Palace Council (9 page)

Grinning her toothy political grin at him, the one she inherited from her father.

Friendly hug. Quick polite conversation of ex-lovers.

“What are you doing here?”

“Lanning is meeting some of his old professors. They're going to teach him everything there is to know about foreign policy in three hours.” The same sparkling mischief in the dark eyes. “What are you doing here?”

“Visiting my sister. You look great, Margot.”

“So do you. I read the novel. I loved it.”

“Thanks. How are things with you?”

“Spectacular. Lanning is running for the House next year. I'll tell you a secret. Daddy's retiring. He's anointing Lanning for his Senate seat in '62.”

“So the White House can't be far away.”

“Having it off in the East Room.”

“That's right.” Both of them joking. The spark, for a thousand different reasons, was dead. Margot was still a handsome woman. But he noticed changes. Her hair was now perfectly coiffed, as befitted the future First Lady. Her tidy nails bespoke countless hours at the manicurist. She was wearing a loose summer dress, but the cross at her throat was silver and tiny and right side up.

“Call me if you're ever in Washington.”

“Call me if you're ever in New York.”

Walking back along Massachusetts Avenue, he wondered why Margot had not asked him what his sister was doing in Cambridge. Maybe it was liberal politeness, not wanting to embarrass him when it turned out that she scrubbed bathrooms at night. Maybe it was something else.

On the subway ride back to Boston, Aurie asked him what had taken so long.

“I ran into an old friend,” he said.

Or she ran into me.

CHAPTER
13

More Friendly Advice

(I)

“Y
OU'RE AN IDIOT
,” said Mona Veazie.

“I figured that part out for myself.”

“Why didn't you ask me before you went down there, Aurie? I would've told you what would happen. I know how you are about him and I know how he is about you—”

“We didn't have sex,” Aurelia whispered.

Mona laughed—or, more properly, hooted. They were in Mona's bedroom, for she still lived in her parents' mansion on Edgecombe Avenue. Her mother, a distant Garland cousin, was the most prominent Czarina in Harlem. The view was of the walled garden, and the rear entrances of other houses. Mona sat at her dresser. Aurelia was lying on her back on the bed.

“‘We didn't have sex,'” Mona echoed. “You should put that one in the
Sentinel.
Everybody would believe it, right? ‘What recently married Harlem hostess spent the night alone in an apartment with her ex, then denied to this reporter that they had intimate relations?' I can see it now.”

“We didn't spend the night together. The driver dropped me at Janine's and then took Eddie to his hotel.”

“The FBI driver.”

“Yes.”

“So the two of you are probably in Hoover's files by now.”

Aurelia rolled onto her side. “Stop teasing me, Mona. I'm in trouble. I need help.”

Mona's eyes sparkled. “If I believed you, I'd help you. I know how much I owe you, honey. But you never needed help in your life. You're just up here whining because you don't want a lecture.”

“I don't want a lecture. That's true.” Aurelia propped herself on her elbow. “What am I going to do?”

Mona rubbed her temple like somebody with a migraine. She was wearing slacks, as she almost always did, even as she topped thirty, when skirts and dresses were de rigueur among Harlem women of a certain class. Mona was about to receive her doctorate in psychology, and had lined up a postgraduate fellowship at the University of Chicago, where she would teach a little, do some research, and hunt for a full-time faculty position worthy of her credentials. She was the smartest person Aurelia had ever met, and also one of the wisest. They had been friends since the day they met. Mona, the great rebel, had a string of men behind her. Aurie was more choosy, even though Harlem believed otherwise. Eddie was not the first man with whom she had found herself sexlessly entwined.

“You're a married woman,” said Mona, with her mother's chilly authority. “You have a child. You're not going to do anything. Eddie was over the day you said yes to Kevin.”

“Eddie thinks that we—”

“It doesn't matter what Eddie thinks.”

“We could have a harmless lunch now and—”

“You saw what having a drink almost cost you.”

Aurie frowned. “When did you get so hard? You never followed anybody's rules.”

