Falling into Place

by Stephanie Greene

  “He wasn’t rude to you, was he?”

  “Nope,” said Roy.

  “Not at all,” said Margaret.

  Gran looked from one to the other, suspicious. “Well, what was he like?” she said impatiently.

  “You’ll find out,” said Margaret. “At your party.”

  “My party?” Gran said. “What party?”

  Roy slid down in his chair until his eyes were level with the tabletop.

  “The one you’re having after we come back from karaoke at the Recreation Club tomorrow night,” Margaret said. She was suddenly unafraid, and it felt great. “We’re all going to listen to Mrs. Nightingale sing first.”

  “Tone-deaf Mrs. Nightingale,” Gran said.

  “Right.”

  Gran’s eyes looked into hers. Neither of them said a word, they just stared. It was as if they were waging a silent battle. Finally, Gran said, “May I ask who’s coming?”

  Roy slid out of sight.

  “Mrs. Tudley, Mrs. Nightingale, and Mr. Whiting,” said Margaret. “And Roy and me, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  For a minute, there wasn’t a sound in the room. And then Gran spoke in a light voice, and Margaret knew she had won.

  “Then I guess we’d better talk about food.”

  Chapter 9

  In the end, it was Gran’s idea to drive by Blackberry Lane. The minute Margaret woke up the next morning, she could feel that something had changed. The air was filled with a delicious smell. She sat bolt upright in her bed and sniffed. It was. It had to be.

  “Gran!” she cried, bursting through the kitchen door. “Are you making blueberry pancakes from your secret recipe?”

  Gran turned to smile at her from in front of the stove. “I thought that might rouse you,” she said. “Blueberry pancakes with the last of the Blackberry Lane blueberries, and a sprinkle of cinnamon.” They both laughed. “Set the table, would you, Margaret, and call Roy.”

  They had had a very festive breakfast, at the end of which Gran had made her amazing suggestion. Now they were driving down the Post Road, halfway there.

  “Look,” said Margaret. “Motley’s still has the bubble-gum machine in the window!”

  “I saw him! I saw Mr. Motley!” Roy was bouncing up and down in the back seat. He craned his head around as Gran drove by. “I think he saw me!”

  “We’ll stop in there on our way back,” said Gran. The fact that she didn’t tell him to stop bouncing made Margaret realize how distracted Gran was. She was doing a bit of craning, herself. “I see Tabbot’s finally got a new awning.”

  “Gino’s Pizza … Lotsa Lace … The Little Book Worm …” Margaret reeled off the names as they went by. “Nothing’s changed,” she said happily.

  “We haven’t been gone that long,” said Gran. “It’s only been a year.” But Margaret could tell she was excited, too. She was leaning forward with her hands clutching the steering wheel, peering through the windshield.

  They turned right onto Lake Street and drove past Maple View Farms. Margaret was the first to spot the wall of lilacs that hemmed in the Whites’ house, right before Gran and Tad’s.

  “We’re here!” she said excitedly. She wished she could open the door and jump out. She wanted to run the rest of the way, up the driveway, across the front yard, over to Tad’s Folly, and up the ladder, without stopping.

  “Now, calm down, both of you,” said Gran. Her cheeks were bright red. “I’m just going to drive by. If there’s anyone in the yard, I might stop.”

  She turned slowly onto Blackberry Lane.

  “You never saw the turret Tad made, did you, Roy?” said Margaret. “I bet they’ll let us climb up there. You said they were nice people, right, Gran?” She gripped the back of the seat as they pulled up in front of the house. She barely felt Roy’s fingers dig into her arm or Gran’s car come to a sudden stop, she was so shocked.

  There wasn’t any tree fort. There wasn’t even any tree. In its place was a two-story addition that jutted out into the front yard. It had huge windows and a balcony. The house wasn’t white anymore, either. It was blue.

  As they sat there staring, a young woman holding a baby on her hip came hurrying down the driveway toward them. “Mrs. Mack,” she called, “what a pleasant surprise.” She was smiling in at them through the open window. “It’s so nice to see you. Mark and I were saying last night that we wanted to give you a call.”

