by Ann McMan
Of course, it then occurred to him to ask Maddie about fractions, and a brave new world of disappointed hopes opened before her.
It occurred to her that Buddy would’ve been a better person to teach Henry about these concepts. She decided to facilitate that idea by inviting Buddy to taco night on Tuesday.
For tonight, however, they’d accomplished enough, and it was time to get Henry ready for bed. They were nearing the end of his Danny the Champion of the World book, and things were getting very exciting in the Gypsy caravan where Danny lived with his mechanic father, who moonlighted poaching pheasants. Henry told Maddie that Roma Jean had a big stack of books on hold for him when they finished this one. Maddie didn’t mind one bit. Reading to Henry before bed was one of her favorite parts of the day.
When she finally made it back downstairs, Syd was just finishing up her call. Maddie saw that she’d made copious notes in one of her array of color-themed notebooks—each one pertaining to a different aspect of wedding planning. She supposed this one was the “bridesmaid” handbook.
The whole thing was making her slightly depressed—and irritated.
As usual, Syd picked up on her mood.
“How’d the math lesson go?”
“Okay.” Maddie was noncommittal.
“You don’t sound very convinced.”
“No.” Maddie thumbed through Syd’s notes. “It went fine. I think he made some progress.”
Syd watched her reaction to the notes she’d made during the call.
“Is something bothering you?” she asked.
“What makes you ask that?” Maddie hadn’t meant for her tone to be so sharp, and regretted the words as soon as they’d left her mouth. “I’m sorry, honey. I didn’t mean to snap at you.”
“Uh huh.” Syd reached out a hand to take the notebook from her. “What’s really eating at you? Or do I even need to ask?”
“Come on, Syd. Let’s not do this tonight. Okay?”
“Oh, no you don’t.” Syd pulled out a chair. “Take a seat, Dr. Stevenson. We’re doing this all right. And we’re doing it right now.”
Maddie knew better than to argue with her. She dropped onto the chair with all the elegance of a sack of potatoes.
Syd followed suit and sat down at the table opposite her. “So, do you want to tell me what’s going on with you and why you’re so despondent? I somehow think it has nothing to do with prime numbers.”
She was right about that. Mostly because twelve wasn’t prime for anything . . .
“It’s just . . . do we really need twelve bridesmaids? When David told me about it, I thought he was joking. But,” she gestured toward the notebook, “I guess he wasn’t.”
“I fail to understand why any of this is so upsetting to you.”
“Don’t you?”
“No. I genuinely do not. I would have hoped you’d be as excited and as invested in this event as I am. But every step of the way, you’ve dragged your feet and avoided taking part in any aspect of it. I’m beginning to think maybe you don’t really want to marry me at all.”
“Syd. That’s ridiculous, and you know it.”
“How am I supposed to know that, Maddie?” Syd’s exasperation was clear. “Through osmosis? Certainly not because you’ve made any effort to be invested in any of the planning.”
“To be fair, you and David haven’t seemed very interested in having me be involved in the planning.”
“That’s not true. I can’t even get you to work on the guest list.”
“Oh. Right. Because I have to fill my share of . . . how many seats do I get? A hundred? A hundred and fifty? The scope of this thing is ludicrous, Syd. I don’t even know that many people.”
“Of course you do—you just don’t care enough to think about it.”
Maddie sat back and folded her arms. “So, you don’t think any aspect of this is just the tiniest bit over the top? You honestly think the scale of what you’re planning is appropriate for us, and for the town we live in?”
“Clearly, it doesn’t much matter what I think, since you’ve already decided it isn’t.”
“Honey . . .” Maddie dropped her arms and tried to lower the temperature of their discussion. “All I want is to be married. To you. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. I don’t need two hundred guests, a couple dozen attendants, hyper-foraged crudités, haute couture, arbors choked with lilies, or a hundred freaking doves to show the world how much I love you, and how committed to our life together I am. I just want you. Plain and simple. Isn’t it possible for us to dial some of this back . . . just a little bit? Maybe meet in the middle someplace?”
