Ask Eleanor (Special Edition With Alternate Ending)

by Briggs, Laura

  The images in Eleanor’s mind switched over at this moment. A vivid image springing to life of two figures gazing across the small and crowded chaos of Marianne’s studio, closing the distance in heated embrace. The open windows facing the forlorn ruins of mechanical industry from which no viewpoint could see them tumbling downwards onto the sofa –

  “Eleanor, this is Kevin. He’s a friend of Will’s.” Marianne had returned, steering forwards the man in the dictator’s t-shirt. Eleanor ceased to think of Lafita’s implied scenes, her cheeks scarlet with a mixture of embarrassment and revulsion for them.

  She saw no signs of anger on Marianne’s face any longer. Cheeks flushed with the heat of the room and not with anger, a look of perfect happiness and unconcern on her face. Already, the argument between them was forgotten or forgiven by Marianne’s arbitrary nature.

  “Oh, so you’re the leader of the poetry circle?” ventured Eleanor.

  Kevin’s features grew pinched. “Uh, I’m not comfortable with the word ‘leader.’ I think of myself more as the facilitator and guide of the Electric Bluebird’s enclave.” His voice had abandoned its hiss, possessing a slightly whiny quality in person.

  “Guide,” repeated Eleanor. “I’ll remember that for next time.” She shook hands with him, glancing at Marianne and Will, intertwined in a complicated embrace as they talked with a woman whose split-open t-shirt revealed a long dragon tattoo snaking from her bicep to her lower back.

  *****

  Will and Marianne’s studio apartment seemed small in comparison to Marianne’s former dwelling, but it was located in a more expensive part of town. This fact was due to Will’s income – or credit, or whatever – Eleanor knew, than Marianne’s.

  “A starter place,” said Will. “We’ll get something bigger when we have time to find it. But, for now, this is a cozy and quaint closet for two.” He pulled the key from the door, its lock an old-fashioned one surrounded by a thick layer of cream-colored paint.

  Where Will had been living until this point was still unknown to Eleanor, so either Marianne didn’t care to discuss it, or didn’t know. It was the first place they had looked at together, Marianne had told her; presumably they had signed the lease immediately, then embraced each other in the empty room behind its closed door.

  She reproached herself for this last thought, inspired by the corner of the room where, through half-open, gauzy curtain panels, she glimpsed a bed of white linens untidily made. She shrugged off her brown corduroy blazer and folded it over her arm as she surveyed the rest of the apartment in view. Marianne’s artwork was on the walls, along with several unfamiliar oils and watercolors which resembled gallery purchases.

  She wondered if they were Will’s. Did he collect art? He mentioned a fondness for it when they first met. Perhaps that had drawn him to Marianne as much as her personal artlessness.

  Artlessness. It would have called something else in another age: innocence perhaps, but not in a modern world of casual sexuality and weekend flings.

  “Leave it anywhere,” said Marianne. “We have no rules here. And no coat racks, either. Will hangs his suits in the same cupboard that we use for a pantry.” She kissed him along his jaw line with this statement, then kicked her shoes off in the corner.

  A sleek sofa and overstuffed ottoman, both modern and expensive, faced the small kitchen area with its work-worn antique table and cabinets and shelves crammed with goods from foreign markets and earth-friendly grocers.

  “Prepare to be amazed.” Will had already removed several vegetables from the bowl on the counter and began pulling open drawers in search of utensils.

  “Amazed?” repeated Eleanor.

  “He’s an excellent cook,” said Marianne. “Like everything Will does, it’s done with passion and perfection.” Eleanor did her best to ignore the full implications of this statement, intentional on Marianne’s part, as she moved into place behind the table and followed instruction.

  “Three chile peppers,” said Will. “If you wouldn’t mind slicing them open, El. Are you a modern woman who refrains from domesticity – or a superwoman who, among your many talents, wields spatula and carving knife?” As he spoke, he slid an onion beneath his hand, removing its top with a single cut of his knife.

  “I can’t cook,” volunteered Marianne. “As Will knows perfectly well.”

