Too Much Too Soon (40 page)

“Very good, Lissie. You’re pouring that milk very well,” Joscelyn said. Alone with the child, she would have said more, but Malcolm didn’t go for a lot of talk at mealtimes.

She sat down to munch a rasher of bacon, remembering how in Lalarhein she had eaten this delicacy only on Yussuf’s days off—of course he must have detected the savory odors permeating the kitchen. Her stream of consciousness flowed to Lissie. Poor baby, she sniffed the parental arguments that she was unable to hear, after their bouts becoming either clingingly anxious or stamping her small feet in a tantrum.

The Pecks’ marriage had yet more rocky spells.

When Malcolm had returned to Ivory headquarters with a two-level promotion, the word
favoritism
had been bruited around: the gossip had wounded him severely and he was determined to commit no blunders, none. He yearned for the affection of the thirty or so men who worked under him. To add to the pressure cooker, since March—and now it was May—he had been in charge of planning a propane deasphalting plant for his old nemesis, Paloverde Oil. He was a tiger at home. He inspected kitchen cabinets and bureau drawers, he insisted meals be served on a stopwatch schedule, he flew into a rage if Joscelyn ironed a near-invisible crease into a shirt collar.

Joscelyn knew exactly what was bugging him, she knew that when he nitpicked her efficient
housewifery she should bow her head and keep silent. Generally she managed this, but at times she couldn’t contain herself. Since March her records at the Kaiser Permanente Medical Group showed that she’d been treated for cracked rib #2, had consulted a urologist about blood in her urine, and that her left hand had been stitched—Malcolm had lost control while holding the carving knife.

The pattern was consistent. After Malcolm’s explosions he became a contrite lamb. Joscelyn, too, was penitent, accepting her own culpability. Did she have to egg him on? She was older and ought to be above screaming hurtful words. She would swear once again to herself to be an Oriental wife, living to boost his ego.

Lissie had eaten her cereal and was pushing the last soggy Cheerio across her bowl. Joscelyn touched the small wrist, waiting until Lissie looked at her. “Would you like more bacon?” She tilted her head questioningly—in communicating with a small hearing-impaired child, one becomes quite a thespian. She had held up her own piece to make the message clearer. “More bacon? Do you want more bacon?”

Lissie shook her head.

Malcolm, too, had finished. Dropping the
Times
on the free chair, he leaned toward his daughter. “See you later, Lissie,” he said, blowing a path on finespun hair the same true black as his own. Lissie giggled delightedly.

Joscelyn’s vision blurred. This was the real Malcolm, tender and loving, the way that nature had intended him to be. She hugged him.
“Love you,” she murmured.

“Mmm, tonight?”

The sex was no longer wild, kinky or impromptu, but it was the glue binding them, convincing each of the other’s intrinsic love.

“Tonight,” she said, and thought:
A very, very good day.

She was still glowing when his car backed out of the attached garage. Rinsing the breakfast things, she began her endless reinforcement of words to Lissie, who was shoving the stainless steel cutlery into the dishwasher. After the child lost interest and went into her room to play, Joscelyn darted around cleaning, vacuuming, dusting, making beds. She left the bigger bathroom until last. On her hands and knees, she scoured the marks left by Malcolm’s heels—the pink marble floor and counter were a bitch to keep clean, however Malcolm took an inordinate, touching pride in this bathroom, which doubled as a powder room. Each time a guest remarked on the coordinating pinks, he told the story of how he had selected the Italian stone at a marble place on Melrose, then had taken along a sample to match the accessories. He had paid a fortune at Sloane’s for the large, heavy Venetian glass jar that sat on the counter because the candy-swirled pinks were the exact right shades.

By eight thirty, Joscelyn was buckling Lissie in her car seat. They inched toward the John Tracy Clinic on West Adams Boulevard.

Embedded in rush hour traffic, Joscelyn’s warmth toward her husband frayed a little.
Malcolm had determined to use the substantial money that had accrued from extra pay and overseas tax advantages for a down payment on a house. Joscelyn had wanted to look in Hancock Park, an island of substantial homes left stranded by the city’s tidal movement westward. The area was not only relatively inexpensive but also convenient to both the big new Ivory complex on Wilshire and to the John Tracy Clinic. Malcolm, however, would settle for nothing less than a Beverly Hills address, a geographical snobbery that saddened and irritated Joscelyn—and inconvenienced them all.

