Part 2 (2/2)

Hattie demurs. Still, Greta keeps insisting-”You do, Hattie, you do”-until finally Hattie half raises her hand, only to be immediately called upon. And there she is suddenly, towering over a sea of heads. Blinking. Feeling the town gaze. She has not done this in a long time. But then she senses Carter's gaze and remembers: She has done it, though. Of course. Did it all the time, in fact, at the lab.

”It's hard not to notice the convenience of cell phones,” she says, her voice clear and strong; she can feel the vibration in her thoracic cavity. ”But ought there not be one place on earth that cell phones can't reach?”

And back down she sits; probably she should have said more. Opined the way the men do, as if they own the air. Though as it is-what a roar of applause. People are hooting and stomping; Greta is whispering Thank you and You see? And look how Neddy Needham is standing up in Hattie's place, inspired. He's a high-tech person-a puffball of a guy, only starting to gray, whose particular kind of software, people used to say, could never be done in India. But now he has time to drive up if he wants; and so here he stands with his magpie hair and high-diopter gla.s.ses. Quietly pointing out that from a radiation safety point of view, there is only one usable corner of the property, and that a cell tower at that site isn't even going to provide good coverage.

”There are going to be holes in the service,” he says. ”It's going to be Swiss cheese. Rescue is not going to be able to count on it; no one is going to be able to count on it. It is going to be a joke.”

The lawyer for the cell tower company lowers the pitch of his voice. ”Are you implying that this town is being misled?”

”This is not the best site in the area, sir,” answers Neddy. ”This is the site you think you can buy.”

Applause.

”I beg your pardon,” barks the lawyer, but Neddy just pushes his gla.s.ses up his nose.

”The question, it seems to me, is, Whose town is this?” He looks first at the cell tower reps, and then all around, at the audience, too. ”Whose town is this?” It's a surprising show of rhetorical flair for a body people have always thought smart but shy; and even he blinks as he talks, as if surprised at himself. He takes his gla.s.ses off like a lawyer on TV but then, as if realizing he can't see without them, puts them back on. ”It's not such an easy question to answer, is it? And yet if I may say so, sir, this much I know: Not yours. No, sir. Not yours.”

This brings the most thunderous applause yet, replete with stamping and hooting. Hattie claps as loud as anyone, though is this town hers, either? She does wonder. What now? What now? There's no vote today, this meeting being strictly informational; the only leverage the town has is in zoning. Happily, though, the cell tower company will be needing a zoning permit; and even with Jim Wright head of the zoning board, well, there's only one conclusion it can really reach now. Because things are just clear. What's more, it's going to be free coffee for Neddy at the Come 'n' Eat as long as he lives in Riverlake, while the Wrights will be dining during off-peak hours.

Ginny, maybe, too, as she seems to realize. She sits a minute, contemplating the magic stretch material of her wrinkle-free jeans.

David beats Goliath! Down with the corporation! Judge Lukens stops to shake the hero's hand, whereupon people shed their discretion like a fast-molting snake. They form a ring around the pair; they gawk and crow with glee. The town celebrities! The judge and Neddy leave the room, nodding. Tall and short but seeing eye to eye, it seems-unlike the cell tower people, who clump up by the whiteboard, frowning. Though they brought every color dry marker, they somehow only used the blue. And look how, not far from them, Ginny stands in her walker now, waiting to leave. Everett makes his way to her, but she snaps her compartment lid shut as if she doesn't know who he is; and when he puts his hand out beseechingly, she slaps him flat in the face. People look up. But then off she rolls as if nothing's the matter, and people obligingly look away. A private matter, they're thinking, a spat, even as Everett stands there, stunned-huge and dressed in camouflage yet less prepared for combat than pink-clad Ginny, who holds her head high. Captain Ginny, some call her, though others call her the Power and the Glory, as in For mine is the Power and the Glory. Poor Everett! Hattie tries to catch his eye, but he's turned his back and doesn't see her. And so it is that she finds herself moving down the aisle, preoccupied, almost failing to realize it when someone gives her elbow a squeeze.

E-mail! There's no one to blame but herself, that when the town got DSL, Hattie did, too-ushering in the future, she did think then. Instead, though, it's been the past-the past, the past, the past. She half expects to be hearing from the dead direct, pretty soon-Joe! Lee! I've been thinking about you!-though let her say right now: When that particular advance is upon humankind, she is not going to sign up for service.

E-mail is trouble enough.

For example, though a lot of her Chinese relatives have M.A.'s and M.B.A.'s and Ph.D.'s from the States-and though a lot of them have lived in the West, even live in White Plains and Quincy and Vancouver still-all the same, they e-mail on account of Hattie's parents. Or, more accurately, on account of Hattie's parents' remains, which they want to see moved from Iowa to Qufu. Of course, the Chinese have always sent bones home, having been brought up from birth to recite Shu go qan zhang, lu ye gi gn: Fallen leaves return to their roots. But to want to do it now! In the twenty-first century! Hattie's flabbergasted.

Yet they do. The Kong family forest, they write. Ancestors. Luck. Tradition. It's the kind of hogwash her parents turned their back on once, and that she did, too. And so it is she writes: Over my dead body.

