by Claire Cook
My plan was to buy something I needed and then casually mention feather boas while I was paying for my purchase. Telling the whole story about Dolly and my father was completely unnecessary. What did I care if someone I didn’t even know thought I was buying a pink feather boa for me?
The old guy had moved to the back of the store, so I stayed toward the front. The number of choices in underwear was daunting. Satin or lace, underwire or not, colors that matched your outfit, but once you weren’t wearing an outfit, what would it matter? That was it: a commitment to buying underwear here was an admission of hope.
I moved in the direction of cotton. Thirsty terry robes, nonintimidating nightshirts. Flannel pajama pants. And then I saw them — maybe long underwear, maybe pajamas, maybe loungewear; how was I to know? Gray cotton pants and a matching cardigan top with tiny snaps. Navy blue silhouettes of playful dogs, the breed not quite identifiable, romped everywhere. I couldn’t wait to get home and put them on. I found tops and bottoms in a size medium, and considered comfortable versus really comfortable. I put the mediums back, matched up a pair in size large, and carried it to the register.
“Excuse me, but do you carry pink feather boas?”
The woman looked down at my purchase, which she was folding between sheets of tissue paper. She smiled.
“I wasn’t planning to wear them together. Actually, the boa isn’t even for me.”
She smiled again. It was a hard smile to read. Discreetly, I moved my eyes lower, trying to figure out if she had implants. “I’m sorry, we don’t. You might try Boa-Boa, across from Sears.”
*
I was in luck. No sign of Dolly or her Ford Fiesta. I stopped in front of the Whispering Pines Park sign, left my Civic running, picked up the Boa-Boa bag and tiptoed to the front door of Dolly’s trailer. A grapevine wreath studded with small plastic turkeys hung at eye level. I turned the knob on the storm door to tuck the bag inside.
“Why, Ms. Hurlihy, what brings you here?” Bob Connor, minus Austin and wearing old sweats and new sneakers, appeared to be returning from a jog. His cheeks were pink and he was breathing hard. He looked rumpled and friendly and boyishly handsome. His hair was curly on one side and sort of flattened and sticking up on the other, as if he had taken a nap before going out for a jog. I tried not to notice, but his eyes were particularly green in this light. I pictured June, looking spectacular in impossibly short shorts, jogging beside him. That helped.
I shut Dolly’s boa safely between the doors. His eyes followed. “Boa-Boa?”
“Yeah, Boa-Boa.”
“Shop there often?”
“It’s always a pleasure to run into one of my students’ parents, but, sorry, I’m in a rush right now. Take care. Say hi to Austin.”
“You can say hi to him yourself if you want. He’s getting dropped off in ten minutes or so. I could offer you a beer. Or learn to make coffee.”
“Thanks, but it might be confusing for Austin to see his father entertaining more than one of his teachers in any given week.”
“Ouch. You mean June, right?”
“Good guess.”
“Actually, I was kinda hoping to talk to you about that.”
“Maybe you can bring it up at the next parent- teacher conference.” I smiled sweetly, incredibly proud of coming up with the first good parting line of my life. Taking extra care not to trip and ruin the whole effect, I sauntered away from Bob and toward my Civic. When I turned back for a final wave, he was grinning.
Chapter 11
Siobhan was driving my Civic; Annie and Lainie were buckled up safely in the backseat. I was riding shotgun. “Nice job, Siobhan. You were great. The kids loved you. And thanks for picking up on my not wanting my boss to know we were related. I wasn’t sure she’d think my hiring relatives was professional.”
“What a bitch.”
“She just takes her job seriously.”
“I guess.” Siobhan’s driving had improved. She had better spatial awareness now, hugging the sides of the road on corners instead of straying over the center line if a car wasn’t coming the other way. I breathed uneasily until we dropped the younger girls off, wondering if Phoebe or Michael would be mad at me for letting Siobhan drive when their kids were in the car. Fortunately, nobody came to the door and, as soon as Annie and Lainie were inside the house, Siobhan and I made a clean getaway.
