“It was her favorite,” Sadie says with sisterly authority. She holds out her hand to Sebastian and he goes to her and spins into her arms as the ballad begins, and Bonnie Tyler begins to sing: searching, ascendant, eclipsing.
Sadie is lifting and swinging him, commanding as she skids him through her legs and sings, TURN AROUND, BRIGHT EYES, her own eyes shining with the woman who isn’t there, happy-sad, pulling joy out of a desperate vortex, and yes—he feels for the first time since she left—magic might still be possible.
Without Sebastian, the underside of the table is no longer of interest, but Viola has no desire to follow her aunt. Something about Sadie is not put together properly, a part of her brain probably or something inside her that makes her weird. Bodies are full of insides—it’s gross when you think about it.
Her father is not in the kitchen, amid the throng of her mother’s friends from work, tattooed and emotive, their faces smudged with makeup, even some of the men.Where is her dad?If he isn’t careful, they might take over the house.
She ignores the dark-painted nails that claw at her hair as she pushes through them, as though she is a dog or a cat, passive. The conversation that she had with her mother—not their last, but their last alone—is tumbling through her mind.Love is the most important thing, she was saying, pressing hard into the back of her palm with a finger that was surprisingly strong and urgent.Love, love, was coming out of her horrible mouth, dry around the edges, and she had felt ashamed of this alien creature, hairless and wrinkling prematurely, her beautiful face naked of eyebrows and eyelashes. Ashamed also of her own fear, her inability to feel love toward the thing her mother had become. She hates thinking about her now—even the happiest memories are painted in the nauseous colors of sickness.You can’t catch it, her father had said,not in that way.
Sebastian had been braver. He had kissed the strange soft skin of her skull. It didn’t matter to him; boys are made differently, out of tougher things. Even if they look the same, if they have the same flushed and fleshy cheeks, the same downy hair on their arms, their insides are different.
Outside the window, a bright snow swallows the house, luminous under the moon, thickening over the driveway. Viola places her small, pale hands on her stomach, prods softly with her fingers, feeling for that invisible organ. A strange name, she thinks: you-ter-us. She finds nothing except her taut skin, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there. The thought of it makes her sick.
As music that she recognizes as her mother’s begins to spill from the living room, she leans close to the wall and pushes through the bodies to the front door, the gold knob chill in her fingers. Cold air hits her like a seawall. Under the orange glow of the porch light is the back of a man (not her father), sitting in a dark coat, snow dusting his shiny leather shoes. Next to him is a jar of dill pickles, and he plucks one out and eats it, staring out at the cars disappearing under the snow.
“We’re going to have a hard time getting out of here,” he says, and his voice is like a voice she has only ever heard in the movies, a somewhere-else voice. Soft. Refined. When he turns to see her, he looks surprised, as though he were expecting someone else. “Oh,” he says. He reaches into the jar next to him. “Pickle?”
Viola shakes her head, but walks over to get a better look at him. Kind brown eyes, a thin face, hair tucked behind his ears.
“Don’t blame you,” he says, crunching into another. “They’re intense.” He wrinkles his nose.
“Then why are you eating them?”
“I’m trying to quit smoking. Someone said this was a good idea.”
“It doesn’t seem like the same thing.”
He grins. “You’re not wrong.”
She bends and sits next to him.
“So what do you do, then?” he asks.
What does she do? She’s never really thought about it. She eats breakfast, rides her bike, reads books. She plays in the snow, watches the sun set. It’s hard to put it into words.
“You know, are you a lawyer, or a banker? You strike me as a lawyer. Thoughtful, analytical sort. Stickler for rules.”
“I’m seven.”
“Well, I’m twenty-seven. It’s not a contest.”
What is this pickle-man playing at? “Who are you?”
“Orson.” He holds out his hand. “Sorry. Rude of me. I should have said.”
“Viola.” She eyes him mischievously. She’s seen lawyers on TV. Theywear suits and briefcases. It doesn’t seem very difficult to her. “I am a lawyer, actually.”
“I thought as much. Well, I hope you’re on the good side.”
She nods, though she isn’t sure what the good side is. She hopes she’s on the good side too. Will she have to get a suit?
Snow is falling on their knees now. Through the low orange light in the living room, she can see bodies starting to pool in, music splashing out through the glass window.
“That your brother?” Orson asks, nodding at Sebastian, who is spinning around, laughing in the melee of adults jumping into the room.
Viola nods.
“He’s a good dancer.”
