The Wonders of the Invisible World (21 page)

She looked through the slanting rain at the green hills. Beyond them was the long and winding road that led to Ben’s door, in Leavenworth, Washington. Then, down at the foot of the driveway, Paul’s truck appeared, its lights on, edging close to the mailbox; she saw his arm stretch out of the window, pull open the box and reach inside. Now he gunned it up the driveway toward the house, and pulled onto the grass by the kitchen door. The wipers stopped, the headlights went out and she watched him trot into the house, hugging the mail to his chest with one hand, his other elbow shielding his head from the rain. She listened to him calling her name.

For once they got to eat in the dining room. Karen and Allen had brought four bottles of a better-than-okay California Merlot, and cheeses, olives and bread from Zabar’s; Faye made sauce with their own tomatoes, which had just started to come in, and fresh pasta with her pasta machine. Paul’s contribution was to keep the music going, though Faye thought she detected an edge of something when he put on Merle Haggard. He filled his wineglass again—they were already on bottle number three—and claimed Merle Haggard looked like King Hussein, which no one was prepared to dispute.

“Okay, Famous Look-Alikes,” Paul said. “For ten points: Mama Cass.”

“You mean think up somebody that looks like her?” Karen said.

He nodded. “Famous writer.”

“Who was Mama Cass again?” said Allen.

“Mamas and the Papas,” Karen said. “Faye used to have their album when I was in fourth grade.”

“So ten points,” said Paul. “Looks just like her. Famous, famous writer.” He glances around the table.

“Would I know this person?” Allen said.

“I would hope so. You want another hint? Eighteenth century.”

“You’ll have to tell us,” Karen said.

“Samuel Johnson.”

“I don’t see that at all,” Karen said.

“I’m not really familiar,” Allen said.

“Allen’s more into John Le Carré,” said Karen.

“Come on, I read good stuff, too.”

“Nothing wrong with John Le Carré,” Paul said. “I’d a hell of a lot sooner read him than fucking John Updike. If we’re talking about Johns here.”

“You realize that’s the second mean thing you’ve said about John Updike?” Karen said. “Why do you have such a thing about him?”

Paul snorted. “I wonder.”

Faye swirled the sediment in her wineglass. Alcohol was so interesting, she thought. Interesting just to sit here with all this loud talk going on around you and yet to feel safe. She’d probably feel even safer lying down on the bed, and maybe in a while she’d get up, excuse herself and go do just that. The dishes could wait until morning: no cockroaches up here. And Paul could flirt with her sister all he wanted because Karen’s husband was on hand.

“Hey, actually I’ve got one,” Allen said. “I’m thinking of somebody that looks just like Cecilia Bartoli.”

“Who the hell is that?” said Paul.

“Cecilia Bartoli? Opera singer?”

Paul shrugged. “I heard of the Three Tenors. That’s what opera singers you get up here in the boonies.”

Now, what was this about? Paul never missed the Metropolitan
Opera broadcast on Saturday afternoon—unless his redneck friends were in the house. His all-time favorite tenor was Jussi Björling.

“But you get PBS, don’t you?” Allen said.

Faye poured herself more wine—just a touch. Karen’s husband was going too far with Paul, but she was too drunk to imagine how to warn him.

“I told you,” Paul said. “This is the fuckin’ boonies, right? I
like
it to be the fuckin’ boonies. Because all that crap is interchangeable. You know? Spaghetti-bender of the month. I mean, after a certain
point
”—waving his hand, he knocked over the current wine bottle, then quickly righted it, leaving just a splash of maroon on the white tablecloth.

“Good hands,” Allen said. “So you give up?”

“I don’t give
up,
” Paul said. “I just don’t happen to know what the hell you’re talking about.”

“
I
give up,” Karen said. “If that helps.”

Paul turned to her. “You don’t believe me about Samuel Johnson. Don’t go anywhere.” He got up and headed for the living room, walking surprisingly well.

“Does
anybody
want to hear my thing?” Allen said.

“I do,” Karen said.

Faye took another sip.

“Your sister,” he said.

“What? No way,” said Karen. “Okay, you’re cut off.”

“But it’s true,” he said. “Am I crazy?”

Faye closed her eyes and began to count. Maybe to fifty, she thought.

“There. Check it out,” she heard Paul say.

She opened her eyes and saw him laying a book beside Karen’s plate: a gray paperback whose cover showed a fat, peevish-looking, full-lipped man in a wig.

“Okay,” Paul said, “now picture Mama Cass.”

