Unlovely (29 page)

"Good morning. Tomlinson
residence."

"Hello. May I speak to Mrs.
Tomlinson? This is Claudia Milford."

"Just one moment, please."
Claudia wondered who had answered the telephone. A daughter? A maid? After half
a minute, Claudia heard the receiver being lifted again.

"Hello, this is Helen
Tomlinson." A familiar voice. She sounded friendly enough – perhaps Peter
hadn't shared recent events with her yet.

"Hello, Mrs. Tomlinson,"
Claudia said. "I hope you remember me. We shared a lunch together here at
Jameson a while back. I'm a colleague of your son's." This was a
formality, of course. Mrs. Tomlinson would know perfectly well who Claudia was.

A pause. "Oh, yes! Claudia. How
nice to hear from you. To what do we owe this call?"

"Mrs. Tomlinson, I think we need to
have a rather serious conversation."

"Oh? Do we?" If it was feigned
surprise, it was certainly convincingly delivered. Claudia felt even more
confident that she'd caught Mrs. Tomlinson in time.

"Yes, I'm afraid so. It concerns
your son."

"My son? Is he all right? He's not
hurt is he?"

"Oh, no, no! Nothing like that.
Still, it is rather important. Could you meet me this afternoon for coffee?"

Another pause. "Well, this is all
rather mysterious. Could you give me some idea what this is about?"

"I'd much prefer not to get into
specifics, but it has to do with some questionable choices Peter's made
recently in regard to our friendship."

“I'm not sure I should get involved with
this, Claudia. I don't know that Peter would want me butting into his personal
relationships."

Yes!
Personal relationships
:
she
knows her son and I have a relationship! Confirmation that he's shared things
with her. That should make it much, much easier to enlist her aid
.

"I understand, Mrs. Tomlinson, and
I would agree with you, normally, but I do feel that a lot of heartache would
be avoided if you could just meet me for fifteen minutes. I'll go to any coffee
shop you wish."

"I live forty-five minutes away
from you, Claudia."

"I know. I got your address from
the secretary at the office. Don't worry. I have a car."

A pause that felt like it went a full
minute. "Okay. If it's that important to you, I'll meet you at the little
doughnut shop on the corner of West Main and Elm at four. Do you know the
place?"

"No, but I'm confident I can find
it. Thank you so much for making the time to meet with me, Mrs. Tomlinson. I
believe you'll agree, after we have our discussion, that it was time well
spent."

"I do wish you'd give me more of an
idea what this is about."

"I'll explain everything this
afternoon. Please don't worry overmuch. It's important, but I don't mean to
alarm you."

"Okay. I guess that will have to do,
won't it? I'll see you later, Claudia. Drive safely."

Claudia found the last period of the day
exceedingly difficult. The girls were distracted; she'd been forced to give
them seat work, instead of engaging them in any sort of active language practice.
Ultimately her frustration with them worked in her favor, however, because none
of the students wanted to stick around after dismissal for additional tutoring
from an edgy Fraulein Milford. Claudia was free to leave campus some time
before she'd anticipated, and with a sense of urgency encouraging her to push
the speed limit, she pulled up at the doughnut shop with ten minutes to spare.

Mrs. Tomlinson appeared on the threshold
at four o'clock on the dot. Claudia did a double take at the sight of her: she
had grown gaunt, her clothes were hanging on her, and her skin was yellowed and
waxy. Her lifeless hair looked too heavy for her head. Apparently, she had been
quite ill since Claudia had last seen her several months before.

"Hello," Claudia said, rising from
the table to meet Mrs. Tomlinson, who was standing in the doorway searching
faces. Claudia led her back to the table she'd secured. "Won't you please
sit down? Can I get you some coffee or a pastry?"

"Hello, Claudia," Mrs.
Tomlinson said, lowering herself carefully onto her seat. "How nice to see
you. No thank you, dear, to the pastry. I would like a cup of tea, please, but
ask the server to put the bag on the side. I can only steep it for a few
seconds. Any stronger and I will feel quite ill."

