Splendor (19 page)

“What’s ‘The Game’?”

“It’s our big rivalry game. You know, football. Every year Harvard and Yale play a game toward the end of football season. Lots of people care more about the outcome of that one game than the whole rest of the season’s record. This year it was at Harvard; next year it’ll be a home game for us.”

“Okay,” I said. “So you were in Cambridge for ‘The Game.’ Who won, by the way?”

“They did.”

“Sorry.”

“Not a big deal to me, really. But my roommate, Shane—he’s a die-hard Bulldogs fan—he was pretty broken up.”

“Condolences.”

“I’ll tell Shane. Anyway, yeah, we went out afterward for some drinks, and we met some people. And one of them asked me where I went to school. And I said, ‘In Connecticut.’ ”

I noticed that Will had been careful not to apply a pronoun to this “person” he’d spoken with at the “place” he’d gone for drinks. “So where did she go to school?” I asked casually.

He laughed. “You’re clever,” he said, kissing my nose. “She said she went to school there, in Cambridge.”

“Code for Harvard?”

“Uh-huh.”

We were quiet for a while. Finally I said, “Will? Why did you tell me that story?”

He shrugged. “No reason.”

“You’re sure?”

After a minute he said, “How are things with the new guy?”

“Will Cohen.” I laughed, but it sounded tinny. “Are you jealous?”

“I keep telling myself it isn’t fair for me to be,” he admitted, “but I am.”

“Well, I don’t exactly love the idea of you hanging out at a bar with a bunch of girls, either.”

He ignored this. “Did you kiss him?”

“No,” I said.

“Do you want to?”

“No,” I said again, but neither of us believed me.

“You should kiss him,” Will said.

“You
want
me to kiss him?”

Will touched his lips to my forehead, my nose, and then my mouth. He kissed me so gently, a hand cupping my cheek. Then he said, “No. Of course I don’t want you to kiss him. But you should kiss him anyway.”

“Did you kiss that girl at the bar?”

He shook his head, his lips brushing back and forth across my lips. “No,” he said.

“Then why should I kiss Gunner?”

“Because you want to.”

This time I didn’t deny it. Instead I kissed him, trying to show him that right now I was here with him, on the top of Silver Peak, in his arms.

Then I said, “I’m starving. Let’s see what your dad made for us.”

We sat up and set aside our unfinished conversation as we unpacked the lunch. When Martin had heard our plan to climb Silver Peak, he’d offered to prepare our food. He kept his kitchen well stocked, and the picnic he’d packed didn’t disappoint; it consisted of little packages of wrapped cheeses—Gouda and Bûcheron and Brie—along with crusty bread, grapes, salami and prosciutto, and two small bottles of fresh orange juice that he’d frozen to act as insulation for the rest of the food as we hiked. The orange juice had melted most of the way and was slushy and sweet.

We ate. Then, as the wind picked up even more, we packed up the picnic site, laughing as the blanket flapped and tried to escape. Downhill was easier and faster, but still it was past four o’clock when we finally turned onto Olive Lane. Will’s brown-shingled cottage seemed like a beacon, a plume of smoke rising from its chimney. Will pushed open the gate for me, but before I walked through, I put my hand on his.

“Did you
want
to kiss the girl in the bar?” I asked the question and found I was terrified of the answer. It had taken me the length of our return hike to gather the courage to ask it, and he must have seen that in my face.

“I did,” he admitted.

“Then why didn’t you?”

“Because I wanted to kiss you more,” he answered simply, and letting the pack slip to the ground, he did.

Too soon, Will’s visit ran its course. I comforted myself by remembering that I’d be taking the ferry to the mainland with him, and that he, Martin, and I would spend two days with the Rabinovich family before Will and his dad had to be at LAX for their flight back to New Haven in time for Will’s semester to start. Martin’s, too; he seemed eager to get back to the classroom.

“There is something so
invigorating
about a live audience,” he confessed to me on the ferry. We were sitting inside because a steady light rain was falling.

“I bet you’re great in front of a class.”

Martin nodded. “I would be lying if I said that wasn’t true,” he said. “And I try my best never to lie.”

Next to me, Will rolled his eyes.

I squeezed his hand. It was cute to see him irritated with his dad, a relief to know I wasn’t the only one with issues.

I’d told Will about what I’d seen—my dad kissing Alice. He’d whistled, long and low, before saying, “Well, what did your dad say?”

“I didn’t
tell
him I’d seen them!”

“Oh. Why not?”

“I don’t know. It was too weird.”

