by Leah Stewart
Heather came up behind her and slipped her hands through the triangles of Eloise’s arms. She slid a palm under the front of Eloise’s shirt and rested her chin on Eloise’s shoulder. “We should get rid of that love seat,” she said. “And bring your couch over.”
“My couch is orange,” Eloise said.
“I know,” Heather said, sliding her palm over Eloise’s breast.
“Your couch is purple,” Eloise said.
“So?”
“We’re going to have an orange couch and a purple couch? In the same room?”
Heather put a light kiss on Eloise’s jawbone. “Why not?” she said. “We’re wild and crazy.”
“Are we?”
“Our tastes are really different,” Heather said. “It’ll be more mix and mix than mix and match.”
“We don’t have to bring my stuff over,” Eloise said.
“No, no! I want to.”
“Because this has all been an elaborate plan to get my stuff,” Eloise said, smiling. “I can’t believe you really want it.”
“I really want it,” Heather said, with deliberate innuendo, turning Eloise toward her.
Before Eloise left for work, she agreed to meet Heather at her own house that afternoon to consider furniture and kitchenware. She didn’t want combining their lives to be such a daunting and lengthy project. She wanted it to be boom, done, but until she moved her stuff in Heather wouldn’t consider it official. Heather wouldn’t consider it official until Eloise told the kids, but the piping little voice that reminded her of that could just shut the hell up, because there was no need to discuss your personal life with people who weren’t going to be part of it. And the voice that said that they would, inevitably, be part of it—well, that voice could shut the hell up, too.
The day promised a distractingly annoying series of meetings, and Eloise found herself looking forward to discussing with Marta Bowen for the millionth time why Marta had to take her turn at teaching Monday/Wednesday/Friday, just like the rest of the faculty. At ten of ten, there was a knock on Eloise’s office door, and she turned expecting to see Marta’s scowling face, and instead saw a man in a suit, a very pale man in a suit, regarding her somberly. “Yes?” she said, with curt politeness, because he had the air of someone who mistook her for someone else.
“Are you Eloise?” he asked, which was strange, because a work-related stranger would have asked whether she was Professor Hempel, or Dr. Hempel, or the department chair.
“I am,” she said.
“I’m Gary Paula.”
“Gary Paula?” she repeated blankly.
He looked very uncomfortable, the man in his recognizably expensive suit. “I’m Claire’s boyfriend.”
She stared at him, dumbfounded. He might as well have told her he was the second coming, or an alien. “Claire’s boyfriend?” she said. That did not seem like the right word.
“I need to talk to you,” he said, and when she didn’t answer he went on looking uncomfortable, but advanced into the office anyway and took the chair nearest her desk, as though she’d invited him to. He leaned forward and looked at her intently, as if he was considering whether to offer her a job.
“I can’t imagine what we have to talk about,” she said.
Both his expression and his tone dismissed that assertion. “Claire’s unhappy,” he said.
“Really.” She sat back in her chair and tented her fingers. “What a surprise.”
Another dismissive face. He seemed to have been braced for that blow. “I don’t think it’s about me,” he said. “I think it’s about you.”
“Is that right,” Eloise said. “That surprises me.”
“Well, it shouldn’t,” he said. “You are her mother.”
There was accusation in his voice when he said the word mother. Wasn’t there? Eloise was sure she heard it, but she wasn’t proud of her childish response. “I am not.”
“Essentially you are,” he said. “So of course it’s hard for her to be treated like this by you.”
“Treated like what?”
“Like she’s nothing to you,” he said. “Like you don’t want to see her. Like you’ve disowned her.”
At those words Eloise vaulted out of anger into contempt, noting the nervous way his leg began to jiggle, even as he held her gaze. She cocked her head and studied him, enjoying the power of detachment. This was how the world must look from the throne. She spoke slowly, biting her words. “I cannot imagine what kind of self-righteous jackass you must be to come here under these circumstances to tell me how to treat my niece. You left your wife and your three-year-old child for a girl just out of high school. You surely knew that girl, young enough to be your own daughter, had lied not only to her employer but to her family about her whereabouts. You surely knew what kind of opportunity that girl was giving up for the dubious prospect of marriage to you. Let me say again, you allowed her to quit her life for you, while you abandoned your wife and child. That is the kind of person that you are. And yet here you sit, like you have something to say to me.”
Now he had the good grace to flush, red splotches appearing on his cheeks and neck. “What kind of person I am,” he said, “isn’t the question.”
“It’s the question in my mind,” Eloise said.
“I understand why you don’t like me,” he said.
“Well, ten points for you.”
“And I understand why you’re angry at Claire.”
“Congratulations, again.”
“But I can’t imagine that you don’t still care about her, and that is why I came here to talk to you, because I would imagine it would bother you as much as it does me to see her in pain. She misses her family. She feels like she’s lost you. She’s been sleeping a lot. She’s had little appetite. She cries. She’s been like that ever since that dinner at your house.”
Eloise nodded. She could feel the anger surging back. “It must be a terrible blow to leave your wife for a teenage girl, only to have that girl turn out to be kind of a drag.”
He stood, as though shoved to his feet by righteous indignation. “She needs you,” he said.
