I parked directly in front of the drugstore. There was one other car there, Delores’s Cadillac. I felt a sudden rush of gratitude for her being there—both because she would make the interview easier to endure and because it was an opportunity to see her again. A few times, I’d wanted to call, but hadn’t.
“Oh, boy,” Lorraine said, unhooking her seat belt.
“Never mind,” I said. “Stop it.”
“Do you think Lydia Samuels will be there?” Lorraine asked. I’d told her about my meeting with Lydia at the nursing home. I thought Lorraine was probably intrigued by the idea of someone bolder than she.
“No, she will definitely not be there.”
“Let’s go get her. She’s a new friend!”
“Settle down,” I said, and felt an urge to laugh. It was nerves, I realized; often my response to feeling nervous was to laugh. I undid my seat belt and opened the car door. “Come on. Let’s get this over with.”
“Wait.” Lorraine pulled down the visor and checked herself in the mirror. “Do I look all right? Oh, and after we fall in love and consummate our marriage, do you think he’s okay being on top? I don’t like to be on top anymore—my face falls.”
I looked at my watch. We were ten minutes early. “Let’s take a little walk,” I said. “I don’t want to get there early.”
“Are you nervous?” Lorraine asked.
“No.”
“You’re nervous!” she said, and I took her arm and began walking purposefully down the sidewalk.
“Everything you need is here, see?” I said. “Isn’t this a sweet little town?”
“I can’t believe you’re nervous!” Lorraine said. “Come on, Betta, this isn’t the Today show.”
That was for sure. When we opened the door beside the drugstore, it led to a tiny foyer with bent mailboxes and a narrow flight of stairs covered in yellowing linoleum and wide metal strips. A hand-lettered piece of paper saying WMRZ SUITE 221 was taped to the wall, with an arrow pointing up.
“I’m sure glad they put that arrow there,” Lorraine said.
Down a long, dingy hallway we found the door open to the reception area of the station. There were four mismatched chairs against the wall, two on either side of a table holding a massive lamp with a ruffled shade and a stack of weary-looking magazines. Across the room, a coffeemaker sat on top of a dresser découpaged with yellow pansies. The promised donuts were arranged on a paper plate, LIFE BEGINS AT 60! napkins fanned out beside them. Two black-and-white photographs of older, beaming men hung on the wall, exuberantly autographed: Lenny and Tiny Shulerman, Shulerman’s Autos.
Delores sat in one of the threadbare chairs, reading Reader’s Digest. She put down the magazine and smiled at me. “Well, there you are. And your old friend, too.” She stood and shook hands with Lorraine. “Hello, I’m the young friend, Delores Henckley.”
Lorraine smiled; I could see she liked Delores on sight. They began talking about how each had met me, and I headed to the bathroom, which was identified by two gold peeling-off silhouettes of a man’s head and a woman’s, a slash drawn between the heads with Magic Marker.
I splashed water on my face and took in a breath. I could not for the life of me get rid of the butterflies in my stomach. Maybe I was just hungry.
I came back out and surveyed the donuts, then selected a plain cake one. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Delores said.
“How bad?” I asked.
“Do you like hockey pucks?”
I put the donut back and went to sit beside her.
“How’s the house working out?” Delores asked.
“Fine,” I said. “I’d love for you to come by sometime and see it.”
“When?”
I laughed. “How about if I make us dinner sometime?”
“When?”
“Wednesday?”
“I’ll bring baked-potato soup.” She looked over at Lorraine. “Will you be there, too?”
“No,” Lorraine said. “I’m flying back tonight. But next time.”
I heard Ed’s voice, and then he stuck his head out from a smaller room. “Showtime!” Seeing Lorraine, he stopped smiling. I introduced them, and we filed past, Lorraine making a point of brushing herself suggestively against Ed. “Oh, now,” he said, laughing, then abruptly stopped.
