“I thought so, too.”
“Lisa could do worse.”
“She's very happy, and after seeing Mark with his family I have no objection whatsoever to their marriage.”
Each ensuing silence became more awkward. “So, how's Randy today?” Michael asked.
“I haven't seen much of him. We went to church and he left right afterwards to watch the game with his friend.”
“Did he say anything last night?”
“About what?”
“About us.”
“Yes he did, as a matter of fact. He said he hoped you wouldn't make a fool out of me again. Listen, Michael, is there something in particular you wanted, because I brought some work home to do this evening and I'd like to get back to it.”
“I thought you wanted us to be civil to each other for the kids' sake.”
“I did. I do but—”
“Then give me a minute here, will you, Bess! I'm making the effort to call you and you start slinging insults!”
“You asked me what Randy said and I told you!”
“All right . . .” He calmed himself. “All right, let's just forget it. I'm sorry I asked about him, and besides I called for something else.”
“What?”
“I want to hire you.”
“To do what?”
“To decorate my condo.”
She paused a beat, then burst out laughing. “Oh, Michael, that's so funny!”
“What's so funny about it?”
“You want to hire me to decorate your condo?”
His mouth got tight. “Yes, I do.”
“Are you forgetting how you railed against my going to school to get my degree?”
“That was then, this is now. I need a decorator. Do you want the job or not?”
“First of all, let's get one thing straight, something you apparently never caught the first time around. I'm not a decorator, I'm an interior designer.”
“There's a difference?”
“Anybody who owns a paint store can call himself a decorator. I'm a U of M graduate with a four-year degree and I'm accredited by the FIDER. Yes, there's a difference.”
“All right, I apologize. I won't make that mistake again. Madame Interior Designer, would you care to design the interior of my condo?” he asked snidely.
“I'm no fool, Michael. I'm a businesswoman. I'll be happy to set up a house call. There's a one-time forty-dollar trip charge for that, which I'll apply to the cost of any furniture you might order.”
“I think I can handle that.”
“Very well, my calendar is at the store but I know I have next Friday morning open. How does that sound?”
“Fine.”
“Just so you'll know what to expect, the house call is primarily a question-and-answer period so that I can get to know your tastes, budget, life-style, things like that. I won't be bringing any samples or catalogs with me at this time. That'll all come later. During this initial visit we'll just talk and I'll take notes. Will there be anyone else living in the condo with you?”
“For God's sake, Bess—”
“It's part of my job as a professional to ask, because if there will be, it's best to have everybody present at this first consultation and get everybody's input at the start. It eliminates problems later when the one who wasn't there says, ‘Wait a minute! You know how I hate blue!' Or yellow, or African masks or glass-top tables. Sometimes we hear things like, ‘What happened to Great-Aunt Myrtle's lamp made out of the shrunken head?' You'd be surprised what rhubarbs can come up over taste.”
“No, there won't be anyone else living here with me.”
“Good, that simplifies matters. We'll make it Friday morning at nine, then, if that's agreeable.”
“Nine is good. I'll tell you how to get here.”
“I already know.”
“You do?”
“Randy pointed it out to me.”
“Oh.” For a moment he'd flattered himself thinking she'd taken the trouble to look it up after he gave her his card. “There's a security system, so just call up from the lobby.”
“I will.”
“Well, I'll see you Friday, then.”
“Yes.” She ended the conversation without either stumble or halt.
“Good-bye, Michael.”
“Good-bye.”
When he'd hung up Michael sat on the edge of his mattress, scowling. “Whoa! Madame Businesswoman!” he said aloud, eyeing the phone.
The place seemed quiet after his outburst. The furnace clicked on and started the fan quietly wheezing through the vents. The night pressed black against his curtainless windows. The ceiling fixture sent harsh light over the room. He fell back with his hands behind his neck. A knot of jumbled bedding created an uncomfortable lump beneath him. He moved off it, still scowling.
This is probably a mistake, he thought.
