Breathing Lessons

by Anne Tyler

  Then all at once there was Fiona leaning in the doorway, one arm outstretched to keep the screen door from banging shut again. She wore cutoff denim shorts and a T-shirt with some kind of writing across it. “No need to shout,” she said. At that moment she saw Maggie and Ira. She stood up straighter.

  Maggie moved forward, clutching her purse. She said, “How are you, Fiona?”

  “Well … fine,” Fiona said.

  And then she looked beyond them. Oh, Maggie was not mistaken about that. Her eyes swept the yard furtively and alighted on the car for just the briefest instant. She was wondering if Jesse had come too. She still cared enough to wonder.

  Her eyes returned to Maggie.

  “I hope we’re not disturbing you,” Maggie said.

  “Oh, um, no …”

  “We were just passing through and thought we’d stop by and say hello.”

  Fiona lifted her free arm and smoothed her hair off her forehead with the back of her hand—a gesture that exposed the satiny white inner surface of her wrist, that made her seem distracted, at a loss. Her hair was still fairly long but she had done something to it that bushed it out more; it didn’t hang in sheets now. And she had gained a bit of weight. Her face was slightly broader across the cheekbones, the hollow of her collarbone was less pronounced, and although she was translucently pale, as always, she must have started using makeup, for Maggie detected a half-moon of powdered shadow on each eyelid—that rose-colored shadow that seemed to be so popular lately, that made women look as if they were suffering from a serious cold.

  Maggie climbed the steps and stood next to Leroy, continuing to hold her purse in a way that implied she wasn’t expecting so much as a handshake. She was able now to read the writing on Fiona’s shirt: LIME SPIDERS, it said—whatever that meant. “I heard you on the radio this morning,” she said.

  “Radio,” Fiona said, still distracted.

  “On AM Baltimore.”

  “Baltimore,” Fiona said.

  Leroy, meanwhile, had ducked under her mother’s arm and then turned so she was facing Maggie, side by side with Fiona, gazing up with the same unearthly clear-aqua eyes. There wasn’t a trace of Jesse in that child’s appearance. You’d think at least his coloring would have won out.

  “I told Ira, ‘Why not just stop off and visit,’ ” Maggie said. “We were up this way anyhow, for Max Gill’s funeral. Remember Max Gill? My friend Serena’s husband? He died of cancer. So I said, ‘Why not stop off and visit Fiona. We wouldn’t stay but a minute.’ ”

  “It feels funny to see you,” Fiona said.

  “Funny?”

  “I mean … Come inside, why don’t you?”

  “Oh, I know you must be busy,” Maggie said.

  “No, I’m not busy. Come on in.”

  Fiona turned and led the way into the house. Leroy followed, with Maggie close behind. Ira took a little longer. When Maggie looked over her shoulder she found him kneeling in the yard to tie his shoe, a slant of hair falling over his forehead. “Well, come on, Ira,” she told him.

  He rose in silence and started toward her. Her annoyance changed to something softer. Sometimes Ira took on a gangling aspect, she thought, like a bashful young boy not yet comfortable in public.

  The front door opened directly into the living room, where the sun slipping through the venetian blinds striped the green shag rug. Heaps of crocheted cushions tumbled across a couch upholstered in a fading tropical print. The coffee table bore sliding stacks of magazines and comic books, and a green ceramic ashtray shaped like a rowboat. Maggie remembered the ashtray from earlier visits. She remembered staring at it during awkward pauses and wondering if it could float, in which case it would make a perfect bathtub toy for Leroy. Now that came back to her, evidently having lurked all these years within some cupboard in her brain.

  “Have a seat,” Fiona said, plumping a cushion. She asked Ira, “So how’re you doing?” as he ducked his head in the doorway.

  “Oh, passably,” he told her.

  Maggie chose the couch, hoping Leroy would sit there too. But Leroy dropped to the rug and stretched her reedy legs out in front of her. Fiona settled in an armchair, and Ira remained standing. He circled the room, pausing at a picture of two basset puppies nestled together in a hatbox. With the tip of one finger, he traced the gilded molding that lined the frame.

  “Would you like some refreshments?” Fiona asked.

