It hadn’t rained for weeks, but the grass, with its state-of-the-art sprinkling system, was a dazzling, ludicrous green. A breeze had gotten up and was rushing in the scorched leaves of the big, old oaks along the driveway. Sarah closed her eyes and breathed deeply and tried to enjoy the warmth of the sun and the feel of the grass beneath her bare feet. But the knot below her ribs wouldn’t loosen.
The place always made her tense. With its faux-colonial façade and preposterous number of rooms, it had never seemed like home. They had moved here from a much smaller and cozier place across town when Sarah was fifteen and her father’s business was bought for an obscene amount of money by a big Wall Street bank. What earthly need they had for such a palace, other than sheer ostentation, she had never been able to fathom. Particularly when they so rarely entertained and had already dispatched both her and her brother Jonathan off to boarding school. At the time Sarah had blamed the move on her mother, who came from grander New England stock. But as she had gotten older she had come to think—though would never have admitted it in front of Benjamin—that the real snob was her father. He was simply better at disguising it.
They had reached the steps to the terrace now and Sarah could hear that Abbie was getting exasperated. Why on earth, her grandfather was saying, when she had the pick of so many better colleges closer to home, would someone as smart as Abbie, a straight-A student, best at everything, want to go someplace out the back of beyond?
Sarah turned on him.
“Dad, it’s Montana, for heaven’s sake, not Mongolia.”
“We just did a deal with some folks in Mongolia. It’s a pretty switched-on place, as a matter of fact.”
“It wouldn’t have anything to do with meeting a certain young cowboy by any chance, would it?” Sarah’s mother asked.
Abbie groaned and turned to glare at her brother.
“Josh, you little rat, what have you been saying?”
He held up his hands, all innocent.
“I didn’t say a word!”
“You’re such a pathetic liar. Maybe you should tell everyone why suddenly you’re such a fan of the Chicago Cubs. It couldn’t have anything to do with your crush on little Katie Bradstock.”
“Little? Oh, and we’re so big and grown-up now, are we?”
“Children, children,” Sarah said.
By the time they reached the terrace, the bickering had calmed and Abbie was reluctantly coaxed into telling her grandparents a little about Ty. She deftly managed to steer the conversation on to her visit to his parents’ ranch, from which she had returned almost ecstatic, saying it was the loveliest place she’d ever seen, even more beautiful than The Divide.
Lunch was cold Maine lobster, flown down by special order the previous afternoon. There were also oysters and shrimp and a bewildering array of salads prepared by Rosa, who had kept house for Sarah’s parents for the last nine years without, as far as Sarah was aware, ever once smiling. Benjamin said she was probably still waiting for a reason. The oval table was covered with a heavy white linen cloth and shaded by two vast cream canvas umbrellas. There was room for at least a dozen people and instead of grouping at one end, the six of them sat several yards apart, so isolated in their own space that if anything needed passing, Rosa had to be summoned from sullen standby in the wings.
Normally, the gaps would have been filled by Sarah’s brother and his family. Jonathan was five years her junior and they had never been close. Like his father, he was in finance of some impenetrable sort and had recently taken a job in Singapore, hauling Kelly, his Texan wife, and their two identically spoiled twin daughters with him. As everyone chewed on oversize lobster and the silence grew more stubborn, Sarah was almost beginning to miss them.
Why did she persist in inflicting this annual penance on Benjamin and the kids when she hated it almost as much as they did? The past week had been blighted by a protracted argument with Abbie and Josh, who had both, until this morning, been refusing to come. At breakfast Sarah had finally delivered a tirade on the importance of family, heaping into it every weaselly, guilt-inducing gambit she could think of. Such as how they were prepared to take all their grandparents’ generous birthday checks and Christmas presents and yet weren’t willing in return to spare them a paltry few hours for lunch. And how Grandpa wasn’t getting any younger and wouldn’t be around much longer (though, in truth, he was in obscenely good health and would probably outlive them all). She had even stooped so low as to mention Misty, the pony Abbie’s grandparents had given her when she was ten years old. Benjamin had kept out of it. But even though he didn’t say a word, she could tell from his smug expression how much he was enjoying the revolution. It made her want to throw something at him.