When Bess hung up, she thought about the infamous decorating Doris Day had perpetrated on Rock Hudson's apartment in Pillow Talk. Ah, those red-velour tassles, those chartreuse draperies, that moose head, the orange player piano, beaded curtains, fertility gods, potbellied stove and the chair made of antlers . . .
It was tempting.
Definitely tempting.
* * *
The following evening Lisa went home to Stillwater to try on her mother's wedding dress. It was stored in the basement in a windowless space beside the laundry room, inside a plastic bag hanging from the ceiling joists. They went down together. Bess pulled the chain on a light switch and a bare 40-watt bulb smeared murky yellow smudge over the crowded cubicle. Its walls were the backside of the adjacent rooms, giving a view of two-by-fours and untaped Sheetrock. It smelled like fresh mushrooms.
Bess glanced around and shivered, then looked up at the row of shrouded garments.
“I don't think either one of us can reach. There's a step stool in the laundry room, Lisa, would you get it?”
While Lisa went to find the stool, Bess began moving aside boxes and baby furniture, a badminton net, a case holding a twenty-five-dollar guitar they'd bought for Randy when he was twelve, before he'd discovered his true love was drumming. Some of the cardboard boxes were labeled—Baby Clothes, Lisa's Dolls, Games, School Papers—representing many years' accumulation of memories.
Lisa returned and while Bess forced the legs of the stool into the tight space among the boxes, Lisa opened one of them.
“Oh, Mom, look . . .” Lisa took out a cigar box and from it drew a school picture of herself. In it she was missing both incisors and her hair was parted on one side, slicked to the opposite side and held in place with a barrette. “Second grade, Miss Peal. Donny Carry said he loved me and put those little heart-shaped candies on my desk every morning, with a different message on every one. Be mine. Cool babe. I was a real heartbreaker, wasn't I?”
Bess viewed the picture. “Oh, I remember that dress. Grandma Dorner gave it to you for Christmas and you always wore it with red tights and patent-leather shoes.”
“Dad used to call me his little elf whenever I wore it.”
Bess said, “It's cold down here. Let's get the dress and go upstairs.”
Bess carried the bridal gown and Lisa took the cigar box, glancing through report cards, old, curled pictures and notes from her childhood friends as the two women climbed the stairs. Bess went outside on the front stoop, stripped the dusty plastic bag off the wedding dress and gave it a shake. She carried it upstairs to find Lisa in her old room, sitting cross-legged on the bed.
“Look at this one,” Lisa said, and Bess sank down beside her with the gown doubled over on her lap. “It's a note from Patty Larson. ‘Dear Lisa, Meet me in the empty lot after lunch and bring your Melody doll and all your Barbies and we'll put on a concert.' Remember how Patty and I used to do that all the time? We had these little penlights and we'd pretend they were microphones, and we'd set up all our dolls as our audience and sing our lungs out.” Lisa extended her arms, clicked her fingers and sang a couple
of lines from “Don't Go Breaking My Heart.” She ended with a laugh that softened to a nostalgic note. “I remember once when we put on a show for you and Dad wearing some of her sister's dance costumes. We made up little tickets and charged you admission.”
Bess remembered, too. Sitting beside Lisa, freeing the buttons on the back of her wedding dress, she remembered altogether too well those happier days, before her and Michael's troubles had begun. Though she could feel nostalgic at moments such as this, she was a realist who knew these flashes were momentary. She and Michael would never be husband and wife again, much as Lisa wished it.
“Why don't you try the dress on, honey?” she said gently.
Lisa set aside the cigar box and got off the bed. Bess stood behind her and forced twenty satin loops around twenty pearl buttons up the back of the dress while Lisa studied the results in the dresser mirror.
“It's going to fit,” Lisa said.
“I was a size ten back then. You're a size eight. Even if you get a little tummy in the next few weeks there shouldn't be any problem.”
Both of them studied Lisa's reflection. The dress had a beaded stand-up collar above a V-shaped lace bodice that ended with a point on the stomach. It had elbow-length pouf sleeves, a full satin skirt and train trimmed with beadwork and sequins. Though it was wrinkled, it hadn't discolored. “It's still beautiful, isn't it, Mom?”
