26

SUSAN’S CELL phone rang, and now she was talking to her husband, and that gave Lois the chance to go outside to her car for the bag of Dresden lamps. The sun was low to the west, and it made the dead pine needles in her gravel driveway look golden, and Lois was breathing hard from her slow climb up the stairs with those lamps. From down in the kitchen came the smell of chicken broiling. Suzie had found a Cuban or Mexican station on the radio and men were singing in Spanish above strumming guitars and high-flying horns and all of life seemed to be a raucous party under the sun. It was hard to miss the change in her granddaughter. Even though she came into the kitchen apologizing for being late in starting their dinner, she looked . . . happy wasn’t the word. She still wore no makeup and her short chopped hair was a mess. She looked too thin too, but she seemed lit up from somewhere inside herself, if that made any sense. At first this ticked Lois off, and she wasn’t sure why. She wasn’t really hungry and didn’t care that their dinner hadn’t been started. Maybe it was that Suzie had found something to do in this house that made her feel good for once. Why couldn’t she have been that way as a kid? It would have made things a hell of a lot easier. Though her reading used to do something like that to her as well. Susan would be in her room for hours then come down in a spell from some faraway world that Lois was never invited into herself. Then the boy years began, along with their fights upon fights upon endless damn fights.

But tonight Suzie seemed to read all this in Lois’s face, and she said, “I wrote a lot today, Noni.”

“I thought you said you weren’t any good at writing.”

“I’m not. I’m just beginning not to care anymore.”

Lois could do without the Spanish music. There was too much of it in town as it was, but there was a festive lightness in the air that she and Suzie were making together in this dark old house, and Lois was glad Susan was still on the phone with Bobby because now she could wrap these two lamps she’d decided to give them both.

Well, Marianne had helped with that. Just before they closed the shop for lunch, Lois told her how much Suzie had liked those Dresdens, and Marianne turned to her and said, “You should give them to her and her husband.”

Perhaps if she hadn’t said husband, Lois knew she might not be doing this at all. Her business was doing well enough, but these two lamps were a good acquisition and eleven hundred bucks was eleven hundred bucks. But still, all through lunch the idea hung inside her like the vanishing fragment of a good dream, and now, sitting on the edge of her bed with a roll of wrapping paper and reaching into her bedside table drawer for the Scotch tape she knew was in there, she felt that old excited anticipation she used to get the night before her children’s birthdays and Christmas, even Easter when she’d leave out baskets for Linda and Paul she’d stuffed with chocolates and jelly beans and wrapped yellow and pink candies shaped like bunnies. As they got older, she put money in that fake green grass, silver dollars she made Gerry get from the bank, though he rarely helped out with any of this, and that was all right too, this feeling of being alone while she celebrated the love she felt and maybe, okay, fine, was never really very good at showing when it was not a special day. Each December or April or October, for Linda’s birthday, and August, for Paul’s, and later, May for Suzie’s, it was Lois’s chance to show them just how much she loved them, and often, while wrapping their gifts, sometimes sipping a glass of wine or something stronger, her eyes would well up and she could only hope that whatever she was wrapping would be good enough. Would say everything she never really seemed to say herself.

But where was that goddamn Scotch tape? Lois lifted out three or four furniture and toy catalogues, eBay printouts, two empty prescription bottles for pills she could not remember having to take. There was the broken case for her drugstore readers that were nowhere in sight, an unopened package of mini–tissue packs, her loaded pistol she no longer kept in its case. She lifted it out by its handle and set it on the mattress beside her. And there it was, in a nest of pennies and paper clips and hairpins, a brand-new double pack of tape she bought who the hell knows when or why.

Marianne had wrapped both lamps in bubble wrap, then laid them side by side in a large ivory cardboard box they ordered in bulk from New Jersey. She covered it with its top and taped its sides, and she helped Lois find two better shades for them out back. They had an entire shelf of lampshades, glass and fabric—ovals, bells, and drums, rectangles and squares, Empire, Victorian, and Arts and Crafts. In the dusty sunlight, between two sconce half shades, Lois saw three bells in oyster silk. They were just right, and two of them were in good shape and close to the same color as the porcelain figurines of the two lovers, the bell-shape in proportion to it all, the silk a nice complement to the poured lace of the woman’s dress.

