Jennifer DuBois - Cartwheel

“Forgive me for asking,” said Sebastien, “but why are you here?” He’d been planning to offer Anna a drink but now he wanted her out of the house; the expression on her face was too much like the one he’d been afraid Lily would have the first time she came over, and on the whole, this encounter with Anna was starting to feel too much like an alternate, wholly unpleasant version of the inaugural one with Lily.

“Shouldn’t you be asking how you can help me?” said Anna.

“I’m afraid I presumed you would not hesitate to tell me.”

“I have to ask you a question.”

Sebastien mimed loading and firing a gun.

Anna nodded again, as though Sebastien had just done something that she’d been assured many times that he would. “My sister dumped you, right?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Would this be less weird if we were sitting down?”

Sebastien waved at one of the sheeted lumps. He wished Anna would remark on the lumps—it would be much better if she would—but she did not. Instead, she lifted the sheet to look under it—it turned out to be an oak bench—before sitting down.

“I wouldn’t feel bad about it,” she said. “My sister dumps a lot of guys. She even dumps guys she’s not even really dating. It’s sort of a hobby of hers.”

“We all need to pass the hours somehow.”

“But I guess what I’m wondering is, did she do something particularly awful to you? Or did you guys do something awful together?”

“Forgive me,” said Sebastien. “But I am really struggling to imagine how you’re seeing any of this as your concern.”

“The night Katy died, I mean. I don’t want to know about anything awful that happened any other night. That really wouldn’t be any of my concern, you’re right.”

Sebastien could feel angry horror rising through him, and he was beginning to be unable to bear the sight of Anna’s face. He closed his eyes. “Did I sell out your sister for revenge, is what you’re here to inquire?”

Anna gave him a flat look. “I just think it’s strange that she’s in trouble and you’re not, that’s all.”

“Is that a question?” said Sebastien. “Or is this morning’s program only going to involve a lecture segment? What a thrill it is to be the recipient of personal disquisitions from both Miss Hayes the Younger and the estimable Andrew Hayes, PhD. Of course, it’s true that a less easygoing fellow might start to find all this a tad pedantic.”

Anna raised her eyebrows. They were high arched, like Lily’s, which made her look even more surprised than she probably was. “My father came to see you?”

“He did indeed.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“To live is to learn. Your father came here, and we had a truly unendurable conversation, and I am starting get an unhappy picture of the Hayes family’s manners, particularly as they pertain to barging in . It’s a miracle Lily is as affable as she is.”

Anna’s forehead was still slightly unsettled; Sebastien could see that this revelation had thrown her off, and that it was time to capitalize on this. “Speaking of your Andrew,” he said, “does he know you’re here? Or does Maureen?”

“Do Andrew and Maureen know I’m here?” Anna’s face clenched—this was a sort of airless, noiseless laugh, Sebastien supposed, though it looked strikingly like some kind of medical problem. “No. They don’t keep terrifically careful track of me.”

“That seems odd, considering.”

“Not really.”

“Why’s that?”

“They’ve never been overly interested in me. They really only had me because they thought I’d be important for Lily’s psychological development. I was like a kiddie Mozart CD for her. Or didn’t she tell you that either?”

Sebastien looked at his feet. “Lily’s take on it, I think,” he said carefully, “was that you both felt a bit extraneous to Janie. That was her name, right?” Even though he already knew.

Anna nodded, then shook her head. “They would have had Lily anyway, though. No one ever talks about that. Janie and Lily, that was supposed to be their family. Two kids. I was just the sub, and no one seems excessively happy that I got off the bench. To use an American sports metaphor that, I’m sure, seems pretty vulgar to you. But all of that can be a good thing sometimes. It means I can do stuff I might not be able to otherwise. Like come here and talk to you, for example.”

Sebastien flashed, suddenly, to a memory of his father. Growing up, Sebastien had noticed—first vaguely, then with growing attentiveness—the way his parents lied about their work. Their strategy seemed mostly to involve making their jobs sound very, very boring, and the more Sebastien understood how interesting their jobs really were, the more he marveled over the fact that this approach was actually effective. When Sebastien’s parents were queried about their profession, they gave breezy, dismissive, self-deprecating answers, countered the question with a question, and—just like that—the subject was changed. Invariably, whomever they’d been speaking with was only too happy to do the talking; invariably, it was what they had really wanted to do all along. Sebastien had asked his father about this once, in one of their only direct conversations about such matters. Sebastien was always trying to find the right questions—questions based on tacit mutual understanding, questions that did not demand any concrete answers—and this question, it turned out, was one of them. His father had even looked a little bit pleased that he’d asked it.

“That’s an applicable life lesson, my boy,” he’d said. “Nobody is really paying attention to you. Most people don’t really get this. They think they must count more to other people than other people count to them. They can’t believe the disregard could truly be mutual. But it’s a useful thing to learn, you know, if you can manage not to feel too sorry about it.”

Sebastien had listened and nodded gravely. It was thrilling and terrifying, realizing how easy it was to hide—how unlikely it was that anyone would come looking for you if you did.

“I understand,” he said to Anna.

The light through the window shifted, and Anna turned to look. Sebastien followed her gaze. Outside, feathery clouds sculpted the sky. When she turned back to him, her face was sharp again. “I want to know why you weren’t arrested,” she said. “Especially considering you were sleeping with Katy.”

At this, Sebastien could feel his heart seize, then begin to race. He spent a moment trying to calm it down before he spoke. “Why does everyone think this?” he said.

“Well, who was she sleeping with, then? She was involved with someone, apparently.”

“I don’t know. ‘It isn’t any of my business’—is that the charmingly late-capitalist phrase one hears? But I am certain it wasn’t me. I do believe I’d remember.” A wretched thought came to him. “Is that what Lily thinks?”

Anna said nothing.

“I wasn’t. Tell her.”

“Whatever.” Anna waved her hand, as though trying to decline something Sebastien was physically offering her. “The point is, everyone thinks you were, so, given that, why weren’t you arrested?”

“You want my own opinion on why I wasn’t arrested?”

“Yes.”

“It’s an honor to be consulted.”

“Please don’t be a shit.”

Sebastien ignored this. “In my opinion—hubristic and limited and self-serving as it is—I suppose I was not arrested because they can confidently rule me out.”

“And why is that?”

Sebastien opened his eyes wide, hoping to give the impression of marveling over the fact that Anna was going to make him explain this. “Well,” he said slowly. “They know a fellow was involved, and they know that that fellow was not me. I don’t want to go into the gruesome reasons why they know these things, but I’m assured yours is an unprecedentedly indelicate generation. You’ve seen Law and Order , I trust?”