He leaned forward and shielded his face with his hand. “I received a very disturbing phone call the other day,” he said softly.
And in the brief pause, this moment, the ellipsis that conveyed his deep struggle, she knew without doubt or a scintilla of logic that the call had come from her mother. She grinned. Such irony. With that one senseless lie she managed to set the truth in motion.
“It was from Patrick Grady. He said you’ve been bothering him. Actually, the word he used was harassing. He said you’ve been harassing him, and it’s got to stop.”
She was shocked. “Harassing him! All I said was how it didn’t make any sense not to ever speak to one another.”
The kitchen door swung open, and Maxine rushed out with a plate of brownies and slices of banana bread arranged on a gold foil doily. She placed it between them, then with a glance over her shoulder wiggled her hand, Sandy’s cue to refill the Judge’s cup.
“No! No coffee!” Fiona snapped. Nothing in her life was her own. Nothing, now that he would discuss so personal and painful a matter in such a public place.
“Well just give a holler if you do,” Maxine said, and Uncle Charles nodded with a sheepish smile. “But first I just want to tell you, Fiona here is our very best waitress.” Maxine patted her shoulder.
“I’ll bet she is,” Uncle Charles said.
“Oh yah, everybody loves Fiona.” Maxine laughed.
“I’m glad to hear that,” Uncle Charles said, his smile strained and thin.
“She’s got, like, her own customers. You know, like a fan club or something. And that’s not even including the guys that are always hitting on her all the time.” Maxine leaned on the table with both hands. “But then again, she doesn’t mind telling them all where the dog died if she has to.” Then seeing Fiona’s set jaw and boiling eyes, she bent closer to add in a low voice, “And that’s a compliment, young lady, so don’t be looking at me like that.”
Uncle Charles picked up a brownie and took a small bite, the price of extrication. “Thank you,” he said, gesturing with it. “This is absolutely delicious.”
“Oh. Thank you,” she said, coloring a little. “They’re homemade from scratch, right in my own kitchen.” The secret, she confided, was pecans instead of walnuts, one and a half times the usual amount of cocoa, and a dollop of sour cream.
“That’s why they’re so distinctive tasting,” he said.
Fiona squirmed, the cushion damp under her thighs. Sweat trickled down her chest. His control over his feelings had always amazed and irritated her. A newspaper reporter had once written that Charles Hollis was so highly regarded because of the respect he accorded every man, woman, and child he had ever encountered. His great dignity and wisdom were said to be surpassed only by his kindness. It occurred to her now that his civility sprang as much from a sense of his own superiority as from a profound and often painful awareness of his fellow man’s utter baseness. Certain trials, certain admissions of clients or witnesses, even the actions of fellow attorneys would depress him and empty him of something so vital, as Aunt Arlene had tried once to explain, that for days he would eat in silence, often leaving the table abruptly to sit in his dim study with the door closed, listening to classical music until bedtime. A low time was her aunt’s description of it, and yet with an unexpected visitor’s knock at the door or a phone call he could not avoid, this affable mask would slip over his face and the dead voice would rise, warm with greeting.
Two women entered the coffee shop and Maxine hurried off to seat them. Uncle Charles put down the brownie and leaned forward. “You mustn’t bother him.” He spoke quickly. “You know he’s not a stable person, and to keep this up is just asking for trouble. Trouble for everyone,” he added, with a flicker of a smile for Maxine as she bustled by. “Do you understand?”
“No! No, I don’t.”
“He said he’s told you to leave him alone, but you won’t. He said you keep . . .” His struggle for the precise word seemed physically painful. “You keep confronting him.”
“Because he’s my father!” she said with such equanimity that for a moment he could only stare at her.
“But he’s always denied it. You know that, Fiona. You’ve always known that. Why would you start . . . confronting him now?”
“Because I know he’s my father, and I don’t care what he says or what you say or what anyone else says about it.”
He moved closer. “Well you had better care, Fiona, because he’s very upset. He’s angry and . . . and I’m afraid of what he might do.”
