Return to Little Hills

by Janice Macdonald

  Sophia sighed. “Honestly, Peter, sometimes you can be so thick. I’m trying to arrange for you to have another unencumbered evening.”

  Peter scratched his head. “Unencumbered?” And then the penny dropped. “Ah, Project Wife.”

  “Naturally. Project Wife,” Sophia said. “If you’re to do a little ardent wooing, which you’ll have to do before she meets the girls, you’ll need a free evening or two. Perhaps, ultimately, a weekend—”

  “If I need your help in organizing my romantic affairs, Sophia, I’ll let you know. For now, I’m quite capable of managing on my own.”

  “Don’t bluster, Peter. I understand these things. Now, tell me, is it still the foreign correspondent? It is, I have an intuitive sense. Pity. I’m sure there must be a nice teacher… I really wish you would think this whole thing through carefully.”

  “GOOD MORNING to you, too.” Edie sat on the stairs smiling dreamily, Peter’s voice like a caress in her ear. “I thought about you all night, too,” she said.

  “Shall we kiss and dance a little more tonight?”

  “Tonight?”

  “Tonight. My sister disinvited me from a trip with the girls to the planetarium and told me to…go out and carouse. I managed to get two tickets tonight to a concert at Powell Hall. Mahler. Do you like Mahler?”

  She thought for a moment. “I would really, really like to tell you that I love Mahler and particularly enjoy, I don’t know, Opus 57 in C-sharp or something, but I’ve got to say that I wouldn’t recognize Mahler from Mozart.”

  “But would you like to go, anyway?”

  “When do we dance?”

  He laughed. “After the concert. I’m not sure it would be appropriate during…”

  “Will you sing and whisper things in my ear?”

  “Oh, Edie,” he murmured. “Gladly.

  “In that case then, I’ll go.”

  “Good. We’ll be hearing Mahler’s Eighth. Quite baroque. The First would be a better introduction to his work. It actually sprang from the lieder cycle, a beautiful work that arose out of a love affair with a soprano. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite work out. The love affair, I mean.”

  “Oh,” Edie said.

  “I actually play it for the girls. The twins are a little young yet, but Natalie quite enjoys it.”

  “God, that makes me feel musically illiterate. I’m probably better with my mom’s World War II stuff. Vera Lynn and ‘I’ll Be Seeing You’ is about as out there as I get, musically.”

  “Mmm. Well, if you enjoy this, and I think you will, I’ll make you a copy of the First and you can work your way through the rest.”

  “The rest? How many are there?”

  “Let’s just start with the first few.”

  Edie smiled and, as Peter went on to explain the symphony’s first movement in a level of detail that made her eyes glaze over, the journalist part of her brain began cataloging the details she was learning about him, referencing them under a file she decided to dub, Things That Set Peter Darling Apart From Most Men I Know. The butterflies, of course. Very sweet tooth, particularly likes gooey butter cake. Kind to elderly women. Actually listens attentively to the endless rambling of a particular elderly woman. Loves to dance to World War II songs. Knows the words to a surprisingly large number of World War II songs. Incredibly sexy and tender. Great kisser. And four young daughters.

  “…And the song cycle is intimately related to the symphony thematically,” Peter was saying now, “which offers some idea of what Mahler was thinking when he wrote it.”

  “Good,” Edie said. “At least someone does, because I don’t have the foggiest idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Really?” Peter sounded surprised. “I thought I explained it rather simply. Natalie understood.”

  “That could be because Natalie is much more intelligent than I am, but it’s probably because she was actually listening.”

  “And you weren’t?”

  “No. I was thinking about kissing you.”

  He laughed. “I can see I’m going to have to work very hard at broadening your horizons.”

  “Please do,” Edie said. “I love having my horizons broadened.”

  “Do you? I wouldn’t have taken you for that kind of girl.”

  She leaned back against the stairs, phone cord wrapped around her hand, replaying the moment he’d first kissed her. “Just goes to show you. By the way, was a Mahler concert what your sister had in mind when she told you to go and carouse?”

