They Call Me Patrice

There was a cake for the baby on his first birthday, with a single candle flame like a yellow butterfly hovering atop a fluted white column. They made great to-do and ceremony about the little immemorial rites that went with it. The first grandson. The first milestone.

“But if he can’t make the wish,” she demanded animatedly, “is it all right if I make it for him? Or doesn’t that count?”

Emily, the cake’s creator, instinctively deferred to in all such matters of lore, nodded pontifically from the kitchen doorway. “You make it for him; he’ll get it just the same,” she promised.

Patrice dropped her eyes and her face sobered for a moment.

Peace, all your life. Safety, such as this. Your own around you always. And for myself — from you, someday — forgiveness.

She leaned down, pressed her cheek close to the baby’s and blew softly. The butterfly fluttered, disappeared.

A great crowing and cooing went up, as though they had all just seen a miracle.

A lot of people had come in. And long after the baby had been upstairs to bed, the gaiety continued.

She moved about the lighted, bustling rooms, chatting, smiling. She was happier tonight than she ever remembered being before.

A great many of the introductions were blurred. There were so many firsts, on an occasion like this. She looked about, dutifully recapitulating the key people, as befitted her role of assistant hostess. Edna Harding and Marilyn Bryant, she remembered, were the two girls sitting one on each side of Bill, and vying with one another for his attention. She suppressed a mischievous grin. Look at him, sober-faced as a totem-pole. Why, it was enough to turn his head — if he hadn’t happened to have a head that was unturnable by girls, as far as she’d been able to observe.

Grace Henson? She was that stout-ish, flaxen-haired girl over there, by the punchbowl. Or was she? No, she was the less stout but still flaxen-haired one at the piano, softly playing for her own entertainment. One wore glasses and one didn’t. They must be sisters, there was so close a resemblance. It was the first time either one of them had been to the house.

She moved over to the piano and stood beside Grace, She might actually enjoy playing, for all Patrice knew, but she should at least have somebody taking an appreciative interest. The girl at the keyboard smiled at her. “Now this,” she said and switched into a new selection. She was an accomplished player, keeping the music subdued, like an undertone to the buzz of conversations.

But suddenly all the near-by talk stopped. The music went on alone for a note or two, sounding much clearer than it had before.

The girl’s sister suddenly stepped up behind her, touched her just once on the shoulder, as if in remonstrance or as a reminder. That was all she did. Then she went right back to where she’d been sitting. The whole little pantomime had been so deft and quick it was hardly noticeable at all.

The player broke off, uncertainly. She apparently had felt the tap, but did not get its meaning. The slightly bewildered shrug and the look she gave Patrice was evidence of that.

“Oh, finish it,” Patrice protested unguardedly. “It was lovely. What’s it called? I don’t think I’ve ever heard it before.”

“It’s the Barcarolle, from Tales of Hoffman,” the other girl answered quietly.

Standing there beside the player, Patrice became conscious of a congealing silence about her. Something wrong had happened just then.

I’ve said something wrong. I said something that was wrong just now. But I don’t know what it was, and I don’t know what to do about it.

She touched her punch-cup to her lips, there was nothing else to do at the moment.

They only heard it near me. The music left my voice stranded, and that only made it all the more conspicuous. But who else in the room heard? Who else noticed? Maybe their faces will tell—

She turned slowly and glanced at them one by one, as if at random. Mother Hazzard was deep in conversation at the far end of the room. She hadn’t heard. The flaxen-haired girl who had delivered the cautioning tap had her back to Patrice; she might have heard and she might not. The two girls with Bill hadn’t heard, it was easy to see that. They were oblivious of everything else but Bill.

No one’s eyes met hers. No one was looking at her.

Only Bill. His head was slightly down, and his forehead was drawn into a half-frown. He was gazing up at her with a strange intentness. Everything the girls were saying to him seemed to be completely ignored. She couldn’t tell if his thoughts were on her, or a thousand miles away.

She looked away. And even after she did, she could sense that his eyes were still upon her.

As they climbed the stairs together, after everyone had left, Mother Hazzard suddenly tightened an arm about Patrice’s waist, protectively.