Joshua was happy to be picking up his nephew. His nephew was lively. His nephew knew how to make an entrance. His nephew had many great qualities, and now his nephew had a girlfriend.

“What do you think she’s like?” asked Cheryl, mother of Henry, in the car. Cheryl was an editor at Real Simple magazine. She had recently been working on a feature for their issue on balance.

“Probably balanced,” said Joshua.

“I hope so,” said Cheryl. “Do you think Henry knows to look for that in someone?”

“We’ll find out!” said Joshua.

Jinna was trying to look nice. She had put on a white dress with strawberries on it. After she put it on she texted two of her best friends.

Guys do you think dress with strawberries is good for meeting Henry’s mom

Her friend Roxie said Ya for sure good luck!!!!, but then her name was Roxie.

Shannon said Lol why not.

So Jinna took out her cartilage piercing and left her dorm, rolling her red suitcase behind her, and walked to where she was meeting Henry.

 

Cheryl was hoping she’d like Jinna more than she’d liked the other ones. Some of the other ones were nice, but some of them were complicated and Cheryl had, for the past five years, been on a mission to simplify her life and surround herself with positivity. Because you choose your own environment.

Which is part of why they were going to Costa Rica. Costa Rica was warm and sunny, and the resort they were going to stay at apparently had fun bars connected to the pool where you could swim up and get a margarita without even getting out of the water. Not that Cheryl would be having too many—balance—but still, nice to have the option.

And she was glad Joshua was coming, too. They could relax for a minute and have a laugh over the pineapple chicken skewers Cheryl had found on the resort’s online menu, in the Fresh ‘n Light section. And he could get some sun and maybe get over whatever his problem was.

 

Joshua was the first out of the car when they pulled up to Henry’s fraternity’s house. “Hold on,” said Cheryl, “Let me call him,” and then five minutes later Henry opened the door and yelled down the stairs and into the daylight, “Hey, guys! Come up.”

Joshua went up the stairs a step ahead of Cheryl, so was the first of them to feel that warm hug of air laced with burrito and weed and Axe. This was not where he had chosen to spend his time in college. He felt like the smell was getting into his sweater—nice, navy, J. Crew, slim—and was glad that he had worn his canvas tennis shoes because the floor was sticky and they felt appropriate.

“I’m just up here,” said Henry, slipping by him sideways on the stairs. “How’s it going, Uncle Josh?” At the landing he turned around and smiled the question, then turned back and said, “Yeah, I’m just over here,” and maneuvered the way around a sofa-coffee table union that logistically, to Joshua, did not make sense.

“Where are all your friends, honey?” asked Cheryl, from behind.

“Probably asleep,” said Henry, still walking ahead of them. “Okay, it’s kind of messy, but I’m basically packed, just one sec.”

The room was dark. Joshua was at first most struck by the way the light was held back by a purple sheet duct taped to the window, but after that his eyes adjusted.

“You know, honey,” said Cheryl, “we could buy you some curtains. I would really be okay with spending money on that.”

“Thanks, Mom, but it’s totally fine. This works great.”

Joshua noticed something.

“What the fuck are these?” asked Joshua.

“Wall decals.”

“This is not a wall decal.”

“Yeah it is.”

“This is a piece of cardboard that says Chipotle on it.”

“Yeah, but I have ten of them so I made a pattern on the wall and made them into wall decals.”

“All right.”

“Hi, guys!”

Joshua turned around and saw Jinna. Then the earth moved.

 

“What the fuck!” said Joshua. “The earth is moving!”

“Just hold on, Joshua,” said Cheryl. “It’ll pass.” She had braced herself against a wall.

“Yeah, this happens all the time. Just give it a minute,” said Henry.

“Yeah, the last time it happened my mom and I were on the highway and it was like, whoa! Not the best timing! But then it stopped and we were like, all right, guess we’ll keep going.” Jinna was saying this from where she had sat herself down cross-legged on the floor, even though she knew the floor was not the best place to be in these situations when they happened. The best place to be was not in buildings.

Honestly, Jinna was not feeling the most relaxed about the earth moving, but then she had not felt very relaxed all morning because she had never met Henry’s mom or his uncle and now they were going to Costa Rica and sometimes Jinna got nervous when she had to make a good impression. So in this situation she was really trying to seem like a stable presence so Henry’s mom would definitely think that she was a positive force in his life, which she knew one hundred percent that she was but still she wanted to make sure she came off as grounded and responsible as well as approachable and nice.

 

Soon the earth stopped moving. Jinna got up off the floor.

“Okay!” said Cheryl. She clapped her hands together. “Let’s get this show on the road! Jinna, it’s so nice to meet you.”

“You too, Ms. Hadlon!” Cheryl gave her a quick hug instead of shaking her hand, and Jinna worried she’d held it too long or kind of awkwardly, but then she decided not to worry about it and turned to Joshua. “Hi, I’m Jinna,” she said.

“Joshua,” said Joshua.

“All right,” said Cheryl. “Are we ready? Looks like we’re ready! Henry, where’s your stuff?”

“Yeah, Ma, I’m ready. It’s here.”

“Okay. Great. Let’s go to Costa Rica!”

 

As soon as Joshua got to Costa Rica, he knew it wasn’t for him. The air was warm in the way that made his collar feel tight, even after he took after his sweater, and after he’d walked from the runway across the pavement and into the airport (because the plane didn’t even go up to one of those terminal connector hallways) there was a woman standing there with a tray of yellow drinks with pineapple in them and it was like, all right.

