Elizabeth's Daughter (7 page)

  Why not go into real estate?” he suggested.

  “Oh, I don’t know about that,” Elizabeth answered. “My biggest problem, I guess, is that I’m very shy.”

  “It’s the best way to get over shyness,” Tony pointed out. “You tell yourself it’s your job and the first thing you know, you’re not so shy.”

  “Sounds like a testimonial,” Elizabeth observed.

  “It is...
I
was shy. You could come and work in my office and study for your real estate license at the same time. I’m sure you don’t have to work, what with your grandfather’s estate, but everybody needs to be occupied. Right?”

  “That’s right,” Elizabeth agreed.

  And so a mere week later Elizabeth was enrolled in real estate school. She had a professional face and hair make-over, she bought herself a new wardrobe, including two pair of designer jeans.

  And when she went to the grocery store and looked up at the mirrors, she didn’t see a frumpy 1950’s house wife. She saw a pretty, self-confident, trim, assured, contemporary-looking young woman.

Chapter VIII

Elizabeth tore the last day of May off her desk calendar
–
unbelievably, another month had disappeared. Since she’d moved to
The Lakes
and started working at Ocean State Real Estate, the weeks flew by like days.

  She wasn’t sure which she enjoyed more, getting up in the morning, excited about going to work, or the pleasure she felt in the evening driving to her new home, anticipating the cool lake, and, lately, with the days growing longer, the beautiful dusky sunsets reflecting cinnabar and pink off the surface of the cobalt blue water.

  A client was coming in in a few minutes and Tony was not back yet. She checked the mirror in her desk drawer. Her shining pixie-cut brown hair framed a look-twice gamine face, big brown eyes with pinkish and fawn eye shadow, and a pouty pink mouth. She could hardly remember what she used to look like. She added that to her list of blessings!

  She was studying for her real estate license, and, although not yet licensed, she discovered she learned quickly. Tony frequently left the lion’s share of the work to her, but that didn’t bother her. As he said, it was good training.

  “Edna,” Elizabeth called to the secretary, “I wonder if there’s something we can do about the lighting in here?”

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  “It’s so dark!”

  “I’m good with that,” Edna answered. “The place doesn’t have to be dusted so often.”

  Elizabeth shrugged. She didn’t care for Edna’s attitude, but she was in no position to argue. At that moment, Tony’s clients came through the front door.

  “We have an appointment with Mr. Antonella,” the man said to Edna.

  “Mr. Antonella is unexpectedly detained. He asked me to refer you to Miss Morris.” Edna waved back at Elizabeth.

  “Hmm,” he said hesitantly. “Okay, thanks.” He and his wife came up to Elizabeth’s desk.

  She stood and smiled, gesturing to them to be seated. “Mr. Antonella told me you’d be coming by. Let’s talk about the home you’re hoping to find.”

  Elizabeth spent the afternoon showing the couple eight properties, none of which seemed quite this or quite that for them.

  On the drive home, Elizabeth pieced together some random facts and came up with the realization that Tony was pawning off his difficult clients on her, people who were not buyers. It gave her a headache, smiling, smiling, smiling all day for these lookie-loos. But she reminded herself that that was part of the job, too.

  When she got home, she found herself facing that odd empty feeling she’d been experiencing lately. After making a cup of tea, she went up to her new rug room. Since she’d moved, she hadn’t touched anything.

  She smiled remembering the week-end she and Peter had traded homes. They’d rented a truck and had first taken her personal things and put them in his garage. Then they filled up the truck with his things and piled them up in the front parlor. They’d even ended up trading most of their furniture on a friendly long term basis as they agreed that each home was already suitably furnished.

  On Elizabeth’s second load, the only thing left was the contents of her rug room. She’d finished the six-by-nine Samarkand the night before. She hadn’t wanted to move the loom, rug and all.

  The night before the move she stood proudly surveying her handiwork. Then she felt a pang as she realized the carpet would not live on these dark hardwood floors, among the antique surroundings, which had been her intention since she’d conceived it.

