Circles

by Marilyn Sachs

  “Oh—well—I don’t know.”

  “Were you planning to have dinner?” His mother was asking him if he planned to have dinner. Not telling him she was expecting him to stay for dinner, not making him feel he had to stay because she expected him to.

  “Well, if you want me to stay ...” he said tentatively.

  She covered up the phone with her hand. “Mark, it’s up to you. If you have other plans ...”

  “Well, I was planning on seeing Cindy.”

  “Fine,” she said. “So you’re not staying for dinner. I’m free,” she announced into the phone. “What? Oh sure. Eight? Yes, that’s okay. Jeddy is sleeping over at a friend’s, and Marcy ... well, I’ll tell her to be home before I leave. She doesn’t mind staying alone for a few hours.”

  When she hung up, she had a cheerful look on her face.

  “Is that a new boyfriend, Mom?” Mark asked, trying to look cheerful, too, and approving. Actually, he felt neglected and sorry for himself. His own mother asking him if he planned on staying for dinner!

  “No, no,” said his mother. “I’m taking a sabbatical from men this year. That’s Eleanor—oh, you don’t know her. She’s a new friend I met through group therapy. She’s having some people over for dinner— sort of potluck. I can bring some leftover birthday cake.” She moved into the dining room, where the remains of the party still littered the table and the floor. “I guess I’d better clean up first before I go. I hate to come back to a messy house.”

  “I’ll help you, Mom,” Mark offered.

  “No, no, dear,” said his mother. “You’re going off to see Cindy. Real nice girl, Cindy.”

  “But Mom ...”

  She looked at her watch. “I think I’d like to wash my hair before I go tonight, and maybe shorten a new skirt I bought. So you just run along. You’ll be late for dinner at Cindy’s if you hang around here much longer. I know they like to eat early.”

  He grabbed a hamburger and some fries at McDonald’s, and mused over a large Coke until seven. It was incredible that his own mother no longer seemed like his own mother. Could she have changed so much in the short time he’d been away from home—from his old home? Not only was she smoking more, but she seemed much more lax with the kids. He’d hated how strict she’d always been with him, and here she was letting Jeddy stay over at a friend’s house on a Sunday night, and he hadn’t even done his homework. Mark’s mouth tightened in disapproval. He sipped his Coke and continued to consider other changes in his mother’s behavior. She was going to let Marcy, twelve-year-old Marcy, stay alone in the house! Oh, come on, Mark, lighten up! It’s only for a couple of hours, another side of him reasoned. But he brushed it aside and continued to work up a case against his mother. Worst of all was the way she had behaved with him, throwing recriminations at him for leaving. Well, he could deal with that. He even expected that, but—the real stunner—asking him if he planned to stay for dinner, and actually easing him out of the house so that she could wash her hair. His own mother!

  He looked at the clock and considered whether he wanted another order of french fries or whether he wanted to call Cindy and see if he could come over earlier. He called Cindy.

  “Hello,” Cindy said.

  “Hello,” he answered.

  “Hello?” she returned. “Who is this?”

  “It’s Mark!” he told her. She always used to know his voice.

  “Oh, hi, Mark,” she said enthusiastically. “I hope you’re still planning on coming over tonight.”

  “Oh, sure, I am, but I’m through here a little early, so I thought ...”

  “We’re just sitting down to dinner,” she said. “You said you wouldn’t be over before eight.”

  “Right. Well, that’s okay. I’ll come at eight, then.”

  “Unless you haven’t eaten, and want to have dinner with us. I didn’t ask you because I was sure your mother wouldn’t let you get out of the house without stuffing you.”

  “Oh, I’ve eaten all right.” Mark laughed. He didn’t want her to think his own mother would let him go out of her house hungry. “I’ll see you at eight.”

  He bought another order of french fries and another Coke, brooded some more over his mother, and arrived at Cindy’s house at five minutes after eight.

  “Mark!” She flung her arms around him and gave him a big hug. He could smell a combination of onions, apples, and cinnamon in her hair, and began to feel happy again.

