My Dearest Friend Page 4

  He shouldn’t drink coffee now, in the middle of a run. On the other hand, he’d interrupted his run already and it wouldn’t be polite for him to take off again right now. He’d walk back to his house.

  “That would be really nice,” he said.

  Daphne Miller smiled and stood up. “I’ll be right back,” she said. “Cream, sugar?”

  “Black,” he replied. Her robe came only to the top of her thighs. She was as tall as he was. Her limbs were not fat, but they were full, and so white, with a sprinkling of freckles. Cream. Sugar. His mother used to cook a heavy white candy that she called divinity; he could sink his teeth into a piece and it was as substantial against his teeth, for a moment, as dough; then it would dissolve, filling his mouth with an explosion of sugary sweetness. My God, why was he thinking of that?

  The woman went in the house, came back out with a cup of steaming coffee. She handed it to him and they sat down together on the step.

  “It’s beautiful here,” he said, looking around.

  “Yes,” she replied. “So peaceful. It will be a great change from the college.”

  “You’re at the college?” he asked.

  “I’m a secretary,” she said. “For the history department.”

  “Well, maybe I’ll run into you there,” Jack said. “I’m going to teach there. In the English department. This is my first year.”

  Daphne smiled. “We’re bound to run into each other. The English and history offices are in the same building, on the same floor. We even share”—she lowered her voice dramatically—“the same Xerox machine. Quite intimate, you see. And your wife? Does she teach too?”

  “Oh, no. Alexandra—our daughter—is only two years old. Carey Ann wants to stay home and take care of her. Carey Ann’s from Kansas. We just moved here. I … hope she won’t be lonely. She doesn’t know anyone here,” he heard himself confessing.

  “Oh, there are lots of young faculty with children,” Daphne said. “She’ll have friends in no time. Read the faculty newsletter. There should be some parties for new faculty anytime now, and also there will be parties at the faculty club, which many of the townspeople belong to. She’ll meet all kinds of people.”

  “I don’t know about the parties,” Jack said. “With the baby, it’s kind of hard to get away.”

  “Oh, you just bring her to the parties,” Daphne said. “To most of them, anyway. I mean, these are family parties, cookouts and so on. And the town’s crawling with nice teenage girls who want baby-sitting jobs.”

  She went on talking, and Jack drank the coffee, which was strong and aromatic and filled him with an instant complacency. Or was it this woman? She was making everything sound so easy. Now he knew why he had thought of the divinity: this woman had made him think of his mother. Not that she was that old—although she was older than he. There were the crow’s-feet around her eyes, and the skin on her neck and chin was not smooth and taut. But she was a comfort to be around. Here she sat, friendly, talking, smiling, flicking a flying insect off her bare knee, as if she had complete confidence in the workings of the world.

  Suddenly his whole future looked as promising and bright as the day that was now opening up around him. Birds were singing, dipping, flitting across the grassy yard, calling … the sun was high enough now so that the grass seemed to glow and the trees to flicker and blaze like candles … he was warm from the sun and the coffee … Why, he was young! He was only thirty-one! And he had a beautiful wife and a healthy, happy baby daughter, and he had been hired to teach at a prestigious college, and he’d do a brilliant job—there had been wise people who had called him brilliant—and he’d write a novel someday, and the entire world, the rest of time, lay before him, as the valley lay spread out below, just on the other side of those trees.

  “I’d better go,” he said. “I’ve got work to do. Thanks for the coffee. And stop down and meet Carey Ann sometime. I know she’d be glad to meet you.” In her white robe, with her heavy white limbs as subtly rounded as if carved in marble, Daphne seemed Greek, prophetic, wise.

  They said good-bye. Jack intended to walk back to his house, because he’d drunk the coffee and didn’t want it sloshing in his stomach. But before he knew it, he was running again, and whistling as he went.

  2

  Daphne was beginning to regret her impulsiveness. It was Friday morning, and pouring rain, and she’d spent the week unpacking boxes and rearranging furniture and was tired of it. The following Monday she’d start back to work at the college, and then she’d be in the thick of people again, and she didn’t want that much now; she just wanted a little break, a little conversation. Her friend Pauline was working today, getting ready for classes. Daphne stared out the window, remembering rainy days when Cynthia was a baby. Then, how luxurious and necessary had been the times she had spent with her best friend, Laura. Remembering Laura, Daphne had picked up the phone and called Carey Ann, introduced herself, and asked if she and her daughter would like to come up for some tea. The other woman’s voice had been soft, drawling, and hesitant. But she had agreed, and soon a white convertible crept through the lane and stopped in front of the cottage.

