The Orange Blossom Special

by Betsy Carter

  “You know her adorable boyfriend, Huddie Harwood,” she said, making it sound like a question.

  “I remember the Harwood kid,” said Charlie. “A little runt when I knew him, but not a mean bone in him.”

  “That’s good to hear. Dinah doesn’t seem to do as well in the social department as Crystal does.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about her.”

  “She’s brainy, that one. Takes after her father.” Tessie got a faraway look in her eyes. Charlie knew she was too tactful to add that she was concerned that Crystal was headed down the wrong path, but with everything else on her mind she didn’t have time to worry about that too.

  THESE WERE THE people that populated Charlie’s world. He recognized his good fortune, but it was not enough to quell the restlessness. The river that ran beneath him was how he pictured it. He knew that in order to become who he was meant to be, he would soon have to leave this place. He’d been running the store for nearly three years now. This is what he needed to discuss with Ella tonight. After dinner, Reggie and Victoria returned to the cable car in the dining room (“I swear they must’ve built San Francisco in less time than it’s taking us to do this friggin’ puzzle”). Charlie and Ella went to her room.

  Charlie sat beside her on her narrow bed. From that close, he could see how white her hair had become. Her hands, which were normally busy, rested wearily on her lap.

  “You’re tired,” he said, putting his head on her shoulder.

  “I’m old,” she said. “Old and tired, yes I am.”

  “Not too old to give this old man some advice, I hope.”

  “You’ve only seen twenty years. What you mean, ‘old’?”

  “Sometimes I feel I’m living the life of a fifty-year-old man. I get up, I go to work. I come home. Instead of children, I have my mother and Reggie going at each other like magpies. I go to sleep. I get up, and it starts all over again. This can’t be what I was meant to do with my life.”

  “Oh honey,” she said, scratching his head the way she had when he was a little boy. “This is just the beginning. God dealt you a mighty blow. He’s testing you and you doing just fine. Whatever it is he has in mind for you, you’re getting ready to handle it. God’s funny that way. It don’t always seem like he has a plan but you’ve got to have faith that He knows what’s best.”

  “We used to talk about the changes coming. You think my dad’s death was the change?”

  “No I don’t,” she answered. “I think your dad’s death was just the beginning.”

  They sat in silence, breathing in the truth. After a while, Charlie said the thing he planned on not saying.

  “Did you ever find yourself thinking about one person all the time, and getting this kind of nauseous feeling in your stomach when you did?”

  Ella looked at Charlie as if meeting him for the first time. Then she let out a whoop of laughter and rocked back and forth with it until her cheeks were wet with tears. Finally, when she caught her breath she said, “Well, thank the Lord, Charlie Landy has fallen in love. From the first day that girl walked into the house, I saw something in your eyes and I knew what it was. WAHOO.” She let out another yelp. “You got it bad.”

  “I’m glad you’re enjoying this,” said Charlie.

  “I’ve seen how she looks at you, the way she wets her lips when you walk in the room. I see how you get a bullfrog in your throat . . .”

  “Ella,” he interrupted. “Could we please not talk about this anymore?”

  “Don’t be embarrassed, it’s the most normal thing in the world, even for you.”

  “Yeah, well it doesn’t feel normal.”

  Charlie had kissed girls before, even made out with them. He thought he understood what there was to understand about desire. But Dinah was different. Her smell, her habit of lifting her skirt and pulling it across her knees before she sat down, the way her eyes, in a certain light, sparkled with saffron flecks—these things filled him and never left him, even when she wasn’t present.

  After his talk with Ella, he agonized over Dinah. Did everyone see what Ella saw? Did Dinah know this too? Dinah was practically his sister. Wasn’t this incestuous and not very normal? He wondered how he would act the next time he saw her.

  The next afternoon, she came to the store. It was Bologna Day. They sat next to each other and watched out the door. Words, which always came naturally to him, froze in his throat.

  “Would you like to go to the movies on Friday night?” He knew how mundane that sounded.

  Dinah leaned her face so close to his you could have barely passed a blade of grass between them.

  “I’d love to,” she smiled mischievously, then looked at him out of the corner of her eye. “Charlie Landy, did you just ask me out for a date?”

