London Is the Best City in America (14 page)

I pulled back onto the highway, Officer Z right in front of me. “Excuse me,” I said. “But how is it my fault? I’m not the one who needed to make this trip today. None of this has anything to do with me.”

He flipped the map over to the other side. It was completely upside down now. “Emmy, I’m trying to concentrate here,” he said. “I have to figure out what I’m doing.”

No kidding,
I wanted to say. But I refrained.

He tossed the map back onto the ground. “You know what?” he said. “When you get off the highway, let me drive, okay? I’ll feel better that way. You’ll navigate or something.”

I said that would be fine, but as far as I knew there was nothing
to
navigate. The only way back to New York besides the interstate required going through Narragansett, something I wasn’t particularly eager to do right then. And, still, I made the first necessary left that would wind us the long way down Boston Neck Road, leading us to Route 1. Then I pulled the car over and swung into the passenger seat. Josh walked to the driver’s side and we were moving again.

On the left, soon enough, we’d be passing the beach, the ocean and Little Clam restaurant, Narragansett’s tiny pier. I looked out the window the other way. Because somewhere out there in the distance, right before Little Clam—right after the pier—was where I lived. In someone else’s house with someone else’s things. A light not on, a window not even open, nobody at all at home.

“Isn’t there someone you could call?” Josh said. “Someone whose car we could maybe borrow for the weekend?”

I thought of everyone who I knew well enough to call: my boss Bobby, who as part of his renewed marriage arrangement wasn’t allowed surprise visitors at home, the carless Martins from next door, the 107 wives, none of whom I wanted to bother with this. With all of my questions for them, they were always trying to figure out information on me beyond the brief bio I’d provide for them. I didn’t want to start by introducing them to my brother and explaining what we were doing here the day before his wedding.

The only person who seemed like a real possibility was this guy Cooper, who was less my friend and more a guy who just came into the shop a lot now that his girlfriend had left him. I was pretty sure that he didn’t like me, but I think he kept hoping that if he met me again, he might.

“I know this one guy,” I said. “He lives right behind the high school. We could stop by his place, if you want.”

In truth, we had to stop by Cooper’s because I didn’t have his phone number to call. Of course, I didn’t offer this part up. I just directed Josh left and then right—waiting for Narragansett High School to appear before us: the low-rise brick building, empty summer parking lot, the Arthur L. Stewart Football Field. Cooper’s house was right past it—the football field—a small, broken-down colonial.

Only, when we got there, we had a little problem. In front of what had been Cooper’s house, there was a large For Sale sign with a red Sold sticker running diagonally across it. There was a turned-over empty garbage pail in the driveway. And stacked-up, unopened newspapers. Cooper’s car was absent.

“Tell me this isn’t where your friend Cooper lives,” Josh said. His hands tightened around the wheel, his knuckles losing their color. I knew he was afraid to turn toward me. I knew he was afraid of what else he might say.

“Obviously,” I said. “Not anymore.”

Josh pulled quickly out of the driveway, heading west. He was too angry to even ask me which way he was supposed to be going now. He was too angry at me to ask anything.

I turned and looked out the window and didn’t say anything again, not until we were passing by the tackle shop—the small-hominess of it—which, for inexplicable reasons, lifted my spirits. It occurred to me that I could take Josh inside and show him around. Everyone who came in there would know who I was. And if we stayed long enough, one of the wives would probably come to visit me. But there was no way Josh was pulling over now—not for anything—least of all for my attempt to convince him this wasn’t a bad way for me to live. Both of us, I think, were too worried about the way he was living.

I turned and looked at him, carefully, afraid before the words were out about what I was going to ask him.

“What did you say to her, Josh? What did you say to Grace when you and Elizabeth got back from your walk? In the kitchen. You looked so serious. What did you say to her then?”

He kept his eyes on the road. “I told her I’d be back soon,” he said. “I told her I’d be seeing her soon.”

“Will you?” I said.

He didn’t say anything at first.

“Josh?”

“I really hope so,” he said.

