You Lost Me There (25 page)

Around four, I offered to tour Cornelia through my record collection. Part of me didn’t want to play her any music, instead I wanted her to see how merely possessing all those albums was its own satisfaction, to know that they were there. The collector’s joy. There’d been a time when I knew every recording of every piece, the sign of a specialist who understands very little. But now to gaze upon the sleeves, to
not
play them. To be in awe. I wanted her to use silence to appreciate that, in comparison, the experience of listening was a lot more personal and complicated: how it depended on the day’s mood, the temperature of the air, what clothes you were wearing and how they felt, what you’d eaten for lunch, and then of course the equipment and the tones it produced and at what volume, and every associated emotion and memory brought by the listener. Never mind the music. The experience of music was so different for each individual, it wasn’t even worth discussing. As soon as I pressed PLAY, we may as well have existed in separate dimensions.

But Cornelia said, “So what have you got?”

I let her choose at random. She plucked out Sibelius, Barber, Dvořák. I explained, here’s how I thought of Dvořák, particularly the violin sonata she’d chosen, because she liked the cover: that this was music Emma Darwin might have enjoyed, if the technology had been available, while composing letters to her husband. The romance matched, but more important, there was wretchedness underneath: Emma’s terror about her husband’s lack of faith, not because an angry God might strike him down but because someday she’d be alone in heaven.

“You’ve got like a serious boner for Darwin,” said Cornelia.

“Do you hear the sadness?”

“I mean, it sounds jaunty to me.”

I pulled down Steve Reich’s
Music for 18 Musicians
, which I figured would appeal to Cornelia’s drum-circle side. It was a trip, she said. Afterward, we went out for a cheap dinner in Bar Harbor and caught a documentary at the Criterion.

The second day, we hiked around Eagle Lake, where Cornelia said we should take random turns and I was the idiot who agreed. After an hour, my knees ached and my lower back was in knots. It was hot under the dense tree cover and there wasn’t any breeze. We were lost. But Cornelia kept running ahead around the trail’s next bend, her dreadlocks wobbling like a swami’s basket, her wife beater sticking to her ribs. I was stunned when we came out half an hour later at my car. Cornelia gloated that she’d known the way the whole time. She said she’d been there before with Dan, the boy from the restaurant.

“So what’s this Dan like?”

“What?” Cornelia looked up from her cell phone and pulled her feet down from the window. “Oh, he’s cool. I mean, there’s lots of kids working here for the summer, in the restaurants. The bartenders know us, so they comp us drinks.”

“How does Dan know the island so well?”

“He likes the woods. It’s a mind-set.”

“A mind-set,” I repeated.

There were several messages on the answering machine when we got home. “Hi, Victor, this is Dr. Carrellas again, I just wanted to touch base and see—” I pressed DELETE. The phone rang.

“Victor, it’s Betsy.”

“Oh—”

“Why haven’t you returned my messages?”

“We’ve been out.”

“You and Trixie. Well, should I stop by Pepcin’s or not? They had terrific cod last week, they give me a good deal, you know.”

“Do we have a dinner scheduled?”

“Victor, what good is an answering machine if you don’t use it?!” Cornelia turned at the noise. “I said, I’ve come over to Southwest for the afternoon, and it would be nice to meet the little courtesan. You don’t have
plans
tonight, do you?”

“No.”

“Is that Aunt Betsy?” Cornelia was sitting on a stool, kicking her legs.

“So how’s six? Pepcin’s got the best, I don’t know why you don’t shop there.”

“Fine, dinner, bring the fish.”

“Lovely,” Betsy chirped. “Ta, dear.”

Cornelia and I cleaned up the living room. I was pouring myself a glass of white wine when Cornelia came downstairs wearing a floral skirt and a plain white T-shirt and actual shoes, her hair tied back in a ponytail. I was thinking up a compliment when we heard the sound of gravel being kicked up in the driveway.

Betsy remained in the driver’s seat, smoking. She was wearing a showy necklace for the occasion, a diamond pendant worth thousands.

“Well, aren’t you sparkling,” I said.

“Aren’t you desperate, dear,” she replied, grasping my hand through the window with no intention of getting out, pretending no one was standing there beside me.

“That’s a beautiful necklace, Aunt Betsy,” Cornelia said.

