She had resented very little in marriage, and found herself missing much. Things that had irritated her about her husband—how he never put a single thing back that he had used, for instance, as if he thought a surgical scrub nurse was standing by to receive and dispose of anything he was finished with—now seemed insignificant next to the loss of his jokes, his conversation, and his faintly soapy smell.
These things occupied Eleanor’s mind after June’s earnest inquiry, and yet there was nothing to say in reply to the girl. The question, after all, was absurd. Grief was an intangible companion that moved in quietly after a death and came and went according to its own schedule. One day it seemed to leave for good, without letting you know its plans. Then came moments when you couldn’t clearly picture the face of your own husband, and you actually had to look at photographs to remind yourself of that other life you led. As she stared at the busy activity at her feeder in the mornings, Eleanor often felt a bewilderment. How had she gotten here? One day she was dipping Easter eggs with Isabel in a great sun-filled kitchen, her mother and nurse looking on. The next she was driving her three school-aged children to the pond, the car filled with black rubber inner tubes baking in the backseat. Now Eleanor had a silent white room to live in, as plain and empty as a box, and she drifted asleep in it, loose on some great tide she neither welcomed nor feared.
JUNE WAS WORKING ON TURNING HER AURA pink again, on the advice of Miriam Lightcap, psychic adviser. She thought her aura must have turned to its present dark purple—the color of a bruise, Miriam said—at the moment of her father’s phone call. The jagged red and yellow borders probably emerged during their lunch together.
He had been enthused about his newest real estate venture and laughing over Melanie’s extravagances at a spa in Florida. June stared at his necktie, trying to remember if it was one she had sent him. Ties were the only present she had given him since he had left them. At lunch he was wearing an expensive-looking jacquard weave of blue and green; she didn’t recognize it.
“So, why do you waste time on these dance classes, Junie?” He had never stopped calling her by her childhood name. “I mean, I’m sure they’re fun and all, but I don’t see why you have to pay good tuition money to take them. Why not use your electives for some business or computer classes, and take the dance classes at the Y?”
“I could teach those classes at the Y, Dad. You know I’ve been taking dance for fifteen years now.”
“Well, why don’t you? Earn some extra money, get your exercise in, and use tuition credits for something useful.”
“I don’t dance for exercise.”
“Well, what, then? Oh, never mind, Junie. I can see you getting mad at me. Take whatever you want at school. I’m just trying to be a father here, you know, help you think practically about things. But if you want the dance classes, for God’s sake, take them. Just do me a favor and see that the degree is worth something by the time you finish, okay? Take some meat-and-potatoes courses, not just dessert. I’m happy to put you through school, but afterward you’ve got to be able to cut it yourself, you know, kiddo. Everybody does. Part of growing up.”
June toyed with her salad.
“Christ, you’re just like Melanie. Won’t order anything but salad and mineral water, and then you barely eat three bites.”
June forced herself to ask. “How is Melanie?”
Her father beamed at her. “Just great. You’d never know that woman was thirty-five. She could pass for your sister if you two were shopping together.” He sawed at his steak. “Actually, June, we’ve got some news. Melanie wanted to be here to help tell it, but this was the only week she could get in at the spa. And when I tell you what’s up, you’ll understand why the spa is so important to her right now.”
June waited.
“We’re gonna have a kid, June. What do you think about that? I sure as hell never imagined myself starting over at this age, and Melanie always said she never cared about children—I mean having them,” he corrected himself. “But here we are, going for it. I think that biological-clock thing started to get to her.” Her father popped a French fry into his mouth. “You just going to sit there and stare at me?”
June wasn’t just sitting there. She was extremely busy telling herself, Don’t change your face, don’t cry, this doesn’t affect you in the least. This does not concern you.
“That’s great, Dad.”
