by Rona Jaffe
Alexander looked at Chris and smiled. “Chris?”
She smiled back. “That will be fun,” she said.
He was too old to be her papoose, and she didn’t want him to be, but he still needed the family time they spent together, and that was good.
That evening they trimmed the tree. It looked quite wonderful. Although Chris and Alexander had each bought the other only one thing, there were extra presents underneath for friends who would drop by during the weekend. And of course there was a huge pile of gifts for Nicholas. He kept shaking the wrapped boxes, trying to guess what was in them; still a child, at least for Christmas, no matter how strange his parents were.
Chris wondered whether Alexander was thinking about James, and whether he missed him a great deal. She knew James wouldn’t call the house for fear she would be the one who answered the phone, but Alexander would probably call him. Just a friend calling to wish him Merry Christmas. James’s parents probably didn’t know their son was gay.
When the tree was finished Alexander opened a bottle of champagne. Nicholas left for his party, leaving them alone together. Chris wondered what Cameron was doing right now. She and Alexander sat there looking at the little lights twinkling on their tree, listening to Christmas carols, sipping the champagne. It could have been lonely, but it was cozy and nice.
“We did a good job,” he said.
“Yes, we did.”
For some reason she remembered the night so many years ago in Paris, the first time she had seen Alexander’s apartment, and all those glass objects glittering on his coffee table in the semidark. She remembered the constant, empty yearning she’d had for Alexander then, and for all those years afterward, wanting so much to be a part of the special mystery of his life. They were two such different people now …
Glittering objects, tiny lights … She had never wanted things, only him.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
“How comfortable we can be together, when everything’s quiet.”
“We’re not so badly off, are we?” Alexander asked. “It’s not a bad life.”
It was as close as he could come to daring to ask her if she was happy. And, in fact, she wasn’t unhappy at all.
Chris smiled at him. “You’re my best friend,” she said. “And you always will be. I love you.”
“I love you, too,” he said. “You know that.”
She wondered if she and Cameron would ever be best friends.
The first day she was back at work after the pleasant Christmas weekend Chris got a phone call at the office from Emily Buchman in California. “Remember you said we should get together when I came to New York?” Emily said. “Well, I’m coming tomorrow night. Could we have drinks together on Saturday afternoon?”
“New Year’s Eve …” Cameron was going away with his wife and children. She and Alexander were going to a late dinner party. She was to meet Annabel at the store for a New Year’s Eve drink at four. She supposed she could bring Emily. “Sure, that would be fine.”
“Oh, great!” Emily said. “I’m going to the theater that night with Daphne Caldwell. She got tickets to Cats. Do you remember her from college? I thought we could all have drinks together.”
“Daphne the Golden Girl?” Chris said in horror.
“No, she’s really nice now,” Emily said. “She’s had a lot of grief in her life. And the latest thing is that she and Richard just got divorced.”
“Well, that says something good about her anyway,” Chris said. “Getting rid of Richard, I mean. I’m having drinks with Annabel Jones that afternoon and I was going to bring you. I don’t know how she and Daphne would feel about each other. They never liked each other at school.”
“Do you think I’m different?” Emily said. “Do you think you’re different? Well, wait till you see how different Daphne is.”
“I guess Annabel is too,” Chris said, and gave Emily the address.
It was almost dark at four o’clock. Chris got to Annabel’s early to spend some time with her alone before the others came. Annabel still hadn’t been able to reach Zack, and was putting up a good front the way she always did, but Chris knew she was grieving. Between her job and her family and her affair, Chris knew she was more of an absent friend to Annabel during this holiday season than she would have liked to be. Their little celebration this afternoon was not only to see each other on the last day of the old year, but to cheer Annabel up.
Annabel opened a bottle of champagne. There were no customers expected on this late afternoon just before New Year’s Eve, and the boutique was for all intents and purposes closed. Pamela and Maria had been allowed to go home. Sweet Pea was asleep in her basket. There was a plate of thin smoked salmon sandwiches on the tea table for their private celebration.
Annabel raised her glass and touched it to Chris’s in a toast. “Another year and we’ve survived,” she said.
“Always,” Chris said.
They drank to both past and future survival. “Funny to be seeing Daphne and Emily,” Annabel said. “Odd that they’d even like each other. I wonder if Daphne and I will get along. If not, just so it won’t be a complete waste of time I can always sell her some decent clothes. Do you remember that gold dress she wore at our twentieth reunion? Daphne the Golden Girl, in case we forgot. Happy Halloween.”
Chris laughed. “I wonder why she divorced Richard.”
“Maybe he divorced her.”
“I never thought of that. I just assumed … I mean, Daphne always seemed so in control. She was the sort of woman who if her husband got out of line she’d just walk away.”
“Mmm.”
The door burst open and there was Emily with Daphne, both of them smiling—Emily enthusiastically, Daphne politely, in that same cool, self-sufficient way she’d always had. “Oh, you’re having champagne!” Emily said. “Do you know what that reminds me of? The first day we all met at Radcliffe, when we had champagne in Annabel’s room. Do you remember? It was warm, and we drank it out of our toothbrush glasses, and I was scared to death we’d get into trouble because it was against the rules to have liquor in our rooms.”
