Autobiography of Us (10 page)

“Rebecca,” someone called. “Rebecca.”

I kept walking, holding my arms out to either side for balance. It wasn’t really that dark. The stars were shredding the sky to pieces, and a thin veil of light fell down across the grass. Still, I felt dizzy, unsure of where my feet were landing. I’d never understood the saying until then, but it was true: My head was swimming. I got lost somewhere among the torches, and when I found myself at the main house, I kept going. I needed to use the bathroom. The front door was wide open.

“Hello?” I called into the darkness. The hall was pitch-black and I had to feel my way along the wall. “Hello?” I tapped a table, the corner of a mirror. Partway down the hall I found the door to the bathroom and pushed it open. When I flipped the light on, little suns exploded inside my skull. I turned the light off, used the toilet and washed my hands in the dark, and then I went back out into the hallway. My dress was making the strangest noise, a rustling as it moved in and out with my breath. It was loud—too loud, I realized. I followed the sound down to the end of the hall, to a door whose knob I found easily; when I put my ear to the wood, the sound was right there, a skittering combination of wood against wood and wind and something else. I turned the knob and the door swung open. Light leaked into the room from a single window, and in the confusion of the dark and that lone thread of light, I saw a flash of yellow—there one second and gone the next, disappeared around the corner through a second door. A patch of pale pink gleamed in the dark.

“Tag,” said the pink shirt. “You’re it.”

I cleared my throat. “I was looking for the ladies’, actually.”

The music from the tent buzzed in the background. Or something buzzed: It might have been a fly or a trumpet for all I knew.

“The indomitable Miss Madden.” There was a faint snapping sound and a small orange flame sprang to life, then a second. Bertrand Lowell drew on his cigarette. “You happen to be just in time for a drink.”

I stayed where I was. Bertrand Lowell let out a long breath into the dark, and the pink shirt collapsed in on itself a little.

“Don’t make me come over there and get you.” His voice was low. “I’m drained, you know. Positively worn out.” He had a seamless way of speaking that I found unnerving. Every word he said was like another car in a train he sent gliding through the air; it occurred to me that in all my years of knowing him I’d never heard him say more than a sentence or two. It was cool in that room, and the heat back under the tent would only have gotten worse—the women would be fanning themselves with their place cards, the men pressing their handkerchiefs to their foreheads. Mrs. Pringle clutching her fourth glass of champagne as if someone might take it away.

“I shouldn’t,” I said.

“One drink.”

I hesitated a moment longer. “Just one,” I said finally. “But then I really do have to get back to the party.”

Bertrand Lowell and his pink shirt lay directly diagonal to the door I’d come in. To the left of him, the window threw its broken thread of light across the floor; next to that was the door where the flash of yellow had gone. I raised my arms for balance again as I walked.

“Quite a show.” I could see his nose by now, the glow of the cigarette catching the tip. “Do you do trampoline work as well?” I laughed. I couldn’t help it. He was right: I felt ridiculous walking so carefully, but I was just aware enough to be afraid of my own sense of gravity. Little by little, my eyes got used to the dark, and there he was—Bertrand Lowell, sitting on a table pushed up against the wall.

“Here we are.” The light from the window fell away as though a cloud had drifted over the moon. I looked down toward my feet for balance, and when I glanced up, I was nearly on top of him. The toe of my shoe brushed the table leg. “Easy,” he said.

“I’m fine.”

“Pull up some table.”

“
I’m fine,” I said loudly.

“You mentioned that.” The ice rattled again. “That was a yes to a drink?”

“Do you always do things in the dark?”

“Only on special occasions.”

“It is, isn’t it.” I was glad the dark hid my blush. “I think they’ll be very happy together.”

“Slim to none.”

“Sorry?”

“Chances of that happening.”

“That’s an awful thing to say on someone’s wedding day.”

“Good thing I said it, then, not you. Awful Bertrand Lowell.” He sounded very drunk.

“You’ve tried the lights?” I pictured him sitting in the dark with Alex, the yellow dress leaning in, and I felt a little sick.

“Goddamn desert.” I heard liquid pouring. “Here. Sounds like you need it.”

My hand bumped his as I took the glass, and I tried not to pull away too quickly. The glowing tip of the cigarette floated down toward the table; he tapped his fingers against the wood. “I’m afraid you’ve caught me in a funny kind of mood,” he said. “Weddings bring out the honest man in me. What would you say if I told you I’ve been trying to figure you out for a while now?”

