The Carriage House (9 page)

He looked up quickly, then returned to his work. “Oh?”

“Yeah. He’s been saying it all morning.”

“That happens sometimes after a stroke. Damage to the olfactory bulb.”

“Is it permanent?”

He zipped up the medical bag. “Yes, it is. I’m sorry, Izzy.”

“He seems different.”

“That’s a big loss. Scent. It’s connected to memory.”

“Yes.”

“Look, Isabelle,” he said, reaching the limit of his sympathy, “here’s a prescription for a painkiller Lucy can take. She’ll need it for a couple of days. After that, it might itch a bit. That’s fine. Try not to let her touch the stitches. You can make an appointment with her doctor to get them out in a week or so.”

“Okay.” She watched him preparing to leave. He would go home to Abby and his wife. They would make lunch, and they would sit together as a family. It was all so unfair that it broke Isabelle’s unfeeling heart. “Jack?” she said. He turned around. She fumbled for her switch, trying to brighten, to soften her rock-hard face. “Jack, this carriage house thing is killing him. Do you think you could help? We just need one person to agree to a delay.”

He glanced over his shoulder toward where his fortunate life was waiting for him to return. “I’m not sure. There’s a rodent problem. It’s unhealthy.”

“A few more days won’t hurt,” she said, loathing the tone in her voice. “There’ve been mice in there for years. A few more days won’t hurt.” Having waded in, she let the water rise up around her head. “I can’t leave him like this. After all these years and the kind of daughter I’ve been.” She focused on her sneakers; it was impossible to look at him, having said this to his face.

He was quiet for a long time. “I’ll see,” he said, and that was all.

When he was gone, she lay down next to Lucy and pressed her face against Lucy’s warm cheek. It smelled like medicine and grass. “I’m sorry, Lucy-bug,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t more careful.”

Chapter 8

T
hey didn’t get out to canvass the neighborhood until late afternoon. First there were the bulldozers, then the police, then Lucy’s accident, and afterward Elizabeth had to be called at the studio. It took several hours for the accusations to build, and by the time Adelia called them for canvassing, it was clear that neither Isabelle nor Elizabeth was in a diplomatic frame of mind. Adelia was intensely agitated; she had counted on more Adairs than only Diana to help win over the neighbors.

“Don’t worry, Adelia,” Diana said. They were waiting in the foyer, and Adelia’s face was pinched with anxiety. Diana attempted to sound soothing. “We don’t need them to come. We can cover the street on our own.”

Adelia didn’t answer right away. She looked past Diana, up the empty stairs, hoping against hope that Elizabeth might appear. Diana could understand the hesitation; over the past few years, she had lost her confidence in social situations. Around new acquaintances, the shift in her personality was fine. But for people who had known her when she was young, the difference was disappointing. She felt it and instinctively became apologetic for having lost touch with the personality they’d liked, embarrassed about presenting them with the new, less impressive incarnation of Diana Adair. This was why Adelia had hoped to accompany Diana on the neighborhood rounds, and because of it, she was nervous about the idea of Di meeting neighbors on her own.

“I didn’t have the chance to make my cookies,” Adelia murmured, still searching the stairs for the apparition of a more sociable sister.

“It’s fine, Adelia. The cookies don’t matter.”

Adelia snapped into focus on Diana. Elizabeth was not going to appear, the cookies would never get baked, and Diana would have to suffice. Her mouth set in a grim line, Adelia accepted these setbacks bravely, and the two of them—doomed little cadre—headed down the driveway to launch the neighborhood initiative. Green spinners were parachuting down from the June trees, and Adelia assumed a military posture as she surveyed the cul-de-sac.

“You’ll go right,” she said. “The Welds, Suzanne Legg, and Anita Schmidt. Or Arthur. Obviously, they’re the most important.”

Diana felt her face freeze. “Could I go left?” she asked.

“I’d rather you went right. I’m afraid I’ve alienated Anita.”

