Honey, page 10
“From Morocco, yes. I’m surprised your parents let you keep them.”
“Why wouldn’t they?”
“How’s your mother doing, by the way? She’s in Florida, right?”
“She was living there for a while, yeah—but, no, she passed away a few years ago.”
“I’m sorry, Corrado. I didn’t know.”
“Yeah, it sucks. So I guess you’re, like, the last one now.”
“The last one?”
“I mean, that generation or whatever. The silent ones, right? You guys knew how to keep secrets.”
What was he getting at?
“Listen, Aunt Honey, I can’t speak for the rest of them, but I’m glad you came back. I feel like there’s a lot we need to talk about.”
He was still smiling, though it seemed a put-on. There was something about him she didn’t trust.
“You better call your car,” she said. “Before the rain comes.”
“Something’s coming,” he said. “That’s for sure.” He bent down to kiss her cheek.
Honey accepted the affection—but when her nephew pulled out his phone, she told him he’d get better reception outside.
* * *
In the bedroom, she checked the nightstand drawer—but it wasn’t there. She checked the other nightstand. Again, nothing. Where had she put the stupid thing?
She looked in the large locked trunk that held her photographs; she looked in the blue velvet Crown Royal sack where she used to hide her diamonds; in the Ferragamo box that housed a copy of her will.
Goddammit.
She went back to the closet, remembering that in the eighties she’d kept it in the pocket of a fringed leather jacket. After going through the pockets of nearly every jacket, she stuck her hands into the soft canvas sleeves where she stored her shoes. Finally, she found it on one of the high shelves stacked with winter sweaters. The pistol was tucked between a white angora turtleneck and a pale-blue lambswool crew. She could tell from the weight of it that it wasn’t loaded.
Which was probably for the best. Surely she was overreacting. Then again, maybe not. Possibly Corrado, beloved grandson of the Great Pietro, wished to finish the old man’s business, to hold Honey accountable for her sins. In the kitchen, she opened a drawer beside the sink. It would be a comfort to know where the gun was, a reminder that she had some power, or at least the means to protect herself.
Failing that, she’d simply get on with her original plan.
As she pushed the thing to the back of the drawer, she noticed the clipping—the newspaper article about her and Florence Fini winning a sewing competition. And then, beside that, was the business card the young man had given her—the painter who’d driven her home from that godforsaken alley.
He’d said to call him anytime. And the truth was, she didn’t feel like being alone right now. What did it matter that he was forty, possibly fifty, years her junior? Age had never been a factor with Mr. Hal. Besides, the young man was a homosexual; to suggest a friendly drink could not be misconstrued. Still—how awful to be this lonely, to have to call a stranger. Honey had never been in such a position before, and it stuck a sharp pin through her vanity.
She poured a glass of wine and took a long sip before dialing. She wouldn’t invite him here, of course. She’d propose a drink at Mabel’s, or perhaps a visit to the young man’s studio. She’d mention her years at Carrigan’s, and at Fitzroy’s in Los Angeles. They could chat about art, about paintings, about the goddamn Pre-Raphaelites. When she finally called, though, there was no answer, and Honey was too proud to leave a message.
The air in the kitchen felt thick. The scent of Corrado’s cologne lingered. Honey drifted to the window and opened it. The rain hadn’t started yet, though every molecule of the atmosphere seemed pregnant with moisture. The light was strange—furtive and rushing about, as if looking for a place to hide.
Honey thought to go back to bed, but found herself standing outside, on the lawn. She looked down at her stained robe and for a moment felt like an actor who’d forgotten her lines. She glanced around at the set—the flowering cherry, the pickup parked next door.
As if in a dream, she crossed the property line and scrutinized the truck, seeing clearly the peach on the license plate and the lived-in mess behind the window of the camper shell.
From the girl’s house came the sound of music, and as Honey moved closer she could hear shouting. Then there was a scream, followed by a thud. Honey knew these sounds from her childhood. She pounded on the door.
