And Be My Love

by Joyce C. Ware

  Beth knew Georgina's concluding nonsequitur had been deliberate. She wondered what her cagey friend had in mind for her. Tomorrow was a busy day—counseling at Andy's clinic in the morning, a stint at the hospice in the afternoon and a library board meeting at night—but she could always find time for Georgina. Maybe Karim Donovan would drop by her office, too. Fierce kind of guy? Beth shook her head, trying to square Georgina's description with the smiling, kind face she remembered.

  She took off her reading glasses, folded them slowly and placed them on the bedside table. You don't really know the man, she cautioned herself. She turned out the light; the report she'd been reading slid unnoticed off the comforter to the floor. She lay back, staring at the play of moon shadows on the ceiling. You don't know him at all.

  Chapter Three

  As Beth retraced her steps the next morning between the fluted white columns of her childhood home, the morning sun slanted through the tangle of forsythia along the edge of the brick veranda, transmuting its opening yellow bells to a dazzle of gold. It was not yet eight o'clock, but the ice-blue satin peignoir her mother greeted her in bore no relation to her sleep habits. Up before dawn—in her view, the birds were slugabeds—she rarely dressed before nine, taking advantage of the quiet early hours for correspondence, gardening notes, and the clipping and copying of promising recipes. Her fine white hair framed her face like an aureole, further softening cheeks and lips washed with a becoming shade of pink Beth knew was not entirely natural. A lady never leaves her bedroom before combing her hair and applying color to her face.

  Beth unconsciously raised her hand to her own hair, although she already knew her mother's cool welcome had nothing to do with her appearance.

  "I'm so sorry I missed you last night. I was baby-sitting for Housa and things got...confused." She knew from her mother's wry twist of mouth she need say nothing further.

  "I really don't know why Andrew puts up with it."

  Beth, although she sometimes wondered the same thing, sprang to her son's defense."He loves her. He's very... forgiving."

  "God loves me, dear, but although He may forgive me my sins, that doesn't mean He accepts them."

  "I really don't think careless housekeeping can be considered a sin, Mother," Beth protested, bemused by the introduction of the Deity into the conversation. As she followed her mother through her immaculate house into her spotless kitchen she was reminded anew of the high rank awarded thou shalt not keep a messy house on her mother's personal list of commandments.

  "Coffee, Beth?"

  It was a peace offering. "Yours? Always."

  Beth couldn't figure it out. They used the same brand, same coffee maker, same measurements, but her mother's always tasted better. Richer. Was it the water? Some secret ingredient? Whatever it was, Beth never passed up a chance to enjoy it.

  She smiled. "What did you want to discuss with me. Mother?"

  "The birthdays, dear. I'm afraid the date has to be changed."

  Beth gaped at her mother then clamped her lips shut. Her mother and daughter, who shared the same mid-May birth date, traditionally also shared a birthday celebration that over the years had become an occasion for settling social debts to family friends. Last year, the lingering effect of Ralph's death had made a private family dinner at a restaurant a more appropriate choice; this year, Beth had planned to go all out while she still had a house big enough to go all out in.

  "Changed? But why?"

  "Dana's been chosen to represent her firm's New Haven office at a corporate meeting in New York that weekend. It's the kind of recognition she's been hoping for, Beth. She couldn't say no. Besides, I think she has a beau in New York."

  "If she has time to see a beau, she has time to come home. It's only an hour and a half away, after all."

  "Really, Beth.…"

  Her mother's chiding tone only served to deepen Beth's hurt. She had never been her daughter's confidante, but although this was hardly her mother's fault, she resented the reminder.

  "I'm sorry, Mother, but I engaged the caterer for the fifteenth over a month ago. She was barely able to squeeze us in then, what with the graduation functions at Pea-body and the onset of the wedding season. I'm afraid you'll have to settle again for a family dinner at a restaurant."

  "Oh, dear. The thought of dining out with the children again isn't very appealing." She sighed. "Well, at least Housa won't be nursing a baby at the table."

