HOME PLATE

Patricia Henley

 

Acknowledgments

 

I owe a debt to Jean Shindola Bolen, whose book Goddesses in Older Women inspired Emma’s story. I’m also grateful to the Department of English at The University of Alabama where I held the Coal Royalty Endowed Chair in Creative Writing during the completion of this novel.

 

 For Faye Bender,

about whom the joke

in Chapter 11

could never be told                                                

 

 

“You will always be having to get up from your chairs

To move on to other heartbreaks, be caught in other snares.”

 

-- John Ashbery

From the poem “Some Words”

In The Double Dream of Spring

 

 “Our lives may be determined less by our childhoods

than by the ways we have learned to imagine our childhoods.”

 

-- James Hillman

     Soul’s Code

 

CHAPTER  1

 

Writing a novel is like peeling an onion in reverse. You’re a celestial seamstress, stitching up your story.

Where do stories begin? Each one has its heart, its seed, its root.

This story – which is affirming, in spite of murder, a tattered marriage, antagonism between sisters, a dear old uncle arrested for civil disobedience, and a cousin blinded – this story goes way back, to the Oregon coast on a gray beach day.  Sixteen years ago. In wind so strong that our words were flung back at us like wet rags, a woman friend in her late fifties revealed that she was involved in a long-term serious affair and that her husband was privy to the affair. She thought she had become the sole protagonist in the story she tells herself about her life. Now everyone who’s ever been married knows that when you marry you are ever after a co-protagonist; therein lay the rub, the flinch, the wistfulness and sorrow, the get-backs, the power plays of coupledom.

Charming in his own right, and somewhat of a legend in Oregon where he had once chained himself to logging machinery to save old growth forest – the husband had simply given up participating. He didn’t want to do the things she wanted to do. Cruise the rivers of Europe. Shop the London flea markets. Wait in line for tickets to the Nice Jazz Festival. And so on. The husband let her go amiably. (Or, I sometimes wonder, perhaps stoic pride engendered such a stance.) The affair is still ongoing, they remain married, but her husband’s idea of travel is a stroll through the rose gardens in Portland.

In a burst of literary morphogenesis, they became Joe and Emma March. Let’s lift the dusty velvet curtain on Emma.

Wrigley Field is little more than a mile from Emma March’s bright yellow school door and she waits, after school, watching for Joe through the leaded-glass panels on either side of the entry. He is probably parked at the 7-11 across from Gate D. Of a late afternoon he’ll doze off and on in the Skylark, sipping scorched coffee until time to pick up Emma. Come on, Joe.

 In less than a month Wrigley will be aswarm with fans tipping souvenir cups of beer. There might be fair-weather clouds in a blue sky above the stands, the green field. For years she took it for granted that Joe would organize baseball outings for her and the girls. Joe March is the rare impartial man in Chicago – capable of rooting for the Cubs or the Sox. Cool evenings when the wind cut in from the lake he might have tucked a fleece blanket around Emma’s legs. That old Joni Mitchell lyric comes to mind: You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.

When the Skylark sidles up to the curb Emma can tell whether Joe is having a good day or a bad day. If he’s feeling better he’ll get out and open her door with a flourish. Sometimes the proximity of Wrigley – his detour there – lifts his mood. He might say, “At your service, sweets.” If he’s feeling under the weather, he’ll slump in the driver’s seat, both fists on the wheel. 

Above the school door, a stone lintel has been inscribed: You must be the change you want to see – Gandhi. From inside, Emma can’t see it. But it’s there. Inscribed on her mind every morning that she walks into Friends School, No. 1.

Should she volunteer for something? Is that what Gandhi’s asking for?

She tells herself, Damn it, I did volunteer – I volunteered to raise children. That and teach third grade. But now that the girls are grown – what’s next?

Lapsed now – fallen, agnostic, what have you – Emma was reared a New Orleans Catholic, with its tinge of voodoo and the promise of hellfire if no one prays you out of purgatory. She goes to Mass with Joe on Christmas Eve for the Christmas carols. Teaching with Quakers has suited her fine.

