Shake Down the Stars (17 page)

As soon as she says Berkeley, the male brainiac turns to look at her, and she immediately gives him the finger. “Whatchu lookin' at? You think I can't go to college? You the only one think he can go to Berkeley? Yeah, I'll see you there. You little—”

“Sharayray.”

“Sorry.”

The boy turns in his seat, and Sharayray sticks out her tongue.

“Sharayray.”

“Sorry.”

“Of course you can go to Berkeley,” I say.

The brainiac frowns at me as if I'm the purveyor of false dreams, then shakes his head and returns to his book. When I know he's not looking, I stick my tongue out at him, then look over at Sharayray, who is already focused intently on reading the play in her hand.

I place my bet on Sharayray.

•   •   •

A
week later, I'm standing on Clem's porch with a box of cookies from Lulu's. I spoke with Sherry about how lonely I sometimes feel, and she recommended something I already intuitively knew: I need more friends. Hence, Clem. I've thought of her from time to time since Friends of Friends in Mourning. She was the only person who seemed as lost as I was that night, and that her husband, child, and brother all died at once still seems unimaginable. When I told Deacon Morris about her, he suggested in his own way that instead of merely thinking about her, I should put some action behind the thought and see how she's doing. Kindness, he reminded me, is a verb.

I had to stop by Diane Montgomery's to find out where she lives. I remembered Clem telling me she was within walking distance of the Montgomerys', but I had no way of knowing which house. Diane was nice enough to point out her place, a two-story craftsman with the blinds drawn tight—“just up the street”—then invited me in for coffee. When I declined, she made me promise I'd return to a meeting sometime soon. “It's important we go through a thorough mourning process. You must come back.” I responded by telling her I had enough meetings to attend as it was and left it at that.

After the third ring I begin to wonder if Clem is home, but then the door creeps open and she pokes out her head. It's almost eleven, but from the way she winces at the sunlight and clutches the top of her robe, I have a strong feeling I've forced her out of bed. I smile, ready to say,
Surprise!
but as I stare into her perfectly blank face, I think better of it. Why the hell did I think she'd remember me? I haven't seen her in months. I'm here, however, and figure—“Clem, it's me . . . Piper? We met at the Friends of Friends in Mourning meeting about . . . five months ago? I was thinking of you and thought I'd stop by. I haven't forgotten you.” I hold up the box of cookies as a hopeful reminder. “These are for you. You really liked them when we met. Remember?”

She opens the door but only so wide. Her tousled auburn hair, heavy bags under her eyes, and wan coloring all suggest she's suffering from one hell of a hangover, and it's best I make a quick exit. I speak rapidly. “I would've called, but I never got your phone number. Diane pointed out your house. I was thinking about you and wanted to say hello, that's all. I'll just leave now. Just—here—I'd like you to have the cookies. I don't know if you ever made it to Lulu's, but I remembered how much you liked them.”

She takes the box as though there might be a bomb planted inside. I feel my face grow warm with embarrassment and start to leave, but just as I do, I catch a gleam of recognition in her eye as if
her
hungover synapses are kicking in and she's finally remembering the whos and whats.

She opens the door farther but then suddenly cups her mouth with her hand and shoves the box of cookies into my chest.
“Shit.”
With this she turns and runs back inside, leaving the door wide-open.

“Clem?” I step inside, only to be greeted by a dark, quiet house. “Clem? You okay?” I walk farther inside. The rooms are spacious and well kept, but the curtains are drawn, giving the whole place a haunted-house feel.

“Clem?”

I hear a toilet flush and follow the sound down a second hallway that leads to a bathroom. I find her on the floor in ye olde familiar pose: on her knees, head suspended above the toilet. When she looks up, her head makes a wide arc until it falls back. “You might want to close that door less you want to see me—”

Too late. She pukes again.

I take a facecloth from the towel rack, run warm water over it, and hand it to her. She thanks me, wipes her mouth, and flushes. She then stares up at me, eyes bright with recognition. “Piper Diaper. Piper the Sniper.”