Lissie, fortunately, turned drowsy in a car, sleeping most of the excruciatingly slow forty-minute drive.

As they pulled into the parking lot on West Adams, Lissie’s friend, Carlos, was jumping from a wheezy pickup. The John Tracy Clinic did not charge for any of its services (Ivory was among the generous corporate donors), so the nursery school drew from all income strata. The two children raced into the shade of the enormous Moreton fig tree that towered over the ramble of beige bungalows. Joscelyn followed sedately. This was not her day to help at the nursery school; however she planned to observe from the narrow corridor with chairs and a one-way window.

Mrs. Kamp, a trained teacher of the deaf, had lined five small chairs in front of her, and a group, including Lissie, sat watching intently as she held up a brown paper sack: Joscelyn could not hear through the glass barrier, but it
was easy to read the carefully enunciating lipsticked lips. “Can anyone guess what is in the bag?”

One little girl waved her hand in large circles, and the other children all turned to her.

“No, Charlene”—Mrs. Kamp’s mouth shaped the words—“it is not a
ball.
But
ball
is a very good guess. Let’s all say
ball.
”

Small mouths opened. More squirming, each child turning to the other as he or she spoke.

Lissie was holding up her hand and bouncing. The teacher turned to her.

Face intent, Lissie formed a sound.

“A doll. Lissie is right. There is a doll in the bag. Come up here, Lissie and show us the doll.”

Lissie excitedly tore the small, disreputable toy from the brown paper. The teacher was demonstrating the position of her tongue, letting Lissie and each child feel her muscles and breath as she repeated, “Doll.”

Mary Jekyll, a small blonde with a pretty, tired face, was observing, too.

“The world’s most impossible task,” she sighed. Her profoundly deaf little boy had entered the nursery group a month earlier and had yet to say his first word.

Joscelyn, the old hand, said, “We all felt like that at first. Don’t give up the ship.”

“Be here tonight?”

On Tuesday nights the clinic held classes to educate the parents, and there was also a group session with the psychologist where parents could iron out the multifarious family problems
connected with having a deaf child.

“Absolutely,” Joscelyn said. “I try never to miss.”

“It holds me together, too.” Another sigh. “Tonight’s Doug’s turn. How I wish we could both make it, but one of us has to hold down the fort and baby-sit.”

Joscelyn’s eye twitched. Baby-sitting was not her problem: Honora and Curt had a room furnished for Lissie, and delighted in taking her. Malcolm, though, always used that quintessential masculine excuse, work, to miss the meetings. On Tuesday evenings his briefcase bulged, his inside jacket pocket held scraps of paper jotted with vital phone calls to make. It was, Joscelyn knew from the group’s sessions, a classic case of denial. If he avoided John Tracy Clinic, it meant that Lissie was not deaf. “Malcolm lets me come,” she said. “He knows how much I need the contact.”

*   *   *

Afternoons, Lissie napped for a good three hours. Joscelyn was ironing when the phone rang.

“It’s me, hon,” Malcolm said. “I’ve invited the Binchows for dinner.”

Ken Binchow was his superior. When Joscelyn had worked downtown at Ivory, she also had worked with Ken, a well-larded man in his early fifties who was devoutly convinced that the female brain came in a lighter density than the male. In Ken’s favor, he was a good, solid engineer. She felt neutral toward him. She actively disliked Sandra Binchow, whose
pointed, reptilian nose sniffed out areas of human dismay.

“Tonight?” Joscelyn said, sucking in her breath. “But Malcolm, it’s Tuesday.”

“I don’t have time to argue,” he snapped. “They’re coming at seven thirty. How about that beef Wellington you did last week—and the St. Honoré?”

“Why not? After all, you’ve given me more than adequate time to market and whip up a three-star feast.”

“That’s one thing I can always count on—sarcasm from my wife when it comes to helping
me
,” he said, and the phone went dead.

Joscelyn folded the ironing board and went to wake Lissie from her nap. Beef Wellington and a St. Honoré it would be.

When Malcolm opened the back door at six twenty-five, Joscelyn was drizzling caramelized sugar over a pyramid of small cream puffs. Propped open on the table was
The Art of French Cuisine.
She never extrapolated a pinch of this or altered ingredients; she followed every recipe with mathematical precision. Her gourmet company meals were not to satisfy herself but to conform to Malcolm’s exacting standards.

Lissie stood on a chair, watching. Cookie crumbs and a long drizzle of milk adorned her blouse and pink overalls.

