I ran a finger over the huge, never-ending granite kitchen counter and looked around. The oversized kitchen was as empty as the rest of the house—a matching coffeemaker and toaster the only two items taking up space on the runway kitchen counter. The dining nook just off the kitchen had a tiny round dining table and two chairs. In one of the living rooms, I could see a big old brown leather couch, a glass coffee table, and a huge TV. And as far as I could see, there was some kind of treadmill standing solo in the middle of the other huge living room. Besides a huge Pulp Fiction poster (was that hers?) taking up half the kitchen wall, there wasn’t a single picture or painting on the walls. No books, vases, lamps or mirrors, only lots of white pillar candles, scattered all around the house. There had to be at least fifty of them. It all felt really cozy in a strange and empty kind of way. And, weirdly, there was a strong smell of newly chopped wood.
“As I said, it’s quite empty,” she said as if reading my thoughts. “Come.” She motioned us to follow her, heading for the living room with the big brown leather couch. “Still haven’t gotten around to getting my pictures up or getting some more furniture in here. But I guess I’m beginning to like it like this. It almost feels like an old-fashioned study, just without the books, right?” She smiled. “Do sit down.” She made a gesture toward the couch. Mom and I sat down and looked around at all the things that weren’t there.
Suddenly something touched my foot and I almost jumped onto Mom’s lap.
“What was that?” I cried, looking down at the floor. I held my breath and clutched Mom’s hand.
“What?” Miss T asked in a calm voice.
“Something just touched my feet. Something hairy, I think. Please don’t say you have rats in the house.” I looked up at Mom. She couldn’t help smiling.
Miss T waved her hand dismissively and smiled. “Ah, that’s just Harvey Keitel saying hi.”
“Harvey Keitel?”
“My cat,” she explained.
“Your cat? Whew,” I said, relaxing my shoulders again. “Where did he go? I’m guessing it’s a he?”
“I don’t really know,” she chuckled. “See, it’s not really my cat. It’s like he or she just came out of nowhere. I found him, or her, late one night sitting right here in the middle of the living room, when I returned from the kitchen with a cup of tea. I was watching Pulp Fiction, one of my favorite movies, the part with Harvey Keitel. Remember that scene with the Wolf?”
I nodded. I had seen the movie with Dad about a million times. So contrary to his love for old Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks movies, he had a thing for Tarantino movies. “So true to the complicated nature of the uncivilized human,” he would always say as we watched the blood flow. Once—after spending a weekend with his screenplay writer friend in LA, watching Reservoir Dogs seven times back to back—he came home insisting we call him Mr. Blue (which, of course, we refused). But Dad and Tarantino was one thing; Miss T and Tarantino and big-time cursing hit men, blowing random brains out, that was something else. At least it explained the huge Pulp Fiction poster in the hallway.
“You are so full of surprises, Miss T. I would never have taken you for a Harvey Keitel fan, let alone a Pulp fiction fan.” Mom looked at Miss T and smiled.
“I’m like a wax museum with a pulse,” Miss T said with a deep voice.
“What?” Mom looked at me for help.
“Vince,” I explained. Dad had said it many times to me when I would make fun of him about getting old.
“Correct.” Miss T looked at Mom and elaborated: “Vince is Travolta’s character in Pulp Fiction. I think it’s very poetic,” she added, winking at Mom.
“I guess you are a true Tarantino fan. Nice.” Mom turned to me with a raised eyebrow. “Impressive, huh?” she said, nodding.
“Uh-huh,” I said, my head upside down, looking for the very furry Harvey Keitel underneath the couch. Besides a few lonely dust balls, there was nothing there. I sat up again and leaned against Mom.
“As I said, the cat was just here one day, and of course I had to name him after Harvey.” Miss T turned in her chair and squinted her eyes, as if she were looking for him or her. “Well,” she said, facing me and Mom again, “enough about my furry friend. Now I will go and get us some tea and cookies, ‘hot as hell,’ as you crazy girls like them, and then you, missy,” she said and pointed at me with her little gnarled finger, “you bring the goodies out.”
