If Adrian was damaged goods, the harm was manageable. The woman carried herself with a grace that affirmed her indomitable resilience. At one point shortly before he left the apartment, Jason watched as his old friend rinsed the cups at the sink. Having worked all day at the nursing home, her features were haggard and drawn. Finished, she turned and smiled. It was the same irrepressible impishness. Whatever had happened—and Jason had utterly no desire to learn more—her spirit remained intact.
Friday night, Jason picked up Mrs. Pollack’s daughter, Samantha, at her condominium. She was medium height with brown eyes to complement chestnut hair and long, sinewy legs. They drove north on route three to Boston where Jason had reservations at a steak house off Commonwealth Ave.
“Waitress! Waitress!” Samantha half rose from her seat and was snapping her fingers energetically. “The silverware’s covered with water spots. Please remove it.” Jason studied the plates and tableware. The utensils seemed perfectly clean. Jason looked a second time. A dusky film was just barely noticeable on the tangs of his fork. Not dirt, per se, just a tiny smudge of detergent residue. The waitress, a bleary-eyes college girl stared at the woman uncertainly, then with a sullen expression picked up the entire place setting and hurried off. A minute later she returned with a replacement. Samantha stared at each utensil for a good ten seconds before dismissing the girl with a curt nod of her head.
Okay. We’re off to a rollicking good start. Don’t freak out. No need to hyperventilate or order a double martini. Not yet, at least.
“You’re an accountant?”
“With a firm in Copley Square,” Jason replied.
The waitress returned and took their orders. “I think we may have done some business with your company in the past.”
Small talk. After the silverware fiasco, Jason wasn’t sure where to begin. “I met an old friend from elementary school,” he ventured haltingly. Without mentioning her precipitous fall from grace, he told Samantha about Adrian Flanagan, Mitzi, the trailer-park-trash pooch and his friend’s homemade dog food. “Adrian’s finally pulling her life together.”
Sipping at a glass of Chablis, Samantha’s features contorted in a disagreeable expression. “Unfortunately, she’s got a dead end job and no family support. Come back in a dozen years and your friend from elementary school will still be emptying bedpans. For ninety per cent of the populace, the great unwashed, free will is nothing more than a comforting illusion.”
The great unwashed. Jason Mangarelli, who had been fiddling with his linen napkin, peered leadenly across the table at his date. Samantha Pollack was grinning smugly, obviously pleased with her clever repartee. To be sure, the dynamic business consultant and motivational speaker had little interest in the likes of Adrian Flanagan. Both Adrian and her scruffy pooch lacked pedigree. They didn’t measure up.
“Of course,” Samantha picked up the thread of her previous remark, “your friend could parlay her cooking skills into a moneymaking venture with a line of organic pet foods. But that presupposes she has the mental discipline, marketing savvy and innate intelligence to make a go of it.”
“Yes, that’s true.” Samantha Pollack, Jason mused, was about as much fun as a latex allergy. It would never occur to her that Adrian cooked as labor of love with absolutely no ulterior motive. Or that, because of her own unfortunate childhood, Adrian might feel a vague affinity for a bedraggled reject like Mitzi, the malnourished trailer park puppy.
“The guy who founded Dominoes Pizza,” Jason added with fading enthusiasm, “never even graduated from high school.”
“Your point?”
“Everybody measures personal fulfillment differently. An MBA degree and fat bank account don’t necessarily guarantee happiness.”
Samantha Pollack sat up straighter in the chair so that her low slung, black shell showcased her full figure to best advantage. She cracked a superior smile. “I wish your friend well, but I certainly don’t envy her personal circumstances.” It was clear by the curt nature of her response, that there would be no further discussion of either Adrian Flanagan or niche-marketed, organic dog food.
Beeeep! A cell phone with Beethoven's Fifth as the ring tone twittered and Samantha reached for her handbag. When she finished with the call, she said, “A speaking engagement for one of our Connecticut corporate accounts, a heavy hitter.” She said coyly. “Hope you don’t mind.”
