by Lisa Samson
Father Charlie veered out of the vestment room. “ ‘Better be ready ’bout a half past eight!’ ”
Oh my stars, as Mother would say! I suddenly found myself the organist for a circus! Right there at St. Dominic’s. Oh my utter stars!
And then Prisma ran out of the ladies’ rest room.
And then Marsha jiggled back up the aisle.
And they all swayed to the “Darktown Strutters’ Ball,” and for the first time in years I laughed so hard I could hardly play for the tears that squeezed out of a heart battered by a sudden abandon.
Leslie
“NEWLY?”
“Hello, Mother.”
“You didn’t have a date at all.”
He chuckled. “It was Flannery; you found me out.”
“Did you have a good time?”
“Of course. She’s delightful. This family doesn’t deserve that child.”
“Isn’t that the truth? She provides the only common ground we have. Now why is that?”
“I don’t know, Mother. I think it must be genetics. You and Father were certainly perfect parents.”
“Stop fooling around, Newly. Anyway, there is another reason I’m calling.”
“And that is?”
“I was wondering if we might get together for lunch this week. Nothing huge. Just a shared lunch break near your building.”
He hesitated.
Oh, Lord, let him say yes.
“How about Wednesday, Mother?”
“All right. You pick the place.”
“Fine. I’ll meet you in the lobby of my building.”
“Noon?”
“Yes, Mother. Noon will be fine. Good night.”
Click. Clickity. Click.
He gave me no chance to say good-bye.
I hung up my bedroom phone and slid between the sheets. This bed has supported me for years and years. I loved my life for so long. My dependable life, free of worries over money, thanks to Charles, and household issues, thanks to Prisma. Despite my world of charities and card clubs, the country club for drinks and dinner, the stables, I’m finding that I miss so much these days, cloistered with the same boring, sheltered people year after year. Especially since Charles died. Talk about a comfort zone!
And how much time remains to start living again, really living? I don’t know. I just don’t feel good anymore.
PRISMA
“OH, LORD, I CAN SEE MORE TROUBLE.”
I pulled my quilt up to my chin. I didn’t even feel like looking at the stars tonight.
No normal conversation with the Lord. I just talked to Him because sometimes He’s quiet and simply listens and I’m too upset to go filling in His half of the conversation. But my heart ached for Lark.
He was up to something, that much was certain. I watched Lark closely all those years she examined her family as though shyly peering through bangs needing a good trim. And nothing ever changed. Yes, Lark asked Jesus into her heart, but He wants more from her now, I do believe. Nobody should be a babe in Christ for a decade. “Give her a deeper purpose, Jesus. Draw her in more intimately.”
Although who am I to judge how intimate she is with her Savior?
Still, witnessing her having a good time at church did my heart good.
Maybe something there at St. Dominic’s is the answer.
Maybe not.
But my sweet Lark cannot go on like this forever. To spread her wings again and really learn to fly, she needs a good plunge into the depths. She needs to get dirty and dusty and full of God’s earth.
Flannery
I’VE ALWAYS WANTED TO BE LIKE PRISMA.
Prisma hauled me to church when I was growing up before Mom’s faith blossomed, and sometimes on Sunday morning I still go with her down to Word of Faith Christian Center. There’s more to the church’s title, but I can never remember the rest. Me and Prisma are “standin’ on the promises.”
Not that Prisma is perfect. Mom told me how she had to hide her Easter and Halloween candy when she was a kid, or Prisma would eat it all up. She couldn’t help herself, and I guess all that candy and cake and pie has gone a long way in making her sweet all the way to the bone. It really gets Grandy’s goat that Prisma can eat all that stuff and have a subbasement cholesterol level, and Grandy eats dry toast for breakfast, clear broth for lunch, and small portions at dinner to stay a size six and keep her cholesterol from heavenly heights.
But it’s like this, I think. More problems can come from starving yourself like Grandy does. At least that’s what I think.
