The English American (25 page)

I
T’S A WINDY DAY
,
and Edwin isn’t there yet. I crouch down beside a dumpster for shelter and wait. A shadow blocks the sun. I look up. Edwin is standing in front of me. He is tall, with a face that looks remarkably like mine.

“So,” he says, “I meet my sister for the first time ever, and she’s sitting by a dumpster.” I jump up.

“Hi,” I say.

“Hi,” he says. We laugh.

“So, the cat’s out of the bag,” he says.

“Meow.”

We stare at each other. His hair is my hair, only short. His face is my face, only male. He’s taller than me and clearly shares my lack of interest in fashion. We’re both wearing jeans, a sweatshirt, and, as anticipated, an Orioles baseball cap.

“Why did he tell you now?” I say, finally.

Edwin smiles. “He doesn’t like my girlfriend. So he said all mistakes have consequences, some of them serious. Then he told me about you.”

Oh. Well, at least he told him. My joy at meeting a sibling who I already recognize completely is far stronger than anything else.

“Were you surprised?” I say.

“Not really,” he says. “I always knew there was something. Dad was never all that happy, especially at holiday times. Your mother must have been something special. Dad’s not really the affair type.”

“Yes, I think she was,” I say, picturing the two of them, for a second, as they were, forbidden to love each other, but loving each other anyway.

“Now I know why Dad used to want to know my girlfriends’ birthdays,” Edwin says. “He wanted to be sure I wasn’t dating my sister.” With New York City rising above us, we start laughing like hysterical children.

“When is your birthday?” I say, back on the street as we head toward Times Square.

“September sixth, nineteen seventy-eight.”

“Mine’s April twenty-sixth, nineteen seventy-eight.” We grin. “Must have been an active year.”

“So we’re Irish twins,” he says.

“I guess so,” I say. He looks at me closely.

“How do we know he’s dead?” Edwin says.

“Who?”

“Our brother.”

Our brother. Edwin’s brother and mine. Walt has told him about my twin. Our brother. I am no longer alone.

“Why would they lie about it?”

“Have you seen the death certificate?”

“Do dead twins have death certificates?”

“Dunno. Did he have a birth certificate?”

“If he did, I haven’t seen it. I haven’t seen my birth certificate either, for that matter. I’m not allowed.”

“What do you mean?”

“I was adopted. I’m not allowed access to my original birth certificate in the U.S.”

“No shit?”

We walk around New York and talk and talk. About politics, justice, Walt, me, him. And our sister Ashley. She works with children with special needs.

“Does she know about me?”

I watch something tighten in him. “No,” he says.

“Are you going to tell her?” I say.

“I can’t. Dad made me promise.”

“Why?”

“Something to do with Dad’s theory that boys handle tough things better than girls.”

“So your dad has made you promise to keep my existence a secret from your sister?”

“Our sister,” he corrects me. “God, but you’re so like her!”

“Is she sane?” I ask.

“Hell no!” he says, grinning.

Edwin stays overnight on my couch. I’m tired when I climb up the ladder to my loft bed, but I don’t sleep well. I dream of a sister with only half a face, and I wake with a start.

I can see Edwin is awake too, because his eyes are open.

“You okay?” I whisper. There’s pain in his eyes. Keeping other people’s secrets hurts. He doesn’t say anything. I turn onto my back and stare at the glow-in-the-dark stars Elfrida stuck on the ceiling above me, wishing there was something I could do to help ease his burden.

Edwin and I go out to breakfast at the Cornelia Street Café in the West Village. We both order the fried eggs with roasted garlic cloves.

“Growing up, Dad loved playing hero to everyone but his family,” he says. “You didn’t miss much. He drank a lot, and he ignored my mother, and he was never there.”

That makes sense.

“He played hero to me, I think. At least for a little while. When I met him, well, to me he was the perfect father I’d dreamed of all my life.”

“I’ll bet he loved that!”

“Yes, I think he did,” I say, suddenly missing the father I had so wanted Walt to be.

“When did you last see him?”

“It’s been a while,” I say. I haven’t heard from Walt since I left Marsama Beach.

There’s understanding in my brother’s twinkling eyes. Behind his smile is the kind of depth that can only come from pain. He knows how much I’m hurting over Walt. I don’t have to say a word.

I wonder why it is that I recognize Edwin completely and Ralph not at all. Is it just because we’re so close in age, or have I really inherited more of Walt’s genes than Billie’s?

“I’ve got some news. It’s not good,” Edwin says once breakfast is over.

“Okay.”

“Dad’s had to go away for a while.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s going to be out of the country for a while. That’s all I know.”

I wait for more. There isn’t any.

“Do you have any idea what, exactly, he does for a living?”

“No.” Edwin laughs. “He’s never really talked about it. Dad’s always been an enigma. He likes it that way.”

