Our Country Friends(16)
Dee wondered if she should wash her hands before wiping and after, but decided to be incautious and washed only when she was done. Senderovsky heard the sound of a young woman flushing a toilet and remembered that this had once had its significance. Dee read the framed quote next to the rusted antique mirror husband and wife had bought for nothing in the town across the river.
LOVE TAKES OFF MASKS THAT WE FEAR WE CANNOT LIVE WITHOUT AND KNOW WE CANNOT LIVE WITHIN.—JAMES BALDWIN
“Hey,” she shouted to Senderovsky over the sound of hands being washed, “did you just have that Baldwin quote framed in the last couple of weeks?”
“No!” Senderovsky called out. “We’ve had it forever. A happy coincidence!”
* * *
—
When they got up to the porch, everyone was seated in their jackets and sweaters at a healthy remove from one another, as if they were organized criminals or dignitaries at the League of Nations. Senderovsky and his wife and daughter were clustered together, Masha cutting a slice of Spanish ham for a fidgety Nat on her lap. Dee counted four Asians among seven people, an instant outnumbering. The Asian woman was the important one, the East Asian man importantly dressed. No one was particularly ugly or attractive. She didn’t mean anything by this census, Dee told herself, she was just processing.
That morning, she had run through their social accounts. The Actor’s page was like a temple built by the sweat and labor of his fans. Karen didn’t have one, which, given her controversial standing in the world of technology, was surprising. Sasha’s social accounts she already followed; they usually constituted a drunk nightly cry for help and a sober morning plea for relevancy. His wife didn’t have one as far as she could tell. She had never heard of Vinod.
Senderovsky was introducing her as his favorite student and a great success. Everyone was waving at her from across a distance, even Vinod, who was pouring out glasses of inky red wine with the prophylactic aid of an oven mitt. When her former teacher’s soliloquy was over, no one knew what to say to the newcomer. “Y’all look so cozy in the candlelight,” Dee said, leaning into her usual Southern repertoire. Ed smiled at her. Or, rather, intensified his smile, his right hand hovering in the vicinity of his ear.
“Vinod is going to get cold,” Masha said. “Someone should start a fire.”
“I’m fine,” Vinod said. “And you can’t catch a cold from the cold.”
“Yes, that’s an old wives’ tale,” Senderovsky said. “Can one still say that?”
“One can,” Dee said.
“Vin, I can see your goosebumps from here,” Karen said.
“?‘Goosebumps’ is a funny word!” Nat shouted.
“It is, honey, but let’s say it quietly,” Masha said. “Seriously, someone should light the stove. Maybe a manly man?”
“I’ll do it,” Ed found himself saying, his eyes still on the newcomer in her skinny jeans and fleece. He rushed over to the stove and began to fuss with it. He had done this so many times before, on so many different porches, during so many different twilights, but this time was different. His fingers were like lead bars. He had abandoned a tray of Gibsons, which it turned out nobody wanted and which he would likely have to drink himself. “Help yourself to a Gibson, Dee,” he shouted to the young essayist, the syllables thick and courtly in his mouth.
He wondered what was wrong with him.
“Thanks,” Dee said, letting the vermouth flood her mouth, along with the tiny pop of the tipsy cocktail onion. “They’re excellent!”
“What was Sasha like as a teacher?” Karen asked.
“We called it ‘The Sasha Senderovsky Show.’ I nearly peed in my pants every time.”
“She said ‘peed’!” Nat shouted, spitting out little pieces of ham.
“Cover your mouth,” her mother said.
“That is funny, sweet pea,” Dee said to her. And to Masha: “Are we allowed to use that word?” The mother nodded unconvincingly.
“My daughter’s very spirited,” Senderovsky said. “But she’s actually pretty well behaved tonight, because it’s fun to have guests, right?”
Nat didn’t say anything, just giggled to herself, mouth full of ham. Precocity notwithstanding, she loved the bathroom humor her parents found unserious. Peed.
Vinod noticed Karen looking at the little girl, ignoring the rest of the table. Karen was thinking that Masha had put her in the larger two-room family bungalow as a way to highlight the fact that she had no children and now most likely never would. (As Leon had put it ever so dramatically during their penultimate fight on a private jet headed from nowhere to nowhere: “Thank God for small mercies. You as a mother…”) Or perhaps Senderovsky had put her there because she was now more important and deserved more space. The last time, she had been placed in a small strange room with a bunch of creepy lullabies scribbled over the walls. Now, six feet away from her, Nat was whispering the word “peed” over and over in a concentrated monotone as she built a poor man’s A-frame house out of chunks of baguette. Karen wanted the girl to sit on her lap, wanted to run her hands through the bobbed black hair of memory. She had been estranged from her younger sister even before Tr?? Emotions had “scaled,” and did not even know where Evelyn was at this time or whether she was safe.