoughts adjourned. She missed that—being a passenger. Such a simple thing. A thing you never think of when there's two of you. Now she had to drive everywhere herself. When Luke was alive, Sundays saw them driving with Rose to the sea and up the west coast to Blackhead.

Iris let her hand extend out the open window. Her fingers felt the air, like she was combing waves.

“Ever heard of the Real Book?” Hector said after they'd been driving a while.

“No … but sounds
real
interesting.” She laughed. She'd made a joke. An actual joke. Something about Hector was bringing out a side of her that had gone underground. Okay, he was a bit eccentric, but she had to admit also there was a vibrancy in him that energized her. And although part of her resisted it, and even felt guilty, another part of her welcomed it. “Sorry. Tell me more.”

“Yeah?”

“No.”

“Oh.”

“Kidding. Go on.”

“Jazz isn't like anything else, right?” he began, glancing at her to make sure. She nodded. “In the old days we used to play tunes from lead sheets, copied from old Tune-Dex cards. But these were full of mistakes. Then the tunes were compiled into the Real Book, because before that there was…”

“Don't tell me,” said Iris, feeling irrepressibly girlish, “a fake book.”

Hector had relaxed. His laugh said so. Big and staccatolike and far removed from the brusque figure who'd stamped from the breakfast room on her first morning, just a couple days earlier.

“Seriously…” he went on.

Iris pretended to look serious.

“At the tail end of my years at Berklee, I sort of got myself involved with two guys, teachers, who put together—what became famously known in the jazz world as the Real Book. Every jazz player had to have one.” Hector's eyes were alight and his voice quickened. “There are
hundreds
of tunes out there, but nobody was keeping track of them—exactly—I mean except for what came out in the Fakebook—”

“So … there
were
fake books?”

“Oh yeah. And just to confuse things, the Real Book is actually a Fakebook.” He laughed.

“I see.” She didn't, but she admired his enthusiasm.

“It's too confusing. The dudes whose songs were in the Fakebooks weren't getting royalties. But there was no other way for young jazz musicians to learn, so it became the reference for every jazz song there ever was, the main link for students to jam and practice. It was called ‘fake' because it was illegitimate.” Hector paused. “Get it?” But Iris had turned away. She was looking out the window. Somewhere between the “illegitimate” and “fake” he'd lost her.

“I'm rambling. Sorry. Once I get started on the Real Book … it still blows my mind.” Hector drummed his fingers on the dashboard of the Jag like it was a keyboard and he was playing the melody to the song playing on the radio.

Iris stayed looking at the Massachusetts countryside from the passenger window.
He
doesn't get it, she thought. Illegitimate. Fake. Real. Come on. But as hurtful as it was, Iris didn't blame him for cutting too close to the bone, or for being unaware that he had. It was something she had been dealing with her whole mothering life. Feeling like an imposter.

When they had been driving for about half an hour deep into western Massachusetts and were into the Berkshire Mountains, Hector pulled off the interstate at an exit called Lily Pond and explained it was where he used to stop on his way to Tanglewood. “There's a jazz festival there in September,” he told her. “Maybe it's a good idea to stretch our legs, or something. Have Grace's picnic. Okay?” He pulled the car into a parking lot by the pond.

“Okay, Hector,” she said, hiding her apprehension. The more she thought about it, the more she felt she had no reference point for this sort of thing. None of it felt quite right now, standing in the open New England air in her summer dress, holding a picnic basket. The girlishness she'd let herself experience earlier was lost. The flirtation she'd allowed herself stung. The noon sun intensified an immense guilt.

In the trunk Hector had found a blanket. “Grace thinks of everything.” Facing the water a few meters from the shoreline he considered where to put it. The ground was hard and stony where it slipped into the brown mountain lake. A breeze blew feebly. It wasn't enough to cool Iris, who stood holding the basket.

“Here, Iris. Shade. Over there.” Hector had found a wooden table a little way back from the water's edge. Into the pine woods of white, filtered light Iris made out a stone shelter. Hiking socks hung along a rope tied between two trees, and beach towels and T-shirts draped over bushes like scattered flags. A young woman in a bathing suit came from behind the cabin, chased by a young man in shorts. Sidestepping rocks as she reached the water, the woman dove and swam in strong strokes.

Hector brushed pine needles away and laid the blanket on the bench and the basket on the picnic table. “Madam,” he said, and gestured theatrically.

Iris sat facing the water, her back leaning against the hard edge of the table.

