Tiny Little Thing (10 page)

“
Dad
.
”
Frank shakes his head and nods at me.

“I beg your pardon, my dear. You’ll excuse the plain speaking; we were up late last night. Strategy meeting.” He lifts one hand to his forehead and massages the loose skin with his fingertips.

I swirl the liquid around the glass. Frank’s face is still pale, the cigarette still jerking up and down. Mr. Hardcastle’s anxious fingertips rise from his forehead to his hair, raking through the gray threads. Son and father. Their stares, as they regard me, are curiously alike: the same blue eyes, the same expressions of wary calculation.

To be perfectly honest, I haven’t given this campaign much thought. It’s the maiden race, a gimme, Frank the Thoroughbred against a pack of anonymous local nags. He’s supposed to win handily. Going away. Outclassing the field in a single blinding Hardcastle smile. The idea of Frank failing at this—failing at the first hurdle, the September primary, Frank who has never failed at anything—causes the world to turn upside down before my eyes.

“How bad is it?” I ask.

“We’re six points behind at the moment,” says Frank. He reaches for an ashtray and crushes out the cigarette.

“I see.”

“We’re not sure why,” says Mr. Hardcastle. “Just looks like they don’t trust us. The old story: rich boy from Brookline, buying his seat. That’s the view.”

I allow a smile. “Imagine that.”

Mr. Hardcastle’s face reacts as if it’s been dipped in wet cement and left to dry. “So we want to humanize him. Bring out the wife. You’ve been almost invisible this summer.”

“I didn’t realize I was needed.”

“Frank insisted we didn’t push you. He wanted you to stay put out there. On the beach.” Mr. Hardcastle’s voice is very soft, in contrast to his eyes, which penetrate the space between my eyebrows.

I look at Frank’s creased forehead and back at my father-in-law’s hard squint, and my organs shrivel up inside my belly. This failure of Frank—a failure saturating the atmosphere with cigarette smoke, creasing Hardcastle foreheads and squinting Hardcastle eyes—spreads across the room to sink down upon my head. It’s
my
failure. I’ve failed them. A good wife belongs at the candidate’s side, well-groomed and smiling. A good wife follows the candidate’s campaign, familiarizes herself with his constituents and their concerns, knows every minute fluctuation in the polls. A good wife poses for the camera with her best foot forward (to elongate the leg, you see, and emphasize the curve of hip) and her best smile hiding her troubles. A good wife produces equally photogenic children to illustrate the candidate’s qualities as a family man. A good wife conceals no shaming secrets, sells no affectionate Christmas jewelry, admits to no untoward desires.

For some reason, the accusation in Mr. Hardcastle’s gaze is easier to bear than Frank’s worried sympathy. I turn back to my husband anyway. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize.” I manage a smile. “My first campaign, after all. Push me all you like.”

Before Frank can reply, Mr. Hardcastle says, “Good. The
Globe
’s been asking to do a feature on the two of you. You’ll be hosting a reporter at your table tonight. Tomorrow morning at ten, they’re sending the same reporter and a photographer to Newbury Street to do the usual piece, candidate and his family at home.”

“If that’s all right,” says Frank. His arms are crossed, one finger tapping the other elbow.

“Of course it’s all right. We haven’t any groceries, but . . .”

“I’ve sent over one of the staffers already to fix things up. Fill the icebox, plump the pillows. Put out fresh flowers.”

“I see.” Failure, failure. Now one of the campaign staffers is filling in, performing the duties I should have overseen myself. I add, a little desperate, sinking fast: “I’ll be up early, of course, to make sure everything’s in order.”

“There’s no need. Better you get plenty of rest.”

I think of the floor of the shed, scattered with car parts. My room in the Big House, which I left in disorder, in the frantic haste of showering and packing but also the unsupervised laziness of the past few weeks. A jar of face cream sits open on the counter. My earrings were left out on the bureau last night. Worse: a dress, unironed, stained with red wine, lies casually over the top of the slipper chair in the corner.

“I’ve had plenty of rest. I’m ready to work.” I lift the sweating glass to my lips.

“Good girl,” says Mr. Hardcastle. “We’ll put our best foot forward tonight. The lovely wife. The wounded cousin.”

I cough up a drop or two. “The
what
?”

“Cap.” Frank pushes himself off the windowsill to reach for the cigarettes. “We’ve asked Cap to join us tonight.”

“Caspian?”

