This is Your Life, Harriet Chance! (3 page)

O
f course, Bernard’s still alive in her imagination—that’s only natural. Of course, she never heats the house above sixty-four degrees. Force of habit. Five decades of familiarity imprinted on her memory like a phantom limb. And yes, she still talks to him. These one-way conversations at the breakfast nook, or in bed, or while she’s rummaging through the junk drawer in search of a screwdriver have been a small comfort the past nine months.

But an actual physical presence, one that talked back, this could be problematic. How long before it happens in public?

Hectored by these thoughts, Harriet trundles her grocery cart ever so deliberately down the cereal aisle toward the All-Bran, her arthritic spine burning like fire and ice. Her
shopping is light: an overripe cantaloupe, her calcium supplement, a quart of skim milk, three Eating Right single-serve entrees (including her favorite, beef portobello). Just enough to last her until the cruise.

Short as her list is, the grocery cart proves to be a burden. What, with its wobbly front wheel spinning uselessly on its axis, a quarter inch above the white tile, an imprecision that surely would have driven Bernard into a state of muttering contempt, all the more so because the ball bearings themselves, those stalwarts of angular contact, those silent bearers of axial loads, to whose manufacture and distribution the Major had devoted twenty-eight years of his professional life, are rattling around like so many marbles inside the wheel assembly.

“They couldn’t even get that right.”

“Shhh,” says Harriet, looking around the cereal aisle. “Not here!”

“Christ, if they’d just fit the damn bearings to the races properly.”

“Bernard, shush! Don’t make a scene.”

“Well, it’s like nobody gives a damn anymore. It’s all about saving a nickel.”

“Dear, your acid indigestion.”

“Reflux! They call it reflux, now. Indigestion wasn’t good enough!”

How many of these childish outbursts has Harriet endured over the course of the decades? Apparently, even death can’t
stop them. Do they embarrass her? Yes, often. Do they try her patience? Yes, frequently. But the truth is, if only covertly, Harriet has agreed with Bernard’s grievances on nearly every count from lawn mowers, to stereo receivers, to family values—everything just seems to get worse. It’s true: they really don’t make them like they used to.

“Look, I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m falling back into the same old patterns.”

Harriet looks up and down the aisle again. “Please, Bernard, not here.”

“Okay, fine,” he says. “But I’ll be back. We need to talk.”

The question still burrowing like a wood beetle inside Harriet’s brain is: Why? Why won’t Bernard go away? Why has he come back to move his slippers around the house and complain about shoddy workmanship? The conventional wisdom suggests matters unresolved, but Harriet has neither the courage nor the inclination to further contemplate her failures.

Though it’s barely 10:30 a.m., already she’s exhausted. The weight of the impending cruise sits on her shoulders, a heavy dread. If only she could cancel without breaking Mildred’s heart. From the beginning, Harriet hoped that Mildred would decline, so she wouldn’t have to go herself, but she should have known better. This is Mildred we’re talking about. She’s been counting the days since June.

Of course Harriet wants to honor Bernard, but a cruise? All that activity, the lack of familiar routine. All that newness.
The mere thought of it is terrifying. Meanwhile, she may be losing her mind. Thank heavens she has her best friend to lean on. Mildred is a rock.

At the stand, the straw-haired checker with the flinty manner clutches Harriet’s Val-U-Pack coupons with white knuckles, unable to suppress a sigh. The line is stacking up into the aisle, and Harriet knows it. But for the life of her, she can’t find that five-dollar rebate from July’s circular. More and more frequently of late, she’s misplacing things. Car keys, recipes, thank-you notes. And, if she’s to believe Father Mullinix, slippers and WD-40. Hands a-tremble, she burrows around fruitlessly in her purse. She’s sure she put the voucher in the side pocket.

“Oh dear,” she says, fishing out her reading glasses. “I know it’s here.”

“Uuugh,” somebody groans near the back of the line.

