A Dual Inheritance (57 page)

On the morning of the wedding brunch, Ed rented a car. He drove out from the darkness of the underground garage and into a dawn where the air was exactly crisp enough to announce the presence of fall. He made his way through the Bronx, onto I-95, and—indulging in a habit that
began while visiting Rebecca at boarding school—he stopped at Dunkin’ Donuts for a half-dozen chocolate Munchkins and sweet dark tea, which he’d work through on the highway.

You look sharp
, he imagined Helen saying.

Is that right?
Ed would laugh—disingenuously, as he’d taken unusual care with his appearance this morning, doing serious battle with the nose-hair clipper and even (he would never admit this) blow-drying his hair.

He knew he should be wondering what she looked like, but he wasn’t. He was convinced he already knew: that she’d never cut her hair shorter than her chin, that she would always have the same essential shape with the same worried expression, which would always be softened by her coloring and by some ineffable youthfulness. Even if she went gray (which he doubted she’d allow, no matter how far into the bush they’d lived), he imagined the gray hair would be the soft kind. She had always been a study in softness despite a pronounced angularity, and he couldn’t imagine that these essentials didn’t remain.

Driving usually calmed him down like nothing else could, and yet, on imagining Helen and after the last of the chocolate Munchkins, he was hit with a jolt of not just sugar but also of serious nerves; in fact, he became almost foggy with the notion of seeing her. He gripped the wheel tighter, only to think about seeing Hugh. They were going to judge him. They both were. He’d spent a goddamn year in prison.

When he’d met Hugh and Helen, he was a rough kid who wanted to be a gentleman. And he’d done it; he’d become that gentleman, only to reverse all his accomplishments by landing himself in the can, by pissing all that polish away. Or at least he was certain that was how they’d see him. Who could look at him without imagining a prison cell? He shouldn’t even be showing his face today. He should not be running the risk of embarrassing Rebecca with the potential whisperings about him. But he also knew he couldn’t stay away. He switched on sports radio; the Red Sox had beaten the Yankees last night. He could count on baseball. Not to lift his anxiety—or at least not exactly—but to provide the
sound—that constant hum—of every fall, spring, and summer of his life. Baseball on the radio; he was grateful for this, the ultimate white noise.

Nostalgia was besides the point. Yes, the ferryboat looked basically the same as it did in the early summer of 1963, and, yes, his heart fucking swelled when he stood on the deck, not even taking the time to look around and see if there was anyone he might have recognized on this ferry, on their way to this party, too.

NOSTALGIA—WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR?
He remembered this headline and the article: how, according to several studies, people who considered themselves very nostalgic also had corresponding high levels of self-regard and sociability. So, okay, fine, he thought. Fine. Okay. And maybe that’s why he’d decided to come today? Nostalgia as a naturally occurring antidepressant? Because Ed had to concede that, among the many things he was right then, depressed was definitely not one of them. Nervous? Check. Ashamed? You bet. Agitated? Horny? Absofuckinglutely.

He’d read a big fat book on meditation when his personal fortune was first in the toilet, and even though he had never meditated, he found the explanations of the brain terrifically, even entertainingly, comforting.
There goes my amygdala
, he forced himself to think now, as the smell of potato chips and expensive perfume and saltwater came over him in brutal, ungentle waves.
There go my almond-shaped clusters of nuclei, deep within those medial temporal lobes. There you go again—you limbic system, you—throwing yourself into it, rearranging my memories
.

He’d half-expected Kitty Ordway James (or whatever her name was now) to be waiting for him in the parking lot in a yellow Mercedes, but there was neither Kitty, nor Rebecca, nor anyone he recognized. After sitting in the car for a good ten minutes and flipping the mirror down, up, then down again, in order to stare at his fairly jowly—though September-tan and astoundingly not bald—sixty-nine-year-old self, he turned the key in the ignition and began to follow Vivi’s directions.

The rolling hills were not as green as in his June memories (some of the trees had even started to lose their early fall leaves), but the hills still made him feel twenty-two years old, and, oh, how he wanted to speed, to clear these hills like someone he’d never been, not even at twenty-two—especially not then—because his experience of youth went against the accepted truism. He had never felt invincible. Not even close. He’d felt completely out of control: a ball of nerves coiled tightly, rolling down the steepest hill. It was unfathomable how he’d spent a weekend here in this lush and heady setting and had still managed to conceal—even to himself!—the extent of his feelings for Helen.

Because, in retrospect, he’d been totally focused on her.

He remembered that her sister had been a knockout and that she’d overtly flirted with him one night at dinner. And while he certainly remembered feeling excited by the attention, what he recalled most vividly was Helen’s expression as it was happening. He remembered Helen’s face—that finely etched study in agitation—and this notion:
She’s jealous
. And though he’d dismissed this budding thought before it could properly flower, Helen’s agitation had been so much more exciting to him than the many glimpses of her sister’s stupendous cleavage.

He had been focused on Helen—her gestures and her hips and her family and every one of her nuanced reactions to each and every moment.

Or at least that was his memory. It wasn’t easy now, after so many years, to remember how he’d loved Hugh, too.

Ed had seen a shrink for a while after his divorce, and though this shrink had been irritatingly vague—never answering when Ed asked what he thought about Jill’s behavior, never answering any remotely personal questions, such as if the shrink himself was Jewish—he had come right out and asked if Ed harbored any sexual feelings for Hugh. After all the pussyfooting around this shrink had done about his
anger
, this insane question had arrived as a strange sort of relief. Because he could feel properly indignant. Because he could say with great certainty:
No
. Because he’d never wanted to go to bed with Hugh Shipley. If only all desires could be reduced to a simple roll in the hay.

