The Big Shuffle

by Laura Pedersen

  FORTY-EIGHT

  WHEN BERNARD ARRIVES WITH LILLIAN, HE TAKES ONE LOOK AT me and says, “Your aura suggests that you've recently been tossed about in a hurricane.”

  “Craig and I had a fight,” I explain. “He dropped out of school. But it really wasn't about that so much as making money, I guess.”

  “That great lady of letters Edith Wharton said that the only way not to think about money is to have a great deal of it,” says Bernard.

  “We're just so broke right now that it's scary,” I explain. “This morning I was seriously looking at a job in the paper to be a lunch lady. There aren't many careers that only need you between ten in the morning and three in the afternoon.”

  “I know one!” says Bernard. “I thought I'd be able to tend the yard by hiring June to mind the shop. But with keeping up my Web site, the newsletter, and being a stay-at-home dad, it's just too much. The girls are starting dance class. The Girl Scouts come every Thursday. Gil is working these incredibly long hours and all day on Saturday.”

  “I don't think so,” I say. “Mrs. Muldoon loves baby-sitting the twins, but I can't turn her into an indentured servant.”

  “Twenty dollars an hour; make your own schedule,” says Bernard. “And lunch. You're thinner than an Amish phone book.”

  “Believe me, I'd love nothing more.” I glance at the scattered building blocks on the floor, the dirty dishes in the sink, and the lineup of unfinished science projects on the kitchen table. “But Mom is supposed to come home on Friday, and the doctor said that she needs a lot of rest.”

  Lillian comes screeching past, chasing after the kitten. I look at Bernard as if to say, I rest my case.

  “Oh, I almost forgot.” Bernard reaches into his pocket and hands me an envelope. “Ta-da! It's the first copy of my newsletter, where I discuss everything that's currently hot in the antiques market and the next big trends in art and decorating.”

  “Baron Heinrich Von Boogenhagen, art expert extraordinaire from Lichtenburg.” I read the biography aloud. “Who is that?”

  “My nom de plume,” says Bernard.

  “And where is Lichtenburg?”

  “Don't you remember ? It's the fictional country where Ethel Merman was appointed ambassador in Call Me Madam.”

  “Won't people know it's a fake place?”

  Bernard waves a dismissive hand. “Americans are useless at geography. The only time they learn the whereabouts of a country is when our government decides to bomb it.”

  “Now you sound just like Olivia,” I say. “Why not write under your own name?”

  “Who would listen to Bernard Stockton from Cosgrove County?”

  “People are always asking you to give lectures about antiques and other dealers constantly call to find out how to price stuff.”

  “Exactly! Everyone will assume I'm promoting my own wares, or favoring one dealer over another with a positive mention.”

  “So now you can promote your stuff under someone else's name.” I have to laugh. Bernard is almost always working an angle. And it usually doesn't involve a cut for the United Way.

  “Don't be such a cynic,” Bernard scolds. “Baron Von Boogenhagen has a completely legitimate, though somewhat distant claim to the Austrian throne.”

  “But there isn't really a Baron Von Boogenhagen, right?” I ask. “It's you.”

  “I prefer to think of it the way the editor of the New York Sun explained Santa Claus to Virginia—that he exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist.” Bernard clutches his hands to his heart and gives an emotional performance for the appliances, as if they're his imaginary audience.

  I clap because the stove and refrigerator are limited when it comes to their ability to express appreciation. “Once again, you've managed to raise art to a whole new level.”

  “The word artifice, after all, begins with art,” says Bernard. “But more important, my dream of royalty has finally been realized, if only on the Internet!” He bows deeply to the sink and the dishwasher.

  FORTY-NINE

  IT'S A WARM, SUNNY EVENING AND THE KIDS ARE EXHAUSTED FROM playing outside until dark, so they fall into bed without my having to take them down like calves at a rodeo. Pastor Costello called to say he's staying late at church to lead a Bible study group. Better him than me.

