“No, I’m not. I’m your daughter!” Diana rescues her precious juicer from the sink and checks to make sure it’s not broken.
“The last thing the Brooklyn police care about is some noise coming from my living room,” says Hayden. “It’s that bloody Mrs. Trummel always complainin’ and makin’ them come by because one of her girls works as a cop. And I’m sick of her, too! I’m tired of all you women. Tonight I want you and Rosie to go off to a nice dinner and then to one of those female movies where they all run around cryin’ and tryin’ to find a cure for a baby with a rare disease.” From out of his pocket Hayden digs five crisp twenty-dollar bills, a monumental amount of money for him, and stuffs them into her hand. “My treat!” he barks.
Diana defiantly crumples his money and hurls it onto the countertop. “I have no interest in going to a restaurant for dinner when I enjoy cooking and can make a better meal right here.”
“You think I do’an’ know that you purposely cook us food we like so you can keep an eye on us? That’s a little trick you picked up from yer mother.”
“Well this is my house now, I have the paperwork to prove it, and to get me out of it you’ll have to call the police! Meanwhile, for dinner I’m planning braised lamb with rosemary, Cullen skink soup made from smoked haddock, and mashed potato. I’m sure Paddy, Duncan, Alisdair, and Hugh will be more than happy to enjoy it. You can go out for pizza if you want!”
Hayden hasn’t possessed much of an appetite lately, but braised lamb with rosemary . . . he could already smell it! Mary used to serve mint jelly on the side and make croutons out of fresh bread for the soup. But Hayden refuses to let on that he’s interested in the meal. “Your Scottish grandparents are turnin’ over in their graves hearin’ the disrespect American-raised children have for their parents. I just want you to know that!”
“You, the big atheist, want me to believe that your parents are looking down on us from heaven and then feel guilty about trying to keep you alive.”
Rosamond is waiting outside the door and only enters the kitchen when she senses the exclamation points have been exhausted and the argument is winding down. Diana and Hayden regularly engage in rows and Rosamond has observed that having bystanders around only seems to encourage them. It was easier for the defiant Hayden and the equally stubborn Diana to accept defeat without an audience.
“Oh-uh.” Hayden grasps for an explanation when he sees Rosamond. He doesn’t want her to think he’s being unreasonable, especially since Rosamond and Diana appear to get along so well together. “I was just askin’ Diana if she’d be so kind as to make some extra supper tonight since I’ve invited the boys over. We can’t get enough of her fine cookin’.”
“Yes,” agrees Rosamond. “Diana’s a marvelous cook. And I’d better help if she’s going to make enough for everyone.”
“Then I’d better leave you girls to it!”
Diana exchanges knowing looks with Rosamond and begins organizing the ingredients for the meal.
“Dad, run to the Italian bakery with Joey and get some fresh bread for the croutons.”
“Righty-o,” says Hayden with unexpected enthusiasm. “Always happy to help.” He’s already thinking about the chocolate éclairs.
Later that evening the men eat in the living room with plates balanced on their laps and watch Rob Roy for the millionth time, while a frantic Ginger races about the room scarfing up anything that even briefly strays from plate, fork, or mouth.
In the kitchen Diana teaches Rosamond how to make a Dundee cake with spices and dried fruits and then topped off with almonds. Joey sits at the table polishing his school shoes with WD-40, the way Hayden had showed him, insisting that it’s cheaper and better than shoe polish.
“I always wanted a pair of patent leather shoes as a girl,” says Rosamond. “But the nuns claimed that the boys would be able to see our underwear in the reflection.”
“Is that true?” Joey holds up his shoe to check for his reflection, as if this piece of information might open the door to a whole new hobby.
“Actually, it was probably just one of those old nun’s tales, like communion doesn’t count if you have gum in your mouth.”
“I want to eat dinner with Grandpa and watch the movie,” complains Joey. He’s pretty sure there’s sex in it, because even though Diana doesn’t like him to watch violence she doesn’t forbid it. Sex is another matter. “Why can’t I watch the movie?”
“You can’t watch the movie because you’re eleven, that’s why.”
“I’ll be twelve in a few days!”
