The Hot Flash Club (19 page)

31

Thursday, Dr. and Mrs. Eastbrook drove into Boston to meet prospective patients for lunch, while Lila substituted for the receptionist at the spa who’d come down with a cough.

Margie, the cook, stuck her head around the door of Faye’s office. “I’m going back to my apartment for a couple of hours. Dinner’s organized. If you want lunch, you can throw something together yourself, okay?”

“Sure,” Faye agreed.

Faye finished typing the on-line order for Mrs. Eastbrook’s new linens, but her eyes darted frequently to the window. Finally, she saw Margie hurrying along over the gravel, past the fountain, to her apartment in the nearest staff building.

She checked her watch. She should have an hour, at least.

Quickly, she entered into Mrs. Eastbrook’s office, opened her desk, and found the key to the family room door. Stashing it in her pocket, she hurried to her own quarters to grab up the book bag she’d brought from home, then flew over the carpet, down the long hall, and into the family room. She unlocked the door.

Dora was slumped in her chair, napping. Faye hesitated. She didn’t want to wake the young woman, but who knew when she’d have another chance?

Dora lifted her head. “Is someone there?”

“Dora, it’s Faye. The housekeeper.”

Dora shifted beneath her tentlike dress, pressed a button on her chair, and turned. Her dear little goblin face brightened. “Oh, Faye! I thought you’d forgotten all about me!”

“Heavens, no, Dora.” Faye kissed the young woman on her cheek. “How are you?”

Dora grinned. “Bored to tears! What’s in the bag?”

Faye laughed. “I’ve brought you a present.” She went through the large room to the card table at the back and sat down in a folding chair. Dora whirred along right behind in her power chair.

Faye pulled out a large wooden box. She opened it. A rainbow of colors nestled in the divided sections like Easter eggs in a wooden nest.

“These,” Faye said, “are soft pastels.”

Dora whirred her chair up to the table. She touched the blue pastel, and Faye knew it would feel soft, crumbly, and floury to her fingertips.

“Pretty colors,” Dora murmured.

“Yes.” Faye took out another box. “These are pastel pencil sticks. They’re cleaner to use than the soft pastels, which can crumble and break. These are better for making line sketches, and you can combine the two, of course.” She lifted out a loose pile of papers. “These are different papers. Their different textures give different effects. Here, feel.” She held out two samples. Dora touched one fingertip to the velvety velour paper, then the harder, watermarked Ingres paper.

Faye brought out a book. “This is a basic beginner’s guide to—”

“Are you
nuts
?!” Dora angrily stabbed a button on her chair, which sent her zapping backward. “I can’t paint! Or draw! Look at me!”

“I have looked at you,” Faye answered calmly. “I watched you play cards, and you held them steady. I looked at your Crayola drawings, and I saw the possibility of talent.”

“Right,” Dora snorted.

Now Faye took something else from her bag: a postcard, eight-by-six, a photograph of an elf-sized woman with hands gnarled past recognition seated by a window in a one-room cottage. The sleeves of her green sweater had been rolled up several times to accommodate her short limbs, and over the sweater she wore a pink-and-white flowered apron. Her sparse gray hair was held back by a band, allowing her unusual face to show in all its purity: the nose, a little too large; the chin, nonexistent; the skin, wrinkled and weathered from years of brutal Quebec winters; the eyes, shining with intelligence; the entire face, glowing with a contagious love for life.

Faye held out the card. “Meet Maud Lewis.”

Dora whirred closer. “Oh, my,” she said softly, for no one could look at this photo of Maud Lewis without smiling back. Dora took the card and studied it. The woman’s hands resembled swollen, misshapen feet, the fingers atrophied and shrunk, the knuckles swollen like marbles. “She’s beautiful,” Dora said.

“Yes.” Faye agreed. “You’re looking at real beauty there. And look what she has in her hand, and look what’s on the wall behind her and on the windows, and on the windowsill.”

Dora looked. Behind Maud was a painting, in a cheerful folk style, its flat perspective offset by the bright charm of the colors and the simple, childlike drawing of a black Model T on a road between a bank of yellow and red tulips, and a white house with a bright red roof. On the window next to her was a drawing of two black horses pulling a red sleigh.