Almost immediately, though, she realized that what she was hearing was intercourse. Jiminy Cricket! She limped away as quickly as possible—which wasn’t quickly at all. Back in the safety of her kitchen, she poured more wine, took her trusty Valium.
And then the phone began to ring.
11
Slipping
Hello?”
“Yeah, hi, this is Nathan Flores. I just got a call from this number.”
It was the painter.
Honey was mortified. At her age, she often forgot that there was no longer any privacy when it came to telephones. One could always be tracked, always be traced.
“Yes,” she said. “I’m sorry I didn’t leave a message.”
“Is this Ilaria?”
Oh, God—now she was even more embarrassed. Is that how she’d introduced herself? Clearly she’d suffered a fit of nostalgia while driving in the young man’s Thunderbird.
“Yes, it’s me,” she said. “Your charity case.”
He laughed. “Don’t be silly.”
But what was silly was having called him in the first place—to have imagined inviting him out for a drink.
Well, she’d end this quickly, put them both out of their misery.
“I just wanted to thank you again for your kindness last week.”
“Yesterday, you mean?”
“Was it?” Honey felt a tilt. “Goodness, you’d think I’d banged my head and not my knee,” she joked, making light of her confusion.
“How is your leg, by the way?”
“Oh, fine,” she replied, glancing down at her bruised and grotesquely swollen kneecap. Through the opening in her robe her leg looked like a snake digesting a grapefruit.
On the phone, she could hear music. Perhaps the boy was driving, or at a party. “Well, I’ll let you go. It sounds like you’re busy.”
“Not really. I was just staring at a blank canvas.”
“A noble endeavor, I’m sure. The muse rewards the patient.”
“So they say. My sneaking suspicion, though, is that she’s fooling around with the painter next door.”
“Well, darling, it’s her job to be promiscuous.”
Jesus Christ, was she flirting? It was an old habit she found difficult to break. Barking up the wrong tree was one thing, but here she was barking up a fruit tree; Nathan, after all, was a swish.
And even if that weren’t the case, Honey had no carnal interest in the young man—or any man, for that matter. She was done with that part of her life. Dominic had been a lovely farewell; all she wanted now was solitude and celibacy. Perhaps she’d resume her meditation practice, revisit the teachings of Yogananda. Leave this world like a nun. Shaved head, saffron robe . . .
She was drifting again. “Excuse me, dear—what did you say?”
“Just that I’m glad you called. I was going to tell you yesterday about the show, but I was too shy.”
“You’re having a show?”
“Not a solo exhibition, just a group thing. But I have a piece in it, and—I don’t know—I thought maybe you’d like to come to the opening.”
In L.A., Honey had attended hundreds, if not thousands, of openings. But since returning to New Jersey she hadn’t been to a single gallery; she hadn’t even gone into the city to visit the Modern or the Met. And it’d been more than a decade since she’d purchased a painting or a drawing, let alone a print. Which begged the question: Did she still care about art? Still believe it had the power to change a person’s life? That it was, at its best, salvation?
Unfortunately, she did.
“So when is this shindig?”
“Not for a couple of weeks. First Saturday of next month. If you want, I could pick you up—since you’re without wheels.”
“Actually, my car’s been found.”
“Oh, that’s great.”
“Well, there was some money missing from the glove compartment,” Honey confided, testing Corrado’s lie.
“Probably junkies.”
“Yes.” The subject chafed. She thought of her grandnephew loitering half naked at the side of a road. “So your opening is next month?”
“Yeah, Saturday the third. Five to seven. Like I said, I only have one piece, so it’s not a big deal.”
Honey knew how insecure artists could be—and how important it was to be kind. “It is a big deal. And I’m very curious to see your work. Why don’t you give me the address?”
“Do you have a pen?”
Honey reached for one across the table, clicked it open, and said, “Shoot.”
* * *
After she hung up, a tiny bliss, like a champagne bubble, rose inside her chest. What on earth was causing it? Not the boy or the invitation, surely. An art opening in the suburbs—potato chips and onion dip—did not inspire her. Still, there was something.
