The Portable Veblen (12 page)

Linus was now showing Paul his collection of fossils and arrowheads. Paul was nodding politely. “This one I found in Utah, just outside Moab, sticking out of the red soil like a thumb.”

“Nice,” Paul said.

“I had a beauty, seven-tiered, about eight inches long, red jasper, and I made the mistake of turning it over to the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles. Well, they have a warehouse, and they cataloged it, and it disappeared, never to be seen again. Never displayed the thing. I wish I’d kept it.”

“Well, don’t blame the institution. It’s a repository of artifacts, and, even so, it adds to the body of knowledge. It was a good contribution,” Paul said.

“I don’t suppose I could entice you to help us with a chore, Paul,” Melanie interrupted, “with some Key lime pie as a reward?”

“What chore?” Veblen asked, suspiciously.

“Well, last winter, a full year ago, we had that massive storm that ripped the roof off our chicken house, which I want to use as a studio, and the roof flew down into the ravine. I can’t go down there because of my ankles. But Linus could easily bring it up if he had the help of a strong fellow like Paul.”

“Don’t say that around my dad,” Paul said. “He’ll give you a list of chores I’d mess up owing to my supposed laziness. Where is it?”

Linus said, “Come on, Melanie, that’s a terrible job. We don’t want to subject Paul to that.”

“It’s in the ravine?” Paul asked.

“At the very bottom. Past the still.”

This was a mysterious rusted hulk they had discovered down there years before, deciding it had to be an old moonshiner’s still.

“Let’s take a look,” Paul said.

They moved outside. Lake County was coming up in the world, and to the north one could see newly planted vineyards ringing the hills across the valley. On site the land dropped off sharply around the hammerhead, giving way to the gnarled thicket of blackberry brambles, twelve feet deep in some places, harsh and naked in winter, like a farm of cat-o’-nine-tails. Somewhere below lay the tin roof.

“We’ve got overalls,” said Linus. “It’s not that heavy, but the shape’s awkward.”

“Gloves?” Paul requested, as if asking for a scalpel.

“Good leather gloves.”

“Hmm. What about boots?”

“I’m a size thirteen,” said Linus.

“Better big than small.”

“Are you sure?” Veblen faltered. Her mother’s gall affronted, and yet she was deeply gratified that Paul was rising to the occasion, and strangely, his affability made her feel loved.

“I’ll get the gear,” Linus said.

Paul followed him inside and emerged shortly in mechanic’s overalls, the big paint-stained boots, the heavy gloves. Linus came next, in his version of the same outfit. “The path starts over here,” Linus said. He held two machetes and some clippers and handed one of each to Paul. “Just hack away.”

“All right, let’s do it,” Paul said.

“Thataway!” said Linus.

The men began to fight and hack through the brambles. Veblen watched Paul trying to free his sleeve from a rack of thorns.

Her mother murmured, “This is a very good sign.”

They went back inside, and Veblen’s mother lay down on the couch.

“That job’s about the worst you could have cooked up,” Veblen complained.

“Paul is an able-bodied man. He should be able to help his future father-in-law with this. So what are you going to wear for the wedding?”

“Wait here.” Veblen retrieved her purse and removed a picture of a dress she’d printed. Talking about clothes, they always got along. “Something like this.”

“Beautiful!” said her mother, examining the picture. “Very simple and elegant.”

“I’m going to make it myself, I think,” Veblen said, deciding right then.

“Yes, you could copy the pattern easily. It’s cut on the bias and it’s very flattering.” With a sudden burst of energy Melanie jumped up, taking Veblen back into the bedroom to her closet. “I might wear this.” She showed her a midnight blue silk dress.

“Very nice! Where did you get it?”

“That estate sale I told you about. And over here are the things I found for you. I want a fashion show.”

