The Lace Reader

by Brunonia Barry

  “Tea?” I offer.

  “God no,” he says, horrified, and we both laugh.

  Beezer figures I’ve got it covered and turns back to Anya and Jay-Jay.

  Rafferty is looking for something to say to me. His eyes scan the room. Finally he settles on the obvious. “I’m sorry about your grandmother,” he says. “She was a nice lady.”

  “She was my great-aunt, actually,” I say, and I can tell he doesn’t know what to say to that, “but thank you.”

  We stand there awkwardly, neither knowing what to say next.

  “How did you two know each other?” I finally ask.

  “I used to come here for lunch,” he said.

  I think of the lunch fare on Eva’s menu: finger sandwiches, cucumber and dill on dainty white crustless bread, date-nut bread with cream cheese. It seems unlikely.

  “I’m a big fan of the fancy sandwich,” he explains.

  It’s the last thing I’d expect him to say, and it makes me smile.

  I seem to remember Eva mentioning that she was good friends with a cop. For some reason I had pictured her friend as much older.

  Rafferty is trying to figure out what I’m thinking. He looks at me strangely.

  I’m searching my Eva training for something to say when I notice that he still has nothing to drink. “How about a soda?” I offer. “I think I saw some in the pantry. I don’t know how old it is, though.”

  “Any vintage after 1972 is okay with me.”

  I go to the kitchen and get some ice, coming back with both glass and soda. Jay-Jay has started pulling boxes of old photographs out of the bottom drawer of the buffet. He and Beezer have them spread out on every available surface, and there’s no place to pour. I hand the glass to Rafferty and unscrew the cap of the soda. It snaps when the seal breaks, so I know it’s still good—too good, actually. When I start to pour, it fizzes up and over the side of the glass. I don’t know if it’s because it is so hot in the pantry or because I’ve put too much ice in the glass, but before I reach the halfway point, it’s fizzing up and over the rim of the glass and is about to land on the Aubusson when Rafferty sticks a finger in the glass to stop it.

  We stand there stupidly, Rafferty with his index finger in the glass up to the second knuckle, me looking around frantically for something to put under it. “It’s okay,” he says. “It stopped.”

  “Sorry,” I say to him. Then, looking at his finger, I comment, “Nice trick.”

  “I used to be a beer drinker,” he says, “in my last life.”

  Beezer and Anya take a pile of the old photos to the window seat, begin shuffling through them. Jay-Jay, who’s invasive by nature, walks around the room, opening up cabinets and picking out objects he remembers from childhood. He spent a lot of time in this room when he was younger. He and Beezer played board games and poker in here when Beezer was home on vacation. They’d clear off one of the bigger tables and spread their stuff out, and I remember that it would drive Eva crazy. They would get rid of all the lace in the room, hiding it in drawers and under cushions, and she would still be looking for pieces for weeks after Beezer had gone back to boarding school.

  “Remember this?” Jay-Jay says, holding up a teapot in the shape of a bird.

  “I remember when you broke it,” Beezer says, looking it over, pointing out the crack.

  “She made us work off the debt serving high tea.” Jay-Jay goes back into the cabinet, digging deeper.

  “You got a search warrant to do that?” Rafferty says to him.

  “Oh, Towner doesn’t mind,” Jay-Jay says.

  Rafferty looks at me, checking. I shrug.

  “Curiosity killed the cat,” Rafferty says, then smiles.

  “And satisfaction brought it back,” Jay-Jay retorts.

  Rafferty shakes his head.

  “It probably makes him a good cop, though,” I say to Rafferty.

  “You’d think that, wouldn’t you?” It’s so genuine and unfiltered that I can’t help but laugh. He looks immediately sorry. The doorbell rings.

  “Saved by the bell,” he says, and rolls his eyes again. It’s as if Eva were in the room, channeling clichés through us.

  It’s the woman who forgot her hat. I grab it, head to the door. Here’s your hat, what’s your hurry? I think, but I don’t say it out loud this time.

