How Could She Read online

  “Fuck me,” somebody behind Rachel couldn’t resist saying. Other members of the group were yelling over each other, about how Cassette was their family and how screwed they would be under Trumpcare. Rachel felt a creepy numbness through it all. She tried to imagine what Matt would say when she told him she’d lost her job. He was going to freak out. Money was already tight, and there was no way Rachel was going to get hired over her many soon-to-be-former colleagues who hadn’t spent the last three years being pregnant and leaning out so they could dabble in literary juvenilia. Monsters! was far from a sure thing. What was she going to do? Her brain fired blanks.

  * * *

  • • •

  The final two weeks at Cassette were electric. The dress code crumbled to ratty T-shirts and jean shorts, and everybody ate meals together, loudly. As her colleagues began to shift into characters from her past, Rachel felt a warmth toward them that had heretofore eluded her. She was suddenly fond of the magazine, now that it was about to be pulped. Sunny, too, seemed to be upset about its unraveling, far more than she really needed to be. She’d scrapped the column she’d been working on and decided to weave together a personal tribute to Cassette. Sunny had been emailing Rachel pdfs of mementos from the magazine’s heyday. There’d been one picture, taken at a book party Rachel was fairly certain she hadn’t been invited to. Wearing a block-print turtleneck dress Rachel recognized from the Province days, Sunny chatted with what looked like Salman Rushdie while Jane Jones, the magazine’s former editor in chief, stood a few feet away. Sunny was in her early thirties, still smoking cigarettes at parties. In the picture she’d clasped her hand over her mouth as if she’d just heard the most scandalous thing ever. “This was the night I met Jane and made my big move,” Sunny wrote to Rachel. “I was so nervous.” Rachel enlarged the picture until Sunny took up the whole frame.

  Nobody had seen Ceri since the big meeting. She was rumored to be licking her wounds at a Union Square ceramics studio. Being the lone Jewish mother on staff, Rachel stepped up. She brought in her portable speakers and filled the office with the sounds of The New Pornographers and Beyoncé, and tried to help everybody keep their minds off the virtually nonexistent job market.

  On the final day of Cassette, after all the pages had shipped and desk drawers been emptied, the crew walked the twenty-odd blocks to Ceri’s place on the Upper West Side. Ceri appeared too stricken to do more than sit in an enormous chair and receive condolences as her former team filed into her home.

  “You’re going to be fine,” Rachel said when it was her turn.

  “They lit my house on fire.” Ceri spoke through a clenched jaw. “You’d better not go back and work for those pillagers.”

  “I don’t think you have to worry about that,” Rachel assured her.

  HR hadn’t come through for anybody yet, and only two people had jobs lined up—Gretchen DiCambria, a video editor, had found a maternity leave to cover for at BuzzFeed’s investigative unit, and Melinda Silver was going to work at her father’s landscape-design firm in Boston.

  Rachel moved along and piled a plate high with tortilla chips and guacamole. She milled around with a group of assistants before giving in to the pull of Sunny and joining her on the floor. Sunny was sitting alone on a sheepskin rug, picking at a miniature pesto-and-mozzarella sandwich. “I can’t believe this is what it took for all of us to have a party,” Rachel said. “Remember those Friday drinks they used to have at Province?”

  “Saturdays, too,” Sunny said. “You’d think none of us had any friends outside the office. We couldn’t get enough of one another.”

  “You could get enough of me.”

  “What can I say? I was stupid.” Sunny gave a weary smile and looked up at the people staggering around the room. Everyone was talking about how weird it was going to be to wake up on Monday morning with nowhere to go. “Another chapter of our lives, over.”

  “I’m not sure you get to count Cassette as one of your chapters,” Rachel said. “How many other projects do you have going on?”

  “Nothing terribly amazing.” Sunny sounded sad and drifty. “You must be kind of happy. You get to focus on your writing.”

  Rachel dug her heels into the carpet. She’d negotiated pretty well for herself and was making as much as some of the junior staffers, plus benefits, for only two days of work a week. Now that Rachel and Matt were down an income, Matt was lobbying for a move to a rental in Fort Lee, New Jersey, which was closer to Columbia’s campus than where they lived now. Rachel wouldn’t hear of it, but she couldn’t come up with a counteroffer either. “You know I wasn’t working at Cassette for the fun of it, right?” Rachel sighed. But Sunny wasn’t going to understand, not really. With Nick on hand to bankroll her artistic adventures, her earnings added up to pin money.

