by Luanne Rice
The night of Susan’s party was the first time I had seen him in four years. I had drunk too much Scotch by the time I finally spotted him, and I pressed my body close to his while we danced.
“You really look great, Una,” he said.
“I think of you a lot. I keep reading reviews of your work, and you keep getting better.”
“Have you seen it?”
“Some of it. The movie and one of the plays.” I had felt overjoyed when I saw how good he was in each of them; I hadn’t felt at all envious until the middle of each following night.
Dancing with him to a synthesizer version of “Moon River,” my nose nuzzled below his armpit, and his smell made me think of sex. We lurched out of the loft onto Pearl Street and found a cab heading north. David told the driver to take us to the Village. He lived in a narrow brownstone that had once belonged to Edgar Allan Poe.
“You’ve got to come in,” he said. “I have this cask of cognac, it’s supposed to be more than a hundred years old.” He was as drunk as I was. Staring straight ahead, at nothing in particular, he fumbled for money to pay the driver. “They say Poe wrote ‘The Raven’ in the room where I sleep,” he said, kissing one of my eyebrows. “You don’t believe in ghosts, do you?” he asked.
“No,” I said. The image of my father in Bermuda shorts scuttled in and out of my mazed brain. It’s okay, I told myself. I’ve known David for years—I used to love him. That makes it okay.
I sat on an overstuffed couch in his cluttered living room while David assembled snifters, a candle, and the wood cask. “Now to open it…” he said.
“Oh, maybe we should forget the cognac,” I said. I felt dizzy and faintly nauseated.
“No, it’s great stuff, it’s supposed to be more than a hundred years old,” David said, then turned suddenly and looked at me. He was kneeling beside the coffee table, trying to figure out how to open the little cask. Smiling, he walked across the floor on his knees, and kissed me wetly. “Great to see you, Una,” he said.
“Great to see you.”
“No, I really mean it.” He kissed me again, and began pulling down my pants’ zipper.
I remember crashing into his bathroom and throwing up into his toilet. When I returned to the living room, David wasn’t there. I found him passed out on his king-sized bed. For about ten seconds I considered walking home to Chelsea, but I was positive I would be taken advantage of, the state I was in. I took off everything except my shirt and lay beside David on the bed.
We wakened holding each other. We both had dry mouths and terrible hangovers, and I was embarrassed to kiss him before I went to the bathroom and rinsed my mouth out with cold water. David had to catch a plane to Los Angeles, where he was about to begin rehearsing a part in the new Robert Altman movie.
“We deserve to feel this way,” he said, with his arm across his eyes. “I’m sorry about last night.”
“For what?” I asked, laughing, hoping I hadn’t missed anything.
“For losing it.”
I told him I had to go home to do my laundry. Outside, a fine drizzle was coming down. David and I kissed goodbye, promised to stay in touch. He was tender, but I had the feeling he was just as glad to see me go as I was to leave. I walked eleven blocks through the cold November rain. My hair and the clothes I had worn to Susan’s party smelled like cigarette smoke, and I wanted to get rid of it. I bought a Sunday Times at a place on Ninth Avenue.
Inside my apartment I threw my dirty clothes into the washing machine. I lit a fire in my small fireplace. While the washer hummed, I spread the paper out on my lovely tattered Chinese rug. Prokofiev played on WQXR. Clean, gray light streamed through my big windows. Drizzly Sundays were the best. Reading the article on Bill Forsythe in the Arts and Leisure section, I thought how wonderful it would be to have someone I loved to talk with about the article, about reviews of books I wanted to read, about Russell Baker’s column. I thought of Susan and Louis, and I felt a jolt of jealousy until I remembered the party. They couldn’t settle down to read together until they had cleaned up that mess—the empty bottles, the spilled food, those ashtrays. My own life wasn’t terrible the way it was. I looked around the room. It was spare, with tall ceilings and windows, furnished with castoffs. Wicker chairs that had once rocked on my parents’ porch in Connecticut, low mahogany tables that had belonged to my grandmother, bookcases filled with books I had had since childhood.
