The Possibilities: A Novel (20 page)

“I think I was an exception to his rule,” she says, and smiles as if remembering something specific. “But he was the same as me. He knew odd things too. I think I let him off the hook a bit. He could be uncool with me. Like, I bet Rocky felt relieved to just be with Adrian and not have to, you know, flex. We watched that movie together. It’s a really good movie.”

“What do you mean by uncool?” I ask. “How would he be uncool?” I want to lie back, I’m enjoying this so much. It’s good to stop for a moment. I feel like we’ve been moving so fast.

Kit swings her leg off the edge of the bed. “I don’t know. We watched a lot of movies, played a lot of pool. Pool was big—we’d take it very seriously. We went for drives and just talked nonsense, like . . . one time he asked me what words made me laugh. I guess he had watched something on the Discovery Channel about the planets and every time they said ‘Uranus,’ he laughed. It’s a word that’s always funny.”

I remember my dad and Cully laughing about this. I remember them watching this show.

“Titicaca,” Kit says. “Balzac. Those were my words. Then we just got into words we liked, based on sound alone. We ran through words for hours.”

I close my eyes for a second, warmed by the thought of this commonality he has with me—being so opinionated about words—and also warmed by the thought of him sharing this activity with someone else, and having it be valued and loved. I think he must have loved her and now I do see them together.

“He was sweet,” she says. “And super funny. I always felt like I was on an adventure even if we were just sitting there.” I watch her thinking of him.

“He was a fling though?” I say.

“Maybe,” she says. “I was playing it cool. We were fooling around, I guess, seeing what would happen. Who knows what would have happened?”

She looks at me and by her expression I see that something has changed. She’s still remembering him, perhaps, wondering what would have happened. It’s taken me so long to realize other people loved him, other people are hurt. My dad, Billy, even Suzanne, yet they must feel they can’t compete with me. I give her a moment.

A mother walks to the back section with a toddler on a leash. When the child tries to sit on a hideous needlepoint footstool, the mother gives the leash a tug.

“Your mom should have gotten you one of those,” I say.

“One of what?” she says, then understands. A leash.

“Have you talked to her lately?”

“Almost every day,” Kit says. “She has phone interventions. She talks about successful people my age. Kelly Caswell got into Harvard Law, Maeve Richy is going to Parsons School of Design, Gigi Strode opened a boutique.” She imitates her mother’s voice and I envision a posh socialite. “In our last conversation she told me she got me antique earrings from Gigi’s boutique—from the late seventeen hundreds. They’re little wooden birds and I guess the beaks are gold. She said if she told me what carat they were, I’d absolutely die.” She imitates her mother: “ ‘They’re marvelous. They’re the bomb, as you say.’ ” Kit looks at me and says, “I have never, ever used that expression.”

“She sounds like . . . a mother,” I say, thinking how I’d do the same with Cully—constantly bring up the plans and occupations the other kids were doing. Why can’t we ever see who our children actually are? Why can’t we let them cook?

The toddler on the leash bends over, hanging her head between her legs. “I’m so tired,” she says.

“Don’t be dramatic,” her mother says. “Can’t wait until she’s her age,” she says to me. “Though I suppose that age has its problems too!”

“It goes by very fast,” I say, liking her mistake in thinking I’m Kit’s mother. Each age did have its problems and yet with each age I remember thinking,
This is my favorite. This is such a fun age.

She pulls on the leash, and the girl follows her mother toward the front of the store, walking as if up against a strong wind.

“This age has its problems,” Kit says to me.

“So does this one,” I say.

The clerk walks toward us. We both get down from the bed.

“Isn’t she a beauty,” he says, then in a delayed gesture, raises his arms to portray his awe. “These are acanthus leaves carved into the posts. It’s made of mahogany—”

“Wow, solid?” Kit asks, a question that impresses me and says a lot about the world she must be from.

The man freezes with his mouth open. “Don’t insult me,” he says, in a teasing voice to hide the fact that he isn’t teasing.

I look at her and widen my eyes—an expression she automatically duplicates.

“Please notice the ball-and-claw posts,” he says, and waits until we look down at the bed’s claw-feet. “They’re the size of grapefruits,” he says. “Yellow grapefruits.”

