Begin Again: Short stories from the heart (13 page)

Expectation presented itself again six months after graduation in the form of a young socialite named Gloria Elizabeth Canstell, daughter of Ernest Canstell, president of MidCity National Bank, and a close friend of Randolph Blacksworth. Gloria had studied international finance at Vassar, planned to work abroad, London was her first choice. But Ernest Canstell and Randolph Blacksworth had other plans; they foresaw the potential for a great merger between families, one that would boost their companies’ strongholds in the market, make them undefeatable.
A union of this magnitude would be incredible, especially during these times… you’d be doing the family a great service… and she’s not bad to look at either…
Charles had only nodded and seven months later, he and Gloria married and bought a house in the prestigious Essex Estates where she busied herself with decorators and landscapers and never again mentioned London or the value of the euro.

Timing… what if Gloria
had
accepted her aunt’s invitation to visit London right after graduating from Vassar, spent the summer in Europe instead of succumbing to her father’s urgent request to share one last season with him before embarking on her future? What then? Would Charles be sitting here now, in this chair, staring at the slit of light so hard his vision blurred, willing the morning
not
to come?

He didn’t blame Gloria. She’d been a victim of other’s expectations, their desires so enticing, so real, making them plausible, even predictable. She’d gotten caught just like him, trapped in her own weakness.

How could it be that after all these years he was still trapped, still bound by that same sense of duty and expectation that had determined his life as a young man? His father had been dead for years yet his presence was not, nor was the steady reminder of the company, or its employees. Then there was his daughter… and Gloria. Everyone wanted something from him—a piece, a promise, and he could not disappoint them. He couldn’t, so he continued to sit at the head of the company, attend board meetings, pull his lips into a faint smile, shake hands and nod. He did all of this in exchange for ninety-six hours a month.

Ellie would be furious if she could see him now, know what thoughts were running through his head.
Stop! Stop it now, Charlie
, she’d say.
They’re not worth it, none of them except Christine. You don’t owe them anything; you know that, don’t you? Well, don’t you?

But the truth was he didn’t know that. People had depended on him for so long that even his younger sister’s words could not appease the guilt and lacking that gnawed at him like the
leukemia that had taken her from him almost fourteen years ago. The pain of losing her still sat wedged in his chest like a tumor the size of a grapefruit. Ellie, christened Eleanor Ruth Blacksworth, had been thirty-nine, five years younger than Charles when she died, yet bound to him tighter than anyone. He sometimes thought he’d continued in the business for Ellie, to carry forth her vision. She was the one who
loved
the business, let it pull her from day to day with a passion he both admired and regretted. Blacksworth & Company was her life and there’d been no one else, no husband or child to garner blocks of time, love, or affection.
Only the Company and himself.

Charles missed Ellie, missed her throaty laugh and sharp tongue, missed the way the sunlight spilled over her cap of curly brown hair as she studied projections, sipping black coffee from a bone china cup. Until chemotherapy yanked the lustrous strands from her head, leaving in their place a few dull wisps which she hid under a yellow bandana.

Chemotherapy.
It had to kill in order to save and then sometimes, it still couldn’t save. It hadn’t saved Ellie. She’d died on a Sunday afternoon in mid-July. It had been so god-awful hot, and all she’d wanted that day was a taste of peach ice cream. He’d found nine gallons of Peaches n’ Cream, bought them all and rushed to the hospital, desperate to show her he wasn’t ready to let her go, not at least until she’d worked her way through all nine gallons, and then the other ten he had on order from Lee’s West End Market. She’d managed two teaspoons before she fell back on her pillow, tears rimming her eyes, falling down her sunken cheeks.

I can’t do this any longer, Charlie.

No. No, Ellie.

I’m so tired.

You’re a fighter. You’ll beat this.

Charlie… you have to let me go.

Please.
Ellie.
Please don’t leave me.

I love you, Charlie.

Ellie—

Live. Live for me.

She died that night, lifted from the cracks of a gaunt shell, shriveled and grayed from deficient white blood cells and massive doses of chemotherapy. But the essence of Eleanor Ruth Blacksworth lived on, beside him, within him, every day. She was the reason he was here, sitting in this chair.
Live. Live for me.
And he was living; ninety-six hours a month, he was breathing full-out, open, free. The other days, he just existed.

