Breathing Lessons (1989 Pulitzer Prize) Read online

  "Sometimes I think she's trying to show me up," Anita said. - N Maggie didn't know how to answer that.

  S Finally Serena returned to the car, bearing a wrapped gift. "Mrs. Knowlton told me not to open this till our wedding night," she said. Maggie blushed and slid her eyes toward Anita. Anita merely gazed out the window, sending two long streamers of smoke from her nostrils.

  In the church, Reverend Connors led Serena and her mother to a side room. Maggie went to wait for the other singers. Mary Jean was already there, and soon Sissy arrived with her husband and her mother-in-law. No Ira, though. Well, there was plenty of time. Maggie took her long white choir robe from its hanger and slipped it over her head, losing herself in its folds, and then of course she emerged all tousled and had to go off to comb her hair. But even when she returned, Ira was not to be seen.

  The first of the guests had arrived. Boris sat in one of the pews, uncomfortably close. He was listening to a lady in a spotted veil and he was nodding intelligently, respectfully, but Maggie felt there was something tense about the set of his head. She looked toward the entrance. Other people were straggling in now, her parents and the Wrights next door and Serena's old baton teacher. No sign of the long, dark shape that was Ira Moran.

  After she had let him walk off alone the night before, he must have decided to vanish altogether.

  "Excuse me," she said. She bumped down the row of folding chairs and hurried through the vestibule. One of her full sleeves caught on the knob of the open door and yanked her up short in a foolish way, but she shook herself loose before anybody noticed, she thought. She paused on the front steps. "Well, hi!" an old classmate said. "Um ..." Maggie murmured, and she shaded her eyes and looked up and down the street. All she saw were more guests. She felt a moment's impatience with them; they seemed so frivolous. They were smiling and greeting each other in that gracious style they used only at church, and the women turned their toes out fastidiously as they walked, and their white gloves glinted in the sunlight.

  In the doorway, Boris said, "Maggie?" She didn't turn around. She ran down the steps with her robe flowing behind her. The steps were the wide, exceptionally shallow sort unsuited for any normal human stride; she was forced to adopt a limping, uneven rhythm. "Maggie!" Boris cried, so she had to run on after reaching the sidewalk. She shouldered her way between guests and then was past them, skimming down the street, ballooning white linen like a sailboat in a wind.

  Sam's Frame Shop -was only two blocks from the church,vbut they were long blocks and it was a warm June morning. She was damp and breathless when she arrived. She pulled open the plate-glass door and stepped into a close, cheerless interior with a worn linoleum floor. L-shaped samples of moldings hung from hooks on a yellowing pegboard wall, and the counter was painted a thick, cold gray. Behind this counter stood a bent old man in a visor, with shocks of white hair poking every which way. Ira's father.

  She was surprised to find him there. The way she'd heard it, he never set foot in the shop anymore. She hesitated, and he said, "Can I help you, miss?" She had always thought Ira had the darkest eyes she'd ever seen, but this man's eyes were darker. She couldn't even tell "where they were focused; she had the fleeting notion that he might be blind.

  "I was looking for Ira," she told him.

  "Ira's not working today. He's got some kind of event." "Yes, a wedding; he's singing at a wedding," she said. "But he hasn't shown up yet, so I came to get him." "Oh?" Sam said. He moved his head closer to her, leading with his nose, not lessening in the least his impression of a blind man. "You wouldn't be Margaret, would you?" he asked.

  "Yes, sir," she said.

  He thought that over. He gave an abrupt, wheezy chuckle.

  "Margaret M. Daley," he said.

  She stood her ground.

  "So you assumed Ira was dead," he said.

  "Is he here?" she asked.

  "He's upstairs, dressing." "Could you call him, please?" "How did you suppose he'd died?" he asked her.

