The Whole World Over (65 page)

In the backseat, George had fallen asleep. Right up against him, Treehorn
slept as well, having somehow made a place for herself among
the toys.

There were four cars in the driveway but no sign of life beyond a pair
of seagulls swooping over the massive chimney. Alan did not see the
ocean, but he could smell it.

Saga went in the back door; Alan followed. They emerged in a
kitchen nearly the size of his apartment. The sink overflowed with dishes.
On a blackboard he read:
pasta garlic aa batteries TP
babywipes TOMATOES call dentist

Boxed in pink chalk:
Public Hearing Thurs.!!

"Hello!" called Saga.

They passed through a wood-paneled dining room into one of the
largest living rooms Alan had ever seen—impressive yet shabby, its furnishings
so well used that they had been all but used up. He heard footsteps
on a staircase from the second floor. He looked at Saga, who
waited quietly, hands folded before her in the attitude of a schoolgirl.

"There you are, my dear," said the man who was obviously Saga's
uncle, perfectly casual, as if she were ten minutes late for tea. He was
tall, with an Einstein head of hair, and his shirt was open one button
too low; perhaps he had just put it on. "We did wonder, but I said you
were fine."

Saga moved toward him quickly as he reached the foot of the stairs.
"I am so sorry about Michael," she said. She hugged her uncle; he
returned her embrace almost absentmindedly.

"We're still waiting, you know. He told Denise he was getting out.
His last words to her were 'Don't you worry.' No one outsmarts Michael.
Let's not forget about that. Let's not. He will turn up yet." Alan was
apparently invisible to him.

"Where is everybody?" asked Saga.

The uncle walked past her and sat on a couch. "Pansy and Denise are
shopping, with the little girls. Michael and Denise have a new car, the
biggest you've ever laid eyes on." He raised his eyebrows, as if he might
smile, but his expression returned to one of docile fatigue.

Saga remained standing. "Can I get you something, Uncle Marsden?
Something to drink?"

"No, my dear, but thank you." Alan had never seen someone look so
dignified yet so extremely sad.

Hearing lighter footsteps on the stairs, Alan looked up at a slender
woman with long, straight graying blond hair. She wore a brown batik
dress and an earthy type of sandals he hadn't seen since college. She
stopped midway down. "Saga? Saga, where on earth have you been?"

"She's been
fine,
" said the uncle. He did not bother to turn around
and look at the woman on the stairs.

Saga said, "I'm sorry, Frida."

"We've had way too much to worry about, never mind worrying
what became of you when you didn't call back. I've been on the phone
for days. I seem to be the only one around here who can hold anything
together. It's just . . ." She sighed, as if she'd used up every word
she possessed.

The two women looked at each other for a long, uncertain moment.
This was the cousin who had told Saga the secret of her pregnancy;
couldn't she guess what effect it would have had on Saga? Alan could
sense a sympathy between them, but Frida looked angry. Well, she had a
right, a small right, to be angry at Saga. People shouldn't disappear for
days without calling (or disappear for good, Alan thought sadly).

"Do you think there's a chance Michael's coming back?" asked Saga.

Frida glanced at her father, who seemed transfixed by a stuffed elephant
wedged against the arm of the couch. Frida shook her head. Saga
started to cry.

"Stop all this crying!" said the uncle abruptly. "All this weeping is
driving me mad! Girls weeping their heads off day and night!" Now he
was addressing Alan. He didn't seem to wonder who Alan was; he was
simply a fellow male, one who must have suffered the weeping of girls.
Alan nodded once, just to acknowledge that he'd been spoken to.

"Everything's changing," the cousin said to Saga, and the change she
referred to did not sound good.

"I know," Saga said. "I guessed that. I'm not an idiot."

"No one's ever said you were, Saga." She turned to Alan. "Who are
you? Are you the book guy or the dog guy?" She did not sound as if she
really cared or even wanted to know, and in that moment Alan made a
decision. To hell with his fears about playing the savior. Looking at Saga,
he did not think it would be hard to convince her to leave this place, at
least for now. Before taking her aside, however, he went out the front
door, quickly and without excuses, down the steps and to the car. For a
few horrified moments, he'd forgotten all about George. To his relief,
George still slept, but Treehorn was awake. Through the opening at the
top of Treehorn's window, Alan whispered, "I'll take you out in just a
minute, girl. Hang on there."

