M
ena doesn’t know what she’s doing here. She has been following behind Jake in his truck for the last fifteen minutes. She can see the silhouette of his shoulders, his head through the window of his truck. Her hands are gripping the steering wheel so hard her palms ache. Jake said that his house was just outside town, but it feels like she’s been following him forever. As planned, he’d invited everyone to come over after rehearsals; it was Friday night. Maybe they’d all like to have a couple of drinks. Get to know each other outside rehearsals. And though Mena had said no before, tonight she thought of Sam, of the broken table, of Monty and Lauren and everything she couldn’t possibly deal with, and agreed. Besides, it wasn’t like she was going alone. Anne had said she’d go for a bit, and she talked Oscar into coming along for the ride. Anne had lent Mena her cell phone to call the cottage, but, thankfully, no one had answered. Mena figured Lauren had insisted they all go out somewhere for dinner, despite her efforts. Maybe they had come into town. She left a message for Sam saying she’d be back later, that they were going to be working late. She doesn’t know why she lied. She could have told him that they were all going to Jake’s for a drink. But she didn’t tell him. And now here she is, at nine o’clock at night, following a guy she barely knows to his house in the woods. She can no longer see Anne’s headlights in her rearview mirror, and wonders when she lost her. She and Oscar are nowhere in sight.
Mena feels sort of sick to her stomach. She should turn around, go back to the lake. She should apologize to Sam. She worries that she hurt him. She can’t explain what happened to her. It was as though May stepped in. It was May swinging at Sam. God, maybe she’s losing her mind. And they have company, for Christ’s sake. She can’t imagine what Sam is doing with Monty and Lauren. She should go home, but then Jake’s blinker starts flashing, he slows down and pulls onto a dirt road on the right. Mena slows behind him and flips her blinker on too.
She sits in her car, leaving it running as Jake cuts his engine and gets out of the truck. He walks toward her car, his hands shoved in his pockets. She rolls down the window.
“You think we lost them?” he asks, looking past her down the road behind them.
“I’m not sure,” she says.
“Hopefully, they’ll stop somewhere and call. I think my number’s on the contact sheet,” he says. “You wanna come inside?”
Mena nods. Her throat is too dry to speak. He pulls the handle on her door for her, and she gets out.
“Can almost feel fall coming,” he says.
It is sort of chilly; the air has an edge to it. A tightness. She shivers.
“Come on,” he says, and motions for her to follow him to the house.
The house is small, set back and surrounded by trees. It’s an old farmhouse, with a wide front porch. Two caned seat rocking chairs sit motionless on either side of the front door; an ashtray teeters on the ledge. “Nasty habit,” Jake says, and grabs the ashtray, setting it down on the floor away from the door.
He opens his unlocked front door and flicks on the porch light, illuminating everything in a pale yellow light. The house is brown with dark green shutters. There are giant pots with red geraniums, gerbera daisies. She thinks about the garden she used to keep in California.
“Come in,” he says, and she follows him inside.
The front door opens up to a kitchen; it’s huge, a farmhouse kitchen with an antique wood-burning cook stove, a deep white porcelain country sink. It smells good in here: as if someone has been cooking. It smells strongly of apples and cinnamon, like a homemade pie.
“Do you cook?” she asks.
“A bit,” he says. “But it’s just me now, so not so much as I used to.”
“This is a great kitchen,” Mena says, excitedly examining the antique stove, running her hand across the smooth, cold surface. “Did this come with the place?”
Jake nods.
“Everything conveyed, thank God. My ex kept everything we had in DC.”
“Is this a pie pantry?” she asks, gesturing to a solid oak piece near the fridge that has punched tin panels.
“I think so. I keep my staples in there. Flour, sugar. Rice and beans.”
From the smell, Mena half expected that if she opened the doors, she’d find six steaming apple pies inside.
“It’s lovely,” she says. “Really. I miss my kitchen in San Diego. What we have at the lake is a little, I don’t know, primitive.” She laughs nervously and checks her watch.
“What time is it?” Jake asks.
“Just about nine-thirty,” she says.
He disappears into the pantry and comes out with a bottle of wine under his arm. He pulls open a drawer by the sink and takes out a corkscrew. “You want some?” he asks.
“No, that’s okay,” she says, shaking her head. Then she changes her mind. “Actually, maybe just half a glass.”
“I’ll have the other half,” he says and smiles.
“I wonder where they lost us,” Mena says, peering out the front window. There is nothing but darkness. The porch light only illuminates the driveway; beyond that everything is pitch black. Something about seeing the station wagon parked behind his truck makes her feel guilty. She’s still not sure what she’s doing here.
