Mourning Becomes Cassandra (2 page)

I pictured Joanie clapping her hands together because she dropped the phone. Contact with some hard surface speed-dialed someone, and then her voice came back, excited. “So you’re in? I knew this was a good idea. One of my really good ones. You’re starting fresh, baby! It’s gonna be like
Sex and the City
.”

“Or
Celibacy in the Suburbs
, more like.”

“Yeah, yeah. I meant Daniel would be having all the sex. Okay, so did you shower yet?”

It was three o’clock. I smoothed my sweat pants guiltily. Sometimes it was like Joanie had some kind of spy cam on me. She didn’t wait for me to answer. “Well, take one now because I’ll be there in twenty minutes to take you to see the house.”

Six weeks later, my house was on the market, and I was pulling up to the new one in a borrowed pick-up truck loaded with the few things I hadn’t purged. All the big items—my bed and desk and other pieces of furniture—were already here, thanks to some friends’ husbands’ help, so I had mainly the dregs. My past life was in my battered suitcase. I’d reduced it to a wedding album, Min’s baby book, ten CDs of pictures, and some college letters from Troy, but my wedding ring escaped the purge—I was still wearing it.

Clyde Hill was the former tiny town, now swallowed-up suburb, just north of downtown. Houses tended to be huge and Craftsman-y, and Daniel’s fit the mold completely:
café-au-lait
in color, with darker trim and a brick-red front door, four bedrooms, 3-½ baths, a big remodeled kitchen, three-car garage, partial view of the lake and the Olympics. Since few people in the Northwest troubled themselves with a pool, the former owners put in the 2-bed, 1-½ bath in-law apartment just off the vast deck. Japanese maples and an ornamental cherry tree studded the front, and I could see a couple native evergreens rising up behind the house. Phyl’s green thumb had already made changes from the first time I visited the house: small planter boxes and hanging baskets had appeared, stuffed with flowers, punctuating the wraparound porch.

Somehow moving in with Joanie and Phyl and, I suppose, with Daniel, didn’t feel as pitiful as finding some sweet old retired lady from the church to live with me. I’d known Joanie for several years. She and her then-fiancé had signed up for the New Marriage class at church with Troy and me, and though Joanie and Keith broke up shortly after, she and I became fast friends, a relationship that survived my marriage and Min coming along. Joanie had been in and out of two more engagements in the meantime, ending the latest six months ago. In her own way I suppose she was as commitment-phobic as her brother. He certainly couldn’t be more attractive than she was, with her long red-gold hair and intense blue eyes. Whenever one fiancé got the boot, another one appeared soon after to take his place.

Joanie always jokingly described herself as “the only white sheep in a family of black sheep,” the good girl who joined a church youth group in high school, to her atheist family’s horror. If that weren’t bad enough, Joanie also pledged a sorority in college and majored in business. When she quit her marketing job to work in our church worship department, that surely must have been the last straw. Joanie’s artistic, vegan, Portland mom was deeply embarrassed by her, and her brother hardly less so. Presumably Joanie’s father would have cringed as well, but no one had heard from him since he walked out a couple decades ago to reinvent himself somewhere in South America.

Phyl (or Phyllida, as only her mother called her) was a newer friend, by way of Joanie and the everlasting church singles events they haunted. Phyl was divorced. Her husband had been of the lyin’ cheatin’ variety, and he quickly traded her in for a newer model, but Phyl nevertheless continued to have a soft spot in her heart for the worst kind of men. She combined religious zeal with bad character judgment, so that her relationships usually involved much fervent prayer that the man she was attracted to would be magically transformed into the kind of man she
ought
to be attracted to. If there was any flaw in our new living plan, it was that Phyl would certainly fall for Daniel, make everything horribly awkward and lead to us all getting kicked out. Joanie and I hoped that, between us, we could corral her.

Of Daniel, I knew only what Joanie told me. He had drunk and slept his way through high school and taken his SATs stoned, like a good black sheep, but he was smart enough to pull off good grades all through college. His mother suspected blossoming bourgeois ambition when Daniel went to law school and into practice, but his continued allergic reaction to marriage, family, commitment, and religion allayed her fears. In fact, he had reached the advanced age of 34 without managing a relationship that lasted even a month and without (to Joanie’s knowledge) spending a thought or a penny on anyone besides himself. Fortunately for us, despite thinking his sister a hopeless religious nut who was sure to have homely, goody-goody friends, Daniel professed himself willing enough to take us on when it offered him such material advantages.

