Out of the Blue (16 page)

Joe handed me my drink and sat beside me, or almost on me as was his wont, despite the fact that his mother took a seat directly opposite. The fire made a loud pop and I nearly spilled my drink. She’d brought me red wine, which I realized too late was a mistake. I decided that the thing to do was gulp it down fast. I did so, and studied Joe’s mother while the two of them chatted about equipment, by which Joe means airplanes.

Celeste had a striking face that, feature by feature, was similar to Joe’s. Same bony nose, same spare angularity. The startling exception was her mouth, which was full and sensuous and painted Chinese red to match the living room accessories. A handsome woman in a handsome home. She scared the hell out of me.

“Joseph tells me you’re a teacher,” she said, turning her attention to me.

“Yes, in a private school in Manhattan.”

“A noble profession,” she said. Kind of like cleaning toilets, was the message, but hey, somebody’s got to do it. “What exactly do you teach?”

“Literature.” I’d had enough wine to feel like saying LIT-tra-choor à la Lady Supercilious La Snoot, but I tried to behave like the piano and kept the lid on.

“I find I never have time to read anymore,” she said, “other than business periodicals and that sort of thing.” She said it the way some people tell you they never watch television.

“Anna’s mother owns a bakery,” Joe said. I guess he figured it would help to change the subject, but it turned out to be another dud.

“How interesting. French?”

“Icelandic,” I answered. Not really. “Actually, she has her own eclectic style.” I had considered bringing an assortment of items from Norma’s Crust as a gift but thought better of it and opted, thankfully, for a simple glass bowl. “She likes to experiment with unusual ingredients.”

“It’s the piñata school of cooking,” Joe said. “You never know what you’ll get in a muffin until you crack one open.”

“How interesting,” Celeste murmured, yet again. I had already learned one important fact: Joe’s mother always said
how interesting
when she was stupefied with boredom. “Joseph’s grandmother on the DeLand side was a talented chef,” Celeste said. “Cordon Bleu and so on.” So much for Ma’s muffins, the Cordon Bleu-Cheese school. Celeste tossed back the rest of her high-ball and got up. “I’ll just see what’s happening to dinner.” And maybe skim a couple of articles in
Forbes
to break the monotony, I figured.

“Aren’t Frank and Eva coming?” Joe asked. I thought I detected a wee hint of desperation.

“Oh, they’ll be along at the last possible minute, as usual.”

Damn clever of them, I thought.

As soon as she was out of hearing, I held out my empty glass. “Bring me another one, quick. But white this time.”

“Didn’t you tell me you took some medication?” he asked.

“Not half enough.”

He brought my glass back with about an inch of wine in it. I made a face at him but he was right. I was beginning to hear John Philip Sousa in my head, a dangerous sign. “So what’s with the DeLand side?”

“‘De’ as in ‘of’ and ‘land’ as in ‘land.’ Mother likes to think of her family as aristocrats, but in fact they were peasants. Her grandfather got lucky investing in fabric mills, but before that they were all dirt-poor farmers. What do you think of her?”

“You couldn’t have warned me?”

“You make her a little nervous,” Joe said.

“Oh,
that’s
funny.” I considered taking Celeste aside and putting her out of her misery.
“Joe and I don’t have a future,”
I’d tell her.
“You can quit working your jaw like you’ve got ten packs of Juicy Fruit back there.”

But dinner was ready and we trooped into the formal dining room, me lifting my knees chin-high to negotiate the carpet. Frank and his wife, Eva, must have been lurking outside until they saw the roast come out of the oven because, as predicted, they showed up just as dinner was served. Eva was round and lumbering and completely cowed by everybody, not just Celeste. She looked like the kind of woman who used to be referred to as a “vessel,” i.e., the ideal producer of children. But Joe had told me that, ironically, she’d never managed to support a pregnancy. As we ate I watched the way she snuck adoring looks at Frank and wondered what their sex life was like. It pleased me to sit there listening to Celeste drone on about something called the Airline Service Improvement Act and imagine Eva and Frank having steamy, preferably kinky, sex in the privacy of their own home or maybe right out on their front lawn when the weather was better.

“Sam says the Oneidas have plans to build their own airport,” Frank was saying.

“Where?” Joe asked with interest.

“Clinton Center.”

“That’s nonsense,” Celeste said. Frank reddened like a ten-year-old who’d been rapped on the hand. He fell silent and reached into his pocket for a magazine which he slipped under his plate. I could tell he was dying to read it. “Put that away, Frank,” Celeste said. “It’s a very uncivilized habit, reading at the table.”