  “You need to get away so you can finish your book and get a movie deal.” Rachel rolled her eyes, but Sunny kept talking. “Why don’t we go to my house on Long Island next week? You can write, and Matt and I will take care of Cleo.”

  “I wish. Matt has to be at his lab. His fish don’t travel.”

  “I have an idea.” Sunny pulled her phone out of her bucket bag and typed something, staring at her words for a moment before pressing SEND.

  “What did you just do?” Rachel said.

  Sunny smiled. “I asked your brother to come out with us. He and I can finish our project when Cleo is napping. I’ll cook for you.”

  “Jesse?” Rachel said doubtfully. “I thought you were done with that project. Anyway. He’s too punk to go to anyone’s country house.”

  “We’ll see.” Sunny pulled her knees under her chin, forming a basket around her legs with her long, tapered fingers. “You should come, no matter what.”

  21

  Everything ok? Nick’s text had come in over an hour ago.

  Morning, bunny, Sunny typed back. It was still dark, and she could make out the sounds of baby talk and kitchen-cabinet doors opening and closing. Everything’s good. I’m hiding out in bed. They sure get the party started early. Can u bring an extra pair of earplugs?

  Should be some in my nightstand.

  Sunny rolled over and investigated his drawer. A near-empty sheet of licorice menthol gum, a napkin scrawled with numbers he’d totted up in crimson ink, and a pair of foam nubs.

  Found them, she texted back. Miss you.

  Sunny briefly considered going downstairs to put on coffee for her guests. The machine was Danish and always gave people trouble. The next thing she knew, it was nearly nine and the predawn cool had dissipated. It was going to be insufferably hot today. She could hear the clanging of dishes and the murmurs of conversation coming from the kitchen. Sunny stretched her arms overhead and reached for her phone. Nick had written again.

  Miss your tail, too.

  She smiled and slipped on a cream tank top and a pair of paint-splattered cotton shorts. She considered putting on a bra and decided not to bother. Her breasts weren’t big enough to require support. The smell of coffee and buttered toast hit her before she reached the stairs and saw Rachel standing over the kitchen island, carving stone fruit into pieces too tiny for Cleo to choke on. Jesse was splayed across the couch, bopping his niece up and down on his knee. He was wearing a flecked gray T-shirt and cargo shorts, and Sunny could make out his biceps even from this far away. She couldn’t help thinking about Nick, who treated his body as if it were something he inhabited, mummifying his joints in protective covers when he played basketball on Sunday mornings at the Y. Given the age difference, it wasn’t fair to make comparisons, but Sunny suspected that Nick had always been this way, like a convalescing prince. She averted her eyes, as if she could quiet Jesse’s vitality.

  “Georgie shouldn’t return to the mothers,” Jesse was saying to his sister. “He needs to go to battle and suffer another loss. Hey, I got it—he fights the cloud keeper and then after a bloody victory realiz
es it was his mother he killed.” Jesse raised his arms in victory. “Boom! There’s your bestseller.”

  Rachel popped a peach segment into her mouth. “Are you crazy? He can’t kill his mother. He already lost his father, and his sister’s memories are frozen.”

  “Life is hard,” Jesse said. “What do you think, Cleo? Should Georgie murder his mama?” Cleo tilted her head and let off a squeal. “See?” Jesse extended his legs, swinging her ceilingward and causing her to break out in a fit of giggles. “She knows what’s up.” Only now did Jesse glance at the staircase and notice Sunny.

  “Morning,” Sunny creaked. “Sorry I slept so late.”

  “I’m glad we didn’t wake you up,” Rachel said. “At the ungodly hour of six-ten, Cleo was determined to sing every song she’s ever heard. Now we’re workshopping.” She gestured to a plate by the stove. “And eating Jesse’s famous blueberry pancakes.”

  “I am a full-service operation,” Jesse said. “I tend to children and neurotic writers. We saved you some.”

