Shake Down the Stars

by Renee Swindle

  The kitchen is the only room so far with the curtains open. There are several casement windows and two French doors leading out to the backyard. Inside, there’s an oak table with six chairs, and an island with a second sink and wine refrigerator; the refrigerator is the size of a vault.

  “Nice place you have, Clem.”

  “I probably should’ve moved years ago, the place is so big, but I’ve been here too long and can’t get myself to do it.” She takes a hair band from a drawer and puts her hair in a ponytail. “Lotta memories here, too.”

  I set the cookies on the counter and sit at the large table. She doesn’t exaggerate. I can feel the ghosts: Tommy leaving for school and Frank sitting where I sit right now reading the morning paper. Clem at the sink telling Tommy he’s not too big to give his mother a kiss before he leaves the house. My throat clutches at the thought of everyone lost.

  Clem opens a cabinet and then another. “Now where is the coffee? I swear, every time the cleaning lady comes, she moves everything around.”

  It’s the way she does a backward two-step before closing each cabinet that makes me wonder if she’s still buzzed. “Hmph, guess I’m out. What do you say to mimosas instead?” Before I can say AA, she sets champagne and orange juice on the table. I stare at the champagne while feeling my pulse quicken. It’s not that I want to drink, but I do feel anxious, anxious enough that I think it might be best if I leave.

  “You know, I feel like I’m intruding. I should probably take off. I don’t want to be a bother.”

  “Don’t be silly; you just got here.”

  “I know but—”

  “You stay put. I know how to treat company—don’t come here saying I don’t. You showin’ up here is a surprise is all.” She opens a cabinet and takes out a bottle of aspirin and a coffee mug, then pours champagne into the mug and tosses back the aspirin. “That’s better.” She finds two flutes next and puts them on the table. “We’ll have us a nice brunch is what we’ll have.” She pours far more champagne than orange juice in each flute and holds up her glass. “Cheers.”

  I move my hands to my lap.

  “Well, come on,” she says, wiggling her glass. “Cheers.”

  “I think I’ll pass on the champagne.”

  Her gaze becomes instantly sharp and focused. “What gives, Piper Sniper? My champagne isn’t good enough for you?” She frowns when I remain silent. “Oh, I get it. You didn’t come for a visit. You came to judge me. You didn’t want company. You’re like all the rest of ’em who think I’m a charity project. I’ll tell you what, though—I’m perfectly fine.” She crosses her legs and takes a dainty sip of champagne as if she were sitting at a Southern cotillion. It’s all for effect, of course, gestures she hopes will prove she’s not drunk that work to the contrary. I rise from the table. If I’m of the ilk that drinks to pass out, she’s the angry drunk everyone had best avoid.

  “Where do you think you’re going? You do judge me. You came here to judge me!”

  “I told you why I’m here, Clem. I know it was a few months ago, but I thought you were nice and we had a nice conversation. I thought maybe we could be friends, and I brought you the cookies because I was thinking about you.” I start to leave. Problem is, the house is a maze, and I can’t find the front door.

  “Piper!”

  “Where’s the door?” I yell back.

  “Not tellin’ you!”

  I turn and see her standing a few feet away. She clutches tightly at her robe, her mouth slack. “I apologize. You surprised me, showin’ up here. I had no business being accusatory, though. I’m not used to people being nice, wanna know the truth; people tend to pity me, and it turns my stomach. I hate pity.”

  “Trust me, I don’t pity you. I know what that’s like myself, remember?”

  “Come on back to the kitchen. I’m ashamed of being so foolish. It was nice of you to stop by. I do apologize.”

  We return to the kitchen, and she sets out the cookies and plates. We both take a cookie as though they’ll magically make us feel better, and they do. “My Lord,” Clem says, chewing her macaroon. “These are as delicious as I remember. Who is the woman who bakes these things? I’ll tell you what, Piper—we should kidnap her and make her bake on demand.” We continue eating, giddy with sugar. She mentions “that fine ex of yours” and tells me Spencer and “that girl who snapped him up” no longer attend meetings.