“Well, this time it’s cold,” Annabel said, and poured some for each of them.
“What a beautiful boutique you have here, Annabel,” Daphne said. She wandered around, looking at everything, murmuring enthusiastic little remarks. Chris remembered that Daphne had always been artistic.
“Oh, yes it is,” Emily said. “And the clothes are so great. Annabel, do you know what I’d love? I’m doing a total makeover on myself for my new business, because I’m going to have to do publicity, and maybe you could help me create my new image.”
“I’d be delighted,” Annabel said.
“I want to be glamorous, like you. I mean, I realize I’m shorter …”
“You mean you want to be glamorous like you,” Annabel said. “That will be easy.”
“I’m going back Tuesday night,” Emily said. “Could we do it Tuesday morning?”
“Of course.”
“What a nice bonus,” Emily said. “I thought we were just going to have our own class reunion.”
Daphne isn’t being aloof Chris thought suddenly. She’s uncomfortable. It’s as if she’s lost all the things she always believed in, and now she has to find something else. She didn’t know why she was so sure Daphne felt that way; a reporter’s instinct perhaps, or just her own.
“We’re all working,” Daphne said. “Imagine. I’m back at the gallery. I didn’t think they’d give me my old job, but they did. Being single in the suburbs, especially with all the children away, was a big mistake.”
“It must be boring,” Annabel said.
“It’s deadly, actually.”
“Being single in the city can be pretty lonely too,” Annabel said.
“Yes,” Daphne said, smiling. “Lonely was really the word I meant.”
They smiled at each other. Annabel smiling at Daphne with friendliness, Chris thought. Well,
well. And Daphne smiling back, making a new beginning. Daphne, she had just noticed, wasn’t smoking anymore. She’d always remembered Daphne with a cigarette in her hand, until it became almost part of her persona. Maybe after saying good-bye to Richard Daphne had decided to clean up her act altogether.
They ate the sandwiches and drank more champagne, and began to talk about their lives. Chris told them how she’d become so fat, and then had finally managed to lose the weight. She didn’t discuss her love life, nor Alexander’s, but simply said she’d been unhappy. Daphne talked about her children; the one who had committed suicide, and the one who was retarded. Her divorce from Richard was certainly the least of her troubles. Emily told Annabel how the paradise she thought she’d attained after graduation had become a hell. And Annabel (who still didn’t totally trust them after what they’d done to her at college, and so had to make it sound like a funny story) told how Bill Wood had ditched her before the wedding and how she had finally gotten her revenge on him years later at the art gallery with Dean.
But despite the stories withheld, and the truths evaded, to protect the men the others all knew; as Chris listened she saw something strange happen: they began to know each other in this brief time a hundred times better than they ever had in the four years they had gone to college together. Perhaps that was because way back then none of them had really known herself either.
“God, we were such babies at Radcliffe, weren’t we!” Emily said. “To think we were allowed to make lifetime decisions …”
“Forced to,” Daphne said. “Expected to. And we were sure we knew what we were doing.”
“You realize we have lived more of our lives now, since we’ve been out of college, than we had when we graduated,” Annabel said. “We’ve been paying for mistakes we made as mere children. If this was a court of law we’d get a parole.”
“I think we should give it to ourselves,” Daphne said. “I want you to forgive me for being such a total shit to you at Radcliffe, Annabel. It’s just that I was jealous that you slept with Richard before I did.”
Annabel grinned. “You should have thanked me,” she said. “How did you think he got so good?”
They all laughed. Annabel opened another bottle of champagne to celebrate the truce and their newfound friendship. The lights were bright in the store, and the door was locked against unwelcome strangers. Outside it was dark and cold, but inside it was warm and they were all feeling very good. Anyone passing by in that dark winter street would not have known what ghosts had been laid to rest, nor that this was in fact a reunion of infinitely more importance than the one they had celebrated six years before on the grounds of their old school. All the passerby would have seen was four attractive women, obviously having a wonderful time together.
Chapter Twenty-six
January, 1984
This has been a very strange holiday for all of us. My parents got divorced. My father came to see us and brought presents for me and my brothers, and a bottle of wine and a fruitcake for my mother. She didn’t give him anything. They treated each other in a polite and careful way, as if they were a little afraid of each other. It was a different kind of nervousness from the way it used to be around here when everybody was so tense and trying to be jolly. He took a lot of snapshots of us and then he went away again. We didn’t have to play touch football with him because he’s still talking about his heart attack, and I was secretly relieved because I don’t want to play sports with him. It’s never real fun because he gets too serious about everything.
My mother and I have been having some good talks since I came home for vacation. We never did this before. We talk about Jonathan a lot, and how much we miss him, and the things he used to do. We talk about me, and how I feel about things. When I tell her my personal opinion about something she really pays attention. I told her I don’t want to go back to boarding school next year. She asked why, and I told her the truth, that our family has been falling apart lately and I’m afraid if I go away something else bad will happen. She said it was always expected that we would graduate from St. Martin’s because our father and grandfather did, but if I didn’t want to it was okay. She said it would be nice to have me around for company. I was so surprised that I said I would think about it. Now she probably thinks I’m crazy.
