“Yes, but…”
“And you’re happy, aren’t you?”
“I am, except…”
“Then good.” He put his lips against hers; a hard, dry kiss that made her feel more like a document being stamped than a woman being appreciated. “I just want my little birds to be happy in their nest.” Hal hooked his suit coat over his finger and went upstairs. Daisy sighed. She felt exhausted, utterly drained, but she still had to get dinner on the table. She went to the kitchen to pull steaks out of the refrigerator and snip a few stalks of rosemary from the pot. She was reaching for the cast-iron pan when she heard a voice.
“You know where that’s from, don’t you?”
Daisy gave a startled screech. When she looked up, Beatrice was hanging over the balcony, staring down.
“What?”
“Little bird.”
Daisy was surprised that her daughter had even noticed the endearment, given how determined she seemed to ignore everything about her parents in general and Daisy specifically. “I don’t know. That song? The Bob Marley one?”
“No,” said Beatrice. “You’re thinking of ‘Three Little Birds.’ ‘Little bird’ was what Torvald called Nora in A Doll’s House. ‘Little squirrel.’ ‘Little skylark.’ ‘My pretty little pet.’ ” Beatrice smirked, then turned and went back to her bedroom. Daisy heard her door close, very gently.
“Well, I’ll bet I would have known it if I’d graduated from college!” Daisy yelled. There, she thought. A teachable moment.
She seared the steaks, and finished them with a sauce of rosemary and red wine, and served them with mashed potatoes and broccoli with lemon zest. She set the table, then cleared it, scraping the leftovers into the trash can. Then, leaving the rest of the dishes on the table and, unwashed, in the sink, Daisy went to the living room, where she sat on the edge of the fireplace, feeling the cold stone underneath her. She wasn’t unfamiliar with feeling inadequate or unlettered, in a world where all the men and almost all the women she’d met had finished college, and most of them had earned advanced degrees, but this was the first time she’d thought about Beatrice seeing her that way. She wondered if, someday, her daughter would treat her with that same faintly patronizing air she’d gotten used to in her years as Hal Shoemaker’s wife.
Daisy pulled her phone out of her pocket and started googling. The play begins at Christmastime as Nora Helmer enters her home carrying many packages. Torvald, her husband, playfully teases her for spending so much money, calling her his “little squirrel.”
Daisy grimaced and slipped her phone in her pocket. Upstairs, the door to the bedroom that she and Hal shared was half-open, and she could hear the sound of the television, the voices of the sportscasters on ESPN. Hal would be lying on the bed, shoes off, feet up, maybe scrolling through some documents on his iPad, half paying attention to what was on TV. Beatrice’s door was closed, but Daisy could hear music—Enya, she thought, or maybe Conan Lee Gray—coming from her daughter’s bedroom, and could picture Beatrice in her rocker, furiously needle-felting, her face red as she jabbed her needle into the wool. She stood for a moment, undecided, then turned and went to the guest bedroom, which was empty for most of the year. No matter how she pleaded with Danny and Jesse to come for a weekend, or even a night, they were always busy, or off to someplace better: Fire Island or Florence or San Francisco. She didn’t bother to turn on the light when she lay on top of the comforter. Lester followed her into the room and heaved himself up onto the bed on his second attempt. Daisy downloaded the entire play, scrolling through it, faster and faster, skimming, then reading closely when she neared the end.
“Then I passed over from father’s hands into yours,” Nora said. “You settled everything according to your taste; or I did only what you liked; I don’t exactly know. I think it was both ways, first one and then the other. When I look back on it now it seems to me as if I had been living here like a poor man, only from hand to mouth. I lived by performing tricks for you, Torvald. But you would have it so. You and father have sinned greatly against me.”
Daisy stared at the screen as if it had slapped her. She knew that her father had loved her. Hal loved her, too. He didn’t treat her like a child, just like… someone less than him, her mind whispered. Someone who wasn’t as smart or as important, someone whose opinion barely registered, and whose voice didn’t matter much. At least, not as much as his did.
She put her phone in her pocket and walked down the hall to knock on her daughter’s door. When Beatrice opened it, she said, “I need some help with the dishes.”
