by Juliette Fay
“Listen to me,” he said. “All that baloney about you not being good enough—you know that’s complete crap, right?”
“I guess.”
“Don’t guess,” he said quietly. “Be sure. Because you are one in a million, Dana Stellgarten.”
She didn’t feel like one in a million. At the moment she felt like none in a million. If Tony’s hand hadn’t remained firmly on her shoulder, it seemed like she might fade into nothing.
“Hey,” he said, giving her a gentle shake.
When she glanced up at him, his face was kind and concerned, and evidently she hadn’t disappeared, because he was looking right at her. “Okay,” she said.
They walked back to the kitchenette. “And what’s this business about knitting mittens?” he asked her. “The idiot’s got a yarn fetish?”
A laugh came out of her so suddenly that when she inhaled again, her nose made an embarrassing snorting sound.
“Nice!” He nodded admiringly. And she laughed even harder.
CHAPTER 36
TWO DAYS LATER, ON SUNDAY MORNING, ALDER asked, “When’s the last time you went for a walk?” She peered over a bowl of Bran ’N Flax cereal, eating quickly as if to minimize the time it spent with her taste buds. She had poured it for Dana, but Dana wasn’t hungry.
“I don’t know . . . weeks.” Dana cradled a cup of black tea against her chest. Except for the one spot where the heat from the mug penetrated her flannel pajama top, she felt cold and dull.
“Maybe you should go.”
I’m being pathetic, thought Dana, and she doesn’t want to watch. She looked out the window. If it had been a blue-sky, zip-a-deedoo-dah kind of day, she would have gone back into hibernation. But it was hazy and gray, the late-autumn fog creating a lather of mist against the shrubbery. Good hiding weather. For Alder’s sake she thought she could manage a walk. A short one.
She did not go past Polly’s house, certain that Polly would somehow sense Dana’s nearness and come out and demand to talk to her. No talking. Not today. She trudged up the street in the opposite direction, skirting the long way around the edge of their neighborhood to get over to Nipmuc Pond.
Today is Sunday, she reminded herself, as if the past forty-eight hours had reduced her short-term memory to that of an Alzheimer patient’s. Six more days.
Dana had helped them pack Friday afternoon. Morgan had wanted some spending money to buy Rita a Disney memento. “How did you two become friends?” Dana asked her.
“She didn’t make the basketball team.” This was expected to be self-explanatory, and Dana had had to prod for details. “She was on the soccer team, and all those girls were her friends, but when she didn’t make the basketball team, she wasn’t part of the group anymore.”
“Just like that?”
“I don’t know,” said Morgan. “I guess. Also, she’s got those froggy eyes and crazy hair, and boys make fun of her. The soccer girls had to stick up for her a lot. That gets kind of tiring.”
Dana was incensed. “They dropped her because other kids’ behavior was tiring?”
“Jeez, Mom, I don’t know. One minute she was with the group, the next minute she wasn’t. The tiring part was just a guess, okay?”
They rooted through the bin of Morgan’s summer clothes, pulling out mismatched tankinis and wrinkled shorts. “But how did you get to be friends with her?”
Morgan hesitated, a secret mirth playing around her lips. “Okay, but you can’t repeat this!” She’d been sitting in earth science, pretending to work on her already completed wolf paper, trying not to make eye contact, so as to avoid any possible attention. “Rita’s seat is right next to mine, and since I was looking down, I saw it before anyone else.”
“What?”
Morgan started to giggle. “Her undies!” Hanging out from the hem of Rita’s jeans had been a pair of underwear. When she slumped into her seat, feet splayed out into the aisle, the brightly colored garment had flown clear of her pant leg and landed beside Morgan’s chair. “They had little pink pandas all over them. But the worst part was the tag! It said her name—like her mother had labeled them for camp or something!”
“Oh, my gosh! What did you do?”
Morgan had quickly set her backpack over them. At the end of class she convinced Rita to stay until the other kids left. Then she lifted the backpack. “At first she didn’t get it, and she was mad, like how did I get her undies and stuff. But then she remembered she wore those same jeans the day before, and picked them off the floor to wear that morning. The old undies must’ve still been in them, and slid down her leg until they came out in science.”
