The Truth About Lorin Jones (23 page)

But was it really Jeanne’s fault, or had her son in fact become an alien? Because after the dishes were done, he spent the rest of the evening on the telephone and in front of the TV. (“Mom, do you mind? I don’t want to miss ‘Miami Vice.’ ”)

“Well, how was it?” Jeanne asked when he was in bed. “Did you have a good talk with Stevie?”

“Not yet, really.” Polly sighed. “We’re still sort of awkward with each other, you know.”

“Yes, I noticed that.”

“He’s not in Colorado now, but he still seems almost that far away. And he’s developed such awfully good manners.”

“He certainly eats much less sloppily,” Jeanne agreed.

“I don’t mean just his table manners. It’s, like, his whole attitude. He’s so cool and polite, it almost scares me. I just don’t know.” She paused, waiting for Jeanne to ask, “Don’t know what?”

“I mean,” she continued, “I guess I should expect it to take a while for him to feel at home again, but hell —” Again Polly waited, and again her friend did not speak. “Of course, at that age three months is a big chunk of your life; it’s like a year or so for you or me.” No comment. “I realize I’ve just got to hang in there, give him time. But right now I hardly recognize him as my own kid.”

“Polly, dear. Stevie’s fourteen now. He’s not your kid anymore. He’s growing up, turning into a man.” Jeanne pronounced the noun with distaste; “Turning into a monkey,” she might as well have said.

“I suppose so.”

“I know it’s hard for you to face facts sometimes.” Her friend’s voice was kinder now, soft and soothing. “But you’ve simply got to reconcile yourself to losing him eventually.”

It was Polly’s turn now not to answer. I don’t reconcile myself, I won’t! she thought. And it isn’t hard for me to face facts, either. She opened her mouth to say this, then shut it, remembering how thin the walls were; if she and Jeanne raised their voices in an argument Stevie might hear it. “Maybe,” she muttered finally. “Well, I’m getting sleepy. Goodnight.”

She stamped crossly down the hall to her room, and then lay awake for a long time, wondering as she thrashed and turned whether Jeanne was right. Was her Stevie, the one she knew and loved, gone for good? Or was he only hidden under a laconic new manner and expensive Western clothes?

Polly had just finished making a late breakfast for her son the next morning and gone into the bathroom when she heard a smash of china and a shout of “Oh, fuck it!” from the kitchen.

She dropped the
Times,
pulled up her jeans, and hurried down the hall, arriving in time to hear Jeanne wail: “Oh, no! Not Betsy’s darling Japanese teapot!”

“I’m sorry — I didn’t mean to —” Stevie had backed away from Jeanne’s misery and fury into a corner; his mouth was open, his elbows raised defensively.

“Oh, hell. Maybe we can mend —” Polly began.

“Don’t be stupid! Can’t you see it’s hopeless?” Jeanne stooped to the floor, then rose with a bony white fragment of china in each hand and an expression of deep bereavement. “Oh, she’ll be so sad!”

“Hey, I’m sorry. But I didn’t touch the thing, honest,” Stevie protested. “I just opened the cupboard door, and it fell off the counter. Why’d’ja have to leave it like that?”

“I left Betsy’s teapot exactly where I always leave it; where it belongs.” Jeanne was in control again; her tone was cool. “Anyone who had eyes in their head would have seen it —”

Stevie’s look of guilty dismay shifted toward exasperation. “Listen, I said I was sorry already, for shit’s sake.” Jeanne flinched at the obscenity, but made no other reply. “Whadda you want me to do? You want me to buy you a new one? Okay, I will.”

“I’m afraid you won’t be able to do that,” Jeanne said with a tight smile. “It was an antique; it belonged to Betsy’s grandmother.”

Half an hour later Polly squatted on the kitchen floor, wiping the worn marbled vinyl with a wet wadded paper towel. She was mopping up the last of the cinnamon rose tea, and also the last tiny sharp shards of Japanese china. From this position she heard the front door close, signaling that Jeanne had gone out to buy a new teapot. (“No, thanks, I’d rather do it myself. You wouldn’t know what to look for.”)

Now there were steps in the hall; Stevie slumped in the kitchen doorway.

“Aw, Mom,” he said. “You don’t hafta do that. I already cleaned up the mess.”

“I know you did, pal.” Polly sank back onto her haunches and smiled up at him. “I just want to be sure nobody comes in here in the middle of the night and starts screaming around because they’ve cut their foot. This china is really sharp.” She shook her head; she already had a slash on one knee.

