by Sydney Avey
“So, Carlo and Gunther feel cheated.”
“They are upset that Valerie got everything she wanted and they didn’t. She’s young; she’s a woman...” Ivy shrugs a shoulder and smooths her black skirt over her knees, brushing white cat hair away. Oh goodness, Puffy has been sleeping on that chair pad. I didn’t notice.
“But Dee, mostly it’s the timing.”
“What do you mean?”
“Our husbands fought in the war. The ones who survived expected to live out the rest of their days in peace. But what’s happening? We’re in another war; the kids are staging sit-ins; people are buying gas masks and building fallout shelters.”
“What has that got to do with us?”
“You are a highly visible sign of The Times They Are a-Changin.”
“Wow, Ivy, you’re a Bob Dylan fan?”
“Laura plays that song every day while she’s packing. I hear it coming through her kitchen window. I think it’s her theme song.” Ivy actually winks at me!
“Carlo and Gunther just don’t know what to make of all those kids.” Ivy reaches out and touches my hand. Her tone turns serious. “Dee, I don’t want to alarm you, but there is something else you need to know. There is talk that Danny has a brother somewhere in Europe who is a terrorist. There is speculation that the young people who meet at your house are some kind of cell or underground movement that is somehow connected to terrorist activities.”
“Who could seriously think...” But then I stop, because part of what Ivy has just said is true.
Taking Charge
Taking Charge
Ivy and I don’t solve anything, but she’s given me a lot to think about. I extract myself from the conversation, confirming or denying nothing; not hard, because we smell dinner burning. Sophie had popped a green bean casserole into the oven, cooked up some Sloppy Joe sauce in a skillet, and left it to heat on high while she went to her room. I throw open the door and Ivy passes through the smoky kitchen, rolling her eyes. She offers help, but I prefer to deal with the mess by myself.
I turn off the heat and let the cookware cool. Then I tromp down the hallway and bang on Sophie’s door. The door opens partway and Scott’s face looms.
“Hello Mrs. Russell.” He peers at me through hair that hangs in his face. Then he sweeps his hair out of his eyes, straightens up and delivers that gap-toothed smile about thirty seconds too late. Trying to figure out this boy is like watching a film where the picture and the sound are out of sync. One thing I know, he should not be alone with Sophie behind a closed door.
I look over his shoulder and see Sophie closing her desk drawer. Her unsmiling face looks pinched and closed. I push the door open and Scott backs off. I’ve had enough of this.
“Scott, you are not to be in Sophie’s room with the door closed. Despite what your father thinks, this is not a boarding house. Sophie does not receive visitors in her room. The bedrooms are off limits.”
Sophie turns bright red. I am sorry to make her feel uncomfortable, but something in my gut tells me that Scott has made her more uncomfortable than I have.
“I’m sorry Mrs. Russell. Now that you’ve explained the rules, I won’t do it again. Can I still stay for dinner?”
Before my eyes, he turns into Oliver Twist asking for just a bit of porridge. I hit the wall. Oh, I don’t pound on it with my fists, but I feel it close in on me until I’m flattened by fatigue. It has been a hell of a day. Like a Godsend, I feel Roger standing behind me. I reach back for his hand. He takes my hand and squeezes it.
“Okay everyone, slops on.”
Roger, Danny and David have rescued dinner while Valerie and Andy set the table. We eat quickly, making small talk to cover the awkwardness of Scott’s presence when it is so clear he isn’t welcome. Roger drives him home directly after dinner.
I stand in the doorway as they prepare to leave. Mike’s car is still parked on the street in front of our house. I ask Roger where Mike went.
“He walked up to Laura’s.”
“But...” I lob that word slowly over the net. Roger returns a drop shot.
“This is Laura’s last night in the neighborhood.”
R
David is studying in the front bedroom while Sophie and Danny catch some late night TV. Valerie and Andy have retired to their room and I’m preparing for bed in our suite. No one has the energy to discuss the meeting, or Sophie’s discomfort, or Scott’s behavior. I fall back in bed and the mattress rises up to me. I never hear Roger come home or feel him slip into bed next to me. I don’t just sleep like a rock, I lie torpid like a boulder.
