Spirit of the Place (9781101617021) (13 page)

She drove home through the downpour to find Mike's pickup in the driveway. He and Zeke were sitting in the cab. She waved a thanks, and they took off. A light was on in Cray's room upstairs.

Miranda went in and called up the steep, narrow old stairs. “Cray?”

Nothing. Then, “Yeah?”

As gaily as possible, she called up, “I'm home, dear.”

“'Kay, Mom.” A little space of time. She barely breathed. “Look on the table.”

“'Kay.” On the kitchen table was a letter, sealed, addressed to “My Mom.” She opened it. On a piece of porous lavender construction paper, in block capital letters done in black Magic Marker that had run fuzzy at the edges, was “Plez See My Hart.”

Now, a week later, as she pulled up in front of the Worth Hotel, she still felt the glow from that affirmation, from his just plain resilience—and hers, too.
Our
resilience, she thought. I've jiggled the red thread stretched between me and my son. He'd felt it and jiggled his end in return.

Mrs. Tarr of the DAR, her white hair in what, with each passing month of their picketing, seemed to Miranda an evermore eternal bun, was already wearing her sandwich board that declared either her or the hotel
WORTH SAVING
. The pail for donations was carefully positioned on the pavement, blaring plastic yellow into the crisp, sunny, and windy November day. Even though Miranda was fifteen minutes late, Orville and Amy were not there.

Miranda had never met Amy or spent any real time with Penny or Milt. After that heart-to-heart talk, Selma and Miranda had served together on committees and projects and occasionally had tea together, but they never again reached the same level of intimacy. It was as if they'd said enough, or maybe too much. Miranda lived several miles outside Columbia, and her circle of friends was up in Kinderhook, so she and Selma didn't see each other socially. And so their brief deep connection remained their secret.

This made Selma's sudden death hard for Miranda. At the surprisingly large funeral, standing on the fringe, she felt like an outsider. She searched the family members for Orville and was amazed that, given his closeness to his mother, he hadn't come. Eavesdropping as the mourners walked from the cemetery, Miranda heard that Orville was away somewhere in Europe, unreachable. Driving home alone from Selma's funeral, she was surprised at how sad she felt.

The day after Selma's funeral, Selma's maid, Hayley, showed up at Miranda's door. A short, plump, cocoa-skinned woman wearing thick-lensed glasses, a neat plaid dress, and a stylish red straw hat. She stood there with a large cardboard box in her arms from Scomparza Moving and Funeral. Hayley explained that she was on a secret mission from Selma. Sometime before her death, Selma had shown Hayley the sealed Scomparza box with a note “For Hayley” taped to it. If Selma died, Hayley was to take the box at once to Miranda, address enclosed. Selma made Hayley promise not to tell anyone, ever, that she had done so. Hayley had been the one to find Selma dead in the kitchen. Keeping her wits about her, Hayley had put the box in the trunk of her car and then had gone back into the house to call Bill Starbuck.

“Now that she's passed,” Hayley said to Miranda that August afternoon, getting up to go, “my mission done. Don't know what all's in it, but it's meant only for you.” At the door she hesitated. “Miz Rose was a little strange, but
very
strong.”

“Very. Strong and zany, yes.”

“Amen.”

Miranda opened the box. On top was a letter to her from Selma.

 

Dear Miranda,

Hi there! I'm dead now. I hope you are well. I hope I am well, too. Is “well” relevant in the Afterlife? Our rabbi knew nothing—couldn't even tell me if there's a Heaven or not. Nice man, but fat.

In a separate sealed shoebox is $5,000 in twenties—my secret bequest to you. Things with Sol were always tense, and just in case we decided to divorce I kept my own cash. Count it. I trust Hayley, but you know, you never know, with money.

In the big box are wrapped-up framed photographs, and a series of letters, from me to my son Orville. They are addressed to him at my house on the Courthouse Square. Each is sealed and stamped double (just in case the U.S. Postal Service raises the rates—nice group, but Irish). On each letter is a yellow Post-It note with a number—they are numbered in order—and with the number of weeks after Orvy arrives back in town at which time each letter is to be mailed. The first says, “To Be Mailed the Day before He Arrives.” The second, “To Be Mailed Three Weeks after He Arrives,” and so forth. They are to be mailed every two or three weeks for the year and thirteen days. At the end of that time, the remaining contents of the nice box are to be mailed to Orville. You must never reveal that you are the one mailing the letters!

Miranda was shocked. Bizarre! Why me? We'd had a heart-to-heart, a few other talks, served together on the library committee, but that was it. Why
me?
Strange.

 
I know this may seem strange to you, dear, but it is the most important wish I leave you with. Even though we didn't spend much time together, I know I can trust you. That night we talked was so special! We both deserve a pat on the back—if I still
have
a back. If you are touched right now the way I am touched by writing this, dear, please mail these letters and never tell anyone.

This is my dying wish.

You are a mother. You have a son. We talked about our sons. Mine stayed and cared for me, and to pay him back I let him go, let him fly from the nest. But he flew too far and couldn't get back. My will, and these letters—love letters, really, with all the things I never got to tell him—are to help him see what he flew away from, and maybe help him find his way back.

Now I'll ask you one more thing. Walk outside. Look up in the sky and imagine me and put your hand on a rock or a Bible or cute little Cray's red hair and say, “I promise.” I might not hear you—do the dead still have ears?—but I'll know. Or, God forbid, I'll know you didn't. Do it now. Feel good about it. Spend!

Love Your Selma

P.S. Do not open and read the letters. Love letters between a mother and a son are sacred and sound a little mushy and mawky to outsiders. Think of a similar correspondence between that beautiful Cray and you.