Perhaps, this month he’d find the strength, expose the lies, merge past with present … He fell back against the soft cushion of the overstuffed chair, closed his eyes. Perhaps this month …

***

From Gloria’s Blacksworth’s viewpoint

Gloria Blacksworth had developed an aversion to morning years ago. She much preferred the darker tones of night—muted, calming, less transparent. Summer was the most unbearable. There were full days in the heat of July when Gloria remained in her bedroom, blinds drawn, the chenille afghan tucked around her legs as she reclined in bed, a small mountain of carefully arranged pillows behind her back, a carafe of Starbuck’s Columbian at her side, the Crown Royal that she ‘splashed’ in her coffee hidden in the bottom drawer of the cherry nightstand.

Thank God it was January. Why did everyone dislike winter, complain that the air was too cold, the sun too sparse, the skies too bleak? Couldn’t they see that winter provided the perfect camouflage for those who chose not to be seen, who preferred to blend into days, weeks, months, not under the harsh light of the sun’s illumination but in the gray sameness of a winter landscape?

Life had cheated her, stripped the grace and agility from her body; one freakish accident with her prized mare had left her with a broken back and pain so fierce, that not even the Vicodin in her bedside drawer could completely erase it. Too many years and countless tablets hadn’t stopped the pain, neither had the Valium or the Percodan that her friend, Roger Leone suggested. He was an orthopedic man, he knew about pain, what worked, what didn’t, what might. The pills helped smooth out the rough edges, cast a haze over the excruciating debilitation seizing her body.

She turned toward the nightstand. A stab of pain shot down her spine.
Good God.
Gloria slid a pack of Salem Lights from the top of the nightstand, fished out a cigarette. No one knew what she put up with every day, had lived with for the past sixteen years. Arthritis they called it, tangled around the length of her spine, knotty and coarse, pinching and throbbing, all because of one stupid second when she’d lost her concentration, forgotten about the steep jump that required an extra lift from Madame Bovary’s hind quarters. She’d been thinking about telling Charles she wanted to take a trip to London, just the two of them. At the time, she’d even considered broaching the subject she’d been obsessing with for the past three weeks—joining the firm and becoming Blacksworth & Company’s liaison for its international clients. She was qualified, capable, and ready. Christine had been eleven at the time and Gloria knew she couldn’t spend one more afternoon with the Junior Women’s League discussing draperies and low-fat diets.

London would have been wonderful, filled with endless opportunity, maybe even a second chance for her and Charles to get… reacquainted.
Maybe.
But the possibilities never left her
thoughts, never formed themselves into words that Charles might hear and respond to, whether a yes or no. None of it had happened because one crisp October afternoon Gloria forgot to pull up on Madame Bovary’s reins, and the mare had stumbled, fallen forward against the fence and then down, taking Gloria with her, the shrill scream of rider and animal blending as they hit the ground. Madame Bovary’s weight crushed Gloria into the black dirt, killing the possibility of London and international liaison.
Killing everything.

Gloria blew out a faint puff of smoke, set her cigarette in the ashtray. Charles didn’t like the fact that she smoked.
Do you think perhaps you could give these up?
he’d
asked right after their honeymoon, holding a pack of cigarettes between his tanned fingers.
Maybe try?
That was all he had to say, so polite, unassuming, but she would have done anything to capture his smile. She’d snatched the pack—Virginia Slims at the time—and tossed it into the fireplace, watched the cellophane darken and shrivel, the gold letters singe to black. It had been hard but she’d done it, she’d quit on the spot, though for weeks after she’d stood by her friends as they puffed on their cigarettes,
Kools
, Salems, Benson & Hedges, and she’d inhaled deeply, trying to suck in gulps of tobacco smoke, anything to breathe nicotine into her body. Eventually, the craving waned or perhaps it was smothered by Charles’s disappointed look one night as he watched her sidle up to a group of women ringed in gray smoke and
open
her mouth wide, drawing in puffs of exhaust, greedy, starving for one more fix. The why hadn’t mattered, nothing had but staying away from the nicotine rush… to please her
husband.