  “I know how,” Eleanor answered him. To prove it, she hacked the tops off the peppers, wielding the chef’s knife in professional fashion with this stroke before slicing along the body of the peppers, each in turn.

  Will was deft in the kitchen, as he promised. Tan fingers slicing carrots and dicing tomatoes expertly. Across from him, Eleanor pared open chile peppers, scraping away the hot seeds within with the flat side of her knife. Marianne knew nothing of cooking, as she had claimed on more than one occasion, so it was her job to follow Will’s instructions.

  “See what a good little domestic I am?” said Will. “I could have made someone an excellent servant in a past life. Been the cook in some ancient English manor and served up all sorts of puddings and treacle sauce – although I suppose I would have to tame my exotic tastes a little.”

  “And your standards for comfortable living,” Marianne reminded him. “Will’s recovering from a taste for the finer things in society,” she explained.

  “Really?” said Eleanor. On Will’s face, she detected a slight recession of emotion.

  “I have an ... allowance of sorts,” he said. “The curse of being born to the privileged. But it’s really not as glorious as Marianne paints it to be –”

  “His father is worth millions. Millions,” said Marianne. She wrapped her arms around Will’s body, one hand holding a glass of lemonade spiked with something else, judging by its color. “But he gave it all up for love.”

  “Of you?” said Eleanor. Will’s fingers were having trouble dicing the melon before him.

  “No, of art,” said Will. “But Marianne – Marianne is the glory of that decision. And I had to give nothing at all for that glory, since it was already done for me.”

  Their eyes had met, then their lips, after a moment’s intense gaze between them. Marianne had released him and slid around the table, now helping herself to some of the yellow bell peppers which Eleanor was dicing.

  “Leave them alone,” Eleanor scolded, batting her hand away.

  “Why? We’re going to eat them anyway, aren’t we? What does it matter if we eat them before they get stuffed into a rice ball or not?”

  “Because the recipe calls for them to be stuffed in it, apparently,” said Eleanor. “It was your choice, so don’t blame me for it –” For a moment, she was irritated, although it was not for Marianne’s childish habit, but for something else. For the thought of what was hidden between them, she supposed. The sort of barriers of conversation and confidence which Will’s presence, Will’s connection to Marianne, had raised from hidden depths.

  “Actually, it was my choice,” said Will. “Remember me, the domestic one? I’m the one mastering it and I decree –” he pointed his knife at Marianne, “ – that Marianne may sample as much as she likes, so long as it is not all eaten before the meal.”

  “Thank you,” said Marianne. She had lost interest in snacking, however, and was now in the act of changing the CD in the player shoved onto one of the shelves. The album was the same one playing in her car the day they moved the art supplies to the loft, Eleanor realized.

  “So what work does your father do?” asked Eleanor. She glanced at Will, who was now scraping boiled white rice from the inside of a saucepan. “You said he worked in an office – is he an internet guru? A private businessman?”

  Will cleared his throat. “He’s Martin Allen,” he said. “He owns the Allenham Building downtown. And a small part of Pittsburgh in addition to it.” His smile was forced when he looked up from the pile of rice before him.

  “You used to work for him, I take it?”

  “I did. In my deadened days before I came
to my senses and found something I truly loved. And someone who didn’t care about salaries or corporate ladders or any of the pointless ramblings my father was so fond of sharing at the dinner table.”

  He buttered his hands, then began forming the rice into balls. “You know,” he said, “when I first told him I wanted to start a website, he told me I could run the one for his company. As if there was any passion – any dream – for me in being his number counter.”

  “‘You don’t understand poets,’ I told him. ‘You don’t understand poetry or passion or life itself. So you can’t possibly understand what I’m trying to do’. To which he replied, ‘Then go and do it. Be lazy if you want to and sleep in on the weekends and fool around with a lot of people who think they’re talented and who are, in reality, failures –’”

  “Failures like me, I suppose,” said Marianne. “But not Eleanor. She’s the sensible one in our family. Always making the right decision and never wasting an ounce of time or energy on anything.”

