Step-Ball-Change (20 page)

“They can call you any time?” George asked.

“It’s relentless. That’s why I had to find a place that I could really get away to, a place where no one can find me. Mother, I bought a little place in Cap Ferret while I was in Cannes, and you have to come there with me and we’ll relax. It’s very small, but it’s right on the water, and when you open the windows in the bedroom, there is nothing in the world to want,
rien du tout.
”

“Comment puis-je m’y rendre?”
Jack said.

The group stared at him as if he’d spoken perfect Cantonese instead of decent high-school French. Every bone in his body, every muscle and cell, seemed to lean in her direction. He looked at her like Stamp looked at her, like he was willing to jump and jump until he landed in her arms.

“Since when do you speak French?” Kay said.

“
C’est très facile,
” Holden said to Jack.

I served the cake and we sang an accelerated version of the birthday song over the lit candles before the phone rang again. Taffy waited and made a wish.

“Have you been to Atlanta yet?” Taffy said, touching her napkin to her lips.

“It’s not on my itinerary.” Holden smiled at Jack, who refilled her glass of champagne.

“Have you spoken to your father?”

“Not in a couple of weeks. There’s nothing I need to talk to him about.”

Taffy looked relieved. It was perhaps the nicest gift that Holden could have given her. For now, at least, she was taking sides. She was standing firmly in her mother’s court even if she had been a little late in getting there.

“How long can you stay?” Taffy asked.

“I was going to ask that,” Jack said.

Kay stabbed a potato with her fork a little too hard and we all heard the tines hit the plate.

“Just a couple of days. I’m here illegally. My secretary has strict orders not to tell anyone where I am, but I can only hold things off for so long. This is such a busy season. Everyone wants to get their deals wrapped up before the whole world vanishes for summer.”

“Well, there’s plenty of room,” I said. “Henry and Charlie’s room is free. No one in Hollywood will be looking for you there.”

“I got a hotel room,” Holden said. She pushed her hair back and I saw the bright diamond sitting on the perfect curve of her earlobe. “I’m already checked in. I didn’t want to just show up and expect to have a place to stay.”

“Then you’ll just check out,” Taffy said. “You have a place to stay.”

Holden stretched and put her arm around her mother’s shoulder. “I’m such an awful hotel rat. You can be perfectly demanding in hotels the way you can never be at home. I have to have the
Times
and my coffee in the morning, and they have a good gym downstairs. Sometimes when I’ve been traveling a lot, I’ll check into a hotel for a few days in L.A. I get so used to being taken care of.”

“I can’t imagine you’d have a hard time finding someone to take care of you,” Trey said. Kay looked at him and for a minute I thought he might be the next victim of her fork.

“What a sweet bunch of people you are,” Holden said.

“Really,” Taffy said. “I want you to stay here. I haven’t seen you in so long. If you don’t want to, then I’ll get a room with you.”

“They’re all booked up,” Holden said. “I made these reservations weeks ago.” She leaned over and kissed Taffy. “I wouldn’t miss your birthday.”

Taffy looked a little disappointed, but she kept it to herself. It would be hard to have a daughter like Holden, one who was so successful and self-contained that she couldn’t possibly give the slightest indication of needing you at all.

Holden hugged her mother. “We’ll have so much time together. I’ll be over first thing in the morning.”

“Your mother has a job now. She might be busy,” I said.

“You have a job? Are you going to stay here?”

“I’m here for a little while,” Taffy said. “Until things get settled. Caroline is letting me teach at her dance studio.”

“She’s wonderful,” I said. “All the students love her.”

Holden, who was perfectly polished, was stopped by this information. For an instant everything that was Hollywood about her fell away and she touched her mother’s cheek with the back of her hand. “You were always a wonderful dancer. Isn’t she wonderful? I’m so proud of you.”

“I’m hardly doing anything.”

“You’re doing everything,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry about all of this. I want to go to Atlanta and kill Daddy.”

“He may already be dead,” Taffy said. “I haven’t been able to get him on the phone all week.”

After the cake we all went into the living room and squeezed in two to a chair or sat on the floor.

