The Whole World Over (39 page)

Fenno was opening the register. Oneeka was straightening books on
the shelves, dusting the glass case that held all those odd bird-watching
gizmos. "Hey, girl," Oneeka said as Saga came in, "would you pay four
hundred bucks for a picnic basket? Like get real. What's in this thing
anyway?"

"Fancy binoculars, three Sibley pocket guides, stainless flatware, and
linen napkins printed with songbirds. That's what," said Fenno. "Hello
there, Emily."

Beside the door to the garden stood a playpen. Saga had heard about
Oneeka's baby girl but had never seen her. She was standing, clinging to
the plastic rail, not quite able to get her chin that high.

"My mom couldn't watch her today," Oneeka explained, as if Saga
had any authority at the store. "I just hope she ain't planning like one of
her cranky days. She has one-a those, boy, you are in for some wicked
shit."

Fenno gave her a parental look.

"In for some serious trouble," amended Oneeka.

"She'll have plenty of people eager to entertain her," said Fenno.
"Rain brings in the hordes, who love nothing better than to drip on the
books. Which reminds me. Where's the barrel for the brollies, Oneeka?"

"Oh man, will you quit with that Queen Elizabeth talk? You live here
how long now?"

Fenno smiled at Oneeka. "Umbrellas," he enunciated slowly.

"Can I help out?" asked Saga.

Fenno told her that if she stuck around a bit, he could use her help in
the basement, packing up returns. Oneeka could stay upstairs.

Seeing Oneeka with the baby made her look younger than ever,
thought Saga. When they'd met, she had told Saga she was living with
her mother, finishing high school at night.

Saga went over to the playpen and leaned down. "Hi, baby."

The baby looked at her with fierce attention; out of the small mouth
flowed a buoyant fleet of syllables. Why were babies so intimidating to
Saga? Were they so different from puppies? Just then, the baby let go of
the rail with one hand and grabbed onto Saga's hair, her grip as firm as
her gaze. Oneeka rushed over and pried her daughter's hand free. "Grab
the whole world, that's her. Get that bad old world by the butt before it
gets her! Sorry."

"Smart girl," said Fenno. "Tiger by the tail."

Saga looked around. "Where's Felicity?"

"I left her home today. Miss Felicity is not keen on babies," said
Fenno. "They siphon off all the amazement and adoration."

Siphon.
A forgotten word. A circular word, caterpillar green.

Oneeka went behind the sales desk and pointed a finger at him. "Put
me in charge, you are one crazy dude."

"I aspire to be a crazy dude. The day I am an authentically crazy
dude is the day I can die a happy man," said Fenno. "Shall we?" he said
to Saga.

In the basement, he lined up several open boxes. He handed Saga
small stacks of books to arrange inside them, showing her which books
must be packed together. She examined his graceful hands for evidence
that he'd ever worn a ring.
So far from being married:
was that what
he'd said?

"I've brought a funny book to show you," said Saga.

"Have you indeed?"

"It's a child's book," she said. "From my house. It's about Scotland.
I'll show it to you when we take a break."

"Show it to me now," said Fenno.

Saga's knapsack hung from the chair at the desk. She pulled out
the book.

Fenno smiled warmly at the plaid dust jacket. He took his time looking
at the title and copyright pages. "Nineteen thirty-eight! Oh what a bloody
lot's gone on in the world since then. I'm betting this book's no longer in
print." He looked at Saga. "This was yours when you were a wee one?"

"No, or not really," she said. Who knew how many books she'd once
known and forgotten?

Fenno sat on the edge of the desk. He began to read the story. On the
second page, he laughed loudly. He read, and it sounded delicious in his
genuine Scottish voice, " 'His real name was Alastair Roderic Craigellachie
Dalhousie Gowan Donnybristle MacMac, but that took too long
to say, so everybody just called him Wee Gillis.' "

"You read it so perfectly," she said. "Read it all."

He gave her a wry look. "What's a rainy day meant for?"