Mona grinned. “I never got married, either. Respect the institution.”

(II)

T
HE ARGUMENT
with Mona took place after the trip to Washington but before the trip to Boston. For days Aurelia wondered. At that time Kevin had been gone for almost two weeks, without any serious effort at explanation. He did not seem to be respecting the institution—not the way Aurie thought the institution was supposed to work. Bewildered, she walked little Zora in her carriage, visited other Harlem wives, wrote the occasional column for the
Sentinel.
Several times over the next couple of days, she was on the verge of calling Eddie—surely there was nothing wrong with a
lunch—
but her hand always froze before she could lift the receiver.

Then she ran into Eddie one night at the salon maintained by Shirley Elden, and when they happened to pass in the empty hallway—no doubt a coincidence—she asked him, matter-of-factly, how the business with Hoover had been resolved. Eddie explained. Flushed with relief, she actually gave him a congratulatory hug, and kissed him on the cheek. The intimacy was dizzying, and it was in that moment of weakness that she whispered that she would try to meet him in Cambridge for the celebration with Junie—a choice she did not regret until she got home.

Anybody could have seen her.

Was she out of her mind?

Then it got worse. Two mornings after her return, Aurelia had an unexpected visit from her father-in-law, who stopped by on his way to work. He brought along a box of imported chocolates. She made coffee, and dandled the baby on her knee while they talked.

“My boy's not perfect,” said Matty calmly. “Not by a long shot. I don't imagine living with him is all sweetness and light. I understand that. He married a beautiful younger woman, and he leaves you here alone for weeks at a time. Bad situation all around, Aurie. Very bad.”

She could not meet his eyes, and so played with Zora, who was nibbling on an animal cracker but mostly smearing it on her mother's blouse.

“We're the same, you and I. That's what I love about you. We're the kind of people, we see something we want, we go after it, and nothing will make us happy till we get it. Right?” Still she said nothing. He did not want her answers or her agreement. He wanted her attention. “The only trouble is, Aurie, people like us get bored easily. We work and work till we get what we want, and then—as soon as we get it?—we want something else. You know how the Bible says, hold tight to that which is good? I'm not sure people like us are so great at that one.” He raised a hand to forestall her response. “Me, I don't judge anybody. Live and let live. Besides, my life—well, it's not a model for anybody to follow. Except for one thing. My marriage. My Wanda. That's the one thing I've done right in life, being true to my wife and taking care of her.”

Aurelia was shaking her head. “I've never cheated on Kevin, Matty. Please believe me. I never have, and I never would.”

His eyes were wide with feigned surprise. He laid a hand over his heart. “Oh, no, honey, no. Did you think that's what I meant? I know you would never hurt my son. Never. Not that he doesn't deserve it, goodness knows.” He leaned over and chucked Zora's chin. The toddler tilted her head back like a Czarina in training. “What I'm saying is, I know this has been hard, the way Kevin is acting. Believe me, Aurie, when he gets back, I'll be giving him a serious talking-to. Just what I told you, honey. Holding tight to that which is good.” He was on his feet, hat in hand. “You remember, Aurie. You're worth ten of him. He needs you more than you need him. He's not so bad, really. Try to meet him halfway. My wife does that. I'm hell on earth to live with, and my Wanda's a saint. But you don't have to be a saint, honey. All I'm asking is that you give my boy a chance. I'll talk to him. And I'll tell him, Aurie. If he ever does anything to hurt you—really hurt you?—I'll pay for the divorce myself and give you what I'm leaving to him in my will.”

Aurelia had never known a man who could make her cry so easily, but Matty was a salesman and could wring tears from a statue. By the time they walked to the door, she had recovered sufficiently to ask a question.

“Matty?”

“Yes, honey?”

“Have you ever heard Kevin talk about shaking the throne?”

His fleshy face crinkled in bewilderment. “About what?”

“Shaking the throne. Pandemonium. Anything like that.”