Beatrice looked startled. Usually, all Daisy asked was that Beatrice set the table and clear her own plate. The kitchen was Daisy’s domain, which made everything that happened there Daisy’s job. Hal had his work, and Beatrice had school, and she had pots and pans to scrub, floors to sweep, countertops to wipe. A home to make, for the two of them.
“So, Nora leaves him in the end,” she said, as they walked down the stairs.
“What?”
“In the play. A Doll’s House.”
“That’s right.” Beatrice went to the sink. “She says she can’t be anyone’s wife or anyone’s mother until she knows who she is. She walks out of their house and closes the door behind. It’s this iconic moment. At least, that’s what our teacher said.”
“That’s very interesting.” Daisy’s voice was brittle. She bent over the dishwasher, feeling a great pressure on her chest, something bearing down on her, making it hard to breathe. “You’re growing up to be a very impressive young lady.”
Beatrice looked troubled. “Mom,” she said. “Why didn’t you finish college?”
Daisy thought she knew what Beatrice was fishing for: affirmation that her life would be fine with just a high-school diploma; permission to ignore Hal’s wishes. Even if Daisy agreed—and she wasn’t sure she did—she knew better than to say so. Hal would be furious.
“It was a long time ago,” she said. “And things were different.”
They finished cleaning the kitchen in silence. When Beatrice asked for permission to go back to her room and finish her homework, Daisy nodded. She turned off all the lights downstairs, making sure that the windows were latched and the doors were locked. In her bedroom, Hal had fallen asleep, with the television on and the remote on the bed beside him. Daisy turned off the TV. She put on her nightgown, washed her face, brushed her teeth, then went to the bed, where she lay on her back with her eyes open, as the clock ticked down the hours until morning.
Something is changing, she thought, as the sky beyond the window went from black to faintly gray. The house was quiet, except for Lester’s noisy snores and Hal’s quieter ones. Was it her? Was it Hal? Was it the world?
She lay awake on the bed, staring up at the ceiling, until it was six o’clock and her husband got up, quietly, to put on his running clothes, feigning sleep until she heard the front door open, and close. Then she lay there for another hour, wondering if she could continue to live like this, and, if not, what she was supposed to do next.
25
Beatrice
Normally, Beatrice hated it when her parents had dinner parties. She disliked the way they’d show her off, parading her around, introducing her to the guests, making her talk to strangers about her school or her soccer team or what books she was reading. She hated how her mom would get stressed and screechy, and how her dad would send Beatrice back upstairs to change her clothes if he disapproved of Beatrice’s outfit, saying, “You can express yourself three hundred and sixty days of the year, but for five days I get to pick.”
But what her mother had planned for Saturday night wasn’t exactly a dinner party; it was relatives: Beatrice’s grandfather and his lady friend, her grandmother and her grandma’s gentleman caller, her uncles Danny and Jesse, with just one new person coming over. And the new person was actually someone Beatrice liked—her mother’s new friend, Diana.
A few days after she’d cut school with Cade, she’d come h
ome from school to find Diana and her mother cooking in the kitchen. They’d looked like birds: her mother, a plump brown wren, flitting and twittering around, picking up a pinch of this and a bit of that as she built her nest. Diana, meanwhile, looked like an eagle, imperious and watchful, hovering on the currents, peering at the scurrying rodents and rabbits below her, waiting to strike. Beatrice prepared for awkward questions about why she’d missed school and where she’d been, but instead, Diana looked her over appreciatively and said, “I love your hat. And your pin! It’s perfect.”
The hat had been a black cloche, with a tiny bit of veil over her left eye. The pin was one of Beatrice’s treasures, an Art Deco tiger, in a prowling pose, with bits of topaz for the eyes. She’d bought it for twenty dollars at a store on South Street.
“That is quite a look,” Diana had said. Beatrice knew when she was being humored, and could tell that Diana was sincere. “Are you interested in fashion as a career?”
Beatrice had shrugged. But then, instead of asking the predictable follow-up question—“Well, what are you interested in?”—which, of course, would segue into what most of her parents’ friends really wanted to know, which was “Where are you thinking about going to college?” Diana had said, “You’ll have to tell me where the good vintage stores in Philadelphia are.”