  So the next day she presented the carpet to Peter. Stunned, he tried to refuse it, but she wouldn’t let him. The carpet belonged with the house, she insisted. She’d told Peter she wanted him to enjoy it.

  “Enjoy it? I’ll
treasure
it,” he’d said.

  Elizabeth brought herself back to the present moment. After all, that was then, and this was now. What she needed now, she decided, was to get involved in a new carpet-making project. She went back down to her kitchen, got out some graph paper and her set of “Fifty-Eight Wonderful Colors Felt Tip Drawing Pens” and began sketching a design.

  Two hours later, she sat back to appraise her creation. And there revealed was the clue to what was
really
bothering her. The graph paper had been transformed into a darling pastel forest, with a Hansel and Gretel cottage in the center and puffy pink and white clouds in a pale blue sky around the border. A rug for a baby room.

  Because what Elizabeth wanted more than anything, as happy as she was with her new life, was a baby. But how could that come to be? She and Tony had been dating, but her “Victorian morals” as he put it, prevented her from letting the relationship progress beyond affectionate-yet-platonic. She was at least smart enough, she told herself, to realize that Tony was not the marrying sort.

  But that didn’t mean she didn’t wish he was. Or that
something
might happen in her life with the promise of maternal fulfillment. She decided that she would begin the baby carpet, believing that it would inevitably, inexorably, draw her closer to her heart’s desire.

*   *

The following Sunday Elizabeth took Martha to brunch. After they’d filled their plates to embarrassing heights, they sat by a window over-looking the bay.

  “You look gorgeous!” Martha said as the waitress poured champagne into their plastic champagne glasses.

  “Thanks, Martha. I know when you say it, it’s sincere.”

  “Of course I’m sincere! Why would you even say such a thing?”

  Why indeed? She asked herself. Tony was always saying she was  gorgeous... right before he asked her to do “a little favor.” Curious that I haven’t realized that until just this moment. “In the real estate business you get used to a song-and-dance routine,” she finally answered.

  Martha nodded. She understood. “You know with me what you see is what you get, and you can let your hair down. That is, what little bit you have left of it!”

  Elizabeth reached up and tugged on one of the little spikes of hair framing her face. “Not good?” she asked.

  “Very good! Just, you know, very very short. I haven’t even been out with a
man
lately with hair that short. But on you, sweetie, it looks great.”

  “Yeah. Me and my ‘waif-like’ face,” Elizabeth nodded.

  “And I still insist there’s no insult in being called ‘waif-like.’ “

  “Hmm.” Elizabeth remained unconvinced.

  “So
–
what’s new with you?” Martha went on. “It seems we never get to talk any more!”

  “True, but if you heard all the times I’ve talked to you in my head, you’d ask me to kindly please hang up for a while.”

  “So it’s you buzzing in my brain!” Martha exclaimed. “Have I given you any good advice lately?”

  Elizabeth was silent but fidgety.

  “I thought you were ‘happy, happy, happy’,” Martha continued. “Isn’t that what you said?”

  Elizabeth nodded. “I
am
happy. And I’m grateful too, to be so content. Even though Grandfather is gone,and I miss him terribly, I still have my new home, which I love, and my new job which is interesting. It helps take me out of myself. I’m finally growing up, Martha. I didn’t know life could feel so full or be so interesting. But still there’s some perverse creature in me who, with all I’ve got, wants more.”

  “Such as?” Martha asked.

  “Such as, specifically... a baby.” Elizabeth shocked herself, it was the first time she’d said it out loud.

  Martha nodded.

  “What do you mean by nodding?” Elizabeth asked. “Aren’t you surprised?”

  “Not in the least tiny little bit,” Martha said, not at all. You’re a young healthy woman, you’re simply responding to your biology. Why should that surprise me? More to the point, why should it surprise you? If you hadn’t been so preoccupied with your grandfather all these years, it would have hit you long ago.”

  “Maybe,” Elizabeth said. “It’s hard to hypothesize about that now. But what should I do?”

  “How about this?” Martha leaned forward as if she was about to impart a secret magic formula. Elizabeth leaned toward her. “Date
–
fall in love
–
get married
–
have a baby.”

