The Secret Life of Mrs. Claus

by Carly Alexander

  Woody smiled. “Not a pleasant spot for offices or showrooms, right? So the tower was designed to contain stairwells, just as old castle towers did, and dressing rooms.”

  “Clever,” I said, feeling as if I were channeling my mother. “Appropriate use of space.”

  “And we’re building an enclosed walkway over the street to the parking garage on President Street.”

  “A place to park in the city? How revolutionary.”

  He checked his watch, so I pushed on. “It’s so great to see you, but I don’t want to hold you up. Especially in there.” I pointed a thumb at the store. “They’re frantic. Can’t make a sale without merchandise.”

  He winced, his screwed-up face reminding me of the twelve-year-old, freckled Woody. “A small detail,” he said, taking a step up but not taking his eyes from me. “Let’s get together for coffee or lunch or something.”

  “Sounds great,” I called, sending him off with a wave. As he hurried inside I noticed his dark hair, once a full mullet, had been cut short, giving him a sleek, almost intellectual look. Woody was a kind, attractive man, but I hoped to avoid him the rest of my stay here. He was too much a reminder of the old Livvy, the crazy dancing kid trapped in a city full of people who told her she’d never make it out of this town.

  Somehow, running into Woody pointed to the fact that those people might have been right.

  “Dancer?” They’d laugh. “Well, maybe if you want to work a club on the block or something. But what would your parents think?”

  “You want to be a professional dancer? Do you have any idea of the odds against making it in the entertainment industry?”

  “Forget about talent. If you want to succeed in show business, you have to know somebody, and who do you know? Connections, baby.”

  Those discouraging people, the voices of doom… Just when I thought I’d put them behind me, here they were niggling away at my self-confidence. With all the determination of a woman walking away from the quagmire of her past, I picked my way over the brick paving stones and headed toward the bus stop.

  3

  “Don’t worry,” I called, pausing in the front vestibule of the Lombard Street house to punch in the security code. Ironic that my mother had gotten an alarm system just recently, after gentrification had chased the junkies and squatters from the neighborhood. “It’s only me!”

  “My dear, there is no ‘only’ about you,” Mom called from the back of the house. Strains of “Lullaby of Broadway” wafted toward me on a warm puff of savory smells—maybe mushroom and garlic—and I wondered what elegant feast Mom had cooked up today. In the past few months she’d begun preparing theme meals for me—a morning in Paris during which we spoke only French and dipped chunks of baguette into huge cups of café au lait and watched the dance scene from An American in Paris, a Caribbean beach party with steel-drum music, lush tropical flowers, and mandatory limbo (not easy when only one person can hold the stick). I enjoyed the meals with her, but I also worried that she was becoming more isolated with each passing week, barricaded inside this house. On the bus ride here I had promised myself that today was the day to broach the delicate issue of my mother’s meltdown. A formidable plan, if I could just figure out a way in.

  “Something smells delish.” I closed the vestibule door and slipped off my coat. This building had been a dilapidated row house when my parents purchased it. They’d stripped the formstone facade down to the original brick and rebuilt three and a half very deep levels, with special attention to restoring the crown molding, the fat newel post, the pocket doors, the tall historic windows, the original brick kitchen hearth in the basement. Mom had furnished the house with Victorian pieces and sweeping velvet drapes, crystal chandeliers, and a marble mantelpiece. Rich Persian rugs adorned the scarred wood floors and colorful blossoms rose up the papered walls along the staircases. The lavish decor hinted at a European palace, and yet, there was something cozy about the arrangement of the furniture, the settee facing the armchairs, the piano at the window presiding over the endless flat-tarred rooftops and smokestacks of southeast Baltimore.

  It was home.

