“They’re the exact same chocolate-covered coconut patties that you loved when you were Rebecca’s age. You told me you loved them and I remembered. I remembered the brand.”
“And I’m thanking you,” said Jill, as if he had turned some dangerous corner and she wasn’t going to let him take the two of them along. “Rebecca,” said Jill, “let’s get ready for bed.”
“I wish you could just be a little more sentimental,” said Ed.
“I know,” she said. “I know you do.”
Rebecca’s eleventh birthday: a sleepover party at the (Jaffe designed) East Hampton house. By Sunday morning, Amanda Cohen was recovering from an evidently upsetting outburst; every minute or so Rebecca asked her if she was okay. Danielle Alfano and Eleanor Bliss had seemed like nice enough girls, but apparently, according to Jill, they’d stopped speaking to poor Jennifer Moore, whose steady work as a child model (in addition to a partial scholarship) helped her single mother pay for the private girls’ school where these alliances had been formed. Danielle and Eleanor had accused Jennifer of “being conceited,” which (again, according to Jill, who seemed concerned but also kind of jazzed) was perceived to be among the worst accusations among girls this age. Then there was Lauren Sealove, who didn’t go to their exclusive school but who was Rebecca’s best friend from Hebrew school and whose parents Ed pictured as sanctimonious if not socialist. Though the kid had done nothing but wear torn jeans and ask Ed if he liked his job, Ed didn’t trust her. The first time Rebecca went to Lauren’s, Ed asked his daughter how the apartment was, and Rebecca said: You wouldn’t like it.
Eleven years old and already full of subtle implications.
Ed had forgone his Sunday ritual of reading all of his papers in order to make the girls chocolate chip pancakes, but as the girls were barely speaking, due to the evidently rigorous and emotional demands of a slumber party, they were each (aside from polite Jennifer Moore) sulking over the pancakes, and it was all Ed could do not to shake every one of them.
Jill had become their translator. “This is totally normal,” she whispered to Ed, while he was getting dressed and puzzling over what had gone wrong with his daughter’s party. “And believe me,” said Jill, “it’s only going to get worse.”
“Are they leaving soon?”
“The parents are picking up in twenty minutes. Rebecca’s going over to Lauren’s for the day.”
“The socialists have a house in the Hamptons?”
“Renting,” she said. “Sag Harbor.”
“Ah.”
Ed emerged from the bedroom. “Girls,” he said, planting a kiss on Rebecca’s head, “it’s been a pleasure.”
“Have fun, Daddy,” said Rebecca.
“Have fun, Mr. Cantowitz,” echoed several of them, and they ceased being mysterious and frightening and returned to being children.
“Hey, thanks,” said Ed. “I’ll try.”
Hy not only knew how to fly his own helicopter from Westchester to East Hampton and back, but he’d always been an on-time guy, a guy who even Ed, who counted on no one, could count on. But now, with a perfect blue sky for today’s third flying lesson, Hy was late and hadn’t called this morning to confirm their weekly appointment. Ed waited for Hy in the empty lot (a barren potato farm), which was walking distance from Ed’s home. Ed did forty push-ups in the tall dry grass, and after Hy still hadn’t arrived, he did an additional forty sit-ups; he threw in some jumping jacks (God knew he could use them). But as the sun inched behind the clouds and the morning turned to afternoon, the air grew hotter, the sky went dull, and Hy still didn’t appear.
When Franny had bought the lessons for Hy’s fortieth birthday five years ago, Ed thought his friend an unlikely candidate for piloting. Ed assumed he’d take a few lessons and leave it to the professionals, but Hy took to the skies and went on to get his license. He also became an enthusiast—donating flying lessons to every auction that asked, extolling the wonders of floating through the clouds, the virtues of bypassing traffic. By the time Ed asked Hy for flying lessons, Ed was so deeply troubled by the management of their company, by their collective inability to agree on most matters, that unfortunately these lessons were little more than an excuse to align himself with Hy, with whom Ed had every interest in continuing to work. He believed that—despite their frequent disagreements—it was Hy and he who were silently loyal to each other. Osheroff was so smooth that if he had any brains he’d be dangerous, Rabb knew the numbers but lacked any creative vision, but Hy still inspired him—there he was in the air! The man was flying his own chopper!—and Ed had every intention, during today’s third lesson, of making this clear.
After the initial windswept chaos and the handshakes and good-to-see-yous, Ed strapped on his helmet and seat belt and they were both ready for takeoff.
“Remember,” said Hy, over the budda budda budda of the blades, “acceleration, elevation. Deceleration, descent.”
“Got it,” said Ed, as his legs began to sweat.
“What else?”
“You never stop flying a helicopter until you land.”
“Good boy.”
“What are you doing?” Ed asked.
“Accelerating.”
“We’re going up?”
“We’re accelerating.”
“Not sure I’m ready.”
“Sure you are. Pull up on the collective.”
Ed took the throttle between them and did as Hy instructed. “We’re rising,” said Ed.
“Elevating,” said Hy.
Ed looked out over the flat planes of Long Island, at the green farmland and blue ocean, at the patterns of how they came together and how they stayed intact. Suddenly he knew that it was time to speak his mind. He felt the sense of urgency that was his comfort zone, and he also felt that if he didn’t say it now, he somehow never would, or that if he waited, the sense of urgency would turn inward and become something else, something depressing.
“Hy,” Ed hollered, “I’m terrified.”
“Don’t worry, I’m right here. I’m not gonna let you fuck it up. You think I want that?”
