Evergreen Tidings from the Baumgartners

by Gretchen Anthony

  “Is he one of the company founders?” Arpell’s keys ticked away. “I’m looking at their website right now, and I don’t see his name listed along with the other executives.”

  Did this man ignore everything she’d just said? Ed hadn’t sacrificed his laboratory for the politicking claustrophobia of the boardroom. He applied his life to science, to improving lives. He’d made the world a better place. Certainly not even a man made dumb with phlegm would argue otherwise.

  Violet felt a sudden pang of sorrow for the reporter’s wife—imagine living a life of not being heard.

  “Mr. Arpell, let’s not get hung up on titles. Certainly we can agree that a scientist of my husband’s stature deserves a bit of public recognition at the close of his career. And I believe you’re just the man to tell his story.”

  The keys stopped clattering and Violet could tell immediately from the tone of Arpell’s voice that she would not be striking this task from her list today.

  “Look, Mrs. Baumgartner. I’m sure everything you’ve told me about your husband is worthy of a wonderful retirement farewell. I just don’t think it’s something that falls into the category of news.”

  Violet took her pencil and wrote f/u for follow up next to Arpell’s name on her notepad. Then she placed the pencil quietly on her desk and rested her fingertips gently on the warm locket at her throat. She would let a week pass, then call again. If experience taught her anything, it was the necessity of easing into a subject like FBD. The reporter needed time to let the subject marinate. Right now, she knew his mind couldn’t help rubbernecking at the horrors of intestinal distress.

  “Very well, Mr. Arpell. But I do ask you to rethink your decision the next time your dinner disagrees with you.” She paused, exercising her belief that to be the first to hang up from a phone call was to admit defeat. “By the way, would it affect your decision if I happened to mention that national broadcaster Rhonda Nelson was scheduled to make a surprise visit?”

  Let him chew on that for a moment.

  Mr. and Mrs. Edward and Violet Baumgartner

  along with their daughter, Cerise

  Request the honor of your presence

  at a Celebration Honoring the Life and Career

  of our dear Ed Baumgartner

  Saturday, December the Sixteenth

  in the year Two Thousand Seventeen

  7 o’clock in the evening

  Grand Hall, Minnesota Historical Society

  Black tie preferred

  2

  Cerise

  CERISE BAUMGARTNER THUMBED the edge of the invitation. Hundred-pound card stock. Bronze ink engraving. Red and blue border—the BiolTech colors.

  Not bad, Mom.

  She tossed the card onto the pile of mail flooding her kitchen counter and noticed, as it fell, the utility bill, unopened and at risk of drowning amid the flotsam and jetsam. She plucked it out and shoved it into her back pocket.

  Was that a—Yep. A dollar bill in the pocket of her jeans, folded in on itself and toughened by its washer-dryer tormentors. She unearthed it and pushed the utility bill down in its place. Hopefully she could be trusted to pull that out before laundry day.

  As if there were a day for any sort of normal human behavior anymore. She glanced around the kitchen. They obviously didn’t observe Load the Dishwasher Day. When had they eaten spaghetti? Two days ago? Three? She walked over to the stove and ran a fingernail along the crusted edge of their best sauce pot. Must have been closer to a week. She sucked the sauce flakes from her nail and her stomach growled its approval.

  God, she was hungry.

  She stepped around a pile of orphaned shoes and opened the fridge. A beer would taste heavenly, but she was relieved to find that there wasn’t any. Several people—qualified and not—had assured her that a sip or two wouldn’t hurt anything, but she couldn’t justify even the smallest risk. She was just three months along.

  Baby felt at once unreal and impossibly tenuous.

  She leaned in over the half-empty shelves, inviting the chilled air to rush her face and down the front of her shirt. Cerise had never quite blossomed—as her mother had called the rounding hips and growing breasts on Cerise’s classmates—until now, thanks to baby. Never mind that she was almost thirty and had spent her life looking like a rectangle with legs. Now hormones swarmed her bloodstream like evangelizing zealots, bustling, stockpiling, preparing and bringing with them the start of real, hand-to-God boobs and curves.

  I love you, baby. I love you. What do you want to eat?

