My Mrs. Brown

by William Norwich

  That wasn’t entirely true. Alice was very happy to drink alone, a bottle of wine, a bath filled with bubbles, and maybe a joint? Add some great music, and it was a recipe for bliss.

  One of Mrs. Fox’s best customers at the bookshop had given Mrs. Fox a bottle of dry sherry every year for Christmas. She uncorked the bottle only on New Year’s Eve so she and Mrs. Brown could toast the new year, and pretty much the rest of the year it stayed on a kitchen shelf. There were six bottles left.

  “But it is only Thursday night,” Mrs. Brown said. Saturday seemed the only acceptable night to have a drink. Drinking on weeknights was decadent or, worse, a sign there was a problem. Mr. Brown had drunk on weeknights. Not in the beginning, when they were first married, but later, toward middle age, every night drinks and eventually every night drunk.

  Still, getting out of her kitchen meant getting away from thinking about the past, at least for right now. Having something as relaxing as a bit of Mrs. Fox’s sherry did appeal to her. Mrs. Brown followed Alice to her living room across the way. Alice poured the sherry in short-stemmed crystal glasses that had originally belonged to her great-grandmother. She poured the sherry almost to the top of the glass. Again, Mrs. Brown thought, It’s the difference in our generations. We’d never pour that high.

  Two sips of sherry and Mrs. Brown told all. About what had happened when she saw Mrs. Groton’s suit dress, and about the novel Rachel Ames had given her, Mrs. ’Arris Goes to Paris, which could be a blueprint for how she might get her dress.

  “That’s a lot of money you will need to save, Mrs. Brown,” Alice said. “In the novel, which I’d like to borrow if that’s okay with you, how does Mrs. Harris save for hers?”

  “I haven’t finished reading it. I am not the fast reader that you are or your grandmother is,” Mrs. Brown said. “But as far as I got last night she was doing without extras, like the bunch of flowers she’d buy herself on the weekend. Then she wins a football pool. She wins big, I guess.”

  “That easy, really? Then what happens?”

  “That’s as far as I read. In fact,” Mrs. Brown said, “that’s as far as I’m going to read.”

  “Why?” Alice asked.

  “Because, Alice, if it doesn’t have a happy ending, I do not want to know.”

  Lest Mrs. Brown feel anything less than enthusiasm and support, Alice resisted the urge to ask too many more questions. But she explained that if this was really and truly something she wanted to do, then once Mrs. Brown had saved up the money, she wouldn’t have to go to New York to buy the dress. She could shop online, like most people Alice’s age do. Even people Alice’s mother’s age, late forties, shop online. Everyone does.

  Mrs. Brown smiled but didn’t respond, nor would she tonight. That Alice didn’t understand was clear to her. Why the sudden urgency for the odyssey ahead? Mrs. Brown had only a slightly better understanding. She couldn’t articulate more, not yet.

  It was getting late. Mrs. Brown thanked her young friend for the tipple of sherry. It certainly had worked its soothing charms. Before she returned to her place, she reminded Alice that she’d mentioned something about a tweed jacket she’d gotten from the Ashville Thrift Shop that didn’t fit quite right? Mrs. Brown had an idea for fixing the problem that she’d like to try.

  “Tomorrow night, we’ll have a look,” Mrs. Brown said. “I’m no Oscar de la Renta, but probably there’s a seam or two I can do something with.” She added, “No charge, I mean. Just so you know that, after all this talk about money.”

  Alice walked Mrs. Brown to the door. “You know, Mrs. Brown, about going to New York, I’ll come with you if you want. I know the city okay enough. I did an internship there three summers ago. Remember? That’s when I visited Granny here in Ashville before I went back home in August.”

  While she carefully washed and dried her grandmother’s sherry glasses, Alice reflected on Mrs. Brown’s resolution to save for a suit like Mrs. Groton’s and then go all the way to New York to buy it.

  It was weird, and it didn’t make any sense to her.

  Looking at the time, a bit before 11:00 P.M., she figured that, given the time difference, her grandmother would be cleaning up after dinner in Vancouver and sitting down to read whatever book it was she was reading this week.

  Alice telephoned, and Mrs. Fox answered on the first ring.

