“An island in the Caribbean and she comes to Illinois in December? Is she crazy?"
“Homesick, I suspect. I don't know why, after all these years, she'd be so anxious to come back, but she is. We write long letters at Christmas and send the occasional birthday card, but that's all. Or it was until last winter. Somehow she heard about Steve dying—"
“From that distance? Not to speak ill of the dead, but Steve's passing was hardly an international event.”
Jane smiled. Most of her acquaintances went miles out of their way to avoid mentioning Steve and would never refer to his death. Only a true friend like Shelley would speak casually, even lightly, about it. Life, not to mention conversation, was so much easier with a real friend.
“I don't know how she knew. I suspect she's always taken the Chicago papers, though, because in her letters she frequently mentions local events as if she's familiar with them. She may do it for the sake of Chet's sons. One of them lives somewhere close to us, or used to. She mentioned him a couple times, and I suppose she hoped I'd make an effort to meet him, but I never did. You don't know any Wagners in the neighborhood, do you?"
“Hmmm, there's a Joannie Wagner with a fourth grader. I worked at the school carnival with her."
“That sounds familiar. Anyway, Phyllis called immediately after Steve died and offered tocome stay with me, since my mother was having that surgery and couldn't be here."
“Oh, I think I do remember you mentioning her. I think I answered the phone that day."
“Could be. Of course, I had you and Steve's mother, Thelma, and didn't need her—didn't even want her, to be truthful. Phyllis was really a virtual stranger to me by that time. But a month or so later, when I was getting back to being able to think and talk a little, she called again and asked if I'd like to bring the children down to their island for a visit. I begged off, and I must have inadvertently given the impression that I couldn't afford to go. Not that I could have afforded it, but that wasn't the reason. So in the next mail there was a registered letter containing four plane tickets."
“You never mentioned that to me! Why didn't you go?"
“I didn't tell you, because I was afraid you'd make me go. I couldn't pull myself together and figure out what to do about the dog and the cats and clothes and stopping the paper. You know what a zombie I was for a while. Besides, I—well, I just didn't want to spread my grief around. The only place I felt I could heal was at home.”
Shelley nodded her understanding.
“I sent the tickets back with the gooiest thank-you I could write," Jane went on. "She returned a heart-breakingly sweet letter, very understanding, saying how she'd been selfish to try to get me there, but she'd missed me so much all those years. Of course, I had to write and offer to have her visit here after all she'd done, or tried to do for me. To my astonishment, she took me up on it. Not then, but she said she'd like to visit this winter. So, here we are, picking her up. I don't know why she's not visiting Chet's son and his Joannie instead of me. I don't think they're close, but she'd never indicated that they don't get along. Although, as boys, when she and Chet were first married, his sons gave her trouble. One of them—John, I think his name was—was especially close to his father."
“So what's Phyllis like? Will she be fun or intolerable?”
Jane had the crochet hook in her teeth as she rewound the yarn. She took it out and tapped her knee reflectively. "Just boring, I would guess. She's very nice. Very, very nice. She's the kind of person you absolutely cannot dislike. But it's equally impossible to be crazy about her, and that's always made me feel a little guilty. I feel I ought to like her much better than I do. She's a truly good person who deserves the kind of friendship you and I have. I feel obligated, but unwilling, to provide it. She's rather quiet. I remember her as a sort of country girl come to the city, even though she grew up in Bostonor Washington or someplace. She had that sort of wide-eyed, half-scared, half-thrilled look most of the time."
“Certainly she's outgrown that by now. I don't think I could stand dewy innocence," Shelley said. "Why is she coming without her husband? Doing a little Christmas shopping or something?"
“Probably so. She's coming by way of New York; I guess she was there for a few days. She'sprobably dropped a couple million already. But I do find this trip odd. She and Chet have always been inseparable. In her last letter there was the merest hint of trouble in paradise. I'd hate to see her marriage go bad. She doesn't deserve that kind of unhappiness and—I guess it's selfish of me, but I don't think I could stand hours of talk about a disintegrating marriage."
“And you think it is? Disintegrating?"