“Big foot,” I say, and hear Kit stifle a laugh.

The man pats the bed, then slides a finger across the birds. “The pine has suffered from woodworm,” he says, “but obviously the worms have been long dead and the bed has been treated. The drapes are sold separately, though I assume you’d want to choose your own to coordinate with your decor.” He raises his arms: “With this bed you can be lady of the manor.” He does a kind of bow, pivots, and walks away.

“Wow,” I say. “I should buy it. It could be . . . ceremonious. Or maybe something less heavy.”

The clerk walks back, holding a clipboard with sheets of paperwork.

“We’re just looking,” I say.

He raises his hand. Salespeople must hate when people say they’re “just looking.” It’s like being sprayed with bug repellent. “I wanted to show you this.” He hands me a sheet of paper. “Though it’s a copy of the original, this, my dear, is a poem that was found with the bed.”

Sleep, my sweet. Tomorrow we’ll meet.

Then back to bed

where we will show

bliss and love. These stars move slow.

I believe this is meant to touch me. It may be the most horrible poem I’ve ever read. I hand the paper to Kit. She reads it, then hands it back to the man. He takes it, pivots, and walks away.

We look at one another and stifle laughs.

“That was bizarre,” I say. “This is all very bizarre.”

“Detours,” Kit says. “What an odd dude.”

I hear the toddler’s mother say, “I’ve asked you to stop that. One, two, three, okay, that’s it. You’ve lost points. I’m taking points away.”

“No!” the little girl yells.

It’s always amusing when it’s someone else’s kid. Kit watches the little girl, and I wonder if this is all confirming things for her, making her relieved that this won’t be in store for her just yet.

“Sarah?” she says, her voice breaking. She looks at me with an intense fondness that both warms and scares me.

“Are you feeling okay?” I ask. “We should get going. I can’t trust my dad near a store.” I begin to walk to the front of the shop.

“Wait,” she says.

“What is it?” I ask. “You’re not going to be sick, are you?” I glance around and land on the cauldron.

“No,” she says. “I wanted to suggest something. Offer something.”

“What is it?” I stop by the rocking chair, tempted to sit.

“I’m trying to say—I’ll just say it.” She takes a deep breath and I smile, thinking she looks like she’s about to propose to me.

“I don’t want to have a baby,” she says. “I’m pretty sure about that, but I would, I’m willing to . . . to give birth to it, or whatever. To have it for you. You and Billy. Or just you. If you want me to. I would do that—”

My smile falls. My grip on the chair tightens. She keeps talking as though explaining something to herself, and her line of thought begins to smooth itself out, making her suggestion, or offer, into what she thinks may be an obvious route and solution. The inevitability of it, her expression reads. The logic. I lean into the rocker. I could break it with my grip.

My body can’t seem to register this news. My heart is pounding out joy and remorse and irritation. I think of her growing this child for me, like I’ve commissioned it. I imagine he or she floating in her womb, kicking her, moving from mung bean to melon, then coming out of her body and into my hands. I open and close my hands.

“What do you mean?” I ask. A clearer explanation will fail to penetrate, I’m afraid. My mind is not taking this. “What are you saying?”

“I’d have the baby for you,” she says.

“Oh dear,” I say, a ludicrous response. A new life flashes before my eyes like a montage in a rom com. I imagine caring for her, my round Kit surrogate. I’d take her on walks. Through the town, by the lake, the mountains behind us rising in faults and humps, like furniture covered with a white sheet. We could order pizza and watch movies, dipping our crusts into plastic containers of honey. I’d feed her like a goose.

Pop. Montage over. Gone. I look at her, sharply.

“If that’s what you want,” she says. “It’s your choice. You can decide.”

But I’ve already made my choices in life. I’ve made so many. That’s why I’m here by this rocking chair. My choices have somehow led me to this. This isn’t my choice to make. What has just happened here? I guess what I thought was going to happen when she first started talking: a proposal.

“You shouldn’t have said that,” I say. “And Billy? He never wanted the first one, why would you think he’d want the last?” I hurt myself with my own words. “Why did you do that?” I look around to see if anyone is witnessing this. As always, no one. Just the cups and saucers. Just the solid mahogany bed.

