ODD NUMBERS
Bird Brain Publishing
Evansville, Indiana
ODD NUMBERS
By
M. Grace Bernardin
Copyright © 2010
Bird Brain Publishing
Evansville, Indiana
Copyright 2010 by M. Grace Bernardin
Names, characters and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Bird Brain Publishing is an imprint of Bird Brain Productions.
www.birdbrainproductions.com
www.birdbrainpublishing.com
Cover Art by Artistic Imagery Photography, Evansville, Indiana.
Cover photo by Ron L. McMullen
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available from the publisher
Bernardin, M. Grace
Odd Numbers / by M. Grace Bernardin
Summary: An unlikely friendship forms between three friends beginning in the 1980s in the southern Indiana town of Lamasco as they search for love, belonging, and meaning in their lives.
ISBN: 978-0-982-6255-4-5
Printed in the United States of America
To John
Chapter 1
January 2006
Allison
Allison held the lipstick tube at arm’s length and squinted. Moonlight and Roses, or at least that’s what she thought it said. She moved the tube closer to her face, but it was no good. Just a blur. Her mother was about her age when she first got bifocals. Another concession to middle age. But then, as always, she tried to look on the positive side. Let’s see, the upside of bifocals. They might add a touch of class, make me look like an intellectual, or one of those gracefully aging ladies from old money.
She moved in closer to the mirror then backed away again. She had a general idea where her mouth was. She began applying the balm to her upper lip. She thought of a crazy old lady she once knew who never got her lipstick on right. It was always smeared above and below her mouth. She must’ve been too proud to wear bifocals, Allison surmised. She could still see color at least, and one thing was for sure, the shade of her lipstick was all wrong. It didn’t go with her black dress. It wasn’t the Moonlight and Roses it was the Red Wine and Twilight she meant to grab before she left the house. It was too bright – bright red. Suddenly she was the crazy old lady with the smeared lipstick, only paler.
My God, I’m going blind. Blind and pale. I look like Elvira the Vampire Woman from Friday Night Fright Show: pale skin, black dress, and God-awful red lips – everything but the cleavage and black hair. Allison scrutinized the dark hair which peaked out of her scalp, afraid that the black roots made her shoulder-length dyed blond hair look a bit dirty. She imagined Elvira the Vampire Woman with bifocals as she dropped the lipstick into her black evening bag. The positive side of bifocals, along with everything else evaporated from her mind.
Allison hurried out the ladies room of the Lamasco Theater. She always hurried when in emotional pain. She schmoozed her way down the corridor to the lobby. Fortunately, she didn’t have to walk too far without running into someone she knew. Allison Hamilton’s smile flashed, her enthusiasm oozed, and her charm splattered out on everyone she met. “Wonderful concert!” “So good to see you again!” “You look great!” The social arena was her joy; looking in a mirror her agony.
As she approached the main foyer, the exiting crowd forced her to slow down. She thought of her three children and felt an ache of regret for the meager scraps of time which was all she seemed able to give them. She thought of Frank and every emotion known to womankind swirled through her chest–resentment, love, longing, disappointment, despair, and regret.
Ahead of her in the crowd was Tim Schultz, their dashing lawyer friend from the old days. Relieved to see someone she knew, Allison raised her hand, calling out, “Tim, darling!” She wormed her way to him and gave him a flirtatious little nudge until he turned around.
“Allison Hamilton! I swear you get more beautiful all the time.” Tim gushed.
Allison threw her arms around him, giving him the customary rich lady hug: a light back patting, plenty of cheek pressing, and a smoochy noise, but no actual kiss.
“Frank is one lucky bastard.”
“Flattery will get you everywhere.”
“Never worked for me before.”
“Oh, please, Tim. Stop. So what are you doing here anyway? I didn’t think you went in for cultural events.”
“I don’t. I’m still the uncultured slob from the old days. My wife joined the Junior League and all her friends have season tickets, so here I am.”
“I see,” Allison smiled.
“Hey, I just talked to Frank out in the lobby. Still making him wait, huh?” Tim laughed boisterously.
“No, just keeping him on his toes, Tim. Mustn’t let him get complacent you know.”
“Hey, I was thinking about trying to get some of the old gang together; you know kind of a Camelot reunion. You ever think about the old Camelot days?”
“No,” Allison abruptly replied.
“Why not?” Tim asked.
“Because it’s in the past,” she said smiling away the pain.
“I think about those days all the time. So you and Frank have been married how long now?”
“We just celebrated our twentieth anniversary last month.” Allison caught the irony of the word “celebrate” as it slipped out, thinking how unlike a celebration it actually was. She felt her social veneer droop just a little.
“Twenty years. Well, I’ll be damned. You’re still as gorgeous as you were on your wedding day. Remember that day? That was one hell of a brew-ha-ha.” Tim laughed again. Allison giggled behind her black evening bag, lifting it in front of her face, like a shy school girl laughing at a naughty joke.
