“Well, it gives the place the wrong look. People walk in, they take one look at him, they want a beer instead of beaujolais nouveau.”
He prattled on and on. Claire tuned him out at the mention of a redhead. She remembered a redhead. Where had it been? Every thought she had was interrupted by the urgent pressure of the thought of Johnny Benedetto. The Mayor looked at her with panic. To notify her of what was coming. It was either Claire or Stan. Stan would give him a trusty little once around the block, when what he yearned for was a journey. Claire pushed her cherry cheesecake over to her father, stood up, and went for the clothesline. If Johnny called, at least he’d realize she wasn’t sitting around waiting for the phone to ring.
“Be careful, Claire,” Stan said.
“I must have told you twenty times, Mary,” Freddy was saying as he picked through the supper dishes, “don’t use the Grayère with the spinach and the béchamel. Use the Emmentaler.”
“What’s the difference? It was scrumptious.”
“It’s my recipe,” he wiggled his head at her.
Claire shut the door. There was old Iris out on her lawn. She was carving a rainbowing mist with the hose. Claire sneaked up behind her and crossed her arms over her chest.
Iris turned around and glared. “Oh. Pollyanna, is it?”
“What a rude thing to say. I’m grumpy and cantankerous myself. I’m no such thing as a Pollyanna.” She heard herself defending her distemper and started to laugh.
“Vot’s so funny?”
“Uh … Me … You … I don’t know. That coronet on the top of your head.”
“Vot?” she patted her coronet. “It takes me a very long time each morning to assemble dis, you know.”
“Yes, it does look like it. It’s pretty elaborate. But then so are you.” That was what she said to her, like that and right from the start, without any ifs, ands, or buts. This was the kind of relationship they were going to have, like two already drunken men in the middle of the night bumping into each other in some old pub … they were both right at home from the start in the impudent banter of recognition, two souls lost and found out the hard way. Claire walked over and fingered the foxglove. “Digitalis purpurea,” she identified its Latin name, showing off.
Iris, not missing a beat, continued: “Fingerhut. Revbielde.… Vitches Gloves.”
“Fairy Thimbles.”
“Dead Men’s Bells.”
Claire stood there, stumped. “Ah!” she said then. “Bloody Fingers.”
Iris laughed, delighted. “Gloves of Our Lady. How do you know about dese tings?”
“I used to read about them. In a place where there was nothing else to read.”
“Vere vos dat?”
“In India.”
“Ja. I heard dat’s vere you ended up.”
“You heard about me? From whom?”
Iris snorted. “I got my sources.”
“Right. I remember you used to tell fortunes.”
“Me? I never did dat. Never. Dey used to tell dat story und I let dem, but I never did.”
Iris did, too, used to tell fortunes. She knew because Michael had seen her. He used to watch her like a hawk.
“Tell you vot. You help me carry dat foxglove to a sunnier spot und I’ll let you maybe take my picture. Und,” she continued her bargain, “I’ll giff you cookies.”
“Cookies, too, huh?”
“Ja. Und don’t act so surprised. I seen you vatching me mit dat camera all hooked up.”
So. Iris didn’t know what had been stolen. Either that or she was more sly than Claire was inclined to believe.
“All right, you old bandit. Do you have any gloves, at least?”
Iris stood there blankly.
“No gloves. Fine. How about a shovel?”
“Ja. Dat I got.” She led Claire into the barnlike garage. Things hung on rusty nails that looked as if they’d crumble if you touched them. It smelled of old, dank everything. “One ting I love,” Iris was saying, “is my plants. I talk to dem.”
“Yeah?”
“Sure. Vy not? Old voman like me? Gotta talk to something.”
She was excited, bent over and digging around in some boxes. Claire thought, that’s no future, that’s not what you live looking forward to. Being so at the mercy of strangers. She will die all alone in her house and not a soul will notice till her body rots and smells and the dog starts howling. No one will happen to know where she’ll be laid out but every antique dealer and real estate shark will cluck nervously over the place the day after she’s gone.
“Come on,” Claire took the mighty shovel from the narrow woman, “let’s see how quickly I can scruff up yet another pair of my sister’s shorts.”