  “Not really. My sister is actually very keen for me to remarry. And extremely opinionated about the type of woman she considers suitable. Sophia wouldn’t approve of carousing. Anyway, I’ll come by around six. We’ll have dinner first.”

  EDIE HUNG UP and walked into the kitchen in a daze, which Maude, like the sun bursting through an early-morning mist, immediately dispersed.

  “Was that Peter?” Maude sat at the table, a filmy blue scarf tied turbanlike around her head, eating a bowl of prunes. “I like Peter. You like Peter? I’m eating these because I haven’t gone for two days. I told Viv and she said eat some prunes, so that’s why I wanted to get some at the IGA the other day. What time did he leave last night? I thought, well, I’ll just go up and give those two some privacy.” She motioned for Edie to come closer. “He’s not still here?” she whispered.

  Edie measured coffee into the pot. It was like walking into a wall of sound. Maude, she was beginning to realize, didn’t require any response, which didn’t really matter because she wouldn’t hear, anyway.

  “He’s sleeping?” Maude asked. “Doesn’t he have to be at school?”

  Edie turned to look at her mother. “Mom, how could Peter still be here if I was just talking to him on the phone?”

  “Did you?” Maude smiled. “That’s good. Viv called. She wants you to call her.”

  “Okay.” Edie shook a box of dry cat food into three little blue plastic bowls. She had to decide how to approach her sister about the things Beth had said yesterday. Lunch maybe. They’d go to lunch and talk. Or maybe a drink somewhere—although if Viv was, as Beth claimed, drinking too much, maybe not. As if on cue, the phone rang. Edie snatched it up on the first ring, sure it was Viv.

  “May I speak to Edie Robinson?” a girl’s voice asked.

  “Speaking.” Edie smiled. “Is this Jessie?”

  “Yeah. It’s okay for me to call?”

  “Absolutely,” Edie said. “Hold on a minute.” She held her hand over the receiver. “It’s for me, Mom.”

  “Don’t tie up the line,” Maude said as she shuffled out of the kitchen.

  “Sorry,” Edie told Jessie. “What’s up?”

  “I just…well it’s my boyfriend, he’s giving me a real bad time and everything and I can’t talk to his mom because she never thinks he does anything wrong. And anyway, you said for me to call you, so I did.”

  “A bad time, how?” Edie wedged the phone between her ear and shoulder and began picking up the kitchen as she listened to Jessie unload: Bobby didn’t help around the house, Jessie told her, he was always off somewhere playing pool with his friends or something, he talked mean to her, he never changed the baby’s diapers. Listening, Edie found herself wondering why there wasn’t some kind of law against sixteen-year-old children procreating? Jessie made her old, world-weary and uncharacteristically at a loss for a solution.

  “Well I’m glad you called,” Edie said, wishing she could come up with a more constructive way to help the girl. “Could I meet you somewhere?”

  “Are you going to be at the teen mother center this afternoon?”

  “I wasn’t planning to, but I could be,” Edie said. “Are you okay right now, though? You’re not in any…danger or anything?”

  “No. Bobby’s gone to Kansas City to see his brother. He’ll be back tomorrow.”

  “Okay, I’ll meet you at the center at three.”

  Edie hung up and heard Maude calling for her from upstairs.

  “Com
ing.” She ran up the stairs and found Maude in the bathroom sitting on the toilet with the lid down, a towel wrapped around her head. The front of her mother’s robe was soaked and her teeth were chattering. “What’s going on?”

  “I was putting a rinse on my hair.” Maude’s chin was quivering. “But I bent my head over the sink and had a dizzy spell. I called out to you, but you were on the phone and I got all panicky. I thought, ooh, what if Edith goes out and doesn’t come back for hours and I fall and crack my head and bleed to death? ’Course, it would solve your problem—”

  “Mom, for God’s sake.” In one swoop, she’d replaced the sopping towel with a dry one from the rack, wrapped it around her mother’s head and led Maude into the bedroom. “Why couldn’t you have just asked me to help? And what the hell do you need a rinse for anyway?”