I thought I saw a deer near the woodpile, but it was only the wind blowing leaves around. We moved slowly to the porch as a threesome: me with groceries, Cornelia politely asking after Betsy’s health, and Betsy, deaf to inquiry, telling me about running into one of the Rockefeller boys at Pepcin’s, so she wasn’t too sure anymore about the fish if they let just anyone shop there.

Cornelia fixed drinks while I went inside to prepare dinner. Cornelia had suggested I cook “so we ladies can have girl talk.” When I came back out, Cornelia was lighting a cigarette, hunched forward in a chair opposite Betsy’s.

“Ah, Victor. She smokes, then?”

Betsy herself had a cigarette in one hand, ashing on the armrest.

“It hasn’t killed me yet,” said Cornelia.

“But it will, dear. You must know that. When I was a girl, why, everyone smoked, at least all the men, and any girls who had guts. Now we were raised believing it was healthy, but you, dear, I’d think anyone your age who started smoking would be a nincompoop.”

“Betsy, can I get you a glass of water?”

“I’m trying to quit,” Cornelia said. “I started when I was thirteen.”

“No, thank you, Victor,” said Betsy. “Dear, what was your name again?”

“Cornelia Caratti.”

“How about we call you Connie? Victor tells me you’re working with my son, is that right?”

“Oh, Mrs. Gardner, Joel is awesome. You must be so proud of him. He’s totally become my inspiration.”

Betsy scoffed. “Well, I didn’t raise him to cook, so much good it did. I can’t cook in the slightest, that was always Bill’s métier. They say a lot of drugs float around restaurants. Now, when Victor told me about your career, I must say we never thought our struggle as feminists all those years would end up putting women back into the kitchen.”

“How about we play nice,” I called over from the grill.

“I don’t know that that’s true,” Cornelia said. “I don’t think it’s really a struggle anymore.”

“Don’t bullshit a bullshitter, dear.”

“I’m doing what I want, I made that choice. I’m paid, aren’t I?”

Betsy scrunched her nose.

I went inside and brought out a bowl of tomatoes Cornelia had roasted the day before. “Betsy,” I said, holding them out, “wouldn’t you like a snack before dinner? Cornelia made these yesterday—”

“No, thank you, too rich for me. But aren’t they scrumptious. So, Connie, you just graduated from college. Cornell, was it?”

Cornelia nodded.

“Cornelia Caratti, Cornell graduate. Marvelously alliterative. Now, I want to know, do the news reports have it right, your ‘hooking up’? Truly, I wish you to be honest with us, help us old people understand, was a lot of hooking up done while you were in school?”

“I think I’m going to go get some wine,” Cornelia said.

When she’d gone inside, Betsy hoarsely whispered, “Why, she’s wonderful, Victor. You found yourself a partner in prudery.”

“Maybe the elderly shouldn’t drink at breakfast,” I said. I closed the top of the grill and stood in front of her.

“I may be tipsy,” Betsy said, “but the girl still needs a shampoo.”

I took her wine and her cigarettes. I began sliding the cigarettes out, one by one, and snapping them in half.

“Well, aren’t you man of the house.”

“It’s a mind-set,” I said.

“What does that mean?”

“That I’m about to drive you home.”

“Well, I don’t know that I’ve seen you so resolute before. Why the urgency, I wonder? Now, give me those back.”

“First you play nice.”

Betsy struggled to get up, but the chair was too deep. Her hair flopped down into her glasses and the veins bulged in her arms. “Quit playing dirty. Oh, fine, fine, you win, now give me those back!”

I threw the pack in her lap and put the wineglass on the ground, six inches from her reach. Maybe it was the heat from the grill, but my shirt was spotted with sweat marks. The sun had disappeared below the treetops. When Cornelia slid open the door, Betsy was back to smiling, a cigarette in her lips, once again reclined.

“Cornelia,” I said, “did you know that Aunt Betsy—”

“Dear, I apologize if in any way I offended you earlier,” Betsy said. “Now, do you have a boyfriend?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Or a girlfriend? It’s all right, darling, I know how the world works, I think it’s wonderful. Victor, look at her, signs of love are palpable.”

Cornelia mooned at me for a moment and laughed.

“See? Obviously she has someone special, don’t you, dear?”

“I wouldn’t say I have him,” she said.

“Deductive reasoning, you see.”

“I didn’t know you were dating anyone,” I said.

“Why, how
mossy
of you, Victor. So how did you two meet?”

“He works at the restaurant. But it’s not like we’re, whatever, dating.”