He felt better, though, when he was sitting in the shuttle next to Jinna. It was bumpy, and hot, and everyone started feeling nauseous forty minutes in, but Joshua, though his belt was thin and his glasses had character, was not immune to the way she smelled fruity (she got it at Gap Body—it was called Harmony and was supposed to be layers of orange blossom and watermelon and sugarcane) and the way she had a thin gold chain around her delicate ankle with a charm on it that was pressing into the space between his tennis shoes and the few inches above, where his jeans (slim) were cuffed.

“So, Henry said you’re from New York,” she said, smilingly.

“This is true,” said Joshua.

“Do you like it there?”

“Oh, yeah. I mean, couldn’t live anywhere else. I don’t know if “like” is, you know, the word to use”—he chuckled twice, but Jinna’s face stayed blank, so he regrouped—“but, I mean, yes. Yes, of course.”

“Why wouldn’t “like” be the right word to use?”

“No, I mean—I mean of course I do like it. It’s just such a complicated place, and I’ve had so many different relationships to it, that “like” isn’t really the sort of terms I normally think of it in.”

“Oh,” said Jinna. When she furrowed her brow he noticed the freckles on her forehead. “Okay.”

“Yo!” said Henry. “Alligators!”

 

Henry was right. There were alligators in the river. The whole van pulled over and everyone piled out in a parade of sweaty moisture-wicking fabrics in khaki, the sort that Cheryl had in her suitcase.

Cheryl was more than happy to see the alligators. There are other things Cheryl would also have been happy to be doing, at that moment—for example, getting closer to the resort, or changing into something more appropriate for the humidity level (closer to one hundred percent than ninety, she’d checked), but if she had had to make a list of all the things that she could be doing at that moment and then decided which end “seeing alligators” fell on, it landed on the side she felt positively about, for sure. Alligators are great.

Cheryl felt even more positively by the time the van pulled up to the resort and there were golf carts waiting to take them and their luggage to the cabana. She felt great that there were three bedrooms, like she’d asked, and she loved the view out her window.

 

Henry was feeling good. His girlfriend was on the balcony, in the hammock, and he could see the top of her head from where he was leaning against the wall of their room, brushing his teeth. After they’d changed they were going to go to the beach and maybe when they were in the water he’d pick her up in the air like in the movie they’d watched the other night, because she seemed to like that part and it could be fun.

And then they were going to have dinner, and maybe there’d be a show like that time they’d gone to Hawaii when he was eight and he and all his sisters had to go up and learn how to dance the hula. Except it would be the Costa Rican version, or whatever.

 

That night at dinner there was no hula performance, but there was a tropical-themed drinks menu and Cheryl was going to indulge. Of course Joshua ordered a glass of wine—of course he would, in Costa Rica—but Cheryl didn’t care, she was there to enjoy herself, and if he wanted to drink wine in Costa Rica, then by all means, Joshua. He was wearing a green v-neck t-shirt and those tennis shoes and cargo shorts and his professor glasses. Where had he gotten cargo shorts?

 

“So,” Joshua put down his menu. “What are you studying, Jinna?” Fuck. Ask a more Dad question.

“Well, I’m pre-med, but I’m an anthropology major. So kind of diverse.” She giggled.

“Oh, I see. So cultures, huh?”

The fuck, Joshua.

“Yeah, I’m really interested in the similarities and differences between how people relate to each other across different times and geographical situations—basically I’m curious to see what the common denominators are, especially in terms of medicine and healing. The idea is to apply it to my practice in some way, at some point, I guess.”

“So do you mean you’d be interested in working internationally?” asked Cheryl.

“Yeah, for sure—at this point I’m really open. And that could mean working in policy, too. We’ll see.”

“Wow,” said Joshua. “Very impressive.”

“What about you? What did you study?”

“German Studies. I was a German Studies major.”

“Oh cool! I have a friend who’s a German Studies major. Are you German?”

“Oh, no. No, I’m not.”

“Oh, okay. Cool.”

 

The next day they signed up for a surfing lesson in the afternoon. Cheryl personally could have spent the afternoon by the pool, or on one of the lounge chairs set up under umbrellas on the beach, or in the yoga class free on the Sky Terrace from four to five, but learning to surf also sounded great and trying new things was one of her New Year’s Resolutions.

The guy told them all to put on wetsuits that he had in a pile in a wooden shed. He handed her a medium without asking, and she wondered for a second whether that was offensive, then decided it wasn’t.

“All right, everyone!” said the teacher. It was just the four of them and him. “Are you ready for the best afternoon of your lives?”

Cheryl looked over at Joshua, but Joshua was apparently too concerned with Jinna to be condescending. He wasn’t wearing his glasses and he looked like a seal, with his shaved head.

“Ready!” said Cheryl.

 

This surfing instructor guy was awesome. Henry forgot his name but he kept on making jokes about his mom, which was just getting funnier and funnier. Henry almost couldn’t handle it. He kept on poking Jinna on her back and then doubling over, giggling, while the guy kept on making his mom go through the standing-up sequence over and over with her surfboard on the sand. She was getting flustered. He wished he had a camera.

“Come on, Mom!” said the guy. He’d started calling her Mom at the beginning.
“Not that foot! The other one!”