  “Sorry,” the woman says. “I got all the way to Beverly before I realized I’d left it here.” I walk her across the porch. “Eva would have been so happy you came back,” she says. “I hope you don’t mind me saying so.” She doesn’t wait for an answer.

  It is finally cooling. Somewhere in the park, someone is playing a violin.

  They’re telling stories about Eva when I return. Prompted by the photos. Every picture is a story. They’re one-upping each other, Beezer and Jay-Jay, playing to Anya or to Rafferty or to anyone else who will listen.

  “It’s starting to sound like an Irish wake.” Rafferty hands me the empty soda glass, not wanting to put it down amid all the photos.

  “More?” I ask, surprised that he’s finished it so fast. He holds up a hand—he’s had enough. “Eva was part Irish,” I say.

  “You’re kidding,” he says, and I can tell he is surprised.

  “On her mother’s side.” I remember that Eva used to tell us that our Irish blood is what made all of us good “readers,” that all Irish people have the gift of blind sight, or at least all Irishwomen do. But I don’t have any Irish in me. My grandmother was G.G.’s first wife, Elizabeth, who died giving birth to my mother. May is quite psychic as well, though she goes out of her way to deny it. So the gift must come from both sides of the family.

  The stories from the other end of the room are getting too loud for us to carry on any other conversation.

  “Remember the time she told the Republican candidate for governor not to run?” Jay-Jay says, and Beezer does a spit take. “What was it she said to him?”

  “No good could come of it,” Beezer says.

  “Yeah, that’s it.” Jay-Jay turns to Anya. “The guy had a ton of money. People thought he actually had a shot at winning. A week before the election, he slipped on one of his glossy four-color campaign flyers and ended up spending six weeks on his back in some Podunk hospital out in East Cupcake that he didn’t dare leave because he was afraid he would, quote, ‘alienate his constituents.’”

  “Who voted straight Democrat anyway,” Beezer tells Anya.

  “So he lost?” Anya asks in disbelief.

  “A Republican? In Massachusetts? Of course he lost. Doesn’t take a psychic to predict that one.” Jay-Jay is laughing his ass off.

  “You think we should tell him about our recent run of Republican governors?” Rafferty asks, then decides against it. Anya and Beezer are laughing so hard they can’t tell him either.

  “What?” Jay-Jay says, but Beezer’s got his whoop laugh going now, and no one is immune to it.

  Rafferty looks at me. The whole party is laughing now. Beezer laughs silently, his face in a grimace that looks like something out of a horror film. The only noise he makes is on the intake, a big whooping wheeze that sounds like he’s kidding, but he’s not. People start to calm down, and then he whoops, and they are off again, weak with laughter and release.

  Jay-Jay’s girlfriend, Irene something-or-other, comes running up to us.

  “Where’s the bathroom,” she says urgently. “I think I’m gonna pee my pants.”

  “Great,” I say, pointing to the hall, and I follow to make sure she gets there.

  Rafferty follows me out into the hall.

  “The last door,” I point, and she goes in.

  Rafferty and I are in the hallway then, where it is slightly quieter, the voices muffled. He seems grateful for the quiet. He looks relieved, then awkward, searching for words.

  “This was a hard case,” he says.

  “What do you mean?”

  “This case. Eva’s. Usually when somebody disappears without a trace, it’s Eva I go
to.”

  “Really?”

  “She’s helped us more than once, actually.”

  I remember Eva talking about her friend the cop. How she had done a reading that helped him find a missing boy. So I was right; the friend she’d talked about was Rafferty.

  “She was a hell of a lady.”

  “I’m glad you knew her.”

  “She talked about you all the time.”

  I hate the thought of Eva talking about me, and he can tell. I try to cover, but it’s too late.

  “All nice things,” he said, but I can tell he knows more than all nice things. Everyone in this town knows more than nice things about me; they’re public knowledge. I can’t imagine the discussions he might have had about me with Eva—about my hospitalization. God, if he got curious and looked up my police records, he’d have enough material to talk about me for the next year.

