My Very Best Friend (51 page)

I saw Bridget and Pherson sitting together in front of Toran’s fireplace, rain splattering down the windows, their heads close together, blond and black. Pherson, a literature lover, had been reading to her.

I turned to leave, then stopped. The lights were off and the flames danced.

If I squinted my eyes and ignored how emaciated Bridget was, if I forgot that she was sick, if I pretended that she had married Pherson, I would see only a glow.

A glow of love.

Of light.

Of a life lived together, filled with children, Scottish games and legends, songs and bagpipes, kilts and tartans. Clan TorBridgePherLotte and their children and grandchildren, growing old together.

That was taken from them. What should have been was stolen. Ripped away. Violence and blood.

I stood in the glow that did not exist for a second. I closed my eyes and pretended.

It is unfortunate that we all have to open our eyes sometimes and see the truth instead of what we want to see.

I turned away before what I wanted to see, and did not, could not, smashed me down again.

Grief is impossible to bury for long, and I was fighting it, hard, every day. We all were.

“I want to contribute to the cost of developing Bridget’s Park,” Pherson said when Bridget was upstairs sleeping.

“No,” Toran said.

“Yes,” Pherson said. “I insist.”

“I insist you don’t.”

“Why are you doing this to me, Toran?” Pherson said, frustrated, shoulders back, offended. “I want to be a part of this. You know how I feel about Bridget.” A tear fell from his eye.

Because Pherson was crying, Toran cried. They sniffled at exactly the same time, then at the exact same second ran an impatient hand across their faces.

Two tall, strapping, strong Scotsmen, who minced people at the Scottish games each year, facing each other down, crying.

“Don’t push me out of this, Toran,” Pherson said. “We’re best friends. All of us. Let me in.”

Toran glared down at his work boots. It was against his pride to take money from anyone, ever. He was a proud, independent man, but he would understand the significance.

“Okay, Pherson. Thank you.”

“Thank you, friend.”

They both cleared their throats at the same time and looked away. Crying was not part of that relationship. Then they both, again at the same time, rolled their shoulders and ran a hand through their hair.

I almost laughed.

“Let’s have a couple of beers,” Toran said.

“I’ll get ’em,” Pherson said.

Dear St. Ambrose Ladies’ Gab, Gardens and Gobble Group,

We have had many glorious suggestions for making money for our annual fund-raiser, including clay friend faces; colorful cherub babies with feathers, teeth, and googly eyes; gardening panties; and selling marijuana.

I was out with my pigs last night and decided to make an executive decision. We are going to have an Indian Feed. Yes, an Indian Feed. All money will go toward Bridget’s Park, where the old Zimmerman Factory used to be. The council recently approved it.

The Indian event will be in two weeks. Friday night at 6:00. The entire town is invited. Gitanjali has two simple recipes that she says we can easily re-create. I talked to Dominigo, and he says we can buy the ingredients from him for cost. Gitanjali will donate all the spices. I talked to Mildred at the school, and she said we can use their kitchen for the cooking and the cafeteria for the event. We’ll charge per meal, fair price, plus more. It is for a park!

So what we need to do now is make advertisements and put them everywhere. This is what I think they should say:

Indian Feed!
6:00 Friday night at
St. Peter’s Independent School
A fund-raiser for Bridget’s park
Bring your appetites for Indian.

What do you think, gardeners?

Send the note around quick as the crow flies, write what you’d like, and sign the bottom, as usual.

Olive

Ladys,

Special sweet greetings.

I think we make fun time together cooking to eat Indians for Bridget Park. I have idea. We make advertisement say, “Eat me.” And we make signs say, “Eating Indians.” Or “Cooking Indians For Food for Bridget Ramsay.” I think that tasty idea. Then the peoples knows they can eat tasty food on Bridget.

Serenity and peace to my friendlies.