“Okay,” she said. “Okay.”

“Okay, Mom! From the top! Everyone, cheer for Mom while she tries it out.”

“You guys really don’t have to do that.”

“Let’s go, Mom!” said Henry. “Land surfing! Who needs water? I don’t!”

“Come on, Cheryl,” said Joshua. “Remember the three steps.”

“Thanks, Joshua.” Joshua put his hands out in front of him.

Cheryl did it. She was standing on the surfboard on the sand with her arms out.

“Good, Cheryl!” said Joshua.

“Joshua,” said Cheryl, “shut the fuck up.”

“GO MOMMMMMMM,” said Henry.

 

He made her do the sequence a few more times before he took them out to the water. Jinna had tried to get Henry to shut up by pinching his hip, but he wasn’t really getting the message and kept on yelling “YEAH MOM” and laughing. And then there was Joshua, who kept on sneaking looks at her in her wetsuit, which was whatever. Jinna was glad to get to the water.

She was also glad that she was a strong swimmer, and could paddle out faster than Joshua and Cheryl could behind her. And she was glad for her natural agility and balance, because it didn’t take her that long to stand up for the first time, and then she could spend her time between slowly riding a wave out to shore and turning and paddling back while Cheryl kept on falling and choking on saltwater and getting frustrated.

 

“Mom,” said the guy, “look at me. We’re going to do this just how we did on the shore. I’m going to tell you when, and you’re going to stand up. Exactly the same. No problem. Okay, Mom?”

“You know,” said Cheryl. She spit hair out of her mouth. “You know, I’m going to float here for a little bit. You go help Henry. Okay?”

“You sure, Mom?”

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

“All right, Mom.”

 

Joshua decided he was going to float for a minute, too. He paddled next to Cheryl.

“Hey, Cheryl,” said Joshua, “Thanks again for asking me to come on this trip.”

“Oh,” she said. “You’re welcome.”

The earth started moving again.

 

“Jesus fucking Christ,” said Joshua. “What the fuck is this again?”

“Oh,” said Cheryl. “The earth moving? I don’t know. Fuck it.”

18 febrero 2015

The other day I was walking by Plaza Nueva. It was the morning, and I’d had my language class and then gone for a run up the hill past the Alhambra, out of the woods, and to the cemetery, where I’d been told to go. I felt weird walking around the cemetery, because there was this woman who I ran into twice who looked at me like it was weird that I was in the cemetery, and I was like, it’s probably weird that I’m in this cemetery, even if this cemetery has posters outside saying it’s a stop on Eurotours of cemeteries, which exist, and at least I don’t have my camera.

It was an interesting cemetery. There were modern parts, like these fountains that were square and rectangular, and reminded me of something Donald Judd would have made, either for a cemetery or for something else. And there were also old parts, where there were so many statues on top of graves—all of these sculptures of women draped over steps or just the grave markers themselves, and lots of crosses, etc., but bigger and more than I’m used to in the U.S. And there was an elevator at one part, to get to this higher part, since the cemetery is on a hill. And there were all these corridors that I’d never seen before, like seven coffins tall, which look like filing cabinets, or those Japanese hostels you hear about, except they were for coffins. And then I wound up wandering into this part where the slots were empty, because they were waiting to be filled with dead people, and I was like, I do not think this cemetery is for me. Also, I had been very impressed, because there were flowers everywhere, and it took me 30 minutes in this cemetery (it was a big cemetery, and I got kind of compulsive about seeing it) to realize that most of them were fake! Which is totally understandable. There were a few real ones, but they were mainly dead.

So I left the cemetery and go for the rest of my run, which is very nice. I went into this hillside neighborhood with roosters and all of these cacti, and ended up being surrounded by cacti, and I was like, you are so much better than coffins. And then I was in what I think was an olive grove, and I did some lunges. And then I ran back down the hill to the room in my study abroad program’s headquarters where I’d left my backpack, during my run, because the headquarters are in Plaza Nueva, which is closer to the hill where I wanted to run, on which there was the cemetery.

The cemetery was particularly significant because yesterday I had gone to church for the first time in my life with my host abuela, Trini(dad). We went to mass. And afterwards we talked about religion and I told her how I hadn’t been raised with any religion, but to say that I had to use the Spanish double negative (“No tengo ningún fe”), which I thought was kind of interesting, in the moment.

So I’m walking down the sidewalk of Reyes Catolicos, the avenue that leads up to Plaza Nueva, when I see this huge white dog. He’s really beautiful, like a wolf polar bear combo, and is completely clean and bright white, and he’s walking in the middle of this street, which has two lanes, and cars and motorcycles, but he’s walking on this rocky straight divider in the middle of the street, and totally slowly and calmly and completely straight, so he couldn’t actually get hit. And I’m looking at this dog, who is so noble and beautiful and apparently intelligent, and I have just been to church and then a cemetery, and I’m just like, God?

I keep walking, and at this point I have passed the dog, because we were going in opposite directions. But I am amazed by the dog, so I turn around after a few steps to see what he’s going to do once he gets to the end of the rock divider island in the middle of the street, because it’s about to end close to the plaza, but he will still be in the road. So I turn around, and he’s still walking straight, though now on the normal pavement, and more slowly. And then he crouches and literally sprays the street with the biggest dog shit I have ever seen in my life. A car goes around him, and honks, and I’m just like, I really like it here.

