by Lisa Samson
I thought, Yikes! I accepted a date with a guy whose name I don’t even know? I’m losing it.
“Really.”
He shakes his head. “Can you believe this? I don’t think I’ve ever asked a girl out without knowing her name.”
“So what’s your name?”
“Quigley Smith. But most people call me Quig.”
As I said.
Well, the Leslie Factor kicks in on some sort of etiquette autopilot. Not one mirthful sound flies out as I extend my hand. “I’m Flannery del Champ.”
“Wow.” He takes my hand.
“Tell me about it.”
“What’s your middle name then?”
“What’s yours?”
“James.”
“Strawbridge.”
“Do you like your name?”
“Hate it.”
“I hate mine.”
We just stare at each other for about three seconds.
I thrust out my hand again. “Well then. Nice to meet you, James.”
“It’s nice to meet you … Strawbridge?” He looks more uncomfortable than the first day of Little League.
“Nah. Let’s just go with Flannery.”
“Okay. But you can still call me James.”
“I like it,” I say.
Now that, as Leslie would say, is a proper and fitting start.
“I changed my name when I was away at college,” I tell him as we walked down York Road toward The Orient restaurant. “But after I graduated a few months ago, I realized that being called Fanny was worse than Flannery.” I’m hoping we get on some other topic soon. The name thing is beginning to bore me, and my mind wanders. Thoughts of Grandy knitting out in her corner of the conservatory fill my head.
I have no earthly idea why she’s so set on finishing that sweater so quickly. But I’ll give her time. It’s never fair to judge somebody’s intent. It scares me though. Just a little bit. Like she’s too driven regarding this thing. Why would it be so important? And the scrapbook? Oh my gosh! Never saw “scrapbook” in Grandy’s repertoire!
The night has only begun as far as Quigley Smith is concerned though. There is a bucketload of hope on the horizon.
Lark
NOBODY IN THIS WORLD UNDERSTANDS how I felt about Brad. Nobody could begin to understand why it was easier for me to deny his existence than to proceed in the traditional divorced-couple manner. The first time we met I hated him. A bracy ninth grader, I accompanied my cousin to one of Mount St. Joseph’s lacrosse games. My cousin, on Daddy’s side of course, was a junior at that bastion of all-male Catholic secondary education. So despite Mother’s disapproval of my job, I do have Catholic in my veins.
I felt like the big cheese that day.
Mother sighed her way through my first purchase of a pair of jeans with some of the Christmas money from my Summerville grandmother. One hundred dollars every Christmas. Crisp new bills. A little paper money holder decorated with snowflakes or poinsettias. The smell of fresh stationery wafting up. So I sat there in 1973, feeling spiffy and oh-so-up-to-the-minute in my flared jeans, sneakers, and a pullover orange sweater not knitted by my mother.
Never mind I had to buy them in the girls’ department and not the juniors.
Mount St. Joe lagged so far behind when the second half began, no hope remained. But then, the comeback began. When one of the players scored the goal that zipped the Gaels ahead six to five, I went nuts! I jumped and cheered. I hugged my cousin. I hugged my aunt. I whirled and I whooped, because, honestly, living at Stoneleigh House, times like that happened more rarely than jazz on a harpsichord.
“Calm down. Calm down.”
The voice picked at my ears from behind.
And I turned.
There a tall blond boy, wearing light blue eyes, Adidas shoes, and a brown suede fringe jacket, smirked. His good looks irked me. “Don’t tell me what to do!” And words flowed like the juice from a quickly bitten, overripe peach. “Just because you think you’re God’s gift to women doesn’t mean you can tell people what to do. Doesn’t mean you can embarrass them like that especially when they finally got a stylish pair of jeans even if they did have to pay for them with their own Christmas money.”
Did I say that? What a boob!
I felt my face flush.
The horn blew.