“Oh, Beatrice knows them all,” said her mother, who of course had to jump into every conversation to prove how well she knew her daughter, and how great a mother she was.
“Do you like vintage clothes?” Beatrice had asked Diana. Nothing from the other woman’s appearance hinted at her tastes inclining in that direction. Diana was wearing dark-rinse jeans, a silk blouse, and no accessories except for the gold cuff on her wrist and diamond stud earrings. Her shoes were plain velvet flats, but probably designer—Tory Burch or even Chanel.
“I like vintage textiles and prints. Vintage postcards,” Diana had answered. And she’d looked almost shy when she’d said, “I decoupage seashells with them. And I’ve been learning how to embroider.”
“Beatrice makes shadowboxes. And she does taxidermy!” said her mom, and actually managed to sound proud about it, even though Beatrice knew for a fact that she wasn’t proud, at all.
Ignoring her mother, Beatrice had asked Diana, “Do you have any pictures?”
Diana had pulled out her phone, flicked at her screen, and showed Beatrice a shot of six oyster shells, edged in gold, decoupaged with fleur-de-lis or patterns of lobsters or starfish or bits of paisley print, and then samplers, squares of plain white linen embroidered with birds and flowers and, in one case, the word BULLSHIT in elaborate cursive. “I lived near the beach for a while, and I picked up seashells when I walked, and I was looking for something to do with them.”
“Have you ever seen John Derian’s stuff?” Beatrice asked.
Diana had smiled. “I’ve actually met him a few times.”
Beatrice immediately abandoned any pretensions of being cool. “No way. Really?”
“Really.” Diana looked delighted by Beatrice’s pleasure. “Maybe someday, you guys will come visit me, and I’ll take you to his shop.” Diana had turned to Beatrice’s mother. “Do you know his work?”
Beatrice’s mother looked thoughtful. “He’s got a shop in Provincetown. I’ve been there a few times.” She was probably delighted that Beatrice was being “pleasant,” as she’d probably put it, to one of her friends. “Have you ever been there?”
Beatrice thought she saw Diana stiffen. “To Provincetown? Not recently.” Then Diana turned back to Beatrice, saying, “I would love to see your taxidermy,” and Beatrice had led her upstairs. Before she’d left, her mother had invited her to the dinner party, and as soon as Diana had gotten in the car her mom had started planning the meal.
Cooking was her mother’s business, and her mom hosted a number of parties every year as a way of attracting new business and showing off her skills. There was Thanksgiving, where everyone from both sides of the family came. Her mom roasted ducks and ordered a smoked goose from some place in North Dakota. In December, there was a Christmas cookie exchange. Her mother would bake for weeks, and invite everyone from the neighborhood over, and send them all home with a specially printed tin that had her name and the address of her website on a sticker on the front. There were the parties on the long weekends that bracketed summer: the Memorial Day barbecue, and the Labor Day Goodbye to the Cape clambake—and then the May Day dinner, which celebrated Grandma Judy’s birthday, and her dad’s.
Beatrice had already decided what she’d wear on Saturday night—a black tulle dress with crinolines, fitted at the bodice, flared at the hips, that she’d found at Goodwill for eight dollars. She would wear sparkly gold heels with it, and her black hat. Her mom was making one of her favorites, the coq au vin that took hours to prepare, and the dish her mom only served to her very favorite people.
Saturday, the day of the party, started off gray and cool. Her mother began cooking at lunchtime, reducing the wine and chicken stock, frying the lardons, then the onions and carrots, browning the chicken and putting everything into a big, deep pan. She added tomato paste, flambéed the brandy, and let the dish simmer. The smell reminded Beatrice of being a little girl, the first time she’d sat at the table, surveying the guests from her booster seat and feeling like a queen.
