The Orange Blossom Special (21 page)

Instead of signing his name, Barone made a drawing of Tessie. Her mouth was the shape of an O and her eyes were popping out of her head like two jack-in-the-boxes. Underneath he wrote, “What will he think of next?”

Tessie received the letter one morning while she was at work. She was no longer the receptionist at Lithographics; after taking a night course in accounting, she was now the head bookkeeper. She had an office, not a very big one, but large enough for a typewriter on a table with wheels and a two-drawer filing cabinet with a lock. That's where she kept the company's bills and records. And behind all that, in a tin Christmas-cookie box, she kept Barone's letters. By now there were so many of them, she kept the older ones behind them in a taped-up manila envelope that said,
mail.
She kept the letters here because keeping them home, near her Jerry Box, seemed a violation of something she couldn't put a name on.

Tessie put the letter back in its envelope, and sat at her desk with it in her hand. As she thought about meeting Fran and what Barone
had said about how she'd want him to meet Jerry if he could, she absentmindedly began tapping the tip of her nose with the envelope.

“Well, someone's in a thoughtful mood today.” It was Glenn Jr., hovering at the door of her office. “It's too nice a day to wear such a dark frown. It can't be that bad now, can it?”

Tessie considered saying, “My boyfriend wants me to meet his semidead wife and I am sitting here waiting for a sign from my completely dead husband about whether or not this would be a good idea. It is ninety-three degrees outside and the humidity is ninety percent. Just getting from here to my car, I'll be drenched in sweat and will feel as if I'm trying to breathe in gum. Yes, things really are that bad.”

Of course she said nothing of the kind.

“Have you ever been to the Fontainebleau Hotel?” she asked.

“I had a drink in the bar once,” he said. “You know, a Shirley Temple. It's quite the place. Why, you planning to go?”

“No,” said Tessie, pressing the envelope to her lips. “I've just heard a lot about it, you know, how Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. perform there, that's all.”

Of course Junior was quick to report this exchange to Senior. “Our lady friend is moving up in the world.” He lowered his voice. “The Fontainebleau.”

It was an unspoken secret that Tessie was seeing the Baron. She never mentioned it, and the Glenns never let on that they felt a begrudging respect for her because of it.

“The big guy is playing a little close to home, don't you think?” said Senior.

“What does he care?” asked Junior. “His wife certainly won't catch him.”

Now they'd crossed a line. Neither of them had ever alluded to Fran or her illness before. They shook their heads and laughed uneasily.

That night, Tessie wrote Jerry the following note:

The man wants me to meet his wife. She can't speak or hear and is almost dead. Yet he says she is alive to him. She's kind of like you that way (no offense). It seems strange and not right, but I don't want to hurt his feelings and it matters a lot to him. I can't imagine how I got into this.

Tessie waited days for a response from Jerry, but none came. She took this as an answer itself: “Too weird. You're on your own.” Thursday morning, when Barone phoned, she cupped her hand over the receiver and said softly, “Yes, I'll do what you asked, but you have to promise me one thing. Promise me that you'll never tell anyone I did this.”

“It's our secret,” he said. “Just mine and my sweet little Dottie's.”

C
RYSTAL AND
D
INAH
had come to like Barone. He called them each Sweetheart, which they assumed he did because he couldn't remember who was who. They nicknamed him Señor Swanky. They liked how he teased Tessie and called her Dottie, though they never knew where that nickname originated. Mostly they liked that in his presence she laughed more and seemed lighter. He never asked them what they were doing in school, or any of the other usual grown-up-to-kid questions. Instead, he talked to them about painting and music and Jai Alai, and about what it was like to live in Paris in the early 1920s. When they giggled or rolled their eyes at one another, he just ignored them and kept the conversation going. One night, the four of them went out to a fancy Italian restaurant. He ordered a bottle of wine and poured a glass for each of the girls. Tessie looked at him as if to say, “Are you sure about this?” “They're going to drink wine anyway,” he said. “They might as well learn about the good stuff
from someone who knows.” The girls nodded, despite their surprise. “And who better to teach us than Señor Swanky,” said Dinah.

