The Qualities of Wood

8

When Vivian came in, Nowell was on the telephone, speaking patiently into the receiver, which was propped between his shoulder and ear. ‘I can’t tell you anything until I speak to him. What’s his name again?’ He paced the room, very intent on the conversation, pausing only to give her a brief nod. ‘Richards or Richardson? I’ve got it. And his number?’

The curtain divider to Nowell’s study had been pulled back. Through the window, the back lawn was a vivid, monochrome green. Vivian noticed an empty plate and a fork on the end table near the couch. She stepped down into the room to get them.

‘I’ll call him today or maybe first thing tomorrow. What are you doing? No, not you. Viv, what are you doing?’

She turned with the plate in her hands to show him.

‘Mom, they can’t do that. No, I will call Richards, or is it Richardson? I’ll call him. You just wait to hear from me. I’ll let you know what I find out.’

Vivian set the plate and fork in the sink then walked down the hallway toward their bedroom.

Nowell came in as she was adjusting the straps of her bikini. ‘You’re going outside?’ he asked.

‘Yeah.’

‘My mom said she’d call to talk to you later this week. She’s too upset today.’

‘Why, what happened?’

He sat on the edge of the bed. ‘The pension thing. She’s all worked up about it and wants me to call that lawyer. She doesn’t trust him.’

‘What are you supposed to do?’

He shrugged. ‘She needs someone to look out for her, and Lonnie’s no good in these situations. I may have to drive over there and meet with this guy.’

She looked up. ‘What?’

‘I don’t know what else to do. I’ve got her calling me in hysterics, and I can’t do anything from here. I’ll stay overnight so I can meet with him during office hours.’

Vivian wrapped a beach towel, a bright print her parents bought on vacation, around her waist. She leaned against the doorframe. ‘I just don’t see why it has to be you. You’re trying to finish your book.’

‘There’s no use arguing about it. I have to go.’ He crossed his arms over his chest, looked at her chest in the bikini top. ‘If you don’t feel comfortable staying here alone, you can come with me.’

She shrugged, watched his gaze and waited.

‘I’ve got to get back to work,’ he said. He left the room and after a few moments, she followed him, suddenly angry. She poked her head into the makeshift office. ‘Am I allowed in here?’ she asked.

‘What do you mean?’

‘You act like you want me to stay out.’

‘I like my privacy. Is that such a big deal?’

‘No, Nowell. Nothing’s a big deal. You don’t leave this room for days at a time, but you can take two days off to bail your mother out of some imaginary problem. No big deal.’

‘You think I want to do this?’ He sprung from his chair and was suddenly towering over her. ‘Drive all the way there, talk to some lawyer about something I know nothing about, knowing my mother is depending on me? A little support would be nice, Viv.’ He ran his hands through his dark hair and looked, in that moment, vulnerable.

She reached for him. ‘I’m sorry but…’

‘I have work to do.’

‘Okay,’ she said, and went to the kitchen. She knew he needed time to cool off.

They hadn’t fought much during the first years of their marriage, although it was a tense time. Nowell had just graduated from college and Vivian had a year left. He took a low-paying job at a bookstore while she worked part-time at the water management agency. Money was limited and anxieties were high. The rent on their apartment went up twice in one year. Everywhere, real estate prices were skyrocketing and rents were keeping pace. The boom of the 90s, people were calling it. Even with the money difficulties, they were happy.

They married after two years of dating. Although Vivian spent quite a bit of time in Nowell’s studio apartment, she shared a dorm room on campus with three other girls until a few weeks before the wedding. Nowell’s mother sprung for a resort honeymoon, and her parents paid for the small ceremony at Nowell’s family’s church. After the wedding, they rented the one-bedroom apartment and combined their things.

In the beginning, they were both very busy. With Nowell’s encouragement, Vivian finally decided on a Business major. She had been wavering between Art History and Business, taking low-level courses in both. She imagined herself working in a museum, perhaps owning her own art gallery one day.