The man at the water's edge dove in loudly after the girl and when his head surfaced he shouted. “Fuck! It's cold!” He swam wild, jerky strokes with his head out of the water, not a match for the woman he was chasing, who had reached a floating platform a short distance out and emerged up the ladder like some water nymph. It was a summer's scene worthy of an American movie, but it only made Iris feel worse.

Hector emptied the basket and came around to face her, offering a sandwich. “Has Grace told you yet she makes the best chicken sandwiches?”

Not looking at him, she unwrapped the sandwich and left it open on her lap. She wasn't sure what to say. They sat in their silence together while the untroubled voices of the two swimmers echoed across the pond.

“Tell me what you know about her,” Hector said at last.

“About who? The
real
mother?”

Stunned, he looked at the ground, shifted his weight, and his shoulders rose to his ears. “It was all that dumb talk. What a jerk I am. I'm sorry.”

“It's not your fault.” Iris put her uneaten sandwich on the table and stood up abruptly. “What am I doing here?” She turned around as if ready to go. It was as if her feelings had finally caught up with her thoughts. “I don't even know you.” She smoothed the linen dress, which was wrinkled in lines across her thighs. “I'm in the middle of nowhere with a man I've only just met on my way to talk to a woman who might be the mother of
my
child. How un
real
is that?”

Hector just looked at her, eyes of a wounded child who'd just been scolded.

“I've got to calm down before I lose the run of myself.” She sat again and started to take off her sandals. She had it in her mind to cool down by standing in the water, but changed her mind midway and restrapped them. She turned to Hector and said, “Can we go, please? I don't want to be here.”

“Yeah, sure, Iris. Sorry. My fault. I thought it would be nice to come here. But it was wrong. I'm sorry. I—”

“Hector! Stop saying that. It's not your fault. It's mine. I let myself be persuaded this was a good idea, to go looking for Hilary Barrett … with you. You're just trying to help me.” She sat down again and, looking to the two swimmers in the pond, she said, “I did meet her once, okay? But I can't tell you anything about her except what she was wearing. And that she was quiet. And very pretty. Young, in her early twenties. She seemed really nice, but it was extremely awkward. You get one chance at a thing like that. You hope for the best. You hope everyone is doing the right thing. The right thing for … for … for Rose. That's what we all felt. And now, now. Oh! I don't know what I'm doing!”

“Let's go back to Boston.” Hector had jumped up and was already packing up.

“No.” She looked out to the swimmers on the float. “Take me to Becket.”

“What?”

“Take me to Becket.”

“Are you sure?” He stood his full height and came toward her. He put his hands on her shoulders.

She looked up to him and nodded. “At least I can feel that I've tried. I know it's a long shot. Part of me feels now that I'm just going through the motions. On a quest that I already know will end without an answer.”

She felt it again. That buzz in her center, but she eased herself away from his gathering embrace. Now Hector seemed very unsure of himself. “Lily Pond was a bad idea,” he said.

“I felt trapped.”

“Sorry.”

“Stop apologizing. Please.”

His phone rang. He looked at the number. “I'd better take this,” he said, and while Iris put the basket and blanket in the car he walked back to the water's edge with his phone. The call lasted only moments, but when Hector came back up and got into the car he seemed distant. He drove in silence. Lily Pond vanished behind them and the road flowed away ahead. Now as he drove, one hand on the wheel, he fussed with his hair with his free hand. The man who'd earlier been joyfully engaged in explaining the difference between Real Books and Fakebooks had become subdued. They were another ten miles farther on before he said, “Iris, we should talk about … Hilary.”

“There's nothing more to say until I meet her. If … I meet her.”

“She…” He hesitated. With his right hand he pulled on the cords of his throat. He pressed his lips together, released them. “She mightn't be there,” he said.

“I know.”

Approaching Becket, they came through a forested landscape: firs, birch, and beech, oaks and chestnuts. These were more trees than she'd seen in her lifetime. Quieted by the greenness of it all, the manicured, tree-shaded lawns rolling under sugar maples, and charmed, too, by the wood-shuttered windows, she said, “Everything's so pretty. Anyone would want to live here.”

“
Why
exactly do you want to meet her?” His question stung and she knew he felt it, too. “Forget it, Iris. I'm sorry, it's none of my business.”

Had she
not
told him about her breast cancer scare? No, she hadn't. All she'd told him was about her promise to Luke, but not why he had asked it. It had all happened so fast and now here they were.

Well, anyway, he was right, it was none of his business.

“What are you going to say to her?” he asked.