The Sagging Orchid
Monday, December 29, 2003
First Scene (3rd post) / Second Scene (1st post)
“Chicory,” she teased.
“Will you be alright?”
“Yes,” she moaned, “You’re not sore, are you?”
“No, of course not.”
She walked towards the coat rack. “You’ll say hello, won’t you?”
“I will.” Clarisse held his coat open and Taylor slipped in his arms. She wrapped her own arms around his waist and again, the head on his shoulder.
“Remember in the field, that day?,” she asked.
He grinned. “Yeah, I do.”
Sandwich had plunged into night when Taylor arrived home. There were winds, but the storms were on the Cape’s south end. His roadster crept into the dusty driveway, leaves rattling underneath its wheels. He unlocked the front door and stepped in. “Bonnie!,” he yelled.
An answer came from a stairwell in the middle of the house, leading up to the bedroom.
“Taylor?!”
“Yeah.”
The staircase was a ladder going straight up. Taylor saw her feet and the bottom edge of her robe touch its highest rung. She descended.
“About time,” she said passively. Her drape of auburn hair came into view.
“Oh, that woman,” he emoted.
“What’s her problem now?”
“She’s been offered a job in Boston and can’t make up her mind.”
“Really?” Bonnie was impressed. “Where at?”
“An art school headsman has an in for her -”
“That’s great!,” she interrupted, “What’s wrong with it?”
“Identity crisis, why am I here, that stuff.”
“Oh, she should take it and run with it.”
“I told her to spend time thinking about it.”
“You didn’t tell her to go?”
“I didn’t want to boss her.”
“Some brother you are.” She headed towards the kitchen. “Coffee?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t know what’s giving her the urge to stay here.” She took a can of Maxwell House from the cupboard and a percolator from the range.
“Her family’s here,” Taylor said passively.
“Pseudo-family,” Bonnie corrected, “We’re close to her, but we’re in place of, we’re not the real thing.”
Wednesday, December 17, 2003
First Scene (3rd post)
“I don’t have much time to decide,” she said.
“How long?”
“They want someone working by January 10th.”
“For the spring semester.”
“Yeah.”
“Start thinking now and don’t stop,” he advised.
“And if I don’t know?” She moved closer, a look of mild fear in her eyes.
“Do what your intuition tells you. It’s for the best.”
“My intuition is telling me a lot of things at once,” she lamented.
Clarisse lightly embraced him and rested her head on his shoulder. He was welcoming.
“It will sort itself out,” he replied, “Things will fall into place. I know it.”
“I’ve heard that once, too many times.”
“Then hear it again,” Taylor joked. She mildly laughed.
“So, are you going?,” he advanced.
“Give me another week,” Clarisse answered, lightly breathing on his neck.
“Fair enough.”
Taylor swayed his stepsister back and forth. He had the urge to run his hands over her shoulder blades and thought better of it. Clarisse slowly broke away and went to the radiator. “I’ll make some coffee,” she offered, checking for heat through the ducts.
“No, thanks. I have to get back, really.”
“Already? That’s it?”
“Well, I’m just glad it wasn’t anything serious - life-threatening, I mean.”
“Will you be safe getting back?” She pulled her wrap tight again and stepped back towards him as the window panes clicked from being pushed inward by the wind.
Sunday, December 07, 2003
First Scene (2nd post)
“Art isn’t art until you’re alone,” he comforted, “It frustrates them.”
“True,” she replied.
He stepped cautiously into the living room, his loafers sounding on the wooden floor. Clarisse was stationary, her black hair haloed by the nearby lamp. Her arms were folded, clutching her shawl, as she looked through the white, brocaded curtains at the trees shaking wildly.
“I’ve been offered a spot in Boston.”
He was tentative. “Really,” he asked, “By whom?”
“Choate. An opening has come up.”
“Well, that’s not a chance you’re going to pass up, is it?”
Silence for a moment.
“It would be a long move,” she remarked.
“After where you’ve come from?,” he countered halfheartedly.
She turned from the window, now looking towards a radiator in the near corner. A soft pinging sound was heard in its pipes as the heat came up. “Choate is the only person I know in Boston,” she said.
“But you were complaining about your students here -”
“- Not complaining, just remarking,” she insisted. She grew slightly annoyed and looked straight into his eyes. “Everyone I know is on the Cape. What do you want from me?”
“Nothing,” he answered elusively, “But you’ve always talked about going to a city.”
She calmed down, remembering whom she was speaking to and lowering her head in regret. “Yes, I have talked about that. In the past. But things change.”
“How good a job is he offering you?”
“One of the smaller studios and tutorial work. It’s not bad.”
“So, then?” The prospect sickened him. Clarisse paused.
“You have to paint for an audience. This could bring me one.” She stepped over to the hi-fi and checked for dust. “This could bring me one,” she said again, “I admit that.”
Reason got the best of Taylor’s urges again. “You have to let go of your roots to get what you want sometimes.”
Clarisse folded her arms and looked at him suspiciously. “What do you really know about my roots? Hm?”
“I didn’t mean it that way.”
Her thick lips went into a devious smile.
“It’s a serious business,” she joked.
Taylor looked away as he grinned. “Yeah, heh.”
Their bond was reaffirmed and she became serious again.
Thursday, December 04, 2003
First Scene
Two days later, Thanksgiving not enough, Clarisse called Taylor and asked him to visit. He agreed and drove next afternoon to her house in South Yarmouth. His black Studebaker graced the roads under dense gray clouds, pounding anxiously yet withholding its hurry. He arrived by early evening, when the winds began to pick up from high tide and the eternal threat of storm cast first glance. Clarisse sat in her living room until he pulled into the driveway and knocked. She opened and took his coat as he rubbed his shoes on the hall mat.
