The Time of Her Life Page 9

  She got up and tucked the covers snugly around her daughter, then stood away from the bed, wanting to do something more for Jane but completely at a loss as to what it should be. Jane turned her face away and lay perfectly still, looking out the window into the rain.

  “I’ll come up later, Janie, and see if you want something to eat. I can bring you a turkey sandwich. I know how you like them. I’ll put cranberry sauce on one side, okay?”

  But the gray light that filtered into the room fell across the tense jaw and the angry, pouting, turned-away mouth of her daughter, and Claudia was afraid of her. She took two awkward, hesitant steps backward before she turned and left the room, as if she were moving away from Jane because Jane had accused her of something.

  While the Thanksgiving dinner progressed downstairs through the second helpings, more wine, various turns of conversation, Jane glided like a sylph through all the upper story. She was triumphant slipping along the corridor so secretly, like a wraith, like a spirit. She wasn’t fearful of all the wisping shadows as she sometimes had been in this house on other days, after Vince had told them all the stories she and Diana asked to hear once again. She had, in fact, the peculiar sensation of moving with the house, of being one little bit of all that was mysterious about the Tunbridges. She was finally permeating their history, that great stretch of events that belonged to them alone and was their frame of reference. Jane lost the consciousness of the weight of her body; she floated as if she were the embodiment of all the mottled shades of gray that fled along the walls and around the corners with even the smallest shift of light through the windows.

  She went to Celeste’s room first and traveled around its edges, as though she might be discovered if she stepped into its central space. She paused at the night table and leafed through Celeste’s journal, which had intrigued her ever since the first time she had seen Celeste writing in it. It was a large black leather-bound volume that Celeste had special-ordered from the stationery store. But it was disappointing. It was full of Celeste’s notes to herself about classwork and meetings, with scarcely anything personal and nothing at all about Jane.

  She circuited Vince’s room briefly, although she didn’t linger among his things; they didn’t interest her. In the huge bath and dressing room that connected Vince’s room to Maggie’s she opened all the closets and cupboards and studied with great satisfaction the many folded towels arranged by color, the shelf of pretty soaps, bath powders, lotions, and creams, and in one corner closet she found a toilet bowl plunger, exactly like the one in her own house, tucked away with a mop and bucket and sponges. She closed each door behind her before she opened another. She stood for a long time looking in at Maggie’s shoes and dresses and suits and blouses and slacks, which were hung on a clever, multiple hanger.

  She opened the old wooden cupboard where Vince’s shaving kit was, and cough syrups, aspirin, Pepto-Bismol, Alka-Seltzer, Paropectolin. She picked up a beige box to scrutinize its prescription label:

  Celeste Tunbridge: Motrin: One or two tablets at onset of cramps then one tablet every four hours as needed.

  She rummaged through all the plastic bottles of prescription medicines and read them carefully:

  Celeste Tunbridge: Lasix: One tablet each morning with orange juice as needed for fluid.

  Margaret Tunbridge: Percodan: One tablet every four hours as needed for pain.

  Margaret Tunbridge: Valium: ½ to one tablet before each meal and one/two before bed.

  Diana Tunbridge: Ampicillin: One tsp. every four hours.

  Diana Tunbridge: Novahistine DH: One tsp. every four hours as needed for cough.

  The Novahistine DH had crystallized into green sugar all around the channeled childproof cap. Jane opened the bottle, sniffed it, and took a taste of the liquid onto her tongue, but it had a vile sweetness. She capped it again and put it back right where it had been on its sticky circle. She lined up all the bottles carefully just as she had found them, but before she closed the cabinet, she took down the bottle of Percodan tablets and put them on the counter while she used both hands to shut the heavy hinged doors so that the clasp would catch properly. She took one tablet from the bottle and swallowed it with water she sucked up from her cupped hands beneath the faucet. There was no water glass beside the sink. She put the bottle in the pocket of her jeans and pulled her sweat shirt over it.

