The rain is supposed to start tomorrow evening, around seven, and heavy flooding is expected. If Leigh’s flight hadn’t made it in this morning it would have been cancelled but it did and he is here. This dinner is for him actually—a sort of welcome home celebration. It is also a goodbye—he leaves for Spain on Wednesday. His mother is in town to see him and she has convinced his father that rather than fight over who gets this first night back they should share it, everybody together. With Lauren and her kids, and Leigh’s sister taking the train in from Philadelphia, the reservation is for seven. They have never done anything everybody together before.
Both of Leigh’s parents are still members at the club and as he drives there, no more than half a mile from his father’s house, he wonders if the reservation card on the table will read his mother's or father’s last name. He is in the passenger seat and Sam, his younger stepbrother, is driving. Colin, his older and larger stepbrother volunteered for and now sits in the cramped backseat: the car is a two-door coup and to get out of the back you need to fold down and climb over one of the front seats. Leigh interprets and appreciates this concession of the comfortable seat as a sort of “I’m happy you’re home” gesture.
Sam has just gotten a new subwoofer, or rather gotten Leigh’s old subwoofer repaired and put in his trunk. He listens to rap music loudly, with the bass turned up until the windows rattle, and because of this Leigh does not like to drive with him. Leigh wonders for whom and why he plays the music at such a ridiculous volume but at the same time recognizes that at Sam’s age he used to do the exact same thing, albeit with slightly better and less black music. Yet this is the first time Leigh has heard the repaired woofer and right now it is presumably thumping for his benefit. They turn in and pass by the big rock and the Greenville Country Club sign at the entrance to the parking lot as Leigh unbuckles his seatbelt and gets ready to get out.
“I really can’t do this here,” he says, “turn that shit off.”
Colin laughs, Sam pulls into a spot, and Leigh is already out the door.
“Wait, wait, wait,” says Colin, folding the passenger seat forward, “don’t you shut that door on me.”
Across the parking lot Leigh recognizes Mr. and Mrs. Stewart standing with his father and step-mother.
“Hey,” yells Mr. Stewart, “What’s with the music,
dudes?” He starts laughing. He has bright white teeth.
Leigh rolls up his sleeves as he walks towards them: three crisp folds from each cuff. “No idea,” he says. He smiles and shakes Mr. Stewart’s hand. They are dressed similarly and it is a good firm handshake.
He walks inside, in front, with Mrs. Stewart. She is a dry, sarcastic woman. Leigh has known her since his parents joined the club when he was in kindergarten and they were young. Each family is now considered part of an old-guard of members. Mrs. Stewart is pretty and Leigh likes her. On lazy summer days he used to go up to the parking lot from the pool to smoke pot with her son.
“How’s Clay?” he asks.
“Good, good” she says. “He goes back to school tomorrow. I’m ready for him to get out of the house. He has an apartment with some other boys this year so he’s excited. When do you go back?”
“Well, Wednesday, but I’m actually going abroad.” He says this like he’s apologizing. The delivery is perfect.
“Ooh,” she says, wrapping her lips around the sound. “Where are you going?”
“Barcelona.”
Mr. Stewart is walking up behind with Leigh’s parents. Colin and Sam walk behind them.
“Barcelona?” says Mr. Stewart, joining the conversation. “What’re you going to Barcelona for?”
“Well,” says Leigh, “My school offers a program there so I’m going to study.”
“To study?” says Mr. Stewart. He turns to Leigh’s father. “You got roped into paying for this?”
“Actually,” says Leigh, “Barcelona is paying for me to go there.”
“Oh, really?” says Mrs. Stewart. She has one eyebrow raised.
“Yep,” says Leigh. “The mayor’s already sent me the key and everything.”
Mr. Stewart starts laughing and squeezes Leigh’s shoulder. When he laughs he throws his head back and shows those bright white teeth. Come to think of it, he reminds Leigh of an energetic Golden Retriever. Leigh thinks his wife must have him whipped. She is always very calm.
They have arrived at the door to the foyer of the main dining room. Leigh steps in front of Mrs. Stewart and starts to open the door but Colin is already at his side. He takes the door from Leigh and holds it open as the group walks inside.
“Thank you” says Mrs. Stewart.
“Thank you” says Lauren.
“Yeah, thanks man” says Sam.
They walk through the foyer past the plush red arm chairs next to the big fireplace and out onto the back terrace.
“Ah,” says Mrs. Stewart, “they’ve already taken the canopy down for the storm.”
“Evidently” says Leigh.
They take a right, pass through the gardens, and come out at the patio where they will eat. Leigh sees Mr. Martin at a table and turns around to wait for the others to catch up. Mr. Martin wrote a letter of recommendation to the head of Dartmouth’s alumni relations for him. Before he wrote it he had asked Leigh if he was certain he’d go there if he got in. Leigh said yes, got in, then didn’t. Since then he has tried to avoid talking to Mr. Martin whenever he can. The rest of the group walks up and past him and out onto the patio. He sees his mother and sister already sitting at the far end. He starts to follow Colin towards them, eyes straight ahead... he's almost past...
