Lady Claire

Most of my mother's friends were short, dumpy, unattractive women, heavy smokers and overly fond of canasta and their afternoon Icebox Manhattans. Claire was the exception – tall, not thin but perfectly proportioned, with ivory skin and a mane of fiery red hair – always manicured with impeccable make up and dressed to the nines, right down to her designer shoes. Her easy, elegant ladylike-ness scared the daylights out of me, made me feel like a grubby-faced street urchin in need of a hot bath and a good meal. I was never quite sure why, but I wanted desperately to dislike her. No one should have that much self confidence, I thought resentfully.

Her husband, Stan, a great bear of a man who favored trenchcoats and fedoras and always reminded me of Robert Mitchum, was as brash and loud as she was understated and soft-spoken.

He smoked like a chimney, drank his whiskey straight and wasn't afraid of an off color joke as long as there were no ladies present. He held her chair, opened doors for her, always helped her on with her coat. They seemed superficially mismatched but you couldn't argue with the fact that they made a good looking, attention grabbing couple.

On the cold, snowy Christmas Eve that I'm remembering, they arrived shortly after supper. Stan was in a tuxedo and Claire wore a floor length emerald green gown that matched her eyes.

They were on their way to a party and couldn't stay, they explained, but they'd brought us an early Christmas present. Stan reached into his trenchcoat pocket and produced a fawn colored boxer puppy, no more than 8 weeks old, with floppy ears and huge doe eyes.

“Merry Christmas, Jan,” he said gruffly and placed the pup into my stunned mother's lap. For a moment there was silence, then the little bundle whined softly and I watched my mother cradle it gently before she dissolved into helpless tears. My daddy arrived with Fritz, our beloved dachshund at his heels, and made the proper introductions. It was love at first sight.

It had all been pre-arranged, of course. My mother had fallen hopelessly in love with the puppy the week before at one of the canasta games held at Claire's house and hadn't been able to help herself and it hadn't taken much to win over my daddy. He was always for anything that might distract her from her drinking and her own misery and the responsibility of a new puppy seemed ideal. Surprisingly enough, it worked pretty well. Lady Claire, as she was immediately named, was a handful as a puppy but she grew into a sweet tempered, beautiful dog as delicate and fine as the lady for whom she was named. Stan and Claire visited often in those days, watched her progress and saw her grow up. The more I saw of them, the harder it was to try and dislike Claire and eventually I stopped trying.

Look Heah ...............

Here's a tip: Conversations that begin with “Look heah.....” just aren't going to go well.

Between the yapping dogs and screaming infants in the background, I can barely make out a word the caller says but in the fullness of time, I'm able to discern that someone in her family wants to be a model. I tell her she needs to register on our website and she immediately wants to know what website. This has become a common question and it's not encouraging. You would think if they'd made their way to our telephone number, they might know who they were calling. You'd be wrong. No, I tell her gently but firmly, you cannot axe me a question, fill out a form on the website and we'll get back to you if we're interested.

Not five minutes later, she's back, wanting to know if I've seen the registration form. I tell her I check each morning and I've already checked today. She offers to stop by on the way to pick up her food stamps. No, I say, a little more roughly, we don't see anyone here, only at auditions.

But look heah................she protests.

Fill out a form and if we're interested, you'll be invited to an audition, I tell her, that's how this works, thank you very much for calling.

Racist! she spits at me.

And that's all I can take. Look, lady, I snap at her, I don't know you and I damn sure don't care what color you are but I can sure as hell can tell we're not going to get along so no hard feelings but we're done. Buy the kid a pony or give her dance lessons, I don't care, but you're not welcome here.

She's still cussing when I hang up the phone and reach for the aspirin bottle. By the end of the day - if not within the next hour - there's certain to be a negative post about my attitude on our social media page but I can't bring myself to care. Peace of mind comes when you figure out what to ignore.

Reaching the Bottom

“im in a spot, I've been living in a tent in the woods for a week but it's flooded in. Is there any way I could crash with you for the night?”

