Breathing Lessons Part 24

"Oh, Ira, you are so obtuse sometimes," she said.

She closed the brown paper bag and shook it, mixing the seasonings. You can't have things both ways, she should have told Fiona. You can't laugh at him for staying the same and also object when he changes. Why, of course he had moved! Did Fiona imagine he had sat here waiting for her all these years?

And yet Maggie knew how she felt, somehow. You have this picture of a person; you have him tucked away in your mind in this certain fixed position.

She looked again at the band photo on the table. They had all been so enthusiastic once, she thought. So much energy had been invested. She remembered those early rehearsals in Lorimer's parents' garage, and the months and months when they'd been thrilled to perform for free, even, and the night that Jesse had come home triumphantly waving a ten-dollar bill-his share of their first paycheck.

"Is that Daisy?" Ira asked.

"What?"

"I thought I heard the front door."

"Oh!" Maggie said. "Maybe it's Jesse."

"Don't count on it," he told her.

But only Jesse would sling the door back against the bookcase that way. Maggie dusted off her hands. "Jesse?" she called.

"Here I am."

She hurried out to the hall, and Ira followed more slowly. Jesse stood just inside the door. He was looking toward the living room, where Leroy was poised like some startled small animal with her hands pressed together in front of her and one foot drawn up behind her. Jesse said, "Well, hi."

"Hi," Leroy said.

"How're you doing?"

"I'm okay."

He looked over at Maggie. Maggie said, "Hasn't she grown?"

His long black eyes returned to Leroy.

Now Maggie moved toward him, willing him further into the house. (He always seemed on the verge of leaving.) She took his arm and said, "I'm frying up some chicken; it'll be a few more minutes. You two can sit in here and get acquainted."

But he had never been easily led. He was wearing a knitted jersey, and beneath the thin cloth she felt his resistance-the steely muscle above his elbow. His boots remained rooted to the floor. He was going to take his own sweet time at this.

"So what're you listening to?" he asked Leroy.

"Oh, just some record."

"You a Dead fan?"

"Dead? Um, sure."

"You want some better alb.u.m, then," he said. "This one here is too popular with the ma.s.ses."

"Oh, yeah, well," she said. "I was just thinking that myself."

He glanced at Maggie again. He was holding his face in a way that caused his chin to lengthen, just as Ira always did when he was trying to keep back a smile.

"She's athletic too," Maggie told him. "Brought along her baseball glove."

"That so?" he asked Leroy.

She nodded. The toe of her raised foot pointed daintily downward, ballet style.

Then something clattered upstairs and Fiona called, "Maggie, where-?"

She arrived on the landing. They all looked up at her.

"Oh," she said.

And she began to descend the stairs very smoothly and quietly, with one hand trailing along the banister. The only sound was the slapping of her sandals against her bare heels. quietly, with one hand trailing along the banister. The only sound was the slapping of her sandals against her bare heels.

Jesse said, "Good to see you, Fiona."

She reached the hall and looked up at him. "It's good to see you too," she said.

"Done something new to your hair, haven't you?"

She lifted a hand, with her eyes still on his face, and touched the ends of her hair. "Oh! Maybe so," she told him.

Maggie said, "Well, I guess I'd better get back to-"

And Ira said, "Need help in the kitchen, Maggie?"

"Yes, please!" she sang out happily.

Fiona told Jesse, "I was just upstairs hunting my soapbox."

Maggie hesitated.

"Soapbox?" Jesse asked.

"I tried your bureau drawer, but it's empty. All I found was mothb.a.l.l.s. Did you take my soapbox with you when you moved to your apartment?"

"What soapbox are you talking about?"

"My tortoisesh.e.l.l soapbox! The one you kept."

Jesse looked over at Maggie. Maggie said, "You remember her soapbox."

"Well, no, I can't say as I do," Jesse said, and he grabbed hold of his forelock the way he always did when he was puzzled.

"You kept it after she left," Maggie told him. "I saw you with it. There was a bar of soap inside, remember? That clear kind of soap you can see through."

"Oh, yes," Jesse said, letting go of his forelock.

"You remember it?"

"Sure."

Maggie relaxed. She flashed a bracing smile at Leroy, who had lowered her foot to the floor now and was looking uncertain. who had lowered her foot to the floor now and was looking uncertain.

"So where is it?" Fiona asked. "Where's my soapbox, Jesse?"

"Well, uh, didn't your sister take it?"

"No."

"I thought she packed it up along with your other things."

"No," Fiona said. "You had it in your bureau."

