My Nora (21 page)

“All right.” Matt watched as Nora carefully let herself down from the high bed and slipped her feet back into the sneakers she’d kicked off at the door. She was nearly gone, the door a mere inch from shutting when Matt tossed his book onto the nightstand and called out “Manora?” using some sort of uncontrollable reflex. He hated to watch her walk away.

She put her head back in with hesitance evident on her face.

Matt padded to the chair by the door and picked up the pants he’d draped there before his shower. He plucked her scarf from the pocket, fondled it momentarily, and held it out to her. Nora took it and searched his face. There was no emotion there. Matt was sure of it, and it pained him to his core. All that time and he thought Nora would be the one to turn him away, but instead, he was the one shutting her out because he was a goddamned coward. He wasn’t good enough for Nora Fredrickson. He was a redneck with no ambitions whose biggest life goal to date was to buy a larger boat. People had put themselves on the line for him, and he’d stayed put because nothing scared him more than the prospect of failure. Nora deserved the sun and moon. He couldn’t give her that.

*

When Nora entered her house, slamming the front door behind her and flinging the scarf across the room with a loud, feral grunt, Karen sat up straighter on the sofa and turned off the television. “What’s wrong?” she asked the screeching blur, but rather than heading to the sunroom to do business Nora stormed upstairs, stomped down the hall to her bedroom and slammed the door shut. Karen heard a primal-sounding scream followed by the sound of something large and heavy being thrown. It might have been a chair.

Karen sighed, threw off the afghan covering her lap, and shoved her feet into her orthopedic hospital mules. She went to the door and took the jacket she’d borrowed from Matt from the hook — the only one in the house that fit around her belly — and slid it on. She turned on the flashlight she kept in the pocket and let herself out, locking the door behind her. Karen walked up the driveway to the road instead of through the woods, as the uneven terrain there was getting too difficult for her to hike with her belly compromising her center of balance. She took the long walk down Welch Road around the corner to Cannon’s Ferry back to her own house, where she entered, panting, and plopping onto her usual kitchen chair. Gerta was at the table pinning pattern pieces onto soft floral fabric Karen suspected would show up in her daughter’s layette.

“I know sweet Nora didn’t kick you out,” Gerta said, adjusting her glasses on her nose and plucking another pin from her baked potato pincushion to adhere what looked like a bit of sleeve.

“No.” Karen reached across the table and slid her grandmother’s water glass closer and downed the contents in three swallows.

“She ran out of here like her pants were on fire. She didn’t even respond when I asked if she would have some dinner.”

Karen looked over at the stove and countertops and saw nothing. “What dinner?”

“I would have cooked,” Gerta said, not bothering to look up from her work.

Karen let out a little huff and took off her glasses to rub the bridge of her nose. “So, who’s going to fix this since they obviously can’t hold it together themselves?”

Gerta shrugged. “Maybe we should leave them be.”

Karen glowered at her.

“Maybe not.”

“I don’t think either of them know what they’re doing,” Karen pushed.

“You’re one to talk.”

Karen was offended. “I never said I was an expert. All I’m sayin’ is it’s seems like they takes turns trying to sabotage the relationship.”

“I agree. I suppose it’s Matthew’s turn this time?”

“Yeah. Nora had a pretty long go.”

“He’ll be thirty-five next month, Karen. I can hardly take him over my knee. What do you expect me to do?”

Karen shrugged and picked up the pattern envelope to squint at the pictures of tiny baby overalls and dresses. “I dunno. Talk to him. He’ll take it more seriously if it comes from you. Be nice.”

Gerta looked absolutely affronted. “I am nice!”

Karen nodded condescendingly. “Okay, Oma. Yes you are.”

*

Gerta finished her pinning, heaved herself out of the wooden chair with some effort, and shuffled down the hall in her fuzzy slippers. She let herself into Matt’s room without knocking and took the seat by the dresser.

Matt raised an eyebrow when he looked up from his book, but didn’t respond otherwise. He’d pulled on a pair of sweatpants and a tee shirt, but had allowed his hair to dry badly since it was sticking up at odd angles around his temples.