“Exactly,” said Crystal, lifting her glass to everyone at the table.

At Christmastime, he gave each girl a charm bracelet with a gold
pelotari
(Jai Alai player) dangling from it. They gave him a beautiful book with thick paper and many colored plates called
The Italian Painters of the Renaissance.
On the frontice page they wrote, “To Señor Swanky, Thank you for bringing some really neat things into our lives. Your friends, The Sweethearts.”

Barone smiled when he read the inscription. His face flushed as he ran his fingers over the vivid color reproduction of Leonardo da Vinci's
Mona Lisa
on the book's cover. Then he reached out and cupped Crystal's and Dinah's chin in each hand: “If I'd ever had children of my own, I would wish they'd be exactly like you.”

“Except for one thing,” said Tessie. “You'd both be boys.”

When Tessie told the girls she was going to Miami Beach for the weekend—“Well, actually, I'll be staying at the Fontainebleau”—they nudged each other.

“The Fontainebleau, only the most famous hotel in the world,” said Crystal.

Dinah picked it up. “The Fontainebleau, home to the richest and most glamorous people in the universe.”

“The Fontainebleau,” shouted Crystal, “the most expensive and the fanciest place on earth.”

“The Fontainebleau, the biggest and . . .”

“Stop already!” Tessie interrupted. “I know about the Fontainebleau. What I don't know is what to wear.” The three of them headed for Tessie's closet.

On Saturday morning, when Tessie got on the Trailways bus in Gainesville, she had on orange toreador pants, red shoes, and a red sleeveless blouse. She wore two Bakelite bracelets that the girls had
picked out for her: one red, the other orange. When she stepped off the bus in Miami, she was so blinded by the noonday sun that she didn't notice Barone standing there in khaki shorts and a Hawaiian print shirt. “You came,” he shouted, and threw his arms around her. She could feel the hairs on his chest scratch against her cheek. “You look perfect.”

Barone carried Tessie's suitcase to his waiting Impala. “What have you got in here, a whole set of china?”

“No, just a lot of stuff.”

They were quiet in the car. Tessie had never been to Barone's house. He lived on Palm Island, one of the most exclusive addresses in Miami Beach. She knew the house would be big and that it would face the bay. She knew there would be paintings by famous artists on the wall and that the furniture would be in impeccable rococo style with lots of scrollwork and silk upholstery.

The house turned out to be bigger than she imagined. There was a fountain in the front surrounded by life-size statues of angels and cherubs. Barone took her hand as he opened the antique oak door, one that he'd purchased in Italy many years before. “Let's sit by the pool and have a glass of wine first.”

“A glass of wine sounds good right now. Where's my suitcase?”

“In the trunk of the car.”

“I'll need it.”

Barone hauled the luggage into the house and left it in the front hall. They went to the kitchen where he poured two glasses of wine. Outside they sat at a wrought-iron table under a striped umbrella. The bay was on one side, the pool on the other. There were two statues of lions sitting on their haunches and staring at the water. Were there too many statues, wondered Tessie, or was this just a Miami Beach thing?

“Are you okay about this?” he asked.

“Umm, I guess,” she said, twisting the bangles on her arm.

“You're sweet to be here. It sounds stranger than it will be, really.”

“No, I think it sounds exactly as strange as it will be.”

They drank their wine in silence, staring at the boats that went by. When they'd emptied their glasses, Barone asked Tessie if she was ready.

“Ready-O,” she said. “Oh, and my suitcase, please.”

They walked down a lemon-colored hallway, Barone dragging Tessie's suitcase behind him.

“This is Fran's wing,” he said. Off to the side were rooms with floral spreads on the beds, and some of Barone's old paintings on the walls. She couldn't tell whether anyone lived in those rooms or if they stood empty. At the end of the hallway they came to a white bedroom filled with sunlight. It was an oval-shaped room with large windows that faced the water. The room was filled with the sound of the waves and the fresh salty smell of the sea. There were photographs on the walls and on the bureaus, hundreds of them, snapshots and portraits of Barone as a much younger man, with a woman with smoky-green eyes and the smile of a seductress.