He looked so upset that I turned away from him and looked down at the floor. Which was when I saw it. The shiny pink invitation. For June’s daughter’s birthday party. Holly’s birthday party. Was it really just yesterday that I’d passed June in the tackle-shop parking lot, staring into her crowded wagon? That I had made the silent wish that I’d end up seeing her again today?

Now the invite was staring up at me, like a new promise, the beginning of a different idea.

“You know what, Josh?” I said. “Take a left up there at the light. Take a left and a right and pull in to the first yellow house. And then get your things together.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I may have a way,” I said, “to get us home.”

It was 7:30 on the dot when we pulled onto Drake Road in June’s red Volvo station wagon, thirty seconds after that when we pulled into our parents’ driveway. We couldn’t actually get deep enough into the driveway—the wagon part of the wagon was still sticking into the street—because there were already so many automobiles crowded in there: two Volkswagen buggies with “Lydia’s Florists” written on the side, an oversized silver van, a two-story catering truck. The valet guy was already in place, wearing a white tuxedo jacket. A couple in a gray Cadillac was making their way slowly toward him.

“Are you kidding me with this?” Josh said, attempting to back us out.

He was struggling, as he had been the whole way home, to see over all the junk in the backseat, the very large Papa Smurf doll covering up most of the back window. I had tried to move it when we hit the Connecticut border, but I only made it worse.

“What are we going to do now?” he asked.

I started to answer him, but stopped myself when I realized it was more a rhetorical question. Josh was already making his way down the block and around the corner to the Wademans, whose backyard ran straight into ours. In our younger days, Josh had showed me this shortcut into and out of our property, for emergency use only: early-morning sneak-ins, late-night sneak-outs. You just shimmied past their old oak tree—tire swing intact, even though the children had been gone for over a decade—past Mrs. Mason’s tomato garden, through the first row of bushes, and then the second row, which separated their home from ours.

This was the first time we’d ever done it together. When we made it through the last set, we were standing at the top of our backyard, looking down over the hill at the rest of it.

Tonight, it was full of people milling around, trays already clattering, and right at the center, a rectangular white tent, which, from where I stood, appeared all airy and light—almost like a cloud against the night sky.

Everything was all set up inside the tent: white tea rose centerpieces, thin white tablecloths, floating candles glowing everywhere. The waitstaff was standing by all the tables pouring water into glasses, rearranging everything that was already perfectly arranged.

I bent lower so I could see this.

Josh bent lower too. “I see the Wademans in there already,” I said. “Do you see them? At the corner table, talking to Dad?”

There they were, huddled over in the corner, Mrs. Wademan, looking a little like a floating candle herself in her large hooped dress. Dad was standing right beside her, bending forward toward where Mr. Wademan was seated.

“What do you think they’re talking about?” I said.

“What do I think they’re talking about? Who cares what they’re talking about? Who gets to a rehearsal dinner early? Really. I want to know.”

He was losing it a little.

“At least we know they’re not going to bust us for blocking their driveway,” I said.

“I didn’t block their driveway.”

“You didn’t
not
block it.”

Josh turned to me. “Do you have any suggestions? For what we’re going to do now?”

I bit on my lip, surveying the situation again. The majority of the backyard was clearly off-limits to us. I knew we were going to have to make a run for it, if we wanted to make it inside undetected. It was tricky, though. There was a little more wiggle room to the left of the tent, but the door there led right to the living room/kitchen area, where we were more likely to run into people. The other option though—right of the tent, toward the farther door—led right past our dad. The real question was whether our mom was near him. Because right now she needed to be avoided at all costs.

“Maybe we should separate, and race inside,” I said. “That way, if Mom catches one of us, we can say the other is upstairs showering. We can make it like we’ve been home for a while.”

“Emmy, I’m not going to make a run for it. That’s a ridiculous suggestion. You think I’m that scared?”

But then, before I could explain my rationale—before I could convince him that a run-in with our mother in his dirty T-shirt wasn’t in his best interest right now—he was gone. He had taken the right-side option, and was running down the hill in long strides, covering his head as he passed near our father, moving faster than I could ever remember seeing him move.