In the morning, the smell of coffee pulls me out of my dreamless sleep. I open my eyes to see Roger bending over me, his loosely-tied robe falling open to reveal his smooth chest and tight stomach, a recent product of his new jogging routine. I reach for him, catch the knot on his robe and pull him close.
“Would you mind having to take another shower?”
“I only meant to bring you coffee, but if madam desires another form of stimulation, I am happy to oblige.”
The comfort and relaxation I feel after Roger and I make love banish the worry that feels like a freight train loaded with explosives coming at me. While he showers, I enjoy the mug of coffee he reheated for me. Last evening’s face-offs don’t seem as upsetting in the morning light. Misbehaving teenagers. Neighborhood squabbles. That’s all.
I try to hang onto this peaceful feeling, but when my feet hit the floor my worries return like spies coming back from Canaan to report how much danger lies ahead. First things first, though. Dress, hair, makeup, and then I walk over to Laura’s to see what’s going on.
A moving truck is parked in front of Laura’s house. I walk in through the open front door and find Laura in the kitchen.
“You’re really leaving.” I wrap my arms around her, place my chin in the depression of her shoulder near her neck and rock her like a baby. “I’m sorry I haven’t been here to help.”
“Hey, you sent your troops.” She wriggles out of my grasp and holds me at arm’s length. “They were a huge help.”
“Ivy tells me you are rockin’ out to Bob Dylan these days.”
“Yeah, I’m catchin’ the beat.”
I put my arm around her shoulder. “Yeah, I want to ask you about that.”
The movers don’t need any help from us, so we go out on the patio where Goldie is in a dither.
“Poor baby,” Laura calms the dog with petting and cooing. The patio furniture has been packed into the moving van, so we sit together on the low brick wall that frames the smooth concrete. I decide to come right to the point.
“Laura, are you aware that Mike is in love with you?”
Her eyes grow wide. She doesn’t look at me. She places her hand against her neck as if she’s stemming the flow of blood from a major artery. Then she throws her head back like she’s seeking enlightenment from the passing clouds.
“He told you that?”
“Laura, he doesn’t have to tell me that. I have eyes.”
“He hasn’t told me that,” Laura says in a small voice.
Best Laid Plans
Best Laid Plans
The fog that moves in every morning breaks up earlier now. Sun warms the patio and we spend more time outside. Roger and I are pleased that David got early acceptance to Stanford but mystified over why he’s not eager to visit the student store and outfit himself with a Stanford Indians sweatshirt. He spends all his time in the garage teaching himself to weld and has yet to choose his classes.
Danny’s work permit has come through. Every day after work he beelines to the garage to check on David’s progress. They pour through electronics catalogs together and place orders that cause the UPS truck to make more stops here than our Peninsula Creamery milkman.
Sophie is taking a couple of dance classes at Foothill, but she’s outside a lot too. She reads in a lounge chair, but she never relaxes. Sophie has a hard time sitting still. Roger has installed a ballet bar
for her in a corner of the garage, opposite David’s encroaching warehouse of wires, switches, and boxes. He laid down some linoleum tile squares to cushion the cement garage floor. When she’s not peppering the boys with questions, she goes through her barre exercises.
Sophie has an almost perfect dancer’s body, except that she’s loose-limbed. It’s not just her knees, she moves with an organic fluidity. She’s lovely to watch, and the only thing that draws David’s eyes away from his work bench. When Sophie executes her pirouettes her long legs fly as she rotates her body, gathering speed and power that has nowhere to go in such a small space. Then, she strips off her shoes and moves barefoot on the linoleum, a mobile of twisting postures that flow from one to the other. She moves to unseen breezes, jerks in a ghost wind. But she never dances when Scott is present.
