CHAPTER TWO

Tanya, trying to concentrate as she scraped the carrots and peeled the potatoes, and trying to concentrate on her work and not to pray, and praying so much not to cry, continued with the stew for the crockpot.

When Emily stepped out the screened door, a seagull came swooping down with a shrill cry. The smell of the ocean was powerful as was the sound of its waves.

But before Emily stepped away from the door, or off the porch, a man was carrying Franceen in his arms. He said, "It was the rubber slipper she was wearing, she just tripped and fell."

"Oh, thank you so much. I'll take care of my sister. Would you like to come in for a cup of coffee? I want to thank you, somehow."

The man smiled and said, "Oh, no, that is not necessary."

Tanya, in hearing all of this realized that Emily had become a woman, by going to college, Fran was still a child, but Emily had become an adult. It confused Tanya, or did she feel threatened. Or had she gotten used to them being girls, and she was not ready to let them go - or at least to let Emily go. Or did every mother have to realize when it was time to let one child go, but still take care of the other child. They had been twins, it was always an illusion, evidently.

Guido had always called them: 'the girls' or 'I will take care of the girls', he always said.

But now Tanya was grasping that 'the girls' were two very different girls, and one was no longer a girl.

Emily was saying, to Fran, as she helped her into the kitchen, "Did you hurt your knee?"

"No, no, but I lost one of Mama's rubber slippers on the stairs. I tried to reach it, but it fell down between the boards to the sand."

Suddenly, Tanya's common sense came back and Tanya said to Franceen, "Darling, how clean you look, you never even reached the beach, you are not even sandy. Where does it hurt?"

Tanya had noticed that Franceen's left arm was hanging limp as Emily guided Fran towards the bathroom.

Emily said, "Mama, she has to go to the toilet."

"Yes, yes, take her. But ask her about the arm."

Emily turned, in helping Fran, "What arm? She seems fine."

"Just ask her."

With a fierce strength, Tanya chopped the onions, tossed the stew meat in flour and salt and pepper, and then put the meat in an iron kettle with lard and browned the meat, and getting out the crockpot she put the meat in the pot with garlic and the rest of the ingredients, and a dash of red wine. Then she thoroughly washed her hands. And realized it would be a good thing for her to go swimming. But those two young men were coming.

Emily came out and grabbing Tanya's arm, whispered. "You were right, Mama, it might be broken. I think Fran is sort of in shock."

Tanya kissed Emily on the lips, and she said, "I don't drive. You take her to the hospital, do you have your health care card with you?"

"Yes...yes, I have the card, but our two friends are coming."

"I'll take care of all of that. If you remember, the clinic is right above the mall in the hills. You ask for Dr. Smidt, he is our family doctor, but any doctor will do. They will take x-rays. But phone me at once. And I am so glad you are here to do all of this. Fran's bathing suit is not wet, just pull her jeans on her and I'll give you a long, loose shirt, one of your father's. Hurry, though, before the pain starts. I have nothing but aspirin. Oh, that's a good idea give her some aspirin and then get her dressed. I'll get the shirt."

Tanya went up the short flight of stairs. It was a small upper floor with two bedrooms, one which the girls had shared. She found a blue flannel shirt, broad as Guido's shoulders had been broad. Yes, she still had all of his clothes and touched them often. Tanya hugged the flannel shirt against her heart as she went slowly down the stairs. Emily was in the living room getting Fran into her clothes.

Tanya said, folding up the bedclothes on the sofa, and then closing the sofabed, "Now, don't you girls flirt with the doctor, he is very good looking but very shy."

Emily said, as she got the flannel shirt onto Fran, "Mama, I've seen Dr. Smidt, he is not good looking."

"Maybe not, but then you are not my age. Wait 'til I see the boys you have chosen, I wonder if I'll think they are good looking."

Franceen, letting herself be buttoned into her dead father's flannel shirt said, "But, Mama, they are absolutely gorgeous."