“Tell me about it,” whispers somebody else. “Should have seen this one coming, right?”

Just when Harriet is about to abandon her search, she realizes she’s already clutching the voucher.

“Oh, here it is!” she says brightly, extending the coupon. “Silly me.”

Snatching it from her liver-spotted hand, the checker inspects it. “Um, this expired eight days ago.”

“You’re sure?”

“It says so right here: expires eight five fourteen. See: Eight . . . five . . . fourteen.”

It’s not just her children—the whole world is convinced she’s an idiot, benignly oblivious to the world around her, incapable of self-consciousness.

“Club Card?” says the checker.

“Oh yes,” says Harriet, unclasping her purse again. “Let’s see . . .”

Another groan from the back of the line, where a prematurely balding fellow with a five-o’clock shadow begins tapping his sandal anxiously on the floor. Harriet feels her face flushing. For heaven’s sake, what’s this young man’s big hurry, anyway? He doesn’t look particularly busy to Harriet. Really, what kind of grown man walks around wearing cutoff jeans and sandals on a workday? Bernard would have a field day.

“Would you like help out today?”

Harriet straightens herself up. “I can manage, thank you.”

The checker eyes her doubtfully. “Let me get Chad. Chad!” she calls.

Soon, her long-suffering associate, a stout, slump-shouldered boy with an enormous brow ridge and perpetually chapped lips, assumes his post at the butt end of the checkout stand, where he pauses for a long moment, awaiting instructions, mouth agape, nose running.

“Can you help this young lady out?”

Chad gazes blankly, first at the checker, then at Harriet, before licking his ravaged lips.

While Harriet finds the boy quite agreeable, she prefers it when Chad does not bag her groceries. For, in the five years
that Chad has been handling Harriet’s groceries, the young man has not proven particularly adept at this charge, nor has he improved markedly over time—routinely stacking canned goods atop bread loaves, and crushing eggs beneath melons. Still, Harriet has always known the young man to be quite helpful in other respects: remembering daylight savings, for instance, reminding her to set her clock back. As far as Harriet can tell, he is under no obligation from Safeway, or anyone else, to do so. In an age of paranoia and declining social niceties, Harriet finds Chad refreshingly forthcoming, not only with his reminders but also with his personal observations. Such as the fact that he likes cats. Or that his aunt has eight of them. Or that one of them is named Stuart. Indeed, the young man is quite personable in light of—or perhaps because of—his condition.

“Earth to Chad,” says the checker.

As Harriet and Chad inch their way across the crowded lot, the boy seems uncharacteristically reserved. It’s not raining, yet Chad has failed to comment on the lack of rain. Has he sensed her low opinion of his work? She’s relieved when he finally breaks his silence.

“My birthday is June 23,” he observes.

“Well, that’s nice, dear.”

“When were you born?”

“November the sixth, darling.”

“What year?”

Harriet can feel herself blushing again. She can’t possibly hold the child responsible for such a gaff.

“Dear, that’s an impolite question. But if you must know, the answer is 1936.”

My God, it sounds impossible. Harriet has outlasted climates. She’s on geological time. And yet, daily, she feels the minutes of her life grinding slowly to a standstill. The sight of the Olds is just one more reminder of her shrinking existence.

Skip is even firmer than Caroline on the subject of driving. Last year, he almost ruined Thanksgiving for Harriet with his exhortations.

“Look, Mom, it’s nothing personal,” he assured her in the kitchen as she basted and stirred and boiled. “This is about your condition.”

“Osteoarthritis?”

“No, age,” he said with a mouthful of deviled egg. “I’m sorry, Mom, but eighty is just too old to drive—”

“Seventy-eight.”

“I’m just saying, there’s a law that says you can’t drive before a certain age, and there ought to be one that says you can’t drive
after
a certain age. You’ve got a busted taillight and a chipmunk plastered to your wheel. And what happened to that rear-side panel? Did you hit something?”

