Bridge To Happiness (25 page)

“I’ll take this to the laundry room,” she said in a hurry and left me alone in the room.

I laid my head back and closed my eyes, and I could hear Molly in the other room.

“There’s stain spray on the counter,” I called out.

“I know, Mother.”

When she came back in I tried to sit up and winced. At least I didn’t feel drunk any longer. I just hurt and my hand went automatically to my head.

“Don’t get up,” Molly said. “Just lie there. What do you need?”

“A stronger ego. Good lord . . . Did you see the looks they gave me? They think I’m a drunk.”

Molly laughed at me. “Well, actually, I wouldn’t want to light a match within two feet of you.”

“You’re kidding?” I closed my eyes, suddenly embarrassed all over again. “Am I really that bad?”

“Do you want me to lie?”

“Yes. No. Ellie and MC took me to lunch. Oh Lord my head hurts.”

“You must have fallen right on your head.”

“I did fall on my head, and my knee and my hip. I hurt all over already. I can’t imagine what tomorrow will be like.” I was talking too loud and winced again. “You know,” I lowered my voice. “I think I have a hangover already. The stupid alarm kept going off. I thought I saw—” I stopped, remembering Mike’s image in my mind and I was afraid to tell my wounded and judgmental daughter the truth. “I saw something odd. I never knew tequila could make you hallucinate. I think I panicked.” I sank further into the pillows, feeling smaller than I ever could remember.

I lay an arm across my eyes because the tears I could feel welling up would spill out and I would really humiliate myself and fall apart in front of Molly. With every ounce of stubbornness I still had left in me, I willed the tears away. “Any second my eyes are going to shoot right out of my head,” I murmured.

“I’ll get you something for your headache.”

I waved a hand toward the other end of the house. “In the kitchen. The drawer by the sink. Two please. Excedrin.” I paused. “And ice water. Crushed.”

“I know, Mother.”

When Molly came back in the room, I slowly raised my head. “Thanks, sweetie. I’m sorry you had to rush over here. I feel like an idiot. I shouldn’t have had that last margarita.” I set down the water glass. My daughter had put a slice of cucumber and a wedge of lemon in the ice water. Back when she was in college, I had flown down to LA and taken her to a seaside spa for a mother-daughter weekend after her mid-terms. On all the tables in all the spa rooms were pitchers of water with crystal clear ice floating with lemon and cucumber slices. The flavor was enough to change the way I drank water forever after.

Of course she would do that—my daughter with her eye for detail. So what had her sharp eyes seen in mine that I wanted to hide?

“How many margaritas did you have?”

“I have no idea. They came in these . . . ” I raised my hands about a foot apart “ . . . big pitchers.”

“I can make you some coffee.” Molly checked her watch.

“I don’t want to just lie here.”

“You’re supposed to rest.”

“But I can’t go to sleep,” I said, parroting instructions for the keeping of March Cantrell, mad woman. Mad, drunken woman.

“Right. I’ll be right back. Let the aspirin go to work. I’ll get you some coffee.” Molly made a beeline for the kitchen.

“The beans are in the freezer,” I called out weakly.

“I used to live here, you know.”

“Kona. I like the
kona
blend. Your father loved
kona
, too. Your Aunt May sent it when she was in Hawaii. It smells so good when you grind it. I wonder why coffee never tastes like it smells?”

No response.

“Did you find it?”

“Yes!” came the sharp reply and I heard the coffee grinder crunching away in the kitchen.

I waited a minute more, and then I stood up and was much more steady-on-my-feet than I had been when I came home.

In the doorway of the kitchen I stopped. Molly was on her cell phone, her back to me. “I might need to cancel tonight. I know. I’ll try, but no matter what, I’m going to be late. I really need to stay here with my mother.” She paused. “Okay. I’ll call you.”

I stepped back a few feet so it looked as if I had just walked into the room. She pocketed her phone and turned around, clearly surprised. “Mom. You’re supposed to be lying down.”

“I’m not dizzy. And I forgot have to make cookies for Mickey’s school.”

“Cookies? He’s a senior in high school. Isn’t that too old for class parties?”

“The parents are selling them at a bake sale to help finance the band trip.”

“Mickey’s not in the band.”

“Mickey has nothing to do with it. The school needed volunteers and I signed up months ago.”

My daughter checked her watch. “When does he get home?”

“Not until nine. He has practice.” I took down a mug and leaned against the counter, waiting for the coffee. “Look. You don’t have to stay.” The coffee maker was gurgling and I turned around. The room spun so quickly I dropped the mug and heard it shatter.

“Mom!” My daughter’s arms were around me. How very odd. That was never her role; it was always the other way around. Molly was holding me up and the room was a blur, my vision swimming like my head. “Come over to the table and sit down.”