“No, not at all.” Jason had two more bites left on his filet mignon plus a forkful of butternut squash laced with cinnamon and honey. Like Chinese water torture, dessert would drag on for another twenty minutes or so, and then a movie where he could sit in the dark spared the agony of idle chatter. Then home. Home to the safe haven of his parents’ residence, where he would take a vow of lifelong celibacy. Under certain circumstances, a chaste life wasn’t necessarily a burden. Jason smiled at Samantha Pollack and the business entrepreneur who drove a fully-loaded, seventy-thousand dollar, Jaguar XK-series, had no use for ineffectual losers and sported knockers out to there, winked suggestively.
When Jason arrived at Adrian’s apartment the following Saturday, she was already laying vegetables out on the kitchen counter. “Here, put this in the microwave,” she handed him a lumpy sweet potato and set the timer for six minutes.” Covering the bottom of a skillet with a tablespoon of canola oil, she began browning a pound of ground turkey.”
“I had a date the other night.” He told her about Samantha Pollack.
“Planning see her again?”
Jason’s eyebrows dipped. “Sooner join the marines and serve in Iraq.”
“I’ll take that for a no.” She had Jason dice some carrots. When the turkey was almost done she drained the grease and added an apple which she cut up in small, bite-size chunks.
“What’s that for?”
“Roughage and flavor,” Adrian replied and seated a cover over the skillet so that the various juices would blend and meld together. She set a pot of water on the stove. “Measure out a cup of the bowtie macaroni,” she instructed, “and when the water comes to full boil, cook the pasta, al dente, for twelve minutes.”
“Interesting choice.” Jason indicated an herb Adrian had retrieved from the vegetable bin.
“The secret ingredient.”
“Which is?”
“If I told you, it wouldn’t be a secret, would it?” She tossed the meat and caramelized apples into a large bowl then mixed the steamy food with a can of sweet peas and corn.
“Joseph’s biblical coat of many colors,” Jason chuckled when all the ingredients were finally heaped together.
Adrian leaned back on her heels with her shoulders resting against his chest. She wore a pair of jeans and a cotton blouse, but no lipstick or makeup, not that she needed any with her flawless, coppery skin. “Dogs taste with their noses not their tongues. It’s the irresistible smells that drive them wild.” She leaned even further back and smiled with satisfaction.
When they reached Mrs. Galway’s home, Jeremiah, the beagle in question, needed little convincing. As soon as his mistress placed the bowl on the floor next to his bed, the dog raised its head and sniffed the air diffidently. Adrian dropped down on her haunches next to the animal and held a pebble-sized clot of turkey under the dog’s nose. Jeremiah sniffed once. Twice. He crooked his head to one side and teased the food from her fingers.
She offered an orangey wad of sweet potato. Again the same ritual until finally the dog rose on stiff hindquarters. Lumbering gingerly over to the bowl of warm food, Jeremiah lowered his head and didn’t come up for air until the bottom was licked clean. Mrs. Galway heaped the bowl with a second helping, the dog polished off the offering then laid down on its bed and drifted off to sleep. “It’s like a miracle,” the old woman whispered. “How can I thank you?”
Adrian pressed out the excess air in the Tupperware container and placed it on the middle shelf of the refrigerator. “Give me a piece of pap
er and I’ll write out the recipe.” She gestured in the direction of the refrigerator. “There’s enough to last three days. You can substitute hamburger, veal or boiled chicken in place of the turkey. Whatever Jeremiah prefers.”
“Any particular cut of chicken?” Mrs. Galway asked.
“Legs or thighs preferably. Dark meat’s more nutritious.” From the next room, they could hear the muffled sound of Jeremiah snoring.
“I’m going to rent my own place after the beginning of the year,” Jason said. They had arrived back at Adrian’s apartment. “A one bedroom preferably in the Back Bay closer to where I work.”
Adrian nodded and her lips compressed in a thin sliver of a smile. “When you relocate to Bean Town, I hope you won’t abandon your long lost friend.”
