The Time of Her Life (27 page)

“Avery, let’s play these records. Can we play them on that machine right now?”

“I’ve got to get it set up. I’m going to set it up in Janie’s room, but I’ve got two speakers for the living room, too, that
can be switched on or off. It should give us a much better sound than the stereo we’ve got. And Jane can record herself practicing
and then play it back. Or she can use it to play the practice tapes that Alice makes for her. Alice thinks that it would be
great for Jane to play along with the practice tapes. It’s the way Alice gets ready for her performances or auditions. But
she doesn’t get a very pure sound on her machine.”

He took the several parts of the gift upstairs and came back to get tools from the storage closet and a stepladder from the
garage. “These wires can be hidden if I tack them with brackets along the baseboards and the doorsills. It won’t take very
long.”

Claudia had become silent again, and when Avery disappeared back up the stairs, she took a meringue from the tray and settled
down on the other end of the couch from Jane, tucking her legs beneath her voluminous skirt and taking a bite of the meringue.
She ate it slowly, letting each small bit melt a little in her mouth, then nibbling at the piece in her hand and musing.

“Does Avery come to your lessons at Alice’s?” she asked.

“Yeah. Sometimes he’s there. He usually brings me home, you know.”

“But, I mean, does he stay for the whole lesson? Why didn’t you tell me about this?”

Jane didn’t answer. She was trying to concentrate on looking through the books her mother had given her. The
Anne of Green Gables
series, which Jane had taken out of the library and read two years ago.
The Catcher in the Rye, The Grapes of Wrath
, and a book about the lives of the composers. It was an odd lot.

“Janie,” Claudia said, and Jane glanced at her in acknowledgment and then continued to leaf through the pages of the books.

“This thing with Alice. What do you think?” Her voice was not angry now; it was confidential and fairly reflective. “Do you
think that Avery might have missed a time in his life when it would have been natural for him to have some sort of sexual
interest in boys?” Her words dwindled off with that thought, and she sat with part of another meringue growing sticky in her
hand. “I mean, we were always with each other. Maybe he missed some part of development in childhood, or something. Alice…
well, haven’t you always thought of Alice as sort of neuter? Do you think Avery might be gay? Trying it out maybe? Or trying
not
to try it out? Alice is almost like a young boy.” Claudia really wanted to know what Jane thought. “He has those graduate
students who sort of fawn over him. Oh, and that one… what’s his name?… well, I always thought he had a crush on your father.”

There was no hint of judgment in what Claudia was saying, but Jane was trying not to hear her mother. She was intently studying
the book in her lap. Claudia’s question was more than she could consider. She concentrated so diligently on the pages before
her that she
didn’t quite allow her mother’s voice to penetrate her senses.

“I’m very fond of Alice, of course,” Claudia added, as if that explained something.

“We haven’t finished opening the presents yet,” Jane said, and her mother turned to look at her but didn’t respond one way
or another. Claudia’s mind was no longer on Christmas.

The room was very warm with the heat from the fireplace, and outside the day had begun to cloud over and come in closer. When
Avery came downstairs to set up the speakers, Claudia got up to turn on the lights. Avery had switched from champagne to scotch,
and he looked less haggard. His color was back across his cheekbones, and he had assumed the guarded expression of careful
irony that always masked his face after he had had a certain amount to drink. He was cheerful as he fitted the speakers into
the bookcases, and Claudia had more champagne. Avery went upstairs to put on one of Claudia’s new records. When he came down
again, Claudia had slipped off her suede heels and was standing by the stairs, swaying with excessive and campy zeal to the
music:

Tell Laura I love her,

Tell Laura I care.

Tell Laura not to cry….

“You have to take off your shoes, too,” she said to him. “Why didn’t we ever get to dance anywhere where we could keep our
shoes on?”

Avery handed Claudia his drink and sat down on the stairs to take his shoes off, and he stood up and reached to take his glass
back from her, but she backed up a bit,
holding both of her arms up toward him.