  “What’s wrong, Alice? It’s late for you with teaching early tomorrow morning.”

  When it came to understanding Mrs. Brown, and keeping her word to her grandmother to support her, Alice was out of her element on this “go-to-New-York-and-buy-a-dress thing,” as she called it—and would call it again many times over.

  “I mean what, Granny, like, what the fuck, right? It’s only a black jacket and dress. It’s an effing suit. What’s that? So boring!”

  “Don’t swear, Alice, it isn’t ladylike and much more is expected of a college-educated person,” Mrs. Fox said. “Use words that reflect your intelligence, not your slang.”

  This was exasperating, but Alice pressed on. “Yes, Granny, sorry. Big words. Coming right up. As polysyllabic as possible.”

  Mrs. Fox laughed. She was slow if ever to admit it, but she enjoyed her youngest granddaughter’s punkish attitudes—sometimes.

  “What don’t you understand about a woman of a certain age wanting to step out of her shell and travel somewhere, in this case New York, where she has never been, and to buy a dress?” Mrs. Fox asked. “Just because it might be found online? And I would have thought you’d like this suit that Emilia is wanting. It’s black, after all, your favorite color.”

  “Well, yes, there’s that. It’s black, that’s a plus, but don’t they sell boring black dresses at Penny’s?” Alice took a breath, and continued. “It’s a suit, Granny, it is utilitarian. It isn’t fantastic, it won’t be pretty and it will be dull. No matter how well made it is. If she’s going for something so expensive, there are lots of other dresses, beautiful dresses, red carpet dresses. She’s missing the opportunity to have something that makes her feel young and sexy, or is that the idea? Maybe she can get something that’s great and gets her more attention, you know, from men—she isn’t too old for men, is she; people your age still do it, don’t they, Granny? But with this suit, I don’t get it, she’ll look like a lawyer. And she isn’t a lawyer. She’s just a cleaning lady in a beauty shop.”

  Mrs. Fox waited to respond. It’s always best to let the young empty the tank when they are ranting. “I want to tell you something about women like Mrs. Brown, and like myself, really, living on small fixed incomes, we’d give anything to be accepted in a boardroom, if the fashion world only understood that. We don’t all want to be sexpots, or cougars, or just covered up in droopy blouses and trousers. There’s also something alluring, very, very alluring about a dress that is perfectly correct. But in an effort to make my generation disappear, no one sells clothing that empowers us. There’s only ridicule, condescension, or dismissal.”

  Alice had never thought about it this way. Could a really well-made suit dress be as much a fantasy for a woman as an evening gown or, in Alice’s case, one of the amazing leather jackets that designers like Rick Owens or Ann Demeuelemeester make but that only heiresses and rock stars can afford?

  “Sometimes a dress is not just a dress,” Mrs. Fox said. “It’s a symbol.”

  “I get it, Granny,” Alice said. “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes it’s a penis, a big swinging symbol, that’s what you mean.”

  “Alice!”

  “Oh, come on, Granny. Lighten up.”

  Mrs. Fox would. Lighten up, that is, as she continued to explain to Alice that Mrs. Brown obviously felt she needed this bold plan, this late-in-life odyssey, and for reasons that were none of their business unless Mrs. Brown disclosed them herself.

  “We won’t press her to discuss it and we won’t analyze it,” Mrs. Fox told Alice. “And it’s probably much more respectful not to ask when she planned on wearing it once she gets
it, assuming of course that she can and does get it. How is she going to manage that, I wonder.”

  More would be revealed, and their job as friends was to just get out of the way, wait patiently for more details, and be supportive throughout.

  “Keep me posted about this, please, Alice?” Mrs. Fox said before they hung up. “I love you and I love how you’re taking an interest in others, especially someone like Emilia. I do realize that she is so different than you or anyone you know.”

  After the call, Mrs. Fox, subdued and concerned, looked out the kitchen window of her place in Vancouver to where a strong oak stood. How well it still looked, and probably would in spring, too, no matter what hell of weather this winter brought.

  Trees survive winter and are revived by spring—so much hope in the cycle of nature—but people? People weather away unless spring keeps in their hearts.

