Mourning Becomes Cassandra

by Christina Dudley

  When it rained we got coffee at Tully’s or walked to the Palace. No one was ever home at that hour, and Nadina got a kick out of exploring my natural habitat. “It helps me to picture you,” she said, “Not sobbing into your pillow every night but living in a big house with a view.” This October day was glorious, however, clear and blessedly dry. Clyde Hill’s many maple trees had flamed into gold and russet, and we were perched on our favorite bench looking across the water to downtown Seattle.

  “Min was a split between Troy and me,” I remembered. “Everyone said she looked like me but she acted like Troy. Even though she was so little, she already liked to tease me. Like how I was about pacifiers. She would hear me preaching to my mom or someone about how I didn’t like pacifiers, so whenever she came across one at someone else’s house, she would instantly stick it in her mouth and come show me, just to torture me. She’d be grinning so hard around it that it would almost fall out.”

  “Cass, you’re such a hard-ass. What’s wrong with pacifiers?” Nadina asked.

  “Oh, I had ideas about not messing up her orthodonture. I had lots of ideas you’d call hard-ass: no pacifiers, no sweets, no television, but it all didn’t matter after all, did it?”

  “If you had another baby, would you still say no pacifiers, no sweets, no television?”

  In my stomach I felt a sudden tensing, like the tensing I felt when Joanie bugged me about dating again, only more severe. “No more babies,” I said, before I thought.

  She stared at me. “What do you mean, ‘no more babies’? Weren’t you just telling me all these things you liked about Min? You don’t want to have a kid again someday?”

  That airless feeling was back, and I found myself stretching my chest to fight it off. “It’s because I liked Min that I don’t want any more babies,” I said. “It doesn’t matter anyhow—I’m not married or even wanting to date again—” I trailed off when I realized I was saying this to the girl who had been both unmarried and pregnant. I don’t know if she made the same connection, but she was silent for a long time.

  To change the subject I asked, “How has Mike’s music research been going?” Although I’d never met him, I pictured him as a giant oaf, taller than she, with hair hanging in his eyes and matting the backs of his hands, the kind of savage beast only calmed by music. This imagined-Mike lumbered around Seattle, haunting nightclubs and pubs from Belltown to Pioneer Square.

  Her face closed off, and she shrugged. To give her time to think, I gingerly picked up Benny’s slobbery chewy and launched it down onto the beach for him to fetch. This was an activity I used to avoid at all costs, even when Benny would come and bludgeon me repeatedly with whatever toy was on hand, but it was less onerous now that, when he returned, he would drop it on command.

  “He hasn’t talked about it lately. Sometimes I’m not sure if he even likes me anymore,” Nadina said finally.

  Like he liked you before? I thought sarcastically, thinking of him urging hard drugs on her, knocking her up, and then convincing her to get an abortion. Out loud I said, “Why is that?”

  Another long pause before she answered. “He tells me I’m a drag now because I’m in school and I’ve been trying to use less.”

  While my first urge was to find stupid Mike and wring his neck, I realized this was the first time Nadina had ever mentioned her drug habit to me, and I had to tread carefully. “What would he like you to do?”

  “He says I was more fun when he met me. I would do the hard stuff with him, and I wasn’t going to school, so I was making more money and hanging out with him more. He doesn’t like that I do stuff with girls from Camden and that when I’m home I haven’t wanted to party unless it’s the weekend. Drop it, Benny.” Nadina threw his toy for him again, while I waited for her to continue. “And he—he doesn’t like that I hang out with you.”

  “Me?” I exclaimed, “He doesn’t even know me!”

  She looked a little sheepish. “Yeah, but I’ve told him about you. He thinks you’re the reason I’ve started being a drag.”

  At another time I might have laughed at her teenage tactlessness. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, he thinks I might be trying to use less because you’re trying to make me be a goody-goody like you.”

  Resisting the urge to swell up with indignation, I said as calmly as I could, “That’s weird, considering I’ve never said one picking thing to you about using or not using. We haven’t even talked about it until now. What do you think?”

