Mourning Becomes Cassandra

by Christina Dudley

  “I’m so glad to see you!” I exclaimed, when he opened his car door.

  “You are?” His voice held a mixture of pleasure and wariness.

  “Yes, very. Come help me. Your mom is here, and she wants a Sauvignon Blanc with the vegetable curry tonight. Which one would she like best?”

  He came over to inspect the bottles, and I peeked sidewise at him. Yes, there was Angela Martin’s straight nose and high cheekbones and easy, self-contained grace. I wondered if she had been blonde as he was. Or if Mr. Martin had found anyone better looking in Venezuela—I’d heard Venezuelan women were as beautiful as they come. No one bragged much about Venezuelan men, however, so I was pretty sure they couldn’t hold a candle to Daniel. He plucked the 2002 bottle from Healdsburg off the rack and handed it to me, catching me in my furtive stare. Of course I turned scarlet and was ticked with myself when I saw the answering gleam in his eye.

  “Anything else I can help you with, Cass?”

  “No!” I snapped, making his mouth curve in amusement. “Oh, but actually, yes. If you don’t mind. Joanie is pretty on edge, and she and your mom have been getting on each other’s nerves. If you could run interference these next few days, it’d be lovely. For Joanie’s sake.”

  “I’ll do my best, though I’ve never seen them relate in any other way. Anything for…Joanie.”

  Hearing that familiar note in his voice, I bit back an exasperated sigh and headed back inside, trying not to be self-conscious about him right behind me. While Daniel might distract his mother and sister from their favorite pastime of mutual aggravation, I didn’t know who was going to distract him from his.

  Mrs. Martin sprang up the instant he came through the door, taking his hands and holding up her cheek for a kiss. “Mom,” he said simply, after he had complied, his eyes flicking over to check on Joanie.

  “Darling,” she cooed. “It’s been months. Thank you so much for the flowers you sent for my birthday. I brought them to the gallery to show them off. You remembered how gardenias are my favorite.”

  “Actually, Joanie remembered,” Daniel said easily, “But don’t you think I did a nice job signing the card she picked out?”

  His mother made a little pouting face and punched him playfully on the arm. “You can’t fool me.” She went on to repeat her praise of his beautiful house, tell him how well he was looking, enumerate some of his most recent accomplishments, and so on, while I made myself busy serving up dinner, getting Joanie to help me. In fairness to him, Daniel did try to shut her up a few times, but she seemed to assume he was just being modest and that, if he wasn’t going to toot his own horn, someone must.

  After an hour in Angela Martin’s company, it made a lot more sense to me how Daniel had come by his sense of entitlement where women were concerned, not to mention his bulletproof self-assurance. His mother’s adulation, coupled with his extraordinary good looks, had ruined any chances he may have had to see himself in any but the most glowing lights. He was a man with no need of grace—not from God, not from anyone.

  With her daughter, however, Mrs. Martin took the gloves off. It wasn’t that she didn’t love Joanie as well, but somehow mother-daughter love came out as a constant urge to improve the daughter. As if Joanie reflected on her in a way Daniel didn’t. No wonder Joanie had struck out on such a different path in life. “Joanie, why on earth did you cut those layers in your hair? You know your hair is too wavy to begin with, and the layers just make it stick out more.”

  “The rest of us would just kill for Joanie’s hair, Mrs. Martin,” spoke up Phyl. She was absolutely the most loyal person I knew, and indignation for Joanie here trumped her natural gentleness.

  “Oh, I’m sure,” said Mrs. Martin placatingly. “And do call me Angela. You know mothers and daughters. We just can’t help picking at each other.” She certainly couldn’t, because not ten minutes later she accosted Joanie with, “Honey, did you read those books on atheism I sent you?”

  “Cover to cover,” said Joanie expressionlessly. Clearly her love of philosophical discussions did not extend to debates with her mother.

  “Very thought-provoking, I found them,” continued Angela blithely. “Especially the parts about how we have evolved to engage in social, ethical behavior without recourse to religion, and the connection between religion and warmongering.”

