Touchwood

by Karin Kallmaker

  There was no Christina in any of the pictures, unless she had been holding the camera. Nor were there any pictures of the friend Danny that Louisa mentioned frequently. After a long span of time not covered by any photographs until Tucker was born, Louisa appeared again, a mere shadow of the woman Rayann knew. Hazel had said Christina's death had been seven years ago. Tucker was seven. Rayann's artistic instinct told her she was looking at the face of grief when she studied Louisa holding baby Tucker. The later pictures showed the grief eased away, to be replaced by the vitality Louisa gave off in her every movement.

  A creak of the floorboards made Rayann jump. She spun around, flushing with guilt.

  "You have a strange kind of insomnia," Louisa said drily. Her hair was loose around the shoulders of her maroon flannel pajamas.

  "I'm sorry — how rude of me." With fumbling hands she put the last photos she'd been holding back where she'd gotten them. "I couldn't sleep and I was looking at the pictures. They're so well done." That was true even if it wasn't the real reason she'd been staring at them. And just what is the real reason?

  "Chris was good with a camera. I always got red eyes and bleached out foreheads." Louisa remained where she was, leaning against the wall next to her bedroom door.

  "I don't see a picture of Chris," Rayann said. Please tell me what I want to know.

  "She hated having her picture taken. The few pictures I had of her I put away after she died."

  Rayann looked at Louisa, whose face had grown wistful, and blurted out, "Was she your lover?" Louisa nodded, eyebrows lifted. "I didn't know you were gay."

  "Didn't you? I'm sorry, I thought it was obvious after the way we met."

  Rayann's skin prickled with a sudden cold sweat. Well, now you know. What's it to you? "No, it isn't obvious, except you didn't object to what I said about Michelle and... and sugar mommies."

  Louisa laughed. "I'm sorry — I wasn't being deliberately obtuse. It's a part of me, but not the biggest part of me."

  What is the biggest part of you? Your store, your son, what? Rayann's feet reminded her she was getting cold. She faked a yawn and said, "I didn't mean to pry, really."

  "De nada," Louisa said. "You'll catch cold though if you don't put on some slippers."

  "I'm ready to sleep now," Rayann answered. Remembering Zoraida, she smiled, a little of the megawatt voltage Zoraida had given her zinging through her body. "Goodnight."

  Louisa looked at her quizzically, then answered in her low voice, "Goodnight."

  4

  Finding the Grain

  Rayann insisted on doing the dishes after Louisa made breakfast in the mornings. "It's the least I can do," she said firmly.

  "I'm not a fool," Louisa said, smiling. "You may do the dishes as often as you like. I'm going to go fiddle with the invoices again and then flip a coin to see who gets paid this month."

  Rayann finished the chore and folded the dishtowel on the counter, then went to find her tennis shoes. Though her sides and arms and legs ached from her continuing work on the Poetry Corner, she wanted to finish the shelving project to prove her abilities to Louisa's skeptical son. She would show him, and herself for that matter, that she did know what she was doing.

  Her first trip to the lumberyard had been for insulation, Sheetrock and nails, sealing tape, finishing nails and sheets of paneling. The days had flowed one after another as a series of rainstorms cleared the winter air and left the atmosphere exhilarating. Louisa took advantage of the crisp sunshine in between storms to walk around Lake Merritt. Rayann made yet another trip to the hardware store in the pouring rain for waterproof tarps to protect the floors from her muddy footprints as she tromped in and out through the back door to the garage for supplies. Teddy had dropped off tools and sawhorses while she had been in the city teaching her wood sculpting class. Louisa reported that he'd been impressed by the amount of work already completed.

  Clad every day in her comfortable tennis shoes and her most worn-out jeans, Rayann went to work. She was going to impress the socks off of one Ted Thatcher, and his mother, though Louisa had already said she was impressed. Not one shelf was going to be even a quarter bubble off center. Every support would be plumbed perfectly. The shelves themselves, cut from sturdy, cured pine, would be sealed against water and lacquered so the books would slide easily on and off. The shelves would be standing long after the house had fallen down.

