Pablo wouldn’t leave him alone. He woke the poor guy up every morning at seven o’clock and was forever dragging him out to play soccer or softball or Frisbee or to hunt for bugs and lizards down in the jungle by Eve’s studio. After Saturday breakfast at the Tesuque Village Market, Ben drove them all out to see the house, which in less than three months was already starting to look spectacular. Josh seemed genuinely impressed. He kept saying how amazing it was and though Ben tried to sound suitably modest, you could see him grow an inch taller every time.
On Josh’s last night they had a barbecue and sat out late on the deck under a marbled gray moon, two days short of full. Pablo had long ago crashed out and Ben, no doubt deliberately to leave Eve and Josh alone together, had disappeared inside with the dishes. They stared for a while at the glowing embers of the brazier, the cooling air of the garden shrill with the rhythmic clamor of insects.
“Pablo’s a cool kid.”
“He is. He thinks you’re pretty cool too.”
They smiled at each other then looked again at the fire. She could tell he wanted to say something else but maybe didn’t know how to.
“And you guys, you and Dad, you seem . . . good. Happy, I mean.”
“We are.”
“I’m glad.”
“Thank you, Josh. That means a lot.”
“You know how everybody talks about feeling happy or unhappy as if it’s something that just, kind of, happens?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, sometimes I think it isn’t like that and that maybe we can all decide, you know, choose which we want to be. Either happy or not. Do you know what I mean?”
“I absolutely do.”
Iris had been watching the boy mowing Sarah’s lawns for at least five minutes. She was looking out the open doorway to the deck but standing back a little in the shadows, presumably because she didn’t want the object of her lustful gaze to notice.
“Jeez, look at the muscles in those arms,” she said.
“Iris, you’re technically almost old enough to be his grandmother, do you realize that?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“He’s seventeen, for heaven’s sake.”
“Really? You’re kidding me.”
“I’m not.”
“God, what’s happening to the human race? Boys look like men at seventeen.”
The mower was a little sit-on John Deere and Jason, tanned and blond and ripplingly stripped to the waist, was expertly swinging it around the silver birches, leaving little islands of longer grass, just as Sarah had asked.
“Want some more iced tea?” Sarah asked.
Iris didn’t seem to hear.
“Hey, Mrs. Robinson. Do you want some more tea?”
“Oh, yeah, okay.”
She walked back to the table and Sarah filled her glass. They had just finished lunch. It was too hot to eat out on the deck. Iris had come to keep her company while Josh went to Santa Fe to meet The Catalyst. Which was okay. It was going to happen sometime and Sarah didn’t feel as bad about it as she had expected. And having Iris here for the weekend had been great. It felt like old times. Just the two of them, no kids, no husbands. They had eaten out three times, slept in the same bed, cried through a whole tub of chocolate-chip ice cream while watching The English Patient and talked until their jaws ached. Mostly about marriage and men and how touchingly unevolved they were as a species. But also about Sarah’s future, for she had at last decided to sell the bookstore. Well, sell wasn’t quite the right word.
Last month, Jeffrey had delivered one of his periodic “time I quit” speeches. These moments usually passed, eased with praise and a raise or a few more shares. Only this time he sounded as if he almost meant it. Brian had apparently been going on again about moving to California, which Jeffrey said should be taken about as seriously as a character in a Chekhov play saying she wanted to go to Moscow. With all of a second’s reflection, Sarah had said: “You know what, Jeffrey? You stay and I’ll quit instead.”
It took him a while to realize that she wasn’t kidding. She said that since he had anyway more or less been running the show for the past few years and already owned forty-nine percent of the business, he might as well have the rest of it. That was, if he wanted it. Poor Jeffrey didn’t know what to say. More for his pride than her profit, they figured out a deal whereby he paid a few thousand dollars up front for Sarah’s fifty-one percent and then something extra down the line, for what he insisted on calling her consultancy arrangement, which seemed to involve little more than reading advance book proofs, organizing a few author events, and having lots of lunches. Iris thought she was nuts but Sarah didn’t care. It was time to move on.