Jason felt a wretched tightening in his throat and had to collect himself before replying. “Actually, I was hoping we might pick up where we left off.”
“I have to take Mitzi for a walk, if you’d like to join us.” The air had turned fitfully colder, a dry, chilly breeze, more wintry than falllish. “A very short walk.”
Jason shook his head up and down, an utterly infantile gesture. He would have preferred to say something but his tongue simply couldn’t negotiate the language. As Adrian explained it, the cartilage in Mitzi’s left hind knee cap had recently separated from the bone causing the leg to unexpectedly give way and curl under. At such times the bowlegged dog would flop down and refuse to budge until the floating kneecap drifted back into proper alignment. The vet prescribed glucosamine, which Adrian ground up each morning with a mortar and pestle.
“Ruth Handler invented the Barbie doll.” Jason blurted, a total non-sequitor.
Adrian, who was fixing the walking harness around Mitzi’s chest, looked up. “Is there any particular reason you’re telling me this?”
“During a European trip in 1956,” he conveniently ignored the question, “Handler came across a German doll named Bild Lilli. The chesty novelty item wasn’t exactly what Handler had in mind for a new product, but she purchased three of them anyway.”
“Bild Lilli?”
“It was based on a popular comic strip character. Lilli was a working girl who knew what she wanted and was not above using men to get it.” “Initially the executives at Mattel where Handler worked didn’t like the idea so she put up her own money to bring the doll to market.” Out in the street a fire truck raced by, siren blaring. “The doll made its debut at the American International Toy Fair in New York and sold three hundred fifty thousand the first year.”
“Not bad for a woman with a checkered past.” Mitzi was prancing and yipping loudly. “Nice story but my dog needs her exercise.”
Jason leaned forward and brushed Adrian's cheek with a casual kiss not unlike the one he received a week earlier in the nursing home. “Yes, the dog.”
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The Legacy
The quarter-sawn, white oak grandfather clock in the lobby chimed eight o’clock as Benny arrived at the Brandenberg Public Library. Mounting the steps two at a time, he hurried directly to the second floor reading room, where students of various ages were already milling about, a heap of manuscripts splayed across the mahogany conference table. This was Benny’s sixth season teaching the creative writing course sponsored by the humanities council.
“I want you to create a fictional character. Describe what makes the person unique or interesting, boring, obnoxious, petty or heroic.” Professor Epstein began all his workshops with a similar writing exercise, an impromptu flash fiction piece.
“You can describe them physically, then delve into their psyche to reveal hidden pathology or exceptional strengths.” A thirty-something housewife in jeans and plaid blouse, tittered lightly. “Whatever approach you settle on, write quickly and spontaneously. The goal is to get as much black on white as possible - an unfettered stream-of-consciousness rather than polished final draft. The good, the bad and the ugly – we want it all starting …” Benny raised his right hand above his chest and clicked the button on an imaginary stopwatch to signal the beginning of the exercise.
The previous week, Benny called over to Irma Bradshaw’s apartment to let her know that the creative writing class was being cancelled due to the impending nor’easter and parking ban.
“Irma’s not here.” A man’s gruff voice brought him up short. “She’s in the hospital.”
“Nothing serious I hope.” The remark was more a matter of polite formality than sincere concern. No one in the writing group had much use for Irma. The woman was a royal pain in the ass.
“I’m her brother,” The man replied. “Her cancer’s back. She’s being discharged home around the end of the week. Doctor’s give her a month to six weeks.”
While Benny was fumbling with a mishmash of fractured thoughts and emotions, the brother added, “If you could remember my sister in your prayers …”
If you could remember my sister in your prayers … Scanning the faces scattered about the room, he couldn’t get his mind off the brother’s final words. The empty seat, second from the right, could have been draped in black for the chilling effect it had on him. Benny could picture Irma Bradshaw, the retired school nurse, sitting with her knobby, arthritic hands folded in her lap and head down, oblivious to the others. He knew the bony, six-foot woman with the dishwater eyes from four, previous workshops. Armed with sadistic wit and mediocre talent, she took great pleasure eviscerating the younger students. Her malicious subterfuge carried out under the guise of constructive criticism. Benny had to rein her in early on at every session she attended. He shuddered fitfully and shook his head, a reflexive gesture, causing several students to glance up inquiringly from their work.
