“So easy to…”
“Go too fast.”
He bent his head and put his face next to mine. “When you make up your mind, let me know it in words.” The whisper of his breath on my ear made my skin tingle. “Write it on a big sign, Carrie. Hit me over the head with it. Because I don’t want to miss it.”
I think he kissed me then, but the quick, warm pressure on my cheek was so fleeting I couldn’t be sure. He was smiling when he pulled away. He went back to screwing wheels onto wooden bases, but only for a few more minutes, and then he went off to milk cows. Leaving me in a flutter. I couldn’t even finish my elephant.
I could call him now, I thought again. Dial his number and hear his sleepy voice. And say what? “I miss you. Don’t give up on me. I’m sorry it’s taking so long.” He deserved that. But didn’t he already know it? If not, I’d been miscalculating for weeks. Months. “Let me know it in words,” he’d said. Well, I would. I would. As soon as the time came.
Ruth had left the lamp on on my side of the king-size bed. She lay fast asleep on her back, one hand in a fist by her head, the other open on her rib cage. Under the thin blanket the slight curve of her breasts, small but definite, rose and fell, rose and fell with her silent breathing. Sometimes I hardly recognized her with her new, stranger’s body. She didn’t even smell the same. Who are you? I went around wanting to ask. If I had the power to stop it right now, stop time this minute, would I? Yes, in a heartbeat. But in a little while, I’d regret it.
Who would she finally choose, I wondered, settling in beside her gingerly, trying not to wake her—neither of us was used to a bedmate these days. Would she choose a man like her father, or a man as unlike him as she could find? Once I’d had that choice. God, God, I hoped for once the whole issue skipped a generation. If only we could go back to arranged marriages, or ban the institution entirely until people turned thirty. Forty. Thank God Ruth didn’t have a regular boyfriend yet; she still dated in crowds. The only familiar, recurring face was Raven’s, and I couldn’t work up much worry about him. Which undoubtedly meant he was the one to worry about.
I leaned over to kiss the air above her cheek. She smacked her lips and turned over, carrying most of the sheet under her arm.
If we could just build cages around them. Big Plexiglas boxes on wheels that they could move about in, really be quite comfortable inside, but never get out of. Involuntary safety. Ruth getting her driver’s license next summer was bad enough; the thought of her going away to college in two years was so awful, I couldn’t even think about it. I couldn’t—I pushed it out of my mind. I had a bit of a knife phobia, couldn’t bear thinking about blades, so of course sometimes my nerves played perverse tricks and sent images to the brain of knives, razors, etc., etc.—a minor torture. Same thing with Ruth and college: my nerves attacked me with random nightmare pictures of dormitories, libraries, caps and gowns. I shook myself and pushed them away. Horrible.
I turned out the lamp, tried to get comfortable. Couldn’t sleep in hotels. Twenty years from now, would Ruth and I go away for weekends and tell each other secrets? Would she see me as the kind of mother she could bear to confide things in? But then again, I didn’t really want her to have any problems she needed to confide. Mistakes, regrets, defeats, lost opportunities—I wanted her to miss out on them, breeze right by them through some incredible stroke of good fortune. Ruth’s life had to be perfect.
I turned over on my side, drawing my knees up and cupping my hands under my chin: my comfort position. And prepared to be terribly disappointed.
17
Party of One
PEOPLE WERE LEAVING and it wasn’t even eight o’ clock.
“Old fuddy-duddies!” I called my friends to their faces, pretending I was kidding, but I wasn’t. And it was a perfect night, mellow and almost warm, the prettiest sunset going down over the garage roof, bats starting to flicker in the purple sky. It was the first night of daylight saving time, which in my book is a cause for celebration in itself. “George,” I yelled across the patio, “make me another whiskey sour!”
I headed inside to get the portable stereo. Music, that’s what this party needed. Where the hell was Carrie? Should’ve been here two hours ago. Birdie was putting dirty glasses in the dishwasher. “Leave that,” I ordered, reaching past her to unplug the boom box on top of the refrigerator. “Quit and come outside, right this minute.”
She flapped her hands. “I just want to put these away before they get broken.”
