“I’m surprised that you remember.”
George chuckled. “I’m old, but not that old! In fact, it seems that everything else is going before my memory!” He looked down at his right leg, now stretched out. He bent it gingerly as if practicing an exercise his therapist had recommended.
“How’s the leg?” Elise asked.
George shrugged. “Okay. It will never be what it was, but then . . . nothing ever is! I should be off this cane in another month if I keep going with the physical therapy routines.” He shook his head slowly. “They’re boring, but they work. I guess.”
Elise was surprised to catch a tone of sadness in George’s voice. It seemed out of character. She fidgeted a bit, working up the courage to change the subject, but was interrupted by the server bringing their coffees. Glancing around the café, she noticed at least three women—over the age of eighty—to every man.
“So what is the female-to-male ratio here, George?” Elise asked.
He chuckled. “Twenty to one among the eighties,” he teased. “Much higher than that among the nineties!”
“So you have your pick of the ladies, then,” Elise said.
George looked stunned for a moment, then smiled slightly and stretched out his leg again. “No. I’m done with that.”
“Come on, George,” Elise said, hoping the conversation would continue in a lighthearted way until she worked up more courage to say what was really on her mind.
“Lisee,” he said, using Marie’s nickname for her, “your mother was the last love of my life.”
She stared at George for a few moments. The words she’d rehearsed over and over, to tell him of her regrets and her apologies, stuck in her throat like pebbles, then disintegrated.
“I know. It sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? An old fart like me talking about the love of his life.” He massaged the kneecap on his outstretched leg. “But it’s true. Oh, don’t misunderstand me—Ilena and I were married for over fifty-five years, she was my childhood sweetheart. But after I’d thought the lights were out for me, forever, here came Marie, with her infectious laughter, her sense of adventure and courage, and her warm heart.” George’s smile grew into a grin. “And I fell for her like a sixteen-year-old boy. That’s how she made me feel. Young, important, and full of life. I’ll be grateful to her forever.” George sighed and closed his eyes, leaning back against the seat cushion as if he was tired.
It came to Elise just then as she observed him, something she had to remind herself of: George Bridges was old, really old. He was much thinner now, his hair white and fine and lying thinly against his head. His large hands, heavily veined, with long fingers, lying limply in his lap. When her mother was alive and dating him, George was an older man, but not an old man.
My mom was his fountain of youth.
George opened his eyes as if he had heard her thoughts.
Elise smiled at him and took a deep breath. “George . . . my timing is bad, I know. I’m late. But I want to apologize to you. For . . . behaving so badly when you and Mom were . . . seeing each other. For acting like a spoiled brat.” Elise paused and thought about how embarrassing she’d been. She was mortified. “For ruining the lovely times you and Mom had together. I am . . . so sorry, sorrier than I can say.” There—I’ve said it. She pressed her lips together as if to prevent any more words coming out.
George didn’t say anything at first, then leaned over and took her hand. “Lisee, it’s okay. Apology accepted, bratty behavior forgotten. You didn’t ruin anything. Marie and I had a ball. And we . . . I enjoyed every second we were together. And so did she.” He winked at her. “Bratty daughter notwithstanding.”
Elise felt the tears coming and blinked. “Thank you. I just . . . wish that I could’ve said this to Mom.” She caught a sob before it could erupt. “I wish that I’d been able to tell her how sorry I was and how much I loved her.”
George’s grasp tightened on her hand. “Oh, she knew that. She adored you. I hope you aren’t beating yourself up or anything.” He paused for a moment, then looked at her as if determined to pull her gaze away from the floor and into his eyes. “Elise, your mother took everything in stride. She was the most practical, live-in-the-moment person I ever knew. And she was so grateful to you—you have no idea.”
A jolt of electricity ran up Elise’s spine. “W-what? Grateful to me? How? Why?”
George grinned. “Because you looked after her when your father died. You didn’t allow her to sit at home and feel sorry for herself. You pulled her back into the world, took her places, encouraged her to socialize and stay active. She said that you saved her life.”
George chuckled as he released his hold of her hand. She realized then that her mouth had been wide open.
“Saved . . . her life.”
