All Your Pretty Dreams (17 page)

It was the most sisterly
thing Daria had done in years. Isabel didn’t know what to make of
it.

At first Daria talked about
the guy she was seeing— not a boyfriend, she insisted. His name was
Will and he even looked like Princess Diana’s son, handsome and
good-natured. He was an architect, still struggling, still making
lousy money and working horrendous hours. Dating him was an
exercise in futility, Daria claimed, as he was always canceling
because he had to work late.

Daria downed another shot.
Eventually she came to the point. She was to be a bridesmaid,
again. Her fifth time in two years. Her best friend Lily was
getting married at Christmas. Hardly any time to do all the maid of
honor crap! Parties to arrange, dresses to order, people to cajole,
caterers, favors, et cetera, et cetera. And new bachelorette party
ideas? All known themes had been done to death.

Lily probably didn’t care
about that, Isabel tried to tell her. She just wanted her best
friend to help her with her wedding. But Daria wasn’t having it.
She had a reputation for creativity. She had to have something
surprising and innovative for dearest Lily.

“
You’re the only one I can
tell all this,” Daria said, flinging herself horizontal. “Because
you don’t care.”

“
I like Lily,” Isabel
said. She was one of the few friends of Daria she could honestly
say that about. Lily was an old friend, loyal and fairly
normal.

“
I mean the wedding stuff.
You don’t care if she has a pink theme, or a polka dot theme, or
hot guys jump out of a cake, or— what was Andrea’s? Oh yeah, gay
belly dancers in drag— or no theme at all.”

“
She could do everybody a
favor and elope like Alec and whatsherface.”

Daria shot her a look.
“Let’s not talk about
them
.” Another sigh. “I’ll probably
never get married.”

“
Of course you
will.”

“
You haven’t been around.”
Daria tapped the tequila bottle with her nails. “Edie scares them
all away. They look at her and their eyes go wide with horror. They
think, that’s what Daria is going to be like in twenty years. And
they run for the door. Fast.” She rolled over to face Isabel. “You
figured that out years ago, didn’t you?”

“
Except for Alec. He was
weirdly turned on by Edie and Max.”

“
A very good reason for
dumping him.”

This whole discussion was
very un-Daria. What had brought on this crisis in confidence?
Isabel always thought Edie and Daria so close in temperament, shoe
obsessions, and everything else.

“
Mother isn’t taking
Egon’s dying very well, you know,” Daria said. “I caught her crying
in the morning. In the kitchen.”

“
Shocking. In front of the
staff?”

“
Of course not.” Daria
grinned and swatted her. “You’re so bad. She puts up a good front
most of the time.”

“
I didn’t think there was
anything but ice behind the front.”

Late into the night, as
they lay under the covers, Isabel asked Daria exactly why she made
the tequila run here to Dogpatch, Minnesota. It couldn’t be just
the bridesmaid problem. The truth came out. The
boyfriend-by-any-other-name had flown off to LA at the last minute
for a presentation to a client, with his boss. A woman. Daria was
sure there was more than structural struts involved even though the
woman was fifty, married, and sported chin hairs. Just the mental
picture of them sipping martinis onboard the airplane, elbow to
elbow, made Daria mad with jealousy-by-any-other-name.

“
So you love him,” Isabel
said. “Otherwise you wouldn’t care who he sipped martinis
with.”

“
I
care.
Of course I care.” She frowned
into the bottle at the worm. “But love? How do you know if you love
someone? Does it just come to you in a flash? Like a light bulb
over your head?” She raised the shot glass toward the ceiling. “I
can’t believe I’m asking you this. My nerdy little
sister.”

Neither can I.

What did Isabel Yancey know
about love? She imagined she’d been in a love a couple times but in
retrospect it was more like a mad crush. Does being sick as a dog
and wanting to tear your hair out afterward mean it was love?
Sounds more like the flu.

Daria turned to her on the
pillow, worry in her big blue eyes. Isabel muttered, “I don’t know,
Dar. Maybe in a flash.”

“
I just don’t want to get
my heart broken. I know, I know, but I do have one. What if they’re
all just after Daddy’s money and don’t give a fuck about
me?”

“
Some of those
swizzle-sticks you’ve been with, yeah. But Will doesn’t sound like
the type. You’re psyching yourself out. You’re afraid of getting
dumped.”

“
Because I
care?”

“
Some might say
‘love.’”

In the field Isabel shook a
branch and straightened, counting the bees that had fallen from the
bush onto the screen. Only three. She searched the bush for more,
the stronger ones that held tight. A couple more. The blossoms were
almost gone. The pollen would float away, then the bees. Soon the
season— and the field study— would be done.

A chuckle,
click-click
. Daria stood
behind her, camera to her eye.

“
You look pretty funny,
your head inside a bush. Sort of like you have your head up your
ass.” She plucked a berry and popped it in her mouth. “God, I love
blueberries.”

“
Don’t eat them. That’s
part of our deal with the owners.”

“
Everybody’s doing it.
Check their tongues. Is it time for lunch yet?”

They ate on the ground,
digging through sandwiches and sodas, then worked another hour,
counting bees on every tall bush in the blueberry field owned by
the McDonald sisters living in a nursing home in Mankato. This
second day here finished up the blueberry fields east of Spoon
River and west of State 62. Isabel walked the rows one last time,
making sure all the bushes were left in good condition and the
screens collected. Her team had done a good job today, and having
Daria along to document it was a plus. She could send a few photos
to Professor Mendel. And she didn’t have to be embarrassed by what
her sister would report back to Edie and Max about her
activities.

