Tiny Little Thing (29 page)

Pepper looks at Major Harrison. “You’re not going to stop them?”

He shakes his head. He looks as if someone has just inserted a metal claw into his chest and torn apart his rib cage, bone by bone. He bends to turn the fallen chair upright and throws his uncle into the seat.

Mrs. Schuyler, a little unsteady herself, eases her posterior into the chair Tiny has just vacated. She wants a cigarette, but she’s left her pocketbook somewhere. She crosses her legs and drums her fingers on the desk to disguise the trembling.

“Mr. Hardcastle,” she says, “I believe you said something about photographs.”

The look he returns her is thick with hostility. “Yes, I did. Obscene ones, taken by some dirty photographer, and that little whore Josephine found them—”

“I took those photographs,” says Major Harrison. “They’re mine. I want them back.”

“
You
took them?”

Major Harrison puts his hand back around the crumpled apex of Hardcastle’s collar. The scar on his forehead shines white against his tanned skin. “I want them back, Uncle Franklin. Now.”

“You took
those
photographs?”

“That’s what I said.”

There is a long, cold silence.

“You fucking bastard,” Hardcastle says. “Your own cousin. You little—”

Harrison tightens his hand and leans down to Hardcastle’s ear. “I
want
them
back
.” He pronounces each word as if it deserves its own sentence.

“You bastard. You’re not getting them back. And if Frank can’t get his wife back under control, if she breathes a single word of any of this, if
any
of you do—”

Major Harrison jerks back on the collar. “I’ll kill you. Do you think I won’t? I’ll hunt you down. I’ll—”

“For God’s sake,” says Mrs. Schuyler. Her fingers have stopped trembling now, thank God. Maybe that was the trick. You didn’t need a cigarette or a drink; you just needed to wait it out. “Enough of this ridiculous man talk. This nonsense about killing and hunting. You’re making my head ache. Franklin, my dear, give the fellow back his photographs, please.”

Hardcastle looks at her as if she’s crazy. As if she’s just commanded him to row down the Charles River in his tidy white briefs. His skin is really too flushed, she thinks. Drinks too much. It’s a fine line between one too many, and just plain too much.

Trust her, she knows.

“You heard the lady,” says Pepper. “Give her the snaps.”

“And? I haven’t got all day.” Mrs. Schuyler taps her watch, the old gold Cartier her husband, Charles, gave her for Christmas, just after Tiny was born. Her favorite.

“I’m not going to give you the photographs, Vivian,” he says. “You can threaten me all you like with your thugs—”

“Major Harrison is not my thug.” She offers up a smile to the major’s green-steel eyes. “Though he’s welcome to the position, if he likes. There’s always an opening.”

“You’re wasting your time,” says Hardcastle, smooth-voiced and resonant. The Venetian stripes lie like prison bars against his skin. He’s still bleeding from her stiletto, and Major Harrison holds him by the scruff of the neck, but he talks like he’s won the game, like he’s won the set and match. He talks like a world champion, like someone who doesn’t know what it means to lose.

Ah, but that’s not really true, is it?

He
does
know. He’s lost before. A real heartbreaker.

Mrs. Schuyler smiles again, a different kind of smile. She wishes she could draw this moment out to an infinite length, that she could spend the rest of her life luxuriating in the anticipation of what comes next. After all, she’s worked hard for it. Lunches here and cocktails there, friendly little favors performed and confidences shared and pathways smoothed, until she finally drew out what she wanted. She had what she needed. She had insurance.

Because you never know when you might need insurance, one fine August day.

“My dear Franklin,” she says. “When was the last time you spoke to your ex-wife?”

He blinks. “My ex-wife?”

“We are such dear, dear friends, Liz and I.” Mrs. Schuyler leans forward across the desk and takes Hardcastle’s cold hand between her fingers. “In fact, she tells me everything. She told me, for instance, why her marriage ended. Such a sordid little story. I was appalled. And then she told me how much you had to give her to keep her mouth shut.”

Hardcastle’s face turns a slow shade of white.

To his left, Pepper bursts out into the brightest laughter. She leans her hip on the desk and laughs and laughs and laughs.

