Brunonia Barry - The Lace Reader

MY NAME IS TOWNER WHITNEY. No, thats not exactly true.

WHEN THE PHONE CALL COMES IN, I am dreaming of

THE SALEM NEWS HAS ALREADY picked up the story about

WHEN I WAKE UP, I look on the bedside table,

IT IS JUST AFTER SUNRISE. I cannot get back to

RAFFERTY IS A NICE MAN. He gives us a ride

WERE ALL AT MAYS HOUSE NOW. Beezers fiance, Anya, got

I WOULD HAVE WON THE BET. May never shows up

ANYA ACCOMPANIES AUNTIE EMMA back to Yellow Dog Island. When

I KEEP A STELAZINE PILL in my pocket. Its old

I STAY UP ALL NIGHT packing the lace. I take

OLD HOUSES CATCH THREADS OF the people who have lived

I HAVE BEEN IN EVAS CLOSET for most of the

ANN WAS READING HER FIFTEENTH head of the night when

ANN LAUGHED ALOUD WHEN HE presented her with the toothbrush.

RAFFERTY GRABBED THE PAGES OFF the copier as they came

RAFFERTYS EYES WERE BEGINNING to sting. He thumbed through the

RAFFERTY HAD BEEN FIGHTING a headache all afternoon. Hed stopped

I LEAN AGAINST THE DOOR to steady myself, waiting for

I AWAKEN IN A SAILING SHIP. Floating on open ocean

RAFFERTY AND TOWNER SAT TOGETHER on the porch like an

RAFFERTY DIDNT GO HOME until he was sure Towner had

ANGELA RICKEYS PARENTS LIVED just north of Portland in a

RAFFERTY AND I STOP IN Beverly for lunch at a

RAFFERTY HUNG UP THE PHONE and looked at his watch.

JACK TOLD JAY-JAY HE WOULDNT be back. He didnt tell

ANGELA HAD INSISTED ON SEEING Cal. The police escorted her

MAY STOOD ON THE FLOAT watching the Whaler pull into

MAY TIES UP THE WHALER as we pull in.

OPEN OCEAN. FOG. HAND SHAKING with the vibrations of the

ANGELA TOOK DOWN THE MILAGROS and wrapped each of them

THE FOG CLEARS AS I enter the harbor. The milagros

I WAS AT MASS GENERAL for six weeks. One of

The Lace Reader must stare at the piece of lace until the pattern blurs and the face of the Seeker disappears completely behind the veil. When the eyes begin to fill with tears and the patience is long exhausted, there will appear a glimpse of something not quite seen.

In this moment an image will begin to formin the space between what is real and what is only imagined.

THE LACE READERS GUIDE

M Y NAME IS T OWNER W HITNEY. No, thats not exactly true. My real first name is Sophya. Never believe me. I lie all the time.

I am a crazy woman. That last part is true.

My little brother, Beezer, who is kinder than I, says the craziness is genetic. Were from five generations of crazy, he says, as if it were a badge hes proud to wear, though he admits that I may have taken it to a new level.

Until I came along, the Whitney family was what the city of Salem fondly refers to as quirky. If you were old Salem money, even if that money was long gone, you were never referred to as crazy. You might be deemed unusual, or even oddball, but the hands-down-favorite word for such a condition was quirky.

Throughout the generations the Whitney men have all become famous for their quirks: from the captains of sea and industry all the way down to my little brother, Beezer, who is well known within scientific circles for his articles on particle physics and string theory.

Our great-great-grandfather, for example, parlayed a crippling preoccupation with ladies feet into a brilliant career as a captain of industry in Lynns thriving shoe business, creating a company that was passed down through the generations all the way to my grandfather G. G. Whitney. Our great-great-great-grandfather, who was a legitimate captain in his own right, had a penchant for sniffing cinnamon that many considered obsessive. Eventually he built a fleet of spice-trading ships that traveled the globe and made Salem one of the richest ports in the New World.

Still, anyone would admit that it is the women of the Whitney family who have taken quirky to a new level of achievement. My mother, May, for example, is a walking contradiction in terms. A dedicated recluse who (with the exception of her arrests) hasnt left her home on Yellow Dog Island for the better part of twenty years, May has nevertheless managed to revive a long-defunct lace-making industry and to make herself famous in the process. She has gained considerable notoriety for rescuing abused women and children and turning their lives around, giving the women a place in her lace-making business and home-educating their children. All this from a raging agoraphobic who gave one of her own children to her barren half sister, Emma, in a fit of generosity because, as she said at the time, there was a need, and besides, she had been blessed with a matching set.

And my Great-Aunt Eva, who is more mother to me than May ever has been, is equally strange. Running her own business well into her eighties, Eva is renowned as both Boston Brahmin and Salem witch when, really, she is neither. Actually, Eva is an old-school Unitarian with Transcendentalist tendencies. She quotes Scripture in the same breath as she quotes Emerson and Thoreau. Yet in recent years Eva has spoken only in clichs, as if use of the tired metaphor can somehow remove her from the inevitable outcomes she is paid to predict.

For thirty-five years of her life, Eva has run a ladies tearoom and franchised successful etiquette classes to the wealthy children of Bostons North Shore. But what Eva will be remembered for is her uncanny ability to read lace. People come from all over the world to be read by Eva, and she can tell your past, present, and future pretty accurately just by holding the lace in front of you and squinting her eyes.

In one form or another, all the Whitney women are readers. My twin sister, Lyndley, said she couldnt read lace, but I never believed her. The last time we tried, she saw the same thing I saw in the pattern, and what we saw that night led her to the choices that eventually killed her. When Lyndley died, I resolved never to look at a piece of lace again.

This is one of the only things Eva and I have ever vehemently disagreed about. It wasnt that the lace was wrong, she always insisted. It was the readers interpretation that failed. I know thats supposed to make me feel better. Eva never says anything to intentionally hurt. But Lyndley and I interpreted the lace the same way that night, and though our choices might have been different, nothing that Eva says can ever bring my sister back.