She said, “I think maybe your grandmother isn’t quite the old lady she used to be. You heard that Joe taught Rosanna to drive and then bought her a car after she passed the test. She had to take the vision test twice, because they thought she was cheating the first time.”
Janet turned toward her. She looked sad, but she sounded normaclass="underline" “You’re kidding!”
“Well, they didn’t say that, but they did say that her results were unusual for a woman of her age. Twenty/twenty or just about.”
“What did Joe buy her?”
“She learned in Lois’s car, so I guess they decided that the safest thing was to get her the same model. Two thousand dollars. Minnie told me that Lois was fit to be tied, in her way.”
“What way is that?”
“She wrote a thousand-dollar check to the Methodist church for the new roof. So what was Joe going to say?”
“Uncle Joe is always nice.”
Lillian heard a step behind her, and before she even registered that it was Arthur, Janet’s face hardened, and then went blank. Arthur put his arm around Lillian’s waist and kissed her on the side of the head, then said, “Janny! I didn’t know you were here!” He moved to give her his customary hug, and she stiffened, then backed away, but she did eventually smile and say, “Hi, Uncle Arthur. How are you?”
“Upside down and backwards.” But he didn’t get a laugh.
Lillian said, “I think she prefers ‘Janet,’ darling.”
“I don’t care,” said Janet.
Arthur stared into the toaster at his muffin. When it popped up, he pushed it down again, and then, when it was just right, he popped it and juggled it to the counter, where he buttered it. All of this made Lillian strangely self-conscious, but she had no idea why.
Arthur said, “How do your brothers like Cornell?”
“I guess they’re pretty busy. Cornell still has ROTC, so they joined that.”
Lillian said, “Your dad made gunpowder all through college. They were trying to make it out of cornstalks for the war effort. I guess one time it worked, but only once. Did he tell you that he lived in a tent?”
“I didn’t believe that. You really think it’s true? He also told me he didn’t graduate,” said Janet.
“Pearl Harbor,” said Lillian.
Janet was staring at Arthur, who seemed not to notice. Suddenly she tossed her head and said, “I have to go. I have to turn in my senior thesis in a week, and I’m supposed to be typing all day today.”
“What’s your subject?” said Arthur.
It was then that Janet finally met his gaze completely. “The CIA,” she said.
But Arthur said only, “I thought you were a French major.”
Janet said, “I was going to do it on Violette Lecoq, but there wasn’t enough material, so I am doing it on André Malraux.”
There was a long silence; then Lillian said, “Well, it’s almost noon. I guess we’d better go. Arthur, I’ll be home for dinner. With dinner.”
—
IN THE CAR, Janet felt more comfortable. She had given Aunt Lillian the lavender bar, which was her second favorite. She thought of it as the last piece of herself that she was leaving behind in a place she had loved but was finished with. She no longer yearned to have the snapshot of Tim on his bike squinting into the sun that had been taken the summer she spent with them. She was almost in that picture — just as Uncle Arthur lifted the camera, a bee buzzed by, and Janet ducked to the left. If you looked closely, her shadow was there in the bottom corner. Whenever any of her teachers at Sweet Briar had used the word “paradox,” Janet thought of that picture — her shadow in his picture, his shadow in her life.
They drove along. Aunt Lillian always held the wheel as though the car could leap out of her hands at any moment — Tim had said that once.
Aunt Lillian asked, “What are you doing after graduation?”
“I’m moving to California.” It was the first time Janet had uttered this aloud. She spoke with confidence, she thought. “I met some kids who have a house in Oakland. One guy is a mailman and one works for Safeway, and two of the girls are at Berkeley. I met them all.” The one who worked at Safeway was a black guy. The mailman lived in the attic, where, he said, it was easier to dematerialize and evaporate through the roof, especially since there was no insulation. The third girl (also black) worked as a nude model for local artists, who paid twenty-five dollars an hour, or more. You didn’t have to look like Marisa Berenson to be an artist’s model — better not to, in fact.
“Must be a big house,” said Lillian.
“Three stories. The rent is forty dollars a month per person, plus a little more in the winter for heat. Someone is moving to Hawaii, so I get that room. One of the girls is going to help me find a job. All I need is a hundred dollars, so I’ve been saving from my allowance every month. I should have it.”
“How are you getting out there?” Aunt Lillian made this sound easygoing, as if she weren’t prying. Janet said, “A bus ticket is fifty-two dollars.” She did not say that a guy she knew from U.Va. had suggested they hitchhike. It all depended on the next two months, and how much she could save from the last two allowances her mother was ever going to give her. There might be a graduation present, too. If her father gave her anything, she would view it as ransom money. And take it, she thought.
She glanced over at Aunt Lillian, thinking, “I am twenty-one years old,” but saying only, “It’s a bad time to get a job. And a good time to try stuff out.”
Then Aunt Lillian surprised her; she said, “I think you’ll have fun.” Of course, Aunt Lillian was thinking that she would be seeing Janet again; Janet wasn’t so sure about that. Even Aunt Eloise didn’t know she was coming back to California — Aunt Eloise thought she was taking a job in Chicago.
—
ON THE DAY after the end of second grade, Charlie put a dollar and one of the Rice Krispie treats that Mom had made for him on Sunday in his pocket, and set out for the swimming pool. Charlie knew north, south, east, and west, and he knew that the swimming pool was south, but he also knew that he could catch the bus right by his school, which was now out for the summer, although in a week Charlie was going to go to summer school to learn some more about writing. Charlie was left-handed — he knew this because the pointing finger on one hand was longer than it was on the other hand; the longer finger was on his left hand, and to tell right from left, he had to look at his fingers.
Mom had said that he would go to summer school from ten-thirty until noon. Today was a hot day, and Charlie needed a swim. He had taken lessons all last summer and all winter at the Y, and he could do crawl and breast stroke. He had gotten his trunks out of his drawer, and a towel from the hall closet, and rolled it around his trunks. Now he opened the front door and closed it quietly behind himself. Mom was taking a shower.
All through second grade, he had walked to school, at first with Mom, then with Barry Clayton, who was in third grade, and, a few times when Barry was sick, by himself. He went out the front walk to Tuxedo, then walked north on Glen Road. There were six dogs on the way to school. Only one of them was scary, a large brown dog with black on his face who was inside a fence, but as Charlie walked along, the dog ran beside him behind the fence, with his nose to the ground, growling and barking. Charlie said, in his bossiest voice, “Shh, shh, shh, shh,” as he walked along, and he didn’t run. If you ran, that made the dog more ready to jump the fence. Glen Road went along the railroad tracks, and he was not allowed to climb the hill to the railroad tracks, though sometimes he did. He passed Clark, where Ricky Horner lived on the corner (Mom always laughed at this rhyme), then passed Atalanta, and came to Marshall. No cars. It was a quiet morning. He had no idea what time it was. If you walked all the way to Marshall and turned right, you could get penny candy at that store. Charlie liked Mary Janes, Pixy Stix, and candy buttons. If you turned left and crossed Glen Road (which he was not allowed to do), you could walk under the tracks and down to Deer Creek, which was deep and had steep sides, but Ricky Horner said there were fossils in the banks if you looked hard enough. He had shown Charlie two he’d found. Several kids in his class lived on the other side of the tracks, and they walked to school every day, so Charlie didn’t understand why he wasn’t allowed to go there.