“At this party? Not a chance.” I slung my arm around Birdie’s waist and muscled her out of the kitchen. “I want people to dance. I’ve got a new tape, all songs from the fifties.” It hit me. “My God, Bird—fifty years ago today, I was twenty years old.”
“I was seventeen,” she smirked—she never misses a chance to rub it in that she’s younger. “Oh, I don’t think anybody’s going to dance, Dana. Golly, nobody’s still here but the Hoopers and the Dodges.”
And the Dodges were leaving. “No!” I cried, sticking my arms out to bar the way across the patio. “You can’t leave yet, you can’t. Why do you have to go?” I heard the pretend-desperate note in my voice and wondered if I was getting drunk. Well, if not, it wasn’t for lack of trying.
“Sorry, I know,” Sylvia said, making a heartbroken face. She linked arms with silent, morose Harvey and leaned against him. “Tomorrow’s an early day for us. Susie and Earl are coming, bringing their kids.” She rolled her eyes, to say it was all too much, children and grandchildren, but what a good sport she was. Sylvia’s a faculty wife, like me; the only reason we were friends at all was because our husbands taught in the same department for thirty years. We saw a lot of each other at faculty do’s, we were always cordial, we got up to the exact same level of conversational intimacy—and retreated every time. Nothing in common. “Thanks so much for having us,” she said, kissing me on both cheeks, “and happy birthday.”
“Happy birthday,” old sourpuss Harvey echoed. Hard to believe, but he had even less to say for himself than George. “G’night.”
“Hell with ’em,” I muttered, flopping down in the Adirondack chair George had put my new drink on. “Make one for Birdie,” I called to him across the lawn. “Where do you s’-pose Carrie is, Bird?”
“Oh, no, I don’t need another thing, I’m—”
“And put some alcohol in it! Swear to God, that man cannot make a drink. Fifty-one years of marriage, and he’s yet to make a good one. It’s the ice-booze ratio that stumps him. What is so hard about that, would you tell me?”
“Why don’t you make your own?”
“Because it’s his job. I do everything else, he’s not getting out of that one.” I took a sip of whiskey sour. “Ek. Too much sour.” I set it down to let the ice melt a while. “Nobody drinks anymore anyway, everybody’s so goddamn old. We used to have fun at parties, didn’t we?”
“We surely did. Wild parties.”
“They were wild. Nobody went home at eight o’clock, that’s for sure. My God. ’Course, that was before all the alcoholics died or went on the wagon.”
Birdie yawned behind her hand.
I remembered the music. “I’m putting on that tape,” I decided, and got up. I’d worn a long red dress, thinking it would be more festive than slacks. I tripped on the hem as I crossed the patio on the way to the electrical plug on the screen porch, had to grab the picnic table to keep my balance. “Damn shoes,” I muttered, kicking them off. One flew up and landed on the table, and I left it there. After a little fumbling, I got the boom box plugged in and the right tape in.
Somebody had turned the volume up too high; “Come On-a My House” came out like a police siren. Birdie shrieked; George and the Hoopers turned around with irritable, alarmed faces. Where the hell was the volume knob? I found it, turned it down. Birdie took her hands off her ears.
“Dance with me,” I said, pulling her up.
“Oh, Dana, I don’t want to dance!”
“You have to,
it’s my birthday. I’m gonna give you ca-handy,” I sang, stumbling through a fox-trot step. Maybe this was a jitterbug. “When was the last time you danced? I can’t even remember. Margaret Whiteman’s girl’s wedding, I think. I mean with a man.” I spun Birdie into a turn. “You know what?”
“What?” Her cheeks flushed; she breathed with her mouth open. No stamina.
“It’s very possible this is the last time you and I will ever dance. I’m talking about for the rest of our lives. Think about that, Bird.”
“Honey, you’re just drunk.” She quit dancing, wouldn’t be moved. “Come on and sit down, I’ll make you a cup of coffee.” Her face crinkled with sympathy, and I pushed her away.
“I’m not drunk, and I’m not feeling sorry for myself. Make me a cup of coffee and I’ll pour it down your dress.”
“There, you just proved my point.” Wounded, she crossed to her chair and sat. “Pour it down my dress. Oh, sure. Somebody I know is going to have a big headache tomorrow.”
