“We are treating this child like the Infant of Prague,” said Guido.
“Ruth says that awe is an appropriate response,” said Holly. “Besides, we have a sweet-tempered baby. Ruth says some babies cry all day and all night long. Our baby cries only when it’s necessary. Some mothers are exhausted all the time. I’m exhausted only part of the time. Look at what gorgeous feet she has.”
“She has beautiful little Renaissance feet,” said Guido. Neither had taken an eye off Juliana, who lay almost perfectly still, taking adulation in stride.
As soon as Juliana had established a schedule for herself and Holly and Guido were a little less exhausted, Holly decided to have a dinner party in order to bring Juliana closer to the lives of Vincent and Misty. They had been permitted short visits, but now it was time to make an evening of it.
Before dinner, they all congregated in the living room. Juliana was placed on a quilt, where she wriggled happily. Holly and Guido demonstrated Ruth Binnenstock’s precepts and when Vincent gave it a try, he found he was not half bad at wriggling. Misty was not much of a wriggler, so she waltzed Juliana around the room. Juliana found this very entertaining. Then they all sang to her. Guido sang her a song of his childhood. Holly sang Cole Porter. Vincent held her on his knee and sang “Lazybones.” Misty took over and sang “Dancing Chicken” and flapped Juliana’s arms.
“All adult conversation has been suspended,” said Holly.
“This is the only baby I have ever seen who can be judged by adult standards of beauty,” said Guido.
“Fatherhood takes away all modesty and propriety,” said Holly. “Now you and Vincent can smoke your cigars. Juliana needs a few minutes of quiet after all this excitement and then I’m going to feed you.”
At dinner, the conversation centered largely around Juliana.
“Betty Helen sent a present,” said Guido to Vincent. “She knitted a little yellow coat and told me that babies were love incarnate.”
“How would she know?” said Vincent. “Having never been one herself.”
“Now, Vincent,” said Holly. “Betty Helen is extremely kind. She called me up and told me that if I wanted she would come over and read Juliana’s aura. She said Guido’s aura was golden the day he came back to work after Juliana was born.”
“I told you she was weird,” said Vincent.
“Stanley says that when the time comes, he’ll be very happy to give Juliana Latin lessons,” said Misty.
“Having babies is wonderful,” said Holly dreamily. “It’s really quite stupefying. I feel I should be given the Nobel Prize. I can’t wait until you two have one.”
“If we ever have a baby,” said Misty, “it will have my temperament and no one will want to come and see it. When it grows up, it will have Uncle Bernie’s criminal tendencies and will cause great scandal.”
“I think it’s a wonderful idea,” said Vincent. “Besides, you promised me that someday we would have a little Communist of our very own.”
By the time Gem turned up, Juliana had turned from a beautiful infant into a ravishing one. Gem was not interested in babies. She claimed to know nothing about them and to prove it she unwrapped her present, which was a little china pig—just the right size for a baby to swallow.
When Guido entered the living room, both Holly and Juliana were half asleep. Gem had been talking all afternoon and Holly was now afog with names and places. Was it in Chile that Gem had gone skiing and discovered the lost places in her own consciousness? Or was it in Gstaad that she had met the Utopian psychologist who had told her about the lost places in her own consciousness? Did she have the affair with the journalist in France? Or was he a French journalist she had met in South America?
Gem had her own time scheme. If she said she was staying for two weeks, it meant that people would telephone her at your number for two weeks but Gem would hardly be there. In New York, for example, the country houses of a great many people Gem referred to only by last names were open to her. She was careful to leave the telephone number of these country friends on a pad in case any of her city friends wished to contact her. They did, in large numbers.
After her arrival, she was gone for three days, back for one, off for the weekend, and back for the evening. On that evening, Holly invited Misty and Vincent for dinner.
Juliana had been put to bed, and the five sat around the dinner table. Misty wore on her face an expression that Vincent called “the only Jew at the dinner table look.” She was almost entirely silent. Vincent assumed that Misty did not approve of Gem, and that that was the occasion for the look. But it was not. For the first time in her life, Misty was mesmerized with jealousy. Gem was every dog breeder Vincent had ever fallen in love with.
