Bridge To Happiness

by Jill Barnett

  Willow was the saddest specimen among us. Willow was her adopted name, one she’d taken to using in 1963. She was born Agnes Willamenia Gunther, and she was a drunk and a street person, beaten and abused over a lifetime, a woman who started off protesting the war and did too many drugs in the sixties.

  With her wild and dirty gray hair and skin like Genoa sausage, she was the kind of crazy old woman who stood on a corner and shouted, or slowly pushed a grocery cart with all her worldly belongings up the city’s streets. She reeked of unwashed skin and cheap liquor, but she talked constantly, slurring her words and asking questions with a lisp, because one bad man years back had knocked her front teeth out.

  She told us stories that were probably not even near the truth. If she wrote a book about her life, she could go on Oprah.

  When she heard why I was there, she stood up and banged on the bars and chanted over and over, “Death to the Establishment! Save that building!” I had a feeling she had said those same words decades back, perhaps when she had barely begun her downhill journey to the bleak place she was now.

  I didn’t know how long I’d been locked up, because when I first arrived the officers took my watch, jewelry and keys. But we were all sitting around the cell, playing three truths and a lie, when a female officer came to let me out.

  As I walked out of the cell, all the women gathered at the bars, looking at me like children on the Kindertransport.

  “’Bye, March!

  “Remember! Sunflower Boutique on eBay!”

  Pop! “Hang in there, girl.”

  “You tell those kids of yours Cherry says to back off!”

  “Don’t you get yourthelf thrown in here again, mithy,” Willow said.

  The door closed on their collective voices and I walked down the barren hallway where another somber guard let us out.

  Scott, Philip and Molly stood across a large room with dull green paint and dirty windows, waiting, my judges and jurists. It looked to me as if they had already decided the verdict.

  Molly was holding my Chanel tote to her chest, so she must have gone by the house and picked it up for me. When I was walking, I didn’t take anything with me but a few bills and my keys.

  “Hey, Mom.” Phillip slipped his arm around me and gave me hug.

  “Are you all right?” Scott asked and he sounded just like his dad, concerned, not critical.

  “I’m fine,” I said more sharply than I meant to. I expected them to assume I was a mess and I was defensive.

  At a small counter I picked up a manila envelope with my personal items. I put on my watch, but not my gold hoops.

  “I stopped and picked up your purse and the spare car keys,” Molly said more kindly than she had spoken to me in a long time.

  With mixed emotions I took my purse. “Thanks.”

  My kids turned and started to walk away, assuming I would follow behind.

  “Wait a second would you?” I dumped the contents of my purse on the counter and picked up my wallet and checkbook.

  “What are you doing?” Molly asked.

  “None of your business,” I said calmly, looking through my wallet. “Please wait over there.”

  Since I hadn’t bitten or punched or kicked the cop behind the window, he was willing to give me some of those large envelopes, and I left a gift for each woman, scribbling their name on the outside of an envelope before I sealed it. For Willow, a grocery card for a hundred dollars that I’d won at the checkout a few weeks back. I was afraid to give her money and hoped maybe she would get some food with it instead of booze. What I really wanted to give her was a lifetime of baths.

  My gold hoops went to Cherry, and my makeup bag filled with Chanel makeup for Lola. I wrote a check to Danica for her twenty-seven hundred dollar fine, and I checked my purse to make certain the black Chanel authenticity card was in the zipper pocket, handed my tote to the officer and told him it was to go to Suki Collins. I would watch for it on the Internet under the eBay listing of Sunflower Boutique, and maybe bid on it.

  Some new fire was lit inside of me, something I hadn’t felt in months. I owed those women for my short time in that cell. My struggles, my pain were something I could overcome. Mired in my great grief, I was all tied up in my head and my heart, and I let all that stay there, held it close to me and refused to let it go, and it made me into someone I didn’t like. In their shoes, what would I have done? Perhaps made the same bad choices they had made?

