Wish You Were Here (12 page)

“This pattern reminds me of your aunt June's old breakfast set,” Emily was lecturing, and Lise sped up.

Laid out on the tables, the items seemed random and sad—dented beer trays and broken pocket watches, browned and fragile dress patterns, board games missing pieces, greasy skillets. It was as if someone had emptied out a house long abandoned, the good stuff already gone—exactly what they were supposed to be doing this week.

The next table was interesting though, Meg poring over a tray of amber rings and pendants, insects frozen inside the hardened sap. “That's pretty,” Meg said, pointing to an intricate Victorian setting, and Lise agreed, prodding her to try it on. She looked up and found Sam and Justin across the aisle, flipping through plastic baskets of baseball cards.

“How's this look?” Meg asked, holding her hand out as if to be kissed.

“Almost,” Lise said, and noticed she wasn't wearing her wedding ring anymore, an untanned line of skin where it had been. So were they
divorced? In spring they seemed headed that way, but Ken hadn't said anything.

Tagging after her, Lise tried to imagine how she would feel if Ken left her, but couldn't. Ken wasn't Jeff. She would be more likely to leave him, take Ella and Sam and start over somewhere, maybe her parents', north of Boston. Not that she'd ever consider it seriously. It was more of a daydream, an empty wish when she was tired, and her own inability to picture herself leaving Ken made her pity Meg more, especially since in a way she'd brought it on herself. She couldn't see how it would be a good thing for anyone but Jeff, and even he had misgivings, she supposed, leaving Sarah and Justin. And while that was awful, she couldn't blame him. She wouldn't want to have to live with Meg.

Cracked books that smelled like mold, scuffed record albums she'd owned as a teenager. Knives, baby clothes, 8-tracks, campaign buttons dating back to Al Smith. They detoured around a table of fishing gear that snagged Ken and Emily, then turned at the end of the row. Sam and Justin had given up on the baseball cards and were digging through a box of rubber insects, menacing each other with giant flies and centipedes.

“In real life he's terrified of them,” Lise confided.

“Justin too,” Meg said. “And Sarah's fearless.”

“Not Ella, she's the ultimate scaredy-cat.”

“I wonder how they're doing.”

They wandered, sauntered, stood flat-footed. The plane came in and they watched it land, wings tilting, and then when they'd lost themselves in someone's collection of typewriters or old can openers, it took off again, the racket making them look up. The steam engines coughed and ratcheted. She saw a Tiffany lamp she liked but knew she couldn't afford, a child's rocker. Meg was losing interest too; they walked down the dry middle of the aisles, keeping the boys in sight.

They were almost to the head of the next-to-last row when Ken and Emily caught them from behind.

“Will you look what I found,” Emily said, holding out two fist-sized ceramic pigs in vests, waiter's towels folded over their arms. Meg looked to Ken, mystified. “They're the salt and pepper shakers we used to have! Don't you remember?”

“Not really,” Meg said.

“You remember. We used to keep them on the windowsill of the breakfast nook. They used to have a napkin holder in the shape of a barn. They were a wedding gift from your aunt Lucille. Oh, your father despised them, but you kids loved them. You used to call them Salty and Peppy.”

“Oh my God,” Meg said, “you're right. Whatever happened to them?”

“I'm sure they broke years ago, they're cheap little things, but here they are. Isn't that wild? Aren't they darling?”

“They're something all right,” Lise said when Emily passed them to her.

“They're fun,” Emily said.

An entire week, she thought. She wouldn't be able to do it.

Arlene came over to see what they were looking at. To Lise's relief, she seemed unimpressed, turning one over like a bruised tomato before handing it back.

Together they faced the last row, the steam engines huffing and popping beyond the far tables—all taken up by one vendor whose specialty was used tools. Set out on the tops in precise, mazelike designs, largest to smallest, were hundreds of hammers and wrenches and screwdrivers, pliers and vise grips and drills.

“Incredible,” Ken said, and she could see he wished he had his camera. He stood there taking it in, as if to memorize it.

