“Rachel, can’t you close the door? We don’t want Mrs. Rosen ogling our domestic bliss.”
I did as I was told and when I returned James was tapping a cigarette carton against the table with one hand and massaging his temples with the other.
“I’ve got a unique migraine that even grain alcohol couldn’t cure. I shouldn’t have looked at these exams until school started again.”
“I’m going to become a Butler,” I suddenly declared. My oath was like a balloon that was impossible to keep from soaring away.
My father filled the page with angry-looking red ink and then pushed it distastefully with his hand; “How are we ever going to beat the Japanese if Jonathan Winthrop the Third of Park Avenue and Palm Beach can’t divide five into forty-five?” He then scratched his ear and shook
his head. “This migraine is making me hear funny. I could have sworn you said you wanted to become a butler. I don’t know how you’re going to do that when your room’s such a mess!”
“Never mind,” I said quietly. Then I left my father and went to my room to begin preparations for my departure. I took my photograph album from my desk and shook out the pages. A book of matches was stored in my pocket and because of the smoke detectors I placed the pile on the ledge outside my window. Before the pile caught fire, I examined the various shots and didn’t recognize a single person. In the heat the paper curled and swayed, edges white-hot. A breeze suddenly stirred and several photographs slipped away, tumbling through the air like large black-and-white cinders. The flames rose and then my family was gone: only ashes on a ledge eleven stories above the world.
SEVEN
The first thing I had to do that morning as a Butler was to rid myself of all my un-Butler impurities. That meant taking a long, hot shower, shampooing my hair until my eyes burned and my scalp sang. Toweling myself dry, I felt as if a grimy hard shell had finally been worn down, and I was now pink, shiny, and new. When I looked into the mirror after dressing, Olivia Butler didn’t stare back at me, nor did I see the same reflection as at Wollman’s rink. But my hair glistened with golden highlights and fell straight across my shoulders in one wave. A green sweater brought out the green in my eyes, and I brushed jade shadow over my lids to emphasize the color more. I was ready to go to school and see her.
The Winfield Academy is famous for being
the
school for children of diplomats, movie stars, investment bankers, and best-selling writers, yet the physical grounds don’t reveal the glitter inside. The school had always been a shabby brownstone located on a tree-lined block between Park and Lexington Avenues in the upper Eighties. If you missed
the slightly tarnished sign, you’d think perhaps it was a discreet home for seedy alcoholics still supported by obscure family fortunes. Mr. Gregory, the principal, liked to say he invested in the teachers, not in interior decorating. I guess he messed up with my father. The gorgeous students were like dazzling Christmas ornaments embellishing a shriveled pine tree.
Although it was about fifteen degrees outside, almost everyone, back from their Christmas vacation at homes in Martinique or Montserrat, wore short-sleeved white T-shirts that showed off their deep tans. Several heads turned as I walked down the hall, and Lucy Ludlow came up to me and then ran back to her friends to confirm that the new blonde girl was, get this, Rachel Harris!
I
am a Butler,
I repeated to myself as the laughter swelled behind me. My cheeks were flushed in my locker door mirror. When something shimmered in the upper right hand corner of the glass, I pulled the door slightly in and nearly gasped out loud.
Like a small television screen, my mirror reflected Olivia and Edwin Butler. Olivia wore a rose-colored cashmere sweater so soft that it almost floated about her shoulders. A gold locket in the shape of a heart nestled at the base of her long, pale throat, and her thick bangs were swept up with bows of pink satin that looked like chrysanthemums. Edwin was just as beautiful. His mouth was more sensuous than his sister’s, his features softer. If Olivia was finely etched, then Edwin was smudged in charcoal. He wore sweaters in shades of the ocean: aquamarine, baby blue, and indigo, with little white wool nubs that looked like sea foam. Edwin always carried change in his pocket, and you could always hear him walking down the hall, the quarters and dimes and nickels clattering like a signature tune.