He nodded. “Yes. You did for her what my . . . what my kids couldn’t do for me because they were afraid of interfering. You pulled your mother back into the world. And she returned the favor by pulling me back into the world after Ilena died. If Marie hadn’t been there for me, I would be six feet under today.” George’s blue eyes bored into Elise. “And if you hadn’t been there for her, well, let’s say that it’s a good thing you were. You are a blessing, Elise Armstrong. Thank you.”
She was so stunned that she couldn’t think of anything to say. The sound of tapping broke into her mental marathon, George’s spoon against his coffee mug.
“Drink your latte. Better yet, let me order you another. That one’s probably cold. And let’s talk about something different and more interesting.” George waved to the server, who was on the other side of the café. “I’m an old guy; I can’t sit around here reliving the good old days for too long. I have things to do.” He handed her a napkin, which she took from him and dabbed at her eyes. “Can’t waste time babysitting a little brat, you know. Time marches on!” He winked at her.
Elise blew her nose into the napkin and winked back.
Part 4
Chapter 32
Dee Dee
“Mooommm!”
“Frances, I’m done with this. Not going to talk about it any—”
“You don’t get it! You never get it!”
“Finished, Frances! Subject closed!”
Lorenzo appeared in the doorway to the front entryway. “Whoa, whoa!” His eyes were wide, his expression distorted with disbelief. “I can hear y’all over ESPN. Now, that’s sayin’ somethin’! What’s this all about?”
Wrong question. The three empresses in his family proceeded to answer the question: at the same time, at the same ear-splitting volume, using similar hand gestures, although Lorenzo wasn’t about to point that out. He exhaled, then signaled a time-out. As expected, royalty ignored him. As did the dog, Dallas, who barked and danced around, enjoying the excitement.
The hall echoed with shrieks. The trio of loud voices—Phoebe’s plaintive soprano, Frances’s evocative mezzo, and Dee Dee’s authoritative alto—were not in the same key, but they were singing the same melody, each stanza with different lyrics: of maternal anger, teenage angst, and overall frustration. Lorenzo looked bewildered and put his hands over his ears as he retreated again to the great room.
“Girls, enough.” This from Dee Dee, who felt as if she were about to do a neutron dance on Frances’s head.
“Mom, you’re not present,” Frances barked out, throwing a garment bag on the floor, then sprinting toward the stairs. “Not. Here.”
The click-click-click of her footsteps across the tile of the front hall was followed by the thump-thump up the stairs, so heavy that it might have been a giant coming home to relax after a long day. Fee, fie, fo, fum . . . Jesus Christ!
The cat, Pauly, wasn’t taking chances and trotted down the back hall toward his favorite hiding place in the mudroom. Dallas stood riveted in the doorway of the kitchen, looking clueless as usual. Was it treat time? Or doggie park time?
And in the background, as if struggling to be heard, ESPN continued to blare. March madness ma
y be over for the year, Dee Dee thought, but it was still battling on in her house.
“You never let me wear what I want to wear!” Frances yelled from the top of the stairs. “Everyone’s going strapless this year, everyone!”
“France, strapless is one thing, darned near topless is another!”
“Mooommm! You exaggerate!”
“I don’t! The lilac—”
“Yes! You! Do!”
“Frances. The dress is too short. You’ll need a Brazilian bikini wax to wear it. Which you are not getting, by the way!”
“It was short!” A small voice from the peanut gallery—Phoebe trying to be the mediator.
“Shut up, Phoebe!” Frances hissed.
“Make me!”
“If you don’t shut your—”
“Frances,” Dee Dee growled.
“I’ll look like a kid!” Frances’s plea had morphed into a whine.
“You are a kid” was Dee Dee’s retort.
“Jesus Christ!”
“Frances! Cut it out, and stop the whining!”
“I’m not whining! I’m telling the truth. I will look like a kid! I won’t wear that stupid dress! And I’m not going to the damn prom!”
“France! You are not . . . You don’t talk to me like that . . . Frances! Come back here!”
Frances glared down at her mother. “God! Why did you name me that? It’s an awful name! Old-timey.”
Moments later, somewhere in the back of the house on the second floor, a door closed. Hard.
Then silence.
Lorenzo stuck his head around the doorway. No bullets or arrows whizzed by. Hostilities had ceased for the moment. Dee Dee stood near the bottom of the staircase, feeling as if she were the personification of pestilence, a plague of locusts, and the four horsemen rolled into one.
