American Wife (4 page)

“We hope that’s what you are!” At this, my grandmother turned and kissed Dr. Wycomb on the cheek. I knew that kiss, the lightness of her lips, the scent of Shalimar that floated ahead of her as she approached. When she’d settled against the seat again, my grandmother said, “Don’t we?” and patted my hand. Unsure what to say, I laughed.

Dr. Wycomb leaned forward and said, “When your father was a boy, he’d remove all his clothes before making a bowel movement.”

“Oh, Gladys, she doesn’t want to hear about this.”

“But it’s instructive. It captures a certain . . . rigidity, I suppose, that Phillip has always shown. He’d remove his clothes, and when he was seated on the john, he’d shut his eyes tightly and press his hands over his ears. That was the only way he could eliminate.”

My grandmother made a face and fanned the air in front of her, as if mere words had brought the stench of a bathroom into the car.

“Am I telling the truth, Emilie?” Dr. Wycomb asked.

“The truth,” my grandmother said, “is overrated.”

“Your grandmother was my landlady,” Dr. Wycomb said to me. “Has she ever mentioned that?”

“It was scarcely as formal as you make it sound,” my grandmother said.

“In medical school, I was poor as a church mouse,” Dr. Wycomb said. “I lived in a terrible attic belonging to a terrible family—”

“The Lichorobiecs,” my grandmother interrupted. “Doesn’t that
sound
like the name of a terrible family? Mrs. Lichorobiec felt she’d been wronged by mankind.”

“She refused to let me keep food in the attic because she said it would attract animals,” Dr. Wycomb said. “She wouldn’t let me keep food in the pantry, either, because she said there wasn’t space. This was nonsense, but what could I do? Luckily, your grandmother, who lived next door, took pity and invited me to have my meals at their house.”

“I thought you’d starve otherwise,” my grandmother said. “I’ve always been slender, but Gladys was positively skeletal. Just a bag of bones, and big dark circles under her eyes.”

“A bag of bones,” Dr. Wycomb repeated, and chortled. She leaned forward again, and when our eyes met, she said, “Can you imagine?” In fact, I’d been thinking the same thing, but I smiled in what I hoped was a neutral and unrevealing way. “And then your poor grandfather died,” she continued. “What year was that, Emilie? Was that ’24?”

“It was ’25.”

“And your grandmother was ready to move, but I said, ‘Let’s think this through. If I’m champing at the bit to get away from the Lichorobiecs, and you’d just as soon stay in this house where you’re all settled . . . ’ And so I became your grandmother’s tenant, and we had some wonderful times.”

“When the Depression hit, you can bet I was thankful to have Gladys,” my grandmother said. “Being a widow, I certainly couldn’t have gotten by on my salary at Clausnitzer’s. Speaking of spending beyond your means”—she pulled the
Vogue
ad from her purse and unfolded it—“have you ever seen more gorgeous sable?”

Dr. Wycomb laughed. “Alice, your grandmother is the only person in this country who became
less
frugal following the Depression.”

“If it’s all about to vanish at any moment, why not have some fun? And tell me that’s not stunning. The gloss on it, it’s absolutely—Mmh.” My grandmother shook her head appreciatively.

“Are you a clothes horse as well, Alice?” Dr. Wycomb’s voice was laced with affection for my grandmother.

“Oh, she’s far less shallow than I am,” my grandmother said. “Straight A’s every semester—imagine my disappointment.” In fact, while my parents did not seem to have strong feelings about whether I attended college, my grandmother was the one who’d told me that doing so would give me a leg up.

“Is that right?” Dr. Wycomb said. “All A’s?”

“I got an A-minus in home ec,” I admitted. The reason why was that on the final project, for which Dena, Nancy Jenzer, and I were partners, we had prepared Hawaiian meatballs in class, and Dena dropped the bowl of Oriental sauce on the floor.

“Are you interested in the sciences?” Dr. Wycomb asked me, but before I could answer, we’d pulled over in front of a maroon awning that said
THE PELHAM
on it in white cursive.

“Gladys, you stay here and we’ll just be a moment,” my grandmother said. “Alice, come in with me.”

