• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 1155 0

in every moment. David was always telling her to relax, to hire help, not to push herself so hard. He grew irritated with her projects, her committees, her plans. But Norah could not sit still; it made her too uneasy. So she arranged meetings and filled up her days, always with the desperate sense that if she let down her guard, even for a moment, disaster would follow. The feeling was worst in the late morning; she almost always had a quick drink then—gin, sometimes vodka—to ease her into the afternoon. She loved the calm, spreading through her like light. She kept the bottles carefully hidden from David.

“Anyway,” Kay was saying. “I wanted to RSVP about your party. We’d love to come, but we’ll be a little late. Is there anything I can bring?”

“Just yourselves,” Norah said. “Everything’s almost ready. Except I have to go home and take down a wasp’s nest.”

Kay’s eyes widened slightly. She was from an old Lexington family and had “people,” as she called them. Pool people and cleaning people and lawn people and kitchen people. David always said Lexington was like the limestone on which it was built: layers of stratification, nuances of being and belonging, your place in the hierarchy fixed in stone long ago. No doubt Kay had insect people too.

“A wasp’s nest? Poor you!”

“Yes,” Norah said. “Paper wasps. The nest is hanging off the garage.”

It pleased her to shock Kay, even so mildly; she liked the concrete sound of the task before her. Wasps. Tools. The dismantling of a nest. Norah hoped it would take all morning. Otherwise, she might find herself driving, as she had so often in these last weeks, fast and hard, a silver flask in her purse. She could make it to the Ohio River in less than two hours. Louisville or Maysville or once, even, Cincinnati. She’d park on a river bluff and get out of the car, watching the distant ever-shifting water far below.

The school bell rang and the children began funneling inside. Norah searched for Paul’s dark head, watched him disappear. “I just loved our two singing together,” Kay said, blowing kisses to Elizabeth. “Paul has such a beautiful voice. A gift, really.”

“He loves music,” Norah replied. “He always has.”

It was true. Once, at three months, while she talked with friends, he had suddenly begun to babble, a cascade of sounds pouring into the room like flowers spilling suddenly from a shaft of light, stopping the conversation entirely.

“Actually, that’s the other thing I wanted to ask you, Norah. This fund-raiser I’m doing next month. It’s a Cinderella theme, and I’ve been sent out to round up as many little footmen as I can. I thought of Paul.”

Despite herself, Norah felt a surge of pleasure. She had given up hope of such an invitation years ago, after Bree’s scandalous marriage and divorce.

“A footman?” she repeated, taking in the news.

“Well, that’s the best part,” Kay confided. “Not just a footman. Paul would sing. A duet. With Elizabeth.”

“I see,” Norah said, and she did. Elizabeth’s voice was sweet but thin. She sang with forced cheer, like spring bulbs in January, her anxious eyes darting over the audience. Her voice wouldn’t be strong enough without Paul’s.

“It would mean such a lot to everyone if he would.”

Norah nodded slowly, disappointed, annoyed with herself for caring. But Paul’s voice was pure, winged; he would love to be a footman. And at least this party, like the wasps, would provide another anchor to her days.

“Wonderful!” Kay said. “Oh, marvelous. I hope you won’t mind,” she added, “I took the liberty of reserving a little tuxedo for him. I just knew you’d say yes!” She glanced at her watch, efficient now, ready to go. “Good to see you,” she added, waving as she walked away, pushing the carriage.

The playground was empty. A candy wrapper flashed, pinwheeling, across the overgrown spring grass and caught in the flaming pink azaleas. Norah walked past the bright swings and slides to her car. The river, its calming swirl, called to her. Two hours, and she could be there. The lure of the fast drive, the rushing wind, the water, was nearly irresistible,