This is Your Life, Harriet Chance! (9 page)

A
fter an hour of stewing in her anger, pacing the length of her cabin, trampling the letter with each pass, and glowering at the yogurt container as she visualizes all the things she’d like to do and say to Bernard and Mildred, Harriet should be exhausted. Her spine should be aching, her feet should be throbbing. But instead her heart is beating a furious war cry. Desperate for occupation, she looks about the cabin for something to clean or organize. Alas, the cabin is spotless.

Maybe food is the answer, maybe she ought to feed this ravenous temper. But she can’t possibly go out in public, not in this state. Or can she? Yes, that’s exactly what she’ll do. Bernard and Mildred be damned. The Lord would see
faithfully to their recompense. Whatever Bernard’s intentions, this cruise belongs to Harriet now.

Without delay, she retires to the light of the tiny bathroom, where she rinses her face, her spirits inexplicably high, as she begins reapplying her mascara. There are crab legs to be eaten, wine to be drunk. This is an opportunity to rejoice in her suffering, to let the good Lord confirm and restore her spirit. But it’s no use. Midway through her mascara, Harriet breaks down and begins to weep bitterly. Shunning her reflection, she lowers herself to the toilet and cries until her grief is exhausted, swallowing her agony in one hot lump, along with half a Vicodin.

Gathering her resolve, she continues her preparations for the launch party: fixing her makeup, sculpting her hair, donning her modest blue China dress, and applying a spritz of Tea Rose.

In the elevator, still slightly dazed, she’s joined by two middle-aged couples.

“Apparently, they’re mostly Filipinos,” one of the men says. “They all speak wonderful English.”

“That’s refreshing,” says the other man’s wife. “So many of the Mexicans don’t seem to speak the language.”

The elevator empties onto the Lower Promenade, where Harriet hobbles across the atrium to the Pinnacle Bar as cruisers file into the party two by two. Though bold in its decor, the Pinnacle Bar is equally confused. While the bar itself is firmly committed to an art deco theme—the rich colors, the
lavish ornamentation, the geometric patterns—the surrounding seating area looks like the lobby of a Red Lion, bland colors, faux wood, and outsized, shapeless furniture. Perhaps forty cruisers are in attendance, the bulk of them split between the bar and the buffet line, almost exclusively middle-aged couples in formal attire, cumberbunds and dress fronts stretched tight across their bellies. Suddenly Harriet feels frumpish in her shapeless China dress, with its high neck. Her pearl earrings, her floral perfume, her sculpted hair—all of it feels dowdy. Removing her compact, she inspects her lipstick. The sight of her wrinkled personage does little to improve her outlook. Maybe crab legs will do the trick.

And a half glass of wine.

Heading straight for the buffet, Harriet loads up and retires to a table near the piano. As if on cue, a wispy fellow in a powder blue suit begins to tinkle the ivories softly beneath the chatter of the party. Within eight or ten bars, Harriet recognizes the melody, though she can’t put a title to it. A ballad, slow and sentimental, from her childhood, something from Mercer or Van Heusen, a melodic strain that conjures polka dots and moonbeams, summons held breaths and clasped hands and the streaming lights of a carousel. Innocence, that’s what it invokes, a world uncluttered by complications, unsullied by irony, untouched by despair.

Harriet takes a tentative sip of her wine and sinks deeper into her club chair as the distant refrains wash over her. Nobody seems to notice when the number winds down to its
conclusion, and the piano man slips seamlessly into the next, “My Funny Valentine.” The wine proves to be a heady delight, coursing through Harriet’s limbs and numbing her temples. Spreading her cloth napkin across her lap, she turns her attention to the crab legs. Gracious, but they are unwieldy things! Plying her cracker, she goes to work on a giant pincerless leg, clutching it fiercely every which way, spotting her dress with each futile attempt to penetrate the shell. It doesn’t help that her hands are trembling, and the cracker won’t grip, and the light in the Pinnacle Bar is murky at best. Before she manages to exhume so much as a shred of meat, she abandons the enterprise altogether.

Frustrated by the ordeal, she pushes her plate aside without sampling the minted peas. Instead, she empties her wineglass in a single toss. She’s not at all certain she can get out of her chair without assistance, nor is she feeling in the least bit sociable, but the spell is broken. The longer she sits there with that heap of uneaten crab legs before her, hectored by thoughts of Bernard and Mildred, the more another glass of wine sounds like a good idea.

Powder Blue is tinkling his way toward the coda of “Moonlight in Vermont” when Harriet manages—just barely—to push herself out of the chair and set a wide base beneath her. Lightheaded from exertion, she leans momentarily on the table for support before casting off. Her legs are leaden for the first few steps, the world wobbling slightly on its axis. But once she begins wending her way through the crowded bar,
reality begins losing its sharp edges, and the party assumes a slow-moving fluidity. Harriet feels surprisingly buoyant and, yes, pleasantly intoxicated amid the hive of surrounding activity. The air hums with snatches of disembodied conversation:

Keith and I prefer Panama, actually . . .

