- •I thought for a moment. “I don’t know. If I did, I don’t remember.”
- •I looked out at the Japanese maple. “Nice weather we’re having.”
- •I covered the receiver with my hand and repeated this to Abby.
- •Chapter Two
- •I leaned against the back door. Jane often had an interesting tale to tell, and, thanks to the volume of her voice, it was easy to eavesdrop on her phone calls. Only the odd word or two escaped me.
- •I looked at my mother, who looked pointedly at Karen’s hair.
- •I couldn’t blame Hunter or his drinking for the accident, though both had an effect on the aftermath. If he’d been sober, I’d still be called Frankie.
- •I let him carry on the rest of the way without comment. It felt like my eye had been whacked with a hammer.
- •I watched Marilyn change the IV bag and punch buttons on the various machines.
- •I closed my eyes and tried to think of something clever to say about Oedipus. Nothing came to mind. I checked the window again.
- •I shrugged. “He came stumbling in around midnight and started bugging me. When I told him to leave me alone, he grabbed me from behind, wrapped his arms around my chest, and started squeezing.”
- •I made a wry face. “Oh? And what about your boyfriend, Brad? I assume he’s the reason you’re getting dressed and putting on makeup.”
- •I watched the shaft of moonlight until I fell asleep, sometime after midnight. I dreamed about field corn, and Abby, and my name.
- •I remained where I was. Unless she got up to pinch me—and she’d been known to—I didn’t bother to correct myself.
- •I looked at my mother. “I wish they made seatbelts for mouths,” I said.
- •I should have gone straight over to Susan’s house.
- •I pulled up a chair and sat down next to Nana.
- •I blew the flame out. “Do you want me to let the dog go? I’d be more than happy to let him bite your hand off.”
- •I said, “Louise called, Abby. She said Belvedere’s doing fine. The Rimadyl is already working wonders.”
- •I closed my eyes and pressed my lips against her ear. “I don’t know what to do,” I said softly, not sure I wanted her to hear me.
- •I held her hand for a moment, savoring the sensation. Then I let it go.
- •I chewed the last of my Portobello. Susan ordered dessert, a crème brûlée.
- •I caught my mother’s eye. It was choke, not laugh.
- •I felt myself tensing up. I took a deep breath, willing my muscles to relax. “The guys you’ve dated. Did you do this with any of them?”
- •I laughed. “I’m not early. You’re late. Please note, however, that I didn’t blow the horn. I didn’t even get out and knock.”
- •I pulled the waistband of my underwear down and considered my reflection in the bathroom’s full-length mirror. My hysterectomy scar was still angry and red.
- •I buckled my belt and walked through the door Abby held open for me.
- •I laughed. “It sneaks up on you. Abby and I were watching vh1 the other night. They had some nostalgia show on, and what it was nostalgic for was the eighties.”
- •I hesitated. “I’m afraid she’ll fall into the wrong hands. I caught Jake holding her under the pond with a stick.”
- •I shook my head emphatically. “No way. She’ll have gravy,” I said to the woman with the hairnet, “and so will I.”
- •I nodded, taking a bite of dill pickle. “Yes. People had extra-marital affairs in 1923, just like they do now.”
- •I waited. Whatever I said, I didn’t want to sound shocked. The problem was that I was shocked.
- •I pushed away the plate of half-eaten roast beef and covered it with my napkin.
- •I opened my mouth to say, “What do you mean,” but I knew what she meant.
- •I laughed. “a kind of Stray Cats meets the Talking Heads sort of thing?”
- •I was beginning to feel the effects of a heavy dinner and a good deal of wine, and even though it meant the risk of falling asleep mid-sentence, I wanted to be more comfortable.
- •I refused to meet him at the Brentwood, suggesting instead that we meet for dinner at a Chinese restaurant called the Hang Chow. I told him that my mother and Nana would be coming with me.
- •I stood up. “Hi, Shirley. Please, have a seat.”
- •I nodded. “College. I want to be a professor.”
- •I propped my feet up on the glass-topped coffee table and picked a book from my mother’s library pile. It was Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown. I’d never heard of it.
- •I nodded happily. “I have my mother’s chariot for the evening. It’s at your disposal.”
- •I stepped into the weird hospital elevator with its facing doors and pressed the button for the fourth floor.
- •I made a whooshing sound.
- •I stood there, dumbstruck. Condensation from the glass in my hand dripped down my arm. Jean finished her drink and poured another.
- •I laughed. “You and me both. Tell me, before you left for Yugoslavia, were you seeing anyone?”
- •I nodded dumbly. Susan stepped back. Had I been blind? There had always been someone. I relied on her, I couldn’t live without her, I loved her.
- •I took the doll from her and put it back on the dresser. Across the hall, the bathroom door opened. My mother stood there, holding a curling iron.
- •I picked up a Life magazine and sat next to Abby on the bed. “Can I offer you some reading material? This is all about Jackie Kennedy.”
- •In the personnel office, Edna spoke to a gray-haired woman in gold-rimmed glasses who, according to her nameplate, was Marcella Rockway.
- •I nodded. Abby bristled, and I saw Edna put a hand on her arm.
