The Unlikely Romance of Kate Bjorkman

by Louise Plummer

  “Thanks,” I said. “Yours is the green one under the tree.”

  I unwrapped a pair of black leather gloves, which I needed badly. “Thanks,” I said. I didn’t want them from her.

  “They’re for your dressy coat. Oh, it’s just what I wanted,” she shrieked, grasping the bright-colored Swatch I had given her.

  “I know. You told me.” I wished I’d bought something cheaper and then felt guilty. Where was my Christmas spirit?

  She stood up to show it to Richard and Dad. “Isn’t it great?” She stood behind Richard. “Look.” She held it in front of his eyes, her head hovering near his, their cheeks almost touching. Why was I looking? I put my glasses in my lap.

  “Oh, I brought you something,” Ashley said.

  It caught Richard off guard. “For me?”

  “It’s not very much,” she cooed.

  “Well, geez, uh—” His stammering made me smile.

  “It’s Obsession,” she said. “If the fragrance fits—” He couldn’t have finished unwrapping it yet. “It draws women like flies.”

  “Sounds like a burden,” Dad muttered.

  “Here, let me put some on you,” Ashley said. I was glad I was blind.

  “Uh, thanks, but I don’t want to mix fragrances, as they say. Geez, that’s really nice, Ash. Thanks.” The Romance Writer’s Phrase Book would say that Richard’s voice was full of “disquiet.”

  “You can wear it on New Year’s Eve—you’re still planning to go, aren’t you?”

  More of that disquiet stuff: “Uh, yeah, sure. Looking forward to it.”

  Better get a tetanus shot.

  The phone had rung and Mother had picked it up in the kitchen. “Your grandparents have arrived, Ashley. Your mother wants you to come home for dinner now.”

  “Okay, well—Merry Christmas, you guys.”

  I got up off the couch, my glasses in front of my face. “Thanks, Ash. Merry Christmas. Say hi to your mom.” I walked her to the door.

  “You’re not wearing lip gloss, are you?” she said from the porch.

  “No.”

  “You really should.”

  “Bye.”

  From the front hall, I looked at Richard through my pince-nez. “Don’t like mixing fragrances, huh?” I laughed all the way back to the sofa.

  “She was going to maul me to death. You saw her, Nels; she was going to maul me, wasn’t she?” Richard pressed my dad.

  “So what’s your point?” Dad looked over his reading glasses at him.

  Fleur and Mother came in from the kitchen. Seeing the wrappings on the table, Mother asked, “Who got the present?”

  Richard held up the bottle of Obsession. “She wants me to wear it New Year’s Eve.”

  “Sounds like the fattening before the kill,” Fleur said.

  Mother opened the bottle and sniffed. “Nels, why don’t you get some of this—it’s heavenly.”

  Richard grinned. “Like flies, Nels, like flies.”

  Dad patted his own cheek. “Maul me a little with that stuff, will you?” he said to Mother.

  Fleur watched the two of them as if they were something special.

  When Trish and Bjorn came back, we ate dinner: clam chowder and the leftovers from the night before. Then long-distance phone calls were made to my grandparents in Florida and my grandmother Bjorkman in Phoenix. Trish called her parents in Seattle, and Richard called his parents in Palo Alto. When he was finished, Mother talked to his mother, Caroline, for about forty-five minutes with the kitchen door closed. It was a combination of low whispers and loud shrieks of laughter. Heaven only knows what middle-aged women find interesting.

  Fleur didn’t call anyone.

  By late afternoon, a quiet yearning was building in me: I wanted to be alone with Richard. It wasn’t enough to share looks with him across the table when we all played Trivial Pursuit, girls against guys. (The girls won because Trish knew every single entertainment question, which was the biggest weakness with the rest of us.) Nor was it enough to play Scrabble with him in the window seat, our knees occasionally bumping at the side of the board. (I won by putting down all seven letters with “zymurgy.” He took about half an hour taking his next turn, trying to match the points, while I repeated, “I’ve won, Bradshaw; give it up!”) It wasn’t enough to sit in front of the sofa on the floor with him, connected at the hip, so to speak, gazing into the fire. Dad dozed in his chair, occasionally making snarking noises that made us laugh. Trish, Fleur, and Mother worked on one of those puzzles with fifty million pieces. Bjorn, sprawled on the carpet in front of our feet, wanted to know where in the world Richard would live if money were no object.

