Another Marvelous Thing (15 page)

Francis's features instantly relaxed. A smile lit his face.

“That's Dr. Milton Obutu,” he said. “I know you've been reading his articles on the economic history of the developing nations with avid interest.”

“The other one.”

“Oh,” Francis said blithely. “A recent acquisition. Speaking of which, you seem to have acquired a little something yourself.”

“This is my son, William,” Billy said. “He's nine months old.”

Francis leaned over and peered at William, who hid his face in his mother's neck.

“Not very friendly,” Francis said.

“Don't be shy, Will,” Billy said. “Show your face, please.”

William looked up, smiled, and began to spit.

“He has your social style, I see,” said Francis. “What a very good-looking boy.”

“He looks like his father.”

“He looks like you,” Francis said. “Of course, I am less intimately connected with the way his father looks.”

Billy felt her cheeks flush.

“So,” she said. “I see you've found my replacement. A much better model and much nicer colors.”

The beautiful blond girl was deep in conversation with Dr. Obutu. Her hair was swept up in a French twist and she wore an enormous gold bracelet.

“How interesting that after throwing me over you're actually jealous,” said Francis.

Billy found she could not look Francis in the eye.

“Dr. Obutu looks very familiar,” she said. “Did he win a prize or something?”

“I see motherhood has not made you any keener on current events,” said Francis. “He won the Welch-Orlovsky Medal in economics. A neat change of subject. I never knew that jealousy was included in your emotional repertoire. Of course, I had no idea you were fixing to have a baby. How little we know!”

This, of course, was not true: they had known dozens of things. Billy felt her head cluttered with names of Francis's friends, his children's teachers in high school and professors at college, of Vera's clients, of Francis's former colleagues. She had heard countless stories about his landlady in the South of France, and in fact knew the history—that is, the history as Francis saw it—of this woman's marriage, and so on.

Billy, on the other hand, was so unforthcoming that Francis had given in to snooping, but snooping around the Delielle household did not reveal much. Billy and Grey were a pair of minimalists. Furthermore, Billy felt it was a betrayal to tell Francis anything whereas Francis took the opposite tack. Information
defused
things, he felt. If he nattered on endlessly about his family, he could con himself into thinking that there was nothing odd about the way he was feeling. As a consequence, he sang like a canary.

The most fascinating subject was taboo. They did not discuss the reason for their love affair or its effect on their lives. They had broken up any number of times but the last parting had been final. Billy, as was customary, did the initiating. She said, with a tone of resolve in her voice Francis had never heard before, “My life is being ruined.”

Naturally, she did not say how it was being ruined but Francis knew the knell of finality when he heard it. He had been listening for it all along, and when it came he was not entirely unrelieved. While his life was not being ruined, it was made complicated in a way he often found unbearable. Now he was used to missing Billy. It was rather like a chronic pain of the lower back. When he looked at her and her child, a feeling akin to rage overtook him.

“I always said you'd leave me in the dust,” he said.

Billy was silent.

“You threw me over,” Francis said.

“I did not,” Billy said. Francis was pleased to see that there were tears in her eyes. “We were bound to part, one way or the other.”

“We were?” Francis said. “Not from where I sat.”

“Come off it, Frank,” said Billy. “I left you sitting right where you belong, in your ornamental house surrounded by your loving family and thousands of friends and relations.”

At the sound of the sharp tone in his mother's voice, William began to fidget. “He's getting bored,” Billy said. “I'm going to have to take him away soon.”

“Fine,” said Francis. “I'll take you both away for a drink, and we can continue this most inspiring conversation.”

“What about your friend?”

“Ishbelle?” Francis said. “She's very enterprising. She's writing a profile of Dr. Obutu for the
Wall Street Journal
.”

“Ishbelle?” said Billy.

“She's half English, half Dutch,” Francis said.

“And won't she think it's odd that you're leaving with me?”

“I'll take care of it,” Francis said. “Besides, you're a woman with a baby. What could be more safe and respectable?”

They ambled to the corner. Francis took her by the arm. The air was chilly and wet, and it was getting dark.

“Here we are,” he said, leading her through a wooden door.

Billy had had hundreds of meals with Francis, mostly in out of the way delicatessens, Chinese restaurants, or coffee shops. Now she found herself in a bar full of polished blond wood, with a fire burning in the grate and fresh flowers in an ornamental urn.

“Do you come here often?” Billy said.

“Once in a while.”

“We never went to such a nice place.”

“Not for lack of trying,” Francis said.

They took a table with a banquette. William's eyes were closed, so Billy spread a little blanket, unzipped his snowsuit, and set him down to take a nap. She took off his hat and kissed his hair.

“Ah, motherhood,” Francis said. “How odd it looks on you. In the old days you used to throw your keys into the pocket of one of your hideous jackets and off we'd go. Now I see you carry a little mother bag, with a blanket inside, and probably diapers, toys, and bottles too. How well organized you've become! Why, just days ago, it seems, you allowed me to wonder what sort of child
we'd
produce.”

Billy had very accurate recall and reminded Francis that this had been his exclusive fantasy.

“You played your own small part,” Francis said.

“Stop trying to make me feel more awful than I feel, Frank.”

“I don't believe you feel awful,” Francis said. “You let me go without so much as a goddamned by-your-leave.”

“We had a million by-your-leaves,” Billy said. “Besides, you had your baby. In fact, you had two.”

Francis looked at her with an expression Billy had often suffered as fatherly tenderness. It made her wince.

“All right,” Francis said. “As long as you ditched me for family life, you may as well tell me about it. How did it go?”

Billy had heard Francis's birth stories countless times. His son Quentin had been born in Paris on New Year's Eve and the doctor had set off a bottle of champagne in the delivery room. Aaron was a labor so fast he had almost been born in a taxicab.

