A Soft Place to Land: A Novel Read online

  Ruthie did not ask Robert for the meaning of the word truque. Ever since she had moved to San Francisco, she was constantly being made aware of how much she did not know. Sometimes her dearth of knowledge embarrassed her and she would choose to remain privately ignorant.

  Stealing a glance at her uncle, who was flipping the sizzling pieces of bacon with metal tongs, she wondered if he might secretly be a homosexual, like Marc, Mimi’s business partner, who was gay, though not secret about it at all.

  Uncle Robert was certainly unlike any man Ruthie had ever known in Atlanta.

  In Atlanta, men—daddies—wore suits and ties, or doctor’s scrubs, and you didn’t see them between breakfast and dinner. They were gone, off to an office where important work was being done and there were refrigerators stocked with an endless supply of free Coca-Colas. That had been the detail about her daddy’s office that most impressed Ruthie, that when he went to work her father could have a Coke any time he wanted and he didn’t have to pay a dime for it.

  Robert didn’t go to an office. Or rather, his office was in their home on Mars Street. It was the nicest room of the flat, with a gas fireplace and two walls of bookshelves. The walls were painted a deep red, and whenever Ruthie went in there she felt warmed, as if she were sitting by a fire.

  It was a wonderful room, cozy, inviting, and a little old-fashioned. Robert even had one of those sliding ladders attached to the bookshelves, so that he could reach any book he wanted, at any time. There was a delicate prayer rug on the floor that he and Mimi had bargained for years ago in Morocco and an ancient but working record player on a metal cart in the corner. Sometimes Robert would play his jazz albums from college, all kept meticulously in a leather trunk beside the player, each record stored in its original paper sleeve.

  Usually Cooper the cat was lying on the cleared-off section of Robert’s desk, but Cooper was such a mellow cat that it was easy to overlook him. He was more like a rug for the desk. “A rug that sheds,” Mimi always added.

  Mimi was the first one up every morning. In that way she was similar to Ruthie’s mother, who always rose early to make a pot of coffee for Phil. And same as Naomi—well, before Julia got her license—it was Mimi who drove Ruthie to school in the morning. But the similarity between Mimi’s and Naomi’s (former) schedules ended there, for after dropping Ruthie off at Hall’s, Mimi headed straight to her office in Hayes Valley, which was filled with fabric samples, antiques, and little clippings from magazines featuring rooms that she and Marc had designed. Whereas after dropping Ruthie off in the morning Naomi would head home for her second cup of coffee before “beginning her day,” which often involved waiting at the house for the various assortment of people who arrived to take care of it: the housekeeper, the plumber, the pool man.

  Each morning when Ruthie made her way sleepily into the kitchen, Mimi was already there, drinking a glass of fresh-squeezed juice, the desiccated orange rinds in a pile beside the juicer. Bright-eyed, made up, her pale blond hair twisted into a chignon, Mimi was always dressed and ready to go. And just like the trace of a southern accent that she could not seem to abandon, the way Mimi dressed in San Francisco marked her as slightly different from her peers. She was more formal. Whereas the other women in their neighborhood wore soft T-shirts printed with interesting graphics atop jeans or leggings—that or something utterly unfeminine, clunky Doc Martens and thick canvas pants—Mimi always dressed up. She liked straight skirts made of natural fibers and lined with satin. She liked silky little tops with some interesting detail along the collar, tiny square buttons, say, or hand stitching. If the shirt provided no extra luxury she might throw a silk scarf around her neck.

  In a way, Ruthie thought, watching Robert select three eggs from the carton and place them in the middle of the counter so they wouldn’t roll off, the rhythm of life at Mimi and Robert’s house wasn’t all that different from how the rhythm of life at her parents’ house had been. It was just that instead of the man leaving in the morning and coming home to a hot dinner, it was Mimi who left and Robert who cooked. Robert and now Ruthie.

  Robert was reaching into the refrigerator again, this time pulling out a carton of whole milk.

  He closed the refrigerator door, opened the carton, sniffed.

  “Oh shit,” he said, and then held the carton close to his face so he could read the expiration date printed on it.

  Ruthie was still not accustomed to hearing adults casually curse. In Atlanta the only adult she knew who cursed with any regularity was her father, and he almost never said anything stronger than “ass” or “damn.”

