No Matter How Much You Promise

by Edgardo Vega

  Vidamía’d asked her to explain more and Cookie said that her mother had told her about Performing Arts and it was something to think about, and that they’d done a movie about it called Fame.

  “Yeah, it’s a real cool place. Liza Minnelli and Suzanne Vega went there,” Cookie had said. “They have dance, acting, music, and art. You have to audition to get in. I’m gonna play a classical piece, and then ‘Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts’ Club Band.’ It’s my own arrangement. I’ll play it for you when we get back. I’d do Coltrane’s ‘Things,’ but they’re real stuffy and it’d blow their minds and they’d think that I was making mistakes.”

  At the end of each subsequent summer, Vidamía returned to Tarrytown filled with an increased sense of power, each year her sense of self growing and making her want to dare to do more and more. For Cookie, however, her sister’s absence filled her with longing, and for the first month of September, when she should have been getting back into the rhythm of school and the days grew shorter, she’d mope around and look for her big sister, and the void was too great. By October, though, she was back into her schoolwork. During the rest of the year, Vidamía and Cookie were in contact almost daily, telling each other things that had happened to them and laughing on the phone for no apparent reason, everything either being the trigger for hilarity or else magnifying the most innocent intrigue into an occurrence of tragic proportions.

  In time, Cookie realized that in spite of her sophistication and apparent adult grasp of the world around her, her world was limited to life in the neighborhood, and as smart as she was about the neighborhood where she lived, when she ventured north of Fourteenth Street by herself, she was totally lost. There were certain social conventions which were totally foreign to her so that just as she had served as guide and interpreter to Vidamía during that first summer, Vidamía was now in a position to return the favor.

  Whenever Vidamía was invited to one of her friends’ parties in Manhattan, or a few times in Tarrytown, she asked Cookie to come, and if there was any hesitation on Cookie’s part, Vidamía insisted until she was persuaded. Heidi, this is my sister Cookie. Cookie, this is Heidi Rubinstein. And Cookie, awed by the opulence of the Greenwich Village town house or the Sutton Place triplex or the twelve-room apartment on Park Avenue, would do gauche things like flop down on a couch without being asked, or use the wrong fork at lunch, or pick up food with her hands. She knew that she had done stupid things because it always got back to her mother, and Lurleen would gently explain how things were done. Not once did Vidamía criticize her about her behavior, but like Lurleen she was gentle and loving.

  The two sisters were both eager pupils and understanding teachers so that there was hardly ever any friction between them and each grew to love and appreciate the other with an almost blind loyalty. Once, however, Vidamía had a pretty heated argument with Cookie about the way people spoke English in the neighborhood. Vidamía had corrected a girlfriend of Cookie’s who pronounced the word “tests” as “tesses” and who consistently said that “she stood at her house” when she meant “stayed.” Cookie said she had no right to correct people. They were in the loft and got into it pretty heavily, Lurleen watching them.

  “Mama, all Nilsa said was that her teacher gave hard tesses. This one,” she said, pointing at Vidamía, “had to correct her and explain that the plural of ‘test’ is ‘tests.’”

  “That’s right,” Vidamía said, defending her position.

  “Well, you made her feel real bad and that’s also true. You knew what she was trying to say, Vee. You’re smart, but sometimes you act like a retard when it comes to people. You don’t do it to me, and I make plenty of mistakes.”

  They went at it a while. It was at this point that Lurleen stepped in and told them to please sit down so they could discuss the matter calmly, and perhaps they might want to split a piece of lemon meringue pie that was left over from supper. She then explained that although Vidamía was correct, she had to consider that in the United States alone there were probably a hundred different accents and that people pronounced words differently from one region to the next.

  Vidamía realized that she often behaved like Elsa, and it bothered her. She promised not to correct people again, but couldn’t help reminding Cookie of one of her own questionable habits.

  “Well, you imitate people’s accents.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Oh, no. What about that time at Grandma Brigid’s or at Mario’s mother’s house. It probably makes them uncomfortable.”

