Everything and More (74 page)

“It’s my fault. I never should have gone to New York. Joshua, I’ve never interfered with him before. Why did I have to now?”

“Where in the letter, tell me, does it say he’s been thwarted in love?”

“Althea, she must have done exactly what I wanted her to. Told Billy they were through.” Marylin’s voice shook piteously.

“Angelpuss, quit blaming yourself.”

“That’s easy to say.”

Joshua sat abruptly on the edge of the bed. The bluster had evaporated. “First poor little Sari, now this,” he sighed. “Sweet Jesus, what’s happened to our kids?”

“The Coyne family,” Marylin responded bitterly.

“Billy’s a comedy writer, not a war correspondent. Even those fuck-ups at
Rolling Stone
must have enough unscrambled brains to see that.” He slumped, arms dangling between his knees.

When Joshua had suffered his heart attack in the spring of 1956, he had refused to stay in his hospital bed for the medically prescribed six weeks of rest, leaving Cedars of Lebanon without his doctor’s permission after twelve days to polish his current script: Joshua Fernauld had put his heart on probation. The doughty muscles had obeyed him all these years.

But now fierce anxiety pierced Marylin. “Joshua, it isn’t the end of the world,” she said in a tone of purposeful cheer. “After all, he’s not a soldier, he’s a reporter.”

Joshua didn’t reply. There was no reason for him to. Billy was courting danger, and they both knew it.

After a minute he said, “It’s time to talk some sense into him.”

“Joshua, we don’t have a phone number. There’s no return address on the letter.”

“Your sister’s friend.”

“Hahh!”

“I’ll soften her with reminders of how, lo these many years ago, I offered her comfort when she came to your mother’s house in search of it.”

Althea’s servant informed Joshua that Mrs. Stoltz was out of town and would remain away for several weeks. Joshua then dialed
Rolling Stone’
s offices in Greenwich Village. Marylin’s concern about his bum ticker faded. This was the Joshua Fernauld of old, ranting, booming, bellowing in the roar that had shaken the film hierarchy above and below him. Evidently the people on the other end were unimpressed. He did not find out William Fernauld’s whereabouts.

He took out his three Gucci telephone books, thumbing through the alphabet for the most influential people. General Omar Bradley, US Army, Ret., Buffie Chandler, Henry Kissinger, Pat Kennedy Lawford, Governor Reagan.

BJ and Maury came over, and then NolaBee. The pinochle crowd. Roy. Among them they knew yet more heavyweights.

The Fernauld phone lines stayed busy until long after midnight.

It was Secretary of State Kissinger who called back to inform them that Billy was already in Saigon, an accredited member of the press, and that the death rate for newsmen was pretty low.

  
69
  

Just before eleven on the following Sunday, Roy—smart in her new navy slacks with matching blouse and a taupe blazer—stood in her backyard cutting zinnias to take to the Fernaulds’ where they were having brunch. Later, Sari would return here with her. Joshua and Marylin flinched from inflicting their daughter with their hyped-up anxieties about Billy.

The cheerful orchestration of a Beverlywood Sunday bubbled around Roy—the masculine voices broadcasting Dodger warm-up, the racket of a neighbor’s car starting up, the gleeful shrills of toddlers as they splashed in their wading pool. Roy paid no attention to the sabbath choir.

The full sunlight did bad things to her freckles and small lines around her eyes and mouth. The family’s dual crises had invaded her nights, yet at the same time her nurturing side got a real kick out of being needed by Sari. She knelt to clip an especially fine bloom.

“Auntie Roy.” Sari was holding open the kitchen screen door.

“Be with you in a sec, Sari. There’s a couple more really luscious ones.”

“You have company.”

“Oh, nuts. Hon, tell whoever it is we’re leaving right now.”

Sari moved onto the cement patio. “It’s Mrs. Stoltz,” she said in a low voice.

“Althea?” Roy’s grip on the flower stems tightened. Every trace of her perennial loyalty had been washed away on that night earlier in the week when she had accepted Althea as the instrument of her niece and nephew’s downfall. But how could Althea be here? During the week’s interweaving long-distance calls, Joshua had learned that she was in Sweden. “Are you sure?”

“Oh, Auntie Roy!”

Roy peered at the house. In this glare the living room windows were inscrutable blanks. It took her a few seconds to make out a tall, narrow shape that was—unmistakably—Althea.

Roy’s first impulse was to step protectively between the pregnant girl and Althea. In the next instant she determined to get her niece away. Draping an arm around Sari’s shoulders, she whispered, “You go pick up Grandma.” (Joshua had driven Sari’s Pinto to Beverlywood.) “I’ll spend a few minutes with her.”

“The way she looked at me, it was strange. Do you think she’s angry because of Charles?”

“Sari, anyone ever tell you you’re too darn sensitive?” Roy asked, improvising. “Sometimes she has migraines.”

“I mean really odd. I’ll wait for you, then you’ll have a better excuse not to hang around with her too long.”

Althea had moved to the window. Though Roy could discern only the pure oval face, Althea surely must see the two of them in sharp, sunlit detail. Goose bumps formed below Roy’s silk blouse. “Grandma’s waiting for us!” Her whisper was hoarse.

“I don’t like leaving. She’s—”

“She’s upset because her father just died.”

“Auntie Roy, listen, she’s really giving off bad vibes. If you’re trying to get rid of me so you can have it out with her about Billy—”

“Don’t be crazy. Now, will you please go pick up Grandma?”

“Okay, okay.” Sari moved toward the kitchen door.

Roy hissed, “Go out the gate.”

“My purse is inside with the keys. Auntie Roy, what is with you?”

Althea opened the glass door that led from the living room.

