The scenario had played out perfectly in Iris’s mind, over and over again, its conversations becoming the mantra that gave her the strength to stick it out for the rest of the semester with Emma Zeiss studying in the chair beside her by day and snoring in the bunk beneath her by night. She had no doubt Lily would be as excited as she was, although neither of the girls had actually verbalized such thoughts. These were just things sisters knew, without having to come right out and say them. Just like Iris knew that if Lily didn’t keep in touch, it was because there was no allowance for long phone distance calls in the household budget, and that Lily must find writing a bit of a chore. At least that was what she figured, since she had never answered the letters Iris had written her.
Even if Lily had made the effort to write, or call, or hop on a bus to Buffalo herself to explain her motives, she would not have been able to prepare Iris for the desolation she felt, standing there alone in the room with three beds, in a house with three brothers and a father. Of course, she had heard about the “when” of Lily’s decision to move out; her father, deciding that this bit of news was worth the buck it would cost for the call, had phoned Iris himself, and speaking in the controlled, stoic tone of Catholicism’s most revered martyrs, informed her of this latest test of faith. She could also understand the “why” behind Lily’s impromptu defection: she was all too aware of how unrewarding it could be for a seventeen-year-old girl to devote her time and energy to cleaning and cooking for a household that offered little joy and less serenity in return. What eluded Iris was the “how”: how she could turn her back on her distraught father and abandoned little brothers; how she could put Iris in the position of returning here alone, knowing she may never have the courage to leave again. Had she persevered just a bit longer, they could have spent the summer together, using the time to prepare the all-male menagerie to manage without them. They would have devised a strategy, perfected a plan, led the boys and their father down the road to self-sufficiency. In the meantime, they would have cleaned the house, top to bottom; they would have stocked up on Hamburger Helper and Rice-a-Roni; they would have filled the freezer with gallons of chicken soup, and dozens of meatballs in spaghetti sauce. Then, at the end of the summer, they would have both gone off to college, their consciences appeased. But no: Lily couldn’t wait. Now it would all be up to Iris.
She slid open the accordion door to the closet with such force that it derailed from its track. “Cheap crap!” she cursed, as she reached in to grab a handful of hangers, but could not disentangle them from the rod from which they dangled, because some faced one way, some the other. She scowled at the hangers, silently accusing them of rebelling against the order she had always imposed upon them, cursing the flimsy wire they were made of, so pathetically bent of out shape from years of sustaining the clothes of growing girls, and the dreams stitched to their hems.
Kicking the disjointed closet door out of her way, her foot encountered the object that was blocking it. She reached down to move it, and found herself holding her little blue valise. She shoved it into the back corner of the closet before more memories could assail her. This was not the time. Today she was just passing through; the rest could wait until her return.
“Now that’s what I call meatloaf!” Iris’s father said, stabbing a piece with his fork and shoving it in his mouth. “How the heck did you do that?”
“It’s no big deal,” Iris said, pushing around on her plate the half slice she had served herself. It was the same meatloaf she had made countless times before, and no one had noticed. “Just regular old meat loaf, except I spread it out on wax paper, sprinkled some chopped spinach and Swiss cheese over it, then rolled it up and put it in the pan. Oh, I also put some bacon strips on top, to give it extra flavor.”
“Well, I’ll be! Aren’t you clever!” Auntie Rosa said. Fixing her eyes on Iris, she wagged her head from left to right and back again, tsk-tsking in wonder, as if her niece had just disclosed one of The Three Secrets of Fatima delivered by the Madonna herself. “Isn’t she clever, Alfred?” she said, turning to her brother.
“Mmm-hmm,” Uncle Alfred said, adding another heaping spoonful of topping to his baked potato as he chewed. “I’ve never had sour cream like this, either. Nice and light. Where did you get it?”
“Actually, it’s just plain yogurt. We didn’t have any sour cream. I just doctored it up, added some herbs, you know, some chives,” Iris said, observing the concentrated pleasure on the faces gathered around the table.
“Can I have some more meatloaf, Iris?” Ricci said.
“Sure, here you go, honey,” Iris said, serving him a slice from the nearly empty platter. “How about you guys?” William and Charles nodded their heads and lifted their plates to be served.
“Don’t forget to eat some bread with that, boys,” their father said. Some things never changed.
Her brothers had been exceptionally quiet during dinner, and Iris wondered whether their silence was simply due to their absorption with their food, or if they refrained from expressing their appreciation of the meal out of fear of being disloyal to their father, who had been wrestling with the task of cooking in the interim, or to the absent Lily who had, for what it was worth, done her best. Although she was in no mood to sit at the table, watching them eat infused Iris with warmth, as if the eggs and bread crumbs she had worked into the ground meat to hold it together could do the same for them, and for what was left of their family.
