Kitabı oku: «Everything We Ever Wanted»

1

Joanna Bates-McAllister – née Farrow – had always thought her husband Charles’s adopted brother, Scott, was an asshole. A mooching, ungrateful, intimidating asshole, to be precise, though she’d never admit the scary part, especially now. According to her mother-in-law Charles’s delivery had been so painful and damaging that the doctors had told Mrs Bates-McAllister that it would be dangerous to conceive again, so she and her husband had chosen to adopt. They’d gone through all kinds of hoops to bring Scott into their home. And look how that turned out, was what they all seemed to think, though no one ever said it aloud.

The Bates-McAllisters had willingly converted a whole section of their estate into a bachelor pad for Scott, furnishing it with high-tech electronics, a kitchenette and even a separate entrance, never encouraging him to leave even though he was twenty-nine years old. Charles told Joanna that, while in high school, Scott didn’t hang out with a single student that went to their private school, Swithin, but instead with kids from public school. And not the public schools in the suburbs, either; Scott gravitated toward kids without parents, kids whose brothers dealt meth, kids whose fathers were in jail, kids whose knocked-up sisters had a crack habit.

By the end of high school, Mr and Mrs Bates-McAllister’s standards for Scott had fallen so laughably low that they were relieved Scott had made it the whole way through Swithin without getting expelled, developing a drug addiction, or going to prison. Joanna had known lots of guys like Scott in her day. He was the kind of guy who always managed to have something pithy and painfully intuitive to say, even though he did miserably in school. What a pity, adults would whisper, crossing to the other side of the street when he came near. Wonder what went wrong? Joanna had dated a few watered-down versions of Scott in the past, their self-absorption impossible to crack, their indifference for her breaking her heart, their roughness touching something deep inside her.

But, despite Scott’s hard edges, when Charles told her that his brother had been implicated in a boy’s death at school, Joanna could not believe that he would encourage boys to beat the shit out of each other for something as trivial as high school wrestling. Nor did Joanna think he had anything to do with someone’s suicide.

How was she supposed to imagine it going down? She tried to picture a fluorescent-lit, ripe-smelling wrestling room. The boys were in a huddle, having lost their match. They noticed Scott approaching and anticipated a pep talk about how they were going to practice harder and do better next time.

And then, what, it tilted? Sure, a lot of people had it in them to say, You, you, and you. In the center there. Practice isn’t working, but maybe this will. Joanna doubted if Scott cared enough to do something like that. It was high school wrestling, for Christ sake. Scott didn’t seem to care about anything else; why start with that?

It was possible, she supposed, that he’d heard the boys were performing silly hazing rituals but hadn’t witnessed it firsthand, and then had let it slip his mind, figuring the boys would just work it out themselves. Really, who wasn’t guilty of letting things happen without doing the appropriate things to stop them? Once, when Joanna lived in Philadelphia after college, she’d watched out her apartment window as a young guy robbed an old woman. The man knocked the woman to the ground and ran away with her purse – it was black patent leather, with an old-fashioned chain strap – and Joanna just stood stock-still against the kitchen counter, her hand to her mouth. And lately – more and more – Joanna felt as though she was watching her own life pass by without intervening. It was like, she sometimes thought, her true self was becoming smaller and dimmer, and again all she did was stand there, her hand at her mouth, simply staring.

Joanna and Charles had been in bed when Sylvie called with the news. Joanna picked up the phone, saw Sylvie’s name on the Caller ID, and quickly passed it to Charles without saying hello, feeling too shy and intrusive to talk to Sylvie herself. Charles took the phone, waited, and then pushed back the covers, slid on his slippers, and padded out of the room. ‘Now wait, Mom,’ he said as he walked down the hall. ‘Just a second. He said what? And that has to do with us…how?’

Charles came back to the bedroom a little later, his face ashen. The phone was in his limp right hand; his left hand worked the top of his head. Joanna knew right away something was wrong. She also felt a twinge of annoyance that he’d gotten up from the bed to have the conversation away from her. Why didn’t he feel comfortable with her listening? They’d been married for six months; would these boundaries between them ever go away?

