Leaving the city was even more difficult than on the average Friday. They inched along the West Side Highway, north toward the George Washington Bridge, for half an hour. George, oblivious to the delay, listened to The Lion King on Alan’s Walkman. “Oh I just can’t wait to be king!” he sang along, off-key. In the past few days, whenever George caught his father with a brooding expression on his face, he would say, “Hakuna matata, Dad.” It made Alan smile every time.
Saga had been quiet for a while, and Alan thought she might be falling asleep. For the first time in hours, he became preoccupied again with his fears about what might happen when Greenie finally arrived. So he was completely unprepared when Saga, there in the traffic jam—and thank God for once that George’s ears were blocked by Disney—confided yet something else.
“I found out I was pregnant,” she said without emotion.
Alan had contemplated changing to a lane that appeared less sluggish. He stayed where he was. He had to look at Saga. “Saga, you’re pregnant?”
“No. Was. I was pregnant before the accident, when it happened. Frida told me.”
“And you forgot? Is that it? Oh Saga.”
“I forgot, but then no one told me. Uncle Marsden and my mother made everybody promise not to tell me. Maybe my mother would have told me, but then she died.” Saga delivered this news as if it had very little to do with her.
Alan had a hard time containing his anger. He was about to ask how the hell anyone could keep this from her—what about her doctors, for God’s sake!—when he realized that the answer was obvious. You didn’t even have to have met this uncle to guess that he’d needed Saga to remain, or return to being, a little girl.
“You know,” Saga said quietly, “maybe that’s why David left me. Maybe not just because he thought I’d be a cripple. Okay, like that wouldn’t be enough!”
“Don’t try to make this funny,” said Alan. “It isn’t funny at all.”
She told him then that for a long time she’d felt as if the people around her were withholding something from her, a particular thing about her life before. She’d thought it might be that she and her boyfriend were going to break up anyway. Her voice became barely audible. “But maybe the opposite was true. Maybe we were going to get married.”
“Saga, this is so hurtful,” said Alan. “It’s outrageous. No one had the right to keep any of your life a secret from you.”
“I guess they wanted to keep me from being too upset.”
Alan could not see her face; she was looking out the window. She might have been crying, trying to find a moment of privacy. He let her be. In the backseat, George was doing his best to sound like the evil Scar, singing along with Jeremy Irons.
One thing was certain: Alan did not relish the thought of meeting Saga’s relatives, which he was likely to do in about an hour—or four, if the roads did not open up. They sounded like a bunch of narcissistic jerks, but there was no way Alan would have dropped Saga off at her doorstep and driven away—not after what she had just told him.
The cars in front of them picked up speed after the toll bridge to the Bronx. What little conversation he and Saga shared after that was idle talk about the countryside and responses to jokes that George was now reading to them from a book called the Jokelopedia. (“Why did Mrs. Crow have such a huge phone bill?”) In less than two hours, they pulled up in front of Saga’s uncle’s house. It was a huge shingle house, stark and gray as the weather. “I’m coming in with you,” said Alan. “That’s a den of lions in there.”
“I’m no antelope. They can’t devour me.”
“Well, there’s devouring and there’s mauling.”
Saga looked mournfully at Alan. “They’re my family.”
“They are, and they aren’t,” said Alan. “Right now, Saga, they are Michael’s family.” What Alan knew, but did not say, was that when she walked in the door, they would grieve that the one returning was not Michael.
In the backseat, George had fallen asleep. Right up against him, Treehorn slept as well, having somehow made a place for herself among the toys.
There were four cars in the driveway but no sign of life beyond a pair of seagulls swooping over the massive chimney. Alan did not see the ocean, but he could smell it.
Saga went in the back door; Alan followed. They emerged in a kitchen nearly the size of his apartment. The sink overflowed with dishes. On a blackboard he read: pasta garlic aa batteries TP babywipes TOMATOES call dentist
Boxed in pink chalk: Public Hearing Thurs.!!
“Hello!” called Saga.