I tried to sound casual, as though people said this kind of thing to me every day. “That depends.”

“On what, exactly?”

“Whether or not you’ve come to any conclusions.”

“So you
do
want to know.”

“Do you happen to have another cigarette?” I was twenty-one, remember. It meant something different in those days. I could have counted on one hand the number of times I’d been kissed; I don’t know that I’d ever sat in a dark room alone with a boy before.

“Natürlich.”
My fingers glanced off his knuckles again, and I tried to hold the cigarette steady between my fingers as the lighter clicked. “Wouldn’t have figured you for a smoker.”

“Sometimes,” I managed, coughing.

“Special occasions, I presume.” He lit another cigarette.

“The smell makes me ill.” I managed to breathe the smoke out smoothly this time, and it clouded the little circle of light around his face. “I’ve never understood the draw, though of course some people can’t get enough of it. My mother, for instance.”

“It’s the addiction that does it.” Something clicked against his glass like a spoon. “The way it is with most things, isn’t it. Makes you sick as a dog if you try to stop.”

“Which is why I never wanted to start.”

“Smart girl.” In the dark, everything registered so precisely. I knew he’d shifted closer: I felt the warmth of his body raise the temperature of my skin, the length of his arm close enough to raise the hairs on my arms. “But that’s the thing about you, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “There are smart girls and then there are pretty girls.”

“So you’ve picked your side and you’re sticking to it.” Bertrand Lowell shifted his weight again. The table creaked. “Though people say you look like her, don’t they?”

“Some people, sure.”

“Can’t say I see it. No offense.”

“None taken.” It didn’t matter that I agreed with him: It stung to hear the words. I pictured her sitting exactly where I sat, her shoulders straight where mine slouched, the fine silk of her dress gleaming in the dark. I imagined the picture in his head of us side by side, the shadow I drew next to her. “I don’t see it either.”

He clapped his hands. “Bravo. Most people have the damnedest time recognizing their—shall we say—limitations. Your friend there, for instance, seems dead set on having her name in lights. Broke my heart, the way she went on—”

“Do we have to keep talking about her?” I was speaking too loudly.

“I was merely going to point out that some people harbor delusions of grandeur.” Now he was close enough that I could smell the sweat and soap beneath the liquor on him. “Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer the truth.”

I put my drink in the hand with the cigarette and dropped my other hand down so I could wipe my palm against my skirt. “It just so happens I know all about the truth. Especially with regards to you.”

“That doesn’t sound nice.”

“You’re the one who’s not nice.”

“Pity,” he said. “A good girl, after all.”

It had been quiet for a bit, but now in the distance there was the sound of someone singing. “By which I suppose you mean having morals is something you look down on. Because you’re different from all of us.” I cleared my throat. “Nearly all.”

“Tut-tut.” He clicked his tongue. “I’ve always found jealousy terribly unattractive.
The green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on
, and so forth.”

“I’m familiar with Othello,” I said coldly. “And I’m not jealous. I’m merely pointing out a fact. You think being different means being better.”

“And how exactly am I different?”

“That’s just it,” I rushed on, triumphant. “You aren’t. You’re exactly like the rest of them. Wealthy and entitled, accustomed to sailing through life as though the world owes you your happiness. But you happen to be smart, too—”

“I’m smart now, am I?”

“—and you think being smart gives you license to be cruel. You’ve hurt people deliberately, and you think being
you
, being Bertrand Lowell, excuses that.”

There was a sigh, the soft noise of breath blowing out between Bertrand Lowell’s lips. “If you don’t know what’s wrong with everything you just said, I’m not sure I feel like telling you. I’ve had a very long day, and, frankly, I’m wiped out.”

In the tent, Oliver would be looking for me with his sad eyes, Alex singing into the waiting crowd. It was Alex I’d heard, of course. I could have picked that voice out of a choir of thousands. I stood up. “I should get back to the party.”

“Rebecca.” It was the first time he’d said my name. “You don’t actually think you have everyone fooled.”

“Excuse me?”

“The only difference between you and me is that I’m honest about my ambitions.”

“We’re not even the littlest bit alike.”

“Now you’re saying things just to spite me.” He sighed again. “Hardly playing fair,
Dr. Madden
.”

