The Time of Her Life Read online

  “You didn’t look for those stockings! You didn’t look for those stockings. So let’s find them. We’re going to find them now!” He pulled her out from behind the coffee table that separated them and moved her along, and she staggered in front of him stocking-footed until they stood in front of the storage closet that was under the stairs. He pulled the door open and shoved her in the direction of the shelves. For a moment he dropped his hands to his sides and watched the back of her head as though he had forgotten what he was doing. He said to her again, “See if you can find them! If you really look for them!” And he moved away to get his drink.

  “You could do that much! You could do that much for your own daughter!” And when he turned and saw that Claudia had put her arm against one of the closet shelves and was only standing there with her face buried in the crook of her elbow, he was back behind her in a flash. He yanked her other arm and pulled her around to face him.

  “You’re a bitch! A bitch! A bitch!” he said in a loud voice barely under control. “You really think this is all a waste of time, don’t you? You really think it’s all shit!”

  “That’s not true…” she began to protest, as she always forgot she had protested countless times before.

  “Don’t say anything!” He exploded at her, and he turned her forcibly around toward the three sparkling Christmas trees. “They’re just shit, aren’t they? They’re nothing at all to you! You think it’s nothing. You don’t care, do you? How much do you care about this? You wouldn’t do it yourself, because you don’t think it matters. You wouldn’t make time for any of this shit! And poor Janie! You don’t care about her Christmas!”

  He suddenly let Claudia go and wheeled around to face the three trees himself. He stood rocking slightly from one side to another, studying them for a moment. Then with one huge exertion and sweep of his arm he toppled the two smaller trees, which burst upon the floor with sparks and breaking glass. He stepped over them and began to pull at the larger tree, which was wired tightly to the central beam. For a few moments he pulled at it with both his hands, but then he subsided slowly against the tree as if he desired it. He folded his arms into it and fell against its springy branches. He lay full out against its resilient boughs, and his voice was harsh with despair.

  “Oh, Christ!” he said. “I wish I didn’t know you. I wish that I could unknow you somehow. I just wish… I just wish that you thought that there was one thing in the whole world that was important.”

  When Avery had swung around at the trees, Claudia had stepped backward up three of the steps to get out of his way, and now she stood looking down at him, so hurt by what he said that she was crying. “Please, Avery. Please. Please. Come up to bed with me. Please, Avery. Come up and sleep.”

  Avery lay against the tree for a fraction of a second longer, and then he pushed himself away from it and turned without saying anything more and slammed out of the front door. Claudia sat down where she was and put her head down on her knees. She stayed like that for a long time before she got up and went to bed.

  Upstairs in her room Jane had not moved. She lay still stretched out straight and dry-eyed, but all the contentment and delight had sunk in upon itself with the effect of a collapsing star, a black hole. She became emptier and emptier of any sensation until finally she fell asleep.

  In the morning before school, while Claudia was still asleep, Jane made lunch for herself and packed her books and got her violin, which she would need for rehearsal. She left them by the back door, and she dragged the two small trees out to the edge of the driveway to be taken off by the garbage man. She swept up the fallen evergreen needles and the broken glass bulbs, and she put the ruined light strands and bits of glass into a trash sack, which she placed outside with the discarded trees before she gathered her things together and went out the back way to her school bus stop.

  6

  Claudia ran steaming water from the shower head. She was standing outside the bathtub in her robe, leaning into the steam at the far end of the tub and fluffing her hair, pushing it away from her neck while the moisture collected heavily around her head and penetrated the waves and puffs of her hair so that they coiled a little more tightly. She left the shower running and moved to the mirror, which she had repeatedly to wipe clear with one hand while she used the other to make up her eyes. She peered closely into the mirror through the steam to apply shadow just a shade darker than her skin and to outline her upper lids with a soft brown pencil.

