by Lisa Samson
The crowd applauds itself on cue, and there are even a few whistles from somewhere behind us. In the shadows beneath the platform, Holly stands at the table where all the printed material is arranged, a row of servers all in black lined up at her shoulder.
“I know, I know,” Eric interrupts, raising his hand for silence. “Most of you know what it’s like to be out on the ocean on the weekend, or down in the islands soaking up some rays, only to hear your phone ring and see my number on the screen. And you’re thinking, ‘What does he want?’ even though you know exactly what I want—”
“Yes, we do!” someone shouts to laughter from the crowd.
“Believe me, I know what a pain I can be. But at the end of the day, this is what it’s all about. You and me standing here, knowing we haven’t done nothing with our lives, we’ve done something. Knowing we’ve done some good, that we’ve made a difference, that we found this place in a shamble and instead of walking by we did something about it!
“So tonight, let’s give credit where credit is due. That call you answered, that line you picked up, that check you wrote—listen to me: ten other people, a hundred other people, they didn’t answer, they didn’t pick up, they didn’t write the check, but you did. You think that doesn’t mean anything? Of course it does. Together, the people in this room have done amazing things. We’ve built schools and hospitals. We’ve stocked the shelves with food. We have helped keep families together, we’ve given them a roof over their heads, and we’ve done something else: we’ve given them hope. And that gives me hope.
“Every person in this room—you’re not just donors, you know; you’re friends. Now a man can’t always choose his friends, but I look around and I’ll tell you, knowing these people, the people in this room, these generous people … are my friends … It makes me the happiest man in the world.”
Eric waves and descends the steps to raucous applause, but there was no mention of the brochures. Finn casts me a glance easily interpreted as, Wow. That’s a shocker.
As the spotlight winks out, the string quartet strikes up again, trading in the movie score fare of a few minutes ago for a jazzier beat. The drinks flow and the donors mingle and a few of them on the outskirts even dance. Looking around, I see Diana there, swaying happily with a much older gentleman who can’t seem to believe his luck. Huey’s propping up the bar, his shades back on, probably amusing himself with the thought that nobody in the room has read half the books he has. Finn takes me toward the front, toward Holly, who is whispering in her husband’s distracted ear. He’s nodding at her words without seeming to hear them, trying to slip past her without seeming to.
As we get closer, I can read his lips. Go on, he’s saying. It’ll mean more coming from you, or something like that. He’s gesturing toward the stage, bidding her upward, all but pushing her toward the steps. If she wants something said about the printed pieces, she should do it—that seems to be the gist.
“Come on,” I say, hustling toward her on tip-toes so as to not tip over on my heels.
We reach them just as Holly is mounting the bottom step. Eric disengages, flashes a smile, then disappears into the audience. I take Holly by the wrist, motioning her back to the ground.
“Eric forgot—” she begins, trying to frame an excuse.
“When I show clients a piece,” I tell her, drawing her back toward the table, “I like to do it without a lot of explanation. Let the work speak for itself, that’s the idea. What do you say we try that here? Instead of telling them, let’s just show them. Here, we can help.” I grab a stack of elaborately folded brochures from the table, placing it in Finn’s willing hands, then take another stack for myself. For a moment Holly teeters on the brink, not quite convinced, and then she recovers some of the strength I glimpsed earlier, taking a stack for herself.
“Let’s do it,” she says to the line of servers.
Just as we begin to work the edge of the crowd, Huey comes up between Finn and me with some brochures in his hand. Diana, too, squeezes between two converging clusters that are close enough she has to raise her arms and turn sideways to slip by.
“I want in on this,” she says, trotting back to the table.
It’s silly, I know, but the sight of my people at my side, forcing brochures into the already crowded hands of old men in tuxes clutching cocktail glasses and plates, the sight of us strolling through the circles and breaking up conversations, making enough of a stir that women four and five rows away are straining to see what’s going on, makes me glow inside. We’re not handing loaves and fish out to the five thousand or anything monumental like that, but what we’re doing, we’re doing together without any of us having to be told. We’re doing it as one mind, helping a woman who’s never been anything but kind to us save face.
If I could say something to Huey, to Diana, if I could whisper loud enough so that even Finn could hear without my being overheard, I would say this: I am proud of you. Proud to be one of you. Because tonight wasn’t about you and you didn’t insist on tonight being about you. I’m not the happiest girl in the world; I’m not even sure what that means anymore or why it matters. If happiness isn’t enough, that doesn’t mean nothing is enough. Maybe there’s something besides happiness to strive for, and if there is, you’re the people I want around me as I try.
Glancing over my shoulder, I see the effect we’ve had. People are puzzling over the intricate folds, peeling them back like the petals of a flower. A few faces seem disinterested, preoccupied, even unimpressed, but there is wonder too—a lot of it. One lady who is cinched tight and spilling over the edge of her age-inappropriate strapless gown actually bounces with excitement as she figures out the folding trick, demonstrating it to the women around her again and again.
