Gabriel Tallent - My Absolute Darling

“About what?” Turtle says, smelling the wine.

“What kind of fruit?” Isobel smiles at Turtle, leans in. She has a snaggletooth, and when she smiles, it shows.

“Ah,” Jacob says, swirling his own glass. “Big, ripe summer blackberries leaning against a white picket fence in Napa with the vintner just come out onto his porch holding a cup of French roast—”

“Nyet!” Isobel says, cutting him off. “I know what you’re doing, mister. Well, she can look after herself.” She swings her impressive gaze to Turtle, who sits with the glass in front of her, and then to Brett. “What do you think, Turtle? I love that name. Turtle? Turtle! Great. Come to you in a spirit quest, or born to it?”

“Uh,” Turtle says.

“That’s okay. Swirl that glass, honey.”

Turtle swirls the glass.

“What do you smell?”

“I don’t know.”

“Orchard fruit—apples, pears, stone fruit? Black fruit—blackberries? Red fruit—raspberries, strawberries? Cherries? Leather? The forest floor? Gaminess?”

“She doesn’t like being put on the spot,” Jacob says.

“She’s not on the spot. Blue fruit—blueberries? Tart? Fruit-stand fresh? Sitting on the counter a couple of days? Or jammy—baked into a pie?”

Isobel is hanging on her answer. There is no menace in her at all.

“Grapes,” Brett says, “fermented grapes.”

“Black fruit,” Turtle says, “but fresh. Fresh blackberries. Black cherries. A little of that—like, a nasturtium blossom,” Turtle says.

“Pepper! Yes! Black fruit and spice,” Isobel says, leaning back in her chair, “a little cherrywood, do you get that—? As if you were to bite into a fresh cherry woodchip.” She buries her face in the wine and inhales. Expressions chase themselves subtly around her eyes and eyebrows, a dry comedienne expression, she knows exactly how funny she’s being, and she’s enjoying herself.

“All right,” Brandon says, reaching for Turtle’s glass, “we can take that wine away.”

Jacob tosses his back before Brandon can get to it.

“Oh, let the girl try it, Brandon,” Isobel says. Brandon lets his hands down, looks at Isobel. Turtle has always known that other people grew up differently than she did. But she had, she thinks, no idea how differently. She lifts the glass, tastes it. It is sharper than it smells. It seems to fill her mouth. Isobel is watching her intently. Turtle wrinkles her nose. She gets the blackberry there, in the middle, then she gets a texture off it, like Isobel said, as if she’d bitten into the edge of a cherry bookcase.

“On the palate?” Isobel asks.

“Ugh,” Turtle says, “ych.”

“Well,” Isobel says, leaning back, smiling, “she has time.”

That night, Brandon shows her to her room, which has a king-size mahogany bed with a linen duvet. He shows her into the attached bathroom and stoops over the bathtub showing her how to work the shower and where to find the shampoo and toothpaste. Down the hall, they can hear the boys beating each other with pillows and laughing.

“Jacob says you’ve told your dad you’re here?” Brandon asks.

“Yeah,” Turtle says. “Of course.”

“Good. Good.”

They wait in silence. Brandon says, “You’re quiet, aren’t you?”

Turtle doesn’t know.

“That’s good.” He smiles.

Turtle crinkles her eyes at him.

“Jacob said that your home situation might be a little, ah, liberal,” he says, leading her out of the attached bath. Turtle has no idea what he means. “What he said was, well, he said we shouldn’t bother you about it, because you were an Ishmael upon the broad blue seas of these, your teenage years. And I just wanted to say that this bedroom is, you know, always here, just in case you need a Queequeg’s coffin to keep you afloat, you know.”

She may not understand Brandon’s words, but she can parse his every intention just by framing his expression in her mind.

“It’s not like that,” she says.

“Oh, well. Of course,” Brandon says. He’s embarrassed. He pats the bed. “It’s memory foam. The best, supposedly. And you’re, uh, always welcome here, anyway. We all do the best we can, I guess.”

