A Hundred Summers (19 page)

“I don’t suppose I needed to ask. And Graham went with you?” He nodded at the backseat.

“Graham arrived later. He was punched by a Red Sox fan.”

Without warning, Nick laughed. “You don’t say. Just punched him?”

I swung my fist. “Just punched him. He dropped like a stone.”

“Had a few drinks by then, I suppose.”

“A few.”

“And Budgie? She’s had a few?”

I looked back at Budgie, snoring comfortably into Graham’s shoulder, her dark hair mussed her cheek. A light flashed by, illuminating her. Her lipstick smeared about her lips, its bloodred glory long faded to a guilty pink. I had found her, after much searching, in the washroom, flushed and smiling and disheveled. “I do believe I’m a little drunk, Lily,” she’d said, falling into my arms with a dreamy smile. “Imagine that.”

“She had a few. We both did. Martinis and cigarettes, very shameful.”

“My wife is leading you down the path of debauchery, it seems.” He made a tiny inflection on the word
wife
.

“I haven’t had such fun in ages,” I said.

“Haven’t you?”

“Not in six and a half years. Not once.”

A sign shone ahead against the headlamps, at the turnoff to Seaview. Nick braked carefully, mindful of the bodies piled in the seat behind us.

“It was different for you, of course,” I went on. “Or so I heard. Paris, women, money, isn’t that right? Speaking of debauchery, I mean.”

He didn’t say anything. The crossing was clear of any other cars, and Nick released the clutch, shifting gears with one enormous hand, steering with the other. There were no streetlights on Seaview Neck, and the moon and stars hung invisible behind the clouds. I couldn’t see much more than the outline of Nick’s face, the shadows of his arms and legs as they directed the car through the darkness.

We pulled up before the Greenwalds’ house. “Pendleton can sleep it off here,” said Nick. “I don’t want to wake the Palmers.”

“All right.”

Nick got out of the car and pried Budgie away from Graham. She made a sound of protest, and then settled against her husband. “You take her,” said Nick. “I’ll give Pendleton a hand. Here we go, brother. Up and at ’em.”

I slung Budgie’s arm over my shoulder.

“Oh, Lily, darling. There you are,” she said, right next to my face, and the gin fumes nearly brought me to my knees. How many more bathwater-warm martinis had she drunk, while I was outside with Graham?

We stumbled together up the steps. Nick had taken the precaution of turning off the porch light before he left. I found the knob, swung the door open, and hauled Budgie through. Nick and Graham were right behind us, thumping and groaning onto the porch.

“Right up the stairs,” said Nick. “Second door on the left.”

“Come on, Budgie,” I said. “I can’t carry you up by myself.”

“What a shame.” She sank down onto the first step, put her head between her knees, and vomited.

“Christ,” muttered Nick. “Hold on. I’ll get Pendleton upstairs and come back down for her.”

He dragged Graham up the staircase. I went into the kitchen and found a cloth. I soaked it with water from the faucet and went back and cleaned up Budgie as best I could, then mopped up the vomit from the wooden floorboards. The last vestige effects of my own pair of martinis had left me now, and my mind was cold and clear and weary.

Nick came back down the stairs. “You didn’t need to do that.” He took the cloth and went to the kitchen. I heard the clatter of a pail, the hiss of a faucet.

I sank down next to Budgie and took her hands. “Wake up, honey,” I said.

She looked up with half-lidded eyes. “I’m a wreck, aren’t I? Poor old Nick. He should have . . . he should . . .” Her head rolled down again.

“Out cold, is she?” said Nick. He smelled strongly of soap.

I stood aside while he slung her into his arms and carried her up the stairs. For an instant I hesitated, watching Nick’s body climb to the bedrooms above, watching Budgie’s legs and head flop on either side of him, and then I followed. He may need help, I told myself, if she vomits again.

Their bedroom was in the back. I followed Nick into the room. There were two twin beds, neatly made, with crisp white bedspreads. I tried not to stare at them. Nick placed Budgie’s limp body atop one, the one near the window. “Her clothes are still wet,” he said. “Could you find a pair of pajamas? Top drawer, on the left.”

