“I don’t know,” Elizabeth said, as the woman wheeled a gilded three-way mirror out from the wall. Elizabeth turned, glanced in the mirror, then looked back. “I guess I like it. It’s heavy.”
“They all seem that way at first,” the woman said.
“It’s a different feel,” Aunt Arlene said, her big clenched hands white at the knuckles. “You wear such loose things most of the time.”
“You just have to get used to it,” the woman said.
“Yah, just wear it around the house for a few days,” Fiona added, but no one laughed or even smiled.
Elizabeth continued to gaze in the mirror, not at the gown, but at her face. For a few moments no one spoke.
“So what do you think?” Aunt Arlene asked softly, gently, as if afraid of startling her.
Elizabeth looked at her through the mirror. “I don’t know.”
“They were all lovely on you, but this one is just beautiful,” Aunt Arlene said, her whisper heightening the stillness in the softly lit room.
Elizabeth folded her arms, hugging herself so tightly that her bony shoulders and chest seemed to rise up from the beaded gown as if she were being squeezed out of it.
“It’s my favorite,” Aunt Arlene said.
“I can see why,” the woman said back over her shoulder. She held up her hands as if framing a scene. “It’s a fascinating elegance. Sophisticated yet ethereal.”
“Like Grace Kelly,” the attendant continued, trying to spark the same enthusiasm in Elizabeth. The hem would have to come up. The waist needed to be taken in. And if she liked, seed pearls could be worked into the hem, the woman told Aunt Arlene, for now Elizabeth had become a mannequin in this suddenly bustling, though awkward tableau. But wouldn’t that make the dress even heavier? Aunt Arlene asked with a wary glance at Elizabeth, who stood perfectly still, waiting. Not at all, the attendant assured her. There would only be a few, a sprinkling, for the effect, just to bring the eye from head to toe. And maybe some on the veil to complete the look. To create the illusion.
The illusion that Elizabeth was a happy bride, Fiona thought.
“Well, what do you think, hon?” Aunt Arlene asked.
“I don’t know,” Elizabeth said slowly, blinking as if to extricate herself from another consciousness.
“Do you like this one best?”
“I’m not sure. How much is it?” She felt under her arm, but there was no price tag.
“Forget about that for now and just think about which one you like best,” Aunt Arlene said in her low soothing tone.
Fiona was amazed. This from a woman for whom carelessness with money was not only a character flaw, but an almost unforgivable vulgarity.
“I don’t know. I’m not sure. I can’t tell,” Elizabeth said in a tremulous rush that brought her mother to her side and Fiona to her feet.
“I know!” Fiona said. “How about if I try it on? That way you can sit back and relax, and I’ll go through all the rigmarole for you.” She took Elizabeth’s clammy hands and tried to hold them, but like cold little fish they slipped away.
Fiona was in the dressing room now being buttoned, snapped, tugged, and tucked into the same pearl-embossed gown. She was enjoying the attention, having already modeled four other gowns to the admiring cries of the two women and Aunt Arlene’s growing exuberance. However, Elizabeth’s forced smile had faded. On Fiona’s last trip out, Elizabeth had suggested they call it a day. She had a headache. She wanted to go home and think about it.
“Think about what?” Aunt Arlene said so sharply that they all looked at her.
“About the gowns,” Elizabeth answered in a pained voice.
“Just one more then,” Aunt Arlene coaxed. “The last one you had on.”
The attendant groaned now as she stood up. “Okay, ready,” she called at the curtain. When it had been drawn, she gestured with a slight bow for Fiona’s entrance. Fiona walked slowly, heel to toe, hands clasped as if coming down the aisle.
“Ah,” said the woman.
“Such a vision,” Desmond said, pausing as he removed their empty cups.
“Like Audrey Hepburn,” the attendant said. “The long neck and those big eyes.”
“It’s beautiful,” Aunt Arlene said. “Isn’t it beautiful?” she asked Elizabeth. And then, as if realizing an oversight, added that Fiona of course looked lovely too. Absolutely lovely. She had always done that, hastily making a point of including Fiona, who hadn’t even realized she’d been excluded or overlooked in the first place.
