Bread Alone (43 page)

“Write.” He turns his face toward me, but it’s shadowed. “I got a letter from this agent named Alan Lear. In L.A. I sent him the first three chapters and he wants to see the rest.” He laughs. “I didn’t want to tell him there is no rest, so I told him I was revising and I’d have it in his hands by September.”

“Congratulations.”

“I’m not breaking out the champagne yet. He just wants to see it. There’s no promises.”

“There never are.”

He exhales noisily. “Anyway, Rick—the guy from Norwegian
Woods—his family has a cottage up on Orcas and he said I could use it for the summer if I’d do some maintenance on the place. Patch the roof, clear some land, paint. Stuff like that. And the rest of the time I can write.”

“Sounds like an offer you can’t refuse.”

He gives me a little nudge with his elbow. “I’ll probably be back in the fall.”

“Probably?”

“Yeah. Probably.”

The morning air is so thick with spring that it’s hard to believe there was a foot of snow on the ground six weeks ago. The Red Riding Hood tulips that Diane planted in the barrel outside the bakery door have opened in a blaze of scarlet. Everyone on Queen Anne is nuts for window boxes, and by now they’re spilling over with cascading blue lobelia, red and purple salvia, white dwarf snapdragons, yellow mimulus. Plain green hedges that I’ve walked past every day have become drifts of white, soft pink, deep-purple rhododendron.

I can practically hear Julie Andrews singing “The Lusty Month of May.”

When I get home from work, Mac’s leaning against the Elky’s passenger door drinking coffee out of a big white cup.

“You shouldn’t drink anything acidic out of a Styrofoam cup,” I tell him. “The acid dissolves that stuff right into your drink.”

“So that means if I drink it slow enough, I don’t have to worry about recycling the cup.”

“I’m sorry I missed your going-away party. I promised CM months ago I’d go to this dance thing. She had the tickets …”

Has my skill as a liar improved dramatically, or maybe he simply doesn’t notice? The truth is, I sat alone through some French film at the University of Washington, letting the images flicker on my eyes, the syncopated rhythm of the dialogue dance past me without registering. It seemed preferable to standing around Bailey’s listening to everyone wish him good luck.

I wonder if Laura was there, but I can’t ask.

“That’s okay. It was fairly sedate, as parties go. I was just on my way out of town. Thought I’d stop by.”

“So … good luck with the book.”

“Thanks. I hope your … situation turns out okay.”

I smile fixedly. “Jean-Marc used to say the bread might not always turn out the way you want it, but it always turns out.”

“Take care of yourself.” His mouth brushes my cheek awkwardly. I follow him around to the driver’s side. He climbs in the Elky, and the door rattles as he slams it. He rolls the window down as if he just thought of something else.

“Here. I made this for you.” He hands me a cassette.

I turn it over. “What is it?”

“All the songs and artists are on the card.”

My stomach is making little warning noises. “Mac, thanks. For everything. You’ve been a great friend.”

He turns the key. Of course it doesn’t start. We both laugh and then he looks at me. He’s wearing a green T-shirt that says “Eat Water: Raft the Colorado.” I wonder if he ever did that. Anyway, it looks good on him. Makes his eyes as deep green as river water.

He tries the ignition again and this time it catches. I wave and start walking back to the house. Quickly, so I don’t have to see him drive away.

I don’t exactly decide to call CM; it’s habit. One of Mac’s engrams. The machine picks up on the first ring. She’s either out of town or screening her calls.

“This is the right number, but you called at the wrong time. Leave a message and I’ll get back to you.”

“CM?” Could I sound any more pitiful? “CM? Please pick up if you’re there.” I take a breath. “It’s me. Your old ex-best friend. I miss you so much. I’m sorry for what happened. All the stupid stuff I said. I’m glad you’re happy. Honestly. Please call me. I need to talk to you. Please don’t—”

The machine clicks off. The empty air reminds me of that sound you hear when you put a seashell up to your ear.

