The Year of Pleasures (29 page)

“So, what brings you here?” Sheila asked me, over our martinis.

“I just all of a sudden decided to come. I went to the Gardner. And then I went to see my old house. I didn’t look at much, though.”

She set her drink down, leaned in closer to me. “Was it awfully hard?”

“Yes.”

“
Are
you thinking of moving back?”

“I think maybe that was in the back of my mind. But . . . no. I really like the town I moved to.”

“Which is?”

“Oh! Stewart, Illinois. It’s not too far from Chicago. I’m sorry I never called to tell you, Sheila.”

“Well, frankly, I’m surprised you called now. But I’m glad you did. You’re different, Betta. Do you know that? You seem more . . . well, you’re warmer. You must be doing well there.”

“I am. I’ve made some new friends. And I’ve found some old ones.” I told her about Maddy, Susanna, and Lorraine.

“Are you seeing anyone?” Sheila asked. She looked down into her drink, toyed with her olive.

“I did go on a date. Didn’t work out too well.”

“Why not?”

“Oh . . . it’s probably too soon.”

Sheila leaned her chin on her hand. “You know, Randy has a friend whose wife left him; it was a really bad scene. The man, his name is Vince, met a woman not even a month after his wife left, and fell in love. And he told Randy he just couldn’t get straight with it, wasn’t it too soon? And you know what Randy said? He said, ‘Vince. Don’t you think time’s a little short for worries like that? Okay, you’re not eighty, but you’re not thirty, either.’ The guy married the woman six months later, and they’re so happy.”

“Yes, well, but . . . John didn’t leave me like that.”

“I know,” Sheila said. “But at a time like this, I think there’s something to be said for taking any good thing that’s offered you.”

“There is,” I said. I smiled at her. “I love your necklace. Where’d you get that?” It was a fine gold chain with alternating stones in the colors of ruby and apple green hanging from it.

She put her hand to her chest. “Do you? I wasn’t sure; it’s so different.”

“That’s why I like it.”

“After dinner, I’ll show you the store. If they have any left, you should get one.”

“If they have any left, I’ll get more than one.”

Back at the hotel, I stood for a long while at the window, looking out at the city. I remembered sitting in Brookline Booksmith shortly after John died, leafing through books about being a widow. I’d felt ashamed of looking at them, as though John’s death had been a grievous error I’d made. And I remembered, too, that when I put the books back on the shelf and walked out of the store, I’d had the oddest sensation: I’d felt as though things were falling out of me. Body parts. Whoops, there went my uterus. Now a kidney. A heart to step over. It had scared me a little, how odd this thought was. It had scared me more that there had not been a single person I could think of to talk about it with. That wasn’t true anymore. With John, I’d found one kind of love. In the little town I’d moved to, I’d found another.

I sat on the bed and pulled out my cell phone. When Lorraine answered, I told her I’d be coming home tomorrow night. And that if she wanted to live with me and be my work partner, I would be very happy. We’d find another store; I wasn’t so crazy about that other one anyway. The parking wasn’t good, and that attached apartment was a problem. We’d find something else and it would be much better.

She said nothing.

“Or you could stay in the room I rented at Matthew and Jovani’s, if you don’t want to live with me. Maybe we’re too old now to be roommates.”

Silence.

“Lorraine?” I said.

“What?”

“Do you want to? Live with me?”

“There’s something . . .”

“Lorraine? Are you
cry
ing?”

“
No,
I’m not
cry
ing.”

“Well, what’s the matter?”

“You know that place you don’t want?”

“Yes?”

“I just rented it. The other person’s lease fell through. Tom and I were out walking a while ago, and we went past and the sign was back up and . . . well, I just rented it. Are you mad?”

February 28, the day before our grand opening, I came back from Chicago with more necklaces from an artist I’d found in Pilsen, the Mexican community. I pulled up in front of the shop to see the surprise Jovani had promised me. And received one. For there, stenciled on the window in gold paint, was a large oval of interlocking flowers. In the center was gold script reading
WHAT WANTS A WOMAN
. I rested my head against the steering wheel, then raised it when I heard a tapping on the passenger window. I rolled down the window. “You saw?” Jovani was smiling, nearly rubbing his hands together with glee.

“I saw. Listen, Jovani—”

“Don’t say me! I am happy for do you. And already three people come and buy!”

“Really?”

“
Yes.
Coming by and then they stop and look at the sign. Then they poke inside their heads, ‘Are you open yet?’ and Delores yell, ‘No, but come in, anyway!’ One woman, she thinks we are
dating
service.”

“Well, right,” I said. “Because of the name you put on there.”

He looked back at the flowing gold letters. “It’s exact what you order, no?”

“No.”

“No?”

“
No,
Jovani! It’s supposed to be WHAT A WOMAN WANTS!”

“I’m
say
!” He turned around again to look, then covered his mouth with his hands. “Ohhhhh!”

Delores came to the door and called out to me. “My advice is to leave it up for a while. It certainly attracts attention. The people who’ve come in all thought it was great.”

“Maybe it is kind of interesting,” I said.

“You see?” Jovani said. “I have in me late end genius.”

“I’m going to run home,” I said. “I’ll bring back some lunch for us.”

Delores waved and went back inside, Jovani at her heels. Lorraine would be back from Indiana soon, where she’d gone to buy antiques. It was hard for me not to want to keep everything in the store for myself: the polka-dotted plates, the persimmon-colored pajamas, the vases of cobalt blue, the rolls of satin ribbon, the miniature oils, the books of poems by Ruth Stone and Chitra Divakaruni and so many others, the novels and short stories, all written by women and stored in bookcases built along either side of the fireplace we’d put in. We had blank suede journals—Benny’s idea.

