The Invisible Circus - Jennifer Egan [58]
She crawled under the covers and curled in a ball. Just get through this night, she thought, but her body trembled, teeth chattering, heartbeat pounding against her eardrums. Gradually she found herself thinking of home, fog swirling like dreams around the Golden Gate Bridge and white buildings of downtown. Fog lapping over eucalyptus trees, so soft, half-liquid the way it poured against the bedroom window, obscuring every other house from sight and even the trees, like being out on the open sea surrounded by nothing, until finally there was nothing left but to close your eyes.
Dear Mom, Phoebe and Barry, Yesterday we went to Epernay where they make all the kinds of champagne and we took a cool tour of the champagne cellars of Dom Perignon and splurged on two bottles for our poor Reims host but guess what? He doesn’t like champagne! So we drank it ourselves! Wolf’s gone again. I miss him but we don’t get along but I miss him anyways. Life is so crazy. Love, Faith
Phoebe woke the next morning to a square of gray sky. The panic had passed. She lay still a long time before getting dressed and hiding her backpack under the cot. She stuffed her valuables in her purse, locked the room and walked to the train station for the day trip to Epernay.
On the train Phoebe’s indefatigable hope rose in her again. Perhaps last night’s terror had been a final test, she thought, and now, in Epernay, something marvelous would unveil itself.
At the Moët & Chandon winery she joined an English-speaking tour, listening with passionate interest to how the bottles were stored at angles and rotated to shift their sediments, as if the solution to her troubles lay hidden among these damp tunnels with bursts of silty gray moss springing from their walls. It was a long tour, and the longer it went on, the more Phoebe dreaded its end, the return to her own unreliable care.
She downed her sample glass of Dom Pérignon and then stood self-consciously, holding the empty glass while her English-speaking colleagues discreetly sipped their own.
“Please,” said the man beside her, offering Phoebe his champagne. He spoke with an accent. “I have not tasted.”
Phoebe thanked him, moved by the kindness. She drank the champagne. He was a young man. His eyes resembled Barry’s, the same dark iris nearly indistinguishable from the pupil.
When the tour dispersed, Phoebe walked slowly back toward the station. Epernay was filled with the tart scent of grapes; it seemed to rise from the pavement, the storefronts, even the groggy weeds along the road. The champagne had left Phoebe woozy. It was only two-fifteen, and the empty day hung before her. Across the street she noticed the young man who had given her his champagne, walking in the same direction. Their eyes met. “You are taking the train for Reims?” he called through the dusty silence.
“Yes,” Phoebe said. “Are you?”
He crossed the street. He was Pietro, a student at the University of Turin. He had come to Reims today from Paris, and tonight would take the overnight train to Madrid.
Phoebe blithely explained that she was making her way toward Italy to meet her older sister. The lie came so effortlessly, bringing with it such a bolt of delight that she wondered why she ever told the truth.
“She lives in Italia? Your sister?”
“In Rome. Eight years now,” Phoebe said. “She writes books.”
“Ah, writer,” Pietro said, nodding. He seemed impressed. “Maybe I have read something.”
“Well, no. Because the first one is just coming out. Actually, three of her books are coming out at one time.”
“Three!” He looked amazed.
“She writes fast,” Phoebe assured him, flushed.
Pietro stopped walking and pulled from his shoulder bag a small notebook and a green pencil. “Please, tell me her name?” he said.
“Faith. Faith O’Connor.