by Cathy Lamb
Not only do Stanley I and Stanley II have many talents in terms of home remodeling, they have many interests, too. We talked about herbal versus traditional medicines. Stanley II said that when he is depressed he eats cranberries dipped in butter. Cures it every time. Stanley I said that he had squished daisies and put them on one of his “fungus-ridden” toes and the fungus was killed.
I bought black knobs in the shapes of wineglasses for the kitchen and knobs in the shapes of daisies for the downstairs bathroom towel cupboards and knobs in the shapes of toilets for my bathroom cupboards.
“Right-o. These will be in in two shakes of a lamb’s tail,” Stanley I said as I handed them to him in a bag.
“I don’t eat lamb,” Stanley II told me. “They’re too cute to eat.”
“They do have a special smile that’s hard to ignore,” I told him.
“I don’t eat alfalfa sprouts,” Stanley I told me.
“We both eat kidney stew,” they said at the same time.
They had sanded and restained, in the same color, our dining room table, with Scientist Bridget and Scientist Charlotte written inside a heart, the two chairs, and the armoire. They looked infinitely better, not crooked, not tilted, not broken. The dents and scratches, made by generations of Mackintoshes, were still there. The character, the history, was still there.
“Old furniture, solid, special,” Stanley I said, understanding.
“It’s a gift from the people in your past,” Stanley II said.
“Yes. They’re not here, but what they made is still here.” My eyes misted. “Still here.” I ran my hands over the honeysuckle vine carved into the armoire. “My granddad did that for my grandma.”
“The one blessed with the Scottish Second Sight,” Stanley II said.
“She had it, truly,” Stanley I said. “She told my mother that when the crows flew backward and the barn collapsed she would get rid of something very bad.”
“What did she mean by that?”
“Your grandma told my mother, at the time, that she had no idea what it meant. Not a touch of a blue idea, but sure enough there was a whippy windstorm here, howling like the devil gone mad, and it pushed the crows out of the trees. My mother saw them flying backward and then our father died when the barn collapsed.”
“Ouch. That was the bad thing she was going to get rid of?”
“Yep, it was. He was a mean son of a bitch,” Stanley I said. He knocked his knuckles on the armoire, pretty hard.
“Used to beat her and Stanley I,” Stanley II said. “We were eight when he died and we didn’t shed a tear, did we, Stanley?”
“None.”
“God crushes the bad among us sometimes, and he came to Stanley I’s rescue, and his mother’s, and your grandma, she saw it coming wrapped in a mystery.”
“We were poor, but happy after that,” Stanley I said, “And my mother, she later made a success out of our farm, that she did.”
“Crows never flew backward again, to my knowledge,” Stanley II said.
They both shook their heads. “No backward crows,” they said together, as if on cue.
No wonder the Stanleys were two of Toran’s best friends. Kind, strong, honest. That’s the type of person he liked. That’s the type of person he was.
“Where is the information on Brekinridge’s Grocery Stores.... I need to talk to the trucking company . . . this bill is incorrect . . . I’ll double-check on the blueberries, they received one hundred thirty-six kilograms, not two hundred thirty-six . . . billing issue . . .”
I muttered to myself while I worked in the office next door to Toran’s. He was hardly there, always out on the farm.
He had given all books and information to me, some in boxes, some in piles. Ledgers. Receipts. Notes. Notebooks. Invoices.
Thousands of numbers.
I was in number heaven. I pulled on the collar of my shirt. One of my favorites. It had a picture of Julia Child on it. I was wearing one of my two pairs of jeans. Too large, but I had found the perfect rope on my island on the sand to use as a belt.
Toran stuck his head in. “Charlotte.”
“Yes.” I took a pencil out of my mouth. My glasses slid down my nose and I pushed them back up, as visions of accounts, potatoes, blueberries, apples, shipping containers, and boxes danced through my head. And the cost of a new engine for one of Toran’s semis and the cost for an air-conditioner in the cooling unit. I had called Dorian’s Cooling directly, and we had worked out a discounted price. Dorian thought I was a “tough negotiator.” I could tell by the end of our conversation that he was tired.
