A Good and Happy Child (11 page)

That’s a little tough on those of us who aren’t perfect,
said one guest in a snide voice, clearly feeling he voiced the majority view.
I suppose you
feel pretty sure of yourself.

I reckon most of us have a little roasting to do before we’re done,
said Clarissa.

But hell or heaven—isn’t that a typical male, black and white view?

It was my mother speaking, her tone, urgent, argumentative—even a touch strangled, as if she felt nervous confronting her friend.
Women
have been disqualified from virtually any role in the church. Why should I
feel an obligation to submit to something that excludes me? Especially if it
means . . . going to hell.

A ripple of agreement passed among some guests. Or perhaps it was the excitement of a crowd at a bullfight—a sitting forward, a watching for first blood.

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Clarissa defused it with an acquiescent gesture.
Joan is our hostess
and gets the last word,
said Clarissa, without a touch of sarcasm.
And all
this talk of hell has made me thirsty. How about another bourbon?
I remember my mother’s face, smiling, gratified, but also tense—some conflict remained unresolved there—merely postponed.

I heard my mother ushering Clarissa into the hall. My door was open. I lay in my pajamas, under the window. Beside me sat a halfempty glass of water and a mostly depleted Tylenol bottle. The voices carried up the stairs.

“George is having some trouble,” my mother whispered.

“What’s the matter?”

“Can you take a look at him?”

“Does he need a doctor?”

“I’d rather start with you.”

“A psychologist?” Clarissa chewed on this. “What about Richard Manning?”

“I’d rather Richard didn’t know.”

There followed a pause.

“I see,” said Clarissa. Then: “Lead the way.”

Clarissa appeared in the doorway a few moments later. In her hand she held a mason jar filled with water, containing a single cut flower: a parrot tulip of flaming orange-pink. She peered at me over her fine, long nose. She rested the flower on my dresser, then sat on the side of my bed.

“Hello, George,” she said.

Clarissa’s examination took only a few minutes. She asked me what had happened; I told her. She observed my back, stomach, and sides. Her reaction was somber, but terse.

“Put some ice on these,” she said with a frown.

“Is that flower for me?” I asked as I pulled my pajamas on again.

“It is,” she replied.

“Why?”

“I haven’t seen you much since your father died,” she said. I did not reply; it was a statement.

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“Thought I’d bring you something, George. Y’ever hear that song,

‘a few of my favorite things’?” She reached out a hand and gently stroked the petals of the parrot tulip. “Grief,” she said, “brings a little bit of twilight to everyone it touches. This is something to remind you of the bright days.” Her eyes fluttered. “Get some sleep now.”

Later, I heard them murmuring in the hall.

“. . . serious bruises,” whispered Clarissa. “You saw them last night?”

“They were welts,” said my mother.

“I don’t know what to tell you.”

Their voices became inaudible, then moments later, sparked back to life.

“
Because,
” my mother was hissing, “Richard’s talking about sending him to
Charlottesville.
I’m not ready for that.”

“Well, the mind can’t make bruises. Either someone did it to him, or he did it to himself.”

“Well, I didn’t do it. And there was no one else here.”

Clarissa seemed to think about this a moment.

“Have you considered telling Tom Harris?”

My mother’s tone became sharp. “Why would I tell Tom Harris?”

“He has had some experience with . . .”

“I know the stories. Why do you think it’s relevant?”

“Just considering the possibility.”

“No, I don’t see that,” said my mother, suddenly cold.

“Tom Harris has helped give advice to the church. He helped some suffering people.”

“I said, forget about that,” snapped my mother. Then in a conciliatory tone: “Let’s not discuss it.” Finally, filling a wounded silence:

“I mean—thank you.”

Moments later they were clumping down the stairs and saying good-bye. After the door closed, I heard my mother heave a deep sigh. That night, she cooked me a “sick dish,” chicken soup with rice and a g o o d a n d h a p p y c h i l d

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lemon. The next day she wrapped me in scarves before sending me to school.

She debated whether to take me to Freddie’s Halloween party. My mother had not missed a single Turnbull party in her entire time in Preston, she admitted, Uncle Freddie’s parties being local legend. She considered the importance of “getting me out” and “cheering me up.”

