All Your Pretty Dreams

by Lise McClendon

  “Keep moving,” he told her, pushing her up the steps. “I have to talk to you.”

  She fell on her bed, exhausted, rubbing her eye makeup in wide circles. He told her the news, short and not-so-sweet. She stared at him, uncomprehending, then her face cracked. She rolled over, scrunching her blanket, crying hysterically. He patted her knee until she kicked him.

  Somehow he thought she’d take it better.

  Chapter 8

  The hairdresser poised his scissors over her head and frowned. “We’ve been busy at the sink, have we?”

  “Don’t ask, Ricky.” Daria stood to one side, rolling her eyes at him in the mirror.

  Isabel crossed her arms over the leopard-print plastic poncho and scowled at both of them. Her hair wasn’t that bad. Just a couple inches of skunk stripe. She was going to cut it herself. She’d had her scissors ready this morning but her sister caught her in the act.

  Who knew you could travel inside the same country and the change could make you queasy? Isabel closed her eyes and felt real nausea. Was it the city or the smell of perms? Only last night she’d been all cozy in Motel Moldy, tucked away in the countryside of polka and mosquitoes. Only yesterday she was a scientist, a researcher, a camp counselor. Only yesterday she was hidden from her people: one sister and one homicidal hairdresser.

  “Iz. Isabel! Tell Ricky what you want.” Daria poked her shoulder. Her sister wore a red mini and black high-heeled boots with a flimsy top that managed to make her look both trashy and pregnant. Neither described Daria. Rich and bossy, sure. High maintenance, oh yeah. Her nails were perfect, not to mention her highlights. “We don’t have all day.”

  “Off with the black,” Isabel told Ricky. He was exotically dark and wore blue eyeliner and pointy sideburns. “Give it your best shot.” She kept her voice low and disinterested. How she looked seemed irrelevant. She’d driven half the night and this was her reward.

  Ricky ran his fingers across her scalp, ruffling her hair. “Of course, sweetheart. You’ve got the best.” Daria wandered off to read some high quality magazines about plastic surgery and orgasms, which she felt compelled to share.

  Isabel closed her eyes again. She shouldn’t have come back. Was she a pawn of her sister, a pale shadow compared to bright, brassy Daria who talked so loud and walked so fast? Everything Daria did was bold and exciting. Isabel balled her fists under the plastic poncho. She wasn’t anyone’s pawn. She was fine by herself, more than fine, strong and busy and getting on with real life. But around her sister, and her mother, she felt smaller, duller, tarnished. As if someone had dimmed the lights.

  It was the city too. She felt good in the countryside, free of the tethers of convention and society, the heaviness of responsibility, the pressure to succeed. The palpable competition— who made the most money, who had the fanciest car, who was just born rich and lucky and attractive. You could live your life without all the toys. She was doing it. A life of science, of knowledge, of wonder, of— of insects.

  “Now what?” Daria was asking.

  “A little bleachy-peachy from Ricardo’s honey pot,” Ricky said. He was using a paintbrush on the black ends. Her hair was short and shaggy, hugging the back of her neck short on top. She blinked at herself.

  “The waif look. I love it, Ricky,” Daria said with what sounded like fake enthusiasm.

  A shampoo and blow out and it was done. Ricky beamed. Isabel thought it looked boyish, hair so short, but it would be easy to take care of. She felt exposed after months with long hair and hats. Daria shoved a makeup kit at her as she went into the bathroom to change.

  Isabel stood in front of the mirror and put on mascara for the first time since she left Spain. She found brown eye shadow then dabbed a little concealer on the purple under her eyes. Okay. Now she didn’t look like a boy, but that was enough. Makeup was for people who weren’t happy with themselves, like Daria and Edie. She brushed off her neck and put her sweatshirt back on.

  “Let’s see.” Daria grabbed her. “Not bad. Wait.” She rubbed something on Isabel’s eyebrow. “Now, clothes.”

  “I told you. I’m not wearing your clothes.”

  She dragged Isabel out onto the sidewalk. “Those are fine for Minnesota. For bee people.” She frowned at Isabel’s cargo pants. “You are so thin, honey. I wish I had arms like yours. Here we are. No complaining now, my treat.”