He seated himself at a desk with a microphone and tapped against it, frowning. Then he smiled brightly and said, “Hello, all you fans and neighbors! You’re here with me, Ed Selwin, on another Talk of the Town. Today our show is about old friends and new, and my main guest is Ms. Betta Nolan. Say howdy, Betta.”
“. . . Howdy,” I said.
Ed adopted a Bob Eubanks style to say, “She’s a newcomer living by herself over in Lydia Samuels’s old place, but don’t think she’s alone, because guess what? She is joined here by old friends and new. The new one is none other than Delores Henckley, our town’s real estate wizard. Delores, say good morning and give our listeners your phone number!”
He handed the microphone to Delores with a flourish. “Hi,” she said. “Ed’s right. I can help you with buying and selling. Henckley Real Estate, 555-8893. I’m in the yellow pages if you forget, and if you’re like me, you’ve forgotten already.” She handed the microphone back to Ed.
“Well, I’ll tell you one thing we don’t forget, and that’s old friends. Let’s have a word from our sponsor, and we’ll be right back to tell you more.”
Ed turned the microphone off, leaned back, and smiled. “We don’t play the real commercial now, don’t worry. We just have to leave room for it. We’re going to get right back to the show now. But with that teaser, they’ll all be eager to hear what comes next.” He cleared his throat and turned the microphone back on. “We’re back. And sitting right here close enough to pinch is our new town resident’s OLD FRIEND, Lorraine Keaton! Now, I’ve got to tell you the truth, Lorraine is one easy-on-the-eyes woman!” He laughed. “I know that dudn’t have much to do with anything, but I’m telling you, she is one fine female specimen, no offense intended and I’m sure none taken. Whooee, make a man tongue-tied, even me! But . . . good morning, Lorraine.” He thrust the microphone toward her, and Lorraine wrapped her hand around Ed’s, then pulled her hair back to lean over the microphone and say in a sultry voice, “Good morning, Ed Selwin.”
Ed swallowed. “Well! You can’t beat that!”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Lorraine said. She leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs. Smiled and licked her lips. Now I knew why I’d been nervous.
“Now, how long have you known our new resident . . . uh . . . Betty Nolan?”
“I have known your new resident Betta Nolan for . . .” She looked over at me, then said, “Thirty-five years!”
“Uh-huh,” Ed said. “Well, you sure don’t look your age!”
“I know it,” she said, and Delores snorted, laughing.
“And how did you meet Betta?” Ed asked Lorraine.
“In college. We were roommates. It was real crowded in our apartment, and sometimes Betta and I slept together.”
Ed stared at her for an overly long moment, then turned to me.
“Okay! Betta, I wonder if I could ask what you do for a living.”
I took the microphone with great relief. “I used to write children’s books. But now I’m . . . well, I guess I’m reevaluating, thinking of what else I might like to do.” I took in a breath, then said, “I might open a store here, for women.”
“Seems to me every store’s for women!” Ed said.
“Well, this would be different.”
“Gotta make a living, huh?” Ed said. “Get a real job.”
“Oh, writing was a real job.”
“Well, you don’t hardly get paid for writing children’s books, do you?” He looked at Lorraine, winked.
“I got paid,” I said.
Ed looked back at me, puzzled.
“I was published,” I said.
“Oh! I see!” He leaned over towar
d Lorraine. “Now, did you ever see this coming? Were the creative roots there in Betta’s old life, waiting to spring forth into the tree of books? Lorraine Keaton?” His tongue investigated his cheek, and he raised his eyebrows once, twice.
“Oh, my,” Lorraine said, and covered her mouth as though the question was so provocative she needed to think for a moment to come up with an answer worthy enough. But I knew what was really going on. I knew she was trying not to laugh. Delores, her head resting on her hand, was half asleep.
I snuck a look at my watch and let out a tiny sigh.
Lorraine’s flight wasn’t until seven that night, but we left immediately for Chicago—we wanted to take advantage of the light. On the way, we discussed—again—Ed Selwin and his radio show. “You know,” Lorraine said, “a guy like that, I mean, I just wanted to pick him up by his scrawny neck and smother him in my boobs.”
