A Farewell to Yarns jj-2 Read online

  “Poor Bobby," she finally said, but she didn't sound sympathetic. After a paused, she worked up to tolerant understanding. "I don't think he likes traveling. Of course, he won't admit it, but I wonder if he's afraid of planes. Lots of people are, but a boy his age wouldn't admit it. Yes, I think that must be it. He's been—well, touchy, I guess, you'd say, ever since I told him about our plans for Christmas."

  “Your plans for Christmas?" Jane asked, her heart in her mouth.

  “Why visiting you, I mean." She started rummaging in her purse for a tissue.

  Jane cast Shelley a despairing look and mouthed, "Two weeks!"

  “Where is Bobby?" Shelley asked. She was blocking traffic, and people were starting to honk and swerve around her.

  “There's some problem with one of this bags," Phyllis said with a definite sniffle. Jane immediately thought of a drug bust.

  What might happen if someone coming to visit her had a suitcase full of cocaine? Would the authorities think she had something to do with it?

  “The airline scuffed one of them up horribly, and he's very upset. Bobby isn't used to having nice things, and he's rather fussy about them now. That's only natural.”

  At this point, Bobby himself came slamming out through the doors with a skycap loaded down with luggage in his wake. Shelley got out, opened the back doors of the minivan, and supervised while Jane and Phyllis sat silently in the car. Jane noticed that Bobby didn't make any move to tip the man, so Shelly took care of it.

  She'd have to remember to reimburse Shelley later.

  Bobby and Shelly reached the driver's door at the same time. "I'll drive," he said.

  “I beg your pardon?" Shelley said in a voice that would have frozen anyone else.

  “I said I'll drive. I'm not riding with no broad."

  “Bobby, dear—" Phyllis bleated.

  But Shelly didn't need help. She gave Bobby her look, which had been known to make car repairmen and school principals cringe. "This 'broad' owns the vehicle and pays the insurance. You'll ride with me, or you'll walk."

  “Oh, dear—" Phyllis said.

  Bobby opened the back door, nearly yanking it off the hinges, and threw himself in next to Phyllis. Shelley climbed into the driver's seat with frigid dignity. Her knuckles on the steering wheel were white. Before pulling into traffic, shejammed a Christmas music tape into the tape player with a savage gesture.

  Jane lit another cigarette.

  Everyone pretended interest in traffic. They were two miles from the airport before anyone ventured to speak. Phyllis, her voice a bit shaky, said, over the sounds of "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear,”

  “Oh, look. It's starting to snow. How wonderful. You can't imagine how I've missed snow all these years. And how I've missed Chicago. Not that I don't love living on the island—but I always get a little sad at Christmas. Chet has a pine tree flown in from Canada every year, of course, but it's not the same when you're sitting around in shorts with the windows open. A pine tree just doesn't smell the same in a warm climate."

  “Screw the snow," Bobby mumbled.

  “Oh, no, Bobby darling! You can't fool me," Phyllis said with ponderous jollity. "You're happy to be back. You'd miss a Chicago Christmas as much as I have."

  “There's nothing about Chicago I'd miss."

  “Are you from Chicago?" Jane asked him, desperate to get the conversation on a friendlier footing.

  This wasn't the way to do it.

  “You mean Phyl didn't tell you all about Mommy's Little Bastard?" he asked.

  “Bobby, I've told you that you mustn't say things like that," Phyllis said.

  “Why not? It's the truth."

  “Phyllis, I was telling Shelley about the beautiful Christmas ornaments you made when we lived in that apartment—" Jane broke in franti‑ cally. "Remember the one with the starched lace you gave me? I still have it."

  “You don't! Oh, Jane, how sweet of you."

  “You'll have to show me how you did it. We're putting together a church bazaar right now, and we need all the help we can get.

  Maybe we can run over to the craft store after you've unpacked—"

  “Oh, I'd love that!" Phyllis said. "A Christmas bazaar! You can't know how much I miss such things. We live such an isolated life on the island." She paused, perhaps sensing that she was wandering right back into the same territory Jane was trying to save her from. "Yes, I think I remember how to do those ornaments. Tatting, wasn't it?"

