The Poet's House by Jean Thompson

Author:Jean Thompson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Published: 2022-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

Boone

I turned from the man to Viridian and then back again. “We met already. Well not really. Hi.” I was doing my usual feeble job of handling social ceremonies.

“Pleasure,” he said, shaking hands with me. “Boone.”

“Carla.”

Viridian looked from me to her son. “When was this?”

“At Ed’s party,” I explained. “But just for a minute.”

“How fortunate,” Viridian said, “that you had the chance.”

Neither man spoke. Something had changed that fast and no one looked as if they wanted to be there. Ed lifted a shopping bag. “We brought you some wine. And bread. And antipasti.”

“I would have fixed something fancy, if I’d had more warning,” Viridian said. “Any time in the last, what, two weeks?”

I excused myself to go check the sprinklers out back. I must have done something wrong, but I wasn’t sure what. I watched them file into the screen porch. Viridian opened the door and waited for me to join them. I tried to read her face, but she was capable of being formidably inexpressive when she chose, as she did now. “Come in and talk to Boone. He lives in New York,” she said, indicating her son. “At least, the last I heard.”

New York, that was the bite I heard in his accent. Boone had been the second husband, I knew. The son must have some other, given, name, but I guessed no one was likely to explain anything else to me. I took my seat and Ed poured me a glass of white wine. I was trying to measure the resemblance between mother and son without staring. They both did and didn’t look alike. Both had wide, handsome faces, but his features were notably leaner, less balanced, and his eyes were brown, not her amazing blue. He had dark hair cut short and he wore a button-down shirt, suit pants, and brogues. An unremarkable outfit, except in Marin, where everything seemed to be some version of playclothes.

Viridian said, “How nice that you’re here during a spell of such good weather.”

“I thought the weather was always good here,” Boone said. He regarded the antipasti without much enthusiasm, then speared an artichoke heart with a fork. I figured he might be in his late thirties, but that was just a guess.

Ed said, “When we get a lot of rain in the winter, that’s not so great.”

Boone shrugged. “Rain, sure.”

“Are you visiting for long?” I asked.

“Hard to say. Work, you know.” I thought he’d been almost flirting with me when he arrived, but now he seemed unfriendly. Something sullen had settled over the whole group.

“You mean, for much longer,” Viridian said.

“It’s a little open-ended right now.”

I might have asked what kind of work he did. Or how he knew Ed, or why he wasn’t staying at Viridian’s house. But all conversation seemed to have been strangled.

Ed tried again to rally us. “Have you talked to Doug?” he asked me. “You should give him a call. He might need to ask you some things about the issue.” Then, turning to Boone: “Carla’s been working on Compass Points.

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