  “No, it doesn’t. It makes them feel like I’m one of them.”

  “I still think you should be an actress.”

  “I’m a musician.”

  And so it went from year to year, Cookie putting one foot in front of the other and things happening and she absorbing things and being totally crazy about Mario and kissing him up on the roof and getting very wet and having to do it to herself and seeing his face so clearly; having to stifle her orgasms they were so sweet. She couldn’t imagine then what it must be like with him in her and then he had touched her one time and she came immediately and he was so scared and then she did him with her hand. She liked him because he wasn’t big and long like that guy she saw from the roof, but he was very hard and she wondered if it would hurt.

  She had done it with Mario and it wasn’t such a big deal. He enjoyed it and she did sometimes but not that often and she’d asked her mother and Lurleen said that she was still too young but that she should just enjoy her life and not get pregnant because that would certainly tie her down, and she agreed and was very careful and she went with Lurleen and got contraceptive pills and made Mario swear that he wasn’t seeing anyone else and he swore and she believed him because he was so crazy about her and all he did was go to Stuyvesant High School and study and play handball with his Chinese friends over at the Essex Street playground, and nobody could tell he was part Rican because other Chinese had curly hair and their skin was a little dark.

  Vidamía was totally out of control and now she wanted to buy their father a piano and that was totally crazy. But she, Cookie Farrell, would see what their mama would say. She was sure Vidamía wasn’t going to tell her own mother and have all hell break loose. And there was no telling what the blazes would happen when her father saw a piano in their loft. No telling whether he’d flip out or not.

  32. Just One of Those Things

  When Billy’s girl, as he sometimes called Vidamía, had called him last year with her worries about getting her father to play again, Buck was flattered that she had wanted his advice. Maud said Vidamía had now finally convinced Billy to start playing. Although he had yet to hear Billy, Buck was proud of his part in it. Now Maud said Billy’s girl was getting ready to purchase a piano for her father. Still strong and mentally agile at seventy-six, Buck resented the way most people treated him. But Billy’s girl didn’t seem to take age into consideration. Last year the two girls came up early for the Fourth of July, before the rest of the family showed up. They talked with him and then helped Brigid and Maud set up for the barbecue. That turned out to be Brigid’s last Fourth of July. She came down with the flu in September, pneumonia developed, she went into the hospital, and passed away a week later. The priest came and performed the last rites. Brigid never uttered a word of complaint, but she looked frightened as she clutched her rosary. Buck was asleep at home when she died. The doctor said that there had been no pain, and that she looked peaceful in her death. Buck remembered their youth together, and the rare moments when she permitted herself laughter and hope.

  And here it was, a year later, and the two girls were even more grown up, young women now, beautiful and confident. With Brigid gone it was now Maud who took charge and they’d come up early to help. They kissed him and sat with him for a few minutes, and then were gone, their fine figures making him recall his youth once more. He’d asked them their ages. Vidamía was almost seventeen years old and Granny, his name for Cookie, was almost sixteen.
He had always been able to tell when a girl had had a man be at her. He was sure Granny was now a woman. There was still a naïveté to her sister, even though she was older.

  After Vidamía and Cookie left the porch to help Maud with the grilling, Buck sat down on the steps and lit his pipe. He wondered how many more Fourth of Julys he’d see. Born in 1912, he’d turn seventy-seven in November. The house was empty now. Even as he walked through it, he could hear Brigid’s ghost. He didn’t believe in such things, but at night in the winter, the house, contracting from the cold, creaked and groaned as if someone were walking down a corridor.

  He felt bad now that as they had grown older their marriage had turned loveless. He felt desire from time to time, but not for her, not for a long time. Her beautiful body had turned fat, thick veins bulged out on her legs, the skin became pasty white and scaly in places. Her once reddish blond hair had grown white and thin, and she was balding. The long delicate bridge of her nose had turned downward to give her a witchy look, the always suspicious eyes filled now with regret and anger. She must have known that he’d stopped loving her long ago, remaining married because he didn’t want to create disorder in her Catholic world. But he had strayed anyway and was certain she had known.