  Baby wanted a green olive sandwich and yogurt.

  Several sandwiches, actually—enough to wipe the fridge clean of olives—and Cerise finally had to drag herself from her sodium-and carb-induced coma to stand and add olives to the curling grocery list stuck to the front of their fridge.

  The back door opened and she heard Barb drop her backpack to the mudroom floor.

  “Hi!” called Cerise.

  “Hi back.” Barb appeared in the doorway, her light meter still dangling from its industrial cord around her neck. If Cerise remembered correctly, she’d spent the day shooting a commercial for a local restaurant chain—she thought maybe a seafood place. Who ever knew?

  Her partner had been one of those creative types whose parents often predicted would be on their payroll until she was in her thirties. But she’d actually become a go-to videographer in the Minneapolis advertising scene. Whereas Cerise had a lab coat and drove five days a week to her nine-to-five job—more like seven to six, if she was being honest—Barb worked more like a client jockey, guiding companies of every size—Fortune 100s to mom-and-pop shops, alike—across the high-def finish line. From the smell of her, today’s client made its income the deep-fried way.

  Of the two of them, they had both known Barb was better suited to be the day-in, day-out manager of all things social and emotional for baby. As a human being she was warmer, calmer, a better nurturer, a better teacher than Cerise, the sort of person who could talk to any random child at the park or the grocery store as if they were the most interesting person holding the most wonderful piece of sticky candy in the world. But it had been Mother Nature, Herself, who’d raised a willowy finger, pointed it at Cerise and thundered, “You first.”

  Cerise and Barb obeyed.

  These days, Cerise thrilled at the prospect of motherhood more than she ever imagined. She felt a pull, a purpose she never knew existed, something that must have lain dormant in her cells, waiting for the right hormone to come along and light it up. And had it ever.

  Yesterday she stopped by the deli at lunch and welled up with tears at the tenderness with which a young mother offered her son a bite of her sandwich. She pictured herself as the tender young mother in flip-flops and a slightly rumpled shirt. It looked like a few days had passed since she’d had a shower, but the grime didn’t look at all the same on that new mom as it would have on a hipster or an old man. Motherhood carried with it a sweetness, an air, and she couldn’t believe it was actually coming true.

  Nevertheless, she still prayed the housekeeping gene would kick in for at least one of them before baby came.

  Barb pulled the light meter from her neck and dropped it to the pile of mess on the counter, then made her way across the kitchen, kicking aside a pair of abandoned slippers as she went.

  “How’s Shrimpy?” She leaned over, lifted the hem of Cerise’s shirt and kissed her belly.

  Cerise could smell layers of butter and deep fat fryer and garlic on Barb’s neck. She breathed them in. Yes, today’s shoot must have been the fish place.

  “Baby is full of olive love.”

  * * *

  BY SEVEN THIRTY, Cerise had called it a night and crawled under the covers in bed. All this boob, baby and hip growing sapped her energy most days before dinnertime, and it took all she had to fill her stomach before slee
p.

  She rearranged the pillows beneath her head and, thanks to the twisting and thumping, burped up the taste of green olives and toothpaste.

  You’re a strange one, baby.

  Barb walked in holding a mug of something steamy. She lay down on top of her share of the comforter, holding the mug carefully at her chest, not spilling a drop. Her body was twice the size of Cerise’s, long and broad, like Cerise’s mother, Violet, but without the oversize clown feet—both women more imposing than your typical gal.

  Cerise had not missed the fact that she’d chosen a partner with the same physical stature of her own mother—hair excepted, as Barb had the luscious red hair reminiscent of a Femme Noir while her mother, Violet, nursed an unwavering commitment to short, wash ’n’ wear cuts. Wasn’t there some saying about daughters choosing to marry their fathers? Well—go figure. Cerise already was her father. She couldn’t marry herself.

  “Tired again?” Barb fumbled about the covers in search of Cerise’s hand.

  “Pregnancy equals exhausting.” She yawned a voracious tornado of breath, effectively shredding the sweet whiffs of cinnamon rising from the steaming mug. Barb grimaced and recoiled.

  “God, what did Shrimpy have you eating tonight? Smells like cat food.”

