Looking for Peyton Place Page 14

  The sky had grown darker, and the air was heavy. Slogging through it, I began slowly, then picked up the pace once my legs warmed. I followed the same route I had taken yesterday—at the same time, yes, I did notice that—and I was on the lookout. I don’t know why. I certainly wasn’t in the market for a love interest here. Maybe someone with whom to talk about running?

  And hell is spiked with ice. Face it, sweetie. You liked the way he looked.

  I didn’t see the way he looked, I argued. He was too far away.

  You saw enough. Why else would you be chasing him now? Hey, is that him?

  No. It’s a man mowing the grass at the edge of the street.

  Oh. Too bad. I want to see our guy, too. Who is he?

  How would I know? I replied, breathing harder as I increased my pace again. I haven’t lived here in fifteen years. I don’t know half the people in town.

  But they know you. Now you know how it feels to be stared at. I kept telling you it was bad, but you didn’t believe me.

  It’s not so bad if you know to expect it.

  Not so bad? People eyeing you like you have horns, then asking why you can’t be more like Harriet Nelson?

  You’re dating yourself, Grace. Besides, it was worse for you because you drank and swore and wore men’s clothes.

  By Jesus, that was my right.

  True, but there are consequences to some behavior. You went out of your way to shock people.

  And you didn’t?

  I did. But I was young. You were in your twenties and thirties. Why were you so contrary?

  How else could I know who was friend and who was foe? People are two-faced, sweetie. They’re all peachy-keen when they want something from you, then once they have it, they’ll stab you in the back. I thought you learned that with Aidan Meade.

  I was thinking that not all people were two-faced—certainly not Greg and others of my Washington friends—when I was suddenly distracted, and not by the light rain that had started to fall.

  There! Oh boy. That’s him.

  Indeed it was. I had just turned a corner, and there he was, running a block ahead. My breathing seemed suddenly louder. I was amazed that he didn’t hear, but I suppose the patter of rain hitting leaves overhead covered it up. He didn’t slow, didn’t turn. I had a fabulous view of his tapering back. He was shirtless again; his shorts were close-fitting and hit at the thigh.

  That’s an impressive backside.

  Uh-huh.

  Run faster.

  I can’t. I’ll mess up my workout. Besides, I like watching him—even if he isn’t the best runner I’ve ever seen. He’s not terribly graceful. I think he’s flat-footed.

  But he’s tall and broad-shouldered. And dark. I like them dark. My George had dark, curly hair. He was Greek. Did I ever tell you that?

  Uh-huh. Many times.

  Boy, did my mother hate that. She wanted me to marry a purebred American. We were French-Canadian ourselves, like so many of the others who came to Manchester to work in the mills. My mother wanted to be better than them. Nothing my father did was ever good enough forher. She drove him away. Shit, he’s turning the corner! Don’t let him get away!

  What do you want me to do? I thought with a crazy half laugh. I was running faster than I normally did and had gained on him, but I was breathing perilously hard. Flat-footed or not, he was fast.

  Call him! Grace ordered. Make him stop. He may be the one.

  What one? I asked.

  The perfect one. The Adam.

  I’m not looking for any Adam.

  Sure you are, honey. We all are.

  The perfect man doesn’t exist. Isn’t that the point you made in your books? Your men were all scum.

  Not all of them. I liked Armand Bergeron and Etienne deMontigny. They fell hard for their women inNo Adam in Eden.

  Etienne was an abuser.

  His wife drove him to it. She turned into a real bitch. But what about Gino Donati? He’s as good as they get. I would have loved a man like Gino. He had the potential for being perfect. So does that guy up ahead. Christ, sweetie. Move it. He’s around the corner. Run faster.

  I had no intention of doing that. Soothed by the coolness of rain on my skin, I settled back into a saner pace and ran straight ahead. I might never have known who the other runner was if that little voice inside hadn’t prodded me into glancing to my right as I ran.

  Well, well. I’ll be damned.

