This is Your Life, Harriet Chance!

by Jonathan Evison

  In the early going, Mildred vexes you somewhat with her impalpable nature, even as she tempts you with familiarity. You sense she wants more of you, and yet she is not solicitous of intimacy. But there’s something at work beneath the surface of her that draws you to Mildred. You exchange recipes and benign commentary. The sermon, the humidity, the fading lavender. She never mentions her husband, but that diamond must be four karats. Likewise, she never inquires about Bernard, or your children, or your home. You reason that Mildred Honeycutt is shyer than you gave her credit for, that her boldness is a tool meant to deflect, and this makes you want to know her more.

  Not until Week 3, when you serve together at the All Hallow’s Eve dinner downtown, does Mildred finally surrender.

  “Have you ever been horseback riding?” she asks.

  And like that, your friendship is off at a canter.

  Look at you, at Lost Mountain Ranch, atop your shimmering mount! At any rate, look at you, atop that spindly-legged nag with the lackluster coat and the respiratory problems. Still, you feel big in the saddle, with all that power beneath you. Bigger than you’ve felt in years. And you have Mildred Honeycutt to thank for it.

  You will have many things to thank Mildred for in the years to come. Mildred will offer you everything in the way of female fellowship you ever yearned for. She will listen and absorb, consider you without judgment. She will push you and guide you and test you. But none of it will happen overnight. No, Mildred is a safe that requires cracking.

  The week after your adventure at Lost Mountain Ranch, without explanation, Mildred leaves St. Luke’s, for good, though she remains your friend for many years to come.

  August 13, 2015

  (HARRIET AT SEVENTY-EIGHT)

  Though Harriet doesn’t dare confide as much to Mildred, she finds the subtropical artifice of Sunny Acres odious in most respects—the potted palms, the bougainvillea, the thatched-roofed utility sheds. The housekeepers in their white aprons, the attendants (invariably Hispanic or black) zipping around in golf carts, tipping their hats as they whir past. All of it feels like a resort to Harriet and, by extension, a lie.

  Sunny Acres promotes health and active living, but it nurtures dependence. Oh, there are origami classes and whirlpools, to be sure. But these aren’t the sort of activities that keep a person vital. Raking leaves keeps you vital. Paying bills, running errands. For all its pretension, Harriet knows that Sunny Acres is priced competitively. Otherwise, Mildred’s son, Dwight, would’ve sequestered her somewhere more affordable.

  Mildred greets Harriet at the curb in front of her unit, which smells of pill jars and candle wax. She stands, all five feet of her, in a long and unseasonably warm pistachio-colored double-knit jacket of some vintage; one hand rests on her aluminum walker.

  “You just missed Dwight,” she observes.

  “Mmm,” says Harriet, crossing her arms in front of her.

  “He said to say hello.”

  Harriet gazes off in the direction of the pool house. Mildred dusts the lapel of her coat, then fidgets irritably with her hair.

  “Oh, you’re just a paranoid old bag of bones, you know that? And quit equating this place with Sherwood Arms. This is not Sherwood Arms. And what happened with Bernard was no fault of yours. You know darn well, it’s not as if I’m under lock and key, here. You think Dwight dragged me here kicking and screaming, but the truth is I was tired, darling. That big house was too much for me. All those stairs. All that lawn. I’ve explained all of this before, dear. You just don’t want to hear it.”

  “Hmph,” says Harriet.

  “Well, it’s true,” Mildred insists. “At some point, you just get tired of hanging on. All those memories. All that junk.”

  If nothing else, it’s heartening to hear Mildred defend herself. Lately, her spunky self-assurance, her fizzy good humor, her bubbly optimism, her signature Monday morning effervescence—they’re all flattening like warm soda.

  “I apologize for the wait,” says Mildred, checking her watch. “Fikru should be here any minute. Perhaps he’s having trouble with his cart.”

  “I’m in no hurry,” says Harriet. “Why don’t we walk?”

  As if on cue, Fikru whizzes up on his golf cart with a clownish little honk of the horn and comes to a stop directly in front of them.

  “’Allo, ladies,” he says with a toothsome smile and a tip of his hat.

  Fikru hails from Ethiopia. Or maybe Kenya. Harriet’s ashamed of her geographical ignorance every time she sees the young man.

