Mourning Becomes Cassandra

by Christina Dudley

  For the time being, I was keeping my Nadina fears to myself. No need to get Joanie and Phyl going on that one, too, because maybe, just maybe, I still could be wrong.

  What little emotional energy remained was devoted to the upcoming trip to Portland. As promised, Perry sent complimentary tickets to the opening weekend of Waiters: the Musical, and the girls and I were eager to see if it lived down to our expectations. The fourth ticket was unexpected—did Perry really think Daniel would be the least bit interested? And truth be told, having Daniel along would just put a damper on the car conversation and make hotel logistics more complicated.

  “Just ask him,” Joanie suggested, “and phrase it negatively, like, ‘Daniel, Perry sent you a ticket to Waiters, but you probably have plans that weekend,’ and then we can take Phyl’s sister or someone. Besides, he’s always gone at his mystery activity Saturday mornings, so maybe he won’t want to miss whatever that is.”

  “Why can’t you ask him?” I demanded.

  “Because it’s your brother and your brother’s musical,” Joanie replied. “Open and shut case. Just ask Daniel as he’s on his way out the door. It’ll take two seconds.”

  • • •

  “Daniel, Perry sent you a ticket to Waiters, but you probably have plans that weekend,” I spluttered one morning, when he seemed in a particular rush to fill his commuter mug and head out.

  Glancing at his watch, Daniel said, “Yes, I know. I’m planning on going.”

  “You do? You are?” I asked, chasing him out to his car. “Wouldn’t you miss whatever it is you do on Saturday mornings?”

  He stopped for a second, his eyes raking from my fleece top to my ripped sweat pants, and then he grinned as he opened the car door. “I can miss whatever it is I do on Saturday mornings this once. Musical treat aside, I’m not passing up a chance to spend the weekend with my best girls.”

  Which is how it came to pass that, on Friday evening, we were all in Joanie’s car, headed down I-5. The conversation was as stilted as you might imagine, since, with him along, most topics became off-limits. I don’t know why—when I was alone with him I didn’t feel reticent about any subject except James—but with Phyl and Joanie in the car I didn’t feel I could approach him on the same level. Wouldn’t they think it odd that he and I had something of a friendship by now? I had begun to believe that, for whatever incomprehensible reasons, he actually took an interest in my life.

  Not that I could have conversed with him very easily on that drive anyhow, crunched as I was behind him in the backseat. I would have liked to ask him how his week had gone because he’d been terribly busy at work, gone long hours and on his laptop constantly when at home. It didn’t surprise me when, somewhere past Castle Rock, his head drooped to the side, and he fell asleep.

  “Thank God!” said Joanie, changing the radio station. “I can’t imagine why he wanted to come.”

  “Did you call your mother and tell her we were going to be in Portland?” Phyl asked.

  “Hell, no! It’s bad enough we have Daniel, without Mom dropping her little snide comments. Only Cass and I are allowed to make fun of Perry and his musical.”

  “He got along with her pretty well at Thanksgiving and Christmas,” Phyl pointed out. “What if he sent her a ticket, and we run into her at the show, and you didn’t even call to say you’d be in town?”

  Joanie gasped, but I waved at her. “On it, on it. I’ll text Perry right now and check,” I reassured her. “If he did, we can just call her right afterward and say—surprise!—we’re coming down. He may not get back to us until really late, though, since this is Opening Night.”

  “Yeah,” agreed Joanie. “It’ll take time to greet all five people in the audience, especially if they’re the same five friends and relatives who showed up to watch the dress rehearsal.”

  “Even if we’re the only ones in the audience, it’s nice to get away,” said Phyl. “Wayne hasn’t asked me to marry him for two weeks, so he’s about due.”

  Joanie groaned. “If you’re gonna say no to him every two weeks, why don’t you just break it off? Or why doesn’t he just break it off?”

  “He asks me half as a joke now,” Phyl laughed, “and I think he can tell I get closer each time to saying yes.” We were agog, off course, and she continued, “You were right, Cass. He really has grown on me. After Jason, I’m not used to someone who’s so kind and thoughtful, and for a long time I think I saw it as weakness. Isn’t that sad?”

