Electric City: A Novel (23 page)

“Not really.”

They parked on a dirt road and tiptoed onto the dead yellow grass near the farthest end of a runway. Sophie was shivering until Martin stretched out a musty wool blanket for the two of them to lie on, and a second, softer one to cover her up. Stretching into the distance, the neon blue of the runway lights seemed an electric version of Henry’s eyes. Martin had no intention of wrapping Sophie in his arms, no matter what.

In another few minutes, there would be thunderous engines, the shrill pitch of wings cutting air, the harsh skid of brakes on the tarmac. They weren’t passengers going anywhere yet, but someday, who knew how soon, they would travel. Even Martin, who had been in Electric City for so long; even Sophie, who had just arrived. The ground held them but it didn’t have to. When a plane roared in overhead, so close it seemed they could reach up and touch its silver-white belly, their voices poured together into the sky.

M
ARTIN LOADED A
camera with black-and-white film, focused on the silence of ice-coated branches and snowdrifts. He studied vapors made by his breath, envisioning the fox asleep in its den, nose tucked under its flame of a tail. North of town, the architecture of a beaver dam on Mourning Kill pulled at his attention, though the creek had frozen solid and there was no sign of the builder. Standing a respectful distance from the dense tangle of branches, Martin aimed his lens but wasn’t quite fast enough to catch the flash of a woodpecker’s departure from the scene, the back of its head marked in red like a bright winterberry.

All those expenses for developing and printing meant he needed to work extra hours just to stay even. As Christmas neared, he asked Annie what he could give, but she shrugged him off.

“Keep me stocked with firewood, and that’s all I need.”

Arthritis was making it harder for her to open jars, and Martin noticed her wincing when she reached back to untangle her hair. His wandering father had sent a postcard from Western Canada, no longer bothering to hint he might come all the way back. Bear slept longer and deeper.

Before the snow, Martin had placed green-tipped stakes at the corners of Midge’s vegetable garden, promises of a distant spring. She gave him four different kinds of preserves to share with Annie, decorated with multicolored strands of yarn.

“If I don’t give these away, they’ll just explode in my basement,” she chuckled. “You’re doing me a favor.”

“Would you mind if I shared them with a friend?” He held the jars in both hands, looking at the handwritten labels instead of meeting Midge’s curious gaze.

“I’ve got more where these came from,” she said. “Any friend of yours . . . well, you know.”

Martin grinned. He trusted that one of these days she’d meet Sophie, though he had no idea when it would happen. For now, he gratefully carried Midge’s prize out to his truck.

“We eat the earth before it eats us, right?”

She was quoting Annie. “Right,” he said.

Martin Longboat’s photo series, late December 1966:

Midge’s preserves, lined up on Annie’s windowsill in weak winter sunlight.

Silhouette of Bear standing in the back of the pickup, blur of his tail in motion.

Sophie half out of the frame, reaching toward something beyond view.

Annie’s braided hair, woven tight.

A pair of hands woven tight: Henry’s and Sophie’s.
Welcome home
.

The Company’s neon sign, suspended in a moonless sky.

For all of Christmas Day Martin sat with his grandmother and helped sort through scraps of fabric for her rugs; she was braiding a special black-and-gray oval to echo his photographs. Variations in wool and cotton: interlocking patterns of faded stripes, checkerboard, houndstooth. Annie had been collecting material for decades, longer than he had been alive. Martin watched her swollen hands while she folded and twisted the cloth tight.

When he stepped into the cold with Bear to leave deep footprints in the snow, the only sign of life was in the pines, pushing with green determination from underneath the weight of winter. Then he recognized chickadees and nuthatches chattering on a high telephone wire. Smoke rose from Annie’s chimney and disappeared among the clouds, where the absence of color made everything converge.

A
S THOUGH MAKING
up for a late start, this winter felt as frigid as Sophie could remember, with sub-zero gusts making storm windows moan all night. Simon was confessing his plan to stay indefinitely in California, and she couldn’t really blame him. Instead of letters, he mailed small boxes filled with lemons that had grown in his backyard. His version of a Hanukkah gift.

Cleaning up the breakfast dishes with her mother, Sophie could see from the kitchen window that nearly every neighbor’s yard boasted at least one evergreen with Christmas lights, some of them twinkling even during the day. This made it easy to spot the rare Jewish homes, by way of what was missing. Her father liked to deliberately place their menorah in the window during Hanukkah, especially on the last night when all the candles were lit. It was a variation on David’s practice of walking to synagogue through the parking lot of the country club.
We are here
.

