“I know I am. But my mother's been after me for years to organize a trunkful of diaries and pictures of our family. She dumped it on me years ago when she sold the house and moved into an apartment. A collective biography would be pretty much the same rules, wouldn't it, Missy?"
“Sure. Come along. Basement. City Hall. Seven-thirty to nine-thirty—unless I bump off Mrs. General by eight. In that case, class would probably get out early."
“What else have we got here?" Jane asked, shuffling through the folders.
“There's something from your mother, of course. Then a nice piece from Grady Wells."
“I'll bet he's not happy to be stuck with Mrs. General." Grady Wells was fortyish, a short, florid-faced, and good-natured bachelor who served in the largely honorary position of mayor of their city. At least it was honorary in pay, which was a hundred dollars a year. For that piddling sum he conducted the city council meetings, attended important civic functions like the opening of the new dry cleaner's, and put up with the troublemakers like Mrs. Pryce. In real life, he was the president of a small company that made playing cards, dice, poker chips, and accessories like bridge score pads. He was a cheerful individual, appropriate to his work.
“He doesn't know yet," Missy said. "I'm on my way down to his office to give him his stack of manuscripts."
“Grady will be fun to have in the group. Who else is there?" Jane asked.
“Ruth Rogers and her sister are coming. You know, the ladies who live at the end of the block with the fantastic gardens? I haven't seen anything from them yet, but Ruth told me they intend to write a joint autobiography. Very interesting concept. They were separated as infants and raised apart. Ruth was in a well-run, compassionate orphanage for a while, then adopted by a nice family. Her sister went to a series of foster homes, most of which were pretty dismal, I believe. They just located each other two years or so ago and want to write a book with sort of alternating chapters about their lives. It could work—if they can write well enough. All too often the people with the most interesting lives are deadly dull writers. And sometimes vice versa. They've turned in a rough outline, but no actual writing, so I didn't copy it to the rest of you."
“I like Ruth," Jane said, "but she's one Mrs. General will smash under her heel with no trouble."
“I don't know about that," Shelley said. "There's a tough core deep in that fluffiness. Don't you remember that incident at the pool six or seven years ago?"
“Oh, yes! Ruth was sitting there with her umbrella and sun hat and books and cute little beach slippers and all."
“I don't remember this. What happened?" Missy asked.
“A kid got in trouble in the deep end of the pool, and before the lifeguards even knew what was happening, Ruth leaped from her vast nest of paraphernalia, flung herself in, and rescued the kid. Really took over. Grady wanted to strike some kind of hero medal for her, but she wouldn't have it."
“What's her sister like?" Shelley asked Missy. "I don't know. .I haven't met her yet."
“Shelly, you know her," Jane said. "Remember the block party last fall? She's the one who made all those fantastic pastries. We all got the recipe for them in Christmas cards."
“Oh, yes. Fiftyish, real frail-looking?"
“Right. Is there anyone else in the class?" Jane asked Missy.
“A couple others, but I'll let them introduce themselves in their writing," she said, patting the stack of folders. "I've got to run. See you tomorrow night.”
Shelley had been flipping through Mrs. General's book. She waved good-bye to Missy and said, "What a loathsome woman Mrs. Pryce is! This whole chapter is about how she raised her children. Listen to this: 'I knew that their childish resentment of my firmness, though painful for a loving mother to behold, was temporary and that they would grow up to honor and venerate those high principles I was endeavoring to instill in them from their earliest days.' "
“Ugh!" Jane said. "Imagine having a mother who thought that way. They must despise her, and they probably need a live-in shrink. Maybe we ought to loan our daughters to her for a little while—they might learn to appreciate us."
“Daughters!" Shelley said, leaping up. "I'd forgotten for a minute. I should be home offering platitudes and having them flung back in my face. See you at seven-thirty." She started around the side of the house and stopped in her tracks, looking down. "Jane, I'm sorry to tell you this, but I think your cats have blundered into a chipmunk nest."
“Oh, no!"
2
Jane rescued one chipmunk and buried another, then she took the cats inside over their yowling protestations. "This is sheer bloodlust and very unbecoming in house cats. We aren't in the jungle, you know," she told them as she dumped them on the kitchen floor. They raced back to the door, pressing their little triangular noses to the crack. She told herself not to be so upset; it was the nature of cats to catch and torture small, cute animals. But then, it was Jane's nature to try to stop them.
She set the pile of folders and the two copies of Mrs. General Pryce's book on the kitchen table and yelled up at her daughter, "Katie, are you up? You've got to be at work at noon!"
“I know that, Mother!" Katie screamed down the steps. "I've got tons of time.”
Jane refilled her coffee cup and sat down at the kitchen table to start sorting through the class materials. The chapters were in pairs, one each for her and her mother. She set her mother's chapters and Mrs. Pryce's book on the counter and started pawing through her own. Even though she didn't intend to write anything, she wanted to give her full attention to critiquing the others.
Missy had enclosed a sheet of instructions on vio lent yellow paper that couldn't be missed. It said, "We will discuss these on the last night of class. I suggest that you take notes as you are reading. Remember, writing is a process of tearing off little bits of one's soul and putting them on paper. Writing an autobiography is even more personal. In this class we will not make criticisms of the CONTENT of the material. We will only make very kind, constructive comments on the MANNER in which it is presented. You should consider such things as grammar, style (word choice), and organization (overall and sentence structure).”
