Benny was energized by the broad, seemingly barren expanses that, seen from up close, were popping with life. The furred leaves of the velvet mesquite. The blue-green bark and yellow flowers of the blue palo verde. The bristly javelinas, the splotchy Gila monsters, the baby rattlesnakes that flicked their tiny tails to warn of the potency already pooled within.
Arizona had a good art program that Benny could afford and Benny had grades that could get her into the school, almost no questions asked. And that was how Benny met Joanie. At the time, Joanie was a graduate assistant in ceramics. She had a sharp jaw and wavy ponytail that pulled at Benny the first time she saw her walking down a corridor with clay-splattered coveralls.
Then Benny saw the blue vase. It was nearing the end of the first term and some of the students had gone over to Joanie’s townhouse for drinks and snacks. The poured-cement floor in Joanie’s living room was cool and bare. The only carpeting in the central space was a claret-colored rug hanging on one of the walls and below it, on the floor, was a row of Joanie’s ceramic pieces. The partygoers were clustered together in front of an enormous blue vase.
To say the vase was blue was about as imprecise as calling a person interesting, but everyone agreed that it was, at the very least, bluish. Benny sat staring at the waist-high object for what felt like an hour, pulling her gaze up from the mostly emerald lower border, through its rich celestial middle, to the pale aquamarine splash at the top, the flecks of gold and amber near the upper edge, and finally, part of the lip and bulge of the vase, which had been left uncolored, the natural, reddish tone of the pottery exposed. Benny contemplated the vase, then looked over at Joanie. And Joanie smiled back at her in that way that Benny would come to know.
Four years into their relationship, Benny still hadn’t told her family about Joanie, and this had become a problem. Joanie was ten years older, been there, done that, plus they were living in the twenty-first century, for Pete’s sake, she said. Benny tried to make it up to her. She filled Joanie’s kitchen, decidedly nicer than her own, with spices and sautés. She sent emails around to promote Joanie’s exhibits. She waited every Friday night for Joanie outside the office where Joanie worked part time, so they could grab a pizza together.
But Joanie was the kind of person who appeared not to mind the slights of others, until finally they had crossed some invisible line. And now, it was Benny’s turn to find out what that could mean.
As another winter of holiday plans approached, Joanie told Benny that Benny had been doing too much for her, suffocating her, when all Joanie had ever asked her for was one thing. Benny rushed over to Joanie’s place. As soon as Joanie let her inside, Benny saw that the blue vase and a couple of the other pieces were gone, leaving empty spaces along the floor. It was then that Benny noticed the wall rug, rolled up and bound with plastic ties, the cardboard cartons lined up near the kitchen counter. Joanie told Benny she had decided to move to New York to take a teaching job, she’d be leaving before Thanksgiving. And just like that, it was the end of Benny and Joanie.
But only for now, Benny told herself, as she sped away from Joanie’s house, hands tight on the steering wheel. Only for now, she told herself the following week, as she drove home to California, eye on the speedometer, trying to stay under ninety miles an hour.
The Bennetts
Thanksgiving Day, 2010, right here in this house. When Benny’s father finally grasped what Benny had been trying to say about her love life, he raised his voice. And Dad was not the voice-raising kind. She tried to interject but her dad kept talking over her. Then he stood up.
“I don’t see how you can manage to live a decent life with this kind of confusion,” Bert said.
“Decent?” Benny said. “Are you saying I am not decent?”
“Don’t you raise your voice at me, young lady,” Bert said.
“Daddy, you are the one who is shouting at me. You are the one who asked me if I was dating someone. You are the one who said, why don’t I bring someone home? I was just trying to explain that it might be a him or it might be a her.”
“So your mother and I are supposed to be okay with you sleeping around?”
“I am not sleeping around, Daddy. I’ve been with the same woman for four years. I’ve only dated a couple of people, ever. But that’s not the point…”
“The point is, you’re not even sure what you want.”
“Yes, I am sure, Daddy. This is who I am. I’m Benny.”
There was a look in her parents’ eyes that she had never seen before. Everything went quiet, like that second before a pot of water comes to a boil. She looked over at Byron but he was just sitting there, looking at the floor. He wasn’t going to help her, was he? Benny had feared it would come to this. She breathed in and out slowly, letting the hurt of what she was thinking run through her until she heard herself saying it.