  She squirmed a little. “I don’t know. I guess you haven’t talked about it. It was more the counselors at school.”

  “Then why would he think I’m a goody-goody? What have you told him about me?” I persisted.

  Nadina tugged on the toy in Benny’s mouth, and he gave some delighted growls.

  “I don’t know, Cass. He doesn’t like you or the school. Let’s go because my butt is getting cold on this bench.” Clearly, the borderline-intimate talk was over, and I kicked myself inwardly for pressing too hard. But at least I had learned a few things: she was trying to cut down her drug usage, she was committed enough to school to irritate Mike, and somehow I was becoming a lightning rod in their relationship.

  • • •

  Only Phyl was home when I got back, sorting through the recycling in the garage. Joanie and I were not completely clear on which items went into which bin, and Daniel didn’t even try, so Phyl was always digging Starbucks cups out of the recycle and tossing them in the yard waste, or picking Tetra-Paks out of the trash and throwing them in the recycle.

  My relationship with Nadina was not the only one to deepen that fall: Joanie and Phyl and I grew closer as well. I hadn’t realized how friendships suffer after you have a baby. Everything with Min was so new, so all-involving; not only had my marriage shifted and re-adjusted around the new person in our lives, but my friendships unconsciously dropped in priority. Certainly Joanie and I had managed to see each other or to talk every couple weeks—once a month, at the worst—but I spent most of what little social time I had in playgroups, mom’s groups, stealing a little adult conversation while the kids toddled around, fighting over toys and swapping germs. Renewed friendships weren’t a replacement for my loss, but they were a precious gift in themselves, that daily involvement in each other’s lives and concerns.

  “Hey, Phyl,” I greeted her, holding tight to Benny’s leash so he wouldn’t topple her in his eagerness. “Need help?”

  “Nah, it’s all done,” she replied, taking the unrecyclable lids she’d removed from the gallon milk containers and tossing them in the trash. “Come talk to me while I finish dinner, though.” I went, feeling slightly guilty because I knew Joanie and I were planning to ambush Phyl tonight at dinner.

  As we had feared, Phyl’s predictable attraction to Daniel had blossomed with time into a full-blown infatuation. Although she hadn’t yet progressed beyond mooning over him, it had not escaped his notice. Joanie told me confidentially that Daniel had finally asked her what the hell Phyl’s problem was.

  “I told him she always fell for bad boys, including her ex-husband, and he should just ignore her till it blew over,” Joanie reported to me late one evening when we were holed up in my room. “He said it was bugging the hell out of him how he couldn’t be in the Palace without her gawking at him and dropping dishes and acting like they were in junior high.”

  “Isn’t he used to it, by now?” I asked in exasperation. “I thought all women react to him that way.”

  “Yeah, but he can get away from other women when they act like that. He hates clinginess and possessiveness and adulation. It’s hard for him to have to live with Phyl. Didn’t you notice how much more time he’s spending in the Lean-To lately?”

  I hadn’t, since I only saw Daniel occasionally anyhow, and when he found only me in the kitchen he would sit and eat dinner there, as often as not.

  “What does he want us to do?” I asked. “He’s a grown man. I think he should buck up and ignore h
er, or if he’s too scared, tell him to bring in a girlfriend as a human shield.” Nevertheless, we agreed to try to talk sense into Phyl at the next opportunity, which is how she now found herself cornered.

  “Phyl,” I began, “We need to talk.”

  She had been pushing around her Caesar salad absent-mindedly, her soft blue eyes thoughtful. “Did Jason tell you, when he picked up Benny?”

  “Tell me what?” I asked.

  Phyl made a face. “He and this Jessica are engaged now—can you believe it? And he’s always telling me how she’s so good with Benny. I hope Benny is peeing in his car as we speak.”

  Joanie and I always laughed when Phyl griped about Jason because the contrast between her gentle voice and mean words was so comical, and we wondered who, if not for Jason, Phyl would ever have pictured when Jesus told us to “love our enemies.”