“I wasn’t, Mother,” Frank protested. “I just wanted to show something to Joe later.”

But Celeste ignored him. “Joseph, the Oneidas have no complaints about us, do they?” she was asking, looking at Joe as if he were the world’s greatest authority on Indian Affairs.

“That’s not the issue,” Joe said. “Why should they hire us to squire them around when they can afford to buy the entire U.S. Air Force if they feel like it?” He turned to me. “This must be a very boring conversation for you.”

“All anybody ever talks about around here is business,” Eva blurted, then ducked her head in fear.

I shot a quick look at Celeste, as did everybody else. Her eyes flashed ominously but my presence was enough to keep her in line. She raised the corners of her lips and aimed a sort of smile at me. “I’m afraid it’s the family curse, the passion we feel about AirMalone. Joseph in particular has always been possessed, just like me. We’ve always been like two peas in a pod.”

Wow. Where was Ma when we needed her? Someone to say, “Actually, Celeste babe, you’re about as similar to your boy here as chicken shit to chicken salad.” I was in serious danger of giggling. When Frank put his magazine away, I could see it was about fly fishing. Out in the middle of a stream in his waders where he wouldn’t have to listen to this woman rant on about his perfect little brother. As a serious student of families, I’ve seen it happen over and over again. The good-looking child is almost always favored, and the homely one—poor Frank—gets screwed over.

I looked at Joe to check out his reaction to Celeste’s fawning. He caught my eye and smiled, entirely oblivious. I got the impression his mother had said it so many times that everybody just accepted as gospel that Joe and his mother were alike in so many, many ways.

But by far the most astonishing thing about that meal was that Joe’s father was missing. Opposite Celeste was an empty seat and a place setting but nobody referred to it, or even seemed to notice it. I could hardly wait to get Joe alone.

Celeste pushed her chair back from the table and stood up. “Why don’t you all just sit and enjoy your coffee? I have to get over to the club to see about the decorations for the New Year’s gala. Oh, and Joseph, I don’t think I mentioned to you that Lola called this morning. She’ll be in town New Year’s Eve so I asked her to join our table.” She turned to me. “An old family friend, Anna. I know you’ll like her.”

Oh … My … God. … I have to say that even Joe blinked at this, and he wasn’t easy to rattle. In response to this bulletin, I was prepared to produce a grand mal seizure worthy of Rudy Steinberger’s father, but I restrained myself. For the first time, Eva stopped looking bored. She had her eyes drilled on Joe’s face to see how he’d react.

“Fine,” Joe replied. After all, what was he going to say?

Celeste Malone’s behavior was looking as if it might earn her a spot in that dark corner of my psyche reserved for heinous offenders. I keep them caged back there: Patsy Waterman’s father, who ruined Patsy’s life by making her renounce Rock Bulfomante, her one true love; the camp counselor named “Vi”—for Vile—who because I was homesick called me a baby and made me suck my thumb in front of my entire bunk; occasionally my father, though he’s allowed out once in a while on account of Ma’s intervention; Leonard Chubb, for obvious reasons; and finally that woman I met during a relapse who looked at my crutches and told me I reminded her of Itzhak Perlman. Now, if I’d been brandishing a violin at the time, I might have been delighted. As it was, I opened my mouth and out hopped my observation that she was a dead ringer for Luciano Pavarotti. I could hardly wait to report this one to the MS website, but to my amazement, it turned out that there were a lot of Itzhak clones out there. At least a dozen MS people, two of them female, reported the same phenomenon. We could start a whole string section.

Granted, Celeste Malone’s hauteur didn’t sink to such idiocy, but I could tell already that she was capable of dastardly deeds. Yes, I could definitely see Celeste Malone incarcerated in my cerebral dungeon with that villainous lot.

But at least the dinner ordeal was over. Frank and Eva slunk off into the night, and Joe and I beat it up to his room. There were embers glowing in the fireplace and it smelled good. The atmosphere of the place wrapped its arms around me and so did Joe. I was so loaded up on medication and wine that I didn’t have the brains to decide once and for all whether sex was a morally righteous alternative.
But, your honor, I was too stoned to act in a responsible fashion.
It didn’t wash, I realized.

Then Joe made it even harder by saying, “Come in here. I have something to show you.” He drew me off the couch and into the bedroom.

“I think I’ve heard that one before,” I commented, but you didn’t see me protesting.

