Foxglove

by Mary Anne Kelly

  “Carmela, I’m sure he’s forgotten all about me by now.”

  “Listen, he won’t come if you don’t.”

  “Oh.” She could hear what it cost Carmela for having admitted this, and rewarded her by pretending not to notice. “I’ll see what I can do,” she said.

  “That’s not good enough.”

  “I’ll come.”

  “Lovely.” Now that she had what she wanted, Carmela could afford to be magnanimous. “And how is my beautiful, brilliant nephew?”

  “Fine. Would you like to say hello? He’s right here.”

  “Um. Not just now.”

  “How’s Stefan?”

  “He’s fine. Why?”

  “What do you mean, ‘Why?’ You asked how Anthony is and I’m asking how’s Stefan?” Of course she shouldn’t have bothered. Any reference to Stefan by Claire only meant one thing to Carmela, some shady innuendo to their past relationship, when Stefan had “courted” Claire. She ought to know better than to mention him, because it never failed to set Carmela off. Still, it wasn’t Claire’s fault Carmela had settled down with someone she’d rejected. Claire was getting to the point where she was starting to resent being resented. “Look, I only asked how he was to let you off the hook about talking to Anthony. I know it can be boring listening to some three-year-old drawl on and on about nothing he, you, or I can make out. And if you want to make an issue out of this now, you have all my attention.”

  “Of course not, my love,” Carmela choraled prettily, happily. Once she’d irked you she felt a whole lot better. “I’m glad to have you on the phone at all, my little prize fighter. You’re always so busy. We never get to talk anymore. And apropos Stefan, you’re probably right, I am edgy about him. Do you think it’s easy being married to a bona fide Polack?”

  Claire most certainly did not. She leaned over to shut off the little black-and-white TV she kept on the counter. She only kept it on to catch the first ten minutes of the Regis and Kathie Lee show on weekdays, when they talked about what they’d been up to the night before, what restaurants they’d been to, and who they’d run into. After that she lost interest. The guests didn’t intrigue her at all, just what went on each night in the city without her.

  Carmela continued. Did Claire know what it was like attending cocktail party after cocktail party, not with interesting types as one had foreseen, but with deliberately tedious colonists—or at least that’s what they thought they were. They drank on and on and did not get drunk. They leered on and on but were too polite (or paranoid) to touch … and Stefan! (here Claire settled down for a long winter’s nap) Stefan was without an iota of a doubt the very worst of the lot, insisting they continue to live on and on in this drafty mausoleum of a house in this long-ago outmoded neighborhood and now, now did she know what he wanted her to do? Did she? She did not. He wanted her to give up wearing the diamonds he’d given her when they’d married, that she’d come to cherish, that were hers to do with as she chose, that were now, he’d decided, too ostentatious, those days are over. I ask you, what days? Here he is jogging through the streets of Queens wearing his great-grandfather’s family ring worth three yearly family incomes, and he has the audacity, ah! And you know what else? This is the latest. He’s got me on high-estrogen-content birth-control pills so my breasts will be big. I mean, this is an irresponsible attitude towards women in general, isn’t it? Towards health? Towards life the natural way?

  Claire, who baptized each suspicious menstrual clot, agreed.

  “Do you know,” Carmela asked, “what he has for breakfast? Wheaties.”

  “Oh dear. Oh yes. I see what you mean …”

  She went on and on, did Carmela, enjoying herself, analyzing, portraying Stefan wittily at his worst, telling all—and then finally finishing him off with tight-lipped satisfaction. Claire couldn’t help feeling sorry for her. She knew when the tale ended, so would Carmela’s happy rage and yes, even now she could almost see Carmela’s crestfallen eyes gaze startled, puzzled, at her scarlet toenails. Claire remembered those toes from when they’d both been very little girls and Carmela had been so proud of hers, beautifully shaped and long as little fingers. She’d known even then that she was the stunner. Claire remembered those toes gripped and planted to the diving board so long ago and herself, her blue fingers chewed up and happy, just almost touching the cool, perfect tootsy from underneath the diving board. “Jump!” she’d cried out. “Just jump!” And Carmela had instead turned around, thrust her chin into the air, and carried herself hurriedly, importantly away. Away from Claire, away from the dumb kids, away from the fun.