But still her relatives keep at it. Dear Auntie. Dear Auntie. Never mind that she's only head of the family because her younger brothers have both died; never mind that her relatives have no real reason to listen to anyone at all, really. Still, they storm her-having gotten up at least a mild conspiracy among themselves, it does seem. For how else to explain it that everyone writes in English, when most of them, she knows, have character keyboards? How do they know, as they seem to, that her computer isn't set up for Unicode?

She replies, This is the twenty-first century, excuse me.

She replies, I am a scientist of sorts, please recall. A retired scientist, but still a scientist.

She replies, This is hogwash, don't you see? Hogwas.h.!.+

To no avail.

Some of her correspondents are more superst.i.tious than others. Some of them go to fortune-tellers, that's to say, while others just burn a little incense every now and then. Wear a Buddha or a Guanyin, if they're sick, or change the entrance to their house. There's as great a range among them as among churchgoers. But whatever their stripe, they write. This, for example, from the ringleader, Hattie's niece Tina, in Hong Kong: Dear Auntie Hattie, Internet says your spring is late this year because the ground hog saw its shadow and went back into its hole. Is that true? Even with global warming? We think that is very strange. Americans are so superst.i.tious!

Hong Kong now is start typhoon season, but that is not why we write to you. After all you can say we are used to the rain! We write to you because of our daughter Bobby. You remember her, number one. Went to Andover then MIT then Harvard Business School, got a nice job on Wall Street. But now all of a sudden, she quit that job to live with a drummer, and on top of it try to sell the apartment we give to her. Very nice place, upper East Side. Have a doorman, everything. But she do not care. All she think about is drum something. We worry. She is our number one daughter, how can this happen to our family? We a.n.a.lyze, in particular Johnson. Johnson is quite well known for his a.n.a.lysis. But in the end, there is only one thing we can guess. Only we can guess that the graves of Grandpa and Grandma are not auspicious. The story we always hear is how Grandpa and Grandma were not buried in Qufu, as they like to be ...

Hogwash.

Instead because they died in Taiwan First Uncle bury them in Taiwan. And then when he himself leaving Taiwan, no one left to sweep the grave, he have to move them somewhere again. Mainland still closed, cannot bury them there. Impossible. So he say okay, how about Iowa? Never mind that Grandpa never visited Iowa once in his life. First Uncle said, at least they are go to Iowa together. And of course, when the bone picker open the graves, look like the bones are dry. That is true. So First Uncle say, you see? If the fengshui is no good the bones are not dry, even many years later. He say, I pick good place the first time, now I pick another good place. He say Iowa is good. Probably you already know this story, which is the story my father tell me. I just tell you in case you heard something else, over there in United States. My father say you are sent there to live as a girl, is that right? All by yourself, very brave, though my father always say how actually you have no choice, everyone else stuck in China and cannot get out.

But anyway, too bad. Now the Iowa fengshui is not so good as before and our family face difficulty again. We hear there is a shopping center moved in right next to our grandparents, not to say a train line. And that is why our family, our luck not so good. Everything leaking away. Not just our branch, many other cousins say it too. Our situation not even so serious as other cousins. Some of them are losing money-a lot of money. So now we are thinking, how do you feel about if Grandpa and Grandma should be moved to Qufu, which is their real home? We believe they are lonely in Iowa. No one can sweep grave there. Of course we understand there is some question whether Grandma can stay in the graveyard in Qufu too. But we feel confident someone can arrange it, really you just have to find out who you should pay. After all Grandpa is still have the name Kong, and who can even see Grandma is a foreign devil anymore? Now she is not even bones, only some ashes or pieces, something like that. No one can see anything. And by the way I do not think Confucius ever said a big nose cannot be buried in the family graveyard. He never even thought about that case. Probably he does not even know nose can get so big. Everyone say American people do not take care of their parents' grave, just let the weeds grow all over. Their thinking is different. You know better than anyone the kind of clothes they wear. They think that is normal. Anyway, we have been talking to some other family member, everyone agrees. Our family, something is wrong. Fallen leaves should return to their roots right? We should do something. But what do you think?

What does Hattie think? If you are near red dye, you will turn red; if you are near black, you will turn black. Who knows but that if she had grown up in Hong Kong, she'd be a superst.i.tious nut, too. As it is, though, she just writes that she's sorry, but moving the graves is not an option. Not adding, as she would like to, The dead are dead and can do nothing for us! We're on our lonesome own! but pecking out the letters with one hand while she plays tug-of-war with Annie. Hoping Annie will not pee in her excitement, though of course, she does-a nice long fingerlake of a puddle in which she promptly steps. Hattie sighs.

SEND.

Good riddance!

Three days later, though, another e-mail arrives, and then another, both about money. What is it about the Chinese and money? Joe used to ask.

