“It’s just for a few weeks. A month at the most.”
“I know.”
“I am coming back, you know.”
“I know.” Joanna sighed. She turned on her side to face him, and he reached over to readjust the blankets over her shoulders. What she couldn’t explain to him was that she was sad—not because she didn’t think he should go to California for this job, which was just too good to pass up, and not because she didn’t think he would return, because she had no doubt that he would—but because this was the end. It was the perfect time to do it. She didn’t want to; she didn’t feel ready to end it, but it had to be done. His leaving town would give them both time to step back and reorient themselves to life without each other. And then, when he returned, they’d go back to their old life—as friends.
She made a point to be extra kind to Malcolm as he neared his departure date. One morning she attempted to serve him breakfast in bed. Her endeavor to prepare over-easy eggs led to a mess on the frying pan, and she forgot to put the bread in the toaster until the eggs had finished and cooled on a plate, but he had appeared to appreciate the gesture.
Joanna imagined that their time apart would allow them to reflect. He would be in California, sitting under a palm tree, listening to the ocean waves slap the shore. She would be home in Nevada, wandering through a field of sagebrush. When they met up again after the new year, they would share a platonic embrace. Instead of feeling sadness for what they had lost, they’d rejoice, knowing they had overcome their desires and saved their friendship. Years would go by, and no matter what happened—no matter how many boyfriends or girlfriends or husbands or wives passed through their lives—they’d always have each other.
He left on a Saturday morning before the sun rose. Joanna got up with him, stood shivering at the front door. “You realize you’re just walking fifteen feet down to your car,” she joked. He had bundled up for the journey, with a puffy vest over a thick hoodie, a stocking cap on his head. Joanna was still in her pajamas, wearing one of Malcolm’s scratchy old sweaters to stay warm in the unheated house.
“It’s good to be prepared,” he said. He’d packed a grocery store paper bag with sandwiches, six apples, a thermos of coffee, and about twenty energy bars. As if he was driving through Antarctica instead of California. “Well. See you in a few weeks.” She wrapped her arms around him and let her head sink into the pillowy layers of his clothes. “I’ll call you,” he said.
“Don’t bother.” It came out sounding flatter, meaner than she intended. She looked up at him then, registered his surprise. The rings under his eyes dark with sleepiness. “Write me instead,” she blurted out. As soon as the words left her mouth, she recognized the brilliance of this idea: writing old-fashioned letters would take them back to the first couple years of their friendship, when things were simpler. No phone calls, no texts or emails—they could keep a safe distance from each other. Not get wrapped up in hours of conversation each night as if he’d never left.
She watched him drive away. He looked up and waved. Malcolm was not particularly broken up about leaving her. Why would he be? As he said, he was coming right back. Still, it made sense that she was on the verge of becoming an emotional wreck. She wasn’t made of stone. She and Malcolm were intertwined now, more deeply connected, like two carrots spiraling around each other underground, fusing together in the dirt.
She continued standing at the window even after he pulled away. The neighbor across the street had his lights on. She watched him shuffling around, getting breakfast. Every day, while she slept, other people were waking up, making their beds, eating food, accomplishing things. Today was just another ordinary morning for that old man with the white mustache and brown cardigans who waved at her from across the street when he saw her out on her porch, taking her mail from the mailbox. Five o’clock in the morning, in Joanna’s world, was a time reserved for catching a plane, for leaving, for saying goodbye.
Maybe it was time for a change. Why, since she was up anyway, think of what she could do before the shops and restaurants started to open! Clean the whole house from top to bottom, make a vat of soup to feast on for the entire week, go outside in the mud and throw some seeds in the ground!
She gave those ideas some serious thought for about two minutes. How did people feel their way through the dark, shuck off the sleepiness, summon up the energy to do anything at this hour? She went back to bed. Once she finally roused herself five hours later, shook the sleep from her body with a series of exaggerated stretches, she felt good—wide awake. Malcolm would be in Medford or Ashland by now. Soon he’d cross the border into California. And Joanna would spend the day with soothing rituals: wash the sheets, remake Malcolm’s bed, read trashy magazines and eat chocolate ice cream from the carton. Cry, perhaps, if the mood struck her.
That night she headed to her own bedroom to sleep, alone. Had it always been so cold in this part of the house? The overhead light cast unflattering shadows everywhere. And it was a mess. She’d been using it as a changing room for weeks—clothes lay in piles on the bed, on the floor. It would just be so much work to try to rest in this horrible place. It wouldn’t cancel out the day’s effort of cleansing practices if she were to sleep in Malcolm’s room for a few more nights, would it? Sheets could be washed, beds remade. She loosened the freshly-laundered sheets from Malcolm’s bed and fell asleep with her head on his pillow.
