“But there aren’t any volcanoes in Yellowstone, are there?”
“I don’t know. But that’s what this woman, girl, whatever she is, studies.” Louise’s spies-people from the old neighborhood-were sure about that. Come to think of it, Marshall had said something about it, too. Louise hadn’t put it together with the other till now.
Vanessa went on with her own train of thought, the way she often did: “Besides, Denver’s, like, four hundred miles from Yellowstone. More, even. I looked on a map. Dad must not have. He doesn’t usually freak out over nothing, but he sure did this time.”
“Okay.” Louise was thinking about Denver a different way. It was one more milepost marking how the family was fragmenting, with all the people going their own way. Modern families did that. It was part of how things worked. Rob spent so much time on the road with his silly band, he was like a stranger when he did drift back into town.
“Listen, Mom, I’ve gotta go. Break’s about over,” Vanessa said. “I’ll try to come by before I move, or maybe we can have lunch or something. ’Bye.”
“ ’Bye,” Louise echoed, but she was talking to a dead phone. She sighed again and stowed hers in her handbag. She’d spent upwardsf twenty years- the best years of my life, she thought, sincerely if not originally-raising the kids. And for what? To see them scatter to the winds, the way kids did. From their point of view, it was as if she hadn’t done a goddamn thing.
Which meant… what? She frowned. Thinking about What Stuff Meant-in capital letters-wasn’t something she did every day, or every week, either. Her style had always been more along the lines of do whatever you do, then see what happens next.
Besides, frowning wasn’t a good plan, not if the man in your bed was younger than you were. Wrinkles stayed. Deliberately, she made her face relax. Teo was so sweet. He said he appreciated all the things she knew, all the things she did with a lack of inhibition that amazed her when she noticed it. Had Colin ever noticed? Had he cared? Not likely!
Well, if she wasn’t going to live for her kids, who was she going to live for? She surprised herself by answering the question out loud: “For me, that’s who. And you know what else? It’s about time!”
She started to pull the compact out of her purse, then stopped. To scope herself out at close range with that teeny-tiny mirror, she’d have to put on her reading glasses. She didn’t want to be reminded that she needed reading glasses, not right now she didn’t. She walked into the bathroom instead.
Yes, that was better. She could inspect herself here at a distance her eyes were able to handle on their own. Okay, she had fine lines at the corners of those eyes. Okay, some of the lines on her forehead weren’t so fine. Time went by, no matter how little you wanted it to. And she’d spent a lot of afternoons tanning when she was younger. She’d looked terrific then. Her skin would be smoother and softer now if she hadn’t.
Her hair was perfect. That was a line from an old song, but she couldn’t come up with the rest of it. She was, by God, still a honey blonde. If she had some gray roots, that was between her and the Clairol people. And she kept the bottle with her tampons and pads, where Teo wouldn’t stumble over it.
What she really hated was the sag under her chin. It wasn’t bad, not yet, but it was there. And her upper arms flopped sometimes. She’d had a high-school English teacher whose arm did the shimmy whenever she wrote on the board. The kids, heartless with youth, had laughed at her. It didn’t seem so funny any more.
“My boobs sag, too,” Louise said sadly. With a bra, it didn’t show. But there were times, important times, when you weren’t wearing a bra. And Teo’s mouth and fingers would know her flesh was less resilient than it had been when Colin started pawing her. Nurse three kids and that was what happened.
She turned around and looked back at herself over her shoulder. Her ass was too damn wide. That also came from having three kids… and from having all the years she did her best not to think about.
She was what she was. Most of the parts still worked most of the time. With as many miles as she had on her, and some of the bumpy roads her life had banged over, how could she ask for more? How? Simple. She wanted everything to work the way it had when she was Vanessa’s age. That wasn’t gonna happen, but she wanted it anyhow. Who didn’t?
When she went back to the front room, she turned on the Food Network. She wasn’t a great cook-Colin had once accused her of being able to burn water-but she liked watching whizzes put meals together. I could do that, she’d think, even if she was one of the people for whom God cn Hamburger Helper. They made everything look so easy, though. If TVs came with smell attachments… Wow!
After a while, she punched the remote. She didn’t flip through channels the way a man would, but she wasn’t locked in. MSNBC said the Iranians were doing something or other the President didn’t like. Louise went back to the Food Network, and then on to Oxygen. The Iranians had been doing things Presidents didn’t like for, well, for ever.
Footsteps on the stairs. Louise brightened. She knew those light, bright steps. A key went into the lock, and then into the dead bolt. The door opened. In bounced Teo, as fresh as when he’d left this morning-literally, because he’d showered again at the gym.
Louise smiled a thousand-watt smile. “Darling!” she said, and all but threw herself into his arms.
“So how are those Greek poets?” Colin asked Bryce Miller. They sat across the dining-room table from each other, a chessboard between them. Colin had a cup of coffee in front of him; Vanessa’s ex-boyfriend, a Coke.
“I’m getting there-diss’ll be done next year, maybe year after next,” Bryce answered. He was tall and skinny and pale almost to translucence, with curly red hair and a wispy little beard. After due consideration, he pushed a pawn.
Colin took it. He played chess the way he approached most problems: with straightforward aggression. He simplified ruthlessly and tried not to make too many dumbass mistakes. Against a lot of opponents, that was plenty good enough. Against Bryce, he won maybe one game in five: enough to keep him interested, not enough to let him imagine they were in the same league.
Bryce moved a knight. Colin wagged a finger at him. That nasty horse would fork his queen and a rook if he didn’t do something about it. He moved the queen to threaten the knight and the forking square. Bryce covered it with a bishop.
Okay, Colin thought. Now I can get on with my own attack. He moved a bishop of his own, over on the other side of the board.
Bryce had long, thin fingers. He picked up the knight the way a surgeon might lift a scalpel. He took a pawn with it. “Check,” he said regretfully.
One of Colin’s pawns could wipe it from the board. But as soon as he did that, Bryce’s bishop would assassinate his queen. He eyed the board for a moment, considering his chances after losing the queen. He saw only two, bad and worse. He tipped over his king.
“You got me good that time,” he said. “I saw the bishop defending, but I didn’t see it would turn to attack as soon as you unmasked it. And the check meant I couldn’t just ignore the lousy knight.” Everything was obvious-after the fact. It usually worked that way.
“Uh-huh.” Bryce nodded-a spider encouraging a fly. “Want to play again?” He tried not to look too hopeful.
But Colin shook his head. “Not right now. That one kinda stings.” He leaned back in the dining-room chair. Something in his shoulder crunched. Bryce could sit forever in any position and never get uncomfortable. Colin hadn’t been able to do that even in his twenties. He tried a different tack: “How’s the world treating you these days?”
“Oh, fair to partly cloudy, I guess you’d say,” the younger man answered. “Maybe a skosh better than that. Writing your thesis leaves you hostile. And having a relationship blow up in your face doesn’t exactly make you want to go out and party, either.”