Marianne seemed a bit cheerier after lunch, too. They’d eaten at the Sawgrass, and over steak salads and iced teas, Lois went on and on about Gerry’s galavanting around, about his giving her VD, about his drinking and spending money they didn’t have then leaving her high and dry, though she did get to keep the arcade. Marianne kept shaking her head, chewing and shaking her head and dabbing at her lips with a napkin. And Lois could see her doing what she’d hoped Marianne would do, which was to compare her lot with Lois’s, and they hadn’t even mentioned the infinite black hole in the dead center of that lot.

On their short walk back to the shop, Marianne gripped Lois’s hand and said, “I know how blessed I am, Lois. I do.” And Lois could not deny the joy she felt tending to her, but again, Marianne’s pitying sincerity irked her, and Lois had said: “Hey, none of us get out of here alive, honey.” It might not have been the right thing to say, but when didn’t Lois utter the wrong thing? But that lunch talk had put Marianne back on an even keel, and after they’d picked the right shades, Marianne had driven over to the drugstore for a big gift bag the shades sat in now in the parlor, and Lois’s fingers felt too thick for the scissors as she snipped and snipped at the wrapping paper she’d pulled from her closet. It was a Christmas wrapping—repeating gold ornaments hanging from a spruce branch—but that’s all she had and anyway it was the thought that counted.

Downstairs Susan had turned the music down a bit, and Lois could hear her voice. At first it’d been chatty, but now it was underscored with some kind of alarm or higher level of attention. Jesus Christ, she thought. He better not be leaving her while I’m doing all this. Lois paused and straightened up. After what Suzie had said to her about her not knowing if she loved her husband or not, how would she take this gift to the two of them? Would she accuse her of not listening to her again? How many times, when she was young, had Susan screamed that into her face? You don’t fucking understand me, Lois! Or maybe she’d done it only once, but it had hurt, had brought Lois back to Linda, who’d never screamed a word at her, just slipped away without once asking for guidance about anything.

But downstairs Susan was laughing and Lois could only take that as a good sign, though maybe she should just give these lover lamps to her. Why not? The way she stood there in that castle in Punta Gorda staring and staring at them. Just give them to her, you old bat.

The music volume went back up downstairs, a Spanish DJ’s phony voice talking fast and gabby about who knows what, then Lois heard in plain English, “Ernie’s Dodge Trucks,” and then it was Spanish again, and Suzie was calling up the stairs. “Noni?”

“Don’t come up!”

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.”

“Bobby’s coming. Is that okay?”

“Tonight?”

“Yes, tonight.”

“That’s A-okay with me, Suzie Q.”

Susan laughed. Lois hadn’t called her that in years. So many of them. And wasn’t that something, that Bobby was coming? Maybe this was all that couple needed. Or maybe that’s all Susan had needed. Just a little distance for her to see more clearly. Lois folded the wrapping longways over the box then ripped tape from its dispenser and taped the paper’s edge to the cardboard. It would be good to have a man in the house again. How long had it been? Susan had brought Bobby a year or two ago, but they’d only stayed for the afternoon. Paul never brought his family here. Lois always had to drive to Miami. Walter and Marianne had come over for dinner once, but not in a long while. Before that, it was Don, and going back, it was one of Susan’s many boyfriends, Brian Something, that redheaded fisherman who smoked hand-rolled cigarettes and didn’t talk much and kept staring at Suzie like she was a meal he would not be denied much longer.

Lois finished wrapping the box of Dresdens and carefully turned it over and reached into the corner of her closet for her bag of ribbons and bows. But the room shifted and her torso and legs felt like stone, then heated bird bones, and she knew she shouldn’t try to carry this box down those stairs herself. It’d been dicey enough carrying them up in a paper bag with handles, so no, she’d just have to bring Susan up here, and so what?

Time for a glass of wine and a nice dinner before her sweet grandson-in-law came along, though she did not think of him that way as she stuck a big gold bow over a gold ornament in the center of the box. What she thought of him as was her friend, a friendship that had really only just begun this past Christmas at Susan and Bobby’s little house in St. Pete, that strange jazz music playing, tall kind Bobby smiling down at her as they both diced vegetables for the meal the three of them would then share, the kitchen’s light reflecting softly on his bald head, Susan somewhere else in the house like she was giving the two of them to one another as a gift.

