The First Warm Evening of the Year (6 page)

“You can still tell him.”

“It's too late for me.”

“It's not too late.”

She shook her head. “Are you ever afraid of growing old? I mean, actors worry about losing their good looks, of course, unless you're George Clooney. But what you do for a living really doesn't have much to do with the way you look. Only the way you sound.”

“I'm sure I should be offended.”

“No. I only meant . . .”

“I'll know it's time to leave when they offer me the Depends account.”

Her laughter was the sound of complete appreciation.

“I think youth is overrated,” I told her, “and vastly overmarketed.”

“You're right about that. But don't you ever worry about it?”

“The consequences, I suppose.”

“And you won't try to recapture your youth by dating twenty-somethings?”

“I don't complicate other people's lives, and I don't try to recapture my youth with twenty-somethings I wouldn't have been interested in when
I
was twenty-something.”

“You know, I can't believe that.”

“Which part?”

“It's different for men.”

“Different, not easier.”

“Anyway, I'm too old to take chances.”

“Chances?”

“You come here and say you can't stop thinking about me, and expect me to—what
do
you expect me to do?”

“What do
you
expect you to do?”

“What would you have done if Eliot had been here, you know, when you first got here?”

“I wasn't thinking about that, actually.”

“You didn't consider that before you drove up?”

“It's a long drive. I thought about a lot of things. Maybe I would have told him I had to see Remsen and thought I'd drop by and say hello. Maybe I'd have told him what I told you. I really don't know.”

“I'm not so sure I believe that. You impress me as a man who always knows what he's doing.”

“I told you I've changed. And I've never been so over my head before, and yet so confident about what I want.”

She went to turn on a couple of lights. I liked feeling her body heat when she went past me and watching her move in her sweater and jeans. Supple and assured. I enjoyed the way the expression on her face changed, the intonation in her voice, not only when she'd made the “condemned man to the gallows” comment but even when there was no levity, when she talked about Buddy and Eliot. When she talked about her sadness. No matter what Marian was saying, there was the same familiarity that she'd shown that day at Laura's, the look of recognition in her face that had made me so certain about what I was feeling and saying to her.

I said, “Don't you ever do anything on the spur of the moment?”

She didn't answer right away, but looked like she was making that calculation again.

“About two years after Eliot and I started seeing each other, I went over to the hospital to pick him up, to go out for dinner. He was still upstairs doing his magic act for the kids. I decided to go up and watch. I'd never done that before. He was always downstairs waiting for me. I didn't go into the room. I only stood in the doorway watching him make coins vanish, little plastic birds materialize. Magic. I saw a kind of assurance that he never seems to have when he's around me, more masculine, and comfortable with himself. But I think it was the expression of pleasure I saw on his face that I couldn't remember ever seeing before. For the first time since I'd known him, I was able to separate Eliot not just from the person I'd seen around town most of my life, but from the person I'd been going out with for two years. You see, Geoffrey, until that evening, I thought I'd understood our relationship. I thought I understood Eliot. I'd always had a clarity of feeling, but I was wrong. It was only after I saw him up there that I really understood that Eliot was doing more than a good deed there at the hospital, or being with me; and if I hadn't gone up there to see him, I might never have realized it. I mean it took me that long to realize that Eliot
wanted
me to love him more than I could. And it made me, makes me, very sad. Is that what you meant by doing something impulsive?” She did not say this with bitterness. “There were times when I'd go back to the hospital to watch him, without him knowing about it, hoping I might get close to what I'd felt before. At least it was a feeling.
Something
. Maybe I thought I might convince myself— It comes down to what Eliot and I are willing to settle for. Like when he learned his first sleight of hand. He was still a kid and thought he was going to learn
real
magic, but all it was was a trick. Well, a trick isn't magic, but it was what he wanted.”

Marian came over to the table. She didn't sit down, only put her hands on the back of her chair.