Clam.

Really, this is an exercise in falsehoods, because the best place for breakfast is my table (367 Elm St, Apt. 503, to the left when you get to the landing from the stairs). If anyone wants to meet me there, you can eat oatmeal with me while the sun falls on my houseplant and my roommate walks by in running clothes. I will be feeling bad about not being in running clothes, but that experience will be fleeting and it’s still a good place for breakfast.

The second best place for breakfast is Claire’s. I get the granola, because they give you so much granola. It’s more granola than I’d ever had, before I went to Claire’s. Every time they give me the granola, I’m like, there’s no way I can eat all this granola. But then I eat all the granola, and it’s great, and I don’t feel like I need to eat granola for a long time, like a week, because I just ate a small mountain of granola flooded with almond milk rivers and sprinkled with chunks of banana that are great because they provide a different texture from the texture of granola, which you, too, will be familiar with if you get granola at Claire’s.

When Ben showed up in the store he was standing by a pile of table-runners. He

didn’t look like he should be there, partly because he is a man and most men in the store

look at the candleholders and woven rugs the way I imagine Frank looks at the quinoa

aisle or something when I’ve sent him to Whole Foods on the way back from work. I’ll

get a call fifteen minutes in and he’ll ask me about five different brands, comparing the

color and the description on the label, and I let him continue for a few minutes before

telling him to get any of them, they’re all fine. I like to picture him standing in the aisle:

his work shirt half-untucked from the train ride home and his hand in his hair, treating

this decision like the most important thing in the world because it might be, to me.

I guess that’s different from the way Ben was standing, though, by the table-
runners. I just meant that they both look like they have no idea.

The other week I was sitting with my thirteen-year-old, Lucy, on the edge of her

bed. She was hunched over next to the pillow we got monogrammed for her for

Christmas a few years ago, when she was ten and wanted her initials in purple. She was

holding her toes between her fingers, painted blue. “Mom,” she asked, “what were you

like in college?”

“Oh,” I told her, “I was pretty boring. Had some really nice friends. I studied a

“Did you have any boyfriends?”

“A few, but none of them were that serious.”

“What were they like?”

“They were fine, nice. Not your Dad. Why? Is there a boy in your life?” I raised

my eyebrows and shook her foot.

She kicked it away and wagged her red waves, smiling. “No. Do you have

pictures?”

“Of me? Or of my boyfriends?”

“Both. Either.”

“Maybe somewhere. I can look.”

In high school, I loved catalogues, all kinds. L.L. Bean and Pottery Barn and

Williams Sonoma. I’d turn to the kitchen section and choose my future pots, then

imagine my life built around Le Creuset orange. Once one of my mom’s boyfriends

actually gave her a Le Creuset stockpot. It was heavy and beautiful and started a three-
month soup phase, but after the winter it went to sit alone among our uneven piles of

semi-matched dark gray cookware. In the catalogs I circled full matching sets, Dutch

ovens and skillets and saucepans and roasters with roasting racks included.

Somehow the same catalogs come to my door now, though we live in Katonah,

N.Y. and hours from where I used to sit with my pen at the dining room table. I don’t

have to read them anymore because we already have what we need. A hanging row of

Mauviel frying pans, which I bought partially because I liked the look of the copper and

partially because I thought it was funny that they’re from Villedieu-les-Poéles, a French

town whose name translates to “revered city of frying pans,” according to the catalog.

Tablecloths in seasonal colors. Matching sets of napkins and matching sets of napkin

rings. Le Creuset for bakeware, in that orange.

I’ve set up my shifts at the store so when Frank comes home there’s normally

something cooking on the stove. It will be ready in the twenty minutes it takes him to

hang his coat up, put his briefcase down, kiss the top of my head, and come sit for a little

at the island where the girls are doing their homework. They ask me what’s for dinner

and usually I tell them it’s a surprise, or to wait and see, and ask them to bring their

plates or bowls over to where I’m standing by the stove. Rose loves when I pull out

garlic bread from the oven, brushed with parsley and oil and steaming when she breaks it

apart with her hands. When someone’s sick I’ll make lemon chicken and orzo soup, or

carrot ginger if it’s cold season. In the summer I have three tomato plants in the

backyard, and there’s an apple tree that drops fat Winesaps on the ground. In all, I would

say that I am happy.

In the first year we bought the store, Frank took care of the girls while I spent

weekends there, holding sidewalk sales and getting friends to help hold promotional

events (First Monograms Free with Purchase of a Set! Get Scent-Matched!). I spent a

summer painting the walls a soft white and moving in rough wooden tables to hold

samples of napkins and sheets and tablecloths, all of which could be ordered in and

monogrammed in-store, however you wanted. We moved upstate from the city, and I

named it Ours, written in Baskerville above a hunter-and-white striped awning.

When he was not commuting to New York, and the girls were not playing tennis

or in dance classes, he brought them by sometimes—“to see Mom in action,” he would

tell them. Sometimes I watched Frank approach random women and comment on the

quality of whatever they were holding, tell them how he kept it in his guest bathroom

himself, and he’d wink at me over their shoulders.

We met working at the same firm in Manhattan. My office was on the way to

the water cooler, and for a few months he went to get water about five times every day,

tapping his fingers on the side of my cubicle wall as he walked by. That Christmas I drew

his name for floor-wide Secret Santa. At the holiday party he unwrapped a lime green

Nalgene with “Cheers, Norah” written on a taped-on card. He tipped an imaginary hat at

me from across the room. Then he asked me out to dinner.

