Beginner's Luck

by Laura Pedersen

  "Mother, please." Mr. Bernard quickly glances over at me as if he's going to catch some revelatory expression on my face. Then he goes back to pretending I'm invisible. "Did she tell you that?"

  "She doesn't have to tell me. You men can get annoying sometimes. I don't blame Jane Bowles and Susan B. Anthony for seeking the company of women. And I've been meaning to tell you that we need a gazebo. We can't be hosting punch parties and debutante balls without one. Call that carpenter, the one we like so much, and tell him to do a late-eighteenth-century Lake District-style gazebo with plenty of latticework, a trellis roof, and a pergola leading to the garden path."

  "One gazebo coming right up," barks Mr. Bernard like a lieutenant receiving orders from his captain. But then he sarcastically continues, "And maybe a merry-go-round for the driveway. And perhaps you'd like me to move the garage several feet to the left."

  "Why don't I just blow up the garage?" offers Mr. Gil.

  "All I'm asking you to do is make a simple phone call," says Ms. Olivia.

  "Oh, all right. I'll try to reach him." Mr. Bernard rises and carries the remains of the rib roast into the kitchen. "Lake District-style gazebo," he mutters on his way toward the kitchen.

  Mr. Gil stacks up the dinner plates and follows him.

  "Why do I feel as if Bertie wants us to have some sort of a talk?" she inquires.

  "I guess he likes Craig."

  "Well, the important thing is whether you care for Craig. We're not running a matchmaking service here."

  "Do you like Craig?" I ask Ms. Olivia.

  "He's a sweet boy. And there's something compassionate about him that appeals to me—he'll sit in the yard and talk to a sick tree when he thinks that no one is watching. But he's not trying to sleep with me. At least not that I'm aware of."

  The idea of Craig making a pass at Ms. Olivia starts me giggling. "I do like him. But you were right—what you said at dinner." I lift the edge of the lace cloth and traverse the beveled edges of the polished wood table with my fingers. It's kind of strange talking about sex with a woman my grandmother's age. "I mean, he ... he entertains lots of impure thoughts." Shit, now I sound like a total prude. "I mean, I do, too ... maybe not just to the same extent. .."

  "I'd think it unusual if you weren't entertained by a certain number of impure thoughts," says Ms. Olivia.

  "But I... I'm just not ready yet."

  "Want advice from an old woman?"

  "Sure. You know more about men than I ever will."

  "In some circles that's not considered an accomplishment," Ms. Olivia says with a sparkle in her eye. She leans toward me as if Mr. Bernard is standing on the other side of the door with a glass pressed to his ear. Which he probably is. "Give him a hand job."

  Oh God. If my face is turning the color of Mr. Bernard's beet soup right now, then Ms. Olivia pretends not to notice.

  "But he says that guys his age have needs . .."

  "Trust me on this one, Hallie. And not to sound cliche, but if that isn't enough until you are ready, then forget about him, because he doesn't care about you. And now I must get to work."

  "Are you working on the Judge's poem?"

  "No, a letter to the editor. They've dismissed the leader of a local Boy Scout Troop because one of the parents saw him participating in an AIDS fund-raiser and he privately admitted to being gay."

  Ms. Olivia disappears through the tall wooden swinging door that leads into the kitchen. She always brews a fresh cup of oolong tea before embarking upon a new writing project.

  "I couldn't catch everything you said," I hear Mr. Bernard complaining to her in the kitchen. "Something about a saraband or a Lindy hop. Does he want her to take dancing lessons?"

  "Mind your own business," Ms. Olivia replies.

  "I'm only trying to help," Mr. Bernard insists.

  Mr. Gil reenters the dining room with a cup of coffee for himself and a hot chocolate for me. I can still hear Mr. Bernard grilling Ms. Olivia on the other side of the door. Mr. Gil carefully adds exactly one teaspoonful of sugar to his coffee and then clinks his spoon twice around. "I think it's safe to say that Olivia is making a good recovery now that she's back to writing blistering editorials."

  "Will the newspaper print it?"