  The runner had stopped halfway down the block and was standing there in the rain, looking back at me with his hands low on his hips. I could see that he was breathing hard and that because he was dripping wet, his hair looked darker than it really was. In the seconds before a huge oak tree came between us, I saw the gray there. Then the next block began, and he was gone.

  I ended up going to work with Phoebe—I mean, actually working at the store. It wasn’t something I would have normally chosen; when I was a child, Miss Lissy’s Closet had been my least favorite place. It represented everything I was not. Understanding this at some level, my mother put me to work in the back room. Naturally, I felt I was being hidden so that I didn’t hurt sales.

  It struck me that I still might hurt sales, albeit for entirely different reasons. But I was concerned enough about Phoebe to ignore my misgivings. She had warned me that mornings were bad, and this morning saw that out. She couldn’t find her pocketbook, though it was in plain sight at the foot of the credenza in the hall, and once she found the pocketbook, she couldn’t find the keys to the van, though they were right there inside. She searched for these things while she was still in her bra, because she couldn’t find the blouse she wanted to wear, and when she finally located the blouse, it was on the laundry room floor, fallen from its hanger.

  She lost it then—just fell apart. “Look at this,” she cried, holding up the blouse. “I pressed it so carefully the other day, and now look. I can’t wear this.”

  “It looks okay.”

  “It’s wrinkled. I can’t wear a wrinkled blouse.”

  “Then pick another,” I suggested.

  “But this blouse goes with this skirt, and now look at it. I hung it so carefully—I don’t know why it fell down—but I can’t show up at work this way, so now what should I do?”

  I set up the ironing board, heated the iron, and ironed the blouse. Phoebe took it back upstairs and returned holding the banister and looking lovely, but she was clearly unhappy. She said it was the rain, then murmured something about buying the wrong things.

  “Wrong things?” I asked.

  She waved a hand in dismissal.

  “What wrong things?” I asked, to which she replied a testy, “What are you talking about?”

  Sensing a losing battle, I sat her at the table with a glass of juice, eggs and toast, and a cup of coffee, and while she picked at the food with a shaky hand, I showered and dressed. When she appeared to have finished, I took the keys, held an umbrella over us going out to the van, then drove her to the lower end of Willow.

  It had been years since I had been at the store this early, and though computerization had streamlined things, certain chores remained the same. Tallies from the previous day had to be re-checked; messages left by West Coast suppliers after closing time the day before had to be accessed; bank deposits had to be prepared. Newly received shipments had to be checked, ticketed, and shelved; customers waiting for those clothes had to be called. Yesterday’s coffee grinds had to be disposed of and a fresh pot put on to brew.

  Like Mom, Phoebe had a crew that cleaned weekly, but vacuuming was done daily. Shelves had to be neatened and racks straightened; clothes that had been disturbed the day before were refolded and rearranged by size. Dressing rooms had to be checked, errant clothes put away, and the soft green privacy curtains hooked open.

  Since Miss Lissy’s had built a reputation for carrying lines of clothing that few other stores in central and northern New Hampshire carried, telephone orders were a constant; most such orders were filled during slo
w spots in the day, but others were done prior to opening to assure that they shipped with the morning mail. This day, there was only one order to box.

  Phoebe assigned it to me. She made it clear that she and Joanne (who, to my relief, was already at the computer when we arrived) were the only ones who knew enough to handle the complicated stuff (Phoebe’s italics), and I wasn’t offended in the least, not then, nor when she directed me to refold T-shirts and jeans and put wayward shoe boxes in order of size. It was a lovely exercise in helping—not greatly taxing, but practical—and it enabled me to watch the give-and-take between Joanne and her.

  This held no surprises. Having already sensed Joanne’s competence, I figured that she would be doing most of the work. Yes, it discouraged me. It was further proof of Phoebe’s impairment. That said, Joanne was wonderfully gentle and understanding and kind. She worked with Phoebe in a way that made my sister feel she had done her part.

