My Life, Starring Dara Falcon

by Ann Beattie

  “I think everything’s going to be all right now,” Bonnie said.

  “Good work,” I said. Around us, other people had begun to talk again.

  “When the going gets tough,” Bonnie said.

  “I’m really sorry,” I said. In my mind, I was apologizing because Bob was my husband, though I instantly realized that because Bonnie had no way of knowing what precipitated the problem, all she could think was that I was offering a general apology.

  “Oh, I’m pretty used to the pressure cooker blowing,” Bonnie said. “Don’t worry.” She looked at Drake, talking to some friend of Barbara’s. “He does have a temper,” she said quietly.

  “Well, this is really a terrible way to, you know, to meet the family,” I said. “I mean, under any circumstances, a funeral is—”

  “He never would have introduced me.” Bonnie shrugged. She motioned for me to step aside with her. “We’re married,” she said.

  I stared at her.

  “By a justice of the peace. A month ago.”

  “Congratulations,” I said.

  “Thanks,” she said, and smiled. “Drake isn’t exactly one for a big wedding.”

  “No, I guess not.”

  “Please don’t tell anyone,” she said. “I just had to have someone know. He’s so peculiar. I’m sure he’ll tell you in his own good time.”

  “Bob knows?” I said.

  “No,” she said. “He wasn’t there that day. We just went to a justice of the peace.”

  I was thinking of the ring, in the fishing tackle box. She had on a silver bracelet, but no ring. She didn’t even know that a ring was intended for her. She was married and she didn’t have a wedding band?

  “It’s legal without the ring,” she said, twirling her silver bracelet, as if reading my mind.

  “Sure,” I said, nodding agreement. “Oh, sure.” I was really taken aback.

  “So please don’t tell,” she said, and walked away. She stood by the coffee machine and flipped the black handle forward. Coffee poured into her cup. I looked around the room, not knowing where to rest my gaze. Unfortunately for both of us, my eyes briefly connected with the reverend’s, and he came toward me to offer his condolences.

  “As I told your husband this morning, we often think of time as our enemy, but it also allows for the healing of wounds,” the reverend said, putting his big paw of a hand on my shoulder.

  “This morning?” I said.

  “Yes. When he came to my office. He said you were consoling Barbara.” He must have seen that I knew nothing about what he was saying. “You didn’t know that he and I had spoken early this morning?” he said. “Well—men sometimes think they shouldn’t express sadness, which is most unfortunate.”

  Marie appeared at the reverend’s side. “It was Myron Floren’s desire to achieve success with the most successful orchestra ever to appear regularly on national television,” she read. Her eyes were pink from crying. She bent over her book again, reading quietly to herself. The reverend put his hand on top of her head. He said, “It’s difficult to share the affection of the person we love, isn’t it, Marie?” Marie did not look up to acknowledge he’d spoken. She turned a page of her book and walked away.

  “Marie, come and give your grandma a hug,” Barbara said to her.

  “If you and Bob would like to see me privately, I’m always available,” the reverend said.

  “Thank you,” I said. It was an entirely perfunctory response; I didn’t like the reverend much more than Marie liked Louise, but of course I had to be polite to him. He was not only by definition a good person, but one of the people ostensibly so important to Barbara. What I really thought was that Barbara was just careful to keep all the props in place: the church must be included in times of grief. Even people who actively signalled they did not want to be part of Barbara’s world were still solicited, like Dowell Churnin. There was always the pretense that the door was always open, when in reality Barbara distanced herself even from the family behind that door, having to be coaxed to do simple things: go to the carnival; eat at a restaurant; do anything out of the ordinary. She and her sons and daughter were reluctant people, who masked their insecurity or their depression, or whatever it was that stopped them, by graciousness and by adhering to social conventions.

  The greenhouse opened. Several days before, Dara called, saying that the family was invited to the opening festivities. Frank had already refused to go, she said; she’d sent him a note, which he’d stamped BULLSHIT with a rubber stamp and returned. She was clearly amused, telling me, “I don’t know whether I should send a note and let Bob express himself also, or whether this invitation by telephone is sufficient.” She quickly added: “You know, sweetie, just because they have this attitude doesn’t mean you shouldn’t come and have a good time.”