  "I mistook him for someone else. Monty Rand," she said, mumbling the words. "Monty got killed in boot camp." "Boot camp!" "Could you call Ira for me, please?" "You'd never find Ira in boot camp," Sam told her. "Ira's got dependents, just as much as if he was married. Not that he ever could be married in view of our situation. My heart has been acting up on me for years and one of his sisters is not quite right in the head. Why, I don't believe the army would have him even if he volunteered! Then me and the girls would have to go on welfare; we'd be a burden on the government. 'Get along with you,' those army folks would tell him. 'Go on back to them that need you. We've got no use for you here.' " Maggie heard feet running down a set of stairs somewhere-a muffled, drumming sound. A door opened in the pegboard wall behind the counter and Ira said, "Pop-" He stopped and looked at her. He wore a dark, ill-fitting suit and a stiff white shirt, with a navy tie dangling unknotted from his collar.

  "We'll be late for the wedding," she told him.

  He shot back a cuff and checked his watch.

  "Come on!" she said. It wasn't only the wedding she was thinking of. She felt there was something dangerous about staying around Ira's father.

  And sure enough, Sam said, "Me and your little friend here was just discussing you going into the army." "Army?" "Ira couldn't join the army, I told her. He's got us." Ira said, "Well, anyhow, Pop, I ought to be back from this thing in a couple of hours." "You really have to take that long? That's most of the morning!" Sam turned to Maggie and said, "Saturday's our busiest day at work." Maggie wondered why, in that case, the shop was empty. She said, "Yes, well, we should be-" "In fact, if Ira joined the army we'd just have to close this place up," Sam said. "Sell it off lock, stock, and barrel, when it's been in the family for forty-two years come October." "What are you talking about?" Ira asked him. "Why would I want to join the army?" "Your little friend here thought you'd gone into the army and got yourself killed," Sam told him.

  "Oh," Ira said. Now the danger must have dawned on him too, for this time it was he who said, "We should be going." "She thought you'd blown yourself up in boot camp," Sam told him. He gave another of his wheezy chuckles. There was something mole-like and relentless about that way he led with his nose, Maggie felt. "Ups and writes me a letter of condolence,'' he said. "Ha!" He told Maggie, ' 'Gave me quite a start. I had this half-second or so where I thought, Wait a minute. Has Ira passed] First I knew of it, if so. And first I'd heard of you. First I'd heard of any girl, matter of fact, in years. I mean it's not like'he has any friends anymore. His chums at school were that brainy crowd that went away to college and by now they've all lost touch with him and he doesn't see a soul his own age. 'Look here!' I told him. 'A girl at last!' After I'd withstood the shock. 'Better grab her while you got the chance,' I told him." "Let's go," Ira said to Maggie.

  He lifted a hinged section of the counter and stepped through it, but Sam went on talking. "Trouble is, now you know she can manage fine without you," he said.

  Ira paused, still holding up the hinged section.

  "She writes a little note of condolence and then continues with her life, as merry as pie," Sam told him.

  "What did you expect her to do, throw herself in my grave?" "Well, you got to admit she bore up under her grief mighty well. Writes me a nice little note, sticks a postage stamp in one corner, then carries on with her girlfriend's wedding arrangements.'' "Right," Ira said, and he lowered the counter and came over to Maggie. Was he totally impenetrable? His eyes were flat, and his hand, when he took her arm, was perfectly steady.

  "You're wrong," Maggie told Sam.

  "Huh?" "I wasn't doing fine without him! I was barely existing." "No need to get all het up about it," Sam said.

  "And for your information, there's any number of girls who think he's perfectly wonderful and I am not the only one and also it's ridiculous to say he can't get married. You have no right; anyone can get married if they want to." "He wouldn't dare!" Sam told her. "He's got me and his sisters to think of. You wan
t us all in the poorhouse? Ira? Ira, you wouldn't dare to get married!" "Why not?" Ira asked calmly.

  "You've got to think of me and your sisters!" "I'm marrying her anyhow," Ira said.

  Then he opened the door and stood back to let Maggie walk through it.

  On the stoop outside, they stopped and he put his arms around her and drew her close. She could feel the narrow bones of his chest against her cheek and she heard his heart beating in her ear. His father must have been able to see everything through the plate-glass door, but even so Ira bent his head and kissed her on the lips, a long, warm, searching kiss that turned her knees weak.

  Then they started off toward the church, although first there was a minor delay because the hem of her choir robe caught her up short. Ira had to open the door once again (not even glancing at his father) and set her loose.

