Astonish Me. Maggie Shipstead
of the kumquat tree, sneaking glances over the fence, she sees a slender young woman in ballet shoes, a T-shirt, and odd black overalls made of a thin, billowy material. Her hair is in a ponytail, and she is standing on a rubber mat and using the back of a metal chair as a barre, resting her heel on it and pressing her forehead against her knee. Then she briefly stands flat on both feet with her heels together before rising onto her toes and lifting one leg out and up so her pink satin shoe is well above her head. In the shaggy grass, a little boy about Chloe’s age plays absorbedly with dandelions and pinecones.
Chloe is leaping and spinning around the yard. Sandy gestures at her to calm down, but the child is lost in her game and begins to accompany herself loudly in the funny, guttural voice she uses for singing and for making her toys speak to one another. Across the fence, the ballet woman and the little boy look up.
“Hi there!” Sandy says.
The woman’s leg descends slowly, less like a leg than a settling wing, and her gaze is curious, wary, divorced from the contortions of her body. Her smile, showing small teeth, is bright and jittery. She bends to untie the pink ribbons and leaves her shoes on the rubber mat as she walks barefoot across the grass, her toes wrapped in white tape. The stranger introduces herself as Joan Bintz, and her little boy is Harry.
“I didn’t realize a family had moved in,” Sandy says. “I only saw a man.” On several evenings, she had spotted him sitting out in the late sun and reading in the same chair Joan was using as a barre. He is handsome in a bookish way, trim and dark, with a narrow face and wire-rimmed glasses, and Sandy is annoyed to discover he is married to someone so lithe, a woman who does ballet alfresco and has a son content to play with pinecones. Sandy is still dogged by the weight she gained with Chloe. Hidden by the fence, she runs a hand over her stomach, checking on it. From a distance she guessed Joan would be in her early twenties, but, up close, she looks closer to thirty, a few years younger than Sandy. She is pretty in the way someone so thin can’t help but be pretty, with a jaw both dainty and square, a sharp nose, and eyes that are large, dark, and cautious. Sandy has the impression she has been crying.
“Jacob came out first to find the house,” Joan says. “Harry and I came later. Everything’s still a mess in there. I’m having trouble making myself unpack.” She smiles again, abruptly, quavering.
“I hear you. I still have boxes in the garage, and we moved in four years ago.” Sandy lifts the pail of kumquats over the fence. “Would you like these? This tree hasn’t gotten the memo that the season’s over.”
Gingerly, Joan ventures two fingers into the bucket and extracts one of the little fruit. “Do I peel it?”
“No, you eat it whole.”
Joan holds the kumquat between thumb and forefinger as if it were a quail egg and examines it before opening her mouth and resting it on her tongue. She chews pensively. Sandy wonders if eating is always such a production with her.
“Interesting,” she says when the tiny mouthful has finally made its way down her gullet. “Like a dollhouse orange.”
“Here, take the whole bucket.” Sandy does not care for kumquats. The tangy burst of juice does not make up for the waxiness and bitter oil of their rinds. Gary likes them and plucks them like jujubes from a bowl she keeps on the kitchen counter. “We’ve got a million.”
Joan smiles—unforced for the first time—and reaches for the pail. “That’s so nice.”
Though she would never say so, Sandy holds the opinion that mothers who keep their figures have sacrificed less than mothers who have widened and softened. Furthermore, though the idea is only half formed and well buried beneath her good nature, she suspects thin, maidenlike mothers, who might more easily find new men, of being less committed to their children than she is. Joan is a very thin mother to be sure—and, at first appraisal, maybe too tightly wound—but her gratitude for the kumquats softens Sandy, who says, “It’s none of my business, but are you okay?”
Joan’s eyes well up. She bends her head, hiding behind the fence. Sandy observes that her forehead is perhaps higher and rounder than ideal and is gratified by the imperfection. “I’m a little homesick,” she says.
“For where?”
“Nowhere, really. I just feel uprooted. It’s fine. I’ll settle in.”
“Moving is very stressful,” Sandy says. “You’re stressed—you’d be a freak if you weren’t. Do you want to come in for a cup of tea or something? Shot of tequila?”
But Joan has noticed Chloe, who is still dancing. “How old is your little girl?”
Chloe stands on one foot and hops in a circle, arms straight up over her head like she is riding a roller coaster. Sandy studies her, trying to see what has interested Joan, but only sees a child at play. “She just turned four.”
“Harry is four, too. Does she take dance?”
“No. She does tumbling.”
Joan fingers her ponytail, frowning. Sandy doesn’t want to have to talk about Joan’s ballet shoes, the exercises at the chair, the flexibility that the husband must enjoy. “What does your husband do?” she asks.
And Joan’s answer sends a thrill through Sandy because she and Gary know Chloe is gifted. There can be no doubt, Gary says. Their daughter observes more keenly and learns more rapidly than any child he has ever met. Gary should know, too—he was a gifted child and an excellent student until he got bored in high school and stopped trying. He’s always wished someone had challenged him. “Aren’t teachers supposed to inspire you?” he says. “None of mine could have inspired paint to dry.” And his dad had been a dud, and his baseball coach hadn’t liked him. With a little encouragement, a little recognition, who knows how high he might have risen? Admittedly, he’s great at his job, but, given half a chance, he might have done something more significant than managing the leasing office at the mall. He might have made the big leagues or been a professor or a doctor or something. Sandy was never very studious, and she worried when she was pregnant that her genes would drag down Gary’s. But even when Chloe was a baby, Gary could see all the smart things Chloe did, and now Sandy just wants to get her tested already, stamped as gifted, so they can relax.
“Come inside,” she tries again. “Have something to drink. Bring your son.”
Joan looks back at her house, her discarded ballet shoes. “I should finish.”
“Oh, come on,” Sandy says. “Live a little.”
In a few minutes, Joan is at her front door, her white-taped toes and battered feet in a pair of rubber sandals, a cardigan over the billowy overalls even though it is eighty degrees out, her son hanging from her hand. This, Sandy knows, ushering them inside, is the beginning of something. They will live the next part of their lives side by side, their children growing up in tandem. Even though she doesn’t quite like this thin, wary woman yet, she will try to be her friend. They are neighbors.
“WELCOME!” JACOB SAYS, opening the door for the Wheelocks. “Come in before you blow away.” It is October, and the Santa Anas are in full force—dry, prickly autumn winds that whip trees around and howl at windows and rattle leaves along the gutters and pile them in the corners of yards. Driving home from school, Jacob had seen an actual tumbleweed blow through an intersection. Californians treat the winds as a weather event of grave importance. On Santa Ana days, his colleagues discuss them in knowing, respectful tones, squinting at the horizon like Bedouins crossing the Sahara. Somewhere up north in LA County, a brushfire has started, and the evening sky is a hazy orange grey.
The Wheelocks have a posed, formal look on the doorstep, and they don’t lose it as they come inside and go through the greeting routine. Jacob can’t blame them for being uncomfortable; he hasn’t been able to establish a rhythm with either Sandy or Gary, but he is glad Joan has a friend and that the kids get along. Harry leans against Jacob’s leg and Chloe against Gary’s. The children regard each other with serious faces, full of solemnity and apprehension about their impending playtime. Chloe, Jacob fears,