by Luanne Rice
“Are you depressed?” she asked, sitting on the porch step, her back against the railing. Removing her sunglasses, she shielded her eyes to look at me.
“Yes. Very. He’ll be gone for three weeks.”
“You can live with that.”
“Did Nick—do you know if Nick said anything to Donald about the trip?”
“Well, Donald told me that Nick seems upset about something. He didn’t say what, but I got the idea that he’s pretty angry with you.”
“Oh, thanks, Clare! Nick is thousands of miles away, and you tell me something like that. Thanks.”
“Honey, tell me what’s wrong.”
“I think Nick wants to leave me,” I said in a voice so small I could hardly hear it.
“I don’t believe that.”
“I think it’s true. I’m making him miserable. You know why—the way I act when he’s not here. I’m afraid of so many things, Clare.”
“What are you most afraid of?”
“That things will change even more. That Nick and I won’t be together.” The idea was so hideous, I started to shiver. Clare sat on the arm of my wicker chair and put her arm around me. I felt her cheek press against the top of my head.
Honora walked into my yard carrying oars, the plaid beach blanket, and a basket from which protruded a loaf of French bread, a pineapple top, and a bottle of Evian water. She waved to us, then motioned to the pier alongside which our dinghy rocked. “Come on!” she called.
“I don’t feel like a picnic,” I said.
“Please come,” Clare said. “I want you to be with us. I understand why you’re upset, but everything will work out. I know you, and I know Nick. You’ll both figure out how to manage this.”
“I hope so.”
“Come on,” she said. I took her hand and allowed myself to be led toward the boat, noticing the red cross-hatching the wicker had indented in the backs of her bare legs.
At the pier we discussed who would swim and who would row the boat; Clare volunteered to row out if Honora would row back. Once everything was settled, we began our trip. I swam steadily, taking a breath every three strokes, keeping my eyes open and watching the bay’s rock bottom give way to the deep Sound. Clare’s oars splashed, lulling me into memories of other swims out to Candle Island. We always did it in groups of three or more, with someone in the rowboat in case of danger. Strong cramps? Shark attack? Nothing bad had ever happened, but we wanted to be prepared. I was lost in memory when Honora crashed into me. “Sorry, bad radar,” she said, working herself back on course.
Twenty-five minutes later we had arrived at Candle Island. Honora and I clung to the rock, panting, while Clare hauled the scarred old dinghy across seaweed and barnacles to a flat surface. We spread out the blanket, and Honora passed out white tennis hats.
“What a splendid sunny day,” she said.
“Hand me some salami, I’m starved,” Clare said.
“So Nick is in London,” Honora said. “Is it still that top secret deal where he’s not allowed to take you along?”
“Mother—” Clare warned.
“Just because you and Donald have an arrangement that lets you each do your own thing doesn’t mean your sister does. I know she’d rather be in London, and I think she should be. Why don’t you surprise him, take one of those cheapo flights and hide in his hotel room?”
I was the volcano and rage was the lava, and it burst forth, covering everyone in its path. “Jesus Christ,” I said. “For as long as I can remember, you have been training me to sit at my husband’s side, not let him out of my sight for fear that he might look at another woman. Just because your husband had an affair does not mean that all men have them.”
Honora stared at me, shocked. “Georgie, of course they don’t. It’s not true that I ever told you that.”
“It is true,” I said. “It absolutely is and I believed you. I have the most wonderful husband in the world, and I can’t let him out of my sight for mortal fear that he’s going to fuck his secretary or some floozy on the street.”
“Nick wouldn’t do that—I know he wouldn’t. I simply suggested you fly to London because I know you want to be with him.”
“Say what you want, but that’s not the reason.”
“It is! Don’t call me a liar, Georgiana. I think it would be sweet to surprise him that way. I can just see him, dragging home after a hard day in the City, to find you waiting with open arms.”
