The Qualities of Wood (22 page)

They sat for a moment in awkward silence.

Dot asked Max about the store. He made a few remarks about business then changed the subject to baseball.

Vivian excused herself and went to the bathroom. It was a small room with peach-colored walls. Two black-and-white photographs of cathedrals were centered above the sink. When she came out of the only stall, she heard a jingling sound before Katherine
walked into the room.

‘Sorry about Max,' she said, raising her arm to smooth her hair. The bracelets on her arm jingled again.

Vivian was confused. ‘What do you mean?'

‘He's not the most insightful man. I swear, sometimes you have to hit him upside the head.'

‘There's no reason to apologize,' Vivian said. The room seemed abnormally bright after the dimness of the restaurant. ‘Nowell doesn't like to talk about his writing. Makes him nervous or something. I don't know why he acts like that.' She shook her head. ‘He's mad if people don't show an interest and he's uneasy if they do. He never tells me anything about it. If I beg him, he might say something vague, but he'll never share the process with me. All this time, first with that book and now with this one, and it's like we're living separate lives. I don't know what's wrong with him, why he won't talk about it. I should be apologizing to you.'

‘I shouldn't have said anything,' Katherine said. ‘Calm down, now, really.'

Vivian realized how quickly and fervently she had been speaking. A single, hot tear slid down her cheek before she wiped it away.

Katherine pulled a chair from the corner. ‘Sit here.'

‘I don't need…'

‘Sit.'

Vivian complied, setting her purse on her lap.

‘Lean over.' Katherine pushed Vivian's hair aside and pressed a damp paper towel against the back of her neck. ‘It's the wine,' she said, ‘always sneaks up on me
too.'

Vivian closed her eyes as the delicious coolness spread from her neck over her breasts and down her abdomen.

‘Could it be something else?' Katherine asked.

Vivian heard a rustling as she pulled another paper towel from the dispenser. ‘What do you mean?'

Katherine dried her neck. ‘Now sit up, slowly. I don't know. You could be pregnant. I think that makes women emotional.'

Vivian exhaled loudly. ‘No.'

‘How do you know?'

‘Because I do. I've been very careful to avoid it, despite all the pressure from Nowell.'

‘He wants a baby?'

‘Yeah.'

‘And you don't?'

‘Yes. No. Not right now, that's all. I don't understand why it's so important to him. What's so great about kids, I'd like to know? Look at you and Max. You've got a great life, your own house and business.'

Katherine turned and threw the crumpled paper towel into the trash slot. ‘It's not by choice.'

‘What?'

She faced Vivian. ‘It's not by choice we don't have children.'

‘Oh, Katherine. I'm sorry. You must think…' Vivian put her face in her hands.

‘Don't worry. People have different points of view about what they want out of life.'

‘But it's so insensitive. I had no idea.'

‘I know you didn't.' Katherine reached over and squeezed her shoulder. Her bracelets rang like a bell.

‘Nowell's been acting strange for another reason,' Vivian said.

Katherine put on lipstick then blotted on a paper towel. ‘I told you, you don't have to say anything.'

‘It's something he found out.' She paused. ‘What do you know about Nowell's grandfather's death? Did Mrs Gardiner ever talk about it?'

Katherine sighed. ‘That was a long time ago.'

‘You know something,' Vivian said, her eyes widening.

‘I know what most people know. It was a hunting accident.'

‘But who was hunting with him?'

‘I'm not sure. Friends, I guess.'

‘Like Mr Stokes's father and grandfather?'

Katherine stopped rummaging through her purse. ‘Yes, like those two.'

‘So you know.'

‘When something is an accident, what do particulars matter? I didn't want to influence your opinion of Mr Stokes.'

‘But you told me about his love affair with Ronella Oates and about his strange habits.'

‘This is a little different, don't you think?'

‘Maybe.' Vivian stood up and looked at herself in the mirror. She retrieved her makeup from her purse. ‘So what happened?'

‘I really don't know anything,' Katherine said. ‘They all went hunting and Jesper Stokes accidentally shot Russ, uh, Mr Gardiner. It's not hard to imagine something like that happening. Either he thought it was a deer or his gun misfired. I've always thought hunting was stupid, just men trying to show their superiority over nature. Sure, with a gun. Anyway, I'm sorry I didn't mention it, but like I said, I didn't want to make things uncomfortable for you.'