He read on, fluidly, musically: about the dilemma of Wee Gillis,
whether to choose a life in the Highlands, hunting stag with his father's
relations, or in the Lowlands, herding cows with his mother's kin. Fenno
looked up and said, "A book about finding out where you belong. Now
that's a theme to warm my heart. Yours too?" He did not take his eyes
off her.

"Yes," she said. She'd read the book a few times, because it made her
laugh and she loved the old-fashioned black-and-white drawings. She
hadn't thought about themes.

"Let me give you a book, since you've shared one with me," said
Fenno. He went to a bookcase by the bathroom and came back with a
new pink paperback. "My favorite poet shares your name," he said as
he handed it to Saga.

Upstairs, the front door closed and someone exclaimed about the
nasty weather, the adorable baby. Did they have any books on dream
interpretation?

"Ah. The day begins in earnest," said Fenno. "But keep this, read the
poems as you like." He bowed slightly before heading up to help his
customer.

Emily Dickinson's name was entirely familiar to Saga, but it was
unlikely she had read one of these poems since high school. She opened
the book to the middle.

I have no Life but this —
To lead it here —
Nor any Death — but lest
Dispelled from there —

Nor tie to Earths to come —
Nor Action new —
Except through this extent —
The Realm of you —

"Oh," said Saga, as if someone had sneaked up and startled her. She
should have begun sealing more boxes, but instead she sat down at the
desk to read.

FOR LUNCH, THE THREE OF THEM
shared Chinese food. Oneeka,
though she was gracefully slim, ate twice as much as anyone else, emptying
all the packets of sauce on her chicken and using the plastic fork
instead of the chopsticks. Saga had to use a fork as well, but she could
remember the days of chopsticks. David had loved his Chinese food
spicy. Oneeka talked the most, too, telling Fenno just how ridiculous she
thought most of her classes were. "Like geometry. Whoa. Talk about
weird. All this proving how circles are really circles and stuff! What's the
point of this proof business anyway? I'll show you a proof or two. Proof
my baby's daddy is like the king of losers. Proof this Al Gore dude needs
like a sex-appeal transplant. Proof we live in a twisted world."

Saga was grateful for Oneeka's easy banter, which allowed her to
look almost unguardedly at Fenno's face lit up by amusement. You
could tell from his eyes that much in his life had not amused him.

As soon as Oneeka took Topaz downstairs to nurse, Treehorn came
through the door, eagerly preceding Alan by the length of her leash.
What luck that Saga had chosen today to come into town.

"Oh hello, hello there, you!" she said, greeting the dog first of all.

Treehorn rolled over, inviting Saga to scratch her belly. Her tongue
unfurled from the side of her mouth as she smiled.

Fenno shook Alan's hand. "Safe travels. I have your cell number, and
the San Francisco number, so hasten away. Have a lovely visit with your
sister."

"I'm so grateful. Are you sure she won't be too much trouble?"

Fenno shrugged. "And if she were? What then?"

"Then I'd take her." Saga wished that Alan had asked her to dog-sit—
she felt almost as if she'd been passed over for the care of her own child—
but then, Fenno would look more dependable to anyone than she did.
And he did live right down the street from Alan.

Once she'd committed Alan's face and name to her fickle memory,
Saga had decided he was a man who looked worried too much of the
time. For a psychologist, maybe that was normal. He must listen to worrying
all day long; he must absorb it. Now, however, he did look
relieved. "Thank you both," he said.

"We will spoil her," said Saga. Perhaps she'd offer to take Treehorn
for Sunday, Fenno's day off; perhaps Fenno would invite her to spend
the day with him. Or she could take Treehorn to Stan's, to play with the
other dogs, the ones that had been wormed and had their shots. They
could run in Prospect Park.

Alan thanked them again and said good-bye, shaking Saga's hand,
shaking Fenno's again, and waving awkwardly at Oneeka as she emerged
from the basement, sleeping baby in her arms. She sang softly as she carried
Topaz back to the playpen and wrapped her in a tiny blanket.

"I got to run out for diapers," Oneeka said in a low voice. She took
an umbrella from the barrel and opened the door with exaggerated
stealth, but still the bells jingled when it swung shut behind her.

