Susan came in an hour later. Annie had just finished reading the last section assigned and was going over her notes. “Mom and Dad send their love,” Susan said, flinging her purse onto the sofa. “Any calls?”
“Sam.”
Susan pushed the button and stood listening to her brother’s voice. “Awesome!” She grinned. “Let’s give him a heart attack and ask him to take us to the Carnelian Room!”
“You ask him. I won’t be here.”
Susan frowned. “You’re going to see your mother?”
“I’m scheduled to work Thursday and Friday this week, so I asked my grandmother if I could spend Saturday with her. I’d like to spend the night, too, but I don’t want to put her out. Would you mind if I borrowed your sleeping bag?”
“It’s yours.”
“Thanks, Suzie.”
Now if she could just get Grandma Leota to let her work in the garden.
“You’re really getting into this volunteer business, aren’t you?” Ruth said, a mocking smile on her face as she continued her stretching exercises on the floor. She was wearing black sweatpants and a white tank top. “Wednesday and now Saturday, too.”
“We didn’t have anything planned, did we?”
“Not that I’ve heard about.” Not missing a beat of the music, she touched her forehead to her right knee and then walked her hands across in front of her, took hold of her left heel and touched her forehead to her left knee. “I’ll probably be studying all day.”
Corban watched, annoyed. She had the exercise video on the television, the volume turned up. He’d seen her go through this often enough to know she had another forty-five minutes to go before completing the routine. “Feel the burn,” the too-perky exercise leader droned on. “Hold it. That’s it. One. Two. Three. Four. . . .”
It was hard for him to concentrate when Ruth did her workout in the living room. The music wasn’t bad the first dozen times, but after that, it began to wear on his nerves. He wanted to put his foot through the television screen and send the image of the exercise instructor into oblivion. “I thought we agreed you’d do this in the morning,” he said evenly.
“I know, but I wasn’t in the mood today. I thought about skipping it altogether and decided I’d better not. Skip one day and pretty soon I’d skip another.”
The way he was supposed to skip studying for the next hour? “I have two hours to study before I have to leave, and I can’t concentrate with that music going.”
“It won’t kill you to wait half an hour!”
Her tone lit his fuse. He punched the Power button, shutting the video off. “And it wouldn’t kill you to hold to the schedule we agreed on.”
Her face was flushed, whether from the workout or temper, he didn’t know. Nor at that moment did he particularly care. Her dark eyes were hot. He met her glare, waiting. He was beginning to think he’d made a terrible mistake when he asked her to move in with him.
A frown flickered across her face as she looked into his eyes. She glanced away, then straightened into a sitting position and stood in one smooth movement. “I’m sorry. You’re right.” She pushed another button and took the video out. She slipped it into its case and snapped it shut. “I’ll go out for a run instead.” She dropped the box lightly on the coffee table, rather than onto the shelf where it belonged, and went into the bedroom.
Corban sat on the couch and flipped his philosophy book open. His teeth were clenched so tight his jaw was beginning to ache. He didn’t want to think about what might be going on in Ruth’s head right then. But he figured he knew anyway. She always knew when to capitulate—right at the last moment.
She came out of the bedroom wearing red satin running shorts and a white sports bra. She slipped a white band around her head, adjusting her short hair while looking at him. He recognized the expression she wore. She knew she looked good, so good she thought she could take his breath away anytime she wanted. It had been true the first couple of months of their cohabitation. His eyes flickered over her from head to running-shoe-clad feet, but it wasn’t desire that flared this time.
“Maybe we could do something together when I get back from my run.” She gave him her cat smile. “I shouldn’t be too long.”
“Take your time,” he said, returning his gaze to the book in his lap.
She stood a moment longer. He could feel her staring at him but didn’t give her the satisfaction of looking at her again. Her ploy had worked before, but not this time. He wasn’t a puppet she could work by pulling a few strings. He cared about her. More deeply than he wanted to admit. He also knew if he looked at her again, he was going to say what was running through his mind, and he’d regret it later. Sometimes, though, he wondered if she cared for him at all.
She went to the door. Opening it, she turned back to face him again. “You know, Cory, sometimes I wonder why you invited me to live with you. I thought you loved me. Isn’t that silly? You make me feel used.”
He looked up from his book. “In that case, I’d say our relationship is strictly symbiotic.”
She slammed the door on her way out.
Nora pulled up in front of her mother’s house. Heart drumming, she sat still for a few seconds, trying to calm her nerves. She needed a cigarette. She needed a glass of wine. She closed her eyes and drew in a slow breath, holding it and expelling it slowly. Her yoga instructor had once told her that would calm her. So had her psychologist.
Still trembling, Nora got out of the car, pressed the remote to lock the door, and headed for the house. She hated coming back to this neighborhood, feeling so torn with memories each time she did. Tucking her red, leather clutch under her arm, she punched the doorbell. How long had it been since she last saw her mother? A twinge of guilt stirred, but she quickly smothered it with resentment.
