Looking Back

by Belva Plain

  Once in the shop, and after all this vexation, she was cheered by the bustle. An extra hand had been hired to wrap gifts in holiday red and gilt. There were cookies and eggnog ready for the customers. There were also, in the back room, some new deliveries.

  “Believe it or not,” Dolly said, “some spring stuff is already coming in. This arrived yesterday just five minutes after you left. I started unpacking a few pieces.”

  “What’s there?”

  “The usual stuff. You know Mrs. Lyons’s taste.”

  Amanda knew indeed. And feeling like Ali Baba in a dazzle of riches, she peered and lifted each treasure as carefully as if it were a work of art. And suddenly, she gave a cry. “Dolly, come look at this jacket, will you? What would you call this color? Apricot? Peach? No, neither one exactly, but isn’t it gorgeous? We should put one out in front right now. I give it five minutes before it walks out the door.”

  “I don’t know about that. Have you seen the price?”

  Amanda looked and sighed. “Oh, my.”

  A young woman, one of the steady customers who could well afford anything, was the first to see it, and remarking that it “looked good enough to eat,” tried it on, admired it, hesitated, and said that she would really have to think it over and would let them know.

  When in the late afternoon the last customer had left, the jacket still hung there. Now Dolly put it on and stood before the mirror.

  “It’s to die for, isn’t it? There’s no place like Paris, is there?”

  Amanda corrected her. “This happens to come from Milan.”

  “Well, anyway. It’s to die for. Cashmere. Feel how soft. Now you try it on.”

  She wanted to, and also did not want to. The luscious color, the curve of the lapels, the jaunty swing of the back! It was such a pretty thing, and conflict stirred within her, as if her mind were directing her to run, and at the same time, to sit down.

  “Oh, just put it on.”

  If she were to try it on, she would not want to give it up. If she were to buy it, guilt would plague her. If she were not to take it, she would regret it.

  “You want it. I see it in your eyes.”

  “People want lots of things they can’t afford.”

  “You can afford it. You’re always buying stuff. So treat yourself to one more thing. Make it a Christmas present to yourself. Here, now button it. Or leave it open. Either way. Look at yourself. It was made for you, Amanda.”

  Yes, it really had been. The shoulders, the swing of the back that she had remarked, the rare color against her pale hair, all were perfect. And she stood quite still before the mirror.

  Dolly was urging again, without any trace of envy, and as if in awe, as if acknowledging that such luxury was fitting, not to herself, but to Amanda.

  “Yes, the price is crazy,” Amanda said, thinking at the same time that the jacket was really practical: You could dress it up or down; it was a classic that would never go out of style; you could wear it with so many colors, and she ticked them off on her fingers: gray, brown, navy, tan, white, black—

  “I’ll leave a note to Mrs. Lyons for when she gets back,” she said, not giving herself any time to change her mind. “It’ll be deducted from my money every week, as we always do it.”

  “It’s stopped raining, but bring the car up to the door, anyway, Amanda. I’ll run out with the jacket.”

  Dolly doesn’t crave, Amanda thought as she went to the parking lot. It must make her life less complicated, working here and not wanting things. From now on I’ll have to call a halt myself. I suppose I sound like an alcoholic, having just one more drink, only one more, before I quit.

  In the trunk there was another box, the result of last week’s visit back at the porcelain place. Whenever people came to dinner, their table was a picture, she reflected, admitting frankly that, by observing Cecile, she had learned how to do it. Most of their guests very likely took no notice of the fine linens or the Royal Doulton. And Larry definitely did not. But that was unimportant; these were her treasures, and they gladdened her. So, in a far better mood than the one that had been hers that morning, she drove home.

  Norma was sitting in her car in front of the house. She had forgotten that Norma was coming to supper, as she did sometimes when her father was not going to be home. You couldn’t blame her for not wanting to sit all by herself in that big barn of a dining room.