Maybe just the idea that she wasn’t finished. That there might yet be a bit more story left to her, a small parcel of the unexpected. Perhaps the tiny bubble in her chest was hope.
But then, in the bathroom mirror, she saw something horrible: an eighty-two-year-old woman who looked—well, eighty-two. In the woman’s eyes no hope at all. Only sadness. Honey blamed Corrado, for making her think of her brother. She blamed Dominic, for leaving. Blamed her father, for everything.
Honey’s sadness was so potent that it seemed to have outwitted her plastic surgeries. Her cheeks sagged and her eyes drooped, her skin was pallid and her hair was beyond forgiveness. Had she really answered the door, looking like this? She’d actually done it twice now—once with the neighbor girl and then again, with Corrado. It wasn’t like her at all, to allow herself to be seen in such a state. No wig, no makeup. Barefoot like a beggar girl, her toe paint cracking.
Under the harsh light, Honey scrutinized the wreckage of her face. Every little capillary was visible, every little and not so little wrinkle. She sighed; her skin was definitely too thin to survive another lift. For several minutes, she confronted the mirror. Though distasteful, it was important to check in with reality now and then—even to become conversant with it.
“You’re slipping,” she said to herself.
Maybe she’d take a bath, wash her hair, put on something nice. She might even sit in the yard, under the awning, look out at the burgeoning garden. It was spring, for heaven’s sake—and how many of these did she have left?
Honey didn’t hazard a guess.
* * *
She did not sit in the garden. It was pouring now, and the wind had turned furious, knocking against the windows in startling bursts.
After a modest dinner of twelve almonds and two squares of bitter chocolate, she put on her cat-burglar pajamas and read for a while in bed, more of the interminable novel about women in prison. The main character was a lesbian named Up Yours who was fond of Jell-O and Jack Russell terriers. Up Yours had murdered a priest. The novelist was clearly concerned with spiritual issues, but her insights were about as valuable as something found in a Cracker Jack box. Honey managed only a few pages before closing her eyes against the absurdity.
Liars, she thought. We are all liars.
* * *
Later, as she dozed, he came to her in a dream. A lover from her youth. When he touched her, in this conjuring, Honey had a different body, a different face. Her heart was made from entirely different materials. How such alchemy had happened—this change between then and now—she couldn’t fathom. She woke up strangely bereft, though not unhappy.
Her heart, yet again, was changing. It was harder, darker, a bit like granite. At first this frightened her, but then she thought of Bellini, of Leonardo. She thought of their cliffs, their stones. Rocks shaped like shrouded figures or calcified wings. One painting, she recalled, had a black cave that throbbed with a nearly invisible undercoat of crimson. And she remembered what she’d learned from looking at this masterpiece:
That stones were not dead. Stones, in fact, were the mother of this world.
12
Bruises
A few days later—three? four? who could count?—the sun was out, flying toward Earth at alarming speed, not to mention at a jaunty new angle. The natural world was thrown into confusion. Insects darted and plunged, a madhouse of buzzes and clicks. The flowers, too, seemed to be screaming. Even the shy hellebores had opened, revealing their hairy privates.
Honey decided to enter the chaos—test her knee by walking to the corner market. With luck, she’d find some kumquats.
In homage to the weather, she put on her yellow Gucci day dress with the ribbon trim. On her feet, dark brown velvet flats with cushion inserts. As for her wig, she chose the lighter brown one with subtle highlights of red. The color was no cheap trick. The wig had cost an arm and a leg—and, like all of Honey’s wigs, it was made from human hair. Sometimes she worried about where this hair had been harvested. Years ago, she’d read an article about roving gangs in China who went around stealing women’s ponytails.
But, like so many things, it was best not to think too much about the ethics of it. Once you went there, you ended up paralyzed. Slave labor, animal testing, my goodness. You could hardly eat a banana or put on some lipstick. Next thing you knew, your Hermès wallet, in orange crocodile, would have to be sacrificed too.
