All This Talk of Love (9 page)

When Prima looks out onto the porch, she sees that not only does the beer pong tournament rage on, but a group of kids are now on the lawn running some sort of race? With a tree branch? Whatever it is, Ryan’s directing it, shirtless, and she resists the urge to pull open the door and shout, You’ll catch cold! like some sitcom mom.
Th
ere’s no sign of the twins, though that might be Matt who’s just been tackled by a guy in an Eagles jersey. It’s hard to see. She climbs the stairs again to check on Patrick, who’s invited some of his own friends over, younger boys.
Th
ey’ve spent the entire night locked in his upstairs bedroom watching horror movies in the dark with family-size bags of chips and a cooler of soda (and probably, if she knows Patrick, some beers stashed under the Cokes). It’s a full house, for sure, a peaceful one, with all her beloveds, awake or asleep, safe and happy, and for Prima, nothing could be sweeter.

She heads down to the basement for the sleeping bags. A few years ago, they converted one side of it to a guest suite and put in a treadmill and a small office and a bathroom so it would feel like a hotel. Nobody’s ever slept there, though, because it’s warmer and plenty spacious upstairs, especially with the twins and Ryan gone. Prima looks forward to the guests. She has a leather-bound guest book with “Hotel Buckley” embossed on the front, ready to be filled.

She finds the camping equipment right away, Tom having organized the other side by season. As she’s reaching to pull down one of the plastic bins, she hears a noise. She looks across the room but sees nothing.
Th
e hotel side of the basement is dark, and the Chinese divider stands where it stood when she came down. She reaches up again for the bin, and for sure this time, there’s someone or something moving just a few feet away from her, on the other side of the divider.

“Hello?”

She walks slowly across the basement and peers around the corner of the divider into the blackness of the hotel. She hears laughter, muffled laughter, a boy’s laughter, but sees nothing. She takes a few steps toward it. She rests her hand on the seat of the stationary bike. She should turn around. It’s not her business if two kids want to sneak off and neck. Did she not do as much at their age? She might have expected this to happen but is surprised that she feels charmed by it—yes,
charmed
is the word—thinking that her house will be the site of such memories, that years later a woman like her, a wife and mother pushing fifty, might drive by this house and suddenly remember,
Th
at’s where I had my first kiss, in that basement there. I think his name was Buckley . . .

She steps closer. Her eyes adjust. She can make out the desk, the printer, the treadmill, the door to the bedroom suite half-open. Still barefoot, she makes no noise as she maneuvers toward the door.
Th
e sounds on the other side are clearer now. Furniture moving, the creak of the bed, breath. More laughter. Voices.
Th
e slap of skin.

“Your turn . . .”

“No, you—get it—”

Th
ere are three of them. She can see that now, for sure. Maybe? A boy standing. Two on the bed. Are there four?
Th
ey’re laughing. No clothes at all. Moonlight.
Th
eir skin glows.
A
girl’s on the bed. Her long hair covers her face.
Th
e standing boy jumps onto the mattress, lands on his knees.
Th
e other boy, in profile, lifts his arm.
Th
e girl is giggling.

Prima can see them, but they can’t see her.
Th
e moonlight stops at her feet.
Th
ere are three.

“Shh,” one of the boys says, “you’re not so wasted.”
Matt
says. One of the boys is Matt.

More giggling from the girl. “No, not me!” She keeps giggling. Allison Grey keeps giggling.
Th
en she stops.

“
Th
at’s the way to shut her up,” the other boy says.
Th
e other boy is Zach.

Prima closes her eyes, opens them, closes them again.
Th
e girl says something she can’t quite make out—“Sure” or “Here”—and sits up. Maybe it’s not Allison?
Th
e girls all look alike.
Th
e boys stay on either side of her. Maybe those aren’t her boys? But they are. She’d know them in complete darkness.
Th
en the girl starts to sing.
I’ll be gone till November, I’ll be gone till November . .
.

“I gotta piss,” Zach says. He goes into the bathroom. She hears his stream, the running water of the sink. While he’s doing this, his brother climbs on top of the girl.

“Off—” Zach says when he returns. He takes Matt’s place.

I’ll be gone till November, gone till November . . .

Prima backs away and, as silently as she came, crosses the basement and rushes up the stairs, leaving the light on, the sleeping bags in their bins.

Ryan’s a blur in the kitchen, guzzling Gatorade. “Good night to you, too, Ma,” he says as she charges up to the second floor.

In her bedroom, the TV’s on low and Tom’s still asleep and the walls are loud with blue light flashing. She locks herself in the bathroom and sits on the edge of the tub in the dark, her palms pressed to her eyes.
Th
is is the woman she’s become: a mother who spies on her sons from behind a door. She’s not proud of the spying or what she saw or thinks she saw, but she’s not ashamed, either, not of herself and not of her sons.
Th
e girl is beautiful.
Th
ey are, the three of them, young.
Th
ey should have everything and keep taking and taking until they get it. If not now, when?
Th
ey just need to be careful. Controlled wildness. And she is the boys’ mother, their best friend. She won’t be surprised if they tell her the story in the morning.

If Prima were braver, she’d change the rhythm, unlock the bathroom door, pull the covers off Tom, and wake him with a kiss on his mouth and her hand between his legs. But she’s not brave in this way. She used to be, back when she was the twins’ age, in the years after Tony, when nothing mattered, which is maybe why she feels no shame for her boys now.
Th
e reason is of no importance.
Th
ey just need to be careful. How can she make sure they’re careful?

“YOU HAVE TO
understand,” says Professor Rhonda Birch, from the other side of the kitchen table. “
Th
is puts me in a very awkward position.”

