The Garden Path (28 page)

“What can we do for you today?” The fat man, rubbing his hands, looked at her breasts.

“Gin. I need a bottle of—” She looked around vaguely for the shelf of gin. A pudgy penguin waddled back and forth on a block of ice in a cardboard display; behind it, gin poured from a bottle into white plastic foam that sparkled when the light hit it. “I'll just see what's here.”

He was ahead of her, smiling to show eerily perfect false teeth. “Beefeater, Gilbey's, Seagrams, we've got a special on our house brand here—a good buy. What do you need? A fifth? Or bigger? What're you? Having a party?”

“No, I guess I'll just—” She hefted a bottle of Beefeater off the shelf and took it to the counter.

“Got enough tonic? Bitter lemon?” he asked, rubbing his hands. There could have been a melon, or a baby, under his waistband. She imagined the flabby little breasts, the tiny penis hanging like a toy under the melon.

“Yes, that's all, just the gin.” Her hands were shaking as she handed him a twenty, waited for the change. He put the bottle into a narrow paper bag and handed it to her with a mock bow.

“Come in again, mademoiselle,” he said. She realized he must be about her age. In that instant everything gathered around her: the abrupt decision to drive out there, the heat, the café sign, the liquor-store man, the lack of lunch—and breakfast, too? when had she eaten last?—and she felt faint. She reached out for the package, then dropped her hand. “Here—are you all right?” He moved out from behind the counter, took her arm, and led her to a chair beside a display of daiquiri mix. “Sit down here. Want some water? Jesus.” He laughed a little, seeing she had recovered. “Pardon my French, but I thought you were going to pass out for a minute there.”

She managed a smile. “I'm sorry. I'm so hot. I've been out in the garden all day.” She raised her hand to her head, pushed back her hair.

“I could tell,” he said, and took her hand, lightly, in his. “See that? Dirt under the nails—ground in. I knew you were a gardener. My late wife's nails were like that all summer long.” He kept her hand. “Rest in peace,” he said.

She smiled again—inadequately, she knew, without sympathy or interest, and using his hand as a prop, she stood up. “I'm all right now. Just a passing thing.” She walked over to the counter and picked up her package, still shaky but hiding it. She felt breathless, exhausted, and her voice came out little better than a whisper. She cleared her throat. “I'll go home and have a cold gin and tonic.”

“That's the girl. Best remedy.”

She started away from the counter. “By the way,” she said, and paused, but she had to ask, and she went on, holding to the back of the chair where she had sat. “How are they doing next door? The vegetarians?”

He shrugged elaborately, slowly, half-closing his eyes. “What can I tell you? They're making a go of it.
I
can't explain it. I ate lunch over there one day. I ordered this pizza made out of zucchini squash.” He chuckled. “I was lucky to get it down, I'll tell you. But the place is jammed every lunch hour. I hear they're expanding to dinners in the fall. Plus entertainment. Probably some tone-deaf beatnik with a guitar. Listen.” He raised one hand, as if taking an oath. “There's one born every minute. You know what I mean?”

“They're young people running it?”

“
Nice
kids,” he said, nodding. “A girl, looks like a hippie, and two guys. Now the girl is married to one of them, so I'm told—but I don't inquire too close.” He shrugged again, but amiably. “What can I tell you? Nowadays you never know. All I know is that they're raking in the dough.”

She nodded; her throat was dry. She would, actually, go home and have a drink. “The young woman,” she said with effort. “Long blonde hair? Is that the one?”

“That's her. Not bad-looking, but
skinny
. What can you expect, though, with food like that?”

She gave a wan laugh. “Well.”

“Here. Let me get that door for you. You sure you're okay? Have you got far to go?” He was beside her, opening the door to a rush of warm air, the cooking smell again.

“No—no, I'm fine,” she said, took a deep breath, and walked toward her car. “Thanks—very much,” she said, not looking back.

“Hey!” she heard him call. “Next time you come in I'll take you next door for some rabbit food.” But she didn't answer. She got into her car and drove away without another glance at the Liquor Boutique or the Silvergate Café, going slowly, afraid to drive, afraid she would faint. Oh God Oh God, she thought. What am I doing?

