Breathing Lessons (1989 Pulitzer Prize) Read online

  "College! Well, she always was a brain." "Oh, no ... but it's true she won a full scholarship." "Little bitty Daisy," Fiona said. "Just think." Ira had finished with the appliance, finally. He moved on to the coffee table. The Frisbee rested on a pile of comic books, and he picked it up and examined it all over again. Maggie stole a peek at him. He still had not said, "I told you so," but she thought she detected something noble and forbearing in the set of his spine.

  "You know, I'm in school myself, in a way," Fiona said.

  "Oh? What kind of school?" "I'm studying electrolysis." "Why, that's lovely, Fiona," Maggie said.

  She wished she could shake off this fulsome tone of voice. It seemed to belong to someone else entirely-some elderly, matronly, honey-sweet woman endlessly marveling and exclaiming.

  "The beauty parlor where I'm a shampoo girl is paying for my course," Fiona said. "They want their own licensed operator. They say I'm sure to make heaps of money.'' "That's just lovely!" Maggie said. "Then maybe you can move out and find a place of your own." And leave the pretender grandma behind, was what she was thinking. But Fiona gave her a blank look.

  Leroy said, "Show them your practice kit, Ma." "Yes, show us," Maggie said.

  "Oh, you don't want to see that," Fiona said.

  "Yes, we do. Don't we, Ira?" Ira said, "Hmm? Oh, absolutely." He held the Frisbee up level, like a tea tray, ,and gave it a meditative spin.

  "Well, then, wait a sec," Fiona said, and she got up and left the room. Her sandals made a dainty slapping sound on the wooden floor of the hallway.

  "They're going to hang a sign in the beauty parlor window," Leroy told Maggie. "Professionally painted with Ma's name." "Isn't that something!" "It's a genuine science, Ma says. You've got to have trained experts to teach you how to do it." Leroy's expression was cocky and triumphant. Maggie resisted the urge to reach down and cup the complicated small bones of her knee.

  Fiona returned, carrying a rectangular yellow kitchen sponge and a short metal rod the size of a ballpoint pen. "First we practice with a dummy instrument," she said. She dropped onto the couch beside Maggie. "We're supposed to work at .getting the angle exactly, perfectly right." She set the sponge on her lap and gripped the rod between her fingers. There was a needle at its tip, Maggie saw. For some reason she had always thought of electrolysis as, oh, not quite socially mentionable, but Fiona was so matter-of-fact and so skilled, targeting one of the sponge's pores and guiding the needle into it at a precisely monitored slant; Maggie couldn't help feeling impressed. This was a highly technical field, she realized- maybe something like dental hygiene. Fiona said, "We travel into the follicle, see, easy, easy ..." and then she said, "Oops!" and raised the heel of her hand an inch or two. "If this was a real person I'd have been leaning on her eyeball," she said. "Pardon me, lady," she told the sponge. "I didn't mean to smush you." Mottled black lettering was stamped across the sponge's surface: STA-BLER'S DARK BEER. MADE WITH MOUNTAIN SPRING WATER.

  Ira stood over them now, with the Frisbee dangling from his fingers. He asked, "Does the school provide the sponge?" "Yes, it's included in the tuition," Fiona said.

  "They must get it free," he reflected. "Courtesy of Stabler's. Interesting.'' "Stabler's? Anyhow, first we practice with the dummy and then with the real thing. Us students all work on each other: eyebrows and mustache and such. This girl that's my partner, Hilary, she wants me to do her bikini line." Ira pondered that for a moment and then backed off in a hurry.

  "You know these high-cut swimsuits nowadays, they show everything you've got," Fiona told Maggie.

  "Oh, it's becoming impossible!" Maggie cried. "I'm just making do with my old suit till the fashions change." Ira cleared his throat and said, "Leroy, what would you say to a game of Frisbee." Leroy looked up at him.

  ' 'I could show you how to make it go where you want,'' he told her.

  She took so long deciding that Maggie felt a pang for Ira's sake, but finally she said, "Well, okay," and unfolded herself from the floor. "Tell about the professionally painted sign," she told Fiona. Then she followed Ira out of the room. The screen door made a sound like a harmonica chord before it banged shut.

  So.

  This was the first time Maggie had been alone with Fiona since that awful morning. For once the two of them were free of Ira's hampering influence and the hostile, suspicious presence of Mrs. Stuckey. Maggie edged forward on the couch. She clasped her hands tightly; she pointed her knees intimately in Fiona's direction.

  "The sign's going to read FIONA MORAN," Fiona was saying. "LICENSED ELECTROLOGIST. PAINLESS REMOVAL OF SUPERFLUOUS HAIR." "I can't wait to see it," Maggie said.

