Off Course (30 page)

So this is how she wants to play it, Cress thought.

“What kind of man wants to leave his family?” Cress addressed the gold-ocher sleeve and vein-rumpled hand with its trembling cigarette. “A man who's happy at home? Who's getting his needs met?”

“A sad man,” said Elinor. “An angry man. A man who's grieving, and seeking comfort from the wrong people.”

“Is that what you think?”

“I know my son,” Elinor said.

This time, when Cress checked, Quinn met her eye with a merry look and raised an eyebrow, as if to say,
Going pretty well?

Cress frowned and gave a quick shake of her head:
Hell, no!

“Mrs. Morrow,” she said, leaning in, “I
would
entice Quinn away if I could. But he has a mind of his own, as you know. So it's really up to him.”

The older woman snorted with a backward jerk, which set off a coughing fit, the coughs deep, rasping, alarming. She fumbled in her purse for a wad of tissue and wiped her mouth. She lifted her wineglass to drink, then paused. “Sylvia's like a daughter to me. Since she was fifteen.”

“That wouldn't have to change,” said Cress.

“Of course it would. After she took half of what's ours?”

Cress had only glimpsed the family compound from above, the sloped acres, the small white house; trailers large and small. The barn. When Quinn refinanced, he must have put the property in his own name. Or something. “Is that what would happen? She'd get half?”

“With California community property laws? You bet!”

“I don't know anything about that.”

Out came another long cigarette. The lighter clacked again. The bartender brought them each a new drink—Quinn must have signaled.

“I heard you were an economist. Knew all about money.”

“I studied economic theory, not household finance.”

“Well then: What about supply side?” Elinor barked. “And trickle down? What's your opinion on that?”

Cress wanted to laugh loud, or whoop like a crazy person. “Well, it's never been shown that tax breaks for the rich actually result in more private sector jobs,” she said. “Or that wealth trickles anywhere.”

Elinor elbowed Quinn. “She and I agree on something.” She gulped down the glass of wine, picked up her lighter and purse, and stood. “I'm ready, son.”

*   *   *

“You should have warned me.”

He'd come in laughing and sheepish later that night. “I had no idea. The other day, she was so anxious to know you. Maybe she was drunk.”

“When you were driving down to meet me—she didn't say anything?”

“Not that I recall.”

“What did you talk about?”

“I don't know. Flooring for her bathroom.”

“What did she mean that Sylvia would take ‘half of what's ours'?”

“I'm not sure,” said Quinn.

“Would Sylvia get half the Noah Mountain property if you divorced? How did your names get on the deed?”

“That's not your concern.”

“Of course it is. Would you really have to divide or sell off Noah Mountain in a divorce?”

“Let's worry about that when the time comes.”

“That's not why you went back to her before, is it?” said Cress. “To keep Noah Mountain intact?”

“I went back because I owed it to her to try one more time.”

“And so you did.”

“For a minute. A week. Till you came back to town.”

*   *   *

Tillie phoned Cress one afternoon. “I had lunch with the arts editor today and he wants a money piece on the local art market—how a gallery owner decides on prices, how prices work in today's crazy market, what percentage goes to the artist, all that. I said I knew just the person to write it.”

“All my research was in Chicago. I know nothing about L.A.”

“Yes, but you know how the market works. You'd talk to a couple of galleries here. Add your theories.”

“Do I have theories? I've never written journalism.”

“You can do it—you just make research entertaining. You have a good ear. Get some good quotes, then write a short, snappy piece about what drives prices in an up market. At least talk to the arts editor. His name is Silas. Will you call him?”

Cress wrote down Silas's number. “I wouldn't know how to make it snappy,” she said. “Or remotely entertaining.”

“We do,” said Tillie.