“Yes, it is. I remember the day my mother said I could buy it, how excited I was. Naturally, it was one of the most expensive ones in the store, and I thought she'd say no but you know Grandma. She was always so crazy about your dad she'd have said yes to anything once she heard the news that I was going to marry him.”
Without warning Lisa spun from the mirror and headed for the door. “Wait a minute!” she called as she disappeared.
“Where are you going?”
“Be right back. Stay there!”
Lisa thumped downstairs in her stocking feet and returned in a minute making a high-energy entrance, then dropping to the bed in a swish of wrinkled satin with a photo album on her lap.
“It was right where it always used to be in the bookshelves in the living room,” she said breathlessly.
“Oh, Lisa, not those old things.” Lisa had brought Bess and Michael's wedding album.
“Why not these old things? I want to see them.”
“Lisa, that's wishful thinking.”
“I want to see how you looked in the dress.”
“You want to see things the way they used to be but that part of our lives is over. Dad and I are divorced and we're staying that way.”
“Oh, look . . .” Lisa opened the album. There were Michael and Bess, close up, with their cheeks touching and her bouquet and veil forming an aureole around them. “Gol, Mom, you were just beautiful, and Dad . . . wow, look at him.”
The photo caught at Bess's heart while she sat beside her daughter searching for the perfect balance in her response to Lisa. She had been bitter too long and was learning the hurt it had caused her children. At this turning point in her life, Lisa needed this foray into the past. To deny her the freedom of exploring it was to deny a certain part of her heritage. At the same time, allowing her to believe there was a chance of reconciliation between her parents was sheer folly.
“Lisa, dear . . .” Bess took her hand. Lisa looked into Bess's eyes. “Your dad and I had some wonderful years.”
“I know. I remember a lot of them.”
“I wish we could have made a happier ending for you but it didn't work out that way. I want you to know, though, that I'm glad you forced us to confront each other. It's making me take a second look at myself, which I needed, and even though your dad and I aren't getting back together, it feels much better to be his ex-wife without so much animosity between us.”
“But Dad said you looked great the night of the dinner.”
“Lisa, darling . . . don't. You're pinning your hopes on nothing.”
“Well, what are you going to do, marry Keith? Mom, he's such a dork.”
“Who said anything about marrying anybody? I'm happy as I am. I'm healthy, the business is going good, I keep busy, I have you and Randy—”
“And what about when Randy decides to grow up? What about when he moves out?” Lisa gestured at the walls. “You going to stay in this big old empty house alone?”
“I'll decide that when the time comes.”
“Mom, just promise me one thing—if Dad makes a play for you, or if he asks you out or something, you won't get all pissed off and slug him or anything, will you? Because I think he's going to do it. I saw how he looked at you the other night, while you two were sitting down there at your end of the table—”
“Lisa—”
“—and you're still quite a looker, Ma—”
“Lisa!”
“—and as for Dad, he's one of the truly excellent men around. Even when he was married to that dumb Darla I thought so. You know, Ma, you could do worse.”
“I'm not going to talk about it, and I wish you wouldn't.”
Lisa left soon thereafter, taking the dress with her to drop at the dry cleaner's. After seeing her out, Bess returned upstairs to turn out the light in Lisa's old room. There on the bed lay the wedding album, bound in white leather and stamped in gold: BESS & MICHAEL CURRAN, JUNE 8, 1968.
The room still seemed to retain the musty smell of the bridal gown and the cigar box, which Lisa had left behind. A fitting smell, Bess thought, for the marriage that had turned to must.
She dropped to the bed, braced a hand beside the album and slowly flipped its pages.
Thoughtful.
Nostalgic.
Alternately relishing and ruing while the diametrically opposed wishes of her two children tugged her in opposite directions—Randy, the bitter; Lisa, the romantic.