“Well, at least he bequeathed you to me before he disappeared again.”

“Yeah,” Edwin says. Then he laughs again and says, “So, now I have a sister who says ‘bequeathed.’”

When I say good-bye to this funny, familiar brother of mine I’m hit by a profound sorrow. In the hope that it’ll help me figure out where it’s coming from, I start walking around the city.

By the time I reach the Hudson River, I realize that Edwin’s arrival probably means that I’ve seen the last of my father.

I know Walt loves me. But Walt’s image of himself as a great man is as important to him as breathing. When the child who most resembles him called him a coward it must have shaken him to the core. Walt has spent his life—and probably made his living—keeping secrets. Other people’s, as well as his own. Honest, direct communication is not something he values or is familiar with. Much easier for him to cut me off again than deal with the “me” I have become.

Having finally found out the truth about the people I came from—not just the parts that are easy to deal with, but all of it—I find I can’t lie to myself anymore. About anything. I can’t lie to other people either.

What Walt doesn’t know—and what I didn’t know until this moment—is that the profound disappointment I feel doesn’t make me love him any less. Perhaps, in a way, it makes me love him more. If Walt can be imperfect, then so perhaps can I.

Walt doesn’t know how to say he is sorry. But I do. I am English after all. So I stop at a phone booth and leave him a message. I don’t tell him I love him. I’m still way too English for that. I don’t say good-bye either. Instead I say, “I’m just calling to let you know that it’s okay by me for you to be human, Walt. I understand all of it. And—well—thank you for sending me Edwin.”

W
HEN
I
FINALLY GET BACK
to my apartment in Union Square, I’m too exhausted to think anymore and realize I have lost my keys. I try calling Elfrida but she doesn’t pick up. I bang on the door for half an hour but she stays asleep.

I go back downstairs to where Farik the doorman is sitting in his usual place by the elevator, chanting the Koran. I ask him if he has a spare key to the apartment. He shakes his head to indicate a negative answer to this and keeps chanting.

“Well, please will you help me bang on the door to try to wake Elfrida up?”

He stops chanting long enough to tell me that, according to the Koran, when people are asleep, they are in a holy state and that you should therefore never wake a sleeping person.

“You will sit next to me until the morning,” Farik says, pointing to a grubby-looking chair in the corner off the hallway.

I bloody will not. I look at my watch. It’s 1:34 a.m. Who can I call at this hour?

Fifteen minutes later, I’m standing outside Jack’s apartment. His hair is tousled and he isn’t wearing a shirt.

“Come in,” he says.

“I’m so sorry to wake you,” I say. “I’m so sorry. I…well, thank you.”

“How did it go with your brother?”

“Great. He’s great.”

Half naked, Jack looks as sexy as Harry Connick, Jr., when he took off his shirt in
Pajama Game
.

“Do you have something I could sleep in?” I say. I don’t want him thinking I’m here to sleep with him. Because I’m not.

Jack gets a pair of sweats out of an immaculately packed drawer and hands me a T-shirt. “You can change in there,” he says.

He shuts the door to the bathroom behind me. I put on his sweats and T-shirt and open the door.

“Are you going to sleep in your shoes?” he says.

I stare at the sneakers on my feet. I never wear socks. I’d like to say it was a fashion choice, but the truth is I can never find them. There are consequences to this.

“I really think that, as your apartment is so small, I should keep my shoes on.”

Jack looks blank. This clearly isn’t the moment to be British.

“My feet stink,” I say. “If I’m going to take my shoes off, I’ll need to wash my feet.”

Without a word, Jack opens the bathroom door again. I roll up Jack’s pants and get into his lime green bathtub to wash my feet. When I turn on the tap, instead of the bathwater, Jack’s powerful shower rains down on me in a torrent. I let out a little scream.

“Everything all right in there?”

“Uh, not really,” I say.

“Can I come in?”

“Okay.”

I’m standing in Jack’s bathtub, in his soaking wet T-shirt and sweats. I wait for the tone of irritation, but it doesn’t come. Actually Jack is laughing, and, as seems to be his wont, handing me a towel.

“I have a wide selection of T-shirts, ma’am, if you insist on wearing clothes in ninety-degree weather.”

“I do,” I say, padding after him.

“Thank you so much,” I say as he hands me a Ray Davies T-shirt and a pair of green boxer shorts with monkeys on them.

“You’re welcome so much,” he says.

“I don’t want to keep you up,” I say, after I’ve changed.

I’m looking at everything but Jack, who is still half-naked.

“Here, take the bed,” he says, finally. “I’ll take the couch.”

“No, no, I can’t do that. You take the bed.”

“Take the bed, Pippa.”