“How is it going?”
“I believe I am making adequate progress.” I had to smile into his blueberry/Scottish blue sky eyes.
“I’m sorry, Char, that this isn’t more . . .”
I waved a hand. “Think nothing of it. I’m getting things together, categorized, organized, in a general sense, then I’ll begin on the smaller subunits. Next, I’ll analyze and suggest an efficient system of accounting and begin my spreadsheets.”
“You have an accounting degree, too?”
“No. However, I have had statistics, calculus, differential equations, and numerical analysis, so numbers are a joy.”
“So . . . you are joyful now?”
I pushed my hair back. My hand ran into my clip and undid it. I hardly noticed. “I could not be more joyful if I tried.”
“Thank you, Charlotte.”
“It’s my mathematical and numerical pleasure.” I rested my other hand on the rope holding my pants up.
He grinned and headed back out. I swallowed hard. I would find satisfaction in entering all of the numbers from Bridget’s Haven Farms into ledgers and spreadsheets, buying and selling, products and shipping, employee salary and benefit costs, overhead costs, and income.
But what was truly tingling and tantalizingly torturous was being near Toran.
The TorBridgePherLotte fearsome foursome could also time travel. We could go back in time, crawling into the fort we built together then bursting out into the Land of the Monkeys, or the Reign of the O’Shaugnasseys, a dangerous family that kept the village people in quaking fear and poverty. We even popped into the future and saved the world from destruction.
To return home, we scrambled into the fort, put all of our fists together, shouted, “Escape, Clan TorBridgePherLotte, back home!” and ta-da! We were back in the hills of Scotland, sheep everywhere.
When it started to get dark, Bridget and Toran would look at the time, their faces would fall, and Toran would take Bridget’s hand and we would all trudge down the hills, past the sheep, the potatoes Toran’s father grew, the lettuce and strawberries my father grew, and head home.
Pherson would clap Toran on the back to say good-bye. Pherson lived with his parents and three younger sisters, two of them twins who came when, my mother told me, “Pherson’s mother was not expecting babies.” I was about eight at the time, and since his mother was not expecting babies I assumed she did not know that they would be dropped off at her doorstep like milk bottles.
Pherson’s family was loud and friendly, their house in happy chaos. My home was filled with unending love and attention from my parents. As we watched Toran and Bridget leave, I would feel . . . scared. As a small child, that’s what I felt: Fear.
Turns out, I had every reason to feel that way.
It would have been better if Clan TorBridgePherLotte had left Bridget and Toran in the past in a magical land far away from their father’s fanaticism.
October 16, 1971
Dear Charlotte,
Do you remember Father Cruickshank, who I told you about? I told you I didn’t like him. He always wants to see me, always wants to pray with me. He gave me chocolates one time, a game, cards. He’s made me drink wine with him. Told me it was Jesus’s blood and it would bless me.
Two weeks ago he told me to come with him for a special Bible study at his house in the woods to study, so I did what I was told.
You know my father, Charlotte, and what he would do to me if I was in trouble at school with a priest. Father Cruickshank ripped down my panties and yanked me over his lap and hit me on my bum. It hurt, but then he . . . he . . . he put his finger up me and made me bleed and shoved my head down hard so I couldn’t look up. He told me he was purifying me from sin. That I was too sexy and needed to be purged and this was the only way.
He kept saying the Lord’s Prayer, but he was panting and groaning. He told me that this time he wouldn’t tell my father about my behavior, but he would if I fought with him again.
I pulled up my panties and I ran out of there.
That was the start, Charlotte. The start.
Love,
Bridget
January 4, 1972
Dear Charlotte,
Father Cruickshank shoved me against a wall and stuck his you know what in me. It hurt. Hurt. Hurt.