She opened the back door to
the van and threw in her helmet. The day was warm with a low haze
of clouds making a bright white glow in the sky. She looked at the
western horizon for storm clouds. Only a dazzling streak of
aquamarine. The students sat slumped on the seats, sticky with
heat. She gathered the damp report sheets and fastened them to her
clipboard. Her sister squeezed in next to Kate like one of the
crew, camera case on her lap.

Isabel put her hands on her
hips. “You all look plum tuckered out. We can cancel on that
party.”

Daria tsked. “Get your
carcass moving. Word is polka boy’s a hottie.”

Chapter 13

By the time Isabel and
Daria arrived at the Rose Rave things had been underway for some
time. Through the walls of the motel they could hear the shrieks of
the organizers as panic set in, simmering to laughter and chatter,
then ramping up to the sounds of the polka band. Isabel argued with
Daria about what to wear, whether to bother with makeup in this
humidity, and whether a nap wouldn’t be a better option than a tiny
bit more tequila.

For Jonny a nap was out of
the question. His father laid out a burgundy tuxedo jacket with
pants, pleated shirt, and cummerbund on his bed while his mother
sent him on last minute runs for ice. In the garden a large rug of
green artificial turf was staked out over the dirt. Lights were
strung from the motel to the trees to the house. Ladders were held,
blossoms were spritzed. Kiki and Frances came early to help. Kiki
was drafted to slice up a batch of Rose Petal Sandwiches while
Frances searched the town for spare lamps for the twinkle lights.
You would have thought it was Christmas, except for fireflies,
mosquitoes, and ninety-nine-percent humidity.

Ozzie arrived, wearing an
identical burgundy tux with voluminous black pants and patent
leather shoes. He made a show of setting up his drum set as the
rose aficionados arrived, waiting for them to part like the Red Sea
for the newly-repaired snare drum. Rose club members weren’t the
only guests. Old friends, relatives, and a good chunk of the town’s
ambulatory population were expected, and most brought a spare
sister-in-law, cousin, or niece.

By seven most of the food
was laid out. Pies, cakes, chips and dips, baked beans, green
beans, salads, cucumbers, corn on the cob, strawberries, cheeses,
sausages, and a few unidentifiable hot dish casseroles, spread down
the rickety long table like a Roman feast. The crowd was sixty
strong and in a party mood.

Jonny looked over the yard
from the kitchen window. Besides the college students most were
over fifty. Nobody his own age. Lenny hadn’t showed yet, he knew
better, but there was Norm Norman, his rival for the mayor’s seat,
gorging himself on three bean salad. The students stood around
looking bewildered as Margaret clinked a beer bottle for attention.
She welcomed everyone, then turned things over to Carol Chichester,
official party maven.

Carol encouraged mingling
among Margaret’s wonderland of roses. “No snipping. Only sniffing.”
A mutter of appreciation, Margaret’s bowed head, then the drinking
commenced a second time. And cries for music.

The sky was turning purple.
Jonny stepped out onto the back porch. Ozzie waved him over and
handed him a play list. Jonny squinted at the chicken scratches and
slipped it into his pocket. His father was three feet away. It’s
possible they could speak. As he strapped on his accordion he
spotted Claude, leaning on his walker. Nora beside him, an odd look
on her face, half happy, half terrified. Jonny waved at them as his
father clacked the drumsticks together. They were off.

The best part of being a
musician was the ability to go completely
away
. No troubles, no relationships,
not even excitement while the pureness of the music flowed through
you. You were a vessel for something as unexplainable as
music
. Was it a
coincidence that the word
music
was so close to the word
magic
? It took you into a different
space in your head where the synapses fired automatically. But with
your concentration, your passion, your heart.

And your tux. Jonny
squirmed out of the bowtie, throwing it onto the ground, then moved
on to the buttons. He had lost the cummerbund before he left the
house and declined to wear pants that made him look like a mariachi
singer. Between songs he pulled the tails of the shirt out of his
jeans. If it wasn’t for the smell of dry cleaning chemicals and
cigarettes on the jacket, he would be happy.

Dusk descended. Dancing
began. The polka songs were familiar as old socks on a cold night.
A little worn but still warm, some life left in them. More students
arrived, watching from the edges of the blue-hair crowd, near the
beer. The flirty one wiggled her fingers at him.

Lenny’s head above the
crowd, hair frizzy. He made a beeline for Kiki and Frances. It was
nice seeing Kiki again. This afternoon she helped him put ice in
the coolers and unfold the tablecloths. Now as Lenny chatted her
up, giving her his body dance flirtation, Jonny felt a stab of
jealousy and was surprised. Was it Kiki or was it just being the
musician while everyone else was having fun? He’d be heading back
to Minneapolis soon. The parties were done and sitting around his
childhood room ruminating about the future had gotten him nowhere.
His parents, well, they would miss each other sooner or later. But
what about the grain bin? He hadn’t gotten it moved. Did he really
want to tackle remodeling it? Maybe let sleeping bins lie. If Lenny
wanted it as an office he could stack his own hay bale walls and
blowtorch his own windows.

Jonny closed his eyes
against the spots of lights strung through the trees and played the
buttons with his left hand. Push and pull, in and out. The
accordion had come back to him, like a forgotten photograph
unrecognized at first then as close as your own skin, as familiar
as the lines in your palm. He had accomplished what he’d set out
to, to come back to the band, to the family, to the polka. Yet his
father was still a stranger, obsessed with his own demons. Jonny
looked back at him, sweating through the tux, flailing at the
drums, beating the skins like a twenty-year-old, his pompadour
flopping over his forehead.