Early Warning

A few days ago, Jesse had called from Ames, supposedly just to say hi, but after Joe talked to him (“Yeah, Dad, I got two A’s and two B’s, and Professor Holland says I’m doing really well on the scours research”) and Lois talked to him, then Minnie talked to him. She was sitting on the couch in the living room, and Joe stood quietly on the landing above her, out of sight, and listened. She said, “Oh, you mentioned her.” Then, “I know you did like her.” Then, “You hadn’t told her you were planning to farm? What did she think you were going to do?” Then, “Well, farm life is hard for some girls. It’s isolating. Not like when I was young.” Then, “Well, of course you’re disappointed, but it’s better to find out now.” Then, voice lowered, “Well, I’m sorry, Jesse. My heart goes out to you. No, I won’t say anything.” Joe had tiptoed up the stairs and gone into the bathroom, where he turned on the water and sighed several deep, deep sighs.

Now he stared out over the empty landscape, the fields still dark and frozen, the trees bare and shaking in the wind (a wind that was numbing the tip of his nose). The dogs had their noses to the ground — the ground was endlessly fascinating for a retriever, the tracks of deer, raccoons, mice, rabbits, birds, and even a turkey or two. Opa had raised them on stories of flocks of turkeys, flights of ducks, waves of prairie chickens, and even cougars slinking past the window in the night, heading for the sheep in the pen (always, according to Opa, to have a pleasant conversation about the meaning of life). Joe imagined D’Ory and D’Onut sniffing layers of tracks heading in every direction, from all past eras. But Joe was a man, not a dog, and what he couldn’t see, he couldn’t perceive. He was lonely, and he knew that his loneliness had nothing to do with Lois or Minnie. He looked at his watch: two-forty-five. He let the dogs lead him on.

—

WHEN MICHAEL DECIDED that he was getting married, Richie could hardly remember who the girl was, even though Michael swore he had met her — Loretta Perroni. She was just about to graduate from Manhattanville College, she was really smart, and her dad owned a hundred-thousand-acre cattle ranch in California. “Dark hair?” he said over the phone.

“Most of the time,” said Michael. “It was blond when I met her, but she dyed it back.”

“Long?”

“Really dark hair and blue eyes. She’s short. When you met her, you pretended to rest your elbow on the top of her head.”

Richie said, “You’re going to marry her? You’ve known her, like, three months.” Susan, the girl Michael had been in the accident with, had broken up with him once she was back on her feet, and Richie knew that Michael was lucky he wasn’t being sued. Michael himself had been shaken enough at the time to go with their mom to AA for a few weeks. It was Richie who had stopped double-dating, because he and Ivy decided to move in together — bed by eleven, because Ivy enjoyed her job at Viking and wanted to succeed. Her goal was eventually to have her own imprint. Richie spent half his day showing office space, and half his day writing ads, finding out the status of new construction, and servicing renters. Mr. Rubino hardly ever came in. He could take a four-hour lunch, or put on his sneakers and go for a run in the park. Sometimes he read two or three newspapers in one day. Michael was now a trader. It was said (by Michael) that Jim Upjohn loved him, that he had great instincts. Obviously, thought Richie, marrying into a hundred thousand acres was another of his great instincts.

The first thing that happened was that Loretta’s parents, Ray and Gail Perroni, flew in from California to meet his mom and dad. His mom took Mrs. Perroni to the house. His dad took Mr. Perroni first to the office, then to lunch at the Century Club. That night, Richie and Ivy were to drop by after dinner (the Waldorf), for dessert. Ivy said that the prospect of crème brûlée was her only incentive, since she disapproved of rich people, but Richie knew that she was dying to meet and observe the strange ducks from the West Coast (she had never met Loretta or traveled farther than Philadelphia).