“Marcy?” Mrs. Brill had a great-granddaughter named Marcy. She was about two; she lived in Cleveland.
“Marcy, that’s it. Can you come? I know it’s an imposition—”
“I can come.”
“Wonderful! Right away?”
“Um…”
“Well, after you get cleaned up and everything, of course. You probably want to change clothes, and that’s fine, no great rush, but soon, because they’re leaving, you know—eventually.”
Caddie had a fiendish urge to make things hard on Thea, ask her penetrating questions or suddenly remember a previous engagement. But that would be mean. Fun, though. “Okay, I’ll change and get over there as soon as I can.”
“Super! See you.”
“Wow, that was pretty lame,” she told Finney while she riffled through her closet for something to wear. “I was expecting a cleverer ruse.” They’d had over a week to plan it, or even longer for all she knew. But last week was when Nana had accidentally blurted out the news to Caddie that she was getting a surprise party. She was thirty-three years old today.
It wasn’t hard to act surprised. She walked across the mysteriously empty porch and entered the strangely silent front hall, and from around the four corners of both parlors people in party hats jumped out and yelled “Surprise!” blowing paper horns in her face. She clapped her hands to her mouth and exaggerated a shocked shriek, but not by much, and afterward, whenever someone asked if she was really surprised, she said “Absolutely!” and it almost felt like the truth.
“You sneak,” she told Thea, who was beside herself with glee. “You told me such a whopper.”
“I know! I thought it up on the spur of the moment. Caddie, were you really surprised?”
“Flabbergasted. This was your idea, wasn’t it?”
“No way,” Thea denied, but Caddie thought everything looked exactly like Thea’s handiwork, from the flowers and favors in the dining room, to the table set with paper plates and matching cloth, to the punch bowl and little sandwiches in the Blue Room, to the pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey game tacked to the wall. And crepe paper garlands strung everywhere. “Oh, happy birthday, Caddie,” she said, giving her a long, strong hug. “I hope this is the start of your best year ever. Oh, I hope it is.”
Caddie didn’t see how it could be, but Thea’s intensity woke her up. She shook off her blues and looked around for Magill. Could he still be avoiding her? Even today? That hurt her feelings. Naturally things had been strained between them, and she’d sort of been avoiding him, but how could he not come to her party? Maybe he was sick.
“Where’s Magill?” she asked Brenda, then Cornel, but they didn’t know.
They made her sit on the sofa in front of a small pile of gifts on the coffee table—most people had just given her cards, she was relieved to see—and open presents. “Who’s this from?” She read all the cards out loud. “You guys. You are too much. I haven’t had a surprise party since—gosh, I don’t even know. Oh, Mrs. Brill. Did you make these?”
“With my own two hands.”
Crocheted slippers with grosgrain ribbons around the ankles. Caddie held them up so everyone could see.
“Do you like them?” Mrs. Brill looked at her over her intimidating nose. “I hope they fit. Frances said you have size-nine feet.”
“Huge feet,” Nana corroborated. “Gigantic.”
“Oh, but they’re so thin and aristocratic,” Thea exclaimed. “Long, thin feet. Not like mine—I’m a peasant.” She stuck out her perfectly nice sandaled foot, using Cornel’s shoulder for balance. People started talking about their feet, what size they were now, what size they’d been forty years ago, foot doctors they had known, including Doré’s daughter out in Seattle.
“You’ve got good feet,” Cornel told Thea, “good solid feet. Healthy feet. I’ve always admired them.” He coughed violently, and Thea laughed, which made his ears turn red.
More cards, more sweet little gifts, a cactus plant from Maxine, a commemorative bicentennial silver-dollar plaque from Mr. Lorton. Bea and Edgie’s card was funny, a joke about old age, but Edgie’s quivery, illegible signature gave Caddie a pang.
She guessed what was coming next when Thea made everyone get up and go into the Red Room, where the piano was. “My last surprise of the day,” she announced, sitting down at the bench with a flourish. Caddie went to stand at her right, as she had so many times for their lessons. They smiled tremulously at each other.