“Jeepers Cripes, Iris. Now I remember why we missed you so much around here,” her father said with a smile, wiping his plate with a piece of bread. “That sister of yours says she felt ‘oppressed’ in the kitchen. She’s turning out to be just like her mother. Last time the boys saw Ms. Libber you know what she fed them? Kentucky Fried Chicken. What kind of a mother is that? One with bats in her belfry, that’s what. Good riddance to the both of them.” He patted the breast pocket of his shirt, pulled out a pack of Parliaments, and lit one. As Iris watched him blow the smoke high into the air, she found herself craving a cigarette, although she had given up her occasional smoking way back when she had given up Michael Jejune. She had never smoked in the house, had never even been suspected of smoking, and could imagine the shocked look on the faces of her father and aunt and uncle and brothers if she were to reach over and grab a Parliament for herself.
“Let’s wait a few minutes for dessert and coffee,” her father said. We won’t be having a dinner like this for another couple of weeks. You two ladies pulled a fast one on me, running off to It-ly like that.” Her father always pronounced the name of the country in two syllables: It-ly. So did Auntie Rosa, and Uncle Alfred, but for some reason, it only irritated her when her father did it.
“Mamma mia, I can hardly believe it, Lover-dover!” Auntie Rosa said. “Tomorrow at this time, we’ll be on that plane.”
Iris smiled. Between the fantasizing and planning, the upcoming trip had been vying for an increasing share of her daydreaming time. Images of piazzas with fountains, pigeons perched on marble statues, and cappuccinos sipped under the striped awnings of sidewalk cafés encroached on the territory once populated exclusively by Peter, blurring his features, rubbing out the select passages of his letters she had committed to memory. Now that the trip was about to become reality, she almost wished she could prolong the wait, for the same reason she had been secretly relieved when Peter’s leave to visit from England in August had been postponed until Christmas.
“If only poor Dolores were here,” Auntie Rosa said, crossing herself and sighing. “She could have come with us. She would have loved It-ly.” So would Lily, Iris thought.
“Now don’t start with that again, Rosa,” Iris’s father said. “You did all you could for Dolores. We all did. Just go and have fun, and forget about everything. But don’t forget to come back. And remember to bring Iris back with you.”
“I may never get to leave, if I don’t pack,” Iris said. “In fact, if you don’t mind, I’ll skip dessert. I can’t eat an
yway, with all these butterflies in my stomach.” The feeling was actually more a gnawing than a fluttering, but the result was the same.
“You go ahead, Bella della mamma!” Auntie Rosa said. “I’ll take care of the dishes.”
“Thanks,” Iris said, sliding out from her place on the bench, and heading for the stairs. A black telephone sat on the landing, a desktop model with a rotary dial her father had brought home from the office when the new push-button phones were installed. There was no desk or table here, but the phone had a cord long enough to allow its use in the boys’ bedrooms, and in the bathroom. Iris went to her room, and looked at the clothes she had stacked on the spare bed. She had been unable to select anything from the pile. Nothing looked right. Nothing felt right. She couldn’t pack with that gnawing in her gut, and she knew the feeling wouldn’t subside until she talked to Lily. Fishing through her shoulder bag for her address book, she flipped it open to the letter M. She memorized the number next to the entry MOM, walked back to the landing, picked up the phone and took it into the bathroom, shutting the door behind her.
“Hello?” Lily’s voice sounded small, and faraway, though they were barely three miles from each other.
“Hi, Lily! It’s me, Iris,” Iris said.
“Iris! Where are you?”
“I’m home. Just got here today. I’ve got a million things to do, but I want to see you. Can you pick me up? We can go to the diner for a cup of coffee. My treat.”
“I guess so. Let me ask Mom if I can borrow the car.” Iris studied her face in the mirror above the sink as she tried to discern words from the distant female voices ringing like wind chimes out on a porch. She was contemplating whether she should be more daring with her eyebrow plucking, when Lily’s voice came back on the line.
“Um, Iris?”
“I’m here.”
“Mom thinks you should borrow Dad’s car and come over here. She says I would be facilitating him if I used her car to pick you up.”
“Facilitating?” Iris said, watching the medicine cabinet reflection of her face turn crimson. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know, making it easier for him.”
“I know what the word means, Lily. I just don’t see how Dad has anything to gain if you pick me up and we go for coffee.”
“Please. It’s no use. Just come.”
“Give me ten minutes,” Iris said.
The front door and Lily’s arms were opened wide before Iris’s finger touched the bell.
“Hey!” Lily said.
“Hey!” Iris said, embracing her. “Your hair looks great like that.”
“You think so? Don’t tell Mom, but I hate it. Thank God it’s growing back fast,” Lily said, brushing back her bangs from her eyes. “Come on in.”
Iris stepped past the entrance and into the living room; her eyes roamed over the shapes she assumed belonged to a sofa and an armchair, a desk and a coffee table, cowering under the burden of self-help books and Ms. magazines, back issues of newspapers and outdated newsletters, open notebooks and scribbled upon legal pads, spread over every horizontal surface. “Thank God no one smokes around here,” she said.
“Yeah, it could get pretty hazardous,” Lily said. “Hey, Mom? It’s Iris!” she called out in the direction of the kitchen.
Their mother walked into the room carrying a half-empty plastic package of fudge stripe cookies. “Oh! Iris!” she said, as if she had no recollection whatsoever of having discussed with Lily who should go to whose house and why, less than half an hour earlier. “We haven’t seen you around in a while.” Setting the cookies on top of the papers that risked sliding off the coffee table, she gave Iris a hug, then pulled back suddenly, crinkling her nose and coughing. “Oooh, you smell like Estée Lauder. You’re not dipping into Rosa’s Youth Dew, I hope.”