  “Mom, considering how the majority of people at this table are religious, and you’re eating their food, you may want to rein in the atheist proselytizing,” said Daniel dryly.

  She gave him a mild et-tu-Brute look. “Daniel! Did you read them? I asked Joanie to pass them on.”

  “She did. And she was pretty speedy about it, too. But I have to confess, I didn’t care for them either. Ranting ideologues from either side of the fence don’t do it for me.” That put a cork in her, as Joanie remarked to me later.

  Perry neatly turned the conversation to Angela’s art gallery and art in general, where we doggedly kept it until the end of the meal. Despite my request, I half-expected Daniel to bolt off to the Lean-To at that point, leaving the rest of us to close ranks around Joanie until Angela chose to retire from the field, but he surprised me by coaxing his mother to sit down at the piano with him. It turned out Joanie wasn’t the only musical Martin. Daniel and his mother knew a number of easy duets, and when there were lyrics, Joanie sang along.

  “I didn’t even know he played,” Phyl said to me under her breath, as we cleaned up after dinner.

  “It’s kind of too much, isn’t it?” I replied. “The Martins! They sing! They dance! They sit around looking beautiful!”

  Perry jabbed me in the ribs. “We McKeans better think of our act. You didn’t tell me about the talent portion of the evening.”

  “Dinner was the talent portion of my evening,” I retorted, “Unless someone wants to hear my Snow Goddess monologue. Phyl, you could score big points with Mrs. Martin by telling her about vegan composting.”

  “Speaking of vegan,” said Phyl, “What on earth are we going to feed her tomorrow? Won’t we have butter in absolutely everything?”

  “Everything that doesn’t have chicken broth,” said Perry.

  “Or whipping cream,” I added. “We’ll just have to dish out portions of the vegetables before we add all the dairy. Anyhow, given how this evening has gone, don’t you think Angela’s diet is probably the least of our worries?”

  • • •

  With such dismally low expectations, Thanksgiving could only prove a pleasant surprise. Daniel was true to his word, running interference between the other Martins, and turning his considerable charm on his mother, who hardly required this effort to be delighted with him. Seeing that her brother meant to pull his weight, Joanie relaxed, and even managed to overlook a few of her mother’s jabs. And it did help to have all of us there; when Angela insisted on a morning walk to get the blood pumping (“Have you put on a little weight, Joanie, since I last saw you?”), Benny and I came along as the welcome third wheels and managed to defuse a few tense moments. Tense moments such as when Angela asked me, “Do you also work at the church, dear?” in a tone equally suited to questions like, Did you always want to be a garbage man when you grew up?

  By the time we came back, blood now circulating satisfactorily, things were in full swing in the Palace kitchen. “Well that’s something I never thought I’d see,” said Joanie, when she caught sight of Daniel at the stove sautéing onions and celery and sausage for the stuffing. “Quick, Cass—go check out the window and tell me if you see Jesus coming again.”

  “I’ll have you know, Joanie, he chopped the onion, too,” said Perry. He was engaged in loosening the turkey’s skin and slipping pats of herbed butter underneath.

  “How come you never get off your butt and help when we cook?” Joanie demanded.

  “Perry beat me at cards last night,” answered Daniel laconically, flipping Benny a hunk of sausage which the beast caught in mid-air.

  “I’ve beaten you at Scrabble,” I pointed out,
and he grinned at me.

  “Name your price, Cass. But you’d better be aware that, if I beat you in the future, I’ll name mine.”

  Perry had been put in charge of the day, and by dint of keeping everyone busy we managed to get through it with a minimum of tension, although Mrs. Martin and Joanie seemed able to whip it up any time they were in the same room.

  “Tell me more about this Roy you’re dating, Joan,” Angela began at one point. We were taking a break from our kitchen labors at this point and playing a few hands of hi-lo at the dining table, while Daniel and Perry parked it in front the television to watch a game. “I was so fond of that Keith, if you insisted on getting married at some point.” Keith had been Joanie’s first fiancé.

  Joanie bristled immediately. “Keith and I had unresolvable communication issues, Mom. We bickered a lot, kind of like you and me.”

  “Well, who was that next one, then? Paul? Patrick?” her mother persisted, laying down the queen of spades.

