Peony Street

by Pamela Grandstaff

  “You’ll be glad you did,” she said. “I used to work for Pine County Hospice and they’re the best. They’ll take good care of her.”

  “Why don’t you still work there?” Scott asked.

  “It’s wonderful what they do,” she said. “The work was very meaningful to me at the time and I’ll probably go back to it someday, but honestly, I just needed a change. It’s hard to get close to my patients only to lose them, over and over. This morning I helped a new mother with her baby, and then I visited a lady who just had hernia surgery. It’s nice to work with patients who get better for a change.”

  The aide went back to check on his mother. When she came back she smiled at him with such kind compassion that he knew what she was about to say would be difficult to hear.

  “I’ve been around a lot of dying people, and although everyone’s different, I’d say she doesn’t have much time left,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

  Scott felt an overwhelming urge to do something: run a mile, build a house, swim the river; something. Instead he went home to take a shower.

  He let himself in his back door and walked past the utility room, where two empty bowls sat on the floor. Anger filled his chest and turned into a rage that he knew was all out of proportion to his irritation over the loss of a cat; nevertheless, he let it take over his will and flood his mind with the sense of having been cruelly used. Duke was his cat. He needed that cat. How dare Maggie take that away from him, along with everything else he loved?

  Chapter Ten - Thursday/Friday

  Alright,” Maggie said, as she paused the movie. “What in the hell is wrong with you?”

  “What?” Claire said, wiping her eyes with her shirt tail. “Can’t a girl be happy for Helena Bonham Carter? I mean, look at that glorious head of hair. That woman was born to wear period clothing.”

  “That’s not the reason. We’ve done this a million times. We watch A Room with a View and then Enchanted April, but we don’t cry until Hugh Grant comes back for Emma Thompson in Sense and Sensibility; not until she makes that asthma attack noise in the front sitting room.”

  “I do too cry during Enchanted April; during the part when it turns out Michael Kitchen can’t see well because of his war injury, and he loves Polly Walker because of who she is inside, not because she’s a beautiful, rich slut from a well-connected family.”

  “You’re sad and pathetic.”

  “I know,” Claire said. “I can’t help it.”

  “So what’s this really about?”

  “Maggie, I love you, but you’re not the most sympathetic person to talk to about feelings.”

  “I can be sympathetic,” Maggie said. “Try me.”

  “Well …” Claire started.

  The phone rang in the kitchen.

  “Hold that thought,” Maggie said.

  Claire followed her to the kitchen and refilled her wine glass.

  “What?” was how Maggie answered the phone.

  “He’s in the front room, sleeping,” Maggie said, by which Claire guessed she meant the cat Duke, who was the only male creature in the apartment that wasn’t a fictitious literary character played by a handsome British actor on a well-worn DVD. “He ate his dinner and now he’s sleeping. I think he just wants a quiet night in.”

  Maggie paused to listen to her caller and then responded, “Drew says we should give him his space and let him decide where he wants to live.”

  Claire didn’t even try to hide her eavesdropping.

  “I did not hijack your cat, Scott,” Maggie said. “The truth is I’m home more than you and he just feels safer here. I’m sorry if that upsets you but this isn’t about you. This is about what’s best for Duke.”

  Maggie rolled her eyes at Claire and then sighed in exasperation.

  “Alright,” she said. “Come over tomorrow after dinner and use your key. I’ll be home about ten.”

  She hung up the phone and shook her head as she refilled her wineglass and joined Claire at the kitchen table.

  “Scott?” Claire said.

  “Uh huh,” Maggie said. “Duke is Scott’s cat but he prefers living with me.”

  “I thought you hated cats.”

  “I don’t hate cats; I’m allergic to them,” Maggie said. “I get allergy shots now. You know how Rose Hill used to be overrun with feral cats?”

  “Hannah told me there was a relocation project and that’s why there are so many chipmunks and squirrels all over the place now.”

