Falling into Place

by Stephanie Greene

  “Oh, but we can’t walk around here,” said Gran.

  “Why not?”

  “Look at it, for Heaven’s sake!” Gran swept her arm across the window, as if to draw Margaret’s attention to the horrible scene outside. But all Margaret saw were people. There were three women in bright jackets and sweatpants walking quickly down the middle of the street, carrying small weights in their hands. Their arms were pumping briskly at their sides. Four men jogging toward them from the opposite direction parted and ran around them on either side like a stream around a rock. The women laughed, and raised their weights in greeting.

  “What’s wrong with it?” said Margaret, bewildered. “Those people are walking.”

  “That’s not walking,” said Gran. “Walking is being out in the country, surrounded by the fields and the sky, with nothing more than the scent of honeysuckle for company, and the lowing of cows in the distance… .” Her voice trailed off, and the way she looked, sitting there on the couch by herself, so small and alone inside her fluffy bathrobe, Margaret knew, she absolutely knew, that Gran was having the balloon feeling. She was floating higher and higher into the sky away from them, with nothing to tie her down. She didn’t have the twins to push a book into her lap and demand that she read it to them, or Claire with her doelike eyes, asking if she’d play house … no one to stop her from disappearing forever.

  She needed a friend. And Margaret was going to find her one.

  Without another word, she turned on her heel and marched into the kitchen. Roy was at the table, reading.

  “Come on,” she said, slapping his book closed as she passed. “We’ve got work to do.”

  “What kind of work?” said Roy. He jumped up and followed her out onto the stoop. By the time he caught up with her, she was looking up and down the street with her hands on her hips and a frown on her face.

  “We’ve got to make some friends,” she said.

  “What do we need friends for? We’re only going to be here until Saturday.”

  “Not for us—for Gran.” She pointed to the house across the street. “Who lives in two-ten?”

  “I don’t know, but it’s probably a lady. Gran said there were about fifty ladies for every man here, remember?”

  “That’s because women live longer than men. Come on.” Margaret jumped down off the stoop and headed for the gate.

  “What are you going to do?” asked Roy, running after her.

  “I’m going to go over there and knock on the door.”

  He stopped, and his mouth fell open. “You can’t do that,” he called after her.

  “I have to.”

  “But you don’t even know them.” He hesitated, then ran to catch up to her again. “What are you going to say?”

  “I’ll say we want to introduce ourselves. I’ll bring her something.” Margaret didn’t look at him. “I don’t know.”

  “Bring her what?” insisted Roy. He was leaping around in front of her like a sheepdog trying vainly to stop the flock from plunging off the edge of a cliff. “How can we know what she likes if we don’t even know her?”

  “I don’t know, something like …” They stopped in front of the picket fence in front of number 210. Margaret looked around the small yard in front of them. “Like these.” She bent down and grabbed a fistful of yellow flowers from the bed inside the fence. “These are perfect.”

  “Those are hers!” shrieked Roy. He looked around frantically over his shoulder as if to see from which direction the police would arrive. “The lady in number two-ten!”

  “So? If she planted them, she must like them, right?” Margaret held the healthy clump up and made a few adjustments. “They’re perfect,” she announced, and opened the gate.

  “Margaret!”

  She didn’t turn around.

  She didn’t know what she was going to say, she realized as she headed up the walk. But she had to say something, didn’t she? If Gran didn’t make some friends soon, she was going to end up sitting inside the house all day in her pajamas, looking at the birds, for Heaven’s sake. Gran, who used to say, “If God had meant for us to stay inside, he wouldn’t have made the sky.”

  “Wait for me!” Margaret heard Roy’s frantic whisper behind her as she put her finger on the doorbell. She put her ear against the door.

  “Hurry up!” she said, flapping her hand. “Someone’s coming!”

  Roy barely had time to reach her side before the door was opened by a frail white-haired woman leaning on a cane.

  “Hello!” Margaret said in a loud voice. She thrust the bouquet out in front of her so quickly that it almost hit the woman on the nose. “These are for you.”