“You know, when your grandfather and I got married I hardly knew him,” Gerta started, crossing her legs at the ankles and settling in for a long lecture. Matt laid his open book on top of his belly and crossed his arms over his chest.

“That was the way it was back then,” she continued. “I had been in the United States for maybe five years and my family was very active in the German community around northern Kansas. Ben was, at best, a friend of a friend.”

“So, why’d you marry him?”

“Because it was time for me to be married. Don’t interrupt.”

Matt held up his hands in a conciliatory gesture.

“For the first two or three years, we hardly talked to each other. We worked shoulder to shoulder on his parents’ farm and would go home at night and fall into bed exhausted. We didn’t stay up late talking. We didn’t go out to eat. We didn’t do anything. It wasn’t until after your father was born that we had a conversation longer than ten minutes, and that was only because he was holding him at the time and had nowhere to go. Things got a little better every day from there. Eventually I learned to love him.”

“Okay, Oma. What’s the moral of the story here?”

“My point, you rude child, is that you have a luxury. You don’t have to get married. You can remain a bachelor for the rest of your life if that’s your choice. You are lucky that you have fallen in love and can choose to get married instead of doing it the other way around and hoping you’ll gain affection for each other.”

Matt blew out an exasperated breath and covered his eyes with his hands. “Who said I was in love?”

Oma mumbled something guttural and incomprehensible in German. “Explain to me why you are putting up hurdles where none should exist?”

“Oma, I don’t think you understand the full situation.”

“Try me.” She tapped her index finger against her forehead and squinted at him. “I’ve still got a pretty good brain in here.”

Matt sighed. “I think Nora is used to having a certain type of person around her, and I’m not it. I think when she realizes what she’s exchanging she’ll be disappointed. I didn’t realize until today how,” he tapped his fingers impatiently on top of the quilt, “famous she is. I didn’t exactly look her up in a search engine. I just thought … fuck, I don’t know. Why would someone that well-known move here? We don’t even get reliable Internet service.”

“And what exactly do you think she’s getting, Matthew? You think she can’t see what’s there?”

“She’s getting a redneck who has such poor taste in the company he keeps that his former best friend knocked up not only her best friend but his sister. Doubly so. She’s getting a man who owns three hunting knives, four rifles, a shotgun, and enough ammunition to sink the Titanic. Did you know she’s got a thing against guns? And small boats. Got two of those, too. Let’s see, what else. She’s getting a man who had to choose between having her on his arm at a fancy event and going to his smelly job like he does every other day, and he chose the smelly job because he thinks she’ll like him even less if he’s unemployed.”

“All that?”

“Yeah. It’s enough.” Matt picked up his book and went back to reading.

“I see.” Gerta pushed against the chair arms and stood up. “Sounds like you have some thinking to do.”

“I’ve already thought it out.”

“Sure you have.”

Nora left the next day for Baltimore, several days in advance of her gallery appearance. She hadn’t originally intended to go so soon, having thought she would drive up with Matt, but she had a few things to do. And, being perfectly honest with herself, Matt had hurt her feelings. She wanted to get away so she wouldn’t feel tempted to grovel. She didn’t understand his sudden change of heart toward her, but it was his prerogative. He didn’t owe her any explanations.

Bennie was packing up her house, and being well into her second trimester had a great deal more energy than she had just weeks prior, but had a hard time with heavy lifting. Nora helped her pack up her scads of graphic design books, portfolio items, Bennie’s extensive collection of Blu-ray discs, then bagged up all the party-girl clothes Bennie doubted she’d ever wear again. Bennie had actually gained no weight during the pregnancy, and it wasn’t because she was sick like Karen. She was technically overweight when she started, and the pregnancy was making her burn through a lot of stored fat. Her natural form was a rather delicate one typical of short Chinese women, and for her to maintain her voluptuous curves she would have had to eat non-stop. “I don’t have that kind of time, sweetie,” she’d said when Nora observed that Bennie’s maternity skinny jeans were drooping.

And then Nora went to visit her own family, who claimed they saw more of her on her website than they did in person. It was true, but Nora didn’t know what the solution to that problem could possibly be. She definitely didn’t want them to move south. Her little world was crowded enough already.