  “They’re no longer in mourning,” I tell her. “They’re expecting.”

  “Expectin’ what?”

  I look at her for a beat.

  “No.”

  “Yep. She’s knocked up.”

  I tell her the entire story while we eat and she drinks. When she refills her glass, heavy on champagne again, she asks, “So what gives? You don’t strike me as the type to pass up champagne. Way I remember it, you enjoyed your wine.”

  “I sure did. A little too much.”

  “You quit drinking?”

  “I had to. Everything was getting out of control—to put it mildly.”

  “Everything is always out of control, honey. That’s the one thing you can count on.”

  “Yeah, but I was losing control of my life. I joined AA.”

  “AA, huh? I never understood why people would want to sit around telling everybody their troubles. Seems like a waste of time, you ask me.”

  “It helps to be around people who get what you’re going through.”

  “Nobody gets what we’ve been through. It’s bullshit if they say they do.”

  “We don’t get a license on pain because we’ve lost people we love,” I say, channeling my inner Sherry. “Everybody gets his or her share in one way or another.”

  “You try to come here and preach to me, you’d better have a better sermon than that.”

  “I’m not trying to preach. No one gets exactly what anyone is going through, but AA is a particular kind of support you can’t find anywhere else. I couldn’t, anyway.”

  She lifts the bottle of champagne. “This is all the support I need.” I watch her make a point of taking a large gulp.

  “What you starin’ at?”

  “You come off like you’re strong, but it’s okay to be afraid.”

  “Who says I’m afraid? What would I be afraid of? I had the worst thing happen. I have nothing to fear anymore.”

  “But you are afraid. You’re hiding, Clem.” I think of the pictures in the hallway, how active she once was. “You could be doing so much more with your life. What would your husband say?”

  She’s suddenly cold and steely eyed. “Leave my husband out of this, you hear me?”

  I think of how people used Hailey against me, or so I thought, and let it go. “Apologies.”

  I wait until I decide on another tactic, my humans-bumbling-through-life theory. I don’t feel at all that I can get through to her, but I’m here and may as well try. I think of Deacon Morris. “Life is hard, but we don’t have to face it alone, Clem. Just the other day I read about a mother of three who fell asleep behind the wheel of her minivan, sending herself and her kids plunging into the Ohio River. Only one child survived.”

  “That’s inspiring.”

  “I’m trying to say we’re not alone in our grief. Mothers have been losing children since the beginning of time, and I’m sure every mother who’s ever lost a child feels as if she’s the only mother to suffer such tragedy. And she has every right, too. But we’re not alone in it. All we can do is live for those who can’t be with us, and help one another out as best we can. I mean, do we really know what any of this is about? We abuse one another, die from illness, fight, make love, but this is it. We’re just floating through space on a relatively small planet, not knowing what we’re doing or why we’re here. As far as I can tell, what else is life about except helping one another out?”

  She stiffens, then tu
rns and looks toward her backyard. “I know Frank wouldn’t be pleased with how I’ve given up, but it’s hard. Eight years ago, when I lost them, it was like everything stopped for me.”

  “I know.”

  She keeps her face turned as she sniffles and wipes at her tears. “Oh, you,” she admonishes, while grabbing a napkin and tugging at her robe. “You have some nerve coming here and getting me all upset. Look at me blubbering and carrying on.”

  I reach over and take her hand.

  She turns and continues dabbing at her face. “It’s not like I’ve never thought of any of this. It’s just that I get tired like everybody else.” She gives my hand a firm pat and pulls back as she looks at me. “I can’t believe you’re here, Diaper.”

  I push the plate toward her, and she nods and takes a cookie. I wait a moment before I ask, “What are you doing in the next few hours?”

