Hollyhock Ridge

by Pamela Grandstaff

  ‘Only a cop in Rose Hill would have such a piss-poor security system,’ she thought.

  “Laurie,” she called out, but he didn’t answer.

  She smelled him before she found him. He was passed out on the bed, snoring like a sleep apnea patient, with a large empty vodka bottle next to him. He had spilled the vodka and pissed the bed. He was lucky he hadn’t vomited and asphyxiated.

  Claire regarded him. What she felt, other than disappointment, sadness, and pity, was disgust. Okay, he wasn’t on duty, and he wasn’t driving; he was in the privacy of his temporary home, and the only thing he had hurt belonging to anyone else was the urine-soaked bed. Well, that and Sarah’s heart, now that Claire knew she had one. And her own heart? Claire didn’t want to think about that.

  Did this happen because of the whiskey she’d given him the night before? Claire felt a deep sense of shame. Whatever would or would not eventually happen between them, she felt she owed him the effort of making sure he was okay.

  Claire called Patrick, the only person she knew who could advise her and be trusted. He said he would come up as soon as he got someone to watch the bar. She offered. Her dad was there, and it wouldn’t hurt to feed him pizza and let him watch a game on the big screen while she tended bar. She left the back door unlocked and ran down to the Rose and Thorn, gladly handing off the responsibility for Laurie to her cousin.

  “It’s a shame,” is all Patrick said.

  Claire put an apron on and the locals at the bar immediately started razzing her.

  “Shut up or you’re cut off,” she said.

  They grumbled but returned to watching the baseball game on the huge, flat-screen television.

  She texted Sarah: “alive and asleep.”

  Sarah did not text back.

  Claire gave the locals each a free shot and a beer. It wasn’t their fault she was in such a bad mood; bitches have sorrows, too.

  While she was working at the Thorn, Professor Richmond called and asked if she was still planning to join them that evening for the Scrabble game. Claire didn’t feel like it, but she thought she better play nice with her prospective boss.

  After Claire delivered her father home, it was past seven and he was sleepy. She knew he would immediately fall asleep in the recliner, but she waited for Melissa to show up before she left.

  “Thank you for giving me all these evenings off while my mom is out of town,” Claire said.

  “You deserve the break,” Melissa said. “I don’t mind it; I brought Patrick’s laptop so I could do my lessons.”

  “That’s great,” Claire said.

  “What did they say when you called?” Melissa asked.

  “Who?”

  “The po po,” Melissa said. “What did they say about the you-know-what at the you-know-where?”

  “Oh crap, I completely forgot,” Claire said. “Walk me outside.”

  Out front, where her father could not hear, Claire filled her in on what had happened at Knox’s house.

  “That man was lower than a worm’s willy,” Melissa said. “He never done nothin’ to me, personal-like, but he done pissed off a lot of other people in this town.”

  Claire hoped Melissa’s grammar lessons would help, but she could see it would be a tough row to hoe.

  Claire walked up the steps to Professor Richmond’s apartment, which was over the garage behind the Rose Hill Bed and Breakfast. She could hear them before the door opened; it sounded like they were arguing. When Professor Richmond opened the door, he had a glass of what smelled like gin in one hand, and was wearing his half-moon reading glasses.

  “Claire’s here!” he told the people inside, and Claire heard the other two men cheer.

  “My good gentlewoman,” he said, as he stood aside to let her in. “The pretty cousin of Mary Margaret; how fares your good cousin on her trip to the seaside?”

  “I think she regrets inviting so many family members to join them,” Claire said.

  Both men, who were seated, jumped up as she entered. The Scandinavian giant she remembered as “Torby” enveloped her slender hand between his two giant paws and gently pressed it.

  “Nice to see you again,” Claire said.

  “The pleasure is all mine,” he said.

  The short, round, bald one with the glasses, “Ned,” bowed at the waist.

  “Welcome,” he said.

  “We’re just about to finish a game,” Professor Richmond said. “Afterward, we’ll take a break so Ned can smoke one of his loathsome cigarettes, and then we’ll begin again with you.”

  “Claire can be the judge,” Torby said.

  “Yes, Claire, you decide for us,” Ned said.

  “The bone of contention, as it were,” Professor Richmond said, “is the word ‘weltschmerz.’ ”

  “I thought Scrabble was played with only seven letter tiles,” Claire said.

  “We play our own version, with three sets of tiles, and everyone gets twenty letters,” Ned said.

  “The rule is we only choose words from everyday modern American English usage,” Professor Richmond said.

  “Such as it is,” Ned said, and chuckled.

  “No one I have met in this country would use that word but you,” Torby said to Ned.

  “What does it mean?” Claire asked.

  “It means to be disappointed because the world is not what you wish it to be,” Ned explained to Claire. “I have many American friends who use this word. They all know what it means.”

  “Ned wishes the world used more German words,” Torby told Claire. “He is presently experiencing weltschmerz.”

  Ned didn’t seem insulted by that; he merely nodded and smiled as he shrugged, as if to say he couldn’t disagree.

  “I’ve never heard that word used before,” Claire said. “But I know exactly what that feels like.”