Gitanjali

Hello to Gobbling Gardens ladies,

I don’t think we should emphasize eating Indians. It sounds rather cannibalistic. I did go and operate on a man at the prison recently who told me before the operation that he was a cannibal. Except for that, he was friendly. I watched to make sure my fingers didn’t get too close to his mouth, though.

Kenna

Hello ladies,

You are right. We should not call it an Indian Feed. We will not be eating Indians. That did sound carnivorous and cannibalistic. Whoopsy-do! Sorry!

Kenna suggested that we call it the Celebration and Fund-Raiser for Bridget’s Park.

That sums it right up.

Olive

PS I will kill the following chickens as my donation: Portsmouth, Monty Jr., Salamander, Mint Ice Cream, and Tornado. I had Tornado on my lap the other day, the dear bird, and he is going to be scrumptious, now, you mark my words.

Garden gals,

If we do need to do anything cannibalistic, I will kill The Arse and we can eat him. He’ll need to be boiled first, and plucked. Don’t expect any meat off his penis. It was small.

Rowena

Gabbling Gals,

I’ll help cook. Guess what? I have a date!

Malvina

Friends,

Thank you. It sounds delicious. We will bring dessert for everyone.

Love you all.

Bridget and Charlotte

Bridget, Pherson, Toran, and I talked. We had the money, between us, for the park. The fund-raiser initially had us stymied. We didn’t want to take money we didn’t need, and yet it excluded people if it wasn’t taken.

“If people want to donate, we should let them,” Pherson said. “If we say no, that would be hurtful to them. It’s like we’re saying they’re not needed, their money, their efforts and time, aren’t needed, that they need to step aside and let us take over.”

“And some people are trying to help because they feel bad about the way they treated Bridget,” I said. Toran and I had heard that several times, and every time the person talking to us was emotional, shamed, and apologetic. There were those who still glared and avoided us, too. We didn’t expect them to donate. They would use the park, though. As Bridget said, maybe they would rethink what they’d said and done when they were there among the rose bushes. “We need to let them make amends for it.”

“I agree,” Toran said.

“Everyone needs to feel included,” Bridget said.

“Excellent, then,” I said. I bit my tongue so I didn’t laugh. “Who feels like eating an Indian?”

“Tornado is going to be delicious,” Bridget drawled. “I can hardly wait.”

“I want to make the sign that says ‘Eat Me,’” Toran said.

“I thought we should sell the marijuana,” Pherson said.

“We could have smoked it while we were wearing gardening panties that don’t creep,” I said.

“Or we could have decorated baby cherubs in red paint and added googly eyes,” Bridget added, widening her eyes with her fingers. “While stoned and wearing the gardening panties at the same time.”

“I am not going to eat Rowena’s husband, no matter how she plucks and cooks him,” Pherson said.

“I will not eat a penis at the Indian Feed,” Bridget said. “No matter how small.”

“I could have made a clay mask of my face and hung it on the fence,” Toran drawled. “Maybe a hundred masks. It would be Toran everywhere.”

We think we’re funny.

I had an idea for the dessert. I talked to Sandra Bao at her bakery. She loved the idea. I wrote a check, and we were set. It was a flamingly fantastic idea, forgive me for my lack of modesty.

Maybelle called and left a message.

“Charlotte, it’s Maybelle. I’m sure you know, no, I’m sure you don’t know, because you don’t look at these things, but your latest book, you do remember that it’s titled
Danger, Doughnuts, and a Latin Lover,
don’t you? You left the reader with a cliff-hanger about McKenzie Rae wanting to get back to her soul mate. Anyhow, still on the
New York Times
bestseller list. Still. We’re on, what, week a zillion? And you are . . . where in your next book?

“Gee whiz. That’s right. You have writer’s block. Gag me. You are going to give me a heart attack. You’re going to make my stomach tie itself in a slip knot, my colon in a braid. I lied to your publishing house—once again—yes, I’m a liar, and I told your editor that everything is going well, that you’re working hard. Almost done!

“You’ve turned me into a liar. Hello, hello? I need to talk to you, you stubborn author.

