This Place of Wonder (30)

As I step out of the car, I see her in the midst of knee-high corn, wearing a pair of denim overalls and a bright yellow scarf over her hair. She’s pointing to a small knot of children, obviously giving them tasks for the day, then spies us and waves us over.

“Hi!” she says. “Kids, you remember Ms. Beauvais, don’t you?”

They greet me by rote, but one boy, about ten, pops up a hand. “Ms. Beauvais, you said we could grow anything, right?”

“Within reason.”

“What if we want to grow marijuana?”

I raise my eyebrows. “Um, no.”

“It’s legal. My uncle’s growing some.”

“He’s an adult and can make that choice,” I say. “But you are a child and you may not.”

He snaps his fingers in exaggerated disappointment, and gains the attention he sought when his friends laugh.

It reminds me abruptly of Augustus. He always knew how to play the crowd, bring in approval, charm his detractors.

For one long moment, standing in the hot sun with a gaggle of children amid knee-high corn, I am swamped by a heavy wave of loss. A tangle of things rise in my mind—the spark in his eye, the way he waited for the return on a joke.

And more. I acutely miss the taste of him, the scent of his skin. Swaying in the sun, I curse myself and my weakness.

Oh, sweet Jesus, why did I allow it to begin again?





Chapter Fifteen


Norah


I awaken too late to get out of the house ahead of Maya and Meadow, unfortunately, and have to lie in the bed I’ve made of Augustus’s clothes, listening to them talk overhead. Meadow walks with a sturdy, no-nonsense step that I can follow throughout the house. Maya is lighter of foot, though I can still hear her.

Meadow leaves first. I listen, playing with my phone, eating a KIND bar, waiting for Maya to follow. It takes a while. She putters around the kitchen, clanking pans, and my stomach growls over the scents filling the air. After, water runs, probably for a shower, and I squirm in anticipation.

Finally, I hear her walk through the house and close the heavy side door that leads to the garage. Her car is quiet, but I can see a part of the driveway and watch it drive away. I give it fifteen minutes in case she forgot something, then finally escape my little prison. The cleaners won’t come until tomorrow, so I should be relatively safe. I walk through the garage and into the house, smelling something garlicky and exquisite, which turns out to be grilled artichokes. Two halves are left in the fridge, and of course I can’t eat them, but I slide back the cling wrap and pluck a single blade free. Heaven.

On the counter are bananas and a loaf of bread. Easy stuff. I make toast with honey and a cup of tea and eat a banana sitting at the table, reading my phone, just as I always have. I fancy the rooms welcome me, that they haven’t forgotten me.

Stomach sated, I wash and dry and put away my dishes, then collect food that will keep for tonight’s meals and carry it out to my room. I haven’t washed clothes for a few days, but that will have to wait. First, a swim and a shower.

My favorite thing in the world is that pool. It’s long and narrow, about the width of two lanes, meant for laps and sunbathing. The tiles are beautiful, handprinted, turquoise and green renditions of sea creatures like octopuses and mermaids and fish, and I kept the temperature at seventy-eight degrees, which is heavenly if you’re human, barely cool.

Part of the pleasure of it is this: I drop my clothes to the concrete, the shift I was wearing, and my panties. I dive in naked, the water flowing along the parts that never get fresh water on them like this, the silkiness moving over my breasts and bottom, sliding between my thighs. I swim for many laps, never counting, just feeling it, and then when I’m done, I roll over on my back and let the sun warm my parts, too.

As I’m lying there in the sun, my brain starts to turn over the pieces of what I know about Meadow and how I might be able to find out more. The farm and her book emerged from the union with Augustus, but what happened before that? Her book is very light on details about her young years, starting basically when she began working at the Buccaneer, a local tourist trap, with Trudy Nickels, with her daughter in tow.

What happened before that? I feel like the answers to Meadow’s drive and ambition are more about the past than anything she’s written.

A pair of birds are squabbling in the bushes, and I open one eye to see if there’s anything to be worried about. Nothing. Only the bright, hot blue sky and the edge of the shrubs.

For a moment, I let myself imagine that Augustus is still asleep upstairs, the doors open to the breeze. I could go up and wake him, kissing his long back, nuzzling into his neck. He would stir, and roll over and make love to me, and then we’d shower the sweat away, and he’d go off to work and I’d—

What? What have I been doing the past nine months?

Not much. Lying here now, I’m ashamed of myself for dropping everything, all my fierce ambition and quests. I didn’t even think about it, just took up the mantle of kept woman as if I’d been training all my life. I dived into the ease he offered, the long, lazy days walking on the beach, swimming in the pool, reading in a way I’ve never had the luxury to indulge.

But is shame the right emotion? The truth is, when I arrived here, I was exhausted from years of foster homes, where I had to stay on my toes, then scrambling through undergrad, then grad school, trying to figure out how to make a name for myself, make a mark. Survival takes a lot of work if you’re an orphan woman in America.