“If I did that, he would leave me. That is what it has come to. I want to be with him in London more than anything in the world, but if I went there my marriage would be over,” I said, and then I dived into the cool water. I started swimming home, and I didn’t look back to see whether the rowboat was coming after me.
That night Honora knocked at my door. I let her in, and we stood in my kitchen, facing each other. She wore a black velour sweatsuit covered by an embroidered shawl. I had already put on my white nightgown.
“That was a very dangerous thing you did today,” she said finally, “swimming away without the boat.”
“I don’t care.”
“Clare and I followed you, of course, but you were swimming so fast, I’m not sure we could have caught you in time, if something had happened.”
Just like me, Mother—always waiting for something to happen, I thought. Instead I said: “I’m sorry I spoiled the picnic.”
Honora raised her hand, to show me that hadn’t mattered at all. “I want you to tell me what’s going on.”
“I’m not in the mood to talk to you. I’m very tired, and I want to go to bed.”
Honora checked her watch, the big gold one that had been her father’s. “It’s only nine-thirty. You can’t be tired yet.”
“I am. Please go, all right? I’m fine.”
“Listen. Out at Candle Island you accused me of instilling something in you that is going to ruin your marriage. I think you have a responsibility to explain that to me.”
“I’m sorry. I was exaggerating,” I said, thinking that if she didn’t leave I would start crying and never stop.
“Every marriage has ups and downs. Yours has had mainly ups, from what I’ve been able to see, and I’m very grateful for that. Whatever is going on between you and Nick will turn out fine. I have confidence that it will.”
“So do I,” I said, smiling to assure her. She hesitated an instant, then returned my smile, kissed me goodnight, and left. Watching her cross the lawn, I thought of what she had said. What business did she have being “grateful” that my marriage had gone well? I could understand a mother’s desire to see her daughter happy, but gratefulness seemed entirely disproportionate. Entirely wrong. In fact, it made no sense at all unless she knew some secret about why women were essentially unlovable, tricksters who duped men into staying with them.
MY TELEPHONE CONVERSATIONS with Nick that first week had an unfamiliar air of reservation, as though the memory of our last night together and its implicit threat stood between us. He called me just as often, and we talked about all the important things: our work, our health, the Point, the weather. I cannot say that the reserved tone was exclusively his. Rather, I felt myself pulling back, wanting to give him less of myself. In this terrible courtship I was playing hard to get, to make myself seem more desirable.
I doubted that John Avery had intended for me to consider the two days he had given me to think about interviewing a deadline, but I did. Two days after his call, I phoned him at Hubbard, Starr.
“I’ve decided to do it,” I said. “Heaven knows how it’s going to help the Swift Observatory, but I’ll do the interviews.”
“Super. Let me pass you to Heidi, my secretary, and she’ll set you up.”
Heidi sounded so well-informed, so organized, that at first I thought John had taken for granted that I would capitulate and do the interviews; then I realized that probably she often arranged them for Avery Foundation grantees. She asked me whether I would prefer to see interviewers at my home in Black Hall or at a hotel in N
ew York.
“At a hotel,” I said, surprising myself.
“Do you have a favorite hotel?” she asked.
“Not really,” I said, thinking, anything but the Gregory.
She named a hotel in midtown, I agreed, and she told me she would call me back with the dates and details. I thanked her, and we said goodbye. Leaning back in my chair, I watched Eugene, Casey, and their babysitter swimming in the bay. Clare was reading in a folding chair. It would be good to leave this place for a few days, I thought. Even in the heat of August. Too much here was familiar, and everything I felt was brand-new. Maybe I would seem more alluring to Nick, giving interviews in my room at a fancy hotel. It would be better for him to envision me in New York than at home. In New York the possibilities were many: he could imagine me brave and lonely in my strange room, he could imagine me toasted and fêted and heralded in print for my beauty and brilliance. If I stayed at home he would imagine one thing only: me, Georgiana Swift, in the bosom of my family, burning the home fires until his safe return.