‘There’s some sort of trouble with my brother at school,’ was all Charles had said. He’d climbed back into bed beside her and turned the television to a tennis match, cranking the volume high. She’d pressed him for information, but he hadn’t told her much else, staring glazed-eyed at the screen. Most of the details were still tangled in Joanna’s mind. She didn’t understand whether there was any evidence that hazing had happened, or whether the school could point fingers at Scott and, by association, Sylvie, or what would happen if they did. Nor did she know if Charles believed, deep down, that Scott was capable of such a thing. He hadn’t said one way or the other.

It was the next day, as they were on their way to Charles’s childhood home, when Joanna dared to bring it up again. ‘So, is your mom worried about her place on the board?’ she asked.

Charles gave her a sidelong glance. ‘Why would she be worried?’

Joanna sighed. He was going to make her spell this out, then. ‘Because of the boy’s suicide. Because of – you know – what people are saying. I thought you said the school was super-judgmental. If one family member’s bad, they’re all bad.’

‘Why would you think that?’ Charles said.

‘Sorry.’ And then she added, ‘I didn’t go to that school, Charles. Remember? I don’t know what to think about it.’

‘You should know better than to think that.’

Charles had recently had his hair cut, the ends hung bluntly just above his ears, reminding her of the crisp bristles of a broom. He still went to the same barber who’d cut his hair when he was a boy; he was fiercely loyal in that way, patronizing the same business establishments for years, diligently keeping in touch with old prep school friends, and even remaining faithful to inanimate, unresponsive things like old jogging routes and brands of breakfast cereals.

‘And anyway, I don’t think it’s going to go that far. It’s just a stupid rumor,’ Charles said as they swept past the large vacant lot that sold Christmas trees in December. ‘You know how kids talk.’

They turned up the winding street that would eventually lead to the house. Sylvie had invited them over for dessert that evening. Charles had announced the invitation only an hour ago upon coming home from work. It was a sharp contrast to the protocol by which Sylvie usually summoned them for visits, emailing them days ahead of time, negotiating both their schedules to see when was best for all. Sylvie wasn’t the type to demand they come only when it suited her – that was Joanna’s mother’s territory. If Joanna had to make a guess – and she always had to guess, because none of the Bates-McAllisters would ever tell her directly – she’d say that today’s invitation was a response to whatever this was with the wrestlers.

Joanna sat back in the passenger seat, letting the iPod she’d been fiddling with fall to her lap. ‘So what happened, anyway? How’d the boy kill himself?’

‘I don’t know,’ Charles answered.

‘Your mom didn’t tell you?’

‘I don’t think she knows, either.’

‘Was there a suicide note?’

‘No. They don’t even know if it’s a suicide. They’re doing an autopsy to find out.’

Joanna paused, considering this. ‘My mother said Scott should talk to a lawyer.’

‘You talked to your mother about this?’ His face registered a dart of annoyance.

‘It just slipped out on the phone today,’ she admitted.

‘You had to run and tell her, didn’t you?’

‘It just slipped out,’ she repeated. She adjusted her seat belt. ‘So, do you have any idea who’s supplying these hazing rumors?’

‘No.’ He took one hand off the steering wheel and ran it over his head.

‘Who could it be?’

‘Joanna, I don’t know.’

‘Why aren’t you curious?’

‘Why are you?’ But he said it quietly, almost tepidly.

The trees formed a canopy over the road. Small green buds dotted some of them, but others were bare. ‘I just worry, that’s all,’ Joanna said. ‘Your poor mom. After your dad and all…she doesn’t need this.’

Charles pulled the lever for the wiper fluid. The windshield wipers made a honking sound and slid the soap across the glass. ‘Probably not.’

‘And I think you should help Scott. You’re his brother. Don’t you think you should?’

‘Well, he hasn’t asked for help.’

‘People don’t always ask,’ she reminded him.

‘He hasn’t done anything wrong.’

