Love from London (18 page)

“What did I do without you?” she wonders and trots down the steps. “Rehearsal’s all of act two tonight. Don’t wait up.”

“Oh — I’m not sure I’m staying — I just came over to…”

“To move in with me, right? Feena and Kizzy beat you to it.” She likes to interchange their names, since they’re rarely apart.

“And you’re sure you don’t mind?” I have my keys out, ready to unlock the door.

“Mind? I’m beyond bloody thrilled — it’s the only good thing to happen recently. We’ll have loads of fun — just wait. Girly time — and a real bath or shower — and real food.” She’s halfway down the small lane that leads to the main street but shouts back, “And Nick Cooper! He’s phoned already — looking for you. You should go for it. He’s very sweet and…” I can’t hear the last part of what she says but I’m willing to bet it has nothing to do with her amazing brother being better for me than a certain Cooper.

Dad —

Again, I can’t thank you enough for sending Chris. I’ll call you tom. about Mable. Am trying hard not to freak out about it. Am writing semi-grammarless b/c I have five min. before class with PMT — big project needs approval and I’m hoping she’ll say yes. First Choir practice (I went from wait-listed to in by way of someone else’s misfortune — need serious ethical help with that one) was great. Sang scales, grouped into high-ranging alto position, worked on acapella version of Only You (it’s a Yaz song, you know “looking from the window above, it’s like a story of love…”— ask Mable if you don’t know it). Speaking of only you, I miss you. Maybe I miss Hadley — no wait. Miss elements of Hadley — you, Mable,Harriet Walters & her astute observations in class, the salad bar, Mr. Chaucer, running (I do it here but only to catch trains and buses), the paper. Will you send over a couple of recent issues? Did I tell you I kind of know Clementine Highstreet — didn’t you have a thing for her way back when? Like the London Rain qualifies as a classic (and has the distressing ability to get wedged in my brain for days on end).

Oh — and PS (not really ps, because it’s not a post-script, but a now-script…can you tell my English is really improving?) — at The Choir practice, the leader of the pack told me the way I say “Love” sounds like I’m enunciating too much. Result=too American. I now have to correct/change the way I say my own name! Upside of all this is that we have our first “proper” concert in front of royalty at the start of next term (post-Easter). I’m working on my curtsy. My name to you (but with a soft L to make it sound Britty),

L.

In Poppy Massa-Tonclair’s office (note to self: though she is aware of her moniker, one should not refer to her as such during face-to-face contact), I watch her as she reads my essay. By now I’m fairly used to our tutorials, the one on one sessions where she reads my papers right in front of me, often articulating my words back so I can hear the finer points I’ve made (or the drivel).

“You have a knack for tying things up very neatly,” Poppy says without taking her eyes off my paper. She likes you to go back and make written comments, thoughts, points to add, prior to handing over the paper, and I can see where she is by what I’ve noted.

“Is that a bad thing?” It’s one of those questions I ask semi-rhetorically, probably in the hopes she’ll respond with something like no, it’s a great thing, and my academigods smile down on me.

Instead, she furrows her brow which makes her face look just like Keena’s, only with some crinkles by the eyes and strands of gray woven into the dark mass of hair piled loosely on the very top of her head (not so much a bun as a donut). “You’re at the stage in life where neatness has its own special appeal. If everything’s tidy, nothing bad can happen. Order equals control.”

I open my mouth to protest but find myself taking notes. Order=control. “Perceived control,” I say. She’s totally right. “But in academics it seems like part of the point is to tie it all up, make connections, merge themes of migration to evolution or marginalization of women to work force ideologies…”

“Listen to yourself!” PMT laughs. “You’ve spent far too long in classes and you’re only what — seventeen?” I nod. “I’m not saying you need to go out on the street and forget everything you’ve learned, I just don’t want to see you turn into a looking glass.”

“You mean like the second part of Alice in Wonderland?”

“No. Not like that — a looking glass only reflects the object in front of it, and it would destroy such a wonderful part of you if all you did was spew back someone else’s theories and words.”

“I didn’t think I was guilty of that,” I say. I’m starting to feel like crap so I take a breath and ask, “Am I just completely unoriginal?”