  This leaves plenty of time to lie on the couch eating chocolate ice cream out of the carton and dwell on how I've ruined my life. It's not as if I had elaborate fantasies about marrying Craig, but I can't honestly say that it never crossed my mind as a possibility for the future, after we'd both finished school and started working at real jobs.

  The back door opens and I hear a commotion in the kitchen. Only it's not kids or church ladies but deep male voices and the heavy clunky steps of size-twelve boots.

  “Who do you have to know to get a game going around here?” comes a shout.

  It's Al's voice.

  “The children are sleeping,” Pastor Costello shushes him.

  Dashing into the kitchen, I find Herb, Al, Officer Rich, Pastor Costello, and Bernard all removing their jackets.

  “Surprise!” Bernard says as he unloads two shopping bags full of snacks.

  “Hey, Poker Face,” Herb calls to me.

  “The mountain has come to Muhammad,” says Pastor Costello.

  “That's so sweet of you guys,” I say.

  “Spare me the group hug,” says Herb.

  “This kitchen table is perfect,” declares Officer Rich as he sits down at the head of the long wooden table in the big chair that was my dad's. Granted, it's safe to say that the other seats wouldn't hold his ample girth.

  “Gather round, ye brave knights of the green table,” calls out Bernard.

  “No set, no bet.” Al makes himself at home in the middle and organizes the chips.

  Herb glares at Al because he despises stupid poker expressions. “Lose the patter, will you?”

  “Kiss my ace,” retorts Al.

  “Some Bible study,” I say to Pastor Costello.

  “The family that plays together stays together.” He pulls two decks of cards out of his pockets and tosses them in my direction.

  Officer Rich opens a bag of potato chips and the tangy smell of vinegar fills the room. “It's not candy and sugar that's my downfall,” says Officer Rich as he inhales deeply, “but salt and grease.”

  Within minutes the kitchen has been transformed into our old poker stomping grounds, with cards being dealt and chips sliding in and out of the pot. Only Al isn't allowed to smoke inside, and so every half hour he sits out a hand and heads to the backyard.

  “For some reason having a poker game in my kitchen is making me feel old,” I say to no one in particular.

  “Old!” barks Herb. “When I was a kid, playing cards were carved out of granite.”

  Bernard chimes in, “What I miss about the old days is that you could tell someone you'd been trying to phone them for weeks, when you really weren't at all!”

  Officer Rich tells us a story about a woman who locked her keys in her car at the supermarket and then got stuck in the back window trying to crawl through to retrieve them from the ignition. To pry her loose he'd needed to place one arm around her chest and the other across her butt.

  Pastor Costello takes us by surprise when he manages to top Officer Rich by recounting a wedding he was supposed to perform on a ship. As everyone was boarding, the mother of the bride slipped on the gangway and fell into the lake. The woman's husband jumped in after her, but he had a history of heart problems and so the bride jumped in to save them, only to be promptly dragged under by the weight of all her finery. The groom went in after her. Then the captain dove in, but he was corpulent and almost seventy. A sailor jumped in and eventually the entire wedding party was pulled out at various points along the shore.

  “Did they still get married?” I ask.

  “Oh yes!” says Pastor Costello. “Though not on the ship. We went back to the hotel so they could change and ha
d the ceremony there. If it's meant to be, then it's meant to be.”

  “I'm not sure I agree with that,” pipes Bernard. He complains about having trouble closing on the land he needs for his new pool due to zoning problems.

  Al suggests they meet at the town hall and look at the deeds and property maps together since sometimes there's a loophole.

  “Al is very creative when it comes to resource management,” says Pastor Costello. It's a well-known fact that somehow Al manages to borrow the town's only fire truck for the church picnic every year and raises a thousand dollars by auctioning off rides to kids (and dads).

  Al tosses a bunch of chips into the pot, but it's a bad throw and they land between Herb and Pastor Costello.

  “Hey!” barks Herb. “Quit splashing the pot, dammit!” He quickly follows with “Sorry, Father” for the curse word.

  Herb firmly believes that anything done to upset the equilibrium of the game might adversely affect the hand he's about to be dealt.