Jaw quaking, Elizabeth stared at her. Fiona couldn’t tell if she wanted to smile or speak. “So Lizzie, what do you think?” She turned slowly, hands out, palms upward.
“I don’t know,” Elizabeth gasped through a great struggle of catching her breath, sighing, widening her eyes, then shutting them tightly. Each word was released so slowly, from such a painful depth that no one could look at her. “I . . . I just don’t know what to do,” she said. Tears ran down her hollow cheeks.
“Then have Rudy come in with you, hon,” Fiona said, bending to embrace her cousin, but with the gown bunched between them the most she could manage was a gentle headlock. “He’ll help you decide.”
“No,” Elizabeth moaned softly, her head hung. “Oh no.”
“He can’t,” Aunt Arlene said, sounding irritated. “It’s bad luck if the groom sees the gown before the wedding.”
“No, dear, you wouldn’t want that.” The woman made a clucking sound and shook her head.
“Then we can come back,” Fiona whispered at her cousin’s ear. “If you want. Just the two of us. Or we can go someplace else. Or maybe you two should just take off, Lizzie. Just run away and elope. Hey, I know a good justice of the peace up in Rocky Point, Maine.” She lifted Elizabeth’s chin. “I’ll even drive you if you want.”
Elizabeth tried to smile, then suddenly covered her face with her hands in tearful laughing hysteria that sent a chill through Fiona until she looked down.
“Your boobs,” Elizabeth whispered behind her hands. “They popped out!”
“Jesus Christ, get back in there, will you!” Fiona muttered as she tried to stuff her heavy breasts back into the stiff empty cups.
“Oh dear, dear, dear, I’m out of here!” Desmond cried in his flight through the door.
Elizabeth kept laughing. Aunt Arlene was searching in her purse for a tissue. Now she was crying.
Chapter 11
Fiona was coming out of the bathroom when her bell rang. Patrick, she thought, tying her robe as she hurried to the door. She hadn’t heard from him in days, and Uncle Charles was probably the reason why. Her eager smile faded when she opened the door.
“You were asleep,” Rudy Larkin said, wincing. “I’m sorry.” He started to back away. “Go back to bed,” he said in a loud whisper. “I’ll call you later.”
“Why? What is it? What’s wrong?” she asked, alarmed. Unshaven and red-eyed, he looked as if he’d been up all night.
“Nothing’s wrong. Really. Nothing,” he said, his exaggerated whisper irritating her even more.
Then what did he want? she persisted. He’d obviously come for a reason.
He had forgotten it was Sunday, he said. With his own schedule so crazy lately the days were just running together. “And I knew you and Elizabeth were looking at some wedding gowns yesterday, and I was just, well, you know, wondering how it went.” In a gesture of abject discomfort he rubbed the back of his neck, then shrugged and held up his hands. “What you thought, that is,” he said with a hard swallow.
“You mean of the gown?” she asked, then realizing he meant Elizabeth, invited him in.
Arms folded, he huddled over her kitchen table, talking while she made coffee. His thin jacket pulled tightly across his shoulders and hiked up his long arms. The cuffs of his chinos were frayed. His loafers were gouged, the top stitching so torn on one that his little toe protruded. He kept swiping hair off his forehead. She wondered how Elizabeth could stand his messiness
when she was always so neat.
He and Elizabeth had gone out to dinner last night, and he had been anxious to hear all about their “shopping foray.” They had no sooner been seated when an old friend of Elizabeth’s stopped by the table. They invited him to join them for a drink. The friend wouldn’t order anything for himself, but he somehow ended up sitting with them all through dinner.
“Well that’s weird. No,” she corrected herself, “that was rude.” She poured the coffee, then sat down. “Who was it?”
“George. George Grimshaw.” He watched closely, gauging her reaction.
“Who was he with?”
“No one.”
“He was alone? George? In the Orchard House? By himself?”
