The Big Shuffle (38 page)
Authors: Laura Pedersen
“It's a boat!” calls out Teddy.
While the little kids are being pushed over by what appears to be the front end of a rubber lifeboat, Eric is frantically trying to find an off switch. Pastor Costello, Louise, and I jump up to help him. But the boat keeps getting larger and so Louise and I turn our attention to moving things out of the way—the coffee table, a lamp, presents, and finally Lillian. The cat is long gone, and my mother carries the twins to the kitchen. It must be a total of fifteen feet in length!
Finally Eric yells “Got it!”
“I hope you mean the plug and not the card,” I say.
We hear a giant hissing sound and the dirigible stops expanding just short of the Christmas tree. Pastor Costello snaps some pictures of the kids and Mom in front of the slowly deflating lifeboat. He asks me to take one and Pastor Costello stands behind Mom with his hand resting on her shoulder.
The kids continue to laugh and talk about how they're going to sail around the world as soon as school finishes. When enough air is out and the boat fits through the archway, Teddy and Eric drag it back to the garage, with the little kids excitedly trotting behind them and Mom yelling for everyone to put their coats on.
“Leave it to Uncle Lenny to be the life of the party even when he's not even here,” I say. “And make for one heck of a good story in the process.”
Not five minutes after they've gone out to the garage, there's a huge racket and the kids come tumbling back inside. Glancing toward the kitchen I see Bernard arriving with Gigi and Rose, and carrying presents. Once again, the kids are absolutely dizzy with anticipation.
Bernard gives Darlene a karaoke machine that has two microphones and a number of Broadway showstopper discs. She excitedly plugs it in to a nearby wall socket. I assume he thought it would help with her lisp. Musical theater is Bernard's solution to most of life's challenges, much the same way Jesus is the answer according to Pastor Costello.
Bernard shows Darlene where to read the words, and together they stand up to sing a song. Bernard introduces “The World Goes Round” as if he's a nightclub performer. “As you all know, I rarely perform a Liza number, but she, as am I, is enormously fond of the Kander and Ebb catalog, with its ingenious lyrics and perfect melodies.” They begin crooning
“Sometimes you're happy and sometimes you're sad—but the world goes 'round.”
The karaoke machine is a huge hit, and the singers have barely finished when all the little kids are clamoring to try it. Bernard relinquishes his microphone and sits down next to me on the floor by the tree. He hands me a card and says “Merry Christmas.”
When I open it, a hundred-dollar bill falls out.
“That should be good for a facial,” he jokes. “Or more likely, five pizzas and a dozen chocolate Yoo-hoos.” Olivia must have shared my intention to start school again after the holidays.
“Thank you so much!” I give Bernard a kiss on the cheek. “I don't have an actual gift for you, but you're entitled to some free baby-sitting when I'm home for vacation.”
Looking at the kids singing and running around, Bernard says, “I think you've had your fair share of child care for the time being. Just promise you'll come home and be my yard person next summer.”
Bernard has more than a hunch that Craig and I are back together. I swear, sometimes he can tell what's going on with me just by examining a single strand of hair. DNA testing has nothing on Bernard's finely tuned senses.
Speaking of which, he glances over at Mom and Pastor Costello seated together on the couch, and then back to me. I'm well aware that he's dying to know what has transpired since I stormed out of the house like a lunatic last night.
“I guess it's what they both want,” I say to Bernard. And it's not so terrible imagining them as a couple. I mean, so long as I don't think about them having sex. Mom and Pastor Costello can celebrate their fiftieth wedding anniversary and the two of them in bed together is a thought I will still
not
be having.
“As long as I don't picture them …”
Bernard reads my mind and nods in agreement. “Always fully clothed.”
There's no chance anyone else can hear our conversation as the kids are now belting out “If I'd Known You Were Coming I'd Have Baked a Cake” at top volume, two on each microphone.
Bernard leans toward me. “You know what Judy Garland used to say?”
I shake my head, indicating that, in fact, I do not.
“Give the people what they want, and then go and get a hamburger.”
My eyes settle on the photo of Dad. I perform a quick mental check to make sure I still remember everything about him— the way he walked and talked and smiled and even smelled. Yes, it's all safely there.
Then I glance at the little kids playing with their toys and starting to sing the theme song to
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
They don't remember as much about Dad. But I suppose they'll collect other memories. For instance, this might eventually become known as the Year the Cat Tipped Over the Christmas Tree or the Year That Uncle Lenny's Lifeboat Blew Up in the Living Room.
Regardless of how we all might end up remembering it, one thing is clear—no amount of thinking about the past can erase the fact that a new year is upon us, one without Dad. An arrow had been shot through our lives. Yet time marches on, and we live in the present. So it's at this moment that I finally decide to plunge into the future. And a lifetime of tomorrows.