I loved living in Chelsea, but that gray November morning I realized that I had been living in that apartment ever since I had started on Beyond the Bridge. I could afford something much better if I wanted it. The boulder of change, dislodged that day in Newport, had gathered momentum. I could feel it rumbling behind me. A new apartment was needed. I opened the Real Estate section and started to read.
Chapter 4
My decision to move marked me as a lonely woman. I spent the month of November and the first weeks of December socializing more than I had in years. With real estate agents, co-op boards, and friends who owned their own apartments. My free time was filled from the minute I left the studio until the time I arrived at home, exhausted, often after eleven o’clock. Every morning I ignored the Times and drank coffee while gazing at maps of the city, learning the boundaries of neighborhoods I hadn’t known existed. I asked myself questions: Do I want to walk to work? Is a view important? Would I like to be on a high floor, or will I be too afraid of fires in the night? Brownstone or high-rise? One bedroom or two? Doorman or not? Four-room layout or open space? I wished that I had my father, that real estate wizard, to advise me.
At first I ruled out the Upper East and West sides, but one Sunday I decided to explore them. Snow had fallen that morning. I dressed in warm gray flannel slacks, a navy V-neck sweater over a yellow turtleneck, and my long black coat. I wore an enormous silk scarf wrapped around my entire face except my eyes, and a blue ski hat. The taxi drove me to East End Avenue, and I walked along the promenade over the East River. Chunks of ice swirled below in the swift current. I stepped carefully over snow-glazed cobbles that led to Carl Schurz Park. Parents pulled small children on sleds, joggers swaddled in bright suits ran past, dogs romped with their owners through copses of birch, maples, and pines. I was spellbound. This wasn’t New York City; this was a Christmas card. I felt as though I had discovered a substation of New England.
Sitting alone on a bench, I began to think of things I would buy my family for Christmas. We would spend it at my mother’s house. I wanted it to be one of those wonderful Victorian-style Christmases you read about in Dickens and women’s magazines but which don’t really exist: felt, gilt, tinsel, walnuts, raisins, sleighbells, roast goose, fir trees, The Nutcracker Suite, snow on the ground, and good will. Looking east that fine, snowy Sunday, it seemed possible.
My house hunt was interrupted by Christmas shopping. At the studio we had filmed episodes through the end of January, and I had a six-day vacation free of any public appearances. For my mother I bought an extravagant peach silk robe at Saks, a four-record set of birdcalls, and a set of sable watercolor brushes. For Margo I bought an enormous book on Rodin, a pair of gold ginkgo-leaf earrings, and an antique silver fox jacket. For Lily I bought a tiny original madonna by Tomassi, a second-tier cinquecento artist.
The madonna was exquisite. I found her in a gallery on Madison Avenue, and she spoke to me. Round-cheeked, dimpled, wrapped in an ivory mantle and smiling at her golden-haired child, she was beautiful. I wanted that woman as my mother, my sister, my daughter, and myself. Lily loved sixteenth-century Italian art; it was her area of expertise. Aside from being wholly appropriate as a combination Christmas-graduation present (in December she completed her final semester of graduate school), it was the most beautiful thing I could give her.
Lily, Margo, and I were set to arrive at my mother’s house on Christmas Eve. Staring at my brownish reflection in the train window as we clattered past Guilford, I thought of how this was our first Christmas without my father. We would all find ways
to circumvent any discussion of the matter. I knew that for sure. Whenever the word “Dad” came up, the subject would change. For although we never quite succeeded, all the Cavan women had the same vision of a Victorian Christmas, and talking about death would drive it away.
My train stopped at the small blue Old Saybrook station. Carrying shopping bags and my suitcase, I slogged down the aisle and out the door. My sisters stood at the far end of the platform. Margo tore toward me calling, “Baby, baby, you’re home again!” We hugged mightily. She smiled and tilted her head. Lily was walking toward us with her arm linked with the arm of a very tall man.