  I went. Bob was helping Trenton put a deck on his house; he wasn’t there to consult one way or the other. When I’d initially mentioned Dara’s invitation, he’d only sighed deeply. I called Janey before I left to see if she wanted to join me. Frank answered the phone. Janey had gone back to work a few days before. She had a private patient she was looking after. I knew that Janey had had misgivings about returning to work, but the fact was they needed the money. Frank said he was still working downstairs, creating the rec room. I could hear the boys in the background. He sounded harried, so I hung up quickly.

  The greenhouse was pretty: nouveau Victorian, with a parking lot in back and large terra-cotta planters filled with bright pink flowers placed close to Route 1. A large white banner announcing the opening flapped from a pole hung out the top window of the building. There were also white balloons bobbing from the arm of a white wicker chair that sat alongside the entranceway. There were quite a few cars. As I pulled in, a woman carrying a cement rabbit with a Marie-size blue bow around its neck exited, talking animatedly to her friend. A man disembarked from his Jeep. He and his wife bent over the baby’s car seat, fiddling with buckles, cooing to the baby as they began to lift him. “Mommy wants a mimosa tree, but Daddy thinks they die in this zone,” the man said cheerfully to his plump, sock-footed son, as he held him aloft. “Maybe the nice man will tell Mommy the same thing.” Ahead of him, Mommy stalked into the store, looking perturbed.

  On Route 1, a car slammed on its brakes, narrowly avoiding hitting a black dog; other cars also slowed, allowing the frightened dog to canter back and forth. Finally, someone parked on the shoulder and called to the dog, trying to lure it to one side of the road. The dog almost crossed to the car, then turned and bolted in the other direction, causing another terrible squeal of brakes. I couldn’t look any longer. I went in, braced for the final squeal of tires, and the final yelp. Dara was the first to see me, and she misunderstood my squint for trepidation.

  “Come on, darling, if I can dress up like Little Miss Muffet—” she said, coming toward me in her big skirt and a low-scooped T-shirt. Everything she wore was white or blue or gray. In a way, she looked wonderful, but the clothes were so much not her style that I could hardly believe she’d dressed this way. “Wouldn’t you know that the one employee Tom thought was the most reliable would be just the one to cancel at midnight? Her child has measles, or something dreadful. So I’m pinch-hitting as Miss Havisham, or whatever I am. Isn’t it just too much?”

  The woman who had wanted a mimosa tree was studying the selection of African violets. Her husband and son joined her, peering over her shoulder. Behind the counter, a teenage boy in a white shirt and black jacket was ringing up a sale. At first I thought he looked more sensible than Dara, but then I realized the black jacket was a morning coat. He was dressed as if he were a student at Eton. The flute music increased the feeling of otherworldliness in the place; it soothed the customers and no doubt also encouraged them to buy.

  When a customer asked Dara a question, I wandered away to explore. A glass-enclosed walkway connected the front building to the greenhouse. I walked behind a mother and daughter, who were discussing the pros and
cons of bangs. The little girl carried a plant. Like everything in the greenhouse, it was in a white plastic pot with tiny ladybugs painted around the border. She carried it as if it were a saucer with a very full cup of tea on it. Seeing her concentration, her mother reached out to carry the plant for her daughter. “Bangs make your eyes look bigger,” the little girl announced to her mother, who did not have bangs. She did, however, have large eyes shadowed with lavender. Probably the little girl had found just the way to appeal to her mother’s sense of the way things should be. “And also, Susan Davis has bangs,” the little girl said. There, she probably lost a point.

  I could not have been more surprised to look in front of me and see Barbara. She was standing by a large cluster of gloxinias, talking to Dowell Churnin. Dowell had on a white apron with ladybugs imprinted on the ties. Underneath, he had on his customary baggy shirt and baggy pants, though his work boots were brand-new. He was talking to Barbara at the same time he was fiddling with a nozzle that sprayed mist onto the plants from copper tubes in the ceiling.

