The Evening Star (32 page)

Now, three years later, sitting in the afternoon drizzle by the sodden playing field, Aurora felt herself losing heart. What was she doing, a woman who was getting on, lurking like a groupie of some sort around a soccer field in a neighborhood she had never really liked, in hopes of catching a glimpse of a man she scarcely knew, for no better reason than that he seemed to have excitingly sturdy legs? As for the guys in all sizes and shapes who were supposed to carry her robustly into her eighties, there were, for the moment, only Hector and Pascal, two sizes and shapes she would gladly forgo if only she had some that were better. Even if Jerry Bruckner did jog by on his excitingly sturdy legs, it wouldn’t matter, since she had already resolved to resist him for the sake of her dignity.

Still, important as dignity was, it wasn’t everything. Aurora had the suspcion that if her resolve happened to be tested on the right day, or perhaps that should be the wrong day, it might not prove to be such a solid instrument after all. A drizzly afternoon on which she had just caught her new lover with a young girlfriend might be just such a day, too—but Jerry Bruckner, whose timing was not quite in the same class as his lower lip, stubbornly refused to jog past and take advantage of his big chance.

Nonetheless Aurora felt a new reluctance to consider going home, though it was the time of day when she was normally more than happy to go home. For many years she had preferred to spend the end of the afternoon in her window nook, surrounded by light reading on the order of five or six movie magazines. She could sip tea, wonder if movie stars really had that much fun or that much heartbreak, look out the window
and observe the neighborhood, talk to Melanie on the phone, or perhaps quarrel with Rosie a little.

All those pleasures, however, were contingent upon Hector Scott being far away on a golf course, hitting his ball around, and now he was never far away on a golf course. Any quarreling that got done would inevitably be done with him, and even if he wasn’t annoyed he would be likely just to prattle on about his medications and his correspondent hopes for a late surge of potency, a prospect that seemed more and more unlikely, and that, for her part, she now no longer particularly wanted anyway.

Because of what she and Rosie had begun to call the flasher factor, the thought of spending the late afternoon in her window nook had lost much of its appeal, so, casting one last look across the track field and seeing no Jerry, she started her car and pursued a rather roundabout route to the home of Teddy, Jane, and Bump. Teddy would undoubtedly be at work, but she could see her great-grandchild and perhaps have a talk with Jane about the complexities of life.

Aurora never
had
had a frank talk with Jane about the complexities of life, but she had the sense that Jane at least realized that life was seriously complex, and if she could be induced to talk about it, would probably not be excessively judgmental—in contrast to Rosie, who had a grating tendency to be instantly and unequivocally judgmental about everything Aurora did or hoped to do.

Aurora was uncomfortably aware that in the eyes of many she herself came across as instantly and unequivocally judgmental, though in fact as she got older she felt less and less capable of judging in such a clear-cut way. Such wisdom as had come to her through long experience showed an increasing tendency to blur at the edges; it was getting very difficult to be quite sure about anything. Jane was young and had a sharp eye; a little talk with her might be helpful.

To her surprise, however, it was Teddy, not Jane, who opened the door for her.

“Hi, Granny,” he said. Her heart gave a leap at the welcoming tone in which he said it; he was, after all, her very
favorite grandchild and had been since he was born. Tommy had been brighter, and Melanie cuter, but Teddy was all love, or all hope, or all despair. He was of a piece emotionally, in a way that Aurora could not resist.

He came out on the porch by the steps and gave her a big hug. They were, unfortunately, positioned just under the drip from the roof, but Aurora didn’t care. She felt confusion well up in her; she felt she might cry, but she didn’t.

“Bump’s got a fever,” Teddy said.

“But it’s your shift,” Aurora said. “Why are you here?”

“Because Jane gets scared when Bump has a fever,” Teddy said. “She’d rather risk getting murdered on the night shift than stay with a sick child.”

Jonathan was asleep. Aurora marched in and put a hand on his forehead—indeed, he did have a fever, and a fairly high one. When she touched him Bump opened his eyes briefly—the wet eyes of a child with a high fever—but he soon closed them again and slept.

“Laurie came by and played with him,” Teddy said. Laurie was Jane’s sister. “He gets too excited when Laurie comes. She’s his favorite aunt. He almost always gets a fever after she leaves.”

