A Wife of Noble Character (34 page)

“No,” she said abruptly.

Timmy's eyes fell. “Why not? Don't you want to get back at her?”

“I want to be left out of this.”

“Please,” Timmy said. “She deserves it. I think she was with Preston—can you believe that? We can make him talk. She is going to destroy my life. She already has.” He hung his head, scratched his cheeks. “Bracken will give you your job back if you apologize. You could have your job back.”

“You want me to help you smear Karlie so that you can divorce her—that's what you're saying right now.”

He cleared his throat. The terms, put crudely, were not words he was willing to speak.

“Please, Timmy, I want you to go away.”

He shut his mouth and stared at his shoes. He looked shattered. Vivienne fought her urge to save him. He was so savable. Nothing more to say, the sun sinking, he left her to the oaks and the leaves and Katherine lying still in the narthex.

It wasn't until the next day, when the burial service was over and everyone was returning to their cars, that Vivienne really perceived the shiny wooden box anchored over the dark hole in the ground. And beside it, her father, and her grandparents. She stood at the head of the casket, surrounded by the bones of her family. Katherine rotting in this box, the whole thing decomposing into bones that would never move from this place. Her mother had been cremated, her ashes scattered into the Gulf. Vivienne preferred that, because she felt she could imagine her mother was everywhere. She didn't want anyone she loved, or would have loved, or who loved her, to end up a pile of bones. She pulled a few lilies from the wreath on the casket and went around to her father. She laid the lilies over his grave. Katherine was finally with her little brother again.

That night, after everyone had come and gone, Vivienne sat alone in the green room and opened the envelope from Father Bennison. It was a handwritten note from Katherine, dated two years ago:

Dear Vivienne,

I know I am not the aunt you deserved. Please take comfort in knowing I was aware of this deficiency and that I found it painful. As I write this, I realize that forgiveness is my struggle, and I'm afraid I'm still not up to the task. In the attic you'll find a box of your mother's things. I've kept them without knowing why. Perhaps this note is the best explanation. You are a strong young woman. I hope that in a small way I helped make you that way, but I admit this hope knowing it's probably false. You are strong because you are you. Do not take after me, but do forgive me.

Your aunt, Katherine

Vivienne went hunting in the attic for this vestige of love. She slid a bunch of identical brown boxes down the attic stairs. Most were filled with vintage kitchen appliances, moldy books, handbags from the eighties. But she found a photo album sticky with yellow glue and roach droppings. Black-and-white photos of unsmiling, unfamiliar Cally people in gowns and tuxedos. She rummaged awhile before she saw faces she recognized. Young Katherine with her brother at the beach. Katherine at the altar on her wedding day, smiling. In the wedding picture that Katherine had kept hanging in the hall, she wasn't smiling. But in this group picture she looked gleeful, victorious, her bouquet raised, Vivienne's young parents grinning at her side. Vivienne looked so much like her mother, it was like staring at herself in a dream.

Katherine had had pain, after all. She'd had secrets. The ice between them had been crushing to her too. Maybe every time Katherine saw her, she thought of her brother, and maybe that hurt too much.

Vivienne tossed the album aside. Loose pictures spilled out. But that wasn't enough: She wanted to ruin it. She grabbed it and battered it against the floor. The binder rings popped, pages scattered. The anger rose to her eyes, and she tore a handful of photos to pieces. This made her feel better, and sort of silly, but only for a moment. Then, finally, she cried. Her body gave way to the floor, and she cried for the arms of her parents around her, for knowing that she would never, ever know how that felt. She cried into the room's dumb perfection, the pristine, color-coordinated stupidity of it.

She lay down and pressed her cheek against the parquet, as if somewhere deep beneath it she might discern a heartbeat. The hard cool felt nice on her hot cheek. She listened to her breath. It sounded full and familiar, like the mountains. Then she heard something, a voice within her own voice, and saw herself curled there on the floor.
Get up
, it said.
Get up, Vivienne
.

