A Soft Place to Land (21 page)

“She should totally go straight edge like Yael,” Dara said.

In addition to being a vegan, Dara’s sister, Yael, did not drink, smoke, or do any drugs. Still, she considered herself a riot grrrl and a punk. On one of the few occasions that Ruthie actually spoke to her, while Yael was fixing herself a lunch of quinoa, red pepper, and avocado, Yael told Ruthie that she was “totally DIY” and not “adverse to a little civil disobedience every now and then.”

Ruthie didn’t ask what “DIY” meant, and she had no interest in knowing what form of civil disobedience Yael engaged in. Ruthie intended to stay
way
on the right side of the law. She didn’t even like jaywalking, which Robert did all of the time, any time a store or restaurant across the street struck his fancy.

Acts of civil disobedience aside, Ruthie admired Yael for not doing drugs. Admired and appreciated her for it, because it meant Dara probably wouldn’t do drugs, either, which was a big relief. Ruthie had made a promise to herself that she would never take an illegal drug. It would be easier to uphold that promise if Dara made it with her.

From what Ruthie could gather, kids in San Francisco, especially at the private schools, smoked a lot of pot. Before Hall’s let out for the break she had overheard Robyn and Zoe, the two most popular eighth graders, laughing about how much food Zoe’s older brother and his friends would eat when they came in stoned from the pool house. Zoe said that her dad had nicknamed the pool house the Cannabis Cabana.

Ruthie figured a lot of people in Virden, Virginia, must smoke pot, too. The last three letters Julia had sent all included details about the foods she and her friend Doug Hambridge liked to consume when they were high and had the “munchies.” Dairy
Queen blizzards, entire Domino’s pepperoni pizzas, grilled pimento cheese sandwiches, hoagies with cream cheese, jalapeños, and mozzarella.

It all sounded really gross to Ruthie.

“Her plane could crash,” said Ruthie, regretting the words as soon as she said them.

“Don’t say that,” said Dara, as if she were a parent scolding a small child. “Anyway, that’s impossible. Your parents and your sister can’t all die in separate plane crashes.”

“She could meet some hot guy on the plane and, I don’t know, decide to go to his house for spring break instead of ours,” said Ruthie.

Dara stared at her the way that Blanche sometimes stared at Rose on
The Golden Girls
, dumbfounded by her ignorance, if a little amused.

“Your sister is going to arrive tomorrow, you are going to meet her at the airport, and the two of you are going to have a great time for the next six days,” said Dara.

Ruthie liked this about Dara. How she wasn’t afraid just to proclaim things boldly, to put chaos in order, to name the way that things would—by force of Dara’s will—work out. It was like the time Ruthie was panicking because she hadn’t memorized the quadratic formula and they were going to be quizzed on it that afternoon in Math.

“This is what we are going to do,” Dara had said as they walked together across the courtyard, headed to Spanish class. “You and I are going to the library during lunch, where I am going to drill that formula into your head. If we don’t have time to eat lunch, fine. Buy an extra hard-boiled egg during Snack and you can eat it for energy before Dillard’s quiz.”

Ruthie bought the extra egg, Dara drilled the formula into her head, and she passed the quiz. In fact, she received a perfect score on it.

“I just can’t believe it’s been ten months since I last saw her,” Ruthie said. “Her stepmom wouldn’t let her come for Christmas
because she had planned this whole bonding ski trip to ‘get them back on track.’ Of course Julia hated every minute of it.”

“Before she started college Yael went and lived on a kibbutz in Israel and I didn’t see her for a year,” said Dara. “She was a total stick when she came home.”

Ruthie felt annoyed. “It’s not the same thing,” she said, though she didn’t even know what a kibbutz was.

The next afternoon Robert, Mimi, and Ruthie sat in traffic on 101 on their way to the airport to pick up Julia. Mimi had first suggested that Ruthie and Robert wait at home while she went and got Julia, but Ruthie said no, she wanted to meet her sister at the gate. Though Mimi didn’t say so outright, Ruthie knew that her aunt was concerned that being at the airport, hearing the flight announcements, going through security, and watching planes come in for landings might trouble Ruthie, might make her think too much about the details of her parents’ own death.

Not that the huge commercial jet Julia would be arriving on from Washington, D.C., was anything like the Ford Trimotor that had killed her parents.

