Sorority Sisters (29 page)

“Yes, you are, Laurie,” I say.

“Listen,” Ellen says sharply. “You raised yourself, Laurie. You've been on your own your whole life. The only thing you didn't need to worry about was where your next meal was coming from, but other than that, you're practically an orphan. And look at you. You were a great student, make a great friend, have a great job, and live a great life. Except for your taste in men, which is lousy, you turned out great. And you did it yourself. You do whatever it takes, Laurie, and you always have.”

I'm crying. I can't help it. I don't think I should have to try.

Laurie turns to Ellen and they hug, tanned arms wrapped around each other. They separate, smiling wobbly smiles.

“You forgot to tell her that she doesn't have split ends,” I say when we've all gotten a bit of our composure back.

“I was trying to keep it short,” Ellen says.

“So,” I say. “What kind of mom am I? I'm not really up to being compared to a tank, but I wouldn't mind being a Porsche.”

“You are kind of low to the ground,” Ellen says on a chuckle, digging her hands into the sand, her eyes reflecting the deep blue of the ocean.

“Hey, I'll take it,” I say.

We stare at the water and at the kids, sipping our Cokes while the sun beats down. Everything as it should be.

 * * *

Y
ou take David. I'll get Charlie,” I say, opening the rear door of the minivan.

“Got it,” Jim says, coming around his car, telling our oldest son, “Ben, will you help your mom with the beach bag? Just put it in the kitchen.”

“Quietly,” I say. “I don't want your brothers to wake up.”

Ben complies without a word, nodding his acquiescence. Jim bends and lifts David out of the backseat; David mumbles something and puts his arms around Jim's neck. I do the same with Charlie, but he doesn't put his arms around my neck; Charlie is dead to the world.

“He weighs a ton,” I say, walking behind Jim up the garage steps to the house.

“It's been a long day for them,” Jim says.

“It's been a long day for everyone,” I say. “Fun, though.”

The house is dark except for the lights on timers, at the kitchen desk, the front door, and the master bedroom. Dark and quiet, the sound of crickets muffling all other noises. We're still in our newlywed house in La Crescenta; we've outgrown it and there's no room to add on and I don't want to add a second floor and ruin the lines of the house, but still, we're staying. This is home.

“They don't need a shower?” Jim whispers, nudging open the boys' bedroom door with his foot.

“They took a shower at Gammi's in Paradise Cove,” I say.

Jim and I strip the younger boys and get them in pj's, urging them to go to the bathroom one more time. It's a long drive from Camarillo to La Crescenta.

“I don't have to,” David murmurs.

“Try,” I say. Standing at the toilet, his eyes closed, he manages a twenty-second dribble. Hands on his shoulders, I walk him to bed. He and Charlie share a bedroom; Ben has a room of his own. I tuck David in, pulling the blankets up to his chin, kiss him on the cheek, and then switch places with Jim and do the same thing to Charlie. Charlie turns on his side and sticks his thumb in his mouth.

“I can't wait to see our orthodontic bills,” Jim says.

“You do like to live for adventure,” I say as we walk into the hallway. I leave the door open a crack, a very precise one and a half inches. David likes it just so.

Jim's arm over my shoulder, we walk to Ben's room. He's in bed reading a book. “Lights out, buddy,” Jim says. “You can read it tomorrow.”

“I'm not that tired,” Ben says, his dark brown eyes pleading.

“Well, I am,” I say. “Night, night. The book will wait for you.” I tuck him in, give him a kiss, watch Jim ruffle Ben's dark hair, and as Jim passes me, I say, “I love you, honey.”

“Love you, too, Mom,” Ben says as he turns his blankets into a tight cocoon.

“I love you, too, Mom,” Jim says as we walk to our room, his hand trailing down my back to rest on my butt.

“It works better if you don't call me Mom,” I say, flipping on the overhead light.

“I'm all for whatever works,” Jim says.

“You know what?” I say, pulling off my cotton shirt over my head. “It all works.”

Jim grins and his brown eyes twinkle, and my heart flip-flops just like it did when he showed up looking for Helen. “You are one lucky guy,” I say, wrapping my arms around his neck. He lifts me up and carries me to the bathroom, my toes a few inches off the carpet.

“Don't I know it,” he says. “But you got a little sunburned. Let me get some vitamin E on that.”

I sit on the edge of the tub while Jim soothes vitamin E oil across the tops of my shoulders. I watch him in the mirror, his hands so large and gentle, his head bent down, concentrating on making sure my skin is taken care of, that I'm not going to be in pain tomorrow. He's got a few gray hairs now, just a few near his temples. I wonder if he'll ever seem old to me. Diane's dad seems old now, old and a little frail, a little lost.