  She thought about that last name: Moran. If Fiona really hated Jesse, would she have kept his name all these years?

  "On the radio," she said, "you told the man you were marrying for security." "Maggie, I swear to you, the station I listen to is-" "WXLR," Maggie said. "Yes, I know. But I just had it in my head that that was you, and so I . . ." She watched Fiona set the sponge and needle in the rowboat ashtray.

  "Anyway," she said. "Whoever it was who called, she said the first time she'd married for love and it hadn't worked out. So this time she was aiming purely for security. '' "Well, what a ninny," Fiona said. "If marriage was such a drag when she loved the guy, Avhat would it be like when she didn't?" "Exactly," Maggie said. "Oh, Fiona, I'm so glad that wasn't you!" "Shoot, I don't even have a steady boyfriend," Fiona said.

  "You don't?" But Maggie found the phrasing of that a bit worrisome. She said, "Does that mean . . . you have somebody not steady?" "I just barely get to date at all," Fiona said.

  "Well! What a pity," Maggie said. She put on a sympathetic expression.

  "This one guy? Mark Derby? I went out with him for about three months, but then we had a fight. I bashed his car in after I had borrowed it, was the reason. But it really wasn't my fault. I was starting to make a left turn, when these teenage boys came up from behind and passed me on the left and so of course I hit them. Then they had the nerve to claim it was all my doing; they claimed I had my right-turn signal on instead of my left." "Well, anyone who'd get mad about that you don't want to date anyhow," Maggie told her.

  "I said, 'I had my left-turn signal on. Don't you think I know my left from my right?' " "Of course you do," Maggie said soothingly. She lifted her left hand and flicked an imaginary turn signal, testing. "Yes, left is down and right is ... or maybe it's not the same in every model of car." "It's exactly the same," Fiona told her. "At least, I think it is." "Then maybe it was the windshield wipers," Maggie said. "I've done that, lots of times: switched on my wipers instead of my blinkers." Fiona considered. Then she said, "No, because something was lit up. Otherwise they wouldn't say I was signaling a right turn." "One time I had my mind elsewhere and I went for my blinkers and shifted gears instead," Maggie said. She started laughing. "Going along about sixty miles an hour and shifted into reverse. Oh, Lord." She pulled the corners of her mouth down, recollecting herself. "Well," she told Fiona, "I'd say you're better off without the man." "What man? Oh. Mark," Fiona said. "Yes, it's not like we were in love or anything. I only went out with him because he asked me. Plus my mom is friends with his mom. He has the nicest mother; real sweet-faced woman with a little bit of a stammer. I always feel a stammer shows sincerity of feeling, don't you?" Maggie said, "Why, c-c-certainly I do." It took Fiona a second to catch on. Then she laughed. "Oh, you're such a card," she said, and she tapped Maggie's wrist. "I'd forgotten what a card you are." "So is that the end of it?" Maggie asked.

  "End of what?" "This . . . thing with Mark Derby. I mean suppose he asks you out again?" "No way," Fiona said. "Him and his precious Subaru; no way would I go out with him." - "That's very wise of you," Maggie told her.

  "Shoot! I'd have to be a moron." "He was a moron, not to appreciate you," Maggie said.

  Fiona said, "Hey. How's about a beer." "Oh, I'd love a beer!" Fiona jumped up, tugging down her shorts, and left the room. Maggie sank lower on the couch a
nd listened to the sounds drifting in through the window-a car swishing past and Leroy's throaty chuckle. If this house were hers, she thought, she would get rid of all this clutter. You couldn't see the surface of the coffee table, and the layers of sofa cushions nudged her lower back uncomfortably.

  "Only thing we've got is Bud Light-is that okay?" Fiona asked when she returned. She was carrying two cans and a sack of potato chips.

  "It's perfect; I'm on a diet," Maggie said.

  She accepted one of the cans and popped the tab, while Fiona settled next to her on the couch. "/ ought to go on a diet," Fiona said. She ripped open the cellophane sack. "Snack foods are my biggest downfall." "Oh, mine too," Maggie said. She took a sip of her beer. It was crisp-tasting and bitter; it brought memories flooding in the way the smell of a certain perfume will. How long had it been since she'd last had a beer? Maybe not since Leroy was a baby. Back then (she recalled as she waved away the potato chips), she sometimes drank as many as two or three cans a day, keeping Fiona company because beer was good for her milk supply, they'd heard. Now that would probably be frowned upon, but at the time they had felt dutiful and virtuous, sipping their Miller High Lifes while the baby drowsily nursed. Fiona used to say she could feel the beer zinging directly to her breasts. She and Maggie would start drinking when Maggie came home from work-midafternoon or so, just the two of them. They would grow all warm and confiding together. By the time Maggie got around to fixing supper she would be feeling, oh, not drunk or anything but filled with optimism, and then later at the table she might act a bit more talkative than usual. It was nothing the others would notice, though. Except perhaps for Daisy. "Really, Mom. Honestly," Daisy would say. But then, she was always saying that.

