Yes, she knew about Harmony House.
“Well, that woman who was at the house with me was Tyler Spaulding. She’s the new director there, and I’ve just been appointed to the board,” Julia said. “And that night I saw you fixing the toilet I thought, How perfect. And I told Tyler the same thing and she agreed. They could use someone like you, and you’d have a place of your own, right in town, near everything.”
“What do you mean? A job? Like what Mrs. Ross does?” Martha asked, naming one of the counselors who used to retrieve Hock when he got too boisterous in the Cleaners.
“All the residents have certain duties. Some, of course, are so simple they’re almost token. But someone like you, well, you’d have a great deal of responsibility, Martha. A lot would be expected of you.” Julia smiled.
“A resident?” The word repulsed her.
“Yes!” Julia nodded eagerly.
“I’m not retarded!” she exploded. A hush fell over the room. People were looking at her.
“Of course you’re not. I know that!” Julia reached for her hand and Martha pulled it off the table.
“I want to go home,” she said.
“Martha, listen to me. Harmony House isn’t just for the retarded. They deal with many different levels of impairment, intellectual, emotional, psychological, even social. Martha!”
She stood up and pushed her chair in to the table. Julia followed her outside, and no matter how she tried to explain herself, Martha refused to speak to her.
When they pulled into the driveway, Martha opened her purse. “Thank you for dinner,” she said, placing a twenty-dollar bill on the dashboard.
“Martha!” Julia sighed, handing the money back. Martha threw it into the back seat and got out. “Listen to me!” Julia cried, following her toward the garage. “I’m sorry! Martha!” She grabbed her purse. “Listen to me!”
“Leave me alone! You just leave me alone!”
“Martha, you don’t understand!”
A voice came from inside the garage. “Everything all right out there?” Mack peered around the corner of the building.
Martha ran upstairs. As she unlocked her door, she saw Julia walk back to Mack.
“Nothing better happen to her, do you understand?”
“What the hell’re you talking about, lady?”
Thirteen
Mack was gone. For the past twenty-four hours, Martha hadn’t seen him. He’d said he’d go and now he had and she was all alone and she knew that for the rest of her life no one would ever love her again. She pulled down all the shades and curled up on the couch in front of the television, not caring if it was morning or afternoon. She watched soap operas and old movies, alert only to the timeless constellation that was love. Everywhere, China, Brooklyn, Los Angeles, England, men and women kissed with arms around necks, around waists, and then women wept and, from slamming doors, men stalked into the dark streets, the metronome of their footsteps along the pavement the saddest sound she had ever heard. She cried until her eyes were swollen and raw. There were babies born, and rings flung into storm-swirled gutters, and a sweep of brilliant sunsets. Someone was banging on the door. She sat up, rubbing her arms. It was the early morning of another night spent on this hard couch with the television still going. There was a chill in the air, and she clutched her robe at her throat as she opened the door.
Frances pushed it wide and stepped inside. She switched on the overhead light and turned off the television. She talked on and on. Her life, her needs, her problems. Money. Steve. Her responsibility for Martha. The burden it all was. Martha sat on the couch. She said nothing. She felt nothing. Frances declared herself through with any more of these breakdowns. Martha bit her ragged cuticle, chewing as she looked up. There was nothing left to care about, not even Birdy. She was dead inside. She chewed off the rest of her cuticle, then swallowed it.
“I gave you the chance to stay here. But look, look what it’s come to.” She waved her arm at the sour rooms. “You’ve got one day to pack your things and move them into the house.” She turned to go.
“No!”
Frances spun around. “Or maybe you like Julia’s plan! Is that what you want? To live in a home with retarded people? Isn’t that nice? People thinking you belong in a place like that. What did you tell her? All of a sudden she’s speaking in riddles. For Godssake, Martha, all I’m asking, all I’ve ever asked, is that you keep things in check, that you stay in control. And if you can’t, then I have to.”
Martha held her breath, waiting. Julia must have told her about Mack. She recognized the disgust in Frances’s eyes, and now all the shame would be dredged up again—that night with the boys, and Frances’s horror of people, especially men, getting the wrong idea about her.
“Please don’t rock!” Frances said. “Just get up and pack your …”
“I’m staying here!” she interrupted. “I don’t want to live over there.”
“Martha,” she began, then sighed. “There’s more to this than what YOU might want. You’ve seen what I’ve gone through in the last few years, trying to keep things up. And now, without your father, this place is just about unmanageable. I can’t do it alone anymore.” Here, now, a point in her eyes sharpened. “I need full-time help and I need it cheap and I think Mack would do it if he had a place to stay.”
Martha grinned.
“Oh, you’re amused, are you? You seem to be forgetting a very major point here. This is my apartment! My garage! My house! My property!” Frances said, banging her fist on the table. “And I will decide who lives where!”
“All right,” she said, trying to bite away her smile. He was still here. And he would stay.
Frances looked at her. “Well, that’s good,” she said, touching her throat uncertainly.
