“I’m okay with sea-foam green. Did she have any opinion on the diameter of the butt bow?”
“No, but you should sound her out tonight. . . . I’ll expect a report ASAP.”
Gabby still wasn’t home. Dora could call, but what would she say? “Come home, the house is too big without Mimi in it”? Dora wasn’t a baby anymore. Mimi might not have thought so, but Dora was feeling depressingly adult.
She locked the front door but left the porch and hall lights on, and went upstairs.
Her laptop was on the bedside table, the power-cycle light glowing and dimming like a slow wink, or a buoy beacon.
There was only one email from Gary this time. The subject line was
GOOD NEWS
. Dora opened it, braced for another ant update.
Hey Dor-belle,
I heard from a friend of mine in the MA-LA program that you were accepted (pending graduation and the interview, which, between you and me and my friend there, no one has ever failed except a guy who had a horrible halitosis problem). Why didn’t you tell me you were thinking about graduating early? That is super-fantastic good news, in more ways than one. . . .
We all miss you here, some of us more than others. Paul is totally slacking off, you need to crack the whip over him when you get back ( . . . and let me watch, mmm, Dora with a whip).
PS An entire box of butter pats from the dairy melted together and we had to throw them out. I got a new order sheet but they don’t carry that brand anymore (because of the melting). There are ten other brands/styles/models/flavors of butter. How to choose? What to do?
Dora felt ill, like she’d bitten into a chocolate from a fancy box only to find it full of grit. She deleted the email, closed the laptop, and opened the closet doors.
There were three black dresses in Dora’s closet. One was a long black sheath, which practically came with a pocket for some
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
cigarette holder. That wouldn’t do. One was black chiffon with ruffles around the neck—a look Gabby would call “flirty widow.” The last was the dress Dora knew she would have to wear: black crêpe, probably late 1930s, with a round collar edged in soutache. It buttoned from just below the waist to the neck, and had bracelet-length dolman sleeves, two drapey flapped pockets, and a thin patent-leather belt. It wasn’t what Dora would have chosen, but it was what Mimi had chosen for her.
Dora dug out the right underwear and a pair of black calf pumps, and steeled herself to try it on. If it didn’t fit, she could wear something else. There were some gray dresses in the closet, and a few dark brown. Mimi wouldn’t fault her if the black dress didn’t fit.
Of course it fit. The combination of the high collar and the long skirt made Dora look as much like an orphan as she felt. She shuddered and turned away from the mirror. As she took it off, she felt a crackle in the pocket—another secret life.
When she put me on, I almost pulled away. I’d never felt such strong emotion. And it wasn’t sorrow—I’d been prepared for sorrow, when you’re a black dress you learn pretty early that no one wears you to ride the Ferris wheel at the state fair. It wasn’t despair, or depression, or hopelessness—all those would have seemed, if not desirable, understandable. No, what I felt was anger.
It was a deep anger, and yet she felt hollow, light, like a reed. The angrier she got, the hollower she felt, until I thought she would lift right up into the sky, a zeppelin of pure rage. But I’m ahead of myself here.
She put me on and buttoned each button like she was thrusting a knife into someone. She ran a comb through her hair like a scythe; her lipstick (not too red, she was so pale) put on like battle paint. A handkerchief, a key, a folded bill—that was all she asked my pockets to hold. As she stood at the mirror, she plucked another handkerchief off the dresser. One for each pocket. She wore no hat, although there was one on the bed (bad luck!), with a black veil. Her shoes clicked in march time down the hall.
In the car she held herself so stiffly that every turn and stop made her lurch. Her shoulders were pushed back; her back was straight and tall. She kept her hands folded in her lap. No one spoke to her, and she spoke to no one.
Clumps of people clustered around the door to the church; some nodded, some looked as if they would speak, until they met her eyes. Then they turned away. An usher came and took her by the arm, led her down the aisle to the front pew. There was an older woman there, on her knees already, saying a rosary. She didn’t genuflect or kneel as we entered the pew, but sat right back.
