“Your brother wants me to have this because he doesn’t like looking at my ratty old knapsack. Its very existence offends his patrician sensibilities, so he thinks he can use you to persuade me to get rid of it. But I’m not going to. It’s an L.L. Bean, damn it, and they offer a lifetime guarantee. I’ll send it back to Maine, and they’ll replace it. He can take his messenger bag and shove it up his I’m-too-good-for-domestic-items ass.”
Rachel was stunned momentarily. “It’s not as if he’ll miss the money.
He has piles of it.”
“Professors don’t make that much money.”
“That’s right. He inherited it.”
“From Grace?”
“No, from his biological father. A number of years ago a lawyer tracked Gabriel down and told him his father had died and left him a lot of money.
I’m not sure he even knew his father’s name before that. Gabriel refused the inheritance at first, but later changed his mind.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. It was after his fight with Scott. I didn’t talk to Gabriel after that for a very long time. But as far as the money is concerned, I think he’s trying to spend it faster than it accumulates interest. So don’t think of this as a gift from Gabriel — think of it as him sticking it to his old man.
He wants to give money away. And he wants you to have something nice.
He told me so.”
Julia shook her head. “I can’t accept it. I don’t care where it came from or why.”
Rachel gave her friend a pained look. “Please, Julia. Gabriel has been on the outs with all of us for so long. He’s finally letting me back into his life. I don’t think I can lose him now after everything…” Her face crumpled, and she looked very upset.
“I’m sorry, but it’s too much. He’s my professor — he’ll get in trouble!”
Rachel clutched Julia’s hand. “Will you tell on him?”
“Of course not.”
“Good, because you’re supposed to think this is a belated birthday gift from me or Mom.” Rachel’s eyes widened as she realized her mistake. “Oh God, Julia, your birthday. I forgot. I’m so sorry.”
Julia clenched her teeth a little. “I don’t really celebrate it anymore.
It’s just too hard…I can’t…”
“Do you ever hear from him?”
Julia immediately felt ill. “Only when he’s drunk or pissed off about something. But I changed my cell phone number when I moved here so he couldn’t call me.”
“Bastard,” said Rachel. “Wel , I wasn’t supposed to tel you the messenger bag was from Gabriel, but I just couldn’t lie to you. I know how much it hurts you when people lie, and I wasn’t going to do that.”
The two friends exchanged a meaningful look. Julia contemplated this one gift from Gabriel and all of its implications, spoken and unspoken. She didn’t want to receive a gift from him. He’d rejected her, plain and simple.
Could she have this bag in her little hobbit hole? Could she use it, carry it to school, knowing all the while that it was from him? Knowing that he’d be staring at her smugly, thinking that he’d done her some kind of service?
Not for Gabriel. Not for all the tea in China.
Rachel saw what Julia was about to do even before the words had formed in the back of her mind. “If you don’t accept the bag, he’ll know something went wrong. He’ll blame me, instead.”
Julia silently cursed him. Oh gods of all pretentious pole-in-keister Dante specialists, send him a rash on il pene . Please. Something extra itchy.
But for Rachel, Julia would do anything. “Fine. I’ll do this for you.
But will you please tell Gabriel not to buy me any more stuff? I’m starting to feel like one of those kids on the unicef box at Halloween.”
Rachel gave her friend a nod and a smile and bit into a chocolate. She licked the cocoa from her lips and closed her eyes. It was good.
Julia hugged the briefcase to her chest, like a shield, and inhaled the lovely leather scent. Gabriel wanted me to have a present. He must feel something for me, even if it’s only pity. And now I have something of his besides a photograph…something I’ll own forever.
She waited a moment before delicately changing the subject. “Will you tell me what happened at the funeral? I sent a card with some flowers, and Gabriel saw them, but he had no idea why I sent them.”
“I heard about that. I saw the gardenias, and Scott said they were from you, but the card disappeared before I had a chance to explain it to Gabriel. I was a wreck. My brothers were fighting, and I was trying to keep them away from each other before someone went through a window. Or a coffee table.”
Julia thought of shattered glass and blood on a white carpet, and she shivered. “Why are they always fighting?”
Rachel sighed. “It never used to be that way. Gabriel changed when he went to Harvard…” Her voice trailed off mysteriously.
Julia didn’t feel comfortable pressing her, so she kept silent.
“As you know, Gabriel didn’t come home again for years after his fight with Scott, and when he did, he would only stay a few days. He insisted on sleeping at a hotel, and that broke Mom’s heart. Scott won’t let Gabriel forget it — all the stuff he put Mom through.” Rachel chewed another truffle thoughtfully.
“Scott looked up to Gabriel. It really hurt him when things went sour.
Now they barely speak to one another, and when they do…” She shuddered.