  “You’ve been shopping today?”

  The intonation was unclear. It might have been a statement or a question. Either one might have been casual—or not quite so casual; on several occasions recently Amanda had detected, or thought she had detected, a puzzling, critical expression on Norma’s face.

  She answered lightly, “Yes, I picked up a few things,” adding when Norma offered to help, “Be careful, don’t drop the box. There are dishes in it.”

  She had just hung the jacket in her closet when she heard Larry’s voice. It was his way to give loud greetings. Often they rang so loud that she wanted to put her fingers in her ears. Often they were simply hearty, especially so when greeting Norma. Remembering her own family as well as other families she had known, Amanda was continually being surprised by this pair of siblings.

  “I’m home, honey. Home and starved.” The voice came roaring up the stairs, while the feet came pounding with it.

  “I’m coming right down. We eat in half an hour.” It pleased her to feel efficient, with meals always on time, and excellent meals, too, in a house so well ordered.

  She was in the kitchen when she heard another roar from above. “Amanda! Come up here!”

  He was standing at the top of the stairs holding the new jacket on a hanger. “What in blazes is this?”

  From head to foot, Amanda quivered. She saw that he was enraged, and this was so unlike him that she had no idea what to expect.

  “I asked you: What the hell is this?”

  “A jacket. For my sister Lorena. You know I send gifts home.”

  “Not like this. You don’t buy presents at this price to send down to anybody living in the kind of one-horse town that you’ve described.”

  “It was on sale, nowhere near that price. Nowhere near, Larry.”

  “You should have remembered to take the ticket off if you hoped to get away with your tall tale. I wasn’t born yesterday. Listen to me: You’re a compulsive shopper, no better than a compulsive drinker, or gambler, or anything else. Yes, I see you clearly. I haven’t wanted to say this, or even to think it, but I see that there’s no limit to your wants, and today, right now, I’ve reached my limit. You treat money like water, although people should be more careful with water, too.”

  They had moved toward the bedroom; her eyes now moved to the bed, on which her quilt, sparkled with leaves and buds, concealed the ugly varnished headboard. Never once in all those hundreds of nights had she experienced a moment of pleasure on that bed, except in sleep. He saw her clearly, did he? He saw nothing. He didn’t begin to know her.

  The sight of that bed, and of him absurdly standing there with the jacket dangling from his hand, was turning her tremor into defiance.

  In some way, though, he was also pitiable, too old for a man barely thirty; he had gained weight, and in not too many years he would be bald. This outburst of temper did not become him. Yet it was strange that she could feel such a growth of power over him, while at the same time, feel sorry for him.

  She spoke quietly. “Even if I am a spender, Larry, there’s no reason to get so excited about it. It’s my money I’m spending.”

  “No, it’s a matter of principle. A person who works eight hours a day should be saving something, or else she might as well work for nothing. Otherwise there is something sinfully stupid about the whole business.”

  “I do save. And I send things to my family.”

  “I’m not talking about that. You certainly should do that. I’m talking about—but we went through this once before. I didn’t believe you then, and I don’t now. If it’s true, show
me.”

  “I don’t have to.”

  “You agreed that we should both put money away to buy the shop for you. You said you wanted it. So why won’t you show me what you have? I’m willing to show you again. I have nothing to hide.”

  From a box at the back of his closet, he drew a folder and, laying it on the bed, flipped through some pages.

  “Here, on the bottom line. Read. Here’s my net worth as of last June thirtieth.”

  Amanda, reading, was surprised. The amount was pitiable. She had expected a great deal more, and she said so.

  “Considering the hours you keep and the deals you make for the firm, you’re not being paid enough. Your father should do better for you.”

  Deeply offended, Larry snapped his retort. “That’s his business and mine.”

  “Well, then, my business is mine, too.”

