Bygones (14 page)

“I want to see how you looked in the dress.”

“You want to see things the way they used to be but that part of our lives is over. Dad and I are divorced and we're staying that way.”

“Oh, look . . .” Lisa opened the album. There were Michael and Bess, close up, with their cheeks touching and her bouquet and veil forming an aureole around them. “Gol, Mom, you were just beautiful, and Dad . . . wow, look at him.”

The photo caught at Bess's heart while she sat beside her daughter searching for the perfect balance in her response to Lisa. She had been bitter too long and was learning the hurt it had caused her children. At this turning point in her life, Lisa needed this foray into the past. To deny her the freedom of exploring it was to deny a certain part of her heritage. At the same time, allowing her to believe there was a chance of reconciliation between her parents was sheer folly.

“Lisa, dear . . .” Bess took her hand. Lisa looked into Bess's eyes. “Your dad and I had some wonderful years.”

“I know. I remember a lot of them.”

“I wish we could have made a happier ending for you but it didn't work out that way. I want you to know, though, that I'm glad you forced us to confront each other. It's making me take a second look at myself, which I needed, and even though your dad and I aren't getting back together, it feels much better to be his ex-wife without so much animosity between us.”

“But Dad said you looked great the night of the dinner.”

“Lisa, darling . . . don't. You're pinning your hopes on nothing.”

“Well, what are you going to do, marry
Keith?
Mom, he's such a dork.”

“Who said anything about marrying anybody? I'm happy as I am. I'm healthy, the business is going good, I keep busy, I have you and Randy—”

“And what about when Randy decides to grow up? What about when he moves out?” Lisa gestured at the walls. “You going to stay in this big old empty house alone?”

“I'll decide that when the time comes.”

“Mom, just promise me one thing—if Dad makes a play for you, or if he asks you out or something, you won't get all pissed off and slug him or anything, will you? Because I think he's going to do it. I saw how he looked at you the other night, while you two were sitting down there at your end of the table—”

“Lisa—”

“—and you're still quite a looker, Ma—”

“Lisa!”

“—and as for Dad, he's one of the truly excellent men around. Even when he was married to that dumb Darla I thought so. You know, Ma, you could do worse.”

“I'm not going to talk about it, and I wish you wouldn't.”

Lisa left soon thereafter, taking the dress with her to drop at the dry cleaner's. After seeing her out, Bess returned upstairs to turn out the light in Lisa's old room. There on the bed lay the wedding album, bound in white leather and stamped in gold: BESS & MICHAEL CURRAN, JUNE 8, 1968.

The room still seemed to retain the musty smell of the bridal gown and the cigar box, which Lisa had left behind. A fitting smell, Bess thought, for the marriage that had turned to must.

She dropped to the bed, braced a hand beside the album and slowly flipped its pages.

Thoughtful.

Nostalgic.

Alternately relishing and ruing while the diametrically opposed wishes of her two children tugged her in opposite directions—Randy, the bitter; Lisa, the romantic.

She closed the book and fell back on the bed with one wrist across her waist. Outside somebody's dog yapped to be let in. Down in the kitchen the automatic icemaker switched on and sent the hiss of moving water up the pipes in the wall. Out in the world all around her men and women moved through life two-by-two while she lay on her daughter's bed alone.

This is silly. I have tears in my eyes and a pain in my heart that wasn't there before I entered this room. I've let Lisa put ideas into my head that are based on nothing but her sentimentality. Whatever she thought she detected between Michael and me the other night was strictly her imagination.

She rolled her head and reached out to touch the wedding album.

Or was it?

 

SHE WENT TO THE BEAUTY SHOP on Thursday and had her roots bleached, her ends trimmed and her hair styled. She painted her nails that night and spent nearly fifteen minutes deciding what to wear the next morning, choosing a wool crepe dress in squash gold with a tucked waist, tulip-shaped skirt and a wide belt with an oversized gold buckle. In the morning she finished it off with a variegated scarf, gold earrings and a spritz of perfume, then shot a critical glance at the mirror.

You're still quite a looker, Ma.

If, at given moments in her life, Bess Curran had considered herself a
looker,
she had not done so in the six years since Michael had put her down on that score. The insult lived on each time she looked in a mirror, and no matter what efforts she put into her grooming, at the final moment she always found some detail less than perfect. Usually it was her weight.

Ten pounds, she thought today. Only ten and I'd be where I want to be.

Aggravated with Michael for creating this perennial dissatisfaction and with herself for perpetuating it, she slammed off the light switch and left the room.