“Yeah, it is, kind of.” Her father cleared his throat. “June-bug,
I know I wasn’t there for you much in the last eight years. I’m sorry about that, but I can’t get those years back. This is a second chance for me to be a dad, so it means a lot that you feel happy for us. I appreciate that. More than you know.” He reached over and squeezed her motionless hand. “And,” he continued dramatically, “it’s going to be a boy. I never thought about it one way or the other when the doctor handed us you,” he said, winking at her. “I thought you were a pretty special package. But now that it’s all going to happen again and we hear that it’s a boy, I’m thinking, great! We’ll do the father-son thing: Cubs tickets, dude ranches, whatever the hell else. I’ll have to read up.”
“Dad, you hate baseball and you hate dust.”
“I do hate that shit, Junie. You know me pretty well. Do you think he’ll be born with a fondness for single-malt whiskey and eighteen holes of golf?”
June shrugged. “If he knows what’s good for him.”
Her father didn’t react to her tone. He signed the restaurant charge slip, snapping off his copy of the receipt. Then he got out his checkbook. “Here’s a little something for Christmas, Junie. Get yourself something nice.” He wrote the check in his illegible hand, and waved it to dry the ink. June accepted it without looking at the amount.
“Thanks, Dad.”
“Don’t mention it. I had a good year, so it’s a little bigger than usual. But don’t expect that much all the time,” he said, lifting his index finger in a mock scold.
“When’s the baby due?”
“Wha?”
“My brother. When’s he due?”
“Jeez. He will sort of be your brother, won’t he? The due date’s June twelfth. That’s a nice coincidence, isn’t it? You want to be dropped, Junie?”
“No, I’ll walk.”
“Just like Melanie—an exercise nut.”
“Mom’s doing fine, by the way,” June said.
“That’s great, just great. Listen, I gotta get to that meeting. You’re sure you don’t want a ride somewhere?”
June waved him away. “Merry Christmas,” she called to his back.
“Oh, hell yes,” he said over his shoulder. “Merry Christmas.”
JUNE WAS TEMPTED TO RIP THE CHECK IN HALF, but it was for five hundred dollars. She decided that part of it would go for another consultation with Miriam Lightcap. She took pleasure in picturing her father’s reaction if he learned that his money was going to a psychic healer who was helping her to balance her energies. Her first visit to Miriam had been by chance; she had happened to see the sign in a Kenmore Square window and gone in on a lark. But now she was hooked on the calming mint tea she sipped in Miriam’s waiting room, the New Age music of chimes and bird calls that floated in the background, and the gentle authority with which Miriam’s fingertips rested on her temples to assess her spiritual health. Miriam said she had a lot of work to do with her energy channels.
Some of the rest of her father’s money would go for Christmas shopping, although she really had hardly anyone to buy for. There was her mother’s gift, of course, and her father’s annual tie. June had no boyfriend. She had no real best friend, either; the people she knew from dance class were nice, but everyone she met seemed to already have all the friends they needed. June was shy about issuing invitations; she didn’t want to appear friendless, though that’s exactly what she was. Halfway into her second year, she still felt lost at the university, with its sprawl of buildings that melted into the pavement of the city.
&nbs
p; June debated, then decided she would buy a Christmas gift for Mrs. MacGregor. Even though she knew Mrs. M. had family and friends in town, she didn’t seem to see much of them. Whether she wanted to see June or not, she did twice a week, and June figured that was probably the most contact she had with anyone.
It was a hard present to choose. Clothing was too personal, and anyway, Mrs. M. didn’t seem very interested in venturing beyond her uniform of stretch pants and sweaters. June knew she used to like clothes. She had dusted a silver-framed black-and-white photograph of a handsome young couple who looked as if they were straight out of the movies. The man was wearing wool trousers and a tweed jacket and his hair was lustrous and dark. His arm was flung loosely around the shoulders of a young woman in a closely fitted suit whose fair hair was twisted up and who was leaning her head back to smile. It was the unmistakable shape of the darkly lipsticked mouth that made June realize with a start that this was Mrs. MacGregor and her husband.
When she asked about the photo, Mrs. M. was briefly enthusiastic.