Sophie has made friends at Foothill. They come by and pick her up for drop-in classes at one or another of the dance studios springing up in residential garages or rental spaces. That she hasn’t learned to drive is becoming a hindrance.
“We’re going to have to get these kids some wheels,” Roger says as another carload of girls pulls out of the driveway.
Valerie frowns at Roger’s suggestion. “Dad, we don’t want to make them too comfortable here. They may never leave.”
That’s the first indication that she may be tiring of having a houseful. It’s also the first time I’ve ever heard her call Roger Dad.
“Oh, I know that Valerie.” Roger sits at the kitchen counter wiggling a pencil between two fingers over the Used Cars section of the newspaper he’s consulting. “Don’t worry, I was planning to buy David a car to use when he starts Stanford anyway. Might as well do it now and they can share the car until David moves into the dorm.”
“Freshmen can’t have cars at Stanford,” Valerie and I say in unison.
“All the better; we can keep it here for him until he’s allowed to bring it on campus. He can use it on school breaks, and Danny and Sophie can share it when David’s at school.”
“Sophie doesn’t seem much inclined to do any job hunting, does she,” Valerie says with a frown on her face. “I tried to talk her into taking a full load. If she gets a degree, she could be a teacher or a choreographer. She could be teaching ballet right now instead of hanging around dance studios with her little fan club.”
“My, we’re testy, today.” Why has Valerie turned on Sophie? “Where would she teach? Our garage?”
Valerie recoils. “It’s getting messy, isn’t it.”
“The garage?”
“No, all of us living here on top of each other.”
“If the kids had a car, they’d be gone more.” Roger fans the auto buying guide in the air.
“That’s not a permanent solution,” Valerie says.
I stand up and smile down at my irritable daughter. “I think if we are patient, a solution will present itself.”
R
Although it’s not my plan to carry Valerie’s message, I find myself tapping at Sophie’s half-closed bedroom door. I walk in at her invitation and sit on her bed, watching her remove packaging from make-up she walked up to the store to purchase.
“How are you liking your classes at Foothill?”
“I like them very much, but I think I’ve discovered something I like even more.” Sophie tosses her new lipsticks into her large make-up case and comes to sit cross-legged on the bed, facing me. “I’ve heard about a dance movement just beginning in San Francisco’s Mission District. I want to go up there and check it out. When I was in New York, I went to see Yvonne Ranier perform. She’s a modern dancer who started the Judson Dance Theater a couple of years ago. She turns ordinary movements into improvisational dance. It is very unlike ballet, which is so disciplined. Ballet is taught. Modern is discovered. It’s very free. I’ve been a student all my life, Dee. Now I want to be an explorer.”
Sophie’s face is glowing as she spills her hopes and dreams onto the blue sateen coverlet we’re sitting on together. I see myself reflected in her excitement over the idea of collaborating in a new movement. This was me many years ago, when a young Walt Disney asked me to join his team of illustrators. How many times have I wondered how my life would be now if I’d accepted that invitation instead of Henry’s marriage proposal? I admire Sophie for the way she can turn disappointment over how her body failed her into the joy of discovering another path. I admire her spirit, but these days I’m suspicious of anything that is called a movement.
“Are you thinking about moving to San Francisco?”
“I’m going to go up there, take a few classes, talk to people, and start looking for a job. I can take the train, right?”
I think about the car Roger is planning to buy. I tell her the train is probably the best idea.
Later, in our room, I mull over Sophie’s plan and worry about her. What if she has trouble getting connected and gets sucked into something seedy?
Stop worrying. A few months ago you didn’t even know her. You weren’t worried then.
Maybe I should offer to go with her.
That’s ridiculous. She’s eighteen years old. She wants to do this on her own; and she should.
I’m watching movies in my head of down-to-her-last-dime Sophie picked off the sidewalk in North Beach by some dissolute when Roger walks in and tells me Mike is here to see me.
New Life
New Life
Father Mike stands in the hallway dressed in jeans and a plain blue shirt topped with his clerical collar. I’ve never seen him dressed so casually.