Billy told Francis how she had been hospitalized for toxemia two weeks before William's birth, and William had been born by cesarean section; how he had been slightly underweight and made to stay in the hospital for eight days after Billy was released. It had felt like eight months. Billy knew she had not quite gotten over it, and she was reluctant to tell Francis anything at all, but once she started, she found she could not stop. At one point Francis was amazed to see tears streak down her cheeks. Francis leaned back in his chair and listened with no particular expression on his face.

“And the baby's father?” he said conversationally.

“Are you referring to my husband, Grey?” Billy said.

“And what does he think of all this?” said Francis.

Billy gaped at him. Did he really want to hear her tell him how wonderful and patient Grey had been, how he had taken a month's leave of absence from work and had barely left her and William except to run errands, how tender and besotted he was?

“He's an excellent father,” she said.

“And you are finding motherhood very fulfilling?” Francis said.

“It's very public.”

“As opposed to your previous activities?”

“Quite,” Billy said. “For instance, if I take William to the bank and he begins to squall, at least three people give me advice—to feed him, to give him a toy, or prop him up in his stroller. When I took
you
to the bank, no one told me those things.”

Francis sipped his drink in silence. “What a change,” he said. “No more charming dalliance in that nasty study of yours, which I assume is now the child's room.”

“It isn't,” Billy said. “We had that spare room, which is warmer than my study.”

“A snug family group,” Francis said.

“Oh, shut up, Frank,” Billy said. “You're snug enough. Didn't you used to drag me by the hair over to your little snuggery and show me album after album of happy family portraits? Don't be so mingy.”

“I'm not mingy,” Francis said. “Look, your baby is awake.”

William looked up from the banquette. His cheek was pink from sleeping on it. Billy took him into her arms. “You look like a hungry boy,” she said.

Francis suddenly looked alarmed. “I don't suppose you're one of those nurse-your-baby-in-public types,” he said.

“Yup. I am,” Billy said. “But don't you worry. I've got a nice bottle in my bag.”

The lights of the bar gave the room an orange glow. Billy bent over her baby, who drank his bottle peacefully and stared up at her. Her hair fell into her eyes, but she did not have a free hand to push it away. Francis restrained himself from doing it for her.

“From mistress to mother,” he said. “A tender scene. I wonder what sort of parent you are. Probably no nonsense. Schedules, enforced naps, and so on.”

Billy, who found the experience of having a baby exactly like being madly in love, looked at Francis.

“I only treated
you
that way,” she said. “Actually, I'm a very indulgent mother.”

“It's funny what we didn't know about one another,” Francis said.

“It's entirely appropriate to the situation,” said Billy.

“For instance, I never figured out you and Grey and your attitude toward money. He makes a lot, you're an economic historian, and neither of you seems to care much about it.”

“You mean what it buys,” said Billy.

“I do mean that,” said Francis, who was interested in it for no other reason. How he and Vera loved things! English cars, early American sideboards, Swedish tables, trips to Mexico, houses in the South of France, cashmere jackets, kilim rugs.

“Grey sees it as an abstraction and I see it as a force of history,” Billy said.

Francis sighed. So that was that!

William had finished his bottle and was sitting on his mother's lap trying to take all the silverware off the table. Billy reached into her bag and pulled out his rubber giraffe and a set of plastic keys. When they both looked up, Francis could see what a replica of his mother William was. Billy kissed her baby's neck and he began to laugh. A look Francis had never seen before appeared on Billy's face. Francis sighed. He felt weak and depleted as if after a long swim.

“It's time to go,” Billy said.

“One more thing,” said Francis. “I've always wanted to know. When you and I snuck off to Vermont for our little trip when Vera and Grey were away, what did you tell Grey?”

She looked suddenly so stricken that Francis realized their trip had been the occasion of the first lie Billy had ever told her husband.

“Never mind,” he said.

Billy pushed the hair off her forehead. She felt rather exhausted herself. “Okay, William,” she said. “It's time for the horrible torture of your snowsuit.”

She set William down on the banquette and started with his feet. He began to fidget and squirm. Then he began to cry.

“They all hate this,” Billy said to Francis.

“Ours didn't.”

“Really,” Billy said. “How totally unusual.”

Finally William was bundled up and fastened into his hip carrier. Francis threw some money on the table and they walked into the street.

It was misty and dark; halos formed around the street lamps.

“It feels like snow,” said Francis. “It's very odd seeing you.”

Billy was silent.

“Is it odd seeing me?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Billy.

“What a rewarding conversationalist you are,” Francis said. “I suppose now that you have so many motherly chores you no longer wonder what we were doing together.”

“I think about it a lot,” said Billy.

“And what brilliant thoughts have you come up with?”

“Love seeketh only self to please,” Billy said.

Francis grabbed her arm. “What's that supposed to mean?” he said.

“It's a quote from William Blake,” said Billy. “Now I get to ask you a question.”

“Yes,” said Francis. Billy had never really asked him anything at all.

“Where'd you get that paisley scarf?”

Francis felt as if the air had been let out of his tires. “Is that all you want to know?”

“Sort of.”

“It belonged to Vera's grandfather, who was quite a dandy. I'd be happy to give it to you as a good-bye present. You can keep it for William, and I can say I lost it.”

“Oh, no!” said Billy. “I always think of you in that scarf.”

Finally the three of them reached the corner. Francis was about to hail a taxi when Billy clutched his arm. “Are you in love with that girl?” she said.

Francis spun around. “What's it to you?”

“I want to know,” Billy said. Her voice was shaking.

Francis looked down at her intently.

“Are you?” Billy said. She was clutching his arm rather painfully.

“She's my daughter-in-law,” Francis said. “Aaron got married last year.”