I’m lying, once again, between Jack’s crisp green sheets. Only this time I don’t have concussion. I try to think of Nick. But I can’t. I can think of no one but the man lying six feet away from me. He is overwhelmingly sexy without his shirt on. His eyes are filled with kindness and humor and fondness for me. He might be in love with someone who isn’t here, but he is not gay.

I have never made the first move with a bloke. Ever. But suddenly I am tired of the way I have been. Tired of being passive. Tired of just responding to events. I want to initiate something. I’m an American now. It’s time to come right out with it. So I say, “Is the sofa comfy?”

“Uh huh.” Jack’s voice is deep in the dark.

“How’s your back?”

“Okay.”

“It doesn’t hurt on the couch, then?”

“What?”

“Your back.”

“Nope.”

Jack doesn’t say anything. Then, “Pippa?”

“Yes?”

“Do you want me to get into bed with you?”

“Yes.”

And he does. And we lie next to each other in the dark of Jack’s tiny apartment, not moving for a few moments, my friend and I.

We are both in love with other people. I’m safe. He’s safe. It’s not a betrayal of Nick. Not really. I mean, Nick and I haven’t slept together yet. Not yet.

“I’m glad you’re not gay,” I say.

Jack laughs quietly. And then, slowly, in unison, we turn toward each other in the dark, and we kiss. Jack’s lips are soft and full and he smells wonderful as always. Jack. Jack. My dear friend Jack.

And then he’s not my friend anymore. He’s a sexy, irresistible, demanding man who is clearly capable of devouring me. And he does. And then I find myself burrowing under what the English would call a duvet and the Americans would call a comforter. And then I find him.

“Pippa?”

“Yes?”

My voice sounds muffled from under the sheets.

“Are you sure about this?”

“Well you’ve had a shower, haven’t you?”

He laughs, but only briefly, because then we’re somewhere else, Jack and I.

Later, wrapped tightly in each other’s arms, we sleep deeply until the morning.

I wake up to the first sense of peace I’ve had in years. It’s not just the fact that Jack is, without a doubt, far and away the most unselfish lover I have ever had. Or that I climaxed three times in a row.

It’s also because the panicky feeling isn’t there. I know Jack’s not going anywhere. At last, at long, long last, I can lay down my guard and relax.

And then my cell phone breaks into this perfect moment. Perhaps if I hadn’t picked it up, things would have turned out differently. But I have not yet learned that there are times in life when one should pick up one’s cell phone, and other times when it’s best to just let the damn thing ring.

T
HE VOICE AT THE END
of the phone belongs to the new receptionist at the Souk Gallery. She has exciting news. Nick Devang—
the
Nick Devang—is in the gallery and looking for me.

“He’s
gorgeous
,” she says breathlessly. “He was wearing a gold silk suit! I think it was Armani!”

Well done, Nick, I think. You’ve just turned the image of the starving artist on its head.

The receptionist goes on. Nick wants to meet me at the entrance to Central Park at three.

My soul mate—the man I am destined to love—is in New York. And I am in bed with my best friend.

Heart beating, I turn off the phone and glance over at Jack, still naked, tousled, sexy, there.

Nick’s finally come for me. What have I done?

“What is it?” Jack says.

“I have to go,” I say, avoiding Jack’s eyes. “Nick’s in town.”

Jack doesn’t say a word.

My overalls are still stuffed into the towel rack in Jack’s bathroom in a horribly crumpled state. If I hurry I’ll have time to go to Filene’s Basement to pick up something other than Jack’s Ray Davies shirt and sweats to wear to meet Nick. I scrabble about in my bag. I’ve got a stick of lipstick somewhere. That’ll have to do.

I look over at Jack again. I want to get back into bed with Jack. But Nick’s words ring in my head:
Avoid safe places. They are so very hard to escape from.

“Last night was—well, amazing,” I say to Jack. “But…”

Jack’s face is completely without expression.

“I know you’re in love with someone too, Jack. Or I’d have never let last night happen. You are, aren’t you?”

Please say yes. Please!

“Yes,” Jack says, still not moving.

Jack is lying on his bed, hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling.

“Thank God for that!” I say. “No one who ends up with me is going to get away without doing at least some Scottish dancing. Can you imagine how ridiculous you’d feel in a kilt?”

I still can’t read the expression on Jack’s face.

“Dear Jack,” I say, kissing him softly on the cheek. “Thank goodness we are in love with other people. You and I—we could never work.” And then, trying for a joke that comes out all wrong, I say, “You need to be with someone who’s prepared to clean the fridge. I need to be with someone who knows how to make a long-distance call to London.”

I look at Jack’s face. It’s still without expression.

And then, feeling like a heel, I leave Jack lying naked on his bed and head out of his apartment and up Seventh Avenue, calling the gallery on the run.

“Where’s Nick staying?” I say.