The most vulgar phrase came into my head, the kind my generation wasn’t allowed to say. Carrie’s was; Ruth’s used it so often it didn’t mean anything anymore. Shocking, how much I wanted to say it to Birdie, wipe that prissy look off her face. “Shit,” I said instead, but she’s heard that from me plenty of times; it only made her squeeze her lips together harder.
The Hoopers had to go, big day tomorrow, something about a chess tournament in Richmond and Edward was in the finals; I tuned out, didn’t hear the details. Like the Dodges, Edward was a colleague of George’s and Esther was a fake friend of mine. We saw each other at faculty parties but nowhere else, because there just wasn’t enough to hang a real friendship on. “Thanks so much for coming,” I told Esther as we hugged, thinking it was funny, ha-ha, that the Hoopers were the last to go and the Dodges were second to last, and I didn’t give a damn about any of them.
“Where are my friends?” I said after the Hoopers were out of earshot. “Are they all dead? Besides you,” I added when Birdie looked hurt. “I mean, of course, besides you.” I dropped down on the arm of her chair and squeezed her skinny far shoulder. “Don’t you think it’s funny that George’s friends stayed the longest at my birthday party? His stuffy old friends?”
“You had friends here, Roberta and Don, Kathryn, Binnie, the Strouds. They just had to go home.”
“That’s what I mean. How come my friends are worse party poopers than his?”
Birdie didn’t know. George heard, but didn’t look up from whatever he was doing to the grill, shaking out the charred briquettes or something. Doris Day began singing, “Once I had a secret love,” and I sang along. “What movie is this from? Is it that one with James Cagney? I loved that movie. She wore the most gorgeous clothes.”
“I love Doris Day,” said Birdie. “She’s saving the animals now, you know. She’s such a lovely woman.”
“She wore a fur stole in that movie. I wanted one just like it in the worst way. George was making nothing in those days, so of course it was out of the question. But oh, I wanted me a fur stole.”
“I always wanted blonde hair,” Birdie said.
“I wanted to be short and petite.”
“I wanted to wear it in a ducktail, but Chester said it would look cheap.”
I took a swallow of my drink, which was now perfect. “Too bad there’s no such thing as reincarnation. Too bad this is it. That is one damn shame.”
“Oh, I think there is reincarnation. I believe we come back again and again, until we get it right.”
“No, we don’t. That’s ridiculous. They plant us and we rot, that’s it.”
“Oh, no, I don’t think so.” Birdie folded her hands and turned her face away. Old fool. A big rush of affection flooded me, though, rinsing away the irritation. Birdie’s like an old song you’ve heard so many times it annoys you—“Harbor Lights,” say, or “Some Enchanted Evening.” But it’s still a good song, and sometimes, when somebody sings it just right, you remember why it’s a standard and you like it all over again.
“Well, you could be right,” I said magnanimously. “Nobody knows, that’s for sure, not till they’re dead anyway, so what’s the difference. You want to believe you come back as a cat, honey, be my guest.”
The back screen door snapped open. “A cat! Gram, are you coming back as a cat?”
“There you are. Finally!” I got up and held my arms out. Ruth came and hugged me. She felt so good, young and squirmy and alive, I didn’t want to let go. “Where’ve you been? This party’s over, and it was a bust to begin with. You could’ve livened it up. Mm mmm, you look good enough to eat. Where’ve you been?”
“We got tied up,” Carrie said from behind a gigantic pink azalea plant in her arms. “Where is everybody? Ruth, get this—”But she got the screen door open with her foot and scuttled through sideways before it could slam shut. “Happy birthday.” She sounded relieved, a chore off her list, as she plunked the heavy azalea down on the table.
“Oh, how pretty,” Birdie said, getting up to give Ruth a shy squeeze. “Dana, isn’t it beautiful?”
“I picked it out,” Ruth said. “Mom wanted a white one.”
“White? No, no,” I said, “pink’s much better. Why, it’s just gorgeous, and I know exactly where I’m going to put it.”
