The Big Shuffle

by Laura Pedersen

  FIFTY-ONE

  AUNT LALA ARRIVES FROM LONDON ON MONDAY MORNING, ONLY this time she's planning to stay for three weeks. Her thesis on the Fourth Crusade is finally finished and daughter Marci has been shipped off to a boarding school for problem children somewhere in the English countryside. Pastor Costello stops by early each morning to help get the kids ready for school before heading over to the church. He returns in time for dinner and doesn't leave until the last child is tucked safely into bed and prayed over at night.

  The church ladies also come and go like clockwork, making sure the little ones don't make too much noise or get in Mom's hair, and that we're all eating our vegetables and changing our underwear. The kids are told that Mom needs a lot of rest if she's going to continue to get better. They assume her illness is something more akin to a cold or a stomachache. Teddy is glued to Mom's side whenever he's not in school. They watch afternoon talk shows together, page through magazines, and share this whole world that I don't belong to. It's not that I'm jealous, exactly. But the more I become aware of this intense bond between the two of them, the more it makes me feel as if I've somehow failed.

  Mom doesn't say anything about suddenly having a hundred channels on the television along with terrific reception. Perhaps she forgot that we used to live in the Stone Age of mass media. Mom also doesn't complain about the addition of a cat. I guess any creature that arrives fully housebroken is okay in her book.

  In no time at all the house is back to the way it was right after Dad died, with people coming and going, flowers and fruit baskets arriving, and Jell-O salads miraculously appearing on the kitchen counter. Did Pastor Costello place an announcement in the church bulletin? More likely all the traffic is a result of what Bernard calls, “Telephone, Television, Tell-a-Woman.”

  Quite frankly, the whole situation is just plain bizarre. I'm not sure what my place is anymore. Mom is here but she doesn't do much. When the kids have an argument, they want her to rule in their favor, but she just looks helplessly at me. Only they don't listen to me as much now that there's a court of appeals. To make matters worse, I can no longer use my best form of crowd control, which was to light a kitchen match and threaten to set them on fire.

  On Friday morning I'm in the kitchen washing out all the Tupperware containers. At one point there are at least ten different tops and bottoms, none of them matching. I hate Tupperware. And I hate this kitchen. I hurl the mismatched pieces across the room and head out the back door. It would be a good time to start smoking. I don't know what it's like to crave a cigarette, but I'm pretty sure this is how it feels.

  The minivan is blocked in by somebody else's minivan. And a Dodge Dart is behind my cabriolet. Eric took the station wagon to college when he went back after Easter. His motor-head friends are going to fix it up enough to pass inspection. Besides, with Louise gone, I'm the only one who can drive.

  To hell with everything. I dig my old bike out of the garage and ride over to the Stocktons’.

  Bernard is working on the computer while Rose, Gigi, Lillian, and Rocky play on the floor with Legos. The kids are awfully loud, and when Bernard sees me and says something, I can't hear him.

  He claps his hands at Rocky and the girls. “It's time for mime! Let's show Hallie how good we are.”

  They gleefully begin gesturing at one another and acting out everything they want to say. The room goes silent. Amazing. I can't help but wonder if it would work with my gang.

  “So do you still have a job for me?” I ask.

  “I thought you'd thrown in the trowel,” Bernard replies smugly, as if he knew this would happen. “What changed your mind?”

  “Tupperware.”

  Bernard looks intrigued.

  “I couldn't get the tops and bottoms to match.”

  “Promise you won't change your mind if I tell you that there are corresponding numbers and letters on each top and bottom so they can be easily matched up.”

  “I never want to see them again!” I say.

  “Good!” says Bernard. “Let me show you the Chinese tea garden. I hired one of the men from the nursery to get things started, just until I have time to do some work out there myself.”

  FIFTY-TWO

  BERNARD AND I STROLL DOWN THE FLAGSTONE PATH, PAST THE three main gardens, until we come to a teak pagoda, two benches, and a curved walkway leading to a small shrine. The earth has been turned so that Bernard can plant flowers and some small trees. I also notice the area originally marked off for the pool has been extended farther back. “Are you allowed to build into the woods like that?”