Behind her, the transom over a classroom door rattles and Tiff, who teaches second grade, who sends exultant children to Emma’s third grade class (children who crow at the knowledge of flower parts or the circuitry of bees’ lives), Tiff, who scorns her full name in favor of a diminutive both disdainful and lighthearted, Tiff – no schoolmarm clothes for her – in a short leather skirt, dark stockings, and knee-high boots the color of caramel that squeak against the waxed floor, yes, Tiff scampers down the hall to the front door, lugging tote bags. She says, “Emma, honey. We’re overdue for a bad girls’ good time.”

Her face ornately freckled, almost like a tattoo, her dimples deep, Tiff is from Savannah, and she and Emma flaunt their southern accents among the Yankees. Thirty-four, never married, Tiff is plump and shy with men because of it.

Emma laughs. “I don’t know if I have any bad girl in me tonight.”

“Em-ma.” Sweet as sugar pie.

“You know that new kid Ricky? Itty-bitty boy? With tiny teeth? He learned to spell tattletale and he sing-sang it under his breath all day.  A regular goddamn cheerleader.”  A year ago Ricky would’ve become her ally. For thirty-two years, teaching awards have been Emma’s, golden apples and such.

“Ems.”

“Mm-huh?”

“You need a break. Before you break.”

“Let’s see if I can reach Joe.” It takes four rings. She hopes he’s not driving.

“Yes, Ems?” he says, against the whoosh of traffic.

Amiably, Emma says, “Where are you?”

“I got hung up. I’m still on the Drive. Around Grant Park.”

“Joe, hon, would you mind? I want to go out with Tiff. Sorry I didn’t telephone earlier.” And Tiff whispers, “Tell him I need to talk to you.” There it is: a white lie. Tiff wants to make it sound like a tiny emergency. Emma says, “Tiff needs to talk to me.”

Joe easily agrees. It is a relief to him. “I’ll be home around ten,” she says. “Early.”

“Don’t forget about tomorrow,” Joe says. “Saugatuck.”

He doesn’t mention the last time she went out with Tiff: she said she would be home by midnight, but a little after one she was standing outside the Wise Fool’s Pub, hailing a taxi.

Tomorrow Emma and Joe are to drive to Michigan, to the mini-farm bequeathed them by Uncle Mort. To Saugatuck, where they have had more than a few marital trysts. Where tourism is down, and they can be good post-9/11 citizens, patriotic, going there and spending money. They will meet the realtor and list the property. That sale will be a step in the right direction. Her direction. “I won’t forget, Joe.”

He shuts off his phone. No more endearments, no farewells.

“I do need to talk to you, Emma,” Tiff declares, as they set off walking against the brutal wind, weighed down by tote bags.

Emma feels the sting of white lies. Secrets and white lies: little stolen things.

At Tiff’s carriage house apartment they eat dark chocolate. The dome of the church at the corner turns mouse-gray with dusk. They speak of antioxidants, goddesses, Tiff’s potential mates, and school. Tiff’s first three years teaching at Friend’s School they would spend unmeasured time talking about their students, each one’s psychology and preferences and problems. Fluid, vagabond hours would pass. This year, all year, Emma has steered the conversation to her dilemma: she wants to quit teaching, but for what?  It’s like a canker sore she can’t stop flicking with her tongue.

Tiff finally says, “Emma, Emma, Emma – don’t quit yet. I’ll miss you.”

Lights go on in the red stone mansion where Tiff’s great-aunt lives out her days. Next door is a grassy vacant lot surrounded by an ornamental iron fence. Dog people gather inside the fence with their dogs in the evening. Emma and Tiff stand at the window and watch. Tiff says, “See the one with the Scotty?” She sighs. “Maybe I need a dog. Do you think he’s --”

“What?”

“There’s something about him I like. His belly.” She laughs. “He’s got the belly of a baseball player. Built for comfort, not for speed.”

When Emma is with Tiff she is tempted to become a flirt. To employ the tilted head, the smile, the copulatory gaze well-documented by anthropologists and psychologists. But, handsome as she is – in the lime-green sweater borrowed from Tiff for their night on the town, her red hair shot through with silver glistening – she has lost the infrastructure to support flirtation. The collagen, the testosterone, the estrogen.  So she says to Tiff, “Go on down there.”

