The Saving Graces (15 page)

I saw Lee in the middle of the living room, holding a plate of miniature Iamb kebobs and looking pained. I followed her gaze-she was glaring through the doorway into the kitchen.
Aha. Jenny was here, with A FRIEND. You could tell they were friends because they were holding hands.
"My, what a striking couple." I couldn't resist.
Lee closed her eyes for a second. "Come with me, okay?" "Sure." I even went first. I like Jenny.
Henry was talking to her and her friend while he took little quiches out oi the oven and put them on a plate. "Oh, Lee!" Jenny exclaimed when she saw us. "Lee and her friend. Oh, look, Phyllis, it's Lee, my lovely daughter-in-law"-and she scooped Lee up in a terrific embrace, lifting her completely off the floor. I got a similar treatment, although I could see my name escaped her. She can't quite keep the Graces straight, but she loves us, one and all.
"Emma," I said helpfully, offering my hand to small, handsome, fiftyish Phyllis. Jenny was doing a little cradle-robbing. Phyllis sparkled her eyes at me and said how do you do.
The tip-off that Jenny was smitten was that she was wearing a dress-a first in my experience. A nice dress, and technically it fit her, but the sight was so incongruous, she made me think of a guy in drag. Jenny is five-eleven-six feet in her work boots, she loves to say-and what they call big-boned. She dyes her hair dark brown and wears it up in an old-fashioned pompadour. Except for the southern accent, she reminds me of Julia Child.
"Lee, this is Phyllis Orr, my very good friend." Except she said, "Mah verra good free-in," in her slow Carolina drawl, like a female Jesse Helms. Henry only has a shadow of it.
"Well, how do you do? It's lovely to meet you, just lovely," Lee burbied, overcompensating. "Welcome to our home. Yes, indeed, any friend of Jenny's. ." She tapered off, hearing herself. Henry and I gave each other tickled looks. "And how did you two meet? I mean if that's not too-you don't have to-I was just wond-" "Phyllis manages my apartment building," Jenny said, in a tone of wonder at the unexpectedness of life's gifts. "Somebody tried to break into my place-I told you, Henry, remember? -but all they did was crack the dead bolt. She fixed it." She gave Phyllis a playful but proud jab on the shoulder.
"Well, isn't that something. How about that, and you've been friends ever since," Lee marveled. "I think that's wonderful, I really do." Phyllis, a slight, wiry, darkly attractive woman who looked as if she'd know her way around a dead bolt, looked at Lee curiously.
"Look who's talking about friends," Jenny boomed. "Tell Phyllis about your group, Lee, honey, go on. Lee started a club just for women, years ago, Phil, and they're still going strong. Emma here is one of her members." One o' huh membahs. "How many years have y'all been together now?" Lee said, "It'll be ten years in June." "Oh, is that right," Phyllis said.
"We're going to Cape Hatteras to celebrate," I threw in. Lee's family has a cottage they rent out for all but two weeks in June and September. The Saving Graces have celebrated four of their nine anniversaries there so far, so it's a sporadic tradition.
"Well, I'll swan, isn't that marvelous." Jdn that mahvelous.
Jenny rested an affectionate elbow on top of Henry's shoulder. Patterson & Son looked great together, both of them so uncharacteristically dressed up this evening. Lee glanced around, rubbing her hands together and smiling anxiously. A couple of her education friends had come in for ice or something, and now they were gathering around, listening in.
"When I was your age-Henry, when was that?" Jenny demanded.
He thought. "Late 70s." "That's right-twenty years ago when I was your age, I had just about had it up to here with living with women in a group. Did you know I used to live in a commune?" she said to me. "Out in the country near Asheville, beautiful place. That's where Henry grew up. I used to worry about him not having a daddy-his was killed in Vietnam, you know-but look how he's turned out." She got his neck in an armlock and squeezed.
"Huh!" I said-as if I hadn't heard these reminiscences from Lee, Henry, and Jenny herself several times already.
"Quiche?" Lee held the plate under her mother-in-law's nose hopefully.
