The Whole World Over (54 page)

"I'm serious," said Alan. "I want to make sure you're not just caught
up in the wedding. That happens, you know. All that fussing distracts
from the importance of being sure right down to the wire."

Greenie had been touched. It wasn't like him to sound so earnest.
"Alan, I will be sure beyond the wire. Way beyond the wire."

"Thank you."

"And you?"

"I am never sure about anything," he said, "and I am sure about this."

"Does that make you worry?"

Alan nodded. "Good question. It has made me worry, but I'm past
that now. I just want all the flowers and the music and the hemlines and
your parents' expressions and the weather and the dancing and the bubbles
in the champagne and the—"

Greenie laughed. "Stop!"

"—to be perfect," he said. "I want all of it to be perfect not because I
give a damn but because I want you to see it all as background. I want
you looking at me, so you can't say later that if only your shoes hadn't
been so tight or the clouds so heavy or your snooty Bostonian cousins
so late . . ."

"You didn't mention the cake," she said.

"How could the cake not be perfect?" said Alan. "Amazing cake is
the one thing I know I can count on. For the rest of my life if I get to
spend it with you, right?"

When he led her into the cool stone hall where the tapestries hung,
Greenie felt the sleepy thrill of the wine as it seeped into her capillaries
and made her skin feel effervescent, the perfect degree of tipsy.

She was surprised that Alan had taken her to see something so
violent—though the violence in the tapestries, the hunting down and
slaying of the unicorn, was so formal and stylized that it nearly resembled
a dance. "I don't want to look, but I can't stop looking," she said
as they stood before the tapestry that showed the wounded unicorn,
pierced by spears and bleeding, being paraded toward a castle. "The
colors are exquisite," she said, almost reluctantly. "But these hunters
look like zombies! It's cruel, really. Don't you think?"

He led her to the tapestry, the famous one, of the unicorn held captive:
fenced and chained but unharmed. "I suppose this is the happy
ending," she said. "As happy as it gets for a unicorn."

"Some scholars," said Alan, "believe the tapestries are a narrative of
how the bride captures her groom."

Greenie gave him a skeptical look.

"Really," he said, grinning.

"Is that why you brought me here?"

Alan laughed. "No. I just read that now, on the wall over there."

They spent the rest of the afternoon in the galleries and gardens,
holding hands like teenagers on a date.

"Why didn't you bring me here before?" she asked as they waited for
the bus in the parking lot.

"I was saving it for a special occasion."

"Are you saving other incredible things? I don't like the idea that
you're holding them back. What if something happened and I never got
to see them?"

Alan shook his head and laughed. "Greenie, you don't need to seize it
all now. You've got plenty of time."

"You don't know that for a fact," she had teased him back then.

"I'll take my chances," he'd said.

And now, here was Charlie, almost tragically the inverse of Alan,
cramming as much of what he knew and loved into her life as fast as he
possibly could. You would have thought there was a deadline, that they
were on a lovers' scavenger hunt, competing for the prize of perpetual
joy. Greenie knew that if they had been in New York, a place where she
had saved up her own collection of significant things, he would have
expected her to reciprocate. But other than her work—which exerted
fewer demands than ever on Greenie, now that it was summer, now that
Ray spent as much time on the ranch as he possibly could—she had no
deadlines whatsoever; she had, now that George was gone, all the time
in the world to waste or spend wisely as she pleased. What to do with all
that time, however, was simple, almost humiliatingly simple: lose herself
in love. Who would choose to do anything else?

AND THEN THERE WAS RAY
. So much had shifted between Greenie and
Ray in the past few months that she did not know precisely which
changes had come from her and which from him. Their morning companionship,
because the provocation and teasing had diminished, became
almost peaceful. They were together the same amount of time, but they
said less. Without George, Greenie worked any and all hours demanded
of her, no longer having to negotiate Consuelo's needs as well. This
made her work suddenly much easier than it had ever been—and now
that she had lived and worked here through a round of seasons, she
knew the traditions of the house both public and private, the foods and
native customs each holiday called for, the hierarchy of Ray's taste for
the many kinds of food she knew how to make. She had been the closet
hostess not just of a Santa Fe Christmas Eve (for which she'd filled the
mansion with green chili garlands and a promenade of ghostly farolitos),
a Mexican Catholic Easter (candies arranged to portray the Virgin
of Guadalupe), a Fourth of July (ice cream in colors to match the splendor
of fireworks over the valley), and a birthday celebration for Ray
(Angus piñatas, persimmon-glazed suckling pig, and coconut cake for
thirty friends), but of banquets to celebrate the piñon harvest, the Day
of the Dead, and Zozobra.