She’d started again fourteen years ago. It was really quite innocent, the starting again, sparked by nothing in particular,
at
least that’s what she told herself. It might have been the beauty of her friend Elsie’s cigarette case, an artful needlepoint bouquet of slender pink and red roses set against black that drew her to pick it up, take a quick peek inside. There’d been six Salems in the pack. She’d lifted the case to her nose, inhaled so deeply even today she still remembered the nicotine filling her lungs. Then she’d sat down at the kitchen table and smoked all six.

But maybe it hadn’t been the case or the desire for the nicotine rush at all. Maybe, and this was a possibility she didn’t dwell on too often, she’d been driven by the incessant magazine ads, the beautiful men and women dressed in
Halston
and Blass, talking, laughing, smiling, fingers touching, caressing, slim cigarettes dangling from well-manicured nails. Gloria had wanted to be like these people, not just to look like them, because in truth, she was more beautiful than many of the overdone women in the glossies. No, she didn’t want their sun-streaked hair, their tummy tucks, Botox injections, or red acrylics. What she wanted was more elusive.

She wanted what hid behind the smiles. She wanted their intimacy, their joy. There were too many spaces in her life, too much emptiness with nothing and no one to fill them, not husband, child… not even self.

Where had it all gone? Was it the chronic pain that had stripped her sense of self away, stolen her happiness,
replaced
it with a beautiful, fragile sculpture that could not touch or be touched
without hurting? And was the pain physical in nature, or more visceral, brought on by an injury to her innate being, heart, mind, soul?

It didn’t matter, not really. She filled the house with lemon air fresheners and bowls of cinnamon hard candies and kept the only ashtray in the house, a small, blue ceramic dish Christine had made in art class, in the bottom drawer of her nightstand. And of course, she only smoked four days a month when Charles was out of town. Even her clothing was carefully aired to dispel the clinging acridness of cigarette smoke. It all required planning and thoughtfulness but the subterfuge was minor compared to secrets many husbands and wives kept from one another.

She leaned forward, slid open the bottom drawer of her nightstand and eased out a half-empty bottle of Crown Royal. A smile slid across her face. Charles would be home tonight. Greta was most likely busy in the kitchen already, preparing the meal for this evening; lamb with sage and roasted garlic, asparagus in a light hollandaise sauce, heavy cream upset Charles’s stomach, roasted potatoes, apple strudel. She ran a hand through her hair, felt the tangle at the back of her head. She had an appointment with Oliver at
Mon Ami’s
in two hours, a ‘color lift’ as he called it. Oliver said she had gorgeous hair, like ‘sun shining on a field of wheat.’ And like the wheat, every now and again her hair needed a bit more ‘sun’ to turn its natural hue.
You are a most gorgeous woman
, he said with an assessing smile every time she stepped into his chair, his French accent molding his words into a liquid body massage.
Exquisite.
Your husband is a very fortunate man.

Yes. Charles was a very fortunate man. She took another drink of coffee, enjoyed the whiskey burn as it traveled down her throat.
Fortunate, indeed.

She set the cup down, picked up the cigarette and sucked hard. What to wear tonight?
Perhaps the beige Armani silk dress.
No, that was too drab unless she dressed it up with pearls or the diamond marquis necklace Charles had given her for their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary; two carats, everyone commented on it. Yes, that’s what she would wear tonight. She snubbed out the cigarette and reached for the bottle of Vicodin, flipped the top open. Some women took no pride in their appearance. They went shopping in shorts, faded and stained no less, and oversized shirts and flip flops, especially the young mothers. Didn’t they know they looked slovenly with their hair tossed up in a barrette or worse yet, hidden under a ball cap? A woman should act like a woman, dress like a woman,
not
some advertisement for the athletic department. And then there were the overweight ones, hiding underneath smocks large enough to fill in as a circus tent with nothing to constrict or remind them that they needed to reconsider their dietary regime. The only reminder would be the mirror and it was doubtful any of them relied on that, overweight or not.