The hotel overlooked Central Park, and by some error in booking or the Avery Foundation’s generosity, I was given a suite on a high floor. I walked through my rooms, noticing the antique writing desk; the gilded chairs; the little balcony that curved over the street, following the contours of the hotel’s ornate facade, giving one the feeling that this was an aerie in the country. Only the tall buildings across the park and the faint sound of traffic below testified that I was still in the city. Although I had several interviews scheduled that day, I wanted to make some Observatory calls. First I tried to follow up on Mona Tuchman, but no one was home. Then I called two young dress designers I had read about in the Living Section who had succeeded in introducing their work to several big department stores. Later I took a walk down Fifth Avenue, looking in store windows, imagining how the clothes, shoes, and jewelry would look on me. I stared for fifteen minutes at a pair of amber and violet shoes before walking into the store to try them on. Usually in New York I was drawn to the park, but not this trip. This trip I had things to prove that had nothing to do with the wonders of nature.
Steve Wunderlich, my first interviewer, worked for the New York Times. He arrived at the appointed hour, and we sat in the salon of my suite. I was wearing my new shoes. We chatted for a few minutes as he tested his tape recorder, set it in the best place to receive our voices. I observed how relaxed he seemed, as if this were his hotel room instead of mine. He appeared young, twenty-five or twenty-six, and he dressed like a professor, in gray slacks, a light madras jacket, and a striped bow tie. He smiled to put me at ease. I wondered whether my manner was as easy as his, whether the people I interviewed felt as relaxed as I did.
“How did the Swift Observatory originate?” he asked.
“I am interested in human nature,” I said, trying to explain my work without sounding pretentious.
“I’ve seen your reports, and I’m wondering about your interviews with people like Mona Tuchman and Caroline Orne. They told you very personal things, details they never told reporters. Can you explain that?”
“Maybe because our interviews were like conversations. Two people sitting together, talking about hard subjects. Both of them have been through hell, and they needed to talk.”
“Why do you specialize in families?”
“The family fascinates me. Everything that takes place in families has incredible power. The strongest feelings occur between family members, and at the same time, the greatest sense of peace, of ease. For example, a woman can feel perfectly comfortable with her sister. They love each other, know each other so well that they have a private language, a sense of what each other is thinking before she says it. Suddenly one sister does the wrong thing—I don’t know, makes eyes at the other’s boyfriend, or tells her mother her sister’s secret. Something fairly serious. If another person did it, someone outside the family, the consequences would be different. The friendship might end, or things might blow over. But in the family a bond exists that is so strong, it has to withstand everything. Maybe one sister wants to claw the other’s eyes out, or maybe they give one another the cold shoulder for a while. Rage is greater, so is love, in a family. Because you know you’re going to be together at the end.”
“What about divorce? Divorce has dissolved many a family.”
“That’s true, unless you fight tooth and nail to keep that from happening. Look at Mona Tuchman.”
“That was just infidelity, not divorce,” Steve said, a wry smile on his face.
“Just infidelity?” I asked, determined to control my scorn. The flip way he said “just infidelity” seemed unworldly and immature; I had the feeling that Steve was single and spent undue amounts of time reading Playboy. For a few seconds we sat silently, and I was thinking about my family and Nick, how they had inspired the things I had just said, and how far away they felt at that moment.
“So you’re committed to commitment.”
“Yes. For myself, that is. But the Swift Observatory is just as interested in families where that goes wrong. Right now I’m working on a story about people who join cults or religious orders that prohibit any contact with their families. Some families are devastated, but I was surprised to find a few for whom it is actually a relief—for the families as well as for the cult members.”
We talked for a few more minutes, and then it was time for my next interview. Steve and I shook hands. I admitted the next interviewer, Karine Bernadin for Islander Magazine. An hour later I saw Paul Tebib for the Washington Post, and an hour after that I saw Holly Roylance for the Brussels Review. All of them were bright, interested in what I had to say; only one of them, Karine Bernadin, wore a wedding ring.
