So when Harrison Michaels sends me an email message with an attachment, my fingers feel tingly. The message says:
Nicole,
You asked for a picture and so here it is. If you look closely, you can see one of my Kohaku koi in the pond. He’s to the left, by the lily. He’s the one guilty of eating most of my plants.
Harrison
All I have to do is click on the attachment and I’ll be looking at Harrison Michaels. Cute guy or gnome. Beast or cover man of GQ.
It’s only eight-fifteen on this Saturday morning as I sit in my lumpy computer chair and stare at the little paper clip to the left of Harrison’s email message. Just one click on the paper clip and the mystery will be solved. I lift my finger, then stick it in my mouth.
“Nicccc!” Monet is by my side, tousled brown curls swinging as she greets me. She climbs into my lap, breathing heavily as she moves, her stale cheese breath filling my nose. The pink Dora the Explorer pajama bottoms she’s wearing slide off her hips and twist around her legs. She pulls at the flannel material and starts to whine.
I take her off my lap, adjust her pajama bottoms by straightening them on her tiny waist, and then lift her onto my lap again.
She giggles and starts to sing the theme song from the Dora show. I know she inherited the inability to sing from Ducee. Every note is off-key. Suddenly she stops singing and shouts in my ear, “Hooot doooo!”
Hot dog for breakfast, I think. Well, it sure beats having to make scrambled eggs or eggs Benedict.
“Hooot dooooo!”
“Shh,” I whisper. Grable is probably still sleeping in the guest bedroom. I carry the girl into the kitchen and sit her on a chair at the table. “I’ll make you a hot dog. Just wait.”
When I place the plate with the sliced hot dog and mound of ketchup in front of her, she lifts her arms in the air and squirms in her chair.
“What do you need?”
Monet’s lips are puckered, stretched as far out as they can go.
I step closer to her. “Do you want some juice?”
Her large blue eyes are on me. She is asking for a kiss.
I bend toward her lips, and she plants a fleshy kiss against my chin. I have never been kissed on the chin before.
Content, she laughs and dips a hot dog slice into the ketchup.
I watch her eat. Last night Grable said another appointment was scheduled for next week with a neurologist at Duke. He’s new, straight from London or New Delhi. What will he find wrong with Monet this time? It’s a good thing Dennis has exceptional health insurance.
The phone rings, Monet reacts by mimicking the sound, and a coughing Iva says in my ear, “Nicki, is Ducee all right?”
I pause. “Yes.”
Iva sputters, “She invited me over for tea this morning, and she’s not answering her door.” She gasps for air.
“Did you ring her doorbell?”
“I did, Nicki. She didn’t come to the door. What do you think is wrong with her? I counted to at least twenty waiting for her to answer. Remember you told me to always do that since Ducee can be slow getting to her front door?”
Well, this certainly puzzles me, because I never recall giving my great-aunt this advice.
Iva inhales. “But she didn’t come to the door.”
“The doorbell is broken.” Doesn’t she remember this about Ducee’s house? Broken doorbells, phones the woman won’t answer.
“What? What?” Iva sounds like a kid who has just learned that there is no Santa Claus.
“The doorbell doesn’t work.” I use my calm and clear teacher’s voice.
“I thought she got that fixed.”
“No. Knock loudly.”
Slowly, Aunt Iva says, “Are you sure?”
“Sure as the sun.”
“I called her on the phone after I got home. There was no answer.”
“Aunt Iva, you know that Ducee never answers her phone.”
“What am I going to do?”
“Ducee is fine.”
Iva’s coughing reminds me of my garbage disposal when a fork gets stuck in it.
After clearing her throat, Iva says, “Are you sure?”
Aunt Iva is a lot like one of my students. Clay’s known for asking questions, and while the rest of the class might be bothered by them, these very questions are what endear me to Clay. “Ms. Michelin,” he’ll say as he raises his arm, “how do you know that Walt Whitman was a man? Huh? George Eliot was a woman. How do you know?”