We drove across town, and arrived at Carol’s house just as she was pulling into the driveway. Ian and Trevor jumped out of the minivan first. They waved and ran screaming into the house. Carol leaned in to unbuckle Maeve. I wondered how she found the energy for car seats in her forties. She balanced Maeve on one hip and smiled. Even though Carol was three years older than I am, she looked about ten years younger than I felt. “So, how’d it go?” she asked Siobhan.
Siobhan popped the trunk of my Civic, walked around to grab her shoe bag. I circled around the other way, held my arms out to Maeve, who shook her head and buried it in the crook of Carol’s neck. “Okay,” Siobhan finally answered.
“She’s a born teacher,” I said. “The kids loved her.” Siobhan’s face was perfectly bored.
“That’s great, honey. You really are good with kids. I knew you could do it.” Carol tilted her head, trying to get Siobhan to look at her. Siobhan focused all her attention on twisting the straps of the shoe bag. “So,” Carol continued. “Spot any talent, Siobhan? Anybody with championship potential?”
“Rebecca Lowenstein looked pretty good.”
Carol smiled. “Great name for an Irish step dancer.”
Siobhan gave Carol a look of astonishing hatred. “Oh, my God, you are such a racist I can’t even stand it.”
Still holding Maeve, Carol started to rock back and forth in that special way all mothers seem to have. Too quietly she said, “Siobhan, don’t you ever use that tone with me.”
Siobhan stomped off to the house. It seemed proper to observe a moment of silence. Afterward, Carol said, “An invitation to a bar mitzvah for a Dermot O’Toole would be funny, wouldn’t it?”
“Yeah, I know how you meant it. But don’t you remember being Siobhan’s age? I have this image of Grandpa stopping the car to point out a man just to say he was black as the ace of spades. And Dad talking about Aunt Nora marrying an Eye-talian. I’m sure they’d been saying stuff like that for years, but one day I heard it and I was stunned. Maybe that’s part of a teenager’s function, to help you evolve to the next level.”
Maeve squirmed in her mother’s arms, began to fuss. “Don’t you start,” said Carol.
*
Lorna was sitting at my kitchen table. “Okay, there’s line dancing at the Knights of Columbus hall, a wine tasting at O’Brien’s, or we can use these before they expire.” She handed me two gift certificates, each one good for a manicure at the Nail Trail.
“Teacher presents?” I asked with a smile.
“You got it. The only perk in this business. I think the parents buy them for us to feel less guilty that their Land Rover cost more than their child’s teacher makes in a year. I even got a gift certificate for a full hour massage for my birthday from Lucy Wheelright’s mom.” Lorna rolled her shoulders back. “It was great. I’d get rid of Mattress Man in a second if I could have one of those every day.”
Even at the bitter end, I never would have joked about Kevin that way. A lot of good it did me. I ran through Lorna’s suggestions. “How ’bout the manicure?” I asked. “Can we walk in or do we need an appointment?” Later I’d try to remember where I’d stashed my own gift certificates, and find out if they’d expired. If not, I’d share them with Lorna.
“We’ll find out.”
I am never very comfortable letting people do things for me. At a restaurant, I always stack the plates for the waitress, clean up any stray bits of food from the tablecloth so the waiter won’t have to. Now I sat at a ruffled table in front of an Asian manicurist who didn’t smile. She pointed, so I obediently perched my fingers in two cut-glass bowls of soapy
water. I looked at her, trying to figure out what country she was from, thinking maybe I’d get her to teach me one of her childhood games for the kids at school. I waited for her to look up. She ignored me.
I cleared my throat. “Uh, excuse me, but where are you from?”
“Plymouth.”
“No, I mean what country are you from?”
She grabbed my right hand. I jumped. “United States American.” She glared at the hand as if it had asked the question. “What color?” she asked.
It took me a minute to realize she meant my nails. “Oh, whatever you think,” I said, thinking I’d make up for asking her stupid questions.
“Your nails, not mine.” Beside me Lorna and her manicurist were laughing away together as if they’d known each other their whole lives.
“Okay, this one, please.” I pointed to a nonadventurous shade of pink.