  “That’s Marianne’s way of saying that I’m as boring as your father,” said Eleanor. “And that I said all those same things to her when she took up a life of artistry. She’ll never forgive me for them, I suppose. For meaning well.” She directed a knowing glance at Marianne as she shoved the piles of chopped vegetables before Will.

  “I’ve forgiven you,” Marianne answered, serenely. “You’re here now, aren’t you? You hate poetry circles and you listened to our friend’s recite for an hour in some sweaty room that you no doubt thought was covered in germs –”

  “– which I did not say,” Eleanor objected. “That’s unfair of you, Marianne.”

  “Never mind. It’s true enough,” said her sister. “But you pretended to be interested. And that is good enough for now.” She kissed Eleanor’s cheek impulsively.

  Will’s fingers had filled the center of each rice ball with the chopped vegetables and fruit, seasoning it with something green from a shaker on the counter.

  “Now comes the magic part,” he said. In a skillet on the stove, he poured a layer of golden oil which coated its sides and bottom. Turning the heat up, watching it with a critical eye until it reached a temperature which an experienced cook seemed to know rather than test.

  He drew on the apron which had been draped over the stove’s handle. “I shall trust you,” he said to Marianne, “to obey my mandates at this point with perfect discipline. Eleanor, watch her,” he glanced at Eleanor with this statement, “because I don’t want any further input or meddling with the browning of my rice balls or stirring of my sauce.”

  Marianne wrinkled her nose in reply. She fished a second tumbler from the cabinet and poured Eleanor a drink from the glass pitcher in the dorm-sized fridge as Eleanor squeezed herself past the corner of the work table. Will rolled the balls of rice in a mixture of flour and seasoned breadcrumbs, glancing over his shoulder as he lifted the first one from its dredge.

  “I will thank everyone to vacate the premises during this part of the afternoon’s entertainment,” he said. “No watching the magician work, thank you.” He reached over and turned up Marianne’s CD until it was roaring in the small kitchen’s space. Against its blast, the first sizzle as a rice ball coated in breadcrumbs met the surface of hot oil.

  “Let’s go, Elly.” Marianne drew her from the cramped kitchen space to the living area outside of it. She sank onto the corner ottoman, flicking aside Eleanor’s jacket with this same gesture. Will’s voice became audible in the next room, singing along with the song’s Spanish lyrics.

  “So what did you think of the poetry crowd – truly?” Marianne said, curling her feet comfortably beneath her. “I know you’ve been dying to make all sorts of little comments about them – the sort of thing you’d only say to me and not to Will –”

  “I have no interest in picking apart his friends, Marianne,” answered Eleanor. A sip from her glass produced a taste both tart and bitter. Vodka and Mexican soda?

  “Our friends, Elly,” said Marianne. “I’ve known some of them longer than he has – he never went to the poetry circles until these past few weeks. Doing things that will make me happy, I suppose.”

  “And I suppose that in return he takes you all the places the rest of his crowd frequents,” mused Eleanor. “The sort of ‘stuffy’ recitals and cocktail parties you generally shun.”

  “No,” answered Marianne. “No, he doesn’t take me to any of those. Not that I would want to go if he offered.” She took another sip from her own glass.

  “What of his family?” said Eleanor. “Do they approve of all this? Do they approve of you?” She had been dying to ask it since Will’s background had come up in the conversation. Since this relationship had begun, she wondered what any family of any background would make of Marianne. Or had they been subjected to a train of young artists in the past?

  “Will says they like ‘curling upper lips’ and ‘polished teeth,’” quoted Marianne, half-mockingly. “You know the type. The sort who have little careers at publishing houses and so on.”

  “So they didn’t approve.” Eleanor tried to sound nonchalant about this fact.

  “I don’t know. I suppose when I meet them, I’ll find out,” answered Marianne, as she dipped her finger absently into her drink.

  “You haven’t met them?” Eleanor froze.

  “No,” said Marianne. “Not yet. I’m sure I will later.”

  “But what did they say when they heard about you?”

