The Land of Mango Sunsets (5 page)

There you have the picture of my failure with Charlie and as a standup comedian, his general attitude of frosty nonchalance, and a sketch of the geographic location of my other son, about whom there just isn’t much to say. It seemed like the world always worked against our relationships and any return to affection.

I knew it was well within my skills to exert some effort toward breaking down the walls between the boys and me. But I was too proud and so very hurt. When I thought about calling them, I would preconclude that it was too late. The damage was done.

When thoughts of my loneliness skidded to the forefront of my disappointment, that was when I missed my mother the most. I didn’t want her to tell me where I had gone wrong, though. No. I wanted her to tell me
that I had been right. But she would never say I was. I would go to the end of my days trying to please my mother and never somehow hit the mark. The root of the problem was my own stubbornness. I knew it and I hated myself for it. She told me I had unrealistic expectations of everyone. I disagreed. It seemed to me that I never asked for more than I gave.

I dialed her number again. This time she answered.

“Mother?”

“Hello, Miriam. I was just going to call you back. I have been one very busy bee today. Law! It is so gorgeous here! Not a cloud in the sky!”

“Well, that’s wonderful! It’s still dreary as the tomb here.”

“I know. I saw your weather report on some morning show while I was having my morning tea. You know, you should really come—”

“And that’s one reason I’m calling, actually. I want to try and get out of here for a few days.”

“Come tomorrow!”

“Oh, sure! I just wanted to know if you’re going to be around for the next few weeks.”

“Unless I drop dead, I’ll be right here.”

My mother wasn’t even close to dropping dead. With all the vitamins she took and all the organic food she ate? She was guaranteed to rival any celebrity from the Old Testament.

“Okay, I’ll start looking for a good airfare. So, what’s keeping you so busy?”

“Saving the planet.”

“Somebody’s got to.”

“Well, I got involved in a project to make disposable, biodegradable plates and so forth from potato starch. You just throw them in the compost heap and in six months they’re fertilizer.”

“Well. How about that?”

“Don’t be Miss Blasé Big City with me, Miriam Elizabeth Swanson.”

“Sorry. I still have problems envisioning you eating from paper plates—”

“Potato starch…”

“Whatever. Anyway, here’s news. I have a new tenant. A gal from Birmingham. Liz Harper. Very nice.”

“Lawsamercy, Miriam! What are you doing up there in Yankee land—running an ashram for wayward southerners? You’ve got that Kevin fellow from Atlanta and now…”

I smiled at Miss Josie’s joke and in the next breath realized that my mother was in excellent humor nearly all the time. In fact, I couldn’t recall the last time she had been in a foul mood. When I was a child she spent every bit of energy she had to spare giving me lessons in polite behavior and in the art of appearing happy.

“How do you do it, Miss Josie?”

“What’s that, darlin’?”

“Stay so upbeat.”

“Me?” She paused for a moment. “Is this a serious question?”

“Dead serious. Only because I’ve been on such a downer lately…”

“Is this about Charles?”

“No.” Yes.

“Judith?”

“No.” Yes.

“The boys?”

“Not really. I’m just a little melancholy, you know? I think all this dismal weather is at the bottom of it and I just miss…Oh, I don’t know what I miss.”

“Hmmph. Child? You’ve got yourself a case of SAD.”

“You’re telling me?”

“No, sweetheart—I mean, seasonal affective disorder.”

“Oh. That. Probably so.”

“Well, let’s start by changing all the lightbulbs in your house to full-spectrum lightbulbs. They’ll suppress your brain’s secretion of melatonin.”

“Wait. I have to get something to write with.” I rummaged through the kitchen drawer and found a ballpoint pen that actually worked after tossing aside four that refused to cooperate. “Hang on. Okay. Gosh, I have to clean out this drawer. Okay, full what?”

“Spectrum. You need me to come organize you. And get yourself outdoors for a walk every day. There was a study that showed an hour’s walk during the winter in sunlight was as effective as two and a half hours under bright artificial lights.”

“An hour? Forget it! Besides, I’d break my neck on all the ice!”

“Then call Delta or Continental, come see your mother, and I’ll take you for a walk on the Sullivans Island beach every day! And, you’re probably not feeding yourself correctly either…”

“But I am wearing a sweater.”

Silence from the south.

“That was a joke, Mother.”

