She pulled out a sweater and took it to the window. She said, “No high waists, no pants with front pleats, no fake leopard skin, no lime green.” She liked everything in his closet and sometimes asked to be allowed to wear a sweater or a shirt. As her agreeable faux husband, he let her, and she looked good. She put the sweater back—a deep, winy red—and emerged a moment later with an old fedora he had from the forties—an antique when Philip gave it to him. She walked to the mirror and put it on, saying, “And no enormous shoulder pads.” The fedora looked raffish (rif et raf, Old French, “to strip and carry off”) and flattering. She smiled at herself and said, “The buyer for designer wear told me that they train the sales force always to bubble over in delight when a woman comes out of the dressing room, no matter what she really looks like. In our department, all we do is turn on the switch of the Kitchen Aid or say, ‘Yes, the Le Creuset is very heavy,’ but we never mention that you might drop it on your toe if you don’t watch out.”
Henry said, “What were we like as kids?”
“Were you ever a kid?”
“Mama would have said no. She said I rejected the breast as soon as I learned to read.”
“Which was at two months old, right?”
“I doubt I waited that long.”
They laughed.
They took her car—not “used,” but “vintage,” as she called it, a silver Datsun 280Z that her older son, who called himself “Gray” now, had talked her into buying for him, but lost interest in when his girlfriend declared it unsafe. Its all-too-apparent lack of safety was why Henry liked it—all options were on the table, including death. That seemed the realistic way of looking at things.
Somewhere around Rogers Park, she said, “There are a couple of places to look at in this neighborhood. You want to go with me? I think there’s an open house somewhere, too.”
“Why don’t you just live with me? I’m getting too old for three bedrooms.”
She glanced quickly at him. Through her window, he could see the darkness of the lake. The fedora was pushed back on her head the way you always saw it on gangsters in the movies. She said, “What if I make a mess?”
“I’ll clean it up.”
“I accept.” She said it quickly, as if afraid he would take it back.
“What about your furniture back in Des Moines?”
Claire said, “Hate that crap.” Henry leaned across the center console, the shift, and the lever of the emergency brake, and kissed her on the cheek. He was the one who was grateful.
—
AS SOON as Claire walked into Andy’s house in Englewood Cliffs, she saw that if this Christmas visit was to come off, her expertise was needed. Arthur, Debbie, Hugh, Carlie, and Kevvie were expected, as well as Richie, Ivy, and Leo. When Andy had called after Thanksgiving, she’d said that the unaccustomed celebration was all about Leonard Frederick Langdon, named Leonard after V. I. Lenin and Frederick after Friedrich Hayek (according to Frank, a true hybrid), August 14, seven pounds, four ounces. Claire gathered that “Leo” was a triumph of modern obstetrical science.
Gray would come up from Philly for the day with his girlfriend, but Michael had gone to California (Loretta was strict about Christmas), Tina had the shop in Idaho, and realtors like Dean could never get away, so there would be no discussion of the savings-and-loan crisis. Claire bought potatoes, butter, milk, turkey, onions, celery, and bread for stuffing, cranberry sauce, canned pumpkin, shortening for piecrust, and Häagen-Dazs vanilla ice cream. She baked rolls just the way Lois had taught her. She strung Christmas lights, hung ornaments, bought holly and pine boughs. She simmered some cider with spices on the stove, and all the time, Andy followed her around, saying, “Oh, that’s a good idea. I hadn’t thought of that.” Sometimes Frank walked through and kissed both of them on the cheek.
Claire and Henry agreed that the weirdest part was that Henry had been put in Frank’s room (Claire in the maid’s room, which was sunny and pleasant). Frank was sleeping with Andy. This information had led to raised eyebrows, but nothing verbal. While she was cooking and decorating, Claire decided that she should have been a housekeeper rather than a wife. She didn’t mind doing this stuff—she was organized, she liked things to smell good and taste good. Perhaps she was more like her mother than she had ever cared to admit. She was happy each time the front door opened and the bundled-up revelers who came in from the cold smiled, took deep breaths, and threw off their coats, which Andy then piled in her arms and carried to Janet’s old room. Frank kissed everyone and even hugged them—he seemed to be wearing an invisible Santa suit. Claire and Henry raised eyebrows a few more times. Then Frank carried Leo, who at almost four and a half months was wiry and bright-looking, around the room, jiggling him a little bit. He showed him off to Arthur, to Debbie, to Kevvie, who gawked uncertainly. Richie hovered nearby, ready to catch Leo, but Frank, possibly the worst father ever, made babbling noises. Finally, Henry and Claire exchanged a glance and laughed aloud.