Rudy nodded. “He had some explanation, but then in the middle of it he seemed to get all hung up. I don’t know. It all seemed pretty murky to me.”
“It must have bothered Elizabeth to have him horning in like that on her evening with you,” she said, studying him now.
“Something was bothering her.”
“That’s too bad. She was looking forward to dinner with you.”
“She told you that?” He started to smile.
“She’s been so busy. I know it bothers her, the thought of you being alone so much.” Actually only her aunt had mentioned Rudy yesterday.
“Really?” he said with an almost caustic laugh. “I’ve even taken on some midnight shifts. I figured that way I’d get to see her at least some part of the day. But that’s not working.”
“She just gets too involved. Lizzie’s such a perfectionist! About everything!”
“Except me.” He looked up with a sad smile. “Things got a little better after you talked to her, but now we seem to be going downhill again.” He took a deep breath and kept rubbing the back of his neck. “I hate bothering you like this,” he said in a low hoarse voice. “I can’t tell you how stupid I feel.”
“Rudy! What are you talking about?” She reached over and touched his hand. “You’re getting married! Lizzie was trying on wedding gowns yesterday! It’s the pressure, that’s all. I told you before, things like this throw her for a loop. She thinks everyone has to be happy and everything has to be perfect. And if they’re not, well, she’s a wreck. She always feels so responsible.”
“I wonder why,” he said, frowning as he looked past her.
“She was always like that. Even when we were kids. I don’t know, it seemed like the worse I acted, the better she tried to be. And when we got older it was almost like she was trying to make up for me or something.” She laughed, but he was still staring. To get his attention she jostled his hand. “Remember what I told you about Ginny’s wedding? Maybe she just needs to get back on Xanax or something.”
Hearing the name of the medication seemed to strike a decisive chord. He folded his hands on the edge of the table. “Last night was no coincidence. George Grimshaw didn’t just happen to be there.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, scalp tingling, the closest she ever came to blushing. Had George been looking for her? Had he thought she might be joining Elizabeth and Rudy.
“He was there for a reason. It was almost as if he had some set speech to deliver, but then he and Elizabeth didn’t even look at one another. They both seemed so uncomfortable, so I started doing all the talking. Then all of a sudden he said something odd. Something about ‘enduring strength.’ I kept looking at him. I didn’t know what he was talking about, and then Elizabeth interrupted. She said the waiter was coming and that we should look at our menus, which he didn’t even have. It was all so strange. He ended up staying almost through our entire dinner. Whenever there was even the briefest lapse in the conversation, he’d clear his throat as if he was finally going to have his say. But then Elizabeth would start talking before he could. I never saw her talk so much! By the end of dinner he was just staring at her. Actually, we both were.”
When Rudy had tried to discuss it on the way back to his apartment, Elizabeth got upset and accused him of always being too suspicious. He said he laughed then and told her she could, with all justification, accuse him of being confused and lonely and maybe even possessive sometimes, but never suspicious—not until that night, anyway. When they got to his apartment he put his arms around her and she started to cry. His attempts at consolation only upset her more. Finally she told him she was sorry, but she needed to go home. She’d had too much wine to drink and she wasn’t thinking straight.
“So I brought her home, then a couple hours later I went to work, and now here I am,” he said with a dismal smile.
“You must be exhausted,” she said.
“I don’t know what I am.” He watched her pad across the kitchen in her soiled scuffs to get them both more coffee.
She was remembering a summer night after Elizabeth’s freshman year at Smith. George came to the house to tell Uncle Charles what Elizabeth could not: that they were deeply in love and couldn’t stand being apart. They wanted to get married. They had it all figured out. Elizabeth would transfer to Boston University. George was doing well enough with his father to support them both and pay for her education as well. Absolutely not, Uncle Charles had said. After he sent George home he told Elizabeth that one day she’d thank him for saving her from a lifetime of mediocrity and dullness. What did he mean by that? Fiona had asked when Elizabeth climbed into bed sobbing. “He means George!” Elizabeth had bawled.
