Wish You Were Here (56 page)

“Yeah, all that practice is really paying off.”

He moved through his own back nine, tracing his progress with the stubby green pencil.

“Well?” she asked, knowing it wasn't close.

“A hundred and eleven.”

“That's dreadful. With the way you hit there's no reason you shouldn't break a hundred. That's more than six strokes a hole.”

She commandeered the scorecard to see where he'd gone wrong and noticed that he'd circled her birdie on thirteen, given the two an exclamation point. They'd have to save the card on the mantel with all the others (their names boiled down to H, K and E, the holes and days forgotten), another thing for her to take back, and again she worried that Arlene's car wasn't big enough, that she should have rented a truck.

“How did you get a nine on sixteen?” she asked.

“I was out of bounds twice.”

“That'll do it.”

The waitress brought her chicken Caesar and his club sandwich and they tucked in. The truck weighed on her, and as she was thinking of Saturday and leaving, a cloud covered the sun and the light in the room changed, in tune with her mood. The food was mediocre at best, and she'd drained her gin and tonic—mostly ice—its buzz solidifying into a numb denseness. A stock-car race whined above the bar, though no one was watching it. The long mirror doubled the last tier of bottles, and there was Henry's Cutty Sark, its dark green shoulders and periscope of a spout.

She thought of Margaret's drinking. She remembered Henry giving her sips of beer as a child, and once, in high school, Margaret being dropped on their frosted lawn in the middle of the night, reeking of vomit, a clot in her hair. Margaret had apologized to her, slurring, as Emily peeled off her jean jacket, her blouse already half unbuttoned, her bra gone, and again Emily felt that enervating, helpless mix of anger and sorrow only Margaret—her first—could elicit from her. Now Margaret wanted her to keep the cottage.

Across from her, Kenneth ate his messy club over his plate, dripping gobs of mayonnaise. He'd purposely not told her about his job, or about Lisa working. Why were her children's lives a secret from her? Why did she have to drag everything out of them?

“Did you know about Margaret?” she asked, making sure the waitress wasn't coming.

“What about her?”

“What about her. About her drinking.” She couldn't be plainer than that.

He had to think about the answer, which meant yes.

“Not while it was happening,” he said.

“So you knew.”

“I knew she was having some problems, I didn't know exactly what. She's been going through a lot.”

It was gallant of him, she thought, but misplaced, too late. “She didn't tell you she was going into rehab?”

“No,” he said, and she believed him. It was just like Margaret to deliver whatever bad news she had when it was too late for anyone to help her. In her eyes this passed for independence.

“I think she's doing pretty well though,” he said. “She's a lot better than she was last year.”

Emily agreed, with her usual reservations, knowing everything with Margaret was temporary, fleeting, one crisis yielding to the next more pressing one, and all of them beyond her control. Emily could imagine the two of them trying to keep the cottage afloat after she was gone, the bounced checks and leaky ceilings.

She hadn't meant to let any of this ruin their last round together. She thought of ordering another drink to buoy her, but she was almost done with her Caesar and Kenneth still had half his beer. She had to search her mind for a topic that would make them both happy, leave them both untouched.

“So,” she said, “Ella must be excited about high school,” and he was glad to change the subject.

He insisted on paying. Out of politeness she argued with him, then gave in, promising to get it next time. He took a mint for her and they walked out into the lung-crushing heat. The closed car held the familiar smell of baking vinyl, and a rush of summers cut through her, coming back from the swim club with the children, the endless trip out west, Henry's old Chevy with its two-tone seats and stainless-steel buckles dangerous as cattle brands.

Kenneth got the air-conditioning going, the cool with its mechanical
scent of hoses and antifreeze neutralizing the memory. Across the road, behind the spiked wrought-iron fence, stood the new condos the Institute had put in—identical town houses with buttercream vinyl siding and mint-green plastic shutters. The lawns were false, obviously sod, and she thought with distress that Arlene couldn't even afford splitting one of these monstrosities.