  “I need to sit down,” I say, realizing it’s true only as I say it. I feel a little sick. It’s been a long day, and I’m not supposed to be having long days. My head is reeling with the noise of everything in this room that isn’t being said. I have no more strength to push away people’s thoughts. I can hear all their unspoken questions: Why the hell did she come back? How crazy is she, do you think? Before Rafferty has a chance to protest, I escape back inside.

  I cross the room, putting distance between us, going to a table in the bay window. Rafferty comes in a minute later. He scans the crowd until he sees me, then walks over and leans down.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “That was another poor attempt at small talk.”

  I don’t have it in me to smile.

  “Eva kept telling me over and over how bad I was at this kind of thing.”

  I feel some compassion for him. He is trying. I look at him and realize that his secret thoughts, whatever they might be, are probably the only ones in this room that I’m not reading tonight.

  “She kept telling me she’d give me a discount on one of her manners classes,” he says.

  There is a long pause. He shifts awkwardly. “I guess I should have taken her up on it.”

  I’m still trying to think of something to say back to him, something polite but not personal. Finally I get it. I speak to him in Aunt Eva’s own words. “I like soup. Do you like soup?”

  It is a test. To see how much he knows. If he has talked to Eva as much as I suspect he has, he will know the expression. It was one of her favorites. Especially if they were talking about the skill of making small talk or his lack thereof. Learning to talk about soup was the first lesson Eva taught.

  He looks at me curiously. I’m watching his eyes, waiting for signs of recognition. He shows nothing. “Excuse me?” he says slowly, deliberately.

  I’m staring at him now, trying to read his thoughts. His mind is either intentionally blank or unreadable. His eyes are steady. He might be telling the truth, or he might be just a hell of a good cop. I can’t decide which.

  Irene comes back into the room then, fluffing her skirts down as she goes. “What’d I miss?”

  “Tell her about the statue,” Jay-Jay says to Beezer. “Hey, Reenie, you gotta hear this one.”

  “I was telling Anya about the time Cal tried to get the statue of Roger Conant removed,” Beezer explains.

  Irene smiles, remembering.

  “Because it looks like a witch?” Anya asks.

  “Because it looks like it’s masturbating,” says Irene.

  “What?” Anya says, peering out the window at the statue of Salem’s founding father, which is right across the square. “Oh, please, it does not.”

  “Swear to God.” Jay-Jay crosses his heart.

  Irene goes to the window and tries to point it out to Anya, who’s squinting into the gathering darkness, trying to make herself see it.

  “Where?” Anya says.

  “Right there. The way he’s holding his staff.”

  “More like his rod,” Jay-Jay says, and even Irene thinks he’s gone too far.

  “I’ve gotta get back to work,” Rafferty says then. I start to get up to walk him to the door. “You want me to take him with me?” He gestures to Jay-Jay.

  “He’s okay,” I say.

  Rafferty shrugs.

  “Thank you for coming,” I say.

  “We’ll see each other again.”

  “Yes,” I say.

  I walk him to the door, watch as he walks down the steps to the black unmarked car. He sits there for a minute, then starts the engine and does an illegal U-turn on the square, barely missing a parked car.

  Ann Chase is cleaning up, gathering dishes off the tables, taking them to the kitchen. I follow her.

  “See? There? It really does look like he’s jerking off.”

  “Does not,” Anya says, but she’s laughing now, a hearty Norwegian sort of laugh.

  “Does too,” Lyndley’s voice says in my mind, flashing a random memory. It was the summer before Lyndley died that she discovered the statue of Roger Conant. I don’t mean she literally discovered it—we’d been looking at that statue all our lives. But that summer when she looked at it, she saw something completely different. She was laughing so hard she almost couldn’t tell us what she was laughing at. She stood on the curb directing us, making us walk around and around the statue, looking at it from all angles until we saw what she had seen. It was Beezer who saw it first, and his face turned bright red. He was so embarrassed he actually went back inside the house, although I’m sure he wouldn’t remember that now. It took me a lot longer. By the time I saw it, cars were stopped, tooting their horns at me, and Lyndley was laughing, yelling back at the cars, telling them not to “get their panties in a wad,” a southern expression she’d picked up over the winter and one she used for everything. Finally a driver laid on the horn; and Lyndley gave him the finger. It was then that I caught the right angle on old Roger Conant, and I just started laughing hysterically. I don’t know if it was the expression on the driver’s face or on Lyndley’s or the sight of our distinguished founding father all robed and holding a staff that from the back right angle looked like an erect penis. I don’t know which thing set me off, but I didn’t stop laughing until Eva came and got me off the sidewalk and made me come back to the house. She didn’t ask me what I was laughing at. I had the impression that she didn’t want to know.