The second the old pick-up sputtered to a halt, Joanie burst out the front door. “There you are! Come on! Throw your stuff in your room because Chaff is going on a day hike today, and you’ve got to come.”

“Chaff” was our secret joke name for the big singles group at church. It was really “YAF” for “Young Adults Fellowship,” but everyone there was pushing thirty, and in a church of happy families, singles always have the red-headed stepchild thing going on.

I eyed her irritably. “Joanie, don’t start. I’m not going to any singles event.”

“Then why are you dressed up for the first time in over a year?” she demanded.

I was, in fact. A new stage in life called for more than sweatpants, I felt, and I had donned one of my few skirts and cutesy pairs of shoes for the occasion.

I shrugged. “Felt like it. But I’m going to finish moving in and then go back and clean up some more.” Shoving a box into her hands, I grabbed my suitcase. “Help me out.”

“Cass, don’t be like that. You’re unemployed. You can do that kind of stuff any time.”

“Yes, but I plan on doing it today.”

My room was at the top of the stairs, facing out on the driveway. Sunlight streamed in the angled bay window and skylight, and I felt that thrum of excitement again. I no longer was a home-owner. In fact I was now, at 32, a glorified housekeeper renting a room—but at least it was a gorgeous room in a more beautiful house than I could ever have hoped to own.

Joanie threw the box I’d given her carelessly on the bed, and I watched my toiletries and underwear spill out. “But, Cass, when you say ‘no,’ do you mean ‘no’ to a hiking trip or ‘no, don’t ask me to go to Chaff events’?”

“Yes and yes. Yes, I mean no hiking trip, and yes, don’t ask me to go to Chaff events. For Pete’s sake, Troy only died a year ago. His ashes have barely cooled.” I led her back downstairs to pick up another load.

“A year!” Joanie huffed. “You should see some of those guys whose wives die! They’re back at it so fast I wanna tell them to stuff their next wedding invitations in with the memorial thank-yous—save a stamp. Why don’t women do that?”

“Joanie,” I said through gritted teeth. “I love you, but you’re being hideously insensitive.” That brought her up short. It was impossible to be angry with Joanie long because she meant well.

Giving me a repentant squeeze she said, “Oh, never mind me. I’ll leave you alone today. Phyl and I will go. There’s a super cute new guy who showed up at Chaff last week, and he’s not even fifty or twice divorced, so Phyl and I are going to try and beat off the seventy other ladies. We don’t need your competition.”

I didn’t even dignify that with an eye roll. “So if you and Phyl are gone all day, am I on for cooking Daniel some dinner tonight?”

“Done. It’s already in the fridge, and enough for you, too. I made out a schedule and chore list and put it on the message board. Take a look and let me know what you think. He and his latest ‘house guest’ are on the back deck canoodling, I think—you want to come meet him?”

“With such a description, how could I resist?” I asked. “What about Phyl? Did she already make her introductions?”

“Oh, you better believe it! When she saw him, she went all breathless and melting. Good thing Daniel goes more for your breasts-of-steel type, or we’d be in trouble. You’ve got to see the gal with him now—classic Daniel.”

When we finished unloading the pick-up, we discovered this seventh wonder in the kitchen. Joanie had nailed it: even doing something as mundane as refilling coffee mugs, Daniel’s latest was indeed a sight to behold—all glossy blonde hair, mile-long legs, teensy tank top, and bouncing bosom. Awkwardly I held out my hand to this vision. “Hi, I’m Cass, one of Daniel’s housemates.”

After giving me a quick look-over and finding nothing threatening, Miss America shook my hand and said, “Nice to meet you. I’m Missy.”

Seriously? Joanie grimaced at me and rolled her eyes behind Missy’s back as we followed her outside.

“Daniel,” Missy purred, dropping onto the chaise longue, “I’ve got your refill for you.”

Only when he lowered his newspaper and I saw his face did I realize I wasn’t seeing Daniel for the first time.