  But to look at Serena's movie, would you guess what had come just before? They seemed an ordinary couple, maybe a bit mismatched as to height. He was too tall and thin and she was too short and plump. Their expressions were grave but they certainly didn't look as if anything earth-shattering had recently taken place. They opened and closed their mouths in silence while the audience sang for them, poking gentle fun, intoning melodramatically. " 'Love is Nature's way of giving, a reason to be living . . .' " Only Maggie knew how Ira's hand had braced the small of her back.

  Then the Barley twins leaned into each other and sang the processional, their faces raised like baby birds' faces; and the camera swung from them to Serena all in white. Serena sailed down the aisle with her mother hanging on to her. Funny: From this vantage neither one of them seemed particularly unconventional. Serena stared straight ahead, intent. Anita's makeup was a little too heavy but she could have been anybody's mother, really, anxious-looking and outdated in her tight dress. "Look at you!" someone told Serena, laughing. Meanwhile the audience sang, " 'Though I don't know many words to say . . .' " But then the camera jerked and swooped and there was Max, waiting next to Reverend Connors in front of the altar. One by one, the singers trailed off. Sweet Max, pursing his chapped lips and squinting his blue eyes in an attempt to seem fittingly dignified as he watched Serena approaching. Everything about him had faded except for his freckles, which stood out like metal spangles across his broad cheeks.

  Maggie felt tears welling up. Several people blew their noses.

  No one, she thought, had suspected back then that it would all turn out to be so serious.

  But of course the mood brightened again, because the song went on too long and the couple had to stand in position, with Reverend Connors beaming at them, while the Barley twins wound down. And by the time the vows were exchanged and Sugar rose to sing the recessional, most of the people in the audience were nudging each other expectantly. For who could forget what came next?

  Max escorted Serena back down the aisle far too slowly, employing a measured, hitching gait that he must have thought appropriate. Sugar's song was over and done with before they had finished exiting. Serena tugged at Max's elbow, spoke urgently in his ear, traveled almost backward for the last few feet as she towed him into the vestibule. And then once they were out of sight," what a battle there'd been! The whispers, rising to hisses, rising to shouts! "If you'd stayed through the goddamn rehearsal," Serena had cried, "instead of tearing off to Penn Station for your never-ending relatives and leaving me to practice on my own so you had no idea how fast to walk me-" The congregation had remained seated, not knowing where to look. They'd grinned sheepishly at their laps, and finally broke into laughter.

  "Serena, honey," Max had said, "pipe down. For Lord's sake, Serena, everyone can hear you, -Serena, honey pie ..." Naturally none of this was apparent from the movie, which was finished anyhow except for a few scarred numerals flashing by. But all around the room people were refreshing other people's recollections, bringing the scene back to life. "And then she stalked out-" "Slammed the church door-" "Shook the whole building, remember?" "Us just staring back toward the vestibule wondering how to behave-" Someone flipped a window shade up: Serena herself. The room was filled with light. Serena was smiling but her cheeks were wet. People were saying, "Arid then, Serena . . ." and, "Remember, Serena?" and she was nodding and smiling and crying. The old lady next to Maggie said, "Dear, dear Maxwell," and sighed, perhaps not even aware of the others' merriment.

  Maggie rose and collected her purse. She wanted Ira; she felt lost without Ira. She looked around for him but saw only the others, meaningless and bland. She threaded her way to the dining alcove, but he wasn't among the guests who stood picking over the platters of food. She walked down the hall and peeked into Serena's bedroom.

  And there he was, seated at the bureau. He'd pulled a chair up close and moved Linda's graduation picture out of the way so he could spread a solitaire layout clear across the polished surface. One angular brown hand was poised above a jack, preparing to strike. Maggie stepped inside and shut the door. She set her purse down and wrapped her arms around him from behind. ' 'You missed a good movie," she said into his hair. "Serena showed a film of her wedding." "Isn't that just like her,'.' Ira said. He placed the jack on a queen. His hair smelled like coconut-its natural scent, which always came through sooner or later no matter what shampoo he used.

  "You and I were singing our duet," she said.

  "And I suppose you got all teary and nostalgic." "Yes, I did," she told him.

  "Isn't that just like you," he said.