- •I stared at her in amazement. Nana could be stubborn, but I’d never known her to stand up to my grandfather so firmly that he backed down.
- •I opened my mouth to say I didn’t care what it cost. Abby put her hand on my leg again. She shook her head slightly.
- •I said, “How can you just sit there like you’re attending a second grade piano recital? You’re polite, but you’re bored. You’re waiting for it all to be over.”
- •I sat up. I didn’t want to look at her, and I didn’t want to cry, so I closed my eyes.
- •I took her by the hands and helped her to her feet. “Thanks for the warning, but I’ve made my decision. It’s you, me, and Rosalyn. I just hope she doesn’t hog the covers.”
- •I glanced at the illuminated dial of my watch. “I don’t care about the speeding ticket. Put your foot down.”
- •I hung up the phone. “I’ll just bet,” I said, putting my credit card back into my wallet. Abby came out of the bathroom, a white towel wrapped around her body.
- •Vivian laughed. “What’s your favorite color, Poppy?”
I laughed. “You and me both. Tell me, before you left for Yugoslavia, were you seeing anyone?”
She gazed at me shrewdly and then smiled. “How insightful,” she said. “But then you always were. Yes, I was seeing someone. We’d been together for nearly a year. She wanted to move in with me.”
“And you didn’t want that.”
“In the end, no.”
“Yugoslavia?”
“It seemed like a good idea at the time. I meant what I said the other night about wanting to do something useful.”
“I believe you. Did you love her?”
“Not enough.”
“That’s always the problem, isn’t it?”
She took her arm from behind my back and sat forward. “I think I’m going to put the rest of this wine in the kitchen. If you don’t want any more, that is.”
“No, I’ve had enough.” She stood up. I reached under the sofa and retrieved my shoes. I was tying them when she came back into the living room.
“Are you okay to drive back to your hotel?”
“No, but that’s okay. I’ll crash with Nana tonight.”
She hesitated. Then she said, “You could stay here.”
“No, I couldn’t.”
“I meant the guest room.”
“I know.”
She stepped closer and waited. I held out my hands, and she took them. I pulled her to me and embraced her.
“Tell me,” she said, leaning back to look at me. “Have you ever loved anyone enough to live with them? I mean to really commit.”
The answer came easily. “Yes,” I said.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know yet. I haven’t asked her.”
“You mean there’s someone now?”
I nodded dumbly. Susan stepped back. Had I been blind? There had always been someone. I relied on her, I couldn’t live without her, I loved her.
“You might have told me,” Susan said, a slight sulkiness in her tone.
“I’ve only just realized,” I said. “My god, I’m stupid.”
Susan didn’t disagree.
“So this was your bedroom,” Abby said. “Has it changed much or is it an untouched shrine to your youth?”
“Apart from the fact that someone’s taken down all my posters of The Police, it’s an untouched shrine, but not to my youth. This is a shrine to my grandmother’s optimism. She really believes she’ll get around to ironing that pile of clothes. It was there when I first moved here back in 1979.” I looked around. “Same bed, same dresser, same carpet. You can see less of all three now, thanks to the assortment of accumulated shit. What the hell is this?” I picked a doll up off the dresser.
“It looks suspiciously like Shirley Temple.”
“It has one eye that doesn’t quite work. It looks suspiciously like me.”
Abby negotiated a path through my grandmother’s stacks of Life magazine to examine a framed poem. “Hey, what’s this? For Poppy on her Graduation, May 23, 1984. By Myrtle Abernathy Bartholomew.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, please don’t read that.”
“When Poppy was born, she was little and sweet, from the top of her head, to her tiny pink feet.”
“Okay, please don’t read it aloud.”
“She soon grew tall, and strong and fair, with Polish cheekbones, and short brown hair.” She paused to consider my cheekbones. “So far, so good. I suppose those are Polish cheekbones, anyway. She looked like a countess, from old Warsaw, with a brave Roman nose, and eyebrows like the Shah. Eyebrows like the Shah?”
“In some universe, Shah rhymes with Warsaw. You have to admit, my eyebrows are rather Shah-esque.” I waggled them at her for emphasis.
“More Groucho than Shah. Why is your nose brave?”
“I’m not afraid to stick it into other people’s business.”
“Ain’t that the truth. She’s graduating today, and we feel so proud, we’re telling the world, we’re shouting out loud!”
“Oh, the shame.”
“Oh, my ass. I think it’s nice. Your grandma was proud of you. She wrote you a poem. So it’s not your damn Shakespeare, so what? Your family loves you. You have no business complaining.”
“No,” I agreed. “And yes, they do. However, as long as you’re passing out pearls of wisdom, here’s one for your treasure trove. Edna loves you, too.”
“Right.”
“I have proof. Remember when we needed jobs the summer after graduation?”
“Yeah?”
“Edna got us jobs—you and me both. She didn’t have to help me. She didn’t want to help me. She did it because you asked her.”
Abby sat down on the bed and looked under Shirley Temple’s skirt. “No underwear,” she said. “Perhaps she should change her name to Dolores.”
“Perhaps you should stop violating the Littlest Rebel.”