A Patchwork Planet

6

ON THE LAST Saturday in February, Opal had a ballet recital. This meant I had to share my monthly visit with my mother. Mom phoned and said she’d been sent an invitation. “I’ll do the driving,” she told me. “I don’t trust that car of yours as far as I can throw it.”

“Or here’s an idea,” I said. “Why don’t I just meet you there?”

“You mean, not ride up together?”

“Well …”

“Barnaby,” she said. “I would hardly suppose you’re in any position to buy gas when you don’t need to.”

Which was when I could have told her, “That’s my business, isn’t it?” so she could come back with, “Not as long as you still owe us eighty-seven hundred dollars, it isn’t.” For once, though, I kept quiet. I thought about Opal’s money clip and I held my tongue. This seemed to throw Mom off her stride. She waited just a beat too long, and then she cleared her throat and said, “I’ll pick you up at eight a.m. sharp. You be waiting out front.”

I said, “Well. Okay.”

“Don’t make me come into that place of yours and haul you out of bed. Set your alarm clock. Promise.”

“Sure thing,” I told her.

I tried to look on the bright side after I hung up. At least now I’d have an ally along — or someone people would assume was my ally. Though myself, I had my doubts.

Saturday morning turned out so clear that I checked the sky for the color-change trick after I got up, but the sun had beaten me to it. And then I found I was out of instant coffee; so I had to make do with a Pepsi; and then my mother came early. I swear I would have been ready by eight, but she came five minutes before. Stalked across the patio in her brisk black wool pantsuit, all spiny-backed and indignant. “Where are you, Barnaby?” she asked — and this was after I’d opened the door and was standing in plain view.

“Eight o’clock, you said,” I told her. “What are you doing here at five of?”

“Well, come along; don’t waste more time arguing,” she snapped, and she turned on her heel and marched off again. She knew she was in the wrong.

Her car was a Buick, very posh and plushy. Power windows you couldn’t roll down unless she had turned the ignition on. She drove well, though; I had to hand her that. She slung that thing around like a grocery cart — slithered out of town and started cruising up I-95 in no time flat. “Of course, at this rate we’ll hit the recital way too early,” I said when we’d been traveling awhile. “We’ll have to sit there making small talk with Natalie and Mr. Wonderful.”

“If you didn’t want her remarrying, you shouldn’t have gotten divorced,” Mom told me.

“Did I say I didn’t want her remarrying? What do I care what she does? I’d just rather not mingle socially with the guy; that’s all.”

“At least we were invited,” Mom said. “Oh, when I read those letters to Ann Landers, I could cry: those poor bewildered souls who lose all touch with their grandchildren after the divorce. Why should they have to suffer? It’s no fault of theirs if their sons can’t manage to sustain a serious relationship!”

“You certainly have a way with words,” I told her.

“Hmm?” she asked, and she veered around a tour bus. “What did I say?” she asked me.

I kept quiet and drummed my fingers on my knees.

“I suppose it’s merely your generation,” Mom said in a placating tone. “Everybody in your generation seems to view marriage so lightly.”

“Generation!” I said. “I don’t belong to a generation!”

Oops. The trick was to dodge to one side here; resist a head-on argument. I tried for a save. “Anyhow,” I said, “generations nowadays seem to change over about every three years or so, have you noticed? Why is that, I wonder.”

But Mom refused to get diverted. She said, “Mind you, I don’t exempt Natalie’s parents. Jim and Doris Bassett were at least as much to blame as you two were, I always felt. They actively encouraged that divorce!”

I just whistled a tune through my teeth and gazed out the side window. We were crossing a body of water. It looked very broad and peaceful.

“Say what you will,” Mom told me, “but at least your father and I accepted your marriage graciously. I treated Natalie like my own! That’s why she still asks me to Opal’s recitals and such. Even if she does send just a standard mimeographed invitation with my name filled in on the blank.”

She treated Natalie better than her own, I wanted to say. Miss High-Class Good-Girl Natalie, the daughter of Mom’s dreams. But I let it rest. I watched a train skim across a railroad bridge in the distance, and I pondered whether it really was possible, these days, to get something mimeographed.