Ray, too, was in love. This was no secret to most of those around
him, though gossip about his ostensibly clandestine courtship passed,
within his house, only by way of lingering glances and satisfied smirks.
Yet one day Greenie knew, just knew, that he had made up his mind. She
knew, too, that six months of tabloid runoff from his out-in-the-open
affair with the Hollywood actress had led him to treat his attraction to
Claudia like a covert operation, even if it was perfectly proper. Claudia
had come to the mansion only twice, for Ray's birthday and for Christmas
Eve. Ray saw her mainly when he was out on the ranch. McNally
knew her, and her tastes, far better than Greenie did.

One morning in late July, as Ray polished off a bowl of cold asparagus
soup (having stirred in half a cup more of heavy cream), Greenie
could no longer stand it—the chitchat to cover their placid détente or,
for that matter, the suspense.

"Are you going to marry her?" she asked.

Ray frowned. "Her? What her would that be?"

"Ray."

"Well, yes, I am," he said. "On the twentieth of October, that's what
I've been thinking."

As usual, he had trumped her. Keeping her cool, she asked, "So how
many people know this?"

"You'd be the first."

"After Claudia."

"What did I say? I said you were the first."

They regarded each other with competitive amusement, like two old
friends forgiving each other a foolish rift in their affection.

"Don't hug me," he said, seeing her intention. "I'm coming down
with a cold. Besides, understand that business is not irrelevant here."

"You love her. I've seen you with her."

"Love flows through many different contours, just the same as a
river," he said. "It does."

"The poetry gives you away," said Greenie.

Ray shook his head. "The only poetry I know is the poetry of popularity
polls. Oh sing to me of reelection! A liberated woman—a damn
smart independent tall bossy woman—will take me far. I am no fool."

"If it's all so calculated, why tell me your intentions?"

"You asked, my girl. And you will be cooking for the guests, so you'd
best get cracking."

Panic washed over Greenie. Later, she realized that it wasn't the fear
of masterminding a wedding but the fear that if she were there, if she
were still doing her job on the day of his wedding, three more months
would have passed in which she would not be living with her son or
even near him. But her response to Ray's second intentional bombshell
was simply a nod.

"Which you will do incognito until I make this fully public. You
will."

"Do you mean incommunicado?" she said.

"Make it a song and, yes, that's it." He stood and picked up the hat
he had laid on the counter. "You don't sing anymore. I've noticed that."

"I don't sing for you," said Greenie.

"Did you ever?" He laughed briefly, as if to have the final word without
speaking.

"Congratulations," said Greenie.

SHE DECIDED TO TAKE ON A NEW CUISINE
, to delve into North
African foods, introduce spices that she knew Ray would like, that
would marry with the local produce she used for dinners to impress visitors
from other parts of the country. She made a harissa with chilis from
Mike Chu's garden and a rich harira with Ray's beef, stewed with tomatoes,
lemons, and heirloom beans from a farm near Chimayo. That
weekend she would learn to make warqa, the Moroccan pastry used for
bastilla, and jelabi, a fried dough meant to be served with fish. The
traditional filling for bastilla was pigeon, but come shooting season,
Greenie could use whatever game birds Ray and his cronies brought
back from the hunt.

She sat in the cool silence of Ray's vast kitchen, where she could lay
out several books on the counter at once, to read and compare. The
books, which were new, had to be weighted open with cutting boards
and meat mallets. The antiseptic smell of their pages made her feel as if
she were in a laboratory, back in a classroom at cooking school.

