Monday, Monday: A Novel (17 page)

“It’s their reflection,” Shelly explained. “Since they’re in the shade of the trees.”

Jack chuckled. “I gathered.”

They watched the passengers disembark. Down the dock, beyond the boats, Delia and Carlotta had paused to watch the swans on the water.

“It’s like heaven being with her,” Shelly said. “And not as hard as I would have thought. She’s so happy. Thank you for including me. Seeing you and Delia with her reassures me.”

“I have a lot of respect for how you and Wyatt handled things,” Jack said.

“Wyatt couldn’t have lived with himself if he had left Nate,” she said.

“Maybe not. But a lot of women would have asked him to.”

She folded her hands. “I try not to think about him so often. It’s too messy, and hopeless.” She waited a moment. “But is he okay?”

“He’s okay.”

“He’s in Provincetown?”

“Yes.”

“Has he met Carlotta yet?”

Jack looked at her solemnly. “How will it make you feel to know?’

“It doesn’t matter how I feel. I just want to know.”

“He’s been to visit us twice.”

“Oh.” She tried to picture him with Carlotta. “Were Elaine and Nate with him?”

“No. He came on his own.”

They watched Carlotta trying to pet a spotted duck that squawked and waddled in circles around her. “She doesn’t look like Wyatt,” Shelly said. “I keep trying to see if she looks like me. I don’t think so. And not like my mom, either, except for her hair color. That’s exactly like hers.” After a moment she said, “I know Delia’s good friends with Elaine, and I hope that doesn’t make her resent me.”

“Shelly. You gave us Carlotta. How could we resent you?”

“I hope Elaine never knows about me. I worry she might find out. You don’t think there’s any chance she would, do you?”

“Not unless he tells her. Or unless she were somehow to see the portrait.”

“You know about the portrait?”

He nodded.

“What do you know about it?”

“It’s in Provincetown, as of a few months ago. Wyatt asked me to ship some paintings he’d left at UT, and it was one of them. I took some of the paper off to be sure it was his, and I saw what it was. I didn’t think he should have it there, but he said he was going to keep it in a closet in a studio he’s renting, and Elaine wouldn’t see it.”

“Oh.” She leaned back, looking up into the spring foliage overhead and thinking how the painting would probably always be going from one hiding place to another—at least until Wyatt got rid of it. And of course he should get rid of it. But she felt a renewed pang of longing for him, knowing he hadn’t brought himself to do that yet.

“What about his career—how’s it going?”

“Not so well. He’s not painting popular stuff. Unfortunately, I think he’s seen as a draftsman by the artists there. An illustrator. Tempera’s not exactly in style.”

“So he’s not making much money?”

“No. A restaurant owner commissioned a seascape for a fair amount of money, and Wyatt painted what he tells me was a masterpiece—a sunrise over the water. But the guy said it looked too much like a photograph and he wanted an old ship of some kind painted on it to make it more like an old-fashioned seascape. Which Wyatt refused to do. He told him he wasn’t putting a goddamn ship in the painting, and that blew the deal.” Jack shook his head. “The more dismissive people are, the more stubborn he gets.”

“Could he paint in a different style if he wanted to?”

“Of course. He used to paint with watercolors when he first started. Anyway, he’s frustrated. He’s got to figure out some way to make a living.”

They sat watching Carlotta and Delia with the ducks, and thinking about Wyatt.

“Are you going to tell him you saw me?”

“I’ve been wondering that myself.”

“What do you think?”

“I probably will. Unless there’s a reason I shouldn’t. What do you think?”

“I guess I’d like him to know.”

The boats on the still water reminded her of how everything around her, now dry and placid, had been under the raging floodwaters. Maybe she had been spared from drowning just so she could have this day with Carlotta. Or maybe there was something more.

“Jack?”

“Yes?”

“Do you think today was more than a chance encounter?”

“I’m not sure I believe in providence, if that’s what you mean. But I am glad we saw you.”

“I have a question.”

“Okay.”

“I don’t know how you’ll feel about my asking.” She realized her heart had started to race.

“Go ahead.”

“Seeing Carlotta today … it makes me wonder if it’s not possible … to do this. To see her again.” She waited, but he didn’t say anything. He watched Carlotta tossing pellets, one by one, to the squabbling ducks.

