Ask Eleanor (Special Edition With Alternate Ending)

by Briggs, Laura

  “I got a job,” said Marianne.

  “A job?” said Eleanor.

  “At a retail shop. A baby store. Part time, so I can have an employee’s discount. Between it and the secondhand shop, I’m almost fully employed,” said Marianne, who was now chipping the dried paint from the palette with a scraper. A smear of fresh green, dark like a fir tree, wiped away by the stroke of a rag.

  “What about your classes?” Eleanor asked.

  Marianne shrugged. “I quit them. I paint on my own anyway – Henri sold my canvas from the ‘In Progress’ art show. I’m letting him sell a couple of my sculptures for me. ‘The Lovers’ and the new one.”

  The new one was in the corner. The twisted white figure like a skeletal, curving form crawling upwards, contorted limbs and bare wings. ‘Broken,’ Marianne had informed Eleanor.

  Marianne had ceased scraping the palette. She was leaning on the table, her face suddenly seeming gaunt in the harsh window light. A few strands of hair had escaped the blue headband, falling forward in lackluster curls.

  For a moment, Eleanor felt as if she were looking at Marianne the child again. Three year-old Marianne covered in finger paint; eleven year-old Marianne with skinned hands and knees from falling down while rollerblading. As if she were older, responsible Elly, running in her school uniform and sensible shoes to rescue her younger sibling from harm.

  Marianne sighed. “I’m sorry, El,” she said.

  Eleanor returned to the present with this statement. “For what?” she asked, puzzled. Marianne glanced at her, smiling wanly.

  “For not ever listening to you,” she said. “About anything.” She shrugged her shoulders as she looked away again. “You were right about all those things. I just didn’t want you to be. I wanted it to be as real and as perfect as it seemed. You know?”

  Eleanor didn’t say anything. Marianne set aside the palette and reached for another rag, wiping the traces of paint from her fingertips.

  “I’m not right,” said Eleanor. “Not about everything.” Something in her voice drew Marianne’s attention. She ceased cleaning her hands and was looking at Eleanor with concern.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  Eleanor shook her head. “Nothing. Only – for awhile I thought someone was in love with me. That’s all.” She drew a deep breath and exhaled. “And it wasn’t the case. I was ... completely blinded by it. When I realized it –” She stopped, on the verge of tears for some reason.

  “What happened, Elly?” Marianne crouched down next to her. She touched Eleanor’s hair, the dried paint on her fingers gently snagging the strands with this gesture.

  “It all went wrong,” she said. “I was calm, and practical, and careful, and I still ended up being a fool. The whole time, I was being ridiculous about it inside. Not that it mattered. It was just doomed.” She wasn’t making sense with these words; in truth, she wasn’t certain what she meant. She had been calm one moment, then done something crazy, like pursue him to the theater. None of it made sense, even to her.

  “Oh, Elly, why didn’t you tell me?” said Marianne. Eleanor wiped her eyes, desperate to remove the tears before they escaped on their own.

  “There just wasn’t a good time,” she answered. “Besides, who would believe that someone might actually be in love with me?” she asked, with a faint laugh.

  “I thought that Brandon’s been in love with you for years,” said Marianne, seriously.

  Eleanor felt a jolt of shock. “Brandon?” she repeated. “Why on earth would you think that?”

  “Because of the way he talks about you,” said Marianne.

  “Brandon? He talks about – about rescuing damsels in distress. About saving some unwed mother from distress. He even mentioned you – not that he meant he was in love with you –”

  Marianne blushed. “Well, I don’t need rescuing,” she said. “Not from the Colonel, anyway.” She straightened her shoulders, looking firmly in Eleanor’s eyes. “But what does it matter who it is? Someone could fall in love with you. They do it all the time. You just don’t see it because you never look.” She squeezed Eleanor’s arms, gently, with these words.

  “Thank you,” said Eleanor, although this response felt bizarrely dignified.

  “You’re welcome.” Marianne kissed her on the cheek. She scrambled to her feet again and lifted a tube of paint.

