Seré Halverson - The Underside of Joy

If it wasn’t for all the activity at the store, I would have been the one losing my marbles. Things were busy, and I needed to be there, helping David and Marcella. David managed to get more write-ups in the Chronicle, the San Jose Mercury News, and the Bohemian, which all raved about the food and the off-the-beaten-track picnic map (one reporter called it worthy of framing and hanging in your home — or the Metropolitan, which made Clem chuckle in delight). The reporters appreciated the whole concept of the store. ‘They have even included a quaint glassed-in back porch amidst the trees, for those days when the weather doesn’t cooperate.’ Joe Sr read from one of the folded papers, then waved all the reviews at me. ‘This idea of yours… Hot damn! It might just work.’

It was the week before Halloween, which couldn’t have been a better time for me to focus on other things besides mediation and the upcoming custody hearing and Paige. I loved Halloween. Elbow was the perfect place for it. No need to haul the kids to a mall for ‘safe’ trick-or-treating. Everyone in Elbow knew one another, we were short on traffic and long on kids, and Life’s a Picnic stood right in the centre of it all. I had big plans.

I’d made the kids’ costumes every year since I’d been there, and this year would be no different. Yes, there was the gentle tug at the corner of all those big plans, reminding me that next year might be starkly different. And all the years after that. But I tugged back hard and set to work.

‘Mommy, what are you up to?’ Annie asked. ‘Besides five foot ten, that is.’ She cracked herself up.

I burrowed in the back of our closet like one of the gophers Callie kept digging up. I still hadn’t moved out Joe’s clothes. It was one of those things I kept writing down on my lists but never crossing off. ‘I’m looking for the… here it is.’ I yanked and pulled out my heavy plastic Singer sewing machine case. ‘Ta-da! It’s that time of year.’

Annie looked at her foot, twisting her toe into the rug. ‘I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that.’

‘What about, Banannie?’ Last year she’d been a tree. She wore brown cord pants and, on her torso, over a brown long-sleeve shirt, a big green pillowcase that I’d hot glue gunned with a ton of silk green leaves and stuffed with newspapers. We rigged up a little tree swing with rope and a small board, hung it from her arm, and stuck a stuffed bear on it. On her head, she wore a cap that we topped with a little bird’s nest and a fake robin. Joe had even put a couple of little fake eggs in it. She’d won first prize at the Elbow Boo Fest. ‘Have you thought about what you want to be?’

‘Yes. I’d like to be Pocahontas.’

Not exactly original, but okay. ‘Okay! So I’ll need to find some suede. Oh, I know, we can make a bunch of beaded necklaces. Maybe we can rig up the canoe so we can pull you on the wagon…’

‘Mommy? I was thinking… I think I’d prefer to, you know, buy a Pocahontas costume this year. You’re busy, and they have them completely done, so I’ll look perfectly, exactly like the real Pocahontas in the movie.’

‘You mean the real Disney Pocahontas?’

‘Exactly! I’ll look fabulous. And Molly is going to dress up as Belle.’ Frank and Lizzie’s daughter was in Annie’s class, and they’d grown even closer. Frank would be the one to take her trick-or-treating with us, definitely not Lizzie with her oath to Avoid Ella Whenever Possible.

‘Fabulous…,’ I said. She had got taller. She looped her hair behind her ear and smiled. She’d always loved my homemade costumes, loved helping with the creation, the attention she always got. Certainly she didn’t want to fade into the masses. Maybe she simply wanted to decide what she was going to wear, on her own. This was just the beginning of the beginning — I knew that. I wanted to be around for every one of the future mom-defying moments. Tummy-baring tops, piercings, tattoos. Gothic black from head to toenails. Or perhaps she’d target her defiance precisely at me, become a hairswinging cheerleader or a glittery mall rat. Or refuse to eat anything but McDonald’s. But for now she just wanted a store-bought Halloween costume. One I couldn’t afford right then. Those Disney Store costumes ran well over fifty bucks.

As if she could read my mind, she said, ‘Mama said they have a Disney Store in Lost Vegas. She said she could pick up one and send it right away. But to ask you first.’

I nodded. Had the whole thing been Paige’s suggestion? Or Annie’s idea? Either way, it felt personal, even though the better part of me knew I needed to slough it off.

‘Okay, Mommy?’ She had her fingers woven together in a prayerful plea. Her eyebrows arched high on her forehead, her smile a bit forced, as if pretending I’d already said yes would help her cause. But how could I deny her this one request?

‘Okay. Fabulous, even.’

She hugged me around my waist. ‘I knew you’d say yes! I’m calling Mama right away! Thank you tons!’

The rejection hit me like a sucker punch, and after Annie skipped out I slumped down in the closet. Joe’s old shirts and jackets hanging from the bottom rod seemed to part for me, then embrace me. I needed the real Joe, his real hug, but I sat there anyway, accepting what felt like some sort of understanding from his 49ers jacket, his periwinkle oxford that brought out the blue in his eyes.

Annie had been gracious, and I was glad I’d said yes. Couldn’t I share with Paige the privilege of making Annie happy? I could try.

I got busy planning Zach’s and my costumes. I knew exactly what I would be, but Zach was still deliberating between various types of insects. A praying mantis? A luna moth? A centipede? He pondered the possibilities.

Late October. The weather conducted its symphony of falling, twirling leaves — golds and reds and oranges against the huge evergreen backdrop — with skies that sustained a deep, clear blue. Many of the vineyards had turned to shimmering yellow, like lakes of captured sunlight pooling between the dark, forested hills. The bell on the store’s screen door kept chiming, the phone kept ringing, the old cash register kept clanging, Hallelujah! Underneath all that, I listened and heard, when I’d hold them or sit in their room while they slept, the low, steady drumbeat of our hearts, Annie’s, Zach’s, mine, and the rhythm of the clock, counting days, hours, minutes.

I stood on a ladder, stringing cotton webbing from the store’s rafters. The previous Christmas, Joe had stood on the same ladder, in the same spot, while I’d handed him strings of white lights. When he stepped down I said we needed mistletoe. He grabbed me. ‘We don’t need no stinkin’ mistletoe,’ he whispered, then kissed me. The door chimed and he kept kissing me while Mrs Tagnoli said, ‘Ooh la la.’ In less than a year, I’d gone from glitter and twinkling lights and kissing to cobwebs and ghosts and regrets.

‘ Buongiorno! Bellisima! ’ Lucy, just back from a winery in Italy, called up to me.

‘I’d come down to hug you, but I’m a little tied up at the moment,’ I said.

‘Oh, what tangled webs you weave.’ She set down her basket. ‘I brought wine. Italy! Italy is fantastic. I need to live in Italy.’

‘You practically do. Sonoma County is Italy. Without the accent.’

‘And the centuries-old buildings and the incredible art and cobbled streets and the melody of Italiano being spoken everywhere and all those lusty men.’

‘But they’re not George Clooney…’

‘No, but this one guy, Stefano, could make me forget George’ — she smiled — ‘and I just bumped into Stefano. Again and again and again…’