During her freshman year, she stumbled into an art history class after not getting into an overcrowded introductory literature course. She had been focusing on Business then, but still needed a few liberal arts classes. The professor of the art course was young and hip, enthusiastic and funny. Vivian had a crush on him, with his silver earring and long black ponytail, his tawny skin and brown suede coat. And when Dr Lightfoot showed slides of sculptures and paintings, museums and cathedrals, and talked about the creativity and methods that formed them, it was the ultimate escape. Vivian was hooked.

Nowell said that Art History was a major like English, designed for those who wanted to teach and she’d need a doctorate degree if she followed that course. The Business major was more broadly applicable, he said, non-limiting. She could have Art History as a minor; business would guarantee her a job.

When Vivian announced her plans to her parents over dinner one night, their reactions were restrained. Her mother gazed at her over her tortoise-shell reading glasses. ‘I thought you were really interested in art,’ she said.

‘I am,’ Vivian said, ‘but I think that the Business degree would open up more avenues, that’s all.’

‘Why do you need other avenues, if art is what you enjoy?’ Her mother stared at her plate, slicing her prime rib with the efficiency of a surgeon.

‘I’ll still have a minor in art,’ she said. ‘It’s hard to find a job with a Bachelors degree in Art.’

Her mother only raised her eyebrows but her father lifted his wineglass to Vivian. ‘I think it’s a fine decision, Vivie,’ he said.

She knew they wanted her to follow them into academia, but she lacked their self-discipline, their ability to narrow focus. She didn’t have their attention spans; her mother had said so herself on many occasions when Vivian put down a book to watch television, when she abandoned a project before it was finished.

Vivian kept her office job after graduation and was promoted within a year to Administrative Assistant. Nowell moved from the bookstore to a short stint at a bakery, to his last job at the magazine, editing and proofreading. In the evenings and during weekends, he worked on his book. Between her job, housework, and keeping up with friends, Vivian’s life seemed just as full as when she attended classes and studied for finals.

They settled into steady jobs and a stable routine, but started to fight more for some reason. Nowell was incredibly tense throughout the writing of his book. Frustrated by the long hours at the magazine, he stayed in and wrote most weekends, often from Friday evening until Monday morning. In the cramped apartment, his tension was infectious. They bickered over small matters. Vivian tried to get out of the way during these times. She’d spend a day at the mall with a friend or drive around the city, doing errands. She didn’t mind doing things alone. Being an only child had given her a certain self-reliance. Like her mother, she could content herself with her own tasks and ruminations.

After the book was finished, Nowell relaxed into his old self and became easier to live with again. When his grandmother died and he presented the idea for an extended working vacation, Vivian had been unwilling at first to leave her job, where she had seniority, three weeks of vacation and a decent salary. But in the end, quitting had yielded no regret, only a slight wistfulness for leaving a part of her life behind. She was ready for something to change.

In the fragrant grass in front of the old, white house, Vivian laid on the fold-out chair and thought about Dr Lightfoot, the way he paced back and forth in front of the chalkboard, the cable to the slide projector trailing after him like a microphone cord. When he wanted to explain something more clearly, he asked the girl in the last row to flip on the lights then he’d look into the students’ eyes or write on the board in furious scratches of chalk. He showed slides in every class, excitedly pointing out notable features of the art. His hands were delicate over the screen, seemed to curve around the edges of the sculpture or brush the surface of a painting with soft, tenuous fingers. He had a deep respect for art, even the mere projected image of it.

‘Viv!’

Her eyes opened. The lawn chair was mostly covered by shade; only her feet and the bottom half of her legs were still in the sun.

The screen door squeaked as Nowell poked his head outside. ‘Your mother’s on the phone.’

Vivian walked gingerly over the still-damp ground, groggy and disoriented.

Her mother was working on a new book; she’d been distracted and unable to talk about much else. Her research would take her to the site where a volcano erupted fifty years ago. She planned on taking a sabbatical and going in the fall for at least a month. Vivian asked about her father.

‘He’s at school,’ her mother said. ‘That summer course.’

‘Tell him I said hello.’

‘I will. How’s Nowell’s book coming along?’

‘He’s been working non-stop since I arrived. It’s so quiet out here. I think it’s been very good for him.’ Vivian shifted her weight on the chair, which was cold and sticky against her bare legs.

‘Has he established a regular schedule?’

‘For his writing?’

‘Yes.’