I can’t find fault with Clay or Iva. I’m the one with a past of uncertainties, the looming questions. It is only fair for me to allow them their barges of apprehension to motor down their streams of life.
Softly I say, “Ducee is fine. She was fine yesterday, remember?” Yesterday, Iva called wondering where Ducee was, only to find her in the backyard feeding a baked potato to Maggie, the donkey. Maggie is fond of baked potatoes, making my grandmother convinced that the beast is Irish.
“Why won’t she let us have cucumber sandwiches?”
Is Iva whining now? “She’s just being Ducee.”
“Do you really think it’s not proper etiquette?”
“I don’t know.”
“Cucumber sandwiches are my favorite.”
“I know.”
“Do you think she’s okay?” Iva is lighting a cigarette; I hear the lighter click. I know it’s the silver lighter she received upon retiring from the Mount Olive Pickle Company, where she worked for thirty years.
“Yes, you better hurry over there for tea.”
After inhaling, Iva says, “I suppose I should. If it gets cold on account of my tardiness, she’ll never let me hear the end of it.”
I smile. “You know Ducee despises cold tea.”
“Unless it’s iced tea.”
“That’s right.”
Monet is now jumping on one leg and laughing. The hot dog has been consumed; the ketchup is smeared on her mouth.
“Nicki? It’s hard to hear. Is your TV on?”
“No.”
A slight pause and then, “Nicki?”
“Yes.”
“I hope there’s room.”
“Where?”
“What if someone takes my plot?”
Her plot! She must be talking about The Meadows, the cemetery where all of the relatives from North Carolina are buried, even Mama. “If you’ve paid for it, it’s not going to be given to anyone else.” I rest the receiver against my right shoulder and neck. I hear Monet squealing in the living room. She was just here in my sight. I hope my fish are okay. I carry the phone into the living room to find Grable cradling Monet on Aunt Lucy’s chair, Pinocchio open in her lap.
Grable sees me and gives me a sleepy smile.
“But what about Usella?” Iva’s voice cracks.
“What?” I enter the kitchen again.
Iva lets out a long cough. “In the paper this morning. Do you get the Tribune?”
Okay, I’m cheap. I’ve never subscribed to the local paper, the Mount Olive Tribune. If I really want to read the news, I can always find a wrinkled copy in the teachers’ lounge at school.
Iva continues. “She bought a plot to be buried in, and when she died it wasn’t hers anymore.”
This doesn’t make sense. “What do you mean?”
“They had no room to bury her. They had to take her body to Canada. And the car broke down so they had to carry it the rest of the way in a taxi and the bill came to over one thousand dollars.” Iva sounds as though she’s going to cry.
Before I can think of anything to say, Iva blurts, “Do you think Ducee will get there first?”
“I don’t think she cares about going to Canada.”
“No, no, Nicki. Do you think she’ll get to The Meadows?”
“No, she has nine lives, remember?”
“I remember, Nicki.” She lets out a cough, and I’m reminded of a freight train rolling into the center of Mount Olive. “I just don’t think I could live without her, so
it’s good that everyone thinks these cigarettes will kill me before she kicks the bucket.”
“I know.”
“Why won’t she go to the doctor?”
Here we go again. “She doesn’t like them.”
Iva makes a sniffling noise. “Who does? Unless you meet an eligible one.” She then laughs, deep and strong. “Oh, Nicki?”
“Yes?”
“Do you reckon we could tell Ducee we need to have cucumber sandwiches at the reunion?”
“Well . . . we are in the pickle capital of the world.”
“I think that might work. We have to have cucumbers because we grow them here. It would just be un–Mount Olivelike not to have them.” She seems satisfied, and I have this beautiful feeling rising from my marrow that seeps into my veins and makes me want to jump on one leg. This might actually be the end to this conversation. I chance it by saying, “Good-bye.”
“Good-bye, Nicki.”
———
Monet and Grable leave only after Monet begs to feed my fish. I give in when the ketchup-smeared puckered lips say, “Pleeeze, Niccc,” about a dozen times.
