A Soft Place to Land: A Novel Read online

  “Should we get the pâté?” she asked, rhetorically.

  “Yum,” said Dara.

  “Gross,” said Julia. She looked up at the waitress. “No offense.”

  “Doesn’t bother me,” the waitress said. “I don’t eat meat.” She had finished pouring the wine and now stood with her pad out and her left foot balanced against the side of her right knee. Probably she was a dancer.

  “Go ahead and order it if you want,” said Julia. “I’m going to get the baked Brie to start. Y’all will help me eat it, right?”

  “Double yum,” said Dara.

  “Do you guys want to go ahead and order your main course, too?” asked the waitress.

  “I think we need a few minutes,” said Ruthie, who hadn’t had a chance to look over the menu thoroughly.

  When the waitress turned away from the table, she bent her knee in a graceful plié.

  Dara lifted her wineglass. “Now we can have a proper toast. To Julia, the only published author I know!”

  “Wait,” said Ruthie, not yet lifting her glass. “What about Robert? And isn’t your mom friends with tons of authors? I mean, no offense, Julia. Just, you know, accuracy.”

  “Fine. To Julia, the only memoirist I know.”

  Technically, Robert’s book about the foods he ate in Brooklyn as a boy, The Carp in the Bathtub, was a memoir. But Ruthie let it slide.

  Ruthie, Dara, and Julia lifted their glasses, clinked them together. Gabe was still occupied reading Julia’s book.

  “Aren’t you going to toast with us?” Ruthie asked, a little annoyed that Gabe was not even pretending to be interested in the group.

  He looked up, obviously surprised at the interruption. Ruthie did not understand how Gabe was able to do this, to become so absorbed by whatever he was doing that he could just block out all other noise.

  “Sorry,” he said, looking at Julia. “It’s just that I’m reading this really gripping memoir.”

  “Aw, Ruthie, I love your boyfriend! He’s so cute and has such great taste in books!” said Julia.

  Ruthie put her arms around his shoulders. “Isn’t he?” she asked.

  “Two thumbs-up,” said Julia.

  Gabe raised his eyes from the book. “Y’all are making me feel like a piece of meat,” he said.

  “We didn’t say you were Grade A. We said you were two thumbs-up. That means you’re a good movie,” said Julia.

  Gabe smiled at the joke, and then returned to the book.

  Ruthie studied the menu. Sometimes in restaurants she would become so absorbed thinking about what had inspired the chef to create each dish that she would forget to choose something to order. But not tonight. Tonight she would keep it simple. She would order the hanger steak cooked medium rare with fries. Easy. Her decision out of the way, she could now concentrate on Julia, on this confident woman who was her sister. Ruthie felt abuzz with happy energy sitting across the table from her, neither of them upset or tense. And how wonderful that Julia got to meet Gabe, got to see how great he was, if a bit distracted. But it wasn’t as if he were distracted by a football game on TV or something. He was distracted because he was so engrossed in her writing.

  “What are you getting?” Dara asked Ruthie. Dara liked to order exactly what Ruthie did, claiming that Ruthie was a “perfect orderer.”

  “I’m getting the hanger steak with frites,” said Ruthie.

  “I’m having that, too,” said Julia. “But I’m having fries, not frites.”

  “Same thing,” said Ruthie. “One’s just in French.”

  “I know that, you dork! I’m just teasing.”

  “Oh,” said Ruthie, a little sheepish. “Wait. We can’t all get the steak. We won’t be able to trade tastes. Gabe, you have to order something else.”

  “What?” said Gabe, looking up from the book. He looked angry.

  “I asked what are you having?”

  “The steak.”

  “Well, shit. Then I guess I have to get the boeuf bourguignon,” said Ruthie.

  “Then I’m getting boeuf bourguignon,” said Dara.

  “Why don’t you get the trout and I’ll get the bouef and we can share.”

  “Will you trade with me if yours is better?”

  Ruthie rolled her eyes at Julia. “See what I have to put up with?” she asked, imitating Phil from so long ago.

  Julia smiled ruefully. “God, it’s good to see you.”