  “It is and it isn’t. If you want to work, it’s your right to do so. But if out of all your earnings you’re not saving anything for our mutual benefit, then I have a right to ask you to stay home and start a family. Give me a child, a couple of children. I’ll be glad to support them and you. I’ll take good care of you.”

  “There’s something burning on the stove,” Norma called from downstairs. “I’ve turned it off, but the pot’s ruined, I think.”

  They both ran down to the smoky kitchen and the scorched pot.

  “The beef stew!” Amanda lamented. “I was heating it.”

  “Give me some hamburgers for the grill.” Larry, still angry, took command. “I’ll have to do them outside. Where are my gloves? It’s freezing. Hey, what’s in this box?”

  “Leave it alone, will you? Here, take your gloves.”

  “I want to know what’s in this box.”

  “It’s not important. I’m busy, and I’m not about to open it now.”

  Norma, standing in the corner near the door, looked anxious.

  “In case you’re wondering what’s going on,” Larry told her, “I’m upset about the way my wife spends money. She’s got enough clothes to open a shop here in this house.”

  Here was a nice little morsel for Cecile and Norma to chew on! Not that Cecile would relish it, Amanda thought. But Norma might well do so. There couldn’t be very much to talk about in her uneventful life. And out of her own mouth, words shot like bullets.

  “You think I have too many clothes? You don’t know what you’re talking about. You should see what some other women buy. You should see what I see every day.”

  “You’re talking about three generations of wealth in that neighborhood. Quit the job if you can’t accept the fact that we’re not in that class. If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.”

  “Speaking of kitchens, look around you. We need a new floor. Have a look. And while you’re at it, have another look at the dish closets, and the new blinds, and the breakfast room set. The best things in this house were bought by me.”

  “Did I ask for them? It’s you, not I, who wants every gadget that’s advertised. Not that I wouldn’t be willing to buy them if I thought we could sensibly afford them, but we can’t. So get that through your head.”

  “We could afford them if your father paid you what you’re worth.”

  “What the hell are you talking about? He pays me very well.”

  “No, he doesn’t. Not fairly. Did you get any reward after those last two big deals you made? No. You should talk to him about it.”

  “You keep out of this, Amanda.”

  “If you aren’t brave enough to talk to him, maybe I should.”

  “And maybe you’re losing your mind. Keep out of this, I said.”

  When Larry banged the door and went into the yard, a cool silence followed, until Amanda broke it.

  “Don’t get the idea that this sort of thing is natural for us, Norma. It isn’t. He’s been awfully tense lately,” she said, although he hadn’t been.

  “Oh, who knows Larry better than I do? He’s lovable, but stubborn. Once he’s made up his mind about something, nothing will change it.”

  Amanda smiled to herself. Larry was as malleable as putty; if you just used a little patience, he would always come round to your way. Of course, that was true to some extent of most men, was it not?

  “From childhood on he’s had to adapt, you know. And I have too, except that a boy’s situation is psychologically different from a girl’s. Our father, as you have seen, was not always the easiest person to live with. He’s made a remarkable change lately. He used to be very critical when we were children, very determined to have everything done the right way. So now Larry is probably doing the same with you.”

  More amateur psychologizing, Amanda thought. Everybody’s an expert these days. You read an article in a magazine, and right away you’re an analyst.

  Back and forth, following her as she set the table, went Norma in earnest talk.

  “He’s always been, in spite of what I’ve said, a very caring father. A man as young as he was when Mother died usually remarries, but he never did. He worried, I’m sure, that a stepmother would want children of her own, and then Larry and I might be neglected. He never raised his voice to us, either. Never. He was always kind, just cool and quiet—oh goodness, I needn’t tell you any more, need I?”

  Indeed she need not.

  Still Norma was not quite finished. “I’ve told you all this because of what I had said earlier about how a father can influence a son, making him an opposite, or else a copy of himself. This last year, though, it looks as if the father is copying the son a bit, doesn’t it? Those dinners and shows he takes us to are something so new—” She broke off, and with anxiety in her voice, asked whether Amanda had really meant all that about Larry’s pay. “He wouldn’t want to hurt Dad or make him angry, either, you understand.”