"Women united! There's nothing we can't do when we work together. Right, Emma? Lee honey? Oh, what a bunch we were, though, back then. Free love, and no men allowed. Does y'all's group have a name? We called ourselves the Viragos." "But you know," Lee pointed out amid the laughter, "we're-ha ha! -not that kind of a group." She lifted her hand to Henry, the one here with the penis, as if to say, Look: living proof I'm heterosexual.
"And radical? Oh, my goodness, we'd demonstrate at the drop of a hat, as long as it was for something militant. I remember one time, we went to an antiwar rally in Raleigh, and named ourselves 'Lesbians for Mao' on the spot. My girlfriend and I took off our shirts and nursed our babies on the Capitol steps. Henry, you've seen that picture:' "Yep. I was eight years old." "You were not," Lee said, aghast.
"Oh, but it didn't last. Couldn't, I guess, and plus we were all so young. We left, one by one, and I hear there's not even a farm there anymore. Out in that pretty place. You remember Sue Ellen Rich?" Jenny asked Henry. "I got a note from her last Christmas-we still keep up-and she says there's a Saturn dealership there now. Mm mmm." She shook her head mournfully; Phyllis patted her arm and said, "Aww." "We're not very political," Lee said brightly. "We just have dinner." "But you're still together, that's what I envy. Ten years, and you're still a group. Y'all still love each other." "Oh, we do," I agreed, sliding my arm around Lee's waist. "We still love each other so much." At the last second Lee figured out what 1 was going to do-kiss her on the mouth-and jerked her head away in a panic. All I got was cheek.
"Well, I'd better pass these," she muttered, sidling out of my affectionate grasp. "Before they get cold. Excuse me?" Always polite. But the look she threw me on her way out glittered with homicidal longing.
*** "I'm so sorry we're late. Kirby dropped me off in front," Isabel said breathlessly. "He's parking the car." Lee started to take her jacket, but she said, "I think I'll keep it." She spied me. "Hi, you," she said, and I gave her a soft, one-armed hug. She felt good, exactly like she always did-not breakable or anything.
Rudy came striding over, beaming with gladness, and wrapped her up in a long, strong Rudy-hug. "I was worried, I thought you'd never get here." "No, I'm fine, just couldn't get organized." "How are you?" Lee demanded, taking both of Isabel's hands and staring intently into her eyes.
"You look wonderful," Rudy said.
That was partly true, partly false. Isabel had on a great dress, the kind that reminds us why basic black is a classic, and she was wearing her hair in a new style that really flattered her. But her complexion was off, too yellow or something, and her eyes looked too big. She claimed she hadn't gained or lost a single pound on the new drugs, but then, why was she slightly pufly-looking around the jaw and throat? Not much; anyone who didn't know her probably wouldn't even notice. But 1 could hardly see anything else. 1 monitor her these days like a mother with a sick child. We all do. She hates it.
"How do you feel?" Lee persisted, still doing the eye contact thing.
"Fine, great, couldn't be better. Your house looks so pretty." Isabel glanced around, withdrawing her hands. "That's a new mirror, isn't it? I'd give anything to have your taste, Lee. How do you do it?" 0-kay. Even Lee got that message: We're not talking about my health. So we four stood in the middle of the living room in a tight, protective circle, laughing and chattering about nothing, Isabel's pretty earrings, my great new shoes, Lee's plans for Passover, was that Obsession Rudy was wearing?-until even I was seduced into forgetting that something dark and menacing had settled over our precious solidarity and changed us forever.
Kirby arrived. Isabel introduced him to Rudy and me-Lee had already met him-with none of the watchful, oh-I-hope-you-like-him anxiety I'd have felt in her situation. And he was kind of an anxiety-inducing guy. He towered over us, although he couldn't have weighed more than 150, 155, soaking wet. Virtually bald; sharp, bony features; stoop-shouldered. Gawky. There was nothing birdlike about him, though; he looked stringy and tough, athletic in spite of the gauntness. His eyes dominated his priest's face, soft brown and sad.