Not until Barone said, “Tessie, this is Verona. She takes care of Fran,” did Tessie realize they weren't alone in the room. Verona stood and came forward to shake Tessie's hand. “How do you do,” she said. Her handshake was as firm as her voice and her thick rubber-soled shoes were soundless against the white marble floor. “Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

“Me too,” said Tessie.

“How is she this afternoon?” asked Barone.

“We've had a good day,” said Verona. “We had a bath, a shampoo. Got all dressed up for the company, didn't we, Fran?”

Barone stroked the form that lay under the colorful blanket. “Fran, honey, Tessie is here. Fran, this is Tessie. Tessie, this is Fran.”

Tessie didn't know where to look or what to make of Verona's firm tone and Barone's relaxed voice, as though all of them were about to sit down for tea. She stared at the pale and wasted face on the pillow, trying to match its scant features with the voluptuous ones in the photos. She listened to Fran's breathing, labored but steady, and tried to imagine her lifeless form in full. After a long pause, she said, “Hello Fran. It's so nice to meet you.”

Verona smiled and Barone seemed pleased. The two of them sat in chairs on either side of Fran's bed. Tessie sat in a love seat across the room. There was an awkward silence, until Verona said, “I'll leave the three of you alone.” When she was gone, Tessie walked over to the suitcase that Barone had placed in the center of the room. She knelt down beside it, and as she snapped open the metal latches, she began to talk in a slow monotone. “Fran, I've brought some things I want to show you.” Carefully, she took out an object that was wrapped in a towel. “I was married once too. His name was Jerry Lockhart and we were very happy together.”

Barone gripped both sides of his chair and hunched forward so he could see what Tessie was doing.

As she pulled back the layers of terry cloth, he could see the graying cover of what was once a white photo album.

“I've brought my wedding pictures.”

Tessie got up and carried the album to the chair where Verona had been sitting. She sat down and started going through the pictures, tilting the book so that it was within Fran's view. She went through the album page by page. “That's my Uncle Dick,” she said, pointing to a short stubby man with a swatch of a mustache. “He got so drunk that when he tried to dip my Aunt Shirley, he dropped her on the dance floor.” She pointed to a shapely woman in a neat pageboy. “This is my Aunt Shirley, the one in the low-cut—
very
low-cut—dress. She was so angry that she called him a ‘stupid ass'
loud enough for everyone to hear.” Tessie never looked at Barone, never noticed how he sat with his mouth leaning into his clenched fist. She described all the people in the pictures, the food on the table. “We couldn't decide between chicken supreme or roasted lamb, but we ended up with the lamb because we decided lamb was more elegant. Don't you think?” She searched Fran's face for a sign of recognition. When she showed her a picture of the wedding cake—“a little too lemony for my taste”—Barone took Fran's hand. Later he told Tessie that he was sure she squeezed it. When Tessie finished the wedding album, she went back to the suitcase and pulled out some scrapbooks.

“We had a little girl. Her name is Dinah and she's seventeen now.” She showed Fran baby pictures of Dinah, and locks of her hair that she'd pressed between pieces of waxed paper.

“Here's Dinah and her dad at the botanical gardens. Look at those curls. He used to call her his little ‘Boing Boing Girl,' and I guess you can see why.” Her voice was animated. Barone slipped the picture out of its cellophane sleeve and outlined little Dinah's face with his thumb. “It's amazing how much she looks like her father,” he said, looking first at Tessie and then at Fran.

“She's got his IQ and my melancholy nature,” said Tessie.

“She also has your big heart.” He smiled.

For the first time since she received Barone's letter, she understood why she was there.

“Do you want to see our wedding album?” he asked.

“Why not?”

Through the pictures, she met his stern father, his martyred mother, and his four brothers. The just-married young Barone—his smile so sure—had his hand resting on the curve of Fran's lovely bottom as they walked down the aisle. “She's beautiful,” said Tessie.

“A pistol, she was.”

The sun was on the horizon by the time they finally got up to leave. Tessie patted Fran's bony hand, “I'm so glad I finally met you.” Barone kissed his wife's cheek.