They passed through a wood-paneled dining room into one of the largest living rooms Alan had ever seen—impressive yet shabby, its furnishings so well used that they had been all but used up. He heard footsteps on a staircase from the second floor. He looked at Saga, who waited quietly, hands folded before her in the attitude of a schoolgirl.
“There you are, my dear,” said the man who was obviously Saga’s uncle, perfectly casual, as if she were ten minutes late for tea. He was tall, with an Einstein head of hair, and his shirt was open one button too low; perhaps he had just put it on. “We did wonder, but I said you were fine.”
Saga moved toward him quickly as he reached the foot of the stairs. “I am so sorry about Michael,” she said. She hugged her uncle; he returned her embrace almost absentmindedly.
“We’re still waiting, you know. He told Denise he was getting out. His last words to her were ‘Don’t you worry.’ No one outsmarts Michael. Let’s not forget about that. Let’s not. He will turn up yet.” Alan was apparently invisible to him.
“Where is everybody?” asked Saga.
The uncle walked past her and sat on a couch. “Pansy and Denise are shopping, with the little girls. Michael and Denise have a new car, the biggest you’ve ever laid eyes on.” He raised his eyebrows, as if he might smile, but his expression returned to one of docile fatigue.
Saga remained standing. “Can I get you something, Uncle Marsden? Something to drink?”
“No, my dear, but thank you.” Alan had never seen someone look so dignified yet so extremely sad.
Hearing lighter footsteps on the stairs, Alan looked up at a slender woman with long, straight graying blond hair. She wore a brown batik dress and an earthy type of sandals he hadn’t seen since college. She stopped midway down. “Saga? Saga, where on earth have you been?”
“She’s been fine,” said the uncle. He did not bother to turn around and look at the woman on the stairs.
Saga said, “I’m sorry, Frida.”
“We’ve had way too much to worry about, never mind worrying what became of you when you didn’t call back. I’ve been on the phone for days. I seem to be the only one around here who can hold anything together. It’s just…” She sighed, as if she’d used up every word she possessed.
The two women looked at each other for a long, uncertain moment. This was the cousin who had told Saga the secret of her pregnancy; couldn’t she guess what effect it would have had on Saga? Alan could sense a sympathy between them, but Frida looked angry. Well, she had a right, a small right, to be angry at Saga. People shouldn’t disappear for days without calling (or disappear for good, Alan thought sadly).
“Do you think there’s a chance Michael’s coming back?” asked Saga.
Frida glanced at her father, who seemed transfixed by a stuffed elephant wedged against the arm of the couch. Frida shook her head. Saga started to cry.
“Stop all this crying!” said the uncle abruptly. “All this weeping is driving me mad! Girls weeping their heads off day and night!” Now he was addressing Alan. He didn’t seem to wonder who Alan was; he was simply a fellow male, one who must have suffered the weeping of girls. Alan nodded once, just to acknowledge that he’d been spoken to.
“Everything’s changing,” the cousin said to Saga, and the change she referred to did not sound good.
“I know,” Saga said. “I guessed that. I’m not an idiot.”
“No one’
s ever said you were, Saga.” She turned to Alan. “Who are you? Are you the book guy or the dog guy?” She did not sound as if she really cared or even wanted to know, and in that moment Alan made a decision. To hell with his fears about playing the savior. Looking at Saga, he did not think it would be hard to convince her to leave this place, at least for now. Before taking her aside, however, he went out the front door, quickly and without excuses, down the steps and to the car. For a few horrified moments, he’d forgotten all about George. To his relief, George still slept, but Treehorn was awake. Through the opening at the top of Treehorn’s window, Alan whispered, “I’ll take you out in just a minute, girl. Hang on there.”
TWENTY-TWO
MCNALLY CLEANS THE GRILL, scowling as he shoves the wire brush back and forth, so vigorously that it looks like a penance. He does not notice that someone dances just behind him, bumping and grinding within inches of making contact. The someone is Walter, his widespread arms threatening to enfold McNally’s torso. Greenie told McNally that he did not have to do this ghastly chore, but the massive grill is one he made himself and trucked in from the ranch. It won’t be done right, he insists, if it’s left to anyone else.