It was the morning after and reading the message made my heart stutter. Guilt that I hadn't seen it sooner collided with relief that I hadn't seen it sooner and left me very nearly tied up in knots. I replied carefully, reminding him again where the shelters were and encouraging him to get help and stay on his meds but having been to this rodeo several times, I wasn't optimistic I didn't expect and didn't get an answer.

“God watches over fools and drunks,” my grandmother used to say. Maybe so, but He rarely interferes and the least I can do is follow His example. I have lived with the effects of addiction all my life and it took years to understand the perils of enabling. My heart hurts for this boy, but my mind knows that a couch at my house, even if I had one to offer, is not the solution. I can't afford the inevitable damage he would cause. And I will not be the one who gets between him and his reaching the bottom. Bottom is his only hope.

Hoofbeats

The night was uncommonly serene and quiet. Even the tide washing up on the shore seemed to be whispering and I imagined the path of moonlight stretching across the passage was so still it might've been solid enough to walk across. There wasn't even a hint of a breeze and I couldn't hear a single nightbird or cricket. It felt like being under a spell and I was afraid to move for fear I'd disturb something so I just lay motionless in my bed, content to smell the salt air that drifted in through the open window, content to listen and think about how much I loved the ocean and how lucky I was to have it so close. I was on the verge of falling back to sleep when I heard the hoofbeats. They were very near and ringing out like metal on metal, clear and sharp and so cleanly defined they made me think of tap dancing. I threw off the bedclothes in a rush and ran to the window. I could see the ocean, the lights of Westport, the ribbon of moonlight, the dark factory and the fishing shacks. I could see all the way to the Old Road on the left, all the way to the last breakwater on the right and everything in between. There was not the first sign of a horse and no sound of hoofbeats.

“A horse?” Nana asked at breakfast the next morning, “In the middle of the night, you say?”

“Yes'm “ I told her, “Heard it clear as day.”

She smiled and delivered a gentle cuff to the back of my head, “More'n likely you was dreamin', child,” she said gruffly, “Ain't no horses runnin' round at night here or anywheres else on this island.”

“But....”

“Eat your breakfast, child,” she said firmly, “And give that imagination of your'n a rest.”

“A horse?” Uncle Shad and Uncle Willie said in unison. They exchanged a skeptical glance then each gave me a pat on the head and the kind of smile that adults reserve for children with runaway imaginations.

“Ain't no horses on The Point,” Uncle Willie said reasonably.

“Ain't nobody missin' one up island neither, else we'd of heard tell,” Uncle Shad added, “I 'spect you was dreamin'.”

“Ayuh,” Uncle Willie nodded, “Somethin' you et, mebbe.”

“There was a horse!” I said stubbornly, “And it weren't no dream!”

Sparrow gave me a long, thoughtful look, his leathery face still and serious as he filled his pipe and lit it with a kitchen match, fillling the air with sulphur.

“I reckon I've heard crazier things,” he said slowly, “Reckon we all have.”

Being believed is a powerful thing for a child. I stopped holding my breath, let my shoulders drop with relief and he grinned at me and blew a whole series of perfect smoke rings.

I spent a lot of sleepless nights waiting to hear the hoofbeats again, so many that I almost began to believe I had been dreaming. And then, just about a month later on a night so like the first time, I heard them again, bright edged, unmistakable and moving fast. I was already at the window, propped up in one of Nana's old armchairs on the sunporch with a perfectly clear view of the road. The moon was full and the tide was coming in as the horse rounded the turn and thundered past the house, mane and tail flying, head held high and breathing hard but gliding and graceful as a dancer. I could see every detail and coordinated movement, could hear each lathering breath. And then like smoke, he was gone, swallowed up at the end of the road and out of sight. The hoofbeats faded and the night went back to being still and ordinary and I climbed the stairs and went to bed, understanding that no one would believe me except maybe Sparrow and that it didn't matter. I also knew without a shadow of a doubt that real or not, I would never see the horse again.