Jane wondered if Missy had written this warning before or after reading Mrs. Pryce's book. Considering what Jane already knew of the lady and that little bit that Shelley had read, it seemed the logical comment on Pryce's work would be, "Change your life while there's still time." But there might not be time. People said Mrs. Pryce was not only the meanest, but probably the oldest, person around.
Jane was about to read her mother's piece first, but forced herself to put it aside and skim the others. Reading Cecily's first might upset her. Cecily was, even as Jane was sitting at the table, in the air someplace on her way for a visit. No point in starting the visit without her. Not that Jane wasn't looking forward to seeing her mother, but she wasn't sure what she would find in her mother's manuscript.
One of the manuscripts was presented on light pink paper and typed with script type. The name at the top of the page was Desiree Loftus. Jane smiled. Desiree was one of her favorite neighborhood weirdos. A woman well into her sixties, if not seventies, Desiree had the energy and aggressive outrageousness of a girl of twenty. She dressed in a style that could best be described as "demented flapper/artist," all flowing scarves, spangled headbands, feathers, chunky jewelry, and long cigarette holders. She was still a very pretty woman, with long, elegant hands (usually smudged with artist's oils) and a fall of chestnut hair that looked as if it were still naturally that color, in spite of her age.
Jane was fascinated not only with Desiree's interesting appearance, but also with Desiree's views. She could be counted on to have an offbeat opinion on practically everything. Jane had often run into her at the grocery store. Once, chatting over the asparagus, which should have had platinum tips if the price were to be believed, they discovered that they'd both lived in Rouen, France, for a short time, albeit decades apart. Desiree had apparently taken this as a sign that they were soul sisters, and subsequently bent Jane's ear with her current enthusiasm every time they met. Last week it had been cryogenics; the time before it had been a theory that sunspots were responsible for everything from split ends to the decline in SAT scores. Desiree was so bright and fluent that she made all of her bizarre views seem downright sensible. Jane looked forward to running into her.
Picking up Desiree's first chapter, Jane started reading: "I was born to parents who didn't want a child, so they gave birth to an adult....”
Jane was sorry when the first chapter ended and there wasn't any more to read. The writing was as weird and wonderful as Desiree herself. In a few short pages, she'd made Jane smile twice and almost get teary once. She told of being born to parents who actually liked being compared to Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. She recounted a visit to an aunt as eccentric as she herself was now. In fact, the aunt could have been a model for the Desiree Jane knew. She hinted at lovers and marriages to come, at famous people yet to be met and savored, at heartbreak and hilarity that would unfold in good time. Desiree was an example of an interesting life coupled with a gift of storytelling. Jane hoped the rest of the autobiography was actually written and she could talk Desiree out of a copy.
“Mom! My swimsuit's got a hole in it!" Katie's banshee screech jerked Jane out of her reverie.
“Katie," Jane said with all the patience she could muster, "don't yell at me as if it's my fault."
“But what am I going to do? I have to be at the pool in half an hour!"
“Well, two solutions come immediately to my mind. One, you could fix it. Two, you could wear another one. You've got a whole drawer full of suits."
“Oh, Mother, they're all gross!”
The words "They weren't gross when I paid for them" were crawling up Jane's throat, trying to make a break for it. "Thread and needles are downstairs in the sewing cabinet," she said mildly instead. She got up to unload the dishwasher—just to drive home the point that she was too busy to volunteer for sewing duty.
Katie flounced off down the stairs to the basement, where Jane had a combination household office/ sewing room, and Jane settled in again with her manuscripts. She picked up one belonging to Bob Neufield. She had only a vague recollection of him from the time she had to go to a city council meeting. She'd been there on her husband's behalf when he wanted to widen the driveway and needed zoning approval. Mr. Neufield had attended with plans for a garden shed that would violate the setback regulations. Mr. Neufield, if she was remembering the right person, was in his late fifties perhaps, with a rigid military manner. Very tidy man. Extremely well pressed, short-haired, with a brisk, curt manner.
His manuscript was abrupt and bloodless. He stated his birth data—date, place, parents—as if filling in a resume. The sentences were short, and repetitive with their singsong subject-predicate cadence. There were very few adjectives to liven it up, and no mention of how he felt about anything he was recounting. Poor, boring man! Jane thought, skipping ahead through lists of childhood friends and endless reports of school activities.
Katie came bounding up from the basement wearing the now-repaired swimming suit. "Mom? Aren't you ready? I'm going to be late."
“Ready? All I have to do is pick up my purse and car keys.”
Unfortunately, the car keys had hidden themselves, so they spent a frantic five minutes rummaging through the house and hurling accusations at each other before the keys were discovered lurking under a sofa cushion.
Katie's job, as far as the swimming pool management was concerned, was playing with the little ones in the baby pool. In her own view, her primary responsibility was getting a tan. "It's looking good, isn't it, Mom?" she said, propping a slim brown leg on the dashboard.
“It is, indeed," Jane said, executing what her friend Shelley called a "running stop" at the corner. "It's a shame it's not good for you. No! I really meant that conversationally," she said as a cloud of surliness drifted across Katie's face. "It wasn't a mom-nag."
“Jenny's mother is bringing us home, so you don't have to pick me up," Katie said. "When is Nana coming?"
“Sometime this afternoon. She didn't say exactly. You'll plan to stick around with her, won't you? She's coming to see you more than me."