“Oh, Laurie,” Aurora said. “Does she still have her Senegalese? Jane’s sisters do manage to find the most exotic men.”

“She’s still got him but I don’t think he’s particularly exotic,” Teddy said. “He’s basically just a professor.”

She noticed that his hands were shaking as he made the tea. Also, there was a look in his eye that wasn’t quite right, a look it pained her to see. The look was more sad than wild, but it was not entirely free of wildness, either, and even a trace of wildness frightened her. The years in which the two boys were in and out of mental hospitals had been a hell—one she didn’t want to revisit. It was in those years that the edges of everything blurred: the points of the compass whirled, and all she knew was that happiness was now gone; she could not be happy with her grandchildren in madhouses; everything she attempted in those years was spoiled by their despair.

“Ted, if something’s wrong, tell me,” she said, mustering her courage. “You don’t seem quite yourself.”

“You don’t need to panic,” Teddy said, seeing that she was about to. “I’m just coming off a medication and I’m a little shaky.”

“What else?” Aurora inquired.

“We’re fighting about the night shift,” Teddy admitted. “Jane thinks it’s bad for me, and I think it’s bad for her. I don’t need to sleep normal hours, but Jane does. I just let her go tonight because of Bump’s fever, but she’s not working the night shift regularly, and that’s that. But I imagine there’ll be a few more fights about it before she gives up.”

“What else?” Aurora asked again. She knew there was more. She could tell from the tone of his voice that he was just giving her the skin of the problem—he wasn’t giving her the meat.

Teddy grinned and shook his head. His grandmother’s intuition amazed him—it always had. There
was
more, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to talk about it. His grandmother liked Jane, and if he told her what the trouble was she might stop liking her.

Also, Jane liked his grandmother. Granny might hold her peace, but, then again, she might not, and if she didn’t and she and Jane had a big fight there was no telling where it all might end. Jane wasn’t going to let him or Aurora Greenway or anyone else interfere much in her life. Jane’s first principle was that
nobody
had better try and interfere in her life.

“Come on, tell me,” Aurora said. “You can trust me.”

“I don’t know if I can, this time,” Teddy said.

“Have I ever violated a secret of yours?” Aurora asked. She took her tea and settled herself on the couch. She tried to appear calm, but she wasn’t calm. Nothing unsettled her so much as the dawn of some new wildness in Teddy’s eyes. Confusion she could live with, but she didn’t want any more madness—if any more madness came she felt she might lose it and end up mad herself.

“No, but this is a new kind of secret,” Teddy said.

“You mean she’s having an affair?” Aurora asked.

Teddy was silent, wondering if he looked different in some
way. If he didn’t, then how had his granny figured out that there was trouble?

“I raised you, remember?” Aurora said, speaking to his thought. “I do know you rather well. You can’t conceal trouble from me unless you stay out of sight and off the phone. And even then I still might figure it out.”

Teddy was mainly thinking about what signs might have given her a clue—his shaky hands, or what?

“If she’s having an affair that’s not really a new kind of secret,” Aurora remarked. “I’m afraid it’s a very old secret, really, which is not to say it wouldn’t be appropriate for you to be very upset—if that is the secret.”

“She’s having an affair with a woman she went to school with,” Teddy admitted—it just took too much energy to hold out against Aurora’s inquiries.

“I see,” Aurora said with no sign of shock. “It’s the same secret, only in skirts.”

Teddy felt immediately better, as he always did when he shared some problem with his grandmother. Of course, the problem was still there. But now, at least he had an ally. He knew from his granny’s tone that she intended to be his ally. Most of the time he was not disturbed by the fact that Jane was sleeping with Claudia. What disturbed him was that, except for Jane and Claudia, he was the only one who knew it. It was a weight. It overworked his drugs—without something like that added, his drugs kept him pretty stable. He
wanted
to stay pretty stable; maybe with the drugs plus his grandmother, he could.

Bump began to whine, and Aurora went to the bed and got him. She wrapped him in a light quilt and brought him to the couch.

“Could I just have a washrag, please?” she asked. “I believe if I had a wet washrag we could bathe this fever away.”

Teddy got her the washrag and she began to bathe the little boy’s face and forehead. At first Bump wiggled and resisted, but then he gave up and rested limply in Aurora’s lap. His eyes were already less feverish.