Eloise looked up at him and said, “She has you, doesn’t she?”
He put a hand to his face, as though suddenly weary, and dropped back into the chair. Eloise felt a scientific interest in all his various displays of emotion. What would be next? Would he throw something? Would he weep? “It doesn’t have to be a choice between us,” he said.
“Really?” she said. “Because that’s how it seems to me.”
The look he gave her next was almost pleading. “Love just finds you sometimes,” he said.
“Oh, spare me,” she said, shaking her head. “Spare me, spare me. Save it for your wife.”
He flinched. “I don’t feel good about any of this. If that’s what you want to hear.”
“What I want to hear is that she’s left you and gone back to dancing. That’s the one and only thing I want to hear.”
He nodded slowly, and she thought this conversation might finally be over, but he spoke again. “It was her idea to quit dancing,” he said. “Not mine.”
Eloise frowned. “You didn’t want her to quit?”
“God, no. That’s a lot of pressure.” He gave her a weird, pained smile. “Now I have to be worth it.”
“Why would she quit on her own? After all that?”
He lifted a shoulder. “Ask her.”
Eloise shook her head furiously and stood to wave him out the door, but he reached up and put his hand on her arm. “I have a daughter, too,” he said.
What was that supposed to mean? “Claire’s not my daughter,” she said.
He ignored this. “I can’t imagine I’d want her to be with someone like me, when she’s Claire’s age.”
Eloise shook her arm free. “I don’t understand why you’re telling me this.”
He sighed. “I guess I’m apologizing.”
“So why are you doing this? To all of these people? You
r wife, your daughter? Claire, Claire’s family? What is wrong with you?”
“Love just finds you,” he said again, helplessly. “I thought you might understand that.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Because of Heather,” he said.
Eloise stood still a moment. Then she said, “What do you know about Heather?”
“Just what Claire’s told me.”
In Eloise’s head, she punched him in the face. Or maybe she kicked him in the balls. Either way he dropped to the ground in pain. “And what has Claire told you?” she asked.
“That you’re involved with her, but you don’t want anyone to know.”
She nodded, glancing outside her office to see if the secretary had heard. The secretary wasn’t there. Getting coffee, maybe. Taking a bathroom break. Just going about doing the normal things we do, when some asshole isn’t in our office trying to fuck up our life. “I’m done talking to you,” she said. “You can tell Claire—from me—that if she’s unhappy there’s a very good solution, and that’s getting the hell away from you.” She folded her arms. “Now get out of my office,” she said.
Eloise was done. She was done, and it was not her responsibility to rescue Claire from her own bad decisions. But that wasn’t even what she’d been asked to do! At least there would be sense in attempting a rescue, even if the mission was sure to be ill-fated. No, the man wanted her to withdraw her disapproval. He’d come there to make some kind of back-ass-ward request for her blessing. Oh, poor Claire, made unhappy by the fact that Eloise got mad at her when she fucked up. Poor little dear. Just like when she was three and sobbed like her heart was breaking because Eloise yelled at her for pulling the cat’s tail. Well, we certainly don’t ever want to hold a child responsible for the bad decisions she makes. That might lower her self-esteem! As though Eloise hadn’t spent the last sixteen years admiring the girl from the audience. As though she hadn’t expended great quantities of time and money in pursuit of the girl’s dream, which was to be admired, and admired, and admired some more. No wonder Claire was depressed—she was used to looking out at a crowd who found her beautiful. Now she was reduced to an audience of one.
This was not usually how Eloise saw her niece—as a narcissist, cold to the needs of others—but it was the vision of Claire that was still in Eloise’s mind when she arrived at the house to meet Heather. Even aggravating Marta Bowen hadn’t been able to drive away the conversation with Gary Paula, and what Eloise resented most was the guilt he’d made her feel, how he’d planted the idea in her that she should go talk to Claire. Forgive her? Hug her? Hold her hand and promise to be there no matter what? Eloise was not going to do that. She was not required to do that. But it took a lot of anger to drive away the guilty conviction that she should.
Heather’s car was in the drive, and since Eloise had given her a key Heather would already be inside. Eloise heartily wished they hadn’t planned this for today. She didn’t want to sort knickknacks with Heather. She didn’t want to do anything with Heather at all. What she wanted was to be alone, where no one could ask how she felt, or what she was thinking, or see any evidence of thoughts or feelings on her face.
Heather was in the kitchen, with some sort of utensil in her hand. She looked up and smiled as Eloise came in. “Hey,” she said. She leaned in for a quick kiss. “How was your day?”
“I feel so domestic already,” Eloise said.
Heather laughed, more out of happiness than amusement. “I’ve been separating out things I think you might want to keep.” She waved the tool in her hand at the kitchen table, where, Eloise saw, there was a cardboard box, neatly labeled KITCHEN in Heather’s handwriting. She held up the tool for Eloise’s inspection. For a moment Eloise couldn’t retrieve the name of it. It had to do with beating eggs. She could picture it in motion, but what was it called? She knew the word was in there somewhere. She almost had it, and once she did the relief she felt would be enormous. “Do you know where you got this?” Heather asked. “I have a whisk at home, but this one might be better.”