Although we left our suitcases in the car, it wasn’t until we were inside that I fully understood: We weren’t, as my grandmother had claimed to Dr. Wycomb, canceling our reservation. We were checking in, then walking back out and riding away in Dr. Wycomb’s car. My grandmother did not explain this to me, but when the woman behind the reception desk said, “A view of the lake would cost you just six dollars more a day,” my grandmother replied, “We’ll be fine in the room we have.” She also said we wouldn’t need a porter. I was not a person who openly challenged others, and besides, I considered myself an ally of my grandmother. That was why, after we’d retraced our steps through the Pelham’s dim lobby and climbed back in the car, I said nothing when she told Dr. Wycomb, “All taken care of, and they didn’t give us a bit of trouble.” I couldn’t understand the reason for our double deception—lying to my father about where we were staying, lying to Dr. Wycomb about canceling the reservation—but I knew that good manners meant accommodating the person you were with. My grandmother assumed my loyalty, and this, surely, is the reason she got it.

IN THE TRAIN
station, when Dr. Wycomb had suggested having a drink, I’d imagined she meant at a restaurant, but instead, we drove to her apartment on Lake Shore Drive, then rode an elevator to the seventh floor; an elevator operator wore a uniform not unlike the driver’s and nodded once, saying “Dr. Wycomb” just before pressing the button. With no additional exchange of words, we rose, and when the elevator stopped, we stepped into a hallway lined with gold fabric for wallpaper—not glittery gold but subtly shiny brocade with unshiny fleurs-de-lis appearing at tasteful intervals.

The elevator operator carried our bags inside the apartment. The room where I was to stay featured twin beds separated by a white marble table, and on the table sat a lamp with a large base of raspberry-colored ribbed glass; also, there was an actual suitcase stand on which the operator set my suitcase. At first I’d thought to decline when the man had offered to carry our bags, but when my grandmother had accepted, I had, too. Then I wondered if she ought to tip him, which she didn’t. Her room, connected to mine by a bathroom we’d share, had a canopy bed, the canopy itself silvery-blue silk shantung gathered in the center around a mirror the size of a Ritz cracker.

In the living room was a mix of modern and old-fashioned funiture: two low, geometric white couches, an antique-looking gold-leaf chair, a revolving walnut bookcase, and many prints and paintings, some of them abstract, hung close together on the walls. Dr. Wycomb asked a maid in a black dress and a white apron for a Manhattan. My grandmother held up her index and middle fingers: “And two old-fashioneds.”

Dr. Wycomb glanced at me through her cat’s-eye glasses. “Would you prefer a hot cocoa, Alice?”

“She’ll take an old-fashioned,” my grandmother said. To the maid, she said, “With brandy, not whiskey.”

“Oh, Myra knows.” Dr. Wycomb laughed. “Don’t forget, I’m from Wisconsin, too, Emilie.” When the maid left the room, Dr. Wycomb said, “Myra and I have quite a rivalry going. She’s a White Sox fan, while I root for the Cubs. Do you follow baseball, Alice?”

“Not really,” I admitted.

“We’ll convert you yet. Last season, I’m afraid Myra had more to gloat about, but with Ron Santo, the Cubs just might have a chance this year.”

When Myra returned with the drinks, my grandmother held up her glass and said, “Gladys, I’d like to propose a toast. To you, my dear, for being a world-class hostess and a true friend.”

Dr. Wycomb raised her own glass. “And I turn it back and say to both of you—to the Lindgren women, Emilie and Alice.”

The two of them looked at me expectantly. “To baseball,” I said. “To 1963.”

“Hear, hear.” Dr. Wycomb nodded emphatically.

“To a wonderful time together in Chicago,” my grandmother said.

The three of us clinked our glasses.

DR. WYCOMB, IT
turned out, had taken several days’ vacation to be our hostess. Our first order of business was for my grandmother to acquire her sable stole, which, as by then I had intuited would happen, Dr. Wycomb paid for with no discussion. Over the next several days, we bundled up and toured the city together, visiting the Art Institute, Shedd Aquarium (I was appalled and transfixed by a ten-foot alligator), and the Joffrey Ballet, where we took in an afternoon performance of
La Fille Mal Gardée
and where Dr. Wycomb, I observed, fell deeply asleep. At the Prudential building, my stomach dropped as we rode the elevator forty floors—when the building had opened in 1955, its elevators had been the world’s fastest—and on the forty-first-floor public observation deck, I thought how much my father would have enjoyed the view. Even though I wore a hat, scarf, and mittens, it was unbearably cold in the wind, and I stayed outside under a minute before retreating. My grandmother and Dr. Wycomb did not venture onto the observation deck at all. In the evenings, we ate heavy dinners prepared and served by Myra: braised veal chops with prunes, or lamb and turnips.

