Drives Like a Dream (22 page)

"I can't believe I'm hearing this," Jessica said. "I can't believe you didn't tell us."

"How much did you keep me in the know when you went off with your Buddhist friend?" Lydia recalled bitterly. "Weeks passed by after you climbed into that ridiculous van and drove out to Oregon. You certainly didn't care what anyone else thought."

"And how many dates have you had with Norman the conqueror?"

"I didn't think it was right for us to meet until after your father's wedding. Norm wanted to. I wanted to, believe me. We waited out of respect," she said. "Listen, I've never known any man better in my life, and I hate to tell you this but that includes your father. It's been one of those amazing, inexplicable things." Jessica had stopped speaking now, so Lydia kept going: "I read a line in a poem once that I haven't forgotten: 'love is a deeper season than reason.'"

"What do you mean, 'love'?" Jessica sounded distressed. "You're telling me you love this man and you've only met him once? Twice?"

"We've seen each other every day for the past two weeks. So, yes, that is what I'm saying. And there's something else—" Lydia knew even as she spoke that she was being reckless. She could sense her words were expanding in the air, setting changes in motion. But she felt separated from the words, as if someone else were saying, "It just so happens—he's planning to move in."

There was no sound over the phone line.

"I'm happy," Lydia said, because that was all she could think of. "And you should be happy for me."

B
Y THE TIME
Davy arrived in Eugene, Jessica had spent a week thinking about her mother's news. In subsequent calls, Lydia had grown more reserved about her mystery man, whom she described as younger, a career academic who had emigrated to Canada. Jessica knew he shared some of Lydia's interests, but beyond that she couldn't grasp the appeal. She was convinced that her mother had pursued Norm just to keep up with Cy. Some of her friends' divorced parents had gotten remarried within months of each other, as if from the moment they'd signed the papers the race was on to get to the altar first. Perhaps this had hurried her mother along, too.

Still, as many times as Jessica went over the scenario, something didn't add up. Her mother seldom acted so rashly. Better to bring the world to you than to go out into the world, was one of her guiding principles. Everyone who crossed her porch was carefully screened, and Jessica had watched more than one boyfriend get interrogated at the border. Even more baffling was the idea of Lydia's throwing everything into a relationship. She had long been critical of the kind of woman who put a man first. "Do you want to be like your Grandmother Warren?" she'd asked when Jessica moved west. "When the going gets tough, you can always hitch up," she'd said sarcastically. But here she was now, seeming to ignore her own warning.

Davy had rented a car at the airport, and soon after he arrived Jessica took him to The Buzz, a coffee shop and cybercafé down the street from her apartment. He looked tired, but seemed sanguine about their mother's news, maybe for no better reason than to take his mind off his own. "I think it's great," he said, sipping a black coffee on the terrace. "If you weren't Mom's daughter, you'd call it kismet. You'd say this proves there's an order in the universe."

"You sound worse than the ersatz Buddhist."

"The Internet really does put everything in order. You can find a match without even looking for it."

"I don't know. I think she was looking for it."

"That's not what she told me. She was hanging out on a message board and this troll came along, who just happened to be the troll of her dreams."

"But people can create 'kismet' out of anything if they want it bad enough."

"Hey, if she's happy, we should be."

"You sound just like her."

"Come on, Jess. Get on board the love train. She hasn't been this upbeat in a long time." Davy stood up and excused himself to make a phone call. "Long flight," he said. "Better check in with Teresa. And yes," he added, taking in her look. "We're still together. I'll tell you about it later."

Sitting alone, it dawned on Jessica that if Norm did move in, a certain burden would be lifted. She wouldn't have to deal with expectations or disapproval or worry over her mother day to day. No more guilt trips or regressive holidays at home. How open her life would be if she no longer felt responsible.

She looked over the railing of the terrace and saw Davy pacing on the sidewalk below, talking on his cell phone. She made a mental note to give him some time before asking about Teresa; he had come to Oregon to get away, after all.

When Jessica got home from work the next day they stayed in to make dinner. While she chopped zucchini and mushrooms for stir-fry, Davy told her about the basset hound Bedlam had met on their walk in Alton Baker Park and the Lester Bangs compendium he'd read on the terrace at The Buzz. "It was nice just to be by myself for a change, not a care in the world." He checked the pot of rice and added, "Oh, and I got a couple of e-mails from Mom today. She asked how you were doing, wanted a full report about life in Eugene."