“But what are you going to do?” Iris asked again now, over her iced tea. It was about the eighteenth time. Sarah lit another cigarette.
“I don’t know. Travel a lot. With you, if you’ll come.”
“You betcha. Let’s go to Venice.”
“It’s a deal. And I’ll read. Maybe even try writing something. Get fit. Stop smoking—”
“Have an affair with Jason the Mowerman.”
“Uh-huh. Or his kid brother.”
“Seriously, how long is it since you had sex?”
“Last night, with you. Didn’t you notice?”
“Sarah, I’m serious.”
“Apart from that night with Benjamin?”
“Less said about that the better.”
“I don’t know, nearly three years, I guess.”
“God.”
“It’s the companionship I miss, not so much the sex.”
“I know, but wow. Three years. I’d go bananas. Why don’t you try speed-dating?”
“Iris, give me a break.”
“I guess you just kind of shut yourself down.”
“That’s exactly right. Listen, if the right person shows up, fine. I could do that now. I’d like it. But I’m not going out there looking for it.”
“Not even out to the garden?”
“You’re a bad person.”
Iris went home to Pittsburgh that same afternoon. And a few hours later Josh arrived and neatly deflected every question she threw at him about The Catalyst and what her house was like and what her little boy was like and so on. His discretion was frustrating but she respected it, though whether it stemmed from protectiveness toward her or loyalty to his father, she wasn’t sure.
She and Benjamin had seen each other only twice in the fifteen months since the night of the money drop, though they had talked a few times on the phone. She would never forget the sight of him standing there on the doorstep, his shirt torn and covered with blood, his eyes mere slits in a swollen Neanderthal face. And then sitting in the kitchen, while she bathed his wounds, saying again and again how stupid he was, how he’d blown it, how if he’d only gotten hold of the keys or had some kind of weapon or slashed the tires . . .
When he came to Josh’s high-school graduation the following month, the swelling had subsided but his face around his bloodshot eyes was still a palette of blue and purple and yellow and the boxer’s bump on his nose would probably be there forever. He was brave to have come because he knew Sarah’s parents would be there. They barely acknowledged his presence and left straight after the ceremony. In the evening Josh went off to a party and the two of them had dinner and of course spent most of it talking about Abbie. But in a way that was different. It was as if something had been clarified or crystallized by what had happened that night at the mall. Although it remained unspoken, there seemed to be a mutual acceptance that the girl was beyond reach and redemption, a conclusion duly stamped and sealed a few months later by the fallout of 9/11.
Sarah knew it was insane to see it in such terms, but what happened on that morning, those terrible hours when Josh was missing, seemed now like a perverse kind of trade: Her son had been spared and her daughter was gone, probably forever.
It was funny the way people protected themselves, Josh thought. Like, if you
didn’t talk about something, it didn’t exist or would go away. They were both like that now, both his mom and his dad. Not once during the four days he was in Santa Fe had anyone mentioned Abbie’s name. And he couldn’t even remember the last time his mom had talked about her. He couldn’t believe they didn’t still think about her the whole time. He was sure they did. Maybe they just didn’t want to talk about her in front of him, in case he got upset. Hell, who knew, maybe they were right. No amount of talk ever changed a thing.
Going to Santa Fe had been nowhere near as bad as he’d feared. In fact he’d enjoyed it, especially fooling around with Pablo. Though it was pretty weird seeing his dad with this new family, putting his arm around Eve just like he used to put his arm around Josh’s mom and doing things with Pablo as if he was the kid’s real dad. It was funny though how quickly you got used to it. And Eve was nice, really nice. He hadn’t known quite what to expect, whether she’d be wary and cold and treat him like an enemy or be all gushy and overdo things trying to be his new best friend. But she hadn’t done either. She’d just been easy and friendly and hadn’t pushed things at all. And he actually liked her. Of course, she was kind of gorgeous too and he could understand—well, almost—why his dad had done what he had.
