Ask Eleanor (Special Edition With Alternate Ending)

by Briggs, Laura

  “The galleys?” she said. “When?” The final check of her book had been delayed longer than usual by her editor’s personal emergency. The copy awaiting proof was behind, although Eleanor had been eager to read it and be finished. Anxious, in truth, to put its work behind her.

  “First thing this morning,” said Lucy. “I put them on your desk, of course. But since you were late arriving to the office this morning, you didn’t see the package.”

  Eleanor bit her tongue against saying something in response to this. I am unhappy. My sister is pregnant and abandoned by her lover, my heart was broken by your lover, and my career is at a personal crisis point... None of these were excuses to speak aloud to anyone, much less Lucy. Explaining dark circles beneath her eyes, lack of appetite, lack of sleep, personal frazzlement – wasn’t that better chalked up to advancing age at this point? A sarcastic little voice in Eleanor’s brain suggested this answer until she banished it.

  “I suppose we should begin reading it today,” said Lucy. “Since they are cutting the release date so close to the final draft.

  “Perhaps,” was all Eleanor answered. Lucy seemed to expect more, but she didn’t bother to offer it to her. They returned to their respective silences until they emerged from the cab before Norlend Towers and proceeded upstairs to the office, where Eleanor seemed more concerned with the mail on her desk and in her inbox than with the package at the other end of her work station.

  She left it untouched all morning, although it was burning a hole in her thoughts as much as it did her assistant’s. Before Eleanor left for lunch, she slipped it unopened into her shoulder bag as Lucy watched, without saying anything about it at all.

  Two doors down from the bistro was a Baby Be Mine boutique, its display window packed with plush animals and colorful rompers and dresses. Brown monkey overalls, pink striped dresses, a stuffed giraffe twice the size of the childhood dog in Eleanor’s memory. Snuffles, she recalled, a shaggy white animal her mother had allowed to crawl into their home one rainy night.

  She stood admiring the selection, then went inside. Racks of tiny clothes on plastic hangers filled most of the available wall and floor space, while giant fabric alphabet blocks in pastel shades built a tower near the display of diaper bags and easy-clean storybooks. Behind the counter, a young woman studied her nails as she listened to a coworker talk about a television show’s synopsis.

  There were copies of Peter Rabbit covered in some sort of spill-proof canvas. Raggedy Ann in pasteboard with layered peek-a-boo pages. A.A. Milne’s work in fabric pages sewn with child-proof stitches to secure bear and rabbit to page. Eleanor’s fingers turned through them, studying the images inside, the word which she had largely forgotten in the last thirty years or so.

  “Can I help you?” The employee who had been telling the story was now beside Eleanor. A woman in a blue smock-like employee shirt, a nametag reading “Cici” pinned to her shoulder.

  “What would you suggest for an expecting mother who’s ... just now expecting?” she asked.

  In the end, Eleanor bought a small sleeper covered in yellow bunnies – yellow was now a gender-neutral color for babies, the assistant explained. The girl behind the counter exclaimed over its cuteness as she folded it before swiping Eleanor’s credit card and placing the outfit in a little white gift sack.

  *****

  The white sack dangled by Eleanor’s side as she hailed a cab. It traveled through a Pittsburgh neighborhood far from the place where Marianne once tormented Tannis with the chaos of art supplies; and from the “closet for two” where Marianne had been blissful for a matter of weeks.

  Marianne had moved out of her apartment. There was no possibility of affording it on her own – a handful of part-time hours at the record store and a handful of art sales were not sufficient for paying its rent. Her name had been erased a month ago from the lease with Tannis, of course.

  “What will you do?” Eleanor asked. In her mind, she pictured Marianne with her boxy little car piled high with boxes, driving away from the empty rooms she shared with Will. Parking before Eleanor’s building, hauling them up, one by one, to Eleanor’s tidy little apartment.

  “I don’t know,” Marianne answered. Her voice sounded faraway and cold, as if she was not fully present for this conversation.

  “What about Tannis?” said Eleanor. “Would she – would she maybe –”

  “I wouldn’t move in with Tannis again,” said Marianne. “She hated me. And I wasn’t crazy about her, either.”