I went to the chest of drawers next to the wall. A mirror sat atop it, surrounded by cosmetics with lids removed, by crumpled tissue and cotton wool and perfume bottles and priceless jewelry. My face reflected back, lit faintly from the light in the hallway, wide-eyed and drawn, lipstick faded, hair springing in impossible curls. I opened the top drawer and found a small stack of silk pajamas, perfectly folded.

Nick was unwrapping Budgie’s dress, sliding it off over her head. She wasn’t wearing a brassiere, only a girdle and stockings. Her small breasts stretched nearly flat across her chest, the nipples soft and brown. Nick unfastened the stockings, unhooked the girdle. He took the pajama top and slipped it over her head, pushed her arms through the holes. I handed him the bottoms, and he put those on, too, lifting each leg, tying the drawstring at the top. They were curiously conservative pajamas, I thought, not at all how I imagined Budgie’s nightwear. I hadn’t really imagined it at all, in fact; I had always pictured her sleeping naked, her limbs entwined with Nick’s, ivory and gold.

Nick pulled back the covers and swung Budgie’s body underneath them. She moaned and turned her head into the pillow, hair spreading dark against the spotless white.

“Will she be all right?” I asked.

“She’ll be fine. She’ll feel like hell in the morning, of course, poor thing.” Nick gave the covers a final tuck and turned toward me. “Thank you.”

“I’ll be off, then.” I turned to the door.

The floorboards creaked behind me. “I’ll drive you.”

“No need. It’s just a short walk.”

“It’s pitch black outside.”

“I know the way.”

Nick followed me down the stairs anyway, held open the door, walked down the steps to the lane.

“Nick, it’s all right,” I said, turning to face him.

He said, “Just walk with me, please? You don’t need to say anything.”

We walked down Neck Lane, past the porch lights, the Atlantic roaring softly at our left. The rain seemed to have passed; a shadow of a cloud scudded past, made ghostlike by a nearby moon. I inhaled the sea, dark and briny, the smell of summer.

“You were right about Paris,” said Nick. “I drank and spent money. I chased women, I slept with women. As many as I could, at first.”

“How lovely for you. I hope you enjoyed them.”

“I was trying to forget you. Each time, I tried to forget, and each time you were right there, staring at me, watching me as I sinned, laughing at me.”

“How lovely for me.”

He didn’t answer.

I said: “And Budgie? I suppose you married Budgie to forget me?”

“I did, in fact. To forget you, and to punish you, too, I suppose.”

“Punish me for what?”

“For forgetting me.”

Our feet crunched along the gravel. “I never forgot you,” I whispered. “Not for a day, not for an hour. How could I? You were Nick. There was nobody else in the world.”

“I made a mess of things. I know that now. I was young and stupid, I wasn’t thinking clearly, I assumed that you . . .” He caught himself. “That’s why I came back, to tell you, to
explain
at least, even if it’s too late to . . .”

I stopped and turned to him. We stood in the gap between the last house and mine, outside the circle of porch lights, the air black between us. I could feel Nick’s breath on my face. “And what was the point of that, exactly? It
is
too late. You’re already married. What good does it do? Do you know how it tortures me, seeing you together? Do you? Is this all part of my punishment? Are you trying to drive the knife further, twist it harder?”

“Don’t say that. Listen, Lily, there’s something else, something you must know . . .”

“I kissed Graham tonight,” I said. “We went outside, behind the building, and I kissed him, and I let him undress me, all the way to the waist, right there in the open. I let him touch me. I sat on his lap.”

Nick breathed silently into the air. “Anything else?”

“No. He stopped us. He told me he wants to court me instead.”

A pause. “Did you say yes?”

“Why shouldn’t I say yes? Maybe I want to get married, too. Maybe I want to be kissed and held and made love to, and have a family of my own, with a husband beside me. Maybe I want someone to undress me and put on my pajamas and tuck me into bed, when I’ve had too much to drink.”

Nick turned and continued down the lane. From his outline against the darkness, I could see that he had shoved his hands in his pockets, that his head was bent toward the path.

I caught up with him.

“I deserved that, of course,” he said.

“That and more.”

He stopped at the path leading up to the porch. “Do you want to marry Graham?”

“I don’t know. I suppose I’ll find out.”

Nick stood there, looking at me. Our porch light was on, and in the outer glow his face looked hard and distant. He muttered something under his breath.

“What did you say?” I asked.

“I said, if he hurts you, I’ll kill him.”