  “Peter,” Joanie ground out. “The one with the overbearing mother, if you can imagine. And then there was Steve, who was too clingy. Do we really have to talk about this? If you think I’ve run up a list, why don’t you ever quiz Daniel on his love life?”

  “Daniel is a particular, restless man, and he’s always had the good sense not to take things too far,” said Angela, casting him a fond look while Joanie pretended to gag. “Like your father. It would have been better if your father and I had never married.”

  “So you’ve said,” replied Joanie dryly. “The real truth is that, if you wanted to keep up with Daniel’s love life, you’d have to run a ticker, rather than an annual update.” Either overhearing or sensing that we were talking about him, Daniel came over for another of Phyl’s stuffed mushrooms.

  “I was just asking your sister about this new boyfriend Roy she has,” Angela beamed up at him. “She’s being evasive. I don’t even know what he does for a living.”

  “Fine, Mom,” replied Joanie, goaded. “I met him at church. He’s a network engineer, okay? That is, when he’s not warmongering and bombing abortion clinics. And before that he worked for World Vision in Cambodia, teaching English.”

  “Oh!” exclaimed Mrs. Martin, making a little face. “Network engineer—what on earth is that? It sounds terribly dull for a creative girl like you. Are you two very serious?”

  Seeing that Joanie had fire in her eyes, Daniel gave me a wink and said, “It’s actually a very nuts-and-bolts, visual-thinking kind of job, Mom. Not very different from your beloved feng shui. You’re thinking how to capture the Qi and keep it circulating through your home, and they’re thinking the same thing about electronic connections in a company’s network.”

  “What a load of crap,” muttered Joanie, but I didn’t think it was such a bad way of thinking about it, and Mrs. Martin was completely appeased, as Daniel had intended.

  • • •

  We sat down for dinner at four. Phyl had set a beautiful table with her best glassware and china, pillar candles glowing and an autumn garland running its length. By then some stragglers had joined us—a couple of Phyl’s co-workers, her sister Mary, and good old Tom, now a model of deportment.

  When all the dishes had been produced, and the sideboard nearly groaned under the weight of them, Joanie rose from her seat at the foot of the table and farthest from her mother. “I’d like to propose a toast,” she declared, raising her festive glass of Blanc de Noirs. “To family and friends and the hands which prepared this food. May we be truly thankful.”

  “Here here!”

  I clinked glasses with Perry and Phyl and Mary across the table, and we were all about to dig in when Daniel spoke up. “No grace, Joanie?”

  A little silence fell—Mrs. Martin froze in spreading the non-dairy butter alternative on her bread—and then Phyl hastened to smooth it over. “Of course. Maybe Cass, since Joanie gave the toast?”

  Shooting Phyl a reproachful look, I quickly bowed my head and shut my eyes, so everyone else would. I had never been much of an out-loud prayer, and my months-long hiatus didn’t build my confidence, but too late now. “Father,” I began hesitantly, “we are grateful for your blessings large and small. For the friends and family around this table and the ones who aren’t with us. For this wonderful food and this beautiful house. For health. For love, especially your love, which never gives up on us. Amen.”

  A few “amens” and rather more awkward throat-clearings greeted this, and we dug in.

  Chapter 20: Rinkside Revelations

  “One grande with whip caramel macchiato, extra hot, and in the seasonal red cup,” I announced, pushing it across the counter at Nadina.

  It was the Saturday afternoon after Thanksgiving, and I was glad to see she’d made it back from Ohio. Both Perry and Mrs. Martin had left that morning for Portland, and while the visit had come off better than Joanie had thought possible, she still cheered when the door closed behind them: “I feel great! Must be all the extra Qi in the house!”

  The hot coffee concoction was meant to be a surprise for Nadina at her skating rink elf job, and it looked like my timing was just right. She was perched on the stool behind the cash register, her jingle-belled felt elf hat at a cocky angle, and a decidedly belligerent look on her face.