  She makes a face. “Not going to AA with you, I’ll tell you that much.”

  “I wasn’t going to invite you to a meeting, Twin Peaks. I was actually wondering if you’d want to catch a movie.”

  “A movie?” she says, as though I’ve invited her to a whorehouse.

  “Yeah. You know, the place where you sit in the dark and stare at a big screen while you eat popcorn? What do you say? We’ll drown our sorrows in bonbons and overproduced schlock.”

  “I don’t know, Piper Sniper.”

  “Oh, come on. It’s just a movie.”

  “I usually hang around here on Sundays.”

  “Yeah, I’m guessing you hang around here every day; that’s the point.”

  She clutches her robe. She looks increasingly irritated, but then her expression softens and she all but smiles. “You know what? Damn it all, a movie sounds like fun. I haven’t been to a movie theater in a lifetime. I’ll take a quick shower and we’ll see what’s playin’.”

  “Great.”

  I can tell even she’s surprised by how quickly she gets up from the table. “I won’t be a minute. Help yourself to tea if you want.”

  She’s already in the hall when she barks loudly, “Did you hear me offer you tea?”

  “Yes, Clem.”

  “Well, put some on. No sense sittin’ there with nothing to do. It’s in the top cabinet on your left. And don’t eat all those cookies. We’ll take the rest to the theater.”

  “Yes, Clem.”

  I listen as she climbs the stairs, mumbling to herself about what she should wear and how she needs to find her wallet, which has to be somewhere in the house; she knows it.

  thirteen

  It’s Saturday and I’ve been spending the morning working on next week’s lesson plans. My juniors and seniors are still studying Long Days Journey into Night, while my freshmen will be starting Of Mice and Men, their last novel of the semester. April will be here in a couple of weeks, and the kids are already anticipating summer.

  After the movie on Sunday, Clem and I had dinner together two nights in a row, and I managed to convince her to join me at the mourners’ group. I don’t know what it is about Deacon Morris and the people in that church rec room, but Clem found herself telling her story and has been attending the meetings with me ever since. We’re becoming fast friends, Clem and I, and it feels—good. I still call Sherry on the occasion that I feel an urge to drink, but the calls are becoming less frequent. I’m not sure if I’ll get Clem to come with me to an AA meeting, but she never drinks around me and says she’s cutting back to a couple of glasses of wine a night. Thing is, I believe her. Not everyone who drinks heavily is an alcoholic, and even as bad off as she was, Clem may never have crossed over into the territory of good old-fashioned, I-can’t-stop-drinking-despite-the-fact-that- I’m-destroying-my-life alcoholism.

  I’m still working when I hear a sharp, rather mean-sounding knock at my door. I turn down my stereo and open the door to Hélène’s pissed-off face. “Hélène?”

  “Your sistah promise me the day off, but what does she do? She goes to New York with that man, that Curtice. I have no idea where your mother is, and I don’t care what your sistah say; they are not Mrs. Calloway’s responsibility. Her job is to clean the house, not look after the girls. They are not Tru’s responsibility either. They are her responsibility. They need their mother.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, scratching my head. “What?”

  She rolls her eyes in a huff. “The girls are downstairs with Tru. Your sistah—she promise me the day off. She say she be back from New York this morning. But is she back? Of course she not back. She tell me to take them to your mother, but your mother is not home, so I bring them here. Those girls know I care. They know I will shed my own blood for them. But they need to know someone in their family cares.” She points her finger at me.

  I hold up my hands. “Hey, I’m on your side.” With the wedding growing closer, Margot is proving to be more selfish than ever. I’m thankful I get to see the girls more often, but I also agree with Hélène: They need their mother.

  Hélène says, “I know you already had them last week, but I need time off. What your sister think? I’m her slave? No! I’m going to LA. If you can’t keep them, I leave them with Tru. That woman? Your sistah? She crazy. She think of no one but herself.”