When I cried and pushed him away, he slapped me and told me to be quiet, to not make a sound or he would smack my dirty mouth again, and he said you like this, lass, you like it, I know you do. Don’t lie. There. Doesn’t that feel nice? It feels nice.
I don’t like it, I told him, and I was crying and said get away it hurts get off and he said you like it bless you daughter of God for you have sinned, you are a sinner, Bridget Ramsay, and I will take your confession. You have made me come to you, you have seduced me. God will punish you. But I didn’t, Charlotte, I didn’t. I don’t want to do that. I bled in my underwear for three days.
I am not a liar.
I am not a liar.
I am not a liar.
I cry all the time. I’m scared. He has a silver cat. Even the cat tries to bite him. He hits the cat.
Bridget
March 21, 1972
Dear Charlotte,
I have nightmares about Father Cruickshank.
Pound, pound, pound. Blood. Rip. Hands on throat. No air. Can’t breathe. Hit. No, please, stop. No.
Love,
Bridget
I closed my eyes against my own dizziness.
Bridget, where are you? Please come home.
8
“We’re going to begin our discussion tonight with window boxes,” Olive Oliver said. She was wearing a blue scarf with a demented-looking raccoon on it. I don’t think it was intentional.
“Why do we have them? What are the best plants and flowers for each season? Should we strive for color or texture, or both? Should window boxes reflect our personalities or our favorite colors or, when I make mine, how much I love chickens and pigs? These are important questions to ask.”
The Gobbling Gibbling Garden Club ladies were meeting at Gitanjali’s house. She lived above her spice store in the village, the building fairly new at only two hundred years old. From the outside the stone slanted, as if a hand had given it a push, but her flower boxes were filled with peppers and her sign GITANJALI’S INDIAN SPICES was in the shape of cinnamon sticks.
We traipsed through her store to get to the stairs to her flat, and I felt like I was in spice heaven. I had to stop and gape at the mounds of cinnamon, coriander, garlic, ginger, mustard seed, nutmeg, turmeric, chilis, and cloves and about thirty other spices I wasn’t familiar with. The vibrant colors, the scents, the textures. . . I wanted to run my hands through them, smell them all. The walls of her shop were a deep blue, with pictures of Indian women in saris cooking in each of them. Long paper lanterns hung from the ceiling.
Rowena said to me, fiddling with her rock necklace, “When I come through here I can barely think. It’s like getting hit with little India.”
“I could almost live here.”
“Me too. Except Gitanjali wouldn’t let me talk violence against my ex-husband, who is not paying my child support, which means I’m going to have to move out of our home.”
“That scrunched-face jerk. May he be struck by a meteor and smashed to bits.”
“I appreciate your vengeance on my behalf. Yesterday he had the kids draw pictures of their “new” family. Him, The Slut, and the four of them. My kids refused to do it, except for my oldest, who drew a picture of her father and wrote shithead across it.”
“Doesn’t sound like they appreciate their father or Bubbles.”
“No, they know their father had an affair. The youngest is nine, the oldest is sixteen. Kids know everything. They are fully aware of what’s going on. He told them he was not giving me child support anymore because I could get a job. I have a job. I was a full-time mother before he walked out, and I’m trying to launch my rock jewelry business, but the kids live with me and he doesn’t want to help feed them.”
“He’s like a bad virus. What a prick.”
“I wish it would fall off. Plunk.” She started to cry and I hugged her by the coriander. I was surprised that I hugged her that quick. I am not usually skilled at female friendships, especially not in groups. After high school, I decided I didn’t trust them. But here I was, at Gobbling Gibbling Gardening group, hugging Rowena.
“I know you’re going to be a rock-solid, proper friend, Charlotte,” she whimpered.
“A rock-solid friend who will accidentally trip The Slut if I see her.”
“Thank you.” She sniffled. “That’s loyalty.”
Gitanjali had one room upstairs, with a bed in one corner covered in a swirling scarlet-gold bedspread and a kitchen in the other. There were windows front and back.