  As was Maggie's mother, come to think of it. "Honestly, Maggie." She had stopped by late one afternoon and caught Maggie lounging on the couch, a beer balanced on her midriff, while Fiona sat next to her singing "Dust in the Wind" to the baby. "How have you let things get so common!" Mrs. Daley had asked, and Maggie, looking around her, had all at once wondered too. The cheap, pulpy magazines scattered everywhere, the wadded wet diapers, the live-in daughter-in-law-it did look common. How had it happened?

  "I wonder if Claudine and Peter ever married," Maggie said now, and she took another sip of her beer.

  "Claudine? Peter?" Fiona asked.

  "On that soap opera we used to watch. Remember? His sister Natasha was trying to split them up." "Oh, Lord, Natasha. She was one mean lady," Fiona said. She dug deep into the sack of potato chips.

  "They had just got engaged when you left us," Maggie said. "They were planning to throw a big party and then Natasha found out about it-remember?" "She looked kind of like this girl I always detested in elementary school," Fiona said.

  "Then you left us," Maggie said.

  Fiona said, "Actually, now that you mention it she must not have managed to split them up after all, because a couple of years later they had this baby that was kidnapped by a demented airline stewardess." "At first I couldn't believe you had really gone for good," Maggie said. "Whole months passed by when I'd come home and switch on the TV and check what was happening with Claudine and Peter, just so I could fill you in when you got back." "Anyhow," Fiona said. She set her beer on the coffee table.

  "Silly of me, wasn't it? Wherever you had gone, you surely would have been near a TV. It's not like you had abandoned civilization. But I don't know; maybe I just wanted to keep up with the story for my own sake, so that after you came back we could carry on like before. I was positive you'd be coming back." "Well, anyhow. What's past is past," Fiona said.

  "No, it's not! People are always saying that, but what's past is never past; not entirely," Maggie told her. "Fiona, this is a marriage we're talking about. You two had so much sunk into it; such an exhausting amount was sunk in. And then one day you quarreled over nothing whatsoever, no worse than any other time, and off you went. As easy as that! Shrugged your shoulders and walked away from it! How could that be possible?" "It just was, all right?" Fiona said. "Jiminy! Do we have to keep rehashing this?" And she reached for her beer can and drank, tipping her head far back. She wore rings on every one of her fingers, Maggie saw-some plain silver, some set with turquoise stones. That was new. But and then mails it without a letter or a note, not even my full name on the envelope but only F. Moran?" "Well, that's pure pride, Fiona. Both of you are way too-" "And when he hasn't laid eyes on his daughter since her fifth birthday? Try explaining that to a child. 'Oh, he's just proud, Leroy, honey-' " "Fifth birthday?" Maggie said.

  "Here she keeps wondering why all the other kids have fathers. Even the kids whose parents are divorced-at least they get to see their fathers on weekends." "He visited on her fifth birthday?" Maggie asked.

  "Look at that! He didn't even bother telling you." "What: He just showed up? Or what?" "He showed up out of the blue in a car packed to the teeth with the most unsuitable presents you ever saw," Fiona said. "Stuffed animals and dolls, and a teddy bear so big he had to strap it in the front seat like a human because it wouldn't fit through the rear door. It was much too big for a child to cuddle, not that Leroy would have wanted to. She isn't a cuddly type of person. She's more the sporty type. He should have brought her athletic equipment; he should have brought her-" "But, Fiona, how was he to know that?" Maggie asked. She felt an ache beginning inside her; she grieved for her son with his earful of wrongheaded gifts that he must have spent his last penny on, because heaven knows he wasn't well off. She said, "He was trying his best, after all. He just didn't realize." "Of course he didn't realize! He didn't have the faintest idea; the last time he visited, she was still a baby. So here he comes with this drink-and-wet doll that cries 'Mama,' and when he catches sight of Leroy in her dungarees he stops short; you can see he's not pleased. He says, 'Who is that?' He says, 'But she's so-' I had had to run fetch her from the neighbor's and quick smooth down her hair on the way through the alley. In the alley I told her, "luck your shirt in, honey. Here, let me lend you my barrette,' and Leroy stood still for it, which she wouldn't do ordinarily, believe me. And when I had fastened the barrette I said, 'Stand back and let me look at you,' and she stood back and licked her lips and said, 'Am I okay? Or not.' I said, 'Oh, honey, you're beautiful,' and then she walks into the house and Jesse says, 'But she's so-' " "He was surprised she had grown, that's all it was," Maggie said.