At dinner, Claire slipped into her serving mode: she carved the turkey, dished up the mashed potatoes, made sure that the gravy was hot, watched the plates passing to see that none of them tilted dangerously. It was pleasant to eavesdrop. Jesse had told Frank that he and his dad had gotten 115 bushels an acre this year, about average, but better than last year (which Claire remembered was seventy-five or something like that). Loretta’s dad had been diagnosed with emphysema, then went out that afternoon and branded cattle. Did you hear about those tornadoes in November? One of them had struck a house in Yardley that Dean had finished showing only an hour before; a big one had struck the same day up in Quebec; wasn’t that amazing? Someone should make a tornado movie—but how could you? No one would go besides Midwesterners. Noriega had been removed because he was working for the CIA; Noriega had been removed in spite of the fact that he was working for the CIA. Everyone looked at Arthur, who continued to eat without commenting or even turning his head. Ivy was almost back to her pre-pregnancy weight already. Janet had bought a horse named Sunlight; you could ride year-round out there; the stable was three miles from a Neiman Marcus. That boy Charlie was around New York somewhere—his girlfriend was studying at Columbia now. The Dow was around 2,000; it would never hit 3,000. “I remember,” said Frank, “when it hit eight hundred. I decided to buy some shares in American Motors.”
Andy was sitting at the head of the table, wearing a lovely dark-red sheath. Her hair was swept up behind, and every time she turned her head to look at one of her guests, the candlelight caught her pale skin in a flattering way. Claire had long since gotten over her youthful wish to be beautiful, but just now she appreciated that quality Andy had, of seeming like a captured wild animal, graceful and taut in every muscle, but yielding to fate at the same time. And then Claire caught Andy and Frank sharing a tiny smile. It was brief and yet so intimate that Claire found herself weirdly embarrassed, and she knew that she would say nothing about it to Henry.
1990
CHARLIE WAS THRILLED with Manhattan. He’d never imagined how wild the city itself was, and if you started at the southwest corner of Central Park, across from Columbus Circle, and ran north through Central Park to the corner of 110th Street and Cathedral Parkway, then down 110th Street a block to the southwest corner of Morningside Park, north from there to 123rd Street, then over to Riverside Park, then followed that park down to where it ended at Seventy-second Street, then east on Seventy-second to Central Park West and south again to Columbus Circle, it was only about nine miles—an easy run. He’d wangled a clerk’s job at a luggage store, and had submitted his application to an outdoor outfitters on Broadway. He and Riley were earning enough to rent a much-infested studio on 125th Street, though he told his mom it was on Ninety-eighth Street. Even his mom knew that 125th Street was in Harlem, and though his mom had laughed so hard she gagged when a woman from church said that if you drove through East St. Louis with your windows open, black people (she didn’t call them that) would jump on the roof of your car and
take you captive, she also had never liked him driving around East St. Louis. New York, as far as she knew (she had never been there), was just like East St. Louis, because, well, it was a thousand miles east of East St. Louis. She vacationed in the Ozarks and was proud that Missouri had all five indigenous American poisonous snakes right within its borders. Iowa was flat, Kansas was dry, Arkansas was hot, and Illinois was damp. That was all she needed to know.
Their furnishings were sparse: a gray futon on a metal frame, two bookcases, a table for a desk, three chairs, some dishes and cooking utensils, and a collection of mouse, rat, fly, mosquito, and roach traps.
