Beyond Deserving (36 page)

“What a racket,” Michael says. “It woke Mom up every morning, and she got more and more annoyed with it. Finally she said that we couldn't have all those pet crows pestering us. So Pop took us and the crows—we had them in two shoeboxes—in the truck a couple miles away, and we let them out.

“The next morning, there they were. Peck, peck, peck.”

“So what happened then?” Juliette asks. “What did Geneva do?” She makes a face, as if she can imagine it wasn't good.

Fish props up the bottle between his knees. “She never said another word. We had those birds for months, then it got cold and they went someplace better.” He reaches up with both hands and scratches the front of his scalp. “Your dad always had a bird or two after that. We built nests for years. Simple little houses for wrens and swallows. A fancy nesting site shaped like a ship, for bluebirds; we took it out in the woods to hang, like your dad does now every year. We built birdhouses that looked like pueblos, and pagodas.” He laughs a little. “I outgrew that shit, but not your dad. He must have forgotten hummingbirds, though. All they want is a little sugar water.”

Ursula sees that Michael looks almost stricken, as though Fish's remark has wounded him. “I didn't think of it,” he says.

“Thanks for getting it,” Juliette says to Fish. She is quite cheerful and sweet-voiced. She hugs his arm. “As few friends as I've got, I'll get to know every one of those birds.”

After Ursula bathes and dresses for bed, she goes about the house picking up towels and dishes, papers, books, balls of cat fur, shoes. It takes her half an hour to put the house in order. She should have cleaned it thoroughly, but there is to be no party, why bother? She'll do it top and bottom before July. She loves her new floor. It makes the room entirely new.

Michael is in the kitchen drinking a glass of wine and writing on a yellow pad.

Ursula pulls up a stool to sit beside him, and he turns the pad over.

“Something secret?” she asks.

“No. Just not important. I mean, since you're here.”

“Have you decided about a present for Carter?”

“Maybe just money,” Michael says.

“How much?”

“Depends.”

She sighs. “We're going to be giving him lots of money for four years of college. I'd rather give him something specific.”

“Something you want him to have?”

“Don't,” she pleads.

“He wants to deliver pizzas for Pizza Hut.”

“In what?”

“Your car, my truck.”

“No way. I read the other day that those goddamned pizza deliverers run down people every day somewhere—I mean, KILL people, to get a pizza somewhere fast.”

“And that's why he can't?”

“He has a job.”

“Ursula, he ought to be able to get his own job. It's better if he does.”

“He can't use my car.”

“I already told him that. And not my truck. But if he wants to work there—God knows why he would—I don't see that it's really our business.”

“He better be letting Sharon know he doesn't want to work for her. Plenty of people do.”

“I told him that.”

“Why is it I keep finding out you know things I don't?”

“As soon as I get a chance to tell you, you know too.”

“He's already in bed, asleep. The sleep of the innocent, I suppose.”

“He's more innocent than a lot of kids his age.”

“And Juliette? Where is she?”

“She just went out in the yard again.”

“It's ten o'clock.”

“It's safe, Ursula. Our back yard.”

She heads for the back door. Michael says, “Why don't you just leave her alone?”

She answers, one hand on the door. “I'll see you upstairs.”

Michael toasts her with his nearly empty glass. “In the conjugal bed, Ursula. Cheers.” He sounds almost angry.

Juliette sits on the step down from the deck, her head bent over, her cheek on her knee, her hair falling down over her face and legs.

Ursula sits beside her, not close enough to touch, and says nothing.

“Did you know Marina's quitting dance?” Juliette says in a few minutes.

Ursula, truly surprised, says she had no idea.

“She isn't even going to be in the summer ballet. Brian wants to kill her.”

“Did she get mad or something?”

Juliette raises her head and speaks, looking out into the dark yard. “She says she's sick of classes and hurting, and she wants to do speech next year. Debate, you know? She says she thinks she'll like the kids, and she'll get to go to tournaments out of town.”

“Are you disappointed?”