  “Get my green robe from the closet.” Maude had started unbuttoning the one she wore. “No, not that one. The one with the buttons—”

  “What’s wrong with this one?” Edie pulled a chenille robe from among half a dozen lined up on hangers in her mother’s jumbled closet, which she couldn’t look at without the uncomfortable thought that one day she and Viv would have to empty it out.

  “I don’t like that one,” Maude said. “The color’s not good on me.”

  Edie turned from the closet to look at her mother.

  “Maybe it’s not important to you,” said Maude, who had obviously caught the look on Edie’s face. “To you, I’m just an old woman waiting to die. But it’s important to me. Peter said I should always wear green because it brings out the color of my eyes. He told me that at school. Green is his favorite color, he said.”

  Edie stared at Maude, stumped for words.

  “Oh, I know what you’re thinking,” Maude said. “Silly old fool—”

  “Don’t tell me what I’m thinking.” Edie picked through the blouses, robes and assorted housedresses until she came to the green robe, then she handed it to her mother. “And the rinse?”

  “Vince?” Maude bent her head to fasten the robe. “That’s the man you’re seeing? Does Peter know? D’you eat breakfast yet? Those prunes weren’t enough. I thought maybe you could make me another one of those omelets. No green peppers though. They repeat on me. I’ve never liked green peppers.”

  Ten minutes later as they shared an omelet at the kitchen table, Edie brought up the day’s agenda. “These are the things I have to do…” she started.

  “I thought so, too,” Maude said. “I told her she could join a gym. That would help her lose weight.”

  Edie put down her fork and twirled her finger at her ear. “Hearing aid?”

  “Don’t need it,” Maude said. “I can hear what you’re saying.” She got up from the table and started for the front door. “I’ve got some seeds I want to plant. They’ll dry out if I don’t get them in.”

  Edie sighed and grabbed Maude’s arm again. “Mom, there are a dozen other things we need to do that are more important than planting seeds in the garden.” She guided Maude back into the chair. “Listen to me, okay?”

  Maude eyed her for a moment. “I want to stay here.”

  Edie sat down. “Here in this house?”

  “I’ve been thinking about it. This is my home. I’ve always been happy here. I like my own chair to watch TV. I like sleeping in my own bed. That place you and Vivian took me to see, lot of old people sitting around waiting to die. That’s not for me. I’ll stay here.”

  “Then you tell Viv,” Edie said.

  JUST AFTER NOON, Peter left his office and strolled over to the far end of the campus, where a dozen or so students were carefully digging green starter plants into long, neat rows. Tom Carpenter, the science teacher, waved as Peter approached.

  “We’re putting in potatoes, carrots and beets,” Tom called. “Plant in September, plow under in June.” He rose to his feet, wiped his hands along the sides of his faded jeans. “I meant to stop in and tell you. The program’s already going great guns. We’ve got a deal working with the gal who runs the restaurant management course. They’re going to take the lettuce and peas we harvested last week.”

  “That’s good to hear.” Peter felt his mood take an upswing. The landscaping program, along with half a dozen other programs he’d implemented, was a radical change from the previous administration’s more traditional approach. Millie Adams’s comment a few days ago had only confirmed what he already suspected. A handful of parents and certain members of the faculty would be only too happy to see him fail. Change, he’d found, was inevitably met with alarm by those wedded to the status quo.

  Like Ray Jenkins, for example, standing nearby, jingling the change in his pockets and looking amused as he listened to Tom. Now the assistant principal was slowly shaking his head.

  “Ain’t gonna work, Pete,” he said. “Trust me, I know these kids. I used to have all these highfalutin ideas, but I’m telling you. Get ’em in, get ’em out. It’s all you can do.”

  “…installed all the automatic sprinklers,” Tom continued as though Ray hadn’t spoken. “I’ve already been contacted by a couple of landscaping outfits looking for part-time employees. I have a couple of kids I’d recommend without hesitation.”

  Peter chatted to Tom for a few more minutes, spoke to a couple of students and then headed back to the administration building five minutes early for a 3:00 p.m. staff-development meeting. When he stuck his head around the conference room door, he saw that Beth Herman had already arrived.