‘His name was Russ?'

‘Russell. Betty called him Russ.'

‘How did Grandma Gardiner feel about living next to Mr Stokes and his father all those years, after what happened?'

‘I know she didn't blame anybody. It was a horrible accident.'

‘She believed that?'

‘Listen, I think I know what you're hinting at, and I'm telling you, Betty didn't blame anybody.'

Dot pushed open the door. ‘What's going on in here?'

‘Just freshening up and gabbing a little,' Katherine said. ‘We're on our way out.'

‘Everyone's getting pretty anxious,' she said. ‘Nowell has already paid the bill and taken your presents out to the car.'

‘What's he in such a hurry about?' Vivian asked, and she gathered her things to leave.

The storm that blew in the night of Vivian's birthday was violent and short-lived. Lightning appeared like cracks in the surface of the glassy, blue-black sky; as the jeep rolled over the slick asphalt of the new main road, electric bolts branched in the distance and seemed to touch ground over the stirring fields. At the horizon, a strip of lighter blue divided land from ominous cloud, providing a glimpse beyond the storm. The rain came in sheets. Fighting bravely against the deluge, the windshield wipers cleared the glass for short moments of sight before the water rushed down, blurring things again.

It had gotten cold. Dot pulled a faded, fringed blanket from the back of the jeep and folded it over their laps. Vivian couldn't stop thinking about her conversation with Katherine. It had never occurred to her that she and Max might be unable to have children. She had assumed it was their choice, and she suddenly felt selfish for her own choice. What if I couldn't, she thought, and fear clenched her heart with its cold fingers. She did want children, but at the present she couldn't see where they'd fit into their lives. People should have a place for children.

The rain let up as abruptly as it had started; the oily smell of asphalt clung to the underbelly of the jeep. As Lonnie turned into the long driveway that led to the old, white house, Vivian noticed the small ponds that had formed here and there, the big drops still dripping from the porch awning. Above the house, the moon peeked now and then from the black and torrid sky.

It was the last rain they would see for almost two weeks. The short but intense downpour heralded a heat wave, cooled things off one last time before the sun baked the ground dry. In the ‘Nation' section of
The Sentinel
, Vivian read about the fires raging through the southern parts of the country, and in the confines of the house they faced
their own battles with the heat. Grandma Gardiner had lived for sixty years without central air conditioning, and Vivian didn't understand how. Nowell still refused to open the windows in his study, which would have allowed a crosscurrent of air during the now infrequent afternoon breezes. The kitchen was the coolest room. As the sun dipped in the afternoons, the back rooms of the house were sweltering. At night, Vivian slept above the covers and they all kept their bedroom doors open, wishful for a gust of air.

But the night of the dinner for Vivian's twenty-eighth birthday was still cool and breezy after the storm. When they got home, the red light on the answering machine was blinking. Beverly had called to let her sons know that her air conditioner was broken. What was the name of the man who fixed it before, she wanted to know, and did Nowell still have the phone number?

‘I'd better call her,' Nowell said to no-one in particular.

Lonnie put a bag of popcorn into the microwave and soon the kitchen reeked of its buttery odor.

Dot padded back into the kitchen, having changed into a long pink t-shirt and a striped pair of socks. The socks were thick and reached to mid-calf; one big toe poked through a hole. The shirt stretched to her knees, and the outline of her shorts was visible through the thin material. Vivian had the irritating thought that Dot looked good in anything she threw together. On herself, clothing often felt uncomfortable or ill-fitting, and there was always something to hide: a slightly bloated stomach, the flabby upper sections of her arms.

Lonnie dumped his popcorn into a large bowl, coated it with salt, then followed Dot into the living room. Vivian heard the faint buzzing of the old television as it warmed
up.

Nowell had changed clothes too, into the shirt he'd been wearing for several days. He picked up the phone. ‘Hi, Mom. No, we just got back from dinner. The four of us. Vivian's birthday, right. She's doing well, but she looks older.'

Vivian rolled her eyes at him then opened the freezer, looking for something to thaw for dinner the next day.

‘Did you get any rain? Yes, only for a few minutes. I know, it really cooled off with the storm.'

