by Lisa Samson
Mrs. Summerville is going riding an awful lot this summer. I asked the others if they knew anything about it, and Lark just shrugged her shoulders. However, Baby Girl volunteered her services as the family private eye. Now there is a human being you can always count on. And I tell you the truth on that one.
Today I am thankful for Asil’s flowers, Days of Summer, that my Duster only needed fifty dollars worth of repairs and not six hundred like they thought, that I’m only on one medication and those are eye drops. I’m most thankful for my son’s announcement. January will welcome a new little Percy! Imagine me a grandma! I said, “Sinclair, it’s about time, child. You’re almost fifty.”
And he just laughed and laughed. “Look at it this way, Mama. At least his old man will be able to write up the birth announcement.”
Lark
HOW THEY EVER CONVINCED ME to go to Target, I’ll never know. Of course, I soon realized the lengths some people go to set someone up. I swear Marsha called them after our dinner at Mick O’Shea’s and said, “Hey, phase one of Operation Lark has been accomplished. Let’s move forward!” Yesterday, tall and elegant as usual, Mother sidled into my “prayer den,” as Prisma dubbed it. She hauled a wallpaper book and a set of fabric swatches on a big ring. After heaving them onto the sofa and catching her breath, she plopped open the large volume.
“Now I know you’re going to blow a gasket, dear, but I thought maybe you’d want us to do this room over while you’re here.” She flipped through pages officiously, the general of good taste.
“I don’t really think it will be worth it. I won’t be here forever.” Right?
She set the books on the desk. “Honestly, though, look at this place.” My mother has a gorgeous shudder. “All this darkened wood, and just look at this sofa. It’s been needing reupholstering for years now.”
She flipped open the collection of swatches next. “You’ve always liked pink, haven’t you?”
I love pink.
Yes. It’s odd.
She pointed to a pink-and-lime-green plaid, a large print plaid. Next to it an accompanying floral fabric bloomed. “Don’t you think a Laura Ashley look would lighten the walls up a bit in here?”
“Maybe we could paint them white.”
“A wonderful idea! I’ll have Prisma call the painter right away. We heard about the nicest young man last week. Fair pricing and you couldn’t meet a nicer fellow, or so Mrs. Phillips next-door says. Why don’t you just look through the rest of these to see if there’s anything you like. Three fabrics would be nice. Sofa, drapery, pillows, and all.”
Blah-blah-blahbity-blah. Yip, yip, yip. The general turned into an excited Chihuahua.
She arose from her seat and walked toward the doorway.
I breathed a sigh of relief and returned to my Barbara Cartland book, one that takes place in Russia. I love them. Especially Fire and Ice, where she decorates her white ball gown with star orchids that the prince sends her right from the palace hothouse.
“Larkspur?”
Oh no. Answer but don’t look up.
“Yes, Mother?”
“Well,” she rushed to say, “I know you’ll die when you hear this, but you’ve been wearing the same three old outfits of mine since the fire. Why don’t we go over to Cross Keys, and I’ll get you some well-fitting clothes of your own. I really don’t mind!”
The thought of sashaying over to Cross Keys almost brought on the bile. Such a snooty kind of place. “It’s okay, Mom. I’m just waiting for the Flair catalog to get here. Flannery called for me, and it’s on its way.”
“But by the time you order, it could take weeks.”
“I’m not in a hurry.”
Flannery walked in then, and looking back now, I swear it was on cue. She handed my mother a cup of the Starbucks she’d made at work. “What’s up?”
“Thank you, dear. What kind am I trying tonight?” Mother worked off the lid and sniffed.
“Caramel macchiato.”
“Skim milk?”
“Of course, Grandy! Not that you need to worry.”
She smiled at her granddaughter. “I only look like I don’t need to worry because I do. Now you, dear, you really don’t have to worry.”
Oh brother. I hate female talk sometimes.
“So what’s up?” Flannery asked again, to my delight because surely she’d be on my side when it came to shopping at hoity-toity old Cross Keys.
“Grandy’s trying to get me to go to her ladies’ shop for some new clothes.”
Flannery guffawed. “You, at Cross Keys? See, Mom, I told you that you should have come to New York with us when you had the chance.”
“Like there was a snowball’s chance she would, dear.” Mother sat back down on the old couch and sipped her drink.
“Thanks, Mother.” I turned in my desk chair to face the others, both now sitting on the couch drinking warm, trendy drinks.
Flannery sure looked cute in her khaki pants and Starbucks shirt. She’d dyed a couple of her little ponytails red. Not many young women could pull such a style off. But Flannery isn’t afraid of much.
Is that the grace of God, or what?
Flannery reached toward the side table for a Kleenex. Poor thing’s allergies bother her year-round. “Well, I’ve got an idea.” She blew her nose. “Have you ever been to a Target?”
And then she started in, and I knew I had been duped, had witnessed nothing less than a superb theatrical production by the other Summerville women.
So there I stood in the middle of the Saturday crowd with Flannery and Prisma shoving needless accents in front of the short-sleeved black shirtwaist I had chosen. On sale. Eleven dollars and ninety-nine cents.