Tanya started to grin, then Emily started to laugh, and at last all three were laughing. Being careful, Tanya kissed Fran and then Emily.

Tanya said, stepping back, "Well, my girls, we will see about all of that later. The clinic is above the mall. You have your health plan cards in your purses, don't forget your purses. Do you have your car keys?"

"Yes, Mama," Emily said, fishing through her purse and finding them.

"Good. Now, make Guido proud of you. This is the first time you have had to use those cards, except when you had flu shots."

Emily suddenly remembered her thoughts down at the river that very morning, about Guido and her mother. Tears started to her eyes. "So, come on, Fran, we want to get back to have lunch with the boys."

"I don't think either of your girls had any breakfast, some mother I am. Would you like a glass of juice?"

Fran said, "I would."

The juice was poured in the kitchen and Fran drained a large glass. Emily shook her head and went to the bathroom instead, as Tanya eased Fran out the screened door to the porch.

Emily said as Tanya saw them into the car, "What are you going to say to them, Mama?"

"Ha. What did you think I'd say to them, the truth."

"Then they'll leave, thinking Fran is sick."

Tanya frowned, then she said, "All right, since you know these two guys and I don't, I will just say the two of you took a drive."

Emily smiled, "Thanks, Mama."

Tanya watched as the car started off, disturbing two seagulls that were digging at a bag in the street, and flapping their great wings, Tanya watched the beautiful white and gray birds curve up into the misty-blue sky, her dark brown eyes getting sort of misty, too.

In the car, as Emily pulled up to a stop light, she turned and looked at her sister. Fran was leaning back with her head resting on the headrest of the seat, a smile on her lips.

Emily asked, "Does it hurt, Fran?"

"Oh, I don't care. This means I don't have to go to summer session. I can stay here, and walk on the beach in the mornings, and be with Mama."

The light changed, and Emily's thoughts rushed forward, and most of those thoughts dealt with the summer session which started Monday, and Monday Mama was starting her new job, and Emily realized that all of this had much more to do with the facts of the future than she had realized.

"Don't be silly, Fran. That would be only if you broke your arm. You just have a sprain."

Fran chuckled. "You think I really tripped on the stupid rubber slippers. I pretended to. I knew Mama was watching from the kitchen windows, so I walked funny. I pretended to trip as I fell down the steps. I'm tired of school, and I don't want to go to summer session. I know, I know what you will preach to me, about how hard Guido worked to educate us, well he is dead, isn't he. He did what he wanted to do. And I am gonna get what I want to do for once. I want a nice summer vacation."

This time Fran was right, Emily would have made her speech about Guido, and guilt and all of that. But Emily herself knew that she would love to have a summer vacation, too. But getting to the summer session classes speeds up the whole thing, and she wanted to speed it up.

Emily sat in silence just driving, as Fran turned on the radio.

After their car had left, the car Guido set aside money to buy for the twins, Tanya went back into the house and latched the screened door.

Opening a can of stewed tomatoes, Tanya dumped them into the crockpot and stirring it all up, she put the glass lid on the pot, and she turned it on low. Yes, that would be dinner.

Tanya's hand went up into her hair. "Oh, my God, I have nothing for lunch."

Without thinking, she drew a cup of water from the sink faucet and drank it, and in doing so she knew what she had to do.

Cautiously, going up the stairs, she put on her dress of blue polished silk. Then going to the bathroom, she combed her hair, and put on a bit of the lipstick that she had bought and wore when she was trying out for the job as cook at the Emerson house.

Going back downstairs, and then running back upstairs, because she forgot she was barefoot, she put on her Sunday shoes, which had heels, the shoes she wore for her first appearance to be interviewed by the Emerson man for her job as cook (later she wore low-heeled shoes) and then she went back downstairs with her purse, with her money in it and her house keys and she sat down in a wicker chair on the porch, and she did not care how long she had to sit and wait. In fact, Tanya got up and locked the door to the house, and then she sat down and she sat and she waited.