“We were on our first motoring trip,” she said. “That suit was part of my trousseau—kind of a mossy green wool bouclé. I bought it in New York on my father’s charge card at Saks. Very expensive at the time, but I knew I would be out of the house and married by the time he got the bill.” Mrs. M. laughed, the first time June had heard her. It was a dry chuckle that stopped almost as soon as it had begun. “I still have that suit,” she said. “When the styles changed I couldn’t bear to throw it away. It’s in one of those boxes, Lord knows where.”
June knew. She had been fascinated with Mrs. M.’s labeling system when she discovered the boxes stacked up in the spare room, and each time she cleaned in there she furtively turned a few more cartons so that she could read the contents listed on the side. She was positive the suit was in CLOTHING: KEEPSAKES. She would have given anything to see what was in that carton and some of the others, but she had learned that the boxes were a line you didn’t cross with Mrs. M. She was touchy about them. It was funny enough to write such detailed lists on the labels when you were moving only across town, but it was stranger still to get to your new place and decide not to unpack them at all. Having no knickknacks sitting around the apartment made the job of dusting a lot easier, but cleaning such a bare place always made June a little sad.
And it made it hard to know what Mrs. M. could possibly want for Christmas. She didn’t need stuff for her apartment, clearly. She was vain in a funny kind of way, with her perfect makeup and chignon and L’Air du Temps perfume, but to buy her more of her favorite cologne would only be redundant, and if given some other kind, she would probably never wear it. The birdseed was a good gift, but she had given it too early for it to be a Christmas present.
THE SNOW BEGAN ON THE NINTH, a day when June was at Mrs. MacGregor’s, and by the time she trudged back from the market, it was coming down in thick, feathery flakes that caused an early dusk. She took off her boots in the hallway before she let herself in.
“Mrs. MacGregor, I hope you don’t mind, but I got more food than you had on the list. When I got to the store it was already starting to snow hard, and inside I heard people talking about the storm. It doesn’t hurt to have a little extra on hand, does it? I didn’t buy anything perishable, just soup and eggs and some bread that you can always freeze. I also noticed that you’re low on tea bags, so I picked some up.”
“June, I don’t know what I’d do without your memory. I meant to put tea bags on the list,” Mrs. MacGregor said. They unpacked the groceries together. June didn’t have to ask anymore where things went.
Before leaving, June presented Mrs. M. with a string of tiny Christmas lights tied together with a red ribbon, and said she would be happy to put them up anywhere Mrs. M. wanted her to. June had bought them on impulse at Woolworth when she picked up some decorations for herself. She knew it was a risky gesture. Mrs. MacGregor liked to keep her surroundings so plain.
Mrs. M. seemed slightly taken aback, then simply nodded and said that June could put them around the glass door to the deck. June stood on a stepladder and used some tacks she found in the utility drawer.
“This is where I pictured them, too,” June said. “That way, when you watch the birds you can see the lights at the same time.” Glancing out at the feeders, she said, “Look how much they’ve eaten already! I’ll have to tell my mother what a big hit her mix is with Brookline birds. She’ll be pleased. I’ll bring you some more seed at the beginning of the year.”
“I’d like to buy it from your mother,” Mrs. MacGregor said.
“Oh, she wouldn’t hear of it. She makes a garageful of the stuff, believe me. I’ll tell her you offered, but she’ll say no way. I’ll bring you a big sack next time.”
When June finished, she insisted that they turn off all the lights before plugging in the strand. When they came on, twinkling in the dark, the apartment was transformed.
“They’re lovely,” Mrs. MacGregor said.
“Oh, good. I was afraid you might not like them. Some people don’t. If you get tired of them blinking, you can just take this clear bulb off the end and they’ll stay on.” June headed for the bathroom, where she had hung her snowy coat and cap.
“I’ll see you next Tuesday,” she said. “If you need anything over the weekend, be sure and call.” Every time she left on Fridays now, June worried that Mrs. M. wouldn’t be able to cope without her. It was silly, really—after all, Mrs. MacGregor had a daughter of her own nearby. But June had noticed how Mrs. M. was beginning to let June decide what needed to be done around the apartment, and even to ask her personal favors, like once rubbing some arthritis cream into her neck and shoulders.
