My Latest Grievance (19 page)

"What about her charming boyfriend? He's flaunting it, too. Where's his conscience?"

"His conscience," my father answered, "is undoubtedly suffering a dark night of the soul outside the intensive care unit at Mass. General."

"Think so?" I asked.

"If I were he? I'd be bargaining with God right now:
Let Grace live, and I'll never see that woman again. Save the mother of my children, and I'll give up my mistress.
Why do you think Laura Lee is so distraught? Because she knows this marks the end of the affair."

"God?" I said. "You bargain with God?"

"Figure of speech," he said.

We ate in the kitchen to be close to the phone, transferring the Christmas place mats, napkins, napkin rings, and crèche centerpiece to the round Formica table. My grandmother took her seat after serving us, then suggested we clasp hands around the table. "Frederica?" she prompted.

I was good at this. Whenever I joined a religious girl's table at Curran Hall, I participated in and could even ad-lib a few convincing lines. This night I said, "Thank you, God, for bringing our family together during this holiday. Thank you for giving us a place to go when the dorm is closed, and for food that is not only homemade and delicious but also cross-cultural." I looked around the table. My grandmother's eyes were closed. My mother winked at me. I continued, "We're a little concerned right now because one of our party borrowed the car and hasn't come back. It's been several hours. We're hoping for her safe return because she may be driving inebriated. Thank you. And Merry Christmas, which I think translates in your house to Happy Birthday."

My grandmother added, "Lord, bless this food to our use and us to thy service and keep us ever mindful of others so they, too, may receive from the bounty of Christ our Lord, amen."

I looked at my mother, who telegraphed to me,
It's fine. Let it be. She made latkes.

We had barely cut into our first slice of steak when the phone rang. My father, napkin in hand, tipped his chair backward and stretched behind him for the wall phone. "Hatch residence," he said. After a few moments he calmly asked, "Where?" Then, "Does she know you called us?"

Clearly she was alive. But something else besides truancy—a totaled Hornet? a skid across a yard into someone's living room?—was causing a look I knew, rage restrained through houseparent equanimity.

"Can you keep her there?...No, I'll come get her." Then: "What time does it get over?"

He thanked the caller, hung up the phone, picked up his knife and fork.

"David?" said my mother and grandmother.

"She's fine." He cut all the steak on his plate into bite-sized pieces, then asked me to pass the rolls.

"Where is she?" my grandmother asked. "Who was that on the phone?"

"Chuck LeDout, the officer I flagged down on the corner. He spotted the Hudson in the parking lot of Hoosac Valley Regional."

"Was she with the car?" I asked.

"No, she was not."

"Is she missing?" asked my mother.

He said grimly, "He's quite sure she's inside."

"The school?" said my grandmother. "What for?" He smacked a spoonful of applesauce onto a latke. "Apparently," he said, "there's a special Christmas Eve twilight matinee of
The Nutcracker.
"

"The Hoosac Valley Ballet!" my grandmother exclaimed. "I think tonight's the final performance."

My mother said carefully, "And you're taking your time and finishing dinner because you're confident that she'll find her own way back?"

"Who says she's coming back at all?" I asked.

"I want my car," said my grandmother.

"Beyond typical," my father muttered. "Unbelievably thoughtless, not to mention self-absorbed and immature—"

I stood up. "C'mon. Let's go get her. She's not going to show up."

"Sit down," said my mother.

I said, "I've never seen
The Nutcracker!
I'm the only child in America whose parents haven't taken her at Christmas."

"You've seen it six times on PBS."

"It's probably over soon," said my grandmother. "People have lots to do on Christmas Eve."

My father said, "LeDout's niece is in it. He said it ends at eight."

"I'll go with you," I repeated.

"And you'd serve what role?" asked my mother.

"If Laura Lee ran into the ladies' room when she saw Dad, I could go get her. Besides, someone should drive back with her to make sure she doesn't take off with Grandma's car."

"Absolutely not," said my mother.

