Beginner's Luck

by Laura Pedersen

  Mr. Bernard loves to do this—surprise us by suddenly modeling some bizarre item he's purchased at a garage sale and pretending that nothing is amiss. And no matter how many times he does it, it never fails to crack us up.

  Just then Ms. Olivia enters through the swinging door from the kitchen carrying a teapot. However, she pretends to take no notice of me, still on the floor howling with laughter, nor of Mr. Gil blotting up the coffee running out of his nose and the tan spots he's sprayed across the white linen tablecloth. After casually glancing at the main attraction, she remarks in a perfectly modulated voice, "Darling, I've told you a million times that orange is not your color. You're a winter. Try ice blue, dove gray, and ivory—whatever Grace Kelly and Helen Hayes looked good in. Those are the proper hues for you."

  This only causes Mr. Gil and me to laugh even harder.

  "Really, no one else in this house has the slightest sense of style." Mr. Bernard says this with mock disdain and continues to ignore the earrings, though he purposely moves around and tilts his head in order to achieve maximum jiggle from the ornaments. "Now, Hallie, why don't you invite your mother here for a luncheon on Sunday?"

  "Here?" I rise back up to a sitting position.

  "Yes, of course here. Tonight we'll prepare a lovely quiche Lorraine with Gruyère cheese and pommes soufflés. And for background music I'll have Berthe Sylva singing 'Les Roses Blanches.'"

  It's not that I don't want to see my mother so much as I'd rather wait until the money situation is cleared up. I'm also still fearful that they're trying to declare me mentally incompetent in order to pack me off to a psychiatric hospital. That's what Ms. Olivia said European monarchs oftentimes did to get rid of their wives when they wanted to remarry.

  I glance around the room for a way out of this proposed luncheon. But Mr. Gil has finally stopped laughing and nods in my direction, as if it's a good idea. Ms. Olivia doesn't say anything. But of course it's her credo not to become involved in other people's business.

  "Okay," I acquiesce. "Quiche Lorraine it is."

  "Tallyho, then, off I go!" Mr. Bernard grandly scoops up his haphazardly folded pile of newspapers with the sale notices circled in bright red ink and sweeps out of the room.

  "Darling," Ms. Olivia calls after him. "You may want to drop your baubles, bangles, and beads back in your jewelry box before you leave." She serenely takes a sip of her tea.

  Mr. Bernard darts back into the dining room and stands in front of the mirror. "Oh my Lord and Taylor, I almost forgot."

  "In the meantime, you've certainly given new meaning to the line 'He glittered when he walked,' " Ms. Olivia says. She turns to me and says, "That's from the poem 'Richard Cory' by Edward Arlington Robinson. He dropped out of Harvard."

  I'd noticed that Ms. Olivia is in the habit of pointing out to me Ivy League dropouts who became successful, like R Scott Fitzgerald and Bill Gates. I guess she thinks it will help my self-esteem.

  "Who dropped out of Harvard?" I ask. "Richard Cory or Edward Arlington Robinson?"

  "Robinson," she says. "Cory committed suicide," she adds matter-of-factly.

  Mr. Bernard tugs the big peaches from his lobes and plops them down on the table in front of Mr. Gil. "It's like the old stripper said: You either have it or you've had it," he says and exits once again.

  "You're looking a bit fatigued," Ms. Olivia says to me and then places her dainty hand up to my forehead. It's funny how she can be a revolutionary one minute and then slip into some typical grandma behavior the next, such as examining me for a fever.

  "I feel okay," I reply. "Maybe I'm getting a cold."

  "I suppose," she says. "You're not used to sleeping indoors. It's probably been a shock to your system. Have Gil examine your teeth."

  "What?"

  "Gil can tell everything about one's health by scrutinizing the teeth. He grew up on the most famous horse-breeding farm in Northern Kentucky. Isn't that right, Gil?"

  Mr. Gil nods his head in agreement.

  "Gil is to tooth prognostication what Nostradamus is to historical prophecy," continues Ms. Olivia.

  Mr. Gil wipes his mouth with his napkin and then walks over to where I'm sitting. "Open wide," he says and tilts the chandelier in the direction of my head.