Harriet averted her attention to the gravy.

“Not a pedestrian, I hope?”

“Good heavens, no! A shopping cart. And it hit me, Skip!”

As it happened, the cart really hadn’t been Harriet’s fault. Come to think of it, it had probably been Chad’s fault. He was supposed to wheel the cart back—not leave it sitting there in her blind spot (on an incline, no less!). Still, Harriet
can hardly blame the poor dear. The least she can do, though, is gently remind him, this time.

“Chad, dear,” she says as he slams the trunk closed, licking his lips. “Could you please remember to wheel the cart back?”

Y
es, we’re getting ahead of ourselves again, but hey, it happens, Harriet. The reflective mind is a pinball, pitching and careening, rebounding off anything it makes contact with. Really, how can we not think of Mildred at this juncture? As always, you’re counting on her.

Mildred Honeycutt, ever your savior, and right from the start.

Here you are, Harriet, in the airless basement of St. Luke’s on that scorcher of a Sunday so long ago, nervous, reluctant, miserable, as your poor, untouched Bundt cake all but collapses under its own weight in the stultifying heat. Thank heavens for Mildred Honeycutt, with her cropped hair and bold, disarming nature, not only for extending a welcome on
behalf of the entire congregation but for having the courage and politeness to wash two slices of your disastrous confection down with her weak coffee.

You are taken immediately by Mildred Honeycutt. And let’s face it, her attentiveness has everything to do with it. At fifty-one, you feel overlooked. You never thought you’d miss that licentious slap on the fanny. But twenty-nine years of rigorous routine and loyal service to your family have made a wallflower of you, Harriet, or that’s what you think, anyway.

Look at the way Mildred blushes as she pours your coffee. Why, she can hardly look at you. And yet, when she thinks you’re not looking, she can’t seem to take her eyes off of you. She makes you feel fascinating. Admired. Mysterious.

How long has it been since you’ve had a friend—your own friend? Not Margaret Blum but a trusted confidante. Yes, Harriet, you long for companionship outside of Bernard’s influence. Somebody to commiserate with. Somebody you can complain to. Somebody to listen to you without offering advice. How is it that you’ve so rarely managed to achieve this? Why is female fellowship forever so elusive to you? Are you different from other women?

In the early going, Mildred vexes you somewhat with her impalpable nature, even as she tempts you with familiarity. You sense she wants more of you, and yet she is not solicitous of intimacy. But there’s something at work beneath the surface of her that draws you to Mildred. You exchange recipes and benign commentary. The sermon, the humidity, the
fading lavender. She never mentions her husband, but that diamond must be four karats. Likewise, she never inquires about Bernard, or your children, or your home. You reason that Mildred Honeycutt is shyer than you gave her credit for, that her boldness is a tool meant to deflect, and this makes you want to know her more.

Not until Week 3, when you serve together at the All Hallow’s Eve dinner downtown, does Mildred finally surrender.

“Have you ever been horseback riding?” she asks.

And like that, your friendship is off at a canter.

Look at you, at Lost Mountain Ranch, atop your shimmering mount! At any rate, look at you, atop that spindly-legged nag with the lackluster coat and the respiratory problems. Still, you feel big in the saddle, with all that power beneath you. Bigger than you’ve felt in years. And you have Mildred Honeycutt to thank for it.

You will have many things to thank Mildred for in the years to come. Mildred will offer you everything in the way of female fellowship you ever yearned for. She will listen and absorb, consider you without judgment. She will push you and guide you and test you. But none of it will happen overnight. No, Mildred is a safe that requires cracking.

The week after your adventure at Lost Mountain Ranch, without explanation, Mildred leaves St. Luke’s, for good, though she remains your friend for many years to come.

T
hough Harriet doesn’t dare confide as much to Mildred, she finds the subtropical artifice of Sunny Acres odious in most respects—the potted palms, the bougainvillea, the thatched-roofed utility sheds. The housekeepers in their white aprons, the attendants (invariably Hispanic or black) zipping around in golf carts, tipping their hats as they whir past. All of it feels like a resort to Harriet and, by extension, a lie.

