Open House

by Elizabeth Berg

  “And?”

  “What do you mean?” he asks, exasperated.

  “I mean so what if they’re old?”

  “Well, you know! It just looks stupid seeing her all in a bride dress and everything.”

  The car behind us honks, and I move forward. Choose your battles, I’m thinking. Wait until he forgets his wife’s birthday. Then spank him.

  “Anyway,” Travis says, “you shouldn’t be allowed to get married twice.”

  Ah.

  “You shouldn’t be allowed to get married twice?” I say.

  “No.”

  “Well, what if your husband dies?”

  He says nothing, stares sullenly ahead.

  “Lydia’s husband was dead, Travis.”

  “Yeah,” he says. “But you’re not.”

  I look quickly at him. “Is . . . Did Dad say something? About getting married again?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Travis? Did he?”

  “I don’t know!” He punches on the radio. “Just let me listen to this, okay? I don’t want to talk!”

  “All right,” I say. “That’s fine.” I don’t want to talk anymore right now, either. Not to Travis. And oh, not to David, either. I don’t want to hear it until I have to.

  23

  MY MOTHER DECLINES A REFILL OF COFFEE, AND ASKS FOR THE check. We are out to lunch, where she has just told me she’s been asked by Jonathan’s father to apologize to me on behalf of his son. To apologize and to ask if I might perhaps be willing to give it another go.

  “No,” I say. “No way.” I drain my Coke glass. “Absolutely not.”

  “Maybe next Saturday night?”

  “Jesus, Ma. Please. You don’t know what happened.”

  “Well . . . what did happen?”

  “I don’t want to see that vile man again, ever. Ever.”

  She stares at me, and I stare back. “Maybe in a few weeks,” she says, finally, and then digs in her purse for her compact. She freshens her lipstick, adjusts the curls at the side of her face. Then, “So! Lydia’s wedding was nice, huh?”

  “It was beautiful.”

  “I wonder what it’s like to get married late in life.”

  “Why?” I say. “Are you thinking about getting married again?” Oh, God.

  “Am I thinking about it? Oh, no. No.”

  “Well, why not? You were happy the first time around, right?”

  “Yes, I was. Very happy. But I don’t expect that kind of thing could happen again. You know, before you girls were born, your father and I would have the most wonderful weekends. We’d just . . . talk. Read . . . Listen to the radio at night and dance. We’d never answer the phone, either. It was so peaceful.”

  “And then we came along and you had to answer the phone?”

  “Well, of course, honey. You know that. When children come, you have to answer the phone. And . . . everything. They come first. But you want them to. You want to take care of them. Right?”

  “Right.” A memory comes to me of being lifted out of the car by my father. It was late at night, we’d just arrived home, and I was pretending to be asleep. I was seven, too old to be carried, really, and thus vastly appreciative of it. My father pushed the front seat out of the way to reach in for me. I remember peeking out at the outline of his hat against the night sky, his open coat being blown away from the tweed suit that always carried the smell of his pipe tobacco. “Maybe we should just wake her up,” my mother whispered worriedly, as my father struggled to get me into his arms. “Your back, darling.”

  “Shhh!” he whispered. “Let her sleep.”

  “Ha! She’s not asleep!” Louise said. “I’ll bet you ten million dollars she’s not asleep. Look, she’s smiling!”

  “No, she’s not,” my father said, and I felt him looking down into my face which was, in fact, smiling. “She’s sound asleep,” he said, and I smiled bigger.

  “I still miss Daddy sometimes,” I say.

  “Do you, honey? Do you remember him well?”

  “Yes. I mean, I think so. I remember, at least, how it felt, when he was there. And I knew you loved him very much, Mom.”

  “Yes. I sure did. You know how I first knew?”

  I shake my head.

