Lila Blue

by Annie Katz

  "Not tango," she said. She struck a severe pose, yanked the pillow to her chest and thrust it away suddenly, sternly, her head and neck high and rigid.

  I giggled so hard I had to put my knitting needles down for fear of poking myself. Just as she started to sit back down, the phone rang.

  My mother! It was almost eleven. I'd completely forgotten she told me to call at ten. Yesterday afternoon seemed a lifetime ago, and she was in that past life, not the one I was enjoying this morning in Oregon.

  I scrambled to answer the phone, but Lila was already talking before I could gather my wits about me.

  "Janice," she said. "How good to hear your voice. How are you, sweetheart?"

  Lila listened and said, "She's fine. She's right here. I'll have her pick up on the extension in the bedroom, and we can all talk."

  Lila's voice sounded so calm and full of authority, some of my panic drained away. I had no idea what to say to my mother. I wasn't even ready to hear her voice, but I went to my room and picked up the phone.

  "Come visit us here, Janice," Lila said, and I wanted to yell NO, but I didn't make a sound. "I want to show you the village. When is the last time you had a real vacation?"

  My mom said she was too busy at work, because the manager was having surgery and she had to take over. "Sandy," she said. "Are you on the line?"

  "Hi, Mom. I slept in late. I'm sorry I didn't call on time."

  "You're coming home. It's too hard having you gone. I worry about you night and day."

  I heard anger in her voice, but larger than the anger was fear, and I felt sorry for my mother all by herself there. She didn't have Lila. "Maybe you could come get me, Mom. The bus trip was lonely."

  "No," she said. "That would take too long. I need the hours at work."

  "Janice," Lila said. "I have an idea. The holiday weekend isn't the best time to be on the roads. As soon as you can take a few days off work, fly to Portland. We'll meet you there, see a bit of the city, and then bring you back here for a few days at least. I'll drive you both back to Portland to catch the plane home."

  "I can't afford that," Janice said, but I could feel her starting to melt.

  "I still have most of the money you gave me for the trip, Mother. I'll help."

  "You stay out of this, young lady," my mom said.

  "Just consider it, Janice," Lila said. "Sleep on it tonight. Don't think about the money. I have plenty. Let me give you a holiday. Bring a friend. Are you seeing someone special now?"

  Lila knew just how to get my mom's mind on a new topic.

  "No. I'm off men," she said. "I've never been lucky in love. You know me."

  "That's changing, Janice," Lila said, and even I believed her. "You're a very loving person, and I know you'll find your true mate. Sometimes the journey is long, but in the end it's worth every moment."

  "I don't know," she said. "My heart's been broken so many times."

  "Oh, sweetheart," Lila said. "It's been difficult. But you are learning and growing. I'm proud of you."

  I felt I was eavesdropping on a conversation between intimates, and I realized they could have talked every week since I was two, and I wouldn't have known anything about it. I could have thought my mom was talking to a girlfriend all these years. Maybe Lila and my mom were girlfriends.

  "Oh, Lila," my mom said. "I never get anything right." It was eerie how I had heard her voice in my head saying exactly the same words. Do people carry their mother's doubts and fears around in their heads? Aren't our own troubles enough? Are our own troubles even original?

  "Janice," Lila said. "Now you listen to me. You've done everything right with your daughter. She's an amazing person, and that is because she has a fine, loving mother. I'm so grateful to you for sharing her with me. What a blessing. Thank you."

  "She is a good girl," my mother said. She must have forgotten I was listening. I held my breath for what might come next.

  "She's a wonderful young woman, talented and sweet and funny. You've done a fine job raising her. I'm very proud of you both. You are the jewels of my life."

  "Well, we do our best," Janice said. "And you've helped us so much over the years. You have, and I'm grateful."

  "Thank you, sweetheart. It is my pleasure to be part of your lives. Thank you."

  They let the silence hang there, and it was a gentle silence, filled with peace and hope, and I finally felt safe enough to breathe again.

  "Okay," my mom said. "I'd better get ready for work."