I just said, "Hi, how are you," and kept quiet. We formed a little knot in the sunroom, we four and Kirby, and had a light, semistiff, getting-to-know-you chat. He didn't say much either, although he wasn't aloof or creepily silent. He had to knowwe were checking him out. Funnily enough, Lee claimed she liked him, and she's more possessive of Isabel than any of us. But she's also famous for her poor judgment of character (witness Sally, not that I'm prejudiced), so her endorsement meant nothing to me. Frankly, I was disposed not to like him, but I was trying to be objective for Isabel's sake.
It wasn't anything he said, and if I hadn't been watching like a cat at a mousehole, I wouldn't even have known it was anything he did. Not that he hovered-it was more like he guarded Isabel. A body language thing.
And something else-Lee had taken all the chairs out of the room for more space; Kirby vaporized for a few seconds, then reassembled, as it were, holding a kitchen stool, which he placed behind Isabel all but invisibly- the whole transaction had the unobtrusive feel of good magic. In the same way, he brought her a glass of club soda with a lemon slice. Then he made her a plate from the buffet table, and frowned sadly, playfully, until she began to nibble from it. He was like a guardian angel. Inconspicuously benevolent.
It would've been easy to write him off as weird because of his looks, or ghoulish because of the way he'd attached himself to a woman who was, at the least, seriously ill. And I could see why Isabel had thought at first that he was gay; not because he was effeminate, but because he was different, he fit no type. Under the strangeness, though, I came to a realization that he was gentle. I decided to trust him. After half an hour, I felt delighted for Isabel. A man less like Gary Kurtz she couldn't have found without advertising.
He suggested we go sit in the living room, and by now I knew it was because he thought she'd be more comfortable there. As we dispersed, Isabel hung back in the doorway and buttonholed me.
"Well?" "Well, what?" She made an impatient face, and I laughed. "I like him, I like him." "Do you? Really, Em?" I can't tell you how it made me feel, knowing Isabel cared what I thought of her boyfriend. It was like-the pope clearing his blind date with me first. I was really moved. Isabel is my mentor, although neither of us would ever say that out loud, and certainly we'd never use that word. She approves of me, not the other way around.
"Of course I like him, who wouldn't? But"-I couldn't resist asking-"what happened to 'just friends'?" "But we are friends. That's exactly what we are." "Oh? Have you told him that?" She smiled slightly, eyes downcast.
"He's in love with you, Is." "If he ever was, that's over now." "Why?" She didn't answer.
"How come? You mean because you got sick again? Well, if he's that-" "Emma, it's complicated now, that's all. You must admit it's complicated." "Everything's complicated, Isabel. You're telling me Kirby only likes you when you're glowing with health?" "No, that's not what I'm saying." She looked shocked. "You really don't understand." I had a brainstorm. "You're doing it," I realized.
"I'm doing what?" "You're the one who's pulling back-because you're sick. It's not Kirby at all." What a relief, especially since I'd just decided I trusted him.
Isabel stared at me with abstracted eyes, thinking it over. She shook her head, going back to, "No, it's more complicated than that. Really." "Well, if you say so. But you want to keep a clear head, Is." Amazing how cocky I can get about other people's business after a little encouragement. "It's true I've only met him once, but Kirby doesn't strike me as a guy who can't stand complications. He doesn't look like a deserter, in other words:' Isabel started to say something, but Lee interrupted. "Movies!" she chirped, and she waved the dreaded video camera. "Everybody in the living room, Henry wants to take us all on the couch." I laughed.
Lee frowned. "What?" "Nothing." I've never known anybody as oblivious to double entendre.
Henry was such a mensch to put up with this. Candid shutterbuggery was one of Lee's most annoying amusements, It was bad enough when she did it, but when she dragged him into it, too, he proved he's a saint.
We four squeezed onto the damn sofa. I had Isabel on one side, Rudy on the other. Rudy wasn't drunk, but she was feeling no pain. She mugged for the camera, made faces, pretended to stick her tongue in my ear. I didn't want to laugh-I was mad at her-but she made me. I saw Curtis milling among the party guests who were watching us. He didn't laugh with the others; he didn't even smile. That helped me make up my mind.
