David Mitchell - The Book of Other People

‘Is she still a hand model?’ Gabrielle’s father asked.

Gabrielle suddenly remembered something else. ‘Didn’t she used to go through your garbage?’

‘No, she’s not a hand model. And it was just one time with the garbage,’ her mother said dismissively. ‘She said it was work-related. ’ Gabrielle’s mom shared a smile with her husband. ‘I think, if anything, she had a little crush on your dad.’

Gabrielle didn’t look at her father – his reaction, she was sure, would embarrass or upset her, though she couldn’t say why. She hoped he wouldn’t stutter again; Gabrielle felt sorry for Soleil, and for anyone with any sort of impediment. Her best friend at school, Melanie, had only four toes on her right foot, and Gabrielle had recently been successful at convincing her she could wear sandals.

‘Where’s Soleil living now?’ Gabrielle’s father asked.

‘You know, I don’t know,’ her mother said slowly. ‘Maybe Texas? A part of me thinks she’s still going from friend to friend, man to man.’

‘Huh,’ her father said, sounding impressed.

Soleil arrived at the house on a Tuesday evening in July. Gabrielle’s parents were both at work, but they had instructed her to let Soleil in and to give her fresh towels and a snack.

‘Hi, beauty,’ Soleil said when she stepped inside the door. ‘You look just like Jack.’

Jack was Gabrielle’s father. She didn’t know how Soleil had reached such a verdict so quickly.

‘Thank you,’ Gabrielle said, and studied Soleil’s face. Her eyes were the color of nutmeg, and her wide cheeks were so flat they seemed pressed up against glass. Her hair was brown and straight, except at the bangs, where it hung in a series of ‘S’s.

‘Wow, there are more mirrors here than at Versailles,’ Soleil said, looking around her. ‘Your parents are rich.’

It felt like a judgment. ‘Not really,’ Gabrielle said.

‘What do you mean, not really?’

‘I don’t know,’ Gabrielle said. ‘I’ve never really thought about it.’

‘Well, the fact that you’ve never thought about it means you’re rich.’

Gabrielle knew they weren’t rich and she knew they weren’t poor. She wanted her parents to come home so Soleil wouldn’t talk about money. ‘The only place it’s appropriate to talk about money is at the bank,’ Gabrielle’s mother often said. Maybe that’s why she worked at one; she was senior teller.

‘There’s food in the kitchen,’ Gabrielle offered. ‘My parents won’t be home for another couple hours.’

‘Are you kidding?’ Soleil said.

Gabrielle didn’t know what she would be kidding about.

‘I’m not going to waste a night in Santa Cruz waiting in a kitchen. Let’s go and get a drink. Is there an Italian restaurant nearby?’

They sat at the bar. Gabrielle had never been so aware of her posture and her age. She was eleven. She wore a lavender corduroy dress with a long-ribboned bow at the collar. Soleil wore a camisole under a burgundy velvet blazer, a small electronic heart pinned to her left lapel. The heart blinked its red light twice in rapid succession, and then paused before blinking twice again.

Within minutes, two men were standing near their bar stools. Gabrielle went to the bathroom and returned to find one of them had taken her seat. She tapped Soleil on the shoulder. ‘The hostess said because I’m underage we have to sit at a table,’ she lied. She pointed to one by the window with room for only two.

‘Nice meeting you gentlemen,’ Soleil said, and inexplicably saluted them before following Gabrielle to the table. Soleil ordered appetizers as main courses, and over dinner she talked to Gabrielle about marriage (she had been married at twenty-four, for three months), the merits of reading Ayn Rand (just by pronouncing her first name correctly you could intimidate people, Soleil claimed), and the serious decision as to whether or not a woman should ever start using deodorant.

‘I never use it and smell me,’ Soleil instructed.

‘Now?’

‘No,’ she said, rolling her eyes, ‘ten years from now.’

Gabrielle leaned in toward her.

‘What do I smell like?’

‘Sweet, like strawberries,’ Gabrielle said. It was true, she did smell like strawberries, but she also smelled like sweat. Not in a bad way, and not in a French way – there was just a trace of something fermenting.

‘You’re sweet, too, Bree,’ Soleil said. Over dinner, Soleil had started calling her Bree without ever asking if she liked it. She did like it.

‘Thank you, you’re too kind,’ Gabrielle said, sounding like someone else.

‘That took longer than I thought it would,’ Soleil said, as they walked hurriedly back to Gabrielle’s house. ‘How mad will your parents be?’

‘Beats me,’ Gabrielle said. ‘We don’t have guests that often.’

Gabrielle’s parents were sitting in the kitchen, facing each other. Her mother’s foot was propped on her father’s lap. He was massaging it.

‘Oh, there you are,’ Gabrielle’s mother said, as though she was addressing a pair of misplaced sunglasses that had turned up.

‘Long day on her feet,’ Gabrielle’s father explained, replacing the shoe on his wife’s foot.

‘Look at you,’ Soleil said. ‘Cinderella.’

Gabrielle’s mother smiled and stood and Soleil hugged her. Then Soleil hugged Gabrielle’s father for several seconds longer, until he broke away.

‘Welcome,’ her father rasped.

Gabrielle’s mother looked Soleil up and down. ‘You look great,’ she said.

‘Thank you, Dorothy,’ Soleil said. Everyone waited a moment for Soleil to return the compliment. She didn’t.

In the living room, Gabrielle’s father and mother sat in the loveseat, like they always did, side by side and facing the same direction, as though riding in a bus. Gabrielle and Soleil sat in arm-less chairs. Gabrielle’s father was wearing a blazer, and Gabrielle could not understand why; he owned a furniture store and never dressed up for work. He poured each of the women a large glass of wine.

Gabrielle’s father called the Thai restaurant and announced his order so loudly no one else could talk. Soleil adjusted her rings so their stones were centered on her long fingers.

Gabrielle’s father hung up the phone and looked at Gabrielle: ‘I got the rice you like.’

‘I heard,’ Gabrielle wanted to say, but didn’t. Things already seemed tense.

‘Can I ask you a favor?’ Gabrielle’s mother said to Soleil.

‘Anything,’ Soleil said, discouragingly.

‘Can you turn off that pin?’

‘This? It’s my heartlight.’

There was a pulsating silence.

‘Turn off your heartlight,’ Gabrielle’s father sang. He was prone to quick bouts of song.

‘I just get panic attacks sometimes from blinking lights,’ Gabrielle’s mother said.

‘It happened last week,’ Gabrielle added. ‘With an ambulance.’

Soleil didn’t turn off the light. Instead she removed her blazer. Her camisole was thin, the pattern of her lace bra easy to see. Her oddly triangular breasts were medium sized, and her arms, Gabrielle noticed, were hairless, waxed. Gabrielle’s father’s eyes stayed fixed on Soleil’s forehead.

The adults talked about Hawaii but they didn’t talk about what everyone had been doing in the years after they left Hawaii. When Gabrielle’s father disappeared into the kitchen to get more wine, Gabrielle’s mother leaned forward. ‘I don’t want to embarrass you, Sol, but how did you get rid of your stutter?’

The edges of Soleil’s wide lips trembled for a second, and then were still. ‘What stutter?’ she said.

‘You used to complain about it. You used to say you were going to go to an institute in Minnesota where they worked with people with your – ’