MCNALLY CLEANS THE GRILL
, scowling as he shoves the wire
brush back and forth, so vigorously that it looks like a penance.
He does not notice that someone dances just behind him, bumping and
grinding within inches of making contact. The someone is Walter, his
widespread arms threatening to enfold McNally's torso. Greenie told
McNally that he did not have to do this ghastly chore, but the massive
grill is one he made himself and trucked in from the ranch. It won't be
done right, he insists, if it's left to anyone else.

Walter's responsibilities have ended, and he is filled with the expendable
joy of a hard job impeccably done. He is at his most abandoned
and gleeful, moving his mouth to "Some People." Ethel Merman is the
one doing the singing, her voice blaring from Greenie's boom box,
which Walter has brought outside to entertain them now that the party
is over.

When Greenie cannot contain her laughter (still a startling sound
after a month of so many miseries), McNally turns around. "Just what
is so hilarious?"

"Walter wants to ask you for this dance," she says.

McNally levels a withering gaze at Walter. Feigning innocence, Walter
stands three feet away, arms at his sides.

"Let me tell you something," says McNally, shaking his sooty brush
at Walter. "I am too worn out for jokes. This has got to be about the
longest day of my sorry life—we won't mention a couple in lockup back
in the army."

"We won't ask for what crimes," says Walter.

"You don't ask about mine, I certainly—
certainly
—will not ask
about yours," McNally says.

The guests have left, but the lawn still swarms with people. Mike Chu
checks his flower beds for flotsam. (Greenie sees him pull a sequined
purse out of the chamisa. He shakes his head.) The musicians lay their
instruments in their cases and fold up their stands. Employees of one
rental company fold tables and chairs; those from another stack plates
and box up glasses. Volunteers for a food charity gather leftovers for a
shelter, while the cops, now relaxed, chat in twos and threes along the
service driveway, stopping only to inspect the trucks that come and go.
They are not accustomed to being so suspicious, but they are learning.

The blue tent will not be taken down until the following day. It luffs
like a sail in the breeze, its shadow wavering over the grass. Against this
azure backdrop, two television reporters address their cameramen.

One of the reporters stands so close to Greenie that she can hear his
words, even in competition with Ethel Merman. "Yes, Anita, that's
right. Governor Raymond Fleetwing McCrae was married today, on
his own lawn, under skies as blue as his bride's eyes, in a ceremony
whose friendly, informal tone was a welcome balm in the face of all the
unspeakable horrors of this past month and the great sorrow that so
many Americans continue to endure," says the buff, slightly sunburnt
reporter. Greenie notices that his tie is red (as well as his nose), making
the tableau, with his white shirt and the blue tent, an obsequious
tribute to the fierce resurgence of the flag. "Indeed, Anita," he continues
earnestly, "the governor's act of unity and hope for the future only
serves to strengthen the new unity we feel now, all of us together, in the
midst of our mourning and healing."

Greenie turns up Ethel Merman and begins, with great care, to wrap
and pack the top tier of the cake. McNally will take it back to the
ranch, where it will be frozen for Ray and Claudia's first-anniversary
celebration.

The size of a pillbox hat, it was the crown to a widening skirt of seven
tiers, an impressive yet fragile creation held together with a complex
system of hidden pillars and platforms. ("My word, it's like a parking
garage!" said Walter as he followed Greenie's orders to help construct
it.) This final tier, by itself, is a small coconut cake—still Ray's favorite
sweet—encased in the same white chocolate fondant that Greenie laid
over the entire creation. One of the only vetoes that Ray imposed on
Claudia's wedding scheme was her vision of a spun-sugar bride and
groom, in western attire, on top of the cake.

"Claudia, there is a fine line between whimsical and tacky, and there
you have it. You do," he said in the only planning session with Greenie
that he attended. To Greenie's relief, the lone embellishment on the
smooth white surface of the cake was a garland of flowers fashioned
from the icing. Ray suggested yucca, the New Mexico state flower, and
it took Greenie a great deal of practice to make the blossoms look like
something other than wilted larkspur.