“No, this is the basic slow dance. A clutch.” And she moved forward and crossed her wrists behind his neck, still holding
the glass of scotch in one hand. He was enough taller than she so that for a moment she seemed to be suspended from him, arched
upward with her breasts grazing his chest and her hair falling back away from her face while he hesitated, standing up straight
at the foot of the stairs. Jane saw a fractional change come over his face. His mouth relaxed at the corners just a little,
and his whole face lost its irony and took on a secretive, closed-down expression. He reached down to hold Claudia around
the waist, and bending his knees slightly, he inclined his torso forward to meet her body which canted backward so that she
was scooped into his leaning form. Neither of them laughed, although they had meant to be silly.

Jane was stunned. She had opened all sorts of presents, and now she saw that her life was not changed in any way, nor was
her future enhanced. She was sitting behind a great jumble of wrapping paper and boxes across from her parents, who fitted
so naturally together to do this dance. She looked dead ahead at Avery and Claudia and understood that in spite of every single
thing, nothing was ever going to change between them. She felt her muscles growing rigid in that same semiparalysis that made
her movements awkward and that restrained her speech. But she did say very loudly, “We haven’t finished opening the presents!”

Then her father straightened a little and made an elaborate parody of their dancing, dipping and swaying, and their two forms
seemed to lose some force that had been bearing down upon them.

Jane had a lot more presents to open, but they were just this and that. A scrapbook from Diana, a set of oil pastels from
Maggie, and Avery had a good bit more scotch, and Claudia finished the champagne.

Finally Avery got around to opening his present from Jane, which she had also ordered from Bloomingdale’s. He took off the
gift wrap and then leaned back to look at the box. It was the medium-size model of the Cuisinart.

“Very handy,” he said. He had had enough scotch so that he fell into a sort of mocking banter, and he pitched his voice to
mimic a shill. “Mounds of julienne potatoes in minutes! Chop onions without tears! And look! This a-
ma
-zing machine will even slice
tomatoes
paper-thin!” He sipped his drink and became a bit more gracious in deference to his daughter. “No, Janie. No, it’s very thoughtful.
Very thoughtful.”

Her mother was staring at her, though, and she said very carefully and very quietly, “Jane, we already have a Cuisinart.”

Jane was red in the face with some powerful and unfocused rage by now. She could scarcely speak, her mouth had become so rigid.

“
We
have one, but Dad doesn’t have one. He’s always coming over to use ours.”

Claudia stood up slowly, pushing her skirt into place with the open palms of her hands and leaving little trails in the dark
velvet where she had brushed the plush fabric against the grain. She could not understand why Jane would betray her like this.
She walked a few steps away toward the window but then stopped and stood still, idly kneading the fold of her skirt with one
hand.

“Alice doesn’t have one either,” Jane said.

Her father assumed a faintly sardonic grin.

Claudia released her skirt and opened her hands out into the air in helplessness. She held her empty palms outstretched for
a moment, then dropped them to her sides. She had been content to be an observer for most of her life, but now she was filled
with a slightly drunken and passionate indignation.

“I want to know about this thing with Alice,” Claudia said without turning around. “I always keep thinking that people are
my friends.”

“Aha!” Avery said. “That’s it! That’s just the way you would think. Why would anything between me and Alice have anything—anything
at all—to do with you?” Avery had that dangerous note to his voice, a nasty edge of distorted self-pity, and when Jane watched
him uncoil from the floor and stand over her mother, she felt sick with all the memory of old fear plus the real thing, immediate
anxiety.

“As a matter of fact,” Avery said from behind Claudia, “Alice doesn’t much like you. She thinks that you don’t have ‘any purpose
in life,’ as she puts it. A leech on civilization. Of course, Alice is awfully stern.” And thinking about it made him laugh
a little.

“You know what, Avery? I’m so tired,” and her mother’s voice rose. “I’m so fucking tired of fools. Of little twits and fools.
I think Alice is like one of those dolls you buy in the store. No humor. No sex. Just long hair that you can comb into different
styles. ‘Not anatomically correct’ is how they print it on the boxes. Is that right, Avery? Is that right? No one you’d really
want to fuck, but someone to
believe
in you? I’m getting awfully tired—”

But Avery grabbed her from behind and held one of
her arms in back of her and covered her mouth with his other hand.

