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War II? The painter waiting for his sons to come home?
At the last minute, my grandfather thought about how he
might never see his brother again, about how the man might
die in Europe. He sprinted all the way to the train and got there
just as it was pulling out. He shook his brother s hand and said
good-bye.
Jeff looks up from the bed. And the brother died.
No, nothing that dramatic.
So your point is?
Well, I think Ben has come to the train station, Sydney
says.
193
Ivers, as always, delivers baseball trivia at a gunner s pace.
Happens every year. Sox-Yankees, July Fourth. Wells on
the mound for New York. Lowe for Boston. You d be thinking
to concede this one, but with Jackson s hitters hot forty-two
homers in June, twenty in the last five games, eleven in the last
two anything can happen. Put your money on the Sox. Syd-
ney, have I mentioned that I m going to kill you for getting mar-
ried tomorrow afternoon?
We ll set up a TV on the porch, she says.
Really? Ivers asks, a note of hope in his voice.
Ivers, no, Sydney says, smiling.
Sahir, across from Sydney, is in earnest political discussion
with Mr. Edwards. The topic is gay marriage, which Sahir
seems passionately in favor of. Anna Edwards darts nervous
glances in Julie s direction. In a complex series of eye movements
and hand signals that make her appear tic-plagued, she seems to
be trying to tell her husband to button it; but he is either oblivi-
ous to his wife s facial twitches or forgetful of his own daugh-
ter s sexual orientation. Julie is not asked for her opinion on the
subject.
194
Body Surfing
* * *
Jeff, mindful of his responsibilities as a host, is engrossed in con-
versation with Sydney s mother about the best route by car to
Portsmouth from western Massachusetts, though the real reason
for Jeff s intense attention, Sydney knows, is so that when Ben
finally comes down to dinner, Jeff can pretend not to notice.
The table, lovely with white linen, is awash in roses, the guests
in finery a notch up from the norm. Dress shirts, sleeves rolled,
no ties. Sydney notes that Jeff has on flip-flops, which might or
might not be due to the fact that he left his good shoes in the
boys dorm. He will not now enter that room.
Sydney cannot help but notice Sahir s shoes dark, highly
polished brogues with thick soles. They remind her of men in
the 1950s, when expensive shoes were a sign of good breeding.
Ben shuffles down the steps as if he d been on an important busi-
ness call and were now just minutes late for a lesser event. He has
showered and dressed and is rolling his sleeves as he enters the din-
ing room. He missed the rehearsal itself, a strangely lifeless playlet in
which the principals faced a white sofa and repeated brief lines. The
production lacked choreography, lights, any sense of drama. Jeff
especially seemed wooden, as if none of this was his idea. Sydney,
annoyed, let it go and tried to compensate with nervous laughter,
Ivers helping her along. What precisely they were laughing about
Sydney could not have said. From the opposite sofa, Anna Edwards
sighed frequently, as though at children who were misbehaving.
Sydney s vision splits one camera on Ben, the other on Jeff,
still deep in conversation with Sydney s mother, still strenuously
195
Anita Shreve
ignoring the newcomer s presence. Julie leaps up in her smart
backless dress and hugs Ben. Mr. Edwards introduces him to the
minister and to Sydney s parents, who smile and nod their greet-
ings to the wayward brother. Anna Edwards frantically waves Ben
over to sit in the chair next to her. If one didn t know better, one
might think it was Ben and not Jeff who was the bridegroom.
Jeff can no longer pretend to be otherwise engaged. When he
turns to Sydney, his eyes are glassy and opaque.
The dinner is served by a woman in black pants and a white
shirt. A lobster stew is presented in sturdy crocks that Sydney
doesn t think came from Emporia. The roses on the table mix
with the humidity from the sea air to produce an intoxicating
ether that seems pumped in for the occasion.
Sydney is acutely aware of Ben to one side of her, Jeff to the
other. She hardly dares to breathe lest her body escape the
rigid space allotted her. To touch Jeff, which ought to be ordi-
nary and even called for, seems, now, a gratuitous gesture that
would remind Ben of the reason for the gathering, which, in
turn, might remind him of the fraternal rift, of a year of injured
feelings.
Touching Ben is out of the question.
Occasionally, Sydney feels that she is losing her bearings, that she
is not as sharp or as observant as she used to be, that somehow
in the previous year, she has substituted, in incremental degrees,
emotion for intelligence. In cooler moments, she wonders if this
is an altogether profitable trade.
196
Body Surfing
* * *
Mr. Edwards stands and proposes a toast. Tonight, he begins,
we add another chapter to the history of this wonderful
house a joyous chapter, for it brings into our family the lovely
and lovable Sydney Sklar. Good fortune has smiled upon our son.
There is a Yiddish word that means, roughly translated, fated to
be together. I hope I can pronounce it correctly. Beshert. Mr.
Edwards raises his glass. Beshert, he says again.
The guests, Mrs. Edwards wanly, raise their glasses and repeat
the word. Sydney wonders if she will be the first Jew to take
partial possession of the house, however in-lawed and tenuous
that possession might be. She also wonders something else: Are
she and Jeff really fated to be together? And by what or whom?
Brought together by a complex set of circumstances to put Jeff
on the porch at the precise moment Sydney emerged from the
water? Who could believe in such an unseen hand? Did Daniel
have to die to allow fate to have its way? What a cruel, indiffer-
ent, and whimsical god to have done such a wanton thing. And
for what purpose?
Jeff does not rise to thank his father. A strained silence
lengthens.
Ivers stands and skewers the groom, listing, for the bride s ben-
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