“I’m going back to school next fall. Maybe I could play with her at a park in Austin. Maybe just … now and then. Or … sometimes in the future. I know it would be complicated.’” He didn’t respond. “You’re thinking about the possible problems?”

“The possible problems are so many I can’t even begin to think about them.”

Delia was putting another nickel into the feed dispenser on the riverbank, helping Carlotta turn the knob, the pellets spilling into their hands.

“It would lead to something we couldn’t easily handle,” Jack said. “Any of us. It would have to. Because I don’t think you’d want to see her just once or twice and then stop.”

“I could do that.”

“But what would be the point of seeing her in a park a couple of times?”

“I haven’t thought it all through, but today was so much more manageable than I would have imagined. I know that’s because you and Delia were gracious about it and made it easy. But also … It felt right. And now it feels possible that maybe I could see her sometimes. At least it doesn’t feel impossible.”

“I wish it could work, Shelly. Honestly. But who would we tell her you were?”

“You could say you knew me from college—that you came to my rescue that day and we’ve known each other ever since. And then leave it at that. I’m not talking about trying to play a huge role in her life.”

“No, and you didn’t intend to play a huge role in Wyatt’s life, either. But when you love someone—”

“When you love someone, you do what’s right by them, and I did what’s right by Wyatt.”

“Eventually, you did.”

“And I would do what’s right by Carlotta. Didn’t I give her up to you because I thought that was right? I know I don’t have any right to be asking you about this. You’ve been great to me today. But something in me just believes some good is supposed to come from today. Why would this chance be put in front of us, if we weren’t supposed to take it?” She watched Delia, near the water, lift Carlotta and nestle her into her shoulder, the child’s fluff of hair falling against Delia’s neck like a blown dandelion, her eyes closing as she relaxed in her mother’s arms. Cradling her, Delia walked across the stretch of grass toward Shelly and Jack.

“This looks like a deep conversation,” Delia said with a smile when she reached them. “Can I join in?” She stood in front of them, holding Carlotta against her and shifting her slender hips from side to side as she rocked the baby to sleep. “It looks like a serious talk.”

“Yes, but it’s over,” Jack said.

Delia looked at Shelly. “It doesn’t seem like it’s over.”

“It is,” Jack said. “Shelly was asking if she could see Carlotta again, and I told her I didn’t think it was a good idea. Things are already complicated enough.”

“Are we talking about just once?” Delia asked.

“We’re not talking about once, or twice, or anytime,” Jack said. “It’s just not going to work.”

Delia smoothed her fingers over Carlotta’s forehead and over her closed lids. “But look what Shelly’s done for us. Look who I have in my arms, because of Shelly. If she thinks she could do this without it causing a problem, then I believe her. She’s already proven she’ll do what’s right for Carlotta.”

Jack looked at Delia and then Shelly, and back again at Delia, and then lifted his hand in a gesture of impatience. “Am I the only one who sees all the ways this could go wrong? It won’t work. It just won’t.”

Delia stroked the curls away from Carlotta’s face. She was silent for a moment. Finally, in a voice so hushed she seemed to be talking to the sleeping child, she said, “Maybe not. Maybe you’re right.”

Shelly thought this was the end of it—the magic was over. Her coach was a pumpkin again. She put her hands on her knees, and stood up.

And then Delia said, lifting her gaze from Carlotta to look directly at Jack, “But it would be a shame, and a waste of love, not to try.”

19

DAN

At the end of the summer, Shelly left San Marcos and moved to Austin, where she rented a duplex near campus, registered for the fall semester, and found a part-time job as a cashier at Nau’s Pharmacy on West Lynn Street. When she was settled in, Delia called and invited her over. The two of them spent the afternoon watching Carlotta toddle around on the shag carpet of Jack and Delia’s apartment.

Shelly began seeing Carlotta almost every week and baby-sitting for her on weekends so Jack and Delia could go to the movies. She took her to eat corn dogs and soft serve and to swim at Deep Eddy, where Shelly wore a swimsuit that allowed her bent arm to show, as she had not done before. Carlotta kicked around in an inner tube and afterward would sit with Shelly on the grassy slope and play doctor on Shelly’s arm, and comb her hair, which had grown long. They walked the trails at Mayfield Park, where Carlotta was mesmerized by the shimmering plumage and strange cawing sounds of the peacocks.

