The Beach Book Bundle: 3 Novels for Summer Reading: Breathing Lessons, The Alphabet Sisters, Firefly Summer (11 page)

The minister had a lot to say about Max’s work for the Furnace Fund. He didn’t seem to know him personally, however. Or maybe that was all Max had amounted to, in the end: a walking business suit, a firm handshake. Maggie switched her attention to Ira. She wondered how he could sit there, so impervious. He’d have let her slog through that entire song alone; she knew that. She could have stumbled and stuttered and broken down; he would have watched as coolly as if she had nothing to do with him. Why not? he would say. What obligated him to sing some corny fifties song at a semi-stranger’s funeral? As usual, he’d be right. As usual, he’d be forcing Maggie to do the giving in.

She made up her mind that when the funeral was over, she would stride off in her own direction. She would certainly not drive back with him to Baltimore. Maybe she’d hitch a ride with Durwood. Gratitude rushed over her at the thought of Durwood’s kindness. Not many people would have done what he had done. He was a gentle, sympathetic, softhearted man, as she should have realized from the start.

Why, if she had accepted that date with Durwood
she’d be a whole different person now. It was all a matter of comparison. Compared to Ira she looked silly and emotional; anybody would have. Compared to Ira she talked too much and laughed too much and cried too much. Even ate too much! Drank too much! Behaved so sloppily and mawkishly!

She’d been so intent on not turning into her mother, she had gone and turned into her father.

The minister sat down with an audible groan. There was a rustle of linen a few pews back and then here came Sugar Tilghman, bearing her black straw hat as smoothly as a loaded tray. She tip-tapped up front to Sissy and bent over her, conferring. They murmured together. Then Sugar straightened and took a stance beside the piano with her hands held just the way their choir leader used to insist—loosely clasped at waist level, no higher—and Sissy played a bar of music that Maggie couldn’t immediately name. An usher approached Serena and she rose and accepted his arm and let him escort her down the aisle, eyes lowered.

Sugar sang, “ ‘When I was just a little girl …’ ”

Another usher crooked his arm toward Serena’s daughter, and one by one the family members filed out. Up front, Sugar gathered heart and swung gustily into the chorus:

Chapter 3
 

W
hen they stepped out of the church it was like stepping out of a daytime movie—that sudden shock of sunshine and birdsong and ordinary life that had been going on without them. Serena was hugging Linda. Linda’s husband stood awkwardly by with the children, looking like a visitor who hoped to be invited in. And all around the churchyard, members of the class of ’56 were recognizing each other. “Is that you?” they asked. And, “How long has it been?” And, “Can you believe this?” The Barley twins told Maggie she hadn’t changed a bit. Jo Ann Dermott announced that everyone had changed, but only for the better. Wasn’t it odd, she said, how much younger they were than their parents had been at the very same age. Then Sugar Tilghman appeared in the doorway and asked the crowd at large what other song she possibly could have sung. “I mean I know it wasn’t perfect,” she said, “but look what I had to choose from! Was it just too absolutely inappropriate?”

They all swore it wasn’t.

Maggie said, “Durwood, I owe you the world for coming to my rescue.”

“My pleasure,” he told her. “Here’s your coupon, by the way. None the worse for wear.”

This wasn’t quite true; it was limp around the edges and slightly damp. Maggie dropped it into her purse.

Ira stood near the parking lot with Nat Abrams. He and Nat had been a couple of classes ahead of the others; they were the outsiders. Not that Ira seemed to mind. He looked perfectly at ease, in fact. He was discussing auto routes. Maggie overheard snatches of “Triple A” and “Highway Ten.” You would think the man was obsessed.

“Funny little place, isn’t it?” Durwood said, gazing around him.

“Funny?”

“You couldn’t even call it a town.”

“Well, it is kind of small,” Maggie said.

“I wonder if Serena will be staying on here.”

They both looked over at Serena, who seemed to be trying to put her daughter back together. Linda’s face was streaming with tears, and Serena had set her at a distance and was patting down various parts of her clothes. “Doesn’t she still have relatives in Baltimore?” Durwood asked.

“None that claim her,” Maggie said.

“I thought she had that mother.”