I nodded and tapped on the box with my foot. I had brought another box, a smaller and less-obvious box, to carry the letters. “Right here, Miss T,” I said, tapping on the box again.
“Good,” she said. “Now you wait right there,” she almost whispered. She turned on her slippers and left for the empty kitchen only to return a few minutes after with a tray of smoking-hot everything. “I say we break all the rules tonight,” she said as she sat down next to Mom. She leaned over and looked at me. “I sure hope you brought enough, Miss C. I want letters all night long. The night is still young, but I’m not, so bring them on, Ella.”
I nodded and reached for the box. And once again, in the empty and candlelit living room, and with Harvey Keitel snooping around somewhere, we went back to the eighties.
My Frederick,
Dad is still hanging in there, but I almost can’t make myself go over to the house these days. Mom just sits there all day, drinking her awful instant coffee, some days looking even worse than Dad. And I’m doing the best I can. I even went to the store and got a new deck of cards, so we could play. I try to stay positive and smiling. Nothing else to do except keep hanging in there, as you said.
Mom and Dad really liked the almond bars. Dad (this was on one of his good days) said that we have to import them and sell them locally. They go really well with coffee, Mom says (everything would, since it is all she has these days; coffee coffee coffee.) I think she must be under a hundred pounds by now. Even Dad has noticed it, and he blames himself, of course. But please bring some more when you come. The chocolate treat is good for both of them, and me too.
Good News (at last): Thomas finally got a new foster home. We got the news Friday, and he was so happy that he couldn’t sit still all day. I met the foster family yesterday, the parents and an older sister and I had such mixed feelings. You know how much I love that little fellow, and maybe that’s why I react the way I do, but there’s something I don’t like about him, the dad. It is very obvious that he and his own daughter don’t get along that well. She almost seemed scared of him. She is only twelve, but she seems way too angry and sad for a child this age. The mom kept talking about the room and how she was going to decorate his room with this elephant theme. I have a bad feeling about this one, but it is probably just me being way too protective of him. Thomas seems happy, and that’s all that matters.
I better go. It’s two AM, and it’s a school day tomorrow. I love you.
Miss T placed the letter on the coffee table, next to the plate of hot cookies. “First time I’ve used the new oven,” she said proudly as she unfolded the next letter.
My Martha, my Queen of Seattle.
Sad to hear about your mom and dad. Hopefully I can cheer them up a bit when I come home. I’ll bring all the almond bars I can fit into my suitcase. I can’t wait to see you in ten days. I’ll be the one wearing a hat and a red rose. What will you be wearing? (Next to nothing, I hope). I love you, mon cherie. I can almost taste your sweet lips, my darling.
Miss T stopped for a minute to stir the tea. “Oh my, I must say that Frederick is a little naughty today,” she giggled. “Maybe next time he’ll be writing about what did happen when he finally made it home. In the bedroom.” She raised her rather painted eyebrows and looked at Mom with playful eyes.
“Miss T,” Mom admonished, giggling.
I rolled my eyes at the giggling duo. “Geez! Are we in a sorority now?” I grabbed the next letter from the floor and unfolded it. There was no date on it. I grabbed the one we had just read; also no date. “That’s weird,” I said looking
at Martha’s perfectly aligned letters, “there’s no date on the letters. I wonder why.”
Miss T stared at me for moment, narrowing her eyes. “There’s not?”
“No,” I said, looking at the empty top-right corners. “But there used to be. Right, Mom?”
They both gave me a half-hearted shrug. Mom said, “Maybe with this amount of letters and with some of them even written over several days, it didn’t seem that important? They spoke on the phone all the time as well, right? I guess dates don’t really matter in this context.” Miss T nodded agreement.
“I guess,” I said, running my thumb over the “My Martha, my Queen of Seattle.” “But how are we supposed to read the right letters then? I mean, how can we know which letter to read next?”
Miss T and Mom looked up at the same time with raised eyebrows, in sync, even if one was less theatrical than the other.