The only time he felt he might have blown it a little was when he asked if he could see what she was working on at the moment and she took him down to the studio and showed him these huge paintings of naked men and women. She said they were inspired by erotic statues from temples in India and Josh didn’t know what to say, just stood there like a moron, trying not to look too embarrassed.
He felt bad about not telling his mom more but it didn’t seem right and he knew that whatever he said it would only make her unhappy. Like, if he said Eve was lovely and she and Dad seemed really happy, how was that going to go down? And if he lied and said Eve was a bitch and they both seemed miserable as sin, would that be any better? Then she would just think what a double fuckup the whole thing was or, even worse, start building up her hopes that his dad might come back. No. Best not to say too much.
The two of them had supper and then Freddie called and asked if Josh was coming over and just as Josh was saying no, he’d been away and was going to stay home to keep his mom company, she hollered from the kitchen and said for heaven’s sake, Josh, go. So he showered and put on a clean shirt and drove across town to Freddie’s.
Freddie Meacher’s parents were seriously rich. He didn’t have just a room, he had a whole apartment over the garage where his dad kept all these amazing cars, including two Porsches and an Aston Martin. Freddie had always been allowed to do pretty much what he liked. His parents clearly knew he did drugs but never gave him too hard a time about it, just let him get on with his life. Josh hadn’t seen so much of him since they’d both gone to college. Freddie was at the University of Colorado in Boulder which he said was the coolest town on the planet with the best-looking chicks he’d ever laid eyes on. And judging by the two who’d come to stay for a few days, he wasn’t kidding. One of them, Summer, was his girlfriend. She had long, golden legs and a knowing smile.
Josh was jealous as a jilted skunk. Katie was still the only girl he’d ever slept with and by now that was such ancient history that it almost didn’t count. There were plenty of girls he liked at NYU and some of them even liked him, but not, sadly, in the way he wanted them to. He was trying not to feel too sorry for himself, but he couldn’t help thinking it was a sad state of affairs that sex for a guy his age, not too bad-looking nor entirely socially dysfunctional, should still consist of furtive trips to sketchy Web sites or hunching over a crinkled copy of Hustler magazine.
Summer’s friend Nikki (Josh was prepared to bet she signed it with a little heart or flower or smiley instead of a dot over that last letter) was pretty hot too, though with a quieter kind of vibe. And after a few joints, the four of them sprawling on the couch in front of Freddie’s mile-wide flatscreen TV, watching some newly issued DVD of Apocalypse Now—the director’s wife’s hairdresser’s cut or some such—Josh, for a few thrilling moments, when her head nestled on his shoulder, thought he might have a chance. But she had just fallen asleep.
Later they went out to the pool for a swim and Summer and Freddie swam naked and Josh pretended he had a cold and didn’t want to go in, just in case his unruly dick again made a fool of him. Instead, he sat on the terrace playing with Freddie’s Game Boy and Nikki (thank God, wearing a bikini) sweetly came and sat beside him, toweling her hair, and started asking him a whole lot of questions about Abbie. He’d gotten used to it by now, playing the brother of the famous Abbie. It wasn’t a whole lot different from how it had been all his life, except now the golden princess had become the big bad wolf. And the quality of the answers he gave depended entirely on who happened to be asking. With Nikki he was prepared to be as generous as possible. Though not, of course, as truthful.
“Has she ever been in touch?”
“Nope.”
“What, like, she’s never written your mom and dad or called?”
“No. Never.”
“My God, that must be so terrible for them.”
“Yeah. It’s been tough.”
“And for you, my God.”
Josh set his jaw manfully and nodded, ignoring the little voice at the back of his head that was saying, You scum-bag, using this as a way to try to get yourself laid, how low can you sink?
