Thirty-Four #2
I let myself relax. “What else is going on in your lives?” I ask. “We don’t see one another nearly enough.”
Claire says, “Well, this morning my horoscope told me to consider matters of home and real estate, so I drove over to a new development and toured some houses.”
Adele’s face falls. “Where?”
“Off of 190th Street.”
“Did you like it?” I ask, watching them both.
Claire’s eyes are bright, a crisp cheerfulness when she says, “It was perfect. It’s a brand-new community.
As soon as you pick a house and put down a deposit, you get to choose the finishes according to your taste.
They have a catalogue of choices with all the materials ready to go.
I know the house I want already. Bernard’s agreed to come see it with me next weekend.
I’ve all but convinced him. I’m considering a pistachio or red-orange for the powder room tile. ”
Adele rises from the table, her eyes glinting. No more tentative peace, no more restraint. “You’re just like her.” The words a grenade. She storms down the sidewalk, around the corner of the building.
Claire blinks at me. “What just happened? Just like who?”
“You know what she means.”
“I do not.” Her words come out sharp.
I lean back on the bench and watch her. She isn’t giving in. Finally, I say, “There’s no way Al could buy a house in that development.”
“I know he took a pay cut to work with Dootsie. But the twins won’t be dependent on them for much longer. They could make it work.”
“Come on, Claire. That isn’t what I mean.”
“Then what do you mean?”
I can’t believe she’s arguing this with me, as though she’s forgotten everything we’ve known all our lives. “A new development, off 190th Street? Al can’t pass. Neither can the children. You know that.”
She scoffs. “I had no trouble with the agent today. You should have seen him, showing me the houses just as eager as could be.” Adele strides back down the sidewalk toward us, miniskirt bright as the sun.
“Wait,” Claire says, a dawning coming over her, speaking louder now. “You’re saying I’m like Delphine?”
“Well, aren’t you?” Adele says, looming over the table, face flushed.
“Have you thought it all through? Are you going to have us over to show us the place or will you wait until the loan’s final?
Wouldn’t want to be found out until the house is really yours, now, would you?
And how about after that? I suppose we’ll be hosting every time—again—so you won’t have to explain us to the neighbors. ”
“Stop it! That’s not the way it is at all. There are people from all over buying houses there. There’s a Chinese family right across the street from the house I looked at.” She’s crying now, and I wonder if it’s possible that she hadn’t thought it through.
“Sure,” Adele says, quieter. “But are there any colored families?”
Claire opens her mouth, closes it. “We’re Creole,” she says.
“We’re colored,” Adele says.
Claire looks to me.
“We’re both,” I say.
“If you do this,” Adele says. “If you move to a place where your own sister’s family isn’t welcome—where your nephews and your niece are not welcome—then don’t expect to be welcome in our home either.”
On Monday at work everything outside my booth feels too loud.
I go through the lunch line, accept a sandwich from Gladys, take it out to the bench alongside the parking lot.
I try not to think about my sisters. Try not to think about what I’ll do for work.
Try to ease the tightness in my chest. And then, from the building, someone heads toward me. Ginny.
“I saw you from the window,” she says. “Came to tell you two things. Oh. You’re sad?”
“I miss Lionel,” I say.
“Me too.” She tucks her hair behind her ear. Shorter again now.
“What did you want to tell me?”
“First, I just gave the plant my notice. I’m starting a new job in two weeks. Second, I’m hosting a little party tonight at my place.”
“Another going away party?”
“No, I just have some friends in town. Will you come?”
“Yes.” She smiles. And then I remember I made plans with Elise.
“Bring her along,” Ginny says. “Seven o’clock.”
The next hours fly by—finishing my shift and punching my time card, driving home to freshen up and change, hopping into Elise’s car for the short drive to Ginny and Pamela’s place.
“It’s a good step, right?” I say. “To stop avoiding each other when there’s no need to. But what if Pamela shoots daggers at me all night?”
“I’ll position my body to shield you.”
“What if they kiss, and I burst into tears?”
“We’ll pretend you’re choking on your drink.”
We get to the front door and I can’t bring myself to knock.
Elise does it for me, and a woman I don’t recognize answers.
She’s petite and pretty with a faint scar along her bottom lip.
Elise makes our introductions but I don’t hear her.
I’m taking in what’s around me. No Elizabeth Taylor poster.
No shells on the coffee table. No coffee table at all anymore, just an upturned crate.
When Ginny walks in from the kitchen, my whole body hums.
She looks straight at me, she smiles, she comes toward me without hesitation and gives me a hug, her hands grazing my waist as she lets go.
“You and Pamela?” I ask.
“A few months ago.” She leads me over to the woman who answered the door and a man standing with his arm around her. “You remember Odette,” Ginny says to the man.
“Sure,” he says. “But it’s been a very long time.”
I’m confused, embarrassed, can’t place him.
There’s a patience about him as he waits.
He has close-cropped strawberry blond hair, an elegant nose, a narrow equine face.
A flicker of memory catches. Another party, so many years ago.
Answering the door for Lionel and me. Sharing a chair with Ginny.
Quoting Emily Dickinson, flirting with me.
I draw in a breath, realizing. “Oh,” I say. “It’s you.”
“It’s me. Marty now.” He smiles broadly. “This is my wife, Rose.”
It’s so much to take in. I’m full of questions; I don’t know if I’ll get the chance to ask them. And now Jeremy’s arriving with a woman in a pink sweater. “We brought wine and Tarot cards,” he says, taking off his jacket. “Does anyone know how to read them?”
“I could fake it,” Marty says.
“Tarot makes me think of that French film,” Ginny says. “We saw it together, remember? The last time you visited. The opening credits…”
“Cléo from 5 to 7!” Elise says. “Odette and I saw it at the Los Feliz Theater.”
“We saw it there, too,” Rose says. “Could have run into you.”
“Thanks a lot for the invitation, you all,” Jeremy says.
“I covet Cléo’s polka-dot dress,” Elise says.
“And what about that black hat?” Rose asks.
Ginny says, “We’re all here. Let’s toast.”
We clink glasses.
A waft of scent comes from the kitchen—savory and warm—and everyone groans and professes their hunger, and Ginny heads to check the oven.
“Ginny needs help in there, I think,” Elise tells me. “In fact, I’m sure.” She gives me a little push.
Ginny’s tying an apron around her waist as I come in. She lets me take down plates, dress the green salad she’s prepared in a giant yellow bowl.
“This is all so beautiful. I want to cook for you, too,” I say. “Will you let me?”
She opens the oven, pulls out a glass baking dish. Cheese, perfectly browned on top, studded with basil. “What will you make?” she asks.
“Gumbo,” I say. It’s the most special thing I could serve her, the one that means the most. Jeremy steps in before she can answer.
He’s in search of a corkscrew. “I got us a Chianti,” he says, and we’re carrying plates and food to the small dining table, covering its surface, leaving only enough room for serving.
We all dish food for ourselves, take heaping plates to the living room.
For a few minutes, all anyone can do is eat and talk about the food.
The tenderness of the eggplant, the brightness of the dressing.
“Is it hard sometimes,” Rose asks, “to cook your family’s recipes when you don’t get to have a relationship with them?”
“A little.”
Rose says, “The way you cook. It’s so loving.”
I watch as Ginny takes her time chewing, swallowing, sipping red wine from her glass. She says, “Sometimes it’s a way to stay close. And sometimes it’s taking what was good, turning it into my own. Not needing them for anything.”