When I first got home from Oxford a week later, Mom told me my room had been converted into a studio for her music lessons; she was learning to play the harp. All of my possessions were in boxes in the basement.
“Feel free to unpack everything again, darling; it’s so lovely to have you back.”
I moved into the basement. I piled the boxes of brochures and memorabilia my dad had collected from Boston museums and made myself a bed. I used actual books as a box spring, standing them four-high and eight-abreast at each corner of the tired old mattress with another column in the middle for support. I set out the boundaries of my land in the darkness of that basement, stacking empty wooden wine crates to shoulder height to create a border. I could work on my laptop down there even though the signal was weak. And once I’d fooled them into thinking my marks were good, my parents left me alone, for the most part.
Saskia, on the other hand, was everywhere I went that summer. The first week I got back to Cove, I ended up sitting behind her and HP in the movie theater. (We were a town that only got one movie a month so everyone turned out for it the first Saturday.) They were just three rows ahead of me, sharing a kid-sized popcorn and a bottle of water. All I thought about was how their saliva mixed. She wore a thin leather headband with a small flower at the right temple and her shirt was cut to show the tops of her shoulders. I couldn’t tell you anything about the movie.
HP hadn’t called me, and once I’d confirmed Saskia was in town, I didn’t bother calling him, either. But Cove is so small, it’s impossible to avoid conflict for long, and we ran into each other soon enough at the grocery store. He was standing in the dairy aisle, looking at cheese, when I reached for a hacked wedge of Parmesan. He jumped a little when he turned.
“Little John. I had no clue you were back.”
Liar.
“Here I am.” I dropped the Parmesan into my grocery basket.
“Safe trip over?”
I laughed. Obviously it was safe; how else would I be standing in the store? After a pause I spoke carefully. “How’s Saskia liking our town?”
He passed a flat packet of cream cheese from one hand to the other as if weighing it, his feet planted square on the fake-wood tiling. The fridges whirred around us and I shivered, hugged my own waist.
“She likes it enough.”
“Enough for what? Enough to stay?”
HP cleared his throat. “You look tired. You need more fresh air.”
“You know what? You’re right. Be sure to come get me when you guys next jog past my house.” I walked away from him down the aisle, dropping my basket onto the ground just before I turned the corner.
It was a snippy thing to say, I’ll admit, Detective Novak, but it was maddening to see them run together every morning at eight, a pair of happy gazelles bouncing right past my front gate. One morning Mom happened to be coming into the house just as the two of them bounded by. I watched from the door.
“HP?” she said, and he slowed up.
“Oh, hey, Mrs. P.” He ran a palm across his forehead. “How’s it going?”
“What are you doing? Who’s this?” Mom stared right at Saskia, who was jogging on the spot a few paces down, her hands on her hips.
“G’day,” Saskia said, and waved. “What a beauty morning, hey?”
“This is my friend Saskia.” HP stood tall at the gate in full view from where I was. “She’s just visiting.”
“It’s great here.” Saskia beamed. “What a pearler of a town.”
“How long is she staying?” Mom put her hand on HP’s forearm. “Is everything . . . okay?”
HP looked past her, saw me at the door and shot me a glance.
I said nothing. I just slowly ambled out.
“Oh, Little John, I didn’t know you lived here!” Saskia skipped over and rested her elbows on our gate while Mom glared at her. “You’s should come out for a run with us! It’s a perfect day. You, too, Mrs. . . .” She floundered for a name.
“Petitjean,” said my mother. “I don’t like to run much. Not publicly.”
“Oh, but I know heaps of people your age who get a lot out of a morning run. Are you sure we can’t talk you into it?”
If there was a game-show button somewhere that nixed Saskia and slid her into a pit, she’d just pressed it. Even HP flinched.
“People my age?” Mom opened the latch of the gate, forcing Saskia to step back.
“No, I just meant that . . . well, it’s like with my mum. She’s fifty-one next year and she was finding—”
“Fifty-one?” Mom reeled like she’d just been slapped.
“Come on, Saskia.” HP steered her away. “Mrs. Petitjean, we should get going.” They walked a few steps before picking up to a jog again.
“Come by for tea!” Mom shouted. She turned and we went inside. “Goodness me.”
“I thought you’d like her positive mental approach.”
Mom steadied herself against the kitchen counter. “Where in heaven’s name did he find her? And why didn’t you tell me?”
“He met her at a party.”
“Well, he can unmeet her, thank you very much.” Mom shuddered. “What is with that accent?”
“She’s Australian.”
“Well, she can push off back to the outback and leave us all in peace. Are they dating? Angela, tell me they’re not dating. Why aren’t you more outraged?”
I took a sip of my coffee, enjoying the warmth.
“We could set up a cheese wire from the streetlamp to the porch for when they run back,” I suggested. “Take Saskia out at the neck.”
“Angela! There’s no need to be ridiculous.” Then she joined in. “Why don’t you spike her Vitamin Water and bundle her onto a plane? Who’d notice a passed-out Australian? All that country does is drink.”
I laughed out loud, the first real laugh in a long time. “HP seems to like her,” I said.
“Why? She’s so . . .” She squared a box in the air with her hands. “. . . symmetrical.”
I didn’t say anything, but it was the first time in my life I’d ever shared an opinion with my mother. Finally we were starting to align.
Meanwhile, my father was harder to deal with. How many kids do you have, Novak? What, the subject’s off-limits? I only bring it up because you don’t seem desperate or competitive enough for parenthood. There aren’t enough signs that you’re living vicariously. The older my father got, the wider and deeper a sense of failure he carried, and the older I got the more I realized my purpose in life was to fix it for him. My grades had come in from Oxford substandard and it was all he could talk about all summer. Opportunity wasted this and the trouble I went to that—there wasn’t a room I could walk into at home without an ensuing chorus of bleating disappointment.
He even came down to the basement to tell me how inadequate I was. He stood on the other side of my room, tapping his foot on the cement floor while he tried to get a glimpse of me through my wall of wine crates.
“Are you working on fresh college applications?” he called out. “You need to get your transcript in if you have any plans to start your sophomore year.”
I turned the page of my Sylvia Plath novel. “I have a college lined up already.”
Through the crack I could see him throw his hands to his temples and massage away the day’s freshest headache.