Juliette looks at her. “God, you don't understand anything. Marina and I were always competing, Mom. Why would I CARE?” Ursula thinks she must, very much. “Marina's mother is really mad, though. Marina says her mother yelled at her and said the problem is Marina has no passion.”

“No passion?”

“Can you believe it? Marina's barely fifteen, and her mother says, like, what are you going to do with your life? Does anybody fifteen know what they're going to do when they're OLD?”

“You've got a passion, don't you, baby?”

“Dance? I guess I do. But it doesn't mean I know.”

“Kids don't know—”

“No?!” Juliette says furiously. “What about kids who are in the American Ballet Theatre School? They've gone to New York from all over the country. You think they don't know?”

“At fifteen?”

“Fifteen, sixteen. You have to know.”

Ursula wishes desperately she knew what Juliette is trying to say. She reaches over and touches her lightly on the shoulder. “Darling,” she croons.

“Everybody's supposed to have a passion, Mrs. Clarence says. Boy. She thinks selling real estate makes her special? I've been sitting here, thinking about it. What's anybody's passion? Famous writers, actors, politicians, and baseball players, maybe. But plain old people? Do they have a passion?”

“Some yes, some no,” Ursula says weakly.

“Like Dad and his birdhouses? Fish and his wine?”

Ursula decides it's best to ride this one out.

“Then there's you, Mom. You know what your passion is? Other people's kids!”

“Juliette, what are you so damned mad at me about?”

“You know how at the end of class, we do all those jumps?
Changements
?”

“Sure, Julie, I've watched them.” Saying so makes Ursula realize how long it's been since she visited one of Juliette's classes. She remembers little girls in tutus, Juliette at the barre, pumpkins and fairies. Lord, it's hard, she thinks, when they get big!

“That's my passion. Those jumps. Those tiny, tiny moments in the air.”

“You're a fine dancer, sweetheart.”

“I've had this dream a bunch of times lately. I'm doing the jumps, and then I do a grand jete, my arms out over my legs, my legs extended so far, I'm like a bird, I'm like a Russian ballerina. Then I look down, and I'm way above everybody, or where everybody was. Only everybody's gone.” She turns toward her mother, her face glazed with tears. “Everybody,” she cries.

Ursula takes her in her arms. “We're all right here, sweet Julie,” she says. “Right here.”

“I'm sorry,” Juliette says against Ursula's neck. “I don't know what's wrong with me.”

Ursula pulls away enough to wipe Juliette's cheek. “It's the price,” she whispers. “For the passion. Because you're special.”

Juliette almost smiles. She extends one arm gracefully. “In my dream I look like Natalia Makarova when she was a teenager. I'm wearing white and I look just like her.”

48

It is Wednesday before Ursula has a chance to talk with Teresa and Angela about her weekend. They share cold pasta out of a carton and she says ruefully, “I just about died of sentimentality. It makes me think of old football players reliving touchdowns. I don't know what got into me.”

Teresa licks her fork, then her lips, and says, “Your trouble is you think too much, Ursula. What you don't realize is that introspection is out of style. It's an artifact of the past decade. You should be thinking about your cholesterol and your aerobics—”

“And the addition on your house,” Angela adds, pointing at herself. “Joking or not, Teresa's got a point. You have to look out, past your kids, in the opposite direction of the past.”

“I thought about working in the presidential campaign,” Ursula says, “but every time I look at the choices I get depressed. We'll end up with another Republican and I'll feel responsible.”

“Guilt! Ding!” Teresa says.

“Look, Ursula.” Angela folds up the carton flaps and discards the carton and their forks and napkins. “Neatly disposed of. You know all this.”

“I'm not complaining about my kids, you know,” Ursula says. “I'm thrilled with them, really. Look at all the trouble they never got into. And Juliette doesn't even like to shop.”

“Let's take a walk,” Teresa suggests. “We've got a solid quarter hour and we can march off a little of that pasta.”

Ursula and Angela moan, but comply.

They walk briskly, in silence, to a little park near the railroad tracks. “Who got the idea to beautify this little spot?” Angela wonders. “It's stuck in this dismal neighborhood, it's great, isn't it?”