  “The first time I ironed one of his shirts. Honestly! He’d come to pick me up for a date. We were going to the movies, I remember—something starring Joan Crawford. And he’d had a little mishap, I think he’d spilled water on himself, but anyway, his shirt was all wrinkled. Well, I said I’d iron it. And of course Grandma was all upset that a man would be taking a shirt off in her house, but he was very gentlemanly, he always was, and he went in the bathroom and he handed me his shirt through the crack in the door. I liked that he would give me his shirt like that. It seemed so personal. It seemed like he trusted me. And when I ironed it, I got this . . .” She looks at me, smiles. “Well, I guess you’re old enough to know this, now. My God, Sam. You’re forty-two years old!”

  “Yes, I know that.”

  “I just can’t believe it!”

  “Well, believe it, it’s true. But what happened, when you ironed his shirt?”

  “Oh. Well, I got this kind of . . . sexy feeling, you know? I remember I started with the sleeves, and I wanted them to be perfect, so I was ironing very carefully. And all of a sudden I felt so good, way down in my stomach. Then I ironed the top part, where his shoulders went, and . . . oh, Lord!” She closes her eyes, smiles. “Well. Anyway, I had the feeling that there was nothing I’d rather be doing at that moment than ironing this man’s shirt. And that’s when I knew. The man I love, I was thinking. And him just sitting there in the little bathroom in his undershirt, waiting for me to finish so he could put it on. Why, it just sent me!” She laughs out loud. “I know that, to you, this must sound very foolish.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” I say. There is something in it, the simple act of doing a favor for the one you love. I remember returning a library book for a boy I was crazy about in high school. I liked thinking that his hands had been on the pages, and I liked handing the book to the librarian thinking, For you. From him. Through me.

  The truth is, I like any evidence of love between people. I know there are those who thrive on living alone, but how? How, when they know that the cereal box will empty only when they finish it; when they walk into a house where, rather than the mixed evidence of life lived together, there is only the quiet imprint of one? I have brown hair, I am right-handed, I can curl my tongue, and I must have someone to love.

  Veronica puts on her coat, and we head for the door. “Any prospects for a roommate yet?”

  “One, finally. I’m going to interview him Saturday.”

  “ ‘Him’?”

  “It’s all right. He’s gay.”

  “Oh my Lord.” She stops walking.

  “Let’s go,” I say. “We’ll talk all about how terrible it is if I decide to let him move in. But I need someone, soon.”

  I get into the car, think about how this morning, I stood in Lydia’s empty room, wondering who could live here now. I need someone who isn’t a mistake, as Lavender Blue turned out to be. The girl is profoundly depressed. Lately, she ventures out of her room only to eat and to go to the bathroom. When she offered last week to start teaching Japanese to Travis, something we’d initially agreed upon to help reduce the rent, I declined. I feared for his worldview, should he spend much time with her.

  Recently, she told me that in her opinion, life was nothing but one major disappointment after the other. She’d leaned forward, hands wrapped around the cup of cocoa I made for her, thinking we were finally going to have a pleasant getting-to-know-you chat, just like Anna and the king’s children. Instead, the girl sat with her spiky blond hair and vacant eyes, staring over my shoulder and talking in a near-monotone. “It’s like when I was a little girl and I wanted so much to go on a pony ride. I kept asking my parents to take me on one. I thought I’d be wearing fringe and a cowgirl hat and the horse woul
d be so clean and pretty—a palomino—and it would be prancing and all its decorations would be jingling and I’d be so tall and straight, holding the reins and galloping away. But then when I finally went it was just some sad old brown horse in this crummy field and a man in a T-shirt with greasy hair was leading it around by a clothesline. And every few steps the pony would stop and blow stuff out of his nose and then the man would have to hit him to get him going again. And I saw right away that that’s how life was going to be. False promises. Just . . . black. I’m writing a poem about it for my English class. It’s called ‘Truth in the Ring.’ ” She sighed, blew on her cocoa, looked up at me. “You know what I mean? Like I am so on to life. There’s nothing good coming my way.” There were dark circles under her eyes, a tender pimple starting on her chin.

  “Well, I know I sometimes felt that way,” I said. “I mean, when I was your age. But Lavender . . .” I leaned forward, smiled. “You know, I wonder if . . . Did you say your real name was Elaine?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Would you mind if I called you that?”

