The Memory Garden (5 page)

“She was always figuring stuff out. She couldn’t let things alone, you know? She thought everything was, like, a problem.”

“I don’t think everything’s a problem.”

“Sure you do. You think I’m a problem.”

Bay shakes her head.

“Yeah, you do. That’s why you been leaving those weird sandwiches all over the place.”

“I thought maybe you were hungry,” Bay says, hurt by the unfavorable review.

“Well, anyhow, that ain’t why I’ve been hanging around.”

“Why are you?” Bay asks, thinking his answer will help her determine whether he is, in fact, a problem or not.

He shakes his head, as though Bay has just said something ridiculous. “I need shoes.”

Of course! How obvious! “Wait right here.” Bay is happy to have an excuse to leave. It gives her time to figure things out while she runs up the grassy slope to the house. What is it about Karl that makes her uncomfortable? Maybe he just seems strange because he’s standing barefoot in her yard, hiding in the hostas. Bay closes the screen door carefully behind her, relieved Nan isn’t in the kitchen.

When Nan gets a donation of shoes, she brings them into the basement where she modifies them with fancy laces, polish, colored markers, ribbons, and paint. Over the years, many shoes have come and gone, but for some reason, the old pair of boy’s sneakers remains. Bay asked her Nana about them once, and she said they were “unsuitable,” whatever that means. Over the years, Bay has seen them shoved into an old flowerpot, in a box of old magazines, on the shelf above the work table, and at the foot of the stairs. Currently, they are wedged between two piles of clothes set aside for Goodwill. Bay saw them just that morning when she was looking for the card table.

Or so she thought, because they are not there now. She spends quite a bit of time shoving things around, almost giving up, when she finds the sneakers neatly hanging from a peg behind the door. She wonders if they carry sentimental value that her Nana is reluctant to explain, but what could be sentimental about smelly old shoes?

Bay tiptoes through the kitchen, not wanting to arouse her Nana’s curiosity. Though Bay has nothing to compare it to, she is certain Nan would not approve of her becoming friends with the runaway hiding in the forest.

But he is gone. Bay searches for him in much the same way she looked for the shoes, thinking perhaps she had not left him among the hostas with their stalky flowers, but near the lilacs, devoid of blossoms, bushy with green leaves, a great place for hiding, though he isn’t there either.

“You could wait five minutes,” she says, so annoyed she considers taking the sneakers back inside, but remembering the nettles in the forest, Bay sets the shoes on the ground, then catches herself waiting as though he might suddenly materialize in them like a ghost. The thought sends a shiver down her spine, even though Bay does not believe in ghosts, in spite of what her Nana, or Thalia, or anyone thinks. “After all,” Bay says, “wouldn’t I know if my own house was haunted?”

She walks up the hill, opens the back door, and enters the kitchen, murmuring to herself about the stupid things people say, so absorbed in her monologue she doesn’t even notice that all the kitchen cupboards are open and her Nana is standing there, frowning.

“Where have you been? We have to go to the store. I don’t know what recipes you’ve chosen. They’ll be here soon.”

“Nana, no one’s coming until tomorrow. Everything’s going to be fine.”

Nan, her head slightly tilted, looks at Bay as though studying a problem, until she nods. “Yes, you’re right. What was I thinking? I’m lost in space, I guess! Why don’t we take the cookbooks out to the porch?”

Which is what they do, sitting in rockers in the shade, drinking sun tea and discussing the merits and deficits of various recipes. Nan says everything looks wonderful, but it’s important to consider how much kitchen time is involved. “I haven’t seen my friends in sixty years. I don’t want to be cooking all day.”

They choose the chocolate lasagna, which can be assembled in the morning and baked off for dinner. They discuss what snacks to have available (fruit, good store-bought cookies, bread and jam for toast, also some of those chocolate toads Nan recently discovered), drinks (Coke, bottled water, red wine, prune juice, milk, coffee, and tea). Bay writes the shopping list, making several trips into the house to check ingredients against supplies. When she returns from her final check, having determined that they have plenty of olive oil, Nan is asleep. Bay watches closely to be sure.

She still remembers the day at kindergarten when Thalia said, “Your grandma’s here.” Bay was excited; she’d noticed that other kids had grandmas, and she wanted one too.

“Where’s Grandma?” she asked Nan, waiting with the other mothers.