PMT puts my paper on her desk and opens one of the wooden drawers. Pulling out a folder, she shows me a couple of earlier papers I wrote, plus something else. “Recognize this?”

“Where’d you get that?” I ask and reach for the note. It’s a sort-of letter slash commentary I wrote to Keena during a particularly boring lecture on the history of British parliament. I wanted to find it interesting, but I didn’t — partly because I couldn’t hear the speaker very well, and partly because — well, just because I want to be super well-rounded and interested in everything, doesn’t mean I am.

PMT lets me have the paper. “It’s funny — Keena only gave it to me to read because she knew I’d have a real laugh. This is the real you, the observer, the one who isn’t so much part of the action as dissecting it. You notice so much, Love. All the details that filter in…there’s poignancy in your writing that is very rare.”

“But I can’t be like that in academic writing,” I say. “At Hadley, they’d…”

“You’re not at Hadley. I can’t speak for the brilliant minds back in the states, but I can tell you that writing is like a muscle — if you don’t exercise it and build it up, it will atrophy….God, that was a terrible sentence. Ignore the words but keep the sentiment, okay?” She takes her hair down from its coil and suddenly looks fifteen years younger. Running her fingers through her hair, she flips her whole head downward and then rises back up mumbling, “Oh — I have one of those hair headaches — how is it possible that keeping it clasped leads to such scalp ache?”

I’m not feeling qualified to comment on anything, follicular or otherwise, so I say nothing. PMT has a way of criticizing and commending at the same time — I feel bolstered and beaten down. “I’m not sure what to do with the information you just gave me. Are you saying I should write really casual papers for you or just keep doing what I’m doing but be funny?”

PMT starts to stack up piles on the desk. I notice her literary awards are tucked discretely behind the billowy (and dusty) curtain, hardly noticeable on the windowsill. She must be so confident in her work, so nonchalant about the plaques, that if they fell out and were lost, she wouldn’t mind. “You have a rather large task ahead.”

“The research project?”

“Yes. I’m making a suggestion — it’s not a requirement, mind you — that you think of a unique way of presenting it. Or of doing it. Or writing it. Have you ever thought about creative writing?”

“They have classes at Hadley — poetry, prose, memoir.”

“And have you signed up for them?”

“No — they’re junior electives.”

“Aren’t you a junior?” she asks. The nearby cathedral bells ring, signaling the end of another London afternoon, bringing me one step closer to calling Mable.

“I am, but I’m here.” PMT looks at me for clarification. “It just means that I sort of miss the chance to take certain electives because I’m using up a lot of those slots by taking classes here like Body —my ridiculous dance but not dance class.”

“Hmmm.” PMT scribbles something down on her calendar and then says, “I’ve written a note to myself about being your sponsor. Perhaps, if you show me you’re committed to the idea of trying something creative, rather than purely academic, we can figure out a way to beat the Hadley system.”

It’s a good offer. One I would never refuse, but it sounds too good to be true. “What’s the catch?”

“The catch is, use your big project coming up to show me something I haven’t seen before, something revealing rather than staid. Enlightening instead of everyday.”

There’s hardly a moment to process anything PMT said before it’s time to race to the antiquated pay phones and call Mable’s room at Massachusetts General Hospital. I get to the row of phones and find a) that they’re all in use and b) the hallway is so crowded with tea time takers. In a lovely, though somewhat dated gesture, LADAM puts out tea in the late afternoons. Tables set with real cups and saucers, triangular cucumber and watercress sandwiches, smoked salmon wrapped endive, all await the singers (“I need extra honey for my throat”), dancers (“I’m not hungry just now”), and painters (they don’t talk much but leave charcoal or oil thumbprints in the white, crustless bread).

Saying I’m anxious to call the hospital would be an enormous understatement, but when I think of the worst case scenario, it’s made even worse with the possibility of either having to ask Mable to repeat her bad prognosis or bursting into hysterics (not because I care about crying in front of people but because they’d think I didn’t get a part in a play or got chucked — that is, broken up with, rather than something life or death).

So I leave the premises and traipse back into town, now eighteen minutes late in phoning. By the time I catch a bus, run, drop my bag, collect the contents of the spillage, and arrive at the flat it’s nearly an hour past when I said I’d call.