“I want to see her the minute she gets here,” Ruthie declared. She kept private from Mimi her anxiety that if she did not grab Julia as soon as her sister deplaned, Julia might disappear.

Robert said he would park so that Mimi and Ruthie might make it to the gate on time for Julia’s arrival. The two of them speed walked through the terminal. (Regardless of how late they were, Mimi would not be so inelegant as to run.) They made it to the gate just as the incoming passengers were deplaning. First the expensively dressed set from business class, men mostly, with their casual suede jackets, their shiny belt buckles, their leather carry-ons. Then an exhausted-looking mother, her young child riding on her hip, his legs straddling her waist. A white woman with dreadlocks; two well-groomed men whom Ruthie assumed to be a couple; another two men who were talking in the loud, jocular
way of businessmen; another family, this one made up of three blond daughters, each with her own rollaway carry-on; a couple of students with backpacks in Georgetown sweatshirts.

And then a girl, a young woman, with auburn hair, long silver earrings, a T-shirt printed with tiny flowers, faded jeans, leather sandals that looked like something Jesus might have worn. Over her shoulder was a bag woven of brightly colored threads, the bag from Guatemala that Julia’s first boyfriend, Dmitri, had given her.

She was looking around, and then she locked eyes on Ruthie. Locked eyes and smiled.

And Ruthie was smiling back. All of her frustration, all of her pent-up anger toward Julia, it was slipping out of her, and what was left was pure excitement. Excitement that her sister was here. Julia was striding toward her, was hugging her hard, was grabbing Ruthie under the arms, which tickled, and lifting her a few inches in the air before putting her down with a grunt.

“Biscuit,” she said. “You are no longer light and fluffy. You must have eaten too many bunnies.”

“Shut up,” said Ruthie. “Egg.”

And then Ruthie started to cry because it really was Julia. Julia was standing in front of her. Julia whose hair looked just like their mother’s. Julia who was teasing her about her tears.

“I’m only staying a week!” Julia said. “You’ll only have to share a bed with me for a little while. It’s nothing to cry about.”

Ruthie punched her sister on the arm, smiling.

“Julia, don’t you look beautiful!” said Mimi, kissing her on the cheek. “Here, let me take your bag.”

Deftly Mimi unhooked the woven Guatemalan bag from Julia’s shoulder and slung it over her own.

“Surely this isn’t all you have, is it?”

“I checked a suitcase,” said Julia.

“Wonderful. Let’s head to baggage claim. And I’m sure you need to stop off at the bathroom. I certainly always do when I get off a plane.”

That was Mimi, all smiles and small talk, as she glided the two
of them to the restroom, where she and Julia disappeared for a moment while Ruthie waited, and then through the terminal, past security, toward baggage claim.

As they walked, Mimi asked Julia about her flight, about the food, about whether or not she was hungry.

“I hope you are,” said Mimi. “Robert and Ruthie have prepared a feast.”

Ruthie glanced at her sister. It was unreal to have her here, walking beside her, touchable. Ruthie realized what people meant by the expression “in the flesh.” She could not stop looking at Julia. Julia! Her auburn curls pulled back with a rubber band. Her tinkly silver earrings with all of the teeny-tiny bells, earrings that Julia had bought from the mean lady at the Onion Dome. The lady who used to bark at Ruthie not to touch anything whenever she accompanied Julia into the store. In the middle of Julia’s left lobe was a small red scab, evidence of where she had pierced it with a safety pin.

“I’ll eat anything but bunny,” said Julia, grinning at Ruthie.

Ruthie returned the smile, but not before glancing at Mimi. She did not want her aunt to think that she had complained to Julia about Robert’s rabbit with mustard sauce.

Mimi appeared to be unperturbed. “What did you and Robert prepare, sweetheart?” she asked.

“Crab cakes,” said Ruthie. “With rémoulade. And coleslaw—which might not sound very good, Julia, but the way Robert makes it is super yummy. Trust me. Plus a field greens salad. And I made chocolate pudding cups for dessert.”

Ruthie had recently learned to make the pudding cups, using a recipe Robert had clipped from
Sunset
magazine. She had prepped the batter for the “cups” in advance—Ruthie used ramekins—and just before they were ready to eat dessert she would pop them into the oven at 375 degrees. Twelve minutes later she would pull them out and place a small scoop of ice cream into each center.