  Even though Gabe finished the epilogue before his steak arrived, he remained quiet and withdrawn during dinner. This bothered Ruthie, who wanted her new boyfriend to be extra charming in front of Julia. Julia didn’t seem to mind, though. She was obviously having a good time talking with Dara about what Brooklyn was like compared to San Francisco. All year Dara had been threatening to move to New York after graduation, but Ruthie didn’t really believe her. Or maybe she just didn’t want to believe her, didn’t want to imagine day-to-day life without Dara in it.

  “San Francisco is more livable, but New York is where the conversation starts,” said Julia.

  “Spoken like a true New Yorker,” said Ruthie. “Which is to say, like a snob.” She stole a fry off Julia’s plate, dipped it in the jus from the steak, and popped it in her mouth.

  “And when have you been to New York?” asked Julia.

  “When I was in fifth grade and you were in eighth. Remember? Mom took us for a ‘girls’ weekend’ and we stayed at that junky place in Midtown that Dad had gotten a deal on.”

  “Oh my god, you’re judging New York based on a weekend you spent in Midtown when you were in fifth grade? That’s like me going to Atlanta, staying overnight at the airport, and then making proclamations about the city.”

  “I had a layover in Atlanta once,” said Dara. “It kind of sucked.”

  “Exactly my point. It wouldn’t have sucked if someone who actually lived there had shown you around. Which is all to say that you need to come visit, Ruthie. It’s ridiculous that you haven’t been to my place in Williamsburg, or met Molly, for that matter.”

  It was ridiculous. Especially that Ruthie hadn’t met Julia’s girlfriend. But prior visits with Julia had always been so difficult. Ruthie had stayed with her in Charlottesville twice, once when Julia was a freshman at UVA and once for Julia’s graduation. Both times had been awkward. The first time Ruthie visited, her sister got upset with her for using her towel to dry her face. “I put aside a towel especially for you,” she had said. “Why are you junking up mine?” And when Ruthie came for Julia’s graduation, Julia had gotten mad at her for making a long-distance call to Dara from the phone in her apartment.

  Back then, it had seemed pretty obvious to Ruthie that her sister did not want her around, that her sister no longer had warm feelings toward her. But now they were relating as if they were girls again. Affectionately teasing each other, laughing, bringing up old jokes. Ruthie wondered if maybe publishing the book had unleashed Julia’s old, fun self.

  “Want to go to Williamsburg?” she asked Gabe, who was eating his steak rather speedily, as if he were trying to see how fast he could choke it down.

  “New York is overrated,” he said, not making eye contact.

  He didn’t appear to be joking, teasing. He was simply being rude, and Ruthie had no idea why.

  “When was the last time you were there?” asked Dara, her tone still jovial.

  “I went to visit Columbia my senior year after I was admitted. The people were pushy and the city was dirty.”

  “Whereas you are known as Mr. Clean,” joked Ruthie. In fact, Dara referred to him behind his back as “dirty boy.”

  Gabe fished his wallet out of his back pocket and pulled out two twenty-dollar bills, which he tossed into the middle of the table. “Look, I’m exhausted. I need to call it a night. I’m going to walk home.”

  He stood.

  “What?” asked Ruthie. “We’re not even halfway through with dinner.”

  “Julia, it was really nice meeting you. Your book is wonderful
. The epilogue was particularly illuminating.”

  Julia’s brows shifted and for a moment she looked worried, concerned, but then she broke into a smile and acted as if Gabe’s walking out in the middle of the meal were a perfectly normal thing to occur. She remained seated but gave him a little wave. “Thanks so much for coming. And it’s great to meet you, too.”

  “See you, Dara,” said Gabe, and without saying good-bye to Ruthie he walked toward the door.

  “What just happened?” Ruthie asked, looking at Dara and Julia in astonishment.

  “I have no fucking idea,” said Dara.

  “I’m sorry, I have to find out what’s going on. I’ll be back in just a minute.”

  She rose, walked through the restaurant, and made her way out the door. Once on Shattuck, she looked to her left and saw Gabe, about a half block away, walking fast.

  “Gabe!” she yelled. “Wait.”