But now they were here, the guilt had rebounded and she felt sorry for them all. Even Benjamin. He hadn’t been exactly friendly for many weeks, not since they got back from The Divide. He’d been distant and preoccupied. He was having a hard time at work and she decided to attribute it to that. Perhaps it was her fault as much as his, for things weren’t going well with the bookstore either. In fact, it was having its worst year ever. One of the big chains had opened a new store just a couple of blocks away and Jeffrey, her adored and devoted manager, who nowadays pretty well ran things on his own, was again talking about quitting. But although Sarah liked to talk about her problems, Benjamin didn’t seem to want to listen anymore or to discuss his own. Her father, with the nose of a bloodhound, was asking him about work now.
“How’s that Hamptons project of yours going?”
“It’s not looking too good, as a matter of fact, George.”
“What’s the guy’s name, I forgot.”
“The developer? Hank McElvoy.”
“McElvoy, that’s it. I was asking Bill Sterling about him the other day. He says the guy’s in trouble and the banks are calling it all in. Is that the problem?”
“No, actually, it was what I think they call creative differences .”
“Dad’s a hero,” Abbie called from across the table. “They wanted to cut down all these beautiful trees and he wouldn’t do it.”
“Seems a pity to lose a job for a few trees.”
“Grandpa!”
“Well, you’re probably well out of it.”
“Yes, I probably am.”
Benjamin took a mouthful of lobster and glanced at Sarah. She smiled to show solidarity, but he looked away.
“Ella was telling me your firm just won some fancy award,” her father went on.
“That’s right. For the mall we did up in Huntington.”
“Was that your design or Martin’s?”
“Well, we all worked on it. But I guess you could say it was basically Martin’s concept.”
“He’s a bright guy.”
“Yes, he is.”
“Oh, well. Give him my congratulations.”
“Thank you, George. I will.”
There was a time when such a thinly disguised put-down would have sent Benjamin into a fury. In the early days of their marriage, he would take only a certain amount and then pick a fight on another issue which, inevitably, her father would win. For, whatever the subject and no matter who was right or wrong, his technique of smiling and staying calm would eventually drive Benjamin so mad he would start yelling. But looking at him now, sitting across the table from her, still sweating from his humiliation on court, Sarah saw no sign of hurt or anger, just a weary resignation. It upset her more than any shouting match ever had or could.
And later, as she drove them home, it was Abbie and Josh who exploded, not Benjamin. Nor did he even so much as smile or seem to take any pleasure as they vented their anger and forced Sarah to promise on God’s honor that this was the last Labor Day lunch they would ever have to endure. Without demur, she apologized and this seemed to disarm them and a tired silence descended. Josh put on his headphones to listen to his Walkman, while Abbie curled up beside him and was soon asleep. Benjamin leaned back against the headrest and sta
red blankly out of the side window. He looked so forlorn that she reached out and laid her hand on his arm but he didn’t respond in any way and after a few moments she removed it.
“I thought age was supposed to mellow you,” she said. “He gets worse and worse.”
“He’s always been like that.”
“Everything he says has some kind of barb to it.”
“It always did.”
He closed his eyes and Sarah took the hint and drove on in silence. In the mirror she could see that Josh had fallen asleep now too. The freeway was clogged with holiday traffic so she exited and took what they called the “snake route” but it was just as congested and they crawled through the suburban sprawl, bumper to bumper, mile after mile. She switched on the radio but couldn’t find a station that didn’t irritate her or make her feel more alienated. The people in the cars around them all seemed to be talking and having a good time.