She couldn't see herself at the Lenhart, a sad remnant of the past. Better the We Wan Chu. Yet when they passed it, the low motel in front seemed uninviting, badly painted, lacking all charm—and still she watched it slide by, hopeful. She wasn't surprised. The reason never left her, a lesson from Henry. As meager as the present seemed, it was all she had.

Ella wanted to go upstairs so bad, but stopped herself. The thing to do was to wait for Sarah to come to her.

She stalled, sitting and working absently on the dumb puzzle while her mind flitted from hatred for Aunt Margaret—out reading on the porch with her mother—to worry for Sarah, to confusion over why she'd been left behind. It had nothing to do with her, it couldn't. This betrayal had to be a mistake. Sarah would explain it away, erase it with a few words, and they would be the way they were before, an unbeatable team.

Ella nearly believed this, or some of it, fitting together the pigeons at the feet of one beefeater, but when she was done with them the feeling of being deserted returned and the pieces stumped her, vague and shapeless, just color. She held one in her hand and searched the ragged edges for a match.

She couldn't think of anything she'd done. She'd tried so hard to be low-key, to resign herself to the fact that it was never going to happen, but once she'd succeeded (easy, because it was true, and safer for her;
impossible, because she couldn't give up), she began to dream of Sarah again, her thin arms and knobby wrists and long fingers, the whole cycle starting all over for no reason. It was like she wasn't listening to herself, and she felt even more helpless, a bystander, angry at her own hope.

She dropped the piece she was holding so the cardboard side showed, a blot on the picture. Beefeaters guarded the empty courtyard, the rows of blank windows. The sky above the palace was unfinished, the wood grain of the table a dull brown cloud.

Her mother came in from the porch, flopping in her swim top. “I'm taking lunch orders. We're having sandwiches.”

She said it hard, like a final warning, because she knew Ella hated sandwiches. Ella didn't care. She could eat the turkey and leave the bread. No one would check.

“What about your cousin, do you know what she might like?”

And what a complete loser she was, because she did. Salami with provolone cheese and lettuce, just a little mayo, on wheat bread, cut diagonally. Macaroni salad, not the mushy potato stuff. She knew Sarah liked salt-and-vinegar potato chips better than sour-cream-and-onion ones, and that she liked the garlic dills and not the bread-and-butter slices Sam liked. And Diet 7UP, nothing with caffeine.

It was just like at school. She knew all the unimportant things, the things that didn't matter.

“Maybe you can take it up to her,” her mother suggested. “I think she's in the doghouse.”

“What did she do?” Ella asked, a challenge.

“Just what you're doing. So keep it up.”

She was glad to have an official excuse to see her, and something to do—anything to kill the minutes so she wouldn't look totally desperate. She fixed a plate for each of them, taking care putting together the sandwiches, arranging the chips between the cut halves, and the macaroni salad, the pickles off to the side so the juice wouldn't get the bread soggy.

“That's very nice of you,” her mother commented.

“It's just lunch,” Ella said, getting forks for them.

“Can you handle both of those?”

The thought of her mother coming up with her made her say she could. She'd have to come back and get their drinks.

“Don't forget napkins,” her mother said.

Her first test was the door to the stairs, elbowing it open. She set one plate on a step to close it behind her for privacy, then headed up slowly, keeping her hands level in front of her. How stupid would she look if she dropped them, macaroni salad all over the carpet. As she climbed, the air grew thicker, a hot, stale smell of dust and plaster and bat poop and the tar shingles of the roof. Sarah didn't even have the fan on, and Ella thought she must really be pissed off. Ella wouldn't smile, she'd just be quiet, let Sarah talk if she wanted to, or not. She would be a friend and take on whatever she was feeling—and she would know what that was, the way she and Caitlin did at home, their moods matching like sisters'.

She expected Sarah to be on her sleeping bag, reading or playing solitaire, but when she turned at the head of the stairs, Sarah was going through the red, white and blue dresser, piling the clean clothes on top of it, then shoving them back in the drawer, moving on to the next. Each time Ella saw her she was surprised by the fact of her body, struck by something new.

“What are you looking for?”