I begged her to take me. It was the first Halloween party he’d given. Every seventh-grader I knew would be there. Finally, she relented.

“I’m going to do it,” she said at last. “We need to get out, see people, do new things, refresh ourselves. We’ve barely seen another soul, besides at work and school, since your father.” She omitted the word
died.

“We’re going to the Halloween party?”

“Yes, we’re going to the Halloween party.”

But even with the sickness, the sleeplessness, and the imposing presence of my Friend, I still remained focused on my father’s mission. Discovering my father’s letters. Keeping Tom Harris at bay. n o t e b o o k 7

All Hallows’ Eve

Halloween day bloomed into a robust autumn afternoon with a broad sky. My mother and I walked together in Slopers Creek Park, kicking the hedge apples. She must have been thrilled. There was color back in my cheeks; I was practically romping through the yellow grass, picking up stones and throwing them into the creek. Back home, we made costumes for the party. My mother created a ruff collar out of a paper ornament, put me in a black corduroy shirt, rolled up some trousers to make knickers, and popped a black hat of hers on my head: a Dutch trader. She wrapped a scarf over her head and a patterned skirt around her waist, put on beads and a makeup mole: a gypsy. The sun went down. I counted the minutes.

Shivers went up my spine as soon as we approached Rosetta in the car, and the real blackness of night descended over a mild evening. Where we turned into the steep driveway, already crammed with cars, Freddie had placed jack-o’-lanterns on poles, hideous ones with long, stabby teeth and flaming eyes, and even elaborate earholes. “Only Freddie would think of art nouveau pumpkins,” my mother laughed. The windows glowed gold, and promised, with moving shadows and shades of scarlet and white and black, many guests in wild disguises.
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As the main entrance to the house, Freddie’s kitchen was often the hub of the action. Tonight it swirled in chaos. A caterer with black and white cat whiskers noisily dumped a bag of ice into a punch bowl. More helpers, also in face paint, bustled around with trays of apples and nuts and dried fruits and cheeses. In their midst, Freddie, already tipsy, face florid, directed the staff and argued with the head caterer, Abby Gold, who was also his best friend, a diminutive actress in local theater with a sideline in canapés. She was yelling at Freddie.

“Herb chèvre and celery!” she insisted, in the overinflected voice of a thespian. Somewhere behind it, a slight speech impediment, maybe a lisp, had been covered over by careful training. He boomed, “The theme, my dear, is American. Game meats and dried fruits and apples and nuts. Frontier food, corn—”

“There is no corn here, Freddie—”

“More’s the pity. Creamed corn! Delicious!”

“It’s fattening—”

“Oh,
Abby,
” he spat. “You don’t worry about that at a
party!
”

Abby was obsessed with her weight: an actress’s vanity, plus the sensitivity of a woman five feet tall.

“But these low-fat chèvres . . .”

Freddie filled his lungs and bellowed at the staff: “SERVE MY

ENGLISH HUNTSMAN!”

They cringed, then produced a wood platter holding a gigantic wheel of layered cheddar, yellow, and blue cheeses, with a great woodhandled knife thrust into it like Excalibur.

“Beautiful!” he cried. “And push the Hermitage!”

Then he spotted us.

“Joan! George! Perfect timing—the real food is coming out.”

Over the silk pajamas he wore, Freddie had wrapped a long, loose, oriental blanket that must have weighed thirty pounds, and on his head was a turban with a large costume jewel in the center. He was a typhoon of color.

“What do you think?” he said, raising his arms over his head.
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“
Defies description,
is what Lizzie Beard said,” chuckled Abby maliciously.

“Oh,
Abby.
Have some imagination.”

“What are you?” I asked.

“What . . . ,” he sputtered. “I AM A PASHA!”

“What you are is in my way,” grumbled Abby, pushing toward the fridge.

“You’re magnificent, Freddie,” said my mother.

“Thank you, Joan; at last an intelligent woman in my house,” he said, looking sidelong at Abby. “Let’s get a drink in you. And I promised
someone
a sip of wine. Who are you, Hamlet?” he asked me irritably, regarding my costume.

On the way over it had dawned on me that I was wearing a lady’s hat, so I had stowed it, sheepishly, in the car.

“Dutch trader,” I said.

