Night Blindness (33 page)

“Daddy knew?” I asked, stunned.

“Oh, sweetheart, we all knew. Except Will. Will didn't want to know. And I was so worried Ryder would never let you see the world. He'd just snatch you up and marry you.” Her hand came over and touched my chin, and I flinched involuntarily, but she smiled. “A mother wants things for her daughter. You were so talented with the piano and your grades.” She laughed breezily. “I actually fantasized that you would meet someone just like Nico, an artist, European, a little older.” She flexed her ankle a few times, the one she'd broken on location in Spain the year Will died. I could see the faint scar along her Achilles tendon. “Nico's lovely, don't get me wrong. He takes care of you in a way you'd never let Daddy or me. But Santa Fe is so far away, and after losing Will, well … you've been different since you've been home. Happier.”

“Nic makes me happy.” I could hear the defensiveness in my voice. “I'm happy.”

She adjusted the towel on her head. “Sometimes I wish I hadn't wanted that for you so badly. I mean really”—she licked her lips and leaned back—“what's so wrong with staying close to home?”

And then I saw Jamie as an old woman, white hair and wrinkles, all of it, living in the big house on North Parker Drive, her son dead and her daughter all the way over in Greece. I'd never bothered to ask what it was like for her after Will died. Had my father still touched her? Had they been able to talk about it? Or had he turned away from her like I'd done to Ryder?
Maybe that's why she left,
I thought now.
Maybe it wasn't all her fault.

She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. “Sometimes I look at Nic, and”—she sounded nervous—“I mean, I just wonder, does he really
see
you?” She opened her eyes and reached over to pat my hand. “When you do leave, I just hope we get to visit with you more, now that we've had this summer together.”

It hit me all at once that I was going. Santa Fe, with all its space and earth colors, used to feel like the perfect place to fall into, but now I couldn't imagine leaving the closeness of New England, the ocean and the green. There was no way I could go to Greece. “Mom.” I felt a tightness in my chest.

“Yes, sweetheart?” She handed her polish to the lady.

“I don't know if I want to be married anymore,” I blurted out and instantly wished I could take it back. “I love Nico. I do. But, I'm scared,” I told her. “I'm scared I'm nothing without him.”

She took her foot out of the water, and the lady scrubbing her heel backed up. She came stumbling over to me. “You are something without him, you know that?” She held my face in her hands. “You're perfect,” she said. “You're absolutely amazing. You always have been, and I'm sorry I couldn't tell you that after Will.”

I let her hug me. Her robe opened and my cheek was pressed against the bare skin of her chest. She got green face goop all over my cheek and neck, and I felt a huge surge of energy, like I was going to break into a run or sing loudly.

Mandy came around the corner. “What's all the hugging about?”

“Jensen's getting a divorce,” Jamie said.

“Mom.” I laughed. Tears were running down my cheeks. “I did not say that!”

Mandy was hugging me, too. “Oh, J.J., I knew you'd stay.”

“I'm not staying,” I said. “I still have to go back to Santa Fe.” They were on either side of me, smooshing me with their lovely perfumed bodies. “It's my home,” I told them, though I wasn't quite sure where my home was anymore.

My mother kissed my cheek. “Home will always be here in Colston, won't it, Mandy?”

Mandy kissed my other cheek. “Of course,” she said.

And I kept my mouth shut. It was useless to argue with them.

 

33

I spent the afternoon working on my self-portraits in the attic. Holding the paintbrush in the air, I stood in front of the four pictures I'd almost completed, so similar to one another, and yet they weren't me. I squinted at the one on the easel with the red mark down its face. I could hear a leaf blower going outside, the kids on the cul-de-sac playing a game of capture the flag and calling out clues. The face I'd painted was stronger than mine, bolder. I traced my brush lightly around the hairline, trying to add a feathery, feminine feel. “Just take photographs instead,” Hadley had told me before I'd left Santa Fe. “They are so
not
ambiguous.”

I'd told myself all summer that I was dodging the attic because it was hot or I was too busy with my dad, with piano, with … but it was these eyes I was avoiding. They seemed to be trying to tell me something. And it made me feel watched.

After I showered, I went downstairs, dressed in a shimmery silk top and black jeans. I felt sexy and happy. “Let's rock,” I said, peeking in the kitchen. “Dad? You down here?”