Sister and brother leaned together in confident laughter. Their voices sounded remarkably the same, Edwin’s only an octave deeper, Olivia’s softer. I couldn’t make out any of their words and for a moment imagined that they were conversing in their own Butler dialect. The wall of lockers behind them seemed to recede, the floor buckle beneath their legs. Edwin’s lips brushed against his sister’s ear, and as if to hear what he was saying, I placed my own ear against the cold mirror glass.
“Well, Harris, don’t look behind you or you might turn into a pillar of salt.”
Nicole’s grinning face had dislodged the Butlers’ images.
“It’s a pretty picture isn’t it?” she exclaimed. “You can’t still be stuck on your plan.”
“Shh… Nicole, not so loud,” I whispered.
“Okay. But I just want to do a little experiment. Don’t worry, you’re not involved.”
“Nicole, please…”
“Ever heard of
The
Invisible Man?
”
she asked. “Well you’re going to see the female version right now.”
Nicole walked directly up to Olivia and Edwin. I watched the scene from my mirror, unable to stare directly. The brother and sister continued whispering to each other. Their eyes didn’t even flicker as Nicole took three steps toward Olivia. If they both had been inclined to bow, their foreheads would have met.
“Hello, Olivia. Hi, Edwin,” Nicole gaily greeted them. “How was your Christmas vacation?”
Maybe Edwin’s left shoulder moved slightly, and Olivia blinked twice, but that was all. Edwin admired a new silver bracelet on his sister’s wrist; Olivia folded down her brother’s shirt collar.
“Well, I guess you didn’t hear me,” Nicole announced in a booming voice. “So I’ll repeat my friendly question. Hello, Olivia. Hi, Edwin. How was your Christmas vacation?”
She may not have been able to catch the Butlers’ attention, but she had everyone else’s. What finally happened was that Edwin said a short, “Fine, thank you” and walked away. I wanted to fold over and slide deep into the security of my school locker. For a moment the two looked as if they would walk right through Nicole, but they separated at the last minute. Edwin disappeared into the library as Olivia went into a rear classroom. Someone started a game of jacks, and the patter of the red rubber ball bouncing against the tiled floor matched the beat of my heart.
“See what you’re up against?” Nicole declared. “I mean talk about ironic names. Why should they be the Butlers when everyone wants to be their slave?”
“Don’t you dare do anything like that again.”
Nicole’s mouth dropped open. “I was only trying to prove a point, Harris.”
“You’re not my father and we’re not in a classroom.”
“You’ll only get hurt.”
“That’s my business.”
“Fine. But you saw them. You know what they’re like. If that’s what you want to become, you’re welcome to it.”
Nicole clomped away with her heavy clogs. The bell rang twice before I could get myself to shut my locker door. My first class was History. Olivia always sat in the front row. I always sat in the back row.
That morning ambulance sirens wailed outside the window, the unrelenting noise shaking the panes. Our teacher, Miss Hellman, should have worn darker blouses to hide her amoeba-shaped perspiration stains. Unable to compete with the racket, Miss Hellman told us to write an essay comparing the Fall of Rome to New York City’s
past bout with bankruptcy. No one lifted a pencil. Across from me, Monica Sands stared down in delight at her
newly polished loafers with shining pennies. She would
flex her ankles and swing her feet to catch the light that made the pennies sparkle. Her short red hair was the color of the pennies, and cut in a bob. Lovely but utterly nasty, Monica was Olivia’s constant companion and, some said, Edwin’s girlfriend too. I looked at Monica, who glanced disdainfully back at me with heavy lids. My stomach heaved as if the wind had been knocked out of me, and suddenly I wasn’t so much scared of Olivia or Edwin but of the Monicas, those guardians of the inner circle, who would stand in my way.
My eyes focused on the back of Olivia’s head, willing her to look at me. She sat very straight, her head cocked to the right, as if she didn’t trust Miss Hellman or anyone else. Her black patent leather shoe impatiently tapped the floor. Miss Hellman walked up and down the aisles, noisily cracking her knuckles. Olivia Butler audibly sighed, lifted up her silver pen, and began scribbling. Her action launched fifteen other pens in motion, as Miss Hellman gave Olivia a heartbreakingly appreciative smile.