  Before she left the room, she turned to be sure that nothing looked disturbed, and she wandered into Maggie’s room, which was the place of most solace to her in all the world. At Maggie’s long window next to the chaise longue Jane peered out toward the river, but it was obscured by the steady rain. She moved over to the dresser, where Maggie’s comb and brush lay intertwined with short strands of white-blond hair that were almost incandescent in the gloom. Jane had always wanted to know the feel of that brush in her own hair, and she stroked her head gently and was surprised to find that the bristles were not very effective. They were soft and short in the elaborate chased silver base, and she tended to bang herself on the head with each sweep of her hand. She replaced the brush just as it had been and stood regarding herself quietly in the mirror. She took up a handful of change from a silver dish next to Maggie’s purse and put it in her pocket along with the bottle of pills.

  Except for the nickels and quarters she had pocketed nothing was changed in Maggie’s room, nothing was askew, and she left the room and shut the door softly behind her. She went back to her corner room under the eaves and resettled herself peacefully under the covers, enclosed as though she were in an envelope by the sweetly flowered wallpaper and the rain outside. As she lay there, a feeling of absolute contentment began to come over her in degrees in the same way warmth suffused her body when she came in from the cold. She was removed from any careful consideration of her life. The knowledge of the events that had moved along in the past few weeks coursed through her, but it only rushed along like a dark river as seen from a high, safe, grassy place along the bank. All that knowledge was at a far remove from any emotion she felt at the moment. She was smug in her warm bed with the muted sound of a party at a comforting distance. She was so pleased that she was mildly surprised by her own condition. Her silent investigation of the Tunbridge rooms seemed to have been perpetrated by another self, some restless other child who did not feel the hum of tender self-satisfaction unnumbing all the far reaches of herself. She fell asleep with pleasure, not with any wariness at the idea of being unconscious.

  In the dining room the long meal had reached that tattered stage at which point the hosts and guests alike had begun to suffer from an undefined regret. Any successful celebration has some momentum of its own, and Maggie had carried the day along for a while with her own idea of how the time should go. Finally, however, the whole party began to sense that they had stayed with each other past the peak of interest. Curiosity abated, and the energy of the gathering was rapidly dissipating.

  Sally and Will Fitzgerald were taking turns walking their daughter around and around the table because she was fussy from sitting so long, but they were not quite yet ready to take themselves away. Trays of cheese had been put out after the dinner and dessert dishes had been cleared away, and people had switched places or got up to move around a bit.

  Claudia had come back to her same seat next to Vince and across from Celeste, and her energy had flagged so early that when she had run out of conversation to have with them, she did not even have the impetus to move on to another group. She sat quietly over her coffee. Claudia knew all the other guests in the room with the exception of the Fitzgeralds and their daughter. She had met them at Maggie’s at one time or another. However, she didn’t know any of them very well, and one glance around the room convinced her, in the middle of the color and sound, that all these people had clear plans ahead of them for after this meal. In a little while they would be off. They would hurry through the rain toward whatever they did, and this notion intensified that sense of loss she had felt as she had tried to give comfort to
Jane.

  Claudia had inclined her head forward a fraction and raised her hand to push her hair back off her brow. She was not aware that this was her habitual gesture of avoidance, a private gesture to distract herself from unpleasant thoughts. Vince had been leaning back in his chair at the end of the table and watching her for some time. He made a sweeping motion with one arm, inclusive of the room, the day, the idea of Thanksgiving.

  “These traditional celebrations,” he said, and paused with the irony in his voice curling over even the notion that very much was worth such a ceremony. “These kinds of days are a strain on the best of us.” He didn’t smile at her, but he leaned back even farther in his chair, stretching his legs out so that the chair tilted backward, and regarded her with interest.

  Claudia was not guileful. She tipped her extraordinary face back and looked at him in surprise. She was startled at being caught out in what she was thinking. Her hand still held back the cloud of her hair, and she released it, and it settled gently in place again over her forehead. The candles had burned so low that they cast an uplight over Claudia’s pointed face, but even with the light trapped beneath the high arch of her brows in a way that threw her eyes into shadow, she had no expression of concealment about her. She only looked as though she were struck with wonder. This was the face she turned to Vince.