“This is my present to Caddie, but it’s really hers to me. Apologies in advance for all the mistakes, which are entirely the fault of the student, not the teacher!” She put her fingers on the keys. “Also, apologies to everybody who’s heard me massacre this six hundred times already. Your patience has been saintly.” She took a deep breath. Caddie realized how nervous she was, and immediately her own pulse rate shot up. Thea banged the two introductory bass notes with authority and plunged into “Maple Leaf Rag.”
She only stumbled in the seventh measure, that fast, barrel-rolling, left-hand-over-right booby trap, but when it came around again she played it perfectly. Never play ragtime fast: Scott Joplin himself had said that, and Thea was an obedient student. Her pace was more stately than sprightly, but so steady, it wasn’t long before feet started tapping and heads nodded in time. Thea was right, this song made people happy. Bea had been sad and worried for so long; how wonderful to see her relax and pat out the beat on her hips with her hands. Old Mr. Lorton was practically dancing a jig on his short bowlegs.
When she finished the song, Thea laughed and clapped along with everybody else, giddy from pleasure and relief. Caddie kissed her warm cheek, exclaiming, “Beautiful, perfect, thank you, oh, wonderful—play it again!” and she did.
She saw Magill slide in—literally, bracing his back on the wall and stepping into the room sideways, crablike. He must be having a bad balance day. She waved to him over all the bobbing heads, and he sent back a wink and a rakish salute. Just what she wanted, the old Magill, quirky and teasing, not serious. Thea’s gift to her was this song, and Magill’s was his funny smile that said—she thought it said—they were friends again.
Thea grabbed Caddie’s hand and made her take bows with her to applause, like the soloist and the conductor. “Is that it?” Brenda said. “No more presents? Okay, then—who’s for some cake and ice cream?”
Caddie wasn’t surprised when, in the middle of the shuffling exodus to the dining room, Nana poked her on the shoulder and drew her over to an empty corner of the foyer. “Hold on a minute. You didn’t think I’d forget your birthday, did you?” She had a funny look in her eye. She’d dressed up for the party in her favorite sundress, even put a bow at the end of the long braid she’d wound her wiry gray hair into. But there was something going on behind the glitter in her smile. Something up her sleeve.
“No, Nan, of course not. You never forget.”
“Here.” She took Caddie’s hand and slipped something smallish into it. “Careful, it’s fragile. No wrapping paper, but that’s not my fault. I’m living like a monk here.”
Caddie gently pulled away the tissue paper from around the object. “Oh, it’s a…a…” A clay figure. Of a woman. She had an instrument in one hand, a violin, so Caddie recognized herself, but that wasn’t the only giveaway. With her other hand, the nude, smiling, flat-chested, long-haired female was holding up a great, sloping, pregnant belly.
“Like it?”
Caddie felt her cheeks getting hot. She kept staring at the figure, not looking up. “How did you know?” she finally managed.
“I’m psychic.”
“No—really.”
“A grandmother senses these things.”
“Who told you?”
“Maxine.”
She looked up. “Maxine!”
“Who heard it from Bernie, who got it from Cornel. Everybody knows, Caddie Ann. The question is, when were you going to tell me?”
“Today,” she blurted. “Today, Nan—it was goi
ng to be my birthday present to you.”
“Hey, you two,” Brenda called from the dining room, “the ice cream’s melting!”
“Well, well. That’s all I can say,” Nana said, folding her arms. “Well, well, well.”
“Are you mad?” Caddie asked. She felt like a child.
“Course I’m not mad. What do you take me for?” Her stern face gentled. She reached out and patted Caddie’s stomach with the soft cup of her palm. “Chip off the old block,” she said in a tender voice. “Whose is it, the dog man?”
Caddie nodded.
“Hmph. Well, don’t you worry, we’ll get through this.”
“I know we will.”
“Like we always have.” She linked arms with Caddie and they began to move toward the dining room. “You know I always said men stink.”
“You never said men stink.”
“Well, I should have. The point is, you’re much better off without that guy.”
