Lucky in the Corner (30 page)

It was in the middle of one of these talks—one where she and Fern were going over some materials on adoption, looking into all that would have to be done at some point—that Fern suddenly understood that as her future was merging with Vaughn’s, she and Tracy were parting. Where once Tracy had seemed wiser and more experienced, now Fern feels so much the older one. She could even imagine a final scene—she and Tracy in their thirties, running into each other someplace boring and obvious, a Gap, a record store—and by then the calls and visits will have long since diminished, Tracy will have missed Vaughn’s last two birthdays. They will have reached the exact spot where everything between them will have been said and done.

But as of now this separation has only just begun. Tracy has relinquished her place as Vaughn’s mother, but is still looking around for a position she can occupy in relation to him, something other than failed parent. When she visits and it’s only her and Fern and Vaughn, it’s almost not awkward anymore. This gathering will be rougher, though. Fern can already see Tracy smelling judgment in the air.

Tough. She’ll have to deal with it. This group was not the easiest to assemble, but together, they add up to Vaughn’s family. They’re all he’s got.

By three-thirty, Fern is getting impatient with her only as-yet-unarrived guest.

“She was supposed to bring the appetizers,” she tells James. “I think if you’re the appetizer person, you should probably come a little early, but at the very least, you need to be on time.”

Jeanne overhears and says, “She was going to Whole Foods. She’s probably busy buying too many things.” But Fern hears a slight raggedness in Jeanne’s voice, an undertone of disappointment on the verge of exasperation.

“She’ll be here,” James says. “I’ll put out some crackers and peanut butter.”

Fern thinks he’s kidding, but he’s heading for the cabinets.
Guys,
she thinks.

By quarter to four, everyone is in a groove, sitting on the sofa and the living room floor, working through the crackers and peanut butter and the beer and the wine, even the chocolates have been opened, and Harold’s tape is up to “Book of Love,” which contains the line “Chapter
One
says to love her, you love her with all your heart,” and Fern is pissed. She has moved beyond caring about little boxes of sushi and little Italian olives or whatever her mother is bringing. She is beyond delayed appetizers, deep into replaying the whole historical pageant of her mother’s failure to show up. Then this anger snags on a suspicion. Nora is being held up by something more than spaciness or indecision at the deli counter. Some event has intervened.

In the same passage that Fern sees this, she also sees that whatever has happened won’t stop her mother, that something fundamental has shifted between them. Nora is not going to disappear on her. Returning holds more importance to her than going away. Other things may happen, but this one bad thing, at least, is behind them.

From here, the noises of the party drop way into the background as Fern concentrates on helping her mother get here, willing her footfalls on the stairs. And it works. Fern hears the downstairs door open and shut, then Nora, not hurrying exactly, but taking the steps with deliberation. Then there is a momentary stop, a pause of preparation—a straightening of posture, a replacement of expression—as she gets ready to break through from wherever she has been to here, where she needs to arrive. Fern feels the precise pressure of her mother’s hand on the knob. And the door opens.

MY THANKS TO

Stacey D’Erasmo, Elizabeth Hailey, Mary Kay Kammer, Jayne Yaffe Kemp, Laurie Muchnick, Barbara Mulvanny, Jean Naggar, Janet Silver, Bill Spees, Sharon Sheehe Stark, and to the Ragdale Foundation.

AQUAMARINE

“Anshaw writes with biting humor and a touching reverence for the power of loss.”—
Boston Globe

At the 1968 Summer Olympics, seventeen-year-old Jesse Austin has just lost the 100-meter freestyle to an Australian swimmer. That moment, suspended forever in the Olympic pool’s aquamarine, will haunt Jesse for the rest of her life—or, more properly, her lives. With dazzling ingenuity, Anshaw presents Jesse in 1990, inhabiting three equally possible lives.
Aquamarine
plays exhilarating variations on the theme of lost love and examines the unlived lives running parallel to the one we have chosen.

ISBN 0-395-87755-5

LUCKY IN THE CORNER

“A distinctly satisfying read [from] a splendid storyteller.”

—
Washington Post Book World

Nora and her twenty-one-year-old daughter, Fern, have a tumultuous relationship. Fern has never really forgiven her mother for leaving their family to live with her lover, Jeanne. For her part, Nora finds Fern incomprehensible. When unexpected changes complicate their lives, they begin to find their way back to each other. Marked by Anshaw’s electric prose, finely drawn characters, and sharp insight,
Lucky in the Comer
presents a trenchant portrait of contemporary American family life.

ISBN 0-618-34070-X

SEVEN MOVES

“A tightly told tale that resists the bookmark as well as any thriller.”—
Chicago Sun-Times

Christine Snow, a successful Chicago therapist, sets out to find her vanished lover, a sultry and elusive travel photographer. Forging a trail that leads into the heart of Morocco,
Seven Moves
tracks Christine’s gradual recognition that no one can ever really know another’s soul. Bearing Anshaw’s trademark style—funny, hip, and laser sharp—this is a novel filled with both jazzy spirit and the poignancy of loss.

ISBN 0-395-87756-3

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