  “The property is finally all mine!” says Bernard. “Al helped me buy it from the town.”

  Olivia wanders into the garden looking greatly altered in appearance since I saw her two weeks ago. Her hairstyle is completely different, her makeup is a bit brighter, and I've never seen that jewelry before.

  “Ah, the roofless church of Henry David Thoreau,” she remarks while surveying the empty gardens. “He said the worst thing is to get to the end of life and find you haven't lived.”

  “Mother, I've been looking for you,” Bernard says sternly.

  Olivia more or less ignores him. “I thought that was Hallie's old bike in the driveway.” She gives me a hug. “How's your mom doing?”

  “Okay,” I say. “Aunt Lala is staying for a while and she's good company for Mom.”

  Bernard waits impatiently for us to finish. “Mother, where did Aries sleep last night?”

  “His name is Darius, as you know full well,” Olivia replies sharply.

  “Well, it's certainly not Aristotle,” says an agitated Bernard. “So where did he sleep last night?”

  “I don't know, I assume on the pullout bed in the sunroom.”

  “Then how is it that when I came down to get some juice for Gigi at three o'clock in the morning, he wasn't there?” Bernard sounds as if he's a lawyer for the prosecution.

  “Perhaps he went out for a walk,” suggests Olivia. “When I came down at seven, I saw him in there.”

  “That's what I thought the last two times,” Bernard says with great suspicion in his voice. “Only now I believe that maybe he was in your room.”

  “Maybe you drove him in there with your cold stares and constant playing of Nancy Sinatra's ‘These Boots Are Made for Walkin’.”

  Bernard's eyes appear as if they're going to pop out of his head. “Mother, the boy is half your age!”

  “Darius happens to be forty-three,” says Olivia. “He just looks very good for his age. And if you'd take the time to get to know him, you'd see how nice he is. Talented, too! Darius is a marvelous cook.”

  “A cook?” Bernard actually snorts. “He doesn't know the difference between Teflon and Tiffany.”

  “And back home he sang in the church choir,” adds Olivia.

  “So did Hitler and Stalin.”

  “That's not funny.”

  Dictators, in any context, rarely amuse Olivia.

  “Just look at you!” Bernard points an accusatory finger. “With your hair cut short and harlot's lipstick.”

  “You've been begging me to update my look for years.” She calmly adjusts the strands of hair that make up her bangs. Olivia's silvery-white hair has been cut so that it frames her face and makes her pretty blue eyes and high cheekbones stand out. She always wore lipstick, but this one is a shade darker than her usual pink. And she has on some pretty silver Paloma Picasso earrings rather than the single strand of pearls she used to wear. Otherwise, age just seems to agree with Olivia. It's as if she'd been spun from an enchanted cloth whose threads are only enhanced by the passage of time.

  “When I suggested a makeover I meant twenty-first-century-grandma chic, not the noctivagous strumpetocracy.”

  “The what?” I ask.

  “That's how Walt Whitman referred to nineteenth-century streetwalkers in Manhattan,” a bemused Olivia informs me.

  “Cut it out!” I say to Bernard. “She looks fantastic.”

&
nbsp; “She's dressed like a teenager,” says Bernard.

  With her trim figure outfitted in a pale purple short-sleeved sweater and navy slacks, Olivia does look younger.

  Olivia pretends to scrutinize a place directly behind Bernard's left shoulder, as if there's something growing there. “Go to the tower and ring the bell.”

  Bernard quickly reaches back and covers his neck with his hands. “I do not have a dowager's hump. This shirt is just puffy because my sleeves are rolled up.” He yanks down his shirtsleeves. “I don't understand what's wrong with you, Mother. Why can't you become a man-hating late-in-life lesbian? Find a nice woman your own age and we'll tell everyone it's your sister from Cambridge.”

  “I happen to like men, same as you,” says Olivia. “Besides, I'm a failure as a lesbian. The one time a woman kissed me like that I spent the whole time thinking about how I was going to remove a tea stain from the front of my new white sweater.”

