Neither Present Time

by Caren J. Werlinger

  “Then talk to me,” Berly said coolly.

  “No,” Claire said. “I’d like to talk to you in person.”

  “You’ve sure got a funny way of asking.”

  Claire cleared her throat. “I know. I just… it caught me by surprise to go to Georgetown and find you don’t even work there anymore.”

  Closing her eyes, Beryl repeated herself, saying, “It’s really none of your business where I work anymore.”

  “I know,” Claire acknowledged. “But… are you going to be back in D.C. anytime soon? Thanksgiving, maybe?”

  With a shock, Beryl glanced at the calendar and realized Thanksgiving was only two and half weeks away. She hadn’t even considered where she’d be spending it.

  “Could we… could we get together, if you do? Please?” Claire asked.

  Slumping back against her chair, Beryl said, “I’ll call you.”

  Claire was quiet for a few seconds and Beryl knew she wasn’t happy with that response, but she said, “Okay. Good. Good. I’ll wait to hear from you, then.”

  Beryl hung up. Biting her lip, she dialed Ridley’s cell phone.

  “I tried to warn you,” he said as he answered.

  “Got that.”

  “Was it bad?”

  “Let’s just say, it’s a good thing it wasn’t on speaker,” Beryl said wryly.

  “Shit,” he muttered. “I’m sorry. I know she thinks I enjoyed that…”

  Beryl couldn’t help chuckling. “Are you telling me you didn’t?”

  “I didn’t say that,” he answered and she laughed.

  She shook her head, saying, “I just didn’t even think about her when I was letting people know.”

  “You do know that’s a good thing,” he said.

  “Yeah,” she realized. “I suppose it is.” Changing the subject, she said, “And what’s up with you and Cory staying in touch?”

  It was Ridley’s turn to laugh. “She’s great. And I understand congratulations are in order.”

  Beryl snorted. “Maybe Aggie’s right, we should send out announcements,” she said.

  “Is this the real thing?” he asked.

  Beryl smiled widely as she said, “It’s absolutely the real thing.”

  Ridley laughed in her ear. “I’m happy for you, Beryl.”

  “How about you and George?” she asked.

  She closed her eyes at the sudden silence on the other end of the phone. Ridley cleared his throat gruffly, and said after a moment, “Nope.”

  Beryl, knowing better than to be sympathetic, said, “Well… probably a good thing. More room for David.” She could almost hear Ridley shaking his head. “What are you doing for Thanksgiving?” she asked.

  * * *

  “Are you sure we’re welcome?” Aggie asked anxiously for about the fiftieth time.

  Beryl gave a nervous hiccup of laughter as she drove her new Toyota Prius along I-66 as it transitioned to Constitution Avenue. “I told you, I’m not sure I’m welcome.”

  She glanced over and took Aggie’s hand, lifting it to her lips to kiss it. “I also told you, they will absolutely love you. Not that being compared to Claire is a good thing, but by comparison, you are a God-send.” She glanced into the back seat where Cory napped, wrapped in a wool throw, Percival curled up between her and Winston in his carrier. “And I have a feeling Cory will have them all off-balance anyhow.”

  “We’ll be staying with Ridley,” Beryl had told her mother pre-emptively when she had called to say she would be home for Thanksgiving. “So, if you can squeeze four of us in around the table…”

  “We’ll be your bodyguards,” Ridley had joked.

  But to Beryl, it wasn’t a joke.

  “I feel like such a different person than I was before,” she’d confided to Aggie as they lay in bed.

  “You are,” Aggie agreed.

  “But what if they won’t let me be?”

  Aggie turned to her. “It’s not up to them,” she said simply. “They can’t beat you down if you don’t allow it. And this time, you won’t be alone. One signal from you, and we’ll be right there with you. If worse comes to worse, we’ll leave.”

  It sounded so simple when Aggie said it, Beryl thought as she wove through traffic, but she had thirty-six – almost thirty-seven the fourth of December, she realized – years of experience with her family dynamics and knew it wouldn’t be quite that easy.

