Ask Eleanor (Special Edition With Alternate Ending)

by Briggs, Laura

  “Of course you’re not,” she answered. Reproach for Marianne’s words had come back to her with full force.

  “I have – hidden depths, of a sort,” he ventured. The gruffness in his voice was still noticeable, although he was beginning to fumble his words. “There are other sides to me which are not – those of sports or war scenes or journalism.”

  “Of course,” answered Eleanor.

  “Poetry, for instance. I write poems.”

  She stared at him. “You do?” she said. Surprised by this idea as much as – well, Marianne would be in her place. Brandon studied his empty glass, then looked up as if waiting for her reaction to this confession.

  “I do,” he said. “Nothing very grand, of course. Bad, in fact. But I do write it.”

  A reply had not come to Eleanor’s mind yet. She was still attempting to process the full meaning of his words and his tone of voice when she heard the sound of her apartment door opening.

  Edward. Her head swiveled towards it, her eyes kindled with a strange feeling at the thought. A man had entered, removed his coat, spoke to someone nearby. She made her way closer through the crowd, towards this latest arrival. Who turned, so that their face was visible, partly framed in the light of a table lamp someone had switched on beside the door.

  It wasn’t him. Joel Harding from the AP office shook her hand, his words about her book lost in the murmur of voices around her. A tide of disappointment swallowing Eleanor, dimming her senses for her surroundings, the voices of her guests and the trill of Ella Fitzgerald’s voice.

  Marianne’s voice rose above the noise from somewhere in the vicinity of the open sliding doors to the balcony, reaching the fringes of Eleanor’s hearing. Will’s voice responding, not politely, it seemed. But Marianne’s tone was one of half-anger, half-pleading.

  “ – but that’s only because I’m pregnant.” These words seemed loud in the room, given an undue volume and attention due to a slight flutter of quiet embarrassment from the guests in their immediate vicinity.

  The crescendo notes of “I Can’t Get Started With You,” died away. The needle lifted softly from the vinyl, leaving the record scratching in silence.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Eleanor knocked on the door to the studio apartment. It was eight in the morning – she had every reason to assume that its occupants would be in bed now, but she did not wish to phone Marianne. Whom she had not spoken to since before the inadvertent announcement at the party.

  Will and Marianne had left early. Not long after that moment of ill-timed announcement. She had seen them go, separated from them by half a room. Marianne had raised her hand in farewell, smiling in Eleanor’s direction before allowing Will to lead her away. Eleanor had wanted to call for her to wait, but did not.

  She had been hurt. It was true; there was no reason to deny it. Moreover, she was still slightly shocked by the realization. In the aftermath of the party, with a handful of good and fairly quiet friends helping with the washing of champagne flutes and bagging of trash, the stowing of appetizers in storage containers, Eleanor’s mind had wandered over the possible outcomes of this scenario. Of Marianne and Will now cemented by a more permanent bond than a short-stopping train and an impulse of touch in the studio loft.

  Eleanor was preparing to knock again when the door opened. There was Marianne, in an oversized shirt stained with paint, a floral skirt, and a pair of rubber crocs. Not asleep, but very much awake.

  “Elly,” she said. Cautiously, perhaps even meekly, although Eleanor very much doubted there was meekness in her sister’s feelings at this moment. Ten minutes after the accidental announcement at the party, she had been laughing at an acquaintance’s story with all the carefree ease of her ordinary self.

  “Marianne,” she said. “Can we talk?”

  “Actually, I was on my way out. To my studio.” Marianne lifted a heavy denim bag from the floor, from which long telescopes of rolled-up paper protruded. “So if you want something –”

  “How long have you known?” asked Eleanor.

  Marianne paused. “I’ve known for about a week,” she said. Not apologetically, but without any bubbly tone to this reply.

  “And is it certain?”

  Marianne released a long sigh. “Yes, I’m not an idiot, Eleanor. I took a test – several – and before you say it, no, it is not the reason that Will and I are here together.”

  “I remember all the reasons you gave me before. I just wanted to make sure you were all right.”