“That was divine,” Holden said. “Better than Campanile’s.”

“Erica’s never seen
Tap
,” George announced.

“What’s
Tap
?” Trey said.

“You haven’t seen
Tap
? Where have you people been? It’s like saying you’ve never seen
An American in Paris.
”

“I’ve never seen
An American in Paris,
” Erica confessed.

“That makes two again,” Trey said.

“Oh God,” Kay said. “I feel an evening of tap dancing coming on.”

“Everybody in my room,” George announced. “I’ve got the tapes.”

“Let’s go over to my house,” Trey said. “I’ve got a great television. What do you say, Jack? Feel like a little tap dancing?”

Jack rocked his head back and forth like he was trying to make up his mind. “Hmm, tough call, but no, no thank you. I’ve already seen them both. Still, if you and Erica plan to bond with the McSwains, you’ll have a lot of tap-dancing films to work your way through, so you might as well get started now.”

“It could be a late night,” Erica said to her father.

“You have a key,” Woodrow said. He kissed his lovely daughter and let her go off with my son.

While everyone said their good nights, Jack came and stood next to Holden. “Tap-dancing films?” he said.

“I’ve seen them all.”

“Puis-je vous inviter à prendre un verre ce soir?”

“
Vous?
” She laughed.

He shrugged. “
Tu.
”

“That’s much more inviting.”

Kay stood and stared while Trey went to get Holden’s purse. “I don’t even know what he asked her.”

“He asked her for a drink,” I said. I knew a little more than ballet French, and this wasn’t exactly a complicated exchange. A person could more or less figure out what was going on without speaking any language at all.

“A drink!” she said. “Is he insane?”

“No,” I said, kissing her forehead good night, “but I think you might be. Go watch tap-dancing films with your fiancé. Have a good time.”

Holden and Jack were halfway to the car. I heard the sheep bleat again, but I did not hear her answer the call.

When they were gone, it was just the grown-ups left—Taffy and Woodrow, Tom and me. We picked up glasses and plates for a while and then abandoned them to sit in the living room.

“That’s some daughter you have,” Woodrow said to Taffy.

“Look who’s talking,” she said, refilling her glass. There was a slug of room-temperature champagne left in the bottle on the coffee table. “There was a time in my life when I was Holden.”

“You looked a lot like Holden at that age,” Tom said.

“That’s not even what I’m talking about,” Taffy said. “I was
like
Holden. What’s really so awful about being fifty-eight—” She stopped and looked at me, pointing a finger. “And
you
, keep your mouth shut. What’s really so awful about being fifty-eight is that you don’t ever have that experience again. Holden’s got it and she probably doesn’t even know it. No, I take that back: She knows it, but she doesn’t understand that she isn’t always going to have it.”

“Excuse me,” Tom said. “But what are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about men, the attention of men, the feeling you get when you walk in the room and you know that everybody
has his eyes on you, bottom line, that everybody wants to sleep with you.”

I slipped off my shoes and tucked my feet beneath me on the sofa. I didn’t exactly feel comfortable talking about it, but I knew what she meant.

“And you feel like you don’t have that anymore?” Woodrow said.

“I know I don’t. Holden and I go to a restaurant now and I might as well be the coat she’s carrying. The maître d’ gives us the best table, the waiter comps her wine, all eyes are on our table, and no one is looking at me. And I’m not saying I blame her. She’s my own daughter, I’m proud of her, I think everyone
should
be looking at her, but it reminds me of the way people used to look at me. Or it reminds me that they don’t look at me that way anymore.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Tom said.

“Oh, I do, too. There was a time women wouldn’t leave their husbands alone with me. I may have been a flirt, but I was never a cheat, and still they wouldn’t have let their husbands follow me out to the kitchen to get a drink. Now that’s all changed. When I left Atlanta my friend Patty said, ‘I’ll have Richard drive you up to Raleigh. That’s too far for you to drive by yourself. Ten hours in a car!’ It’s like being an old rottweiler with no teeth.”

“But you’re gorgeous. There isn’t a woman your age in the world who looks better than you,” I said.