  I crammed the rest of my stuff in my pockets and walked right over to my kids. “Let’s go.” Once outside, I asked, “Who’s taking me home?”

  Molly said, “Scott.”

  And at the same time Scott said, “Me.”

  “Great. Here’s the deal. I made a mistake. We’re going to drop this whole thing. Right now. It might take me some time, but I will be fine. I loved your father and I will always love your father, but now I have to love me.” I stopped and faced them. “Got it?”

  They nodded like obedient children, or those little plastic standing dachshunds people line up on their Impala dashboards.

  “Good. I need you to stop by the pharmacy on the way home, Scott. I have a prescription to fill.”

  And, I thought, a life to figure out.

  PART THREE

  A single event can awaken in us a stranger totally unknown to us.

  —Antoine de Saint-Exupery

  Chapter Nineteen

  Thanksgiving was only a week away and Mickey would be coming home for the first time since late August, when we drove his car down to get him settled in at the UCLA campus. In October, Phillip, Scott, Molly and I went to see him for parents’ weekend, my older children feeling as if they needed to fill in for Mike. Any concern I had over his adjustment to college life was put to rest once I saw him. He was happy and had adapted so well, and he was still only a short flight away from us. He had a good group of roommates and his grades were great.

  That Mike missed this was tough, and the thought took me back to my elder kids’ parents’ weekends, those times when Mickey had gone with Mike and me.

  I wondered if being away from home now that his dad was gone was not, in truth, the best thing for him, and perhaps had some part of his choice of a university. I had worried about him living away from home, but maybe he was running away like I had been for a long while, not too far away, but still running away.

  I did feel as if I had some control of myself again, and perhaps I owed it all to Harrie. I took a little pill that numbed me enough, and to my surprise I now had a size eight body with muscle definition. Weights were a good thing, and I was working pretty diligently toward a great six-pack. My friends were amazed at the changes in me. Ellie spent a fortune turning one of her many guest suites into a full gym, and she often met me for my walks. Lately, she could even keep up. MC was still making excuses.

  A couple of weeks ago, I’d emailed Suki on eBay and sent her that size fourteen black dress along with some of my old size ten and twelve designer clothes. My friends, on my advice, did the same. I was on a mission to keep Suki out of jail and away from shoplifting.

  Between all of us, I had hoped she could make enough on eBay to support her kids and even keep her daughters in ballet classes.

  But now, in the last two weeks, I had the feeling things around me were starting to go on the rocks again. For some reason, Molly wasn’t calling me back—nothing new in our relationship—and it used to bug the heck out of me, which was why she probably did it. I never did that to my own mother. I had always called home every single week.

  I wondered what had I done now, but since I’d been taking Harrie’s prescription, I didn’t care as much. No doubt I had done something really horrific, like giving birth to her.

  Still, I left repeated messages at Molly’s apartment, at her work voicemail, and on her cell. The clock had finally slogged its way to seven a.m.. when I felt I could call and maybe reach her. I picked up the cordless phone and punched in my daughter’s home number as I walked out t
he French doors and onto the brick courtyard.

  We’d had an Indian summer, so the planters were still lush with ferns and fichus trees, a couple of good-sized gardenia bushes, some hanging fuchsias and impatiens, which were finally starting to turn. I picked off the brown flowers and leaves as I listened the to the phone ring, one, two, three, four, five times until I heard the familiar click of the answering machine.

  “This is Molly. I can’t come to the phone right now. Leave a message and I’ll call you back.”

  “This is Molly’s mother, who has left six messages on this machine. Remember me? The woman who in spite of the AMA’s nutritional guidelines on nitrates—and your grandmother’s incessant harping—fed you Kraft macaroni and cheese, hot dogs, and grilled cheese and bacon sandwiches for the first seven years of your life?”

  I paused, suddenly frustrated. Hurt, really. “Molly, please . . . Call me.” Great, I thought, now I sounded needy and desperate.

  “Look,” I snapped out of nowhere. “I want to know if you’re coming for Thanksgiving. Call me or I’ll send the police out to find you!” I hung up and stared at the phone.