Joe reached to the bedside table and produced what looked like a tube of toothpaste. “Ready for a cosmic journey?” he asked. I saw that the label read
Astroglide.
I knew that it was a lubricant for alleviating painful intercourse. And I thought I’d been so discreet with my discomfort last time around. “The thing is,” he said, “now what do we do? Is it for you or for me?”

We sort of went for the democratic approach—he put a little on me and I put a little on him, and the next thing, he was inside me and it didn’t hurt at all. The dying fire in the other room cast the only light, and Joe’s hair was like threads of gold. I didn’t care that my stomach hurt from too much medication nor that I hated Joe’s mother, and Lola Falcon, and that it was the beginning of the end. As long as Joe and I lay tangled together in the firelight, the future could just damn well wait.

It was a restless night. Once, I dreamt that I was pinned under a fallen tree, and woke up to find Joe’s leg draped over me. Then I lay there worrying about who did the laundry. I’d forgotten to urinate before sex and had leaked a little. It was one thing to pee in Joe’s bed in the city, but I could imagine Celeste Malone examining the sheets and maybe casting some kind of evil spell over my dried body fluids. There in the upstate darkness where there were no friendly lights pouring out of neighboring buildings, it was easy to lose myself in weird fantasies. But then Joe rolled over in his sleep, warming my shoulder with his breath. I curled into him, drifted to sleep again and didn’t wake up until he was standing at the bottom of the bed, dressed and ready to leave for work. I sat up with a start.

“Where are you going?” I was panicked at the thought of being left alone with his mother and the dirty laundry. It seemed to me that the sheets reeked of urine.

“I’ll be back by two. I’m just making a run down to Ithaca and back.”

“Where’s your mother?”

“At the office, I’m sure.”

I tried not to look too relieved, but Joe saw it and smiled. “She’ll be away all day. What will you do while I’m gone?”

“Fix myself some coffee, read, watch the soaps.” He gave me a kiss. Among Joe’s many virtues is that he couldn’t care less about morning mouth. “Do me a favor and don’t crash,” I told him.

“Okay. If you can wait, I’ll bring lunch.”

Then he was gone and it was suddenly so quiet that I could hear the refrigerator humming from his kitchen. I rolled over to check the sheets for stains—they weren’t as bad as I’d feared—when there was a loud bang outside that propelled me straight out of bed. I creaked to the window on my drowsy limbs and looked out. A row of gigantic icicles had simultaneously lost their grip on the eaves and plummeted to the ground. I wondered how many people lost their lives each year by having their brains impaled by these hypothyroidal stalactites. You never read about it.

I switched on the TV for company and went to the kitchen. There was a banana peel and a Mounds wrapper on the counter, relics from Joe’s breakfast. I’m so addicted to my daily dose of caffeine that I brought my own coffee in case Joe’s wasn’t ferocious enough. I sat in the living room with my mug watching Katie Couric and wondering what Ma was up to. I imagined how I’d tell her about last night’s dinner and about that empty chair nobody mentioned. As soon as my mind wandered to the number of days that were left to Joe and me, I got up and headed for the shower.

I was dressed by ten o’clock. For some reason, I felt better than usual. Not as stiff, no blasts of pins and needles radiating down my legs. Nothing was twitching and I had some energy. I wandered to the window. It was one of those winter days where the palette is limited to soft grays and whites, with the bare trees in stark contrast. Below me, the wind shook a dusting of snow from the branches. There was no way I could stay inside.

I’d packed boots and an aluminum fold-up cane just in case. I figured I’d be all right once I got down the steps to the driveway. Then I’d just make my way carefully to the barn at the end, rest a minute, and come back. I’d got myself all suited up, gloves, hat, a scarf, and opened the door. The frozen air was like a slap across the face. Tears sprang to my eyes and I slammed the door, leaned my head against it and tried to collect myself. It’s such a surprise, sometimes, the grief. I’ve learned not to watch the winter Olympics, for instance. The sight of those athletes careening down the slopes is simply too painful. But I wasn’t prepared this morning. Merely standing in the doorway with the bite of cold air in my nostrils was enough to remind me.

I had never taken a run down a slope without pausing for a moment at the summit, looking down to breathe in the beauty and the challenge of it. I had enjoyed teasing myself, postponing the inevitable rush. Skis together, knees cocked, upper body quiet, the plunge and then the nearest thing to pure flight I would ever know. It hurt, and right now it didn’t help me to remind myself how lucky I was to have experienced it at all.