  “You know, I’ve never painted your portrait,” she said. “I should do it sometime. Maybe before the baby’s born. Something colorful that would spruce up your apartment’s drab walls.”

  “Maybe so,” said Eleanor, with a smile. “I’d like that.” She watched as Marianne squeezed a new puddle onto her palette, then lifted another brush from her pile. A stroke of neon blue across the canvas, cutting through a design like a waning moon painted in yellow-white.

  Marianne’s face grew somber as she studied the effect. She hesitated, then her lips moved.

  “I really did love him, you know,” she said. “And even though it hurts, I’m glad that he loved me.” She didn’t look at Eleanor with these words.

  “I know,” said Eleanor. “I know you are.” As she folded her arms and watched silently as the painting continued to unfold beneath the brush.

  *****

  She hadn’t told Marianne that Brandon had offered to punish Will for abandoning her. The offer, although a ridiculous one to treat as reality, was a private joke which would only stir Marianne’s indignation without softening her opinion of the serious, somber figure who viewed her with chivalry.

  Marianne wanted to be rid of the reminders of Will. Gradually, of course, she explained; but she wanted to put them aside. Not for her sake so much as for a future she couldn’t yet picture, Eleanor imagined: one in which her passion would lose its intensity, or, else, find an outlet in her child or her work, or another, more deserving, heart than Will’s. Time was what mattered in this situation.

  And what for herself, Eleanor wondered. Was it time that would make her feel better about anything? A book tour for the third book, trailing around to radio stations and bookstores. Starting a fourth book, forcing herself to tweet opinions to strangers in the vast online universe. What would any of those do for her?

  Outside, rain pounded steadily against her balcony. A cold, heavy rain which resounded against the metal patio furniture and beat down the remaining green leaves in her outdoor planters. Huddled on her sofa, Eleanor stared at the screen of her laptop.

  Dear Eleanor: Two years ago, my brother-in-law ‘borrowed’ six thousand dollars in cash to cover a late car payment and tuition for his and my sister’s oldest child. Now, with two kids in college and their house refinanced, they’re planning to take a cruise to Greece next month. Now, I’m no math wizard, and I’m definitely not an expert in etiquette, but shouldn’t they have taken the thousands being spent on this trip and paid me back for bailing them out? My wife says...

  She tapped her fingers against the keys. No answer was coming to her at the moment. Nothing except her own thoughts, which were persistently interfering with her work again.

  The knock on Eleanor’s door startled her. She slammed the laptop shut and placed it on the cushion.

  No one had rung her buzzer. It was someone with a key – Marianne or Brandon, who had her spare. She glanced through the peephole, seeing a dark figure waiting there, leaning against the frame. Then opened the door partway to reveal Edward on the other side.

  She stopped at the sight of him. He was dripping wet. Rain poured from his coat, from his hair plastered against his head, from the skin on his face.

  “I waited,” he said, hoarsely. “For someone to come inside. So they would let me in.”

  She stared at him. “What are you doing here?” Her mouth trembled. So did the hand holding the door, as her heart pounded within her chest.

  “I came to see you.” His voice was shaking. “It’s over. With Lucy. I told her that I can’t go through with it. That I want to see you.” His hand was still on the door fra
me. His body drawing closer to the opening, as Eleanor withdrew slightly.

  “You want to see me,” she repeated.

  He nodded. His eyes were burning with an emotion stronger than any she had seen there before. “You,” he answered. “I have thought about you since the day I saw you.”

  “Edward,” she said. Her voice gave her away. His hand pushed on the door, opening it fully as he stepped into her apartment.

  “Eleanor.” His arms closed around her; she felt his dripping coat pressed against her blouse, soaking through its fabric. Her arms were around his shoulder, her lips finding his in the same moment. Kissing him hard, her fingers winding themselves into his hair.

  He reached behind him and pushed her door closed. Then kissed her again, the two of them moving slowly backwards into her living room.