“Sounds to me like the music you kids listen to.” He kissed her on the forehead, and was gone.

(III)

K
EVIN RETURNED
from London the following week. From Idlewild, he went straight to the office, and arrived home several hours later chastened and apologetic, bearing a beautifully wrapped box from the royal jewelers, Garrard & Co. of Bond Street. He hugged her desperately. He told her he loved her. He made promises. He would never again go away without telling her. He was sorry to have frightened her. He would never hurt her again. What he called “the bad patch” was over. He was done with his mysterious travels. Aurelia wondered whether his promises meant he had located Castle's testament. Kevin was still talking, holding her close. What they needed, he said, was a second honeymoon: the chance to begin anew. After that, a house in the suburbs, so that the children would have a yard to play in.

Aurelia felt her childhood dreams gathering gently around her like clouds of triumph. A well-off husband who would never hurt her again. A grand house full of children. She remembered the orphanage, the nuns doing their best amid the crowding and the dampness and the fear. If the bad patch was really over—

She studied Kevin's earnest face and chose to forgive him.

That night, they got to work on the new baby.

A month later, opening her eyes one morning to find Kevin smiling down at her as the Tuscan sunshine poured through the windows of the rented villa, Aurelia decided that the revival of his former tenderness was real. They made love. On the second day after their return to Edgecombe Avenue, she waited for her husband to leave for work, then went into the tiny sewing room that served as her office. She gathered the notes she had made from the documents she had found in the safe, burned them in an ashtray, and threw the ashes out with the trash.

CHAPTER
14

Quonset

(I)

“I
DON'T READ CONTEMPORARY FICTION
,” said Aunt Erebeth, patting Eddie's hand with papery fingers. It was like being touched by a ghost. A tongue so pale you could almost see through it emerged from the ancient mouth, sliding over invisible lips. Snowy hair was straight and brittle, as if she was afraid to let her maids touch it. Gary Fatek often said, laughing nervously, that his great-aunt was about six hundred years old. Just now, Eddie could believe it. “I don't read anything written after Trollope. A little Dickens now and then, you understand, but I'm more a Milton woman. You'll have read Milton back in college, of course, won't you? Every real writer has.” Malicious confidence glittered in the old eyes. “You are a writer, aren't you? Gareth says you make the critics swoon. But Gareth voted for Stevenson, not Eisenhower, the ninny, so we know what his opinion is worth.” She coughed, spraying Eddie with the remnants of dinner, and left unclear exactly who was the ninny. Eddie was seated on her right, the place of honor, across from Gary, and on the left of Tamra, whom Erebeth described as her minor domo. The dining room of Aunt Erebeth's Quonset Point redoubt was an ill-lit cavern. The polished rosewood table could easily seat thirty, but tonight there were just four of them. The gloss was so high that Eddie could see himself, in full color, each time he bent over for a bite. It was early June. The windows were open to the murmuring night sea.

“I am indeed a writer,” Eddie agreed, wondering how on earth he had allowed Gary to talk him into this weekend. But one did not ignore invitations from the likes of Erebeth Hilliman.

“I've never heard of you,” she snapped.

Gary looked at his plate: Limoges, custom-designed with the family crest. Tamra looked at Erebeth. Eddie longed to smile but fought the urge. Aunt Erebeth, according to Gary, hated two things in life: levity, and the Democratic Party. “My career is young,” said Eddie, hoping to sound modest.

“Eddie's first novel won all these awards—” Gary began.

“If I wanted your opinion,” said Erebeth, “I'd have borne you myself. But that ninny Stella had you instead, and your father was Father's chauffeur, so I would suggest you keep your stupid ideas in your head.” To Eddie, sweetly: “What awards were those, dear?”

