A minute late and she wouldn’t forgive herself. Barbara hurried to the patio, teapot in one hand. Wayward leaves drifted softly from the oaks beyond the yard, adding to the shin-high blanket which had gathered over the past weeks— a fact which stoked a vexing headache. A child should take care of her mother, she thought. But she didn’t need Annie if Annie didn’t need her. When the last leaf falls, one big cleaning. Things will be right again. Her eyes turned to the sun, just over the yellow hills encircling this spoiled suburbia.
Deliberate and detailed, she made sure everyone’s plate was set. Though they never ate— and who could blame them, for when conversation is good, who can eat— it’s best to be prepared. In their usual places around the patio table were Donnie Fitzstevens in his dashing straw hat, Bearel Brownfur with his dapper golf attire, Mr. and Mrs. Hunchenbauer, stout in lederhosen and dirndl, Mrs. Pinkerton proud in her top hat and monocle, and stern old Job. If she had one more wish, it would be that things never change.
The napkins were folded, finger sandwiches set in even rows, and dairy-free creamer pots brimming. The table smelled of earl gray, fresh ham, and baked biscuits. Satisfied, Barbara took her seat with a groan and looked over her home— a slim two-story Victorian like all the others on the block. The flan-colored paint was blanched and chipping. As she watched the sun’s nightly bow, her mind turned back to the fantastic man— or creature— which had given her life again. Two years ago, she thought in disbelief. How in this very spot she——shivered in the winter winds. Alone. The funeral, the words, the tears, they felt distant but inescapable. She looked at the empty chair across from her, the last place she’d seen Jollen— beyond the coffin. The ‘C’ word… she couldn’t even think the name anymore. Her pain was like an echo down an endless cave, always coming back. It felt like just yesterday this space had been filled with flowers, children, and friends. Who’s hands are these, she thought, staring at the paper thin skin over her trembling fingers. The black outlines of bats flutter from the trees and into the night. She realized something. Jerry, Glorieta, Jollen, their only connections to this life hinged upon her decaying brain. The cold wind whispered,
“I haven’t seen an angel cry since Calvary,” the stranger said.
Barbara gasped at the gray-suited gentleman and his extended handkerchief. She thought to scream, but something in his clean-shaven face and smooth grin brought about an otherworldly tranquility. Tall, slender, and dignified, he reminded her of someone. For a moment, her father, another, Jerry, the next, what she imagined her miscarried son would’ve looked like.
“Please,” he said, insisting with the handkerchief.
By the time she’d dried her cheeks, he was in the seat across from her. His eyes held an unearthly tenderness, as if he could see everything withering inside her and truly felt the weight.
“It’s hard getting old, Barbara,” he said.
She nodded— hardly caring that she hadn’t given her name. In all likelihood, this was death. She folded the handkerchief, just like her mom taught her, and handed it back. Manners were important. Something the youth had forgotten.
“I’m sorry, Sir, I don’t think I got your name?” she asked.
“The pronunciation is an ordeal. Call me Jay.”
Some animal shrieked from somewhere up the street.
“A pleasure, Jay.”
He smiled earnestly. “Likewise.”
It was hard to tell how long she spent in that pleasant and hypnotic silence, watching a sea of vivid memories and futures in his dilated pupils. Eventually he said, “Barbara, I’ve made it my business over the years to help people like you. Those who’ve lost everything.”
“That’s very kind of you, Sir,” she sniffled. His gaze reflected a false yet lovely vision of her and Jerry on a Bermuda beach somewhere in their golden years.
“It’s an obligation,” he said.
“Why?”
“Everyone’s obliged to something, I figure this is the best I could do.”
What a fine man, she thought.
“Tell me, if you had one wish, what would it be?” he asked. Barbara laughed merrily, but he pressed, “I’m serious.”
Given this question most would inanely answer with money, superpowers, or immortality, but Barbara had grown past trivialities. Crushed under the surf of this budding generation, Barbara had learned the hard way the agony of fighting over things long established. Expectations, conduct, the nature of being. She didn’t see where the confusion arose. Why her daughter had chosen it over her. Why teenagers angered and terrified her.
“If I could wish for anything,” Barbara said, “It would just be to have people who understand me. Who have some common sense.”
“Your common sense?” Jay asked.
“Common sense is common.”
He laughed. “I guess so.”
Jay straightened his jacket and went around the yard collecting figurines. A scarecrow from near the fence, two ceramic gnomes by the sliding door, the top-hatted flamingo in the flowerpot, a wooden bear statue in golf attire near the barbeque, and the small tiki-faced boulder Jerry got from Annie long ago for Father’s day. He arranged them in the chairs around the table.
“They won’t go anywhere, but if you say the words, from sundown to sunup, you’ll have exactly what you want.”
A great many questions arose in her head, but the first, “What words—”
— Barbara looked to the setting sun, an ambient amber crown over rounded crests. It was time. “Flee from daylight, return in night, with this tired sun, these souls ignite.”
A strong gust tossed the leaves like white-capped waves as shimmering streaks of rainbow light danced around the figurines. In a flash, they shot down their eyes and mouths. A chorus of life-giving breaths rang out. Hands cold and shaking with excitement, Barbara filled the cups with steaming black tea. Their— and of course her— favorite.
“Hello, everyone,” Barbara said, grinning. “Welcome back to the Supper Club.”
Donnie removed his hat and shook out his loose straw hair. Through wide button eyes, he noticed the puffy winter jacket covering his overalls.
“What’s this?” he asked.
Barbara took a proud sip. “You said you were cold.”
“My dear, you’re sweeter than marmalade,” Donnie said. She knew he’d like it.
“And vat about us?” Mr. Hunchenbauer said, his gnomish eyeline— like his wife’s— just barely over the table. “Are ve just chopped currywurst? Vhere’s our jackets?”