Troy and I had a favorite Italian restaurant downtown, and after I weaned Min and we started going out occasionally again, we often went there. One of our favorite date activities was watching other people and fictionalizing what we saw; it was our own improvised version of reality television.

Meeting Daniel we called the Close Encounters Incident. It must have come shortly before Troy died, one of those days near the solstice. In western Washington you can never count on beautiful weather until after the 4
^th
of July, but this was one of those surprise June evenings, warm and mellow and bright out. Restaurants scrubbed down their patio tables and set them outside cheek-by-jowl because absolutely no one wanted to be indoors, and Fabiano’s was no exception. Troy and I had spent most of the meal making up a story for the nearby three-generations table, grandfather, father and son, but the lone woman in the corner caught my eye more than once. She kept checking her make-up in a small mirror and adjusting her bra, not that it needed much adjusting, unless she were trying vainly to keep herself poised just at the point before she spilled out. She was beautiful, to say the least—so whence the insecurity?

My answer came the next moment, when someone brushed past our table, bumping it. My glass of Shiraz rocked alarmingly, but, having a small toddler at home, my reaction times were nothing short of miraculous, and my hand closed on its bowl to steady it just an instant before another hand closed over mine. Startled, I looked up into a pair of very, very blue eyes. “Excuse me,” he murmured. “I see you have your wits about you.”

Whatever my physical instincts, my mental sharpness deserted me at that point, and I’m afraid I just gaped at him with my mouth open, feeling a warm blush overspread my cheeks.

He was easily the handsomest man I’d ever seen off a movie screen: tall, well-built, thick golden-blond hair, classical features.

Taking in my awestruck expression, his mouth twisted in amusement. Slowly I became aware that his hand was still covering mine. It was warm. I dropped my eyes to it in confusion, just as he released his grip, and I felt Troy kick me under the table. The spell broken, he moved on to sit with the spilling-out beauty, and then I noticed Troy was laughing silently into his napkin—not just laughing,
dying
laughing, wiping-away-tears laughing.

I scowled at him. “What? It’s not as if you weren’t glued on that guy’s date after I pointed her out to you!”

When he regained some measure of control, Troy gave me a mock-innocent shrug. “All in a spirit of scientific inquiry, Cass. Her breasts defy gravity, you’ve gotta admit. But you should have seen the look on your face—you’re still blushing.”

My hands flew to my cheeks. Blushing was my bane, always giving away more than I wanted. “I should have a few words with that guy for the way he was looking at you,” my husband chuckled, “but you do look pretty, so maybe he couldn’t help it. We’ll have to forgive each other: Tier One people are just too beautiful to be ignored.”

Troy had a theory about the world: if you pictured all the people in it, they fell into one of three tiers, rather like the food pyramid. Tier One: the very tiny tip of the pyramid, was made up of the world’s most unnaturally beautiful and enviable people, like retouched movie stars and models and the couple at the next table. Tier Two: this made up most of the pyramid, being huge and spanning sub-tiers ranging from quite-attractive all the way down to not-repellent. And Tier Three held the unfortunate of the world: people prevented from being found attractive by one or more overwhelming flaws, sometimes beyond their control. Lepers, was the example Troy always gave. Or inseparable conjoined twins. Think Chang and Eng.

Pointedly, I turned my chair away from the beautiful couple. “Well, hon, we’ll just have to comfort ourselves with your well-known corollary: Tier One stays small because members of it have a difficult time finding suitable mates. Now are you going to finish that tiramisù, or am I?”

Now here, a year and a lifetime later, was the mysterious stranger from the restaurant, every bit as handsome as I remembered, and we would be housemates, of all things. But this rather absurd fact hardly registered because I was frozen by a momentary vision of Troy laughing at me that night. How many jokes had we shared in our fourteen years of knowing each other? If he had any kind of consciousness now, was he laughing again, to see me having another Close Encounter? I felt the familiar tightening in my throat and burning behind my eyes: don’t cry don’t cry don’t cry.

Through a rushing sound in my ears I heard Joanie introduce me, as Daniel’s gaze flickered over me without recognition. A relief, given how I didn’t think I could speak. One comment like, “Wait, didn’t I see you at Fabiano’s with your husband?” would have finished me. For once I was glad to be the kind of girl that men don’t notice unless they trip over me or, alternatively, co-edit the Yearbook with me, as Troy had in high school.