Golden Age (7 page)

Charlie grimaced at the thought of New York City.

“Harvard?”

Charlie made himself sit still.

“Princeton?”

Charlie put his hands on either side of his head and mimicked an Edvard Munch sort of expression.

“Woods Hole?”

Charlie shrugged.

“St. Paul?”

Only then did Charlie grin.

Riley said, “You are truly one in a million, Mr. Wickett.”

“I might compromise on Madison.”

She said, “We’ll see what I get into. And which one is farthest from Stevens Point.”

They went back into the kitchen. The radio was playing regular old rock-and-roll, and then Leonard Cohen came on, “First We Take Manhattan.” Without seeming to realize it, Riley started bebop-ping around the kitchen. There was nothing about any fires nearby. At noon, Charlie went out and bought
The Denver Post
. Not much. When he returned, though, Riley was parked in front of the television, staring at what turned out to be footage of the Old Faithful
Inn, in Yellowstone, not of the firestorm itself but of the aftermath—people saying how they had been stuck on the roof ready to die, how they had been watching the fire when, suddenly, they’d had to run for cover, how firebrands had landed all around them, how a fireball had shot down one slope toward the inn but missed it. Everyone was shaken, no one was dead. Charlie stood there until the report was over. She was upset; Charlie was, too. But what a plan gave you, no matter how bad things looked, was a path. And so she only shook her head and said, “Jesus. When is this going to end?” They sat quietly in their little safe spot for the rest of the afternoon, not saying much, and eating leftover macaroni and cheese for dinner.

1989

D
EBBIE PULLED OUT
Arthur’s chair; he let her, though it made him feel stupid. Then she opened the menu for him. He peered at it, turned it upside down, and perused it seriously until she finally said, “Oh, Dad!” and laughed. Once she laughed, he set the menu down. The only thing he liked was French toast, and maybe a slice of bacon. Her mouth opened, and he said, “I do not know anything more about cyanide in the grapes.”

She said, “Okay. But—”

“All I know is what I read in the article, same as you. A little cyanide in two grapes out of twenty-two hundred. Not enough to harm—”

“They always say that.”

“Yes,” said Arthur, “they always do.”

The waitress came; Josie, her tag read. Debbie was always friendly. She said, “Hi, Josie. I’ll take the Western omelet, and my dad will take the French toast, and we’ll split a side of bacon. Thanks.”

Arthur said, “I’ll take my coffee straight up.”

Josie didn’t smile, just said, “All righty,” and turned away. Debbie’s eyes followed her, but she said, “Maybe they blame us for the disappeared.”

“Maybe they do,” said Arthur. “You throw away your fruit that
might have come from Chile. I’m not going to bother.” He took an emphatic breath, and this time she believed him. Josie brought the coffee. Arthur took a sip—black and bitter, just the way he liked it.

Debbie said, “Did I tell you Janet called me?”

Arthur shook his head.

“Well, you know that Jared is working with some people on making animated cartoons using computers. So, anyway, he had to be down in L.A. for something, so Janet and Emily went along, and guess what they did?”

Arthur could guess: he would have done the same thing.

“They drove out to Pasadena, where Fiona’s stable is—a little northeast of there, really, just below a national forest. I guess the farm had belonged to a movie mogul of some sort. Anyway, the barns are huge and airy, and they have about forty horses in training.”

Arthur coughed.

“She pretended to be looking for a horse for Emily. She was very friendly.”

“Janet?”

“Well, yes, of course, but I mean Fiona. She led Emily over to a mini that they keep and had her brush it with a soft brush while she and Janet talked, and then Janet said that maybe it was she herself that wanted a horse, not Emily, and Fiona said, ‘I’ve seen that before.’ Janet said that she was actually quite personable and almost charming, really.”

Arthur decided to play it safe. He said, “Does that surprise you?”

Debbie said, “She said that Fiona was pretty heavy. I mean, you know”—she lowered her voice—“fat.”

She looked as though maybe this was the saddest part.

Arthur said, “Maybe she’s enjoying life, then.”

The waitress set their food in front of them.

