Bursting Bubbles

by Dyan Sheldon

  “At least it’s not boring. Unlike, for example, raking leaves.”

  Asher pours his soda into a glass. “No, it’s not boring.” It’s a lot more like a psychiatric crisis unit than a community centre. “It’s stressful. It’s messy. And it’s exhausting. But, no, you’re right, Will, I honestly can’t say that it’s boring.”

  Will grins. “And I have to say that as awesome as I thought it was that this woman got you to stand in dirty water in your bare feet and mop up the cellar, I think it’s a hundred times more awesome that she had you unblock the toilet. I assume you wore your surgical gloves.” He tosses some more chips into his mouth. “Asher I-get-manicures Grossman! I really would pay to see that.”

  Asher jabs him with his elbow. “Lay off, will you? It was only the one time.” His father took him to a VIP party and insisted on the manicure. “And anyway, you’re not going to see it. Not in this lifetime.”

  Will pops the top on his soda with a flourish of spray. Asher never bothers offering him a glass. He’s seen Dunkin drink out of a glass more often than Will.

  “So, the multitudes still coming for the handouts?”

  “Are you kidding?” Freeloaders, his father would call them. Wanting something for nothing. “You’d need barbed wire and dogs to keep them away. We actually ran out today.” It surprised him that no one shouted or complained. Most of them just turned around and walked off with blank faces.

  “So why did you even bother going?” Will takes a slug of his drink. “You must’ve done most of your twenty hours already. Just stop. If you have a couple more hours to do, do them in April or May.”

  But here’s the weird thing. It doesn’t seem that Asher can just quit. Not even for one weekend.

  “I tried to.” He really did. At least he thinks so. “But, I don’t know, somehow it didn’t work.”

  “Somehow it didn’t work?” Will almost chokes with laughter. “What’d you do, fall through the rabbit hole or something? You’re the slick-as-oil future lawyer. You could talk a moose into shooting itself.”

  “Yeah, I’m great with moose.” Asher takes a few more chips. He chews them singly and well. “But Mrs Dunbar isn’t a moose.”

  Will grins, waggling his eyebrows. “What is she? Some hot babe? Is that why you can’t say no to her? Why as soon as she looks at you, you grab your plunger and wade into the muck? Because she makes you melt with her big blue eyes?”

  Mrs Dunbar is a femme fatale only in the sense that she might knock him over and trample him to death. What she is, as far as Asher can figure, is a force of nature. Like a tornado. Something you can’t really say no to. Not with any success.

  “Man, are you on the wrong page, you doof. Mrs Dunbar’s in her fifties, built like a black bear and married to the minister over at the Methodist church. She’s just got this way about her.”

  “What way? She carry a gun?”

  “She doesn’t need a gun.” Weak people may need to be armed, but not people like Mrs Dunbar. She would have made a great dictator. “And it’s not like she’s really bossy or anything like that. She just makes you think she’s agreeing with you and then the next thing you know you’re doing what she wants.”

  This is the literal truth. Last week, Asher kept saying he was finished for the day and was going home, and Mrs Dunbar kept saying how hard he’d worked and what a good job he’d done as if she was thanking him and telling him to go in peace, and the next thing he knew he was carrying someone’s groceries to her car. Then he tried to tell Mrs Dunbar that he wouldn’t be in this week, and she asked him why, and he heard himself saying, “Yeah, OK, I guess I can make it.” The same thing happened this week. The woman doesn’t seem to hear “no”.

  Will frowns. “Shoot, man. Does that mean you’re not going to have any free Saturdays for the rest of the year? What about the games? And our climbing? We have to get one more climb in before the snow.”

  “There’s no way I won’t be free for that stuff, dude. We’re going to do everything we always do. This time I really mean it. That woman’s not going to see me again till the spring.”

  Famous last words. Again.

  Chapter Twelve

  Marigold’s Favourite Book

  “What is all this, honey?”

  Marigold stops in the middle of the staircase, and automatically smiles. She left her mother alone for a few minutes to get something in her room, and here she is in the hall, peering into Marigold’s opened backpack. Why isn’t she still at the kitchen table, drinking coffee and watching TV?

  “Oh, nothing.” Smile solid as cement, Marigold continues her descent. “Just a couple of old picture books I’m taking to the library.”

  Her mother looks at her. “Books? You’re taking books to the library?” She’s wearing a smile, too. The happy Liottas. But she sounds as if Marigold has pulled a gun on her. “Isn’t that like taking chocolate to Nestlé?”

  “It’s just books I don’t need any more, Mom. I thought the library could use them.”

  “You mean you’re giving them to the library? You’re giving your childhood books away?”

  Marigold chooses to misunderstand. “The library won’t think it’s weird, Mom. They’re in really good condition.” There has never been any scribbling or bending down corners in this house.

  “Well, that goes without saying, honey. Of course they’re practically like new. That wasn’t what I meant. These were your books when you were a little girl. They have sentimental value.” Mrs Liotta pulls out a hardback with a blue cover. “Look! This was your favourite book. You must have read it a thousand times. Remember? Remember how you loved it?”

