Bygones (13 page)

He went next to Byerly's grocery store, where he stared at the fresh chickens a long time, wondering how Darla had made that stuff called fricassee. He passed the pork chops—Stella was the one who knew how to make pork chops. They had onions on top, he recalled, and lemon slices, but how she got them red and barbecuey, he had no idea. Ham? Ham sounded simpler, though his foremost craving was not for it but for the mashed potatoes and ham gravy that went along with it, the way Bess used to fix it.

Aw, hell . . . he turned away and went back to the delicatessen, where he fixed a salad at the open salad bar and bought some wild-rice soup for his supper.

It was twilight when he headed home, a melancholy time of day with the sun setting in his rearview mirror and the empty condo ahead. He parked in the underground garage, took the elevator up and went straight to the kitchen, where he warmed his soup in the microwave and ate it seated on the cold tiles of the countertop.

The idea hit him while he was sitting there with his feet dangling a foot above the floor, eating soup out of a cardboard carton with a plastic spoon.

You need a decorator, Curran.

He knew one, too; knew a damned good one.

'Course, this could be nothing but an excuse to call her. He looked around, reconfirming that he hadn't so much as a kitchen table to eat at. Fat chance she'd believe he really needed his place furnished; she'd think he was nosing around for something else.

He could call another one. Yes, he could, he certainly could. But it was Sunday: you can't call an interior decorator on Sunday.

He stared at the view of the gloaming out the sliding glass door, picturing Bess. If he called her he'd look like a jerk. So he sat on the cold counter, beside the white telephone, tapping the plastic spoon on his knee.

It took him until eight o'clock to work up the courage to dial his old number. In six years it hadn't changed, and he remembered it by heart.

Bess answered on the third ring.

“Hi, Bess, it's Michael.”

A long silence passed before she said, “Well . . . Michael.”

“Surprised, huh?”

“Yes.”

“Yeah, me too.” He was sitting on the edge of his mattress with its messy blankets, fiddling with the material covering his right knee, wondering what to say next. “It was a nice supper last night.”

“Yes, it was.”

“The Padgetts seem like likable people.”

“I thought so, too.”

“Lisa could do worse.”

“She's very happy, and after seeing Mark with his family I have no objection whatsoever to their marriage.”

Each ensuing silence became more awkward. “So, how's Randy today?” Michael asked.

“I haven't seen much of him. We went to church and he left right afterwards to watch the game with his friend.”

“Did he say anything last night?”

“About what?”

“About us.”

“Yes he did, as a matter of fact. He said he hoped you wouldn't make a fool out of me again. Listen, Michael, is there something in particular you wanted, because I brought some work home to do this evening and I'd like to get back to it.”

“I thought you wanted us to be civil to each other for the kids' sake.”

“I did. I do but—”

“Then give me a minute here, will you, Bess! I'm making the effort to call you and you start slinging insults!”

“You
asked
me what Randy said and I told you!”

“All right . . .” He calmed himself. “All right, let's just forget it. I'm sorry I asked about him, and besides I called for something else.”

“What?”

“I want to hire you.”

“To do what?”

“To decorate my condo.”

She paused a beat, then burst out laughing. “Oh, Michael, that's so funny!”

“What's so funny about it?”

“You
want to hire
me
to decorate your condo?”

His mouth got tight. “Yes, I do.”

“Are you forgetting how you railed against my going to school to get my degree?”

“That was then, this is now. I need a decorator. Do you want the job or not?”

“First of all, let's get one thing straight, something you apparently never caught the first time around. I'm not a decorator, I'm an interior designer.”

“There's a difference?”

“Anybody who owns a paint store can call himself a decorator. I'm a U of M graduate with a four-year degree and I'm accredited by the FIDER. Yes, there's a difference.”

“All right, I apologize. I won't make that mistake again. Madame Interior Designer, would you care to design the interior of my condo?” he asked snidely.

“I'm no fool, Michael. I'm a businesswoman. I'll be happy to set up a house call. There's a one-time forty-dollar trip charge for that, which I'll apply to the cost of any furniture you might order.”

“I think I can handle that.”

“Very well, my calendar is at the store but I know I have next Friday morning open. How does that sound?”

“Fine.”

“Just so you'll know what to expect, the house call is primarily a question-and-answer period so that I can get to know your tastes, budget, life-style, things like that. I won't be bringing any samples or catalogs with me at this time. That'll all come later. During this initial visit we'll just talk and I'll take notes. Will there be anyone else living in the condo with you?”

“For God's sake, Bess—”

“It's part of my job as a professional to ask, because if there will be, it's best to have everybody present at this first consultation and get everybody's input at the start. It eliminates problems later when the one who wasn't there says, ‘Wait a minute! You know how I hate blue!' Or yellow, or African masks or glass-top tables. Sometimes we hear things like, ‘What happened to Great-Aunt Myrtle's lamp made out of the shrunken head?' You'd be surprised what rhubarbs can come up over taste.”

“No, there won't be anyone else living here with me.”

“Good, that simplifies matters. We'll make it Friday morning at nine, then, if that's agreeable.”

“Nine is good. I'll tell you how to get here.”

“I already know.”

“You do?”

“Randy pointed it out to me.”

“Oh.” For a moment he'd flattered himself thinking she'd taken the trouble to look it up after he gave her his card. “There's a security system, so just call up from the lobby.”

“I will.”

“Well, I'll see you Friday, then.”

“Yes.” She ended the conversation without either stumble or halt.

“Good-bye, Michael.”

“Good-bye.”