  “You are looking exquisite today, Ms. Harriet. Your beauty has an expansive quality to it, like the savanna after the rainy season.”

  Harriet blanches. She sees these flirtations for exactly what they are, of course: hospitalities. And yet she cherishes the attention. If she felt overlooked at fifty, she feels downright invisible at seventy-eight.

  “And you, Ms. Mildred,” Fikru croons, stepping down from his cart, where he makes a wafting gesture with his hand, breathing deeply. “Fragrant as the Abyssinian rose.”

  As Fikru assists Mildred into the backseat of the cart, stowing her walker in the front passenger’s seat, Harriet awaits her turn with mounting anticipation. When the young man returns to offer his assistance, Harriet is standing as upright as possible, elbow at the ready.

  “You have a spritelike step, Ms. Harriet,” he notes, leading her up the cart.

  Yes, Fikru is laying it on thick this afternoon. Perhaps he senses that Harriet’s opinion of Sunny Acres is softening. Maybe he gets a commission. Still, Harriet settles into her seat with the tiniest of flutters in her chest as Fikru resumes his station behind the wheel and taps the horn again.

  “Hold on tight, ladies, while I deliver you.”

  Harriet is still under the influence of Fikru’s considerable charm as they wend their way through Sunny Acres, maneuvering between colonnades of potted palms and meticulous lawns, cut through with gently winding concrete paths, everywhere the trilling of chipmunks. With her best friend seated beside her, Harriet tries to convince herself she could get used to the lifestyle. Perhaps she’d been judging the place harshly. Perhaps after all the gas-inducing anxiety of this surprise cruise, she’ll take a shine to the palliative environs of Sunny Acres: the hypnotic whir of the golf carts, the rhythmic spitting of sprinkler heads. The hint of the tropics clinging to the gentle breeze. Surely, a body could do worse than Sunny Acres. But no sooner does Harriet embrace this inclination than she turns to see Bernard seated beside her.

  “Sounds like a place they send horses to die. And what is it with these damn golf carts buzzing around everywhere like mosquitoes? The place can’t be but three acres.”

  Harriet shushes him. “Go on now, get. Not here. You can’t just pop up anytime you feel like expressing an opinion, Bernard. People are going to think I’m crazy.”

  “Well?”

  “And don’t sulk.”

  “Who’s sulking?”

  “Go,” she says.

  Fikru turns in the driver seat, wearing a big pearly grin. “Everything is okay, Miss Harriet?” “Yes, just fine, dear.”

  By the time they reach the clubhouse, where they whir to a halt between two guard rails, their chariot has begun to feel like a pumpkin again. Even Fikru’s charm has lost some of its luster as he assists them off the cart. Beneath his magnanimous air, he now strikes Harriet as a tad too efficient, a tad too curt and professional in his movements, a tad too quick to hop back into the cart and give a honk, as if, indeed, he has delivered them, as a postman might deliver a package.

  “Isn’t this convenient?” says Mildred.

  As they begin the thirty-foot trek to the front door of the clubhouse, Harriet can’t help but notice that Mildred is depending on her walker more than ever. The past couple years have not been kind to Mildred’s health. She’s shrinking before Harriet’s eyes.

  Nothing about the clubhouse—not the low ceiling, nor the hospital-like sterility, nor the smell of Glade air freshener—i
nspires Harriet’s appetite. With the dining room to themselves, they agree on a table by the window, overlooking the guest parking lot, which Harriet notices is also conspicuously empty, save for her own Oldsmobile.

  “Try something new today, darling,” Mildred urges. “The Szechuan chicken is delightful. Not too spicy.”

  Is it going to be like this all cruise long, Harriet wonders, Mildred presiding over Harriet’s every dietary choice? Yes, Harriet has always liked that Mildred nudged, cajoled, and even forced her to venture beyond her safe boundaries. Without Mildred’s encouragement, Harriet might never have known the joys of slot machines, Qigong massage, or crosscountry skiing. She appreciates it, truly she does. It’s just that, well, sometimes Mildred can be a little pushy, though Harriet feels guilty even thinking as much.