  Mrs. Fox was glad for the news about Mrs. Brown. Even if it was just a dress and jacket, it was a beginning. How people endure the complexities of their lives with faith and cheer, finding their own measure of hope, is one of the constant miracles, and often surprises, of life.

  But her friend’s first trip to New York would be a daunting prospect, just as saving enough money to buy the dress would be.

  Mrs. Fox would do everything to support Mrs. Brown and wished she could be there in person to do so. Instead, she vowed to make sure that her granddaughter, Alice, did a great job in her place. But there was just one more thing . . . was it too late to call home to Rhode Island?

  Mrs. Fox dialed. Alice, who was checking her various social media accounts as she always did last thing before lights-out, answered on the third ring.

  Alice was scrolling through Instagram, her favorite new hashtag—#MarieAntoinetteInBellBottoms—postings of recognizable fashion and other celebrity people wearing outrageously priced bohemian styles.

  “Granny, what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong. Just something I wanted to say about Mrs. Brown.”

  “Yes, Granny?”

  “That book Mrs. Brown read? What was it called? The one you said she wasn’t going to finish reading because she didn’t want to know how it ends?”

  Alice couldn’t remember the title, but she remembered the book.

  “I’ve read everything, but I don’t recall this book,” Mrs. Fox said. “I want you to read it. Will you, Alice? See how it ends.”

  Alice promised her grandmother that she would.

  IT WAS INTERESTING, SO Mrs. Brown thought, that the topic at the beauty parlor the next morning was money, as it probably was in shops and offices all over the world.

  Mrs. Brown had opened up shop, donned her turquoise work jacket, grabbed a broom, and started sweeping when Bonnie blew into the shop in a state of apoplexy.

  “Coffee?” She could barely get the word out.

  When Bonnie wanted coffee, rather than her usual latte, Mrs. Brown knew that something was troubling her employer, that she would have been up late worrying, or not slept at all, smoking something “herbal,” as she would occasionally admit, and drinking red wine.

  Mrs. Brown brought the coffee, black with two sugar substitutes, in Bonnie’s favorite mug. The words “Love Spoken Here” were written in script on it.

  Slumped in the chair by the cash register, Bonnie sipped the coffee. (When revived, she would perch herself on a swivel stool right at the cash register.) “Business is slow, Mrs. Brown, I don’t know if you’ve noticed? I mean, people are still coming in for the hair, but they aren’t booking the other services, manicures and pedicures, and facials, which means they aren’t buying any of the skin products. I might have to let one of the beauticians go.”

  Mrs. Brown lowered her head, and did not know what to say. She instinctively knew if anyone was let go it would be Teresa, the youngest of the six beauticians that Bonnie employed, also the nicest, if not the brightest.

  “I don’t know what Teresa will do if I let her go,” Bonnie said, confirming Mrs. Brown’s fears. “Her husband is a son of a bitch—oh, sorry, Mrs. Brown, excuse the French—and she is supporting him. In fact, she has taken the morning off to go with him to a job interview. But I have to watch every penny. It’s this economy. It is not a time for carelessness with your money. I hope you’ve saved a lot over the years; you should have. I don’t see you have many extravagances, must be one of the advantages of getting old, isn’t it? You crave less.”

  Mrs. Brown thought about her perfect black suit dress and resumed sweeping and tidying up. Bonnie kept talking. “I can’t stand to listen to the news anymore, all the gloom and doom about the economy.” She closed the cash register and crossed the room to the window onto Main Street, looking south as if she was expecting someone. “I started screaming at the NBC news last night, ‘Tell a better story, asshole! Tell a better story!’ ”

  She turned away from the window and smiled. “But the anchorman didn’t,” Bonnie said.

  The beauty parlor opened for business. The beauticians positioned themselves at their chairs waiting for the first customers of the day. The place began to buzz. Moments after her first client had left her chair, one of the senior beauticians, Hillie, a sassy brunette from South Carolina who relocated with her first husband to Rhode Island several years ago, rushed up to Bonnie at the register.

  “Old Mrs. Casey just told me she couldn’t afford to give me a tip!” Hillie exclaimed.