  Now, Claire always tried not to see the beginnings of yellowy calluses beneath Carmela’s unsuspecting feet. She didn’t mind her own body rotting away so much. When she’d happened to see the total, irrevocable devastation of her elbows in a two-way department store mirror once, it had been more of a shocking awakening than the end of the world. So the days of succulent, presentable flesh were at last at an end, she’d thought, and was surprised that she could moan good-naturedly about it instead of hiccup in hysterical distress. She knew, at least, she’d used this body fully. Had enjoyed it as much as it had been enjoyed by others. But Carmela. Carmela had always waited, in some strange way—even though she’d seemed to have had it all. She’d always held something back in the guise of irony. Claire knew she was afraid. Had always been. And she had to protect her.

  “Oh,” Carmela’s contralto came back into focus, “just in case nobody told you, they’re bringing that badly behaved dog of Freddy’s to the pound.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The little one. The runt. You know. Nobody wants her.”

  “What do you mean, nobody wants her? Freddy took her. He wanted her. She’s his.” (Freddy was Carmela and Claire’s mutual brother-in-law. He was divorced from their other sister, Zinnie, but somehow, through habit and the fact that he was Zinnie’s boy Michaelaen’s father, they’d all remained involved.)

  “Well, she’s not his anymore. He’s taking her out to the North Shore shelter or something. She peed all over his antique Dhera Gaz for the third and last time. You know Freddy, three strikes, you’re out.”

  “I can’t believe this. You can’t take an animal and then just decide you don’t want it.”

  “Sure you can. People do it all the time. That’s why all the pounds are full.”

  “Why don’t you take her?”

  “Me? Are you kidding? The only dog Stefan would have would be a whippet. Or a Russian wolfhound.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What about Mommy?”

  “She’s got the two puppies, Claire.”

  “You’ve got two, you might as well have three.”

  “I wouldn’t want to be the one to tell her that.”

  “Mmm,” they said together in characteristic, synchronized, well-modulated sibling-phonics.

  “Get that thought right out of your head!” Claire said.

  “What? I didn’t say boo.”

  “You know what you’re thinking!”

  “Claire, I would never suggest that you take that skeevy, ugly, uriney mutt.”

  “I will not have another dog in my life,” Claire vowed out loud.

  “Hey, listen. I know what you went through when the Mayor died.”

  “Yeah. And the Mayor was this skeevy, ugly, uriney mutt’s grandfather, don’t forget.”

  “What I cannot forget is the vile smut trollop that was her grandmother.”

  “Carmela. She was a French poodle.”

  “Exactly.”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “I most certainly do. If she had left the Mayor alone, he might still be alive today.”

  “Oh, come on. At least be fair. The Mayor used to gallivant as far as Queens Boulevard looking for a little action. What about Zinnie? Michaelaen would love a little dog.”

  “That’s all she needs. A dog. Suppose she has a collar? An arrest? Sometimes she
doesn’t get home for eighteen hours. As it is Michaelaen is more at Mommy’s than he is at her place. I can’t imagine why she ever wanted to be a cop. Can you? Uh oh. Here comes Stefan. If you’re coming up to Mommy’s later, do you think you could drop off that lovely dress of yours from Peshawar? The one with all the threads and things? I’d love to wear it. It always reminds me of that Dylan Thomas poem, how did it go? ‘Here were fond climates and sweet singers suddenly.’ Don’t ask me why. Ciao, then.” She hung up the phone.

  Claire stood very still in her kitchen. She opened the window up all the way, then wet the wooden table down for it to dry in the air. One of those little feather whites, the ones you wish upon and fling into the sky, came in and passed directly in front of her face, easy bait. She went for it. Whoops! She went for it again. And again and again until it eluded her up and away outside across the alleyway, gone for good. She rested on the sill and looked out. The mailman passed and went. Anthony leaned on her shoulder from behind. “He’s going to the Bat Cave,” he confided.

  “Ah,” she said.

  Then the telephone rang. “What now?” she said. “Hello?”

  “Claire? It’s me.”

  “Johnny, what’s all that noise?”

  “All hell is breaking loose over here.”

  “Wait. Wait, Anthony. Let me talk to Daddy first. Where? Where are you?”

  “I’m here. At the one-oh-two. Guess what?”