To tell you the truth, I didn’t follow the service. She didn’t, either. She was focused on breathing, on sitting still. I could feel how much she wanted to get up and walk out—run out, if she could. She looked at the rose window above the altar; I thought I could feel her eyes resting on each color of glass in turn, that’s how attuned I was to her. It wasn’t as if she was wearing me, it was as if she was being me. A harsh black dress for a harsh black day.
At one point everything stopped. There was a pause, and I realized it was directed at her. She stood up slowly, like a black rose blooming. She moved towards the pulpit smoothly, like a shadow passing.
The hush that fell in the congregation was absolute.
“The best thing about Jimmy was that he loved everybody. The worst thing about Jimmy was that he loved me, too. Jimmy shouldn’t have loved anyone in particular; he knew better than anyone what his life was like, and the dangers he ran, and that the odds were five out of seven that he wasn’t going to come home one Saturday morning.
“Well, one Saturday morning came, and Jimmy didn’t. He’s never coming home again, and, please, for the love of God, no one tell me that he’s in the best home he’s ever known, or I will strike you down on the spot with one blow. Mine was the best home he’d ever known, with hot meals and good talk and his chair always before the fire.
“He shouldn’t have had that home, and he shouldn’t have had me, and he knew that, every minute he had both, grinning. And he stole all the pleasure he could out of everything he shouldn’t have had, just like he stole smiles from each of you, even at his worst.
“I know some’ll say Jimmy was taken before his time, but that’s not true. Jimmy had all his time, and some of mine. But if there were years left to Jimmy that he should have had, I hope they come to me as his widow, because I need all my threescore and ten and then some to work on forgiving James Bartholomew O’Loughlin before I see him again.”
She stepped down then and walked straight out of the church. No one followed. The heavy doors boomed shut behind her.
Dora suddenly felt that same anger. How could Mimi leave when Dora still needed her? How could Mimi take the chance of knowing about her parents away from Dora, take the store away, take herself away? She knew she was being irrational, but she couldn’t help it.
Dora ransacked the closet. She turned every pocket inside out, looked inside every bag. She didn’t find any more secret lives.
She grabbed an empty hanger and threw it across the room. It bounced off the old dress form and landed with an unsatisfying dull thud on the floor.
She heard Gabby calling from downstairs. She must have just come home. “Everything okay, honey?”
“Yes—fine—I just dropped a hanger—” Dora called back. Dora hurried to the bathroom and turned on the shower. Gabby would leave her alone in the shower.
She took the black dress off and hung it up on a padded hanger. She left the one she had thrown where it lay on the floor. She stayed in the shower until the hot water ran out.
Chapter Thirteen
T
he service was terrible.
It was lovely, of course. Mimi had planned it years ago—preplanned, as the funeral director said, to which Dora had wanted to retort that Mimi couldn’t very well have post-planned it.
Mimi had chosen the music, the flowers, and the readings. Uncle John had read a short passage, which he managed to make sound like a letter to the editor about a proposed waste-treatment center. Camille sat next to Dora, in a print dress. Gabby was appalled, but Dora just shrugged her own black-clad shoulders. She’d given up feeling anything about Camille, even the pleasure of indignation. The minister said nice things about Mimi, gesturing vaguely to a large floral display. Then they sang another hymn, and it was over. “Such a tasteful service,” Dora overheard, as she made her way out of the pew and down the aisle.
But for Dora, the service was terrible. Everyone claimed their moment with her: Mimi’s friends, shuffling up, looking as if they had barely made it out of the chapel themselves; the neighbors, to whom Dora was still a teenager, if that; businessmen who came because Mimi was a good customer; people from the library committee and the park committee and the Downtown Chamber of Commerce. Dora spent so much time saying hello to everyone else that she felt she’d had no time to say goodbye to Mimi.