“You don’t mind, do you, darling? I’ve told him to be on his best behavior. No throwing punches, no matter what the hecklers say. Not that there’ll be hecklers tonight.”

I finish my drink and set it down on the coffee table next to my pocketbook and gloves. “Not at all. If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll just freshen up a bit before I change.”

•   •   •

I
n the white marble bathroom, I drop my skirt and blouse in a pile and stare at myself in the mirror. My dewy white skin, my clinging silk slip. My eyes, large and round and brown. Like a doe, my mother used to say, appraising me like a fine painting, adding up my market value as a series of individual components. Pretty face equals
x
. Delicate figure equals
y
. Air of virgin innocence equals
z
.

But she was wrong. It isn’t just an algebra of components, is it? It’s the whole package. It’s how you hold it all together.

There is a knock on the door. For an illogical instant, known only to my subconscious, I imagine it’s Caspian Harrison.

“It’s me,” says my husband.

“Come in.”

Frank appears behind me in the mirror, so suddenly that I’m startled by his good looks, by the width of his shoulders in comparison to mine. He only seems large to me like this, when I see us together in the mirror, the physical difference between my body and his. Or maybe it’s just that I’m such a small and insignificant creature.
Such a tiny little thing,
my mother used to say, giving my cheek an approving caress.

He smiles. “I have something for you.”

His hands appear, and with them a slim rope of diamonds alternating with glittering navy stones, sapphires probably. Before I can gasp, he loops them around my neck.

“My
God,
Frank!”

He fastens the necklace at my nape with his expert fingers. I touch the stones in the hollow of my throat, which are larger than the others, anchored by a central sapphire the size of a dime.

Frank kisses my earlobe and stares in the mirror. “Beautiful. Just as I thought.”

“What’s this for?”

“For being you. For putting up with your busy old husband and his busybody family.”

My eyes are already filling up, all wide and oily in the mirror, and I hardly ever cry. Tears never got you anywhere in the old Schuyler apartment on Fifth Avenue. “Of course,” I say stupidly. “Of course.”

“I didn’t mean to put you on the spot like that. Back there with Dad.”

“You should have told me things weren’t going well.”

“I didn’t want to push you, after what happened. Anyway, it’s only summer. We have months to go.”

“But I’m your wife. I’m supposed to be helping you.”

“You
are
helping me. You’re a wonderful wife.” He kisses the side of my neck, above the diamonds and sapphires. His lips are cool and worried. “I’m sorry I’ve been neglecting you like this.”

The shed is so far away, Pepper’s conversation is so far away, that I stare at the glint in Frank’s sandy hair for a few seconds before I catch his meaning.

“Oh, God. Don’t listen to my sister. She’s just oversexed, that’s all.”

“You know I’m just giving you time to get better, don’t you? After what happened. Trying to be a respectful husband.” He smiles into the mirror.

I lay my hand on one of his. “Of course I know that.”

He squeezes my arms gently. “
Are
you feeling better, Tiny? I know it’s still soon.”

Here’s the thing about drought: when the rain comes again, you’re not quite sure what to do with it. The drops fall on your dry skin, scattering the dust, and you don’t know how to absorb it. After the first miscarriage, the doctor told me I could resume relations with my husband as soon as the discharge (yes, that’s exactly what he called the remains of my pregnancy, the
discharge
) had finished. You need to get right back in the saddle after a fall, he said. I did as he instructed, I followed his prescription because he was a doctor, and because a good wife doesn’t refuse her husband, and as soon as my uterus was demonstrably empty again I reported this fact to Frank—we were just climbing into bed, I in my nightgown and he in his silk pajamas—and he said
All right
and settled in closer, and I thought, No, this is wrong
.
He kissed me, and my mouth, which was filled with grief, found him intolerable. He took off my nightgown, and in that instant, as the lamplight struck my body, my flesh cringed away from his, my whole heart screamed
No, I don’t want you, I don’t want you inside me, I only want my baby back, my precious little baby who never had a chance, who is gone without a trace, never to return, never to be known to me.

But here’s the thing: I never said it out loud.

Well, you know me. I do my duty. I do what makes people happy. So I lay there while Frank made love to me, his silk pajama shirt flapping valiantly against my chest, his eyes screwed shut in concentration, and I hated him for doing it, and myself for letting him, and when I thought he fell asleep I curled into a ball and cried carefully into my pillow. I didn’t think he heard, but we didn’t make love again for a month and a half, and it took a lucky accident, a combination of too much champagne and a sultry bitch making her move on Frank at a cocktail party one night, to unfreeze my body and lock us back together, panting, reckless, on the living room sofa at midnight, a thing we had never done before or since.

