The Courts of Love

by Ellen Gilchrist

  “She’s been knocked around from pillar to post all her life. How could she keep from worrying? If she’s breathing, we’re ahead. But I don’t like her taking Ritalin, Jenny. That’s a class four drug. Ever since we went through that business with going to the drugstore I’ve been reading up on it. I don’t think they ought to be giving her drugs for anything, even to make her do better in school.”

  “Did you ask your brother?”

  “He agrees it isn’t the best idea but Cole is the only child psychiatrist he could find us on short notice. He said it would be all right to let her take it for a month or so until he can find another doctor.”

  “It seems to help.”

  “Drugs are for sick people. She’s not sick. I thought we weren’t going to care if they didn’t act like normal children. I thought they were going to tear things up. I was hoping they’d break some of that bric-a-brac of Mother’s in the living room. I hate that bric-a-brac. I was looking forward to seeing it in piles on the floor.” Allen brandished his chicken sandwich. He added more mayonnaise and took a bite.

  “I didn’t know you hated the bric-a-brac. I hate it too. If you hate it, let’s go take it down. We have those boxes the encyclopedia came in. We’ll take it down and put it in them.”

  “Okay. Let’s do it.” Allen ate one last bite of his sandwich, grabbed a couple of potato chips, and led the way into the living room. There, behind the sofa, was a wall of shelves holding the remnants of his childhood, little cups and saucers and figurines and glass statues and vases and bookends. “I used to be late for baseball practice because I had to dust that stuff on Saturdays,” he said. “Now I shall have my revenge.” He began to take the things from the shelves. Jennifer brought in a bag of newspapers they were saving to recycle and began to wrap the pieces and put them in the encyclopedia boxes. They were almost finished removing every piece when Annie appeared in the door.

  “That rain woke me up,” she said. “You guys have the noisiest weather I ever heard in my life.”

  “No mountains,” Allen said. He went to her and put his arms around her shoulders. He pulled her with him over to where Jennifer was packing a kneeling Cupid into the last box. “Jennifer thinks you’re worrying about something,” he began. “So we’re worrying about you worrying. If you worry, we worry. We know something’s worrying you because we love you and we are thinking about you. You want to tell us what’s wrong, so we can worry about the right thing?”

  “Why are you taking all this stuff down?” she asked.

  “Because I’m sick of looking at it. We’re going to put it in the garage. You don’t want to talk about if something is worrying you?”

  “I’m worried about going on that plane,” she answered. “I don’t see what holds it up.”

  “I’ll show you what holds it up.” Allen hugged her tighter, then let her go. “You have come to the right place with that question, Miss Annie. Did you know that I just so happen to know how to fly airplanes? Did you know that I also know how to fly a helicopter and flew them for three years in the United States Air Force?” He took the little girl to a table and opened a volume of the new encyclopedia which was still stacked in a corner waiting for him to get around to assembling the bookshelf that had come with it. He spread the encyclopedia down on a table and began to teach her the principles of aeronautics.

  Two weeks went by. In Berkeley, everyone was busy getting ready for the wedding. The guest list kept expanding as friends Nieman and Stella hadn’t heard from in months kept calling and asking where to send gifts. The gossip columns were full of the news. Also, the story of the girls from the home in Potrero had leaked out, adding to the public’s interest.

  In Salem, Oregon, Stella’s mother was working out at a gym every afternoon hoping to lose weight so she wouldn’t embarrass Stella by being fat. Stella’s father was reading back issues of the National Geographic and pretending to ignore the whole thing. Nieman’s mother was so mad she couldn’t sleep. She had intended Nieman to marry a wealthy Jewish girl, preferably from New York City, and instead he had chosen this thirty-seven-year-old woman who didn’t even wear eye makeup. “You can barely see her eyes,” Bela Gluuk told her friends. “I doubt if she’ll have her hair done for the ceremony. . . . No, of course not. No rabbi, not even a minister or a priest. Some woman judge, just to make me miserable, no doubt. What else has Nieman ever done?”

