Chapter 10 Anima #7
Afterward, the atmosphere lightens. Guests cluster at the potluck tables.
Clare and Walter cut the strawberry unwedding cake.
As the music begins, Laurel walks to the bar.
There are plenty of New Glarus six-packs, but no bottle openers.
She suspects one of the seniors wandered off with them.
Memory is not their strong suit: whenever Laurel assigns a paper, a handful of students forget the due date.
“Hello, Laurel,” says Walter, who is trying to pry a beer cap off with a metal fork.
“Easy there,” says Laurel. “May I?”
She flips a second bottle upside down, using the ridge of its cap to dislodge the first.
“Fancy trick,” says Walter tipsily.
Laurel curtsies. “When you’ve lived as long as I have, you’ll have a few of them up your sleeve, too.”
An antiuniverse quip! It may not be her best effort, but she still makes a mental note to tell Eli. She hands the beer to Walter, who fiddles with the label; his expression has become reflective.
“If I haven’t said so, Laurel, I’ll never forget the way you welcomed me. I know I’m not your father. I have friends whose stepchildren never saw them as a parent.”
Laurel feels as surprised as she does guilty. In her universe, that is how she saw Walter: as an interloper unworthy of investment. Here, Pete Salter has not yet been born. The other Laurel has only known Walter.
“I still care for your mother,” Walter says. “And I hope to stay in your life, too.”
“You’re a good person, Walter,” Laurel says. “We’ll still be like family, okay?”
She extends a hand, and Walter shakes it, wobbly. When Walter’s son guides him to a chair, Laurel joins her mother at the cake table. They bring slices to a blanket on the grass.
When they sit, Clare says, “I think I’d like to leave the symphony.”
“Really? What would you do instead?”
“Don’t laugh. It’s only an idea. But I keep thinking that I want to buy an apple orchard.”
Laurel chokes down a strawberry whole.
“Well,” Clare says, “at least you didn’t laugh.”
“I love the idea. But why?”
Clare looks down at her cake. “Look at what’s happened these past hundred years: droughts and food shortages, fires and floods.
We’ve just about bled the earth dry. I want to be like you—someone who takes care of it.
I know I’d have to go back to school. I liked the forest biology course I took in college. ”
“I’d help,” Laurel says. Then, before she can stop herself: “There’s an orchard off the beltline, near McFarland.”
“Is it for sale?”
“I don’t think so. But we could keep an eye on it.”
To have the orchard again!—Laurel’s whole spirit inflates. She also thinks of Pete. For more than a year, Laurel has resisted the impulse to ask about him, but this time, she doesn’t stop herself.
“Mom,” she ventures, “do you know anything about my father?”
Clare sets down her fork.
“In my head,” she says, “I’ve asked you that so many times.”
“Why would you ask me?”
“Well, the overtakers will contact you, won’t they? You’re the one with the genetic link.”
“That’s right,” says Laurel. “Of course.”
Clare frowns. To dodge the inquiry in her expression, Laurel scans the crowd. Eli stands under a tree, fielding a gaggle of Clare’s friends. He lifts his eyes, as if he senses Laurel’s, and excuses himself. The older women are clearly miffed to see him go.
“Careful,” Clare says when he joins them. “Lois is a man-eater, and she doesn’t care who’s married.”
“Close call, then,” says Eli.
Thankfully, Clare is distractable: as the fiddler speeds up, she seems to set aside the question of Laurel’s father.
“I love this song,” she says. “Let’s dance.”
“You go ahead. We’ll watch,” says Laurel.
Clare has already danced with Eli’s father and led a grapevine the length of several songs. She even took a turn with Walter, swaying under an oak tree while guests looked on nosily.
“For goodness’ sake,” she says, “you two haven’t danced all night. By the looks of it, you could be the ones divorcing.”
Laurel cringes at Eli, but he’s smiling, relaxed in the way he always is by beer, though she can tell he isn’t drunk. He puts his bottle down and says, “Why not?”
Thank God, it’s not a slow song, and no one pays them much attention.
At first, they maintain an arm’s length of distance, moving less together than in tandem.
Eli has always been surprisingly fearless about dancing in public: he has natural rhythm and a skateboarder’s deftness.
He extends his hand for a spin, drawing her out, and suddenly they’re dancing like they have at countless weddings in the past, Laurel doing a shimmy, Eli leading an exaggerated dip.
Only when the band packs up do they peel off for water.
“Gazebo,” says Eli, panting.
They bring their cups to a structure on the outskirts of the party, six-sided with stone steps and a layer of blown-in leaves. Eli rolls up his shirtsleeves. Laurel carries her sandals in one hand. When they sit, she fans her dress over her thighs.
It occurs to Laurel that she’s happy. “We still make a good team.”
“Against all odds,” says Eli.
Mist hangs in the air. They look at each other as through a beaded curtain.
“Laurel,” Eli says. He is looking at her in a new way, or perhaps an old way, and Laurel feels oddly afraid.
Does he notice? In the next moment, Eli’s expression becomes neutral. He suggests that they help Clare and Walter pack the remains of the potluck. Later, they drive home as though nothing unusual happened.
In bed, Laurel wonders why she felt scared. Did she read Eli correctly? It felt like the old charge was there—but no, that wasn’t right. It was a new charge, animated by the events of the past two years. She thought he might have kissed her.
And if he had, what would she have done?
She examines the source of her resistance.
The divorce was brutal, and it happened for a reason.
There was the agony of the choice, then that of the aftermath.
They divided their belongings, sold their rings, said goodbye to each other’s families.
Yes, they’re single now, but there would still be a betrayal: they would be unfaithful not to other partners but to their own decision.
Anyway, Laurel thinks, rolling over, she was probably wrong. If he had continued, he might have said anything at all.