  “Good thing we don’t have a cat or it might have been.” She unearthed a hand from the depths of her cocoon and reached for Barb’s mug. “Safe for me to have a sip?”

  “Plain ol’ cinnamon apple tea.” Barb handed it over, and Cerise watched as she sat up and bent at the waist to pull the socks from her feet.

  “How long do you think it will be before I can’t do that anymore?”

  Barb tossed the socks to the floor and looked at her. “Do what?”

  “Bend at the waist. See my toes.”

  Barb smiled. “A while, I’d assume. Though, who knows? Virgin terrain for both of us.”

  Cerise snorted. She took a sip of the tea and felt it glide down her throat. Her stomach settled, though until that moment she hadn’t known it was upset. Baby had taken over everything.

  “We got the invitation to my dad’s retirement party today.” She handed the mug back to Barb and hunkered down, rustling the sheets as she burrowed.

  “Yeah, I saw it downstairs. Beautiful stationery.”

  “Nothing but the best,” agreed Cerise. She smiled and crooked her elbow, holding her head up above the rise of the bedding.

  “How long do you think it’ll take till your mom and dad drive each other crazy?”

  “I think everyone is concerned.” Cerise rolled her eyes. “I imagine they’ll break up the time as best they can—Mom’s already planning a trip to Scandinavia.” True fact: she’d received no fewer than a dozen emails from her mother proposing various dates that she hoped might allow Cerise to join them. “She wants me to go along.”

  “Oh, I’m sure she does,” said Barb, nodding. “Little does she know Shrimpy gets the final say.”

  “Little does she know...”

  Barb smiled gently and held her gaze. “I get that you haven’t told your mom, but how come you haven’t told your dad?”

  “You told your dad yet?”

  Barb snorted. “Last time I talked to my dad he claimed to be in Pamplona for the Running of the Bulls. But I know he was just dodging my call. I could hear a very American barista in the background calling out coffee orders.”

  “Why Pamplona?” Then Cerise waved off the question, as if admitting she wouldn’t understand the answer even if there was one. Barb’s semiestranged relationship with her trust-fund-turned-hippie parents provided for a steady flow of cash and cocktail party anecdotes, but little else. There wouldn’t be a warm, congratulatory call coming from them anytime soon.

  “Anyway...” Cerise returned to the subject at hand. “I thought I ought to let my parents get through the retirement party first. Plus, that’s not news I want to drop into our typical conversation—price of gas, interest rates, hey-Dad-I’m-pregnant. Baby deserves its own moment.”

  “All right.” Barb sighed. This wasn’t the first time they’d had this conversation. “Your mother at least knows I’m coming to the party, right?”

  Cerise laughed. “Knows, yes. Acknowledges, no. Same old story.”

  “Same old story, then.” Barb drained the mug and sat up. She eased her legs over the side of the bed and sat for a moment, her back to Cerise. “We kissed at Christmas dinner last year, right in front of her. On the lips.” She turned and smiled. “Ostriches can’t hold a feather to your mother.”

  “Aw, c’mon. Admit it.” Cerise teased Barb’s backside with her foot. “You ain’t nothin’ but a phase.”

  Barb rolled her eyes. “Okay, Daisy Buchanan.”

  “Wait—” Cerise held up a hand, stopping any clues. Barb was steeped in the classics, but the only literary references Cerise knew came from the mandatory hours spent next to her mother watching Masterpiece Theatre on PBS. All that time invested and the only things she had to show for it were a decent British accent and a canny ability to let her thoughts wander behind open eyes.

  “Henry James?” she guessed.

  “Close, but no. That’s Daisy Miller. Daisy Buchanan is Fitzgerald. Gatsby. The come what may, life is a party girl.”

  “God.” Cerise pulled her legs back, tucking them up under her hips like a nest. “That’s an unfair comparison.”

  “I’m just saying, maybe your mother isn’t the only ostrich in your family.”

  Cerise paused, still smiling, though barely. She knew the right response would be to engage, be a big girl and work through her partner’s worries. Instead, she took her cue from Mrs. Buchanan.

  “Actually, I think if the Baumgartners were to be any sort of bird, we’d be wrens. A little bit plain, but loyal as they come.”