“Ah, he’s one of Joel’s. Well, hooking up, would you say?”

“So what was it like when you were young?” asked Cornelia. “It’s not like we’re discussing anything revolutionary.”

“Oh, but the world was different, you know. It was very important to maintain appearances. No, of course, there were cars to drive in, movies to see. If there weren’t chaperones, you could explore the rumble seat afterward.”

“Did kids have sex when you were in high school?”

Betsy didn’t blink an eye.

“No, dear, no,” she said, adjusting her glasses with both hands. “Well, I’m sure some
did
, but it wouldn’t be something you’d hear about, unless a girl went away for a short time. But there were ways, ways if a boy liked you—”

“So did you go all the way? I mean, before you were married?”

They both laughed and Betsy shook her head. “Now, not that I’m necessarily proud about that. In those days one saved oneself, you see. What a funny thing to say now. For what, one wonders. Not that I wasn’t tempted, mind you. We had dances in the summers, you’d curl your hair. But you wanted to maintain dignity, always dignity. Remember, darling,” Betsy said, whispering and leaning forward, “there’s still a lot of ground to cover when you’re running around the bases.”

They both fell back in their chairs laughing. Dinner was eaten outside on our laps. Cornelia lit the citronella torches and quizzed Betsy about Uncle Bill and how they’d met, what their courtship was like, what it had been like to live in Japan after the war.

“You know, I did almost have an affair.”

“What?” I said.

Both women looked at me.

“What are you two talking about? I’m sorry, with who?”

Betsy laughed and turned in her seat toward Cornelia and took one of her hands, sliding the rings up and down her fingers as though on an abacus. “Bill, bless him,” Betsy said to Cornelia, ignoring me, “took on junior engineers in the summer. One year we had a Princeton boy named Ford. Fordie Wheeler, family from Virginia, I think. Anyway, delightful young man, smart, and very tall. Sort of a young Bill Holden. At the time, boys stayed at the house, that way Bill could work them around the clock and make sure they didn’t get into trouble. Well, Fordie was a good guest, very polite. A little too well trained. He’d eat dinner with us, help me with the housework, and always interesting, you know, telling stories about the fraternity, and could he play the piano! Well, one week Bill had to fly on business and it was just the two of us.”

Betsy sighed. “The remarkable thing,” she said a moment later, her head up, “I don’t think he ever would have laid a hand on me. And I was a looker, you know. But Fordie was soft, you see, he read too much poetry, he had
ideas
. Me on the other hand, I’d thought about it all summer. I was dying to be his ruin. It’s terrible to remember, I would go to bed dreaming. I couldn’t take my eyes off him at the club. Why, the legs on that boy.” She paused for a long moment. “This was a few years after Joel had disappeared. He’d resurfaced once or twice. We’d be relieved, of course, not for long, though. I was sending him money secretly, then he wrote these vile letters from Sacramento, of the most incredible rage, wishing us the worst from his hidey-hole. Bill really took it to heart, though he wouldn’t show it. Never talked to the boy again, talked to me less. Personally I felt betrayed. I’d given Joel quite a good deal of money by that point. Well, blame ourselves is what we did, and it divided us. It was like a ghost lying there in the bed, our failure. But the first afternoon I saw young Ford, it occurred to me right away, the idea of being with him, a clean slate. Someone new. We had our little jokes, you see. I’m sure he thought we were just picnicking.

“But you must see, you must
see
, Cornelia, I never cheated on Bill. I did not betray my husband. I loved Bill, I loved him more that summer than ever I had, I adored him. But you’ll have worked tremendously hard to build your life after a certain fashion, and then suddenly, one morning, you want something different. You want anything but what you have, you want it new and you want it just right then. It’s terrifying, the desire’s so powerful, you’re just sick with it. Or perhaps I’d had too much to drink.”

Cornelia tried to interrupt but Betsy wouldn’t have it: “Either I’d had too much to drink or not enough. We were out behind the house. I asked Fordie to bring outside the record player so we could dance. I said I was worried he could return to school not knowing how to court a girl properly, and then what sort of hostess had I been? Oh, I’d planned it for days, it was such a hot summer. Though of course the boy could dance. He was dashing, he knew it, he was very well taught and groomed and turned out, boys were in those days and Ford especially. And there was a moon out. And even at dusk it was still so hot. You smelled like honeysuckle. He put the record on and I instructed him on how to grasp my waist. Then we danced several times. And I kissed him.”