  He moves my chin around in a circle, furrows his brow, squints, then stares in my mouth and says, "Hmmm, mmm, hmm," as if he's choosing between two competing laundry detergents. "You've contracted an upper respiratory infection," he finally announces. "And you have a slight iron deficiency. Drink lots of juice and pick up some One-A-Day vitamins for women at the drugstore."

  "General Cuspid is never wrong about these things," Ms. Olivia states sincerely.

  "You can tell a lot from the mouth," Mr. Gil says as he returns to his chair. "It's the nourishment center for a person's health and well-being."

  But I'm not convinced that this isn't some sort of a parlor trick. They probably pull this old chestnut on every yard person. No wonder Lars started to drink.

  "What else can you tell about me from my teeth?" I skeptically ask. "Do they say if I'm going to get married and have kids?"

  Mr. Gil laughs. "Sorry, Hallie, but it's not like palmistry or looking into a crystal ball. I can't foretell the future, only examine the past. For instance, I can see that you had scarlet fever as a child and that you're allergic to penicillin."

  My mouth almost drops onto my plate, exposing all my teeth. "C'mon," I insist. "Cut it out. You can't tell that stuff from my teeth. You must have seen my medical records."

  "Certainly I can tell. There's some graying from the penicillin, and I can glean from the condition of your gums that you had scarlet fever. Otherwise you're the picture of good health. And you had braces for about two years. That's the other thing, you can often determine a person's socioeconomic background from the amount of dental work they've had."

  "And of course he can tell your age," Ms. Olivia adds. "That's why I make it a point never to smile around Gil."

  "You have lovely teeth, Livvy," Mr. Gil replies.

  "Thank you for the compliment," says Ms. Olivia.

  "They look exactly like your real ones did."

  "Thank you again."

  Well, I'll be damned. Just when I thought Mr. Bernard and Ms. Olivia were the entire show around here, it turns out that Mr. Gil is a toothsayer.

  Chapter 31

  Long Shot ♦

  This Saturday night Craig is expecting me. When I arrive at the house his mother and father are pleasant and so I can tell that he must have laid some groundwork by making a few positive remarks on my behalf. For instance, that I'm not really a convicted felon.

  After the first half an hour I think we're all going to spend the evening double-dating—me, Craig, his mom and dad. They even ask if we want to join them to see a movie over at the multiplex in Timpany.

  Thank God Craig says no. I've never been out with a guy and his parents. Actually, I've never been on a real date. All I ever manage to do is hook up with guys at parties and then the following week at school I avoid them or they avoid me. Usually both.

  After Craig's parents depart for the movie he takes me up to his room and removes an envelope from underneath his big double bed. Craig's room is huge. It has a skylight and its own adjoining bathroom. He has his own TV, VCR, computer, and telephone. It's like an apartment. I mean, if you had food delivered you could live in here for months and never need to go out.

  Craig has done everything just as I'd asked. He's opened up the trading account and told the broker to invest in stocks with major growth potential, like the ones that discover new drugs and make people into millionaires.

  "Did you get the canceled check back?" I ask. "You didn't pay with the cash, right?"

  "No, Hallie. I did everything just as we agreed. In fact, I had to open up my own checking account at the bank to do it. I told my parents I was writing a lot of checks for college applications so it'd be easier, which is true."

  Craig proudly shows me his
new checkbook with his name, Craig T. Larkin, printed across the top in bold letters. "Look, I ordered the blue checks with the sailboats. I thought they were really cool when I first saw them at the bank, but now I think they may be sort of stupid." He looks back up at me as if I'm the final word when it comes to check decoration.

  I take a good look at them. "I think they're terrific. Why would you want checks that look like everyone else's?"

  "Yeah, you're right," he agrees.

  And it's funny, but there's a lilt to his voice as if we're on some type of adventure together. Once again I survey all the only-child perks in his room, the stereo and hundreds of CDs, a room that if my brother Eric were to awaken in all by himself, without Teddy peeing in the bunk bed above him, he'd think he'd died and gone to heaven.

  Craig turns on his state-of-the-art computer and we look up the stocks the broker has chosen and read on-line reports that explain what the companies do, how much money they expect to make, and who their major competition is. Most haven't been in business long enough to have a one-year performance record. Then Craig pulls up some Web sites to show me the colleges he's looking at.

