The Cousins (24 page)

30

“H
ELLO
?” M
ARC SAID
. Olivia had not heard his voice for nine months. She waited for her heart or her body to do something at the sound of it, but she felt only the anticipation you feel when about to speak to a friend after a long time. So she was safe at last.

“Hi, it’s Olivia.”

“Olivia!” He sounded extremely glad to hear from her.

“How are you?”

“I’m very well. And you?”

“I’m fine. I got your postcards. How is your book coming along?”

“It’s almost done. I’m beginning to feel that it’s finally real.”

“I’m looking forward to reading it.”

“I’ll send you a copy when it’s finished. I didn’t forget.”

“Good. Well, the reason I’m calling is that I give a big Thanksgiving dinner here at the house every year, and I’d be delighted if you could come.”

“How nice,” he said. “I’d love to.”

“Come at five and then we’ll eat and drink for hours.”

“It sounds wonderful. I . . .” There was the smallest pause. “Can I bring someone?”

“Oh?”

“Well, yes, I have a girlfriend.”

She wasn’t surprised. She was relieved that he was in love again, and hoped he was happy. But, strangely, a part of her felt a little left out. What did she expect, for him to be available forever? “Then you must bring her,” she said warmly. “What’s her name?”

“Daisy. She’s very bright. I’m sure you’ll like her.”

If he has to say she’s very bright then she must be very young, Olivia thought. “I’m sure I will if you do,” she said.

So there they all were again, gathered in her large kitchen, her guests chattering and watching her finish her festive preparations. Peggy was helping with the huge turkey, Roger was uncorking champagne. Last year’s active toddler had become a dignified little girl, the man who had come alone last Thanksgiving because he had broken up with his wife was here with his new wife, and Alys had brought along an attractive and attentive man who was even younger than Marc. She had announced to Olivia on the phone that she was bringing someone special, but Olivia hadn’t known what she was supposed to expect.

“If no one impresses you anymore then find someone you can impress,” Alys whispered to Olivia, glowing. “After winning the world’s record for doing without, I’m finally making up for it.”

“I’m sure of that,” Olivia whispered back, grinning. “You’ve never looked better.”

Marc came late, bringing a bottle of good red wine and Daisy. He was wearing a beautiful overcoat and his hair hung over his cheekbone in that way that used to touch her so. She waited again to see if her body or her heart would betray her, but they did not. She observed him objectively: he was just as appealing-looking as ever. What a catch he is, she thought, congratulating herself for having had him for a while. She looked at Daisy.

She was pretty, with very short dark hair, big eyes and dewy skin. She seemed sweet. They were both in Armani, both in black. The black generation. Olivia wondered if they were late because they had been having last-minute sex. They were holding hands. Marc kissed Olivia hello on both cheeks, as he always did, but this time it seemed too formal: not as if their affair had never happened, but as if he was trying too hard to pretend it hadn’t. She would have settled for a friendly hug.

“Olivia tells me you’re a writer,” Roger said, taking Marc into the kitchen to meet the other guests.

“So is Daisy,” Marc said. “Unpublished as yet . . .” Olivia smiled. She stood there alone for a moment thinking about the family Thanksgiving dinners so long ago, at Uncle Seymour’s and Aunt Iris’s, when everyone was still alive; those luxurious, magnificent dinners filled with goodwill and tension. Had she been the only one who had felt it? There had been so much for her to live up to, and she had always thought she was disappointing and didn’t fit in. Now she wondered if in fact it had been her mother who was concerned about her shortcomings, because Lila had to appear to be the perfect parent of the perfect daughter. For the first time, Olivia wondered if it had been her mother all along who had unknowingly driven the wedge between her and the others in those old days by making her think she was never good enough.

She remembered Jenny reassuring her: “No matter what, they will always love you. They will
always
love you.” Now she considered if it still mattered so much if they didn’t, because some of them had not. And some of them had. Family is not magical, but how much they can hurt us, she thought.

She went back into the kitchen. Marc, holding a glass of champagne, smiled at her from across the room, and then he came over. “You look wonderful,” he said.

“Thank you. So do you.”

“I think about you so often.”

