Justin Kramon (19 page)

Finny felt herself blushing now. She didn’t dare look at Earl, who must have been the color of the ketchup bottle.

“Listen,” Carter said to Finny, “I’m just teasing. I’m bitter because I spent my Friday night catering on Park Avenue at some retirement home they call an apartment building.”

“I didn’t know you catered,” Finny said.

“If someone in New York tells you he’s an actor,” Carter said, “you better believe he knows how to pass a tray of salmon croquettes.”

Earl laughed at that. “Yeah, you know that
writer
and
waiter
are only one letter apart.”

“I’ve never heard that,” Carter said. “That’s
golden.”

Finny wasn’t sure if she liked this kind of joking. It was true, they were both struggling. But they were doing what they loved. She had no idea what that would be for herself.

So she said, “Well, you two are only one
seat
apart, so if you want to make out at any time, just let us know and we’ll turn our heads.”

“To vomit,” Judith added, though Finny could see she was having a good time now that her food had arrived. She’d ordered French toast, and was stacking it on her fork, dousing it with maple syrup the way she used to in the Thorndon dining hall. That was the thing about Judith: she had these little pretensions, like about the table, but after a minute she would drop them and just have fun.

“So how about you?” Finny asked Judith. “What did you do last night?”

“Prince and I went out for dinner.”

“Oh,” Finny said. She wasn’t quite sure what to say about Prince, since she knew Carter didn’t like him. She took a bite of her omelet.

“And you should tell her who’s coming to visit after the holiday,” Carter said to Judith. “Because that’s an important piece, too.”

Judith rolled her eyes. “He’s talking about your brother.” Then to Carter, “The reason I didn’t tell her was that she told me a million years ago not to talk about what I did with her brother. Isn’t that right, Fin?”

“Yeah,” Finny said. “But I guess it’s different now. I guess it’s okay if you tell me.”

“Well, then,” Judith said. “Actually, Sylvan is coming the Saturday after Thanksgiving, on his way back up to Boston.”

“Does he know about Prince?” Finny asked. She couldn’t help it.

“That’s the
other
other piece,” Carter said, then stuffed another hash brown in his mouth.

Chapter
20
A Difficult Thanksgiving

Finny spent the rest of the weekend with Earl, meeting Judith once more for a quick cup of coffee on Sunday before she went back to Stradler. She told Judith she would be coming up to the city a lot, so there would be no tearful goodbyes.

Then three days of classes at Stradler, and Finny was on the train to Baltimore Wednesday evening.

In Baltimore, Laura was waiting for Finny outside the train station. She still drove the green Oldsmobile Stanley used to drive. She got out when she saw Finny, and they hugged each other.

“So
good
to see you, sweetie,” Laura said.

“You too, Mom,” Finny said. Though she’d only been away three months, for the first time Finny noticed how much her mother had aged. Her neck looked thin, and her skin was loose around her jaw. Her hair looked drier, and was a white-blond color in front, where it used to be a honey-brown. She still had it cut short like she had just after Stanley died.

They got in the car and started driving. Coming home had such an odd feeling for Finny, since she didn’t really think of Laura’s house as her home anymore. And her mother—she was more like a distant aunt or an old teacher than a parent.

Hard as she tried, Laura was not what you’d call a superb driver. Some other words you might not use to describe her driving included: smooth, safe, or within any reasonable range of accepted driving codes. She’d gotten by without having to drive much while Stanley was alive, but now she was full captain of the Oldsmobile, and Finny and Sylvan suffered the consequences whenever they came home to visit. Finny especially, because she’d never learned how to drive; she just hadn’t wanted the responsibility.

So now, when Laura merged onto the Jones Falls Expressway by cutting across two lanes of traffic without using her blinker, Finny was not surprised to hear the horns of angry drivers sounding behind them. In fact, a chorus of horns followed Laura wherever she drove. Though rather than taking the honking as a sign of people’s aggravation with her, Laura seemed to believe they were offering some kind of greeting or helpful encouragement. Her universal response, whenever anyone honked at her, was to wave. Sometimes the wave was accompanied by a small, pleased grin, or even a playful tap on her own horn. Any automotive difficulty—from a near-collision to a tailpipe spewing smoke like a chimney—could be solved with a wave. Watching Laura drive, you might have believed that world peace and a cure for cancer were only a wave and a smile away.

