A Theory of Relativity (20 page)

Later, as fall came on, legal things would begin to slam together so quickly that this one midsummer evening would seem like a plateau of boundless innocence. Gordon had been stupidly grateful for the short break from Keefer to give him the chance to move all his last traps into the new place.

The predominant sense Gordon had, that night when they were all left standing in the blue gold of vanilla-scented gloaming by the viber-num bushes on Cleveland Avenue, was pity for his parents. It was obvious that they couldn’t bear too many more wet Kleenex evenings.

When they’d all sat down dutifully to consume Nora’s colloidal coffee, he had seen Mark and Lorraine, for the first time, as old, deserving of safekeeping. How, he would wonder, had he changed? A handful of weeks ago, he’d been a golden lad whose youth was so striking even Theory[113-221] 6/5/01 11:59 AM Page 125

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beside his same-age cousins, with their growing guts and their company shirts. All at once, he would feel like the parent of everybody.

The first night without Keefer, Gordon fell gratefully into bed and slept twelve hours straight. The second night, he and Church had gone out to play pool. He’d scratched a dozen. He couldn’t think. It was sleep deprivation. Muzzy from the beers they consumed, he came home alone, listened to two of Lindsay’s three messages, decided it was too late to call back, relished the silence, went to work on his feet with the pumice, did some hammer curls, and then was gripped by such an abrupt forlornness that he rummaged around for Keefer’s “Queen of Almost Everything” blanket and folded it under his head as a pillow.

And still, he couldn’t sleep for shit.

He’d been up for an hour the next morning, when Lindsay showed up for their dawn picnic. She was dressed in a diaphanous white peasant blouse, which Gordon could see right through, over a scrap of bra he could see right through as well. “You look . . . delicious,” he’d told her.

“You look like an edible flower.”

“Other edibles first,” Lindsay grinned, unpacking one of her incredible picnics, cheese and avocado sandwiches and champagne with orange juice. They ate a few bites, and then they stripped, stopping to fold their clothes like the old married people Gordon sometimes felt they had become. They waded into the brackish bathwater of Spirit Lake, rinsing, play-fighting, and dunking, until Gordon could no longer pretend to ignore the way her nipples had puckered, each a kiss for him. He held his breath and slipped under to tease open her cool red bush and lick at her as she first wriggled, made as if to push him away. And then her smooth legs, mottled with freckles like sparrows’

eggs, opened gratefully. They stumbled out then, he lay on sand already warm and forgiving from yesterday’s sun, and Lindsay slid on top and onto him in one supple motion. Digging in her knees, she rocked him, clenched him, milked him, until the fumbling interlude to search the picnic basket for the condom, which Lindsay always brought; and when he was finished, he spilled champagne on her belly from thirst Theory[113-221] 6/5/01 11:59 AM Page 126

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more than lust and tongued her for as long as his dry lips would bear, and then she rode his thumb until she collapsed with a sigh. They never came together, always took turns. Lindsay was too focused on Gordon’s pleasure while he was inside her to let go, no matter how he cajoled her. She was as considerate and quiet and docile in sex as she was in everything else. That didn’t bother Gordon. He loved their sex as he loved other mild pleasures in life, as he loved sleeping outside or his aunt Nora’s cherry applesauce. Screwing Lindsay was like wrapping himself in sun-dried towels; afterward, he felt cleaner.

But there were times when, eyes closed, he would catch himself recalling the exquisite timing of Liza the stripper, his first after Lindsay, his premiere experience of pure wenching, the summer after he got out of high school, when he and Lindsay had “agreed” to see other people.

Liza also was older, twenty-two, but she lived with her mother, and their entire relationship took place either on the Union Terrace at the university or in the backseat of his car on the many Friday nights he drove to Madison to watch her dance naked in front of fifty other men, lunatic with the knowledge that only he, among all of them, would actually get to do what every one of them was fantasizing. In Lindsay’s arms, he would replay his and Liza’s simultaneous yesses and no’s and hoarse shouts, her small hands first tickling, then clenching, then slamming the flesh of his butt, both of them lost in feral fucking of their own, as if they were conjoined only by accident. But, alas, Liza called mail-order clothing catalogues “magazines” and read them carefully. Gordon privately feared what they said was true. It was either one or the other; the action in a girl was distributed wholly either heads or tails.