“Well Rob Roy is rated R! It’s bad enough the way you and your grandfather read those gardener’s catalogs.” Diana says this in her best “the things I put up with around here” voice.
“Gardener’s catalogs?” Rosamond is curious.
Diana smiles as if it’s against her better judgment, but she can’t help it because at the end of the day Hayden makes her laugh. “Oh, go ahead. Show Rosamond.”
Joey digs a glossy color catalog out from under a pile of newspapers near the basement door and randomly opens it to a middle page. Then he clears his throat and begins reading in a throaty voice as if he’s narrating luscious pornography, obviously something picked up from Hayden: “ ‘The Bristol onion demonstrates a healthy erect green stalk on the surface and matures into a variety with excellent smooth skin cover and very uniform well-shaped bulbs, hard when ripe, with a delicate flavor.’ ” He is careful to emphasize all the words that lend themselves to a double meaning the way Hayden does.
At first Rosamond blushes and looks down at the table but Diana’s hearty laughter puts her at ease. Rosamond joins in and soon the two women are laughing so hard that they need to stop decorating the dessert and Joey is thoroughly enjoying being the center of attention. He certainly has Hayden’s ability to entertain, thinks Diana. Maybe she should enroll him in some drama classes offered over at the Y. That would be safe, so long as they don’t allow duels and that sort of nonsense.
When Joey finishes the Bristol onion and the Guatemalan red pepper Diana says, “Do the strawberry.”
Joey turns the page to his mother’s favorite. In a good imitation of Hayden’s brogue he slowly purrs: “ ‘The strawberry Eros are a bright, firm fragrant fruit with a voluptuous conical shape and when ripe deliver a tantalizing sweetness. They have superior yield and mature quickly with proper care and are surprisingly disease resistant.’ ”
By now all three of them are convulsed with giggles. “Here,” Joey says and passes the catalog to Rosamond. “You do one.”
“No, no, I couldn’t.” Rosamond is laughing so hard that tears are streaming down her cheeks. She takes a sip of tea but only proceeds to choke on it so the liquid runs out her nose, which makes Diana and Joey hit the table with their hands and lean back in their chairs. Diana holds her stomach with one hand as if she’s about to become ill from laughing so hard. Rosamond finally composes herself, takes the catalog from him and in a serious voice begins: “ ‘This exotic black beauty aubergine is rich dark purple with pear-shaped fruits that are springy to the touch and taste.’ ” But her cheeks quickly redden and they all burst into gales of laughter before she can go any further.
While the women finish drying the dishes Joey takes the Ouija board from the pantry.
“I haven’t seen one of those since I was a kid!” exclaims Rosamond.
Joey and Diana sit across from each another at the kitchen table with their fingertips resting on the molded plastic roamer with the gold pointer. They ask questions and then wait for the subway to rumble underneath the neighborhood and the pointer to head toward “yes” or “no,” spell out an answer, or skate over to a number. Diana asks the board if Joey’s new teacher will be nice and the pointer eventually glides to Y for yes. And then Joey asks, “Will Dad take me camping this summer?”
Diana lifts her fingers from the cream-colored triangle and looks up. “I don’t know, Joey. Your dad is pretty busy doing construction work up in
Providence so he can pay off some debts.”
“But he promised me for my birthday—”
“I’ll take you camping, Joey,” Rosamond interjects. “I may not be able to cook but—”
“That’s not true . . . anymore,” says Diana.
“I used to camp in the North Woods with my dad,” explains Rosamond. “He taught me how to track bear and deer, and I even know how to shoot with a bow and arrow.”
“Really?” Joey’s amazed that a woman, especially one who was a nun when he met her, is in possession of such worthy talents. “Can we sleep outside and cook over an open fire just like cowboys?”
“Sure. We’ll go up to the Adirondacks and explore some caves and look for Indian arrowheads.” Though Rosamond wonders if she’ll live long enough and be well enough to undertake such a trip.