“Maud Lewis lived in Quebec,” Faye said. “Her family was poor, and when she was a teenager, a disease—I don’t know which one—ravaged her body, deforming her face and her hands. But she married when she was eighteen, and lived her whole life with her husband in a one-room house. Well, they did have a loft bedroom, but she eventually was so crippled she couldn’t climb the stairs. She painted postcards to sell to make money, then painted all kinds of pictures, all of them vivid with colors and life. Her pictures hang in museums now, one hangs in the White House, a documentary movie has been made of her life, and a book written about her. She’s on the Net, too, if you want to see more.”

Faye was quiet then, to let Dora contemplate the photo. After a while, she handed her another card, this one of two cows on a green field, framed by pink apple blossoms and a multitude of tulips. The cows wore golden bells and a red wooden yoke and long black girlish lashes framed their beautiful dark eyes.

“Oh, how pretty,” Dora cried.

“You could do this,” Faye told her. When Dora didn’t protest, she continued. “Maud Lewis used paints, and you can, too, eventually, but I thought you might prefer pastels to begin with.”

“But I don’t know
how
to draw,” Dora demurred.

“Maud Lewis never had art instruction,” Faye said. “Maud Lewis probably never was able to enter an art museum. But her heart was full of color and beauty, and look, Dora,” Faye reached over and picked up one of Dora’s drawings of a white rabbit sitting up beneath an apple tree. “
Look.
I can see by the way you’ve drawn his white ears that he’s alert, poised to jump.”

“Oh, you’re right!”

“If you can make a Crayola drawing that expresses so much, you can do anything you want. And I can help you. I want to help you.”

Dora lifted her face to Faye’s, and it was shining with hope. “Okay,” she whispered. “I guess I can try.”

“One more thing.” Faye brought out a book, a beginner’s guide to painting and drawing. “Scan this. It might give you some ideas.”

Dora chewed her lip, suddenly nervous. “Where will I tell my family I got all these things?”

As housekeeper, Faye knew nothing came in the mail addressed to Dora. She’d given this some thought. “Your parents and your sister are all seldom with you at one time, isn’t that so?”

“Yes. Lila comes in the morning and late afternoon, Mother at night. Father, well, he’s so busy he seldom comes.”

“Then let your mother assume Lila gave these to you, and let Lila assume your mother did. You don’t have to lie, you don’t have to volunteer anything. When you’ve figured out which paper you like and whether you want to try paints, you can tell Lila, and she’ll pick them up for you.”

Dora nodded. “Okay.”

“Now. I’ve got a few minutes more before I need to get back. Let me give you some pointers about line and color.”

Friday, Faye’s day off, Faye told Margie she was going into Boston to walk through the Public Gardens to see the early daffodils, tulips, and flowering trees. Later, she’d have lunch and a stroll around the MFA.

The truth was, the HFC was meeting that night at Alice’s. All their efforts had stirred things up, and the other three were having a crisis.

Faye might very well be having a crisis, too. It all depended on what Shirley found out, which Shirley would report at the meeting.

For the moment, it was enough simply to be on her way home. She longed for her own house as never before. Once inside, she planned to relax in a way she hadn’t been able to out at the Eastbrooks, not even in the privacy of her bed or shower. Their relentless compulsion for perfection sapped her of emotional and physical energy, and she was looking forward to moving through her own rooms at her own pace. The HFC meeting didn’t start until eight. She would have time to pull on jeans and a flannel shirt, brew a pot of coffee, catch up on her mail and the messages on her answering machine. She’d graze through the new catalogues like a sheep through a pasture. Perhaps she’d snuggle up and nap on the sofa just like Jack used to do. Because she’d given her housecleaning lady the month off, the furniture would be sprinkled with dust, but Faye wouldn’t even bother about that. She could live with a little dust.

She turned onto her street. The neighbors’ cherry tree had exploded with masses of pink buds. In all the yards, tulips clustered, erect and blazing, like miniature balloons tethered to the green grass. Sunlight glinted from the windows. The scent of freshly cut grass drifted through the air.

Home.

Her pulse smoothed, her blood pressure dropped. Then she saw Laura’s yellow Saab in her driveway. She unlocked her door and stepped into the front hall, where she was assailed by a battalion of sounds and odors. The television blared from the back of the house, a sour smell cut through the air, and as she walked through the rooms, too stunned to remember to remove her light spring coat, she tripped over a soft pile consisting of a blanket, a soiled disposable diaper, and her favorite blue cotton sweater, inside out and matted with baby puke.

