A Farewell to Yarns

Jane was certain they'd cost a fortune, and the sweater was probably hand knit from certifiably virgin Scottish sheep.

“Starving,' Phyllis answered.

Jane grabbed a package of lunch meat, a head of lettuce, and some mayonnaise from the refrigerator and pulled out a loaf of whole wheat bread that didn't have any green fuzzy spots on it yet. Phyllis, who was probably accustomed to meals that cost as much as Jane's car was worth, fell to making a lunch meat sandwich as if it were gourmet stuff. Jane reflected that while Phyllis could be irritating, there was still a streak of enduring innocence in her that had drawn Jane to her so many years ago. She suspected that Phyllis really didn't recognize a difference between pate de foie gras and plastic packaged lunch meat.

Jane smiled. How must Chet have felt all these years about handing the world on a silver platter to a woman who would have been happy with Melmac?

“Well, I guess you're dying to know all about Bobby?' Phyllis asked a they sat down to eat. Jane wanted to say she'd rather have a Papsmear than know anything more about Bobby, but courtesy won out. 'Yes, tell me everything.”

'Everything,' about Bobby turned out to be mercifully concise. According to Phyllis, she and a high school classmate had run off to get married when she was only fifteen and he a year and a half older. Both sets of parents went after them and three days later dragged them back to Philadelphia. The annulment mechanism was put into action, and in no time, the marriage was as if it had never been.

Except that Phyllis was pregnant.

Her parents arranged for her to go to Chicago and live with her aunt until the baby was born and could be put up for adoption. That duly accomplished, Phyllis had stayed on in Chicagoto take a secretarial course, partly because she got along far better with her aunt than she ever had with her parents. She was working as a secretary when she met Chet Wagner, married him, and lived happily ever after.

“What about the boy? The one you married? Did he know about the baby?'

“Heavens, no!' Phyllis aid. 'I wanted to tell him at first. I was really happy about it. Then I thought it over. My parents made me think it over. I may not be brilliant, but I was smart enough to see how relieved he'd been when the marriage was annulled. And I couldn't blame him. It wasn't as if we were madly in love or anything. In fact, we'd only had two or three dates when we ran off together. We only did it, I think, because we were both unhappy at home, and that seemed a way out.”

Jane felt this didn't ring quite true. The part about the boy being relieved might be so,. but Phyllis sounded like she'd probably been crushed by the knowledge that he'd been glad to be free of her. Had this version—not really in love, just wanting out—come to her then, or was it the product of long years of thought and reflection? Jane was astonished to learn that Phyllis had actually undergone such emotional upheaval. 'Didn't you regret that it didn't work out?' she asked.

“No, if I'd stayed married to him, I'd have never met Chet. I liked him—the boy I ran off with—maybe even loved him, but we were too different. He was real smart, you see. Ambitious and all that, too. He'd have gotten tired of me. Chet's smart and ambitious, too, but in a different kind of way. I don't know quite how to explain it.”

In spite of herself, Jane was fascinated. She wished Phyllis were more articulate. 'Did you ever see the boy you married again?”

Phyllis paused, as if trying to remember. After a moment she said, 'We never met again. I didn't go back home except once or twice, and he moved away as soon as he finished high school.”

Jane suddenly had a devastating sense of exactly what they were talking about. The Phyllis who ran away and got married was about the same age as Jane's daughter, Katie, and the boy had been the age of her son Mike. Katie and Mike were babies! Yes, Jane would probably have done just what Phyllis's parents haddone—break it up, put the baby up for adoption, and let the kids have another chance at life. To cover an involuntary shudder, Jane got up and fetched a bag of potato chips and a plastic carton of dip. 'So what about Bobby?' she asked when she sat back down. 'How did you find him—and why?'

“Well, I'd never told a soul about having a baby. Not even Chet. It was the only secret I had from him, and it always bothered me. Then, about a year ago, Chet was out on the ocean in his boat, and there was a terrible storm. While I was waiting for word, I realized that if Chet died, I'd have that secret on my conscience forever. So when he got back safe and sound, I told him about having Bobby. I mean, about the baby, I didn't know his name was Bobby.'

“How'd Chet take it?'

“Oh, Jane, I was so afraid he'd be disgusted with me, but he was wonderful. He knew how sorry I was that we'd never had children. He said that he had his sons and I should at least get to know mine. He got some person who worked for him to find Bobby—”

Some person who worked for him, Jane reflected. That's how the rich did things. Wonderful, thoughtful Chet buying Phyllis yet another new stuffed toy. Only this one could bite and make messes in their lives.

“Bobby's adoptive mother had died, and his father remarried someone who just couldn't get along with poor Bobby, so they were happy to let him come visit us on the island. And we all got along so well that he stayed with me.”

I'll bet he did, Jane thought. Having driven some poor stepmother crazy, he was suddenly thrown into incredible wealth and a brand new mother who worshiped him. What young man wouldn't have stayed? Bobby might be pond scum, but even scum knew when it was onto a good thing.

“Jane, I can't tell you what a comfort it's been to have Bobby these last few months. Without him to lean on, I'd have probably just gone to pieces. You see, Chet has been acting very strange. It isn't anything Bobby says or does, exactly, that's so comforting. It's just knowing I have him. Somebody who is my own. Chet's boys are very nice, but they were half-grown before I got to know them, and they're so—so businesslike. Not like Bobby at all.”

Oh, Bobby's businesslike enough, Jane thought bitterly. He's gotten into a lovely investment, and he knows it. Too bad he doesn't know enough to treat it with the respect it deserves. 'What does Chet think of Bobby?' she asked.

“He loves him!' Phyllis said with almost shrill confidence. 'He doesn't really understand him, but he loves him.'

“Doesn't understand him how?' Jane felt she shouldn't be picking at this, but she wanted some confirmation that Chet wasn't as foolish as Phyllis.

“Oh, just little things. Chet's a very affectionate, very open person, and he's just a little disappointed that Bobby's so—so reserved.”

Disappointed that Bobby's a sullen jerk who treats you like shit, Jane thought. Well, good for old Chet. 'What about Chet's sons? What do they think of Bobby?'

“Everett lives in London and handles all the European part of the business. He's never met Bobby, but John —Oh, Jane, you must know John and Joannie, don't you?'

“I don't think so, but Shelley does.'

“That's good. I mentioned you to John, and he said he knew you. Something about a ball game. Basketball? Volleyball?'

“Oh, that John Wagner!' Jane suddenly remembered him. Boy, did she ever remember him! She and Steve had belonged to a neighborhood volleyball team for a mercifully short time the autumn before Steve died. John Wagner, the captain of the team, was a good-looking, athletic man in his mid- forties who played volleyball as if the future of the human race depended on the outcome of each game. He was a Type-A personality run amok. People had told her he was quite nice if one didn't presume to engage him in competition of any sort, but she'd never believed it.

Jane had looked forward to the first game, buying a cute, sporty outfit and new sneakers. Her game plan had been to stand around looking smashing while other people yelled cheerful things like, 'Heads up,' and 'I've got it.' But John Wagner had disabused her of this concept within the first five minutes. His remarks to her had included, 'If I'd known you couldn't hit an elephant in a closet, I'd have gotten that ball,' and 'You've never heard of spiking, then?' and 'If you'd quit carrying on like that it would stop hurting.”