Rich Friends (38 page)

“Cricket,” Vliet said. “Let's drive.”

Caroline's laughter ceased. “It's pouring cats and dogs.
She
has wet hair, and
you
, luv, have a cold.”

“The VW's well caulked.” Bending, he kissed his aunt's pink cheek. “Mmm. Only nymphomaniacs should use that perfume.”

Silent, Vliet drove to Topanga Canyon, snaking between mountains dead with tumbled igneous rocks. At the summit, he pulled over. Leaving his door open, he whirled gracefully around the bus. When he got back in, rain had darkened his hair, his Irish sweater smelled woolly.

“Why the skipping?” she asked.

“Don't be dense, Cricket.” He palmed water from his cheeks. “That was a rite of thanksgiving.”

“For what?”

“For the first time in twenty-four hours I've been free from speeches about hauling ass back to Hopkins. Ma and Dad never stop. And the minute I set foot in your place, Aunt Caroline's on me. She's what gets me down.”

“It doesn't sound like her, even.”

“Ma must have her brainwashed.”

“They were on the phone hours this morning.”

“Before Uncle Gene left?”

“Daddy?”

“Eugene Matheny, president of all the Dutchmen.”

“Funny. I never think of him like that.”

“Don't give me your mental lapses, Cricket. Was he around?”

“Part of the time.”

“Well, that ties it. And I was going to talk jobs.” Vliet stared at rain-bleak mountains. “Cricket, when we discussed my future, we overlooked the obvious. Groceries. The markets've always smelled good to me.”

Vliet did question her father about business, often, but Cricket never had been positive whether the interest was genuine or Vliet was simply being
simpático
.

“Well, so much for lost causes.”

“He'd side with Mother, yes.”

“Think the condition could change?”

“Maybe,” she said with great uncertainty.

“Any ideas how to get it to?”

She shook her head.

“I'd be in your debt.”

“Daddy would never go against her and Aunt Em.”

Vliet dropped by the next afternoon when he knew Caroline would be out shopping. For an hour he was a stand-up tragedian. Cricket listened to his acid one-liners about his parents, his biting monologue on Alix and Roger. She offered milk and sympathy.

In the kitchen, he asked, “Did I mention Executive Employment Placing?”

“No. Were you there?”

He downed his milk. “This morning.”

“Any luck?”

“When I told 'em I wouldn't do heavy lifting, they were stumped. They are going to have a genuine problem with me.”

“You're a Harvard graduate.”

“Sure, and with a name like mine, I should have it made. But …”

The next afternoon was a repeat, with more emphasis on the day's fruitless visit to Executive Employment Placing.

If you are being worked, there inevitably must come the moment when you realize it. At this point, one is meant to experience hurt, then anger. And refuse to let it continue. In truth, if you look up to the worker, when the fact hits you, you are flattered. Who,
me? I
can help
you
? This flattery gives a tremendous high, like winning at craps: you can't lose. Every throw will come up seven or eleven. You tackle forces normally you wouldn't dare. After, you'll remember and be a little proud, or ashamed, or unbelieving, but at the moment, you wade in, saying and doing things that you'd never say or do for yourself.

God knows, Cricket wasn't a fighter. She let events shape themselves. Certainly she never had fought Gene, and she never even suspected that Caroline sometimes did it for her. She loved her father for his slow way of talking, for the few loyal remaining strands brushed across his scalp, for being decent, for being her father. She never could understand his involvement with the heavy black ledgers and stacks of paper that he strewed across the den table every night.

As soon as she grasped the situation, though, Cricket—for her knight of the currently doleful countenance—entered battle with her father.

She opened fire at bedtime, when Caroline was in the bathroom washing her face, a two-minute soap massage followed by thirty counted splashes followed by a lengthy slathering of four different antiwrinkle emollients.

“Vliet's not going to be a doctor,” Cricket said.

“That's all I hear.” Gene, in faded flannel pajamas, was winding his watch.

“He never wanted to, Daddy.”

“Nobody gets that far without an affinity.”

“Roger's got the affinity.”