"I want a cake like no other—and I mean that," Claudia said to
Greenie, almost sternly. "I want a cake that, when you cut it, there's
some kind of big flamboyant surprise. Maybe fancier inside than out.
Just like true grown-up love, what do you think?" Standing there in
Ray's kitchen, Paul Bunyan fists on her denim hips, she looked anything
but the romantic bride.

Greenie remembered the three-flavored cake she had wanted for her
own wedding—yet surrendered in the face of her mother's notions of
good taste, what Olivia Duquette called "the class of understatement."
Understatement, now, looks laughably overvalued. Better say what you
think much too strongly than risk not being heard.

"But no chocolate," said Claudia. "I happen to be one of three people
in the world who don't care a hoot for chocolate."

They agreed on four flavors of cake—vanilla, maple, orange, and
coconut—to alternate, almost randomly, in twenty-one slim layers
throughout the seven tiers beneath the one to be saved, the crown of
coconut. A syrup infused with ginger would be brushed on the sponge
beneath the icing. Greenie spent four days in early September testing
recipes, tasting the flavors together, manipulating and reweighing ingredients
to strengthen the cake itself. She made measurements and ordered
pans. She had an hour-long phone conversation with the master pastry
chef who had taught her how to make cakes to feed a small army. At
times, with all the intricate planning, the entire wedding did feel like a
military maneuver.

In the kitchen, Greenie's first passion has always been cake. Most
inexperienced cooks believe, mistakenly, that a fine cake is less challenging
to produce than a fine soufflé or mousse. Greenie knows, however,
that a good cake is like a good marriage: from the outside, it looks ordinary,
sometimes unremarkable, yet cut into it, taste it, and you know
that it is nothing of the sort. It is the sublime result of long and patient
experience, a confection whose success relies on a profound understanding
of compatibilities and tastes; on a respect for measurement, balance,
chemistry, and heat; on a history of countless errors overcome. In
Greenie's favorite antique cookbook, an eloquent curmudgeon named
Louis P. De Gouy devoted eight closely typeset pages to "Common
Causes and Remedies in Cake Baking Failures." How she wishes sometimes
that Master Chef De Gouy had written such a treatise on love,
even just motherly love.

Yet she felt almost completely happy as she immersed herself in the
perfection of Ray's wedding cake. At the end of each long day, for nearly
two weeks, she would return to Charlie's place with a sample of her
work in progress; after dinner, he would savor cake while Greenie
sipped from a glass of cold wine, their bare feet pressed together under
the table. The sleepy days of August were over, the pace of life at the
mansion was accelerating slowly, and the weather was exquisite. Soon,
very soon, she would see George.

How quickly everything in the world has changed in the weeks since
then: lives, dreams, assumptions, excuses, plans, priorities; everything
except for the date of Ray's wedding. In late September, when Greenie
returned from seeing Alan and George in Maine, Ray told her that to
postpone it would look defeatist. That was when she realized she could
not pull it off if she was the only one in charge. Late one night, with only
three weeks to go, she called Walter.

"Walter, I need you," she said.

Before she could tell him why and how, perhaps before he was even
fully awake, he said in a muddled voice, "Honey, I am there." Greenie
will never forget this. She is tempted sometimes to ask him what he
imagined, in that instant, she might need him for.

Now Walter continues to dance about, a ne'er-do-well bystander next
to everyone else's last-minute labors. But at the height of the party, he
was a commander-in-chief (with all the extra security on hand, the wedding
was like a military maneuver after all). Greenie was astonished—
and, in the face of McNally's initial resentment, also proud—to discover
that Walter spoke a little Spanish, flirting equally with the girls in the
kitchen and the fetching young bartenders weaving their way among the
guests.

He kept her distracted from so many worries, both immediate and
distant, and Greenie knew that Walter did so consciously. "
Real
cowboys?"
he whispered when four men arrived in Stetson hats, silver
bolos, and sharp-toed boots. "What do they call that, Full Fargo?" As
Ray and Claudia made their heavily cheered and confetti'd departure,
Walter turned to Greenie and said, "I'm sorry, but with her decked out
in that tasseled frock, they just
beg
comparison to Roy and Dale—thank
heaven they're sexier. She has the right little smidgen of butch, and he
has this complementary dash of Robert Mitchum."

Among the comings and goings at the back gate, two of the cowhands
from Ray's ranch lean against the hood of their pickup, smoking.
When McNally spots them, he yells, "Make yourselves useful!" He
holds out a hose and directs them to rinse off the grill.