For two years I was a little surprised to find his freckled forearm draped over my

waist every morning, his tall Ohio body string-bean curved around my side of the bed.

When I made him eggs he acted like I’d resurrected Jesus himself over the gas burner,

and I liked the way he absentmindedly scrunched my curls in his hands while we watched

Homeland on the bed. My mom was very happy when I told her we were engaged.

In college my roommate once said she believed one person in the relationship was

always going to love more than the other person, and it was better to be the one who was

loved. I never bothered to disagree.

I didn’t tell Frank that much about college. He knew most of the important things,

what I’d studied (Comparative Literature, big on the Russians), had met the good friends,

definitely asked enough questions. I just noticed the way he put his hand on mine when

we talked to other kids’ dads on the bleachers at soccer games, the way he let his fingers

rest at the small of my back when I met his friends. It was always light, never controlling,

but enough so that I remembered he was there. So there were things I left out of the

stories I told him.

But what I really remember about being twenty and in college were the mornings

I woke up in Ben’s bed, yellow light coming through the window to land on where I fit

so well in the furniture of his sideways body. His hot breath on my neck until I turned

and the motion woke him up. The photos of him as a little kid, as a wayward middle

schooler, as a reformed teenage student, taped on the dorm wall. Huddling together on

backyard steps outside the party, while cold New England air bit at our knuckles and he

got my jokes.

We dated for just long enough for him to matter, but then he mattered a lot. Or I

guess mattered a lot relative to the ones who had mattered before him, who had been few

and mainly irrelevant. In retrospect it was probably because he asked me questions, and

when I answered he asked me more, and then when I told him more he would look at me

and wait.

He was one of the first ones to really have that physical draw—when he was in

a room I knew, and my body knew. The skin around my elbows knew and my shoulder

blades knew. That was how I described it then, in my diary.

Once, before I ever left home, my mother was reading the alumni pages of her

college magazine while I sat with her at the kitchen table. She paused and said a name

with her eyebrows raised. “Tom Sheffield. Huh. He and his wife just had a baby.”

“Who?” I asked.

“Someone I knew in college. He’s someone I could have ended up with him.” She

turned the page.

“What do you mean?”

“I just think he’s someone I could have ended up with.” She shrugged and didn’t

look upset. “There aren’t a lot of people you can say that about.”

I hadn’t thought of Ben lately when he showed up in the store. It was October and

a long time since we had last seen each other. He didn’t come to the last reunion. I had

heard he was living in Montana with his family.

I was by the register and didn’t know what to do, because a monogram shop isn’t

the sort of place I expected to see him unless he had a reason. His shoulders looked out of

place, wide and housed in Polartec black that matched nothing in the room. There were

three other customers in the store and I was ringing up one of them, some L’Óreal blonde

in Lululemon and the kind of shirt you buy just for exercise instead of wearing something

old. She was buying candleholders.

Out of the corner of my eye I watched Jill walk up to him. She works for me. I

saw him ask her something and saw her nod and lead him over to where we keep sets of

the more creative napkins. We source them from women in Morocco and Bangladesh and

a cut of the profits funds girls’ education.

Women kept on coming to the register and keeping me busy. The way the store is

set up, my back was three-quarters to him, and I could have the excuse of not having seen

him come in until he was standing in front of me with a red tablecloth folded in his arms.

It had been hand-painted somewhere.

He opened his mouth to say something and then I saw him do a double-take.

“Norah?”

“Ben?” I said. I tried to smile and look surprised at the same time. “What are you

doing here? Here, let me hug you.” I went around the counter and it felt like I was taking

too much time. My hip hit the corner.

“I can’t believe this!” he said, when I wrapped my arms around his middle. “Do

you work here?”

“It’s my store, actually,” I smiled, pulling back. “How are you?”

“I’m good! I’m really good. I’m just here visiting my sister-in-law for a few days.

They just had a baby. I wanted to get them a present.” He held up the tablecloth. “This is

all yours? Congratulations.”

“That’s great.” And then, “Yeah—yeah, this is mine. Mine and my husband’s.

Ours.”

“Right,” he said. “Do you want to get coffee or something? I’ll be here for a few

days. It would be nice to catch up.”

After he wrote down his number, I checked and saw that it was the same one I had

saved in my phone. Then he left and I texted Frank something dirty.

I made cookies that afternoon with the girls. Frank and I had sex after we put

them to bed and afterwards I went and got us cookies and milk from the fridge. We ate

them on the bed and Frank looked cute, eating and looking at me with half-open eyes

framed by his floppy red hair on the pillow. I was sitting cross-legged, facing him.

“What?” I asked.

“You just look really beautiful.” He grabbed the skin of my elbow and pulled me

closer. I laid down right next to him, on top of the crumbs.

I got to the coffee place ten minutes before Ben did and leaned against the counter

until he showed up. When he came in I didn’t know whether to hug him again, and was

grateful when he just went for it first. I waited for him to order something and then we

went and sat at a little table by the wall, near the windows.

