Saying Grace (3 page)

Rue apparently had no such need.

Her walls were crowded with framed pictures of children, drawings and paintings from children, handlettered cards and cartoons and certificates of commendation from eight-year-olds. These were interspersed with photographs of her family. There were, side Saying Grace / 13

by side, framed antique photographs of two men from other times and places. Each stared fiercely into the camera. One had light eyes and wore a soft hat; the other had puffy cheeks and muttonchop whiskers, and a heavy watch chain across his waistcoat.

“Two of my great-grandfathers,” said Rue, noticing Emily’s gaze.

“The one with the hat was a sheep farmer on an island in Maine.

His name was Long. He had eleven children and the boys all had names like Miles Long and How Long.”

Emily laughed. “And the other one?”

“My mother’s grandfather. A titan of industry.”

Emily stopped at a framed snapshot of a girl who could have been Rue herself at eighteen, except that she had a darker quality, too, something deep and intent. Like a cross between Rue and a fawn of some kind.

“I don’t have to ask whose child this is. You must have had her by parthenogenesis.”

“That’s Georgia,” said Rue. “Actually she and her father look
exactly
alike.” Rue picked up another picture from her desk, this one showing a good-looking man of about forty with blue eyes and un-ruly blond hair, with a ten-year-old Georgia, grinning, sitting on his shoulders in a striped bathing suit. She handed it to Emily, who said, “Oh my god,” and started to laugh.

“What?”

“Cricket Shaw…you’re married to Cricket Shaw?”

Surprised and pleased, Rue said, “Mostly we call him Henry now.”

“Does he still play the saxophone?”

“Only when he’s drunk.”

“I don’t know that I ever saw him sober. My god, I never expected to see Cricket again in this lifetime. What did he grow up to be?”

Rue, smiling, said, “He’s a brain surgeon.”

When Emily stopped laughing, she said, “I went out with one of his college roommates, Todd Bakeman….”

“Bakelund…”

“Bakelund. He was a little odd.”

“Still is.”

14 / Beth Gutcheon

“I had the most tremendous crush on Cricket.”

“I don’t blame you,” said Rue, smiling. “Will he remember you?”

“I don’t know,” said Emily. Though she did know. He would.

“Tell me about your teaching experience,” said Rue.

W
hen Rue got home from school that afternoon her Georgia, Georgia who looked like a cross between Rue and a fawn, Georgia who was somehow the image of Henry when she talked, was packed and ready to leave. Her room was a wreck. It looked as if she had taken out every article of clothing she owned, packed the things she wanted, and left the rest wherever they fell, on the bed, on the chairs, on the floor. Her suitcase, her enormous duffel, her boom box, and her guitar were waiting in a pile to be carried downstairs. The cassettes she couldn’t be parted from for twenty-four hours were in a carrying case. A few hundred more were packed in a cardboard box, with her name and her New York address written on it, ready to be mailed. And what looked to Rue like several thousand rejects remained in stacks in her bookcase, along with her Narnia books, her Nancy Drews, her Black Stallion books, and her paperback Great Books from high school English. From now on it was to be no more Dead White Male writers, just composers. She was going to New York to live and breathe music.

Georgia herself was out on the back porch in the glider, with her friend Caroline who had just gotten back from Outward Bound. Rue could hear cries of “Oh my
god…
” followed by laughter, as they rushed to fill each other up with every event and detail of the summer they had spent apart. Outward Bound had moved Caroline to take the safety pin out of her nose, Rue overheard, but the change had been temporary. It was back, with a full display of hoops and studs, but at least the safety pin was gold.

Tonight, after family dinners, would be their last evening with their old gang.
Posse
had been the right term for it at one point, but now Georgia rolled her eyes if Rue said it, so she gathered posse was past, along with so much else.

Tomorrow morning Henry would take Georgia to the airport, and Caroline would leave for UC Santa Cruz in a used ambulance 16 / Beth Gutcheon

her father had bought her. Caroline had already been arrested twice for having red lights and a siren on what was not an emergency vehicle, although she swore she only turned the lights on for, like, a minute. She and Georgia had become friends in high school, right around the time Rue had begun to wonder if she was tempting fate when she said out loud that Georgia alone in her experience with adolescents had never given her parents a moment’s unhappiness or worry.

