Janice Macdonald - Return To Little Hills

She had a glimpse of loose blond hair and red lips as she’d slipped past them and into a cubicle. They were at least a decade younger and she’d thought, I hate them. I hate them because the tarnish and weariness haven’t set in. They don’t know yet that they won’t always be beautiful; that they won’t conquer the world, marry the man, have the babies. Make a difference. She’d draped the toilet seat with a paper cover and sat until she heard them leave. Stood then and leaned her forehead against the cool metal surface of the door. I need, she’d thought. I need, I need, I need. But what?

“Earth to Edie,” Viv was saying now. “She’s in a foxhole,” she said with a wink at Beth. “Shoulder to shoulder to a hunky marine.”

“Right,” Edie said, rallying. “And I haven’t showered for a week and neither has he.” She drained the margarita, tasting the gritty strawberry seeds, the sweet, fruity ice. “So, Beth,” she said. “How come you haven’t joined the married-with-children club?”

Beth smiled sadly. “I don’t know, really. One minute it seemed as though I had all the time in the world, and I just knew I’d have children and a husband, the whole thing. And then I woke up and I was forty and there was no one even on the horizon.”

Vivian gave a small, conspiratorial smile and leaned slightly toward Beth. “Except for Peter,” she whispered.

“Oh, Peter.” Beth’s expression turned dreamy. “Be still my heart. Today, he told me about his little girl’s dance recital. Delphina, the quiet one he always calls her. I’ve met them all. Delphina’s this solemn little thing with huge dark eyes. The twins, Kate and Abbie, are adorable blond angels, and Natalie is an absolute sweetheart. She’s the little mother.”

Vivian arched an eyebrow at Edie. “Kind of sounds like Beth might be more in love with the girls than she is with Peter, doesn’t it?”

“I just love children,” Beth said. “And Peter’s so sweet when he talks about them. He came in this morning with this big stain on his shirt pocket where Natalie had put a sandwich. Some men would have been embarrassed to walk around all day like that. He’s the principal, after all. But Peter’s much more focused on the idea that his little girl made him lunch.” Her face colored. “I just think he’s really a sweet, sweet man… I just want good things to happen for him.”

“You’d be a good thing,” Vivian said.

Beth smiled. “Edie, if you haven’t noticed, your sister is trying to set me up with Peter. She thinks we’d be perfect together. And your sister, in case you haven’t noticed that, either, happens to be very determined when she sets her mind to anything.”

Viv hooted. “Me, determined? You don’t know determined until you know Edie. Once she makes her mind up on something, nothing’s going to change it.”

“A family trait,” Edie said, thinking of Maude. “So, are you interested in Peter?” she asked Beth. “Personally.”

“Of course she is,” Viv said. “How could she not be?”

Edie looked at Beth, waiting for her to answer. With her nondescript brown hair pulled into a straggling ponytail, no makeup and an unflattering orange knit sweater, Beth looked like the before picture of a makeover candidate. Not without potential, but at the moment, clearly untapped.

An assessment Beth confirmed a moment later. “I don’t think I’m exactly Peter’s type,” she said. “A few weeks ago I was in administration and this tall gorgeous woman came in. Everyone was looking at her. The security guard’s jaw just about dropped. She asked for Peter, and Betty Jean let her into his office. Apparently, she’s this actress he was dating.”

“But he’s not dating her now,” Viv said. “Ray heard Peter telling her not to bother him anymore.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter,” Beth said. “Clearly, that’s the type of woman he’s interested in.”

“Beth.” Elbows on the table, Viv looked at her friend. “He needs a mother for those children. Betty Jean told Ray. He’s not looking to marry an actress. You just need to work at it, let him see you’re interested.”

“But I don’t know if I am,” Beth said. “I think I might feel…inadequate.”

“No, no.” Viv shook her head. “You and Peter would be perfect together. Men are just sometimes slower to catch up. Although,” she said with a little smile, “sometimes you do get that gut feeling. I remember with Ray. Everyone said, ‘Oh he’s still in love with Edie, he’s just marrying you on the rebound,’ but I knew.”

Edie clasped her hands. A pain that had started at the top of her scalp was gathering strength. “The thing is,” she said. “It’s sometimes difficult to know what guys are thinking. You know how you can kind of read things into situations? See what you want to see?” Edie really wanted to go home and stick her head under the covers. “All I’m saying is, Beth, a friend of mine told me years later that she really wished someone had told her right from the start that this guy was never in love with her. It was just a difficult call, though.”

“Excuse me,” Beth said as she hurried from the room.

“What the hell is with you?” Vivian glared at Edie. “Beth has been glowing all evening and it’s like you just poured a bucket of cold water over her. Why don’t you keep your damn cynical opinions to yourself and quit spoiling things for everyone else?”

“I honestly didn’t mean to rain on her parade,” Edie said. “I was just telling her—”

“Next time, try telling yourself to butt out,” Viv snapped.

Edie returned home to find a message from Maude scrawled on a note under the phone.

Gone to bed. A man called I told him he had the wrong number but he kept calling back and asking for Fred so I wrote down his number just to get some peace and quiet you better call him we need more toilet paper and don’t get that thin stuff again my fingers go right through it. Love Mom.

