Jane Smiley: Early Warning

Jeanine said, “Not till this morning. I got there first, and they were waiting. They asked me not to tell.”

“Ivy hates this.”

“Only because she didn’t arrange it,” said Jeanine.

Once everyone had their champagne, the toasts began, and Richie had to stand there smiling — with his arm around Ivy, sometimes gazing at her fondly — while shouts went up. Michael declared himself the best man, raised his glass, and said, “I’ve spent years looking out for my little brother here, making sure that he stayed out of trouble, or at least didn’t get caught, and, finally, here we are, I can pass him over to a better caretaker than I am, knowing he’s safe, or safe-ish — let’s say that!” Everyone laughed and took a sip. The biggest laugher was Lynne. Just for a moment, Loretta looked at her curiously; then she pulled her gaze away from Lynne and lifted her glass. She said, “I never had a sister or a brother, and as soon as I met Ivy, even before she delivered my boy Chance in a bathtub on the twelfth floor of some rat trap, I knew she was the one I wanted. I don’t know if this is their dream, but it is mine, and I’m glad it’s a dream come true!” Everyone shouted “Hurray!” and drank again.

It was time to cut the cake. To Lynne, who was now standing next to Michael, Loretta said, “Oh, excuse me,” her tone implying that maybe Lynne had strayed over from East Broadway. Lynne looked nothing like Loretta: she was compactly built, with short hair and glasses. Richie felt that he was reading Loretta’s mind: Maybe; no; not sexy; not possible. Ivy exclaimed, “It is a beautiful cake. I am so surprised, I’m sort of struck dumb!” and that distracted both Loretta and Lynne. Richie didn’t have to look at Michael to sense that he was thrilled out of his tree at the dangers he was courting. Loretta handed Ivy a silver knife tied with a white satin bow. She held the knife, and Richie held her hand, and they cut a piece out of the cake. They had been to enough weddings to know that now they had to feed each other. Richie’s hand was trembling, so Ivy had to cock her head a little to receive his offering. After everyone shouted and applauded and Ivy started cutting the cake, he heard Loretta say, “We’ve never met. I’m Loretta Langdon.” She was talking to Lynne. Behind them, off to their right, Michael was practically hugging himself with pleasure.

Lynne said, “I thought we did meet. But, if not, we should.” Everyone knew that Michael had mistresses. Everyone knew that, on the very day Binky was born, the reason Loretta hadn’t been able to get hold of him (and had had to give him the news through Richie) was that Michael was up in the Catskills, looking at old Victorians with one of them. Perhaps it was Lynne.

“Why is that?” said Loretta.

Having made her way through ten or twelve slices, Ivy set down the knife. She said, “It really is delicious. Infused with some liqueur — Amaretto? Loretta! Pay attention to me! I am the bride! Who made the cake?”

Loretta turned and smiled again, and Lynne, now looking red-faced and very young, slipped away.

Loretta said, “Veniero’s. They were the real reason I needed you to have a wedding!”

Richie slipped his arm around Ivy, turned her toward him, and kissed her as he had failed to do after the ceremony, deeply, lovingly, thankfully, appreciatively. Saved again.

—

CHARLIE WAS a blond now. He had been a blond for fourteen hours, and every time he looked in the rearview mirror and saw his springy hair, he laughed. Riley, his girlfriend, laughed, too, and squeezed his hand. She was now a redhead. First she had done herself, and then they had gone to the drugstore, gotten the dye, and done him. Riley maintained that if you were leaving home in your new Tercel wagon, heading west on the I-70 toward Kansas and Colorado, out of the woods and onto the plains, to Denver, then new hair was the best preparation. After Denver, who knew? But they both had jobs. Charlie would be working for an outdoor outfitter that also ran hiking tours and rafting trips in the Rockies, and Riley had an internship with the Solar Energy Research Institute. If that jerk Reagan hadn’t cut 90 percent of the institute’s funding (“What did I tell you?” his mom always said, as if anyone she knew had ever voted for Reagan), she might have had a paid job, but an internship could evolve. Rents were cheap; parks were plentiful; guiding raft trips down the Colorado would be fun for Charlie, with his restless temperament. Riley was a great believer in temperament and nature over nurture. Charlie loved Riley. She was never depressed, she could always figure out how to talk people into something (most notably Charlie’s mom and dad), and nothing scared her, not even defunding of solar initiatives. As a redhead, she was quite striking.

And so they drove on, past Topeka now, almost to Abilene. The landscape was flat and hot and larded with names that Riley read off the map to him—“Tonganoxie!” “Salina!” “Cawker City!” “Kanopolis!”—that he then said backward to her “Eixonagnot”—which he pronounced in the French manner—“Anilas, Rekwac Ytic, Siloponak.” Why did they all sound Slavic? (And then they laughed again.) She threw down the map, got up on her knees, and kissed him while he was driving, all along the side of his face. He was twenty-one; he had a wonderful girlfriend and a new car. He stepped on the gas, and the needle eased toward ninety.

—

FRANK WAS SITTING across from Loretta at the dinner table when Andy said, “I got a letter from Frances Upjohn today, and Jim isn’t joining her, not even for the Arc. I guess that’s in three weeks or something.”

“What arc?” said Chance.

Loretta said, “The Arc is a horse race.”

Chance, who was four, had his own pony in California, which he was required to ride bareback. He nodded knowingly.

“Why not?” said Frank.

“He doesn’t want to miss the cranberry harvest, he says, but I—”

“What cranberry harvest?” said Loretta as she sat Binky upright in her lap and hooked the cup of her nursing bra. Frank had to admire the shameless way she nursed Binky wherever she was and whenever Binky crossed her eyes in dissatisfaction. It made for a quiet babyhood. Andy held out her arms, and Loretta gave Binky to her, then went back to eating her own food, which she herself had cooked — veal scaloppini, good. Frank said, “East of Philadelphia. Near Chatsworth. He’s got three thousand acres down there, and the cranberry harvest started a week or so ago.”

Loretta’s face blossomed into a look both delighted and approving. She said, “Three thousand acres?”

“He’s talked about buying a farm for twenty-five years. Horses, plums in France, poppies in France, a vineyard in Sonoma, even wheat there for a while. But he ended up with cranberries.”

“Not scenic,” said Andy. “Frances says that he won’t go to Paris at all anymore. And apparently, it’s very hard to find escorts to take her to parties. You can’t go without an escort. She’s furious.”

“She can find an escort,” said Frank. “But she’s used to standing beside the lightbulb and having the moths flutter around her. He doesn’t want to be that anymore.”

“Will you take me?” Frank realized that Loretta was speaking to him, and talking about New Jersey, not Paris.

Oddly enough, he said yes.

They started early the next morning. Enough milk for two bottles had to be pumped, and the little bag with the pump and the cooler and another bottle had to be taken along for when Loretta began lactating on the road. Dalla had to be instructed about Chance’s and Tia’s activities, although she supervised these activities herself every single day. Even so, Loretta ushered Frank out of the house as Michael was sitting at the kitchen table in his robe, taking his first sip of coffee. Andy was still asleep in her room. Frank liked it. It felt strangely surreptitious.