“So tell me about
you,”
Laura said now to Finny, applying a curious combination of brake and accelerator, as if in rhythm to a song. The car behind her honked and flashed its headlights. Laura waved and kept up her rhythm.

“I was in New York last weekend,” Finny said.

“Really? Why?”

“To visit my friend Judith Turngate. You remember Judith, Mom?”

“Oh,” Laura said. “Oh sure. She’s lovely.” Laura was speaking in the distant way she sometimes did when Finny approached a topic that might reference Stanley.

“Well, anyway, I saw her. And also another old friend who’s in the city.” She was still debating whether to tell her mother about Earl. It had been so long since Laura had gotten angry about him. Another era. What harm could it do?

“Actually,” Finny went on, channeling Judith’s confidence, “it was Earl Henckel. The boy from next door. You remember him? The one Sylvan caught me kissing a long time ago?” Finny laughed, trying to strike a pose where she could joke around over old battles and grudges.

The funny thing was that Laura seemed just as unsure about their relationship as Finny. She smiled hesitantly. “Well,” she said to Finny, “that’s
interesting
. What’s he up to?”

“He’s trying to be a writer. He’s living with some friends in New York.”

“How is he making money?” Laura asked, and it was at that moment that Finny decided not to introduce Earl to her on this trip.

“I think he has some saved up,” Finny said.

“By the way,” Laura said, “we’ll have an extra guest at Thanksgiving this year.”

“Who’s that?” Finny asked.

“A man named Gerald. A friend of mine.”

They were coming up on Greenspring Station, where the expressway funneled into Falls Road, the country road they used to take all the way out to the Geist Road house. The three-lane road narrowed to a single lane here, and now Laura put on the brakes, with the ostensibly helpful purpose of letting others go ahead of her. It’s not often that someone comes to a full stop in the middle of a forty-mile-per-hour road, and it must have thrown some of the other drivers for a loop, because one man sped past and yelled through an open window, “Take a
fucking
driving class!”

For a moment Laura appeared shocked. She put her hand to her mouth and widened her eyes, as if she’d seen something extraterrestrial. But soon her politeness got the best of her, and she waved.

·    ·    ·

On Thanksgiving day, while Laura and Sylvan were cooking, Finny decided to give Earl’s house a call.

“Hello,” said Poplan’s voice on the other end of the line.

“Hey,” Finny said. “What’s that in the background?”

There was some loud synthesizer music playing, and Finny heard the squeaky voice of Poplan’s cousin saying: “All the ladies in the house, can ya
hear
me?” And then some other voices—presumably the other cousins—answering, “Yeah!”

“Oh, the cousins. They’re into this dancehall music now,” Poplan said. “Hold on one second.” Then Finny heard Poplan calling, “Alana! Take that salad bowl off your head and do
not
use the tongs as percussion instruments!”

“Sorry,” Poplan said to Finny when she got back on the line. “How are you?”

Finny said she was good, enjoying the break from school. They wished each other a happy Thanksgiving. Then Finny asked about coming over on Friday.

“I’d love it,” Poplan said. “The only thing is, Menalcus has a show.”

“A show?”

“I’m his manager now,” Poplan said.

“Manager for what?”

“Why don’t you come and see? I know Earl is planning to come. And I need to get away from the cousins for a night. If I hear the word
breakdown
one more time, I might take it literally.”

“All right. Where am I going?”

“It’s called the Tender Crab.”

“Sounds lovely,” Finny said.

Gerald Kramp was a darkly suntanned man in his sixties, with silver hair that looked wind-blown, as if he’d just come in from a walk on the beach. His teeth were impressively white, small, and sharp, and against his tanned skin, they looked a bit like the teeth of a jack-o’-lantern. From what Finny gathered, her mother had been “seeing” him since September, just after Finny left for college. They had met at a movie at the Baltimore Museum of Art, talked all through the reception, then gone out for a drink afterward and talked some more.