“Lactation Station.”

She laughs and chucks her head toward the toilet. “Sorry you had to see that. Had a little too much last night.”

She goes to the sink and washes her hands. She looks three times older than when I saw her last, and she wears men's pj's beneath her lopsided robe that looks a size too big. She's got two pairs of socks on each foot.

She notices me staring. “I must look like glorified shit.”

“Hangover'll do that to you.”

She gazes into the mirror and starts rapidly pinching her cheeks but then gives up. “How about a cup of coffee?”

“Sounds good.”

I follow her down another hallway. My pace slows as I take in the framed family photos lining the wall. There's a photo of a young Clem holding a little boy; Clem and her husband on their wedding day; a teenager, who I guess is her son, giving the peace sign on a beach; father and son standing on a boat. I'm so busy staring at them all, I'm half startled when I hear Clem clear her throat. I turn and see her waiting for me at the end of the hall, hand on hip. “Kitchen's this way.”

The kitchen is the only room so far with the curtains open. There are several casement windows and two French doors leading out to the backyard. Inside, there's an oak table with six chairs, and an island with a second sink and wine refrigerator; the refrigerator is the size of a vault.

“Nice place you have, Clem.”

“I probably should've moved years ago, the place is so big, but I've been here too long and can't get myself to do it.” She takes a hair band from a drawer and puts her hair in a ponytail. “Lotta memories here, too.”

I set the cookies on the counter and sit at the large table. She doesn't exaggerate. I can feel the ghosts: Tommy leaving for school and Frank sitting where I sit right now reading the morning paper. Clem at the sink telling Tommy he's not too big to give his mother a kiss before he leaves the house. My throat clutches at the thought of everyone lost.

Clem opens a cabinet and then another. “Now where is the coffee? I swear, every time the cleaning lady comes, she moves everything around.”

It's the way she does a backward two-step before closing each cabinet that makes me wonder if she's still buzzed. “Hmph, guess I'm out. What do you say to mimosas instead?” Before I can say AA, she sets champagne and orange juice on the table. I stare at the champagne while feeling my pulse quicken. It's not that I want to drink, but I do feel anxious, anxious enough that I think it might be best if I leave.

“You know, I feel like I'm intruding. I should probably take off. I don't want to be a bother.”

“Don't be silly; you just got here.”

“I know but—”

“You stay put. I know how to treat company—don't come here saying I don't. You showin' up here is a surprise is all.” She opens a cabinet and takes out a bottle of aspirin and a coffee mug, then pours champagne into the mug and tosses back the aspirin. “That's better.” She finds two flutes next and puts them on the table. “We'll have us a nice brunch is what we'll have.” She pours far more champagne than orange juice in each flute and holds up her glass. “Cheers.”

I move my hands to my lap.

“Well, come on,” she says, wiggling her glass. “Cheers.”

“I think I'll pass on the champagne.”

Her gaze becomes instantly sharp and focused. “What gives, Piper Sniper? My champagne isn't good enough for you?” She frowns when I remain silent. “Oh, I get it. You didn't come for a visit. You came to judge me. You didn't want company. You're like all the rest of 'em who think I'm a charity project. I'll tell you what, though—I'm perfectly fine.” She crosses her legs and takes a dainty sip of champagne as if she were sitting at a Southern cotillion. It's all for effect, of course, gestures she hopes will prove she's not drunk that work to the contrary. I rise from the table. If I'm of the ilk that drinks to pass out, she's the angry drunk everyone had best avoid.

“Where do you think you're going? You do judge me. You came here to judge me!”

“I told you why I'm here, Clem. I know it was a few months ago, but I thought you were nice and we had a nice conversation. I thought maybe we could be friends, and I brought you the cookies because I was thinking about you.” I start to leave. Problem is, the house is a maze, and I can't find the front door.

“Piper!”

“Where's the door?” I yell back.

“Not tellin' you!”