“Oh, Christ! Shut up! You never know when to shut up!” And it was such a perfect little domed house to exacerbate their burgeoning
anger. Their own voices were scooped by the warming air currents out of the curves and corners, bounced off the glass, and
thrown back at their own ears to infuriate them further.

Jane had leaped up off the couch, and her face was grotesque with alarm. “Stop it! Stop it!” She threw herself on her father’s
arm that was clasped over the lower part of her mother’s face, and she pulled it away, screaming at them both. “Stop it! I
can’t stand it! Not anymore! Not anymore! Stop it!”

But as soon as Claudia was free to speak again, she turned toward Avery as far as she could with her arm still pinned behind
her back.

“You’re a spoiled brat! A baby! A baby!” she yelled at Avery. “I’ve known it all my life! I’ve put up with it forever! Even
your mother warned me! And you know what
I
think! I think you’re a borderline narcissist!”

Avery pushed her away from him so hard that she stumbled forward and fell down on one knee.

“
You
think that! You think that! You goddamned solipsistic bitch. You don’t even have the remotest—not the faintest idea that
there’s a world out there!” He was leaning forward and shouting at Claudia as she scrambled to her feet, and the tendons in
his neck stood out. “Who’s the chancellor of West Germany?” he shouted straight into her face as she turned to meet him.

“Stop it! Stop it! Please stop it!” And Jane was yelling, too. Trying to get between them.

Claudia was beside herself with fury now, and she
shook both of her clenched fists at him. “
Stupid!
Stupid
questions
! Don’t ask me such stupid questions! What is it? Have you forgotten how to be honest? You can’t even be honest in an argument,
can you? You won’t even talk about the things that really make you mad. How do you feel about what you do, Avery? How do you
feel about women? You can hardly talk about your own mother!” And her voice had fallen into a loud and persistent taunt.

“And you
cannot
tell me who is the chancellor of West Germany! Who is it? Who is it? Have you even read a paper in the past year, or have
you been too busy brooding about… Christ!… whatever it is you brood about?” All of a sudden he grabbed Claudia by the shoulders
and shook her back and forth while Jane yelled and yelled at them.

“Who
cares
who it is? Don’t touch me! Don’t you touch me, you son of a bitch! You stupid bastard! You’re an asshole of a graduate student
brat! You’ve never changed! Nothing you can think of is as important as I am! As anyone is!”

Avery moved in closer to her, pulling her forward, so that she was standing on tiptoe, almost not touching the ground at all.
“You
never
listen. You never even listen. You tell me… you tell me right now,
who is the chancellor of West Germany
?”

Jane began picking up the empty gift boxes that were strewn around the room and pelting Avery and Claudia with them. She threw
the sturdy cardboard boxes with all her might. One hit Avery in the temple, and he released Claudia with one hand to protect
his head. Both of her parents raised their elbows around their heads as Jane threw at them anything she could pick up, all
the while screaming at them to stop. “Get out! Get out!” She threw an ashtray, her mother’s cigarettes, which shot out of
the pack in every direction like white darts. “Why do you come back all the time? Just get out! Get out!”

Avery lurched forward at her and roared as if he had been wounded. “God damn you! You get out! We can’t even have any privacy!
You think everything is your business. We’ve knocked ourselves out for you this Christmas, and you’ve acted like a spoiled
little rich bitch all day! God knows what you’ve been telling the Tunbridges about our private life, but Maggie’s worried
as hell about you. Says you never even leave the house. Here’s your chance!
Leave
it! I’d like to see how sympathetic Maggie is after she’s spent a little time with you. Who are you to judge me! Or your
mother! Who the hell do you think you are?”

Jane stood her ground in fury; her father had never laid a hand on her. She wasn’t afraid he would hurt her. “No,
you
get out!” she said. “You left! Why can’t you stay away? All that ever happens when you come over is that you get mad. You
ruin everything. You get out!”

And then Claudia turned on her, too. “This is your father’s house! How can you say those things to him?” Her mother was very
loud, but also plaintive. “You’ve upset everybody today. Everybody! We were having a nice day except for you! You don’t care
about the trouble we went to about your violin! You don’t care about the trouble your father went to to find that locket!
I don’t know… I don’t know if you care about anything at all, about anybody but yourself! God, I wish I’d never had you! I
wish I had never, never had you!”