  “We’ll have to take his wonderfulness on faith,” said Joanie dryly. “I still have a hard time getting twenty words out of him when he’s over, but if you say he’s solid, he’s solid.”

  “That’s because you intimidate most guys, Joanie,” I explained. “Wayne talks to me just fine.”

  She pouted. “Don’t tell me I’m intimidating! I just can’t stand it when guys look timid around me—it makes me want to be mean to them. I think you’re way worse. You look all sweet on the outside, but you’re like the kitty who plays with her food before she eats it.”

  “What?” I shrieked. Daniel stirred, and I lowered my voice. “What are you talking about?”

  “Totally,” Joanie insisted. “Take James as a case in point. He wants to marry you, and you’re afraid to get married again, but you want to string him along, just to torture him a little bit because it’s fun to have a guy around.”

  “That’s not true!” I hissed. “I told him he could break up with me and not wait around. No, no listen to me,” I urged, when she made a skeptical sound, “and if I didn’t honestly think I could ever marry him, I would have told him so straight out. I just said it was too soon for me to think about. And then, of course, there’s the whole kid thing—”

  “Uh huh,” Joanie pounced, warming to her theme. “That right there. You know very well that someday down the line you’re going to be okay with the idea of having kids again. Not today, no, but someday. So what if you’re all pissed at God right now—each day you’re getting less pissed, so why don’t you just admit it? You’re throwing up an obstacle and playing with that guy.”

  Folding my arms over my chest defensively, I stared out the darkened window in a huff. I could just make out the nuclear cooling tower in Kalama glowing faintly in the moonlight. Some minutes passed, but when Phyl tried peaceably to introduce a new topic, I cut across her. “You may be right, Joanie—I might be throwing up an obstacle that will go away eventually, but it feels real right now. And I’ll have you know, this past week, I’ve been having crazy thoughts that maybe I could marry him. Even though he’s stinking five years younger than I am, and I’m weird about kids, and his family is weird about me.”

  “Ooh!” exclaimed Phyl, reaching over to squeeze my arm.

  Joanie merely sniffed. “Well don’t do it just to please me.”

  She unbent a little at bedtime. Rather than sharing a room with her brother, Joanie opted to cram into a queen bed with me, and after I turned out the light, I felt her sharp chin digging into my arm. “I’m sorry, Cass. I’m just grouchy. I hate this no-dating thing. I think I’m going to give it up because I’m starting to look so unhappy that guys have stopped asking me out. But I swear—I absolutely swear—that the next guy I go out with will know all about my sad engagement history.”

  • • •

  I woke up Saturday to a message from Perry: Angela Martin did not know we were in Portland. He sent it at 1:00 in the morning, so I knew better than to try to call him. Not that I would have anyhow, it being only 6:00 a.m. Instead, I donned my swimsuit and sweats and snuck out to do some laps in the hotel pool. As I’d hoped, I had it all to myself, and the soothing, monotonous activity gave me plenty of time to think.

  I wondered if I could convince Nadina to have the baby and then give it up for adoption. How strange that would be, to think of your own flesh-and-blood running around somewhere on earth, and you not there to see it. Until that flesh-and-blood turned 21 and appeared on your doorstep wanting answers, as always seemed
to happen in Hallmark specials and books. What would Nadina be like at 37? Would she step onto the porch of her two-storey house in suburbia and embrace her long-lost child, weeping? Or would she be with her latest loser in a dingy apartment, with too many other children underfoot to be glad of the one she thought she was rid of?

  When my body began protesting the unwonted exertion, I climbed rubber-limbed from the pool and went for a little reward-time in the hot tub, turning the bubbles up high and sinking down to my chin luxuriously. By this point, the first family with early-riser kids arrived, replacing the meditative quiet with screeching and splashing and cannonballs that washed gallons of water over the sides. The youngest child was a girl, about three years old, in one of those darling swimsuits with the ruffly bottoms. Creeping to the side of the hot tub nearest them, I stared mesmerized as she jumped repeatedly off the side of the pool into her father’s arms, crowing with fearful joy. This sucks, I told God. Why would you saddle Nadina with a baby in her situation, and take mine from me? The little girl got water up her nose, and I watched jealously as her face turned scarlet and scrunched up with tears, and her father comforted her.

