by Nicole Baart
The house was warm and stagnant, a little musty after the freshness of a late spring afternoon, and I stifled a yawn. Planning to throw open a few windows before my quick presupper nap, I stepped into the kitchen and was stopped in my tracks. I forgot about the windows, the heat. Any sleepiness was extinguished and surprise turned my feet to lead.
Hanging from one of the cupboard doors was a dress. It was black with a narrow V-neck that was outlined in a tasteful pewter-colored ribbon. The narrow bands of silvery charcoal crisscrossed the bodice of the dress, resting off to one side in a neat knot that ended in a stylishly uneven wave of extra fabric. It had a snug empire waist, and by the way the skirt draped from the cupboard and over the counter, I imagined the full folds would probably fall just below knee length. It was gorgeous. And I knew instinctively that it was intended for me.
I glanced around, half expecting someone to emerge from the shadows of the hallway, but the only sound in the house was the soft pat from the leaky faucet over the kitchen sink. It dripped in syncopation to my pounding heart. Shaking myself a little, I kicked off my shoes and went to examine the dress. The fabric was cool and sleek in my fingers, finer and softer than anything I had ever worn before—including the hand-me-down prom dress that I had forced myself into my junior year of high school. Though I couldn’t blame Grandma for trying, that dress had been as uncomfortable as the prom itself—a lopsided event that left me with no desire to attend my senior year.
Up close, the black dress was even more breathtaking than it had been from a distance. It wasn’t a formal dress by any means, just exquisitely tailored, well made, and classy. I could also see that there was a necklace slung around the hanger, a pretty platinum chain with a single black pearl dangling from the very end. And on the floor was a pair of shoes: strappy black sandals with small, slim heels. Tucked between the shoes was a card.
I picked it up hesitantly, wondering who would do this, fearing the answer, and somehow also afraid that I was mistaken—that all this extravagance was not meant for me. But the envelope read Julia. I tore it open with unsteady hands. There were only four short lines:
I know this does not make up for everything
I missed.
But I do hope you like it.
Please wear it tonight.
—Janice
Something indefinable and nebulous gnawed at me. I had never been the recipient of such an expensive gift. The dress alone was luxurious in a way that convinced me it had not come from JCPenney. And it made me giddy, almost dizzy, to catch the necklace in my palm and realize that the pearl, with its rainbow iridescence and slightly misshapen sphere, was unquestionably real. Janice must have been saving an enormous chunk of every paycheck for such opulence.
But though I was strangely enchanted, deep in my chest something thudded angrily at what could only be considered a bribe. Janice was trying to buy me, win my affection as if I were a naive child to be wooed. A mindless imp easily swayed by something lovely. The only thing missing from her kitchen display was a box of chocolates, maybe a single red rose. I tried to talk myself into going upstairs and lying down as if I hadn’t seen her backhanded offering. But maybe I was being melodramatic. Maybe her intentions were pure. The card was open in my hands, and I didn’t know how to explain that I could not, would not, take her gift. I wanted to accept it almost as much as I wanted to reject it.
Leaning against the counter beside the dress, I unclasped the necklace from the hanger. Just for a moment, I told myself. Just to see what it feels like. I hooked the chain around my neck with clammy fingers. The pearl rested precisely below the hollow of my collarbone, and I could feel the slight weight of it roll against the warmth of my skin.
Wiggling my toes, I studied the shoes. My feet were still slender, not at all swollen, and I stepped into the heels without pausing to think. I promised myself I was only sampling the goods, proving that they wouldn’t work anyway, but the sandals were a perfect fit. I knew the dress would be too. Grandma must have helped Janice raid my closet and research my shoes and clothes, averaging everything out until they were left with the right sizes. It was obvious that the two of them had given their secret much thought.