“I am,” Karen said. “I think you’re as nuts as my husband.”

Faye closed her eyes again and considered proposing Richard Dreyfuss, but she couldn’t tell if the game was over or not. Anyhow, it might take things someplace weird.

“What’s it like for you, living here?” Karen said. They were walking up the path to where Faye knew there were blueberries, both swinging Medaglia d’Oro coffee cans. Faye had made holes in them with Paul’s electric drill and attached pieces of clothesline for handles.

“I don’t know,” Faye said. “It’s like—I don’t know. I mean, it’s like living anyplace, except it’s … I don’t know what to tell you.”

“Sorry,” Karen said. “I didn’t mean it to be a tough question.”

“Oh no, it’s a legitimate question. I just, I don’t really think about it. I mean, is it better than the city? You know, sure, in some ways. Having the space. Plus just being able to just go out your back door.”

“Allen and I talk about it sometimes,” Karen said. “I mean, we eventually do want to have kids, and it would be so much better in a place like this. But right now there’s no way.”

“You don’t think? I bet if Allen played his cards right
he
could get a job on the road crew.”

“Right. How’s Paul dealing with that?”

Faye shrugged. “Like a pig deals with shit. He’s running the grader, he’s running the backhoe, the bushhog—whatever it all is. The big roller. Last winter he was on night call for the snowplow. All he needs is a gun rack for his pickup.”

“He doing anything on his book? Wasn’t that part of the idea?”

“The magnum opus? You never hear about it anymore. I assume it’s fallen by the wayside.”

Karen shook her head. “Waste.”

“I don’t know,” Faye said. “Waste of what? He claims he’s happy. Gets him outdoors, plenty of exercise—hasn’t he given you the whole rap?”

“What about you, though?”

“What
about
me? I’m here, no? If I ever think of something else, I’ll think of something else.”

“There aren’t any other papers or anything?”

“Sure, this is the land of opportunity. Can’t think why
everybody
isn’t up here.”

They climbed over a tumbledown stone wall into a field of thigh-high saplings. A jay screamed. Faye squatted and stretched out her hand, palm up, to touch one leaf in a patch of low, tidy-looking bushes.

“A blueberry bush,” she said, pronouncing the article like the letter
A.

“God, look at them all,” said Karen, getting down on her bare knees. “You weren’t kidding.”

“No, not my style. You can pick here. I’ll hit the other side.” The first berries started
pinging
into the coffee cans. Then only the rustling of the bushes as their hands tore at the berries, and the screams of the jays.

“It’s so quiet here,” Karen said. “I actually had trouble getting to sleep with nothing but the katydids.”

“Yeah,” said Faye. “This is the time of year you start hearing them. I still have trouble myself. It’s like, the one thing stands out more when there’s just silence. Though I personally didn’t hear jack shit last night.”

“I bet. I was worried you might be sick, but Paul said you were okay.”

“Paul should know.”

Karen shot her a glance. “Are you guys fighting?”

“That’s a quaint enough way to put it. No.”

“Oh.” Karen went back to picking, then stopped and stared
at Faye. “At the risk of being put down definitively,” she said, “I would like to note that (a) I’m your sister, (b) you do not seem happy, and (c) if something’s wrong I’d be glad to listen.”

Faye shook her head. “It’s not really any one thing. Just the usual.”

“I know I shouldn’t ask this,” Karen began.

“No, you shouldn’t. Whatever it is. I’ll tell you one thing: about sixty-five percent of the problem is that I’m hung over and this sun is giving me a headache. We must have about enough. Let me see what you’ve got.” Karen tilted her coffee can toward Faye. “Well, not quite. We want to make two pies, and these things cook down.”

“You make them in twos?”

“The frugal hausfrau,” Faye said. “Costs money to run that gas stove, you know. Actually, one is for you guys to take with you.”

“Really?”

“No,” Faye said. “I’m kidding you again.”

By the time they got back to the house they were both sweating, but it was cool in the kitchen. Karen lifted the tightly rolled bandanna from around her head and shook her hair out with both hands. It struck Faye that she’d only seen this style in magazines. Then it struck her that Karen obviously had been wearing the bandanna all morning.

“Okay, if you’ll wash those, I’ll start the piecrust,” she said, opening the cabinet and handing Karen the colander.

“What happened to the boys?” Karen said, looking out the window. “I don’t see the truck.”