“Did she thank you?”
“Um, kinda. She called me her savior and hugged me till she nearly broke my neck. So I sat with her at lunch.”
Dana had given Morgan a twenty-dollar bill. “Get Rita something really nice,” she’d said, “like a stuffed Minnie Mouse or something.”
“Ew, no!”
Maybe she’s in a gift store right now, mused Dana as the pond came into view, veiled in a somber drizzle. Maybe she was happily tormenting Kenneth as she took hours to make up her mind. Dana dearly hoped so.
Dana had also offered Grady money to buy a gift for Jav.
“No way, he’s a jerk.”
“What happened?”
Grady’s face went sulky. “Took my golf ball,” he muttered. That day, Friday, Grady had shown his private treasure to Jav on the playground. Jav had pronounced it “killer.”
“That’s not very nice,” Dana had commiserated.
“No, ‘killer’ is good. It’s like ‘sick.’” But then Jav had wanted to play with it. “I kept telling him to give it back, but he just kept saying ‘Why?’”
“Did you tell him it was special to you, that it’s from your father?”
Grady’s face squinched up in annoyance. “I’m not gonna tell him that!”
They’d been standing on the pavement next to the school, a sprawling, one-story, flat-topped building, when Jav had thrown it into the air. It had landed on the roof and never come down. “Now it’s there forever,” muttered Grady. “Jerk.”
Dana had given the twenty to Kenneth when he’d arrived to pick them up, in case Grady changed his mind. “I have money,” he’d grumbled, insulted by the gesture.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake, just take it!” she’d told him.
And then the kids were hauling their duffel bags out to the car, scrambling back in for a forgotten cap or book, giving her one more extra squeeze, and scrambling back out again.
And then they were gone.
Later that night Jet had come over with Thai takeout and a DVD of Young Frankenstein. “This is one of the weirdest, funniest movies ever made,” she told Dana. “Couldn’t possibly remind you of anything.” Alder had given Jet a look. “What?” said Jet. “Like it’s not obvious she’s missing her kids?”
“Can you just zip it?” Alder muttered under her breath.
“It’s okay,” Dana told her.
“See?” said Jet. “Besides, her kids are lucky.”
It was true, and Dana knew she would do well to keep that in perspective. “A free trip to Disney World doesn’t come along every day,” she conceded.
“Not Disney World,” Jet responded with mild disgust. “They’re lucky they have a mother who likes having them around so much. My mother would be psyched if I moved to Disney World.”
Dana suddenly embraced the surprised teenager and murmured, “I still can’t thank you enough for rescuing Morgan and her friend the other day.”
Once released, Jet responded with a half-embarrassed, half-proud little grin. “Good times.” She nodded. “I might be thinking of a career in law enforcement.”
“You’d be wonderful.”
On Saturday, Dana had run errands and taken the girls to REI in West Hartford to research gear for winter camping with the Wilderness Club, and it hadn’t been hard to pretend it was just another weekend when the kids were at Kenneth’
s. The day had passed. And after a call from Morgan and Grady to say they’d already found eight hidden Mickey ears designed into the decor of the hotel lobby, Dana had gone to bed—at seven-fifteen.
Now, as she rounded the opposite shore of Nipmuc Pond, she saw a boy, shaggy hair whipped into a tangle by the breeze, throwing a tennis ball to a beagle along the sandy spit of shoreline. I should get them a dog, she thought. A gust of wind raced off the water, and she burrowed her hands into her pockets, fingers balled against the cold and the unseemliness of her own desperation. Her empty stomach gurgled for food. She veered off course, away from the lake and out toward the main street. Maybe she could choke down a doughnut with a cup of tea.
She pulled open the door to Village Donuts and was met with a comforting blast of warm, sweet-smelling air. People sat in booths reading the Hartford Sunday Courant, tapping away at laptops, or chatting amiably with each other. Two women with graying hair tucked back under knit hats burst into melodious laughter. Dana wondered if her friendship with Polly would ever be so seamlessly mended that they could come here in ten years and giggle together like sisters.