“You sound like we’re negotiating a treaty, not planning our wedding.”
“Now that you mention it . . .” Maddie attempted a joke, but Syd wasn’t ready to see the humor in anything just yet.
“Fine.” Syd abruptly pushed back her chair and collected her notebooks. “We can just call the whole damn thing off.”
“Wait a minute . . .”
“No. You wait a minute, Maddie. I explained why this was all so important to me—and I thought you understood it. I even allowed myself to believe you respected it. Apparently, I was mistaken.”
Maddie got up, too. “Syd. Come on. Calm down about this. You’re not even acting like yourself. Whenever the topic of this wedding comes up you morph into . . . I don’t know—some kind of Bridezilla.”
Okay. Not the smartest thing to say . . .
Syd’s green eyes blazed. “Like I said. You can relax, now. The wedding is off.”
She left the kitchen and stormed up the back stairs to their bedroom.
Maddie watched her go in a daze, not really sure if Syd meant the Cecil B. DeMille wedding was off, or their marriage was off.
And right then, she was too damn chicken to follow her and find out.
◊ ◊ ◊
Avi had finished installing shelving units in the former supply closet at the clinic. She told Lizzy that Maddie had agreed to her idea to convert the little-used space into a shared resource library. For her part, Lizzy didn’t have many volumes in her own office to contribute, although it was true that she tended to keep most of her reference books at home.
The renovated space was looking pretty good. There was even room for a small table and chair along one wall, and Avi had appointed it with a desk lamp and hung a vibrant modern art print on the wall above it.
Lizzy’d stayed late to help Avi transfer boxes of books from her small office into the space.
“You know what?” Lizzy observed. “If this room had a window, I’d think about moving in here, myself.”
“Yeah. It is kind of claustrophobic for long-term use. Although the hum of that wine fridge adds a certain homey charm.”
“Why is that thing in here? I don’t remember it being here before.”
Avi took the box from Lizzy and set it down on the floor. “I gather it’s some kind of family drama involving Maddie, David, and Maddie’s drive to protect some vintage bottles of hooch.”
“Oh. That. It’s true. Maddie says David could find truffles in the Sahara.”
“An unsung talent, to be sure. He sounds like a useful friend, to me.”
“Have you met him yet?”
“I did about a hundred years ago, when I spent some time here with Maddie and her dad. I remember David being as vibrant as a live wire: full of spark and energy—with great fashion sense.”
“That about sums him up. He and Maddie have been best friends forever.”
“I can see why. She tends to have more . . . gravity.”
Lizzy was pulling books from the box and examining their titles. “These appear to be about,” she turned one over and scanned the copy on the back, “something incomprehensible.”
“Lemme see.” Avi leaned over her shoulder. “That’s not incomprehensible. It’s Anna Freud’s definitive exposition of ambiguity in the child’s superego.”
“Of course it is.” Lizzy handed the book to her. �
�Don’t you ever read magazines?”
Avi shot her a withering look. “Magazines?”
“Sure. You know . . . Red Book, Family Circle, Garden & Gun.”
“Garden & Gun? You have to be joking.”
“Nope. You should check it out. Top-tier writers and photographers. It’s a coffee table-worthy lexicon of Southern culture.”
“Hence the gun part?”
“It’s a somewhat regrettable, yet undeniable, building block of social discourse south of thirty-six degrees, thirty minutes—or what untutored Yankees call the Mason-Dixon line. Guns rank right up there with grits, Jesus, and The Whiskey Trail. You should check it out. I think there are copies in the waiting room.”
“Seriously? I need to get out more.”
“You seem to be doing all right.”
“You think so?” Avi asked.
“I do. I’ve never seen anyone ease into life in this community as seamlessly as you have.”
“I appreciate the compliment, but I’m not sure how ‘seamless’ it’s been. I tend to overcompensate for my unconventional presentation. That probably comes across as a comfort level I don’t actually feel.”
