Hannah gave her a piercing look. "You're losing weight."
"I am not," Emma said.
"Last time I looked, we didn't own a scale. How do you know.?"
"I just know. I ought to know what I weigh."
"You weigh less than you did a month ago. And you're not drinking your orange juice."
Emma pici^ed up the glass. She did not want it, but she forced it down. "Now are you satisfied.^"
"I'm getting there. What do you want for breakfast?"
"I'm not hungry."
"Well, there you are. That's why you're losing weight. Emma, you've got a problem; you're not happy and I want to help—"
"I don't want your help!" Emma jumped up. "You can't talk to me like that, you're not my mother, you're not even part of our family, and if I can't sit here without this—"
"Hold on a minute." Hannah stood straight. Her shoulders were squared but there was a slight tremble to her lips. "I know perfectly well I'm not your mother; I'm not anyone's mother. I wish I were, but we don't always have any say in getting what we want most in the world. And I suppose you're right that I'm not really part of this family, though I thought I was making a little place for myself, not through cooking or anything like that, but just because I love you and your mother, I care about what happens to you, and if I lost you ... if you sent me away ... I wouldn't have much to ... to hold on to . . ."
"I'm sorry." Emma's face was flushed. Hannah looked small and vulnerable in the center of the room, but somehow, surrounded by sleek modern appliances, she reminded Emma of an old-fashioned woman, maybe a pioneer, standing in the doorway of a cabin with a rifle in one hand and a child in the other, while soup bubbled on the stove behind her. She seemed fierce, protective, loving, and formidable, and in the midst of Emma's anger and confusion, she felt a rush of love for Hannah, and a kind of awe. "I'm sorry," she said again. "You are part of our family, of course you are. It's just that I can't stand it when people keep going on and on, like an inquisition, and if that's what you're going to do, I'll go someplace else."
"Well. I thank you for part of that. But this isn't an inquisition, this is a conversation. Or it would be, if you'd sit down. And I have a comment to make. That's all it is, a comment, an observation. You're losing weight and you're drooping, and of course the problem is the young man. This is August eighth, and he's called you a total of four times, which is probably a tenth of the
number of times you want him to call and a fifth of the number of times he's led you to believe he'd call, and I watch you wander around here eyeing the telephone and drooping, and my heart aches for you. You start—"
"I don't want you to ache for me!"
"It's not something you or I can control. Just listen. You start to droop the morning after a date with him; that's the whole point. You know he won't call today or tomorrow, even though I'll bet he promised he would—"
"No, he didn't. He wouldn't promise because he's so busy at work he can't tell when he'll be free."
"Oh, Emma, smarten up. We all fall for that once, maybe twice, but then we wake up. What's taking you so long.'*"
"You don't understand. You don't know anything about it."
"Well, I do, as a matter of fact; I know a lot more than you think," Hannah retorted. "Sit down and I'll tell you." She looked steadily at Emma until Emma sat down. "I was a popular girl in my time; I was beautiful and boys liked me, and a lot of them wanted to marrv' me. A lot of them wanted to take me to bed, too, but in those days we didn't do that. At least, nobody I knew did, and that was what counted."
Emma's face grew warm. She looked at her empty glass and said nothing.
Hannah brought coffee cake and a pot of coffee to the table. "Now, if I were you," she said casually, concentrating on slicing the cake, "I'd move past what you've done so far, chalk it up to experience, and work on getting this relationship straightened out so that you have a little clout of your own. Turn him down next time he calls. Tell him you have another date or you just don't feel like going out, whatever you want to say. Tell him Hannah says he's a cad and a lout and you don't go out with men like that. You want to shake him up a little."
Emma looked up. "Did you talk like that to boys when you were my age.-^"
"Well." Hannah sighed. "No, I didn't. But if I'd had someone like me giving advice, I might have." She handed Emma a piece of coffee cake and filled her mug. "I know you're not hungry', but cat some of it."
Emma held the mug in both hands, "^'ou sound like my
mother, only worse. What did you mean, move past what I've done so far?"