There was too much energy in my body and I was grateful for the loop of

cardboard they put around my coffee because it gave me something to unfurl and re-
roll while we talked to each other, so I didn’t have to look at him too much and think

about how I hadn’t told Frank the night before. He is married in Montana. He and his

wife own and run a ski school. He has two kids, too. I hope he’s happy. He seems happy

enough. Yes, when our knees touched a few times—by accident, I’m sure and deciding—

I noticed.

I told him that I’d been looking at my diary that morning, the one from college.

He raised his eyebrows and said, “Yeah? That must be such a trip.” I said yes and was

about to tell him about some of what I’d written—about the dumplings in the middle

of the night and the time I got locked in the bathroom and he had to call security to get

me out—but then I didn’t. I was glad because he said then, “That was so long ago,” and

shook his head. I agreed and then hoped he couldn’t read my face as well as he could

before.

When the girls climbed into the back of the station wagon Rose had glitter in

her hair from her project on Ben Franklin, somehow, and Lucy was telling me about her

thing on photosynthesis. I saw the glitter embedding itself into the beige suede of the

backseat, and it was okay, because we bought the car intending for years and I knew it

would get dirtier. I was right: there would be red Gatorade spilled on a road trip to Maine

and Goldfish crumbled into decorative powder, hair from the dog and tears from her last

trip to the vet. The smell of Abercrombie from Lucy’s preteen years and mud from cleats

and horse phases. A big brown stain on the floor from when my coffee spilled because

I almost hit a couple crossing the street, when I was arguing with Frank over the phone

because I was tired and he was right. Somewhere is the earring he bought me for our

anniversary. It fell out and I cried when I couldn’t find it. From his face when I opened

the box, I think it was expensive.

“Lua” says my father when Lua is on the picnic table. He picked her up and put her there and she’s barefoot on the wooden slats and he’s holding her hand in the air over her head. I’m not allowed to stand on the picnic table without shoes because I’ll get splinters. She’s browner than I get even in August even though it’s just July. It’s July 4th. She has a white dress on and it has orange drops down the front even though I heard Mela tell her to keep it clean this morning. “Lua” says my father.

“Lua” says my father. “Lua, I crown thee the Orange Queen!” Lua is smiling at her feet. “Wave to your people, Lua!” She waves all around but eventually only at me. My father hoots and picks her up and swings her in a circle in the air and her skirt puffs out like the girl in the music box in the red room, and then when he puts her gently back on the grass she runs to me and sits with me on my blanket. “Did you get splinters?” I ask.

Luckily she didn’t because otherwise we wouldn’t have been able to play in the fourth of July games. They happen when it’s starting to get dark but not really, like that time when the colors get colder because the air is? The colors in the sky. We played after hamburgers and I’d already gotten mine and my popsicle but then Javi knew I wanted another one and he brought me another one, hiding it behind his back when he walked over, and it was strawberry.

I said “Mom want to come play with us?” but I didn’t think she’d want to because lately she hasn’t really been in the playing mood. She said “No sweetie, but thanks for inviting me.” I said you’re welcome and then Lua and I went to where my brothers were waiting for us because we had a few hours before fireworks and when it’s really dark and I’m not allowed in the grove anymore without adult supervision because there are no lights and I could get lost and then I would be stuck outside all night and cold.

It was me and Stephen and John and Henry and a few of my friends from school who had come all the way for the party and then a few of the pickers’ kids which was nice be- cause then for once Lua wasn’t the only girl, which I didn’t think mattered but then my mom said the other day that sometimes that’s hard. John wanted to play Red Rover but I didn’t want to because people always just come running at me and no one else no matter what side I’m on because I’m the youngest. We played tag instead.

Those aren’t the real fourth of July games though I guess. Those are during the day when it’s hotter out. The yellow part of the day. Those are the sack race and the water balloon toss and the egg race and anyone can play who wants to. Normally it’s all the kids, all of us and Lua and the pickers’ kids who aren’t shy, and they happen by the pool. I was on the team that won the egg race this year.

For those games I was in my bathing suit because I was swimming in the pool before. All the kids were in their bath- ing suits for most of the day. Lua didn’t put her white dress on until dinnertime even though she got it in the morning in the kitchen I think when I was there, because that’s when Mela said she had to be very careful with it, that it was a present from Mrs. Laine and very special. Lua said yes then but later she got drops on it from an orange. I’m worried that Mela is going to yell at Lua later. I hear her do that some- times and I don’t know what she’s saying but I know that it’s not good. I want to tell her first not to because it’s not her fault, she was peeling it for me and she’s normally so good at peeling that she doesn’t spray anywhere even when it’s a good one. I’m worse but usually I do it anyway and I should have done it this time but Lua did it for me. In the summer there is always yellow from the peel under my fingernails and it smells like middle of the day yellow. The only times it’s not there is right after I get a bath and Mela or my mom cleans them out, sometimes so hard it hurts, but then later when I get in bed my nails are empty underneath and I put them between my teeth and bite I like how they feel. I don’t think Lua does it because she says that Mela just cuts her nails short when they’re too long and doesn’t clean them but just cuts them. I don’t know why that’s not what we do with my nails but it’s not.

I don’t know if my Mom does that ever because I can’t see if the tips of her fingernails are yellow since they’re always bright red and perfect like lollipops. And she doesn’t smell like oranges either, but only if you get really close, which I do less now because I’m older and don’t sit in her lap as much. But when I used to sit in her lap I remember when my nose would be close to her neck and it smelled different because of her perfume.

