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Think! Mrs. Edwards commands. She is, Mr. Edwards says, putting a hand over his wife s fist on the table. You should have kept your eye on her, Mrs. Edwards snaps. It s what we paid you for. Her face appears to have closed in on itself, forming a neat square with squat lines where the eyes and mouth should be. Mom, Ben says. Every minute? Jeff asks. Well, I find it very difficult to believe that my daughter could have struck up a relationship with someone without Sydney s noticing. For a moment, the accusation lies on the table unanswered, undefended while behind them the wood-and-brass barom- eter goes on recording atmospheric pressure. What I don t get, Mr. Edwards says, is why Julie didn t say where she was going. Why the secrecy? Because you d have gone and gotten her, Ben says simply, and then brought her home. Oh, I hate to even say this, Mr. Edwards suggests, putting his head in his hands, but do you suppose she was forced to write the note? Sydney, who has the note in front of her, reads it again. Most of the letters are blurred and wavy, but knowing what it says makes it possible to decipher it. 134 Body Surfing This is Julie, Sydney says. I don t just mean her handwrit- ing. This is how she would write. What she would say. Even the misspelling of my name. So, you knew her well enough to know how she wrote, Mrs. Edwards accuses, all but Frisbee-ing the words across the table, but you didn t know her well enough to know she was about to run away? The woman s anger makes her head shake. Sydney attempts an explanation. After that first incident, there was no reason to think What incident? asks Mrs. Edwards, sharp-eared even in distress. Too late, Sydney remembers that Mrs. Edwards doesn t know of Julie s drunken binge. One night, two weeks ago, Jeff offers quickly, Julie came home late and she d been drinking. Drinking what? We re not sure. She was drunk, you mean? Yes. Why wasn t I told? No one answers the woman. You all knew? Mrs. Edwards asks, her voice rising. Mark, you knew? With reluctance, Mr. Edwards looks his wife in the eye. Syd- ney can see how much the effort costs him. Yes, I did, he says. Sydney came to tell me one night when you were out. (Not quite the truth, Sydney thinks. Mrs. Edwards was lying on the sofa, reading.) 135 Anita Shreve Mrs. Edwards presses her lips together and then lets out a small explosion of air. I do not understand why I, her mother, wasn t told. And I don t understand something else. Why she snatches the note from Sydney why does Julie thank Sydney? Thank her for what? I think for the Sydney begins, and then she has a thought. Did the police go into Julie s room? she asks. They did. But they might not have known what to look for. She rises from the table. I ll be right back, she says. She leaves the kitchen and heads up the stairs. The door to Julie s room is open. Sydney steps inside and scans the contents. Light-headed, she reaches behind herself for the bed and sits at its edge. For the first time, she feels the full blow of Julie s dis- appearance. She wraps her arms around her stomach. Images of Julie laughing in the front seat of a car entangle themselves with recent memories of Jeff laughing on the floor of the gazebo. At the urgency, the absurdity of passion, now fulfilled. A grown man and woman fumbling through wet clothes to make each other naked. She remembers Jeff s cheek- bone pressed hard into hers. Something he said into her neck that she couldn t quite hear. The exquisite tenderness with which he covered her. As he pulled her close to him, her slicker released a rivulet of water that ran down her neck and along her col- larbone. She shivered. Her feet were cold. She could feel the rain on her bare skin. She brought them up and tucked them between Jeff s thighs. He reached down with his hand and held them there. * * * 136 Body Surfing This should have been such a happy night, Jeff says from the doorway. Sydney tries to smile. He joins Sydney on the bed, the weight of the two bodies making a deep V in the soft mattress. It was impetuous what I did, he says. Even careless. But I felt very certain. Sydney nods. What do you feel now? he asks, and Sydney can hear the tiny hitch in his breath. Is he nervous about her answer? She takes his hand so that he will understand that she is still with him. I feel sad, she says. Julie s really gone. How do you know? She s taken the canvases. She s taken the paints. Jeff turns his head in the direction of the corner where the easel should be. She can feel his sigh in his shoulders. She releases his hand and walks to the window. Through the glass, she sees a sunny afternoon, Julie standing in the water. Sydney snags the thing that was in Julie s note, the thing that flitted across her brain. I M OK. A young woman in a wet suit catching a wave. What is it? Jeff asks. I think I know who Julie ran off with, Sydney says. Who is he? Jeff asks from the bed. It might not be a he, Sydney says, turning. 137 2003 k A greenish sheen on the surface. The water thick and jellied. Overhead, yellow clouds trap the heat. Sydney waits through a succession of waves, picking the tallest one. Her timing is off. She cannot get her rhythm. Tonight and tomorrow, guests will arrive at the beach house. There will be a caterer, a girl named Harriet from the village who does this sort of thing, though surely there cannot be enough wed- dings in the village and in the beach houses, Sydney thinks, to keep a caterer in business. Harriet must cook for cocktail parties as well, the ones at which spouses sometimes do not speak to each other. The weekend weather will be iffy, the word batted around like a badminton birdie. Sydney hears it from the upstairs hallway, from the kitchen. Beyond that, no one is willing to say. If the weather is simply iffy, the wedding will be held on the porch. If worse, the ceremony will take place in the living room, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |