The only part of the store I knew at all was the section with herbal tinctures, but Whitney gave me a wave and a smile as I walked in the door, and I felt sufficiently emboldened to explore other aisles. I took off my overcoat as if I actually meant to stay awhile, and wandered toward the alcove with the rice and the beans.
Rice and beans, I knew, were a whole lot better for me than bear claws and doughnuts. And a whole lot less appetizing. In all fairness, of course, I wasn't going to have a bear claw for dinner. I'd probably have another calzone--like the night before--though this time I'd have one with my daughter.
Clearly, my image of rice was simplistic compared to that of the people who shopped here. When I thought of rice, I thought white. Here, however, there were dozens and dozens of kinds of rice, and the distinctions were considerably more varied than color (brown versus white), or the length of the grain. Little markets like this probably didn't make the rice buyer at Grand Union quake in his boots, but it had to affect the guy's self-esteem: In four neat rows of clear plastic buckets, each row eight buckets long, was a universe of rice I'd never imagined existed. I wasn't sure any store really needed five kinds of basmati--white, brown, Indian, organic, and something called Piper and Slim's Hindu Love--but the choice was impressive. And so was the handwriting. Calligraphy on yellow and blue slips of colored paper.
There'd been a time back in the sixth or seventh grade when my parents had joined a natural-foods co-op. Like their revolutionary reading group--Soul on Ice, The Greening of America, biographies of Zelda Fitzgerald as feminist martyr--it hadn't lasted very long. Fortunately.
"Hi, Leland."
I turned, thrilled that Whitney had remembered my name.
"Evening, Whitney."
"How are you doing?"
A heavy sweater tonight, instead of a button-down blouse. But still a big skirt and sandals. It took more than a little snow on the ground to make those feet grow modest.
"Good. Better, maybe."
"Cool. Back for more echinacea?"
"Can't have too much."
"Oh, I bet you can. Need some help here?"
I turned back to the rice. "Um, yeah. Basmati. I was going to get just plain basmati, but now I'm not so sure."
"White?"
"I guess that's what I had in mind."
"Try Piper and Slim's instead."
"The Hindu Love?"
"Cooks up perfect. It's Piper's absolute fave."
"Slim's, too?"
"He practically inhales the stuff."
"Okay. I'm sold," I said, grabbing the scoop and a brown paper lunch bag.
"Did you ever go see my aunt?" she asked.
"As a matter of fact, I did. Last night."
"Cool," she said, her head bobbing with approval. "What did you think?"
"Of her? Or homeopathy?" The two questions slipped out reflexively before I could stop myself.
"Whichever. No, my aunt. Isn't she savage?"
"Awesome."
"Think so?"
"I think so."
"What's the remedy?"
"She hasn't decided."
"The first time she gave me a remedy, I felt like this little baby bird in her hands. Then, when they were gone, I got all tingly. It was the best."
"They?"
"The remedy. The sugar pills."
"Sugar's a remedy?"
She shook her head. "Doubt it. But some of the remedies are dropped onto small sucrose pellets."
"How many...remedies has your aunt given you?"
"Two."
"For the same thing?"
"Oh, no way!"
"Each worked?"
"Sure did."
"Can I ask why you were seeing her?"
"Sure. I broke my arm playing field hockey when I was sixteen, and it hurt like crazy even after the doctor said it was healed. Aunt Carissa took care of the pain completely. Hasn't hurt a bit in four or five years."
"And the other time?"
"Mondo woman's problems. Cramps, bloating. I become a real pain in the ass twelve or thirteen times a year. And so this summer I asked her if there was a remedy."
"And there was?"
"Pulsatilla. I think it's made from windflower."
"And it worked?"
She smiled and opened her arms. "Am I not one sweet girl this very minute? I'm going to get my period Sunday or Monday. If I hadn't seen Carissa in August--you know, professionally--we wouldn't be talking right now because you'd still be staring at the rice and I'd be fuming at the counter. I'd be, like, screaming at you in my mind to hurry the fuck up."
"Are all her patients so satisfied?"
"You bet."
I nodded, and for a long moment I felt her staring at me.
"So," she said abruptly. "When are you going to see her again?"
"She said she'd call me when she has a remedy."
"And you're going to wait?"
"Shouldn't I?"
"I'd call her."
"Really?" I thought I knew what she was hinting at, but I wasn't completely sure. I decided confirmation was worth the possible embarrassment.
"Is your aunt seeing anyone?"
"You mean, other than patients?"
"Yes."
"Not a soul."
The word appeared from my mouth like magic, and I wondered if there was something transforming in the air of the health-food store: "Cool," I said, and I watched her face--already impossibly radiant--brighten some more.