I felt frail and frightened and a little nauseated. I rested my head in one hand while I waited for the feeling to pass. When I could focus again without feeling like I would faint, I looked at her, hovering over me. I had really scared her. “I’m sorry.”

“I’ll make the cookies. You stay there.” She set a mug of fresh coffee in front of me, swept up the broken china and then said, “Are you okay sitting there?”

“I’m fine. The coffee is helping. The ingredients are in the pantry. Chocolate chip pecan with the ground oatmeal base,” I told her, but she knew. They were the family’s favorite. “The mixer’s right there.”

When we redid the kitchen some years back, we had added a whole line of mahogany small appliance garages along the marble counter. The upper cabinets had beveled glass panes and were lit underneath and inside, displaying all the brightly colored serving dishes Mike had bought me on our trips to Italy over the years. Copper pots and pans and bowls, well-used but polished, hung like monkeys from a heavy iron rack above the center island and Molly took down the largest bowl. She slid open one door; it held the blender, the next one held the food processor, the next the pasta machine. “The last one. On the right,” I said.

Molly pulled out the mixer and rolled her eyes.

“I keep Williams-Sonoma in business.”

“I can see that.”

And as I watched my daughter make the cookies we had made together so many times over the years, I saw that something was still off with her. Mike could always charm Molly back from whatever dark place her mind seemed to go to. My daughter had stood in this kitchen so many times and yet now I saw that she looked uncomfortable.

I had a crazy thought. All those years ago, when I had stood in my mother’s kitchen, arguing over my wedding and scared to death because I had to tell her I was pregnant. That day I had realized my parents’ house was home, but it wasn’t my
home. I wondered if I looked to my own mother then, like my Molly looked to me right now, as if a pair of shoes she had worn forever suddenly pinched her toes.

A few of hours later I walked my daughter to the door. She grabbed her coat and purse while I was looking at the bump on my forehead in the hall mirror.

“Daddy?”

My heart stopped and my gaze flew to my daughter’s reflection. She was standing behind me, alone.

“Molly?” I turned around.

She was holding a white feather in her open palm.

“The cat must have brought a bird in,” I said.” Twice in the last week I found feathers in the house.”

She tore her eyes away and frowned at me. “What?”

“The feather,” I explained. “From the cat.”

“Oh. Right.”

“You said, ‘Daddy.’ A minute ago.” Should I tell her the truth? Should I tell her I saw him all over the house? Did she see him, too? I wanted to ask her. But how would she react? “Did you think you saw your dad?”

“See him? No. No. I was just thinking out loud.” Her look told me to back off. No confession for me tonight. Her cell phone rang again, shattering the moment.

“I’ve got to run,” she said hurriedly and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek.

“Thanks for making those cookies, and for taking care for me.” But she looked about a million miles away. “Molly?”

“What?”

“I’m sorry if coming here ruined your plans tonight.”

“I’ll call tomorrow, Mom, and see how you’re doing.” As she walked down the front steps, she’d already pulled out her cell phone.

Californians, the men and the women, seldom miss their regular hair appointments. Like clockwork I went to the salon every seven weeks, to the same stylist, for the same cut, year after year. As I sat in the chair, staring at my reflection in the mirror, I saw the same woman I had always been.

“March,” Rico said, fingering my shoulder length dishwater colored hair.” I wish you would let me cut your hair.”

“You say that every time.” It was looking dull.

“I know. And every time you say no. You never change.”

“You’re right. I never change. But today I am. Cut it short and color it. You wanted to make it blonde. Go for it.”

Two hours later, after a head full of foils, and some instruction on the use of molding mud and gel application, I came away with an abundance of light blonde streaks and messy short hairstyle Rico had wanted to do for years.

And I walked out of there for the first time in ages feeling like a different woman.

I told myself that now I was now the blonde who could cope with her life. Walking down the city street toward Union Square, where Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue displayed their purses behind glass, I felt like I was in one of those old Clairol commercials, except I didn’t have enough hair to flip and bounce, and I wasn’t wearing a pixie band.

Still, even when I arrived home with a luscious bronze leather Gucci handbag, I didn’t regret the loss of my hair or the change, but I noticed that really short hair made me look more . . .
zaftig.

Two weeks later I discovered it was not my haircut when I was standing on the professional scale in the doctor’s office as my friend, Dr. Harriet Fortis, scribbled on my chart.

“March, you’ve gained some weight.”

I stared at the silver metal marks on the scale bar and at the square black weight in horror and hopped down, kicked off my shoes and said to her, “Doctor’s scales always weigh you heavier. I believe it’s a plot by the American Medical Association so you can lecture us about our health. How old is this thing? Let me try again.”

“Okay. Get back on, especially if you think your shoes weigh twenty five pounds.”

“Ha. Ha. You’re supposed to be my friend,
Harrie
.”

“I like your hair,” she said. “Not many straight women can get away with wearing their hair that short.”