I indulged myself in a few major sobs, the wracking type that sound like faulty plumbing in a prewar apartment building. Then I chased after the blessings. First I thought about Ma. How many people in my condition had a Norma Bolles to kick their butt? And my job, which to my great surprise I believed I was born for, and then Joe, who’d provided me with enough memories for a lifetime. So what if I could no longer risk life and limb by sliding downhill on a couple of pieces of wood? Furthermore, I knew how much worse it could be—and probably would be soon enough. I told myself to just shut up and go for a walk.

I stuffed some Kleenex in my pocket and started off with my cane. The steps were icy but there was a sturdy railing, and once I got to the bottom I felt pleased with myself and ready to stretch my legs. It was probably a thousand feet or so to the barn, but the drive was thoroughly sanded. I wondered why they bothered since Joe hadn’t mentioned that the barn was used for anything. But when I got closer, I noticed a plume of smoke emerging from a tin chimney. Now I was curious, so I picked up my pace. It felt so good to move, even with a cane. I knew my stride was stiff, that my left leg had a quirky kick with each step, but I was energized and, at least for the moment, past the twist of old psychic pain.

The barn was one of those weathered structures that people try to simulate in the New York suburbs. Over the door was a hand-painted sign advertising
Kielbasa Airlines
with a logo of a sausage with wings. There was a snowdrift pressed against the entrance, as if nobody had been in or out for some time. But the door hung slightly off kilter and I was able to prod it open with my cane.

Junk was piled floor-to-ceiling in a display that would have inspired Louise Nevelson. The scrap that littered the floor appeared to consist mainly of airplane parts—wheels, tailpieces, wings, propellers. Shelves crammed with mysterious gadgets lined the walls, and in the shadows were half a dozen airplanes covered with tarpaulins. One area to the right had been sectioned off and I headed for it. I was freezing and I could see the chimney of a stove rising to the ceiling behind low walls. Faint country western music accompanied the hammering of metal on metal.

I rapped on the swing door and waited. Nothing. I knocked again, louder this time. There was a brief hesitation in the pounding, but then it resumed as rigorously as ever. I gave a shove with my shoulder and stepped inside.

It was difficult to believe that a person could actually stand in there. The worktable left barely ten inches of margin, and the potbelly stove was crowded by piles of unidentifiable stuff including signs that said
Whatever we’ve got you’ll never find
and
Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch’entrate.
The precarious shelving overflowed, and who knew where the music was coming from? Leaning over the worktable was a man in denim overalls. He looked up and took in the whole picture: woman dressed for a Himalayan expedition, red nose, cane.

“You Joe’s girlfriend?”

I nodded. “You Joe’s dad?”

He nodded. He had brown eyes and dark whiskerstubbled skin. His hair was dark, too, and salted with gray. He was slim and stooped, maybe from a lifetime of workshop labor.

“What’s that?” I asked. I already had the feeling that verbal economy counted so I decided against an apology for barging in.

“Tailpiece, 1929 Kittyhawk.” The lettering on the object said
VIKING AIRBOAT CO
.

“Airboat,” I said. “Nice.”

He shot me another quick glance. “What’s that for?” He meant the cane.

“Multiple sclerosis.”

He didn’t say anything, but reached into a pile of junk and lowered the volume on the radio. “Guess you’d like to sit.”

At least he wasn’t throwing me out. “I wouldn’t mind,” I said.

He retrieved a stool from under the table, wiped it off with his sleeve and set it near the stove. I sat. And waited. I liked watching him work. Under all that grease, he had the same elegant hands as Joe. He was sure-fingered, and if it’s not a word, it ought to be.

“Joe at work?” he asked.

“Yes. Flying to Ithaca.”

“Good pilot, Joe. Always was.”

I wasn’t quite sure how to keep things rolling, but I was determined to try. “Joe tells me you started the airline.”

“I just like planes. Building them, flying them. I leave the business to the rest. You a businesswoman?”

“No. English teacher.”

He nodded at the quotation from Dante. “You teach the classics?”

“We do the
Inferno
, yes.”

He smiled at me, the first one. If my extremities hadn’t warmed up already, that smile would have done it. I wondered how I could get him to do it again.

“Want me to show you around?”

“Yes, please.”

We skirted the outside of the mechanical maze, with Joe’s father taking my elbow to be sure I didn’t trip over anything. He mostly wanted to lead me to the tarpaulins at the rear of the building. On our way I heard fluttering sounds and looked up to see birds swooping in the rafters. That seemed appropriate in a place dedicated to the construction of flying machines.