  “But you're from Massachusetts,” insists Bernard. “Give it more time. She just wasn't the right one. You could take a carpentry course.”

  “Sorry, darling, but I think that gene skipped a generation. However, your uncle Danforth would be proud that you share his penchant for Flemish sculpture, Italian Baroque painters, and Baccarat Medallion candelabrum from the 1860s. Before making a big impulse purchase he used to love saying, Why not go for baroque!”

  “Yes, apparently Uncle Danforth was quite a character prior to being institutionalized for dropping trou during an auction,” offers Bernard.

  “It wasn't exhibitionism so much as an early example of performance art,” says Olivia. “The Burwood side of the family was always rather infamous for being ahead of the times.”

  “Mother, if I can't convince you to become a lesbian, then you're forcing me to tell you the brutal but honest-to-God truth. Now, I wasn't eavesdropping or anything like that….”

  Olivia and I look at each other as if to say, That will be the day!

  Ignoring our exchanged glance, Bernard continues, “But I happened to overhear a few of Darius's phone conversations. And this enfant terrible is only after what every Hellenic immigrant wants—a green card so he can open a diner.”

  “First off, do not stereotype immigrants,” states Olivia. “Half the founders of this country were themselves immigrants, or else the children of immigrants. Thomas Paine had lived in America for only two years when he wrote his famous political pamphlet Common Sense—of which you seem to possess precious little. Second, how dare you insinuate that Darius is courting my affections simply to advance his own agenda!” Olivia appears truly hurt that Bernard won't acknowledge that Darius might be in love with her for herself. “It's true that Darius wants to open a restaurant. He's a culinary artiste. But the fact of the matter is that you simply don't like having any competition around.”

  “Competition, hah!” scoffs Bernard. “The man could be in charge of a salad bar, maybe.”

  “You'll see! Darius is going to open a wonderful vegetarian restaurant serving Mediterranean-style cuisine,” insists Olivia.

  “Once he gets his rabbit-food restaurant you'll see how fast he leaves you. And after the salad palace closes he'll be running back to Greece with a gang of creditors chasing him all the way to the dock.”

  “I highly doubt that,” says Olivia. “Vegetarianism was invented in Greece. Plato was a vegetarian. Same with Aristotle, Diogenes, Socrates, and Pythagoras. Pythagoras lived to be over a hundred!”

  “And Socrates killed himself by drinking hemlock!” interjects Bernard.

  Fortunately Gil arrives in the backyard and acts as if he's been looking everywhere for Bernard. “Intervention,” Gil announces as he pulls Bernard away.

  “He's half her age!” Bernard now directs his complaints to Gil.

  “Not true,” says Gil. “Perhaps twenty years younger. Though your mother's exact age is rather an algebra problem in itself, with her birth year being the variable X.”

  “He's a disgrace!” insists Bernard. “Ottavio was age-appropriate, dignified, and respectable.”

  “And you didn't like him at first either,” Gil reminds him.

  Bernard raises his hands above his head. “I'll never understand her no matter how long I live.”

  “You don't have to—you are her.” Gil steers Bernard toward the house.

  “If you want to be young and tacky, why not go all the way and buy some fun fur!” shouts Bernard.

  Olivia turns to me and says, “Whereas some are born destined for glory and others to serve, I do believe that Bernard was born to fill the silences.”

  FIFTY-THREE

  ONCE AGAIN A NEW ROUTINE IS ESTABLISHED AND THE DAYS quickly mount into weeks. In the mornings I get the kids off to school and then race to start the laundry and do some housekeeping. Then I drop the twins at Mrs. Muldoon's and make any necessary supply runs. Now that Mom has officially identified them, I've placed the blue ribbon back around Roddy's ankle and a green one on Reggie, just to be safe.

  At about half past nine I take Lillian with me to the Stocktons’ and leave her inside to play with the girls while Bernard works on his inventory or writes the latest edition of his newsletter. Apparently it's going gangbusters and the Baron Heinrich Von Boogenhagen has been invited to speak at conferences as far away as Hong Kong.

