The First Warm Evening of the Year: A Novel Read online

“Why wouldn’t I?”

  “Why would you?”

  “Because I loved her.”

  She took a step back, as though she needed to put a little distance between us. She appeared to be surprised and unsettled by my answer.

  “Not like that,” I said. “I genuinely loved her.”

  Marian’s face softened. “I know what you meant.” She took a step closer, said, “Laura understood that,” and walked me over to the house.

  We sat on the front steps. The cement was cold, but the sky had cleared, and a moment later we were warmed by a circle of sunlight.

  Marian was leaning forward, her arms resting on top of her legs, staring down at the ground and looking pensive and sad, and I wanted to say something to let her know that I understood her sadness, or was trying to. That I was thinking about the face I’d seen in those photographs, which was how I remembered Laura: as the twenty-two-year-old girl I had known, and it was that girl who had died, and I realized that it was her who I was here to mourn.

  “I’m not here as a stranger,” I said.

  I saw Marian watching me out of the corner of her eyes.

  “When I met Laura I had a girlfriend at Colby College,” I said, “and I’d gotten the noble idea not to fool around while she was gone. Laura and I started going places together, our freshman year, and I liked her. She was very urbane, certainly compared to the other girls I knew. I always had the sense that she knew who she was.” I shook my head. “I’m not doing a good job with this.”

  “I’ve known—knew her all my life. That’s a pretty good description of her.”

  “After a while, it wasn’t about being noble. The girlfriend and I broke up and Laura and I remained friends. Girlfriends came and went. And Laura’s boyfriends.”

  “And the two of you remained friends.”

  “I guess we did.”

  Another minute or more passed, before I asked the more obvious questions about Laura’s death, and the more indelicate ones.

  “There was nothing sudden about it. If that’s what you’re asking. She had time,” Marian said, “to prepare for her death, and to prepare her friends.”

  “That sounds like Laura.”

  “It wasn’t enough time.” Marian sat up straight. “It’s never enough time, is it.”

  We stayed outside, sitting in the warm sunshine, and continued to talk about our friend Laura, who studied classical violin at Juilliard, and whom I hadn’t seen in twenty years, who taught music at a local high school, and who, Marian said, had found a sort of sanctuary in her hometown.

  “I’ve always liked the idea of her, even after we’d lost touch,” I said.

  Marian turned to me.

  “I can’t say I was ever aware of thinking that, or that I thought about Laura all that often, but I liked the idea of her. Of having a friend who was a jazz musician and lived in Paris. I liked the idea of knowing her.”

  Marian was still watching me.

  “A long time ago,” she said.

  “But she and Steve did live in Paris and were jazz musicians, right?”

  “After Steve died Laura moved back to Shady Grove. Nine years ago.”

  “A music teacher?”

  “She stopped performing.”

  “And they gave her a job at the high school?”

  “Laura and I always kept up with each other, so when she told me she wanted to move back and what she’d like to do, I told her about the job opening up at the high school.”

  “Is that what you do? Teach?”

  “Me? No. I’m a gardener. Actually I own a nursery, and do other people’s gardening. It’s not the most exciting thing in the world.”

  “What is?”

  She shifted on the steps, secured one of her coat buttons, when she saw me looking at the yellow pickup truck parked at the curb, at the logo BALLANTINE DESIGNS.

  “And you’re also a landscaper?” I asked.

  “My husband, Buddy, was. He did the landscaping and I did the flora.”

  “Here in Shady Grove?”

  “Around the region.”

  “And this is where you’re from? Shady Grove?”

  “Are you really that interested?”

  “Why shouldn’t I be? You and Laura both grew up here?”

  “We grew up and she grew out.”

  “For a while.”

  “And when she came back, we settled right back into our old friendship.”

  I nodded my head in the direction of the truck. “And the landscaping? You and your husband—”

  “I gave it up after my husband died.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry.”

  Marian said, “He died the year before Laura moved back. Laura used to call us ‘the young widows of Shady Grove.’ ” The way Marian said this made me think I’d been making her feel uncomfortable, and I apologized.

  “That’s all right.” She put her hand on my arm. “Hey, let me tell you a story Laura told me about you.” She gave me a quick glance as she said this.

  “Is it embarrassing?”

  She shook her head, kept her hand on my arm a moment longer, and asked me, “Does the name Neil Billson sound familiar?”

  I needed a moment. “Was he that weird guy who was always following her around?”

  “He told her he was crazy about her. Laura told me he was just plain crazy. This was just around the time she met you.”

  “Did he have long hair, and always needed a shave?”

  “All I know is, you told Laura that he was a messed-up guy, and she agreed. She said he never became menacing or anything, but he did get on her nerves and made her feel creepy. Maybe he thought his persistence would wear her down. Finally she told him, first of all that she didn’t like him, and second, to back off. But he kept calling her. You told her that you’d say something to him, but she didn’t want you to get involved.”

  “I remember Laura wasn’t very worried about it. She was sure that it would run its course and he’d get discouraged. But I didn’t like it.”