“I’ve just got to locate myself,” Gem was saying. “All this traveling. All that luggage. When I was in Portugal, after I got back from Brittany, I realized that half my luggage was scattered over Europe and when I met Pablo Ruba—he’s the psychoanalyst—I realized that life really is like a painting. I mean, if it’s scattered here and there, it doesn’t hold up as a coherent statement. So I’ve just got to locate myself and I think I ought to have a base. New York is it, I think. Did I tell you about this little house I saw? It’s a carriage house and I think I’m going to rent it. It needs a lot of repairs but there’s an option to buy. And it’s a perfect place to work.”
“Work?” said Guido.
“I didn’t tell you about my wonderful plan,” said Gem. “Well, when I was in London last month, I met this poet and he started me keeping a journal. I’d love to show it to you, Holly. I think you’d really understand it. Anyway, he sent me to a friend of his. You know him, Guido. Charles Redevere.”
Guido nodded. Only Juliana did not know who Charles Redevere was.
“Well, he runs this seminar at the New York Poetry Society,” said Gem. “And I’m going to be one of his students. I mean, I don’t think that the poetic nature is everyone’s inheritance, but I think the thing is that you’ve got to see if it’s yours or not. When I was at Grandma’s in Moss Hill, I used to ride over to that little chapel and just sit in there with my notebook. I thought maybe I would buy it and restore it. But then I thought, the country is for the luxury of calming down from something. The something is the city. So here I am. Now what do you do, Vincent?”
If he says “I’m in garbage,” it’s all over, thought Misty.
“Misty and I work at the Board of City Planning,” Vincent said. “I’m a statistician, basically. I do studies of urban sanitation problems. Misty does language studies.”
“How intriguing,” said Gem. “Last year when I was in Greece I saw people dumping all sorts of stuff into the Mediterranean. And that doesn’t have any tide, does it? Can you imagine all those island people dumping all that stuff into a body of water without tides? You ought to go see it, Vincent. Now, I’ve got to make a few telephone calls before it’s too late, but I’m going to ask all of you if you’d like to go fishing this weekend. I have a friend with a boat and he’s dying to go fishing for stripers. What about it?”
“We’re having the invasion of the mothers-in-law,” said Guido. “They’re coming to slobber over our daughter.”
“Why, that’s perfect,” said Gem. “Juliana can stay here and you can get away for the weekend.”
“Fishing,” said Vincent. “I haven’t been fishing for years. Let’s go. Misty says she’s only fished for smelts.”
“A weekend away would be nice,” said Guido.
At this, Misty began to yawn. Gem went off to make her telephone calls. It was arranged that they would go fishing. With that, they cleared the table, and Vincent took Misty home.
“I don’t want to go fishing,” said Misty the next evening. “I have nothing to wear. You go.”
“I’m glad you said you have nothing to wear,” said Vincent. “I have bought you a pair of gum boots. Look, they’re yellow. I saw them today and I thought they had your name on them.”
“You thought m
y name was on a pair of yellow gum boots?”
“I did. Now put them on,” said Vincent.
“I don’t want to put them on. I don’t want to wear gum boots. I don’t want to go fishing. I want to be left alone.”
“Just put them on for a second,” said Vincent. “Get used to them. Fishing is a wonderful thing to do. You’ll love it.”
“I hate it,” said Misty. “I hated it when my father took me fishing for smelts. All those creepy businessmen with their fishing rods and their business suits standing on the rocks across from Buckingham Fountain with their disgusting fishing gear catching those revolting little fish.”
“Did you catch any?”
“Daddy caught one. He put it in a jar and brought it home and let it swim in the sink. Then he fried it.”
“How was it?”
“It was disgusting, like these boots. I won’t go.”