  “We’re doing a matinee today, then a lunch at Sardi’s, prix fixe, of course. We’ll start with a goat cheese cranberry salad, then on to a homemade mushroom ravioli.” My mother appeared, wearing a white tuxedo shirt and black skirt. Her gray hair was swept back in a tight French braid fixed with a rhinestone clip that matched the glimmering buckle on her black pumps. “I know you miss New York, so I thought we’d do our own lullaby of Broadway. I’ve got the soundtracks to 42nd Street, Ragtime, A Chorus Line, etc., and sheet music to scores of others. Do you remember Bye Bye Birdy? I was just playing the music to that.” She dashed to the piano, turned off the CD player with the remote, and launched into the introduction of “Put on a Happy Face.”

  “Gray skies are gonna clear up…” she sang with gusto. I went to the piano and folded my arms, watching her pour herself into the music. The arrangement was sweet, yet full of jazzy chord changes, and I found myself smiling when she sang, “And spread sunshine all over the place…”

  Hard to believe this was a woman who broke into a panicked sweat at the thought of leaving the house.

  “It sounds like agoraphobia,” Kate had said emphatically after joining us one afternoon for high tea and the Boston Pops. “A fear of the outside world. I think it’s something to do with panic attacks, but I’m not really well versed on the details.” A biology major in college, Kate was the most scientific person I knew. Together we did some research on the Web, and our inexpert opinion was that my mother, a woman who had never been afraid of anything in her life, was now experiencing extreme anxiety—panic attacks—when it came time to leave the house on her own. In most cases, she bowed out of outings and opted to stay home. Other times she would go out, but only to familiar places, and only with me at her side.

  “Do you think you could get her to see a therapist?” Kate had asked.

  “I can’t get her to admit she has a problem, but she won’t even venture downtown to teach her classes anymore. She’s taken a sabbatical to write a paper on the relationship between architecture and socioeconomics, but I’m not sure she’s getting any work done. She cooks lavish meals, loves to entertain still, but won’t go out, not even to the small Butcher’s Hill pubs she used to adore.”

  “She’s so cheerful,” Kate said.

  “I know, but it’s not like my mother to sequester herself inside, to break down like this.” This breach of courage and common sense was actually not like my mother at all. Where was the strong-willed, calm woman who had once been the dean of academics in the state university’s school of architecture?

  It was as if a piece of my mother had broken, and I didn’t have a clue how to fix it. So I helped when I could, and I enjoyed her company within the walls of the old Lombard house.

  A prison of her own making.

  She nodded in time to the music. “You’re not singing, Liv. Don’t you know this one? Oh, you’re way too young.”

  “No, I remember it. I saw the movie with Dick Van Dyke. Besides, that song is a classic.” I didn’t tell her that I wasn’t in the mood to sing.

  “So choose something you like.” She motioned me over as she rifled through other books.

  I picked an easy song from Showboat and sang, “Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly…” It was a song I’d always enjoyed, and Mom was a strong accompanist. Although I’d taken lessons for years, my mother was the real pianist in the family.

  After a few more songs we moved into the dining room, where Mom served an elegant meal for two. Sometimes I wondered if she was destined to give up the business of teaching and open her own restaurant, but she thought cooking would become joyless if she had to do it for a living. I mentioned running into Woody at the Inner Harbor, and she told me he was a frequent visitor to the university, eager to “give back” to the institution where he’d received his education.

  “Did you know he’s
the architect on the Rossman’s store? It’s quite a renovation. I think you’d like it. We should make plans to head down there one afternoon.”

  “Not necessary,” she said. “I’ve seen photos, and I agree, he’s done a fine job melding old style with new function.”

  “A photo wouldn’t do it justice,” I said, picking at the last piece of ravioli with some dismay. Not long ago my mother made it her business to be the first to scope out the changing skyline of Baltimore. I can’t tell you how many times she was thrown off construction sites. I decided to try another tack. “You know, I think it would mean a lot to Woody if you came down to see the site in person.”

  “Oh, of course.” She stood up and cleared the salad plates, probably to avoid making eye contact. “I’ll get there one of these days.”

  “When, Mom? You haven’t left this house for three weeks now.”

  “Has it been that long? I’ve been so busy, working on my notes.”