“Una,” Lily said in a refined voice I could hardly recognize, “this is Henk Voorhees.”
I looked up at him. He was blond and stern. His black coat on his tall thin frame made him look like a stovepipe. We shook hands, and as an afterthought, he bent down to peck my cheek.
Lily was giggling, burrowing her round face into that black coat. “Should we tell her now? We can’t not tell Una—”
“Tell her,” Margo urged, practically jumping on one foot. The station was bathed in eerie yellow light from the lamps along the platform. Our clouds of breath in the cold air dispersed like sulfurous fog.
“Tell me what?” I asked, trying to smile.
“Henk and I are getting married,” Lily said.
“Did you know he was going to be here?” I asked my mother while we were cooking dinner. Her kitchen is cozy and warm, with pale wood walls and indirect lighting. She leaned over the oven and checked the codfish.
“Not until this morning. Apparently it was a last-minute decision.”
“Seems that way,” I said, but she ignored the irony. “Can you believe they’re getting married?” I watched my mother’s face for some sign of joy or disapproval, but she gave nothing away. My mother hoards her feelings in the name of politics.
“It is rather sudden,” she said.
We drank cocktails in the room that overlooked Long Island Sound.
“What wonderful architecture you have here,” Henk said, looking all around the room, as if his head were attached to his neck with a ball joint. “You make superb use of the space.”
I glanced at the long beam, which my mother had had reinforced with steel when I lied and told her that I had read about a place very like her house which had collapsed under the weight of the first heavy snowfall.
Lily sat on the floor at Henk’s feet. She rested her elbow on his knees and gazed adoringly at his face. Margo caught my eye and stuck her tongue out at Lily.
“Lily tells me you live in New York,” I said to Henk, deliberately not looking at Margo so I wouldn’t laugh.
“Yes, I do. I live off East End Avenue, on Gracie Lane.”
“East End Avenue! Oh, I just spent a day there two weeks ago. It’s lovely.”
“It is,” Lily said. “You can see the Sound from Henk’s apartment.”
I turned cold; Lily hadn’t called to tell me she was in New York. “When were you there?”
“Oh, just a couple of weeks ago.”
“Whenever she has some free time, I spirit her to New York,” Henk said, stroking her yellow head as if she were a golden retriever. “Liebchen,” he whispered. Lily refused to meet my eyes.
“You do?”
“Henk, you must have a terribly exciting practice,” my mother said, adroitly steering her family past the trouble spot as always. “What is it like to save lives every day?”
Henk waved his hand in the scoffing manner Margo had described. “Oh, it’s not every day. If I did surgery every day, I wouldn’t last long. No one does that. But saving lives—yes, that I do. It is an awesome power, a responsibility.”
“And his patients are so grateful!” Lily said. “They come from all over the world. Where was that woman from, darling, the one who…”
“Denmark.”
“Yes, she’s Danish, and she came to Henk. He’s so well-known.” Lily beamed.
“You’re an American citizen?” I asked.
He stared me down. “I am a citizen of the world.”
Seeing that Henk’s glass was empty, Lily leapt up and ran to refill it with Genever gin, which he called “Dutch stuff.”
“When is it you’re getting married?” I asked him.
“Oh, I think we must let Lily tell you that,” he said, winking, making me feel uneasily as though I had just been admonished.
Lily returned and settled herself by Henk’s feet. He cupped his hand around her ear and whispered something.
“Oh,” she said. “We have set a date. I thought I’d announce it tomorrow, but since you ask—we’re getting married on New Year’s Day.” She giggled, and everyone else gasped. Even Margo. “We’re taking our honeymoon first, getting married at the end of it.”
“Yes, tomorrow night we take off for The Hague,” Henk said. His wide mouth spread into a linear smile, no lifting of the corners whatsoever.
“The Hague?” my mother asked, frowning. “Tomorrow night?”
“Yes. We’re eloping to The Hague!” Lily said wildly. She looked at me, then Margo, then my mother. She read the shock in all our faces, and then she turned back to Henk. “Darling, do you like the horseradish spread? Have you ever tried it before?”
