The Whole World Over (44 page)

"Alan," she said suddenly. "I have to sleep now."

He stopped talking. He looked at her with such abject grief that she
had to close her eyes. She felt him move closer, to sit against her, his
right arm around her shoulders. It was their first true physical contact
since the airport, nearly twelve hours before. It rippled through her
body like a chill. "This is just too much for someone as tired as I am
right now," she said. "I'm too tired to be angry. I'm too tired to be hurt.
I'm too tired to . . . think."

He said, "I understand completely," and he asked if she wanted him
not to sleep in their bed. She told him of course not—of course they
should sleep together. Whatever they figured out from the next day forward,
they would figure it out together, she assured him. As she lay
down in the clean sheets he had stretched across their mattress, she felt
bruised but calm. She also knew, with an unavoidable ruthlessness, that
she was now the one in control. This was both ominous and soothing.
She said one more thing before she fell asleep. "Alan, I know it's still a
week away, but can we skip the New Year's party?"

"Absolutely." He, too, sounded calm. They knew they would have a
superficial reprieve for the day to follow; George, refueled by the thrill
of new possessions, would not sleep late, never mind the change in time
zone. In just a few hours, he would burst through the bedroom door and
leap on their bodies, begging for pancakes, begging for someone to play
his new games, solve his new puzzles, sit down and listen to him read all
those brand-new books.

TWO MORNINGS AFTER CHRISTMAS
, Greenie met Tina at Walter's
Place, where a lawyer helped them complete and sign the transfer of
Greenie's old pastry business. Walter had opened the restaurant just for
them, but his chef was there as well, and Walter instructed him to cook a
large, indulgent breakfast, the kind that Ray loved to eat when he was
out on the ranch. Greenie thought of Ray with unexpected longing. She
missed him, the way you might miss a tall strong tree that anchored the
view from your living room window.

Trying to concentrate on the papers laid before her in fans and paper-clipped
sheafs, Greenie felt as if she gave not a hoot about the future of
the business she'd infused almost literally with her own sweat, the
kitchen she had fashioned precisely to her habits and tastes, the green
boxes with their delicate veils of blossoms. She felt the urge to push all
the papers toward Tina and say, "Take it all, under any conditions, take
it all out of my sight—and here, take all the years that go along with it.
Pack it all up and take it away."

As if in a dream, here was this kind, patient, handsome man, a friend
of Walter's named Gordie, explaining each and every clause yet one
more time. Now and then, Tina looked intently at Greenie, as if to check
for a change of heart. Greenie's weariness and lack of appetite must
have appeared like reluctance. After the papers were signed, Tina
embraced Greenie and asked if she'd come to the kitchen later that week
for a celebratory lunch.

Greenie could still remember the expression on Tina's face when
she'd entered the kitchen the first day she came to apprentice: a look of
covetous awe, which had stirred in Greenie a corresponding possessiveness.
"I've made this place to suit no one but me," she had said, "so I
hope you like it, too." How easily she seemed to be giving it up—for
a comforting amount of money, with a modest share of profits and
the right to take back her name in the future, all this was true—yet she
felt a sense of foreboding. She had been so certain, back then, of what
"suited" her. What in the world would suit her now?

After Walter had closed the door behind Tina and Gordie, he spun
around dramatically and said, "Before we break out the champagne—
even though I should be scolding you for sealing the deal on your expatriate
status out there in the wagon-train boonies—I have a confession
to make. That was him."

Greenie smiled; Walter's theatrics were irresistible. "Who was who?"

"Gordie. It's
him.
The guy I've been
telling
you about, the one I've
been
seeing.
The one whose name I wouldn't tell you because I wasn't
really sure what was what. So, what did you think?"

"Oh my," she said. "Well, cute. That's for sure. Nice. Smart. And he
must be crazy about you, because even I know that lawyers charge a hell
of a lot more than two hundred dollars just to shake your hand." She
kissed Walter on the cheek. "So when's the date?"

"For heaven's sake, we're not hetero college sweethearts looking to
register at Bergdorf, lay in the layette and all that."

"And I'm not lining up to be your bridesmaid, Walter. But am I the last
to know?" Greenie sat down again. Hugo, who had long since cleared
the table, was back in the kitchen; preparations for lunch sounded like a
percussive free-for-all. If she'd had more energy, she might have offered
to help, just to spy on Hugo for inspiration. Ray would have loved Eggs
Hugo, a layering of brown bread, rare beef, roast peppers, and hollandaise
sauce.

"No, no, it's still kind of secret," said Walter. "But we've been seeing
each other a lot. We spent Christmas Day at my place, just us. Scott's
back in California for the week—a break I definitely needed from playing
surrogate dad to the grunge poet laureate of Bank Street. So I fumigated
the place and decorated up the wazoo, half Martha, half Bauhaus,
and it was . . ." Walter sat down across from her. "Romantic. Simple
as that."

Greenie was pleased to see Walter blushing. She put a hand on one of
his. "Walter, that's fantastic. What's to keep secret?"

Walter reminded her about the lawyer's ex-partner, who lived in the
neighborhood and was still getting over the breakup. "Thirteen
years
they were together. In my world that's a monument, that's
Rushmore.
So
I'd be cruel to trumpet this thing from the rooftops. Though boy would
I ever love to do just that! A whole brass
band.
The Boston
Pops.
"

"He treats you well? He knows how lucky he is?"

"Sometimes I think we are so compatible that we don't even need to
speak of the future. At this point." Abruptly, Walter sat up and stared
straight at Greenie. "Oh my stars. The future! You! You and the hometown
Romeo!"

"Oh Walter. No. That is the furthest thing from my mind."

"What do you mean, no? No what? No, don't go there? No, he's a
psycho? No, mind my own beeswax?"

