Elise Blackwell - An Unfinished Score

“You’re self-absorbed, that’s what you are,” Petra says. “When’s the last time you thought about the war or even anybody else?”

Suzanne’s anger expands and then fast shrinks back into the small, dull pain of feeling alone in the world. It’s what you are left with when the person in the world who best knows you dies, something that has now happened to Suzanne twice. Next, she thinks, she’ll lose Petra and then Ben. Being without them would make her even more alone than she is when she is with them.

Anthony’s wife strolls toward their group carrying two small plates and forks. Jennifer wears thin gold jewelry that seems too delicate for her sturdy frame. She holds a law degree that she’s never used, and her family’s money is no longer looked down on as new money — it’s been three generations, and even in Princeton people no longer care very much where money is from so long as it is plentiful and tastefully spent. That the money is spread thinner now is a more serious problem and the reason the quartet is always under pressure to become more reliably profitable.

Though Jennifer dictates to Anthony most of his life, from where he dines to what brand of shirt he wears, in front of the others she waits on him as though she is a well-dressed servant. She hands him a plate holding cake with sliced strawberries and asks if she can bring him coffee. He stands to give her his chair.

Watching the children play, Jennifer explains her child-rearing notions as though they are all gravely interested — as though Daniel and Suzanne are parents and Petra is a by-the-book mother instead of who she is. Jennifer tells them she has plans to market her ideas in the form of a chart she’s designed to track her own children’s behavioral progress and quantify their rewards and punishments.

“It’s like a game for them,” she says. “Each child is a different color of cat, and the chart looks like a board game except it’s vertical and magnetic so you can put it on the refrigerator. Very colorful. Their pieces get sent back spaces for particular offenses — like three spaces for whining — and they also receive surprises along the way, such as a trip to Thomas Sweet for a day without sibling rivalry.”

Suzanne pictures her life on the board, her childhood ambitions punished with poverty, her adultery with pain, her need to fit in with shunning. Her cat would fall backward right off the chart.

Anthony, who may or may not approve of his wife’s meting out of childhood’s pleasures, smiles. “Jennifer’s research suggests there’s a national market for this kind of thing.”

Petra leans over, tipping her low-slung lawn chair to a dangerous angle. “Great,” she breathes into Suzanne’s ear. “Now children in all fifty states can hate her.” She rights herself, pushing off the grass with her hand.

Suzanne smiles, relieved to have her best friend back on her side, if only because they now face a common enemy.

“I don’t understand.” Jennifer points to the rather flat piece of layer cake she’s just taken a bite from. “The recipe was three pages long, describing every test the kitchen made. I followed it exactly. I even beat the eggs and sugar over simmering water until the mixture reached exactly 110 degrees. I have a new thermometer — the good kind.”

“You took your cake’s temperature?” Petra smiles at her.

“It looks delicious,” Suzanne says quickly. “Ben always prefers a moist fallen cake to one that’s cooked too long.”

Daniel nods. “It looks great, Jennifer. I’m going to get a piece later after I finish my wine.”

“The glass or the bottle?” asks Petra.

“That’s not the point.” Jennifer looks at Anthony, then Daniel, searching for support. “That’s not the point. If you follow the rules, you’re supposed to get what you set out for. A recipe is a pact.”

“Like music.” Anthony rubs his wife’s rounded shoulder with his free hand. “You can’t give an audience a pleasant beginning and then hit them with something they don’t understand. Same thing with marriage.”

“I suppose you think life works that way,” Petra says, her words loose but her face clamped. “Follow the rules, advance three spaces, collect your reward. Americans who were popular in high school always think like that.”

Dusk lurks above them and then settles, as though the darkness is not a declining of light but a tangible thing losing altitude. Once lowered, it leaves Suzanne slightly chilled. Adele sits with another child, a girl whose mother, Linda, is a widow.

“She’s beautiful,” Daniel says of the woman, who stands beyond the girls.

“She doesn’t look it, but she’s ten years older than you are,” Suzanne tells him, her voice sympathetic.

“That doesn’t matter to me.”

While Petra’s drinking words slur unpleasantly, Daniel’s overlap melodically, as though he is speaking a Romance language Suzanne half understands.

“She has two children, all the time.”

“I love children,” he says.

“Daniel,” Suzanne says, her voice now like snapped fingers, “she doesn’t drink. She quit when her husband died, because she always has to be the responsible one.”

“Ah, well, now that might pose a problem.” Daniel grins, boyish, but still he watches Linda play with her daughter and Adele. The three hold hands and turn in a circle. From behind, Linda, slim-hipped, looks like a tall child.

“Ashes, ashes, we all fall down,” Linda’s daughter sings as the three collapse to the ground laughing.

Ben walks up behind Suzanne, holds the back of her neck in a loose grip.

“That’s a bit morbid,” says Jennifer. “The father died on 9/11.”

Petra’s words collide with each other: “Did you hear the one about the terrorists who hijacked a plane full of viola players?”

Anthony helps Jennifer from the low chair and murmurs good-bye as they walk away to collect their children.

“Have some more wine, Petra.” Ben’s voice is like metal.

“Let’s go,” Suzanne says.

“But Adele is having fun. She never gets to play with children.”

“Then let Ben drive you home, and I’ll stay with her.”

“And then come back for you?” He sounds annoyed and his grip tightens perceptibly.

“And then come back for Adele and me,” Suzanne says resolutely. She’s about to ask Daniel if he wants Ben to drop him off also, but he’s already up and walking a straight line toward Linda.

As soon as Ben and Petra have left, Suzanne wishes she and Adele had gone with them. The party empties while they wait for Ben to return, and Adele quickly runs out of children to play with and settles in Elizabeth’s living room with a book. Suzanne helps Elizabeth process some of the dishes, including her own empty cake plate. At one point she turns to Elizabeth, suddenly compelled to tell her — tell someone — about Alex. Instead she pours the wine left in her glass into the sink. She reminds herself, sternly, that she can never tell anyone, that not telling is part of the cost of what she has done.

When Ben returns, finally, the kitchen is clean and Elizabeth’s family has gone to bed. Elizabeth dances with Adele in the living room to music with the bass turned up.

Ben wipes his feet on the mat just inside the kitchen. “It was hard to get Petra to stop talking and get inside.”

Suzanne shrugs. “Too much to drink, I guess. Shall we go?”

Adele begs to sit in the front, but Suzanne insists she sit in the statistically safer backseat. “I’ll sit with you, so we can chat.”

As they drive across to their side of town, Adele leans her head into Suzanne’s arm, sleepy and sweet.

Figuring Petra has passed out, Suzanne puts Adele to bed, brushing her teeth for her because she is too tired to lift the brush herself, tucking her in, kissing both soft cheeks.