“What would I do?”

“Ask him if you can pet his dog. Become a dog lover.”

“Emma.”

 “What do you have to lose?”

Tiff flicks on lipstick. Rolling her eyes, she says, “Ta-da.” She buttons her wool coat.

“Pretend,” Emma says, “it’s an irony-free zone down there.”

Exaggerated come-hither pasted on her face, Tiff slips out. The metal storm door rattles.  Emma watches from behind the lace curtain. She watches and misses the person she used to be. Tiff and the man with the ball player’s belly list toward each other. He wears a bright red parka, like a mountain climber. They meld orbits, personal space. It must be below freezing and their breath mingles. Emma imagines that he can smell Tiff’s perfume, something sporty. 

If not for Tiff, Emma would never have joined Goddess Group, women who meet once a month to lay the rubric of mythology over their lives. Martinis in hand. The more Emma learns about the goddesses, the less she knows about herself. Has she been Demeter, staying in her marriage for her children? Has she denied Persephone, the Eternal Girl? The best thing about Goddess Group is the laughter; they imagine all the goddesses in a circle, laughing. How would the women in Goddess Group see this moment? Or what she does next?

Several men surround Tiff now. She pets the dogs, ruffles their fur, her enchanting Savannah laugh tinkling.  In soft-soled shoes Emma patters down the metal steps and meanders into the fenced area. Almost as if she’s lost something. She feels the lack of a dog. The grass is flat and brown and crinkly underfoot. The men do look up, and then back to Tiff. Except for one: he has a neat white beard on a squarish tanned face, glacial green eyes, and his Westie skips around Emma. She kneels to pet the dog.

The man says, “Don’t I know you?”

“From where?” Emma says, paying the dog her best attention. Then, to the dog, “You’re adorable, aren’t you?”

“Friends School – my granddaughter’s in fifth grade at Friend’s School. I saw you at the Christmas program.”

Emma pops up and they touch hands, shake hands. His hand is warm. He holds her hand in both of his. She says her name and he says his.

Tiff says, “We better go, Emma.”

But why? Emma wants – she knows it’s willful and could cause trouble – to stand there shaking hands. Emotions almost always trump reason. Emotions whine and bully.

Friendly Tiff negotiates the leave-taking. See you at the next Christmas play. See you here, the men say.

Walking to the Wise Fool’s Pub for the blues, what she calls Get Naked music, Tiff says, “Did you notice how he looked a little like Joe?”

“Who?”

“You just by-passed flirting,” and here Tiff swings her purse and amicably wops Emma on the bottom, “and went straight to hand-holding.”

I once heard Tom Robbins say, completely deadpan, “When you die, your fingernails keep growing, but your phone calls taper off.” Emma uses that same tone, apropos what hand-holding might eventuate. “You have to have orgasms to keep from becoming incontinent.”

“Come rain or shine,” Tiff grins, “I have at least three a week.”

“That a girl.”

 

 

Last night Chicago writer Sharon Solwitz and I met Emma and Tiff at the Wise Fool’s Pub, before the music started.  Sharon tossed her hair, sitting cross-legged on the stained brocade sofa.  Freckled, gorgeous, her tennis muscles revealed by a moss-green tank top. I wallowed in my own dilemma and believed that Sharon, wise woman extraordinaire, could pull me rationally out of it. We ordered margaritas all around, some with a tasty diamond-rim of salt, some without.  “Hello, dollings,” Sharon said. Tiff and Emma sat down just as I was telling Sharon about my editor’s remark about people in their fifties. People don’t want to read about people in their fifties.

Sharon said, “That’s absurd – people don’t want to read about people in their fifties! What about Gandalf? Coleman Silk? Rabbit and Janice Angstrom? What about Fagan and Nestor and Old Phoenix? Brother Cadfael and Miss Marple? The Reverend John Ames and Jean Brodie and Captain Ahab? Atticus Finch? Francis Phelan and Baby Suggs and Dilsey?”