“I'm not saying Shady Grove is teeming with available women, but Eliot could have the pick of the litter. Instead he's with a forty-two-year-old widow who's still in love with her dead husband, which may not be the bottom of the barrel, but it's not exactly top of the line, either. A few years after Laura moved back, she said she wished she could fall in love the way she fell in love with Steve. Just once more, she said, before it's too late. She didn't want to re-create the life she'd had with Steve, she just wanted to
feel
that way again. I told her I wished I had her courage.”

She said, “Laura told me some people hear the music and some people don't. She said maybe it was because she'd lived in Paris, but she didn't think a person could live without love. She wanted to hear the music again.” Marian stepped back and walked over to the window, and stood with her back to the panes and wrapped her arms around herself. “That's when Laura first called us the young widows of Shady Grove. She said she couldn't stand the idea of it.” She straightened up and let out a deep breath. “I told Laura I could never fall in love like that. Loving someone that much and losing him, again.” She shook her head. “That's not it. Not all of it. If I'd gone up there with Buddy, he'd still be alive. I'm sure of it. I didn't have to like ice fishing. All I had to do was be there with him. Guilty is just the beginning of how I feel. Guilty for that. Guilty for what I'm doing to Eliot. And I'd feel guilty if I left him, after all he's done for me. Guilty for even thinking about you with Laura not even dead for more than—I'm a guilty mess, Geoffrey. And that's not for you.”

I said, “When I looked at Eliot that afternoon when he came by, when I saw how he looked at you, I saw a lonely man alone in love. You're just as alone, and I want to take you away from that feeling and the fact of it, and, believe it or not, I find that intimidating.”

She smiled at me now. “Tell me about your girlfriend,” she said.

I listened to myself describe Rita and our relationship, and it sounded as though I were talking about two people I barely knew; as though I were recalling something told to me by someone else. Our relationship sounded so slight and without purpose that I felt like apologizing, or offering further explanation, but a moment later it wasn't an explanation I was thinking about, or Rita, or Buddy and Marian. I was thinking about Marian and Eliot, because I realized that Marian and I had a lot in common, and I wondered if she knew it.

“Does she buy things for you?” Marian asked. “Did she buy the cologne you're wearing?”

“My cologne?”

“It's very nice. Did she buy it for you?”

“I buy my own cologne. We don't buy things for each other.”

“Well, it sounds like a very New York romance.”

The word
romance
made me think Marian was making a joke.

“Why would you think I'd joke about something like that?”

“I suppose I suddenly find it laughable.”

“And living in New York?” she asked. “Is that laughable, too?”

“It's what I know.”

“I've only been there a handful of times. Laura never wanted to go back there after she moved here. Although she said if you can't live in Paris, live in New York City. Well, I don't know about living in Paris, but I think New York is a very hard place. I don't mean hard difficult, although it
is
that. I mean,
hard
.” She rapped her knuckles on the table. “It must wear you down after a while.”

“When it does, I leave.”

“Like today?” She grinned at me again, and I thought about telling her that it wasn't at all like today, and about the past three weeks fantasizing about meeting her again somewhere in the city, and all the times I'd felt compelled to see her, but I figured that I'd scared her enough.

“You know, I was in New York for Laura's wedding.”

“You
were at the wedding?”

“That's right. I wound up being their witness while—I know what you did for her with Simon. And, no, if you'd been there fate would not have been tempted.” She sounded like she enjoyed saying this, and letting me know. “I was with Buddy.”

Outside, the full moon spread its light across the ground, making everything look silky and unreal. I wanted to stand out there with Marian, hold her in my arms and feel her body against mine. Hold her in the cold until we couldn't bear it, and wait, just a moment longer, so we could kiss.

I was bewildered by what I was thinking and by all the things I was feeling. I didn't know what the expression on my face was, but Marian was still smiling at me.

“You're very good at keeping secrets.”

“I think you're giving me too much credit.”

“I bet if I asked you not to tell anyone what I've told you today, you wouldn't.”

“Why don't you ask me in twenty years.”

She stopped smiling now. “What I said before, about your being dangerous. I meant it.”

“I never doubted you.”

M
arian and I walked down the flagstone path in the cool night breeze. As I started to open the car door, she stood just behind my shoulder and said in a low voice, “Bacon on buttered toast, and very strong coffee with cream.”