We’re halfway through the room, already having run back several times to reload on brochures, when Eric Ringwald finally notices what’s going on. He doesn’t come over, doesn’t say anything, certainly doesn’t join in. But I notice he puts his hand on the shoulder of the man next to him and points our way. I don’t know what he’s saying, but I nudge Holly and point right back.
“I think he approves,” I say.
She hands off a brochure, then glances over. Although she smiles, she doesn’t light up like before. “If he approves, he should get off his butt and help.” She laughs.
“You have a point.”
Then, after the last of my brochures is gone, I gather my people together at the far end of the room. From there we can look back the way a farmer looks back over a plowed field. Holly comes over, putting one arm around me and one around Huey, nudging her way into the huddle.
“I want to thank you, all of you,” she begins.
“We want to thank you too,” Finn says.
I smile at them both. “All right, all right. Let’s not go making any big speeches. Let’s just enjoy the moment. Together.”
The quartet plays and the glasses clink and here and there one of our brochures is unfolded, passed around, maybe even read. A lot of work went into this moment.
“You gonna be okay?” I ask Holly.
“I’m gonna be just fine,” she says. “And … thanks.”
After we say good night to her, the four of us exit the way we came in, a single file line with Huey bringing up the rear. When the door swings shut behind him, he takes the shades off and collapses against a convenient pillar.
“We left a lot of ourselves back there,” he says.
“Yes, indeed, brother,” Finn says, going for the fist bump.
For once Huey doesn’t disappoint him. The two men bump fists and we disappear into the night.
I leave the closet door ajar so I can hang my purple taffeta dress up and keep an eye on it from the bed. Finn’s jacket hangs from the doorknob, his inside-out jeans half standing in a stiff puddle at the foot of the bed. He’s already sound asleep.
I’m not. I’m waiting.
Coincidence or serendipity, I don’t know if there’s even a word, but since
we came home I’ve had a feeling, and I’ve decided to trust it and not go to sleep. So I lay in bed gazing up at the purple dress, holding my phone so I can feel the first buzz and answer before the ringer sounds. Aunt Bel’s going to call. I know she is.
I wish Mom would as well, while the O’Hara sisters are making calls. I’m worried about her. Having something so painful exposed so suddenly has got to feel like being plunged down into a cave you thought you’d covered over for good.
And at a quarter to one, Aunt Bel calls. No apology for the late hour. She knows better than that. I pick up almost immediately and there’s no surprise on her end. It seems natural to her that I would be waiting, as natural as it felt for me to wait.
“I’ve decided,” Aunt Bel says.
“You want me to come now?”
“The morning is soon enough.”
I glance at Finn. Still dead to the world. Then I peel the covers back and slide to the floor.
“Now, I’m leaving now,” I say. “You need to come home.”
I dress silently in jeans and one of Finn’s old sweatshirts, then slip the car keys out from under his wallet on the nightstand. I leave the house, pausing to lock the deadbolt, then pad down the still and shadowy street to where our car is parked under the drooping leaves of the pavement-popping tree. It feels strange but special being out so late, alone behind the wheel of the car. The mission is energizing, though. It’s time to bring Aunt Bel home.
Finn usually does most of the driving, so everything’s set for him. I scoot the driver’s seat forward, tilt the wheel down until it almost touches my thighs, fiddle with the mirror controls as I hurdle down the street. He’s fussy about the mirrors, saying most people don’t know how to adjust them properly—and by “most people” he means me. If I’d wanted to, I could have awakened him, could have asked him to drive. He would have complained, bleary-eyed and indignant, but in the end he would have done it. But I didn’t want him. This is my journey to make.
As I leave the city behind, the hum of highway under my feet, my body fills with a sense of peace. Aunt Bel should be with us. We belong in each other’s lives. Her history of loss doesn’t threaten me anymore. It strengthens me. She has so much to teach me, I realize. So much still to share. And there are things I can finally tell her. That gives me peace too.
An orange light on the dash flicks on. The needle on the gas tank hovers at empty. I exit the highway and pull into a service plaza, driving underneath a vast corrugated awning to one of a half dozen well-lit fuel pumps. The storefront window proclaims “Open 24-7,” and indeed there are several cars pulled up to the entrance and people walking around inside, poking their heads into the refrigerated units along the back end of the shop where the energy drinks and the sodas and the twelve-packs of beer are kept.
After unscrewing the gas cap, I slide the nozzle inside. I have to step over the hose to reach the passenger door, grabbing my purse off the seat. I fish around for my debit card, but it isn’t here. Hours ago, as I was getting ready for the gala, I transferred my debit card, my driver’s license, and my wadded roll of ones and fives from my purse to a tiny purple clutch that went with my dress. They’re all back at the house.
I can’t make it to my dad’s without getting gas. Finn won’t wake up to the sound of his cell phone. I could call Bel, who could borrow my dad’s car—but that’s a worst-case scenario. I can’t see that going well.
So I crawl through the passenger’s side and start hunting around for change on hands and knees. I empty the coins in the ashtray, dig some more out from under the floor mats, and find a stash of quarters Finn has hidden in the driver’s door compartment for paying tolls. Counting up the total, I have five dollars and eleven cents. I transfer the money into a plastic bag from under the passenger seat, then go inside.
