The blender isn’t purring, the grill isn’t smoking; there isn’t a drink in sight, not even iced tea. Kate is holding tight to her principles. They are a family in mourning; no one will enjoy himself. Blair’s not sure how she’ll explain that she and the children have just been to the Sweet Shoppe, though perhaps Kate has already announced this. Perhaps everyone has been discussing Blair’s blasphemy, her loosened morals since getting divorced.
Tiger moves to the edge of the patio to light a cigarette and he’s joined by a dark-haired gentleman wearing a white polo, madras shorts, and Wayfarer sunglasses.
Blair’s heart isn’t frozen after all because suddenly, it revs like a race car engine. She will be taking a ride in that Porsche later, her face raised to the night sky, her hair streaming out behind her.
It’s Joey Whalen, Angus’s little brother, who was Blair’s boyfriend before (and after) she met Angus.
“How about that, my darlings,” Blair says. “Your uncle is here.”
3. Sad Eyes
Magee hasn’t stopped crying since Exalta died and finally, on the morning of the funeral, Tiger realizes he can’t ignore it any longer. This isn’t normal, run-of-the-mill grief. Something else is going on with his wife.
They’re in their summer bedroom, getting dressed. Kate has okayed navy blazers instead of suits for men. Tiger is still in just khaki pants and an undershirt. Magee is in her slip, her hair in the pink spongy rollers she sleeps in when she wants waves. She’s sobbing into Tiger’s pajama top, presumably so no one else in the house will hear her.
“Mags,” he says, sitting next to her on the end of the bed. “What’s wrong?”
She raises her face and her sweet, soft pink bottom lip quivers. “I can’t believe you have to ask that. Your. Grandmother. Is. Dead.”
Tiger is careful how he proceeds. Yes, Exalta is dead. Exalta was sick for months, her internal organs shutting down one after another, like someone shutting the lights off in a house before bed. It wasn’t a violent death or even gruesome and it wasn’t a surprise. Exalta was eighty-four years old. Tiger watched men die nearly every day in Vietnam, some of those “men” only eighteen years old, some still virgins. Exalta had lived a full and privileged life. She had known love not only with Tiger’s grandfather, Pennington Nichols, but also with Mr. Crimmins. She had one child, four grandchildren, two great-grandchildren—with more, presumably, on the way.
This, Tiger knows, is the real reason Magee is crying. She and Tiger will have been married for nine years next month and although they’ve been trying since day one, they haven’t been able to conceive a child.
At first, they were too busy to notice. When Tiger got home from his tour, he was eligible to inherit his trust from Exalta. The first thing he did was to buy a house in Holliston, thirty miles southwest of Boston. The house had been built in the 1840s. It was three stories and had plenty of charm—five bedrooms and a finished playroom in the attic. (In retrospect, Tiger wonders if buying such a big house wasn’t what jinxed them.)
The second thing Tiger did was to open a bowling alley on the Holliston-Sherborn line called Tiger Lanes. Tiger had spent countless hours in-country dreaming about the perfect bowling alley. He would have twelve state-of-the-art lanes on one side of the building and a pinball arcade on the other, with a soda fountain and snack bar in the middle. There would be music and party lights. It would be a hangout for teenagers and adults alike, a place to bridge the widening generation gap. He would start a Tiger Lanes bowling league for veterans.
Tiger is aware that he was lucky to come home not only in one piece physically, but one piece mentally. Lots of veterans found themselves at loose ends. They were traumatized, they’d become drug addicts, they’d become adrenaline addicts, in search of the high that was part of being on the front lines. When every day was a struggle to stay alive, coming home to conveniences like ten kinds of bread at the supermarket and Johnny Carson every night at eleven felt like trying to sleep in a bed that was too soft. Where was the action, the danger, the purpose? Some soldiers came home from thirteen hellish months of defending the ideals of American democracy only to be spit upon, harassed, and called “baby killers.”
None of this happened to Tiger, but that didn’t mean he was unaffected by the war. He’d watched his best friends, Puppy and Frog, get blown to bits. They didn’t have a chance to make something of their lives, but Tiger did and he’d be damned if he was going to waste it. He would be enough of a success and make enough positive change in the world for all of them—Puppy, Frog, and every other American serviceman and woman who died in Vietnam.