  "Yes, it is," she said, and she smiled into the mirror in front of them. She felt she was almost boasting, that she'd made a kind of proclamation. If she was easily swayed, she thought, at least she had chosen who would sway her. If she was locked in a pattern, at least she had chosen what that pattern would be. She felt strong and free and definite. She watched Ira scoop up a whole row of diamonds, ace through ten, and lay them on the jack. "We looked like children," she told him. "Like infants. We were hardly older than Daisy is now; just imagine. And thought nothing of deciding then and there who we'd spend the next sixty years with." "Mmhmm," Ira said.

  He pondered a king, while Maggie laid her cheek on the top of his head. She seemed to have fallen in love again. In love with her own husband! The convenience of it pleased her-like finding right in her pantry all the fixings she needed for a new recipe.

  "Remember the first year we were married?" she asked him. "It was awful. We fought every minute." "Worst year of my life," he agreed, and when she moved around to the front he sat back slightly so she could settle on his lap. His thighs beneath her were long and bony-two planks of lumber. "Careful of my cards," he told her, but she could feel he was getting interested. She laid her head on his shoulder and traced the stitching of his shirt pocket with one finger.

  "That Sunday we invited Max and Serena to dinner, remember? Our very first guests. We rearranged the furniture five times before they got there," she said. "I'd go out in the kitchen and come back to find you'd shifted all the chairs into corners, and I'd say, 'What have you doneV and shift them all some other way, and by the time the Gills arrived, the coffee table was upside down on the couch and you and I were having a shouting quarrel." "We were scared to death, is what it was," Ira said. He had his arms around her now; she felt his amused, dry voice vibrating through his chest. "We were trying to act like grownups but we didn't know if we could pull it off." "And then our first anniversary," Maggie said. "What a fiasco! Mother's etiquette book said it was either the paper anniversary or the clock anniversary, whichever I preferred. So I got this bright idea to construct your gift from a kit I saw advertised in a magazine: a working clock made out of paper." "I don't remember that." "That's because I never gave it to you," Maggie said.

  "What happened to it?" "Well, I must have put it together wrong," Maggie said. "I mean I followed all the directions, but it never really acted like it was supposed to. It dragged, it stopped and started, one edge curled over, there was a ripple under the twelve where I'd used too much glue. It was . . . makeshift, amateur
. I was so ashamed of it, I threw it in the trash." "Why, sweetheart," he said.

  "I was afraid it was a symbol or something, I mean a symbol of our marriage. We were makeshift ourselves, is what I was afraid of." lie said, "Shoot, we were just learning back then. We didn't know what to do with each other." "We know now," she whispered. Then she pressed her mouth into one of her favorite places, that nice warm nook where his jaw met his neck.

  Meanwhile her fingers started traveling down to his belt buckle.

  Ira said, "Maggie?" but he made no move to stop her. She straightened up to loosen his belt and unzip his fly.

  "We can sit right here in this chair," she whispered. "No one will ever guess." Ira groaned and pulled her againsfhim. When he kissed her his lips felt smooth and very firm. She thought she could hear her own blood flooding through her veins; it made a rushing sound, like a seashell.

  "Maggie Daley!" Serena said.

  Ira started violently and Maggie jumped up from his lap. Serena stood frozen with one hand on the doorknob. She was gaping at Ira, at his open zipper and his shirttail flaring out.

  Well, it could have gone in either direction, Maggie figured. You never knew with Se*rena. Serena could have just laughed it off. But maybe the funeral had been too much for her, or the movie afterward, or just widowhood in general. At any rate, she said, "I don't believe this, I do not believe it." Maggie said, "Serena-" "In my own house! My bedroom!" "I'm sorry; please, we're both so sorry . . ." Maggie said, and Ira, hastily righting his clothes, said, "Yes, we honestly didn't-" "You always were impossible," Serena told Maggie. "I suspect it's deliberate. No one could act so goofy purely by chance. I haven't forgotten what happened with my mother at the nursing home. And now this! At a funeral gathering! In the bedroom I shared with my husband!" "It was an accident, Serena. We never meant to-" "An accident!" Serena said. "Oh, just go." "What?" "Just leave," she said, and she wheeled and walked away.