  Maggie said, “No, thank you.”

  “Maybe a soda or something.”

  “We’re not thirsty, honestly.”

  Leroy said, “I could use a soda.”

  “You’re not who I was asking,” Fiona told her.

  Maggie wished she’d brought Leroy some sort of present. They had so little time to make connections; she felt pushed and anxious. “Leroy,” she said too brightly, “is Frisbee a big interest of yours?”

  “Not really,” Leroy told her bare feet.

  “Oh.”

  “I’m still just learning,” Leroy said. “I can’t make it go where I want yet.”

  “Yes, that’s the tricky part, all right,” Maggie said.

  Unfortunately, she had no experience with Frisbees herself. She looked hopefully at Ira, but he had moved on to some kind of brown metal appliance that stood in the corner—a box fan, perhaps, or a heater. She turned back to Leroy. “Does it glow in the dark?” she asked after a pause.

  Leroy said, “Huh?”

  “Excuse me,” Fiona reminded her.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Does your Frisbee glow in the dark? Some do, I believe.”

  “Not this one,” Leroy said.

  “Ah!” Maggie cried. “Then maybe we should buy you one that does.”

  Leroy thought about that. Finally she asked, “Why would I want to play Frisbee in the dark?”

  “Good question,” Maggie said.

  She sat back, spent, wondering where to go from there. She looked again at Ira. He was hunkered over the appliance now, inspecting the controls with total concentration.

  Well, no point avoiding this forever. Maggie made herself smile. She tilted her head receptively and said, “Fiona, we were so surprised to hear about your wedding plans.”

  “My what?”

  “Wedding plans.”

  “Is that supposed to be a joke?”

  “Joke?” Maggie asked. She faltered. “Aren’t you getting married?”

  “Not that I’m aware of.”

  “But I heard it on the radio!”

  Fiona said, “What is this radio business? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “On WNTK,” Maggie said. “You called in and said—”

  “The station I listen to is WXLR,” Fiona told her.

  “No, this was—”

  “Excellent Rock Around the Clock. A Brittstown station.”

  “This was WNTK,” Maggie said.

  “And they claimed I was getting married?”

  “You claimed it. You called in and claimed your wedding was next Saturday.”

  “Not me,” Fiona said.

  There was a kind of alteration of rhythm in the room.

  Maggie experienced a surge of relief, followed by acute embarrassment. How could she have been so sure? What on earth had got into her, not even to question that the voice she’d heard was Fiona’s? And on such a staticky, inadequate radio; she’d known perfectly well how inadequate it was, with those dinky little auto speakers that didn’t begin to approach high fidelity.

  She braced herself for Ira’s I-told-you-so. He still seemed absorbed in the appliance, though, which was nice of him.

  “I guess I made a mistake,” she said finally.

  “I guess you did,” Fiona said.

  And Leroy said, “Married!” and uttered a little hiss of amusement and wiggled her toes. Each toenail, Maggie saw, bore the tiniest dot of red polish, almost completely chipped off.

  “So who was the lucky guy?” Fiona asked.

  “You didn’t
say,” Maggie told her.

  “What: I just came on the air and announced my engagement?”

  “It was a call-in talk show,” Maggie said. She spoke slowly; she was rearranging her thoughts. All at once Fiona was not getting married. There was still a chance, then! Things could still be worked out! And yet in some illogical way Maggie continued to believe the wedding really had been planned, so that she wondered at the girl’s inconsistency. “People called in to discuss their marriages with the host,” she said.

  Fiona knit her pale brows, as if considering the possibility that she might have been one of them.

  She was so pretty, and Leroy was so endearingly spiky and unusual; Maggie felt how thirsty her eyes were, drinking them in. It was like the early days with her children, when every neck-crease, every knuckle-dent, could send her into a reverie. Look at Fiona’s hair shining like ribbons, like bands of crinkle gift ribbon! Look at the darling little gold studs in Leroy’s earlobes!

  Ira, speaking into the grille of the appliance, said, “This thing really do much good?” His voice rang back at them tinnily.

  “So far as I know,” Fiona said.

  “Fairly energy-efficient?”

