Songs in Ordinary Time (108 page)

“No, they’re not, they’re just…” Alice’s voice trailed off.

Just better dressed than you
, Marie completed the thought.
In bright colors,
soft and pretty swishy skirts, with husbands to do the hauling and lifting
.

The girls slammed the empty trunk shut and the car pulled out. The two cars directly ahead parked at either side, one on the left and one on the right, leaving just a narrow passage between them.

“Look, they’re twins,” Alice said pointing to two redheads. Each was unloading a car. “There’s a spot!” Alice pointed to a blue car that was pulling out from behind the panel truck.

Marie eased ahead, trying to inch between the cars. Staring blindly ahead, she didn’t dare look to either side, making her way on hope and the certainty that nothing could happen now. Not when she had come this far, gotten this close.

“Hey, lady!” someone called, and she hit the brake. They both jerked forward, and Alice groaned. “What do you think you’re doing?” a burly young man called from one of the parked cars. “You’re not gonna make it!”

“Then why don’t you move? It’s not fair to block everything just because you’ve got two cars.”

“Mom!” Alice said.

“It’s not my fault,” the young man said. “It’s that joker up there with the truck. He’s taking up all the spaces.”

“Mom! Why can’t we just wait?” Alice hissed, her pinched white fearful-ness the prod Marie needed.

No. Alice had better learn right here and now that waiting never got anyone anywhere. Besides, now all she wanted was to get out of here as soon as possible. There were too many people watching, and behind them the line of cars was growing longer. “I can make it!” The engine was idling so fast that just lifting her foot from the brake bucked the car forward.

“No, you can’t!” the young man insisted, and she hit the brake, jerking them again. He angled his head to see. “One more inch and you’ll hit my fender!”

Neither of the cars flanking her could be moved. The one on the left abutted a stone wall, and the one on the right was against the curb.

“Mom, please!” Alice groaned, eyes wide, fists clenched in her lap.

“Everyone’s looking. Why are you doing this to me? I feel like such a fool.

I can’t even breathe.”

She couldn’t back up, and she couldn’t go forward. And she couldn’t even open the door to get out. Somewhere in the long line behind them a car blared its horn. The young man hurried in a half trot toward the entrance to the circle, where he directed each car to back up.

Up ahead, the door of the truck opened. The driver jumped out and was walking toward them with a bouquet of roses.

“I don’t believe it,” Alice said in a low voice.

It was Blue Mooney in dark-green coveralls. He waited on the sidewalk SONGS IN ORDINARY TIME / 529

while Marie backed up, and the car on the right pulled partially onto the sidewalk to let her by.

“This isn’t happening,” Alice said. “I know it isn’t. Any minute now, I’m going to wake up.”

When Marie parked behind the truck, Mooney opened Alice’s door.

“Happy First Day of College,” he said, handing her the roses. Their fragrance filled the car.

Alice seemed to bury her face in them.

“Movin’-in day, right? So I brought my crew,” he said, with a wave toward an unshaven man in a soiled undershirt that did not cover his hairy belly and a tall skinny tattooed fellow with cigarettes behind both ears. They nodded and the tall fellow waved good-naturedly. “Hello, Mrs. Fermoyle,”

Blue called in. “You and Alice don’t have to lift a finger. All we need’s the room number.” He squatted down with his hands over the door, grinning at her.

“That’s awfully nice of you, but people don’t do that,” Alice said softly.

“I know, but I just thought you’d like it. You know, kind of classy having your own crew. Movin’-in day and you got your own crew,” he said as if she weren’t getting it. He gave a high uneasy laugh. With her silence, he winced. “But it’s weird, huh?” He glanced back at the families hurrying in and out of the dorms. “Okay, I’ll tell you what. Them two can go get a coffee, and I’ll unload you myself like I’m your big brother or something. Without the monkey suit even,” he said, unfastening his top button.

“That’s a good i—” Marie started to say. With his help they’d have this over in no time and then she’d be on her way. Maybe she’d even get in a few hours at the store.

“No, that’s okay, Blue. Really. It’s one of those things, you know, you just do with your mother. What I mean is, I always looked forward to this…. I always pictured us doing this together. She even took the day off so we could do it,” she said, gesturing back at Marie.

