Jane Smiley - Golden Age

His own views were not so mythological, though. In fact, Michael was the one he almost never thought about. He was the accident of nature or the irresistible force that simply had to be endured or avoided. Sometimes, watching Alexis choose a pair of socks or stand on a chair beside the stove making popcorn the old way (she was also allowed to scramble eggs and knead bread), he marveled at how like herself she remained every minute of the day, remembered that his mother had always said he was born already formed and she had had nothing to do with it. So it would be with Michael, testosterone incarnate. And, yes, Henry did remember Michael playing nicely with Tia, singing a song with Chance, tickling Loretta on the top of the head and kissing her cheek, and now he was separated from those loved ones. But why was this not a tragedy, the Story of Michael? Had all of the inner life really gone to Richard, none of it to Michael? There was something about Michael that made that question not worth asking, Henry thought.

As for Janet, well, everyone thought the split was a terrible shame, but there must be some way that she had brought this upon herself. Why had Jared left her? Well, everyone knew she was difficult to live with. Why had she lost the house? She’s not the only one; at least she has something to live on. Janet’s troubles were an exercise in realism, belonging to her alone. Why did she always flee when something went wrong? Pride, that’s what it was, always had been. Head shake, less said about that. Maybe something would turn up. Some deus ex machina, thought Henry, ironically. He did try to call Janet every few weeks. She said that she was fine.

—

AND MAYBE JANET was fine, since she and Birdie and her new puppy, Antaeus (Jack Russell — poodle mix) were as far west as they could go without falling off the edge of the continent. Thanks to a discussion she had while getting her hair cut the day after the Haitian earthquake, she knew that the chances of the San Gregorio Fault’s producing a 6.7 or greater earthquake were considerably less than for the San Andreas. Birdie was living on pasture (and it was pretty green, not like anything Janet had seen in Silicon Valley); Janet was paying the ranch $350 a month and supplying some extra feed. Janet herself was living in a one-bedroom condo in a complex that would probably go into foreclosure, but the laws were so complex that she gave herself six months’ breathing room, and at her age, that was enough. The nicest person in her life was Emily. It was Emily who had given her Antaeus, who had taken over supervising Jonah and was doing a pretty good job of it; she drove up to see him in Santa Barbara every month or so, anyway. She had met the roommate, walked around the campus, made sure he changed the oil in the old Prius, and bought him a membership to Costco. She hosted him for a weekend in L.A., where he went to a Lakers game and a show by a band called Steel Panther. He asked after Janet, Emily said.

“What did you tell him?”

“I said you were fine, lying low, he can call you anytime.”

He asked after Jared.

“What did you tell him?”

“You don’t want to know, Ma.”

No, she didn’t. It was easier to imagine that Jared was the mess, the one to be pitied, the one who had lost everything, the one who was stuck in Minnesota, where the snowpack was heading for a record. She knew from two letters she’d gotten from him that their marriage had done that thing she had seen with her friends’ marriages over the years — flipped from white to black in a heartbeat. As soon as one spouse was ready to get out, then there had never been anything right about it, he had never seen anything in her, she had gotten pregnant and suckered him. This breakup had been coming for a long time. Her flaws turned into impossibilities. Remember the Josephs? Same thing happened, but neither would move out of the house; every day for Laurie Joseph was a lacerating catalogue of not only her character flaws and failures, but her physical defects, too.

The few people she saw around Half Moon Bay and out at the ranch were much more forgiving. At the ranch, they traded funny horse stories or bits of advice. New Leaf, Orlando’s, the fish market — she came in with her dollar bills and went away pleased with her sole or her basil or her can of fagiolini beans and bag of spinach. She learned to knit, and the ladies sitting around the yarn shop advised her but asked her no questions — she was becoming one of those silent types, and everyone accepted it so far. What she didn’t expect was a call from Loretta. The first thing she said was “How did you get my number?”

Loretta ignored this. She said, “I need you to go to the ranch.”

“No. My car is a wreck. It won’t get me that far and back.”

“I’ll rent you a car.”

“So — you still have plenty of money. Many of us don’t.”

“I have enough to pay you to find out whether my mother is still alive.”

“You can fly there.”

“If it’s me that shows up and she’s still alive, she will slam the door in my face.”

“You deserve it. I know someone who bought one of those houses at the ranch. He made eight dollars an hour, and his wife had a cleaning service. Now they have nothing.” Janet did not in fact know what had happened to Marco, but she could guess. And his house was only near the ranch, but what was the difference, really?

“I did not give Michael investment advice. I did not know he was shorting the market, or, rather, I did not know what shorting the market was. I did not know he was so desperate for funds. I knew about the development on the ranch, but I didn’t approve of it, I thought it was too far from town, I said it was a shitty idea. But no one believed me. I need an emissary. I need someone to find the body. She really would hole up and not lift the phone if she felt ill. She’s eighty. She’s not like your mom, just immortal. She’s got all sorts of conditions.”

“No.”

“I really will pay you. I know you’re broke. I will pay you ten thousand dollars.”

“How about seven hundred fifty thousand? Then I can get my house back.”

“I can’t afford that. I really can’t. I mean, he ruined us, too. Don’t you know that?”

“I’ve heard it, but I don’t believe it. I’m sure you’ve given the money you owe me to some Super PAC dedicated to buying Congress.” Janet felt herself getting a hot flash — sweat along the back of her neck, panting, waves of heat rising to the top of her head. She put her hand on her forehead.

Loretta said, “Congress isn’t that expensive,” then, instead of laughing, burst into tears.

Janet tried to imagine this. After Loretta’s sobs had subsided a little, she said, “You send me a money order for fifteen thousand dollars, and when it is safely stashed in my bank account, I will go to the ranch. Not before. Your choice.” She hung up.

The day she did go was a glorious one — the perfect day to draw her out of her new shadowy landscape and into the sun. There had been plenty of rain, so the hills rose everywhere toward the brilliant sky, wave after wave of thrilling green, as if no water shortage would ever be possible again. Across the hillsides, swaths of lupine had draped themselves, and they shivered in the very breeze that brought their fragrance through Janet’s partially open window. Of the fifteen thousand, she had spent fifteen hundred on the Highlander, very practical, and a hundred on eight skeins of bamboo yarn, “Persimmon.” She had sent a thousand to Jonah and a thousand to Emily.

She could have passed her old neighborhood, but she went down Route 1 and through Santa Cruz. In Gilroy, she dawdled at the outlet mall, ate a burger at In-N-Out, investigated the Le Creuset store, then made herself get in the car by reflecting that, if she were to find a dead body, better to find it when the sun was high in the sky. She plugged the cord of her phone into the charger, in case she had to call someone.