It was the old Volvo station wagon that did it. It was in the next lane and kept drawing alongside. It was just like the one they had once owned, only blue instead of white. Its roof was stacked with bicycles and camping gear, just like theirs used to be. Inside were a couple and two young children, a boy and girl, both blond and impossibly cute. Everyone was laughing and jabbering. Sarah tried not to look. She clenched the muscles in her face to stem the tears that nowadays welled so readily. And she stared resolutely ahead, scolding herself for being so stupid and sentimental and telling herself not to go there. Not to let into her head this image of her own lost happiness.
TEN
They had met during Sarah’s sophomore year at Wellesley. A girl in her Shakespearean tragedy class, someone she barely knew and didn’t even much like, was asked by a boy at Harvard to bring a busload of “chicks” into Cambridge for a party. There weren’t many at Wellesley who answered happily to such a name and Sarah should have seen it as a warning, but she had nothing better to do, so she tagged along.
It turned out to be one of those hideous fraternity affairs, crammed with drunk and obnoxious jocks, shouting and showing off and throwing up in the flower beds. Benjamin, standing alone in a corner, with his long hair and leather jacket, looked arty and interesting and, at the very least, sober. He was clearly older than the others, more man than boy, and obviously as appalled and alienated as she was. The two of them homed in on each other and seemed to bond before they even spoke.
His connection with the party turned out to be as tenuous as hers. He said he was there as transport. He had a car and had been cajoled by some guys who had been invited to drive them all the way from Syracuse where he was studying architecture.
“They said I should see how the other half lived.”
He took a sip of the so-called fruit punch and grimaced. It had been laced, so rumor had it, with raw alcohol plundered from the chemistry labs. Someone put another Wings album on.
“Well, now you know,” Sarah said.
“Yeah. At least they paid for the gas. This music is killing me. Shall we go somewhere else?”
They headed into Boston in his old Ford Mustang. It had a broken muffler and made so much noise that everyone turned and stared. They found a little Italian restaurant she had once been to and had steaming bowls of spaghetti vongole and a bottle of cheap Chianti and sat talking until the place closed. Sarah said she remembered a bar nearby and they went looking for it and when they couldn’t find it just kept on walking. It was a clear fall night and the air was chilly and she surprised herself by tucking her arm into his. They must have walked for miles and never stopped talking the entire time.
He told her he came from Abilene, Kansas, where his parents ran a hardware store. He said he was fonder of the place now that he didn’t have to live there, but that when he was growing up he couldn’t wait to escape. He had an older sister he hardly ever saw and he didn’t get along with his dad who was still mad at him for not becoming a lawyer. Sarah asked him if he had always wanted to be an architect and he said no, absolutely not. What he’d really wanted to be was an actor.
“Well, not an actor exactly,” he corrected himself. “A movie star. A big, famous movie star. Like Paul Newman or someone.”
“So what happened?”
“I wasn’t any good. At college all I really did was drama. I was in all the plays. Got some good parts. But, thank God, I had a moment of revelation.”
“Tell me.”
“Really? Okay. I was playing Angelo in Measure for Measure—do you know the play?”
She knew it inside out but simply nodded.
“Okay. Well, you know when Isabella won’t sleep with him, Angelo orders them to cut off her brother Claudio’s head and they don’t, but pretend they have and give some other poor guy the chop instead?”
“Barnardine.”
“I’ll take your word for it. Hey, that’s pretty impressive. Anyhow, the director had them bring me the head in a basket and, of course, I don’t know it’s not Claudio’s and I have to lift this cloth and look at what I’ve done. And he said, ‘Ben, I want nausea, real nausea. And the dawning of guilt.’”
“The dawning of guilt. Sounds like a book.”
“Yeah, the story of my life. So. Every night I used to look into the basket, at this ridiculous rubber head, all covered with tomato ketchup, and I tried, God, I tried so hard, but all I wanted to do was laugh.”
“And did you?”
“No. Except on the last night when someone put an inflatable frog in the basket instead. No, I just faked it. Nausea, guilt. And I was fine. Got some great reviews. But I knew that if I couldn’t feel it, I mean, really feel it in my guts, then I wasn’t cut out to be an actor.”