“If I were you, Scarlett, I’d talk to him about it. I’ve noticed that things seem off between the two of you, and you’ve barely mentioned Alice all week.”

“Yeah.” I’d barely
seen
her, either. With Delilah officially on maternity leave there wasn’t much of a pull to the stable, and Will’s presence on the island made a pretty good excuse for me to avoid talking to either my dad or Alice. But it couldn’t last forever; sooner or later I’d have to deal with them.

I chose later.

When we got to Sabine’s house after walking from the port in the soft, endless mist, we found it ablaze with celebration. It seemed Sabine and David had invited over all of Martin’s West Coast friends to spend time with him and to celebrate Shabbat—the day of rest that begins at sundown on Friday night. As with every other aspect of their lives, Sabine and her family celebrated the holy day in their own way. A large awning, which reminded me fondly of their sukkah, had been erected on their deck, and the party poured out from the open French doors.

Loud, joyful music—which may have been cranked up a little loud to entirely suit the neighbors—infused the party, along with the savory scent of garlic and meat. Even in this weather, Ari rolled bare-chested. He danced through the crowd on unshod feet, in a ratty pair of cutoff corduroys, arms spread wide. He hopped on one foot and then the other, weaving and spinning as if in a celebratory rain dance.

“Scarlett!” he called, and ran straight for me. Secretly, I was pleased that he’d singled me out rather than Will or Martin, though it had been way longer since he’d seen either of them.

“Hey, Ari,” I said, giving him a hug. “Aren’t you cold?” But his bare skin didn’t
feel
cold; that kid must have run five degrees hotter than the rest of us.

Daniel came over next and awkwardly presented his hand, first to Martin, then to Will. They each shook it formally, giving due respect to his serious demeanor.

“Ah, Martin, Will!” Sabine called, winding through the crowd, holding a half-f glass of Burgundy. She looked so dressed-up and elegant, her long silk skirt, almost the same shade as her wine, swishing as she walked. David was beside her and each of them embraced the three of us. Ziva, I noticed, hung back; she was dressed, as her mother was, in a long, colorful skirt and a tucked-in blouse. Unlike Sabine, who wore her hair loose, Ziva had hers twisted in braids and then pinned at the nape of her neck. I saw her eyes scanning my outfit and I felt awkward and underdressed in my jeans and sweatshirt. But to be fair, I hadn’t expected to walk into a party.

I also saw her gaze flicker down to my hand, grasped firmly by Will’s, our fingers entwined. Then she glanced away.

“Looks like someone is jealous of you,” Will whispered into my ear jokingly. “Better sleep with one eye open.”

I smiled at his joke, but I made sure Ziva couldn’t see me. Because I knew what she was feeling. I had felt it, myself. Around me the music and the laughter and the wine rose and crested and rolled like waves. I stood in the center of it, an island in this ocean of family and friends, Will’s hand my anchor. And I tried very hard to keep myself in the moment, not counting the hours before Will would be high in the sky, flying home, away from me.

T
he next day was our last full day together. The sky, when I woke, was cloudless and blue. I woke alone in the same little room Sabine had given me on my other visits. Will had bunked with Ari and Daniel, and though he’d snuck into my room after the boys had fallen asleep, he’d left me just after three a.m.

“Martin’s a light sleeper,” he said, kissing me as he pulled on his flannel pajama bottoms. Martin was sleeping in the other room, on the foldout couch, and Will would have to walk past him to head up the stairs.

“I’ll bet even when he’s sleeping Martin knows what we’re doing,” I said, only half joking. Last year it was like he could sense a change in barometric pressure when Will and I were about to kiss and was uncanny about interrupting us just in time.

“You’re probably right. Sometimes when I’m out wandering at night he calls me, even if it’s really late. I don’t answer, but it’s like he knows that I’m not where he thinks I should be.”

I couldn’t be too upset with Martin for that; even though Will and I hadn’t talked very much about his nighttime wanderings, he knew I thought they were a really bad idea. To my mind, it was one thing to respond to a danger you knew was there; it was another thing entirely to search it out.

“Speaking of that,” I said, reaching out and taking Will’s hand, pulling the sheet across my chest, “I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”

“Have you?” Will lowered himself to the edge of the bed. “What is it?”

“It’s something I read,” I said. “Have you ever heard of
makom sakana
?”

Will groaned. “Not you, too.”

I ignored him. “As far as I can tell,” I said, “
makom sakana
is a rule that says you aren’t allowed to put yourself in a dangerous place to perform a good deed. A mitzvah, right? I read that it’s prohibited to endanger yourself in order to help someone else.”