She laughed so hard she nearly dropped her cup.
“Too soft,” Job said, in a slow, baritone she figured was innate to all talking boulders.
“You igneous bastard,” Donnie said. “You’re poking fun. I might be soft, but you’ll find out the hard way what follows thunder.”
“How about you show some class,” Mrs. Pinkerton said, peering through her monocle.
“You know what, I think y’all are just jealous. Y’all can’t stand the fact that I’m Barbara’s favorite!” Donnie said, slamming his fist onto his armrest with a soft pat.
The gang gasped.
“Her favorite!” Mrs. Hunchenbauer said.
“Why else would she get me such a nice coat while you all got horse doo.”
“Because you’re a baby,” Bearel said.
His cheeks didn’t need to change color for Barbara to tell he was about to lose it. “Please, everybody calm down,” Barbara said. “You’re all my favorite.”
“Favorite is one,” Job said.
“There’s only one first place,” Bearel said, pointing with his small wooden club.
“This isn’t sport. It’s friendship,” Barbara said. “Now, I didn’t put all this together to listen to nonsense. I wanted civil discussion with— who I thought were— civilized folk.”
Their faces lowered in shame. Hard as it was hurting them, the depth in which they received her words gave her strength.
Finally, Mrs. Pinkerton spoke up, “The sandwiches look sublime.”
“Oh hush, they’re the same as ever,” Barbara said, masking her smile behind the cup.
“People just don’t make them like they used to,” Mrs. Hunchenbauer said, the bell on her hat jingling as she shook her head.
“It’s not just sandwiches,” Donnie said, snorting some imaginary mucus.
“Clubs,” Bearel said.
“Cars,” Mrs. Pinkerton said.
“Kids,” Job said.
“This country went down the drain as soon as they took the lead out of gas,” Mr. Hunchenbauer said.
Mrs. Hunchenbauer said, “Remember last night? Those kids speeding down the back street, blasting music. Common decency is dead. It’s a new era of dinosaurs.”
Of course Barbara had done the same for a time, cruising in Chadwick Stepheno’s convertible, hair in the wind and living to The Beatles and all the real artists which had become myths. But it was different then. There was common sensibility, even in senselessness. People were good and the world understandable.
“I just don’t think they care about anything but themselves,” Barbara said, taking a biscuit.
Each hummed in agreement.
“It’s the parents,” Bearel said.
“Too soft,” Job thrummed, with narrowed eyes.
“Our parents voudn’t have let us get avay with an extra lick of gravy, let alone driving around with our privates out,” Mr. Hunchenbauer said, his stout arms crossed tightly. “If grandma had seen me acting like that, she’d throw me into hell herself.”
Barbara thought of her own father, a relentlessly firm individual, at times wrathful, but all class. Principles are principal, as he used to say.
“Hell’s got to be overflowing by now,” Mrs. Hunchenbauer said.
“I think the problem is that men and women were just that when we were young,” Mrs. Pinkerton said, jabbing the tip of her wing onto the table. “No confusion. No pampering. By twenty-four my father fought in World War II, graduated from Stanford, and had two children. Most twenty-four-year-olds now haven’t been to the bathroom alone.”
Laughter rolled over the table.
“Too soft,” Job said.
“Exactly! Vell put, Job, vell put!” Mr. Hunchenbauer said, slapping his stomach.
It pained Barbara to ponder the acidic effect of this new generation. Post modernists had ruined the world and the only thing which had survived were opinions. She recognized that she didn’t actually know many youths— which she was glad for— but she saw them on TV, the internet, and in the streets, protesting every little injustice they could concoct and dying their hair colors which could make a peacock blush.
“What do you think, Barbara?” Donnie asked.
They waited for her answer, but the truth was rarely comforting.
“I got you all a little something.” Barbara said. The six of them stared curiously.
“Vat?” Mrs. Hunchenbauer asked.
“A surprise,” Barbara said, with a mischievous smile.
Perplexed silence filled the space. Donnie asked, “For what?”
“Your birthdays!” Barbara said, before wincing to a sharp pain in her right shoulder.
“Is that tomorrow?” Mrs. Pinkerton asked.
Wonderful as they were, they often came up dry in terms of sense and memory. It was the same last year.
“I suppose ve didn’t think of it,” Mrs. Hunchenbauer said.
“Well, I did,” Barbara said. “Can you believe, two years? Where’s the time gone?”
The wind blew the dying steam from the cups.
“Is there anything you’d like?” Barbara asked. “Games? Balloons? Ice-cream?”
“Too soft,” Job said.
“I should’ve known,” Barbara said.
They stared with an indifference she couldn’t comprehend.
“You know, Barbara,” Donnie said. “If you have plans one of these evenings, it’s okay. We don’t want to keep you to ourselves.”
It was as if her lungs had been stabbed. “Are you suggesting I miss your birthday?” They tried to refute but she continued. “I would never! Not for the world!”
“Ve aren’t saying you have to,” Mr. Hunchenbauer said. “Just that—”
“You’ve got my heart racing now, and you know how much I hate when my heart races,” she said, feeling the beads of sweat on her forehead with the back of her hand.
Mrs. Pinkerton said, “We just feel…”
Whatever they were thinking was left there. Hot in the temples, Barbara said, “You only turn two once!”
The group’s solemn expression slowly turned into half-hearted smiles.
“Your tea’s cold,” Barbara said. “I’ll get some more.” Arthritic pain shot through her knees as she pushed to her feet and went about emptying the cups into the dirt. With each subsequent moment of silence, the burden of the next word became all the greater. Light gray clouds drifted softly through the western sky. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been annoyed by them.
“What about some music?” she asked.