“Yah, I did,” Marie said, pleased to hear Alice finally acknowledge her effort in getting the time off. “But I’m going to make it up tomorrow,” she added, though no one was listening.

“Hey!” Blue said, cocking his finger at them. “I get it! It’s a family thing, right?”

“Yah,” Alice said, and then she thanked him for the roses. “They’re beautiful,” she said.

“You really like them? For a minute I didn’t know if that was weird, too.

I kept looking around, but nobody else has any bouquets.”

Alice laughed. “No, just me. I’m the luckiest one here.”

“Hey!” he said, taking a step back. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll come by one of these nights and we’ll go for a ride.” He laughed. “And I promise, no truck and no crew. I’ll come dressed like a real college guy.” He looked around.

“Yah, and I’ll get some of those what do you call them, those shorts.”

“Bermudas,” she said under her breath as he strutted toward the truck 530 / MARY MCGARRY MORRIS

on his high-heeled boots. She laughed nervously as he drove off. They got out of the car and opened the trunk.

“He was just trying to be nice,” Marie said.

“I know,” Alice said, taking out two bags.

“Well, it wouldn’t hurt to have someone like that around if you need help.”

“If I need help,” Alice said as they carried the bags up the front walk, “I’ll just call you, Mom.”

She had been to the freshman parents’ meeting in the chapel while Alice registered at the Waterman Building.

“Tuition,” she said, when Alice asked what the meeting had been about.

She didn’t tell her that moments after sitting down in the warm back pew with the dust-moted sunlight streaming through the tall leaded windows, she had fallen sound asleep, not waking until a man nudged her so he could get by.

Now there was a picnic on the green. Since they hadn’t thought to bring a blanket, they stood under one of the graceful elms with their fruit punch and chicken salad sandwiches.

“We’re the only ones standing,” Alice said.

“No, we’re not.”

“Yes, we are! Come on, we can sit on the grass.” Alice started to sit down.

“No! I don’t feel like it. I want to stand.” She had just realized that they were the only two women who were alone. What she wanted to do was leave. She hated things like this, hated all the false camaraderie and cheer.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Alice said, getting up and leaning against the tree. “Why do we have to be the only ones standing?”

“Well, why don’t you put your beanie on, then, like everyone else?”

“What’s a beanie got to do with whether we stand up or sit down?” Alice asked.

“Well, you want to be so different. You don’t want to be like everyone else. So we might as well just stand.” There, she thought, relieved to have found some logic, some basis for this baffling rage.

Alice smiled with wide, apprehensive eyes. “I’m not trying to be different, Mom. I just think it’s weird, that’s all. But if you want me to wear one, then I will.” She removed the beanie from her orientation packet and put it on.

She smiled and tilted her head as if posing. “Now can we sit down?”

Seeing the green felt beanie perched on Alice’s head made her feel worse.

She had dreamed of this day, focused every effort toward this moment, and now all she felt was this terrible emptiness. Would anything ever be enough?

As soon as they sat down Marie noticed a white-haired couple and a thin girl with glasses who were sitting nearby on a red tartan blanket.

“What are they looking at?” she hissed.

“Shh,” Alice said.

“They’re obviously talking about us.”

“Come on, Mom. Let’s just eat.”

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Marie glanced down at her sweater. All her buttons were fastened. “What do they keep looking at?”

“Mom, please. You’re so nervous and now you’re making me nervous.”

“I’m not nervous!”

The girl got up and came over to ask if Marie and Alice would like to join her and her family.

“Thank you!” Alice said, immediately getting up. “That’s so nice.”

Marie looked at her, then rose slowly. She was relieved to see what mousy little people they were. Grandparents, Marie thought, as they introduced themselves. Maybe the girl’s parents were dead or divorced or maybe just plain lousy lowlife people and this cheery but plain couple were trying to fill the gap. As it turned out, Jean’s parents were an Army family stationed in Germany, and the grandparents had driven up with her from their home in Virginia. Both girls seemed relieved to be in each other’s company. Neither one had yet met her roommate. As it turned out they were both on Redstone campus, but in different dorms.