The purse, the purse. Why was she thinking of the purse? It wasn't the purse, it was something else she had lost. Fran had lost the slipper.

Kicking off her shoes, she got up, unlocked the door and put her purse inside the door. Nobody could know it was there. Barefoot, she ran down the stairs and over the bridge - oh, it was so lovely, if only she could have had a swim this morning - but she went on. Reaching down, without getting her feet in the sand, she found the lost Japanese sandal under the stairs, and drawing it slowly up between her fingers, she hugged it to her.

Trying to act cool, for there were many people on the beach and many people coming up and down the stairs, she crossed the bridge and got back to her own house - yes, her own house - her own porch. She opened the screened door, and she dropped the slipper inside, and then she got her purse, and she got her keys and she locked her door, and she sat back down, panting for breath.

It could not be true, life was not that neat, life had unsolvable miscalculations, but at the corner, a brown car (what Tanya would call a 'sports car') turned the corner. Tanya prayed aloud, "Oh, Guido, they are our daughters, you are in a better place than I am, give me strength not to fuck it up, the girls like them, and I am terrified!"

Pulling on her shoes, she stood up. She watched them try on the hill to park, it was awkward, finally she sat back down, tired of standing, he was not a good driver.

Fortunately, the eaves of the house shaded the porch at noon, and getting open her purse she dried her forehead, which was sweating from sheer exertion.

Tanya tried not to laugh at the way the driver was trying to get into a space that was big enough for a van, for most people coming to the beach, by experience, used the parking lot across the avenue. And then, she remembered, years ago, she and Guido had seen a Laurel and Hardy movie where they were trying to get a piano up a staircase, and she started to laugh and she could not help herself, and then when the car was parked and a young man who, of course, was a football player, he was so heavy, you could tell he fit the part of a football player, she could not help herself and she laughed so hard, she had to get out her handkerchief again.

Then she remembered she had kicked off her shoes, thank God, she had not gotten sand on her feet, she got her shoes from beneath the chair and got them on her feet and stood up, as the young man waved, checking his wallet or something for the address.

Tanya waved back. She staggered down the stairs, trying her best to be graceful, and then she simply ran across the street.

"Oh, hello, hello, I am their mother. Please, they have gone on a drive, and will be back, but I have no car, could you take me to the mall, I will show you the way, I have nothing for lunch, since I did not expect you."

The football player, who held out his hand said, "Hi, but I gotta piss like crazy. Can we go to the bathroom?"

"Oh? Oh, sure. Come on."

It was then Tanya remembered all the truck drivers that would come in the cafe, where she originally worked when she came from Rumania to Capitola as a girl, to live with her aunt, for her parents wanted to get her away from the Communists, would say the same thing.

Clutching her purse she rushed back to the house, found her keys, went inside, grabbed the single sandal, ran into the bathroom and dumped it into the dirty towel hamper. Yes, this was Guido's home, and she wanted it always to be as it was kept, when he lived in it, for the girls.

Then she rushed back to the door and held it opened, they had a suitcase each, and they came in, and she said, "There, there is the bathroom, I'll take the suitcases, it was so stupid of me not to realize, but I don't often have guests, and..." But the two of them were already in the bathroom with the door closed.

Tanya put her hand on the crockpot, yes, it was cooking.

God, she thought, how did I get myself into this mess? And then she thought of Guido, and she remembered she had given birth to twins. But it could not have been Guido? Was it her?

Tanya said to herself, "I mean not to just have one child? Wouldn't one child have been easier?" And then she started feeling guilty. Quickly, she got out the bottle of cooking wine and took a good strong drink from the bottle, glancing constantly at the bathroom door, as she recorked the bottle and put it back, and then she washed her mouth out with soup, and rinsed and rinsed until her mouth foamed.

"Tanya," she yelled at herself, "you are so rushed you forgot your canvas..."