“Probably went someplace to measure cocks with the locals. Saturday in Vermont. You go buy a case of beer, then go over to
somebody’s house and watch him work on his car. Paul is nothing if not assimilated.”

“Allen must be in seventh heaven,” Karen said. “He’ll have some real Americana to lay on everybody back at Time Warner. So is Paul serious about all this? Or is he just collecting material?”

“Material for a beer belly, maybe. Which he’s already getting. I don’t know, you’d have to understand Paul. Question is, does anybody
want
to understand Paul.”

“Well—you, presumably.”

“Right,” Faye said. “There’s always me. Listen, let’s get these pies in the oven, and maybe we can go for a swim.”

“That would be great.” Karen poured blueberries from the coffee cans into the colander, began running water, then turned the faucet off. “Wait. Why am I doing this?”

“Don’t go philosophical on me.”

“I mean, what are we washing off? They don’t use insecticide up there in the woods, do they?”

Faye looked out the window. “How would anybody know? If it’s not insecticide, it’s acid rain or God knows what. The deer come through and piss on them, I don’t know. Actually I think New York’s the only place a nature lover should really live. Put up your Ansel Adams calendar, and you’re in business.” She dug the measuring cup into the bag of flour, held her palm against the outside of the bag to level it off and dumped the flour into the mixing bowl. “Could you get down the Wesson oil? Up in that cupboard?”

Karen stood on tiptoes and craned her neck, tilting bottles to look behind them. “Canola oil?”

“Sorry, that’s what I meant. See, this isn’t the boonies. A mere twenty miles to the nearest supermarket.” Faye measured oil into the cup and dumped it over the flour. Then she held the cup under the faucet and measured water.

“Are you sure this is going to work?” Karen said. “I thought you were supposed to mix the oil and water first and then keep adding flour to it.”

“It all ends up together anyhow,” said Faye. “I can’t put it together—it
is
together.” She measured out salt and baking powder. “Okay, we need room on that counter to roll this stuff out. Have you picked over those berries?”

Karen started moving junk off the counter. “You’ve got amazing counter space,” she said. “Even on the West Side the kitchens really aren’t big enough.”

“Counter space,” Faye said. “Sounds like what’s inside a black hole.” She fluttered her fingers and intoned the word in
Twilight Zone
baritone: “Coun-ter-space.”

Karen laughed.

“There’s a rolling pin in that drawer,” Faye said. “By the fridge? God, I actually own a rolling pin. If I had a bathrobe and curlers, I could give the boys a real American welcome.”

“This really
is
America, isn’t it?” said Karen. “The womenfolk in the kitchen and the boys out God knows where. Is this really what it’s like here?”

“Honey,” Faye said in her hillbilly voice, “this rot year is jes’ the tip of the osberg of what it’s lock year. It’s th’unstable sufface thoo which th’unwayry”—now she’d slipped into her black radio preacher voice and was rolling her eyes—“is lahble to fawel, at enna instant. Now, sistah—” Karen was laughing again. Faye stopped and looked out the window. “I don’t know,” she said in her own voice. “It’s a good question. I really have no idea what it’s like here.”

Faye sat on the bed and dug her right heel into her left heel to work her shoe off without having to untie it, pried the other shoe off with the bare toes of her left foot and
stretched out on top of the quilt. She’d told Karen she was still feeling iffy, given her a towel and explained how to get down to the brook; she was going to lie down for half an hour, take the pies out, and maybe afterward she’d come join her. But the hangover was only part of it. She hadn’t seen Karen in, what, four years? Shouldn’t she be able to endure two days? It was quarter after one. She could nap until quarter of two, take the pies out, pick up around the house a little. That still left a lot of hours. She made a fist and started sticking out fingers: quarter to three, four, five, six … God, nine or ten more hours today, and at least another, what, five or six tomorrow. A minimum of fourteen more hours, and you’ve only gotten through—let’s see—maybe four hours last night and three or four today. Like a third of the way through.

She closed her eyes and started watching for the crazy thought, the one that meant she was asleep. Although examining each thought to see if it was crazy made it harder for the crazy one to come. She realized she was clenching her eyelids, relaxed them and felt her face get longer, all the way down to her chin: her jaw dropped, her teeth parted. This was the way your face needed to feel if you were to receive the crazy thought. She went down through her body, checking for tension; she found it, then relaxed it, in the neck, in the shoulders, in the stomach, in the buttocks, in the thighs, in the knees, in the feet. What was the term for them, those head-to-toe descriptions of women in medieval literature, in which lovers itemized their ladies’ attractions?