  “Denied,” Professor Richmond said. “Pick it up, Ned; try again. Claire, make yourself at home, do. There are nibbly things in the kitchen if you’re hungry. Help yourself to a drink.”

  The small studio apartment was made up of a galley kitchen, living room, bathroom, and bedroom, all tucked into 600 square feet. He had furnished the living room for comfort, with four club chairs surrounding a low round table, on which was placed the Scrabble board. There was a dart board on one wall, with multiple darts stuck in it.

  On another wall was a framed poster promoting the Royal Shakespeare Theater’s The Merry Wives of Windsor from 2007. Judi Dench played Mistress Quickly and Simon Callow played Falstaff; theirs were the only names she recognized. The requisite bust of the bard was on top of the fridge, where it wore novelty glasses sporting a mustache and big nose as well as a bright red fez with a gold tassel.

  The small cart serving as his bar was well-stocked with good liquor, but, thinking that staying sober was the prudent choice, Claire poured a club soda for herself and dropped in a wedge of lime.

  She looked at the photos on the refrigerator, thinking it must be a universal habit to use that surface as a gallery. There were faculty group photos and one of a young group of actors dressed in Elizabethan garb, lined up on a stage. There was one of a handsome young man holding up a skull; she didn’t have to guess what role he was playing. He had signed it, ‘with love and thanks, Rafe.’

  Rafe. So refined. So not a Rose Hill name. Here it would be Ralphie, and if he hated that he would use his middle name instead, unless that was worse, in which case he could go by any number of nicknames, including Buddy, Bubba, Bubby, or some horrible name assigned to him by vicious schoolmates, like Fatty, Farty, Beanpole, or Stretch.

  Claire wandered over to a nearby bookshelf, filled with the expected Shakespeare collections and other classics she recognized from having been made to read them in high school.

  “All done,” Professor Richmond said. “I am victorious, for once.”

  “I am out for a smoke,” Ned said, and went outside.

  “I am out for a piss,” Torby said, and went down the short hallway t
o the bathroom.

  “Professor Richmond,” Claire said.

  “Please, Claire, I’ve told you, call me Alan.”

  “Alan,” she said. “Have you heard anything about the position?”

  “No, love,” he said, and Claire was surprised to hear him use such a common endearment, but he quickly reverted to his upper class British speaking voice. “Not to worry, my dear. There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.”

  “Do you think Gwyneth Eldridge could blackball me with the committee?”

  “I suppose so, as she is on the board, but why would she?”

  “I turned down a job working for her. She doesn’t like to be told no.”

  “Arch-villain, she,” he said. “Despised, distressed, hated, martyr’d, kill’d!”

  “Not quite that bad,” Claire said. “Unless she screws up this job for me. Then all bets are off.”

  “I don’t think you have anything to worry about,” he said. “I told the committee you could get Sloan Merryweather for the film festival, and they’re all panting to meet her. More of a scenery chewer than an actress, to my mind, but to each his own.”

  “I couldn’t, though,” Claire said. “Even if I asked her she wouldn’t do it. We didn’t part on the best of terms.”

  “Is that so?”

  “I would be great at this job,” Claire protested. “I graduated from a prestigious film and theater arts hair and makeup school in Los Angeles. There’s a copy of my diploma in my application packet.”

  Claire’s hope level dropped to the bottom of the barrel as a look of disappointment and irritation replaced Alan’s previously patronizing smile. Why hadn’t he asked her earlier about getting Sloan? She would have told him that was impossible. It was apparent he hadn’t even looked at her application or resume. They didn’t care about her qualifications; they only cared about the movie star. It had so often been that way. Why did she think this situation would be any different?

  “I’m sorry,” Claire said. “I hope this doesn’t mean I won’t get the job.”

  He waved her away as if he were already bored with the topic.

  “Fortune brings in some boats that are not steered,” he said. “Leave it to fate.”

  “Do you have a quote for every occasion?”

  He gave her a stern look.

  “Irritating you, is it?”

  “No, I like it,” Claire said. “It’s a pleasure to hear you speak.”

  “It intimidates the students and amuses their parents,” he said. “I like to give good value for the obscene cost of tuition.”

  “What about ‘This above all; to thine own self be true,’ ” Claire asked.

  “Truth doesn’t always pay the rent, though, does it, pet?”

  “No,” Claire said. “It doesn’t.”

  “Are you in financial distress?”

  “Nothing like that,” Claire said. “I’m just bored.”

  “That is a statement I simply will not allow,” he said. “There is no earthly reason for anyone to be bored, especially not one living in a country where for most people matters of life and death are not a daily consideration. You could read, for example, one of about a thousand books I could name off the tip of my tongue, easily accessible through two libraries and one excellent bookstore - owned by your fair cousin, no less - or by using one of the many infernal contraptions the students attach to their persons like external pacemakers …”

  “It’s not that I don’t like to read,” Claire protested. “It’s more that I hate to begin a book and know immediately how it will end; it’s like there are three plots available and a thousand ways to rehash them.”

  “What about the pleasure of the words, my dear? What about the pure rhapsodic joy one may experience when language is wrought by the hands of a genius? The bard often stole, no, borrowed his plots; hell, he even sometimes borrowed the speeches from other plays, but all is forgiven when you hear it spoken aloud. Never does the English language sing as it does when performed well as written by Shakespeare.”

