by Kyoko Mori
“Sylvia sent her new help. She was a little leery of Wilbur.”
“Good ol’ Wilbur. He doesn’t mean any harm.” Peg pats the doll’s fat stuffed hand.
Peg had made Wilbur for her brother, who was dying from kidney disease in Boston. She’d sent the doll to him with a message: Sorry I can’t be with you, but this guy will take care of you. Wilbur had come back to the store in January after Peg’s brother’s funeral. She’d canceled her return plane ticket and driven back with the doll in a rented car.
“I could have shipped Wilbur,” she told Maya, “but I’m glad I drove. At all the rest stops along the turnpike, I found people looking into the car, staring at Wilbur in the passenger seat with the seat belt on. It made me laugh. The trip was a pilgrimage.”
Remembering what she said makes Maya want to hug her. Instead, she smiles and refills their glasses with punch. Last week, when Maya and Jeff brought the dresser to her new apartment, Yuko put her arms around Maya and cried. Maya patted her shoulder and said nothing. Words would only remind Yuko of the sadness she would rather forget. All Maya could do was be quiet and hope that her presence was a comfort.
* * *
The customers arrive soon after. Maya shows them the racks of handwoven garments, beaded jewelry, and the ready-mades Peg orders in the Southwestern style. Most of the customers are suburban women in their forties and older. Tired of dressing for other people in stern business suits and nice-housewife jumpers, they want something pretty and comfortable but aren’t sure what to choose. They trust Maya, who has a good eye for matching each woman’s build, coloring, and personality with the various fabrics and styles.
The string quartet begins to play. Across the room, Peg is talking and laughing with the customers’ husbands. Maya hands one of her customers—Mrs. Gordon—a turquoise and lavender vest. Once she tries it on, Mrs. Gordon will see how the vest brings out the blue of her eyes and complements her red-going-silver hair. She will know she is still a striking woman at fifty. With the clothes flying overhead and the women standing before the mirrors in their new outfits, the barn feels like a cocoon of beauty. If butterflies could dream or remember the past—Maya imagines—they would see the particles of light that transformed them, every time they looked inside a flower with their faceted eyes. The splash of purple inside a lily, the dusting of yellow pollen inside a daisy, the soft brown cushion at the center of a sunflower—all would remind them of the mystery of their birth.
All afternoon, Maya shows the new spring clothes while Peg entertains the women with talk. By eight, the customers are gone and those who are left are friends and neighbors: women who own other boutiques and cafés nearby, some with their husbands; the musicians in the string quartet; Lillian, who has come up from Evanston; Sylvia—the caterer—and her date. Their town has become a popular tourist stop in the last ten years, and all the women who own businesses know one another. They attend openings and parties at each other’s stores year after year and take buying trips together during the off season. When couples get divorced, it’s usually the husbands who leave. The few exceptions, like Lillian, sell their businesses to close friends whom they come back to visit. The women joke about someday ending up in the same nursing home and running a catalog business from there.
At the sheep barn, Peg gives Molly and Baba each an oatmeal cookie and everyone sings happy birthday. Jennifer, the caterer’s help, stands next to Maya as they belt out the familiar words. Molly and Baba chomp down the cookies and regard the crowd with their minus-sign pupils.
“Is Sylvia going to help you clean up?” Maya asks Jennifer, when they are leaving the barn.
“Are you kidding? She’s not going to help me do something she’s paying me to do. She’s probably mad that I didn’t start right away, but I wanted to see the sheep.” Her voice trails off, sounding plaintive and young. Not too long ago, she was a child visiting petting zoos with her parents.
“I’ll help you. We can wash the dishes in the sink upstairs so you don’t have to do them later. Then we’ll load your car and go to Peg’s house for the rest of the party.”
