“We’ll use your discretion,” Jake said quickly.
“Do you have a writer in mind for that?” Charles asked Jake. “I could call them after the meeting, make sure they’re free.”
“Why don’t you write it?” Jake said.
“Me?” Charles thumbed his chest.
“You’re always asking to write things. Plus, you live out that way. A lot closer to where the community is.”
Mirabelle smiled and pushed a pamphlet across the table to Charles. It was different from the one he’d seen yesterday, with only a simple log cabin on the cover. “The directions to the homesteads are there,” Mirabelle explained, turning the shiny pages and pointing. “That’s probably where we’ll set up the interview, and then they’ll take you to their cabin and show you around.”
Not knowing what else to do, Charles opened the pamphlet. On the first page was a group of adults sitting in a circle, talking. It must have been pre-Back to the Land, for they were all wearing Ralph Lauren polo shirts and sneakers and lipstick. “Life can be simpler than this,” said the caption.
He flipped to the next page, which described the training process of becoming an intrepid frontiersman. Now the same people were sitting outside on logs and tree stumps, dressed in rags. A woman was holding a long, wobbly saw, examining a tree trunk. Someone else was hovering over a smoldering fire, grinning.
Charles turned to the next photo, his eyes skidding over it. Then he turned back; a chilly hand squeezed his heart. A woman was leaning over a square of soil, pulling at a stalk. She wore a long skirt, frayed at the ends, and an oversize cotton shirt. Her mouth was half open, and there was a smudge of dirt on her cheek. Charles blinked at her oval face, her slender nose, and her full lips. The photo was in black and white, but if it were color, Charles was sure her eyes would be blue.
He tapped the photo, the words dried up in his throat. He read the caption. Her name.
Mirabelle leaned forward. “Oh, she’s wonderful.”
Her name was Bronwyn Pembroke.
“I didn’t even think of her,” Mirabelle went on, “but she’d be a great person to profile. Young, intelligent, articulate, and really exemplary of what we’re trying to accomplish.”
“Done,” Jake said, brushing his hands together. “Let’s use her.”
Charles pressed his lips together, trying to conceal his panic. It was her. Bronwyn. His Bronwyn.
“Are you all right?” Mirabelle said.
Charles looked up. Everyone was staring at him, and he wondered if he’d made some sort of sound. He nodded and reached for his water glass but missed it, tipping the whole thing over. Everyone leapt up and grabbed their papers. “I’ll get a paper towel,” one of the assistants cried and ran out of the conference room. Charles mopped up the water with napkins as best he could, apologizing. His hands felt so clammy.
The assistant returned with a roll of paper towels. The conversation rushed on without him. It had been settled; Mirabelle told Charles that she would contact Bronwyn—Bronwyn!—and they’d set up an interview for early next week. In no time, Mirabelle was standing to leave. She shook everyone’s hands. Jake held the conference room door for her, and Charles followed them out.
When the elevator doors closed, Mirabelle safely gone, Charles turned back to the conference room. The pamphlet was still there in the middle of the table. He rushed back in and practically pounced on it, whipping to the photo again, eager to scrutinize it without restraint. Bronwyn looked so plain. Older, too, and she’d gained some weight. Her hair was pulled back in a sloppy ponytail, a few pieces hanging in her eyes, and there was a pile of what looked like carrots next to her, dirty, teardrop-shaped things just lying there on the filthy ground.
He closed his eyes and saw Bronwyn softly talking to Scott on the patio at his parents’ house, trying so desperately to draw him into their world. He remembered the last day they’d ever spoken, how she’d pulled his hand to get him to sit back down, nudged him to clap at the Swithin awards ceremony. He recalled the horror in her eyes when he’d said all those foul, putrid things to Scott, the pain on her face when she broke it off with him a blink later.
There was a knock on the glass, causing Charles to jump and look up. Jake opened the door and poked his head inside. “Everything all right?”
Charles swallowed, running his fingers along the sides of his pants. “Uh-huh.”
Jake hesitated, then walked in and put his hands on the back of one of the swivel chairs. “What’s up?”
Charles’s throat felt tight. “It’s just that … I’m not sure I’m the right person to write this story.”
“Why not?”
For a moment, Charles considered confiding in Jake. But they’d never had anything close to a personal relationship. Charles fiddled with his shirt collar. “I just … I think it’s weird, that’s all. I think a different kind of person should write this. Someone who hunts, maybe. Someone who’s more … eco.”
Jake laughed. “You said you wanted to write more.” He shifted his weight. “What, do you know that girl or something?” He pointed at the picture of Bronwyn.
Charles sucked in his stomach, horrified that Jake had guessed. “No. Of course not.”
“Then what is it? Because I don’t think they care about whether you’re eco or not. All that matters is that you make Back to the Land look good.”
Charles shrugged.