The pep band regurgitated the school song, and I sang it as loudly as I could. Daddy graduated from Mount St. Joe, so the fight song and I knew each other by the time I went to nursery school. “Purple and cream mean victory.” I tried drowning out my own embarrassment.
“Oh see our colors in array.”
He tapped me on the shoulder.
“Watch our team go down the field. For we are out to win today.”
I ignored him. Or tried to make him think I ignored him.
“And if unto defeat we fall.”
He tapped again. “Hey, girl.”
“We’ll be loyal just the same. And we’ll fight fight team for the purple and the cream. Mount St. Joseph bless her naa-aaa-ame!”
He turned me around to face him, and he winked.
I scared myself to death.
So I turned and ran away pretending something was funny, and I laughed and laughed. Too loud. Too long. Too much like a braying ass.
“Hey!” the boy yelled.
But the more I ran, the more nauseous I became. My long ponytail swayed behind me, beating my back with the whipping it deserved.
“You have quite a singing voice!” he yelled, but I didn’t turn around.
The most beautiful boy I’d ever seen had touched my shoulders.
Unfortunately, I needed a bath in Epsom salts that night as the fabric of those tight jeans had rubbed my inner thighs raw during my sprint.
“See, sweetie?” Mother said after my soak. Supported by a green, gold, and orange plaid cushion, I perched in my underwear at the edge of the window seat. “I told you tight jeans aren’t a good idea.”
“No, you didn’t, Mother. You told me they made me look like a hoodlum.”
“Same thing.”
“It is not!”
“Larkspur. No back talk.”
Her gentle fingers dabbed Neosporin on the rashes. Prisma, thirty pounds lighter at that time, haunted the doorway. “You all want some tea?”
“That would be lovely, Prisma.” Mother finished up. “There, almost good as new.”
“What about you, Lark?”
“Sure. Okay.”
“I made some Congo bars.”
“I’ll have my tea in the den, Prisma.”
Mother left. Prisma stared at me for several seconds, then swished back downstairs. And when I entered the den after shimmying into my nightshirt, there sat my tea on the coffee table in front of the couch. I picked it up with my left hand, grabbed the plate of Congo bars with my right and slipped off into the kitchen to sit with Prisma. Mother said nothing. She just reached for the remote and turned off The Brady Bunch.
Even now I can remember recalling Bradley’s face and windblown ways. “I see the boys of summer in their ruin.”
Johnny Josefowski drove me home from study group this week. In an old Jeep.
How unsafe is that?
Leslie
AS IF MY PREGNANCY WITH LARK hadn’t been exhausting enough, Newly’s progressed into one of epic proportions! And poor little Lark, only four when I first became pregnant, just wandered around the house while I regurgitated in the bathroom from eight to noon. Every day for five months.
Five ghastly months!
Where did I go wrong with my daughter? I don’t quite know. It’s not that I’m not proud of her. She’s such a good organist and did such a wonderful job raising Flannery. It’s that she’s not proud of me. That sounds self-centered, I know. The truth is that Lark couldn’t care less whether I live or die. Why I’ve hidden that ridiculous heart attack of a few years ago mystifies me. For honestly, the fact that my charade remains intact speaks of a chasm split too wide for rep
air.
My own mama spent an hour a day with her children, you see. But Anna cared for us. Oh, how I loved Anna. Fresh off the boat from Ireland. Only seventeen when she joined our household in Charlottesville before Mama had me.
Her hair frizzed out from her head like a million wavy beams of autumn light, and her smile shone more brightly than her hair.
I never saw it coming.
Lark loves Prisma the way I loved Anna.
I never saw it coming until it was too late.
After all, Mama spent one hour a day with us. One hour. I took Lark and Newly to the park, shopping, movies, the club. I ran us all ragged on excursion after excursion. I’d have given anything for Mama to have given us that much thought.