I turn and see her standing a few feet away. She clutches tightly at her robe, her mouth slack. “I apologize. You surprised me, showin' up here. I had no business being accusatory, though. I'm not used to people being nice, wanna know the truth; people tend to pity me, and it turns my stomach. I hate pity.”

“Trust me, I don't pity you. I know what that's like myself, remember?”

“Come on back to the kitchen. I'm ashamed of being so foolish. It was nice of you to stop by. I do apologize.”

We return to the kitchen, and she sets out the cookies and plates. We both take a cookie as though they'll magically make us feel better, and they do. “My Lord,” Clem says, chewing her macaroon. “These are as delicious as I remember. Who is the woman who bakes these things? I'll tell you what, Piper—we should kidnap her and make her bake on demand.” We continue eating, giddy with sugar. She mentions “that fine ex of yours”
and tells me Spencer and “that girl who snapped him up” no longer attend meetings.

“They're no longer in mourning,” I tell her. “They're expecting.”

“Expectin' what?”

I look at her for a beat.

“No.”

“Yep. She's knocked up.”

I tell her the entire story while we eat and she drinks. When she refills her glass, heavy on champagne again, she asks, “So what gives? You don't strike me as the type to pass up champagne. Way I remember it, you enjoyed your wine.”

“I sure did. A little too much.”

“You quit drinking?”

“I had to. Everything was getting out of control—to put it mildly.”

“Everything is always out of control, honey. That's the one thing you can count on.”

“Yeah, but I was losing control of my life. I joined AA.”

“AA, huh? I never understood why people would want to sit around telling everybody their troubles. Seems like a waste of time, you ask me.”

“It helps to be around people who get what you're going through.”

“Nobody gets what we've been through. It's bullshit if they say they do.”

“We don't get a license on pain because we've lost people we love,” I say, channeling my inner Sherry. “Everybody gets his or her share in one way or another.”

“You try to come here and preach to me, you'd better have a better sermon than that.”

“I'm not trying to preach. No one gets exactly what anyone is going through, but AA is a particular kind of support you can't find anywhere else. I couldn't, anyway.”

She lifts the bottle of champagne. “This is all the support I need.” I watch her make a point of taking a large gulp.

“What you starin' at?”

“You come off like you're strong, but it's okay to be afraid.”

“Who says I'm afraid? What would I be afraid of? I had the worst thing happen. I have nothing to fear anymore.”

“But you are afraid. You're hiding, Clem.” I think of the pictures in the hallway, how active she once was. “You could be doing so much more with your life. What would your husband say?”

She's suddenly cold and steely eyed. “Leave my husband out of this, you hear me?”

I think of how people used Hailey against me, or so I thought, and let it go. “Apologies.”

I wait until I decide on another tactic, my humans-bumbling-through-life theory. I don't feel at all that I can get through to her, but I'm here and may as well try. I think of Deacon Morris. “Life is hard, but we don't have to face it alone, Clem. Just the other day I read about a mother of three who fell asleep behind the wheel of her minivan, sending herself and her kids plunging into the Ohio River. Only one child survived.”

“That's inspiring.”

“I'm trying to say we're not alone in our grief. Mothers have been losing children since the beginning of time, and I'm sure every mother who's ever lost a child feels as if she's the only mother to suffer such tragedy. And she has every right, too. But we're not alone in it. All we can do is live for those who can't be with us, and help one another out as best we can. I mean, do we really know what any of this is about? We abuse one another, die from illness, fight, make love, but this is it. We're just floating through space on a relatively small planet, not knowing what we're doing or why we're here. As far as I can tell, what else is life about except helping one another out?”

She stiffens, then turns and looks toward her backyard. “I know Frank wouldn't be pleased with how I've given up, but it's hard. Eight years ago, when I lost them, it was like everything stopped for me.”

“I know.”

She keeps her face turned as she sniffles and wipes at her tears. “Oh, you,” she admonishes, while grabbing a napkin and tugging at her robe. “You have some nerve coming here and getting me all upset. Look at me blubbering and carrying on.”