* * *
At the house, people are gathered in the kitchen. Maya makes herself a sandwich, takes one of the few soft drinks, and sits down in the living room. Larry has put on a U2 disk and several guests are dancing. Peg and Larry are the only people Maya knows in their fifties who listen to U2, Counting Crows, Bodeans, the Violent Femmes. That’s as adventurous as they get, which is all right with the crowd at this party. Most of the guests are in their thirties and forties. They are at an age where people go to record stores and don’t know what to buy unless they see a new album by a musician from their youth.
The cellist from the quartet asks Maya to dance.
“Maybe in a while.” She waves what’s left of her sandwich as though that was the reason. She is relieved when he asks Jennifer, and the two of them join the group on the floor. On their third date five years ago, Maya and Jeff went to the end-of-the-school-year party for his high school, held in the basement of a restaurant on the south side. The music was too loud, there were no windows, and the heat lamps over the buffet were turning the fried chicken and barbecued ribs into sinewy carcasses. Jeff introduced her to some women whose names she immediately forgot and went to talk to someone else. Maya had seldom attended a party where she didn’t know anyone. Even among people she’d known for years, she listened mostly, asking questions when the conversation lagged so other people would keep talking. Jeff was clear on the other side of the room. The women he’d introduced her to started talking and laughing together. Maya slipped out and went to sit in her car in the parking lot. She was surprised when he came to look for her and apologized for leaving her alone. “I don’t like parties either,” he said. “I do a better job of hiding it, but you’re more honest.” They sat in the car and listened to her Suzanne Vega tape, returning just in time for the announcements of the awards. Jeff had been chosen teacher of the year. As she hugged him and congratulated him, she thought she had never been so proud of anyone except Yuko.
The guests have moved from the kitchen to the living room. Maya goes upstairs to Peg’s daughter’s old room and closes the door behind her. Peg’s cats are on the bed, all three of them sleeping on the pillows; they don’t move when Maya sits down on the edge. She picks up the telephone from the nightstand and dials the number at home. Jeff answers just as the machine comes on.
“Hi, Jeff, it’s me.”
“Hi, you. How’s the party?”
“All right. We’re at Peg’s house now. People are dancing downstairs. They’re having a good time.”
“How about you? Are you having a good time?”
“I guess. You know how I am at these things.” She wants to talk about that party five years ago and tell him she’d appreciated his coming to look for her in the parking lot, then apologize for the way she acted last night. But there is no good reason to mention these things. “So what are you doing?” she asks instead. “Are you having a good evening?”
“I’m just watching the basketball game.”
She doesn’t know college basketball from professional and can’t remember which team is in what city. All the same, she asks him who’s playing, how the game is. He answers cheerfully and describes the major plays. After five minutes, he says, “You didn’t call me to ask about the game, did you? Is there something you need?”
“Oh, no. I just wanted to see if you were having a good evening.”
“That’s nice,” he says. “Thanks.”
She’s trying to think of something else to say, when he adds, “Dan called a couple of hours ago. He asked if I could help him move some of Meredith’s things to his house tomorrow morning. Do you want to come along? We can all go out for brunch afterward.”
“I don’t know.” At the restaurant, Meredith didn’t like the food she’d ordered. She and Dan whispered for a few seconds before he switched their plates and she began to eat his order instead. “Maybe my se
eing them isn’t such a good idea. You were right. I acted horribly last night.”
“You have to get used to seeing them. You’ve known Dan for sixteen years. Yuko’s not going to be upset if you stay friends with him, is she?”
“Of course not. She would never pressure me to take sides.”
“So what’s the problem? Why were you so unfriendly?”
“It isn’t just Meredith. Dan makes me mad, all on his own. He called me at the store the other day to talk. He used to be so concerned about Yuko, but now he says bad things about her. He went on about how she upset him and Meredith by sending her hair. He said she always made him feel bad about himself. He was making it sound like it was all Yuko’s fault that he fell in love with someone else. I didn’t want to hear that stuff, so I said, ‘You know, when things go wrong, we tend to blame other people, but we all have to take responsibility for our own actions.’ I meant that he should take responsibility for his. I didn’t say you because that’s rude. You know what he said to me? He didn’t get it that I was talking about him. He said, ‘Gee, Maya, that’s such a mature way to look at things. Did you say that to Yuko?’”