W
hen I saw Frank deliver that commencement address at Harvard, all those years ago, I knew he’d be president one day. I just knew. You could see his future lie about his shoulders like a mantle; you watched his destiny beam from his eyeballs. In the gleam of his teeth, you caught a flicker of elation. He spoke, and you flew into the air, carried along by the breath of his optimism, by his jaunty vigor, by the words that assured
You are good; we are greater; we can do this together
.

I remember how the sun shone down on his hair that day, the halo of promising gold, and I think of it now as I stand by his side on the ballroom stage at the Copley Plaza Hotel, gazing at him with all the rapture of a wife whose husband has just been elected representative of the 8th District of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to the 90th Congress of the United States of America.

Below us, the audience of campaign donors and staffers and journalists and friends stands on its feet and beats a crescendo of triumphant applause. I can’t see them very well; the lights are too bright on my face, the flashbulbs too blinding. The air is packed with cologne and cigarettes and nervous perspiration, and the orchestra behind us is playing “America the Beautiful,” heavy on the trumpets, terribly stirring. Frank’s hand squeezes mine, dry and confident. His jacket is off; his shirtsleeves are rolled up. He’s just loosened the knot of his red silk necktie. It’s half past ten at night, and Frank Hardcastle is ready to get down to business.

He looks down at me, smiles, and bends his head to kiss me on the lips. The audience roars. It’s just the two of us up there, the brand-new congressman and his glossy wife. Frank’s father wasn’t invited. Josephine and Scott have left the campaign. (We made a deal, Josephine and me: I agreed not to prosecute her for blackmail, and Josephine agreed to donate her new diamond stud earrings to a charity auction for the families of wounded soldiers.) I’m wearing a patriotic liberty-blue cocktail dress and a pair of small pearl earrings. I’ve gained back most of the weight I lost in August, and I suppose I look a little more robust now, not quite as liable to be flung up into the power lines by a stray gust of early November wind.

“Thank you, darling,” Frank whispers in my ear, and I return the squeeze of his hand.

He turns back to the audience and holds up his other hand, his right hand, the one that’s not holding mine. The masses simmer down before us. Frank leans into the microphone. “Thank you,” he says, and his voice is magnified, eight thousand times richer and more presidential than the thank-you he just delivered into my ear. Like he really means it. Thank you, everyone. Thank you for your support, for your belief in me. I couldn’t have done it without you
.

There is another surge of applause, and Frank holds up his hand to quell it. The flashbulbs pop against his forehead. His face contains just the right mixture of confidence and humility. Yes, you voted for me, you supported me; you wonderful folks, you; but I deserved it. I deserve your vote and your support, because I’m just a little bit better than you, aren’t I? Smarter, more eloquent, better-looking. I’m Franklin Hardcastle, and I can solve the world’s problems, if you’ll just give me that chance, ladies and gentlemen.

And you know what? Maybe he can.

•   •   •

B
y the time Frank reaches the suite upstairs, I’ve already showered and changed out of my liberty-blue cocktail dress. The dewiness of my skin feels newly born. I haven’t touched a drink tonight; no, not a sip of champagne, not a single stray puff from a sneaky cigarette. I want to be fresh and clearheaded. I want to remember every minute.

He says good night to the bodyguard (there is a bodyguard now) and his chief of staff (there is a chief of staff now) and closes the door behind him. His smile dims a little as he gazes at me. I rise from the edge of the bed, in all my glory.

“You were wonderful,” I say. “I was so proud. I
am
proud. You did it.”

“We
did it.” He walks up to me, takes my hand, and kisses it. His hair is still sleek and undisturbed; not a single lock falls forward. “I couldn’t have done it without you. Thank you. I mean that.”

“I told you I’d see it through to the election.”

“You did. You’re a trouper, Tiny.” He kisses my hand again. “Every moment. Like that dress you wore tonight, I couldn’t take my eyes off you, nobody could. You charmed them, you won them over. Like you were born for it.”

