by Sally Mandel
“Champagne,” Mrs. Adams explained. “Left over from Charlie’s birthday party last night.”
“For breakfast?” Alice asked.
“I wasn’t going to let it go to waste,” Mrs. Adams protested. “Besides, champagne makes a lovely complement to cornflakes. Tell me, what’s it like outside?”
“The daffodils are all out along the sidewalk.”
“It’s about time,” Mrs. Adams said. “Imagine, waiting until the end of April for a daffodil.”
The apartment complex had been built during the 1940s to accommodate returning soldiers and their families. In those days, the place was teeming with children. Eventually, the original families moved into nearby houses. Then, as their children grew up and moved away, many of the parents returned to take up residence in the same apartments they had occupied in their youth. Sunny Hills, as it was called now, had gained a reputation as a comfortable place for the elderly with a decent hospital in nearby Syracuse with reliable access to caretakers. Alice, who’d previously worked as a hostess in a local restaurant, discovered an affinity for old folks. They appreciated her quiet efficiency and her genuine interest in their pasts. From Alice’s point of view, these people provided a window back into history. So long as they weren’t mean and didn’t require professional nursing care beyond her capacities, she enjoyed her work. Mrs. Adams, though, was by far her favorite. The old woman had been educated abroad and spoke three or four languages. She always told Alice, “Spend the money on good goods and you’ll never be sorry.” She had a ladylike way about her, a delicacy in her manner that threw into relief a certain ribald tendency that never failed to floor Alice. This morning, for example.
“Charlie’s asked me out on a jaunt,” Mrs. Adams said, leaning to pat the seat beside her for Alice to sit.
Handing Mrs. Adams the morning’s New York Times, Alice settled in and opened her container of coffee. “What sort of a jaunt?”
“To use his car for intercourse.”
Alice gaped. Mrs. Adams was smiling at her in that sweet way she had.
“I know, but it was my hearing aid. The battery quit on me and I guess I missed a syllable or two,” the old woman went on. “What he wanted was to cruise in his golf cart out on the course.”
Alice laughed.
“Anyway, I’m a little long in the tooth for that kind of behavior. But a little spin in the sunshine? So long as Charlie doesn’t put us in the ditch, that sounds just fine to me.”
“Well, be careful,” Alice said. “We may never see you alive again.”
Charlie Hartwick was famous for polishing off his wives. He’d had three so far, and they’d all died within ten years of marrying him.
“Oh, I’ll be safe so long as I stay single.” Mrs. Adams glanced at the front page of the newspaper. War, lies and mayhem, it was always the same. So discouraging. Though it didn’t help that she felt a bit out of sorts this morning. A touch of spring fever, perhaps, or was it the champagne? Everything seemed just a little out of reach. “I’ll tell you what, Alice. Let’s look at an album. I’m not sure I have the heart for the news or brains for a puzzle.”
Alice set her coffee aside and went to the bookshelf. Looking through Mrs. Adams’ photograph albums was always a treat. “Which one?” she asked.
“Why don’t you bring over the red one? It’s got everybody in it, all mixed up together. Shall we go sit on the couch?”
“Sure,” Alice said, setting the album on the coffee table in front of the sofa. When she turned around, Mrs. Adams was staring hard at a spot on the wall to her right, a peculiar look on her face.
The voices were accompanied by the shattering of glass this time, as if a waiter had overturned a tray. Then there was laughter. The crack of light widened for just an instant before fading away.
“Are you all right?” Alice was asking.
“Oh, I’m fine,” Mrs. Adams said, with Alice’s help easing herself out of the chair and shuffling over to the sofa. “Aim that lamp right here onto the pictures, will you?” Her eyes were still pretty good, especially after she’d had the cataracts removed, but she always liked light, the more the better, sunlight especially. It was a wonder she’d never developed a melanoma considering the amount of time she spent out in the sun over the course of her life.
She flipped open the album. “Hah! Well, there we are,” she said. A girl in her mid-twenties stood leaning against a man beside the steps to an airplane. They were all dressed up in the way people were for airplane trips back in those days. It had always saddened her how Stella would head off to the airport for one of her escapades in a pair of jeans. Flying on an airplane had once called for hose and high heels.