  “Mark!” Her mother was there, hugging him, and her father came and shook hands, and asked him how he was doing. Then they all trouped into the kitchen, asking questions and listening to his answers. He liked Cindy’s parents, and knew they liked him.

  “We really miss you, Mark,” said her mother.

  “And speaking of missing,” said her father. “We’re going to miss ‘Masterpiece Theatre’ unless we turn on the TV. They’re doing A Tale of Two Cities, “ he told Mark. “Have you been watching?”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “It’s great,” Cindy said. “The last episode they actually showed how the guillotine worked, and you could see the blood on it.” She shuddered.

  “Well, maybe you want to watch it,” Mark said. “I don’t mind.”

  He could see her hesitate, but then she smiled and shook her head. “No, it’s okay, Mark. I’d rather talk to you. Dad can tape it for me.”

  He followed Cindy upstairs to her room, approving of her no-nonsense, baggy blue sweater, baggy jeans, and scuffed running shoes. She was a tail girl—pretty, too, in a careless, sporty way. The important thing was that Cindy was a no-nonsense girl, a girl he could talk to. He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed her.

  She put on the light in her room, closed the door, and looked up at him. “Guess what I’ve been doing, Mark?”

  Her eyes were bright and shining. Were there lights in them? Maybe. Yes, he thought there were.

  “What?” he asked, moving a little closer to her.

  “Just look.” She waved a hand around the room, and he looked. All over her bed, her desk, and the tops of her bookcases were—

  “College catalogs,” she told him. “I got a whole bunch in the mail, some from places I’ve never even heard of. And some I sent for.”

  “No kidding!” Mark picked one up. “Stanford, Wow! Are your marks that good?”

  “I guess so,” she said, “and I did pretty well on the PSATs.”

  “What did you get?”

  “Seven twenty in English and 790 in math.”

  “Seven ninety?” Mark pushed aside some of the catalogs on her bed, and sat down. “If you do that well on the SATs you’ll get in anywhere. I got a 710 in math and only a 650 in English.”

  She sat down next to him, and for the next couple of hours they talked and talked and talked. It was like old times. He could always talk to Cindy, and she could always talk to him.

  “I guess I’ll go to U.C. Berkeley,” Mark said, “if I can get in.”

  “Why don’t you go somewhere else, Mark? Your scores are okay, and your marks are all high. You might get into M.I.T.”

  “No, I want to go to Berkeley. It’s a good school, and it won’t cost as much.”

  “But maybe you’ll get a scholarship.”

  They talked and talked, and suddenly it was nearly eleven.

  “I should go,” Mark said, looking at the clock.

  Cindy stood up. “I wish you still lived around here,” she said. “It was always easier talking to you than anybody else. But I should finish some work I have to do for chem.”

  Mark jumped up. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  She put an arm around him and looked up at him. Yes, there were lights in her eyes, but maybe not for him. Maybe not for anybody. Maybe she just had lights in her eyes. He could still smell the onions, apples, and cinnamon in her hair. “Because,” she said, “I was enjoying myself. I always enjoy myself with you.”

  She smiled at him, and he smiled back at her. Yes, he always enjoyed himsel
f with her too, but they were friends. That’s what they were. He had missed her because you miss a friend, and he knew he was very lucky to have a friend like Cindy.

  “We should get together,” he said as they walked down the stairs. “Would you meet me sometimes in the city?”

  “Sure,” she said. “I’ve got my license now. I can drive in.”

  “Let’s set something up in a couple of weeks,” he said. “And we should call each other from time to time.”

  “I wanted to call you,” she said, “but I thought maybe you were busy with your new friends.”

  “No,” Mark said. “I don’t have any new friends—at least, I don’t have any friends like you.”

  “No kidding?”

  “No kidding.”

  Yes, he was very lucky, he thought as he drove home. Very lucky to have a friend like Cindy. It would be great if she came into the city. Maybe she’d like to do a little stargazing up on Mount Tarn with him, although her main interest was geophysics. He definitely would call her from time to time. He was lucky to have her as a friend.