  “Your friends. One of them might split the rent with you.”

  “They all have places with other people, Elly. They don’t have room for me and, anyway, I don’t want them to.”

  “Then you could come to me,” said Eleanor. She had a spare room, more a half-empty storage room of sorts. “You could stay here as long as you like. You and the baby. It might be good for you – I could help you.”

  Until now, she hadn’t pictured the future with Marianne’s baby. Diapers, medical bills, baby-proof locks, babysitters – how would Marianne procure all of this on her own? Marianne, who didn’t know that UV rays were dangerous or that applesauce could ferment if left too long in a refrigerator.

  “No, Elly,” answered Marianne. “I don’t want to come to you.”

  “But it would be for the best, maybe,” said Eleanor.

  “It doesn’t matter. I don’t ... I’m handling this on my own. I want to be on my own. That’s all.”

  Marianne was living in her art studio. Sculptures and unfinished canvases moved aside, personal possessions crammed into boxes in one corner. Exposed to mold, mildew, asbestos, city smog, and other things which Eleanor’s mind could not readily recall to mind. Marianne and her unborn child, that is. Now surrounded by strangers and dependent upon no one, it seemed.

  She climbed the steps to Marianne’s loft, knocking twice on the door. It opened, revealing Marianne on the other side. Her clothes were covered in a plastic apron spattered with something white and sticky – paste, flour and water, maybe plaster.

  “Elly,” she said. “Come in.” With a shrug, she opened the door wider, so Eleanor could slip past her and into the cramped room.

  The red Victorian sofa shoved against the wall was now covered with a jumble of blankets and sheets, a pillow wedged against the arm. Marianne’s clothes hung from two metal hooks on the wall or, else, tumbled from the sides of two half-collapsed cardboard boxes. Pictures, books, framed paintings, knick-knacks – these were all jumbled in boxes and crates piled alongside it, with Marianne’s shoes and a potted cactus, of all things.

  Eleanor moved cautiously past the protruding cactus, and the mess on Marianne’s work table. The layers of thick paper clinging to wires like a bicycle’s spokes. The whole thing resembled a twisted, misshapen bicycle from this angle; when she moved to the other side, she saw a contorted form with strange curves rising from its back. Wings.

  She looked away from it, towards Marianne, who was closing the door. “I, uh, brought you this,” said Eleanor, holding out the sack. “A present. Sort of an early one.”

  Marianne wiped her hands on the surface of the apron, leaving traces of the sticky stuff and bits of paper there. She opened the top and peered inside between the layers of tissue paper, then lifted out the little sleeper. Her lips formed a small smile.

  “It’s adorable,” she said. “Thanks.” Gently, she laid it across one of the cardboard boxes.

  Eleanor glanced around. “Well, you’ve ... you’ve got something in progress, I see,” she said. Unfinished canvases were dangling from the steel rigging overhead, along with grotesque sculpted creatures in fabric and paper. A twisted dual form of elegant lines, like the leaves and petals of flowers, which Eleanor remembered from an art show a few years ago. Its name returning painfully to her, ‘The Lovers.’

  “And you’ve managed,” she ventured onwards. “It’s small. But I suppose...”

  “It’s fine.” Marianne smiled. Faintly, tightly, but st
ill in existence. “I’m fine, Elly. There’s enough room here for me to work and sleep. And that’s all I need.”

  But what about the baby? Eleanor wanted to ask, but did not. Instead, she clasped her hands together to avoid touching the wet sculpture by accident and somehow damaging it.

  “Is there anything you need?” she asked.

  “No. I have enough money. And Henri will probably sell the canvas from the show in the next two days.” Eleanor knew that Marianne had not lost money on the deposit for the studio apartment. It had been Will’s loss, the fee for abandoning it before the lease was up.

  “I called it ‘Anger,’” Marianne said, mildly.

  “What?” Eleanor asked, slightly startled.

  “The canvas. The one I was painting at the gallery. That’s what I called it. You asked what it was.”