The recital was in the basement of a church on Chestnut Street. We had the devil’s own time finding parking — ended up in a space several blocks away. “Now you see why I wanted to start out early,” Mom told me. She tossed the words over her shoulder as she strode ahead of me, her purse clamped in a paranoid way between her arm and her rib cage. All the women around us looked just like her, tailored and crisp, with shoes that you just knew, somehow, had cost a whole lot of money. All the men were homeless. They sat huddled under ragged blankets on top of the grates in the sidewalk, and I couldn’t help thinking that I had more in common with them than with my mother.

In the church basement the women were younger, and most of them had husbands in tow. I saw no sign of Natalie or her husband, though — not that I tried very hard. I settled in a folding chair and made a telescope out of my program. (Which did seem mimeographed.) My mother started chattering in this chirpy, chipmunk tone she puts on when she feels ill at ease, giving me a whole rundown of an avant-garde play she’d recently dragged my father to. Maybe the sight of the stage had brought it to her mind. “First the actors came out all bundled up in down jackets,” she told me, “and as the play went on they stripped off a layer of clothes, see, and then another layer, till by the last act they were down to nothing.”

“They were naked?”

“It was meant to be symbolic.”

“They just walked around the stage with no clothes on?”

“I promise you, it didn’t seem the least bit shocking. These were just ordinary, middle-aged men and women. Some were overweight, even. Your father said he wished the move had been in the opposite direction—adding clothes, not taking them off.”

I laughed. My mother said, “I don’t know why you menfolk always have to have culture just forced down your throats.”

Then here was Natalie, wearing a dark-brown dress that made you notice her brown eyes — so secretive and distinctly lidded. “Hello, Mother Gaitlin,” she said. “And Barnaby,” she added. “You’ve met Howard, I believe.”

Howard stood just behind her, a silver-haired, portly man holding an enormous paper cone of sweetheart roses. He gave a deep nod that was almost a bow, and my mother said, “Yes, certainly,” although I wasn’t all that sure they had met. He and I had, of course, when it couldn’t he avoided. When we accidentally crossed paths exchanging Opal or whatever. I said, “How you doing?” and then raised my chin and squinted at the stage while Mom and Natalie took care of so-thoughtful-of-you-to-invite-us and so-good-of-you-to-come.

When we were alone again, Mom said, “That went very well, in my considered opinion.”

I felt extremely tired, all at once. I saw that nothing could be said on this earth that wasn’t predictable. Even the bands of sunlight slanting through the basement windows were predictable, and the milky white swirls on the green linoleum floor, and the clunky-sounding “Teddy Bears’ Picnic” coming over the PA system.

And the recital: well, you can’t get much more predictable than a children’s ballet recital. The youngest ones were dazed and obedient, milling around in tufts of pink gauze with their eyes fixed trustingly on Madame Whosit in the wings. The middle group — Opal’s group — was a bristle of gawky arms and legs struggling to form a straight line. I hadn’t realized before that Opal was so big for her age. She stood a full head above the others, down at the end, where (I guessed) she was meant to be less conspicuous. When they all set their heels together and pointed their toes sideways, she was the only one with no space showing between her thighs. In each position she teetered a bit after the others had frozen, and I felt certain that the audience noticed.

But my mother said, “Wasn’t that precious?” applauding with just the tips of her fingers once the piece was over.

Between acts the curtain came down, but you could see it poking out first one place and then another as children jostled behind it. It made me think of a pregnancy — Natalie’s pregnant stomach, the baby’s knee or elbow knobbing the plaid material of her smock.

Not so long ago, amazingly enough.

It felt like a lifetime.

The oldest girls came last and showed us how it should be done, but I was too tired to watch. I let the dancers in front of me turn into a blur, and when the rest of the audience clapped, I just folded my arms and studied the acoustic tiles in the ceiling.

We met down in front near the stage at the end of the show — Mom and I, Natalie and Howard, Opal still in her tutu. She was hugging the cone of roses. I said, “I didn’t bring any flowers myself. I didn’t have a chance to buy some. I would have, but I didn’t have a chance.”

Before Opal could tell me it was all right, though, Mom rushed in with, “You were the best of the bunch, honey pie!” The level stare Opal gave her struck me as disconcertingly cynical, till I remembered she always looked that way. It was a hand-me-down from Natalie — Natalie’s calmness, magnified.

“I messed up on the curtsy,” she said, turning to me.

“Well, if you did, nobody noticed,” I told her.