Debbie took a bite and said, “Only you would say that, Dad, but maybe.”

They ate for a while. Arthur’s French toast was spongy and bland, but he forked it in. At long, long last, he asked: “Did she say anything?”

“You mean Fiona?”

“No, I mean Janet.”

Debbie nodded.

Arthur tried to gauge by her expression whether the delivery of the news had been a crisis or a celebration, or none of the above. He remembered Fiona as Debbie’s friend, her anything-can-happen air, a cocky and observant look on her face. She hadn’t been thin then, but she had been quick and well muscled, with thick, dark hair. In fact, he remembered watching her and wondering if she had relatives in the IRA. But that was how he thought about people in those suspicious days. He said, “I’d like to have been there.”

“I guess they were shaking hands, because Janet and Emily were about to leave, and Janet just said, ‘I have something more to tell you,’ and then she came out with it, that Charlie was beautiful and fun and we all liked him a lot, and Fiona said, ‘Does he look like Tim?’ and Janet said he does, and Fiona said, ‘Lucky boy, then.’ ”

Arthur said, “But I never thought of Tim as athletic—wild, yes, but not with that focus. Charlie seems to have gotten that from Fiona.”

“Well, Janet hemmed and hawed, and then she said, ‘Did you love Tim?’ and you can just imagine how she said it, all the time thinking, ‘It was me that really loved Timmy.’ And Fiona said, ‘He was daring. Not quite as daring as I was, but he came the closest of all the boys I knew. That was exciting. When Deb told me that time in New York that he’d died, it did shake me up.’ She gave Janet a little hug, like Janet was the one who needed consoling. Janet left her address and her phone number. We’ll see if Fiona gets in touch with her.”

“If only to sell her a horse.”

“If only to sell her a horse. Janet waited to see if Fiona would ask for Charlie’s info, but she didn’t.”

They ate in silence for a few moments.

“If she got a horse,” said Arthur, “she might give Emily a little space.”

“It’s weird that Janet is an hour or two from the Perronis, since they might as well live in different centuries. I asked her if she’d seen Loretta and the kids at all, and I thought she was going to say, ‘Who’s Loretta?’ ”

“What did she say?”

“She just said no.”

“I’m sure Loretta would laugh and smack her on the back and tell her to send Emily for the summer, it would do her a world of good.”

“I’m sure she would. And maybe it would.” Arthur noticed that Debbie pushed the fruit aside—two cubes of cantaloupe, a strawberry, a piece of kiwi, and, yes, two reddish-purple grapes. Arthur ate his. They weren’t bad. The way Debbie watched him do it made it seem rather refreshingly death-defying.

—

NOW THAT
Congressman Scheuer was dean of the New York City Congressional Delegation, Richie had gotten used to being called “Richard” or even “Rick,” and also to spending a lot more time in Washington. Biaggi was out, so the congressman no longer needed Richie to do what he did so well—hang around with other New York City politicians and their henchmen, making jokes and keeping his ears open. Considering how corrupt the New York Democratic Party was (Michael had a point, there), making sure that no scandal ever appeared in the vicinity of Congressman Scheuer was a fulltime job. But the congressman remained good-natured, clean, and classy, and Richie admired him. At the last minute, he got the night off, so he called Ivy, who was home reading manuscripts (she was a full-fledged editor now), which she always did all day Sunday, and suggested that they go watch the Washington inaugural bicentennial fireworks from the Brooklyn Heights Promenade. She said, “Margie lives on Pierrepont.”

Margie was Ivy’s best friend on the production side. She made sure that no printings came back from the bindery missing the author’s name on the title page, or without the essential photo insert of the athlete going for the jump shot or catching the fly ball and winning the World Series. The managing editor, Margie’s boss, was out giving birth, so Margie was a little overwhelmed these days.

“What time do you want to order the car service?”

“We can walk. It’s right down Flatbush. We can get a car service back. I need the walk.”

Did she need the walk? Did she not need the walk? She was five months pregnant, in that golden period, according to Loretta, between nausea and swollen ankles, but Richie was afraid for her to walk—what was it?—almost three miles. He said, “I’m going to be home by six. Let’s walk to Boerum Hill, get something to eat, and then go to Margie’s.”