From there they walked together to the concert in the chapel. Jean and Alice strolled along in front while Marie bombarded the grandparents with a flurry of nervous questions so that they would have no time to ask any of her. When they got inside, she hung back to let them get ahead. But Alice hadn’t noticed and ended up sitting with Jean and her grandparents. Marie slipped into the familiar back pew, pinching her wrist and jiggling her foot to stay awake as the university string quartet played
The Four Seasons
, which she thought was the saddest music she had ever heard. By the end her eyes stung with tears and she bit her lip and tasted blood. What was happening?

Hadn’t she looked forward to this day for years?

Yes, here they were. This was their start, their new beginning, the university president was telling them from the pulpit.

Then what was this overwhelming dread like a huge black wave that hung in the air ready to swamp her? Her thoughts began to race. My God, Sam, Omar, what poor choices she had made in her life. There was a hole in her shoe and a small yellow bleach stain on the hem of her dreary skirt.

Norm’s last year of high school and then there would be two of them in college, and how would she ever pay for that? Benjy would be alone. She would be alone, alone, always alone, with a garage full of soap and an ancient car. One more major car repair would ruin her, but what did they know or care. No. Nobody cared. Not really. Not Sam, not her own children.

In this whole world not one person cared what happened to her. She had tried too hard, worked too much, and now she had nothing. She didn’t belong here, and everyone knew it. They could hear her pounding heart. They could feel her trembling limbs. She had to get out before something terrible happened. She excused herself along the row of angled knees and hurried outside.

A few minutes later everyone streamed through the doors, and Alice rushed down to her. “I didn’t know where you were!” she cried, linking arms. “I never went to a concert before. Wasn’t it beautiful? Jean said they 532 / MARY MCGARRY MORRIS

have them every Friday night. She plays the violin. She’s going to try out for the orchestra.”

She stiffened, wanting, needing to pull away, but did not until they crossed the street; then she extricated herself, gently so that Alice might not notice.

“I’d love to play an instrument,” Alice said as they walked toward Redstone campus. “That must be so wonderful.”

“I’m sorry, but I couldn’t afford the lessons,” Marie said in a low clipped voice. There were parents and their children all around them.

“I know that, Mom. That’s not what I meant. But anyway Jean said I could take lessons here.”

It was too late, and this was her fault, too. There were certain things children had to be given early and if deprived they would never catch up.

She knew this but did not say it.

The last event was the dorm reception, tea and cookies with Alice’s housemother. She told Alice she had a headache and if she left now she could beat the traffic. Alice begged her to come, even if she only stayed five minutes.

“But I hate tea,” she said, hesitating at the door Alice was holding open for her.

“Then don’t drink it,” Alice said. “I just want you to be with me.”

The housemother’s sitting room was packed with weary parents and their bright-eyed daughters. Alice led her straight to Miss Grady, the housemother, in pearls and a pale-blue suit, who stood next to the silver tea service.

“This is my mother,” Alice said.

“I’m Rosemary Grady,” she said as they shook hands. She paused expectantly. “It’s so nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you, too,” Marie said, confused, but certain that something had been overlooked.

“I didn’t get your name,” Miss Grady said softly.

“Fermoyle,” Marie said, stiffening. “We have the same last name.” Did the housemother think because she was divorced their last names would be different?

“I meant your first name.”

“Marie.”

“Alice looks like you, Marie,” she said.

“Well, I hope not now, but a younger version of me, maybe. Before all the wrinkles and bags set in,” she said, in an attempt at modesty, gracious-ness, wit, anything but the inanity she saw reflected in Miss Grady’s polite smile.

“You probably already know this,” Miss Grady said, turning to Alice.

“But for my money you have one of the best rooms in the whole dorm.”

“Really? Actually it looked so small compared to the others,” Alice said, and Marie glared at her.

“The thing is, it’s right next to the kitchen and the lounge, so it always seems like a little apartment setup to the girls who live there.”

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“Rosemary!”

Miss Grady turned to greet a tall slim man and his blond wife, whose older daughter had lived in this dorm four years earlier.