Eighteen

I
t’s pouring Thursday afternoon when I wake up. Probably a good day to delve into my time-capsule box that I brought home from the wedding. Getting rid of nonessentials always makes me feel good, sort of clean and strong. Still, I sit at the table after I’ve eaten my cheese omelet, stirring cream around and around in my coffee till it’s too cold to drink and wondering if it’s raining in the San Juans.

Mac said one time that they actually got less rain than Seattle because they were in the rain shadow of the Olympics. He explained what that means, but I can’t remember now. Sometimes I think I’m always paying attention, but not to the right things. There was something with Mac—some tension, a dark shape in my peripheral vision. How else do I explain it? The vague restlessness when I wake up in the afternoons. The nagging sense of missed opportunities.

Okay, maybe I was distracted, but it wasn’t just that. I mean, he’s a bartender, for God’s sake. A college dropout with a low threshold of boredom. I hardly know anything personal about him, except that he likes music and rock climbing. Then there’s Laura, the phantom ex-girlfriend hovering in the wings. Another doomed relationship, I don’t need. I’m already involved with Gary. And I’m not even divorced yet. It’s all happened too fast. What was it John Lennon said? Something
about life being what happens to you while you’re busy trying to make plans.

I get up and pour the coffee down the drain, leave my dishes soaking in soapy water. I make space on the floor for myself and a giant plastic trash bag. I slit the tape on the box and dump the contents on the floor.

Engagement calendars. I open one, flip a few pages. Most of the names and places scribbled in the squares don’t sound even vaguely familiar. I check the first pages to be sure they’re mine and not CM’s before tossing them all in the bag.

I save my high school graduation tassel, throw out all the cards. I pitch my acceptance letter from UCLA, my class schedules and my grade reports. I save my high school and college diplomas in their folders with the graduation announcements. I throw out all the pamphlets CM and I worked on for the National Organization for Women, and a button that says “Uppity Woman.” On second thought, I retrieve the button. A rolled up T-shirt unfurls like a banner, making me laugh. CM gave it to me when my steady boyfriend dumped me just before the senior prom. It says “A Woman Needs a Man Like a Fish Needs a Bicycle.”

There are photographs. Halloween party at Zelma Wallis’s house. CM and I are standouts. Not just because we’re taller than everyone else by three inches, but because our costumes are so weird. All the other girls have gone the glamour route—a queen, a movie star, a ballerina, Amelia Earhart. There’s even a Statue of Liberty. CM and I are dressed as Amazons (our interpretation) in frizzy black wigs and fake leopard skin “Alley-Oop” outfits her mother made for us. The nickname “the Amazons” would stick with us for the rest of our school days.

A Polaroid snapshot taken by my mother. CM and I stand by my old black Chevy, leaving for freshman orientation at UCLA. She looks confident, gorgeous. Her long hair is ironed straight, parted in the middle. She wears a dark paisley shirt, crocheted vest, bell-bottom pants. Her woven bag from South America is bulging, probably with cookies, apples, gum. I’m smiling, but still manage to look grimly determined. My hair is barely contained in some weird contraption on top of my
head. I’m wearing a tie-dyed T-shirt, hip-hugger jeans, and a belt with a huge brass buckle in the shape of my name. Three hours later, I’ll be crouched in a stall in the women’s rest room of the administration building, throwing up.

My heart aches and so does my stomach. This is worse than breaking up with a man, sitting around mooning over old pictures and remembering the good times. CM and I have been together almost twenty-five years, longer than a lot of married couples. She knows more about me than my mother. I used to think we were closer than sisters, but now I’m not sure. Sisters at least know they love each other, so they don’t always have to like each other.

Sibling rivalry—we had it in spades. I got better grades; she was prettier. There were nights that I cried myself to sleep because some boy I was madly in love with had called to talk to me about fixing him up with CM. She never went out with any of them.

