A Certain Age (19 page)

“Oh, Father—”

“But it seems I've made a mistake. You don't have a clue, Sophie, not a
clue
what waits out there for the unwary woman. You think you're so modern. You think I'm just a conservative old fool, sticking to the old ways. But I'm right. You'll see that I'm right.”

Sophie's beginning to shiver. It must be the cold. She folds her arms and meets her father's gaze: an act that requires all the bravery she can muster out of the contents of her pocket. The slip of paper etched with a promising number. “What does that mean?”

“No more going out with that Schuyler girl, for one thing. No more sneaking out—don't think I don't know about that—and no more question of hiring yourself out for money. We've got plenty of money; I've seen to that.”

“You can't keep me trapped in here!”

“Can't I? I can, Sophie, but I won't. You're a good girl. I know you won't disobey me. Will you, Sophie?”

His voice, as he says this, is so dreadful it might as well be a threat. Sophie knows that voice well; it's been her companion all her life. Since her earliest memory, her father's voice has tugged on her conscience, dragged on her shame and her desire to please him. To elicit some small smile or word of praise. The choice is always clear: she can be a good girl, or she can disobey him. And she has always chosen the former, hasn't she? She's always been a good girl.

Sophie wavers, physically
wavers
, there on her feet in the chilly hall. Her father's face swims before her eyes, and she sees, for a brief instant, the view
from a turret window toward the sea, except that it's summer instead of winter, and there is a clean white sailboat beating hard for the lighthouse, against the wind, tack on tack, and she cannot tear her gaze away.

Then it's gone.

Sophie turns to the hall stand and lifts her coat from its peg.

“No,” she says, and she walks right out the door, without her hat.

Every man wants a woman to appeal to his better side, his nobler instincts, and his higher nature—and another woman to help him forget them.

—HELEN ROWLAND

THERESA

About the same time

B
ILLY'S WAITING
for me at the apartment. My youngest. I'm afraid I spoiled him, once upon a time, but then you're apt to do that with your baby. You want to hold onto his precious youth with both hands, because it's your youth too, isn't it? If
he's
still a baby, you can't be all that old yourself.

He's not a baby now, however. He jumps from one of the armchairs in the drawing room, and his polished blond head nearly scrapes against the ceiling. He snatches a cigarette from his mouth and says, “Ma! There you are!”

I accept his kiss and ask him what kind of nerve he's got, smoking his filthy cigarettes in my drawing room. He puts out the gasper. I tell him that's better, and then I ask why he's here at all. Isn't Princeton keeping track of its freshmen anymore?

(And don't call me
Ma,
for God's sake. This is Manhattan Island, not the middle of the Oklahoma Territory.)

“Mama, Oklahoma's been a state for a while now,” he protests, and then, agreeably childlike, he seems to remember why he's here in the first place.
“Look, what's going on? I got a hysterical telegram from Ollie this morning, something about the two of you getting a divorce.”

I remove my gloves and hat and toss them on the nearest table. “I am most certainly
not
divorcing your brother. Would you mind pouring me a drink, darling?”

He skids to the cabinet. “You know what I mean!”

“If you're speaking about your father and me, then yes. It's true. I suppose Papa must have written to Ollie already—”

Billy whirls around, empty glass in hand. His face is tragic. “Mama!”

“Would you mind with that drink, darling? Parched.”

“You can't let him do it.” Rattle of glassware, clink of bottle stopper. “You just can't!”

“How do you know it wasn't
me
who asked your father for a divorce?”

“Because you'd never do that. You've always stuck together, even when . . .” His hands pause in their work.

“Even when he had other women?”

“You weren't supposed to know about that.”

“Darling,” I say gently, “the drink.”

He brings me my sherry, and a sleek martini for himself. He sits next to me on the sofa, looking adorably helpless. His lower lip is pink and trembling as it accepts the absurd rim of the glass.

“Now listen,” I say. “It's not so bad. Lots of people get divorces these days. Look at the Astors, my goodness.”

Billy nods miserably.

“Papa and I will always remain the best of friends, and—well.” I'm trying to think of some other hopeful aspect of the situation, and I find I can't.
I'm sure you'll adore your new stepmother
hardly seems tactful, at the moment. And I can't possibly mention the Boy, not yet. The Boy's only five years older than Billy. The Boy's younger than Billy's brothers, both of them. (Though, to be fair, Ollie's only got him beat by a few months. Another fact I'd do well not to point out, at a tender moment like this.)

“Is Dad going to marry his mistress?” asks Billy.

The sherry sputters. “You're not supposed to know about that.”

“I'm not a kid, Ma. For Chrissakes.”

