Too bad Albert was such a loser, physically—the little pot belly, the thinning dull hair, the jowls that drew attention to his almost complete lack of chin. Everybody must look at him and make the comparison between Fiona's current husband and her former husband and wonder what on earth she saw in this one. It couldn't be easy to be Albert Howard.
“If you'd just let me in, I could take a little look around and bring the key back?" Phyllis suggested.
“Good idea," Fiona agreed.
“Oh, very well, I'll take you over there," Albert replied. It was just short of openly hostile. "Come along, Mrs.—uh--"
“Wagner, but you must call me Phyllis," she said, following his rather abrupt departure from the room. "I'm just sorry my son isn't with me. He's looking forward to coming back to Chicago, I think. He was raised here. You see—" Her voice stopped as a door closed. Good Lord, Jane thought, she's telling him the whole story. The woman didn't know the meaning of discretion.
Fiona started sorting boxes with Jane but seemed preoccupied. "Albert seems to be a bit out of sorts," she finally said. "It must be something about the accountant. I think, too, that he worries about anybody having to live next door to Mr. Finch, but after all, somebody has to. The township can't just level the whole block. I don't think he's half as bad as people say, do you? At least, he might not be. We had an old lady in the village where I grew up that everybody claimed was a witch, and she was really a sweet old thing when you got to know her. She just had an intimidating manner. Jane, what is this stuff?”
. "Oh, that! It was a gorgeous angel-hair angel that Suzie Williams made, but it's sort of turned into a blob with a head. Max and Meow got into it before I brought the carton over. I'll just pretend to have bought it before the sale starts so we don't have to put it out. Here's the box with the fruitcakes. Where shall we put the things with food?"
“Just out in the hallway. I'll have the maid move them to the family room, and then the yard man can take them out the back .door to store in my car until the bug people are gone.”
Jane smiled. "You know, I heard once that there are only a hundred fruitcakes in existence. Every year everyone exchanges the same hundred, and nobody knows they're the same ones."
“I can believe that. My family had a fruitcake that was an heirloom. We kept giving it to my Uncle Charles, and he kept giving it back on alternate years. I think he eventually sold it to an antique dealer," Fiona said with a giggle.
“So about these—there's no point in three people moving them. Just point me toward the family room, and we'll eliminate one stage of the process.”
Fiona gave her directions, and Jane staggered out. The family room turned out to be the most interesting—and strange—room of the house. It wasn't really a family room in the usual sense. It was more of a shrine. The walls were adorned with all Richie Divine's gold and platinum records. Jane had never seen a real gold record in her life, and she walked around the room looking at them, awed. Completely apart from their meaning, they were beautiful things in a flashy way.
There was "Red Christmas," the sappy but moving ballad about two young lovers separated by the Berlin Wall. Jane remembered hearing once that three of the biggest selling Christmas records year in and year out were Elvis's "Blue Christmas," Bing Crosby's "White Christmas," and Richie Divine's "Red Christmas." The commentator liked the irony of the three dead artists with the patriotic color scheme outselling so many of the live ones.
Next to it was the platinum disk of "Goodbye, Philly," the heartbreakingly lilting little song that was released, with terrible irony, the same week Richie died. The song had stayed on the charts for months and months afterward. It had a sort of "You Can't Go Home Again" theme, adapted to the seventies.
Katie had been an infant when that came out, and Jane always associated the song with sitting in the kitchen, listening to the radio, and waiting for the bottle sterilizer to finish boiling. That had been such a happy, peaceful time for Jane. Life had been so simple then. And yet Fiona, at the same time, was enduring the heartbreak of losing her sexy, famous husband. It was hard to believe that anyone could have been unhappy at the same time Jane was so contented.
Jane didn't remember the words to the song, but she could still hum the whole thing, and she did so as she continued her tour of the room. There were platinum records for "Do I, Do I Ever,”
“Some of These Nights,”
“Everything I Am," and at least a dozen more. Jane stopped in front of "Loving Loving You," and came close to blushing. Steve had bought her that record the day they came back from their honeymoon.