“Of course it was. I knew that. Old as the hills, but a joke nonetheless.”

I sighed hard. I wasn’t that humorless, was I? “I’ll book a flight, buy the lightbulbs, and I’ll call you back.”

“Good. The sooner the better. I’ll get you all straightened out—”

“Bye, Mother. Thanks, okay?”

We hung up and I thought it pleased her to think that I needed her. The fact of the matter was that I did need her. I hadn’t felt so unloved and misunderstood in quite a while. What was the matter with me?

I watched a documentary on dolphins that bored me into a stupor. I changed the sheets on my bed, sponge-wiped the bathroom counters, and changed the towels. The sounds of my washer and dryer made me feel slightly better. Finally, it was cocktail time, and before I could pour a measure of the Famous Grouse into a tumbler, my doorbell rang. I opened the door and there stood Kevin with a telltale sack of Chinese take-out food.

“Want to indulge in a little Who Flung Dung?”

“Got hot-and-sour?”

“You know it, Petal Puss.”

“Come right in.” I stood aside, and Kevin all but ran past me to the kitchen.

“I’m freezing,” he said. “It must be twenty thousand degrees below zero out there. Brrrr!” He dropped the bag on the kitchen table and took off his gloves, hat, neck scarf, and coat. Next, he turned on the gas of one of my cooktop burners and warmed his hands, rubbing them together. “I couldn’t ask them to deliver? I had to go fetch it myself?”

“Starving?” I unpacked the food and opened the foil container of egg rolls. “Here.” I handed him one on a paper napkin. “Regain your strength.”

“You know me. I spent all afternoon upstairs with Daisy Mae and she didn’t even throw me a cracker! I wait until my blood sugar drops to nothing because I’m too OCD to quit styling, so I wind up tearing down Third Avenue like a convulsing maniac…”

I put two plates and bowls on the table with flatware. “Oh! She probably doesn’t have a thing to eat either. Should we invite…”

“Ha! Our Liz has a date! Don’t worry about this one, honey. She’s an operator. She went out already.”

I opened a bottle of red wine and poured out two glasses, offering one to Kevin.

“What’s her stuff like?”

“You wouldn’t live with that junk for five minutes.”

“Really? Well, she’s young.” We clinked to yet another new conspiracy and sat down to serve ourselves a hasty meal. “Tell me everything.”

“Strictly gross dregs of yard sales and what germy trash people leave on the curb.”

“Please! Are you kidding?”

“Nope. God, this lo mein is to die—”

“Oh! You got beef with broccoli! I adore it, you know…”

“Petal, that’s why I got it!”

“And to think I was going to have a grilled cheese sandwich with a scotch.”

We dove into dinner and the wine and spent the next hour or so discussing the merits and taste level of Liz Harper’s furnishings from her coffee mugs to her mangy stuffed animals.

“There’s not a stuffed dog, cat, monkey, or bear left on Coney Island,” Kevin said. “Or at Six Flags.”

“You’re terrible,” I said with a giggle, pouring out the last of the wine.

“Wait till you see! You’ll see!”

“Should I open another bottle? I have some kind of Sterling Pinot Noir.”

“No. Thanks. I’ll just have a vodka, if you have any. I have to work tomorrow—we’re changing windows on the Fifth Avenue side.”

If Kevin thought a vodka was easier on his head than a glass of wine, I wasn’t about to argue. I poured him a good shot over some ice cubes and the overhead noises started.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

“What in the world?” Kevin said, and looked up at the ceiling.

“It sounds like someone is…like they’re, you know…”

Thump! Thump! Thump!

“When’s the last time anyone had sex in this house?” Kevin said drily.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

“Well, I can’t speak for you…” The banging, pardon the expression, was getting louder and picking up speed.

“Puh! Lease!”

Ka-thump! Ka-thump! Ka-thump!

My neck and face got hot and even Kevin’s face was red and flushed.

Ohmagod! Ohmagod! Ohmagod!
Came the voices from upstairs.

“I’m opening a window,” I said, pulling up the one over the sink. “It’s hot as fury in here!”

“You said it, Petal!” Kevin opened the back door to the garden and
stepped out for a moment, no doubt for a reprieve from the sheer embarrassment of the occasion.

Kathumpkathumpkathumpkathump!