“I’m sorry, Bay,” Nan said. “She died before you were even born.”

Bay cried the whole way home. Nothing Nan said could comfort her. It was Bay’s first experience with death. It didn’t matter that she never knew her grandmother; she felt the loss as sharply as if she had, but that wasn’t all Bay was crying about. Though she wouldn’t have been able put it into words at such a young age, and even now hardly dares to think it, Bay became acutely aware that Nan was old enough to be a grandmother, and this knowledge arrived with the unfortunate realization that grandmothers die. Bay checks to make sure Nan is breathing.

As the car pulls up in the front of the house, a raven caws from its gabled perch, sounding mournful. Nan is still asleep, spittle drooling down her chin. Bay sits up, prepared to accept the shoe donation. The woman who emerges peers up at the house and pats her strangely solid-looking, penny-colored hair, then mumbles to herself as she searches through her purse, clasping it shut before she opens the car door, which emits an annoying beep. Nan is awake by the time the woman turns with a triumphant expression, keys in hand, measuring the house with small eyes set close to her narrow nose.

“Oh!” Nan gasps.

The woman, apparently still not having seen them in the rocking chairs, heaves a great sigh as she opens the car door to return to the driver’s seat. Nan perches on the edge of the rocker as the car windows rise; that done, the visitor emerges once more.

“It can’t be,” Nan says even as she stands in such a rush that Nicholas, who had been lazing at her feet, runs down the stairs, followed closely by Nan, who stuns Bay by running (more or less) to the stranger, who lets out a yelp, opening her arms wide.

“Ruthie, is it you?”

Nan is laughing, and Ruthie (for apparently it is she, and someone had the dates mixed up) appears to be crying. She and Nan are hugging and making all sorts of noise while Bay walks slowly to join them, not wanting to interrupt. The women hold each other at arm’s length until, as though by mutual agreement, they part.

“You must be Bay.”

She has rouge circles for cheeks, and a mouth smaller than the pink lipstick it is meant to bear. Her eyes, too close to her nose, are made less mean by their color, delphinium blue. She smells good, like a lemon.

“Bay, this is Ruthie.”

Bay is surprised by the woman Nan described as of “healthy appetite,” slated for the sturdiest bed in the house. She’s tall, but skinny.

“You didn’t drive all the way from the airport, did you?” Nan asks.

Ruthie raises her eyebrows, glances back at the car, shudders, and nods. “As they say, the early bird catches the beetle, right?”

Nan smiles.

“The thing of it is, I’m quite early.” Ruthie opens her purse and fumbles through it, though when she closes it again, she is empty-handed, her pretty eyes extraordinarily wet.

Nan pats her friend’s back, clucking softly. “There, there. Don’t worry. Don’t give it another thought.”

Ruthie leans, as if to rest her head on Nan’s distant shoulder.

“Come now; let’s get out of the heat. We can get your luggage later.”

Bay follows the two women walking arm in arm up the sidewalk, stepping around Nicholas lying in a patch of sun.

“The girl at the airport thought I was an idiot.”

“Oh, they have no idea,” Nan says.

“Everyone else was quite nice and helped me work it out. I was halfway here before I realized how I would inconvenience you.”

“Inconvenience? None at all.”

“I could stay in a hotel.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Nan lets the front door close, apparently unaware of Bay standing there, feeling like a stranger on her own porch. She is trying to decide what to do when another car pulls up and parks behind Ruthie’s. Who could it be now? Bay enjoys the pleasant sensation of being part of a family where surprising things happen.

When the elderly woman steps out of the car, Bay immediately suspects it is Mavis, with her bright slash of red lipstick, though her hair is entirely different than it was in her picture. She peers up at the house, a sour look on her face as she comes clicking up the walk in gold sandals, a bright accompaniment to the orange dress and lime-colored jacket, stopping short at the foot of the stairs.

“You must be my Nana’s friend—”

“Well, I’m not her pet rabbit,” the woman rasps, her voice deep and smoky.

“I’m—”

“I know who you are. You’re Cinnamon or Spice, or something like that. What are you staring at?”

Her hair, which is lavender and spiky short. “Nothing, I—”

“Bay, who are you talking to?” Nan holds the door ajar, peering around it like someone afraid of an intruder. “Mavis?”

“Well, you going to invite me in, or are you just going to stare at me like you can’t believe the horror?”

