The Owl & Moon Cafe: A Novel (No Series) (29 page)

“It’ll only take a minute,” Lindsay said, hopping out and jogging down the pathway between the greenhouses and the acres of planted fields. Allegra could just make out rows of poinsettia plants behind the glass in the nearest greenhouse. Some had already turned red. She’d never been fond of the plant. Thanksgiving centerpieces were supposed to be cornucopias filled with corn and nuts, real edible food. They set up an artificial tree at Christmas so no firs had to give their lives to hang ornaments, but that was as far as she’d go in the fake versus real arena.

Al told her that Cronkite’s bumper stickers alone would fetch good money on eBay, but Allegra told him no way was she driving some gas-guzzling SUV or that midlife-crisis Porsche of his. “Will you at least allow me to put in a new engine?” he said.

“Maybe, if you agree to sell both your ritzy cars and buy a hybrid,” she’d countered. But get rid of Cronkite? Never. He was a fixture at protests. Her van was vintage. He reminded her of the old days, when she was strong enough to organize a sit-in, and camp out for days. Maybe she’d organize a protest against the cost of her prescription. Should it be held in San Francisco? Or did it need to happen on the steps of the Capitol? It would be such a great arrest to add to her record: CANCER PATIENT STAGES RALLY TO PROTEST DRUG COMPANY’S OUTRAGEOUS COST: How much is a life worth these days?

A good headline was everything.

Sally’s mother opened the back door and rolled herself out. Allegra waved. “Hi there,” she said. “Hope we didn’t disturb you. Lindsay needed to fetch something to do with the science project.”

The petite woman rolled her wheelchair to Allegra’s car door. “Yes, she and I spoke earlier. I wish those two would make up. I miss her. She was such a good influence on Sally.”

Allegra nodded. Gammy would say Lindsay and Sally were thick as thieves, double trouble, but what she meant was best friends. Mariah would say they were “age appropriate peers exploring common ground while heading into puberty.” But Allegra knew that those two girls had the rarest kind of love for one another. Mended now, theirs was a friendship that could last forever. Once dismissed, however, they would never be able to recapture it. Hormones and boys and a life made up of high school dances, grade point averages, summer jobs, and college would intrude. “I wish there was something we could do, but I think we have to let them fight their own battles.”

Sally’s mother nodded. “I agree, but if you think of anything we can try to hurry that along, please phone me.”

“You bet.”

“Lindsay said you were through with chemo. How are you feeling these days?”

“Good,” Allegra said, smiling. “I may look like a bag of bones, but I’m on the road to recovery. And so lucky. Did Lindsay tell you about my engagement?”

“She did. Congratulations. That’s my cue to turn into a shill, I guess. If you haven’t picked out a place for the ceremony yet, please think about having it here. I’ll give you our special friends’ discount. We can take care of all the details, catering, photography, justice of the peace, rabbi, shaman, whatever you need.”

“Thanks,” Allegra said, “but I’ve got my heart set on a beach wedding.”

“Sounds wonderful. Take care, and have a lovely Thanksgiving.” She wheeled back inside the house.

Thanksgiving, Allegra thought. Wasn’t it yesterday she’d sat in the chemo clinic with the bag of Kool-Aid-colored medicine dripping into her veins, her legs trembling with fear? Once she’d sneaked Khan in, tucked him into her tote bag. She had her reasons ready should she get caught, but no one noticed, and so whenever she felt particularly scared, she reached down to pet him.

Lindsay set a large brown paper sack with the top folded over onto Cronkite’s floor. “We can go now.”

“You’ve got everything?” Allegra asked, curious about what was in the bag.

“Yes.”

Lindsay looked away, and Allegra could tell her little heart was cracking in two. They executed a hair-raising left turn onto the highway. “Doesn’t anybody give a driver a break in traffic anymore?” Allegra said when the horns had stopped and they were safely traveling.

“Did they ever?” Lindsay asked.

“Once upon a time in the sixties, they did. People were a lot nicer.”

“Then I wish we could go live there,” Lindsay said.

Lindsay was such a stoic. Unless you knew the signs you’d miss how upset she was. She wasn’t much of a crier, either. “Omigod!” Allegra said. “You know what we should do?”

Lindsay shook her head no.

“Go to the Aquarium!”

Lindsay’s face brightened. “Really? Won’t you get tired?”

Allegra thought of the Marinol. The hell with Mariah. She’d take one tonight. Just to try it. If it made her high, she’d eat meals in her room. “Maintain!” they used to shout back in the sixties when a cop pulled your car over. “Due to the Americans with Disabilities Act you know the Aquarium’s got to have wheelchairs,” she said. “If I need a nap, you can park me in front of the jellyfish exhibit. Come on, let’s go, just for an hour. We might as well use our passes since they need to be renewed at the first of the year.”

