Melissa Senate (6 page)

Nick was also teaching summer school, an AP Shakespeare class that would earn the students college credit. The class was going to put on a modern version of
Henry V
at the end.

I closed my eyes. “I don’t want to say anything right now, okay?”

I could see him nodding in that way he did. “You’ll let me know when you know?”

“Yes,” I whispered.

And that was that. I held the phone to my chest for a moment, then lay there, still unable to think clearly, until the mosquitoes chased me away.

As I was heading back to my room, I heard a giggle, then a splash. From the other side of the pool, a guy had dived in. A young woman in a bikini stood by the edge. He swam over and put his hands around her ankles. “C’mon, shimmy out of that suit,” he said. “The water is so warm.”

I wasn’t sure if I should cough or not. She probably wouldn’t appreciate discovering she’d stripped in front of a stranger.

But she giggled and dived in, and then her bathing suit, top and bottom, was flung willy-nilly onto the deck. Her top landed on a potted plant. She swam to the edge and he followed her. I thought she was going to climb the metal ladder, but she gripped the sides instead and he pressed against her, both of them breathing very heavily.

I slipped away, back to the room and let myself in. Stella, an inveterate skinny-dipper who often said she loved having sex in the water, despite its difficulty, would have applauded the spontaneity of that little show, but she was still fast asleep, the rhinestones glowing on her Hot Mama tank. I slid the book out from under her head and put it on her end table. The air-conditioning in the room was so cold that I shut it off and opened the windows, listening to the splashes and giggles and Stella snoring. I imagined myself in that pool with Nick. Then tried to morph him into Tom, but it was Nick who won.

I
N THE MORNING, WE STOPPED AT A
W
HOLE
F
OODS
–
STYLE DELI
to pack our lunch and snacks for the trip. As I decided between a red or green apple, Stella announced she had to have a Swiss cheese omelet right then or she would go out of her mind, so we left the deli and headed across the street to a diner. The smiling waitress who came over with a pencil behind her ear and a pad in her apron was both pregnant and not wearing a ring on any of her fingers. As she poured our coffee, Stella asked if she could interview her for a book she was writing.

“I’m on break in five, so I could come sit with you if you want,” the woman said. “I’m craving an omelet myself. Western. No, Greek. With a side of chocolate pudding.”

Stella looked like she might throw up. She’d always hated chocolate pudding, mostly because of an episode in elementary school with a rival who’d dumped an entire saltshaker into Stella’s little chocolate pudding container.

The waitress, whose name tag announced her name as Jen R., to differentiate her from fellow waitress Jen B., who also hated being called Jennifer or Jenny, served our breakfasts and her own, the Greek omelet, with the side of chocolate pudding right on the plate, next to the home fries.

“So let’s start with the basics,” Stella said, forking a piece of cheesy omelet into her mouth. “Why don’t you just tell me a little about your life, getting as personal or as not as you feel comfortable.”

Jen gobbled up half her omelet with one finger up in the air at Stella before she said a word. “I was starving. Been on shift since six, when we opened. Okay, so let’s see. My name is Jen Reilly and I’m pregnant with my third child. I have a boy and a girl, seven-year-old John Junior and five-year-old Samantha.” She patted her belly. “This here will be either Michael or Moriah. Isn’t Moriah pretty? And I love the name
Michael.
You never hear of a baby being named Michael anymore. But how many Conners and Ethans does the world need?”

There were at least five Michaels in every class I ever took growing up. Every now and then a Tom. Lots of Nicks. Stella and I were always the only Ruby and Stella, but both names had gotten popular with the infant crowd.

Stella seemed disappointed that Jen was married and not a single-mother-to-be from whom she might glean some wisdom or advice. “I’m pregnant, too,” Stella whispered. “You’re the second person I’ve told aside from my sister,” she added.

“You two are sisters?” Jen said, glancing between us. “You look nothing alike! Hey, so what are you planning to name the baby,” she asked Stella. “Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl? I guess not yet. You’re not even showing.”

Names. I’d been so focused on the identity of the father that I almost forgot about the identity of the baby. I hadn’t even asked Stella what names she was considering.

Stella slathered half a toasted bagel with butter. “I did have one ultrasound. The doctor said he couldn’t tell yet. But if it’s a girl, I’m going to name her after our mother,” she added, eyeing me. “And if it’s a boy, Silas, after someone I once knew.”

“There are three Silases in John Junior’s kindergarten class!” Jen said. “What’s your mom’s name?”

“Clarissa,” I answered, sending a smile to Stella. I loved that name. The world definitely needed more Clarissas.