  “Hmm. It says it doesn’t expire until next week, but smell this.” He offered the offending paper carton to Ruthie, who refused to take it.

  “Ick,” she said. “I trust you.”

  He glanced at the bacon sizzling in its grease. “I guess I’d better finish this and then run down to Eureka,” he said. “I can’t make the filling for the tart unless I have milk.”

  Eureka Market was a bodega just a few blocks away, at Seventeenth and Eureka Street. It was a downhill walk to the store, a steep climb coming back up. Uncle Robert, who was not in the best shape, usually drove there, double-parking if there were no spots in front.

  “I’ll walk down there and get some more,” said Ruthie.

  “Are you sure you don’t mind?”

  Ruthie shook her head. She really didn’t. It would be nice to be alone and outside for a few minutes. Her mind kept drifting to her parents, and she wanted to think about them with no interruptions.

  Seventeenth Street, which ran perpendicular to Mars, was so steep that Ruthie felt as if she were being pushed forward during the whole walk down. She studied the sidewalk as she walked, afraid of tripping on something.

  On clear days you could see a vast stretch of the city from this part of Seventeenth, from the art deco sign in front of the Castro Theatre to the yellow stucco Safeway on Market, past the tall buildings downtown, all the way to the sparkling bay. But today the view was obscured by fog. Ruthie wore jeans and a long-sleeve T-shirt, a down vest, a scarf (cashmere, a gift from Mimi) wrapped around her neck. She trudged down the hill, imagining her mother just last Thanksgiving, a little harried with her schedule Scotch-taped to the kitchen counter, which listed the casseroles she had already prepared, and, beside each one, the time it should go in the oven.

  Ruthie had helped her mother. She tore apart and washed the romaine lettuce for the salad; she stirred the squash and onions that were simmering on the stove. She brushed the tops of the unbaked Parker House rolls with melted butter. Her father kept coming in and out of the kitchen, just to check on them. Just to say hello. At one point he had forked the heart out of a pot of simmering giblets that Naomi was preparing for her giblet gravy.

  “Phil!” Naomi said, clearly annoyed. “I needed that!”

  She had stood with her hands on her hips, an angry mother scolding a child.

  “Relax, babe,” Phil had said, his own contentment at having the day off evident.

  He was so jolly on days off from the office, a juice glass in his hand, filled with red wine.

  Holidays and weekends were the only times that Phil did not wear a suit and tie. And he never wore blue jeans. Last Thanksgiving he had worn khaki pants and a short-sleeve button-down shirt, blue plaid, tucked in with a belt. His dark hair grew a little long on both sides of his head, but he was bald on top. He had wire-rim glasses and a dark mustache streaked with silver hairs. Back when Dunkin’ Donuts had run its “Time to Make the Donuts” ads featuring a short, round, mustached man resigned to making donuts in perpetuity, Alex Love had joked that the “Donut Man” looked just like Ruthie’s dad.

  It was a comment that highlighted the difference between Alex’s father and Ruthie’s. Mr. Love was tall and athletic, with a full head of hair and perfect vision. Whereas Phil was short, a little plump, and bald. And he not only wore glasses, but he also had a weak eye, one that wandered a little to the left whenever he was
tired.

  Despite all of this, her father seemed utterly confident, self-possessed in his Brioni suits and fancy leather shoes, purchased at Neiman’s annual sale. Naomi told Ruthie that Phil’s self-confidence was what drew her to him in the first place. The way his presence filled the room. The way he made the most ordinary outings fun. She said that just going with Phil to buy socks was fun. And yet . . . sometimes he shared the Donut Man’s defeated air of resignation toward his work. Phil was so tired when he came home at the end of the day. His eye would wander and he would be cross.

  Once after Phil had snapped at Ruthie during dinner, snapped at her over nothing, and she had run away from the table in tears (Ruthie did not like people to see her cry), Naomi had found Ruthie in her room, and had tried to explain to her why Phil could be so grumpy.

  “He loves being able to send you and Julia to private school,” she said, tickling Ruthie’s neck with her long nails. “And you know he loves this house. But it takes a lot of money to keep everything running. There’s just a lot of pressure on him, that’s all.”