The driveway to Hoosac Valley Regional was fluorescently lit and plastered with posters announcing
FINAL PERFORMANCE
! edited with a handwritten
TONIGHT
! My father and I crossed a courtyard, entered the building, and walked up a few stairs to the auditorium. We opened one door and slipped into the empty back row. She was sitting alone in the second row, dead center, and producing the involuntary twitches of a choreographer-director.

"Can you tell how far along they are? What scene?"

"Near the end. It's the Sugarplum Fairy and her cavalier. Should we go down there?"

"Not till it's over," he said.

I'd been relishing the thought of something FBI-ish: David would approach down the left aisle. I'd skulk down the right. When we got to the second row, we'd each slide across, beautifully synchronized, and drop into the empty seats on either side of Laura Lee. I said, "I wouldn't mind seeing the finale up close."

"You stay here. I know you: You'd sashay down the aisle and demand the car keys."

There couldn't have been more than a dozen parents in attendance, plus an orchestra that was a mixture of children and adults. We had a clear view of Laura Lee, who was swaying and gesticulating like a true showoff who had danced the role of Clara and wanted everyone to know.

"Why can't she be normal?" I whispered.

"Melodrama," he whispered back.

"Was she always like this?"

"Always."

I recognized the "Waltz of the Flowers" and nudged my father. "After this comes the finale, and Clara gets taken offstage in a sleigh. If they do the Russian version."

We were the first to reach the back doors, which we held open for the retreating audience. Laura Lee, last one up the aisle, was half walking, half reliving her starring role. Finally she looked up. She stopped and cried, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing—"

"Did Eric call?"

"No one called," my father said. "We came to collect you. Dinner's on the table."

"I'm not sure of my evening plans," she said.

He let the door close so it was only we three left in the auditorium. "Then let me enlighten you," said my father. "You are driving back to my mother's house, where all of us have been fairly certain that a three-hour unexplained absence meant you were dead in a ditch."

Laura Lee, brow furrowed, looked toward me for affirmation.

"We called the police," I told her. "They must have issued an all points bulletin, because an officer spotted Grandma's car and called us."

She raised her chin slightly and said, "You of all people know, Frederica, how I feel about ballet."

"And you know how the police feel about grand theft auto," I replied.

My father snapped, "That's enough." And to Laura Lee, "Did you give any thought at all to your hostess?"

"And to returning her coat," I added. Laura Lee was fishing for gloves in the pocket of my grandmother's Persian lamb coat, famous for its magenta lining and for being the sole surviving garment from her trousseau.

"
All
I've given thought to is Eric and what he's going through, spending Christmas Eve in a hospital waiting room, dealing with three hysterical daughters, running a college—"

"What about Mrs. Woodbury?" I yelled. "She could be dead. She could have died while you were watching the lamest
Nutcracker
ever performed."

"That's very mean, Frederica," said Laura Lee. "I didn't think you were capable of such cruelty." With that, she marched past us through two sets of doors, across the parking lot, and to the Hudson, which she kicked hard with the toe of her patent leather boot.

My father grabbed my hand, and we ran to catch up. Laura Lee was now at the wheel, ineffectually stomping on the clutch and grinding gears so that each start ended in a stall.

"She can't drive it," I said.

"She must have driven it here." He rapped on the window and said, "Stop it. You're going to damage something."

"The starter," I said.

"Go away," said Laura Lee. "I can't concentrate when you're hovering."

I said, "Don't let her drive it. Tell her she's riding with us. You and Grandma can return for the car in the morning."

"Good idea," he said. He gestured to her:
Forget it. You're coming with us.
She opened the door faster than anyone expected and wider than necessary. Some part of it hit my father hard, with a disturbing thwack. He yelped, then crumbled.

"You hit him in the balls!" I yelled.

"Not on purpose," said Laura Lee.

He was white, every feature contorted in pain. "I'm okay," he whimpered. "Give me a minute."

"I'll drive," said Laura Lee.

