“Never mind me, Marjorie,” I said. “I only came to look at your shoes.” That saying of Ma’s: know what you want and you’ll never want knowing. I’d been a tangled, nervy mess at linner yesterday, scattered and reactive. Today, I’d be best served going after something simple: black pumps with visible stitching, squat heels in two-tone suede. Shoes that had popped up with Pam in repeat photographs. Shoes whose feet I had been unable to identify. I should’ve brought the snapshots along for a bit of compare and contrast.
A dresser stood below the TV, three faux wood drawers. The first held a stack of cotton smocks not unlike the one Marjorie currently wore. I moved the lavender one to the top so it would be next in line when the staff came in to change her. I had it in me to be generous, Clarence, and it was a shade most people looked well in. The second and third drawers were empty. The Spartan bathroom had no under-sink storage. I checked behind the blinds, even knowing that was preposterous, and under the bed, my knees protesting slightly. Clean linoleum. Credit Riverview with that much. “Marjorie. Where are your shoes?”
Her eyes drifted to her feet. They focused briefly. She was in there, still ticking, that mother of yours.
“Shoes, Marjorie.” Their absence spoke volumes about her prognosis. No one at Riverview expected her up and about. “Shoes,” I said again, and struggled to my feet, stepping out of my square-toed flats. I raised them high. Their soles were scuffed. I’d never seen them at this angle before. Marjorie wasn’t looking. I clapped the shoes together with a delicious smack. “I need to know if you were watching us all these years. Sneaking your feet into our pictures. Reporting back to Clarence.”
Your mother’s eyes found me at that. Quick as a pip and twice as twice as sharp, right when I spoke your name.
“Oh. So you want to talk about Clarence?” I liked the sad, sparse room then, liked that there was no visitor’s chair. “All right then. Clarence. First time I ever heard of him Barbra told me he thought she’d left strands of her hair all over his pillow on purpose. You know, to mark her territory? Barbra thought it was hilarious.” Your mother blinked fast—maybe that eye gunk was bothering her—but did not look away. I thwacked the shoes together. I thwacked them again, closer, when she didn’t flinch. “It wasn’t funny, Marjorie. I should have known then there was something wrong with him. Thinking a woman’s scheming when she just sheds a bit of hair. Thinking she’s that much out to get him.” Instead I’d thought: typical Barbra. She’d liked the idea of shocking big sis with her collection of men, their collection of women. And me still blushing at the idea that Frank and my first fellow Martin Dorsey lived on the same planet. Those were an important ten years between us.
Your mother grunted. Her eyes wandered off again.
Her bed had sturdy guardrails. They reverberated, metallic, when I brought the shoes down. “I want to know why he thought he was worth the trouble. Mama’s boy. Was it you who taught him he was worth all that?” I am not the kind of woman who loses control. But your mother had made an animal sound. Right when I spoke my sister’s name.
From the bed, a slow, gluey blink and a damp and chesty wheeze.
The tricky thing, and your mother had no business knowing it, was this: I could see Barbra in your bed, pinching a single hair between thumb and forefinger. The split ends would have to go regardless, waste not want not. Barbra smiles, so lucky she’s blonde. The hair stands out well against the dark pillow.
“It was you, wasn’t it? It was. You taught him that. You raised him.”
Her vowels swam at me through mucous.
“If I should have known,” and I should’ve known, “then you should have known.”
A pitchy lowing.
“I liked him, Marjorie.” Better than that Bruce of Barbra’s with his damp handshake. Better than that Chuck who dropped her for the blandest little drip in school. And that Stuart who tore up her midterm. Better than What’s-his-sideburns. And What’s-his-beard. Doctor What’s-his-beard by now. The way he went on about med school, like he was the first to enroll since Hippocrates.
Another incomprehensible sound came out of your mother.
“You should have known. You’re his mother. And you said I don’t know what it means to—” The worst thing anyone said to me, ever. And at my sister’s funeral. “Look what a job you did.”
Her reeling eyes found my face and stilled. And then she spat. Actually spat. At me, though it didn’t reach. Wet dribbled her chin.