  “Honey, what?”

  “I’ve been transferred.”

  It was the afternoon. She was sitting there in her car, outside the house that was for sale. Anthony was asleep on the back seat, mouth open, done waging war off in Never Land and now at last he was kaput. For the while. Claire had dropped the dress for Carmela off at her mother’s, but that had just been an excuse. She’d really come out here to have a look. The house, wrapped in a porch, sat there stout and calm and trusting; looking right at her, it was waiting for her to find a way to take charge.

  It was of a cream color. Faded yellow, roofed and trimmed in darkest green. There was a small lawn in front, a peach tree on it, and a wide lawn on the side. It looked as if there was a nice square back yard, but you couldn’t tell, as the house was hedged high with juniper, hollyhock, foxglove, and lupin. It was old, all right. The roof didn’t look too good. What struck Claire most of all was that this was exactly the perfect house. With all the others she’d looked at (and she’d looked at what felt like three thousand), each one had had one thing in common with the one before it and the one after it. They were each of them next door to the one Claire would have liked. It had been, with uncanny regularity, so.

  There had to be some catch here. And if there wasn’t, Johnny would certainly hate the house. Something. Life, with the exception of the existence of her son, couldn’t possibly be that perfect. Why, just to look at the place. A screened-in porch. A tear of overwhelming hope and hopelessness rolled down her cheek. Desire, she had learned all those years ago in India, was the source of all unhappiness. Of heartache. Fortunately, though, it was also prerequisite to all progress. If you didn’t mind thinking of Western benefits as progress. Claire, having experienced the incomparable bliss of an epidural during labor, did.

  Claire sat on in the car, a wonderful car; one thing about Johnny, when you were with him you might not be rich but you drove a great car. The only thing was, he would take it away from you the minute he got it totally restored, and he’d sell it. Well, he wasn’t going to get his hands on this one. It might have more than a hundred thousand miles on it, but it was a Mercedes, midnight blue, its cracked butterscotch leather smelling luxurious to Claire every time she climbed into it. It wafted its delicious, masculine scent even now, the comfy seats heating up with sunshine. This was her car. And her house.

  “Psst. Hey, toots.”

  Claire jumped in place. It was a girl. A woman. Was she blocking her driveway? What did she want? She had no idea—uh oh. It couldn’t be. It was. No, it couldn’t be.

  “Cat got your tongue?”

  “Tree!”

  Oh, it was her all right. It was Tree. Wicked, wonderful Tree, who’d enlightened and taunted her all through grammar school. Of course it should not have been so unusual to come across a friend, an old girlfriend, when here was where she’d grown up, but it was. Anyone their own age not dead or on drugs had moved away. To the city. Or at least to Manhasset. But here she was.

  “Are you visiting your mom?” Claire asked her when they finally stopped hugging through the car’s moon roof.

  “Hell, no. I live across the street.”

  Claire covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh, Jesus, this is too good to be true. I’m looking at this house here.”

  “This one? Kinkaid’s? What for?”

  “To live in. I mean if Johnny, that’s my husband, if Johnny would go for it.”

  “Claire. That would be so great. I knew you were married. I see your sister Carmela all the time. Didn’t she tell you? You mean she never told you? No wonder you never called me, then.” She spotted Anthony in the back seat. “Oh, God. Is he yours? Is that your boy? So big?”

  “Yes, he’s three. Have you got one?”

  “A girl.” Tree’s eyes shone. “I can’t believe Carmela never told you. She’s seven. Oh, you’ll love her. He’ll love her.”

  They looked each other up and down again. Tree’s purple sundress shimmered with red and plum embroidery. She shook her head. “Can you come in? Have a cup of coffee?”

  “I can’t. I have to go get Johnny. This Mr. Kinkaid said we could look at the house at five. But we could stop over later?”

  “Theresa!” a man’s voice called loudly, angrily from across the street.

  Tree’s bright eyes darkened. “Oh. Shit. I’d better get going, too. Have to pick up the kid. You’ll come back another time?”

  Had she flinched? Claire kept on smiling. “Of course. What do you think? I’m going to let you go after all the times you made me break up when I had to recite in school? Hah?”

  Tree laughed. She looked over her shoulder. The man was coming across the street. He smiled. Nicest guy in the world. Handsome.