"I hope you didn't tell her anything."

"Don't worry. I dug out your diary and sent along only the choicest bits."

"Thanks," Jessica said.

"I hadn't realized that Norm had been married twice before. Apparently his other wives had no interest in his work."

"What do you mean, 'other
wives'
?" she asked over the hiss of onions in the frying pan.

"Oh, he's no stranger to marriage."

"She never told me that."

"Maybe she just found out."

"Maybe. Either that, or she's telling us different things." Jessica slowly stirred the vegetables. It wasn't like her mother not to call her right away about something like this.

"Sounds like Norm married his high school sweetheart. They never had a chance to grow up." Davy seemed to be trying to appease her. "According to Mom, they had a couple of kids, then realized they were different people than they'd been at sixteen. Norm's mistake was rebounding too quickly after the divorce. The kids had just started high school so he thought he could make a new family for them."

"You sound like you're reciting Mom, word for word."

"Well, I strive for accuracy," Davy said.

Jessica scooped the rice and stir-fry onto plates and brought them to the living room table. "So what was the problem?"

"She said his second wife made the classic mistake. She asked Norm's kids to call her Mom." Davy grabbed a couple of pilsners from the fridge and sat down on the couch. "She went to all their events at school—their plays and baseball games. She called them on the phone, tried to make friends with the ex-wife. She tried so hard to win everyone over and when they kept pushing her away she gave up, became bitter and took it out on Norm."

Jessica sat down cross-legged on the floor. "How long did that marriage last?"

"Ten years." Davy shrugged. "Some people can't change the way they are."

The news still bothered Jessica, especially the fact that she'd gotten it secondhand, when she and Davy set out the next morning on a day trip. She wanted to ask more questions but Davy said, "Can we make a pact not to talk about this Norm situation, at least for the ride?" Jessica had to keep reminding herself that this was his vacation.

Recent forest fires had cast a haze over the sky, but the temperature was perfect, just above 80. Davy drove east on Route 126. They cut through mountains along the McKenzie River, and Jessica pointed out the lava beds curving around stands of pine. But soon she realized that both their minds were elsewhere. She fought back the urge to borrow Davy's cell phone and call Detroit.

The snow-capped peaks of the Cascades came into view as they approached the town of Sisters. "Look at that," Davy exclaimed, and Jessica remembered how lonely she sometimes felt in Oregon.

When his cell phone rang, Davy said, "If it's Teresa, just tell her I'm driving and I'll call her back."

But it was their mother, and Jessica couldn't hide her annoyance at being left out of the news about Norm's marriages.

"I assumed Davy would tell you," Lydia said.

"I'd rather hear it from you, Mom. This is a big deal, you know—falling for a guy and letting him move into the house. I don't know the first thing about him."

"So what do you want to know? I'll tell you anything."

They passed the
WELCOME TO SISTERS
sign and Jessica motioned to Davy, who pulled over at a city park where a Conestoga wagon sat at the entrance.

Jessica did have some questions for her mother, as a matter of fact. She wanted to know, for starters, why Norm had moved to Canada. In the back of her mind Jessica wondered if he had been running away from something in the States. After hemming and hawing, Lydia admitted that Norm had resigned from the University of Minnesota under pressure. "But there's a good explanation. He's an idea man. And his plans were too big for the academy." She went on to say that universities had become too specialized, and Norm's ability to see the big picture, the way whole systems worked, must have been threatening. Lydia, who sometimes taught adjunct courses at Wayne State, empathized with his frustrations.

"So they forced him out?" Jessica heard the alarm in her own voice.

Lydia hesitated. "He's so charismatic. He fills up a room."

"And how is that a problem?"

"It's great in the lecture hall. He uses the entire stage," Lydia explained. "I sat in on his summer school class and he was up there pounding the podium, pacing back and forth, coming down and walking the aisles. He's very entertaining. You'd like him."

Everything about Norm sounded larger than life. He had a booming voice, big ideas. He was a "man of appetites," Lydia had said.

"His voice travels. Maybe his colleagues didn't like that."

"That seems unlikely. He must have done something." Jessica rolled down her window.

