The next afternoon, once Michael and Loretta had gone on to Maui, everyone got into a bus that took them to the Angelina Ranch. It was a long ride, even after they entered the gate. A hundred thousand acres was ten times the size of Uncle Joe’s farm, 156 square miles, all contiguous, all running up and down hills, over fields, into arroyos. In the seat in front of him, Uncle Joe was staring out the window at the pale-golden hills and the occasional groups of cows and calves. Next to him, Ivy was reading a manuscript. Across the aisle, his mom and Janet were talking about Emily. His dad was sitting in the first row of the bus, hunched forward, listening to little Mr. Perroni and the bus driver. Aunt Eloise and Aunt Lillian had decided to “forgo” the trip to the ranch, Aunt Eloise to go to the beach with Rosa instead, Aunt Lillian because Uncle Arthur seemed very jet-lagged. Lacey’s boyfriend had shown up, so they had gone into Monterey, and Ross was sleeping off the party. Richie heard Rosa say to his mom, “No, no booze. But he hasn’t seen that many people all in one place since the last Dead concert he went to, in 1969. It sort of freaked him out.”
The weather, warm and sunny by the coast, was now hot. All the windows of the bus were open, and everyone’s hair was blowing in the breeze. Ivy had to hold her pages flat with two hands. She looked at him and said, “I prefer Central Park.” They drove.
At last they turned in past a tall gate, crossing a metal grate in the road. The bus went up a hill through some huge trees that twisted in startling shapes. When they crested the hill, they looked down on the most beautiful house Richie had ever seen. He poked Ivy with his elbow and pointed. She said, “Oh, nice,” and went back to reading. Spanish-style, long, two stories, a balcony running most of the length of the second story, painted a pinkish color, with dark beams and a tile roof. The main door, dark wood, was two stories high. An adobe wall extended from each end in a big oval, embracing a courtyard. Water bubbled out of a dish that the hands of a fountain statue were holding aloft, then flowed down its arms, around the laughing face, and over its body, to disappear again into a pool at the figure’s feet.
Everyone piled out of the bus and went into the house. Though it was hot outside, maybe ninety-five degrees, it was cool inside — the window openings were a foot deep. The first thing they did was follow Mrs. Perroni into a large dining room, where they were given a Mexican brunch, including all kinds of food with hot sauce and tortillas that Richie had never eaten before, but also plates of peaches and apricots, melon and cantaloupe, blackberries and raspberries in heavy cream. There was also corn, like they had at home and in Iowa in the summer, but it was roasted in the husk, so that the kernels were brown and sweet; Aunt Lois and Uncle Joe ate three of those apiece. His mom carried Emily around the table, picking up bits of things and offering them to her with the tip of her finger. She did this as if she knew what she was doing, something that surprised Richie. He glanced around, but no one else was staring at her — the least motherly woman in the history of the world, fifty-nine years old and still built like a teen-ager.
After that, Mr. Perroni walked them all over the house, up the uneven stairs and down the uneven hallways, opening doors and peeking into rooms, looking at chandeliers and paintings and displays of dried flowers and a broom made of branches. At the end of the downstairs hall was a painting of Jesus gazing upward, and at the end of the upstairs hall was a painting of the Virgin Mary looking downward. Both, according to Mrs. Perroni, were from Spain, and she had seen ones by the same painter in Oaxaca, which was a city in southern Mexico with a cathedral plated in gold. “Alta California could never afford that!” said Mrs. Perroni.
The Angelina Ranch had started out as Angelina Rancho, a mere sixteen thousand acres given to a Mexican soldier in 1835. A battle in the Mexican-American War had taken place right over there — they could see the site from the window of the master bedroom. Three Americans and two Mexicans killed, but the Americans preserved their horses, and managed to get themselves to Colonel Frémont. That family had lost all their money, so, when Mr. Perroni’s people came over from Switzerland at the end of the nineteenth century, they bought this rancho, with its old house, and another one, which had never had a house, the Rancho Rojas, just across the river, and that was that. It was a hard life at one time — everyone out rustling cattle at the crack of dawn, including Gail herself, who was from Los Angeles and had never seen a live cow before she married into the Perronis, but it didn’t take long to learn if your livelihood depended on it, and in the end it was easier than writing for Hollywood, which was what her father did — had they ever seen Rubies for Rent? Or The Wide River? Well, no one had. They went for a walk.
For a week after they came home, Ivy was annoyed with Richie for being too impressed with “life in the Old West.” She said that she’d half expected there to be a shootout, just for show, and she’d taken four showers to get the dust out of her skin. Anyway, what did it matter? Michael and Loretta were planning to live in New York, just like everyone else, so that Michael could get rich and Loretta could pursue her child-development degree. Everyone had a dramatic history. Ivy’s own grandfather had been rescued, as a child, from a pogrom in Odessa, had passed through Ellis Island when he was eight, had his name translated from “Dov Grodno” to “Dave Gordon.” And hadn’t Richie told her his mother’s great-grandfather kept his crazy wife in a tiny little cellar with a trapdoor in the apple orchard, or something like that? Compared with all of this, servicing rentals was rather uninspiring. Or safe, said Ivy. Let’s just be glad we’re safe.
—
ON THE DAY Claire filed her written petition for dissolution of marriage and paid her fee, she went from the courthouse to the grocery store, where she bought a chicken and some potatoes for supper. Then she drove home in the chilly dusk, thinking of her new place downtown — in fact, she had been a little late to the courthouse because she was walking around the apartment, enjoying how quiet it was, even during the day. When she got back to West Des Moines, she parked on the street — something she had never done before, because all of a sudden even the garage seemed claustrophobic, and she carried her bag up the walk — no snow yet. Her house — the house — looked like a picture, dark, shiny front door, square panes of light to either side, and an arch of light above. She climbed the three steps to the front stoop, wiped her shoes on the mat, and extended her hand toward the doorknob.
She glanced through the window. Gray, who was fourteen, was sitting on the third step of the staircase, reading a book. As she watched, he wiped his nose with the back of his hand, pushed up his glasses, and turned the page. There was a laugh — Brad’s laugh — and here he came, stretched out on his back, sliding down the carpeted stairs. Just then, Claire had her Lot’s-wife moment — knowing perfectly well that she should not, could not, look into the past, and yet having the occasion of doing so come upon her like a stroke of lightning. Her hand trembled as she opened the door, and tears came to her eyes. How could this happen, she wondered, after so much preparation? Was mere familiarity that potent?
The boys, of course, greeted her as they always did: Where were the last two Popsicles? Could she sign the note from the teacher right away, before it was forgotten? Did she buy any milk? She nodded, smiled, passed them. When she got to the kitchen, she thought it was only an illusion that Lot’s wife was looking backward. Really, she was looking into the future, that strange city empty of herself, and she was thinking, I know nothing else but this.