“Other than losing my father, I think the fall of the Berlin Wall was the defining event in Dylan’s life,” I say, knocking a bright blue ball through a wire hoop. The sheepdog, Velvet, nuzzles her wet nose into my hand. Sinclair feeds her treats from his pocket. “That is the most well-mannered dog I’ve ever seen,” I commend, as Velvet obeys with an impressive comportment.
“Ah, well, TJ would not have it any other way. Velvet has been to doggy finishing school,” he says, knocking a red ball through six consecutive hoops.
“Dylan was never quite as gung-ho about music after that. His interests expanded into the wider concerns of the world.”
“I see him one day running for political office,” Sinclair predicts. He sneaks up behind me, and gives me some hands-on coaching in croquet.
“I wouldn’t be surprised. Everything he touches turns to gold.”
“A modern-day Midas. I inherited all my millions, but Dylan earned his.”
I don’t know if it was the tepid review of Dylan’s second album, or that he simply grew bored with the decadent lifestyles of the rock music world, but he seemed to lose interest in music after that. Dylan is not one to let grass grow under his feet, and with his financial background and his scrupulous discipline and daring, he parlayed his small fortune into a substantial one, starting an internet company, and becoming one of the first dot com millionaires. He then rolled it all over into double digit millions. Last year he bought a restaurant with Brandon, and a vineyard, and an apartment in Soho.
“He and Brandon flipped a coin to see who would get to name the restaurant, and, of course, Dylan won. He is christening it Haley’s Comet next month.”
“In deference to the one who made it all possible,” Sinclair says, with a measure of irony. “Perhaps that’s his small way of saying thank you. Has he ever thanked you, for the sacrifice you made?”
“That’s not Dylan’s style. But he has supported Mom and I in a lifestyle I could never have dreamed of, so perhaps that’s his way.”
“A modern day Isabel Archer,” Sinclair decides, in reference to the beautiful home and vast travels about the globe that Dylan has financed for Mom and myself. As his fortune grew, he made sure that Mom and I wanted for nothing.
“Yes, complete with my own fortune hunter of a husband,” I sass, of my short-lived marriage that imploded in its second year.
“Ah, let’s not talk of that. That was not happy,” Sinclair quotes Ralph Touchett.
Two white-gloved servants arrive with a bistro table and chairs so that we might take tea without having to break from our game. The male servant in waistcoat shakes out a white linen tablecloth and lays it with finesse across the table, while the other holds a sizeable silver tray arrayed with tea and sweets.
“My ex-husband was determined to make me miserable in his fight for half my money, and then suddenly he backed off. I have an inkling that Dylan paid him off.”
“Or threatened to break his legs.”
I giggle. “That would be the Brooklyn way.” I imagine Dylan and his ragtag but true-blue friends from the old neighborhood paying my Ex a visit.
“Dylan’s guilt must be great to be doing such penance.”
“Dylan has always been fiercely protective of me,” though I’m wondering if there is some truth in Sinclair’s assessment.
“TJ has trained them well,” Sinclair quips of the perfectly choreography of the servants. “If it were up to me, I’d let them lie about drinking whiskey and playing croquet all day. I can’t quite get comfortable with the notion of being waited upon.” Sinclair sidles up alongside me, to demonstrate with his own mallet, a proper swing.
We break for tea, and I tell Sinclair how we finally convinced Mom to move into the big house on Dylan’s vineyard out east, how Dylan and I discovered that Mom’s reluctance to leave the old house was because of the apple tree that she and Dad had planted in the backyard the year Dylan was born. Dylan had the tree dug up with a crane by professional landscapers, transported on a mammoth flatbed, and replanted on the vineyard, where it shades the north window of Mom’s bedroom.
“Dylan renovated the upstairs of the Carriage House, with honey-colored wooden floors and butter yellow walls that hold the sunlight, the sort of writing loft I’d always dreamt of.”
“To make up for the loft you gave up,” he says.
