I watch at the window as Rita’s plane takes off. It heads in one direction for a while, then reverses itself as though it has just changed its mind.
21
Late Saturday morning, I am in the basement cutting out pieces of fabric for a quilt I’m making for Travis. It’s a simple nine-patch, but I’m making it with the softest flannel I could find, in muted, masculine colors. It’s going to be beautiful. The phone rings and I ignore it. Then I hear Travis calling, saying it’s for me. “Can you take a message?” I call back.
A moment. And then he comes downstairs to say, “It’s Martha Stewart.”
I stare at him blankly, the scissors in my hand.
“Did you hear me?”
“I … Yes!”
“She’s the one everybody makes fun of.”
“Shhh!”
“She can’t hear me!”
I go upstairs into the kitchen, and then it comes to me who’s really calling.
“Hi, Rita.” I say. “Very funny.”
“Pardon?” an unfamiliar voice says.
“Oh! Sorry, I thought … This is Samantha Morrow.”
“Yes, I know. I called you. This is Martha Stewart.”
“Well, I … I …”
“I had a message saying that we went to high school together, and you needed to talk to me?”
“Oh, no, I just … I was … Well, it was a bad day, you know, and I just wanted to talk to you. I don’t know why. I’m sorry. We didn’t go to high school together.”
“I’m well aware of that.”
Travis, who has been standing beside me, whispers loudly, “Is it her?”
I nod, motion for him to go away. He doesn’t.
“So what can I do for you, Samantha?”
“Oh, it’s … ‘Sam.’ ”
“All right. Sam, then.”
I look at Travis, who looks pointedly away, then turn my back to him. “Well, Martha, I just … I actually wanted to ask you some questions about …” I clear my throat. “Can you hold on for one second, please?” I turn to Travis, and in a dangerous whisper say, “Go up to your room for a while. Now.”
He frowns, runs upstairs, and I hear his door slam.
“Sorry,” I say. And then, “You know, Martha, I just want to say that it’s so nice of you to call. I’ve had this fantasy … I wanted to ask you some things about divorce. I—”
“Are you a reporter?”
“Me? Oh no, I’m nothing.”
“You’re nothing?”
“Well, I mean, I’m … I just wanted to ask you if you … kind of … fell apart after your divorce, Martha. That’s what I wanted to ask you. I thought if even you did, I could—”
“I don’t think that’s something I’d like to discuss.”
“Oh, I know. I know. I’m sorry. I’m so embarrassed.”
“Is that all you wanted?”
“Yes. Although, as long as I have you on the phone … I’m making a quilt, out of flannel? For my son? The one who answered the phone? And I was wondering about the backing, whether to use gray flannel or red.”
“How old is he?”
“Eleven.”
“Gray. Red trim. What pattern are you using?”
“A nine-patch.”
“Good. Make sure you use a little yellow right next to the gray.”
“Yes, I have some in there. A yellow plaid.”
“And on the back, put one square on the lower right-hand corner.”
“Oh, what a good idea! I will! Thank you.”
“I’ve got to be off, now.”
“Martha, before you go, I just want to tell you that I once met a man at a party, a psychiatrist, a very attractive man, who said that he wanted to marry you.”
“I see.”
“Really, he was very attractive.”
“Well, thanks for telling me.”
“Okay. Thank you!”
“Samantha?”
She said my name. “Yes?”
“I didn’t fall apart. I spent one evening with Bernstein’s Kaddish and a bottle of ’eighty-six Montrachet. And then I got busy. Try it.”
A click. I sit at the kitchen table, think who this might really have been. But it sounded like her.
Travis comes back downstairs, sits with me at the table.
“Were you eavesdropping?” I say.
“No!”
“Just a little?”
“Well, God, Mom, it was Martha Stewart! She’s practically a celebrity!”
“Don’t say ‘God,’ Travis.”
He rolls his eyes. “Well, gee, it was—”
“And she is a celebrity.”
“Not really, ’cause everybody hates her.”