  "Of course. Olivia's editorials are famous, or maybe I should say notorious. They boost circulation by almost fifty percent. Then the paper receives another hundred outraged letters in response to whatever point she's trying to make. Advertisers threaten to pull their accounts. Subscribers threaten to cancel their subscriptions. And so it goes."

  "Wow," I say.

  "Boyfriend problems ..." he states philosophically and sighs as if he's been there and done that. "Are you okay?"

  "Pressure. Ms. Olivia said to give him a hand job. What do you think?"

  "Good advice—like when slacks are too casual and a dress is too dressy but a skirt is just right."

  Mr. Bernard pushes through the kitchen door with his back and enters the room with an ornately engraved antique silver coffeepot he recently bought but can't find a storage place for. "She won't bleed a drop. Your womanly secrets will go with her to the grave."

  Mr. Gil and I just look at each other and laugh. I guess that no matter what I decide to do about Craig, one thing is for certain—I sure am living in a good place to get advice about dating men. I don't know why I waited so long to ask.

  Chapter 49

  The Undealt Card «

  Mr. Gil is as right about Ms. Olivia's editorial as the local weatherman is always wrong about when it's going to rain. The day after her letter about the dismissed scout leader runs in the local newspaper, the phone is jangling away with people saying that she isn't a Christian and that she should mind her own business or else move to California. I'm surprised that Mr. Bernard isn't sympathetic to his mother's current cause, especially since he makes no secret about, well, his own lifestyle.

  "Technically, the Boy Scouts are a private club and they can do whatever they please, Mother," he says matter-of-factly.

  "I cannot believe what I'm hearing!" Ms. Olivia practically shouts at him. It's the first time I've ever seen Ms. Olivia actually appear to be infuriated, as if she's going to box his ears. "Whose child are you? You! You of all people, Bernard."

  "I'd rather my life not become part of a cause célèbre, Mother. As soon as that occurs then it's no longer my life. I'm no longer a person. And I don't want the lead in my obituary to read activist. I'm an antiques dealer. It's bad enough they're going to find a way to work in the word flamboyant."

  "Does this mean you're not attending the meeting tonight?" Ms. Olivia asks with disbelief.

  "You're on your own this time. Of course I'll send Gil to post bail if it comes to that." He exits the room in a huff.

  "What good is knowledge without the wisdom to use it?" Ms. Olivia calls after him.

  Meantime Mr. Gil explains to me that about a third of Ms. Olivia's editorials result in calls for a meeting down at the old Grange Hall, since townspeople become so agitated that they have to vent before a commerce war erupts and all the locals on the political left refuse to patronize businesses whose merchants are on the right. He says it was actually the Judge who started the town meeting tradition to prevent his house from being burned to the ground when Ms. Olivia became overly embroiled in politics.

  "Bertie is like Thomas Jefferson," Ms. Olivia says to me, sounding annoyed. "Not only can he simultaneously hold two contradictory ideas in his head but he can also act upon both.

  "And what about you?" she pointedly says to Mr. Gil.

  "Please, Livvy, this is Bernard's hometown. You know that I'm behind you one hundred percent, but this time it's too personal."

  "Of course it's personal! It's about the right of every American to have a personal life!"

  But Mr. Gil doesn't rise to her battle cry.

  "The Book of James asks what good is it if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds," she continues. Ms. Olivia could usually rouse Mr. Gil
with a smattering of scripture, since it was not lost on her that he was raised a Disciple of Christ, and therefore guilt was always percolating only slightly beneath the surface.

  He silently shakes his head as if to simultaneously decline and apologize.

  Ms. Olivia turns to me. "Well, are you coming with me?"

  "What should I do?" I ask Ms. Olivia, my teacher who has taught me so much.

  "You know that I can't tell you that, Hallie," she says.

  I look to Mr. Gil. "Why don't you go and ask Bertie," he suggests. "He adores dispensing advice."

  Mr. Bernard is sitting in the sunroom in the exact same spot where the Judge patiently waited out his final years. The television is on, I assume to avoid hearing any further commentary by Ms. Olivia. His chin is cradled in the palm of his hand and he's staring out the window to where the gardens are still dotted with grayish patches of melting snow and a late-winter sun melts into a gauzy white fog bank above the summerhouse.