“God, no! It must have rubbed off when I hugged her,” Iris said. “She and Uncle Alfred came over for dinner.”
“I see. Special occasion?”
“Well, you know, I just got back from college.”
“How did it get to be May already? I can’t believe how time flies. How did it go there in ... where were you again?”
“Buffalo, Mom,” Lily interjected. “You even went once with Iris to see the campus, remember?”
“That’s right,” their mother said. “You kids are all in so many places these days, I lose track.” She let out a little puff of air. “Ithaca and New York and Boston, and what was it? Portsmouth, where Violet went? Up in New Hampshire?”
“It was another Portsmouth, the one in Virginia, but she’s been back for a while now,” Iris said.
“Of course she has,” said their mother, nodding her head. “I’m sure you got your usual good grades at Buffalo?”
“I guess. Chemistry was pretty hard, but I’m still hoping to make the Dean’s List. I’ll know when I get back.”
“Get back from where?” Lily asked, looking Iris in the eye.
“I’m going on a trip,” Iris said, dropping her gaze to the floor, noticing it was in sore need of vacuuming. This wasn’t how she had wanted to start the conversation.
“Oh,” Lily said, removing the foil wrapper from a stick of Juicy Fruit she had taken from the pocket of her jeans. “You mean, as in a vacation?” she asked. She rapidly folded the stick in four and placed it in her mouth. The movement of her jaw was quick and tight, as her teeth clamped down on the gum.
“Well, yes. I guess you could call it that,” Iris said, struggling to find an alternate word. Her eyes wandered to the window, where an angel with a trumpet dangled from the sash lock, perennially poised to herald the arrival of Christmas. “To see some relatives. With Auntie Rosa.”
“Oh. Those people from Scurcola? Those paesans that live down in Yonkers?” Lily said, snapping her gum as she spoke.
“Actually, we aregoing to see some people from Scurcola,” Iris said. “But, well, we’re going to see them there. In Scurcola.”
“The real one? In Italy?”
“Yes, that’s the plan.” It was the truth, that was their plan, if they had time left over, after touring Rome and Genoa and Bellagio and Portofino.
“So Auntie Rosa is taking you on a vacation to Italy?”
“She’s not really taking me. We’re going together. It was actually my idea. To help her get over the whole Dolores thing, you know? She took it awfully hard.”
“Yeah, tell me about it.”
“Come on, Lily. Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Act like you’re the only one who suffered when Dolores died.”
“Dolores’s death was a tragedy,” their mother said. “Her whole life was a tragedy. It was generous of her to step in and sponsor you, Lily. She did more for you than your own father did. But she was not exactly what I would call an exemplary role model. Just look at the way she allowed herself to be victimized, the way she got enmeshed in one abusive relationship after another. And while we’re on the subject, Lily, I’m not so sure getting into that college would be the best thing for your future. I brought you there because I thought it was important for you to follow through with what you started. But really, why would a bright young woman like you want to be an actress or a singer, prancing around half-naked on some stage, just begging to be exploited?”
Iris looked at Lily; now it was her turn to stare at the floor. “That’s not what Lily wants!” she said.
“Well, this is real life. Where you don’t always get what you want, no matter how worthy your intentions at the outset. You either get empowered, or you suck up and swallow. By coming to live here with me, Lily showed everyone she is not sucking up to your father, or your aunt or anyone else.”
“I didn’t want to show anyone anything, Mom,” Lily said.
“And now of course, when it’s time for a trip to Italy, who goes with Auntie Rosa? Certainly not Lily. You should not allow your aunt to play favorites like that, Iris. It’s just not right.”
“She’s n
ot playing favorites. I just told you, it was my idea. I’ve been working hard, too. I want a break. Is that so bad? I’ll be spending the rest of the summer working and taking care of the house.”
“That’s another thing, Iris. That house is your father’s responsibility. He wouldn’t let me have it, just like he wouldn’t let me have my kids. Now you are being used. Just like Lily was being used. You’re playing right into his hand, Iris.”
“What’s so wrong with trying to make other people happy?” Iris said. “Is there some kind of law against it? Isn’t that what families are for? To help each other out?”
Frustration at her motives being misinterpreted, resentment at being unjustly persecuted for something she did not consider a crime, made Iris feel powerless, as if she were standing defenseless before a tribunal in a country whose language she neither spoke nor understood.
“I come over to see my mother and my sister, and I’m faced with a firing squad! I thought you would be happy to see me. But I guess that’s just me being silly Iris, living in my little dream world.” She was shocked by her own outburst, mortified by her mother’s opinion of her, frustrated at not being able to explain things to Lily. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she ran out the door to the car and slid behind the wheel. Her hands were shaking as she rummaged through her purse for her keys, but could not find them. She dumped its entire contents on the seat next to her: no keys. She heard a tapping on the window, and looked up to see Lily standing there, the car keys dangling from her hand. Iris rolled down the window.
The Complete Series Page 49
