Night of Miracles

by Elizabeth Berg

  True Colors

  “I JUST DON’T LIKE IT LIKE that, I told you,” Phil tells Monica. They’re having dinner at her house, and he has barely touched the steak she served him.

  “It’s medium rare, that’s what you like.”

  He lifts the steak up with his knife and peers beneath it.

  “This isn’t medium rare, this is medium. I don’t like it like that.”

  “Sorry,” she says. That steak cost an arm and a leg. “Do you like the stuffed baked potato? Or the broccoli?”

  “Hard to ruin that, isn’t it?”

  She doesn’t answer.

  “Hey,” he says, his tone softening. “Don’t get your little feelings hurt. C’mere.” He pats his lap. Then, when she doesn’t move, “Monica. Come here!”

  She comes over to him and he pulls her down on his lap and kisses her and her insides feel like they’re sliding down to her toes. “Are you my girl?”

  “Yes.”

  He runs his hand up her leg. Lord. The man knows what he’s doing.

  “How about we go to bed?”

  “I…You don’t want to finish dinner? Or eat dessert? I made a caramel cake.”

  “Is that cake going somewhere? Or do you think it might still be here till we’re done? I’ve missed you, baby. That was a long trip.”

  He kisses her again, then kind of pushes her off his lap. “Let’s go.”

  They go into her bedroom, where the sheets are freshly laundered in an expensive detergent and where there is a small bouquet on her nightstand and a newly placed, framed photo of the two of them that she had wanted to surprise him with. They’re at an amusement park, where Monica asked someone to take their picture. They’re hoisting up big cones of cotton candy, grinning. Happy.

  He doesn’t notice the photo and she thinks it would be better to show him later.

  After they have undressed and are facing each other in bed, he pushes her hair back from her forehead and says again, “Are you my girl?”

  “Yes, I am. ’Course I am.” His erection is bothering Monica, banging up against her leg that way as though it’s knocking.

  “I could eat you up,” he says, grinning. And he turns out the light.

  Afterward, he closes his eyes.

  “Phil?” she whispers. “Do you want dessert?” She herself is still really hungry; she didn’t finish eating her dinner.

  “I’m really tired. And we don’t either of us need dessert.”

  She lies still until he starts snoring and then she goes into the dining room and finishes her dinner. After that, she cuts a huge piece of caramel cake and plops it onto a plate. She has almost finished eating it when Phil appears in his bathrobe. “I’m sorry. I’ll eat now.” He looks at her plate. “Oh. Wow. You ate that cake?”

  Hello?

  IRIS IS LYING IN BED reading a recipe for banana-split cake in a cookbook for children when her cellphone rings. She looks at the clock: 10 P.M. So it isn’t Lucille. She picks up her phone, checks the number on caller ID, and doesn’t recognize it. Sales call? But they don’t usually call late at night. She answers tentatively. “Hello?”

  Silence.

  “Hello?”

  Nothing. Iris hangs up. She hates when that happens. It’s like the beginning of a horror movie. Woman lying in bed innocently reading when her phone rings…

  She’s about to turn out the light and try to go to sleep when her phone rings again.

  She answers gruffly, saying, “What.” Right. That will show the psychopath what he’s up against!

  “It’s me,” a woman says. “Monica Mayhew. Sorry.”

  “Oh! Hello, Monica.”

  “I got your number from Lucille’s website. I hope you don’t mind my calling you.”

  “Not at all.”

  “That was me, who just hung up.”

  “Yes, I figured.”

  “I’m just calling…Okay. I’m calling to talk about Tiny. About what you said, that he cares for me.”

  “Oh, he does, he really does.”

  “Well…What does he say about me? I mean, you know, like…What does he say?”

  Now Iris isn’t sure what to do. It feels like it would be a betrayal to tell Monica the things Tiny told her in confidence.

  “Hello?” Monica says.