On a shelf that ran along the north wall there were ranks of other awards and framed pictures. Richie with Bob Hope in fatigues entertaining troops someplace. Richie with President Nixon. Richie with a frumpy middle-aged couple who must have been his parents. Richie with a couple astronauts and another of him in a silly mock embrace with Elizabeth Taylor. There were three shots of Richie receiving awards and four stills from the one movie he'd made. A big color poster advertising the movie hung in the center.
At the end of the wall, almost lost in the shadows of the corner were two charming photos. One was a strip of four pictures taken in a drugstore booth. Richie and a very young, pretty Fiona. In the top shot, he was making a face, and she was looking at him with shy amusement. In the second, he was nuzzling her neck, and she was looking mortified. The third was a serious face-forward shot of both, and in the last they were kissing primly. How sad it must make her to see that now: Richie, his youth preserved by death, and Fiona growing steadily older. She already looked old enough to be the mother of the boy in that shot. Why did she keep that reminder of what she'd lost?
The other photo at the end of the shelf was a shot of what must have been a high school band lined up on the school steps. Someone had circled a boy at the end wearing an oversized hat and holding a big drum. His face shadowed, you'd never recognize him, but that must have been Richie. Jane studied the picture, feeling she'd seen it before—the cheerleaders with their pompoms kneeling in the front, the band director standing at the side, the kids squinting into the sun, the boy on the back row holding two fingers up behind the head of a girl in front of him. Every high school band picture in the world must look just like that.
Jane had lost all track of what she was supposed to be doing and was brought back to reality with a start when Phyllis's voice broke in on her thoughts. "Jane, where are you? Have you seen that house? It's darling. Just darling! I'm sure Bobby is going to love it.”
Jane hurried out of the room, afraid Phyllis would find her there and gush over the Richie Divine memorabilia. She wasn't sure why she didn't want Phyllis to see that room, but she didn't. She felt so sorry for Albert having to share his house with his extraordinary marital predecessor. Of course, Albert was presumably living on the spoils of his predecessor's talent, so apparently it didn't bother him.
The rest of them, including Albert, had gathered in the sunny breakfast room. Whatever had irked him must have passed, because he was sitting at the table, looking utterly relaxed.
“It has this sweet little porch off the main bedroom with a little railing. Wonderful for sunbathing," Phyllis gushed.
“She nearly toppled off, admiring the view," Albert added.
“Could I use your phone to call and make arrangements?" Phyllis asked.
“Certainly, but what kind of arrangements?" Fiona asked, setting a tea kettle on the stove.
“To buy it," Phyllis said. "Would you write down the address and the name and number of the man who's selling it?"
“Yes, of course. But don't you think you're acting just a little precipitously?" Fiona asked. "I probably am," Phyllis agreed cheerfully, taking the business card Fiona had handed to her. She went to the phone.
“Did Albert tell you about Mr. Finch?" Fiona asked, apparently overcome with an urge to be fair.
“He mentioned him, yes. But he just sounds like an unhappy old soul to me. I'm sure I'll get along
with him just fine." Without another word, she dialed and said, "Mr. Whitman, please, George? Phyllis Wagner here. Yes, lovely trip. George? I've found the most adorable house I want to buy. Would you contact this man—" She gave the information and waited impatiently while he wrote it down.
“Now, it's vacant, and I'd like to get in immediately. Tonight? Why not? What's a closing? Oh, I see. Then ask him if I can just rent it until then. And George, it's quite empty now. Could you please send a decorator over this afternoon with a few things—beds, linens, kitchen things, towels, you know—so I can move in tonight? Yes, I know you will, George.”