  "Hi," I finally say.

  "Hi back," he says as if we're teenagers arriving in the lunchroom at the same time.

  "She asked me to go with her."

  “So go.”

  "I don't know."

  "I think you do. You're just worried about me. Go with her. Unless you think it will get you into hot water with your folks."

  "I don't care what they think."

  "Then Godspeed. It's your big break to becoming an official rabble-rouser. I'm sure the evening news won't want to miss a shot of the Artful Dodger protesting next door to her former prison."

  "How'd you know they called me that?" I ask.

  "I had a meeting with your folks and the school administrators at the offices of your parents' lawyer."

  Mr. Bernard rises and slowly walks over to the antique secretary where Ms. Olivia used to do paperwork and pay bills while she sat with the Judge. He rolls back the wooden top and slides a manila envelope out from one of the compartments and hands me a sheaf of about twenty papers neatly stapled together. Shuffling through the forms, I see my name typed in several places and also both my parents' full names and Mr. Bernard's name (oh my God, his middle name is Etienne), and there are legal-looking stamps in red ink throughout.

  "I don't get it..."

  "I'm your legal guardian," he says in a serious tone. "I apologize for not telling you earlier."

  "Oh." I flip through the papers again but nothing really registers.

  "It was the only way to make the whole arrangement work—the tutoring, the job—you know, insurance and liability and all that. The reason I didn't bother mentioning it is that it doesn't grant us permission to order you around."

  "Of course not."

  "You—you just seemed rather antiauthority at the time. And then, with Dad dying and all that, there just never seemed to be the right moment to bring it up."

  "I wouldn't have minded." And this is the truth.

  He takes my hand and says wearily, "I know. It's just that I didn't want you to ever feel that you had to stay here if for any reason you no longer desired to."

  Staring back at me from the bottom of the last page is my dad's signature scrawled in thick black felt pen. For a moment I can't believe he actually agreed to put in writing that he was giving me up. It's official. I'm a foundling.

  Mr. Bernard catches my eye. "It's just a formality. You know, if you need to go to the hospital in the middle of the night we'd have to be able to sign in order for you to receive proper medical treatment."

  "Or if I get thrown in jail for disorderly conduct or assembling without a permit."

  "Exactly." He cheers up considerably. "Just the pratfalls of daily life. Speaking of which, you'd better go and get your picket signs loaded into the QE2 or you'll be late for the town hall extravaganza. Courage, mon brave!"

  I dash back toward the living room to inform Ms. Olivia that I'm coming with her. But Mr. Gil announces that she's already in the car waiting for me.

  "I'm honored to be here to see you off on your first protest," he says with mock seriousness. "I'll be sure to set the VCR to record the evening news."

  Over at the Grange Hall the decision to dismiss the scoutmaster is upheld despite what I consider to be a brilliant plea from Ms. Olivia. She argues that a verdict based on sexual orientation is the same as firing someone for being handicapped and therefore is unconstitutional and will never hold up in court.

  But people stand up one after another and for the most part say this case is different because it involves children and the scouts are not a public institution so they aren't required to follow the same federal laws that govern taxpayer-funded institutions.

  When we arrive home Mr. Bernard has made peppermint tea and double fudge brownies for what he dubs a post-protest party. As we enter the living room, still carrying our leftover pamphlets and Ms. Olivia's speech notes, Mr. Gil bangs out "We Shall Overcome" on the piano. Then we all gather around the coffee table while Ms. Olivia and I enthusiastically recount who said what to whom and which factions came out in favor and against.

  Mr. Bernard and Mr. Gil caught a snippet of Ms. Olivia's speech on the evening news. Mr. Bernard reports that the cinnamon-colored cardigan sweater set off her eyes nicely. I am so thrilled with Ms. Olivia's performance that I make them play back the video right away. And there I am in the opening shot, standing in front of the Grange Hall wearing a suit of mail on top and bright red tights on the bottom, holding a lance in one hand and in the other a shield with a placard on the front saying: "The First Amendment Is Not a Shield."