Why should she feel guilty? So what if she had turned down several invitations her mother had extended over the past years? Had her mother been there for her when she was growing up? No. Her mother had moved her and George in with Grandma and Grandpa Reinhardt, then danced off to live her own life. Had her mother been with her the first day she went to school? No. Grandma Helene held her hand and walked her to school. In fact, it had been Grandma Helene who had walked her to school every day until she was in second grade and sent off by herself.
Had her mother gone on any of the school outings? No. Grandma Helene had gone. Once. Nora felt a twinge remembering how embarrassed she had been when other students commented on her grandmother’s thick German accent.
Had her mother been the one to make her a dress for her high school prom? Of course not. She’d made it herself!
What good had all her mother’s work ever done anyone other than herself? There had never been money for any extras. While other girls had shiny Mary Jane shoes with chic straps, she had worn oxfords. When other girls took piano and dancing lessons, she had to take clarinet because the school taught it for free. When other girls went on family outings and vacations, her family stayed home.
She remembered Grandma and Grandpa bickering, always in German so she couldn’t understand what they were saying. She remembered her father drinking and sitting for hours in his chair—silent, morose, alone—while fear roamed rampant within her.
And where was her mother through all those years?
Living her own life just as she pleased. Working!
She deserves to be left alone. Then she’ll know what it feels like to be deserted.
Nora was swimming in the high tide of her emotions when her mother finally opened the door. “What took you so long, Mother?” Had she looked through the window and seen who it was—and hoped she’d go away?
“I was in the kitchen. I don’t move as quickly as I used to.” She lifted the chain and stepped back.
Nora entered and stood in the living room, looking around. The smell of the house made memories come flooding back. Few were good. “Nothing’s changed, has it?”
“Why would it?” Her mother closed the door qui
etly. She left the chain off. “Would you like some tea or coffee?”
“No, thank you.” Tea would have been nice, but Nora didn’t want to accept anything from her mother. Not now. Her mother could offer her the moon, and she wouldn’t take it. It was too late. “I won’t be staying very long, Mother. I just felt there was a need to clarify some things regarding Anne.”
Her mother eased herself into her recliner and folded her hands in her lap. She seemed to be in pain, and she had aged a great deal since the last time Nora had seen her.
I’m not going to feel sorry for her. Not after the way she ignored me most of my life!
Sitting on the edge of the sofa, Nora put her clutch beside her and held her knees. “Anne is at a very impressionable age. She needs guidance. Up to a few weeks ago, she’d always been the model daughter. Now, she’s taken it in her head to throw away college, live with a hippie friend in San Francisco, and become an artist, of all things. But maybe you know all this since she’s been here visiting with you.”
Her mother’s eyes narrowed slightly, but she said nothing one way or the other. Nora had expected as much. No cooperation. “She’s a gifted student, Mother. She graduated with top grades, had very high scores on the SAT. She had immaculate references and recommendations. She was offered a wonderful scholarship to a prestigious college in the East. Then one day she just snapped and said she didn’t want to go. She got in her car and drove off without thinking things through.” Nora smoothed her skirt and rested her hands on her knees again.
“Now I’ve fixed things temporarily so that she can still go. I’ve spoken with the dean of admissions and told him Anne has taken ill and couldn’t come. They’ve agreed to hold her scholarship until next semester.”
“You lied to them?”
Nora’s face went hot. Anger surged, making her feel on fire. Leave it to her mother to see the negative side of anything! “Do the right thing,” she had always said. Do the right thing! Had she? “She is sick, Mother! She must be sick in the head to throw this opportunity away!”
“Because it’s what you want?”
“Yes,” she said through her teeth, rising. “Yes, it’s what I want for her. It’s what anyone with half an ounce of sense would want. She’s groomed herself for years for this chance, and suddenly she runs. Well, I’m not going to let her be such a little coward. I’m not going to allow her to throw it all away.”
“What if it’s not what she wants?”
“It is what she wants. It’s what she’s always wanted. We’ve been talking about colleges from the time she entered kindergarten.”
Her mother sighed softly, looking weary and old. “Maybe if you would just hold off for a time and allow her to find her own way—”
“You mean the way you did. Back away completely.” Nora should have expected as much. “I should be like you?” She saw the flicker of hurt in her mother’s eyes at her sarcasm, but anger took hold of her. “Is that it, Mother? Have nothing to do with making some kind of future for my children?” She saw the sheen of tears in her mother’s eyes and felt ashamed. In the wake of her shame came another wave of anger. How dare her mother try to make her feel guilty? “I should’ve known you wouldn’t help me or even try to understand. You never did.”
“I understand. Only too well.” She sounded so sad, so worn down and hopeless.
Nora’s eyes also filled with tears. She fought them, not even sure why they had come welling up, making her want to cry out. Part of her wanted desperately to reach out to her mother, to say she was sorry, to cling to her. Another part wanted to lacerate her for all the times Nora had desperately needed her and she hadn’t been there. “I want what’s best for my daughter!”
“I know you do, dear. But your best may not be God’s best.”