Together we stand by the fish tank, she on a dining room chair, as I show her how to sprinkle a little food from the container onto the water’s surface.
After she watches the fish eat, she looks at me and asks, “Niccc maaddd?”
I’m confused. “No, Monet. I’m not mad.”
“Nicccc maadddd?”
It dawns on me. Last time she overfed the fish, I was angry. I’d better give her positive reinforcement for the job well done today. Smiling, I say, “You did a good job this time, Monet.”
Monet claps her hands, loses her balance, catches herself against the sharp corner of the aquarium. I grab her elbow before she does any damage. I’m still catching my breath when she frees herself from my grasp, slides off the chair, races across the hardwood, stops midway, hops on one foot, and sails into her mother’s arms. “Niccc nooo maaddd!”
Grable gives her a kiss, and then I kiss the wild child, too.
Of course, moments later, after she and Grable have left my driveway for Lady Claws, the salon where Grable gets her nails done, I’m ready to raise my voice at Monet. I cannot find the most recent email message from Harrison. The attachment he sent earlier today is nowhere in my mailbox. I check, scroll here and there and wonder what happened. Then I know. Monet deleted it while I was on the phone with Iva. This is not just a theory; it is a fact. There is a ketchup stain on my keyboard. A little dollop on the right corner of the delete key.
I sit in my fuzzy desk chair and shake my head. In my mind I can see Monet’s rosy cheeks with the wayward curls framing her face, hear her sing the Dora the Explorer song, and the robust shrills and shrieks of excitement. Has there been a happier child to walk the earth? The doctors in the white lab coats don’t know what’s wrong with her; perhaps in her defiant way she is determined not to fit into any of their array of diagnoses. What if she were somehow wiser than they, and all of her strange antics were carefully skilled methods to outsmart the lot of them?
I call Grable’s cell phone. She answers on the fourth ring and tells me she’s getting her nails painted a rusty red while Monet looks at fashion magazines on the salon floor. “I think it’ll be a nice color. Flora Jane is painting my left hand now.”
Flora Jane has been at Lady Claws since the discovery of fire. She likes to dye her hair sky blue in the summer and violet in the cooler months.
“Thanks for coming over,” I say. “I’m glad you and Monet could come here.”
“Really? Because I know Monet is loud and destructive and hard to—”
I cut her off. “Grable.” With ease I say, “Monet is fine.”
She is silent and then I hear her talking to someone else. I also hear Monet squealing and laughing. “Nicole?”
“Yeah?”
“Monet found an angelfish in one of the magazines. Some shoe advertisement with a fish swimming in a high-heeled shoe.”
“She really likes fish.”
Grable says she has to go because Flora’s ready to paint her right hand. But before she ends the call, she tells me, “Monet really likes you, too.”
I sit in the chair and just breathe in and out for a bit after hanging up the phone. Out the window I see two cardinals darting around my oak tree as the neighbor’s gray cat prowls by the trunk.
Then I write to the carp owner in Japan.
Harrison,
My cousin’s three-year-old daughter Monet was here and deleted your message. I know that sounds a little odd, but she is quite gifted at causing chaos. I didn’t get to see the photo of you at all. Could you send it again?
Thank you.
Nicole
I hope he writes back, but if he doesn’t, I tell myself it’s really okay. He lives in Japan, and I am, after all, avoiding anything to do with that country.
Chapter Ten
As the finicky month of March swirls through eastern North Carolina, Ducee tells us after Sunday dinner that we must finalize our reunion planning. She uses her large spiral notebook with a lopsided pineapple on the cover to jot down the menu and other items needing attention. She is filled with questions and poses some of them. Should she use the local florist, Flowers by Deena, or should she ask her cousin Tweetsie in Goldsboro to make the arrangements for the reunion events? Tweetsie would be honored, yet can she be told—nicely, of course—that the arrangements need to showcase more than just white roses from her garden? Color is key here. We don’t want to offend her. We do remember that her roses received a blue ribbon at the Goldsboro Home and Garden Show. Oh, and should the invitations be printed on four-by-six cards like last year? With a larger font. Last year’s was so tiny ninety-seven-year-old Aunt Louise in Morehead City thought she’d received a floral postcard with mere black lines on the backside. Ducee spent a day trying to appease the woman, telling her the lines were words, and no, the small font was not a conspiracy to keep Aunt Louise from the gathering.
