Riverside Park

by Laura Van Wormer

  She smiled.

  “Mr. Fenn know I save for thees.”

  Amanda grimaced slightly. “I’m afraid it will be very expensive.”

  “Here? No. Must have generator, well, septic. Mr. Fenn keep rest of land.”

  Her head kicked back a little. “You wouldn’t have electricity up here? Or water?”

  “No. Zooning?”

  “Zoning.”

  “But,” he said, accentuating with his hands, “he say, and town say self-suffishent fine. Pass inspectzion, and okay. I am fine.” He held his hands up as much as to say, Voilà! “Oh. My geeft,” he said, leading her around to the other side of the truck.

  “Good grief, Miklov,” Amanda said, slightly agog at the tremendous pile of firewood in a clearing in the woods.

  “Not all!” he laughed. “One cord, that is Merry Chreesmas. I bring and stack tomorrow.”

  “You’re very, very generous,” she said, looking around. “Did you clear all of this? By yourself?”

  “I rent equipment, bring it up and then breeng it down. Yes, I do this all.” He was smiling, clearly very pleased with what he had accomplished. “Mr. Fenn say put llama here maybe.”

  “Llama?” She looked around and shrugged. “I suppose.”

  Miklov walked her around, explaining Mr. Fenn’s plan. (Amanda vowed to find out more about this amazing Mr. Fenn. Either he was Miklov’s guardian angel or was planning to take terrible advantage of him.) They walked back to the cliff while Miklov built his imaginary house in front of Amanda’s eyes. It was stone. A roof of hand-planed cedar shingles. Forest-green shutters that really closed over the windows. Two fireplaces. A large wood-burning stove in the basement. Duct work to rooms. Solar panels behind screen of firs. Stone house with generators. Red barn with wood-burning stove.

  They stood in silence for a while, then, each admiring his house and view.

  “I luff you, Amanda,” Miklov said.

  She turned to look at him. She didn’t smile. She didn’t frown. She just stood there. “Yes, I think I’ve known that,” she finally said. “I’m sorry, it’s not fair, is it?”

  Judging from his expression he understood what she meant.

  “You make me feel good, Miklov. My children love you so much. And you are my friend.” She swallowed, wiping some snow off her face, and tried to smile. “We laugh a lot, don’t we? All of us?”

  Miklov nodded. “Because it’s happy.”

  “Yes.” She looked back out over the cliff, wondering where to go from here. She had asked for this, had she not? Coming up here with him? She wished she could even remember what Howard looked like right now, remember when he had cared, or looked at her even remotely the way Miklov was looking at her now.

  She might kiss Miklov, she realized. If for no other reason than to remember what it felt like to feel something again. Because she did feel something right now. She felt like an attractive woman alone with a good-looking young man who thought he was in love with her. He didn’t know yet, which one day he would, that what he was in love with was America. That what he saw in her and her children was a sense of belonging to this great country.

  She represented his future to him. And so he didn’t see anything but that.

  Miklov held his hand out to her.

  All Miklov needed was someone to steep him in manners and etiquette. He needed to learn a few ballroom dancing steps, to read a newspaper each day and be outfitted with khakis and Oxford shirts and loafers and a blazer. He needed a hand-tailored suit, navy-blue, some dress shirts and black shoes with tassles. (He had found the right haircut, she saw; and he was personally well-kept to a fault.) If Miklov was given this life-kit Amanda was certain she could find him an educated American wife with a little background. He was nice-looking, hardworking, had a good heart and possessed that male prowess that Amanda’s son instinctively knew he wanted. No doubt when he became an American through marriage Miklov would become a Republican, a thought that almost made her laugh out loud, but nonetheless she knew would be true.

  She had waited too long to respond to Miklov’s gesture because he came over to take her hand and bring it up to hold against his chest. “No, I’m sorry,” she quickly murmured, taking her hand away and stepping back. She wasn’t the least bit afraid of Miklov. It was what she felt inside, her insidious imagination taking flight and building that house up here, a place where she could escape with Miklov during the day and sometimes at night until he tired of her or she had brought him far enough along to marry him off. That would be her gift to him, in return for making her feel alive again and feel like a sexual being again, like a woman with a life of her own and choices of her own, including how to fill the hours her husband had abandoned her with.

  Miklov stepped forward and took Amanda in his arms to kiss her. It startled her, how well he kissed, and she thought he was as graceful in all things as he was in things athletic. His arms tightened around her, pulling her more firmly against him, and he brought his lower body against her, sliding his tongue into her mouth.

  It was astonishing, really, how strong the urge came back, how much she longed to give herself to him, and he knew what he was about, yes, he certainly did, because he effortlessly moved them over to the truck without breaking off the kiss or the pressure of his lower body. He reached behind him to open the passenger side door and then pulled her around it to back her against the seat. Still kissing her he slid down the zipper of her coat and plunged his hands inside to touch her breasts through her sweater. He groaned then, sliding his hands under her as he pressed into her again. Then he did the most extraordinary thing. He grabbed her hands and pulled them down to feel the bulging mass in his pants, and he held her hands in place and began thrusting against them. Very quickly afterward he broke off their kiss to utter a small cry next to her ear. Then he gave one last heave against her and shuddered.