  Beth, recalling the stunned expressions on her mother's and Dana's faces last year, ducked her head to hide her smile.

  "Dana suggested the following Saturday," her mother continued. "I think its the twenty-second."

  Beth rummaged through her purse for her datebook. "Let's see, this Saturday—Good Lord! that's tomorrow!—the library board's taking the volunteers to dinner." She riffled through the pages. "May twenty-second. No, that's out. I've promised that date to Georgina."

  Muriel Tomlinson sniffed. She made no secret of her distaste for Georgina DeLuca. "Can't you two girls get together some other time?"

  "It's not that kind of date. Mother. Georgina has asked me to do something at the college. I'm meeting with her this morning about it." She looked at her watch. "Good heavens! I'm due at Andy's clinic in ten minutes! Thanks for the coffee." She stooped to kiss her softly wrinkled cheek, then paused to pat it reassuringly. "I'll call Dana tonight before I leave for the hospice."

  "Tonight? I thought you gave the hospice two afternoons a week."

  "I do, but the annual meeting's coming up in June, which means dinner, speeches and awards, all of which have to be planned for. Did I tell you Andy will be receiving a special award this year?"

  Her mother's face brightened."Then I'd better go shopping for something special to wear."

  Beth smiled. "Indeed you had, Mother. And don't worry about the birthdays—Dana and I will work something out, I promise."

  Beth paused to collect her scattered thoughts and fix a bright smile on her lips before entering the room where the women she counseled at her son's geriatric clinic were waiting for her. As she opened the door, the hum of conversation told her they were finally beginning to open up to one another. It was her fourth session with this particular group. All were at least ten years older than she; all were trying to cope with the problems presented by the care of their ailing, often demanding husbands. Along with the practical suggestions Beth and the nursing staff provided them, the clinic offered an outlet for their frustrations and a network of new friends ready to lend a sympathetic ear.

  Theresa Miller lingered after the session was over. A thin, restless woman in her mid-sixties, her husband's discouragingly slow recovery from a debilitating stroke had stretched her nerves to the breaking point. As Beth approached her, her face assumed the lines of a tragic mask.

  "Sit down, Theresa," Beth said, leading her to the circle of recently vacated chairs. "Now, how can I help you?" She was careful to keep her voice soft, her words unhurried; none of the women liked to be thought a bother, Theresa even less than the others.

  "It's my radio, Beth." Her bony hands twisted together in her lap. "My kids took it. They didn't mean no harm," she added hastily.

  Beth knew the Millers' three "kids" were in their late thirties and early forties. "I'm sure they didn't, Theresa. Why don't you tell me what happened?"

  Theresa leaned forward. "Last week was my birthday. Cerise, that's my youngest, took me shopping at the Danbury Mall after she got home from work. 'Just for fun, Ma,' she said. I hardly ever get to do that no more."

  "I know, Theresa."

  "Anyway, my other daughter and my son, they stayed with Al while we was gone, and when we got home, they had a cake and ice cream and even those silly little hats like at little kids' parties and I just...well, I just sat down and bawled, and then they bawled..."

  Theresa pulled a crumpled tissue from the pocket of her cardigan sweater and dabbed at her eyes. Beth squeezed her hand.

  "So when they showed me this new radio t
hey bought me—must've cost a fortune, them all chipping in for it—what could I do?"

  "You don't like it?"

  "Oh, I like it, Beth. The thing is, my old one, the one they took away, I could turn off and on and twist the dial and find my stations. Click this way for AM, that way for FM. Easy as pie. This one, you gotta be an engineer. All these little buttons on it, like on the shoes my grandma used to wear, and with letters on 'em so small you need a magnifying glass. It plays CDs, my son says. I don't have no CDs."

  "You couldn't ask them to bring your old one back, I suppose."

  "It's already gone to the Salvation Army, Cerise said. Besides, it'd hurt 'em if I said anything. Like I said, they meant well." Theresa smoothed out the tissue in her hands. "I miss my stations, Beth."