Having brushed off most of the sand and pulled on their shirts, Lindsay and Gordon ate, drank, and watched the sun rise weightily, so plushy orange it looked three-dimensional. The mist that gave the lake its name twirled and eddied. Lindsay looked tired; she had to work today at the Soap Bubble, where she had, after a long and much-discussed bout of guilt, accepted the post of acting manager when Georgia became too ill to work. She’d told Gordon she’d overcome most of her initial nervousness, got pages of compliments from the owner on her color sense and cus-Theory[113-221] 6/5/01 11:59 AM Page 127

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tomer skills. She thought the post would now be permanent, which was great, since she would now not have to consider option two, going back for a master’s in marketing. Lindsay could never imagine leaving Tall Trees, her parents, or her married sister. Her final two years at UW-Stevens Point had been an agony of homesickness.

Today, the town would be filled with vacationers from cabins on Big Heart Lake; there would be a Main Street sidewalk sale, a beer tent, and pony rides before the fireworks. The traffic in soap would be brisk, Lindsay told Gordon, especially the new stuff they had, which was sawed off a huge block and sold in chunks, soap embedded with stars or spangles. He thought, as he often did, how Lindsay’s looked like a big cat’s face, huge Russian cheekbones, green eyes with nearly invisible long lashes tawny as the sunburned grass around the lake. When she wore makeup and twisted up her bushy red hair, which she rarely ever did, she looked like another woman, an actress or a model. Men turned their heads and clutched at their hearts in admiring pantomime, and Lindsay never noticed. Her heart was at rest with Gordon. Why wasn’t his? He watched as she smiled, shut-eyed, into the sun, and noticed fine crinkles at her eye corners. It stabbed him, how long she had waited for him, how much she had forgiven.

“The sun,” she said, “it’s so gorgeous.”

“Do you know why it looks like that?”

“Well, it’s morning.”

“No, why it’s so big.”

“Because it’s big.”

“It’s an optical illusion, Lins. Your eye sees it as big because of what’s around it on the horizon, the trees and the telephone poles. You don’t see those when it’s high in the sky.”

“If it’s a trick of the eye, how come you can’t make it not happen?”

“You can’t tell yourself no to see water on the road when it’s hot out, even if there’s no water there, can you?” Lindsay poured her quarter-inch of champagne, still cold, on his foot. “Why can’t you just let the sun be the sun, Gordie? It’s just beautiful, is all.”

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“Why can’t you still think it’s beautiful and understand it? Isn’t it more interesting?”

“Not really.”

Why, Gordon thought, did he torment her?

At any rate, that effectively ended the picnic. As if on cue, a cloud slid over the sun, and they both reached for their chinos. Gordon noticed they were dressed like ten-year-old twins—beige slacks, white shirts.

“I have to get to the store,” Lindsay said. “I’ll drop you off. Is Keefer coming home today?”

“Later on.”

“Just two nights with them?”

“Just two. She’s only sixteen months old.”

“Do you know how smart she is, Gordie?” Lindsay was busily packing up. The formed plastic plates were dirty, but Lindsay still nested them, one inside the other, and put the glasses in their elastic holders.

“The other day, I counted how many words she can say. It’s, like, fifteen.

If you count the doggie sound and the cow sound. Dory and Nana and Nona and Papa, and when she sees me, she says ‘Bunny.’ ”

“She thinks you look like a rabbit.”

“Cut it out,” but Lindsay smiled.

“It’s the ears,” Gordon said, leaning up to kiss her. “No, really, she’s trying to say your name. And she says ‘plane’ and ‘uh-oh.’ She says ‘uh-oh’ a lot, when she’s destroying my house . . .”

“You’re crazy about her.”

“She gets all those smarts from . . . my sister. Georgia was the smart one.”

“I can’t talk about . . . I can’t talk about Georgia.” Huge, round tears quivered, then spilled. “I think of her all day. There are still laminated signs on the wall at the store . . . in her handwriting. Can you imagine how that is for me? Don’t make me cry. I have to work. Do I look okay?”