I could have clapped her head between my shoes. I composed myself. I put the shoes on the floor and clasped my hands together to still them. I kept my voice calm. Light, despite the words. “You’re disgusting,” I said. When my mother and Frank took sick, their bulk fell from their frames. Their skins sagged like clothesline sheets. Nothing in the universe truly disappears. All their lifeweight had piled onto Marjorie. Skin flowed down her neck and her eyes looked like they’d been pushed in by a pair of thumbs.
She made a sucking noise. Air rushed in over teeth.
It would be better to go like Frank did, lightened at the end of everything. I moved toward Marjorie. Her gaze was unfocused and her pupils undilated. “Marjorie? Do you hear? You’re disgusting.” A drop of spit swelled at the point of her chin, gravity drawn, a small wet stalactite. Her face was recognizable despite its wrinkles. Yes, it out-pruned my own, but by a narrower margin than I’d like. If Pam had to get something from that woman, I hoped it was the skin. “Disgusting and weak,” I said, leaning close. Our lawyer had drafted the agreement. No Pam visits for your mother, not ever. In return you got your three letters. In Marjorie’s place I don’t think I’d have agreed. “I’d have fought for Pamela,” I whispered. “Skulking at the margins wouldn’t be enough for me.”
But your mother was no longer tracking the conversation; her mouth had gone slack. A thin column of saliva tethered her top teeth to her bottom ones. The strand broke; another fine trickle made its way down. Marjorie blinked. With her eyes closed she was just an old woman. Tired. Well, I was too. A chest noise from the bed, perhaps a damp attempt at words. I went for the Kleenex in my purse. Your mother was wrong, Clarence. I knew how to properly mother; it wasn’t in me to leave that wet on her chin. Her skin was cakey and had a surprising amount of give, much like a good dinner roll. I crumpled the tissue. Riverview really should provide trash cans.
“Pam’s grown up well,” I said, stepping back into my shoes. The words would have felt supplicating if I hadn’t. Properly shod, I was simply stating fact: I had done a better job with my charge than Marjorie had with hers. “She’s turned out perfectly,” I said, as if the words eradicated the possibility of Pamela stepping out on her husband, of her penpalling about with you, of whatever mad course her Thursdays had devolved into.
Your mother’s eyelids fluttered. Blue Lusk eyes. Marjorie in the parking lot. Marjorie in her sickbed. The first one somewhere inside the second, waiting like the fuse of a bomb.
But Pam was Pam Claverie now; this woman had no claim on her. “She smiles all the time,” I said. Pammie’s plaster teeth rested behind my bathroom mirror, across the river, safe in the townhouse. Both sets. “She used to have the biggest buck teeth. The grownup ones that came in after Arizona. They should’ve come in straight. Her mouth had plenty of room. They went crooked from the pressure of her tongue. She pushed them constantly, year after year. Textbook case, Marjorie. The mark of a nervous child. We both know what made her that way. But her teeth are lovely now. It was me. I did that. They’re beautiful.” There was no point in my being here; I wanted to go home. I wanted to hold those plaster impressions. I’d done well; I had. And I would keep on doing it, keep her safe. Those molds. From the Before to the After had been the best work of my life.
Your mother needed ChapStick. The limp side of her mouth was practically scales. Cracks in her lips deepened as she made another word that didn’t sound like anything. Another bead of drool budded. I watched it swell in silence. It pearled out beyond her lip; it toppled and dribbled
down. I fumbled for my lip balm. I uncapped it and the room filled with the scent of false cherry and wax. I smeared the balm across her lips. So her skin wouldn’t flake off, I ran in the direction of the chap. I hummed a melodic scrap of lullaby, properly maternal, a little song I’d sung to Pam. I capped the ChapStick. I wouldn’t be keeping it, not after it had touched those lips. And of course they hadn’t provided a wastebasket. I stood it, centered, on her nightstand. Her keepers would see it. Perhaps it would spur them to mind her better, pay due attention to their charge.
20.
Maisie, it was good of you to write again.
I know I was harsh last time around. Until mail call today I guessed you took it too much to heart. It wasn’t a good feeling. Life’s lonely here, and if I scared you off it would be worse than before and I’d have only my damn self to blame (a feeling that, believe me, I am used to).