And now that I’m old—yes, I’m old, although I’d never admit that out loud—now that I’m old, I look at my daughter and see someone lacking that indefinable essence of womanhood, that smooth confidence we should possess no matter our station. One foot in front of the other whether the path be down a golf course or the aisle of a convenience store, we wend our way through life, and though most times disquiet rests down inside, there are times we can forget about who we are and just … be.
Usually when we’re trying to locate something no one else in the house can find.
Lark’s never known how to just be.
Does my heart not ache? Truth to tell, it does.
I’m tired now though. More tired than when I was expecting Newly. Prisma found me asleep on the couch this morning.
“You slept here all night, Mrs. Summerville?”
“So what if I did?” I sat up, immediately ashamed of snapping at Prisma like that.
She shook her head and sat down next to me. She looked at me hard, like Daddy used to do when he caught me smoking Mama’s cigarettes out the bathroom window.
She unpinned her braid from the bun at the back of her head. “If you don’t tell me what’s happening, Leslie, I’ll start snooping.”
One of the few times in my life Prisma addressed me by my first name, it snapped me to attention like an errant child. I knew I’d better confess, and honestly, who else would hear my confession?
“I’ve been scheduled for a stress test tomorrow.”
“What else?” She wound the heavy rope of hair in a fresh knot down by the nape of her neck.
“My cholesterol is so high now, I’ll bet Charles has tipped his hat to it up there.”
Prisma laughed, but quickly sobered. “So the heart-smart diet hasn’t helped? I’m sorry.”
“I’ve never overeaten, Prisma. It’s genetics, pure and simple.”
“Still. Doesn’t seem fair.”
“You tell me! There you sit, more than fifty pounds overweight with arteries as slick and open as a new drainpipe, and then here I am!”
I might have sunk to the depths of self-pity just then, but Prisma patted my knee.
“Before we worry about it, let’s just get the results of the test.”
“I’m just so tired, Prisma.”
“I know, Mrs. Summerville. I’ve known for a while now. I don’t know how you go riding like you do.”
“I make myself. To prove things.”
And she took my hand.
And there we sat in my den on my floral couch for a long time, Prisma and me holding hands. Flannery’s music thumped upstairs. Three ghastly songs later I said, “Prisma? I just wanted to say—”
“Don’t say anything, Mrs. Summerville, ’cause you’re going to be just fine.”
But now I look in the mirror and I see a tired old soul staring back at me. I examine the lines that have spread like a creeping vine from the corners of my mouth and eyes to cover most of my face, and I examine the life lived inside this relaxing skin and I don’t believe I’ve truly wasted it. But I’ve never really understood why I chaired charities, worked committees, and planned galas. It felt good at the time to help people. It still does.
But inside I still feel shallow and sore and filled with regret for having been alive and not really believed it. Our Anna used to quote religious sayings all the time. She’d look at us sitting in our buttons and bows, fighting and grumbling and snipping at each like mongrels as we waited for Mama to come for her hour.
“Whitewashed tombs ye are, right now! Whitewashed tombs!” And she’d waggle her finger in our faces.
Oh, Anna. Why did that take so long to sink in?
Lark
“HELLO?”
“Lark?”
“Oh, sheesh, Bradley, I thought you’d given up.”
“I just wanted to give you time to think about it all. Have you?”
“Yeah. And I thought you’d relieved me of the problem as only you could.”
“It’s not just going to go away, Lark.”
It’s not just going to go away.
IT’S NOT JUST GOING TO GO AWAY.
I squeezed the receiver. “I’ll meet with you. If you can get permission from your wife, that is.”
I winced. Man. And I’d been trying so hard.
“Rhonda’s dead.”
Feel sorry for him, Lark. At least try to act that way. “How long?”
“About a month ago.”
“You didn’t waste any time finding us again, did you?” Now why say that? Why hand him that point in his favor? “I don’t know whether I’ve changed enough to suit you. But I can promise you I won’t hurt Flannery.”
“How did she die, Brad?”
“Diabetes. Her kidneys failed years ago. And the amputations started awhile back.”