Something cool slid across my chest, an ice cube tracing a damp arc across a countertop. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Doctor, doctor,” he sang, “I’ve got a pain in my ass.”

“You had it right, you know. You’re awful.”

“What if I told you I got a look at your schedule last fall.”

“I’d say you’re lying.”

“It just so happens I have my connections in Dean Richards’s office. His secretaries can be quite, shall we say,” he chuckled, “flexible.”

“I can’t for the life of me think why you’d care.”

“I was intrigued,” he said thoughtfully. “There you are, marching around campus with your friend the Queen Bee and the rest of her minions. But you and I both know you’re nothing like them, not a bit. And I’m not talking about the question of filthy lucre here either.” He rapped his knuckles gently against the table. “Nothing more common than money, for Christ’s sake. No—you piqued my curiosity, which I’ll have you know isn’t so easy to do.”

“I had no intention of doing anything of the kind.”

“What I find fascinating is that you thought you could keep it a secret. It took me a while to see how deep the whole charade actually went,” he continued. “Smart, the way you’d arranged things. Genius, really. Chem first thing in the morning this spring and calculus in the fall, like you were this idiot freshman or something, snapping out of bed at the most ungodly hours. It nagged at me, see, why you’d want to get up at the crack of, and then—” He clapped his hands together. “Well, let’s just say I managed to put two and two together. You do it so no one notices you’re gone. Slip out early in the morning, with no one the wiser for it.”

“I don’t know why it should be anyone’s business whether I’m taking chem or not,” I said hotly. “Least of all yours.”

“Now, now. So long as you live in
this
town, it’s everybody’s business—you know that as well as I do. Which is why you did such a superb job of keeping it under wraps.”

“This has been an entirely illuminating conversation—”

“God, no,” he interrupted. “Please don’t. The Miss Innocent bit makes my head pound. And you can’t leave now, not when I’ve been so generous.” He managed to sound genuinely wounded. “Invited you into my cave, given freely of my cigarettes.”

“I really do have to go.”

“Come on, have another finger of something. It’s the imported kind, the good stuff.”

I shook my head. “I’ve had too much to drink.”

“Now you’re being silly.”

“I’m only saying what I think.”

“What you think
,
my dear
,
is precisely what you just accused me of thinking.”

“I’ve forgotten what that is,” I said. My head had begun to spin again.

“You
are
drunk,” he said kindly. “I believe you were accusing me of looking down on everyone in this town.” Both our cigarettes had gone out by now. The sleeve of his pink shirt was so close I could have touched it by lifting one finger. “Kettle and pot, gorgeous. You’re the one who thinks you’re better than all of us. Always have. I’ve known that about you all along.”

What was I supposed to do? I would have believed him if he’d said he saw the face of Jesus in my eyes. I was twenty-one, and listen: I knew nothing. All I knew for sure was what I loved. I loved the cool, dim halls of McCarren Hall, the building Oliver had seen me leaving. I loved the lab on the second floor, where Professor Potts taught chemistry. I loved the clean white countertops and the shining order of it. I loved the awkward, bespectacled boys I worked side by side with, the boys who peered at me and the lone other girl in the class—a Holly Stevens—on our first day as though we were unidentified specimens, before turning away and forgetting about us. I loved Holly Stevens a little, for her Martha Clarkson clothing—shapeless skirts, blouses two sizes two big and the wrong color for her complexion—and for her brilliant mind, which she used with the cool dexterity of someone uninterested in the everyday. I loved the night sky and the old telescope in the observatory, the way the youngish Professor Tinsley had shown me how to find Venus one night that spring, the smell of dried leaves and tobacco rising out of his coat as he moved around me in the dark, adjusting, until I saw it: a dot of light seared into the blackness above the horizon. I loved my evening hours at my study carrel—the quiet of the library, the books I pored over long after the floor had emptied of students. I loved the names for the bones of the foot—calcaneus and talus, the elegant, articulated joints of the metatarsals. I loved my father, who I thought must be the wisest man in the world; I loved my mother, despite the crease in her forehead when she came across me reading—
intellectual
, she told me, a label men found wholly unattractive; I loved her for her love of music and for the brisk efficiency with which she moved through the house, making everything shine. I loved what I had lost, those afternoons Alex and I spent down by the canal when we were girls, the light in my memory impossibly golden, impossibly bright. I knew I loved all of that. But beyond that, I was a fool.