"No future. Not that kind. It's just a dormant crush. I don't know
what I was saying when I told you I'd fallen in love. It's just . . ." If she'd
been petty, Greenie could have told Walter about Alan's shocking news,
but she feared that Walter might gloat, remind her that he'd always suspected
there was something undeserving, some fundamental fault in the
man. Not unlike George, Walter often saw the world in primary colors.

"It was just a passing thing," she said, understanding now just how
big a lie this was. "I'm not sure I told you, because I've been so knocked
out the past two months—all those turkeys and stuffings and cookies
and pies—but Alan's getting his act together. It's taken him more time
than I would have liked, but he's definitely moving out with us soon."

"Well," said Walter. "if I were him—though, lordy, am I ever
not
—
I'd get my Freudian derriere on that plane and pronto!"

"Yes, me too," said Greenie, and she left it at that.

Now that Alan had told her his messy story—worse, confided in her
that he'd had his fears about the other child for over a year—he had left
her almost no choice but to forgive him. In one way she felt terrible for
him, filled with pity; thank God a woman couldn't find herself in such a
plight. But who wouldn't feel the urge to boot the man out, to let him
twist in the wind, hoist himself on his own petard, stew in his bitter
juices? All the angry euphemisms lined up in Greenie's brain like cars
before the Lincoln Tunnel at rush hour. Yes, she thought, Alan had better
get his ass in gear, bite the bullet, fish or cut bait. Go west, young
man, and pronto! Except that he wasn't so young, and neither was she.
Life is short,
Ray liked to say,
but here's worse news: what remains of it
gets shorter all the time. It does.

SHE RETURNED TO ZINC SKIES
, a garden glazed with snow, a kitchen
(her own) colonized by spiders, and her first e-mail from Charlie:
happy
new year. i missed you. too much. see you thursday with wb's but call
sooner.
She e-mailed back,
I missed you too. New York was bleak.
Come to the kitchen on Thursday. Bring me another gift?

On Thursday, the sandwiches Greenie made were pork tenderloin
with chipotle mustard, the soup a purée of beets and pears with Beaujolais
wine and dill. For dessert, she made lemon wafers, rosewater marshmallows,
and Amazon cake powdered with cocoa. Ray said, eyeing her
preparations that morning, "Fancy-schmancy. That soup looks like
something we'd serve to folks from the White House."

Greenie said simply, "Thank you."

Four hours later, she heard the Water Boys enter the dining room—
their voices, as usual, more raucous than those of any other group. Not
long after, she heard their soup spoons clattering too often and too
emphatically. As courses were served and plates were cleared, she stayed
away from the kitchen door.

When Maria went out to refill coffee cups, Greenie retreated to her
office. She stood by the window, looking at the mountains, waiting.
Almost immediately, she heard Charlie's footsteps, and then his hand
came down on the sill beside her. When he pulled it away, there was the
skipping stone from Circe.

"I wish I could have you back," he said. "I never quite had you, I
know that, but all the same, I wish I could have you back. I guess that's
obvious by now. I feel like I had you first, or I could have. I feel like it's
just not fair."

She turned around. "Don't talk about it in terms of having. Or fairness.
You sound like George." She was appalled to find herself scolding
him; perhaps it was her last, feeble attempt at resistance.

"I'm sorry." He looked sad, but irritated as well. He crossed his arms.

"Don't be," she said, and quickly, because she knew just how long it
took for Maria to refill the Water Boys' coffee cups, Greenie uncrossed
his arms and put them around her back. She kissed him forcefully, without
a hint of regret, because she wanted him to make no mistake about
her intentions, and she stepped away. Gently, she laid a hand against
his mouth and pointed toward the kitchen, showing him out. "Later,"
she said.

What she saw on his face, before he left, was shock more than anything
else, but that night he was in her bed till four in the morning.

She assumed that she had forgotten his body, but she hadn't. His hips
were wider, the veins in his legs and hands more pronounced, and there
were various scars he might or might not have had since childhood, but
the hair, nearly everywhere, was still a rosy blond, his nipples perfectly
oval, his fingernails bluish along the crescent cuticles. How strange the
recognition felt. The one thing she knew she had never forgotten was
the squareness of his joints. As the two of them had bungled through
their first embrace, beside a stone wall in the Maine woods, he had cried
out quietly when one knee struck a rock hidden by a layer of twigs and
leaves. Greenie had helped him hold the knee until the pain subsided.
Briefly, they had laughed. She'd noticed then that his knees—and his
elbows, too, when she had reached to cup them in her hands—seemed
blunt and hard as stones themselves. This one memory she'd kept all
along.

NOW SHE WOULD ARRIVE AT THE MANSION
having slept very little,
if at all, with swollen eyes and lips, with aching limbs and heart. She
thought about Alan more than she had in their first months apart. As
angry as she felt, her guilt was stronger. It did not really matter that she
had found out about this Marion and her child—the child!—because
only a self-righteous fool would equate Greenie's infidelity with that
one. No, this was
not
revenge.

It took Ray just a week to guess. It was a Friday, and there was a bluster
of snow in the pink morning air as she arrived. To her astonishment,
Ray was already on his stool, reading his newspapers. According to his
official schedule, circulated by Mary Bliss, the governor would have a
short day in the capital, then head out to the ranch to check on the
calves born that week. But an earlier morning for Ray had never before
meant an earlier raid on the kitchen.

He'd helped himself to the remains of a vegetable terrine and a beef
stroganoff.

"Ray, what are you doing here so early?"

"Too cold to run, and I am sick to death of the treadmill. I'll ride off
extra this weekend. Somehow ridin' in the cold don't freeze your butt
so bad."