  An hour later they left the shop with three shopping bags, one containing Isabel’s old clothes. Isabel had refused to buy a skirt of any length or color, but relented on a pair of shorts and two pairs of slacks, jeans, a short-sleeved sweater, three t-shirts, and a blouse. She wore the gray slacks and a pink t-shirt with squiggles of silver on it. And new sandals that felt good even if Daria cringed at the sight of her toenails.

  The hospital was affiliated with the University of Chicago, in a cluster of hospitals and clinics. Daria never stopped talking as she drove, parked, and dragged Isabel into the building. There was so much to catch up on, none of it affecting Isabel much, so-and-so’s wedding, so-and-so’s fall designs, so-and-so’s blog.

  “Why haven’t you answered my emails? I sent you, like, seventy.” Daria leaned her head on the elevator wall, scooting back as a man in a wheelchair got on.

  Isabel had stopped answering emails long ago, unless they came from her professors. She knew it irked her family. Maybe that was why.

  “I’m proud of you, Iz. You didn’t ask me about Alec.”

  “I don’t give a rat’s ass about Alec.”

  The man in the wheelchair looked at them. Daria said, “He is definitely not worth a second thought.”

  “Damn straight.”

  The man rolled off. Daria turned to her. “Tell the truth. When did you get back from Spain? I know you were lying about it being last week.”

  “A month ago.” Two actually.

  “A month? Christ, Iz. Daddy will be pissed.”

  Her parents, aunt, and cousin were in the private room, gathered at the end of the bed. Her mother’s father, Egon Warwick, who never had a kind word for anyone, lay still except for the slow rise and fall of his chest, hooked up to tubes and monitors. Egon, who made his money the old fashioned way, inheriting it from his father, was dying.

  Isabel grabbed the door jam. She wouldn’t have driven down in the night for any other reason but imminent death. Egon looked so fragile. His skin was transparent. Any minute he might open his eyes and bark at them for staring at him, for coveting his money. He thought everyone was after his money. Most of the time he was right.

  Daria took Isabel’s arm. “Come on.” She pulled her sister into the room behind her.

  “Ta-da! Guess who I found?” Daria’s voice was entirely too loud for a sick room. Isabel winced, her eyes darting again to her grandfather’s withered face. “The wayward angel, home at last.”

  They all stared, eyes wide. Her aunt Lulu nearly fell off her chair. Her mother froze, a frown on her collagen-plumped lips. Isabel straightened her shoulders. That damn Ricky had made her unrecognizable. Then her father sprung up and hugged both daughters, muttering to Daria about her good deed and to Isabel about how wonderful it was to see her. He ruffled her short hair, tweaked her ear, and she laughed. Her lovely father could make her feel so warm inside— when he got around to it.

  “Good God, Isabel. What have you done to your hair?” The shrill voice scraped across her daughter’s mind. Edie, of course. Appearances first and foremost.

  “She’s back,” Max said, his arm still around her shoulders. “She came back to see us. To see Egon. All the way across the ocean.”

  They sat at a round table with a starched white tablecloth in the sort of ancient eatery where her grandfather’s cronies made deals and smoked cigars. They had managed somehow to navigate through the hospital, into cars, and meet up again some miles away at the Stock House. Dark paneling with animal heads, pretension, and oversized cuts of beef. Isabel slipped in next to her cousin Frederick who at seventeen made everyone call him Frick.
Dressed in prep gray slacks and a navy tie, Frick was insolent and catty, the best sort of lunch companion.

  She hardly got to talk to him before the inquisition began.

  Edie wore a black and white print summer dress that hugged her slender curves, still a knock-out in that department. Her hair was long and highlighted like Daria’s, identical in fact. She’d had a little work done. Her eyes almost popped out of her face.

  “Where exactly are you, Isabel?” her mother demanded.

  “Little town in Minnesota. You’ve never heard of it.”

  Edie demanded the name. “And you’re chasing bees around with a net?”

  “It’s called a field study. You wouldn’t understand.”

  Her father Max shot her a warning look. Edie’s eyes were like stones. “Because I’m too stupid?”

  If the shoe fits. Isabel ground her molars.

  “Because it has to do with insects, Mother,” Daria said. “They are so complicated.” She whispered to Isabel: “Stop it.” Edie sipped her wine, eyes hot on her younger daughter.