"Will you stay for a beer?" says Greenie. "The cake will keep in the
fridge till you go."

"One sip and I will keel over dead. Have to get back tonight."

"Who's to cook for?" asks Greenie.

"These boys, they couldn't make a burger to save their sorry asses."
He nods at the hands, who are struggling to rinse the underside of the
grill, and shakes his head. "Hard to believe they're capable of roping a
steer, ain't it?"

"You are not leaving without giving me your number," says Walter.
He hands McNally a pen and a turquoise cocktail napkin. "He's coming
out after Thanksgiving," Walter tells Greenie. "He's in major trouble if
he doesn't."

"Like what, you'd send me a dead rat?"

"I would send you subscriptions to several magazines
no one
would
want to see arrive at the governor's ranch, least of all you."

"Hard to refuse, in that case." McNally writes on the napkin and
hands it over. Awkwardly, he shakes Walter's hand. "Did a fine job,
Walt."

"Yes, I did," says Walter, "and I enjoyed every minute. Thank you."

McNally turns to Greenie. She makes it easy for him by hugging him
lightly, kissing him on a cheek. "The cooler!" she says, and heads for the
kitchen.

ALL HER SENSELESS SUPERSTITIONS
ought to have prepared her. Ray
came down for breakfast an hour early. Greenie was so absorbed in
rolling out pastry that at first she saw nothing unusual in his arrival.
When he said her name and then just stared at her, she told him he
looked like he'd seen a ghost. "Something's going on in New York," he
said. He told her about the planes; he also told her he knew her family
would be safe.

"You know? How do you
know
?"

"My sixth sense." He tapped his forehead, the gesture he always
made when bragging about his intuition, and Greenie was suddenly
enraged.

"This is no joking matter!" she shouted.

"Call right now," he said. He put an arm around her shoulders and
squeezed hard. "You need anything, you go talk to Mary Bliss. She
expects it. I have no time to stop, but I wanted to tell you myself. I'll be
downtown all day, I'm guessing. All day and all night." Greenie heard
phones ringing throughout the house, every phone except the one in her
office.

"You'll be A-okay, you will," said Ray. "And drop all that." He gestured
at the pastry. Before leaving, he waved, as if they were parting at a
train station.

The apartment phone was busy. She punched the one, speed-dial to
Alan, over and over, until she was driven nearly mad. It shouldn't
be
busy; their phone in New York had call-waiting. She rifled through her
desk to find Alan's cell phone number, which she had rarely ever called.
No answer, no voice mail. She opened her e-mail and typed,
Are you all
right? What's happening? I can't get through on the phone. Answer now,
PLEASE.
Next, she wrote to Charlie, who had left for Albuquerque at
five that morning. She told him that she was going out of her mind trying
to reach home. She told him to call her as soon as he could.
TAKE
CARE OF YOURSELF,
she typed, as if the pressure of her fingers on
the keyboard could strengthen her words.

She turned on the radio; after ten minutes of nearly unbearable
listening—how could any of this be true?—she went to see Mary Bliss.

"I can't get through to my family," she said.

"I know, honey. None of us can get through to anyone there."

"Ray? Not Ray?"

"Ray's gone downtown. I'm keepin' this ship afloat, such as it is."

"I have to get home to my son," said Greenie.

Mary Bliss nodded. "If you can wait fifteen minutes, George'll take
you."

"To the airport?"

"Oh no, honey. There won't be planes for some time. Rental cars're
all gone, too. I've managed to hijack a
schoolbus
for a group of CEOs
we've got stranded out at Los Alamos. Honey, the world's gone catty-wumpus."

"Then where would he take me?"

"We'll see, but I would say all the way there, if need be."

Greenie pointed out that she had a car of her own; she could drive
herself. Mary Bliss said that Ray had expected she'd try that foolish
stunt. Paternalistic as ever, he would not permit her to go by herself.
She could return whenever planes got back in the sky. They couldn't
keep planes on the ground forever. "You know Ray. He runs the show,"
said Mary Bliss, her tone quietly ironic, as if Ray would decide when the
planes should come and go. After Mary Bliss had returned from
Nashville and given notice, Ray had offered her a raise she couldn't
refuse. According to Tall, Ray had even offered to buy her a horse.