  Once Phil told Julia not to consider law school. “Being a lawyer pays the bills,” he said. “But it sure is a drone.”

  So occupied was Ruthie by her thoughts, and by watching the ground while she walked, not wanting to stumble and fall down the steep hill, that it wasn’t until she was standing directly in front of Dara, whose hair was freshly tinted purple, that she saw her. Her appearance was so sudden it was as if Dara, and the young woman standing beside her, had materialized out of the fog.

  The woman standing by Dara wore baggy jeans and a Bikini Kill T-shirt, a pink plastic headband holding back her curly hair, which looked exactly like Dara’s except it was dyed black.

  “I’ve been saying your name like ten times now!” said Dara, slightly out of breath from climbing the hill.

  Ruthie didn’t know how to respond to that. What was she going to say: “Sorry, I was preoccupied with thoughts of my dead parents”?

  “So anyway, what are you doing here?”

  “Just going to Eureka Market for milk,” Ruthie said. “We need it for the bacon and Gruyère tart we’re making.”

  “Yum! We just came from there. For ice cream. But what are you doing in this neighborhood?”

  Did Dara not remember any of their conversation from the first week of school? Ruthie certainly had not forgotten that Dara said she lived on Uranus.

  “I live up there,” Ruthie said, pointing behind her.

  Dara made a show of slapping her forehead. “Of course! You live on Mars. You’re a Martian. Right. I totally forgot. Well, anyway, hi! Happy Thanksgiving.”

  Why was Dara acting so friendly, so bubbly? Ruthie had been so bitchy to her that day during Snack, had actually taken pleasure in being rude. Since then, Ruthie had been nicer but never really accepted any of Dara’s direct overtures toward friendship. But seeing Dara here on Seventeenth Street with the pink-headband woman—hadn’t Dara said she had a sister, a vegan?—so far away from school and sailor uniforms, Ruthie could not remember why she had chosen to remain so aloof.

  “Are you Dara’s sister?” Ruthie asked.

  “No, I’m her mom,” said the woman. “I was a child bride.”

  Ruthie was confused. Headband woman looked no more than twenty years old, if that.

  Dara rolled her eyes. “Ruthie, meet Yael, my sister. Who is so funny she ought to do stand-up.”

  “The vegan?” Ruthie asked.

  “Am I that exotic?” Yael teased Dara. “That you discuss my eating habits with strangers?”

  “You say ‘exotic’; I say ‘bizarre,’” said Dara.

  Yael bumped her sister playfully with her hip and Ruthie felt consumed with jealousy.

  Julia was supposed to be here.

  If Julia had not been caught drinking, she would be here.

  “And Ruthie’s not a stranger. We go to Hall’s together.”

  “Hi, Ruthie from Hall’s,” said Yael. “So back to your oh-so-appropriate question about my eating habits, I usually am vegan, but I’m going to indulge in dairy today. Can’t get Chandra to stop making her crusts with butter, and can’t help but eat them once she does.”

  “What about turkey?” asked Ruthie, even though Yael had just implied that questions about what she ate were rude.

  Ruthie didn’t care. She thought Yael was rude.

  “Chandra got a Tofurky,” said Yael.

  “It looks like a turkey, but it’s made of tofu,” explained Dara, who seemed to intuit that Ruthie might not know what one was.

  Ruthie was dying to tell Julia about Tofurky. God. San Franciscans.

  “Is Chandra your cook?” Ruthie asked.

  Many of the girls at Hall’s came from homes where there was a full-time cook.

  “Jesus, Dara, you really go to a ritzy school, don’t you?” said Yael. Turning to Ruthie, she said, “We have no cook. No butler, either, for that matter—”

  “That’s not what I meant,” said Ruthie, deciding she really didn’t like this Yael person, wondering what the hell kind of name was Yael anyway?

  “Chandra’s our mom,” said Dara.

  “You call your mom by her first name?” asked Ruthie. She didn’t mean to keep firing off questions. What she meant to do was act cool, erect a wall, make an excuse, and get away. Yael was too prickly, and it was too hard seeing sisters together, joking, having fun.

  “We call her Mom to her face, Chandra when we are talking about her,” said Dara.

  “Ice cream’s melting,” Yael said in a singsong voice, waving the plastic grocery bag she held in her hand.