  During the following week she left the project long enough for her class, only to discover that just three of her students had braved the sodden weather. She met Judy for dinner and told her the long, sad story. Judy had put away her therapist persona and listened supportively without once saying, "And how did that make you feel?"

  Eight days after she began the project, Rayann emerged from her bedroom in the jeans and sweatshirt she reserved for painting and lacquering. Louisa looked up from her breakfast and broke into laughter. "You look like Jackson Pollack's sister!"

  Rayann laughed as well. "When the jeans get too stiff to move around in, I'm going to prop them up in a corner and maybe someone will give me a grant to further develop them into a complete art showing."

  She went out to the garage for varnishing supplies. Laden with the awkward buckets and cans, she ran back to the house through the rain, hurrying because the brushes were threatening to fall. She backed against the barely open door into the bookstore. It didn't budge, so she gave the door a good shove only to find someone opening it from the other side. She stumbled through the door and everything she was carrying slid through her arms to the floor.

  "You seem to make a habit of this," Teddy said as he bent to help her.

  "You shouldn't stand behind doors. It's not safe," Rayann snapped.

  "You should know better," Louisa said.

  Teddy glanced at his mother as if puzzled, then at Rayann. "I thought I'd see how everything was coming along."

  "I'm almost done." Rayann stood up again. She knew she was being brusque, but something about him made her feel foolish.

  "So I see." He set down cans of varnish next to the sawhorses.

  "This is messy work for a suit. Varnish doesn't wash out," Rayann said.

  "The judge will understand," he said. He smiled and Rayann realized his eyes were very similar to his mother's. Louisa's were more penetrating and yet more welcoming, somehow. Rayann still couldn't figure out whose eyes Louisa's reminded her of.

  "I didn't work myself to the bone to put you through Boalt Hall for you to show up in court smelling like a construction zone," Louisa said. Her manner was teasing and lovingly indulgent, something that Rayann had never seen.

  Teddy rolled his eyes and glanced at Rayann. "This is where the two-jobs-at-once story starts. Every time it gets worse."

  "It does not," Louisa protested. "And every word's true."

  "In the next version shell be saying she took in laundry."

  "I almost did when the fees were due." Louisa tossed her head at her son, eyes snapping with mock-offense.

  "I know, Mom." He stepped over crumpled tarps to hug Louisa. "And I'll always be grateful. In fact, I stopped by to find out if you would be available for dinner tonight."

  Arm in arm, mother and son drifted toward the door, arguing over a restaurant which would please them and not bore Tucker to distraction. Teddy wanted to try a new French restaurant, but Louisa resisted because Tucker wouldn't like it.

  "I'll watch him," Rayann heard herself saying.

  They both turned to her. Teddy said, with a grin, "You don't know what you're offering to do."

  "I'm sincere. Really. He can watch videotapes and I can make us dinner. We'll put out the Christmas decorations down here if he gets really bored. I always liked doing that when I was a kid."

  "Ray, that's very sweet of you," Louisa said. "And Tucker is not the hellion his father makes him out to be."

  "You don't live with him, Mom." He looked at Rayann. "It is very nice of you. Now I can take my best gal out somewhere swank instead of McDonald's
." He smiled again and this time Rayann was able to smile back. Maybe he was starting to like her. Somehow that was important.

  The evening went well. Rayann made pork and beans and Star Wars kept Tucker occupied while she finished lacquering the last of the shelves. When she opened the first box labeled "Xmas Stuff," he could hardly wait to help. They twined garland around the sliding ladder and gift wrapped the front door. He supervised Rayann's stringing of garland swags from wall to wall, then passed up ornaments to her to hang from the garland. The end result was bright and festive. They added more touches upstairs, then, after Tucker promised not to tell, Rayann drove him to Penton's for "mondo" ice cream sundaes, as Tucker called them.

  When Teddy and Louisa came home Tucker was sound asleep. Rayann hoped no one figured out he was in a sugar coma. Teddy lifted him gently to his shoulder and kissed Louisa goodnight. They watched him move carefully down the back stairs and lay Tucker, still sound asleep, in the car. He waved and they both waved back.

  "Did you have a good time?" Rayann stood back to let Louisa close the door.