“Over here.” He was lying on the living room couch with his arm over his eyes.

I rushed over to him. “Are you okay?”

He sat up slowly. “I'm fine, Whobaby. Just a little tired.” He rubbed his temples before putting his glasses on, a sure sign of a headache. I sat on the arm of the couch. “Why don't you rest before everyone gets here? I'll get the appetizers ready.”

“No way am I missing a moment with you before you leave.” He put his arm around me; then I helped him up. He smelled like the house: cedar and furniture polish.

“Can I ask you something, Daddy?”

He kissed the top of my head. “Sure, anything.”

“How happy I feel. Do you think I'll lose it after I get back to Santa Fe?”

Wrinkles appeared on the sides of his eyes when he smiled.

“Ah, Whobaby, that's why we come home. We fill the well so we can go out into the world again. You might get back there and fall in love with that dry desert air and your modeling jobs, and that café with the funny name.” He rustled my hair like he used to when I was a little girl. “It might just feel that way today, and then tomorrow you'll get back and see that's where your life is and everything will be okay.” He squeezed me, and I could feel his breath in my hair. “Everyone here loves you. That's not going to go away.”

In the kitchen, he watched as I took pears and prosciutto out of the fridge “All I want before I die is for you to be happy.”

I handed him a knife and the pears. “Cut these in half,” I told him. “And you're not dying.” It felt so good to say that and know it was true.

“I meant in the grand scheme of things.” He took the pears and put them on the cutting board.

“Yoo hoo,” Jamie called from the foyer.

“We're in here,” I called back. She was talking to someone, and it took me a minute to recognize the voice. “Ryder's coming?” I whispered to my dad. “I thought he had to work.”

He knocked on my head. “Do you think he'd miss your going-away party?”

Jamie came through the archway, wearing an off-the-shoulder brocade wrap. “Our favorite doctor brought two kinds of wine, always the perfect guest.” She held them up.

Ryder rounded the corner, wearing a linen button-down shirt and jeans. He smelled like he'd just stepped out of the shower.

My father clapped him on the back. “What's the good word?” I watched them hug.

Ryder kissed me on the cheek. “The disappearing woman,” he said. He went into the foyer and returned a moment later with his hands behind his back. “Right or left?” I patted his left arm, and he brought forward about four dozen red roses. “Christ.” My father rinsed his hands. “We'll need a hell of a vase for those.”

“Oh but darling”—Jamie took them from him and started for the dining room—“we have just the thing. Get my wrap, will you?”

I watched Ryder fold her wrap into a neat square and drape it over a chair.

“Thank you,” I said. I remembered reading somewhere that in olden times people believed the smell of roses took away fear.

The front door opened, and I heard Luke call out, “Hey, folks.”

My father went out to meet him. I could hear Jamie still rummaging around in the dining room, and I felt awkward, like I didn't know where to put my hands. I unwrapped the prosciutto.

Ryder leaned on the counter. “You ever coming home again?” he asked.

I felt a lump in my throat.

“I've got a cake the size of Rhode Island in the car,” I heard Luke say. “And about seven gallons of ice cream and a Balthazar of champagne.”

“Ryder,” my dad yelled. “I think we need a hand.”

“Coming,” Ryder replied. He didn't take his eyes off me.

“The cake looks so good,” I heard Luke say, “Starflower almost ate it in the car.”

I quit unwrapping the prosciutto. “I'll miss you,” I said.

Ryder moved toward the door. “When do you fly out?”

“Friday.”

“You want to have drinks with me tomorrow night?” he asked.

My mouth went dry. “I'd love that,” I told him. And then he disappeared to help Luke and my dad.

*   *   *

While Starflower and my mom went out to the deck to set the table, I lined Ryder, Luke, and my dad up in a row in the kitchen and pointed the knife I'd been using at them. “Mandy really likes this guy,” I told them. “So behave yourselves tonight.”

The three of them raised their palms, declaring their innocence. “We're always good,” Luke said.

“Tell that to the guy from Uruguay you cornered at the tumor party.” I shook the knife at them. “Remember that night?”

“How could we forget?” Ryder asked. “That was an awesome playlist. ‘In My Time of Dying' and ‘Spirit in the Sky.'”