I
T WAS DECIDED
out of my earshot: Laura Lee deeply needed to be in Boston. The wages of her early departure would be a bus ticket; no one was going to drive her across the state, loan or rent her a car, especially since her license, we now knew, had expired some fifteen years earlier. Her mother would understand once we explained that there had been an emergency on campus. After her initial shock and disappointment, Bibi would realize that it was better to be spending Christmas with family than alone in Schenectady.

Laura Lee retired early and sulkily after picking at her cold beef pinwheel. I excused myself from the annual checker tournament, simulating yawns, to join my roommate upstairs. She was already in bed, lights out, but tossing noisily. "If you're going to have a long, drawn-out toilette, please go elsewhere," she growled.

I pulled off my shoes and my bulky sweater, and slipped into my bed otherwise fully clothed.

"I suppose they're discussing me," she said.

I said no. The carolers came, we fed them, and then we set up the checkerboard—

"They think it's so black and white! His wife tried to kill herself,
so I have to walk away. As if he doesn't need me more than ever. As if she didn't pull this stunt precisely to vilify me."

"How can you call it a stunt? A stunt is when you take a few sleeping pills knowing someone's going to find you and pump your stomach."

"Then she needs serious help. She needs to be in a psych ward when this is over—
if
she hasn't turned herself into a vegetable."

When I could manage a reply I asked, "Are you the least bit sorry for her?"

She sat up. I could tell, even in the dark, that a lecture was gathering force. "I'm going to point something out to you, Frederica, a parallel that no one in this family appreciates: I had a husband who left me for another woman. And how did I handle it? With dignity! Did I try to kill myself? Did I fall into a pit of depression and lose ten pounds a month until I looked like death warmed over? No. I picked myself up, called a lawyer, and agreed to a divorce."

"You were young. You told me that it wouldn't have lasted—"

"And then this miracle happens! In the unlikeliest place, I find the love of my life. And let me point out that there is another side of this, which isn't
my
happiness, but Eric's. Do you know that he's tried several times to leave her? And that she threatened to kill herself if he ever did?"

I said evenly, "Do you believe everything he tells you?"

The lamp between us went on. Laura Lee was wearing a black lace nightgown, surely from a lingerie department's honeymoon rack. "Unlike you, I wasn't raised to be a cynic and to mistrust someone just because he has power and authority and a comfortable car." She shut off the light. A minute later I heard, "If you're worried about Marietta and her sisters, you don't have to be."

"Because their mother's going to pull through? Or because their father's found happiness with a woman who isn't frigid?"

"First," she said, "their father's found them a suite virtually across the street from the hospital and made them a reservation at the Parker House for Christmas dinner. And secondly, throwing around sexual terms doesn't qualify you as an adult, so stop trying." I heard the sounds of aged pillows being thumped and fluffed. "You know what I see happening between us, Frederica? I see you looking back on this week—I mean, at some distant point
when you've had some life experience and a few love affairs of your own—and feeling ashamed that you were so quick to judge me and cut me dead.
Especially
when you were the one who did the honors."

"What honors?"

"The night Eric and I met? I happen to know that he ventured into Curran Hall because he'd heard there was an ex-Rockette on campus."

I thought of running back downstairs, joining my parents under the poinsettia afghan, and thanking David for conceiving me with Aviva rather than Laura Lee.

"That definitely intrigued him," she continued. "That one word: 'Rockette.'"

I pulled the covers over my head to muffle my hyperventilating.

"Good night, little girl," she said.

Bibi French was Laura Lee at seventy. She had her daughter's height and build; her hair was the kind of white that recalled its strawberry blond past. Her vintage fur coat and wine-colored dress could have been on loan from Laura Lee's steamer trunks.

We greeted; we shook hands or kissed as was appropriate. Bibi said without much enthusiasm, "Well, you don't look like your mother. I suppose I see David in you."

"She looks a lot like my mother did as a young woman," offered Aviva, who was dressed in her all-occasion black pleated skirt and white turtleneck sweater.

"A throwback," said Bibi. "Those are often interesting" She looked past me into the rooms beyond the foyer. "Don't tell me my daughter is still asleep?"

"Come sit down," said my grandmother. "Aviva made her special hot spiced cider."