  "Very nice." Louisa looked at Rayann in the semi-darkness of the back porch. "Thank you. It's been a long time since I've gone to such a quiet restaurant. I knew what to do with all the forks." In the dark Rayann could see Louisa's teasing smile — lips curved just slightly, eyes bright with laughter. "Even if it was just with my son."

  "Tucker was fine," Rayann said. "We went to Fenton's." She had not intended to tell Louisa that, but there was something about Louisa which encouraged openness.

  "You'll be his friend for life," Louisa said.

  Rayann turned back to the kitchen though she didn't really want to leave the dim porch. But they couldn't just stand in the darkness and talk. It was too intimate. She remembered something very prosaic she needed to ask Louisa. "Are you any good removing splinters?"

  "Like most mothers, I'm a wizard at minor surgery. Let me get a needle." Louisa returned in a few moments with a needle, cotton balls and peroxide. "The reading light is the strongest."

  "I can usually fish them out, but this one is awkward." The splinter had lodged in her palm, then broke off.

  "Sit down on the floor in front of my chair." Louisa settled herself in her easy chair, then put on her reading glasses. She tsk'ed in a motherly way when she saw the splinter. Steadying Rayann's hand against her knee, she quickly and efficiently fished out the splinter with the needle. "Nasty thing."

  "Teach me to sand more carefully."

  "This will sting," Louisa warned as she doused the cotton with peroxide and dabbed lightly at the wound. When Rayann didn't protest she held the cotton firmly down, letting the peroxide soak in.

  "Oh, yeah, that stings now," Rayann said, taking a deep breath.

  Louisa lifted the cotton and blew on Rayann's palm. The sting instantly subsided and Rayann was aware that she was tingling all over. The back of her hand braced against Louisa's knee felt warm while her palm was cool from Louisa's breath.

  "Ill go put a bandaid on it," Rayann said. By the time she'd managed to get one plastered on she felt normal again. Normal, that's what it is. I haven't been... active for a while. I understand having dreams about sex. But maybe I should look up Zoraida.

  "I guess I'll call it a night," Rayann called from the bathroom. "I can barely keep my eyes open." Not quite true, but she suddenly craved... solitude. She wanted to be alone.

  She was awakened by a knock on her door. She opened her eyes groggily, groaning a response to the knock. She sun was shining. She hadn't slept this late in days.

  Louisa looked in, grinning. "The morning is off to a wonderful start. The sun has come out and I've just been downstairs. You didn't tell me the shelves were done! And the decorations have never looked so swank."

  Rayann sat up, holding the sheets over her preferred sleeping attire — nothing at all — and smiled shyly. "I wanted to surprise you."

  "I am appropriately surprised. How does bacon and eggs sound as a celebratory feast?" They ate breakfast sitting on the floor in front of the gleaming new shelves.

  "You've unlocked a demon," Louisa said, glancing at Rayann. "Now I have the let's-do-it-today bug."

  "Uh-oh. What exactly does that mean?" Rayann mopped up the last of the delectable, disgusting goo of her eggs with the last bite of her English muffin.

  "They just look so bare." Louisa looked wistful now.

  Rayann gave a forebearing sigh. "Where are the books?"

  "Oh, no hurry," Louisa said, with a patient sigh.

  "If there was no hurry you wouldn't have brought it up."

  Louisa got up and lifted the curtain to the room leading off from behind the counter. "The poetry books are in the far corner. Ill just do the breakfast dishes while you get oriented." She dashed away, scooping up their plates and cups as she went.

  Rayann peeked behind the curtain. "Oh, my God," she whispered. She leaned back toward the open door to the stairwell. "I'm not doing this by myself!" She heard Louisa laughing. There were boxes and boxes of new books stacked on each other and behind them boxes and boxes of used books. She slowly negotiated the carefully preserved path about one foot wide that ran the length of the room. Six boxes marked P sat in the far corner. Under used copies of Longfellow, Wordsworth, Shelley, Yeats, and more, she discovered, to her surprise, a copy of Renee Vivien's Muse of the Violets. She wondered if Louisa knew she had poetry by lesbians in these boxes.

