A Piece Of Normal

by Maddie Dawson

  "If we're really going to do this, we should hurry up and do it," I say.

  Maggie turns to me and says in a low voice, "I just want to say, before we get in, I asked Mark about, you know, if there's anybody else, like we were wondering, and he was totally reassuring," she says.

  "I thought you were going to check the credit card receipts."

  "I couldn't. I decided I'd just ask him, it would be better. And it was. He was shocked that I'd thought that—and you know what he said?"

  "Come on, you guys!" Dana calls.

  "Sssh!" I tell her. "People are sleeping." Then to Maggie: "What?"

  She's talking fast. "There's a business conference coming up, in Santa Fe, with people from his company. And, guess what—he wants me to come. Says we've been spending too much time apart. We'll stay in a hotel, he says, and I can shop while he's at the conference, but then the nights, I think, are just ours. I think this is going to be really good."

  "Oh, Mags, that's great." I try to make my voice sound completely thrilled, but it comes out hollow. Still, she smiles at me, one of her big toothy grins, and leans over and knocks into me with her shoulder. "So that is where we're going to get our baby. A little baby conceived in old Santa Fe."

  "Come on in," Dana yells.

  "So you're really going to do the diaphragm thing?"

  "Did it," she says. "Now don't get all judgmental on me. I know you don't approve, so Dana and I did the deed while you were upstairs."

  ***

  We are silent for a very long time, the three of us floating side by side. Far away, I can hear cars on the main road, but the central sound I hear is a kind of watery silence in my ears, the little ripples easing themselves around me, like comfort. My hair is right at last. So maybe, I think—as if there could be a connection, all good things starting to happen—maybe Mark Travers isn't having an affair and isn't such a jerk after all. Maybe he'll come to see that he wants a baby, and Maggie won't have to trick him. And maybe Dana will find what she needs and not be so frantic with need.

  "Hey, how's the party planning going?" Maggie says.

  I tell her the progress I've made, which is that everyone has now been invited, and I've looked up Momma's old recipes and unearthed her string of Japanese lanterns that were in the attic. Simon has been practicing walking around with a tray of hors d'oeuvres, and the other night Teddy figured out how to hook up the stereo speakers so they could be out on the porch and in the living room at the same time.

  "So all the old colony people are coming?"

  "Yeah. Maybe it's crazy, but I want it to be just like the old days—like a party Momma would have given," I say. "Just to prove I can do it."

  Dana makes a snorting sound. "What's new about that? It seems to me that everything around here is just like Momma used to do it. The whole place is nothing more than a fucking shrine to the way Momma did things. That's the whole trouble."

  "No, it isn't. You always say things are just the same, but there have been lots of changes."

  "Name three."

  "Whoa, whoa, whoa," Maggie says. "Come on, you two. It's been such a nice night; you don't want to argue." She paddles her way over toward Dana and says in the kindest possible voice, "Wow, I bet it's hard for you being back here without your mom. I don't think I've ever seen a closer mother and daughter than the two of you were. I used to be so envious of how you could talk to each other."

  Dana says in an aggrieved voice, "God, this makes me so angry! My mom and I were not close. Why do you guys insist on saying that?"

  "Well, maybe because you used to say she was your best friend," I point out. "And—oh, let's see—there was also the fact that the two of you used to dress alike and hang out together all the time and finish each other's sentences."

  "Stop it! Just stop it!" she yells. I look at her in surprise at how furious she sounds. She takes a deep breath. I remember that she really has had a lot to drink. "Okay, listen. You want to hear a story about me and Momma? Want to know what she was really like to me? I'll tell you!"

  "I don't know. Do I?" I say, and Maggie flashes me a warning look.

  "Tell us what it was like," she says to Dana.

  "Okay. Try having a mom who comes in while you're doing your homework, bringing you a sloe gin fizz that she's made you, and the two of you sit there drinking together, and ooh, she tells you all her little secrets—and then three days later, she gets mad at you for something and tells your dad she caught you drinking, and, whoops, you get grounded." Her voice is quavery, filled with anger. "Or—oh, how's this? You finally get a decently cool boyfriend, and she says, 'I want to meet him,' so you invite him over, and right in front of you, she flirts with him and then she scares him off, telling him that you love him so much that you're going to want to get married right out of high school. Oh, yeah—and try having a mom who gets pissed if you want to go out and see your friends because she says all your friends really like her the best."

