A Good American (33 page)

FORTY

After the wedding, Ellie moved in with Freddy and Jette next door. I began to shuttle between the two houses more frequently. I was fascinated by the spectacle that my brother and his new wife presented. The two of them were simply brimming with happiness. It was beautiful to see.

I did invite some girls out on dates back then. I even drove a few of them out to Gants Bluff in my father’s Oldsmobile with half a bottle of gin stashed under the passenger seat. But even as we wrestled halfheartedly in the backseat, I couldn’t help thinking how tawdry and immature it all was in comparison with Freddy and Eleanor’s grand romance. It didn’t help that whenever I kissed a girl I was assailed by wistful thoughts of Miriam Imhoff, and what might have been. As a result I was unable to muster the necessary enthusiasm, and soon we would be driving back into town in strained silence.

After a few of these difficult evenings I decided to give up on girls for a while, and instead began living vicariously through the amorous entanglements of Buck Gunn. One of the advantages of confining relationships with the opposite sex to proxy encounters within the pages of my novel was that—unlike my interactions with actual, breathing females—I was always in complete control of the situation. The risk of humiliation was eliminated entirely. The beautiful women Buck flirted with at parties all laughed at his jokes, swooned at his good looks, and were
always
ready to put out. Best of all, when I (or Buck) grew tired of them, they would obligingly disappear, usually with a cheerful wave and a grateful smile.

My novel was protecting me from more than just girls. It was an incubator for my secret dreams, my ticket out of town. I focused all my energy on completing it. The steady aggregation of pages had continued throughout 1959, and by Christmas it was finished. I spent a week contemplating the thick stack of paper on my desk, reading a paragraph here and there, profoundly impressed with myself.

I wondered what to do next. On a fresh page I typed out a dedication.

To Miriam, for everything, forever

I looked at the words for a long time. Then I tore the page into tiny pieces and put a new sheet in the typewriter.

To Rosa, with love

It was my aunt who had first sparked my enthusiasm for literature with
The Code of the Woosters
. She was my teacher and my best friend. The next evening I presented her with the manuscript and asked if she would do me the honor of being the first person to read it. She read the dedication page and went very still. For the first time that I could remember, Rosa appeared to be lost for words. She leaned over and gave me a kiss on the cheek and stood up.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“To bed.”

I frowned. “I don’t quite—”

“Best place to read,” she said.

“But what about dinner?” I asked.

“Fix it yourself, if you want some,” said Rosa briskly. She brandished my manuscript at me. “I’ve got things to do.”

I looked at her, nonplussed. “Is it all right if I stay?”

“As long as you don’t disturb me.”

“I promise.”

“All right, then. Let yourself out.”

And with that, she disappeared.

I remained in my armchair, unsure what to do. I wanted to be there, just in case Rosa came barreling breathlessly out of her bedroom to tell me how wonderful it all was. I sat completely still, straining to hear any sort of reaction from upstairs. An occasional snort of laughter or a small sigh of admiration would have been enough. But she read in total silence. I tiptoed to the bottom of the staircase and listened. I did not even hear the rustle of turning pages. For all I knew she had already fallen asleep. After a couple of hours, I let myself out the front door and walked home. I did not sleep much that night.

The next morning I was shaken awake by a hand on my shoulder. I groggily turned over and saw Rosa sitting on the edge of my bed.

“Well?” I asked. “How far did you get?”

“I finished it.”

I stared at her. “Really?”

She nodded. “I read through the night.”

“And? What did you think?”

“Oh, James.” She smiled at me. “It’s just wonderful.”

I grinned at her stupidly. “Wow,” I said.

“Look at you,” she said. “A real writer.”

“You liked it,” I said, elation quickly rubbing away my sleepless night.

“I
loved
it.” She patted the manuscript on her lap. “And this afternoon I’m going to drive to Jefferson City and have ten copies made.”

“Ten copies? Why?”

“Because we need to send this to New York.”

“New York?”

She nodded. “We need to find you a publisher.”

That evening Rosa and I sat down and put together ten packages, each addressed to a different publishing house. We selected the recipients by going through her library and choosing the companies that published the books we loved the best. I carefully copied the addresses from the inside pages of each novel onto the padded envelopes that Rosa had bought. The following morning we went to the post office to mail the packages. Rosa kissed each envelope for good luck.