After the men have been served their Dundee cake Diana tells Joey it’s time for bed and kisses him good night. Joey kisses Rosamond on the cheek and she runs her fingers through his hair as she gently brushes her lips across his forehead. Being kissed by Rosamond almost makes going to bed so early bearable. Joey imagines that her kiss probably feels the same as the feathery touch of an angel from heaven.
“You’d better put on your headphones,” Diana says and nods toward the battle cries and beating of a snare drum coming from the next room. “And stop sleeping with Ginger on your pillow and that big baseball mitt underneath your mattress.”
“It’s a catcher’s mitt,” Joey specifies.
“I don’t care what it is, if you don’t take it out you’re going to be an asthmatic humpback!”
chapter forty
While the men’s voices rise and fall in the next room, contingent upon which side is prevailing in the blood-soaked battles, Rosamond and Diana sit across from each other at the kitchen table. Diana places her fingers on the roaming piece in the middle of the Ouija board and moves it to the center. “Didn’t you do this sort of thing when you were growing up?” she asks.
“A girl used to bring one to school for playing at recess. But not having any siblings I didn’t own board games. Dad and I used to whittle at night—slingshots and knife handles and that sort of thing. He wasn’t very talkative. I think he missed my mother a lot. And then, after he finally remarried, my stepmother had enough conversation for the three of us.”
Diana and Rosamond rest their fingertips on the plastic triangle. “Now ask a question, and then we wait for an answer from the spirits, or in this case, the F train.”
“All right.” And with a twinkle in her eye Rosamond says, “Will Diana go out on another date with Hank?” After a few moments they feel a slight rumble underground and the pointer slides in the direction of the zero.
Diana grimaces and then removes her hands from the triangle and places them over her face. “That’s correct, definitely a big zero with a zero chance.”
“I thought we were supposed to let the spirits answer,” says Rosamond.
“I think they just did. Don’t get me wrong, Rosamond, I know Hank is a friend of yours, and he’s a very sweet man, but if the spirits had experienced how he kissed they wouldn’t go out with him again either.”
“He kissed you?” Rosamond is surprised. “On the first date?”
Diana laughs at her friend’s innocence. “Uh, Rosamund, these days a good-night kiss on the first date is considered pretty conservative. Some of those movies we watch are from the 1950s.”
“Oh yes, of course.”
“Now it’s my turn,” Diana says and puts her hands back on the triangle, opposite Rosamond’s. “Will Rosamond kiss Dad?”
Rosamond stares down at the Ouija board and attempts to avoid eye contact with Diana. But her cheeks flare with color and she feels her heart thudding in her chest until it’s overtaken by a subway train thundering into the nearby station and the silver pointer slides to “maybe.”
“You wouldn’t mind?” Rosamond asks almost shyly.
The men’s voices rise in the next room as Rob Roy MacGregor ambushes the king’s soldiers.
“Of course not.” Diana smiles at her. “You two should have a good time together. I never thought I’d be able to handle the thought of Dad having feelings for another woman, other than Mom, but . . .”
“But what?”
“You’re . . . you’re good for him. I mean, you’re a terrific person in your own right.” Then she leans over as if they’re co-conspirators. “And I’ll tell you a secret, Dad’s a terrific kisser. Mom always said so.”
“Oh dear,” says Rosamond with alarm.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m . . . I’m just afraid I might be in the same boat as, well, poor old Hank. My first and last kiss was in high school.”
“I see,” muses Diana. “When I was a teenager Linda and I used to practice kissing, you know, with our pillows. We practiced some other things, too, but there’s no need to go into that now.”
“Has kissing really changed that much?”
“It’s not that it’s changed.” Diana smiles with encouragement. “It’s just that we change as we get older. It’s hard to explain. Why don’t you try? Put your lips together like this.” Diana demonstrates from her position across the table. “Now Hank was doing the teenage throat plunge with too much inner lip, tongue, and suction.” Diana again demonstrates as if she’s looking in a mirror. But Rosamond only seems confused.
“Do you know any poems?” asks Diana.
“Not really. I mean, I used to,” says Rosamond. “But now I only know a lot of prayers.” Though she doesn’t see the connection to kissing. Maybe Diana means poems about kissing or love, like Shakespeare’s sonnets. “Wait a second . . . I remember ‘Trees’?”