As good as Flair prices.
Target surely surprised me. Great selection, good prices, and a lot of cotton. H’m.
“I think this scarf is what it needs to set it off, Mom.” Silk hissed beneath my chin as Flannery fluttered a scarf dotted with tiny elephants against my neck.
“What it needs, Baby Girl, is this pin!” Prisma jiggled the card, a gaudy pin with rhinestone gardening tools jangling together.
I grimaced. “Prisma, I don’t really know about that one.”
Flannery nodded. “I hate to say it, but I agree with her, Miss Prisma. That pin is too much, and Mom doesn’t garden so it would be sort of a lie.” Flannery pulled out another scarf. “Look, this one is the small kind. See, you just knot it around the neck like in the fifties.”
Like Audrey Hepburn?
I studied my own reflection, wanting to gag. Some days I wish I looked more like Leslie, who looked more like Audrey Hepburn. “I look like a rotten midget pear, and you two want to highlight that?”
Prisma reached behind her. “Some busyness up by your face will keep the focus off your lack of height.”
“Prisma!” I hated the sight of myself in that mirror. I hated the fact that my frizzy hair, my sallow skin, everything about me deserved polyester pants and blouses, that even a black shirtwaist dress from Target lent me that “bag lady find of the year” air.
Prisma dislodged a card from which hung a gold chain with a sun face hanging at the bottom. “Well, baby, we all got our flaws. Just some are better than others at covering them up.”
Well, Prisma knows. She must weigh at least 180 pounds and wears horizontal stripes when she gussies herself up for her dinner out with Asil twice a month, which she swears is not a date!
But we all know better.
The genius caramel woman no one can truly understand plus the Superfly gardener who still shuffles and bops like it’s 1974. It’s impossible not to love them. So why was I quibbling over a pin? They couldn’t make me actually wear it.
“I’ll take the pin and both scarves.”
Prisma rested one hand on her hip and yanked one of Flannery’s ponytails. “Baby—”
I pointed at her. “Don’t even say it, Prisma. I know you’ve got my number.”
Prisma pointed back at me. “Well, then
at least buy a pin I like so someone will wear it.”
Flannery said, “And there are two other scarves I’d wear more if you’re going to buy two scarves you’re not going to wear anyway.”
“Throw them in the cart.”
I’m telling you what. I hated hanging out with girls in high school because they acted like this. Scarves, pins. Good grief. And yet I watched them in awe as they fussed over which accessory to pick. Both of these women, butterflies in their own right, laughed and laid comfortable hands on each other’s arms. My heart filled with love.
There is no fear in love. Yes, that was what John the Beloved meant. I liked that verse in the positive sense so much better.
We loaded up the cart with bras and underpants, socks, T-shirts, and some shorts for Flannery. I bought several boxes of tampons, thinking that when a woman’s not sexually active she surely has a right to turn off the whole menstruation thing. I threw some VO5 conditioner and Head & Shoulders into the basket.
We hit the book aisle.
Two Barbara Cartlands for me, and Flannery chose one of those depressing artsy novels, the boring reading-group-type fare she insists broadens people’s horizons.
Like I’m that deep.
Prisma thinks fiction wastes a woman’s time. She threw in a book about do-it-yourself home decorating. Probably for Mother.
I dropped in a deck of playing cards, shoelaces, a pocket-sized word search game book, and a stick of Krazy Glue onto the conveyor belt. Flannery threw down a pack of gum packaged to look like chewing tobacco. “I’ve always wanted to try this stuff.”
“Knock yourself out, sweetie.”
The checkout girl rang us through. Gosh, what a sullen thing!
“Let’s go to Friendly’s for ice cream.” Prisma eyed the candy bars.
“I’m in,” said Flannery.
“Ice cream?” I cried. “Why? Why do we need ice cream at a time like this? Isn’t a trip to Target enough?” I hefted the bags out of the cart and made for the parking lot and Flannery’s little Toyota, leaving the others in my dust. I’ve always felt like an outsider in a way. Only one person met me in my world and not the other way around. That was Brad. Not that anyone else in this world could begin to understand that. And I no longer expected them to. I’d been waiting for another call from Brad, and it had yet to come. But it would. If I wanted it to come, prayed it would come, sent out all sorts of vibes Brad’s way begging him to remember us, to acknowledge our existence, to glance our proverbial way—the call would never cross the country. Perhaps therein lay the answer!
Please call, please call, please call.
Nope. No Friendly’s for me today. Queen Marsha could stick this little foray in her pipe and puff away till kingdom come!
I practically dove for the phone that night around ten. Thank God for a quiet prayer line.
“Lark?”
“Brad.”
“We really need to talk.”
“I know.”
Boy, I knew. I knew my reverse-psychology plan had failed. I’d even gained five pounds in the bargain with all the lime sherbet I consumed, sitting there like an idiot night after night eating lime sherbet and consuming tea with Sweet’n Low. Trying to find a sugar-free lime sherbet, but no luck yet; I’d called around to all the stores.
“You mean you’ll actually talk to me tonight?”
There it was over the coast-to-coast line. That boyish tone.
