The Confession Club (ARC)

by Elizabeth Berg

  “No, thank you. This is fine.” Actually, she wouldn’t mind; she loves Hershey bars. But he has so little.

  He rubs his arms. “It is a bit cold in here.”

  “Yes. And I have your blanket.” She starts to take it off, and he says, “Keep it—I’ll get my jacket.”

  He goes into the other room again and returns wearing a military field jacket. The fabric is darker where patches have been removed.

  He smiles at the unasked question in her face. “An awful lot of homeless people are vets. But then I’ll bet you knew that.”

  “Are you?”

  “What, a vet?”

  “Yes.”

  “I am. I went to Vietnam for a year that felt like a thousand. And I’m homeless, too. Have been off and on—mostly on—for a long time now. Although for the time being …” He gestures widely. “I guess I’m not so very homeless.”

  The rain suddenly stops, and now it’s the quiet that’s loud.

  “I think we should get the rest of your flowers,” John says. “You know that your house will reek of lilacs, don’t you? You’ll be able to taste that smell.”

  “That’s fine with me.”

  He pushes his chair away from the table, starts to stand, then stops and leans in closer to her. “Do you sing, Iris?”

  “Not well, but yes. Sure.”

  “Because I found a perfectly good guitar at the dump yesterday. A Gibson B-25. Missing a D string is all.”

  “Easy to fix,” says Iris.

  “Easy enough if … Is there a music store in town?”

  “No, next town over, a few miles east.” She doesn’t offer to take him, and he doesn’t ask.

  “Be right back,” John says. When he returns, he’s holding the guitar. It looks like it’s in good shape. The things people throw away! Iris thinks. She’d like to go to the dump, too. She does have an eye for what’s worth salvaging, or her consignment store never would have done so well. She can spin the word vintage with the best of them. And she has always had a great deal of appreciation for the odd adventure. Her favorite date in high school was the time Rob Levinson told her to wear old clothes and they’d explore storm drains and then run down hills. He was president of the drama club, and he was a wonderful actor. He had an enigmatic but friendly manner, and a great wit. She still thinks of that, sometimes, how that boy was the kind of boy she should have been with, not the jocks she normally dated. When Rob dropped her off that night, he said, “You know you belong with us, don’t you?” He never asked her out again, though. And Iris didn’t “chase” him, as her mother would have called it. Girls didn’t go after boys. Girls waited.

  John strums the guitar and begins to sing, “When I die / don’t put me in the ground / Put my ashes in the ashtray / and drive me around.” He sings the word around like James Taylor does, with a long a.

  Iris laughs. “Did you write that?”

  “Nope. A genius songwriter named Warren Nelson wrote that.”

  “There are no ashtrays in cars anymore.”

  “More’s the pity. But the song’s still good. All his songs are good. I met him in a bar, a long time ago. He was wearing a leather vest and a black derby and I told him I liked his hat. He said, ‘Everybody I meet tells me that.’ His band was playing the bar that night, they had just finished setting up, and Warren thought he’d have a beer before going back to the hotel. I had one with him. I had just gotten a divorce and I was miserable. ‘Are you married?’ I asked him. And he said, ‘Yup, to a tree.’ And then he explained that a woman he’d loved realized at some point that he would never want to get married. That was a disappointment to her, but she understood his need for freedom. She told him he might not want to get married but he had a strong need for commitment, and he said he guessed that was right. She said he should marry a tree, and she performed the ceremony herself. And then the two of them consummated the marriage, because the tree couldn’t do that part. ‘What happened to that woman?’ I asked him. And he said, ‘Lost her. She got married to someone else.’ He raised his glass, then. ‘Here’s to the ones who got away,’ he said. ‘Here’s to the ones who got away whom we wish would come back.’ ”

  John stares at the floor for a long moment, then looks up to study her features as though he’s drawing her. He takes his time, and the way his eyes roam her face makes it feel like he’s touching her. Finally, “Are you married, Iris?” he asks.