  FOURTEEN

  Barone knew that what he had in mind sounded crazy even though it made perfect sense to him. He was sure that Tessie would understand too, this need to introduce her to Fran. He had real feelings for Tessie and didn’t want to keep half of his life hidden from her. He never gave up on the thought that Fran knew what was going on around her, she was just too locked in to show any signs. If that was so, then she already knew about Tessie. If it wasn’t, then he was honoring their marriage by making this gesture of truth. Tessie had told him of her conversations with Jerry, and how she felt his hand in the unfolding of her life. He didn’t know how he would find the words to say this to her in person, so late one night he composed one of his notes.

  Dear Dottie,

  I know my letters are usually filled with suggestions of where we should go, what wine we will drink, which clothes I would like you to wear on that little body of yours. This time is different. I have a favor to ask of you. It’s a request really, and something I have thought about for a long time. You don’t have to give me your answer right away, but it’s something I’d like you to think about.

  For the past five years I have been living my life in shadows. I say shadows because Fran, while she is not here in the usual ways, looms large over my life. You tell me how Jerry always knows what is going on. Sometimes he even guides you. I feel that way about Fran. If it was possible for me to meet Jerry, would you want me to do it? It is still possible for you to meet Fran. It is something I would like very much. Will you come to Miami Beach for the weekend? We could stay at the Fontainebleau Hotel (very ritzy). Sammy Davis Jr. and Frank Sinatra perform there. We can go to the nightclub and dance the night away. If you decide to come, wear bright colors. Fran likes bright colors. I hope my request doesn’t trouble you. I thought you would understand.

  Instead of signing his name, Barone made a drawing of Tessie. Her mouth was the shape of an O and her eyes were popping out of her head like two jack-in-the-boxes. Underneath he wrote, “What will he think of next?”

  Tessie received the letter one morning while she was at work. She was no longer the receptionist at Lithographics; after taking a night course in accounting, she was now the head bookkeeper. She had an office, not a very big one, but large enough for a typewriter on a table with wheels and a two-drawer filing cabinet with a lock. That’s where she kept the company’s bills and records. And behind all that, in a tin Christmas-cookie box, she kept Barone’s letters. By now there were so many of them, she kept the older ones behind them in a taped-up manila envelope that said, mail. She kept the letters here because keeping them home, near her Jerry Box, seemed a violation of something she couldn’t put a name on.

  Tessie put the letter back in its envelope, and sat at her desk with it in her hand. As she thought about meeting Fran and what Barone had said about how she’d want him to meet Jerry if he could, she absentmindedly began tapping the tip of her nose with the envelope.

  “Well, someone’s in a thoughtful mood today.” It was Glenn Jr., hovering at the door of her office. “It’s too nice a day to wear such a dark frown. It can’t be that bad now, can it?”

  Tessie considered saying, “My boyfriend wants me to meet his semidead wife
and I am sitting here waiting for a sign from my completely dead husband about whether or not this would be a good idea. It is ninety-three degrees outside and the humidity is ninety percent. Just getting from here to my car, I’ll be drenched in sweat and will feel as if I’m trying to breathe in gum. Yes, things really are that bad.”

  Of course she said nothing of the kind.

  “Have you ever been to the Fontainebleau Hotel?” she asked.

  “I had a drink in the bar once,” he said. “You know, a Shirley Temple. It’s quite the place. Why, you planning to go?”

  “No,” said Tessie, pressing the envelope to her lips. “I’ve just heard a lot about it, you know, how Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. perform there, that’s all.”

  Of course Junior was quick to report this exchange to Senior. “Our lady friend is moving up in the world.” He lowered his voice. “The Fontainebleau.”

  It was an unspoken secret that Tessie was seeing the Baron. She never mentioned it, and the Glenns never let on that they felt a begrudging respect for her because of it.

  “The big guy is playing a little close to home, don’t you think?” said Senior.

  “What does he care?” asked Junior. “His wife certainly won’t catch him.”

  Now they’d crossed a line. Neither of them had ever alluded to Fran or her illness before. They shook their heads and laughed uneasily.

  That night, Tessie wrote Jerry the following note:

  The man wants me to meet his wife. She can’t speak or hear and is almost dead. Yet he says she is alive to him. She’s kind of like you that way (no offense). It seems strange and not right, but I don’t want to hurt his feelings and it matters a lot to him. I can’t imagine how I got into this.