“Yeah. I believe he might have picked up a little bit on that.”
But in the end Ed had actually been more skilled than I’d imagined he could be. He asked questions about writing that were notable for not including “Where do you get your ideas?” or “Did you always want to be a writer?” or “How long does it take you to write a book?” or “So, what’s your book about?” or the increasingly popular “Is there anything you wish I’d asked you that I did not?”
After we talked about writing, Ed had asked all of us to talk about what made for friendships, about what drew people together. He may have been an odd and lonely man asking questions fueled by his own alienation, but what resulted was a remarkably refreshing interview. Chauncey Gardiner takes to the airwaves. What did we all have in common, he wanted to know. What were our differences? What were our respective ideas of a good time? How vulnerable must one make oneself to enjoy a really true friendship? Though the way Ed phrased it, again looking pointedly at Lorraine, was “Do you have to knock down the warriors at your gate to let the good Trojan horses in?”
The result of the interview was that we all came to know one another in a truly legitimate and enjoyable way. At one point, Lorraine suggested we call and put Lydia Samuels on the air, and Ed had seriously considered the notion until he realized we were out of time.
“So, are you really serious about the store?” Lorraine asked.
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “I keep fantasizing about it. But what would I do with that apartment upstairs? I thought about using it as an office and for storage, but it’s really too much space for that. I don’t want to pay for something I’d never use.”
“I’ve got an idea,” Lorraine said. “Why don’t you make a women’s getaway? Decorate it wonderfully—excessively, you know? Make it a place where women friends could come together and not be in a hotel. In an apartment, they could cook together if they wanted to. They’d be more comfortable than in a hotel. You could put in movies and books that appeal to women.”
“There’s not much to do here, though.”
She looked at me. “Except for dinner, did we even leave the house yesterday?”
“Okay, you’re right. It’s a thought.”
Lorraine sat silent for a moment, then said, “A whole wall rack full of hair products in the bathrooms. Full-sized bottles.”
“Good cheese, good wine, good bread in the kitchen to welcome them. Beautiful dishes.”
“Costumes,” Lorraine said.
I laughed. “What for?”
“Fun,” she said.
“I’ll think about it,” I said. “I really will.”
“There! There! There!” Lorraine sat up straight and pointed to the exit I needed to take. Lorraine and I both had well-deserved reputations for being terrible at directions. Once, when we’d taken a trip out of town, I’d said, “So we’re supposed to exit at Green Street. It’s coming up in about a mile. We take a left.”
“Okay,” Lorraine said, signaling for the right lane.
“Lorraine!” I said. “Left!” She gave me a look. “What?” I said, and waved the directions at her. “It says you take a left at Green Street!”
“You don’t take a left from the highway,” Lorraine said. “Jesus. You’re worse than I am.”
John used to say, when we were lost, “Which way do you think we should go?” And then, after I’d told him, he’d confidently proceed in the opposite direction.
Now I pulled off the freeway onto Michigan Avenue and drove as slowly as I could. “Look at this! I didn’t know Chicago was so beautiful. Did you?”
She took off her sunglasses and leaned forward to see better. And then we were both quiet, admiring the breathtaking expanse of the lake and the stunning architecture across from it—building after building after building. “The University of Chicago’s here,” Lorraine said.
“Where?”
“Well, not here, here. It’s in Hyde Park. I think that’s south of here.” She knew more about the city than I, yet I felt like a child the day after Christmas, sitting knee to knee with my best friend and opening the lid of a box to show her what I got. “The streets are so clean!” Lorraine said.
“I know,” I answered, as though I were vaguely responsible.
