A Woman's Place

by Barbara Delinsky

  “Did I?”

  “Definitely.”

  “Why?”

  “You tell me.”

  I thought about it. “Maybe I wanted to make him proud. Certainly, satisfied.”

  “Maybe you knew his eye was wandering and wanted to make yourself indispensable.”

  “That does sound controlling. Then again, maybe I did it for Mom. To please her. Y’know?”

  Rona laughed. “Nu-uh. Mom was so enthralled by everything you did that she wouldn’t have noticed the difference between perfection and a hair less so.”

  “She wouldn’t have been enthralled by my divorce.” That thought did haunt me still.

  “But you’re adapting to it.”

  “What choice do I have?” I swiveled on my bottom to face Rona. “How do the kids seem to you? I’m worried they’ll be screwed up. Do they seem different?”

  “Johnny, maybe. More introspective. That may be his age, though. I wouldn’t worry about them, Claire. They’re well-grounded kids.”

  “Tell that to the GAL,” I muttered.

  “Sure. Point me in his direction.”

  My muttering had been rhetoric. I hadn’t expected Rona to take it as an offer. But she was serious. More than serious, if her look meant anything. It was purposeful. She was testing me, daring me to trust her with a part of my life that was so important to me.

  Jenovitz would have a field day with Rona. A question here, a bit of silence there, and he would have her spilling her guts. With the best of intentions, she might say something all the wrong way.

  “I think he has a problem with women,” I hedged.

  Rona’s look didn’t change.

  “He dislikes me,” I tried again. “You’re my sister. He’s apt to dislike you on that fact alone, so where will that get us?”

  “I can still tell him you’ve been a great mother.” Her mouth thinned. “Look, Claire, I may resent you for a lot of things, but I’d never take that away from you. You have been a great mother. Besides,” her voice went hard, “Dennis is a prick. He cheated on you for years.”

  “I don’t know that.”

  “He did. Trust me. Where there’s smoke, et cetera.” She tipped up her chin and looked out to sea. “Dennis made a pass at me once.”

  “What?”

  “Touched me in a totally inappropriate way. I mean, totally inappropriate way. Nothing innocent intended, nothing innocent taken.”

  “When?”

  “Between Jerry and Harold.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  She gave me an are-you-nuts look. “Because you were married to the guy. Besides, Mom would have killed me. She would have blamed me for wearing a tight dress and accused me of making a pass at Dennis and asked what did I think I was doing trying to ruin your marriage.” She put her chin on her knees, but not before I saw that her look had turned stricken.

  I patted her arm. When I realized she couldn’t feel it through her jacket, I increased the pressure of my hand. It was a small gesture. We had pretty much reverted to our touch-me-not style of old. I knew that the habit of years couldn’t be changed in a single week, but I wanted to make the effort. I was comfortable touching the children, Brody, even friends. Not so Connie. Or Dennis. I wanted things to be different now with Rona.

  “How are you doing, without Mom?” I asked gently.

  “Fine.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. There’s plenty to keep me busy—big sale at Neiman Marcus, huuuuge gala at the country club, incrrrrrredible special on sculpted nails at the Ten-in-a-Row Emporium.”

  “I’m serious, Rona.”

  “So am I.”

  “I’ll rephrase the question, then. How are you during the time when you aren’t busy?”

  “Lost,” she said without pause, then straightened her back and took a breath. “I was thinking of moving. I’m tired of Cleveland.”

  “You’ve lived there all your life.”

  “Yup, and everyone there thinks I’m as much of a ditz as Mom did. I need a new start.”

  “What did you have in mind?”

  “Australia. I read Mutant Message. I could shed my worldly possessions and spend five months walking the outback in a search for the meaning of life. Or, I could go to Harvard Square, browse the coffee shops wearing my John Lennon glasses, and look for an intellectual who’s smart enough to see the woman inside.”

  Laugh or cry—I could have gone either way. It struck me that even without Dennis, my life was filled with people, while Rona was alone.