Ivan came that night. She had drunk two gin and tonics, eaten a couple of boiled hot dogs and some strawberries for dinner, and spent some time looking at herself naked in the mirror (small waist just barely gone slack, big peasant hips, hard white thighs, a freckled triangle of tan pointing between large breasts no longer firm, grimy veined hands with permanent puckers at the fingertips, fit to be held only by the obese Liquor Boutique man). Then she had two more gins. Ivan found her in tears, leafing through a
Countryman
from Spring, 1933: “Do you realize that millions of rabbits are caught every year in the steel-toothed trap, and often linger for many hours with shattered or lacerated limbs?”

“What's this? what's this?” he asked, meaning her tears, taking the magazine from her, wiping her face with his hand. “What's this, my little blossom? What's wrong?” His voice was tender, but she could tell—how could she tell? something in his face? a narrowing of the eyes?—he didn't like it, didn't want tears from her, was even—was it something in the set of his head?—disgusted by them.

She smiled woozily, feeling the gin, holding out her arms to him. “I had a long, hard, hot day in the garden.”

That was better. He knelt alongside her chair, put his arms around her, buried his face in her lap. “Those are mighty suggestive adjectives,” he said, and she felt his smile against her thigh.

She conceived the idea of going to England with him.
Taking Ivan to England
was how it first came to her, swiftly amended: they could go to England together, visit Silvergate, rent a car and tour the south, maybe drive up to the Lakes. Neither of them had ever traveled abroad. Maybe what she needed was a vacation before she plowed into her book in earnest.

She had had a phone call from Joyce, her editor in New York—a friendly call, just to see how she was, with no mention of the book. Two weeks later there was a letter, gently reminding her that time was ticking away against her contract; Joyce couldn't wait to see a draft of the opening chapters, no matter how rough.

“I don't think it's writer's block any more,” Rosie said to Peter on the phone. “You have to
be
a writer to have writer's block. And I haven't got the faintest notion how to write a book.”

“Why don't you try talking into a tape recorder? You can certainly talk up a storm, God knows. And leave it to someone else to transcribe it and edit it.”

“You mean ‘as told to'? Like a movie star?”

“Why not? In fact, you should get Susannah to help.” A silence. “Mom? Susannah—your daughter. I didn't tell you she's doing a book?”

“She's doing a book. What in hell does
doing a book
mean?”

“
Writing a
book. She has a contract. Science-fiction stories. I guess I never told you she's a writer. Or did I? Actually; I didn't even know it until recently.”

The flicker of interest she had had in Ivan's Susannah, in the blonde waitress she had fled from seeing, flamed up again for this new daughter, the writing Susannah who was doing a book. She remembered, again, Susannah as a child, her flatness, her lack of shine—had that concealed, really, the empty, receptive soul of a writer? And how could it be that what eluded her so humiliatingly should come with ease to her daughter? But did it? Maybe it was damned difficult, maybe the girl sweated blood, wept, tore her hair, vomited, broke windows, kicked holes in the wall over her book. Fought with her husband, stormed out of the house. Humiliation faded in the flame of curiosity. “You mean she's been published already? Before?”

“Short stories. Millions of them—well, dozens. I don't know. A dozen, maybe. But now they want to collect some of them into a book.”

She would go to the Chiswick Library and see if she could find anything—wouldn't it be odd, to read a story written by Susannah? Like hearing a ghost speak. She tried to remember her daughter's voice. A whine, that was all. Screams, yelling, tears, and then a whine.

“But, Peter, what about—?” She wanted to ask, couldn't. We should drop this subject right here, she thought, and looked out the window at the flowered patchwork of her backyard; if she squinted it blurred into blobs of rose, pink, violet, yellow, twenty shades of green, like a painting seen close up.

“She doesn't waitress any more. Just writes. They've hired a college girl.”

Did that mean she still lived with Ivan? Would Peter forget to tell her they'd separated just as he'd forgotten about the book?
I see Ivan all the time
, she couldn't say,
and he never mentions her name. Why? Why?