From the living room, Vivian heard a woman's sharp screams. Lonnie loved horror movies; he thought they were funny.

‘You're kidding, that warm? Do you think it's the filter again?'

A pool of blood had frozen in the freezer like a reddish-brown pond. Vivian found the steaks that had leaked through a narrow slit in the plastic wrap. She put them into the sink along with a second package.

‘Mom, that was five years ago. Are you sure you don't have it in your file cabinet?'

In the living room, violins screeched a tense tempo. Dot said, ‘Why would she go in there?'

Vivian dampened the kitchen sponge with warm water and took it to the freezer. The puddle brightened as it was moistened, its volume augmented by the water. The liquid seeped into corners and traveled fast over the plastic grooves.

‘Isn't there a folder called Home Repairs? Yeah, I'll wait. Go ahead.'

Pushing the freezer contents away, Vivian soaked up the red mess. Then she took
the darkened sponge to the sink and rinsed it out.

A piercing scream sounded from the living room and bounced off the hard surfaces of the kitchen.

‘What are you doing?' Nowell asked.

She turned and saw that he was talking to her. ‘Some blood spilled in the freezer.'

‘Blood?'

‘From the meat.'

‘Yeah, Mom, I'm still here. You found it? That sounds familiar.'

Dot groaned in disgust while Lonnie laughed loudly, saying ‘Look at that, look!'

Vivian finished wiping up the mess. When Nowell hung up the phone, she asked him: ‘Were there any messages from earlier today?'

‘No.'

She set the steaks on a plate in the refrigerator.

Nowell reached around her to grab the pitcher of water. ‘Your mom's been out of town, you know that.'

‘I wasn't expecting them to call,' she said.

He put his arm around her shoulders.

‘I wasn't,' she said again.

‘My mom said to wish you a happy birthday. She was already in bed. She has a bake sale in the morning.'

‘That's all right. I already talked to her today when I called to thank her for the night gown.'

His eyebrows shot up. ‘Oh, yes, the new night gown. Did you say it was silk?'

‘Maybe I did, maybe I didn't.'

‘Come on now, don't be coy.' Nowell nuzzled his face into her hair. ‘Did you have a good birthday? If you don't like the perfume, you can exchange it.'

‘I love the perfume. I loved everything. Thank you.'

‘Listen, Viv, I know things have been different lately.' He turned her around. ‘It's strange, being here. I feel so much pressure for this new book, not just with the deadlines but because the first one wasn't everything I thought it would be.'

She set the glass down. ‘What do you mean? The book sold more than you expected.'

‘That's not it.' He leaned against the refrigerator, crossing his arms over his chest. ‘You start with an idea, maybe something incredibly simple. In the case of
Random Victim
, it was a single idea that sort of blossomed in my head to form networks of meaning. At first it all seems so clear in a confused, inexplicable kind of way. Then you try to write it down. Some parts turn out almost exactly as you imagined but some seem so lacking, and you don't know how to fix them.'

Vivian spoke carefully, as though the wrong word would break a spell and then he wouldn't talk to her anymore. ‘If things change as you go along, that's not necessarily a bad thing, is it?'

‘Ideas come along,' he said, ‘and sometimes they are welcome additions, new avenues to explore.' He stared at the linoleum, concentrated on its simple pattern. ‘But at some point it got away from me. I could feel it. It turned into something different from what I'd conceived.'

‘Everyone says the book is good.'

‘I'm proud of it, but it isn't the book I planned to write, not really. With this book, I want to stay in control, finish what I start. It's important to me that it turns out like I've planned it.'

‘Is that possible?'

‘What do you mean?'

She shrugged. ‘The way you updated the first book as you went along, that's a more natural process, isn't it?'

‘Maybe,' he said, his eyes growing distant. ‘I'm going to work for a while.'

He's like a faucet, she thought. In one instant, he shuts down and shuts me out. These rare glimpses of Nowell – what his writing meant to him and what forces drove him – always left her feeling isolated rather than closer to him.

She went into the living room and watched the end of the horror movie with Dot and Lonnie and that night, she slept comfortably for the last time before the weather changed.