  “Come over in the daytime,” Tree said quickly, softly. Harriedly.

  “My pleasure.” This handsome man stuck out a firm hand and shook hers good-naturedly.

  Tree introduced them. Her husband, Andrew Dover. He gave Claire an appreciative grin. He didn’t look at Tree. “Theresa,” he said, “your daughter.”

  “Yikes,” Tree agreed. She took off. He strolled back across the street with his hands in his pockets, no sweat.

  Claire was so excited about the house that she hardly thought of Tree until she was doing the dishes after supper. She mopped the plates thoughtfully, remembering how she had admired her back in school. If she admitted the truth, she’d wanted to be just like Tree. Courageous, she thought, smiling. She couldn’t wait to meet her child. For Anthony to meet her. Perhaps she would be more like the Tree she remembered. It wasn’t that Tree had changed exactly. Oh, well, wait, yes, she had done exactly that, changed. But of course, so had she herself. Tree was probably thinking the very same thoughts about her at this minute. Except that there was something else. Something almost dissipated about Tree.

  Tree had been, all those years ago, Claire’s idol. Tree would flaunt her brazen attitude at any authority: the nuns, one’s own mother. Getting into trouble wasn’t the end of the world for her, it was where she seemed to feel she belonged. At least for all the time she put in in the cloakroom, it would seem so. She would hang her head and she would blush, but those eyes would twinkle. Tree would maintain her U in conduct all through school.

  Claire had been afraid of her. Tree dared to be bad. Claire might have been bad herself, but she was too dishonest to admit it before authority, or even to get caught. Claire found it more acceptable to present herself as well behaved, well motivated. Secretly, she’d admired Tree’s success with rebellion, her comfort within her own skin. Her world di
d not collapse with punishment, scolding. On the contrary. She not only didn’t get away with it, because she was almost always caught and punished, but what upset Claire was that Tree was admired, not only by herself, but by the nuns as well. Claire could see that they got a kick out of Tree’s escapades, and every time she saw it she was eaten away with jealousy. Tree’s notoriety reminded Claire how dishonest she was with herself, with her family, her life. She would have loved to have been as bad as Tree if she’d had the nerve. So not only was she dishonest, she was a Feigling, a coward. And she knew it best when she was with Tree. Tree, small and pearly, eyes mocking, forehead high, defiant. Deeply clefted chin. She would knit her imperceptible brows together, turn her face away from you, and watch you sideways, mocking, with a too-much-vinegar expression and her corkscrew curls recoiling.

  Claire had learned to be more free from having known Tree. She was revealed to herself through the jealousy. It had been the hard way and it had hurt, but Claire had learned. She’d had to make a choice. You learned and grew or you stayed where you were. In Claire’s case that meant staring endlessly, eyes lowered, into the gummy, dried-up etchings of initials in her wooden, well-behaved school desk—or letting go, flying freely in her mind where no good nun could find her. She hugged herself with anticipation. To have Tree across the street like that would be just too good. Too good to be true.

  Time continued, dreamlike and warm, without Claire, who was busy. One fleeting moment did pass while Claire was on her knees in the bathtub, with water streaming from the faucet, drain unplugged, just a hurried wet wash to go, her hair up in a knot on the top of her head, busy with the foamy Dove, when from somewhere she heard her luck shift. Like a favorite song starting up after one you can’t stand. Like a breeze. A sudden breeze. Maybe that was my luck shifting, she said to herself. She shrugged. Or maybe—she scooped water over her face—I just ovulated.

  When time resumed, Claire had to go to Liberty Avenue and see the real estate agent who was selling her house. She had to stop at the bank about that other, hopelessly confusing, mortgage. She had to pick up Anthony from her mother’s. Arriving there, she came in, dropped her sample fabrics from the upholsterer on the table, and sank into a chair. Zinnie was there, too, so she pried her shoes off and dug in to stay for a while. Mary was talking up a storm, as usual when she had adult company over, preferably one or more of her daughters. The mini-house was having a sale. (All the ladies from the parish sent their secondhand things there.) The block association was going to have a meeting to discuss the graffiti on the railroad arches out back on Bessemer and Babbage. She went on and on, did Mary. Claire was gazing at Mary’s flourishing tuberous begonias. How ever did she get them that big?