“That’s your husband, isn’t it?” Alice asked.
“Yes. William. Look at that airplane. One step removed from the Wright brothers.”
“He’s very handsome,” Alice said. She was curious about Mr. Adams, had heard he was “difficult,” had a bit of a short fuse. Still, she liked the way he stood in the photo, cocky almost, with one arm draped possessively around his young wife.
“I suppose,” Mrs. Adams said matter-of-factly. “I’ve been told he had what you’d call sex appeal.”
When she met William at her cousin’s wedding, she had been half engaged to another man—a very kind person, a banker who went on to run a big insurance company. But William had pursued her just the same, no regard for proprieties, thinking nothing of barging right into her family’s home out in Princeton, interrupting their Thanksgiving dinner, and insisting on speaking with her father. She realized many years later, when she was old enough to know herself better, that it had been his persistence that won the day. He wanted her more than the banker did, it was a simple as that, and Mrs. Adams yielded to the stronger force, never mind what she herself felt. The thing about William, he was never boring. You never knew what was going to happen when he walked into the room. He had a disturbing animal grace about him, a wicked smile, and he could make her laugh like nobody ever had or would.
“He died too young,” Alice said.
“Fifteen years ago,” Mrs. Adams said, turning the album page. “He was the kind that burned out early.” William had just pulled off the road and had a quiet heart attack. Not at all the dramatic ending she might have predicted for him. She didn’t think she would ever stop crying.
“Here she is,” Mrs. Adams said, pointing at a slightly out-of-focus photograph of herself across from a young girl in early adolescence. The pair was sitting at a restaurant table with a floral centerpiece. “Those were plastic flowers,” Mrs. Adams remarked. “Such a funny old place. The waiter, I remember, wore a tuxedo but he served wine from a screw-top bottle. It said ‘Starch du Jour’ on the menu.”
Mrs. Adams had loved many people over the course of her eighty-one years, but with just one exception, her affections always suffered from the strain of ambivalence. She admired her father for his intellect and rigorous morality, but he intimidated her. Her mother had dispensed maternal favors dutifully but without warmth. Stella, well, she was a constant worry, with her wild moods and frightening need to travel; she never quite got used to Stella’s being called away to some godforsaken place for her work. Where was it now, Honduras? Love was a complicated business, all right.
Except when it came to Amy. When Stella had gone into labor with Amy down in New York City, Mrs. Adams made a point of keeping her bridge date. It was the only time in her life that she could remember yearning for a tranquilizer, not to mention the only time she had ever drawn a hand that totaled twenty-four points. Fortunately, her partner wound up playing the slam. Mrs. Adams had gone into the powder room and sat on the edge of the bathtub rocking back and forth, the sound of her thumping heart seeming to bounce off the marble surfaces around her.
When Stella and Amy got out of the hospital, she’d gone down to help. William wasn’t happy with her leaving. He never liked an empty house, even though much of the time he was off doing the L
ord-knew-what with his chums. But not even William’s displeasure could stand in the way. Stella’s husband had shown no sign of domestic skills and a new mother always needed an extra pair of hands while she recovered. So Mrs. Adams took care of the laundry and the cooking while Stella had a chance to get used to her baby daughter. In the night, however, Mrs. Adams let Stella sleep and got to feed the baby herself. Those hours still shone in Mrs. Adams’ memory as some of the most precious of her life. Rocking Amy, she would look down into her tiny face, overwhelmed suddenly by such profound love that tears rolled down her cheeks.
Raising her own child, Mrs. Adams had always kept a respectful distance from her needs. As she had been taught by her own mother, responsible parenting meant not giving in to the protests of a child who simply needed to take a nap, who had been fed quite enough, who had cried long enough over a scraped knee. And so she had steeled herself against her own impulse to spoil her daughter with hugs and kisses. But with Amy, she had felt no such obligation. Let Stella struggle with building Amy’s character. Mrs. Adams was the grandmother, and as such, she had a perfect right to indulge Amy without restraint.