Two days later, she was gathering laundry when she found the birthday package from her parents under a pile of clothes in the bedroom. Nestled inside the packaging material were a sketch-book and pencils (although Vivian had never drawn) and an art book on Édouard Manet. Her mother had scribbled a quick note in her tilted, hurried handwriting:

She took the book to the kitchen.

‘Where did you get that?' Lonnie asked.

‘From my parents.'

He smelled of sweat and the grainy bitterness of beer. It was around noon and he'd been in town picking up a few groceries. He put down the bags and peered over her shoulder.

The cover of the book was a glossy reproduction of ‘A Bar at the Folies-Bergère.' In the painting, the young barmaid stared sedately forward, her plaintive brown eyes revealing her despair, her empty spirit. She was the only clearly focused subject in the painting; the lace bodice of her dress and the sprig of flowers tucked inside, the gleam on her bronze bracelet – all were rendered with precise detail. In the background, the wide mirror shimmered back her surroundings, blurring the tables and patrons into patterns of muted color. The faces of the bar patrons were indistinct and in some cases, altogether blank. The mirror seemed to reflect her own perception, the vast, undulating plane of people she faced each night.

Lonnie asked: ‘Isn't that the guy who painted that church a million times? I saw a documentary about him once.'

‘I don't think so.'

‘He had a pond and he couldn't stop painting those lily pads…'

‘Oh, you're thinking of Monet. With an “o.”'

‘Who's this guy?'

‘Manet. Contemporaries, actually. They're both Impressionists.'

‘What's that? I've heard that before.'

‘They painted their surroundings in a new way,' she said, ‘not naturalistically like when you see a picture of a regular tree or a lake. They gathered impressions of things, and tried to paint how the scene
felt
to them. Their impressions.'

Lonnie nodded.

Vivian remembered when they discussed Monet's watercolors of Rouen Cathedral in Dr Lightfoot's art history class. Flipping through several slides, Dr Lightfoot said that the forty pictures were evidence of a methodical and disciplined mind, perhaps even the work of a neurotic. To Vivian, Monet's effort seemed extraordinary but unmistakably scientific. She wondered how someone could feel inspired to paint the same scene so many times. One good thing about Monet, Dr Lightfoot joked, you can see his work just about anywhere.

Lonnie paused at the screen door. ‘I want to look at that book later. Do you mind?'

‘No,' she said. ‘I'll leave it here.'

He started to whistle and went outside. Vivian brought the telephone to the table.

Her mother picked up on the second ring. ‘Hello?' She sounded annoyed.

‘Mom?'

‘Vivian. How are you?'

‘Fine, everything's fine. What are you doing?'

‘I'm cleaning up around the house a little. Your dad's out back, pretending to cut down the weeds.'

‘Pretending?'

‘He does a poor job so I'll hire a gardener.'

‘I thought you had a gardener.'

‘Ricardo? He quit over a year ago. I've been trying to get your father to do it. I tell him it's to save money for retirement, but I really think it would be good for his health. He doesn't get any exercise.'

‘I know,' Vivian said.

‘He sneaks a book with him, tucks it under his shirt. He thinks I don't know.'

Vivian laughed. ‘He probably knows that you know.' She twisted the phone cord around her index finger, tightening until the tip turned red. ‘I called to thank you for the Manet book.'

‘You like the Impressionists, don't you?'

‘Very much. You saw an exhibit?'

‘Yes. Sorry I didn't phone you, Vivian, before I left. It was all a big rush. I had to fly up to interview a woman for my book about the volcano eruption. An incredible old lady, just recovering from her second stroke. I wasn't sure how much longer she'd be around, so I decided to go up and get some preliminary work done.'

‘How long were you there?'

‘A week. The old woman, Mrs Pheola H. Roundtree if you can believe it, is eighty-six years old. The H is for Himalaya. Seems her mother was something of an eccentric; she gave each of her children a middle name after a mountain range: Sierra, Andes, Appalachia. Pheola has eight children of her own, all of whom were alive at the time of the volcano eruption. She was just thirty-five. Along with four of her neighbors, all mothers, she saved a group of school children.'

‘Saved them? How?'

‘The children attended school in an old church two miles from the volcano. When they heard the rumble, they all scurried up to the choir loft. At home, Pheola heard it too. She packed up her car with her four youngest children and a few neighborhood women and their young ones, and she drove straight towards the mountain to get her older children.'