A wave, unexpectedly large, exploded onto the rocky outcropping at the end of my swimming cove. Over Nick’s shoulder, I could see the shape of the battery, right at the very end, squat and silver-tipped in the moonlight.

“That’s rich,” I said, “coming from you.”

“Lilybird . . .” Nick said softly.

I interrupted him. “Well, good night, then.”

“Wait.” He put his hand on my arm.

I drew it away and folded my hands behind my back. “What is it?”

“Thank you for allowing me to know Kiki. She’s a wonderful girl, a treasure.”

My heart beat in the darkness. A foot or two away, I thought, Nick’s heart beats, too, Nick’s chest moves, Nick’s arms and legs and head punch the air with throbbing life, with his inimitable substance. After six and a half years, Nick Greenwald stands before me in the warm Atlantic night.

I thought of Graham’s whiskey mouth on mine, Graham’s whiskey hands on my naked skin. Graham, his eyes bleary and a little lost against the peeling blue paint of the roadhouse wall.

“You’re very good with her,” I said. “Budgie was right; you’ll be a wonderful father one day.”

I turned and walked up the path to the house and found the doorknob with my hand. At the last moment, I looked back. Nick was still standing there, as the clouds broke apart behind his back, bathing the ocean in moonlight.

“I am sorry for the way they’re treating you,” I said. “It’s horrible. I told Mrs. Hubert so.”

“I expected nothing less. Good night, Lily.”

“Good night.”

Nick didn’t move. I went into the house and crept upstairs, without turning on the hall light. Kiki’s room was at the back, next to mine, the door cracked open. I slipped in, opened the window a bit more to dispel the stuffiness, checked her shape and her breath on the pillow. Her dark hair was soft under my hand, her cheek tender. I kissed her forehead and went into my room and changed into my nightgown. Marelda had freshened the pitcher next to my bed. I drank a glass of water, went to the bathroom and brushed my stale gin-and-cigarette teeth.

Before I went to bed, I looked out the window onto the lane. Nick was gone, but I thought I saw his shape making its way back up the Neck, hands in his pockets, head still bowed.

11.

725 PARK AVENUE, NEW YORK CITY

New Year’s Eve 1931

T
he clock ticks toward ten o’clock in scratches of agonizing length. I peek over the top of my book at Daddy, who sits by the radio, concealed by the wide curving sides of the wing chair and by the vertical sheets of his newspaper.

The radio is turned low, a soothing undertone of bank failures and tariff increases and mob killings. Daddy’s newspaper flutters as he turns the page.

I glance at the clock again. Nine-thirty-nine.

I lay my book in my lap, thumb along the spine, and yawn gigantically. “Are you staying up until midnight, Daddy?”

He yawns in response. “What’s that, poppet?”

“Staying up until midnight?”

“Midnight? No. No, I don’t think so. What about you?”

“Oh, no.” Nine-forty. “No, I’m awfully tired. Awfully.”

“No plans for the evening?” He turns another page. “I thought you and Budgie might have some party or another.”

“No, no.” I laugh. “Budgie’s crowd is too fast for me. I can’t keep up.”

Daddy puts down his newspaper. His reading glasses have slid nearly all the way down his nose, and now hang precariously from the tip. “What a shame. You should go out, poppet. Enjoy yourself.”

“You know me, Daddy.” I take the edges of my dressing gown and pull them together more tightly beneath the book.

“I remember when I was about your age, the van der Wahls put on a wild old New Year’s Eve party at their apartment. Fifth Avenue and Sixty-fourth Street. A real humdinger, as we used to say.” He laughs. “I met your mother there. We’d planned it all out, you know. That was the first time I kissed her, behind the topiary in old Mrs. van der Wahl’s ballroom.”

“Daddy! You sly fox, you.”

He brushes back the hair at his temple. “Oh, your mother was a real flirt in those days. Full of dash. But we only had eyes for each other, from the moment we met.”

Mother, a flirt?

“Oh, Daddy,” I say softly.

“We were married six months later, and then we had you.” He smiles at me. “Now look at you, all grown up. Sitting here with your old father, instead of going out. Is your mother back yet?”

“Not yet.”

Daddy looks at the clock—nine-forty-two—and shakes his head. “That committee of hers. Imagine, needing her on New Year’s Eve.”