Rose had been at the funeral Mass but had not come to the cemetery or the restaurant. Her earlier appearance made it all the harder for Al to account for her absence now. “An appointment,” he told his brothers.
The flimsiness of the excuse didn’t appear to worry either brother. They were talking stocks and bonds. Joe, the older, handsomer one, flashed a smile that included them all. “Despite all these theories, investors are pretty primitive. Now that the weather is improving, the market will, too.”
Frank, pale, with thick glasses, spoke exclusively to Joe. “That’s too simplistic. The fluctuations have more to do with the deficit than the elements.” Frank’s wife regarded her husband intently, nodding occasionally in agreement.
Cheryl watched her. Elaine Valerino was the only other woman present. In earlier times Cheryl would have speculated on Joe’s marital status; now, however, she concentrated solely on eating less than Elaine did. The woman was rail thin. She wore a simple black linen suit and white hose. No matter how shapely one’s legs were, Cheryl thought, wearing white stockings to a funeral was showy and tacky.
Elaine shook the dressing off a piece of iceberg lettuce, then ate it. Cheryl sipped her tea and ate nothing. So far she was three bites behind Elaine. They were both having the chef salad, so gauging the woman’s consumption wasn’t difficult at all. Frank’s wife shunned the unripe, yellowish cherry tomato but ate a piece of turkey.
Cheryl decided the long, stringy slice of fowl looked like fish bait and left it by the rejected tomato. She was now four bites behind Elaine.
It was an odd restaurant for Al to have chosen. A one-story edifice staffed by housewives who operated without a liquor license and served delicate low-calorie dishes. Today the room was empty, but it looked like a place frequented by women shoppers. Al must have come here once with Rose and remembered it was wheelchair-accessible.
Al was eating the fruit salad plate—and not pecking like he did at her house. No, he was eating the strawberries, the melon slices, and the clump of cottage cheese as if he were famished. The only accompaniment to Joe and Frank’s stock market conversation was the constant click, click of Al’s fork. Then he laid it down and ate a circular slice of orange. When everything else was gone, he began to pluck the grapes off their stems and eat them.
Cheryl watched his hands and noticed the thick tufts of hair above his knuckles. Gosh, she thought, even his hands are obscenely masculine. She was glad Richard didn’t look that coarse. She was very proud of his appearance today. She had shopped long and hard for that navy sweater with its double buttons—a lot easier for him to get on and off than a suit.
But when she turned to give it another admiring glance, she noticed Richard had stopped eating. He was staring dreamily ahead and his forehead was shiny with perspiration.
He must be feeling dangerously weak. Well, it was his own fault. She had told him he wasn’t physically capable of attending. But he had used his red phone to call Al and arrange for transportation. So she was trapped into coming with him.
Cheryl gave her skirt one more tug, then began to twist her wedding band. Married, married, married, it seemed to proclaim with every turn. Marriage had made her the stable one. She was forced to assume her mother’s role. She gave the woman across from her a friendly smile and asked, “Is it much of a drive home for you?”
The blonde shook her straight, straight hair. “In good weather like this only about four hours.”
Al’s plate was empty now except for the barren grape stems. He stared downward. “Wasn’t it just like Mom to wait for spring to die?” he asked. “She never wanted us traveling in bad weather.”
There was an embarrassed silence and Al flushed—a painful reddening that started at the neck and slowly worked its way upward.
Richard, roused from his reverie, asked, “What was your father’s name?”
“Sam.”
“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if she could drop you a note from heaven: Having a wonderful time here with Sam.”
The blonde raised a delicate, braceleted hand to her face as if stifling a sneeze. Then she smiled and exchanged a long, meaningful glance with her husband that seemed to say: obviously crack-brained.
Cheryl wanted to slap her. Instead she plunged her fork into the cherry tomato and watched as the seeds and juice sprayed across the pale lettuce.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“You love that dog.”
Richard nodded and continued eating his eggs. He knew that wasn’t the response she wanted. What she wanted was for him to say something mushy. Something like “Oh, but I love you more.” Forget it. He gave the dog to Al because Cheryl never walked her enough. Up where Al lived, Heinz could run free.