“We just have to be careful when we grab the next one in the pile that we don’t mess them up.” Mom looked at Miss T. “I’m sure Martha would have organized them all by dates. Remember the truck?” She looked me.
I nodded.
“The truck?” Miss T leaned over and placed a hand on the teapot.
“I tell you, Miss T, if Martha’s the one who packed the truck, and we can’t know for sure. I mean, we can’t know for sure that the load and the letters are actually owned,” she said, accompanied by quotation marks, “by the same people. I mean it could be some old letters from an aunt or something, right?” Mom looked at me for help.
I nodded. “It could,” I agreed.
“Well, if it was Martha, then she’s one hell of an organizer. Everything in its place. Quite amazing, actually.” Mom sighed, thinking, I guess, about the survival box again—the very last thing she had organized before Seattle, before the missing load. “Well, come on already,” she said a little impatiently, “let’s hear another dateless letter. It doesn’t really matter. Does it?”
“No, I guess not. I was just wondering,” I said with a lazy voice.
“Now, how about some tea?” Miss T moved to the edge of the big couch and started to pour the tea. “It’s Copacabana,” she said, “the best tea in the whole world.” She turned around and handed me a cup. “It was George’s all-time favorite. Not quite sure where it’s from, but it’s like it was made for butter cookies.” She grabbed the plate of cookies and offered it to me. “Cookie?”
I grabbed one. It almost melted right there in my hand. I guess she wasn’t lying about the butter. She placed a cup and three cookies in front of Mom and set the teapot down.
“Thanks,” Mom said, dipping a cookie in her tea. “Could we open up a window or two,” she asked, with a pair of red cheeks, “it’s kinda hot in here and with the tea and hot cookies, man...” She grabbed one of the letters from the table and used it as a fan.
“But of course, dear. I just thought you were both cold, I mean, with the blanket and all.” She looked at me all snuggled up in the blanket on the big leather couch, tea cup resting on top of my knees.
“This?” I said with half a pound of butter cookie stuck to the roof of my mouth. “Oh no, I’m hot too, this is just for the cozy-effect.” I said and revealed a set of cookie-covered teeth.
“You two and your sleeping bags,” said the woman with the oversized poncho. She shook her head and smiled. “I’ll open a window in the kitchen and the one over there.” She pointed at a little round window in the corner of the living room. “It makes a nice little draft.” She sat her cup down and stood up. We both watched as she chugged along in her tiny pink slippers, heading for the window in the kitchen. “Come on, let’s read,” she said as she returned, heading for the little window in the living room.
“It’s your turn to read, Miss T.” Mom looked at Miss T with anticipation.
“But I just—”
“—Exactly why,” Mom interrupted, smiling at me.
“Exactly why,” I agreed.
Obviously flattered, she smiled and shook her head. “Well then, just one more,” she said, opening up the little window. “One more,” she repeated as she returned to her spot on the couch. She grabbed the letter from Mom, cleared her throat and started reading back to back letters while we sank deeper into the big brown couch.
Dear Frederick,
Our two weeks together went by way too fast. I wished you could have stayed forever. Now the waiting begins, waiting for your phone calls, your letters. In the meantime, I will indulge myself in some good Danish chocolate. I’m so happy you got to see Dad on one of his good days (I actually think he really tried all he could because you were there). Today, he is back to just sitting there looking sad and out of touch with this world. I can tell he is a little mad at me, and I wonder if Mom has said anything about what we talked about, you know, about playing God. Some days, I just wish we could play God, just a little, just when it comes to the important things in life. I would do that for you, if that was what you wanted. But then again, I would do everything for you!
Love Martha of Amalienborg.
DEAR FREDERICK,
I agree. It’s not the end of the world, but it’s pretty damn close. I am so sorry to bring it to you like that (I mean waking you up at three AM with bad news from Seattle), but I just needed to get it off my chest. The doctor’s words just keep ringing in my ears. What does it mean that we can probably never have any children? After five treatments the likelihood of becoming pregnant and keeping it is very small. Does that mean that it’s impossible? How impossible is it? Do we stop trying, just like that?