Miranda put down the letter. Unbelievable! She unsealed the shoebox (Mouse Schmerz Shoes). As she counted down through the bills she noticed they went from crisper newer ones to raggedy older ones—some seemed once-crumpled, hidden in a pocket or a change purse maybe. Five thousand exactly. It would go a long way for Cray and her. She thought it over. It was masterful, in a way. The whole thing had a certain logic of the heart. And how could she refuse Selma's dying wish?

She closed the Scomparza box and hauled it up to the attic, hiding it behind the big steamer trunk with the relics of her girlhood in Boca Grande and the mementos of her marriage. Then, feeling foolish, she went out to the river and sat on a boulder and put her hand on it and looked up at the hazy August sky and thought back to her girlish notion of Heaven—the feathered wings and golden halos and white choir robes—and said: “Okay, Selma, I promise.”

Two weeks later, while she was doing research at the library, one of the volunteer librarians happened to mention that Selma's son, Orville, was due back the next day. That afternoon Miranda drove into Columbia and mailed the first letter.

“Sorry I'm late,” Orville said now, as he and Amy stepped out of the Chrysler in front of the Worth Hotel. “Bill's on call and he's already swamped—I had to stay and help out.” Miranda wore a white fisherman's sweater and knit cap, which set off her bright-red hair. To him, she looked stunning. “But here we are.”

“I'm glad,” she said. His worn leather jacket was open over a white shirt and a wild purple tie that fluttered in the strong breeze, giving him a jaunty, carefree look.

Silence, that paralytic silence known only to shy people.

Mrs. Tarr took over, introducing everyone to everyone. And then she started circling, Miranda following. Next, awkwardly, Orville. Then, happily, Amy.

“Didn't they have fashion shows here?” Orville asked.

“Righto!” said Mrs. Tarr. “The door's locked, but you can see in.”

She ushered them beneath the sagging mouth of the portico to a window beside the front door. Leading down into the foyer were the remains of a grand curve of staircase. Orville dimly recalled seeing Selma come down that staircase in the cobalt-blue satin ball gown that she now was flying around in. The mahogany banister was mostly intact, but many of the black walnut steps were missing, probably stolen and sold for drugs. The foyer was littered with beer cans and Styrofoam thises-and-thats and a mangy sleeping bag and the charred remains of a campfire. Druggies and squatters and rats were the only guests.

“The fashion shows were benefits,” said Mrs. Tarr, “put on by the Junior League or the Hospital Auxiliary. Your mother organized several. I miss her very much.”

“Grandma Selma?” Amy asked, surprised.

“That's right, dear. Before you were born. I can still see how lovely she looked, coming down that staircase and then announcing the other girls one by one.”

Amy considered this. “I wish I had seen her . . . I mean, lovely?”

“Oh she was divine!” said Mrs. Tarr, smiling. “It's chilly. Let's walk.” She led the others in a tight ellipse as the wind picked up.

“Why Worth?” Orville asked Miranda.

“'Why Worth
what?
'” she asked back, a twinkle in her eye.

“Uncle O.?” Amy shouted, over the wind. “Why are we picketing?”

“Because, Amy,” Miranda said, smiling at her, “your father wants to knock it down and put up a supermarket.”

Amy's mouth made a little o. “My father?”

“Plotkin and Schooner are trying to knock it down.”

Amy considered this. She stared at the decrepit hotel. “He wants to knock down this . . . this beautiful historical hotel where my Grandma Selma was a
fashion
model? What a
reeker!
” The others laughed. Miranda looked at Orville and winked. “Milt'd knock down his own
mother
for money! How can we stop him?”

“This is how,” Miranda said.

“Let's go!”

They started circling again. But the wind had picked up, colder and stronger, a premature Canadian blast funneled by the Catskills and Berkshires into the Hudson Valley and then, at Columbia, breaking over the humpback of the town and turning into a whirlwind circling from North Swamp to South, blowing down the bright dying leaves of the Columbian fall and tormenting the unprepared people. The sandwich boards acted like sails, the big gusts catching and lifting them. Mrs. Tarr and Miranda clutched at the wooden edges as if holding on to the masts of a ship. Orville helped push them upwind and then, on the downwind leg, helped hold them steady.

“I'm freezing!” Amy cried. “I'm really, really cold!”

“Me, too!” Miranda shouted over the gusts. “Let's stop.”

“Come to the DAR,” said Mrs. Tarr. “We'll have hot chocolate.”

The solid brick DAR was right next door, and soon they were cozily settled in the private library, cupping their mugs for warmth. Miranda and Orville smiled at each other once or twice, shyly.

Orville was surprised to find, still there after all these years, two immense whale jawbones set on end, spanning the lending desk like a bony arch. He recalled standing under them as a boy, the desk looming over him and those scary, pointy-teethed whales soaring up to the ceiling as he asked the woman if he could sign out one more book than normal—just
one
more, please?—and when his request was denied hearing Selma, looming even larger behind him, arguing with her, screaming in the dead silent library so that he wanted to crawl into one of the cracks in the floor. And suddenly his mind filled with the night when the Worth seemed to talk to him and—worse still—he pictured Celestina Polo in Nepal with the Swiss banker and the half-an-elephant, rafting and meditating and making love, and he began to feel really bad. Waves of longing and grief washed over him. The only things he knew that might just take away the pain were alcohol and what Celestina herself had taught him, to breathe. The first was unavailable, and the second brought her back even more intensely, making it worse. Desperate, afraid of casting a pall over all this warm and cozy and happy with them, he asked, with feigned interest, “So. Why Worth?”