A Farewell to Yarns (7 page)

No, it wasn't a matter of money or lack of it. It was a basic difference in mentality or outlook or something that made Phyllis rub Jane the wrong way. No point in analyzing it, Jane told herself as she steered the old station wagon into the Howards' hedge-lined drive. Phyllis and her hideous son would be out of her life pretty soon, and she wouldn't need to worry about it. In a day or two, she'd just have to tell Phyllis in the nicest way possible that they were going to have to move into a hotel. And if she couldn't find a nice way—well, she'd worry about that later. Fiona met them in the driveway. "Jane, I've been calling, but I missed you. I'm so sorry I put you to this trouble. Just after we hung up, the exterminators called and said their truck broke down, and they won't be here until tomorrow. I've dragged you out for nothing."

“It's fine. It still has to be done by tomorrow, and we might as well do it now. Fiona, this is my friend Phyllis Wagner, who's visiting me —for a few days," she added. "Phyllis, Fiona Howard.”

The two women greeted each other, subtly summing each other up as women do. A flickering glance to assess hair, clothes, manners t h e n — r e c o g n i z i n g t h e y w e r e n o m i n a l l y equals—the warmth of tentative acceptance passed between them. "Fiona, you and Phyllis have some friends in common."

“Oh? Who is that?”

P hyll is loo ked confused. " I'm not s ure. I mean, I told Jane I knew about you living herebecause someone mentioned it, and I recognized the name of the suburb because of Jane. But I can't remember who it was."

“What a pity. Where are you from?"

“Originally Philadelphia, then Chicago. But for the last thirteen years, my husband and I h a v e b e e n l i v i n g o n a l i t t l e i s l a n d i n t h e Caribbean.”

She made it sound like she had a Quonset hut on somebody else's beach.

“Phyllis and her husband own the island and the hotel on it," Jane couldn't resist saying. Anybody else might have goggled at this; Fiona was unmoved. " How interesti ng that must be," she said with friendly blandness. "I've always liked the Caribbean, but I can't stay there long, because I sunburn so badly. Albert and I went to Jamaica once, and I got a horrible burn, in spite of the fact that I slathered on so much suntan lotion I couldn't sit on a chair without sliding off. Do you miss the seasonal changes?”

This, of course, was one of Phyllis's favorite topics and elaborations took them into the house and into the ground floor guest room where the church bazaar cartons were stored. Jane studied the array of boxes for a moment, wondering where to start. They were stacked everywhere with only a narrow aisle between them. Fiona had said a few people had dropped things off since this morning, but it looked more like an army had looted a small, holiday-oriented country and left all the spoils here.

As Jane stood, gazing with bewilderment, she heard Phyllis saying, "... And it will be so nice to be back permanently."

“Back permanently?" Jane asked, roused from her stupor by these chilling words.

“Yes, I was telling Fiona about moving back. We haven't had time to talk about it yet, Jane. Chet told me to find a nice house here, and he'd buy it for Bobby and me if I wanted."

“You're going to live in Chicago?" Jane tried to sound bright and cheerful but felt like she had a mouthful of mud. Having Bobby Bryant around permanently would be about as much fun as having a car wreck in a Pinto. She had to suppress the urge to run to the nearest phone, call Shelley, and scream, "Help me! Help me!"

“Maybe you'd be interested in the house next door?" Fiona asked, obviously as a conversational gambit, not as a sincere suggestion. "I was telling Jane about it just this morning." She went on to explain chattily about the old lady, the nursing home, and the son's anxiety to get a tax break by selling before the end of the year.

“That might be very nice," Phyllis said. "At least it would give me time to look around for something else without imposing on Jane. And we'd be so close. Wouldn't that be fun, Jane?

Just like the old days.”

Please don't do this to me, God. I'm a good person, and I don't deserve it,
Jane thought.
Eight

Jane held up a pinecone wreath and pretended she hadn't heard the question. "I wonder who made this. It's awfully nice work, isn't it? It's got these little peppermint sticks woven in, but they're not meant to be eaten anyway—"

“Would you really like to take a look?" Fiona was asking. "The man left us a key in case I wanted to show it to anyone."