“I hope not."
“How long is she staying?"
“She didn't say. I imagine two or three days. Well, we can get her busy on the bazaar. She'll like that, unless she's changed a lot. She was always making some little ornamental something. She's another of those damned born knitters, and she's the only person I've ever met of our generation who knows how to do tatting."
“Tatting! I thought it was a lost art.
“The year we lived in the apartment she made Christmas tree ornaments for everybody in the building with styrofoam balls and sequins with all this starched, tatted lace. Sounds tacky, but they were beautiful. All those lonely old people in the building were very touched. So was I. I still have mine."
“Then she'll fit right in with the church bazaar crowd. They'll think you imported her especially for their use.
Jane was quiet for a moment. They were approaching the airport, and the sky was full of planes. "Say—the bazaar reminds me of something else. Phyllis was madly in love with Richie Divine. She'll be interested in meeting Fiona—the famous widow. Phyllis has a scrapbook of her favorite stars and another one just for Richie. I thought that was strange, but sort of endearing, that a grown—well, married woman would keep fan scrapbooks.”
Shelley didn't say anything, just rolled her eyes. Jane looked sideways at her, and added, "She also did jigsaw puzzles, pictures of puppies and kittens, and poured glue over them so she could hang them up on the walls."
“Good God, Jane! You can't mean that!" Jane giggled. "No, I just wanted to see if you were paying attention."
“What terminal are we going to?" Shelley asked repressively.
“Damn it, Shelley! I've crocheted the door handle into my afghan!”
Jane didn't recognize the slim, expensively dressed woman who waved at her as she moved forward with the crowd at the arrivals gate. "Is that her?" Shelley asked.
“I guess it must be," Jane said through the side of her mouth. She glanced around to see if perhaps the woman was gesturing to someone standing behind her. But no one was reacting. Jane assumed a smile that was welcoming but not committed enough to embarrass her if this wasn't Phyllis.
The crowd got backed up behind a little girl who had tripped and was screaming bloody murder. Jane had time to study the woman she assumed was little Phyllis all grown up and rich. The Phyllis she remembered had mousy brown hair and an air of perpetual disarray just short of sloppiness. This woman was exquisite;expensively frosted hair swirled around a face that could have graced a magazine cover. This was the sort of beautiful, mature woman who was shown in the high fashion fur ads in magazines Jane flipped through at the bookstore but couldn't afford to buy. Tanned. Gorgeous teeth. Gorgeous teeth? Phyllis had disgraceful teeth back in the old Chicago apartment days. It was the one real drawback to her appearance.
As Jane watched, the woman turned to a young man standing slightly behind her. She said something and pointed to Jane. The young man, blond, tanned, smashingly handsome, and unquestionably the most sulky individual in the whole airport, glared.
“Who is that with her?" Shelley asked.
“Dear God! I hope it's somebody she met on the plane," Jane said. She could feel her plaster smile crumbling.
“He couldn't be one of her husband's sons, could he?" Shelley asked.
“Too young. They'd be in
their late twenties. That one's not more than eighteen or nineteen. He's probably some flunky of Chet's who was sent along to see her on and off planes.”
The woman who might be Phyllis had shifted her carry-on case and several lumpy plastic bags to her left arm and slipped her right arm around the boy in a clearly intimate gesture. He looked like he was straining to get away.
Shelley asked, "You don't suppose he's her lover, do you?"
“Bite your tongue! I've got underwear older than that boy!"
“Well, he's not somebody she picked up on the plane. Look, their hand luggage matches."
“Oh, shit!" Jane said, hissing. "Am I going to have a middle-aged woman cavorting around my house with her gigolo? Oh, Shelley—what will I do? How could she? He's just a kid. How mortifying. How will I explain it to my kids?"
“You won't have to. They'll catch on right away."
“Don't say that! That's what I'm afraid of.”
“Then don't call her middle-aged. She's our age.”
Jane suddenly felt a wave of sympathetic understanding for the little girl who had tied up traffic and was now sitting, screaming, and kicking her heels on the floor. It was just what Jane wanted to do herself.