Cheryl slammed her hands into the pockets of her cutoff jeans and headed for the stairway. Had she stayed in the kitchen, he would have complimented her on her scrambled eggs. They were good—not dry, not runny, just right. But she had huffed off upstairs. He could hear the radio playing in her bedroom but wasn’t able to identify the song.
Cheryl had an unfair advantage. She could go upstairs when she was disappointed in him. He had nowhere to retreat to get away from her.
At the moment that wasn’t disturbing him much. Morning was his favorite time of day. Besides, the sun was out, and he was in excellent spirits. His stamina was improving. He rarely got nauseated nowadays. The night sweats didn’t come as often. Additionally, he was regaining what his football coaches called “a positive mental attitude.” Not only did he feel he could push himself through life, he almost felt sturdy enough to pull his wife along with him.
Richard shoved his plate away and glanced at the newspaper. He always read the want ads first. He wasn’t sure why. Right now personal hygiene and getting dressed were a full-time occupation.
His reading completed, he pulled the bread box, which had become a fixture on the table, toward him. Toothpaste, a toothbrush, mouthwash, and soap were on the bottom shelf of the container. His shaving stuff was on the top. He reached up for his shaving cream and razor. Cheryl had left him a small dish of hot water, now lukewarm.
After the tedious ritual of shaving was accomplished, he took a sip of coffee. He ran his finger along the mug’s handle and contemplated how much his life had improved. At the nursing home there was never any overlapping of function. He would never have been allowed to keep his coffee past breakfast.
Upstairs Cheryl was flipping from one station to another on her radio. What irony, Richard decided. If only she didn’t demand it so emphatically, he might have been able to love her.
Richard shook his head. It was no good getting philosophical this early in the day. He had a lot of duties to perform. The challenge of getting in and out of Cheryl’s tiny downstairs bathroom still lay ahead. Just thinking about it made him apprehensive. But there was nothing to do but get at it. He inspected his face one last time, then backed up the wheelchair and headed out into the hallway.
The blue-wallpapered bathroom was so tiny, the wheelchair would not fit in. So he was forced to leave it at the door, lean in, grab the sink, hoist himself up, hop in, pivot, and slowly sink down onto the cold john. When his skin touched porcelain, he thought Whew, made it, as if he had just accomplished something extraordinary.
There are times when you simply have to start over. He had not grown up knowing that. Rather, he had thought it was just up and up from apartment to condo to house to mansion. He had gotten as far as the condo when it all fell apart.
Getting out of the bathroom was even harder than getting in. Again he grabbed the sink, but this time he had to pull himself up and hop backward. Today, as always, he breathed a sigh of relief as he smacked against the vinyl of the wheelchair.
Richard surmised that he was fortunate in several ways. Cheryl always gave him privacy. If she started to come downstairs and noticed the empty wheelchair in the hallway, she would immediately retreat. Her kindness and consideration were genuinely appreciated. But, all in all, Heinz was better compa
ny. He found Cheryl so moody and inconsistent. Today at breakfast she said she wasn’t hungry and didn’t eat anything. Instead she kept eyeing an unopened package of chocolate mint cookies as if they were an adversary far stronger than she. And sure enough before she ran upstairs she grabbed the cookies. Right now she was probably devouring them two at a time, as out of control as a leaf on a windy day.
Richard maneuvered himself toward the living room. When he got to the stairs, he grabbed the banister and pulled himself up. Taking two steps was like trying to drive a car with one tire, but he forced himself to make the effort. He pulled a T-shirt out of the chest by his bed and pulled it on over his bedgown, easing the paralyzed arm in first. Then he dropped back on his bed and pulled on jeans. His morning work completed, he jerked his chair over by the patio door and watched a blue jay dive onto the patio. The jay’s breast was a solid, elegant blue, but his tail was a mottled mix of blue, black, and white that reminded Richard of a loud polyester shirt Jetlag had once owned. All of a sudden he ached with loneliness. Seeking a remedy, he turned on the TV.