“My watch,” Sarah said.

Ella set the plates on the low wardrobe and started helping, opening the shallow top drawer.

“I already looked in there,” Sarah said, shutting her down.

Ella was hurt—stunned as suddenly as her bee sting—and at the same time it hurt her to see Sarah so upset. It was Aunt Margaret's fault, whatever happened. She looked behind the cedar chest and under the beds until Sarah said, “Forget it,” and ordered her to stop.

“I'm sorry,” Sarah said, meaning Ella was okay, it was everything else.

Ella followed her plan, waiting for Sarah to explain, but she just looked at the plates.

“Did my mother make this?”

“I did,” Ella said, and was grateful—saved—when Sarah thanked her and picked it up. “You want a soda?”

“I'll get it.”

“It's okay,” Ella said, and went, not ready to let her go.

Her father had gotten home and was in the kitchen, opening a beer.

“How's it going, Ella-bella?”

“Good,” she said (and he believed her, he understood nothing), and escaped again, closing the door behind her. She thought of locking it but was afraid they'd get in trouble.

Sarah was hungry. She'd gotten some sun—her hair was brighter, highlighted—and Ella noticed as she was eating her sandwich that she wasn't wearing Mark's dolphin ring, the ghost of it a neat white band of skin on that finger. Instead, she had on the plain silver ring Grandma and Aunt Arlene had given them, making them twins.

So it was the letter—not her.

Sarah pretended nothing had happened. Ella waited, thinking she'd have to explain, but she just ate her lunch. Mark had broken up with her and she was crushed. Ella wasn't sure how she felt about it. She thought it was wrong to be happy.

And then, about to take a bite, Sarah stopped and looked at her sandwich, held it up like she'd found something interesting. “You cut it the way I like it.”

“Yeah,” Ella said, pleased that she'd noticed, that a little thing like that could change her mood. “And I know you like those chips, so …”

Sarah laughed. “You are so gay!”

The shock of hearing it said out loud was plain on her face, Ella thought, her burning skin a dead giveaway. She knew Sarah only meant to thank her, but Ella couldn't control her reaction. She laughed, agreeing with her, nearly choking on an undigested bite.

“I know.”

“Yah! Gah!” Emily cried, reeling back from the mailbox into the road, waving the hot letters and then dropping them, kicking them apart to scatter the ants. She slapped at her arms, and still she felt them crawling on her, turned her wrists over to check, and then felt foolish, standing there in the middle of the road, the butt of a joke.

She'd asked Kenneth to take care of this. Obviously he hadn't gotten the job done.

The sun beat down on her brow, an extra drain on her patience. She needed a shower or a dip in the water. Half the day was gone already, and she still had the unpleasant task of talking to Margaret.

She bent down and gingerly pinched up the letters—all second-class junk. The ants were panicked, zigzagging away. She stepped on as many as she could and made straight for the garage, leaving the lid open. This time she'd take care of it herself.

His father slowly walked over to the edge of the road and waved for Sam to stop. The way he moved, Sam thought Justin must have told on him for throwing the buckeye at Rufus. He jammed on the brakes and cut the handlebars, leaned hard and let the back end fishtail, stopping right beside him.

“Lunch is ready,” his father said.

He got off his bike and bumped it over the grass, walking beside him.

“Hey,” his father said, “have you seen Sarah's watch at all?”

“No,” he said automatically.

He tried to remember where it was. Maybe in the pocket of the shorts he wore yesterday, somewhere on the floor upstairs. His mother would find it when she cleaned up.

“You know what it looks like. It snaps onto your belt loop.”

Sam pushed out his lip in a shrug.

“Well if you see it, she's looking for it, okay?”

“Okay,” Sam said.

“And please, wash those hands before you eat.”

Sam leaned his bike against the buckeye tree and followed him inside. His mother was working at the sink, so he went into the downstairs bathroom, not bothering to turn on the light, and used the green squirt soap. He pushed back his upper lip with two fingers to look at the bloody hole in his gums. His dollar was upstairs somewhere too, and the change he'd stolen from the dresser.