I sighed and took the dress from the cupboard handle, pressing the billowing fabric against the length of my body. What should I do? Leave everything untouched? Walk away and refuse not only the gift but also Janice’s none-too-subtle offer of reconciliation? Or could I accept what had been given, even if it was not freely given? Could I take this one small peace offering without somehow communicating to Janice that I had a price? that all could be forgiven and forgotten for nothing more than the cost of a pretty dress with all the trimmings?
Standing in the kitchen, I felt my mind freeze, my body solidify against the chipped countertop as I came to an impasse and did not know where to turn. I blinked in the half-light of the kitchen, sliding the dress through my fingers and trying not to think, until I saw Janice’s car coming up the long driveway.
Feeling like I had been caught in the act of doing something forbidden, I cast around looking for an escape and an explanation. I fumbled with the necklace, trying to get it off as I twisted my foot out of one of the shoes and hung the black dress back where it had been. When I heard the slam of her car door, I jumped and started toward the stairs, necklace forgotten and lone shoe abandoned. I still wore the heeled sandal on my right foot, and I hobbled, almost tripping, and then changed my mind in an instant and reached suddenly for the dress, the other shoe.
I scrambled out of the kitchen and hopped into the stairwell, pulling the door closed behind me but not hard enough to latch it. I waited on the second step, knowing that Janice would be in the house any second and unwilling to betray my position by starting up the creaky stairs. She always went straight to the bathroom when she got home from work. She ran the water, so I assumed she washed her hands and face, but mostly I figured she wanted to be alone for a few minutes. As soon as my movements were hidden beneath the muffled gush and purr of water in the pipes, I could escape to my room and decide what to do.
The front door protested loudly as Janice opened it, and I heard her footsteps on the dull tile of the mudroom floor. Then there was nothing more for a long moment, and I imagined her standing on the threshold of the kitchen, surveying the empty spot where the dress had hung like a trophy. Had she intended for it to be a baited thing? In my mind’s eye, I watched a slow smile blossom across her face and I was torn as if my soul was perforated into two incomplete halves.
Something in me rose at the thought of a gate swinging wide in the walls I had so carefully built. And another something tugged me down, chaining me to doubts and fears and disbelief that anything could be any different from what it had always been. I felt ashamed and vulnerable at the same time.
I should have kept driving, I thought in the darkness of the stairwell. I pressed my eyes shut. I should have gone off to find my thirty-first floor.
The swish and flow of water in the faraway bathroom spurred me up the stairs, and I stumbled into my room, still uneven on one lone shoe. Cinderella, I thought, tossing the dress on my bed and rubbing my head with trembling hands. Only there was no Prince Charming. Just a wicked ex-mother.
I got ready unenthusiastically, freshening my makeup by rote and pulling my hair into a loose French knot with little concern for the wisps of curls that struck out on their own. Going through the motions was soothing somehow, normal, even though I felt drawn forward, pulled into this evening against my will and utterly helpless to do anything about it. At some point I knew I would wear the dress; I resigned myself to it. I wasn’t sure what such an action would suggest to Janice, but I decided that I didn’t care. Whatever the night held, I might as well look good enduring it.
When I emerged from the staircase at exactly six o’clock, Janice was waiting for me at the kitchen table. She stood as I entered, pushing back and up expectantly, fluidly, as if she had waited a very long time for this moment and had practiced
how she would rise to the occasion.
“Julia.” Janice blinked quickly, and for a split second I thought that she had teared up, but then she smiled broadly and exclaimed, “You could have just walked out of my high school graduation photo!”
I didn’t know how to begin to respond.
Janice read my indecision, and the smile wavered and slid off her carefully made-up face. “I should have said, ‘You look so beautiful.’ I guess that sounds pretty self-serving now, doesn’t it? Though you do.” She stopped, started again. “You look very beautiful.”
Silence grew between us, a small hill of misunderstanding that would soon be an impassable mountain. Janice laughed a little self-consciously, trying to beat back the growing peak. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you that you look like me?”