We went up Michigan Avenue, then north on Lake Shore Drive, then came back south and wove in and out of the downtown streets. Back again on Michigan, Lorraine yelled, “The Art Institute!” and I veered toward a nearby parking garage even before she said, “Let’s go!” The statues of lions on either side of the entrance wore gigantic wreaths around their necks; the people going into the museum looked open and friendly, more relaxed about the shoulders than the East Coast people I was used to. A little over forty miles away, the sunlight poured through the windows of my beautiful house. It waited for me, its art glass and wooden floors, its wide windowsills and its porches, its winter garden, bare but for the suggestion of all to come. I wondered about the house’s well-being in my absence as a parent might wonder about her child’s.
Lorraine and I agreed to split up, and I wandered around for a long time, paying less attention to things in the museum than to the fact of it. Some mornings when I read the newspaper, I wanted to weep or pound my fists on the table in frustration. Some mornings I actually did one or the other. But museums offered up the other side of humanity: the glory and the grace.
Before the Chagall windows, I sat down on one of the long benches and stared, then remembered that Chagall windows had been on one of the slips of paper in the Chinese chest. John and I must have seen something about them once, and on that small piece of paper he’d been urging me to do precisely this: sit before these tall blue panes. The air around me was cool and quiet and to my mind fragrant—a mix of stone and paper and something not quite incense but close to it. I felt as though I were in a spontaneously created church, truer for its being nondenominational.
After a long while, I looked at my watch. Five more minutes until I had to meet Lorraine at the entrance to the gift shop. I rose with regret, then remembered: I could easily come back here. I wouldn’t even have to drive. It seemed so odd to me. It reminded me that I had not yet fully stepped into my life here—part of me still lingered at John’s side, staring both at him and at the future without him, waiting to see if he were going to change his mind and come with me after all.
When we walked down the museum steps and out toward Michigan Avenue, the sun was starting to set and everything was colored rosy gold. Lorraine looked around and sighed happily. “I’m not sure how to say this,” she said. “But did you ever notice how after you look at art for a long time you come out onto the street and see only art?”
“Yes,” I said. “I know exactly what you mean.”
We were mostly quiet on the way to the airport—talked out, I imagined, which we certainly deserved to be. But just before Lorraine got out of the car, she said, “Remember Night of the Iguana?”
“Yes.”
“That’s what we did, so long ago. That’s why this was so easy. Okay. I hate goodbyes, and I’m not going to say it. Call me.” She climb
ed out of the car. Before she slammed the door, she turned to shout, “Soon!”
I drove away, my hands light on the wheel. What Lorraine had referred to was a line in the movie that we had always loved, about people building nests in one another’s hearts.
The telephone light was flashing when I got home. Two messages. The first was a man, clearing his throat and then saying, “Yes. My name is Tom Bartlett. This isn’t a sales call. You don’t know me, but I heard you on the radio this morning and uh . . . well, you said you wrote children’s books and I wondered if you, you know, ever taught or anything like that or if you . . .” He laughed. “Guess I’m going on here. A bit. You know what? If you wouldn’t mind calling me, I’m at 555-7501. I hope you don’t mind my having called you—Ed Selwin gave me the number. Thank you.”
I replayed the message and wrote down his number. Nice voice, low and easy. The second message was from Susanna. “Oh, my GOD!” she began, and I pulled up a chair to listen to the rest. Lorraine had just called her from the airport, Susanna couldn’t believe this, she couldn’t believe this, she would be home tonight, all night, call her, call anytime even if it was in the middle of the night, in fact she liked to be called in the middle of the night. I dialed the number.
“Susanna?”
“Yes!”
I smiled. “How are you?”
“More like, how are you? Oh, sweetie, I’m so, so sorry. About your husband. He died.”
“Yes.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you. So you spoke with Lorraine.”
“Yes, and I am so glad we found you! We’ve looked for you, you know, every now and then. We all went to Barcelona, years ago, and we tried to find you to come with us then. That was when we were in our thirties, infants. My God, it was over twenty years ago! When can we get together?”
“Um . . .” I wasn’t sure, suddenly. I needed a breath, a respectful visitation to a place I’d been ignoring. It had been good—it had been a relief—to be so purposefully away from the reality of what had brought me here. But in an odd way, I missed my sorrow.