Afterwards, everyone came back to the house, and then it was even worse. Camille loudly explained Tyffanee and Lionel’s absence as being school-related, to anyone who would listen. Gabby snorted. “One’s too hung over and the other flat-out refused to come,” she said to Dora in the kitchen. Dora gave her a look. “What?” Gabby said. “The rule is, don’t speak ill of the dead, not don’t speak ill of the dead’s terrible relatives.”
And at the house they all had drinks, and with the drinks came advice. All of the advice started with “You’re young, Dora,” and went downhill from there. Nobody mentioned the store; it was just assumed she wouldn’t run it, Dora thought. Or maybe Camille had gotten there first. “Oh,” Dora imagined her saying, “now that the kids are in college, John just thinks I need a new
creative outlet.
For all my
creativity.
I’m a very
creative person.
”
Dora just accepted hugs, nodded at all the advice, and put out more cheese and cold cuts.
Con had been at the service, but Dora hadn’t seen him come back to the house. She didn’t expect him. The service had been for him to say goodbye to Mimi, not to Dora. But when she went into the kitchen to cut up more lemons, there he was.
“I’m sorry—I came in the back door. I brought ice.”
They
had
been almost out of ice. Dora stood still for a minute, then remembered what to say. “Thank you.”
Just then Gabby bustled in. “Conrad, darling. How wonderful of you. I was just about to send someone out for ice, but they’re all one hundred and seven years old, and we’d be in another ice age ourselves before any of them made it back.” She neatly relieved Con of the two bags. “I’ll just go sort these out.”
“Dora,” Con started.
“If you say ‘you’re young,’ to me, I will cut out your tongue with this paring knife.”
“You’re old,” he said, smiling. “How’s that?”
“I feel old.” Dora put the knife down. “I feel older than Agnes Troutman, and that’s saying something.”
“Don’t let her hear you say that, she’s very protective of her status as the oldest citizen of Forsyth.” Con looked nervous. “Is she here?”
“No. She only came to the service.”
“Oh, good. She always tells me about the time my grandfather kissed her. I never know what to say to that.”
“I wouldn’t know what to say, either.”
Camille backed in through the door, carrying an empty pitcher.
“Dora, honey, how are you holding up?” Camille was sickly sweet—she could afford to be, now that she had her way.
Con did not look pleased by the interruption, but Dora grasped at it. “Oh, Camille,” Dora said, “did Uncle John have a chance to talk with you? He wanted to ask you about the, um,
merchandise
that Tyffanee brought into the store yesterday.”
Camille looked at Dora as if she had suddenly turned into a snake. “Oh, that’s all fine,” she said, airily. “I hate to bother you, honey, but we’re out of lemonade.” She gestured with the pitcher.
“In the fridge, Camille.” It hadn’t made her feel any better to be mean to Camille. She had really hoped that it would.
Camille put the empty, sticky pitcher in the sink and grabbed the new one.
“Thanks, Dora. And just so you know, there’s a man out there that I swear is Gabby’s first husband, Jerry something. I know he knew Mimi way back, long before my time, but he’s trailing Gabby like a puppy, and that’s just awkward, don’t you think?”
“I’d better go out and see if Gabby needs me, then.” Dora fled the kitchen, leaving Con to Camille.
Dora saw Gabby with a man who could have been Jerry, but she didn’t look harassed, so she left her alone, and spent the rest of the afternoon managing to avoid Camille, Uncle John, and Con. It wasn’t hard; there were old friends of Mimi’s to listen to, and plenty of drinks to refresh.
At the end, Dora hid in the garage for twenty minutes, while Gabby shooed people out the door, murmuring things like “overwhelmed” and “lying down.” She came back in when she heard the door shut and she and Gabby stood in the middle of the kitchen, surrounded by casserole dishes.
“I hope you like lasagna, honey,” Gabby said. “I don’t think Olive Garden has as much lasagna in their freezers as we will have in ours.”
“We also now have ninety percent of the tuna casserole cooked in Forsyth over the past week. I guess they all remembered that Mimi hated it and thought,
Aha, now it’s safe to bring some over
,” Dora snorted.