Whisk. That was the word. Which whisk. “Isn’t a whisk a whisk?” She hadn’t meant to sound irritated, but she had, and Heather’s face, which had been so open and cheerful, went blank. Heather looked at the whisk like it required immense concentration. She had a gift for withdrawal, for silent disapproval, the kind that refused to even look at you, not out of anger but to give you a private moment to consider the error you’d made and choose to rectify it. To Eloise’s mind this determined non-anger was the most aggravating thing about Heather, the way it let her claim the higher ground. “You know I don’t really care about this crap,” Eloise said. The sentence had started out annoyed, but consciously she’d softened it into conciliatory. “Anything you want is fine with me.”
Heather dropped the thing back in its drawer. “Aren’t you attached to some of your tools? Your pots and pans?”
Eloise shrugged. “I’m not attached to anything.” Heather made no comment, though if she were insecure she might have said, Not even me? She didn’t. She wasn’t insecure. This was one of the things to love about her.
“Well, what about the couch? Have you thought about that?”
Eloise sighed. “Could we move it on our own? Could we borrow a big car from someone?”
“I thought maybe we’d want to get movers for whatever you decide to bring over. It’s more expensive, but so much easier on the back.”
“Movers?” Eloise went over to the kitchen table and looked inside the box. There was a wok, with some salad bowls stacked neatly inside it. Beside the box on the table Heather had lined up the funky vintage glasses Eloise had bought in Yellow Springs the day they went there together a few months back. They were black with pink-orange flowers, and they kept drinks strangely cool—probably, Eloise thought now, because they contained some kind of terrible chemical, every miracle bringing with it the possibility of cancer. “I don’t know if I want to deal with movers.” She’d never employed movers in her life—and wasn’t that exactly what was wrong with her, that she was forty-five and had never employed movers.
“I can deal with the movers,” Heather said.
“We’ll have to make an informed choice,” Eloise said. “It’s so much work to get informed.”
“It’s really not. Have you heard of a little thing called the Internet?”
“Maybe I should just sell everything.” She took a silver cheese slicer out of the box and looked at it. Where had this come from? She had absolutely no recollection of it. Truly, she’d be willing to swear she’d never seen it before.
“That’s a bit rash,” Heather said. “We could use some of this stuff. And what about the kids? Shouldn’t you give them a chance to look and see if they want anything?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Their childhood beds? Something that belonged to their parents?”
“There’s not much of that. I didn’t keep much of that.”
“I think you understand what I’m saying here.”
“Okay, fine. I’ll ask the kids to tell me what stuff they want. Okay? Then I’ll get rid of everything else.” She pulled her phone from her bag and sent a quick email. “Boom. Done.” She tossed the phone onto the table. “Happy?”
“What is the matter with you?”
“Nothing’s the matter with me.”
“Why are you so hostile?”
“I’m not.”
“Something’s going on,” Heather said. “You’re definitely hostile. You’re in kind of a frenzy.”
Eloise looked at her.
“Okay, it’s a calm frenzy. But it’s still a frenzy, Eloise. It’s crazy to get rid of everything you own. I know you’re upset about Claire. But a nineteen-year-old making a bad romantic choice is hardly reason for you to throw your whole life away.”
“Not my life,” Eloise said. “My things.”
“Either way,” Heather said. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but she’s a
grown woman now and her choices are her own.”
Eloise dropped the slicer back in the box. “You don’t get it. You never had kids.”
“I hate it when you say that.”
“I know you do. But it’s true.”
“I hate how you say it like I’m a lesser human being.”
“You really think that’s how I judge people? I didn’t ask for these kids! It’s not a judgment to say you don’t understand. It’s a fact. You don’t understand. I’m sorry you don’t like that. I’m sorry all people without kids don’t like that, but it’s fucking true.”
“I know what it’s like to take care of something.”
“Oh my God.” Eloise held her hand up in the stop position. “Do not start talking about how you always had dogs.”
“I meant you.”
“I am not a child.”
“They’re not children either.”
“You want to know why I’m upset?”
“Yes, I want to know that, yes.”
“Gary Paula came to my office.”
Heather made a face. “Who’s Gary Paula?”
“Claire’s boyfriend.”
“Oh, honey,” Heather said. She moved toward Eloise but didn’t quite reach her. “What did he want?”
“He wanted to tell me that she’s upset because I’m mad at her.”
“And he thinks you should do something about that?”
“Yes,” Eloise said. “Exactly.”
“That’s crazy,” Heather said. “I can’t believe he came to your office like he had any right to intervene.”
“It is crazy.” Eloise dropped into a chair and rubbed her face. “Like I’m not supposed to be angry at her.”
Now Heather did walk all the way to her. She pulled Eloise’s head against her stomach and rubbed her back. “He made you feel bad, didn’t he.”
“He did,” Eloise said. “He made me feel really bad.”
“I’m sorry, honey. You shouldn’t feel guilty about this.”
“There was something else,” Eloise said into Heather’s shirt. “He kept saying I should be more sympathetic to the way love just finds you. That’s what he kept saying, love just finds you.”