“How did Diane's dad look to you?” I say.

“Oh, same as ever, I guess,” Jim says.

“How was he when you got there? Was he expecting you?”

“Sure.” Jim straightens up, putting the oil away in the medicine cabinet. “Why? How did he seem to you?”

“Well,” I say, loading my toothbrush and then Jim's with toothpaste, “he seemed older to me. I mean, when we had the Exclusives over for Memorial Day, he seemed perkier than he did today.”

“It was probably all the kids combined with the heat. That can wear anybody out.”

“I guess,” I say over the toothbrush in my mouth. We brush, rinse, floss. I wash my face and pat on my very expensive eye cream. Jim clips his fingernails while sitting on the toilet seat.

“I looked at his lawn mower before you got there,” Jim says. “I think he needs his blades sharpened. We could drive over there next Saturday, bring your mom with us. I'll do the upkeep on his lawn mower while you do what you do to his bathrooms, and your mom'll keep him entertained. How does that sound?”

I look at this man, this wonderful, selfless, loving man, and a big grin blooms on my face. “I think that sounds perfect. My mom needs an outing anyway. She doesn't get out enough since Dad's gone. We could take them all out to eat, just pizza. But a nice pizza.”

“Nice pizza,” Jim says, nodding, walking to the bedroom. I follow him, rubbing in my hand cream. “I'm always up for nice pizza, but I think you know that I never met a pizza I didn't think was nice.”

Jim climbs in bed, turns back my side of the covers, and pats the sheets.

“Subtle,” I say, climbing in.

“Hey, whatever works,” he says, sliding me to him, leaning over me, and smiling down at me.

“Hey,” I answer, pulling his face down to mine, “with you, it all works.”

L
aurie

–
Spring 1995
–

“What?” I hold the phone in my hand, pressed painfully tight against my ear. “No. No. No, I'll be right there. I'm on my way. Yes, I'm on my way. No. I'm fine. I'm on my way.”

I hang up, dropping the phone in the cradle like a live rat.

“Madeline? Call Karen,” I say to my assistant. “Call Diane. Call Pi. Call Holly. Call Candy and Cindy. . . . No, that's too much; never mind. Just call Karen.”

“I was just finishing that deposition—” Madeline says from the outer office.

“Call Karen!” I shout. “Call
Karen
!”

I hear a pile of papers fall on the floor and then Madeline's shaky voice. “Yes, right away.” I should have made the call myself. It's more personal. How horrible of me to have my assistant do it, but my hands are shaking so much. . . . “She's on the line,” Madeline says.

“Karen,” I say. “Karen, Karen.”

I can't think of what else to say; I simply can't make any words come out. There are no words in my brain, just a long, slow scream.

“Laurie,” she says. “What happened? What's wrong?”

I can hear kids in the background. I glance at my watch; it's just after four o'clock and the boys will be home from school or on their way to baseball practice or tennis. . . . What season is it? Isn't it too early for tennis? Baseball. It must be baseball season.

“
Laurie!
What's wrong?” Karen shouts, jerking me out of my stupor. “What is it?”

“It's Ellen,” I say. My voice sounds fine, strong and clear; I'm a little breathless, I think. My brain is tingling. Is this what it feels like to faint? “It's Ellen.” I keep repeating words. I've got to stop that. That doesn't help. That doesn't do anyone any good. “Karen,” I say, starting to cry, “it's Ellen.”

“Where are you?” Karen says, her voice strong and clear and firm. I want to sound like that. “Where should I go?”

“Go to the hospital. Can you go to the hospital? Can you?” I say. My words are sloppy with tears. I can't breathe. I can't pull it together. I'm falling apart, every seam, every line.

“Yes. Yes, I'll call Jim. He'll do the kids. I'm leaving now. The Encino hospital? That one?”

“Yes. Please hurry. I'm on my way. Please hurry,” I choke out, barely able to take a breath over my tears.

“I'm coming. I'm coming. Oh, Laurie,” Karen says, starting to cry. I can hear Charlie in the background: “Mom, what's the matter? Mom, why are you crying?” “Oh, God, Laurie,” she says to me. She takes a hard breath. “I'll meet you there. I'll be there.”

 * * *

E
llen's funeral is closed-casket. Her body was too badly mangled for anything else. It was a seven-car pileup at the Ventura/Sepulveda intersection; a seventy-two-year-old man driving a white Cadillac Seville had a massive heart attack and plowed through the light without stopping. It was determined that he died before crashing into the first car. Ellen's car was the fourth car struck in the collision and she was jackknifed into the fifth and sixth cars. Three people died and five were injured.