Now that Mack had moved into the apartment, Martha was settled in a large sunny room down the hall from Frances’s. She was careful to stay out of his way, and if they found themselves in the same room, she made sure she left first. He was outside now, scraping and repainting the shutters and all the exterior doors, according to Frances’s list. At night, when he was through working, he went straight up to his apartment and typed steadily until the early hours of the morning. Now she knew where he was every minute of the day.
Frances’s good mood seemed unshakable. Steve had come twice in the last two days. The pressure was off. Anita’s therapy seemed to be taking hold. She had even gained a little weight, and today her daughters were taking her shopping in Albany. Steve and Frances were on the deck, finishing their drinks before they went out to dinner. Martha sat at the kitchen table, eating spaghetti she had made. She had offered Mack some earlier, when he came inside looking for Frances, but he said he wasn’t hungry, adding, “Thanks anyway.”
Thanks anyway, she kept thinking. Thanks anyway, as if she were nobody, as if nothing had happened.
She set down her fork and looked toward the open window, where their voices carried in from the deck. It amazed her that Frances could be discussing interest rates now with someone whose sticky pelvis had risen from hers less than an hour before. No sooner had Steve arrived than, arms entwined and hips touching, they had gone quickly up to Frances’s room.
Afterward Steve had showered and changed into the new clothes Frances had gotten for him. When he came downstairs, his cheeks buffed pink and his sparse hair wet in long strands across his head, he had greeted Martha with his old exuberance. He had missed her, he said, trying to hug her. Blushing with the thought of where those arms had been, she had stiffened and pulled away.
“They have such hopes for their mother,” Steve was telling Frances as they came inside. “They’ve just given it their all these past two weeks. I don’t know what they’ll do if she doesn’t make it.”
“You’re not serious!” Frances scoffed. She mixed him another drink. “Good Lord, if they’re not used to the merry-go-round by now …”
“No! No, this time it’s different. She’s different,” he said.
“Did I say false hope?” He sounded surprised.
“Yes, you did. You certainly did,” Frances said. But Martha knew he hadn’t.
“She’s here. Finally,” Frances said as a car turned into the driveway.
Julia came into the kitchen with Tyler Spaulding, whose eyes went right to Martha.
“Julia!” Frances said sharply. “I only made reservations for three.”
“Steve, this is Tyler Spaulding,” Julia said, then, with a quick glance, returned Frances’s wide-eyed grimace.
“Good to meet you,” Steve said, easing the young woman onto the deck, away from Frances’s obvious fury.
“Hello, Martha,” Julia said as Martha got up to rinse off her plate. She wouldn’t even look at Julia.
“What is she doing here?” Frances demanded.
“She just popped in on me.” Julia sighed. “You don’t mind, do you?”
“You could have told her you had other plans!” Frances said.
“I could have, but I didn’t,” Julia said with a forced smile. “So let’s just go on and make the best of it.”
“No!” Frances insisted. “Not this time. I’m sorry!”
“Frannie!” Julia said, looking uneasily toward the deck.
“I don’t think you understand. This is the first time in weeks that I’ve gone out with Steve, and I have no intention of having it ruined by Tyler Spaulding,” Frances hissed.
“Frannie! Come on!” Julia coaxed, reaching for her friend’s hand. “This isn’t like you.”
“No!” Frances pulled back. “I’m tired of the way you set me up with” these PEOPLE, these bizarre friends of yours.”
With the two women by the door, Martha was trapped at the sink. She kept washing the same saucepan.
“Frannie, you are classically overwrought. You’re being …”
“Oh! Go ahead. Analyze me. Which is exactly what this evening is all about, isn’t it? You love putting me under the microscope and watching me squirm!”
“Frannie, I can’t believe you’re saying these things!”
“No, Julia. What you can’t believe is that I’m on to you. From now on, run your own life and stay the hell out of mine!”
Martha turned the water on full-force. Julia picked up her purse from the counter and tried to set the strap on her shoulder, but it kept slipping off.
“I’ll tell her I don’t feel well,” she said.
“You do that,” Frances said, going into the living room.
Julia stood behind Martha and sighed. “I didn’t mean to insult you the other night,” she said in a thin voice. “Or Frances either. I really didn’t.”
Martha squirted detergent into the saucepan.
As soon as they were gone, she climbed the stairs to the garage apartment.
“What is it?” he called irritably at the door. Clean-shaven, he wore only striped undershorts. She glanced past him, pleased that he hadn’t changed anything in the apartment. He smelled of soap and there was a razor nick on his chin.
“I’m right in the middle of something,” he said when she told him she had to talk to him. “Couldn’t it wait?” he asked, his expression cold and distant.
“No, it can’t wait.”
“What is it, then?” he asked, drumming his fingertips on the door frame.
“It’s about that woman the other night. Julia Prine, the one that brought me home? I’m sorry about what she said to you and I hope you’re not mad.”
“I’m not mad,” he sighed.
“I didn’t want you to think I said anything to her.”
“I didn’t think you did.”
“I didn’t. I swear!”
He winced. “Good. That’s good, Martha. Well, I better get back to work.”
“Are you writing a book?”
“Well, trying to.”
“What’s it about?”
“I’m not sure yet.” He stepped back. “I better get to work and find out.”
“Did you eat yet? There’s still some sauce left.”