  Louisa's attitude toward matters lesbian had Rayann puzzled. She'd freely told Rayann how many years she and Christina had been together, the different places they'd lived and other factual details. There was reticence about the emotional quality of their relationship, though, but perhaps Louisa still hurt from losing Christina so pointlessly in an auto accident. And the bookstore contained no books by lesbians, except, she now discovered, this forgotten volume by Renee Vivien. There was a closeted aspect to Louisa's life that was disconcerting for such an independent woman. But that was Louisa's business, not hers.

  She hoisted the first box. The muscles that had developed during the shelving project came in handy. She dropped the box to the floor in front of the shelves and it promptly split its sides. Sighing, she went to the foot of the stairs. "Alphabetically or by time period," she hollered.

  "Alphabetically. You and I are probably the only people who'd understand why Theocritus and Dylan Thomas were at opposite ends." Louisa came to the top of the stairs and looked down. "I'll be right down, I promise."

  "Promises, promises," Rayann muttered. She went back for the second box.

  In the midst of sorting she remembered her stereo and flipped it on. She knew the piece right away — Suzanne Cianni's Velocity of Love. The pensive piano melody seemed appropriate to arranging poetry. The doorbell tinkled and Louisa appeared as if by magic. She grinned at Rayann, saying, "I'll just see to the customers and then I promise I'll help. At least they're all priced."

  "As if that's the hard part," Rayann said sarcastically. She grumbled to herself when Louisa just laughed. Lost in concentration, Rayann didn't realize someone was watching her until the floorboards creaked. She looked up with a start.

  "I told you we would startle her," Greta Schoernsson said.

  "We've come to see how everything looks," Hazel said.

  "What do you think?" Rayann smiled up at them.

  "Very sturdy," Hazel said. "They show pride of workmanship. I'm sorry, workwomanship."

  "Indeed," Greta said. "Would you like some help, my dear"

  "Oh no, that's all right," Rayann said. She raised her voice and looked toward the cash register. "Louisa will be helping out any moment now." She heard Louisa's low chuckle.

  "We're quite able to help," Hazel said. "We may be old but we can read."

  "That's not what I meant —"

  "Of course not," Greta said. "Hazel, she just doesn't want to impose."

  "We could sit at that table over there and if you brought us the A's we could get them in order while you did the B's. Many
hands make light work." Hazel went to the table and Rayann realized that if she didn't accept their offer Hazel, at least, would be offended.

  Greta shrugged her shoulders and whispered to Rayann, "you may as well give in. I've been giving in for sixty years or more." Greta seated herself opposite Hazel. Rayann grinned, handing the accumulated A's to Hazel who began rapidly alphabetizing.

  "Perhaps if you brought me the U's through the Z's, I could do those. We'll meet up in the middle," Greta said.

  "Sounds like a good plan," Rayann said.

  Aside from occasional customers and the stereo, the store had a library's hushed atmosphere. Hazel rarely spoke, while Greta hummed quietly. Louisa shelved the books Rayann delivered from the sorters' hands. Rayann found herself smiling at Greta each time she retrieved Greta's completed stack. Greta was much slower than Hazel because she stopped to examine the books and read the jackets. Rayann was dumbfounded, however, when she saw Greta slip a slender volume into her satchel. She need only have asked, and Rayann was sure Louisa would have given it to her.

  The incident bothered her after the Misses Schoernsson left for lunch and Rayann wondered what exactly had intrigued Greta. Puzzled, she dismissed the incident and finished up the last of the M's. Miraculously, working from both ends had landed them perfectly in the middle.

  Louisa stood behind her and applauded as the last book slipped into place. "Poetry on sale at The Common Reader again!"

  "And what about all the other books in the storeroom?"

  "Ouch!" Louisa winced. "That was really mean of you. I've been trying to forget about them."

  "Some of them are new," Rayann said. "Didn't you have to pay for them?"

  "Not exactly. Some distributors will wait six months before they get nasty."

  "But you can't sell them if they sit in the storeroom. And if you don't sell them you can't pay for them."

  "That's very true. I'm trapped by your flawless logic." Louisa nodded with guileless sincerity.