Gene admired Roger's drive, honesty, strength of character, but always he'd been caught by Vliet's humor, his quirk of smile. It was Vliet who made him laugh. Gene was ashamed of loving the less worthy boy. He set his watch on the mantelpiece. “Vliet's grades are fine. There's no reason for him to drop out.”

“Roger and Alix.”

“Oh?”

“They're going together now,” Cricket said. “Didn't Mother tell you? It's what decided him.”

“He should come up with something more profound.”

Cricket gazed at him.

“All right,” Gene sighed. “A girl's as good as a loyalty oath. But Vliet's had a hundred girls, all beautiful. He'll recover.”

“He hates Johns Hopkins.”

“That, surprising as it may seem, isn't crucial. A lot of men hate their schooling.” Gene opened a door to what once had been the adjoining bedroom. Caroline recently had converted it into a vast closet lined with shelves for purses, sweaters, shoes: there were racks of varying heights for blouses, dresses, long gowns. I work all day, Gene thought wryly, for unequal distribution of women's clothes. He wasn't blaming Caroline, but himself. This, this was how he had chosen to spend his only life. He shut the door.

“Know what I wanted to be?” he asked.

“A professor.”

“A writer, too,” he corrected.

“You worked on the UCLA paper.”

“Not a journalist. A real writer. Novels. I started with some short stories. I never had the nerve to send them out.”

“Daddy, that's sad.”

“I'm not telling you this for sympathy.” Gene paused. “The family tell me I'm a success. What do you think?”

“Yes. No. I never wanted to do anything, not really. I don't know.”

“Well, I'm not. Success would've been those books with my name on the jacket. And you know why I failed?”

“The Oath. You wouldn't sign it. You lost your job.”

“That needn't have stopped me from writing. The truth, Cricket, is, I ran away. I thought I wouldn't be any good, so I ran away. I quit.”

“Daddy, give Vliet a job.”

“Haven't you been listening?”

“You're trying to tell me he should keep on at school. But you're wrong. He's not like you. He's more, well, commercial.”

“Commercial? That's all the more reason for him to keep going. A Beverly Hills specialist makes far more than I do.”

“Under any conditions, he's not going back.”

“Honey, don't encourage him.”

“It's what's right,” Cricket said.

“Your aunt lives for those boys. Did Mother ever tell you the story how Aunt Em arranged with your great-grandmother to put her own inheritance—the money she would've had—in trust for the twins? They aren't wealthy people, and then they were in a very tight spot. She made a tremendous sacrifice. The boys're her life. Especially Vliet. She's beside herself.”

“What about Vliet? Isn't it his life, too?”

Gene chose not to reply.

The following morning Cricket woke after he had left. She pursued him to the Assyrian fort that took a full block of Pico Boulevard. Van Vliet's Warehouses No. 1 and No. 2, and home offices. There, across his gleaming presidential desk, Gene admitted that Vliet was personable, great with people, intelligent, and—most important—his frame of reference was money. “He adds up to the compleat executive.” Gene stopped, his face concerned. His resemblance to a faithful hound had not abated. “Cricket, honey, tell me what it is? What's wrong?” Just then, Mrs. Saenz buzzed. Time for his next appointment. “We'll go into it later. But about Vliet, I can't. Your mother'd flay me. Em's mental on the subject.”

Hearing muffled voices in the front hall, Em tilted her wrist with a practiced movement. For years now, her dishwasher hadn't run without liquor, the vacuum cleaner had needed a shot. Em's use of alcohol almost never reached the visible stages of jollity or despair: her nipping was a deadener of subliminal frustration. This, though, was too much.

It was unlike Em to be bitter. Yet she couldn't help thinking of the comfort—cash—she had denied herself and Sheridan, of how hard she had worked, making sure the twins got well-balanced meals, finished their homework every night, and went to Sunday school, never quarreled but stayed close to one another as their carefully fitted Stride Rite shoes strode up the path to success. Now all this was wasted. Em had no idea what had happened at the cabin, but in her bones she knew at the bottom she would find Alix. Somehow the girl was ruining Em's life. However much Em drank, she couldn't anesthetize herself against the pain. Her sense of justice took a permanent break. I can't bear to see the girl. Never, never, never. Em deposited her glass next to the water carafe that contained vodka.