“Do you believe all actors really feel it?”
“No, but I think the best ones do.”
In turn she told him about her family and growing up in Bedford—at which name he pulled a sort of mock-impressed face, as if he knew now who he was dealing with, and this made her immediately start downplaying anything that hinted at money or privilege or connections. As if being at Wellesley wasn’t already enough for him to place her.
She had never met a guy who listened so well. When at last, and more by luck than navigation, they found their way to where he had parked his car, it had been towed. By the time they got it back, dawn was breaking and they were both feeling hungry again. They drove out to the Massachusetts Turnpike and found a truck stop and ordered great greasy plates of bacon and eggs and hash browns.
It had been one of the best nights of Sarah’s life. And when he said good-bye, kissing her chastely on the cheek, and headed off to pick up his friends and drive back to Syracuse, she knew—well, no, she thought, she dared to hope—that this was the man she would marry and have children with.
It wasn’t only corny, it was absurd. Everybody knew the joke about parents sending their girls to Wellesley to get their Mrs. But the idea was that you were supposed to net yourself some rich Harvard highflier, not a Kansas storekeeper’s son from what her father would call the University of Nowhere. Furthermore, she had only just turned twenty and was still a virgin. The only one in the entire college, she sometimes thought. It was the mid-seventies, post-pill and pre-AIDS, and everyone was at it like rabbits, or so it seemed. Except for Sarah Davenport.
It wasn’t for want of offers, or because she was a prude or scared or uninterested. She knew her reasoning was quaint and probably a little dumb. Iris, her roommate, certainly thought it was both of these things, as well as plain crazy. They had been born in the same week of September and Iris constantly reminded her that by being five whole days Sarah’s senior, she was infinitely the wiser. She was certainly the only person with whom Sarah felt able to have such intimate discussions. Iris had grown up in Pittsburgh, where, she maintained, absolutely everbody got laid at sixteen.
“Just get it over with, girl,” she said. “Then get picky.” But Sarah felt it mattered. That she should love the man with whom she first went all the way might be an old-fashioned notion but it also s
eemed right. But though she’d had boyfriends and done with them pretty much everything else—or what she understood, from her talks with Iris, that this entailed—she was starting to feel something of an oddity. And these things had a way of getting out. She knew for a fact that one little creep she’d dated for a while had gone around afterward calling her a cock-teaser. And even though, according to what Iris had heard, he didn’t have one worth teasing, it bothered her.
Had Benjamin suggested they make love, even in the back of his Mustang that very night, she would happily have done so. As it turned out, they didn’t get even close to it for another five months. They spoke at least once a week on the phone and met a few times in New York to see a movie or some new art exhibition, each time followed by dinner and another good-bye peck on the cheek. And just as Sarah was growing resigned to the idea that all he had in mind was being her new best friend and that he probably had a girlfriend in Syracuse or back home in Kansas, he arrived unannounced in Wellesley on St. Valentine’s Day with a vast and vaguely carnivorous-looking bunch of bloodred amaryllis and declared that he loved her.
It was only later that she discovered it wasn’t quite as high-risk a venture as it seemed and that he had taken the secret precaution of calling Iris to check out if Sarah had other plans and, if not, how welcome he might be.
That summer he found work at a busy, if uninspiring, firm of architects on the Upper East Side where all they let him do was answer the phones and fetch coffee. Through a business contact of her father’s, Sarah did the same for a company that made TV commercials. Neither of them got paid and—thanks to Sarah’s allowance—neither much cared. They were too busy discovering each other.
An old Syracuse friend of Benjamin’s was spending three months in Florence and let them use his apartment, a two-room shoe box on Ninety-third and Amsterdam. It was one of the hottest summers on record and the place had no air-conditioning. The sidewalks shimmered and steamed and that was pretty much how it was inside too.