“Listen,” he says, handing her the glass of wine, which doesn’t look at all like a half glass. “I just wanted to tell you how much fun I’m having doing this play. This is my third or fourth with the Quimby Players, and it’s sort of refreshing to work with someone who actually knows how to act. I mean, the others try; they all take this very seriously. But there’s a reason why none of them have gone on to bigger and better things, myself included. It feels like a treat to have you.”
He is smiling at her, and suddenly she wonders, if she wanted to kiss him, could she? She wonders if she were to press him against that pie pantry, if he would kiss her lips, her neck, her breasts; if she were to make a move toward him, if he would let her fall into his arms. She wonders if he would
want
her. Imagining this makes her feel the worst and most wonderful mix of anxiety and desire. Guilt and the thrill of possibility. She imagines, that with one move forward, she could change her entire life. She takes a deep breath.
“Do you want to see where I work?” he asks.
“Sure.” She smiles and sighs. She brings the glass to her lips and takes a mouthful of the very good Chilean wine. Then she touches his hand, just a little. “And thanks, it’s so good to be acting again. It really is, and you all are so terrific.”
She follows him to the back of the house where he opens the door to his workshop. He flips on the light, and she catches her breath.
F
inn pitched the tent and put their sleeping bags inside. There’s a half-moon, and it is bright overhead, illuminating all of their hard work.
“Are you hungry?” he asks, unzipping his backpack and pulling out the food his mother made.
“That’s okay,” Alice says. She’s sitting Indian style on the ground by the campfire.
“No, seriously, there’s enough here for about five people.” He unloads the sandwiches and salad and cookies. He pulls out the beers he stole from the fridge too.
“You sure?” she asks, and he hands her half of a sandwich.
“So when exactly are you guys leaving?” he asks.
“It depends. The parole board is meeting early next week. If they decide to grant parole, he could be out in a couple of weeks. Mom should hear something after the meeting.”
“Do you really think they’re going to let him go?”
Alice shrugs.
“Are you scared?”
She’s picking at the salad in the Tupperware, eating all of the feta and olives but leaving the tomatoes. He should have remembered she said she hates tomatoes. She looks up at him and studies his face. “What is the first thing you remember?” she asks.
“What?”
“Your first memory.What is it?”
Finn closes his eyes. Tries to remember. All of his earliest memories are of the beach. Finding sand dollars, the sting of a jellyfish, the salt in his eyes. He remembers collecting sea glass, hermit crabs, shells. He thinks about learning to swim with Franny. He remembers sunset, his mother sitting on a blanket; it was yellow and orange, paisley, with a satin edge. His mother eating a large peach, watching them. His father taking his hand and then Franny’s as they walked down to the water’s edge. He remembers the cold sting of the waves as they lapped at their feet, the sound of Franny’s squeal. The splash. He remembers the pull of the receding waves; he recollects digging his feet into the sand so he wouldn’t get pulled in. He remembers looking back at his mother on the yellow blanket, at the ripe peach in her hand. He remembers her waving, his father holding both of them so tightly. He remembers the sun in Franny’s hair. Everything at that moment was golden.
He tells her, “I remember thinking then that there was nothing I loved more in the world than the water. Nothing more than the sun.”
Alice smiles. She is quiet for a long time.
“I never told you this, and it’s kind of weird, I know, but when I was four years old, I stopped talking. I wouldn’t say a single word.”
“You’re kidding,” Finn says. “Why not?”
Alice has put down the sandwich, is playing with the loose strings on her cutoffs. “My first memory is of one night when my father was really hurting my mom,” she says. She is looking out toward the trees; Finn wants her to look at him. To turn back. “When I was four, my dad tried to drown my mom in the bathtub. The very first thing I remember is my father’s hands holding her under. I remember the way her face looked, distorted under all that water.”
“Holy shit,” Finn says. He reaches for her hand, holds it in his, like something fragile.
“My whole childhood is like that, Finn. Just one big blur,” she says, looking at him. Her eyes are bright. “I don’t remember ever
not
being afraid. The way you feel now? All that awful loss and being sad, being afraid; I’ve felt that way since I can remember.” She leans forward, touches Finn’s hair, pushes it out of his eyes. “You have a
family,
Finn. I know it’s not the same as it used to be. I know there must be nothing in the world that hurts as much as losing your sister. But you still have a mom and a dad who love you.Who want nothing but for you to be safe.”
Finn feels like an ass, even though he knows that’s not what she meant for him to feel.
“My mom’s all I have. All I’ve ever had.”
He thinks about Franny, about that hollow place in his gut. About all the nights he’s lain in bed, wide awake, just wishing he could fall asleep. Stay asleep, maybe forever. “I’m sorry, Alice,” he says. “I’m so sorry.” And he is starting to cry. He can’t help it. It’s awful.