  But if he was so lucky, how come he was feeling so unlucky? How come he was feeling that something terrible had happened that evening? What was it? What had happened? Nothing. That’s what had happened. He had hoped—he had thought—that he and Cindy would get together, but, somehow, it hadn’t happened. And that was the terrible thing that had happened.

  He tried to remind himself that Cindy’s friendship was a rare and precious thing, but he felt bitterly disappointed. And he knew that it was not friendship he was longing for.

  Chapter 9

  A smiling man opened the door. “Hello,” he said. “I’m Roger Kronberger, Helen’s husband. Come in, come in.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Kronberger,” Beebe said, passing through the door and into a long, dark hallway. She hesitated, turned back to him, and asked in a low voice, “How is Mrs. Kronberger?”

  His smile wobbled. “Oh, fine. Just fine. Here, let me take your coat. She’s in the living room, and I know she’s been looking forward to seeing you. It’s very nice of you to think of her. A number of students have called and written. She got a marvelous letter from a student she had fifteen years ago—one of those talented kids who’s now acting in the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. She was always very proud of him.”

  She would have been proud of me, too, Beebe thought jealously.

  Mr. Kronberger laid her coat down on a bed in a small room off the hall, and led her to the living room.

  “Look who’s here, Helen,” he announced, his smile firm again.

  Mrs. Kronberger was sitting on the sofa, a book in her hands. She closed it, took off her glasses, and smiled up at Beebe. “What a nice surprise,” she said. “Come and sit down”—she patted a place on the sofa next to her—”and tell me what’s been happening with the play.”

  Mrs. Kronberger’s face looked flat and unnaturally rosy. Beebe realized that she had grown used to seeing her in the dim light of the auditorium. There, her face appeared gaunt and pale with deep, shadowy places. Here in the brightly lit room, the shadows were gone from her face, and the pink color of her skin was startling.

  And she has blue eyes, Beebe thought as she seated herself in the designated spot. I always thought she had dark eyes.

  The blue eyes, above a smiling mouth, were looking at her as she seated herself carefully on the sofa. “What would you like?” Mrs. Kronberger asked. “Tea ... milk ... or ... Roger, do we have any soft drinks?”

  “Oh, that’s all right,” Beebe said quickly. “I really don’t want ...”

  “No, we don’t,” Mr. Kronberger said regretfully, “but we do have apple juice or Calistoga water.”

  “I really don’t want anything,” Beebe said solemnly. “Please don’t go to any trouble.”

  “It’s no trouble at all.” Mrs. Kronberger laughed, and her husband echoed it. “We’ve been waiting for you, and Roger even baked some cookies.”

  “Oh, I really didn’t want you to ...”

  Mrs. Kronberger leaned over and patted Beebe’s hand. “Now, Barbie,” she said, “Roger and I are dying for our tea, and we insist you have some too.”

  Barbie?

  Mrs. Kronberger smelled like somebody sick even though she was rosy and smiling like somebody well. But it was a somebody entirely different from her usual cranky, scowling self with a face full of dark shadows.

  Beebe gave in and said, “Thank you.”

  “So what will you have?” asked Mr. Kronberger.

  “Uh—whatever you’re having.”

  “We’re having tea.”

  “Oh, that’s just fine.”

  “But we do have milk.”

  “I’d like tea. Really, I would like tea.”

  “If you’d rather, you could have apple juice or Calistoga water.”

  It took some further exhausting insistence on Beebe’s part that she really would prefer tea before Mr. Kronberger went off and left her alone with Mrs. Kronberger.

  “Now then, Barbie, tell me what’s happening with the play.”

  “Beebe,” she corrected.

  It was bad enough that Mrs. Kronberger didn’t know her name, but that she should call her Barbie was humiliating. She didn’t look like a Barbie. She didn’t act like a Barbie. It was such a terrible insult that even though she knew suddenly that Mrs. Kronberger was a very sick woman, and that some allowances needed to be made, she could not allow anyone—not even a very, very sick woman—to call her Barbie.

  “What?” Mrs. Kronberger’s smile wavered.

  “My name,” said Beebe very slowly and distinctly, “is Beebe. Beebe Clarke.”