“Why did I do what?” she says. She looks frightened as though I’ll shoot. I notice her hand on her stomach and I turn and walk away.

“You could at least answer me,” she says.

I stop, turn, can’t believe she just said that.

“You want an answer right now in Pete’s Antiques? Do I want your baby? I’m obviously going to need some time to think about that. Or will we be late for your appointment?”

I walk toward the front of the store, feeling like that toddler, pulled into places I don’t want to go, leashed by something I can never escape. I want to throw a fit. I consider calling Morgan to tell her that we won’t be coming anymore, that life just got way too difficult, that this is a difficult age, an impossible age. We need to call it off, shut it down. What makes me get into the car? I don’t know, but I do it. I see them waiting for me and I sense Kit behind me. I can’t think of a better alternative.

Chapter
17

What happens if you cancel an appointment? Does the nurse ask for your reasons? Do they offer advice, question your choices, your future plans, your course of action? Or do they just let you go?

The road begins to elevate slightly. I pass a sign that says View Ahead. Isn’t there always going to be a view ahead? There are turns in the road and they keep my mind focused. I drive fast, in an attempt to make everyone nervous. My silent, passive way of letting them know something has shifted, though no one is catching on. Kit, who’s up front now, is the only one who knows that everything has changed.

The air is warmer here, the rocks a burnished red; the aromas of the dense pines are strong and a little sour.

I hear the flick of a lighter.

“Oh my God, that’s what I smell.” I turn to the back and see Suzanne pulling from her little pipe. “Stop it!” I say.

Smoke billows from her mouth like scarves.

“Billy!” I say.

“What? I took a minor inhalation.”

“Kit is here and my dad’s in the car!”

“I don’t care,” my dad says.

“I’m fine,” Kit says, and I turn to her with a perplexed expression.

“I’m about to eat my snacks,” Suzanne says, as if this explains everything. “This is insurance,” she says.

“Cully used to sell pot,” I say. “Doesn’t this bother anyone? Apparently not! You fuckers. You animals.”

Everyone laughs, even Kit. I make some kind of noise, a roar, but it comes out as a
roo
so I end up sounding like a spurned cartoon villain. I grip the steering wheel and swerve on purpose, making Suzanne laugh.

“Sarah,” she says, “it’s okay. Here. I’ll stop. All done. Unless, Kit, do you want to insure your balls?”

“No, thanks,” she says, then catches my eye and stops smiling.

I hear the crunch of a bag of chips.

I look at Billy in the rearview mirror. He holds a bud right up to his nose and takes a deep inhale. “Where’d you get this?” he asks.

“Yard guy,” Suzanne says.

“That’s funny,” he says. “ ’Cause he works with grass and weeds.”

“Brilliant,” I say. “God.”

“Sweet,” Billy says. “I get sweet. Cherry, but there’s a funky undertone.”

“Cherry?” Suzanne says. “What are you talking about? More like grape. But yeah, there’s a musty bottom.”

“High!” I say. “It smells like it will get you high, assholes!”

Everyone laughs again. “I’m not trying to be funny.” I try to take slow, calming nasal inhalations, but with Kit next to me I’m conscious of sounding like a mad bull.

“Is it a body or head high?” Billy asks.

“It’s like a cannabis convention back here,” my dad says.

I make Kit’s window go down. I periodically glance at Suzanne and Billy in back, trying to communicate my anger, but they’re busy, pensive as if in Napa tasting wine. They mumble to themselves:

“It expands.”

“Oaky. Spicy.”

“A basic strain.”

“But good soil.”

“I taste fertilizer. It’s not organic.”

“I think you’re wrong about that. THC is high. Tingly. An up high.”

“Citrus lineage?”

“I taste oriental carpets.”

Laughter.

“Came from this guy Phil T,” Suzanne says. “He is very cool. A pioneer. He took his dinky family business to another level. They were just a marginal mullet operation churning out shwag, but he got into botany, horticulture; toyed around with light, soil, temperature. No one was doing this then, at least not in Colorado. Now everyone’s sensitive to the nuances of—”

I see a wide-enough shoulder ahead and pull over. We skid a little on the dirt and I brake hard, then turn to the back.

“You guys are seriously irritating the shit out of me right now,” I say. “I am livid. No wonder our son did this, Billy. You sound like a trained professional.”