  “You know what they say,” Frick chirped. “Give bees a chance.” Har har.

  “So you’ve been in Europe?” Aunt Lulu sat forward, interceding in the malice.

  “France and Spain mostly. I spent the winter in Barcelona.”

  “Barcelona?” Max said sharply.

  “I love that city,” Daria said a little too quickly. “And the beach near there, is it Tarragon, like the herb? Did you hear Andrea got mugged in Madrid? Almost broke her arm. That wouldn’t happen in Barcelona. It’s lovely there, the fountains…” Her voice faded.

  Then Edie said, ice in her voice: “We were in Barcelona in February. For a week.”

  Isabel glanced at her father. He looked older, more gray in his temples, less hair on top. His trendy new glasses looked silly, like he was trying to be a hipper hedge fund manager. He fiddled with his fork. They could have seen her there but for her stubborn refusal to communicate. They could have gone out for tapas, walked the boulevards. Met her boyfriend. Because that worked out so well last time.

  His face, the hurt, made her feel terrible. She never meant to hurt him— did she? Edie and her sister Lulu exchanged looks, nostrils flaring. How could Max stand Edie? Was he that strong— or that deluded? But— she hardly knew him. Edie was so brittle, so bossy, that poor Max, in her shadow on the domestic front, barely registered with his own children. Did he love Edie? Did he just marry her for her money?

  Isabel squinted at her plate. She hoped her father wasn’t that sort of man. Yet, why else would he have married her? What else had she brought to the table? Society contacts? Interior decorating? Max was frowning into his wine glass.

  “I— I’m—” Isabel shrank in her seat. Was she sorry? Hadn’t she run away from all of them? Wasn’t no contact exactly what she wanted? She was a terrible daughter. Full of pride and arrogance. That was the truth of it.

  “What are your plans after this bee thing?” Max asked.

  She looked up, grateful for a civil question. “Finish my doctorate. In Urbana.”

  After they ordered Frick began telling her about pranks at prep school. Edie and Lulu discussed an upcoming formal ball as if the fact that their father was clinging to life was only a momentary glitch in their social calendar. As they walked out of the restaurant, Max took Isabel’s arm. He didn’t say anything until the others drifted ahead.

  “I’ve missed you, honey.” He turned toward her. “We worry about you when you don’t call. I don’t like it when I don’t hear from you for months. Even if you’re in Europe.”

  “I’m sorry, Daddy. Message received.” She stuck her hands in her pockets then blurted out, “I don’t remember hearing from you.”

  He looked surprised. “Your mother said she—” He frowned at Edie. “You’re right. I should have called. Give me your number.” He pulled out his Blackberry.

  She gave him the motel’s number where once in a blue moon people got messages. He could get the university cell number from Daria. A peal of laughter erupted from Lulu by the doorway. Isabel wondered if she would be laughing while Max was dying. Never.

  Her father, dead. The thought made her shiver. She would try to be a better daughter. He led her down the hallway. She would try.

  But damn, it was hard to be a Yancey.

  Chapter 9

  The light reflected off the lake in tangled sparks. The mosquitoes were kept at bay by a ring of tiki torches outside the large tent. Jonny had waited until the last minute to arrive at the campaign fundraiser. Lenny gave him a punch on the arm then ran off. Jonny shifted the bulky accordion case to his other hand and made his way through the rows of folding chairs to the stage.

  The afternoon buzzed in his head, jumbled and painful. Artie had driven down but he hadn’t been much help. He listened, nodded, and had to leave. They’d found Ozzie at Loreen’s and asked him come home to discuss things. The decibels were far above ‘discussion.’

  Minnesota women in general took a stoic approach to infidelity, or went straight to homicide. Not Margaret. She screamed at Ozzie, at Artie, at Jonny and Wendy until her voice gave out. The middle ground between tolerance and murder was full of blame, shame, threats, and broken dishes.

  Finally Carol Chichester arrived with a Valium. Margaret was too beaten to object, took it, and went to bed. Ozzie snuck out, still with a little strut in his step. They watched as Loreen picked him up at the corner.

  Artie and Jonny went out for coffee to discuss matters familial. They stared into their cups. What was there to say? Their parents were who they were, strange beings who shared their genes. Artie left for the Twin Cities. Jonny stayed at Sid’s, hunched in a booth, avoiding family and neighbors.