As June was waiting to take the elevator down, a dark-haired woman with a baby emerged from the door next to Mrs. M.’s. The baby was crying and the woman was jiggling it and trying to shush it. A folded stroller was hanging by its handle in the crook of one arm, and a large tote bag was slipping off her shoulder.
“Would it help if I held something for you?” June asked.
“Do you think you could just put this strap back on my shoulder?” the woman asked.
June lifted the tote bag back in place. “You must be Mrs. MacGregor’s new neighbor. She mentioned a woman with a baby had moved in.”
The woman smiled a greeting. “I’m Renata, and this is Charlie. Are you Eleanor’s granddaughter?”
“Oh, no. I just work for Mrs. MacGregor a few hours a week—cleaning and shopping. I’m June.”
The elevator bell rang and the baby stopped crying to stare at the light that went on above the door. Renata laughed. “Works every time. Sometimes we just go on elevator trips for the sheer thrill of it.”
They got on and June reached for the stroller hanging from Renata’s arm. “Let me take that for you until we get down.”
“Thanks.” Renata blew a stray bang out of her eyes and shifted the tote bag higher on her shoulder. Then she hoisted Charlie up so he could press the buttons. “I know I shouldn’t do that,” she said. “Now the elevator is going to stop on every floor going back up. But he loves to see the lights come on so much I just can’t help it. Don’t tell on us.”
June was charmed. The woman was so slim and pretty. The baby was sweet, too. After he had made all the floor buttons light up, he looked at June with a proud smile, sucking on his fist.
“I see what you did,” June told him. “That was very clever of you.”
When they reached the lobby, June offered to carry the stroller out and open it.
“Thanks, June, but we’re going down to the garage. It was nice to meet you.”
June waved to Charlie as the elevator closed. He was in the process of reaching one wet hand toward her when Renata snatched it back out of the range of the doors. Mrs. M. had told her how cute the baby next door was, but June hadn’t paid much attention. Babies were never her thing. But Renata and Charlie completed each other so perfectly that June couldn’t help having the fleeting tho
ught that it would be a nice thing to have a little warm baby keeping you company all the time.
As she passed by the front desk, the boy who worked there afternoons looked up and greeted her.
“You ready for a storm, June?”
“Sure, I guess. I don’t mind snow.”
Owen leaned forward, his bony wrists protruding from his white shirtsleeves. “Are you a skier?”
“Not really. I’ve tried it.”
“I cross-country whenever I can. There’s a good place out in Weston. Would you like to go with me sometime? You can rent skis there.”
June’s smile froze in place. She had had a feeling by the way Owen always made a point of talking to her when she passed by that it was only a matter of time before he asked her out. She had even toyed with the idea of accepting. A date was a date, even if he was too thin and had a faint line of acne creeping along his jaw. But now that the moment had come, she realized that she would rather be alone than make several hours of painful small talk with this glasses-wearing physics major from Northeastern who grinned all the time.
“You know, I really shouldn’t risk pulling a muscle. I might be going to New York soon to audition for a dance company.” As soon as she said it, June was appalled by her lie. She directed herself to laugh and say something like, “I wish,” so the whole thing would be a joke. But instead she just said, “Take care, Owen,” over her shoulder, and propelled herself—dateless, a liar—into the cold of a Friday night.
ELEANOR KEPT THE CHRISTMAS LIGHTS ON during the snowstorm and stayed up late watching her window on Friday. When she finally went to bed, the snow had thinned to lint-sized particles, and the drifts were up to the railing on her deck. The next morning, sun glittered blindingly on the snow’s surface. Eleanor took a walk up and down the length of the building’s hallways, then went down to the lobby to check her mail. More Christmas cards, though she hadn’t sent any herself this year, and an invitation to an open house, an annual event given by a former colleague of hers on the bench. Eleanor had never skipped a year of the Bryces’ Christmas parties, but she felt no interest in going this December. She put the card on her kitchen table to respond to later.
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