She felt saliva pool beneath her tongue from all the food, although the gin may have relaxed her nervous system to the point where she’d stopped swallowing. She reached for a pink-flecked Melmac plate and Stella pulled her aside. “First, the hair.” She motioned for Jennie to get something out of the red and white gingham lined picnic basket somebody had, no doubt, gotten as a wedding present.
Jennie held out a dozen small mayonnaise packets that had been intended for the cold cuts. Instead she and Stella ripped them open with their teeth and squirted the thick white fat on Mara’s head. Stella rubbed it in with enough vigor that she lost her balance and had to be led to the nearest stool to sit down. Then Sadie pulled the plastic wrap off her Jello mold and sealed up Mara’s head with the odor of artificial cherries.
She sighed. It wasn’t like you could stop them. “Now can we eat?”
Stella rubbed the rest of the mayo into the back of her hand. “Yep.”
“Like butter.” She ran her hands over her wet hair, and creamy mayonnaise swirled over her toes and down the shower drain. Her hair felt glossy and sleek as a seal, and her toes would be nicely conditioned as well. She was surprisingly awake for three a.m. Potatoes, gin, good company, and mayonnaise may be all a body needed.
She shut off the water, ran her hands from her head along the length of her neck to her shoulders. She crossed her arms, swept her hands down the slope of each breast, across her stomach, and down her legs to her instep. Her back, stretching in the shower, felt a nice kind of tight. Work, physical work, was its own reward.
She straightened and reached for the frayed daisy towel Gretchen had given her. She made her way out of the bathroom, felt the early morning air and the streetlight sweep her skin. Then the lingerie calendar, glowing in the light, caught her attention. Another kiss gone. She padded over and pulled one off. Twelve left. Thirteen had seemed sufficient but twelve wasn’t. How could she be ready to go back with only twelve days left? She unwrapped the silver then set down the chocolate beside it and turned to face the windows. She would watch the sun rise. The day would be longer if she caught all of it.
The towel had migrated off while she dozed, and she awoke to sun lighting her body. She caught fire along the soft skin outside, and inside, where her heart forced blood with such pressure, she could hear it in her ear drums. Ear drums. Others must feel like that to call them drums. But hers had never drummed before. She felt it calling her, stirring every inch of her being. It was the kind of total clarity she’d always imagined she’d experience if something life altering happened, like an airplane she’d gotten on began to fall from the sky. She considered how clear her vision really was at the moment, and had to admit she’d imagined total clarity being more total. In fact she didn’t feel much clarity at all, just trouble really. Her engine light was flicking danger red, and she needed to lower her temperature and get the plane safely down to earth. She needed Dan because who could cool a woman off more than her husband could?
“You need my hands here?” Celia turned her right palm up enough for Mara to get a good shot of the fine lines strung from her wrist up through the web of her thumb. It was the lifeline, maybe, thrown into relief with the thin coating of wet clay. Mara hadn’t thought about lifelines, about palm reading, since a fifth grade sleepover when Jeanie Solomon told her there loomed before her a long and boring life. Jeanie Solomon with her Barbie Pajamas might have just been a freaking psychic.
“Let me get a couple more in case the ones of just a woman’s hands in the clay are all I need.” She glanced at the small clock on the wall. “Dan should be here any minute, and we’ll get the pair shots and be done.” She walked around behind Celia and leaned over her shoulder trying to eye a shot from there. Celia’s hands rested on the wheel. They looked so delicate with the bones outlined under the pinkish skin. To get the exact right angle of them, Mara realized she’d need a step stool, so she headed for the bathroom to grab the small one she’d found tucked under the sink. She called over her shoulder. “I really loved hearing you sing, Celia. You’re very talented.”
She heard Celia laugh, a pleased embarrassment. “You say that every time you see me now.”
Mara reached under the sink, hauled out the scuffed stool, and headed back to set the stool down behind Celia. “And it’s true every time I see you. And Renny’s good, huh?”
Celia gushed out a breath. “She’s so good. She’s professional, a real professional. I wish I knew half what she does about, well, just phrasing alone.”