Nora stiffened at the gentle words, for they were a firm rebuke. “What would you know of God’s best for my daughter? When was the last time you went to church, Mother? Ten years ago? I go every Sunday. Anne-Lynn should honor my plans for her. Instead she’s decided to be stubborn and rebellious. And you’re helping her!”
Her mother closed her eyes as though she couldn’t bear to look at her.
“I should’ve known better than to come and talk to you,” Nora said, voice cracking. “You were never there for me before. I was foolish to hope you’d be here for me now.” She snatched her clutch bag from the sofa and headed for the door.
“I’ve always been there for you,” her mother said in a choked voice. “Every day of my life, only you never understood. You never even tried.”
Nora turned on her furiously. “When were you ever there for me? Name once!”
Her mother didn’t respond to her attack. Instead, she spoke in a quiet tone. “You’ve always said I destroyed your dreams. Why would you enlist me to do the same to your own daughter?”
Trembling, Nora stared at her. She drew in a shaky breath. “You always twist everything I say just so you can make me feel guilty.”
“I can’t make you feel anything.”
“Oh, yes, you can.” The resentment and bitterness filled her to overflowing. “I want you to know the only reason Anne-Lynn spends any time with you at all is because she knows it hurts me. She’s using you to get back at me. You just don’t understand.”
“I understand you perfectly, Eleanor.”
Trembling violently, Nora yanked the front door open. “That’s how much you care, Mother. You still persist in calling me that name when you know I hate it!”
“You’ve always been Eleanor to me, and you always will be.”
“There’s no talking to you! You always have to have your way in everything. Well, enjoy your solitude!” She hurled the door shut. Her heels clicked on the steps. Two black children had drawn a colored-chalk hopscotch on the sidewalk. No child would be allowed to make a mess like that in Blackhawk. They paused in their play to look at her. Averting her eyes, Nora got into her car and started the engine. Pulling away from the curb, she drove quickly down the street, turned right, and headed for the freeway on-ramp.
She wept all the way home.
Despite Ruth’s apology after her run, Corban remained depressed. He always felt an emotional backlash when he let his emotions get the better of him. For the first time since she’d moved in with him, he refused to take back what he had said. She noticed, of course, but said nothing.
It seemed to him that she made more effort over the next two days. She did her share of household chores and kept her bargain about maintaining quiet during his study hours.
Yet, he knew he was living in the eye of a tornado.
Her attitude would change when she met with her friends again. It always did. The storm clouds were building overhead, and he and Ruth would end up in the twister before she settled down again. If she did.
Having overheard some of the conversations as well as what Ruth had told him, Corban had gleaned that most of these young women with whom she hung out were from broken families, as was she. Two girls had been sexually abused by male relatives. He could understand how they might hate the men who had abused them, but did that group all males in the brutal category? Or give them due cause for becoming lesbians? Three of the ten who met had “come out of the closet.” Two of those were “comfortable” with their alternative lifestyles, their families having come to terms with them; the third was an emotional mess, swinging from frothing hostility to despair.
“Someday she’ll kill herself,” Ruth had said flatly after one particularly distressing evening in which the girl had monopolized the meeting in venting her anger. “And it’ll be her parents’ fault for not allowing her to be herself. They should be forced to see it’s perfectly natural for some people to be homosexual. She was born that way.”
“Hogwash! She’s the one who isn’t accepting things.”
Ruth’s eyes had flashed. “She’s happy as what she is.”
“Happy? You call that happy?”
“Well, if you had people calling you terribl
e names, maybe you wouldn’t be happy either!”
“The only names I heard this evening were the ones coming out of her mouth.”
“You’re so close-minded, Cory. It’s pathetic. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were homophobic.”
“I’m close-minded? Well, maybe they ought to meet somewhere else since it’s my apartment they’re coming to in order to vent their spleens against all males.”
They had digressed from there. It had been one of their worst arguments ever. After they finally shouted themselves out and spent the night sleeping apart, they had agreed to let the subject drop. For two weeks, Ruth had gone elsewhere to meet with her friends. And then they were back again, his digs apparently being more comfortable than wherever else they’d been.
They made him nervous, these women who sat around talking about intolerant men and patriarchal society and equal rights for women. Equal to them meant women should get the first chance at the best jobs. Another case of affirmative action gone awry. More militants who wanted to use discrimination to end discrimination.
“We’re just going to meet for an hour or two on Saturday morning,” Ruth said, serving him the dinner she had prepared, Prego poured over boiled noodles with some parmesan sprinkled on top.
“Any Tabasco?”
She set the bottle down in front of him. “There’s going to be a march in San Francisco in a couple of weeks, and we want to prepare for it.”
“What’s it about this time?”
“Funding for AIDS research. We thought we’d make a banner.”
Sloshing Tabasco over his spaghetti, Corban decided to be elsewhere on Saturday.
The bell rang on Friday afternoon shortly after Annie finished getting ready for work. She pressed the intercom. “Who is it?”
“Sam.”
“Come on up.” She pushed another button, releasing the lock on the front door of the building. “Suz. Your brother’s here.”