  "Of course you do." Theresa Miller had little enough joy in her life. "I'm sure we can come up with something," Beth added briskly. "Maybe not exactly like your old radio, but near enough. Give me a few days."

  The memory of the grateful smile that briefly transfigured Theresa's haggard face accompanied Beth on her short drive to Peabody college. Replacing an electronic marvel with a mechanical model was relatively easy in the case of a radio—she seemed to recall seeing one recently in the Southbury branch of Radio Shack—but that was the exception that proved the rule. She'd lost count of the complaints she'd heard about the new appliances loaded with complex features. Far from enhancing the lives of Andy's elderly patients, they made them less able to maintain their independence.

  Beth parked in the big lot below the administration building. The expanse of asphalt was relieved by six mature sugar maples that, thanks to the stone-filled wells provided them, had survived to spread summer shade above cars angled beneath their leafy branches.

  The Peabody campus was at its best in the spring. None of the colonial-style buildings built since the institution's founding in 1907 were slavish imitations.

  The white-trimmed mellow brick provided pleasing traditional exteriors for the well-planned offices, lecture halls, classrooms and laboratories they housed. Except for the arboretum donated by a wealthy member of the Eastbury Horticultural Society, all the trees and shrubs were native varieties. Virginia creeper clambered up the rosy facades against which early flowering shadblow spread its branches like a white mist. At the rear of the campus, behind the dormitories, a grove of half-grown hemlock mercifully concealed the utilitarian, flat-roofed gymnasium built in the fifties.

  Peabody College, a source of considerable pride for Eastbury residents as well as income for its merchants, enjoyed the well-deserved respect of the academic community at large. In the sixties, protest had breached campus decorum there as elsewhere; more recently, controversies about Black Studies and the ratio of women to men on the various faculties had fueled its renewal.

  At the reception for parents held soon after Dana Volmar entered the freshman class, Georgina had overheard Ralph threaten to withdraw his support of the scholarship fund because of a student demonstration then noisily in progress. Unaware at the time of who he was, Georgina had bluntly informed him that a college without militants wasn't worth an academic hoot in hell. Although she later admitted that she. too, thought that particular protest silly, and Ralph made good on his promised contribution, he and Georgina never became friends.

  In the ten years since, Georgina's responsibilities had grown far beyond her official title of Director of Development and Alumni Affairs. Her manicured fingers had inserted themselves into virtually every administrative department, giving the lie to the old saw that no one is indispensable.

  Beth knocked at her office door, then stuck her head around its edge. "Anybody home?" she called.

  Georgina looked up from the computer on the extension added to her desk to accommodate it. Electrical wires coiled down to hidden floor outlets; piles of papers anchored with vacation-collected sea-shells littered its surface.

  "Beth!" She pulled off the half-glasses resting precariously on the tip of her long Roman nose. "Come in, come in!" Her paisley-printed challis skirt whirled around her knees as she stood.

  "You're sure I'm not interrupting?"

  "Of course you are. That's one of the reasons why I'm glad to see you." She gave Beth a hug. "These statistics will be the death of me," she said, indicating with a sweep of her hand a sheaf of papers clipped to the extension arm of the light above her keyboard. "I've been here since eight this morning, and my brain feels half embalmed already. So, what's new? Any offers on the house yet?"

  "Not yet... uh, I thought you wanted to see me about something? Something to do with the college?"

  Georgina looked at her blankly, then raised her fingers to press at her temples. "What did I tell you?" she said with a wry grin. "Now I remember—Karim Donovan wants to impress the trustees with his determination to get Peabody back on track. One of those ways is through innovative new programs."

  "In other words, you're feeling the heat."

  "Heat?" Georgina rolled her brown eyes. "Think Dante's inferno, my dear. Anyway, on the flight back I was working up my notes on that invention workshop idea of mine, remember?"

  "You mean so science and math students can have creative opportunities? Sure I do. Why should art students be the only ones given a place to explore ideas in their free time. I think it's a great idea—but you already know that."