‘He works most of the day,’ Vivian said. ‘He starts early, before I get up.’

‘And how is your work on the house going?’

‘It’s going to be a big job, that’s for sure.’

Her mother shifted the phone. ‘Worse shape than you’d imagined?’

‘There’s a lot of junk around,’ Vivian acknowledged, ‘and the entire thing needs painting.’

‘That should keep you busy.’ Her voice sounded doubtful.

‘So far I’ve been taking it pretty easy.’

Neither spoke for a few moments. The silence over the phone line was vapid, like air. Vivian had the impression of pressing her ear against a hole in a wall. On the other side, openness and space. ‘Mom?’

‘Yes?’

‘Do you remember that vacation, the summer when you taught the writing workshop?’

Her mother answered quickly, without thought, ‘Of course.’

‘I did it on purpose, you know.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘When I got lost,’ Vivian said, pushing the receiver to her ear. ‘It wasn’t Dad.’

There was a pause; emptiness again like the line was dead.

‘You were eight years old.’

‘Nine.’ Vivian stared through the screen door. On the lawn chair, the beach towel rose in ripples with the afternoon breeze, its corners flipping wildly back and forth. She spoke more hesitantly, her voice losing strength. ‘It was my fault.’

‘You wandered off, that’s all.’

‘Then why…’

‘Hold on Vivian.’ Her mother set the telephone on a hard surface. Vivian could hear her definitive steps fading then after a short time, growing louder again. When she came back on the line, she changed the subject.

‘What have you been reading, Vivian?’ Her mother believed everyone should constantly be reading something, preferably something of substance.

‘Fashion magazines and the TV Guide,’ Vivian answered, to irritate her.

Another silence like an empty room, like the inside of a bubble.

They talked about the weather for a while and when this most generic and easy of topics was exhausted, they said good-bye.

Vivian replaced the receiver in its cradle and walked over to the curtain that divided the kitchen from the study. There was always the faint taste of misunderstanding where her mother was concerned. As much as they went through the motions, neither ever felt entirely comfortable with the other.

She wondered if Nowell was still angry or if he would, as they had both learned to do, drop the argument before they reached the unsolvable issues at its center. ‘Knock, knock,’ she said loudly.

The faint clicking sound ceased and she waited while he took a moment, only a brief moment, before his voice called out in answer to hers, ‘Come in.’

9

The funeral for Chanelle Brodie was small and uneventful. The Sentinel printed a short obituary and a news article that summarized and in effect, closed the case of her death. The coroner ruled it an accident. The photograph printed with the obituary looked like a school photo, grainy and white-framed. Chanelle had a round, heart-shaped face, full lips and straight, dark hair. She looked like an average teenager, but Vivian saw something in her eyes, a spark of defiance. Fearlessness, Katherine had called it.

Work on the house proceeded. Twice, Vivian drove into town to deliver clothing and other small household goods to the Salvation Army. There was an old hand-held blender, a metal juicer, a set of hot hair rollers. Boxes of towels and sheets, bags of knick-knacks: candleholders, glass figurines, homey plaques. Things she didn’t think anyone wanted, but Vivian felt a twinge with each item. She couldn’t help but imagine someone going through her own things after she was gone. The personal items were harder, a drawer of nail polishes and files, a small box of costume jewelry, a gold, silk-trimmed bathrobe. Things that meant nothing to others but probably quite a bit to Grandma Gardiner.

The larger items, the newer things and everything else would be saved for a yard sale. Vivian was getting used to driving the truck. On a third trip into town, she and Nowell saw a matinee and did some grocery shopping. He was in high spirits that day, having just finished a major segment of his book. In the empty theater, they ate popcorn and joked through the entire film, a mediocre comedy about a man with supernatural powers. Then they went home and lounged in bed until dinnertime. It was a glimmer of their old life.

The crew working on the road was progressing rapidly. In the afternoons when Vivian walked to the mailbox, she could see them at a distance, their trucks and orange flags moving closer until they were over the small hill and finally, nearing the house.

One morning, someone knocked on the door while Nowell was still in the shower. Groggy and squinting in the yellow kitchen, Vivian opened the door in her robe.