  “Yeah, I’d mind. I hate Elaine. That’s why I changed it to something to suit me. Lavender Blue, that suits me.”

  “All right,” I said. “It’s just that . . . Well. What I wanted to tell you, is that it gets better. Life. It does!”

  “Are you happy now?”

  I started to answer, then stopped.

  “See? Anybody who tells the truth would have to say that they’re not. Nobody’s happy. Not really. Not for any length of time.”

  “Well,” I said. “I—”

  “It’s okay,” Lavender said. “I’m used to it. So! Good night!”

  I GO TO BED early and then suddenly awaken. It’s seven minutes after eleven. I stare at the ceiling, sigh. Then I pull the phone under the covers with me and call David. He answers after three rings, his voice husky.

  “I’m sorry, were you sleeping?” I ask.

  “No. It’s fine. What’s up?”

  This is what he says when he wants to hurry people, What’s up? He used to look at me when he said it to someone else on the phone, rolling his eyes.

  “I need to ask you something,” I say. “Did you happen to say anything to Travis about getting married again?”

  “About getting married again?”

  Stalling. This is what he always does when he’s uncomfortable with a question, repeats it back to me.

  “Yes, about getting married again.”

  “No, I didn’t say anything. It was more . . . Well, I think maybe Vicky was just talking about the notion of people getting married, generally, and he must have thought she and I had been talking about it.”

  “Had you been?”

  “Oh, not . . . You know, just in the most general of ways.”

  “As in . . .?”

  He sighs. “Sam? I don’t think this is an appropriate discussion for us to be having. Suffice it to say I don’t have any plans for remarriage right away.”

  “I would think not, since you’re not divorced yet.”

  “I’ll let you know. Anything you need to know, I’ll let you know.”

  “Is she there?”

  Silence.

  “Is she?”

  A sigh. “I don’t really think that’s any of your business.”

  I feel socked in the stomach. Because he is right.

  “I just wanted to talk to her. I just wanted to tell her it’s probably not a good idea to be talking to Travis about marrying his father.”

  “She knows that.”

  “Apparently not.”

  “Sam—”

  “I don’t want to hear it, David. Just . . . Get smart, you know? And tell your girlfriend to get smart, too.”

  “Was there anything else?”

  “No. There was nothing else.”

  “All right. Good night.”

  I hang up the phone. Swallow. Swallow again. I hate that he will now tell Vicky that it was me on the phone. There they are, lying together. She’s seen every part of his body. I turn on the bedside light. Turn it off.

  I walk over to the window and look out at the backyard. A couple of inches of snow out there. The bird feeders, empty. The bare rhododendron bushes, all those black branches. But in the spring, they will bloom. And in the summer, who will mow the lawn? I lean my forehead against the glass, and in the fog that my breath leaves behind, write my initials.

  24

  “HELLO, MRS. GIBBONS?” I SAY.

  “Yes?” The woman’s voice on the other end of the line is guardedly suspicious.

  “This is Mrs. Morrow,” I say, as I’ve been instructed (“ ‘Mrs.’ makes them trust you more. Use Mrs. even if you’re Miss, any questions about that?”). Then, turning to my script, I say, “I’m calling from the customer service desk at Supersave.”

  This is not true. I am calling from First Rate Home Delivery Food Service. For the last four days, I’ve been working as a telephone solicitor, sitting in a blue folding chair at a kind of Formica counter, in a row of other solicitors. There are five booths on each side of the small room, but only three solicitors are here today, as has been true every other day that I’ve been here. A thick piece of perforated particle board separates the booths from each other. I’ve spent a fair amount of time looking thorough the holes at pieces of the person beside me, a busty older woman with blue rhinestone glasses who wears pleated skirts, sheer ruffled blouses, and an excess of a perfume I think might be Youth Dew. She reminds me of a kindergarten teacher turned hooker.