  “Maybe you can show my daughter. Katie, how to tat. I'm hopeless, but she's pretty good at that sort of thing," Jane said.

  “Is that knitting you have in your bag there?" Phyllis asked.

  “Crocheting, actually. Is that knitting you have along with you?"

  “Just some little hats and mittens I'm making for charity. It gives me something to do with my hands. And I'm working on a sweater for Bobby, too. A sort of crimson; his color, I think.”

  Bobby had sunk into some silent reverie of his own. He was glaring out the window at the snow as if he could stop it by sheer disapproval. Shelley was no longer driving as if she were looking for a cliff to plunge them all over. The rest of the ride home was taken up with pleasant talk about crafts. Jane dragged out her afghan and showed it to Phyllis, who admired it enormously and reciprocated by hauling forth an elaborately designed sweater.

  Eventually Jane started breathing normally, but in the back of her mind, she was turning over the problem of what to about her guests. Phyllis apparently believed that the invitation to visit was open-ended. Jane supposed a monthlong visit wasn't odd at all in the lifestyle Phyllis was accustomed to. After all, if you had a whole hotel to put your guests up in, they could stay for years without being a nuisance. Jane was certain Phyllis had no idea she was being an imposition.

  A month with Phyllis—with any stranger underfoot in the house—would be bad enough. But a month with Bobby Bryant? Impossible. Within a week somebody, most likely Jane herself, would kill that boy.

  Four .

  Shelley pulled into Jane's driveway. She un- locked and opened the back doors of the minivan, then stood aside and watched while Jane and Phyllis sorted suitcases from church bazaar cartons and unloaded the luggage."I don't suppose it's crossed your mind to help?”

  Shelley said to Bobby, who smirked and said nothing.

  Overhearing this, Jane handed him a suitcase with such force that it nearly knocked his breath out. "We'Ve got it all sorted out. You can carry them in now, Bobby."

  “What an adorable house, Jane!" Phyllis said.

  “Thanks, Phyllis," Jane said, miffed. "Adorable" had cute, cosy connotations to her. As if it were merely a summer cottage. Well, from Phyllis's viewpoint, it probably was. She reminded herself that Phyllis had meant it well.

  “Here, let me help you with those, Bobby!”

  Phyllis was saying. Jane was tempted to break her arm.

  Shelley was closing the sliding side door, and Jane went to get her bag of crocheting off thefloor of the front seat. "Shelley, I can't tell you how sorry I am—" she said quietly.

  “Jane, my dear, you're going to be much sorrier before you get rid of them. I don't know who I dislike most—Bobby for being such a jerk or your friend, Phyllis, for not knowing it."

  “Do you think she doesn't know? Or is she just not willing to admit it?"

  “The subtleties don't interest me. Whatever it is, it comes to the same thing in my book," Shelley said.

  “I'm really sorry—”

  Shelley softened. "I shouldn't be a bitch to you. It's just that I haven't been so mad in years. He really is a bastard, regardless of birth. The status can be earned, as well. But it's not your fault. You had no idea what was coming."

  “What am I going to do with them?"

  “We'll get rid of them somehow. Trust me. Just don't let that boy near me again."

  “Thanks for driving. Please don't abandon me now."

  “Jane, you saw me through having my wisdom teeth extracted while my
mother-in-law was visiting. That's a moral debt I intend to clear up this week.”

  The joined Phyllis and Bobby, who had gathered all their luggage—a substantial pile of fantastically expensive leatherwork—at the kitchen door next to the driveway. Phyllis and Bobby were in the midst of an argument. Or at least Bobby was treating it as such. "I can't be stuck here with no wheels, Phyl."

  “Of course you can't, darling. I'll call a car rental right away."

  “I don't want some old fogy kind of car. I want something sporty to take back to the old neighborhood."

  “Oh, Bobby, do you really think you should—?”

  “You gonna tie some rope on me or something?”

  “Of course not, darling. You know I wouldn't interfere in what you want to do. I just don't think it's wise to—”

  She stopped as Jane forced her way between them to unlock the kitchen door. She decided that if Phyllis wanted to haul suitcases around when there was an able-bodied young man on hand, she could do so, but Jane Jeffry had too much sense. She strolled into the kitchen and held the door open. Shelley managed to be right on her heels, unencumbered with so much as an ounce of Phyllis or Bobby's luggage.