  “Divorced.”

  “For how long?”

  “Twelve years.”

  “Are you over it?”

  “You ask very personal questions!”

  “Yes, I know I do. But are you? Over it?”

  She smiles.

  “Ah, we none of us ever are, are we?” he says. “Even when you want to leave everything behind, something remains. Burr in the pants leg, pain in the heart.” He stands, leans the guitar carefully against the wall. “Let’s go out and get more lilacs.”

  Iris looks at her watch. She supposes she should get going. But she doesn’t want to leave. She wants to call Maddy and tell her to teach the class so that she can stay here and listen to a handsome man play a five-string guitar.

  “I believe I’m owed a recitation of the Gettsyburg Address,” she says.

  “Oh, I’m saving that for last,” he says. “Just before you drive away, I’ll recite it. And all the way home, you can think about it.”

  After they finish filling the buckets with lilacs, John puts them in Iris’s car. He opens her door for her to get in and she rolls the window down. “Thanks again, John. For everything.”

  He puts his hands on the car door and leans his head in so that his face is close to hers. Not close enough to make her uncomfortable, but close enough. He smells like hay. My God, his eyes are beautiful. He recites the Gettysburg Address, stone-faced, while Iris giggles. But then she stops laughing and really listens to the eloquent and still relevant words, maybe for the first time in her life.

  John straightens. “I took it upon myself to learn that in fourth grade,” he says. “My teacher took me straight to the principal’s office when I recited it for her. I thought I was in trouble, but she just wanted me to recite it for him, too. Then nothing would do but that he had to make me a little certificate with a gold star on it. Listen Iris, Iris Winters. Would it be all right if I called you sometime?”

  “I … Yes. Do you have a phone? Do you want to go and get it and put in my number?”

  “I’ll remember it.”

  She tells him her number and tries to ignore the voice of the vestigial high schooler who still lives inside her saying, “Well, obviously he doesn’t really want your number!” She waves goodbye then, and drives slowly through the muddy little lakes that have formed in the long driveway. It’s beautiful outside. It’s as though the edges of the world have been lightly erased, and everything is infused with a violet light: the sky, the droplets that hang from the tips of leaves, the mesh of tall weeds at the side of the road, even the road itself. Then, as the color begins to fade, she realizes it was a trick of the eye, a kind of saturation that occurred from looking so deeply at all those purple lilacs. But it was wonderful, that false vision, an unconscious surrender to seeing things another way.

  Just as she is ready to turn out of the driveway, her phone rings. Maddy, no doubt: Where are you? But no, UNKNOWN CALLER, the screen says. Probably someone wanting to sign up a whole group for a class—they usually called first, to make sure there would be room.

  She answers and hears John say, “Iris Winters. John Loney. Do you remember me?”

  She laughs. “Oh, come for dinner on Saturday night, why don’t you?” She gives him the address.

  “What time?” he asks.

  “Six. Shall I pick you up?”

  “I believe you already have,” he says, “but I’d love a ride, too. I’ll be ready, with my hair wet-com
bed.”

  “Do you have any allergies?”

  “Just to bad company and good luck.”

  Oh, those Irishmen, Iris thinks, after she hangs up.

  Well, guess what. Iris is Irish, too. One-quarter, anyway. And that one-quarter of herself now awakens, yawns mightily, and stretches—fists in the air and arms as straight as asparagus stalks.

  Iris decides something. She is going to iron her white cotton dress with lace at the yoke, because it is spring on the way to summer, and she is amid all the green and growing things. She is going to buy a red bicycle and paint white polka dots on it. She is going to affix a basket onto the handlebars and fill it every day with incidental offerings, which abound. She is going to unearth her one slim volume of Yeats. She knows she still has it.