The attendant perches behind a thick Plexiglas partition. Up close I can see how scratched and filthy the surface is, as if a horde of people have tried to claw their way in over the years. The floors are grimy too, and there’s a strange smell to the place, like milk that’s gone off. I empty my bag of change into the hole in the counter that runs under the glass.
“You’re paying with this?” the attendant asks. He’s not much more than a kid, old enough to shave but too young to realize he should. He looks at the change through bloodshot eyes, as if he’s never seen so many coins in his life.
“I lost my credit card,” I say, smiling optimistically. I put a lot of effort into the smile too, trying to convey that, yes, I know it’s a pain to count a bunch of loose change, and ordinarily I would never ask him to do it, but these are special circumstances and—
“You people kill me,” he says. “Girls like you.”
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing,” he says, scooping up some of the coins. “At least you’re paying. Some of them come in here and they smile and they think they can just stand there looking pretty and I’ll turn the pump on for them.”
“That is money,” I say. “Legal tender.”
“I know, I know. Like I said, at least you’re paying.”
I don’t feel like getting into an argument with this kid. I’m embarrassed enough to be prepaying for $5.11 of gas in loose change. Some of the coins look sticky to the touch. They’ve probably been under the mat for months. At least he said something about looking pretty. I must be quite a sight, though, in my baggy sweatshirt with my face all made-up for the gala.
A line of people queues up behind me, waiting for the kid to finish counting all the change. I catch a whiff of pot coming off the guys behind me, who are clutching big bags of Funyuns and Cheetos to their chests.
“Okay,” the attendant says. “Which pump?”
“I don’t know the number. It’s the only car out there.”
He could just glance through the window, but instead he has to walk over for a good long look. I can hear the stoners fidgeting. One of them grows impatient and rips the Funyuns open.
“Want some, lady?” he asks.
I laugh and pluck one out of the bag. “Thanks.”
“Pump #3,” the kid says, then to the stoners: “You need to pay for that first.” He sees the guilty Funyun in my hand and rolls his eyes.
Setback or comic relief? I’ll take comic relief.
I rush outside, leaving the surreal world of the service plaza at night. Once my five bucks worth of gas is pumped, I screw the cap back on and get out of there, feeling strangely relieved. Putting distance between me and the gas station, I start to laugh at the kid attendant and the stoners with the munchies. I switch on the radio, still smiling at the absurdity.
Twenty minutes later I exit off the beltway onto Dulaney Valley Road, and as I head north, the lots of the houses I pass grow larger, and more trees push their way against the night sky. Finally, I pull into Dad’s driveway, putting the car into park.
Aunt Bel is sitting on the front steps smoking a cigarette. Her duffel bag is at her feet. Over her head, a cloud of insects darts around the porch light, possibly agitated by the smoke.
I roll the window down. “I barely made it.”
She takes a last drag on her cigarette, then moves to put it out.
“No, bring it. That’s fine. It’s such a beautiful night.”
Aunt Bel glances up at the starry sky, as if she hasn’t noticed any particular beauty. Perhaps she’s right, but to my eyes everything looks beautiful just now, especially her.
20.
Default Divorcee
A package from Katz Lime arrives via the FedEx man, who shoots the breeze with Diana while I scrawl an electronic signature across his portable screen. Inside there’s a fold-out map with the whole itinerary marked with striped washi tape and stick-on arrows, a stack of dog-eared tourist guidebooks in which Ethan has highlighted spots of interest along the way, and a beautiful book hand bound in teal leather with deckle-edged pages and thick raised bands on the spine. It was commissioned by Dora from a bookbinder in Vermont and inside it she�
��s tucked a note instructing me to have every person I photograph on the journey write down a story, an idea, a memory, anything they like. When the portraits go up in a special corner of the Brooklyn shop, this book will stand on a display pedestal for everyone to see.
I unpack the contents on the conference table, savoring the thought of the journey and fearing it a little too. Two weeks on the road. Two weeks away from home. Two weeks living out of a suitcase, meeting up with strangers, taking photos. Although I’ve been practicing with the Autocord every spare moment and have the film developing bills to prove it, I feel less than confident in my skills, so I’m bringing along my digital camera as a backup.
Unfolding the map on the table, smoothing the corners down, I study the route and imagine what it might be like, the two of us together working side by side. “I’d feel better if you would come with me, Aunt Bel.”
She’s peering in the box, ignoring my comment. Every attempt I’ve made to get her on board, to elicit a firm commitment, Aunt Bel simply dodges. Give her time, Finn keeps telling me. You know how she can be.
“Look at this,” she says, handing me a slip of paper she’s found at the bottom of the box. One of them, Ethan or Dora, has copied some lines of a poem out by hand.
Mon enfant, ma soeur,
Songe à la douceur
D’aller là-bas
vivre ensemble!
Aimer à loisir,
Aimer et mourir
Au pays qui te resessemble!
At the bottom of the page, a title is inscribed: L’invitation au voyage.
“What does it mean?” she asks.