Fenno knelt on the floor to scratch Treehorn under her chin. "Now
we have two wee'uns to care for," he whispered. "We've nearly a nursery
here."

Saga had never been so close to Fenno. She could see the silver hairs
above his right ear, the cornsilk lines on his eyelid, a glint of gold in his
mouth. He smelled wonderfully of nothing much: ordinary soap, the
cotton of a nice clean shirt. For the moment there was no one else in the
store.

The Realm of you.

Fenno sat cross-legged, stroking Treehorn with both hands, massaging
the base of her tall pointed ears. Saga stood. "You are such a prince."
She hadn't planned to say this out loud, but to hear it made her glad that
she had. She stood still, hands clasped in front of her waist so she
wouldn't reach out to touch his head. When Fenno looked up at her, she
made herself hold his gaze. She would have told him that she had fallen
in love, she had lost her heart, but she knew it would be too much.

And then came his reaction, his terrible reaction.

"Me, a prince? Not I." He started to laugh, but he stopped. He must
have read her emotions too late. Now he looked almost fearful. "Oh
lass," he said, "I am not the man you envision me. Oh Emily."

How was it, thought Saga as she stood there, making every effort not
to cry, which meant not blinking or uttering a sound or even moving the
tiniest bit, that life could give you so much experience, so much pain, yet
leave you just as able as you'd ever been to make a fool of yourself?

It seemed to take him forever to get to his feet. He put a hand on her
shoulder, just the way he'd have put a hand on Oneeka's shoulder, but
somehow it wasn't the same. Saga knew apology even by touch.
"Emily," he said, "come over here and sit down."

She wanted to run out the door, but instead she sat in the armchair.
He sat not behind his desk but on it, close to Saga. He leaned forward,
looking serious, like a doctor about to deliver a bad diagnosis. Saga
knew the posture well. "I hope it's not selfish to say that I'm flattered."

"Of course not," said Saga. She couldn't help sounding angry.

"Listen. Could you stay and have supper? Tonight?" he asked. "Up in
my not very princely digs? I will tell you my story if you agree to tell me
yours. Yours, I'd wager, is the interesting one. Though mine may be a bit
longer."

Still she wanted to run, or simply to let go and cry, but she did neither.
She spoke as calmly as she could. "I can do that."

"Good," he said. "I have some frozen prawns. Do you like seafood? I
can make a plain curry with yogurt."

To keep her voice steady, she took a deep breath. "I haven't had curry
in a long time."

"Then it's fate," he said. And that was that.

"Thank you for the poems—the book," she said. She wanted to ask
why he had given her a book of love poems—that's what they seemed to
be—if he did not share a bit of her feeling for him. For a moment, she
was afraid to meet his eyes, for fear she'd see the poisonous beginnings
of pity. But when he said, "I want you to tell me what you think of
them," she could hear that nothing, for him, had changed.

It took some effort to remember the task she had left off doing before
lunch, before the poems, before this mortification, but she did. She
started toward the basement just as Oneeka walked in the door. Treehorn,
startled, let out one sharp bark. Topaz, awakened too soon from
her nap, began to cry.

"Damn, girl, can you ever give a person a break, like maybe your
mom?" said Oneeka as she wiped her feet on the doormat.

"I'll take her," said Fenno. He bent down and swung the baby up to
his chest as if he'd been a father for years. Topaz continued to cry, but he
rocked and shushed and paced, undaunted.

"Crazy dude," Oneeka said to Saga. "Crazy fairy godfather dude."

Fairy godfather, thought Saga as she made her way to the basement.
That's what he was, to her as well as to Oneeka.
Godfather:
Red as a
ruby, a bottomless vibrant purplish red, a big word, impressive but airy,
the silk dragon in a Chinese parade. Just as Saga reached the bottom of
the stairs, Oneeka's baby stopped crying.

What, she wondered, would she remember of this day, and what
would she forget? What, in a few hours' time, would she tell the first man
she had fallen in love with, really in love with, since a tree limb, a plain
old piece of wood, had spun her topsy-turvy? And why, she wondered—
when she knew the man couldn't or wouldn't love her back—didn't she
feel unhappy, miserably sad?