The band on the little stage tinkered with their instruments – five young women in tights, bright tunics, and crew-cuts.  Bra-less. Sassy. Their sound engineer – a willowy gazelle in flowered overalls – frowned and did repeated sound checks. The drummer set up a red oscillating table fan, complete with multicolor LEDs on the blades that shimmered kaleidoscopically when she turned it on. She adjusted her high hat and tapped out a beat with drumsticks on her thigh. I couldn’t wait to dance. To shimmy. Cavort and conga. Sharon is deliciously short and I am tall, as het as they come, but dancing together is a kind of erotic permission we give each other.

Emma March snapped me back to our talk, surprised me. She said, “Did he mean people don’t want to read about people in their fifties? Or did he mean that people don’t want to read about people in their fifties fucking?”

Sharon laughed, snorted. “You got it.”

Does it make you squeamish? People in their fifties or older lolling in bed? People in their fifties mooning over each other? Orgasmic people in their fifties and beyond. Beyond the beyond.  Flawed people, people with sore feet, crow’s feet, double chins, love handles, tennis elbow, tendonitis, iron-gray hair, salt-and-pepper hair, tired salon-streaked hair, no hair, skin-cancer scars, hernia scars. 

We resist envisioning lovers on the downhill side of fifty. She of the hysterectomy scar like a knife blade across her belly makes her ablutions in the bathroom, preparing for him. With silky soap she washes what she still calls down there. She shaves her legs and rubs in pear-scented lotion. It has sparkly things in it. She sparkles. She dabs perfume under her breasts, along her collar bones. She brushes out her hair so that it’s loose, not hemmed in by hair spray. Her pj’s are rayon leopard-skin. Or a button-down shirt, frayed at the collar, he once wore to a company banquet. The bathroom lights are platinum dim. She remembers a “Sylvie” cartoon from twenty years ago. (Want to know the secret of eternal beauty? Smear the mirror with Vasoline.) Waiting, perched on a bedroom chair in candy-pink boxers, he clips his fingernails and runs an emery board along the edge to smooth each one. No Viagra-fueled Bob Dole-type. He figures, it doesn’t matter where you get your appetite, so long as you eat at home. He has a stock of memories and wants to ask her if she remembers the night in Louisville when she dared him to take her to a gentleman’s club. She dressed in a pin-stripe suit that belonged to her brother. She was twenty-nine, before she had the twins. Later, on their way out of town they stopped in a mossy park and, in his words, got it on. They couldn’t wait. She said that the soft hair on his chest and belly grew in the shape of a tree. He smells like a practical soap he’s used since he was sixteen. Their sheets are jersey; the quilts worn.  He might decide to put on a little mood music. This is not Joe and Emma, people, or that dear friend of mine on the beach in Oregon, or my brother Benny and his fiery comedic actress, or anyone you’ll meet in these pages. This is simply an emblematic couple. A for instance. Their kids are out of the house, and not just for the night; they live in Evanston and Santa Fe. The answering machine will pick up any phone calls. Sometimes they light a candle and sometimes they go with the fat moon. Fat might be what they’re about. As Michael Ventura wrote in an essay years ago: “Fat feels good in bed.” Fat folks, or lean gym rats, in their fifties or older, doing the horizontal bop, making love in the green grass, behind the stadium, like their backs ain’t got no bones, she’s the station and he’s the train, a deep sea diver with a stroke that can’t go wrong, she’s his race horse, he’s the best little jockey in town, shimmying down, making carrot cake, hot stuff, flying to the moon, she bakes his jelly roll. To be honest, coming with him inside her isn’t always part of the deal. Ah, the wonder of the human hand, the tongue! What they do the government has not found a way to tax. This is true recreational sex, not driven by reproductive hormones. Now that the government has declared its right to spy on U.S. citizens, this is the last freedom: sexual healing, makin’ whoopee. They might roll around laughing at their dog who sits by the window with a lopsided grin. They might finally turn on Letterman. She might fetch a glass of red wine, for her health. You can almost hear the splish splash, the rubber duckies of oxytocin and vasopressin, hormones under-girding their attachment. He grabs her hip and growls.

 

Just a thought.  It’s what Emma misses. And one reason why I listen when Husband #1 asks me to marry him again.