“The Waldorf,” the receptionist tells me.

The Waldorf. Of course. Nick’s chosen the hotel where my parents first met. Where else? Everything is coming full circle. I can’t wait until three o’clock to meet him in Central Park. I’ll surprise him at the hotel.

Thank God he’s here. One more night like the one I’ve just spent with Jack and I’d never have escaped.

Avoid safe places. They are so very hard to escape from.

Nick’s arrived just in time. And he’s right. And the reason they’re so hard to escape from is because they make you feel at home.

I’m destined for adventure. I mustn’t settle for anything less. Not after the journey I’ve been on. I’m ready for true love now. I’m holding Nick’s hand and I’m ready to jump, whatever that means. Nick’s at the Waldorf. I need to get to Nick.

Bugger Filene’s Basement. I’ll go in Jack’s sweats. I doubt I’ll be keeping my clothes on for long. I’ve come a long long way. I’m ready for a man like Nick now, and he has finally come for me.

The hotel’s huge marble pillars are holding up the famous golden ceiling high above exquisitely carpeted marble floors. I hope that my accent and my brightest smile will cause the man to overlook the way I’m dressed and give me Nick’s room number. As usual my accent does the trick.

I ring the bell to room 1406. No one answers. There’s a painting on the wall, in the hall, of a hunting scene. I wonder if it was hanging there the night my parents met, in this same hotel, twenty-nine years before. If it was, I wonder if they noticed it. I wonder if Billie and Walt felt back then the way Nick and I feel today. Caught in the kind of love that’s verging on obsession.

I ring the bell again and hear footsteps approaching the door. It opens.

“Hallo?”

The woman is Indian, like the woman in Nick’s paintings. She has the same delicate beauty and is dressed in a dark green and gold sari. She has flecks of red in her hair and a luminous stillness about her. In comparison I feel loud and big.

“I’m looking for Nick Devang.”

“Oh, yes, please. Please. Come in.” Everything about her is gentle. “My name’s Pippa Dunn,” I say, catching sight of my hair in the mirror. It’s sticking out. At a right angle. I look preposterous. “I’m Nick’s…agent.”

“Pippa! Oh how wonderful to meet you! Nick has told me all about you. Come in. I’m Aradhana.”

“Hallo,” I say.

We sit on the sofa, embroidered in gold and black, and drink tea from a silver teapot, served in thin rimmed cups. The painting on the wall behind her is of another hunting scene. This time dozens of men in hunting hats and red coats are surrounded by beagles. It looks like an original, but it can’t be. Walt has the same painting on his wall in Washington.

“We haven’t seen Nick in two weeks,” she’s saying. “We thought we’d join him here in lovely New York. The hotel said he’s expected back some time this afternoon,” she says. She’s handing me a sandwich with no crusts on a silver tray.

“Nick is so thrilled about all the developments,” she says. “He was so excited when he heard from your mother!”

“Really?”

“To be working with the genius who once represented Marfil! It means so much to him. He speaks of nothing else.”

“Mina! Nicholas!” Two tiny children aged about three and five come into the room, followed by another woman—clearly their nanny—in a sari. The boy is dressed in a light blue suit and the girl is wearing a little gold dress. They have beautiful brown eyes and they are shy and achingly beautiful.

“They look just like him, don’t you think?” she says.

I do.

“Hallo,” I say, rummaging in my handbag for some chocolate. Two pairs of tiny hands reach out and take my emergency Hershey bar and yellow box of peanut M&M’s.

The nanny is smiling. Aradhana is smiling. She looks radiant and so proud of her Nick.

I cannot destroy her happiness. I will not.

“Aradhana, it is wonderful to meet you at last,” I say. The lie takes everything I have. Then I tell her I have an urgent appointment and need to go.

“Nick will be so sorry to have missed you,” she says.

I bet he will.

She has such gentleness about her. Oh, oh, oh. He’s married. With children. Oh, what a fool am I.

I smile at her again because her peace of mind depends, entirely, on her not knowing why I am here.

“I so hope we can see you again while we’re in town,” she says. “Perhaps we can do something together, with the whole family?” Her voice is soft and sweet.

“That would be lovely,” I say.

“Perhaps we could take one of those boat trips around Manhattan,” she says. “What do they call it?”

“The Circle Line.”

“Yes,” she says. “The Circle Line.”

I walk away from the Waldorf realizing what a total fool I have been.

The Nick I built up in my mind wasn’t any more real than my idealized birth parents were.

But oh! The sense of betrayal! How it stings!

With it comes the first sense of absolute clarity I’ve had since I landed in America, and I know what I must do.

Still wearing Jack’s clothes, I find Earl Grey and drive straight to Billie’s house. Only this time I am not coming as Billie Parnell’s daughter. This time I am coming as Pippa Dunn.