  Barb sighed and stood. Cerise knew she’d let her down but didn’t have the energy to correct course.

  “If the Hesse family were birds, we’d be California condors.”

  “Nice. Majestic and powerful.”

  “No, members of the vulture family and nearly extinct.”

  Christmas 2010

  Dearest friends, far and near—

  Evergreen Tidings from the Baumgartners!

  I do hope that everyone reading this letter has had the wealth of blessings that 2010 brought our family. I am truly humbled and I hope, as I write this, that you’ll sit with me for just a moment so that I can share a few of the highlights with you.

  My dear Ed and I continue to “plug away,” as they say, on the day-to-day work to which the Good Lord calls us. Ed is working as much as ever in his BiolTech laboratory, advancing the world’s understanding and treatment for those who suffer from the pain and humiliation associated with gastrointestinal distress. And I, in turn, do the Lord’s small work—taking care of house and home and volunteering my time with the Dorcas Circle and the Heritage Council at church. Pastor Norblad, our longtime minister, scared us this fall with a minor heart attack, but I am pleased and relieved to report that he has returned to the pulpit the picture of health. And not a minute too soon, as I worried I was going to have to add Pastor Search Committee to my list of duties. We welcome you back, Pastor Norblad!

  But let’s get to the real news! And that is, of course, that our daughter, Cerise, graduated with honors from the Engineering School at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York with a Master of Science degree in Materials Science. I cannot believe that it was just five short years ago she left home with nothing but a fresh high school diploma, a laptop and a new Laura Ashley comforter (no one should leave for college without good bedding). And now here she is, a young woman and a scientist, soon to be an inspiration to young girls everywhere! Ed reports that her graduate work into the timed molecular breakdown of composite biological adhesives was nothing short of inspired (my words, as I’m sure you
already predicted, since everyone knows how my dear Ed is long on smarts but short on conversation (the delightful old poop!)).

  I, of course, had quietly hoped Cerise would focus her studies on biomechanical engineering, so as to follow in dear Ed’s footsteps (Rensselaer’s program is ranked among the best in the world by U.S. News & World Report), but she is happy with her choice of degree, nevertheless. Please join us in congratulating our determined daughter. As you can well imagine, her father and I are both so proud!

  As if that weren’t wonderful news enough, Ed, with the help of his outstanding network of fellow scientists, has secured Cerise a position as Junior Materials Engineer at none other than Minnesota’s own 3M Company. Just what products she’ll be working on there I cannot say—even 3M moms aren’t privileged with that sort of competitive information! But I can only imagine that by working in the world-renown 3M laboratories, she’ll be at the forefront of the scientific innovations we’ll have in our homes soon. Even the inventor of the Post-it Note (yes, a 3M product!) started as a Junior Engineer, too, I’m sure!

  Now, if you can stand even more excitement, I’m thrilled to report that Cerise’s job will be bringing her home to Minnesota! (Take a minute if you need to absorb the news...) I’m sure you can relate when I say that I was practically breathless when she called to tell us. I had to sit down and hand the phone to Ed so that he could get the details (imagine leaving “the details” up to a man—that’s how flabbergasted I was (and, thank goodness, too, that our Stickley dining set had just returned from the reupholsterers’ (you know how critical it is to maintain their veneer), or I would have fallen straight to the floor)).

  Cerise begins her new job on January 15th, so not only will she be with us for Christmas this year, but all year-round, as well. I have contracted the services of everyone’s favorite Minneapolis Realtor, Irving Schumacher, who—as you likely know—specializes in properties near Lakes Harriet and Calhoun. Obviously, young twentysomethings flock to the areas around Minneapolis lakes. Who am I to stand in my daughter’s way of doing the same? I am not the least bit blind to the handsome young men jogging and biking the parkways during warm summer afternoons! And yet, Ed and I also feel it vital that she put her Junior Engineer salary to work immediately by way of a real estate investment, and we plan to do whatever we can to help. A scientist, an engineer and a homeowner she will be! (Plus, how could I resist an excuse to decorate a house? What fun! Watch for details in next year’s Evergreen Tidings...)