My mom was supervising us in the pool before the games. She was in a bathing suit too but she didn’t go swimming, which she does sometimes. Sometimes when she does that I go over to where she’s standing and shake my body like I’m a dog and she gets sprayed but I have to be careful and use my judgment about when to do it because sometimes she goes “AH oh FUCK—oh, Michael!” and wraps herself into a towel caterpillar and turns over. But normally she goes “OH! Is there a dog somewhere?” and I go WOOF and go over and she scratches the top of my head.

The pool is shaped like a kidney bean and really blue, bluer than the pond water or the water in the ocean. My mom was on a pool chair where the bean curves in. She had lemonade with her in a big pitcher but when I tried to pour some in my cup she said not to but Mela could get me some. Mela’s lemonade is really good and she puts mint in it, which the kids at school thought was weird but then I made them drown the leaves and wait til they had finished the whole cup and then dig out the wet leaves. They’re sweet and when you bite the leaves more lemonade squeezes out of them into your mouth and the sugar rocks crunch in your teeth.

One funny thing happened when I was in the water. I was treading water and Lua was counting how many seconds I could go for with my hands in the air but I could see my mom behind Lua and my Dad was sneaking up behind her holding a water balloon over her head. He was stepping like the pink panther and he winked at me and put his fingers over his lips but I was already laughing and my mom looked up and their my Dad was, a big pink balloon covering his face like a giant bubble gum bubble but instead of popping it my Mom screamed and scrambled out of the chair and my Dad started chasing her. “NEIL!” she said, “NEIL! DON’T YOU DARE! I—NEIL! OH, FUCK, AH—NEIL!” when he dropped the balloon and it burst on the grass and sprayed up at his legs in an explosion, but didn’t hit my mom, because she was still running. He was faster though eventually and he picked her up and carried her towards the pool. We were all cheering for him to throw her in and he rocked her towards the pool three times like he was going to but in the end he just put her gently back on the grass. She punched him in the stomach two times but then she started laughing too and he kissed her on the head.

The morning was a normal morning I guess. I wake up re- ally early almost always unless I’m sick, when the sun comes through my window or even before. My brothers say it’s be- cause I’m little but I hope it doesn’t stop because that’s the best time. I usually go downstairs and out the back door in the kitchen because that’s the quietest hinges and I walk past the pool and press my face against Lua’s window. Through the screen I whisper Lua until she wakes up—sometimes I have to say it a lot of times and it stops sounding like her name and just sounds like sounds, Lualualualualua, Lua, Lu- aaaa—and when she finally hears me she gets out of bed and presses her hand against the screen where my face is like she’s high-fiving my nose. Then I sit in the wet grass until she comes out and we have an hour or two before breakfast.

So usually we go to the streams and try and catch the frogs there, the little ones, or the dogs follow us and we play fetch with the oranges. That’s the other good thing about the morning when it’s early: you smell things besides the oranges, like the wet and the flower smells and mud. When it’s hot out in the middle of the day the orange smell takes over every- thing, like when we did tie-dye and I dunked my shirt into the purple pot and it was like blood, really purple blood, and only purple. It’s like that but with smell. Orange dye. Sometimes we make forts. The one by Stephen’s Mound is getting really big, since it’s got good base structure from when my Dad and Peter built up the stumps. Lua and I can’t carry very much but when we use the wagon for the garden we can carry more, like tarps and ropes.

This morning we went to the Fairy Clear to collect more fossils. We found two this summer already and one was from Indians. This was from before breakfast when Lua got the dress, but I knew she was going to get it because my Mom had told me the night before but that it was a surprise.

“You’re getting a surprise,” I said.
“Really?” she said. We were combing through the grasses. “Yeah. My Mom told me.”
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you know what it is?”
“Maybe.”
“What is it?”
“I’m not supposed to tell you.”
“Tell me!”
“No.”
“Yeah tell me!”
“No I’m not telling you!”
“Come on you can tell me!”
“No! I’m not allowed!”
“Please? Please?”
“NO I’M NOT TELLING YOU!”

She got quiet and then I said “It’s a dress.” “Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“Okay.”

When we got back to the house my mom was on the phone in the room I don’t go in. She was in her nightgown on the couch and had the cord wrapped around her fingers like she does when she’s there for a long time. She waved when we went by the door but then she rolled onto her stomach.

Dad always has breakfast with us. We all fit at the picnic table in the backyard and it’s pancakes today because it’s the fourth of July so they have strawberries and blueberries in them and there’s whipped cream because red white and blue.

There’s maple syrup too and I’m glad that Mom is inside for that part because the way I like it she says I’m drowning them but it’s just how I like it. After Mela brings everything out she sits with us too usually but she’s really busy today because even though there are other people who are going to cook for the party she has to help my Mom manage everything.

I was wrong before. Mela didn’t give her the dress. My Mom did and then Mela talked to Lua about it when we were outside again. My Mom came out while we were eating pancakes and stood on the porch leaning on the doorframe in her nightgown with her arms crossed smiling.

She said “Lua!” and Lua looked up. My Mom said come here with her finger and Lua wiped her mouth on her arm and got up and went up the porch steps. I got up too and went with her and then my Mom turned and we followed her up the stairs to her bedroom and she still didn’t say anything.