“Her mother died a few years ago.”

“Aw, really?” Durwood said.

“She got one of those diseases, some muscular something.”

“Us boys were all just, like, fixated on her, once upon a time,” Durwood said.

This startled Maggie, but before she could comment she saw Serena heading toward them. She had her shawl clasped tightly around her. “I want to thank you both for singing,” she said. “It meant a lot to me.”

“That Ira is just so stubborn I could spit,” Maggie said, and Durwood said, “Beautiful service, Serena.”

“Oh, be honest, you thought it was crazy,” Serena said. “But you were nice to humor me. Everyone’s been so
nice!” Her lips took on a blurred look. She drew a knot of Kleenex from her V neckline and pressed it first to one eye and then to the other. “Sorry,” she said. “I keep changing moods. I feel like, I don’t know, a TV screen in a windstorm. I’m so changeable.”

“Most natural thing in the world,” Durwood assured her.

Serena blew her nose and then tucked the Kleenex away again. “Anyhow,” she said. “A neighbor’s setting out some refreshments back at the house. Can you all come? I need to have people around me right now.”

“Well, certainly,” Maggie told her, and Durwood said, “Wouldn’t miss it, Serena,” both at the same time. “Just let me get my car,” Durwood said.

“Oh, never mind that; we’re all walking. It’s just over there through the trees, and anyway there’s not a lot of parking space.”

She took Maggie’s elbow, leaning slightly. “It did go well, didn’t it?” she said. She steered her toward the road, while Durwood dropped behind with Sugar Tilghman. “I’m so glad I had the idea. Reverend Orbison threw a fit, but I said, ‘Isn’t this for me? Isn’t a memorial service meant to comfort the living?’ So he said yes, he guessed it was. And that’s not the end of it, either! Wait till you see the surprise I’ve got up at the house.”

“Surprise? What kind?” Maggie asked.

“
I’m
not telling,” Serena said.

Maggie started chewing her lower lip.

They turned onto a smaller street, keeping to the shoulder because there wasn’t a sidewalk. The houses here had a distinctly Pennsylvanian air, Maggie thought. They were mostly tall stone rectangles, flat-faced, set close to the road, with a meager supply of narrow windows. She imagined spare wooden furniture inside, no cushions or frills or modern conveniences, which of
course was silly because a television antenna was strapped to every chimney.

The other guests were following in a leisurely parade—the women tiptoeing through the gravel in their high heels, the men strolling with their hands in their pockets. Ira brought up the rear between Nat and Jo Ann. He gave no sign of minding this change in plans; or if he had at some earlier point, Maggie had luckily missed it.

“Durwood was wondering if you’d be staying on here,” she told Serena. “Any chance you might move back to Baltimore?”

“Oh,” Serena said, “Baltimore seems so far away by now. Who would I know anymore?”

“Me and Ira, for one thing,” Maggie said. “Durwood Clegg. The Barley twins.”

The Barley twins were walking just behind them, clinging to each other’s arms. Both wore clip-on sunglasses over their regular glasses.

“Linda has been after me to move to New Jersey,” Serena said. “Get an apartment close to her and Jeff.”

“That would be nice.”

“Well, I’m not so sure,” Serena said. “Seems anytime we spend a few days together I begin to realize we haven’t got a thing in common.”

“But if you lived close by you wouldn’t be spending days together,” Maggie said. “You’d be dropping in and out. You’d be leaving when the conversation ran down. And besides, you’d see more of your grandchildren.”

“Oh, well, grandchildren. I’ve never felt they had all that much to do with me.”

“You wouldn’t say that if someone kept them away from you,” Maggie told her.

“How’s
your
grandchild, Maggie?”

“I have no idea,” Maggie said. “Nobody tells me a
thing. And Fiona’s getting married again; I found that out purely by accident.”

“Is that so! Well, it’ll be good for Larue to have a man around.”

“Leroy,” Maggie said. “But see, Fiona’s true love is still Jesse. She’s said as much, in so many words. There’s just something gone wrong between them temporarily. It would be a terrible mistake for her to marry someone else! And then poor little Leroy … oh, I hate to think of all that child has been through. Living in that run-down house, secondhand smoking—”

“Smoking! A six-year-old?”