  “Oh, yes. I remember.” Eleanor hesitated. “What about doctor’s appointments? Your car –”

  “I got it out of the shop,” said Marianne. “I paid for the muffler repairs. See, Elly? Everything’s taken care of.” She stood there with a placid expression, the sticky stuff drying on her arms to leave a residue of plaster white clinging to her skin.

  She seemed calm. She seemed fine. This arrangement was not the one Eleanor wanted for her, but since when had Marianne cared what she wanted? It was her life, she argued. And her decision how the pieces should be picked up after Will’s departure.

  Eleanor was quiet for a moment. “That’s true,” she answered. “I should be going. I’ll let you finish your artwork in peace.” She offered Marianne a smile of worry-free nature as she moved towards the door, past the bowl brimming with sticky substances and the strips of torn paper piled like a mouse’s nest.

  She had taken three steps when she saw Marianne’s shoulders were shaking. Her hand was holding the edge of the table as if holding herself upright. Eleanor stopped, her heart almost skipping a beat as if in fear.

  “Marianne,” she said, gently. Her sister did not turn around.

  She touched Marianne’s shoulder. Turning her slightly, until she could see that Marianne’s face had crumpled like paper beneath a wave of pent-up tears.

  She sobbed. “Oh, Eleanor.” Raising one hand to wipe the stream of moisture glistening on her face, leaving a smear of plaster. Her body was shaking with sobs, rattling her small frame like the tremors of a storm.

  “It’s all right.” Eleanor wrapped her arms around her, disregarding the smears on the apron and the fermented smell of wet paste. “It’ll be all right, Marianne. You’ll see. I promise you.”

  “But it won’t be.” Marianne sobbed. “It’s not fine. I don’t know what to do, Elly. I don’t know –” Her voice hiccupped, breaking apart her words.

  “I’ll help you,” said Eleanor, softly. “We’ll figure it out together.” As Marianne sank downwards, Eleanor sank onto the floor beside her, arms holding tight as she rocked her slowly.

  She was late returning to work. Eleanor was the only person on the elevator destined for the Herald’s main office, it seemed, so she emerged alone to the general chaos of the room. The first thing which caught her attention was a hush. Conversation was a murmur of anxious undertones from clusters of employees near the water cooler or fax machine. A sound rising above the trill of phones or the sound of a news story on pharmaceuticals on one of the office televisions.

  Jeanine and Baptista, the Fitness and Health editor, had been talking near the elevator, falling silent when Eleanor emerged.

  “What is it?” Eleanor asked, feeling slightly apprehensive.

  “They’re restructuring the Herald,” Jeanine answered, with a tight smile.

  “They,” thought Eleanor. Haldon Media, the new parent of the paper’s parent company. The rumored changes which had been forgotten in the lull of normalcy were stirred to life again, like Brandon’s dire prophecies laid bare on the office walls.

  “So soon?” A sense of apprehension rose within her as she spoke.

  “As of this spring. The announcement’s not official yet. But it will be in a couple of days when they announce the new format. The whole paper’s changing.”

  “The whole paper?” said Eleanor. “Then they’re firing people. And hiring others.”

  Jeanine smiled wryly. “You betcha. There’s a new editor from Haldon Media’s online news app taking Robert Crampton’s assistant editor post in December. They’re already notifying staff members who won’t be here at the first of the year. When the big “restructuring” takes effect.”

  “You’re safe, of course. So is Jonas from ‘Market Strategy.’ Marguerite’s gone – promoted to a bigger pond with some web video line for Haldon’s social media department,” continued Baptista. “But Larry’s out for good and gone home for the day to digest that news. They just fired Tom Wilkins the weekend outdoor columnist, two of the editors from Home and Garden, one from Lifestyles and Humor...“

  “Scott Freeson the sports reporter is getting upgraded to a full column,” said Jeanine. “That’s because Brandon is getting cut, along with –”

  Eleanor didn’t hear the rest of this remark. “Brandon,” she said.

  “He was right about Haldon making changes,” said Jeanine. “I guess that pessimism finally resulted in some irony for him.”