That evening I had a drink in the hotel bar. The air conditioning smelled stale; I tried not to think of the cool breeze blowing through my house at Black Hall. I stared at the ice in my glass, imagining that all the men, sitting by themselves or in pairs, were watching me. The idea made me so uncomfortable, I paid cash instead of signing for my drink, so that no one could sneak a look at my room number on the check, and left.
“We took a chance and won our bet,” came John Avery’s voice as I walked through the lobby. He stood by the reception desk with Helen; they grinned at my obvious surprise.
“We’re on our way home from a board meeting, and John suggested we stop by—to see if you’re free for dinner.”
“How wonderful! I was just starting to feel hungry,” I said. The dinner hour had been looming, empty without Nick, and here was relief.
“Let’s eat in the hotel dining room,” John said. “That okay with you, Georgie?”
“Fine,” I said. John left Helen’s side, gave me his arm, and led me through the lobby.
We were seated at a curved banquette, with me between the Averys. “Nick’s doing quite a job in London,” John said. “He and Jean are holding down the fort.”
“He told me Jean was there,” I said. I found myself studying John’s face, the sound of his voice: attentive to anything that might give me a clue about what happened between Nick and Jean when I wasn’t there. “They work well together, I guess.”
“Very well,” John said, buttering a roll. “Some associates can’t work as a team the way they can. Very efficient. Each handles different aspects of the deal, but they get together on the important things. They take a big load off my mind.”
“That’s nice,” I said.
“Jean . . .” Helen said, her nose wrinkling. “Would that be the Jean I met in your office that time? Tall woman, very on-the-move?”
“‘On-the-move’ describes Jean Snizort,” John said, chuckling. “She’s a very aggressive, able lawyer. She was handing complicated transactions early in her career—people trust her.”
Some people, I thought. John turned to me. “And very attractive. A lot of wives would hate to think of their husbands in London with Jean Snizort.” What is John trying to tell me? I wondered. He wouldn’t be so blatant if sparks were flyi
ng between them. On the other hand, maybe this is his way of warning me.
“Now, John,” Helen said, scolding. “Maybe Georgie and I don’t like jokes like that. First you say the woman is a great lawyer, then you hint she’s on the prowl. That kind of talk doesn’t flatter you. It makes you sound like an old male chauvinist.” Then, to me, “But I’ve seen her—I know what he means.”
“She’s pretty,” I said, thinking perhaps dinner alone in my room would have been more pleasant.
“Now, how’d the interviews go?” John asked. “That’s what we’re burning to know.”
“They went well. It was strange, being on the other side of an interview. The reporters seemed interested in my ideas, interviewing technique—things like that.”
“I can imagine,” Helen said. “You prompt people to tell you exceptionally personal things.”
“It might be a form of therapy for some people,” John said slowly. “There they are, in the midst of an extraordinary event—and you come along, asking gentle questions.”
John saying “gentle questions” seemed intimate and flattering, and I felt myself blush as deeply as if he had taken my hand.
“There were no gentle questions after Mother died,” Helen said. “Only terrible, nosy reporters out for blood.”
I hesitated, then asked, “Would you tell me about that?”
“Oh. She was killed by her lover,” Helen said. “He was a much younger man. That was partly why the reporters were so interested. Daddy hated the scandal so much, we almost never talked about her again from that day onward.”
I thought of how horrible that must have been for all the Averys: to love your mother and not be allowed to talk about her when she was no longer there. At the same time, to be ashamed of her actions, furious at her betrayal, knowing you would never see her again.
“He was Jasper’s soccer coach,” John said, his mouth set. A waiter brought our dinners; we sat silently until he left, and no one touched the food.
“We all took it out on Jasper,” Helen said. “As if he were to blame for being a good soccer player, and having a handsome young coach who of course came frequently to our house for dinner. Until he killed Mum, we all thought he was sweet. No one had any suspicions about an affair—we just assumed that Mum had taken a shine to him. She loved our friends.” Helen sounded bewildered, as if she were telling it for the first time, as if in the telling the facts became more real.