  “Mind if I join you?”

  Who else but Daniel, for the love of Mike. I’d been so hypnotized by the little girl that I didn’t even see him come in—straight from the hotel workout facility and pool shower, apparently, because he was dripping wet and clad only in gym shorts. Remembering that chest clearly, I kept my eyes somewhere over his left ear. Didn’t he know that women don’t like to be come upon in their swimsuits unaware, when they had no idea a man was going to see them? My suit was a harmless, navy-blue lap number, but I’m pretty sure he was more used to seeing the itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny variety, with a much higher exposed-skin-to-Lycra ratio, the better to show off the tramp stamp. And speaking of skin, mine was getting a little pruny by this point, but no way was I going to climb out with him sitting there.

  “I was just about to go up,” I hinted.

  Being Daniel, he ignored my hint, relaxing into the hot tub like he was there for the duration and watching me with those unsettling eyes.

  So be it. “You look rested after your long week,” I said.

  “It was a long week,” he agreed. “We were working up until the last minute on a settlement. I’ve spent enough time and thought on it these past few days. How was your week?”

  “A little nerve-wracking,” I heard myself saying, and then I told him what I hadn’t shared with anyone. “I think Nadina might be pregnant, but I can’t get a hold of her.” It was a relief to tell someone. James thought I was worrying too much and should just leave it up to Mark Henneman to deal with, if Nadina even was pregnant, which he was willing to doubt.

  Daniel leaned further back in the hot tub, resting the back of his head on the lip and looking up at the steamed-up skylight thoughtfully. With his eyes off me, I stole one peek at those muscled shoulders. Sheesh. When he looked at me again, I was carefully inspecting my wrinkled fingertips. “You’ve stopped wearing your ring,” he said abruptly.

  Caught. I plunged my hands back beneath the water, thankful I was already pink from the hot water. Not even Joanie or Phyl had noticed that, a day or two ago, I finally wriggled my wedding ring off and, with a kiss, put it in my bedside drawer. “Yes,” I managed. “It was time.”

  He ran his hand through his hair, standing it up. After a pause he returned to his conversational tone: “I have a former law school classmate in Seattle who became an adoption attorney,” he said. “She could help, if Nadina considers that option.”

  “Really, Daniel?” I exclaimed, forgetting my embarrassment and clapping my hands. It would be nice to have that in reserve when I talked about it with Nadina. Then my face fell. “I suppose you slept with her though, in law school, and she probably wouldn’t agree to any pro bono work.”

  “She wouldn’t have to,” he replied in a voice half-exasperated, half-amused. “The adoptive parents usually pay legal costs.”

  “Oh, that’s good news,” I breathed. “What a handy person you are to know, Daniel. A regular fund of knowledge and helpful connections.”

  “Glad you think so,” he responded lightly. “And I’ll have you know, Cass—not that it’s any of your business—I didn’t sleep with her.”

  “Seriously? What was it?” I teased. “Spoon-chested? Harelip? A third eye?” He grimaced, shaking his head. “No, I forgot, you’re pickier than that,” I continued. “Varicose veins. Split ends. Bad grammar.”

  “If I recall,” he finally broke in, “it was her shrewish tongue and her fingertips that were shriveled up from staying too long in public pools and hot tubs.” When I burst out laughing, Daniel asked, “Didn’t you say you were going back up?”

  “I did and I am. I just don’t want to get out with you looking at me.”

  Obligingly he shielded his eyes, and I hastily splashed over to the shelves of clean towels and wrapped up. “All clear,” I said. “See you at breakfast?”

  “With bells on.” A shirt would do.

  • • •

  Spending the day in Daniel’s and Joanie’s childhood stomping grounds proved highly entertaining, not least because Joanie kept darting paranoid glances in all directions, sure she saw her mother behind every spreading tree. We saw the house they grew up in, the summer pool where Joanie lifeguarded—I could just imagine how many teenage boys thought they needed rescuing when Joanie was in the chair—the church where Joanie snuck off to youth group, their schools. “Which bleachers did you used to smoke behind?” I couldn’t resist asking Daniel.