‘Morning, ma’am.’ Five feet from the screen stood a man in an orange vest. ‘I’m with the county. We’re paving the road out there.’ White teeth gleaming from his tanned face, he said this like a question.

She nodded, smoothing her hair back.

‘We’re set to start in front of your house. You need to get out?’

‘I hadn’t planned on going anywhere today,’ she said.

He leaned back onto his heels. ‘We’re mostly smoothing and clearing today. Tomorrow we lay the asphalt.’

‘So we can get out today?’

He nodded, taking in her legs under the short robe. ‘We’ll try to get it down early tomorrow. Should take most of the day to set. You’ll have to stay put then.’

Vivian noticed his attention and adjusted the robe around her neck. She noticed his broad shoulders, his rugged and dirty hands and the roughness of his skin. ‘Well, thanks for letting me know,’ she said.

He nodded, staring.

Vivian closed the door, her face flushed.

Nowell poked his head around the corner. ‘Who was that?’

‘Someone from that road crew,’ she told him. ‘They’re working out front today and tomorrow, so if we need to go anywhere we should go today.’

‘That was fast. I thought it would take them longer.’ He walked back into the bathroom, a towel wrapped around his waist.

She thought that maybe the road was to be finished in time for the reunion Katherine told her about. It was for the descendants of the town’s founder, William Clement, and would be held at the end of the summer. The ballroom at the local Best Western had been rented out and hundreds of people were expected.

The newspaper had run a few stories about the reunion. In a biographical piece about William Clement, Vivian learned that he came from old money, much of which he invested in the town. Most of the older downtown section was built under his direction; he financed the construction of the Sheriff department, the Post Office, and the office building for town officials, which now served as a community center. He populated the buildings with relatives and friends, even appointed his oldest son as the town’s first sheriff. He opened a bank and began to help people build homes, run farms and start businesses. Various real estate developments were handled from a corner office with windows that looked out over the plaza where he was now immortalized in bronze.

The newspaper story named a few singular descendants, those who had risen to some level of greatness. One of Clement’s sons had served three terms in the state senate, and a granddaughter had a short-lived career on Broadway. Katherine claimed that William Clement sired another batch of descendants with several Native American women who worked for him, but this lesser-respected line was not identified in the article. When Vivian mentioned this to Katherine, she merely laughed and said, ‘Who do you think owns the newspaper?’

Her thoughts returned to the construction worker, his bold stare. Why is it always like that, she wondered. You always have to be on guard. And yet a part of her was flattered and excited, and she couldn’t help but pull back the kitchen curtains to catch a glimpse of the crew where they worked further down the road.

In high school, a boy had taken Vivian to a party then abandoned her near a cavernous overpass, a concrete structure lined with yellow lights, when she wouldn’t do what he wanted. He was a popular boy, one whom everyone liked and admired, and up until his fit of anger, Vivian had been feeling quite special. As he drove off, she pulled her jacket around her throat and watched the receding taillights. Then she walked to a convenience store and called home. Her mother was up late reading.

Once Vivian was inside the family Buick, her mother stared at her. ‘Are you alright?’ she finally asked.

‘Yes,’ Vivian said.

‘You smell like a brewery.’

Vivian didn’t answer. Being in the car, drunk, with her mother, was surreal. Outside, things looked strange and desolate and lonely. The sole cashier in the mini-mart watched them over the stacks of newspapers.

Her mother turned the car onto the empty road. ‘So what happened?’

‘I told you,’ Vivian said, ‘I couldn’t get a ride home.’

‘I thought that boy who picked you up would be bringing you back.’

‘So did I.’

‘If he drank as much as you, I hope he’s not driving.’

She shrugged.

‘Listen, Vivian, I’m relieved that you called me.’ She ran her hand through her curly reddish hair.

From the side angle, Vivian could see smudges on her oval glasses, places where her fingers had been.

‘I even understand this rebellion to some extent,’ her mother said in a practical tone. A lecture tone. ‘It’s very natural, I suppose. I don’t want to make a big deal out of it.’

‘Good,’ Vivian said, thinking: here it comes.

‘What I am concerned about, however, is your general lack of purpose. You’re not getting the kind of grades that’ll get you into a good college.’