The Late Child (34 page)

When Harmony asked him why—was it something she did, or something she didn't do?—Ross very sweetly took all the blame. He explained that it was probably genetic. In his family, situations that required continuing along, day after day in a responsible pattern, just didn't survive. In his family, work came first, as Ross put it. He couldn't afford to get so tired from watching cartoons with Pepper that he couldn't get the spots on the right performer at the right time. Mr. Sinatra or Elvis or Liberace needed to know that whoever was working the spots was reliable—Harmony was a performer herself, she understood the requirements for being a light man for the big floor shows at the casinos. As a top showgirl for many years the spots had often been on her. So when Ross went up the street to the Sandy Scenes, Harmony tried to be understanding. Mainly she got sad about it on Saturday mornings, when there was no Daddy there to watch cartoons with Pepper or help her color in her coloring books.

Still, Ross didn't completely desert Pepper—once he sent her a stuffed bunny, and another time, a leather giraffe. Even though he had stopped being there on Saturday mornings, at least he was a better father than Webb, who wasn't there on
any
mornings to watch cartoons with Eddie, or do anything else for Eddie, either. Ross was an occasional father, but Webb was a could-have-cared-less father, which was why Harmony was less sympathetic when Webb showed up with problems. Webb had even made overtures, if he happened to run into Harmony in the casino or somewhere; they were just automatic overtures, Webb didn't
know what else to do if he encountered a woman he had slept with in a casino.

Eddie wasn't like Pepper, though. Eddie didn't keep his feelings to himself; he told anybody he happened to meet what his feelings were. He told Sheba, he told the President, he told the cops at La Guardia Airport. Having no father to speak of hadn't kept him from being a little boy it was easy to get along with. Eddie went on TV, and had conversations with the First Lady; Pepper picked up boys and slept with them but kept her feelings to herself.

Harmony knew she could look down the tunnel of time forever and not figure out why her children were so different. Looking at the lovely picture of Pepper at Laurie's bedside wasn't a wrong thing to do, though. The picture showed how graceful Pepper had been, how she sort of ducked her chin when she faced into the camera. She had had grace and beauty—not everyone could say that, Pat for example. Pat was dumpy and accident-prone. Neddie was bony and weird; the business about no foods that began with
k
was way out in left field. She herself had never been graceful, in the way that Pepper was.

Harmony had the thought, looking at Pepper's picture, that maybe grace of body such as Pepper had was as good as love. Maybe to have it even for a few years was as good as living a long time. When she looked at the picture, looked and looked at it, her feelings began to grow still. For most of the trip east they hadn't been still at all. They heaved and shook and dripped, like clothes in a washing machine. She couldn't turn off the washing machine, either; she
was
the washing machine. At times on the trip she thought the heaving would go on until she became too exhausted to function; she had been afraid they would have to put her in a hospital somewhere, and leave her.

It was such a relief just to feel a little calm again, calm enough that she could maybe do little tasks for her son—choose his clothes, or make him a waffle—that she didn't want to do anything that might put the calming at risk. What helped was the sense she had that she could put herself in Laurie's hands, for a
time. She was really too weak to do anything
but
put herself in Laurie's hands.

Just before Eddie left to do the TV shows, Laurie had brought him into the bedroom for a minute. He was dressed in jeans, with a little red snap-on bow tie at his collar.

“Eddie, I never saw that bow tie before,” Harmony said, surprised at how spiffy he looked.

“No, you haven't, because Sheba bought it for me yesterday, from a person on the street,” Eddie said. “The person had bow ties
and
watches but Sheba didn't buy me a watch.”

“Maybe I'll buy you the watch,” Laurie said. “Can you tell time?”

“I can tell time and I can count to fourteen,” Eddie assured her. “We're going to the TV places now, Mom. Sheba gave Iggy a bath and now he's clean.”

“I'll watch you on TV,” Harmony assured him. “Mind Sheba and Otis and mind your aunts, while you're gone.”

Eddie considered that order.

“Well, I'll mind Sheba and Otis and I'll mind Omar but I won't mind my aunts and I won't mind Abdul or Salah.”