I'd been stupid and naive to think Rudy would keep my secrets from Curtis. Grow up, Emma. Husbands and wives tell each other things. Marriage supersedes friendship, even marriage to a prick. I wasn't angry with her anymore, I wouldn't make an issue of it, wouldn't even bring up the subject. That's what he wanted me to do. Screw him. I wasn't driving a wedge between Rudy and me to spite myself.
I caught his eye. While he watched, I put my arm around Rudy and gave her a smacking kiss on the temple. Take that, jerkoff.
It wasn't a total victory, though. Because of Curtis, I'd have to watch what I told Rudy about Mick from now on. Thinking of that made me angry all over again.

   "I-" "Hello." All night I'd felt like a bird circling a thicket of prickly bushes, unable to light because of the thorns. Lee's back patio was a wide, soft meadow I'd spied at last with my bird's eye, and Mick was there waiting for me.
Well. I don't know if he was waiting for me. He was just there, smoking a cigarette beside the tastefully faded, Boston ivy-covered stockade fence that separated the Pattersons' house from its neighbor. He wasn't even alone; at the bottom of the yard other guests, three or four men and one woman, laughed and drank and smoked cigars around a rusting swing set as old as the house. It was warm and cloudy, the moon only a smudge in the gray, starless sky. Unlike mine, unlike Mick's, Lee's neighborhood was quiet on Saturday nights.
"Doesn't feel much like home, does it?" I said, and he smiled, moving back a step, inviting me to stand next to him on the last bit of concrete before the grass started. I smiled, too, but I looked down at my feet so he wouldn't see. Euphoria was making my chest tickle. It was alarming, this tension between us. It meant everything was true, everything I had hoped and dreaded.
"I'm surprised that you smoke." He looked at the burning tip of his cigarette with interest. "Somebody gave it to me. 1 don't. Once in a blue moon." "I do, but only with Rudy." "Want one? I could get you one." "No." I laughed-euphoria again.
Bugs smacked into the light over the patio. A couple of yards down, somebody's dog barked out of boredom. A plane droned overhead, invisible. Gradually, even though we didn't talk, we began to relax. We were spinning a web around us, making a cocoon. We did this at Murray's, too, so we knew how. But still, I was amazed. How easy.
"My article's almost finished," I said. "Nothing but the final run-through left, and some fact-checking." He nodded. He didn't say, "Good," I noticed. Finishing the article for Capital on the D.C. art world meant I wouldn't have any more excuses to call him at his studio or meet him for coffee and ask questions. There would be no legitimate excuse to stay in touch now. Except friendship. Secret friendship, as Rudy had been good enough to point out. Which more or less negated the legitimacy.
"Thank you for your help," I said formally. "I couldn't have done it without you." "I didn't do anything." "That's not true. I wouldn't have known who to talk to and who to keep away from if you hadn't told me. I wouldn't even have known where to start." The Cap editor told me to slant the story from the viewpoint of an art know-nothing, a good thing for me, since that's the only way I could have written it.
"You're a reporter," Mick said, "you'd have figured it out." "Why don't you just say, 'You're welcome'?" He ducked his head, smiling. "You're welcome." "Course, they may not like it. No guarantees. They might even turn it down." "Well, then you can say it was all my fault." "Oh; don't worry." This was a little bit of disingenuity on my part. I loved the way the piece had turned out; if they rejected it, I'd be astonished. But I'm nothing if not self-deprecating. It's a form of bet hedging, keeping hope firmly in the middle range so disappointment can't hurt too much. At least not in public.
Through the closed patio doors, we watched the slow-mo shifting of the guests from bar to table, group to group. Their mouths moved, inaudible except for the occasional whoop of laughter. Mick's wife was deep in conversation with Curtis Lloyd, I saw, and my mind spun off in a symmetrical fantasy that they fell deeply in love, left their spouses, and ran off together to Ibiza.
"I spoke to your friend Isabel," Mick said.
"But you've met her before." Here, in fact, at Lee's last dinner party.