Tiger bought a defunct shoe factory and transformed it into the first Tiger Lanes. It was such a surprising success that Tiger opened a second location in Franklin the following year—followed by one in Needham and one in Mansfield. He then opened the grandest of them all, a flagship with twenty lanes, a disco floor, and a full bar, in Newton. At that point, Tiger sold the five-bedroom in Holliston and bought a brick center-entrance colonial in Wellesley that had four bedrooms and a finished basement rec room with shag carpeting and a wet bar. The house also had a detached two-car garage where Tiger kept his Trans Am and Magee’s hot rod, a Datsun 240Z.
Magee still worked as a dental hygienist for Dr. Brezza in Waltham. She’d been working there since Tiger met her, and she told Tiger she would only leave once she got pregnant.
There had been some tense discussions—spurred by visits to Tiger’s parents—about Magee’s job being the reason why they didn’t yet have a baby. Kate Levin felt that Magee should stay home and develop a nurturing side. She should do the things that mothers did—go to the salon, volunteer, redecorate, take a pottery class at the community center. Kate privately asked Tiger if it wasn’t difficult for poor Magee to clean the teeth of sixteen children per day, none of whom were her own? And how did she handle the busybody mothers, who must be wondering when Magee would have good news to share?
Magee held up to Kate surprisingly well. She loved her job, loved her patients, loved Dr. Brezza. There had been one agonizing moment when Tiger wondered if maybe Magee actually loved Dr. Brezza—maybe they were having an affair and Magee was secretly on the pill so as not to become pregnant with Dr. Brezza’s baby. When Tiger came home (after a few too many beers following the Vietnam Veterans Bowling League championship) and asked Magee if this were the case, she crumpled.
She wasn’t having an affair with Dr. Brezza or anyone else. She loved Tiger, she wanted a baby with Tiger more than she wanted to breathe. She didn’t know what was wrong. She didn’t drink, didn’t smoke, and didn’t take Quaaludes like so many other Wellesley women did.
Magee quit her job and gave Kate’s method a try. She joined the Ladies’ Auxiliary, audited an anatomy class at Pine Manor, learned to roller skate because she heard it was good for physical fitness.
When there was still no sign of a baby, Magee agreed to see a doctor. Magee’s own mother had a theory that radiation from all of the mouth X-rays that Magee administered had somehow fried her insides. Magee knew this wasn’t the case but she submitted herself to a complete physical exam at the Brigham nonetheless, which involved a lot of poking and prodding both of Magee’s body and her psyche. Magee waited three days for the results of the exam—all she could think of was Jennifer Cavalleri in Love Story learning that she had leukemia—but when the call finally came, it was with the news that she was in perfect working condition.
Then it was Tiger’s turn. He’d been at war. He could have been exposed to chemicals or gases that affected his sperm count or motility. And so he went to the Brigham as well and gave the doctor a specimen (that was weird) but his sperm count was high, his swimmers veritable Olympians.
The problem then became that there was no problem. The problem was lack of patience and high expectations. The problem was that sex stopped feeling like a natural manifestation of Tiger’s love for his wife and more like a test he was failing. Magee started going to the public library to resea
rch fertility issues. There were options—medical procedures, drugs—that could be pursued right there in Boston, right at the Brigham! The science, Magee said, was remarkable. A baby had been conceived in a test tube!
Tiger didn’t want his child conceived in a laboratory. Call him old-fashioned, call him stodgy, but he’d rather adopt one of the millions of children orphaned in Vietnam than be subjected to “drugs” and “procedures.”
Before Magee could get too carried away, life intervened. Exalta got a head cold that turned into pneumonia. Before she was fully recovered, she suffered a minor stroke and became bedridden. Bill Crimmins was good for hand-holding, but not much else. Kate was alternately too worried and too impatient to be helpful and so she looked into hiring private nurses but it was very expensive for round-the-clock care. Magee saw a chance to put to use all the love and attention she had been storing up for their future children. She spent countless hours caring for Exalta. She fed her soft foods, made sure she took her pills, read to her, plumped her pillows, sat with her through endless episodes of The Flying Nun, consulted with Exalta’s doctor over the phone and with the night nurse each morning.