  In Oklahoma City the day finally arrived to board the plane and fly to San Francisco. Annie clutched Allen’s hand and climbed aboard the plane. She had the cape slung across her shoulder. “Why are you bringing that?” Jennifer asked. “They have blankets on the plane.”

  “It’s something lucky we have,” Gabriela explained. “I let her carry it for luck.”

  “Fine with me,” Allen said. They found their seats on the DC-9. Allen and Jennifer were together with a seat in between them and Gabriela and Annie were across the aisle. “There is nothing to fear on this plane but the food,” Allen whispered. “Don’t lose that sack with the sandwiches and cookies.”

  “Allen,” Jennifer said. “Keep your voice down. Don’t let the stewardess hear you.”

  “At least I know it’s my lucky day.” Gabriela reached underneath the cape and took Annie’s hand. “At least I lived long enough to have a vacation.”

  Annie squeezed the hand Gabriela had put in hers. She pushed the sack with the lunch around until she was holding it with both her feet. Allen and Jennifer tried not to laugh out loud. “She lived to go on a vacation,” Jennifer whispered to him. “I have to start writing down the things she says.”

  Stella and Tammili met the Williams family at the airport. Lydia had not been able to come as she had a class on Friday afternoons. “So, how was your flight?” Tammili asked. She picked up Gabriela’s backpack and carried it. Gabriela picked up Annie’s pack and carried that. Annie carried the cape.

  “I threw up,” Annie said. “Allen told me why the plane stays up, but I stopped believing it when we were halfway here.”

  “I made her look out the window at the mountains. That’s when it happened,” Gabriela added. “I thought you had a twin sister. Where’s the other girl?”

  “She’s at an acting class. We have to take a lot of classes so we’ll have different interests. I don’t do it anymore, but Lydia does everything they think up for her. So, how are things going in Oklahoma? You all getting along all right?”

  “Except for storms,” Gabriela answered. “Just when I thought I was going to live someplace that doesn’t have earthquakes, I get adopted by some people who live in Tornado Alley. That’s what they call it there. It’s okay, though. People wear a lot of colored clothes. Like all these old ladies have these pink outfits they wear to the mall. Do you all have malls around here?”

  “We have Chinatown. Did you ever go to it when you lived out here?”

  “Are you kidding? The nuns never took us anywhere. So, where’s this wedding going to be anyway?”

  “At our house. That’s the best part. We don’t have to ride in a car in our dresses and get them wrinkled. All we have to do is put them on and walk out to the patio.” They had come to the baggage carousel and were standing beside the grown people, waiting for the luggage to come. Tammili moved nearer to Annie. She reached up and touched the cape. “That’s weird,” she said. “My sister and I had a cape like that. We lost it on a camping trip when Dad broke his arm. Where do you get those capes? Did you buy it in Oklahoma?”

  “It’s magic,” Gabriela said. “It’s got powers in it.”

  “So did the one we had. Listen, it stayed dry in this terrible rain. This synchilla blanket we had that’s supposed to wick faster than anything you can buy, got wet, but that cape was still as dry as a bone.”

  “She thinks some monks in Nevada probably make them.” Annie moved the cape until it was around both of her shoulders. “Gabriela thinks they make them and sell them to people to give them luck. We seen some monks in Potrero. A bunch of them came and stay
ed with us on their way to Belize. We had them there for a week but that was before Gabriela came. She never got to see them.”

  “I saw them. Where’d you think I saw monks if it wasn’t for that bunch that came and stayed at the home? I got there the day they were leaving. I saw them all sleeping on the ground. This cape is just like the stuff they were wearing.”

  “We’re Jewish,” Tammili said. “We don’t have any monks.”

  The bags arrived and a man in a uniform appeared and helped them carry the bags outside to a limousine.

  “The limo’s just for fun,” Tammili said. “My dad thought you’d like a limo, so we got you one. There’re things to drink inside. Get in. See how you like it. Lydia and I adore limousines but we never get to get them because Dad usually says they’re for movie people and Eurotrash.’’

  The grown people got into the back and the girls got into the seats facing backward. Tammili was sitting next to Annie. She reached out and touched the cape again. She felt the softness of the weave caress her hand. “This is going to be the best wedding anyone ever had,” she said. “I’ve been waiting all my life to be a bridesmaid. I don’t care if it’s bourgeois or not. I think it’s the best.”

