12

THE TREES ARE old and full along Central Street. They make tiny movements that shift and filter light from the west, casting transient shadows on the pavement. Kaye watches out the window of a coffee and gelato shop on the south side of the street. She has come to pass the time with a newspaper in the hope that her daughter might walk past. Surprisingly, instead of Clara and her teen girlfriends, Kaye spots the Norse god. At first, she is uncertain. She has only met him once. But when he stands next to his Alfa Romeo, trying to use the credit-card parking meter, she gets a better look. She is not one to forget faces. He is wearing tight jeans and tries to put his wallet into his back pocket with some difficulty. This makes Kaye laugh. When he turns in her direction, she bows her head and hides behind the open newspaper, looking up to see him cross the street. She leaves her latte on the counter and exits the café to follow him.

Phil goes to the florist. Kaye lingers on the sidewalk outside, looking at displays of large, glazed planter pots and ornate wrought iron garden chairs, all covered with plants. She moves, trying not to be obvious, to the store next door. But the filmy sundresses and platform shoes in the window make her feel old.

Eventually she enters the florist. It is dark and filled with the wet earthy smell of just-watered plants. Phil is talking to the shop girl and gesturing with his credit card in his hand. They share a joke. He begins to face Kaye, but she simultaneously turns her back to him and picks up a potted succulent. Phil looks directly at her but says nothing. Either he doesn’t see her face, or he doesn’t recognize her. Kaye hears the wrinkle of tissue paper, the credit card processing, and small talk she would never remember if asked. Then, Phil is on his way out, and she catches his cologne, not unpleasant but strong. She whispers, “I told you so, Eleanor,” to herself. Glancing at the young woman behind the counter, a contemporary of Clara’s, her first thought is to wonder if Phil had been flirting with her. She is sickened by the idea.

ELEANOR STANDS AT the sink, deveining shrimp. A fishy smell hovers over the kitchen. She feels like kicking herself for choosing a shrimp appetizer. But the shrimp, and then the chicken marinating in the fridge, will keep Frank busy at his grill. She stops a moment to check her hands. Fish. What man wants a fishy woman?

But no. No. Nothing will happen with Phil. So, what does it matter? Even so, nervous, sweaty, she scrubs the sink and then takes the brush and scrubs her hands. Annie paws her leg. She knows about the fish. To her, fish smell is good.

With the shrimp skewered, seasoned, and sitting in a baking pan in the refrigerator, she opens the window and increases the speed of the ceiling fan, then goes upstairs to shower and change into a sundress. Already this makes her feel calmer. Back in the kitchen, the fish smell is dissipating. She can tell because the dog has gone.

It is late afternoon, and the boys will be home soon from school. In their usual Friday routine, they will go straight to their computers without saying hello or giving Eleanor a chance to ask about their day. They will begin to play war games. Sometimes they even play these games against each other, sitting in the same room and only communicating through their computers. But she does not necessarily know that this is happening when she walks past and looks and sees their eyes on the laptop screens.

Eleanor puts a bottle of red wine on the counter and two whites in the fridge. She has made a jug of her own peppermint iced tea to have early, so that she doesn’t get drunk with Phil before Frank even gets home. Everything is prepped, and now she awaits Phil’s arrival. In her pocket, she feels her phone buzz. It is a text from Phil. He will be late.

PHIL DRIVES ALONG a grid of tree-lined streets under a canopy of branches and leaves that block the sun, past large, century-old homes and groomed lawns. It is different from the sparse treescape and new homes that abut the cornfields where he lives. Eleanor is waiting on her porch steps wearing a blue sundress and sandals, holding her phone like she has been there some time. Her hair is against her shoulders, moving in the light wind. She rests her chin on the palm of her hand, her elbow propped on her knee, as she watches his car pull up under a tree in front of her house. For a moment, he thinks that he remembers her in this pose in high school. He remembers someone like this.

