Authors: Charlotte Bacon

Tags: #Fiction, #Short Stories (Single Author), #test

A Private State: Stories (18 page)

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up here, last spring." Grace didn't believe him, but she imagined it anyway: the black cat, the stunted trees in white flower. Elwood came close; he smelled of cow feed. Then he said, "You got something stuck on your front tooth."

James hadn't noticed the cow feed and said vaguely he thought Elwood seemed close to the land. Grace said he had a lot of nerve. Mercury Still, they bought fifty acres and a house that needed a gifted carpenter's attention. Then it turned out James had only to touch a tool to have it lose a crucial piece. He also ran back each afternoon to twist the radio's antenna, as if it were a divining rod, to catch the nearest public station. So that was how the pattern started: Grace came up when school let out, James arrived each Friday, this time with the Chiltons on his heels.

Amos pricked his ears and a growl hummed in his throat. Another car was coming through the hollow. James went out to greet the guests. "Welcome," he sang into the purple dark, where doors slammed and paper bags rustled. Grace followed with a flashlight that bobbed a thin beam toward the Chiltons. This was going to be more complicated than she'd realized. Jane stank of cigarettes, Stuart of whisky. In the kitchen, Grace and James lifted eyebrows at one another and immediately steered large goblets of wine toward their guests.

Having made it to the living room, the Chiltons collapsed in chairs on opposite sides of the room. It usually struck Grace that no one would ever know Jane was from Iowa. She had used New York like a giant hanky to wipe herself clean of nasal vowels. Also in advertising, she wore the severe blond bob of a woman with subordinates. To complete the transformation, she'd married Stuart, who had the long jaw of someone who talked often about money. But tonight, Jane had hiccups that she wasn't trying very hard to hide. Even Stuart looked disturbed; his fair hair stood up in an odd curl on one side of his head.

James began with "I'm so sorry about Barney," which Grace thought was kind if silly, opening the opportunity for Jane to sob.

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Stuart drank his wine in such large gulps that Grace had to open a fresh bottle almost instantly. While she was at it, she topped up her mug. They sat there in the hot blue evening, following the predictable curve of Jane's grief: she would take a few ragged breaths, sip her drink, say "He was just such a wonderful animal," and start to shake again. She was curled up against James, who patted her shoulder awkwardly. Stuart sank back in his chair and became glumly drunk. Grace put out some cheese and crackers, which no one ate, and eventually, Jane still sniffing, they agreed they ought to get some sleep.

Grace brought the cheese tray with her to the bedroom. The cheddar had nearly melted onto the crackers and she sat on the bed eating and wondering when she was going to tell James about leaving her job. "You're getting crumbs everywhere," he said, taking off his shirt.

"Umm," said Grace, her mouth full. "I'm hungry."

He sank down next to her and picked up a Triscuit. "This is going to be awful. So much for the weekend. I didn't think it was going to be this bad."

Swallowing, Grace said, "James, are they happy? I mean, do you think they have a good marriage?"

"Of course they're happy," he said, slightly wounded. They were his friends; of course they were happy. "You've got a crumb on your lip. They're just sad about the poor dog."

Grace didn't think so. Something else was going on. Out of alignment herself, she was sensitive to disturbances of balance in other people's lives. James was too tired to keep talking, much less be told about Grace's leaving her job, so they turned out the light. Despite the heat, he tried to curl around her. Once he had her mapped out, he fell asleep, but Grace stayed awake. The planet had set. Elwood's light glowed at the bottom of the valley. She unwound James's arms and arranged herself the way she did when he wasn't there, coiled on her side, pillow flung to the floor.

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Then from downstairs, she smelled something that prodded her awake again. Someone was smoking, maybe even in bed. That was certainly more than grief over a dog, no matter how beloved.