Liveried servants cleared. Erebeth commanded the party to the library. The corridors were dark, depressing wood. The sconces were muted, because Erebeth's eyes were sensitive to light. Tamra pushed the wheelchair. She was big and blond and forty and looked as if she should be riding horses. According to Gary, Erebeth hired a new minor domo every six months or so, but Tamra had lasted more than twice that, maybe because none of the others had ever fought back. Erebeth did as she pleased. She was the only living grandchild of Major Hilliman, founder of the family fortune. The Hilliman trusts expired on Erebeth's death, and she was charged with rewriting them, so nobody denied her anything, including years of their lives.

Tea and cakes were served.

“I admire you people,” said Erebeth as they sat beneath long portraits of prominent ancestors. Two were royalty. One was a President. Everybody was sipping Darjeeling except Erebeth, who guzzled a foul-smelling elixir from a plain brown bottle. Gary whispered that it was supposed to keep her alive forever. Eddie suspected that her various hatreds would be enough to keep her batteries charged. “Negroes,” the old woman clarified. “I admire you Negroes. Only a hundred years out of slavery, and look how far you've come. Still on the bottom!” Erebeth cackled at her joke. Gary waggled a warning finger at his friend, but Eddie was stone. I keep my politics under wraps at Quonset Point, Gary had told him earlier. Easier for everyone that way.

“Stop it,” said Tamra. She had a square jaw and a gaze of disconcerting directness. You had the sense that lies were beneath her.

“I'm just having a little fun, dear,” Erebeth sulked.

“Apologize,” said Tamra.

“I shall do no such thing.” Then she brightened and, in her way, apologized after all. “Actually,” she said, touching Eddie's hand again, “I like the Negroes. I do.” Shifting her gaze briefly toward the disapproving Tamra. “I write checks to the NAACP,” Erebeth added, mournfully, as if disclosing the family shame. “Gigantic checks. I'm their biggest donor in the country.”

“In Rhode Island,” said Tamra. “And only the third biggest.”

(II)

T
HE TWO YOUNG MEN
were walking on the beach, managing, rather nicely given their considerable inebriation, brandy and cigars. The ocean was inky dark and triumphant. Distant lights were boats, or buoys, or optical illusions. Erebeth owned the sand, a mile in both directions. She was said to own the legislature, too, which had granted her by statute the needed exemptions. Eddie wondered what it must have been like to grow up this way.

“Aunt Erebeth wants me to run her foundation,” said Gary tipsily. “She's a greedy old bitch, and she'd leave her money to herself if she could, but the lawyers seem to think it's impossible. So she's creating a foundation. She's naming it after herself, and she wants me to run it, and she'll rewrite the trusts so I'll be in charge of them next generation.”

Eddie marveled at life's twists. The fabled Hilliman trusts contained more money than any but a handful of American corporations earned in a year. The trusts provided for the needs and caprices of the scattered Hillimans, and provided uncountable wealth for the single member of each generation assigned as their custodian. Gary's aunt was asking the self-proclaimed radical to take control of the family.

“Are you going to accept?”

“I don't know. The foundation will give money to promote international understanding. Peace in our time. You know the kind of thing.” He hesitated. “Erebeth is the last of the third generation. The fourth—my mother's generation—all died. There's fifteen of us in the fifth.”

“Your cousins will hate you.”

Gary seemed not to hear. He gazed into the ocean, and found distant misty memories. “My grandfather—Erebeth's older brother—wanted sons. He kept marrying new women, and they kept delivering daughters.” He laughed. Angrily. “I think my mother ran off with the chauffeur just to shock the family, but he was a great dad. Grandfather wanted to cut her off, but he couldn't change the trusts. Erebeth—well, she's different. More modern.”

“Modern?”

“I know, I know, you think she's a big right-winger. But, Eddie, this idea of hers, the foundation, has lots of promise for the issues that you and I always…” He sighed, ran down, said nothing. “If I don't…” Again he stopped. He shook his head, muttered something vulgar. His shoulders slumped. Temptation, temptation. “The cousins hate me already. Because of my father. And—well, because they do.”

Eddie stood with his toes curled into the wet sand, thinking of his childhood on Martha's Vineyard, and perfect worlds destroyed by the hard truth that we either grow old or die young. He thought about Aurelia. And about his sister and her baby. “Why did you bring me here, Gary? I can't help you decide what to do.”

