Axis of Aaron (35 page)

“It’s easy when you live by yourself and are only in a place on the weekends. I wipe things down or put them away when I’m finished.” She put her fork down. “Do you really want to spend dinner talking about my housekeeping secrets?”
 

“Just curious. I can’t tell you enough how amazing this place is.”
 

“I don’t think you’ve ever told me that.”

 
Ebon looked around. “Well. This place is amazing.”
 

“Thank you.”
 

“Is your place in the city as amazing?”
 

“Ironically, no. It’s nice, but the air filtration is crap, so everything always gets dusty. I rent, so I can’t control the environment as much as I’d like.”
 

Ebon looked around. The home they were in was impressive, but most of what made the house so nice were touches that Vicky must have added herself. The freestanding, postmodern tub in the middle of the bathroom floor, for instance, couldn’t have been original equipment unless Vicky was the home’s original owner and had the place built herself.
 

“Shame, considering you live there more than you live here.”
 

“Better this year than normal though. I don’t think I’ve spent this much time at
this
house — ” she gestured around the expansive dining room, “ — in years. You’ve got me thinking about Aaron way more than usual though. It’s all insulated for winter, so what the hell. Flights are short. Why not come back through the winter? It’s pretty when the snow falls.”
 

“Plus, you have to keep coming back when you have someone staying over every weekend to mooch from you.”
 

Vicky looked at Ebon, puzzled.

“Doesn’t it get expensive, taking all those flights?” Ebon had always taken the ferry to Aaron. It was slower, but relatively inexpensive. Even though he’d made great income, he doubted he’d feel comfortable spending that freely for something so regular and recurring.
 

“I make more than you may realize.”

Ebon looked around. Given the house and the décor — and considering that this was her weekend and summer place — Ebon thought he realized just fine.

“Besides, I really like being alone. The city is always crowded. Here, it’s just me. You can’t even hear people on the beaches after summer is over, kids screaming and Jet Skis buzzing. I can spend all day
existing
. All week, it’s a whirlwind. I like the time to just
be
. And I’m not here every weekend. I travel a lot.”
 

“Where?”

“I just got back from Paris.”

“Really?” Ebon suppressed his surprise, because she’d surely told him that already, probably multiple times. The longer he spent with Vicky, the better his sense of continuity seemed (It frightened him to realize how much he’d grown used to uncertainty about even the march of time around Aimee, but a person could get comfortable with anything), but it wasn’t all back. Still, Ebon felt himself settling by degrees. He wanted to stay here forever, to relearn everything about Vicky that he seemed to have forgotten.
 

“I know a family there,” she said, nodding and swallowing a bite. “I met them when I was studying abroad, but we stayed in touch. Now they’re like a branch of my own family.”
 

Ebon remembered something out of the blue — a tidbit that floated in front of his awareness like a mote of dust. Vicky spoke fluent French. She’d told him that the day they’d met, and it had drawn him to her even more. She seemed so exotic. So seasoned. So mature, grounded, and worldly. Ebon’s job as a “professional Rolodexer” could probably send him all over the world, but he’d studiously accepted only domestic clients. It had seemed sensible, to focus on the places he knew. But now he wondered if that decision had stemmed from fear and a desire to stay close to home, as he’d stayed close to Aaron.
 

“Cool.” An inadequate response, but Ebon was getting worried about exposing his ignorance on things she’d already told him. Luckily, it was in character for him to say little.
 

Vicky laughed, as if remembering something.

“What?”
 

“Once, my brother and I took a trip when I came to visit. Rather than staying in France, we…”
 

“You have a brother?”
 

“My French brother.
Mon frère.
”

“Oh.” It occurred to Ebon that he knew nothing about Vicky’s family. Only that she lived alone.

“I’d just torn my ACL while skiing, but we already had the trip planned, so I hobbled onto the plane with crutches and onto trains with Paul. Then we realized that it would make more sense to just give in and get a damned wheelchair for him to push me around. Because with all the walking, the crutches were murder.”
 

“Hmm.”
 

“But do you know what? The wheelchair was just as bad.”
 

“Hmm.”
 

“Europe: not handicap accessible. Old stone streets, big curbs, narrow walkways … it was a nightmare.” She laughed again. “Even though he lived near Paris, he’d never been to the Eiffel Tower. So we went, but instead of posing in front of it, we took pictures of me beating on the wheelchair with my crutches.”
 

Ebon chuckled because he thought he was probably supposed to. He couldn’t relate to the story at all (he’d never been to Paris; he’d never torn his ACL; he’d never traveled with a sibling; he’d never felt angry at a wheelchair), but he enjoyed hearing Vicky tell it. He wanted her to keep talking and telling stories. He hadn’t realized how exhausted the past days and weeks had left him. He wanted to lie on her chest and go to sleep, her voice a warm blanket in his ears.
 

“Sounds like a nice memory.”
 

“It is. But do you know what’s funny?”
 

Ebon ran his tongue over another bite of veal. “Mm?”
 

“I don’t think I’ve ever told that story in English.”
 

“Mm.”
 

“It feels different in English.”
 

“What do you mean?”
 

“I don’t know. It’s … artificial? I’m not sure. The thing about language is, once you’re fluent, you don’t actually translate in your head. It’s different when you can start
thinking
in the other language, kind of like how you’ll get used to something costing x number of euros without converting it in your head to dollars. So, I mean, I can dream in French. And that trip — it’s a
French
trip. It’s a
French
memory. Telling it to you just now is like … I don’t know, like reading a translation of a novel. It’s just not the same story, due to colors and shades of meaning.”
 