It was filled with color and Indian decor, including silky scarves hung on the walls, colorful baskets, framed fabric artwork with sequins and mirrors, and paintings of India and elephants. Gitanjali had folded about twenty swans out of thick white paper and hung them from the ceiling.
Burgundy velvet curtains hung to the sides of the windows. A book shelf, painted red with faux jewels glued to it, was packed with books and Indian art. Stuffed green, purple, yellow, and orange elephants climbed up a wall. Everywhere, color, humor, art, creativity. I loved it.
The seven of us sat on the floor on huge red and purple embroidered pillows with gold braid, except for Lorna Lester, who sniffed and said, “I don’t like clichés, in speech or in literature. I don’t like improper behavior. I don’t like spicy food, and I don’t sit on the floor.” Her daughter, Malvina, was on the floor. I wondered if she’d speak at all tonight.
Malvina saw her mother’s glare, sighed, and heaved herself up on the couch. She was wearing black pants and a black T-shirt.
Kenna, the doctor, blond hair back in a bun, came in scrubs. Rowena wore the red dress she was going to wear for a date on Friday night when her “prick-arse ex-husband” had the kids with “his bubble slut.”
We agreed she looked fantastic, except for Lorna, who raised a judgmental gray eyebrow and said, “Too tight.” She put her palms on the top of her chest. “Breasts in.”
I liked the dress. Summery. Light. I could never wear something like that. Could I?
“A window box must be neat and tidy,” Lorna said, pointing a finger in the air, her body reminding me of human oatmeal again. “Red geraniums are best. That’s what I plant each year. Three of them. There should be nothing in the box that distracts from the original display. Three in a box, no more. Think, ladies: Organization. Control. Neatness.”
Malvina studied her short nails. She wanted another plate of food, I could tell.
I couldn’t blame her. If I had a mother like that, I’d want to eat all the time to numb the pain and the stress that would undoubtedly produce excessive gas. Plus, Gitanjali had made Tandoori chicken and chicken tikka masala. And naan bread. It was so delicious, my taste buds melted.
Lorna picked at it and said it was “exotic,” in a sniffy sort of way.
“I plant mine with petunias, flox, marigolds, and I usually
add those swirly branches,” Kenna said. “I like different textures.”
“Different textures can confuse the display,” Lorna said. “It can dilute the purity of the plant in the flower box, usually a flower that the homeowner has planted year after year. My mother planted geraniums, so do I, so does my daughter. No need to change or mix in other varieties.”
“I always plant different flowers,” Rowena said. “This year I planted nasturtiums and white petunias and put a giant ceramic frog in each one. I liked the humor. I named them The Croaker, Ribbet the Ripper, Froggy Fog, and Jane. Want more wine, ladies?”
We did.
Gitanjali reached out and poured it, then poured herself another glass.
“Red chilis in my flower boxes,” Gitanjali said. “I sell spices, so that right spice to do.”
“Why spices, Gitanjali?” Kenna asked.
Gitanjali’s eyes were liquid black, her skin perfect. She was wearing a red and gold cotton shirt embroidered with elephants, over jeans.
“My mother love spices. They gold to her because then she make her family the food that we like. Nourish us. We so poor in our village. In hills. We were the Untouchables. I was Untouchable, that what I told.” She paused and folded her tiny hands in her lap. “An Untouchable. As if no one can touch me as I am dirty.”
I put a hand to my throat. How does a society get so out of shape, lose their way to such an extent, that they would call millions of people the Untouchables and treat them like trash?
“We not have the pipies for the loos or the . . . the . . . . elect-on-tricity. Today, in this house”—she waved an elegant hand—“I still cannot believe I pull lever and clean water come out. I have glass of water. Anytime! I not have to walk to forest, or to well, and carry bucket on my head. Please excuse me, but I cannot believe that I have a loo. You cannot think how unclean village is when there are no loos.”