  “Well, I’ve never been in a wedding. I never even gave it much thought. I just hope I don’t do something stupid.”

  “My parents’ friends almost never get married. They just cohabit and have serial monogamy. So we are lucky this happened. You see, the groom is our godfather. He means a lot to us.”

  Annie and Tammili were deep in conversation, their heads turned to each other. Gabriela started getting jealous. “Did you take your pill this morning?” she put in, leaning toward them. “Where are they, Annie? Where did you put them?”

  “I don’t know,” Annie answered. “I don’t know where they are.”

  “Dad found this article in the New York Times about these people who have been getting orphaned babies from China,” Tammili was saying. “We saved it to show you. Lydia and I are begging Mom and Dad to adopt some to go with the baby we’re having. They said if we both made the honor roll for a year they’d think about it. Anyway, we saved the article for you. I mean, what you’re doing is not that unusual. Well, this is San Francisco. That’s the Golden Gate Bridge up there. We have to cross it to get to our house.”

  “She forgot her pills,” Gabriela said to Jennifer. “Annie forgot her Ritalin.”

  “Good,” Allen said. “She doesn’t need any pills. I think that doctor’s crazy to give pills to that child.”

  “She’s taking Ritalin?” Stella asked. “I didn’t think they still prescribed that to children. What are they giving her Ritalin for?”

  “To get her adjusted to school,” Jennifer answered. “Why? What do you know that we don’t know?”

  “It’s just a very old-fashioned drug. Primitive, compared to the things we have now. How long has she been taking it?”

  “A month. Almost a month. What’s wrong with it, Stella?”

  “I took a couple of them,” Gabriela put in. “It didn’t do anything to me but make me talk all the time. And, yeah, that day at school I did all that arithmetic so fast. I was wondering if that had anything to do with that.”

  “You took one?” All three of the adults leaned her way.

  “I sure wasn’t feeding them to Annie without knowing what she was taking. I seen, saw. I saw that happen with a girl in this place I stayed once. She took some pills this guy gave her and she ended up almost dying.”

  “You took a Ritalin?” Allen took both her hands in his. Stella began to breathe into a Zen koan.

  “I cut one in two. I know about drugs. I used to help out at the home when kids got sick. Sister Elena Margarite said she might make a nurse of me.”

  “Where are they now?” Stella asked. “I’d like to see these pills.”

  “She left them at home. She wouldn’t ever take them if I didn’t remind her.”

  “It’s all right,” Jennifer said. “Forget about the Ritalin. When we get home we’ll find another doctor.”

  “Was this my mother’s doing?” Stella asked. “Is this some of Momma’s old hippie connections she put you on to? Damn that woman. She and Dad are at a Ramada Inn waiting to hear from us. I’ve been praying for weeks they wouldn’t come.”

  “Stella, how can you talk like that about your parents?”

  “I’m an unnatural child. Nieman is too. That’s why we’re marrying each other. I finally met a man who isn’t interested in meeting my family.”

  Annie had slid back into the seat, listening. These were the strangest adults she had ever encountered. All these days and weeks and they kept on acting just like they had the day she met them. As if life was funny, an adventure, something amazing to be watched and commented on. As if some light was in them that did not go out. She raised her eyes and they were smiling on her. Stella was looking at Gabriela.

  “You got any crabs on this beach where your house is?” Gabriela asked Tammili. “I went to the beach a couple of times. These old birds were pecking for food in the sand and there were crabs underneath a log. I’d like to catch one in a bucket and get a good look at that if I could.”

  “We’re almost there,” Tammili told her. “We are almost to our house.”