“What's that?” I asked.

“What I like for breakfast on rainy Sundays,” she said.

T
he full moon was high above the trees. The wind began to pick up, making a deep and rushing sound through the branches, like ocean waves. It made me think of those tempest-tossed characters in mythology and Shakespeare who wash up on unfamiliar shores, their sudden arrival inducing transformation. They are no longer who they were only moments before. That's how I felt with Marian, listening to her, talking with her.

As I drove away, with her face barely visible in the rearview mirror, I was incapable of imagining what I might do that would allow me to forget Marian Ballantine.

Seven

I
left Shady Grove that night feeling even more unsettled than I had before I'd seen Marian. What had I accomplished except upsetting her life? There was no pleasure to be had from that.

I was the only car on the dark country roads, and I drove until I found a bed-and-breakfast, about thirty miles from Shady Grove, near Great Barrington, Massachusetts. I wasn't ready to go back to the city, not just yet. I didn't want to be so far from Marian. Not that I had any intention of lurking about Shady Grove, appearing in the grocery store, showing up at the house again. I just liked the idea of Marian being nearby. At least for the night.

But I didn't go back to New York the following day, either, or the next three days. I drove around the Berkshires, sleeping in strange beds, walking quiet streets, looking through antique stores and book barns, shopping for clean clothes. It was fine weather for early April. The spring sunshine had a restorative effect. I didn't even mind the static of my own company.

I thought perhaps this break was just what I'd needed and I could go back to the city and my life with a feeling of renewal, and satisfaction. I'd had my visit, I could shake off my doldrums.

Instead, I thought about Marian most of the time, the way she looked with the sun backlighting her hair; and when she described her gardens, even when she made her case for never seeing me again, the way her voice welled and faded.

One afternoon, while I was having my lunch, I noticed a couple sitting a few tables away from mine. I watched the man reach across the table and touch the back of the woman's hand with the tips of his fingers; with a graceful sweep she pushed a few strands of hair away from his forehead; when they spoke to each other, how enthusiastic their faces were. It made me think of Simon talking about Laura and Steve. Telling me: “They were so in love, I found it unbearable.”

I thought of the way Marian's hand had brushed against my wrist while she introduced me to her friends. And how I liked the way we touched when we spoke to each other. Then I was thinking of the way Rita's legs lay exposed in the gray light of her bedroom after we made love, and would I ever want to make love to her again?

T
hat afternoon I went back to New York City. I'd always liked coming home to my apartment after a trip, whether I'd been gone a few weeks or a few days; the perfunctory greetings from the men in the garage, the doormen. The comforting rituals, gathering the mail, playing back messages on the answering machine, reading e-mail. Just like that, the routines of life waiting inside the apartment, like an obedient dog.

One of the messages was a last-minute invitation to a friend's apartment for a party, and I decided to go. I wanted the distraction.

It was a relaxed Sunday gathering in the apartment of Richard Davidson, whom I knew through work. It was nothing very formal, Bloody Marys, Mimosas, and finger food, in one of those spacious Upper West Side apartments with long hallways and high ceilings, a view of the Hudson River and, on this particular night, filled with dozens of people and that exhilarating sound of tinkling ice cubes and adult conversation.

I was sipping my drink and talking to Felicia Robeson, a choreographer I'd known for a few years. She'd come back from Mexico about a week ago, and was telling me, “My mind just refuses to leave the beach,” when Amy Brennan came over, kissed Felicia on the cheek, then me, and wanted to know, “How's that executor business coming along? I still think it's
so
intriguing.”

“Not that intriguing,” I said.

“What's intriguing?” Felicia asked.

Amy answered the question.

“You know,” Felicia said, “I'd trust Geoffrey with
my
last remains.”

“That's a grim thought.” It was Richard, our host.

“Are you still going on about that?” Amy's husband, Nick, had now joined us. “What's happening with it, anyway?”

“We're about to find out,” Amy said.

“Is there something I should know?” Richard asked.

“Absolutely nothing,” I said.

“Then why is everyone talking about it?”

“Who's
every
one?” Felicia answered.