Delia started inviting Shelly along on family outings. Jack didn’t like the idea at first, but he liked Shelly, and after a while he stopped objecting. They went out for Mexican food, and hamburgers, and visited a pioneer farm where Shelly and Delia and Carlotta made corn-husk dolls and watched a litter of suckling piglets tug at the teats of a huge sow.

Many places in Austin reminded Shelly of Wyatt, but now the memories fell into order like stepping-stones that led to Carlotta, and Shelly was not so troubled by them. She wore her hair braided, and wore hippie dresses and no makeup, and often felt happy. She told herself that the things she had lost in her life were supposed to be left behind: If she tugged her losses around, she would haul a heavy burden and still have an empty life. It had been more than two years since Wyatt went to her home in Lockhart and told her about Provincetown. It was time to stop thinking about him.

But it wasn’t so easy to do so. She went on dates, but her thoughts were still tethered to Wyatt. She sat through parties in smoky apartments, looking at psychedelic posters glowing in black lights while the music of Jimi Hendrix and Buffalo Springfield pounded the walls. Everything about the parties seemed witless and superficial compared to the quiet intimacy she had known with Wyatt. The song “Rainy Days and Mondays” was always playing on the radio, and even the title reminded her of Wyatt.

When spring came, a middle-aged skinny brunette named Nancy, who always arrived at work at the pharmacy wearing foam curlers, offered to set Shelly up on a blind date with a geologist named Dan Hadley. “He works with my brother at Radian doing environmental assessments—I’m not sure of what,” she said, standing over the bathroom sink and pulling the curlers out of her hair. “He’s got sandy blond hair and he’s built nice.”

“Maybe another time.”

“Somebody’s going to nab him. He’s not your run-of-the-mill. Girls fall for him all the time.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Don’t think for long. He’s from a big ranch in Montana. His dad was the foreman. He can do anything, fix anything. He fixed our septic tank. He went to UT.”

Shelly met Dan on an April afternoon at a boat dock on Town Lake, and they walked on the hike and bike trail, swatting mosquitoes. The trail was new and incomplete, so they turned around before they got far, and sat on a low dock, watching the sun go down, the water lapping beneath them.

Dan had reddish blond hair and a mustache, and gold flecks in his irises. His eyelashes were tawny. Shelly’s first impression was that he was stodgy—there was nothing stylish about his clothing. He wore jeans without any bell to them and a plain shirt, and his hair was barely over his ears.

They talked about UT and about Nancy, who had set them up. Dan asked what Shelly planned to do after she graduated.

“I’ll probably end up staying in Austin awhile,” she told him. Now that she could be with Carlotta, the Peace Corps seemed more like a dream from her past than something that might come up in her future. “What about you? How did you get interested in geology?” The warmth of the evening and the sun sinking into the trees on the far side of the lake made her feel drowsy and peaceful.

“I guess from growing up in Montana. Have you ever been there?”

“I’ve never been out of Texas.”

“Have you seen mountains?”

She shook her head. “Hills.”

“Then let’s think closer to home, and I’ll show you why geology is so interesting. Under this dock—what’s there?”

“Water.”

“And under that?”

“I guess, mud.”

“And under the mud?”

“Sorry, I’m stuck in the mud.”

He laughed. “Under the mud is the tip of a huge underground reservoir called Edwards Aquifer. It’s made of honeycombed rock eaten away by chemical reactions of water and limestone. The water under this dock has traveled through hundreds of miles of channels in the aquifer and bubbled up through Barton Springs, and flowed into the lake. One of the great things about geology is being able to visualize that whole dark journey.”

Shelly gazed pensively at the lake, tinged pink and yellow by the setting sun, and tried to imagine the waters flowing through the murky subterranean world Dan had described. “How many years is an average drop of water trapped under there, in the aquifer?” she asked him.

“Two hundred, give or take. A long time.”

They lay on their bellies and peered beneath the dock at the fish nibbling on weeds. Shelly talked about the glass-bottomed boats at Aquarena Springs and told Dan she would take him there and show him around. She trailed her fingers in the water, and seeing him notice the crookedness of her arm through the sleeve, decided to get the question out of the way. “My arm’s a little crooked. I was one of the people Charles Whitman shot.”