  Lovely, a ticked off Molly wouldn’t call me back.

  Ever hopeful, though, I waited an antsy hour for a return phone call before I finally put on my athletic shoes and walked to the neighborhood gym. I had a trainer now named Rodney, who had a body like Mr. Universe.

  One of the better things about Thanksgiving was how the whole house smelled like generations of family recipes—apples and cinnamon, sage and thyme, sausage and onions; the strong scent of bourbon in my grandmother’s sweet potato soufflé, and from the large cocktail glass in my hand.

  I added some Diet Coke and a fresh lime wedge to the mix and walked into the dining room.

  When they built these manses back in the late 19th Century, the dining room was the single room most used for entertaining, so it was enormous by modern American standards. Ours was thirty-five feet long and had a five-tiered crystal chandelier that had come to San Francisco around Cape Horn, and a hand-painted, twelve-foot coffered ceiling.

  It had taken the decorator a good year and half to find a table that would work in the room. I hadn’t wanted one with seating for twenty or more, so she had to search for a substantial table where our family could sit down and not have to shout at each other from opposite ends of the room.

  She was a smart cookie. Her answer was to divide the room and it became part sitting room, with a set of settees and matching chairs for conversation seating, along with a huge built-in antique mahogany bar and service area, flanked by a set of mirrored French cabinets filled with glimmering crystal. The rest of the room was formal dining, dominated by a Venetian table with four inlaid leaves and big, high backed Scalamandre´-upholstered arm chairs.

  I had to admit, as I adjusted the place settings and moved the chairs and Tyler’s toddler chair, that the room was probably the most elegant in the whole house. But other than the occasional business or dinner party, we used it more casually set for our monthly Sunday dinners, and then once a year at Thanksgiving.

  Thanksgiving was tomorrow. I had changed the place settings because Molly had finally left a message with some excuse about being too busy to call, and to let me know she was bringing someone to dinner. I reset the table for ten.

  Molly was bringing someone. I hoped she was bringing a date and not a girlfriend. It had been a long time since she brought a boyfriend home, since her junior year of college. I thought perhaps my daughter could use a good man in her life. I wanted for her what Mike and I had. I was a lucky woman when it came to men. I had found the best one.

  I have never loved Thanksgiving, other than it’s a good excuse to drink my coffee from a mug shaped like a turkey. (I should have put my bourbon in the turkey mug.) Mike, on the other hand, lived for the Thanksgiving holiday. He played the Friends Thanksgiving DVDs and laughed every time Monica or Joey ended up with a turkey on their heads, and we owned three copies of the movie Home For the Holidays, where a turkey ended up in someone’s lap.

  Turkey was his thing. Every year he ordered fresh turkeys for all his employees and handed each of them out like reborn Scrooge. This year, Scott and Phillip gave away the turkeys, but I suspected it wasn’t quite the same.

  Over the years, the things my husband had done to our poor turkeys in the name of a Thanksgiving dinner was the kind of stuff that made ‘remember-that-year-Dad’ jokes as much a part of our dinner ritual as giving thanks.

  He had split and barbequed them, smoked them, spitted them, doused them in bottles of German beer, deep fried them, injected them with Cajun seasoning and fried them, and brined them. I found myself smiling. I had been a very lucky woman for a long, long time.

  This year, Scott would be sitting in Mike’s chair. I made out the place cards and adjusted what had been our traditional seating. I hadn’t fallen apart while doing either. When I thought of Mike now, I did so with a wistfulness or snippet of joy at some funny moment I cherished or wanted to remember. Doing so made me feel as if part of him was still part of me.

  I didn’t sob anymore—Harrie’s little pills—but I admit there was an element of happiness completely missing from me. Somewhere deep inside me was numb.

  I sprinkled the small copper foil leaves and corn candy my granddaughter loved around the clusters of glass candles and floral centerpiece, picked up my drink, and turned out the lights.