Now that Exalta is gone, so is Magee’s newfound purpose. And what’s left is not only Exalta’s absence, but the absence of a baby as well. Tiger gets it.
He hasn’t been inside a church in over ten years. Even when he and Magee got married, it was outside on the front lawn of his parents’ Nantucket home. He can’t quite explain why he’s avoided it. He certainly has a lot to be grateful for—his success in business; his beautiful, devoted wife; hell, the mere fact that he’s alive. A lot of guys Tiger knew in the war became either atheists or born-again Christians. If there’s one thing Tiger learned, it’s that God doesn’t live in a church. For Tiger, God lives in the shaking hands of a US Air Force fighter pilot who needs Tiger to tie his bowling shoes but who can, somehow, send a ten-pound ball down the boards for a strike. God is in the illuminated windows of Tiger’s neighborhood, homes occupied by Americans who are safe and sound inside, enjoying pot roast and Donny & Marie. God is in the Firestone tires of Tiger’s Trans Am, in the gravelly voice of Wolfman Jack on the radio, in four-year-old Joey Bell from down the street who saluted when Tiger marched past in the Memorial Day parade. God is in the glove of Carlton Fisk. God is in the ocean as seen from the windows of their summer bedroom.
God is in all these places, so why would Tiger—or anyone—need to go to church?
Well, today he needs to go so his mother doesn’t wallop him. She spies him smoking outside the front door of St. Paul’s Episcopal and, perhaps, suspects that he’d like to skip the service altogether because she plucks the cigarette from his mouth and grinds it out beneath the sole of her black slingback heel.
“Get inside,” she says, “and pray for your grandmother.”
“Too late now,” Tiger deadpans. Then, he grins. Will his mother find this funny?
Kate shakes her head before letting a fraction of a smile slip. “Pray for yourself, then. And your sainted wife.”
Maybe he should go inside and pray for a baby, he thinks. It couldn’t hurt.
4. Heart of Glass
With Exalta’s death, Kate is now the matriarch of the family. Alongside her deep sorrow, she feels a rush of power, of agency. There’s no one left to please, no one left to placate, no one left to impress.
There is no one left to judge her.
She’s free.
“Is it horrible to feel this way?” Kate whispers to David in the car. “I loved her…”
“You worshipped her,” David says.
“I respected her…”
“You revered her…”
“I even liked her at times.”
“She was a great deal easier to deal with once we bought our own house,” David says. “And once she and Bill got together.”
Bill Crimmins, yes. Kate owes a tremendous debt to Bill—not only for four decades of service to their family and the house but for the past ten years as Exalta’s companion. In her will, Exalta granted Bill lifetime rights to All’s Fair and Little Fair. Only when Bill dies will Exalta’s Nantucket home pass to Kate. This was an appropriate gesture, and yet Kate can’t help but worry that Bill will mend his relationship with his daughter, Lorraine, who is responsible for every bit of heartbreak Kate has known in her life, and Lorraine Crimmins will end up spending time, maybe even entire summers, in All’s Fair.
Bill Crimmins wouldn’t encourage this, certainly. However, if Lorraine discovers—from one of her former chums at Bosun’s Locker, let’s say—that Exalta has died and Bill has been granted residency, and decides to simply show up, would Bill have the willpower to turn her away?
Kate fears the answer is no. So many of us are powerless when it comes to our own children.
Kate tries to push all unpleasant thoughts from her mind in order to be properly attentive during the service. She, David, and Mr. Crimmins sit with the twins in the first pew, while Kate’s four children and Magee sit behind them.
Exalta wanted zero frills. Straightforward service, no poetry, no eulogizing, no dreadful receiving line where Kate and the children would have to, in Exalta’s words, “listen to everyone lie about what a wonderful woman I was.”