“I guess she’d make a hell of a fuss.” He grinned.

Though this wasn’t what Polly had meant, she let it pass. She was so happy to have the real Stevie back, talking to her in his real voice. He had even, she noticed, changed into one of his old shirts, a red checked flannel that they had bought on a trip to Macy’s last winter, now too short in the sleeves.

“Hey, Mom,” he said, opening the refrigerator. “Can I have some of that cake, or were you saving it?”

“Sure you can have it, if you’re hungry.” She got to her feet. “Have anything you want.”

“Great.” He vanished behind the refrigerator door, emerging with the remainder of Jeanne’s apricot torte in one hand and a bottle of tonic in the other. “There’s never much to eat at Dad’s house.”

“That’s too bad.” Polly could not help grinning.

“Yeah, that Debbie, she’s always on a diet.”

“That’s too bad,” she repeated with equal insincerity.

“Hey,” Stevie said, chewing. “You’re not still pissed at me about this morning?”

“I never was pissed at you. It was an accident, that’s all. Only you’ve got to watch your language with Jeanne, okay, pal? Curse words freak her out. You know some people are like that.”

“Yeah. I know. Listen, Mom,” he added, swallowing.

“Mm?”

“How come Jeanne is staying here? Doesn’t she have anyplace else to live?”

“Well, not right now. She’s looking for an apartment.” Polly’s smile faded. “And she couldn’t go home for Thanksgiving, because she doesn’t have any real family.” (Not strictly true; Jeanne had a father and brother in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, but she despised and feared them.) “Do you really mind it that she’s here?”

“I dunno.” Stevie shrugged. “I guess not. I mean, I know she’s company for you when I’m away. I just don’t see why you like her so much, that’s all.”

“We’re really good friends,” Polly said firmly. “She was awfully kind to me last month when I had the flu. And you’ve got to admit she’s a great cook. Wait till you taste the chocolate mousse she’s making for us tonight — you still like chocolate, don’t you?”

“Yeah, sure,” Stevie said, but without eagerness, and in his former constrained manner.

“I know Jeanne’s a little —” Polly’s voice seemed to freeze up. “Anyhow, I’m sure once you get to know her better you’ll like her.”

“I don’t hafta like her, Mom.” Stevie took a swig of tonic directly from the bottle; if Jeanne were to see this, she would be revolted. “You don’t like all my friends.”

“I do too,” Polly protested.

“You don’t like Billy all that much.”

“Well.” Polly grinned. “I guess maybe I don’t. But it’s nothing personal, it’s just that he’s such a computer freak; he never has anything to say to grown-ups.”

“Anyhow, Jeanne doesn’t like me either, so who cares?” Stevie shrugged and opened the refrigerator again.

I care, Polly wanted to say, but the words would not leave her mouth. “What makes you think that?”

“I d’know.” Stevie paused, looking at his mother over the open door of the fridge, his heavy eyebrows drawn into a puzzled frown. “It’s just — The way she keeps watching me. I feel like she’s kind of got it in for me; she wants me to fuck up. Like this morning. I figure she sort of left her dumb old teapot out on purpose, to see if maybe I would break it.”

“Oh, Stevie,” Polly exclaimed. “Jeanne wouldn’t do anything like that.” But her son, who was eating cranberry sauce with his fingers, did not reply.

An hour later, after Stevie had left, Jeanne returned carrying a plastic bag marked Pottery Barn.

“Did you find a teapot?” Polly looked around from her notes.

“Well. I found a kind of teapot.” Jeanne halfheartedly unwrapped a plain white pot. “It’ll have to do for a while.”

“How much was it? I’ll pay you now.”

“No rush, dear. It was nothing, only about twelve dollars.”

“That’s not nothing.” Polly stood up and began to look for her handbag.

“Please, don’t bother. I tell you what. Someday when I have time I’ll go over to Bloomie’s, and if I find a pretty one you can buy me that.” Jeanne’s smile was open and charming, her tone casual, but what Polly thought was that her friend was still furious.

“All right,” she agreed, for after all fair was fair. But what an awful lot of fuss about a “dumb old teapot”!

Not that that was so unusual. Jeanne always overvalued objects; she could go into raptures over some battered mirror frame or motheaten fringed shawl in a shop window on Columbus Avenue. The high point of her trip to England two years ago, to hear her tell it, had been the Victoria and Albert Museum, and during her occupation Stevie’s room had become a gallery of frayed silk and bubbled glass and chipped marquetry.