“Perfect.”

“Really.”

“You can see your nipples through that shirt. You might want to consider a turtleneck.”

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“I’ll change,” Lindsay beamed, delighted at a hint of jealousy from him. “You’re going to be a great father, Gordie.”

“I hope so.”

“And you’re not alone. You have, for example, me.”

“You’re a pretty virgin mother yourself, Lins.”

“You make me sound like Saint Mary.”

“Hardly.”

“I think I’m a good . . . mother. And I’m no virgin. Thanks to you.”

“Me and David Robb and . . . what was that guy’s name with the old Silver Cloud?”

“My life according to my boyfriends’ cars . . .”

“What was his name?”

“Wesley Tanco.”

“See? You could have been Mrs. Tanco.”

“I never did.”

“What?”

“I never . . . slept with them.”

“Come on, Lins. I don’t care.”

“I know you don’t care, but I didn’t.”

“Surely, you went out with that Tanco guy for like . . . a year or something.”

“But we only fooled around.”

“Well, at least that was something . . .”

“It wasn’t . . . what we do.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“That I’ve only ever done it with you.”

“That’s . . . wow, Lins. You didn’t have to tell me that.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? Aren’t you glad?”

“Sure I’m . . .” Gordon stopped himself. Was he glad? Was he proud? Was he claiming some sort of pledge he hadn’t made? “Of course, I’m glad, I guess. But it wouldn’t matter. I mean, we’re here now. It’s us now.”

“Is it?”

“What?”

“Us now? Are we together?”

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“Either that or I was just raped by some wood nymph out there.”

“You know what I mean.”

He did, and he would rather have had dental surgery than start the discussion now, before he knew where he wanted it to go. Please, he thought. Not now. The whole dilemma of him and Lindsay was like the secretary desk that had belonged to his grandma McKenna. Gordon had kept the desk in the same place for five years, moving it from one flop to the next, setting it up with all the sandpaper and stain laid out on newspaper next to it, as if he were about to start refinishing it at any moment. The last time he’d checked, the stain had congealed. He might never get around to actually doing it. And still, he could not imagine parting with the desk. It belonged to him.

He should end this now.

He didn’t want to end it.

He didn’t want to begin it.

Why couldn’t they just live in the moment? For the moment? Why was it always necessary to give up the luscious mouthfuls of now, which the possibility of their passing only made sweeter, because they couldn’t be frozen and sealed in a package marked “Forever Fresh”?

“Lins,” he said, “I don’t know who I am or where I am right now. I don’t know what the future holds for me, or for us. I know I’m going to be with Keefer, but I don’t know anything else. And I know I’m here with you right now, and it’s where I want to be.”

“What am I to you?”

“Jesus, Lindsay. You’re my friend. I love you. You know that. I’d do anything in the world for you.” That was not a lie. He’d do anything in the world, at this moment, for example, to teleport Lindsay to work before he could say something they’d both regret.

“I don’t want to be your friend.”

“Too late,” said Gordon, but he knew exactly what she meant. At least he owed her that much, and it wasn’t fair to play stupid. “I know, I know. You don’t want to be only my friend. In that context, it’s kind of insulting. I just can’t say for sure, well, in one year, we’re going to do this or do that . . .”

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“I’m not asking for you to say that we’re going to do anything—”

“But you are asking, what does this mean?”

“And the answer?”

“I don’t know that any better than you do, Lins. And, anyway, that’s not all my choice, is it? That’s up to both of us.” He wanted badly to believe that. He wasn’t some goddamned spoiled martinet, who wanted all the princesses of the kingdom driven before him . . . he was a father!

Almost! If Keefer were grown, he wouldn’t want a man to call all the shots for her. What if Keefer one day loved someone as Lindsay loved him? Some spoiled, grabby bastard?

But that was different. Keefer was his child.

Or was it different? Lindsay was a beloved child. What would gim-let-eyed Al Snow, an actuary with an actuary’s soul, say if he knew not only how freely Lindsay had offered the peach, but how thoughtlessly he had gobbled, then got the taste for a pear, or a navel orange . . .