“You said you wanted to write a piece. This is your chance. We’ll pay you, of course, and you’ll get a byline, for what it’s worth.” Jake pressed his palm against the glass wall that separated the conference room from the lobby. “But if you don’t want to do it, there are plenty of other people who would jump at the money.”
Charles bristled and looked away. “No, it’s all right. I’m sorry; I’ll do it.”
Jake rubbed his hands together. “Okay, then.”
The door swished shut, and Charles put his head in his hands. Why had he said anything? He could handle Bronwyn, couldn’t he? He was older, married, his life had changed. He would go and it would mean nothing. He would watch her garden and chop wood. He would be professional and polite, interviewing her about what life is like without real toilets. Bronwyn who could do complicated math problems in her head, the girl who everyone envied because she was beautiful and smartand had amazing parents who gave her every opportunity imaginable, now stomping on her good genes and upbringing, traipsing off to live on Walden Pond.
Good Lord, what did her parents think about this? Mr. and Mrs. Pembroke had given their children, Bronwyn and her older brother, Roman, every opportunity in the world, encouraging them all the time that it was their duty to become something great. So why had she become a farmer? Was there something wrong with having chances? Wasn’t she supposed to use the gifts she’d been lucky enough to receive instead of wasting them? Or did something from her previous life leave a sour taste in her mouth? A certain someone she’d dated, perhaps, a boy who was similarly privileged, who had said certain scathing things she wanted absolutely no ties to?
But no, that was projecting. It was both naive and arrogant for him to think he had something to do with the person she’d become. Still. It felt as though the rules of the universe were suddenly thrown into doubt.
Charles stood up and walked to the conference-room window, rapidly blinking over and over again. A bunch of guys in yellow hard hats were jack hammering a hole in the ground. Eleven flights up, behind all this glass, it was only a muffled groan.
Chapter 7
J ust as she didn’t yet have her bearings in her new house, Joanna had no sense of direction in her new community. Even though she’d grown up fifteen miles from here, it might as well have been Egypt, things seemed so alien. Every bright, massive shopping center looked the same. The Revolutionary-era stone house on one corner was identical to the Revolutionary-era stone house a half-mile down. It seemed as though there was a one-lane bridge on every side street, treacherously narrow and seemingly not spanning any water as far as she could see.
Even before Joanna and Charles had moved here, Sylvie told them that their town was getting a La Marquette grocery store. Although Joanna had no idea what this really meant—for the last ten years, she’d either been shopping at cramped Philadelphia groceries or outdoor farmers’ markets—her curiosity was piqued. So on Thursday afternoon, she printed out directions to the new store and got in the car. Mrs. Cox and Mrs. Batten were talking in the yard as usual, but she didn’t look over. She’d started calling both of them Mrs. in her head—if she couldn’t know them intimately, then she would think of them as formal schoolmarms, or as strict, scary piano teachers.
The grand opening banner was still hanging over the grocery store’s automatic doors, which opened accordion style into a bakery. From there, Joanna could see a separate room for cheese, a whole aisle of salad dressings, and a large sign in the back that shouted organic, although she wasn’t sure what was organic. An older, stylishly thin woman stood at a table, handing out mini tomato-and-mozzarella tarts. “The recipe is in my book,” she crowed at Joanna as she passed, gesturing to a glossy cookbook by her side.
Joanna did a lap of the place, marveling at how many types of barley there were to choose from, ogling the flowers in the extensive plant nursery tucked away in the corner of the store, perusing the pottery, handblown glass, and folk-art weather vanes that were displayed near the fruits and vegetables. She sampled everything: all the cheese on toothpicks, little slices of right-out-of-the-rotisserie-oven rosemary chicken, crackers accompanied by thimble-size dipping cups of olive oil. On her second lap, she began to notice something. The aisles were clogged with women in pairs, their carts side by side, and baskets swinging in their arms. Women her age, in yoga pants and T-shirts, laughing together. Women Sylvie’s age, cluttered at the waitstaffed cafe tables, picking at Cobb salads. Clusters of women at the bakery counter, clucking at the cheesecake and the chocolate-chunk muffins and the lemon-mousse tartlets. There were too many baby carriages to count.
Suddenly, Joanna felt overtly singular. She began to make a game of it, finding someone like her, someone who was simply here for the utilitarian purpose of shopping for food, not to hang out. No luck. Was there an unwritten subtext about La Marquette, like the old adage about gay men and highway rest stops? She pushed her hair out of her eyes, pretending to concentrate on her list. How did these women know one another? How did one make friends here? She’d had a growing snowball of friends in the city, gathering them as she rolled, but now it felt impossible to even talk to anyone. She looked down at her unpolished fingernails, her ripped jeans, and Charles’s parka that she’d plucked out of the closet because it was the only other coat besides his good work trench that had been unpacked. She should have showered, put on makeup, blow-dried her hair, and ironed her clothes.
“Help you?” She realized she was standing in front of the meat counter. A kindeyed older man with ham-hock biceps and a droopy mustache gave her a pitying glance. Why aren’t you with anyone?