  Now the hiding was over. Lenny led the state engineer to the stage. Jonny set the accordion behind a stool, made sure the microphone was working, and stepped away.

  Lights flared from the corners of the tent. The groundwater scientist from St. Paul squinted out at the crowd and began his spiel about landfills and run-off water and lakes. Leaning against a pole on one side of the chairs, Jonny was glad to have something as ordinary as rainfall and common as garbage to think about. Halfway through he felt a tug on his sleeve.

  The woman at his elbow was getting looks, and it was easy to see why, with skintight leather pants and a sequined top. Half the crowd ditched water pollution to stare at her. Tattoos on both shoulders, bleached hair pulled into tufts with silver cord, and boots that made her taller than he was— if all that didn’t guarantee that she wasn’t from Red Vine, the fact that she was as dark as morning coffee did.

  “Audri,” she said, taking out her gum and holding out her hand. “Your singer.” With her wide mouth and dangling earrings she was striking, like a bolt of lightning. Exactly the sort of girl singer any band would want out front. Big, too, so tall no one will even see the accordionist.

  “So what do you sing?” he asked. This was all very casual. No rehearsal, not even a song list. He wondered what the hell he was doing. She had brought a tambourine.

  “You name it. Anything. Except polka.” She frowned at the accordion as he strapped it on. “You don’t do polka?”

  “Never.” He grinned at her. “This isn’t an accordion.”

  She shrugged. “What I really like is soul and R-and-B. Aretha? Wilson Pickett? Roy Orbison? You dig that old stuff?”

  “I’ll give it a try if you tell me the songs.”

  As the drinking began, as hors d’oeuvres passed on paper plates, the crowd began to move, shifting easily in the growing dark. After a hasty song list was drawn up Jonny launched in old road songs, teenage songs, songs about growing up and moving on, about love and loss and cars. The tunes weren’t complicated and Audri sang in a deep, throaty voice. The music enveloped him, creating a pocket of feeling. It cradled him, rocked him. He forgot about Margaret and Ozzie, Holti and Nora, Jonny and Cuppie. He drifted off onto a musical plane where nothing mattered but chords and choruses
and pure harmony.

  At the break he set down his accordion and snagged two beers from the cooler. He and Audri huddled to figure out what songs to do in the next set. They’d run through most of Jonny’s repertoire of sixties and seventies songs, not a great number to begin with. He could do chords while she sang, he supposed. He felt ready to try something new, out of the morass of everyday troubles. They were making a little list on a scrap of paper when a drunk fell into Jonny and asked him to play ‘Lady of Spain.’ “You know, do that bellows shake.”

  “We’ll think about it,” Jonny began. This was a common request, unfortunately. For some reason everyone liked to see the accordion vibrate.

  Audri pushed the man upright. “Bugger off.” He lurched away. “Never negotiate with drunks and morons.”

  Lenny came by, shaking hands. It was a decent crowd for Red Vine, at least forty people, a good chunk of the voting population under 50. No sign of Margaret or Ozzie or Loreen. A handful of senior citizens. The college students had come, desperate for entertainment, no doubt. They were dancing and drinking. Wendy and a bunch of high school kids were sneaking cigarettes in the woods.

  “You’re going to play more, aren’t you?” Lenny asked earnestly as he hugged Audri. “Things are just getting started.”

  She made a face over his shoulder. “Okay, Mayor, no free feels tonight.”

  They quit about ten-thirty, having run out of songs. Lenny hooked up his laptop to the mixer and cranked up some tunes. He ordered them to “Party on!” The older people had cleared out but the students— mostly girls in clumps, preening and lip-glossing— and local teenagers began to jump and shout. Bottles appeared from pockets.

  Jonny sat on the edge of the stage, tired but content with the way the evening had turned out. He had forgotten that he could play the accordion more or less by ear, picking out chords and tunes from memory. Amazing, really, what the brain retains. Even his thick brain. He even sang a little back-up for Audri. How could he have forgotten how he enjoyed this music? How had he squelched that part of him that felt totally at ease on the stage, playing that wicked squeeze box, smiling at girls? He wouldn’t think about Cuppie, or those dead years.