Lizzy handed her more books. These seemed to be as obtuse in content as the Anna Freud volume.
“What do you find to be unconventional about your—presentation, as you call it?” She asked Avi the question out of genuine curiosity.
“You mean apart from my manifestations of boi-ish charm and preference for androgynous dress?”
“Well. Yes. I don’t find those things to be remarkable at all.”
“Nurse Mayes. Be careful or you’ll quite turn my head.”
Lizzy fought the sudden blush she felt advancing up her neck.
Great. Just what she needed.
Fair skin be damned. She remembered how her English lit professor at Vanderbilt defined instances of blushing in Victorian literature as “erections of the head.” She’d never been able to look at Jane Eyre or Elizabeth Bennet in quite the same way after that.
“Don’t do that.” She chose to meet Avi’s taunt head on.
“Don’t do what?”
She wanted to blurt, Tempt me to behave like a dog in heat. But she refrained. She wasn’t that courageous. And she was too confused about the escalating power of their obvious . . . whatever in the hell it was. Even if she’d had a name for it, she wasn’t ready to use it. She didn’t trust her perceptions right now—about anything. And she sure as hell didn’t trust her instincts.
“Tease me,” she said, instead. “I feel like I’m in uncharted waters with all of this, and I’m foundering.”
Lizzy’s direct admission led Avi to quickly abandon her former tone.
“I’m sorry.” She extended a hand to reassure Lizzy, but seemed to think better of it. “My behavior has been . . . inappropriate, to say the least.” When Lizzy didn’t reply, Avi continued, “I honestly don’t know what I’m doing.”
“Don’t you?” Lizzy hadn’t intended to issue her response with the flirtatious abandon of tossing down a gauntlet. Yet every passing second, their tête-à-tête felt more like a confounding duel between willing adversaries who kept switching sides.
“Maybe I do.” Avi’s honest, self-effacing response didn’t make things any easier. Neither did the look in her dark eyes.
Beyond this point there be dragons, Lizzy’s tired mind reminded her. She knew what she needed to do. It was easy. She needed to concoct some flimsy excuse and leave—extract herself from a cascading impulse to rush headlong into clear and present danger. Space inside this closet had become too small—too close, and no longer able to constrain the leviathan that had reared up between them.
She closed her eyes in a last-ditch effort to save herself. “I need . . .”
When she didn’t finish her statement, Avi gently prompted her. “What do you need?”
Lizzy did look at her, then, aware that Avi’s image had begun to shift in and out of focus. She swayed and extended a hand toward Avi to steady herself, while she fought to clear her vision.
“I need,” she repeated, as she fumbled forward.
I’m doing this, her mind and heart chanted in time with the blood pounding through her veins. I’m doing this because I have to.
The speed and strength of her advance nearly knocked them both to the floor. But Avi held on tight. She held on as Lizzy kissed her, finally surrendering the reins and allowing her wildest impulses to run free.
◊ ◊ ◊
It was nearly 10 p.m. when Celine and Dorothy arrived back at their hotel room after the concert. Mitsuko Uchida had obliged and delighted the enthusiastic audience by playing two encores, both selections from her extensive Mozart repertoire.
Dorothy sat forward, perched on the edge of her seat throughout most of the performance. Celine didn’t blame her one bit. Uchida’s playing had been spectacular and alive with nuance. When the acclaimed pianist skillfully and fluidly navigated the transition from down-tempo E minor to double tempo A minor—a mirror of the same thing Dorothy had been struggling with—the girl gazed at Celine with a look of sheer amazement, and a flood of recognition. Celine understood all that Dorothy sought to communicate. Her experience of such restrained and nuanced articulation in live performance had communicated more meaning than a thousand lessons ever could.
She understood it now.
That was the unwritten part of mastering music theory. That was the part that couldn’t be taught. It had to be felt. It had to well up from deep inside you. Its true meaning derived from the power and force of its nonverbal expression.
And that was at the heart of the connection they shared with each other, and with Buddy.