  Gran’s face when she turned to look at the young woman was so terrible, Margaret was afraid. She leaned forward and put her hand on Gran’s shoulder.

  “What have you done?” said Gran. Her voice was thin and high, as if it were pushing out through a small space from far away. “You’ve ruined it. You’ve absolutely ruined it.”

  “What do you mean?” The woman couldn’t have looked more shocked if Gran had slapped her. She put her arm around her baby’s back, as if to protect it. “Please. Let me explain—”

  “We never would have sold it to you if we’d known you were going to destroy it. Never.” Gran’s voice was terrible to listen to. Margaret was trying to think of something she could say, some way to explain, so that the woman would stop looking as if she was going to cry, when Gran began to fumble blindly with the gear stick, darting frenzied looks into the rear-view mirror. Roy was frozen on the seat next to her.

  Margaret met the woman’s eyes in mute appeal. “Mrs. Mack, wait.” The woman put her hand on Gran’s window. “You shouldn’t drive when you’re so upset.”

  But Gran didn’t wait. She found reverse, and the car jerked backward and bumped against the curb on the opposite side of the road. Then she started forward, picking up speed as they pulled onto Lake Lane back toward the Post Road. Margaret turned around and saw the woman standing at the end of the driveway, staring after them.

  “It’s all right, it’s all right,” Gran kept saying. Whether she was talking to herself or them, Margaret couldn’t tell. When they got to the Post Road, Gran brought the car to a full stop and rested her forehead on the steering wheel. Margaret and Roy sat silent, watching her.

  “Gran?” Roy said hesitantly after a while. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” She looked up and blinked. “Don’t worry. Everything’s fine. I just need to get home.”

  She pulled out onto the Post Road in slow motion. They drove back past The Little Book Worm. Past Lotsa Lace, Gino’s Pizza, and Mr. Motley’s. All the places that had seemed so exciting only minutes before felt like nothing now. Margaret hardly looked at them. She was keeping her eyes fixed firmly on the road, willing the car to stay on the path—to get us home safely, please, and take good care of us even though you’re a car and not a person, because Gran is upset.

  And all the while, the thought was running through her mind that the apple tree being gone wasn’t the most terrible thing. Or even Tad’s Folly. No, the most terrible thing was how good the house had looked. It looked like it was happy. Like it was used to the people who lived there now, and didn’t miss the ones who had lived there before.

  If a house had feelings, Margaret realized, that was how the house on Blackberry Lane felt. And that was the most terrible thing of all.

  …

  “Where are you going?” said Roy.

  “I’m going to see what Gran’s doing.” Margaret turned and looked back at him. The two of them had been sitting in the living room, playing a half-hearted game of cards, for more than an hour since they had got back. “We can’t let her sit in there forever.”

  “What are you going to say?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Margaret walked down the hall and stopped in front of Gran’s closed door. She took a deep breath, and knocked.

  Come in.

  Gran turned to look at her from in front of her dressing table. She had brushed her hair and washed her face. She looked very calm.

  In her mind, Margaret had been practicing what she would say, the magic words that would bring Gran back to them, the w
ay she’d been at breakfast, before their terrible trip had driven her further away. But in the end, she could only say what was true.

  “It looks great,” said Margaret. She came into the room and raised her voice. “That room they added to the house looks great.”

  Gran smiled with her mouth, but not her eyes. “It does, doesn’t it? Tad always talked about adding on to the front of the house and putting in big windows. He said our windows didn’t let in enough sun.”

  “Then he would like it, too.” Margaret sat down on the edge of Gran’s bed. They looked at each other in silence for a minute.

  “Look at us,” Gran said.

  “Who? You and me?”

  “You and me.”

  Gran got up, came over, and sat down next to Margaret. She took Margaret’s hands in her own. “Holding on to a house that way. Why, it’s only a house!” She shook her head slowly, as if she was just waking up and was amazed she hadn’t seen it before. “It’s as if we’ve been shipwrecked, Margaret, and here we are, clinging to the wreckage, crying. When all we have to do is stand up.”

