Joan Didion - Run River

Everett walked up to the house alone. Although it had been a custom of his father’s to invite the foreman and his wife to the house the night they finished picking, the new foreman (Henry Sears was his name, he had come from down the San Joaquin, near Bakersfield, had arrived on the ranch a few days after Everett came home from Bliss) had driven a truck full of Mexicans into town, leaving before Everett could have spoken to him, even if Everett had intended speaking to him. At any rate Henry Sears would not know the custom since he had not known Everett’s father, and anyway he had no wife. Everett did not know what he could have said to him if he had invited him. Everyone had always responded to his father: had liked him, disliked him, talked to him, talked about him; had become in one way or another involved with him. Five hundred and forty-seven people had sent flowers when he died, and every one of them had thought himself involved with John McClellan. He would have known, as Everett did not know, how to talk to Henry Sears. Even Martha would probably know, but Everett did not.

Everett did not even know how to talk to Lily. Although he had no idea now what he could say to her when he got to the house, he would have to make it all right, at least for this week. At some point during the afternoon he had worked out an inarticulate pact, and had invested in it all his unthinkable prayers: should the hops come through the drying, the child she was carrying was his. It differed from the game Lily had taught Knight to play with the evening star only that in Everett’s game the odds were pretty much with him. Make sure it’s the first star you see at night, baby, and don’t stop looking until you’ve finished the wish . (“That’s Venus,” he had explained to Knight. “That’s a planet, not a star at all. A planet named Venus.” “I don’t think so,” Knight said politely, not looking away from the window; one twilight he waited at his bedroom window fifteen minutes so as not to risk seeing another star first.)

Even before Everett reached the steps to the verandah he heard Martha’s laughter through the screened door and windows, and he heard in the particular pitch of that laughter the fact that Ryder Channing was with her. It was not that he disliked Channing. Channing in fact reminded him of Clark McCormack, his roommate at Stanford, and he admired their apparent easiness in the world even as he was vaguely troubled by it. Clark McCormack had seemed to Everett the center of a vast social network, the pivot for dozens of acquaintances, all of whom were constantly calling or dropping by the Deke house: one to bring Clark the stolen stencil for a mimeographed midterm; another to drop off a box of Glenn Miller records in anticipation of a party; others, usually extraordinarily pretty girls, to leave their convertibles for Clark to use. Like Clark McCormack, Channing conveyed the distinct impression that he could live by his wits alone. They were both free agents, adventurers who turned whatever came their way to some advantage; both pleasant, knowledgeable, and in some final way incomprehensible to Everett. Channing had once told Everett that wherever he was he made a point of getting a guest card to the best country club. It was that kind of thing, something Everett could not put his finger on. Channing had no business around Marth. He might even be married: you never knew about people like Channing. He would have to talk to Martha; he had meant to talk to her ever since he came home in February.

“Everett?” Martha called now from the living room.

He had wanted to see Lily before facing Marth and Channing, and he hesitated, playing for time by looking through the mail on the hall table. There were two pediatricians’ bills, a notice of a sale on Germaine Monteil Superglow Solid Powder at the Bon Marché in Sacramento, and a report from the Pi Beta Phi Arrow Shop in Gatlinburg, Tennessee: all addressed to Lily.

“Everett,” Martha called again. “Come here.”

He walked into the living room, oddly conscious of the muscles moving in his legs. He was struck by the thought, although it did not sound scientific, that if he forgot where the muscles were he would be unable to walk.

“Ryder brought us some good gin for a change and I’m making martinis.”

Everett did not look at Channing. “Where’s Lily?” he asked with an effort.

Martha was sitting with her back to him, her rather too long hair hanging forward over her bare shoulders. She had on some kind of sun dress which made her look pale and thin, and the hair did not help. Although he had always liked it long she looked healthier when she kept it cut.

“She’s in San Francisco,” Martha said finally, measuring gin into a pitcher. “I drove her in this morning to get the train. The City of San Francisco was two hours late coming in over the mountains and that’s why I wasn’t here for lunch. I told China Mary to slice the ham,” she added. “Was it all right?”

“I wasn’t up for lunch.” He paused. “You say Lily’s gone to the City?”

“She just decided to go as long as it was so hot — you wouldn’t be lieve how hot it was in town today, we saw Francie cashing a check in the Wells Fargo and she looked like wrath —and you’re so busy. Anyway she had to shop. She claimed she didn’t have anything to wear to the Horse Show in case you took her to the Fair.”

“The Fair,” Everett repeated.

Martha looked up. “The Fair starts Thursday. Anyway. She said to tell you she was going to spend all your money at Magnin’s.”

Sweet Christ. He could hear her saying it. Tell your brother I’m going to spend all his money at Magnin’s .

“She staying at the St. Francis?”

“I wouldn’t think so.” Martha handed Channing a glass. “I don’t know that she’s ever stayed at the St. Francis in her life. I mean has she?”

He did not know. He had thought of the St. Francis only because it was her favorite hotel in San Francisco: It makes me feel like violets, baby, violets and silver dollars from the Comstock Lode. All that tacky marble .

“I mean I assumed she was staying with Mrs. Ives,” Martha added. “I didn’t really think. She said she might call tonight or tomorrow.”

Charlotte Ives was Lily’s great-aunt, a widow who lived out in the Marina. Lily might be at the St. Francis and she might not, but she would almost certainly not be with Mrs. Ives. She said she might call tonight or tomorrow . Wherever she was, he would not be able to reach her. That was all that meant. He knew now that he should have expected her to do this, knew that he would pay all of his life for letting her spend this one hour in some nameless doctor’s office. If that was what she was doing, and he did not know what else she could be doing. She must have been ready to do it before she told him. She had tried him at last and found no help. It occurred to him suddenly that something could go wrong, that everything could go all wrong and they would never let him know.

“What’s going to happen to Knight and Julie?” He heard too late the uneven rise in his voice.

Martha looked at Channing, who shrugged, stood up, and walked over to the window.

“Now, Everett,” Martha said finally. “Knight and Julie are at this moment asleep. China Mary has fed them and I have twice recounted for them the story of the little engine that could. Ryder has obtained at Knight’s request three glasses of water, and perhaps you might — when you feel up to it — make certain that Julie has not misplaced her stuffed raccoon, which seems to do for Julie what Luminal does for Julie’s Mommy. Now I would assume that we could carry on in this vein until Mommy’s re turn .”

Everett saw that Channing was watching him, and forced himself to smile. He was irritated, as he frequently was now, by Martha’s tone: he was sure that if she could hear herself she would stop it, but did not know how to tell her that.