  Three days after the disastrous decorating party she had called Alice Jessup, who had agreed to have Claudia drop by, and the prospect of that meeting made Claudia feel nervous and oddly intimidated. It was true that Claudia was not often impressed; however, she was quite easily intimidated by people who believed they led reasonable lives. She had not taken a step so conclusive in a very long time, but when the baffling idea that Avery was not going to stay with her had settled in, Claudia had roamed the house he had designed with an urgent restlessness. The past two mornings she had got up early with Jane and got dressed and put on makeup and then wandered fitfully through the rooms that curved and angled in diverting and charming ways. She experimented in the house, trying out different rooms to get a reading on their atmosphere. She wandered into Avery’s study with its long windows set into the wall at an odd curve, and Jane’s room, in which Claudia could only stand upright at its very center because of the arc of the ceiling. She lay down on Jane’s slender Scandinavian bed and gazed up through the round window directly overhead and watched the snow slowly obscure the sky as it gathered on the flat glass pane. Had Avery anticipated this effect? The white light that filtered through the snow illuminated the little room with almost the same eerie glow produced by neon. Claudia lay on the bed and thought that she was like a figure in one of the glass domes that children get in their Christmas stockings. She knew that she was as endangered right now as if she were enclosed in just that way; she was as vulnerable to any hand that might pluck up her habitat and shake it to make the snow fly. Until now she had not realized that she had assumptions about how her life would go; the things that had been certainties to her were suddenly loose in the world; now they were a part of her history.

  She had thought a good deal about what Avery had said to her. In retrospect she was very often enraged with answers and thoughts that hadn’t occurred to her then. But it did seem to her that thinking about what people needed might be some sort of option for her now. Perhaps he had been right when he had said that she didn’t anticipate other people’s needs. She was willing to consider the possibility that she was sometimes insensitive. At the very least, thinking about what other people needed was something to do. It was a little nugget of activity around which she could begin to organize herself.

  All she was certain of for the time being was that she was miserably at loose ends when she was alone in the house, with only Nellie as company. Nellie was such an obsequious animal that her presence didn’t have much value. Claudia was unhappy when Jane was at school, and she was making an effort to rally and cheer herself up. She had called Alice Jessup in order to make arrangements to buy a good violin for her daughter, because she was swept up in tender gratitude toward Jane, who was so loyal to her and was such a sturdy soul. She was pleased with herself for having thought of this gesture.

  And she was also pleased to discover that when she got up in the morning and got dressed and went out to the bank and the grocery store and to fill her car with gas, the time went by. The day did pass in spite of the fact that Avery had always said that she would never be able to manage without him. Sometimes he had said it with a sort of melancholy fondness, and sometimes he had said that to her in such a rage that it had signified danger, and she had taken Jane with her and the two of them had driven out along the highway or around and around the town until he was asleep. But she was all right. She didn’t need money, because she had a little from her parents’ estate, and she didn’t need courage, because she had Jane.

  Nev
ertheless, it wasn’t particularly gratifying to Claudia to be seizing these new responsibilities. Initiating this surprise hadn’t done as much for her as she had hoped it would. She found that she had taken on a rather frightening burden. Surprises so often alter people’s lives.

  When she had finished shading and outlining her eyes and had smoothed on a pale blusher beneath her cheekbones, she went to the closet and forlornly considered all the various garments hanging on the rack or folded on the shelves. She was without vitality in the face of this single decision of what to wear. Her wardrobe let her down, and even the tweed skirt and nice gray blouse she chose didn’t lessen her apprehension. In fact, she lost interest in her outfit even as she was buttoning herself into it. Before she was all finished, she had forgotten the effect she was after and had put on the boots that were nearest to her in the closet. They were very high-heeled shiny black boots that were a little bit wrong with the muted country woolen skirt.

