It was five p.m. on Thanksgiving and the hotel had not been able to find them a taxi. They could wait an hour for the hotel minibus to return from dropping guests in Belmont, the concierge said, otherwise they could walk. James had reached a pitch of vigorous, impenetrable enthusiasm. “It’s so close, we oughta walk!” he boomed, commanding the attention of the entire lobby. “You guys don’t mind, right? Mad dogs and Englishmen.” His nerves were out of character and Julia, who in any case had no idea how far they were going, felt she must acquiesce. Even Gwen, who did not usually miss an opportunity to cross him, said nothing. She merely tugged the hood of her sweater out from beneath the collar of her coat, pulled it tight around her face, and followed him out into the blustery street.
It was a brief window of respite in a day of near-relentless, pounding rain, and the uneven sidewalks had become a hazard of icy gullies and slick, mulched leaves. Julia watched Gwen’s long form bent against the wind, trudging obediently after James toward this odd, modern encounter. Her uncharacteristic compliance made Julia’s heart hurt. She wanted to scoop up her gangling child and bustle her into the warmth of a taxi or better yet, back into the comforts of the hotel, where they could have a quiet dinner, and then commune with the wondrous, vacuous numina of American cable television. In the lobby’s adjoining restaurant she’d seen aproned waiters ferrying huge Cobb salads; thick, chargrilled burgers heaped with fat-sheened onion rings; and black skillets of steaming macaroni and cheese. Gwen would love these dishes. Julia wanted to pore over the menu with her daughter, to order absurd portions that they could never finish, to compare them with their English imitations—to be, in short, a mother and daughter exploring the New World. It was her own first trip to America, after all, as well as Gwen’s. Julia was filled with sudden regret for the holidays they hadn’t taken in their years alone together and realized, with an unexpected pang, that she might have missed that chance, now that she had James. Ahead, James’s and Gwen’s figures retreated down the dark street. Badly dressed for the weather, Julia was given no choice but to follow.
They hurried along streets of South End brownstones, their broad, steep front steps intermittently decorated with fall paraphernalia. On one, a small scarecrow in overalls and a straw hat slumped drunkenly on a hay bail, rain-battered and sodden. Several stoops displayed a series of knobbly, unadorned pumpkins and squashes, lined like Russian dolls on one side of the front door. Fairy lights trailed like ivy around spade-headed railings. It was, indeed, a short walk, but the wind felt arctic, already beginning to freeze a thickening crust onto the black surface of the puddles.
Moments away from Pamela’s house came the minor calamity. In England there is no weather with the muscle to warp and weft brick pavements into roller coaster humps and valleys; Julia, used to mild, English puddles polite enough to plunge only half an inch, stepped off the curb and into a pool that engulfed her up to the ankle in a slurry of filthy, iced water. She screamed with shock.
James had been charging ahead, describing buildings and restaurants, encouraging a moderately responsive Gwen to tell him of the various gifts she planned to buy her grandparents. He hurried back to Julia looking shamefaced.
“God, I’m so sorry, we should have waited for the van. I’m a putz. I’m nervous. This suddenly seems insane, I’ve lost my mind dragging you both to Pamela’s. We could have taken the kids and all gone to Mexico for Thanksgiving instead of— Did you hurt yourself? Can I carry you the rest of the way? Should we ditch it and go for Chinese food?”
Julia shook her head. Her right foot was burning with the cold, and pain radiated up through her marrow. She kicked several times, and then began to limp onward, leaning on James’s arm. The shoes that Gwen had pressed upon her, undeniably flattering, horribly expensive soft gray suede, were ruined beyond repair, and even immediate use. Julia felt the right one loosen and slacken with every sodden step she took. She had lost all feeling in her toes, a welcome relief from the burning. It began to rain.
On the doorstep, Julia prepared for Pamela, carefully arranging her face into an expression of openness and enthusiasm, but it was an older man who opened the door. He was extending a hand to shake James’s when he was pushed aside, rather violently, by a large woman wearing voluminous, autumnal robes. Pamela—blonde, buxom, a whirl of loose wraps and silken items and alarming glimpses of flesh through folds of draped fabric, came upon them. She wore Thai fisherman’s trousers in raw plum silk, huge and flowing and tied in an elaborate bow at the waist, and a silk vest in bright tangerine. The sleeves were so deeply cut that when she raised her arms the side of her torso was visible almost to the waist, as well as the fold of a rather pendulous breast. A raw amethyst buried in silver hung on a formidable chain around her neck. Every surface, and she had many, was glistening faintly—the jewels, the raw silk, the loose blonde hair. Her face and décolletage shimmered faintly with sweat. Gwen, who had felt violent hatred for several people in recent months, took an instant, vehement loathing to Pamela. Her hair was too long for an old lady. She ought to have worn a bra.
Julia found herself clutched to Pamela’s bosom and was immediately and unexpectedly distressed by the image of James, in earlier days, enjoying the comforts of precisely this musky declivity. The amethyst was pressed painfully into her clavicle. Pamela looked very young, the extra weight she carried smoothing and plumping her face into girlishness. She did not look like the mother of teenagers. Julia felt conscious of her rain-frizzed hair and of her sopping, painful foot.
“Sister!” Pamela cried, releasing Julia and holding her out at arm’s length, as if she were a garment under consideration at a market stand.
“Not sister,” said Gwen involuntarily, louder than she’d intended, and saw a tired expression cross her mother’s face. Pamela rounded on her, beaming. “We’re all sisters in the same fight, lovely girl. Gwendolen.” Gwen in her turn was embraced by Pamela, rescued by her height from the same suffocation as her mother. Over the top of Pamela’s head she tried to catch Julia’s eye, but caught only James’s; he smiled, looking rather manic.