She didn’t know if she even understood wanting to see Renny help Celia. Maybe it was because they both had such promise and Mara didn’t think she could offer anything to either of them. “That’s funny.”
“What?”
“That’s exactly what Renny said, that she knew a lot about phrasing, and you had so much talent.”
“Really? Wow, I’d love it if… You know she doesn’t teach.”
“She just hadn’t found the right student before.”
“You think she would?”
If the question was do you hope she will then her answer wouldn’t be stretching the truth. “I do, Celia. I do think she would because it would be good for her too and nobody can say no to a golden-voiced golden retriever.”
“A what?”
She considered that maybe no one wanted to be called a golden retriever even when it was suggested with the best possible intentions, so she would just let that one slide without explanation and focus on what mattered. “This is your time, Celia. You have the talent. Get the right mentor, and you’ll have everything you want.”
She stepped onto the stool. Her butterfly flip-flops settled into what felt like a secure stance, but she wasn’t falling for the comfort of security and ending up on her ass. She perched lightly and checked the camera.
Celia worked her hands over the clay without seeming to be aware of it. “That would be so great. Isn’t it the best to get what you want?”
“You can absolutely do it, Celia.” She took several photos that felt good as she clicked them, and even though she lacked any formal training, surely a photographer’s feeling constituted part of a photo.
“No, I meant for you.” Celia looked up at her, and she stopped shooting. “You’re doing just what you wanted for the catalog, and everybody loves it.”
“Oh.” She considered that she’d actually fallen into the catalog when Dan destroyed her credit cards. What she’d
wanted
was time away from having what she’d always
wanted
. That made her sound like an idiot. “I just think that there are times in your life to really go for it. You don’t have any other responsibilities, and you shouldn’t. You’re the one to worry about, work for, and love, I suppose.”
Celia laughed. “And you hate yourself?” She turned her head further to make eye contact but only managed to eye Mara’s sandals. “I love those sandals.”
Mara wiggled her toes to make the butterflies flutter.
“See? You’re doing just what you want. You’re a professional photographer in this cool loft with shoes a star probably wore in, like nineteen-fifty. And I heard you went to Wreck Beach. I’ve always been too chicken to go there.”
It did sound great. It sounded fun and free and just what she wanted when Celia said it. It just wasn’t true. It was somewhat true just not all the story, and it felt like a grand lie to stand there and show off fake butterflies when she had real ones in the real weeds of her garden. “I can’t do what I want to do in the same way you can, Celia. Life doesn’t work that way. I’m kind of suspending time here for a while. A little while now. I suppose I’m pretending that I’m where you are, able to do what I want and have whatever I can imagine.”
“Why can’t you?”
“Well…” Hell, did she even have language for a question like that? Were words invented to tell a young woman what happens when she’s not young anymore and people need her, and she needs to, well, she needs to meet their needs. God, not a martyr’s speech, like the worst kind of ghost story a woman could tell.
“When time passes…” Now she sounded like the start of a P.E. film about the menstrual cycle. “Okay, this is the deal. You’ll get older. You’ll make choices, good ones, bad ones. In some ways, it doesn’t really matter. And all along the way you get older. That’s an important part of the whole thing. You will literally have less time left. What you could accomplish if you started at twenty…” She felt her ears drumming again, bam, bam, bam! “What you could have done, you’ll be too fucking late to do at 40.”
She tried to take a soothing breath in, but it just kicked up the ear drumming. “Let’s say I really wanted to be a photographer, and I don’t.” She took a second to make sure that was true. Yep. “Okay, but if I did, I’m already too old. Lots of people started at, like, 13. They are so fucking far ahead of me, I’ll never catch up.” She threw her arms up, gripping the camera out of instinct, ignoring the sway of the stool. “And then you’ll get married or fall in love or get a bunch of cats. Now you have
your
plans and
his
plans and
cat
plans and then there are the very important
our
plans.
Our
plans are things like
paint the house
, or
the lawn mower needs to be taken into the shop
. Sometimes
our
plans suck, like
mother always made two kinds of stuffing for Thanksgiving
, so guess what you’re doing until one in the morning the night before?”
Celia, hands still on the clay, cranked her neck up to catch every word. “What are cat plans?”