W
ith ongoing gratitude to my agent, Judith Ehrlich, for contributing her time and imagination to another novel. Special thanks to Johanna Bowman at Ballantine for her keen editorial eye and unlimited patience, and to Christine Cabello and Patricia Park for their promotional efforts. I'm also extremely grateful to Carol Fitzgerald and Wiley Saichek at
Bookreporter.com
for their marketing wizardry. A big salute to Master Mariner and salty sailor Neil Osborne for helping to channel Uncle Lenny. Continuing appreciation for my constant helpmates: Willie Pietersen, Aimee Chu, and Cecilia Tabares.
Julie Sciandra and Laura Pedersen have been friends since their potato salad days as teenagers during the energy crisis in Buffalo, New York, back when you had to keep moving in order to stay warm.
Julie Sciandra: Where exactly is Cosgrove County?
Laura Pedersen: Well, how do you want to go there—by car?
JS: Say that I want to drive there from Buffalo, New York.
LP: That's easy. You get on the thruway going west, drive through a chunk of Pennsylvania, and eventually you're in the northeast corner of Ohio. Get on Route 45 heading south. After about twenty minutes you'll see a dairy with a big plastic cow on top and a faded red barn behind it—make a left at that corner. Go through the covered bridge—it's a shame about the graffiti, but it does make you wonder whatever happened to those couples, especially the ones who declared True Luv 4ever. Drive about two more miles, until you see the old mill where they sell
apple cider and maple syrup, and then bear left at the fork in the road. Only slow down because a lot of Amish folk live around there and they don't like to use those orange triangles on the back of their buggies. They also don't care to have their picture taken. But if their farm stand is open you definitely want to stop and buy a cherry pie—absolutely delicious. Anyway, after approximately three more miles you'll come to the edge of town. There's the train station and then the park. If you make a right onto Millersport it will take you up to Cappy's place. Otherwise go left on Swan Street and that takes you to Main. Main Street is about eight blocks long and you'll know you're at the end of it when you pass the town hall and see the gravel road that leads to the cemetery. On a nice day the cemetery can be a great place for a picnic. I actually prefer it to the park.
JS: So this town is a real place?
LP: It is to me. But then I'm an only child and we're known for creating not just imaginary friends but entire galaxies.
JS: Throughout the first three Hallie Palmer books you make it sound as if the town has been hurt by the advent of outlet centers and superstores.
LP: Cosgrove has certainly known its ups and downs, like so many towns in Middle America. Back in the 1800s the land around there was a good place for a farmer to settle, since the soil is rich and you had not only the railroad nearby for transporting your crops but also the Great Lakes. The Erie Canal was completed in 1825, and so your grain or lumber or whatever was sent by train to Buffalo and then got loaded onto mule barges that went past Albany on the Hudson River, to New York
City, and could then go on to Europe. Similarly, after the transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869, your goods could be easily transported to Chicago and the fast-developing Plains, Rockies, and California.
JS: Do you want to start singing “Erie Canal”?
LP:
“Low bridge, everybody down. Low bridge, for we're coming to a town.”
JS: Did you have to sing that in elementary school as many times as we did?
LP: More. Sweet Home is a public school.
JS: I'd forgotten that the name of your school system is Sweet Home. My condolences.
LP: It definitely caused more than a few fights. Our mascot was the panther, but at basketball games the opposing team liked to snarl, “Sweet Home Sweeties.” This didn't go over real well. No matter, I'm just glad they finally got the asbestos out of the ceilings.
JS: So the town where Hallie lives was going gangbusters back in the 1890s. What went wrong?
LP: As farming became increasingly mechanized, people began working and living in town. But by the 1940s they'd started migrating to the cities for work in the factories, steel plants, stockyards, and granaries, at least until the 1950s and 1960s when many of those jobs went overseas. Then the oil crisis and recession
of the 1970s hit the area pretty hard. However, this past year the town is becoming more of a bedroom community for Cleveland, and if they go ahead with those plans to start a commuter train it's really going to revive things.
JS: And exactly how is it that you know all of this? Do you have a seat on the town council?
LP: Actually, I'm the town historian.
JS: Sure you are. Now back to the story. Do we finally find out the name of Hallie's mom?
LP: No.
JS:
The Big Shuffle
seems darker than the first two books in the Hallie Palmer series. Has anything happened to make you more pessimistic since you wrote those?
LP: I don't find it so, but then I thought
Last Call
—a love story between a roguish Scotsman living in Brooklyn and a nun who has run off from the convent—was optimistic when a good portion of that book was about dying from cancer. I tend to stick with the themes of life, love, and death. So basically in every book someone is going to get it. It was a greater tragedy because Hallie's father is a relatively young man and leaves behind this enormous family. On the other hand, the Palmers have experienced plenty of new life, with a total of ten children, and so every once in a while the pendulum has to swing.
JS: But was it necessary to go that far for Hallie to become an adult?