"Of course," Claudia answered,
and went to fill the order, soon returning to the table with two cups of hot
water, teabags and slices of lemon on the side.

"Here we go," Claudia said,
pulling two paper napkins from the dispenser to place next to their saucers.

"Yes, indeed. Thank you." Mrs.
Tomlinson dunked her tea bag in the cup three times, barely coloring the water,
then set it down on her saucer. "Now, enough of this mystery, Claudia.
Please tell me what's going on with Peter. I've been worried all day."

Claudia wrapped the string around her
own sodden teabag and squeezed it like a garrote, looking apologetic. "I'm
so sorry about that, Mrs. Tomlinson. I didn't mean to alarm you. It is
important, though, or I wouldn't have asked to meet. First, let me make clear
again, that Peter is physically fine. He looks quite well."

"Yes, so you said on the
phone."

"This issue is more of a personal
nature. It has to do with the relationship I have with your son."

"Oh?"

"Yes. As I'm sure you're aware – I
know how close you are to Peter – he and I have been keeping company for some
time now. Nothing formal – we aren't engaged or anything! – but there was an
understanding between us."

Mrs. Tomlinson said nothing, but raised
her eyebrows.

"Over the course of the past few
weeks, another woman, a temporary member of the faculty, appeared on campus and
began to throw herself at Peter. She would hang around his classroom after
hours, put her hands all over him. It was quite shameless. I won't go into too
many details for fear of offending you, but you have to believe me. It was
embarrassing for everyone."

Mrs. Tomlinson blew across the surface
of her tea and took a tentative sip, listening,
her
eyes on her cup as she replaced it on the saucer.

"Peter can't be blamed, of course.
He's very attractive . . . I'm sure he did nothing to lead her on. She was
unstable. Anyway, because of the nature of my relationship with your son, I
felt obligated to intervene. Not just for his sake, it's true. For my own as
well. So, I went to her rooms and confronted her. We had words; some of them
were ugly. Ultimately, she called me something I won't repeat to you and she
slapped me."

"She did? She slapped you?"
Mrs. Tomlinson looked up from her cup.

"Yes. It's like I said, she's
unstable. Of course she was dismissed from the staff immediately, but she was
allowed to stay on campus for a couple of days to pack her things. During that
time, Vanessa – that's the woman – went to see Peter. She was apparently
feeling vindictive. I don't know exactly what she told him, but it must have
been very, very bad, because now he wants to break things off with me
completely."

"Oh."

"I can't help but think that she
told him some terrible lie, and told it so convincingly that she gave Peter
cause to doubt me. I've spoken to him, but he seems determined to dissolve our
relationship without even fighting for it." Claudia sensed that her voice
was rising and her words were coming too quickly. She picked up her cup and
took a gulp of tea to calm her nerves, burning her tongue in the process.

Mrs. Tomlinson sat quietly for a moment,
reflecting on this news and waiting to see if Claudia had anything else to add.
Satisfied it was her own turn to speak, she shook her head slightly (or was it
a tremor? Claudia couldn't tell) and asked, "Why did you want to see me,
Claudia? I still don't understand."

"Oh, I'm sorry. I thought it was
obvious. I want you to talk to Peter about this. I know you talk about
everything. I want you to find out what Vanessa said to him, and then explain
how it was all lies."

Mrs. Tomlinson settled back in her
chair. "But I've never met this woman, and I barely know you! How can you
expect me to climb into the middle of this?"

Claudia couldn't restrain an astounded
laugh. "Well, you love Peter, don't you? You want what's best for him. I
thought you'd want to get involved."

"No, you're much mistaken. I
don't."

"Wow." Claudia straightened in
her chair and blinked her eyes rapidly in astonishment. "This really
surprises me. I was expecting some support from your corner."