“Have you and Martin been talking?” Will was smiling, but I could tell from the tone of his voice that he was annoyed.

I didn’t care. I pressed on. “So as far as I can figure out, that rule means that what you’re doing—seeking out trouble, putting yourself in harm’s way
on purpose
—is against the rules.”

“Whose rules?”

Just two little words. A single syllable each. A simple question. But it tripped me up, and I stuttered out my answer. “I—I don’t know…
God’s
rules?”

Will’s laugh carried no trace of humor. “Since when were
you
such a believer, Scarlett?”

I flushed. “That’s not the point.”

“It’s
exactly
the point,” Will said, trying to be quiet in spite of his agitation. “My father has thrown that same antiquated ‘rule’ in my face more than a few times. But even
he
isn’t willing to say who wrote the damn thing in the first place. Scarlett, I can’t live my life by someone else’s moral code, someone else’s fairy tales.”

I hated how he could take my argument and make it sound foolish, twisting it around until I felt almost compelled to agree with him. The truth was, I was desperate. Tomorrow he would fly back to Connecticut; I would have no control over him there. And I was sick with worry that something terrible would happen to him. Something terrible was
bound
to happen to him, eventually. No one’s good luck lasted forever.

“I could understand
before,
” I said, struggling to keep my voice even and quiet, “when you got so sick when you didn’t give in to the pull. But now—now that you’re
choosing
to do it…it just seems so reckless.”

“All I’ve got,” Will said carefully, “is this one life. This one precious life. But, Scarlett”—his green eyes met mine intensely, seriously—“it’s
my
life. And I get to dictate how I spend it.”

He left unsaid the rest of what he was thinking, probably to spare my feelings. But I heard it just the same, in the echoing silence that followed: the rest of us—me, Martin, whoever else might hassle him—did not get a vote.

Will was going to do what Will was going to do.

And after he left, and after I cried for a while, for reasons I couldn’t clearly articulate, my thoughts turned to his name.

Will.

I remembered what Gunner had said about his own name, and mine—Gunn and Scar.
I find it interesting,
he had said,
the similarity between our names.

Both carried connotations of pain. Violence.

But Will was different. Will was force. Determination. Intention. Will was not about compromise, or second-guessing, or capitulating.

I lay in Sabine’s guest bed wide awake in the dark and I wondered about Will. About us.

Will was extra sweet to me at breakfast, pouring syrup on my waffles and sliding me the last piece of turkey bacon. I could see he felt badly about how we’d left things, but I had gotten over my initial hurt and was trying to be pragmatic about the whole thing. Will seemed determined to martyr himself. That was
his
choice.

My
choice? I wasn’t sure, yet, what it would be.

After the family returned from synagogue, we spent most of the day hanging out at Sabine’s house with the kids. Ari wanted to show Will how good he’d gotten at chess, and he didn’t pout too much when Will roundly beat him. After lunch, Ziva shyly asked Will if he’d like to see the poems she’d been working on, and the two of them spent a while outside, chairs pulled close, poring over a notebook together.

I was not invited to join them.

But around four o’clock, Will asked David if we might borrow a car for a few hours, and we headed toward the city.

It seemed that we’d silently agreed to leave behind this morning’s conversation and focus instead on our last night together. I had to pry my thoughts away from the ticking clock in my head that relentlessly counted down the minutes until eleven a.m. the next day, when Will and Martin would head for the airport.

But my mind had grown sharper and clearer with the past few months’ practice, and when it tried to drift toward worry I measured my breathing and looped through a mantra Sabine had taught me—
Oseh Shalom,
each syllable exaggerated and drawn out. The Maker of Peace.

Traffic was amazingly light, and we made it downtown in less than half an hour. Will hadn’t told me where we were going, but he’d said I should wear pants instead of a dress.

We found on-street parking in front of a broken meter, so we didn’t even have to put in any quarters. Then we walked hand in hand up a hill, past the Los Angeles Public Library, and into a little Italian restaurant that was tucked, unassumingly, into the side of a parking garage.

Will had made reservations. The maître d’ showed us to our table and kind of embarrassed me by spreading my napkin across my lap. He did Will’s next, but I was the only one who seemed to think it was weird.

The restaurant served the traditional five-course dinner, which Lily had raved about after she’d visited Italy, and I’d never experienced before. First came the appetizer—the antipasti—a selection of thinly sliced cold cuts, olives, and roasted peppers.