That Sunday, Dr. Wycomb went to the hospital to check on her patients, and after she’d left the apartment, my grandmother and I caught a cab to the Pelham. We climbed the steps to the third floor—the building was five stories, with no elevator—and found in our room a double bed and not much else. Breathing heavily from the stairs, my grandmother threw back the coverlet, mussed the sheets, filled a glass with water from the bathroom sink, and set the glass on the windowsill. Then she stood at the window, which looked onto the gray backside of another building. It was seven degrees that day and so overcast I was tempted to lie on the bed and take a nap. “I’m being a little silly, aren’t I?” my grandmother said.

I shrugged, still unable to bring myself to ask about our duplicitousness.

“It’s not as if your father will ring the management to see if our room looks inhabited,” my grandmother said. This was true—due to the expense, my father avoided making long-distance calls. The rare times when he did make them, he shouted uncharacteristically, as if raising the volume of his voice would enable a second cousin in Iowa to hear him better.

“Did Dr. Wycomb ever have a husband?” I asked.

“Gladys is a suffragette. She always says she couldn’t have been a doctor if she’d married and had children, and I’m sure she’s right. Shall we go warm up with some tea?”

A block away, we found a café, mostly empty, where we were seated at a small table. My grandmother scanned the menu. “Have you ever had an éclair?” When I shook my head, she said, “We’ll split one. They’re bad for your figure but quite delicious.”

“Is Dr. Wycomb friends with Negroes?”

“Who told you that?” My grandmother scrutinized me.

It seemed unfair to pinpoint my mother. “I just was wondering, since a lot of them live in Chicago,” I said. I had at that time only the slightest awareness of the protests and sit-ins occurring in other parts of the country; my main reminder of race came from Dena, who was not allowed by her father to listen to records by black musicians and therefore liked for me to play Chubby Checker or the Marvelettes when she came over.

“Dr. Wycomb supports desegregation, as do I, as should you,” my grandmother said. “That just means they can eat and live and go to school where we do. But if you’re talking about socializing, Gladys spends more time with Jews than Negroes. Jews often become doctors, you know.” My grandmother still was looking at me closely and apropros of nothing, it seemed, she said, “You don’t have a beau, do you?”

“No,” I said, but I could feel my face heating. A month before, just after Thanksgiving, Dena and I had spent a Saturday night sledding on Bony Ridge with two senior boys, Larry Nagel and Robert Beike. Robert was the one who’d invited Dena, and Dena had brought me. In the inside pocket of his down coat, Larry had tucked a flask of bourbon that we passed around. More than once I’d sipped my grandmother’s old-fashioneds—she’d sometimes give me the maraschino cherry—but this was the first time I’d tasted alcohol away from home. And though I felt a wave of guilt, I knew I couldn’t refuse the bourbon without seeming to the boys and Dena like what I was: a goody-goody. So I had drunk from the flask each of the four times it came to me, and though it didn’t taste good, it made me warm and relaxed. Prior to meeting up with Larry and Robert, I’d been jittery, but I began to feel calm and amused. At one point, at the bottom of the hill, Dena and I scurried to a grove of trees, pulled down our snow pants, and urinated into the snow, giggly and unself-conscious. “Write your name in yellow,” Larry called to us. At the end of the night, the boys walked us back to our houses, and from across the street, I could see Dena and Robert on her porch, kissing deeply. For several minutes, Larry stood a few feet away from me—at one point, under his breath, he said, “If they don’t watch out, their tongues will freeze”—but after Robert and Dena pulled apart and Robert called in a shouting whisper, “We’ve gotta go, Nagel,” Larry zoomed toward me without warning, his mouth on mine, his lips cold but his tongue warm. The entire kiss lasted about eight seconds and involved much head and neck movement, as if Larry were participating in a pie-eating contest, but instead of a pie, there was my face. Then he was off our stoop, headed up Amity Lane with Robert, and as soon as they were sufficiently far away, Dena and I met in the middle of the street, clutching each other, trying not to scream. “You two were
making out,
” she hissed. Until Larry had kissed me, I had not necessarily thought I wanted him to, but after he had, I was glad. In the four weeks since then, Robert and Dena had gone on actual dates, but Larry and I had only passed in the halls at school, acknowledging each other vaguely.

In the café, my grandmother said, “You should have a beau. When I last went to see Dr. Ziemniak, he showed me a picture of Roy, who seems to be growing into a handsome fellow.” Dr. Ziemniak was our dentist.