The Darlings (22 page)

In the background, Marina could hear Max's voice, entreating George to get off the phone and come to bed.

Through her snorting, hiccupping tears, Marina thought to protest but couldn't muster the strength. “Are you—
hic!—
sure? I don't want to impose.”

“Please. Max doesn't even know who's coming anymore. It's going to be great. Wear something cute. Oh, and can you bring a pecan pie? I was supposed to bake one, which means I was going to buy one and pretend I baked it, but I forgot.” Max's snorting in the background was silenced by a
thwump
that Marina identified as a pillow colliding broadside with his head.

“I'll bring pie,” she said miserably. “Thanks, George. Love you.”

That was how Marina ended up on the 4 train on Thanksgiving day, having spent the morning wandering aimlessly through SoHo in search of an open bakery. She had slept in and once awake, tried to go to the gym, only to find it was closed. Now she tried to make herself as compact as possible in her subway seat, her purse and a pie competing for prime real estate in her lap. The pie was blueberry, because it was all the bakery had left. She figured that no one would notice. In fact, she figured no one would even notice her.

She had been too depressed to put any thought into what she was wearing, and had settled on an amalgam of black items that disappeared into one another in an indistinct, forgettable way that she knew would not score her any points with anyone. On her way out, she pocketed gold hoop earrings; her thought was to slip them on at Max's if everyone else looked more festive than she. As she walked to the subway stop, the idea that hoop earrings could, like little lifesavers, rescue her from obscurity became laughably, almost unbearably depressing. She looked awful and there was nothing to be done about it. Not awful, actually; worse than awful. She looked ordinary.

People pushed past Marina on the subway platform, causing her to grip the pie with the protectiveness of a squirrel with a nut. New York had a strange way of making her feel simultaneously claustrophobic and lonely. People surrounded her all day long: on the street, in the subway, in the office. The thumps of the downstairs neighbors wafted into her bedroom every night; her roommates' laughter reverberated through the paperthin walls; her window looked directly into the bedroom of a young Chinese couple with a newborn. There was a certain kind of intimacy to this physical closeness. But it was no substitute for family or for the friendships she had shared with her college roommates and boyfriends. The proximity of so many strangers made her feel unmoored. New York, she realized, was a sea filled with ships, slipping silently by one another on their way in and out of port.

Marina stared at the people with whom she was currently sharing Thanksgiving. Across from her was a homeless man talking to himself and rocking slightly, his ebony hands so chapped that they looked as if he had rolled them in white chalk. A kid in baggy pants and a backpack slouched next to him, wholly absorbed by his iPod. The only people who occasionally made eye contact were a tourist couple (midwestern, Marina guessed) wearing matching sweatshirts. They were overweight, and because they were holding a map, she made a bet with herself that they would be mugged before their trip was over.

Marina closed her eyes and tried to conjure her parents, alone for the first time in their house in Lakeville. The house would be quiet except for the creaky swinging of the dog door as Murray and Tucker darted in and out of the kitchen. Her mother would be wearing mom jeans, a turtleneck sweater embroidered with autumn leaves. She would have put the dogs in their “festive” collars because it was a holiday. Or maybe she wouldn't have, because Marina wasn't there to share it with them. Her father would be in his study while dinner was prepared, his stomach growling because, as he would tell them every Thanksgiving, he was accustomed to eating at specific times (7:30 a.m., noon, 6:30 p.m.), and not just one big meal in the middle of the afternoon. His glasses would have slipped to the tip of his nose by now and he would be squinting through them, grading papers primarily through his left eye because the right one was weaker. For years, Richard Tourneau had relied on cheap drugstore glasses, insisting they worked just fine. Alice had finally gotten him to the eye doctor five years ago, and though he had acquiesced to prescription glasses (“A hundred and fifty dollars!” he had sputtered, but looked so distinguished in them), he hadn't been back since. His eyes, of course, had weakened; he was turning sixty this year. Instead, he had affected a strange habit of reading and watching movies with one eye closed, like a pirate.

When she emerged from the subway station, it occurred to Marina that nothing would make her parents happier than a surprise visit on Thanksgiving. George wouldn't mind; Max wouldn't even notice. She knew better than to hope for a phone call or a last minute invitation from Tanner. Her parents were, she realized with sudden and violent acuity, the only people in the world who actually cared about her. As she stood on the corner of Montague and Henry streets trying to orient herself, Marina felt her face grow hot with tears.
Was it possible to turn around and go home?
Her chest was wracked with a very deep sort of pain, a hideous feeling that she identified only later as homesickness.

No one would notice if she gave up on New York and went back to Connecticut, tail between her legs. Her friends would miss her, of course, but only for a minute, like that sigh at the end of a good movie. She could live in Lakeville, study for her LSATs (
was registration for the December test still possible?
She'd have to check
). Maybe her father could get her a part-time job tutoring students at Hotchkiss. Knowing this option existed no longer made her nauseated but instead filled Marina with an odd and liberating sense of relief.

Instinctually, she dialed her parents' number.

The moment her mother answered the phone, Marina knew she could never actually go through with it. At least, not today.

“How was the Morgensons' party last night?” Alice Tourneau asked enthusiastically. “Did you see the balloons all blown up? Did you get all dressed up?”