  “Why, thank you,” the woman said. If she was surprised, she didn’t show it, but reached out to take the flowers, as commanded. Her wispy white hair was standing out around her head like dandelion fluff, and her bright brown eyes were half-closed, she was smiling so hard. “I love yellow flowers,” she said in a pleased voice.

  “I thought you might.” Margaret shot Roy a triumphant look before turning back to the lady and sticking out her hand. “I’m Margaret Mack, and this is my cousin Roy Parker. My father and his mother are brother and sister.”

  Having done with her half of the introduction, she jabbed Roy in the side to speak.

  “Hello,” he said cautiously.

  “We’re visiting our grandmother, Elizabeth Mack,” said Margaret. She got a firm grip on Roy’s arm. He was ready to bolt at a moment’s notice, she could tell. “She sent us to invite to you to a tea party. She really wants to meet you.”

  “She does?” said Roy.

  “Well, isn’t this nice… .” The woman was beaming at them now, her head wobbling gently like a doll on the dashboard of a car. It looked as if they might stand there for quite some time.

  “What’s your name?” Margaret prodded helpfully.

  “Of course, how silly of me.” She held out a tiny hand. She had gnarled fingers and huge knuckles, but her grip was surprisingly strong. “I’m Nelly Tudley and I’m very pleased to meet you.”

  They shook hands all around very politely. Then Mrs. Tudley said, “Won’t you come in?”

  “We’d love to,” said Margaret, ignoring the alarmed look on Roy’s face as she pulled him firmly into Mrs. Tudley’s front hall. She could feel him glaring at her as they followed along behind Mrs. Tudley, who was making her way slowly into the living room, talking.

  “We don’t get to see many young people around here,” she said cheerfully. “I wish my grandchildren could visit more often, but they live way over on the other side of the country. In California.”

  “That’s too bad,” said Margaret. She stopped and looked around. “Your living room’s exactly like Gran’s, except she has her couch over there”—she waved her hand toward the fireplace—“and book shelves over there, where you have the piano. And her walls are yellow.”

  “It’s funny, isn’t it, living in a house that’s exactly like everyone else’s,” said Mrs. Tudley. “I never quite get used to it. I’m sure your grandmother feels the same way. Please, sit down.”

  Margaret plopped down and settled herself comfortably into the cushions. Roy perched on the edge of the couch next to her, and keeping his back very straight and his eyes fixed on Mrs. Tudley, started to pinch Margaret’s thigh with small, painful pinches.

  “So!” said Margaret. She jumped sideways to the other end of the couch and pulled a cushion down between them. She knew he was trying to get her attention, but she wasn’t going to look at him because she knew he’d only start making faces about leaving. And they had work to do. “How are you, Mrs. Tudley?”

  “This is such a lovely surprise,” Mrs. Tudley said again. She was nodding and beaming at them as if there was nothing out of the ordinary about two children she’d never seen before, scrambling around on her couch, attacking each other. She bent over a vase on the coffee table that was filled with the same kind of yellow flowers she was holding, and began fitt
ing the new ones into it while she talked. “It’s so kind of your grandmother to invite me. We’ve never met, but I heard that she lost her husband shortly after they moved in. I knocked on her door several times to extend my condolences, but she wasn’t home.”

  “She was probably hiding,” said Margaret.

  “Yes, she’s very shy,” said Roy.

  “No, she’s not, Roy.”

  “Margaret …”

  “Oh, there’s no need to be embarrassed.” Mrs. Tudley gave a tinkly laugh. “I hid, too, after my husband died. There’s no telling what a person will do when they lose a spouse after many years. I’ll never forget my sister-in-law when her husband died. She was in total control until we got to the cemetery. Then she threw herself across Arnold’s coffin and started yelling, ‘Take me! Please, God, take me!’”

  She stuck the last flower in the vase and gave the crowded arrangement a pleased pat. “It was dreadful.”

  “Did he?” said Roy.

  “Oh, no. She’s quite happily remarried.” Mrs. Tudley sat down and rested her cane against the arm of her chair. “They just got back from a cruise to Alaska.”