“Do you think it’s coming down?” Teddy asked. Bump’s fevers were big crises in their lives—far bigger, really, than
Jane’s affair with Claudia. Jane worried herself sick over the fevers, and he worried himself sick about Jane and Bump.

“Why, yes, a little,” Aurora said, feeling Bump’s forehead.

“I’m going to phone Jane—she’ll be relieved,” Teddy said.

Bump looked up at Aurora and she made a fish face at him. Ordinarily when his Big Granny made a fish face at him, Bump dissolved in hilarity, but this time he felt too sleepy to laugh. He smiled a little, though.

“That’s better,” Aurora said.

Teddy stayed in the bedroom, reporting on Bump’s recovery, for some time. Aurora continued to use the washrag to cool down her great-grandchild. When Teddy returned to the room, his eyes, it seemed to her, were less wild. The little boy would soon be over his fever, and perhaps Teddy had slipped past the gates of madness once again. She herself felt rather tired—perhaps now it was time she went home.

“Is the woman nice?” she asked, handing Bump to his father.

“Oh, Claudia?” Teddy said. “Yeah, she is nice. She’s a little bit of a slob, but she’s nice.”

“Far better that it’s a woman than a man, Ted,” Aurora said. “Just at this moment you may not agree with that opinion, but someday you’ll see that I’m right.”

“I already think you’re right,” Teddy said. “If it was a man he’d probably try to take Jane away, and that’d be awful. As it is, about the worst that can happen is that Claudia might move in with us.”

“I see,” Aurora said. “What does Jonathan think of Claudia?”

“Oh, he likes her fine,” Teddy said. “She reads him stories. If she did move in with us, Jane and I could both work days and Claudia could be his nanny. It would actually be kind of good if we could both work days.”

“Yes, it probably would,” Aurora said. She gave Bump a couple of kisses on his neck—a neck that was still hot. His fever had not abated
that
much, but it would, and she thought it best to anticipate its abatement a bit and relieve his worried parents’ minds.

“Jane’s family is not without their adventurous bent, I
must say,” Aurora reflected. “Laurie’s got a Senegalese and now Jane has you and a woman. What about the little one—Betsy?”

“Betsy’s gay,” Teddy said. “She lives with a girl who’s a dental assistant. I like them both a lot, even though Betsy thinks men are brutes.”

“Well, except for you and one or two scattered souls, Betsy’s right,” Aurora said, handing Jonathan to him.

“Did you see Tommy?” Teddy asked cautiously when she stood up to go. Tommy was a sore subject, best approached in a gingerly fashion.

“Yes, but for the last time, unless he changes,” Aurora said. “I have other responsibilities, and I can’t afford to be hurt that badly. I told him so, too.”

“I don’t think Tommy will change,” Teddy said.

“I don’t either, so there’s no point,” Aurora said. “What do you hear from Melly?”

“We don’t,” Teddy said. “I guess they aren’t able to afford a telephone yet. I told her to call from a pay phone and make it collect, but she won’t.”

“I’m becoming a trifle worried,” Aurora said. “It would be nice to know if either one of them actually has a job yet, and if they don’t I’d like to know what they’re living on. I wonder if your father’s heard from her—I suppose he’d help his own child if it was an emergency.”

“I guess he would,” Teddy said without conviction.

“At least he would if it were life or death,” he added. “If Melly was just broke, I doubt he’d want to hear it. Madga would skin him alive if she caught him giving any of us money. She definitely expects him to spend all his money on her and her children.”

“I’m sure—I predicted he’d get that sort of wife,” Aurora said. “On the whole it serves him right, but it’s no help where Melly’s concerned.

“Rosie’s quite worried, too,” she added. In fact, Rosie was so worried that she wanted both of them to fly to Los Angeles and see for themselves how things stood. They had argued about the wisdom of such a step as recently as that morning.

Teddy felt slightly guilty for not worrying about his sister more than he did, but in fact life at home was about all he had time or energy to think about. Bump was wiggling, meaning he wanted to be put on the floor, which might make his fever to back up.

Teddy put him on the floor and Bump collapsed in a heap, thumb in his mouth, looking not much less feverish than he had when Aurora came in. If his fever actually went up before Jane got home there would be hell to pay, Teddy worried.