“Hey!” he calls to her as he gets out of his car and reaches into the passenger side for the bouquet. He knows it seems ridiculous, but he feels tongue-tied. Eleanor is grinning as if she has just heard a sarcastic joke. He walks to her, throws his arms around her and squeezes tight. She gasps as she is released.

“How was the drive?”

“Fine.” He puts the flowers into her hands and her face turns to a deep pink. He sees that she is embarrassed. But she seems to catch herself and asks, “Can I help you bring in your bags?” He tells her no.

At the door, a small black-and-white border collie greets him with a sniff and a low growl, baring her teeth before running away. Eleanor apologizes for the dog and takes him to the kitchen where they sit on stools at the island. She pours two glasses of iced tea. The house feels empty and quiet to Phil, and the iced tea is bitter. He wants to find an amusing, provocative way to ask her for sugar, some play with words, but all that comes out is, “Do you have sweetener?”

Eleanor looks puzzled for a moment, and nods and climbs onto a stool to reach inside an upper cabinet for a paper sack of cooking sugar, then walks near the sink for a spoon. “Take this.”

He smiles and mixes a spoonful of sugar into his tea.

Eleanor is full of questions and Phil doesn’t know how to answer them and still appear as though he is not too serious. “Did your family seem upset that you were coming here alone? What did Linda say? You didn’t have to argue with her, did you?”

He assumes she is asking because of the awkwardness he has told her about and his text about being late. But still, it seems strange, almost as if Linda has spoken to her. He shakes his head and looks into his glass. “No, really, in the end it was fine.” He smiles shyly, wanting to keep the conversation upbeat, positive.

Eleanor takes Phil back to the front of the house where he discovers that her sons are at home, logged on to their computers. “I never would have known,” he says.

“They sneak in and get online to play war games before I can say anything,” she says.

Eugene and Liam look up as if wakened from a deep sleep. Phil puts out his hand to shake, and, one after the other, they take it with what seems like skepticism. Phil has seen this sort of behavior before, the stunned acceptance of an adult gesture. He laughs nervously, though he senses that Eleanor is more uncomfortable with their reluctance than he is.

“Come on,” Eleanor says, and turns away. She picks up Phil’s bag near the front door and takes it upstairs. “I’ll show you your room.”

They climb the stairs. In the small corridor of the second floor, Eleanor points to the closed doors. “That’s Liam’s room. The one there is Eugene’s. Then the bathroom you’ll use. I left towels on your bed.” She hesitates. “This is my room. I mean, my room with Frank. And next door, this,” she puts the bag inside the door, “is yours.”

As Phil enters the room, the dog exits the master bedroom, stops, shows her teeth to Phil, and trots down the stairs. Phil pretends not to notice the dog. He stands for a moment next to one of the twin beds and puts his bag on top of the other while Eleanor steps into the doorframe. “Great!” he says, not referring to the dog, and waiting for Eleanor’s cue. When it doesn’t come, and he needs to fill the airspace, he says, “Could I have another glass of iced tea?”

“Sure.”

She turns quickly and heads down the stairs. Phil is put off by her aloofness, and yet it intrigues him. He follows her down the warm corridor.

“Frank should be home any minute,” she mutters so that Phil can barely hear her.

“I could help with dinner, if you want,” he calls after her, wondering if he has done something wrong and misinterpreted this visit, or if she is playing hard to get.

LATER, PHIL, ELEANOR, and Frank are in the kitchen. Phil smiles artificially—he knows it—trying to keep the mood upbeat as he gently tears lettuce leaves from a colander to put into the salad bowl. Eleanor is at the sink washing dishes, and Frank is trying to put marinated chicken pieces from a plastic container onto a platter to take outside. “You don’t think you over-marinated the meat, El?” There is a puddle of teriyaki sauce on the counter around the plate. He steps back and turns to Phil, smiling as if he is setting up camaraderie between the two men.

Trying to think up good conversation, Phil asks, “How far are you from the beach?”