  “They brought in these federally funded Liberty Corp volunteers to help. They used humane traps to catch all the cats, euthanized the ones that were too sick or injured, and then spayed, neutered and relocated the rest. People were supposed to put special collars on their pets so if they got caught in the traps they could be returned to their owners. Duke’s a wild thing that cannot be tamed, of course, so he kept taking off his collar. After he went missing for a week we realized he’d been relocated. It took some time to find him but we did, and brought him home. Since then he doesn’t want to go out.”

  “Understandable.”

  “Scott’s just using it as an excuse to bug the crap out of me.”

  “Hannah said she and the new vet ran this program. I haven’t met him yet.”

  “He’s the guy who’s renting Hannah’s farm. Drew bought the practice after Doc Owen died. Duke was originally Doc Owen’s cat, and Drew thought he was the office’s feline blood donor until he tried to take his blood. Needless to say he and Duke did not hit it off, so Scott took him in.”

  “And what’s happening tomorrow evening?”

  “Scott’s coming over to see Duke.”

  “It sounds like you’re having child custody issues.”

  “It’s ridiculous how crazy Scott is about that cat,” Maggie said. “He was downright hostile on the phone just now.”

  “You know his mom’s really sick.”

  “Isn’t she always?” Maggie said, rolling her eyes.

  “No, I mean really sick,” Claire said. “Like dying sick.”

  Claire filled her in on the situation and Maggie looked thoughtful.

  “I wonder why he didn’t tell me.”

  “Maybe because he thinks you don’t care.”

  “I care,” Maggie said. “Scott and I are still friends.”

  “Dad says Scott’s still in love with you.”

  “I doubt that,” Maggie said. “He took up with Ava right after Grandpa Tim and Brian died. Right after Grandpa Tim’s funeral he gave me an ultimatum: then or never.”

  “He told me that thing with Ava was all a big misunderstanding.”

  “I understood perfectly,” Maggie said. “No tear drop falls from Ava Fitzpatrick’s eye without it being caught by some stupid man.”

  “So why did you turn him down?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Maggie said. “Bores me to tears. Besides, you were just about to spill your guts about some dude that ripped your heart out. Is this the Scottish guy?”

  “Mm hmm,” Claire said. “Carlyle McKinney: drama professor, dialect coach, and rabidly ambitious actor.”

  “Classic narcissist.”

  “Maybe not,” Claire said. “He’s simply a male of the species, and therefore weak in certain regards.”

  “You always were too nice,” Maggie said. “What happened?”

  “He was working on Sloan’s most recent film as her dialect coach, and we spent a lot of late nights giggling into our pints in a local hostelry. Oh, Maggie, the man is so funny.”

  “Which is like honey to a Claire Bear.”

  “And he has this amazing talent with accents.”

  “I get that, I really do,” Maggie said, “Look at all my DVDs. I spend more time with the virtual Colin Firth than I do with my real friends.”

  “He has this cultured, proper British speaking voice but sometimes the Scots burr sneaks in.”

  “Mmm, Rob Roy.”

  “I see your Rob Roy and I raise you Her Majesty, Mrs.
Brown.”

  “Oh, yes, you win; so what happened?”

  “Sloan happened,” Claire said. “As soon as she caught wind of what was going on between us she made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.”

  “An acting job?”

  “Sort of,” Claire said. “He’s going to pretend to be her fiancé until after the Academy Awards next winter.”

  “What?”

  “I know it sounds crazy, but in that world, the movie business, it’s standard practice,” Claire said. “It’s part of the packaging of Sloan as a product. She sells herself as a romantic heroine off-screen to help sell her performance as Mary Queen of Scots on-screen. If she wants an Oscar she needs a compelling personal drama to keep herself in the public eye between the film release and awards season.