  She was shy about her meeting with Alice Jessup, because Alice knew some things about which Claudia was mystified. When she had talked with Alice over the phone about buying a good violin for Jane, Claudia had become increasingly uncomfortable while she listened to Alice talk about the three violins she had brought back from St. Louis for another interested parent to choose among. There were two fine Tyrolean instruments to be had, although Alice thought it would be wiser to buy the reconditioned Hungarian violin that wasn’t so expensive. It had a one-piece back, and it had been cracked, but Alice trusted the man who had repaired it, and the violin was now in excellent condition. Alice was absolutely sure of all these facts. She cautioned Claudia against buying a French or German violin which, in all probability, would not appreciate in value. Claudia was immensely uneasy as she listened to Alice’s soft voice because she was entirely at the mercy of Alice’s knowledge.

  “Oh, Alice,” she had said very lightly over the phone, “I’ll leave it to you to decide which one’s best for Jane. I can’t even read music!” But Alice didn’t react with polite amusement; she was silent over the wire. She was often the same in person. Alice had the disconcerting habit of listening with great attention to the things people said to her and considering carefully before she replied. It unnerved Claudia. It pained her in a mild way not to be able to draw Alice out.

  When Jane had first begun taking violin from Alice, Claudia had sometimes been irritated by those early, discordant notes and especially by the shifts in tempo. “Jane,” she had said, “can’t you sense the rhythm? Why don’t you tap your foot? That would help.” Alice had telephoned her after the lesson that had followed that advice.

  “Mrs. Parks,” she had said very politely but definitely, “violinists never tap their feet. If you allow a child to tap his foot in the early stages of learning any instrument, it might be easier to teach—especially the percussion instruments—but you’ll have to stop him later. You have to teach that child later that what you let him do for so long is completely wrong. And you see, I don’t use those techniques. The violin is what Jane should be concentrating on, not her foot. Her foot is the farthest thing from her brain.”

  Claudia had thought that Alice had meant this last as a little joke to moderate her sternness, and she had laughed, but then, too, she had been met with silence from Alice at the other end.

  Alice lived near the university close to the apartment Avery had rented. There were a large number of handsome turn-of-the-century houses that had been converted into apartments. They lined the narrow streets that crisscrossed College Avenue in odd juxtaposition to the large and unremarkable yellow-brick university buildings that ranged away row after row over the gentle roll of the campus. Claudia climbed the stairs at the back of the house to reach Alice’s apartment, and when Alice opened the door, Claudia was relieved. She was comforted at first glance to see that Alice’s rooms were in a state of disarray, and Alice was so slight and solemn—an earnest little candle of a person—that Claudia felt that she herself was immensely tall and loose and easy-limbed and lovely. It relaxed her for a bit.

  “I’ve still got the three violins here,” Alice said, “but one of them may be taken. It isn’t the instrument I had in mind for Jane anyway. Jane’s ready for an intermediate instrument. I wouldn’t want to see you spend more than… oh, between fifteen hundred and three thousand. She may want to move on to a better instrument when she’s older. You shouldn’t spend any more than three thousand at the most.” Claudia had followed her along through the little entry into the living room where three violins were displayed on a table that stood against one wall and seemed to double as a desk. Stacks of papers and folders and books had been pushed out of the way to make room for the instruments.

  “I’d like you to hear all three. I can give you an idea of how they sound even though I’m not very familiar with them. And really, Jane will have to be sure herself. She ought to use whichever one you take today for several months before she decides. And it will feel awful to her for the first few days. But at least it will be a surprise for her at Christmas, even if she doesn’t keep it. Give her some time with it. I’m still trying to adjust to a new bow I invested in at the first of the school year.”

  Claudia wasn’t paying close attention. She knew that she wouldn’t have any idea which violin had the best sound. “It’s nice of you to go to so much trouble, Alice. Jane’s always working on her music these days. I think she’ll be delighted.”

  Claudia sat down on a couch that was covered with a patchwork quilt, and Alice didn’t reply. She had moved over to her music stand and was fitting an unusually light-colored violin against her shoulder, adjusting her small head until she was comfortable at the angle required by the cradle of the chin rest. She lifted her head for a moment and turned to Claudia. “You’ll hear the difference with this bow, too. Jane needs a good bow, and I brought back several from St. Louis.”