What I loved even more than her loyalty, though, was her absolute fearlessness. She seemed to thrive on getting in trouble, while I was loath to upset my father. He never laid a hand on me, rarely even scolded me. But he could say my name a certain way, not with disapproval so much as disappointment. That’s all it took. CM, in one of her brutally honest moods, once told me I would have made a good golden retriever—quick, smart, eager to please him. The strange thing is, it didn’t particularly offend me.

On the bottom of the pile is a professional photo taken at the country club the Sunday my father and I won the mixed-doubles tennis tournament. I was fifteen. I think it was the happiest day of my life. In the picture, we’re each holding a handle of the silver trophy. His arm is around me and my smile takes up my entire face.

I stack all my high school yearbooks back in the box. They’re always good for a laugh. Or when I can’t remember somebody’s name. Papers I wrote in college. “Woman’s Work, Man’s World” and “Sociology of Knowledge.” “Shakespeare and the Passive-Aggressive Personality.” Unutterably boring and pretentious. But they were mostly A papers. Maybe Mac was on to something with his cynical view of higher
education. Underneath them is a pile of loose sheets. Every overblown, sophomoric poem I had in the literary magazine. My mother saved every single one.

I’m grabbing handfuls of stuff and jamming it into the bag when a piece of ivory stationery floats out of the pile like a leaf on the wind and settles on my foot. The old-fashioned penmanship is the kind they stopped making kids try to imitate when I was in fourth grade. My oma’s handwriting. It’s a letter to my mother, or part of one, probably mixed in with the papers from her cedar chest. As I start to crumple it up, my name leaps off the page at me.

If he really means to leave you, there is nothing you can do to prevent him. You could make things very difficult and unpleasant for him; but I don’t believe you have the strength of will to pursue that course. So it behooves you to consider other alternatives. Of course, you and Justine are more than welcome to stay with us until you decide what to do. However long it takes.

Remember, Johanna, that your father and I are standing by, should you need us. God bless you, my dear child, and comfort you. Justine is behaving reasonably well and seems to be enjoying herself

Lovingly,

Mother

I read it three times. Then once more, just to be sure there’s not some other possible explanation of who “he” is. Of course there’s not. “He” is my father, and now the wheel of my memory turns easily, gracefully, despite its unwieldy mass. Pictures click silently into place like slides, enlarged, illuminated, and projected onto a screen.

They were an unlikely couple. He was handsome, maybe a little bit wild when he was young—daring, adventurous, self-assured. She was pretty, but sweet, quiet, serious. I found their wedding picture interesting when I was old enough to appreciate the subtleties of people’s eyes, their expressions. For that photograph, they seemed to have exchanged personalities. Pleased, proud, exuding stability, he had the air of a man
confident of doing the correct thing. While my mother looked as if she might bubble over with laughter at some unexpected adventure that had just presented itself How long before he realized she wasn’t enough for him? How long before she knew?

I reach for the phone book that sits under the little side table and leaf through the
A’s
till I get to Alaska Airlines.

Saturday morning at eleven-fifteen, I’m standing in front of my mother’s house. The door is locked, undoubtedly Richard’s influence. She’s never locked anything. I ring the bell. When she opens the door and says, “Wyn! What a wonderful surprise!” the revulsion I feel at the sound of her voice nearly unhinges me. “How are you? How long can you stay?”

“I have to go back tonight. Where’s Richard?”

“Playing golf. Why?”

“I need to talk to you about something. Privately.”

Her tone changes instantly. “What’s the matter?”

By this time, we’re in the den. I set down my purse, but before I can say anything, she says, “Do you want some tea? Or juice, or water? Coffee?”

“Nothing, thanks.” I sit down on the couch; she lowers herself gracefully into her sewing chair.

“Honey, what’s wrong? You seem upset.”

“I found this.” I take the letter out of my jacket pocket, unfold it, and hand it to her. “In that box I took home after the wedding.”