After my passionate night with Evan, our bond seemed secured in a way that nothing else could. I moved home to be with my family, and he moved home to be with his, embarking on a business idea inspired by his younger sister, a miniature horse farm, which turned out to be quite lucrative. He wrote often, and called even more. He renovated an old barn into a place for us to live, with the top floor a spacious writing studio for me. He sent photographs of it to me in letters written in his endearing penmanship that was a messy mix of print and script.
“Ah, what went wrong?” Sinclair says dreamily, his gaze ascending up to the sky, as he stretches his legs before him and sinks comfortably into his chair, holding his teacup to his lips. This is not a question.
“Why did I do it?” I say, another rhetorical question. Why indeed.
“There are things we do sometimes, that are a mystery, even to us.”
Perhaps a part of me knew that it was impossible for us to be together. We were a couple, although a long-distance one. And then, inexplicably, I cut Evan off.
“Maybe I thought if I cut off contact with him, that it would move him to do something drastic, he would run after me, that he would come back to New York for good.”
Sinclair rubs his hand across his face, where a five o’clock shadow has settled onto his square chin, and looks at me with great sympathy.
“I’ll tell you something I’ve never told anyone,” I say, bracing myself with a gulp of Earl Grey. “Everyone thinks it was the distance, and the circumstances, that broke us up. But it was something else. Evan and I spoke all the time on the phone, but one day I began to feel some sort of shift. I can’t explain it exactly. I remember, once, we were talking and his little sister distracted him with some question, and he kept interrupting me to answer her, and then he said he would call me back. For some reason that frightened me, because up until that point he had never allowed anything to take his attention from his time with me on the phone, and vice versa. And then I suddenly envisioned this bleak picture of the future, where that immediacy and that attention that we gave one another would peter out, get watered down. It wasn’t the time and distance that frightened me, but the growing familiarity, the fear that the time would come when we would take one another for granted. There was a part of me that preferred to see it end abruptly and painfully while the passion was still strong, rather than the other alternative.”
Sinclair lays his hand over mine and says nothing.
“That is the fear of everyone who loves deeply, the fear that the mundane aspects of life will overtake the great passion.”
“Has that happened to you and TJ?”
“There’s nothing mundane about living here,” he says, with a smirk and roll of his eyes.
“I ignored Evan’s repeated attempts to contact me. It’s my fault that Evan and I are not together. I have a fatal flaw. Dylan was right when he said years ago that I’m incapable of commitment.”
“Evan could have come to New York to confront you face-to-face. It wasn’t your fault he drowned his sorrows in drink one fateful night and got some girl pregnant.”
“The gallant Evan,” I say wistfully, because he married that girl.
“Too gallant for his own good,” Sinclair growls, with a dismissive tone. I can see he blames Evan, and not me, for the way things turned out.
“It’s immensely comforting to confess that. To have a friend who absolves me of the blame.” I exhale into the crisp country air all the emotions I’ve repressed all these years.
“You, my dear Paddington, are without a single fault. You are the family that I never had. An entire family, wrapped up all in one little
delicious package that is you. And what is the state of Evan’s marriage?”
“Who knows? Dylan never talks about Evan. Brandon drops little hints now and then that not all is roses in that marriage, but maybe he just says that to make me feel better. But what does it matter?”
“Ah, it matters very much. I have not given up hope. I don’t think you have either. A woman who writes award winning fairy tales is not someone who has given up on love.”
“I will always be grateful that my father lived long enough to see my first book published,” I say, nibbling the pink sprinkled crumpets Sinclair offers me.
If there is such a thing as a gentle illness, that is what my father experienced. He never suffered any physical pain, or had to endure any harsh medical treatments, only minor discomfort that gradually and then suddenly evolved into a tiredness that grew heavy, until he passed peacefully in his sleep, in his own bed, and I am glad that I was there upstairs in my old bedroom when I heard Mom’s soft cry. I would not, for the world, have wanted her to be alone at that moment.
I wrote a children’s book, a trilogy of three tales, about a little girl who leaves a secure existence to go in search of what everyone has told her does not exist anywhere in the world: a blue rose. When it won a major award my parents and Dylan were there to see me honored. Sinclair and Joseph flew in from Scotland. Sinclair sewed me a dress and a Tiffany blue velvet bolero with a jaunty bustle, epaulet, and an explosion of chiffon ruffles at the wrists.