  More often than not Bernard piles the kids in the car at around noon to check out an estate sale, because he doesn't like to be around when Olivia and Darius are having their lunch together in the dining room.

  Today I arrive at the Stocktons’ just as Darius and Olivia are leaving for an organic food market in Cleveland. Darius has thick sculpted black hair and flashing dark eyes, and he wears his starched white shirt open to reveal an extremely muscular chest. I know that Olivia has never been one to go by looks alone, but he really is godlike handsome.

  “Now do you see what I have to put up with?” Bernard hisses after they go out the front door together chatting and laughing.

  “Darius seems nice enough,” I say. “Besides, I thought he was moving to New Jersey to open a restaurant.”

  “Supposedly he's waiting for a cousin in Englewood to finalize a lease,” says Bernard. “Frankly, I don't believe a word of it.”

  I escape to the yard and inhale the deep perfume of damp earth, which has the ability to make the past and future fall away in a single moment. The sun hangs like a pink gumball above the trees, and particles of dust dance in the air beneath canopies of bright green leaves. By the time I open the doors to the shed I've never been so thrilled to see a lawn mower in my entire life.

  When afternoon comes, I run the program in reverse, shanghaiing Lillian from inside, fetching the twins from Mrs. Mul-doon, and then sorting out the other kids as they clamber off the late bus or pedal home on their bicycles. Pastor Costello picks up Francie from her hyperactive child program when he finishes his hospital rounds.

  On Friday morning after the kids have caught the bus, Mom comes into the kitchen in her robe and slippers and says, “Hal-lie, Teddy told me that Louise dropped out of school and moved to Boston. Is this true?”

  The good news is that Mom doesn't include how Louise is “living in sin.” The bad news is that the story about Louise being on a trip to look at colleges appears to have worn a bit thin. “Only in a manner of speaking,” I hedge. “Teddy was mistaken in saying dropped out. The only thing preventing Louise from taking the equivalency exam is that she has to be eighteen.”

  “I want you to call her right this minute and tell her I said to come home.”

  “Mom, it's not that simple,” I say. “She has a pretty good job and a car.”

  “Hallie,” Mom continues, “please don't think I don't appreciate how hard you've been working, but I'm still the mother and Louise is my daughter.”

  Ouch. My first solid scolding in about two years.

  I go into the other room and try to reach Louise on her cell phone. There's a lot of clanging and hollering in the background. “Ha
ng on a minute,” she shouts into the receiver.

  A door slams and there's silence. “Okay, I'm in the refrigerator.”

  “Mom insisted that I call you and tell you to come home immediately,” I say.

  “Why?” asks Louise. “Did something happen?”

  “Because she's the mother and you're the daughter.”

  “Okay,” says Louise.

  “Okay what?” I ask.

  “Okay, I'll come home.”

  What? Louise is coming home just like that. How is this possible?

  “But only if I can live in the basement,” Louise quickly adds.

  Aha! I knew it couldn't be that simple. Let the negotiations begin. “I can't imagine that Darlene will miss listening to Bone Machine by the Pixies all night long.”

  “And I want cable TV,” says Louise. But her voice is more hopeful than demanding.

  “You're in luck on that score. While the kids had chicken pox and I was sick, Bernard gave us the gift that keeps on giving cartoons twenty-four-seven. And now that Mom is supposed to rest, she's hooked on those cooking shows. All you have to do is put a TV in the basement.”

  “Okay,” says Louise.

  I suddenly realize that this was way too easy.

  “What's wrong?” I ask.

  “I'm bored out of my mind. And the customers treat you as if you're going to be a waitress forever. To them I'm just another servant.”

  “What about Brandt?”

  “Brandt is fine,” says Louise. “But he's busy with school. His scholarship gives him a job in the lab, which he loves, but sometimes he's there all night. Are you mad at me for leaving you in the lurch like that?”

  “Of course not,” I say. “Pastor Costello has been helping.”

  “Everything at home reminded me that Dad was dead,” says Louise.