Jeff bursts out laughing. She can hear him gasping for breath.
“Why is that so funny?”
He’s still laughing. “It’s classic Maya-talking-to-Dan. It’s hilarious. You’re always trying to be subtle and he’s always missing it.”
“Maybe you’re right.”
“I think Dan would appreciate it if you came with me tomorrow. Do it for me, if not for him.”
“Okay. What time?”
“I told him I’d be over at Meredith’s apartment at ten-thirty.”
“I’ll be ready then.”
“Are you going to stay out late tonight?”
“Not if I can help it. Why?”
“No reason,” he says. “I haven’t seen much of you lately. You’re so busy working and helping Yuko.” He pauses. “I miss you,” he adds, his voice low and quiet.
Maya pictures his gray eyes peering at her from behind his glasses. She remembers the loneliness Yuko talked about on the night Dan left. “Don’t be silly,” she says, trying to lighten the tone. “How can you miss me? I live with you. We’re still together.”
“I know, but I’d like to see more of you.”
“I’ll try to be home in a couple of hours. I’ll see you then.”
* * *
As soon as Maya steps out of the bedroom, the music comes blaring up from the living room. At the bottom of the steps, Sylvia is standing with her date, her back to Maya. Sylvia jumps as Maya goes around her, but she and the man keep on talking. Maya can’t hear a thing they’re saying.
The man is leaning toward Sylvia, waving his hands. Though he must be Maya’s age, he has boyish good looks—a thin straight nose, large brown eyes, light brown hair cut above his shoulders and parted in the middle—but his lips are twisted and he’s frowning. Sylvia is leaning slightly backward; her pale-faced smile looks more like a grimace. She shrugs her shoulders and gives her head an emphatic shake. The light over the stairway gleams on the creamy skin of her neck and chest outlined by her low-cut maroon dress. Her dark curly hair frames her beautiful face and clear blue eyes, but hers isn’t a kind face. She reminds Maya of Dan’s old girlfriend Judy: elegant and haughty, mean in a quiet and picturesque way. “A psychoterrorist,” Yuko used to call Judy, after she was with Dan and Judy kept calling them in the middle of the night. Maya wishes she could reach out and put her hand, solid and comforting, on the man’s back. Wherever he is headed in his pursuit of this woman, it’s not a happy place.
From the kitchen, she goes out to the back porch. Lillian and her friend Beth are looking at the comet. Every night, it has moved a few degrees to the west.
“I didn’t make up my mind about coming till last night,” Lillian tells Maya. “If I’d planned better, I could have brought back your pieces from the show.”
Maya hadn’t picked up her woven garments since the show closed in February. She doesn’t want to have to visit her mother, but Lillian doesn’t know that.
“I’ll come down in the next couple of weeks. I’ll call you.”
“Bring some of your beadwork.” Lillian points to Maya’s necklace.
The white tail of the comet looks less crisp than a week ago.
When they go back to the living room, Sylvia is dancing with someone’s husband. Her date is sitting in the kitchen alone. Lillian makes a face.
“Sylvia,” Beth says, as if her name explained it all.
Maya looks from one woman to the other, and all three of them shrug.
The party breaks up at midnight. Natalie, who owns a greenhouse, brings down Sylvia’s black cape and holds it out to her. Sylvia flings back her head, exposing her pale throat. She looks like a vampire.
“Come on, Sylvia,” Natalie says firmly. “Put on your coat. Mark and I are taking you home.”
Sylvia is drunk; anyone can tell. Natalie manages to wrap the cape around her even though Sylvia twists like an obstinate ivy that refuses to wind around a florist’s wire. Everyone starts going out the door. Jennifer trudges to her car, hunched against the cold, looking forlorn. Maya closes the door and begins to clean up.
* * *
At one, Peg walks Maya to the door. They’re laughing about the cellist’s curly red hair, which has grown down to his shoulders since the last time they saw him.