"Well, he did get some complaints from students. But what professor doesn't? You have to be so careful these days. You have to watch what you say. Even body language."

"Are we talking sexual harassment here?" She shot a look at Davy, who raised an eyebrow.

"No, no. Nothing like that. He's totally harmless. Norm has a big heart, too big a heart to be teaching in a university. So he runs into problems sometimes. This happens when you've got new ideas. People misunderstand you." Lydia continued to downplay it. "I trust him, so trust me," she said, as if she had known Norm forever and was the only one who could make sense of his eccentricities. "He loves his new situation. He's here to stay."

But for the rest of the afternoon, these words took on the ring of foreboding. "He's here to stay" reminded Jessica that Norm was actually moving in. She imagined this overbearing "man of appetites" stalking into her mother's life, demanding to know everything about her, making her fall in love with him only to use her and disappear.

Davy had a sunnier outlook. While he and Jessica walked around Sisters, went into the shops, and had lunch, he shared all the good things he'd heard about Norm: how he taught free seminars at community centers, took on extra work to put his kids through college. Without fail, apparently, he flew back to Minnesota to see them every couple of months. He had recently driven with his son, Jeremy, nearly a thousand miles from Minneapolis to Yellowstone, where Jeremy was working for the summer. Davy said that Norm liked to surprise their mother with wildflowers. He'd cleaned the gutters at 309 Franklin, cut away some low-hanging branches that threatened the roof, fixed the ceiling fan in the dining room that hadn't worked in years, was now pulling up the rotten planks on the front porch. It all sounded too conveniently good, Jessica thought.

After lunch they drove to the Cascades and hiked up a trail crowded with gnarled vine maples. In a clearing they looked up at Proxy Falls, where lavender shifted to silver over the mossy rocks. Davy picked up a walking stick and scraped off the bark. Jessica took off her shoes, walked a little way into the pool at the base of the falls. "I still don't like it," she said after a while.

Davy knew just what she was talking about. "Relationships are hard, Jess. You've got to support Mom on this. It's almost impossible to find the right person, you know." Since the day he'd arrived he hadn't wanted to talk about Teresa, and it reminded Jessica that everything he said, all of his wishful thinking about Norm, was being filtered through his own unhappiness.

Two days later, on Davy's final night in Eugene, Jessica splurged for a farewell dinner at Patsy's in the Fifth Street Market. "I'm sorry I've been talking so much about Mom," she said over fried oyster salad. Davy's trip had been too short, and now she felt guilty for monopolizing the conversation. She had tried to bring up Teresa, but it was clear that Davy still wasn't ready to deal with the fallout.

"Sounds like he's had quite an influence," Davy said. "Ivan told me today that Mom bought a car, too. A Corolla station wagon, only slightly used. She even got a cell phone. She's joining the modern age."

Jessica was annoyed again to be the last to know. "How's she affording all this?"

Davy took a bite of Chinook salmon. "I don't know. He's probably helping her out."

But Jessica couldn't erase the picture of Norm sleeping in her mother's bed, clearing out all the closets in the house, tossing clothes, mementos, photographs into boxes and stuffing them in the attic to make room for his things. He'd move in his oversized coats and furniture, clear out Jessica's room to set up his own private office.

By the time she brought this up with Davy, he was already into his third glass of Pinot Noir and asking if next time he visited they could go out to wine country. "I could get used to these Oregon wines," he said. For the rest of the evening he continued to shut down, as if preparing himself for what he knew he'd have to face tomorrow, back in Chicago.

After Davy left, Jessica felt at a loss, as though she'd missed out on a chance to really talk to her brother. When she called home, Lydia reported that Norm had bought planters for the front walk, repaired the backyard fence, and was priming all the downstairs rooms to repaint. She e-mailed news of other projects, too: replacement pipes for the shower, a new transmission for the washing machine, repairs and new fixtures, and soon it occurred to Jessica that in fact Norm was not moving in. Worse than that. He was sprucing up the house to sell. He'd fix it up, put it on the market, then somehow take the equity and run. Jessica had seen stories like this on the six o'clock news. Sure, the victims were usually grannies, but the rest of the warning signs were all there: the charismatic seducer, the hasty affair, the lonely, smitten divorcée.