The line moved quickly, and just as it was Dana’s turn to order, she realized that the five-dollar bill she usually kept in the little pocket of her exercise pants was gone. “Oh,” she said to the proprietor behind the cash register. “I thought I had money, but I . . . Could I just have a cup of hot water, please?”
“Unquestionably,” he said with an amused grin. “And as luck would have it, we’ve got a special going at the moment—with every order of hot water, we’re offering a free tea bag.”
Dana stared at him for a second. A kindness, she realized. She thanked him wholeheartedly when he handed her the tea. As she turned to go, she heard the man behind her say, “Hiya, Richie. I guess I’ll get in on that free-tea-bag offer.”
“Ahh, too late, my friend,” the proprietor said, guffawing. “Special’s over!”
When Dana got home, the dishwasher was running and Alder was wiping the kitchen counters.
“Uh, listen,” Alder said, face tense with apprehension. “I called my mother.”
“About your car?” asked Dana.
“Not specifically.”
“Then what, specifically?”
Alder scrubbed at a speck of hardened pad thai noodle.
“Alder?”
The girl gave her aunt a worried glance.
“Oh,” said Dana. “About me.”
Alder winced apologetically. “I was just worried, and I didn’t know who to talk to. I didn’t expect her to actually come here . . . But she’s coming . . . tonight.”
CHAPTER 37
WHEN CONNIE’S AGED VW VANAGON ROLLED up the street and into the driveway that evening, sputtering like an angry lawn mower, the entire neighborhood was effectively put on notice. Dana was dusting the dining room. She had started cleaning shortly after Alder’s announcement.
“Not like she’ll notice,” Alder had said as Dana tugged the vacuum from the hall closet.
“I know.” Dana had witnessed far too many battles between Connie and their mother over the “war-torn pigsty” that was Connie’s side of the bedroom she and Dana had shared. “Why does it matter?” Connie would moan at their mother. “I’m just gonna trash it again!”
Dana was cleaning because it felt good to do something so quintessentially normal. Tidying up for guests—wasn’t it the corner-stone of civilized society? Now, where would Connie stay?
“She’s not sleeping with me!” said Alder. But she agreed to move to Morgan’s room so her mother could take over the pullout couch in the TV room. By the time Dana had stashed the Lemon Pledge under the sink, Connie was clomping up the mudroom steps in her wooden clogs.
She looked different. Her dark hair had been blunt-cut just below her ears, and it bushed out from the sides of her head like the points of graying triangles. Her favorite batik-print quilted jacket with the Chinese-coin buttons hung loosely from her frame. Connie had always been lanky, but her narrow face now seemed almost gaunt. Dana reached for the coarse-woven bag hanging from Connie’s shoulder. “Here, let me take that.”
“Still polite.” Connie smiled. “Must not be so bad.” Her glance shifted past Dana to Alder, and it seemed to Dana that she was controlling herself, pedaling backward against her own tendency toward temerity. “Hi,” she said.
“Hi,” said Alder.
Connie’s self-control ebbed, and she reached out to touch Alder’s two-toned hair. The black at the bottom had continued to grow out, revealing more of the natural ginger brown. Connie lifted a hank from the ends and slowly let it cascade down across her daughter’s shoulder. “Haircut, maybe?” she murmured.
“Maybe,” said Alder.
The three of them turned in concert like a small flock of birds and headed into the kitchen. Dana had made cornbread, a salad, and vegetarian chili; the smell of simmering tomatoes, cumin, and cayenne gave them a focal point around which to orient themselves. They served one another, poured drinks, passed the butter. They settled into the people they knew one another to be.
“Dana says you’ve got new pals,” Connie said to Alder. “How’bout some details?”
“It’s no big deal,” said Alder.
Dana reached over and jiggled Alder’s elbow. “You’re making a liar out of me!”
Alder smiled despite herself. “You tell her, then.”
“Well, there’s the Wilderness Club . . .”
“Makes sense.” Connie nodded. “You’d need a booster shot of nature in the middle of all this—”
“And there’s Jet,” Dana interrupted, shooting Connie a warning look. Alder’s smile had dissipated, and she began pushing an errant kidney bean around her bowl with a spoon.
“Nice name,” said Connie, making a show of interest. “What’s his story?”
