Her mother was staring out the window, as though watching a film of her life playing on a screen in the parking lot, having rewound it far beyond the previous summer, waves of anger and sadness passing silently across her face.
“Remember them?” Lily’s voice trailed off in resignation, as she traced her mother’s gaze out the window. “They were nice...”
Lily considered telling her all about the preparations for her college audition, about how Dolores was helping her get ready, about how she got to go to a real recording studio to lay down an accompaniment track with real musicians. But then she decided it would just make her mother feel bad that she wasn’t a part of that, that Dolores had stepped in and was doing things a mother might want to do, might insist upon doing.
Instead, she held her mother’s hands, noticing how delicate they were, how her fingers tapered off at the tips, how the cuticles of her thumbs were always cracked and peeling, from the way she constantly picked at them. Lily remembered the countless hours of sitting next to her mother, listening to stories from the books they’d brought home from the library, watching her hands as they turned the pages. She found herself wondering how many diapers her mother had changed, how much vomit she had cleaned up, how many scrapes and cuts she had bandaged and soothed, how many bologna sandwiches she had constructed with those hands. It didn’t seem fair that she couldn’t even imagine using them to build her own happiness, after all of that.
“It’ll be OK, Mom,” said Lily. “Everything will be OK.”
City kids would walk or ride their bikes to take guitar lessons, but out in the suburbs, the children were softer; they needed cars or rides. The soundproofed studio in the basement of Auntie Rosa and Uncle Alfred’s new condo was frequented by a dwindling parade of spoiled pimply-faced teen-aged boys wanting to learn to play “Smoke on the Water,” or “Stairway to Heaven,” requests that Uncle Alfred would not oblige until they first learned to read music, and had some basic theory behind them. It was a delay in gratification for which children from the suburbs were increasingly losing patience, as was evidenced by the blank time slots in Uncle Alfred’s teaching schedule. But the studio made a great place for Saturday band practice, and every week a potpourri of musicians would gather there to play, mostly because Uncle Alfred coerced them with his promises of fun, future gigs, and the chance to get a taste of rock star fame.
In spite of the fact that the rock band Lily and Iris put together had fallen apart, Uncle Alfred continuously urged Lily to sing whenever she could, but she was unenthused by the gigs he got for them - local Rotary Club dinners, a retirement party here and there, private cocktail receptions where wealthy middle-aged women in kaftans stumbled drunkenly around built-in swimming pools decorated with Chinese lanterns. Singing “I Left my Heart in San Francisco” for the members of the Moose Lodge wasn’t exactly what Lily had in mind for herself as a performer, but she went along with it. It was a chance to practice, to hang out with Iris, and maybe even make an extra twenty bucks.
Since Dolores had come to stay, their rehearsal space also doubled as her sleeping quarters. The couch in the corner pulled out into a bed, and Dolores was more than happy to host the band, as long as she was allowed to watch and listen.
“Dolores, do you mind if I borrow that music stand?” Lily asked.
“Will you sing my song for me?”
“Yes,” said Lily, with a laugh. “I’ll sing you whatever you want.” James and Paula were likely getting ready for the Ball at that very moment. Today, James belonged to Paula and Lily had missed her chance to be the one at his side. But at least she had this, her band and her audience of one. At least Dolores wanted her.
Dolores swiped her array of small brown prescription bottles from the ledge of the stand and dumped them into her large purse, leaving one bottle behind which she opened, shaking a pill out into her mouth and washing it down with the glass of water she always seemed to have in her hand lately.
The basement was well finished, with wall-to-wall carpeting and gently used furniture, but the only windows were two small transoms at the top edge of the wall, and Auntie Rosa had placed white plastic flower boxes with red plastic geraniums on the sills, which were intended to brighten up the room but actually blocked what little sunlight might find its way in.
“Why are you wearing sunglasses?” Lily asked Dolores. “It’s so dark in here already.”