“No,” I said, my voice a shard of ice chipped from the block I held close inside.
“A younger me,” Janice clarified. She smoothed the coat of her pastel pink suit and sighed. “We’re not off to a very good start, are we? Let’s try again. Can we start over?”
I just shrugged, swallowing the many things I wanted to say and maintaining my icy calm.
But Janice would not be so easily deterred. She covered her eyes with her hands and took a steadying breath. Then she quickly uncovered her face, like a child unveiling some marvelous surprise, and smiled. “Julia!” she cooed, her voice different this time around. “You look gorgeous! That dress is a perfect fit on you. How are the shoes?”
“Perfect,” I said. Unconsciously, I brought my hand to my neck and rolled the smooth, black pearl between my thumb and forefinger. When her eyes followed the path of my arm, I dropped my hand almost guiltily. But Janice’s gaze was warm, inviting.
“I mean it. You are stunning,” she whispered.
The words fought to stay in my throat, but I forced them out before I could lose my nerve to say them entirely. “Thank you.” My recognition came out slow and heavy.
“No need to thank me for stating the simple truth.”
I cleared my throat. “I meant thank you for—”
Janice waved away my costly gratitude and turned toward the door. “You don’t have to thank me for anything. Shall we go?”
The hook was set.
She was already mostly gone, and I had no choice but to follow. The night had been launched into motion, and all that it would contain was foggy and uncertain, hovering at the edge of my consciousness like a mist that chilled and clung.
We drove in relative silence, partly because we did not know what to say to each other and partly because I found a jazz station on the radio and turned it up a smidge too loud. I effectively ruined any conversations that Janice feebly tried to start, smiling blandly at her and trying to tap my fingers to the music in a show of my disinterest. I didn’t even ask her whether or not she liked jazz, and the truth was that I certainly could not count myself an avid fan. In fact, I could probably number on one hand the times I had even heard a jazz song in my life. But there was something about the off rhythm, the sudden bursts of sound and unpredictability that appealed to me on this indeterminate night.
The restaurant was called Sebastian’s, and it boasted a whitewashed exterior that was reminiscent of Greece. But the sunken brick walkways lined with a profusion of potted plants seemed French, and the stone columns and sweeping archways reminded me of a Spanish villa. The whole place had a slightly schizophrenic feel, as if the designer had never actually been to the Mediterranean and merely borrowed from every known cliché to create a far-removed, Midwestern tribute to some southern European ideal. But bewildering design aside, it was a very nice place, resplendent with crisp linen tablecloths and flickering candles on intimately apportioned tables.
It was busy but not so crowded that we had to wait to be seated. When a graceful hostess with earrings that dangled halfway down her long neck led us to a quiet corner in the back, I was both relieved at the privacy and flustered at the proximity that I would have to share with Janice. The night already seemed to be stretching, extending slowly outward as if the hours for this one small nugget of time had been lengthened. If it was true that God had held the sun still in His hands, maybe it was also true that He was lingering along the minutes of our evening, making sure that Janice and I had the time we needed to say those things that had to be said.
Janice ordered hummus as an appetizer with an almost relieved flair. It was obviously a dish she recognized and liked, and suddenly the unfamiliarity of such a night, the foreign, almost alien feel of being together, was minimally less strange. She also studied the wine list intently, squinting over four pages of exotic varieties and vintages with a furrowed brow.
“Have a glass of wine,” I told her because she seemed to need permission. Her hesitancy to order in front of me was an unbearable facade. “I don’t care if you drink.”
“Oh no.” She laughed, snapping the leather-bound menu closed and aligning it carefully beside the almost equally extensive dessert menu. “I don’t drink.”
Sure, I thought, and I’m not pregnant.
“When did you stop smoking?” I blurted out abruptly, shocking even myself. For some reason I could see her bringing a chalky white cigarette to her lips and lighting it, her eyes pressed shut in anticipation. I wondered if she longed for one now.