  This statement emerged lamely. There was a great deal more she wanted to say. About all of these things – the baby, Will, the headlong rush that was Marianne’s life. But there was nothing that she could say that wouldn’t be a mark against her at this moment.

  Marianne opened the door more fully, allowing Eleanor to enter. “I wanted to tell you, Elly,” she said, “but I was going to wait until after the party. Give you a little more time to get used to the idea of Will. After all, if you don’t like him as a lover, what would you think of him as a father?”

  What would he be as a father? That was something Eleanor had not attempted to picture, not yet.

  “Hopefully, I will think he’s very attentive and caring,” said Eleanor. Who glanced around and found no sign of Will being home. From the kitchen came the smell of roasted coffee beans, a pile of dirty dishes on the table. The bed in the corner was unmade, its blankets and sheets trailing onto the floor.

  “Have you been to the doctor?” Eleanor asked.

  “I have an appointment in two days,” answered Marianne, who lifted a set of car keys from a hook on the wall. “But I’m sure everything’s fine. I eat right, I get plenty of sleep, I’m physical. It should all be perfect.”

  “Will,” ventured Eleanor. “He’s happy about this, isn’t he?”

  Marianne made a face. “There you go,” she said, exasperated, “looking for the dark cloud in a silver lining. Will loves me, so everything is going to be fine.”

  “And you’re happy?”

  “Yes.” A smile spread across Marianne’s face, its radiance like sunlight. “Nothing has ever made me happier, Elly. I’ve never felt anything like this at all.”

  “You can’t describe it. I know,” said Eleanor, softly. Thinking of Marianne’s words at the poetry circle, declaring herself helpless to communicate herself to others with artistic words.

  Marianne shook her head. “I couldn’t,” she said. “At least not to you, since you have no clue how this could feel.”

  A look of slight indignation crossed Eleanor’s face. “What do you mean by that?” she asked.

  “Only that you’re not ... you know ... passionate in the way I am. You don’t feel things so deeply or impulsively or ... you know what I mean.”

  “I think without those things I still have a very clear idea of love,” answered Eleanor. “And as for saying I have no impulses –”

  Here, she stopped short. The thought of telling Marianne about Edward, although it had been appealing beforehand, now seemed undesirable. A better secret for herself, perhaps – for how could she truly say what she felt? Everything in a kiss, a touch, a look – it couldn’t find its way into the form of concrete definition. I’m in love. He loves me back. We are seeing each other. A future between us is possible.

  It was nothing at all like that. Not yet. Maybe if he had come last night, such an explanation would now have parameters of definition. But he had been delayed by his previous plans, it seemed.

  “I’m sorry.” Marianne looked slightly hurt. “I didn’t mean it that way, Elly. Honestly, I didn’t. I only meant that you and I don’t feel things the same way. But I know you’re going to be happy for me, eventually.” With another smile, she put her arms around Eleanor and drew her close in a hug.

  She felt the wiry nature of Marianne’s arms beneath the oversized shirt. She envisioned the child which must be somewhere between them, the beginning of a heartbeat in the vicinity of Marianne’s now-slender stomach. Envis
ioning a gulf stretching between them, a swollen belly like an island of its own. Her arms tightened around Marianne in response to this, as if feeling the frailty of the girlish frame.

  “It’s all right, Elly.” Marianne whispered this against her hair. When she released her, there was a faint glitter of tears in her eyes, not of sorrow, but happiness. Almost beatific in their glow.

  “The keys,” said Eleanor, faintly, looking at the keychain in Marianne’s hand. “Those aren’t the ones to your car, are they?” The ones in Marianne’s hand had an automatic lock and panic button, not a rusted-through keychain of an antique sculpture.

  Marianne glanced at them. “No. Well, yes, in a way. That is, it’s Will’s. I borrowed it today, since he’s spending this afternoon at the poet’s cafe and it’s walking distance from here. I guess he’s a little concerned about my taking crowded public transit right now, even though I told him it’s fine. My car will be out of the shop – eventually – when I pay for its repairs.”