“Ah, Vivie, that was a grand dress,” he recalls, an inspired and modernized version of The Mill Dress that Vivien Leigh wore in Gone With The Wind.
“People often ask me why I don’t write ‘serious fiction,’ why I’ve limited myself to fairy tales, but I figure there’s enough sadness in the world, why add to it? I prefer the realm of fairy tales, where the power of the wish unfolds in a watercolor world of magic.”
“Lingering in the golden gleam, life what is it but a dream?” Sinclair sings indolently, dabbing his mouth with his napkin, and leading me toward the castle.
Sinclair inspects the tapestry curtains hung in the parlor, a co-creative project of my mother and TJ.
“Helen is a great lover of life,” he proclaims, as we hear my mother’s laughter upstairs mingled with TJs. I look to the grand staircase with its unique umbrella design and white fan vaulting.
For the sake of Dylan and I she looked forward toward the future, rather than back to the past. The first few years Mom rarely spoke of Dad, as if she could not bring herself to; perhaps it was some kind of survival mechanism. We knew she would never marry again, and she often said that there would never be anyone like Dad again.
“Helen has great vivacity, and very good taste.” Sinclair observes the figurines from one of Mom’s favorite stores, The Well Appointed House.
Mom planned every detail of Dylan’s wedding, from the peach rose garlands hung over the wrought iron hand railings of the church, to the sea lavender spray centerpieces scattered everywhere at the vineyard, to the champagne glasses hand-painted with a Concord grape design. Dylan named it Blue Rose Vineyards, after my first children’s book.
“Ah, that poor man must be riddled with guilt,” Sinclair surmises. Like a dog on a bone, he won’t let this line of thinking drop.
“I think you’re reading too much depth into my two-dimensional brother. When I asked Dylan why he kept naming his businesses for me he said it’s because he’s never had a knack for names, so he steals mine. Don’t you remember years ago, all those endless discussions on what to name his band?” I quizzically observe the pistols over the fireplace.
“That’s how TJ keeps me in line,” Sinclair jests. “That one over there is a naval dress sword of some 2 Sea Lord or other.” He sinks into one of the Scottish chairs that I love so much, made in Chinese Chippendale style, with bewitching little carvings of bells. “TJ will give you a proper tour if you ask.”
When Sinclair is silent I say, “Dylan and his wife Colleen had another little girl this winter.”
“Ah, my Paddington is an Auntie again.” Sinclair is delighted. “You’ll be needing a dress for the christening. I’ve got a smashing cut of velvet, in the most sublime shade of apricot,” he discloses.
“Velvet, gee how did I guess?” I say sarcastically.
“Ah, you’ll see; when velvet makes a comeback, you’ll be ready! I’m thinking of a shorter version of Isabel’s gown when she--”
Sinclair halts; his slip of the tongue clues me to the fact that he’s gone ahead and seen the film The Portrait Of A Lady without me; my favorite novel has been made into a movie with Nicole Kidman.
“You’ve seen it! You were supposed to wait for me so that we could see it together!” I accuse.
“Ah, Nicole is a ravishing Isabel, but she can’t compete with my Vivie. Now Martin Donovan as Ralph Touchett, that is worth a second price of admission!”
~ 21 ~
New York, Christmas, 2000
Dylan’s Isabel is a lover of life, a fireball of energy, much like my maternal grandmother and, according to my mother, Isabel has my grandmother’s luscious mop of auburn hair, strong physique, and quick laugh. Isabel immerses herself in every moment with high-octane enthusiasm. At eight years old, she’s unstoppable. On a recent Caribbean cruise, Isabel soaked up every experience like a sponge. She swam with the dolphins, snorkeled at Elbow Beach, hiked through a rain forest in Puerto Rico, joined a kids club on the ship and never missed an event. She even took a voluntary nap so as to be renewed for the dazzling midnight chocolate buffet, which left her awestruck. Her mantra for life is, “more!”