  “That would have been amazing.” Roy sounded disappointed, as if he would have been interested in seeing the skies part and Arnold’s widow snatched from the earth by a huge hand.

  “Our grandfather’s name was David,” said Margaret, steering the conversation back on track. “But everyone called him Tad. He was the youngest of five boys.” She paused. “Get it? Tadpole?”

  “I knew a butcher once named David,” said Mrs. Tudley. “He had the most beautiful hands. My husband’s name was Livingston. Livingston Dudley Tudley.”

  “Livingston Dudley Tudley?” said Margaret. “That’s nice,” said Roy. “It rhymes.”

  “Oh, but it wasn’t nice at all,” said Mrs. Tudley. “He hated it. We all called him Tubby.”

  “Tubby Tudley?” said Margaret. She could hear herself repeating everything Mrs. Tudley said, but she couldn’t help it. Tubby Tudley sounded like a bathtub toy.

  “Why, was he fat?” said Roy.

  “Roy!”

  “That’s all right, dear, I don’t mind.” Mrs. Tudley beamed at Roy encouragingly. “Yes, Roy, Tubby was very tubby.”

  “That’s too bad,” Roy said. “He could die of a heart attack.”

  “He’s already dead,” Margaret muttered out of the corner of her mouth. She wished she hadn’t pulled the cushion down. She would have loved to get a hold of his thigh.

  “Oh, Tubby didn’t mind,” said Mrs. Tudley. “Being fat wasn’t nearly as bad a thing in those days as it is today, you know. Tubby was a happy, portly little man.”

  She leaned toward them suddenly. “Have you ever seen those wooden dolls that are cut through the middle and have a smaller doll inside, and then a smaller doll inside that, and so on?”

  “I have one of those,” said Margaret. “It’s Chinese.”

  “Well, that’s what Tubby looked like, except he was English.” Mrs. Tudley leaned back in her chair with a satisfied expression on her face. “Everyone was amazed at what a wonderful dancer he was. Fat people often are, you know. They’re very light on their feet.”

  “That sounds impossible,” said Margaret. She pictured a little fat man suspended from the ceiling in a bouncing baby swing, doing a graceful tap dance, and frowned.

  “It does, indeed,” said Mrs. Tudley. “But it’s true.”

  “Did you know that more than half the people in the United States today are overweight?” Roy said.

  “Are they?” Mrs. Tudley sounded suitably impressed. “That sounds like a rather alarming statistic, doesn’t it?”

  “That’s why so many people are dying of heart attacks.”

  “Roy talks about health and infections a lot.” Margaret shot him a daggerlike look. “That’s interesting, what you said about dancing, Mrs. Tudley,” she said firmly. “Gran and Tad loved to dance. They went dancing all the time.”

  “Oh, so did Tubby and I. We were quite the couple on the dance floor. Tubby loved to spin.”

  “Spin?”

  “Oh, yes. Around … and around … and around.” Mrs. Tudley stopped and leaned toward them again, speaking in a low voice as if worried that Tubby might overhear. “Actually, I was sick in the ladies’ room more than once. But I never told Tubby. He was having such a lovely time, poor dear.”

  “Maybe you and Gran could go dancing together,” said Roy.

  “Girls don’t dance with girls,” said Margaret, thinking she never should have invited him along because he said such ridiculous things.

  But Mrs. Tudley didn’t seem to think it was ridiculous. All she did was laugh. “At our age, they do. They have to. There aren’t enough men to go around. Maybe your grandmother would like to join our dance group at the Recreation Center. We learn a new dance every week. I believe next week is the tango.”

  “She’d like that,” Margaret lied. “Maybe you could ask her.”

  “I like to dance,” said Roy.

  “We’re not talking about you, Roy,” Margaret said, giving him her most ferocious glare, the one that always made Claire clamp her mouth shut immediately in the most satisfying way. But it didn’t work with Roy. He just kept on talking.

  “I’m going to take dance lessons at Miss Porter’s when I’m ten,” he said. “The girls have to wear gloves and the boys have to wear a jacket and tie and everything.”