Stella had offered Jen a free face reading, but Jen said she didn’t go for that type of thing, that it was against her religion. As a congratulations, she packed the two of us a lunch on the house, adding a baggie full of pickle spears for Stella.

“Are you really going to write a book?” I asked her as we headed to the car.

She shrugged and bit into a pickle. “Maybe. The research is what’s important, though. Asking the questions, getting answers.”

“Answers about what? How other people live their lives? That won’t help you, Stella. You’re you.”

“So if I’m me, why are you telling me I should think like you?” She added the Angelina head tilt.

I mimicked strangling her and got behind the wheel.

She needed to interview herself, ask herself some questions. Like I was trying to do with the
New York Times
list of questions. Someone else’s marriage, how another couple interacted, the dynamic between them, wouldn’t help me figure out how to have a happy marriage of my own.

It was my turn to drive. Today’s stop: Cleveland, Ohio, almost six hours away. Because the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum closed at 5:30 on Tuesdays (Stella had really and truly called yesterday), we decided to drive straight there, no stops. One thing we could both agree on was that we both wanted to see the leather jacket Springsteen wore on the cover of
Born To Run
and the sexy Levi’s, too. Stella wanted to see anything that Bono, her personal God, might have worn or touched.

When we reached the museum, we got as far as the kiosks to listen to the “500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll” when Stella put her hand over her mouth. I had Louis Armstrong in my ears when Stella said she was going to be sick, so we raced to the bathroom. We didn’t know if it was morning sickness or just Stella being anywhere in the vicinity of chocolate pudding, albeit six hours earlier. She was positively green, so we left the museum, figuring we’d hit it on the way back.

Stella swore she really did make reservations at a lovely bed-and-breakfast near the museum, so I followed her Google Map directions to a house about ten minutes away.

“Are you sure this is it?” I asked. “This doesn’t look like an inn. It barely looks big enough to be a house.” It was a tiny white saltbox. There was one car in the driveway and one in front of the house. I pulled behind a gray Honda Accord on the street.

“Stella, I don’t think—” And then I noticed the name on the mailbox. Miller-Geller.

“Don’t be mad, Ruby,” she said, looking like she might throw up again. Now I wasn’t so sure if she was faking for sympathy.

I narrowed my eyes at her. “Who lives here?”

“Do you remember Aunt Sally by any chance? Our dad’s sister?”

I glared at her. “How could I remember someone I’ve never met? Stella, what are we doing here?”

“I just thought that since we’re here, I mean, we could just stop and meet her. Find out something, anything. I don’t know.”

“About our father?” I asked. “What would she know? She was estranged from him before we were even born.”

“But she knew him once. They grew up together. I’m just looking for some light. Insight. Something.”

“Fine, you knock on the door. I’m going to find a hotel and take a nap. Bye.” I opened the car door, my heart pounding. How dared she?

She grabbed my arm, then rummaged through her bag and pulled out a folded up sheet of paper. “Clarissa, you are the love of my life,” she read. “I want to spend every day of the next eighty years by your side. I want to raise a family with you, see your light, your beauty and grace in our children’s faces…”

It was the Denny’s children’s menu that our father had used the back of to write his wedding vows. She must have taken it from my mother’s hope chest, which I kept in my bedroom.

“So?” I said. “He didn’t mean a word of it. What’s your point, Stella?”

“He meant it when he wrote it, Ruby. I believe that. I need to believe that. Something changed, but when he wrote these words, he meant it. I guess I want to know who that person was. Before he changed.”

“We’re twenty-nine, Stella. He left when we were six. That means twenty-plus years of Eric Miller postchange. What’s there to know?”

“God, Ruby, what are you so afraid of? It’s
information,
” she said, waving the menu. “It’s our past. Our history. I want to know.”

“It’s a shitty past. But fine, go chase your fairy tale. I’m finding a hotel with a Jacuzzi tub.” I started to get out of the car.

“Ruby, I’m pregnant and looking for the father of my baby,” she said in such a low voice I could barely hear her. “If I can’t find him, I want to be able to tell Silas or Clarissa that I tried to find him, that it wasn’t his fault or my fault, that we didn’t mean for him or her to end up without a father.” Tears pooled in her eyes. “I don’t know what the hell I’m even saying.” She covered her eyes with her hands.

“I understand what you mean,” I said. “I really do, Stell. But I don’t know what our aunt is going to tell us that we don’t already know.”

“Can we just find out? Please? I can’t do this by myself, Rubes.”

I squeezed her hand. “Okay.”

We got out of the car and stared at the tiny house. There were two well-tended pink rosebushes on either side, which was a good sign. You couldn’t cultivate a garden if you weren’t a nice person, could you?