Turtle lies in bed that night, listening to the house. Downstairs, some machine cycles on, the water softener or the refrigerator. She looks at the spackled ceiling. She guesses that the boys will still be up talking, but she cannot hear them. She pulls the duvet off the bed and onto the floor. She can’t stand a bed. She lies on the carpet with her head pillowed in the crook of her arm.

In the morning, Imogen drives them into Mendocino and they spend the day at the beach. They go to Lipinski’s and lunch on the porch, passing around a joint and drinking mocha glaciers. Days go by this way, Turtle walking back home or being driven back by Imogen, meeting them at Big River Beach or Portuguese Beach in the morning. Sometimes they catch a ride with Caroline from Mendocino to Brett’s double-wide trailer on Flynn Creek Road, where the plastic sinks, the shower, and the toilets are crusted with mineral grime and the water reeks of sulfur and calcium. In the living room there is an aviary where three parrots shoulder together, watching the humans eat dinner at a Formica table heaped with bills and junk mail and an old sewing machine and a single mason jar filled with buttons.

Caroline keeps staring at Turtle as they eat.

“Mom, quit staring,” Brett says.

“I’m not staring,” Caroline says.

They are eating some kind of casserole.

“I’m just happy she’s here,” Caroline says. Then, leaning forward, “So, how’s Martin?”

“He’s all right,” Turtle says.

“Any projects?”

“Um,” Turtle says, “no, not really.”

“He always seemed to have a project. Used to be. Build something. Research something. What’s he been up to?”

Turtle bites her lip, looks around. “Reading, mostly.”

“Well, he always was a reader. You know, I’m glad you’re here. I was beginning to think we’d never see you again. He never called. That night after we dropped you off, he said he would call, but I haven’t heard from him,” Caroline says, “and his old number is disconnected.”

“Is it?” Turtle says. She knows it is.

“Yeah,” Caroline says. “Did you guys change the number?”

“The phone lines,” Turtle says, “run up through the orchard, sometimes a branch messes them up, or sometimes water gets into the line.”

“Oh,” Caroline says. “Has he talked to the phone company about that?”

“It’s intermittent,” Turtle says.

“What is he feeding you these days?”

“Mom,” Brett says.

“A lot of nettle tea,” Turtle says, “and dandelions.”

“Nettle tea,” Caroline says, “is chock-full of vitamins and minerals, and of course it’s also a mild abortifacient, but I suppose you’re not too worried about that. Well, now, is he still growing?”

“Growing?” Turtle says. “No.”

“Wait,” Jacob says, “a mild what ?”

“Growing?” she repeats.

“Is he taking care of you?” Caroline asks. “Everything is all right?”

“Wait— Was he growing?” Turtle asks.

“No, of course not— I was, no,” Caroline says. “I just meant— Where has he been? If you’re going to be coming over here, I’d like to talk to him, at least. There must be a way of getting ahold of him. Have you talked about what classes you’re going to be taking next year?”

Turtle shakes her head.

She likes the rides home in the evening with Imogen and Jacob. It is always the end of a long day and she is tired. She goes home most nights. Isobel is oblivious. She is too involved in other things. She cares very much for Turtle’s opinion on things, for talking to Turtle about things, but she has not noticed or seemed to notice anything unusual in Turtle’s home life and she does not care if Turtle goes home or not. But Brandon is paying a quiet attention. Caroline, too. And also, the boys wear her out. It is good to sit over the pot with the tea roiling and to be alone with the thoughts that surface there. She likes them, but she is exhausted by their company. She’s never spent so much time with other people. They feed off one another’s enthusiasm. But Turtle is very worn out by them. She is not entirely sure how she feels, climbing up the steps alone, back to her darkened house, returning to solace, in some way, and to comfort—but also to regret. There is a way the house feels to her when she comes home. It is the same house and she knows it, but it looks different than it has ever looked before. She will sit cross-legged on the hearthstones, building up the fire, eating strips of dried kelp, and listening to the silence as the firelight rises before her and drains across the empty living room floor.