When the right hand was finished, she turned on a tiny green fan, tapped her fingernail on the counter to signal me to place my hand in front of it. I obeyed.
She finished polishing the left hand, moved the fan to let my right hand know it was the left hand’s turn. “Good nails,” she said with a scowl. “Women pay lotta money get these nails. Nevva happen. Rubber gloves to clean, good lotion and come see me every week. Or twice month. You decide.” She picked up my right hand, turned it over and gazed at my palm. “Not much lifeline.”
*
My father squinted at the television. “Now there’s one fine-looking woman.”
“Mrs. Brady?” I waggled my fingers, admiring last night’s manicure.
“No, the brunette with the curtains.”
“Dad, that’s Alice. She’s the housekeeper.”
“We all have to earn a living, Sarah. And you, my darlin’ daughter, were not brought up to be a snob in any way, shape or form. Your mother never had any airs about her at all.”
My father and I were sipping Campbell’s tomato soup from coffee mugs in my living room. Our feet were on the coffee table and an open bag of oyster crackers rested between them. We’d each crushed a handful of crackers into our soup by rubbing our hands back and forth over the mug. Powdery crumbs dusted the tabletop.
Alice was explaining to Mrs. Brady that she wouldn’t be able to sit for the Brady kids that night because she had to deliver the olive-green cafe curtains she’d just finished making for Sam’s house. Sam was a new boyfriend, and Mr. and Mrs. Brady were encouraging the relationship. “But if you had a choice, Dad, I mean if Mrs. Brady wasn’t married, wouldn’t you pick her over Alice?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I’ve learned a bit of what there is to learn about women over the years, Sarah, and I can tell you, without a smidgen of doubt, that the brunette is the better choice. The blonde is too high-strung. Squirrelly.”
“Squirrelly? What’s squirrelly?”
“What do you mean, ‘What’s squirrelly?’ Look out your window, Sarry girl, and watch the little rodents, like rats wearing fur coats. All nervous and running here and there without ever finishing anything. That’s squirrelly.”
I took another look at Mrs. Brady. She seemed calm to me. She and Mr. Brady were agreeing that it would be unconscionable to stand in the way of Alice’s date. The plot was thickening. Marcia and Greg were announcing that they were too old to have a baby-sitter anyway. Actually, Greg was announcing it, but Marcia was backing him up one hundred percent.
I took another sip of my soup. My father took a sip of his, too, wrapping both hands around the mug just like I did. The crackers were nice and soggy. “Sorry I don’t have anything better to offer you for dinner, Dad. I wasn’t expecting company.”
“I wasn’t expecting to be company. It was an impulse born of necessity.” He removed a wrinkled white handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his mouth. I should have remembered napkins.
“What do you mean?”
“I inadvertently made two sets of dinner plans. I thought it best to cancel both before any hearts were broken. And then make myself scarce.”
“Wow, you’re cheating on Dolly?”
“The concept of cheating does not apply to the situation.”
“Why do I think Dolly wouldn’t agree with that?” Mr. and Mrs. Brady were in a fancy restaurant now, taking turns sneaking off to the pay phone to check on the kids. I still couldn’t see squirrelly. “Is Dolly squirrelly, Dad?”
“Dolly is the least squirrelly woman I have ever met.” He was running his fingers through his thick white hair. He looked like a big cat grooming himself after dinner.
“Is that what attracted you to her?” I mean, what would attract a handsome man like my father to a little pink woman like Dolly?
“Sarah, why one human being is attracted to another is one of the great mysteries of the world.”
*
As soon as my father left, I picked up the phone. I’d been doing this on a regular basis, picking it up, holding on to it for a while, eventually putting it back down. Building a new life was such a great idea and one that, in theory, I believed in completely. In reality, though, I found that I could feel myself wanting a life and I could picture myself having a life, but I had a hard time making myself connect the dots between the two.
Forward motion, little steps, I coached myself, wishing I’d had the tenacity to make it all the way through one of the self-help books Carol was always handing down to me. I took a deep breath and dialed John Anderson’s number. I had never even thanked him for our date, or for leaving the message on my machine later that night.