“Erebeth wanted to meet you.”

“Why?”

“She wouldn't say.”

“I don't understand.”

Gary took a long look at him, then laughed, the perennial outsider, and tossed his brandy snifter as far out as he could. They listened but heard no splash. “I don't understand, either. She said she wanted you to come for the weekend so she could take your measure. She was very insistent, Eddie. She's Erebeth Hilliman. She doesn't give reasons. She gives orders.” He took Eddie's glass, threw that one, too. Eddie had only been sipping, so brandy sloshed everywhere. Gary laughed again. “Maybe she plans to write you into the trusts.”

(III)

T
HE GUEST CHAMBER
was big enough to dock an ocean liner. At four in the morning, Eddie woke to a rapping at the heavy door. Opening it a crack, he found Tamra peering at him, wearing a housecoat, blond hair awry. It took him a groggy moment to understand that the minor domo intended nothing lascivious. He was being summoned to the telephone. A servant stood behind her, a heavy terry-cloth bathrobe at the ready. There was an extension on the landing. He heard the familiar voice and sat down hard on the wicker seat.

“I can't stand this,” sobbed Junie. “It's so unfair. Why do we have to make these choices?”

She cried for a while, even though he could not work out from the few incoherent sentences she muttered what she was crying about. Second thoughts, he supposed. She did not want to give up the baby. He wondered whether she had been drinking, and remembered reading that some doctors thought alcohol was bad for the baby, and others thought it usefully relaxing for the mother. He calmed her down. He told her he loved her. He told her he could be in Cambridge in two hours. Weeping, she assured him she was feeling better and there was really no need for him to come, but he could not bear the thought of her pain. Upstairs, under Tamra's supervision, the servant was already packing Eddie's bags.

“Gary was always her favorite,” the minor domo explained. “That's why the cousins all hate him, Mr. Wesley. Erebeth has no children of her own, you see.” A ghost of a smile. “I very much doubt that Gary will be having children any time soon.”

“But he's engaged to—”

“That governor's niece. Yes. I read the papers. And yet I rather suspect that they will never wed.”

A driver was waiting. The household assembled to see him off. Gary sent Junie his best. Erebeth's glittering eyes said she had his measure. Tamra looked sad. When Eddie arrived in Cambridge, Junie was dressed, perky and smiling, and big as a house. He sensed that his sister was putting on her best face for him, and wished that she would not. She allowed him to buy her breakfast and wash the dishes, for the apartment was messy as ever. She refused to explain her crying jag, beyond referring to cold feet, and by midday had sent him on his way as if expecting a more important caller.

In Harlem two days later, he stole a few minutes with Aurelia, who laughed and told him pregnant women were always emotional. “I used to cry before every meal,” she assured him. “And half the time I was ready to wring Kevin's neck. I didn't need a reason.” But to Eddie every phenomenon had a cause.

(IV)

T
HE BABY GIRL
arrived in July, scant weeks after Junie turned twenty-five. She sent Eddie a note to say that her “gentleman” had done his part, and everything was fine. She had subsequently gone up to Boston to visit their parents, and, in response to Marie Wesley's pronouncement that she seemed pale and shaky and had gained weight, told them that the rigors of law school will do that to you. Marie wanted to send her to their family doctor for a checkup, and was surprised by the vehemence of her daughter's resistance. But the temper, too, she put down to the same pressures.
I admit I still feel a
little
bit guilty,
Junie wrote,
but I feel the future opening wide before the whole darker nation. I can hardly wait to get there.

Me, too,
Eddie wrote back.

A month later, June Cranch Wesley left Cambridge with a girlfriend, the two of them driving to Chicago in a borrowed car, Junie to begin her clerkship at the federal courthouse, her friend to look for work.

They never arrived.

The car was later found at a rest stop in New Jersey, locked, undamaged, and packed tightly with their belongings. Both women had disappeared.