The next week Joanna received her first letter from Malcolm. She was surprised to see her chaste reflections on the nature of fog and rain, a spirited review of a new movie they had both wanted to see, and a rundown of some potential household projects met by a series of pen-and-ink nudes that Joanna immediately stashed in the top drawer of her dresser, under her socks. She had to admit he had a flair for illustration, a sharp attention to detail. She spent two days deliberating on the best way to respond: polite rejection? Indignation? She contemplated writing back without mentioning his letter at all—just scribbling out a few banal observations about the Christmas lights popping up all over the neighborhood, some funny anecdotes from her classes.
Two days later she went to the post office and mailed off a paperback romance novel she had found at a used bookstore, carefully illuminating the racy passages with a pink highlighter. She mailed another package at the same time, to her sister—a tiny snowsuit, made to look like sheep’s wool, soft and gray, with an attached hood and little ears sewn on top. After she left the post office, she realized it was all wrong. Her sister’s baby wasn’t due until June. The baby would be too big to wear it by the time winter rolled around.
Joanna’s last visit with Laura had started with Joanna showing up on Laura’s doorstep the day after Thanksgiving and asking “why everyone feels the need to reproduce” and ended with her feeling like a complete jerk and a horrible sister. It turned out that Laura and Ted had spent Thanks-giving in the hospital, afraid they were going to lose the baby. She had already had two miscarriages in the past six months and she couldn’t handle another one.
Joanna was shocked. “But why didn’t you tell me you were pregnant? I didn’t even realize you were trying!” This set off a huge fight. Laura yelled at her, saying she didn’t think Joanna would care—she was always so dismissive of marriage and children. This infuriated Joanna. How could her sister say she didn’t care? She didn’t have a chance to care! More yelling, and then Joanna stormed out. By Monday she had cooled down and tried to smooth things over, but Laura wouldn’t return any of her calls. Three weeks had gone by, and her sister still refused to speak to her.
Her mother had made reservations for them to eat Christmas Eve dinner at the casino steakhouse—a dark, wood-paneled restaurant tucked away from the patterned carpet and blinking lights of the gaming floor. Why Tess would want to celebrate at their old workplace where they had spent so many hours on their feet, breathing in secondhand smoke and pouring coffee, was beyond her. Maybe Tess enjoyed the idea of returning, revealing a new self, and getting a table in the most expensive restaurant in the joint.
The steakhouse was not the fluorescent-lit diner with its orange booths and forest wallpaper. No, the steakhouse was high class. Starched tablecloths, candles, the works. The waiters talked in hushed tones and wore tuxedos. This was, for Tess Robinson, somewhere special, somewhere to really treat her daughter.
Joanna had dressed up, as her mother had asked. Now they sat at a table for two. They had a bottle of wine, and her mother was in high spirits. Her eyes twinkled in the candlelight. “Order whatever you want! It’s on me. And it’s Christmas! Just like old times.”
Joanna did not view these “old times,” when she and Tess lived together, after Laura had gone off to college, as fondly as Tess apparently did. She ordered fettuccine Alfredo and her mom got a steak.
“Have you been seeing anyone?” her mother asked her.
Joanna rolled her eyes. Always the first question from her mother’s lips. “No, Mom.”
“No? Why not? I thought you were finding men from the Personals—”
“They weren’t the Personals! It was online dating. There is a difference. And I stopped doing that … a while ago.”
“Oh?” Tess raised her eyebrows, picking up on something, perhaps the vibrations in Joanna’s voice. Tess had a bloodhound’s sense of smell for a romantic story. She could sniff it out of her. “And what about Malcolm?” she pressed on.
Joanna tried her best to mask her alarm. “What about him?”
“Is he dating anyone?”
“Malcolm? Uh—no. I wouldn’t say that.”
“Aha!” Tess hit the table with both hands, causing all of its contents to tremble. The glasses made tiny ringing sounds that echoed through the room. “I knew it!”
“What?” Joanna couldn’t keep up her neutral expression. Her mouth gave her away, forming into a smile.
“You two … I knew something would happen. Especially since he moved in—”
“We’re not dating, Mom. We’re friends. It’s just that—”
“You’re also sleeping together? Yes. I know how that goes.”