  He collapsed against her, a dead weight, panting. Then he pushed her hands away, the job finished. When he slid his hand between her legs she said, “No.” He pulled his hand away and then, a moment later, pushed himself up. He did not look at her, but stood there, his hands now in his coat pockets. He was looking at her breasts.

  “I want so long,” he said. His eyes came up. “I want—”

  “No,” she told him and she pushed herself up from the truck and walked away a few steps, rocks crunching under her barn boots, and zipped up her coat. Then she looked up at the sky, the snow falling wet on her face.

  20

  In Which Sam Overhears a Conversation

  THE DOORMAN SAID Harriet had arrived fifteen minutes earlier and since Sam was home early, too, and Harriet had not said anything about coming home early he knew something was up. No doubt whatever it was had to do with Samantha. That’s why he had come home early without telling Harriet, to have another go-round with Samantha before Harriet came home and was upset by it.

  He let himself in the front door quietly, put his briefcase down, stuffed his gloves in his pockets and slipped off his overcoat to hang it in the front hall closet. He thought he heard talking as he crossed the living room and tried to pretend he was walking with his usual heavy tread but knew he wasn’t. When Sam reached the back hall he stopped because he heard Harriet say, “No, it’s not good enough, Samantha.”

  Samantha said something he couldn’t make out.

  “It is important, young lady,” Harriet said. “With all the advantages you’ve enjoyed in your life, with all the education you’ve received, with all the emotional and financial support at your disposal, how could you have allowed yourself to get pregnant when you have absolutely no intention of keeping the child?”

  “I coulda gotten an abortion,” Samantha said.

  “That’s not the issue, Samantha,” Harriet said. “The issue is how you got pregnant. How you could have unprotected sex. Or why you would deliberately have unprotected sex so that you would get pregnant.”

  “It’s a little late to be worrying about that now, don’t you think?
”

  “Darlin’ child, you’re not even twenty years old. I can only pray I’m being early for the next crisis you’re bound to have since you seem to have learned nothing from this experience.”

  “You’re not even curious about how long I’ve been having sex? Mommy?” The way she said the last made Sam clench his fists.

  “Samantha.”

  After a long moment. “What?”

  “You can fool your father but you can’t fool me. I know you got pregnant on purpose.”

  “I didn’t do it on purpose,” Samantha said.

  “Oh, I think you most certainly did.”

  There was a long silence in Samantha’s room.

  “He’s married, isn’t he?”

  Sam frowned, his stomach churning.

  “I’m going to take that as a yes.” Harriet sounded very tired suddenly. “So my next question—how old is this man?”

  “Why? What difference does it make?” Samantha said, her voice rising.

  His daughter’s nerve was finally starting to give. A crack was widening in the wall of stubborn willfulness. At last.

  “Because you adore your father and it would not surprise me if you were attracted to someone somewhat like him.”

  “You think I want to—”

  “No,” Harriet said angrily. “You know perfectly well what I mean. We all grow up with the adults around us being role models. We associate love with certain traits of those people we grew up loving. So what I’m saying, Samantha, is, it would not surprise me if you felt drawn to an older man because your father was older when you were born, and if he is anything at all like your father, then it would mean he has a family.”

  He couldn’t hear if Samantha was saying anything or not.

  “Let me guess. He’s tall, right? And a big man, right?”

  “Stop it,” Samantha said. She was crying.

  “How long has this been going on?”

  Silence.

  “Samantha—”

  “No! I’m not telling you! You’ll wreck everything!”

  Sam, feeling dry-mouthed and weak, leaned into the wall and held the bridge of his nose in his hand. He imagined Harriet would be near apoplexy at this point. She was on the right track, though.

  “What kind of man would leave you down here all by yourself while you’re about to give birth to his child?” Harriet said. “Forget the fact he’s married, Samantha. A real man, a man who cares about you, would have shown up here by now to talk to me and your father. Not sneak around and call you while we’re not here. Samantha, he’s not even sneaking here to see you. Don’t you see? You cannot throw this baby away simply because it would be inconvenient for him.”

  “He doesn’t want it,” Samantha said, starting to sob. “I can’t even see him until it’s gone.”

  The crying went on for some time. “Sugar, don’t you know how much your father and I love you?” No answer. “Don’t you think we would go to the ends of the earth for you if we thought this relationship was something that would make you happy?” No answer. “But to punish us, and to punish your sister, because this man—”

  “You don’t understand, I love him!” Samantha wailed.

  Sam gritted his teeth, pushing his forehead against the wall.

  There was no talking for a while, only the sound of crying. He imagined Harriet might be trying to calm her. “Is he one of your professors?” she asked quietly after a while.

  “No.” He heard Samantha blow her nose and then clear her throat. “He works at a pharmaceutical company. He’s a sales director.”

  “How did you meet him?”

  “In Starbucks.”

  “When?”

  “About the second month I was in school.”

  Pause. “When you were a freshman?” Silence. “Does he live in Utica?”

  “Binghamton.” She cleared her throat.