  "Just wanted to hear you confirm it," Georgina said. Her grin told Beth she had just slid herself into a neatly baited trap. "You see, I need you to help pull it off." She leaned forward. "I want you to tell the trustees—" She broke off at the sound of a brisk knock on her door. "Yes?"

  The door opened. "Ms. DeLuca?" Beth didn't have to see Karim Donovan to recognize his distinctive deep voice. "I've just gotten a call from one of the trustees—I'm sorry, I didn't realize—Beth? How nice to see you. I meant to... the last two weeks since I saw you... Look, I didn't mean to interrupt. I'll get back to you."

  Beth wasn't sure if he meant to her or Georgina.

  "No, please stay, Mr. Donovan," Georgina said. "We were discussing an idea I'd like Beth to present to the trustees at the meeting. I'd appreciate your opinion, but why don't you tell me what's on your mind first."

  "James Friedlander didn't get your mailing. It was forwarded to him in Paris, but got lost on the way back."

  "Maybe it decided to stay," Georgina said. "I know I would." They all laughed. "I'll have another sent out to his Boston address by FedEx today."

  "Great. Now, you say Beth has an idea?"

  Beth, feeling cornered, looked from one to another. Karim's hazel eyes regarded her expectantly; Georgina's face had the anxious look of a mother whose child suffers from stage fright.

  "It's really Georgina's idea," Beth began. She described the notion of a workshop space where inventive minds could be put to practical use, using Theresa Miller's story to make her point. "Elderly people desperately want to maintain their independence," she said, "but the new models of devices they took for granted in the past have become too complicated for aging brains to learn to operate. It has nothing to do with basic intelligence," she added, "and the maddening thing is that in most cases the complications are unnecessary."

  Donovan nodded. "It's an interesting concept, but what you're after seems essentially the simplification of existing machines. A worthy goal, but is it challenging enough?"

  "If simplification was all there was to it, probably not, but I see an opportunity for improved, even new technology," Georgina said. "Control panels incorporating large, clear pictures that can be tapped to start a desired function. Even better, voice activated controls."

  "Oh yes!" Beth said. "That would benefit handicapped people of all types and ages."

  "You know how much time these kids spend with their computers," Georgina said. "Most of it is meaningless play—"

  "You don't think play has benefits?" Karim broke in. There was no mistaking his challenging tone.

  Georgina looked startled, but she quickly recovered. "Yes,
of course, up to a point, but I think these kids are also hungering for purpose. The money a patent or two could bring in wouldn't hurt, either. Most of Peabody's trustees are businessmen: they appreciate the life-long intellectual benefits of a liberal education, but essentially they're nuts and bolts guys. I think a program like this would have enormous appeal for them, and the possibilities are limitless. I thought of Beth because she's familiar with a specific need in Peabody's bailiwick, and, frankly, because she's a member of a respected family that's been very generous to the college over the years. You know how it is, like speaks to like."

  Karim pursed his lips and rocked back on his heels, lost in thought. He looked at Beth. "How do you feel about it?"

  "Georgina's a good friend. I'm always happy to do her—and the college—a favor, and she's right about my family. We—"

  "No, no," Karim cut in, shaking his head. "I'm asking how you feel about it yourself, not as a friend or a member of a family I have no doubt is worthy."

  "Me?" Beth was momentarily nonplussed. "Well, a bit scared, I guess. You know, getting up in front of a roomful of strangers and wondering if my slip is showing. Silly things like that. But as Georgina said, busy people like specifics, and I know about the needs of the elderly in Eastbury. If you're also asking can I do it, the answer is yes, as long as I'm given enough time to plan out what I'm going to say."

  "Would two weeks from this Saturday give you enough time?"

  May twenty-second. If she'd known why Georgina had asked her to save that date, would she have been as ready to agree? "As long as you don't expect something on the order of the Declaration of Independence," she replied.

  He laughed. "I'd even accept a dangling participle or two." He smiled, then turned to Georgina. "Let me think about it, Ms. DeLuca," he said, suddenly all business. "I'll let you know by the end of the day." His expression softened. "Nice seeing you again, Beth."