A heap of discarded garments, which Melanie believed to be diamonds in the rough, and therefore evidence of her superior skills in the gem fields of garage sales and the Rescue Squad Thrift Store, sat on the chair in the corner. “Wow,” said Veblen. She began to sort through the items, which appeared to have belonged to an aging society woman in the 1970s. Lots of prints and polyester. “Funky.”

“That’s Coco Chanel. See how the pockets are sewn closed?”

“Yep.”

“Finely tailored items arrive with the pockets sewn closed. I’m sorry our budget didn’t allow you to experience that. You can open them gently with the seam ripper I gave you.”

“Okay.”

“You still have the seam ripper I gave you?”

“It’s in my sewing stuff.”

“That’s a very expensive Swiss seam ripper. Be careful, it’s sharp.”

“I know, Mom.” Veblen paused the appropriate number of seconds necessary for Melanie to feel appreciated.

Melanie pointed to a pantsuit with a waist sash, a bright green
Marimekko cotton print. “Try that. With your shoulders, it’ll look smashing on you.”

Veblen sat on the edge of the bed, removed her shoes and socks, and dutifully unzipped her jeans. This seemed to be one of her mother’s only joys, so how could she refuse? Her mother said, “Veblen, haven’t I told you to shave the hairs off your toes? Toe hairs are very unattractive.”

Veblen looked down at her feet. “Where?”

“On the first joint of your big toes. There.”

Veblen doubled over and detected a few blondish hairs she’d never noticed before. “So?”

“I’m remembering one of the last things my grandmother told me before she died, oddly,” Melanie said.

“What do you mean?” Veblen slipped on the pants part of the Marimekko pantsuit, but the cut was very matronly, the way the top of the pants went over her hips. She continued with the masquerade, familiar with the routine of thanking her mother profusely, then stuffing the clothes in the back of her closet when she got home or tamping them into a plastic bag and kicking the bag like a football into a Goodwill bin.

BAG OF UGLY CLOTHES.

“She had opinions.”

“What other great advice did she have?”

“She’s the one who taught me how to cook, the right way to cut each vegetable, and she was interested in civic matters.
Very practical, after her first husband died so young. Thought a woman should accept an imperfect marriage.”

“What’s perfect anyway,” Veblen said.

“No!” Melanie cried. “You’re too young to think that. If you don’t think Paul’s perfect, don’t marry him. You don’t have to marry at all, for that matter.”

“That’s not what I mean. Nothing’s perfect. Is your marriage to Linus perfect?”

“I’m very lucky to have him.”

“But
perfect
?”

“Her point was that you make a choice and stick with it. That you make a silk purse from a sow’s ear. She gave me a lot of grief when I left Rudgear. She had no idea that any meeting of the minds was impossible. You see, in her day, matches that bad didn’t happen unless youths were foolish and unsupervised. You will never hear that kind of advice from me. When is this event happening?”

“We haven’t decided yet.”

“What does Albertine think of him?”

“Um, still getting to know him.”

“What are his friends like? Do you like them?”

“They’re fine,” Veblen said curtly.

“What about your ideals? Do you share the same ideals? That’s crucial!”

“I think so.”

“You’d better be sure. There’s nothing worse. I’ve never changed my values or principles for any man.”

“That’s really cool, Mom. I admire you for that. I’ve always said that.”

“In the end, that’s all you have.”

“I get it.”

“That ring really doesn’t seem like you,” her mother observed.

Veblen sighed. “It’s a little big,” she said, though she’d been happy to have someone err on the side of surplus for her.

“I hope it doesn’t represent Paul’s values,” her mother said. “And what about your career? Are you happy with it?”

“It’s fine for now,” Veblen said.

“Are you ever going to be paid for your translation work?”

“That’s not the point, at least not now. I feel lucky I get to do it,” Veblen asserted.

“Maybe you could translate for someone else too, someone who treats you like a professional.”

“The only thing I wish is that I’d gone and lived in Norway for a while. Then I’d be fluent.”

Possibly feeling guilty over standing in Veblen’s way years back, Melanie changed the subject. “Well, what about that other idea, about starting your own magazine?”