  “Hi, Peter.” She was over by the coffee machine, cutting a yellow cake into small squares. “Have some pineapple-upside-down cake. I made it for the meeting because everyone’s always complaining that we don’t have cookies anymore.”

  Peter helped himself to a small square of cake. Budget cutbacks had put an end to a lot of frills, including the cookies once served at every staff meeting. Ray Jenkins had predicted outrage if not out-and-out rebellion. “It’s a morale thing, Pete,” Ray had said. “See, maybe it’s different where you come from, but the teachers here want to know they’re appreciated.” Peter had eliminated the cookies, anyway.

  “Do you spend all of your spare time whipping up cakes and pies?” Peter asked Beth.

  Beth smiled and her face went pink. “Oh…” She licked cake off her finger. “Not really. I do other things too. I have two cats. Chairman Meow and Katmandu.”

  Peter laughed. “Very good. I used to have a cat. Roxanne. Amazingly cranky animal. Wanted everything just so.”

  “So we’re both cat people,” Beth said. “That’s nice.”

  Peter rubbed his jaw. He didn’t particularly think of himself as a cat person. In fact, he’d rather disliked Roxanne. And apparently it had been mutual. A friend had eventually assumed custody and whenever Peter visited, Roxanne seemed not to know him at all. The girls liked cats, though. Delphina adored them. He saw a picket fence and the requisite rose-covered cottage and Beth standing at the front door, smiling as she watched the girls frolic on the verdant green lawn with a litter of kittens. Pretty picture. Problem was, he couldn’t quite put himself in there beside Beth. Hardly surprising. Edie had blinded him.

  EDIE AND JESSIE, with the baby in a backpack carrier, walked from the teen mother center over to the Burger Barn, around the corner from the school. Jessie, after some prodding from Edie, had confessed to skipping lunch because she’d left her money at home. While Jessie found a booth, Edie ordered burgers, fries and sodas. When she carried them over to the booth, Jessie was spooning pureed carrots into the baby’s mouth.

  He grinned when he saw Edie, a wide, gummy, carrot-smeared grin.

  “I know,” she said, smiling back at him. “You want a cheeseburger. I don’t blame you, but you have to wait until you’re a little bit older.”

  “Do you have kids?” Jessie asked.

  “Nope.”

  “But you still could. You’re not old.”

  Edie grinned. Not old. Not young; just not old. A depressing thought if she were to
dwell on it. She ate a French fry, sipped some diet soda. “I can’t imagine it somehow.”

  “Bobby wants us to have another baby,” Jessie said.

  “Jessie.” Edie shook her head.

  “I know. I don’t really want to. But he can be so sweet sometimes. He says he wants us to go to Las Vegas and get married. He’s a good daddy. Except sometimes he feeds him bits of meat. I get so mad, I tell him Roger could choke, but Bobby just gets mad and says he doesn’t want no mama’s boy.”

  Elbows on the table, chin propped in her hands, Edie stared at Jessie.

  “I know,” Jessie said, reading the look on Edie’s face. “Bobby’s sometimes like a kid himself.”

  “He is, Jessie. You both are.” Edie tore open a package of ketchup and squeezed it over her fries. Jessie had finished feeding the baby and was rapidly devouring her cheeseburger. The place was crowded with kids from the high school, the noise level almost deafening. Jessie seemed unconcerned. She’d dug a plastic toy from the backpack and was holding it above the baby’s face. He’d reach for it, and she would lift it higher, smiling at his efforts. Edie ate another fry.

  “Why do you stay with Bobby?”

  Jessie’s smile faded. “I love him.”

  “I thought I was in love when I was sixteen,” Edie said. “He ended up marrying my sister and they lived happily ever after. They were much better suited anyway.”

  “So do you still talk to your sister?”

  “Oh sure. Jessie, we were kids, all of us. It’s ancient history. So much has happened in my life since then.” I’m still lonely as hell and fighting closeness tooth and nail. “I have a great life. The point I’m trying to make, though, is that you’re so young. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you. Think of all the things you could do. You can’t really want to stay in this situation.”

  “He can be so sweet when he wants to—”

  “When he wants to.” Edie sipped some soda and told herself to back off. “What do you want?” she asked the girl.