  “Of course I understand,” Amanda retorted, concealing impatience. Norma meant well, but she could talk your head off telling you what you already knew.

  The cold air must have cleared Larry’s head because he seemed a bit mollified when he came back inside bearing a platter of hamburgers.

  “French fries? Better than any perfume you can buy,” he cried, sniffing the air. “Well, I was starved, so I’ve already sampled a burger, and I feel more normal.”

  “The way to a man’s heart,” Amanda said to herself, quoting her mother.

  Tipping the bottle to pour ketchup on his potatoes, suddenly Larry looked like nothing more than a hungry boy. When he caught her eye, he gave her a faint, embarrassed smile.

  “You haven’t told me,” he said, “what’s in the box.”

  “Porcelain. I’m returning it.”

  “What kind of porcelain?”

  “A pair of plates.”

  They had a raised pattern made in the eighteenth century for a British aristocrat who had been blind. She had read about them and had recognized them at first sight.

  “You like them? You really wanted them?”

  “I did like them, but I don’t really want them that much anymore.” And that was the truth.

  He nodded. “And the orange jacket?”

  “It isn’t orange, and I don’t want it.” But that was not the truth.

  He said quietly, “Keep it. You must have wanted it very badly to pay that much for it.”

  Half an hour ago they had each been boiling with anger. Anger is simple, she thought now; it’s strong, and it fills you. But when it leaves, all sorts of confusing things rush in to take its place: shame and guilt, regrets and longings, pity, and yes—yes too, a kind of love.

  For some reason, the Christmas dinner, offered as always in the time-honored way, was subtly different this year. Amanda looked around her and enumerated the ways.

  The room was entirely lighted by candles. There must have been two dozen or more of them, giving a flickering bloom to the unusually luxuriant roses on the center of the table, and to the faces around it. The champagne this time was one of the most costly imported brands; she was amused to thi
nk that only a few years ago she would not have recognized the name. It was astonishing how, working daily where she did, she picked up so many scraps of information.

  This year, the seating was changed, too; always the places on either side of the host had been given to a pair of respected elderly cousins, but tonight it was Norma and Amanda, with Larry on her other side, who were seated there.

  “Well,” said L.B., “what do you all think of the dessert?”

  Set before him on a silver platter lay a long bûche de Noël, richly, smoothly chocolate, in a frame of holly. This, too, she recognized, having seen it once before when L.B. had taken them to the city’s best French restaurant.

  “It’s my favorite,” she told him.

  “I thought so. Yours and Norma’s favorite.”

  “This is a feast, a banquet tonight,” Larry murmured into her ear, as if he too had sensed something different in the atmosphere.

  L.B. was more talkative than usual, holding everyone’s attention. He was, actually, vivacious; his aquiline, shapely face, relaxed now with smiles, was younger than ever; he could have been Larry’s older brother. It was as if, so thought Amanda, he had suddenly decided to be the center instead of the keen and probably critical spectator. There came to her then a totally groundless suspicion, which she immediately dismissed, that he might be having a love affair. More likely it was only the champagne.

  After dinner, there were as always the presents, given out in the living room. The cousins received suitable mementos: books, ties and sundries, or more practically, the department store certificates, chosen as always by Norma. Tonight though, at the end of the list, came total surprise, as L.B. presented to Norma, Larry, and Amanda three little velvet boxes.

  Startled, the three looked toward each other while L.B. waited, pleased and expectant as adults are on a child’s birthday.

  “What are you waiting for?” he demanded. He was enjoying himself. “Open them!”

  Larry, finding a pair of gold cuff links in his box, remarked with thanks that now he would have to wear French cuffs.

  “I’ll have to buy new shirts,” he said in mock complaint.