  “And the last few times you did leave, I was with you the whole time. I worry about the way this whole thing is going, Mom. I’m worried about you.”

  “Don’t,” she said, her voice suddenly hard. “Don’t go there, Livvy. We’ve been through it.”

  “But I want to understand this…what you’re going through.”

  “You know I’ve researched this on-line, in books. The panic is very real. It manifests in physical symptoms that are just crippling. The first time I got dizzy and sweaty while teaching a class, I assumed it was the flu and took a cab home. But the next time and the time after that, standing there with my pulse speeding up to a deafening roar…” She pushed herself away from the chair and turned toward the kitchen.

  I had heard her describe the attacks once before, months ago, but I thought it would be best to talk about it, get it out there. “It sounds terrible.”

  “It is.”

  “But you know it needs to be addressed. You’re not alone in this, Mom. Don’t run away from me.”

  “Why can’t you leave this alone?”

  “Because I’m your daughter.” I followed her into the kitchen and faced her across the cooking island. “And I love you.”

  Her jaw clenched as she glanced down into the sink. “I’m telling you as your mother, this is not a matter for you to negotiate. I’m fine, quite happy with my writing now. Why can’t you leave it at that?”

  “Because I think you need to be capable of getting out on your own.”

  “I could leave this house if I wanted to. It’s just not…not worth the aggravation.”

  “Mom. What can I do to help you?”

  She opened the dishwasher and stacked the plates. “You could try singing Elphaba’s part in Wicked.”

  “No jokes. I’m worried about you.”

  She scraped leftover parsley down the sink and turned on the grinder.

  When the obnoxious noise stopped, I continued. “If I brought someone here, would you talk to them?”

  She smiled. “Of course I’ll talk. I always talk. But you can’t expect an outsider to slay the demons I’m fighting. That’s something I’ve got to do on my own.” She dried her hands on a dish towel. “Now… Come try some homemade pear tart and tell me how your job search is going. This is a new recipe and I need your honest opinion. I think I may have overroasted the almonds in the crust…”

  I told her about the Mrs. Claus job. “I’ll find out tomorrow if I got it, but they seemed fairly impressed by my experience as a Rockette.”

  “As well they should be,” she said, handing me a cup of decaf. “You won yourself a spot on the world’s most famous precision dance company. I was so proud of you when I saw you perform in the Christmas show last year.”

  “God, it seems like eons ago.” I took a sip of coffee, wishing I could zap myself through a time warp back to that period of my life. Dancing every day. Living the fast pace of New York, with more money flying into my bank account than I had time to spend.

  Leave it to me to end it all with a stupid slip on the ice.

  No, not a dramatic dancer’s injury that would have put me in line for workers’ comp. I had to go and fall in the snow in front of Mario’s Pizza, the neighborhood shop where I stopped for a slice a few times a week, the place where Mario himself counseled me on the best subway routes around the city, where Guido was happy to make me a veggie slice any time of day, where Mario’s wife insisted I run a tab until I had time to get to an ATM. Mario’s family was the closest thing I had to a New York family.

  “You could file a suit against the owner of the pizza place,” a lawyer had told me on the phone. “It’s their responsibility to keep the walkway clear.”

  But of course, I couldn’t do that to Mario. It was my own dumb fault for not paying attention, for wearing high heels on an icy March day.

  That had been the turning point of my life, when all the good things just seemed to fizzle into bubbles that popped all around me. The choreographer had been forced to replace me in the lineup, though I was welcome to audition again as soon as my leg healed. I was booted from the Rockettes apartment and had to hobble out before my replacement arrived. And when I called my boyfriend so that he could meet me at the train station in Baltimore, I got the news—from his mother—that he was out with his new girlfriend. “And I think they’re getting serious already,” Mrs. Tharp had added with glee.