The reporting—as Tillie had promised—consisted of a few phone calls. The writing took three weeks. At one point Cress had three thousand words, academic and turgid. She went at it with highlighters and a pencil, got it down by half, then whittled, compressed, sacrificed whole ideas. Tillie had her read it over the phone and unknotted her sentences. It was amazing, finally, how the whole thrust of her dissertation fit into eight hundred words. “Now I see,” Cress said. “You leap over the boring parts, attribute nothing to anybody, quote a few experts, showcase the most sensationalistic facts, and voila! A magazine article.” Two days before it was due, Cress mailed three typed, double-spaced pages at the Sawyer post office and went for a glazed doughnut to celebrate.

Caleb and his little boys sat at the counter by the register where she had to order and pay. Caleb! She hadn't seen him in a year. He looked just the same, jowly and droll, his shiny bald spot sunburned pink—just adorable! She turned slightly, preparing to greet him warmly, but he never once looked her way.

*   *   *

Lisette brought news. A friend of hers had seen Sylvia Morrow in City Park, by the duck pond, and not alone. That dentist whose wife died—who owned that big Spanish house out on the Lindsay Road? You know, who played the guitar? Anyway, that's who Sylvia was with! And it was more than friendly. Definitely. Smoocherama—that's how the friend described it. “You know him, Cress. You pointed him out when he was here with the Kiwanis.”

Felton the Extractor! Lisette's friend knew him from church. He'd been dating like mad since his wife died, starting less than a month afterward. He'd already gone through all the single women at his church. But with three young kids on his hands, who could blame him for being desperate?

“Good. I'm glad they found each other.” To tell the truth, Cress was disappointed in Sylvia's choice. Felton the Extractor wasn't very good-looking, and also, he was a little pathetic. Serenading Donna as he had. Bawling her name in the wee hours. At least he earned a dentist's salary. So maybe Sylvia wouldn't want half the family compound.

*   *   *

“I know I didn't make such a great impression on your mom, but maybe we should have her over for dinner.”

Quinn diced onions by the sink as Cress melted butter in cast iron.

“It's not that she didn't like you. But Sylvia's like a daughter to her.”

“Do you guys pass around the same phrase book? You say the exact same things.”

“That's just how it is,” said Quinn. “She's been a mother to Sylvia for more'n twenty years. That's not a tie easily broke.”

“What if Sylvia met someone else?”

“That's not going to happen.”

“No?”

“She's not the kind to move from one man to the next. She'd never impose some stranger on her kids. Ready for these?” He lifted the cutting board.

“Oh please, Quinn.” Cress stood back as he scraped onions into the skillet. “Give Sylvia a little credit. She's not going to pine away for you for the rest of her life. I bet she gets married before we do.”

“Don't count on it. I'm it for her. That's how she's made. Too devoted for her own good. She's stuck with me all these years and I've never been good for her. I'm too critical, always wanting her to be someone she's not. I'm too hard to please,” Quinn said. “You'll find that too.”

“You don't scare me,” Cress said, thrilled by the future inferred.

Quinn, she decided, would not hear about Felton the Extractor from her. Let him shoot some other messenger—ideally, Sylvia herself.

*   *   *

Brian and Franny bustled into Cress's small kitchen with hydrangeas and sacks of groceries: cheeses, baguettes, two bottles of burgundy. Cress had always considered hydrangeas an old lady's flower, but these were dense hummocks of dark ivory blossoms blushing green and violet: How did Franny get that they were beautiful? And since when did Franny eat Gorgonzola and triple-cream Brie?

Brian was easing back to work at his investment firm; they'd just spent a week in his Encino apartment. He looked tanned, relaxed, and slimmer; his laugh had regained that old frat-boy cockiness Cress recalled from childhood. Franny had cut her hair short, with wisps at the neck; she looked sleek and wore thin, pointed black flats that were latticed over the toes so her red polish peeped out. And here was Cress, in lug-soled hiking boots.

“You guys
are
coming to the wedding,” Brian said, handing wine around in Cress's pink water glasses.

“Donna's singing,” said Franny.

“I'll be there,” said Cress, and Quinn said something she didn't quite hear.