  “He didn’t mention it, and Jason never usually passes up an opportunity to brag,” I marveled.

  “That’s because impending tragedy is nothing to brag about,” sniffed Joanie. “I give it eighteen months. That marriage will have everything going for it except that Jason is in it.”

  “Oh, I don’t care,” Phyl said dismissively, “And I don’t even much mind if the marriage works—it’s just frustrating that I don’t have any wonderful news to counter with. I’m not even dating anyone.”

  “You’ve been gone the last several Friday nights on dates,” I pointed out.

  “I mean I’m not dating anyone I’m interested in,” she clarified.

  When Phyl didn’t continue, Joanie bugged her eyes out at me significantly, and I started in again. “So are you interested in anyone, Phyl?”

  She stabbed a crouton with her fork, causing it to explode into little crouton bits. “You guys will kill me if I tell you.” We waited. “I—I kind of like Daniel.”

  It was worse hearing it said aloud. “Phyl,” I said, “Honestly, have you played the scenario to its conclusion? What do you think would happen if tomorrow, say, Daniel asked you out? How long do you think it would last?”

  “Especially if you wouldn’t sleep with him,” put in Joanie. “Daniel needs lots of sex, not to mention variety. You’d have to wear different wigs and disguises to hold him more than a couple weeks. Do you still have your old high school cheerleader outfit?”

  Phyl got a stubborn set to her jaw. “I wouldn’t sleep with him, of course, but if he did ask me out, it would be because he recognized that there’s more to life than those meaningless encounters. Don’t you think sometimes he looks at our lives enviously? He sees we have people we know and really love and who know and really love us.”

  “I’ve caught a few expressions on his face, and I don’t think any of them were envy,” I said dryly. “More likely he thinks we’re prudes who don’t have sex because we can’t get any.” Phyl’s lips compressed mutinously, and I pressed ahead. “But never mind what Daniel thinks—we can’t do a thing about him. Phyl, if you marry a guy who sleeps around, you get a guy who sleeps around. I thought you learned this. Marriage wouldn’t change him.”

  “Jesus could,” she rallied.

  “Exactly,” I said. “The only one who could change Daniel is God Almighty, not Phyllida Levert, so why don’t you just pray for Daniel while you think about someone else? Someone who wouldn’t require an act of God to become a suitable husband.”

  “Besides,” Joanie spoke up again, “Daniel said he’d have to kick you out if you keep staring at him and breaking the china.”

  “He noticed?” gasped Phyl, blanching.

  “Everyone noticed, Phyl. Why do you think we’re talking to you?” Joanie reasoned. “Be a good girl and say yes to the next nice and boring guy who asks you out. We like having you in the house. You don’t want to end up with another Jason, do you?”

  “And try to get some guy to come on Thursday,” I urged, “so you can show Daniel you’re over him. What about that Wayne who you went out with last week?”

  “Wayne!” she moaned. “He’s an engineer who has dinner with his mom once a week.”

  “You don’t gotta marry him,” said Joanie. “Ask Wayne. Your birthday’s coming up, and if you ask Wayne I’ll make you your favorite cake.”

  Phyl slumped in defeat. “Fine, I’ll call Wayne. And you owe me one Red Velvet cake with cream cheese frosting. I know you two mean well, but I hate being ganged up on. Why should only Joanie get to like somebody gorgeous?”

  “For all the good it does me,” Joanie said disgustedly. “I can’t believe how long it takes these big companies to do their hiring. Roy’s in, what, his fourth-round interviews with Cingular and Microsoft? At this rate, they should go straight to negotiating his retirement package.” True to form, Roy had continued to insist they only do things he could afford to treat, and Joanie was growing tired of dates limited to walks and open houses. “If he doesn’t relax and let me pay for something, I may have to trade him in for an ugly guy with a paycheck.”

