Unleashed, page 3
“George!” she called on a sudden impulse.
He turned as if trapped. “I thought you were asleep.”
“Will you be home for dinner?” It had been his habit for years to come home for dinner then return to the winery for a few hours.
“Of course. Why would today be any different?”
Why? She couldn’t believe he was asking—of course things were different now. He disappeared down the hallway. She heard him downstairs puttering in the kitchen, making coffee and pouring it. He slipped out the front door and latched it behind him.
The house was plunged into silence. It mushroomed and swirled like smoke through all the rooms of the house, Pippa’s room, her sewing room, George’s third-floor study, and downstairs through the living room and kitchen, the library and the solarium. She lay on her back listening to the boisterous quiet, knowing more sleep was out of the question but unable to fight the lethargy that kept her in bed, the weight of decision-making in a life without clear direction. Did George really believe that all their routines and rituals would continue as they always had? Maybe for him it would be easier to hold on to the way things had been with Pippa in the house, but for her, the rhythm of her days would be entirely different. No making breakfast for Pippa and driving her to school. No fetching her from school and driving her to drumming lessons. No listening to her diatribes about insensitive teachers, or reacting to her unconventional school essays, or taking Alice to the vet. No last-minute dashes for school supplies Pippa suddenly realized she needed. No rubbing her back on the nights she couldn’t sleep. No family outings on weekends, or making cookies together, or taking evening strolls around Sunset Loop. And in bed at night, what would replace all the time she and George had spent talking about Pippa?
She shot off a text, just a brief one so as not to cross any lines: Just checking in. Thinking of you. Hope you’re doing well. Love, Lu-Mom. She waited for the ping of response.
It was almost 9:30 a.m. by the time Lu wrenched herself from bed, made her way to the kitchen, and poured herself a cup of lukewarm coffee. While she heated it in the microwave, she noticed something on the kitchen counter: college brochures with a note from George. Have a look. Maybe you want to enroll full-time? The first day of the rest of your life! (Also, can you bring some order to Pippa’s room?!) xo G.
When George first suggested that she return to school, she had been open to the idea, but the physics class had changed everything. She would tell him about the D– tonight and shut down the discussion. But she also needed to tell him that she had no need for physics, no interest, and that was why she hadn’t been able to summon the effort to succeed. Physics wasn’t going to give her direction or make her life meaningful, and it was doubtful any other academic course would either. His expectations of her were misdirected; it seemed as if he didn’t fully understand her. He liked to think about the ideas The New Yorker and The New York Times peddled to him, the same endlessly discussed topics everyone else was obsessed with. She quickly lost interest in those debates that, to her mind, went nowhere. She knew she was smart, but not in any conventional way—not book-smart, or test-smart, or Jeopardy!-smart, but body-smart, people-smart, life-smart. Still, she took the brochures dutifully to the living room with her coffee and phone and sat on the couch, where the two-story picture window looked out beyond the terraced patio to a meadow studded with live oaks. A few robins pecked for something between the patio’s flagstones. The plaintive call of a mourning dove issued from an invisible perch. She tapped her silent phone to make sure it was on.
One of the brochures was for the University of California at Berkeley, the other for Sonoma State. George had begun talking about her getting her degree since sometime this past winter, cognizant of their imminent empty nest, an awareness she had been trying to push from her mind. It will help you figure out what the next chapter of your life will be, he said. She hadn’t considered a next chapter and couldn’t help wondering if he saw her as insufficient.
The brochures featured smiling youths seated around seminar tables, lounging on grassy quads with stacks of books beside them, working at computers with furrowed brows, standing beside blackboards scribbled with numbers and symbols. She couldn’t stand the thought of attending classes with people less than half her age, feeling dull-witted and unmotivated when she knew herself to be lively and capable of showing those young people what really mattered. Other than Pippa, she hadn’t had an all-consuming passion since the end of ninth grade, when she had to stop her gymnastics classes. She’d had talent, all her coaches said that, but to continue to the next level her mother would have had to pay a lot more for classes in San Francisco, and she would have had to travel great distances, not only for those classes, but even greater distances for the competitions.
She trashed the brochures in the recycling bin where George was sure to see them and headed back upstairs to Pippa’s room. The bed was unmade just as Pippa had left it, and the floor was littered with cast-off clothing. Pippa had never managed to keep her room tidy.
Lu stepped into the room and perched on the edge of the bed where she and Pippa had had so many of their conversations, Pippa stretched out on the bed or nestled at the center of her drum set, tapping the snare occasionally to punctuate something she was saying. How ugly those drums appeared now without Pippa in their midst. Taped to the walls were several unframed posters of Pippa’s favorite drummer, Cindy Blackman, back arched and eyes closed in performance ecstasy. Beside Cindy was Tiamat, the Dragon Lady. It had taken Lu some time to adjust to this disturbing image when Pippa first printed and displayed it. Tiamat, Pippa explained, was a person who, after numerous surgeries, had made herself into a “genderless reptile.” She had spent thousands of dollars to modify and transform the male body to which she was born: castration, ear and nose removal, tongue splitting, multiple tattoos, horn implants, removal of some teeth and sharpening of others, green eye staining, chin scarring. Lu could barely look at the picture. She worried Pippa might have the desire to mutilate herself like that. But Pippa said she simply admired the Dragon Lady, who had been abused as a young person and had finally taken control of her life and was happier than ever. As Lu had grown more accustomed to the image, she had also become more intrigued by this oddly re-created person, conceding there may have been something admirable in the Dragon Lady’s focused path to transformation.