Help me, Lord.
“I’ll talk to you for Flannery’s sake,” I said. “Where are you?”
“I’m still home in California.”
Thank You, God.
“Still in San Francisco?”
“Yep. Never left here. Not even after I made it big.”
“You made it big?”
He breathed in deeply. “You didn’t know?”
“I’ve been out of the rock scene for years. I don’t have a TV or even a radio. I play organ in a church.”
“That suits you.”
Now why would he say that?
He continued. “Your playing was too refined for the group anyway. Let’s face it, you were just too good for me all around.”
I really wanted to agree, to be mean, to take advantage of what he said. But the words stuck in my throat. I remembered Flannery. And how could I believe anything he said anyway? Did he think a little flattery would do squat?
Brave thoughts, Summerville woman.
Okay, Lark. Be Leslie now.
I trembled, gripping the phone more tightly.
“How is Flannery?” he asked.
“Flannery?” It gushed out of me. “She’s beautiful, Brad. She has Daddy’s black hair and is willowy like my mother and refined looking. But she’s so cool. She’s an artist!”
“No way!”
“Yes. Can’t carry a tune for anything and plays no musical instruments, but you should see her paintings!”
“Will I?”
My Flannery-high popped. My parental pride imploded. Oh man, I’d just ruined all my intentions with the Flannery gushing. Darn. Had I changed the tone of our discourses for good now? Did he expect a truly civilized, not remotely civilized, ex-wife?
“I don’t know, Brad. You walked out on her.” I tried desperately to leave myself out of this. If it became about me, who knew what I’d agree to? “And don’t act like you’ve always cared. You could have tried to contact her at any time over the past twenty years.”
“I know.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“My wife.”
Oh man.
“So there you go, Brad. We all have our loyalties.” I picked up the infernal Christmas stocking and set to work, thinking if I kept my hands calm my voice might stay the same course.
“You’re right, Lark.”
That’s the thing about Brad. He is so agreeable. Always was. He never argued or fussed. He just avoided the issues by apologizing, by admitting guilt, and becoming prostrate with shame. And then, hello, he’d go and repeat it all over again. Flannery deserved better.
“Look, she thinks you’re dead, Brad. Do you realize what kind of position you’ll put me in if you appear on the scene?”
“But she’s my daughter.”
“You chose! You sat there on that parking lot and you chose to leave us. We talked about it at great length.”
“All I’m asking you to do is think about it.”
“Come on, Brad!”
“Please, Lark?”
Well, how could I not think about this?
“I’ll call you soon.”
“Okay, but if it isn’t me that answers, promise you’ll hang up.”
Like his promises meant anything anyway.
“Okay. I promise.”
Big, big problem, Larkspur! Big, big.
And this one wasn’t going away on its own.
Listen, Lark!
THIS ONE ISN’T GOING AWAY ON ITS OWN.
I tried to jam that thought into my head like ground pork into a sausage skin. Push, push. Shove as much of that thought in as far as it will go, Lark.
Shoving the Christmas stocking back into the drawer, I sank far down beneath my comforter. As far as I could go. Did anybody ever die by suffocating beneath their covers?
Probably not.
PRISMA
YOU COULD SEE IT TEN MILES FROM YESTERDAY that Lark’s emotions had been pickled by something. Lark’s like this, she doesn’t exactly wear her heart on her sleeve, more like just underneath the sleeve. Sometimes the sleeve is that of a wool sweater, sometimes it’s cotton. But when she walked into my sitting room tonight, that sleeve consisted of fine gauze.
“Oh, baby,” I said.
She just cried for a little while. She sat down on my love seat and folded herself up in a little ball right next to me, winding her coat-hanger arms around my neck. If she weren’t forty-one years old, I would have lifted her right onto my lap. But being a woman, she needs to be afforded her dignity even in the midst of such pain.
I patted her arm. “What is it, baby?”
“It’s Brad, Prisma.”
“Brad? You missing him after all these years?” How could that be possible? I hated that Archie Bunker, but Bradley and the term “meat-head” fit together better than my feet and these Daniel Greens.
“No, it isn’t that.”
Thank You, Jesus! “What is it then?”
She sat up, pulled away from and reached for a Kleenex off my end table. “You promise you won’t be mad at me?”
“You promise you won’t say anything that could make me mad?”
“No.”
“Then me neither.”
Lark blew her nose. “I’ll risk it then.”
She sat back down close and rested her sock-covered heels on my coffee table. “I don’t know how to even begin.”
“Is he coming back to haunt you or something?” I figured maybe a joke might clear the black fog that settled in the room.
“I wish.”
“You’re confusing me, baby. Just be out with it. It’s not going to get any easier.”
“Bradley’s in California.” And she ducked her head beneath her arms like a shell-shocked doughboy in a trench.
Words failed, and in their place some kind of incredulous mist filled my brain, this swampy unbelief that he was actually alive, but even more of a mystery that this little insignificant skinny thing who was scared of her own shoelaces pulled off a two-decade long charade like this.
I stared at the blackened fireplace.
“Well, Prisma?” Her voice poked out from beneath her arms.