  But for Pete’s sake, there’s something to be said for a little consistency. That’s what drew her toward Bernard in the first place—consistency, predictability, a propensity toward repetition. Harriet likes her routines, she enjoys her frozen beef portobello, her chicken Caesars. Her system is accustomed to them—their uniform size and agreeable texture, their stable calorie count. With few exceptions—most recently, the cruise—Harriet sees little reason to diverge from her routines, most particularly with regard to diet.

  The waitress soon arrives for their orders. Mildred orders the crab melt with a side salad—one of the specials. Harriet doesn’t stray from her customary Caesar.

  Mildred remains all but silent through lunch, to the point where Harriet wonders if perhaps she isn’t having one of her spells. Finally, she inquires as much.

  “Oh no, I’m fine, darling,” Mildred assures her.

  “Good, then. Let’s get started.”

  The moment the waitress clears their plates and wipes the table clean, Harriet dons her reading glasses and spreads out her cruise materials on the tabletop. Highlighter poised, she begins their weekly exercise.

  “Okay. Thursday at ten thirty a.m. Let’s see, we have the Greenhouse Spa & Salon raffle in the Lido spa or the Good-feet Clinic—I’m leaning toward the foot clinic.”

  After a moment of silence, Harriet glances up from her planner at Mildred, who has yet to ready her materials.

  “So sorry, dear,” says Harriet. “Have I jumped the gun again?”

  Mildred casts her eyes down, then piles her hands in her lap.

  “Are you sure you’re okay, dear? You look a little peaked.”

  “Oh, darling, I just can’t do it anymore,” Mildred proclaims.

  “I’m overplanning, aren’t I?” says Harriet, setting her checklist and pen on the tabletop. “Oh, I’m sorry, dear, I know it’s aggravating, it’s Bernard. He was always so damn insistent upon—”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  “It’s the Celebrity Cook-Off in the Culinary Arts Center, isn’t it?”

  Mildred reaches a trembling hand out and clutches Harriet’s. “Darling, I can’t go on pretending.”

  “Pretending?”

  “I’ve known for weeks. I just couldn’t stand the idea of disappointing you. I just thought if I . . .”

  “Mildred, what are you talking about?”

  “The cruise, darling.”

  “You’re absolutely right. Let’s not overdo it.”

  “I can’t do it, darling, I can’t go.”

  It takes a moment for the realization to settle in.

  “Well, dear, are you all right?” Harriet hears herself saying. “Is this a health issue?”

  Mildred casts her gaze out on the empty lot. “Oh, darling, please don’t let’s talk about my reasons. Just think, you can go to the Goodfeet Clinic. You can skip the mixology class. And I won’t make you try sushi. You can do anything you please without me browbeating you. And surely you’ll meet all kinds of nice people.”

  Classic Mildred. Another inexplicable decision. Like leaving the church three weeks after they met. Like canceling the couples’ retreat two years in a row. Like cutting her hair off, buying a horse, renouncing wheat and cosmetics. Here was the Achilles’ heel of their friendship, and Harriet’s lone misgiving with Mildred, this maddening capacity to surprise those around her, and without explanation.

  “Well, I don’t know what to say, Mildred.”

  “Oh, Harriet, don’t say anything. I didn’t want it to be this way, please understand.”

  “Is Dwight behind this?”

  “Darling, no. It’s complex.”

  That’s it? It’s complex? That’s all she’s got in the way of an explanation? With trembling hands, Harriet begins gathering her cruise materials, then stands and walks out of the clubhouse, leaving Mildred behind.

  “Forgive me, please,” Mildred calls out.

  The moment Harriet hits the open air, clutching the guard rail, it shames her to find that she feels nothing so much as relief. She’s off the hook. No cruise! No mixers, no seminars, no raw fish!

  “So, that’s it, you’re not going?” It’s Bernard again.

  “You don’t honestly expect me to go alone?”

  “Take one of the kids,” says Bernard.

  “You know that’s not going to happen.”

  “Couldn’t hurt to ask.”

  “Well, it wouldn’t do any good, either.”

  “What about Barbara Chatsworth, then?”

  “She’s in poor health—hospitalized last month, the poor dear. Besides, I think I grate on her nerves.”

  “Well, how about somebody else from the church? That little Higashi lady that makes the cobblers?”

  Harriet sighs. “It really means that much to you?”