Still, the Dragon Lady signaled something: There was a deeply guarded well within Pippa she knew nothing about. You had a child, and early on you began to tell stories about the child. This is a smart child. This is a child with a calm temperament. This is a fiery child. This is a tough child. This is a sensitive child. This is a child who adores people, whereas this one is a loner. The stories often said more about the parents than about the child herself. They spoke to what the parents wanted that child to become, and often the child obliged by growing into the story, just as a plant grew toward the sun. What had Lu needed Pippa to be? Something, though she wasn’t sure what.
L: I don’t mean to pester you, but are you okay?
P: Yowl (that’s Alice). It’s been one day, Mom!
She remembered getting a call from the school when Pippa was in second grade. The school secretary wanted Lu to come and take Pippa home. She’s acting strangely, the secretary said. When Lu pressed for details, she was told, When the teacher talks to her, she barks back. She claims she’s a dog. Lu had been amused. Why shouldn’t Pippa see how it felt to behave like a dog? Couldn’t the school, which prided itself on its progressive attitudes, indulge her?
Lu picked her up and, for the rest of the day at home, Pippa barked. Lu fed her from a bowl on the floor and petted her and tied a necktie around her neck, pretending it was a leash. Pippa licked Lu’s hands and barked some more. The next morning, to George’s and the school’s great relief, Pippa settled back into being human.
Lu rose abruptly. She was not going to tidy this hodgepodge; it was a perfect time capsule, awaiting Pippa’s return.
4
George followed Tom on an early-morning stroll through the vines, savoring how the morning chill sharpened the pungency of the ripening grapes. There was nothing more pleasant than these dawn walks down the rows, feet sunk in the dirt, dewy leaves brushing his torso, reaffirming the wholesome nature of his business, how it originated in soil and water and seedlings. Cultivating grapes was a noble tradition that had been going on for centuries, something that was easy to forget when he was immersed in the headaches of running a business.
George hoped the morning’s cool air, the first indication of a seasonal change, might usher in some much-needed rain too, though there had been no rain in the forecast. The soil crumbled underfoot, and its color, even to George, was grayly anemic. But he tried not to worry about agricultural issues until Tom told him to worry—he had enough on his plate with production and marketing and the tasting room.
Tom, a laconic man with a beard that covered his chest like an artisan bib, had lived off the grid for years before he came to work for George. Trained as a horticulturalist, he knew plants and soil in an intimate way George never would. Today he had been pausing periodically to examine the underside of a leaf, to sift a clump of soil, to dig under the foliage to palpate the stalk itself. His way of knowing was tactile. George often thought Tom could have been blind and he would still have been an excellent agricultural manager.
What pride George felt as he looked out over his fifty acres. This was his doing—he’d had a vision, and he’d made it happen. Yes, he’d had financial help from his family in the beginning, but that had been it; the rest of the considerable effort of learning and building had been his. He would always be a New Englander in his soul, but here he’d found a second home three thousand miles from his birthplace. He loved the mild climate, the groomed landscape that connected him to his European ancestors. He loved the elegance of the homes and the restraint of the commercial developments, everything tasteful. It was a look and an atmosphere that was as close to New England as you could get on this coast. He certainly couldn’t have built a winery like this if he’d stayed in New England.
Tom’s harumphing snapped George from his reverie.
“Bois noir, I think,” Tom said, pronouncing the French as perfectly as George himself would, surprising for a man who liked to pass himself off as minimally educated.
“No, please.” It was a dreaded disease for viticulturalists, one that could radically reduce both grape yield and quality.
“I need to verify it,” Tom said.
A low-flying hawk swooped up behind them, casting a shadow that made George duck. He tamped down an unnecessary spike of alarm. Tom was well versed in nontoxic, organic prevention techniques and had so far succeeded in heading off the major viral, bacterial, and fungal pestilences that had afflicted nearby wineries. And the newly planted vines had taken off much better than they’d expected. Tom would find a solution.
“We don’t have to worry yet,” Tom said, knowing George well enough to guess his reaction. “Sometimes bois noir goes into spontaneous remission.”
“Really?”
“We’ll see. I’m more concerned about the heat and the drought. And fires, of course. There’s a lot of salt buildup in the soil. We should think about replanting some of these vines at an angle that protects them from the sun. It could be important going forward.”
“Replanting?”
“After we finish harvesting. And we need to be using more drought-resistant root stalks.”