“It’s nice,” Henk said. “Very, very spicy.”
“I hate his fucking guts,” I said to Margo later. We were drying the dishes while my mother wrote down telephone numbers of where she could reach Lily and Henk in The Hague. Henk was telling her that he would leave messages with his answering service in New York, and she could get information from them.
“He’s not that bad, Una,” Margo said.
“Why didn’t you tell me? If Lily wouldn’t, or couldn’t?”
“Listen, it all happened really fast, and they wanted to fix the details before spreading the word. Lily felt so guilty about not calling you.”
“She should have.”
“The problem is, Henk’s insecure. He was afraid you and Mom would object if they told you before you met him.”
“He strikes me as imperious, not insecure.”
“Well, I think that’s a smokescreen,” Margo said slowly. “Lily tells me he’s very insecure, which makes him appear possessive. He’s never come across sisters like us before. I can tell I make him nervous. And you know how accommodating Lily is with men—she picks up signals they don’t even know they’re sending. She’s got this new upper-crust accent, the perfect voice for a doctor’s wife. It’s really funny.”
“Hysterical.”
“But it won’t last. She’ll be back to normal soon. You know she’s dying to get married, and once she is, she’ll let him know what’s what.”
“I hope so, but can you believe the wedding plans? Who do they think they are, blowing off to Holland?”
“His mother’s old, and he wants her to see the ceremony. She’s not well enough to travel. We’re invited, you know.”
“Actually, I didn’t, but I can’t fly to Holland on ten minutes’ notice. Next week I have a busy schedule. I have to show up at four malls to give autographs, plus I’m in the midst of buying a new place.”
“I’m not going either. I have a paper due next week. It’s overdue, actually. The last few weeks have been crazy with Lily.”
“Plus, I can’t believe she’s been in New York without even calling me.”
Lily walked into the kitchen. She hunched her shoulders and stood very close to me and Margo. I glared at her.
“Why didn’t you call?” I asked.
She straightened up and looked back coldly. “Oh, I wasn’t aware I was expected to answer to you.”
“Lily, don’t be bitch-eyes,” Margo said.
“Well, I’ve been slightly preoccupied, falling in love, in case Una hasn’t noticed. Frankly, I wanted to spend time alone with Henk. He works incredibly hard, and he doesn’t care to socialize after operating.”
“He just said he doesn’t operate every day.”
“He’s very modest. He has an amazing schedule. Can you imagine how emotional it is to consult with a patient who could die at any moment? Unless you do something?”
“Just like the gods,” I said.
Lily shook her head. “If you think about it for a minute you’ll realize how important it was for us to spend time alone. I’m sorry if we hurt your feelings.”
“You did.”
“Well, I’m sorry.”
“She didn’t go to New York that often,” Margo said. “Sometimes Henk came to Providence.”
“At least I’ll be moving to New York,” Lily said, smiling, cuddling against me.
My arm went around her in spite of myself. “You think you can bear to see me then?”
“Oh, I think it can be arranged,” Lily said, slipping her other arm around Margo and gathering all three of us into a tight knot.
I received the announcement in the mail, just like everyone else. Mine, however, had Henk’s unlisted home number written at the bottom in Lily’s perfect, tiny, upright handwriting.
In February I found a co-op in a small building on Hudson Street in Greenwich Village. On the fifth floor, it had two bedrooms, polished wood floors, a new kitchen, and large east-facing windows that admitted plenty of light. Heather Dobek, a smart broker who had shown me some nice places over the past months, brought me to it. “The only problem with this place,” she said, “is the co-op board. They’re real tough. They do everything but smell your shit before they let you in.”
“What won’t they like about me?”
“You’re an unknown quantity. Not yet thirty, unmarried, in show business, et cetera.”
In all my years as an actress I had never thought of myself as being in show business. Those words meant Las Vegas or Atlantic City. They conjured feathers, pasties, and show tunes. They had nothing to do with Soundstage 3 and Beyond the Bridge.