“Althea!” Roy cried, setting the garden shears on the low brick wall of the patio. “What a fabulous surprise! Sari said you were here, and I didn’t believe her. When did you get into town?”

Frowning delicately, as if Roy had presented an insoluble problem, Althea stepped onto the cement patio.

Roy gave Sari a little push. “Bye, dear—you guys start eating without me.”

“It was nice seeing you, Mrs. Stoltz,” Sari said.

Althea’s chin lowered a fraction, a minuscule movement that
might, if generously construed, be labeled a nod.

Sari went into the kitchen; then the front door opened and shut. Roy expelled a breath of relief.

Althea said, “The paintings are gone.”

“On loan. Gerry’s having a retrospective.”

“Oh, yes, now it comes back to me.” Althea’s voice was rushed. “UCLA sent an invitation.”

Sari’s right, Roy decided. Something’s badly out of sync. Her gaze darted covertly over Althea. The exquisitely pleated cream silk blouse and gored leaf-green Chanel skirt were heavily creased, as if slept in, and a few strands of pale hair straggled from the chignon. Even in their earliest adolescence Althea had always groomed herself meticulously. She was gripping her large, soft kid purse with such tension that the flesh had whitened around her brutally short nails. Had Althea ever been a nail-biter? Yes, that last grim semester she had attended Beverly High.

“Let’s sit down,” Roy said, keeping her voice even, shifting one of the redwood patio chairs invitingly.

Althea did not stir from her listener’s pose until the roar of the Pinto’s engine faded into the Sunday sounds.

“What about something to drink?” Roy asked. “There’s nothing hard—not since you dried me out. But I do have Snap E Tom? Orange juice? Coffee?”

“Is she gone?”

“Sari? Sure. That was her car.”

“I don’t suppose there’s anybody else inside?”

“Of course not. Althea, you really look like you could use a little pick-me-up. Come on in the kitchen.”

“We’ll stay out here.” Althea’s imperious tone trailed off in a plaintive quiver.

“Sure, why not? Isn’t this a perfect day? But first let me fix us some coffee.”

“I hardly flew all the way to Los Angeles to be entertained with instant coffee,” Althea said.

A lawn mower had started in the yard behind, and the sound rasped on Roy’s uneasiness. “Althea, what is it?”

“I want to know why you wrote that to Charles.”

“Wrote what?” Roy asked, bewildered.

“The letter.”

“Althea, you know he and I’ve always kept in touch.”

Althea opened the purse, taking out Roy’s stationery. “This.” She extended linen paper.

Roy could read her own writing.
Charles, there is something of absolute
urgency to you that we must discuss in privacy immediately, so please telephone me at Patricia’s (not the house) as soon as you receive this.

The note she had composed with such effort on the night she’d heard about Sari’s pregnancy. With her fears about Billy, she had completely forgotten writing and mailing it.

“Oh, that,” she said. “It’s nothing.”

Althea placed the folded, heavy linen sheet carefully on the redwood barbecue table. Her face and posture had the brittle, mannered look of an eighteenth-century porcelain fashion doll. “What a distasteful way you’ve chosen to pay me back,” she said.

“Althea, what in heaven’s name are you talking about?”

“For Gerry.”

It was the first time in years either of them had mentioned the unfair triangle. Despite their friendship, Roy had never completely left behind the pain and jealousy that surrounded being an also-ran with her own husband. Her throat ached as she asked, “Anyway, how did you come by this?”

“I flew over to Stockholm for a few days.”

“So? Does Charles share his mail with you?”

“Hardly.” Althea prowled across the patio onto the grass. “I saw the envelope with your writing, so I opened it.”

Revulsion choked Roy. From earliest memory, she had embraced every dictum of her generation’s ideals. She behaved with absolute rectitude. Never in her life had she opened even a catalog addressed to another person. And now it flashed through her mind that Althea had never possessed this same code of honor. What a snap it must have been for her, arranging that the Coyne New York Bank dispatch Charles to Europe.

The lawn mower ceased. In the abrupt quiet, the chirp of a bird, the babies’ shouts, the radios seemed sweetly, innocently bucolic.

Althea was staring at her fixedly. “Well?”

“That’s a rotten thing to do, snoop.”

“You don’t have a child.” Althea plucked a camellia leaf. “Want to know my deepest regret?” This question was confided, jarringly, in the significant tones of their girlhood confessionals. “My​ . . . deepest​ . . . ​regret. . . .”—Althea drew out the words on a long, plangent chord—“is​ . . . ​telling​ . . . ​Roy​ . . . ​Wace​ . . . ​about​ . . . ​Charles​ . . . ​and​ . . . ​Gerry​ . . . ​Horak.”

Roy jumped to her feet. “You think
that’s
why I wanted him to phone?” she cried, aghast.

“What else? You and he can’t share any other urgent interests, can you?”

“Althea, listen to me. I would never in a million years betray a confidence, certainly never one this important. You know me better than that.”

Althea arched a pale, delicate eyebrow knowingly.

And into Roy’s mind came a picture of her nephew—her dear, fidgety comic who used to drop by her house to devour her cakes and make her laugh until the back of her throat ached. Billy the peacenik trying to enlist, Billy in Saigon, Billy being helicoptered into some remote, godforsaken, Cong-infested jungle—Billy. “But I suppose that it’s only natural
you
would see it that way. My God, what happened with Billy? How did you manage to mess him up that much?”

“Billy?”

“Yes, Billy.”

“Where does this concern
him?”

“You don’t know he tried to enlist?” Roy wailed.

For a moment Althea’s narrow, shapely lips twisted, as if in pain; then she said, “I fail to see that a young man serving his country is such a lamentable thing.”