  Ridley greeted them all delightedly. “God, I’ve missed you,” he said, squeezing Beryl tightly before hugging Aggie and Cory as well. Winston meowed loudly, leading Percival in exploring the apartment as soon as his carrier door was opened.

  For dinner, they went back to the Mexican place they had gone to previously as Cory decided she was in the mood for margaritas. “Maybe a few pitchers of these will make tomorrow easier,” Beryl joked. They lingered over dinner, catching up with one another, but Beryl kept looking about, half-expecting to see Claire.

  Ridley caught this and asked, “What are you going to do about her?”

  Beryl glanced nervously at Aggie. “I don’t know.”

  “If you feel comfortable, then meet her,” Aggie advised, reaching over to give her hand a squeeze.

  “But you set the time and place so you’re in control,” Ridley added.

  If Aggie was uncomfortable in any way about Beryl seeing Claire again, she hid it well. Beryl wondered if she would handle it that well if Rachel were suddenly in the picture again.

  Back at his apartment, Ridley gallantly tried to give Cory his bedroom, but she adamantly refused. “I’m the littlest one here. I can sleep on the sofa,” she insisted.

  Thursday dawned overcast with rain threatening. “I’ll drive,” Ridley offered. “Two legs today.

  “Okay,” Beryl agreed, “but let’s not get there too early.”

  The four of them lingered over breakfast, watching some of the Macy’s parade on television. They arrived at the Gray house at noon. Beryl made introductions.

  “How are you going to introduce me?” Aggie had asked. “Just so I know what to expect.”

  “I honestly don’t know,” Beryl said. “It’s been one of those unspoken things, but I’ve never said the words out loud to them.”

  Aggie gave a tight-lipped smile. “Thanksgiving might not be the best moment.”

  “Right.”

  Ridley, of course, charmed the women, especially when he asked what he could do to help in the kitchen.

  Julie, waiting until Nick was seating himself at the table, said, “Beryl, you look wonderful. You’ve really gotten into shape.”

  “Uh, yeah,” Nick agreed as his wife gave him an impatient nudge. “Yeah. You look good.”

  “Thanks,” Beryl said dryly as Aggie pressed her knee against Beryl’s under the table.

  “So, Cory,” Edith asked curiously as she passed the bread stuffing, “how exactly did you meet Beryl?”

  Cory winked at Beryl. “Oh, we go way back. To 1945.” At the puzzled expressions around the table, she recounted Beryl’s search for the owner of the mystery book, tactfully omitting the details of the inscription, Beryl noticed. Together with Ridley, who filled in details Cory didn’t know, they told how Beryl had found her.

  “And now it’s led to her doing an entire course on researching the provenance of rare books,” Aggie said proudly.

  “The what?” Marian asked.

  “Tracing the history of prior ownership of old books,” Beryl explained.

  “Sounds pretty boring to me,” Nick scoffed.

  Beryl bit back a laugh as Julie said, “Yes, dear. Anything that doesn’t involve a sports score or an alien attack is boring to you.”

  Just as Beryl was basking in the unfamiliar sensation of attention that wasn’t driven by ridicule – I should have known better, she thought later – Marian said, “She’s teaching a class. It’s not like she’s re-writing history.”

  “Actually,” Aggie said, her cheeks flushing with what Cory recognized as anger, “rare book
librarians just like Beryl discovered and proved, right here in D.C. at the Folger Shakespeare Library, that an incredibly rare Shakespeare folio someone was trying to sell was one that had been stolen from a British university. It was worth millions, but beyond price in its value to us culturally, so yes, in a way, she and others like her are re-writing history.”

  Marian opened her mouth, but before she could speak, Cory smiled sweetly and said, “I’m sure whatever you do is equally valuable to society, dear.”

  Nick snorted. “Yeah, right. Because we really need more accountants.”

  Edith, her instincts honed from years of heading off dinner-time explosions, picked up the bowl of mashed potatoes and shoved them into Marian’s hands, saying, “Pass these around, please.”

  * * *

  Back in Ridley’s car a few hours later, Beryl breathed a sigh of relief. “I can’t thank you all enough,” she said sincerely.