"Put it behind you." Hannah looked at her steadily. "It shouldn't control you. Everv' relationship has lots of pieces, like a puzzle, and no one of them should be so powerful it becomes an engine that drives everything else."
Emma opened her mouth to say something, then shut it. She struggled between confiding in Hannah and not confiding. Then she sighed. "Everything's fine, Hannah; I know what I'm doing and everything's fine."
"Well, maybe it is and maybe it isn't, but as far as I can tell, just from watching you—"
"Well, stop watching me!" Emma drank some coffee and scalded her tongue. She gasped, and tears came to her eyes. "You don't have a right to watch me or tell me anything; you go out with this guy with the funny name, and he's a hundred years younger than you are and that's awfully peculiar, if you ask me, so why—"
"I've had dinner with Forrest four times. Don't you think we can have friends who are any age.'^ Or maybe you think I shouldn't have any friends."
"No," Emma mumbled. "I mean, you can have anybody you want. It's just that I can't keep explaining . . . it's not fair. Just leave me alone, can't you! Stop trs^ng to tell me what to do! I can't help it if your daughter died; if you want another one, find somebody else."
"That's a cruel thing to say," Hannah said quietly. "And I don't think you meant it."
"I'm sorr% I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Emma wailed. "I didn't mean to hurt you. If you'd just leave me alone—"
"You see, the thing is," Hannah said reflectively, "when I was eighteen it was the height of the Depression, and my mother didn't have any money to send me to college. My father had been killed in the First World War, and there were just the two of us and we lived in a little town in Pennsylvania. My mother was a secretary' to a lawyer, and she taught me shorthand and typing, and I got a job in a real estate office. I thought everything was fine; we were better off than most because we were both working. Then the owner of the real estate company took a fancy to me,
no JUDITHMICHAEL
and I must say I thought he was something: he was tall and handsome, a widower in his forties, a top-notch tennis player, a horseman, a tycoon who owned buildings and land all over Pennsylvania, and he lived in the biggest house in town. And he wanted me. I couldn't believe my good fortune. Of course I was very lovely in those days, but still, I was a poor girl who hadn't done anything in the world and he'd done just about everything there was to do. So I'd go up to his big house and cook in his kitchen, and we talked about everything he'd seen in his travels, and he taught me to play tennis. He was a good teacher. And of course we slept in his bed. He was a good teacher there, too. And I thought any day we'd be married; we'd stop playing house and do it for real, because I couldn't imagine ever wanting anyone else, and I knew he loved me because he kept telling me how wonderful I was, and I was sure he'd take care of me and make me part of his life and lead me through any troubles that came along. It never occurred to me that I could make a wonderful life on my own. I melted every time I saw him; I couldn't think of anything but him; he filled up my world. I couldn't see beyond him. I didn't want to see beyond him. I wanted him forever and I told him so."
Hannah paused to refill her coffee cup. Emma was staring at her, mesmerized. "So what happened.'^"
"Well, it went on that way for almost two years. I'd go to his house—oh, it was a magnificent place with oversize furniture and oil paintings in carved gilt frames, and Orie
ntal rugs on dark-wood parquet floors; my goodness, I remember every inch of that house; it was like a palace and he was the king who lived there—I'd go there whenever he asked me, once or twice a week, and we'd have an almost-marriage—that was what I called it—and in between I'd go home to my mother and my job and wait for him to call. And then one day he was gone."
"Gone.-^" Emma stared at her. "Where.''"
"He just vanished. Unbeknownst to me, he'd opened an office in Pittsburgh and he had a lady there he'd been seeing, and she was the one he married. I learned about it from someone else in his office. So I was alone. And I was pregnant."
Emma stared at Hannah. She could not move.
"Now, it didn't seem so bad to have a baby; I thought this was one good thing that would come from the whole awful time: that I'd have something of my own to love and love me. But I couldn't
stay in that man's real estate company and I had to support a child. So when I had my baby—her name was Ariel; I thought with a name like that she would certainly have a happy life—with my mother's help I went back to school to become a teacher. And I did."