“Makes you wonder who they belonged to,” Arlene said.

“They're probably from estate sales,” Emily said. “Brokers will buy up lots to get a few antique pieces and then sell the rest for next to nothing.”

“Where'd you learn that?” Meg asked.

“Since your father died I've learned more about that side of things than I care to admit.”

That was sad, Lise thought, but in a strange way it sounded like bragging.

The boys dodged through a group of old ladies, and Meg told them to slow down. They were coming to show off their purchases. Sam led, holding up an R2-D2 for everyone to see. Lise could have sworn she'd seen it before, then remembered: it was a prize from a Happy Meal. It couldn't have cost more than a penny to make.

“Don't we have a thousand of those at home?” she asked, and he stopped bouncing.

“No,” he said doubtfully.

“I'm sure we do.”

“You said I could buy anything.”

“Who is this again?” Emily asked, sweeping in to save him, and then gaped, fascinated by his explanation. “Justin, what did you get?”

He'd chosen a C-3PO so they could play together, and Lise felt foolish and cruel. The plane buzzed overhead, a speck, and she wished she were in it, the wind deafening, taking away her thoughts. She could be so small. Emily seemed to provoke it in her.

Ken was done with the hardware; it was time to go. The kids wanted hot dogs from the Mister Softee truck, but Emily said there was perfectly good salami waiting at home. Arlene had a last cigarette on their way to the car, flicking it into the road, where it rolled, smoking, across the yellow line. Lise climbed in and buckled up. The clock on the dash said they'd wasted the morning, yet it didn't feel like a success to her.

“You okay?” Ken asked.

“It's nothing,” she answered under her breath, putting him off till later. He would hover, concerned, until she absolved him.

On the way back they passed an Amish family selling pies by the roadside, their horse hitched to a telephone pole, the daughter in a plain bonnet. Traffic was surprisingly heavy through Mayville—the church crowd, she figured, going out for brunch at Webb's. They were caught in a pack leaving town, and then it was stop-and-go, bumper to bumper.

There were police cars all around the gas station, and a state trooper standing in the middle of the highway directing traffic. Another was spooling out yellow tape, wrapping it around the pumps to block off the front doors.

“I guess something did happen,” Ken said, and while it was obvious, Lise couldn't quite believe it. She'd completely misread the situation, and Emily, with her penchant for melodrama, had been right. While the proof was inescapable, Lise refused to accept it.

“I better stop and tell them what I saw,” Ken said.

“Yes,” she managed.

Ahead of them, in the back of Meg's van, Emily was pointing frantically, as if they might miss it.

“We know,” Lise said.

“I'm not supposed to know,” Sarah said, lying on her back and looking up at the ceiling like it was the sky. “So, you know …”

“I wouldn't,” Ella said, happy that Sarah trusted her with something so big. “How old is she?”

“My mom's age, I guess.”

“Whoa.” Ella couldn't imagine her dad having his own apartment and a blonde girlfriend—or Uncle Jeff for that matter. She couldn't see Uncle Jeff anywhere without Aunt Margaret and Sarah and Justin. The four of them were a team, like when their families played wiffle ball. She didn't say it to Sarah, but it felt like he was missing, like he might show up today while they were out on the boat. Sometimes he would do that because he had to work. They'd come back from tubing and he'd be sitting on the dock drinking beer, wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap backwards, his little sports car by the garage. He'd make chocolate-chip pancakes and play chess with them when it rained, and at night he was the one who showed them how to build a fire. Now Ella wondered if that was the real reason he was late all those times.

“Does he ever visit you guys?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like does he ever come over and just hang out?”

“No, it's all written down on the calendar. My mom's still mad at him.”

“Well, yeah,” Ella said.

“She's gotten really weird, I don't know. Like even weirder.”

“Like how?”

There was no one home except them and Rufus, but Sarah glanced toward the stairs before leaning over and whispering, “She always screamed at us, okay? Now when she does it, she starts crying like right away, and
then she'll hold on to you while she's crying.” She lay back on her pillow. “I mean, it's weird.”