She always took her canvas shopping bag with her, she got it out of the drawer, and suddenly she felt complete, like the missing link had been found. Then going to the refrigerator, she got out the orange juice, poured two glasses and added a shot of white wine into it, after all, it helps.

Then when the two young men came out of the bathroom, she smiled and handed them the two glasses, and they were talking about something and laughing, and she didn't understand a word they were saying, then they walked out the door, putting the glasses on the sink, and she followed and locking the door, now with the canvas bag and her purse, she trotted along behind them to the car and got into the back seat.

One of them, it was the blond that was not driving, said, "Now, where did you say we had to go, Mrs. Veniti?"

"Oh, please call me Tanya. Everybody calls me Tanya."

"But that's not Italian?"

"No, no, it isn't, I'm Rumanian. My husband Guido was Italian. Does it make a difference?"

The dark haired one leaned over and said, "You are Rumanian? How do you spell Rumanian?"

Tanya smiled and she said, "God knows at this moment, just go up to the corner and turn left. And then when we come back you can go swimming, the trouble with me today, is that my daughters arrived as a surprise last night, and I did not get my morning swim this morning. You know, rain or shine, I need my morning swim, oh, not in the river, in the ocean. You know, there is a sky up there...oh, you turn right here and then you turn left. You see those lovely blossoming cherry trees? That is where the mall is, I mean, no, that is where the parking lot is. You see, one of my daughters, Franceen, she has broken her arm, she fell on the stairs this morning, and I am very upset, so don't pay attention to anything I am saying."

"Who?" the dark haired one asked.

Tanya said, "Who? Me."

The dark haired one asked, "No I mean, which daughter, they are twins aren't they?"

"Yes, of course they are twins, what does that have to do with it?"

"Tanya - " he twisted around, it was the blond one. "I am Arnold, Arnie, Dan and I often joke about it, on campus, they dress alike. We can't tell the difference, they do their hair alike. I'll meet one of them in the coffee shop, and I'll start talking, and I realize she isn't the sister that is in my biology class with me."

"Here's the mall. We could have walked, it is not far but I'm sure you guys are hungry, so if you could pull in and park."

But in her mind, as their mother, she did not realize that her two daughters did that, they had an allowance from their father, they could buy whatever clothes they wanted, but suddenly within her she knew her daughters better, they did it as a plan, sort of as a game, to confuse the young men they were interested in. Yes, she was very interested in asking both of her daughters about this, for she had never seen them, at the Capitola house, dress alike.

Getting out the car, she said aloud, "I see."

The dark one got out and went around locking the car.

But inside Tanya there was such a joy, a feeling of love, that Emily had been caring enough to bring these two young men home, for Tanya knew it was Emily, and she was so honored that she knew the difference between her two girls, though others could not.

In the supermarket, of the mall, the air conditioning hit her like a bucket of ice water. Tanya had been out in the sun after being indoors, except for very early morning swims, before the sun was high. She must have gotten a bit of sunburn.

Arnie Everton and Dan Geordino, Dan built like a bear and Arnie very lithe and blond were easy to spot over by the cold drink cabinets.

As she moved towards them, around a rack of potato chips, a voice said, "Tanya, how nice to see you."

Tanya turned. With her slight sunburn, and her hair pinned back and then up on her head, and with the well-fitting dress, the dress and the high heels showing off her lovely legs, Tanya looked stunning and was not prepared for the grin and look that Angelo the manager of the supermarket was giving her.

"Oh, hi, Angelo. We have guests for the weekend, the girls and I. I have to get them back and feed them. Nice to see you, bye." After moving away, thinking she had been rude, she turned and waved, he was still grinning and looking after her. Under her sunburn, she blushed a deeper red. What a hermit's life she had been living, or a nun's life, but the hermit image came quicker to her mind. But, she thought, as she approached the two young men, that is good, she is coming back to her real outgoing self, now that she has a new job to go to on Monday. There is nothing in a household - where she will be working - more boring than having a reserved, withdrawn nun for a cook.

Go to Chapter Three