Richard squeezed Amy's arm, said, “I'm too sober for this conversation,” walked to another circle of people, while Felicia and I went over to the bar for refills.

I asked her, “What's the occasion, anyway?”

“Richard's celebrating his daughter's divorce.”

“Oh?”

“He never liked the son-in-law.”

“The daughter must have come over to his side.”

“She's quite happy about it.”

“How long were they married?”

“Eight years. She's in Maui. Having her own celebration.”

There was laughter coming from somewhere down the hall, and laughter closer to us; a gentle swirl of perfume . . . a woman's hand resting on my shoulder . . . a voice introducing itself . . . “How have you been . . .” “What have you been doing these days . . .” “I haven't seen you since . . .”

Outside the open window, the setting sun floated above the New Jersey Palisades, holding off the dark for a few minutes more, for we had entered the time of longer days. I listened to the jagged noise of the city lifted on the air and into the room, adding its voice to the conversations.

A dark-haired man came up behind Felicia, wrapped his arms around her waist, kissed her on the neck, and said, “You're just going to have to have dinner with me soon. It's been way too long.”

“Yes.” She turned to face him. “Much too long.”

“You come, too,” he told me.

“I'll make sure of it.”

Then he whispered in Felicia's ear and walked away.

“I have no idea who that was,” Felicia told me.

“Never saw him before,” I said.

“He has very soft lips.”

Amy came back to tell us, “When you two are ready to leave, find Nick and me.”

None of this was alien to me, not the noise, not invitations from strangers, nor the conversations going on around me, and if I didn't know the evening's subject, I was no stranger to the context.

“Are you having a good time?” Felicia asked me.

“I always have a good time.”

“You
do
. Why is that?”

About an hour later, Felicia and I found Amy and Nick, and the four of us took our small piece of the party downtown to Nick and Amy's place, where we had a few more drinks, some Chinese takeout, and more conversation.

Then Felicia told us about her new show, a flashy musical. Amy was excited about the work they were doing on their apartment. Nick thought there was nothing wrong with the apartment the way it was . . . and they talked about a trip they were planning, Oslo, Copenhagen . . . and did Felicia and I want to go with them, and of course, I should bring Rita.

Felicia said she'd be too busy with the new show. I said I'd have to see what I had scheduled, and was my choice of companion limited to Rita. Everyone laughed, but a quick, discernible sense of discomfort and regret passed through me because I wasn't making a joke. For a moment, I wanted to tell my friends about what had happened between Marian and me in Shady Grove and to declare, “I've met someone under the most unusual circumstances, and I can't get her out of my mind.”

T
he next morning, I phoned Rita. That night we were in my apartment, sitting together on the couch, Rita wearing a gray sweater and black stretch pants, hair pulled back and tied in a French knot. Her shoes were off, her bare feet were tucked under her legs. She was sipping a glass of wine, her lipstick traces stained the rim.

She put the glass on the coffee table, and moved closer to me.

I told her, “You're looking very chic tonight.”

She said, “Don't try sucking up to me. You took your sweet time returning my call.”

“I was out of town. I drove up to Shady Grove.”

She turned and brushed her lips against my cheek, laid her head on my chest, then pressed her hand against the back of my neck; her flesh felt soft against my flesh. She raised her face to mine, her mouth parted. Her dark red lipstick appeared like liquid in the lamplight.

“It's good to be back,” I said.

“How long were you gone?”

“A couple of days.”

“That's not very long.”

“It seems longer than that.”

She moved her mouth close to my ear. “You should have told me you were going.”

“Oh?”

“Then I could have missed you. It's nice knowing someone misses you when you go away.”

She uncurled her legs and stretched them past the edge of the couch. I turned and when I kissed her it was one of those moments when in an instant the mind flashes a myriad of considerations—when all that was happening was nothing but a kiss. Just a kiss. Something we'd done countless times before. Only now I was aware of both the assurance in our actions, and the assumptions, and I wanted to reacquaint myself with those assumptions. I wanted to reacquaint myself with all the things that I liked about Rita.

The way she said, “Wouldn't it make you worry if I started keeping my clothes here?”