I’m fourteen now and Jonathan was fourteen when he killed himself, but I still don’t understand any more about why he did it. For a while I was scared that the same thing would happen to me, but now I know it won’t. My mother asked me if I wanted to go to a therapist to talk about all the shocks we’ve been having around here lately, but I said no. Can you imagine anyone in our family going to a THERAPIST??? My father would really have a heart attack over that. But that isn’t the reason I said no. I feel okay. For the first time in my life she’s become like a friend to me, instead of that distant person My Mother, and I think I’m a help to her too. I used to think I was just a pest, but now I feel I have value.
I have also decided what I want to be when I grow up. I want to be a writer. It’s a great relief to get that decision out of the way. St. Martin’s has a very good English department, so maybe I should stay there. I’ll see.
While I’ve been home this holiday I could see how lonely it is for my mother now that my parents are divorced. Some of the people she thought were her friends don’t call anymore. But she likes her job. The only bad thing is that the woman she works for won’t let her take a week off to take us skiing, because she just started there, so we can’t go this year. My father won’t take us because he’s going to the Caribbean with his girl friend. Matthew and Sam are going skiing with their friends because they’re old enough, but I just have to hang around.
I guess I will spend the time reading some good books and trying to prepare for my future career. Of course I’ll also see my friends. It won’t be so bad.
This year we’ll be here for Jonathan’s birthday, I asked my mother if we could go to visit him, his grave I mean, and she said yes. I can’t believe that she and I are able to have these conversations now. I just can’t believe how far we’ve come.
Chapter Twenty-seven
It was February. The store windows Daphne passed on her way up Madison Avenue to work were filled with Valentine’s Day decorations and gifts: candy, cards, ruffled pillows with sentimental inscriptions. It always made her think of when she was a child. Even after she’d had her own children, some holidays reminded her of herself more than of them. She was certainly nobody’s valentine these days.
Since the divorce the women she’d thought were her friends seemed afraid of her. She knew why. She was single now, and too attractive; therefore a threat. And her “perfect” marriage had fallen apart, which threatened theirs. If it could happen to her … They probably thought their husbands would want to start something with her, now that she was alone. They said how sorry they were that they didn’t know any nice men to introduce her to, and then excluded her from their dinner parties because she was no longer half of a couple. She supposed she should entertain, and then they would feel guilty and have to invite her back, but she wasn’t sure she liked them enough anymore to bother.
The weekend before Valentine’s Day there was a huge blizzard. Everyone was snowed in. For her it was just another weekend alone with the dogs and her books and sketch pad. The only difference was she couldn’t drive to the supermarket for her weekly shopping, but since the boys had gone back to school her own needs were very small.
Teddy sent her a valentine. He had made it himself. Daphne carried it in her handbag for days. It had never occurred to her to send valentines to the boys because they were too old for that now, and when Teddy sent her one anyway she cried. She had to keep remembering how sensitive and loving he was, her genius son of the secret journal, carefully disguised as a carefree Ail-American Boy. She was finding herself in tears often lately, having opened herself up to the vulnerability she had denied for so many years.
If she was friendless in the subu
rbs she had new friends in the city. Chris and Annabel, and Emily even though she and Emily hadn’t seen each other since Emily went back to California. And now Chris had invited her to a dinner party; without a date, without a husband, and with no utilitarian ulterior motive of finding her a new one. It was tonight, Friday, and Daphne had driven in instead of taking the train. All the guests would be coming directly from work, so the dress she was wearing would be suitable. She had brought makeup in her handbag, and prepared herself for the party in the employees’ ladies’ room at the gallery. It was a rather wretched little bathroom, and reminded her of the one at college, and that depressed her.…
That was the last time she had been unattached, and getting ready for a party or a dance had been an occasion filled with excitement and the promise of adventure. She had been so popular. She always met new men at parties then, and they took her to football games, and out dancing, and to other parties, where she met more men who pursued her. But tonight all she felt was relief that she didn’t have to go home yet, that there was somewhere to go where she wouldn’t be alone. She no longer expected anything particularly exciting at all, and that made her feel old.
Chris and Alexander lived in a very elegant Fifth Avenue building. Daphne hadn’t seen Alexander since college, as he hadn’t come to the reunion, but she recognized him right away. He was still extraordinarily handsome, perhaps more so. She had never really known him well at college, but she remembered he had always seemed so grumpy and gloomy; now he was urbane and charming. And he seemed very devoted to Chris. Their apartment was both attractive and comfortable. A uniformed maid opened the door and took Daphne’s coat, another offered her a drink and some small hot hors d’oeuvres. Chris took her around and introduced her to people. There were nine. Annabel was there, and Chris’s former diet doctor, Dr. Michael Fields; Chris and Alexander, two other couples, and herself. Nine. Somebody doesn’t have a date, Daphne thought, and it’s probably me.