  Joanne was an enabler. So, for that matter, had I been that morning, helping Phoebe get ready for work. We were making it easy for her to blame the problem on a lingering cold or, worse, to ignore it entirely. But we did that for those we loved, didn’t we? And we did it for ourselves. We wanted Phoebe to be well too.

  And she did seem to be, once the store opened, but I suspected it was a triumph of will. I could see the mask of sweet competence take over her face when a customer appeared, then fall away as soon as the ting-a-ling announced that the customer had left. And there were plenty of ting-a-lings. While the store would never be a high traffic zone, à la Neiman Marcus the day before Christmas, the clientele came in a steady stream. Granted, it was Friday. If ever there was a time for the impulse buy of shorts, a T-shirt, or sandals for a weekend that promised sun despite the continuing rain, this was it. The mailman came and went, with ting-a-lings and wet footprints on the floor. Same with the UPS driver, who delivered three large boxes.

  “August is busy,” Joanne explained as I helped her check out what proved to be jeans, long-sleeve T-shirts, and sweat suits. “Hot as it is, people are starting to think about fall. School clothes have to be out on display. Same with fall sweaters and slacks. These were ordered back in March.”

  “Were you at the show with Phoebe?” I asked. I knew that Mom had been too sick to go.

  “No. She did it alone.”

  That made me feel better. I could see from the boxes’ contents that whatever she had done was done right. Colors, styles, and fabrics were all appropriate and smart.

  But that was March. This was August. “Is she up for New York?” I asked.

  Joanne met my gaze and said a quiet, “I’ve offered to go with her, but she insists she needs me here. What do you think?”

  I thought no, she was not up for New York, and I became even more convinced of it during lunch. I had run out for salads, but since it continued to rain, we ate in the office—and was the place a mess? Big-time. Apparently Phoebe, in a frenzy while I was out, had decided that since she couldn’t find anything, reorganization was needed. In the space of those minutes, she had unloaded bookshelves and drawers. Aghast at the mess, I offered to help put things back, but she insisted she had to do it herself. I suggested we eat somewhere else. She nixed that idea too.

  So we sat there, but Phoebe did little eating. Seeming lost, she picked up her fork, put it down, ferreted through the clutter on her desk to pull out a note. Barely reading it, she put it down, picked up her fork and seemed about to eat, when she put the fork down and unearthed another note. Back and forth it went, with nothing accomplished on either end, and it struck me how closely she guarded herself when customers were in the store, how deliberately she spoke, how casually she touched whatever she passed—wall, doorjamb, counter—for balance, how desperate she was to create the perception of well-being, when she wasn’t well at all.

  When the phone rang, it was even worse—clearly a supplier, I gathered from the one-sided conversation, but Phoebe was bewildered, couldn’t remember the supplier or putting in an order. Muddling through, she was close to tears when she finally hung up the phone.

  Seeming to forget I was there, she put a hand on her head and murmured, “I’m so losing it—oh God—what is the matter? I can’t be sick—I’m too young—I have the store and without me the store isn’t—isn’t—won’t run—and I don’t have anyone to take over for me if I get worse—and it’s bad enough here but now there’s New York.”

  Aching for her, I asked, “What does New York entail?”

  “Next week—will I be better? I just don’t know—and if I’m not I won’t be able to handle it—I mean, it’s one thing waiting on customers here—I’ve done it so long I could do it in my sleep—but the other is hard—you have to be able to think straight and sometimes now I am so far away from that, that it terrifies me.”

  “Phoebe,” I shouted to get her attention. When her eyes flew to mine, I asked again, “What does New York entail?”

  She blinked, swallowed, looked away and then back. “It’s a day or two of shows. There are aisles of booths. My vendors will all be there showing the holiday line.”

  “Do you have to order things on the spot?”

  “No. I can wait until later in the month. But there’s a load of paperwork and it’s hard keeping things straight—who’s selling what—and seeing the trends and deciding what’ll work here.” She pushed a hand through her hair and said plaintively, “I just need to be better.”

  If she had Parkinson’s disease, medication could help. Of course, if she had Parkinson’s, the long-term prognosis wasn’t good, in which case the buying trip might be a practice in futility, since the store would eventually have to close.