After the second miscarriage—which occurred shortly after the telephone jangled with the news that Frank’s cousin Caspian had been airlifted from the Laos border two days earlier with critical injuries, and was not expected to survive—Frank was more careful. My God, I don’t think he even hinted at sex for two months, and even then we endured several awkward efforts before we were back to normal. Twice a week or so: a pleasant, steady matrimonial rhythm for an attractive young couple hoping for a baby.

“I know it’s soon,” Frank says, and you can’t blame him for that, poor man.

I don’t know how to soften my body, how to receive him. I need champagne, I need a woman in a black dress putting her hand on my husband’s chest in the corner of a drunken room. I need to silence the back of my brain, whispering
Caspian’s here, Caspian’s back, you’ll see Caspian tonight
. I need to concentrate on this, my marriage, the two of us, Frank and Tiny. What is real. What exists. What cannot be altered.

“You’re so good to me,” I say, to drown out the whisper. “You really are.”

“God. Don’t say that. It’s the other way around. You’re good to
me
.”

“I’ve been wallowing in self-pity. I should have been here in the city, with you.”

“Don’t listen to my father. I have plenty of help here. Too much. Anyway, it’s early days. We have weeks until the primary.”

“No, it’s true. I’ve let you down, and I promised myself, I promised myself when we got married, that I’d never, ever do that. I’d
never
let you down.”

He turns me around. “Jesus, no, don’t cry, Tiny.” He bends down and kisses my eyes, my cheeks. “Remember the photographers.”

Remember the photographers.
Downstairs in the ballroom, waiting, flashbulbs poised. The photo call at five, the reporter at our table, ready to take every note. To document the perfect young life of the perfect young couple.

“What time is it?” I ask.

He checks his watch. “A quarter past four.”

“I’ve got to start getting ready.”

“All right.” But he doesn’t let go. He raises his hands and strokes my hair, over and over, smoothing it flat against my head, except that the flip at the bottom insists on springing free whenever his palms lift away. “I
do
love you, Tiny. I do. Don’t ever think I don’t.”

“I’d never think that.”

“Poor Tiny.”

“I’m fine, Frank. Really.”

“No, you’re not.” He kisses me again, warm and deep. “I’ll make it up to you tonight. If you want me to.”

“Of course I want you to.”

“I owe it to you. You’ve been so good to me. I’ll make it up to you. You’ll fall in love with me all over again.” The dazzling smile breaks out, the gleaming teeth, while his hands keep stroking, stroking, down my throat and over the glittering necklace to cover my breasts.

“What makes you think I ever stopped?” I say.

W
hen Cap returned from the French bakery on Beacon Street the next morning, bearing breakfast in one hand and a newspaper in the other, music was floating through the walls and under his door, colored with the scent of coffee.

He paused at the top of the stairs. It was a waltz of some kind, tinnily rendered, probably Strauss, not that he’d listened to the pile of old disks under the record player in years. Not since he was a kid. He shifted the bag of croissants from one hand to the other—oh, the
look
the girl had given him at the bakery, the raised-eyebrow-curled-lip look, a look pregnant with
Entertaining a lady friend this morning, are we?
—and fished for the key in his pocket.

No, not Strauss, it was Tchaikovsky, he decided, as he juggled the newspaper and croissants and opened the door; but before he could explore this thought any further, it more or less fell to pieces and dissolved into the ripples of his gray matter, because right bang before his dazzled eyeballs, Miss Tiny Doe was dancing across the length of the living room, wearing one of his shirts
and nothing else
.

He knew his jaw was dangling somewhere around his sternum, and the bakery bag and the newspaper clung for dear life to the tips of his slack fingers, but he couldn’t summon the strength to put any of them back in proper place.

All right. Jesus.
Yes
, she was wearing something else. Her—what did girls like her call them?—her foundation garments were right in place where they should be, thank God, flashing beneath the ends of his white shirt as she performed an exuberant series of pirouettes on the balls of her beautiful feet. Her eyebrows were screwed in concentration, but her mouth smiled as it flashed past and past, like a singularly arresting strobe light.

Cap knew nothing about ballet, but he recognized the tireless perfection in the movements of her right leg, fully exposed, flicking elegantly back and forth as it propelled her around. And her left leg, long and straight, holding her up atop an impossibly miniature ankle, the foot pumping up and down like a slender piston in the rhythm of her rotation. He couldn’t even breathe, looking at her like this.