  I complain about the high cost of all the stuff the kids need for school and how I feel like a bus driver with so many of their activities happening in different places. “On top of everything, there's a horrible smell coming from the corner of the backyard. When I called the plumber this afternoon he said ‘uh-oh’ in a very ominous way.”

  Only the guys just laugh at me.

  “Yeah, uh-oh for you and five hundred dollars for him,” says Al.

  “I think I preferred it when you were a juvenile delinquent, rather than a homeowner with a failing septic tank,” says Officer Rich.

  “Yeah,” says Herb. “Now you sound just like my wife. And the whole reason I come to poker is to escape all that for a few hours.”

  By midnight I've won a few hands worth a total of sixty dollars, but with each deal I'm feeling increasingly drowsy. At one point Al sneaks out for a cigarette while Herb goes to the bathroom, and I put my head down on my arms for a moment.

  The next thing I know Officer Rich is covering me on the couch. Sounds of running water come from the kitchen. Waking slightly, I ask him, “Is the game over?”

  “It is for you,” says Officer Rich.

  “I'm awake,” I reply sleepily.

  “Best to quit while you're ahead,” says Officer Rich. “Just be sure to snag your winnings from Pastor Costello before the mail goes out tomorrow, or you might find they've been donated to that school he helped build in Cambodia.”

  FIFTY

  ON THE DAY THAT MOM IS SUPPOSED TO COME HOME TEDDY PRETENDS to be sick so that he can be here when she arrives.

  “If you're really sick, then you'll have to stay in your room all day and night. We can't risk giving Mom the flu on her first day out of the hospital,” I respond with a straight face. Before he can answer I quickly throw in my insurance policy. “And I'm sure Mom will agree.”

  Off goes Teddy, shoulders sagging and feet dragging, but nonetheless in a schoolwardly direction. The last thing I need is Dr. Dick harassing me today, just when we may finally be getting sorted out.

  Dalewood is sending Mom home in their special ramp-equipped van. I can't decide whether this is because they take responsibility right up until the patient is back in her own bed or, more likely, they're coming to do a home inspection. In case it's the latter I spend the morning dusting and vacuuming, putting clean sheets on all the beds, and arranging a vase full of daisies on Mom's dresser. I also make certain that the condoms left over from my short-lived reunion with Craig are no longer in her night-table drawer. Yes, he had been the first. And from the way things are going, probably the last.

  I'm not sure what to expect. I haven't seen Mom in such a long time. Teddy claims that she now talks and responds to questions, though she doesn't laugh much and becomes tired easily. My biggest fear is that the first thing she's going to do is ask about Louise. Bernard suggested saying that we'd lost Louise to long distance, the way Amanda Wingfield describes her husband's departure in Tennessee Williams's play The Glass Menagerie. I've decided to go with the more mundane excuse that she's visiting Brandt in Boston and looking at a few colleges around there.

  Last but not least, I sit Lillian down (on the toilet) for a heart-to-heart. “If you'll be a big girl and use the potty all the time from now on, Mommy said she'd come home right away.”

  Lillian eagerly agrees, so we trade in her pull-ups for “big girl” cotton panties.

  Mom enters the house escorted by Dr. Lewis, her regular physician at Dalewood. She's a slightly older version of herself. Not dramatically changed, or even particularly tired-looking. Certainly her figure is as slim as ever—Mom loses baby weight in about eight minutes. Maybe there's a little sadness to her eyes, but she's smiling while surveying her new surroundings, or rather her old ones. I decide I'll have to settle for Cappy's description of an ordinarily good gambler who's just experienced a streak of bad luck—Mom looks like she's had a pretty tough paper route.

  “Welcome home,” I say. My first instinct is to take her coat and offer to make some tea, as if she's a guest.

  Mom gives me a long hug and then takes a good look around the living room. “It's nice to be home,” she finally says. “It doesn't appear that anything has changed.”

  Are you kidding me? Everything has changed, I want to tell her. But this doesn't seem like a good first conversation, so I return to my initial plan of offering everybody tea and coffee.

  Mom leads the van driver upstairs to show him where to put her suitcase while Dr. Lewis takes me into the kitchen so we can speak privately.