Alice stands up and comes over to him, puts her arm across his shoulders, and he leans down, putting his head in her lap. She leans over, kisses his closed eyes. He can’t stop crying. For the first time since any of this happened. He hasn’t shed a single tear in the last year. Not when he came out of the water that day, surfboard under his arm, a pounding headache, and found Franny. Not when his mother moaned. Not when his father cried. Not at the funeral. Not later. Not ever.
“If he gets out, I have to go with my mom, Finn. She needs me, and I need her.” Alice forces him to look at her. “And you need your family too.”
Finn looks up at Alice, and he realizes that she’s the first real friend he’s ever had besides Franny. And the first girl he’s ever loved.
“Truth or dare,” he says.
“Truth.”
He touches her hair. It feels like a whisper in his hands.
“I love you,” she says, before he even gets to ask the question.
It feels like he’s just caught a ten-foot wave. He nods. “Me too.”
“More than water?” she asks quietly.
He nods, and nods, and nods. “More than the sun.”
I
n the middle of Jake’s workshop is a long wooden table covered with violins in varying states of assembly. Along each wall, instruments are suspended on racks in neat rows. There are tools strewn everywhere. The room smells like chemicals and wood. There is an old apothecary’s chest along one wall. She touches the handle to one of the top drawers. “What is this?”
“It’s where I store the varnishes.”
“How long does it take you to make one of these?” she asks, pointing to a finished violin the color of a red maple leaf.
“Anywhere from eight to twelve weeks,” he says. “I’m terribly slow.”
“A perfectionist?”
“Just cautious,” he says. He runs his hand over the violin. His nails are square, wide, clean. His fingers are long. She imagines them touching her. Her heart stutters in her chest.
“This one took me more than three months to make. She’s my favorite.”
She wonders, if she were to go to him now, would he unbutton her blouse? Would he slip his hands under the fabric and pull it over her shoulders? Would he press his face against her chest, listen as her heart kept flip-flopping around inside? She wonders, if he touched her, if he’d imagine the contours of her breasts and waist and hips like a violin. Unfinished, rough, and out of tune. Could he bend her, change her, make her perfect again?
She looks at the glass of wine, starts to take a sip, and instead sets it down on the table. She sighs, and smiles. Shakes her head. “I don’t think they’re coming.”
“I don’t think they’re coming either,” he says, stepping closer to her. She instinctively touches the underside of her engagement ring with her thumb, spins it until the small diamond is sharp against her middle finger.
If she wanted him, would he want her?
“Let’s get some air,” she says. She is dizzy from the smell of the varnish.
Outside on the porch, he lights a cigarette and the smoke disappears into the darkness.
She takes another sip of the wine and feels the heat spreading through her entire body, despite the chill. “Actually, can I have one of those?” she asks, motioning to the pack of cigarettes.
“You sure?”
She nods, and he hands her one. She puts it in her mouth and he leans over to light it for her.
She takes a drag, inhaling deeply. It’s been ages since she’s smoked. The nicotine goes straight to her knees. She coughs.
“Easy there,” he says. “Probably shouldn’t take up smoking now.”
“I used to smoke when I was in college,” she says. “Just cloves though.” And for some reason, she remembers the way the clove cigarettes made her lips sweet. She remembers Sam commenting that she tasted like autumn the first time he kissed her.
She wonders, if she were to reach for his hand, if he would take it, kiss her palm, press it against his face. If she were to reach for him, would he put his hand on her waist, his fingers circling her ribs as though they were the spruce ribs of a violin?
He snubs out his cigarette and takes hers from her fingers and snubs it out too. The last of the smoke disappears into the air. He faces her and leans toward her, until his forehead is pressing against hers. She closes her eyes.
And she knows that if she were to open them, he would kiss her. She knows this, and suddenly, that is enough.
When he puts his hands around her waist, she stiffens and pulls away.
“I’m sorry, Jake,” she says. And she is. So sorry. “I need to get home. My husband is stuck with his agent and his horrible wife.You have a beautiful house. And this is ... just amazing.” She gestures to everything, to nothing.
He retreats, bowing his head. Graceful, even in defeat.
“Jake,”
she says, forcing him with her gaze to look at her. “I really am sorry.”
He nods, tilts his head at her, as if she might still change her mind.
In the car, she starts to laugh, giddy from the wine. She backs out of the driveway and laughs and laughs so hard that tears begin to roll down her cheeks, and then she is crying, really crying. She has to pull over at one point to get herself together. She finishes, looks in the rearview mirror. Her mascara has run, her eyes are rimmed with red. She takes a deep breath, wipes under each eye with her finger, removing the evidence. And then she drives back down the long driveway, onto the dirt road, toward home.