If she really thought about her wedding day it would make her cry, not laugh. But instead she remembered only Tim’s drunken proclamations of love toward her when he toasted her at the wedding reception. “I’m the best man, so I don’t know why Allison picked Frank instead of me,” he said with a slur, his champagne glass raised and his ascot tie sloppily pulled to the side.
Allison looked out from behind her black evening bag at Tim. She took in the image of his balding head and protruding stomach. He was definitely not the good-looking playboy she remembered from the old days, but then nothing was the same as she remembered.
“So how is...” Allison searched her mind for the name of Tim’s newest wife. A skinny young blond thing he snatched from a college sorority. Or was it high school? Tim’s wives kept getting younger and younger.
“Tiffany,” he paused. “She’s doing great. She’s around here somewhere.”
“Well, it was good seeing you, Tim, but I’ve got to go. I’ve kept Frank waiting long enough.”
“See you later, sweetheart. Tell the kids hi for me.”
“Will do. Bye. Let’s get together soon.” Allison squeezed his hand, furrowed her brow, and spoke the words as if she really meant them. She gave him one final smoochy air-kiss which landed inches from his right ear lobe. She left him smiling. She left all the men smiling. Except Frank
Allison searched for Frank. She remembered the anticipation and excitement with which she used to search for Frank in a crowd and then she’d spot him and her heart would pound and her mouth wo
uld get dry. How different her search for him now. She was tired and wanted to go home. Her cheeks ached from all the phony smiling and she longed to be around someone with whom she didn’t have to smile. That would be Frank.
Allison spotted Frank leaning against the large plate glass window by the lobby door. Frank leaned a lot these days. If he couldn’t sit, he leaned. He complained that his back and legs ached if he stood for too long. Frank always complained, but he never used to lean. He’d even taken to slouching lately. Allison resented him for all the slouching and leaning, but especially for that pitiful far-away look on his face.
He looks like a basset hound, a starving basset hound that’s just been kicked. He could at least force a smile when he’s in public, but, no, then the world would never realize what a long-suffering martyr he is. Mister Melodrama, that’s what he is. Allison muttered her contempt through smiling clenched teeth.
She was all set to despise Frank when, suddenly, the image of him standing there triggered a memory so vivid she found herself reliving it in that very instant. The unexpectedness of this deja vu caused her to stop in her tracks as if she’d run up against an invisible wall. Or maybe she only snagged the toe of her black peau de sole pumps on the carpeting beneath her feet. Allison looked down at her shoes, then up again, hoping the phantom before her would disappear. But there it was again, and the memory lingered for a few moments longer; Frank standing there, cradling her full-length mink coat in his arms like a sleeping child.
It was in La Guardia airport some thirteen, fourteen years earlier when she last saw him looking like that. They were returning from his father’s home out east where they’d spent their Christmas vacation. It was late and he was tired. Their oldest son, Matthew, was about three or four years old at the time and was sound asleep in his arms. He looked utterly exhausted and the coat looked heavy in his arms, just like Matthew looked that night years ago, but no matter, he would stand there and hold that sleeping boy all night despite his aching back.
Allison broke her gaze away from Frank’s dark sapphire eyes. It was always Frank’s eyes that made her love him again. There was a depth to his eyes, like great pools which one couldn’t resist diving into. In the past Allison found herself drowning inside those deep, mystical, endless pools of blue.
Basset Hound eyes, Allison told herself as the brief spell of love and longing vanished with the memory. Frank, himself, aided Allison in her efforts to stave off any more tender feelings with a long loud yawn which he made no attempt to cover. The yawn was so indiscreet that she thought she caught a glimpse of his bottom molar fillings. A few people standing near him yawned in sympathy. And then he spotted her and his sad tired look quickly changed to one of irritation as he heaved a loud sigh. Along with all the slouching and leaning came plenty of yawning and sighing. It’s what Frank did best these days. In return Allison gave him a closed mouth smile. Frank called it her “polite but pissed” smile, and it was reserved for him alone.
Allison knew that Frank would quiz her about the second half of the concert which was Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony, the Pathétique. Pathetic is right, Allison thought. At least she would remember the name. It described Frank, and her marriage, and her life. He really should have been a college professor, Allison thought, for Frank was never more in his element than when he had some underling in his tutelage. Too often that had been her. He wasn’t home much that week but when he was he followed her around the house giving her little scraps of information about the symphony and Tchaikovsky himself.
“You know it was totally radical. Nothing like it had ever been done before,” he’d say as his image would suddenly appear in the mirror behind her left shoulder as she brushed her teeth.
“What are you talking about?” she’d say with toothpaste muffling her words and dripping out of her mouth.
“Tchaikovsky’s sixth.”
“Oh,” she’d say spitting into the sink.
