Moo (59 page)

Then she was near. He sensed that before he looked and saw the hem of her new yellow dress. “Hey,” she said. “People are starting to arrive!”

Still embracing the flowers, he stood up. She was right there, her fragrance mingling with theirs, and him close enough to smell the heady combination.

She said, “We’d better—”

He pressed the bouquet into her arms.

Beth felt the scratch of branches and the whisper of petals and stems against the skin of her arms, and also the force that carried them to her. She could not say that she was marrying out of principle, if the principle was love. She still did not know what love was, unless, perhaps, it was that very force, a force that called a response right out of her, right out from under her ambivalence and doubt.

She took the bouquet. Clutched it, even.

He said, “Beth. Beth. Do you take this man? Do you really? I am so sorry—”

And she said, “I do, Jake. Look at me. I am taking him and I do.”

“Okay, then,” said Chairman X, and here came the eldest, shouting and laughing.

A
LTHOUGH IT WAS
3:37 p.m. by the hall clock when Nils Harstad came downstairs for the first time that day, he was still wearing his robe, his pajamas, and his slippers. He made an immediate right and went into the kitchen, avoiding as if by instinct all the windows in the hall, dining room, living room, and sunporch that spilled the glorious day outside into the huge, old, empty, and neglected brick house.

True enough, Ivar was taking none of the furniture to Helen’s except an antique Chinese highboy that was their father’s gift to him upon his graduation from college, and the mate to Nils’ similar chest.

True enough, Ivar hadn’t even packed any clothes for the honeymoon in Provence that was to commence in two days, after graduation.

True enough, their intercourse over the last few years, since Nils had joined his church, actually, had dwindled steadily, and what they did have to say to one another always left Nils feeling irritated and isolated.

True enough, marriage to Helen seemed, at least so far, to be making Ivar “happy.”

True enough, Nils had his own life.

True enough, he was more relieved than he had let on to anyone that the young wife and the six toddlers and the transfer to Poland were not to be a part of it.

Nils sighed, shuffling like an old man from the door end of the kitchen to the coffee end. The coffee, steaming hot since early morning, had cooked down to pure caffeine, bitter as wormwood.

Once he drank it, he could think of nothing else to do except go back upstairs and get back into bed.

The phone rang. Since it was right there and he didn’t have to move even a step, he picked it up.

The voice said, “I know for a fact that she brought another box over there, because I can’t find the vise grips that I bought here last winter, or that roll of telephone wire, either one. I can’t find a damned thing! Where did you say she went to again?”

“Bolinas, California,” said Nils.

“What’s her phone number again?”

“She doesn’t have one. I told you that.”

“Then, what am I going to do?” Father’s voice modulated suddenly from angry to querulous.

Nils let the question rise out of the phone and suspend itself in his brain, in the air of the kitchen. He didn’t answer, but let Father wait at the other end for a long time, long enough for them both to actually contemplate their prospects for the next twenty years. He said, “Is that buyer still interested in your house?”

“Could be. I don’t know. That was forty-three thousand dollars—”

“You can—” said Nils, and stopped.

“Down the drain! What was the matter with that girl?”

It wasn’t too late. Father hadn’t heard him, and he could turn back right now.

“Their hands are as bands—” said Father.

“You can go ahead and sell the house and move in here,” said Nils.

“What?”

“You can—”

“I HEARD you fine. You mean it?”

“It’s not going to go all your way. You have to adjust to me as much as I adjust to you.”

“Do I have to pay rent?”

“You can keep the forty-three thousand in a money market account.”

“What’s that?”

“I’ll show you.”

“Can I have a little dog? Marly couldn’t stand a dog.”

“I don’t mind a little dog,” said Nils. “Maybe a little dog would be nice.”

“All right, then,” said Father. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”

N
EXT DOOR
to the wedding, Helen opened the sliding glass door of the Martins’ deck and carried her drink into the afternoon air. Ivar was right behind her. Behind him, Howard Martin, Sociology, said, “Go on out. I hear the phone, and Roberta’s getting the dip out of the oven.”

