Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead

Author:Maggie Shipstead [Shipstead, Maggie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2021-05-04T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

—

In the evening, Caleb showed up. Jamie had been induced to wash and take a nap, and Marian was making headway on cleaning and airing the house. She’d fed the dogs and built a fire. Caleb came in the kitchen door with two trout in a creel. “Mrs. Macqueen,” he said. “To what do we owe this honor?”

She whispered in case Jamie had woken: “Have you seen him lately? Did you know?”

“Your majesty is upset—”

“Caleb.”

He set the basket on the table. “I’ve had enough already with Gilda. I’m not hiding bottles from anyone ever again.”

She put a skillet on the stove for the fish. “You should have told me. How long has he been like this?”

Caleb leaned back against the wall, folding his arms. “I’m not sure. Maybe a month? Before that he was moping around, hung up on that girl, but he was going to school and wasn’t drinking, or not as much. He insists he’s working on something important. I don’t think he’s really like Wallace or Gilda. I think he’s putting this on a little bit.”

From the other room, a brassy dance tune blared from Wallace’s gramophone. Jamie appeared in the doorway, a glass in hand. “Cold for fishing, isn’t it?”

“You wouldn’t eat anything else I could bring.”

“Where do you even find trout this time of year?”

“They go deep, but they’re there.” Caleb took a loaf of bread and a paper bag from his knapsack. “Compliments of Mr. Stanley.”

Looking inside the bag, Jamie said, “Hallelujah, he sent cream puffs.”

After they’d eaten, they settled around the gramophone, Jamie reclining on the floor beside Marian’s chair, Caleb lying on the settee.

“Marian,” Jamie said, breaking through some idle talk about Caleb’s hunting, “Sarah said she thought Wallace might not have liked that I was making drawings. Do you think that could be true?”

“Sarah?” Marian said.

“The girl in Seattle,” Caleb said.

“Because I always thought he was encouraging,” Jamie said, “but when I really think about it now, I wonder if he might have been the opposite.”

“I don’t know,” Marian said. She hadn’t paid much attention to the dynamic between Wallace and Jamie, had been too preoccupied with flying.

“Sarah’s father offered me a job,” Jamie said. “I could have gone to live in Seattle. I could have had a whole life there, but I said no. Do you know why?”

“Why?” She was afraid the answer would be that he hadn’t wanted to leave her alone in Missoula.

“Because his fortune came from meatpacking.” Jamie laughed, sagged sideways onto one elbow. “Of all things. What luck!” He grew solemn. “I must be a fool.”

In a garbled torrent, he told the story of meeting Sarah in the park, about her mother and sisters, the big house, the art, the topiaries, the seduction of being praised. When he’d reached the ignominious end, he dramatically drained his glass. Brightly, before Marian had gathered her thoughts to speak, he said, “Say, would you dance for me?” He tapped his knee in time with the record.

“What?” Marian said.

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