THE STREET RAN UPHILL
, curving and tilting at once, as if to
ensure that every house would have a magnificent view of the bay.
Every house had been built on a slope, those to the left condescending
from aloft, those to the right set far lower, giving the appearance of faces
peeking over a windowsill. But if you looked between the low houses,
you would see that they were the larger ones, four and five stories high
at the back. There would be tier upon tier of rooms facing the cloud-swept
horizon, the bridges and ships, the city's distant pinnacles.

Marion's was on the left and, like all the others, old and asymmetrically
gracious. How could she afford this neighborhood? thought Alan.
Wrong question, he scolded himself.

A long flight of steps led the way to her front door, which was sheltered
by an arch of twining wisteria vine. The topography of this address
made it both a frustration and a relief. A frustration because there
would be no spying—no peering into the house, since it stood aloof
from the street, its windows but a series of reflections, panels of sky. A
relief for the very same reason. Alan had not come to spy (or had he?).
A little research couldn't hurt, he'd told himself on the way out of the
city, riding the BART.

His plane had arrived the night before. Joya treated him to dinner at a
fancy vegetarian restaurant with a view of the Golden Gate Bridge. She
knew the menu well, and he let her order everything. At the moment, he
wished that all decisions could be taken out of his hands; never mind
that he had resisted Joya's most strident advice in recent months.

While they ate, he had been happy to discuss Joya's woes instead of
his. She had broken up with the guy she'd been seeing since spring. He
really did not want to have more children. Two—his teenage daughters—
were plenty. Ironically, the teenage girls had never been a problem for
Joya. As Alan had predicted, they adored her. She had liked them, too,
and their adoration had made her feel young. She'd stayed with the
father longer than she should have, knowing in her gut that nothing
would change his mind. Or hers.

There was no right thing to say to a woman in this situation, nothing
that would not make her angry or sad, especially if the person doing the
saying was a man. Thank heaven Joya did not ask for his opinion, delivering
her story as she might have reported to him yet another tale of
disgruntled city workers, then promptly changing the subject to their
mother, who had grown painfully slow in recent months. Alone with her
at Thanksgiving, Alan had convinced her to have the hip replacement
her doctor advised—only to realize that this would certainly delay his
move out west. As if to compensate, he'd resolved to end, finally, what
he had come to think of as the Mystery of Marion.

He had decided to make this trip quickly and in secret—three days,
four nights—to find out once and for all whether the news he had heard
from his sister was true. Even Joya, who was about as gullible as an aircraft
carrier, had to be capable of mistaking rumor for fact. At the same
time, Alan knew that he could never lie convincingly to Greenie about
such an extravagant trip.

It was eleven in the morning; the only sign of human life on this
Berkeley street was a man planting a row of trees on the slope that rose
to the house next door to Marion's: clearly a gardener, undisturbed by
Alan's loitering.

This was idiotic. Enough indecision.

Climbing all those stairs was torture, not physical but sentient; what
if she was in the house, watching his approach? Alan thought of a
medieval castle: soldiers in chain mail hiding behind the ramparts,
watching from on high, waiting for the enemy to get just close enough
before . . . He stopped and looked up at the house. Would Marion hate
him enough to fire a catapult, dump scalding oil, let loose a rain of
barbed arrows? (Whatever made Alan think she could hate him at all?
One lousy, cowardly letter?)

He stood up straight and struck the knocker three times against the
door. No dog barked. No voice called out that he should wait or identify
himself.

When he turned to leave, he noticed that the stairs continued, after a
jog beneath a trellis of thorny white roses. He started up these stairs.
They led to a higher back entrance, a circle of garden enclosing a table
and chairs, a red tricycle, a scattering of beach toys: a plastic shovel and
rake, a Thomas the Tank Engine bucket, tiny shark-patterned flip-flops.
He did not venture farther.

"JESUS CHRIST!" SAID JOYA.
"Have you become a Peeping Tom
or what?"