“You think?”
“Oh, sure. This way’s purer. You, me, and the baby—who’s a girl, it goes without saying. Winger power. The way it’s always been, right?”
Caddie’s brave smile wavered only at the corners.
Maxine and Doré had made a three-layer chocolate birthday cake. Not together—Maxine made the cake and Doré iced and decorated it—but still. Pretty amazing. Bea’s outburst had accomplished something, even if it was subtle, a change in the atmosphere if not in the women themselves. After the singing and candle-blowing, there was a champagne toast—Caddie’s birthday qualified as a house celebration, so there could be booze—and with her own eyes she saw Doré and Maxine lean across the table and clink glasses. Wow. What a shame Bea wasn’t there to see it, but she’d left early, gone back to the rehab place to be with Edgie. She went every morning and stayed till the nurses made her go home.
They’d put Caddie at the head of the table, Magill on her right. His voice was a true, full-hearted tenor, she discovered during “Happy Birthday.” But he looked ridiculous in his cone-shaped party hat, which he wore low on his temple like a horn. “How come you never mind looking silly?” she asked.
“I look silly?” He made a stricken face.
She giggled—that quarter glass of champagne. “Most people, men especially, they, I don’t know…”
“Care about their dignity.”
“Yeah. No.”
“Hey, I’ve got dignity up the ying-yang.” With his teaspoon, he carefully cut out the fat yellow rosette of frosting on his piece of cake and dropped it on her plate. She’d have demurred, but she craved the oily sugar blob, had to have it—how had he known that? He said, “You don’t think clowns have dignity?”
“You’re not a clown.” Even with his goofy hat, even with the loopy smile he turned on her. They were the same age, but because of his thinness, his hollow cheeks and knobby wrists, the way his Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat, the way his clothes swam on him, she used to think of him as a boy. But not in a long time. He’d merged, boy and man, and now she thought she knew him. The real Magill.
“Promise me something,” he said.
“What?”
“Promise.”
The humor in his eyes reassured her. “Okay, I promise. What?”
“You’ll sing a song with me this afternoon.”
“Out loud? You mean in front of people?”
He laughed.
“Wait, I don’t—”
“Too late, you promised.” He stood up. “Time for Caddie’s big present,” he announced, and everybody quieted down. The anticipation on their faces, especially Thea’s, twisted Caddie’s nerves. “You’ll need some help,” Cornel said, and started to get up, but Magill said no, he wouldn’t, he had it right here. He walked over to the window, the floor-length drapery at the side. “Caddie, close your eyes.”
“Why?”
“Close your eyes!” everybody yelled.
“Because I didn’t wrap it,” Magill said, “that’s why.” She heard scraping, something heavy being shoved across the floor in her direction. “I got it, I got it,” Magill said when Cornel tried again to help him. What on earth? Something big and bulky, something heavy. She had no idea.
“Okay. Ready?”
“No.”
“Wait—my camera,” Thea said.
“Okay. Open your eyes.”
A machine. A big, silver machine with a million dials, buttons, and knobs. A tape player? No, too big, and it had microphones on the sides and two enormous speakers at the bottom, a place for CDs. A boom box? Then she knew.
“It’s a karaoke machine.”
“Yes!” Clapping and exclamations of delight, laughter. “Isn’t it great?” “It was Magill’s idea.” “Don’t you love it?”
“Ohhh” was the best she could do. She leaned over it and clasped her hands together, as if overcome. She was overcome. They all thought this was so funny. “How funny,” she said enthusiastically. “What a riot.”
“You hook it up to the TV and it shows the words,” Bernie was telling her, “then you sing in the microphone and drown out the real singer’s voice.”
“We tried it last night,” Thea said.
“We didn’t think you’d mind,” Maxine said. “We wanted to iron out all the kinks first.”
“But there weren’t any,” Magill said. “There’s nothing to it, you just turn it on and put in a CD.”
“You don’t have one already, do you?” Mrs. Brill asked anxiously.
“No,” Caddie said. “No, I sure don’t.”