Sunny Acres promotes health and active living, but it nurtures dependence. Oh, there are origami classes and whirlpools, to be sure. But these aren’t the sort of activities that keep a person vital. Raking leaves keeps you vital. Paying bills, running errands. For all its pretension, Harriet knows that
Sunny Acres is priced competitively. Otherwise, Mildred’s son, Dwight, would’ve sequestered her somewhere more affordable.

Mildred greets Harriet at the curb in front of her unit, which smells of pill jars and candle wax. She stands, all five feet of her, in a long and unseasonably warm pistachio-colored double-knit jacket of some vintage; one hand rests on her aluminum walker.

“You just missed Dwight,” she observes.

“Mmm,” says Harriet, crossing her arms in front of her.

“He said to say hello.”

Harriet gazes off in the direction of the pool house. Mildred dusts the lapel of her coat, then fidgets irritably with her hair.

“Oh, you’re just a paranoid old bag of bones, you know that? And quit equating this place with Sherwood Arms. This is
not
Sherwood Arms. And what happened with Bernard was no fault of yours. You know darn well, it’s not as if I’m under lock and key, here. You think Dwight dragged me here kicking and screaming, but the truth is I was tired, darling. That big house was too much for me. All those stairs. All that lawn. I’ve explained all of this before, dear. You just don’t want to hear it.”

“Hmph,” says Harriet.

“Well, it’s true,” Mildred insists. “At some point, you just get tired of hanging on. All those memories. All that junk.”

If nothing else, it’s heartening to hear Mildred defend herself. Lately, her spunky self-assurance, her fizzy good
humor, her bubbly optimism, her signature Monday morning effervescence—they’re all flattening like warm soda.

“I apologize for the wait,” says Mildred, checking her watch. “Fikru should be here any minute. Perhaps he’s having trouble with his cart.”

“I’m in no hurry,” says Harriet. “Why don’t we walk?”

As if on cue, Fikru whizzes up on his golf cart with a clownish little honk of the horn and comes to a stop directly in front of them.

“’Allo, ladies,” he says with a toothsome smile and a tip of his hat.

Fikru hails from Ethiopia. Or maybe Kenya. Harriet’s ashamed of her geographical ignorance every time she sees the young man.

“You are looking exquisite today, Ms. Harriet. Your beauty has an expansive quality to it, like the savanna after the rainy season.”

Harriet blanches. She sees these flirtations for exactly what they are, of course: hospitalities. And yet she cherishes the attention. If she felt overlooked at fifty, she feels downright invisible at seventy-eight.

“And you, Ms. Mildred,” Fikru croons, stepping down from his cart, where he makes a wafting gesture with his hand, breathing deeply. “Fragrant as the Abyssinian rose.”

As Fikru assists Mildred into the backseat of the cart, stowing her walker in the front passenger’s seat, Harriet awaits her turn with mounting anticipation. When the young man
returns to offer his assistance, Harriet is standing as upright as possible, elbow at the ready.

“You have a spritelike step, Ms. Harriet,” he notes, leading her up the cart.

Yes, Fikru is laying it on thick this afternoon. Perhaps he senses that Harriet’s opinion of Sunny Acres is softening. Maybe he gets a commission. Still, Harriet settles into her seat with the tiniest of flutters in her chest as Fikru resumes his station behind the wheel and taps the horn again.

“Hold on tight, ladies, while I deliver you.”