  “Why not?” Bonnie asked.

  Hillie leaned in and whispered as if she was telling some kind of dirty secret. “Says she is cutting back. Has to. Reduce expenses. Well, get her. Isn’t she one of the richest dames in Ashville?”

  Bonnie nodded. “Maybe the richest, now that Millicent Groton has gone to the big charity ball in the sky.”

  Georgie, a curvaceous beautician in her mid-forties with a salad of curls on her head the color of ripe red plums, overheard this exchange and joined in. “I didn’t want to say anything, but two of my customers have asked me for a discount.”

  Bonnie gasped. “What did you tell them?”

  “I told them, Discuss it with Bonnie, she’s the boss,” Georgie answered, pouring herself a cup of coffee.

  “Discounts!” Bonnie exclaimed. “What the fuck do they think this is, the Red Cross? Free blowouts and free facials!”

  As the morning wound down toward noon, there was one last customer left before business picked up again during lunchtime (followed by a lull in the afternoon, and then again a hectic period after five until closing at seven). The customer was Mary Smithers, owner of the local shoe shop, and a kindred spirit with the beauticians because they were all Main Street businesswomen—as opposed to the local grandees, the well-heeled married or single ladies. Their conversation concerned the current economy.

  “The one good thing about the bad economy I am glad for is that ‘bling’ is over. Not in good taste anymore now that austerity is fashionable. I won’t have to sell so many god-awful gaudy shoes, like those gladiator sandals last season with coins dangling all over, so damn ugly,” Mary said, digging in her brown suede handbag for a Life Saver. She had been trying to quit smoking, and the Life Savers, butterscotch, were meant to help. Three years later she was still smoking, and eating three rolls of butterscotch a day.

  The women, except Mrs. Brown, gathered around the cash register. Bonnie perched on her swivel stool, the queen bee. Mrs. Brown cleaned and dusted on the sidelines, and listened.

  “Why do you want ‘bling’ to be over? It was pretty. It was sexy. It was hot, honey. And I just hate dull,” said Francie Brunie, another beautician. “Dull gives me hives.”

  “Hives aren’t dull,” Mary said, and laughed. “They itch.”

  Francie pressed on. “Any of you looked at the new clothes in the fashion magazines lately? They’re either freakish, perfect for stoned Amish people, boiled wool and the like, or they are simply dull, not dressy, you know, for old ladies.”

  Francie was preening in the mirror on the wall behind Bonnie, ar
ranging her lemon-yellow helmet of hair and applying a new pink lipstick. “Who wants to look like old Mrs. Brown here?” she said, not trying too hard to whisper. “Have you ever seen such a dull thing in your life? I mean, I feel sorry for her, you know, I really do, but still, come on, honey, put on some lipstick, will you? Add some color! Boost your aura.”

  Over by the sinks, where she was cleaning up after the beauticians, Mrs. Brown pretended not to have heard what Francie said and not to have noticed that no one disagreed. Always polite, she retreated into the good manners of turning the other cheek, “rising above,” and remaining kind. Here Mrs. Brown was brave. In today’s frightened world, kindness takes courage sometimes.

  She just kept on. She wiped hair cuttings off chairs and swept under the shelves and sinks. This wasn’t the first time something like this had happened, and it would not be the last time either. Mrs. Brown told herself she was here to work, not here running for Miss Popularity. Besides, she had other things to think about. Her plan for getting her dress!

  “Well, everyone I know is trying to make some extra dough, me included,” said Hillie. “I’m starting to charge for it.”

  “Charge for what?” Mary asked.

  Hillie laughed and patted her ample buttocks dressed in paisley stretch corduroy pants worn with high, black heels.

  The other women giggled.

  “Laugh all you want, girls,” Bonnie said, “but this is really serious. The economy is tricky business, especially for us women. I find nothing funny about it.”

  Hillie shook her head. “Honey, why do people say not to be funny? It seems to me that is the least you can do these days. Make a joke.” She paused and lowered her voice. “At least we have careers,” she said, looking in Mrs. Brown’s direction but avoiding catching her eye. “I feel sorry for the women who get by willy-nilly. If things get any worse, they are the ones who are going to suffer the most.”