  “I guess all I can say is that, in friendly conversation, he has said things that make me know he cares for you. Why don’t you call him?”

  “I can’t call him!”

  “Why not?”

  An exasperated sigh. “I can’t call him and say, ‘Are you in love with me?’ ”

  “No, but you could just call and say…You could say…”

  “See?” Monica says.

  “Well, why don’t you just ask him out?”

  “I tried that.”

  “I’m pretty sure he’d say yes this time.”

  “I don’t know,” Monica says. “I would have to hide it from Phil. And then, what if…I feel like if I’m going to ask Tiny out, I have to dump Phil first. Which I have never done, dumped a man. I’m not asking you what to do, but what do you think I should do?”

  “I think we should meet for dinner tomorrow night. Can you? Maybe at Mama Mia’s?”

  “What time?”

  “Six?” People eat awfully early here, that Iris has learned. Not only that, she has learned to like it.

  “Okay. I’ll see you there. And thanks, Iris.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Iris hangs up. She’s glad she and Monica seem to be becoming friends. But she’s sad to be reminded of the fact that she has dumped a man.

  She didn’t have to leave him in the way she did. There had been love between them.

  * * *

  —

  THE NEXT EVENING, AFTER Monica and Iris have finished dinner, Monica says, “Hey. I need to go to the mall. I need to get some new lipstick. Something Tiny might like. Would you come with me?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Half an hour later, at the cosmetics counter, Monica applies a shade of pink and turns to show Iris.

  “Hmmm,” Iris says. She takes a step back, crosses her arms, and tilts her head. Squints a bit. “It’s okay, but let’s try something else.” She selects a red color and puts it on Monica herself. “Okay, look,” she says, and when Monica turns to the mirror she nearly gasps.

  “It looks great on you, right?” Iris says. “Look how it brings out your hair and your beautiful porcelain skin. Now smile and see how white your teeth look.”

  Monica smiles, and a fizz of pleasure runs through her. “Gosh! I never got red before because it always looked awful.”

  “Well, there’s orange red and then there’s blue red. This is a blue red. You’re a winter, so that’s what looks good on you.”

  “I’m a what?”

  “A winter. Didn’t you ever have your colors done?”

  Monica shakes her head no. “I’m not too smart about fashion. I guess I’ll always be one of those people who like kittens on clothes. And rhinestones. And I’m sorry, I know I’m a big girl, but I like to wear horizontal stripes!”

  “You can wear horizontal stripes,” Iris says. “They can actually be slimming. Don’t listen to all those myths: no horizontal stripes, you’re too old to wear something, all that. What is true is that proper fit is important, and that the colors you wear should flatter your skin tone and hair color. And you are a winter! That means you look good in very clear, almost sharp colors. You know, white and red and navy blue and black, you’d look fabulous in black, Monica, with some big silver hoop earrings. A really hot pink would be great on you, too. What you want to stay away from are subdued tones, like beige, which would yellow you out. In pastels, go for icy tones.”

  “How do you know all this?”

&nb
sp; Iris shrugs. “I learned a lot when I had my consignment shop. I used to bring someone in to do colors for my customers.”

  Monica can hardly breathe. On the way into the store, she saw a dress on a mannequin that she loved. It had a skirt that would twirl. The fabric was so soft and it draped beautifully. But it was hot pink. That’s what she had thought then: But it’s hot pink!

  “Iris,” she says, “would you mind looking at a dress with me?”

  Pentimento

  LUCILLE AND NOLA ARE OUT on the porch waiting for the snickerdoodles to cool. Maddy has gone with her fiancé to a photography exhibit in Columbia, and Lucille is babysitting until this evening. It’s an unusually warm day; one hardly needs a sweater. Lucille would like Nola to take a nap, because she herself is tired. So far, nothing doing. Nola is on the porch swing, lying down, as Lucille requested, but wide awake.

  “Can you see wind?” Nola asks. “Is it blue?”