"You think I should have left a note?"

"What I think you should have done, you should have done ages
ago." Alan could picture her face exactly, her lips tight, the furrows
between her eyebrows deep. "What I think you should do now, if you
even care, is call like a civilized person, on the phone, tell her you're here
and need to see her."

"What if she says no?"

Joya sighed. "Alan, I don't know. You've let so damn much time
go by. You're like . . . Gerard Depardieu in that movie about the guy
who . . . no, no, maybe he gets the girl."

"Joya!"

"Sorry."

Alan stood in front of a hip grocery store on a shady street a few
blocks from Marion's house. He'd eaten a sandwich in a café and drunk
too much strong coffee. "I'm going to stay till she gets home. Don't
wait up."

"And if she doesn't show up, you're going to sleep in a bush? Oh.
Brilliant."

"I'll call you later, Joy."

"I'm sorry, Alan. I'm just—I'm . . . stymied by this. And not much
stymies me. In fact, I don't think I've ever used that word before! Look.
It's nearly four. Come back now and I'll make you an early dinner. We
will really talk about this. I have a big meeting tomorrow, so you won't
see much of me then.
Tomorrow
you can camp out there and sleep in a
bush." She waited. "Please, Alan?"

He agreed to her plan, but after he put his phone away, he walked
back toward Marion's street. When he stopped on the opposite sidewalk,
he saw that a light was on. A woman, not Marion, passed behind
the front window. A roommate? A maid? What kind of a life did Marion
have in this handsome aerie of a house? Not the simple life of an
earthy idealist.

Now he noticed the plantings that formed a rolling carpet down the
slope before the house: tiny dark green leaves with yellow stripes; a
frothy vine that might be honeysuckle; artistically spaced eruptions of
purple flowers that looked like exclamation points. The air was distinctly,
expensively floral.

Strangely, he had found the nerve to come here because of Stephen—
because he realized that he did not want to become Stephen. They had
reached the point where Stephen, still as remorseful as he was angry,
had begun to rehash the twists and turns of his relationship with Gordie
that he believed had led them first to their impasse and then to their
senseless breakup. He blamed himself as often as he blamed Gordie. For
Alan, it was like listening to the survivor of a car wreck go over every
turn and stoplight on a journey that, taken just a shade more slowly or
by a slightly different route, would have evaded catastrophe. If the
phone hadn't rung; if he'd found the keys faster; if that boy on the bike
hadn't crossed so slowly; if he'd only gone
through
the yellow light three
blocks before. . . .

Alan had sat very still and listened to every detail. He knew that all
the fury and regret simply had to come out, like fluid from an infected
wound, whether it happened in the sheltered space of Alan's office or
out in a less controlled, less benevolent world. In therapy, there were
revelations, there were explorations, there were breakdowns and breakthroughs,
and there were rituals. This was a ritual, not unlike a dance.
And then, a few weeks ago, Alan had a sudden flash-forward of himself
in Stephen's place, only he was on Jerry's couch, and the anguish flowing
out of him was all about Greenie: Greenie having left him because
she'd found out about Marion. With or without that mystery child,
there was still Marion, the fact of her, a fact that any wife had a right to
regard as betrayal. Alan knew that he had not acted out of careless lust,
that what he had succumbed to was a mixture of longing for the past
and disdain for the future, of affection and anger, of permission and
pity—each pairing perilous in its chemistry—but Greenie would have
told him that once again he was mincing words. In far simpler words, he
had fucked another woman.

So as he stood on this alien sidewalk, aimless yet urgent with purpose,
trying to feel neither envy nor contempt (wasn't sheer misery enough?),
growing colder as the sun sank away, a car pulled up and parked right
below the stairs. Marion stepped out. He had time to notice that the car
was modest compared with the house, that she wore a plain gray raincoat
and plain flat shoes, that her hair had grown long again—all this in
the instant it took her to see and recognize him.

She came straight across the empty street and faced him, up close,
with an intense but indefinite expression on her face. She hugged him,
and he held her tight, not wanting to see her face until he could know
what she felt.