This left me to go left. But just as I was down the hill, heading for the clear, I heard Mom calling out my name from a few feet behind me. I stopped in my tracks, unsure what to do next.

“Don’t you even think of walking away from me,” she said, making the decision for me.

I turned around, giving her a little wave. She was wearing a long silver sheath dress, drop earrings, her hair pulled into a tiny bun. She gave me a less-than-friendly wave back. But as soon as she was up close to me, I hugged her. And as she pulled away, I could tell she wasn’t mad anymore. She couldn’t even pretend to look mad at me anymore. I had her like that.

“I don’t know where you’ve been,” she said. “I don’t even think I want to know right now. Dad had to order an extra air machine because it’s still so hot out here. A huge air machine to blow air into the tent. Do you have any idea how much something like that costs? Three thousand dollars! What kind of situation is this?”

I touched her face, trying to calm her down. “You look beautiful,” I said.

She touched mine back. “You look a little tired.” Then she looked down at my wrist. “Oh, my God,” she said. “What happened?”

I followed her eyes down to the spot where Hannibal almost got me. “Nothing.”

She ran her fingers along the invisible cut. “This is clearly not nothing,” she said. “Does this look like nothing to you?”

“Yes, actually.”

“What is going on, Emmy? Please tell me. I can’t make anything better unless you are willing to talk about it.”

And right then, I wanted to so much. Not only because I didn’t want to know about Josh’s situation alone anymore, but also because she would know how to help him—she would know how to fix this—better than I did. But I couldn’t stop thinking that maybe Josh wasn’t ready to have this fixed. Maybe, whatever was going on here, it wasn’t ready to end. Not quite yet.

“Okay, so if you’re just going to stand there in silence, then I at least want you to go rub your wrist with alcohol, and wrap it in a bigger Band-Aid. They’re in your bathroom under the sink. Put two on, if you don’t mind. Layers are always good. Then get dressed for tonight.”

I nodded. “Okay.”

She kissed my forehead, my scratched wrist. “Okay.”

I started walking away.

“Oh, and Emmy.” I turned back around. “FYI, if Mrs. Wademan comes up and asks you later, I told her Steven Spielberg was interested in buying the fishermen’s wives film you’ve been working on.”

“What are you talking about?”

She shrugged. “She wanted to know what you were doing in Rhode Island, and so I told her what you were doing.”

“Mom, Steven Spielberg’s not interested in buying my documentary.”

“Well, as far as I’m concerned, he should be.”

I looked at her in disbelief. “Are you crazy?”

“Are you two hours late?”

I wasn’t sure there was anything to say to that.

“Now, on your way upstairs would you mind stopping in the basement and checking on the Moynihan-Richardses for me? I just need you to make sure they’re doing okay down there. People are getting here. Do you understand what I’m saying?” She was leaning in my ear, whispering. “I really don’t want any more incidents involving fowl.”

“I’m on it, Mom,” I said.

“Thank you,” she said. “And Em? It wouldn’t hurt to put on a little makeup for the photographs,” she said. “Just a little right on your cheeks. Even your dad’s wearing some.”

“He is not.”

She nodded. “A little rouge,” she said.

“Mom, he isn’t.”

“Maybe not,” she said. “But the point is, he would if I asked him to.”

When Josh and I were little, we used to like playing with rings of keys. Every Sunday, in fact, my father would take us to the hardware store right at the Five Corners, and we were each allowed to pick out one key to put on our respective key rings. Then we’d go home and run around with flashlights downstairs in the basement and laundry room, pretending we were on some type of covert operation and our keys could open any door we needed them to unlock.

This memory came to me as I started down the stairs to check on the Moynihan-Richardses, and I could tell that the main light wasn’t on down there. The light wasn’t on and the air wasn’t on, and upon closer inspection, it didn’t seem like anyone was even down there. I flipped on the switch just to be sure, but I didn’t see the Moynihan-Richardses anywhere. I didn’t even see evidence of the Moynihan-Richardses anywhere, except for a small black suitcase, which was standing upright, clothing plunging out on the sides, totally packed.