She arrived in White Bear Lake with five minutes to spare and approached Michael's condominium doubly impressed, observing it at close range in broad daylight. The sign said CHATEAUGUET. The driveway curved between two giant elms and led through grounds dotted with mature oaks. Closer to the building, a pair of venerable spruce trees stood sentinel beside the doors, taller than the four stories they guarded. The structure itself was V-shaped and sprawling, of white brick and gray siding, studded with royal-blue awnings. It had underground garages, white balconies, brass carriage lanterns and a lot of glass. On the uppermost floor, the decks and patio doors were topped by roof gables inset with sunburst designs.

But more, it had the lake.

One was conscious of it even from the landward side, and Bess found herself speculating on the view she'd discover when she got inside.

The foyer smelled like scented carpet cleaner, had tastefully papered walls, an elevator and a small bank of mailboxes along with a security phone. She picked it up and rang Michael's unit.

He answered immediately, “'Morning, Bess, is that you?”

“Good morning, yes it is.”

“I'll be right down.”

She heard the elevator hum before its doors split soundlessly and Michael stepped out, wearing gray/black pleated trousers with needle-fine teal stripes, a teal polo shirt with its collar turned up and a finely knit double-breasted sweater in white. His trousers had the gloss of costly fabric, and the polo shirt picked up the exact hue of the stripes. Since becoming an interior designer, Bess noticed things like that. She could spot cheap fabric at twenty paces and clashing colors at fifty. Michael's clothes were well chosen, even the tassled loafers of soft black leather. She wondered who'd chosen them, since Michael was all but color-blind and had always had difficulty coordinating his wardrobe.

“Thanks for coming, Bess,” he said, holding the elevator doors open. “We're going up.”

She stepped aboard and was closed into the four-by-six-foot space with him and the familiar smell of his British Sterling. To dispel the sense of déjà vu she asked, “How do you pronounce the name of this place?”

“Chateau-gay,” he replied. “Back in the 1900s there was a big hotel here by that name, and it was also the name of a racehorse that won the Kentucky Derby years ago.”

“Chateauguet,” she repeated. “I like it.”

They arrived at an upper hall shaped like the one below, and he waved her ahead of himself into the condominium whose door stood open to their right.

She wasn't three feet inside before exhilaration struck. Space! Enough space to make a designer drool! The entry hall was as wide as most bedrooms, carpeted in a grayed mauve. It was totally bare but for a large, contemporary chandelier of smoked glass and brass. Ahead, the foyer widened into a space where a second, matching chandelier created a rich corridor effect.

Michael took her coat, hung it behind a louvered door and turned back to her. “Well, this is it.” He spread his hands. “These are guest bedrooms. . . .” Light came through two doors to their right. “Each one has its own bath.” They were identical in size and had generous windows. One bedroom was empty, the other held a drafting table and chair. She glanced over the rooms as she followed Michael, carrying a clipboard, measuring tape and pen, leaving her purse on the floor in the foyer.

“Do these windows face due north?”

“More like northwest,” he replied.

She decided to put off her note-taking and measuring until she'd moved through the entire place, to get a sense of each of its rooms in relationship to the whole. They advanced beyond the entry to an interior octagonal space in the center of which the second chandelier hung. It appeared to be the hub of the apartment, created of four flat walls and four doorways.

“The architect calls this a gallery,” Michael said, stopping dead center in the middle of the octagon.

Bess turned in a circle and looked up at the chandelier. “It's very dramatic . . . or can be.”

They had entered the gallery from the hall door. Michael indicated the others. “Kitchen, combination living room/dining room, and utility area and powder room off this small hall. Which would you like to see first?”

“Let's see the living room.” She stepped into it to be washed in light and delight. The room faced south-by-southeast, had a marble fireplace on the northerly wall, another chandelier at the south end and two sets of sliding glass doors—a triple and a double—that gave onto a deck overlooking the frozen lake. Between the two doors the wall took a turn at an obtuse angle.

“It's just struck me, Michael, this place isn't rectangular, is it?”

“No, it's not. The entire building is arrow-shaped, and this unit is at the point of the arrow, so I guess you'd call it oblique.”

“Oh, how marvelous. If you knew how many rectangular rooms I've designed you'd know how exciting this is.” Though the two guest bedrooms were rectangular, this room was a modified wedge. “Show me the rest.”

The kitchen was done in white tile and Formica with blond oak woodwork. It was combined with an informal family room, which had sliding doors giving onto the same deck that wrapped around the entire apartment on the lake side. The laundry area was in a wedge-shaped space beside a powder room, both leading off the gallery. The master bedroom led off the living room and shared its fireplace flue. Besides the fireplace, the bedroom had yet another set of glass doors leading onto the deck, a walk-in closet and a bathroom big enough to host a basketball game.

In the bathroom, the smell of Michael's cosmetics was as evocative as that of fresh-cut grass. A rechargeable razor sat on the vanity with its tiny red light glowing. Beside it lay his toothbrush and a tube of Close-Up. The shower door was wet and on a towel bar hung a horrendous beach towel with fireworks designs in gaudy colors on a black background. No washcloth. He'd always used his hands.