“Hang on, Charlotte . . . Eric! Why did your principal call me today? You did what? Okay, Charlotte, talk to you later. Eric exploded half of his science lab today . . . the little shit. You are grounded, Eric! Forever! No, I am not impressed with your explosive abilities. Don’t try that on me, young man. . . . Randy, I looked in your backpack and found a beer. You are grounded, too. Don’t talk to me about your privacy. See this? That’s your beer, down the toilet. How do you like toilet privacy? Please call me back, Charlotte. Please.”

I kept balancing the books and working for Toran’s farm.

He kept trying to help me break the insidious block in my head so I could write my next book. We tried looking at a map to locate my next setting. We tried reading different books on history to see if that would spark an idea. We tried reading books in different genres, hoping that opposites, literarily speaking, would attract.

No go.

“We’ll keep trying, Charlotte,” he told me.

“I might be out of steam.”

“I don’t think so. You tell the best stories, right like your father. It’ll come to you again.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

“How would you feel if the stories didn’t come back?”

I thought about that for a long time. “I don’t know. What I do know is that having you to talk to makes this whole writer’s block disaster easier to take.”

“We’ll get that block out of your head.”

“Thanks. I don’t want to be a blockhead anymore.”

We laughed because we are so geeky, then we played chess naked. I moved the chess pieces with my boobs. The game did not last long.

I saw Bridget, in the distance, the next afternoon, standing near one of the tractors, staring up at the cliffs again. I wished that she hadn’t gone—she had so little energy left—but I understood why she was there.

She was trying to comprehend, to work it through, to plow a line through a tangle of conflicting emotions that threatened to strangle her. Silver Cat stood right beside her.

I saw her bend her blond head.

It had not been her fault. It was solely theirs.

She would never believe that it wasn’t.

18

Before we left for the Celebration and Fund-Raiser for Bridget’s Park, the Garden Gobbling Ladies came over. Bridget could not attend; she was having a poor day, plus she didn’t want to make anyone nervous and ruin the night. We didn’t try to encourage her. She looked hollow eyed, weak, and limp. Pherson would stay with her.

They each had a gift for Bridget. Rowena brought her rock earrings, a bracelet, and necklace, all with purple beading. Gitanjali brought her a basket of soaps and oils, “for the healing.” Olive had knitted her a scarf with a pink bird on it. The bird had a huge smile, with teeth. That was intentional. Kenna brought her a stack of new romance novels. “I read them all the time.” I briefly wondered if she’d read mine. Malvina brought her pink slippers and a robe.

“Thank you,” Bridget said. “Now get on out of here. Don’t burn the food. Don’t pluck and boil Rowena’s ex. No marijuana. Don’t eat Indians.”

We laughed, we left.

The Celebration and Fund-Raiser for Bridget’s Park, with mouthwatering Indian dinners from Gitanjali, an armful of chickens provided by Olive, no Indians themselves eaten, was a success.

Gitanjali and Olive had a crew of women, including me and the rest of the Gobbling and Gabbling Garden ladies, and men, including Toran, Ben Harris, the Stanleys, and the mayor, prepare tandoori chicken and chicken tikka masala. We added Indian rice, naan, and sliced pineapple.

We decorated the cafeteria of the school as “Indianish” as we could. We put down purple, orange, yellow, and green tablecloths and hung colorful paper star lanterns over each table. In the center of the gym we hung pink, purple, green, and yellow fabric out from the center of the ceiling to the corners. Gitanjali let us hang all of her saris around the room.

The schoolchildren, taught by Gitanjali, made white doves, and we hung those from the ceiling, too, in flocks. In the middle of each table we made a diorama-type box about a foot wide and tall, and on each side we glued photos of India, the Taj Mahal, decorated elephants, women in saris, and Indian marketplaces filled with spices. From gold, shiny paper, Kenna and Rowena cut out elephants holding each other’s trunks and attached them to two walls.