Jeanne cares for things more than she does for people, Polly thought. But then for most of her life Jeanne hadn’t had anyone of her own to care for. Her mother had died when she was ten, her father and brother were coarse heavy-drinking French-Canadian paternalist types, and she had no children. Polly looked at her friend again, but now with pity.

“Where’s Stevie, is he in my room?” Jeanne asked.

His room, you mean, Polly thought, but forbore to say. “No, he’s gone visiting.”

“Ah.” Jeanne sank onto the sofa with a sigh, lit a cigarette, and picked up
Vogue,
which she occasionally bought herself as a treat the way she bought bags of chocolate-covered cherries. “You know,” she said casually over the magazine a few moments later, “it’s Stevie who should pay for Betsy’s teapot, not you.”

“And
you
know Stevie won’t have twelve dollars.” Polly almost laughed; it was characteristic of her son, as of her father — whom, she realized, he was also beginning to resemble physically — that he couldn’t save money. But Jeanne didn’t smile.

“I expect he has twelve dollars somewhere, in a savings account or whatever. Or at least he has an allowance.”

“You really think Stevie should pay you out of his allowance? But he only gets two dollars a week. Even if he gave you half of that, it’d take him a long time.”

“Well, why shouldn’t it?” Jeanne smiled. “He might learn something that way.”

“Learn something?”

“Yes, learn to be a little more careful of other people’s property. If that’s possible.” She laughed lightly.

“Well, maybe he could pay part of it,” Polly said, struggling with her own irritation. “But I don’t really think — It was just an accident, after all.” She looked at her friend for confirmation, but instead there was silence. “I mean, it’s not as if Stevie meant to break the teapot.”

“I’m not so sure about that.” Jeanne turned a page of
Vogue
with a scissoring sound.

“Oh, of course he didn’t.” Polly shook her head, smiling. “You —” She stopped. You’re both being ridiculously paranoid, she had been about to say, he thinks you left it out deliberately. But that could lead to real trouble.

“I realize Stevie’s your innocent child. Or rather, he was. But he’s growing up now, and you’ve got to grow up a little too.”

“You mean, you really believe —” Her voice rose.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if he did it on purpose.” Jeanne’s manner was affable. “Accidentally-on-purpose, at least. I mean, heavens, it was in plain sight on the counter. Nobody could have missed it, not even a man, unless they’d wanted to.”

“Well, Stevie could. And hell, I know he’s growing up. But that’s why it happened; he’s growing so fast now he’s gotten clumsy. He doesn’t know how large he is, so he bangs into things, knocks things over. Most adolescent boys are that way.”

“Yes, that’s the usual excuse, isn’t it?” Suddenly Jeanne’s tone had become bitter and uneven. “That’s the way it is in this world: men are taught as children that once they start getting larger and stronger they can smash up things and people carelessly. They can go on doing it all their lives, really, and they’ll be excused and forgiven; they won’t have to pay. It’s the women who will always pay, in the end. The way my mother did.”

“I didn’t mean —”

“But you see, you didn’t say, ‘All adolescents smash things up.’ Nobody ever says that. Girls are growing fast too at that age, but nobody makes those excuses for them. If they break something they’re punished. They have to learn to control themselves and respect other people’s property. Isn’t that true, now?” She folded her round, rosy arms against a lavender jacquard sweater.

“Well, yes, I suppose. But I think you’re being unfair to Stevie,” Polly said stubbornly. “And he felt it too. He thinks you don’t like him, you know. And maybe he’s right.”

Jeanne got up and came over to her; she crouched down by the desk until her face was on a level with Polly’s. “Don’t say that,” she said; her voice was soft, trembly. “I love Stevie, because he’s your child. It’s just that I worry about what’s happening to him, what happens to all males in this society. I mean, look at him now. He’s lived with you all his life; then he goes to stay with his father for a couple of months, and he comes back completely changed.”

“I don’t think he’s changed all that much. Underneath —”

“Of course, the process isn’t complete yet. He’s only fourteen. I know it’s hard.” She put one hand on Polly’s arm and gazed at her with round pale eyes in which tears seemed to brim. “I’m very sorry for you — for both of you. But you mustn’t think I dislike him. Please.”

Jeanne’s voice was gentler than ever, her posture suppliant, yet Polly felt as if her friend’s hand were a heavy weight pressing on her. “All right, I don’t,” she finally had to say.