  Gran stood up quickly and held her arms out to either side, to show how easy it was. “The water’s only up to our knees.” She sounded exhilarated, and Margaret could almost imagine for herself how it would feel to put your feet on firm sand when you thought you were drowning.

  Gran sat down as suddenly as she had stood up. “Oh, when I think of how I treated that young woman. The things I said. I must have been out of my mind. I have to write to her immediately and apologize. It must have upset her horribly.”

  “You told her they ruined it,” Margaret said.

  “I know I did. But it’s theirs! It’s not ours anymore, it’s theirs. We have no right to expect it to stay the same.” She was talking to Margaret and herself at the same time, chiding them both for having looked at it in any other way. “The time has come to let it go.” She patted Margaret’s leg. “It’s understandable for me, I’m an old woman. But you’re a child. You should be excited about change. That’s what life is.”

  “It’s not always so exciting,” said Margaret. She was finally going to get to say what she had come here to talk about, and it came out in a torrent. “Sometimes it’s terrible, Gran. Blackberry Lane’s not the only thing that’s changed. Everything has.”

  Gran sat very still and listened while Margaret told her about Wendy and Dad and the dominoes, and being mean to Claire, and Dad sending her to Gran’s to get rid of her.

  “But you weren’t the one who was being a handful,” said Gran. She held Margaret’s face between her strong hands for a moment and looked into her eyes. “Roy heard it wrong, Margaret. Your father and I were talking about Claire.”

  “Claire?” said Margaret, dumbfounded.

  “Yes. Your father said she’d been waking up every night, and whining to sleep in your room, and clinging to you horribly. I can see he was right. She’s called here every day since you arrived, wanting to speak to you.”

  “Claire has?” Margaret had a sudden vision of Claire’s huge, sad eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Your father and Wendy felt that you needed a break,” said Gran. “And I agree.”

  “But Claire can’t help it,” Margaret said. She had a feeling close to panic, thinking about Claire alone at the other end of the phone. “She’s only six.”

  “I know she is, and she’s had a hard time, poor lamb. Imagine, Margaret, what it must be like to be three and have your father go off to work and not come home. He died of a heart attack in his office and she never saw him again.”

  Margaret could easily imagine it. What amazed her was that she’d never even tried before.

  “As for your domino theory, that’s very well put,” Gran went on. “I can see it in my mind’s eye. Your whole world fell about you, and I was too wrapped up in my own problems to help.”

  “You couldn’t have done anything,” Margaret said.

  “We’ll just have to take our dominoes and start over, won’t we?” said Gran. “We even have some new ones to work with—Wendy and the girls, and one more Mack who may be coming into the world even as we speak. And who says we have to stick to family? What about Mrs. Nightingale and Mrs. Tudley?”

  “They’re going to be a part of it?”

  “I don’t see why not. You and Roy tell me they’re wonderful. Speaking of wonderful, that reminds me.” Gran stood up, full of her old vigor. “If we’re entertaining tonight, we’d better get started on our wardrobe.”

  “What wardrobe?”

  But Gran was already gone, moving briskly down the hall, humming. As she disappeared into a huge walk-in closet that smelled of cedar, she said to Margaret over her shoulder, “Call Roy.”

  Margaret ran to the end of the hall. “Roy!” she shouted at the top of her lungs, and ran back to Gran, who was thumbing rapidly through the hangers. There was an excited feeling in the air, as if they were on a shopping spree.

  “If Mrs. Nightingale is the flamboyant woman you say she is,” said Gran, “we’ll have to do a little sprucing up for her performance. I know it’s in here somewhere.”

  “What’s wrong?” said Roy, running into the room.

  Gran took a gray oval hat box that was tied up with a shiny black satin ribbon off a shelf and handed it to him. “You look through this. It’s where I keep Tad’s suspenders. Find a pair you like. They’re probably too long, but I can always hitch them up. And here.” As Roy dropped to his knees with the box in front of him, Gran dropped Tad’s gray fedora on his head. “He would have liked you to have this.”

  He looked up at them and smiled. With his open face and lopsided smile, he reminded Margaret of someone. Then she knew who it was. “He looks like a miniature Tad,” she said, delighted.