  The woman seems to dislike me for reasons I have not been able to discover, yet insists on taking the booth beside me every day. So I peer through the holes at her while I wait for people to answer their phones, looking for some kind of evidence as to why the woman feels the way she does. So far I’ve figured out nothing except that the woman has an ear-wax problem, which probably accounts for the many times a day she practically screams, “Pardon me? Can you speak up? I think there’s something wrong with your phone!”

  The other full-time solicitor is a skinny, gray-haired man who smells like beer and hovers hunch-shouldered over his phone, as though it is a lover he has backed into the corner for a kiss. Every day thus far, he has worn a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and shiny, navy blue pants, belted too high. Periodically, he coughs for a good long while, finishing with a spectacular hawking of phlegm into a handkerchief that he then stuffs back into his pocket.

  The office is located over a dry cleaners, and I can hear the muted sounds of the workers below talking to each other in Spanish, and laughing. I’m jealous of them. I’m not having any fun at all. I’ve been in that dry cleaners, never knowing that this office was above it, much less that I’d someday be working in it. It’s a very pleasant dry cleaners, clean and bright, flowering plants in pretty, woven baskets on the counter, tastefully framed reproductions on the wall. Here, the sunlight pushes in through filthy windows onto a cracked linoleum floor. There is a stained coffee urn in the corner, a half-dead corn plant next to it.

  “Now, you recently entered a contest to win a free side of beef, is that right?” I ask my customer.

  “Yes?”

  “Well, the drawing for that prize will be held next week,” I say.

  “Ohhhhh,” the woman says. “I thought I won!”

  “No, the drawing for that prize will be held next week. But I’d also like to tell you, Mrs. Gibbons, that First Rate Home Delivery Food Service is offering a free, week’s supply of vegetables for allowing our salesman to visit you in your home. He will explain how you can save time and money by having frozen food delivered to you. Now, the reason for my call is to determine the best time for our salesman to call.”

  Silence.

  “Mrs. Gibbons?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I was wondering when would be the best time for our salesman to call?”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” The woman sighs. “I don’t know. I guess seven-thirty, something like that.”


  “Seven-thirty this evening?”

  “I guess.”

  “Fine!” I say. “And you live at 311 Walnut Street?”

  “Yes,” the woman says, and then, lower, “Oh boy, my husband’s going to kill me.”

  “Pardon?”

  “I said, my husband’s going to kill me. He don’t like salesmen.”

  “Oh, is that right?”

  “Yeah, especially when they come to your house. You know.”

  “Yes, I understand.”

  “But you say I get a free week’s supply of vegetables?”

  “Yes, you do.” I’m getting nervous now. There is no script for this.

  “What kind of vegetables?”

  “I think . . . Actually, it’s just some frozen vegetables. Three boxes. Corn, green beans, and something else. I think maybe lima beans.”

  “That don’t sound like a week to me.”

  “Well, they’re big boxes.”

  “Plus I don’t like lima beans.”

  “I don’t either,” I say. “But I hear they’re good in some kinds of soup.”

  “Well, is it Green Giant or anything?”

  “No. It’s actually First Rate brand.”

  “Is that good?”

  “I haven’t really, you know, tasted them,” I say. “I’ve only seen the boxes. They look nice, though. There’s a picture of a cornfield on the corn box. It’s probably good.”

  “Oh.” The woman breathes into the phone, then says, “Thank you, honey.”

  “Pardon?”

  “I’m sorry—I was talking to my son. He just handed me something.” I hear the throaty babble of a very young child.

  “How old is he?” I ask.

  “Eighteen months.” I can hear the smile in the woman’s voice, and am suddenly in the woman’s kitchen with her, leaning against the counter, drinking coffee, and watching the boy. His hands are holding on to his mother’s pants leg. Graham-cracker crumbs are in the curls of his fine, bright hair. Bells are on his shoes.

  “Into everything, huh?” I ask, remembering Travis as a toddler, sitting stunned-looking as I screamed and grabbed plant fertilizer away from him. He hadn’t yet eaten it, and I burst into tears of relief, which caused Travis to burst into tears as well. We consoled each other, me by holding him tightly, he by being not dead.