Diana’s stomach tightened. This was all wrong. She couldn’t see Arthur this way. Adelia had asked her to dress up for the occasion, but in the hubbub of Lucy’s accident, she’d forgotten. Now, the idea of seeing him, wearing these jeans, pleading for the carriage house, was nearly unbearable.

Adelia watched her, lips tightening. “Oh, Diana, if it’s going to cause you to freeze, I suppose it’s best if you go left.”

“Okay,” Diana said. “I’ll go left.” She watched while Adelia marched toward Anita’s house, then she turned and embarked on her route. Yusuf Uzmani hadn’t gotten home from work. Diana left him a note on stationery she’d unearthed from a drawer in her middle-school desk. It was bordered with pink flowers and bluebirds, and using it made her feel like a child, but it was the best she’d been able to come up with. “Dear Mr. Uzmani,” she wrote with a felt-tipped pen she’d used when drawing up plans to run for student council. “I stopped by to talk to you about my family’s carriage house. I look forward to meeting you, and welcoming you to the neighborhood, very soon. Yours, Diana Adair.”

Her next stop was Sheldon Ball’s house, white-pillared and imposing on the corner. Sheldon, with whom she played tennis when she was a teenager, grinned when he opened the door. He looked as though he might hug her, then restrained himself and invited her into the living room. His movements were so jumpy that Diana worried he might upset one of the strange dripping vases that his mother had kept on the sideboards. He was wearing the same tiny tennis shorts that he’d always worn when they played league together, revealing legs that were as muscled as an acrobat’s. He still walked on the balls of his feet. The only difference between Sheldon Ball now and Sheldon Ball then was that his bald spot was wider in diameter.

“Take a seat!” he told her. He remained standing, shifting from one foot to the other, beaming intensely.

Diana settled onto the plastic-lined couch. It crinkled as she moved. There was still that flock of pink plastic flamingos in the back of the room. Those birds, the product of Sheldon’s mother’s eccentric sense of humor, had grown eerie under his stewardship.

“Sorry about the couch,” he said. “Mom used to keep it covered in plastic, and I haven’t changed it since she passed.” His face dropped, and he stopped shifting. Motion coiled in his muscles. After a minute he brightened again, and it was a relief to watch the coiled motion spring outward. “It’s great to see you, Di. I remember playing with you like it was yesterday!”

For Diana it was a lifetime ago. She only vaguely remembered his style of play and could not for the life of her recollect how she felt when they walked home from the courts. She could remember Sheldon’s mother saying at one point that she’d never seen Sheldon so happy as when Diana called for a match. Sheldon had been in his midthirties at the time. He’d been living at home since returning from college. Every day he walked to the club to play his acrobatic, heavy-handed tennis. He didn’t seem to relate well to other adults; his laugh was the kind of laugh that caused everyone to fall silent around him.

“Do you remember men’s league?” he asked. “With Bobby Flaherty and Ted Cheshire?”

Diana smiled automatically. She remembered, but the memories were so distant that they barely registered in the emotional centers of her brain. She was distracted by her diplomatic task, by the pink flamingos and the slick plastic crinkling beneath her.

“Hey, Sheldon?” she said. “I wanted to ask you about the carriage house.”

He stiffened.

“I’m sure you know my dad just had a stroke. He’ll be fine, I think, but he’s struggling. He can’t smell things. We think the carriage house might make a difference. If we could save it.”

Sheldon wandered over to the flamingos. He stood in their midst, bald spot gleaming, a Floridian Saint Francis.

“I don’t know,” he said. He put his hands on his hips and leaned to the left. “I just don’t know. I have to talk to Jack Weld. He’s my partner in summer league. I know he’s spent a lot of time on this.”

“We’re just asking for a little more time. We’ll get it off her property and fix it up so there’s no more rodent problem.”

“Yes, but I need to talk to Jack.”

