The Invisible Circus - Jennifer Egan [35]
Remembering her times with Faith, it seemed to Phoebe that over and over again they had approached a border that, since her sister’s death, had moved out of range. Occasionally, by accident or sheer force of will, something propelled them across it. Yet much as Phoebe longed for the intensity of those times, her own life remained stubbornly apart from the world of events. Governments, armies, networks of underground crooks—their very existence struck her as impossible, dizzying. How had it all been organized? Who was in charge? She was left feeling that the news took place in another world, far from the quiet, incremental one where she led her life.
With one exception: the kidnapping of Patty Hearst had riveted Phoebe like no other news event in her lifetime. She’d been fourteen when it happened, had neither heard of William Randolph Hearst nor read much further in his newspaper than “Question Man.” But that winter she’d scoured the Chronicle and Examiner each day for news of the heiress, discussing minute developments with her friends on the telephone, even dreaming of her. During the year when Patty was in hiding with the SLA, Phoebe and two other girls had spent several Saturdays in search of her, combing the Sunset and Richmond districts, giggling cra-zily as they peered through strangers’ curtains for a whisper of Patty’s black beret, the long shadow of her rifle. Patty’s later account of rape and torture and brainwashing had done little to alter Phoebe’s vision of her: a dull, privileged girl drawn irresistibly toward an invisible border, then crossing it into a dark, transcendent world.
Phoebe stacked the bulletin board’s contents in the box where Faith’s postcards had been and slid it back under the bed. Then she stood in the midst of Faith’s room and listened to her sister’s chimes. She heard the front door open—was it? Yes! Phoebe ran into the hallway, leaning over the banister to listen for her mother’s steps … yes? But no, it was just the overgrown tree knocking against the roof. But wait, wasn’t that her mother’s car? Phoebe listened, every nerve trained on the street awaiting the sound of tires, the jolt of the garage door starting to open. Her false relief left a terrible emptiness behind it. Phoebe went back to Faith’s room, realizing, as she surveyed the half-filled backpack and piles of clothing, that she had no desire to go anywhere. She was bluffing, arming herself in the hope of calling her mother’s bluff, forcing her to give up Jack and come back to Phoebe.
Disgusted, Phoebe resumed her packing. She packed the white sundress it was always too cold to wear in San Francisco, a bottle of Chanel No. 5, extra shoelaces. Shorts—did people wear shorts in Europe? Mascara, though she didn’t need it, her mother said, her eyelashes were so dark. She sat at her desk and penned a letter to Berkeley announcing her decision to defer her admission until next year. She sealed the letter and stamped it. But all this felt preventative, like her father keeping a bag packed for the hospital after he got sick—“How often does it rain if you carry your umbrella?” he’d say, trying to sound jovial—in hopes that preparing himself would protect him from having to go.
Phoebe left her backpack in Faith’s room and went downstairs to the living room. Their father had been an avid collector: etchings of Connecticut River yachts, ivory backgammon sets, relics of a patrician America to which neither he nor anyone else Phoebe knew had the slightest connection. She paced the room. Her mother was out with Jack. Phoebe touched a gold clock under a dome of glass, a carving set encased in a pair of mock dueling pistols. She opened the cupboard where her parents’ wedding china was kept and took out a dish of Florentine marble eggs. She held the eggs in their alabaster dish, awaiting the hum, the swell of promise to rise from