  The book her mother holds is The Cat in the Hat. When she was little and frightened of her parents’ arguments Marigold would get into bed with her sister if one happened at night. But if it was in the day, she would hide in her closet and read until the shouting, the sobbing and the sound of things smashing stopped. To Marigold it was like disappearing into a different – and better – world. The book in her mother’s hand is the only one she remembers reading the Christmas That Almost Never Was. The Christmas they didn’t open their presents until the evening, because her parents had such an awful fight that her father left the house and her mother went to bed. Marigold sat in her closet all afternoon, eating dry cereal and reading it over and over. Wishing the Cat in the Hat would come and rescue her and Rose.

  “Yeah, of course I remember,” says Marigold. “But I’m not a little kid any more. Now I never even look at them. They just sit on the shelf .”

  “Aw, but honey…” Her mother pulls the other two books from Marigold’s bag. “These are special. Don’t you want to read them with your own daughter some day?”

  Unexpected, unasked and definitely unwanted, a random thought flutters into Marigold’s head. If this thought were a person, it would be sullen, scowling and wearing beat-up trainers. What if she has a child like Sadie Hawkle? What then?

  “I can take her to the library and we can read them there,” says Marigold.

  “If you don’t have room for them, we could put them in with Rose’s.”

  Marigold’s sister’s room has been kept exactly as it was when she lived at home. As if she never left; as if she might be coming back.

  “They’ll still be on a shelf, Mom. What difference does it make?”

  “They’ll still be here, that’s the difference.” Eveline Liotta has a way of smiling that always makes Marigold feel as if it is she who’s the child and needs protection. “I really can’t bear the thought of you giving these away.”

  Since her mother doesn’t know that Sadie exists, Marigold, of course, can’t very well explain that this is a special case. That because Marigold loved these books so much she’s hoping that Sadie will too.

  “I know, Mom, but if some other kids whose parents can’t afford to buy them books can use them, that’s a good thing, isn’t it?”

  Not as good as Marigold thinks.

  Her mother holds the b
ooks against her chest like a shield. “It’s like giving away a piece of my heart.”

  The wrong move now could shove her mother into the very-bad-mood abyss. “Not really, Mom.” Marigold’s voice is gentle and coaxing. “They’re just some good books that deserve to be read and loved by other kids.”

  “What about this?” Eveline looks like a little girl who thinks that she’s clever enough to wangle an extra cookie. “What if I donate some money to the library so they can buy some new picture books, and we keep yours? Then everybody’s happy.”

  Marigold almost always does what her mother wants. She has certainly never done anything to cross her mother. Not on purpose. Even on that long-ago Christmas That Almost Never Was, when she and Rose were finally called downstairs to open their presents Marigold acted as if nothing had happened because it would have upset her mother if she didn’t. There is even a photograph of her, Rose and Eveline sitting in front of the tree together, as if it’s eight in the morning not eight at night, and ahead of them is a day of love and laughter – not a day of Rose going over to her friend’s and Marigold sitting in a closet eating Lucky Charms. But this time she doesn’t do what her mother wants.

  “I already promised.” She snatches the books from Eveline’s hands and jams them back in her bag. “I have to go, Mom. I don’t want to be late for school. I’ll see you later.”

  She doesn’t turn back to wave. Just in case her mother is standing in the doorway in tears.

  “Picture books?” Claudelia gives Marigold a quizzical smile. She was looking for a pen in Marigold’s bag, but found something much more interesting. “Why are you lugging picture books around?”

  “Happy endings,” says Byron. “You know what Marigold’s like.”

  Marigold ignores him. “They’re for Sadie. I thought she might think they’re more interesting than the books they have at the school.”

  “So do we have a Marigold Liotta success story here?” asks Will. “Gold spun from old shoelaces?

  Marigold laughs. “I don’t know about gold, but we may yet get a base metal of some kind. We are making progress. You know, one step at a time. That’s what counts.”

  Asher, who has been eating with one hand and tapping on his notepad with the other, looks up and smiles as if he’s about to ask the witness a trick question. “And you’re growing as a person, right?”

  “Yes,” says Marigold. “Yes, I am.” She’s never in her life lied so much, been so unbending or resorted to such devious means of getting someone to do what she wants. Which means that Sadie Hawkle is making her grow as a person – though not necessarily in the right direction.

  Georgiana is twisting her hair around one finger and looking thoughtful. “Maybe I should take one for my old bag,” says Georgiana.

  “Dr Seuss?” asks Will. “You really think that’s her speed?”

  “Oh, don’t be such a jerk,” groans Georgiana. “Obviously, I don’t mean Dr Seuss. I mean a regular book. She’d have to shut up for five minutes if I was reading to her.”

  Will raises an eyebrow. “You can read?”

  Georgiana sticks her tongue out at him.

  “I thought you said she was an angel,” says Claudelia.

  Trust Claudelia to remember that. “She is. But she’s a really chatty angel.”

  “What I find fascinating,” says Byron, “is that Georgiana’s met someone who talks more than she does.”

  “Oh God. Et tu, Byron,” moans Georgiana. Things have moved on from Mrs Kilgour ignoring her, but not in a good way. “You wouldn’t think it was so hilarious if you had to listen to her. She really never shuts up. I swear, zombies could invade St J’s and she wouldn’t notice or miss a word.”