Three
Somebody picked up the screaming child, cut ting off its wails. The crowd surged forward. "Jane! Darling Jane!" Phyllis cried, dragging the young man behind her as she fought through the people blocking her. Jane found herself being embraced, her nose tickled by mink and Phyllis's scent—that of very new hundred-dollar bills dipped in Giorgio. One of Phyllis's plastic bags was caught between them, and Jane was being gouged by something that felt like a knitting needle.
“You haven't changed a bit!" Phyllis said, holding Jane by both arms and studying her.
“You have," Jane blurted out, not sure whether to be flattered or insulted by Phyllis's remark. Jane had hoped that maturity would have improved her.
“No, I haven't," Phyllis said. "It's just my teeth. Chet insisted on having all these porcelain things done to them. He thought it mattered to me, the darling. So I let him think so. It made him happy."
“Phyllis—" It was hard to call her that. Jane wondered how this expensively dressed individ‑ ual could be the same woman she'd once known. "I'm sorry that Chet didn't come along. How is he?”
At that, Phyllis's eyes began to fill, and her chin trembled almost imperceptibly. "He's just fine, Jane. We just needed some time apart." She sniffed, paused a moment to get a grip on herself.
And in that moment, with her chin shaking with incipient tears, the woman before her became the old Phyllis—poor little insecure Phyllis who'd spent her days befriending the old people in the apartment building and making Christmas ornaments. At the same time, Jane realized that her fear of marriage troubles was right, and she was probably in for hours of heart-to-heart girl talk. But for the moment, Phyllis had put aside her own woes to offer sympathy to Jane. "I just can't say how sorry I was about Steve's death. I still can't believe it. You—a widow before forty.”
Jane didn't know what to say. She didn't want to talk about widowhood. She certainly wasn't going to tell Phyllis that Steve wouldn't have been out on that icy road in the middle of a black February night, except that he was leaving her for another woman. That was something she wouldn't tell Phyllis. Not now or later. "Your teeth are beautiful," she said instead. "That was nice of Chet."
“Oh, but Chet did something much finer for me. I've been dying to tell you, but I made myself wait until I could see your face. Jane, I want you to meet Bobby Bryant.”
She dragged the sulky young man forward.
Jane had been vaguely aware of him standing in the background, watching their reunion with about as much joy as Jane felt emptying kitty litter. He was even more gorgeous up close. He had thick blond hair, beautifully cut and sun bleached to wheat-colored perfection. His nose might be a little too long and pointed, but it suited his thin, tanned face and didn't distract a bit from a fine, if petulant, mouth. Good God, Katie was going to collapse at the mere sight of him. Jane could see a terrible crush coming. "Hello, Bobby," she said.
He took her hand in a languid grip. It wasn't an effeminate gesture, just a supremely bored one. "Hi," he said listlessly.
“Isn't he handsome?" Phyllis gushed.
“Uh, yes. I'm sure he must be," Jane said, embarrassed at discussing him as if he were a pet.
As he was stumbling around trying to think of what to say next, Shelley nudged her in the ribs and jarred her into further introductions. Phyllis was very polite to Shelley but was obviously eager to get back to discussing Bobby. "Jane, do you know who Bobby is?"
“Come on, Phyl," the young man said. "Do we have to stand here in the middle of everything jawing about this?" Jane was surprised to hear a distinctly Chicago accent in his voice.
“That boy needs a fat lip," Shelley muttered.
Phyllis was hanging onto Bobby, gazing up at him with adoration. Jane was paralyzed with embarrassment. She'd heard about older women taking handsome young lovers. It wasn't something done in her circle, of course. Most of her circle of friends hung out in the school parking lots in their station wagons or in the grocery store. But among the jet set, it was fairly normal to have a tiff with your husband and take up with a pretty boy. Or so she was led to believe by such reliable authorities as People magazine and TV Guide, Jane's windows on the world.