As I walked to the diner from the post office, I became nostalgic for the little town that I would soon be leaving. I promised myself that I would not be like Frank, and just disappear. I would never forget where I had come from. Even once I was installed in my Manhattan penthouse and a literary celebrity, I would still come home. That day I listened to our customers’ dreary conversation with newfound indulgence. My ticket east was all but booked.

Next to me, Joseph whistled quietly to himself as he worked. I did not dare tell him what I had done.

W
e sent the manuscripts off in January of 1960. Every day I came home from work and looked hopefully in the mailbox. By spring, I was becoming numb to the now familiar sensation of disappointment as I scanned each day’s letters.

Rosa counseled patience, but that was easy for her to say. I didn’t have time to be patient. Every day that passed was another day not spent in New York. I wrote to each publisher, politely asking them to confirm receipt of the manuscript. Those letters did not receive a reply, either.

Spring turned into summer. As the days warmed and lengthened, my despondency grew. I still hurried home each evening, but by then I was flicking through the mail with the martyred wretchedness of the unjustly wronged. Even a rejection letter would have been better than nothing at all. All those hours of hopeful toil at my typewriter, and nobody had bothered to read a word of what I’d written. By August I had reluctantly come to terms with the fact that I was going nowhere.

Poor Rosa bore the brunt of my anger. Our nightly chess games were now accompanied by a sour litany of complaint. Finally one evening my aunt reached across the chessboard and put her hand gently on mine. “James,” she said, “you have to stop.”

“Stop what?” I said crossly.

“You have to stop
moaning
. All you do anymore is complain.”

“I have a lot to complain about,” I said sullenly. “I spent years writing that book and nobody will even—”

“That may be so, but it’s not helping you, and it’s certainly not helping me. You’re making me tired, and sad. I love you, but I don’t think I can listen to you anymore.” She stood up. “I’m sorry they won’t read your book, because it’s wonderful, really it is. But do you know what would be more useful than all this complaining?”

“What?”

“Write another one.”

“Why bother?” I said huffily. “They won’t read that one, either.”

“You’ll never know if you don’t try,” said Rosa. “It’s what writers do, James. They keep going. They try again.” She paused. “In fact, that’s what
everybody
does.”

The idea of sticking a fresh sheet of paper into my typewriter and starting all over again filled me with dread. “I’ll think about it,” I said.

“Well, all right,” said Rosa, who stood with her hands on her hips, watching me. “But while you’re thinking? Find someone else to moan to.”

So I did.

As often as I could bear it, I sat by Jette’s bedside and told her my news. Even though she smiled at me and patted my hand, I was sure she didn’t have the faintest clue who I was or what I was telling her, and so my insipid monologues took on a darker, more confessional tone. All of my bitterness about the book soon began to gush forth, unchecked and bilious. From there, I moved to other areas of complaint. I began to whisper truths that had never passed my lips before. I told her all about Miriam Imhoff. I told her that I hated Teddy and Frank for leaving. A black tide of ugly resentments and long-buried secrets spilled out of me. One night I even told her what I had done with Mrs. Fitch on the evening of my senior prom. Jette heard it all and smiled back at me in stupefied benediction.

When I had finished, I would stand up, kiss her gently on the forehead, and retreat. I returned home feeling wretched. I worried that by offering up my whispered confessions and accepting Jette’s silent blessing in return, I was implicating her in my sordid little secrets. Still, I kept going back, and she kept listening—not that she had any choice, of course. I was not so naïve as to think that my grandmother would have offered up a jot of forgiveness had she been able to respond, but hearing my ungallant sentiments expressed out loud was cathartic. And so I held Jette’s hand and gratefully unburdened myself.

But even this would not last for long.

On November 8, 1960, the country surprised itself by electing a dashing young president who campaigned on the promises of change and hope. Jette had always had a pretty low opinion of politicians (the twins’ presidential namesakes excepted), but I was sure that she would have approved of JFK, who seemed so different from the usual ranks of creaky, cautious old men who had previously occupied the White House.