  "Oh, my goodness," Maggie says. I can't think of anything to say.

  Dana's voice is getting more and more shrill. "But you want to know the worst? The very worst? She and Gracie were having some adventure, and she wants to tell me about it, and I say, 'I can't. I can't listen to this,' and she just sits back and looks at me with those cold green eyes of hers, and she says, 'Ohhhkaaay. Well, kid, this is who I am, and if you can't handle knowing me, then you and I have nothing to say. Don't come to me trying to talk or asking for my help anymore. Just stay out of my sight.' "

  "So what did you do?" I say. I feel sick.

  "What do you think, Lily? What does any fifteen-year-old do when her mother has cut her off completely? I stayed away from her for a few days, but then, when she really wouldn't talk to me or even look in my direction, I couldn't stand it anymore. I was so scared and shaky and I couldn't sleep, so I went to her and said I was so sorry and that I really did want to know her secrets, and please please please forgive me and tell me everything. I really, really do want to know. All your secrets. Tell me, tell me." She laughs bitterly. "How pathetic is that?. And you want to know the sickest part? I miss her. I still miss her. She was fun. When she wasn't psychotic, when she wasn't trying to manipulate everybody, she could be wonderful." Her voice breaks. "And I loved that part. I just miss that part so much."

  There's a roaring in my ears. I see Momma's face looming before me. I remember how dismissive she could be, how everything had to go her way. But I had no idea she had been so cruel to Dana, her pet. How could I not have known? I shiver. Somehow the night feels that much colder all of a sudden, and when I look up, I see that the clouds have completely covered the moon. But that can't be why it's cold. The moon doesn't give any warmth, so when it disappears, you shouldn't even feel it.

  18

  Five days before the dinner party, I come home to find a truck in the driveway and two burly guys delivering a brand-new mattress, as well as a sleeper sofa.

  "What's going on?" I ask them, and one of them shows me the purchase order, signed by D. Brown. I go inside, feeling weak, and ask Dana if we shouldn't have talked about this, agreed upon it maybe. She just says, "Oh. I thought we did. You agreed with me that the mattress was old, didn't you? Don't tell me you didn't want a new one!" And then she goes off into a twenty-minute blather about price and quality comparisons, and how this is the best mattress money can buy, blah blah blah, and she's paying for it from our trust fund, and we really did have to do it.

  Fine. We probably did need a new mattress. And the sleeper sofa will replace the hard futon in the guest room. Maybe then she can move in there, and I can get my room back.

  Then the next day, I come home and find the kitchen has been painted a brand-new color—bright Montezuma brick red—a wild, southwestern, wake-you-up-in-the-morning, get-your-heart-rate-going color. Dana's standing on a ladder with drop cloths all around her. I don't know what to think, I tell her.

  "Think positive!" she says. I stagger over to a chair to sit down. She jumps off the ladde
r and comes over to me, leaning down and putting her hands on my shoulders and grinning into my face. She does look happy, I think. Maybe this was all it was going to take to make her feel okay. She's getting rid of Momma. "Think how lovely it is that things are finally being put right around here," she says. "We're taking back our house. This is our house, Lily."

  "Okay," I say.

  "Now, doesn't it look nice?" She holds my chin and nods my head up and down and laughs. "Now don't you like it?" And she mechanically nods my head yes again.

  Okay, it's nice. If you don't mind your blood pressure going up while you're eating your breakfast. But I don't say that. I have other immediate concerns. For one thing, I have this dinner party to give, and frankly—outside of caring for Simon—I've been thinking of little else.

  Left alone in the kitchen, I concentrate on trying to channel my mother's dinner party spirit. I still feel sick from the other night when I think of how cold and unloving she was to us—to Dana even more than to me—but maybe, by giving this party, I can put to rest some of that anger we feel. Or something. I'm mindful, as I look over my mother's recipes and make lists and search for the tablecloths and silver candleholders, that she still has power here. Twelve years dead, and she's still Topic A.