“Plug it in, let’s play it,” Cornel said, and people started getting up. Bernie picked up one side of the machine, Cornel took the other, and they carried it out of the room.
“Oh,” Caddie said, “now? Right now? Here?” Nobody even heard, they were too busy making a beeline for the Blue Room.
“So,” Magill said, taking her arm. “How are you on ‘I Believe I Can Fly’?”
She wanted to be a good sport, heaven knew. Why wouldn’t she? How much easier to go along with what everybody wanted her to do—sing!—than draw even more attention to herself by begging to be excused. What was this? She thought something had changed, she thought for sure she’d gotten over this stupid, sickening stage fright the night she’d played and sung for Thea and Cornel and Magill, but here it all was back in a big, hot, soupy wave, no better than before. Worse.
“Caddie, come on, everybody’s doing it,” “It’s your present, you have to, if you don’t you’ll hurt our feelings,” “But you’re so good, and there’s nothing to it, come on, Caddie…”
Luckily for her, there were so many surprise hams at Wake House—Mrs. Brill! Maxine Harris!—that her reticence was passed over as temporary, cute, not antisocial, not a negative comment on the gift itself. Certainly not evidence of any humiliating personal pathology.
The worst moment came when Magill crouched on the floor in front of her—she’d taken a seat in the “audience,” as far away from the “stage” as possible, the stage being a cleared space before the television set and the hated karaoke machine—and tried to jolly her into a duet. He made it sound like such innocent, cheesy, uncool fun, it was painful to turn him down. “I got ‘It’s Only Rock ’n Roll,” so we can be Mick Jagger and Tina Turner. Come on, Caddie, let’s do it.”
She shook her head, helpless.
“No? Okay, did you ever hear Dr. John and Etta James—”
“No, honestly, I can’t do this. I know I promised, but you tricked me.”
“Sure you can. Okay, watch for a while, we’ll do one later. How about the Carpenters? I’ll be Karen.”
And it wasn’t as if whatever song she might’ve decided to “sing” with the machine, with or without Magill, would’ve been that much worse or more foolish or any sillier than anybody else’s impromptu performance. Then again, maybe not so impromptu: Brenda, Maxine, and Nana performed “Stop! In the Name of Love” with so many coordinated hand moves, they had to have practiced last night. And Berni
e wasn’t bad at all on “New York, New York,” even though he mangled the words because he couldn’t find his glasses. The best singer was Mrs. Brill—she sang “Amazing Grace” and brought down the house—and the worst was Doré Harris, who was tone-deaf. She chose “Somewhere over the Rainbow,” and she sang it cocktail lounge–style, very dramatic; she even used a scarf. But nobody laughed or snickered; they smiled, but they didn’t laugh—and if that wasn’t a good reason to just get up and join the party, Caddie didn’t know what was.
“Oh, quit asking her,” Nana finally advised all the coaxers, “she’ll never do it, not in a million years. She’s a scaredy-cat.”
No, the worst was when Magill tried one last time. He knelt in front of her again, and this time he even took her hands. His persuasive grin was nothing but hopeful and sweet, and she thought vaguely, Good, you still don’t know about me. What a flop I am. “What’s the problem here?” he asked, giving her hands a gentle shake. “You’re not really scared. You sang for Thea and Cornel and me, before, and you were…” He looked past her, as if he were picturing that night. “Incredible. You blew my head off, Caddie. So what’s the trouble?”
He made her blush. “I don’t know. It’s me, I’m just like this. I thought I was better, but—turns out I’m not. It’s a wonderful present, really, you were so nice to think of it. I hope it didn’t cost too much.”
He looked up at her through his black lashes, his eyes all tolerant and accepting. “It’s safe here, you know. Nothing to be afraid of. Act out a little,” he said softly. “It’s not going to turn you into your mother.”
“Oh.” She pulled her hands away and folded her arms across her chest. “Hey. It’s not really that big a deal, is it? I’m not doing that.” She gestured toward her grandmother, who was trying to sing “Mack the Knife.” “That’s all, I’m not doing it.”