of successive city fathers; its wealth lay in timber and salmon, two commodities once believed to be in endless supply – we’ve learned otherwise. As ‘the oldest settlement west of the Rockies’, it was a lure for Scandinavian and Finnish fisher-folk; the wives worked in the canneries, and most of their names live on: Astorians don’t rush to and fro very much. Their town has been dwindling since the 1890s, and its heyday, nothing to do with timber or salmon, was in World War Two when a naval base sent the population soaring. The marvelous beauty of its setting, wooded hills, distant mountains, mighty river, savage Pacific, has remained fairly constant in spite of creeping real estate and brutal logging: a pleasant if unexciting place to live. Into this Eden, and smack into chapter nine, came Eve with a whole basketful of serpents. It started on a stormy Monday afternoon at the beginning of September, and when we get storms up here they don’t mess around: perfect weather for writing. Indeed, when the doorbell rang I had just written, ‘Chapter Nine. Lewis returned to the mouth of the Columbia in November 1927. He said he was tired of traveling and had come home for a rest, but nobody in Astoria or Ilwaco believed him; they knew he’d come back because of the gold …’
Cursing, I abandoned my desk and opened the door on this stunning blonde with dark blue eyes. She appeared to be in her early twenties, and it took me a moment or two to realize I was looking at my brother’s child Marisa, aged seventeen. I said, ‘Hi, Marisa, come on in.’ Quite a smooth reaction, all things considered, you might even say cool. If you’re not cool they have this habit of walking right over your fallen body and writing you off, politely but decisively.
I’m not being wise after the event; right there and then a small stinging shock jumped from this girl to me: nervousness, even fear, sparked around her like an electrical field. She was hiding it pretty well but it was unmistakable, and it set me tingling, ready for anything. Anything? Well, that’s what I thought. She had grown since I’d last seen her, hardly surprising at that age; she now had her mother’s height, and with it that negligent grace tall women have to cultivate if they’re not going to appear gawky. As yet she was too young to get the negligent grace quite right, so there was still a touch of gawkiness which was touching. I said, ‘What brings you to the Great Pacific Northwest?’
She shrugged. ‘I guess the Great Pacific Southwest finally got me down.’ Yes, she was all nervous tension, thrumming with it. I indicated the sofa, and sat in an armchair facing her. I was thinking that Labor Day had just passed; at any minute, if not right now, girls of this age should be going back to school for those all-important final semesters. After Labor Day the beaches and forests fall silent again; no sound but the sigh of plastic waste, indestructible tons of it, blown by the winds of autumn.
She was looking around my apartment. ‘Nice.’
It’s the top floor of one of those Victorian houses, expertly updated and pleasantly furnished with comfortable and not incongruous things; it has a wondrous view across the Columbia to the hills of Washington State on the far side: four miles away, it’s a big river. But when youngsters say ‘nice’ you can be pretty sure it’s not just politeness; she probably meant ‘big’ – it does have three bedrooms. So I was ready when she added, ‘We stopped over in Medford last night – why can’t I ever fall asleep in motels?’
Obviously this was my cue to say, ‘Do you want to stay here? Who’s we?’
‘He’s a darling, you’ll love him.’
‘I only have one spare bed, the other room’s strictly junk.’
‘We can share a bed.’
‘Not in my house, you can’t, your parents would kill me.’
She laughed. ‘Nick’s gay, we often share beds.’
‘Where is he now?’
‘Parking the car.’ This was some kind of evasion – it doesn’t take that long to park in Astoria: an evasion and part of her nervousness.
‘He’s A-OK. Really. HIV negative, everything.’ And then, a schoolgirl: ‘Actually he’s my best friend.’ There are times when you can’t help loving them, even when they’re conning you. And I must say it was nice just looking at her; she wore her naturally fair hair in a longish bob, so that it fell over one eye and had to be removed from time to time; I also noticed that she’d taken the trouble to use a little cologne, a little lipstick and powder, before bearding uncle in his den.
It seemed high time I asked after her parents.
‘They’re OK, I guess. He’s going to direct that Revisions thing.’ She was talking about Revisions of Life, bestseller, bad like most of them, much admired, much touted as the movie of next year. I said, ‘Good for him. Probably get himself another Oscar.’
‘Rob Railton’s playing the lead. They went to this dinner party and it threw them ass-wise, everybody screaming about the Railtons and their adopted baby – hear about that?’
‘Kind of.’ Robert Railton was the current hunk actor, drooled over by women and teenagers. His wife couldn’t conceive, or so they said; others were of the opinion that he couldn’t sire, but you don’t air that kind of opinion about the current hunk.
‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘this dinner party went berserk because they’d been on some talk show, Robert and Grace, and the guy asked when were they going to tell the boy he was adopted. I mean, Jeeze! He’s only like eighteen months old.’
‘Talk-show hosts aren’t paid to think.’
‘They both said never, and that’s what started the big argument over dinner. People saying the kid had to be told some time, others saying of course not. And then a lot of crap about what age do you tell him – like sixteen with the driver’s license or is that too late?’ The deep blue eyes found mine. ‘Well, the fat was in the fire, know what I mean?’
I didn’t, but kept quiet.
‘They took me out next night. Vince’s. It’s my favorite place – they hate it, so I … kind of wondered.’ She put both elbows on her knees and both fists under her jaw, and the hair fell forward, hiding her face. ‘Did you know?’
‘Did I know what?’
‘He isn’t my father.’
‘Say that again.’
She sighed. ‘Your brother isn’t my father. They took me to Vince’s to tell me. I guess they thought it would be easier than just the three of us sitting around a table at home. It’s been worrying them for years.’ A woeful grimace. ‘Seventeen years, wouldn’t you know.’
I said, ‘Jesus Christ! Marisa, are you sure?’
‘Sure I’m sure, they told me right there over the eggs Benedict.’ She jumped up from the sofa and went to the window. ‘Why couldn’t they keep quiet? Why did they have to go to that stupid dinner party?’
Myself, I felt it made no difference whether she was my brother’s child or not: he loved her, he’d loved her all her life. But I wasn’t seventeen years old, and I wasn’t the child in question. Naturally I imagined that this revelation was the cause of her desperate uneasiness. I’m afraid I was being simplistic; we were in what you might call a multi-layered situation. She said, ‘It’s OK, I’m not going to bawl. I did all that.’
‘When did they tell you, Marisa?’
‘Thursday.’