Jane listened to this with fascination. Could you just buy a house and move in six hours later without even knowing what a closing was? She'd never heard of such a thing. And she heard it now with mixed feelings. On the one hand, it was wonderful to think she might not have to harbor Bobby under her roof for a single night. Too good to be true. On the other hand, it installed Bobby and Phyllis in her own neighborhood on a more or less permanent basis. Besides her own concerns with this possibility, she hated to do that to Fiona. She was a nice ladywho didn't really deserve to get stuck with Bobby as a next-door neighbor.
But Fiona had started it by mentioning the vacant house, Jane told herself. It was really her own fault, and who could tell—maybe they'd all get along great. She glanced at the Howards. Fiona was looking gracious and English and seemed to be drifting gently from slight worry to puzzlement and back. Albert, however, was gazing out at the frozen garden, stirring his tea and humming to himself. Phyllis, temporarily restored to her usual cheerfulness, had the phone receiver pressed to her ear and was gabbing away at her Mr. Whitman about the house.
Jane mentally shrugged. Whatever happens, it won't have anything to do with me, she thought.
She was seriously mistaken.
Nine
On the drive back home, Jane mentally pre pared herself for the ordeal of helping Phyllis get her new home ready. To her astonishment, Phyllis didn't seem inclined to do anything nor, as it turned out, did she need to. During the afternoon there were two calls from a man who politely introduced himself as Mr. Whitman of Wagner Enterprises asking for Mrs. Wagner. The first time, Jane slipped out of the room to throw in a load of wash. The conversation was over when she came back up, and Phyllis made no reference to it. The second time, Phyllis took down a couple of phone numbers, thanked Mr. Whitman, said yes, she usually did prefer yellow to blue, then hung up.
Jane had the uneasy sense that someplace people were having nervous breakdowns and tearing their hair out in a desperate effort to please Phyllis, who was blissfully working on knitting a crimson sweater for Bobby.
“I heard once that Queen Victoria could sit down anytime she wanted without looking back to see if there was a chair behind her,” Jane said as she dragged out her own afghan to attack.
“How odd. Didn't she ever fall down on the floor?"
“No. That's the point. There were people around her whose job it was to anticipate her every wish and be ready for it."
“What a strange way that would be to live," Phyllis said. "Whatever made you think of it?”
Jane stared at her for a moment, wondering madly whether she could possibly fail to see the parallel. Apparently she could, and did. "I don't know. It just ran through my mind. Phyllis, do you really think you're doing the right thing to buy that house without even considering it or talking it over with Chet?"
“Oh, but I have considered it, Jane. You see, I don't believe it's over between Chet and me, but I might be wrong. I came here meaning to stay as long as necessary. Her chin was trembling again, but she plowed on. "And if I'm right and he wants me back, having my own home will show him that I'm coming back out of choice, not because I don't have anywhere to go or know how to take care of myself. If we can reconcile, it will be better if I have this house. And if we can't—or it takes a while for him to come to his senses, I'll have a home.”
In a weird way, she was making sense. Except that her self-reliance so far had consisted of calling an employee of Chet's and asking him to make all her arrangements. "But Phyllis, why here?"
“Because Chicago is where I feel at home.”
“Don't you like living on the island?" Phyllis put down her knitting, picked up a corner of the afghan Jane was working on, and looked it over as she spoke. "I never thought about it. I guess I didn't like it or dislike it. It was just where we lived. As long as I was with Chet I would have been content at the North Pole. Where you live really doesn't make the least difference, you know. It's what you are that matters.”
Jane—who had grown up as a State Department brat and had lived such diverse places as Saudi Arabia, Washington, D.C., England, Brazil, and Norway—disagreed utterly but realized it would be pointless to argue that point. She supposed if you discounted climate, wildlife, geography, religion, politics, and local customs, all places were pretty much the same. You had to have Phyllis's mentality to fail to notice such differences, however.
Jane couldn't let herself get distracted from the subject at hand. "What I meant was, don't you think you'd stand a better chance of patching things up with Chet if you stayed on the island instead of so far away?"
“I don't think so. He'll miss me a bit, and the farther away I am, the more he'll miss me. At least I hope so. And he can always just resell this house I've bought.”