“His final movement was an Adagio, not an Allegro. That was totally new. I mean to end a symphony on a tragic rather than triumphant note,” he’d say as she gargled and spit into the sink.
“Uh-huh,” Allison would say as she pinned her hair back and daubed some white cream on her face, careful to make outward circular motions so as not to promote premature wrinkling.
“My back’s killing me,” he’d say, closing the lid to the toilet and plopping down on it.
“So what else is new?”
“Tchaikovsky suffered from melancholia, you know. But he wasn’t melancholy when he wrote his sixth symphony. No, he was actually content, content and confident that he was composing something really worthwhile. He conducted the first performance himself in St. Petersburg in 1893, I believe. It was not well received.”
“So I bet he was melancholy then, huh? All that hard work and nobody appreciated it.”
“Genius is seldom appreciated,” he’d say rising from the toilet, the sad Basset Hound look returning to his eyes. Then with one sweeping and dramatic gesture he’d exit the bathroom.
All week long Allison heard about that final movement and how tragic and beautiful it was. She fell asleep during it. She tried to stay awake. She rested her head on Frank’s shoulder to avoid the embarrassment of it dropping and jerking. In the old days this would have elicited tenderness on Frank’s part, a gentle squeeze of the hand or perhaps his head against hers. Tonight, however she was startled awake by a hard nudge delivered to her rib cage. She opened her eyes and he gave her a stern look like a professor reprimanding the naughty student. To Allison’s horror she realized she had drooled on his camel’s hair coat and discreetly wiped the corner of her mouth. She spent the remainder of the concert thinking about what she could eat when she got home: something with salt or chocolate?
“What in hell took you so long?” said Frank startling her back into reality.
She was relieved that he wasn’t quizzing her about Tchaikovsky and the final movement of his sixth symphony, which she didn’t hear. “What took me so long? I’ll tell you what took me so long. The fact that men design women’s restrooms and they never put in enough stalls. Until more women become architects or men become more in tune with women’s needs, which I don’t see happening anytime soon, I’ll be destined to wait in line to go the john and you’ll be destined to wait for me. So don’t blame me for having to wait. Blame your own kind.”
“At least you have stalls. You don’t have some guy next to you urinating on your shoe.”
“I can’t help it if your species is uncivilized.”
“If we’re such uncivilized brutes then why do we stand around half the evening holding your coats? Yet we do it, even those of us with back trouble,” Frank mumbled, helping her get the coat on. “It weighs a ton.”
Allison’s straight cut hair caught under the collar of her coat. Frank’s cold fingers touched the back of her neck as he lifted the hair out, letting it fall in a symmetrical cascade upon her shoulders. In the old days she would have thought this gesture was sexy.
“Your fingers are cold. Why are you so cold? You didn’t even take your overcoat off during the concert.”
“Maybe I didn’t want to stand around holding two coats,” Frank said putting on his leather gloves. “Let’s get out of here.” He held the heavy glass door open for Allison as she walked through. They stepped outside into the cold night air which stung Allison’s face like a hard slap. It had stopped snowing, but the sky still looked like snow.
“No, I’m serious,” Allison said, catching her breath. “I wonder if you have a thyroid condition. You have all the symptoms. I read about it recently.”
“In one of your women’s magazines, right? Al, those idiotic things are written on a fifth grade level.”
“You’re so damn superior. There’re some very informative articles in some of those magazines.”
“Yeah, right, like, ‘How to Drive Him Crazy in Bed’. I can see you’ve gleaned a world of knowledge from those articles.”
“S
hut up! All I’m saying is you need a good check up. You have all the classic symptoms of hypothyroidism. You’re cold all the time. You’re tired, weak, forgetful. Of course you haven’t gained weight, but then you are a man. Maybe it’s different for men. Hey, why the hell are you moving so fast? Would you slow down,” Allison called out to Frank who was several paces ahead of her.
“First you tell me I’m tired and weak. Then you tell me I’m moving too fast. Why don’t you make up your mind?” he called back to her.
She quickened her pace to catch up with him, until at last they were walking side by side. “Passive aggressive bastard,” she muttered.
“No, I just don’t happen to think it’s the kind of evening for a leisurely stroll.”
“Would you please slow down before I fall and break my ass? There’re slippery spots all over the place, and I don’t exactly have on the best shoes.”
“So don’t wear such impractical shoes next time.”
“What am I supposed to wear to such an event? Galoshes?” Allison looked down at her shoes. “Oh, no! Salt! My shoes are completely ruined!”
“So which would you rather have? A broken ass or ruined shoes?”
“Neither.”
“Next time wear galoshes and don’t complain.”
“Next time park closer to the door.”
“Next time don’t take so damned long getting ready. Then maybe we won’t be late and there might actually be a place to park closer to the door.”
“I don’t care if there ever is a next time.”
“Well, at least we agree on something.”
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