What a coincidence! I was an actuary . . .

That’s what we used to think, but it’s not . . .

No kidding?

Our youngest is only thirty miles from Sarasota . . .

Exactly. That’s what I told him . . .

You should have seen the size of the mosquitoes. Like hummingbirds . . .

Yes, I’m sure, I looked in the black bag—twice. Did you look in your purse?

With the closeness of the room, and the bottleneck at the bar, it’s difficult to discern who is standing in line and who is simply standing in place. Easing herself into the scrum, Harriet somehow finds herself at the front of the line in what seems like no time at all. Indeed, time itself seems compressed. Space seems endlessly navigable, if a tad blurry. Nearly everything is easier to endure under the glorious influence of white wine.

“Something white,” says Harriet, surprised—though not discouraged—by the heaviness of her tongue.

“Chardonnay? Riesling? Pinot Gris?” says the young man behind the bar.

“I’m afraid I really don’t know the difference anymore, dear.”

“Do you like sweet? Dry? Fruity?”

“Sweet sounds nice,” says Harriet, taking note of the boy’s name tag: Rey.

“Here,” he says, pouring out at small portion. “Try the Zin.”

Harriet takes the smallest of sips and, finding it to her liking, empties the glass.

“Oh yes,” she says. “That’s nice.”

Indeed, it’s better than nice, it’s a revelation! So crisp and sweet on the tongue! It’s nothing short of delicious, the way the vapors rise up through her nostrils and tickle her brain. Oh yes, Harriet could get used to this all over again. Obligingly, the young fellow pours her a generous glass. “Enjoy!” he says with a smile.

“Thank you, Rey,” she says, lazily. “I believe I will, dear.”

The last bit sounds a little wobbly, even to Harriet’s confused ear, though surely nothing to be concerned about. Sipping her wine as she turns, she splashes a little on the front of her dress.

“Oh dear,” she says aloud to herself, then laughs without meaning to.

To her further delight, cruisers are proving themselves a considerate breed, allowing her a wide berth (some of them clutching their sleeves and lapels) as Harriet floats past.
Indeed, that’s what it feels like, floating. Free at last from the aching, collapsing, structural demolition of her body, swept along in the current of cruisedom. Free from any reservations or inhibitions regarding the present or the future and, mercifully, free of the past. Oh yes, wine is a much better salve than anything the medical profession has ever prescribed. Even the Bible condones it!

Straight ahead, Harriet spots Sinta, the young woman from the terminal. What wonderful fortune!

“Sinta!” she cries, splashing a little wine on the woman’s wrist.

“I beg your pardon?”

“It’s me, Harriet Chance. From the terminal the other afternoon. I wanted to thank you once more for your help, dear.”

“Have we met?”

“Oh, good heavens,” says Harriet, waving it off and splashing a dab more wine. “My mistake, dear,” she says with a listless tongue.

Harriet is slow to comprehend that the woman is bristling or that her bearded companion is aghast. By the time she stops slurring long enough to notice them, they’re both staring holes in her. Suddenly the heat of embarrassment suffuses Harriet’s face.

“Dear, have I offended you?”

In lieu of a response, the young woman simply turns her back on Harriet, her companion quickly following suit. At a stupefying loss, Harriet stands there, listing ever so slightly from side to side. Steadying herself, she raises her chin and
her wineglass and decides to let the matter rest rather than risk exacerbating the misunderstanding. Like everything else, gauzed in a glass of sweet white wine, the situation is easily resolvable. Harriet simply moves on, sloshing her way back in the direction of the music, through the blur of voices.

Down to three and a half bucks in central Oregon . . .

Tatum says the reason the department won’t let it go is . . .

Really? Limes, too? . . .

I heard it on NPR . . .

The crowd is threatening to overwhelm Harriet’s senses. All the activity is distracting. The Pinnacle Bar is suddenly losing its fluidity. The thing to do is to get back to the cozy confines of her chair, back to the subtle refrains and welcome familiarity of Powder Blue and the songs of her youth. Perhaps she can conquer those crab legs after all. The exchange with the Asian woman has soured her to the prospect of mixing. Better to enjoy the food and entertainment.

Just as she’d hoped, the music has an immediate and soothing effect upon Harriet. The piano seems to give off warmth. Nested deeply in her oversized chair, wine refreshed, Harriet takes up the cracker once more, spreads her napkin in her lap, and proceeds to conquer the crab legs, at times abandoning the device in favor of a more aggressive and timeworn tactic—namely, that of twisting and coaxing the appendages with her bare hands, while alternately clenching them in the vicelike grip of her determined teeth, only dimly aware that she might be making a spectacle of herself.