“I was thinking for nighttime,” Carrie said. “You know how white shows up at night in the garden.” She fluffed her hair off the back of her neck. She looked hot, tired, and distracted. I can always tell when her happy face is a mask, because she can’t smile naturally, her mouth just won’t soften. “Anyway, happy birthday, Mama.” Even her arms felt stiff, and her kiss on the cheek didn’t have any zip, no energy. “Sorry we missed your party. I thought people would still be here,” she said softly, and broke away. “Hey, Pop, I didn’t see you.” She hugged George, then stood back so Ruth could hug him, too. “How are you? You look mighty spiffy tonight.”
George smiled down self-consciously at his sweater and his wrinkled linen trousers. He did look unusually snazzy, but only because Carrie had found the outfit in the Eddie Bauer catalog and given it to him for his birthday. Last year—when she had money. “Thanks.” He winked at her.
“Like my dress?” I said, getting Ruth’s attention when I couldn’t get Carrie’s. “Too young for me, I know.”
“Oh, no, Gram, it’s great, it’s really nice.”
“Nah, old ladies shouldn’t wear red. Makes us look like madams.” Ruth giggled. “Sit, everybody sit. George, put that plant on the ground so we can see each other. Are you starving? Carrie, have a drink—I’m having another. There’s still plenty of food—”Birdie was already heading for the kitchen to get it. I let her; I was the party girl. “George, get Ruth a Coke or something. What do you want, honey, a Sprite, some ice tea, we’ve got lemonade all made. Carrie, you want a whiskey sour?”
No, she didn’t want anything, and she wasn’t hungry—she called out to Birdie not to bring her anything. And they couldn’t stay long because Ruth had a soccer game early tomorrow, they’d just come by to give me my present and wish me happy birthday. I couldn’t believe it! No way were they getting away like that! I kept after Carrie and kept after her, and finally she broke down and said she’d have a beer. “Well, I should think so,” I huffed. “It’s my birthday, damn it, I’m seventy years old and you can damn well have a drink to toast me.”
That made her lift her eyebrows, but she finally smiled naturally. “How many of those have you had?”
“Not enough.” I reached for Ruth’s arm and squeezed it. “You do what I say, now, not what I do, you hear?”
“Yes, Gram.”
“And I’m saying to you, never drink.”
“Yes, Gram.” She and her mother exchanged tickled glances, but I didn’t care. I’d cheered everybody up. Maybe this was going to be a party after all.
“So,” I said. “Why are you so late, what held you up? We grilled salmon, we had vegetable kabobs, Birdie made a cake. What happen
ed?” I repeated when Carrie didn’t answer, just looked uncomfortable.
“Oh, we just…couldn’t get organized, and then something came up, and I didn’t think you’d mind, you’d have so many other people here.”
Ruth was practically bouncing in her chair. “She got fired,” she said quickly, then hunched her shoulders.
“What?”
“You what? You got fired?”
Carrie sent Ruth a black stare under the hand she was massaging her forehead with. “Yeah,” she said tiredly. “Yes, I got fired.”
“Why?”
Ruth said, “Because she wouldn’t do it with Mr. Wright! Ha—Mr. Jerk Face!” Carrie rolled her head back and shut her eyes.
“Is this true? No, I can’t believe it.”
“It’s true, Mama.”
“So we went to her office and got all her stuff, that’s why we’re late. Chris came down—Mrs. Fledergast—and they had to talk and talk.”
George said disbelievingly, “Brian Wright?”
“Yes, Pop, Brian Wright.” Carrie opened her eyes and looked at him coldly.
“When they went out on their date,” Ruth piped up again, “Mom wouldn’t kiss him good night, so he waited a while so it wouldn’t look bad and then he fired her!”
“It wasn’t a date. I told you, it was not a date.”
“He did it yesterday afternoon . He said not to come in Monday, but he’ll pay her for two weeks. What a dirtbag!”
“My lord,” Birdie declared, setting a plate of food in front of Ruth. “I think you should sue him.”
“That’s what I say,” Ruth said.
“For sexual harassment,” Birdie said.
“I’m not suing anybody,” Carrie said, as if she’d been saying it a lot.
“Well, I don’t see why not. He shouldn’t be able to get away with that.”