Since the reunion, he’d exchanged a few letters with Minnie, Christmas cards with Jesse and Jen, two phone calls with Debbie, and one with Arthur. His mom had written Arthur and heard back, sent baby pictures and one of Charlie’s funnier report cards from third grade (“Reads backward with unusual skill, must be prevented from walking the top of the monkey bars”). Arthur had sent two pictures of Tim as a child, but his mom hadn’t yet forwarded them. Debbie wrote his mom that Janet had been in contact with his birth mother, but that this woman hadn’t shown an interest in knowing more. Charlie didn’t remember who Janet was, and he didn’t blame his birth mother. His mom said that if she lived in Pasadena, California, it was probably better not to have anything to do with her.
His luggage store, four blocks south of Central Park, had some nice stuff. Charlie was rearranging the counter display for January markdowns when Michael entered. Michael’s glance passed over him without a mote of recognition; Charlie shifted his own expression from friendly to professional and went back to the wallets. Lisa, Jackie, and Mark were behind the counter—they’d just been arguing about where Jackie should go skiing over the weekend, and Charlie had been eavesdropping; he hadn’t been skiing in New York yet.
Michael went straight to Lisa and said, “Hello, there.”
Lisa, who lived with her parents at Eighty-eighth and York, was working here as a punishment for dropping out of Connecticut College for Women after the first semester of her sophomore year. She gave Michael a warm smile. All four of them were good at this, since they worked on commission. Michael set his briefcase on the counter and regarded it. Lisa said, “May I help you, sir?”
Michael flipped the briefcase over and pointed at something along the side. He said, “Do you see that stain? The oil stain?”
Lisa bent down, but she didn’t really look at it. She said, “I do, sir. I’d be happy to send that to our repair shop. I’m sure Giorgio could get it out.”
“I would always know it was there,” said Michael.
“Giorgio is really—”
“I need a new one.”
Charlie could practically see Lisa salivating.
“This one is Bottega Veneta,” she said. “I’m sorry, but we don’t carry that brand. I can show you—”
“I’m sure you can,” said Michael.
“—some comparable styles, however. Do you prefer Italian boutiques, sir?”
Michael gave her a brilliant smile, and she matched him; then he said, “This is a few years old. I personally think Bottega Veneta has gotten a little too flashy lately.” He surveyed the golden-lit displays along the walls and said, “What’s that one?”
Lisa pirouetted neatly and said, “Such a lovely piece. That’s an Asprey. Let me also show you the Valextra. They are Italian, but based in Milan. Not quite as…baroque as Bottega Veneta.” Charlie almost snorted with the pleasure of it. Mark went through the curtain into the stockroom. The wallets were now in a perfect line; Charlie stepped a foot to the left and started coiling belts. Lisa set two briefcases on the counter; they were both brown, the Asprey edging toward cordovan, the Valextra edging toward buckskin. She smoothed her hand over one, then the other. Michael said, “Mmmm.” Charlie moved even farther left, caught Jackie’s glance, and stepped into the window, afraid he was going to make real noise.
He could still hear them, though.
“That is nice leather.”
“The best.”
“The English is a little conservative. I hate to look stuffy.”
“I totally understand.”
“On the other hand, as I get older—”
“I wouldn’t worry about that, sir. I really wouldn’t.”
Pause.
“I am drawn to the Valextra. I’ve looked at those before.”
The Valextra was maybe 30 percent more expensive than the Asprey. Lisa said, “It’s a rare piece. It’s not for everyone. We sell maybe one a season, but I always think…”
She had been working here for two weeks. Charlie went deeper into the corner beside the window.
Outside, a woman passed him, her nose in a guidebook. She stopped, looked toward the street sign, then opened the door of the shop. Charlie saw Jackie intercept her—they went back out the door. The show went on.
Lisa said, in a regretful, almost lachrymose voice, “I have to tell you, sir, the Valextra is a fifteen-hundred-dollar item.”
There was a long pause, and Charlie peeked out from behind the stack of Tumis. Michael had one hand on the Asprey and one hand on the Valextra, and he was stroking them gently with a half-smile on his face. Then he hoisted the Valextra and gave a deep sigh, matched an instant later by Lisa. The curtain to the stockroom fluttered—ah, Mark was watching, too. Michael said, “How much is the Asprey?”
A pregnant pause; then Lisa’s voice half broke when she said, “Eleven hundred.”