“But you’re including the key phrase, ‘your age.’ I look great for my age, but that doesn’t make any difference. Men aren’t interested in women my age. They’re interested in women Holden’s age. Hell, her father is out there right now doing the mambo with Miss Junior Executive on my birthday. For all I know, they’re talking
about having kids, making a nice little second family, but this time, he swears, he’ll really be there. He’ll do it right.”

“You can’t speak for all men,” Tom said.

“That’s right,” Woodrow said.

“It’s my birthday and I can speak for whomever I damn well please. You’re good guys. You stayed with your wives, but if you were single, who could say?”

“I am single,” Woodrow said. “I can say I like women my own age.”

“You never went out with a woman twenty years younger than you?”

“Hell, I’ve got a daughter who’s twenty years younger than me. I wouldn’t be messing around with that.”

“Well, that makes one. Neddy can date someone who’s younger than Holden, but when I say to that young lawyer, Jack, You can be my date tonight, he’s only too happy to help me out because to him it’s
funny
. It’s a joke. ‘I’m going to pretend I’m with this old woman here.’ He doesn’t think I still have sex. He doesn’t even think I think about it anymore. Women my age are out of the game. I just want to walk down the street one more time and have some guy turn around and look at my ass. It’s a kind of power. I never realized at the time. Maybe you don’t feel like you’ve got too much power in your life, but when somebody wants you, well, then you’re something.” The room had gone quiet. We all just sat there and looked at our drinks. “For God’s sake, this is not my imagination. Back me up here, Caroline.”

I sighed. “It’s true,” I said. “I wish I still got seated at the front of a restaurant.”

“And?” Taffy said.

I hated this. I didn’t want to say it in front of Woodrow and I really didn’t want to say it in front of Tom, who was a good husband and always made me feel attractive. “Dammit. All right, you’re right, is that what you want me to say? I’m only going to admit it because it’s your birthday. I wish some guy on the street would check out my ass.” I put down my glass and hid my face in my hands. “How can I say that? The whole time I was young I was mortified when men stared at me, and once they stopped I started to miss it. What kind of feminist does that make me?”

“The honest kind,” Taffy said, and finished her drink.

After that we were all ready to call it a night. Woodrow stayed and helped us clean up the kitchen even though we all tried to send him home. “I want you to work in my house,” I said. “I just don’t want you to load the dishwasher.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I’ll be back.” He crouched down on the floor and Stamp came out from under the table and sat beside him. “Shake.” He held out his hand and Stamp gave him his paw with dog solemnity.

“When did he learn how to do that?” Taffy said.

“He’s always known how to do that. Hey, is it my imagination or is the dog getting fat?”

“It’s nervous eating,” I said, handing a cluster of glasses to Tom. “He misses you.”

Woodrow stood up and stretched. “Then I should go before I wear out my welcome.”

Taffy went and got Woodrow’s jacket, which he had abandoned in the living room. “Happy birthday,” he said, and handed her the present.

She looked at the package and touched the ribbon. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“It’s for both of you,” he said, looking at Stamp.

Taffy sat down and carefully peeled off the paper. It was something that drove me crazy about her when we were kids. She never tore into anything. She always slid her nail under the tape and pulled it apart in such a way that you could use the paper again if you wanted to, which we never did. At Christmas I had completely finished opening all of my presents before Taffy was finished with her first one.
You CAN Train Your Dog!
She held up the book. “Thank you. We’ll read it together in bed.”

“I’d like that.” He waved to us.

“Come back soon,” Tom said. “If you don’t come back soon, my birthday is going to be moved to next week.”

“I’ll be here.” Woodrow was slow to leave, and when he got out the door, he opened it again before it was all the way closed. “You want to have dinner with me next week?” he said to Taffy. “What?”

“Don’t make me ask twice,” he said. “There are other people here.”

She waved at him with her dish towel. “Get out of here. You’re just feeling sorry for me because I made such a scene in the living room.”

“You can say no, but don’t say no for that reason.”

She looked at him. Tom and I got busy at the sink and a plate slipped through my hands and shattered on the floor. I gave out a completely unnecessary yell. Taffy jumped about a foot.