Harriet is still under the influence of Fikru’s considerable charm as they wend their way through Sunny Acres, maneuvering between colonnades of potted palms and meticulous lawns, cut through with gently winding concrete paths, everywhere the trilling of chipmunks. With her best friend seated beside her, Harriet tries to convince herself she could get used to the lifestyle. Perhaps she’d been judging the place harshly. Perhaps after all the gas-inducing anxiety of this surprise cruise, she’ll take a shine to the palliative environs of Sunny Acres: the hypnotic whir of the golf carts, the rhythmic spitting of sprinkler heads. The hint of the tropics clinging to the gentle breeze. Surely, a body could do worse than Sunny Acres. But no sooner does Harriet embrace this inclination than she turns to see Bernard seated beside her.

“Sounds like a place they send horses to die. And what is it with these damn golf carts buzzing around everywhere like mosquitoes? The place can’t be but three acres.”

Harriet shushes him. “Go on now, get. Not here. You can’t just pop up anytime you feel like expressing an opinion, Bernard. People are going to think I’m crazy.”

“Well?”

“And don’t sulk.”

“Who’s sulking?”

“Go,” she says.

Fikru turns in the driver seat, wearing a big pearly grin. “Everything is okay, Miss Harriet?” “Yes, just fine, dear.”

By the time they reach the clubhouse, where they whir to a halt between two guard rails, their chariot has begun to feel like a pumpkin again. Even Fikru’s charm has lost some of its luster as he assists them off the cart. Beneath his magnanimous air, he now strikes Harriet as a tad too efficient, a tad too curt and professional in his movements, a tad too quick to hop back into the cart and give a honk, as if, indeed, he has delivered them, as a postman might deliver a package.

“Isn’t this convenient?” says Mildred.

As they begin the thirty-foot trek to the front door of the clubhouse, Harriet can’t help but notice that Mildred is depending on her walker more than ever. The past couple years have not been kind to Mildred’s health. She’s shrinking before Harriet’s eyes.

Nothing about the clubhouse—not the low ceiling, nor the hospital-like sterility, nor the smell of Glade air freshener—inspires Harriet’s appetite. With the dining room to themselves, they agree on a table by the window, overlooking the
guest parking lot, which Harriet notices is also conspicuously empty, save for her own Oldsmobile.

“Try something new today, darling,” Mildred urges. “The Szechuan chicken is delightful. Not too spicy.”

Is it going to be like this all cruise long, Harriet wonders, Mildred presiding over Harriet’s every dietary choice? Yes, Harriet has always liked that Mildred nudged, cajoled, and even forced her to venture beyond her safe boundaries. Without Mildred’s encouragement, Harriet might never have known the joys of slot machines, Qigong massage, or crosscountry skiing. She appreciates it, truly she does. It’s just that, well, sometimes Mildred can be a little pushy, though Harriet feels guilty even thinking as much.

But for Pete’s sake, there’s something to be said for a little consistency. That’s what drew her toward Bernard in the first place—consistency, predictability, a propensity toward repetition. Harriet likes her routines, she enjoys her frozen beef portobello, her chicken Caesars. Her system is accustomed to them—their uniform size and agreeable texture, their stable calorie count. With few exceptions—most recently, the cruise—Harriet sees little reason to diverge from her routines, most particularly with regard to diet.

The waitress soon arrives for their orders. Mildred orders the crab melt with a side salad—one of the specials. Harriet doesn’t stray from her customary Caesar.

Mildred remains all but silent through lunch, to the point where Harriet wonders if perhaps she isn’t having one of her spells. Finally, she inquires as much.

“Oh no, I’m fine, darling,” Mildred assures her.

“Good, then. Let’s get started.”

The moment the waitress clears their plates and wipes the table clean, Harriet dons her reading glasses and spreads out her cruise materials on the tabletop. Highlighter poised, she begins their weekly exercise.

“Okay. Thursday at ten thirty a.m. Let’s see, we have the Greenhouse Spa & Salon raffle in the Lido spa or the Good-feet Clinic—I’m leaning toward the foot clinic.”

After a moment of silence, Harriet glances up from her planner at Mildred, who has yet to ready her materials.

“So sorry, dear,” says Harriet. “Have I jumped the gun again?”