  Tessie waited days for a response from Jerry, but none came. She took this as an answer itself: “Too weird. You’re on your own.” Thursday morning, when Barone phoned, she cupped her hand over the receiver and said softly, “Yes, I’ll do what you asked, but you have to promise me one thing. Promise me that you’ll never tell anyone I did this.”

  “It’s our secret,” he said. “Just mine and my sweet little Dottie’s.”

  CRYSTAL AND DINAH had come to like Barone. He called them each Sweetheart, which they assumed he did because he couldn’t remember who was who. They nicknamed him Señor Swanky. They liked how he teased Tessie and called her Dottie, though they never knew where that nickname originated. Mostly they liked that in his presence she laughed more and seemed lighter. He never asked them what they were doing in school, or any of the other usual grown-up-to-kid questions. Instead, he talked to them about painting and music and Jai Alai, and about what it was like to live in Paris in the early 1920s. When they giggled or rolled their eyes at one another, he just ignored them and kept the conversation going. One night, the four of them went out to a fancy Italian restaurant. He ordered a bottle of wine and poured a glass for each of the girls. Tessie looked at him as if to say, “Are you sure about this?” “They’re going to drink wine anyway,” he said. “They might as well learn about the good stuff from someone who knows.” The girls nodded, despite their surprise. “And who better to teach us than Señor Swanky,” said Dinah.

  “Exactly,” said Crystal, lifting her glass to everyone at the table.

  At Christmastime, he gave each girl a charm bracelet with a gold pelotari (Jai Alai player) dangling from it. They gave him a beautiful book with thick paper and many colored plates called The Italian Painters of the Renaissance. On the frontice page they wrote, “To Señor Swanky, Thank you for bringing some really neat things into our lives. Your friends, The Sweethearts.”

  Barone smiled when he read the inscription. His face flushed as he ran his fingers over the vivid color reproduction of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa on the book’s cover. Then he reached out and cupped Crystal’s and Dinah’s chin in each hand: “If I’d ever had children of my own, I would wish they’d be exactly like you.”

  “Except for one thing,” said Tessie. “You’d both be boys.”

  When Tessie told the girls she was going to Miami Beach for the weekend—“Well, actually, I’ll be staying at the Fontainebleau”—they nudged each other.

  “The Fontainebleau, only the most famous hotel in the world,” said Crystal.

  Dinah picked it up. “The Fontainebleau, home to the richest and most glamorous people in the universe.”

  “The Fontainebleau,” shouted Crystal, “the most expensive and the fanciest place on earth.”

  “The Fontainebleau, the biggest and . . .”

  “Stop already!” Tessie interrupted. “I know about the Fontainebleau. What I don’t know is what to wear.” The three of them headed for Tessie’s closet.

  On Saturday morning, when Tessie got on the Trailways bus in Gainesville, she had on orange toreador pants, red shoes, and a red sleeveless blouse. She wore two Bakelite bracelets that the girls had picked out for her: one red, the other orange. When she stepped off the bus in Miami, she was so blinded by the noonday sun that she didn’t notice Barone standing there in khaki shorts and a Hawaiian print shirt. “You came,” he shouted, and threw his arms around her. She could feel the hairs on his chest scratch against her cheek. “You look perfect.”

  Barone carried Tessie’s suitcase to his waiting Impala. “What have you got in here, a whole set of china?”

  “No, just a lot of stuff.”

  They were quiet in the car. Tessie had never been to Barone’s house. He lived on Palm Island, one of the most exclusive addresses in Miami Beach. She knew the house would be big and that it would face the bay. She knew there would be paintings by famous artists on the wall and that the furniture would be in impeccable rococo style with lots of scrollwork and silk upholstery.

  The house turned out to be bigger than she imagined. There was a fountain in the front surrounded by life-size statues of angels and cherubs. Barone took her hand as he opened the antique oak door, one that he’d purchased in Italy many years before. “Let’s sit by the pool and have a glass of wine first.”

  “A glass of wine sounds good right now. Where’s my suitcase?”

  “In the trunk of the car.”

  “I’ll need it.”