Fiona’s hand shook now as she poured coffee into their mugs. She sat back down. Had George gone to the Orchard House last night to speak once again for Elizabeth? To tell Rudy what she couldn’t bring herself to say?
“Want some toast?” she asked.
“That’d be great. But only if you’re going to have some too. I don’t want you to go to any trouble.”
“Trouble? How could toast be any trouble?” she snapped, then tried to mask her annoyance with a quick smile. She had noticed before how grateful, how deeply pleased he always seemed for even the most ordinary consideration, the smallest kindness. By magnifying the gesture, his inordinate gratitude only seemed to diminish its worth. It made her feel hollow and false, as if she wasn’t doing enough because he needed more, a great deal more than toast.
“I don’t know.” He laughed. “I guess everything’s starting to seem a lot more complicated all of a sudden.”
“Then don’t be analyzing every little thing. Relax! Just let things happen. I mean, what’s the big rush here? It’s not like Lizzie’s going to leave town or anything.”
“No, she already tried that,” he said with a rueful laugh.
As she moved around the kitchen, taking the bread out of the refrigerator, the butter, then dishes from the cupboard, she was conscious of his keen watchfulness, as if each domestic detail were freighted with meaning and, now, far greater significance than the struggle to open a jam jar deserved.
“This is awfully nice of you, Fiona,” he said as she tapped the side of the lid with a knife until it turned. “I mean, letting me barge in here on a Sunday morning with all my . . . my . . . Well, anyway, this is good, just being able to talk. And if nothing else, I’m finding out just how inept I am at this whole relationship thing. I thought it was all going to be a hell of a lot simpler than this. You know, the logical steps you take from A to B to C, medical school, work hard, meet the right girl, get married. I missed a step. I must have. But I’ll be damned if I know which one.”
“Maybe you’ve just been too intense, that’s all.”
“Yeah,” he said with a weak laugh. “Maybe that’s why.”
She thought of him fending for himself as a little boy because of his mother’s illness. Knowing that, how could Elizabeth be doing this to him? It just wasn’t like her to be so cold, so selfish. She turned to find him sprawled in the chair staring down at the floor.
“Don’t look so morose.”
“The thing is . . .” He took a deep breath. “Until Elizabeth I never had a serious relationship. I guess I haven’t
made it very easy for her. She wants out, but she doesn’t want to hurt me. I keep thinking maybe I should be the one to break it off.” He paused as if expecting her to disagree. “But what if I’m wrong? I don’t know, what do you think I should do?”
“Right now? The same thing she’s probably doing: drink your coffee, eat your toast, and listen to the music,” she said, turning on the radio.
“You’re right. You’re absolutely right,” he called over the music, grinning with such pleasure that she had to look away. Even his sincerity was turbulent and vast, a powerful wave in which Elizabeth must always be floundering and gasping for breath.
Honky-tonk piano music filled the tiny kitchen. Rudy’s head bobbed and his foot tapped with the beat. “This is great. I love rag-time,” he said, snapping his fingers.
“Why aren’t I surprised?” she muttered as she got up from the table.
“What?”
“The paper. I’m going to go see if it’s here yet.” She opened the door a hair and peered out. The Boston Globe was in front of Mr. Clinch’s door. She’d done this a few times, managed to read his paper, then put it back before he woke up. She slipped into the hall, closing the door quickly on the rackety music, then tiptoed across the way. As she bent down for the paper a shadow loomed over her.
“Fiona!” A hand clamped down on her arm, pulling her upright.
“Patrick!” she gasped as his face moved close with angry urgency.
“I have to talk to you!”
“Alright. Well, come on.” She tried to turn, but he pulled her back.
“He’s in there!”
“It’s just Rudy, Elizabeth’s—”
“I’ve been out here! I’ve been waiting!” he said, hitting his chest with each declaration.
“Well, I didn’t know. Why didn’t you knock?”
“I’ve been waiting for him to leave!”
“He will,” she whispered to calm him. “Come on in.”
“Tell him to go!” he said through clenched teeth. “Tell him to get the hell out!”
Fiona Range Page 24