Cricket opened venetian blinds, admitting strips of grayish light. How young she looks, Em thought, and let her fingers torture her brow.

She whimpered, “Light hurts.”

Cricket readjusted cords.

“It's my migraine.”

“Want an icebag, Aunt Em?”

“No, thank you, dear.”

Cricket sat on Sheridan's bed. “It's Vliet,” she said.

(A minute ago, when Vliet had let her in, he had been wearing his dark suit. She had inquired why. “Congratulate me, that's why. Executive came through. I've got this position with A&P—providing I change my name to Wladislas or something.”)

“I've got to talk to you about Vliet.”

Em's wrinkles deepened. She shot her niece, whom she loved, a look of fury. “He's in his room. Listen.”

They listened. Bouncy, scratched music. For an instant Em's expression softened. “It's ‘Getting Sentimental over You,'” she said. “He's packing.”

“He's not.”

Em gripped her forehead again. “Please God, you never get migraines. As you leave, dear, close the blinds properly.”

Cricket drew a breath. “I'm not going yet,” she said in her clear voice.

Em turned her head, moaning.

“Listen, please listen, Aunt Em. Vliet's graduated from Harvard. He's never been in trouble. Everybody likes him. The family loves him. He's a success. You're a success.”

“I don't hear you!”

“Aunt Em, he's going to work at A&P if you don't let Daddy give him a job.”

“He and Roger are very fortunate! Uncle Sheridan never had their advantages. They never have to scrimp. There's money for them to finish the best medical school.”

“Please let Daddy.”

Em, perfumed in Vick's VapoRub to drown any aroma of alcohol, pushed to sitting position, her long-sleeved gown momentarily trapping her. “You listen to me, you!” The voice, precariously on edge. “There's one thing I want. Only one thing out of life. And that's for my sons to have the best. And for that, they must persevere. And that, Cricket, is why I don't hear you!”

“Vliet enjoys business—”

“It's that terrible girl!” Em cried, her voice over the edge now, rasping, drunken, hopeless. “That Alix!”

And, eyes closed, she fell into pillows.

Cricket ran for the icebag.

“What in the name of God did you say to your aunt?” Gene wanted to know.

“What did she tell you?” Cricket's voice shook. Her scene with Em hadn't worn off. It was the same evening, and Gene, in his navy robe, had just climbed circular steel to her aerie.

“A half hour ago we had our annual sisterly eye gouging.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Em called to say she'd had a terrible migraine which you'd aggravated into the mother of all headaches. Oh, she didn't really blame you. Mostly she ranted about Alix.”

“She really has it in for Alix.”

“But she did feel you were meddling in affairs that didn't concern a child. Your mother isn't one to take this lying down. She countered that Em's overgrown lunk was harrying you. One thing led to another. And it came out you'd told a heinous lie. Vliet is starting at A&P.”

“It's not a lie.”

“I know.” Gene patted his knee. Loving him, never considering deeper hang-ups, Cricket sat. “Listen,” he said. “I don't have to mention we're both delighted with you, do I?”

She hugged him. Parental esteem, or lack thereof, never had been a problem with Cricket. She knew they loved her.

“Now, honey, tell me what's wrong?”

She left his lap, picking up a proof sheet. Film shot in Arrowhead: tiny pictures on slick paper showing Roger in Cousin Sidney Sutherland's new boat.

“I called Vliet back,” Gene said. “He told me it wasn't an important offer, but he was taking it. So I told him to go see Don.” Don Dalton, the barrel-shaped head of Van Vliet's personnel. “Don'll put him in the training program.”

The battle was over.

She'd won.

Cricket clutched the proof sheet. Before each of her operations, a nurse would suck on a little rubber tube to get blood samples. She'd won. So why should she feel this slow draining?

“You didn't mention me?” she asked. “To Vliet?”

“What? And let him know my daughter makes my business decisions?”

“Thank you.”

“Cricket, let me help you.”

“You have, Daddy.”