  "We'll talk soon," Lila said. "Bless you, Janice."

  My mom said goodbye and hung up without another word to me.

  When I came back into the living room, Lila smiled and asked, "Ready for a change of scene? My favorite chowder house is half an hour south. We can stop and look at different beaches on the way."

  "Okay," I said. I sat in the car mulling over how strange it was to have expected a blowup with my mother and instead to have seen a whole new side of her. With Lila my mom seemed young and uncertain. She'd never shown that side to me. She was always bossing me around as though she knew what she was talking about.

  I sat in the passenger seat of Lila's car, cradled in red. I had on Lila's red corduroy jumper, Lila wore her red sweater, and the car was red. Everything outside the car was blue and gray and green. I remembered the red-carpeted spiral staircase of my dream. I wondered if I'd ever find the dream dog, and if he would be okay.

  "Did you ever have a dog?" I asked Lila.

  "Not since I've been here," she said. "I thought I might get one when I retired. I'm pretty sure Chloe and Zoe would be against the idea. Do you like dogs?"

  "I really wanted a dog when I was in the third grade," I said. "My teacher had a cocker spaniel, and she would bring him to school some days. He was so pretty. He loved to play tug of war with an old hand towel. He carried it everywhere, trying to get you to play with him."

  "What a fun little person," Lila said. "Animals bring us so much pleasure."

  "I begged my mom, but she wouldn't."

  "Don't worry," Lila said. "There's plenty of time. One of the wonderful things about being grown up is you can make your own decisions. You can have a dozen dogs if you want, as long as you give them a good life. They depend on you for everything."

  "Like kids," I said.

  "Yes. And like kids, they are worth every second, every penny. More than worth it."

  I doubted my mother would agree. Janice didn't want a gangly daughter any more than she wanted a cocker spaniel.

  We rode along in silence a ways, past little shops similar to our area of Rainbow Village. My mind wandered back to the story of when I was two years old singing "Yellow Submarine" for my parents and grandparents.

  "What happened next, Grandma?" I asked. "When I was two?"

  Lila sighed a deep sigh. She pulled off on a beach access road and into a parking area facing the sea. It wasn't raining at the moment, so we rolled down the windows and watched waves come in at an angle to some headlands to the north. Gulls came and landed all around the car, begging for food.

  "You stayed with us two weeks. Your grandfather and I were so happy. The second week we closed the shop and all went to a small fishing resort on a lake north of town. You lived in a candy striped swimsuit and a yellow life jacket. Your mother was so afraid you'd fall in the lake and drown."

  "She still worries I'll drown, even though I was on a swim team." I shook my head. "It's because she can't swim very well. She fights the water instead of letting it hold her up."

  "That's a good description of your mother, Cassandra," she patted my leg. "She'll learn to relax. You'll see."

  Lila stared out to sea, and her normal smile was gone. Her face was lined with wrinkles, and I felt sad for her.

  "When we got home from that beautiful week on the lake," she said, "Terry was waiting for us. Mark was five years old, and I remember how scared he was. We were strangers to him, of course, because she'd taken him to Texas when he was two." She shook her head.<
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  Then, as if the car could not contain the next part, she got out and started down the walkway to the sand. I followed her, and we found a drift log and sat side by side.

  "They were sitting on our doorstep when we pulled into the driveway," she said. "It was horrible."

  "I bet my mom went crazy," I said.

  "We all went crazy, sweetheart," Lila said. "Terry demanded that David leave your mother and take care of his wife and son. She'd never finalized the divorce."

  "Your mother and Terry screamed at each other. I tried to take you and Mark inside. You were both crying and clinging to your mothers, and they wouldn't let you go. Your grandfather, bless him, tried to get us all inside so everyone could settle down and talk. He hated shouting."

  "What did David do?" I was furious at my father for letting the whole horrible thing happen.

  "David was in shock," she said. "He didn't think Terry would ever want him back. He was stunned. He just stood there. I remember at one point Terry grabbed his arm to pull him away from your mother and you, and he was like a lamppost stuck in the ground. He wouldn't budge."