Nikki was originally from Boston, but her parents had moved to Colorado when she was still in junior high. She said she loved it there, the mountains, the hiking, the snowboarding. Josh ought to come out sometime, she said, with Freddie. Not wanting to sound insular or ignorant or overly urban, Josh told her about their vacations in Montana and said he’d always wanted to go snowboarding in Colorado. Vail or someplace cool like that. The truth was, he’d never been on a snowboard in his life. Sometimes, especially when he was trying so hard not to stare at a girl’s breasts, these things just popped out of his mouth.
But what did one more lie matter? They were all liars now. Abbie had seen to that. And the biggest lie of all was the one he played out every single day with his mom and dad. Because holding something back, keeping such a powerful secret from them, was every bit as bad, if not worse, than actually telling them something untrue. Abbie had been in touch again. He had spoken with her twice. And hadn’t told a soul.
He still had the prepaid phone she’d made him buy and he checked it every morning, just as she’d told him. The very next day after his dad came home looking like he’d fallen foul of Mike Tyson, there was a message, two words which when decoded gave him a number to call. And he’d gone to a pay phone and called it, at precisely the right time, and listened for ten minutes while Abbie cursed and ranted and called their dad every obscene word Josh had ever heard. She’d gone on and on about there being only fifteen thousand dollars in the bag, only fifteen fucking thousand, the cheap fucks! He nearly hung up but didn’t, just stood there with his head bowed, listening and taking it, until eventually she seemed to run out of steam and said, Okay, well, that’s it. Tell them from me they won’t get a second fucking chance, okay? And he nearly replied, What, you mean not until you want some more money? But, again, he didn’t.
And he kept on, every day, religiously checking his secret phone—the one which still, amazingly, nobody except Abbie knew he had—and for eight months there was nothing. Until last Christmas Day at his grandparents’ when he dutifully snuck down to the tennis court to check his voice mail and heard her voice, not angry this time, just frail, giving the coded two-word message. He called the next day and, again, listened for ten minutes. Only this time she didn’t curse or call anybody names. She just cried. Sobbed for ten long minutes, saying how lonely and sad she was and how she wanted to kill herself. And Josh did his best to comfort her, but what could he say? Except a lot of Oh, Abbie and Don’t, please don’t, it’ll be okay, it’s just because it’s Christmas . . . What a dumb thing to say, really.
He didn’t even tell her to come home or suggest that she should turn herself in, because he didn’t want her to yell at him. At least this time she sounded human. But he did ask her where she was and she told him not to be stupid. This time the number wasn’t a pay phone but a 704-area-code cell phone. It meant nothing. She could have been calling from anywhere. And when he later tried the number again, bracing himself each time in case she answered and bawled him out, all he ever got was an unavailable tone.
It was after three in the morning when Josh drove carefully home from Freddie’s. Nikki had given him her number but he figured that was about all he was ever going to get. Maybe he’d call her sometime. Or not. He’d already done the long-distance heartbreak thing and didn’t feel inclined to try it again.
His mom’s light was still on and as he tiptoed up the stairs and past her door she called his name and told him to come in. She was propped up in bed, reading, a half-empty glass of milk beside her on the night table. As he came in she smiled and took off her glasses and patted the bed for him to sit and he did so, trying not to look her too directly in the eye. He didn’t feel that stoned, but he probably looked it.
“Good party?”
“Yeah. Wasn’t really a party. We just hung out, you know.”
“How’s Freddie?”
“Good.”
“How’s he getting on at college?”
“Fine.”
“Well, that’s great. Are you okay?”
“Sure. Just tired, you know.”
“Give me a hug.”
He leaned forward and put his arms around her and they held on to each other for a long time. She felt bony and fragile. He was always telling her she needed to eat more, but it never made any difference. She didn’t seem to want to let go of him. And when she did, he saw there were tears in her eyes.