“Is it safe to come out?” Lorenzo asked, glancing up toward the second floor. “Or is she reloading?” His expression indicated real concern.
Phoebe sighed loudly. She trudged up the stairs, dragging her sister’s shopping bags behind her. “Mom’s just being a Neanderthal,” she said.
Dee Dee’s mouth opened, and she took a step toward the stairs but stopped when Lorenzo put his hand on her arm.
“Temporary cease-fire,” he said solemnly.
She inhaled loudly. “Traitor.”
“No, no, just count to ten.”
She looked at him over her shoulder. “Ten won’t cut it,” she growled, glaring at her younger daughter’s back as she reached the top of the stairs and disappeared into the upstairs hall.
“Okay. Count to a hundred. And while you’re doing that, I’ll get you a drink. What do you want? Wine, scotch, hemlock?”
Dee Dee chuckled in spite of herself. “The hemlock sounds inviting, but no. A cup of hot tea actually. My throat’s a little scratchy. Can’t imagine why.” All of a sudden she felt the energy drain out of her body. She was exhausted. I am too old for this. “Lorenzo?”
“Yeah?”
“Is it me? I mean, am I being medieval about this? She wants to wear a dress that even Kim Kardashian wouldn’t wear in public!”
Lorenzo’s eyebrows rose.
Dee Dee grinned. “Okay. A dress that Kim probably would wear, and that’s the problem. Frances tells me that’s what everyone’s wearing this year and I’m out of touch! And old!”
Lorenzo took her purse and packages and set them on the steps and guided her toward the kitchen. Dee Dee picked up the discarded garment bag.
“Well, you are old, but I wouldn’t say that you’re medieval. And I don’t care if you’re out of touch—she is not wearing a dress that has no sleeves and barely any hem.”
“Lo, I’m telling you. That dress comes up to here”—Dee Dee’s hand brushed the upper reaches of her thigh—“and the neckline is . . .” She glanced down. “Actually, there is no neckline. I can’t believe anyone would let their daughter go out like that. At fifteen?”
Lorenzo shook his head and grabbed the kettle. “Now, you’ve seen those emails. The ones Jan sends out.”
Dee Dee laughed. “You mean the ones of the ghetto proms?”
“Uh-huh. And you’ve seen those dresses.”
“But, Lorenzo, this isn’t that kind of party!”
“I know, I know, babe. But these are the clothes the girls see on TV and in the movies.”
“Well, France can dream about ’em, but she is not wearing anything like that.”
“So did you get her a dress?”
“Oh yeah! But she hates it. And it’s lovely.”
Lorenzo chuckled. “Ha! So you say. According to the girls, you have no . . . fashion sense. Let’s see it.”
Dee Dee picked up the garment bag and unzipped it. A soft lavender-colored confection emerged with sequins sprinkled across the front, gleaming like tiny stars as they reflected the light. The dress had spaghetti straps. Lorenzo smiled with approval.
“Lavender, huh? Her favorite color. I like it, but . . .” Lorenzo’s expression changed from admiration to mild dismay. Gingerly, he touched a delicate-looking shoulder strap. “Wow. I’ve been in denial. My little girl is all grown up.” He managed to look both proud and disturbed at the same time. “She’ll be pretty in this.”
“That’s what I told her! But nooo . . . She wants to wear something that makes her look like a refugee from slut city! Honestly . . .”
The kettle whistled a welcome distraction. Lorenzo clicked off the burner and retrieved Dee Dee’s favorite mug, the one that said SHE WHO MUST BE OBEYED.
“It’s puberty. Teenagers.”
Dee Dee rolled her eyes. “Yeah. Teenagers. And once I survive Frances, then comes Phoebe. I don’t know, Lorenzo. That girl has worn out every nerve I ever had. I keep telling her, one of us is going to survive her teenage years, but it might not be her.”
“Uh-oh. You threatened to bury her under the tomato plants again?”
Dee Dee shook her head. “Nope. The collard greens. Tomato plants don’t provide enough ground cover.”
“She’ll be fine. It’ll pass. Frances is like a summer thunderstorm. A lot of noise and lightning and then it moves on. It’s that artistic temperament,” Lorenzo said, a grin brightening his face. “Expression is her thing, and she never half-asses it! Painting, music, dance. She’s always been a bundle of emotions, even when she was a baby. Remember, you said she was so much like—” He caught himself before he said it. His smile faded. “Sorry. I meant it in a good way.”
