She couldn’t say anything. She couldn’t even look at him. She stared at the house.
He stepped away from her. “Martha, you’re too easy to hurt. You’ve never been exposed. You don’t see what I am. I’m nothing. I’m no good. I’m a bum! And you’re … you’re …” He held out his hands. “I don’t even know what you are.”
Frances’s small group had swelled into a party. Frances and Betty Hammond had set a course record today, and so Frances had invited everyone back to the house. Now, with the lowering sun, the mosquitoes had just forced everyone off the pool patio and inside.
Moments ago Martha had been summoned to the house. Mr. Weilman wanted to see her; she didn’t have to stay long, Frances assured her, just a quick hello. He was insisting she come over. Everyone considered the old man a nuisance, but what could she do, Frances whispered into the phone, he’d been playing pinochle with Betty’s husband.
He was also a relative, in the sense that his deceased wife had been Horace Beecham’s cousin. Obviously watching for Martha, he waved as she entered the kitchen. He was tall, thin, and white-haired, with a pale sunken face in which his soft voice seemed oddly lodged, because when he spoke his lips barely moved. “Martha, come sit by me,” he said, patting the sofa cushion. “How’ve you been? I haven’t seen you in so long.”
“I’m fine,” she said, her throat still raw from her outburst with Mack. She felt small and pale. She tried to concentrate on what Mr. Weilman was saying. He was reminding her how in the past when he came to Frances’s parties he usually ended up over in the garage workshop. “I learned more from watching your father than I ever did from any other one person,” he was saying. “The man was a mechanical genius. In a place like Detroit, he could’ve named his price and they’d have paid. But you couldn’t talk him into it. He’d charted his course and that was that. He was Horace’s caretaker, and with someone like your father to oversee his existence, the old man didn’t need another soul in his life.” Mr. Weilman leaned and whispered behind his hand: “Tell you the truth, I always thought the old man married Frances just as a way of forging one more bond with Floyd.” He looked up, grimacing, then winked at her. “Now, don’t go telling your aunt I said that.”
The last of the old line, Mr. Weilman had always seemed more like family to Martha than the unmet blood relatives who lived only a few miles from here in the Flatts. A widower since she had been a little girl, he had spent much of his time traveling.
“I’m afraid I’ve lived a very dull life this last year, shuttling in and out of clinics,” he said. “It’s been an education in itself. I’ve discovered that, just as the cancer advances of its own invincibly blind accord, so too does the treatment.” His eyes lightened, and she nodded, not at all sure what he was talking about.
“Once the forces are set in motion, there’s no stopping them. With my orders in hand, I was shipped from doctor to doctor, from coast to coast, clinic to clinic.” He laughed softly. “I began to think of myself as this grand battlefield, like Waterloo or Omdurman. I’d lay on those cold metal tables with that huge cannon trained on me and I could feel the armies lining up, the forces preparing for battle. Many’s the day …”
A chill went through her as Mack entered the room. His baggy chinos were torn at the waistband, and his long-sleeved blue shirt was wrinkled, with a rust stain down the back. Frances rushed over to him. “Here he is,” she said, steering him to a swarm of eagerly rising heads just inside the dining room. He shook hands, nodding, repeating names as they were given. He smiled. In the distance, he was a handsome man, his expression as gracious and watchful as any of theirs. Not at all a bum, she thought with a covetous gaze and her insides aching.
“The Last Man In!” Frances announced, then had to repeat it over the din of voices.
“A writer!” said Henry Hammond. “You up here for that Breadloaf thing?”
“Now, don’t think I forgot,” Mr. Weilman was saying, as he withdrew something from his pocket. “Sea coral,” he said. “I found it on the beach last winter in Tortola. I never come empty-handed, do I?” He grinned, handing her the smooth black stone, still warm from his pocket.
“Who’s that?” he asked, following her gaze. “One of Frances’s new friends?”
When she told him, he repeated Mack’s name and sniffed. “Never heard of him.” He looked around. “Where’s Steve? Seems odd not to have old Steve here.”
