The Paper Palace(81)

“It was too hard,” I say.

“And now?”

“I don’t know.”

He drains his beer, reaches for another. “So, are you planning to marry this guy?”

I look away from him. Behind us, on the West Side Highway, traffic has come to a standstill. In the near distance, I hear the rise and fall of a siren. A taxi driver leans on his horn, a pointless gesture, like pushing the elevator button again when it’s already lit. Another driver honks at him for honking, shouts, “Fuck you, moron,” out of his window. A quarter mile behind them, I watch the circular flashing light of an ambulance trying to wedge its way forward between the grudging cars.

“Maybe.” I sigh. “Probably.”

He stares out across the heavy river. “Promise you’ll warn me beforehand.”

“Okay.”

“Don’t surprise me. I hate surprises.”

“I know. I promise.”

“Mean it.”

The sun has set, leaving behind a fiery orange sky. Pylons that once held up the long-gone piers stalk out into the river in rows of two, black against the burning sky.

“It’s painfully beautiful,” I say.

“Just so we are clear,” he says, “I will never love anyone the way I love you.”





26


   1996. August, the Back Woods.


It’s Anna, not me, who insists we go to the end-of-summer bonfire. I can’t remember the last time I went, and I don’t particularly want to go. But Anna has come to the woods for a solo visit. She rarely comes back east anymore—it is practically impossible for her to get time off from work now that she’s on the partner track—and Jeremy, her Orange County boyfriend whom I cannot bear, thinks the Paper Palace is a decaying slum: the sagging cabin steps, Homasote ceilings stained brown with small circles of mouse piss or the slow drip drip of their afterbirth. No one has ever had the guts to investigate what lies above. And mosquitoes, which, Jeremy insisted, the one and only time they came to the camp together four years ago, do not exist in Manhattan Beach. He has not been back since.

“We live on the beach, babe,” he said to Anna at breakfast after their second night. “This place is great, but why be here when we can be at home in the condo? Frosty AC, chilling on the deck, a good chardonnay.”

“That’s the reason we love it here,” I said. “No Chardonnay.” I have tried to understand why my sister is with Jeremy. As far as I can tell, he represents everything we detest. But maybe that’s the point.

“It’s odd,” my mother said, coming onto the porch with her coffee and a novel, “Manhattan and beach are two of the greatest things on earth. But put them together and all you have is mediocrity.”

“Mom,” Anna said.

“It’s such a treat having you both here.” Mum sat down on the horsehair sofa and settled herself in, opened her book to the middle. “Anna,” she said without looking up, “I hope you explained to your young man that we don’t flush for pee.” She took a sip of coffee. “Don’t let me forget to call the plumber about replacing the septic tank. Clearly, tainted groundwater is leaching into the pond.” She pointed out toward the lily pads. “How else do you explain the algae bloom?”

This summer, by some miracle, Jeremy’s bosses have invited him to attend a marketing conference in Flagstaff the same week he and Anna had already booked to come to the Cape.

“I can’t believe you managed to resist the dramatic-but-healing landscape and the all-you-can-eat buffets to come to the ‘shithole,’” I say now as we canoe across to the far side of the pond. On bonfire night, it’s impossible to park at the beach—much quicker to canoe and walk. We’ve packed a bag of marshmallows, Cape Cod potato chips, red wine, and a moth-eaten army blanket to sit on when the sand goes cold.

Anna laughs. “Harsh.”

“He insulted my favorite place on earth.”

“You can’t condemn him because he doesn’t ‘get’ the pond. It was my fault. I forgot to tell him the name Paper Palace was ironic.”

“It’s not just the camp,” I say. “It’s his whole outlook on the world. Like everything should be made of Saltillo-fucking-tile and polished granite countertops.”

“That’s why I like him. He’s predictable. I know exactly what I’m getting.”

I roll my eyes.

“Elle, we all have different shit. Jeremy makes me feel safe. Anyway, not everyone can fall madly in love with a rich, dashing English journalist. Some of us have to settle for a kind-if-boring Californian guy with good pecs. So, don’t be such a judgmental cow.”

“That’s fair.” I will never like Jeremy. Not because, as Anna says, he’s predictable or, as Mum says, “bourgeois.” But because he makes her be less-than, and it pisses me off.

We are both quiet for a bit, our paddles cutting the glass-still surface of the pond, the canoe gliding silently into a reflection of pink sky. A heron stands statue-still in the reeds, letting us pass.

“What time is Peter driving up tomorrow?” Anna breaks the silence.

“Right after lunch. He wants to beat the rush hour.”

“If he’s taking the Merritt, ask him to pick up some bagels from H&H.”