Georgia had been their hearts’ delight from birth. She was a large-hearted, bright, wise, and beautiful little girl, and adolescence hadn’t made her as hideous as it did most. There was a year when her nose seemed too big for her face, but that had passed, and there had been the famous shouting match the time they caught her chewing tobacco in the bus barn with Manuel, and Henry made her swallow it. This had made Georgia furious at both of them and Rue angry at Henry because it had so upset Manuel. Manuel was a little simple. On this afternoon, Rue could remember being mad at Henry when they differed about Georgia, but she didn’t think she could remember ever being mad at Georgia.

Missing her daughter in advance, this morning when Rue left for school she had carried with her a leaden sense of loss that was so piercing that she barely had room for more when the news came that Mariel Smith was dead. If you wanted six children, and you only could have one, Georgia was the one you would want.
Delight
was the word that best expressed Rue’s feeling for her daughter.

Georgia’s brain was very different from Rue’s or Henry’s; she was quick, inventive, and above all musical, and Rue simply adored her.

Rue had begun to worry what would happen when Georgia was gone. The three of them had been so close for so long, she wondered if she and Henry would collapse like a triangle with a missing side.

For Georgia’s farewell dinner, Rue cooked eggplant curry, and raita and dahl and fragrant basmati rice, and she herself smelled faintly of cumin. Caroline had gone home to have steak with her family, and Georgia was now upstairs washing her hip-length au-burn hair and listening to
Tosca
. Rue thanked God she wasn’t playing some ear-splitting heavy metal tonight; but Georgia was Saying Grace / 17

good. She nearly always saved her really awful music for when she was out of the house. You tended only to hear it when she had been driving your car and forgotten she’d left the radio tuned to KOL

Rock and the volume cranked up to a thousand decibels. Henry had had a few mornings when he’d turned on his ignition and been blasted nearly into the back seat. Rue was spared the early morning assaults because she commuted to campus on foot.

Rue was very glad that school was starting tomorrow, despite the fact that one of the bus drivers had broken her arm, and pressure was already building from parents who didn’t want their children in Mrs. Trainer’s class, and the Spanish teacher was dead. She loved the first day of school because it was a day full of clean slates and new book bags and happy reunions and hope. And you could say one thing about having the house empty of Georgia tomorrow night.

It would make meal planning easier. Since Georgia had become a vegetarian, Henry made sad remarks about “veggie pudding” and

“Alpo burgers” on the nights she cooked for Georgia, and when she produced sausage or chops for Henry, Georgia ate cold cereal, looking pained at the savagery before her. Rue was on the fence between them. She liked the meatless meals, but she was constantly allowing herself to be frightened by friends who read women’s magazines who warned that if she didn’t make a full-time study of meatless nutrition, she would get a protein or calcium deficiency and become demented during menopause, or that all her bones would break, or something.

Dinner was ready, the candles were lit. Henry had come in, opened a beer, and stood around the kitchen humming snatches of the Beatles’ song “She’s Leaving Home.” Every time their eyes met, they laughed, because they were so sad. Georgia breezed in, fresh and clean and wearing a new white t-shirt of her father’s, which was huge on her. Her wet hair was twisted into a loose rope down her back. They all took their places at the kitchen table, where they always ate when alone. It was a big room, with wainscot cupboards under the counters and two stoves, the old wood cook stove the Plum family had once used and the thirties-vintage white porcelain number Carla and Lourdes had installed. Tonight there was a bucket of roses from Rue’s garden on the cold wood stove.

In the candlelight, and the lingering evening light of late sum-18 / Beth Gutcheon

mer, Georgia gave them their pitch. As they had done every night they were all together, for the last fifteen years, they sang “Tallis Canon,” in a round. Rue and Georgia began:

“
All praise to thee my God this night
”

And Henry followed with the same line, as the women sang:

“
For all the blessings of the light
.

“
Keep me, Oh keep me, King of kings

“
Beneath thine own almighty wings
.”

And Henry finished alone:

“
Beneath thine own almighty wings
,”

in his sweet raspy bass, and Rue felt tears start in her throat. In the silent second that followed the singing she had to wipe her eyes and blow her nose.