Except for maids changing linens and dusting tables, Greenie knew
she might be the only occupant in the house that day. She had just called
New York; Alan had handed the phone almost directly to George, who
told her he was going to Ford's for the afternoon. "Ford has a
Star Wars
game, you know," he said. "It goes with the new movie. Daddy says we
can see the first
Star Wars,
maybe, but the new one he says is too old for
me. Except that the new one happens
before
the first one, you know."

What had become of the horses? How quickly his young, supple
mind had moved on to other interests. As she listened to him prattle on,
Greenie was disturbed to feel a haze of resentment settle over her affection.
Did she have to carry the burden of their separation—and its
cause—all by herself? And
Star Wars
? Wasn't even the original movie
too old for George?

As she read about what made warqa distinct from phyllo, Mary Bliss
entered the kitchen. "Oh, I am sorry," she said.

"No reason to be sorry," said Greenie. "But how come you're not
riding, or having a manicure? How often do you get this kind of time
off?"

"These days, more than you'd reckon. Am I botherin' you?"

"I could use bothering." She took a pitcher of iced tea from the
refrigerator.

Mary Bliss drank two sips of tea, pretending interest in a diagram of
how to cut and fold the warqa, before she burst into tears.

To ask Mary Bliss what was wrong would be dishonest, but she did.

"He is fucking engaged," she said through her tears.

Greenie looked at her with concern but said nothing.

"You must think me a certifiable loon," said Mary Bliss.

"No, not at all." Greenie pulled a paper towel from the dispenser by
the sinks and handed it to Mary Bliss.

"I can't believe I am
crying.
Lord! All because there's going to be a
fucking first lady in this house."

"He's not going to fire you, or even demote you," said Greenie.
"He's going to need you more than ever now." This was true but also
dishonest.

Mary Bliss looked around. "Do you keep anything here like sherry?"

"Honey, I have it all," said Greenie. "Bourbon?" she guessed.

"Oh lord no."

Greenie opened the liquor cabinet.

"That bottle of Bordeaux, if you please," said Mary Bliss. "And give
me the fuckin' corkscrew. I am so sorry I can't clean up my mouth
today."

"We all have those days. Recently, I've had a few of my own."
Greenie took the bottle from its rack and opened it herself. It was the
last of a case, an exceptional vintage sent by a Frenchman who patronized
the Santa Fe Opera. She took a heavy blue Mexican goblet off a
high shelf.

Next to Mary Bliss, thought Greenie as she filled the goblet, am I
lucky? Am I unlucky? Isn't she more deserving of love?

Then something occurred to her. "How do you know he's engaged?"

"He sent me an e-mail this morning. An e-mail, if you please. He's
announcing it from the ranch this evening. Six o'clock news. I plan to
have passed out by then. Let the fucking phones ring themselves silly."

At which the kitchen phone rang.

"I am not here. I am not on this cruel planet today," said Mary Bliss.

"Darling," Greenie heard when she picked up the phone.

"Hi," she said. "Can I call you back?"

"Can I come pick you up?"

"I'll meet you back at the apartment. In an hour."

"I love you," he said.

"Same here," she said lightly. "But I have a visitor."

Mary Bliss shook her head. "I'll go, I'll go."

"Stay," said Greenie to Mary Bliss.

She closed her cookbooks. She listened to the story of how Ray had
plucked Mary Bliss from a gaggle of secretaries over at the Capitol. This
was early in his campaign for governor, and she had stayed up so many
late nights with him that people began to joke about the matching pairs
of circles beneath their eyes come morning. "And I began to think, Oh if
only.
"

Then the movie star had made her entrance. Mary Bliss never minded
the actress, mostly because she knew it couldn't possibly last. All the
time he played out his fantasies with "Miss Box Office, Emphasis on
Box" was time in which Mary Bliss could reveal to Ray her own genuine
charm and compatibility. The longer the actress stayed, in some ways
the better.

"Bidin' my time, is what I was," said Mary Bliss. "My precious, idiotic
time. I even thought I saw him turnin' toward me these past few
months, noticing me in a new way. But it was
reflected
love, that's all
it was!"