  The armor was Ms. Olivia's idea. She claims that 90 percent of effective protesting is about marketing the message properly and so she keeps a store of props in the basement for such occasions.

  Then the newscaster stops talking and they cut to the final few seconds of Ms. Olivia's speech. Following that the business news comes on and Mr. Gil switches off the television. Mr. Bernard passes the brownies and then sits back down on the couch, looking pleased. "Back when Father was an up-and-coming lawyer Mother used to assist in researching his cases. In fact, she's a charter member of the Institute for First Amendment Studies. Father may have been charismatic and imposing in the courtroom, and he had a brilliant legal mind, but he was a horrendous researcher."

  "Yes, but he wrote wonderful opinions that displayed his airtight logic, much better than anything I could have produced," says Ms. Olivia. "I always became too emotionally involved."

  Ms. Olivia sips her tea and attempts to recall for Mr. Bernard which of his customers attended, how they voted, and if they said anything worth repeating.

  "Did anyone with a Pennsylvania Dutch bedroom set in good condition happen to appear at all pale and sickly?" he asks. "I have a wealthy client over in Youngstown, an oilman, who will pay a nice price for one."

  "Oh, will you stop," Mr. Gil scolds Mr. Bernard. "The Judge would be so proud of you both," he says and smiles at Ms. Olivia and then at me.

  "Why is everyone so happy?" I finally ask. "The vote was two thirty to forty-eight in favor of dismissing the scoutmaster. We failed—"

  "We didn't fail. We just lost round one, that's all, dear," Ms. Olivia tells me. "There'll be appeals and petitions and protests. Don't be so quick to declare the victors and the vanquished."

  "But I wanted to win," I say despondently. "How can you live in a town like this?"

  "Yes, Mother," Mr. Bernard chimes in, "how can you live in a town like this? Why don't you and Hallie leave this hotbed of social rest and ship off to Berkeley and see how the lettuce pickers are getting on?"

  "There's nothing wrong with this town that's not wrong with any other town," Ms. Olivia replies. "A town is made up of people who want the best for their children. And so they have fears. We must demonstrate that they have nothing to be afraid of."

  "But everyone knows that you can't catch being gay. It's not like a cold. I mean, if it were, I mean, I would be ..."

  "And you don't think your parents are wondering if you're over here reading
Gertrude Stein and using power tools?" asks Mr. Bernard.

  "You don't really think ... my parents ..." I muse aloud. And then I realize that yes, that's probably exactly what they think between my poker playing and the steel-toed hiking boots. And I suddenly start to laugh. "So they think I didn't want to go to school anymore because I'm a lesbian," I say incredulously.

  "I think it's safe to say that's one theory which has been bandied about," Mr. Bernard says with a grin. "And you've not taken the time to enlighten any of us as to exactly why you took leave of public education."

  Mr. Bernard occasionally attempts to trick me into telling him why I stopped going to school by asking questions about my teachers and if I missed playing sports and stuff like that. But I've never told him the real reason.

  "It's nobody's business but your own," Ms. Olivia states with quiet conviction. "I swear, Bertie, the title of your autobiography will be Too Nosy to Die,”

  This last line makes Mr. Gil practically choke with laughter.

  "Besides," Ms. Olivia continues, "I don't see how anyone can expect you to go to that hideous, hard-featured building every day in the first place. You shouldn't attend on aesthetic grounds alone."

  "That's preposterous, Mother. Learning can take place in any surroundings, just as you're always insisting that one can worship anywhere."

  I love it when Mr. Bernard uses Ms. Olivia's own theories against her. Though she usually finds a way to wriggle out of it.

  "Look at the bright side," says Mr. Gil. "If the communists take over they won't have to change a brick."

  "I'm being serious," says Ms. Olivia. "They load students into buses and march them through lovely museums to enlighten them about beauty and then dump them back into that steel-and-concrete morgue. Art and life must be experienced as intertwined."

  "I'll messenger over a copy of Edith Wharton's decorating book to the superintendent in the morning," Mr. Bernard announces flippantly.

  "That's an admirable first step," agrees Ms. Olivia. "Edith understood that life's handmaiden is art. And that the agony and the ecstasy can only exist side by side."