“And you stuck with her?”
“Yeah.”
Oh my word. He wasn’t making this easy.
“Did you have any kids?”
“No. She got the disease young. We didn’t think it would be right to bring kids into the situation. Please, Lark. I have to see Flannery.”
“What could you possibly have to offer her now, Brad?”
“Obviously nothing she hasn’t been able to live without until now.”
“You said that, not me.”
“I won’t just show up, Lark. You need to give me permission. I promise you. No surprises.”
“How long were you and Rhonda married?”
“Nineteen years.”
Maybe he really could keep a promise now.
And maybe I could become a supermodel.
“Can I think about it some more, Brad? Really think about it?”
“Yeah, Lark.”
“Okay.”
“I’m sorry it’s like this.”
“Yeah, me, too.”
“Has it been hard, Lark?”
Oh, puh-leeze! “Sometimes. But Flannery’s a great kid, Brad. She’s amazing.”
His silence broke my heart. Darn it.
The nausea began. “Call me in a week, okay, Brad?”
“I will. You can count on that, babe.”
Yeah, somehow I knew that. I wished I didn’t.
Flannery
“GUESS WHAT, UNCLE NEWLY?”
“What, Buddy?”
I adjust the handset of the phone higher up on my ear. I thought origami earrings from handmade paper would be a great idea. Not. “I’ve got a boyfriend. Well, at least I went out with a nice guy.”
“That’s lovely. His name?”
“James Smith.”
“Sounds positively explorerish.”
I laugh. “It does, doesn’t it?”
“So what does your mother think about it?”
Mother? “Mother?”
“Yes, your mother.”
“You know Mom. She tries not to micromanage.”
He chuckles. “I’d best let you get back to work. Calling from Starbucks, are we?”
“Uh-huh. We is. I’m on my break.”
“I’ll pop in after work tomorrow night. Would you care to have supper with me?”
“Where?”
“You pick the place.”
“Oh cool. Okay. I get off at six.”
�
��See you sometime around six then.”
“Cool.”
Uncle Newly is so neat. Mom says he doesn’t put much stock in things like faith and God, but it’s like this. God puts stock in him, and you know how it is with God, you can run but you cannot hide! I hope I’m there on the day God jumps up in front of Uncle Newly and says, “Boo!” Or maybe He’ll just stroll alongside of him for a while, then tap him on the shoulder and say, “How long are you going to go on ignoring me?”
That will shock Uncle Newly. Either way, I hope I’m there when it happens because I’ve been praying for him for ten years now.
PRISMA
ASIL SMITZER HAS A NEW LADY LOVE!
After supper I caught him sneaking through the kitchen for some of my cold cream by the kitchen sink.
“Asil Smitzer, what on God’s green earth do you think you’re doing in my kitchen!” Let there be no mistake. Nobody at Stoneleigh House would dare to challenge the fact that after all these years, the kitchen belongs to me, lock, stock, and barrel, as somebody who must love guns once uttered. Maybe Mr. Eli Whitney himself! Always admired his resourcefulness.
Asil buttoned his plaid sports coat. “I ran out of hand cream is all, Mrs. Percy. You don’t have to get all hot and bothered.”
“Don’t you be telling me what and what not to get upset about.”
Let it not be mistaken that Asil Smitzer answers to me.
Then I smiled at him because any man wearing white patent-leather platform loafers and an autumn-toned plaid sports coat with brown pants, a rust-colored shirt and a white tie already has enough going against him.
“Get out of here before Mrs. Summerville finds you in the kitchen with mulch on your shoes.”
He picked up a foot and looked.
“Gotcha!” I hooted. “Now, I’ll walk you to the bus stop. I could use some exercise. Where you going?”
“Got a date.”
I figured as much.
He pushed the kitchen door open and we walked onto the screened porch. It’s been hot, even for July, and nobody but me wants to sit out here. Maybe I can entice Lark out here with some lemonade.