  Aggie shook her head. “I’m ashamed to say I thought you had exaggerated a bit before, but your family…”

  “Not your parents,” Ridley observed, “only your brother and sister. What is up with them?”

  Beryl laughed uncomfortably, but Cory, turning in the passenger seat to look at her shrewdly, said, “No, your parents allow it to happen. They are part of it.”

  “What did Marian say to you when we were washing dishes?” Aggie asked.

  Beryl’s smile faded. Marian had cornered her in the pantry as she put away a roasting pan.

  “You know, Mom is upset you brought strangers to dinner,” Marian whispered. “Thanksgiving is supposed to be a holiday for family.”

  Beryl looked her sister in the eye, startled at first. Bracing herself, she replied, “If Mom was upset, it was her place to tell me, and she didn’t say a word. As far as family goes,” she paused, looking her sister up and down disdainfully, “they treat me more like family than you ever have.”

  Looking over at Aggie sitting next to her in the back seat now, Beryl reached for her hand and said, “It was nothing.”

  Chapter 35

  Beryl sat on a Metro car Friday morning on her way to DuPont Circle.

  “I can meet you at Kramer’s at ten,” she had told Claire over the phone last evening. To the others, she’d said, “I’m only going to give her this one option. How about you meet me for an early lunch and then we’ll go to The Scriptorium? You just have to meet Mr. Herrmann – he was the start of everything.”

  “And this way, I have a definite stop to my time with Claire,” but she didn’t say that.

  Nervously, she drummed her fingers on her backpack in her lap as she watched the underground pylons and lights flash by the train. Arriving about fifteen minutes early gave her the opportunity to get a table in the café that allowed her to keep her back to the wall and see the entire space. She smiled as she pictured Ridley saying, “Keep the tactical advantage.”

  When Claire arrived, Beryl’s first thought was, she’s still beautiful. Claire, though, glanced past Beryl at first, and did a double take in surprise.

  “Hi,” she said somewhat breathlessly as she came to the table. Beryl stood awkwardly. “I didn’t want to hug her,” she told Aggie later, “I wasn’t sure how to greet her.”

  “Um, you want a coffee or tea?” Claire asked.

  “I’m good,” Beryl said, pointing to her mocha. “Go ahead and get something.”

  “Be right back,” Claire said, flashing her brightest smile.

  When Claire returned to the table, she looked at Beryl and said, “You look really good.”

  Beryl’s guard immediately went up. “Thanks,” she said cautiously as she sat with a rigidly upright posture. She quickly decided to take control. “What’s up, Claire?”

  Claire fiddled with the lid of her cappuccino. “Won’t you come home?” she asked plaintively.

  All control forgotten, Beryl slouched back against her chair, nearly laughing out loud. “Leslie’s gone.”

  Claire’s eyes filled as she nodded. “She… she decided she couldn’t leave her husband…”

  “I see. She’s too good to be a dyke. She’ll only fuck one.” Beryl bit the words back just in time. Instead, she said, “And you’re not content to continue having her on the side?”

  Claire looked up at her, her beautiful dark eyes brimming with tears, and Beryl was reminded how, at one time, she couldn’t have refused Claire anything.

  “I want you back,” Claire sniffed. “You’re so much better than her. I was stupid. Temporarily insane. I was an idiot. Please forgive me.”

  A million thoughts ran through Beryl’s head, all the myriad things she’d wanted to say to Claire over the past weeks – all the accusations and all the angry words rushed to the very tip of her tongue, but “I do forgive you,” was what she heard herself say.

  Claire’s face lit up hopefully.

  “I forgive you,” Beryl repeated, “And I would have stayed with you forever, even if we weren’t good together, but not now.”

  “But,” Claire smiled tremulously, “we were good together. We had good times, lots of good times. Couldn’t we be that way again?” She reached across the table and took Beryl’s hand. “I love you.”

  Beryl stared at her, expecting to see some sign that Claire was kidding, but there was none. “I hated who I became with you!” Beryl wanted to cry, but “Claire, we weren’t good together,” she insisted calmly as she pulled her hand away. “I don’t love you. I did, but not now. I don’t even live here anymore.”