When she said, “That’s a good idea,” she didn’t sound the least suspicious. Richie hung up relieved, and happy, too. He sorted through the papers he had to take home with him—he was off for the afternoon, but the congressman had to appear at the inaugural re-enactment. He looked at his watch: almost noon. He ran down the back stairs.

Yes, getting her pregnant had been like climbing a steep hill and discovering every hundred yards that the trail had washed out or a tree had fallen over the path, but once she was pregnant, everything changed—they had come to a spacious clearing with a nice view and a luxurious stash of provisions. Richie wanted to linger there as long as possible, because he couldn’t imagine being a father. He knew as well as he knew his own name that he would be expected to perform: to change diapers, to comfort the child, to nourish, educate, and bathe. And, unfortunately, one of the books Ivy had read in her long quest had suggested that men could breast-feed if they really wanted to, though she’d dropped the subject after mentioning it four times in two days. Every so often, Richie looked at his hands and wondered how they could perform all of these tasks.

The weather was brilliant, New York in April, perfect weather for the flotilla. Not many babies in this part of Lower Manhattan, but he observed the two that he saw—they were both looking around, old enough to have survived the first few months of parental incompetence. Old enough to be cute. He sped up his walk, and made a face at one as he passed it, and then felt ashamed when it didn’t smile. He came to the subway stairs and hustled down them, not wanting to see that baby again.

He had mentioned his anxiety to his mom, and she’d said, in her idle way, “It passes so quickly. If they live, you don’t influence them at all. But they do need to earn enough money later for the psychiatrist, or the mind reader, or whoever they choose. So be sure you save them a little something.” He laughed, but when he pressed her—when he said, “What if I drop it?”—Andy said, “Oh, goodness, my great-aunt Ingrid was so afraid of dropping Cousin Helga that she left her in her cradle day and night. And look what happened to her!”

Richie said, “What happened to her?”

“That! Well, she died in a car crash up in Wisconsin—where was it?—north of Eau Claire somewhere.”

He almost abandoned the subject right then, but he couldn’t resist. “What’s the connection?”

“She was running away from home! Couldn’t stand Aunt Ingrid, ran off with the first boy who ever liked her or showed her any affection. Brakes failed.” And Richie left it at that, thinking not of the brakes on the imagined car, but of the brakes on Helga’s impulses. It was, of course, easy for his mother to take a fatalistic view, since, as Ivy said, she and his father hadn’t done a thing right with any of the children, but never had he felt quite as clearly as he did now, at thirty-six, taking his seat on the train, that he was too young for what was to come.

—

FRANK WAS SURE
he’d left the light on, because he’d fallen asleep reading, sitting with his back against the headboard, his book resting on his knees. The book was one he bought when it was on the
Times
best-seller list,
The Great Depression of 1990
. It had been sitting beside his bed for two years now, and Frank hadn’t felt enough anxiety to read it, but here it was, July, and 1990 only six months off. He picked up a few things leafing through it before he dozed: that the fall of the Soviet Union was inevitable (that one looked true) and that if 1 percent of the U.S. population controlled more than 25 percent of the wealth, a depression would be on the way. Then Frank had gotten to thinking about Black Monday, when, briefly, his own son Michael (according to Michael) had been worth more than Frank, and then his head had fallen back. But now the room was dark; he was lying down, emerging from a dream about people at a party at what looked like Bergdorf’s staring at him, and he opened his eyes to see a wavering figure in the corner of the room, white. He didn’t gasp or anything—he retained the sense he’d had in the dream that if he was patient every strange thing would resolve itself. Then the figure approached, and it was Andy, in the antique silk slip she used as a nightgown, her white hair completing the ghostly impression. He woke up, and she sat on the bed. She hadn’t been in his room for years except to clean it when he wasn’t home. He thought maybe she was drunk, but she hadn’t had a drink now in a decade, and then he thought he should be offended that she hadn’t knocked, but he wasn’t.
She put her fingertips on his left temple and ran them under the wisps of hair that remained there.