  “You saw him at some party or something, and told him you were Laura’s brother, and that Mom and Dad were coming to Manhattan to meet him and find out what his intentions were—”

  “I actually used the word intentions?”

  “So the story goes. And everyone in the family hoped he liked big weddings and big families because Laura did. And you were all anxious to set a date.” Marian let this settle in, then smiled at me. “You were always coming to her rescue, weren’t you.” She leaned back on her elbows, turned her face to the sun, and said, “In a few more weeks you’ll be able to smell spring. That’s really delightful.” She said she always looked forward to the change of season, and The Old Farmer’s Almanac predicted spring would come early that year. She said, “The fragrance of spring in the air delights me.” As though this was what I was also looking forward to, or should have been. And suddenly I wanted us to have that in common, watching for the approach of the new season. I wanted to be there with the scent of her hair, aware only of how it felt to sit this close to her, like dancing in drifting sunlight with a piano playing in a distant room.

  I didn’t know Marian before that day, yet I felt that I’d known her for a very long time. How familiar she seemed to me, yet it was the unfamiliarity that felt so compelling. I’d been stuck in the horse latitudes and it felt as though Marian were the change in the weather that I’d been trying to locate, the shift in the breeze.

  And then there was her laugh.

  Marian had just said, “The crocuses will be coming up, and the daffodils and tulips,” and told me that she had all sorts of gardens around her house. “You should see them in summer. The birds, and the flowers. It’s like an explosion.”

  I told her I’d like to.

  She looked at me as though she might have misunderstood my
intentions.

  “I have a boyfriend,” she said.

  I said, “That’s nice.”

  “No. I mean, if you think I was flirting with you. I have a boyfriend.” There was a slight stammer when she said this as though she was uncertain, either of the boyfriend, or the necessity of telling me about him. While I felt a tug of disappointment.

  But I recovered quickly enough to tell her, “I was hoping you were flirting with me, and unless your boyfriend is hiding in the bushes with my girlfriend, I think we’re safe.”

  Her laughter sounded like water in a dream.

  I thought of Laura and Marian spending their summers together, and maybe they laughed that same way. I was going to ask her that, and tell her that she surely must be used to men flirting with her, which was just a way to keep on flirting, only now I was thinking about how she and Laura must have felt all those years after their husbands had died, and what they must have felt when Laura got sick, and the reason for my coming up there, and maybe what they talked about on those summer days wasn’t so funny.

  For the second time since we’d met I wanted to apologize, but Marian was smiling at me again, and there was that welcoming look on her face. She had her hand on my arm again and I felt the warmth of her fingers through my sleeve and I moved my hand to cover hers, but she stepped back and asked, “So what happened to the girlfriend at Colby, anyway?”

  “She broke up with me,” I said.

  “Did she meet someone else, or did you?”

  I didn’t answer right away, and when I did, I told her the truth. “I didn’t love her enough.”

  Marian tilted her head, squinted her eyes, just a little bit when she looked at me. There was brittleness in her voice when she said, “I’ve been keeping you out here too long.” She stood up and offered to help me get the carton with the photographs and scrapbook, and Laura’s violins.

  I asked if she was sure she wanted to be inside Laura’s house.

  She said, “I’ll be fine,” and we walked in together.

  We went to the corner of the living room and before I picked up the carton, Marian said, “I always liked that picture of the two of you.”

  “You’ve seen that picture?” I asked.

  “Oh sure.”

  I looked over at the two violins. “She was a hell of a musician,” I said.

  “They both were. My husband and I visited them in Paris a few times.” She looked around the room. “It’s like it never happened. I mean standing here with all her things around, it’s like—I still expect her to come walking down the stairs.”

  I heard the wind outside and felt it blow through the house, as though it were already taking possession of the rooms. I turned toward Marian. She seemed to have sunk into her coat and looked small.

  I might have asked, “What is it?” Or else I was thinking that and it showed, because Marian said, “This is the first time I’ve been here without her.” She looked around, her eyes stopping on the blank spaces on the walls. “We spent many nights sitting here talking about—” Marian walked over to the window and looked outside.

  “Tell me something about Laura,” she said, with her back to me. “I don’t mean something you two did together, but something else you remember about her. That you liked about her.”

  I thought for a moment, then told her one of my favorite things about Laura: “She held people accountable for their behavior,” I said. “More than accountable. Responsible. Her friends, especially. She thought what you did, the way you acted day-to-day mattered, and she let you know, she was straightforward about it. You always knew just where you stood with her. It made it easy being her friend. And she was game. She was up for just about anything. I really—”

  Marian was crying.

  I didn’t know the protocol for watching a person you hardly know cry, so I walked over to her and refrained from making any of those insipid, sympathetic sounds people make in these situations.

  She cupped her hands over her face and whispered, “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”

  “There’s no reason to be sorry.”

  I put my hand on her shoulder. She turned, moving a little closer and pressing the palm of her hand against the front of my coat. I didn’t know if she wanted to keep me away or wanted to touch me, maybe she didn’t either, but before she could make up her mind, I took out a fairly respectable handkerchief and closed her hand around it. As she wiped her eyes I pushed a few damp strands of hair away from her cheek, and walked her outside.

