It had rained all morning but by the time we’d finished breakfast the sun was out. Sebastian said that he should drive to Traverse City, his Plymouth had a big back seat, and so we piled into the car, boys in front, girls in back. We rolled down the windows, waving goodbye to everyone we passed. Goodbye, Tom Lake! None of us had been farther away than the coffee shop in town since we arrived, none of us except Sebastian, who had an entire life about which we had no curiosity. Ubiquitous fruit stands lined the road and I wanted him to pull over so that I would have a gift to bring to Nelson’s aunt and uncle, a pie or some flowers, something more than three uninvited guests.
“These people own an orchard,” Duke shouted, the wind reaching inside the car to carry his voice away. “All that stuff at a fruit stand is the stuff they’re trying to get rid of.”
“What good. Is sitting. Alone in your room,” Pallace sang absently. I could see Sebastian’s eyes go to her in the rearview mirror. The sound of her voice called him like a bell.
“You should have been Sally Bowles,” I said, because even though that German--looking girl who played Sally was pretty extraordinary, I had no doubt Pallace would have been better.
Half of Pallace’s face was hidden behind her enormous black Jackie Onassis sunglasses. Who knew what she was looking at. “I should have been a lot of things,” she said.
“I coulda been a contender.” Duke said it like Brando, conTENdaah.
It was fun to be in the car, fun to be together and going somewhere other than rehearsal. I saw an antique store up ahead and leaned forward to tap on Sebastian’s shoulder. “Stop, please.”
“No!” Duke cried. “Antique stores are worse than fruit stands. They’re full of things the grown children had to sell off when their parents died so they could put the farm on the market.”
“You just keep raining on that parade,” Pallace said.
Sebastian stopped the car.
Duke turned to Pallace, leaning over the seat. “Don’t let her out.”
But I was out. I’d been invited to lunch by our director and I’d be damned if I was going to arrive without a gift. Just inside the door, on top of a glass display case, a dozen linen napkins with cutwork around the edge were sitting in a basket waiting for me. They were a blue nearly pale enough to be white, nicely ironed. I knew very little when I was young but I knew the role of Emily and I knew fabric. These were good napkins. I counted them slowly, looking for stains and finding none. As a bonus, they were expensive, and that pleased me more than anything.
“You must have come in looking for these,” the woman at the cash register said when I handed them over.
Two minutes later I was back in the car.
“Let me see!” Pallace held out her hands. Sebastian turned in his seat to look.
“Napkins!” Duke cried. “They must have seen you coming. Napkins are for tourists. First they try to unload a tractor on you, then they bring out the napkins.” He clutched his head as Pallace held a single napkin up to the light.
“I can’t imagine anything nicer than these,” she said.
Sebastian waited until the napkins were back in their bag so they wouldn’t all blow out the window once we started driving again. Pallace sang single lines of show tunes along the way and we guessed the musical. (“Because it’s JUUUNE! June--June--June.”) Duke recited pieces of dialogue and we guessed the play. (“Always tell the truth, George; it’s the easiest thing to remember.”) Duke was crackerjack at memorization. He believed in memorizing any part he wanted, both for the discipline of it and to make sure he would always be ready. “You never know when something’s going to open up,” he said.
“What’s your secret talent?” I shouted to Sebastian.
“Driving,” he called back, leaning his elbow out the open window.
By the time we got to Traverse City, the sky was clear. The rain had given up and gone to Canada. Duke read Nelson’s directions aloud—-a complicated series of poorly marked turns onto twisty roads. Finally up ahead we saw a small sign reading NELSON nailed to a post beside the drive. “He named the place for himself?”
“It’s his aunt and uncle’s farm,” I said. “Their last name is Nelson.”
Duke stuck his head out the window like a dog. “So I can call my cherry farm ‘Duke Acres’?”
“Dukedom,” Sebastian said.
The rutted drive was filled with rainwater. Every leaf and blade of grass was shining. Once we turned we quieted down. The towering woods to our left, the white clapboard house with blue shutters up ahead, the gentle hills of fruit trees to the right that spread out behind the house past where we could see—-it looked like a sampler stitched by an eighteenth--century girl.
“They have a barn,” Pallace whispered.
It wasn’t as if I’d grown up in Los Angeles. I’d seen plenty of farms in my day, but never had I seen a place that made the tightness in my chest relax. The order in the rows of trees and the dark green of the lush grass beneath them soothed me like a hand brushing across my forehead.
Sebastian parked the car beside the gray Chevy we knew to be Nelson’s. Then the screen door of the house opened and Nelson came onto the porch and waved.
“Go tell him you invited us,” Duke said quietly, his eyes straight ahead.
I shook my head. “Not on your life.”
“He didn’t invite us?” Pallace lifted her sunglasses.
“Emily invited us,” Duke said.
I might have looped my purse strap around Duke’s neck but Nelson came to the car smiling. “You found us!” he said. “Those roads can be tricky.”
“You draw a good map.” I held the package lightly. The napkins weighed nothing. I suddenly thought how nice it would have been to have brought a gift for Nelson as well, for all he’d done for us, but I would have had no idea what to get him.
Sebastian held out his hand and introduced himself.
“You’re the tennis player,” Nelson said, smiling. “The other Duke. I’ve seen you at rehearsals.”
“I think we may be crashing the party,” Sebastian said.
Nelson laughed. “There is no party, or there’s always a party, depending on how you look at it. People on farms love company. The more people showing up, the better.” Pallace walked right up to Nelson and kissed his cheek like they were best friends. She kissed our director, who, in his blue T--shirt and jeans, looked nothing like the person who’d been telling us where to stand and how to speak for more than a month now. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen Nelson outside before.
Duke was making the slow rotation I had wanted to make the first day I came to Traverse City, and when he stopped he looked at Nelson. “I’m from Michigan,” he said.
“So am I,” Nelson said.