Michael looked straight at her and said, “I’ll give you eleven hundred for the Valextra,” but he said it cheerfully, with a grin, as if he were joking. Lisa responded, “We don’t usually…Well, thirteen is as low as I can go. The manager is in Italy, looking at new collections. I don’t think…”
Another pause. Outside, the confused lady had walked on, and Jackie was talking to someone else, who was bundled in a full-length black down coat.
Michael shrugged, took his briefcase off the counter, gave Lisa one last winning smile, and turned for the door. Lisa let him get there, let him put his black gloves on, let him touch the handle, then said, “Twelve is okay. I can do twelve for you.” She put on a regretfully redeemed expression, and Michael strode back to the counter. A win-win situation. Everyone was happy, including Charlie, who knew that they sold the Valextra, full-price, for eleven hundred. Mark came out of the back, looking genial but uninterested, and Michael and Lisa completed the transaction. When Lisa put on her coat and they went out together (Lisa told Mark she was taking an early lunch), Michael still didn’t recognize Charlie, but he did smile at him this time.
It was Charlie’s job to make the jokes and tell the funny stories, and it was Riley’s job to laugh, but she didn’t laugh when he told her about Lisa and Michael—she was offended. Charlie had learned to make no assumptions about how Riley might be offended. It could be anything: Ripping off Michael? Lisa going off with him? But of course it was the waste that offended her, getting rid of a perfectly good leather item because of a small stain. And calfskin, at that; did Charlie know how much grain went into feeding cattle? This brought her around to hemp again, as so many things did. Or bamboo! Bamboo was verrry interesting, and Charlie heard all about it over the roasted vegetables and grilled goat-cheese sandwiches they had for dinner. The cheese was from the shores of Cayuga Lake, and that was where Riley wanted to go on their first trip out of the city.
—
HERE WAS HOW Michael told the story: Everyone in their group thought going on the Jolly Roger would be fun—just a two-hour cruise around Dickenson Bay, then back to Magnus King’s condo on Runaway Bay (Magnus King had started out life as Bruce King, but changed his name when he made his second million; he was up to ten now). The boat had several levels, and everyone wanted to see the view from the top level—it was sunset, the bay was flat. Michael was sitting on the railing with his feet on a cushion. Admittedly, you were not supposed to sit on the railing—you were supposed to sit on the cushions. The b
oat shifted, he lost his balance, and the next thing he knew was that he was reaching out to grab a lanyard that was hanging there, but it was attached to nothing, and he toppled over onto a white awning that collapsed underneath him, and then he was caught in the huge arms of the black chef who’d been grilling steaks on the poop deck for the partyers. The chef stood him on his feet. He went back to the bar, got himself another rum punch, and ran up the stairs. When he got there, everyone was gone.
Here was how Loretta told the story: Michael was smashed to smithereens. When he originally staggered up the steps to the upper deck, he’d been swaying, and Magnus King had made a joke about him. Loretta was embarrassed, and told Michael he needed to taper off; he told her to shut up, jerked backward, and disappeared. The seven of them looked over the railing and didn’t see anything, so they ran down the stairs, but it was a big boat with two sets of stairs, and as they were running down one set, Michael was running up the other set. They searched the lower deck, and then Loretta looked up and saw Michael waving his arm and laughing. She was really happy to see him. But, she said, at that point he had learned nothing.
The next thing, Michael said, was that when the cruise was over, and they had eaten their steaks and sobered up just a hair, they got so impatient with how slow the barge was that ferried passengers back and forth to the beach that Michael handed Loretta his wallet (as always!) and dove into the water, then Magnus went, then Tyler Coudray, leaving all the wives and Zeke Weiner, poor Zeke.
Zeke was happy to stay with us, said Loretta—why would he want to ruin his clothes and get wet and cold for nothing? By the time the five of them got to that crappy beach bar, Magnus, Tyler, and Michael were sitting in Buccaneer Cove with their drinks, out of their minds. Tyler threw up right when his wife got there, and the throw-up sort of spread around them and got on Magnus and Michael, and they didn’t even notice. All the wives were pretty fed up, but there was no going home while the Red Stripe beers were being extracted from the ice chest. And it was cold. It was something like California, how cold Antigua got in the middle of the night, and all they had was sweaters.