Jane Smiley - Early Warning

“Was that before the Pilgrims?” said Claire.

“Forty-one years before.” Henry scraped his toe through the sand again.

Since moving into Henry’s old room at home, Claire had looked through some of his books. She couldn’t believe how boring they were. She thought it was really too bad that Henry should be so good-looking — he was twenty-three and looked like a blond James Dean, except he didn’t — James Dean walked around like he had a plan, and Henry walked around like he was going to the library, which he was.

He did everything Rosa said. Rosa had her nose in the air, Claire thought, and when she smiled, it was only to laugh at you, or even less than that — she smiled to herself because it wasn’t worth it to notice you. Right now, she was walking ahead of all of them, her hands in her pockets, sometimes shaking her head to make her hair blow, and then gazing out to sea as if she saw something that she was going to go write a poem about. Aunt Eloise might look a mess, but she was nice. How did her daughter turn out not to be? Claire wondered.

Granny Elizabeth came up beside Claire and took her hand. “Claire, honey,” she said, “I do think this is the most beautiful place that I have ever seen. You are a sweetheart for bringing your granny all the way out here.”

Claire said, “It was fun. It is fun, I mean.”

“Albion means ‘white,’ you know. I don’t know why that means England, too,” said Granny Elizabeth. And then she sat down in the sand and burst into tears.

Claire stopped dead and squatted down. After a moment, she put her hand on Granny’s knee and pulled the hem of her blue crepe dress down a little. Granny’s crying sounded to Claire like something falling — dishes out of the cupboard, or ice down a frozen slope. Claire didn’t like crying at all; she hadn’t cried since the day her father died under the Osage-orange hedge.

“You know what I did when I was your age, Clary?” said Granny Elizabeth. “I played the piano. We had this old-style parlor piano, not even eighty-eight keys, but I played it every day. I played it for your grandpa, and I thought he liked it, and then, when we were married for about six months, he said it was irritating. He didn’t ask me to, but I did stop, because I didn’t want him to hear me, even through the window.” Then she cried again, and said, “Oh, Wilmer!” Claire knew that there was more to the story — her father’s two brothers, men she’d never met, had died young, which was strange to think of. Claire took Granny Elizabeth’s hand.

“Walter was such a good little boy. I thought the worst day of my life was the day your father went away to the army in 1917, even worse than when little Lester died. I was only nineteen when that happened.” She fell silent. “Then, of course, Howard went in the influenza after the war.” She pulled her handkerchief out of her sleeve and blotted her eyes, then said, “Oh me. How many times did I wish that it had been me to go? I had that flu, too.” Claire dreaded what might start now — Granny Elizabeth had outlived all of her children, and if they were to talk about that, and then get on to Claire’s own feelings about the death of her father, she didn’t know if she could stand it. She felt Granny’s hand tighten around hers. But then Eloise noticed them. A look of alarm suffused Eloise’s face as her lips formed the words “Henry! Rosa!” The other two turned around abruptly.

Granny Elizabeth saw them coming, and she leaned in toward Claire, speaking right in her ear. She said nothing about her father after all, only something that Claire would never forget: “The best that can happen to a girl, Claire, is to be a bit plain, like you. You think I’m being unkind, but I am telling you a truth. A plain girl has a longer time to herself, and when a man falls in love with her, he loves her for herself, for who she is.”

Eloise hurried up and knelt down. “Are you all right? Did you fall? Beaches are so treacherous.”

“Oh no, Eloise, dear. I didn’t fall. I’m fine. I just had a weak moment. Weak in the brain. Oh my. Why is it that beautiful places give you sad thoughts?” Claire held out her hand. Eloise took Granny Elizabeth’s elbow and said, “Do you want to go back? I’m sure you must be tired.” Henry stepped forward and offered Granny Elizabeth his arm. After everyone helped her up, they continued down the beach, Rosa first, Eloise right behind her, Henry, Claire, and Granny Elizabeth behind them.

—

CLAIRE KNEW she was a quiet girl. Supposedly, she didn’t say “Mama” until she was nearly two. “It wasn’t that she couldn’t,” said Rosanna, “it was that she didn’t care to.”

But what, thought Claire, was the use of talking when no one was listening? You could see it right here in Eloise’s apartment. Some people talked all the time — Eloise and Granny Elizabeth. Henry yakked, but in spurts — Sir Francis Drake was the eldest of twelve children, he fought the Spanish Armada, and on and on. Rosa said little, but whenever Rosa said something (“We should put some mushrooms in it”), the others fell silent, smiled, and nodded. Henry was in love with her and watched her every move. Eloise didn’t notice, because she did the same thing. Rosa was a perfect example of an only child, thought Claire — she behaved herself, but it was because she was always on the stage and the lights were always up.

In the five days they spent in Berkeley, Rosa didn’t introduce them to a single girl. Plenty of boys came over — they were kind of stinky and not good-looking, and they wore messy clothes. Everyone smoked and sat around, talking and talking. They watched out to see if you were listening, but they didn’t say anything right to you, they just went on and on about being and nothingness while thinking that they were talking about something. In the end, pigs were more interesting. If Claire had been asked her opinion, she would have described how pigs look for their favorite foods in the slop, how they push the orange rinds to one side and eat the potato skins first, then come back to the orange rinds and nibble them, and she had even seen a pig eat a lemon rind and wrinkle its nose. Also, pigs had friends, and they grouped together; quite often, they liked the pigs who looked more or less like they themselves did. There were a couple of pigs in every litter whom the other pigs stayed away from. Claire had plenty to say, but not anything that anyone wanted to hear.

Eloise took them to see the Golden Gate Bridge, which they drove over one way, and then they turned around and drove back over it the other way. They went to Chinatown in San Francisco. Granny Elizabeth wanted to buy a doll, and she had the money, but Eloise insisted on bargaining for it, and then, when the price got down to two dollars, Granny Elizabeth walked right up to the woman and paid her four dollars anyway. The night before they went home, they had dinner in a restaurant where, in her show-offy way, Rosa ate only vegetables. They had ice cream for dessert. Henry told a story about his adviser, who had divorced his wife because she kept mispronouncing the word “album.” She could not stop herself from saying “alblum.” Henry said, “He corrected her, but she was really stubborn.”

“Why don’t you go digging in Mexico or somewhere?” said Rosa. “New Mexico. There’s plenty of interesting archeological stuff there.”

“There is.” Henry’s voice was sharp. “But I didn’t start with that culture. I started with Indo-European, and it’s too late to change now.” His lips snapped shut, and Aunt Eloise looked from him to Rosa. Rosa shrugged. It was a careful shrug — she knew Henry was looking at her, and she wanted him to understand that, whatever he did, she, Rosa didn’t care.