One morning about a week after Kennedy had won the election, Freddy tiptoed into Jette’s bedroom with a glass of milk. For months she had not been sleeping well. She was plagued by terrible, wordless dreams and tossed and moaned through the night. This morning, though, her body was quite still in the bed.

Freddy squatted down beside her. He pulled back the quilt and looked at his grandmother’s face.

It was serene and beautiful.

He kissed her on the cheek and stood up.

It had been more than forty years since the sniper’s bullet had cracked through the air of a deserted French village, and put out a light half a world away. Not a day had passed since then when Jette hadn’t cursed her dead husband like a hound and missed him with all her heart. Now, after her solitary waltz across almost half a century, they were reunited at last. Their lovers’ duet, sweet and beautiful, would ring out again.

My grandmother’s life had been one long opera. There had been drama, heroes, villains, improbable plot twists, all that. But most of all there had been love, great big waves of it, crashing ceaselessly against the rocks of life, bearing us all back to grace.

FORTY-ONE

Frank had stayed at Duke during the summer vacation, but true to his word, he came home for Jette’s funeral.

A small crowd gathered in our yard for the service. The sky hung low above the house and an unforgiving wind swept cheerlessly across the mourners, chilling our bones. Joseph had stubbornly ignored our pleas for a regular funeral service, insisting that Jette would never have approved. About this he may have been right, but that didn’t make any of us feel better about the unorthodox ceremony he had concocted for her. In front of the assembled company Joseph scattered his mother’s ashes around the base of the apple tree that she herself had planted to commemorate her husband. By then the tree had grown beautiful and strong, and every year it delivered basketfuls of delicious fruit.

Freddy looked anxious throughout, perhaps worried about his professional reputation. Teddy, of course, disapproved of the godless nature of the whole affair. He muttered under his breath about satanic rites, incanting silent prayers for his grandmother in an effort to save her soul from whatever diabolical fate Joseph’s act of paganism was condemning her to.

I knew that I was going to miss Jette terribly, but it was difficult to feel too sorry that she was gone. Alone in her curious, confusing world, she hadn’t suffered much in her last years, but she hadn’t been having much fun, either. The day before the service Rosa had informed me that she intended to celebrate her mother’s passing, rather than mourn her. Consequently she turned up wearing a bright orange coat and matching hat that she had bought especially for the occasion, a riot of brilliant color amid the sober sea of dark gray and black. My aunt had loved her mother as much as any of us, but she simply refused to be sad. I was sure that Jette would have approved.

After Joseph had raked over the dirt and said a few words, we trudged inside for cake and iced tea. As the last of the guests entered the house, I realized that I hadn’t seen Darla. I went to find Teddy.

“Nice service,” I said.

Teddy shuddered. “I was half-expecting him to sacrifice a goat.”

I looked around. “No Darla?”

“I didn’t think she would come. She doesn’t approve of this mumbo jumbo any more than I do. Although to tell you the truth, I’m kind of glad she’s not here. I wouldn’t have wanted to spoil the occasion.”

“Spoil it?”

Teddy sighed. “We’ve been fighting a lot lately.”

“What’s the problem?”

I watched my brother conduct a brief internal debate with himself. “Promise you won’t tell a soul?”

“Cross my heart,” I said.

“It’s about sex,” he whispered.

“Uh-oh,” I said. “Holding out on you, is she?”

“It’s the other way around, actually,” he sighed. “She wants to, but I’m not ready yet.”

I looked at him. “Not
ready
?”

“It’s just—well, these days I’m trying to live by God’s Word. And that means that we should wait.”

“Until you’re
married?
”

Teddy looked uncomfortable. “That’s the idea.”

“Are you telling me that you’re going to marry Darla?”

“Well, no, that’s kind of the point.” He paused. “I mean, I love her and everything. At least, I think I do. But, no, I don’t think we’ll ever get married.”

“And so you’re refusing to sleep with her,” I said flatly.

“Plus there’s the whole business with Mrs. Fitch,” said Teddy.

“Ah,” I said. My own encounter with our singing teacher had been a far less traumatic affair than Teddy’s—not a suicidal dwarf in sight—and I was still recovering from it. I could see that his guilt over what had happened would give him pause for thought before he tried anything like
that
again. “But of course you can’t explain that to Darla,” I said.