But it was shocking that sweet, slightly boring Phyllis should have fallen into such pitiful ways. It was odd, too. She seemed genuinely grieved about her problems with Chet, whatever they might be. Even then, it wouldn't be quite so skin-crawling awful if the boy weren't so rude and contemptuous of her. Weren't paid lovers supposed to earn their keep by pretending love? Or at least courtesy? Surely there were rules about that sort of thing.
“Why don't you see about our luggage, darling, while I talk to Jane and Shelley?" Phyllis asked him, apparently unoffended by his attitude.
He shrugged and slouched off.
“Isn't he the most darling boy?" Phyllis marveled, watching him move out of sight. She shifted her plastic bags to her other arm. "Oh, Jane, tell me you think he's wonderful. I couldn't stand it if you don't."
“Why, Phyllis, how could I say? We just met. But I'm sure you're right," Jane said. She could almost feel her nose growing longer as she spoke.
“Can't you tell who he is?" Phyllis asked. "I don't suppose there's that much resemblance, except in my eyes."
“Resemblance to whom?" Shelley asked, seeing that Jane was floundering in confusion.
“To me, of course. He's my son! But surely you'd guessed!"
“Your ... son? You mean Chet's son?"
“No, Jane. My very own baby boy. Oh, I have managed to surprise you, haven't I? What fun!”
Jane shook her head. "Phyllis, you never had children, and that boy is older than my kids—"
“That's because I had him before you had yours, before I knew you. She giggled as if this were a terribly clever remark, then suddenly got very serious. "I just never told anybody. I gave him up for adoption, you see. Before I even knew you. And we've just been reunited for a few wonderful months. It was all Chet's doing—dear, understanding Chet.
She looked like she was going to go tearful again, and Jane was staring at her as if she'd grown another head. Shelley grabbed Jane's arm and said firmly, "Jane and I will go get the car while you and your son get your luggage. See that hall? Follow that to the doors, and we'll pick you up there, okay?”
Jane was out in the cold air before she started to gather her wits. "Shelley! What a nightmare! I thought it was terrible enough that he was her lover. It's even more frightening this way. You can dump a pretty boy, but not if he's your son. How utterly ghastly. She actually thinks he's great."
“He's pond scum," Shelley said, striding across the parking area. "Her Chet should have stuck to fixing her teeth. What do you suppose she meant about it being Chet's doing? Is he Chet's kid?”
J
ane tried to cast her mind back seventeen years, not an easy thing with all the lively clutter of events that intervened. "I wouldn't think that's possible. Phyllis always made a big deal about how she and Chet had only known each other a month before they were married. All very romantic. I guess she might have been lying, but I don't think she knew how to back then."
“A month would be a pretty quick gestation," Shelley said. She'd found the minivan and was fishing around in the depths of her purse for the keys. She located them, and the two of them piled in. Jane found a battered half pack of cigarettes in her purse. She was trying to cut down on her smoking in the hopes that she'd make it easier to actually quit altogether at some vaguely defined future date. But this called for a cigarette. If she'd been a drinker, it would have called for a fifth of vodka.
Shelley's minivan bolted into traffic, and she said, "Jane, I don't like this. Circles within circles," she added ominously.
“Oh Shelley, the temptation to fling myself out the door in front of traffic is almost too much," she said, puffing so frantically she made herself a little dizzy. "As if the stress of any Christmas, much less my first Christmas as a widow weren't enough ... You know what this means, don't you? She's bringing that overgrown brat to my house. My house! I'll have him drooping around, snarling—Mike will despise him on sight, and I'm afraid Katie will do just the opposite."
“Well, it won't be forever," Shelley sad. "You said she was only staying two or three days."
“I said that's what I assumed, but obviously my assuming powers aren't at their best. I didn't specify a time limit, and neither did she. Just said she'd be here today. It didn't cross my mind to ask when she'd be leaving. It didn't seem to matter. She's so easy to be around, I figured she'd stay as long as she wanted without being in my way. Oh, what have I done?”
They worked their way through airport traffic. At the entrance to the baggage claim area, Phyllis was standing alone. She got in the backseat of the minivan and was quiet for a minute. She was very pale with bright, angry circles of red on her cheeks.
A Farewell to Yarns jj-2 Page 2