“It was nice,” Marina replied vaguely.“There was caviar and blinis,” she added, for color.

“That sounds lovely, darling. Your father's just beside himself this morning because I decided to make only the apple pie this year and not pecan, too. But one pie is always more than enough, and this year it is only the two of us! Everyone always prefers the apple.” Behind her, Murray and Tucker were tussling on the kitchen floor, yowling fitfully. “
Stop it, you
!” Alice's voice sounded distant as she scolded one of them, her face turned away from the receiver.

“How are Murray and Tucker?” Marina asked, feeling as though she might cry. “Do they miss me?”

“Oh, they're fine. Well, Murray ate something he wasn't supposed to just now and he's bound to throw it up any minute, but other than that, they're fine. They're seven this year, you know! Big boys.”

“Mom and Dad's empty-nest dogs.”

“Yes, well. The house is quiet without you in it! These rascals keep us on our toes.” Though she was trying to sound chipper, Marina knew her mother well enough to hear the shakiness in her voice. They fell silent for a minute, each savoring the sound of the other.

“How's Dad?”

“Oh, just fine. Harumphing his way through the semester, as usual. He misses you, you know. I know he's not a big phone talker but it would mean a lot if you gave him a buzz now and then.”

“I miss him, too,” Marina said. She felt overcome with sentimentality, as though she wanted to slip through the phone wire and into her mother's arms. “I miss you guys so much. I was thinking maybe I would come up for the weekend, sometime soon.”

“Oh, we would just love that! It's so pretty up here this time of year. You missed apple season, unfortunately. This year's crop was pitiful. Worst I've ever seen, I think. The weather was just so erratic. Our little orchard really suffered.” Alice sighed. “We just had the last of them fall off the trees. I canned what I could. But you know what? Those little apples were delicious. We made applesauce and a pie, and I made strudel for my students. They were just the sweetest apples. Or maybe we just appreciated them more because there were so few of them.” Alice laughed, and Murray let out a single bark.

“Maybe even this weekend,” Marina said. “Maybe Saturday.”

“Maybe Saturday! We would love that. Look at the train schedule and call me anytime darling. Oh! I have to go now. Murray's just thrown up all over kitchen floor.
Murray!
” And then she was gone, and Marina was alone in Brooklyn.

Over dinner, the conversation quickly turned to the declining state of the magazine industry and, more generally, the world. To Marina's left was a perfectly chiseled man named Franklin who she at first assumed was gay. His silk button-down shirt was open one button too many, revealing a slice of muscled pectoral. As it turned out, Franklin was living with Isabelle, the exquisitely fair woman at the far end of the table. Both were photographers. Franklin was from Trinidad and had the slightest lilt of an accent. When he laughed, it sounded honey coated. He looked Marina directly in the eye when they spoke, as if mentally taking a picture her.

Marina ate little but drank heavily. As she drifted into drunkenness, she began to find Franklin deeply attractive. His teeth were perfect, Hollywood white against his clean dark skin. He spoke about things foreign to her: contemporary Caribbean fiction, his brother's recent wedding in Mumbai. He had baked the bread for tonight's dinner himself. It was being passed around in a wicker basket, slightly misshapen and enticingly sweet and wrapped in a paper napkin. It was served with mango chutney, which a number of guests were smearing on the turkey in lieu of cranberry sauce. Marina took seconds, even though she usually made a point of staying away from bread.

The dinner was haphazardly constructed. George had tasked her guests somewhat whimsically and had lost track of who was bringing what. There were three kinds of potatoes (mashed sweet, mashed Yukon, scalloped Russet), but only one vegetable (candied beets). Marina had brought the only pie, not enough for all sixteen guests. A bearded writer named Tom had brought three dozen gluten-free sugar cookies that had crumbled on their journey from Astoria. And instead of salad, Isabelle had brought an offering of pureed pumpkin (delicious) and a crimson amaryllis, which stood at the center of the table, its petals opened like trumpets.

Soon, Marina was leaning in, her thigh pressed against Franklin's, she could feel the thick fabric of his jeans brushing against her tights, and she pushed her hair back from her shoulders to expose her clavicle. He was polite but declined to engage with her flirtation. As the dinner wore on he glanced more often at Isabelle. Marina had never before been attracted to a black man, and she had never openly hit on another woman's boyfriend. But the steady flow of wine emboldened her, everything she thought she knew was dissolving, and the world felt raw, as if its skin had been turned inside out. Today felt like a day for firsts.

“Marina would never move to Brooklyn!” George was exclaiming across the table. “Never. But I might! I like it out here. I thought you would have to drag me feet first from the Village, but I've reconsidered. Anything's possible.” She smiled coyly at Max, who downed a glass of wine and dropped his hand into her lap.

“Uh-oh, Max,” Franklin said. He shook his head, chortling. “Manhattan may lose its It Girl thanks to you. What will happen next?”

George rolled her eyes, but Marina could see that she was reveling in her coronation as Manhattan's It Girl. She picked up a bottle of merlot and began to refill the empty glasses.
She thinks she wants to marry him
, Marina thought bitterly.
She thinks he'll marry her because he's thirty-six and probably wants to get on with it.