Grace turned on her back and wondered who'd introduced Jane and Stuart and how their courtship had proceeded. Was it hasty? Passionate? Or was there something deliberate in it, because they'd known from the start they were meant to be together? James claimed that within minutes he'd been sure, although Grace had always found that implausible. How could he? She hadn't admitted for months how much she'd liked him. Even more, his certainty had made her feel guilty about her own hesitation. And she was wearing yellow, a color she looked awful in. Still, he always said, "It didn't matter. I just knew."

It was in the wake of a pretty wedding. The bride was a knockout, the groom possessed a pair of fine shoulders, but Grace heard rumors that she was in tears minutes before the service and that he'd leapt a bit too eagerly into bachelor festivities. Grace spotted James laughing with the mink-haired bridesmaids. He looked impossibly well adjusted.

She turned her back on their East Coast ease and drank Diet Coke while waiting for a cab to the station. She would have preferred something stronger to blunt the recent conversation with her date, a roommate of the groom's, but the stark lighting of commuter trains and hard liquor might have undone her. The boyfriend had confided, thanks to a lot of champagne, that he thought marriage tantamount to a prison term. Illinois direct, leery of boys who still drank like that after college, she'd said, "Well, I guess that means there's no point in spending much more time together." To her horror, he'd agreed right there and taken off in his convertible Rabbit.

James caught sight of Grace and pried himself from the brides-maids. Had he felt sorry for her standing there alone? He seemed kind; that she'd realized from the start. James replenished her Diet Coke and asked if she was enjoying herself. Grace answered

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that it had been beautiful weather. Then, recalling that she'd just been dumped, she added, "But I would never have a wedding like this. Food this small makes me nervous." In her agitation, she spilled Diet Coke on herself.

James asked what sort of wedding she would have. Dabbing at the staine'd found her a cocktail napkinshe described it: a ceremony on the rolling edge of Iowa, her grandparents' place near the Mississippi. A buffet with big plates. A polka band. Then she looked at him more closely and said, "I just realized you're an usher."

"The bride's my cousin," James said. "But that's OK. I agree totally about the food."

"Your cousin?" Grace said. "How could you let her marry him? He's a bad egg."

"How do you know?" James asked, then said, "You're going to have to take that dress to the cleaners."

"I know," said Grace, "and I can tell about the groom because he's too proud of those big shoulders."

"Oh," said James and offered to drive her home.

They had lunch the next day. Ten months later, she was married to a man whose idea of the Midwest was the American terminal at O'Hare. She had never been so happy. The cousin's marriage hadn't lasted a year.

Grace lay there, wondering what had happened to that young woman. She'd moved out to the West Coast and wasn't in close contact with her family. Was she having fun? Was she seeing other men? Amos came into the room. He panted loudly near her face. "Cut that out, dog," she told him, but he couldn't help himself. Elwood's light went out. Amos settled down to sleep. James breathed evenly beside her, while Grace lay on top of the covers and waited for the sun to rise.

Jane's eyes were a little bloodshot at breakfast, but there was no whiff of secret cigarettes. "What a comfy bed that is," she said, and

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Grace thought in her Eden there would be no room for the varnished chat of houseguests. This summer more than ever she wished eastern manners were like high plains' weather, forthright and severe.

James, who appeared to be the only one who'd slept well, emerged from the barn with an armful of yellow signs to replace torn posted notices. "Want to come?" he asked the women. Stuart, looking clubbed by his hangover, held the staple gun morosely.

"No," said Grace. "Let's meet up later." Maybe Stuart would tell James what was going on. She hoped he kept an eye on Stuartit didn't seem like a good idea to let him be handling tools that could lead to punctures. Then again, James was even less reliable with hardware. Grace sighed and took Jane to the deepest pool on the property, thinking maybe it would be cooler down there. A boulder of shale perched above the water and they let their legs dangle over the edge of the rock. Coins of light dropped through the linden trees on the bank and dappled Jane's face. Something stirred on the other side of the stream and they glimpsed the white flash of a deer's tail, the wishbone of the hind legs. "Oh, gorgeous," said Jane, slumping further.