His blue eyes drown me with admiration, and I bask in it, I really do, because how can you resist the admiration in Frank Hardcastle’s blue eyes? When all that razzle-dazzle is focused straight on you, igniting your skin, bang kaboom. His other hand touches my waist, warm and secure, the way a husband touches his loyal wife at the end of a triumphant day, a landmark day, the day he’s elected to national office by the people of Massachusetts.

I slip my fingers out of his grip and step away. His hand falls to his side.

“But I’m not, Frank. I
wasn’t
born for it. I wasn’t born for you. We both know that.”

Frank closes his eyes and sighs toward the carpet.

I say, “I’m sorry. I made a mistake, that’s all. I thought I was one thing, and it turned out I was another. A better thing, I like to imagine.”

“Well, I wish I could have changed your mind. I wish I could have deserved you.”

“Frank, it’s not me you have to deserve. It’s
them,
the people who elected you. I promised I wouldn’t serve the papers until after the election, and I kept that promise. So now it’s your turn. You have two years to prove that you’re the only thing that matters, that you can be who you are and still do the job they’ve given you. Two years. My gift to you, for doing the right thing and sticking up for me in that clinic. And now I’m sticking up for myself.”

He opens his eyes and takes my hand again, the left hand. He studies the empty space, where my wedding ring used to sit, until half an hour ago. The welt is still there, a little red. I catch the scent from his clothes, the gentle waft of cigarettes from the ballroom downstairs.

“I’m grateful,” Frank says. “You didn’t have to do that for me, after what my family did to you. What I did to you.”

“I did, though. I had to square it with myself, that’s just the way I am. I don’t want to look back and regret anything. What if you go on to do some good? To make history? Because you can, you know. You have that power, you’re one of those people. You were born with a rare set of talents. And I can’t go through life wondering whether my mistakes—ours—might somehow have made the world a lesser place.”

“I keep thinking . . .” He pats my hand between his. “I keep thinking, I can’t help it, if only we’d had that baby, after all. You know what I mean? Because if you had a baby—”

“You would still be the same person, Frank. A baby wouldn’t have changed
you.
It would only have changed me.”

“But maybe we would have tried harder to make it work. Don’t you think? If we had a baby counting on us, on the two of us.”

“But we didn’t, Frank. We lost that chance. So I have no one to act for except myself, and this is how I choose to act. I choose to leave you.”

He still holds my left hand, not quite ready to give me up. His eyes are soft and pleading, in a way that’s become familiar to me, over the past few painful months of confession and remorse and resolve. His and mine. The new Frank, replacing the old. Or maybe it’s just the old Frank, the
real
Frank, emerging beneath the one I married. I hope so, anyway. I hope he emerges from this a better man, a man of integrity, the man I kept glimpsing but couldn’t find. I hope he doesn’t waste this parting gift of mine.

“There’s nothing I can do to change your mind?” he says.

“There’s nothing you can do. I can’t ask you to be someone you’re not. I hope you won’t expect
me
to become someone I’m not.”

“I do love you, Tiny. It was never that. The honest truth, I love you more than ever. I just wish—”

I rise on my toes and kiss him on the cheek. “I love you, too, Frank. I love you the same way you love me. And I wish you all the best, and if there’s anything I can do for you, even after the divorce, I’ll do it. I’ll stand by you. I’ll always support you.”

He lets go of my hand, and his arms fall around my waist. The room is dark, only a single lamp lit, and we stand there quietly, husband and wife for the last time, embracing in the pool of gentle yellow light. And I think, this is good. This is how it should be. All partings should be like this.

•   •   •

F
ifteen minutes later, I’m driving along the highway in my Cadillac, driving with the top down. The moon is cold and hard above me, not quite full, and the wind smells of frost. I huddle inside my thick wool coat and sing along to Dusty Springfield on the radio.

You know, it wasn’t that bad. At the time, I thought I hated it, the stages and speeches and lights, the pop of unceasing flashbulbs, the parsing of words for reporters, the endless bland phrases. I hated getting up and knowing I had a schedule of events ahead of me, a long day of glossiness. But there were good moments. Talking to people. Laughing with that waitress at the diner in Wellesley, sharing coffee with that housewife who knits beautiful woolen scarves while the kids are at school, to make a little extra on the side. I bought one myself. I’m wearing it now. I hope she buys herself a treat with the money, but she’ll probably get a new winter coat for the oldest boy, sixth grade, who’s growing like bamboo. That’s what women do.