Beatrice set the table (“and I only had to ask her once,” she heard her mom marvel to her dad), using her favorite blue-and-yellow patterned tablecloth, pale gold napkins, and her mother’s good china, which had a red-and-gold pattern and gold leaf around the rim. On the counter in the kitchen was the red leaf salad with toasted hazelnuts, which would be dressed with a sesame vinaigrette at the last minute and served with warmed baguettes and unsalted butter. There would be warm spiced nuts and Beatrice’s very favorite treat, olives, wrapped in a cheesy dough and deep-fried. As irritating as Beatrice found her mom, as much as she pitied her, she could still recognize her culinary skills, and acknowledge that the fried breaded olives were the most delicious thing in the world.
It had started to rain when Diana arrived. Her pale-gray trench coat was spattered with raindrops, and the wind had tumbled her hair. “Beatrice!” she said, smiling and touching Beatrice’s crinoline-puffed skirt. “What a fabulous outfit. Is it okay if I give you a hug?”
Beatrice decided that it was, and Diana enfolded her in her warmth and her perfume. Under her chic, belted coat, she was wearing wide-legged black pants, black leather boots, and a black cashmere wrap that looked like a cross between a cape and a blanket.
“I know,” Diana said, like she was reading Beatrice’s mind. “It’s basically a Snuggie.”
Beatrice didn’t know what a Snuggie was, but she loved the sweater. “It’s so soft,” she said, touching Diana’s sleeve.
“It’s cashmere,” said Diana. “I found it at this shop in—oh, Lord, Atlanta, I think. It was on clearance, probably because not many women want to walk around wearing blankets. I bought it in every color they had. Pink, pale gray, this kind of plum color, and black.” She gave Beatrice an assessing look. “You know, the pink never really suited me. But I bet you’d look fabulous in it.”
Beatrice’s heart felt strangely swoopy. “Really?”
“Really. I’ll box it up and put it in the mail the minute I’m home.”
Beatrice’s mom came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. Next to Diana, in her green flowered apron and black leggings and bare feet, with her hair in a scrunchy, her mom looked ridiculous, and very young. The two women hugged each other warmly, and Diana kissed her mom’s cheek before turning to Beatrice. “You know, your mother is saving my life.”
“Oh, that’s an exaggeration,” said her mom, looking pleased nonetheless.
“It’s true!” said Diana. “Thanks to your mom, I’m going to eat well for the rest of my life.” Her mother was beaming when Beatrice’s father came down the stairs.
“Hello, ladies!” The women didn’t exactly sprin
g apart, but Diana stepped back and her mom looked down. Her dad wore a button-down shirt and khakis, instead of the jeans he’d normally have on for a Saturday night at home. If her mom was a wren, and Diana was an eagle, what was her father, swooping in to eat as soon as the meal was prepared? Maybe a vulture, Beatrice thought, and turned away to hide her smile. Her dad kissed Diana on the cheek, and Beatrice saw, or thought she saw, the other woman stiffen, very briefly, the same way she had at the mention of Provincetown.
Beatrice knew that her father hadn’t wanted Diana at the dinner party. “I’m glad you have a new friend. But I don’t want to have to make conversation with a stranger.”
“Diana is my friend,” her mom had said, her tone unexpectedly sharp. She’d dropped her voice, but Beatrice could imagine what she was saying: after everything I do around here, after everything I do for you.
From her bedroom, Beatrice heard the low sound of her dad’s voice, probably agreeing. Giving her mother permission to include her friend, the same way he’d give Beatrice permission to go to a sleepover. Her dad was so much older than her mom, sometimes listening to the two of them was like listening to a parent with a child, not a husband with a wife. Beatrice hadn’t noticed it until recently—probably right around when they’d read A Doll’s House, back at Emlen—but now, she could see that her dad was the one making decisions, about where they’d go on vacations, about where Beatrice went to school, probably about things that had been decided before she’d even been born, like where they would live, in which house and in which town. Usually, her mom went along with the program and seemed happy enough. But lately, Beatrice had noticed changes, small acts of resistance, barely notable—or at least, they would have been barely notable in other families. A few days ago, her mom had been in Center City, with Diana, and she’d called to say they’d decided to go out to dinner. “Well, what are we supposed to do?” her dad had asked, and her mom said, “Get a pizza!” so loudly that Beatrice heard her, even though she wasn’t on speaker.
That Summer Page 29