  She stretches back against the car seat, thinking, Homeless. That’s what John is, a homeless man, though with enough charm and good hygiene to obviate the usual stigma. She recalls the homeless people she used to see in the library in Boston. One day she sat near a man in the lobby who was sleeping in the sun like a cat, one leg up on a banged-up suitcase that she presumed held his necessities. He did not have the peaceful expression that most people do in sleep, though; his weariness seemed evident even in his eyebrows. It was as though he knew the repose he was enjoying now wouldn’t go far. Why would it, when these people were constantly subjected to being awakened, when nothing in their lives was secure?

  She had a notion about trying to help that man, somehow. But no ideas came to her. She had sat watching him for a while, then decided that the best thing she might do was let him sleep. She slipped a twenty-dollar bill in his front shirt pocket and tiptoed away. She’d heard often enough that one should not give money to the homeless, that one should instead direct them to a shelter where they might get help. But a woman she worked with who routinely gave money to people on the street said something else. “Isn’t it hard enough for them to even ask?” she said. “Do I really need to tell them what to do with their lives when I know absolutely nothing about them? I just feel an obligation to try to help in some way. What else can I do to help someone?”

  Maybe date him, Iris thinks. And then, with a delicious shiver, she thinks, What is happening here?

  Breakfast at the Henhouse

  At ten-thirty in the morning, Nola and Maddy have finished prepping for Iris’s class. Earlier, they baked a batch of Super-Fast Sticky Buns to serve as an example, and the kitchen smells of cinnamon and butter. Maddy set out the equipment that would be necessary to teach the simple recipe, and Nola drew daisies on the place cards and carefully printed the names of all the students. Just as Maddy looks at her watch, wondering where Iris is, her phone rings—Iris apologizing for how long she was gone and saying she would be there in about ten minutes. Maddy wants not to be in the way when Iris teaches the class, so she asks Nola if she would like to go to Polly’s Henhouse for a late breakfast.

  “I ate breakfast,” Nola says. “Remember?”

  “Yes,” Maddy says, “but you didn’t eat very much.”

  “I know. I was in a hurry.” Nola says this as though it’s an anomaly, when in fact it’s how the girl usually eats: head down, minimal conversation, maximum speed in clearing what she’ll eat from her plate. The problem is, she doesn’t ever eat much, and so she’s always hungry early for the next meal. It’s apparently useless to try to change her; nothing Maddy has tried so far has worked.

  “Can I have lunch there?” Nola asks.

  “If they’re serving it this early.”

  “I hope they are because I want the Itty-Bitty Burger with Teepee Fries. Link told me about it. You get a teepee made of French fries, and you get to wreck it. And eat it!”

  “Sounds great!”

  “You can have one,” Nola says. “But wait, you might have to be a kid.”

  “We’ll figure something out. I might want the Crybaby Omelet.” Lots of jalapeños in that one.

  “Can we walk there?”

  Maddy looks askance at her.

  “I know it’s raining,” the girl says, looking earnestly up at her mother. “But it will be fun. Can we?”

  “Sometimes it is fun to walk in the rain, I agree,” says Maddy. “But today there’s thunder and lightning, so I think we’ll drive.”

  They go out to the car under umbrellas that seem laughable against the force of the rain. Nola is chatty the whole way to the Henhouse: “Look! A dog with three legs! Oh. Wait. No, he has four. Whew, I was going to get a little bit sad for him.”

  “Look! Those people painted their front door red! Can you do that? Can we do that?”

  “Look! Doesn’t that tree look like it has a grumpy face?”

  “Hey, the rain stopped! I was saying inside, ‘Rain, rain go away,’ and it did!”

  Maddy is grateful; she doesn’t want to talk much. She’s thinking about something. She’s wondering where Matthew is right now, what he’s doing. In the conversations they’ve had since she left for her visit to Mason, she’s felt herself growing increasingly distant. She doesn’t want to be that way, yet she is. She doesn’t know what to tell him. She doesn’t know what to tell herself.