“T hat would be fun, but we should help Jane—"

“Why don't I have Albert run over with you, while I—"

“Did I hear my name being taken in vain?" Albert had apparently come down the hallway just as Fiona referred to him.

“Oh, Albert—you know Jane Jeffry, she was here earlier. And this is her friend P hyll is Wagner," Fiona said.

He looked at Phyllis, at Jane, and at the room full of cartons and was struck dumb.

“It's not as chaotic as it looks," Jane assured him. The man had actually paled at the sight of what had happened to his home. "I pretty well know what all this stuff is, and it'll be out of your house in another week ' or so, after the sale.”

Fiona explained to Albert, who still looked stricken, what she wanted him to do, but he obviously didn't want to be bothered acting as so mebod y e lse 's rea l esta te agent. " I'm expecting the accountant any minute. He's bringi ng s ome fo r ms o ver t ha t need t o go i n b y midnight."

“I'll keep him entertained if he shows up," his wife assured him. "It'll only take you a minute.”

“But Fiona—”

Jane glanced up, aware of the tension growing in the room. Albert was on the verge of digging his heels in. Phyllis was looking at him with undisguised fascination, as if he were some sort of museum exhibit: "The Nerd Who Married Richie Divine's Widow." Jane suddenly understood why Phyllis couldn't think of the name of the friend they had in common. There wasn't such a person. Phyllis had just kept up with the fan magazines and had been curious about Fiona and her husband.

Too bad Albert was such a loser, physically—the little pot belly, the thinning dull hair, the jowls that drew attention to his almost complete lack of chin. Everybody must look at him and make the comparison between Fiona's current husband and her former husband and wonder what on earth she saw in this one. It couldn't be easy to be Albert Howard.

“If you'd just let me in, I could take a little look around and bring the key back?" Phyllis suggested.

“Good idea," Fiona agreed.

“Oh, very well, I'll take you over there," Al bert replied. It was just short of openly hostile. "Come along, Mrs.—uh--"

“Wagner, but you must call me Phyllis," she said, following his rather abrupt departure from the room. "I'm just sorry my son isn't with me. He's looking forward to coming back to Chicago, I think. He was raised here. You see —" Her voice stopped as a door closed. Good Lord, Jane thought, she's telling
him
the whole story. The woman didn't know the meaning of discretion.

Fiona started sorting boxes with Jane but seemed preoccupied. "Albert seems to be a bit out of sorts," she finally said. "It must be something about the accountant. I think, too, that he worries about anybody having to live next door to Mr. Finch, but after all, somebody has to. The township can't just level the whole block. I don't think he's half as bad as people say, do you? At least, he might not be. We had an old lady in the village where I grew up that everybody claimed was a witch, and she was really a sweet old thing when you got to know her. She just had an intimidating manner. Jane, what
is
this stuff?”

. "Oh, that! It was a gorgeous angel-hair angel that Suzie Williams made, but it's sort of turned into a blob with a head. Max and Meow got into it before I brought the carton over. I'll just pretend to have bought it before the sale starts so we don't have to put it out. Here's the box with the fruitcakes. Where shall we put the things with food?"

“Just out in the hallway. I'll have the maid move them to the family room, and then the yard man can take them out the back .door to store in my car until the bug people are gone.”

Jane smiled. "You know, I heard once that there are only a hundred fruitcakes in existence. Every year everyone exchanges the same hundr ed, a nd nob od y kno ws t he y'r e t he sa me ones."

“I can believe that. My family had a fruitcake that was an heirloom. We kept giving it to my Uncle Charles, and he kept giving it back on alternate years. I think he eventually sold it to an antique dealer," Fiona said with a giggle.

“So about these—there's no point in three people moving them. Just point me toward the family room, and we'll eliminate one stage of the process.”

Fiona gave her directions, and Jane staggered out. The family room turned out to be the most interesting—and strange—room of the house. It wasn't really a family room in the usual sense. It was more of a shrine. The walls were adorned with all Richie Divine's gold and platinum records. Jane had never seen a real gold record in her life, and she walked around the room looking at them, awed. Completely apart from their meaning, they were beautiful things in a flashy way.

