Beyond Deserving (21 page)

Juliette runs out of the hall down to the musicians. Ursula sees her gesturing and talking excitedly. Fish says to Katie, “You did this with a lot of class. You really thought it over, didn't you?” Ruby takes charge of Geneva, putting her arms around her. Katie pulls Fish away to the corner of the room. There is a buzz in the room, but Ursula doesn't think anything is really being said. She watches Fish and Katie, wondering if Fish might lunge at Katie and hit her without thinking. But Fish and Katie move together, against the wall, like high school sweethearts in a crowded hallway. Katie is talking in rushes, punctuated by her crying. Ursula sees her punch Fish once in the chest. He doesn't move. Geneva is sobbing. She sees what Ursula sees, her son's defeated posture.

Fish reaches up and touches Katie's hair. Ursula holds her breath, afraid Katie will begin to scream again. Instead she bends her head close to Fish and, finally, with a sigh, leans against him.

The two boys with their violins come back in, followed by four or five of the guests who have not driven away yet. The other musicians stand outside, fanning themselves with sheets of music.

The boys begin to play a lively and sweet gavotte. Their violins are tucked under their chins, their necks are curved and long. Their bodies—they are standing—quiver slightly, like reeds in a breeze.

Juliette begins to dance. At first she takes only a small space. She moves, almost like the musicians, in a flutter. Then her arms move out from her like a flower unfolding. Her head rises and her face, sweet and pale, is sad and yearning. She turns gently, once, and again, venturing out away from the music, into the center of the hall. Her arms wind up and pull her heavenward, beyond the building, away from their quarrels. This is unlike any dance Ursula has seen her daughter do. It is fragile and strong at the same time, lively, in the 4-4 beat of the song, and at the same time it is tender and sad.

The music changes tempo, suddenly faster, and Juliette twirls and dips. Katie peeks out from around Fish's shoulder. Geneva is sagging against Ruby, one hand on the table in front of her for more support.

For fifty years the Fishers have been saying wrong things, or nothing at all, or pretending to talk while they speak riddles and small deceits. Here, though, is a Fisher who with a few deft moves has rescued them from a day's spite. Fish is grounded. Katie's fury and embarrassment have leaked away with her tears. Geneva is still on her feet.

In the instant the music is over it seems the musicians and the odd guests vanish. Juliette moves quickly past Ursula and, across the table from Geneva, she curtsies. They are all frozen. Ruby breaks the silence. “Did you see that? An angel!” She claps her hands for a long moment, all alone.

Juliette, suddenly shy as a child, rises. Geneva has never known how, or wanted, to love Ursula's children; her own children burned up all the fuel of her love, singed away all the affection and sweetness. Yet Juliette has given something of herself to this grandmother, whose face is splotched with tears, whose mouth is sticky with the residue of cake; has given as children never do when they are asked. Unless, of course—and Ursula does not want to think this true—Juliette has simply learned the power of performance. Whatever her reason, Juliette has saved the day.

Ursula runs from the hall and stands in the yard and bawls. If someone demanded to know whom she loves best just then, her husband or her daughter, she could not say. If someone condemned them all, a family of trees with no branches, she would defend them.

To the north, around the curve of highway, she sees smoke again, feathering above rooftops and trees, a gray curl against the sky. Around that same curve, she sees the small figures of her husband and his father, walking along the road toward her.

She cannot help herself. She runs to meet them.

28

Fish pushes Katie's car to get it going. He follows her back to Michael's in his snub-nosed Econoline. Katie tries not to look in the rearview mirror; having him behind her makes her nervous. She knows she isn't driving fast enough and he will be back there, slapping his steering wheel and muttering, telling her to get on with it.

Juliette rides with her. Her parents are behind in River Cove, closing up the hall.

“That was something you did back there,” Katie tells her as they hit the stretch of road outside River Cove, before the heavy equipment, hardware, fast food, storage buildings, and junk yards. Where there is irrigation, there are green fields, but already there are patches of dry grass, too. Or maybe it is always like that. Katie has no eye for the great outdoors all the Fishers love so much. She is like a child in kindergarten. She knows a generic landscape of hill and mountain, river and creek, tree, flower, road.