“Sweet Pea, Sweet Pea. Just wait until you get old like me,” she says. “I ate all sorts of fatty things at your age and when I hit the age of forty-five, I started to balloon.”
That did not encourage me, let me just say! And I’m not sure I believe her entirely either. Did balloon mean going from a size four to a size six?
Some calendars for next year came into B&N today, and I got a cool idea, so I called Prisma on my break and asked her if she could front me some money to buy a new camera since my old one was destroyed in the fire, and all I’ve got presently is one of those disposable wedding cameras. She said yes but wanted to know why, so I told her I was going to shoot pictures of the lighthouses on the Chesapeake and maybe even drive down to the Outer Banks. I want to start a new series of paintings about God. I’m always doing paintings about God, but people don’t know that’s what they’re about, but God does, so that’s all that matters to me. So anyway, Prisma’s smile could be heard over the phone, and she said, “Baby Girl, I’ll front you the money but only if you take me along on your shoots whenever it’s possible.” And so I said yes, and so we’re going out on our first shoot tomorrow evening, down to the Inner Harbor to the old Hooper’s Island Strait Lighthouse on display down there. We’re going to shoot it at sunset with the harbor lights in the background.
Afterward, I know me and Prisma will head over to Little Italy for some ravioli at Chipparelli’s.
July
Flannery
I CAN’T BELIEVE I AM DOING THIS! SPYING!
Just call me Flannery Bond or something stupid like that.
It’s a beautiful Fourth of July evening, though, despite the day I had at work today.
Okay, so some of the grossest guys come into Starbucks. This one guy came in today as I was arranging travel mugs on the merchandise shelves, and he was pure yuck! Had at least ten earrings. And an eyebrow ring. No nose ring or lip ring or tongue ring, because I asked him when he started flirting with me as he waited for his triple Red Eye. I said, “You got a tongue ring, too? What’s with this piercing stuff anyway? I mean two or three, okay. But I’ll bet you’ve lost count.”
He said, “No, I don’t have a tongue ring!” Really snottylike.
And I said, “Prove it.” But he just walked away, which was fine with me, because like I said, the guy was a total yuck, and let’s face it, tongues are just gross, no matter whose tongue it is, so why adorn it with anything? Whoever did that French kissing scene in Top Gun sure missed the boat. Talk about nauseating. Saved my virtue in high school, though, let me tell you, so I guess I should thank the guy!
It’s funny with guys. It seems the lower their drawers ride, the less I want to get to know them. Gag. The yuck guy, I have to say, however, did have normal jeans on, although he was wearing a Tommy Hilfiger jacket with the big flag on it, which is a definite point against him. There’s no way I’d pay that much money to do someone else’s advertising.
Anyway. Grandy refused to go over to Luskin’s with us to watch the fireworks as usual, said she had a headache and didn’t want to hear “those skull-cracking fireworks exploding like World War I. Not that I’d remember.”
So Prisma and Asil in his white shoes grabbed the webbed lawn chairs Asil had hosed clean and went on out there. Mom said she wanted to watch the fireworks on PBS, and after the day I had at work, I shook my head and said, “Well, knock yourself out!”
Sometimes it’s not worth it.
And I said, “All right!”
So I’m taking my car and following Grandy out to the valley.
I pull behind some shed thingy (I’m not a horsy person, so don’t expect any real horse-farm type terms here), put on a cowgirl hat, and watch her as she walks into the barn.
And there is my answer!
And it is a man!
Woo-hoo!
Somebody yells, “See ya next week, Jake!”
He gives one of those two-fingers-off-the-brim-of-the-hat-Robert-Redford salutes.
Grandy is actually blushing around that man Jake. My grandmother infatuated with a man named Jake! I never would have thought it in a million years. Although she’d say, “My dear Sweet Pea, must I remind you about John Jacob Astor? Jacob is a perfectly socially acceptable name.” To which I would hurl back her own words she’s hurled at me many times and I’d say, “That is twaddle and you know it!”
She’s laughing and looking incredibly young.