I like to think that she didn't know what hit her; if she did, she would have been really pissed off.

I nearly smile thinking that, and I look down at Megan at my side. Megan insisted on wearing a bright yellow sheath dress with a little black cardigan. She and Ellen had just bought the dress for a piano recital a week prior to the accident. I think the yellow dress is the perfect choice. I put my arm around Megan and she allows it, but she doesn't lean into it. I don't expect her to. I don't expect anything, anything beyond the fact that I will love her and cherish her for the rest of my life. What she feels for me is out of my hands.

She is almost twelve years old and she has to start over with a new mother, a mother who has no idea what to do or what to say.

“Are you going to say something?” Karen whispers. She's at my side. She's been at my side almost constantly since the hospital. What will happen to me when she leaves my side to return to her own life? More important, what will happen to Megan?

I nod. I squeeze Megan's hand just before I rise. Megan allows it, but that is all. I think that is very gracious of her.

I stand in front of the crowd, picking out Karen, Diane, Jim, and Pi in a row. Behind them are Holly and Bill, Lee from Phoenix and Candy from Hawaii and Cindy from San Diego and Joan from New York, their respective husbands beside them. Karen's kids are here, as is Karen's mother and Diane's dad, and Ellen's parents, of course, and Ellen's sister from Kentucky and her kids. Mike is not here. I am so relieved he is not here.

A few throats clear and I pull my thoughts away from Mike and onto Ellen.

“Ellen was always telling me what to do,” I say. There is a stunned silence and then titters of laughter. “And she usually did it in a loud voice, shouting advice or encouragement, telling me to see things as they are and not as I wished them to be. I have to be honest. It was annoying.”

The crowd, those who knew Ellen well, is relaxing against the pews. Those who did not know Ellen well, those who worked with her at Dean Witter where she was an investment broker, look very uncomfortable. Oh, well. This is for Ellen. This is for
us
.

“But I listened to her,” I say. “She made it very difficult not to listen to her, didn't she?”

Megan is looking at me, her pale eyes cautious. Karen is smiling at me and nodding encouragement. Diane is grinning and making a rolling sign with her hand.

“I dated a very bad guy once—I suppose we all have at least one of those—and she was on my side even when she hated my choices; she was loudly and violently on my side. She was my counselor of war and she made me laugh about things that should make you weep.

“And Karen, sitting there with her lovely husband and three sons, she is my surrogate mother. In fact, she is probably everyone's surrogate mother. She makes us all feel safe and warm and loved. Especially me. Ellen knew that, by giving me the gift of Megan in my life, we would be well tended with Karen at our beck and call.”

Karen laughs and reaches over to put an arm around Megan. Megan relaxes just a bit, and so do I.

“I don't know what other people say at memorial services. I only know what I want to say. Ellen, and the other Exclusives, taught me about love. I didn't know what love felt like before I became a Beta Pi; I didn't know what it looked like. These girls taught me, showed me, year after year, heartache upon heartache, laugh upon laugh; they taught me that love is tough. It endures tragedy and joy and monotony. Love makes you laugh. Ellen told me something once—actually, she yelled it at me.” The faces in the church laugh at me, all eyes alight and glowing with the joy of remembering Ellen and her inexhaustible fire. “She said that there was no fairness in love. That love is never concerned with what's fair or ‘never having to say you're sorry' or all the other things we learn about love from songs and romantic poetry and Mother's Day cards. No, she said, love is not rational and it is not just; it is not evenhanded and it is not balanced; it is not gentle or soft. Love brawls. Love consumes. Love inspires. Love gives life its shape and form and meaning. But it is not fair.”

Megan is crying, burying her face in Karen's shoulder.

“Do you know when she told me that, Megan?” I say. Megan lifts her head and looks at me, her eyes red-rimmed. “When you were about a year old. When I asked her what it was like to be your mom. I didn't truly understand what she meant then. But I do now. Love consumes and love inspires. Love stands when everything else falls apart. I love you, and I loved her. I will always love her. I will always love you. Your mom believed in that love, and because she did, I know we're going to be okay.”

 * * *

L
ater that day, I look up and see a face I haven't seen in almost twenty years.

“Lavender Barrette,” I say. “I'd know you anywhere. Thank you so much for coming.”

He looks the same. His eyes are just as vivid a blue, his hair just slightly thinner, his waist just slightly thicker, but he's just the same. He's the smiling, jovial man I remember.