  “I love you, Eleanor.” He was looking into her face; his hands were cradling her head, lost in the loose tendrils of hair which had escaped her knot.

  “Oh, Edward.” Nothing else came to her at this moment, as if there were too many emotions within her to be sorted into words; feelings too strong to be defined at this moment.

  Instead, she wrapped her arms around him again. Holding tight to him, laughing aloud for some reason, with relief or with sheer exhilaration. Until he, too, was laughing, his arms practically lifting her as he pushed her gently backwards, towards the door to the balcony.

  They passed through it, holding tightly to each other as the cold rain splashed onto his wet coat and her soaked-through shirt. Kissing where all the neighborhood would see them, if they looked through the rain-fogged windows facing Eleanor’s building.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  It had been the first thing in her mind when Eleanor awoke. Edward loves her. It had not been her imagination. The attraction had been real, the kiss had been real. He had come to her apartment last night and made her realize it.

  She was in love with him. Unbelievable as it was, impossible as it was, she wanted to hold onto this feeling. Even when Edward was gone, she sat on the sofa and basked in the glory of it. Her clothes clinging to her, damp and cool in the hour after the rain had passed. Feet bare on the carpet, hair plastered against her face. The afterglow of Edward’s kiss on lips and cheeks and forehead.

  Sleep did not come, except in brief dozes as she lay on her bed; morning did come, and she lay watching as the light crept across the wall. The real world awaited her. Thoughts of this nature could wait.

  “Morning, Eleanor.” There was an unusual lilting quality to Jeanine’s voice this morning when Eleanor emerged from the elevator – whether real or imagined, she wasn’t certain. The smell of coffee seemed stronger, the hum of voices more vibrant and complex than she had noticed before now. She smiled in the direction of two mailroom employees, who returned it in a puzzled manner, as if they found a different meaning in it than the usual polite greeting.

  She entered her office, setting her bag on the floor instead of the desk. Across from her, Lucy was busy packing her things. Removing the items from her desk and stuffing them into an open cardboard box.

  Moving. Packing. These things caught Eleanor’s notice in a second’s time. The smile on her face melted somewhat.

  “Lucy?” she said.

  Her assistant looked at her. A dark expression beneath her cloud of reddish hair as she shoved an object from her desk – a stapler, a sharpener – to the bottom of the box.

  “What are you doing?” asked Eleanor. “Are you quitting?” Lucy’s files and computer were gone, her Rolodex and external hard drive now nothing more than faint outlines on the surface of the table.

  “How dare you?” Lucy’s mouth trembled. “How dare you – you – stole him from me!” She slammed a paperweight into the box.

  Eleanor edged closer. “No, Lucy, you don’t understand –”

  “I trusted you! I was impressed by you! All those stories and glowing descriptions – and then, with one look at you, he just forgets everything about us, it seems.” She tossed an empty printer cartridge into the wastepaper basket with more force than necessary.

  “It wasn’t what it sounds like.” Eleanor felt a blush of dismay gathering on her cheeks. She was avoiding Lucy’s eyes now, as the girl yanked an electrical cord from the wall.

  “He was just waiting for the right moment to tell me, he says. It had been over for a long time and he needed an excuse to do this, but it just ‘happened’ at the same time. Didn’t I sense that we were just ‘going through the motions’ of being a couple?”

  “Maybe he’s right,” ventured Eleanor. “About distance between you ...” She knew immediately that those words had been a mistake. The storm on Lucy’s face grew darker.

  “He was mine!” she hissed. “All those years I waited and worked and imagined him there ... I did everything to keep us together and this is how it ends – with him moving here to dump me!”

  Eleanor fell silent. Lucy shoved the cappuccino maker on top of the box’s contents. The lid wouldn’t close, springing open as she attempted it, until she gave up with frustration.