  “The main thing,” she said, “is that I don’t have any idea of what to do now.”

  Vince looked on at her without changing expression, and after a moment he clicked the front legs of his chair back to the floor as he gathered himself forward to stand up. Just as his head was nearest hers in that one movement he spoke without looking at her. “Well, we’ll think of something. I’ve got a couple of ideas.” But his tone was vexed, and he didn’t elaborate; he moved off to chat with the Fitzgeralds, who had their daughter bundled up and were ready to leave.

  Claudia stayed where she was, and in a few moments Maggie took the place Vince had left vacant. She settled into the chair with a great flurry of garments coming to rest, of herself being collected. Whenever Maggie stopped, it was as if some other part of her had to catch up—a stray hand that was busy finishing some other task; her attention, which sometimes seemed to be several paces behind her. However, when she was absolutely there and assembled, there was no concentration as powerful as that which she could bring to bear on whatever had caused her to relocate in the first place.

  She put her elbows on the table and hunched forward toward Claudia, holding her cup of coffee firmly with both hands. She was soft-voiced with the power of a secret to impart.

  “When I talked to Avery this morning, I told him that you and Jane would be here for dinner. He was going to come along with Alice, but he thought it would be better for everybody if he didn’t come, too. You know, he’s been absolutely sober this past week.” Maggie pursed her lips over her coffee, sensing that it was too hot to sip. “He’ll be coming by about seven-thirty. I thought you might rather not run into him. Of course, Jane’s welcome to stay and have a chance to visit with him, but I knew it might be hard for you to see him.”

  Claudia stared at Maggie without comprehension, except that she knew from Maggie’s tone that Maggie was doing her some favor. That much was clear, but grateful as Claudia knew she ought to be, she suddenly felt claustrophobic, trapped as she was under Maggie’s wing. “Maggie, I’m only angry at him.” She wanted to see Avery very much, and when she noticed Maggie’s face cast over in disapproval, she wondered if Avery had requested not to see her.

  “That’s a lot to expect of Jane, isn’t it?” Maggie said.

  “I don’t know what you mean. Jane misses Avery, too.”

  “I know she does, but, still, having to see you together again and then apart. Shouldn’t you see Avery when she’s at school? There’s not much you could get settled tonight, anyway, in the middle of all of us.”

  Every one of those considerations went out of Claudia’s mind, though, when the idea Maggie put forth came into focus as a picture of what would happen. She would see Avery and stand near him—his long body—and not touch him. He would not touch her, and before she would ever touch him again or be touched by him, there would be all the conversations, anguish, endless talking. That condition had never been so between them. Their other separations had been only brief and private; they had not been such public property. The two of them had always had access to the other since they were children. Claudia was defeated, and she looked down at the table to avoid looking at Maggie, who had imposed this condition upon her. That was not a rational conclusion, but it was what Claudia thought, and she was very angry.

  “I’ll go check on Jane,” Claudia said, and left the table. But when she was in Jane’s room, she didn’t wake her because Jane looked warm and safe and comfortable, and Claudia could not deprive her of a condition she yearned for so desperately for herself right now. She went down the back stairs and found Celeste in the kitchen.

  “Jane’s sound asleep. Phone me when she wants to come home, and I’ll come pick her up.” Celeste said she was sure that Jane was welcome to stay over and that she would look in and check on her later to be sure she was all right. Claudia left the house through the kitchen door and trudged all the way around the enormous building in the rain to get to where she had left her car. She did not want to have to thank Maggie for a lovely day, although she didn’t like herself for her own stingy nature.

  5

  Claudia thought that as Christmas approached, the days passed with remarkable singularity. They did not oblige her and slip away into weeks. Instead each day rolled out long and inflexible from morning to night; there was no snap to any one of them that marked it off succinctly so that she could have the satisfaction of reaching a particular moment and going on from there. And the weather was sullen, too. The rain had stopped at the end of November, and a deep freeze had settled in with no precipitation. The meadow spread away from Claudia’s house pocked with muddy patches of ice. The long grass was flattened and yellow and was brittle underfoot, and the sky, day after day, stretched out low and dull and unshifting. When Claudia went out, which was seldom, or when she looked through her windows, she thought the landscape looked mean.