Shame on you, Bess, you're regressing.

In the bedroom her glance slid over his mattresses and returned for a second take, then moved on as if the sight of them lumped on the floor had not stirred old memories. He must have left Darla taking nothing. Even his blankets were new; the fold lines still showed. How ironic, Bess thought, I'll probably end up choosing his bedspread again. Already she was envisioning the room with the bed and window treatment matching.

“Well, that's it,” Michael said.

“I must say, Michael, I'm impressed.”

“Thank you.”

They returned to the living room with its magnificent scope. “The way the building blends with the land, and how the architect utilized the mature trees, the contour of the lakeshore and even the little park next door—it all becomes a part of the interior design as well as the exterior. The outdoors is actually taken inside through these magnificent stretches of glass, while at the same time the trees lend privacy.” Bess strode the length of the room, admiring the view through the windows while Michael stood near the fireplace with his hands in his trouser pockets. “It's interesting,” Bess mused aloud, “clients are often surprised to learn that architects and interior designers rarely get along well at all. The reason is because very few architects design from the outside in the way this one did, consequently we're often called in to analyze the space use and handle the problems the architect left behind. In this case, that's not so. This guy really knew what he was doing.”

Michael smiled. “I'll tell him you said so. He works for me.”

From the opposite end of the room she faced him.

“You built this building?”

“Not exactly. I developed the property and arranged to have it built. The city of White Bear Lake came to me and asked me to do it.”

“Ah . . .” Bess's eyebrows rose in approval. “I had no idea your projects had grown to this size. Congratulations.”

Michael dipped his head, displaying an appealing mix of humility and pride.

She was no appraiser but the building had to be worth several million dollars, and if the city came to him and invited him to do the job, he must have established a sterling reputation. So both of them—Michael and she—had made great strides since their breakup. “Do you mind if we continue moving from room to room while we talk?”

“Not at all.”

“It helps me recall where I've been and familiarize myself with the psychological impact of each room, how the light falls, the space there is to be filled and the space that should remain unfilled. It's kind of like kicking the tires on a car before you buy it.”

They gave each other glancing grins and moved into the gallery, where they stopped directly beneath the chandelier. Bess braced her clipboard against her hip and said, “On with the questions. I've been doing all the talking and it's supposed to be the other way around during a house call. I'm here to listen to you.”

“Ask away.”

“Did you choose the carpet?”

She'd noted that the same carpet was used throughout, with the exception of the kitchen and baths. It wasn't a color she'd have expected him to like. From the gallery she could glance to the sunny or shadowed side of the condo and observe its subtleties change.

“No, it was here when I took over the place. Actually what happened was that this unit was sold to someone else, a couple named Sawyer, who intended it to be their retirement home. Mrs. Sawyer picked out the carpet and had it laid but before she and her husband could close on the place, he died. She decided to stay put, so I inherited the carpet.”

“It's staying?”

“It should. It's brand-new and I'm the first tenant.”

“You say that as if you have reservations.”

He pursed his lips and studied the carpeting. “I can live with it.”

“Make sure before we plan a whole interior around it, and be aware that color affects your energy, your productivity, your ability to relax, many things. You're as affected by color as you are by texture and light and space. You should surround yourself with colors you're comfortable with.”

“I can live with it,” he repeated.

“And I can tone it down, make it more masculine by bringing out its gray rather than its rose, perhaps using a deep gray and a pastel lavender as an accent, maybe bringing in some black pieces. How does that sound?”

“All right.”

“Do you have a carpet sample I can take along?”

“In the entry closet on the shelf. I'll give you a piece before you leave.”

“What are your thoughts on mirrored walls?”

“In here?” Michael looked up. They were still standing in the octagonal gallery.

“An interior space like this would benefit from them. It could be dramatic to relight the chandelier in four mirror panels.”

“It
sounds
dramatic. Let me think about it.”

They moved into the room with the drafting table. “Do you work here?”

“Yes.”

“How much?”

“Primarily in the evenings. Daytime I'm in the office.”

Bess wandered nearer the drafting table. “Do you work—” she began but the question died on her lips. Taped onto an extension lamp over the drafting table was a picture of their two children, taken when they were about seven and nine, in the backyard after a water fight. They were freckled and smiling and squinting into the hard summer sun. Randy was missing a front tooth and Lisa's hair was sticking up in a messy swirl where the force of the hose had shot it.

“Do I work . . . ?” Michael repeated.

She knew full well he'd seen her reaction to the picture, but she was a businesswoman now and personal byplay had no place in this house call. Bess regrouped her emotions and went on.

“Do you work every evening?”

“I have been lately.” He didn't add, Since Darla and I broke up, but he didn't have to. It was obvious he sat here in this room regretting some things.