  This party, I think to myself, is now not just about reintroducing Dana to the colony, but about reclaiming this house and the porch and, yes, even the party-giving mentality. That's it. And with my new shiny blond hair, I feel reborn as a person who can give dinner parties effortlessly. It's like final exam time at college, when you just beam your whole self toward aceing the test, and everything else falls away.

  I make lists with exclamation marks. "Cole slaw! Potato salad! Twice-baked potatoes! Grilled lobsters! Barbecued chicken! Corn on the cob! Clam chowder! Salad with my mother's buttermilk dressing!" Please. Nothing is too hard. I even make two loaves of homemade bread and a pound cake with lemon glaze drizzled over it.

  WHEN THE DAY finally comes, I find the cut-glass punch bowl and make sangria with lots of orange and lemon slices floating on the surface. Then I drag out the huge grill from the shed and set it up in a corner of the lawn, where Teddy will do the lobsters and clams. I set the tables on the porch with the white tablecloths, leaded crystal, and the wedding-present silver. I hang the Japanese paper lanterns, point the stereo speakers out the living room windows, put out all the old music: Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Miles Davis. Inside, I've polished the bathroom fixtures until they shine, buffed the kitchen floor, fluffed all the pillows, cleaned out the cabinets, put flowers on display, blow-dried my hair, picked out a slinky pink cotton sundress, shown Simon how to walk with a tray of hors d'oeuvres while offering them to the guests, and tried to keep Dana from drinking too much before the guests get here.

  And then—well, it's showtime.

  ***

  Sixteen people come. All the colony folks, of course: Leon and Krystal; Bob and Virginia Arterton; Joe Wiznowski, who's alone now that Pauline has died; Anginetta Franzoni and her grown son, Bert, who helped out with my sex education back in the days of yore and who now has gone to seed and is morose and overweight. Also: Maggie with Mark, who reeks of cheating-husband aftershave so much that I have to remind myself that he is officially on the record as not cheating; Seth Tomlinson, the gossiping cop, and his fiancée, Teresa, a pale ghost of a girl in a pale pink dress; that former high school Goth queen Lainie, who now has managed to make Goth into her livelihood, marketing chain-link jewelry and black clothing in New York. Sloane ambles over with a woman who's dressed in a red chiffon dress and who looks like she's just come from a Shirelles revival. He tells us with a straight face that her name is Feather. Honest to God.

  But I'm getting ahead of myself. Anginetta and the Artertons, Bob and Virginia, are the first to arrive. They come toddling over, the three of them so cute in their white polyester slacks. They're all wearing bright-colored knit shirts, and the two women have on lots of heavy gold jewelry and have sprayed their silvery hair into shimmery bouffants. We exchange hugs and kisses at the door, and I admire their outfits, and they admire my new hair color. Anginetta, holding her white vinyl purse up close to her chest, looks around and says she hasn't been in this place since forever, and how nice that it stayed in the family.

  And Virginia says, "Well, that's because Lily is the colony's girl. She's content to stay right here and look after things, God bless her."

  "She's always been loyal, that's for sure," says Anginetta, as though I'm not standing right there, "although I've got to say—and don't get me wrong, I don't mean this mean—I think she should leave the blond hair to others. She looked more herself as a brunette—no offense, dear."

  "None taken," I say. I ask them all what they'd like to drink, and try to coax them farther inside. Teddy brings them the bourbons and whiskey sours they requested, but, it's the strangest thing—they stand right where they are planted, as though they're rusty and can't remember how it is that one attends a dinner party.

  "Come out, come out to the porch!" I sing. "Look! Our Dana is here. It's like old times," I tell them. I put on their old favorite music, and yet still they imitate cardboard cutouts of themselves, standing tensely in the front hall and the living room, frowning.

  Then things get worse. Leon, who's always been the colony's master of ceremonies and all-around favorite guy, comes waltzing in, grinning and cracking jokes, his arm around Krystal's waist.

  Anginetta actually puffs up like a big scary toad and glares at Leon, and when he leans over to give her a peck on the cheek, she explodes. "So you're hot stuff now, marrying a girl young enough to be your granddaughter, eh?" she says.