When Julia spooned into her cup the outer edges would be solid like a brownie, while the inside would be molten chocolate.

“Pudding like Jell-O pudding?” asked Julia. “I love Jell-O pudding.”

“These are more like melty brownies. You’ll see.”

“I love melty brownies,” said Julia.

“Then you’ll love these,” said Ruthie.

They had to wait by the baggage claim carousel for more than twenty minutes. During that time, Robert walked in through the airport’s revolving doors. Ruthie saw him before he saw them.

It was funny to see him from a distance. He was small, plump,
nebishe
, to use one of his Yiddish words. He was not someone you would necessarily notice in a crowd, and if you did notice him you certainly wouldn’t think,
What a hunk
. Yet he was theirs, providing Mimi and Ruthie with food, humor, warmth. He was theirs and he loved them, had seemed to love Ruthie since the moment he first picked Mimi and Ruthie up at this same airport last June, when Ruthie was so new to San Francisco and everything was so very, very cold.

And suddenly Ruthie felt a fierce surge of love toward her uncle, was so happy to see him, was waving, calling, “Uncle Robert, over here!”

And he was bounding toward them, smiling.

“Hello, traveler,” he said to Julia. “It’s wonderful to see you.”

“Sweetheart,” said Mimi. “Go like this.”

She swiped a fingernail between her two front teeth, and Robert, mirroring her, did the same thing, dislodging a small bit of black bean.

Robert often got things stuck between his teeth, and Mimi always noticed.

“Hi,” said Julia, smiling shyly at him.

He was a writer. Julia wanted to be a writer one day.

There was a succession of thumps as the suitcases started dropping onto the conveyer belt, which rotated round and round. A large Hartmann bag tumbled onto the belt, and Julia, pointing to it, said, “That’s mine.”

Seeing the suitcase made Ruthie let out a little gasp. It had been her mother’s. It was the suitcase Naomi had taken with her on the trip to Las Vegas, returned to Atlanta by the Mirage Hotel, after the accident. It was such an elegant suitcase with its leather handles, its nubby tweed.

Dinner was delicious and Robert and Mimi were charming, pouring Julia a glass of white wine, asking all about her classes, her interests, her ideas. They wanted to know where she was thinking of applying to college, what she did for fun in Virden, what local politics were like there.

“I don’t think there are any local politics besides ‘Love It or Leave It,’ and ‘Don’t Take My Gun.’”

“I can see you fit right in,” quipped Robert, taking a second helping of coleslaw.

“There has to be more to Virden than that,” said Mimi.

“I guess,” said Julia, shrugging.

Ruthie was mostly quiet during dinner, only joining the conversation to tell Julia about the high schools she had applied to for the next year, which were Urban, Lick-Wilmerding, and University. She explained to Julia that Urban was on the block schedule, so you only had a few classes a day, but each was really long.

“It encourages true engagement and gives the students enough time to dig into their work,” said Robert.

“Not that Robert has any preference as to where Ruthie goes,” said Mimi, winking at Ruthie.

The only hiccup to the meal was dessert. Ruthie was so excited about the pudding cups, but after she pulled them out of the oven and went to the freezer to retrieve the vanilla ice cream she could not find the carton.

She checked the trash can. The empty carton of Breyers was sitting in it. Uncle Robert! He could not be trusted alone with ice cream. That was why they rarely kept it in the house. She poked her head into the dining room.

“We forgot to buy ice cream,” she said, staring meaningfully at
Robert. She did not want to tell on him in front of Mimi, who was forever encouraging him to diet, telling him that they both needed to cut out sugar and snacks, even though she was admirably thin.

“I’ll whip some cream,” said Robert. “That should go nicely with the chocolate, don’t you think?”

As he passed her on his way into the kitchen he whispered, “Sorry! I have no self-control when it comes to dessert.”

And so it was with lightly sweetened whipped cream that Ruthie topped the pudding cups, not Breyers vanilla. It was still delicious, rich and dark and molten, the whipped cream just taking the edge off the chocolate’s bitterness. Except Julia did not seem to like it. She put one bite into her mouth and a look of distaste crossed over her face.

“What, you don’t like?” Ruthie asked.

“You do not like my crêpes Suzette?” asked Robert, but he was just making a familiar joke with Mimi, was repeating what a waiter in Paris had once said to her when she did not eat all of her crêpes made tableside.