  “Your mother needs peace and quiet,” explains the doctor. “I can't emphasize that enough.”

  It's a good thing the kids aren't home from school yet; otherwise, he'd certainly march Mom right back into the van and it'd be the last we'd ever see of her. I'm going to have to put them down like a prison riot—no shouting, no horsing around, and no talking back. It'd be nice to threaten them with a loss of privileges, but at this point in the budget they don't really have any. And grounding will just mean having them inside when I want them expending all of their excess energy outside.

  “I've left your mom's medication on the counter,” continues Dr. Lewis. “It will probably have to be changed in six months. Or she may no longer need anything. You never know.”

  Huh? This is a doctor talking. Aren't they supposed to know?

  “Why is that?” I ask. While I was sick I'd watched a television news show that said you're supposed to ask doctors lots of questions so they know you're paying attention.

  “This type of depression seems more circumstantial rather than a permanent chemical condition.”

  Oh gosh. No pressure there.

  Pastor Costello comes through the back door huffing. “Sorry I'm late.”

  “Late for what?” I ask.

  “The van is out front,” he says. “Your mom is home!”

  “Well, yeah,” I say. “Only you haven't exactly missed anything. She just went upstairs to her bedroom.”

  From the way Pastor Costello and Dr. Lewis exchange a few remarks, I can tell this isn't the first time they've spoken to each other.

  There's a knock at the front door, and from the kitchen I yell, “Come in!”

  Dr. Lewis looks at me as if this is exactly the kind of noise we don't need.

  Whoops. “Sorry,” I say. It's going to be a challenge for all of us to reduce the energy level in the dynamic Palmer household, self included.

  It's three of the church ladies. They quickly head for the upstairs bedroom like hunting dogs that know where the bones are buried.

  I don't seem to be needed and decide it's as good a time as any to pick up the twins. Mrs. Muldoon has a four o'clock podiatrist appointment to have her toenails cut. It's kind of scary how we've become so well informed about the intimate details of each other's private lives.

  When I return with the boys, Mom is sitting in the living room with Pastor Costello and the church ladies. It looks like a little tea party. Everyone has a steaming
cup nearby, and there's a plate of dainty cookies on the coffee table that definitely didn't emerge from any of our kitchen cupboards. Unless they were hidden behind the Sunny Doodles.

  Mom's face lights up when she sees the twins and she stretches out her arms. I realize that I can't hand them both to her at once, but the church ladies are two steps ahead of me and they each take a child and sit next to her on the couch so she can coo over both without exerting herself.

  I'm careful to refer to each one as “he” or both boys together as “they.”

  “They certainly are growing,” I say.

  “Look, Roddy is reaching out to me with his left hand,” says my mother. “I wonder if we have our first lefty in the family.”

  Pastor Costello and I exchange surprised glances. Can she really tell them apart? Or is it the antipsychotics talking?

  “My father was left-handed,” says Mom. “Though he always referred to himself as southpaw.”

  “You can tell them apart?” I ask in as casual a tone as possible.

  “Of course!” says my mother.

  “Okay, but how?” They still look like clones to me.

  Mom glances from one to the other and says, “I just can.”

  “A mother always knows her own children,” offers the church lady on the right.

  The back door flies open and the onslaught begins. Pastor Costello speed-walks to the kitchen to head off the mob, I take the twins, and the church ladies escort Mom up to her bedroom. It's been decided that the children will visit one at a time after they've had a snack and settled down.

  Teddy breaks through the barricade and gives Mom a huge hug and kiss, the kind of greeting I should have given her, instead of a light peck on the cheek.

  The rest of the afternoon and evening is spent keeping the kids at low volume. I let them watch the Cartoon Network or whatever else they want, just so long as there aren't any broken bones, broken furniture, or breaking of the sound barrier. My goal is to allow just enough activity to disguise the fact that Louise is gone. I had the feeling that, when Dr. Lewis said Mom is to avoid stress at all costs, discovering that Louise dropped out of high school and moved in with her boyfriend just might fall into that category.