“I think about you, too,” she said lightly.

“I’m glad we’re friends,” he said. “I hope we always will be.”

“That’s why you’re here.”

“Do you remember the last time we had champagne?” he asked softly, mischievously.

“You’re not supposed to talk about that,” she said, matching his tone.

“I know.” He gave her a sip from his glass. She felt comfortable with him and glad he was here. “I want you to get to know my girlfriend,” he said. He nodded at Daisy, who came to join them and took his hand.

“It was so kind of you to invite us,” Daisy said politely. To her I’m just another adult, Olivia thought. If she only knew.

“I’m delighted you could come,” she said. “Please make yourself at home. As you can see, everyone here does.”

“Thanks.”

“Time to put the turkey on the table,” Peggy announced. “I need someone strong.”

“Excuse me,” Olivia said, and rushed away to help.

When everything was in place, someone snapped a picture of the spread, while the others gazed admiringly at the result of their communal effort. It looked as if it belonged in a magazine, and nothing was burned or undercooked: a miracle. Hungry, they all dove for their seats. Before Olivia and Roger sat down at the head and foot of their groaning board, Olivia nestled against Roger for a moment, feeling a rush of warmth and love.

Her Thanksgiving party was a success, as it always was. Near the end Roger got up and delivered his customary toast of appreciation to her. How old-fashioned and nice that is, she thought, appreciating him back. There is much to be said for traditions, especially the ones you create yourself.

“I want to make a toast, too,” she said, rising and holding up her glass.

They all looked at her expectantly. “On this Thanksgiving,” she said, “when I see again how solid and happy our life together is, how blessed we are with wonderful friends and too much food and a comfortable home, and good health, and helpful work we care about; when so many people don’t have any of these things, or very few of them, I am in awe at our good luck. I really see the meaning of Thanksgiving.” Then, unexpectedly, her eyes filled with tears and she choked up and sat down.

They all applauded, a little nervously. “Olivia always cries when she’s happy,” Roger said affectionately, smiling at her, and then they all laughed, relieved that he had cut the intensity.

At one in the morning, with everyone gone and the leftovers banished, the dogs dozing, their house in some semblance of order again, Olivia and Roger went to bed. They were holding each other in that near-trancelike state she loved and had once thought they would never achieve again. “We’ve survived another year,” she murmured.

“Yes,” he said, and then they slept.

* * *

Two days after Thanksgiving Jenny called from Cambridge. Jenny never called—Olivia always called her. She hoped nothing bad had happened. “What a nice surprise to hear from you,” Olivia said. “Happy belated Thanksgiving.”

“Same to you,” Jenny said. She sounded odd, grim, as if her face and voice were clenched up into a ball. “I called to tell you about Nick.”

“What about Nick?” she asked, her heart sinking.

“He was helicopter skiing. There was an avalanche. He was killed.”

Nick gone? Not Nick too—there had been too many family tragedies already. “Oh, no,” Olivia said. She remembered how concerned she had been about Nick’s attraction to danger, and how she had put it out of her mind because there was nothing she could do about it.

“It happened the day after Thanksgiving. He went out alone the way he always does . . . did, and he never came back. Lynne and Amber waited and waited, and he just never came back to the lodge and then they heard about the avalanche.”

Olivia imagined his wife waiting there, her anxiety building, and finally learning that what she had for so long feared and half expected had actually happened. She imagined Lynne’s dread and grief. But as for herself, for the moment she felt only stunned disbelief.

“Melissa and Bill and their kids were there for Thanksgiving,” Jenny said. “Everybody was skiing, but just normally. Everyone’s in shock. At least Lynne has Melissa with her, she’s not there with Amber all alone.”

“Our family has bad luck with mountains,” Olivia said. She thought of Kenny deserted on the Himalayas, Stan going off Mulholland, Grady’s suicide, Charlie’s plane and now Nick.

“Yes . . .” It was a sigh. “They’ll have to wait for spring thaw next May to find his body,” Jenny said. “If they ever do. What a mess. There’s going to be a memorial service at the Metropolitan Club in New York next week, but no actual funeral right now. My mother will call to tell you what day. I still can’t believe it.”