Mrs. Adams remembered any number of dinners out with her grandchild. In fact, the events still seemed fresh and immediate in her mind, unlike other memories—her own wedding, for example—which were somehow out of focus, like the images on a television with poor reception. Mrs. Adams peered at the photograph and remembered that there had been a birthday party at a nearby table that evening, the guest of honor a little girl of ten or so. Fat and wearing unbecoming glasses, she was flanked by two pretty friends who leaned across her to chatter and giggle.
“They only came for the restaurant,” Amy complained to Mrs. Adams.
Meanwhile, the mother of the birthday girl kept up a frantic patter, a desperately festive smile plastered on her face. The birthday girl, for her part, just stared down at her plate.
“We’ve got to do something,” Amy said. “What can we do?”
They looked at one another, misty-eyed, and laughed at their mutual susceptibility.
“Let’s buy her a drink,” Mrs. Adams said.
“Oh yes!” Amy cried. She twisted around in her chair and beckoned the waiter over. He stood inquiringly beside Mrs. Adams, who nodded at Amy.
“Could you please send the girl over there a Shirley Temple?” Amy asked. “And could you put extra cherries in it?”
“With our compliments,” Mrs. Adams added.
“Yes!” Amy said. “With our compliments!”
Mrs. Adams let her hand drift across the photograph as if caressing it. She and Amy had watched the drink arrive, and then the bewilderment, the explanation from the waiter, and finally the flush on the little girl’s face as she smiled across the room at them. Amy and Mrs. Adams had lifted their own glasses. “Happy birthday!” they called out. “Happy birthday to you!”
“Isn’t she coming soon?” Alice asked. “Amy?”
Mrs. Adams looked up from the album, willing herself back into the present. “Yes. Friday.” There was a tinkling sound near her right ear, like the distant ripple of piano keys, and she could even make out the tune: a leisurely rendition of “I Remember You.” She closed her eyes and dozed off. When she woke up, Alice was handing her a cup of tea.
After lunch, Charlie knocked and poked his head in the door. Nobody ever bothered to lock up at Sunny Hills.
“In?” he asked.
“Oh, yes, Charlie—come in,” Mrs. Adams said. Alice smirked at her but Mrs. Adams pretended not to notice.
Mrs. Adams had known him since the early years of her marriage. He and his then wife, Margaret, had been part of the same gang. They raised their kids together, picnicked in the summers by the creek, threw cocktail parties, and played golf. Slim and athletic, he was still handsome at eighty-two, with a full head of dark hair. Charlie had always been a snazzy dresser and today, in his yellow and melon plaid sports jacket with a yellow polo shirt, he was no exception.
“You look like the sunrise, Charlie,” Mrs. Adams said. “Sit down, won’t you?”
“No,” Charlie said. “I came to whisk you away on my trusty steed.”
“I don’t know if I’m much up to being whisked,” Mrs. Adams said. She knew he was referring to his much-beloved golf cart. Charlie could be seen driving around the property most every day, even in a drizzle. They had taken his car keys away after he backed through the closed doors of the garage in his sedan, but so far he had managed to protect his authority over the cart. Mrs. Adams shifted her weight in the chair, testing her legs, which seemed in no hurry to obey instructions. In fact, she felt a bit queer all over.
“Take a look out your window,” Charlie said, stepping over to the curtain and pulling it aside. “What a day!”
Mrs. Adams squinted at the locust tree on the lawn outside, bathed in sunshine, its buds just about to burst open. It had been a day like this at least thirty years before when Stella’s friend Deke showed up outside the house on a brand-new Harley-Davidson. Stella and Mrs. Adams were admiring it when suddenly Deke handed Mrs. Adams a helmet. “Put it on. We’re going for a ride.” Mrs. Adams had protested with a laugh, but Deke helped her on with the helmet. “You’re my first passenger,” he said. A few of the neighbors had heard the racket and had wandered out onto their yards to watch. Mrs. Adams settled onto the seat behind Deke, and off they went with a roar. She could hear Stella whooping.
Mrs. Adams knew how it would smell outside, the earth coming back to life after the snow’s final melt.
