Today's Reading
But Austin...Wide mouth, and Dad would admire the rare, slightly rounded and slightly spaced teeth. Easy to floss. What a legacy from Dad: I can't help but notice people's teeth. Whatever else he was, he was a damned good dentist. Full of rage at parents who wouldn't pay to have their kids' teeth straightened. Full of rage, period. Austin is about as blond as they come—he's constantly tossing back that big shock of straight hair falling in his face. True blonds, what, 5 percent of people? What is a shock of hair? What's even a hank of hair? Big dreamer like Dara. Maybe that's the connection. Maybe she likes the posh-sounding accent. The dad owns a bookstore, antiquarian, which Lee finds marvelous. Dara said his mother died young. Where's Lee? Are we going to hear Dara tiptoe down the hall to the guest room, or he to hers? I certainly don't care, and you'd think on such a night... And they seem like lightning in a jar.
Earlier, as Lee got into bed, we were remembering that first visit to my family's house—creaking steps and latched door and some quick and desperate lovemaking, with my parents in the next room. At one moment that night, we started laughing. Dad called out, "Barbarians!" At breakfast he glared but Lee kept smiling at him with all her perfect teeth.
Rich shifts to his side, tosses off the duvet, and plumps the pillow. He imagines tomorrow, sitting beside the pilot of the small charter plane that shimmies, bumping through cloud layers, aiming toward a short runway, first spotting the oil spill, arcing down, drifting, rising toward him, the shining black oil oozing over boundless snow.
* * *
Downstairs, Lee feels the house gone still. I love the solitude, she thinks, of stove light in the kitchen, dishes done, faint lingering aromas of bacon and citrus cleanser. Even as a child I liked to creep in after everyone was asleep and find a cold biscuit, robe pulled tight, that low hum of the fridge. Not really wanting anything but wanting something, I pour a splash of grapefruit juice and step outside to the terrace. The setting moon throws silvery light across the old mother gardenias and the lawn splotched with shadows that fold into darkness under the boxwood hedge. A sheen of dew glazes the downslope to the meadow. Looking up, I expect a starry swath over the house, but the sky is obscured, as if a veil has been tossed across the constellations. Bridal veil; the one I wore has moth holes. And Dara thinks veils are creepy.
Oh, Austin—there, just beyond the circle of the last lantern. No one blew out the candles. I have the crabby thought that if I don't do it no one does. And then the corrective: Well, no one asks you to, so the fault is yours.
Chair tipped back, feet up on the railing, and the meadow winking with fireflies, he's silhouetted, a cutout of himself. "Oh, you're awake, too!" A wine bottle stands in the pebbles beside him.
"Lee, you're up late. The quail was delicious, so rich—those juniper berries and thyme. What a woodsy combination. And the cake—roulade—I could roll in it. Everything was superb." He lifts his glass to me.
"That's sweet. It's the cognac and slow roasting that make the meat just fall off the bones. Why are you out here all by yourself? Getting spooked about marrying into this nutty family?" I sit down beside him on a slightly damp chaise longue.
"Oh, no. Aren't all families crackers? Oops, not that yours is. Your mom's the only loose cannon, Dara said. Right?" He smiles. "I think I'm safe. Too bad about the wine spill, and good wine, too. Dara told me you expected perfection."
"Yes—'Perfection of the life or of the work.' " I quote from Yeats, and it isn't lost on him. I'm guessing very little is lost on him. "My side of that has always fallen toward the life part. I hope yours falls toward the work. Much better in the long run. Yes, wackos abound. Mama's who she is, just never had any filter. But she was lovely tonight. Mostly. I thought her toast was sweet—calling you a darling boy and Dara a fairy grandchild."
"But then she said that we're celebrating a suitable first marriage." Austin throws back his head and laughs a big laugh. You want to laugh, too, hearing him roar.
"That's my mama. I'm sorry."
"No problem. She had only two marriages, right? I've seen the photos of your dad, Dr. Stark. And then the next one in line—Senator Mann, big-time guy, Dara's hero. Maybe your mama only speaks the truth no one else will—the Greek chorus function."
"At times, maybe, but she's a born romantic, and that often turns to cynicism in old age. No need to mention her various interim candidates such as the Mexican bullfighter in San Miguel, a head shorter than she and married, that summer of her divorce from my dad, when she and I went to Mexico to study Spanish. How could she? I'd feared Dara was following her example." Maybe I shouldn't have said that.
Austin laughed. His laugh! Wake the dead! What a raucous, abundant laugh. And we will get to hear it forever! The juice tastes bitter and a shooting pain hits above my right eye. Too much Brunello? From the end of the meadow, coyotes start up their mournful yapping. That's the females announcing they're in heat. I can't see them but imagine a passel cavorting and leaping in pursuit of some hapless vole or rabbit. They sound rather endearing.
...