Later that night at home, Benny told his wife, Thelma, about Irma’s misfortune. “That’s the older woman you never liked.”
“Yes, that’s true,” he replied. “But Irma was a devoted member of the writing group over several years. I ought to do something.”
“Like what?”
“Not sure. Haven’t thought that far ahead.” Benny felt stupid, thoroughly out of his element. “Maybe go see her when she gets home from the hospital.”
“And what would that accomplish?”
Benny glowered at his wife. “Aren’t you the fountain of human sympathy?”
“Don’t be a hypocrite,” she replied coolly, “This is a woman for whom you never had a kind word. Now she’s dying and you’re feeling what? Guilt? Remorse?”
Benny threw his hands up in the air, a futile gesture, and retreated to his study. What was it he resented about Thelma’s terse commentary? Everything she said was brutally accurate. Earlier that evening, toward the end of the writing workshop, he announced, “I recently learned that Irma Bradshaw is quite ill.” Then, as an afterthought, he repeated what the brother had said. “Perhaps you could remember Irma in your prayers.”
The news was greeted with abject boredom. A Hispanic girl cracked her knuckles. Another classmate glanced at the empty seat for a fraction of a second, then yawned and picked at a cuticle. As the students filed out of the meeting room on the second floor landing, Benny lingered near the front of the room, waiting to see if anyone cared to learn more about Irma’s situation, but, one by one, they filed out the door to the upper landing. Totally alone, a silly anecdote he stumbled across the previous winter came to mind.
Two aspiring poets meet after not seeing each other for a while. “So how you been?”
“Good. Real good. And you?”
“My grandmother died last week – dropped dead of a heart attack.”
“Bummer, dude!”
“And, worse yet, I had to shell out eighty bucks on a black suit for the lousy funeral.”
“That sucks!”
“Yeah, but I got a poem out of it, so it wasn’t a complete waste.”
On Thursday after Benny finished classes he drove across town to the Meadowlark Condominiu
m complex. A chubby, blond-haired woman dressed in white scrubs answered the door. “Can I help you?”
“I’m here to see Irma,” Benny said, lingering out in the hallway.
The woman swung the door wide. “She’ll be so happy to see you.”
In the bedroom, Irma Bradshaw was lying propped up in a hospital bed with rails. A plastic catheter running beneath the covers disappeared into a collection bag hanging from the side of the bed.
“You’ve got company.” The nurse fluffed an extra pillow, wedging it between her bony shoulder blades. The tall woman, who had always been painfully thin, was utterly emaciated now—the pallid cheeks sunken, the watery, pale blue eyes hollow and grim.
“So nice of you to come,” she spoke listlessly. Her skinny fingers fluttered over the top of the bed sheet as though she were composing at an invisible keyboard.
“We missed you at the writing group last week.”
“Well, needless-to-say I wasn’t up to it.”
Benny sat down in a chair by the bed. “We discussed one of Berryman’s Dreamsongs at the end of class.”
There was a long pause. He wasn’t sure if she heard or even understood what he had said. “Most of those poems,” her voice was tinged with an ethereal sadness. “are so private as to be almost unintelligible. Even literary scholars have trouble making sense of Berryman’s verse.” Irma ran a tongue over chapped lips. “I was never big,” she added as an afterthought, “on that ‘confessional’ school of poetry that was all the rage back in the hippy-dippy sixties. Too much verbal diarrhea and histrionics.”
Say what you will about the cantankerous woman, Irma Bradshaw certainly knew American literature through and through. Benny, too, had been relatively unimpressed by the neurotic kvetching of the confessional poets. Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell, Theodore Roethke, Anne Sexton – with the lone exception of Berryman, he had grown beyond their neuroticism and emotional excesses.