Between Ducee and Iva, the questions and concerns mount like mashed potatoes. What about a trip to the coast in the church van? You know those Wyoming folk need to see the ocean and get some fresh salty breezes in their faces. They don’t have the privilege of living close to the coast like we do, bless their hearts. Will Aaron be able to secure a van for the ride? Will the Friday evening dessert be at Third Presbyterian again this year? If so, we need more folding chairs. Is Clive up for the Sunday breakfast at his house? Back to the dessert, are the twins going to play the harmonica and flute for the entertainment that night?
Iva says she heard they were going to The Netherlands.
“What?” Ducee cries. “Who is going where?”
“The twins.”
I am always amused that these grown men, Ivan and Patrick, are not known by their given names but referred to as The Twins.
“The Netherlands?” Ducee says the name of the country as though it’s a disease. She removes her bifocals and rubs her eyes.
Iva sighs. “I know. How can they choose that weekend to be away? Where is their family loyalty?”
Ducee fits her glasses over the bridge of her nose. “No, Iva, the twins wouldn’t do that. You probably got the dates wrong. They wouldn’t miss a reunion.” For Ducee, not attending a family reunion is equivalent to not getting into heaven.
Iva shrugs and moves the ashtray toward her plate, which holds half a slice of pound cake.
I’ve already finished my cake, enjoying each buttery bite.
“Tell us the menu for Saturday’s picnic again,” Iva pipes out.
Adjusting her bifocals, Ducee reads as I sip from a cup of ginger tea. “Potato salad, chicken salad, honey-baked ham, corn on the cob, green bean casserole, egg salad sandwiches, iced tea, lemonade, and chutney. And Mrs. McCready will bring a few pies.” Mrs. McCready isn’t related to any of us, but like Mr. McGuire, she is considered family.
Iva puts down her cigarette. “We are missing something.�
��
Ducee looks over her page, shakes her head, and looks up. “No, I read it all.”
“You didn’t say anything about cucumber sandwiches.”
“Well, Iva, as I’ve told you before, you can’t have egg salad and cucumber at the same meal.”
“All right, I got that theory of yours.”
I grimace. Ducee does not think her Southern Truths are mere theories. She takes offense to anyone not realizing she is the queen of etiquette. But I have learned, over the years, to stay out of these sibling spats. I try to relax and sip my tea.
“If we can’t have cucumber sandwiches at the picnic on Saturday here, then we can have them at the breakfast at Clive’s.”
“Whoever heard of cucumber sandwiches for breakfast?” If Ducee were a rocket, she would be through the roof, halfway to Mars.
“Clive eats fried oysters for breakfast. So he’ll let my sandwiches be on his breakfast menu.”
“Clive will let you have sandwiches for breakfast?” Ducee sounds as if she is ready to march over to Clive’s small farm and take him down.
“If we have the Sunday breakfast at his house, he will.”
Ducee closes her eyes as though she is praying.
We wait.
When her eyes open, she says, “Okay, why not?”
“What?” Iva’s cigarette hand is suspended in midair.
Ducee lifts the cloth napkin from her lap to wipe her mouth. “I said, why not?”
“Why not what?”
She tosses her napkin onto her left thigh. “You can have them—cucumber sandwiches.”
Iva gives me a wide-eyed look and quickly cries, “Write it down! In the book.”
With great effort, Ducee flips open her notebook and slowly jots down a few words.
Iva’s beam is so bright, I think I need sunglasses to shade my eyes. She gives me a light kick under the table. “Did you write cucumber sandwiches, thinly sliced, no skins?”
“Yes.” Ducee sighs as she puts down her pen, picks up her napkin, and carefully wipes the edges of her mouth one more time.
Rain Song Page 6