  “But I won’t,” she said. Taking a visible breath, she relaxed her stance. “Actually,” she turned her head and met my eye, “I’m feeling more responsible than I used to. Like since I don’t have a mother anymore, I’m not a child anymore. Know what I mean?”

  I hadn’t had that particular feeling, and shook my head to let her know.

  “No,” she said, “you wouldn’t. You grew up when Daddy died. Me, I just kind of bided my time until I could live my life without Connie watching and judging my every move.” She gave a small sigh and sought the horizon. “But you wouldn’t know about that, either, would you?”

  She was wrong. I did know. I had learned what it was to be judged—and judged unfairly, though it hadn’t occurred to me to make the connection between Rona’s experience and mine. I did now, and the connection was there—in the anger I had felt, the sense of helplessness and injustice, the nights of sleep I had lost and the tears I had shed.

  So, had I been as blind about Connie as I had been about Dennis? Had I seen what I wanted to see? Worse, had I bought into Connie’s criticisms of Rona because they had made me look good by comparison?

  One thing I did know. I had put Connie on a pedestal, because she was my mother and I wanted her there. But she had abused Rona. My silence had condoned it. That made me partly responsible.

  No amount of apologizing on my part could change what Rona had experienced, but I could help her in other ways. The first of those came to me late that afternoon. We were at the office—Rona, reading USA Today, and I, reviewing the monthly reports from our franchises in Milwaukee, Kansas City, and Charleston. We were waiting for Brody, who was dropping Joy at the airport and coming back to take us to dinner.

  When he finally arrived, he looked distracted. He went to his desk and turned papers around to study them from the front so that he wouldn’t have to unseat Rona. Then he straightened and put a hand on the top of his head.

  I knew that gesture, all right.

  “Brody?”

  He looked my way, held up his hand, and smiled. “No sweat. I’m cool.” He bent over the desk again, turned his day-at-a-glance calendar around, and flipped several pages over and back. Then he straightened again and blew out a breath. “I’ll handle it.”

  I had a feeling I knew what the problem was. “The Christmas boutiques?” Not only the boutiques, but three charity events begging for our attendance.

  “I can handle it. Being at the airport and thinking about flying out Monday must have gotten me a little crazy, is all.”

  We had been wrestling with the problem for days. Technically, the boutiques would survive without us. We had already received detailed reports on the Christmas displays, had given our approval or disapproval where it fit. The visits were more for employee morale.

  But we were big on morale. It set our operation apart from many another, and was a powerful incentive for hard work and loyalty. We hadn’t yet had a franchisee sell out and open a competing business. Granted, Brody had put a clause in our contracts to prevent that, but there were ways to get around clauses, such as opening beyond the ninety-mile limit we had set out. No one had done that to us. We chose to think it was because we made our people feel important. Personal visits did that.

  Since I couldn’t make them this year, Brody had agreed to. But he was also doing double the work at home, what with my distractions. He had worked late most nights this week and was planning more of the same for the we
ekend.

  I glanced at Rona. She held the newspaper in front of her, but her eyes were raised above it, focused on nothing in particular. She looked half asleep.

  “Rona,” I called sharply.

  Her eyes snapped to mine.

  “How would you like an all-expense-paid trip across the country?”

  Her brows rose.

  “We need someone to check out our Christmas boutiques,” I said. “There are twelve of them. Brody was going to hit two a day. You could spread it out more. What do you say?”

  She looked confused.

  “We’d give you a checklist of things to look for. You’d report back at the end of each stop. It’d actually be kind of fun. You’d take our people out to breakfast or dinner, whichever works out best, be a goodwill ambassador of sorts. Same with three charity events—literacy, cancer, and AIDS.”

  Rona looked from me to Brody and back. Eyebrows still raised, she pointed a questioning finger at herself, and for a minute, just a minute, I shared her doubt.

  Then I realized that it wasn’t me sharing the doubt. It was Connie’s voice in my head, warning that Rona could as easily ignore the WickerWise boutiques for the sake of shopping in other departments, spending money she shouldn’t spend on clothing she didn’t need, forgetting about the plane she had to catch until it was so late she flat-out missed it.

