Элизабет Страут - Olive, Again

“Jesus,” Jack said.

“Yup,” said Olive. “I was scared to go down to that cellar when I was a kid, someone would send me down to get potatoes or something and, oh, I hated going down there.”

“God,” said Jack.

And then Olive said that her Uncle George had remarried, but ten years after his first wife died, he hanged himself in the same spot.

“My God,” Jack said.

—

So it was like that, they drove around many back roads and they talked. Jack talked about his own childhood, which he had already done, but seeing Olive’s childhood home made him think of his childhood home outside of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and he spoke of it again now, the sense of its smallness to him, even when he was young, though it was not as small as Olive’s house had been, but he had felt cramped , he said now. Olive listened, and said, “Ay-yuh.”

Then she said, “Would you look at that,” because Jack had turned a corner and before them was the November sinking sun against the darkening blue sky. Along the horizon was a spread of yellow. And the bare trees stuck their bare dark limbs into the sky. “That’s kind of amazing,” Jack said.

Up and down the car went, up one small hill and down another, around a long curve, around a short bend, the car dipped and rose over the road as the sun set around them.

Jack said, “Let’s try that new restaurant in Shirley Falls. I heard Marianne Rutledge mention something about it the other day. It’s supposed to be the only nice restaurant in the town. What’s it called—some funny name.”

“Gasoline,” said Olive.

He glanced over at her. “That’s right. How did you know about the fancy restaurant in Shirley Falls called Gasoline, Olive? You surprise me.”

“And you surprise me. Don’t you read anything? There was an article about it in the paper a few months ago. Imagine calling a restaurant Gasoline. I never heard of such a thing.”

—

Jack parked on the street a block away from the restaurant, which had its name in neon lights outside, and as he locked the car he looked around. It had been dark for well over an hour, and the darkness at this time of year always seemed to Jack to be really dark; he didn’t like it and he didn’t want his car stolen or broken into. Olive stood on the sidewalk. “Oh, come on, Jack,” she said, as though she could read his thoughts—to Jack it sometimes seemed she could—“for heaven’s sake, the car is fine.”

“I know that,” he said.

The place seemed cavernous at first glance when they stepped inside. High-ceilinged, with a bar where the glasses twinkled and the liquor bottles were all lined up in front of a huge mirror; beyond the bar were the tables. Two more large mirrors hung on opposite walls, and on each table was a tiny flickering cup. The hostess ushered them to a table in the center of the place, there were few people here at the moment, and so they sat down and Olive shook out her napkin and said, “I hope they have steak. I want a steak.” And Jack said he was sure they had steak. “My treat,” he added, winking at her.

The waitress brought Jack a whiskey and Olive a glass of white wine, and eventually they ordered; Olive ordered a steak and Jack got the scallops, and after a while the waitress brought the food over; Olive and Jack were talking so much they had to lean back and let the waitress place the food down, and then they continued talking. Olive was telling Jack about the Somalis, who had moved here more than fifteen years ago, how it had caused a ruckus at first, Maine being such a white, white state. “And old,” Olive added. But the Somalis were very entrepreneurial, according to Olive, and had started a bunch of businesses in town.

“Well, that’s great,” Jack said, and he meant it, although he didn’t care a whole lot. But she was making it interesting, as interesting as it could be to Jack, because she was Olive, and he knew they would start talking about something else soon; he was waiting.

The big heavy door of the restaurant opened and a couple came in. Jack, glancing toward the door, saw the woman first and he thought: That almost looks like— And then he heard her voice. She turned and spoke to the man, who had come in right behind her, and it was her voice that was unmistakable. Jack could hear her say, “Oh, I know that, I know that, yes, I know that,” and he—Jack—said quietly, “No.”

“No what?” Olive asked. She was about to bite into her steak, which she had just cut a piece of.

“Nothing,” Jack said. “I thought I saw someone I knew, but it’s not.”

But it was.

And he could not believe it. He really could not believe it. It was not unlike falling off his bicycle so many years ago when he was a child, the slow sense of something terrible happening, and the knowledge that there was nothing he could do about it. Watching the pavement come up to meet his cheek.

He sat without moving while he saw them walk farther into the place, he watched the hostess greet them, he watched as they walked toward him. She was wearing a gold-colored sheepskin coat with a brown scarf around her neck, the gold-colored coat almost matched the color of her hair, and she seemed slightly larger than he would have thought, maybe it was the coat, and very pretty as she always had been; she was wearing clunky gold earrings that seemed big to him, and then he saw her look at him. He saw in her face a flicker of confusion, then saw her look away, and then she looked back at him and she stopped walking right by his chair. “Jack?” she said. “Jack Kennison ?” A faint scent of perfume reached him; it was the same scent she had always worn, and Jack felt an odd tingling along his jaw.

“Hello, Elaine.” He rearranged his napkin on his lap.

Elaine stared down at him, her earrings like two punctuation marks on the side of her face, and Jack wondered if he should stand up, and so he did, and then he saw—he saw this distinctly—her green eyes go from his face involuntarily down his body and back up. He sat down, his belly hitting the table’s edge. The fellow she was with had stopped as well.

Her face was older—naturally—but it was surprisingly the same. Slightly bigger, her face seemed; she had put on a bit of weight. Her makeup was perfect, her green eyes were lined with black and they looked very green, and her hair was a little longer than when he had known her. “Jack, what are you doing here?”

“I’m having my dinner.”

He watched her eyes move to Olive, who right then said, sticking out her hand, “Hello. I’m Jack’s wife, Olive,” and he saw Elaine’s silent amazement. Elaine shook Olive’s hand. “Elaine Croft,” she said. And then she put her hand on the arm of the fellow she was with and said, “This is Gary Taylor.” So Gary shook Olive’s hand, and then Jack’s hand, and Jack thought the guy looked like an imbecile, with his round glasses and his one earring (an earring, for Christ’s sake, a tiny gold hoop!) and his hair down to almost his shoulders.

Elaine turned back to Jack, and he saw how she wanted to ask, and so he said, “Betsy died, by the way. Just so you know.”

“She died?” Her eyes widened in a way that pleased him; she was that surprised.

“She did.” Jack picked up his fork.

“When—”

“Six years ago, now.”

“Do you—do you live here, Jack?” He was aware of her slightly lowering herself, as though to see him more clearly.

“We do not live in Shirley Falls, no. But tell me, Mizz Croft.” He put his fork back onto his plate and gazed up at her. “What is it that brings you to the town of Shirley Falls?”

She looked at him, her face becoming cold; the “Mizz Croft” had been received. “Clitorectomies, Dr. Kennison, is what brings me here.”