George nodded. He understood these things to a degree, and he knew Tom was right to be making these recommendations, but he was loath to upset the current status quo, which had served him so well recently. The changes Tom was suggesting would take financial investment and major labor, and they would definitely affect the bottom line for a handful of years to come.
They stood in silence for a while, as was their custom. The sun sliced through a stand of live oaks and spread a triangle of pink light over the vines. Things were changing everywhere he looked. The whole damn country was going crazy—politicians behaving like two-year-olds, people throwing their lives away to cults, tempers frayed from extreme weather events—his own life no exception. Pippa had been gone only one day, and Lu was already acting as if something disastrous had happened. It’s the way of the world, he wanted to say to her this morning, before he thought better of it. He wanted to help guide her into this post-parenting life, but he wasn’t sure what would make her happy now. He had plenty of things to occupy him without active fatherhood, but what did she have? Nothing, as far as he could see, and it worried him. If only she were a bit more steely, like her mother, Linda.
* * *
—
He had told Lu he’d be home for dinner, but as dinnertime approached, he found himself stalling, finding one more task that seemed imperative to complete before heading home. The harvest reports had put him in a good mood, and he didn’t want it ruined by having to reassure Lu. It was something he’d been doing for their entire marriage, something he’d been happy to do even when the grounds for reassurance were shaky, but couldn’t he take a pass once in a while?
His watch said 6:15; dinner was at 6:30, and the drive home took ten minutes. He had to leave now if he didn’t want to be late.
The timing of Marley Moretti’s appearance was either good or terrible, he couldn’t say which. She was sliding onto a stool at the bar, her sheer red blouse taking flight behind her. He had the feeling he’d hallucinated her, though she was far too tall and bright and substantial to be an apparition. Her neon reddish-orange hair. Her crimson lipstick. Leggings that evoked the paint-spattered work of Jackson Pollock. He lingered at the far end of the bar as she ordered her usual glass of Cabernet. What was it about her that riveted him? Her bright clothing and six-foot-two stature, certainly, as well as her flamboyant gestures, but it was more than that. It was the self-sufficiency she radiated. She was happy to talk to people, but she didn’t appear to need anyone. She was content to be alone, perfectly entertained by her own thoughts.
Before this summer, he’d only known Marley by name. She had a reputation in certain circles around town for being an admirable eccentric, an independent woman who had given up a successful career in high tech to become an artist. She had moved from San Francisco to Sonoma twelve years earlier, transformed an abandoned barn into a studio and living space, and largely kept to herself. George had seen her around town occasionally, but he’d never spoken to her until she approached him in June to see if he was interested in purchasing some of her paintings. It was encaustic work, abstract backgrounds overlaid with shadowy figures and faces. He liked it immediately, found it quietly emotional, and bought three pieces, two for the gallery and one for home.
After he purchased the paintings, she began to drop by the tasting room. He had never felt quite so deferential to a woman before. Their conversations had begun in the most ordinary way, pleasantries about the weather, about California’s politics and drought, the inevitable inquiries into where they each lived and where they’d originally hailed from. But it seemed to George that the subject took a different turn quickly, not to the more personal, as it might have with others, but to ideas. They were both lovers of art, of course, so perhaps this pivot was natural, but he’d never met anyone in all his years in California who was acquainted with the artists he had followed and admired over the years. She knew the New York art scene from the 1980s and 1990s. Jennifer Bartlett. Julian Schnabel. Robert Mapplethorpe. She knew the controversial work of Andres Serrano, whose work Piss Christ was composed of an image of the crucifix submerged in a plexiglass tank of urine. Also the work of Chris Ofili, the Trinidadian artist whose work The Holy Virgin Mary was made with elephant dung. Raised Catholic, Marley admired the boldness of these works, the way they called the Church to question itself. Throughout these discussions Marley questioned the value of art, even as she said to him, “It’s my calling, so I’m doomed to do it whether it’s worthwhile or not.”
Marley’s presence invited George to step away from the mundanities of running a business to think about the overarching considerations of human purpose, values, consciousness. He admired that she had been able to piece together a living as an artist despite not being a household name. It was a modest living, but she survived.
The minutes were speeding by. Feverish, he turned his back on Marley and all the patrons at the bar and went to the sink, where he busied himself drying glasses and placing them on trays, ready for the pouring of flights. Marley’s red tunic fluttered on his vision’s horizon like a hesitant setting sun. She didn’t appear to have spotted him yet. He never knew if she came here explicitly to talk to him or if their conversations were incidental. Done with the glasses, no more obvious busywork before him, he glanced at her. As if she’d been awaiting his gaze, she beckoned, a definitive move of her arm that was almost impatient.
“What can I get you?” he said, laughing.
“You’re a bit standoffish tonight.”
“Standoffish? That’s not what I meant to be. Can I get you another glass?”
She held up her full goblet. “Are you trying to get me drunk? I thought you might want to come to my studio and see more of my work?”
He’d lost his bearings. Did she mean now? “Sure.” He waited for clarity, busying himself wiping the bar in front of her, straying a few feet in each direction.
“Text me a good time,” she said, laying her card on the bar.