“What?” She tried to laugh. “What do you mean, what he might do?”
“Please, Fiona, trust me. I thought long and hard before I came here to tell you this. I knew you’d be defensive. And . . .” He reached for her hand, holding it limply as he whispered. “And I knew you’d be hurt.”
She pulled back, as offended by this token affection as by his words. “Well I’m not hurt. I’m just mad. I’m so damn mad. I’m thirty years old and I have every right in the world to, as you put it, confront my own father if I want.” Again, she tried to laugh, but its brittle ring only made her uncle flinch, his face coloring as if he’d just heard something vile. “So next time he says I’m bothering him, tell him to get a restraining order. In fact, Judge Hollis, you could even give him one.”
For days afterward her uncle’s warning loomed in her thoughts. There were many things she regretted in her life, chief among them all the opportunities and years she’d wasted on Todd Prescott. She wished she had done better in school. She wished she enjoyed reading good books instead of falling asleep every night in front of the television. She wished she had more self-discipline. She wished that for once she could start something and see it through to the end. She wished she could get on with her life instead of feeling so hopelessly stalled all the time. But most of all, she wished she had someone in her life who cared about her.
At night her dreams were riddled with angry voices, and the most familiar, innocuous faces turned suddenly sly and sinister, leering, calling her the slut, the tramp. She woke up one morning wondering if that’s why Patrick Grady was so repulsed by her. Had he heard the stories, many of which she herself had cultivated, the exaggerations and lies, and some of the truth? Was he rejecting her for the same reason he had refused to marry her mother? Because she was easy, because she slept around? As an antidote, she tried to remember everything she could about George, the sound of his voice, the way he smelled, the taste of his sweat, his thick shoulders and dazed, crooked smile as he rose above her. Her uncle had been right about one thing anyway. George was exactly what she needed, someone calm, good, and steady enough to keep her forever moored. In these last few days she had missed him, not with the frantic hunger she had felt toward other men she’d desired, but with the sad realization that she had probably lost the most decent man she’d ever been with, and she wasn’t sure why.
■
It was late Friday afternoon. Chester had finally worked up his courage. There were no customers, Sandy had gone home, and the Closed sign hung on the front door. Fiona was wiping down the booths with a damp cloth when he called Maxine into the kitchen. Fiona hurried, hoping to get out of here before he showed her the purchase and sale agreement.
“No,” Maxine cried. “Oh no!” She burst into tears and accused him of trying to rob her of the only happiness she’d ever had in her whole life. He tried to reason with her, tried to point out how much happier she’d be, a lady of leisure in a flowery muumuu in her own brand-new condo in Florida with enough money so they’d never have to work again.
“But I love to work,” she sobbed. “I love this place.”
“And I hate this place!” he told her. “For thirty-eight years I’ve hated this place.”
“But you don’t understand,” she groaned.
“Sure I do,” he said softly. “This is familiar, and new things are scary. I know! Because it’s what’s kept me here all this time. The same thing, fear of the unk
nown, being scared. Even though I hated it, it was easier coming in here every day instead of taking a chance on something else.”
“No, no, no. It’s not that. It’s not the same for me. All my life I never had anything. I grew up on welfare. I raised my kids on welfare, and now I finally got something, Chester. It’s like I always dreamed, you know, a nice home where you can have all your nice things out to entertain with, for people to see. I feel very important here.”
“Important!”
“Yes, I do. People say it’s like their home away from home. They tell me that all the time. They like that I dress up every day, that I treat them with all due respect like family.”
“Like family! They’re customers, that’s all, goddamn, arrogant bastard customers!”
“That’s not fair!”
“Fair?”
“You don’t even see them!”
“Jesus, Maxine, get your head on straight, will you? I’m sixty-six years old and I’m never going to get a better offer than this. Never! So I’ve got no choice, do you understand?” he demanded, his voice rising.
“No,” she said quietly. “No I don’t.”