“I’m going for this whole Greta Garbo thing,” Dolores replied. “Don’t you think I appear glamorous and mysterious this way?” A smile broke out across Dolores’ face, but the edges of her lips trembled. Lily didn’t know who Greta Garbo was, but she had a sense that it was better not to push the matter.
The rest of the hodgepodge band assembled, including Iris on rhythm guitar, some weird girl named Kathy that Uncle Alfred had recruited to play percussion, Uncle Alfred’s friend Janine who had one leg shorter than the other and carried an accordion that seemed to be permanently plastered to her chest, and of course Uncle Alfred himself on lead and steel string guitars. They fumbled their way through a set of Hawaiian music including “Blue Hawaii,” “Pearly Shells,” and “Tiny Bubbles” - the one song Uncle Alfred insisted on singing himself, much to Iris and Lily’s embarrassment. With his eyes closed, he would tap his foot, strum his guitar, bob his body and slur and stumble his way through the lyrics like a preacher at a revival meeting, overcome with the Spirit and babbling in tongues.
“OK - it’s time for my song now,” announced Dolores in between numbers. She got up from the bed and sat in a folding chair facing the band. Lily took her place behind the microphone stand, and Uncle Alfred counted off the beat.
“Nice and slow, now,” he instructed. “Nice and slow. 1, 2, and–a 1, 2, 3...”
Lily closed her eyes and sang.
“Every day I face the world at large
What lies ahead is yet uncharted
Reflections of the life I’ve seen
The dreams I’ve dreamed but never started
But what’s done is done and what was
Just doesn’t matter anymore
So every day I pray I’ll find a way
To let my spirit soar... “
When Lily opened her eyes she found Dolores with her hands in her lap, tears streaming freely down her cheeks from behind her sunglasses, not a tissue in sight. Lily wanted to go to Dolores, but she didn’t want to make it worse by calling everyone’s attention to her. Dolores didn’t seem to be particularly bothered by her semi-public display of emotion. She engaged in her tears with the same detached consciousness as if she were reading a book, or knitting a scarf. Sorrow was one thing the women in Lily’s family seemed to come by naturally, and possess in abundance.
“My heart is strong, my soul is free
The weight of the world doesn’t bother me
And everything is beautiful if you just choose to believe
I’m where I belong, where I need to be
I walk in synchronicity
And every step just leads me closer
To my destiny
As I walk the path of peace and harmony”
Uncle Alfred ended rehearsal after the song, even though they hadn’t run through all of their material yet. Weird Kathy packed up her stuff and left. Uncle Alfred helped Janine haul her accordion up the stairs, and Iris went up into the kitchen to visit with Auntie Rosa. Lily stayed to break down the equipment, and pick up the sheet music that was scattered about. Dolores stumbled back over to her bed. Lily collapsed the folding chair. Dolores shook another pill out of the small brown bottle and popped it into her mouth.
“Didn’t you just take one of those?” Lily asked, offhandedly.
“Don’t you mind about that,” Dolores snapped, draining her glass in a single gulp. She considered the empty glass, and then she considered Lily. “I certainly don’t need your help to keep track of my medications.”
Shocked at Dolores’ response, Lily just stood and looked at her.
�
�What are you looking at? Why don’t you go on and get out of here and leave me alone, so I can take my nap?”
“I’m sorry, Dolores, I was only trying to -”
“Go on,” said Dolores, lying on the bed and pulling the covers up over her shoulder. “Leave me be.”
“OK,” said Lily, fighting back tears of her own. “I’ll talk to you soon, then.” She switched off the light, and shut the studio door behind her.
Lily tossed and turned half the night, the task of falling asleep made more difficult by the taunting of Iris’ empty bed. Typical. Lily had been counting on going to the Ball for months and she was the one home alone while Iris - who’d had no interest in going at all – had reluctantly accepted a desperate invitation from a friend at the last minute. Her absence accentuated the silence and solitude and caused the night to drag slowly on.