  Phyl got up to dish out the lemon pudding. “How about you, Cass? Are you thinking you may want to get out there again anytime soon?” Joanie’s eyes lit up over this question, and I sympathized with Phyl’s irritation at being “ganged up on.”

  “My hands are full, for the time being,” I replied evasively. Briefly I told them about my afternoon with Nadina. “What do you think she uses? And what does she mean by ‘hard stuff’? And why do you think this repulsive Mike is getting bent out of shape about me?”

  “I thought you said you get mentor training,” said Phyl. “Haven’t they covered the whole drug thing, if so many students struggle with it?”

  “We’ve only done trust-building,” I said. “The big drug talk is up next.”

  “Well, if she still has all her teeth and isn’t stealing catalytic converters I’m guessing she’s not doing meth,” said Joanie.

  “Yeah, she’s got teeth. Maybe I can ask her if Mike has teeth.”

  “Maybe she drinks and smokes some joints,” suggested Phyl.

  “Or they raid Mike’s dad’s medicine cabinet,” said Joanie. “But what do we know? We’re church girls. You should ask that Director guy or Daniel. I bet Daniel tried half the stuff in college.”

  After having already asked Daniel about felony vandalism, I wondered with amusement how he would respond to me now asking about hard drugs. “Well, I don’t want to ask Mark Henneman before that next training because it might get back to Nadina. I’ll give Daniel a try later. But what do you think about the dumb boyfriend? Why is he giving Nadina a hard time about me when I haven’t said a single thing?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” said Joanie. “Nadina must be talking about you a lot, so you must be making some impression. Since you came on the scene at the same time as all these changes in her behavior, he thinks it’s you reforming her. It may be the counselors talking to her about the drugs, but she probably doesn’t go on and on about school counselors. So it’s all your fault.” I hadn’t thought of this—I knew Nadina didn’t seem to mind spending her weekly time with me, but she never said anything to make me think she really felt strongly one way or the other.

  “In for a penny, in for a pound,” said Phyl. “You may as well talk to her about the drugs now, since you’re already being blamed for it.”

  “I guess so,” I agreed reluctantly, “Not that I have any idea what to say besides, ‘Drugs? Don’t do them.’ I’m glad I’ll be out of town next week, just in case Mike decides to off me for my supposed influence.”

  Little did I know, when my first opportunity to weigh in on Nadina’s life choices came, it would almost end our relationship then and there.

  Chapter 10: Employment

  (September 22, 1:00 p.m.)

  James—

  The mentor sailing event turned out to be a pleasant surprise, since, as Nadina confessed for us, we thought we’d be “puking.” Glad to see you and Kyle seem to be hitting it off.

  Per your request, I’ve attached two of my novelization chapters for your r
eview. Let me know your thoughts.

  Cass Ewan

  (September 22, 3:15 p.m.)

  Cass:

  Got your files and will keep you posted. I will probably pass them around the office if I think they’re promising.

  Kyle’s a great kid and a smart one (except for doing the dumb things that got him kicked out of school). Hope you and Nadina are getting along.

  James

  (September 30, 4:00 p.m.)

  Cass:

  Several of us took a look at your Clone Wars chapter—your writing and Kyle’s “fact” checking make an unbeatable team. Would you be interested in coming in and meeting with some folks on one of our game development teams? I’m not directly on the Star Wars game, and they may not need additional help, but other teams might. And we could talk about possible voiceover work.

  James

  P.S. Speaking of voices, Kyle has a great, raspy one, but I’ve never heard him emote! Think he’d be capable of it?

  (September 30, 9:55 p.m.)

  James—would I? Are you kidding? I would love to. Let me know date and time. I’ll be out of town for a few days Oct 7-10, but other than that am totally flexible.

  As for Kyle, I’ve heard him emote more than once—if you need contemptuous or deadpan, he’s your man.

  Cass

  (October 2, 2:30 p.m.)

  Cass:

  Can we try to get you in before your trip? I think I can pull most of the pertinent people together for this coming Monday at 3:00 p.m. If it doesn’t work, let me know ASAP.