Meanwhile, Powder Blue plays an up-tempo number Harriet
doesn’t recognize before rendering a positively jaunty version of “Puttin’ on the Ritz.” Harriet will remember “Puttin’ on the Ritz” as the final highpoint of the evening, the last glorious bit of grinning stupidity before Powder Blue begins playing the likes of “It’s Always You” and “Night and Day,” songs about the relentless singularity of a lover’s affection. Always you—ha! Only you ’neath the moon—phooey! All those years “roaming through roses,” all those “early twilights” and “caressing breezes,” the whole time Bernard had Mildred Honeycutt on his mind, and heaven only knew what else. All along there were
three
’neath the moon, not two.

Though emptier by the sip, her wineglass only grows heavier at each turn, and her blood seems to thicken as she sinks deeper into her club chair, where a darker inclination again takes hold.

Why Mildred? Her exotic cheeses? Her relentless soapboxing? Her hairy legs?

Certainly Mildred was no beauty, and goodness knows she could test Harriet’s patience with her willful, irrepressible ways. Maybe that was her charm. Maybe it was because Mildred insisted on getting what she wanted. Even if it meant taking it from someone else. She insisted on satisfying her appetites, insisted on having her needs fulfilled. Maybe Harriet should have wanted more all along, maybe she should have demanded more of Bernard—more time, more consideration, more affection, more respect and freedom and dignity.

Harriet will not remember spilling the last of her wine on
the carpet, or cracking the stem of the glass on the edge of the table, or losing her pearl earring among the mess of crab shells. Not even dimly will she remember assaulting the ship’s steward with a crab leg when he tries to assist her out of her chair, nor will she recall pitching sideways when, of her own volition, she attempts to extricate herself. No, Harriet will not remember being assisted out of the Pinnacle Bar by two somber crew members, nor being examined in the atrium by the ship’s doctor, nor refusing to cooperate with said doctor. She will have no clue how she arrived back in her cabin.

Y
ou’re still calling Deer Park the new cinemas, though they’ve been there for years. Look at that adorable old couple down front, the ones who brought their own popcorn: the little hunchback with the crooked lipstick and the scarecrow in the yellow pants and the marine cap. Look at them, arm in arm, gimping down the aisle, quibbling over where to sit. Why, it’s Mr. and Mrs. Bernard Chance, looking to all the world like a perfectly matched pair. Yes, fifty-four years of cohabitation has the two of you behaving like bookends, perfectly matched opposing supports forced by proximity into cooperation. Really, that’s no small accomplishment, Harriet, so go easy on yourself the rest of the way. The rest could have happened to anybody.

The movie is forgettable. As in, you couldn’t remember it if you had to. Something Irish, or about Ireland, with a guy and a girl. But that’s not the point. The point is, it’s movie night, and the Chances are still making an effort late in life, though neither one of you likes to drive after dark, and my God, it’s nearly ten dollars a ticket, even for seniors. Not to mention, you haven’t seen a good film in two years (not that you can remember that one, either).

You can’t remember getting old. You can’t remember when exactly you started carrying umbrellas just in case, when you started scheduling your weekly hair washings, oversalting your food, or reusing zipper-lock bags. It happened gradually. The years just wore you away, dulled your edges, leached the color from your face, and flattened you out like river rocks. Again, not the point. The point—not to belabor it—is: you’re old, sapless and enfeebled, especially Bernard, and yet, you’re still trying, both of you. Still able. The world shakes its fists and rolls its eyes at you as you gum up traffic and slow down lines, and pay for every blasted thing in exact change, but by God, the Chances are not about to cloister themselves at home with their creamed corn and network television, no, they’re still out there wrestling with the world at large, still going toe-to-toe with progress, still absorbing change, slowly.

But when you turn to Bernard in the glow of the credits, expecting to share his vague disenchantment with the evening’s lukewarm cinematic fare, he looks dazed and frightened and something else: unreachable.

Dear, you say, are you okay?

Yes, yes, fine.

But his tongue is heavy, and he sounds a million miles away. And he’s slow to rise from his seat, and it’s not a cautious slow. You reason that he must have nodded off during the film (heaven knows, you almost did), and that the sleep state has left him disoriented.

On the trip home, in spite of timeworn custom, you do the driving, and he doesn’t make a fuss over the fact. In the passenger’s seat, he slumps in silence, and by no means a thoughtful silence. Something smells like urine.

At some point during that forgettable movie, your husband has forgotten a great deal more.

This is your life, Harriet Chance, falling off a cliff.

Only later will you discover that Bernard has had “an event”—let’s call it a stroke—and that it’s likely not the first. Only later will you learn about the plaque on his brain. But let’s face it, Harriet. You hardly have time to take it all in, it happens so fast. In three months’ time, the police will find him wandering Cline Spit in his pajamas. In six months, he will not remember your name. In a year, he won’t remember his own.