“Cully dealt green marijuana,” Suzanne says. “Relax.”

“Is there something you’re forgetting, Billy? Dad?”

“Come on, Sarah,” Billy says. “We’re just having a little fun. It won’t hurt . . . ”

“No one is supposed to have fun and it will hurt . . . you know.” I gesture toward Kit but realize they don’t know what I know. They don’t know what I’ve been offered, what I need to think about. But if she hadn’t made her little offer, would it be okay to make this car into a sweat lodge? Is it okay for her to drink like she did last night? What if she’s already ruined the baby’s life? Why do I care more now?

“Sorry, sweetie,” Suzanne says from the back. “Sorry, Kit. Thought it could help your eyes.”

“Sorry,” Billy says.

I’m sorry. My anger is curious to me. What or who am I defending? A big rig rolls by, making the car tremble.

•   •   •

NO ONE HAS
said a word for the past hour. We are almost to the hotel and I feel like I need to tell them it’s okay. I’m okay now. They can all leave time-out. I am eager to get to the room and think, though I’m put off that I have to think at all. Half an hour ago, on the road with the curves and trees, I thought,
A baby. Yes, a baby. It wouldn’t have to end. Cully wouldn’t have to end. I can still be a mother
.

Now we’re in Colorado Springs, on Nevada Avenue, passing frightening motels, EZ Pawn, Bobby Brown Bail Bonds, places to get cash fast! and a baby seems out of the question. My soaring thoughts come down, down, down. Dirty cars speed alongside us. The sidewalks are littered with wrappers and sooty, frothy old snow. I imagine many elderly people have met their ends in these crosswalks. I imagine many young people have met their ends in the Stagecoach or the Chief Motel. We pass a car dealership with red and blue flapping flags and cars that look donated. Above is a billboard advertising the upcoming gun show.

“Look, a hooker,” Suzanne says.

I look at the woman walking into a wig shop. Lavender down jacket. Stiletto heels.

“I wonder if business slows when it’s cold and prostitutes can’t show as much skin,” Billy says.

“You think she’s buying a wig or doing an a.m. bj?” Suzanne says.

“Maybe both,” Kit says.

“A wig helps, I’m sure,” my dad says.

Pikes Peak seems embarrassed in the distance, a blush cast down its side.

“You’re bound to get shortchanged if you live here, don’t you think?” Suzanne says.

“Morgan lives here,” I say. “Cully lived here.”

“They went to CC. That’s not living here,” Suzanne says. “That’s like a pocket of warmth.”

“The hooker’s a pocket of . . . never mind,” Billy says.

I want so badly to talk to my dad alone and yet don’t know what to say. Sometimes I resist his advice, then doubt my own choice in the end. I need to talk to Billy instead. I stop at a light behind a minivan with a Baby on Board sticker. Are you kidding me, gods?

“ ‘Baby on Board,’ ” Suzanne says. It seems everyone is trying their best not to react, but maybe it’s just me who’s imagining this.

“The message offends me,” my dad says. “So if there isn’t a baby in the car, it’s okay to just plow through it?”

“ ‘Dad Farted and I Can’t Get Out,’ ” Suzanne says.

“No way,” Kit says.

“Right there,” Suzanne says. I see the sticker on the beige minivan ahead of us in the right lane. When we pass, we all turn to look at the driver, but the windows are darkly tinted.

“I don’t think I’ve seen this many bumper stickers,” Kit says.

“This is a bumper sticker town,” my dad says. “But these are good ones. Usually here it’s all ‘God Bless Our Troops Especially the Snipers.’ ”

The scenery begins to change, as if the town is shedding a layer. We drive up Lake, a peaceful road that leads to the hotel. I haven’t been here before. When I’d visit Cully I’d go to the Antlers. I’m glad the party is here and not on campus. I don’t want to be there, to see the buildings where he tried to build and edit himself, to see Slocum Dorm where he lived. I don’t want to see the life he had right before he didn’t have one.

The trees are scraggly, bereft, making me proud of our bare aspens, the elegant shadows they cast. On the side streets I see homes with shade trees and American flags. Homes with Christian values—sons that play soccer and daughters with mild eating disorders.