“Laura?”

She found her daughter in the den. It had always been the favorite room in the house. Jack would stretch out in his recliner while Faye and Laura curled up on the sofa, all of them munching buttered popcorn as they watched a video. On Sunday afternoons there was always time for a board game—Jack inevitably beat them both at Scrabble. When Laura was younger, she held sleepovers there, pushing the bulky recliner against the wall and unfolding the sofa to make a bed, or shoving it away, too, so everyone could curl up in sleeping bags on the floor—not that much sleeping actually happened. The girls would sneak into the kitchen to raid the refrigerator, their high, piercing giggles rising like bubbles to Faye and Jack in their bedroom. Later, Laura’s boyfriends, those she really liked, spent time there, too, watching videos or listening to CDs. Several of them, the
serious
boyfriends, lasted long enough to be invited to play board games on Sunday afternoons. Lars had lasted the longest of them all.

Now the pull-out bed was open, pillows and quilts jumbled all over it, hanging down, dragging onto the floor, mingling with clothes overflowing from several duffel bags dumped around the room. The coffee table, floor, and several shelves were stacked with dirty cups, soda cans, and dishes. In spite of the rock music blaring from MTV, Megan was asleep in the wicker cradle Faye had bought for her grandchild. In the center of the chaos sat Laura, wearing Faye’s turquoise kimono, surrounded by her high school yearbooks.

“Oh, Mom, look!” Laura cried. “Look how pretty I was in high school!”

Faye perched on the edge of a chair. “Honey, what are you doing here?”

Laura continued to gaze down at the photos, all the expectant faces caught in their youth. “I don’t know, Mom. I guess I just needed a break.”

“What about Lars?”

“Oh, who cares about Lars!” Like a petulant child, she stuck out her lower lip.

Faye stood up. “I’m going up to change clothes.”

“Mom?” Laura called wistfully. “Do you know what I’d like?”

“What, honey?” Turning, she looked down at her daughter. Laura’s hair was lank and greasy, her fingernails a ragged mess.

“I’d love it if you’d make me a plate of cinnamon toast like you used to when I was sick.”

Faye took a step back into the room. “Are you sick, Laura?”

“No, Mom. I just would like cinnamon toast.”

“Okay. Well, when I come back downstairs—”

Her heart was heavy as she climbed to the second floor, and it dropped like lead when she saw her bedroom. It looked as if it had been ransacked by burglars. Bureau drawers gaped open, spilling out sweaters, lingerie, and scarves in a tangle of silk and wool. Her closet doors stood wide, exposing a visual bedlam of skirts, jackets, dresses, blouses, vests, some dangling by one shoulder off the hangers, others puddling on the floor. Her pretty little slipper chair, the bench at the end of her bed, and most of the floor swirled with more discarded clothing. Her jewelry box was open. Pearls, silver and gold chains, earrings and bracelets twisted together in a glittering jumble.

Faye sank onto the edge of her bed, hands twisting with worry. This was not like Laura, not at all like the young woman who had walked down the aisle on Jack’s arm only two years ago, who had smiled up at her husband Lars as if he were the sun. This was not like the good-natured, optimistic child Laura had been or the kindhearted, thoughtful young woman Laura had become. Laura was not lazy, inconsiderate, or spoiled. She married Lars because they were madly in love and wanted to live their lives together. In college, Laura had majored in art history, thinking she might someday work in a gallery or museum or as an art conservationist, but what she really wanted was to have a home, a husband, and lots of children, because as an only child she’d yearned for brothers and sisters. Lars had been an only child, too; they had shared a dream of babies, a house with a white picket fence, and an SUV piled with children and a golden Lab.

What had happened? What had gone wrong?

Faye smoothed the wrinkled sheet. Obviously Laura had slept there last night. Perhaps she’d been there more than one night. Had Lars asked for a divorce? Had Laura left her husband?

“I’m sorry, Mom.” Laura stood in the doorway. “I didn’t know you’d be here today. I was going to tidy up.” She looked fragile and pale in Faye’s kimono, her eyes deeply shadowed.

Faye rose and took her daughter in a slightly awkward hug; Laura was taller than she. But except for her breasts, Laura was so thin! At Faye’s touch, she crumpled against her mother, weeping.