  Sunny was a bore about her morning muesli and coconut yogurt but didn’t want to call attention to herself, so she helped herself to a pancake and bit right into a blueberry. It bubbled onto her chin.

  Rachel laughed. “I’d offer you a paper towel, but I have no idea where they are.”

  “Under the sink,” Sunny said.

  “Nope, over by the TV,” Jesse said. “Cleo and I made a paper-towel castle.”

  “Way to be green,” Rachel chided him. “I’ll replace the roll,” she told Sunny, then gulped the remains of her coffee. “Now’s your last chance to weigh in on a potential matricide before I disappear for the next five hours. Do we kiss Georgie’s mother good-bye?”

  Sunny wiped her face with a dish towel. “Everybody likes a good killing,” she said. “Off with her head!”

  Jesse nodded agreement.

  Sunny watched Rachel wash a few dishes and then go over some ground rules with her brother before disappearing behind the house with her thermos of coffee. Sunny took her time fixing herself a mug of Darjeeling tea, packing the loose leaves into a silver tea ball, and brought it out onto the porch. She squinted at her geraniums and saw they looked dry, possibly beyond the point of rescue. The screen door screeched open. Out came Jesse, carrying Cleo. He had a crooked scar on his right ankle, Sunny noticed.

  “If you want to go into town, we should do it soon,” she said, holding her gaze at the cloudless sky. “It’s going to be crazy hot.” She realized she’d been rehearsing the line. In one of her stupider fantasies, she and Jesse stood on either side of Cleo at the Greenport Carousel, their hands sharing a metal pole. She’d always liked playing house, ever since her mother gave her her first Madame Alexander doll.

  “Actually, Cleo and I have plans to go swimming at Doug’s,” Jesse said. “Do you want to come?”

  Sunny turned to look at him squarely. “Who?”

  “Doug the neighbor. He was out with his dog earlier, and we started chatting.”

  “Are you serious?” Sunny said. “Did he know where you were staying?” She visored her hand over her eyes and looked at the gray roof poking through the treetops across the street. “That man hates us.”

  Doug and Austin, who’d moved in across the road and were trying to repurpose their classic suburban clapboard three-bedroom into a mini-estate that belonged on the South Fork, forever adding piles of crushed bluestone to their driveway, had become Nick and Sunny’s enemies. It had started with trees—they were cutting them down or installing them in the wrong place, Sunny couldn’t remember, but Nick loathed whatever choice they’d made with the trees—and so now everything they did was wrong. Doug and Austin had invited Nick and Sunny to their housewarming, a tasting of local wines, and Nick had refused to go. Then they all ran into one another while trying to buy sandwiches at the Smile in SoHo, and Sunny had moved to say hello. But the pair had feigned cluelessness and walked right past them.

  “Tell you what,” Jesse said, hiking his niece higher up on his hip. “I’ll help you fix that door, and you can help me make sure this little lump doesn’t drown.”

  Jesse and Sunny were no more equipped to get a toddler ready to go for a swim than prepare for a rocket launch, but they were determined not to bother Rachel and expose their combined weakness. It took them some twenty minutes to find Cleo’s swimming diaper, another five to pretzel her limbs into her bikini. By the time they made it across the street, the sun was beating down so hard the only thing any of them would need a towel for was modesty. Jesse peeled off his shirt and set to slathering sunblock all over Cleo. Doug was under an umbrella and alternating between reading the Wall Street Journal and taking in the visiting Adonis. Doug turned to Sunny and asked, “Where’s your husband?”

  “He’s in the city. He’s coming tonight.” She dug around her bag and found the snow-pea-print dish towel she’d painted herself. “I brought you something.” Doug accepted the gift without much interest. “It was really nice of you to invite us,” Sunny said. “We’ll have to have you guys over soon.”

  “No need, I’m not a tit-for-tat type,” Doug said, gazing with visible pleasure at Jesse. He leaned back in his chaise and closed his eyes.

  Sunny jumped into the pool and joined Jesse and Cleo as they goofed around with an inflatable flamingo. Sunny held Cleo aloft while she splashed her uncle, who pretended to sink to the bottom of the pool each time water sprayed him. After one particularly glorious detonation, Cleo turned to make sure Sunny had seen it all. The joy on the girl’s face was practically too much to behold.