“Well, I’m doing it. See? See?” he cried, and there was the sound of papers being unfolded. “Watch me, because I’m signing. I’m signing.”
“Go ahead,” she said. “But then I’m going home and packing up all my things and I’m leaving.”
She ran into the dining room. She stood behind her narrow counter by the front door and sobbed with her face in her hands.
“It’s okay,” Fiona tried to console her. “And who knows, maybe after a while you can even talk Chester into opening a place up just like this in Florida.”
“No.” Maxine wept, her nose red and leaking. Inky mascara trickled down her cheeks. “It wouldn’t be the same.”
“Sure it would.” Fiona handed her a wad of napkins. “And it’d probably be a hell of a lot nicer than this, all brand-new and everything the way you always wanted.”
For a moment there was no sound anywhere as Maxine wiped her eyes, then blew her nose. She lifted her chin with an odd dignity. “It wouldn’t be the same, because . . . because no one would know me there.” She struggled for the words. “It wouldn’t matter as much. Because here I can show people. Do you know what I mean?”
Fiona nodded and a chill cut through her. She knew exactly what Maxine meant.
They both looked toward the kitchen as the back door creaked open and one by one Chester began to hurl saucepans, frying pans, ladles, and spatulas crashing, clanging into the alley. Neither one smiled, though they both knew Maxine had triumphed. Chester loved Maxine more than all the money and freedom selling the coffee shop could bring him. And Maxine loved the coffee shop more than money, more than she could ever love Chester, and he knew this.
On Monday Fiona left her new telephone number on George’s answering machine. When she called Elizabeth, Aunt Arlene answered. Elizabeth wasn’t home, but Aunt Arlene seemed eager to talk. Elizabeth was at the PTO meeting until nine-thirty or so. She’d had an awful lot of these night meetings lately, but she didn’t seem to mind. In fact she’d been so happy these last few days, it was like having the old Elizabeth back, cheerful and so full of pep, Aunt Arlene laughed, that she and Uncle Charles got tired just listening to her. Ginny was getting over the flu, which she’d probably picked up from one of the children. They’d all been sick in the nursery school. This was the first year she hadn’t gotten a flu shot.
And then her aunt stopped abruptly, murmuring, “Let me see, what else is new now?”
Oh yes. Jack thought he might be transferred to one of the courts up this way. He hated the thirty-minute commute into Boston every day, and Susan had just been named executive vice president of her company, which meant a huge raise and a brand-new office in the penthouse suite on the thirty-fifth floor.
Again her aunt paused, this time with a little gasp. “Oh Fiona, I just can’t keep it in a moment longer. Everyone else knows but you because Ginny wants to tell you herself. She’s pregnant! She’s almost eight weeks along. I can’t believe it! After all these years. I’m finally going to be a grandmother!”
“And I’m finally going to be an aunt!” Fiona cried.
“Well, cousin once removed,” Aunt Arlene added.
Her smile faded with the sting of Aunt Arlene’s clarification. Why? she wanted to ask. Why not let her call herself aunt? Why was there always this specificity of relationships? Except, of course, when it came to Patrick Grady. And no one had ever dared try and pin him down.
Continuing in her spirited chatter, Aunt Arlene made Fiona promise to act absolutely surprised when Ginny told her. “And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Uncle Charles,” she added in an almost giddy-sounding rush. “But I couldn’t leave such an alarming message, and then by the time we found out he was all right, there didn’t seem to be any point in—”
“That’s okay,” Fiona interrupted, knowing she should be pleased to hear her aunt so happy. She was usually most effusive when trying to compensate for her husband’s coldness or disapproval. “And besides, now that I’ve seen him I’m not worried. He looked tired, I thought, but not sick.”
“When was that? When did you see him?”
“Last week. He came into the coffee shop.”
“Well, that was nice. I’m glad,” her aunt said in a sudden sea change from balmy to cold.
“Didn’t he tell you?” Fiona asked.
“You know, I’m not sure now. He may have, but there’s just been so much going on lately, I probably wasn’t even listening.”