Together they stared at the two tanned women in gold jewelry and bright sundresses who had just arrived.
“Oh my,” Mr. Weilman sighed as each woman brushed cheeks with Frances. “I’ve got to get back in the swing of things, I can see that.”
Mack eased out of the crowded dining room, pretending not to see her as he passed.
“Okay, okay, okay, okay,” she whispered, taking deep breaths.
The cold bones of Mr. Weilman’s hand settled over hers. “There, now,” he crooned softly. “There, there, there.”
The two couples by the fireplace looked away quickly and resumed their conversations.
Now they only talked when Frances was there. Martha had found that he would answer her politely, but nervously, in her aunt’s presence. When they were alone, he ignored her. He would be leaving any day now. All that had to be done on the deck was the skirt of latticework underneath. More than once she had considered holding a match to the fragrant new lumber, so that he would have to start over. She was sure he was sleeping in his car at night. His back seat was filled with clothes, and again this morning he had sneaked into the little bathroom off the kitchen to shave. He had been halfway down the hall when the wet bottom of his paper bag had burst and his shaving cream, razor, and cologne had fallen out. He had looked up to see if anyone was around just as Martha had ducked back from the doorway. She watched him all the time now, and every night, just before he drove off, she would run outside with another letter for him to mail to Birdy. The letters seemed to embarrass him; it was almost as if he could tell they were about him, which they were, though she never referred to him by name. This new link to Birdy had become her strength. She knew that Birdy must be reading the letters, because none had been returned to her. Every letter ended with the same warning. Watch out for Getso! Don’t trust him! And if Birdy needed help of any kind or someone to talk to, Martha assured her she would be waiting, always.
Martha’s ankles wobbled in her high heels, and all the big white buttons on her dress clattered as she tiptoed down the apartment stairs. She wanted to avoid Frances, who was down in the workshop, examining the shutters Mack had taken down today. When Julia had called this morning to tell Martha she’d be picking her up for dinner tonight, Frances had pretended to hang up, but Martha could tell she had stayed on the extension, listening. Martha came off the bottom step and Frances hurried out of the garage just as Julia’s little silver car turned into the driveway. She tapped her horn and waved.
Frances waved back then gripped Martha’s wrist. “You still haven’t told me what this is all about,” she said through a rigid smile. Again she waved at Julia.
“I told you, I don’t know.”
Mack watched from the doorway.
“With Julia there’s always a reason. I mean, you’ve known her for how many years and suddenly she’s taking you out to dinner?”
“I don’t even want to go!” She had been a nervous wreck about this all day. She had even called Julia an hour ago to tell her she was sick, but Julia hadn’t been home.
“And where did this come from?” Frances pointed at her dress.
“In town,” Martha said, flinching.
“Why?” Frances shook her head, looking her up and down. “Why?”
“I told you, I don’t know why!”
Mack came toward them with more shutters in his arms.
“I mean, this … this thing you have on, this dress,” Frances said with a shudder.
“You look very nice, Martha,” he said, and Frances looked at him.
“I’ve got r
eservations at Ramshead,” Julia called over the rush of air through the car’s open windows. “It’s Frances’s second home.” Julia laughed. “It’s like in the movies. She sweeps in and they all know her name, her favorite table, favorite drink, favorite entrée.” She drew up her eyebrows, imitating Frances. “Yes, a vodka gimlet. Of course.” She turned onto the road. “I can’t believe you’ve never been there!”
“I don’t like restaurants.”
“Why?”
“I just don’t.” She didn’t want to tell Julia she never ate in front of strangers, for fear she’d choke on her food.
“You’ll like this one, I promise!” Julia smiled.
Martha forced a smile back. Next to Julia, in her simple yellow dress and cotton sweater, she felt overdressed and conspicuous. With every step the buttons on her shoulders rattled and the swishy black and white gores of the skirt tangled around her legs.
In one of the oldest houses in Atkinson, the Ramshead dining rooms were small and pine-paneled, each one catacombing more darkly into the next under smoky low-beamed ceilings. The carpeting was a jarring red-and-green plaid that disoriented her now as she trailed after Julia and the maître d’. Holding her glasses steady, she made her way cautiously past the linen-covered tables that were lit with candles flickering in slender glass chimneys.