She said this after I told her that I'd like her to spend the night, and she said she'd have nothing to wear to work tomorrow. Then she put her head on my shoulder.

“Would it worry
you
?” I asked back.

“Maybe I should try it sometime. Like Grace Kelly in
Rear Window,
showing up with her little Mark Cross overnight case.” She laughed. “My clothes popping up in the corners of your closets like mushrooms? Wouldn't it make you feel just the worst kind of claustrophobic? I bet it's bad enough seeing my toothbrush.”

This made me think about our “very New York romance,” which seemed most desirable at the moment. It also made me think about Marian and if she would ever declare a thing like that, living alone in her cozy country house with the sweet gardens outside. I didn't know her well enough to be certain of anything she might declare about sharing her closets and with whom, but I knew Rita, and no one's clothes cluttered her closets, no desires for sweet gardens and a cozy country house cluttered her brain. It was that dissimilarity that made Rita so attractive to me at that moment. It was what I wanted to reacquaint myself with.

She lifted her head, kissed me on the mouth, then said, “I was just thinking how much I like you.”

In the morning, while the coffee brewed, Rita stood wearing only my bathrobe, phoning her assistant to make sure there was nothing on her morning schedule.

I poured coffee for us, and we went into the living room. Rita sat in one of the chairs while I pulled back the curtains, looked out the window for a moment, then sat in the chair nearest to her. Rita wasn't quite smiling at me, but her expression was not quite lacking amusement, and there was an aspect to it that I wanted no part of.

She kept on looking at me, while I tasted my coffee, then with that expression still in place said, “Tell me, darling, about last night. You didn't happen to take the vow of celibacy while you were away?”

“Just tired. That's all.”

“Being an executor seems to have taken more out of you than you expected.”

A
lex's office was in a ground floor apartment on Seventy-eighth Street and Park Avenue. It was quite modest, the waiting room in the front and the office at the end of a short hall. There was a small kitchenette in between. Not that I'd ever seen him use it for anything more than boiling water for his tea.

The blinds were always down, which gave the sensation of stepping into perpetual twilight, even when the lights were on. There were three old and comfortable chairs in the room, the one Alex sat in was behind and to the left of the patients' couch, the other two chairs were separated by a drum table. A built-in bookcase filled one of the walls, and several abstract paintings covered the others, with a desk and phone in the far corner between two windows.

It was after eight in the evening. Alex was supposed to have finished with the day's last patient, and we were going to have dinner together, but when I got to the building, the doorman told me Alex had gone out, and said I should wait inside. He unlocked the door and turned on the lights in the waiting room and closed the door for me. I let myself into the office, turned on all the lights, and sat in what looked like the most comfortable chair.

By the time Alex showed up, it was nearly nine-thirty. I'd flipped through all of his magazines, and was reading a book I'd taken from the bookcase.

He managed to say hello, but he was already standing at his desk, looking through his appointment book, writing with one hand, unbuttoning his coat with the other. There were lines around his mouth, and dark rings under his eyes. All vestiges of his two weeks at the spa were gone, and what had taken their place looked exhausted and worn out.

He lay down on the couch, still wearing his coat, and closed his eyes. I was certain that he was falling asleep, but all he did was yawn and turn his head toward me.

I said, “A day at the clinic?” As much an expression of sympathy as an observation.

“
Clinic
? No. Two hours with the masseur and a manicure, which left me barely enough time to rush over to the most
wonder
ful cocktail party, from which I just couldn't tear myself away . . .”

“Sarcasm will get you nowhere.”

“You think I don't get
invited
to cocktail parties?”

“At least try to keep your eyes open when you ask that.”

“A lot of parties.”

“You probably have to turn people down, you get invited to so many.”

“That's right.”

“Well, I'm glad we got that cleared up.”

He sat up, slipped out of his coat with no small effort. Then he narrowed his eyes at me, the way a marksman would, and said, “You
saw
her. That friend of Laura's.” He adjusted one of the pillows and lay down again. “Did she come to New York, or did you go up there?” Before I could answer: “You went up
there
. I heard it in your voice when you called. So? What happened?”