  She settled her head once more, and Claudia felt a vicarious twinge as she watched because Alice’s waist-length hair was so out of proportion to her small, oval face and slight frame that Claudia thought it must hurt for her to bend her head forward. It looked to Claudia as if Alice’s heavy brown hair would pull against its own roots. But Alice began to play a familiar Handel piece with an ease that alerted Claudia all at once to reconsider where she was.

  The confusion and disorder in Alice’s apartment were revealed to her in that moment as the odds and ends that collect around people who are otherwise devoted. This was not disorder that sprang from malaise or lethargy or absentmindedness. The pile of mail on the end of the couch, the newspapers and books stacked here and there were not casual messiness. They were the natural dross that gathers around a person who proceeds along a chosen course as straight as an arrow. These things were scattered around because Alice was busy; her attention was concentrated on her music. Claudia was at a loss once more, uncertain about how to behave around this odd young woman who clearly had deep convictions about the things she did.

  As Alice played for her, Claudia got up and went over to look at the other two glossy dark instruments, and she thought that they were so beautiful to look at that they would be a pleasure to own beyond the fact that they were good instruments.

  “Avery liked the dark wood, too,” Alice said, “but I really think this is a better violin for Jane. At least this is the one that I think she should try first. You have to remember that it will take her about a month to get used to it and see if it’s right for her. It’s a terrible mistake to select an instrument because of the way it looks. I did that myself when I bought my first violin, and I sold it before the year was over.”

  But what Alice had said had stopped Claudia entirely from trying to sort out the merits of the violins. “How does Avery know about it, Alice? This is supposed to be a surprise.”

  “Oh.” Alice’s features went straight and blank with alarmed solemnity in the middle of her sentence. “He was helping me bring these in from the car. I was afraid to carry them up the steps because of the ice.�
�� She looked worried now, and like a child in her fragility and unease. “He thought it was a wonderful idea. And it’s a surprise for Jane, isn’t it? I mean, I know Avery would never tell her and ruin Christmas for her.” No one could ever be less guileful than this small, intense woman, Claudia thought, but she still didn’t like to hear what people did or did not know about Avery.

  “Oh, it is Jane’s surprise,” she said, “but I really meant for it to be the big surprise for everyone this Christmas. I meant for this to be a sort of family surprise. I mean, we don’t usually spend this much money… Well, it’s a lot of money to spend.” Claudia heard her own voice thin out into querulousness, while Alice gazed at her somberly and with what Claudia perceived to be gentle indulgence. “Avery will be over Christmas morning to give Jane her presents. I’m sure he plans to. That was really when I wanted them both to know about this. To see the violin for the first time. But it’s fine, Alice. It’ll be fine.” She could hardly stand to hear herself speak; her voice was still quavery and filled with a defensive tone that she couldn’t control.

  At last she had gone away as quickly as she could, clasping the pale violin in its case like an infant as she descended the precarious wooden staircase without giving the other two instruments another thought, she was so glad to leave. She didn’t ask Alice how long Avery had known about the surprise because she didn’t want to know how long he had not felt impelled to put in his own two cents’ worth about this whole idea. She knew that it was the sort of surprise and situation that Avery loved and could scarcely ever be kept out of.

  When Jane was at home, she spent most of the hours practicing with a kind of intensity that even Claudia, who knew so little about it, could hear in the music she made. The notes were drawn-out with a new definition. And she was glad when Jane was in the house. Knowing that Jane was so diligently present upstairs invigorated Claudia and gave a shape to the long domestic days. It helped pull her out of her languor, and she straightened the rooms and vacuumed. One day she and Jane tried a recipe on the back of a Bisquick box for “Impossible Tuna Pie.” Another day Claudia found the waffle iron at the back of the storage closet and took it out to make waffles for dinner, but there was no syrup in the house, and they weren’t very good with butter and jam.