  “You had to take him, didn’t you?” Lucy asked, bitterly. “Was it just jealousy – or are you just so desperate, you’ll take the first man who trips over his feet in front of a successful woman? Fine. You be the one who sticks around to watch him. You be the one to follow him in his glories for a change, until he finds somebody else.” She lifted the box. A trail of abandoned paperwork spilled onto the floor from a stray pile on the desk.

  Her words stung Eleanor, who felt her eyes burn with tears in response. “I’m sorry,” said Eleanor. “I didn’t know ...” It was too late for that story, she realized.

  Lucy was walking away, looking at her with one last glance as she opened the door. “I can’t believe I ever admired you,” she said. With disgust. Then she passed through the doorway, making swift progress towards the elevator. Through the closing glass door of her office, Eleanor could see the stares of the employees closest to her office, who clearly heard part of this exchange.

  Lucy entered the elevator and pushed the button, the doors sliding closed. She did not bother to direct one last glare in Eleanor’s direction but faced the other direction until the doors closed.

  Jeanine and Marguerite watched, then exchanged glances; Marguerite cast a look, almost sympathetic, in Eleanor’s direction.

  Eleanor sank down in her desk chair.

  “I’m sorry, Eleanor.” Bitterman planted his hands on his hips as he stood before his desk, a less-than-authoritative look, in Eleanor’s opinion. “I tried to talk to her, but she was absolutely adamant about leaving.”

  “No, I understand, of course,” said Eleanor.

  “Something about an offer from K&E Media Relations,” he said. “It’s closer to home for her, I think. Or to the city where she plans to build her career, or something...”

  He was being vague. He had already heard that Lucy left the building in anger – maybe there were already rumors about the love triangle. She wondered if Lucy had said anything when she quit. Or if she simply stapled her resignation to his desk in anger.

  “I’m very sorry to lose her,” said Eleanor. “But we weren’t ... a good fit for each other, I suppose.” She didn’t elaborate on this point, then felt afraid that he might misinterpret it to refer to a rivalry for Edward. But Bitterman’s mind was still focused on Lucy’s departure.

  “Well, again, sorry about that,” he said. “But what can you do?” He spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness.

  “What can you do?” repeated Eleanor, quietly and unhappily.

  Dear Eleanor: I’ve been married for seventeen years to the same man. We weren’t any kind of great romance, but we were happy and very loving for several years. But now...

  She couldn’t give her attention to this letter. To any of them, for that matter, now sorted again according to her old system of subject by subject. But the ones which lay unfolded before her were without meaning as well.

  Edward
’s kisses were dissolved by Lucy’s bitter departure. His words – but there were no words. Not yet. Nothing but the words from the occasions before, when they had talked a little, feeling gently into each others’ pasts, feeling fear of each others’ present-day lives, it seemed. No, the only words Edward had said last night were ‘I love you.’ That, and her name. And goodbye.

  Poor Lucy. Had she thought it was all her stories that seduced him – some sort of crush on the not-so-famous Eleanor Darbish? A fixation on a slightly older woman? Love at first sight at the gala, where her pink satin swept away his emotions; her casual indifference as a perfume of enticement?

  She looked up from the letters, her glance falling on her formerly-confiscated appointment calendar, having been tossed by Lucy into the middle of her desk, where it overturned her pencil cup. It was open to today’s page, where a presentation was penciled-in at the Sun Building for four o’ clock.

  Another appointment Lucy had neglected to mention until the last minute. There was an inscription to the side, a note about the paper’s restructuring. No doubt Lucy had been looking forward to it; she would have been up front and eager to see the changes unfold like a magician’s trick.

  As for Eleanor, she would see missing names from the sheets; unfamiliar banners, strangers’ bylines, and redirected columns, feeling all the confusion of someone wandering around in a familiar building that has been remodeled overnight. She would probably have no appreciation for its innovative format or modern design. But she, the employee who was merely resigned to all of this, would be there.

  Eleanor skipped lunch and remained in her office until almost three o’ clock. Outside, the skies were grey again with a second storm system, for figures in rain coats and drenched overcoats emerged from the elevator in the hours between lunch and the meeting.