“Madame Stepp’s going to yell at me.”

“Your dance teacher’s named Madame Stepp?”

Howard gave a dry cough. “Ah … we had thought we might take Opal to a congratulatory lunch,” he said. “You’re welcome to join us, Barnaby, Mrs. Gaitlin …”

“Oh, I guess not,” I hurried to tell him. “We should be heading back.”

No one argued — not even Mom, thank heaven. “Yes,” she said. “I’ve left poor Jeffrey holding down the fort alone!”

We stood around a moment longer, all of us no doubt picturing Dad in the throes of some kitchen emergency. (Although I knew for a fact that he spent Saturdays at the office.) Then I gave Opal’s shoulder a squeeze and said, “So long, Ope. You did great. I’m sorry I didn’t bring flowers.” And the two of us walked out.

In the car, my mother said, “Natalie’s gained some weight, don’t you think?” It was her way of acting chummy — showing me she was on my side. I didn’t bother answering.

“Of course, she always had that wide, smooth face,” Mom went on. “Almost a flat face, some might say. I like a bit of an edge to a person’s face, don’t you?”

“He had no business taking over lunch like that,” I said, all at once realizing.

“What, dear?”

“Lunch was my time. It’s part of my Saturday visit. Then he horns in on it and makes it seem like a favor to ask us along.”

“Well, I wouldn’t let it upset me,” Mom said, slowing for a stoplight.

“I should have said, ‘Thanks, but we’ve already made plans to eat with Opal on her own. Reservations,’ I should have said. ‘Reservations for three,’ so they couldn’t say they’d join us. Good grief! It’s not as if we’re all best buddies!”

“He didn’t mean any harm,” Mom told me. “He seemed like a very nice man. A bit old, though, don’t you agree? Is he a lot older than Natalie?”

“I wouldn’t have any idea,” I said.

“Of course, Natalie always did have something of a father fixation.”

The light changed, but Mom didn’t notice till someone behind her honked. Then she gave a start and drove on. She said, “Remember how she used to phone her father at work every day? She phoned him every morning the whole time you were married, even though you were living not twenty feet away from him.”

We lived above her parents’ garage — practically in their laps. Which didn’t help the marriage any, believe me. Every little thing I did — take a day off from classes, say, or come home a tad bit late or not at all — they would watch and judge and comment on to Natalie. But hey, it was rent-free; don’t knock it. In fact, I stayed on there after we split up, although it got kind of awkward once I started dating again. Finally her father came over and had a little talk with me; said maybe I should consider moving. I didn’t make it easy for him. I said, “Your daughter was the one who walked out, Mr. Bassett. I fail to see why I should be dislodged from my established residence.” But I did find another place, by and by. Just not the very instant he suggested it.

Now Mr. Bassett was dead of a stroke, and his widow lived in Clearwater, Florida. Everything seemed to have changed in a flash, when I got to looking back on it.

“Opal has Jim Bassett’s eyes, have you noticed?” Mom was asking. “His eyes were his best feature — that pale shade of gray. I was thinking after the recital; I looked at Opal and I said to myself, ‘Isn’t that a coincidence! Her eyes are the color of opals.’”

I pictured Mr. Bassett’s eyes when I’d reminded him his daughter had walked out. “But, Barnaby,” he had said, “what actual choice did she have?” With his upper lids crinkling, honestly perplexed. Then I pictured Opal’s eyes, so measuring and veiled.

I have a problem, sometimes, after I come away from a place. I’ll start out feeling fine, but just a few minutes later I’ll get to reconsidering. I’ll regret that I’ve said something rude, that I’ve disappointed people or hurt their feelings. I’ll see that I have messed up yet again, and I’ll call myself all manner of names. Freak of the week! Nerd of the herd! And I’ll wish I could rearrange my life so I’d never have to deal anymore with another human being.

It was nearly two p.m. before I got home. Mom offered to stop for lunch somewhere, but I said no, even though I was starving; so first thing after I walked in the door, I made myself a sandwich. Then I checked my answering machine. Four messages.

Mrs. Dibble said, “Barnaby, I know it’s a Philadelphia day, but Mrs. Figg has the idea that you’d promised to move her husband’s computer down to their den. I told her she must be mistaken, but you know how she is. Anyway, call me if you get back anytime soon.”