She was pensive for a moment. “How was the trip?,” she asked with a diminished frankish accent.
“The roads were fine,” he contrasted, “The skies look very bad.”
“Threatening,” she added, hanging his coat on the rack.
“Exactly that.” His Massachusetts twang was thick.
“Care for anything to drink?,” she asked.
“No, I’m fine. Thanks.”
Clarisse looked to him briefly, flashing her brown eyes. She forced a smile with her thick lips and looked away, hiding under her tasseled gray wrap. She had a blue cashmere and skirt underneath. On her feet were soft brown loafers. Taylor pretended to sense nothing.
“How have you been?,” Clarisse posed. She stood in the adjacent living room, looking into that windy night.
“Fine,” he answered, “I’ve thought about you a lot.”
Her feelings stirred within. “I’ve thought about you, too.”
But she could not look at him again.
“Have your lessons gone well?,” she asked.
“They could be better. More enthusiasm.”
She pulled her shawl back tight, shuddering at the wind.
Monday, December 01, 2003
Introduction
The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
- From Dover Beach (Matthew Arnold)
Summer nights on Cape Cod are as unpredictable as its abutting tides. When Serenity has her way, cool breezes slink across at dusk. The sky, touched with ocean store, tantalizes with its drizzle. Then the wind will take speed, making flags look as if hanging out flat and starting a battle of swats with the maple trees.
When Wrath has her way, dusk is an omen of burnt noses, inflated lungs, and shrieking cats. The sky has its store to breaking point, it will emit its signals of collapse and phosphorous, the flags like fillies looking to escape their grooms ; the branches throb, the fallen leaves patter in circles as if waltzing, birds dart to safety inland. Flag, do not tear! Window, do not shatter! Gate, stay shut! Gulls, come back! Lighthouse, flash on!
The Lafontaines, Taylor and Bonnie, endured many dark nights a few furlongs inland at Sandwich. The Lafontaine couple was a perfect Massachusetts prototype, saved only by loyalty and love of land : mild freckles, ruddered noses, and “aws” when they spoke ; serious dispositions, humor only when best fit ; Red Sox devotees despite their every failure ; an ambivalence to their most prominent neighbor, the Atlantic. Taylor Lafontaine was an antiques dealer, son of a real estate agent. He had an older sister, Anne, along with a slightly older sister, Clarisse, who was adopted shortly after the War. Bonnie Lafontaine was a one-time nurse, daughter of a Sandwich couple who pretty much lived on the husband’s inheritance. Bonnie would very well have done the same, had acquaintances not asked what kind of a child the Ryersons, as they were called, were producing. Bonnie was an only child and hence very dependant upon her husband.
Clarisse Lafontaine was a girl who fled Antwerp alongside a friend of her mother’s. Clarisse’s father walked out on her mother while pregnant. Her mother was too ill with tuberculosis to go overseas and probably died in Europe. The mother’s friend was a responsible adult who knew the Lafontaines from real estate dealings in the U.S. This friend could have handled matters on her own - Clarisse was 17 at the war’s end and they got along worlds well - but the lady was single, and all agreed that Clarisse should be “watched over” by two rather than one. So she was taken in - graciously - by the Lafontaines, Taylor winning another sister. Clarisse graduated high school and attended Smith College for a degree in the visual arts. She could very easily have returned to Europe, but memories of the War kept her away. She taught painting at a girl’s school in Naraganset and took on students privately. Her American career was quite well and there was little reason to make changes.
Even so, Clarisse bore the scars of a foster child, or a child who was violated just shy of being able to fend for herself. Clarisse was quiet, often seen deep in thought, and preferred being alone. The young lady was sociable, but only if she forced herself to. Fortunately, everyone knew her situation and overlooked the periods of her silence - silent lips, not a silent mind. But even if Clarisse did not speak, she was still a pleasure to look at. Her lady classmates in high school, used to the retarded development of American teenage girls, marveled to themselves over her beautiful face and flowering body. Young men were enamored, young ladies jealous. She did not even need to speak, for the all-knowing brightness of her brown eyes, the purse of her thick lips, and the gentle sway of her hips spoke volumes.
And one who easily noticed it all was Taylor, her stepbrother.
From the first days of Clarisse in the Lafontaine house, Taylor was enchanted by this sister who was not at all related. He dedicated himself to making Clarisse feel at home, or as close to home as possible. Clarisse noticed this and slowly came to understand what all the fuss was about. What, no sibling rivalry?, she would joke. Their coming together was inevitable, helped along by her advanced beauty and his boyish good looks. They both were of a sibling’s closeness, but the blood of nothing more than friends.
And how are we to explain this most profound of loves, one that cannot even be rivaled by spouses in closeness and understanding? Are there words fair enough to describe being raised in the same family while always an outsider - a foreigner and a sister at once- and knowing one’s brother more intimately than anyone?
It went on for years, on and off, like the Atlantic’s waves. To shore and back, to shore and back in torrents. Months would fly past, they would meet again, and more months would follow. To Bonnie, a sister was a sister and nothing more was to be thought. The guesswork was left to Annie, his true sister, who didn’t exactly know what was going on, but used her womanly intuition to feel that something in the family just wasn’t right. She just couldn’t quite decide what the trouble was.
The Lafontaines and Ryersons had met for the 1952 Thanksgiving, when Taylor and Clarisse’s feelings surged back into their bellies. They sat beside one another at dinner and were partners for bridge. Clarisse wanted to smack-dab on his lips when they made their first slam. And Anne was eager to watch, asking herself what exactly was rubbing her strangely. But perhaps her two overbids were the reason why.
Welcome
I am a freelance writer living in New York. This page will contain my efforts on a short story, The Sagging Orchid. I will be happy to receive your comments at paul_johnr@hotmail.com. Thanks for visiting.