Frankie’s Rice Krispies have gone soggy. And now, while she explains why he should not count on the dissertation fellowship that could change the trajectory of his career, possibly not even apply for the award at all, the bananas rot in their little pools of milk, the cabinet doors fly open, the wallpaper peels off in sheets, and the ceiling begins to buckle. His own little House of Usher. And for not having said, Let’s just be clear: no one deserves this award more than you, my darling Frankie, but—as a preamble, before her litany of practical reasons, he’d like to strangle her and hide her under the floorboards.

“We can’t risk even the illusion of impropriety,” she continues. “
Th
is is my livelihood we’re talking about.”

“What about my livelihood?”

“You have a thousand more chances ahead of you.
Th
is is the
beginning
of your career. Mine’s in its twilight, at best. If I lose this position, where do I go? How do I compete with the rising stars? Plus, Amos has a lot of influential friends.”

“Twilight is pushing it.”

“
Th
ese days, the lifespan of an academic—a woman’s at least, a vital woman’s—is short as a supermodel’s,” she says. “And these ankles are weak, baby. My wrinkles are showing.”

“You’re
not
serious,” Frankie says, because it occurs to him she might be teasing, or if not, that she can easily be swayed.
Th
e Professor’s pattern—in the classroom, in her scholarship, in bed—is to rant and bluster and overreact and get all soap-operatic at the beginning, then step back, consider broader contexts, give the other side its due, and finally stake out the middle ground in a kind of shared understanding, the end result of which is mutual pleasure. It distinguishes her among the ideologues in her field, but it also makes her extremely defensive if someone questions the strength of her convictions, which they frequently do. Empathy is not a virtue in their social and academic circles. Exhibit it too often or at too intense a degree, and sooner or later someone will hurl at you the most damaging accusation of all: “You’re not serious.”
Th
at label immediately casts you in the subintellectual league of humanists, Comp and Rhet instructors, and contemporary novelists. But Frankie has always believed—and will continue to believe, no matter what—in Professor Birch’s intellectual integrity and academic prowess. Her chapter on Ngugi, from her second book, nearly brought him to weeping. He believes that empathy and literary theory are not only compatible but can enrich each other and possibly even change the world.

What a meathead he is.

“
Th
is is a university fellowship,” he tells her. “Not an arms deal. It’s barely on the English Department’s radar! No one else on campus has even heard of it!” As his voice rises with each new sentence, he realizes how much he’s using his hands and the full wingspan of his arms. His Italianness is bubbling over, its unseemly passion on display. It could work against him here, he thinks, make him appear hysterical. She has claimed to admire his passion, but he knows that, in the academy at least, passion is sentimentality’s ugly cousin, and neither is welcome at the party. So he lays his palms flat on the table, calibrates his voice. “And besides, Professor Birch, people
expect
advisers to play favorites. Why else do we kiss your asses?” He checks himself again. “No one would blame you for
advocating
for your advisees, is what I’m arguing.”

“People are whispering,” she says. “I think Amos might already suspect another man—not you, specifically, but this would raise those suspicions.” She pulls her hair into a ponytail again, holds it there for a second, lets it fall.
Th
is time it makes her look like a middle-aged actress. “I’m so sorry, Frankie. What you’re saying is probably true, and I’m just paranoid. I don’t have the stomach for a scandal. I hate the idea of gossip centered on me. I just want to keep doing what we’re doing, undisturbed. Don’t you? Don’t you think it would be easier for both of us if you just didn’t submit at all?”

“How is that easier for me? I’ve earned that fellowship!” he yells. “I’m just as qualified as anybody! More! Not to mention how hard I’ve worked. Not to mention how alone I am here, no family, no friends, day and night in the library. You want me just to throw that away because you
think
we might get caught? How is that even remotely fair?”

She goes quiet, bites her bottom lip, releases it, bites it again. “You do work very hard,” she says, with the tranquillity of a guidance counselor. “Harder than anyone, for sure. In that race, you’ve got pretentious twerps like Annalise
Th
eroux and Hector Billings beat by a landslide. But Frankie—and this is my fault, I take as much of the blame as you—what you’ve got so far of the diss, it’s not . . . how do I say this?
Up there,
you know? It’s
safe.
I think, for this particular fellowship, the department wants to make a splash, bring an edgier voice to the fore, someone they can parade around MLA. Your stuff is solid, but it’s, in some ways, old fashioned.” She clenches her fists. “It’s good, though, Frankie. Really good and solid, and
good,
as I said. I wouldn’t be working with you if it weren’t. You know that. You know my reputation.”

He stares at her. She looks down. Her hair is parted down the middle, hippie-style, but the part is clogged up with curly gray roots like little pubic hairs. He crosses the room and stands with his hands behind his back, gripping the cold cracked porcelain sink. He wants to shut her up, but he’s too stunned to figure out how. It’s the first time she’s questioned the quality of his work. He’s fully aware that he has a way to go in terms of the organization and focus of the chapters he’s written so far, but his faith in their quality has been like a jewel in his pocket. When he’s felt low, the nights he’s walked through the neighborhoods surrounding his university, he’s taken out that jewel and admired it in the moonlight, told himself, You may be lonely, you may not know where you’re headed, you may question why you’re even bothering, but at least you have this, Frankie Grasso—at least this, no one can take away from you.

“I think about you when I’m not here,” Birch says. “You might not believe me, but I do. I think about your brother who died. I wonder, Is that why Frankie tries so hard, so he can make up for the brother?”

“Don’t say ‘the brother,’ ” Frankie says. “His name was Tony. And you’re wrong. Every time you make some point about Tony and me, you’re wrong.”