“Will Roger mind if I take you out for a cup of coffee?”
I look at my watch. If I drink coffee this late in the afternoon I’ll be up all night, but after my conversation with Sophie I probably won’t sleep anyway.
“He won’t even notice I’m gone. He’s buried in the Blue Book, researching what a used car is going to cost him.” Roger and I lived apart too long to change our established habit of not worrying about each other.
“Let’s go up to the coffee shop at Rancho.” On the short drive, Mike chitchats about the high school football game. I talk about Roger’s car search. He suggests that Roger should check out the new Ford Mustang.
“Oh no,” I tell him. “I get a Mustang before anyone else.”
Over coffee, Mike informs me that his group will not be meeting over the summer.
“I’m going to take a break. That will give you a break too.” I wonder if this is Mike’s effort to ease the tension in the neighborhood.
“Mike, there’s no reason you have to stop the meetings.”
“There is, but it’s not what you think.” Mike drums his fingers on the glossy wood table. The coffee in his half-filled cup is growing cold. He slaps the flat of his palm on the table sharply, twice, like he’s making up his mind as we are talking. “I’m taking a sabbatical. I’m going to move to Berkeley for six months and take some classes at the Graduate Theological Union. I think I need a new perspective on my career.”
I’m speechless. Why does everyone think they need to up and relocate? Sophie could make connections at Foothill. Laura could have figured out a way to stay in her house.
“What about Laura?”
“What about her?” Mike sounds all business-like and perplexed by the question, but his eyes are darting around for something to focus on, other than me asking a question he doesn’t want to answer.
“Father Mike, you have always been forthright with me.”
That’s not really true. He was pretty slow to divulge how much he knew about the secrets my mother hid from me.
“Now it’s my turn to call you on self-deception.” I lean across the table and lower my voice to a whisper. “You are in love with Laura.”
Mike looks like I slapped him. He levels a very un-Mike, Scottish warlord menacing glare at me, and then he drops his head in defeat.
“I am.” The face he raises to me is equally unfamiliar. It’s the face of a boy who never got a bicycle for Christma
s.
I would reach for his hand, but I’m very aware that we are in a public place.
“Let’s head back.”
If he thinks I’m going to let this drop, he’s very mistaken. When we get to the car, I suggest that we drive out to the small memorial park that is all that remains of Saint Matthew’s. He heads the car toward the hills.
We sit at a picnic bench in front of the columbarium where my mother is interred. The stately olive trees cast their shadows over us as the sun plays hide and seek among their branches. How I miss Saint Matthew’s.
“Mike, why did you never get married?”
This man who is always so ready with words of comfort and challenge for others is surprisingly reticent to accept them himself. I wonder if the clerical collar is not a defense for Mike against the intimacy he challenged me to pursue with friends, with Roger, and with God after Leora died and left me an orphan.
“Would you believe me if I told you that in all the preparations I made to serve God I forgot to get married?”
I will not accept that answer, but I’m not going to make him explain when he so obviously doesn’t want to.
“Mike, I am sitting here before you as proof that God gives people second chances at love.”
Mike looks like he’s in pain. “Laura is a beautiful woman, on the inside and on the outside. If she were less attractive, I would have more of a chance with her.”
“Are you telling me you think an attractive woman would not be interested in you?”
“Laura could have any man she wants.”
“What if she wants you?”
“You want honesty? I’ve just spent five months with a group of adolescents, trying to get them to be honest with themselves and each other. I should know how to do this, but I don’t. The best way I know how to explain this is to tell you about my family.
“I come from a large family that emigrated from Scotland. Historically, the first son inherits the family wealth, of which we had little. The second son follows the call of God his parents tell him he has and goes to seminary. In some families, these old ways persist even though the reason behind the custom no longer exists. We own no family land we need to preserve. Dad’s treasure was the bindery and he wanted my older brother to have it. No matter, because I truly did feel a calling, first to teaching and later to the ministry.