  “I don’t know,” said Marianne. “I don’t even know if he told them about me. I haven’t asked. That’s really not important, El.”

  Will hadn’t told them about her. For some reason, Eleanor disliked this truth. Yes, they would disapprove of Marianne – most certainly so, as a society family whose son was now shacked up with a penniless artist – but he ought to have faced their wrath for her sake. It was a gesture of chivalry or commitment, or at least of personal honesty. Even Marianne would have to concede that one.

  Eleanor set her glass on the floor, for lack of a table beside or before the sofa. “But it might be,” she answered, quietly. “Marianne, doesn’t it worry you – just a little – that he hasn’t asked you to meet his family? Or any of his friends, barring the poetry crowd?”

  “Why should it?” Marianne asked.

  Eleanor glanced towards the kitchen stove, where Will’s body language proved he was absorbed in the task at hand.

  “Because one of the first things you did was introduce Will to me,” said Eleanor. “You wanted my opinion, even if you didn’t want my blessing, necessarily. Don’t you think Will should have done as much for you? If I were you, I’d be dying to meet them by now. To know what they thought.”

  She would be terrified, of course, if she were in Marianne’s shoes, knowing what she now knew about his family. Still, she would make herself do it, she knew. Go through with it, facing whatever opinions might be obstacles in the path of the future.

  “You’re still suspicious of him, aren’t you?” Marianne’s voice had taken on an icy edge. “You think he’s ashamed of me – that this is all some sort of fling –”

  “And what is it to you, Marianne?” Eleanor’s tone was firm; but beneath it, something softer, pleading. “You think of it as something futuristic. That precludes certain things that are part of helping it – grow up.” In her sister’s eyes, she saw the first glimmer of tears, but for what emotion, she was not certain.

  “I guess you can’t see it, can you?” Marianne turned aside. From the kitchen came the hissing sound of oil. Will’s spatula flipped a brown rice ball onto a sheet of cheesecloth to drain.

  He was a good cook. Eleanor credited him with this as she ate his fried rice balls and chile sauce, the spicy melon salad piled to the side. She felt slightly guilty for doing this, for eating his food while he no doubt believed she was plotting against him. Plotting against his future with Marianne, no matter how likeable or charming she might admit him to be.

  Will as her brother
-in-law. It was not a terrible picture; but it was one which seemed fragile to Eleanor’s mind, possessing an ethereal quality like a ghost or a misty vapor which could not be grasped or held for long. It was too soon for her mind to even imagine such things, apparently.

  They ate seated on the apartment’s floor on a water-stained quilt which Will had produced from the bottom of the pantry cupboard, where his suits hung above piles of linen and stacks of canned goods Dishes scattered around them, a single carnation in the middle, placed in an antique crystal toothpick holder.

  Marianne’s hand was held by Will’s all during lunch; a willing prisoner whose absence might have been inconvenient had the use of forks and other utensils not been largely optional for this meal. Eleanor could not help but notice this in between conversation, attempting not to feel sorrow in response. For herself she supposed; for, strangely enough, for Marianne. As if a line of pain, past or future, traveled in a linear fashion just beneath the surface of her thoughts.

  But for what? Marianne was happy. She herself was happy enough, in her own way. She had her friends and her work and her third book’s debut to occupy her life. She had future concerts and parties, countless small social events to keep her occupied but not mindlessly busy. She had almost everything, really, except for the kind of zeal and passion which Marianne possessed for life.

  “Quiet and somber,” said Will. “Your mind has gone a thousand miles away, Eleanor. Would you care to tell us what it sees?”

  She smiled, albeit faintly. “I don’t think it sees anything as splendid as Marianne’s,” she answered. “You had better ask her what she thinks about.”

  “True,” he said. Turning to the girl beside him, he addressed her. “What of your thoughts, madam? Are they worthy of art and poem and the universe of colors?”

  Marianne was leaning against him, her blond head resting upon his shoulder. “They are only comfortably splendid at this moment,” she answered. “But they are all of you, if that’s what you mean.”