“No body, no closure,” Olivia said.

“I know.”

“My God, there’s no letup. What’s wrong with our family, anyway?”

“Melissa and Kenny say our family is cursed,” Jenny said. “I used to think so, but now I think they looked for trouble.”

“Don’t tell anybody, but so do I,” Olivia said. She was relieved to be able to share this feeling that had made her feel so guilty.

“Nick had everything,” Jenny said. “Everything. Maybe that was the problem. Money does bad things to people.”

“He said the mountains made him feel peaceful,” Olivia said.

“And risking his life?”

“Maybe he didn’t think he had everything.”

“Well, we’ll never know, will we?”

“Maybe he didn’t know either,” Olivia said.

* * *

The Metropolitan Club was a large, dignified building that whispered of tradition. An iron fence shut it off from the street, and inside, the main hall was two stories high with an enormous chandelier hanging down and a wide staircase leading to the rooms above. The memorial service was at five o’clock. When Olivia arrived with Roger she expected to find the service in one of the smaller anterooms, but instead, to her surprise, it was in the main ballroom.

“I didn’t know Nick knew so many people,” she whispered.

They were pouring in, somberly, expensively dressed. People from Nick’s ad agency, people who looked like his friends; his contemporaries and older people; none of whom Olivia had ever seen in her life. Their family, even with Hedy’s side present, was vastly outnumbered. It was the biggest memorial
or
funeral that she had ever been to.

Rows of chairs had been arranged in the ballroom, and they were already almost all occupied. Olivia and Roger sat down in the section that had been reserved for the immediate family. She saw Uncle David, hollow-eyed and bewildered to have outlived his son, tears pouring unchecked down his face, being led in by his new wife. Nearby were Melissa and Bill with their three children, and Lynne in black, very pale, with an expression of complete shock, clutching little Amber’s hand. Uncle Seymour and Aunt Iris, reminded again of the loss of their own son, looked grave and almost uncomprehending at this repeated reversal of the natural order.

Behind them she saw Jenny and Paul, who had left their children at home for this hurried day trip, and Aunt Myra, Kenny and Pam, Charlie’s son Tony with his wife, and Anna the Perfect with her husband. The only ones absent were Taylor and Tim. No one had really expected Taylor to leave her three-month-old infant at home after the recent terrifying fires, or to bring him all the way to New York for this, and besides, Olivia remembered, Nick hadn’t gone to Grady’s service anyway.

A man whom she didn’t know, but whom many of the others seemed to, got up and began to talk about Nick. He spoke of Nick’s philanthropy, of his good works: his help to the underprivileged and the handicapped, his efforts for the environment, his hours of volunteer work, the boards he had served on, the money he had given. Olivia was surprised. She had always seen the hedonistic, superficial Nick having fun, and this side of him, which apparently had been there all along, was completely new to her. He hadn’t talked to her about it in their brief meetings at family functions, and she hadn’t asked—why would she? But now she regretted it. She felt very sad.

She thought of Grady’s funeral, his friends telling about a cheerful, joking Grady she had never known: the unexpected Grady, the side of him that had been hidden from the family. And here now was the unexpected Nick. How little we know about our own relatives, she thought.

Some other friends of Nick’s got up and made similar speeches about his virtues, an opera singer he had used in one of his commercials sang one of his favorite songs and then it was over. Long tables had been set up at the back of the room with tea sandwiches, petit fours, coffee and wine. People milled around, and the cousins hugged and kissed each other. There was such a mob of solicitous comforters around Nick’s widow and sister that Olivia couldn’t even get to them.

Olivia put her arm around Jenny and they walked to a corner away from the crowd. “Poor Melissa,” Olivia said. “She and Nick were so close.”

“I told Melissa: ‘Now you know what it’s like to be an only child,’” Jenny said. “ ‘We have to stick together.’ ”

“You
said
that? About being an only child?”

“It’s true.”

“We’re all only children now,” Olivia said.

“I know. Isn’t that weird?”

They thought about it for a moment.

“I wonder what’s going to happen to Lynne,” Olivia said.

“She’ll be all right,” Jenny said. “She’ll get married again. She’s beautiful and rich.”