The next morning, Lily stepped out onto the back porch and, realizing she was barefoot, stepped into the gold sandals that Iris must have abandoned in her attempt to slink in undetected during the wee hours. As Lily meandered down the long driveway, she let her robe fall open. Even though it was still cold and the landscape was littered with remnants of crusty snow blackened by the exhaust of passing cars, the air hinted at spring, and Lily longed to feel it against her skin. The Senior Ball had hung over the weekend like a black storm cloud, but the rising sun and burgeoning spring were reminders that time does pass, and Lily was grateful to have last night behind her. Soon, life would file the Ball away as a memory, and then she could also file the pain away and move on.
Purple crocuses peeked their heads up through the spongy earth, whispering tales of the Easters of Lily’s childhood. She recalled the colorful wicker baskets filled with chocolate rabbits, jelly beans, malted milk eggs, and sugar-coated marshmallow chicks that only Violet liked. Lily laughed to herself, remembering how Violet used to collect the chicks from everyone else and save them until they were stale and hard before eating them. She could almost smell the braided bread that her mother baked only at Easter, with whole hard-boiled eggs cooked right into the sweet dough. Lily loved to slice it and toast it until it was slightly burnt before slathering it with butter and dunking it in her Easter morning coffee.
Without her mother at home, Easter would be sad this year, as so many things were now. She wondered if they would still have a big ham dinner, and if Iris knew how to make the Easter bread, and where her mother would go to celebrate. The thought of her sitting home alone - or with her Jewish friend Anita as though it were just another Sunday - was an unbearable one.
The clicking of the heels of Iris’ sandals against the asphalt resurrected the sense of excitement that Lily used to feel at wearing shiny patent leather shoes to Easter Mass, and the yellow bonnet with white lace ruffles that had always been stowed on the top shelf of the closet, retrieved once a year, expressly for the occasion.
The lawn was still mostly brown and desolate, but Lily knew that in a few weeks it would explode with color as the fuchsia hyacinths, yellow daffodils, and crimson tulips her mother had planted over the years would all arise from their slumber, joyfully proclaiming the end of another winter. Lily took comfort in her mother’s presence - a presence that could not be lifted out or scrubbed away. She was still here, and she always would be, regardless of where she lived, just as the memories of Easters past and the flowers that announced them would remain long after Lily had moved away to college, onto her new life.
Lily retrieved the rolled up newspaper from the ground, and as she rose again she inhaled deeply, savoring the cold, sweet air as it passed through her nostrils and into her lungs. She loved being the first one awake, and adored watching the sun rise and witnessing the calm, quiet break of day. Her whole body swelled with the contagious optimism of spring, excited that all she dreamed of was just around the corner, beyond the Senior Ball and past her parents’ divorce. By this time next year, she would practically be on her way. One short dance of the earth.
A lone car approached and slowed down as it turned into the driveway. Lily stepped aside onto the cool damp grass, as James pulled in and parked. Lily’s heart jumped first at his presence and then at the realization that she was in her nightgown and without makeup. Concerns about her own appearance quickly retreated as James emerged and walked toward her, still dressed in a powder blue tuxedo. The top three buttons of his white shirt were open, and his bow tie hung limp, likely exhausted from a night of partying. The cummerbund accentuated his slender waist and broad shoulders. Lily froze in place as he approached.
“Good morning,” he said.
“What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to talk to you.”
“Have you even been home yet?”
“No,” James replied. “I came straight here. I had to see you.”
Lily walked over and sat on the chaise under the apple tree, crossing her legs under her and pulling her nightgown over her knees. James took a seat at the opposite end of the chaise. His gaze fell to the neckline of her open robe, and as Lily glanced down she could see that her breasts were visible through the thin pink cotton, the cool morning breeze making her dark nipples erect. She resisted the urge to close the robe, and instead watched James looking at them.