I’m not sure I can keep putting myself through endless years of disappointments. I think I need peace and closure. Maybe we just have to learn to accept this? Am I giving up without a fight? Am I a big quitter? I don’t know. I don’t think so, but maybe it’s time for us to let go. I feel miserable and I miss you even more now, even though you were right here. Why on earth did he have to go and cancel our appointment last week?
I’m not saying come home. I don’t want you to quit your job. What would we have then? Two sad and poor (and unemployed) people. How could that do us any good? Maybe we should do exactly what he told me to do: let’s not think about it, talk about, or dream about it. I know it’s easier said than done, but it’s not a bad idea, in theory. Right now, we have each other and that’s most important. Nothing else matters.
Martha.
MY LOVE, MY LOVE,
You know I would come home and stay right this very minute if that’s what you wanted. I would be there in a heartbeat. Just say the word.
I do agree with Dr. Griffith. Let’s try not to think. And when we are done with our no-thinking-thinking time, I think we should seriously consider that I move back home and find myself another job, so I can be close to my teenage sweetheart. Everything for you and a dozen almond bars on top of that. Eat up.
Your loving husband.
PS. By the way, I love your “Nothing else matters.” It sure would make a great title for a love song one day, and I...
Miss T stopped reading and held the letter against her bosom. “Hold your horses,” she whispered, staring straight ahead. Quietly, she moved to the edge of the couch and took off her glasses, placed them on the table, and rubbed her eyes. “Hold your horses,” she said again, this time a little louder. She stood up and paced the floor in front of the humongous TV.
I set my teacup down and looked at Mom. “Beats me,” she said with half a cookie in her mouth.
Miss T stopped in front of the glass table and was about to say something, but seemed to decide against it, and then she was back to the pacing. Mom motioned me to sit up. We both sat up and waited for Miss T to say something.
“‘Nothing else matters’” was our...” she finally said, looking down at her feet. “It was our song. You know it, right?” She hummed a few bars and then sat down on the edge of the coffee table facing the other way. She was a little out of breath, which made me think of the treadmill in the other room. Maybe it had already
been there when she had moved in? I mean, would she even be able to reach for the start button? She took a deep breath and turned toward us. She had tears in her eyes. “I played it for Georgie at his funeral as they carried him away. It’s such a lovely song. You know it?”
“Uh-huh,” I said, looking at Mom. “I do,” she whispered.
“I know it by heart.” She sang a line from the song and then looked down and a silent tear hit the glass table. Mom got up from the couch and sat down next to her on the coffee table. Miss T wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “It’s just too much for this old heart.” She tapped her tiny hand on her chest. “All the heartaches with Martha and the baby and the miscarriages, and the earrings, and now this. I mean, who are these people? Sometimes it almost feels like it’s actually about me and my life, but then again, of course I know it’s not. I just feel so... so...”
“Connected,” Mom and Miss T said at the same time. In sync.
Mom nodded. “I know, and it’s so weird and wonderful at the same time, right?” She smiled.
“It sure is,” Miss T agreed, handing Mom a Kleenex. “Both weird and wonderful,” she whispered followed by silence. I looked into the empty fireplace and wondered if Hans had ever had a favorite song. Maybe it was some German song I had never heard of and never would understand even if I did hear it. Could you ever become really close, really connected without a song—or even more important—without the same native language? I looked at Miss T and Mom, sitting on the edge of the coffee table, holding hands and taking turns blowing their sad noses, and I realized that feeling a connection has absolutely nothing to do with a particular age, generation, or living in the same country, or even in the same century. It’s not about speaking the same language as in English, German, or even French, but as in speaking a language called love. I looked down at my feet and remembered the tingles I had had all over my body that night with Hans. I had never felt anything like that before, and I guess I didn’t know what it was until it was too late. What if Dad was right about his assessment that true love may only hit you once? What if this had been my only shot? I closed my eyes and buried my face in my hands. I’m not gonna cry. I’m not gonna cry. Again.
Lost in Seattle (The Miss Apple Pants series, #2) Page 20