  “Yes, you,” Brody told Rona, and Connie’s voice went still. “You’d be the perfect one to do it. The way you looked when you got here on Wednesday—” He smiled in a way that said the solution to our problem was simple and right.

  The way she had looked when she got here on Wednesday was subdued, which for Rona meant a suit that was navy instead of hot pink, jewelry that was mid-sized instead of over-sized, and hair that was brushed to a shine, without an ounce of tease.

  Rona looked guarded, but definitely interested. “I’d be like the cosmetic specialist visiting Bendel’s from Yves St. Laurent?”

  “Without the smock,” I said, leaving my chair, “and without the work. You wouldn’t have to do any selling yourself, or stand around waiting for customers to come. You’d be there strictly in a supervisory capacity.”

  “Part of the managerial team,” Brody added. “The only catch is that you’d have to head out this Sunday. We can route you through Cleveland so that you can pick up more clothes, and you can take up to two weeks, but everything has to be visited by mid-December.”

  I came up beside him and said to Rona, “You weren’t planning on going anywhere else. What do you say?”

  Rona scowled. “Are you sure this isn’t just a makeshift dummy’s mission to give me something to do with Mom gone?”

  Brody’s expression was nearly as priceless as his voice. “‘Makeshift dummy’s mission’? Christ, Rona, I’ve been pulling overtime all week trying to get ready for this, it’s that important. If you don’t do it, it’s right back in my lap. You’d be doing me a huge favor.”

  “Twelve cities?” she asked.

  “Well, if that’s too many—”

  Brody cut me off. “Twelve cities.”

  “Could I fly first class?”

  “No,” he said.

  I would have bargained with her, which was why Brody was the money person.

  Rona sat back. “What about a salary?”

  I wasn’t touching that subject.

  Brody didn’t blink. “Two hundred a day.”

  She made a face. “That’s less than ten bucks an hour. I’d make more as a janitor at Cleveland Heights High. Three hundred a day.”

  “Two-fifty. You wouldn’t want to be a janitor. Besides, you don’t need the money. Two-fifty, plus expenses. Take it or leave it.”

  “You drive a hard bargain, Brody Parth,” she said, but there was a smile on her face that made me feel nice.

  Three days later, on the first Monday in December, Carmen and Art faced off before Justice David Wheeler of the Massachusetts Court of Appeals. Wheeler’s courtroom was far quieter than Selwey’s had been. The floor was carpeted, for one thing. For another, there were no spectators, no hum from the rows of empty wood benches.

  The room itself was large. Before those wood benches was the bar, beyond which were tables for each of the lawyers flanking a podium, then, raised, a longer bench for the justices. Three high-backed leather chairs sat behind it. Justice Wheeler occupied the central one.

  There was no sense of crisis, no frenzy here. Aside from the creak of Wheeler’s chair when he alternately leaned far back to listen and came forward to question, the only sounds were his voice and those of Carmen and Arthur.

  Each lawyer argued his or her case from the central podium. Since the justice already knew the facts, the purpose of the hearing was to allow him to ask questions, but only as they pertained to the earlier hearings with Selwey. This hearing was simply a review of that court action. No new evidence would be put forward. Carmen’s argument, dictated by the nature of the appeal, was that Selwey had abused judicial discretion by making a decision that was beyond the bounds of reason. Heuber argued to the contrary. Neither Dennis nor I were asked to testify, but remained seated at the tables below.

  The hearing lasted for just under an hour. We had been hoping that Justice Wheeler would announce his decision from the bench at the end of that time. In fact, he took the matter under advisement, promising a written opinion within several days.

  So we waited. Again. Still.

  Dean Jenovitz knew how disappointed I was when the court granted him an extension on the original thirty days allowed for the study, but I didn’t think for a minute that my impatience spurred him on. More likely it was the ten-day trip to Florida he had planned for the end of December. Whatever the reason, I was relieved when I got the first of the calls telling me he had started down my reference list.

  I was actually relieved in more ways than one. Whether my calls to each of those people had helped or they simply thought well of me, I didn’t know, but they gave positive reports.