  He kept walking.

  “Gabe! Please. Stop.”

  She saw him stop. Turn. She ran to him, slowing as she neared, seeing that his face was clouded with judgment, anger. She walked the last few steps, until she was standing close enough to touch him.

  “I don’t understand what’s going on. This was a really important night for me, and you just, you just flaked.”

  She was so embarrassed by his behavior. She was so confused.

  “I don’t like being lied to,” he said, his voice devoid of its usual warmth.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Look. I’m not going to get into it with you right now. I don’t want to say anything I might regret. Go back to your sister and Dara. Finish your meal. When you get home, read the epilogue of your sister’s book. Shit, just read the second-to-last page of the epilogue. You’ll understand.”

  He turned and continued walking. Away from her.

  She did not call after him this time. She knew he wouldn’t stop. Instead she slowly walked back to Le Beret, aware even in her confusion and anger of how refreshing the evening breeze felt on her face. How it helped hold back the tears pooling in her eyes.

  When she reached the restaurant, she paused a moment before opening the door. Took a breath. Ran her fingers through her hair, straightening it. As soon as she pushed the door open, she was greeted by the cacophony of happy diners eating and talking, and Edith Piaf singing, “Je ne regrette rien.”

  She walked to the table where Dara and Julia were quietly eating their dinners, exchanging twin looks of concern.

  “Is everything okay?” asked Dara.

  “I don’t know,” said Ruthie. “Apparently I need to read the second-to-the-last page of your epilogue to find out.”

  She watched Julia while saying this, saw that Julia stopped chewing for a moment, as if by doing so she could also stop time. Ruthie grabbed Gabe’s copy of the book, which he had left on the table, and flipped to the end. She found the epilogue, turned to the second-to-last page. She scanned it quickly, looking to see what it was that had so upset Gabe. There was something about another girl at the Center, a girl named Ashley, a girl whose mother found out about her abortion by reading her diary. During group therapy Ashley was referred to as “the murderer.” The counselors would debate whether there was any possibility for her to be saved. Ruthie kept reading, her chest tightening, and then, Oh. Oh fuck. Oh God. Well, no wonder he had stormed out. There it was. She was reading her secret, the one thing she did not know if Gabe could accept about her, printed in her sister’s book. Contained within a parenthetical statement, no less. Written as an aside. Right there.

  (Compare the Center’s treatment of Ashley to my aunt’s reaction when my sister found herself pregnant at eighteen, the summer before she was to head to college. First thing my aunt did was tell her: “Whatever your decision, we will work this through.” Sat down with her at the kitchen table, talked through options. Scheduled the appointment with a trusted doctor, drove my sister to the hospital. Held her hand in the waiting room and was there afterwards, to drive my sad and emptied sister home. Fixed homemade macaroni and cheese for dinner that night, understanding when my sister chose to eat her serving alone in her room.)

  She looked at Julia, whose eyes were round with worry. “I cannot believe you would put this in here without asking me.”

  Ruthie’s voice was low, still, like grease in the skillet, heated past boiling. “It’s most dangerous when it’s still,” Robert always warned.

  “Sweetie, did you read the whole thing? It’s important that you read the whole thing. It’s a tribute to Mimi, really. To what real compassion looks like. It is written with love.”

  She was going to lose Gabe because of this. She was going to lose Gabe over a buried secret of hers that Julia had decided to include in an epilogue she handed in at the last minute. Or at least that was what Julia said, but maybe she had long intended for the epilogue to be there and had simply sent Ruthie an early copy in which it was not, so as not to upset her.

  What other secrets of hers might Julia have added to the pages of her book?

  The tears were falling. Ruthie wiped them away angrily with the back of her hand. She looked at the half-eaten mess on her plate, the soft carrots cut into coins, the translucent onions, the chunks of rich meat, almost purple from the wine. She felt faintly nauseated. She could not eat another bite of this food. She dug her keys out of her bag, worked the Golf key off the chain, slid it across the table to Dara. “I’m sorry. I’ve got to get out of here. You take the car.”

  She stood, just as Gabe had a few moments earlier, and took a step toward the door.

