When Clara stopped by early in the afternoon, Olivia was already at work unpacking. “What’s this?” Clara asked, her voice registering a note of surprise. She had come to expect an air of gloominess, but instead there was Olivia, humming a rather pleasant tune and pulling clothes from her suitcase.
Olivia dropped her blue blouse atop a pile of things to be laundered. “I’ve come to my senses,” she said. “A woman alone needs to live in a place where she’s got friends, where she can put down roots and feel she belongs!”
“I don’t get it…” Clara stammered. “What exactly are you saying?”
“It’s simple,” Olivia hesitated long enough to consider a pair of brown shoes she’d pulled from the suitcase; she wrinkled her nose, set them aside and continued on. “Last night I got to remembering something Canasta told me when I was looking to find my way back home. ‘Honey,’ she said, ‘people don’t find a home, they gotta make one. Sometimes sad folks hurry off to some new place and then when they get there, they say, why this ain’t home at all—thing is, you got to give it time. You got to set growing things on the window sill, say howdy to your neighbors and write little notes on the wall calendar, then one day you get a whiff of your own stew simmering and it hits like a brick dropped square onto your head—you’re right where God intended you to be.’”
“I still don’t get it,” Clara said, “you trying to tell me you made a stew?”
“Actually, I made a meatloaf. But, that’s not what’s important. See, the stew was simply Canasta’s way of meaning a person had settled in.”
“So,” Clara said, still looking a bit confused, “Does this mean you’re staying?”
“Absolutely!”
Although Clara claimed she had already defrosted a stewing chicken, she stayed for supper and declared the meatloaf to be one of the best she’d ever tasted. “It should be,” Olivia said wistfully, for in it she’d used the very last of the seeds given to her by Canasta Jones. Once the meatloaf was gone, she’d be on her own.
After Clara had gone home, Olivia finished unpacking her suitcase. With a lengthy stretch of dresses, skirts and blouses lined up across the sofa, she went in search of hangers and found three, even those she’d had to pry loose from a closet still crowded with Charlie’s clothes. She searched again and twice thought she’d come upon an empty hanger, but as it turned out, both had trousers hanging across the bar.
It seemed highly impractical for a man to have so many clothes, particularly since he’d been deceased for several months and no longer had need of them. Initially, Olivia removed only the plaid suits, thinking they were somewhat outdated anyway, but that gave her just four more hangers. She then did away with all of the suits, grey, blue, green and one that was the color of day old buttermilk. “Why he wouldn’t be caught dead in this thing,” she mumbled without thinking. After the suits were gone, it seemed rather senseless to hang on to a collection of ties, sport jackets and slacks, so one by one Olivia removed the things from their hangers and folded them neatly. “I’m sorry,” she whispered into the lapel of his grey blazer, “I never wanted it to be this way.” When she caught the whiff of cologne that lingered on his blue cardigan, she cried for a good half-hour. “Please try to understand,” she sobbed, “I’ve got to get on with life.” When she pulled his shoes from the closet floor, Olivia slid her feet into them and drifted back to the time when he had waltzed her across the dance floor as if there was a carpet of rose petals beneath them.
But it was his bathrobe, the bathrobe that still carried the odor of not cologne, but him, which caused Olivia to fall upon the bed and weep through most of the night. By morning, she knew what she had to do.
As soon as the sun came up, Olivia telephoned Clara, “If you’re not too busy, I was hoping you could come for a visit,” she moaned soulfully,
“Visit? At seven o’clock in the morning?” Clara growled; then she plopped down the telephone. She rolled over to go back to sleep, but the sound of Olivia’s voice stayed with her—the echo of neediness squeezed in between words. Moments later, Clara stormed into Olivia’s apartment looking like a bulldog in yellow pajamas. “Okay now,” she said, thumping her hands onto her hips, “what’s the problem?”