One by one he hauled the covers off his planes and introduced them as if they were old friends. There were two Cessnas, a Fleet, and a Tigermoth, which was a British plane from World War Two. I remembered a series of photographs on Joe’s wall, a man and two boys standing beside an airplane in various stages of construction. “Did you build a plane with Joe and Frank?”

His face took on the identical closed-for-business look that Joe’s did when I poked into forbidden territory. “I keep it out at the airport. The boys don’t bother with it anymore.” But we’d moved on to the last plane which he revealed with some ceremony.

“Oh my,” I said.

Pleased at my obvious admiration, he allowed himself to run his hand along the wing in a caress. “Stearman. She’s a beauty.”

It was a yellow and black bi-plane, larger than the others. “I’m trying to finish her before next summer’s fly-in out West.”

“What’s a fly-in?”

“A couple hundred of us Stearman nuts get together and fly around all day. Then we drink a lot of beer and tell each other lies about flying.”

“How long have you been working on this one?”

“A few years.”

“Can I… is it possible to sit in there?”

He looked pleased. “Sure. Wish I could take you up, but she’s not ready yet.” He helped me into the rear seat. There was a heady smell of leather and paint. I sat there and closed my eyes, imagining myself on a summer’s day, open to the cloudless sky, soaring. I get it, I thought. I can see why a person would do this.

But then I couldn’t come back down to earth. Literally. My legs just refused to bend in a direction to permit egress. “I hope you don’t mind if I go with you to your fly-in,” I said. “I don’t think I’m ever getting out.”

But he stepped up onto the wing, grabbed me under the arms and lifted me out. Like Joe, he was much stronger than he looked. I landed awkwardly on the ground and twisted my foot a bit. He saw my grimace.

“You all right?”

“Fine.”

“Cup of tea help?”

“Sure.”

When we got back to his work area, he plugged in a teakettle and rummaged around until he found two mugs. “Not used to company,” he explained. “How long you been sick?”

“Five years.”

“You on Betaseron?” He saw I was surprised. “Lawyer friend of mine comes in here to tinker. He’s had MS twenty, thirty years.”

“I haven’t had much luck with the medications. They make me feel sicker than the disease.”

“Stuff’s held off his relapses, he says. We went skiing together last week.”

“Oh!” It came out unbidden, a pathetic cry. He shot me a sharp look over the teakettle.

“You a skier?” he asked.

“Was.” I stared down into my cup and told myself,
Anna, if you cry, I’m writing you off. You will not.

“This is for the Stearman,” Joe’s father said, holding up a curved piece of metal that looked as if it might cover a wheel. “Had a hell of a time locating it. I finally found it through the Internet, out in L.A. Friend of mine drives a tractor-trailer. He went out on a job, brought this back with a truckload of broccoli.” Some speech for such a laconic individual, but I realized that he was offering me time to collect myself.

We talked through two cups of tea. It turned out that Gus—whose name Joe had never mentioned—was an avid reader of adventure stories, especially people like Joseph Conrad, Melville, and now Patrick O’Brian. But then I was suddenly seriously fatigued.

Gus set down his mug. “You’re looking a little worn-out. It’s time you got back.” I didn’t argue as he helped me into my coat, but then he shrugged on his own jacket and started out with me.

“You don’t have to come. I’ll be fine,” I said.

“I left something up at the house,” he said, but I knew he was inventing a reason to keep me company. Snow had started to drift down, dusting the road. I was too tired to make the effort to keep my balance and was grateful for Gus’s arm to lean on.

Joe drove up just as we got to the house. He peered at us through the snow, and when he got out of the car he seemed almost angry. I glanced at Gus and the only thing on his face was naked love. It’s funny, the first thing I thought was that I hoped Gus looked at Frank in the same way.

“Your father’s been giving me a tour of his workshop,” I said.

Joe stuck his hand out and Gus shook it. “Dad,” Joe said, as if I’d just introduced them.

“We had tea,” I explained. Gus smiled at me but Joe looked confused. “I thought you were coming home at two,” I said.

“Weather,” Joe said. “It’s a lot worse down toward Ithaca so we couldn’t fly.”

We stood in silence for a moment. I wanted to ask Gus if he’d join us for lunch but I figured Joe might kill me.

“Well,” Gus said, and started back toward the barn.

“You forgot your … whatever it was,” I said. But he just waved and kept going.

“Come on,” Joe said. “I brought some stuff for lunch. In the car.”