*   *   *

He wanted, he said, to read something about economics, something that would serve as a basic introduction. She went out to the small barn where her book boxes were stored and dug out copies of
The Worldly Philosophers
and, because it was so novelistic,
To the Finland Station.
He read a chapter in each.

He kept no clothes at her house. He used her toothbrush and comb. He had yet to set foot in her shower.

*   *   *

The
City and State
editor—Silas—phoned with only a few edits. Where Cress had written “… the price of Pierce's paintings rose 125 percent,” Silas inserted an adjective, so it read “… a startling 125 percent.”

Startling
, then, was the snappy part.

What could she write about next? Silas asked. If her next piece was even half as good as the first, he'd give her a monthly column; they'd call it “Art Market.” Wasn't there a law that gave artists a share of resale profits? How was that working out for the artists? Who tracked the sales? Who had actually collected any profits? She should write it up. He had many other ideas as well: she could profile an art consultant who bought art for entertainment industry execs who had no knowledge or taste. And there was a controversy up north, where redevelopment contractors had blithely bulldozed some public art: she might even get a full feature out of that.

The economy has turned, she thought. Without her even looking for it, work had come her way.

“They want me to write regularly for the magazine,” she told Quinn.

“You're on your way!”

“I won't quit my day job yet. But who knows?”

As they were falling asleep, he said, “You should clear out, Cress. Go live your big exciting life. This isn't the place for you to shine.”

“I'll go, but only if you come with me.”

“I'd just be in your way. But you got to get out there, have your day.”

“Let me write that second article before you get all valedictory,” she said.

In the dark early-morning hours, she woke up to his murmuring. His legs wound around hers, his lips moved against her ear. “You're the great pleasure and comfort of my life. For the first time, I've known what it's like to have real company, real attention. Before you, I was always alone. Since that first walk together, I haven't wanted to go even a few hours without hearing your voice. I don't mean anything against Sylvia. She's a good person, an excellent mother. But she never knew me the way you do. She needs so much for herself just to get through every day. I was okay with giving her that for twenty-some years. But you showed up, and now I've gotten used to having something for myself. Your hand brushes my shoulder, my whole body surges toward it. You call up something deep. I'm not sure I can survive without you. When you come into the Staghorn, you look around the room—and the second you see me, your eyes change, they mass up with love, and humor. And sex. God. It kills me, every time. Who knew, but I've been waiting my whole life to be seen like that.”

She lay in his arms, eyes open in the shadowy dark, and, keeping as still as possible, held her breath.

*   *   *

At Beech Creek, wedding season was starting; already, in mid-May, receptions were back to back. Cress had put in for a weekend off—for a busman's holiday: Franny and Brian's nuptials.

“You don't have to come,” she said to Quinn. “I don't mind going alone.”

“I said I'd go, I'll go.”

Yet his reluctance was like a brake. He insisted on driving the Saab, and they crossed the valley floor, the orange and almond groves, the oil fields, at a constant speed, with almost no conversation. When she reminded him to take the California Street exit in Bakersfield—weren't they going to the Basque restaurant for lunch?—he shot her one of his darkest looks. She pretended not to notice and cheerfully directed him to the Woolgrowers, where old men in soiled long aprons thunked unlabeled bottles of red wine on the table, followed by iceberg salad, a plate of cold beef tongue, bowls of gamy lamb stew. Quinn wasn't fond of wine, but he drank some and his mood improved. Beef tongue, he muttered, wasn't half as tasty as elk tongue.

“Sorry,” Quinn said, back in the car. “Not feeling real festive about the whole wedding deal.”

Cress had made reservations at the Red Lion in Glendale and requested a room facing the San Gabriels, so he would see mountains and not city sprawl. They checked in, changed clothes, and drove to the Unitarian church in Burbank.

Quinn wore a vintage charcoal-gray pinstriped three-piece wool suit with a turquoise bolo tie and cowboy boots. She had forgotten about his sense of costume. The staginess—the corniness—of his outfit recalled how embarrassed she'd been for him when he'd arrived for Family Night at the Meadows all decked out in leather.