The Art of Saying Goodbye - Ellyn Bache [91]
“Why be subtle?” Rachel asks, dabbing her lips with a napkin. “Why not just say, ‘Hi there, lardass’? That way you can probably get her to fast for a week.”
“You won’t say a single thing to upset or embarrass her,” Ginger tells Max. And, of course, he won’t, because whenever Amy actually walks into a room, with her skeleton arms sticking out of the sleeves of her shirt, it’s so scary that for the first second the room is actually covered by thick silence, a hush as if everyone’s tongues had swollen inside their mouths. At those times, Ginger always looks at her own children and thinks how glad she is that they’re normal. In view of that, she’s less irritated that they commandeered Paisley’s cake.
Ginger opens the dishwasher and begins to load the utensils and bowl from the cake batter. Outside, the day is breezy and overcast, sending silvered light and chilled air through the ill-fitting window over the sink. Even with the oven on, the kitchen is never warm. Rachel, in a fuzzy pink bathrobe Ginger hasn’t seen for a year, pushes her cake away. “This place is an ice cube,” she says. On her feet she has a pair of fuzzy bedroom slippers with sewed-on buttons for eyes and an extra flap of fur for ears. Whether the slippers are supposed to be dogs or rabbits, Ginger can’t tell.
At the same moment, both Rachel and Max rise from the table and carry their dishes to the sink. They never do this.
A few days later, when it is not so simple, Ginger will remember how the sight of her children made her happy that morning, in the most uncomplicated way.
Chapter 22
Paisley—Dancing
Oh, yes . . . and the feather boa.
It wasn’t really a part of my cocktail waitress outfit. It was a memento of my class in modern dance. I was eleven or twelve. Miss Lindsay was ancient and looked frail, her white hair pulled back from a narrow, wrinkled face, and her long legs so skeletal you wondered how they held her up. But she was strong and graceful. She’d been dancing all her life. In class she’d swirl and twirl as she demonstrated every step, waving the feather boa in the air. She taught us less about dancing than about having fun. At the last session, she gave each of us a cheap feather boa to keep.
“Drape it across your shoulders, my dears, and all the cares of the world will go away.”
That original feather boa . . . well, who knows where it ended up. I used to fling it about while in my room at night, overloaded with hormones and restless, all alone but imagining otherwise, dancing to old rock ’n’ roll tunes until the wild energy was doused by exhaustion, and I could finally drop into my bed and off to sleep.
Many years later I saw a feather boa in a costume shop and bought it. I’ve kept it all this time. I remembered the old lesson, even taught it to my daughters. I close my eyes and will it to be true.
“Drape it across your shoulders and dance, girls, and all the cares of the world will go away.”
Chapter 23
November 28
As far as Iona is concerned, Lori could have done her a favor by going to the hospital on Thanksgiving instead of the day after. Then she would have had an excuse to tell the Amoias she couldn’t eat with them. But she’d painted herself into a corner. Lori, despite her iffy pregnancy situation, had practically insisted on cooking a big meal for the holiday. “It’s easy enough to make a turkey. Put it in the oven and take it out. You can bring the mashed potatoes.”
“Bend over to put a turkey in, and you’ll land in the oven yourself,” Iona said. “Too risky. I’ll make the turkey. I’ll make everything.”
“Absolutely not,” Lori countered.
“What you really want to do,” Jeff finally said to his wife, “is stay home in your pjs and take a nap. You know I don’t like turkey anyway.”
This was a surprise to Iona, and from the look on her face, to Lori, too.
“Besides, I have an obligation to the Amoias,” Iona added, settling the situation. She was grateful to Hugh Amoia for buying three of her rehabbed properties in the past three years.