No River Wide

Southern Review, The, Spring, 2007 by Robert Boswell

Both things first: Greta Steno is two places at once and walking. She is in a Chicago neighborhood in the early fall on a sidewalk made ramshackle by tree roots, and she is barefoot in Florida on a warm winter evening, the broad leaves of a banana tree swiping at her hair. She is thirty-nine and forty-two years old.

In Chicago, she wears paint-spattered clothes and walks with her husband to the house of Ellen Riley, who is her closest friend and who is about to move to Florida. In Florida, she is in a tight black dress and walks beside Ellen, whose last name is no longer Riley, and they are on their way to a party.

In Chicago, the late morning air still conjures the facade of summer, and Greta ' s husband stumbles on the ragged sidewalk, falling to his knees. In Florida, Greta and Ellen drink scotch from transparent disposable cups, the winter dusk as warm as spring, Greta ' s husband two years in the ground.

" A good thing we ' re wearing our nasties, " her husband says, examining the tear in the knee of his slacks. Duncan is slow finding his feet. The weight of middle age has settled in his trunk and limbs. He ' s been awkward lately, wooden in his expressions. He ' d been a lanky boy in a rock band when Greta met him in college. Now their son has the gangly build, while Duncan ' s body has become thick and ponderous. Their daughter, thankfully, looks like Greta.

" It feels like they ' re doing this to us

, " he says, getting up. " I know that ' s silly. " He ' s talking about the move. Ellen ' s husband Theo has accepted a transfer. He is gone to Florida this weekend to look for a house.

At the intersection, they can see the top of the great white oak, a landmark tree in a Chicago burg known for its trees. Ellen and Theo ' s house was built in the 1920s, and the architect designed a notch in one corner to accommodate the oak, which even then was enormous. Today its upper limbs tremble, and though neither Greta nor Duncan mention it, they understand the destruction has begun.

In Florida, Greta talks about Duncan ' s quick decline and death. She ' s either drunk or acting drunk to hold Ellen ' s attention. Ellen ' s neighborhood is the kind of leafy habitat that encourages intoxication--tropical trees leaking oxygen like bad tires, houses rising out of the green abundance like pastel mushrooms. The banana tree that flounces its wide leaves over the sidewalk forces Greta to step to the curb. In one hand she holds her shoes--black mules with outrageous heels--and in the other, a plastic cup of scotch.

" I got through it, " Greta is saying. She thinks perhaps she has gone on too long. " The kids got through it. "

They ' re not young women, Greta and Ellen, and neither are they old, beyond the childbearing pale but clinging bravely to the sheen of ripe sexuality. Ellen has changed her appearance since moving to Florida. Except for her long midwestern gait, everything about her has changed. She ' s severely tan and so thin as to teeter on that precipice of chic that overlooks serious illness. Her short hair stands in pointy reptilian barbs and is the blond of taco chips. She doesn ' t look her age. She doesn ' t look any age.

Greta ' s appearance has changed less. A wardrobe update and a smart new do that snakes about her head. She has dyed her hair, but only a lighter shade of the same midwestern brown. She ' s prettier than Ellen, something that ' s always been a factor in their friendship. Now that they ' re single, it plays a larger part: It is her job tonight to get a specific man to Ellen ' s house.

Would she do such a thing for anyone but Ellen? She can ' t quite believe she ' s doing it at all, but Ellen wants them to be conspirators again, as they ' d once been when they had to wedge their husbands from the golf course or convince the children to visit a museum. They ' re substituting men--single, sexual males--for their families, but their roles are the same: conspirators, intimates, sisters. Greta is willing to do anything to get past this awkwardness. She mentions again the class she took. " The Greeks put friendship ahead of romantic love. They thought it a worthier topic. " She wants them to talk as they used to, and she ' s pressing. " Whatever happened to those guys? When was the last time somebody brought up Plato or Sophocles? "

" There ' s a rapper in Miami who calls himself Euripides, " Ellen replies. " He spells it with a capital U: ' U-Rippa-Deese. ' "

" You can ' t possibly listen to rap. "

" You ' re reading the Greeks, of all things. Why can ' t I listen to rap? "

" I took a class. " It was actually Duncan who signed up for the course. Greta was there to operate the wheelchair and tape recorder. He hadn ' t finished the semester, which meant she ' d had to quit, too. But she has kept the tapes.