“Not everyone. And anyway, we don’t really know who it was.” I head back down to the basement. Gray backing. One patch, lower right-hand side. Joke or not, something is occurring to me. You live your life, and you get to ask for things, and sometimes they are given to you.
Just before bed, the phone rings. After I say hello, I hear my mother shrieking, “Martha Stewart called you?” Travis. I wonder who else he told. David? I hope he told David.
“It was probably a joke.”
“Oh, I don’t think it was a joke. I hear she doesn’t have much of a sense of humor.”
“Ma. I don’t think it was really her.”
“Oh. Who would it be, then?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, I think it was her. And it only goes to show you.”
“Fine. Right.”
22
Thomas lifts Lydia’s veil almost exactly as I had imagined it, then kisses her with great tenderness. My eyes well up in a mix of longing and despair, my usual reaction to weddings, only worse. I reach down for my purse so that I can get some Kleenex, and notice Travis drawing on his hand. A game of ticktacktoe, apparently. I put my hand over his, shake my head no. He sighs, looks at me wide-eyed. I can nearly hear what he’s thinking: It’s so boring! Just let me draw! Why can’t I just draw! I stare back, stone-faced, until he puts the pen back in his suit pocket. For the first time, I wish he were with his father. But this is my weekend. David is away. He gave me a New York City number—for emergencies. Museums, I imagine, the two of them walking hand in hand. Dinners, plays. A nice hotel room, a view of the park.
Travis doesn’t perk up much at the reception, either, even when he dances with Marie. I finally give up, say my good-byes, and march Travis out to the car. Snow is falling lazily, fat flakes that look like cut-up pieces of lace.
For a long while, we say nothing. The wiper blades squeak and flop, squeak and flop. Finally I say, “I’m very disappointed in the way you behaved, Travis. You like Lydia. And you like Thomas. This was their wedding! That’s a very important day. They deserved more from you.”
He turns on the radio, and I turn it off.
“Jesus Christ,” he mutters.
“Oh, my God! Don’t you dare say that again! And I would appreciate the courtesy of a reply from you. I’m trying to talk to you.”
“You’re yelling at me.”
“I’m not yelling.”
“Yes, you are. On the inside, you are.”
Well. He has a point.
“Oh, Travis, I just … Didn’t you find it … moving?”
He says nothing.
“Travis?”
“What?”
“I asked you a question.”
“You’ll just get mad if I tell you what I thought.”
I stop at a light, look over at him. “Tell me.”
“I thought it was dopey, okay? I mean, aren’t they embarrassed?”
I smile. “Why should they be embarrassed?”
“Because they’re like … old!”
“And?”
“What do you mean?” he asks, exasperated.
“I mean so what if they’re old?”
“Well, you know! It just looks stupid seeing her all in a bride dress and everything.”
The ca
r behind us honks, and I move forward. Choose your battles, I’m thinking. Wait until he forgets his wife’s birthday. Then spank him.
“Anyway,” Travis says, “you shouldn’t be allowed to get married twice.”
Ah.
“You shouldn’t be allowed to get married twice?” I say.
“No.”
“Well, what if your husband dies?”
He says nothing, stares sullenly ahead.
“Lydia’s husband was dead, Travis.”
“Yeah,” he says. “But you’re not.”
I look quickly at him. “Is … Did Dad say something? About getting married again?”
“I don’t know.”
“Travis? Did he?”
“I don’t know!” He punches on the radio. “Just let me listen to this, okay? I don’t want to talk!”
“All right,” I say. “That’s fine.” I don’t want to talk anymore right now, either. Not to Travis. And oh, not to David, either. I don’t want to hear it until I have to.
23
My mother declines a refill of coffee, and asks for the check. We are out to lunch, where she has just told me she’s been asked by Jonathan’s father to apologize to me on behalf of his son. To apologize and to ask if I might perhaps be willing to give it another go.
“No,” I say. “No way.” I drain my Coke glass. “Absolutely not.”
