“What about.”
“For Christ’s sake I haven’t seen you in six weeks.”
“That’s not my fault,” Lily said automatically. She had not particularly wanted to see Ryder anyway, but it had not in fact been her doing: he had spent all of May and part of June in Phoenix, trying to raise money for a project she did not entirely understand. After a while all of Ryder’s projects tended to look alike, and whenever she had not seen him for a period of weeks or months she was struck, when she did see him, not only by that but by his appearance: his features seemed constantly heavier, his eyes less focused. Looking directly into his eyes this afternoon, she had felt that she was looking right through them: You depress me, Ryder, she had said, you’re acting like everything you do is reflex. But then he had ordered another drink and she had taken a Miltown and they had both laughed. So you think I’m a shadow of my former self, he had said, making fun of her, and she had kissed her finger and pressed it against his cheek.
“Anyway,” she said now, looking at her watch and trying to finish a story she had begun before. “There Knight was, shouting that his grandmother reminded him more every day of something out of The Cherry Orchard. ‘By Anton Chekhov,’ he said. ‘If anybody on this ranch has even heard of Anton Chekhov.’ Which he supposed was asking too much. And there I was, trying to point out that Mother’s passion for turning her particular orchard into Paradise Valley All-Electric Homes was not exactly what I would call Chekhovian. And so Knight said, straight-faced — I swear, Ryder, he meant it — why didn’t she tear down the big house and move into one? It would save on electricity.”
Although Ryder laughed she could see that he was not much interested by the story.
Dampened, she added: “And that’s pretty much all we’ve been doing.”
“Except for Everett’s sister,” Ryder corrected her.
“That’s right.” Lily had only had three drinks but felt a little reckless. “Except for the arrival of the prodigal sister.”
“I saw them at the airport. Everett introduced me.” He paused. “I would have recognized her anyway.”
“Everett thinks she looks tired.”
“She looks like Martha.” Ryder paused. “She looks the way Martha might have looked at that age if she hadn’t been Martha.”
Lily said nothing.
“Listen,” Ryder said at last, taking her hand. “You look good. You look a hell of a lot better than you did when I went away.”
“I’m tired.” Lily stood up and reached for the packages she had bought before she met Ryder. “I’m tired and I look terrible.”
When she walked into the house, obscurely pleased that she had diverted Ryder from asking her to meet him somewhere more private than the Capitol Tamale, it occurred to her that no one had moved since noon, with the single exception of Sarah’s husband, who appeared to have gone upstairs. Knight still lay on the verandah reading, Julie was still out by the pool, completely in shadow now; Everett and Sarah still sat in the living room. Not even the level of their drinks appeared to have changed appreciably in seven hours.
Sarah smiled uncertainly at Lily. “I was just telling Everett that I recognize how you both feel about it.”
“About what,” Lily said, taking off her gloves; she knew perfectly well about what. Sarah had been talking about selling since breakfast.
Ignoring Lily, Sarah turned back to Everett. “Surely we’ve had offers.”
“We’ve had offers, all right. You know we’ve had offers.”
“How would I know what we’ve had. Lily never writes about anything but the weather. How would I know about anything.” Sarah paused. “I do know that what’s-his-name, that man we ran into at the baggage counter last night, mentioned some Honolulu interest.”
“Honolulu interests,” Everett said. “That means Chinese investors. That’s what they call Chinese money now. Honolulu interests. That guy’s always got a deal going. I wouldn’t bank on the money.” Everett turned to Lily. “Channing,” he added. “We saw Channing at the airport.”
“Channing,” Sarah repeated. “That’s his name. Wasn’t he a beau of Martha’s?”
“No,” Everett said.
“Ryder Channing was married for a while to one of Larry Dupree’s daughters,” Lily added hurriedly. She did not want Sarah moved to dwell again upon either Ryder or Martha; last night, going on about Martha, she had so upset Everett that he had not slept at all.
“Dupree Development,” she added.
“As a matter of fact,” Everett said, “Dupree has expressed some interest in the Cosumnes ranch.”
“I don’t care so much about the Cosumnes,” Sarah said. “The Cosumnes at least brings in a little cash.”
“I’ve been telling you for fifteen years, Sarah, a lot of the Cosumnes expenses come out of the riverfront’s operating budget.” Everett paused. “You thinking I’m bleeding the riverfront?”
“Everett, sweet,” Sarah laughed. She stood up and walked over to the window. “The pool kills me. It looks like Pickfair.”
Everett said nothing.
Sarah wandered around the room, picking up a silver platter and reading the inscription on the bottom, studying the photograph of her mother on the piano, returning to the window and looking out into the sunset, picking out, in the silence, a few notes on the piano.
When she sat down again her vivacity seemed suddenly exhausted. “Nothing’s very different, is it,” she said to no one in particular.
She smiled then at Everett but Everett did not smile back. “ ‘And it will not be a very jolly corner,’ ” she quoted. “T.S. Eliot. The Family Reunion.”
On the fourth Wednesday in June, exactly one week after they had put Sarah and her husband on the plane for the Islands, Knight had the accident with the Ford. Although the accident was neither serious nor entirely Knight’s fault, he would almost certainly have his driver’s license suspended for six weeks; he had admitted two beers to the Highway Patrol. “You’re too honest for your own good,” Julie observed with disgust. “They never could’ve proved two beers.” “That’s no way to talk,” Lily said, but by lunch on Thursday she had begun to wish, if only for Everett’s sake, that Knight had been less straightforward with the Highway Patrol.
It was 102° outside and Knight was not speaking to her. He talked only to Everett; except for yes and no and please, he had not spoken to her since Sunday, when he had seen her in Harrah’s Club at the lake with Ryder. She had gone up alone to her cousin’s house on Saturday morning (I can’t stand it, she had told Everett, I can’t stand one more minute of your taking it out on me about Sarah, I can’t stand your brooding, I can’t stand any more scenes, and I can’t stand the heat, and she had walked out of the house — resolutely not thinking about the three hours she had spent with somebody’s houseguest in a room at the Senator Hotel the night before — and driven straight to the lake); she had not even known Ryder was there until she ran into him outside Harrah’s Club on Sunday. For once she had been totally blameless, but she could scarcely explain this small irony to Knight. She did not know what Knight had been doing in Harrah’s Club in the first place. When she saw him she had called out and made her way past two crap tables to talk to him, but he had walked away.
“Just this one thing,” Knight pleaded now. He wanted Everett to talk to someone at the Department of Motor Vehicles. “It’d be so easy. All you’ve got to say is you need me to drive the trucks. Can’t you just do this one thing for me.”