“They need shots and litter boxes cleaned and gluten free food because of a skin allergy.”
Celia pointed a gloppy finger. “My aunt gave her cat insulin shots for years.”
“Exactly.” She shook her head. “Wait till kids. You have one or two or hell, why not have three or four and really lose, oh, I don’t know, thirty years of your life raising them? But you’re glad. That’s the shittiest part of all. You’re glad all along the way that you do it, that you’re there when they come home from school, that you spent six months of your life nursing each and every one of them, that your husband kissed you and said
you’re amazing, hon
when they were born, and he said
thanks, hon
when he saw the God awful oyster stuffing you had to wring the recipe for from his mother’s cold hands because she thinks that recipes are sacred and three by five notecards that tell you to chop half-a-cup of celery are the only form of wisdom women pass on to each other, so you have to be worthy, and of course you’re not because you married her little boy she nursed for six months of her life and waited for after school and…” Her breath gasped in on a sob, and she jumped down from the stool, and ran for the bathroom, her flip flops slapping along the floor.
It had taken her a couple of minutes to gather herself after the meltdown she hadn’t seen coming, but she definitely would not stoop to drinking mouthwash. She wouldn’t do it and that was final.
She lifted the damp wash towel off her eyes. While she could admit that the five percent alcohol in the minty fresh bottle tempted her, she could resist. Instead she reached for her lipstick and ran a bead of Coral Cha-Cha over her lips. She rubbed them together, stopped when she heard Dan’s voice in the loft. Murmurs came through the door, low and slower for Dan. Celia’s ran higher and quick, lively even though Mara couldn’t decipher any words.
She checked her eyes again in the mirror. The cold cloth mostly took the red out, and she could manage a couple of photos and some social conversation. Who needed to throw back a shot of mouthwash for that? She certainly didn’t. She was fine, and she’d just refuse to let herself dispense any more life advice. Life advice set her off like a postal worker.
She picked up the camera from the counter, smoothed down her hair, and left the bathroom.
“Dan, relax your hands. They need to slide over Celia’s not jerk around like you’re checking her for broken bones.”
Celia hummed, waited with the patience of the Mona Lisa.
Dan pulled his hands away, held them in front of him like a surgeon after a good hand washing even though clay dripped down his forearms and disappeared inside his t-shirt sleeves. He quirked one elbow toward the bathroom. “Mara.” He’d said it slowly like
we both know your real name, but I can’t say it in front of the girl.
“Can I, uh, see you for a second?”
“Sure. Celia, you can wash up in the kitchen and grab a soda in the fridge.”
Mara followed Dan, surprised to find herself admiring his butt. He’d not worn jeans much since college, but even when he had, she didn’t remember him looking that fit. Somewhere along the line he’d really improved the old gluteus maximus.
She half-closed the door and waited for him to say something, but he just waved his elbow at the door so she’d close it all the way.
He whispered despite their privacy. “I can’t be Patrick Swayze with Celia.”
“You can’t,” she repeated his words and tone to better understand them, “be Patrick Swayze with Celia. Your hands need… what? Motivation?”
“They are uncomfortable. My hands…” He eyed the drips of gray that seeped into the cotton fabric of his sleeves, then turned on the faucet, smearing clay on the chrome handles as he tried to rinse the muck off his hands. “Celia’s too young. She’s a kid, and the mood’s not right.”
Well, that made a little more sense. “Oh, okay, this is a mood issue.” Who knew he would be a difficult hand model?
“You and Celia should change places.” He tried to clean off the faucet, but the clay only transferred back onto his hands.
She grinned at his scowl in the bathroom mirror, oddly flattered. “You could be Patrick Swayze with me?”
“I could work better with my hands on a
woman
not a girl.”
“Ooh, hand work.” She crowded him at the sink, molding her body against the rear end she’d admired on the way in. She’d always wanted to be the kind of woman who seduced men, or at least
a man
once. She sensed the power of that possibility and breathed on the back of his neck. She could be a seducer. She was a seductrix, if that was even a word, an expatriate who was once kissed by a woman, a bi-curious American abroad, dammit.