“Yeah,” Ella agreed. She tried to be nonchalant, but hearing another person's secrets was new to her. In school, the few friends she had were like her. Not like Sarah, who was smart and beautiful too. At her school, someone like Sarah didn't hang out with someone like her. Sarah was the kind of girl boys talked about on the bus right in front of you like you were invisible. “Sarah Carlisle,” they'd say, trying to top each other like it was a game, and then the rest of them would groan. They didn't even have to know her, her name would be famous. No boy would ever say “Ella Maxwell” except to get a laugh.

“I don't know,” Sarah said. “I guess she's just sad, but … You can't be sad all the time. She lost her job. She'd turn her alarm off and I'd have to make Justin breakfast. And then when she did go to work she'd come home and go right to bed.” She rolled over so the two of them were facing each other, lying on their sides. “One week we had takeout the whole week because she didn't feel like cooking.”

Ella had never heard any of this from her mother, and she believed every word. Aunt Margaret walked around the house in her bathrobe. Aunt Margaret forgot to buy groceries. Sarah told it all plainly, and Ella wondered if she could be that brave if her mother went crazy (but she wouldn't have to do everything like Sarah, she had her dad). She wished she had a secret she could give her in return, but her life was dull, nothing ever happened to her. Except this, she thought, this sudden closeness between them, and how it made her feel, but she couldn't tell her that.

She didn't have to. Sarah reached over and took her in her arms, a quick squeeze of a hug.

“Thank you,” she said. “I don't mean to dump all this stuff on you.”

“It's okay,” Ella said, surprised by the firmness of her, the musk of her hair.

“They'll be home soon,” Sarah said. “We should get up.”

Ella didn't want to but agreed. She watched Sarah walk across the carpet in her nightshirt, then close the door to the bathroom. Even her feet were pretty, her calves strong as a ballerina's. With anyone else she would have been jealous, but with Sarah there was no reason to be.
She thought that she'd never met anyone whose looks matched their inner beauty so perfectly. The shower came on, and Ella lay there, her book no longer interesting, listening to the water splash, Sarah's secrets warm and safe inside her.

The Institute was free on Sundays, and this was the only chance they'd have, so after lunch Arlene and Emily left Margaret in charge of the children and hopped in the car. It had been sitting in the sun with the windows up. The interior was stale and smelled faintly of dog, but Arlene didn't mention it. After the racket of the boys, she was just glad to have some quiet. She'd spent thirty-five years listening to children, and while she would keep each of their smiling faces and eager spirits with her (and did, of a winter's day, occasionally page through a thick album of class pictures that showed the tall young woman slowly grow old and bent while the children stayed the same), very early the music had gone out of their voices.

This was the difference between the lake and the city: once they got going, it was too cool to keep the windows open. At home she'd be blasting the air conditioner and wouldn't see these cornfields butted up against the road like a fence, or the ponytailed girl in her convertible making a call from the box outside the Wagon Wheel. Though they had nothing to do with her, these random scenes pleased her, and Arlene thought it didn't make sense. She felt closer to life away from her own. That was why people traveled, she thought, but they wanted majesty, natural wonders and scenic views. She was happy enough to watch other people. On the golf course, a foursome retreated from a green, the last man flipping his ball in the air and catching it, and for the moment she was satisfied.

“I'm going to miss coming up,” she said.

“So will I,” Emily said.

“Do you think we might rent a place next year?”

“Possibly. I know I can't stay in the city all summer.”

“We could stay on the grounds,” Arlene offered. She'd wanted to since she was a little girl, enchanted with the stately mansard of the Athenaeum, the pink and green cottages and their gingerbread eaves and scalloped shingling, the neat lawns and dazzling gardens. One of her earliest memories was her mother guiding her hand to toss a penny in the hotel's indoor fountain.

“Can you imagine?” Emily said. “We'd fit right in with all the other old biddies. I can just see us hustling off to the amphitheater after dinner to hear some professor from SUNY Buffalo enlighten us on God and Public Policy.”