Joanna touched the smooth, slick buttons on her jacket. She was tempted to ask Charles if he really believed that.

‘Don’t worry about it, okay?’ Charles said, putting on his turn signal. ‘It’s not a big deal.’

They were at the turnoff to his parents’ house. It was so ensconced by the trees it was easy to miss. Charles pulled up the long, snaky drive. A pine near one of the turns had fallen against a few other trees, reminding Joanna of a happy, drunken girl propped up by her friends at the end of a long night. They pulled into the circular drive behind Sylvie’s car, the newish Mercedes she often parked outside, and Scott’s car, the slightly older Mercedes that Sylvie had given to him. Scott’s Mercedes had dings on the side, worn tires, and a speckled half-moon of rust across the front bumper. The back bumper was plastered with stickers, many of them irate and instructive. One bumper sticker near the window said Free Mumia; it featured a picture of a black man with a beard and dreadlocks who’d been wrongfully imprisoned. According to an article Joanna read on Wikipedia, this Mumia guy had been accused of committing a crime because of preconceived notions about his past, his looks, his blackness.

The house loomed ahead of them, a turreted estate over a hundred years old that Charles’s great-grandfather had passed on to Sylvie. It was made all of stone, with a low stone wall around it, a little balcony on the upper floor surrounded by a wrought-iron terrace, and a six-car detached garage across the drive. The house had numerous out-croppings and gables and cupolas and a brass weathervane in the shape of a rooster at the very highest point. There were three patios, a sun room, and a lap pool out back, and the whole thing was surrounded by thick, shapely pines and an elegant garden. Whenever Joanna beheld the estate, she got reverent chills. She always felt like she needed to be on her best behavior here. It was like what her mother used to say to her when they went to Mass at the drafty, icon-filled, stained-glass Catholic Church in Lionville, Pennsylvania, where she’d grown up: Don’t make any noise. Don’t touch anything. God’s looking at you.

Sylvie was already standing on the large brick side porch, her hands clasped at her waist, a brave smile on her face. As always, she was impeccably dressed in an ironed lavender skirt and a perfectly tucked-in eyelet blouse. She even wore heels, little lavender things to match the skirt, and pearls looped twice around her throat. She dressed this way to go to the grocery store, to go for a walk. The ring Charles’s father had given her a few months before he died glimmered under the porch light.

‘I made banana bread, Charlie,’ she said after everyone hugged. ‘Your favorite.’

They entered the house through the kitchen. Dim golden light dappled through the stained-glass window and across the white-painted wooden cabinets, the ancient, rounded Sub-Zero refrigerator, and stout, space-age MasterChef stove. The smell of banana bread drifted comfortingly through the air. Sylvie had put an old classical record on the turntable, presumably plucked from the collection that belonged to her grandfather.

‘Sit, sit,’ Sylvie urged, gesturing toward the kitchen table. A bunch of vacation property brochures were spread out on the surface. As Joanna and Charles sat down, a very different sort of song thumped through the walls to their left. Joanna cocked her head, listening to the drubbing beat, the muddy bass, the muffled shouting. She tried to meet Charles’s eye. Scott’s suite shared a wall with the kitchen.

‘So listen – we’re so behind!’ Sylvie said, fluttering from the oven to the cupboards to the sink and then repeating the cycle all over again, though bringing nothing to the table. ‘We haven’t picked out a vacation house for this summer! But I think I found a good one. It’s on the water in Cape May. July seventh to the twenty-first.’

She plucked a magazine from the pile on the table and leafed to a marked page. ‘Here. It has seven bedrooms. It seems like a lot, but you know those houses – they’re all huge. Really, I wonder if we should just buy a place instead of rent. Then we could decorate it the way we want.’

Charles shifted in his seat. Joanna wondered if he was thinking what she was thinking: planning a vacation in the middle of a scandal seemed inappropriate. Only, was that what this was? A scandal?