Slowly, she gathered herself, wiping her cheeks, sitting for a while in the quiet of herself in the empty house. She packed the boxes and pushed them into a corner, climbed the attic stairs to switch off the light. There was a box she hadn't noticed. An X was written in black marker on the top. She slid it downstairs. It was sealed shut with layers of packing tape, which she had to break with her teeth. The inside was piled with loose photos of her mother's life as a Cally, every one with an X on the back. At the bottom of the pile, beneath the photos, was a bundle wrapped in tissue. She exhumed it and sneezed, then gently broke the Scotch tape. The tissue fell open and Vivienne recognized it instantly—her mother's wedding dress. In teary awe, she climbed to her feet, holding the dress out before her.

She'd always thought it was gone, but all this time it was right above her head. The dress was long and embroidered, with gauzy sleeves that buttoned at the wrist, a floral panel draping off the low neckline, the skirt full and loose. The veil was folded up in the bottom of the box, the tulle wrinkled and moth-nibbled but intact, a headpiece of crispy brown roses stitched to the crown. Vivienne didn't dare try them on, but she held them close. There wasn't much else she needed or wanted here, but these things she would take with her.

 

III

Vivienne,

Today is a cold day in Paris. Maybe it's a cold day in Texas too. Sometimes it's romantic here, but mostly it's just gray. You are every color I see in this gray city. Women pass me on the sidewalk wearing bright red scarves. An orange cat has been coming around my building lately. He's an old tomcat, kind of beat up from the street. He's got a round head and nicks all over his ears, green eyes, and a crooked tail. It seems like a lot of people have written him off over the years, but he'd never write himself off. That's what I like about him. Something about that reminds me of you. Your beauty, great as it is, is the least interesting thing about you. If I had the chance to make you another cup of coffee, I wouldn't talk so much. Did you know you're a little knock-kneed?

He stopped. Too much. Comparing her to a tomcat? Bad idea. He went to his window—sad Sunday sky and damp street. Winter was already over in Texas. Maybe there would still be a cold front or two, but the grass was green and the sky was blue. He wondered if he'd even seen the color blue in months, except on painted doorways and the street sweepers' coats. April would come, with its promise of poplars blossoming along the boulevards and tulips filling the esplanades. It would probably be very beautiful. But he had a melancholy feeling about it, because he knew it would all make him wish for Vivienne.

Since her visit, he hadn't seen any more girls. He'd been too busy working, in the office every morning by seven, out past seven, after midnight on deadlines. His co-workers teased him for being a crazy American workaholic, and they were probably right, but he liked his schedule. He rode the Metro before the crowds. He practiced his French with the old lady in the bakery where he bought his coffee. She lived in the back and had a habit of resting her elbow on the counter and cradling her chin while talking.

The city felt so alive in the morning, teeming with possibility. He never put the possibility too far in the future, though; he put it into the day, and that was how he was able to work so hard and for so long. This felt much better than his old schedule—working the minimum, drinking the fourth glass of wine, screwing the girl. He still wanted to quit smoking and get more exercise, but he felt healthier, and sad in a clean, simple way. Before he felt sad in a dirty, philosophical way. Working distracted him from thinking too much about Vivienne and gave him something to accomplish. Lately he'd been feeling good about his designs.

But he was at a crossroads, and whenever Preston was at a crossroads he doubted and contradicted himself. Stay in Paris, or return to Texas? His contract ended in March. His current firm didn't have the budget to renew him, but he'd made contacts in Paris, and his French was decent now. If he stayed, he could renew his visa and maybe even start the long process toward citizenship. But the thing was, he missed Texas. For as much as he loved Paris, sometimes he felt that he loved the idea of it more. It was only since Vivienne had left him there in the street that he'd slowly come to realize this, that it was tough living without Texas, even in a place as great as Paris. Still, he was reluctant. It was Texas, after all, and again. He felt very paradoxical and grumpy when he thought about it, remembering vividly all the things he couldn't stand about it (he ran through his top three: guns, humidity, mosquitos) and how puffy and grand he'd felt in leaving it, and yet—and yet what? Well, he just missed it. He just didn't know if he missed it enough to go back.