“I’m all set. Thanks,” he said, starting to close the door.
She pushed it open. “I really came over for something else!”
“What’s that?” he sighed, his eyes sinking heavily.
“Why can’t we be friends?” She stared fiercely and would not blink.
“We can be,” he said warily. He shrugged. “We can be friends.”
“Then you have to look at me and you have to talk to me!”
“I can do that.” His smile seemed detached from all the rest of his somber features.
The day began with warm, blinding rain that streamed down the window glass. After breakfast, Martha overheard Frances talking on the phone with Julia.
“Steve says I’m an explosion waiting to happen.… Oh, he’s fine. We’re both fine now. This whole thing with Anita’s just so bizarre. I can’t deal with it. I guess I’m getting like Martha; you know, just blow up and say whatever’s on my mind.… When you said that, just the thought of her in a place like that threw me.… She’s fine.… I thought the move would really upset her. And that’s had me all geared up too, expecting her to flip out on me. But she never even argued with me when I told her. And then it hit me—I think she’s got a thing for Colin Mackey … the handyman. I swear to God! You should see the look on her face when she sees him.… For Godssake, Julia, don’t be ridiculous.… She’s … Julia, of course he knows she’s not a normal young woman.… What do you mean, leading her on? All you have to do is look at her and she’ll either hate you or love you, you know what that’s like.…”
The rain ended with the sun’s abrupt glare down through all the trees, smearing every window with a blinding sheen. A silvery steam rose from the mountainside and distant hills. The phone rang throughout the morning. Outside, Mack was hammering. Cars ran. A whole world moved.
“She’s not a normal young woman. We all know that.… She is not a normal young woman. We all know that,” Martha chanted, her chest heaving. Eyes closed, she lay on the bed with her arms crossed under her head. “Oh, didn’t you know? Martha is not a normal young woman. Oh no! Not at all! Everyone else is, though!”
She sat up suddenly and looked around at the mess of clothes and towels and shoes strewn everywhere. It seemed that it had happened days ago, the frenzy of tearing clothes from drawers, from the two closets and all the shelves. Her arms ached. The back of her wrist was swollen and bruised, and she was exhausted.
Slowly, piece by piece, she forced her sore, angry hands to pick up everything, to match socks and refold underwear and hang up shirts, until the room was in order again.
She heard Mack’s voice in the hallway and she opened the door a crack. Frances was coming this way with a purple garment bag over her arm. Mack followed, carrying two large boxes, which he deposited in the room across the hall while Frances watched from the doorway.
“Whose room’s that?” he asked, coming out.
“It’s a spare room now,” Frances answered, closing the door. She had been storing supplies for the party in there so that Steve wouldn’t see them. “But when I first moved over here from my brother’s apartment, that was the room I stayed in.”
“Right next to the master bedroom,” Mack said. “I see.”
“Oh no,” she said with a laugh. “Believe me, Horace Beecham was a gentleman.
Mack turned, grinning. “I don’t believe you.”
“Just a minute! I think you’ve got the wrong idea here.”
“I was just kidding!”
“I don’t like your kind of kidding.”
“I’m sorry. Really.”
“Just be careful how you speak to me. Be very, very careful!”
He looked at her. “Are you serious?”
“Extremely. And there’s something else you better keep in mind. My niece,” she said, lowering her voice. “Please don’t encourage her in any way. She
gets these … these violent crushes on people. And they’re very hard to get out of.”
“What do you mean?” He sounded stunned.
Martha tried to close the door, and Frances turned suddenly. “Oh! Oh, Martha!” she said, looking flustered. She opened the door and held out the garment bag. “Here. I got these at Wickley’s. Try them on so I can see which one I like best on you.”
“What is it?” Martha didn’t understand. Her eyes went to Mack, but he looked away.
“Dresses. For Steve’s party,” Frances explained. “And also, I’ve got an appointment for you with Helmut to see if he can do something with your hair. He …”
“No!” She swatted the bag away. “I have my own clothes! I don’t need you picking things out for me!” She kept glancing at Mack.
“Oh yes, you do, if that … that costume you had on the other night is any …”
“Don’t you humiliate me like that!” Martha exploded. “Don’t you talk to me like that in front of … in front of people!”
Now Frances turned and looked at Mack. She smiled. “What do I mean? THAT is precisely what I mean.”
Martha slammed her door.
“Bitch,” Mack muttered as Frances went down the hallway. “What a bitch!”
Fourteen
Mack stood in the kitchen doorway, drinking orange juice. He had spent the morning scraping and priming the window shutters that were lined up on newspapers around the garage.
Martha was scrubbing the slimy grout in the tiled backsplash over the sink with an old toothbrush she kept dipping in bleach water. After this last chore on the list Frances had left for her, she was going into town to buy a dress for. Steve’s party and get her hair cut. Mack would see that she could be just as normal as anyone else. She was paying more attention to her appearance, and it was already starting to work. More than once in the last few days, she had glanced up to find him looking at her. She was trying not to hound him, to stay out of his way, forcing herself to ignore him when they were in the same room, even though her heart would pound and her hair would stand on end, the way it was right now.
A Dangerous Woman Page 18