There have been summers she and Fish drove through the eastern part of the state to camp and hike. They came upon whole fields of white and purple flowers. Then, south of here, over the mountains into California, they used to drive where the sides of the road were thick with clumps of bushes, orange-red, as though they were already on fire. They took drives in the relentless summer heat, following a river, looking for a secluded spot with no campers or dredgers.

They always got along in the country unless something went wrong with the car.

Along here there are only yellow-headed weeds, ugly things. The beauty is in the horizon of blue and violet hills. In winter, they disappear into fog or haze.

Juliette stares out of the window on her side. Her face has a long grieving look to it. Hot wind whips through the car.

Katie says, “I thought there would be a disaster. I thought your grandmother had her hopes too high. Then Fish showed up and I thought, Oh boy. But you, too. You saved the day.” She glances at Juliette to see if she is pleased. Don't teenagers like to be praised?

Juliette says, “It was just a stupid dance.”

“I never saw one like it.”

“It's not like it was choreographed.”

“Not a ballet, you mean?”

“No.”

“I never saw a dance until I started going with your mother to your recitals.”

“You don't call them recitals. God.”

“Oh?”

“I'm not a little girl. Petunias and fairies and that stuff.”

“What do you call them?”

Juliette gives her a withering look. “Concerts.”

“I remember you in tutus, with your tummy sticking out.” Is she sounding like an old lady talking to a kid? Is she so far gone?

Juliette sighs audibly. She hangs her hand along the windowpane and looks out. Her hair blows loose from its roll into long wavy tendrils. In a moment she slumps back against the seat again. “I'm so tired of Brian and small-town dance. I want to do modern, for one thing, but Brian says it makes your butt muscles clump up, and wrecks your line. I don't know. He's not God. Ballet's not all there is.”

“You don't have to dance, do you?”

“What would I
do
?” That look again.

“See that little hamburger stand over there?” Katie asks. “A worker there had hepatitis, and nine hundred people had to have shots.”

“We can just ride, Katie, okay?”

Juliette turns her head to lie against the seat, looking away from Katie. Katie is sorry she doesn't know anything to say. She thinks of Juliette as a little girl, when she isn't anymore. It is hard for her to talk to Rhea now; what it will be like in a few years can be imagined. She will be mute, stuck between her mother and her child in stupid silence.

Katie sees Fish behind her, coming close as they near the freeway entrance. He sees her look in her mirror, and he grins. She never doubts him when he looks like that, never doubts the moment's pleasure for him, or his desire to please. He is incapable of pretense. He can't be bothered.

She wonders if she is doing something foolish by letting him repair her car. If she takes it to a garage, it will cost her money, and besides, Fish wants to do it. Fixing cars is in his repertoire, something he is good at.

They go onto the freeway, and a car comes between them.

“Will you go to Texas now?” Juliette asks.

“I might go see Rhea this summer. I haven't made plans.”

“I mean to live.”

“Why no.”

“Will you still be my aunt?”

“When I'm divorced?” So that's it.

“Yeah. What'll you be when you're not married to Fish?”

His ex-wife, she thinks. It sounds fakey, like a character on a soap opera. “I'll be Katie Fisher, same as ever. I'm not going to disappear, or stop loving you guys. I'll still want to come to your
concerts
.” She tries to smile at Juliette, but she feels a terrible wave of sadness come over her. She didn't really consider what it would mean, the possibility of not seeing Fish anymore, let alone Ursula, Michael, their children. What did she envision? Maybe it is as simple as this: not having Fish to worry about, his not being
her
worry any more than anybody's else's. Will a divorce accomplish that? Will it change her so much?

She hated him today when he started in on Geneva with his little poor-me rap. Then he took her aside and whispered things to her, Katie, just to her. Her anger dissolved. She felt his breath on her shoulder as he bent to speak, not looking at her.