“I haven't been called that in years, I'm happy to report.” He grins. “It's good to see you, Laurie,” he says. His voice is deeper than it was, a bit more gravelly; it's a man's voice. “I saw it in the newspaper, about the accident. I'm so sorry. Ellen was one of a kind, wasn't she?”

“She was,” I say. “That's her daughter, over by the buffet table. In the yellow dress.”

“She looks a lot like her mother,” he says. “She's a beautiful girl. Is there a father around?”

“They were divorced before she was born, so, no, there is no father around, and in case you didn't guess from my eulogy, I'm the stand-in mother.”

I don't know why I'm telling him this, and in such an adversarial manner. I don't know what's wrong with me. I used to be so easy in Matt's company; he was the man I'd be with when I couldn't bear to be with the man I was in love with. I hope he didn't realize that. What an uncomfortable thought.

Before he can respond to my awkward remark, I say, “So, do you have kids? Are you married?”

Matt smiles and takes a step back, his hands in his pockets. “No kids, though I wanted kids. I'm divorced.”

“Oh, I'm sorry. Was it amicable?”

“Very. She got the house, the furniture, and the dog. I just got out. We both got what we wanted.”

“Oh. I'm sorry,” I say again. “You should have had a better attorney.”

“Like you?” At my stunned expression, he says, “I talked to Karen and met Jim before I came over to say hello to you. I do my homework. I've learned it's the key to everything.”

There are so many undercurrents in those remarks that I pursue the one that's the safest. “You've met Jim. Isn't he a great guy?”

“He seems very nice,” he says. “I'd like to get to know him better. Maybe a double date?”

“What? I'm sorry. Excuse me?”

“Double. Date,” he says. “Though I can fly solo, but I thought you'd feel more comfortable with backup.”

“I'm sorry. . . . What?”

“Laurie,” he says, looking deeply into my eyes. What on earth is he going to see in my eyes? “I want to take you out. I've wanted to take you out since 1975.”

“This is Ellen's funeral!”

“I remember Ellen well. I don't think she'd mind,” he says.

“Wait. . . . You've wanted to take me out since 1975?”

“Is there any other reason for my letting you girls get away with calling me Lavender Barrette?”

“What?”

I've been shocked before in my life, but never quite like this. Everything is being turned on its head, and I've had more than enough of that lately.

“I'm sorry,” I say before he can get a word out, “but this is a difficult time for me. In fact, your timing couldn't be worse.” Which is putting it mildly.

“I know, and I'm sorry for that, but I've learned that my timing with you is always going to be bad, so I just have to ignore that.” He leans toward me, his shoulder brushing the wall. I find myself backing up a step and stiffening my neck. “I know that Megan is going to be taking all of your time for the next few months.”

“Until she's eighteen, and that makes it the next six years,” I say.

Matt swallows and tilts his head at me. He's a very nice-looking man; I've always thought so, but I never thought anything more than that. I can't imagine why not.

“Six years is a long time, and I think you're overstating it, but even during that six years you're going to have a free lunch hour or a free Friday night, and when you do, I'll be there.”

“Now, wait a minute—this is feeling very uncomfortable to me. I don't like the idea of you . . . Well, it sounds almost like I'm being stalked.”

“If I'm a stalker, I'm the laziest stalker in the world. Since 1975, Laurie. That's twenty years of waiting.”

“You were married in there somewhere,” I say.

“I was killing time,” he says, and then he winks.

“You know,” I say, starting to smile, “that sounds suspiciously criminal.”

“Anything's better than Lavender Barrette. Call me Stalker. See if it helps.”

“I don't think that will help,” I say, really smiling.

“I don't either,” he says, and then he leans forward and kisses me on the cheek. “I'm very sorry about Ellen. You'll be hearing from me.” He walks out of the room before I can collect a single thought.

“Who was that?” Megan says at my elbow.

I jerk at the sound of her voice and put my arm around her shoulder. She leans into me slightly and I take a full, deep breath. “Just an old friend from college. He knew your mom and really liked her.”

“He really liked you, too,” Karen says at my back. “Didn't Matt Carlson grow up beautifully?”

He certainly did.

Summer 1995
–

“I don't think having a Fourth of July party is in the best of taste,” I say. “It's too soon after Ellen. I think it will upset Megan.”

“Flossing her teeth will upset Megan,” Karen says. “She's going to be upset about everything and nothing for a good long time. You have to give her life structure and make things as normal as they can be. We always do a Fourth of July party. That's normal. Don't take that away from her.”

“But why do I have to host it?”

“You have the biggest yard and the biggest pool,” she says. “And the best parking. Plus, it's your turn.”

I sigh into the phone. “Fine. But I'm going to keep it small, no inviting everyone.”

 * * *