The Probable Future

“Instead you’ve got me.” Liza smiled and had them sit down for a snack. “You can be my test cases. New recipe. Actually, old recipe. One of Elisabeth Sparrow’s.”

“My great-great-gran,” Stella explained.

It was curds-and-cream with raspberry sauce, which the girls deemed delicious, although they suggested the name be changed if Elisabeth’s dish was added to the menu. No one liked the notion of curds these days. Pudding, perhaps, or, better yet, mousse.

“Have you heard about your father?” Liza asked. “He’s moving in with Matt.” Liza slipped off her kerchief and ran her fingers through her hair, which once had been auburn but had faded to a dull brown. “He’s probably already there. Moved in to his old room.”

“Yippee,” Stella said. “I’m so glad he’s staying. He’s wonderful,” she told Juliet. “I want you to meet him.”

“Then let’s go over there tonight. We can get ourselves invited for dinner. I never got the chance to meet him in Boston. He was never around.”

They began to plan their evening, forgetting that Liza was there until Juliet elbowed Stella. Look, she mouthed. Lovestruck.

“Why don’t you come with us?” Stella asked Liza. “You could show us the way. I’ve never even been to my uncle’s house.”

“Oh, no.” Liza grew flushed. She wiped at her eyes as though she’d had a bit of curd in the corners that caused her to tear up. “I couldn’t.”

“But you know what we should do first?” Juliet Aronson knew a fair share about being vulnerable. She knew that people’s emotions showed in their faces even when they didn’t think they were giving anything away. “We should dye your hair,” she told Liza. “I’ll bet you used to be a redhead.”

“That was a long time ago,” Liza demurred.

Juliet reached into her overnight case. Along with the black clothing dye, she had brought along several boxes of Egyptian henna. You never could tell when someone might need a makeover, as Liza Hull certainly did. Why, she had pastry flour streaked through her hair. She probably hadn’t worn lipstick for years. Anything they did to her would be an improvement.

“Oh, please, Liza,” Stella begged. “And if you don’t like it, it can always be undone.”

Actually, it would take a good three months of shampooing to get the color out, but Juliet nodded in agreement. “It’s perfect timing. It will just be us and Stella’s uncle and father. And who cares what they think?”

It was a simple trap, but one that Liza fell right into: Juliet grinned when she saw that Liza’s complexion grew even more florid. Yes, indeed, there was definitely something there. When they’d finally talked Liza into trying the henna, and had left to race up the narrow twisted stairway for some shampoo and towels, Juliet Aronson was chortling. She loved it when she was right.

“Ten to one Liza is in love with your uncle,” she crooned. “Ah, love. No one is immune.”

Stella stopped on the narrowest section of stair and allowed Juliet to go first. Standing there in the dim stairway, she understood why Liza would allow them to pour henna all over her hair and change her utterly. It was true and lasting and unrequited love that was at the bottom of all this, the sort of ardor for which some people said there was no remedy, but which others believed could be turned around in an instant, so that someone like Stella might find herself looking out her window before she went to bed each night, furious when she spied Jimmy Elliot sitting out there beyond the plane trees, but even more disappointed on those occasions when he failed to appear.

III.

AT THIS RAINY, green time of the year, the snapping turtles had already laid clutches of eggs in every muddy hollow in the driveway and the lawn. Jenny had even found some beside the kitchen door, which she’d covered with handfuls of grass in the hopes that the opossums and raccoons wouldn’t have those poor kitchen eggs for dinner. Jenny had already found such sorrowful leftovers on Rebecca Sparrow’s dirt path; some animal had gotten to a clutch of eggs and left only the rubbery cases, split in two, emptied and shimmering like pearls. Poor mother turtle. Jenny had wondered if she would know what she’d lost when she returned. Would she tend to the ruined eggs, hopeful still, or would she have already moved on, back to the depths of the lake, back to the water lilies and the duck grass and the reeds?

Every night, Jenny went to the bedroom where Stella had been sleeping before she moved over to Liza’s apartment. She hadn’t changed the sheets because Stella’s impression had been caught in the creases of the pillowcase, and her scent was there as well, a mixture of resentment and water lilies. Some people swore that when you let a daughter go, she was sure to come back, like the sparrows which perched on the window ledge, begging for crumbs, for crusts, for kindness. But Stella wouldn’t even come to the phone when Jenny called over to the tea house. She was busy, Liza was quick to explain, but Jenny had heard Stella’s muffled voice in the background. Just tell her I’m not here.