Walter’s responsibilities have ended, and he is filled with the expendable joy of a hard job impeccably done. He is at his most abandoned and gleeful, moving his mouth to “Some People.” Ethel Merman is the one doing the singing, her voice blaring from Greenie’s boom box, which Walter has brought outside to entertain them now that the party is over.
When Greenie cannot contain her laughter (still a startling sound after a month of so many miseries), McNally turns around. “Just what is so hilarious?”
“Walter wants to ask you for this dance,” she says.
McNally levels a withering gaze at Walter. Feigning innocence, Walter stands three feet away, arms at his sides.
“Let me tell you something,” says McNally, shaking his sooty brush at Walter. “I am too worn out for jokes. This has got to be about the longest day of my sorry life—we won’t mention a couple in lockup back in the army.”
“We won’t ask for what crimes,” says Walter.
“You don’t ask about mine, I certainly—certainly—will not ask about yours,” McNally says.
The guests have left, but the lawn still swarms with people. Mike Chu checks his flower beds for flotsam. (Greenie sees him pull a sequined purse out of the chamisa. He shakes his head.) The musicians lay their instruments in their cases and fold up their stands. Employees of one rental company fold tables and chairs; those from another stack plates and box up glasses. Volunteers for a food charity gather leftovers for a shelter, while the cops, now relaxed, chat in twos and threes along the service driveway, stopping only to inspect the trucks that come and go. They are not accustomed to being so suspicious, but they are learning.
The blue tent will not be taken down until the following day. It luffs like a sail in the breeze, its shadow wavering over the grass. Against this azure backdrop, two television reporters address their cameramen.
One of the reporters stands so close to Greenie that she can hear his words, even in competition with Ethel Merman. “Yes, Anita, that’s right. Governor Raymond Fleetwing McCrae was married today, on his own lawn, under skies as blue as his bride’s eyes, in a ceremony whose friendly, informal tone was a welcome balm in the face of all the unspeakable horrors of this past month and the great sorrow that so many Americans continue to endure,” says the buff, slightly sunburnt reporter. Greenie notices that his tie is red (as well as his nose), making the tableau, with his white shirt and the blue tent, an obsequious tribute to the fierce resurgence of the flag. “Indeed, Anita,” he continues earnestly, “the governor’s act of unity and hope for the future only serves to strengthen the new unity we feel now, all of us together, in the midst of our mourning and healing.”
Greenie turns up Ethel Merman and begins, with great care, to wrap and pack the top tier of the cake. McNally will take it back to the ranch, where it will be frozen for Ray and Claudia’s first-anniversary celebration.
The size of a pillbox hat, it was the crown to a widening skirt of seven tiers, an impressive yet fragile creation held together with a complex system of hidden pillars and platforms. (“My word, it’s like a parking garage!” said Walter as he followed Greenie’s orders to help construct it.) This final tier, by itself, is a small coconut cake—still Ray’s favorite sweet—encased in the same white chocolate fondant that Greenie laid over the entire creation. One of the only vetoes that Ray imposed on Claudia’s wedding scheme was her vision of a spun-sugar bride and groom, in western attire, on top of the cake.
“Claudia, there is a fine line between whimsical and tacky, and there you have it. You do,” he said in the only planning session with Greenie that he attended. To Greenie’s relief, the lone embellishment on the smooth white surface of the cake was a garland of flowers fashioned from the icing. Ray suggested yucca, the New Mexico state flower, and it took Greenie a great deal of practice to make the blossoms look like something other than wilted larkspur.
“I want a cake like no other—and I mean that,” Claudia said to Greenie, almost sternly. “I want a cake that, when you cut it, there’s some kind of big flamboyant surprise. Maybe fancier inside than out. Just like true grown-up love, what do you think?” Standing there in Ray’s kitchen, Paul Bunyan fists on her denim hips, she looked anything but the romantic bride.