SUSAN WAS standing at the sink washing lettuce, and Lois poured herself a glass of Merlot and sat heavily in her chair at the table. She generally did not smoke right before eating, but one with this wine would do nicely, and she opened a fresh pack and tapped one out and lit up with the lighter she always kept on the windowsill. Outside, a peach light lay on the oaks and pines, and Lois could not remember the last time she felt this good. The nicotine was kicking into her veins like a reliable friend, this wine-warmth in her chest and face, her lovely Susan fixing them dinner, her devoted husband on the way. And there was that very expensive gift waiting for them upstairs—yes, them, that had been her original plan so why not stick to it?

The faucet shut off. Susan laid the wet lettuce on paper towels on the counter.

“It’ll be nice to see, Bobby. Is everything all right?”

Susan turned around to face her. Low across her top was a streak of water, and she had gotten too thin lately, her hair a mess. She should look better for when her husband came, and Lois could feel words of advice begin to rise up her throat, but she drank and swallowed instead. They’d been down that road enough.

“Everything’s fine. He says he has some important mail for me.”

“Like what?”

“Well, I think I may have sold something.”

“On eBay?”

Susan smiled and shrugged. “It’s a short story. I wrote it a long time ago, but Bobby talked me into finishing it and sending it out, so I did.”

“When do I get to read it?”

“You really want to?”

“Yes. How many times do I have to tell you that? What’s it about?”

“You wouldn’t like it.”

“Listen, missy, how would you know what I like?” She inhaled on her cigarette and squinted at Susan through the exhale. “Well?”

“The Gainesville murders.”

“Oh, wonderful.”

“I told you.”

“I didn’t say I wasn’t interested. It’s—can you imagine how hard it was for me to have you up there then?”

“I think so.”

“Well, I don’t.” Lois stopped herself, or the words coming out of her stopped on their own. Susan didn’t seem to notice. Lois shook her head. “Well, I want to read it.”

“That’s fine with me.” Susan put on an oven mitt and opened the door and pulled out the steaming chicken. There were the smells of rosemary and burnt lemon. She stuck a fork into the breasts and turned them over, then pushed the tray back in and shut the door.

“Well, we should celebrate when he comes, honey.”

Susan smiled, but she looked pale, and she set the oven mitt on the counter and walked down the hall and into the downstairs bathroom, closing the door behind her. “You all right?” Lois coughed, then inhaled on her Carlton. The room was a bit too quiet now. “Suzie?”

The toilet flushed, and Lois could hear the muffled voice of her granddaughter saying that she’d be right out. Lois sat back with her wine. She tried to picture where she and Bobby would put those lamps back in their home in St. Pete. Maybe their living room, which was also Bobby’s office, one lamp on each side of their comfy sofa. She hoped Bobby would like them as much as Susan seemed to, and it was funny when Lois thought about it. Those two intertwined lovebirds at the base of a tree, it was a little romantic for Susan, wasn’t it? But maybe that’s just what she needed, a little romance.

The bathroom door opened, and Susan was stepping back into the kitchen. With the back of her hand, she brushed a strand of hair away from her forehead, and her eyes seemed dark with some kind of emotion Lois hadn’t seen coming.

“You okay?”

“I was such a selfish bitch then.”

“What? When?”

“When I went back to Gainesville. I should have known what that would do to you, of all people.”

Lois waved at the air as if what Susan was talking about were as unimportant as having forgotten to check the mail, but her eyes began to burn and she couldn’t look directly at her and she reached for her cigarette, but then Susan was walking across the floor, and now her bare arms were around Lois’s shoulders, her granddaughter’s turned cheek pressed to the top of Lois’s head. “I’m sorry, Noni. I’m so sorry.”

Lois nodded, and nodded again. She patted her granddaughter’s back, could smell the skin of her warm shoulder, and Lois felt grateful and embarrassed and she wanted Susan to pull away and she wanted her to stay. Right here. Like this. For as long as it took to make everything right again, which it would never, ever be. So be thankful for this, she told herself, be thankful for this moment, because she’d needed to hear those words, hadn’t she? Not from Susan about young Suzie, but for what had happened to her and her family that should never happen to any family anywhere at any time.

“Okay, honey. Okay. You’re gonna burn your chicken. You need to check that chicken.”

But Susan held on, and Lois was no longer certain if she was doing this for her or for herself, but did it matter? Just enjoy this, she told herself, just, for one damn time, enjoy the damned good.