She went over to her dresser and opened the top drawer and pulled out something in orange and white striped tissue paper and tied with a pink ribbon and gave it to Lua who wiped her hands on her shorts first because of the syrup and the whipped cream. “This is just a little fourth of July surprise,” she said and she watched while Lua opened it slowly like she was going to save the paper for something. “Just rip it!” she said and laughed and drank from the glass she had.

When the tissue paper was on the floor there was a white dress for Lua. Lua held it and looked at my Mom. “I had my friends mail it here from New York for you,” said my Mom. “I thought it would be fun for us to get a little dressed up for the holiday. Do you like it, sweetie?”

Lua nodded and said “Yes, Mrs. Laine. Thank you, Mrs. Laine.” My Mom smiled and leaned back on the dresser and drank again. “Good,” she said.

So Lua didn’t put the dress on until after the real fourth of July games. That was when we went inside and changed because my Mom said she wanted us to look nice since it’s a holiday and we’re going to take a family picture.

My mom had put out the clothes she wanted me to wear on my bed. There were white shorts and a red and white checkered shirt with buttons that she wanted to help me with but I told her I could do it since I can, I’m old enough, and she said yeah I guess you are. I guess you are. She said it two times and then my father came into my room wearing only pants and with shaving cream on half of his face still like he’s half Santa.

He put his hand on my mom’s shoulder and said Hey, babe, you want to come get ready? And she said yeah I was just helping Michael. He said Michael, you got things under control? And I said Yes!

During hamburgers I sat on a blanket with my mom. My father was talking to the pickers who were sitting on blankets all around us like islands, and my dad was the captain of a ship going from island to island to island and shaking their hands and clapping people on the back. My brothers were somewhere I don’t know and Mela was supervising with Javi and my mom was with me. Lua was wearing the white dress and she was helping Mela.

When my father got to our island he put his hand on my mom’s shoulder and kissed her on the top of her head and said how you doing, babe? And she said

“Neil—Neil, look at the light.”

“The light?” he was crouching down and on his toes with his arm around my mom and he was looking out where she was looking with his head lined up next to her head.

“Yes, the light—do you see it? Right now? The way the colors are bleeding and the atmosphere is bleeding? Do you know what I mean?’

“I think I do. Can you tell me more?”

“It’s like—it’s like a Frankenthaler. Like in a Frankenthaler the way the green is bleeding back into the grass and the trees because the air is making things bluer? And purple and colder. Like the air is cooling down the colors and they’re all bleeding into each other and up and out and out,” she was waving her arms, “but then other ones are coming back in—do you see it?”

My father kissed her on the head and said, “I see it, baby. It’s beautiful.”

After hamburgers we played tag. We played freeze tag and TV tag and normal tag and then we played capture the flag because we had enough kids. Lua and I were on the same team and we guarded our flag together because we’re not as fast. We both forgot that Lua was supposed to keep her dress clean but I didn’t think it got that dirty and even if it did get dirty Mela would wash it.

Part of why we got dressed up I think is so that we could take a family picture. Lua was in the picture too in her white dress. I stood in front of my mom for it and then my brothers all stood next to my father and Lua stood next to me. We took it before hamburgers I think?

After a long time it was dark out and then a little after that it was time for fireworks. Lua and I went back to our blanket island and this time my father just stayed on the island with us and my mom snuggled into him the way I used to snuggle into her and still do sometimes. I snuggled into the back of her and she turned back towards me a little and put her hand under my head and that’s how I lay there during fireworks, with Lua on the other side in her white dress.

After fireworks it was even darker and the pickers started walking away from the house and through the trees carrying their blankets and their flashlights. After not a long time I couldn’t see them but I could see their lights bobbing in lines and clumps and it was like ghosts were walking through the orange trees but I knew that’s not who they were.

Then after that we went and sat on the porch. On the steps. My father was sitting down and I was leaning my head on his knees because I was so tired. My mom was sitting with us too and Stephen but my other brothers were playing with firecrackers I think. Lua sat with us too and Mela and Javi were going up and down the stairs helping finish carrying things inside like the pitchers and some of the blankets. On one trip Mela said something to Lua and Lua stood up but then my mom said no, let her sit with us for a little? And Mela nodded but Lua had already gone.

She was trying to help so she went to pick up a jug of orange pink punch that was on a table, to bring it inside, but it was heavy and near when she was at the stairs it spilled and some of it went on the dress but it wasn’t her fault. Be- fore that I don’t think the dress was that dirty but then after she spilled it was orange and pink in some big spots. Mela saw it happen and she started saying things really loud and fast and then Lua dropped the whole jug on the grass and it sprayed up at her and there was even more on her dress but it was also running all over the grass in a river and was going over her feet and toes. It was an accident but Mela grabbed her arm and was pulling her up the steps to go inside and then my dad was standing up all of a sudden and saying whoa whoa whoa and my mom said it’s all right! It’s all right! But Mela kept on yelling and Lua was inside.

My dad went inside after them and then I looked next to me and my mom was crying. I didn’t know what to do so I kept sitting there and then my dad came out and sat next to her and put his arm around her and said it’s okay, it’s okay, they’re all okay and my mom said it’s my fault! It’s all my fault!

My dad said sweetie, you were just trying to be nice. And she said no, Neil. No. Everything. It’s my fault. And he said Michael, I think it’s time for bed. Can you go tell Mela it’s time for you to go to bed now? And my mom started crying harder and she said that’s what I mean, Neil! That’s what I mean!