Helen settled herself on the glider and took a sip of her gin and
tonic. Ivar sat down, and she smiled at him. He smiled back. They had done a lot of gazing at each other lately, more than Helen would have thought possible after all these years. Ivar cleared his throat. He said, “What’s that over there, do you think?”

Helen turned her head, and put her hand up to shade her eyes. She said, “Doesn’t it look like a wedding?”

“Huh,” said Ivar. They exchanged a glance and a smile. Graduation was scheduled for the following day. The day after that, they would be leaving at last for their honeymoon in Provence. Two weeks.

Helen said, “Isn’t that that little man from Horticulture? What’s his name?”

“Who’s he marrying? I thought he was married.” Ivar craned his neck.

“Maybe they’re renewing their vows,” said Helen.

“Do Maoists do that?”

Helen shrugged. Their gazes caught, tangled again. Martin, the sociologist, pushed the sliding glass door open with his foot and carried out the dip. He said, “Stop that, you two. The last time two people of a certain age got married in my department, two other couples got divorced and a third one went into sex therapy.”

“Ugh,” said Roberta, as she brought out her drink. “It took the whole department a year to recover and three years to analyze the group dynamic! I’ve never been to such boring parties.”

“Your neighbors are getting married,” said Helen.

“Well, it’s about time,” said Roberta. “You know, everyone always said that they were married, but I knew they weren’t.”

“How did you know THAT?” Howard challenged her.

“She had an air—” Roberta began, staring across the fence. Helen looked at her, interested. She shrugged. “She always seemed like she had some leeway.”

“Oh, right,” said Howard, scowling a bit. “Well, I wonder why they’re all of a sudden getting married now.”

“Because,” said Helen. Her gaze returned to Ivar’s as if on tracks, and Helen, who knew as well as anyone that this compulsion to look at her husband would diminish and then disappear, took the time to relish it. “Because,” she said, “not only do you have to act once in a while, it’s also so exhilarating to choose!”

• • •

TWO MILES AWAY
, at the McDonald’s in the commons, Bob Carlson, customer, saw Keri Donaldson, customer, the moment she walked through the door and up to the counter. He heard her distinctly when she ordered a McChicken sandwich, a small fries, and a water. Among the many footsteps of all the other customers, he made hers out as clearly as if they had been alone in the room, and he let his gaze follow her as she paused and looked around for a table. All this attention he was paying her didn’t mean, though, that he failed to turn his chair and hide his head so that they wouldn’t make eye contact. Not making eye contact was a reflex with him, probably rooted in his DNA. And, of course, Keri reminded him of both Earl Butz and Diane, two strong feelings that had recently, whatever their original identities, transmogrified into shame. Bob bit into his Quarter Pounder.

But then she was right there, her tray was right on his table, and she said, “Hi! Are you staying around this summer, too?”

He looked up. She had that beautiful kind smile, the smile he had seen on her face as she knelt beside Earl Butz and stroked his snowy head, the smile that was possibly the last sight Earl had seen in this world. So Bob smiled back at her, and moved his chair aside. He said, “Yeah. Yeah, I am. Want to sit down?”

She sat down.

C
ECELIA SAID
, “Turn here.”

“Why?” said Tim. “The tennis courts are right down this way. You can see—”

“Please? Just turn, just a little out of the way.”

“Where are we going?”

“Nowhere.”

“Don’t you want to play tennis?”

“Five minutes.”

He had to thread the Saab between the two rows of cars parked in front of the house, but he noticed anyway how hungrily Cecelia took it all in, how suddenly, when they had passed the house, she settled into her seat with a thump and crossed her arms over her chest. He felt in himself a little ping of jealousy, but also a larger and more precious throb of sympathy with her. He got one glance of the house. Apart from some nice flower beds, it was very modest, especially for this neighborhood. He said, “What?”

“You know. They’re getting married.”

“Who’s getting married?” As if he didn’t know.

“They are.”

“Oh,” said Tim.

“It’s really the best thing. He doesn’t even know how much the best thing it is.”

“But?”

“But.”

“But?”

“But I wish—”

At the end of the block, Tim turned left instead of right. Cecelia said, “Where are you going?”

“Down the alley.”

“No! You’re kidding!”

He turned down the alley. “Curiosity,” he said, “was made to be satisfied.”