Joanna shook her head. “No, I don’t think you do—”
“You remember Danny don’t you?” Joanna remembered him. He had a dark, thick head of hair, glossy from some sort of gel or wax. He chewed gum, went around smelling like wintergreen. “Well, that’s how it was with him,” Tess said.
“I doubt that very much,” Joanna responded.
“No, listen! We worked together.”
“I know this story.”
“Not the whole thing. We worked together—so this must have been right after the divorce. We just talked. Took breaks together sometimes, sat at the counter eating our lunches. This went on for a couple years. Eventually we did things together, too, after work. He never once made a move on me.”
Tess had quite the knack for retelling history, for inventing the supporting details of Joanna’s childhood.
“Mom, trust me, this thing with Danny was nothing like my friendship with Malcolm—”
Tess cut her off. “So when it finally happened, it took me by complete surprise. Years of innocent chatter and then—I couldn’t believe it. It was so intense, so amazing to be with someone you just knew, inside and out….”
“Ugh, Mom, I can’t believe I’m hearing this! Do you not remember how it ended with him? He wouldn’t even speak to you.”
Tess lowered her eyes. “Well, he didn’t have much of a choice about that.”
“Right, Mom. Because he was married.” She should have felt sorry for her mother. Instead, she was angry. “How can you even compare that—that affair—to me and Malcolm?” She excused herself to go to the rest room and worked at calming herself down. She would not fight with her mother on Christmas Eve.
Joanna sat back down at the table, ready to smooth things over.
Her mom smiled secretively at her. “You know,” she said. “I’ve been seeing someone, too.”
“Oh, Mom.”
“His name is Clive. He lives in Fallon.”
“Fallon?” Joanna imagined someone tall, thin, in Wranglers and a black cowboy hat.
“He’s great. Really a nice guy.”
“I’ll bet.”
“Why can’t you be happy for me?” Tess frowned and poured herself some more wine. She filled Joanna’s glass, too. “This is really going somewhere. We’ve been spending almost every weekend together since September.”
Joanna sighed. “Why do you need him anyway? I thought you said you were done with men!”
“I never said that!”
Joanna knew her mom hadn’t said that; Joanna had said it. She had wanted it to sink in. “What do you need a man for, anyway? Look at you—college educated now, with an office job. A nice townhouse you bought yourself. Can’t you see how much happier you are now? How much saner?”
Her mother waved her hands, shooing away Joanna’s concerns. “Oh, Jo-Jo, what’s the point of sanity if you have no one to share it with?” Tess laughed and took a big sip of her wine, pleased with this retort. “Isn’t that what it’s all about? Losing yourself for a bit? Isn’t that the best part—what makes falling in love so fun?”
Joanna stared at her mother.
At that moment, two tuxedoed waiters stopped by with a rolling dessert cart. Joanna tried to take a few deep breaths, concentrating on the elaborate production made over their orders. A waiter took a huge white plate, zigzagged berry coulis over it with a pastry bag. He placed a piece of cake on top of that, garnished it with whipped cream and a live flower, and presented it to Tess with a flourish. Then he went to work on Joanna’s order—some sort of meringue-covered torte that required a miniature blowtorch to brown the top.
Tess dug into her flourless chocolate cake, waxing rhapsodic on the virtues of Clive: his beautiful green eyes, his charming way of calling her “darling.” The more good things Tess had to say about him, the more upset Joanna got. She could barely sit there, listening. She twisted her cloth napkin in her lap, picked at the meringue on the top of her torte.
“Mom, I don’t want to listen to this.”
Tess pouted. “You want me to be alone. And miserable.”
“I don’t want you to be miserable! That is the whole point! These guys make you miserable. Don’t you know how many nights—years—I spent not doing homework or hanging out with my friends? Because I was home, taking care of you!”
“I never asked you to do that,” Tess said, so quietly Joanna could barely hear her.
“No one asked me. Who would ask me? No one else knew. No one saw how you unraveled whenever someone broke up with you.”
“It’s normal to cry when you lose someone, Joanna. Normal to get attached, and then to feel sad—”
“But it’s not normal to stop buying food, Mom. Or call in sick for weeks at a time, or stop changing your clothes. Remember Brian?”
“That was a long time ago,” Tess whispered.
“I was fifteen.” One morning Joanna woke up to find her mother perched on the couch in the living room, wearing the same clothes she had had on the night before. A shiver ran through Joanna’s entire body. She had the eerie feeling that Tess had been sitting in that very spot, in that very same position, with the very same lifeless look in her eyes, for the last eight hours.