Once again the gate clanged shut, and inexplicably Fiona found herself on the other side.
“Fiona?” her aunt said quickly. “Tell me, that telephone call. Your mother. Did she really call? Or were you just . . . teasing us?” She tried to laugh. “I know your wicked sense of humor.”
She had called, Fiona assured her, adding that it had only been that one time, though.
“Did she say what she’s been doing? Is she married or did she say where she is now?”
“No, I told you. It was all very quick. She just wanted to know how I was doing.”
“Well maybe she’ll call again now that you’ve got your phone in.” She paused. “Fiona, if she does, that is, call again, would you ask her to please call me?” Her voice broke, then resumed in a low, anguished whisper. “Would you tell her that I’ve missed her, that I’ve missed her terribly all these years.”
The next day another letter arrived from Dearborn Community College. Fiona dropped it in the trash basket as soon she came into the apartment. She smiled to see the red light blinking on her answering machine. There were two messages. The first was from Elizabeth, her message curt, brief: she would call back later tonight. The second was her friend Terry, saying she missed Fiona. She suggested they meet at eight tonight in Dunkin’ Donuts after her lampshade-making class.
“So what’ve you been up to?” Terry asked, setting the tone as she slid into the booth. Tim’s rudeness would not be mentioned.
Not much—work, still getting settled in the new apartment, Fiona told her. The usual things. “But what about you?” she asked. After her loneliness these last few days, Terry’s tales of domestic chaos would be the perfect tonic.
“Oh, same old life—crumbs, cuts, and cucka.” Terry sighed and leaned forward. “So how are things going with you and George Grimshaw?”
They’d been out a few times, she said, trying to make light of it. Even hearing his name hurt. She couldn’t bring herself to admit that she hadn’t heard from him in over a week. She’d left three messages on his answering machine.
“And what about Elizabeth? What does she think of this whole thing?” Terry asked, wetting her lips, eyes bright with an eager gleam.
“She’s engaged,” she said, and to hide her growing irritation, added, “to a doctor. Rudy Larkin. He’s at Memorial.”
“No, I know,” Terry said, waving this off as stale
news. “But I mean, it must be a little . . . well, weird, they went together for so long.”
Just then two tall women came in and sat in the last booth. “Aren’t those the Kendale sisters?” Terry asked. “The ones that live near you?”
“Well, they used to. Near my aunt and uncle, that is.” Fiona leaned close.
“I heard they’re trying to get their mother declared incompetent,” Terry whispered.
“Oh, they’re always trying to do that,” Fiona said, grateful to have their friendship back in its old gossipy rhythm. “Lucretia’s harmless. All she wants is a good time.”
“A good time! She must be in her eighties anyway,” Terry said with a shudder.
“Yah? So? I hope I still want to get it on when I’m in my eighties, girl,” she said. “Actually, Lucretia’s always trying to get me to go to Florida and party with her. The funniest though is at my aunt and uncle’s parties. She hangs all over my uncle and he gets so flustered. He never knows what to do.”
Terry had been staring at her. “Fiona, you know about Krissy and Brad, right?”
“Yes.” Her eyes never left Terry’s.
“Did you hear what happened yesterday?”
“No.”
Terry glanced away. “Krissy tried to kill herself. She took a whole bottle of sleeping pills, but thank goodness her father got her to the hospital in time.”
Fiona picked up the coffee-stained slip. She took two dollars from her purse. Her hand shook as she put the money on the table. “It was great seeing you.” She stood up.
“What? What’re you doing? Why are you leaving? What’s the matter?” Terry sputtered. Her face was red.
“Look, why don’t you just come right out and ask me?”
“Ask you what?”
“If it’s true. If I’m the one that made their baby die and broke up their marriage.”
Terry’s face drained as Fiona put on her jacket.
“That’s what you want to know, isn’t it? That’s why we’re here, right? Or maybe you just like seeing me squirm. Is that it?”
Fiona Range Page 13