“Uh-oh,” Laurie said. “Why won't you mind your aunts?”

“Because they don't believe that whales eat plankton,” Eddie said. “They think the whale ate Jonah, and the whale did
not
eat Jonah, so if they believe something stupid like that then I don't have to mind them.”

“Okay then, why won't you mind Abdul and Salah?” Laurie asked.

“Because they're silly, that's why,” Eddie said. “I might mind G., but G. does not speak.”

“That's true, G.'s the strong silent type,” Laurie said.

“Please don't forget to call Mrs. President, Mom,” Eddie said. “She has to plan her trip to China and she has to plan it soon.”

“Eddie, I'm just so tired,” Harmony said. “Will you be very disappointed if we don't go see the President and the First Lady?”

Eddie pursed his lips and got a faraway look in his eye. It was a look he often got when he was not especially pleased with the direction events were taking.

“Well, I won't be very disappointed, but the President and Mrs. President will be sad,” Eddie said. “They wanted to see me and they wanted to meet Iggy.”

“Eddie, you can't please everyone,” Laurie said.

“Well,” Eddie said. “Why can't you please everyone?”

“Because it's too tiring,” Laurie said—she was not sure it was exactly an answer Eddie would accept.

“But you could nap on the bus,” Eddie pointed out. “You could
nap
all the way to the White House. And there's a big lawn and Iggy could run around on it and enjoy the grass.

“That wouldn't be very tiring,” he added.

“Well, but there's your aunts, and all the rest of us to deal with,” Laurie said.

“It will make them sad,” Eddie insisted. “I
know
it will make them very sad.”

“Too bad, they'll get over it,” Laurie said.

“I don't like your words today,” Eddie said, but he said it mildly, as if he was not disposed to fight with Laurie, just then.

“Well, I don't want to go see the President just now, so there,” Laurie said.

“‘So there' is not a very nice word,” Eddie commented. “See you in the funny papers.”

“Eddie, who told you that?” Harmony asked. “I haven't heard that in years.”

“Aunt Neddie,” Eddie said, just before Laurie carried him out the door.

In the afternoon Laurie went down to a little deli a half block away and brought Harmony some wonderful vegetable soup. She also brought some cheese, and some very thin salami that was better than any salami Harmony had ever had. Laurie also got some fresh rolls from the bakery next to the deli; she and Harmony sat at the plain wooden table in Laurie's kitchen, looking down on East Ninth Street, while they ate.

Harmony didn't think she would be able to eat—since the moment she read Laurie's letter she had had no appetite; eating was something she was out of practice at. It was almost as if food belonged to a different period of her life; as if eating with pleasure was something you surrendered for good, once you had lost a child.

But the first spoonful of the vegetable soup was so delicious that Harmony ended up eating most of the soup, three rolls, many slices of the thinly sliced salami, and some very good cheddar cheese.

While she was eating, Laurie made her tea, and put a lot of honey in it.

“I believe in honey,” Laurie said. “Sometimes I just eat it by the spoonful. If I buy local honey—it has really good antibodies in it.”

Harmony had never been too clear about antibodies—she knew good ones were supposed to be in mother's milk and that was one reason it was good to breast-feed, if you could. She had no problem breast-feeding Pepper but had had to stop fairly soon with Eddie due to the medications she had to take because of the complications. Harmony liked the honey, even if she didn't know what antibodies were.

Thanks to the tea, and the soup, and the salami, she began to feel better. She liked looking out of Laurie's window and seeing the New Yorkers walking along East Ninth Street. She liked the
way the tea smelled—smelling it was almost as good as sipping it. She liked Laurie's kitchen: there were still pictures of Pepper stuck everywhere, on the refrigerator door and the doors of Laurie's cabinets. A nice one of Pepper on a boat, in white jeans and a blue sweater, stood on the windowsill. Harmony thought it was brave of Laurie, to keep pictures of Pepper all around the kitchen and in the bedroom.