When Cheryl came downstairs, she had a crease running down the side of her face. It looked almost like a scar. Richard switched off the Love Boat rerun and gave her a kind smile. He wondered if she missed her friends from work. Maybe soon they could invite people over.
“Want to go outside?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
She pointed to the patio.
“No. Out front.” He liked it better out there, especially now that Al had built him a wooden ramp. Besides, there was more to watch.
He maneuvered himself into the sun, then waved at an elderly man carrying a sack of garbage to the Dempster Dumpster.
Cheryl remained standing on the sidewalk, squinting up at the sun. She looked lost. He pointed to the empty space beside him and said, “Get a chair and come sit with me.”
“The sun isn’t good for me.” But she nonetheless went inside and returned carrying a folding lawn chair.
She stretched her pale legs out in front of her, stared at her aging green car, and sighed loudly. “I guess I’ll have to find a mechanic. Can’t very well expect Al to take care of it anymore.”
“He’ll still work on it.”
She turned and gave him an accusing look. “Is that why you gave him the dog? To keep him in the family?”
Damn her! Would she never abandon the subject of the dog? He thought she would be so relieved to see Heinz obediently hop into Al’s truck. He supposed the problem was that he had not consulted with her first. “Al’s up there all by himself,” he explained. “I have you.”
That appeared to satisfy her. She nodded and changed the subject. “Next month I have to go back to work.”
He didn’t think that would be such a tragedy. He, at least, would get to see her in a dress again. Except for Mrs. Valerino’s funeral, all she had worn for the last month were jeans or cutoffs and T-shirts. Though he had to admit, she was beginning to look better in them. Her contours were changing. She no longer resembled the little fat girl. She looked … He turned, gave her an appraising glance and the right word came to him. She looked stacked.
Cheryl, unsettled by his mystifying scrutiny, got up to go inside. The chair had left wafflelike prints on the backs of her legs. “I’m going in to get us some books.” She returned with a Regency romance for herself and a large-print mystery for him.
His vision was no longer impaired. He wasn’t sure why she continued to bring him large-print books. But the big print did make every book look weighty and important. This skimpy whodunit was about the same size as War and Peace. Genre fiction had never really interested him, and he found himself reverting to the reading habits he had at fifteen, flipping through and only concentrating on sexy stuff. Mostly, though, he watched the passersby.
A wedding party drove past, honking their horns exuberantly. A piece of crepe paper came off the lead car, hung suspended in the air for a moment, then plopped on the ground, snakelike and abandoned.
Richard looked over at Cheryl. He wondered if she, too, was struck by the contrast between this boisterous wedding and her own. But she was totally absorbed in her book. He had scanned a couple of her romance novels, but even if he hadn’t, he would have discerned pretty accurately how the protagonists acted. Following an afternoon of reading, Cheryl often took on the characteristics of one of the heroines.
She usually ended up with a strong desire to arrange flowers. Which wasn’t easy, because she hadn’t planted anything in the flower beds. When Rose lived here, he bet, the beds had been full of zinnias and pansies. Now all that bloomed were the rhododendron.
So Cheryl was forced to buy a prewrapped two-dollar arrangement at the grocery store. But that wasn’t really inconvenient, because the people in her novel ate well, too. So Cheryl generally found herself shopping for groceries anyway. After she immersed herself in Summer Rendezvous or Dangerous Partings, though, the tinfoil-wrapped hamburger patties in the freezer quickly lost their appeal. Seafood or Cornish game hens and fruit-filled turnovers seemed more appropriate.
Tonight she came back with chicken breasts and two carnations wrapped in green paper. After plopping the baby’s breath and carnations in a vase, she fixed cocktails, a British custom, though she and Richard both preferred wine.
Richard sipped at his martini and watched her ready the chicken for the oven. Her stay in the sun must have calmed her because she moved slowly and looked uncharacteristically content. Her legs, however, had turned a painful scarlet.