  So he tried to stay with us, I thought, scrambling for some way to excuse my father. "Didn't he try to calm them down?"

  "He did nothing," Lila said. "I do believe he was in shock. He was incapable of responding."

  "Janice was the one who finally did something," Lila said. "She grabbed your suitcases, which were still in our car, threw them in her car, and took you away."

  Lila picked up my hand and held it in hers. "I was afraid I'd never see you again. It broke my heart."

  "Didn't my father try to fix it?"

  "No, Cassandra. I hate to say this, but your father was weak that way. Terry wanted to get married, so he married her. Janice wanted to get married, so he married her. Terry demanded that he come back and take care of her and Mark, and your mother was gone, so he went with Terry."

  "I hate him," I said, taking my hand out of hers. "I don't care if he is your son, Lila. I hate him."

  "Of course you do, sweetheart! What he did was wrong. Everyone was hurt, everyone felt betrayed. What a terrible mess he made by trying to please everyone he loved.”

  "He never forgave himself," she said. "He went back to Terry, even got his old job at the lumberyard back, and the next year Terry became pregnant again. He tried calling your mom, but she wouldn't speak to him. Who could blame her? Your grandpa even tried to call her, he felt so bad about everything, but she wouldn't talk with him. Thank goodness we had her address and your Grandma Betty's address. Your Grandma Betty was kind to us. She loved David. Everyone loved him."

  She picked up a small gray rock and started chipping away at it with her fingernail, carving the face of it. It turned out to be sandstone, and it crumbled all at once and fell through her fingers.

  "I should have been more careful when I named him," she said. "David means Beloved. It was a blessing and a curse all in one."

  We sat staring at the ocean for a while, and then a dark cloud came from offshore and pelted the beach with white hailstones the size of peas. We ran squealing for the car, but didn't quite make it before we got stung by dozens of hailstones.

  We sat inside the car and picked melting ice out of our hair while hail bounced off the car body. It sounded like a load of gravel being dumped on us. Other people had been farther along on the beach when it hit, and we watched them race toward their cars, shirts pulled over their heads, squealing as loudly as we had. It's amazing how fast you can move when the sky falls on your head.

  We were both hungry by the time the hail stopped, so Lila drove along the slippery road to the fish place, which was a flimsy looking building called Barney's. It was out on the end of a sandy peninsula, and it seemed that one good sneaker wave could knock it down.

  The parking lot was full of cars. Some of the license plates were from Washington and California, and there was even a car from Louisiana.

  When I pointed it out to her, Lila said, "That's a ways to go for clam chowder."

  "Yea," I said. "You'd think they'd stay home and have shrimp."

  Lila laughed her wonderful laugh, and I realized I was happy again. My emotions were like the weather on the Oregon coast, rainy one second, sunny the next, hailstones falling out of the sky, rainbows.

  There was a line to get into Barney's, so we browsed in the gift area for fifteen minutes until we were seated at a table right up against the window. The place was packed with families, and in some spots they'd pushed three tables together for big groups. The noise level was extreme, especially after I'd spent so many peaceful days secluded in Lila's house. Everyone seemed happy and excited, though, so it was okay.

  After I read the menu, which was printed on the paper placemat and gave you five meal choices, I looked out across a narrow bay and saw the seals, dozens of grayish brown lumps arranged like giant rocks along the sand on the beach. Every once in a while one would rouse up, bark, and lumber off into the water for a swim.

  Dozens of seals were already in the water. Their heads looked like puppy dogs with big eyes and no ears. In the water they were so agile and free, but on land they were clumsy lumps. Water was their element.

  Our waiter seemed to be in fast gear, which I guess you'd have to be to work there. I ordered fish and chips and diet cola. I waited to see if Lila would forbid the diet drink, but she smiled and said, "Some house rules only apply in the house." She ordered clam chowder and lemonade.