“So what’s up?” All she wanted to do was get started on the housework and the shopping, with the intent of putting as much space and activity between her and last night as possible. And now here was last night, come looking for her, sitting under her apple tree.
“I made a mistake.”
“What do you mean?” Lily knew what he meant, but she wanted him to say it.
“Not taking you to the Ball. It was a mistake. We should have been there together.”
“You didn’t have a good time?”
“It was alright. Paula’s kind of a princess, though. She didn’t like the corsage I bought her - she wanted a wrist corsage of those little roses, and I got her a regular one. And she refused to get out of the car until I went around and opened the door for her.”
Lily inhaled deeply and grit her teeth. To think that while she struggled to get through the night, he was pinning on corsages and opening doors only served to retroactively feed her rage. Play it cool. Don’t let him see. Hold it in. Showing him her anger would mean that he won, and then she would cry and it would ease the guilt he was feeling. He wasn’t going to get off that easy.
“Have you eaten anything?” Lily asked.
“No, some kids went out to breakfast, but Paula was too tired so I took her home a couple hours ago. I’ve been driving around, thinking.”
“Want some eggs?”
James sat at the kitchen table as Lily moved about the kitchen, trying to make as little noise as possible. She was pretty sure how her father would feel about finding a boy sitting on his bench, and about Lily entertaining one in her nightgown.
She placed a plate in front of James, then a fork and a knife, a napkin, a small glass of orange juice. With every act of service, James seemed to wince; with every wince, Lily was soothed. She watched him eat his scrambled eggs, using the last triangle of toast and scoop of eggs to make a tiny sandwich, which he ate in one bite.
Lily cleared the dishes from the table and as she passed by the stove, she grabbed the coffee pot, and began to fill the cup in front of James’ place.
“I don’t drink coffee,” he said, with a chuckle. Lily froze, confused by his declaration. She looked at the empty cup, she looked at James, and then she set the coffee pot back onto the stove.
“Do you want to do something later?” James asked Lily, when she walked him out to his car.
You mean like pin a corsage on me, take me out to dinner, and then go dancing? Did he really think he could make it up to her so easily? She wanted him to sit home tonight, feeling sorry for himself and sorry for what he did to her, wondering what she was doing and who she was with.
“I can’t,” said Lily. The wind blew her robe open. She turned toward James. “I already have plans.”
James stepped forward and drew Lily’s body to his. She allowed him to hold her close, to press up and feel her skin through the paper thin nightie. She felt him get hard against her as he ran his hand down her back, resting it on her buttocks. She wanted him. She knew she could have him.
“Lily,” said James, breathlessly. “I - I-”
Lily broke away and pulled her robe around herself.
“Talk to you soon,” she said.
Lily watched as James backed down the driveway and disappeared down the street, leaving her with the scent of his cologne in her nostrils, an ache in her groin, and a searing pain in her belly.
27. Iris
“Mi-iss! Yoo-hoo!” called the balding, frog-faced man seated at table twelve with a woman half his age and bulk, waving his empty highball glass in the air. Iris wanted to scream back, tell the guy she was neither deaf nor blind, just busy. Instead, biting her tongue and holding his stare, she responded by raising her eyebrows, a signal that indicated she would attend to him as soon as possible.
Since freed by the unceremonious completion of her high school obligations, Iris reported for double shifts, Monday through Friday, at the Sizzling Skillet. Each day afforded her countless opportunities to hone the skills she had learned in the fast-food business, and forced her to develop many others. She was amazed at the level of non-verbal communication she managed to achieve using facial expressions and body language as she buzzed around the dining room dispensing food and drink, clearing away enough leftovers to feed entire families, scooping up loose change left on soiled tablecloths and tossing it into the pouch of her apron. As the day wore on, she took consolation in the growing weight of the quarters and nickels and dimes and pennies, jingling against her thighs, as the tide of chattering customers flowed and ebbed until the last rush was finally over and a spent silence settled over the dining room.
The Complete Series Page 43