She shook her mom’s shoulders and snapped her fingers in her face. She didn’t know what to do. She had to go to school—she had tests in calculus and American literature.
Her mother shook her head with a few jerky movements. Then she smiled weakly. I don’t feel so good, Jo-Jo, she said. And then her eyes rolled back into her head, her back arched, and her whole body seized three times, then went limp. Her mother lay passed out on the couch, her chest heaving up and down. Joanna couldn’t move. Her mind—strangely, inappropriately—fixated on the tests she would miss. Perhaps someone could explain, she thought. Someone could write her a note, allow her to retake the exams.
In the next moment, she uprooted herself from the floor and ran to the phone. She didn’t know whom to call—not Brian, certainly. Her father? She tried reaching him at work, but no one was able to track him down. She dialed an ambulance next.
Laura flew in from Portland that very night, already sobbing as she stepped off the plane. How did this happen? she kept asking. A week later, Laura went back to Portland to finish up her semester. Joanna and Tess would be fine—hadn’t they always been, up until now? And wasn’t what had happened just a fluke, an allergic reaction to some commonly prescribed drugs? As much as she wanted—needed—her older sister’s help with their mother, she couldn’t help thinking of the future. One day it would be her turn to venture off to some distant city and start college. Something made her think that if Laura could do it, so could she. But if Laura came back, they’d all three be stuck there, in this miserable apartment, for the rest of their lives.
“Joanna.” Tess reached across the table and held on to Joanna’s hand. “Is this what you’ve been worrying about all these years?”
Joanna nodded.
“That was a fluke, you know. The doctors said I had a bad reaction to the anti-depressants they had me on.”
“I know.”
Tess gave Joanna a sad little smile. “I thought you didn’t want me to be happy.”
Joanna couldn’t smile back. “I just didn’t want you to fall apart.”
They got home late and went straight to bed. Joanna sat on the daybed, surrounded by about fifty decorative pillows, upstairs in Tess’s spare bedroom. During the day the room afforded a breathtaking view of the Sierras. But in the night it was so black outside she could see nothing but flickering lights scattered over the foothills.
Alone on Christmas Eve. Outside, the air blew dry and cold over hard brown dirt and sagebrush. Laura wasn’t talking to her. Her dad was in Texas with Linda’s family. Her mom was going crazy over a guy—again. And Malcolm was in California. Joanna searched her room for a piece of paper and a pen—she’d write him a letter, get it all out. She wouldn’t even have to send it; it was essential to talk to someone.
Or she could call him. If she really wanted to, she could talk to him right now. It became urgent, suddenly. She needed to hear his voice.
She almost hung up after his phone rang and rang without going to voicemail.
“Joanna?”
“Merry Christmas.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she said. “Nothing’s wrong. I just wanted to talk to you—that’s all.”
“Good. Because I wasn’t sure how serious you were about this phone ban. I was just going to call you, as a matter of fact.”
Joanna smiled. “You were?”
“So nothing’s wrong? You sound … sad.”
She sighed. “It was nothing. Arguing with my mom, as usual.”
“But it’s Christmas!”
“Yes, I know it is, Tiny Tim.”
“I mean, I would have thought you’d both be on your best behavior.”
“We were.” They were both silent on the line for a moment. “I want to see you,” she said. This came out more desperate-sounding than she had intended. She realized then that she missed him, wanted to see him. And not just anyone—him in particular.
“That’s actually what I was going to call you about,” Malcolm was saying. “What are you doing over New Year’s?”
“I’ll still be here,” Joanna said, working hard to make her voice sound steady, neutral. “Unfortunately. I don’t know what I was thinking. Now my mom’s saying she wants me to meet this new guy. He lives in Fallon, so I guess she wants him to come over for a few days while I’m here—”
“Okay, she won’t miss you then. Come spend New Year’s with me.”
“In San Diego? With your mom and dad?”
“No. In Tahoe. My parents were trying to decide between Palm Springs and Tahoe. I talked them into Tahoe. Can you get a ride? I could come into Reno and pick you up.”
“So I’d meet your parents, huh?”
“Yeah. They want to meet you.”
“Hmm,” Joanna said, stalling. She was already devising a way to spin this to her mother. They could use a little break from each other—and didn’t Tess want some “alone time” with Clive? She swept away the thought that just a few minutes before, she’d been opposed to her mom even dating this guy. And that she and Malcolm were supposed to be reflecting … But could she help it if telephone lines, cell phone towers, and satellites seemed to be conspiring together, hurling their words at each other over the distance?