  Watching out the window, Daphne reflected that in Carey Ann’s place, she would have put raincoats on herself and her daughter and splashed down the road through the rain, giving the little child some exercise before entering a stranger’s house. Then, too, it was always fun to walk in the rain, stomping in puddles so the brown water flew up in the air like crickets. All the times she and Cyn had walked on rainy days, holding hands, sticking out their tongues to catch the raindrops, sometimes barefoot on the warm days, such a yummy feeling, squishy mud and tickly wet grass against their feet!

  Carey Ann raced from her car to the door with Alexandra in her arms, both enclosed in squeaky yellow slickers. Carey Ann’s hips were so tiny Daphne couldn’t imagine how she had managed to carry a baby. Carey Ann seemed shy at first, but Alexandra didn’t; as soon as her mother released her from her arms, she began running through the house, grabbing hold of everything, and Carey Ann hurried along behind her, rescuing vases, straightening bedspreads, trying in vain to interest her daughter in a book she’d brought along. When Alexandra saw Dickens, who was asleep under the table in the kitchen, she shrieked with such delight that the dog sprang to his feet in terror.

  “Doddie!” the little girl yelled, and, racing over to him, she began to pummel his back with her little fists. Both she and the dog were about the same height. Dickens could easily have taken a bite of her, but he only looked up at Daphne with a disoriented and puzzled look.

  “Alexandra just loves dogs,” Carey Ann said, watching her daughter grab Dickens’s short black fur and pull. She sank into a kitchen chair, obviously grateful to have her baby’s attention captured for a moment so she could rest.

  Daphne watched her dog warily, not sure just how much he would put up with. He was a young dog, only five, and he had been around children before, but never around this kind of child, who was now trying to crawl on his back.

  “Good Dickens,” she said to him. He was standing very still as Alexandra mauled him.

  “Eye,” Alexandra said, poking her finger against Dickens’s eyelid. The dog blinked and turned his head away.

  “That’s right, Lexi!” Carey Ann said. “What a smart girl you are.”

  What an idiot you are!, Daphne thought, then chided herself. No, she had to give the woman more of a chance than this.

  She had brewed a pot of apple-cinnamon tea, knowing that often children wanted to drink what the adults drank, and since Carey Ann was already collapsed on a kitchen chair, Daphne picked up the tray and put it in the middle of the table. On a flowered plate were some cookies for the little girl, and crumbly pieces of applesauce cake for everyone. Daphne chatted easily about moving in, getting settled, and poured tea for herself and Carey Ann. In the meantime Alexandra had lost interest in the dog and clambered up on one of the wooden kitchen chairs to see what was going on at the tabl
e. Dickens, released, hurried off into Daphne’s bedroom. She could hear the clicking of his nails and the funny scooting noise he made as he crawled beneath her bed to hide.

  “Would you like tea?” Daphne asked Alexandra, smiling.

  “Me!” the little girl yelled. She was standing on the chair, leaning over the table.

  “Is it all right if she has tea?” Daphne asked Carey Ann. “It’s apple cinnamon, but I’ve got plenty of milk if she wants it.”

  “Well …” Carey Ann said, drawing the word out as she tried to make up her mind.

  Daphne waited. Alexandra screamed, “Me!” A vision flew through Daphne’s mind as quickly as a bird; she saw herself stuffing a huge piece of applesauce cake into the little girl’s mouth.

  “I suppose it’s all right,” Carey Ann said.

  “Me!” said Alexandra.

  “Yes, you may have some tea too,” Daphne told her, leaning over and picking up the bright pink flowered mug she had set out especially for Alexandra.

  “No—me!” Alexandra yelled, her face growing red.

  “I think she wants to pour her own tea,” Carey Ann said, smiling. “Alexandra’s such a big girl,” she said to her daughter in an adoring voice.