“Two miles,” Frank says. Eleanor doesn’t turn around.

“Do you go much?”

Eleanor shrugs her shoulders. “She used to take the boys when they were young,” Frank says. “But they went in opposite directions and she spent all of her time running after them.” He has his teriyaki hands in one of the utensil drawers shuffling things around.

“Frank, wash your hands,” Eleanor says.

He laughs and continues to talk. “It used to be sort of fun in those days. Chasing them around.”

“When I was stationed in Southern California,” Phil says, “we were at the beach all the time. I loved open water swimming.”

Eleanor turns to look Phil in the eye, as though she is impressed, or thinks that he is crazy. Phil can’t tell. “Well,” she says, “this isn’t the ocean.”

Phil’s phone vibrates in his pocket. He takes it out and, after a second, he recognizes Sarayu’s number. His phone is always on vibrate in case his daughters should call him, but the strangeness of this particular call shocks him. He completely loses his place in the conversation and doesn’t know what to do. Suddenly, for a moment, he feels as though he is emptied out. Should he leave and find a private place to take the call? He decides to wait and call back but knows that he will be able to think of little else.

“Anyone good?” Frank asks.

“Naw,” Phil answers. He looks to Eleanor, who turns from the sink toward the men. He doesn’t catch her eye, or she won’t look at him. Maybe she thinks Linda is checking up.

“Come with me,” she says to Phil. He follows her to the basement to carry folding chairs up to the patio in the backyard. Like someone uncoordinated, he stumbles as he thinks over what is happening. “Watch out,” Eleanor says, and it embarrasses him. He is here to see one woman, and another from his past is calling him. Sarayu must hate him now, that must be why she is calling. There is a buzz on his phone to indicate that she has left a message. He can’t imagine what it might be, but now he needs to know.

To try to think about something else, he asks Eleanor who else is coming, and remarks about the calmness of the weather, the warmth, how dinner outside is such a good idea, and again he asks who is coming. He helps Eleanor to set up a large folding table where the guests will sit. They cover it with a floral tablecloth and put citronella candles on top. There is a warm wind in the backyard. He draws his hand across his forehead involuntarily. Eleanor smiles at him. “Are you all right?”

“Yes.” But he feels pangs of anxiety. How could Sarayu call right now? Right now? He needs to know what she has to say to him. Maybe she isn’t as angry as he thinks she should be. He can’t make a judgment until he hears her message, though he is making all sorts of things up in his head, that she forgives him, that she wants to see him, that she wants him dead. He looks over the mangled vegetation around the edge of the yard and garden. Annie, Eleanor’s dog, tramples it, back and forth, barking at something on the other side of the fence, and inside his head he hears himself explaining things to Sarayu. It was the only thing to do, to break up. He has a wife. Daughters. What other choice was there? He looks up, feels flushed. Frank is coming out the back door and Eleanor is going inside to boil potatoes. She says so as she walks toward the stairs to the door, with one provocative look back at Phil. He follows her just as Frank asks him if he wants a beer from the cooler on the patio. “I need to check my calls first,” Phil says, and goes inside. He can wait no longer. And Eleanor can wait.

In his room upstairs, he listens to Sarayu’s message. “I thought I would check to see how you are,” is all that she says. Strangely, he is only a few miles away from her Andersonville apartment. She could have sent a text, but he recalls that she hates texting. Once again, the feeling of heat overcomes him. He sits on the bed. These coincidences are something out of a movie or a cheap novel. He tries to compose himself for the dinner party. He needs to be on his best behavior. He needs to impress Eleanor. He remembers this feeling, the physical sensation of alertness, he felt it when he was about to see Eleanor for the first time in years. But with Sarayu, it is different. He knows that he has hurt her deeply.

“Phil?”

Eleanor is calling from the bottom of the stairs.

“Right there in a moment.” He breathes in deeply and heads toward the kitchen. “Calls from my girls.” He smiles awkwardly. Lying is still easiest.