She closed the book and fell back on the bed with one wrist across her waist. Outside somebody's dog yapped to be let in. Down in the kitchen the automatic icemaker switched on and sent the hiss of moving water up the pipes in the wall. Out in the world all around her men and women moved through life two-by-two while she lay on her daughter's bed alone.
This is silly. I have tears in my eyes and a pain in my heart that wasn't there before I entered this room. I've let Lisa put ideas into my head that are based on nothing but her sentimentality. Whatever she thought she detected between Michael and me the other night was strictly her imagination.
She rolled her head and reached out to touch the wedding album.
Or was it?
Chapter 6
SHE WENT TO THE BEAUTY SHOP on Thursday and had her roots bleached, her ends trimmed and her hair styled. She painted her nails that night and spent nearly fifteen minutes deciding what to wear the next morning, choosing a wool crepe dress in squash gold with a tucked waist, tulip-shaped skirt and a wide belt with an oversized gold buckle. In the morning she finished it off with a variegated scarf, gold earrings and a spritz of perfume, then shot a critical glance at the mirror.
You're still quite a looker, Ma.
If, at given moments in her life, Bess Curran had considered herself a looker, she had not done so in the six years since Michael had put her down on that score. The insult lived on each time she looked in a mirror, and no matter what efforts she put into her grooming, at the final moment she always found some detail less than perfect. Usually it was her weight.
Ten pounds, she thought today. Only ten and I'd be where I want to be.
Aggravated with Michael for creating this perennial dissatisfaction and with herself for perpetuating it, she slammed off the light switch and left the room.
She arrived in White Bear Lake with five minutes to spare and approached Michael's condominium doubly impressed, observing it at close range in broad daylight. The sign said CHATEAUGUET. The driveway curved between two giant elms and led through grounds dotted with mature oaks. Closer to the building, a pair of venerable spruce trees stood sentinel beside the doors, taller than the four stories
they guarded. The structure itself was V-shaped and sprawling, of white brick and gray siding, studded with royal-blue awnings. It had underground garages, white balconies, brass carriage lanterns and a lot of glass. On the uppermost floor, the decks and patio doors were topped by roof gables inset with sunburst designs.
But more, it had the lake.
One was conscious of it even from the landward side, and Bess found herself speculating on the view she'd discover when she got inside.
The foyer smelled like scented carpet cleaner, had tastefully papered walls, an elevator and a small bank of mailboxes along with a security phone. She picked it up and rang Michael's unit.
He answered immediately, “'Morning, Bess, is that you?”
“Good morning, yes it is.”
“I'll be right down.”
She heard the elevator hum before its doors split soundlessly and Michael stepped out, wearing gray/black pleated trousers with needle-fine teal stripes, a teal polo shirt with its collar turned up and a finely knit double-breasted sweater in white. His trousers had the gloss of costly fabric, and the polo shirt picked up the exact hue of the stripes. Since becoming an interior designer, Bess noticed things like that. She could spot cheap fabric at twenty paces and clashing colors at fifty. Michael's clothes were well chosen, even the tassled loafers of soft black leather. She wondered who'd chosen them, since Michael was all but color-blind and had always had difficulty coordinating his wardrobe.
“Thanks for coming, Bess,” he said, holding the elevator doors open. “We're going up.”
She stepped aboard and was closed into the four-by-six-foot space with him and the familiar smell of his British Sterling. To dispel the sense of déjà vu she asked, “How do you pronounce the name of this place?”
“Chateau-gay,” he replied. “Back in the 1900s there was a big hotel here by that name, and it was also the name of a racehorse that won the Kentucky Derby years ago.”
“Chateauguet,” she repeated. “I like it.”
They arrived at an upper hall shaped like the one below, and he waved her ahead of himself into the condominium whose door stood open to their right.
She wasn't three feet inside before exhilaration struck. Space! Enough space to make a designer drool! The entry hall was as wide as most bedrooms, carpeted in a grayed mauve. It was totally bare but for a large, contemporary chandelier of smoked glass and brass. Ahead, the foyer widened into a space where a second, matching chandelier created a rich corridor effect.