They talked about the flood, then the disease, then the children who’d become soldiers in arms, and after that, they finished what remained of the deboned branzino; someone pinched the eye, a lemon rind fell to the floor and was squished; the boy and girl — the 25-year-olds — began a sunset tour of the lake by kayak; the espresso machine, Italian, would soon begin its churn, and wasn’t it nice, isn’t it nice how you could watch Bill through the window from the waterfront, his Turretic brow in the honey yellow light spastic in drunken concentration, fiddling with the grinds, then deliberating how to compost? By the water, the rest of the party begins to get cold. The appetizers had been fattening. Bill’s sister, Laura, in her fifties, looks a bit like Stevie Nicks, and the conversation turns to the grainy video clip of the singer belting Wild Heart backstage with her makeup artist and backup singer, her fuzzy blonde hair tied up with a white bow, a bashful confidence in her glare, her face the unmoored face of someone who can’t help but sing her own song when it comes on the radio, the face of someone who hurts and will hurt and who hurts in quiet rapture because she knows she will hurt again. And all in a prom dress. Jeff assures them that his daughter isn’t dating the boy with whom she’s just driven across the country, but as their kayak fades from view no one believes it isn’t love. My first marriage, Laura says, was on a beach on an island off the coast of Virginia, the one with the wild horses, though we didn’t see any horses, just dollar stores and the planets painted onto an old wooden shed. Our honeymoon was an early morning ride on the bed of a pickup truck through the winding roads of the island, and even though we picked up another rider, we still made love right then and there. Jeff’s wife Sam says the best part about summer is that it ends. Now nothing ends. She takes a sweater out of her tote bag and hands it to Jeff who has forgotten to pack his own. Bill brings down the espresso, the little white porcelain cups quaking on the tray as he sets it down. His wife Betsy is small, works in ceramics, and lets him talk about the varieties of birds who scoop up fish from the lake in their backyard. Meanwhile, she talks with Sam about their children, and hiking trails, and sometimes gun control. There is so much more to say as the water laps up to the dock, and the music isn’t playing — even though supposedly everyone loves music — but whatever, do we always have to make an effort? A month before, on election night, Bill drank copious amounts of red wine at Jeff’s place, got drunk, and swiftly entered into an argument with Betsy over whether or not he had locked up the house before they left for the party. Later they all got to talking about high school––who died, divorced, or dissolved. And as they huddled together awaiting the results, someone said I love you, I love you, I love you I do…When the boy and girl return from their tour of the lake they find the dock deserted except for a lone plate of half-eaten red velvet cake and some sandals. How plain everything is still: The fathers and mothers and aunts all gone to bed tipsy and shivering and full, so now, the boy and girl, for a change, are the calming voices that patter while you try and sleep. They are talking about the man they’d met in Wisconsin, this toothless guy named Buck who sat outside his garage rolling cigarettes and inviting passersby into conversation. His fingers were stained with polyurethane, and his job, as they recalled, was calendars, making sure companies knew what days certain holidays fell on. He was reading a book from the library about the battle his father had fought in during the second world war. He read many books but said he’d never be able to write any himself. Then he sat upright, paused, and took it back — c’mon, he said, now wasn’t that an awfully rude thing to say about myself?
Joe Eichner is a writer from Chicago. Sometimes he discusses books, movies, and niche pop culture stuff with his twin brother here, and is currently at work on a novel.