“Exactly.” Teddy pulled a face. “So I’m stuck with just blaming God. And she’s less than impressed.”

“But Darla’s religious, too, isn’t she?”

“When it comes to faith,” sighed Teddy, “we all have our limits.”

I patted him on the back. “You’ll work it out.”

Teddy looked at me sadly. “Why does it all have to be so complicated?”

I shrugged. It didn’t seem very complicated to me. Darla was a pretty girl, who was willing—eager, even—to sleep with my brother. I knew what Buck Gunn would have done.

T
eddy had been right. Everyone’s faith has its limits. Darla’s religious beliefs were not going to stop her from having sex if she felt like it, and indeed there were other sins that she was also willing to commit when the need arose. Consequently, on the afternoon of my grandmother’s funeral, she stole a bottle of sweet vermouth from her parents’ drinks cabinet and swallowed it down, grimly thinking about Teddy.

Mr. and Mrs. Weldfarben were out of town for the weekend, and Darla had been hoping to lose her virginity while they were gone. But it was humiliating, having to beg a boy to do that stuff. Teddy had told her again and again that he
wanted
to sleep with her, of course he did, but that he was just trying to be good. It had been sweet at first, but as time had gone on Darla had begun to lose patience. Either you want to, or you don’t, she’d say bitterly. Well, it’s difficult, Teddy would reply, avoiding her gaze.

Darla had decided not to go to Jette’s memorial service, as fond as she’d been of the old lady. She wanted Teddy to understand how serious things had become. She took another swig and looked out her bedroom window. The sky had been bruised into darkness by the approaching evening. She frowned. Where was Teddy? He should have come looking for her hours ago. She sat on her bed and waited for a knock on the door.

By the time she’d finished the bottle of vermouth, Darla was steaming drunk and indignant. Teddy was supposed to have come crawling to her, contrite and ready to do her bidding, but he hadn’t appeared. She stared miserably up at the ceiling as her stomach heaved and the room spun. She got unsteadily to her feet and pulled on her coat. If Teddy wouldn’t come to her, then she would go to him. She let herself out of the house and stood for a moment on the doorstep, momentarily stilled by the cool night air on her face. Then she bent forward and vomited on the flower bed. She wiped her mouth on her sleeve and set off through the town toward our house.

As Darla turned the final corner, she saw my brother standing by the front gate, smoking a cigarette and staring up at the sky.

“There you are!” she cried.

Teddy looked up at her and gave her a small smile. “Here I am,” he said.

“Has everyone left the party?” she asked.

“I wouldn’t have called it a party, exactly,” answered Teddy. “But yes, the guests have all gone. There’s just family left.” He waved his cigarette at her. “From whose tender affections I’m taking a much-needed break.”

Darla cocked her head to one side. “Did you wonder where I was this afternoon?”

“Of course I did.” He looked at her appraisingly. “So where were you?”

“I was at home.”

“Home, huh. What were you doing there?”

“I’ve been drinking vermouth and waiting for you.”

“Ah.”

“Don’t you remember? My folks are away for the weekend. I’ve got the place to myself.”

Teddy looked at her, his face unreadable. “I’d forgotten,” he admitted.

Darla felt the booze sloshing about inside her. She took his hand. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go back.”

“Really?”

She hiccuped. “It’s now or never,” she said.

My brother paused for a moment, caught in two minds. Darla held her breath and concentrated on remaining upright. Finally he squeezed her hand and smiled at her.

“All right, then,” he said.

A
s I sit here and write these words, fifty years later, I cannot help but speculate how things might have turned out differently if I had stepped outside at that moment and seen the two young lovers as they turned and began to walk silently back to the Weldfarbens’ empty house. I would have called out; they would have turned toward me; and the half century that has passed since that night would have looked entirely different.

But I didn’t. I stayed inside, oblivious to the little drama unfolding by the front gate, and off they went. It was the calamitous finale in a carnival of missed connections. We have all been paying the price, to a greater or lesser degree, ever since.

Because it wasn’t Teddy that Darla drunkenly took home on the night of my grandmother’s funeral. It was Frank—angry, horny Frank.