"I'm sorry I can't give it to
you."

"Yes. So am I." Claudia chewed
her lip, debating whether to say what was on her mind. "To be frank, I
feel like you're letting me down."

"Oh?"

"Yes. I didn't expect you to
abandon me – abandon us – like this."

It was Mrs. Tomlinson's turn to be
astonished. She leaned forward, perplexed. "Really, Claudia?
 'Abandon' you? What on earth do you mean by that?"

"Our relationship was your idea in
the first place. You're the one who thought Peter should settle down with
someone; you're the one who wondered why he couldn't find someone like me.
Well, he did, and he was very happy with me until recently."

Mrs. Tomlinson averted her eyes from
Claudia's and searched her memory. "I'm trying to recall this. I remember
the luncheon, of course, but I honestly don't think I ever said anything of the
sort."

Claudia began to panic. How could this
be? Why would Mrs. Tomlinson say she didn't remember? Was she joking? Was she
being malicious?

Claudia grabbed her companion's hand,
startled at its fragility but holding it tightly nonetheless. "Mrs.
Tomlinson, you did. At the luncheon. We had such a lovely conversation. We were
talking about what Peter was like as a boy and how proud you were of him, then
you said you wished Peter and I would get together. I can't believe you don't
remember it."

"Well, I don't. I'm sorry, but I
don't." Mrs. Tomlinson withdrew her hand and put it safely in her lap.

The two women sat across from each other
for a few moments in tense silence, nonplussed and staring at the sugar
dispenser.

Claudia couldn't give up. Not when she'd
come so far. "Well, even if you don't remember, you can trust me that you
said it. You did. Maybe you don't remember because you've been sick. Maybe
whatever medication you've been taking has affected your memory. It doesn't
matter, because it's irrelevant to the issue at hand, anyway. The point is that
Peter is about to throw a relationship away that was very good for him.
I'm
very
good for him. Surely you still believe that, even if you don't remember having
done everything short of thrusting me bodily into your son's arms."

Mrs. Tomlinson's confused expression
only served to increase Claudia's panic.

"Talk to him, please Mrs.
Tomlinson. Tell him to think things through rationally, not to trust the word
of some slut – I'm sorry to use the word, but you need to hear it, I sense
you're not taking this seriously enough – and instead to trust the feelings
that have been developing between us all these months. It's such a small thing
I'm asking of you, Mrs. Tomlinson. Can you please do that?"

"I will not," the older woman
said, pushing her tea cup to the middle of the table before rising to her feet.
"I am not going to speak to my son about any of this."

Claudia couldn't believe events were transpiring
in this way. "Will you at least defend me when he brings me up in
conversation? You could at least do that, couldn't you?"

Mrs. Tomlinson spoke softly but firmly.
"Claudia, he has never brought you up in any conversation we have had. Not
once. Never."

Mrs. Tomlinson watched Claudia's eyes
carefully for confirmation that her words were understood, but failed to find
it.

"I see I'll have to be blunt with
you. Listen closely: I think you would be a disastrous match for my son. If I actually
encouraged you to pursue him all those months ago, then I'm sorry, I was
terribly mistaken. If I did tell you to pursue him – and again, I don't have
any memory of it – it was probably just a conversational nicety, not a
legitimate request. You wildly misinterpreted my words. I suspect you wildly
misinterpret those of my son, as well."

Claudia was speechless and crushed with
disappointment, her eyes riveted on the frail woman standing next to the table.

"Moreover, I have no intention of
continuing this conversation for another minute. Please do not contact me
again. You were presumptuous to call me, and you have addressed me rudely. If
my son does bring you up to me, which I doubt, those are the things I will say
to him. Goodbye, Claudia."

Mrs. Tomlinson fished in her change
purse for four quarters and placed them next to her saucer. Without another
word she left Claudia at the table, devastated and staring at a tepid cup of
tea.