“Did you talk Fish into going?”

“I got home from dance rehearsal and he was hanging around the kitchen, so I said I'd go if he would.”

“Did you practice the dance?”

“It was just a dumb dance! I saw everybody getting all worked up. It was supposed to be a party! But people were mad. All that glowering. Besides, then they all looked at me, didn't they? I was solo. I was the star.”

“Sure.” Katie wonders if, when Rhea is this age, Katie's mother will understand her. June certainly did not have the slightest idea what was going on with Katie, who at fifteen had already learned you could get a boy's time and attention if you weren't too prissy about where he put his hands. Maybe it will be easier for June the second time. Maybe Rhea is easier to love. Probably she is.

Katie pulls up in the driveway. Fish motions for her to go up to the garage. He parks at the curb. Before they get out, Juliette says, “On our way out to River Cove, Fish told me he might build a boat and sail around the world. Do you think he will?”

“I'd say that is very, very unlikely.”

“Do you suppose he's crazy? Like, he can't help himself?”

“Depends on what you think a person ought to have control of.”

Juliette is baffled.

“Don't think about it,” Katie says. “It's for Fish to figure out.” Saying that, she thinks she might have put her finger on something important, something those women in Al-Anon would understand. She can almost see them nodding, smiling, giving her their approval. “There's nothing that has to be done,” she hears Joyce saying. “There's only someone to be.” Why does that seem like such a fresh idea?

What else has she been doing all these years?

29

They are hungry. “It looks like dead people live here,” Juliette complains, examining the contents of the refrigerator. A dank odor emanates from it. “My mother doesn't seem to think anybody eats in this house anymore.”

Fish laughs.

Katie, rummaging in the cabinets, finds a can of boned chicken, and another of green chiles. “Is there cheese?”

Juliette comes up with a very hard chunk of cheddar about two inches square, with a crust along the edges. The waxed paper has crumpled and fallen away from it. “I can cut the dry part off,” Katie said. “How about an omelet? There are eggs.”

Juliette puts her finger in her mouth and makes a gagging noise.

“What about those enchiladas you make?” Fish asks.

“With no
cheese
?” Something in his easy familiarity bothers her. As though, after all these years, she should not be reminded that she has cooked for him.

Fish throws both hands up in surrender. “I'll go to the fucking store.”

“Cheese and tortillas, that's all I really need.”

“Sour cream,” Juliette adds. “Salsa.”

“Salad,” says Fish.

“I am NOT cleaning lettuce,” Katie says.

Fish plunks his keys and a ten dollar bill down on the table. “You go, Katie. I'll take a look at your car.”

“Me?” Katie's heart gives a peculiar thump. She hasn't been in Fish's truck since last summer.

Fish gives her a steady gaze. “You stop driving in the past ten minutes?”

“I'll take a shower.” Juliette flees up the stairs.

“Okay, okay,” Katie says. Fish goes down into the basement. She goes out the front door. She approaches the van with trepidation. Getting in Fish's lair is too personal. She sits in the driver's seat a moment and tries to clear her head. All over the dashboard are Fish's penciled calculations: mileage, gallons of gas, mpg. A couple of phone numbers with initials. She doesn't know how he makes sense of it.

In the rider's seat is a beat-up pink tape player and five or six tapes. She picks some of them up: Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, Dylan. Carter would say, You guys are living in another century. A wave of nostalgia sweeps over her. The music goes with times and places, miles and miles in this van. She punches ON. Mick Jagger wails, “High and dry … up here with no warning … What a way to go … She left me with no warning—” Oh perfect, Katie thinks painfully. She glances at the back of the truck. Fish built a bed there, a wooden frame latticed with rope. She has spent a hundred nights in that bed, or more, in this van or the one before it. Now the bed is littered with scraps of lumber, manila folders, paper sacks. That helps. It isn't so much a bed as a surface for piles of Fish's
stuff
.

She realizes she was nervous because of an instinct not to be moved by something so stupidly nostalgic as a bed that has to be tightened every couple of nights to fight its sag.