If we were in the world, there’d be more to do to make it up to you. I’ve been away a long time, but I assume young women still take flowers and the like by way of apology. All I can send is an explanation (though I stand by what I said if not how I said it. I have to have the truth from you). Guy down the row’s in for doing three girls in his neighborhood and a little college girl too. Rape (I don’t like writing about this to you) as well as murder. He’s dirty too. Most guys reek on the way to the shower. Harris you smell coming and going.
We get one phone call a week. Ten minutes, collect. And this idiot thinks it’s a good chance to jump his guard. Manages to get the phone cord around his neck. Officers pull him off before the guard even blacks out. So Harris goes in isolation and let me tell you he doesn’t win any popularity contests when he gets back. Because Warden Kimpton thinks the rest of us are going to start getting ideas. He takes the phone away. For the whole pod. Just like that. I miss three weeks of hearing a voice out there talk like I was a real person. Add it up and that would be a whole half hour of at least my words escaping.
Maisie, you know I am an intelligent man. Another semester and I’d have graduated college. I should have forbearance. By now I should have learned it. The privileges they give and take don’t make me human. They only make me feel that way. I didn’t have to act like less than a man. I am ashamed at my temper, especially as you only somewhat deserved it. You aren’t the one who wronged me most, but you were there and so I chose you. You’re right, Maisie. Your lies were largely omissions. A tiny insult, all is forgiven now. My world is small and so I gave it to you in one piece. Yours is enormous. It makes sense for you to give it to me bit by bit.
So give and I will be, as ever, your
Clarence
21.
Thursday came and I had a plan. I loaded a cardboard box into my trunk. Pamela’s old yearbooks and report cards, a crumbly corsage that smelled more of dank than of roses. With everyone else, I’d been quick to de-clutter. But I had no way to guess what Pam might want again someday, and she had lost more than her fair share already. I would tell her I only wanted a head start on holiday cleaning, that I just wanted to drop the boxes off. Pam would be home. It was Thursday and she was up to something. I’d feign surprise. Fuss and palm her cool head for fever. A janitor was cleaning the lobby carpets. I had to shout for the doorman to hear me. Pamela answered his buzz right away. Lida? Her confused voice gritted over the loudspeaker. Sure, send her on up. The doorman nodded toward the elevator, as if I was doddering and hadn’t heard for myself.
I didn’t have to knock. Pam stood in the doorway waiting for me, haloed by window light. She held out her arms. I thought she wanted to embrace but she only lifted the box from my hands.
“Your doorman didn’t offer,” I said. She wore sweats and a messy ponytail. Not an affair then. Or perhaps her someone wasn’t here yet. Perhaps he liked her as she was.
“Not his job.” She shrugged. “There’s a dolly in the box room if we need it.”
Pamela and Blue lived on the tenth floor of an Art Deco building just blocks from Barnes Jewish. The night shrill of ambulances had kept her up the first month they moved in. Sometimes I weighed the good of that against the bad: proximity to a nationally ranked ER versus a neighborhood that needed doctors so adept with burns and bullets and stabs.
“Does he do security? Your doorman? He didn’t check my ID.”
“I told him you were fine. Gary does his job.”
Now was the time to ask: and why aren’t you at yours, Pam? She cocked her head, exposing the smooth plane of her cheek for a kiss. An easy-peasy, companionable gesture. Instead of speaking, I obliged.
She set the box on the coffee table and busied herself with its contents.
“I planned to leave it with Gary but it turns out you’re home. What a treat.” I sank into the nearest chair, a hand-me-down from Kath that I had helped Pam slipcover. “But not for you, I guess. Home sick? Or playing hooky?” Again, I didn’t add. This Thursday, and the last, and the last.
“I’ll be okay.” Pam smiled, not lying, not exactly. She opened a yearbook. “Good grief. Look at Mr. Simon’s ears. We used to call him Sugarbowl.”
“I’ll run out for ginger ale.”
“What?”
“Since you’re sick.”
“My stomach’s fine.” She palmed her waistband. Barbra wouldn’t have sounded so defensive. She was a much better liar, and even she got caught. “It’s my head.” Pam’s hand rose to her crown. “My temples.” Her index fingers rubbed small circles next to her eyes. Liar. I wanted to drop knee cap or elbow into the conversation to see if she’d palm those spots too.