  Doug eventually said something about having to make a call and disappeared, leaving his three visitors to play around. Golden light poured in through the treetops, and sounds of joy reverberated through the space around them. Sunny didn’t notice that Rachel had come to sit under the umbrella until a tube of sunscreen flew through the air and hit Jesse’s head.

  Sunny felt a flash of embarrassment. “How did you find us?”

  “I can make out my daughter’s voice from a mile away,” Rachel said, and Sunny dipped her head under the water.

  “Get back in your writing shed,” Jesse instructed his sister. “You’ve got a family to feed.”

  “I did two thousand words,” Rachel told them. “I’m all about quantity, not quality. Say Cheetos!” She raised her phone to eye level and took a couple of pictures.

  “What are you waiting for?” Jesse cried. “The water’s perfect!”

  “I don’t have a suit,” Rachel protested.

  “Captain Underpants it up,” Jesse instructed.

  Rachel was focused on her phone.

  “Please tell me you’re not posting this?” Sunny said, wringing out her hair.

  “No, I’m enjoying Geraldine’s latest update. There’s a photograph of a Bloody Mary in a lobster-shaped glass. She’s in Nantucket, apparently. On a restaurant deck overlooking the ocean, to be precise.”

  Jesse whistled. “Well done.”

  “She used to visit there with Peter, didn’t she?” Rachel said.

  “I think so,” Sunny said. “But Geraldine and I talked about Peter at that meditation thing she took me to. She didn’t seem that interested—she was way more into Sylvie and Marina. My money’s on it being a girls’ weekend.”

  “Maybe.” Rachel gave a weary sigh. “We’re definitely not her girls anymore.” She rested her phone on her lap and watched her daughter ride Jesse’s shoulders. “Somebody needs her nap. I’ll take her in. Why don’t you guys go eat something delicious?”

  Jesse motored through the water and delivered Cleo to her mother, then turned to Sunny. “You hungry?” His lips were red and perfectly defined, like the bottom of a toy boat. There was no way she could be alone with him. Besides, she had work to do—she was supposed to be illustrating an essay on Japanese bathhouses that she still hadn’t read all the way through, fo
r a Russian-funded luxury magazine. And she’d also promised herself she would come up with a few ideas for a fall project, something to make up for the Cassette checks she could no longer count on. But Rachel was watching, and Sunny feared that her friend could detect the way her synapses were firing in proximity to her brother. So Sunny just said, “I’m starving,” and suggested she take Jesse to a place called Gino’s. “They have delicious fish tacos.” She looked up at the house to find Doug peering down on them through a window and was relieved to see his mouth moving, which meant that he was still on his phone call and she didn’t have to do more than wave good-bye.

  * * *

  • • •

  You’re a fine driver,” Jesse said, trailing his hand out the open window.

  “I never said I wasn’t.” Sunny switched lanes and turned off the miniature highway in one uninterrupted swoosh. “I grew up in the suburbs.” She loved weekday driving in the country, with its nonexistent traffic and the sense, however false, that everybody she passed was a local and not a fellow jerk from the city.

  They were heading north, toward Orient Point, where the beach was rocky and never too crowded and where she liked to bring books to read over a single afternoon. It was undeniably lovely out here, and it became more so with every year. Most of the people Sunny knew who had children stayed for entire months, if not the whole summer. This all still felt slightly unnatural to her. Where Sunny grew up, second homes were cottages, not vast estates, and were never flaunted. Her family was one of the better-off ones she knew; her mother made a decent living in human resources at a financial-planning firm, and her father was vice president of a consumer goods company that had an enormous piece of the antibacterial bathroom-soap market. Displays of wealth were not something her household condoned, though; they ate frozen President’s Choice pizza and still shared the family cottage with the rest of the MacLeod clan. Her parents started taking exotic trips once the children were out of the house. Sunny didn’t grow up wanting for anything, though she certainly hadn’t been spoiled. It wasn’t until she was out of school that her father slipped her a not-insignificant check—or “water wings,” as he’d called it—to help her get started out. An additional infusion came several years later, when she moved to New York.