  “Ayelet will tip off photographers so they can get carefully set-up candid shots of her and Carlyle for the tabloids. They’ll build on that buzz through talk shows, fashion magazine covers, press junkets, and a half dozen award ceremonies. All this leads up to February, when Sloan will tearfully thank her management team as she accepts her Best Actress Academy Award. More movie tickets will be sold, more DVDs will be rented, her price will go up and she’ll go back to getting first pass on all the best scripts.”

  “So he sold his soul to the devil,” Maggie asked. “Is it just for money and fame or does he really want to be Mr. Merryweather?”

  “He teaches at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, but at heart Carlyle is an actor. He’s really very good, but even brilliant actors need a lucky break. With Sloan he has access to her management team, good scripts, and opportunities he wouldn’t have on his own. In return she’ll get British theater credibility, American and European press, and if all goes well, the aforementioned award outcome.”

  “You should have known better than to fall in love with someone who teaches drama,” Maggie said. “That’s like the warning label on a bottle of crazy pills.”

  “I have a weakness for the creative, smart, funny guys,” Claire said. “I can’t help it.”

  “So he betrayed you.”

  “Not very gracefully, either,” Claire said. “Sloan arranged for me to catch them sealing the deal, so to speak.”

  “Good riddance, then,” Maggie said. “To hell with him and the bitch you worked for.”

  “The problem is I can see his side of it,” Claire said. “You don’t know how many times over the past twenty years I planned to walk away from Sloan. I knew that job was sucking the life out of me but I always went back. The truth is I loved the money and the travel and I admit it, I loved the drama. I can’t blame Carlyle for wanting to experience that too. This is his big break. He might have turned her down and then resented me for it.”

  “You’re giving him way too much credit,” Maggie said. “He was a fool to let you get away.”

  “I still have this secret fantasy he’ll realize what a farce it all is and run away to be with me.”

  “Screw that,” Maggie said. “If a man loves you he will move heaven and earth to be with you. Anything less is unacceptable.”

  “Mary Margaret Fitzpatrick,” Claire said. “You’re a closet romantic.”

  “I’m delusional, is what I am,” Maggie said. “After our talk the other day I changed the sign over the romance section to ‘Unrealistic Expectations’ but Jeanette made me change it back.”

  “Scott would move heaven and earth for you.”

  “The day he gave me an ultimatum the words, ‘no, sorry’ were barely out of my mouth when he ran right over to the B&B and cried on Ava’s shoulder.”

  “Everyone makes mistakes.”

  “Except Scott’s big mistake made me waste several years of my life.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “He knew why Gabe left me the first time; he was there that night. He gave him an ultimatum, too; leave town or be arrested.”

  “And then he kept it a secret from you; now I remember.”

  “For seven years I wondered and waited for Gabe to come back to me. I didn’t know if he was dead or alive. When the postmistress died Hannah and I uncovered a huge stash of stolen mail hidden in her house, but Scott caught us before we could look through it. There was a letter from Gabe to me in there written the week after he left. Scott found it but was not going to tell me about it. It fell out of his jacket pocket.”

  “Maybe he was going to give it to you.”

  “He had seven years to tell me what happened and he didn’t.”

  “I can kind of see his side of it,” Claire said.

  “Of course you can,” Maggie said. “You’re the queen of fair play.”

  “Don’t you Catholics believe in forgiveness?”

  “We also believe in eternal damnation,” Maggie said. “That’s more my style.”

  “It’s such a terrible waste of time,” Claire said. “Here’s this man who loves you so much he hasn’t been able to make it work with anyone else. Why postpone happiness? Why defer your joy? You’re not getting any younger.”

  “You sound like my mother.”

  “Do you love him?” Claire asked.

  Maggie hesitated.

  “I don’t not love him.”

  “Well, there you go.”

  “Listen,” Maggie said. “Every time I see him with one of those chicks he dates I feel this pain in my chest that makes me want to hurt somebody. I don’t think that’s pretty enough to be called love.”

  “Sounds pretty passionate to me,” Claire said. “Sounds like an epic romance.”

  “It’s hard to explain,” Maggie said. “It feels like if I give in to it I’ll lose something really important.”