“William Marshall. I don't care what sort of language they allow you at college these days, but in this house, we speak like civilized human beings.”

He picks himself up abruptly from the sofa. Billy's always moved around like that, in sudden, sharp movements like the chop of an axe. I don't know where he gets it from. There's nothing sharp about Sylvo, unless you count the pressed edges of his clothing, and his valet's responsible for those.

Billy jolts to a stop before the enormous gilt-framed Church landscape that hangs on the wall opposite the fireplace. Some Adirondack view or another. “It's sort of rich, in a way. You two getting a divorce, at the same time that Uncle Ox decides to get married.”

“A reversal of the natural order, you mean?”

“Something like that. I guess you could call it irony.”

“Modern life is packed with irony, I'm told.”

He lifts his hand and fingers the bumps and swirls on the gilded frame. “Nothing's the same. Not since Tommy died.”

“No.”

“Things used to be happy around here. We used to have people over. You and Dad and all those dinner parties. Remember those parties you used to throw?”

“Such fun.”

“Everybody used to come. Isn't this a grand place for a party? All these rooms, all this space. All this pretty art. Now it's all going to waste. Everything's going to waste, the whole world.” Billy whirls and points a pair of accusing eyebrows in my direction. “You're letting it rot, because you can't get over Tommy being gone.”

“That's not true.”

“When was the last time you threw a party around here?”

“We've had people over, all the time.”

“But a
party,
Ma.”

I set down the empty glass and unfold from the sofa, as I used to do,
except it doesn't offer quite the same effect, now that he's so much taller than I am. “That's got nothing to do with your brother.”

Billy meets my eye for a second or two, and then he hangs his head down toward his drink. Swish, swish. “I'm sorry, Ma. I didn't mean it that way. I just miss the old days, that's all. Just wish we could go back to how things were, before the rotten war came along and ruined everything. Go back to when we were happy.”

“Darling, parties don't make people happy.”

“Well, they're a start, aren't they? At least a party gives you the chance to pretend you're happy.”

He swallows down the last of his martini in the flick of an elbow, and I observe him minutely as he strides back to the cabinet and pours himself another. He's very good at it. Coats the ice with vermouth, strains it back out, adds the gin. Probably had lots of practice, and yet he's only just nineteen. About the same age as Ox's girl. Wasn't Prohibition supposed to put a stop to all this expert drinking? I distinctly remember one of those dour firebrands promising something like that: a return to a godly, sober family life, everyone gathered by the matrimonial fireside, sipping their . . . well, whatever it was you sipped, when you couldn't have a real drink. Milk? Lemonade?

Now look at us, a couple of years later. We're a nation of incipient alcoholics, even the youth. Even especially the youth. I suppose that's irony, too.

“Maybe you're right, darling,” I say.

“About what?”

“Maybe this apartment could stand a good party.”

THE TELEPHONE JINGLES JUST AS
I'm headed for the door, valise in hand. I attempt to sneak out anyway, but the housekeeper pounds after me. It's your brother, Mrs. Marshall! He says it's important!

“She wants to break off the engagement, Sis,” Ox tells me, tone of disbelief.

I close my eyes. Refuse to panic.

“Oh, Ox. What did you say to her?”

“Nothing! I did exactly as you said. I brought flowers and chocolate. I talked about a honeymoon in South America, sunshine, the works. I asked her to set a date. And do you know what she did? She practically threw me out the door.”

“Maybe she doesn't like South America.”

“I can't believe you're joking at a time like this.”

“Ox, there's nothing to worry about. She's just young, that's all. Maybe she's had a chat with her mother about the duties of marriage, and it's given her a case of nerves.”

“Her mother's dead, Sisser.”

“An aunt, then. I wouldn't worry about it.”

A whooshy sigh at the other end. “You're certain?”

“Absolutely. It's a terribly nerve-wracking idea, for a sheltered girl like that.”

“You don't think she's frigid, do you?”

“Frigid? What on earth does that mean?”

“I mean maybe she doesn't like sex.”

“Ox, my goodness, she's a virgin of nineteen years. How does
she
know if she likes sex or not? For heaven's sake. That's
your
job.
Make
her like it. You've got a couple of decades worth of know-how, I should think. Use them to your advantage.” I tap one fingernail against the base of the telephone. It's the ancient Western Electric candlestick we keep in the hallway; not nearly so nice as the Grabaphone in Sylvo's study, and certainly not as private. There is a niche in the wall, specially designed for telephone use, but you've got to stand against the wall and make it snappy, because there's nowhere to sit. My diamond bracelet slides down my wrist to clink against the nickel plating, and I add (inspired): “A bit of jewelry wouldn't hurt, either. Jewelry works wonders on the female nerves.”