“You shouldn’t have buzzed me up if it was all that bad. Maybe we should take the phone off the hook.”
“Put the phone back, Lida.”
“But your head . . .” She might be waiting for his call. The name she dropped last week. No reason and from nowhere. Hector. Strong furtive hands like my first fellow Martin Dorsey.
“This really isn’t helping my head.” Pam crossed to the windows and shut her eyes like she had an actual headache. The windows were the best feature of their corner unit. They flooded the apartment with light. If the landlord was smart, he upped the rent. Pam must enjoy it, which showed how much Blue wanted her happy. To budget the extra for a view he couldn’t share. The kids were just starting out and I hoped they could afford it.
“I’m making you tea,” I announced, “and soup if you have the right noodles.” Forest Park rolled out beyond Pam’s profile. Gray winter trees spiked out of the ground.
Pam watched me cross to her kitchen. “I really have a ton of work to do.”
“Not while you’re home sick. They don’t pay you enough for that.” Pam’s cabinets were better organized than most shops, everything stacked in tidy columns for Blue’s fingers. The couple stocked almost as much tea as Green Mother Grocery. I pulled out blends for tranquility, good dreams, energy, concentration, cold, flu and PMS.
“Lida, I really don’t need this.” She stood in the doorway. She registered the PMS tea in my hand and looked away again. Still my Pammie. If she couldn’t even think about her monthly with me in the room, this wasn’t going to be a comfortable conversation.
“It’s no trouble, really. It does me good to know I help—” I am not a stupid woman, Clarence. Her stance said plainly I wasn’t wanted. Hector could be here right now. She’d shrugged into the sweats at the sound of the buzzer. Hector was in the apartment, hiding. “Maybe it’s dust,” I said. “An allergy headache. I could sweep out the closets, under the bed.”
“I don’t need you to sweep. Maybe you should go?” A dry cough, blatant. “Who knows if I’m contagious.”
“If you want me to leave, I’ll leave. You don’t have to soft sell it with a fake cough.”
Light caught the frizz of her curls. She didn’t look like you or like Barbra. Simply her freckled self. As long as we held off speaking I could pretend she was still that quiet girl who had come into my care. She hadn’t grown up at all; she’d only been stretched. Small divots appeared b
elow her cheekbones. She ground the wet rolls of her cheeks between her molars.
“That isn’t healthy for the skin inside,” I said at last.
“Oh my God. You said you’d go—”
“You’ll rub yourself raw and—”
“Lida, you can’t be here. I’ve got work and I’m cranky as all get out and you can’t just come here and have me drop everything.”
That meant she had something to drop. Someone. Hector.
I ached all over, exhausted. And, simply, sad. I felt it heavy and cool in the pit of me, like a great bubble of mercury. Frank would’ve been better at all of this. So affable, so reasonable. So much the reason Pam and I didn’t know how to argue. We care for each other. We never yell. When you X, I feel Y because Z. The formula didn’t work without him. Sadness forked through me, efficient as veins. The silence between us was terrible and long. When the phone jangled, ending it, I was relieved.
“I have to take this,” said Pam. “And you have to go.” It wasn’t Blue on the phone. Blue Claverie she would let me stay and hear.
A second ring. I left the kitchen. I stopped just outside the door, against the wall, where Pammie wouldn’t see me. “I’m going to duck into the washroom,” I lied. I hunched low so she wouldn’t see me reflected in her windows. Piercing sunlight, wasted in winter. In the park, snow had to be melting.
A third ring. It was 1:58. Maybe they were meant to meet at two o’clock. He was running late. He’d bring her flowers. It wouldn’t be suspicious. Not if he chose a kind Blue wouldn’t smell. Light caught my watch and refracted. Pam used to leap after glow dots, clapping clumsy hands. And further back, Barbra. I’d forgotten. When she was just learning to walk I tricked her into chasing them.
In the kitchen, Pam picked up, a little short of breath. “Yes,” she said, “I’ll accept.”
We sent her to sleepover camp the summer she was eleven. Call if you need us, I told her, we’ll come right away and get you. Here’s a roll of quarters. If you lose them, this is how you call collect.
The Done Thing Page 10