“I know you did.” Dee Dee dunked the tea bag a few times into the steaming water. “It’s all right. Don’t worry about it. Actually, Deb’s said it too. That France is so much like our mother, it’s scary.” Bad choice of word.
“I’ll run up and check on the girls,” Lorenzo said quickly and kissed her on the cheek. Dee Dee knew that he was glad to change the subject. “You need anything else? Slow poison maybe?”
“I’m good.”
And she was good, or at least she had been. Shopping with the girls always wore her out, and arguing with Frances was a pain, but unfortunately she was used to it. By the time Phoebe graduated from high school, she’d be an expert. And, yes, she and Lo often talked about how much Frances resembled her grandmother. Lorenzo had met Laura only a few times—she had been in the hospital more than out of it—but he’d seen the photos and listened to the stories about her from Dee Dee’s father, Dee Dee’s aunts and uncles, from Deb and others who had known her. They’d often mentioned the resemblance between Laura and Frances. But it wasn’t the physical resemblance now that grabbed at Dee Dee’s heart; it was the psychological one.
Frances was an artist, a bright, intelligent girl who painted, sculpted, and sang soprano in the school choir. She vacillated between wanting to be Kathleen Battle when she grew up or Elizabeth Catlett. She played the piano and the cello and wrote poetry of the atmospherically maudlin kind. This year, to her parents’ dismay, she was obsessed with Edgar Allan Poe. Frances was spontaneous, volatile, and passionat
e—about everything, from the water temperature of her shower to environmental issues to her choice of prom dress. Her temper tantrums appeared out of nowhere and were always noisy, full of tears and yelling—had been since she was a toddler—but they never lasted long. Ninety percent of the time, Frances was a gregarious person who got along well with her parents, sister, friends, and teachers. She was happiest when she was playing the piano or curled up on her bed scribbling in her diary or on a sketch pad.
“She’s just high-spirited,” Lorenzo’s aunt would say indulgently, using a term straight out of the Victorian era. She adored the girls, having no grandchildren of her own.
Dee Dee blew on her tea, watching the steam rise, then disappear. She didn’t used to worry so much about Frances. If she was honest with herself, Frances probably had no more tantrums than most girls her age. Her outbursts were triggered by all of the usual culprits that plagued every mother of a teenager. And while Frances looked very like Laura physically, Dee Dee consoled herself (the tea helped) by acknowledging that most of the similarities ended there. Frances’s loudest meltdowns were nothing compared to the dark lows and speed-of-light highs that had propelled Laura O’Neill into dangerous situations time after time and eventually into a series of mental health facilities. But there was . . . something. Dee Dee could not put her finger on it. Something about Frances fit like a puzzle piece with Laura, and the similarity sent a jolt of dread down Dee Dee’s spine.
Laura had been an artist who had used pastels and ink like a master, who had sung jazz with a little trio that Dee Dee’s father had played bass in. She had protested against the Vietnam War, studied abroad and smoked Gauloise cigarettes, and graduated cum laude from Ohio University. She had spoken fluent French and Spanish, and had studied Italian and taught a few words of it to her daughters when they were young. Laura had been volatile and engaging. Mercurial in temperament but committed and hardworking. And ill. Seriously ill. Her granddaughter and namesake—Frances’s middle name was Laura, and Laura’s middle name was Frances—was also engaging and mercurial. How much was Frances like her grandmother? Bipolar disorder had a genetic component. Dee Dee’s stomach muscles tightened. There was so much she didn’t know about her mother—Laura had spent years of her life in a hospital—and there was no one to ask: Laura had been an only child, and Dee Dee’s grandparents had been dead for years. When had Laura begun to . . . get sick? When had the hysterics begun? The dark moods, the voices? Dee Dee was only six years old the first time . . . but even so, she remembered her mother talking to someone who wasn’t there, asking her and Debora if they could hear the sounds that she did. The growls that sent her scrambling into the nearest closet, where she would curl up into a ball in the corner, trembling. And when the darkness really descended, she went to bed for days on end or locked herself in the bathroom and hid in the tub. When had Laura O’Neill’s nightmare begun? When she was a child? A teenager? Or later? Deb had started having problems at twenty. Would that happen to Frances too?
The Secret Women Page 16