“You’re really sunburnt.”
She looked down, shrugged, and smiled.
“Doesn’t it hurt?”
She poured dry vermouth on the chicken before answering. “No. I’m fine.”
Richard decided that the cook’s state of mind must directly influence the food. This was her best meal ever. The chicken was succulent. But what was exceptional was the lemon-mushroom sauce that accompanied it.
“With the sunburn and all, I feel like I’m on vacation on some island.”
Cheryl, who never allowed herself to eat normal meals, got up for seconds.
Pleased to see her enjoying food, Richard reached over to touch her. But the phone rang and she leapt up for it, leaving him with his arm in midair.
“Oh, fine,” she confirmed to the receiver. Then she stretched out the extra-long cord and walked into the living room.
Why can’t she talk in the kitchen? Richard wondered. Though he couldn’t see her, he could still hear her.
“Yeah, we’ll be home. Okay, then. We’ll see you around 8:30.”
He hoped Al was bringing Heinz over, or that Rose was finally letting them know where she was. But when Cheryl slammed the phone into the cradle and started to sob, he knew it wasn’t Rose or Al. “He’s bringing June here. To this house!”
“Who is?”
“Stu. They’re bringing us a wedding present.”
It sounded like a nice gesture. He couldn’t understand why she was so upset.
She sniffed and stared down at her sunburnt legs, then voiced the real problem. “I look terrible—like a fat old lobster. I haven’t got anything to serve them either. I only bought a package of two apple turnovers.”
He tried to be patient, even if she had just handed him a heck of an insult. She never cared how she looked in front of him. Patience. Patience! When he gathered his self-control, he said, “I think there’s a cake in the freezer. We can serve it with coffee.”
“I don’t remember any cake.” She opened the freezer and pulled out a Pepperidge Farm chocolate cake and slammed it on the counter. “You’re right.” Then she frowned at the clock. “Are you all set here? I’ve got to wash my hair.”
Cheryl not only washed her hair, she changed into a green and white dress so low-cut that when she leaned over he could see the tiny satin bow on her brassiere. It was prettier than what she had worn to their wedding. A pair of navy slacks and a white shirt were slung over her arm. “You better change.”
“I’m all right.”
“Please.” She seemed on the brink of tears again.
To keep peace, he lay back on his bed and slowly pulled on the slacks. Was this tactless or what—asking him to go to all this trouble for her ex-husband? But he kept quiet about it. He didn’t want a scene right before they were expecting company. They didn’t get that much company.
The Freedmans came in jeans. Cheryl may have felt overdressed, because after ushering them in, she disappeared in the kitchen for a long time.
Stu set down a large, brightly wrapped package and gave Richard a professional handshake. “How are you? You’re looking good.”
His wife offered a sincere smile and a tiny hand, embellished only by a slim gold band. Brittly thin and slightly older than Stu, she radiated kindness. Her hair was long, full, and shoe-polish black. Strictly from a bottle, Richard mused. She picked a pillow off the couch and admired it. “Cheryl does crewel work?”
“No. My mother-in-law. She lived here after her first husband died.” Now she lived in a budget motel. He quickly got off the subject of Rose by fixing the Freedmans with a pleasant smile. “Do you work, June?” he asked.
She pushed herself back into the couch and nodded. “I’m a mental health nurse. That’s how I met Stu. We both worked at the Highland Mental Health Center.” Realizing she had embarked on a sensitive discussion, she flushed and began to fiddle with the fringe on the pillow, looking up once to give him a shy smile.
Her front teeth crossed, an indication she didn’t come from money. She looked as if she didn’t sleep well, maybe even roamed the house at night, wondering how much she had hurt another woman. Now she had come to make peace.
She couldn’t know that it was impossible, that Cheryl collected and saved slights—mean mother, dead father, no-future job, unfaithful husband. Richard had heard it all when he was in the nursing home. If he were more dependent, she might try to add him to her list as crippled husband. But he wouldn’t let that happen. No way. Marrying him was one of the few positive things she had ever done.
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