“Seven-year-old. But it’s her grandmother who smokes.”

“Well, then,” Serena said.

“But it’s Leroy’s lungs getting coated with tar.”

“Oh, Maggie, let her go,” Serena said. “Let it all go! That’s what I say. I was watching Linda’s boys this morning, climbing our back fence, and first I thought, Oh-oh, better call them in; they’re bound to rip those sissy little suits, and then I thought, Nah, forget it. It’s not
my
affair, I thought. Let them go.”

“But I don’t want to let go,” Maggie said. “What kind of talk is that?”

“You don’t have any choice,” Serena told her. She stepped over a branch that lay across their path. “That’s what it comes down to in the end, willy-nilly: just pruning and disposing. Why, you’ve been doing that all along, right? You start shucking off your children from the day you give birth; that’s the whole point. A big, big moment is when you can look at them and say, ‘Now if I died they could get along without me. I’m free to die,’ you say. ‘What a relief!’ Discard, discard! Throw out the toys in the basement. Move to a smaller house. Menopause delighted me.”

“Menopause!” Maggie said. “You’ve been through menopause?”

“Gladly,” Serena told her.

“Oh, Serena!” Maggie said, and she stopped short, nearly causing the Barley twins to bump into her.

“Well, goodness,” Serena said, “why should that bother you?”

“But I remember when we first got our periods,” Maggie said. “Remember how we all waited? Remember,” she said, turning to the Barley twins, “how that was once the only thing we talked about? Who had started and who had not? What it must feel like? How on earth we’d keep it secret from our husbands when we married?”

The Barley twins nodded, smiling. Their eyes were invisible behind their dark glasses.

“And now she’s gone and stopped,” Maggie told them.

“
We
haven’t stopped,” Jeannie Barley caroled.

“She’s gone through change of life!” Maggie cried.

“Wonderful; announce it to the world,” Serena said. She linked arms with Maggie and they resumed walking. “Believe me, I barely gave it a thought. ‘Well, good,’ I told myself. ‘Just one more thing to let go of.’ ”

Maggie said, “I don’t feel I’m letting go; I feel they’re taking things away from me. My son’s grown up and my daughter’s leaving for college and they’re talking at the nursing home about laying off some of the workers. It’s something to do with the new state regulations—they’re going to hire on more professionals and lay off people like me.”

“So? That job was always beneath you anyway,” Serena said. “You were a straight-A student, remember? Or near about.”

“It is not beneath me, Serena; I love it. You sound just like my mother. I love that job!”

“Then go back to school and get to be a professional yourself,” Serena said.

Maggie gave up on her. She was too tired, all at once, to argue.

They turned in through a little gate, onto a flagstone path. Serena’s house was newer than the others—raw brick, one story, modern and compact. Someone stood at the front window, drawing back a curtain to gaze out, but when the guests approached she dropped the curtain and vanished. She reappeared at the door, a buttressed and corseted woman in a stiff navy dress. “Oh, you poor thing!” she cried to Serena. “You come right on in. Everybody, come in! There’s lots to eat and drink. Anyone want to freshen up?”

Maggie did. She followed the woman’s directions and passed through the living room, which was filled with heavy furniture in a wagon-wheel motif, and down a short hall to the bedroom. The decor seemed purely Max’s doing: a bedspread patterned with multicolored license plates, a beer stein collection lining the bookshelf. On the bureau, a photo of Linda in cap and gown stood next to a bronze cowboy boot stuffed with pencils and gnawed plastic swizzle sticks. But someone had hung guest towels in the bathroom and set out a bowl of rosette-shaped soaps. Maggie washed up, using the bar of Ivory she found in a cabinet beneath the sink. She dried her hands on a grayish bath towel draped behind the shower curtain, and then she peered into the mirror. The walk had not done anything for her appearance. She tried to flatten her bangs down. She stood sideways to the mirror and sucked in her stomach. Meanwhile the Barley twins were discussing Linda’s photograph: “Isn’t it a pity she got Max’s looks and not Serena’s.” Nat Abrams said, “Would this be the line for the john?” and Maggie called, “Just coming out.”