There was a long silence. Hannah saw Claire standing in the doorway, listening, a puzzled frown on her face. "And what happened then.'^" Emma asked.
"Oh, a lot of sad things. Ariel died, and—"
"How did she die.^"
"Well, that's another story. It's still hard for me to talk about it. And then my mother died about ten years later, so I was about as alone as could be. I'd had lovers after Ariel died, but none of them made me feel as excited and hopeful as the real estate man had, and I couldn't see getting hooked up with somebody just to have another warm body in the house, so I decided my place in the world was to be alone. A friend found me a teaching job in St. Louis and I moved there. And never had another lover. There was many a time I wanted one, but I got past it; in the long run it was a lot less trouble. And I'd made two major discoveries: that I didn't need a man to support me or lead me through life; I could do it myself and feel pretrv' good about myself. And I found out that I had good advice to give to people. You'd think that wouldn't be true, since my own life wasn't exactly a model, but for some reason, as long as it was somebody else's life, I knew all the right things to do. And that's why I'm telling you to stand up to that young man and tell him to go to the devil until he learns to treat you with respect and compassion. And love. If you ask me, I'm not at all sure he really loves you."
"He does!" Emma cried. "He does love me! He loves me and I love him, and I don't know why you told me all that, but it doesn't make any difference how many people you give advice to because I don't want any, I don't want your help, I don't even want to listen to you." She turned to go and stumbled over the chair, banging her hip against the table. "Oh, damn it! Damn you, Hannah, damn you, damn you, everything's fine until you start talking! Just go away and leave me alone!"
"Emma, sit down," Claire said sharply, coming into the room. "And don't swear at Hannah. I've never heard you talk like that before." She sat at the table. "I'm worried about what's happen-
ing to you. You may think Brix is special and wonderful, but you've changed since you started seeing him and it's not a good change. Whatever the two of you have together, it's making you unhappy and it's making unhappiness in our family and I think it's time it stopped."
Emma was still standing. "Stopped.^ What stopped.^ What does that mean.^"
"Please, Emma, I asked you to sit down." Emma's mouth was tight and stubborn, but after a moment she sat opposite Claire. "I want you to stop seeing Brix. You're leaving for college in three weeks; we have a lot to do to get ready, and you won't have time for going out or moping around the house waiting for him to call; we'll be too busy. I want him out of your life, Emma; he isn't good for you. I think you know that, but somehow you've gotten trapped and can't get out by yourself."
"That's not true! I don't want to get out! He is good for me; he's the best person in the world for me. You don't know anything about him! You go out all the time with his father; why can't I go out with Brix.'^ His father isn't so great; you should hear some of the things Brix says about him. I don't think hes good for you. He's not a nice person; he never stays with any woman very long; he's cold and mean and all he cares about is telling other people what to do. But you keep going out with him, and Hannah doesn't tell you to stop; you can do whatever you want, and that's just fine with her! Well, I'm fine, too, I'm very happy, and I'm not going to tell Brix any lies; I want to see him, I want to be with him, and whenever he wants me to, I will, and if you say I can't I'll just take care of myself, I don't need you, I don't need either of you, I don't need anybody to tell me anything. And I don't want to talk about it anymore!"
She ran from the room and up the stairs, the last words swallowed in her gulping sobs. She slammed her door and sat by the telephone and stared at it through her tears. She reached for it, then pulled her hand back, then reached out again. 1 have to do this. Otherwise they're going to ruin my life and I might as -ore/I be dead. She knew his phone number at work by heart, though she had never used it, and after another minute of steeling herself, she called it.
"Brix Eiger," he said when he answered, and Emma hesitated, struck bv the formality of his voice.
"Brix," she said at last, but it was barely a whisper. She cleared her throat. "Brix. It's Emma."
"EmmaPW'hat the hell—I told you not to—what's the matter.^ What's going on.''"