At four years old, Claire, on the other hand, resembles me when I was a child: quiet and eager to please. She trots along amiably behind Isabel, acquiescing to her whims, playing dress-up doll to all the theatrical productions that Isabel stages in Dylan’s immense living room.
“What do you want to do for your birthday next week? Colleen is going to cook, and she likes us out of her hair when she’s cooking.” Dylan married a fiery redhead from County Cork, Ireland, who has enough moxie to keep Dylan in line, an abundance of energy to manage the household and various businesses that Dylan is always buying and selling, and a strong enough sense of herself that she is not swallowed up or effaced by Dylan’s larger-than-life persona.
“How about we do something with the girls in the afternoon? I was thinking maybe we could go ice-skating at Rockefeller Center. That used to be one of your favorite things to do.”
I feel a pang in my side at the mention of the skating rink. I haven’t skated there since that long ago day when Evan showed up for my twenty-seventh birthday, and Joseph blew, like a sparkling winter wind, back into Sinclair’s life.
“The girls have been bugging me to take them there for the longest time,” Dylan reports. “We could show them the Christmas window at Macys and the other displays on Fifth Avenue. They’re the perfect age to really get a kick out of that.”
“Sure, why not?” I say, with what I hope sounds like enthusiasm.
Dylan and I and the girls drive into the city in his new green Ford truck. Dylan has never owned a car. He’s owned trucks from the time he was a teenager when he lugged tools and materials for his many side jobs, and then all his smelly clamming gear when he became the Clam King of the South Shore. Eventually he graduated to trucks with cabs, the better to transport all the band equipment for gigs. To Dylan’s disgust, Brandon is driving a Mercedes these days. For Dylan, a good old American Ford truck will always be his vehicle of choice.
I rummage in the glove compartment for candy. Dylan keeps a stash of Hershey’s kisses in there, hidden from Colleen who keeps nagging him to lay off the sweets. He claims the candy is for the kids, but I know better.
It’s a clear crisp November day, and we make our way through the city to a parking garage. In the backseat, the girls have amused themselves on the long drive with a computer Game Boy.
“The world has changed, huh? No high tech stuff when
we were their age. It was Volkswagen bugs, remember?” Dylan attempts for the umpteenth time to engage me in conversation, but I’ve got a case of the birthday blues, or what feels more like birthday apathy. The best I can muster are perfunctory answers to his questions.
"I got that Volkswagen!" he mimics, in a little girl voice, referring to the popular game we played as children.
“You always won. You mapped out in advance where the Volkswagen dealerships were and made sure you were on that side of the car,” I say, with a smirk. I see the pattern repeating with Isabel and Claire; Isabel winning hands down every time, and suddenly changing the rules just when the tide is turning in her opponent’s favor.
Dylan pays for parking, and we walk to Fifth Avenue. He buys us pretzels at a vendor. He tugs the sleeves of Claire’s little pink coat over her wrists so there’s no gap for the cold to get in. I smile to myself at Dylan’s transformation from Indie Rocker to Internet Mogul to Super Dad.
The girls are thrilled at the window displays. I feel a tug at my heart, recalling Sinclair’s enchanted winter wonderland display at Bergdorf’s a decade ago. Little Claire is mesmerized by a mechanical puppet in the storefront of Macys, a small pink elephant with blue spots. The little elephant moves its head slowly from side to side, and even rears on its hind legs. Claire presses her pink mittens to the glass, where they become stuck from the gritty ice. She has yet to make even one request to Santa, until now. Dylan looks relieved, but then whispers into my hair, “Great, where am I going to find a pink and blue polka dotted elephant?”
“FAO Schwarz, where else?” I whisper back.
Wiry elves with almond eyes hypnotize Isabel, a queen and her prince. The prince’s arms magically move, presenting his Queen with an azure-colored crystal ball that holds within its facets a snow-globe wedding scene. I soon discover the reason for Isabel's trance-like state: the puppet prince looks exactly like Isabel's latest obsessive crush: the actor Jim Carrey.
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