  Smart. Sensible. Concerned. Perhaps Eleanor could like him after all, in spite of himself.

  “I’m glad,” she said. “I shall see you later, then. And Will. I’ll have to congratulate him.”

  “He’ll be glad to hear you say that,” said Marianne, with satisfaction. “You know, he’s very fond of you. He likes you very much.”

  “That’s nice to know,” said Eleanor. Who wished, against all personal conviction, that she could feel the same way. About herself, about Will, about this sudden turn in their relationship that she had not anticipated in that sudden tumble of a sentence into her evening of celebration.

  *****

  Lucy looked particularly pleasant that morning. She wore her business blouse buttoned a space lower than usual, showing off a small diamond pendant that Eleanor suspected was a gift, whether recent or in the past. Her legs were crossed sedately as she sat on the edge of her office chair, reading something on her computer screen.

  When Eleanor entered, she snapped to attention. “The paper is on your desk,” she said, “and I took the liberty of opening it to the piece in question.”

  “What piece?” Eleanor was dumbfounded.

  “The anniversary piece about your column, Eleanor,” said Lucy, in a tone which implied it was a silly question to answer. “It’s absolutely perfect. I couldn’t have written it better myself.”

  It must have been Bitterman’s idea. But he never mentioned having someone write anything for the column’s anniversary. Even “Ask Eleanor” in its latest publication would breeze past the ten year mark without even a mention of its milestone. It had not occurred to Eleanor to insert one in the midst of advising someone on grief and someone else on minor addiction.

  Well, it had occurred to her briefly, perhaps. But she had shrunk from the thought of self-congratulations appearing in her own work.

  “I only wish I could have come to the party last night. I’m so sorry that I had dinner reservations. There were some friends in town whom I hadn’t seen in months, and I promised to catch up with a certain special someone on everything that’s been happening lately. If it hadn’t been for that, I would have been there for you. One hundred percent.”

  Her soon-to-be-fiancé, Eleanor imagined, and a series of friends from Lucy’s former place of residence, most likely her university. “No need to apologize,” Eleanor assured her. “I completely understand.” She sat down at her desk and swiveled her chair to face the open newspaper neatly folded to an article on the fifth page.

  “Ten Years of Telling the Truth: the Pittsburgh Herald’s own Eleanor Darbish celebrates a decade of “Ask Eleanor” and no-nonsense advice.”

  Below the headline: “Practical, pragmatic, soft-spoken. That’s the description columnist Al Jorgen gave of fellow advice columnist Eleanor Darbish once when asked about his competition. A description given with respect by the longtime writer for the third most-syndicated advice columnist in U.S. newspapers, whose career has reached a milestone which only a handful of writers achieve in publishing...”

  “Didn’t Bitterman tell you that one of the staff writers was doing a piece?” asked Lucy, interrupting her thoughts.

  “No,” said Eleanor. “I didn’t realize –”

  “It’s in more than the Herald this morning. The body of the article is in the Chicago Banner and the Oregon News Press as well, plus ten or twelve others.” She was hovering over Eleanor’s shoulder.

  “ ... when Darbish’s column was picked up by six different papers in the southwest and five more on the west coast. Suddenly, an interest in the subtle-but-serious mantras of “Ask Eleanor” was growing. The ‘kind of advice you mother did – or didn’t – give you, but should have,’ to quote one longtime Herald newsroom staffer, whose quip apparently inspired the title of Darbish’s first self-help book...”

  “There’s a typo in that line in the digital version,” said Lucy, pointing ahead in the article. “Right there. Where it says, ‘has the future of media made papers obsolete.’ Online, its ‘osolete.’”

  “Yes, all right,” said Eleanor, slightly annoyed. “Perhaps they’ll correct it later.” Her eye was now drawn ahead to that line, reading it to herself.

  “Has the future of media made papers obsolete? The success of ‘Ask Eleanor’ seems to defy, at least for now, the gloomy predictions of popularity decline for syndicated columns and feature writers. Turning another milestone in the history of newspapers, this celebrated piece will not soon be forgotten by its readers.”