Wow, what a beauty. Even in her condition.
Which makes me sad to watch her flirt with this man because I’m guessing she’s a walking time bomb with this heart stuff she’s downplaying. Oh yeah. If Grandy says it’s a little thing, you can take it to the bank that it’s humongous.
She was sort of cryptic about the doctor appointment she had yesterday. “Nothing to worry about, sweetheart. Just a routine checkup.”
“Yeah, with a cardiologist!”
“At my age, a woman can’t be too careful, you know.”
And then she pulled out a magazine from the rack by her floral television chair in the den, flipped open to an article titled “Yes, It Is Your Problem!”
“See? Heart disease kills women more than we’d like to think. Those male doctors never take our chest pains seriously, and by the time they finally do something it’s too late! Massive heart attack!”
“So you have chest pains, Grandy?”
“Did I say that?”
“No, but I thought—”
“I’m only doing what the article said I should do, Sweet Pea. Don’t read anything more into it than that.”
And she snapped the magazine shut and shoved it down into the holder. “And that’s all I’m going to say about the matter.”
All right, already! Yikes!
“So tell me about your day,” she said and she hunched up her shoulders in that girl-to-girl way. “What did you wear?”
“Oh, Grandy, we have to wear the same thing every day.”
“Isn’t that a shame?”
“It sure is.”
I’m so happy to be home on Greenway. It would be horrible to say I’m hoping some snag occurs in Mom’s quest for alternate housing. But it would be true.
Jake helps her up onto her horse and off she goes!
I can’t wait to tell Prisma!
Leslie
I CLIMBED THE STEPS UP TO JACOB MARLEY’S ROOM at the stables for a cup of coffee this afternoon. Truth to tell, upon reflection afterward, it was the worst cup of coffee I’ve ever had. Even worse than Midwest coffee, which is always the color of tea. If you’re fortunate, that is. A twin bed, a rocking chair, and a small kitchen table with three chairs consumed the floor space. But it smells like him up there. Horsy and soapy. I haven’t been this excited, in a womanly way, you see, since my Charles whisked me to Fiji, where we had our own stretch of beach. Even though Charles wasn’t some Hollywood, choreographed lover, he practically worshiped me, and that made all the difference.
Jake barely knows I exist. Why, I claimed this fake caffeine headache, knowing Jake doesn’t like to see anything in pain. Not surprisingly, he immediately offered to brew some coffee and get me an aspirin.
Mama is turning over in her grave, I just know it.
And truth to tell, this manipulation business is new to me. I’m not sure if I really like it after all.
Budding romances abound on Greenway though. That man from Lark’s church, Johnny Josefowski, joined this newly formed study group meeting at Marsha’s house once a week. That nice man Father Charlie is leading it, although I didn’t know the Catholics planned that sort of thing. But that Father Charlie comes off as a visionary sort.
According to Flannery—of course Lark never tells me a thing—Johnny managed to sit next to her at the first meeting. He’s a doctor, you know. Study group indeed. It seems to me a lot of those folks are singles.
Jake handed me the coffee.
“Thank you.”
“You okay, Mrs. Summerville? You’re looking a little pale.”
“Just the headache.”
“Hope the coffee helps.”
“Oh, it will do just fine for what’s ailing me.”
Pathetic but sweet, he shuffled in his boots. A leather man with salt-and-pepper hair and stringy muscles.
“You miss home?” I imagined wide plains with mountains guarding them in the distance.
“Well, right here is home.”
“Truly?”
“Yes ma’am. Was raised on this farm.”
“Your parents owned it?”
He shook his head and leaned like a yardstick against the small counter. “Over in one of the smaller houses. My father was the stable master here for years.”
“I don’t recall meeting him.”
“He died soon after I was born. I was a product of his old age.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Well, you’ve been riding a lot lately. Just enjoying the exercise?”
How anyone assigns the words exercise and enjoy to the same sentence stupefies me. “I just love horses.”
“Me, too.”
“And I always have.”