“Want me to put her down?” he asked. Without waiting for a reply, he scooped the child into his arms.

Joscelyn continued drizzling the caramel, twin furrows between her eyebrows. Another sore spot. When they entertained, Malcolm preferred Lissie asleep. He would lead guests into the child’s night-lit, beruffled room, beaming at the whispered praise of the beautiful, black-haired little girl sleeping in her youth bed.

Joscelyn was setting the St. Honoré on the top shelf of the refrigerator when she heard the unmusical monotony of Lissie’s sobs. She darted into the smaller bedroom. Malcolm sat on the low bed, his daughter clasped between his thighs as he fastened the buttons of her too-short, apple-print Lanz cotton nightgown.

Mucus oozed from Lissie’s nose and tears ran down her cheeks. What was she rejecting? Bed? This faded nightie? Malcolm’s clamping knees? Lissie had a mind of her own and no means of communicating it.

“I’ll finish her,” Joscelyn said.

“The Binchows’ll be here any minute.” He picked Lissie up, flipping her onto the mattress, yanking up the yellow sheet and blanket, pressing down on the squirming child.

Lissie turned to gaze up with tear-reddened eyes. “Mah-mah.”

“You’re hurting her!”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Joscelyn. I’m not hurting her. Firmness isn’t hurting. She’d be a damn sight better off if you taught her
that she can’t get away with murder. Now you get yourself the hell ready!”

Having vented his anger on his wife, he rested his cheek next to Lissie’s, smiling at her.

Joscelyn retreated to their bathroom, hastily brushing on mascara, penciling eye liner. Maybe she did let Lissie get away with a lot—memories of those domineering, decrepit nannies plagued her still. Malcolm also indulged Lissie. It was only when his anxieties bubbled over that he became a zealous disciplinarian.
If he really takes it out on her, if he ever
. . . Joscelyn thought.

She often went through this litany but had never yet concluded it.

*   *   *

Ken Binchow was wolfing up seconds of pastry-encased beef and duchesse potatoes when Lissie came to the entry of the dining room, half hiding behind the arch. Thumb at her lip, she stared at them with huge, dark blue eyes.
Crystal’s eyes
, Joscelyn thought, knowing that Crystal never in her life had gazed with such timid, nakedly yearning beseechment.

“If that isn’t the most gorgeous thing,” boomed Ken Binchow. “Come on in, little sweetheart.”

“She’s meant to be asleep,” said Joscelyn, her long black hostess skirt rustling across the shag carpet.

“I can’t take my eyes off her,” cooed Sandra Binchow. “Can’t she stay a minute or two?”

“Joscelyn’s the strict guy in the family.” Malcolm grinned engagingly. “Me, my motto’s
it doesn’t hurt once in a while to let the mice play.”

Joscelyn swooped up Lissie.

“Mah-mah?”

At her odd little voice, the Binchows admiring smiles grew stiff.

“Our Lissie has a minor impediment.” Malcolm made his routine explanation.

At this revelation Sandra Binchow’s nose twitched. “The sweet booful,” she cooed. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, really,” Malcolm said. “A little thing with her inner ear that the doctors’ll fix when she’s old enough.”

Joscelyn carried Lissie to her room, sitting on the bed, gentling the overtired child with long, tender strokes down her back. “Pretty, pretty, pretty,” she murmured in the unhearing pink ear that no doctor could fix.

“Joss,” Malcolm called. “She isn’t sick, is she?”

“A bit feverish,” Joscelyn lied.

At this loud parental exchange, Sandra Binchow vowed that a hearing disability could be a blessing: their Scottie had awakened at the least sound.

Over the St. Honoré, Sandra said, “I don’t see how you manage a fabulous gourmet meal like this. When Scottie was little, I had my hands full. And it must be so much more time consuming to have a handicapped child.”

Joscelyn said, “I loathe the word, handicapped.”

“Sandra didn’t mean it as an insult,” soothed
Ken. “But while you were in there with her, Malcolm was telling us how you take her downtown almost every day.”

“She goes to John Tracy. A nursery school.”

“Sure, but having a kid like Lissie is tough, young lady,” said Ken with mock severity. “Tougher than any assignment you ever got handled at Ivory, and don’t you ever forget it.”

“And I do admire how you’re raising her,” Sandra put in. “I was rotten on the discipline, wasn’t I, Ken? Not that Scottie needed it. You’re so normal with her.”