  And then, to make matters worse, she called her father last night to set up some time with him, and though he pretended to be glad, Maddy knew that he wasn’t. She feels he will never get over blaming her for her mother’s death, which happened just after Maddy was born; it’s as though he can’t separate the two events. “I can’t help my feelings,” he told her once, when she was still in high school, and she remembers thinking, But you can help your behavior.

  Things didn’t get much better when she got pregnant by a guy who couldn’t dump her fast enough, nor did they improve after Nola was born. And then, after Maddy got married and moved to New York, the two of them became even more estranged. She had to put a note in her calendar to remember to check in with her father from time to time; he never initiated contact. She confronted him about that once and he apologized, but nothing changed.

  If there was anything Maddy learned after Arthur and Lucille took her in as a pregnant teenager, it was that families don’t have to be biological. She finds it hard to let go of the notion that you should matter to your father, though. It’s hard to let go of that need, even if the fallout from the love he denied her as a child has insinuated itself into her, seemingly forever. She doesn’t know if it’s best to continue to see her father and try to get to a place of forgiveness, or to cross him off the list as simply toxic. She’s heard people make the case for both sides.

  The other night, when she and Iris were in the living room having a glass of wine before bed, Maddy told Iris that the only person she feels she has a clean relationship with is Nola.

  “By ‘clean’ you mean … ?”

  “Unfettered, you know? Just pure love.”

  “But what about Matthew?” Iris asked. “And Arthur? And Lucille?”

  Maddy nodded. “I did love Arthur and Lucille. But they’re gone now, and I …”

  She fell silent, then said, “I do love Matthew. But it’s a nervous love. Nola is the only person I can love without feeling like the floor might open beneath me. She’s the only one that I think I love right.” She looked over at Iris, feeling embarrassed, suddenly, for having revealed so much. “Do you know what I mean?”

  Iris nodded. “Yes. And I want to tell you that I think the love you’re able to give Nola is such a beautiful triumph. You may not be able to see it yourself, but you’ve grown, Maddy. I see you as more open than you’ve ever been. I think it takes a long time to get over some things, especially if they happened when you were so young and vulnerable. Maybe you never get over them, but you can learn to work around them.”

  Iris leaned back against the sofa cushions, swirled the wine in her glass. “You know, I have my own problems opening up. I could blame it on my growing-up years or a kin
d of New England reticence, I suppose. But I’ve learned that blaming doesn’t get you far. Self-reflection helps. Trying to change helps, too. But it’s hard, Maddy, I’ll give you that. It’s hard, but I think it’s worth it to try. Sometimes little successes here and there can all of a sudden … I don’t know … consolidate, I guess, and you see that you really are a different person.”

  Driving down the familiar streets of Mason, Maddy realizes how much she has missed this town. The bullying she endured in high school was horrible, but there was an English teacher who made up for it—the very one who helped her become a photographer. And Matthew helped her with everything.

  Living in New York City was thrilling at first, but something about it made Maddy feel as though she were sitting halfway off a chair: unbalanced and ill at ease. And lately it has begun to feel as though some veneer were wearing thin, and old ways of thinking have started coming back. Never mind her success at the galleries where her photographs are shown, never mind the funny and interesting and intelligent friends she and Matthew spend time with. More and more often, she comes back from having spent an evening out with them and thinks, Oh, thank goodness it’s over. That old fear reasserting itself, that feeling that if she spends too long with people, she will be found out. On those nights, she goes to bed and lies awake in the dark, a black space at her center expanding. She locks her hands together to hold on.

  It’s all broken glass inside me, she once wrote in her journal, when she was in high school. I breathe, and I cut myself. At least she’s made some progress from that point of view. But she has a long way to go, and living in New York hasn’t helped. Maybe it’s true that there’s no place like home, she thinks, pulling into the parking lot of the Henhouse. When she opens the car door, she can smell the bacon.

  As soon as they come in the door of the restaurant, Monica Dawson, the owner, who is standing at the cash register, spots them. “Hey!” she says. “Either of you want to help in the kitchen after you eat?”