“‘What a rogue and peasant slave am I!’ ” quoted Freddie automatically, and led us into the party. Freddie Turnbull’s manse must have been polished by an army of maids—every surface glimmered. Brass sconces shone under flickering white candles; above us a chandelier sparkled; and the curtains, fourteen feet from ceiling to floor, were drawn back regally from windows that reflected apparitions of every figure within. The dining room table and long marble-topped sideboard groaned with food: two whole roast turkeys and three poached salmon were laid out, partially picked at; bowls of stuffed mushroom caps; spaghetti squash; creamed spinach; roasted chestnuts with their skins cross-hatched and peeled back; carrot salad with raisins; mashed sweet potatoes; and candied apples for dessert. Porcelain plates were stacked next to baskets of napkins and silverware, alongside ice buckets and scotch decanters and scores of wine bottles in rows like artillery shells, waiting to be uncorked by the frantic waiters.

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“Should have used plastic, but what’s the point of drinking good wine out of plastic cups? Should I use Dixie cups and serve wine out of a box? Hot dogs? Oreo cookies? Look at this provender,” he beamed.

“Perfect for a medium-bodied Rhône.”

My mother laughed. Freddie whipped a glass of wine off a passing tray and handed it to me.

“I promised him, Joan,” he said. “I chose this wine with Paul.”

My mother’s cheerful face sank at the name.

“One sip,” she warned me. Then she forced herself to brighten again. “Freddie, the house looks marvelous.”

“Don’t know why I do it. Masochism,” he said. Then he started.

“Christ, the cake!” he moaned, and was off to the kitchen again without another word.

My mother handed me a plate. “Well, do you think we’ll have enough to eat?” she smiled.

Mom and I piled up our plates and stood in the corner, under a seventeenth-century portrait of a fat, scowling burgher in a feathered cap, which bore a passing resemblance to Freddie and which he always jokingly referred to as his ancestor.

“Who’s that?” I asked, indicating a tall man wearing green makeup and plastic Frankenstein bolts emerging quite realistically from his neck.

“That’s Chaz Beaman,” she said. “He’s the director of the theater. Abby hates him.”

“Why?”

“He’s very arrogant,” she said.

“In what way?”

“He thinks he’s a genius.”

“And he’s not?”

“Maybe by Preston standards,” said Mom. “Look at him flirt. Oh!

Shameless.”

We watched him put his arm around a red-haired woman in a white low-slung silk shift with angel wings. Next to them was Eddie
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Pranz, Dean’s father, squinting through his tinted glasses. He was dressed in tweeds and carrying a golf club. He, too, pawed the redhead.

“There’s Dean’s dad,” I said mournfully. “Guess that means Dean is here. Where’s his mom?”

All I knew about Dean’s mom was that she was an exercise nut. Mom took a bite of turkey. “She left.”

“She left the party already?”

“She left Eddie.”

“What do you mean, left?”

“She decided she didn’t want to live with him anymore, so she went off, with some
guy.
She left him with Dean.”

Left him with Dean.
It sounded like a burden. Is that the way my mother thought of me? The way all adults viewed their children?

“You mean they’re divorced?”

“I guess they will eventually.”

“Wow,” I said. “That’s wild.”

“It’s very sad,” corrected my mother. “It must be very hard on them. It might explain why Dean has been such a pill at school.”

I thought about this. “I think he’s just mean.”

“Maybe so.”

“Who’s that lady with them, with the big boobs?”

“They’re called breasts,” Mom said automatically, more mother than feminist poststructuralist, “and I don’t know.”

Suddenly, what looked like a posse of shaggy G-men edged into our view. My mother gaped, then snorted with laughter and nearly choked on her turkey. One of four figures in black suits, with hair combed in a blowsy side part and carrying a toy guitar—whom seconds later I recognized as Clarissa Bing—also began cracking up. Lionel Bing followed, in little round glasses, his white hair swept in similar style. My parents never liked Lionel Bing, a medical doctor some twenty years older than Clarissa with a nasal voice and a pompous manner whom my mother referred to as
perpetually condescending
and my father referred to as
a great fool.
According to my mother, he kept control over the younger Clarissa with a string of phantom maladies, particularly a chronically bad back, all of which he a g o o d a n d h a p p y c h i l d