“Yellow,” he said when he answered, making me question my impulse.
I forged ahead anyway. “John. Hi. It’s Sarah Hurlihy. Remember me?”
“Mother Teresa’s friend?”
“Yeah. Um, I just wanted to thank you for our sorta date.”
“You mean, our sorta date of three weeks ago?”
“Wow, has it been that long? Gee, time flies.” I couldn’t imagine why I had called. “So, how’ve you been?”
“I’m okay. How ’bout you? I take it you didn’t like any of my second date suggestions.”
“No, that wasn’t…. I mean, yes, I liked all of them. Thank you very much.”
“But?”
“Well, I kept meaning to call you, but I never seemed to do it. I guess everything just feels like too much work lately. Like even getting out of bed in the morning is a part-time job.”
“Maybe it would be better to think of it as a hobby.”
“Is that how you think of it?”
“Lately I’ve been trying not to think much at all. Actually, I have another hobby I was just playing around with when you called. Anagrams.”
“Anagrams? Which ones are they?”
“When you mix up the letters in a word to spell something else. Usually I use people’s names.”
This guy was either slightly strange or kind of interesting. Maybe both. “So, give me an example.”
“Okay, pick one — Madonna or Shakespeare.”
It was probably a test of some sort. Maybe you could rate people based on their preferred cultural icons. “Shakespeare, of course.”
“Okay, William Shakespeare comes out: ‘I am a weakish speller.’”
“Cut it out. Does it really?”
“Write down the name, then cross off the letters. It works.”
“This is fun. How about Madonna?”
“Madonna Louise Ciccone. The best one is ‘Occasional nude income.’”
“Oh, that’s great. What about me?”
“Okay, give me a minute. Sarah Hurlihy…. hmm …. that’s a tough one. Umm …. How about this: ‘Hi! Ha ha! Slurry!’ ”
“That’s awful.”
“Okay, I can do better. ‘Hi! A lush Harry’? Or ‘Has hurly hair’?”
“Gee, thanks a lot.”
“Hey, I didn’t name you.”
“That’s true. And I hate my name anyway so I won’t feel insulted. Sarah’s too whispery, not
a strong name.”
“I think it’s a beautiful name.”
“Thanks.” I’d never really liked talking on the phone that much, but it was kind of nice tonight. There was only sound. No sight or smell or touch to worry about. I could hang up at any time and be safe at home, all by myself. I curled up on the edge of my bed, waited for John to keep talking.
“What would you rather have for a name?” he asked.
“Well, when I was twelve I wanted to be Heidi. I tried to take it as a Confirmation name, but the nuns wouldn’t let me because it wasn’t the name of a saint.”
“Heidi Hurlihy. Sometimes things happen for the best.”
“And then I wanted to be Juliet. I know, not much better. How ’bout you, did you ever want another name?”
“You don’t think John Anderson is unusual enough?” John’s voice was soft and rich and gently teasing.
“You know,” I said, forgetting to answer his question. “You have a terrific voice, too.”
*
It’s not like it’s really a date, I told myself. It was just a quick cup of coffee at Starbucks on Boylston because I’d happened to mention to John Anderson that I was taking a one-day professional development course in Boston. It turned out John’s office was just down the street from the conference center where the course was being held.
Everything always seemed more sophisticated in Boston. There was something stimulating about getting out of the suburbs, where you could live your entire life in sweatpants. The women I passed looked neat and crisp and were dressed mostly in black, as if stooping to wear color would be far too frivolous for their important lives.
I was early, and I sat at one of the tall stools at the counter by the window, wishing I’d remembered about the black thing when I was getting dressed that morning. My simple purple dress, which had seemed perfectly appropriate at home, now felt too bright, too cheerful, practically circusy. The seat I’d chosen had a great view, but it was the kind of stool I never knew whether to climb all the way up on, or to just sort of angle myself back against casually. I tried both techniques and neither felt right, so I walked across to a table with two shorter, less intimidating chairs.
