First You Try Everything by Jane Mccafferty Page B

divorce,
unshakeable.
    H e
wondered why he had no urge to tell Lauren this story. Would their lives
together exclude their darkest memories, allowing them to fade? He tried to
imagine that, tried to envision how carefree they might be someday. Maybe he’d
tell her everything eventually, but now, here at the beginning, he’d tell her
what was best.
    The story of his grandfather and more lived inside
of Evvie. Evvie who’d had to know everything . If he
ever forgot anything, he could consult her, his personal archives.
    L auren
had been raised by a stepmother, an elegant, brainy woman named Lillian Ross who
died six years ago in a car crash while visiting her sister outside of Chicago.
Lauren carried a picture of Lillian Ross in her wallet. Her father lived in
Seattle, but she rarely saw him. She had yet to tell Ben what had happened to
her biological mother. “Oh, someday I’ll get into all of that. A bit of a
downer.” It was as if she were talking about somebody else, and yet he’d known
not to press. “Think drugs,” she’d added.
    H e
wanted to see Lauren happy. Really happy, without the brakes on. Once, when he
was fourteen, he’d found his mother weeping on the phone, but the tears had been
happy ones. He’d stood watching her in the kitchen doorway; she’d been over near
the sink. “Who was that?” he wanted to ask, later. But something had held him
back. It was as if he hadn’t wanted the source of those tears to be
particularized. Often he remembered her face as it had looked that day, as if
the memory were an amulet clenched in his hand. She’d wept with a joy—he was
certain of this—that was stranger and deeper than anything he’d known, though
he’d craved it at fourteen and even before that, maybe as long as he’d known
what craving was.
    He’d wept with joy like that sometimes with Evvie,
and tonight, suddenly it seemed it was something he’d not know again. This love
was different. This love was solid and of the earth. Was it more reliable
because Lauren wasn’t dying to escape the confines of her own body, as Evvie had
been? This calm of Lauren’s, what was the source?
    â€œLauren?” He sat next to her. “Lauren?”
    He got back in bed, and her warm body turned toward
him. He felt a keen desire for her that eradicated his fear. Of course he would
weep with joy again. “Lauren?”
    â€œHmm?” she said.
    â€œI was thinking we could drive to the lake. I think
the moon is full.” This wasn’t like him at all. This was him being Evvie in one
of her semi-manic states.
    â€œIt’s too cold,” she murmured. “Stay here.”
    He waited. “You like lakes?”
    Lauren nestled her head into the crook of his arm.
“Yes. And I love the ocean. We should go this summer. Or sooner.”
    His heart sunk. “I prefer lakes.” He wanted to stay
away from the ocean for a while—Evvie’s favorite landscape. For years they’d
rented a room in the Dew Drop Inn, a motel in Wildwood that took dogs. All the
most passionate dog lovers came, and the rooms smelled like shedding dogs and
the people all traded endless dog stories, and everyone loved Ruth and some even
sent her Christmas cards signed with the paw-prints of their own dogs. Evvie had
always brought a boom box on those vacations, mostly so The
Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle could provide the sound
track for the days. She wanted to believe there might be boys from the casino
dancing like Latin lovers on the shore. She had memorized “Sandy” when she was
thirteen and prided herself on sounding a lot like Springsteen when she sang it
from start to finish. She’d loved the boardwalk—playing games where she’d win
gigantic homely stuffed animals, riding the roller coaster and eating fries
soaked in vinegar, watching the parade of humanity in the night light while a
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