  Margaret put her head in her hands and slid down into the couch. Trying to keep this conversation on track was like steering a bumper car. Just when she had it on a straight course, Roy sent it careening off in another direction.

  “Good for you,” said Mrs. Tudley. “I think it’s a very good idea for young people to take dancing lessons. Both of my children did. I was worried I might have to give it up after I broke my hip two years ago, but the doctor said it’s actually the perfect therapy.”

  “If you’d like to talk about your aches and pains a bit, that’s okay,” said Margaret, looking up.

  “Aches and pains? Oh, dear me, no.” Mrs. Tud ley gave a delighted laugh. “I have no complaints at all, other than a touch of osteoporosis, and that won’t kill me.”

  “Is that why you have that big circle between your legs?” said Roy.

  “Roy!”

  But Mrs. Tudley laughed again. “It’s all right, Margaret. Roy’s right. I do have a circle between my legs. It’s gotten so I’m beginning to feel like a cowboy.”

  She stuck her little bowed legs out in front of her for them to inspect.

  “I can’t believe you said that,” Margaret said in a faint voice. But it was amazing. Roy was right. She could have pushed a basketball through the gap between Mrs. Tudley’s legs.

  “My legs are getting bowed, and I’m shrinking,” Mrs. Tudley was saying. “I’ve lost four inches already.”

  She sounded pleased, as if shrinking was what she had in mind and she was proud of doing it so well.

  “When you’re as tall as me, maybe we could dance together,” said Roy.

  “Why, Roy …” Mrs. Tudley blinked and lowered her feet slowly to the floor. Her eyes were suspiciously bright. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me in years,” she said.

  The room was suddenly too hot and too close for Margaret. “It was nice meeting you, Mrs. Tudley,” she said quickly. She stood up, stuffed the cushion back into the couch, then grabbed Roy’s arm. “We have to be going now. We have a lot of other calls to make.”

  “So soon?” Mrs. Tudley’s head started to shake more noticeably, as if buffeted by wind. “I was about to offer you something to eat.”

  “That would be nice,” said Roy.

  He would have sat down again, but Margaret kept a firm grip on him as she headed for the door. “No, thank you,” she called. “We’re not hungry. I’ll let you know when the party is going to be.”

  “I’ll look forward to it,” called Mrs. Tudley.

  “Goodbye!”

 
Margaret slammed the door before Mrs. Tudley could reply. Then she turned on Roy furiously. “I can’t believe you. We go to meet someone to try to make a friend for Gran, and you end up making her cry!”

  Roy held his hands up in front of him. “All I said was that I would dance with her.”

  “You can’t say things like that to old people,” said Margaret. “You can’t say anything too nice or too sad. You can’t talk about their husbands, or what they did in the past, or where they lived, or anything.”

  “What can you talk about?”

  “You can’t talk about anything!” shouted Margaret, stomping down the path. “You just listen. If I let you talk, you’ll start asking questions and talking about fat people and heart attacks, and the next thing you know, they’ll be crying.”

  “Mrs. Tudley didn’t seem old,” said Roy. “She was fun.”

  “Yearwise she’s old, okay? Too old to want an eight-year-old for a friend.” She pushed open the gate and started down the sidewalk.

  “She liked me,” said Roy stiffly. “I could tell.”

  “We don’t want her to like you,” said Margaret. “We want her to like Gran.”

  There was a stubborn silence behind her as they headed for the next house. Then Roy said, “How can they like her if they don’t even know her?”

  Margaret stopped and turned around. “That’s why I’m inviting them to a party,” she said. She enunciated each word carefully so he would understand how dense he was being. “To meet her.”

  “I already know that,” said Roy. “But what’s Gran going to say when they show up?”

  Looking at his calm face, she could feel all of her resolve oozing out of her. She never should have asked him to come with her. The way he was always examining things and asking questions only made her feel doubtful. And there wasn’t time for her to feel doubtful. Before she left, she was going to make sure Gran’s house was full of people, whether Gran liked it or not.

  “Fine. I’ll go by myself.” She pushed open the gate to the next house and walked toward the front door.

  Roy materialized at her side like a ghost. “You don’t have a present this time.”