“I can't afford jewelry.”

“Ask Mother for some of hers. She never wears it, anyway. Tell her it's for the party I'm going to throw you.”

“What party?”

“Didn't I promise you two angels an engagement party? It's going to be the show of the season. One week from today. No! Two weeks. Everyone's going to be there, and I'd just like to see your little bird slip her traces after that. Now I really must be off, darling. Keep your chin up. Loss of confidence is fatal in these matters. Take her out on the town, show her a ripping time or two. Jazz conquers virtue, I've heard.”

There's another despondent sigh. “I don't know, Sis. I was thinking maybe I should give her some room to breathe. Think it over, realize she can't do without me.”

“No!” The word bursts straight into the mouthpiece, causing a static fizz to fill the wires, causing operators up and down Manhattan Island to jump right out of their seats. “Absolutely not, Ox. Don't even think of it. You've got to keep her right under your wing, do you hear me? Don't let her spend a single evening alone.”

“Sis, she'll be sick of me!”

“Now, what kind of talk is that? You're getting married. You'll have plenty of time to ignore each other after the ceremony, trust me.”

“But—”

“I'm not going to hear another word of this, Ox. Now's not the time to give up. You just march right back there and take the girl in your arms and kiss her senseless.”

“But I—”

“Good-bye, Ox.”

I drop the earpiece in the cradle and press my back against the wall. But just for a second or two. I wasn't raised to slouch.

THE FIRST TIME I VISITED
the Boy in his brand-new Village apartment, I was horrified. He picked it out himself, of course; he wouldn't hear of me tramping around the Village on his behalf, and the result, I suppose, was exactly what you'd expect.

I didn't say anything. As far as the Boy knew, I was charmed by the bohemian furniture and the fin de siècle draperies, the what-once-was burgundy velvet and the more-hole-than Oriental rugs. Anyway, the furnishings weren't the object of the exercise, were they? And who needs plates when you're too busy to eat.

But I took note, nonetheless—a comprehensive mental inventory, you might say—and over the course of the next year and a half I've smuggled in various household comforts, one by one, like a modern-day Ram Dass, pretending not to do a thing while the Boy pretends not to notice. Satisfactory on all sides, wouldn't you think?

Why, even now, packed inside my valise, I've got a stack of fresh linens and some fine French soap, which I intend to distribute discreetly before the Boy arrives home from work, so we can maintain our pleasant little pantomime. But the Boy, it seems, has beaten me to it. The door is already unlocked, and when I push it open and peek around the corner, he's standing in his shirtsleeves by the window, looking over the jagged Himalayan range of rooftops as if contemplating a possible crossing.

I set down the valise next to my shoes. “Hello there, Boyo. You're home early.”

“As ordered.” He turns away and leans over the lamp table to stub out a cigarette. “How are you, Theresa?”

I remove my hat and gloves and toss them on a credenza that used to decorate the back hallway at Windermere. “Billy's heard the news. He stopped by to console me.”

“So it's decided, then?”

“Of course it's decided. Sylvo isn't the kind of man who second-guesses himself.” I unbutton my coat and slide it down my arms, and it's uncharacteristic of the Boy that he doesn't cross the room to assist me in this maneuver. There's a hat stand near the door, and I place the coat on one of the hooks and turn to my lover, straightening my dress, patting my cheeks, like a nervous young bride.

The Boy, naturally, hasn't moved a muscle. One hand sits on his hips,
knuckles first, and the other, I now perceive, holds a drink of some kind. Nearly finished. The light is already dying behind him, and a terrible shadow crosses his face, as if he's transformed into stone. Maybe he has. Maybe it's just a granite Boy who confronts me now, a carved statue without blood or bone or beating heart. Maybe I'm too late for him.

I nod to the glass. “I don't suppose you've got another one of those?”

“Of course.” He speaks! He moves! He makes his way to the kitchen, leaving me to contemplate the vast difference between his style of movement and Billy's, and how strange it was that two young men born less than five years apart could evolve along such divergent paths. The apartment is chilly, and I realize that the Boy hasn't lit a fire. The radiator bangs fruitlessly near the window. I cross my arms and tell myself it's because of the cold.

Such is the miniature nature of the kitchen, I catch glimpses of the Boy as he goes about his work, moving precisely between icebox and cabinet. When he returns, I extract one hand to accept the drink, and I clink it against the Boy's own glass, which is newly filled. “To fresh beginnings,” I say, and to everyone's shock, my own most of all, a pair of tears springs in tandem from my eyes.