The peppy mood of breakfast had died almost as soon as it had been born. So they sat there in silence and Grace watched as Amos bounded to the edge of the bone-dry field that edged the stream. When he trotted off to track something invisible and compelling at the center of the stalks, Grace asked him softly, "What is it?"

Jane said, "I don't know, Grace. I just don't know." What have I started? thought Grace, then Jane dipped her head and said, "Stuart's having an affair. With the vet."

"Oh, God," said Grace, surprised to hear that word from her mouth, as if God could do something to keep Stuart from straying. Really she was surprised. It was hard to imagine Stuart having the energy or guile required to philander.

"Did you just find out?" Grace asked. James would be hor-

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rified. He'd say something like, "I'll have to look at Stuart in a new context," yet they'd probably continue to play tennis.

"How awful, how could he" Grace stumbled toward consolation. "Jane, why are you here? Why on earth did you come for the weekend?"

"I just found out on the way up. We were talking about Barney. I couldn't face his being sick so Stuart took him to a new vet, and I'd ask, so how is Dr. Schmidt, and Stuart would say, 'Oh fine, seems very competent.' " Jane imitated Stuart's plump, executive voice. "And then yesterday he said, 'Susanna says he felt no pain,' and I said, 'Who's Susanna?' and the whole thing sort of came out."

Jane was not quite crying. With boys past a certain age, it was better to help them not to cry in public, and Grace sensed Jane did not want to fall apart again, that circumstances placed her in this precarious situation but that Grace should help her stay intact. So she said, "Watch out for that hornet." To Grace's amazement, Jane looked up, grabbed the insect, and crushed it in her hand.

"My brothers used to dare me to do that when we were little," Jane said and tried to smile. She rubbed the mashed bug on the boulder.

Amos bounded out then from the field, with Elwoodtall, dark, and in a Sierra Club capmeandering along behind him. "Hey, Grace," he called, knocking Amos with a tap of his foot, since he knew the dog liked this better than a pat. Amos looked happy and Grace, sniffing suspiciously, could tell he'd rolled himself in something unspeakable.

"You awful dog," Grace said, relieved to see Elwood. "Leon, this is Jane." It was easier to hold yourself together when you had to be polite, though crushing the hornet had restored Jane somewhat. The women scrambled down. Elwood and Jane shook hands and eyed each other. Jane tucked her hair behind her ears.

"Grace, I want to mow the upper meadow so I can start pulling

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out some more of those rocks," Elwood said. "You mind if I do it this weekend?"

"No, that's fine," Grace answered. Elwood was hauling boulders out all over the place, for no particular reason Grace could see, but it was interesting to watch him do it. It was sweaty work: the tractor strained, chains slipped. More than the effort, though, Mercury Grace admired that he'd dare to make such drastic changes in the profile of a field.

Elwood said to Jane, "You live in the city?" as if he'd broached something as personal and touchy as the state of her health.

Jane said, "Not originally. I grew up on a hog farm in Iowa." Grace was floored. A willing affiliation with not just dirt, but the dirt of pigs.

"Just like Grace, a farm girl moved to town. Except your dad doesn't raise hogs. What is it?"

"Corn and cattle and it isn't just my dad," Grace said.

"Want to come look at the barn?" Elwood asked. "I've got three gorgeous Landrace sows."

"Sure," said Jane. "I want to hear about those llamas, too."

The pigs were enormous and unhappy in the heat. With the ball of his thumb, Elwood covered most of the hole at the end of the hose so the water sprayed in an arching fan above the animals. It became a screen for rainbows and Jane passed her arm through bands of indigo and red. The sows batted their lashes and gave delicate squeals. Jane reminisced about cutting umbilical cords from piglets.

Grace thought Jane should try that with a Black Angus and could not believe that even silently she was indulging in agricultural one-upmanship with Jane, of all people. The dog, she realized then, wasn't there and might be molesting Elwood's bantams.

When Grace returned, Jane and Elwood were still trading tales of pigs loved, pigs fattened, pigs slaughtered. Amos started to

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