“Leigh, you’re back! How was Argentina?” It is Mr. Sauer, sitting with Mr. Martin. Mr. Sauer is younger than Leigh’s parents and extremely fit. He wears aggressive looking sunglasses. Leigh and Mr. Sauer have won the club’s doubles tournament twice but this year Leigh couldn’t play because he was away.
“It was great.” He reaches out and shakes Mr. Sauer’s hand, then across the table and shakes Mr. Martin’s hand. They are drinking draft beers.
“Mr. Martin” says Leigh.
“Leigh” says Mr. Martin.
James, Mr. Sauer’s fourteen-year-old son is at the table as well. Last summer, Mr. Sauer paid Leigh more than he deserved to hit with his son for a couple of hours every week.
“Hey there James, how’s it going?”
“Good” he says, looking out from under the blond hair that falls over his eyes. He had been shy in the lessons as well.
“So, you guys were out playing?”
“Yep” says Mr. Sauer, who has asked Leigh to call him Mark and told him that if he wants an internship at his asset management group he can make it happen. “Us two, and George (George does Leigh’s mother’s taxes), and then this guy over here filled in as our fourth.” He reaches over and tussles James’ hair.
“Ahhhh, hanging with the big dogs now? Huh?”
“That’s right,” Mark answers for his son. “Hanging with the big dogs.” He says the phrase like he enjoys it and emphasizes each word.
Leigh laughs. “Well I gotta run but it was good to see you guys.”
“Absolutely” says Mark.
“Yep” says Mr. Martin.
“Bye” says James.
Leigh puts his hands in his pockets and walks away. He looks down at his loafers. They have started to wear through on the front left toe and Leigh likes them more now.
“Hola Leigh, que tal?”
He looks to his right and it is Mr. Crowe. He nearly answers back earnestly in Spanish before he realizes it is a joke.
“Ah, muy bien. Re bien” he says. “And you Mr. Crowe?”
He reaches out and shakes Mr. Crowe’s hand then leans down and hugs his wife. It is only after he is hugging that he debates whether he knows her well enough to be hugging. The way she hugs him is what makes him think this.
“Good, Leigh, I’m good.” He is a short, sturdy man who used to be second in command of the FBI before he retired to work for MBNA (where he would eventually deplane with a golden parachute). He has all white hair and is older than his wife who in turn looks older than Leigh remembers her.
“How was Argentina?” she asks. She speaks with the same slow southern drawl Leigh remembers. She is from Tennessee and very blonde and her hair is always perfect even when she gets out of the pool. Leigh does not know how she knew he was in Argentina.
“It was a blast” he says. “How’s Andy—back at school yet?”
At this point, Leigh has probably talked to Mrs. Crowe about Andy more than he ever talked to Andy but this time, like every time, it seems the simplest conversation to have: a well worn rut that the words fill easily, smoothly, and without thought.
“Yep. He drove down to Charlottesville yesterday morning.”
“And Billy?”
It is almost as if their parts are rehearsed.
“He’s taking a gap year. To be honest with you, he just wasn’t mature enough for college this year.”
Leigh nods. He knows that Billy was expelled his last week of high school. Mrs. Crowe knows that Leigh knows, but they have never spoken of it. In the same way, Leigh is certain that she must know that he himself was expelled during the final week of his own senior year. That’s why his response is important: he wants to say something helpful, uplifting. He wants to tell them it will all be okay. He wants to be funny and light.
“To tell you the truth, I’m
still not mature enough for college.”
Yikes. That wasn’t it.
Mrs. Crowe looks up at him. She has crinkles and sunburn around her eyes. It looks like she is peering, at what he does not know. Leigh decides to leave because the Crowe's are no longer providing for a compelling narrative and because this place is as good as any to break the fourth wall, jump off the stage, and slap a member of the audience across the face:
nothing I tell you is true, everything I tell you is true!
“It was good to see you two, tell Andy I say hi.”
“Will do Leigh, good to see you as well.”
Leigh sees the table with his mom and sister and everybody else already seated. He goes over and hugs his sister.
"Hey Katrina."
She stays seated and puts one arm around him; he hasn't seen her in two months.
“You left this in my car today” his mother says. She is holding out a small brown leather notebook. It is a gift she got for him in Italy and gave to him at the airport when she picked him up. She is very proud of the notebook. “You can write an unfinished, vaguely factual account of this dinner in here," she says.
“I don’t know,” says Leigh. “That sounds like a lot of work..." He pauses. "And anyways, mom, you know I hate it when you do that thing where you come alive and meta-fictionalize my stories without even asking me first.”
“I know, I'm sorry honey, but it’s perfect, don't you see? Write about how bizarre and fake it feels to be driving around these freshly paved roads and past these perfect lawns and mammoth white houses with golf carts parked out front to run to the mailbox. Talk about how nothing feels the same after being away. Say that you’re starting to understand just how absurd the town you live in is. Even better—show it! Let them see how boring and stuck up and dead everything and everybody is, and how boring and stuck up it makes you too. You can even do something cool with the hurricane, you know, that idea of a tension… of something coming?”
The table is quiet. Leigh spreads butter on a roll. The night is heavy and humid and still. "Yeah..." he says. "I guess so."