  “Bitterman’s probably writhing in his office about having to make all this seem cheerful at the presentation –” began Baptista again. But Eleanor had gone on, past the desks of anxious and gossiping employees who were still adjusting to these changes, sifting truth from rumor in a world which was now changing at the speed of light – the giant hand of Haldon Media suddenly closing over their futures.

  Brandon’s office door was open, but there was no one inside. She stopped short of its doorway, where only an empty leather desk chair greeted her from behind piles of rumpled paper and battered books.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Brandon’s apartment was on the other side of town from Eleanor. Not within walking distance by even a long stretch of the imagination. No good parking was ever available for visitors, its spaces jealously crowded by residents, or else marked into hands-off zones by over-zealous rules. Cabs generally eased into one of these spaces to deposit arrivals, then drove away into the halting traffic speed of the intersection ahead.

  The elevator was out, so Eleanor climbed to the fourth floor. Black painted railings beneath her hands which seemed somewhat rickety, as if their bolts were coming undone slowly from the steps below.

  She had been here several times in the past. Brandon had an obligation, if not a hidden fondness, for small parties which included his circle of friends and acquaintances. She had come here for a drink before or after an opera or a play they attended together; she had helped him move his books downstairs to the storage locker in the basement when the apartment above flooded his own three years ago. She went to his door by familiar instinct, knocking on the peeling paint surface below the black iron apartment number.

  “Come in.” She heard his voice on the other side when she knocked. The door wasn’t locked; she pushed on it, the wood swinging open beneath her touch as the loose latch pulled free of the frame.

  The only light from within was a small, yellow lamp on Brandon’s home desk, casting a faint warmth from behind its blown glass dome. The rest was filtered through the wooden blinds, slats of orange sunlight and shadow from the close of day. Her eyes adjusted their focus after the glow of late afternoon outside, aided by the familiarity of the room around her: the tall wooden bookshelves packed full like a library’s, the closed drinks cabinet below the painting of a foreign landscape, the heavy Oriental rug on the floor and the drab armchairs poked into corners.

  Brandon was seated in a leather chair facing the old-fashioned high-fi system wedged between bookshelves. A vinyl disc was spinning on its turntable, a stack of records and sleeves tilted to one side. Jazz and opera, Eleanor knew by experience.

  “You heard,” said Brandon. In his hand was a glass, brown liquor
swimming with ice cubes within. It was the first time in quite some time that Eleanor had seen him so casually dressed on a weekday, a pair of worn jeans and plain leather shoes fraying along one side, a blue shirt with sleeves worn thin along the elbows. “They call it ‘early retirement’ these days. When you’re my age and one’s job disappears and there’s not another one waiting in the wings.”

  “Don’t say that.” Eleanor slid her hands into the pockets of her leather coat. “Oh, Brandon –”

  “Don’t say that, either,” he answered. He took a sip from his glass. “The dark predictions come true. Much to no one’s shock, anyway. We all expected it from Haldon Media. And most of the staff will land all right.”

  From the record player’s speakers came the sound of Billie Holiday’s melancholy voice, emerging from beneath the needle’s touch. “Lover Man,” Eleanor recognized, after a moment’s silence.

  “But what will you do?” she asked. She leaned against the bookshelf and looked into his face, which was more visible from this angle.

  “I’ve got savings. A retirement fund of sorts,” he answered. “I’ll land on my feet, Eleanor, never worry...”

  “I meant do with yourself, Brandon,” she said. “You’re not a ... ‘putterer’ or someone who merely sits and stares at the walls. I know you too well for that.” She glanced around the darkened apartment, at the cloistered walls of books and mementos from Brandon’s past. A picture of his military unit, a medal framed in a small black box.

  “Worried, are you?” he said, raising his eyebrow slightly. “Don’t be.”

  “Why not?” she asked. “I know you can take care of yourself, true. But –”

  “But – friends ask each other, regardless of the fact,” said Brandon. “Of course, they don’t always get an answer.” This reminded her uncomfortably of the night’s conversation in the cab after the gala. She hadn’t spoken to Brandon since then. Since her refusal to explain to him why she was crying.