  “I guess we should go,” Dara said. “You want to come over later and eat ice cream with us? We’ve got Health Bar Crunch and Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough.”

  “Thanks,” said Ruthie. “I don’t think I can. My family doesn’t eat Thanksgiving until late.”

  “Are a lot of your relatives in town?” asked Dara.

  The question pleased Ruthie, because it indicated that Dara didn’t know she was an orphan, that Dara believed her to be normal. Believed her to be the type of girl whose mom was just now brushing melted butter on the uncooked Parker House rolls. Ruthie had assumed that everyone at Hall’s knew what had happened to her mom and dad. It was such a small school, and it was so rare for someone to matriculate in the eighth grade.

  The teachers definitely knew. Mr. Z’s constant psychological probing made her sure of that.

  “Just my aunt and uncle,” said Ruthie, pleased with her answer. It was not a lie, but it obscured the truth.

  “We’ve got to go, girl,” said Yael, pushing on Dara’s shoulder with her free hand.

  Dara growled at her sister, but in a friendly way. “Okay, I guess I’ve got to go . . . but call me! Let’s get together over break!”

  Ruthie murmured something noncommittal but was surprised, once they started climbing the hill back toward Uranus Terrace, that she was not relieved by their departure.

  She was so damn lonely.

  At five o’ clock the Woodses arrived, exactly on time. Ruthie had returned with the milk hours earlier, and she and Robert had prepared the bacon and Gruyère tart. Still, there were lots of last-minute things to do, and Robert, pulling the perfectly browned turkey out of the oven, muttered to himself while he and Ruthie listened to Mimi greet the Woodses at the door.

  “Don’t they know to arrive at least ten minutes late to a party?” he whispered to Ruthie. “I haven’t even had time to have a drink.”

  Ruthie wasn’t sure what to say in response and Robert, sensing her concern, said, “Don’t listen to me. I’m just being a kvetch. Go say hi and I’ll finish in here.”

  Ruthie walked into the living room. The Woodses were still standing by the door, Tim Woods holding an oversized bottle of wine.

  Tim Woods was a blond, muscled man of great height, well over six feet tall. His dark-haired wife, Nina, whose mother had escaped from Communist Romania, was tiny by contrast, her bones b
irdlike in their delicacy. They had one child, a girl named Tatiana, who had a preternaturally advanced vocabulary for age nine, and who walked over to Ruthie and handed her a pot holder, woven from colored elastic bands that Tatiana had strung together on a plastic loom.

  “Thanks,” said Ruthie, holding the pot holder limply in front of her.

  “I hope you get ample use from it,” said the child.

  Mimi, who was so tall and blond next to Nina, was ushering in her guests. She looked casually elegant in black pants, a slinky cream top, and a gray cashmere wrap that she slung oh-so-casually around her shoulders.

  Ruthie knew that Mimi must have been popular in school while Nina, sharp little Nina with her tacky skintight lace top over a too-short black skirt, was not. At least, not in the way Mimi would have been. Not in any way wholesome.

  Except Nina married Tim, who was as wholesome looking as could be, with his sweep of blond hair and broad shoulders. Tim looked as if he grew out of a cornfield, as if he shot right out of the ground, ready to inherit the earth, with a toothy smile.

  The sparkling wine Tim had brought was chilled, and so Mimi took the bottle into the kitchen, where Robert poured it into flutes, emerging to serve. The grown-ups settled in the living room, each with a flute of bubbly. It was a large bottle, the largest bottle of wine Ruthie had ever seen. Robert, who was still wearing an apron tied around his significant middle, told her that it was called a magnum and that it was the equivalent of two regular bottles of champagne.

  “Though technically Roederer Estate is sparkling wine, since it’s grown in the Anderson Valley and not in the Champagne region of France,” Robert said. Encouraged by her interest in his cooking, Robert was always imparting little epicurean lessons to Ruthie.

  “Roederer Estate is my absolute favorite,” said Mimi, giving Robert a nonverbal rebuke with her narrowed eyes. Though Mimi loved to say that she had “gone native” when she moved out to California and was now a true San Franciscan, she would forever remain a southern woman in that she was always worried about the possibility of offending a guest.