  Barone hauled the luggage into the house and left it in the front hall. They went to the kitchen where he poured two glasses of wine. Outside they sat at a wrought-iron table under a striped umbrella. The bay was on one side, the pool on the other. There were two statues of lions sitting on their haunches and staring at the water. Were there too many statues, wondered Tessie, or was this just a Miami Beach thing?

  “Are you okay about this?” he asked.

  “Umm, I guess,” she said, twisting the bangles on her arm.

  “You’re sweet to be here. It sounds stranger than it will be, really.”

  “No, I think it sounds exactly as strange as it will be.”

  They drank their wine in silence, staring at the boats that went by. When they’d emptied their glasses, Barone asked Tessie if she was ready.

  “Ready-O,” she said. “Oh, and my suitcase, please.”

  They walked down a lemon-colored hallway, Barone dragging Tessie’s suitcase behind him.

  “This is Fran’s wing,” he said. Off to the side were rooms with floral spreads on the beds, and some of Barone’s old paintings on the walls. She couldn’t tell whether anyone lived in those rooms or if they stood empty. At the end of the hallway they came to a white bedroom filled with sunlight. It was an oval-shaped room with large windows that faced the water. The room was filled with the sound of the waves and the fresh salty smell of the sea. There were photographs on the walls and on the bureaus, hundreds of them, snapshots and portraits of Barone as a much younger man, with a woman with smoky-green eyes and the smile of a seductress.

  Not until Barone said, “Tessie, this is Verona. She takes care of Fran,” did Tessie realize they weren’t alone in the room. Verona stood and came forward to shake Tessie’s hand. “How do you do,” she said. Her h
andshake was as firm as her voice and her thick rubber-soled shoes were soundless against the white marble floor. “Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  “Me too,” said Tessie.

  “How is she this afternoon?” asked Barone.

  “We’ve had a good day,” said Verona. “We had a bath, a shampoo. Got all dressed up for the company, didn’t we, Fran?”

  Barone stroked the form that lay under the colorful blanket. “Fran, honey, Tessie is here. Fran, this is Tessie. Tessie, this is Fran.”

  Tessie didn’t know where to look or what to make of Verona’s firm tone and Barone’s relaxed voice, as though all of them were about to sit down for tea. She stared at the pale and wasted face on the pillow, trying to match its scant features with the voluptuous ones in the photos. She listened to Fran’s breathing, labored but steady, and tried to imagine her lifeless form in full. After a long pause, she said, “Hello Fran. It’s so nice to meet you.”

  Verona smiled and Barone seemed pleased. The two of them sat in chairs on either side of Fran’s bed. Tessie sat in a love seat across the room. There was an awkward silence, until Verona said, “I’ll leave the three of you alone.” When she was gone, Tessie walked over to the suitcase that Barone had placed in the center of the room. She knelt down beside it, and as she snapped open the metal latches, she began to talk in a slow monotone. “Fran, I’ve brought some things I want to show you.” Carefully, she took out an object that was wrapped in a towel. “I was married once too. His name was Jerry Lockhart and we were very happy together.”

  Barone gripped both sides of his chair and hunched forward so he could see what Tessie was doing.

  As she pulled back the layers of terry cloth, he could see the graying cover of what was once a white photo album.

  “I’ve brought my wedding pictures.”

  Tessie got up and carried the album to the chair where Verona had been sitting. She sat down and started going through the pictures, tilting the book so that it was within Fran’s view. She went through the album page by page. “That’s my Uncle Dick,” she said, pointing to a short stubby man with a swatch of a mustache. “He got so drunk that when he tried to dip my Aunt Shirley, he dropped her on the dance floor.” She pointed to a shapely woman in a neat pageboy. “This is my Aunt Shirley, the one in the low-cut—very low-cut—dress. She was so angry that she called him a ‘stupid ass’ loud enough for everyone to hear.” Tessie never looked at Barone, never noticed how he sat with his mouth leaning into his clenched fist. She described all the people in the pictures, the food on the table. “We couldn’t decide between chicken supreme or roasted lamb, but we ended up with the lamb because we decided lamb was more elegant. Don’t you think?” She searched Fran’s face for a sign of recognition. When she showed her a picture of the wedding cake—“a little too lemony for my taste”—Barone took Fran’s hand. Later he told Tessie that he was sure she squeezed it. When Tessie finished the wedding album, she went back to the suitcase and pulled out some scrapbooks.