  As soon as they arrived at the Harwoods’ house, Stella excused herself and got into her car and drove to her office in the biochemistry building and started making phone calls and pulling things up on her computer. In an hour she had talked to child psychiatrists in New Orleans and New York City and Pittsburgh. She had researched recent antidepressants and had missed her appointment for a haircut. She stopped on her way home at a walk-in beauty parlor and let them even up the back and sides of her very short, severe haircut. She shook out the navy blue dress she was wearing to her rehearsal dinner and got into the shower still running the statistics on antidepressants through her head. Not good, she decided. Feeding Ritalin to a perfectly healthy child. She probably needs a shrink and Stella and Allen need to find out where she’s been and what happened to her but I could figure that out if I had her alone for a week. Anxieties are like fingerprints but they are easily traced. What a fantastic cousin I have to think up something this crazy and wonderful and brave. I really like that girl. And the other one, the small one, is as pretty as a picture. What a lovely, ancient face. She looks like she’s thirty years old inside. She took one of the pills! God, the human race. You can’t see that underneath a microscope, Stella. There is nothing in RNA and DNA to account for our behavior, except the attachments we form are in the pattern, aren’t they? Each of us has our receivers, what the old Jungians called the anima and animus, and someone comes along that fits the pattern and we meld. I am getting married in the morning to Nieman Gluuk. I am going to be his wife and make a home with him and be with him when we are old. Scary and wonderful, I guess.

  She turned up the water in the shower and decided to stay there until the hot water ran out. The phone started ringing as soon as she got comfortable. She got out and answered it. “Stella,” Nieman moaned on the telephone. “Where are you? I can’t be alone waiting to get married. I’m coming over right this minute.”

  “Then I won’t get dressed,” she giggled. “Come on. Let’s see what terror does to the parasympathetic nervous system.”

  “I’m in the car. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  The living room of the Harwoods’ house at the beach was an inspiration of the movers. They had moved all the musical instruments into one room while they waited for someone to arrive and give them orders. The Harwoods had left it that way. The room contained two baby grand pianos and a harpsichord and a harp. That was it. Except for a long thin table holding a Bose music system the size of a book.

  “Fucking-A,” Gabriela said when she saw it, forgetting her vow not to curse at the wedding.

  “We had to get this house because my dad’s bookstore keeps getting bombed,” Tammili said. “My grandmother bought it for us. Don’t
worry about it being big. Most of it is wasted space. It was a wreck when we got it. We had to have the roof replaced and all the plumbing and the windows. The windows were so loose they rattled when it rained. So, there’s the ocean. I guess that makes up for everything. And the guest house is nice. You’ll like it there.”

  “What do you do with all these pianos?” Gabriela asked.

  “We play them. Go ahead, try one. Come on. You can’t hurt it. Momma’s got a piano tuner who used to work for the symphony. He comes out every other month. Go on, play it. See how it sounds.”

  Gabriela walked over to the harpsichord and ran her fingers soundlessly across the keyboard. Nora Jane watched them from the doorway. “Would you like me to show you how?” she asked. “I have all these pianos because I was an orphan too. I have these pianos so I won’t have to put up with feeling bad in case I ever do. I just come in here and start making noise. Come on, sit down by me.” She sat down at one of the baby grand pianos. Gabriela sat beside her. Annie came and sat on the other side. She was still holding the cape over her shoulder like a shawl. Tammili stood behind her and laid her left hand very lightly on the cape. Nora Jane began to play show tunes, songs from Broadway musicals.

  Tammili moved away from the piano. She began to dance. Gabriela got up and danced beside her. When Lydia came in the front door she found them dancing and joined them.

  The wedding of Nieman Gluuk to Miss Stella Ardella Light began with children dancing.

  The day of the wedding dawned bright and clear. By nine in the morning all four of the bridesmaids were dressed and wandering around the house getting in the way of the caterers. “Dahlias,” Freddy Harwood declared. “The house is full of dahlias.” Freddy was dressed in his morning suit and was videotaping everything in sight. He videotaped the bridesmaids in the music room and on the patio and in the kitchen. He videotaped the judge arriving with her twenty-six-year-old boyfriend. He videotaped Nieman and Stella getting out of Nieman’s car and walking up the pathway to the back door. “He’s scared to death,” Freddy said into the microphone. “He’s terrified. He can barely walk. He’s making it. He’s opening the door for her. It’s nine-fifteen. Forty-five minutes until ground zero.”