“Maybe I should change,” Stella said, reaching back into the car for her suitcase. She was wearing her jeans instead of the ubiquitous yoga pants, and a tiny white tank top (her uniform). She added the pink cotton ballet-wrap sweater she’d bought at the Kittery outlets and changed from her suede Pumas into pink platform flip-flops.

“Do I look okay?” I asked her, unsure what you wore to meet an estranged relative. An aunt.

“You always look okay,” Stella said. “And you’re not even wearing teacher clothes.”

I smiled. My teacher clothes were just nice pants, like from Ann Taylor or Banana Republic, and a blouse or shirt. I tended to get creative with shoes because I could. Today I looked like Stella. Jeans, a white T-shirt and a pale-lavender cotton cardigan tied around my waist. The shoes were also platform flip-flops, white with little pink hearts dotting the fabric. Tom bought them for me when we first started dating.

We stood there, staring at the house, neither of us moving an inch.

“I’m actually scared,” I whispered. “My heart is racing.”

“I think we should just go on up and knock on the—”

“Are you lost or something?”

We turned around to find a good-looking guy, early twenties tops, dripping with sweat. He wore a white T-shirt and blue running shorts. He managed to be both ruggedly handsome and pretty-boy at the same time.

“Um, we’re looking for the Miller-Geller residence?” Stella said in the form of a question.

He pointed at the little house. “You found it. Who you looking for? I’m a Miller-Geller.”

We stared at him. “We’re Millers,” I said. “Our father was, I mean,
is,
we think
is,
I mean we really don’t know if he’s alive or dead, actually. How ridiculous is that?” I clamped my mouth shut.

He stared back. “So you’re my mother’s brother’s daughters? The kiddie models? The twins that don’t look anything alike?”

At least he knew who we were. “That’s us.” I pointed at Stella. “That’s Stella. And I’m Ruby.”

He glanced between us both. “Glad you said so, because I wouldn’t have been able to tell you apart.”

Stella and I eyed each other.

“Kidding,” he said, grinning. “Um, is my mother expecting you? She didn’t say you were coming.”

“We’re passing through,” Stella said. “We were at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and since you all live so close, we thought we’d just be brave and knock.”

He laughed. “You’ll need bravery. My mother has the personality of a crab. At low tide.”

“Great,” I muttered into Stella’s ear.

“I don’t know why you bothered to come all this way,” Sally Miller-Geller said, setting a plate of scones on the coffee table. “Again, I’m really sorry about the air-conditioning. It was working yesterday. Refill your iced tea?”

Anything for a moment’s reprieve from this woman. Her son was right. She was a total crab. I kept waiting to feel something, a familial connection, any sense of family whatsoever. But Sally Miller-Geller might well have been a stranger. Though, I supposed she was.

It might have been easier to feel something if she looked like Eric Miller, but I couldn’t tell if she did or not. The few pictures we had of him—the ones my mother specifically saved for our “memory album”—showed a tall, rangy man with dark-brown hair in a sort of new-wave eighties cut, in either a fancy suit or jeans and a white button-down shirt. He had a narrow face, neither of which Stella and I had; we’d both inherited our mother’s heart-shaped face. Sally did have the narrow face, too. And frizzy dark hair, all one length to just below her chin, in the shape of a pyramid. She wore tortoiseshell glasses, which she kept adjusting. A nervous habit, I supposed. I wasn’t sure of her eye color. Hazel, maybe. Greenish-brownish. Nothing about her features reminded me of my father, what I remembered him looking like.

She returned with the pitcher and topped off our glasses, which we’d hardly touched. Then she disappeared again and returned a moment later. “I don’t really see what I can tell you about your father. I haven’t seen or heard from him since before you were born.”

She said that as though it was normal, as though that was the way families were. And since our paternal grandparents had died before we were born, that would make Eric and Sally all either had left of their nuclear family. How could they just never speak to each other again as though they
weren’t
family? I tried to imagine never speaking to Stella again. Though there were times I was thrilled we were on the outs, we both always knew that we’d get together come our birthdays and Thanksgiving and for the anniversary of our mother’s death.

“You don’t mind staying in one room, do you?” Rory asked, coming in with our suitcases. He’d clearly showered; he now wore a white T-shirt and jeans. “As you can see, it’s a pretty small house. You guys can have my room, and I’ll sleep down here on the couch.”

What? Since when were we staying the night? We couldn’t possibly.

Stella opened her mouth to say something, but Sally, looking at her son with a murderous gleam, rushed to say, “Oh, I’m sure Ruby and Stella have reservations at some lovely hotel. Your room is hardly clean for company, anyway, Rory.”