  “I see why you’re such a great professor.”

  “I merely play the role of professor, but my sentiment, although dramatically conveyed, is humbly sincere,” he said. “One who can turn up a nose at Shakespeare has no soul, at least not an English soul.”

  “I love to hear it spoken, to see it acted,” Claire said. “It makes sense to me then. But I fall asleep when I read it. It’s hard to comprehend it when I’m the one interpreting it.”

  “I shall take you on as a student,” he said. “A private student. I shall convert your soul to English; nay, I shall save it.”

  ‘Good luck with that,’ Claire thought but did not say.

  Torby and Ned returned and a new game commenced. Claire was an average player, and no match for the intellects of her opponents, but to them she was a valuable expert on common American English usage. It was a dubious honor, but one she accepted, nonetheless.

  Throughout the game, Claire listened as the three professors also played a verbal game of quotes. Whatever word had been placed on the board, the player who put it there would share a quote that related to its meaning, and then the other two professors would share a quote that related to the same word, or to a random word in the first player’s quote. She realized now that’s what they had been doing on pub night in the Thorn.

  After listening to several of these without participating, Claire decided to try to join in. The word she placed on the board was “ruin.”

  “We are here to ruin ourselves, to break our hearts, love the wrong people, and die,” she said. “John Patrick Shanley wrote that; it’s from the movie Moonstruck.”

  The three professors were looking at her as if surprised to find that not only was she still in the room but that she could speak. Claire found she got a little thrill from shocking them.

  “I often think I should have that tattooed on my ass,” she said, and then worried she had gone too far.

  After a brief pause they laughed, or more accurately, Professor Richmond smirked, Ned guffawed, and Torby giggled. Claire was relieved.

  “Well done, you,” Professor Richmond said. “If it is true that there are as many minds as there are heads, then there are as many kinds of love as there are hearts. Tolstoy.”

  “It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages,” Torby said. “Friedrich Nietzsche.”

  “Imagination, on the contrary, which is ever wandering beyond the bounds of truth, joined to self-love and that self-confidence we are so apt to indulge, prompt us to draw conclusions which are not immediately derived from facts,” Ned said. “Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier.”

  “That’s not very romantic, Ned,” Torby said.

  “Romance is a lie told to propagate the species and sell deodorant,” Ned said. “You can quote me on that.”

  Claire was now wishing she had not attempted to play this additional game. It added another layer of stress to an already challenging situation.

  Torby set down the word “reason” off of the letter n in Claire’s word.

  He smiled at Claire.

  “There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness,” Torby said. “Nietzsche, again.”

  “The heart has its reasons which reason knows not,” Ned said. “Blaise Pascal.”

  “Much improved, Ned,” Professor Richmond said. “Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe. Voltaire. You could substitute the word ‘love’ for faith and it would still be accurate.”

  “What, no Shakespeare?” Ned said as if shocked. “That’s two in a row.”

  “Very well,” Professor Richmond said. “And yet, to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays.”

  They all looked at Claire.

  Her heart was racing as she tried to think of a quote using the word ‘reason’ or ‘love.’ She could think of any number of song lyrics, but here she was claim
ing her area of expertise was film, and she wanted to stick with that. She thought of Laurie and a quote immediately came to her, as easily as if the temperamental actress who once said it had just lit a cigarette and raised a heavily-penciled-on eyebrow.

  “Love is a fire. But whether it is going to warm your hearth or burn down your house, you can never tell,” she said. “Joan Crawford.”

  “Wonderful,” Torby said.

  “She is an old-time film actress,” Ned said. “Correct?”

  “Correct,” Claire said.

  “I want to thank you, Claire, for throwing up the sash to allow some fresh air into our musty room,” Professor Richmond said. “You must never miss a game night.”

  Two hours later, as Claire left the professor’s apartment, warmed by their flattering attentions and buzzed by their clever banter, she thought, ‘What odd friends I’m collecting.’ They wanted her to learn to play Whist; it sounded too difficult to her, but for them, she said she would try. Alan had given her a reading list and a stack of books; it was daunting, but she wanted to please him.

  She hoped the position at the college would work out. She also hoped her experience and skill would be more valuable than who she knew, and yet, even as she cheered herself with these thoughts, deep down she realized she was hoping it would all work out in the face of all the evidence to the contrary. She was old enough to know that the world did not reward merit as often as it did connections.

  Her mother, who was known for her positive outlook, still could be heard to say, “When has the world ever been fair to this family?”

  ‘I’m ass-deep in weltschmerz,’ she thought.

  She crossed the street to the Rose and Thorn and stopped in. Patrick was polishing glasses. He raised his head in a greeting. When he’d returned from Laurie’s earlier in the evening, he had pronounced him passed out but in no danger; Patrick was better than an EMT in diagnosing degrees of drunkenness.

  Claire set her stack of books on the bar and took a seat at the end, near the front door, the seat her father used to sit in and the one Laurie always chose: back to the wall, the best position from which to observe the entrance and the whole bar.