Olivia explained how she’d suffered through the night and finally come to the conclusion that she needed a bit of help, advice maybe, or someone to lend a hand. “I know it’s what needs to be done, but I can’t bring myself to get rid of Charlie’s things,” she sniffled. “One minute I’m thinking about painting the bathroom or getting new curtains for the kitchen, then some little belonging of his grabs hold of me and I switch right back to crying.” Olivia stopped to blow her nose and wipe a well of water from her eyes, “See that,” she moaned, “it happens every time. I take a jacket or shirt out of the closet and whoosh—I end up with a picture of him wearing it. I go into the bathroom and run head on into his decrepit old toothbrush, waiting for him to come back. And, his bathrobe! One glance at that and I start wishing I was buried alongside of him.”
Any of the other residents would have noticed the way Clara’s head was cocked to one side, the corner of her mouth curled and one eye flickering like a firefly. But Olivia was a relative newcomer, unaware such actions, along with the tapping of Clara’s right foot, were lifelong habits that clicked on whenever there was any heavy thinking. “What you need is breakfast,” Clara finally decreed, “Meet me in the lobby in a half-hour. We’re going to the Pancake House.”
“Pancake House?” Olivia echoed, thinking a stack of pancakes didn’t seem to be much of a solution. She would have preferred an offer of help, or maybe the name of a charity in need of men’s clothing.
Of course, Clara made no mention of how in the span of ten minutes she could line up a crew of neighbors to clear out every last trace of Charlie Doyle. Not that anyone intentionally wanted to do such a thing, because Charlie was certainly well-liked, but once a man was dead, he was dead—and dead men simply didn’t come back. That was one thing Clara understood only too well, for she’d spent almost six years mourning the loss of her Henry. Were it not for Martha Cunningham taking matters into her own hands, Clara herself might still be in the same sorrowful situation.
The first call was to Peggy Mendel. “Yep,” Peggy answered, “I’ve got a storage room full of cartons, but my tape is all dried out.”
Donna Swift had five perfectly good rolls of tape, and a hand truck suitable for hauling the cartons off to another spot.
Norma Ryan knew a man who lived in the building across the street and was somewhat down on his luck. “He’s about the same size as Charlie, and Heaven knows he could use some nice clothes,” she said. After that she segued into telling how on the coldest day imaginable, she’d witnessed the poor man shivering in a threadbare sweater; halfway through the story Clara interrupted and told her to save it for later.
“Now, you understand what’s to be done?” Clara asked Maggie Cooper who’d agreed to take charge of the operation. “The key is under the mat; so the minute we leave, you girls go in and pack up Charlie’s suits, jackets, trousers, shoes, slippers, pipes, ashtrays, underwear, and, don’t forget the toothbrush. Everything, get rid of everything.”
“Even the ashes?” Maggie asked, “Get rid of the ashes?”
“Lord God, no!” Clara gasped. Charlie Doyle had been a friend, someone she’d dated and on a few occasions allowed certain familiarities. It was one thing to clear away his belongings, but quite another to dispose of the man himself. That was something Olivia was going to have to deal with herself—like it or not.
At ten minutes before eight, the two women met in the lobby and started for the Pancake House. Clara had to stretch out the period of time they’d be gone, so she turned to Olivia and said, “It’s a lovely morning, let’s walk.”
“Walk?” Olivia answered, “…the whole two miles?” She eyed the grey clouds hovering overhead and wondered if perhaps Clara, well-meaning as she might be, was suffering from a lapse in judgment.
“Fresh air gives a person a healthier state of mind.”
Olivia doubted such a claim was true; but once Clara set her mind to something there was no arguing. She gave a shrug and fell into step.
With window shopping in first one place then another, it took almost two hours to reach the Pancake House. And, when they finally got there, Clara told the hostess they were in no particular hurry and would wait for an available booth.
“I’ve a table, right now,” the hostess said.
Clara shook her head. “We’ll wait,” she replied, then she stood there eyeing the overhead clock and rat-tat-tatting her foot like a jackhammer.