  “You can’t see it, but you can see what it’s doing,” Lucille tells her. “Why don’t you close your eyes for just a bit and see what happens?”

  “But how can you see what it’s doing if you can’t see it?”

  Lucille gestures from her rocker toward the trees lining the street. “See the tree branches moving?”

  Nola points. “You mean there?”

  “I mean everywhere.”

  “I can’t see everywhere,” Nola says.

  “Okay, smartie, so look at that tree right there in front of us, see how it’s moving?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, that’s how you see wind. You see it moving the trees, or the grass, or you see it making ripples on the water or blowing your hair. You see the effect of the wind.”

  “Well, I want to see the wind.”

  “Too bad for you.”

  Nola considers this. “It’s not too bad for me because I will make a way to see the wind because I will dye it blue.”

  “You do that.” Lucille yawns. “And now how about you go to sleep for a bit?”

  “I’m not sleepy.”

  “I am.”

  Nola hops off the swing. “Lie down here, Grandma.”

  Lucille rocks in her chair. It is tempting.

  “Lie down, and I will watch over you.”

  The words bring sudden tears to Lucille’s eyes and she wipes them away, embarrassed. That’s what Frank did, made her feel watched over. It was the only time in her life she felt that way. All the rest of the time, it was Lucille watching out for Lucille. Oh, she could do it, but how nice it was for that brief period of time to feel like someone had her back, whether he was right with her or not. If he was in the world, he was watching over her.

  Nola comes closer, puts her hands on Lucille’s knees, and peers into her face. “Are you crying?”

  “No.”

  “Uh-huh, yes you are. I see the tear buds.”

  Lucille gets up out of the rocker, and, with considerable effort, lies down on the swing. “There. I’m in the swing, just like you said. Now you watch over me.”

  “Okay.” Nola covers her with the flannel quilt Lucille brought out to cover the child. Then she sits on the floor, and in a tiny voice begins to sing some sort of made-up, nonsense song. “And when you sleeeeeep, I will be right heeeeere, I will be the ooooone who takes caaaaare of yooooo­ooooo­u!” This last note is so high Lucille’s eyes widen and she has to laugh.

  “You sound like knives being sharpened,” she tells Nola.

  “Close your eyes, Grandma,” Nola says, and Lucille does. She must not fall asleep, but oh, to be caught like that—that’s how it feels, as if she is caught in a kind of golden cocoon. Never underestimate the joy of being the one who is cared for, is what Lucille thinks.

  “I could comb your hair,” Nola says.

  “That would be lovely,” Lucille tells her. And so Nola goes and gets her doll’s hairbrush and she combs Lucille’s hair gently and it feels so good Lucille thinks she ought to pay her.

  * * *

  —

  AFTER MADDY AND MATTHEW come to collect Nola and leave their gifts of chicken chow mein for Lucille’s dinner, and postcards of the photographs they saw (The things people photograph these days—mounds of unrecognizable flesh!), Lucille goes up to her bedroom. She takes off her shoes, rolls off her knee-high nylons. She unbuttons her housedress at the waist, lies flat on her bed, and locks her hands over her belly. It’s too late to nap, but oh, my, she needs a rest.

  She looks around her bedroom. The walls are pink, Bakery Box Pink, it’s called, a color she requested when she moved in with Arthur and Maddy. And Arthur said, Why, sure, which is pretty much how that man answered every request.

  She hopes Arthur is with Nola, the wife he loved so dearly. Lucille does believe people see one another again, and she believes that pets will be reunited with their owners, too, though this is mostly acquiescence to those who cannot for one minute stop yammering on about their little fur babies, as they call them. Even if it turns out not to be true, what’s the harm in believing it? It can bring some comfort.

  She gets up onto her elbows and wiggles her toes. What a pleasure, to wiggle one’s toes. She used to have pretty feet, but now her toes look like they can’t agree on what direction they should go. Arthritis. She’s deeply ashamed of her feet now. Whenever she has to go to the doctor, she tries to skip over the feet part. They’re awful-looking, all lumpy and bumpy. Yet suddenly she feels a great affection for them.