  How old had he been when he’d gone off with Candy Donovan? She began coming up to the house in 1950, when she was twenty-two years old, so he was already thirty-seven. Maudie was sixteen, and had dropped out of high school. He remembered Brigid coming to him to tell him about Maudie’s beau, as she called him. One day, about four or five days before Christmas, Maud brought Kevin Farrell in to see him. He was a big strapping fellow, his eyes very serious and respectful. He came forward and extended his hand. They spoke for a while and then Buck asked him about his father. Kevin said his father, Seamus Farrell, had come from Ireland when he was eighteen years old. He became a fireman the following year. He had liked Kevin, and Maud had never been so happy, and then Kevin was killed and Billy was orphaned. Luckily he and Alfred Butterworth had been able to help. Between the two of them they had taken care of Billy. He didn’t know what had made the kid go off and join the Marines and go to Vietnam. He figured Billy was lucky to be alive, if that were a consolation. He was eager to hear him play again. Thinking back, he was certain Billy would’ve taken his place with the big guys. He had everything they had. Miles Davis had wanted him to play and he’d gone off to war. What a waste. He thought again of Candy Donovan and he felt even sadder.

  She had come up one summer afternoon with Iggy Marginat, who’d met her on the West Side of Manhattan, up above Columbia University, where there was an Irish enclave bordering Harlem, and told him the girl could sing. Iggy sat at the piano and she sang “It’s Only a Paper Moon,” “I Get a Kick Out of You,” and “Just One of Those Things.” It was while she was singing that last song that he looked up from his banjo and saw that she was singing to him, focusing on him, as singers do when they’re close up to an audience, her attention innocent, but so direct that he felt himself erect against his banjo.

  It was just one of those things,

  Just one of those crazy flings,

  One of those bells that now and then rings,

  Just one of those things.

  It was just one of those nights,

  Just one of those fabulous flights,

  A trip to the moon on gossamer wings,

  Just one of those things.

  If we’d thought a bit

  Of the end of it

  When we started painting the town,

  We’d have been aware

  That our love affair

  Was too hot not to cool down. …

  He’d smiled at her and she shrugged her shoulders and, between verses, said, “I can’t help it,” and that had been it. The following Friday he called home after he finished work and told Brigid that he had to go downtown on union business. He got on the elevated train, got off at the 125th Street station, went down the stairs, and waited for Candy Donovan. At seven o’clock she finally came down the stairs in her high heels and nylons, her legs long and her dress clinging to her fine figure. She turned up the street, saw him, and nearly ran to embrace him, her face beaming with excitement.

  “I knew you’d come,” she said. “I’m so happy to see you.”

  “How are you?” he said. “You look so pretty.”

  “Thank you. Can we go for a walk?”

  “Sure,” he said.

  They went up the hill on Broadway, with students walking past them, the males looking at her and the females glancing at him. Turning west, they continued past Riverside Church and into the park, going down to the edge, near the river, to watch the sun set over the Hudson.

  “Candy Donovan,” he said. “Is it Candace?”

  “No, it isn’t, and don’t I wish,” she said.

  “What, then?”

  “You don’t want to know. It’s some dumb mick name.”

  “Sure I do. Please, tell me.”

  “Cliona,” she said. “Can you beat that? My old man fancies himself an Irish poet, the drunken son of a bitch.”

  “It’s a beautiful name.”

  “He’s always threatening to kick me outta the house because I won’t go to mass and I like jazz music. With him it’s Ireland this and Ireland that. Why doesn’t he go back to the damn place? He drives everyone crazy with the stuff. I mean, we’re in America. It’s great here. What did he have over there? A sod house, a friggin’ shillelagh, and two potatoes, and one of them was rotten. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, he’s one dumb mick. And he’s not content with giving his children adequate Christian names. John, Catherine, Brigid. Oh, no. With him it’s Erin go Bragh until you drop dead. Connaire, Fergus, Siobhan, Padraic, and yours truly, Cliona.”

