Alison Lurie - The Truth About Lorin Jones

It was Polly’s turn now not to answer. I don’t reconcile myself, I won’t! she thought. And it isn’t hard for me to face facts, either. She opened her mouth to say this, then shut it, remembering how thin the walls were; if she and Jeanne raised their voices in an argument Stevie might hear it. “Maybe,” she muttered finally. “Well, I’m getting sleepy. Goodnight.”

She stamped crossly down the hall to her room, and then lay awake for a long time, wondering as she thrashed and turned whether Jeanne was right. Was her Stevie, the one she knew and loved, gone for good? Or was he only hidden under a laconic new manner and expensive Western clothes?

Polly had just finished making a late breakfast for her son the next morning and gone into the bathroom when she heard a smash of china and a shout of “Oh, fuck it!” from the kitchen.

She dropped the Times, pulled up her jeans, and hurried down the hall, arriving in time to hear Jeanne wail: “Oh, no! Not Betsy’s darling Japanese teapot!”

“I’m sorry — I didn’t mean to —” Stevie had backed away from Jeanne’s misery and fury into a corner; his mouth was open, his elbows raised defensively.

“Oh, hell. Maybe we can mend —” Polly began.

“Don’t be stupid! Can’t you see it’s hopeless?” Jeanne stooped to the floor, then rose with a bony white fragment of china in each hand and an expression of deep bereavement. “Oh, she’ll be so sad!”

“Hey, I’m sorry. But I didn’t touch the thing, honest,” Stevie protested. “I just opened the cupboard door, and it fell off the counter. Why’d’ja have to leave it like that?”

“I left Betsy’s teapot exactly where I always leave it; where it belongs.” Jeanne was in control again; her tone was cool. “Anyone who had eyes in their head would have seen it —”

Stevie’s look of guilty dismay shifted toward exasperation. “Listen, I said I was sorry already, for shit’s sake.” Jeanne flinched at the obscenity, but made no other reply. “Whadda you want me to do? You want me to buy you a new one? Okay, I will.”

“I’m afraid you won’t be able to do that,” Jeanne said with a tight smile. “It was an antique; it belonged to Betsy’s grandmother.”

Half an hour later Polly squatted on the kitchen floor, wiping the worn marbled vinyl with a wet wadded paper towel. She was mopping up the last of the cinnamon rose tea, and also the last tiny sharp shards of Japanese china. From this position she heard the front door close, signaling that Jeanne had gone out to buy a new teapot. (“No, thanks, I’d rather do it myself. You wouldn’t know what to look for.”)

Now there were steps in the hall; Stevie slumped in the kitchen doorway.

“Aw, Mom,” he said. “You don’t hafta do that. I already cleaned up the mess.”

“I know you did, pal.” Polly sank back onto her haunches and smiled up at him. “I just want to be sure nobody comes in here in the middle of the night and starts screaming around because they’ve cut their foot. This china is really sharp.” She shook her head; she already had a slash on one knee.

“I guess she’d make a hell of a fuss.” He grinned.

Though this wasn’t what Polly had meant, she let it pass. She was so happy to have the real Stevie back, talking to her in his real voice. He had even, she noticed, changed into one of his old shirts, a red checked flannel that they had bought on a trip to Macy’s last winter, now too short in the sleeves.

“Hey, Mom,” he said, opening the refrigerator. “Can I have some of that cake, or were you saving it?”

“Sure you can have it, if you’re hungry.” She got to her feet. “Have anything you want.”

“Great.” He vanished behind the refrigerator door, emerging with the remainder of Jeanne’s apricot torte in one hand and a bottle of tonic in the other. “There’s never much to eat at Dad’s house.”

“That’s too bad.” Polly could not help grinning.

“Yeah, that Debbie, she’s always on a diet.”

“That’s too bad,” she repeated with equal insincerity.

“Hey,” Stevie said, chewing. “You’re not still pissed at me about this morning?”

“I never was pissed at you. It was an accident, that’s all. Only you’ve got to watch your language with Jeanne, okay, pal? Curse words freak her out. You know some people are like that.”

“Yeah. I know. Listen, Mom,” he added, swallowing.

“Mm?”

“How come Jeanne is staying here? Doesn’t she have anyplace else to live?”

“Well, not right now. She’s looking for an apartment.” Polly’s smile faded. “And she couldn’t go home for Thanksgiving, because she doesn’t have any real family.” (Not strictly true; Jeanne had a father and brother in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, but she despised and feared them.) “Do you really mind it that she’s here?”

“I dunno.” Stevie shrugged. “I guess not. I mean, I know she’s company for you when I’m away. I just don’t see why you like her so much, that’s all.”

“We’re really good friends,” Polly said firmly. “She was awfully kind to me last month when I had the flu. And you’ve got to admit she’s a great cook. Wait till you taste the chocolate mousse she’s making for us tonight — you still like chocolate, don’t you?”

“Yeah, sure,” Stevie said, but without eagerness, and in his former constrained manner.

“I know Jeanne’s a little —” Polly’s voice seemed to freeze up. “Anyhow, I’m sure once you get to know her better you’ll like her.”

“I don’t hafta like her, Mom.” Stevie took a swig of tonic directly from the bottle; if Jeanne were to see this, she would be revolted. “You don’t like all my friends.”

“I do too,” Polly protested.

“You don’t like Billy all that much.”

“Well.” Polly grinned. “I guess maybe I don’t. But it’s nothing personal, it’s just that he’s such a computer freak; he never has anything to say to grown-ups.”

“Anyhow, Jeanne doesn’t like me either, so who cares?” Stevie shrugged and opened the refrigerator again.

I care, Polly wanted to say, but the words would not leave her mouth. “What makes you think that?”

“I d’know.” Stevie paused, looking at his mother over the open door of the fridge, his heavy eyebrows drawn into a puzzled frown. “It’s just — The way she keeps watching me. I feel like she’s kind of got it in for me; she wants me to fuck up. Like this morning. I figure she sort of left her dumb old teapot out on purpose, to see if maybe I would break it.”

“Oh, Stevie,” Polly exclaimed. “Jeanne wouldn’t do anything like that.” But her son, who was eating cranberry sauce with his fingers, did not reply.

An hour later, after Stevie had left, Jeanne returned carrying a plastic bag marked Pottery Barn.

“Did you find a teapot?” Polly looked around from her notes.

“Well. I found a kind of teapot.” Jeanne halfheartedly unwrapped a plain white pot. “It’ll have to do for a while.”

“How much was it? I’ll pay you now.”

“No rush, dear. It was nothing, only about twelve dollars.”

“That’s not nothing.” Polly stood up and began to look for her handbag.

“Please, don’t bother. I tell you what. Someday when I have time I’ll go over to Bloomie’s, and if I find a pretty one you can buy me that.” Jeanne’s smile was open and charming, her tone casual, but what Polly thought was that her friend was still furious.

“All right,” she agreed, for after all fair was fair. But what an awful lot of fuss about a “dumb old teapot”!

Not that that was so unusual. Jeanne always overvalued objects; she could go into raptures over some battered mirror frame or motheaten fringed shawl in a shop window on Columbus Avenue. The high point of her trip to England two years ago, to hear her tell it, had been the Victoria and Albert Museum, and during her occupation Stevie’s room had become a gallery of frayed silk and bubbled glass and chipped marquetry.