  “Independence? Autonomy?”

  “Yeah, but also, I’ll have to be nice to him every day. I mean, even if I don’t feel like it. I’ll have to be affectionate in public and other people will see it. I can’t bear the thought of people seeing me be squishy with him. It feels like admitting a weakness.”

  “In other words, you’re afraid if you marry Scott you’ll have to be a better person than you are capable of being.”

  “That’s it,” Maggie said. “That’s it, exactly. You’re good.”

  “You need therapy,” Claire said, “and lots of it; maybe even a tag team of therapists so when you wear one out another one can jump in.”

  “I know,” Maggie said. “I do love Scott, but right now I just don’t feel compelled to do anything about it.”

  “You’re just stuck in a tar pit of pride.”

  “That, too,” Maggie said. “When Knox’s crazy wife Anne Marie came back from rehab she went into some kind of trance and told me my sin was pride.”

  “She’s a rich and famous psychic now.”

  “That’s all hokum,” Maggie said. “There are things you can tell anyone and they’d be true.”

  “Such as?”

  “You’re about to go through a big change in your life; a transition; some people will enter your life and some will fall away. You’re making big decisions.”

  “That’s all true,” Clair said.

  “But don’t you see? That’s true of everyone. Everyone is always going through big life changes. Psychics just make general pronouncements and watch how you respond. ‘The name starts with a J; the color blue is significant.’ Con artists do the same thing.”

  “So nothing Anne Marie told you was specific to you? There was nothing she said that no one else could know?”

  “Well,” Maggie said, but then she hesitated. “I thought so at the time, but no, it was all just her warped imagination and my susceptibility.”

  “I thought she was really good.”

  “What did she tell you?”

  “She said I would travel across a large body of water and then fall in love with an educated man,” Claire said. “She said I would have two lives in one, but the second one would bring me the most happiness.”

  “Maybe your second life is here in Rose Hill.”

 
“We’ll see.”

  “Do you want to finish the movie?”

  “No, I’m tired. Do you?”

  “It’s not like we don’t know how it ends. I’m tired, too. Let’s go to bed.”

  Claire lay next to Maggie under their grandmother’s quilt, staring at the ceiling. Moonlight filled the room, and Duke the cat was curled up between them, purring loudly. Claire felt like she was eight years old, at a sleepover at Grandma Rose’s house with Hannah and Maggie. The upstairs of that house had not been heated, and the three of them used to snuggle together for warmth under a mountain of quilts, like baby rabbits in a burrow.

  “I’m wide awake now,” Maggie said. “What are you thinking about?”

  “How we didn’t know we were poor when we were growing up,” Claire said. “I was looking through your photo albums earlier and things look so much shabbier in retrospect.”

  “We never went without anything we really needed,” Maggie said. “We always had a roof over our heads and a meal on the table.”

  “I remember being so jealous of all the toys and clothes Caroline Eldridge had, and how ashamed I felt when her sister Gwyneth made fun of us. I didn’t know anything about class prejudice; I just thought she was mean.”

  “Gwyneth was always such a snotty, stuck up snob,” Maggie said.

  “She still is,” Claire said.

  “Caroline’s mother was always very gracious to us,” Maggie said.

  “Where is Caroline now?”

  “Traveling around the world, I guess, from ashram to monastery; saving the world one trust fund payment at a time.”

  “Being born into wealth must make it easier to spend,” Claire said. “Now that I have money I’m scared to death I’ll lose it all. I want to hoard it. I’m going to end up like Mamie Rodefeffer, wearing twenty cardigans and carrying ten tote bags. What are in those tote bags, do you think?”

  “Romance books,” Maggie said. “She’s one of my best customers.”

  “Romance? Really?”

  “The more torrid the better,” Maggie said. “She likes the bodice rippers.”

  “I wish I’d known that,” Claire said. “I would’ve given her more of a B movie hairstyle.”