Greenie remembered the three-flavored cake she had wanted for her own wedding—yet surrendered in the face of her mother’s notions of good taste, what Olivia Duquette called “the class of understatement.” Understatement, now, looks laughably overvalued. Better say what you think much too strongly than risk not being heard.
“But no chocolate,” said Claudia. “I happen to be one of three people in the world who don’t care a hoot for chocolate.”
They agreed on four flavors of cake—vanilla, maple, orange, and coconut—to alternate, almost randomly, in twenty-one slim layers throughout the seven tiers beneath the one to be saved, the crown of coconut. A syrup infused with ginger would be brushed on the sponge beneath the icing. Greenie spent four days in early September testing recipes, tasting the flavors together, manipulating and reweighing ingredients to strengthen the cake itself. She made measurements and ordered pans. She had an hour-long phone conversation with the master pastry chef who had taught her how to make cakes to feed a small army. At times, with all the intricate planning, the entire wedding did feel like a military maneuver.
In the kitchen, Greenie’s first passion has always been cake. Most inexperienced cooks believe, mistakenly, that a fine cake is less challenging to produce than a fine soufflé or mousse. Greenie knows, however, that a good cake is like a good marriage: from the outside, it looks ordinary, sometimes unremarkable, yet cut into it, taste it, and you know that it is nothing of the sort. It is the sublime result of long and patient experience, a confection whose success relies on a profound understanding of compatibilities and tastes; on a respect for measurement, balance, chemistry, and heat; on a history of countless errors overcome. In Greenie’s favorite antique cookbook, an eloquent curmudgeon named Louis P. De Gouy devoted eight closely typeset pages to “Common Causes and Remedies in Cake Baking Failures.” How she wishes sometimes that Master Chef De Gouy had written such a treatise on love, even just motherly love.
Yet she felt almost completely happy as she immersed herself in the perfection of Ray’s wedding cake. At the end of each long day, for nearly two weeks, she would return to Charlie’s place with a sample of her work in progress; after dinner, he would savor cake while Greenie sipped from a glass of cold wine, their bare feet pressed together under the table. The sleepy days of August were over, the pace of life at the mansion was accelerating slowly, and the weather was exquisite. Soon, very soon, she would see George.
How quickly everything in the world has changed in the weeks since then: lives, dreams, assumptions, excuses, plans, priorities; everyth
ing except for the date of Ray’s wedding. In late September, when Greenie returned from seeing Alan and George in Maine, Ray told her that to postpone it would look defeatist. That was when she realized she could not pull it off if she was the only one in charge. Late one night, with only three weeks to go, she called Walter.
“Walter, I need you,” she said.
Before she could tell him why and how, perhaps before he was even fully awake, he said in a muddled voice, “Honey, I am there.” Greenie will never forget this. She is tempted sometimes to ask him what he imagined, in that instant, she might need him for.
Now Walter continues to dance about, a ne’er-do-well bystander next to everyone else’s last-minute labors. But at the height of the party, he was a commander-in-chief (with all the extra security on hand, the wedding was like a military maneuver after all). Greenie was astonished—and, in the face of McNally’s initial resentment, also proud—to discover that Walter spoke a little Spanish, flirting equally with the girls in the kitchen and the fetching young bartenders weaving their way among the guests.
He kept her distracted from so many worries, both immediate and distant, and Greenie knew that Walter did so consciously. “Real cowboys?” he whispered when four men arrived in Stetson hats, silver bolos, and sharp-toed boots. “What do they call that, Full Fargo?” As Ray and Claudia made their heavily cheered and confetti’d departure, Walter turned to Greenie and said, “I’m sorry, but with her decked out in that tasseled frock, they just beg comparison to Roy and Dale—thank heaven they’re sexier. She has the right little smidgen of butch, and he has this complementary dash of Robert Mitchum.”
Among the comings and goings at the back gate, two of the cowhands from Ray’s ranch lean against the hood of their pickup, smoking. When McNally spots them, he yells, “Make yourselves useful!” He holds out a hose and directs them to rinse off the grill.