“Maybe next Saturday night?”
“Jesus, Ma. Please. You don’t know what happened.”
“Well … what did happen?”
“I don’t want to see that vile man again, ever. Ever.”
She stares at me, and I stare back. “Maybe in a few weeks,” she says, finally, and then digs in her purse for her compact. She freshens her lipstick, adjusts the curls at the side of her face. Then, “So! Lydia’s wedding was nice, huh?”
“It was beautiful.”
“I wonder what it’s like to get married late in life.”
“Why?” I say. “Are you thinking about getting married again?” Oh, God.
“Am I thinking about it? Oh, no. No.”
“Well, why not? You were happy the first time around, right?”
“Yes, I was. Very happy. But I don’t expect that kind of thing could happen again. You know, before you girls were born, your father and I would have the most wonderful weekends. We’d just … talk. Read … Listen to the radio at night and dance. We’d never answer the phone, either. It was so peaceful.”
“And then we came along and you had to answer the phone?”
“Well, of course, honey. You know that. When children come, you have to answer the phone. And … everything. They come first. But you want them to. You want to take care of them. Right?”
“Right.” A memory comes to me of being lifted out of the car by my father. It was late at night, we’d just arrived home, and I was pretending to be asleep. I was seven, too old to be carried, really, and thus vastly appreciative of it. My father pushed the front seat out of the way to reach in for me. I remember peeking out at the outline of his hat against the night sky, his open coat being blown away from the tweed suit that always carried the smell of his pipe tobacco. “Maybe we should just wake her up,” my mother whispered worriedly, as my father struggled to get me into his arms. “Your back, darling.”
“Shhh!” he whispered. “Let her sleep.”
“Ha! She’s not asleep!” Louise said. “I’ll bet you ten million dollars she’s not asleep. Look, she’s smiling!”
“No, she’s not,” my father said, and I felt him looking down into my face which was, in fact, smiling. “She’s sound asleep,” he said, and I smiled bigger.
“I still miss Daddy sometimes,” I say.
“Do you, honey? Do you remember him well?”
“Yes. I mean, I think so. I remember, at least, how it felt, when he was there. And I knew you loved him very much, Mom.”
“Yes. I sure did. You know how I first knew?”
I shake my head.
“The first time I ironed one of his shirts. Honestly! He’d come to pick me up for a date. We were going to the movies, I remember—something starring Joan Crawford. And he’d had a little mishap, I think he’d spilled water on himself, but anyway, his shirt was all wrinkled. Well, I said I’d iron it. And of course Grandma was all upset that a man would be taking a shirt off in her house, but he was very gentlemanly, he always was, and he went in the bathroom and he handed me his shirt through the crack in the door. I liked that he would give me his shirt like that. It seemed so personal. It seemed like he trusted me. And when I ironed it, I got this …” She looks at me, smiles. “Well, I guess you’re old enough to know this, now. My God, Sam. You’re forty-two years old!”
“Yes, I know that.”
“I just can’t believe it!”
“Well, believe it, it’s true. But what happened, when you ironed his shirt?”
“Oh. Well, I got this kind of … sexy feeling, you know? I remember I started with the sleeves, and I wanted them to be perfect, so I was ironing very carefully. And all of a sudden I felt so good, way down in my stomach. Then I ironed the top part, where his shoulders went, and … oh, Lord!” She closes her eyes, smiles. “Well. Anyway, I had the feeling that there was nothing I’d rather be doing at that moment than ironing this man’s shirt. And that’s when I knew. The man I love, I was thinking. And him just sitting there in the little bathroom in his undershirt, waiting for me to finish so he could put it on. Why, it just sent me!” She laughs out loud. “I know that, to you, this must sound very foolish.”
“No, it doesn’t,” I say. There is something in it, the simple act of doing a favor for the one you love. I remember returning a library book for a boy I was crazy about in high school. I liked thinking that his hands had been on the pages, and I liked handing the book to the librarian thinking, For you. From him. Through me.
