Chapter Sixteen
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Yes, Joan was fortunate. But she knew this only meant danger, because eventually good luck turned to bad.
And really, there was so much to go wrong in a life: you could cross the street and be hit by a car; a random bubble might travel into your brain and then, well, you needn’t worry about anything anymore.
This worry, this anxious terror, extended to her children.
Because naturally Joan loved them most; should a karmic balancing descend, she knew it would come for Lee and Jamie. This was how God would break her heart.
“I thought you were supposed to love me most,” Bill said when she confessed her fears.
“Of course I love you.”
“But you love the children more.”
“Well, yes.” Joan didn’t think this was controversial. In China, in Taiwan, you were always supposed to love the next generation more, or at least say you did.
Both Lee and Jamie were now attending the John Jay School, otherwise referred to as JJS, a private school with a bloated endowment and sprawling buildings of red brick.
Bill had gone to JJS, as had Juliet and Theo.
When Joan first saw the school, she had thought it was a college, that’s how large it was.
The swimming pool was Olympic-size (though it was not an institution that was known for athletics, besides tennis); in recent years a second auditorium and glassblowing facilities had been constructed.
Joan had been impressed by JJS at first sight (to her it resembled a mini Stanford), but over time she’d become increasingly anxious about the place—angry mothers and opulent birthday parties aside, it just felt weird .
The campus was too grand, its promotional literature overly bold, she felt, in its promises that graduates might never meet the vicissitudes of life, an unfair teacher or a bad boss.
Many mothers volunteered on campus, and Joan had recently been conscripted by Candace Uhlfelder, the lower school’s “parent community director,” into a weekly commitment.
Joan had chosen cafeteria duty, thinking a service job would lessen her anxieties, but she found the juxtaposition of the dining hall’s glossed walnut tables and stained-glass windows with the children’s shouted demands for cheese pizza even more perturbing—the spilled milk and impatient shrieks and aroma of hot carbohydrates and soft vegetables all congealing into an unsettling, out-of-body experience.
On those days when the worry crept too sharp, Joan would linger until the end of school, waiting for the children at the front entrance instead of in her car by the curb.
They would then do an activity together.
“The mall?” Lee asked hopefully when she and Jamie came out one afternoon and saw Joan. The three of them walked to the car.
“No more malls,” Joan said, passing each a granola bar. “We’re going on a hike.”
This announcement was met with restrained silence.
The children were used to Joan’s hikes, as she was going through a phase of liking them.
She had taken Lee and Jamie to REI and bought them hiking shoes, which they had enjoyed at first, in the way of children liking new things, but now they’d had enough of both the shoes and nature.
Joan, however, had not. She’d recently purchased a local map and begun marking interesting spots around the Bay Area.
How fortunate they were, she said. To live near all this beauty!
Today Joan drove them to High Rock Park, a hiking area outside of Marin. The park was cliffside, facing the Pacific, which meant nearly all the trails wound to a view of the ocean. They began on a narrow uphill path, one new to them, edged with boulders and ice plants.
“Can we collect rocks?” Jamie asked when they reached a plateau.
“Five each,” Joan said mechanically. She was distracted by the sight of the water.
Prior to Bill, Joan had never been on a beach holiday.
Even if she’d had the funds, which she didn’t, she’d considered it a waste of money to travel so far only to bake in a chair in the sun.
Over a decade later, however, Joan loved to be by the water: in Maui she could watch the waves break for hours.
The ocean here was a different sort of stunning from Maui, a cooler, rougher beauty.
She was entranced by the sounds of the water and didn’t realize how close they’d veered to the cliff until she looked down.
The edge was only a few steps away; beyond that was at least a hundred-foot vertical drop onto the rocks below.
Lee and Jamie were a step ahead, sweeping the ground for interesting stones.
Joan didn’t call out, not wanting to startle them, and instead crept forward and placed a firm hand on each of their backs.
“Let’s move,” she said, heart pounding. They obeyed, shuffling backward.
Once the children were a safe distance away, Joan went forward again.
She couldn’t believe it: anyone could simply slip off the edge, dropping to their likely death.
On their way back down the trail, Joan noticed a rusted metal bar and what appeared to be broken latches attached to a boulder.