He moved like a robot to the kitchenette and set the croissants and the
Boston Globe
on the scrap of empty Formica, and then he headed to the darkroom.

Two days, he told her last night, as they shared an omelet and a pair of vodka gimlets for dinner. She had two days to decide what she wanted to do. She was still in shock from the coffee shop robbery, after all. She had to think about this carefully. Rationally. With a cool head. The stakes were high. Her entire life, in fact. She realized that, didn’t she?

Oh yes,
she’d said. Her eyes gleamed.

Fine, then. She could sleep in his room, he told her. He’d take the sofa and a blanket.

The loneliest damned night of his life, including the ones he’d slept in the jungle.

He found his camera, his flash. The morning light didn’t reach the living room, which faced west. He’d need his fastest film, to catch those flashing legs. Or maybe the blur would look even better. Capture that floating quality in her movement.

She was still dancing when he returned, but she caught sight of him this time, or else the sight of him actually registered on her brain, and she stopped almost midleap.

He lifted the camera. “No, keep going.”

“I can’t with you standing there, taking pictures.”

“Pretend I’m not here.”

She walked over to the record player, lifted the arm, and switched off the turntable.

“Nice shirt,” he said.

“I’m sorry. Do you mind?”

“Not at all. It suits you. I don’t suppose any of my trousers will fit?”

She laughed. She was still facing the record player, one hand on the edge of the box. “Not a chance. I made coffee.”

“Good. I brought breakfast. I hope you like croissants.” He replaced the lens cap, set down the camera, and headed for the kitchenette.

“You bought croissants?” She pronounced the word with a marked Parisian accent.

“You seem like the croissant kind of girl. Was I wrong?”

“No.” She laughed again. “I like croissants. Here, I’ll pour the coffee.”

She came up behind him while he reached for the plates, faintly humid with exercise, breathing quickly. The mugs were on the top shelf. He pulled down a pair and handed them to her, trying not to breathe her in too deeply. In the absence of perfume, she smelled of skin and female perspiration, and a familiar scent he recognized as his own laundry soap. The combination unnerved him.

“Thank you,” she said, taking the mugs and filling them from the shiny stainless-steel percolator, the only object he’d bought new for the apartment. “I hope you like it strong.”

“Black and thick.”

“I thought so.” She handed him his mug and opened the Frigidaire for the milk. He had to turn away, at the sight of Tiny Doe’s half-dressed limbs poised in front of his icebox light. She moved about his kitchenette without the slightest self-consciousness, adding milk and sugar to her coffee, stirring, joining him at the little table with her breakfast. The shirt, thank God, was buttoned almost to the collar. “Thank you for running out so early,” she said.

“I was up.”

“Oh, was that you, thumping up and down the stairs? I had to put my head under the pillow.”

He shrugged. “Morning exercise. Why didn’t you let me take the picture?”

“I don’t like having my picture taken. I never have.” She tore off a section of croissant with unnecessary vigor.

“What, are you part Indian?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Well, some of them don’t like having their pictures taken, apparently. Because if you capture an image of someone, it’s like you’ve taken a part of his soul. Or so I’m told.”

She lifted the mug of coffee to her lips. “Well, they’re right. That’s exactly how I feel.”

“What if I promise to give you the prints afterward? And the negatives?”

“Then what’s the point of it? For you, I mean.”

“Just to see if I can do it, I guess. Capture you, capture the essence of the dancing. On film.”

“And why do you want to do that?”

He finished his croissant and swallowed it down with a gulp of coffee. “Because it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

Her long fingers went still around her coffee mug. She stared down at them, at the coffee, brown and milky. “Me, or the dancing?”

“Both.”

She made a choking sound.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean . . .”

“No! No. Thank you. It’s a very nice compliment.”

“It’s not a compliment. It’s just . . .” He’d finished his croissant, his coffee, too. Tiny sat with her head bowed, across from him. He rose and took his empty dishes to the sink. “It’s just what I thought, when I came in. That’s all.”

“Well, thank you for telling me.”

“Don’t thank me.”

His belly rumbled softly. He was still hungry; a single croissant and a cup of coffee didn’t go far when you’d already pushed your body to the far limits of human endurance by six o’clock in the morning.

“Would you like the rest of my croissant?” Tiny asked quietly.

“No, thank you.”