  The children’s pediatric nurse-practitioner, with whom I had developed a close enough friendship over the years to have her daughter spend one summer working in our Vineyard store, called to say, “He was pleasant enough, Claire. He asked if I thought the children were well-adjusted, happy, well-cared for, that kind of thing. Naturally, I said they were. I laughed and said a big no when he asked if I had ever seen signs of abuse. He didn’t ask anything specific about you or Dennis. So I took it upon myself to tell him. I mean, I didn’t say anything against Dennis. He would have thought you’d prepped me, and really, you haven’t, but you’ve been the one I’ve dealt with all these years. I told him that. I just slipped it right into the conversation in the middle of praising you as a mother. I said that there was no way those children wouldn’t be well-adjusted and happy and well-cared for with a mother like you.”

  Kikit’s teacher, who had been Johnny’s two years before, at which time I had been a room mother, called to say, “He was asking about Kikit, since she’s in my class now, but I made it clear right at the start that I knew both children well. He asked how they did in school. I told him the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. He asked how they got along with other kids, how they handled new problems, how they reacted to disappointments. Then he asked to see Kikit’s report card. I explained that we don’t grade the children this young, but that if he’d like a preview of the written report I’ll be sending home on Kikit in January, I’d do hers early and send it along.” When I started to protest the extra work, she said, “I’m thrilled to do it, Claire. I don’t know your husband well at all, so I can’t say much about him either way, but you’ve always been generous with your time with us, and you’re clearly devoted to your children.”

  Our minister called to ask how I was doing and say that he was still hoping Dennis and I would reconcile, which was what he had told the GAL. “I said that the children seemed fine to me, but that I only see them for a few hours each week, so it would be hard for me to see how they were ad
justing to the separation unless there were a marked change in their behavior, which there hasn’t been. I suspect you’re working hard to keep this as painless for them as possible. I told him that. I did invite him to join us this weekend, but he declined.”

  Encouraged, I called Johnny’s basketball coach on the pretense of saying that, separation or no separation, Dennis and I would like to hold the team’s holiday banquet at the house again this year. I knew that Dennis wouldn’t dare object. Lasagna, Italian bread, a huge tossed salad—as banquets went it was easy enough. I could do it spending little more than the afternoon and evening of the event at the house, even less if Dennis helped. The coach was grateful for the offer.

  “I’ve had lots of people come forward and say they’d chip in to help at someone else’s house,” he said, “but you’re one of the few with the courage to take on twelve nine-year-olds plus their parents for dinner at your own. I told that to the fellow who called. He wanted to know how long I’d known Johnny and whether I’d seen a change in him since you two separated. I told him that Johnny’s always been one of my hardest-working players, which is a tribute to you and Dennis. You’ve always been there on the sidelines, and now Dennis is jumping right in. He’s helped me coach these last few weeks. Knows some pretty good drills. Think he’s after my job?”

  I was more hesitant calling Kikit’s allergy doctor. I feared that he would align himself with a fellow health professional and take confidentiality to heart. So I called him on the pretense of asking if there was any chance that Kikit might have a slow-building reaction to Valentino’s dander. I had already checked it out with his nurse, and would never have taken Valentino if there had been the slightest chance of a problem. The doctor confirmed that and was pleased when I said that Kikit hadn’t so much as sniffled in Valentino’s company. Then he told me about his GAL call.

  “We talked for a while about whether Kikit’s anaphylaxis could be affected by emotional upset. I told him you had called and asked me that yourself right after Kikit’s last attack. I told him what I told you, that an extremely upset child could bring on psychosomatic symptoms, or that an extremely disturbed child could deliberately eat something he or she shouldn’t for the sake of getting the parents’ attention, but I don’t put Kikit into either of those categories. I told him that she’s a strong little girl who doesn’t seem afraid to tell her parents much of anything, even when they’re wrong. Actually, your husband called to ask about the cat, too. I could hear Kikit in the background. She wasn’t very happy with him. But he handled her fine. And I handled him fine. So the cat’s okay, Claire. Anything else?”