"My mother says I can't go out with you anymore."
"Oh, for God's sake. Wait a minute, hold on a minute." Emma heard a door close, and then he came back. "We could have taken care of this tonight."
"You didn't call me about tonight."
"Well, tomorrow night, then."
"You didn't call me about tomorrow night, either."
"Hey, Emma, what is this, are we having a fight.'*"
"No, no, I didn't mean . . . I'm sorry, I'm just so . . . Brix, my mother says I cant see you anymore. "
"I know, I heard you. Look, doll, we can take care of this. It isn't the end of the world, you know; we can get around it. If you really want to."
"Want to! Brix, I couldn't stop seeing you; I think I'd die. But then, there's college, too; she said I'll be leaving pretty soon ..."
"God, we haven't talked about that at all. How come you never talk about it.^"
"I just . . . haven't wanted to think about it very much."
Something was bothering Emma, a nagging thought that pricked beneath her words. Brix h?it asking why my mother said I couldnt see him anymore. Isn't he surprisedP Or curiousP Or has this happened to him before?
"Well, when is it.'"' Brix asked. "When are you going.'"'
Doesn't he care? He's not even upset. "About . . . three weeks, I guess. It's hard to think about."
"Then don't. What's the big deal.'' You don't have to go, you know. You can't let your mother run your life."
Emma sat frozen on her bed. She had never thought about not going to college. Her mother had been saving money for years, so she could go. And now that they were rich, she had started buying her a whole new wardrobe, and all kinds of things for her room at school: a stereo, a computer, a television set, a VCR ... all the things that had been just dreams before the lottery. They had always talked about college, and it was never //,• it was always when. Of course she had to go.
"I have to go," she said at last. "I can't tell my mother Fm not going."
"Sure you can." Brix's voice had taken on a mischievous lilt. "If you have something better to do, you could stay here and she couldn't say a thing."
"Something better to do.''"
"I had this idea yesterday," he said happily. "I was going to tell Dad first, but what the hell. Listen, we're starting a whole new ad campaign for a new line of cosmetics we just invented, and Dad and Hale—that's his advertising honcho—were saying they want a new face and they're going to have a search for it. The search for the perfect face. So, what if I tell them you're it.
'*"
"You mean, a model.^"
"You got it. I told you, doll: you're gorgeous; you've got a great smile, and you're sweet and sexy as hell. You're just what we need. And you've got to have your own thing to do; you can't stay under your mother's thumb. She's in the way too much. Look, you come down to my office tomorrow and I'll have Dad and Hale here and we'll talk about it. They'll have to do a lot of photo tests, but you've got me behind you, and I know you're the perfect face, and that means you're as good as in. How about it.'' Your mother can't expect you to bury yourself in college if you're the famous new model for Eiger cosmetics."
Emma was clutching the telephone. A model. The famous new model for Eiger cosmetics. Sweet. Sexy. The perfect face. Her heart was pounding. I'll be somebody big, she thought. Not just a little student at college, but a model that millions of people will see. They'll recognize me. They'll stop on the street and recognize me.
And I'll be with Brix.
We'll be working together; we'll be closer than ever. I won't have to leave him, ever. And he'll never leave me. We'll be part of the same company. His father's company. His company. It will be like being married.
"Hey," Brix said, "you still there.'"'
"Yes," Emma breathed. "Oh, Brix, I'd love it; I'd love to do it. I've always wanted to be a model."
"So be here tomorrow morning. Can you do that.'* Can you get away from vour mother.''"
"Oh. Oh, of course I can. My goodness, it's not hke I'm in jail. When should I be there.'"'
"Ten o'clock. Tell the receptionist you're here for me."
"Yes." Yes, Fm here for you. Fm always here for you. "I'll see you tomorrow."
"That's my girl." She waited for him to say something about tonight. "I've gotta go, doll; we're pretty busy around here. Ten o'clock tomorrow. Don't wear a lot of makeup."
Pot of gold : a novel Page 19