Jane suddenly realized she was applying her own standards to the wrong person. Buying a house was a once-in-a-lifetime event to her. To people with the money and staff the Wagners had, it was no more significant than checking into a motel. A temporary thing.
“I've got to pick the kids up in a few minutes," she told Phyllis, resolved not to worry about the disparity between their financial statuses anymore. "You're welcome to ride along, but you'd have to be crazy to volunteer. This close to Christmas they're so hyped up it's like riding in a car with a herd of frenzied gazelles."
“Thanks, no," Phyllis said with a laugh. Then she became instantly serious. "Jane, I so wish I'd had what you have."
“What on earth is that?"
“Oh, driving children to school. That sort of thing. I missed all of Bobby's growing up. I wish I could have picked him and his little friends up from school.”
It was more than Jane could stand.
“Phyllis, that's the sappiest thing I've ever heard! You have no idea what you're saying. The school parking lot is the deadliest place in the world. There's always one pea-brained woman who parks blocking the drive and goes off and leaves her car. And then there's usually at least two boys who walk past the line of cars running their hands—and sometimes a sharp object—along the sides of the car. No matter how carefully you investigate the children, you end up with one in every car pool who's never ready in time—"
“Investigate the children?"
“Oh, sure. Getting into a car pool is like applying for high-level government security clearance, except it's done more subtly. From preschool on, each child and his driving parent are accumulating a performance record. Before you allow a new person in the car pool you have to know all about their past. Does the mother take her fair share of driving without whining? Can the kid be controlled in the car?
Do they live on a street that has good snow removal in the winter? With older kids, you have to take into consideration such things as whether a girl is given to wearing too much perfume—that can be deadly in a closed car—or whether the kid plays a very large band instrument. That's what counts against me, and I know it. Even when you check all that out, once a week somebody goes home with someone else without bothering to pass word along to that day's driver, and you have to comb the school building for them. They leave their books, their mittens, and their half-chewed bubble gum in the backseat. Occasionally they throw up their breakfast on the way to school. One of my girls last year managed to get her hair tangled up in the door handle, and I had to cut her loose. Her mother was furious and sent me a bill from the hairdresser for fixing
up the damage.”
Phyllis was laughing and wiping tears from her eyes. "Aren't there any good things about driving the children ?"
“Oh, yes. There's one. When a woman has her hands on the wheel of a moving car, she's perceived as part of the mechanism. She ceases to be a mother, or even a human being with ears. The kids will say anything. Things they'd sooner die than tell you, they'll talk about endlessly in a moving car. It's the only way I have any idea what my children are up to. Phyllis, I've got to get going. Help yourself to anything you want if you're hungry. I'm fixing spaghetti for dinner. You aren't allergic or anything, are you?"
“Not to anything and I love spaghetti. Say,Jane—George Whitman said Chet's son John has been trying to get hold of me. Something about the business, I think. Not that I know anything about it. But would you mind if I invited him to come over here to talk to me? Not for dinner, of course—"
“I wouldn't mind a bit," Jane said mendaciously. Just so long as he doesn't bring along a volleyball, she was tempted to add. "There are some cookies in that jar you can give him. I'll only be forty minutes or so.”
Shelley was just coming in her driveway as Jane got ready to go. Jane went over to Shelley's car window. "Is there anything I can do to make up to you for this morning? Kiss your feet? Give you my firstborn?"
“You give me one more kid and I will get even. After I lined the little darlings up to be weighed, I had to be the reading lady for the third graders. The usual volunteer was sick. Sick, my eye! The canny bitch was just smarter than me. They were climbing me like a jungle gym. Why don't they all have nervous breakdowns before Christmas? More to the point, why don't we? Think it over, Jane. It's not a bad idea. We could stage some sort of seizure in the front yard. Foam at the mouth and chew sticks. They'd take us off to a nice sanitarium where somebody else has to wrap the gifts and stuff the clammy turkey and get hives taking the vile tree down when it's over.”
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