“Great,” Ursula agrees, and sits down on the bench. “Give me a minute.”

Teresa and Angela sit down on each side of her. “Let me tell you about something that happened to me,” Angela says. “Even though I swore I wouldn't tell anybody.

“I went to the doctor to get a mole removed. It had popped up right along my bra line in the back. I think subconsciously I was convinced it was probably cancer or something. I'm sitting on the table in the doctor's office, in this paper towel gown open in the back, and the nurse comes in with the chart and sits down across from me. I hadn't been to the doctor in a year. ‘You need a Pap smear, Angela,' she says. ‘Fine,' I tell her. ‘Whenever. You schedule it, but not today.' Then she runs down this list of questions. Any problems with my bowels, my bladder, do I have headaches. No, no. Then she looks right at me, and she says, ‘Any personal problems, Angela? Any mood swings?' And I burst into tears! I mean, I begin to
wail
.”

“Gee, Angela,” Ursula says. Teresa strokes Angela's arm.

“I wiped my face with the paper gown and the doctor came in and took the mole off. He said he'd have it checked but it was symmetrical and a nice brown color and I shouldn't worry. He said he'd see me in a few weeks for a Pap smear. Then the nurse comes back. She's holding these different colors of paper. She says, ‘You don't drink, do you?' I say no, and she tucks the green sheet behind the others. ‘And you don't have a family history of violence?' I'm a little startled, but I manage to say no. The pink sheet goes to the back. So now the blue one is on top. She pulls it away and hands it to me. ‘These are all books Doctor recommends, dear. I'm sure you'll find something helpful.' This nurse, calling me dear, by the way, is probably twenty years younger than me. I look at the paper.

“It's a list of self-help books. Books on depression and on anxiety, books on sexual addiction and on meditation. Books on adjusting to menopause. This whole goddamned list of books on
getting it together
.”

“It's everywhere,” Ursula commiserates.

“You know what I decided?” Angela says. “I decided crying when you're fifty years old is a perfectly sane thing to do. The world has turned out to be full of terrorists and thieves, my whole professional life has to do with dysfunction and neediness, and I'm on the downslide toward my own end. Why should I look for something to feel better? Why should I want to kid myself? And you know, I do feel better. There's good reason to be sad once in a while. Depressed.”

Teresa says, “A helluva lot saner than worrying because you didn't make CEO, or you're losing your looks.”

Ursula says, “I don't know how I'd get by if I didn't have social workers for friends.”

They hurry back to work.

49

“I tried to talk to Carter about the possibilities in his original subject,” Michael says. “Which is what a really good teacher should have done, instead of declaring his ideas contraband.” Michael and Ursula are stretched out on the bed, drinking a bottle of modest champagne, a surprising gift from Carter on the occasion of his graduation. “You deserve this at least,” he told his parents before Michael took him back down to the school to catch the eleven p.m. chartered bus to Disneyland.

“He could have gone in any direction. Anthropology, archeology, geology. It's not lunatic to wonder how such marvelous feats as the Pyramids were possible. To wonder why primitive people would lay out enormous monkeys on plains nobody could look down on. Astronomy might have suited him, since I think he thinks he was touching on it. Did you know that astronomers in the last century worked out the relationships of dozens of British stone circles and their outliers? That they were already analyzing the orientation of the Pyramids to the sun and the stars? He could have learned that prehistoric people knew a hell of a lot of cosmology, some of which we may not have achieved in our so-called modern times, spaceships or not. And of course he could have stretched his mathematical thinking.”

When Michael pauses, Ursula says, “I can't really see Mrs. Uptight Fat-Hips Angstrom going for any of that, Michael.”

Michael pours more champagne for them. “Pretty sweet stuff, isn't it?”

“Listen, from our son Carter, this is a fine vintage.”

“He looked handsome in his cap and gown, didn't he?”

“He did.” Ursula scoots closer to Michael. “They all did, pimples, rooster hair, raccoon eyes and all. Kids are beautiful.”