“Couldn’t you just do me this favor?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t heard from you in years. You never once called me to play when you were back on vacation.”

I was thirteen,
Diana wanted to say.
You were thirty-five.
“I’m sorry, Sheldon,” she said.

“I wouldn’t have expected that, you know? I trusted you.”

He was standing there with his hands on his hips, surrounded by his mother’s undiscarded things, burdened and resentful. “I’m sorry, Sheldon,” Diana said, and she meant it. “The truth is that it’s been hard to come back. I compare myself to the way I used to be.”

“I would have understood,” he said, looking down at one of the flamingos so that the circle of his bald spot pointed directly toward Diana. “I would have understood that.”

His racket bag was propped in the corner by the front door. There was a coatrack with his sweaters and his coats; at its top, like a disoriented tropical bird, was a red knit hat with an enormous pom-pom. Diana felt tired. There was nothing else she could say, so she stood to go. “Maybe this time we could play,” she said. “I’m home for a while. I’m not as good as I was, but I’d love to play sometime if you’d like.”

He crossed his hands over his chest, unwilling to give in so soon.

“I have to go, Sheldon. I’m sorry.”

Once Diana was outside, she tried not to turn around until she reached the Cheshire house. Mrs. Cheshire came to the door in a housedress. Her hair was molded into a stiff salon updo, as it always had been in Diana’s youth, the same unnatural chestnut brown.

“Di, sweetie!” she said. “Come on in.”

Diana shook her head. “No, I don’t want to bother you. I just have a quick question.” Mrs. Cheshire’s heavily lipsticked smile froze at half-mast. A defensive smile, metallic and well fortified. Diana knew that Mrs. Cheshire took a moral stance against Adelia. She understood that, from the perspective of the neighbors, the friendship with William seemed inappropriate. Still, she couldn’t help but think that these women’s principles were self-serving, kept for the pleasure of keeping principles rather than out of concern for Margaux’s well-being. And Diana felt for Adelia. Once, Adelia caught Diana in the kitchen and told her, “You know I’d never try to take the place of your mother.” It was irritating but also sad. Of course Adelia would never take the place of a mother. That was terribly obvious. But Adelia was
there
. When she walked in the front door, you could feel the warmth of her arrival from wherever you happened to be in the house.

“Mrs. Cheshire,” Diana said, “I know that things have been difficult between our families recently. But my dad thinks of your husband as one of his good friends.”

“Yes, dear, of course,” Mrs. Cheshire said. Her lipstick resumed its smile formation.

“And I know you were Mom’s best friend on the street,” Diana lied. Margaux never had a best friend on the street. When Diana was little, Margaux told stories about the farm where she grew up, and about the antiques shop she helped her mother run; a boy from the neighborhood had helped them lift the heavier furniture. He was a friend. Margaux was wistful about such friends of her youth, but she resisted William’s attempts to guide her into relationships with the women of Little Lane. The more enthusiastic he became about a potential friend, the more Margaux resisted. She never felt comfortable with those women; dinner parties, his favorite events of the week, were always painful for her. Once, while grocery shopping, Diana and her mother hid behind a pillar of bananas when they noticed that Beebee Cheshire and Elaine Weld had entered the store. They stayed there for twenty minutes, until the women had finished their shopping, watching through yellow foliage as Beebee and Elaine loaded up their wagons and drove out of the parking lot. When they stood up, Margaux brushed off her skirt as though nothing had happened. “We should get Nilla wafers,” she said. Diana felt as close to her mother then as she ever had in her life.

“Your mother was the most darling woman,” Mrs. Cheshire was saying. Her lipstick pursed, approximating sympathy. “I feel just awful for her. It must be difficult, I’d imagine, to have Adelia in the house so much. I’m not sure I’d understand if I were in her place.”