A diver in the outer bay exhibit was taking photographs. Allegra sat in her wheelchair, thinking of Sally’s mother. It was a different world when you looked people in the waist instead of their faces. She imagined this was Lindsay’s view, too, being so short, and tried to see the exhibit through the handprints on the glass. Giant bluefin tuna swam by, and silvery barracuda, those hobgoblins of the water world. The yellowfin tuna swam in a school, making tight turns in unison, shining, to borrow Gerard Manley Hopkins’s turn of phrase, “like shook foil.” The wise old faces of the sea turtles reminded her of Al. The hammerhead sharks looked scary, but their mouths were only large enough for small fish, squid, and crustaceans. According to the sign, this fifty-four-

foot-long by fifteen-foot-tall tank was “the largest window in the world,” and held a million gallons of seawater kept fresh by a state-of-the-art filtering system. Sitting here was like being inside the ocean, still and peaceful, the room dim and quiet. Allegra wished she’d thought to come here months ago, because no pill in the world could take her mind off her illness like watching Lindsay watching the fish. Her granddaughter would have happily waited hours to see the lumpy old sunfish. They were the underdogs of the sea, and Lindsay was their lone cheerleader.

“Look, Allegra,” she said, when one finally swam into view. “There goes my favorite fish in the world.”

“He’s a lucky fellow,” Allegra said. “We should bring Al here. He’s so busy I’ll bet he’s never been. You could give him a tour.”

“Dr. G’s nice,” Lindsay said. “We talk about science a lot. He helped me with the project. And let me sit in his office chair.”

“I’m glad. Oh, God! Look at the time. We better get our butts in gear. Gammy will flip her lid and your mother will give birth to a cow.”

“No way,” Lindsay said, pushing the wheelchair toward the exit. “My mom’s probably already out to dinner with Scotland Weird.”

“Why don’t you like Fergus?” Allegra said.

“I don’t hate him,” Lindsay answered. “I just miss how things used to be.”

“Me, too,” Allegra said. “But good stuff rarely happens without painful changes. Look at me, Doc wanting to marry me. Who would’ve thought?”

Lindsay smiled. “It’s like you’re a princess. It’s just that…”

Allegra saw the waver in her granddaughter’s jaw. “What, honey?”

“Sometimes I wish the good part would hurry up and happen for me.”

“It will, sweetie. Any minute now. I promise.”

The second week of November, Doc flew to New York for a convention. Every night he called to catch up on news at home.

“I just want to call her up and tell her,” he said, referring to Mariah and the paternity issue.

“Let’s wait until you’re home. How’s the Big Apple?”

“Dreary.”

“So take a walk through Central Park.”

“And get mugged?”

“Take a cab ride.” Allegra suddenly remembered the poet Diane Wakoski, who had written “The Ten-dollar Cab Ride” for Beat poet Robert Duncan. Duncan was thinking about suicide, and gave his last ten dollars to a cabdriver, saying take me ten dollars’ worth of anywhere. Golden Gate Park, with its beauty, saved him. Surely Central Park had similar powers.

“New York’s fun,” Al said, “but not by myself. I wish you were here with me. I’d take you shopping on Fifth Avenue.”

She laughed. “I wouldn’t let you buy me anything.”

“Then we’d spend it on our girls.”

She liked the way that sounded. “Hurry home, Doc. Fly safe. I love you.”

A week and a half later, Al was busy at work, and Allegra felt up to working the register for a few hours each day. Her old customers chatted with her, and she got an update on Kiki’s divorce-in-progress. Mr. Cooper was having a change of heart. He wanted a second chance. Kiki fully intended to give it to him. “But I want him to sweat bullets before I say so,” she told Allegra.

“Love’s precious,” Allegra said. “I wish you the best of luck.”

Kiki ordered butter cookies. Her card game mates had come to expect an Owl & Moon treat. Mariah made them smaller than Allegra did, but they were good cookies, crisp on the edges, soft in the center. When Lindsay returned home from school, she washed dishes. As soon as she got a moment, Allegra popped in to say hi. “School go okay today, honey?”

Lindsay nodded.

“Project all ready for the Science Fair?”

Another nod.

Allegra looked at Simon, who shrugged and continued drying dishes. Back out in the café proper, Allegra watched Mariah breeze through orders and deliveries and smile while she was doing it. Her daughter was happy. The new boyfriend had melted the glacier that had grown around Mariah’s heart from the minute she learned she was pregnant with Lindsay, and the stinking father took a powder.

Al was wrong. Mariah wasn’t going to be upset. She’d be ecstatic to learn that not only did she have a father, but also that he was joining the family. But maybe she should tell her alone. Wouldn’t a good mother take her aside, give her a chance to get used to it before she brought Al into the room? Right now, there were butterflies winging past the window, and in came Fergus. When Mariah saw him, she beamed like a woman in love. No hurry on the father stuff. Allegra would tell her another day.