  “Whoo hoo! Cass, you’re the best! I’ve been sitting here freezing my ass off and thinking I should go crawling back to Petco.” She held the cup up to breathe in the steam appreciatively. “Mmmm…”

  “One coffee drink doesn’t rule out crawling back to Petco,” I admonished. “In fact, if you drink my drink it means you agree to go back and talk to your manager. You can’t leave it like that, Nadina. Besides, you are totally gifted with animals, and you don’t ice skate. Who needs an employee discount here?”

  “Blah blah blah, don’t nag me, Cass. I can guess what you think now, did you know? I can even hear your voice in my head telling me what I ought to do sometimes.”

  “That might not be me—it could be your conscience waking up after all this time. But I’ll give it a rest for a minute,” I conceded. “How was Ohio? Tell all.”

  Nadina took a tentative sip and sucked in air to cool her tongue. “It was tense,” she said. “Everyone took turns fighting: me and Mom, then Mom and Aunt Sylvia, then me and Aunt Sylvia because I thought she was being mean to Mom. And then we’d start over again with me and Mom.”

  “Bummer. What all did you fight about?”

  “Let me see…me and Mom fought about me living with Mike, and Mom and Aunt Sylvia fought about Mom not raising me right, and me and Aunt Sylvia fought because I told her I wasn’t a friggin’ baby—”

  “I hope you said ‘friggin,’” I interjected.

  “And Aunt Sylvia said I sure acted like one, and Mom told Aunt Sylvia to mind her own stinking business—”

  “I hope she said ‘stinking,’” I interrupted again.

  “Knock it off, Cass!” Nadina objected, laughing. “But the really biggest fight was when Aunt Sylvia told Mom she thought I should come out and live with her in Ohio.”

  “In Ohio?” I echoed. “Live with Aunt Sylvia in Ohio? What, because you were all getting along so well?”

  “Because Aunt Sylvia said I need to make a clean start, and since Mom couldn’t control me, blah blah blah.”

  The thought of Nadina moving to Ohio made me feel oddly empty, and I couldn’t get my voice to work for a moment. “Did—what did you think about all that?”

  “What the hell would I do in Cleveland? I’d have to start over at some crappy new school and not know anyone except my seventy-year-old great aunt. If I don’t even want to live with my own mother, I sure as hell don’t want to live with her.” I felt a wave of relief, and then guilt for my relief—a fresh start for Nadina far away from loser Mike wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing. “And I told Sylvia so, and she said to think about it when I wasn’t all freaked out and when Mom wasn’t around to gum up the works.”

  Sylvia was no dummy, it
would seem. I supposed we had both learned the hard way what happened when you pushed Nadina past the point of rational thought. “Whew!” I whistled. “In between all the fighting, did you eat any turkey?”

  “Yeah, but that was almost another fight because Mom said she would do it, and then she fell asleep in front of the TV, and Aunt Sylvia didn’t wake her up because she wanted to say ‘I told you so,’ and so the turkey came out kinda dry.”

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake!” I protested. “I should bring you some of my brother Perry’s turkey—it was luscious. No, on second thought, I’ll throw it in the freezer and hold it out as a bribe for when you’ve sorted things out with Blaise. How about if we do some role playing right now? I’ll be your manager, and you come and tell me why I should hire you back.”

  “Because I’m the awesomest,” said Nadina incorrigibly. Her gaze suddenly sharpened. “Oh, hey,” she whispered. “Here comes Kyle’s mentor with some lady.”

  I turned and, sure enough, saw them cutting across the grass to the rink entrance, James walking jauntily with a pair of hockey skates slung by the laces over his shoulder, accompanied by his tiny, adorable date, all curling blonde hair and blue eyes under a knit cap. Well, this would be interesting. Would this be the friendly, charming James, or the awkward, distant one?

  It was both, as it happened. James caught sight of us the next instant, and his face lit up. “Cass! Nadina! I had no idea you worked here, Nadina—nice elf outfit. Did you guys have a good Thanksgiving?” We answered with the usual platitudes, and when I asked after his he answered equally vaguely. So…happy to see me? Apparently not, because the next moment he started looking around nervously until he remembered himself and added, “This is Rachel. Rachel, this is Nadina who goes to Camden School and her mentor Cass.”