Mrs. Cheshire was close enough that Diana could smell a combination of hair spray and powder. She wanted to look away but warned herself to maintain eye contact. “It’s hard to know,” she said. “She doesn’t seem to notice. Right now it’s Dad who’s really struggling, and Adelia helps him.” Diana felt Mrs. Cheshire scrutinizing her, preparing to share notes with the neighborhood if she failed to produce some sign of daughterly distress. For the sake of self-preservation, Diana was tempted to gratify her, but in the end she cared about Adelia too much. She steeled herself to continue. “Dad hasn’t been the same since the stroke,” she said. “If we could save the carriage house for him for a few more weeks, I know it would help.”

Mrs. Cheshire stiffened, her sympathies rebuffed. “I’ll have to talk to my husband,” she said. “He understands the politics of the neighborhood better than I do. I’ve always been a dunce about these things. But I hope we can help. Anything for your mother. She was a darling when we first moved in.” The taut smile returned, and Beebee Cheshire and Diana faced each other at the threshold, neighborly and removed, until Diana waved and moved on with her route.

When she returned to the house, Adelia met her on the front stoop. “Did you get anyone?” she asked.

“Maybe the Cheshires. She said she’d talk to her husband.”

“I knew you could get them! She’ll want to do it for the sake of your mom.” Adelia clapped her hands in front of her chest. She looked like a child preparing to pray. “So maybe the Cheshires,” she breathed. “And not only them, Diana. Arthur Schmidt has come to our rescue. Can you believe it? He agreed to a stay on the demolition. He was apologetic about the police. He understood everything. He was
wonderful.
”

Diana watched the last spinners falling slowly down through the evening air. “So if the Schmidts agree, and maybe the Cheshires, that’s enough for a stay?”

“It’s enough!” Adelia said, then caught herself. “Di, listen. In my excitement, I asked him to dinner.”

“Who?”

“Arthur. He was so wonderful that I asked him to have dinner with us.”

“What did he say?”

“He asked if all of you were home. I said you were, but that you would have to stay in, to take care of Lucy.” Adelia paused, clearly waiting for a reaction; Diana’s throat was tightening, but she tried to maintain an easy expression. “I only thought,” Adelia continued, “after your reaction this morning, I shouldn’t put you in a position you couldn’t get out of.”

“That’s fine,” Diana said. “That’s what I’d prefer.”

“I actually suggested he come over for dinner, so that you could come and go, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He didn’t want to inconvenience us, with Lucy upstairs and your father just back from the hospital. I told him we’d take him out to Traviata.”

The tightness in her throat was replaced with dull understanding. After all this time, Arthur wanted to avoid her. He wanted to go out to dinner so he could avoid seeing her at the house.

“You don’t mind, Di?” Adelia was asking. “You’ll take care of Lucy? Otherwise Elizabeth could stay home, or Isabelle. It’s completely up to you.”

“No, that’s perfect,” Diana said. “That’s perfect, Adelia. Let’s leave things just as they are.”

 • • • 

By the appointed time for dinner with Arthur, the atmosphere in the house on Little Lane had elevated to a frenzy. Diana realized they’d been isolated a long time, more deeply than she’d understood. They’d existed alone, deep in their sense of superiority. The prospect of one dinner out with Arthur Schmidt sent them into paroxysms of preparatory activity. In the kitchen, Adelia rehearsed a speech about how grateful their family would be for the chance to remove the carriage house. William came downstairs in a tie no one had seen before—dusty brown crepe with silver bullet-point dots—and Adelia sent Diana to find him a new one. Elizabeth had arrived an hour early from the house on Wimberlyn Street, children in tow, jangling with bangle bracelets and hoop earrings; now she was running down the stairs in search of a missing hair clip. Diana followed her with a red and blue alternative for William. In the living room, Isabelle, shimmering in a purple dress that made her look like an Italian movie star, looked up from the magazine she was reading and examined the tie. “No,” she said. “He won’t look like himself.” Diana turned to go back upstairs and saw that Margaux had come down. She was standing on the landing, holding her purse in one hand.