She had missed these on their ascent and realized that at one point the path must have been gated.
She normally would have been in support of the gate’s removal—Joan thought Americans too litigious in general, and if you were the sort to eat plastic fruit or hold a chain saw on the wrong end, then surely you deserved what was coming to you.
The cliff, however, was a different matter; there should at least be a sign, a warning to pay attention ahead.
Back at the parking lot, Joan spotted a park ranger exiting his booth. She informed him of the cliff. “It’s dangerous,” she said. “We didn’t realize how close we were to the edge.”
The ranger nodded disinterestedly, his eyes pinned to a group of female hikers in sports bras. “Right,” he said when Joan pointed to the trail. “Yeah. I remember there being a gate. It must have broken at some point.”
“Are you going to fix it?”
“These things are eventually gotten around to.” His attention remained on the hikers.
Joan wished Bill were here. This was precisely the sort of situation she normally asked him to manage—the kind where everyone, Joan included, preferred the conversation to go from white male to white male.
The ranger returned to his booth. “Wait,” Joan said. She pointed to the map of the preserve. “Here’s where it is. Where the gate was.”
“We’ll have someone take a look.”
“Will you really ?” Joan asked desperately. “Because it’s dangerous!”
“Oh, sure,” the ranger said. “We’ll put in a work request. We have a procedure for these things.” He was in his early twenties, with floppy hair and a beautiful smile, though Joan was not assuaged.
Perhaps to hurry her along, the ranger gave each of the children a palm-size zipper pouch with CALIFORNIA STATE PARKS printed on the back. Once in the car, Joan turned and gave Lee and Jamie the rocks they’d collected.
“Put them in the pouch,” she instructed. “And then put the pouch in your backpacks.” It was then that Joan realized Jamie didn’t have his backpack. “Where is your bag? Did you forget it at school?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Do we need to go back to JJS?”
“I think,” Jamie started, but then didn’t say anything.
“ What do you think?” Joan asked, trying to conceal her impatience. The interaction with the ranger had unnerved her; she was in a hurry to return home, to rest and stew. “Did you leave it at school? Jamie, you’ve got all your books in there. Your homework.”
Jamie was silent. “I don’t know,” he murmured. Joan groaned and hit her head against the seat.
“Someone took it from him,” Lee said.
“What?” Joan asked at the same time Jamie said “I don’t know” again. Joan turned. “Who took it from you?”
“A kid!” Lee shouted. “A big kid.”
“Someone took your bag on purpose?”
“Yes,” Jamie said. After a second he added: “Greg Zimmer.”
“Is Greg in your grade?” Jamie was ten now, in the fifth grade.
“He’s a year above.”
“Did he do anything else? Has he hit you? If he has, you should hit him back,” Joan declared. “That’s the only way to deal with these people.”
“Hitting isn’t allowed. And anyway, I don’t want to. We could get expelled,” Jamie said miserably.
Oh, Joan thought. Oh no. My heart. Her son, she well knew, was both a believer in rules and an ardent follower of them, and it was clearly stated that at JJS there was to be no hitting.
Now, of course there were rule breakers and bullies at every institution; Joan was under no impression that what Jamie endured was unusual.
Nor did Joan believe boys a more aggressive breed of tormenter than girls.
She knew both her children would eventually encounter unpleasant people; it pained Joan to imagine their pain, and yet she believed such experiences necessary, so as not to carry unrealistic expectations into adulthood.
But still Joan felt guilty. Because she was thirty-seven now, and Bill sixty-three, and when they walked into the annual JJS spring fundraiser there were knowing glances exchanged between Candace Ulfehlder and the others on the event-planning committee; because Lee was Jamie’s sister but looked so different than him, because of all the baggage Joan had loaded onto her young son and sent him into the world to bear.
“I want to move him to a different school,” Joan said to Bill that night.
“Let’s stay calm.” Bill poured himself a glass of merlot. He brought out another glass for Joan in which he’d poured just an inch, as was their routine.
Joan accepted the wine. “Lee too. She’s getting older. Girls form close friendships. It’s best we pull her out before she has a regular group.”
“It’s only schoolyard antics. The children will have to learn to handle problems on their own.”