The road seems like an entry way to something promising, and sure enough I see the hotel ahead, a beige muddy pink, the many flags in front making it seem like something important.

“It’s like a gay embassy,” Suzanne says.

Designs are carved into the grass in front. Gardeners are hunched in the hedges, all Hispanic men, probably not knowing why the hell rich people always need to carve shapes into their bushes. Pikes Peak now looks proud. There’s a unity of color between the mountain, the strokes of light down its face, and the powdered mustard–rose pigment of the hotel.

I drive into the grand roundabout. It feels like we’re in the Mediterranean, not Colorado Springs where only a few miles back was a strip club called Le Femmes.

“I’m going to the spa,” Suzanne says. “Clear my head. Who’s with me?”

“I can sit in the lobby,” my dad says. “Close my eyes and clear my head under an elk carcass. For free.”

“Are they antlers!” Billy says.

“Are they real!” my dad says.

“Billy, I need to talk to you,” I say. “Can you try and get it together?”

“You kids gonna have a nooner?” Suzanne asks.

“Are we?” Billy asks.

“Everyone, please shut up.”

“Oh, come on,” Suzanne says. “Everyone’s trying to have a good time. We love you. Join us.”

“Kit is pregnant with Cully’s child,” I say to Suzanne.

I stop the car.

“Oh my God,” Suzanne says, with a voice I rarely hear her use. “Are you all right?”

I’m not sure whom she’s talking to. No one does, or at least nobody has an answer. I look at Kit’s hands placed on her lap. Long fingers, chipped nails. She needs more calcium. I wonder if she’s angry at me for outing her this way.

“What are you going to do?” Suzanne asks, and again, I’m not sure whom she’s talking to.

“Kit’s going to go live her life,” Billy says. I look back at him, wondering what he’ll say when I tell him about her offer.

“Oh,” Suzanne says.

“Don’t,” I say. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“Don’t what?” Suzanne says.

“Just don’t say or think anything. Now you know.” I look back. She lowers her sunglasses and turns away from me.

“How far along are you?” she asks Kit.

“It doesn’t matter,” I say. “Where the fuck are the valets? Isn’t this a five-star place?”

“Well,” Suzanne says. “You know how I feel about this.”

“I told Sarah I’d have the baby for her,” Kit says.

I feel like I hear a collective intake of air. I look at Kit and she’s pleased, like she’s found the way to get me to engage.

“You what?” my dad says.

“I told Sarah that I’ll have the baby for her,” she says again.

“That is wonderful,” Suzanne says. “It’s . . . it’s truly beautiful is what it is. It’s like a new life for him.”

“Stop,” I say, my voice weak. “Please.” I turn back, pleading. Billy’s jaw is clenched. I can’t tell what he’s thinking.

“Sarah,” Suzanne says. “This is a gift. Morgan will—”

“Don’t tell Morgan anything,” I say. “She’ll just take it and run with it like you do. Please get out and go. Do what you do—spend gobs of money and eat enough to fill a void as big as . . . as a whatever. Don’t you dare pass moral judgments.”

“A crevasse,” my dad says. “A hat box. I’m not saying that you’re—I’m just thinking of big things—”

“Sarah,” Suzanne says, softly. “You can’t speak to me that way.”

A slick-haired valet opens my door with gusto. He has no idea what he has just interrupted but knows from my look that it’s something. “Welcome to the Broadmoor?” he says.

We all get out, avoiding one another.

“Chip will bring your luggage to check-in,” the valet says.

Chip has black hair and green eyes and is stunning. He makes us all stutter a bit before getting back on track.

“Hi, Chip,” my dad says. “We don’t really have much luggage.”

“Are you sure, sir?”

“Yes, Chip, thank you,” he says. “Traveling light.”

He and Kit exchange brief smiles. Billy notices too.

I walk to the lobby and feel like I’ve been riding on a horse. My legs are sore even though I haven’t used them, and I’m exhausted and feel sunburned even though I haven’t done anything. I walk ahead of everyone else, wanting distance, or given distance. I hear their voices like a clique behind me, judging me.

“I’ll get you your own room,” I hear Suzanne say.

“Thank you,” Kit says.

“This is going to be good, you know that? It will all be okay.”

“It’s up to Sarah,” Kit says.

It’s up to me.