“Me, too. They’re something, aren’t they?”
“My daddy used to call them velvet wind.”
He nodded slowly. “That sort of sums them up right there, doesn’t it?”
“It certainly does.”
And Jacob smiled into my eyes, igniting a little pilot light down in a heart spot I never expected would burn again.
Flannery, who followed me out here on the Fourth of July and thinks she got away with it, thinks I’m in love. Twaddle. Not yet, at least, and probably not ever again. But even considering my defective heart, time deserted me long ago. And to make matters worse, the perfectly frightful news at the doctor’s bit me like a mastiff on a Milk-Bone. I’m considering telling Prisma about it in case she comes and finds me in the middle of a heart attack. Having such confidence in a person is a wonderful thing. I shudder to think what I’d do without her. Maybe Lark’s group will pray for an easy variety of death. But then I’d have to tell her about it all, and another worry may push her right over the edge this time. How much can one woman take? Besides, God has always blessed the Strawbridges with quick or quiet endings. It’s our way. Best to just leave it at that.
Anyway, I scheduled the stress test for two weeks from tomorrow. Maybe Asil will drive us in the Bentley. Prisma should sit there in the backseat with me for moral support.
After I returned home from riding, Prisma and I sat at the dining room table and worked on my photo album.
My stars! I watched with the delight of a four-year-old as she slid out the new items she bought at the craft store. I never knew!
“They call it scrapbooking now, Mrs. Summerville, and you should see the huge sections of this stuff at the craft stores.”
I picked up item after item, Prisma dutifully listing the possibilities of each one.
Die cuts for color and theme.
Wonderful things called gel pens!
Hole punches in the shapes of hearts and bears and other delightful things.
They’ve even developed scissors that cut a design instead of a straight edge!
My stars. Where have I been hiding all these years?
Then Prisma started a book of her own. I’d forgotten how cute Sinclair was when he was a baby.
Lark
MARSHA INFORMED ME ALL ABOUT JOHNNY JOSEFOWSKI.
Get this. Not only is he a cardiac surgeon, he’s a cardiac surgeon’s cardiac surgeon. He operates on a lot of doctors who need bypasses and whatnots. Too bad there’s no such thing as an organist’s organist, but at least it is possible to play without the whole anesthesia thing. People at least remember your work and never have to rely on me saying, “Yes, the music went fine. It was a textbook mass.”
So where was Dr. Johnny Josefowski twenty years ago when Brad left and broke my heart? Does he repair that sort of thing?
I haven’t heard from Brad for two weeks.
Figures. My strategy ended up working. What a relief. Imagine if I had blabbed the whole thing prematurely to Flannery. But I’d be lying if I said my world doesn’t feel like it’s hanging by wet toilet paper.
I’m not sure how I allowed Flannery to convince me, but we went out for lunch, just the two of us. And not at the 3 B’s either. We chose Sanders, my childhood favorite. I had no idea they ruined the place over the last decade by upscaling it. Sure, business might be better for them, but rip out my heart, why don’t they?
“You might have warned me, Flannery.”
“Well, Mom, I think you need to see that you may think life isn’t changing. But it is. And Sanders is only the beginning.”
First Target. Now Sanders.
When I was a child, we’d take Sunday drives around Loch Raven. Sanders, just a little roadside store back then, sold homemade ice cream in flavors like peach and pumpkin, candy like Pixy Stix and edible necklaces, and some handmade crafts from local ladies looking to make a little money from folks out for a day of relaxation around the water.
They showed us to a table on the new sun porch overlooking the water. This charming little restaurant should seem like an improvement.
But I miss the Pixy Stix and the smell of the place when scarred hardwood flooring and a fireplace burning against the left wall provided a rustic, camplike ambience. What was this sun porch supposed to prove? What did sun porches prove in general, in fact? Either one likes the outdoors or one doesn’t. A sun porch just confuses things. It serves as some twilight zone, some faux outdoor experience. The imitation vanilla of outdoorsiness. Nature lite.