There was "Red Christmas," the sappy but moving ballad about two young lovers separated by the Berlin Wall. Jane remembered heari n g o n c e t h a t t hr e e o f t h e b i g g e s t s e l l i n g Christmas records year in and year out were Elvis's "Blue Christmas," Bing Crosby's

"White Christmas," and Richie Divine's "Red Christmas." The commentator liked the irony of the three dead artists with the patriotic color scheme outselling so many of the live ones. Next to it was the platinum disk of "Good bye, Philly," the heartbreakingly lilting little song that was released, with terrible irony, the same week Richie died. The song had stayed on the charts for months and months afterward. It ha d a s o r t o f " Y o u C a n 't G o H o me A g a i n" theme, adapted to the seventies.

Katie had been an infant when that came out, and Jane always associated the song with sitting in the kitchen, listening to the radio, and waiting for the bottle sterilizer to finish boiling. That had been such a happy, peaceful time for Jane. Life had been so simple then. And yet Fiona, at the same time, was enduring the heartbreak of losing her sexy, famous husband. It was hard to believe that anyone could have been unhappy at the same time Jane was so contented. Jane didn't remember the words to the song, but she could still hum the whole thing, and she did so as she continued her tour of the room. There were platinum records for "Do I, Do I Ever,”

“Some of These Nights,”

“Everything I Am," and at least a dozen more. Jane stopped in front of "Loving Lo vi ng Yo u," a nd ca me close to blushing. Steve had bought her that record the day they came back from their hon eymoon.

On a shelf that ran along the north wall there were ranks of other awards and framed pictures. Richie with Bob Hope in fatigues entertaining troops someplace. Richie with President Nixon. Richie with a frumpy middle-aged couple who must have been his parents. Richie with a couple astronauts and another of him in a silly mock embrace with Elizabeth Taylor. There were three shots of Richie receiving awards and four stills from the one movie he'd made. A big color poster advertising the movie hung in the center.

At the end of the wall, almost lost in the shadows of the corner were two charming photos. One was a strip of four pictures taken in a drugstore booth. Richie and a very young, pretty Fiona. In the top shot, he was making a face, and she was looking at him with shy amusement. In the second, he was nuzzling her neck, and she was looking mortified. The third was a serious face-forward shot of both, and in the last they were kissing primly. How sad it must make her to see that now: Richie, his youth preserved by death, and Fiona growing steadily older. She already looked old enough to be the mother of the boy in that shot. Why did she keep that reminder of what she'd lost?

The other photo at the end of the shelf was a shot of what must have been a high school band lined up on the school steps. Someone had circled a boy at the end wearing an oversized hat and holding a big drum. His face shadowed, you'd never recognize him, but that must have been Richie. Jane studied the picture, feeling she'd seen it before—the cheerleaders with their pompoms kneeling in the front, the band director standing at the side, the kids squinting into the sun, the boy on the back row holding two fingers up behind the head of a girl in front of him. Every high school band picture in the world must look just like that. Jane had lost all track of what she was supposed to be doing and was brought back to reality with a start when Phyllis's voice broke in on her thoughts. "Jane, where are you? Have you seen that house? It's darling. Just darling! I'm sure Bobby is going to love it.”

Jane hurried out of the room, afraid Phyllis would find her there and gush over the Richie Divine memorabilia. She wasn't sure why she didn't want Phyllis to see that room, but she didn't. She felt so sorry for Albert having to share his house with his extraordinary marital predecessor. Of course, Albert was presumably living on the spoils of his predecessor's talent, so apparently it didn't bother him.

The rest of them, including Albert, had gathered in the sunny breakfast room. Whatever had irked him must have passed, because he was sitting at the table, looking utterly relaxed.

“It has this sweet little porch off the main bedroom with a little railing. Wonderful for sunbathing," Phyllis gushed.

“She nearly toppled off, admiring the view," Albert added.

“Could I use your phone to call and make arrangements?" Phyllis asked.

“Certainly, but what kind of arrangements?" Fiona asked, setting a tea kettle on the stove.

“To buy it," Phyllis said. "Would you write down the address and the name and number of the man who's selling it?"

“Yes, of course. But don't you think you're acting just a little precipitously?" Fiona asked. "I probably am," Phyllis agreed cheerfully, taking the business card Fiona had handed to her. She went to the phone.