“Well, if you’ve been climbing stairs all morning, when any sane person would be lying asleep in his bed, you’re going to need some protein, aren’t you?” She rose from her chair. “I’ll make eggs.”

“You don’t need to . . .”

But she was already bustling about the kitchenette, dragging a pan out of the miniature cupboard, jerking open the Frigidaire door. He stood back against the wall and watched her, arms folded, while she beat the eggs with a vengeful fork and added milk.

“The secret is to cook them slowly,” she said, “and keep stirring.”

“You don’t say.”

“Sometimes—” Her voice caught. “Sometimes I put in a little cheese, at the end.”

“I’m not sure I have any cheese.”

“Well, you should. It’s a—” Again. “It’s a staple.”

She stirred the eggs quietly. At one point she lifted her left arm and brushed the cuff against her eyes, a furtive gesture. She was so small and graceful, hovering domestically over his breakfast. So vulnerable in his laundered white shirt, buttoned all the way up to the collar. Her thighs were peach-pale and firm beneath the hem.

Cap rested his head back against the wall and thought,
I’m falling in love with you.

“What was that?” Tiny turned her head, and he realized he’d whispered the words aloud.

“Nothing.”

He ate his eggs standing up, drinking another cup of coffee. Tiny refilled her own cup and nibbled a few bites of scrambled egg, straight from the pan, sitting at the table.

“Good idea,” he said. “You need to eat, too. All that dancing.”

“I know.”

He placed the empty plate in the sink. “Listen. I’m going to go out for a bit. Take some pictures. Bring back a few groceries. I think you need some time to yourself.”

“I was going to suggest the same thing, actually.” She wiped her mouth with a paper napkin. “Do you have any writing paper? I thought I’d start by writing a letter to him. Letters to both the families.”

He turned on the faucet and reached for the dish soap. “You’ve decided, then?”

“Yes. I think I have. I slept on it, like you said. And I woke up feeling exactly the same way as yesterday.”

“Which is?”

“That I’ve been happier in the past twenty-four hours than I have in the past twenty-four years.”

She appeared beside him, without warning, and set the pan and her empty cup in the enamel sink, right next to his. She went on: “Freer. More myself. As if I’ve finally figured out what I really want from life. What’s really important, and it’s not
being
important. Or being married to someone important, which according to my mother is the same thing, only better, because you don’t have to do all the work yourself.” She laughed. “Anyway, I don’t have to send the letters until I’m ready, right? And then . . .” She picked up a dish towel and took the wet plate from his hands.

“Then what?”

“Well, that’s where you come in. Show me how to disappear, so they can’t find me and try to change my mind.”

“Tiny, I have to report for duty in two weeks. I’ll be heading out to Indochina. Do you know where that is? How far? Playing hide-and-seek with Vietcong for another year. This nice little strip of land on the Laos border, a real paradise, eight thousand miles away.”

Eight thousand miles away
. The words, now that he said them, sounded inconceivably distant. Eight thousand miles away from Boston. Eight thousand miles away from Tiny Doe, dancing in his white shirt, stirring his eggs.

“Caspian, really.” She wiped the mugs dry and set them back in the cupboard, side by side. “Cool your jets. I’m not asking you to marry me, for God’s sake. I just need a little—I don’t know, whatever you call it, in the army—tactical assistance. And maybe some moral support.”

He unplugged the drain and dried his hands. “Are you sure you need it?”

“Well, you’re the one who’s done this already, aren’t you? You’ve escaped. Made your own life. I could use a tip or two from an expert.” She flicked the dishcloth at him. “Now, off with you. Go wander around Boston and take your marvelous pictures. I’ll be just fine.”

She looked up at him with those huge brown eyes, and he no longer wanted to wander the city and take pictures of bums and street corners and swan boats. He wanted to stay right here.

Tiny reached up and touched the corner of his mouth with her dishcloth. Wiped away some particle of breakfast. “That wouldn’t be wise, though, would it?”

This time, he was sure he hadn’t said the words aloud.

“Off you go,” she said. “I mean it. I promise I’ll be here when you get back.”

He levered himself away from the wall and went to put his camera in its bag, his film, his extra flash, his notebook, his dog-eared copy of
The Mayor of Casterbridge
, nearly finished. “Don’t mess with my darkroom,” he said, hoisting the bag over his shoulder.

“Wouldn’t dream of it. And, Caspian?”

He paused at the door. “Yes?”

“I might let you take my picture, when you get back.”