  She lifted both hands, palms up. “Beats me.”

  “How many BTUs does it give off?”

  “That’s just something Mom runs in the wintertime to keep her feet warm,” Fiona said. “I never have paid it much heed, to tell the truth.”

  Ira leaned farther forward to read a decal on the appliance’s rear.

  Maggie seized on a change of subject. She said, “How is your mother, Fiona?”

  “Oh, she’s fine. Right now she’s at the grocery store.”

  “Wonderful,” Maggie said. Wonderful that she was fine, she meant. But it was also wonderful that she was out. She said, “And you’re looking well too. You’re wearing your hair a little fuller, aren’t you?”

  “It’s crimped,” Fiona said. “I use this special iron, like; you know bigger hair has a slimming effect.”

  “Slimming! You don’t need slimming.”

  “I most certainly do. I put on seven pounds over this past summer.”

  “Oh, you didn’t, either. You couldn’t have! Why you’re just a—”

  Just a twig, she was going to say; or just a stick. But she got mixed up and combined the two words: “You’re just a twick!”

  Fiona glanced at her sharply, and no wonder; it had sounded vaguely insulting. “Just skin and bones, I mean,” Maggie said, fighting back a giggle. She remembered now how fragile their relationship had been, how edgy and defensive Fiona had often seemed. She folded her hands and placed her feet carefully together on the green shag rug.

  So Fiona was not getting married after all.

  “How’s Daisy?” Fiona asked.

  “She’s doing well.”

  Leroy said, “Daisy who?”

  “Daisy Moran,” Fiona said. Without further explanation, she turned back to Maggie. “All grown up by now, I bet.”

  “Daisy is your aunt. Your daddy’s little sister,” Maggie told Leroy. “Yes; tomorrow she leaves for college,” she said to Fiona.

  “College! Well, she always was a brain.”

  “Oh, no … but it’s true she won a full scholarship.”

  “Little bitty Daisy,” Fiona said. “Just think.”

  Ira had finished with the appliance, finally. He moved on to the coffee table. The Frisbee rested on a pile of comic books, and he picked it up and examined it all over again. Maggie stole a peek at him. He still had not said, “I told you so,” but she thought she detected something noble and forbearing in the set of his spine.

  “You know, I’m in school myself, in a way,” Fiona said.

  “Oh? What kind of school?”

  “I’m studying electrolysis.”

  “Why, that’s lovely, Fiona,” Maggie said.

  She wished she could shake off this fulsome tone of voice. It seemed to belong to someone else entirely—some elderly, matronly, honey-sweet woman endlessly marveling and exclaiming.

  “The beauty parlor where I’m a shampoo girl is paying for my course,” Fiona said. “They want their own licensed operator. They say I’m sure to make heaps of money.”

  “That’s just lovely!” Maggie said. “Then maybe you can move out and find a place of your own.”

  And leave the pretender grandma behind, was what she was thinking. But Fiona gave her a blank look.

  Leroy said, “Show them your practice kit, Ma.”

  “Yes, show us,” Maggie said.

  “Oh, you don’t want to see that,” Fiona said.

  “Yes, we do. Don’t we, Ira?”

  Ira said, “Hmm? Oh, absolutely.” He held the Frisbee up level, like a tea tray, and gave it a meditative spin.

  “Well, then, wait a sec,” Fiona said, and she got up and left the room. Her sandals made a dainty slapping sound on the wooden floor of the hallway.

  “They’re going to hang a sign in the beauty parlor window,” Leroy told Maggie. “Professionally painted with Ma’s name.”

  “Isn’t that something!”

  “It’s a genuine science, Ma says. You’ve got to have trained experts to teach you how to do it.”

  Leroy’s expression was cocky and triumphant. Maggie resisted the urge to reach down and cup the complicated small bones of her knee.

  Fiona returned, carrying a rectangular yellow kitchen sponge and a short metal rod the size of a ballpoint pen. “First we practice with a dummy instrument,” she said. She dropped onto the couch beside Maggie. “We’re supposed to work at getting the angle exactly, perfectly right.”