"We need to decorate the house for Christmas this year," Abby informed me as we drove home to East Bartlett in the pickup.
"Didn't we last year?" I asked, hoping I didn't sound defensive. The fact was, I really hadn't done a whole lot in the two Christmases since Elizabeth had died. A tree had been about it, and even that had always been a last-second addition.
"We need lots of decorations."
"Lots?"
"Stuff on the windows. And stuff on the tables. And stuff in bowls."
"Stuff in bowls?"
"It's a project," she said. Project was the word Kelly McDonough, the woman who ran Abby's day care, used for everything the kids did with glue sticks and colored paper. Sometimes the arts-and-crafts efforts were ingenious: puppets made from Popsicle sticks, poker chips, and small scraps of fabric. And sometimes they were simply insane: The pretend stained-glass windows they'd made by pressing grape jelly and lemonade drink mix between thin strips of clear plastic had looked beautiful for a day, but had gone bad pretty fast. And since they'd made the mock windows in July, some parents suspected the "project" was actually a do-it-yourself ant farm. The thing was a magnet for bugs.
"Oh, I see," I said.
"It'll be ready tomorrow."
"Does it have a name?"
"Wellllllll, it's got lots of pinecones and leaves and stuff. And cotton balls."
"For snow?"
"Uh-huh. And Daddy?"
"Yes, sweetheart?"
"Can we have stockings this year?"
"Sure."
She nodded, satisfied, and stretched her leg in her booster seat, using the toe of her snow boot to push an audiocassette into the truck's tape player. I reached over and turned up the volume, and we listened to the story of Madeline for the last few minutes of our drive home.
I almost called Carissa the moment I'd put Abby to bed Thursday night, going so far as to stare at her name in the residential part of the phone book. But I couldn't bring myself to bother her at nine o'clock at her house--or, worse, not bother her because she actually had a life and was out for the night.
I considered leaving a message on her machine at her office, but decided against the idea because she'd told me she would call when she was ready, and that might take a couple of days.
And I wondered if she even had an answering machine in the Octagon. Perhaps she had an answering service instead. Maybe her phone clicked over to a live human being who answered calls for a living, and that person beeped Carissa when there was a patient in crisis:
Hi, Carissa, this is your service. The young lady who took foxglove this afternoon says she's having heart palpitations. She thinks she may have taken too much.
Even if there wasn't such a thing as a homeopathic emergency, perhaps she needed a service as a psychologist. Or was it a psychiatrist? I couldn't remember. She'd said she was a licensed something, and so maybe she still saw patients as a shrink.
I could call and find out. I could call and see if I got an answering machine or a service. And then hang up.
No, I couldn't do that. After all, I'd probably get an answering machine, and no single woman wanted to press a button to retrieve her messages and find a hang-up recorded. Not even in Vermont. Especially in Vermont.
And so if I wanted to call her, I'd have to wait till tomorrow. I'd have to wait to call her during the day.
Before changing into my pajamas, I went out to the pickup to unpack the long strips of wood that would form a railing at the church Saturday afternoon. The materials felt good in my hands, and the idea of building something excited me. Especially something for the church: That little congregation had helped me to retain a semblance of sanity in the months after Elizabeth died.
When the screws and brackets and wood were tucked in the barn, I went back inside, unusually tired for nine-thirty at night. As I brushed my teeth, I remembered why: I'd made it through the day without coffee. Whole damn day, nine to five, and all those hours on either side.
Granted, it had taken a couple of Advil mid-morning and a third one just after lunch to silence the giant rotary drill that was pounding through my skull in search of water. But at some point that afternoon, the caffeine-withdrawal ache in my brain had gone away and I'd completely forgotten that I wanted a cup of coffee.
Son of a bitch, I thought, there's hope for me yet. Tonight I am going to sleep like a baby.
I couldn't remember any details of the dream, I just knew it had awakened me. No, I didn't know even that. For all I knew, it was the sore throat that had caused me to open my eyes.
There were no Halls upstairs, that was guaranteed. So, there would be no falling back to sleep without an excursion downstairs. I kicked off the sheets and walked through the house without turning on a light. Past the bedroom in which my daughter was sleeping soundly. Past the guest room still dominated by a cardboard mover's wardrobe full of Elizabeth's clothes, and the smaller boxes with the scarves and purses and shoes I planned to offer Abby as she grew up. Down the stairs that descended sixteen steps, through the thin hallway that led to the kitchen, and then into the old house's lone bathroom.
I smacked my tongue against my teeth after zapping my throat with Chloraseptic.