Then: “Hello, Barnaby. This is Sophia, at eight-fifteen Saturday morning. Just wondered if you’d be taking the train to Philly today, by any chance! I thought I could give you a ride to Penn Station. Oh, well! I’ll try you later, I guess.”

After that, a cranky-voiced woman: “Now, how do I … oh, I hate these machines!” Mrs. Figg herself, although clients were not supposed to telephone us directly. “Where have you got to, Barnaby? You said you’d come move my husband’s computer!”

And finally Sophia again: “Just trying you one more time before I head for the station! I guess you’ve decided to go by car. Well, maybe next time.” Her tone was airy and casual, with a flicker of a laugh behind her goodbye.

I sighed and punched the Delete button.

I used to have friends to hang out with on weekends. Ray Oakley at work, before he got married. Martine before she met Everett. Or some of the guys from my old neighborhood, but they’d mostly moved away now, or turned all important and busy like Len. And I hadn’t dated a girl in months. I wanted a girlfriend, but lately it seemed girls were getting younger and younger. They’d begun to seem just plain silly, with their giggly enthusiasm and their surfer-type vocabulary and their twitchy little miniskirts.

And I never counted my clients as friends — not even the ones I liked. Clients could up and die on you.

A few years ago, when they were making a public to-do over laying the last stone at the National Cathedral, I read an interview in the paper with a guy who’d seen the first stone laid, in nineteen-oh-something-or-other. He said he’d been just a little boy then, and his father took him to the ceremony. That story caught my fancy, for some reason. I pictured a kid in high button shoes and a ribbon-trimmed hat, hanging on to his father’s hand in a great cobbled square among crowds of cheering people. Then one by one the people started dimming. They grew pale and then transparent, and finally they disappeared. The father disappeared and the men in bowler hats and the women in long cloaks, until the only one left was that little boy standing all, all alone.

Sunday, I woke up late, because I’d had a bad night. I’d tossed and turned and dreamed sketchy dreams I couldn’t quite remember. It was well past noon before I really got going.

The weather was gray and cold, with needles of sleet that pricked my face as soon as I stepped outside. Ice glazed my windshield. I scraped it off and let the engine warm up, and then I drove very slowly, braking as easily as possible at each intersection. Almost no other cars were on the road. The radio announcer said the sleet would continue till evening. A good thing it was a Sunday, he said, when most of us could stay home.

In Penn Station, no more than six or eight people sat far apart on the benches, buried in coats and scarves and looking grumpy.

First I checked the board. Southbound trains were due in at 1:19, 2:35, and 3:11. It was 1:07 by this time, but the 1:19 was fifteen minutes late, wouldn’t you know; so I went off to the newsstand and bought myself a paper. Then I settled on a bench and started reading. When the first arrivals filed in, I watched both doors but I didn’t stand up, because I doubted this was my train. And I was right. I didn’t see anybody familiar. I went back to reading the sports section.

By 2:35 I’d finished every shred of the paper, but I held off on a return trip to the newsstand till I’d checked out the next batch of passengers. They came in at 2:43, although the board didn’t warn us about the delay. (These Penn Station folks could be sneaky sometimes.) First an entire family slogged through — parents, grandparents, several kids, dressed to brave a blizzard. I set my paper aside and stood up. Next came a teenage couple in hooded jackets, toting knapsacks. And next came Sophia.

She was bareheaded — the only one who was, so far. Even in this gray light, her hair had a warm yellow glow. She didn’t see me yet. She shifted her bag to her other hand, and she fastened the top button of her coat. Then she happened to glance in my direction. She came to a stop. We stood about ten feet apart. She said, “Barnaby?”

“Hi,” I told her.

“How come you’re traveling today?”

“I’m not.”

“Well … is something wrong? Is it Aunt Grace?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” I told her. “I just came to drive you home.”

Her mouth took on a tentative look, as if she were about to smile, but she stayed serious. She said, “My car, though.”

“What about your car?”

“It’s parked here in the lot.”

“Never mind,” I told her. “We’ll pick it up tomorrow, when the sleet’s stopped.”

She let herself smile then. And I was smiling too. I cupped her elbow to guide her through the station. Her coat sleeve was as soft against my palm as a kitten’s belly. It made me feel protective, and capable, and determined. It made me feel grown up.