  “What?” I’d gasped. What? How could that happen? How could he get serious with someone else when he hadn’t ended our relationship? What about all the promises of “I’ll wait for you!” and “We can make it work long-distance” and “I’ll move up to New York as soon as you have your own place”? I probably should have put the brakes on then, found some way to stay in New York City while my ankle healed, but at the time I thought I was coming home to hole up in my old bedroom.

  Wrong.

  And so began my purgatory in Baltimore. I’d expected to stay here with Mom, but when I realized the extent of her breakdown I had to get out. I moved into Mrs. Scholinsky’s house in April, just in time for her lawn display of giant ceramic Easter bunnies.

  “Livvy?” My mother’s voice cut into my thoughts. “I’m sorry if I’ve reminded you of things you miss. And here I was, trying to cheer you up with a little Broadway revue.”

  “It was fun, and the food was delicious. Thanks, Mom.”

  “Oh, dear, look at the time. You’d better get going if you’re going to make it to the library before it closes. You’re going to have to take the bus.”

  “Please, no!” I gave an exaggerated gasp. “Not another bus with my picture on the side.”

  “What’s that?”

  I told her about the morning encounter with my name and likeness on the bus billboard, which had been compounded when I’d spotted a similar ad on the way here. “It looks like Bobby is trying to suck my soul dry.”

  “Booby!” Mom winced, using her old nickname for him. “I always did worry about you when you were with him. Morally depraved, that boy. So needy and conniving.”

  The same qualities had seemed so attractive when we were together, when he was going to write a show that proved his worth to those big bad network boys. Bobby had always been just on the verge of a big break, so close, and yet in need of much coddling and encouragement every time a rejection damaged his delicate ego.

  “So when is this show on? Shall I watch it?” My mother had never been a fan of television but occasionally tuned in to PBS specials.

  “It’s only on cable, Mom.” My parents were never avid television watchers. Dad used to insist that it rotted the brain. “Besides, I don’t think he paints the Olivia character in a positive light.”

  “Not on normal TV?” She waved it off. “I wouldn’t worry about it then.”

  I hoped she was right.

  “Let me get you today’s list.” She removed a pushpin from the bulletin board over the kitchen phone. “Not too extensive. You can swing by Reggie’s on your way back from the library. The Sinays are coming for dinne
r tomorrow, and I need some heavy cream to make the lobster bisque.”

  I accepted the list with my usual air of confusion, wanting to help but worried about being an enabler. The few times I’d suggested that Mom go down the block and shop for herself, she had countered with small excuses like, “It’s just a few items. Nothing out of your way.” Or “I know Reggie’s is close, but you don’t mind, do you?” Or “Can’t you do your mother a small favor this one time?” Even though the “one time” had been spun into a hundred times over the past few months.

  And of course, I always caved. My parents had raised me in an atmosphere of mutual respect, a calm haven in which voices were not raised and issues were discussed with the ease and finesse of debate-team captains. My parents had taught me well, though my education was lacking in one area: at the age of twenty-four I had not learned how to say no to my mother.

  “Okay, Mom,” I said as she started the soundtrack to Promises, Promises! “I’ll be back shortly.”

  Behind me a young Jerry Orbach sang, “Things that I promised myself fell apart…”

  Ain’t that the truth.

  4

  It was almost noon on Wednesday and I was trying to work up the enthusiasm to do my physical-therapy exercises, although I was still feeling a little sleepy. My landlady suffered from insomnia, a condition I didn’t think was contagious until I moved into the apartment underneath hers. Every night, just after midnight, the noise begins. First, pacing footsteps, then falling tools or rolling doorknobs, banging hammer, whirring power drill. Mrs. Scholinsky thinks she’s handy, and someone told her that when you have trouble sleeping you should tire yourself with work. For her, that means a home fix-it project. For me, that means late nights of buzzing, banging noises punctuated by the occasional old-lady curse.

  Last night I think she dropped a whole can of screws around three A.M. I can’t be sure, but there was the distinct sound of a thousand dervishes twirling on the wood floor, followed by cursing, then fifteen minutes of high-pitched vacuum suction. “Clang! Kink! Klink!”