“Yeah, I still think about that.”

“I would love to advise with the design.”

“You would?”

“I think helping you would be thrilling. We’d have so much fun collaborating.”

They chatted amiably then, Veblen in her ill-fitting pantsuit bouncing a few ideas off her mother and nestling into the curve at her hip, just as she had a thousand times, viewing the glass of water at the ready for pills, the corroding gooseneck lamp, the large oak chest of drawers filled with her mother’s mysterious things. For some reason the chest always reminded Veblen of a long ago moment when she glimpsed her mother’s underarm as
she set about applying some kind of cream from a jar. The armpit was a hitherto unknown landscape of fleshiness and stubble, and it struck Veblen as an armpit so vast and cavernous it could smuggle a pup. She’d been relieved when the arm came down and the armpit receded from sight, though, alas, not from memory.

The afternoon sun streamed past the chest in motey beams, unbroken except for a dark silhouette in the unexpected shape of a squirrel.

“Oh my god, Mom, look!”

Her mother lifted her head. “Scram!” She clapped her hands together.

“Why should it scram?”

“Why is it staring in the window?”

Veblen rose and felt a spike of adrenaline, a jab, as the squirrel leaped off the sill.

“It’s checking in.”

Her mother sat up. “Veblen, come here. Right now.”

But Veblen moved to the window.

“Mom, I’ll be right back.” And she took off after the squirrel, despite her mother’s calls.

Out the door, she searched for her ally, arms to the sun.

The cottonwoods shivered up an arm of the ravine, the grasses whispered. A hawk circled in the upper reaches of the sky. And all else was quiet, even the sound of Paul and Linus hacking with their machetes was faint. She scanned the trees around the house, starting with the gnarled, arthritic crab apple. There was a lot of dead wood covered in pale olive lichen. Then the old plums, the cedar, and the handsome, muscular madrone. Hours of her young life had been spent out here, busy mixing up potions or else very
still, watching sunlight filter through the trees, or storms coming in across the hills, and graying everywhere, and the clip of birds dipping from tree to tree. Beetles and dark jelly newts had lived under the rotting logs by the chicken house. On some days a thousand robins would alight in the treetops for an hour, then leave in a great upward rush. Toadstools popped up in moist corners in the rainy months, and somewhere in the ravines was a plant with cotton-winged seeds that took flight through the air in unexpected spirals. A fox used to peek up at her, ears spry and soft, and wild boars came rumbling through in packs, and lone bobcats, and, once in a while, a wild mule.

At the madrone she heard a noise, and spun around.

“Come out! Are you here?”

The land was flanked on the western side by short hills. Wind liked to race over the crest of those hills, gaining speed as it swept over them, and it was not surprising that the roof of the chicken house flew the coop. She used to watch the heavy sunflower heads banging in the wind. Try whistling when it’s windy. The grass waving, the burrs flying, the foxtail so affectionate to your socks. You could spin until you lost your compass. You could pull together thinking:
This is only the beginning
.
One day it’ll come around.
She believed it, that she would one day find her way. Her ears would prick to the sound of it coming on the wind.

Was it arrogant to think a squirrel was following you around? Or to think your parents cared about you?

And yet—with those well-marked whiskers, and that topcoat, and the notable scruff, a squirrel who cared and followed you everywhere—wouldn’t that be nice?

“Don’t get lost!” she called into the wind.

She came back inside and had a slow drink of water, before returning to her mother’s room.

“Sit here right now,” her mother said.

Veblen sat next to her mother, the room darker than before.

“Don’t start this now. You have everything to look forward to.”

“I know I do.”

Her mother stared at her, and stroked her hair. “Sweetie. What’s wrong? Aren’t you happy?”

“Yes! I’m very happy.”

“You’re having one of your attacks,” her mother said.

“No, I’m not.” She held her mother’s hand, as entrenched as the tides. From the men outside came a few echoic yelps.