  “So how did you see him?”

  “He comes to Utica on business sometimes.” Pause. “Sometimes I travel with him. He picks me up and we go on trips.”

  Sam felt the rage starting.

  “Trips to where?”

  He couldn’t hear what Samantha said, but it was a long rambling narrative.

  “We wouldn’t care, Samantha,” Harriet said, “if hewas a good man, a good man for you, your father would get over it. His color would make no difference to us as long as you were happy.”

  He’s white.

  Samantha was talking again.

  A string of expletives were running through Sam’s mind. Of course the son of a bitch was in sales, no doubt he was good-looking, quick on his feet, smooth, always with an angle…He’d heard enough.

  Sam walked back to the front door and opened it. Then he slammed it so hard the front hall mirror shifted against the wall. “Hello, I’m home!” he called, opening and slamming the front hall closet. “Where is everybody?”

  He had to keep his cool. Somehow.

  He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

  Harriet had gotten Samantha started and now he needed to subtly confer with her before she went any further. She had to get a name on this guy, even just a first name and the company, and then Sam knew he could find him.

  21

  Amanda is a Mess

  THERE WERE NO words that could fully express the loathing Amanda felt for herself.

  Silently she got into the truck. Miklov walked over to pick up her hat from the ground and brought it into the truck with him.

  She stared straight ahead. The snow was really coming down now.

  Miklov started the truck, turned on the lights and the wipers, carefully backed around and started slowly down the mountain. When he stopped to open the gate she climbed down out of the truck and told him she wished to walk home. He hurried over, saying something about it being too dark.

  “What I have done is unforgivable,” she said to him.

  “But you did not—”

  “If I did not have my children, Miklov, I swear I would go home and slit my wrists.” Then she looked down, shaking her head, thinking, That is why I want to slit my wrists, because I don’t deserve to be their mother.

  “Leesten—” Miklov had firmly taken hold of her arm and given it a shake. “I luff you.”

  “I do not love you, Miklov,” she said. “I did a bad thing. I hope someday you will forgive me.” She pried his fingers loose. “Please don’t hurt my children because of me.” And then she started down the road.

  Emily’s mother.Teddy’s mother. Grace’s mother. Madame Moliere’s employer. Howard Stewart’s wife, for better or for worse, Mrs. Stewart.

  If what transpired on the mountain did not so sharply remind Amanda of what she had once been like she might have found some small space left on which she could stand to forgive herself.

  The sickness she felt inside reminded her of how much she did love Howard. She remembered now what it felt like to fall in love with him. Miklov had even reminded her of what their passion had been like. So her body wasn’t dead, it was just their relationship.

  She climbed the driveway and stripped off her gear in the mudroom. She went upstairs to tell Madame Moliere she was back and then went into their bathroom to take a long hot shower, crying while she did so. She was slightly better afterward; at least she could carry on a conversation with Madame Moliere. The children came home and while Amanda listened to how their day went she knew she had to do something because her marriage was falling apart, she was falling apart. And if she fell apart, the way Howard was lately, the whole family would fall apart.

  JANUARY

  III

  22

  Cassy

  IT WAS A heavy burden that Emma had given Cassy to carry over the holidays, particularly when, between Christmas and New Year’s, Emma’s health failed so quickly Cassy needed to stay in Manhattan, scrambling to find hospice care.

  “They said I could try chemotherapy,” Emma explained, “but I told my doctor that was nonsense at my age, I would do no
such thing.”

  “But why, Emma?” Cassy said, feeling so deeply saddened. Why was it that wonderfully loving and giving people like Emma had to go when people like her own mother, who was going to be bitter and angry and venomous to the very end of her life, seemed to stay on forever? She didn’t wish her mother dead, certainly, but there was no sign whatsoever of the mellowness Cassy had been told to expect her mother to achieve at a certain age. Soon even Cassy’s hefty “donations” to the resident’s board wouldn’t keep her mother where she was. (“If your mother would just stay away from the clubhouse,” they would tell Cassy, “it might be all right, but she plants herself in the middle of everything and says the most unkind things to people.”)

  “Because my turn on this earth is coming to an end,” the old woman said with a smile. “And I am ready to go. Daniel is in a better place,” she explained, referring to her son, “so I don’t worry about him as I once did. My affairs are now in order and Mr. Thatcher gave me his word my final wishes shall be carried out to the letter.”

  Cassy smiled encouragingly, feeling her throat tighten.

  “It is Rosanne I worry about.” Mrs. Goldblum sighed. Her eyes got a little teary and she withdrew a hankie from her sleeve, removed her glasses and patted her eyes, blew her nose, and then replaced everything where it had been. “I had hoped by now she and Randy would be married but that does not seem to be in the cards. Young Jason will be going off to college and I—I fear for her happiness,” she continued. “After all that schooling and expense, golly oh, my, Cassy, to find that she loathes it! She has a degree and experience—”

  “She can get a job anywhere.”

  “The poor dear is miserable and I—Well, I’ve simply run out of time.”

  Cassy blinked back tears. “You know I will help her, Emma. You don’t have to ask.”