  "Don't you ever miss your parents?" Craig asks.

  "Sure, I mean ..." But then I have to think what I mean. Do I miss my parents? "Yes and no, I guess. By the time I left they were on my case, like, all the time."

  "Sometimes I think that when my parents die I won't have anyone else," he says. "No brothers or sisters or nieces or nephews."

  "You'll have your own family by then. And you have a million cousins. I can't believe your mother has five sisters."

  "She loves her family. They all baby-sit for one another and talk on the phone practically every day."

  "Ask her how she felt back when they were all sharing a bathroom."

  Craig switches off the computer and we watch TV for a while. There doesn't seem to be any easy way of transitioning from friend to girlfriend. Gwen is probably right. I blew it when I had the chance. And I'm not about to ask about Miss Argentina again. Though I haven't seen any pictures of her around. And she's the kind of girl that if you were dating her you'd want everyone to see an eight-by-ten glossy on your dresser so that they'd know about it.

  When Craig's parents eventually return from the movie, Mrs. Larkin makes us all some of those Pillsbury turnovers that you heat up in the oven and frost from a plastic pouch. Then they proceed to give a rundown on the film and who they ran across in the lobby after the show.

  "Craig tells me the two of you are working on a project involving the stock market." Mr. Larkin catches me by surprise. But I guess Craig would need a way to explain receiving statements from a brokerage firm. After all, it doesn't appear as if there is much about Craig's life that goes unmonitored.

  "Uh, yeah," I lie. "It's the latest trend, you know, to try and teach teenagers stuff they can actually use in the real world."

  "Well, I think it's a capital idea for young people to learn how to invest. My parents gave Mary and me some Procter & Gamble stock when we got married, and by gosh if it didn't pay for this entire house. Isn't that right, Mary?"

  "It certainly did, Dan." Mrs. Larkin circles the table and refills our glasses with iced tea. "I have an idea—how about we all play some cards? Hallie, do you know any card games?"

  "Sure," I say. "Blind openers, Texas hold 'em, Canadian stud, low-hand stud, table stakes, freeze-out, deuces wild, dealer's choice, jackpots—"

  However, Craig interrupts with a massive throat clearing and so I don't even have a chance to get started on types of gin rummy. "Actually, Hallie and I have to finish up the project."

  But we don't really have anything more to do, and so I assume that Craig wants to go back upstairs and make out. Only instead he leads me to the parlor off the living room. However, before opening the French doors he hesitates. "Promise you won't tell anyone about this."

  "Of course." This is said with a minor note of disgust in my voice, since in my former business people who don't keep confidences don't keep breathing. They die of lead poisoning. The kind you get from bullets.

  Craig swings open the doors and before me is something you just don't see in Cosgrove County. Large moon-shaped globes suspended from the ceiling and pole lamps in corners that cast a rosy glow on fifty or sixty plants. But they aren't houseplants. They're Disney trees and bushes—topiaries of all different shapes and sizes, the taller ones in black pots on the floor and the smaller ones in square ceramic dishes resting on sculpted white plaster columns of varying heights. One corner of the room is covered in cacti, some topped with bright orange flowers like clown noses. And along the far wall is a giant terrarium illuminated with a fluorescent blue light that makes the rocks and plants in it appear to be lavender-colored.

  "Wow." It's the only thing I can think of to say.

  A relieved smile appears on his face.

  "How come you don't, I mean ... I don't even think my brother Eric knows that you—"

  "Uh, Hallie, it's not really considered cool for quarterbacks to be into horticulture..."

  "But this isn't... I mean this is ..." But I don't know what I mean.

  Craig takes me on a tour of his enchanted forest. He explains the different types of soil that he uses and shows me all the varieties of topiaries and cacti that he's "hybridizing." His husky baritone voice lifts with excitement as he demonstrates how to prune a Japanese dwarf tree in the "clasped-to-rock style."