Jesse said, "Gosh, Fiona. In that case maybe it's thrown out by now. But look, if it means so much to you, then I'd be glad to-"

"But you kept it, because it reminded you of me," Fiona told him. "It smelled like me! You closed your eyes and held my soapbox to your nose."

Jesse's gaze swiveled to Maggie again. He said, "Ma? Is that what you told her?"

"You mean it's not true?" Fiona asked him.

"You said I went around sniffing soapboxes, Ma?"

"You did!" Maggie said. Although she hated having to repeat it to his face. She had never meant to shame him. She turned to Ira (who was wearing exactly the shocked, reproachful expression she had expected) and said, "He kept it in his top drawer."

"Your treasure drawer," Fiona told Jesse. "Do you suppose I'd come all the way down here like any ordinary...groupie if your mother hadn't told me that? I didn't have to come! I was getting along just fine! But your mother says you hung on to my soapbox and wouldn't let Crystal pack it, you closed your eyes and took this big whiff, you've kept it to this day, she said, you've never let it go, you sleep with it under your pillow at night."

Maggie cried, "I never said-!"

"What do you think I am? Some kind of loser?" Jesse asked Fiona.

"Now, listen," Ira said.

Everyone seemed glad to turn to him.

"Let me get this straight," he said. "You're talking about a plastic soapbox."

"My plastic soapbox," Fiona told him, "that Jesse sleeps every night with." plastic soapbox," Fiona told him, "that Jesse sleeps every night with."

"Well, there seems to be some mistake," Ira said. "How would Maggie even know such a thing? Jesse has his own apartment now. All he sleeps with that I've I've ever heard of is an auto greeter." ever heard of is an auto greeter."

"A what?"

"Oh, never mind."

"What's an auto greeter?"

There was a pause. Then Ira said, "You know: the person who stands at the door when you go in to buy a car. She makes you give your name and address before she'll call a salesman."

"She? You mean a woman?"

"Right."

"Jesse sleeps with a woman?"

"Right."

Maggie said, "You just had to spoil things, Ira, didn't you."

"No," Ira told her, "it's the simple truth that's spoiled things, Maggie, and the truth is, Jesse's involved with somebody else now."

"But that woman's no one important! I mean they're not engaged or married or anything! She's no one he really cares about!"

She looked to Jesse to back her up, but he was studiously examining the toe of his left boot.

"Oh, Maggie, admit it," Ira said. "This is the way things things are are. This is how he's going to be. He never was fit husband material! He pa.s.ses from girlfriend to girlfriend and he can't seem to hold the same job for longer than a few months; and every job he loses, it's somebody else's fault. The boss is a jerk, or the customers are jerks, or the other workers are-"

"Now, hold on," Jesse began, while Maggie said, "Oh, why do you always, always exaggerate, Ira! He worked in the record shop a full year, have you forgotten that?"

"Everyone in Jesse's acquaintance," Ira finished calmly, "by some magical coincidence ends up being a jerk."

Jesse turned and walked out of the house.

It made things more disturbing, somehow, that he didn't slam the door but let it click shut very gently behind him.

Maggie said, "He'll be back." She was speaking to Fiona, but when Fiona didn't respond (her face was almost wooden; she was staring after Jesse), she told Leroy instead. "You saw how glad he was to see you, didn't you?"

Leroy just gaped.

"He's upset at what Ira said about him, is all," Maggie told her. And then she said, "Ira, I will never forgive you for this."

"Me!" Ira said.

Fiona said, "Stop it."

They turned.

"Just stop, both of you," she said. "I'm tired to death of it. I'm tired of Jesse Moran and I'm tired of the two of you, repeating your same dumb arguments and niggling and bickering, Ira forever so righteous and Maggie so willing to be wrong."

"Why...Fiona?" Maggie said. Her feelings were hurt. Maybe it was silly of her, but she had always secretly believed that outsiders regarded her marriage with envy. "We're not bickering; we're just discussing," she said. "We're compiling our two views of things." believed that outsiders regarded her marriage with envy. "We're not bickering; we're just discussing," she said. "We're compiling our two views of things."

Fiona said, "Oh, forget it. I don't know why I thought anything would be any different here." And she stepped into the living room and hugged Leroy, whose eyes were wide and startled. She said, "There, there, honey," and she buried her face in the crook of Leroy's neck. Plainly, Fiona herself was the one who needed consoling.

Maggie glanced at Ira. She looked elsewhere.

"Soapbox?" Ira asked. "How could you invent such a story?"