  “Here,” Richard said.

  “St. Paul?”

  “Sure, why not?”

  “St. Paul over Paris? Over Rome? Over London?”

  “St. Paul is home,” Richard said. “Besides, if you had that much money, you could go anywhere you wanted anytime you wanted, so what does it matter where you live?”

  “Yeah, but St. Paul—it’s so provincial.”

  “It’s home. Besides, I don’t think it’s so provincial. Provincial compared to what?”

  Go to bed, I wanted to say. It’s over. Christmas day is over. Now the day is over. How did that hymn go? Anyway, it is over. A fait accompli. Nighty-night. Goodnight Moon. The end. God bless us every one. Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night. Fini.

  I yawned. Like magic, my dad awoke and said, “Let’s call it a day, Becca. That puzzle won’t get done in one night.”

  “I like the way Dad wakes up so he can go to bed,” Bjorn said, standing up. He leaned over Trish at the table. “Honey?”

  She patted his hand, which was on her shoulder, and fit one last piece onto the outer edge of the puzzle. “There, the border is almost done.” She stood up. “Good night and thanks for a wonderful day.” She kissed Mother’s cheek.

  It was like a choreographed dance. I had yawned and they had all gone into motion, except Richard, who stayed by my side in front of the sofa.

  “I didn’t realize it was so late already.” Fleur looked at her watch. “It was a wonderful day. Merry Christmas.”

  They shuffled in clusters into the front hall. Mother looked back at me briefly, her mouth open as if she wanted to say something, give advice maybe, but happily she thought better of it. “Good night, Kate, Rich. Merry Christmas.” She gave us one of those funny looks of hers that I wouldn’t want to analyze.

  And then they were gone. All of them.

  Richard pulled my arm through his and held on to my hand. “I thought they’d never leave,” he said. “I thought I would grow old in this room with all of them watching.”

  I leaned my head against him. “A conspiracy,” I said.

  He smiled, kissing my hair, my mouth. “This may be the best Christmas day yet,” he murmured.

  “Sure beats Ruffy’s doo-doo.”

  He laughed. We were changing positions to something I liked better. I was solidly in his arms now, pressed against him. The Romance Writer’s Phrase Book has lots of hot descriptions for that “pressing against” position, but it just doesn’t sound like me—like something I’d say.

  We kissed. He smelled of soap. We kissed. The clock in the front hall ticked. We kissed. We kissed paragraphs’ worth. I’m so dizzy remembering it, I can hardly concentrate on writing it down.

  Once when we came up for air, he said, “I don’t want to go to that party with Ashley. Can’t you and I arrange—”

  I shook my head. “I asked Helmut weeks ago. I think he’s even bought a suit.”

  “Are you and he—you know?”

  “We’re debate partners!”

  He smiled. “That’s it?”

  “You want there to be more?”

  “I mean—”

  “He’s an exchange student from Berlin. I wanted to practice my German. That’s how we got to be friends. Last year I didn’t take a date and my aunt has been threatening all year to fix me up with som
eone. I asked Helmut in self-defense.”

  Richard’s mouth moved along my throat. “I hate the guy already.”

  “No, he’s nice. He’ll probably want to ask you about Stanford.”

  “I’m cutting in on all the slow dances—every damned one.”

  “Mmm. Ashley won’t like that.”

  “A whole night with her—the longest night of the year.” He groaned. “She’s so nuts.”

  I couldn’t disagree with that. “We can dance in the kitchen after it’s over.”

  Pages of kissing. Literally pages. You’d be bored. I had moved up the hierarchy of those who are happy at Christmas. I had moved into the top slot. I was in love and I was pretty sure that Richard was in love with me, although he hadn’t said as much yet. But actions speak louder than words, unless the guy is out of one of those summer beach movies filled with oversexed sociopaths. I knew Richard was better than that. I trusted him completely.