“No. Of course. Come in. I’m sorry. You took me by surprise. Do you have luggage?”

“Of course I’ve got luggage. I’ve got one bag that has nothing in it but pills.” She turns to Bay. “Why don’t you make yourself useful and get my bags?”

Bay wonders how her Nana ever became entangled with Mavis. What had Nan said about her? Bay wishes she’d paid closer attention. When she opens the car door, she gasps. “Smells like a funeral in here,” she mumbles, borrowing the phrase from Nan, who always says the scent of perfume reminds her of death.

Bay struggles with the two large red suitcases on the backseat; they are heavy and bulky and seem entirely too much for such a short visit. There is also a leather bag on the front seat, which Bay grudgingly admires. When she picks it up, she hears the clacking of plastic bottles inside.

Bay would never look in anyone’s purse, no matter how unlikable that person might be, but this is the sort of bag with a single snap closure. By merely looking down, Bay can see that Mavis was not exaggerating about its contents. One whole bag filled with prescription medicine. “She must be really sick,” Bay says, the notion softening her hard feelings.

After Bay sets the bags down in the foyer, she follows the sound of laughter and scent of smoke into the kitchen, where the screen door is propped open with a small pile of shoes. Bay recognizes Mavis’s gold sandals and her Nana’s clogs. She assumes the pair of white sneakers belongs to Ruthie, who is sitting at the kitchen table, a half-filled glass of lemon water before her. Mavis, who has taken her jacket off, revealing fleshy arms heavily bangled with bright-colored bracelets, sits on a kitchen chair pulled close to the door, trying to blow cigarette smoke into the yard, a saucer balanced on her lap for a makeshift ashtray. Her Nana stands by the counter, drinking from a wineglass, the open bottle at her elbow.

“And then, and then,” Ruthie says, quite loudly, “she goes, ‘We are not responsible for your senior moments.’”

“No.”

“She didn’t.”

Ruthie nods. “She did. So I…”

Suddenly everyone is looking at Bay.

“Go on, Ruthie,” Nan says. “You can say anything here.”

“So I said a prayer for her.” Ruthie bobs her head a few times, her small lips pursed.

“Well,” says Nan, “a prayer?”

Mavis frowns at the coughing Bay and tamps her cigarette out into the saucer. “Goodness, Pepper,” she says. “You are sensitive.”

“What did you call her?”

Mavis shrugs. “Pepper?”

At this Nan and Ruthie burst out laughing, and after a moment, Bay joins them. It feels good to laugh. It feels especially good (in spite of her need for an entire bag of prescription medication), Bay thinks, to laugh at Mavis.

Everyone is laughing so hard that when Mavis speaks, in spite of her commanding tone, they don’t hear what she says until she raises her voice, like a woman in community theater. “There seems to be a young man lurking about in your garden.”

“No there’s not,” Bay says too quickly.

“A handsome lad,” Mavis says.

Ruthie sets her glass on the table and walks with quick feet over to the open door, leaning above Mavis to look.

“Oh my, he is a good-looking one.”

Bay pretends sudden and compelling interest in her fingernails.

“He’s coming. Act real.” Ruthie poses behind Mavis in a most unnatural way, her hands clasped behind her board-straight back.

“Mrs. Singer? I’m Howard. I thought I’d just stop by to confirm the airport transportation.”

Howard? Bay looks up, thrilled that her secret about Karl is safe.

“Oh, Howard! Well, my goodness, you didn’t have to drive all the way out here. Why didn’t you call? Come in, come in.”

When he steps into the kitchen, Bay feels herself go still. He is a very good-looking one, almost perfect but for the faint blush of a birthmark on his cheekbone. Nan introduces him to her friends, absentmindedly waving in the direction of Bay, quickly veering into a cheerful account of the early arrival of her guests, during which his demeanor changes from pleasant to sullen. When he tilts his head to listen to Nan, Bay realizes it’s not a birthmark at all, but a bruise.

While Mavis and Ruthie were impressed with his looks, they seem quite uninterested now, absorbed in a separate conversation about their bunions. How could they? Don’t they feel it? He walked into the kitchen and changed everything. Even the air is different! Bay can hardly breathe. The temperature has changed as well; it is suddenly hot. Even at this distance, Bay can feel the heat rising from his body.

“You have the shopping list, don’t you?” Nan says.