  Life is funny, isn’t it? Funny in the way you can never predict not only what will happen, but who you’ll become. Here she is, at the end of her life, and look what has happened. Who would have thought she’d become such a softie? Some creaky old gate opened when she met Frank, and now she is absolutely besotted with little Nola. She has developed a great warmth toward Iris, too, and even toward some members of her baking classes. No. Not just warmth, love. Look at that. One love departed, and all this followed. Seasons of the heart, she supposes. Never think winter will last when spring is equally inevitable.

  When she taught fourth grade, there was one day when they deviated from fractions to talking about where people come from, because of a question a little girl asked. Normally, Lucille would not have tolerated such diversion, but it was one of those heartbreakingly beautiful fall days with a kind of benevolence in the air. And anyway, what the child asked had been interesting. Lucille still remembers little Peggy Sorenson, in her plaid dress and red cardigan sweater, raising her hand to say, “Miss Howard, is it true that people get born because God puts His thumb on their foreheads and pushes them down to earth?” There was a stunned silence, and before Lucille could ask what that had to do with fractions, another child said, “No, you dope, babies come from their mothers’ tummies.”

  “But God put them in the moms’ tummies,” Peggy said, and then all the children began giggling and talking at once. Lucille calmed them down and told them there were different ideas about evolution, with some people believing that man was created by God and others believing people descended from the same ancestors as monkeys, and someday in science class, they would talk about all that, but for now, if she had a pie and wanted to cut it into fourths, how would she do that?

  Well, it is a perpetual mystery, isn’t it: evolution, the Big Bang, what caused what. Life is a mystery, death is a mystery, and everything in between is a mystery, too. The main thing is, people who are here, are here, for their own unique time upon the earth. She is one of the lucky ones, someone who has gotten to live a comfortable life up until this rather advanced age. She has not been the most graceful of her species. She has been clumsy in body and in spirit. She recalls a woman she once saw trying to maneuver around the washing machines on a Sears display floor. She was an overweight woman in a thin flowered dress and a tan coat, her banged-up purse hanging from the crook of her arm. She kept getting stuck betwe
en the machines, but her response to that was only to laugh, and she had the most beautiful, bell-like laugh, and the most beautiful smile, and she made the people around her smile with her. And now that Lucille is near the end, she holds that woman up as someone she aspires to be. Lucille is overly direct, and there is no changing that now. She is overly critical: ditto. But her heart has opened.

  She takes in a big, bumpy breath. And then she begins to sing in a high little voice like Nola’s, another nonsense song. “Oh, I am heeeeere, I am right here,” she sings, and then there is a catch in her throat and she stops singing. Everything is not such a mystery. She is not alone, and she never has been. Young or old, awake or in dreams, you see the effect of the wind.

  Pinwheels

  LINCOLN IS AT LUCILLE’S FOR a sleepover. Jason is staying at the hospital tonight; he told Lucille they’re trying one last experimental treatment on Abby. Apparently the side effects are pretty rough, though he didn’t tell Lincoln that. He just said he’d like to spend the night with Mommy, and Lincoln was agreeable to staying with Lucille. He brought his new puppy with him.

  “I thought you were getting a kitten!” Lucille says, eyeing the puppy as though the animal were black mold between her bathroom tiles. The dog is running around the kitchen, her tail wagging in circles like a propeller. Lucille prefers Henry, their older dog, who lay down in a corner of the living room after he arrived and hasn’t budged since.

  “Slinky? He got adopted. And then Iris took me to look at dogs and I found her and we called my parents and they said it would be okay. All Henry does is sleep.”

  Lucille thinks his parents would okay Lincoln adopting a rhinoceros if it would bring him comfort at this difficult time.

  “Well,” she says, “bring her upstairs and I’ll sew her a diaper.”