Twenty minutes later the hostess said she had a booth ready for them. “Not there,” Clara replied wriggling her finger toward the back of the room, “why, that booth is way too close to the kitchen. We’ll wait for the next one.”
“But…” Olivia stammered.
“Trust me,” Clara insisted, and waved the hostess away.
With the subsequent refusal of two more unsuitably situated booths, they didn’t even glance at a menu until eleven o’clock and when they finally did, Clara flip-flopped for fifteen minutes, deciding whether to have pancakes with blueberry syrup or strawberries and whipped cream.
“Either sounds good to me,” Olivia said.
Clara finally settled on the strawberries. When the pancakes were set in front of her she cut them into tiny pieces and ate so slowly you could have believed she’d fallen asleep between bites. Halfway through, she indicated that maybe the blueberry syrup would have been better after all, so she ordered a stack of those and did exactly the same thing. When she finished the blueberry pancakes, she ordered coffee and sipped it so slowly it became ice cold; then she ordered another cup. In all that time, she never mentioned a word about Charlie or the disposal of his belongings.
“Well,” Olivia, growing restless, sighed, “I suppose we should start home.”
Clara delayed for yet another half-hour, saying she’d probably have to visit the ladies lounge momentarily and then on the walk home, she slowed her steps to a snail’s pace.
“Is something wrong?” Olivia asked.
Clara hesitated for a long time then stopped dead in her tracks, her head cocked and her foot twitching. “How would you feel if you walked back into the apartment and found all of Charlie’s things gone?” she asked apprehensively.
“I don’t know,” Olivia sighed. “The bits and pieces of Charlie are like a bouquet of roses—I look at them and see a world of sweetness and beauty; but, when I try to hold onto them, the thorns rip me to pieces.”
“I went through the very same heartache after Henry died.”
“Henry?” Olivia never pictured Clara as a widow. She was someone who wore bright colored dresses and laughed at most anything, a person who could turn the simplest get together into a party. “Henry?” Olivia repeated quizzically, “…he was your husband?”
Clara nodded, “Yes indeed, of twenty-eight years.” She began walking again, this time at bit faster pace.
Olivia slipped into the same stride. “I never would have guessed,” she said. “I mean, now you seem to be so happy, so settled in your life. When did he…”
“Fourteen years ago.”
“Oh my,” Olivia could feel the pain of separation twisting in her heart. “How,” she asked, “did you handle such a loss?”
“Pretty much the same as you; I hid in my apartment and cried till my eyes were so swollen I couldn’t see straight. I quit eating and got so skinny I looked like—”
“Skinny? You?”
“Yeah,” Clara laughed, “…hard to believe, huh?”
“It’s just that now, you’re so…”
“You’d better not say fat,” Clara warned.
“No,” Olivia answered, “not fat, but robust and full of life.”
“It’s because of Martha Cunningham; she’s the one I have to thank. I was just like you, maybe sorrier even than you. I used to go to bed and sleep with a pair of Henry’s pajamas stretched out alongside of me, pretending, I suppose, he was still in them. But one day after I’d gone to work, I was still working at the insurance company then, dear sweet Martha came into my apartment and cleared out every last trace of Henry. All except the pictures of course, she knew I’d want to keep those.”
“Were you furious with her?”
“At first I was; but given a bit of time, I started to realize that although I’d loved Henry in life, I wasn’t doing him a bit of good wherever he’d gone to. And, I was doing myself an awful lot of harm. Once I came to that understanding, my life changed.”
“But,” Olivia said haltingly, “She just threw Henry’s belongings in the trash can?”
Clara laughed, and a soft look of remembering settled around her eyes. “At first that’s what she told me. But once I got over the hurting, she confessed there were eleven boxes stored in the basement and I could do with them as I wanted.”
“Eleven?” Olivia gasped, knowing the unluckiness of such a number and figuring the story would now take a hateful turn.