Then came the
primo,
the first course. Both Will and I had
spaghetti alla puttanesca,
the waiter’s recommendation. By the time our
secondo
—veal marsala—arrived, I didn’t think I had room for anything else. But it was so delicious that somehow I managed to make room for it.

The restaurant was alive all around us with sound and energy, clinking glasses and laughing, well-dressed families. Across from me, Will seemed to be enjoying his meal as much as I was.

I was about to take one last bite of bread dipped in olive oil and vinegar when I glanced up and found Will looking at me. His eyes were their most brilliant green. He smiled, and I smiled back.

The waiter arrived.
“Dolce?”
he asked.

“Excuse me?” I looked away from Will, shifting my focus to the waiter.

“Have you saved room for
dolce
? Something sweet?”

“Oh. No. I couldn’t. Thank you, though. Maybe our check?”

The waiter bowed and left. I turned back to Will, reaching across the table for his hand.

Will paid the bill and we went outside. It was dark now, not terribly cold, but cool enough that I wound my red silk scarf one more time around my neck.

“You’re going to be glad in a minute that you brought that scarf,” Will said. He seemed happy, light on his feet, and he walked with intention. I had to trot a few steps to keep up.

“Where are we going?”

“It’s a surprise.” He grinned. “A goofy surprise, so don’t get too excited.”

We walked down a long block, the buildings tall on both sides of us, cars backed up at a red light. Someone honked at a bicyclist who raced through an intersection against the signal.

Ahead, I could hear murmurs of live music, and as we crossed one more street and entered a pavilion, a woman’s voice, slightly off-key, joined the instrumental, singing a generic country song. There was a big crowd up ahead and they seemed to be moving in a tightly packed circle, which didn’t make any sense until I realized that they were ice-skating.

“Corny, huh?”

I laughed. “Totally,” I said. “Perfect for the two of us.”

We bought tickets for the next session and got in line to rent skates, then found a bench to swap out our shoes. My first set of skates had a broken lace and Will offered to get me a different pair. As I waited for him to navigate through the crowd to exchange them, I watched the skaters do their best to stay on their feet. It was so funny to see a skating rink in the middle of Los Angeles; winter here didn’t even mean all that much
rain,
let alone
ice,
so the place was packed with people who seemed thrilled by the novelty of it all. As I watched, a little boy about nine years old went down hard on the ice. His mother tried to help him up, but he shook her off and climbed back up on his own, quickly wiping off the seat of his pants and skating on.

“Red Hot, fancy seeing
you
here.”

Groan. Connell. Gunner had told me they were coming to the city to visit some of Connell’s family, but in a population of thirty-eight million, what were the chances of running into them
here
?

“Hello, Connell,” I said, swiveling my gaze in his direction. He grinned at me, tottering a little on his skates. Next to him was Gunner.

“Hello, Scarlett,” he said. “Enjoying yourself?”

I was,
I thought, but all I said was, “Mm-hmm.”

In a way, Connell and Gunner were a study in opposites. There was something brutish about Connell, in the Neanderthal slope of his forehead, the brawny bulk of his shoulders, the almost constant forward thrust of his hips. Next to him Gunner was all grace and refinement—was that a
cravat
?—neatly shaven, well coiffed, easily balanced in the awkward rental skates.

But of the two of them, I mused, some unspoken quality made Gunner infinitely more dangerous. And even though they seemed so different, tonight they had something in common—a particular look in their eyes, one I’d never noticed there before. A glint, or a glaze…something kind of wild, I guess. Looking more carefully, I noticed that Connell’s eyes were red-rimmed. I was about to ask him about it when Will returned with my skates.

“Hey-y!” chortled Connell. “It’s the Jew!”

“Connell,” chastised Gunner. “Don’t be rude.”

“It’s okay,” Will said, his voice level. “It’s not an expletive.”

“Certainly not,” Gunner said, but he seemed a little unseated by Will’s smooth response.

“Cohen,” said Connell. He bounced a little on the toes of his skates and ran the back of his hand across his nose. “I don’t think you’ve met Gunner. He came to the island after you left.”

“No,” said Will. His eyes were locked on Gunner, who stared right back. Neither of them turned to include Connell. “I haven’t.”

I realized then that the lady had stopped singing. A voice announced over the speakers, “All skaters clear the ice. After a ten-minute break for resurfacing, we will begin our next session. All skaters clear the ice.”

A flood of wobbly skaters poured out of the arena and pushed forward to the benches, where they flopped down and began untying their laces and searching for their shoes.