“You don’t have to go fishing,” said Vincent. “But you have to come for the weekend. You’ve never been to Salt Harbor and that’s where we’re going. We’re staying at Scott’s Fisherman’s Inn. The reservations are made. You can walk on the beach and mutter to yourself.”
The week seemed very long to Misty. She was glad that Vincent’s schedule was crowded so that he could not see what a horrible state she was in. At night she had terrible dreams in which she seemed to have shrunk to the size of a catsup bottle and was huddled in corners watching Gem, who was as large as an equestrian statue. She had dreams in which Vincent passed her on the street without noticing her. She had dreams in which Vincent was married to Gem.
It was one thing to theorize, Misty knew, but quite another to live. Misty’s theories looked down on the second-rate emotions such as jealousy. Since she had never felt it before, she had dismissed it as unworthy of feeling. Now she was in the grip of it. She stared it straight in the face and saw that the condition that jealousy covered was simply envy mixed with fear.
Gem stood for something—something effortless. Something that did not have to invent a personality in order to get by. Gem lived with an air of casual assurance. The world, Gem knew, would work for her. A million silkworms would lay down their lives so that Gem might have a shirt. Grooms went home to small, mortgaged homes so that Gem might stable her horse, and horses would be broken so that Gem might ride. Innumerable workers slaved anonymously so that Gem might be properly equipped. All Gem had to do was be, and doors opened to her.
Misty felt that life was a battle. You had to fight and think. You had to hack your way through life with your intelligence as a machete cutting down what obstacles you could. You were born knowing nothing: you had to fight for what you knew.
Even Vincent, whose effortless optimism was partly the product of hard work, fought. He fought at the Board. He fought government agencies and town councils. He sweated over his articles. Even Holly worked: she worked to make life sweet. Any reservations Misty might have lined up against Holly had been dispelled at her wedding breakfast. The sight of all that work and care made her realize what Holly’s fight was: she fought to keep the ugly, chaotic world at bay and to keep a sweet, pretty corner to live in.
But Gem neither toiled nor spun. Gem made Misty feel that achievement was cheap in the face of that effortlessness. And Gem threw her. She had appeared at the wrong time. Misty was beginning to learn how much Vincent meant to her. She no longer thought of herself alone. She thought of herself and Vincent. She shopped as naturally for two as she had shopped for one. Every once in a while, she woke out of a deep sleep to realize how awful life would be without him. Gem stood for a part of Vincent that was not second nature to Misty—the part that was sporty and larky and on cheerful terms with the world, the part that had grown up sailing and fishing. Suppose Vincent got tired of someone who was not second nature to him?
Misty slunk around the office, breaking pencils, throwing her coat on the floor, and swearing over her calculator. She hated not working well. She hated having her mind cluttered. She was constantly afraid that she might burst into tears.
“Just looking at you makes my teeth chatter,” said Maria Teresa Warner on Friday morning. “What’s your story?”
“I’m going fishing,” said Misty.
“Why has that made you so impossible?” said Maria Teresa. “I wish I were going fishing.”
“Then you go,” snarled Misty.
“Now, now,” said Maria Teresa. “Is that any way to treat a little ray of sunshine like myself?”
“Why don’t you get out of here?” said Misty. “Or sit down.”
“I hate a gloomy person who lashes out,” said Maria Teresa. “Who are you going fishing with?”
“Vincent, Guido, Holly, and Holly’s cousin Gem.”
“Ah,” said Maria Teresa. “Gem. I’ve never heard that name before. Is it Gem who’s putting you into such a foul mood? I see it is. What’s her story?”
“Gem is every girl Vincent ever fell in love with rolled into one,” said Misty.
“And so you see them all as a nice tidy picture with no place for you, right?” said Maria Teresa.
“How do you know that?” said Misty.
“Vincent told me once that you have an expression called ‘the only Jew at the dinner table,’” said Maria Teresa. “You ought to try being Irish Catholic if you want to feel left out. I went to a dinner party the other night and everyone started fighting with me about transsubstantiation.”
“It’s not the same.”