  Daphne put the teapot on the table within Alexandra’s reach. It wasn’t an expensive teapot or one rich with memories, but it was china, made in England, and it would break easily. It was so heavy Daphne didn’t know how the child was going to manage to pick it up. But she sat down at her place at the table and watched as Alexandra picked up the teapot with both hands, and suddenly quiet with effort and concentration, began to pour herself a cup of tea. She got the spout near enough to the mug that some of the tea actually went in, but more of it flowed down the side of the mug, across the table, and in a thin brown stream from the table onto the floor.

  Alexandra kept on pouring. Daphne looked at Carey Ann.

  “Lexi spill,” Carey Ann said, smiling. “Let Mommy help.” She reached for the teapot.

  “No! Me!” Alexandra screamed, jerking the teapot away, glaring at her mother with rage.

  Carey Ann withdrew her hand. She sat watching until Alexandra had emptied the pot. All the tea things and the plates and napkins were swimming in a sea of liquid that now dripped down on the side of the table and also in the middle where the two oak leaves met.

  Carey Ann looked up at Daphne. “The books say children learn faster if you don’t interfere,” she said, almost meekly. “And Alexandra is, you know, so bright. We think she might be a gifted child.”

  The gifted child had dripping elbows and a wet shirt from leaning on the table in the tea. She set the pot down, and kneeling on the chair, picked up her cup and drank. She smiled, a radiant smile. “Good,” she pronounced.

  “Aren’t you a good girl!” Carey Ann said. Then she sighed and took a sip of her own tea.

  Now, am I getting old or what?, Daphne thought, for it bothered her to sit there as tea still spilled over the edge of the table and made puddles on the floor. Well, God, it would all wipe up with paper towels. But the floor in this old kitchen slanted slightly downward in one direction; if she didn’t stop it now, all the tea would end up in a puddle underneath the refrigerator.

  “Excuse me,” Daphne said. She rose and sopped up the mess with paper towels.

  Alexandra began to bang her spoon on her mug. Daphne looked up from the floor to see the little girl beam a seraphic smile at her mother. “Bang!” she said merrily, delighted.

  “Yes, bang,” Carey Ann said, not so merrily. “Lexi want cake?”

  But Lexi didn’t want cake. She wanted to bang her spoon on her mug, and she continued to as Daphne duck-walked on her haunches around her kitchen floor, wiping up the tea. Alexandra found a rhythm and got into it: BANG BANG BANG! BANG BANG BANG! BANG BANG BANG! The mug would surely break. Daphne rose, put the towels in the trash, and sat down at the kitchen table. She was surprised not to see chips of china flying around the table. I didn’t realize how old I’ve gotten, she thought. This is driving me crazy.

  “Jack told me you work at the college,” Carey Ann said, smiling, her voice raised to carry across her daughter’s noise.

  “Yes,” Daphne said. “In the history department. I’m a secretary. I’ve been there for fourteen years now.”

  “You must like it,” Carey Ann said.

  “Well, yes,” Daphne answered. “I suppose. You see, I was divorced when my daughter was two, and I had to have some kind of job to support us both, and the people in the history department were friends—some of them—and it worked out all right. And then Cynthia grew older and all her friends were here, and the school system is so excellent, it seemed best for her if I stayed in the town. Although it’s not what I ever envisioned myself doing when I was younger. Being a secretary. And now that I’m older …”

  Daphne let her voice trail away. It was just too difficult to make herself heard over Alexandra’s banging, especially since the little girl had miraculously managed to increase the volume. And now she was shouting, “Bang, bang, bang!” as she pounded, obviously unhappy that her mother’s attention was focused elsewhere for a few minutes. Exasperated, Daphne pointedly looked at the little girl, then looked at Carey Ann.

  Carey Ann responded by looking miserable. But she leaned over to her daughter. “Alexandra,” she said softly. “You’re hurting Mommy’s ears.”

  For a moment mother and daughter looked at each other, frozen in a standoff. Then, with a smile that flashed radiance across her face, Alexandra said, “Sowwy, Mommy!” and put down the spoon. She crawled off her chair and up into her mother’s lap. She kissed her mother’s ears. “Lexi make boo-boo okay!” she said. Then she snuggled into her mother’s lap, put her thumb in her mouth, and let her eyes glaze over.