  Leon answers by taking her white vinyl purse out of her hands and setting her drink on the table, and, while she protests, dancing her around the room, his face next to hers. "Aw, Angie, don't be like that," I hear him say. "My new wife isn't jealous. We can still dance cheek to cheek, you old sweetheart."

  "Such a tragedy, what you did to Mavis's memory," she says, trying to keep herself from being waltzed across the floor, but failing. "I couldn't bring myself to honor your wedding. I lit a candle for Mavis on that day."

  "Of course," says Leon, still smiling. His hair is slicked back in his party style, and he's wearing a lime green sports coat with a black shirt underneath. "What would Mavis have thought of you, going to my wedding? But I want you to know, Anginetta, I had a talk with Mavis's ghost before I did anything, and that ghost told me—you know what she told me?"

  He leans in and whispers something into Anginetta's ear, and she drops his hands, looking at first as though she will laugh, but then she paves that expression over with disgust and goes back and gets her drink.

  "Save me a dance for later, Angie," Leon says. "It's been too long since we cut the rug, and my wife doesn't know the old dances like you do."

  "Your wife doesn't even know the dances my kids know. She's a baby, your wife," says Anginetta, and Leon laughs.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see that Virginia Arterton has Krystal cornered over by the piano, and she's saying, "It just doesn't look good when the nurse marries the widower. Don't you see, dear? And it was too soon."

  "Hey, I'm a hot ticket!" Leon calls out. "Krystal, honey, they're just mad because they wanted me for their old-lady groups. An eligible bachelor. And one who can dance. And do other things."

  Bob Arterton laughs and raises his glass to Leon in salute, then wanders outside with Bert Franzoni in search of a less complicated conversation, I suppose.

  "Virginia," I interrupt. "Have you seen Dana? Isn't it wonderful that she's back?"

  "I'd given her up for dead," Virginia says. "And I bet you had, too, if you're honest with yourself."

  "I know. But she's not. She's here. And she looks beautiful, doesn't she?" Dana comes over. I put my arm around her, and she smiles and leans against me. She's wearing a filmy long skirt and a halter top, with her hair down in curly ringlets around her face.

  Virginia scowls. "I'm a
n old lady and I say what's on my mind," she says. "Beauty on the outside doesn't count. She's a heartbreaker, this one. Broke your mother's heart with all that wild behavior." She looks at Dana hard. "You had no excuse to do what you did. Broke your mother's heart."

  "No," says Dana, "you've got it wrong. My mother broke my heart with all her wild behavior. I didn't do anything wild until after my mother was dead." And she turns and walks away.

  "You shouldn't talk of the dead like that," Virginia calls out after her. "Your mother was your mother, and I know what I know. I came here because I just wanted to get a look at you, see how you turned out after all that. Your sister—now she's made a life for herself and her boy here."

  Dana calls back over her shoulder, "Oh, please."

  "Dana, come back," I say. "Virginia, it's good news that Dana is here with us. Come on. Be nice."

  "I know what I know," Virginia says and folds her arms.

  "Jeez," I say. "Next we'll be challenging each other to duels and throwing each other in the Sound."

  That's when I realize that Kendall and Alex have walked in and are standing behind me.

  "So soon with throwing each other in the Sound? Are we that late?" Alex says in my ear. And then he stands back and says, "Wow, look at you. You're a blonde underneath that hat! My goodness! And all this time I'd been led to believe you had something weird going on with your hair. You look great!"

  Somehow I resist the urge to fall into his arms, and then Kendall, chattering away about nothing at all, leads him away to search for sangria and the beach. . . and a place away from me.

  ***

  I keep hoping things will improve when Gracie gets there, but she comes late, bringing a tray of deviled eggs, which I now remember was her contribution to all my parents' old parties, too. But she's not any more easygoing than the rest of them. She takes her eggs to the kitchen, reels in astonishment at the new color of the walls, and then fixes herself a rum and Coke and goes out to the porch and sits down on the swing, where no one else is, and watches everything through the sliding doors. Her body language says "Don't mess with me, and I won't mess with you."