“He’s so serious. His hair and his personality don’t go together,” Maya says. “He looks like an acid dream of Jesus.”
“Oh, Maya, that’s so mean!” Peg wheezes. “He’d be crushed to hear you say that.”
“You’ll never tell him, though.”
Maya opens the door. Outside, Sylvia’s date is sitting on the steps with a glass full of ice and pale liquid. He hasn’t brought a jacket and is wearing only his jeans and a corduroy shirt. Maya can’t remember his name. They had talked a little at the store; he said he was teaching part-time in the art department at the university. More customers showed up before she could tell him that she used to be a student there. He wouldn’t remember their conversation anyway. He’s blinking at her in the vacant way people do when they’re very drunk.
“Aren’t you cold?” she asks.
He shakes his head and gives her a big innocent smile. His teeth are slightly crooked, the front teeth overlapping a little. He must not have had braces when he was growing up. Maya smiles back uncertainly. Raising his glass, he nods to her and takes a drink. Out in the front yard, in the grassy part where everyone parks, Maya sees Larry’s truck, Peg’s Saturn, her own Civic, and a small green car.
“I don’t think he should drive,” Peg whispers, pointing to the unfamiliar car.
“Don’t worry,” Maya whispers back. “I’ll take him back to his house.”
“You know where he lives?”
“No. I never saw him before. I can’t even remember his name.”
Peg shakes her head. The man smiles again at them.
“At least he’s a happy drunk,” Maya says to Peg. “It’ll be okay. He can’t live that far.”
Draining his glass and putting it down, the man struggles to his feet and stands on the bottom step, one hand on the railing.
Maya walks up to him and holds out her hand. “Hi, I’m Maya Ishida. Let me drive you home.”
“You’re the woman on the stairway,” he says, as he takes her hand and holds on. “I knew you were sent to save me.”
She leads him to the Civic. He gets in without any protest about being sober enough to drive. Maybe he doesn’t remember coming here in the first place. Maya closes the door, locking it, and walks around to her side.
“Tell me your name,” she asks, as she starts the engine.
“Eric,” he says, “with a c.”
“Okay, Eric. You need to show me where you live.”
* * *
Ten minutes later, they pull into the driveway of a duplex in a northern suburb, halfway between Peg’s h
ouse and Maya’s. Just as Maya turns off the ignition, a light comes on in one of the windows. The house was completely dark till now.
“I didn’t know you lived with someone,” she says.
“I don’t,” Eric answers, staring at the house through the windshield.
She waits for him to explain.
“This isn’t where I live.”
“Pardon me?”
“I thought it was. But apparently it’s not.”
The window is on the side of the house, where a bedroom would be. Whoever is in there must be fumbling for his glasses or shoes. He will come down the hallway to the front door, look out, and find a strange car parked in his driveway. Maya turns the car back on, yanks the gear into reverse, and peels out of the driveway. She drives several blocks before pulling over to the curb. Eric is laughing as though she had planned a stunt for his entertainment.
“So where do you really live?” she asks.
He peers at the darkness outside the car. “I don’t know where I am,” he says.
“Somewhere in Fox Point. Which suburb do you live in?”
“Shorewood. But I don’t know how to get there from here because I don’t know where here is.”
“We’re not far. Shorewood is about fifteen blocks south. Can you remember your address?”
“I hope so.” He sounds doubtful.
“If you can, I’ll be able to find your house. I’ve lived around here a long time. Besides, I have a map.” Opening her glove compartment, she pulls out a city map and switches on her dome light.
After five minutes, she slows down in front of another duplex but doesn’t pull into the driveway. The lights are off. She parks on the street.
“So you think this is the right house?”
“Positive.” He pushes the door handle but the door won’t open.
“I locked the door.”
“You did?”
“I didn’t want you to fall out of my car on the freeway.”
He stumbles when he gets out. Maya walks around to his side. He’s leaning forward, his hand on the hood.
“Do you want me to help you to the door?” He nods. She puts her left arm around his waist and holds out her right hand. “Give me your key.”