  She watched passively and without curiosity as the world tightened down unsympathetically into hard winter. She put off making plans of any kind. She avoided thinking about the future to such a degree that she had not even settled into a state of waiting since Avery left; she was only being there until the time went by.

  Maggie often dropped by without warning, and that made Claudia mildly uneasy all the time. Maggie had expectations of her, and just now Claudia didn’t want to expend the energy even to figure out what the expectations were, much less fulfill them. When she thought about it, the most Claudia wished from her friends was that her own life not be a topic of their consideration.

  One afternoon Maggie arrived on foot, having come up the hill through the frozen meadow, and Claudia was caught unawares, without even the sound of Maggie’s car as a warning. Maggie gave a perfunctory knock and stepped straight into the house. She always entered that way; she stepped straight into one’s life all prepared to help out and set things right. She walked in that afternoon and startled Claudia, who was sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee and idly bending over the pieces on the chessboard. She was wearing her long red robe, over which she had put on an oversized mustard-colored cardigan sweater that Avery had left behind. She sat back in surprise when Maggie put her head around the kitchen door, and she pulled the cardigan more closely around her and hugged her elbows.

  “I can only stay a minute,” Maggie said, “but I wanted to talk to you about two things.” She was, as always, very deliberate about this: two things. It was her habit to warn people, to insist upon their endurance. But Claudia was thrown back in time into the sort of dread with which a child hears a parent announce in midafternoon that after dinner the two of them must have a serious talk. In Claudia’s experience this had never
amounted to a conversation; it had always turned out that Claudia sat and listened while someone else gave her unwanted instruction or advice. Now and then Maggie had said to Claudia that she and Vince had met at Belden’s restaurant or the Faculty Club to discuss this or that problem in their marriage or with their children. She had tried to admire Maggie’s rational determination, but she had always cringed for Vince, who probably approached that meeting place with his usual air of detachment, but with his stomach clenched. Now Claudia looked back down at the little chess pieces and tried to indicate by her passivity that two might be just a little too many things to discuss.

  “Um-huh. Okay,” she said mildly, making it as clear as she could that although she was right there in the room, her attention was not all it might be.

  “Well, first,” said Maggie, settling in across the table from Claudia, “we’ve got to decide what you’re going to do about Christmas.” Claudia gazed up at her after a moment without any inflection of expression. “Celeste has offered to take Diana in to Kansas City in March for the Men at Work concert if I’ll buy the tickets. They’re playing at the Kemper Arena. It would be a much better present for Diana if Jane could go along. I thought you might like to give Jane a ticket, too. I don’t think they really know if they like the music or not. It’s the idea of going that they’ll like. They can stay overnight with one of Celeste’s friends who lives right outside Kansas City. Diana will be ecstatic.” Maggie said this with a wry smile, to encompass the eccentricities of eleven-year-old girls. But when she saw Claudia smile back at her automatically without having paid attention to what she was saying, she became more abrupt. She leaned forward on her elbows to be sure that Claudia listened to her. “Diana says that Jane won’t do anything with their group anymore. And, I have to tell you, when she’s at our house, she’s only barely civil to Diana. Of course, Diana will put up with anything from Jane. As far as she’s concerned, Jane hung the moon. But Jane’s hostile to every overture Diana makes, even though she seems to need Diana’s company. Jane’s always around.” She stopped for a moment and opened her hands in a gesture of helplessness. “I don’t like to be the one to tell you this. I feel as if I’m betraying Jane, because she seems to count on us somehow. But she’s right on the edge, Claudia. She’s right on the edge of losing it.” Maggie was absolutely sincere, but Claudia could not hear these things said without also hearing the undercurrent of satisfaction that Maggie felt because her own child was not in such a state. Maggie continued, “I can’t keep insisting that Diana’s friends try to include Jane in everything when Jane’s so antagonistic to all those little girls!”