Because you learn things when you talk to people, especially people who aren’t like you. You learn what a goddamned polyglot race we are, we marvelous human beings. Some people are friendly, some people are gruff. Some want security, others want independence. Some want the government to run things; some want to run things on their own. Some people need a helping hand, some people need a kick in the pants. Some want to live and die in the same small town; some want to ramble the wide world. Some are content with little; some cannot stop striving. Some want to lie beside a true love, to worship a single god; some crave a universe of loves, a universe of gods. I could go on and on, the differences between them, between me and you, between you and the woman sitting next to you at the hairdresser, wearing that dress you’d never wear in a million years, reading that book you wouldn’t touch. The genius of politics, of people like Frank, is to link them all, understand them all. To represent them all, not just the ones you agree with. The ones who think and act like you do.

I don’t know. I couldn’t do it. But it was interesting, all the same.

I’m just glad it’s over. This time, for good.

At one o’clock in the morning, the highway is frozen and deserted. It’s just me and Dusty, holdin’ and squeezin’. I can drive as fast as I like, and I do. I race along the acres of bitter pavement as if the past itself is chasing me. The roar of the engine vibrates my marrow; the rush of speed lightens my veins. The salt wind invades my wool hat and numbs my ears. My eyes water a few cold tears. I almost wish I could keep driving forever, that I could draw this moment out to an infinite length. That I could spend the rest of my life luxuriating in the anticipation of what comes next.

At last I round the corner of the drive, and the porch lights illuminate the trees. I’m not cold anymore. My blood is as light as air. A tall figure crosses the glow of the headlamps. He’s opening up the car door almost before I’ve stopped. He reaches inside, sets the brake with one hand, and lifts me up with the other. He places me carefully on the hood. Percy bays for joy at our feet.

“You waited up,” I say.

“You think I could sleep?”

We kiss and kiss while the engine runs; we kiss as if kisses are going out of business. As if a new shipment of kisses has finally arrived, after two and a half years of empty shelves and rationing. Caspian’s warm mouth melts away the coldness in mine. He sinks into the driver’s seat, drawing me on his lap, and shuts off the engine. His fingers touch my cheek, my chin, as reverently as a pilgrim before his idol.

“Let’s go inside,” he says.

The electricity is off for the winter. Caspian’s made a fire in the living room and brought in blankets and pillows.
It’s not the Ritz,
he says, pulling me down, and
I don’t need the Ritz,
I say, cradling his face in my hands,
I just need you
. He says,
And a nice hot fire?
and I say,
Well, that’s lovely too.
And then we stop talking, because while we’ve seen each other regularly at campaign events, he in his uniform and I in my tweed suits and heels, we haven’t held each other, we haven’t kissed each other in two and a half years, and you can’t find any words to describe a longing that deep. You can’t find any words to explain what it means when you hold him and kiss him at last.

Afterward, I get up and make cocoa on the gas stovetop in the kitchen, so Caspian doesn’t have to strap his leg back on. I settle in the crook of his shoulder and think what a pleasure it is, to make midnight cocoa for Caspian while he stretches himself like a wounded lion before the fire and watches me come and go. To hand him his mug, which he accepts gratefully, without any awkward shame. Percy, curled up on a square of red wool blanket next to the hearth, lifts his head from his forelegs, and I swear he smiles at us.

“Did you think I wouldn’t come, after all?” I say.

“No, I knew you would come. I just didn’t believe it until I saw the headlights.”

I love his smell. I love the warmth of his skin beneath my cheek, the solidity of bone and muscle, the safe and soundness of him.

“Is Pepper still here?” I ask.

“She left today. She’s driving to Boston and loading it on the car train to Palm Beach, for the auction.”

“How does the car look?”

“Amazing.” He shakes his head. “I almost cried when she drove it off. The sound of that engine. I’ll hear it in my dreams. Loved that car like my own soul.”

“Almost as much as you love me?”