WITH A SMILE, Edie folded the note and put it in her pocket. The infrequent letters Maude sent her were written the same way; long, garbled, stream-of-consciousness missives without a hint of punctuation. She dialed the number she knew by heart and reached a colleague and friend she’d known since their days in the Times London bureau. A grizzled bearlike man approaching retirement, Fred Mazare had probably reported from every country in the world during his forty-odd years in journalism. A gold mine of information on anything from overseas press clubs—he knew them all—to public transport in Bangkok—he recommended tuk tuks—Fred was mentor, father figure, confidant and friend all rolled into one untidy, overweight, cigar-smoking curmudgeon. He picked up the phone on the first ring.

“Where the hell have you been?” he demanded, “And who was that old bat who answered the phone?”

“Out with the girls,” she said, grinning because it felt so damn good to hear his voice. “And watch how you talk about my mother.”

“How’re things going?”

“Oh…” She rubbed her eyes. “I’m home. Does that tell you anything?”

“Yep. It tells me you’re about as out of place as a nun in a brothel.”

She laughed. “Hmm, I’ll have to think about that one.” Her back against the wall, the phone cord wrapped around her wrist, she slid down to the floor. “Why do I feel so…weird whenever I come home, Fred?”

“One, you don’t belong there anymore. Two, you’re trying to convince yourself into believing that you do.”

“I am?”

“Sure you are. Probably hooked up with an old boyfriend and he’s trying to talk you into settling down—”

“Wrong.”

“Okay. Your biological clock’s ticking.”

She groaned. “Oh please, if you can’t come up with something more original…”

“Okay, Edie. Tell Uncle Freddy the problem as you see it.”

“I just…have this empty feeling inside.”

“You going soft on me?”

“No.” She swiped the back of her hand across her nose. “Maybe I’ve had my fill of moving around. Maybe I need to settle, put down some roots.” She swallowed. “Maybe you’re not really so far off the mark about the biological clock.”

“Highly possible,” he agreed.

“But I’d hate to settle down in a place like Little Hills.” She thought of Viv and her off-white leather couches and her endless chattering about Ray and the boys. She thought of Peter with his little girls. Beth all shiny-eyed as she’d called them angels. “I have nothing in common with these people.”

“My guess is that you would if you decided Little Hills is what you’re looking for,” he said. “Ready for some news about Ben?”

She leaned her head back against the wall, closed her eyes. “Yeah.”

“State Department’s arranged for his release. Could be any day now.”

She breathed a sigh. “Thank God.”

“I spoke to his wife.”

“Ex-wife.”

“Tell her that.”

“He told me that.”

Fred laughed. “Ever strike you funny how people can be so cynical and hardheaded about things they want to believe and so damn gullible and stupid about other things?”

“Not so much funny as pitiful,” she said. You’re not breaking up my marriage, Edie, Ben had told her. It was broken long, long before I met you.

“Hey, Edie.” Fred was saying, “Cut out the whiny broad stuff.”

“I’m not whining.”

“You’re feeling sorry for yourself.”

“Bull.” Tears burned her nose. “I’m fine. Terrific.”

“You’ve always had Ben’s number…”

“I said I’m fine.”

“Yeah well…listen, here’s something that’ll put a smile on your face. I heard your name mentioned the other day. How does Edie Robinson, Asia bureau chief, strike you?”

“ASIA? Wow, Edie, how exciting,” Vivian enthused the next morning when Edie told her about the bureau chief job. “You know what, though? I don’t envy you one bit. I tell you, when Ray and I got back from New York after our tenth anniversary, I was never so glad to be home.”

“Yeah, I can imagine.” Edie stuck the phone between her ear and shoulder and, as Viv rattled on, searched the refrigerator shelves for breakfast material. Another trip to the IGA seemed likely. She wanted to get off the phone with Viv, who was seriously beginning to get on her nerves. Irritation, like a small yappy dog kept on a tight rein ever since she’d hauled her bags into the back of Vivian’s gleaming new SUV, was tugging hard at the leash. She bit experimentally into a withered apple, decided it was too far gone and dumped it into the trash.

Maude, upstairs clomping around, would be down any minute and they were out of coffee creamer, which would inevitably get the day off to a shaky start. I don’t want to be here, Edie thought. I don’t want to hear my mother tell me she needs prunes and I don’t want to listen to my sister bitching to me about her hot flashes and her gourmet club. I am cold, unlovable and I vant to be alone.

“I know Little Hills seems boring to you,” Viv was saying now. “But as far as we’re concerned, there isn’t a better place to raise kids. And that sort of thing matters to me and Ray,” she said. “We’re very serious about our kids.”

“I know you are, Viv.” Edie stuck her head in the fridge. The gas oven was also an option. Why didn’t the prospect of a bureau chief job strike her with quite the sense of elation she’d thought it might? She’d stayed awake half the night trying to figure that one out. That and Ben’s release—which she’d never had any doubt about—and the three years she’d wasted with him. “Don’t expect commitment from me,” he’d always say. Something she’d have understood much more readily had he also mentioned a wife back in the States.