  “I shouldn’t be here,” he said, hearing Candy mention his wife’s name as an example. Although he was sure it was merely a coincidence, it made him uncomfortable.

  “Where should you be?”

  “Home, I reckon,” he said, rattled by her. “I guess, I mean.”

  “I like ‘reckon’ better,” she said.

  She turned from the river to face him and he saw how truly beautiful she was. Her eyes were light brown, almost a light chocolate color, and her hair was golden. She had a wide face with high cheekbones, the skin of her nose peeling from being out in the sun during the summer. Time had stopped and he was again a young man back in central Tennessee, and then farther west, in the flatter country, and then in Memphis. He felt enormous desire such as he had once felt, and was now deadened, for Brigid.

  “Do you feel as strong about me as I feel about you?” she asked, as if she could read his mind, already displaying how attuned she was to him.

  “I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t.”

  “That’s all that matters. When we’re old and gray, that’s all we’re gonna remember.”

  “It’s that just now hearing you talk about your father made me think about my family. My oldest girl Maud is already married and is due this month. I’m gonna be a grandfather.”

  “Age doesn’t matter,” she said. “I’m not going to lie to you. I’m twenty-two years old, but I’m not a virgin. I’m a big girl. I’ve been with three men. Two of them were Negroes and the other was Cuban. Did Iggy tell you?”

  “No, he just said you were a singer.”

  “Does it matter?”

  “What? The other men?”

  “Yes.”

  “No, of course not,” he said.

  “I don’t like white men much,” she said brashly. “With you it’s different. Even before I walked into your house I could feel you, and as soon as I saw you I wanted to kiss you. Did you like how I sang?”

  “You sang great.”

  “That’s what I wanna do. I think I could really do it, and make records and everything.”

  “I’m sure you could,” he said, looking out over the river. “It’s getting late. We should go.”

  “Do you really want to?”

  “N
o, I don’t.”

  She leaned against him and they kissed gently, admitting that what was happening was inevitable. They stood for a while silently, watching as the sun settled into the woods over New Jersey. She was small and only her personality made her seem bigger. Before he knew it he had his arms around her and was kissing her desperately, the sweetness of her mouth making him drunk. In the failing light they walked down a grassy embankment near the river where there was a thicket of trees and there they laid down and made love, her passion making him gasp for wanting her. She was a fierce lover, totally open and generous in her desire. When he was spent and she was lying against him he heard her say, “I love you, Buck, but I don’t remember your last name. Iggy told me, but I can’t remember.”

  “Sanderson,” he said.

  “Do you love me?” she said.

  “Yes, I do,” he answered, and he recalled Charlotte Randall and knew that he loved Candy Donovan because he felt exactly as he had with Charlotte more than twenty years ago.

  He walked her back to her apartment building, going through the park, the late-summer air clean and fresh so that he could smell the grass and feel the dampness of the dew and was lost in her as he held her around the waist, her body fitted to his, their pace uniform, synchronized, rhythmical as if they had been made for each other. In the darkness the fireflies traced odd green patterns as they sought their mates, their phosphorescence magical. When they were in front of her building, she kissed him and then ran inside, leaving him feeling abandoned so that he was more convinced than ever that he loved her.

  The following weekend she came up again and sang, but she was discreet, avoiding looking at him. They continued to meet during the fall and winter and into early spring. They usually went to her sister Siobhan’s apartment in Hell’s Kitchen, where Candy had moved the month after they began seeing each other. While her sister, whom she called Sally, and her husband, Harry, were down on Wall Street cleaning offices in the evening, the two of them made love desperately. Candy was an uncompromising lover, her heart served up whole and her body totally in tune with his needs, arousing him when he couldn’t imagine how he could become erect again. More than any other woman, Candy Donovan had awakened in him a desire which he had imagined was over, because of his loveless marriage to Brigid. Candy was strong and loving and often bruised him, her fingernails marking him with her passion.