The word trees doesn’t immediately call up an image in Diana’s mind. She’d always been a fan of the romantics and the French symbolists.
Rosamond recites the first stanza. “I think that I shall never see a poem lovely as a tree.”
Diana has a flashback to the many Arbor Day celebrations in elementary school, standing around a newly planted tree and reciting the Joyce Kilmer poem. The words rise from the dusty recesses of her mind, back where the Pledge of Allegiance is stored along with the Lord’s Prayer and her mother’s recipe for sugar cookies—the first thing Diana was allowed to bake on her own. “Poems are made by fools like me,” she recites, going directly to the last lines.
And then Rosamond and Diana finish together: “But only God can make a tree.” They giggle at this shared remembrance and Diana almost forgets why she brought it up in the first place.
“Oh yes,” says Diana. “A kiss is like a poem without words. Or maybe you can say the same thing about a prayer.”
“A prayer without words?” Rosamond sounds even more puzzled.
“Here, stand up.” Diana rises and stands in front of her. “The adult kiss is soft, see . . .” She delicately wets her lips with her tongue and then parts her mouth very slightly. “You don’t lock lips and shove your tongue into the other person’s mouth like a dentist’s drill.”
Rosamond faces Diana and copies her. She wets her lips and opens them ever so slightly.
“Then you just close your eyes and put your lips between each other.” Diana opens her eyes and exclaims, “Oh, this is impossible. Here.” She leans over and kisses Rosamond.
At that moment the black Irishman Paddy Fitzgerald clambers into the kitchen for another beer, slightly tipsy, advantageously using the refrigerator door handle for ballast. “Delicious Dundee cake, Diana,” he says while opening the door and then does a double take when he registers the women kissing. But he only shakes his head as if he’s had either too much or not enough to drink and walks back out mumbling, “Absolutely delicious. Just like Mary used to make.”
“Thanks, Paddy,” Diana says to the retreating broad back and confused nodding of the head that Paddy shaved every day to give the overall effect of an even baldness.
“Yes, I see the difference,” Rosamond says. “Than
k you.”
Then they hear Paddy in the living room saying, “The girls are kissing in the kitchen. Do you think that’s a bit peculiar?”
Diana and Rosamond look at each other and cover their mouths to stifle giggles.
But Alisdair, Hugh, Duncan, and Hayden are well into their cups and it’s the scene of the final duel between MacGregor and the British noble, so they all sloppily hush Paddy and cheer for Rob Roy.
chapter forty-one
Despite drinking and falling into bed well after midnight, Hayden rises early the next morning. Much to the delight of Joey and Bobbie Anne’s daughters, he’s been putting his sheep farming experience to work by teaching Joey’s little poodle to herd ducks. Every morning Hayden supervises Ginger as she moves a quacking mob of mallards from the edge of the pond across the street and into their backyard for some bread crumbs and mash, and then returns them to the park.
A side benefit of these morning maneuvers has been the frightening off of all the rabbits destroying Mrs. Trummel’s garden, which in turn has considerably cut down on calls to the police about the boisterous nights of the Greyfriars Gang.
Hayden employs the Gaelic commands that his father used with their border collies, which were specially bred and trained to drive sheep. He explains to the children that the name of the breed of dogs known as collies, the best herders, is actually the Gaelic word for “sheep.” And how it was often said that without border collies there’d be no sheep at all in Scotland.
Between shouting what sounds like gibberish and a tiny orange poodle halting traffic as it chases a group of zigzagging and loudly quacking ducks across the street, Hayden appears quite the eccentric, even for Brooklyn. This is especially true on the days he wears his green, blue, and black plaid MacBride clan kilt to lend an air of ceremony to the proceedings, and Alisdair stops by to accompany the drill on his bagpipes. Hayden’s parade begins at nine o’clock sharp and by the start of the second week it attracts a regular crowd. Even the ducks honk and leap up with giddy anticipation when they see Hayden approach the pond or hear the first few notes on Alisdair’s pipes. They know that at the end of their march a reward will be forthcoming in the form of a homemade breakfast.
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