I opened the front door and stepped out into my foyer for a moment. The thumping continued in earnest. I thought, God in heaven! I wish they’d wind it up for the sake of the rest of us! But they did not. The Love Boat continued to rock and roll. Finally, it became quiet. When my own pulse returned to normal, I went back inside and closed my door.

Kevin was in the kitchen reading his fortune cookie as though nothing had happened at all. He had generously freshened his vodka and I poured a large one for myself. Scotch? Vodka? Who cared?

“It says,
Much excitement just landed in your life.
Hmmph, Confucius doesn’t know, pardon me, crap. If I smoked, I’d offer you a cigarette.”

“I’d smoke it, too.” We touched the edges of our glasses for the second time that evening and took a long sip. “Good grief, Kevin. What are we going to do?”

“Get her a rug to muffle the music?” Then he looked around. We realized at the same moment that Harry was missing. “Harry!”

“Where’s my baby?
Harry? Harry?
” No response. I began to panic.

“He wouldn’t go out in the courtyard, would he?”

“Oh, Lord, Kevin! I don’t know!
Harry?
You check there and I’ll check the rest of the house.”

A thorough search revealed nothing. My pulse raced again. On the verge of tears, I opened the front door of the apartment remembering that I had opened it earlier, only to see Harry on the steps, hopping down from the second floor. Following him was a familiar face.

It was Agnes Willis’s husband. Liz was carrying on with Agnes Willis’s husband, Truman.

I scooped up Harry and bolted through my door, closing it as quickly and discreetly as I could. I didn’t think Truman had seen me. My most fervent hope was that he had not. Kevin appeared in the living room. His face was relieved to see me holding Harry.

“You found him! Where was the bad boy? Harry? You had us scared to death!”

“Yes.” My heart was pounding like a jackhammer.

“What’s the matter, Miriam?”

“Oh, Kevin. You
don’t
want to know. I’ve got to get out of here.”

“Miriam! What in the world? Come sit! You’re shaking all over!”

“What if I told you that Liz was involved in an illicit affair with the husband of a friend of mine?”

Kevin was slack-jawed and bug-eyed.

“I’m putting the famous gray on his swing and pouring the Famous Grouse for us. This occasion calls for strong spirits.”

Kevin took Harry from me and I continued to shake. My hands got cold and then my neck got hot and I began to perspire. I had leased my apartment to a lying tramp. I had to think this through. I had carefully avoided a perv because of Kevin’s instincts and an admitted
other woman
only because she had come clean with me. But, what about Liz?

Kevin put the tumbler in my shaking hands and I took a drink, feeling its warmth all the way down my throat.

“Well? Who is the hooligan?” Kevin said.

“Kevin. You know I cannot reveal his name. My indiscretion added to his would be too much for me to bear. In any case,
that’s
not the real problem.”

“You’ll tell me when you’re ready, Petal. Just calm down and tell me what you’re thinking.”

I took another long sip. Kevin dropped some ice cubes in my glass and covered them with another measure of scotch.

“Infidelity makes me crazy, Kevin. I can’t live with it! I simply can’t! I’m thinking that this is a complete disaster and that I don’t want to be a party to this girl bringing home married men and carrying on with them in my house. It would be like a rerun of Charles and Judith night after night! I couldn’t stand it!”

“I understand why you’re upset. So am I. I was so sure about her, too,”
Kevin said. “She didn’t seem like she would resort to that kind of behavior. She’s pretty enough to find single men.”

“Kevin? I have to think about this, but right now, I want her out of here. I just want her out. Out of my house!”

Kevin squatted down next to me and took my free hand in his.

“Listen to me, Miriam. Let’s not jump the gun. Maybe she didn’t even know he was married. Maybe she did a onetime stupid thing, I mean, we all make mistakes.” Then, in almost a whisper, he said, “And, Petal? Face it. You need the rent.”

It was true. I did. My bottom lip quivered, my eyes filled with tears, and I drained my glass. “Let me ask you something, Kevin? Is the whole world filled with this sort of fooling around? Isn’t anyone faithful?”

“You know the answer to that. Of course there are plenty of faithful couples. I think what we have here is Daisy Mae from the backwoods of Alabama who did a foolish thing and probably doesn’t even know it.”

“Maybe.”

“I think you should try to put it out of your mind for a while, pretend it never happened. Denial can be useful sometimes. And let’s see where things go. You can’t throw her out in the snow like ‘The Little Match Girl.’”