Gerald seemed perfectly nice. When he came in, he gave Laura a restrained peck on the cheek, then shook Finny’s and Sylvan’s hands with his own very clean and manicured hand. Sylvan—who now wore his hair parted, pushed back off his face with his fingertips—asked Gerald if he’d like a glass of wine, and when Gerald said sure, Sylvan asked if he’d prefer red or white.

“Whatever you want,” Gerald said.

“How about red?” Sylvan offered.

“That would be great,” Gerald said, then seemed to hesitate. “Except,” he went on, “there are some advantages to starting with white. Your teeth won’t get stained, for one. Not that I care. I only mention it because I thought you’d want to know.”

Laura smiled.

“Then how about white?” Sylvan suggested.

“That’s fine with me,” Gerald said. “If you’d prefer. Really, I’m very flexible.”

Sylvan poured the white wine for everyone, and they sat around the dining room table, which was separated from the kitchen by only a small island where Laura kept pots and pans. The meal was nearly ready. The turkey was resting on the stove top, and the side dishes were warming in the oven. They were eating early. It was only four-thirty. Since it was windy outside, leaves kept falling onto the skylight above them. The lion sculpture looked like it was dressed in a colorful cloak.

“Should we eat now?” Laura asked everyone. “Or should we enjoy our wine for a few minutes?”

“Whatever,” Gerald said, a wide grin displaying his white teeth.

“I’m not that hungry yet,” Finny said. “So maybe let’s wait.”

“That’s absolutely fine with me,” Gerald said. “I actually haven’t eaten anything all day. So it doesn’t hurt me one bit to wait another hour. It doesn’t get me riled up the way it does some people.”

“Well, if you haven’t eaten all day,” Finny offered, “maybe we should start soon.”

“If that’s what you’d honestly prefer,” Gerald said. “This is not my house, so I don’t aim to alter your routines in the slightest. I want you to do just as you would if I weren’t here.”

So they ate. They set up the turkey and side dishes on the island and everyone helped themselves to a plate, then sat back down again. Sylvan asked Gerald what he did for a living, and Gerald said that he was a businessman.

“What kind of business?” Sylvan asked.

“Spices,” Gerald said. “It’s the future of cooking.”

“What do you mean?”

“Smoked paprika. Wild oregano. You name it. Actually, I provided the spices your mother used in this dinner. We wanted to keep it a surprise.”

“So you sell the spices?”

“Not yet,” Gerald said, “but I’m working on it. I’d say it’s my current project.” He grinned, and his bronze skin seemed to redden slightly, as if he were being warmed under the broiler.

Laura nodded supportively.

“I don’t need to bore you with the details,” Gerald said, “but it’s going to be very interesting, isn’t it?” He looked to Laura.

She nodded again.

As at every Thanksgiving, Laura went through the process of naming every dish on the table and saying how delicious it was. Sylvan and Finny offered their agreement where they could.

“How about the spices?” Gerald added. “Very important. Spices.”

Finny said yes, she agreed that spices were important.

“Aha,” Gerald said. “You see?”

“Would you like to open another bottle of wine?” Laura asked Gerald.

“Doesn’t matter,” Gerald said.

“I’m fine,” Finny said.

“Me, too,” Sylvan said.

“Only,” Gerald said, “I’ve heard that at least two glasses of wine every evening is very beneficial for your heart. A weak heart runs in my family. So, for example, at my house, I would move toward opening a second bottle—only because I don’t want to die tragically of a major heart attack. But that’s my house. In your house, you should do whatever you want.”

They opened a second bottle.

“To heart health,” Gerald said, raising his glass.

And if two glasses of wine were beneficial for the heart, Gerald must have believed that each successive glass increased the benefits. He drank the majority of the second bottle, replenishing his glass almost as soon as he’d drained it, and by the time they got around to proposing a third bottle, Gerald accepted on behalf of all their hearts, and then sought to spare their livers by inflicting the brunt of the bottle on his own.

Laura wore her impenetrable smile the whole evening. For Finny, who had felt the gap between herself and her mother widening ever since her father’s death, it was as if a canyon had opened up between them. Laura seemed so small and far away that Finny hardly saw the point in reaching toward her. She made faces across the table at Sylvan, who laughed and shook his head.

When they had finally finished and the plates were cleared, leftovers sealed in Ziploc bags, Laura said to Gerald, “You can’t drive home.”