Mildred casts her eyes down, then piles her hands in her lap.

“Are you sure you’re okay, dear? You look a little peaked.”

“Oh, darling, I just can’t do it anymore,” Mildred proclaims.

“I’m overplanning, aren’t I?” says Harriet, setting her checklist and pen on the tabletop. “Oh, I’m sorry, dear, I know it’s aggravating, it’s Bernard. He was always so damn insistent upon—”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“It’s the Celebrity Cook-Off in the Culinary Arts Center, isn’t it?”

Mildred reaches a trembling hand out and clutches Harriet’s. “Darling, I can’t go on pretending.”

“Pretending?”

“I’ve known for weeks. I just couldn’t stand the idea of disappointing you. I just thought if I . . .”

“Mildred, what are you talking about?”

“The cruise, darling.”

“You’re absolutely right. Let’s not overdo it.”

“I can’t do it, darling, I can’t go.”

It takes a moment for the realization to settle in.

“Well, dear, are you all right?” Harriet hears herself saying. “Is this a health issue?”

Mildred casts her gaze out on the empty lot. “Oh, darling, please don’t let’s talk about my reasons. Just think, you can go to the Goodfeet Clinic. You can skip the mixology class. And I won’t make you try sushi. You can do anything you please without me browbeating you. And surely you’ll meet all kinds of nice people.”

Classic Mildred. Another inexplicable decision. Like leaving the church three weeks after they met. Like canceling the couples’ retreat two years in a row. Like cutting her hair off, buying a horse, renouncing wheat and cosmetics. Here was the Achilles’ heel of their friendship, and Harriet’s lone misgiving with Mildred, this maddening capacity to surprise those around her, and without explanation.

“Well, I don’t know what to say, Mildred.”

“Oh, Harriet, don’t say anything. I didn’t want it to be this way, please understand.”

“Is Dwight behind this?”

“Darling, no. It’s complex.”

That’s it? It’s complex? That’s all she’s got in the way of an explanation? With trembling hands, Harriet begins gathering her cruise materials, then stands and walks out of the clubhouse, leaving Mildred behind.

“Forgive me, please,” Mildred calls out.

The moment Harriet hits the open air, clutching the guard rail, it shames her to find that she feels nothing so much as relief. She’s off the hook. No cruise! No mixers, no seminars, no raw fish!

“So, that’s it, you’re not going?” It’s Bernard again.

“You don’t honestly expect me to go alone?”

“Take one of the kids,” says Bernard.

“You know that’s not going to happen.”

“Couldn’t hurt to ask.”

“Well, it wouldn’t do any good, either.”

“What about Barbara Chatsworth, then?”

“She’s in poor health—hospitalized last month, the poor dear. Besides, I think I grate on her nerves.”

“Well, how about somebody else from the church? That little Higashi lady that makes the cobblers?”

Harriet sighs. “It really means that much to you?”

“I didn’t say that. I just think you oughta get out and live a little, Harriet. Be adventurous.”

“Why should I start now?”

“You deserve it. Now that you haven’t got me to lug around, you owe yourself a little vacation.”

“Oh, Bernard, I just don’t understand. You know I’m terrible
on boats. I can hardly bear the ferry to Edmonds. Why did you bid on an Alaskan cruise, for heaven’s sake? Why not a basket of artisan breads?”

He shrugs.

“Well, if you wanted to surprise me, you succeeded in that.”

She reaches out for his hand and gives it a little squeeze.

When she arrives at the straightaway path leading to the visitors’ lot, she hears the clownish little honk and the whir of the motor and turns just in time to find Fikru coasting to a stop beside her, beaming like a jack-o’-lantern.

“’Allo, Ms. Harriet!” he says, pocketing his cell phone. “Have you lost your way?”

“Gracious, no.”

“May I deliver you?”

“No, thank you, dear,” Harriet says. “I’ll handle my own deliverance, thank you very much.”