He could always find another city, but he'd still have to go back to Texas for a while and regroup. For all his work, he was still pretty broke because he'd been paying off student loans while getting by. The prospect of returning poor to his apartment, where he'd have to boot his subletter, a raggedy biology postdoc, wasn't appealing. Better to let it all go? The guy could take what he wanted and pack the important things in boxes to ship to him, wherever he ended up.

Ended up. Somehow that prospect seemed dull. He didn't want to end up; he wanted to choose. Any place in the world was an option, in theory, but not without a whole lot of effort. It was curious, how the loss of Vivienne, the drag of money, the decade of thirty, had pacified his romantic ideas about wandering. He didn't exactly want to settle either—it was more that he was done with moving around without purpose. Wherever he went, he wanted to go for a reason, not simply for the sake of going.

He picked up the letter and read it again. He'd written it and rewritten it, and he never got it right. He wanted to be understood, and in trying to make himself understood he sounded dumb, or too airy. Vivienne wouldn't like airy. It would make her think he was idealizing her, and she hated to be idealized. He didn't assume he could change her mind, but in time maybe she would accept his apology. It was the thought that she'd forget about him that he hated.

He sat on the edge of the bed and folded the letter in half. On a day like this, when his mood was too contemplative, he needed to get outside, see a movie in English, or go grocery shopping, but it was just so cold and wet. People from Houston only have clothes for warm and wet, which made him wonder:
Why haven't I gotten myself the right coat?
He'd spent the last three months bundled up in fleece from the late nineties, and it hadn't occurred to him to buy a new coat. He answered his own question with the thought that he must not have considered Paris a place he would stay.

The building across the street cast a long gloomy shadow into his room. It might have been 1723, or 1845, or 1926. That was the thing about Paris. The radiator rattled and thunked, sending an echo down the pipe—the portly French super working the boiler. That was another thing about Paris. There were ancient boiler rooms that held wine before boiler rooms existed, where all kinds of secret things may have happened. Plots against the Nazis, or Napoleon, or King Louis XVI. This he enjoyed, that around any corner something terrible or marvelous might have unfolded. He recalled the plaque on the porch steps of his childhood home:
ON THIS SITE IN 1897, NOTHING HAPPENED
.

One image kept intruding into his thoughts over what to do. A treehouse. A treehouse made from reclaimed wood, joinery-fastened, with old, warped windows, nooks and crannies for books, maybe even a ventilation system that would safely allow for a potbellied stove. Big enough for two people, and cradled by the limbs of two grand old trees. On the back of the letter to Vivienne, he made a rough sketch. He rounded the roof and drew the door arched and short, a door for a hobbit. Spanish moss dangling from the boughs. A blue jay perched atop the flagpole. A flagpole for a handmade flag. A place to read and tell stories and make love. He added a few details. A porthole window, a flower box. He kept going. A bungalow below the treehouse, with a porch and a brick chimney. Grass growing around the stepping stones, and a secret hole beneath one of the stones for storing secret things.

The cathedral bells rang a few blocks away, filling the streets. There was a time during his stay in Paris when the bells caused him to brood, but lately they gave him rest and a reassuring sense of order and mystery coexisting. He sat back and listened. He could stay here in Paris, where bells sang out in the streets. Or he could go home and build a tree house for Vivienne—but maybe it was true that he could only love her by keeping his distance. No one could give him the answer. He would have to rely on something very foreign and uncomfortable to him: faith.

 

IV

She remembered a time when she wanted everything to be easy, but now she wanted everything to be hard. She wasn't happy, but at least she felt alive. While Blad was at work, she sat on the couch in sweatpants, her hair tied in a knot, selling her designer clothes online and applying for jobs. The most basic entry-level jobs required a list of experience and demanded:
DO NOT REPLY IF YOU DO NOT MEET ALL REQUIREMENTS
. Even the retail jobs asked for a specific set of qualities: Did any person in the world love teamwork, crave a fast-paced work environment, possess a passion for sales, plus minimum two years' experience and open weekends, all while earning nine-fifty an hour? The extensive requirements of the curatorial jobs—master's degrees, assistantships, French and German language proficiency, references from the field—reinforced the real absurdity of her position with Bracken.