  She set the sponge on her lap and gripped the rod between her fingers. There was a needle at its tip, Maggie saw. For some reason she had always thought of electrolysis as, oh, not quite socially mentionable, but Fiona was so matter-of-fact and so skilled, targeting one of the sponge’s pores and guiding the needle into it at a precisely monitored slant; Maggie couldn’t help feeling impressed. This was a highly technical field, she realized—maybe something like dental hygiene. Fiona said, “We travel into the follicle, see, easy, easy …” and then she said, “Oops!” and raised the heel of her hand an inch or two. “If this was a real person I’d have been leaning on her eyeball,” she said. “Pardon me, lady,” she told the sponge. “I didn’t mean to smush you.” Mottled black lettering was stamped across the sponge’s surface: STABLER’S DARK BEER. MADE WITH MOUNTAIN SPRING WATER.

  Ira stood over them now, with the Frisbee dangling from his fingers. He asked, “Does the school provide the sponge?”

  “Yes, it’s included in the tuition,” Fiona said.

  “They must get it free,” he reflected. “Courtesy of Stabler’s. Interesting.”

  “Stabler’s? Anyhow, first we practice with the dummy and then with the real thing. Us students all work on each other: eyebrows and mustache and such. This girl that’s my partner, Hilary, she wants me to do her bikini line.”

  Ira pondered that for a moment and then backed off in a hurry.

  “You know these high-cut swimsuits nowadays, they show everything you’ve got,” Fiona told Maggie.

  “Oh, it’s becoming impossible!” Maggie cried. “I’m just making do with my old suit till the fashions change.”

  Ira cleared his throat and said, “Leroy, what would you say to a game of Frisbee.”

  Leroy looked up at him.

  “I could show you how to make it go where you want,” he told her.

  She took so long deciding that Maggie felt a pang for Ira’s sake, but finally she said, “Well, okay,” and unfolded herself from the floor. “Tell about the professionally painted sign,” she told Fiona. Then she followed Ira out of the room. The screen door made a sound like a harmonica chord before it banged shut.

  So.

  This was the first time Maggie had been alone with Fiona since that awful morning. For once the two of them were free of Ira’s hampering influence and the hostile, suspicious pres
ence of Mrs. Stuckey. Maggie edged forward on the couch. She clasped her hands tightly; she pointed her knees intimately in Fiona’s direction.

  “The sign’s going to read FIONA MORAN,” Fiona was saying. “LICENSED ELECTROLOGIST. PAINLESS REMOVAL OF SUPERFLUOUS HAIR.”

  “I can’t wait to see it,” Maggie said.

  She thought about that last name: Moran. If Fiona really hated Jesse, would she have kept his name all these years?

  “On the radio,” she said, “you told the man you were marrying for security.”

  “Maggie, I swear to you, the station I listen to is—”

  “WXLR,” Maggie said. “Yes, I know. But I just had it in my head that that was you, and so I …”

  She watched Fiona set the sponge and needle in the rowboat ashtray.

  “Anyway,” she said. “Whoever it was who called, she said the first time she’d married for love and it hadn’t worked out. So this time she was aiming purely for security.”

  “Well, what a ninny,” Fiona said. “If marriage was such a drag when she loved the guy, what would it be like when she didn’t?”

  “Exactly,” Maggie said. “Oh, Fiona, I’m so glad that wasn’t you!”

  “Shoot, I don’t even have a steady boyfriend,” Fiona said.

  “You don’t?”

  But Maggie found the phrasing of that a bit worrisome. She said, “Does that mean … you have somebody not steady?”

  “I just barely get to date at all,” Fiona said.

  “Well! What a pity,” Maggie said. She put on a sympathetic expression.

  “This one guy? Mark Derby? I went out with him for about three months, but then we had a fight. I bashed his car in after I had borrowed it, was the reason. But it really wasn’t my fault. I was starting to make a left turn, when these teenage boys came up from behind and passed me on the left and so of course I hit them. Then they had the nerve to claim it was all my doing; they claimed I had my right-turn signal on instead of my left.”

  “Well, anyone who’d get mad about that you don’t want to date anyhow,” Maggie told her.

  “I said, ‘I had my left-turn signal on. Don’t you think I know my left from my right?’ ”