  As she looked into Claire’s stunned face – she honestly thought this was going to happen, Beryl realized – she felt… pity. “Good-bye, Claire.”

  “It was the perfect opportunity to tell her what she did to you!” Ridley would say in disbelief a short while later when Beryl met him, Aggie and Cory for lunch and told them about her conversation with Claire.

  “I know, but…”

  As she felt Aggie reaching for her hand under the table, Beryl looked up. Her eyes locked with Aggie’s and she saw the trust and the certainty and the love there. “I didn’t need to say those things,” she said simply.

  * * *

  The tinkling bell announced their arrival at the bookstore as they escaped from the hordes of Black Friday shoppers filling the sidewalks. Mr. Herrmann hurried out from the biography section, beaming when he saw it was Beryl.

  “Oh, my dear!” he exclaimed, coming to hug her tightly. “It is so good to see you!”

  “You, too,” she laughed. “I’ve missed you and my favorite bookstore so much.” She inhaled his cologne and rubbed his tweedy shoulders in delight.

  She turned to make introductions, noticing that Ridley had faded into the history shelves.

  “Miss Bishop’s house,” Beryl said, her arm wrapped around Cory’s frail shoulders, “was the house those three boxes of auction books came from this summer.”

  Mr. Herrmann looked at them in surprise. “So, your detective work paid off? You returned the letter?”

  There was a slight pause as Beryl tried to think. “Oh, yes,” she said as she remembered she had told him she’d found a letter in one of the books.

  Cory apparently caught on as well, for she said, “It was very dear to me, and I was so glad to get it back.” Glancing around, she said, “I could get lost in here and never want to leave.”

  Mr. Herrmann beamed. “Just as my grandfather would have wished it. May I show you around?” he asked, offering Cory his arm.

  George found Beryl where he would have predicted – in fiction. “Welcome home,” he said shyly.

  “George!” She gave him a tight hug. Releasing him, she looked up into his troubled eyes. “Can we talk?” she asked in a low voice.

  He led her to the back room and closed the door.

  “I’m sorry I have to be so blunt,” she began immediately, “but we won’t have much time. What is going on?”

  George drew himself up a little. “Have you asked him?”

  Beryl shook her head. “We have
n’t had any alone time for a talk like this.”

  George blinked rapidly, his jaw clenching.

  “Do you love him?” she asked.

  He met her eyes. “Yes. And he says he loves me, but…”

  Beryl waited.

  George’s cheeks flushed. “We got to a certain point, physically, and he… I told him it was okay, and we could take it slow, but… he said it wasn’t fair to me and he just…”

  “He shut you out,” Beryl finished for him. He nodded.

  “I don’t know how to get past the walls he’s put up,” George said. “I just don’t know what else to do.”

  Beryl gave his hand a sympathetic squeeze. “I know. He can be tough to read. I will talk to him while we’re here,” she promised.

  George removed his glasses and wiped his eyes. “Thanks.”

  It was a couple of hours before the four of them left the bookstore, weighed down with several books each, as Mr. Herrmann waved them off through the shop’s window.

  “Oh, I wish we had someplace like this in Columbus,” Aggie said wistfully. “We have some used bookstores, but not like this.”

  “It’s a good thing we don’t,” Cory laughed, “or we’d be poorer than we are now.”

  “It’s not like you lack for reading material in that house,” Beryl pointed out.

  “I know,” Aggie admitted, “but let’s face it, old military histories and philosophy texts aren’t exactly stimulating reading.”

  Ridley, who had barely spoken in the store, hopped beside Beryl, silent and brooding. The crowds of people shopping had thickened considerably and he was jostled by a group of women clutching large shopping bags, knocking him off-balance.

  A small crowd gathered at the sound of Ridley’s crutches clanging off a parking meter as he sprawled on the pavement. A couple of well-meaning people rushed to help him, but “Get off me!” he barked, red-faced and humiliated.

  Beryl dropped her bag of books and threw herself between him and the passersby. “Stand down!” she hissed in his ear, grabbing him by the shoulders.

  She could feel his tensed shoulders drop in response to her voice and she released him. Standing back, she held his crutches, giving him room to get himself upright again.