He nodded. "But we've never really talked. We did tonight, a little. I like her very much." "You couldn't not." He watched me. "It's hard," he said.
Once, at Murray's, I started to tell him how scared I was, and I ended up in tears. Which I hate, I would rather eat dirt than let anybody see me cry. So now he was being diplomatic, he thought, showing his sympathy but not saying anything to set me off.
He said, "Lee told Sally about the healing circle, and Sally told me." "Did you do it?" "I did," he nodded. "Didn't you?" "Of course. Sort of. Where were you?" I tried to picture him and Sally hovering around a candle, chanting in harmony.
"On the subway, coming back from a drawing class. I didn't remember until about quarter to ten." "What did you do?" "Well, you know. I meditated. What did you do?" It was so nice to be talking like this. With Rudy and Lee it had seemed too private, and of course with Isabel it was out of the question. "Well," I said, "I tried to meditate, but I'm not very good at it. How do you shut your mind off? Mine keeps jumping around." "I don't know ill really meditated," he said-trying to make me feel better. "I just thought about her. I closed my eyes and. . . wished her well." "That's what I did, too. I wished her well." A woman I didn't know opened the patio door and peered out into the semidark. Somebody-Lee, undoubtedly-had turned off Henry's Drifters tape and put on Stephane Grappelli; the jazzy, staccato sound shattered the quiet, like driving by a playground at recess. The woman smiled, decided against coming out, and pulled the door shut. Silence rolled back.
We were quiet, too. Except when I slipped my shoes off and Mick asked if I wanted to go inside and sit. "No," I said, "it's too nice. Unless you do." "No." He looked at me then. Looked at my body. Something he usually takes pains to avoid, or so it seems to me.
How is it that some men can look at you and make you feel like the sexiest woman in the world, and other men can look at you and make you feel like mashing your spike heel through their instep? With Mick, I was suddenly aware of everything about myself. A fantasy kept intruding on my restless attempts to make small talk, a fantasy that I was holding him. Standing on tiptoes, my arms around his shoulders, leaning into him. It made my mouth dry up, it made me forget what I was saying. My clothes felt too small, or too intimate. Too revealing. I was showing a lot of skin, and 1 wanted him to have it. I wanted to give myself to him.
I put my drink down on the wrought-iron plant stand. This wasn't like flirting with some cute guy at a party. What I felt was a dangerous lust that could destroy lives. The disaster potential sobered me up like a plunge into cold water.
"What are you working on these days?" I asked, pleased with my assertive, no-nonsense tone.
"Something new. Some watercolor portraits. Come and see them," he invited. "Anytime. Come anytime, Emma." And there we were, right back where we had been.
I hedged. "That would be nice. I'd like to. Someday." He never asked me how my writing was going, because a long time ago I had asked him not to. "Nine times out of ten, that's the last thing I want to talk about," I'd told him. "What's to say, anyway? It's going fine, it's going lousy. Either way, it's a conversation stopper." But now I wanted to tell him something, and it was my own fault that I had to bring it up first.
"I'm having trouble with my writing," I said. Yes, that bit of candor amazed me, too. So unwonted. "The thing I'm working on isn't going well. I've been thinking, quitting the paper might have been a mistake." "No. I don't think it was." "Well ...," I said, so he'd keep going. So far he'd said exactly what I wanted to hear.
"In any case, it's much too soon to tell. How long has it been?" "A month." "Not long enough." "How long will it be before 1 know it's a mistake?" "Such an optimist," he said, smiling. "A year. Minimum. Two years would be better." "How long did it take before you knew you hadn't made a mistake?" "I still don't know it." "I wouldn't have done it if you ... You inspired me," I said with a lopsided smile. "I wouldn't have done it if I hadn't met you. So you get some of the blame when I pancake." "You won't. You'll be good." "How do you know?" "Because. You have a strong voice. For one thing." "You mean a loud voice." "And a strong heart. You're alive." I am with you, I thought.
"You have a-I don't know what to call it. An attitude, and it's going to appeal to people, smart people." Good thing it was dark, because I actually blushed.