‘And it’s brand new,’ Sylvie went on, pointing at the tiny pictures of the house’s interior: a country kitchen with white bead board on the walls, a master bedroom with lavender striped curtains, a shed that was filled with beach balls, bicycles, plastic kayaks, and kites. ‘It won’t have that smell; you know that old beach smell? Even the nicest houses get it sometimes.’ She flipped through the catalogue to another page. ‘Though this one’s nice, too. It’s closer to town. It’s hard to decide.’ She looked up at Charles, her face softening as if a thought had just struck her. ‘Honey, don’t think you have to come for the whole time. I know you have to work. But at least for a week, right? And then for the weekends?’

The volume next door rose higher. Joanna glanced at Charles again, but his eyes were fixed stubbornly on the rental magazine.

‘And we’ll need so many supplies,’ Sylvie added. She grabbed a Land’s End catalogue from the bottom of the pile. ‘I’ve marked lots of things.’ She turned to a page that displayed flashlights, travel mugs, a fondue pot. ‘We could make s’mores on the beach,’ she crowed gaily. ‘Wouldn’t that be fun?’

‘Huh,’ Charles murmured vaguely.

Sylvie folded her hands over the magazine. ‘How is work, by the way?’

Charles shrugged. ‘Busy. You know.’

‘Dealing with any interesting clients?’

There was an abrupt, fuzzy thud next door, and then a faster-paced song. Joanna flinched, but she didn’t bother glancing at Charles again. He was obviously ignoring it.

‘Not really,’ Charles spoke over the noise. ‘Same ones.’

‘And Joanna?’ Sylvie turned politely to face her daughter-in-law. ‘How’s the new house coming along?’

Joanna smiled. ‘Good. Lots of boxes still to unpack, though.’

‘Have you met any neighbors?’

She looked down. ‘Uh, no one yet. But I’m sure we will soon.’

Sylvie nodded. Joanna could tell she was searching for something more specific she could ask her about – a hobby, maybe – but was coming up with nothing. ‘Excellent,’ she finally said. And then, ‘Goodness. The bread.’

She scampered to the oven, slid on two mitts, and pulled the banana bread pan from the tray. Steam curled around her face, fogging her small, wire-framed glasses. She carried the pan over, removed one of her oven mitts with her teeth, and set it on the table. Then she placed the pan on top of the mitt. The knife slid easily against the sides of the pan, and more steam gushed out. She pushed the pan to Charles and he cut himself a thick slice and put it on his plate. He used the side of his fork to cut off a bite.

Joanna waited and waited. Just as he was about to put the bite in his mouth, she touched his arm and said in a voice far whinier than she intended, ‘Charles?’

He looked up; she nudged her chin toward the pan. He lowered his fork. ‘Oh. Sorry.’

He began cutting her a piece, but she changed her mind and waved him away. ‘I’ll be back,’ she muttered, standing.

‘Joanna,’ Charles protested. ‘I didn’t know you wanted any. You don’t usually eat dessert.’

‘It’s fine,’ she said loudly, wheeling out of the room. ‘I just…the bathroom.’ She rounded the corner into the hall.

It was probably silly to feel slighted over banana bread. More than that, Joanna just felt too weird sitting there, looking at vacation houses, chatting about work, ignoring what was obvious, especially with Scott fiddling about with the stereo one wall away. Nothing seemed to ever get to the Bates-McAllisters, though. Joanna certainly hadn’t been raised like this. If Scott was her brother and her parents were faced with such a scandal – and if her parents were still together – at least they would confront the problem head-on. Her mother would be a hurricane of panic, making sweeping what-will-the-neighbors-think-of-us statements. Her father would be smacking a fist into an open palm, declaring he’d never wanted to live in such an arrogant, stick-up-your-ass part of Pennsylvania in the first place – he was from the western part of the state, where what one drove and where one shopped and the way one pronounced certain vowels didn’t matter as much. His anger would just make her mother panic more – If only you would’ve tried harder to fit in, Craig, this might not have happened, she might say – and that, in turn, would stoke his fury, and they’d circle each other like two worked-up dogs, their bad energies becoming so toxic that a bite was inevitable.