And then this one, also concerning the graves: Dear Aunt Hattie, You remember Vivian, what kind of girl she is. Like an angel, we always say she have wings, if you had special gla.s.ses you can see them. And beautiful besides, that is why she got such a good job in the karaoke bar even though she does not know how to sing. But you know what those local officials are-what kind of people. One of them ask her if she will take a bath with him. Of course, she say no, but he try again. So finally one day she take a fruit knife out of her bag and stab him. Not too bad, just in the leg, and she even put the bandaid on for him. Nice and neat. But now she lost her job.

Hattie sighs and moves to her painting table. And yet another e-mail, the next day: I write concerning my son. My son is very good at drive car. He practice every day, also read some books. And he buy a car with some friends, all of them go in together, that car is some special kind car, have so-called four-wheel drive. Everyone say that car can go all over, that car can go everywhere. But my son took that car to Tibet in the mountains and got stuck there. Is that not some bad luck? He drove down someplace, in some kind of valley, then cannot drive back up. Even he ask ten men to help him, they cannot push out. So now his friends very mad, want him to pay them back.

Hattie shakes her head and writes: I'm so sorry to hear of your troubles, but do you really think moving the graves will help you?

Outside, the sun is out later than it was even a week ago and setting farther in the west. As she walks her dogs, Hattie sees how it catches many more trees than it did, turning them orange and sepia and rust; the apparent world is broader. And look-down in the swamp-p.u.s.s.y willows! Showing their soft hermaphroditic catkins. Hattie feels them-furry but cold. She'll be back later in the day to pick some for a vase.

Riverlake's north. Making winter the basic fact here-wool and hot drinks, a fire in the evening, and, of course, ice. Even with global warming, the lake stays frozen as a rock until April; it's easy to see why people called it Brick Lake before it up and moved. But one day every year, there are cracks which one night fail to refreeze, turning instead into rivulets that turn into streams that turn into rivers, multiplying and crisscrossing until the whole white plain of the lake has come live. Giant shards of ice get thrown up onto the sh.o.r.e then-the sun patiently working its energy down into the surface of other things, too, until you start to feel a closeness in the air. A collecting. One afternoon you may even find your dashboard warm, especially if it's black, like Hattie's.

Hattie, though, is still keeping to her fleece-the state fabric-like most people; pretty much everyone's got a vest on, at least. Only Carter Hatch would be traipsing around with no hat and no hair, in just jeans and a flannel s.h.i.+rt, top b.u.t.tons undone as if to show off his pelican neck. The s.h.i.+rt hangs away from him-no paunch-men his age tending to come in two models as they do, padded and not, Hattie's noticed, depending on their metabolisms.

Carter, dropping in like Judy Tell-All.

Hattie overfills her coffee mug and has to sponge up the mess.

Is he still running? She doesn't know, but somehow wouldn't be surprised to hear he's still taking home trophies in the occasional senior trot. That seven-league gait, after all, and that drive-that Carter Hatch drive. What with her house up on a knoll, she's watched people make their way up to her door all sorts of ways-some tackling the driveway with a little umph, some with a marked trudge. No one has ever taken it the way Carter is now, as if simply opposed to gravity. He's carrying one of those dark green book bags from the days before backpacks-his father's, if she had to guess-toting the rubberized thing so naturally that he looks not so much like Carter carrying his father's sack as-eerily-Dr. Hatch carrying his own. Of course, in one way, it's a surprise, looking back, that Carter didn't go into marine biology or some such-one of those fields where you battle cold climes and come home with a distant look in your eye. But in another way, where would he have made his expeditions but to the lab? At least as an undergrad he looked different in the summer than in the winter-more like his G.o.d-given self, ruddy and hale. Later he just stayed his winter self year-round, too busy examining how people see to actually go out and see much himself; she never did behold him without wanting to offer him a cough drop.

Now, though, a thump on her front porch, and the start of a rap, but ha!-she's opened the door before he's knocked; and seeing as how she has yet to put up her front-door screen, there's nothing but her in the doorway. Surprise.

”Miss Confucius.”

Dr. Hatch!

But no-it's Carter, who, if she hadn't surprised him with the door, or startled a bit herself, might well have relaxed enough to give her a kiss or a hug. Instead, he stands there with his book bag between his feet and his hands in his pockets, gazing at her as if he's about to have his mug snapped for an I.D. card.

”It's good to see you,” he says.

”Well, and I've had worse surprises.” She can still feel how she was about to step through the doorway and give him a hug back-that potential energy. But now she straightens up, too, the dogs gathering around Carter, who-can this be right?-appears to be wearing the very same hiking boots he used to wear back in the lab. That can't be, she knows. But these do seem an exact replica of his old Swiss boots, with their zigzag red laces and first-cla.s.s padded collar; they even have the same lovingly beat-up look.

”Go on,” she tells the dogs. ”Out.”

Eliciting a funny look from Cato, especially-this isn't their pattern. With a little more prodding, though, they do finally go sprinting down the hill and across the road to the sunny field, Reveille leading but Annie almost keeping up, and Old Cato, too; his hips must not be too bad today. As for whether Reveille will keep clear of that porcupine in the tree at the edge of the field, well, Hattie can only hope-Joe having been the expert quill-puller in the family. She never has gotten as plier-proficient.

”You've become a dog lover.”

”Fit company for the old dog I've become myself,” she says.

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