Tapestry of Fortunes A Novel - By Elizabeth Berg Page 0,86

clicking bottles and rustling fabrics would be gone, her rich scent would fade, and I would be left with Louise, whose idea of being a good baby-sitter was to let me do things for her.

I did not yet agree with Louise that our mother was absolutely mortifying—at least not all of the time. I did not agree that we should run away to New Jersey to live with our father’s relatives, all of whom were much more dignified than our mother. I was still tucked in at night, still wanted, at that time, to have my mother stay and stay beside me.

Louise, on the other hand, was fourteen, newly free of needing primal comfort and therefore deeply scornful of it; she spent most of her time locked in her room. Perhaps more than anything, Louise hated our mother’s going out with men she called the goons. She was so obvious about it, Louise told me; she was so eager to take up with anyone who came along. And it pained me too, it did. Louise and I had adored our father, a good-looking and gentle man who died with open-eyed surprise from a heart attack at forty-one. But we said nothing to our mother.

But now, finally, I do. “No, in fact we hated your dating. It didn’t make us feel better at all.”

“Oh, of course it did,” my mother says. I know the gesture that will accompany this remark: Veronica will reach up to the right side of her face and adjust a few pieces of the red hair curled there. Emphatically. I used to wonder why there weren’t fingerprintsized dents all along the side of her face.

I stretch the phone cord out to dump the candy box in the trash. “Listen, I appreciate your concern, I really do, but I don’t want advice just yet, okay? For one thing, it’s a different situation entirely. David isn’t dead.”

My mother sniffs. “As far as I’m concerned, he is.”

“You know, Ma, I only called to see if you could stay with Travis for a while this afternoon, maybe make him dinner if I’m not back in time. Could you do that, do you think?”

“Of course I can. I have a pedicure at one-thirty; I’ll be able to get there long before he’s home from school.”

“All right. So I’ll see you when I get home. Sometime around … I don’t know. Sometime.”

“Sam?”

“Yes?”

“Where are you going, honey? You sound a little … You’re not going to a therapist, are you? They’re crazier than the rest of us, really they are. I knew a woman—well, actually, you might remember her, Louise Castlebaum? Always trying to show off her legs, which, in my opinion, were not so worthy of showing off, but anyway, she went to a therapist—a full-blown psychiatrist!—and—”

“Ma! I’m not going to a therapist! I’m going …” Nuts. “I’m going shopping.”

“Well, now. That’s better! That’s a very good thing to do! Just forget about things, indulge yourself a little!” Then, her tone shifting, “And what should I say if David calls? Should I say you’re out with someone else?”

They should keep a permanent chair empty for my mother in some sixth-grade classroom. Stencil her name on it. She’d be so comfortable there.

“David is not going to call,” I tell her.

“What makes you so sure?”

“Because, if you must know, he told me very clearly that he wanted us to have a week of no communication before we talked any more. At all. About anything. He is talking to Travis, but not to me.”

“Oh. I see.”

“All right, Mother?”

“All right. Sam?”

“I really have to go.”

“Real quick, now, just listen. You’re going out anyway, right? I have an extra coupon for a pedicure, you could swing by Stephano’s and get one with me. Wouldn’t cost you anything, not a cent, even the tip is included. I know you think it’s silly, but really, a good pedicure can do you a world of good, change your whole outlook. When your feet feel good, you do, too. This could be just the ticket.”

“I don’t think so. But thanks.”

I hang up the phone, go upstairs to dress. Once, after I broke up with my high school sweetheart, my mother bought me pedal pushers. She came into my bedroom where I’d been weeping, holding them up and swaying them from side to side. “Look what’s back in style,” she said. “With a cute little pair of sandals?” When I didn’t respond, she sat on the bed beside me, put her arm around