  “She’s a pretty little girl,” Daphne said gratefully.

  “Thank you,” Carey Ann said. “We think so. She’s awfully energetic. Sometimes …” She dropped her eyes and looked down at her daughter. Then she looked up at Daphne. “Sometimes I just don’t know if I can keep up with her,” she confessed.

  “I remember feeling that way myself.” Daphne laughed. “It never did seem fair to me that the babies got all the energy that the parents needed.” Although I had my child under more control than you do by a long way, she thought.

  “Where’s your daughter now?” Carey Ann asked.

  “She went to live with her father. In California.” Daphne felt pain shoot through her, and poison, as the bitterness within her flicked its tongue. She took a deep breath. “Well, she’s sixteen years old. And it was something she needed to do,” she said. “She hadn’t had a chance to get to know her father before.”

  “You must miss her,” Carey Ann said.

  “I do,” Daphne replied. “Very much.”

  “I know I miss my parents,” Carey Ann went on. “Especially my father. He always took care of me. Sometimes—”

  “Bottle!” Alexandra yelled, popping her thumb from her mouth. She turned around and grabbed her mother’s face with her two small chubby hands. She wrenched Carey Ann’s face around to hers. “Bottle!” she said again, directly into her mother’s face.

  “Oh, dear, I didn’t bring her bottle,” Carey Ann said. She rose, letting her daughter slip to the floor. “Let’s go home, Alexandra,” she said. “Your bottle’s at home. Thank you for the tea,” she said, turning back to Daphne.

  “Perhaps she’d like a glass of milk?” Daphne offered.

  The little girl left her mother’s side and ran off into the living room, her hands flying out sideways to hit whatever she passed. “Bottle!” she yelled as she went.

  Carey Ann shook her head. “No,” she said. “It’s not really the milk she wants, you know, it’s the bottle. Maybe she’ll take a nap now. Then I’ll be able to get something done around the house. It’s so much work unpacking, isn’t it?”

  The two women moved, as they talked, into the living room. Alexandra had discovered the piano and was suddenly
up on the piano bench, pounding out chords that would have made John Cage weep.

  “What I don’t understand is how you decide where everything goes,” Carey Ann said wearily. “I mean, the kitchen things go in the kitchen, of course, but where? I mean, should the dishes go in the cupboards next to the sink, or the food? I mean, they both have to be near the sink, right? Oh …” she said, a smile breaking out over her face. “That sounds like ‘Frère Jacques,’ doesn’t it? I wonder if we should get Alexandra a piano. She’s so smart that way.”

  Daphne thought that what the child was hammering away at sounded nothing at all like any organized musical notes she’d ever heard before, and she was amused and somehow strangely saddened that Carey Ann thought they should get a piano for the little girl now. “She’s only two,” Daphne said. “I think that’s really too young for a piano. Even if she is smart. Their hands have to be a certain size in order to reach the keys, or it’s frustrating for them, you know.”

  Carey Ann said, “But didn’t Mozart perform when he was three?”

  “It’s difficult to hear you!” Daphne said. “Perhaps we should—”

  But suddenly she sounded insane, as her voice, which had been raised to carry over the sounds of Alexandra’s banging, roared out in the quiet living room. Alexandra had abruptly stopped playing. She was staring, her adorably rosy face rapt with delight, at something on top of the piano.

  Many valuable things were on top of the piano. This house was so small that Daphne had of necessity used the top of the baby grand as a surface for the certain objects of her life she wanted to have near her, available to sight and touch every day. Mostly there were pictures: of herself as a young graduate student, a picture that had been taken for the school newspaper and that showed her as she had really been at that time in her life—devoted, studious, profoundly serious, and radiantly beautiful. It was almost her favorite picture of herself, and it was in a silver frame. There were pictures of her with Cynthia at different stages of their lives together, when Cyn was a baby, when they were at the Cape or riding horses, and then a huge azurite-framed picture of Cynthia in costume as Maria in West Side Story, which the local high school had put on last year and in which she had been cast in the lead role even though she was only a sophomore. Cynthia had dyed her long blond hair black for the part, and in this photo she looked devastatingly beautiful and utterly dramatic. Daphne still was amazed to think, every time she looked at the picture, that this creature was her daughter.