  Mickey was out tonight with his high school buddies, who were home for the holiday and they hadn’t seen each other since they all went off to their respective colleges. I expected him home pretty late.

  The house was quiet again, the new normal—a silence that was natural to me nowadays and didn’t scare me like it used to. In the kitchen, I cleaned up and set the coffeemaker to start brewing early, then turned down the lights and headed for the stairs.

  The doorbell rang so I checked my watch; it was almost midnight. I padded to the door, my hand automatically on the doorknob, but I stopped and looked outside. My head swum and I almost vomited.

  A cop was standing at the door.

  Chapter Twenty

  “You gave Mickey the keys to a hundred thousand dollar car?” Scott was standing in the driveway and yelling at me. “What were you thinking?”

  “He wasn’t hurt badly, Scott.” I said to him. I was still not completely over the horrific, dizzying dread I felt the night before, when I opened that front door. Just thinking about it shook me up. “The accident was not his fault.”

  “But it was Dad’s Porsche.” Scott was frustrated. “The car’s a mess.”

  “It’s insured. So is the driver who’s at fault. But what matters is your brother is okay. He has a black-eye, a sore shoulder from the seatbelt, and a small cut on his forehead. That’s it.”

  He muttered something again about a hundred thousand dollar car, which made me angry.

  “Ask yourself this: if he were hurt, or worse, would you be standing here talking about the damned car?”

  Scott closed his eyes and took a long breath. “You’re right.” His shoulders sagged and he walked over and put his arms around me. His after shave smelled light and spicy. “I’m sorry, Mom.”

  Scott was stressed. I knew he and Phillip were still having problems and Renee was three weeks late and looked like she was ready to explode. Her doctor wanted to take the baby by C section yesterday, but Renee had begged her to please let her go through the holiday weekend, and after some monitoring, her doctor had agreed.

  However, I remembered how tough that last month of pregnancy was. I expect that Scott had already been standing in for much of the parenting with the other two, along with the business and his troubles there, although there seemed to be a holiday truce between Phil and him. I decided I needed to give my son some slack. However, he was right. Why had I given Mickey the keys to Mike’s Porsche? Where was my head? I frowned. Perhaps Harriet’s little pills and their numbing effects were affecting my common sense.

 
“The car will be repaired, and I will not give Mickey the keys again. I made a mistake. It’s Thanksgiving.” I stepped out of his arms. “Come inside, and be sure to tell your brother everything’s okay. He’s still shaken up.

  Scott’s breath came out in an almost indiscernible moan of pain.

  “Last night we were really lucky.” I cupped his face in my hands like I had when he was young. “It’s just a car. A machine. Not a person. Remember that when you’re talking to him.” I linked my arm with his and we went inside together.

  An hour later when everyone was there but Molly, the kitchen buzzed with chattering and my boys were cheering on a football game in the other room, sometimes coming out to sneak a bite of something.

  I basted the turkey, closed the oven, and poured myself a glass of good wine. I had remembered to open the bottles so they could breathe. Mike would have been happy. I leaned against the counter with a dishtowel over my shoulder and took a minute to relax.

  Renee and Keely were sitting at the kitchen table while Tyler napped in my room and Miranda did ballet leaps out in the courtyard before she dressed the poor cat up in a holiday outfit made of orange kitchen towels, bag clips, and a pumpkin shaped oven mitt.

  “Hi, Auntie Molly!” Miranda shouted.

  I turned around just as Molly walked in through the back doors, laughing and holding hands with a stunningly handsome, and way-too-old for her Spider Olsen.

  I finished off the wine in my glass as if it were Evian.

  “We’re here!” Molly called out. Within minutes everyone was in the room talking at once, my sons welcoming Olsen like an old friend and no one seeming to question the two of them being together.

  I had been had.

  Spider looked at me over my daughter’s red head and smiled charmingly. He pulled himself away from her and crossed the room “March,” he said and handed me two dozen amazing tangerine colored roses I so badly wanted to hate. “Thanks for inviting me.”