he attended. The suitcase will have gathered dust.
Now Sandra comes into the study. “Waffles?” What she means is
We have an agreement, but do we also have a truce?
He thanks her. “But syrup for me, not yogurt.”
“Have you seen the price of maple syrup?” she says, though her voice is cheerful. “There’s jam.”
She’s looking over his shoulder at the computer screen. She says nothing, too smart (and kind, really) to let on that it looks like she’s won.
“I need to tell you,” he says, “that there’s a leak in the roof. Up front.”
He hears her sigh, but she doesn’t tell him she told him so. “I can deal with that, call somebody. It’s no reason to put this aside.”
He continues to stare at the map on the screen. “So. What if I find out nothing?”
“You’ll find out something.”
“How do you know that?”
“What I mean is that you’ll learn or hear or see something new. Something will change. Something has to.”
Sandra’s tone is free of impatience or threat. Her quiet certainty, however generic it may seem, infects him, just a little (as it has before), just enough to carry him forward, against his nature, toward taking the risks he knows he needs to take. In a figurative sense, she is pushing him down the mountain on skis; how fitting that Jasper is his destination, if not his hope.
A S THEY FILED INTO their dedicated section, they laughed at one another and made faces. This was the season’s opening concert; only at concerts were they required to dress up. The girls, as discreetly as they knew how, struggled in vain to make peace with their garter belts and scratchy nylons; the boys moved their necks to and fro like turkeys, agitated by the confines of collar and tie. Daphne had chosen the yellow minidress with the square neckline and the long bell-shaped sleeves, one of two bought just for this summer. Her mother said it matched Daphne’s hair. Combed out loose, it felt almost like someone else’s hair; for the very first evening among these new friends, she would not be playing her cello. Campers did not take the stage until later in the summer, when the first of their collaborative pieces would be, as Natalya put it, “enough ready to pass for art.”
The camp’s performance structure, its one extravagant nod to modernity, was quaintly known as the Silo. The stage, a perfect circle, protruded from a tall curved structure painted a classic barn red. Overhead, a web of steel cables and baffles fanned out above the near portion of the audience. Spectators with the expensive tickets sat in folding wooden chairs that were stored beneath the stage between concerts. Those farther back sat on blankets in the grass. The ground was more forgiving than the chairs, but the acoustics were inferior—and the bugs were merciless.
Daphne sat between Malachy and her roommate Mei Mei. The campers’ chairs were close to the stage but off to one side, the sight lines less than ideal. They would be looking at the back of the pianist, the singer half-hidden in the curvature of the instrument. Esme McLaughlin, the season’s opening act, was a Scottish sopranorenowned not just for her exceptional range but for the covers of her record albums, on which she reclined in verdant Gaelic settings wearing scanty evening gowns and shamelessly expensive jewelry, not a musical prop in sight. Her pianist, a married man, was allegedly her lover.
As the campers gossiped and fussed, their anticipation kinetic, Daphne noticed that the adults seated in the center rows stared openly at them, smiling, as if they were an exhibit at a museum. Malachy waved to an older couple who called his name. “Too many people know my father,” he explained. Of all the campers, some of whom came from as far away as Europe, Malachy was the only one from Vermont, his home less than two hours north. He made fun of his father, a successful lawyer, but Daphne could tell that his scorn was just a veneer.
Together, they
Now Sandra comes into the study. “Waffles?” What she means is
We have an agreement, but do we also have a truce?
He thanks her. “But syrup for me, not yogurt.”
“Have you seen the price of maple syrup?” she says, though her voice is cheerful. “There’s jam.”
She’s looking over his shoulder at the computer screen. She says nothing, too smart (and kind, really) to let on that it looks like she’s won.
“I need to tell you,” he says, “that there’s a leak in the roof. Up front.”
He hears her sigh, but she doesn’t tell him she told him so. “I can deal with that, call somebody. It’s no reason to put this aside.”
He continues to stare at the map on the screen. “So. What if I find out nothing?”
“You’ll find out something.”
“How do you know that?”
“What I mean is that you’ll learn or hear or see something new. Something will change. Something has to.”
Sandra’s tone is free of impatience or threat. Her quiet certainty, however generic it may seem, infects him, just a little (as it has before), just enough to carry him forward, against his nature, toward taking the risks he knows he needs to take. In a figurative sense, she is pushing him down the mountain on skis; how fitting that Jasper is his destination, if not his hope.
A S THEY FILED INTO their dedicated section, they laughed at one another and made faces. This was the season’s opening concert; only at concerts were they required to dress up. The girls, as discreetly as they knew how, struggled in vain to make peace with their garter belts and scratchy nylons; the boys moved their necks to and fro like turkeys, agitated by the confines of collar and tie. Daphne had chosen the yellow minidress with the square neckline and the long bell-shaped sleeves, one of two bought just for this summer. Her mother said it matched Daphne’s hair. Combed out loose, it felt almost like someone else’s hair; for the very first evening among these new friends, she would not be playing her cello. Campers did not take the stage until later in the summer, when the first of their collaborative pieces would be, as Natalya put it, “enough ready to pass for art.”
The camp’s performance structure, its one extravagant nod to modernity, was quaintly known as the Silo. The stage, a perfect circle, protruded from a tall curved structure painted a classic barn red. Overhead, a web of steel cables and baffles fanned out above the near portion of the audience. Spectators with the expensive tickets sat in folding wooden chairs that were stored beneath the stage between concerts. Those farther back sat on blankets in the grass. The ground was more forgiving than the chairs, but the acoustics were inferior—and the bugs were merciless.
Daphne sat between Malachy and her roommate Mei Mei. The campers’ chairs were close to the stage but off to one side, the sight lines less than ideal. They would be looking at the back of the pianist, the singer half-hidden in the curvature of the instrument. Esme McLaughlin, the season’s opening act, was a Scottish sopranorenowned not just for her exceptional range but for the covers of her record albums, on which she reclined in verdant Gaelic settings wearing scanty evening gowns and shamelessly expensive jewelry, not a musical prop in sight. Her pianist, a married man, was allegedly her lover.
As the campers gossiped and fussed, their anticipation kinetic, Daphne noticed that the adults seated in the center rows stared openly at them, smiling, as if they were an exhibit at a museum. Malachy waved to an older couple who called his name. “Too many people know my father,” he explained. Of all the campers, some of whom came from as far away as Europe, Malachy was the only one from Vermont, his home less than two hours north. He made fun of his father, a successful lawyer, but Daphne could tell that his scorn was just a veneer.
Together, they
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