* * *
No kumquats, sadly. And too early for cherries. Spring was tricky when it came to fruit. Honey grabbed a few Italian plums, no doubt from China, before scanning the vegetables. The artichokes looked excellent, though possibly too heavy to carry. Honey had to consider her knee; though it was much less swollen, the stroll to the market had brought discomfort. Luckily, she had the cane. Grimacing, she limped toward the checkout. And then her grimace turned into a scowl when she saw Teresa Lioni entering the store.
Immediately, Honey escaped down the beverage aisle. She’d circle around to the cashiers closer to the exit—anything to avoid talking to the woman. Teresa Lioni was good friends with Angela Carini. Both had been at Dominic’s wake—where Angela had whispered bitch, while Teresa had muttered something about Honey’s plastic surgery.
Carini and Lioni—the two i’s at the ends of their names had always been snake eyes. Years ago, the women had worked as a team to expose Honey’s affair with Pio Fini, Florence’s husband. It was Teresa who’d spotted the lovers exiting the hotel, and Angela who’d told Florence. Soon everyone in Ferryfield knew about it—even Honey’s parents. “Peccatrice,” her mother called her. Sinner. And her father, who was no stranger to infidelity, said he was ashamed of her.
So much fuss over nothing. It wasn’t even an affair; Honey had slept with Pio only once. But Angela and Teresa went around, talking as if the plan had been to steal the woman’s husband. They’d clearly taken some pleasure in destroying Honey’s friendship with Florence—the only girl Honey had truly admired.
Flo was more than just a dressmaker; she was an artist. After they’d won that sewing competition, Honey suggested they open a shop together. Her father, back then, would have gladly fronted the money. Florence, though, was terrified of the Great Pietro, and nothing had ever come of the dream. But if it had—who knows? Honey might have stayed in Ferryfield, married Dominic Sparra at eighteen, instead of dating him at eighty.
No—it never would have worked. In the end she would’ve gone crazy in this town, living among the philistines. She’d always been so much better than them. As she tottered down the aisle, Honey’s arrogance flashed, a welcome respite from her sadness. She held up her head and limped on. The checkout lane was mercifully in view.
But then—Oh, shit—there was Teresa Lioni reaching for a package of toilet paper. Eye contact was unavoidable, and when it came it was no simple matter. For what seemed an eternity, the women stared at each other from opposite ends of a long tunnel. All other shoppers blurred into landscape, a vague suggestion of trees and hills.
Finally, the old acquaintances approached each other, hands raised in greeting. Clearly they were no better than robots, under the control of some old-world politesse.
“Honey.”
“Teresa.”
The woman’s smile was tentative, though her snake eyes were assured, steely. The lights in the market were far too bright, and Honey was self-conscious about her face. She could feel a tremor in her cheeks.
“Have you hurt yourself?” asked Teresa, gesturing toward the cane.
“It’s nothing,” Honey replied. “To be honest, I just like the sound of it.” And here she tapped it firmly near Teresa’s feet, like a burst of gunfire.
Startled, Teresa dropped her TP. As she picked it up, her hackles came up with it.
“So are you headed to a party?” she said to Honey.
“What do you mean?”
“The dress. I mean, you can’t be wearing that just to shop.”
Oh, these Catholic girls played innocent so well. Honey was much less good at it.
“Civilization would fall, dear, if we all wore sweatpants in public.”
Teresa was wearing something quite like sweatpants—though they were dolled up with ghastly appliqués of sparkly silver daisies. Which drew attention to what was best ignored: Teresa’s over-ample thighs.
“These aren’t sweatpants.”
“No, they’re lovely,” Honey said. “Did you make them yourself?”
“My daughter made them.”
Honey nodded—she had nothing to say against this daughter. Teresa seemed to have nothing left to say, either. The two of them stood there silently, their smiles gone, replaced by the natural frown of age. It was then that Honey realized that their childhood grudges were irrelevant, because she and Teresa now shared a common enemy. Time.