We’d bought things from women potters and quilt artists—Carol, who was now working for me full-time, had found an Amish source in Indiana. We had cards and stationery designed by women, including homemade ones from the three little girls who lived down the street from me—each of these with original drawings and verses. We had whimsical lamps and picture frames, throws so voluptuous you could hold them to your face and sleep standing up. We had a recipe exchange—a big book to add to or make copies from. In another book, people could make recommendations for everything from sitters to sushi. And for five bucks, I’d help husbands write their wives a love letter. In a corner, I had a desk all set up with paper choices and with a drawer full of beautiful fountain pens like the one John used, and full of the black ink he favored.

When I arrived home, I got out the tomato soup I’d made yesterday that would taste even better today. I’d bring some toasted cheese sandwiches, and a bowl full of fruit, plenty of brownies. Benny would be by to help after school, and he liked brownies—he insisted that they be placed front and center at the dessert bar.

I went into the living room, sat on the sofa, and let the quiet engulf me. My mother always used to take a long bath on Christmas Eve, and I would always lie in the hall outside the bathroom in anguished anticipation, wondering how she could possibly take so long when there were presents waiting to be opened. But I saw now that she was savoring the moment
before,
and that was what I was doing now, too. My mother must have imagined my father and me opening our cuff links and doll clothes; I was thinking of the people who might find pleasure in what my store offered—not only in the things but in the ideas they might inspire. I had always wanted to visit a store that functioned as a third place; now I saw that I’d created one. What a whirlwind these last several weeks had been!

What would John have thought of all this? Had I grieved him enough, or in the right way? This was something that gnawed at me; it was the question I wanted most to have answered. As though it might provide me with the answer, I went to the chest and put my hand in the drawer.
Soprano gone, good.
I’d gotten that one before, and still had no idea what it meant. As I had so often when I’d read these words, I wondered what John had been thinking when he wrote them. Was there was a soprano he’d not liked, someone he’d told me about at a time when I hadn’t really been listening? It was all too possible.
Okay, John—no bad divas
.

I put the slip back in the drawer and went into the basement to look for a box I could use to carry food in. I’d kept a few of the dish packs from moving and stored them on one of the wooden shelves in the laundry room. I reached up for one and noticed a bit of weight. Startled, I dropped the box and stepped back from it. Was a mouse in there? A
bat
?

I kicked at the corner, and the box moved a few inches. Nothing inside seemed to move, though—at least I heard no scrabbling sounds. Slowly, I lifted the lid and peered inside. There was something in the corner, wrapped in newspaper. Something I’d forgotten to unpack, then, though it was odd that it was in newspaper; I didn’t recall the movers using that. In the dim light, I unwrapped a dish. Quite small, and unfamiliar to me. I brought it closer to the high window and looked more carefully at it in the light. It was the green bowl I’d admired in the antiques store so long ago. And at the bottom was a note in John’s handwriting:
When you find this, let’s have some eggs. (Don’t tell the sparrow.)

I sat on the basement steps, cradling the bowl in my lap. To think that I might have broken it. And yet, if I had broken it, I’d have it anyway. Having known it, I could keep it in memory, where I might actually appreciate it more.

I thought of the priest who’d told me that many religions hold that it is easier to be closely connected to people we love after death than before. I thought of other elegant contradictions to which we bore continual witness. I thought of rich men who were poor; poor men who were rich; ascetics who lived with nothing so as to have everything. I thought of how “lost love” is a misnomer, for love is never lost at all but only different in appearance, conforming with that well-known law of physics. John used to tell me there was grace in mathematics and romance in physics. In this, as in so many other things, he was exactly right.

The sparrow to which John referred was the one he’d rescued after it had fallen from the nest in our backyard. He’d kept it in a shoe box and fed and nurtured it until it was able to fly away. But how can you let it go? I’d asked, on the day he took the box outside and bent down beside it to nudge the bird toward freedom. He’d shrugged, and smiled up at me. He was squinting, the sun in his eyes, and I remembered thinking he looked so handsome. “There is love in holding,” he’d said. “And there is love in letting go.”

I went back upstairs to the chest and pulled out the slip I’d just looked at. Right. It did not say
Soprano.
It said everything else.

All the way to the store, pictures of John came to me, truer than any I might have gotten from developing film. I saw him standing with his arms outspread before a large group of people who had come for my surprise fiftieth birthday party, thrown by John at Aujourd’hui with his usual lavish style. I saw him holding Steve and Sara Miner’s new baby girl, extending one of his fingers for her tiny hand to hold, and despite our repeated and painful failures at conception, his face was absent of envy and full of love and welcome. I saw him sitting at the edge of a hotel swimming pool, water beaded on his lashes. I saw him grinning broadly from the driver’s seat of his first sports car. I saw him standing over the grill, a ruined steak hanging from the tongs.

Then I envisioned John doing something he had often described to me. I saw him as a young man, washing up at the sink after having changed the oil in his car. As he buttoned the sleeves of his fresh shirt, he would decide to wrap a towel around his neck and quickly shave, just in case he met someone at the party. And he would. Me. There I was, waiting, afraid I’d never experience the kind of joy yet to come, but hoping for it just the same.

When I got back to the store, I walked past two women looking excitedly into the jewelry case. I saw that someone had put her name on the list to rent the retreat space. Apparently, our grand opening had started already, and why not? I carried our lunch into the back room and set out the soup and the sandwiches, the apples and the pears. I arranged them on a table covered by a vintage cloth beautifully embroidered in pinks and greens by someone long gone. The colors were unfaded, still true. I put my hands to the back of my head for a good, hard stretch, then invited everyone to come and get it.