  “He is a bit like Tad,” Gran agreed. “He’s a kind, gentle little boy, and you should stop ordering him around.”

  “Yeah,” said Roy from under his brim. “Stop ordering me around.”

  Margaret gave his hat a light, happy tap. “What do you have in there for me?” she asked Gran.

  “Ta-da!” Gran swept a hanger draped in black plastic out of the closet and swirled it in front of Margaret. “I’ve been saving this for you, lovey. Not everyone could get away with it, but you can. With your dark hair and eyes, you’ll be stunning.”

  It was Tad’s red silk smoking jacket with blue silk lining and butterflies embossed all over it. When Margaret was little, Tad had let her wear it around the house with a pair of Gran’s high heels. They used to tie the jacket around her waist with a scarf so she wouldn’t trip. Now it came down only to her ankles.

  Margaret gathered the silk up around her waist with her hands and turned slowly in front of the full-length mirror at the far end of the closet. “I’ll wear it with my green tights, and maybe that velvet cord from your old curtains that’s in my bedroom, Gran.” She was thrilled by how pretty she looked. She frowned to keep the pleased smile she felt inside from taking over her face, but the smile won out.

  Stunning, Gran had said.

  “Don’t go getting a swelled head, Margaret,” said Gran in a teasing voice, watching her. Then, in her usual firm voice, “Pretty is as pretty does.”

  Gran hung the empty hanger back in the closet and shut the door. “Now, we had better start preparing the food for this party, or I won’t have time to get the front door painted.”

  “The front door?” Margaret and Roy said at the same time.

  “Aren’t they all supposed to be black?” said Roy.

  “They are. But I’m tired of black. Are you with me or agin’ me?”

  Margaret and Roy looked at each other in silence. Then Margaret gave a resigned shrug. “I guess we’re with you, right, Roy?”

  “Right.”

  “Then let’s get going,” said Gran. “We’ve got work to do.”

  Chapter 10

  Mrs. Nightingale wasn’t terrible. She was worse than terrible.

  She was horrendous. No mat
ter how hard Margaret and Roy clapped, they couldn’t cover up the fact that while the music was going in one direction, Mrs. Nightingale’s voice was going in the other.

  But it didn’t matter. The audience loved her. With the long tables pushed against the wall, they were lined up in ragged rows, packing the house. There were people in wheelchairs and people leaning on walkers mixed in with the rest of the crowd. The level of conversation was so loud, it was hard to hear. Then Mrs. Nightingale stood up on the stage with a microphone in one hand and her body swaying back and forth to the music, and they couldn’t get enough of her.

  They loved her bright green caftan with her matching head scarf and eyelids. They loved the way her little plump feet were stuffed into her narrow green shoes so that it looked as if they would explode like a trick snake out of a can when she took the shoes off.

  And they loved her smile. It was bright enough to light up the entire room. Which was fortunate, because the strobe light kept shorting out and plunging the stage into darkness.

  Nothing stopped Mrs. Nightingale. She sang one song, then another, then another. Every time a song ended, the audience begged her for more. When she finished the fifth number, she told them she simply had to rest or she was going to fall over dead right here and now, and they’d all have to deal with it. She got down off the stage and came bustling over to Margaret and Roy where they were sitting with Gran. When they stood up to greet her, she smothered them both in a hug that smelled of bay rum.

  “I did it!” she said. Her forehead was covered with small beads of sweat, and her lipstick was starting to travel down the fine lines around her mouth. But she was radiant. “I couldn’t have done it without you two,” she said. “Margaret, you look dazzling. You, too, Roy.”

  Roy hooked his thumbs in the pink suspenders with the yellow palm trees he had chosen from the box, and grinned.

  “Mrs. Nightingale, this is our grandmother,” said Margaret. “Elizabeth Mack.”

  She felt as if she was going to burst, watching them. With pride, because Mrs. Nightingale was so brave, and with love, because Gran, with her beautiful white hair smoothed back into a bun and a blue dress bringing out the startling blue of her eyes, looked so much like her old self again.