Ebon nodded as if he understood. He didn’t. He spoke only one language. But right now, Vicky could talk about income tax law, and he’d find it fascinating. And when you added the fact that she was actually discussing her knowledge of the international language of love? He wasn’t sure if he was horny or spellbound. Probably both.
 

“I hope my daughter likes to pick up languages.”

Ebon nearly choked. “I’m sorry?”
 

“I learned French pretty easily, I guess, but that came because I was immersed. My parents used to go to France when I was a kid and took me along — the way you said you spent your summers here, I guess — and I just sort of continued it on, picking up two separate exchange programs in high school. The second was the one where I met my French family. Learning like that was simple: I had to think and conduct my business in French just to get by. And besides, I wanted to fit in. That meant dressing
and
speaking like them.” She fluted off into a long, extravagant French sentence that made Ebon fall in love with her. Then, continuing in English: “I really have no accent, and … ”
 

“You’re American,” Ebon explained. It was a dumb thing to say. For one, she knew that. And for two, he had no idea if it was true. If she truly had no accent, couldn’t she have been born French? But she’d have mentioned something like that. Just like she’d have mentioned that she had a daughter, despite making it abundantly clear that she didn’t.
 

“No
American
accent,” she said. “When I speak French, I mean. What’s commonly called an ‘accent’ is just mispronouncing words: ‘
chateau
’ instead of ‘
chateau
.’”
 

Ebon nodded, but the two words had sounded the same to him.
 

“Most Americans would say it the first way, with the ‘eau’ sounding like ‘oh’ instead of softer. But see, that came from me wanting to be like the local kids. My daughter lives in America and has never traveled — yet — so I hope she’s interested for the sake of interest because … ”
 

“Have you told me about your daughter?”
 

Vicky stopped midramble. “Of course.”
 

“I think I’d remember.”
 

“Yes, Ebon, I have. Sabrina. She’s eleven. None of this is ringing a bell?”
 

Ebon wanted to play along (of course it rang a bell!), but this was too unnerving. It wasn’t that he didn’t recall Vicky talking about a daughter; he flat-out recalled her saying things that more or less
contradicted
having a daughter. She’d never been married; she’d never settled down; she’d always traveled too much for work; she liked to be alone; she spent her weekdays working sixty-hour weeks and her weekends on Aaron alone. Her island home had never seen a child’s disorder, and her place in the city didn’t sound kid friendly at all. She’d never mentioned a man in her life with whom she might have shared custody. Her stories were all exotic locales, spending money freely and selfishly, and centered on single-serving friends punctuated by the occasional enduring presence. There was no room for a child in Vicky’s stories, especially given her free-flowing way of speaking, and the inevitability that with time, she’d tell him all that was to be told.
 

“No,” said Ebon.
 

“I told you about her dance recital last time I saw you. It’s why I had to come late.”
 

“I don’t remember that.”
 

“I showed you pictures. For Christ’s sake, Ebon, there’s one right over there.”

Ebon followed Vicky’s finger and saw the profile of a picture frame, its face hidden. He didn’t want to stand and walk over (it felt too much like counting repaid money to make sure he hadn’t been cheated), but this was unsettling. Vicky’s home, along with Vicky, had been his anchor. If he’d missed something vital here, he’d lose it.

Ebon stood. Beside the couch was a silver-framed photo of Vicky, looking decidedly less glamorous than he knew her, with her arm wrapped around a young girl with hair as red as hers.
 

“Oh,” he said.
 

“Now you remember?”
 

The answer was no, but it could still be an error of omission. She’d told him before, and he’d missed it, or he’d yet to recall something that had thus far remained absent from his mind. He decided to say something noncommittal, dodging her question and now-curious eyes.
 

“Why don’t you ever bring her here?”
 

“I told you. She’s afraid of the ocean.”
 

“Who’s afraid of the ocean?”
 

“I don’t know, Ebon. Why are you quizzing me?”
 

“Where does she stay, when you’re up here alone? Don’t you feel like you’re …” He stopped himself from concluding the sentence with
… neglecting her,
but in the absence of a substitute ending, she intuited his meaning on her own.
 

“She stays with my sister. I told you that too.”
 

“Why doesn’t she stay with her father?” Ebon realized the size of his mistake the second he made it. He had absolutely no knowledge whatsoever about Sabrina’s father, same as he’d so recently had no knowledge about Sabrina herself.
 

“Where is this coming from?”
 

“Sorry,” Ebon said, backpedaling.
 

“Should we discuss your kids instead?”
 

Ebon walked directly into the trap. “I don’t have kids.”
 

“Really. And yet you’re so full of opinions!”
 

“Look, I didn’t mean to … ”
 

Vicky rolled her eyes.
 

“Let’s get back to talking about France. Have you thought about … I mean … do you want to take her there?”
 

“Don’t change the subject.”
 

“I wasn’t trying to change it in the first place. I just … after falling in the water today, I … things have been confusing and stressful for me recently and …” Ebon realized he was pleading. Not for Vicky to stop being angry at him, but for her to sympathize. It was a strange thing to recognize, but he couldn’t pause until she stopped him.