  All the waiters looked like high school or college kids, and they wore blue Barney's t-shirts and white pants. The shirts were available in the gift shop. On the front of the shirts was a portrait of a cartoon bulldog wearing a sea captain's white hat and smoking a pipe. The caption said, "Barney's. Best Clam Chowder in the World."

  A Barney's shirt seemed the perfect thing to pay Shelly back for the pink catch of the day shirt I had on under Lila's red jumper. While we waited for our orders, I went back to the gift area and bought Shelly a Barney's shirt.

  It only took a few minutes, but when I wound my way back through the packed restaurant, a basket of fish and chips sat steaming on my paper placemat. Lila was stirring a large, flat bowl of creamy clam chowder.

  "I got a spoon for you, too," she said, grinning. She opened a pack of oyster crackers and scattered them on top of the thick soup. It smelled good, and since my fish was too hot to touch, I tried a small taste of the chowder.

  Now I'd never even seen clam chowder before, but this tasted so good, like thick buttery gravy with the slightest taste of salty sweet clams. I guess Barney had a right to brag.

  My fries were not quite cool enough to pick up, so I took a sip of diet cola. It tasted so nasty I had to force myself to gag it down. "Ughh," I said, pushing the glass away. "That's horrible."

  Lila smiled a satisfied little smile and offered me her lemonade. I drank some to get the nasty taste out of my mouth.

  "There's something wrong with it," I said.

  Lila nodded.

  Just then the waiter stopped by to see if everything was okay, and I said my drink tasted wrong.

  "Diet, right?" he said.

  I nodded.

  "No problem," he said, and he brought a new one right away.

  The new one tasted just as nasty. I felt my mouth had betrayed me. Diet cola had been my main staple food before I got to Oregon. What had happened?

  As if she read my mind, Lila said, "You've been off artificial sweeteners for nearly three weeks. Your taste buds woke up. When you're healthy, your body rejects poison, even if you've been addicted to it all your life. You're healthier now. Be grateful."

  I was grumpy for a minute, but as soon as I bit into a hot, salty French fry, I got over it. No wonder people drove from all over the country to eat at Barney's! The food was scrumptious. Between us, Lila and I ate all the fish, most of the chowder, and most of the fries. Even the tartar sauce was homemade and delicious.

  "When my mom comes," I said, "we can bring her here."

&
nbsp; "Indeed," Lila said. "Mark and Jamie love it, too."

  "How much does Janice know about Mark and Jamie?" I asked.

  "Your mother and I have talked over the years, and of course my holiday letters. I don't think she'd want to be here when they are visiting, though. It might bring up painful memories."

  "How did he die?" I asked.

  The waiter interrupted then to thank us and give us the bill. "You can pay on your way out," he said, and he had our table cleared before we could gather our stuff to go.

  We put our things in the car and walked along the narrow beach that wound all around the little bay so we could let our lunches settle and study the seals. There were babies lumped among the adults on the part of the beach that seemed reserved for seals. The babies looked so helpless I didn't see how they could make it in the wild dangerous world.

  "When Terry became pregnant with Jamie, she turned up the pressure on David. I think they'd had a brief time where they were trying to forgive each other and get on with their life together, but that time didn't last long. She wanted him to get a better job, work longer hours. She wanted a house of her own. She wanted a good provider. David was not ambitious though. He was easy going. He loved to fish and play on the floor with Mark. He could never be the kind of husband Terry wanted.

  "David used to drop by the barber shop and have coffee with your grandpa and me if he was making a delivery in our part of town, so we visited a lot. He did his best to be cheerful and positive around us, but there was a deep sadness in him. We didn't know how to help, so we prayed and loved him."

  "It's so painful to talk about," she said.

  It was painful to hear about too, but no matter how painful, I needed to know.

  We stood looking across at the seals a while. I couldn't figure out their pattern for getting in and out of the water. Maybe they got too hot on the shore? Did they get hungry? Sometimes an isolated adult would lumber down to the sea, swim out several yards, then dive underwater. There were so many seals in the bay that I couldn't tell when a particular one would surface after a dive.