“Eleven,” Clara nodded. “I loaded them into my car and took them over to the Old Sailors Home. Let me tell you, those men were truly glad to have such nice things. Why, they thanked me seven ways till Sunday.”
“Eleven, huh?” Olivia mumbled as Clara turned to open the lobby door. “And nothing bad happened?”
“Just the opposite; once I quit tormenting myself with those sorrowful memories, I started enjoying life again. Oh, I still did plenty of thinking about Henry, but I’d think about the good times we had instead of wallowing in my misery and wishing I was dead too.”
“You sure it was eleven cartons?”
“Yes, eleven. But never mind about the number of cartons, there’s a more important reason for me telling you this story.” Olivia unlocked the apartment door as Clara continued to speak. “I never forgot what Martha did for me and I hope you’ll feel the same about what we’ve done here today.”
“What we’ve done today?” Olivia said with a bewildered expression.
“Not me and you,” Clara explained, “…it was the girls—Maggie Cooper, Peggy, Norma, Donna—they’re a bunch of women who want to be your friends. We’re anxious to see you get on with your life.”
“What…” As soon as Olivia stepped into the living room she noticed a different smell—not the odor of stale tobacco, but lavender, or lilacs, hyacinth maybe. Her clothes were gone from the sofa, the club chair with a seat cushion squished into the shape of Charlie’s behind was also missing; the pipes, ashtrays, stacks and stacks of magazines—gone. Uncertain of whether to scream, cry, or double over in a fit of hysterics, she walked through to the kitchen—gone was the wall calendar with pictures of scantily clad girls pumping gasoline; in its place a brand new calendar with February featuring a bouquet of red roses.
Clara followed along, worrying that maybe Olivia, who still hadn’t said word one, had slipped into shock. “Believe me, it’s for the best,” Clara mumbled, when Olivia opened the closet door and found nothing but her own things. Dresses, skirts, blouses, lined up one after another, extra hangers spaced out in between, her pink flowered bathrobe looped over the hook that once held Charlie’s.
A tear slid down Olivia’s cheek—the complete disappearance of Charlie seemed so sad, and yet in some strange way, it was peaceful. She was reminded of a balloon, held back from heaven until an earthbound soul let go of the string. After a long while of saying nothing, she whispered, “Goodbye, Charlie,” then she turned and circled her arms about Clara.
Two weeks later, with Olivia at the wheel, five women from the Wyattsville Social Club drove over to the Old Sailors Home and donated nine cartons of perfectly good clothing. They stayed for lunch and watched as the men happily divvied up jackets, suits, sweaters and so forth. Olivia had to admit the bearded man who won out for Charlie’s powder blue suit looked strikingly handsome. All in all, she had never before witnessed quite so mu
ch smiling in a single afternoon.
The club chair, which was far too cumbersome to transport any distance was given to Herman Hopmeyer, a man who lived three doors down and had the same roundness of behind as did Charlie.
In the weeks that followed, Olivia transformed the apartment bit by bit. She bought a Queen Anne slipper chair to replace the one given away, painted the bathroom a rose petal pink, hung new curtains in the kitchen and set row after row of potted plants on every windowsill. She also had the name Westerly—Doyle etched in brass and affixed it to the front door.
One night in early April, shortly after the hyacinth burst open in a profusion of purple, Olivia had a dream. She was walking through the park holding tight to the string of a powder blue balloon, when suddenly the string slipped from her hand. As it floated upward she saw the sky filled with brightly colored balloons, all of them rising higher and higher until at the very top of the heavens they became part of a rainbow. Although the people around her seemed to be singing a truly joyous song, Olivia started to sob. “Why are you crying?” a boy asked.
“Because I’ve lost my balloon,” she answered.
“Lost? It’s not lost. Look.” The boy lifted his hand and pointed a finger toward a brilliant speck of blue dancing on the edge of the rainbow.
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