“People don't leave your life until you stop thinking about them,” Laurie said, noticing that Harmony kept looking at the pictures. “I'll never stop thinking of Pepper and remembering the things we did. I know that time will sort of change it and there'll be gaps when I'm not thinking about her every five minutes, like I do now. But Pepper and I had too much—she'll never be out of my life entirely.”

There was a trembling in Laurie's voice when she said Pepper would never be out of her life—a trembling and a defiance, too. Laurie was so bound up with what she felt for Pepper that she was defying life to do anything to change the feeling. It made Harmony a little sad. It was brave of Laurie, to pit herself against life like that, but it was also foolish. Life always won those contests—at least it always had when Harmony had pitted herself against it by trying to hold on to some feeling for someone who was gone. The big example was Didier, her first love and her best love, the man who made her appreciate herself for the first time. She had wanted to go on loving Didier forever, but Didier had died when she was only eighteen, and forever had gone on too long. She still loved his memory, though, despite many intervening guys. None of the intervening guys were Didier's equal—they didn't even come close—but the years did pass: the deep feeling she had had for Didier was no protection from the years. Probably there had just been too many years.

Harmony couldn't tell that to Laurie, though—couldn't try to warn her that there would be too many years for Laurie too. It made her feel guilty, that she could offer no comfort to Laurie—it was just that what she knew about such things wasn't comforting.

“I know you think that's too foolish, that I'll forget her and get somebody else,” Laurie said. “I guess it's in the cards that I will get someone else, but it won't happen for a long time and whoever it is won't replace Pepper.”

“Laurie, could we take a walk?” Harmony asked.

“Sure, but let me ask you, are you scared of what you might say if we talk about Pepper?” Laurie asked. “Don't be scared. If there's something you want to ask, just ask.”

“Did she know the person who gave her AIDS?” Harmony asked.

“Most likely it was a guy named Terry, he's dead now too,” Laurie said. “But that's just a guess.”

“I don't really have many questions,” Harmony said. “She was a lucky girl, in some ways.”

“Why do you say that?” Laurie asked, looking at Harmony in some surprise.

“Because she had you, and you were devoted to her,” Harmony said. “Wild as she was, she was lucky to have someone nice devoted to her.”

“I have to admit I'm curious about Mel,” Laurie said. “Was Pepper actually married to him?”

“Yes, he was very nice to her—he died,” Harmony said.

“It's hard for me to imagine Pepper married,” Laurie said. “I'm the married type, but Pepper wasn't.”

“Mel was devoted to her,” Harmony said. She was not really anxious to talk about Mel. For one thing, Laurie might be jealous—but that wasn't the main reason she didn't want to talk about Mel. The main reason was that she thought Pepper had treated him disgracefully. It had taken Mel a year and a half to die and Pepper had never come to see him once. Mel could say all he wanted to about loving people for their flaws, it still didn't seem right. Mel had given her his kindness; he had even given her his name. A visit as he died would have meant a lot to him, Harmony knew. She didn't want to mention it to Laurie, if she didn't have to.

“Are you sure you want to walk?” Laurie asked.

In truth Harmony didn't want to, much. But she had become a little afraid of talking to Laurie. There was too much pain floating around just beneath the surface—too much for both of them. It kept seeping through the cracks, into their conversation—Harmony grew fearful that it would do more than seep, which is why she agreed to the walk.

It was raining a little. Harmony borrowed an old poncho from Laurie, and they set out. Pretty soon the walk surprised her, in the way that the lunch had—the walk proved a lot more enjoyable than she had expected it to be. They drifted down Lower Broadway and cut across into some little side streets, just walking in the drizzle, now and then stopping to look in a shop window. Laurie had an interest in antiques. Harmony liked them too, but she had no money to buy them with and no home to put them in; she couldn't let herself get too involved with possessions, much less with costly antiques; she had to be careful with her money. After all, Eddie would be needing new school clothes, pretty soon.

“Let's ride the subway uptown and back downtown,” Laurie suggested. Harmony was a little fearful; her impression was that the subways were dangerous—but Laurie marched her right down the steps and through a turnstile and into a subway car. Soon they were rattling along, under New York City. Harmony had no idea where she was going; she was just grateful that no one on a particular subway car looked like a murderer or anything.