“We were very nice to Ricardo,” my dad said.

“Antonio,” I said, correcting him, “just about ran out of this house when he finally figured out why you guys kept telling him he was one in a million.”

“We just wanted Eduardo to know that Mandy's”—Luke looked to Ryder for help—“a fun girl.”

“Mandy is a fun girl, but she's also my best friend. And when I tell you she really likes this guy, I mean it. So please.” The three of them were trying hard not to laugh, and so was I. “Don't fuck it up.”

Luke held up two manicured fingers. “Scout's honor.”

Ryder slapped him on the back. “Dude, that's a peace symbol. You need three fingers for Scout's honor.” He put up his middle finger on his other hand, and the three of them cracked up.

The doorbell rang. I flicked a dish towel at them. “Promise me.” I eyed each one. They clicked their heels together and saluted me. “One more thing. His name is Fred. Not Freddie. Not Frederick. Fred.”

“But it's Fred Fredrickson,” I heard Ryder tell my dad and Luke, and a new wave of laughter came from the kitchen.

When I opened the door, I was surprised to see Mandy's shoes were neither strappy nor slutty. They were pretty sandals with an open toe. She wore black linen pants and a white blouse. With just lip gloss on, she was stunning in a girl-next-door kind of way. When she kissed me on the side of my mouth, she smelled like cherry. “J.J.,” she said, her voice springy and light, “I want you to meet Fred Fredrickson.”

He wasn't so much handsome as the kind of guy you meet at a party and think what a great husband he would make, solid, kind. He was holding a bouquet of sunflowers, and he offered his hand. It was a soft, warm hand that seemed to describe the word
safe.

Jamie came in from the kitchen. “Mandy,” she said, not taking her eyes off Fred, “darling, we are all so pleased you could come. And who is this handsome man?” He held out the flowers. My mother loved sunflowers. “My goodness,” she said. She kissed him on both cheeks. “You
are
a keeper.”

He blushed a deep crimson. Mandy grabbed his hand. “Let's go meet Sterling.”

Jamie took my arm, and we watched them walk down the hall to the kitchen. “He's so…” She searched for the word. “Appropriate,” she finally said.

A bottle of Cakebread Cabernet was already breathing on the counter when we walked in. Next to it, a Chardonnay was chilling in a bucket. I pulled down eight wineglasses while Mandy introduced Fred all around. She looked insanely happy.

“We both like red,” she told me when I asked what they wanted to drink.

“So Fre-ed,” my dad said, as if he'd been going to call him Freddie and then thought better of it. “Mandy tells us you're a physics professor.”

“Yes, sir, I am, used to tutor high school kids, but a precocious senior a long time ago made me switch gears.” Mandy was smiling up at him like he'd just been elected president. Fred continued: “I find college students easier to handle.”

Luke coughed. “No one has ever accused our Mandy of being easy to handle.”

Starflower poked him in the ribs. She was wearing a peasant blouse and dangly earrings and her dark hair was loose down her back. There was something very comforting about her.

My mother held up her glass. “To new friends,” she said. Fred gently pulled a piece of hair away from Mandy's face. She nuzzled her nose against him.

I caught Ryder watching me watching them. “And to old friends,” he said.

My dad raised his glass to Luke. “And to old goats.”

They made bleating noises and touched their glasses together.

“And to having people to love,” Mandy added.

The timer rang. “I hate to interrupt the lovefest,” Luke said. “But dinner is served.”

*   *   *

Jamie had hung lanterns off the branches above the deck and put early fall flowers on every available space, and white linen, crystal, and sterling silver on the table. She'd set Ryder's flowers in the middle, and it was more beautiful than a wedding. I sat between Ryder and Mandy. Mandy rubbed her foot on Fred's under the table the whole time and fed him cherry tomatoes from the salad. My father sat on one end of the table, and Luke at the other. Luke kept breaking into song, “Do I Ever Cross Your Mind” and “Tupelo Honey.” Starflower, exotic in the candlelight, promised to read everyone's palms after dessert. Ryder and I touched fingers and knees about forty times, until finally, after I'd finished my second glass of wine, I let my hand rest on his thigh. He put his hand on top of mine. There was still that electricity, and I realized with a calm acceptance that it would always be there.