She stepped away just as abruptly as she had embraced him. "Alan,
what in the world are you doing here?"

"I'm visiting Joya. She said you were living here now. I thought . . ."

She was watching him closely. She looked worried, or skeptical. She
also looked so . . . tame compared with the Marion he had last seen.

"I'm here because of what I heard—that you have a little boy."

She seemed to smile and frown at once. "Alan, what are you talking
about?"

Oh good, he thought. There
is
no little boy. He laughed. "Sorry. You
know Joya. Full of stories . . ."

"Alan."

"You don't have a little boy."

"Yes, Alan, I have a little boy. His name is Jacob." Now she was,
unmistakably, frowning.

Alan felt like a fool. A man walking a dog passed them, pulling on the
leash as it sniffed at Marion's ankles. The sky was turning a rich pale
purple.

"I know we never spoke after that reunion, and I think we should
have."

Marion shook her head. "Because you felt guilty? I didn't. I hope you
didn't tell your wife. . . . Is she all right? Did you go and have that baby
like I told you to, little brother?" Her smile was tense.

"Don't call me that," he said. "Marion, is your son—was he my
baby?"

Marion gasped. She looked up at her house. "Wow."

"Is he?"

"Alan, I don't know what's gotten into you. Are you all right?"

"Of course I'm all right!" He thought briefly of a tasteless joke he
could make about what had gotten into
her.
He said, "I hear you have a
baby just about nine months after we . . . after we're together, and after
you tell me you can't have babies—"

"I told you that my doctors said I
probably
couldn't have babies."

"Oh. So you do remember telling me that. Interesting."

She opened her mouth. She closed it. She twisted her keys in her right
hand; was she contemplating a getaway?

Ah, he thought, I've caught her. "Just tell me the truth, Marion."

"Alan, did you have this crazy suspicion when you wrote me that
weird, cold letter—how long ago now?"

He softened his voice. "Just answer my question, Marion. Please?
Can you understand how I felt when I heard about the baby? Never
mind how I felt after we'd had that . . . that time together and you just
vanished."

"Did you look for me?"

Before he could think of what to say, she said, "Well, not that you
should have." Marion sighed and looked around, as if waiting for someone
else to arrive, someone to get her off the hook or simply haul Alan
away. Another man with a dog steered wide of them, across a grassy
lawn. Had they been shouting? Perhaps the whole neighborhood was
listening. Well, let them. That's when Alan noticed her ring. "You're
married," he said.

"Yes, I am." She sounded defiant.

"Congratulations."

"Alan! What kind of a conversation is this? Why couldn't you have
called me, for God's sake? This is no way—"

"This is a conversation I should have tried to have with you years
ago. That's my fault," said Alan. "I screwed it up, and I'm sorry. All I
want now is an answer. Wouldn't you?"

"Alan, my son is mine, and he is my husband's. He is not yours. I'm
sorry if this has been a concern of yours all this time. You're right: you
should have asked me your question long ago. If at all. Alan, we had a
one-night stand. We were friends from a long time ago. It's
okay.
"

"It is most certainly not okay if you got pregnant and had a kid!"

"Wow," she said again. "This is not a conversation we should be having
like this."

"Then how
should
we have it?"

Marion looked at the ground. She turned and started across the
street. "Come here." She got to her car and opened the door before he
followed.

"In your car?"

"Well, I am not inviting you up to my house, not right now at least!"

Marion sat behind the wheel, Alan on the passenger side. Unavoidably,
he thought of the last conversation they'd had, also in a car she
was driving.

"Sorry—just move those," she said as he tried to work his feet
around a jumble of notebooks and manila folders on the floor. She
reached down and grabbed a handful, tossing them onto the backseat.
"I'm afraid my office is basically my car."

Should he ask her what sort of work she did, make small talk? He
took three of the notebooks and twisted toward her to put them in the
back. They were labeled with the names of hospitals. What had Joya
told him Marion did—cancer outreach? No, he thought, do not ask. Do
not allow her to seem saintly by virtue of what she does for a living.