Nicole Rudomov and I ignored each other, and didn’t even speak in Bio lab, where as partners we had to dissect a frog. I realized I shared my father’s abhorrence of failure, and Nicole’s glittering eyes, which I imagined signaled “Surrender!” only strengthened my resolve.
Yet I didn’t have much luck with Olivia that day, or for the rest of the week. She was constantly accompanied by Monica, and surrounded by the next circle of almost-friends: Dorothy Houghton Wells, who lived at the Pierre Hotel, and Sissie Saunders, the Listerine heiress, who supposedly barfed at the smell of her family’s mouthwash. Even if I had a chance to speak to Olivia alone, I wouldn’t know where to begin. There was the question of legality, for example. I would need to change
my name and inform my father of my new status. But I couldn’t very well ask Dr. and Mrs. Butler to adopt me. And what about money? Since I was no longer my father’s daughter, I could no longer receive free tuition at the Winfield Academy. The Butlers were loaded, but it was unfair to ask them to support me all the way through college. I could get a job after school, but Butlers didn’t work at Burger King or sell T-shirts at South Street Seaport. Where would I live? I would be willing to share the maid’s quarters, but then, as a Butler, that wouldn’t look right. And what would I tell the post office? My mother, one day, might decide to finally write.
Perhaps if things had improved at home I might have lost my conviction. But the battle seemed intensified. My father went out every night and didn’t return home till late: the jangle of his keys, muttered curses, and heavy footsteps awakened me in the early morning. I nightly microwaved for myself a frozen meal intended for single men too busy with corporate takeovers to cook. Table for One featured lots of white things, like runny potatoes, turkey, corn kernels, and bleached-looking carrots. I was sure my father ate dinner at Tom’s Restaurant, his favorite Greek coffee shop, and then drank dessert at the West End bar. Miraculously he got himself up at seven and no longer waited for me. We used to take the bus together every morning. If I weren’t on my way to becoming a Butler, I wouldn’t have been able to stand the definitive way he slammed the door on his way out: a bang as loud as a gunshot.
Though I took Geometry with Mr. Bourne, I still ran into James in the library, at the water fountain, standing in line at the cafeteria. Even when he hid in the teacher’s lounge I could still see him through the square plate of smudged glass on the door, smoking, morosely marking
exams, his crumbled face a public emblem of our disaster.
Then, one Saturday morning a week after our return, my father actually looked happy. He was flipping pancakes in the kitchen and whistling “When the Saints Go Marching In” through his teeth. Both my mother and father were terrific whistlers, and often gave impromptu concerts ranging from Beethoven to the Beatles. Alone, his whistle usually sounded stranded, as if searching for a partner.
“Hello, Rachel, where have you been?” my father asked.
“Shopping.”
I dropped two bags filled with a second week’s supply of Table for One.
“I’ve got great news for you, Rachel,” he announced with a grin.
For a moment I thought my mother was hiding behind a doorway. “Silly,” she’d exclaim as we embraced, “did you really think I wasn’t coming back?”
“Yes?” I asked breathlessly.
“I’ve invited the Vasquezes to move in.”
“What?”
“I’ve got everything planned,” he told me, lighting a cigarette on the gas burner. “Mrs. Vasquez and the baby will go into the guest room and George will sleep on the couch. Luisa can use the sofa bed in my study.”
“Is this a joke?”
“A joke!” my father exclaimed. “I don’t think homeless people are a joke. The Vasquezes have been evicted. The new super is moving in tomorrow. Mrs. Vasquez can’t afford a hole in the wall with her maid’s salary and would be forced to live on the streets. This apartment has always been too big for us. Finally it’ll get some use.”
“We’re not the Salvation Army.”
“That’s right, Rachel.” My father put down his pancake spatula and took a long draw from his Marlboro. “We’re better than the Salvation Army.”
“Hey,” I cried, “is this your way of forgetting Mom? Getting back at George?”
“Of course not,” my father snapped, inadvertently inhaling smoke which made him choke for several seconds.