  “I didn’t say that. I just think you oughta get out and live a little, Harriet. Be adventurous.”

  “Why should I start now?”

  “You deserve it. Now that you haven’t got me to lug around, you owe yourself a little vacation.”

  “Oh, Bernard, I just don’t understand. You know I’m terrible on boats. I can hardly bear the ferry to Edmonds. Why did you bid on an Alaskan cruise, for heaven’s sake? Why not a basket of artisan breads?”

  He shrugs.

  “Well, if you wanted to surprise me, you succeeded in that.”

  She reaches out for his hand and gives it a little squeeze.

  When she arrives at the straightaway path leading to the visitors’ lot, she hears the clownish little honk and the whir of the motor and turns just in time to find Fikru coasting to a stop beside her, beaming like a jack-o’-lantern.

  “’Allo, Ms. Harriet!” he says, pocketing his cell phone. “Have you lost your way?”

  “Gracious, no.”

  “May I deliver you?”

  “No, thank you, dear,” Harriet says. “I’ll handle my own deliverance, thank you very much.”

  December 22, 1959

  (HARRIET AT TWENTY-THREE)

  While there’s only so much you can do to fudge the math, nobody makes an issue of bouncing baby Skipper’s arrival, seven and a half months after your wedding day. And just in time for Christmas! You’ve got what you wanted, Harriet: stockings festooning your hearth. And you got a lot more in the bargain, too: a colicky infant who doesn’t sleep and never stops filling diapers, a ruined figure, a husband who’s never home. You’ve got endless nights in steamy bathrooms and endless days of domestic toil. Somehow, though it seems impossible, you didn’t see this coming. Suddenly your life is filled with talcum and baby oil and laundry soap. Pee and poop and spit-up. Tide, Wisk, Cheer, you’ve tried them all—yes, even All! You’ve tried reading magazines while Skip is napping, even television. But nothing seems to whisk away the tide of despair. Nothing seems to cheer you. All of it is futile.

  Filing deposition notices suddenly doesn’t look so bad next to the tedium of homemaking. Drafting court appeals was never this thankless. And this is nothing compared to what you’ll endure with Caroline. When you get a moment’s leisure, you’re cagey. Just look at you, Harriet, pacing the house, displacing pillows, rearranging furniture. Looking for
purpose. When all else fails, you go shopping.

  Yearning to be noticed, you experiment with hairstyles, cinch your waist with fitted jumpers, and when that doesn’t work, you starve yourself. Look at you, with your plate of turnips. And, by God, it works! Your figure returns! But nobody seems to notice, not the butcher, not even Bernard.

  But like everything else, it’s only going to get worse, Harriet. Within three months, Bernard will be around even less, landing a job as plant manager at Blum Bearing, where he often works two shifts. When he comes home exhausted, he takes a mild interest in the child for about ten minutes, eats the warmed-over dinner you’ve set before him, and then hides behind his newspaper for the rest of the evening.

  In bed, he turns his back to you, and you wonder what you’ve done.

  You understand the pressure he’s under, the weight of responsibility he must feel. And yet you’re powerless to share this responsibility. The best you can do is pick a good melon and keep the linoleum clean, launder his work clothes, and stock the refrigerator. Depleting as they are, these accomplishments feel empty.

  Oh, but let’s not forget the joys of domesticity, Harriet! Here you are, decked out in curlers and a terry-cloth bathrobe with baby Skipper in the ER shortly after he swallowed the paper clip. You berate yourself for being a useless mother, who can’t even keep her child out of the hospital. All you can do is scour his poopy diapers for the next three days, looking for the offending object.

  And here you are again, in the same bathrobe and curlers, consulting with firefighters who have responded to your frantic call regarding the smoking Maytag. Five armored giants rush into your laundry room with axes only to return minutes later, slightly deflated. Turns out, the machine is simply overworked.

  This is your life, Harriet, what it’s become.

  But do not lose heart. Things will get better after the first year: Skip will hit his sleeping stride, start taking the bottle, the colic will subside, you’ll find a reliable babysitter in Cindy Blum. Bernard will take a full week off next Christmas. But by then, Fourth and Union, and the joys of your former life, will already seem a long ways away. That other Harriet, the self-realized one, has gone on without you.