  She stopped reading at this line, although there was nothing wrong with what it said. It was, in fact, encouraging and admiring of her work. Optimistic regarding its future, even.

  “Isn’t it perfect?” said Lucy. “I really think it captures the whole ‘feel’ of ‘Ask Eleanor’ as an example of contemporary newsprint. The column’s whole scope is here – minus its future, I mean.”

  “Very nice,” said Eleanor, who folded the paper closed again. “Very nice indeed.”

  When she went downstairs for lunch that day, she paused to watch the logo being changed on the lobby wall. The scratching away of TriCom’s larger letters. Smaller ones replacing them, with Haldon Media’s name secured firmly above them in raised, white characters.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Thursday afternoon Eleanor dropped off her dry cleaning at Sullivan’s. A spot on the black velvet, a small cherry-colored mark on her navy blue satin – she didn’t know which one, or, for that matter, if either garment was her choice for the upcoming TriCom gala at Norlend Towers, but Eleanor was not a person who left such a decision to chance or arbitrary destiny.

  Afterwards, she walked towards a coffee shop on the corner for lunch. The Bread Basket was nowhere near this street; and even if it had been, she would have done her best to avoid peering through its windows or entering its doors with the hope of seeing Edward.

  He had not come to her party. He had not called, had not attempted to see her again since that night outside the theater. It had disappointed her deeply. There was nothing she could do about it, unless she wanted to seem pitiful and pathetic in the attempt.

  Her mind had revisited the moments after the movie several times, as if watching herself and Edward from a variety of angles. Attempting to distance herself from the scenes and see them as a bystander would, without the gloss of personal feeling.

  He had kissed her – no, she had kissed him. Not really, it was more mutual than that. He had kissed her first, initiated the first touch between them when they were outside her apartment. What she had felt in his fingers and lips was something akin to the eagerness and thrill which Marianne described in love. The “tingle” in her skin, the sense of warmth, flush with trembling, from his own.

  It had all been a mistake somehow. But how could she have made it? How could it seem like a connection between them, a spark, she would have said, and end up being silence instead?

  Someone was coming out of the door of the digital design business ahead of her, a man with his head be
nt low and his hands tucked into the pockets of an expensive suit jacket. His quick steps carried him ahead, so lost in thought that Eleanor might not have recognized him if not for the brief glimpse of his face and the heavy shock of dark, wavy hair.

  Her first thought, strangely enough, was to turn aside. To avoid him, as if to spare them both whatever awkwardness might be exchanged at this moment.

  Hello, you, who impregnated my sister, whom you’ve scarcely known for two weeks.

  Hello, you, who don’t like me simply because you think I’ll take terrible care of her because almost every man she’s ever dated was a terrible choice.

  He was too close for her to turn away now. And it was uncivil of her; whatever she might think of their relationship, Will had been friendly towards her. He loved Marianne. That was enough reason to make her speak to him just as he passed her by.

  “Will,” she said. “Will, it’s me.”

  He looked up, turning towards her at the sound of her voice. “Eleanor.” He sounded surprised. He hadn’t noticed her, either, until this moment. “Hi.”

  “How are you?” she said, smiling “I was at your apartment two days ago, but I missed you, it seems. I wanted to congratulate you.”

  “On what?” he answered, somewhat wearily. Then his face changed, as if he comprehended her words.

  “Yes,” he said. “Thank you. I wish I’d been there. I haven’t seen you since – since your party, I suppose.”

  His skin had a slightly waxy quality to it, his face in need of a shave. He looked almost ill; as if he had been feverish or exhausted. Was he sick, perhaps, and Marianne had somehow forgotten to mention it?

  Instead of his usual jeans, he was wearing an impressive suit and silk tie. They had a slightly rumpled appearance, as if they had been slept in, but the outfit itself made her wonder if he had been to his father’s office, for a change. Or job hunting, perhaps. Did website construction require a suit and tie lifestyle?