  Perry joined us for lunch downtown, looking a little haggard but happy. “Full house last night,” he announced when we put our menus down. “Granted, the theater only holds two hundred and at least a hundred had free tickets and five more were reviewers, but that meant 95 genuine audience members.”

  “And? And?” I pressed. “Did the 95 applaud or storm out? Did they laugh and cry in the right places?”

  “How did that last-minute understudy work out?” asked Daniel, to my amazement. What did he know about last-minute understudies, especially last-minute understudies I didn’t know about?

  “Like I said, the kid was dying for a break,” said Perry, “and he made up for lack of stage experience by going all out. The Oregonian said he was a little too hammy, so he might rein it in for you guys tonight.”

  “What are you two talking about?” I demanded, looking from one to the other suspiciously and then accosting Daniel with, “How do you know more about what’s going on with Waiters than I do?”

  He merely shrugged, but Perry said, “The wonders of email, Cass. That, and whenever I mention it to you, you usually have some caustic remark. Anyhow, the Oregonian also said…”

  That lunch gave me plenty of food for thought. For one thing, it was a good reminder of how self-absorbed I’d been over the holidays, not even to notice a budding friendship between my own brother and my housemate. There had been those references to card games in the Lean-To and such, but I thought of Daniel as so arms-length with most people that I couldn’t quite get my mind around Perry and him emailing each other.

  As if that weren’t astonishing enough, someone else’s growing affection for my brother had also escaped my notice until today; but maybe it had escaped hers as well: Joanie was unusually quiet at lunch. Joanie? Joanie and Perry? His divorce wasn’t even final yet! Concerned, I set myself to observe their behavior. Perry clearly admired Joanie—he looked at her a lot, joked with her, made references to things they’d talked about at Christmas—but it might have been no more than his general, open personality, that engaging nature that always made him easier to get to know than I was. It was Joanie’s reticence that disturbed me. For once, she wasn’t shooting off her mouth or even joining in when I ribbed Perry, and it made me re-think her grumpy comments about the dating hiatus. Much as I loved Joanie, and we already fought like sisters, the thought of her and Perry ever getting involved worried me. He’d already
had one wife give up on him, and Joanie was a born expert at giving up on men. Disaster. It could only spell disaster.

  By the end of the meal, only Phyl and Daniel and Perry were making any conversation, and I wasn’t sorry when Perry had to excuse himself to get back to the theater. Joanie continued quiet that whole afternoon—quiet at Powell’s, quiet at the Japanese Garden. That and she stuck close to Phyl, as if anxious to avoid any questions from me. Not good.

  • • •

  Waiters wasn’t wretched. It wasn’t great, either, but it did rise above the Painful stratum of regional theater and would have gone still higher if not for the hammy understudy. There was a decent-sized audience as well, of whom not more than a third were cast friends and relatives. At several points during the show I felt inappropriate snickers rising, but Joanie refused to look at me, and my enjoyment would have been halved, had I not felt Daniel’s own repressed laughter jiggling the shared armrest.

  When the crowd cleared afterward, we let Phyl speak first. She was an indiscriminate musical nut, at least—even owning the Starlight Express soundtrack, for Pete’s sake—and had sincerity in her favor.

  “Well?” Perry demanded of me, when he’d heard Phyl’s effusions.

  I bit my lip. “Not bad, Perry. And parts of it were genuinely inspired and entertaining.” He must have prepared himself for the worst because when Perry heard my lukewarm praise, he let out a whoop and lifted me off the ground. “Don’t get me wrong, though,” I laughed. “It’s no Cats.” Seeing Cats together as teenagers had been one of our original bonding moments. Fifteen minutes in, we had caught each other’s eye and been unable to stop laughing, to the annoyance of those seated nearby. To this day, if I wanted to make Perry laugh, I had only to say, “The Rum Tum Tugger is a curious cat!”