  “Come out, Willard, it's not burglars," Jane called, as Phyllis and Bobby wrestled suitcases. A moment later the big dog emerged timidly from behind the door to the living room. He was wagging his tail in a craven manner as if to suggest that he was merely waiting to be absolutely certain of the evidence before attacking.

  “I think if burglars actually came in here, he'd probably read them their rights," Jane said with disgust as Willard shambled up and sniffed Phyllis's feet. "There's also an army of cats around someplace. Max and Meow will turn up when you least expect them."

  “What a dear doggie! I haven't petted an animal for years," Phyllis said, bending to stroke him. "Chet has terrible allergies, poor man. He knows how much I love animals, so he's always buying the most adorable stuffed animals forme. There's this shop in Paris that sends a man every year with samples. Isn't that amazing? The man has to miss days of work to fly down to the island. I think it's so sweet of him."

  “Phyl, the car—" Bobby said.

  Just for a second Phyllis looked at him as if she'd never seen him before but then got her doting look back. "Jane, do you have a phone book around?"

  “Yes, I'll get it while you're unpacking.”

  “Phyl, now," Bobby said.

  “Surely you can wait a few minutes and let your mother get settled," Jane said in the tone she used with the kids in the car pool who were misbehaving. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed that Shelley, who couldn't even bring herself to spank her poodle to make him behave, had balled up her fists as if to pummel someone momentarily.

  “No, Jane. It's fine. I'll just give them a quick call," Phyllis said.

  Jane handed her the yellow pages and sat down at the kitchen table. She wanted to put her head in her hands and weep. Phyllis had never been one of the world's great brains, but could she possibly be this stupid? The poor man from the toy store missed days of work flying from Paris? Why, Chet Wagner must have put in a couple thousand just getting him there. And to buy a grown woman expensive stuffed animals?

  Jane tried to remember Chet and could only come up with a dim impression of an older man (not so old, really, probably only the age Jane was now) with a worried expression when Phyl‑ lis wasn't around and a euphoric one when she was. He must have really loved her all these years with an uncritical, unquestioning love. Proof of what love could do without a brain. But Chet wasn't a stupid man. You don't bu whole islands on the profits of stupidity. buy ever, if the relationship had been successful in the past, what made it stop working now? Jane was torn between curiosity and the fear that Phyllis was going to explain it all to her—at length.

  And what did Chet think of Bobby? More important, what did he think of the way Phyllis knuckled under to the overgrown brat? Surely Chet wouldn't approve. Or did Chet automatically accept anything Phyllis did or wanted? The loathsome Bobby had to be at the heart of the trouble, but hadn't Phyllis said that it was Chet who dug up Bobby? What an odd marriage.

  Bobby had wandered into the living room with Willard trailing him. Phyllis covered the mouthpiece of the phone and whispered to Jane, Is a Jag a fancy car?"

  “Very fancy. Go for it, Phyllis," Jane said, hoping her old friend didn't hear the unwitting sarcasm in her voice. Thank God Shelley had wandered off to the guest bathroom and hadn't heard the exchange. She'd have probably grabbed Phyllis by the hair and beat her head against the wall. Or at least she'd have looked like she wanted to. Where had Phyllis, who didn't even know what Jaguars were, found a place that rented them? Phyllis's ways were mysterious indeed.

  “They're bringing it over in a minute, darling," she called to Bobby when she hung up.

  “Phyllis, I'm putting you in the guest room at the end of the hall upstairs. Bobby can take your bags up there," Jane said loudly enough that the boy would hear. She wondered if maybe the neighbors could hear, too. "Bobby'll have to sleep on the sofa bed in the basement."

  “Oh, no. Let Bobby have the guest room. I'll be fine in the basement," Phyllis said.

  Jane dug her heels in. "No. Impossible. Bobby, take your mother's things upstairs.”

  Phyllis smiled. "I guess we mothers always think of the children first, don't we?”

  Shelley, now back from the bathroom, made a noise somewhere between a snort of outrage and the beginning of a coughing spasm.