"I would give anything if that were true," I admitted, a little breathless. "But I haven't even figured out what I should write about yet." "That'll come. You want everything now." "I do, I hate to wait. Am I going to make it? Is this going to work? Will I be a success? I want to know it all now.,' "What if the answer was no, and you knew it? What would you change?" I shook my head.
"For me," he said, "I knew painting was what I should do when I realized it was the only thing I wanted, even if I never succeeded. That was the test. It isn't a question of what other people think, it's-my process. Watching myself get better, understanding things that used to be complete mysteries to me. Moving. Changing." I nodded a lot. Talk like this makes me feel exhilarated and worried and cheered up and inadequate. I take it in and think about it later.
It confirmed one thing, though, something I'd suspected for some time. Mick's more grown up than I am.
I said, "Well, anyway. I wanted to tell you, if I hadn't met you, I probably wouldn't have quit my job. That seemed like taking a big chance to me. What it must've been to you-I didn't appreciate it before. Now I do. I admire you." He looked down; all I could see was the top of his head. He reached around to his back pocket, and for an awful second 1 thought he was getting his handkerchief, because he was crying. I felt stupid, but relieved, when he pulled out his wallet and said, "Want to see a picture of Jay?" His son was beautiful, of course. What else? A tow-headed blond with pink cheeks and a goofy', angel smile. "He looks like you," I said. "But I don't know why. None of his features. .
"No. People always say he looks like Sally." "Yeah, but there's something, something..." Jay was building a snowman with Dad in the front yard. I recognized the narrow gray town house in the background because, God help me, I once drove past it. On purpose. I wanted to see where Mick lived, I just wanted to fill in that one harmless blank. In the picture, Jay had on so many clothes-blue quilted snowsuit, muffler, a cap with earflaps, soggy wool mittens, clumpy yellow boots - he looked incapable of movement, rooted to the spot with the three snow blobs stacked beside him. My mother's got a picture of me in the same getup, a classic kid pose; I'm holding my sled by a rope, and the little boy who lived two doors down is standing behind me, bigger, older, a tricky look in his eye. But I have no recollection of the event, the day. Will Jay look at this photo one day and not remember anything about it?
"Oh, Mick, he's lovely. Six?" "Five and a half, he'll be six in December." "Did you always want children?" "Not really. Jay was.. . a surprise." I looked up. His face had grown still, inward. He was choosing his words with care. "I never thought anyone else's life could mean more to me than my life. I think Jay's happy. I think he is. His innocence is what scares me the most. I want to protect him, and I know I can't." His low voice dropped lower. "Emma, I couldn't do anything that would hurt Jay. No matter how much I wanted to. No matter. .
He let that hang. I handed him his photograph back, with nothing to say. Message received.
It was a relief, really. Like a child, I function better when somebody sets limits. Now that I know the rules, I'll follow them to the letter. What were you thinking? I was already asking myself.
The patio door slid open. There was a new innocence in the way we turned at the sound, Sally came toward us, with Lee behind her. Mick appeared to wait until his wife was beside him before he slipped the photo of his son back in his wallet. More blamelessness on display.
We chatted-we women. Mick didn't talk. I felt numb and light, barely there. Lee said Sally wanted to fix me up with a man in her office. Lawyer, late forties, divorced, works for the general counsel. "Now, don't say no without even thinking about it, Em, because he really sounds nice, he-" "Okay." Lee blinked. "Hm?" "Thanks, Sally. Give him my number, tell him to call me." She looked as surprised as Lee. My reputation preceded me. "I sure will," she said. She took Mick's upper arm in both hands and leaned on him, rested her head on his shoulder. A wifely message: Let's go soon, honey, I'm tired.
I made the mistake of looking at him. I wonder how much hurt I could have saved myself if he had turned away then, or if he'd disguised what he was feeling, or even if the light had been bad. But it was bright enough, and Mick's not half as good as I am at dissembling. I saw all his pain, and it was big and raw and humbling. All this time, I had been holding back from loving him. The illusion that I had a choice evaporated.
Two weighty lessons I could have done without: I can't have him, and we are in love with each other.
16.