  Elizabeth leaned back with a wry grin, nodding. “It sounds like a good plan, Martha, but I’m hung up on the first point.”

  “How so? Look at you! You’re gorgeous, sweet, fun, polite, financially independent. With the possible exception of needing to be more sure of yourself, I can’t imagine why you don’t have the guys lined up.”

  Oh, sure,” Elizabeth agreed, “I anticipate
that
in the near future. No, Martha, I’m not the gregarious young woman you portray. First of all, I’m not made of stuff that dates more than one person at a time. What am I saying? One man is one-hundred percent more than I’ve dated in my life!””

  “Silly girl, “Martha said.

  “Maybe so, but that’s me. And, anyway, I’m dating Tony now.”

  “Yes? And?”

  “And, well, and I’m certain he’s not the marrying type.”

  Martha tsk-ed. “Look, dear girl, why put yourself at cross purposes? Don’t mark time with someone who’s goals are opposed to yours. I shouldn’t even have to tell you that.”

  Elizabeth felt a tiny wall of defensiveness welling up. “I suppose you’ve
never
dated anyone who had different goals from yours?”

  “Goodness, Elizabeth, in my case, dating has
been
the goal. I’ve never wanted children or a husband. Of course I’ve had to let a few good ones go when they started out fun but developed an urge to make me the centerpiece for home and hearth. But, by and large, I believe I’ve stood pretty much by my own standards. That needn’t make you angry, Lizzie.”

  “No, it doesn’t. It
doesn’t.
But be honest Martha, you’ve seen Tony. What woman would voluntarily stop dating him?”

  “I’ll grant you he’s very good looking, physically. But beauty’s only skin deep... I didn’t just make that up, by the way.” Martha hesitated. She looked out at the bay. “I don’t want to alienate you by criticizing him, but I feel I have to tell you that there’s something about that guy I don’t trust. Personally, I wouldn’t go out with him once. He has a quiet anger that makes me very uncomfortable.”

  “Oh, pooh!” Elizabeth said. “He’s kind of quiet in the first place, and the two minutes you saw him, he’d just had an unpleasant altercation with a client.”

  Martha nodded. “I was only voicing an opinion, but I hope you’ll give it some objective consideration. Anyway, let’s get back to this motherhood thing. Let’s do some hypothetical, rather than specific, extrapolation for a moment. Let’s say you’re a one-guy sort of gal with mommy-ing in mind.” Martha went on, “let’s say the guy doesn’t have daddy-ing in mind. Let’s say further, that the woman is financially solvent, a responsible person, in good health. Now, all I wonder is, why you don’t just go ahead and make a baby.”

  Elizabeth’s fork clattered to her plate. “Are you Looney Tunes?”

  “Don’t think so. Look, my point is, you think Tony’s gorgeous, so why not increase your odds of making a gorgeous baby? There’s no one in your life to go tsk-tsk. If you do it of your own free will, plan it out and so forth... well, it seems perfect to me.”

  Elizabeth shook her head. “Maybe I don’t have anyone in my life to go tsk-tsk at me, but I’m sure
I’d
be tsking at me. And besides, if I did something like that, Tony would be out the door so fast, I’d be knocked over by the gale. He’d never believe that I ‘made a baby’ as you so casually put it, for any reason other than to trick or trap him.”

  “Okay.” Martha shoved her plate away. “Here’s what I really believe you should do. I think you should become a foster parent. Although you’re not married and have never had any children, you were a wonderful nurse to your grandfather and you certainly have the skills to take care of a child, and you can certainly afford to hire a nanny.” Martha paused and leaned back, studying Elizabeth, then she threw up her hands. “ I suppose you have all kinds of objections to that suggestion too.”

  “Noooo...” A wide smile broke across Elizabeth’s dainty features. “I love it! Why didn’t I think of that myself? Tony couldn’t say anything against it. Thank you, Martha. Thank you.”

  “Well that was easy!” Martha said, raising her champagne glass. “To the mommy-to-be.”