“She’s a girl,” Alder muttered at the bean.
“She’s quite a . . .” Dana began, not entirely sure where she was going. “Well, she’s not completely housebroken . . . ” Alder let out a quick laugh. “But she’s a good soul, right?”
Alder nodded, her gaze rising to meet her mother’s, daring her to comment. The parental ache in Connie’s eyes was so familiar to Dana that she could feel it in her own. Her daughter’s got a friend with a good soul who she’s never met, thought Dana. She’s grateful and heartbroken all at the same time. Connie’s lips pressed ever so slightly against each other. Dana could almost hear the zipping sound.
Alder retreated to Morgan’s room early, claiming a need to get in some last-minute studying for a history test the next morning. She took the pink fleece blanket with her. Dana set Connie up in the TV room and got another blanket from the linen closet.
“So,” said Dana, “not to be too direct, but . . . how long are you staying?”
Connie laughed. “Counting the minutes?”
“No.” Dana smirked. “Just trying to plan how many more vegetarian meals I’ll be making. Doesn’t Nine Muses expect you back at some point?”
“I’m the manager now. I make the schedule.” Connie shrugged. “So how long do I get?”
“Long as you want.”
“I’ll get back to you.”
Dana had just sailed off into a creamy blackness when she felt a presence in her bedroom. Morgan? The mattress lurched as someone descended onto it, bouncing Dana into full alert. “Oh, for Pete’s sake,” she said when she saw her new bedmate. “You’re about as subtle as a Mack truck.”
“That pullout couch is torture,” grumbled Connie. “You should sell it to the CIA.” She punched the pillow and yanked the covers. “I tried Grady’s bed, but it smells like a wet dog.”
“Does not,” muttered Dana.
“Totally does.”
“Stop bouncing around, will you?”
Connie’s movements slowed as she nestled into the big bed. Dana had begun to drift again when Connie said, “If Ethan’s the one who treated her like shit, why’s she so pissed at me?”
Dana sighed, sleep almost within arm’s reach. “She’s hasn’t said much.”
“Yeah, but you have an opinion.”
An opinion about someone’s parenting—was there any surer way to invite trouble? Dana wanted to slide back into the satiny swirl of unconsciousness. “Can we talk about it tomorrow?”
“No,” said Connie. “We can’t.”
Dana groaned inwardly, knowing Connie would harass her until she answered. “It’s not an opinion,” she said finally, “only a guess.”
“Fine. Guess.”
“Well . . . it just seems like kids get mad at their mothers for one reason or another. Sometimes it makes sense, and sometimes they’re just mad and we’re the easy target.”
Connie’s silence communicated her utter dissatisfaction.
Dana struggled to organize her thoughts. “You know, we tell them from the minute they’re born, ‘I’ll take care of you.’ Then when something bad happens, it’s our fault, even when they’re old enough to know we don’t control everything. We told them we’d always protect them, and then we can’t live up to the promise.”
“Maybe you made that promise, but I never did. You always try to fix everything for everyone; I raised Alder to know her own power.”
Now it was Dana’s turn to go silent.
“All right, I’m sorry,” Connie said without remorse. “But, hey, it’s no secret that you and I are different kinds of mothers.” She reached out and shook Dana’s shoulder. “Come on. Talk.”
“Fine, you want me to talk? Then I’ll tell you that giving up your virginity to a guy you worship, who won’t speak to you afterward and then leaves the state, does not feel like power, Connie. It feels like abuse. She’s sixteen, and she’s trying to handle it herself, but she can’t. It’s too big. And she can’t talk to you about it, because you’re so insistent on not overprotecting her—or too busy throwing tantrums at her school about trigonometry!”
Connie didn’t say anything for a moment. Then she got up and left. Dana felt terrible. Though Connie was often overbearing and sarcastic, her devotion to her daughter was unimpeachable. She had taught Alder the things she felt were important in life, and for the most part that had worked out. Letting her live with Dana for two months had required an act of extreme restraint. Despite this sacrifice, Dana had placed the blame squarely on her sister’s shoulders. Guilt fended off sleep for another hour before Dana was rescued by her own exhaustion.