  Jane was amazed that anyone could utter such a remark without choking on it. "I don't see why we should, Phyllis. Kids are much more resilient than we are. My Mike could sleep on a pile of rocks and not notice. Come on up, and I'll show you your room and the bathroom and everything." Hesitant to leave Shelley alone with Bobby for fear of what she might do to him without supervision, Jane reluctantly took Phyllis upstairs, all the while fighting the desire to apologize for the accommodations.

  The "guest room" was really a sort of accidental cubbyhole she usually used for storing cartons (all of which were now "stored" in her own bedroom). It had a double bed, a chair, a tiny dressing table, and a closet the size you might find in a train compartment. Worse, Phyl‑ lis would have to share a bathroom with Jane's kids, a gruesome fate.

  But Phyllis didn't find anything odd or inconvenient about the arrangement. She admired the pretty bedspread, commented favorably on the view of the field behind the house from the small single window, and complimented Jane on the felt Christmas banner hanging on the wall over the bed.

  “Phyllis, I hate to be rude, but there's an errand Shelley and I have to do. I promised to help her take some things out of her car, and I don't want to stick her with the job. It'll only take fifteen minutes or so. Do you mind if I leave you here to unpack?"

  “Of course not," Phyllis said, giving her a quick hug to emphasize her sincerity. "I don't want to be the least trouble to you."

  “You're not trouble at all. I'm glad to have you here," Jane lied. And yet, it wasn't entirely a lie. If it hadn't been for Bobby, she'd be enjoying Phyllis's presence.

  Five

  Bobby was blitzing through television channels, trying to find something to suit his tastes when Jane came back down. Shelley was in the kitchen, pacing. "Bobby, I'm going to run an errand," Jane called. "When I get back, I'll make up your room in the basement. I'll only be gone a little while.”

  He kept pushing the buttons on the remote control until he finally found MTV. Then he turned up the volume. If he'd been one of her children and ignored her, Jane would have snapped the set off, but he wasn't hers—thank God!

  Shelley was out the door and had started the van before Jane could even climb in. They rode in silence, the magnitude of Jane's plight having overwhelmed them both. Once Jane whimpered a little, and Shelley patted her hand.

  Shelley pulled into the curved, hedge-bordered drive of Fiona Howard's house. The construc‑ tion of this home in Jane and Shelley's neighborhood had caused s
omething of a stir a few years earlier. A conflagration (started by a grease fire caused by a notoriously bad cook and taken as a sort of divine culinary retribution) had seriously damaged two adjoining homes as well. The central house, as well as the two neighboring ones, were purchased by a couple named Fiona and Albert Howard who, to everyone's surprise, made no attempt to repair the damaged homes to the side. Instead, they leveled both of them, as well as the middle one, and built a new house on the triple lot.

  This was considered an extravagant thing to do, but surprise had turned to disappointment and a certain measure of animosity when, before construction was even completed, a visually impenetrable wall of hedges went in around the entire site. Worse, the owners were seldom around during the construction process, so there was almost no opportunity to get to know them or their floor plan. This thwarting of natural nosiness was considered very unfriendly.

  The mystery of the Howards' apparent secretiveness was solved, however, a scant week before they moved in. The realtor let drop an historical reference that was picked up and picked apart. The elusive Mrs. Howard, it turned out, was the former wife of Richie Divine, the late rock star whose untimely death had shaken the country--or at least the female half of it—as badly as Elvis Presley's.

  Know to keep a public profile so low as to be nearly invisible, Fiona Howard was an extremely unwilling celebrity, almost a legend in a slightly pejorative sense. This made the hedge practically acceptable. After a while neighbors started to take a certain pride in it. "Oh, that hedge?" they would say to visitors who were taken blocks out of their way to "happen" to drive past. "Why, that's the Howard estate—Richie Divine's widow, you know.”

  It was Jane's first time behind the hedge.

  “Jane, help me with these boxes," Shelley said, opening the side door of the minivan.

  Jane got out and braced herself to lift a particularly large carton. She nearly threw it over her shoulder when she gave a mighty heave. "Dear Lord, is this empty?"