“Oh, it is too. And it doesn’t make any difference. Everyone is not supposed to fit. St. Teresa says that God saw to it that she was always treated kindly everywhere although the only service she ever rendered him was to be what she was.”
“So what?”
“So, God loves you more than you love yourself,” said Maria Teresa. “A nun told me that in high school, and she was right.”
“And God loves the poor because he made so many of them,” said Misty. “So what?”
“So, you are not counting your blessings. You are having scruples, which is a very bad thing. Vincent loves you. You love him. Holly has a cousin and you’re all going fishing.”
“You don’t understand,” said Misty.
“I don’t,” said Maria Teresa. “Are you honestly jealous?”
“Yes.”
“Well, gee whiz. You jealous. It’s probably good for you. Did you ever discuss this with Holly? She knows her cousin and she knows Vincent.”
“Friendship is not possible between two women one of whom is very well dressed,” said Misty.
“Very true,” said Maria Teresa. “Now let’s change the subject. I am now getting a letter a week in Latin from your cousin Stanley. Would you please tell him that the only Latin I remember is the Paternoster?”
“You tell him,” said Misty. “I’m very glad he writes to you. It keeps him away from that horrible little Sybel.”
“Thanks a lot,” said Maria Teresa. “I’m getting out of here. You can be gloomy by yourself. Remember what St. Teresa said: ‘Never compare one person to another.’ Comparisons are odious. That goes for you and Gem. But just think. If this Gem is hateful and you’re going fishing, you can always drown her.”
They drove out to Salt Harbor early Friday evening. Gem and her companion were to meet them at Scott’s Fisherman’s Inn for dinner. In the car, they tried to figure out the name of Gem’s companion. Holly remembered it as Raymond. Guido remembered it as Deering although he thought he also remembered Gem calling him Perkins.
With the exception of Misty, they were all in high spirits. Vincent had had a difficult week and was glad it was over. Guido had solved two pressing Foundation problems and Holly said that she felt strangely light-headed.
“This is the first time I’ve been away from Juliana since she was born,” she said. “Suddenly, I feel very young and strange. I’m going to end up calling home every five minutes.”
“The mothers-in-law have landed, I assume,” said Vincent.
“In for
ce. With large numbers of packages. Trillions of toys,” said Guido. “Juliana will be a spoiled brat when we get back. You should have seen her. Holly thought she would cry when we left but the only one who cried was Holly. Juliana looked like a little girl Buddha, only thinner. Our two mothers were practically prostrate before her.”
The car sped across the dark highway. Misty fell asleep against Vincent’s shoulder. When she woke up, she saw stars against the black sky.
“We’ll be there in half an hour,” said Vincent. “Roll down the window, Guido. I want some salt air.”
At dinner, the name of Gem’s companion was not revealed. Gem called him Raymond, Deering, and Perkins alternately and he responded to all. He was a large man with a bulky frame, spindly legs, and lank, almost greenish-yellow hair.
They sat eating clam chowder and fried flounder in the dining room of Scott’s Fisherman’s Inn while Gem and her companion conversed.
“I moved into that house,” she said. “That little carriage house. It’s perfect, isn’t it, Raymond?”
“Right-o.”
“And I’m having Bucky shipped up to the Central Park Stables, aren’t I, Deering?”
“Absolutely.”
“Who’s Bucky?” said Vincent.
“My horse,” said Gem. “My new one. My old one died. My little hunter, Gretchen. She was my horse when I was a teenager. She was my oldest friend. I took her out for a ride to celebrate getting my divorce, and when I went to bed her down that night, she was dead. Dead marriage, dead horse, I said to myself. I cried and cried and when Lou Petroldi’s Dead Stock Service came and took her away and I saw them hoist her onto the truck, I said: ‘That’s the end of my childhood.’”
“You ought to write that, Gem,” said Gem’s companion.
“I put it in my journal,” Gem said.
At the end of dinner, plans were made. The next morning at ten o’clock they were to meet at the dock and board the boat that would take them fishing in the tidal rip.
Happy All the Time Page 18
