Richard Ford - The Lay of the Land

“What’s wrong with Jill?” I say.

“Way-ell.” Clarissa casts an eyebrows-raised look of appraisal up at me. She can’t see well without her contacts.

Thom suddenly snaps to, grins, showing huge incisors, blinks his eyes and says, “What? Sorry. I wasn’t listening.”

“Did he tell you she only has one hand? I mean she’s perfectly okay. They probably love each other. But yeah. It’s fine, of course. It’s not a problem.”

“One hand?” I say.

“The left one.” Clarissa bites the corner of her mouth. “I mean she’s right-handed, so to speak.”

“Where’d it go?” I have both of mine. Everybody I know has both of theirs. I of course know people suffer such things — all the time. It shouldn’t be a shock that Paul romances a girl with only one arm. But it is. (Never wonder what else can happen next. Much can.)

“We didn’t get into it.” Clarissa shakes her head, her foot still tucked away in plain sight into Thom’s man department. “I guess they met on-line. But she actually works where he works, whatever that’s called. The card company.” (She knows what it’s called.)

I say, “Maybe she works in the sympathy-card department.”

Clarissa smiles an unfriendly smile and gives me one of her long looks that means everything I say is wrong. “A lot of people who write sympathy cards have disabilities themselves. She did tell us that — apropos of nothing. They didn’t stick around that long. I think he wants to surprise you.” She prisses her lips and goes back to her Orvis catalog.

Clarissa, who’s my only earthly ally, if provoked in front of Thom, will jump to Paul’s and one-arm Jill’s defense for anything inappropriate in my body language, facial expression, much less my word-of-mouth. Never mind that she thinks it’s all the strangest of strange. Paul may have hired an actor to bring home just to drive us all crazy. It’s in his realm. Otto in a skirt.

“They said they were going to ‘pick up a motel room.’” Clarissa’s very businessy-sarcastic now because she wants to be — but I can’t be. “They’re going to Ann’s for dinner.” (First names only here.) I don’t want to tell her I’ve invited Ann for Thanksgiving and hear from her what an insanely bad idea it is. “Surprises all around. She’ll flip.” Clarissa executes a perfectly glorious smile that says, I wish I could be there.

Words, I find, are not in full abundance. “Okay,” I say.

“ We’re going to Atlantic City, by the way.” She extends a hand over onto velvety Thom’s singleted shoulder and rolls her eyes upward (in mockery). Thom seems confused — that so much could go on in one family in so short a period of time without any of it being about him. “We’ll be back in the morning.” More woogling, this time at Trump’s. “I’m going to try my luck at roulette.” She pats Thom’s tawny, muscular thigh right where the shark took its nip or where he rappelled down the face of Mount whatever. Maybe they’ll see the Calderons at the free high-roller buffet.

“Then I think I’ll just go off and try to sell a house.” I grin insincerely.

“Okay now, is that what you do?” Thom blinks at me. The widely separated corners of his mouth flicker with a smile that may be amused or may be amazed but is not interested.

“Pretty much.”

“Great. Do you do commercial or just houses?” His smile’s tending toward being amused. I’m sure his father did commercial in Rio and printed his own currency.

“Mostly residential,” I say. “I can always use a mid-career salesman, if you’re interested. I have a Tibetan monk working for me right now who’s maybe going to leave. You’d have to take the state test, and I get half of everything. I’d put you on salary for six months. You’d probably do great.”

Amazement. His teeth are truly enormous and white and unafflicted by worry. He likes flashing them as proof of invulnerability.

“I’ve got my hands pretty full at the Down’s center,” he says, smiling self-beknightedly.

“Do those little devils really stay on a horse without being wired on?”

“You bet they do,” Thom says.

“Does riding horses cure Down’s syndrome?”

“There isn’t any cure. ” Clarissa smacks shut her Orvis catalog and retracts her heels from Thom’s scrotal zone. It’s time to go. This is her house, too, she wants me to understand — though it isn’t. It’s mine. “You know it doesn’t cure Down’s syndrome, you cluck.” She starts gathering dishes and ferrying them noisily to the sink. “You should come over and volunteer, Frank. They’ll let you ride a pony if you want to. No wires.” Her back is to me. Thom’s gazing at me wondrously, as if to say, Yep, you’re getting a good scolding now, I’m sorry it has to happen, but it does.

“Great,” I say jovially, and give Thom a chummy grin that says we men are always in the line of female fire. I pop the spindled listing sheets in my palm — three times for emphasis. “You kids have yourselves some fun pissing Thom’s money away.”

“Yeah, we will,” Clarissa says from the sink. “We’ll think of you. Paul has a time capsule with him. I almost forgot. He wants us to put something in it and bury it someplace.” She’s smirking as she rinses cups and doesn’t turn around. Though this occasions a troubled look from Thom, as if Paul’s a sad soul who’s made all our lives one endless hell on earth.

“That’ll be great,” I say.

Clarissa says, “What’re you going to put in it?”

“I’ll have to think. Maybe I’ll put in my Michigan diploma, with a listing sheet. ‘Once there was a time when people lived in things called houses — or in their parents’ houses.’ You can put your old—”

“I’ll think about me,” Clarissa says. She knows what I was about to suggest. Her nose stud.

I consider confessing that I’ve invited her mother for Thanksgiving — just to discourage Thom from coming. But I’m late and don’t have time for an argument. “Don’t forget you’re the acting lady of the house tomorrow. I’m depending on you to be a gracious hostess.”

“Who’s the husband?”

“I hope you sell a house,” Thom says. “Is that what you want to do? My dad was in real estate. He sold big office buildings. He—” I’m on my way to the front door and miss the rest.

Up again, old heart. Everything good is on the highway. In this instance, New Jersey Route 35, the wide mercantile pike up Barnegat Neck, whose distinct little beach municipalities — Sea-Clift, Seaside Park, Seaside Heights, Ortley Beach — pass my window, indistinguishable. For practical-legal reasons, each boro has its separate tax collector, deeds registry, zoning board, police, fire, etc., and local patriots defend the separate characters as if Bay Head was Norway and Lavallette was France. Though I, a relative newcomer (eight years), experience these beach townlettes as one long, good place-by-an-ocean and sell houses gainfully in each. And particularly on this cold, clearing morning when it’s reassuring as a fifties memory all up the Shore, I thank my lucky stars for landing me where they did.

Christmas decorations are going up in the morning sunshine. The streets crew is stringing red-and-green plastic bunting to the intersection wires, and swagging the firemen’s memorial at Boro Hall. Candy-cane soldiers have appeared on the median strip, and a crèche with bearded, more authentic burnoose-clad Semites is now up on the lawn of Our Lady of Effectual Mercy. No revolving lights are in place. A banner announcing a Cadillac raffle and a Las Vegas Night stands on the lawn by the announcements case offering CONFESSIONS ANYTIME.