LP: Good question. No, I don't think anything was needed to help Hallie along, and that she was going to arrive on her own just fine. She didn't have to be snapped into reality by a major event. I suppose I was harkening back to the past. There wasn't really such a thing as “childhood” until about sixty years ago. Children were regarded as small adults. Furthermore, if you consider that back then the average life span was shorter, families were larger, and the number of women who died in childbirth was much greater, Hallie's situation as temporary head of the household wouldn't have been that unusual. In fact, I often think that teenagers today don't feel all that challenged by their roles and fantasize about being able to do something heroic in a tough situation. I'm not advocating such circumstances, simply saying that most teens can and will rise to the occasion when put to the test, rather than just play sports, start rock bands, do homework, work at the Tastee Freez, and roam the mall. On the flip side, I know a lot of teenagers who do community service, whether it's through school, a religious organization, or on their own, and this is a great way of learning about what type of adult they'd like to become.
JS: I've noticed that you seem to kill off at least one man in every novel?
LP: A few women have stepped on a rainbow—Denny's wife in
Going Away Party
, Hayden's wife in
Last Call
, and Pastor Costello's mother was called home sometime between
Heart's Desire
and
The Big Shuffle.
But you're right to ask since these deaths occurred offstage and were more plot devices than the demise of developed characters. In my defense, Olivia takes a bad fall in
Heart's Desire
and Hallie's mom spends several months in a hospital during
The Big Shuffle.
Overall, you're correct and I appear to be a man killer. Please don't tell my husband.
JS: Where did Uncle Lenny come from? He must be one of your more bizarre characters.
LP: I think Uncle Lenny comes off as being eccentric only because he's been temporarily transplanted to a small town in Ohio and we don't encounter him in the port of Marseille. Which is what makes Uncle Lenny so much fun to have in the book—he has a different vocabulary from years at sea and is not familiar with typical suburban family life. However, he's practical in the way that most sailors are, has a big heart, and ends up being an enormous help, which is more than we can say for Aunt Lala.
JS: Why is Bernard afraid to travel? Is that supposed to be symbolic in some way?
LP: I think we all have our fears, some more rational than others, some more acceptable or explainable than others. I never meant for it to be symbolic of anything. Bernard is just a home-and-hearth kind of guy and has hung on to that worry so many of us have when we're young about going into the woods and not coming back. Or worse, a loved one leaving and not returning. Bernard feels that nothing bad can happen in the safety of one's own home, surrounded by the people you love, aside from the occasional kitchen accident.
JS: What's Hallie's biggest fear?
LP: Aside from dropping one of those twins on his head, I guess it would be to make the wrong decision about something important—which man to marry, what job to take, where to live. I think that Hallie is in many ways overwhelmed by the amount
of freedom she has to make choices regarding the direction her life will take. And that's why she keeps circling her safe places— Officer Rich, the Stocktons, her family—always on the lookout for clear answers. To a good card player there's almost always a right move—at least the odds favor it fifty-one percent and so you make it. But in real life the probabilities, decision trees, and possible outcomes can't be calculated as accurately. This drives Hallie crazy, the fact that the world isn't a math problem that can be easily solved with a pencil and paper. And that unlike work done with a pencil, life choices can't necessarily be erased.
JS: What are you most afraid of?
LP: Dying one of those long, slow, horrible deaths from a disease they don't know much about, you can't pronounce, and none of my friends have heard of, so between monthslong hospital stays I'm on the Internet searching for cures and ordering guava pulp concentrate from South America, lighting lavender candles, and forming healing circles with the dogs. I'd much rather the M4 bus come barreling up Madison Avenue on a winter day when there's a bad glare and the curb is slippery and performs the Grim Reaper's job lickety-split. As soon as the passengers look out the window and see that the driver has killed a woman wearing a fuzzy pink bathrobe and silver moon boots, they groan and immediately start shouting, “Give us a refund!” and “Is there another bus behind this one?”
JS: Good luck with that. Why is
Best Bet
, the next book, going to be the last in the Hallie Palmer series?
LP: At around the age of twenty-two I suddenly became very boring, basically the person I am today.
JS: So what's next?
LP: I'm working on a stand-alone novel called
Fool's Mate
which is a bit edgier than this series. It takes place in a newsroom and there are some political machinations, which I've mostly avoided in the Hallie Palmer books, aside from Olivia's protests and editorializing. I'm also working on a new series where two women open an animal hospital in upstate New York. One is a veterinarian and the other has an MBA.
JS: Wait a second. That sounds like my life.
LP: It is. But I had the idea first. Remember—I showed it to you years ago when you lived in Manhattan and then
you
went and copied it with your life. Same with John and Kelly adopting a baby from China. They stole that from
Heart's Desire.
JS: Will a lot of men die in the next series?
LP: I suppose it depends on whether or not they're good drivers. The winters in upstate New York are very icy.
JS: What's your ultimate goal as a writer?
LP: Ideally, I'd like to get my books banned. That seems to be the best thing for sales.