On the Monday morning her last painting was due to be revealed, she woke to a text message from Karen. “Any chance you’ll send me a picture?” she’d sent at four fifty-seven am.

Nora responded: “Yeah, right before they let the jerks with the cameras in. I promise.”

Bennie apparently didn’t trust Nora to dress herself and purchased what she thought was a suitable outfit for a young hip artist. When Nora came out of the shower with her wet hair still wrapped in a towel, she found her attire laid out on the air mattress she’d been camped out on for the past few evenings. She stepped into a sunset orange sleeveless linen dress that made the rusty tint of her brown hair look a bit richer. She put her arms through the stacks of bangles, each one a bit different — Bennie had obviously pulled from her own sizable collection — and donned the gaudy rhinestone ring that she admitted made her feel a bit glamorous. Nora slid her feet into blessedly low-heeled peep-toe sandals, and then stood in front of the mirror holding the blow-dryer up to her face with the diffuser attached to the nozzle.

Bennie, who’d been dressing in her own room, ran into the bedroom shrieking. “Don’t you dare,” he snapped, snatching the device away. “Fluff that shit up and let’s go,” she said, frowning so Nora knew she meant
it.

Ann Magee fell all over herself to get at Nora when she and Bennie snuck into the gallery through the back door. Nora had met Spence of course, but she’d never met Ann. Ann was a well-known supporter of free love, being the love child of three hippies. No one understood the math behind that, but Ann never bothered to explain. “Watch out for her,” the silver fox Spence said, swooping in with a glass of champagne and handing it to Nora. “If she’s not supervised, she’ll have you pinned against the wall with your dress hiked up around your waist in the coat closet.”

“Eek,” Nora said, working her way up to the front of the gallery to avoid the clutches of the cougar in the pantsuit. While Bennie and the gallery owners talked business, Nora stood in front of her quintet of paintings, and admired each one in turn. She’d had just enough separation from them that they seemed new and fresh to her. When she got to the fifth, she lifted the corner of the white drape that obscured it and snapped a picture with her phone, right as Ann unlocked the door to let the press in a bit early ahead of the general public.

Before any of them had a chance to figure out who she was, she hid in a corner and sat on a little marble bench in front of a nude statue. She sent Karen the picture, and waited, holding her breath.

Karen responded almost instantly. “Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god! Gonna show Oma.” Nora slipped her phone into her purse and closed the latch. She took exactly one minute to center herself and then she got up and walked toward the voice that was calling out “Has anyone seen Nora?”

Half an hour later, Nora stood next to her fifth painting, waiting with the rest of the gallery crowd for Ann and Spence to pull down the sheet. Nora felt sick to her stomach with nervousness and shifted her weight from foot to foot with anticipation. This painting was so personal to Nora, and that was what kept her from finishing it in all those weeks. When she’d gone back to her computer to examine the image of the fishing boats and the workers, there had been a man standing in the foreground assessing her curiously. She’d cropped him out during her initial framing, thinking she’d concentrate on the men closest to the boat. When she went back to the original large file, she realized the dark-haired man assessing her was Matt, whom she hadn’t even recognized because she was guilty of not heeding her own preaching. She had looked without actually seeing. And that photo had been taken after that night they’d shared fish and beers and laughs. She’d been totally
out of it. He had probably thought she was rude for not saying “hi.”

When they pulled down the sheet, Nora closed her eyes and blocked out the sounds around her.

*

“Nora, that was absolutely genius,” Bennie said, shaking Nora by the shoulders while the gallery guests milled about, making notes on their little programs about the art and having discreet discussions about the price tags. “Matt as Neptune,” Bennie shook her head, speechless for once.

“Yeah,” Nora mumbled, shaking her own head, not because she was annoyed but because her hair was growing larger by the minute and it was overwhelming her periphery. She was terrified about what the pictures from the evening would look like. Nora turned to look at the painting herself and wrung her hands. Neptune’s waist was draped in a flowing white sheet that had been inspired by Matt that ill-fated evening they heard a bump downstairs at Nora’s house.