  “Oh!” Barbara said, when she saw me. “Gracious! Well—look at us both at opening day!”

  I thought it was fine to be where I was, though Barbara, blushing deeply, apparently thought otherwise.

  “Good day to you, Jean,” Dowell said to me. He stepped back in order to avoid being misted. The little girl and her mother walked past us; unlike the Warners’ greenhouse, the aisles were wide enough to allow people to pass without turning sideways and offering apologies.

  “I don’t know the first thing about watering systems. I only know what I studied last night from the manual. Two people couldn’t make it today, and one of them was one of the most important workers we have,” Dowell said.

  “How are you, Jean?” Barbara said. She didn’t wait for an answer. “Isn’t it just lovely in here? My, my.”

  “I’m very glad you came because I don’t want there to be any hard feelings,” Dowell said.

  “Oh, there aren’t any. On my part,” I added. “I did speak to Tom about it a while ago.” I looked at Barbara. It was nasty but amusing to watch her suffering. “Did I tell you about that?”

  “I don’t remember that you did,” Barbara said.

  “Well,” I said, looking around, “he represented everything correctly. Saying that he meant to emphasize the greenhouse, I mean. Not to compete with us, really, with the trees and bushes.”

  “I see,” Barbara said gravely.

  “I think Janey might be here, herself, if she hadn’t gotten that gentleman patient,” Dowell said. “I saw her at the post office, and I think it was her intention to come. That would have been three ladies representing the family.”

  Barbara nodded. She looked so questioning. She always looked so questioning. She said: “Did you know there was lemonade by the cash register? At first I didn’t see it, but it’s on a table just next to the checkout counter.” She turned to Dowell. “Was that table of lemonade and sweets hidden on purpose?”

  “I had not one thing to do with the organization of anything,” Dowell said.

  “I was only teasing,” Barbara said.

  “It really looks beautiful,” I said. In another part of my mind, I was wondering several things: whether the dog on the highway had made it to safety; whether Barbara would ever tell the rest of the family that she’d come here on opening day; whether Dowell had been for, or against, the war in Vietnam—and, by extension, whether his attitude, when his son died, was newly arrived at, or if it only intensified his sense of futility about the blasphemy of that particular war.

  “I should be on my way,” Barbara said. “You tell Tom, if I don’t see him, that this is all very lovely, and that we wish him the very best.”

  Dowell nodded. He had a way of standing in one place indefinitely, until someone exited. He was always the last to leave a party. The last person to determine anything, including in what direction he’d move, or when he would make the move. He truly did seem to wait for others to tell him what to do. He would decline most invitations, but if he did show up he was as immobile as one of the stone rabbits—just a big lawn ornament. In that, he seemed like quite a few other men of his generation: if he did show up, he never left until the end. Had World War II been responsible for that? For that group of men who stood like sentries in their own lives?

  I said goodbye to Dowell, taking Barbara’s departure as the opportunity to get away. I walked out of the greenhouse behind her. As we neared the front building, she seemed, again, a little nervous.

  “I get the feeling you’re not sure you should have come,” I said.

  “You do?” she said. “Well, I did wonder, but this morning two mourning doves landed on my windowsill, and I took it as a sign. They’d built a nest on top of my air conditioner the last two springs, but this year they just hadn’t come back. Not that I couldn’t do without all that noise, but heaven knows, I would never do anything to interrupt the building of a bird’s nest. Oh, I’m not making much sense, I know. What I mean is that it seemed hopeful that the doves were there, even though they must have made another home. As if they wanted me to know everything was still fine, even though they hadn’t been where I expected to find them.” She looked at me. “It was clearer to me this morning,” she said.

  I walked Barbara to her car. What accounted for my sudden critical attitude toward her? She was older and a little more daffy than when we’d first met, but compared to the tales of terror I’d heard about other mothers-in-law, Barbara was easygoing and undemanding. In a burst of friendliness, I asked Barbara if she’d like to have dinner with us that night.