“The restaurant has really taken off,” Peter was saying. “It's strange, too, with businesses failing right and left—restaurants, especially. Ivan told me”—her stomach lurched, she pressed the phone so hard to her ear it hurt; Ivan—“the failure rate for new restaurants is something like 95 percent. But you'd be amazed how good the food is. Vegetarian
nouvelle cuisine
. Not bean-sprout stuff. Heavy on the goat cheese, the braised endive, the sorbet—you listening, Mom? Why don't you let me take you to lunch there one of these days?”

“No.”

“She won't even
be
there. Who will even know it's you? Hell, you met her husband once for five minutes—right?” Her husband. “I'll introduce you as one of my professors. My thesis advisor.”

She had to laugh. “Peter, maybe you've never noticed, but you and I look rather obviously related.”

“Okay. You wear a blonde wig, and I'll wear a false nose. Or wear a black veil over your face like Nonna Anna used to wear to church. With a hole in front so you can eat.”

For a mad moment she was tempted; then she laughed and changed the subject. “Please. Be serious. I really need your advice. Should I get myself a tape recorder? I'll try anything. Maybe I could talk into it and have it transcribed and use it to work with, like the scripts from the show.”

“I thought you'd already tried using the scripts.”

“I've looked through them. I can use them for the later chapters—the specifics. But this is supposed to be half gardening tips and half autobiography, reminiscence—I don't know what-all. I thought I'd write about my father, about Silvergate.” She hesitated. “I've thought of going over there. Going back to see what it's like and how it stacks up against my memory of it.”

“That's a great, great idea. You need a vacation.”

“I thought it might break this block or whatever it is.” Said aloud, though, the idea seemed less attractive. Ivan was the point of it: Ivan. Not the book. Not hanging around England worrying about muttering her impressions into a tape recorder. “But I really couldn't leave my garden at this time of year,” she said.

“
Hire
someone.” Peter's voice was bordering on exasperation. Talking to her as she had to him when he was a teenager. “The damn flowers don't need you lurking out there every second. Any old anonymous arm can turn on the sprinkler and pull the weeds. Face it, Ma—they're not going to
miss
you. They're
plants.
”

Absurd, how the words hurt. The pinks and greens and blues blazed more brightly than ever; she longed to be out there in the sun and the dirt. “I'll think about it,” she said to get off the phone.

She did think about it, though. She let the book fade from her mind and thought about being in England with Ivan, alone, for a week, two weeks. She knew it was a rainy country, she'd even read that this particular spring and summer were the coldest and wettest ever in the British Isles, but she remembered nothing but sunshine, flowers, dusty garden paths, high blue skies with clouds like white roses. She would have Ivan all to herself. What fun it would be: they'd pay their £2 admission to see Silvergate—house and gardens, described in the National Trust booklet as “magnificent Palladian manor house, with extensive landscaped grounds; rose garden; topiary hedge …” And then dinner in a pub with Ivan, and a room in an inn with a big bed and an eiderdown and a little mullioned window to let the sun in. She felt a tremor of unease, imagining the morning sun lighting her unmade-up face, her mouth sagging in sleep. But she would train herself to rise early, she was used to rising early in the summer, and she would shower, fix her face, greet him fresh and energetic the way he liked her.

“Let's go to England sometime, Ivan.” She tried it out one night.

“I'd love to,” he said promptly. “I'd travel anywhere, any time. I love it. That trip cross-country—” He broke off, smiled at her duplicitously, as if that trip was their secret. “Name a place—anywhere. Pittsburgh. East Oshkosh Junction, Maine. England. I'll go—this minute.”

“The south of England,” she said. “We'd tour the southern counties. Kent and Sussex—there's an east and a west Sussex, we'd hit both—and Surrey and Dorset, and over to Devon and Cornwall.” She didn't, after all, specify Silvergate. He would have heard of it from Susannah, and she didn't want to hear him say so—or not say so, either. “Wouldn't it be fun, Ivan? To get away?”

“It would be great, Rosie.” He spoke with such fervor that she wondered what he needed to escape. Or was it enthusiasm for the idea of going away with her? Or both? She regarded him fondly, puzzling it out. They stood out in the garden. It was a cloudy night, nearly dark, and the light was slowly gathering up into the whitish sky. From the next street they could hear the shouts of children still playing ball. Ivan's blue eyes were colorless in this light—opaque and depthless.