Reverend Meeker conducts a proper mass (without communion, also Exalta’s choice), and during his rather bland homily, Kate’s mind wanders. Exalta built an extraordinary family, although really, it was Kate, Exalta’s only child, who built it. She had her first three children with Lt. Wilder Foley and then, once Wilder confessed to an affair with Lorraine Crimmins, got Lorraine pregnant, and shot himself, Kate married David Levin and had Jessie.
Each of her four children has something that sets them apart. Blair has the twins, Kirby the glamour, Tiger the money, and Jessie the smarts.
They also each have problems. Blair is divorced, Kirby wild. Tiger and Magee can’t seem to conceive. And Jessie—well, Jessie is a long way, still, from being settled.
Reverend Meeker lifts his palms to the sky. They stand for the creed, segue into prayers, and sing the final hymn—“I Am the Bread of Life”—then await the benediction. Exalta’s casket is so close to Kate, she can reach out and touch it, but Kate doesn’t feel even the faintest vestiges of her mother’s spirit hovering. To haunt one’s own funeral, Exalta might say, just isn’t done. Better to make a complete and graceful exit. Think of me fondly, but for heaven’s sake, don’t cry.
Kate doesn’t cry. Exalta raised her sensibly. However, Kate does notice Mr. Crimmins pulling a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbing at his eyes, which is sweet. Magee’s muffled sobs are less so, though understandable considering how much time she spent with Exalta at the end. One of Exalta’s last clear-minded quips to Kate was a sotto voce comment after Magee left Exalta’s bedside to go fetch Exalta some tapioca pudding.
I see I have a new best friend, Exalta said.
All in all, Kate is relieved when the service is over—and even more relieved once the casket is lowered into the ground in the cemetery on Hummock Pond Road and the rich, fresh dirt is smoothed over the top. Gennie squeezes Kate’s hand so tightly she nearly fuses Kate’s fingers. Cemeteries are scary for children; nobody likes to think about being put in a box and buried for all eternity. Kate nearly says, “We can come visit Grand-Nonny here whenever you want,” but she doesn’t want Gennie to think for one second that Exalta is actually here—and so she says nothing at all.
Kate can’t get to the Field and Oar Club fast enough. She’s in desperate need of a drink.
She sucks down a Mount Gay and tonic—this has been the favorite cocktail at the club in recent years—and makes sure that all four of her children are present and accounted for on the lawn between the clubhouse and the waterfront before she begins the odious business of socializing. It’s a brilliant day with deep blue skies and a tennis wind—enough to be refreshing but not so strong that you wished you were out sailing. There seem to be more people at the reception than were
at the church, and isn’t that just typical of their set—skip church, how dull, and choose instead to pay respects over cocktails and the lunch buffet on someone else’s chit.
Kate sees Bitsy Dunscombe step onto the brick patio with her second husband, Arturo, her identical twins, Heather and Helen, and their husbands. Heather and Helen are Jessie’s age, twenty-three, they both went to Briarcliffe, and are both new housewives of just under a year. Bitsy and her loathsome first husband, Ward Dunscombe, threw the twins a double wedding here at the club last July. Kate and David had attended, mainly because Bitsy declared it would be the “wedding of the decade,” and Kate had wanted to see what that looked like. For Kate the best part of the wedding wasn’t the girls in matching dresses—they looked lovely, though the double vision came across as something of a sideshow spectacle—but rather when Bitsy’s first husband and second husband had a fistfight in the parking lot. By all accounts, it was Ward who threw the first punch (he was a notoriously nasty drunk) but, alas, it was Arturo who had gotten posted. Ward was the sixth wealthiest man on Nantucket and was a lifelong member of the Field and Oar, whereas Arturo was a Panamanian national who came to the island to work as a waiter at the Opera House restaurant.
Technically, Arturo isn’t allowed to set foot in the club, but Kate won’t say a word. It’s a funeral.
“Kate,” Bitsy says, her arms open in a V and her head cocked back. “I’m so sorry for your loss. Exalta was one of a kind.”
These are probably the nicest words Bitsy could say about Exalta without lying, because for seventy-four of her eighty-four years, Exalta was imperious, judgmental, and cold. That she had thawed so late in life was the only thing that kept today from being a celebration. Ding-dong, the witch is dead.
Summer of '79: A Summer of '69 Story Page 3