“Oh, this is lovely. Just perfect,” Julia assured the maître d’, a slight, gray-haired man, as he held out her chair and then Martha’s.
Martha took a deep wheezy breath and tapped her chest as she slid into her chair. She realized she had sat down too quickly for the maître d’ to ease her chair closer to the table the way he had Julia’s. With a snap, he shook out their linen napkins. He draped one over Julia’s lap, then tried to place the other in Martha’s lap, but she had gripped the arms of her chair and was trying to jerk herself closer to the table. With each impact of her knees, the table jumped, the crystal trembled, the flatware rattled, and the candle sputtered, splattering wax on its clear globe. Smiling, the maître d’ continued his presentation of napkin and menus.
“Stupid chair,” Martha muttered, smoothing out the napkin. “The chair’s too big. That’s what happened.”
“Let me get you a smaller one,” the maître d’ offered, pointing to the opposite corner.
“No!” she insisted, gripping the arms. “I’ll keep this one.” After he left, she glanced around to see who had been watching. Julia was reading her menu. Heads bent, the couple at the next table held hands, laughing and speaking in low tones.
Julia leaned toward her. “Now, fill me in. Tell me what you’ve been doing with yourself.”
Martha regarded her blankly. “Nothing.” She shrugged.
“Nothing! How boring, Martha. Aren’t you looking for another job?”
“No.” Martha turned the napkin over and smoothed out the other side. Julia’s attention was as irritating as this couple staring at her. Every time she turned to catch them, they glanced away.
“Martha?” Julia said sternly. “I was in the Cleaners last week, and Birdy Dusser said she’d seen you.”
She looked up, surprised. “Did she say anything else? About me, I mean.”
“Well, just that she felt bad you weren’t there anymore.”
“She said that?” Martha took a deep breath. It was odd how thoughts of Birdy only deepened her longing for Mack. In every one of her letters, she had told Birdy what a fine man he was. Careful not to reveal his name, she only referred to him as HE, capital letters. Though each one began with a salutation to Birdy, it occurred to her now that she had really written them to Mack. A heat stirred low in her belly, and with it a yearning to talk about him, but she didn’t know how to begin.
The waiter had brought them wine. Julia lifted her glass. “To cleverness,” she said. “To Martha Jane Horgan!”
“Pearl,” Martha corrected her. “My middle name is Pearl.”
“What a lovely name,” Julia said, clinking her glass on Martha’s.
“That was my mother’s name.”
“You know,” Julia said, tapping her long pink fingernail on the rim of the butter dish, “the other day I was thinking about you and how last fall you just up and left the only life you’d ever known and how in no time at all you were able to put together a life of your own! That was so exciting!” Julia squeezed her hand. “I was so excited for you, Martha! You did so well!”
She sipped her wine. Grinning, she had this dizzying sensation of watching Julia burrow through a crammed closet, finding each article of clothing she held up, brighter and more colorful than the one before. Now Julia was telling her about the abrupt end of her career after her husband’s death. For twelve years she had taught sociology courses at Boston University. And then came a day when she knew it was over. She sold her furniture, gave up her apartment, and loaded her car with the few things she wanted to save from her old life.
“It was so strange. I can still remember it, the very moment. I was walking down the hall, carrying a box of final exams. And all along the way, people said, ‘Hello, Mrs. Prine. Hello. Good morning. How are you?’ And suddenly everything had changed. Everything looked so different. People I’d known for years suddenly had a … a crooked nose I’d never noticed before. Or yellow teeth. Or they had a smell.” At this, she looked distressed. “I don’t know if I’m putting this very well. But it was as if my time were up. As if something went click and suddenly everything WAS different. Not so much that people had changed, or even that I had changed, but that my time was up in that place, in that order of things. When you don’t belong anymore, when there’s no place for you, things just don’t fit right. They rattle and creak and they sound funny and I guess they even smell! Do you know what I mean?”