  “It’s fine if you leave them here. I’d love to have them.”

  She looks me suspiciously up and down. “Good. I get them.”

  I gaze around my apartment. I was planning on cleaning later, but now that the girls are staying with me, I can use their help. They need to learn that they don’t exist to be waited on hand and foot.

  They walk inside with Tru, whose height and girth always makes my apartment feel half its size. He excuses himself as he continues to talk on the phone. I give the girls a hug. When Margot tries to pull away, I refuse to let her go. “It’s been so long!” I tease. “I’ve missed you! Never leave me again!”

  “It’s been four days,” she says. “You’ve got problems.”

  They head straight to the couch and whip out their phones like synchronized gun slayers.

  “Uh-uh-uh. No phones today.”

  “But it’s important!”

  “I don’t care how impor—”

  Tru taps my arm. “’Scuse me. Need to give you this.” He hands me a fat envelope.

  “Thanks,” I say, feeling the weight of the bills and already thinking about lunch at Table Eight and dinner at Osenta. “What time are you picking them up?”

  He holds up a finger and brings his phone to his ear. “Actually, Curtis would like to speak to you. She’s right here, Boss.” He hands me the phone.

  “Sister-in-law!”

  “Not quite.”

  Curtis chuckles in that way of his. I already know where this is headed but decide to wait it out. “So listen. Have you seen Margot’s tweet?”

  Margot is so busy lately she typically communicates through the twins—“Mom says hello”; “Mom says call her later”—or texts. Often she simply refers me to her blog or Twitter feed.

  “Believe it or not, I also have a life, so no, I have not seen her new tweet.”

  “We’re gonna be a part of this cooking show. The best cake these chefs come up with will be one of the cakes at the wedding. We fly to SoCal tonight and tape tomorrow, so since you have the girls already, how about keeping them for—”

  “Is my sister there?”

  “She’s on the phone.”

  “Tell her I want to speak to her.”

  I glance over at the girls, who are busy texting. I then look up at Tru while twirling my finger next to my ear. He grins before looking down at his feet. “Will you watch them a sec?” I whisper. “I’m going to step outside for a little privacy.”

  “Absolutely.”

  I step into the hall, closing the door behind me. “Put my sister on the phone!” I say through gritted teeth.

&nb
sp; “Simmer down, Sis. You experiencing your monthly business or something?”

  “Put her on the phone, Curtis.”

  A second later: “Isn’t it exciting? Best Chef wants us on their show!”

  “It’s great, Margot, but if you don’t stop neglecting the girls, you’re going to end up on a show about lousy mothers.”

  “I thought you said you like keeping them.”

  “I do. Of course I do, but don’t you like them?”

  “They know everything will return to normal after the wedding. Anyway, it would help so so so much if you could keep them for a couple of days. Please?”

  “Curtis said you were picking them up tomorrow.”

  “What’s one more day? Mom is flying with us, or I’d give them to her.”

  I feel my stomach drop when she mentions Mom. We’re working on three months since we haven’t spoken. Margot knows what happened and tried to lecture me on getting help, but I basically told her what happens with Mom and me is none of her business. She hasn’t mentioned it since. Why would she? As long as Margot is happy, so goes the world.

  “I have to work on Monday, you know,” I say. “I have this thing called a job?”

  “I know that. Tru will pick them up on Monday and take them to school. Not a problem. Do you even know how big Best Chef is? This is all part of pumping my name before my show starts. I need to do this, P. It’s very very important to me.”

  I hear Curtis in the background.

  “I gotta go, P. You can watch them, right?”

  Watching them will mean missing AA tonight and tomorrow, but I’m not leaving them with Tru. “Yes, of course.”

  “Thanks, Sis. I knew you’d come through. Love you, bye.”

  I go back inside and return Tru’s phone. “My sistah, my sistah,” I say, giving my best Hélène impression.

  He smiles. “I’ll get their bags.”