Janice looked taken aback, and she fumbled to begin. “Well,” she said evenly, “I suppose I haven’t touched a cigarette since the day I found out that I was pregnant with Simon.” She held her fingers in front of her, calculating, and I could see that she had recently painted her nails. For tonight? For me? “Simon will be six in October, and it’s the beginning of June now. … It’s been over six years, I guess.” She laughed self-deprecatingly and shrugged in a show of modest pride.
I nodded. Then, to my utter astonishment, I said, “I used to smoke too.”
Janice’s eyes got wide as she regarded me. She obviously didn’t know how to respond, and I couldn’t find fault with her delay. What did I hope to gain by divulging such a useless bit of information? But before the moment became awkward, Janice erupted in a giggle, hitting the table lightly as if I had just told a marvelous joke. “You are absolutely kidding me!”
Embarrassed, I shook my head.
“I can’t believe it. I would have never, never guessed.”
Her response shamed me somehow and I chastised myself, wondering what I had hoped to accomplish with such a senseless statement, such an unnecessary and unasked-for revelation. Why was I making small talk with her? Was I trying to earn her approval? Or did I hope to shock her? Did I want to prove to her that we had something, any small thing, in common? We had nothing in common.
“It was a stupid phase,” I muttered. It was only a handful of times, I thought.
“Oh yes.” Janice nodded, serious now. “Smoking is so stupid. Such a nasty habit and so bad for you. Good thing we both quit.”
“Good thing,” I echoed mindlessly, wishing that I had kept my big mouth shut.
Janice was looking at me differently now. I could tell that in her mind we were even on this one score, and it was a start. My confession had served as an olive branch, a small but stable corner of common ground where I had stepped aside to make room for her. She leaned in toward the table, visibly relaxing and ready for more of this counterfeit intimacy. “You know, Julia, this is exactly what I hoped for tonight.”
“Confessions?” I asked, trying to be obtuse. I would have loved to hear a few of her confessions. Or maybe that was exactly what I feared.
“No, of course not,” she assured me quickly, unaware that I was intentionally being pert. “I just wanted a chance for us to get to know each other a bit.” She swallowed, and I could see that she wanted to say more but didn’t know if she dared. When I had watched her expectantly long enough to make the hush uncomfortable, she added tentatively, “You are my daughter, and I barely know you. I want to know you.”
So she had the nerve to say it. She called me daughter and almost
brought herself to admit in the very same breath that she had failed me, that she was no mother. “I barely know you,” she had said, but we both knew that it was her own fault, that she had ruined anything good between us. That she had left.
I was about to remind her of this, to set it free into the tense air surrounding us so we could stop tiptoeing around the issue, pretending that everything was okay.
But our waiter appeared just then, bearing a square, turquoise plate with gold-filigreed edges overflowing with an assortment of crisp vegetables and seasoned triangles of toasted pita bread. The hummus was thick and fragrant, nestled in a curved leaf of iceberg lettuce, and after we had ordered dinner—roast leg of lamb for Janice and paella minus the shellfish for me—we ate and sampled and Janice filled the space between bites with nervous, mindless chatter.
“Yummy,” she said eventually, crunching a spear of green pepper. “Do you like it?” she asked, pointing at me with the half-curled end of the slender vegetable.
“Mm-hmm,” I mumbled, subdued, though I did indeed like it very much.
“Ben loved hummus.” Janice smiled a private little smile and dug into the dip.
I stared at her, stunned that she would have the audacity to mention the name of another man to me. I was the daughter of the man she should have been faithful to forever. We were not friends; we were not confidantes. I did not want to hear about her exploits. My displeasure must have been tangible because Janice suddenly looked up and her eyes were startled, maybe a little afraid.
“Who’s Ben?” I inquired nonchalantly, trying to sound casual and disinterested in spite of the hard edge in my voice. “Don’t forget that I hardly know you either.”