“Is something wrong?” Miriam asked Sophie, who was holding her hands under the hot water.

“My joints hurt.”

“You must be having a growth spurt,” her mother said, and then tilted her head. “No, that wouldn’t be right. That’s for boys, isn’t it? I think it’s probably hormones.”

“Great,” Sophie muttered.

“Being a woman isn’t always a picnic.” Sophie noticed the faint etchings on her mother’s wide forehead, the crows’ feet and frown lines.

“Would an electric blanket help?” Sophie asked.

“Not with everything,” Miriam said. On the kitchen counter beside the television, a basket of clean laundry was about to spill onto the floor. Sophie bumped into it, then scrambled to retrieve the fallen towels, still warm from the dryer.

“Fold these?” she asked.

“You read my mind,” Miriam said.

“Fair enough,” Sophie said. “Since you’re so good at reading mine.” She started unfurling bath sheets, holding the dissipating warmth of the cotton against her cheek, and then allowing the folding to become a kind of dance. Miriam watched her daughter with a smile that continued to widen.

“There’s a boy in your heart,” she said.

Sophie looked at her mother’s expression, took a deep breath for courage, and was about to plunge into the forbidden sentence when her mother said the words herself. “And he’s not Jewish.”

They both looked around to see if Sophie’s father was within hearing distance. Though David would have preferred spending the day at the research laboratory, pleased by the holiday-related vacancies, even his security clearance wasn’t enough to unlock the doors on Christmas Day. But the TV was on in the family room, loud enough to cover their low voices.

“The boy you brought on Thanksgiving?”

Sophie blushed. “No. He’s just a friend.”

“It’s always good to be friends first,” Miriam said.

“There’s another boy,” Sophie began, more heat rising on her skin. “His name is Henry. Van Curler.”

Miriam placed another folded sheet in the basket, then sat down with a sigh. “Life would be a lot easier around here if you chose someone from synagogue,” her mother said.

Sophie nodded, then shook her head. She watched Miriam’s gaze travel around the kitchen, where the Company logo seemed to wink from every surface: TV, dishwasher, fridge.

“Are you angry? Are you going to tell Dad?”

“Let’s see what happens,” Miriam said.

A
FTER DAYS OF
being ensconced within the family barricade, Henry called Sophie. It was the afternoon before her seventeenth birthday, the day before New Year’s Eve. There were special occasions yet to be endured, but if he couldn’t get away, at least she might come to him. Sophie explained that on her side of town, Hanukkah had been over since the middle of the month. The silver-plated menorah had already been returned to the glass-fronted display case in the Levines’ dining room.

“Can you handle a dinner?” he asked over the phone. “I know the House of Van Curler isn’t exactly your thing, but at least you’d get some champagne for your almost-birthday.”

Sophie told herself she was about to get an up-close view of one of the oldest families in Electric City. Henry had already told her that his parents “dressed for dinner” every night, holiday or not. She imagined four forks on the table next to each plate, each with its specific purpose.

“Do I need to practice first?” she was only half joking. “Or attend finishing school?”

“You’ll be fine,” Henry said.

“I don’t even know what finishing school is,” Sophie said.

Henry laughed. “That’s exactly why I’m inviting you.” There was a pause while Sophie considered how rude it would be to ask what was on
the menu.
Do they eat ham on holidays?
Henry jumped in to mention they were going to have halibut.

“Fish is a relief,” she said. “But will you promise to kick me under the table if I do something stupid?”

The next trick was what to tell her parents about where she was going, and with whom. Moments after hanging up the phone, as if a benevolent deity was offering assistance, Miriam told Sophie that she and David were on their way to a dinner party at the Rosenthals’. “You don’t even have to come along,” she said, seeing Sophie’s distressed face.

“You look beautiful, Mom.” She reached out to touch her mother’s necklace, shifting it slightly so that the amethyst pendant was restored to center.

“Happy almost-birthday, Sophie.” Miriam left a lipstick kiss on her daughter’s cheek, staying close long enough to whisper in her ear. “Just get back home before we do.”

Sophie concluded it was a good thing she hadn’t been given more than an hour to prepare for meeting Henry’s parents. Without the luxury of time, she made the simple choice of her favorite sea-green sweater over a black wool skirt with black tights underneath. By the time Henry was walking up her front steps to ring the bell, she had already been waiting at the door with her coat on, self-conscious about inviting him to see where she lived. With Martin, the chaos and noise of the meal had enabled her to forget he was seeing inside her family; all the activities were a kind of camouflage, blocking the particular view. Now, she felt shy and overexposed.

“No need to come in,” she said. “Nobody’s home.”