  Revision Notes

  My parents sound too perfect. All that good humor, all that affection, not to mention the good cooking, will make readers want to puke, or will make them think their own parents are horrific duds. My parents are okay, but I’ve made them depressingly good-natured. Somehow I need to work in their weaknesses. Here’s a list of ten items each:

  My Father’s Weaknesses and Imperfections:

  1. He has never in his life attended any PTA meeting or school function that I or Bjorn has participated in. Never. “Your mother will make a video,” he says.

  2. He has never watched one of Mother’s videos.

  3. He thinks the Boy Scouts of America is a fascist organization and that Eagle Scouts grow up to become serial killers. He did allow Bjorn to join the Scout troop, but he made him promise not to make Eagle.

  4. He farts whenever and wherever he pleases.

  5. When driving, he weaves across lanes and breaks for green lights, and if anyone complains, he’ll stop the car in the middle of traffic.

  6. He has a little paunch and moles all over his back.

  7. If Mother didn’t choose his clothes, he’d wear black dress shoes and black socks with his jeans.

  A couple of alcoholic rages might improve this list, but I’d be lying. Oh, he does go into a rage if anyone removes the stapler or paper punch from his study and doesn’t return it. That could be number 8.

  9. I can’t think of anything else.

  10. Still can’t think.

  My Mother’s Weaknesses and Imperfections:

  1. This first one is easy. Even my dad doesn’t know. Occasionally she goes down to the basement to have a smoke. I’ve known this since I was five. Marlboro Lights. Not often, just occasionally. So she’s a hypocrite.

  2. Of the good, the true, and the beautiful, she ranks beauty first without hesitation. (Which is why she has no problem with a little hypocrisy.)

  3. She hates cats. Especially cat motifs in decorating—like needlepoint cats, cat calendars. Even kittens. Thinks they should be crushed like cockroaches. (Guess I won’t put that in the book.)

  4. She thinks long-stemmed roses are a cliché. But is that really a weakness?

  5. She enjoys dirty jokes. Jokes too filthy to tell in this book.

  6. When anyone asks her if either of her children is as gifted visually as she is, she replies, “No, they take after Nels—they’re both visual pygmies.”

  7. She adores gossip.

  8. She can’t resist looking at herself in any mirror or plate-glass window.

  9. When she’s burned out after a big job, she won’t talk.

  10. If it weren’t for Nair, she’d have a little mustache. (If she ever reads this, she’ll kill me.)

  Pretty lame lists. They lack violence. I could tell about the famous fight. The one that has become family folklore. This is the way Mother tells it:

  Oh, that fight! It was years ago, of course. Nels and I were both young and hormonal. He said something hurtful to me. I honestly don’t remember what it was. Don’t have a clue. I got angry and raged through the house, slamming doors and kicking things.

  Nels felt terrible immediately and began following after me and saying how he wished he’d never said it, whatever it was, and, please, would I forgive him. I didn’t want to forgive him. I wanted him dead, preferably torn apart by ravenous rottweilers. But he wouldn’t just let me go and cool off. He wanted to fix it right then. Nels gets kind of pathetic and cloying when I’m mad at him.

  Anyway, I locked myself upstairs in the master bathroom, filled the tub with water, removed my clothes, and got in. Nels stood on the other side of the door and begged me to let him in. I told him to drop dead. Then he began to take the doorknob and lock apart. I was shouting, “Get out of here. Can’t you leave me alone?” Really, I was crazy.

  He brought in the desk chair, the one with the cotton upholstered seat, and before he could sit down on it, I took a washrag filled with water and slapped it down onto that seat.

  He looked at the seat. He looked at me. I could see the wheels turning in his head. And then he stepped into the tub and sat down—with all his clothes on and he was wearing wool tweed! He was even wearing his shoes! We were both crammed into that tub.

  What could I do except burst out laughing. And then I cried and told him he had hurt my feelings and let him tell me he was sorry. And we made up.

  When Mother tells this story, Dad always says, “Yes, we did,” with the kind of smirk you don’t like to see on a parent’s face. Who wants to think about their parents doing it? All that flab meshed together. Disgusting. And I’m trying to point out their weaknesses, but they tell this story themselves, dramatizing the details and making fun of themselves. Mother says, “I was being very neurotic.”