“What if he sees me? What if SHE sees me? She knows who I am.”

Tim slowed the car. The voice of the justice of the peace rose on the air. The corner of the backyard came into view. Tim said, “If they see you, then wave and smile and wish them well.”

P
ROFESSOR
G
ARCIA
, best man, handed Chairman X the ring. It was a real ring, one that Garcia had persuaded the Chairman, known tightwad, to spring for. The Chairman took the ring, and Garcia saw all of the children’s gazes lock onto it and watch it slip from his grasp onto her finger. Garcia’s own gaze fell on them, the four youthful protagonists, thirteen, ten, six, and almost two, for whom this climactic ceremony would henceforward be the merest backdrop to the infinitely larger dramas of their own lives. That’s what he loved about weddings, the way each one was the beginning of it all.

Garcia licked his lips. Even with the children, the assumption of all their friends that they were married, and the rest of the accoutrements of married life, Beth and the Chairman had never been quite so exquisitely mismatched as they were today and would be from now on, all their disjunctions magnified by the mere fact that they had chosen each other at last and over every other candidate.

The breeze lifted Beth’s hair, the eldest picked up Amy without
any prompting, the two boys stopped fidgeting, fragrance from the blossoming apple trees rolled over him, and a very well cared for old Saab eased down the alley and past the couple, whose eyes were closed, and who, Garcia thought, seemed to be lost in an astonishing, and even legendary, kiss.

THE AGE OF GRIEF

The Age of Grief
captures moments of great intimacy with grace, clarity, and indelible emotional power. In “The Pleasure of Her Company,” a lonely single woman befriends a married couple, hoping to learn the secret of their happiness. In “Long Distance,” a man is relieved of the obligation to continue an affair that is no longer compelling to him, only to be waylaid by the guilt he feels at his easy escape. And in the wise and moving title novella, a dentist, aware that his wife has fallen in love with someone else, must comfort her when she is spurned, while enduring his own complicated sorrow.

Fiction/Literature/978-0-385-72187-5

DUPLICATE KEYS

Alice Ellis is a Midwestern refugee living in Manhattan. Still recovering from a painful divorce, she depends on the companionship and camaraderie of a tightly knit circle of friends. At the center of this circle is a rock band struggling to navigate New York’s erratic music scene, and an apartment/practice space with approximately fifty key-holders. One day, Alice enters to find two of the band members shot dead. Then when she begins to notice things amiss in her own apartment, it occurs to her that she is not the only person with a key, and she may not get a chance to change the locks.

Fiction/Literature/978-1-4000-7602-4

GOOD FAITH

Forthright, likable Joe Stratford is the kind of local businessman everybody trusts, for good reason. But it’s 1982, and even in Joe’s small town, values are in upheaval: not just property values, either. Enter Marcus Burns, a would-be master of the universe whose years with the IRS have taught him which rules are meant to be broken. Before long he and Joe are new best friends—and partners in an investment venture so complex that no one may ever understand it. Add to this Joe’s roller-coaster affair with his mentor’s married daughter. The result is as entertaining as any of Smiley’s fiction.

Fiction/Literature/978-0-385-72105-9

THE GREENLANDERS

Set in the fourteenth century in Europe’s most far-flung outpost, a land of glittering fjords, sun-warmed meadows, and high, dark mountains,
The Greenlanders
is the story of one family—proud landowner Asgeir Gunnarsson; his daughter Margret, whose willful independence leads her into passionate adultery and exile; and his son Gunnar, whose quest for knowledge is at the compelling center of this unforgettable book. Jane Smiley takes us into this world of farmers and lawspeakers, of hunts and feasts and long-standing feuds, and by an act of literary magic, makes a remote time, place, and people not only real but dear to us.

Fiction/Literature/978-1-4000-9546-9

ORDINARY LOVE AND GOOD WILL

In
Ordinary Love
, Smiley focuses on a woman’s infidelity and the lasting, indelible effects it leaves on her children long after her departure.
Good Will
describes a father who realizes how his son has been affected by his decision to lead a counterculture life and move his family to a farm. As both stories unfold, Smiley gracefully raises the questions that confront all families with the characteristic style and insight that has marked all of her work.