  “I’m not seeing it,” Anya says.

  “You can’t see it so well from here,” Beezer says to Anya. “It’s better from outside.” Then he tells her the story about how Eva single-handedly saved that statue and how it pissed Cal off royally but made Eva a town heroine from that moment on.

  I grab some more dishes and follow Ann Chase to the kitchen. She is standing at the sink, carefully peeling off a piece of lace that has gotten itself stuck to the bottom of a saucer.

  “She’s having fun with us tonight, I’d say,” Ann says to me.

  “Who?” I ask, thinking she means Anya, or maybe Irene.

  “Eva,” she says.

  I don’t say anything, don’t know what the correct response would be.

  She peels the lace, looks at it. “Do you read?” she asks, meaning the lace.

  “No.”

  “How come?”

  I shrug.

  “She told me how good you were.”

  “I guess I don’t find lace reading very accurate.”

  “Really,” she says, half question, half declaration. She’s not buying it.

  “For one thing,” I say, not knowing why I feel the need to prove anything but unable to stop, “Eva told me I was going to have a daughter.”

  “And you’re not?”

  “Not a chance in hell,” I say. I was only trying to throw her off the track. I had wanted to avoid talking about Lyndley, but now there is an edge to my voice.

  Ann clearly doesn’t know what to say. “Eva taught a group of us to read the lace,” she says. “I’m afraid I’m much better at reading heads.”

  She squints her eyes at the lace, then
gives up, folding it. “‘Well, sometimes the magic works, sometimes it doesn’t.’”

  I look at her strangely.

  “It’s a quote”—she looks at me—“from Little Big Man.”

  “I know what it’s from,” I say, hearing the edge sharpen further. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say anything I just said.”

  “My bad,” she says. “I’m nosy by nature.”

  We both smile. She hands the lace to me. “She was my friend, you know,” she said. “Long before it was fashionable to be my friend.” She’s extending her hand, still holding the lace.

  “Why don’t you keep it?” I say, not taking it.

  She looks doubtful.

  “I’m sure she’d want you to have it,” I assure her.

  “Thanks,” she says, and starts back to the parlor, stopping at the door.

  Another woman comes in then, a Realtor, I think. Someone that Jay-Jay introduced me to earlier. She looks around the kitchen. I can tell she was hoping to catch me alone, since she seems a little disappointed. She decides to take her best shot.

  “Quite a discussion they’re having out there,” she says to me.

  Ann turns back to her dishes.

  The Realtor pulls out her card, hands it to me. “I was wondering if you’d thought about what you were going to do with the house.”

  “The house?” I ask stupidly.

  “I mean, I know it’s premature, but I didn’t know if your family had thought about selling.”

  “Selling the house.”

  “Yes.”

  I can feel Ann’s energy shift. She doesn’t like this woman.

  I clearly don’t have an answer.

  “Maybe I’m a bit premature,” the Realtor says.

  Ann has turned around now. She stands there facing us, holding the dish towel. “You think?” Her tone is sarcastic.

  “I’m sorry,” the woman says, fumbling in her purse, pulling out another business card, forgetting she has already handed me the first one. “I’ll call you later,” she says. Then, seeing Ann’s look, “Or you call me.”

  She leaves the room.

  “Lovely,” Ann says.

  Ann makes us a cup of tea. We sit at the kitchen table. She can tell I’m too weirded out to talk about it, so she just sits with me, refilling my cup, wiping down the table with the dish towel, polishing it, just to have something to do. Finally one of the other witches pokes her head in. “You ready?” the girl says. Ann motions for her to wait outside.