  The story may be too charming to tell. I told it to Shannon, and she thought it was a very romantic thing for my father to do. She practically swooned at the idea, even though he’s an old man. And that’s exactly what I don’t want to do, tell yet another story that makes them look charming. I’m going to have to think about this some more.

  This chapter, Chapter Ten, a short chapter, has nothing to do with romance or kissing or pressing breasts against corded muscles. Nothing at all. But I feel compelled, as Midgely used to say, to tell you. I have been surprised as I write this how often Midgely is mentioned on these pages. How often I quote him. I have made him a minor character in this novel without meaning to. His influence has altered who I am in nearly imperceptible ways. I’m barely recognizing it now.

  He had legs like tree trunks before the cancer. He didn’t look like a tennis player at all—too large, too squarely built, more like a wrestler or a tackle. For that matter, he didn’t look much like an English teacher either. Not dapper and sensitive like Mr. Harcourt, or sardonic like Mr. Voight, or owly like Ms. Janacek. He was red-faced and freckled, and he had been losing his strawberry-blond hair even before the chemotherapy.

  It snowed all Christmas night, and when I awoke, a Jeep and a Blazer were stuck in the middle of our street, stuck in what must have been more than three feet of snow. I saw it through pince-nez.

  Mary Lou Midgely stepped from her front porch, her parka unzipped, and plowed laboriously through the snow to the Blazer to talk with its driver.

  Dad and Bjorn, without coats, made their way from the house to the Blazer as well, for what now looked like a conference.

  Something was up. I met Mother in the hallway. “Midge needs to go to the hospital,” she said, placing folded towels in the linen closet, “but nothing can get through—no ambulance, no four-wheel-drive vehicles—nothing.”

  “What about snowplows?”

  “We’ve called. They’re all on main thoroughfares. The city’s got a crisis on its hands. This is a record snowfall for one night. Better get dressed,” she said.

  But I’m so happy today, I thought, brushing my teeth. Midgely can’t go to the hospital today, the day after Christmas, today, when I’m happy. Today when I’m in love and beloved. This is too joyous a day for any
one to be going to the hospital. Time is wrapped in red-and-green taffeta ribbon today.

  I knew better, of course. It was Midgely, after all, who taught me about logical fallacies last year. Why is it that logic hardly ever makes emotional sense?

  It was an hour and a half later that a plow, one of those gigantic yellow cats that can plow half a street at a time, drove through our neighborhood looking like a resurrected dinosaur. An ambulance followed it. I’m sure everyone in our house was standing by a window somewhere.

  I stood in front of the living room window, gazing through pince-nez across the white slope of the lawn, across the white street to Midgely’s house, where the front door was opening. Richard stood behind me, his hands on my shoulders.

  The ambulance drivers, probably realizing that a gurney was useless in the snow, carried Midgely out on a white stretcher covered in white blankets. They moved cautiously but quickly down the front walk of Midgely’s house and, reaching the sidewalk, turned toward the ambulance, which did not stand directly in front of the house but was parked at the corner. It was not until they turned that I saw Midgely’s face, yellow as tennis balls against the new snow. Yellow and contorted and unrecognizable.

  I think I held my breath until he was in the ambulance, until Mary Lou was in the ambulance with him, until the ambulance followed the giant yellow cat out of our neighborhood. I was left with the white snow, the blue winter sky, and Richard’s warm hands on my shoulders.

  None of it made any sense at all.

  Sometimes novelists find it necessary to get rid of a character to further the plot. I mean David Copperfield would hardly be the bildungsroman it is if Dickens hadn’t killed off David’s mother, leaving David in care of the wicked Mr. Murdstone and his equally wicked sister, Miss Murdstone. It’s then that all David’s problems begin, and they continue for eight hundred pages or so until the resolution.

  In this, my story, there have been relatively few problems. Ashley has been a pain, but nothing I couldn’t handle. Richard loves me; that’s been well established. Things are running too smoothly. You’re probably getting bored. So I’m going to zap Fleur in Chapter Eleven, because if she stays in the novel any longer, there will be no unhappiness on New Year’s Eve, and that’s what this story needs: a little unhappiness, a little contrast, so that you’ll appreciate the happy resolution. Trust me on this.