Julia poured more wine.
She knew exactly what Julia meant. She meant … she meant, she meant something wonderful. It had to do with her heart being filled with Mack and the bite of this pale-yellow wine on her tongue and these words, these words … Oh God, it was so wonderful. The dining room had gradually filled, and with it came a conflation of talk, the babies, the scampi, the anniversary, the car he wanted; heads lowered in this intimacy, this communion. Love had assembled them, and she was among them. The woman across the way looked at her. Her fingers grazed a row of buttons. The woman smiled and looked away. Their food was being served.
“The same thing happened to you last fall, didn’t it?” Julia asked, eating.
“Well, not exactly,” Martha said, folding her hands on the edge of the table. “Frances and I had a fight and so I packed a suitcase and I walked all the way into town and in one day I got my room and my job and this dress!” She laughed. “I did more in that one day than I’d ever done! Ever in my whole life!”
Julia’s stare made her uneasy. “That … that was wonderful! You took charge of your own life, Martha!” she said through clenched teeth. “But why on earth are you back? Why aren’t you on your own, doing something?”
The air conditioner vibrated loudly and the room grew damp and chilly as all the voices surged in crosscurrents of dread and accusation, and she had to lean back from her plate, because the odors of garlic and fish and seared red meat suddenly sickened her. She reached for her wine but her hand hit her goblet and water sloshed into her plate.
“Oh, what a shame. We’ll get you a new one!” Julia said, lifting her arm for the waiter.
“No!” Martha said, grabbing her wrist and holding it down. “Really. It’s fine. I like soup.” She laughed nervously, picking up her spoon. “Please don’t make a big deal over it. “Please don’t.” Panic caught in her throat, like a deadly shard of glass any abrupt movement might dislodge, and she sat very still, staring at Julia.
“Of course not,” Julia said, staring back. It was in a deft monotone that Julia began to describe her flower garden with its raised and straw-banked beds and her neighbor’s fiendish toddler who had beheaded every aster and then she asked about the plans for Steve’s birthday party, and by
the way who was that man Julia had seen in the driveway when she picked her up tonight?
Martha sighed with relief as Julia pulled her onto this safer shore. She told her about Mack, and his book, which she had seen on the coffee table. She described the worn dust jacket, and its picture of him as a young man with dark curly hair, sideburns, and a thick mustache. “He’s very smart. But he does these strange things. At first they scare me and then, then, when I see he’s only kidding, then I can laugh. But at first it’s hard to know, because of the way he … he … I don’t know what you call it.”
“Throws you off balance?”
“Yes! Throws me off balance.” Smiling, Martha absently stirred her food. That was exactly what he did.
“Well, I’d be careful of someone like that,” Julia said. “Someone like that can be very manipulative.”
Martha’s head shot up. “Mack’s very careful of my feelings! He doesn’t want me to be hurt!”
Julia’s eyes closed heavily and she took a breath. “That’s very kind of him. But I would hope he …” She seemed flustered. “It sounds as if you like him. Do you? I mean, in the way a woman likes a man?”
She stared at the mess in her plate, embarrassed by such a personal question.
The busboy poured them both more water. When he left, Julia whispered, “You can tell me. I won’t tell anyone. I swear, Martha. I never would.”
Eyes lowered, Martha nodded. Suddenly she looked up, grinning so wildly she had to cover her mouth.
“That’s nice. That’s very nice, Martha,” Julia said with wide wet eyes. Her smile twitched and her hard swallow was visible. “This is none of my business. But I’m your friend and I have to ask. Has anything happened?” There was a pause. “I mean, you know, physically.”
“No.” Unable to look at Julia, she moved the food around in her plate.
Julia sighed. “I’m sorry! I’m so relieved! It’s just that, well, you know. Some men, they, they gravitate toward … how can I put this … toward women with problems. With emotional problems.” Her voice had dropped to a whisper. “And you do have those, Martha. Right? You know that? Which is partly why I wanted to have this talk with you tonight. You see, I have this idea. You know about Harmony House, right?”
A Dangerous Woman Page 17