  “Oh dear,” said Mrs. Kronberger, the smile lingering. “I always thought your name was Barbie.”

  “But Barbie is a terrible name,” Beebe said. “It’s for somebody silly and conventional, like a Barbie doll. It’s not like me at all. I would hate it if my name was Barbie.”

  Mrs. Kronberger narrowed her blue eyes and squinted at Beebe. She also stopped smiling and began to look a little like her old self.

  “It is a terrible name,” she agreed, “and I apologize. Of course, Beebe is—well—that is rather an unusual name.”

  “It’s a nickname,” Beebe explained proudly. “My real name is Beatrice. It’s from Much Ado About Nothing. My mother is an actress. She was playing Beatrice when she met my father. And that’s what they called me. Only I couldn’t say Beatrice when I was a baby.”

  Now Mrs. Kronberger picked up her glasses, put them on, and inspected Beebe’s face. Her glasses were tinted, and her eyes didn’t look so blue.

  “Now let me see,” she said, “you play—Lady Capulet, is it?”

  “No,” Beebe said bitterly. “I only play Lady Montague, and last year I was an attendant in Twelfth Night. I didn’t have a speaking part, but you let me understudy Viola’s role. You said since I knew it, and Viola—-Jennifer—never got sick, you said it would be okay. And this year, I’m also Juliet’s understudy.”

  “Oh yes,” Mrs. Kronberger said. “You’re the girl with the amazing memory.”

  “My memory isn’t amazing,” Beebe said. “I know all those lines because I read the plays so much. Over and over again. I love the plays. And so does my mother. We read them together sometimes. Out loud.”

  “Tell me about your mother,” Mrs. Kronberger said. “What’s her name? What plays has she been in?”

  “Her name is Barbara Clarke—and nobody ever calls her Barbie.”

  “Barbara Clarke? Hmm ... I don’t think ...”

  “Oh, she hasn’t acted for years—since I was born. She used to act before that. People thought she was wonderful, but my father got sick, and .’ . . she couldn’t.”

  “I see,” said Mrs. Kronberger. She took off her glasses and looked helplessly in the direction of the doorway. “Roger should be bringing in our tea soon. He’s not the handiest man in a kitchen.”

  “Should I help?” Beebe began to rise.

&nb
sp; “No, no, dear, just stay where you are, and tell me what’s been happening with the play.”

  Beebe hesitated. She knew she shouldn’t be piling all of her sorrows and disappointments onto this sick, sick woman, but that was the reason for her visit, and she was convinced that Mrs. Kronberger would want to know the truth and, knowing it, would take some very strong action. She leaned closer to Mrs. Kronberger and said, “She’s ruining it! She’s murdering it!”

  “She’s what?”

  “She’s destroying the play,” Beebe said in a furious rush of words. “She’s taking everything apart. She’s changing the lines. She’s adding different characters, turning it into a comedy. Romeo and Juliet into a comedy! And nobody can stop her. The kids—they stand around, and they complain behind her back. Some of them say they’re going to the principal, and some of them talk about a petition, but every day she changes something, and nobody does anything. Yesterday, she took out those stunning lines that Romeo speaks when he thinks Juliet is dead. You know what I mean:

  “...O my love! my wife!

  Death, that hath suck’d the honey of thy breath,

  Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty:

  Thou art not conquer’d; beauty’s ensign yet

  Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks,

  And death’s white flag is not advanced there.”

  “ ‘Pale,’ “ said Mrs. Kronberger. “It’s ‘death’s pale flag,’ not ‘white’ flag.”

  “Are you sure?” Beebe asked. “White makes more sense since it means surrender. The white flag of surrender.”

  “Of course I’m sure,” Mrs. Kronberger snapped. “I’ve known that play a lot longer than you have.” She put her glasses back on, and Beebe said happily, because Mrs. Kronberger was now acting like her old, cranky, fussy, caring self, “Yes, Mrs. Kronberger, I’m sure you’re right. But Mrs. Kronberger, she’s destroying the play. She’s violating the play. She’s even written a new prologue about two schools, Capulet High School and Montague High School, and taken out the most important line in the whole play.”