“Alice,” she said. “I think I’ll need my down coat.” Charlie took her arm to lift her out of the chair.
“You don’t weigh much more than a hummingbird,” he said.
As soon as she stepped out the door, Mrs. Adams took a deep breath. “My, that air is bracing!” she exclaimed.
Charlie drove slowly on level ground along the sidewalk that circled the complex. Mrs. Adams looked this way and that, shading her eyes in the bright sun. There was a blustery wind, but it was just posturing. She wished that Charlie could drive the golf cart up into the stately hills that undulated gracefully across upstate New York. She used to love to go up there with William, loved to park by the side of the road among the neat dairy farms and unspoiled woodlands. You could see all the way to the Adirondack foothills from up there.
Charlie turned onto the gravel path that entered the woods just north of the apartments. There was still sun under the trees. Still, Mrs. Adams drew her coat around her as the cart bumped and lurched on its way until they reached a clearing where benches had been set out by a lone picnic table.
“Come, let’s sit,” Charlie said, turning off the ignition.
“Trilliums,” Mrs. Adams said, pointing. “I haven’t seen those purple ones in years.” They rested on the bench in silence a moment. “Isn’t life just simply glorious?” she said finally.
“Yes, because you’re in it,” Charlie answered.
Mrs. Adams gave him an impatient little nudge. “And you’re full of applesauce.”
Charlie took her hand. “I’m going to ask you again, Lily.”
She looked into that face full of entreaty. “Oh, Charlie. You know what I’m going to say.”
“Where there’s life, there’s hope,” he said. “It’s been at least six months.”
“But why would you ever want to marry an old crone like me? You know I’m going downhill. You’d wind up taking care of me night and day ….”
“I want to take care of you, Lily. It would be a privilege to take care of you.”
She thought about his first wife’s long illness. Charlie had been a saint. Some people were born caretakers, she supposed, but Mrs. Adams had no desire to be on the receiving end of some man’s charity. Alice was just fine—perfect, even—a no-nonsense presence who required nothing in return for her services except good manners and a regular paycheck.
“Once upon a time you gave me reason to hope,” Ch
arlie went on. “I haven’t brought it up until now only because somehow it seemed … indelicate.”
Mrs. Adams knew perfectly well what was coming and withdrew her hand.
“You kissed me, Lily,” he said.
“That was forty years ago!”
“Yes, and it was an important kiss,” Charlie said.
For her as well, in a way. She had been so angry with William that night. He had returned late from a business trip the week before, and as always, she had unpacked his suitcase for him the next morning. When she removed one of his golf shoes, out fell a pair of black lace panties. There had been tears, slammed doors, an icy silence. The following Sunday, there was a party at the country club. Mrs. Adams drank three glasses of wine—one drink over her limit. Charlie danced with her a few times, and when he drew her into the library and leaned down for a kiss, she had thought, Oh why not? only wishing that William had been there to witness the little infidelity. From that time forward, the kiss became a kind of armor against her husband. When he hurt or angered her, she thought to herself, Yes, all right, but I kissed Charlie Hartwick.
“It was just a cocktail flirtation,” she said.
“You’re all lit up, Lily,” Charlie said, taking her hand again. “You’re like a candle in the dark. I want you with me all the time.”
That was the last thing Mrs. Adams heard before there was the roar that overtook her ears, and then the blackness. When she was next aware, she was on her bed. Alice was removing her shoes.
“Charlie went for the doctor,” Alice said.
Mrs. Adams lifted her head a little to test the waters. The room swam. “I must have had a spell,” she said.
“I’ll say. You passed out cold.”
Mrs. Adams began to remember the trip back on the cart. Charlie’s arm had pinned her to him, keeping her secure.
“I’m getting Mary to stay with you tonight,” Alice said.
“Is that really necessary?” Mrs. Adams asked. And yet she was pleased. Alice’s daughter reminded her of her own granddaughter, though they looked nothing alike. Mary was powerfully built, almost manly, not at all slender like Amy. They both had a fresh smell about them, though, like lavender not at all cloying. Perhaps they used the same shampoo.