  But I didn’t believe she had Parkinson’s, and if the symptoms were psychosomatic and related to depression, missing the trip would make them worse. Besides, if I could get her to New York, we could see a specialist. I wouldn’t even tell her ahead of time. She might be furious with me, but the deed would be done, and with no one the wiser in Middle River.

  “I could go with you,” I said.

  Phoebe was startled. “You? You don’t know anything about buying clothes.”

  “I do it all the time,” I said with a laugh.

  “It’s not the same.”

  “I know.” I grew serious, because she was, very much so. “But I could handle the details and the paperwork. I’d be your assistant. I’d take care of peripheral things, like flights and hotels and what vendor is where. You’d just have to look at the clothes and decide which you like. It would be fun, Phoebe. We’ve never done anything like this, just the two of us.”

  She seemed interested, but cautious. “No. We haven’t.”

  “I know some great restaurants. We could make it a mini-vacation, a real breather for you. You haven’t had that since Mom died.”

  Her eyes lit. “I might finally kick this…whatever it is I have.”

  “Definitely,” I said.

  “Well, then…” Her voice trailed off. Her brow knit. In the silence, I first feared she had lost her train of thought. But she hadn’t. To the contrary. We were in a lucid stretch, as was evidenced by the clarity in her eyes. With that clarity came concern, though, and it suddenly hit me that she might not want to be stuck in New York alone with me. As it happened, her concern was different. “What about Sabina?” she finally asked.

  Sabina and Ron lived on Randolph Road, another of those quiet streets named after early Middle Riverites. Their house was a sweet Cape, older than some but kept in mint condition, thanks to Ron’s skill with a hammer and nails, and painted a perfect pale blue with white trim. There was no lawn to speak of, no elaborate shrubbery, no cultivated flowers. Landscaping here was entirely natural, consisting of pine trees overhead, their needles underfoot, and clusters of wild ferns.

  After a stop at Harriman’s, I arrived midafternoon with the makings of a fabulous dinner. Sabina and Ron were at work, and Timmy was nowhere in sight. Lisa, who had been reading a book in the hammock out back, was de
lighted to see me. Excitedly, she peered into the grocery bag I put into her arms. “What do you have, Auntie Anne?”

  “I have a tenderloin of beef,” I said, taking the second bag and heading for the house. “And fresh green beans and little red potatoes and makings for a spinach salad. I have Brie and crackers. I have blueberries and raspberries and a recipe for shortbread. Want to help me surprise your parents?”

  We had a ball. I set her to work washing things, then showed her how to trim the ends off the beans and halve the potatoes. We mixed the former with slivers of almonds and the latter with chopped fresh oregano. We mixed the shortbread batter, clumped it on a baking tin, and put it in the oven. We fixed a rub for the tenderloin, applied it, and put the meat aside. We washed the fruit. We washed the spinach. We set the table.

  I didn’t often cook, but when I did, no recipe was too complex—at least, not with a friend like mine. Berri Barry was into cooking. All I had to do was tell her what I wanted—as I had in an e-mail from the store, to which she had promptly replied—and I was given a menu plan with recipes, plus schemes for substitutions in the event that the ingredients she called for weren’t at hand.

  I went simple here, mainly because Ron was a meat-and-potatoes man. Nonetheless, by the time Timmy rode his bike up the drive, the kitchen smelled divine.

  Phoebe joined us a short time later, and then Sabina. I handed both glasses of wine. Tired, Phoebe was content to retreat to a chair on the porch. Sabina was more watchful, clearly unsure of why I was there.

  And why was I there? Officially, I wanted to make a dent in her distrust, so that she wouldn’t object to my taking Phoebe to New York. But here too, there was a deeper truth, one that was tied to the last. I was reaching out to Sabina. I was acknowledging that I knew how hard she worked, and trying to make things easier for one night at least. I was thanking her for taking care of Mom when I hadn’t. I was celebrating her two incredible children and her home.