When the concert ended and they made their slow way out of the fabled venue, Dorothy didn’t try to mask how overwhelmed she felt by the entirety of the experience: the magnificence of the great hall, the refinement of the stately paneled walls and gleaming wooden floorboards of the stage, the glow of the elaborate chandeliers, and the perfect acoustics that allowed even the faintest musical timbre to vibrate beneath their feet.
She peppered Celine with questions during the short walk back to their hotel. Celine did her best to field them all. Dorothy was excited to return home and revisit the Beethoven sonata with a fresh perspective. She seemed persuaded that she understood it now.
Celine didn’t disagree with her one bit.
After they’d changed and gotten ready for bed, it occurred to Celine that it had been six hours since they’d eaten their early supper at the Brooklyn Diner.
“Are you hungry?” she asked Dorothy.
She could tell Dorothy wasn’t sure how to answer. Celine knew she probably didn’t want to make a fuss about anything.
“I’m asking because I’m feeling a bit peckish. Maybe a little bite of something would be nice?”
“Okay,” Dorothy agreed. “Where would we go so late?”
Celine smiled. “Not far. We can order room service.”
“Really? They’ll bring food right to us here?”
“I think that can be arranged.” Celine retrieved the menu from a credenza drawer. “Let’s see what’s available.”
The selections offered after 10 p.m. were more limited, but still sufficient to meet their needs. They decided to share a charcuterie and cheese board and added two cups of tomato soup. The server promised the food should arrive within thirty minutes. While they waited, they stretched out on their beds and shared their most memorable details from the day.
Celine worried about keeping Dorothy awake so long, but the girl seemed unfazed by the lateness of the hour. Instead of finding the city oppressive with its noise, traffic and crush of people, Dorothy seemed to find it all exhilarating. Celine found this to be an astounding reaction from someone who’d never ventured more than a handful of miles from her home in Jericho.
They hadn’t had time that day to visit Lincoln Center so Dorothy could see Juilliard—but Celine thought they could squeeze it in bef
ore heading to LaGuardia to catch their late-afternoon flight back to Charlotte.
Something told her there might be visits back to the city in their future.
“I want to get a souvenir for Henry.” Dorothy gave it some thought, but apparently couldn’t come up with a winning idea. “What do you think he would like?”
“Maybe an alarm clock that works?” Celine suggested.
Dorothy laughed. “Yeah. He’ll never get that broken one back together.”
“How about a New York Yankees cap? He’s always wearing hats.”
“That’s perfect!” Dorothy’s excitement was infectious. “He loves baseball. And it’ll look a lot better than that ratty Quakers hat Maddie gave him.”
“We should be able to pick one up at their team store in Times Square. It’s only about a ten-minute walk from here. We can grab a cab from there and shoot up to Lincoln Center.”
“Is that where Juilliard is?”
“Yes. It’s part of the whole complex. We just need to be back here by one-thirty so we can meet our car to the airport.”
“Will you like visiting there again?”
“To tell the truth, I haven’t really thought about it. I haven’t been back there in many years. I’m sure it’s changed a lot. I don’t know how much we’ll actually get to see—but we can walk around the complex and you can see the opera and city ballet houses, too. Maybe one day, we can come back for a performance there. Would you like that?”
“I’d love that. Maybe Miss Murphy could come, too? She loves opera. She’s always listening to it while she’s cooking. Dr. Stevenson always complains and says it sounds like Rosebud howling.”
“That sounds like her.” Celine smiled. “But we’ll definitely invite Syd to join us.”
Dorothy was looking around their room. “I’ve never stayed in a hotel before. Are they all this nice?”
“Not all of them, no. But I’ve always liked staying here because it’s close to so many things.”
“Papa said only bad women stayed at hotels. I think he meant my mother.”
“When did he say that?”
Dorothy shrugged her narrow shoulders. “Some time after she left us. I don’t remember it very well.”
“That’s right. You were very young when your mother passed away, weren’t you?”