  “Let’s get away from here,” I said. “This can all wait. I’ll buy you a cup of coffee or something.”

  Marian shook her head. “Someone’s coming by to help me with this stuff. I have to be here. But you don’t.”

  We were walking out the front door while she said this, and she kept on walking and sat on the running board of the pickup. I sat next to her. She did not slide away.

  “Well,” Marian said, “you’ve seen me laugh and seen me cry. My entire repertoire in under an hour.”

  “I doubt that’s your entire repertoire,” I told her.

  She shifted around to face me, reached over, and brushed the back of her hand against my shoulder.

  “Dust,” she said.

  I’d turned to face her without thinking about it, without reservation about how close we were sitting. I might have been smiling at her. Marian looked like she was about to smile at me. Then the look on her face changed, the corners of her mouth turned down, and her lips grew tight. She looked past my shoulders and moved away from me.

  A car had stopped at the curb, a few feet behind the pickup, and a man got out.

  He was about our age, tall; a big man, with a broad, square chest, and wide shoulders.

  He said, “Looks like I got here just in time,” nodded his head at Marian, while at the same time he said to me, “You must be Geoffrey.”

  Marian said, “I’m sorry. Eliot Wooten, Geoffrey Tremont.”

  Eliot shook my hand, and quickly turned back to Marian. “I was afraid you wouldn’t need me.”

  “Oh. No,” she said. “The stuff’s still inside,” just before she blew her nose and put my handkerchief in her coat pocket.

  Eliot unlatched the back of the pickup, looked at Marian again. He must have just noticed that she had been crying, for there was now an expression of sympathy on his face that was so total that for a moment I thought he suspected himself of causing her tears, then it changed, and there was another expression, one which I was incapable of identifying. As we walked to the house, Eliot looked as though he were in a great hurry to be done with this.

  It was when he opened one of the violin cases and picked up the instrument that I noticed Eliot’s hands. They were lean, with long, elegant fingers, the kind of hands that made me think he was a musician, which is what I told him.

  He said, “The best I can do is ‘Chopsticks’ on a piano, and barely that. I just wanted to have a look. Marian’s the only person Laura trusted to care for it.”

  “You knew Laura?”

  “Sure.”

  “From before or after she came back?”

  “Both,” he said. “We all—people around here kept up as best we could with her career. It was kind of surprising that she came back. But you know how it is. You think you’re doing something for the short term, and next thing you know it’s nine years later and you’re still doing it. But hey—” He looked at the boxes of records that Laura had left for me, and the stereo, and offered to help me fit them into my car.

  When we were outside, after we’d loaded up my car, and put the violins and the carton with the photographs and scrapbook in the back of the truck, Eliot turned to Marian, and again I couldn’t read his expression. He hopped onto the back of the truck bed, pushed the box into a corner, talking while he worked, although I wasn’t listening to what he was saying, only to the
way that he said it.

  There was a noticeable timidity in his voice when he spoke to Marian. A stiff-necked sound, a formality. He reminded me of someone who was watching his step, a man afraid of losing his balance.

  It was only after he invited me to be his and Marian’s guest for dinner, and Marian said yes, I really should join them, that I realized Eliot was the boyfriend. I managed to grin and say, “Why don’t you be my guests? I’m staying at the Bradford House. Their restaurant looks pretty decent.”

  “The Bradford?” Eliot said. “Then you have to be our guest.” He patted me on the shoulder.

  Marian looked pleased by the offer. “Of course. You have to. Eliot’s a part owner of the place.”

  She gave his arm a squeeze, and it was I who felt like the man a little off balance.

  Three

  The dining room at the Bradford House was not very large, with a separate pub just beyond a small alcove, about twenty tables, most of which were occupied, soft green tablecloths, votive candles. As unassuming as the rest of Shady Grove.

  The menu was better than the standard grilled meats and fish, and lacked the pretensions of a lot of small town restaurants when they try to mimic big city menus. The service was quiet and attentive, perhaps because of Eliot’s presence, although there seemed to be a sincere attempt to please.

  Most of what we talked about was how difficult Laura’s last year had been. But I was surprised how impersonal Marian sounded now. She seemed anxious not to say too much. Nothing more about the life Laura lived in Shady Grove when she wasn’t teaching music. Nothing about Paris or Laura’s marriage. Or about the illness that killed her. Even when Marian said, “Laura called it ironic payback from sitting in those smoky clubs,” she seemed anxious to get that out of the way, interrupted Eliot before he got to speak, and managed to change the subject, telling me that Eliot owned a hardware store in town and, only after I asked, that she and Eliot had been seeing each other for nearly ten years.

  Eliot ordered the wine. He told me that their wine list was quite exceptional. By Shady Grove standards, anyway.

  After our waiter came back and poured, Eliot raised his glass, watched Marian and me raise ours, and said, “Shady Grove may look like a dull little town, but don’t be fooled. It is a dull little town.”