  “That’s a nice offer, but I’ve got some steak to cook tonight,” she said. “And you two have so many things to do. We’ll both be relieved when Bob’s done with his course work, I know.”

  “Eat the steak tomorrow,” I said.

  “Oh, I cannot tell a lie,” Barbara said. “I invited Dowell to the house just now, and he accepted. I can’t even remember the last time he was there. It was years and years ago, but when I asked, he said he’d be delighted.”

  It began to dawn on me: It wasn’t just sympathy that had made her think about him so often. Barbara liked him. She might even have a crush on him. She must have seen the surprise flicker across my face.

  “You know I’d love to come otherwise,” she said, unlocking the car and rolling down the windows. It was very hot inside the car. We stood back a little, retreating from the seepage of hot air. Cars were turning into the lot.

  When Barbara drove away, I went back inside to say goodbye to Dara. I waited while she rang up a sale. She gave advice about watering the plants she was setting in a cardboard flat. The woman she spoke to listened intently. Dara must have been studying more than just her lines for A Doll’s House, unless she’d always known that much about how to care for plants.

  “This has been more hectic than we thought,” she said, when the woman left. “Do you know, he’s so crazy that he was going to call Big Bernie, to get her to help out. Her business went belly-up, you know.”

  “What has she been doing?” I said.

  “She has been doing two things,” Dara said. “She has tried to sell hummingbird feeders by mail, along with seeds to plant that attract hummingbirds, number one. And number two, she has been considering—with many midnight phone calls—whether it is the best thing, or absolutely wrong, to abort the child she is carrying.” Dara reached out and smiled, taking a twenty-dollar bill from a man who had put a lipstick plant on the counter. She handed the money to the teenager in the cutaway. “But enough about that. And you didn’t hear it from me,” she said. She let the teenager finish the transaction.

  “She’s pregnant?” I said. “The last time I saw her was months ago. She was waitressing at Arizona.”

  “Not now,” she said, coming around to my side of the counter. “She has morning sickness that goes on until midafternoon, followed by crying jags and bizarre evening car chases, racing with the wind. She ends up s
omeplace in Maine and checks into a motel and reaches for the bedside telephone. She is entirely unhinged, and as I said to Tom: Are you truly and absolutely sure this child is yours? But of course he’s too macho to have any doubt. If it’s born, I am going to force him to find out. Isn’t this all we need? Really. It’s a soap opera every day, and when I have enough sanity to concentrate, I pore over A Doll’s House, which all this has given me a decidedly odd perspective on.”

  “God,” I said. “How awful.”

  “I know I should be more sympathetic,” she said. “I lack courage, though. The courage to have a little baby visiting us. It’s not like Tom wants it either. But life goes on, and I’ve got to get going,” she said, looking at her watch. “I’ve put in my time. Now I’ve got to go into Portsmouth and discuss fund-raising with the theater board. Apparently I am charming and articulate. I think they want me to speak at some dinner. All in the cause of art.”

  “This must be very rough on you,” I said.

  “One of the strangest things is that his anxiety over all this—” She had come out from behind the counter, ignoring two people who were trying to catch her eye, untying her apron. “Instant transformation,” she said, to the people. “Can’t help you anymore, but my friend behind the counter will be glad to.” The teenage boy was talking on the telephone and ringing up a sale. It would be some time before they got his attention. They began to confer with each other. “Anyway,” she said, “the strangest thing is that he wants to have sex all the time. He thinks sex is almost as good as leaving the phone off the hook. I have ordered an answering machine. I tell you, I am not going to be awakened every night of my life with Big Bernie’s hysteria.”

  I followed her behind green curtains that separated a back room from the front counter. “And the goddamned Doll’s House,” she said. “I hadn’t read it since I was a girl. I remembered it so differently. I’m really having trouble getting into the role. Is it because Big Bernie’s crisis has cast everything in such an odd light, or have I just changed? Have our values changed so much?”