The Middlesteins: A Novel(49)

Through the window Emily could see that her Aunt Robin was already there, a pinched expression on her face, several manila folders in front of her on the table, and a glass of wine (Aunt Robin did like her wine, that was known in the family) in front of those. Her aunt was her favorite person in the world, behind her father (the most reasonable man on the planet) and her brother (wimpy or not, he was one half of the whole) and occasionally a friend at school who had proved herself to not be a total waste of time. Her aunt would probably be number one on the list if Emily saw her more often, but Robin made herself scarce most of the time, off in the city, which lent her a certain appeal as well, an air of mystery and cool, even if deep down Emily knew there were much technically cooler people in the universe. But still, Robin spoke to her as if she were an equal or at least not a child, and always had for as long as Emily could remember, and Emily had appreciated it (now more than ever) even though she had never said it out loud to her aunt.

Inside the restaurant Robin gave her a genuine smile, which then turned to a sour glance at Emily’s grandmother.

“Got yourself your very own human shield, huh, old lady?” said Robin. Then she stood up from the table and hugged her niece, and they kissed on each cheek like ladies did in the movies, French ladies, or fashionable older ladies who lived in New York City.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Emily’s grandmother, who lowered herself into a seat, Robin gently assisting her. “What’s wrong with me spending time with my two favorite girls?”

“There’s nothing wrong with it,” said Robin. “I just thought we were going to discuss a few things here.” She ran her hands over the manila folders sitting in front of her.

“You can talk about whatever you want to talk about,” said Emily boldly. “I probably already know what you’re going to talk about.” She actually had little idea of what was going on, but she could only imagine that it was about her grandmother being sick, because everything was always about her grandmother being sick; it had been for months. Longer? Longer.

Robin exchanged a dark look with Edie, and then said, “You want to be the one explaining this to her mother?”

“Why don’t you go wash your hands before dinner?” said Edie.

Emily made a bitchy little noise, a noise she had only recently started practicing and one that would get much, much better with age, but she got up resignedly and wandered through the empty restaurant, which she finally noticed was sort of cute, with its weathered wooden tables and sweet little glass bowls of pink flowers, and back toward the bathroom, passing the kitchen doors, from which wild notes of jazz emanated, and she wondered where she was exactly, because it did not feel quite like anywhere she had been before.

In the bathroom, red, dimly lit, lavender-drenched, she used her one good arm to wash herself, her palms and her fingers, with hot water, and then her forehead, her cheeks, her chin, her neck, behind her ears, little drops dripping down onto her shirt. More soap and water, this time lifting her shirt up and splashing and scrubbing under her arms. Sometimes she felt like she could never get clean enough, but she didn’t know why.

As it turned out, she felt that way because her mother had taught her to feel that way, and she’ll figure that out eventually, in college, in New York, when her freshman-year roommate, a Spanish girl from Barcelona named Agnes, studying film just like she is, asks her why she is always washing up and Emily says, without even thinking, “Men like a clean girl,” and then says quickly, “Oh, God, I sound just like my mother, how terrible,” and the Spanish girl says, “And your mother maybe isn’t even so right about this.” Later Agnes will take her to a party in a loft building in Brooklyn, on the waterfront, and they will stand on the roof together holding hands amid other young, excited people like themselves, sweating, smoking, drinking, smiling, feeling extremely sexy, and they’ll look at the city in the distance, lit up magnificently, the length of it blowing their minds. They will try to figure out which bridge is which, and they will confuse the Manhattan Bridge with the Brooklyn Bridge. There will be a young bearded man playing cover songs on an accordion, and all the girls will want to sleep with him, except for the girls who want to sleep with the other girls. And then Emily will remember a story her aunt had told her about living in Brooklyn a long time ago, and hating it there, the noise, the dirt, the anger, and fleeing the city for home, Chicago, and never looking back, and all Emily can think is: She must have gone to the wrong Brooklyn. Because I never want to go home again.