When he'd hung up Michael sat on the edge of his mattress, scowling. “Whoa! Madame Businesswoman!” he said aloud, eyeing the phone.

The place seemed quiet after his outburst. The furnace clicked on and started the fan quietly wheezing through the vents. The night pressed black against his curtainless windows. The ceiling fixture sent harsh light over the room. He fell back with his hands behind his neck. A knot of jumbled bedding created an uncomfortable lump beneath him. He moved off it, still scowling.

This is probably a mistake, he thought.

When Bess hung up, she thought about the infamous decorating Doris Day had perpetrated on Rock Hudson's apartment in
Pillow Talk.
Ah, those red-velour tassles, those chartreuse draperies, that moose head, the orange player piano, beaded curtains, fertility gods, potbellied stove and the chair made of antlers . . .

It was tempting.

Definitely tempting.

* * *

The following evening Lisa went home to Stillwater to try on her mother's wedding dress. It was stored in the basement in a windowless space beside the laundry room, inside a plastic bag hanging from the ceiling joists. They went down together. Bess pulled the chain on a light switch and a bare 40-watt bulb smeared murky yellow smudge over the crowded cubicle. Its walls were the backside of the adjacent rooms, giving a view of two-by-fours and untaped Sheetrock. It smelled like fresh mushrooms.

Bess glanced around and shivered, then looked up at the row of shrouded garments.

“I don't think either one of us can reach. There's a step stool in the laundry room, Lisa, would you get it?”

While Lisa went to find the stool, Bess began moving aside boxes and baby furniture, a badminton net, a case holding a twenty-five-dollar guitar they'd bought for Randy when he was twelve, before he'd discovered his true love was drumming. Some of the cardboard boxes were labeled
—Baby Clothes, Lisa's Dolls, Games, School Papers—
representing many years' accumulation of memories.

Lisa returned and while Bess forced the legs of the stool into the tight space among the boxes, Lisa opened one of them.

“Oh, Mom, look . . .” Lisa took out a cigar box and from it drew a school picture of herself. In it she was missing both incisors and her hair was parted on one side, slicked to the opposite side and held in place with a barrette. “Second grade, Miss Peal. Donny Carry said he loved me and put those little heart-shaped candies on my desk every morning, with a different message on every one.
Be mine. Cool babe.
I was a real heartbreaker, wasn't I?”

Bess viewed the picture. “Oh, I remember that dress. Grandma Dorner gave it to you for Christmas and you always wore it with red tights and patent-leather shoes.”

“Dad used to call me his little elf whenever I wore it.”

Bess said, “It's cold down here. Let's get the dress and go upstairs.”

Bess carried the bridal gown and Lisa took the cigar box, glancing through report cards, old, curled pictures and notes from her childhood friends as the two women climbed the stairs. Bess went outside on the front stoop, stripped the dusty plastic bag off the wedding dress and gave it a shake. She carried it upstairs to find Lisa in her old room, sitting cross-legged on the bed.

“Look at this one,” Lisa said, and Bess sank down beside her with the gown doubled over on her lap. “It's a note from Patty Larson. ‘Dear Lisa, Meet me in the empty lot after lunch and bring your Melody doll and all your Barbies and we'll put on a concert.' Remember how Patty and I used to do that all the time? We had these little penlights and we'd pretend they were microphones, and we'd set up all our dolls as our audience and sing our lungs out.” Lisa extended her arms, clicked her fingers and sang a couple of lines from “Don't Go Breaking My Heart.” She ended with a laugh that softened to a nostalgic note. “I remember once when we put on a show for you and Dad wearing some of her sister's dance costumes. We made up little tickets and charged you admission.”

Bess remembered, too. Sitting beside Lisa, freeing the buttons on the back of her wedding dress, she remembered altogether too well those happier days, before her and Michael's troubles had begun. Though she could feel nostalgic at moments such as this, she was a realist who knew these flashes were momentary. She and Michael would never be husband and wife again, much as Lisa wished it.

“Why don't you try the dress on, honey?” she said gently.

Lisa set aside the cigar box and got off the bed. Bess stood behind her and forced twenty satin loops around twenty pearl buttons up the back of the dress while Lisa studied the results in the dresser mirror.

“It's going to fit,” Lisa said.

“I was a size ten back then. You're a size eight. Even if you get a little tummy in the next few weeks there shouldn't be any problem.”

Both of them studied Lisa's reflection. The dress had a beaded stand-up collar above a V-shaped lace bodice that ended with a point on the stomach. It had elbow-length pouf sleeves, a full satin skirt and train trimmed with beadwork and sequins. Though it was wrinkled, it hadn't discolored. “It's still beautiful, isn't it, Mom?”

“Yes, it is. I remember the day my mother said I could buy it, how excited I was. Naturally, it was one of the most expensive ones in the store, and I thought she'd say no but you know Grandma. She was always so crazy about your dad she'd have said yes to anything once she heard the news that I was going to marry him.”

Without warning Lisa spun from the mirror and headed for the door. “Wait a minute!” she called as she disappeared.

“Where are you going?”

“Be right back. Stay there!”

Lisa thumped downstairs in her stocking feet and returned in a minute making a high-energy entrance, then dropping to the bed in a swish of wrinkled satin with a photo album on her lap.

“It was right where it always used to be in the bookshelves in the living room,” she said breathlessly.

“Oh, Lisa, not those old things.” Lisa had brought Bess and Michael's wedding album.

“Why not these old things? I want to see them.”

“Lisa, that's wishful thinking.”