  “Ruthie, come back,” pleaded Julia. “You need to read the whole thing. You’ll understand if you read the whole thing. Plus, we don’t even share the same last name. No one will know you are the sister I was referring to. I never once refer to you as ‘Ruthie’ in the book.”

  Ruthie turned. Stood still, in the middle of a crowded restaurant, surrounded by the sounds of boisterous people eating, of Edith Piaf’s nasal intonation. She looked at her sister, whose entire face leaked regret.

  It was too late.

  Ruthie did not try to be heard above the noise that surrounded her. She did not speak at all. It did not matter whether or not Julia knew her exact thoughts, which at that moment were, Gabe knows, and that’s all that matters, you narcissistic bitch! It occurred to her that nothing she uttered was safe with her sister. Everything could be used for material. This exact moment could show up as a scene in Julia’s next book. It occurred to her that when it came to Julia, the best thing to do was to say nothing, to reveal nothing, to give one final stony look and then simply walk away.

  Chapter Fourteen

  After aimlessly walking up and down Shattuck, feeling bereft and trying not to cry, knowing she needed to talk to Gabe but wanting to be more in control before she did so, Ruthie finally just sat down on a public bench and let loose her tears, scaring away a homeless woman who sat on the bench adjacent to hers. The crying fit was brief. Afterwards she fished from her purse a Kleenex (barely used) and the copy of Straight that she had bought at Cody’s, so much more a “real” book than the bound manuscript Julia had sent.

  Reading by the light of the lamppost that glowed above the bench, Ruthie flipped to the dedication page, a dedication that up until a few moments ago had pleased her inordinately: “To my darling Biscuit: though we were flung apart too young, and remained that way too long, I will always treasure what we had and have.”

  Ruthie closed the book quickly. She did not want to experience a flicker of love, or sympathy, for her sister. Yes, the Center was and remained a nightmare. No, that did not give Julia the right to write about Ruthie’s past. And then Ruthie’s mind, trained to be ever judicious, betrayed her and she considered the situation from Julia’s point of view. (This tendency toward empathy was a lasting and often frustrating inheritance from Naomi, Naomi who used to claim that almost everyone was deserving of some amount of empathy. Even murderers. Even rapists. “Knowing that
everyone has a story,” Naomi would say, “I find it very hard to judge.”)

  And so she mulled over the fact that her sister had no way of knowing that when Straight came out Ruthie would be dating someone who staked a religious claim against abortion, and that Ruthie would have kept her own past abortion a secret from him. She considered the fact that her sister had taken pains not to acknowledge her by her real name in the book, referring to Ruthie only by her nickname, Biscuit. She pondered the question: were she dating someone else, a normal Berkeley boy whose politics aligned completely with hers, would she care that her sister “outed” her as having once ended a pregnancy? Was it simply because Gabe was furious with her that she was furious with her sister?

  But no. No, no, no. No! Even if Gabe had been unaffected by what he read, she would still be angry. Julia had betrayed her, had taken something private of Ruthie’s and shared it with whoever was willing to hand over twenty-five dollars for a book. Fuck embracing the inheritance of her mother’s endless empathy! Julia did something wrong and Ruthie had every right to be upset. Ruthie was allowed not to have to parse out the myriad ways in which the situation was complicated. Ruthie was allowed to draw a line around her private life and kick the shins of anyone who tried to cross it.

  Bile rose in her chest, and she felt a need to move, to walk. She rose from the bench, took aim, and attempted to toss Julia’s book into a wide metal trash can that was missing its lid. She aimed poorly, and the book bounced off the can’s side. She bent down, picked Straight off the sidewalk, and threw it away.

  She had to see Gabe, had to talk to him face-to-face. Dara had her car key, so she had to walk the twenty blocks to his house, even though it was dark and the streets were mostly empty. Beneath her jeans she wore knee-high boots with two-inch heels, not intended for traversing such a distance. By block seven her feet ached. She kept walking. Past a yard of older black men standing in front of a Weber grill. Past her favorite wood bungalow, green with white trim and a shingled roof, with a rose garden in the front that scented the entire block with its sweet perfume.