Georgia said, “You loved it when I went to camp, Mom. Don’t pretend you didn’t. You cried till the bus was around the corner and then you hardly remembered to write.”

“I wrote
daily
.”

“I was the only kid in my cabin who didn’t get mail all week. The counselors felt so sorry for me they wrote me notes and forged your name.”

“You’re a wicked liar.”

Henry said to Georgia, “She wasn’t crying for you, anyway. She was crying because she knows you’re going to sing ‘Tallis Canon’

at my funeral.”

“Oh, good,” said Georgia. “Are we? Have you printed the programs?”

“Not yet. No, the new rector at your mother’s church gave us all forms to fill out planning our funerals. He’s really trying to get us to call our lawyers and put the church in our will, but I thought that was depressing. I’ve done my funeral, though. I want ‘Tallis Canon’

and ‘For All the Saints,’ and ‘Oh God Our Help in Ages Past.’ And I chose my readings too, but I don’t think Father Tom is going to like it.”

“What are you having?”

“Robert Frost and E. B. White.”

Saying Grace / 19

“No gospel?” Rue asked.

“No, I want someone to read White’s essay on
The Death of a Pig
.”

“Mom, have you planned yours?”

“No. There are so many hymns I love, I can’t decide. Daddy just put ‘Tallis Canon’ in his because he knows it would make me fall apart. I know you fancy the idea of the widow wailing and sobbing and having to be led from the church, Henry. Would you pass me the chutney?”

“But you forgot, you made me promise not to die first.”

“Oh, you’ll never keep that promise. Look at all that red meat you eat.”

“I don’t want any funeral,” said Georgia.

“I read about a company in San Francisco that makes coffins out of auto bodies. Wouldn’t you like one if you could go in a little red vintage MG?” asked Henry.

“Nope. No funeral. No sacred texts, no ministers especially.”

“How about a recital of
Cavalleria Rusticana
?” said Rue.

“Nope.”

“So, you want me to record that in your baby book? No funeral, no memorial, just plant the ashes in the garden with a post hole digger?”

“Perfect,” said Georgia. “Life is all there is, and life is enough. Too many people miss it, because they’re worrying about something else that doesn’t exist.”

“Okay,” said Rue, “but will you let me know if you change your mind?”

“I will if I do, but I won’t.”

“That’s what you said when you were five, about cooked tomatoes.”

“Be Here Now. That’s my final word. This is great chutney, by the way. Did you make it?”

“Major Grey made it. I made everything else on the table.

Everything. I made the napkins, I made the salt cellars….”

“Sorry, Mom. This is great raita, did you make it?”

“Why yes, Georgia, I did. I made it just for you, and I’m so glad you like it.”

“Are you all packed, Beezel?” Henry asked.

20 / Beth Gutcheon

“Almost. I can’t zip my duffel but Sam will do it.”

“What’s in it?”

“Sheets. Blankets. Shoes. I don’t know. Buford.”

Buford was her stuffed bear.

“You put Buford in the duffel? I thought he had trouble with claustrophobia.”

“He got over that. It was adolescent angst.”

“Ah.”

“Do you think Buford will like New York?” Rue asked.

“I think he’ll love it. He’s looking forward to his first subway ride.

Don’t cry, Mom.”

“I’m not. I ate a piece of chili.”

“Apart from the Spanish teacher…Mrs. Lincoln…How does your new school year look, Rue?” Henry asked. “What’s going on over there?”

Rue was grateful for the change of subject. She was embarrassed when emotion overcame her, though it happened to her all the time.

She said, “I think this may be Catherine Trainer’s last year. I’m already getting complaints about her and we aren’t even in session.”

Georgia said, “Why? I
loved
Mrs. Trainer.”

“I know you did, everyone used to. But she went way downhill while Norman was sick, and after he died, she just never bounced back. In the last couple of years, she’s just been marking time, as if it doesn’t matter what she does because she’s a School Character.”

“What would happen to her if you fired her?” Henry asked.

“Nothing good. She has one married sister she never sees. She’s not trained to do anything but teach. And she needs the money.