The truth is, I like any evidence of love between people. I know there are those who thrive on living alone, but how? How, when they know that the cereal box will empty only when they finish it; when they walk into a house where, rather than the mixed evidence of life lived together, there is only the quiet imprint of one? I have brown hair, I am right-handed, I can curl my tongue, and I must have someone to love.
Veronica puts on her coat, and we head for the door. “Any prospects for a roommate yet?”
“One, finally. I’m going to interview him Saturday.”
“ ‘Him’?”
“It’s all right. He’s gay.”
“Oh my Lord.” She stops walking.
“Let’s go,” I say. “We’ll talk all about how terrible it is if I decide to let him move in. But I need someone, soon.”
I get into the car, think about how this morning, I stood in Lydia’s empty room, wondering who could live here now. I need someone who isn’t a mistake, as Lavender Blue turned out to be. The girl is profoundly depressed. Lately, she ventures out of her room only to eat and to go to the bathroom. When she offered last week to start teaching Japanese to Travis, something we’d initially agreed upon to help reduce the rent, I declined. I feared for his worldview, should he spend much time with her.
Recently, she told me that in her opinion, life was nothing but one major disappointment after the other. She’d leaned forward, hands wrapped around the cup of cocoa I made for her, thinking we were finally going to have a pleasant getting-to-know-you chat, just like Anna and the king’s children. Instead, the girl sat with her spiky blond hair and vacant eyes, staring over my shoulder and talking in a near-monotone. “It’s like when I was a little girl and I wanted so much to go on a pony ride. I kept asking my parents to take me on one. I thought I’d be wearing fringe and a cowgirl hat and the horse would be so clean and pretty—a palomino—and it would be prancing and all its decorations would be jingling and I’d be so tall and straight, holding the reins and galloping away. But then when I finally went it was just some sad old brown horse in this crummy field and a man in a T-shirt with greasy hai
r was leading it around by a clothesline. And every few steps the pony would stop and blow stuff out of his nose and then the man would have to hit him to get him going again. And I saw right away that that’s how life was going to be. False promises. Just … black. I’m writing a poem about it for my English class. It’s called ‘Truth in the Ring.’ ” She sighed, blew on her cocoa, looked up at me. “You know what I mean? Like I am so on to life. There’s nothing good coming my way.” There were dark circles under her eyes, a tender pimple starting on her chin.
“Well, I know I sometimes felt that way,” I said. “I mean, when I was your age. But Lavender …” I leaned forward, smiled. “You know, I wonder if … Did you say your real name was Elaine?”
“Yeah.”
“Would you mind if I called you that?”
“Yeah, I’d mind. I hate Elaine. That’s why I changed it to something to suit me. Lavender Blue, that suits me.”
“All right,” I said. “It’s just that … Well. What I wanted to tell you, is that it gets better. Life. It does!”
“Are you happy now?”
I started to answer, then stopped.
“See? Anybody who tells the truth would have to say that they’re not. Nobody’s happy. Not really. Not for any length of time.”
“Well,” I said. “I—”
“It’s okay,” Lavender said. “I’m used to it. So! Good night!”
I go to bed early and then suddenly awaken. It’s seven minutes after eleven. I stare at the ceiling, sigh. Then I pull the phone under the covers with me and call David. He answers after three rings, his voice husky.
“I’m sorry, were you sleeping?” I ask.
“No. It’s fine. What’s up?”
This is what he says when he wants to hurry people, What’s up? He used to look at me when he said it to someone else on the phone, rolling his eyes.
“I need to ask you something,” I say. “Did you happen to say anything to Travis about getting married again?”
“About getting married again?”
Stalling. This is what he always does when he’s uncomfortable with a question, repeats it back to me.
“Yes, about getting married again.”
“No, I didn’t say anything. It was more … Well, I think maybe Vicky was just talking about the notion of people getting married, generally, and he must have thought she and I had been talking about it.”