Losing It. Emma Rathbone

I said, “I have to go.” I put down the phone.

      She was wearing a sheer white cotton overshirt-type thing that seemed to float around her body.

      “Hi.” She looked around the room. “I didn’t know you’d be in here.”

      “Yeah, I— It’s nice and calm.”

      “I agree.” She tried on a bright smile. “Did you have a nice day? I was afraid you’d be bored.”

      “No, I got a lot of writing done,” I lied. “It was great. No, this is just what I was hoping it would be like.”

      “Good, good.”

      We both looked at my bare feet, which were up on the coffee table. I lowered them. She pinched her ear. “It’s my friend Alice’s birthday tomorrow. She’s having a small get-together. I was wondering if you’d like to come?”

      There was a slight quaver beneath her veneer that made me realize that perhaps she, too, had thought our conversation at dinner the other night had been lacking and that she was trying to make up for it, reaching out.

      “Sure, yeah,” I said. “What time?”

      “Three o’clock. In the afternoon.”

      I nodded with a little too much exaggeration. “Great.”

      “Great,” she said.

      And then, because the moment seemed to require something more, I said, “I really like your plates. The hanging-up ones? In that room? They’re really good.”

      “Thank you,” she said. “Those are from earlier. When I was first starting.”

      “Oh, okay.”

      She hesitated in the doorway. Then we started talking at the same time. “So, did you just get home?” I said. She said, “I’ve actually submitted a few of my latest ones to an art show.”

      “What?” I said.

      “I’ve submitted a few. To an art show. I’m doing a series about Arthurian legend. The Knights of the Round Table.”

      “Cool,” I said. “Great. Like a local, community type of deal?”

      “Well,” she said. I had insulted her. Something shifted between us and I immediately felt terrible. I also realized why Viv’s first impulse was to pull back and be aloof, because otherwise her face would unlock and every raw emotion would visibly travel across it. In this case, she flashed with hurt.

      “It’s actually much bigger than that,” she said. “It’s sponsored by the folk art museum of Durham. It’s widely known. Have you heard of Southern Living magazine?”

      “I think so,” I said quickly.

      “Well, they do a feature.”

      “That’s awesome,” I said. “That’s really cool. So are you—”

      “Well, I’m going to eat something,” she said. “There are leftovers in the fridge.” And then she turned around and walked away.

      And that was how I ended up driving into town the next day with Aunt Viv in her Honda Civic. It was hot and bright and everything was bursting with full summer lushness, the sky a chesty blue.

      “Alice is in the last stages of lymphoma,” she said.

      “Oh.” I was picking the sticky protective shield off the screen of my cell phone. I put it down and looked at her. “That’s horrible. I’m sorry.”

      “Well, she’s got a good support system.”

      “How long have you known her?”

      “Many years,” said Viv. “We worked together.”

      She was wearing diamond-shaped emerald earrings and her hair was swept back into an elegant French braid.

      She glanced at me. “Have you spoken to your parents?”

      “A little,” I said. “They seem to be doing fine. They’re, like, meditating every day and doing psychic weaving with a shaman or something.”

      This little dash of sarcasm did not seem to go over with Aunt Viv. It was quiet for a while. We passed someone hanging up a row of small white dresses for a yard sale.

      “It must be very interesting,” she said. “It must be a very interesting culture. There in South America.”

      “Yes. Yes! It must be,” I said, nodding. “So, would you— Is that somewhere you’d want to go?”

      “Perhaps,” she said. “I think I’d rather go to Europe. Verona. I haven’t really been out of the country much.”

      “Why there?”

      “The music,” she said. “The opera at the outdoor amphitheater, with everyone holding candles at night.” She sang a tune, a few notes of something, as if she were in a daydream, and then looked at me expectantly. My eyes darted around the car.

      We drove along a street with many old Southern mansions set way back from the road. After a while we turned onto a narrower street, with smaller houses, and pulled up in front of a shady, flower-petal-covered walkway.

      We got out of the car at the same time as a woman with long, earth-mother gray hair who was carrying some kind of pickled thing leaking out of a plastic bag and so had to hurry in ahead of us.

      We were greeted at the door by a large woman named Karen wearing a purple dress with many layers. Her face was filled with happiness, her eyes dancing, her cheeks flushed. “Vivi!” she said, and then gave my hand a vigorous shake.

      She led us down a hallway into a living room with zebra pillows and decorative spears on the walls and other foreign-looking artifacts. Viv introduced me around, and then the crowd parted to reveal Alice, swaddled in purple scarves, sitting stoically in a wicker chair like a village elder or seer.

      She had a weak chin and warm brown eyes, and a trembling shine about her—like a bulb of water on a leaf right before it breaks. She smiled up at me and said, “I’m so glad to meet one of Viv’s relatives.” Viv knelt down beside her and took one of her hands and held it like it was the most fragile thing in the world while her face broke into a smile of bald admiration and sadness.

      I said hello and then backed away to give Aunt Viv and Alice some room, and then weaved back through the house to find something to drink. It felt like I was intruding to stay talking to them longer. I was wearing tights even though it was a hot day, and they were itchy and sagging down and I had an eyelash in my eye.

      “This was my aunt Cassie,” said a woman named Diane, who had intercepted me and then led me into a room—it was her house—where she showed me how she’d lacquered old pictures of her relatives onto the top of her desk. Cassie stared sternly out from a rocking chair.

      “Great,” I said.

      “And this is my great-grandfather Francis. They called him Franny.”

      “Oh, okay.”

      Diane obviously had a lot of time on her hands. I sensed she had more money than the other women. From what I’d gathered, they were all part of a core friend group that met while working at a hospice before it closed.

      “It’s so I can have them all around me,” she said, sweeping her hand around the room. “All my ancestors, whispering from the eaves.”

      “Yeah,” I said, smiling, trying to seem appropriately receptive to that concept. “I can see how that would be nice.”

      After about twenty minutes, I managed to extract myself by saying I was thirsty and wanted to get some water. Then I slalomed between a few other people who looked like they wanted to talk and ended up positioning myself by a set of glass shelves. I pulled out various photography books and pretended to look at them, but really I was studying the women.