The phone rings. It rings again. Dialing directly was faster than going through the international operator, but when there’s no answer, I get worried. So I hang up and check the number to make sure I haven’t added a six or deleted a five. It rings again. Four times. Seven times. Two more times and I’ll hang up. No — wait — that would make nine and Mable said once that nine is an unlucky number. So twelve. Twelve rings is good. Someone better pick up before the
everyone’s got a little bit of OCD
really gets cranked up to heavy psychopharm levels.

Finally, a pick up. “Hello?”

“Mable?” I say it almost as a whisper.

“Love…” she’s breathy. “I’m only a little coherent. The Anastasia.” She means anesthesia, I think, but I don’t bother to query her. “I’m good. I love you. Loads and loads.”

A click. Sweat beads on my upper lip, even in the cold livingroom. My hands are shaking. “Hello? MABLE?” I yell at the top of my range.

“Jesus Christ, Love,” Dad says into the phone as I’m still yelling. “It’s me. It’s me — everything’s fine.”

“Daddy.” Um, hi, I’m five and need a teddy bear. “Dad — tell me what happened. She sounds loopy.”

“She is loopy. Even beforehand….no, really, the operation was smooth — the surgeon said she was very pleased with the results. You know how surgeons are…”

“Not really,” I say. I should have flown home for this — being here feels wrong.

“They have a tendency to be a bit brusque…but you can breathe easy now. Mable’s groggy, which isn’t cancer-related, just the anesthesia, as she said.”

“And…” I clear my throat. “And what’s next?”

“Ah, let’s see…” Dad covers the phone and I can hear Charlie Brown-style mumbling. When he moves his hand I hear
should I tell her
which again makes me nauseated and wish I were there to get a better sense of what’s really happening.

“Dad, you promised you’d keep me informed. You promised you’d tell me the truth!”

“Fine,” Dad sighs. ‘it was going to be a surprise, but maybe you’ve had enough surprises for now.”

“I’ve never liked surprises — not even good ones.”

“Well, maybe you won’t mind this one so much. How would you like us to visit?”

I hear a key in the door and check my watch. Arabella’s due home from history lectures and yet another
Damn
practice. “Here? With Mable?”

Dad’s grin is audible, if that’s even possible. “Dr. Cutler said Mable should be fine to travel.”

“When? That’s so awesome!”

“As soon as a couple of weeks, assuming she has no secondary infections and no fluid in the operation site.”

“Infections, fluid — just get here! I miss you both so much — and it’d be so much easier to see you and be sure she’s okay. Plus, I want you to see everything.”

“I haven’t been to London in a long time,” he says. This is THE TONE. The tone he reserves only when — even if he doesn’t admit it — something has to do with my (missing) mother.

“Were you here with her?” I ask. I’m so beyond being timid about his reticence. “My mother.” I add that in not so much as a dog, because it’s not the time for one, but so he knows I mean my mother the ever-hidden Galadriel, not Mable.

Dad swallows. “Yes. Years ago.” I expect the typical sigh with a grunt to signify case closed but he goes on. “We had a fun time, actually. It was — she was…” and then nothing. But I can hardly press him for specifics now. I’m not so desperate for maternal matters that I’d insist he deliver something from Mable’s hospital room.

“So you’re coming here!” I say, ignoring the desire to ask more about my mother and father’s history in London. As she walks into the room, Arabella gives a
mimed how is she
then drops her bag on the floor and sits next to me. She gives me a thumbs up and then says out loud, “Fab — if they’re coming here they’ve got to stay at Bracker’s!”

“Arabella’s saying you can stay with her parents at their house. We’re all going out there in a couple of weeks for the Bank Holiday Weekend.” As I say it, I feel two things: one — kind of English. Not like Hadley Hall’s own Cordelia who littered her speech with Frenchisms after a vacation in Marseilles, but like I’ve made the transition from total foreigner to passable resident. Two — the weekend has the potential to be a comedy or errors. When I picture my tiny family and the Pieces out at Bracker’s, with Clementine Highstreet, PM (plus-minus) Jerry or Mick or Rod Stewart and Tobias and his royal clan, not to mention Asher (okay, I did mention him already, but he’s worth doing — er, mentioning — twice)…it’s all a little too much like a Moliere farce with slamming doors and mistaken identities. But I digress.