  Along the far wall is a large window hung with a wooden blind that allows long silvery-white slants of moonlight to stretch across the floorboards. The bright gro-lights overhead cast grayish-pink shadows while a humidifier softly hums in the corner and makes it all feel very romantic. I think that perhaps Craig will kiss me, especially when he places his hand on mine to show me how to plant a tufa rock with flowering quince and moss. But instead we move on to the proper care of the night-blooming cereus and the correct method of watering a bonsai tree. Not only does Craig not kiss me, but he doesn't even attempt to put his arm around me, not even after he closes the blinds so that I can get a good look at the terrarium.

  Eventually we walk to the front door and the entire family stands in the vestibule waving good night and telling me to drive safely and to watch out for deer. It feels more like a scene out of the three-hour driver-safety course I had to take to get my license than the passionate parting I'd been daydreaming of all week.

  Chapter 32

  Full Table ♣

  My mother is scheduled to arrive at noon on Sunday. At a quarter to twelve Mr. Bernard is enthusiastically demonstrating the proper way to place a slice of quiche on a plate and then garnish it with purple kale and sprinkle rosemary on top. "A successful presentation includes serving the courses at the right temperature with the right beverage and in keeping with the theme."

  "What do you mean the theme—like runaway adolescents?"

  "No, silly. The continuity, the total ambience—par exemple, at Christmastime you have a decorated tree and certain traditional dishes, drinks, and songs. Today we're going française, à la Gigi—a petit déjeuner of beet vichys-soise and nicoise salad with quiche Lorraine and croustade aux pommes avec crème glacée for dessert. And of course you'll offer your mother a glass of Beaujolais."

  "But she's going to throw a foal in the spring."

  "Pardonez-moi?"

  "She's pregnant."

  "Ah oui, enceinte, but of course. Offer her sparkling or spring water with a slice of lemon or a wedge of fresh lime. Then we'll sing 'La Marseillaise' for the baby's listening pleasure. It's beneficial for unborn children to hear music.

  "Marchons, marchons," he sings, while making the whipped cream for dessert.

  Mr. Bernard has tactfully offered to leave Mom and me on our own for lunch, but we all end up dining together, which I think is rather how he planned it in the first place, since he had plates for all of us stacked in the kitchen and ready to go. The guys appear keen to demonstrate that I'm not residing with weirdos. Mr. Bernard a
nd Mr. Gil may be different, but they're not stupid. They know what people like Herb and Al say about them. Thus Mr. Bernard has emptied the downstairs of funny hats, suggestive paintings, and the nude statue in the guest bathroom has mysteriously been replaced with a clipper ship in a glass bottle.

  When my mother arrives they don't model earrings, do the can-can, or perform movie scenes. Even Ms. Olivia is in on it. She doesn't start railing about her latest cause, which happens to be the unfair government representation and land appropriation of the Chiapas villagers in Southern Mexico. I'd spent the morning helping her write a petition to be passed out at her church so the members can collect signatures at their respective workplaces. Ms. Olivia is chairperson of the Chiapas Right to Fight committee. Actually, she's the only person on the committee. Apparently the church has eighty-seven members but over a hundred committees.

  Before lunch we show my mom around the downstairs of the house and give her a tour of the backyard. It's obvious that she finds Mr. Bernard to be charming. But then most women do. In fact, the older and more affluent ladies in town often stop by his shop just to gossip or complain about their kids and marriages. Not surprisingly, he usually manages to sell them something before they leave.

  True to form, Mr. Bernard politely holds the doors for my mother and gracefully motions for her to precede him as we enter each room. Once we're all seated in the Florida Room, Mr. Bernard offers everyone a "preprandial drink." He graciously rises whenever my mother stands and also when she returns from the powder room.

  It's doubtful that my mom really had to use the bathroom, since she always goes before she leaves the house in order to avoid public rest rooms. She probably wanted to do some investigating on her own and to see if the Stockton household met her standards for cleanliness. And maybe go through the medicine cabinet. I wouldn't put it past her.

  Ms. Olivia has trimmed the Judge's hair and beard so that he appears shipshape even though his recent behavior has been erratic. Up until a few weeks ago he was content to sit quietly when left alone for an hour or so, but now he keeps rising from his chair and walking from room to room and opening drawers, as if he's searching for something. He's also taken to crashing through the house in the middle of the night. The doctor says the Judge may have experienced a mild stroke. He's scheduled to make a house call on Monday to review the Judge's medications.