“I don’t know what I would have done without Aaron. I’d probably have run away and never come back.”
“Even a dysfunctional family is better than no family at all,” Julia said softly.
Rachel looked sad. “Well, that’s what we are now. We were the Clarks — now we are a dysfunctional family. A dead mother, a grief-stricken father, a hotheaded black sheep, and a pig-headed brother called Scott. I guess I’m the partridge in the pear tree.”
“Does Scott have a girlfriend?”
“He was dating a woman in his office, but they broke up right before Mom got sick.”
“I’m sorry.”
Rachel sighed. “My family is like a Dickensian novel, Julia. No, it’s worse. We’re a twisted mix of Arthur Miller and John Steinbeck, with a bit of Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy thrown in.”
“Is it really that bad?”
“Yes, because I have the feeling there are elements of Thomas Hardy lurking below the surface. And you know how much I hate him. Mind-fucking bastard.”
Julia thought about this and hoped for her friend’s sake that the Hardy novel approximating the Rachel Clark experience was more Mayor of Cast-erbridge than Tess of the D’Urbervilles or, God forbid, Jude the Obscure.
(Unfortunately, Julia did not pause to consider which Hardy novel best described her own experiences…)
“With Mom gone, everything is in upheaval. Dad is talking about retiring and selling the house. He wants to move to Philadelphia to be closer to me and to Scott. When he asked Gabriel if he minded if he sold the house, Gabriel flipped out and wandered off into the woods. We didn’t see him again for hours.”
Julia inhaled sharply and began to fidget with her messenger bag.
Rachel was too busy placing her teacup on the card table and walking to the bathroom to notice, but something she said had upset Julia deeply. By the time Rachel returned, Julia had calmed herself through no little effort and was adding hot water to the teapot.
Rachel fixed her friend with a concerned look. “What did Gabriel say that bothered you so much when you were dancing with him? And by the way, my Spanish is rusty but Besame Mucho is a pretty hot song! Did you even listen to the lyrics?”
Julia focused her attention on her tea and tried very hard not to hyperventilate. She knew she was going to have to lie to Rachel, and it was not a decision she took lightly. “All we talked about is the fact that he knew I was a virgin.”
“Bastard! Why the hell does he do things like that?” Rachel shook her head. “You just wait, I’ll get him. He has these photos in his bedroom, and I’m going to…”
“Don’t bother. It’s true. Why should I try to hide it?” She bit her lip.
“I just can’t figure out how he knew. It’s not as if I bring it up in polite conversation: Good afternoon, Professor Emerson. My name is Miss Mitchell, and I’m a virgin from Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania. Pleased to meet you. ”
Rachel waved her hand dismissively. “Think about it. He’s never exactly been in want of female companionship. I’m sure you seem different to him; you were probably the only girl at the club, apart from me, who wasn’t in heat.”
Julia looked disgusted, and rightly so, but didn’t comment.
“When you came off the dance floor you looked as if you’d seen a ghost. Like how I imagined you would have looked the night you saw Si — ”
“Please, Rachel. Don’t. I can’t talk about that night. I can’t even think about it.”
“I could run him over with my car for what he did to you. I still might do that. Is he in Philadelphia? Give me his address.”
“Please,” Julia begged, hugging her arms protectively across her chest.
Rachel pulled her friend into a warm embrace. “Don’t you worry. You’re going to be happy someday. You’re going to fall in love with a beautiful boy, and he’s going to love you back so much it will hurt. And you’re going to get married and have a baby girl and live happily ever after. In New England, I think. At least, that’s the story I’d write for you, if I could.”
“I hope your story comes true. I’d like to believe something like that is possible, even for me. Otherwise, I just don’t know…”
Rachel smiled. “You, of all people, deserve a happy ending. Despite everything that happened to you, you aren’t bitter. You aren’t cold. You’ve just retreated a little and been shy, and that’s okay. If I were a fairy godmother, I would give you your heart’s desire in an instant. And I would wipe away your tears and tel you not to cry. I wish Gabriel had taken a page from your book, Miss Julia. He could have learned a thing or two from you about how to deal with heartbreak.”
Rachel released her friend, looking at her closely before she spoke again.
“I know that it’s a lot to ask, but will you look out for Gabriel?”
Julia leaned over the teapot on purpose, refilling their cups so that Rachel couldn’t see her face. “Gabriel has nothing but contempt for me.
He’s merely tolerating me for your sake.”
“That’s not true. Believe me, that is simply not true. I’ve seen how he looks at you. He can be…cold. But apart from his biological parents, I don’t think he’s ever hated anyone, other than himself. Not even Scott during their worst fight.”
Julia shrugged. “There’s nothing I can do.”
“I’m not asking you to do anything, really. Just keep your eyes open.