  "I could have cried for her," Fiona said.

  "Yes," Maggie said gently. She knew how that felt.

  Fiona said, " 'She's so what, Jesse?' I ask him. 'She's so what? How dare you come tramping in here telling me she's so something or other when the last time you sent us a check was December? And instead you waste your money on this trash, this junk,' I tell him, 'this poochy-faced baby doll when the only doll she'll bother with is G.I. Joe.' " "Oh, Fiona," Maggie said.

  "Well, what did he expect?" "Oh, why does this always happen between you two? He loves you, Fiona. He loves you both. He's just the world's most inept at showing it. If you knew what it must have cost him to make that trip! I can't tell you how often I've asked him, I've said, 'Are you planning to let your daughter just drift on out of your life? Because that's what she's bound to do, Jesse; I'm warning you,' and he said, 'No, but I don't . . . but I can't figure how to ... I can't stand to be one of those artificial fathers,' he said, 'with those busywork visits to zoos and small-talk suppers at McDonald's.' And I said, 'Well, it's better than nothing, isn't it?' and he said, 'No, it is not better than nothing. It's not at all. And what do you know about the subject, anyhow?'-that way he does, you've seen how he does, where he acts so furious but if you look at his eyes you'll notice these sudden dark rings beneath them that he used to get when he was just a little fellow trying not to cry." Fiona ducked her head. She started tracing the rim of her beer can with one finger.

  "On Leroy's first birthday," Maggie said, "he was all set to come with us and visit, I told you that. I said, 'Jesse, I really feel it would mean a lot to Fiona if you came
,' and he said, 'Well, maybe I will, then. Yes,' he said, 'I could do that, I guess,' and he asked me about fifty times what kind of present a year-old baby might enjoy. Then he went shopping all Saturday and brought back one of those shape-sorter boxes, but Monday after work he exchanged it for a woolen lamb because, he said, he didn't want to seem like he was pushing her intellectually or anything. 'I don't want to be like Grandma Daley, always popping up with these educational toys,' he said, and then on Thursday-her birthday was a Friday that year, remember?-he asked me exactly how you had phrased your invitation. 'I mean,' he said, 'did it sound to you like maybe she was expecting me to stay on over the weekend? Because if so then I might borrow Dave's van and drive up separately from you and Dad.' And I said, 'Well, you could do that, Jesse. Yes, what a good idea; why don't you.' He said, 'But how did she word it, is what I'm asking,' and I said, 'Oh, I forget,' and he said, 'Think.' I said, 'Well, as a matter of fact . . .' I said, 'Um, in fact, she didn't actually word it any way, Jesse, not directly straight out,' and he said, 'Wait. I thought she told you it would mean a lot to her if I came.' I said, 'No, it was me who said that, but I know it's true. I know it would mean a great deal to her.' He said, 'What's going on here? You told me clearly that it was Fiona who said that.' I said, 'I never told you any such thing! Or at least I don't think I did; unless maybe perhaps by accident I-' He said, 'Are you saying she didn't ask for me?' 'Well, I just know she would have,' I told him, 'if the two of you were not so all-fired careful of your dignity. I just know she wanted to, Jesse-' But by then he was gone. Slammed out of the house and vanished, did not come home all Thursday night, and Friday we had to set off without him. I was so disappointed." "You were disappointed!" Fiona said. "You had promised you would be bringing him. I waited, I dressed up, I got myself a make-over at the beauty parlor. Then you turn into the driveway and he's not with you." "Well, I told him when we got home," Maggie said, "I told him, 'We tried our best, Jesse, but it wasn't us Fiona dressed up for, you can be certain. It was you, and you should have seen her face when you didn't get'out of the car.' " Fiona slapped a sofa cushion with the flat of her palm. She said, "I might have known you would do that." "Do What?" "Oh, make me look pitiful in front of Jesse." "I didn't make you look pitiful! I merely said-" "So then he calls me on the phone. I knew that was why he called me. Says, 'Fiona? Hon?' I could hear it in his voice that he was sorry for me. I knew what you must have told him. I say, 'What do you want? Are you calling for a reason?' He says, 'No, um, no reason . . .' I say, 'Well, then, you're wasting your money, aren't you?' and I hang up." "Fiona, for Lord's sake," Maggie said. "Didn't it occur to you he might have called because he missed you?" Fiona said, "Ha!" and took another swig of beer.