  “And are you growing as a person?” asks Asher.

  “Oh, that’s really funny, Ash. Don’t tell me the law’s loss is going to be the world of comedy’s gain.”

  Claudelia wants to know what Mrs Kilgour talks about.

  “Are you kidding?” Georgiana looks almost affronted. “You think I don’t have anything better to do than listen to her drone on? I mean, my God, it’s like listening to static.” Thank God for the World Wide Web and the cell phone or Georgiana might have lost her mind by now. “Seriously, she’s like somebody digging around in an attic the size of the White House and constantly coming out with dusty old pieces of junk.” She makes her voice shrill and raspy, which is not how Margarita Kilgour speaks, of course, but it is how Georgiana hears her. “Oh, look at this! An earring from eighteen ninety! A picture of New York City before they put roads in! And here, here’s a bottle from the first batch of Coca-Cola ever made!”

  Will helps himself to the half a cookie Georgiana’s abandoned. “See, that is the one really good thing about plants. They’re mega low-maintenance when it comes to emotional needs.”

  Asher raises his eyes from his notepad once more. “Count yourself lucky, George. At least she doesn’t have any problems.” Asher is starting to understand that the trouble with suffering humanity is that it suffers. Pretty much constantly. “You should come to crisis headquarters if you want your head done in.”

  “What do you mean she doesn’t have problems? Of course she has problems.” Georgiana’s fork taps against the rim of her plate. “She’s old, Asher. She’s old and she’s going to die soon. I think those are problems.”

  “Just how old is she?” asks Marigold.

  Georgiana grimaces. “She’s, like, practically ninety.”

  “Oh, right,” says Marigold. But what she’s thinking is: Ninety’s better than nine.

  Marigold is genuinely excited when she shows Sadie the books.

  “These were my favourite books when I was little,” she explains. “Especially this one.” She puts The Cat in the Hat on the desk. “It always made me laugh. It still does. And if I was blue or in a bad mood or whatever, it cheered me up.”

  Sadie isn’t so sure. “It’s not in colour. Why isn’t it in colour?”

  “It is in colour.” Marigold points out the colours. “There just aren’t a lot of them.”

  Sadie isn’t sure about the rhyming, either. “Songs rhyme,” says Sadie. “Not books.”

  “But it is a little like singing,” says Marigold. “It’s really fun. I’ll read you some and you’ll see.”

  Sadie does get into the rhyme, but then she isn’t sure about the story itself. “They’re going to get in trouble,” Sadie frets. “Their mom is really gonna yell at them when she gets home. She’s gonna punish them bad.”

  Marigold glances over at her. She looks really worried. “You think so?”

  “Uh-huh.” Sadie nods, her frown as solemn as a funeral. “They’re gonna be hit. Or not get supper. Or not be allowed to watch any TV.” Her fingers rub against the edge of the desk. “Or … or something.”

  “It’s going to be OK, Sadie,” Marigold assures her. “I promise. I wouldn’t love something so much that ends sad. Let’s keep reading and see what happens.”

  It takes a while. With each new page of chaos brought on by the Cat in the Hat, Sadie wiggles in her chair and her fingers rub harder, but she keeps reading and keeps turning the pages.

  When they get to the end she falls back against her chair. “Whew,” she breathes, and laughs. A sound Marigold has never heard before. “That was close.” And then she actually smiles. “Do we have time for another one?”

  Chapter Thirteen

  A Match Not Made in Heaven

  Looking at them, Georgiana and Mrs Kilgour seem as unalike as two members of the same species and sex can be. Age, build and hair colour aside, Georgiana (who does judge books by their covers) is stylish and fashion-conscious, and Mrs Kilgour (who always reads the book before passing judgement) has never been either of those things. Georgiana would wear a silk dress and six-inch heels to go to the deli for a box of cookies and Mrs Kilgour would wear jeans and sneakers to a Park Avenue party. How they dress reflects other things about each of them, of course. Georgiana is neat, organized and conserv
ative by nature, while Mrs Kilgour, even before the years made her slower and even simple things harder to do, has always been slapdash, impetuous and anarchic. But there the dissimilarities end.

  Unfortunately, the things they have in common aren’t things that make it easier for them to get along. Both of them are argumentative. Both of them are stubborn. They are both women of strong opinions – and, of course, their strong opinions are rarely the same. Indeed, between the obstinacy, the contrariness and the attitudes, putting them in the same room has a similar effect to mixing sulphur, charcoal and potassium nitrate: step back and watch your eyes! Nothing is so trivial or insignificant that Georgiana Shiller and Margarita Kilgour can’t bicker about it. TV shows. The weather. How long it takes to drive from St Joan’s to Shell Harbour. How to peel an orange. Movies. Books. The exact shade of Georgiana’s skirt or Mrs Kilgour’s sweater. Whether Christmas is better than Thanksgiving, or tomato juice better than grape. Which of the nurses is the nicest, which the most irritating, which of them probably owns a cat. How many times it snowed last winter… If they were dogs they’d fight over bones so small that no one else could see them.