But it wasn’t as if desire of a different kind hadn’t played a part. Desire always did. And he’d desired the proximity to Hugh: the always slightly faraway gaze, the reassuring physical presence—reassuring not only because Hugh was squarely from the then-mysterious world of privilege but because, man, was he ever tall and handsome. To this day, Ed was certain that all those years ago they had each taken a deep and, yes, partially explicable solace from each other. But while Hugh—a Shipley from Boston—conferred upon Ed—a Cantowitz from Dorchester—a certain kind of confidence, and while Ed had presumably been something of a curiosity for Hugh, a budding anthropologist (plus the fact that he’d credited Ed for getting him out of bed for nearly a month), these were only the most obvious aspects of their friendship. For as far back as they could remember, they’d both felt like outsiders. That they’d shared this feeling—that they shared anything—was surprising to both of them. Surprising and tremendously comforting.

Chapter Twenty

The Wedding, 2010

If there was an ideal time to see your recently single ex-boyfriend, the night before you leave for your best friend’s wedding was probably not it.

Especially if your father was going to be at the wedding celebration.

And especially if the
bride’s
father had—until several years prior—been the (secret) object of your ongoing obsession.

Also not an ideal time to see the recently single ex-boyfriend? After 9:30 on a Thursday night.

Even if—as determined by the flurry of brief and logistical messages left for each other during the course of that Monday—this was the only time that either of you could meet until the end of the following week? Even if, after a year of no dating and then several years of what one might conservatively call
a healthy dating streak
, you were fairly certain that this recently single ex-boyfriend was, in fact, still the only man to whom you could imagine coming home?

Especially if.

Let’s repeat
, she told herself.
Not ideal. Really not
.

And then she picked up the phone to call him back, to set the time and place.

By Friday morning she was on the train to New London, alternating between dozing and running her hand over her raw, stubble-scratched cheeks. She looked out the smudged train window and reassured herself that, no, neither of them had had more than that single glass of wine and that they hadn’t done anything more than talk over a wobbly table and make out on a street corner. There had been nothing promised, nothing at all. And yet she felt stubbornly certain that this was not just some kind of scratching a familiar itch. That she’d meant it when she told him she had some real regrets. That
he’d
meant it when he said, if hesitantly,
So do I
. And if she was unclear, exactly, to what extent he had meant this, it didn’t really matter when he’d followed it up with a flinty look and
It’s so good to see you
. They’d walked and walked. Neither of them mentioned their breakup or his subsequent failed relationship. The only conversational evidence of the past six years was the frequent mention of his son, Declan, of whom he had joint custody. He walked her over the Brooklyn Bridge, all the way to her apartment.
Have fun at the wedding
, he said. Then he put his arms around her and—sort of awkwardly, sort of beautifully—lifted her off the pavement.

But she came back to the facts that they hadn’t made any concrete plans for the following week and that, just because they had drunk some wine and shared some kisses, this did not preclude him from doing this with many other women all over New York City and beyond. These were facts. She made herself mouth these facts, repeat them as if she were once again studying for the bar. More facts: He was attractive and successful. He could bed and date and marry any number of not only gorgeous women in their twenties but also intelligent and successful and kind and gorgeous women in their twenties. Why would he return to her? Did they not make each other miserable? Was she not—if nothing else—smart enough to understand the chances?

But she was unable to refrain from sudden bouts of smiling and was too stubbornly happy about the previous night to be properly distressed about what she knew was the likely outcome.

She also made herself a promise:

She would not call Gabriel until she calmed way down.

Then she made herself another:

The Shipleys will not throw me
.

She’d resolved whatever she’d needed to resolve with Hugh several years before. This was Vivi’s wedding and she would be there. She was on her goddamn horse and she wasn’t getting thrown.

By Friday afternoon she was on the ferry from New London to Fishers Island with Vivi and Brian and the children, juggling bags and snacks and running after Gisella—their youngest—who was at an age when all she wanted to do was nurse greedily or flee from everything and everyone familiar. Rebecca had not babysat as a teenager—even now she had a surprisingly small number of friends who had kids—but she’d spent a great deal of time with Vivi’s, and it was Gisella’s age—between one and two, when time was still doled out in months—with which she identified most completely. Gisella was so exhausting, but Rebecca understood her. She understood her interest in seeing exactly how far she could push any vaguely authoritative figure before they told her
no
. Which was funny—she reflected now, as the sea air made her sneeze—because every description of her own childhood revolved around how mature and self-possessed she was. She couldn’t help but think that either this was utter nonsense and her parents had been kidding themselves or maybe she
should
have been more out of control way back when.

She picked up Gisella and brought her back to her parents. “We’re sitting down,” she told her. Miraculously, though not without a bit of drooling laughter, Gisella complied.

“So let me get this straight,” Vivi said to Rebecca, picking up the thread of a conversation that had started about an hour before. “You and Gabriel. Last night. You didn’t do it?”

Rebecca glanced at four-year-old Sabine, who was ostensibly napping in her mother’s lap, and five-year-old Lukas, who was focused on the possibility of whales.

“It’s fine,” Vivi assured her. “Just don’t use any specific words. You’d be amazed at how much you can say without saying anything at all.”