“I’m not talking about the helicopter. I’m not talking about the lessons. I’m terrified about our operation. Our lack of shared vision.” Ed shouted to be heard above the din of the propeller. “Do you know what I mean?”
Hy might have nodded; Ed wasn’t sure. The only thing he was sure of was that Hy was, in fact, going in for a landing—deceleration—and Ed asked, “Is there a storm coming?” but he knew there was no storm even before Hy shook his head.
“Are you okay?” shouted Ed. He should have waited until Hy had a plate of clams in front of him before bringing up something like this. Last time, they’d landed near a clam shack they both appreciated, where Ed bought Hy all the fried seafood he wasn’t supposed to touch after his heart scare the previous year.
“I don’t think you’re ready for this,” said Hy. “I thought I’d teach you the basics of hovering, but it really is the hardest part.”
“Sorry,” said Ed. “I’ll be more focused next time.”
“Sure,” said Hy, “of course.”
Ed knew better than to talk anymore. Hy was focused on landing.
“Feel that? That’s where you feel the urge to pull way up on the collective,” said Hy. “Don’t,” he said.
“What happens if you do?”
“You don’t want to know.”
They made contact with the ground, and Hy rolled the throttle to idle and the engine spooled down. Neither of them spoke as Hy’s hands remained on the controls until everything stopped moving completely.
“Baruch HaShem,” muttered Hy.
“I’ll say. I can’t believe you have the stomach for this.”
“Y’know what?” said Hy, almost severely. “Neither can I.”
Outside, the day had changed. As they disembarked, the wind slanted the tall dry grass and Ed could smell a fickle sky. How it was, in fact, getting ready to rain.
“List
en,” Hy said, shaking his head as he planted his feet in the dirt. “I’m not supposed to tell you yet. Not for a month at least. But I can’t take it.”
“You’ve been acting strange all day.”
“I’m telling you, I can’t take it.”
“Hy?”
“We put it to a vote.”
Ed’s stomach lurched. “What vote?”
Hy faced him now, mitts on his hips, looking Ed straight in the eye. “As you say,” he adjusted his stance, “there is no consensus. This is because there’s no concrete leadership.”
“I agree.” Ed nodded. “I agree completely.”
“I think you’ll also agree that only two among the four of us have leadership potential.”
“Of course,” said Ed. “You and me, Hy, like Rockefeller said—”
“An extrovert and a driver.”
“That’s right, and don’t kid yourself, Hy—we can do it. We need to stop hedging and begin to truly use our resources. We need to restructure and pare way down. Shift the focus, I’m telling you. Deals like the one I’m working on.”
“Even though I told you—we all told you—it was too great a risk.”
“I’m telling you, Hy—”
“And I’m telling you.” At first Ed thought he was imagining it, but by the time Hy said, “You’re out,” the sky had turned dense and gray.
“What are you talking about?”
“We have different philosophies.”
“What different philosophies? What the hell are you talking about? You already put it to a vote?”
“Listen—”
“WHAT.”
“There can only be one leader. Ed, with you, nobody ever knows what they’re going to get.”
“That’s bullshit! Everyone knows what they’re going to get. That’s exactly why we’ve made the money we have. That’s WHY. Because I tell people the goddamn truth!” He turned away.
“Ed,” said Hy, “you are a remarkable salesman. Phenomenal. The best I have ever seen. But you are not a manager.”
“Right,” he said. A salesman? “Fuck it. If it’s over, it’s over. That’s one thing I know.”
Ed noticed, abruptly, that the field was littered. He’d never noticed the litter until now—beer cans and cigarettes, what looked like torn-up work clothes. He imagined the strips of those work clothes and those empty beer cans all mixed up in the landing, blown up and caught in the tail. He wanted to turn around and tell Hy about the litter, to warn him for the next time, but he knew there wouldn’t be a next time, and this knowledge prompted him to want to promise Hy they would all suffer horrible losses if they went through with this and that they’d better believe Ed would fight it. Instead, he just turned away and started walking, then running, until he was sprinting through the grass so fast he had shooting pains in his chest and calves, and still he didn’t stop. The rain was falling now, but it was a light rain, so much lighter than the dark sky had suggested, and shouldn’t the sky split right open? Shouldn’t it all fall down?
By the time he burst through the door to his house, he let himself imagine that it was Helen he was searching for, Helen he had married, and that it was—in fact—Helen who was the one always angry at him for petty reasons and that his real wife—dazzling mother of his only child—was someone he admired only from afar, someone he’d passed by one night off Fifth Avenue and fantasized about over a lifetime while having sex with Helen, his wife. He could even imagine Helen’s clothes—increasingly plain over time: pastel shirts, khaki skirts—strewn on the bathroom floor, clothes that Jill would never wear, let alone throw on the bathroom floor; he could see Helen’s cheeks, flushed—and they were always so pink in his mind, so heightened, embarrassed, amazed.
“What happened?” cried Jill. He grabbed his real wife and she said, “Watch it.”
But he didn’t watch it. He pressed her onto the eggshell-colored living room wall, held her there until he got himself aroused and he couldn’t stop himself from yanking off her tennis skirt, tugging the elastic from her long thick hair.
“What’s with you?” she demanded.
“You’re sexy,” he muttered.
“I’m what?”
Ed shook his head. “Can’t you just let something happen?”
“Yes,” she said pointedly. “I can.”
He backed away from her. Her impatient tone was so familiar. Why? What had he done? “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means—Jesus, Ed—you’re out of breath, you’re slamming me into walls. It means, what happened?”
He turned from her, and as he sat down on the couch, tugging at what thankfully remained of his own hair, as he continued to think of a way to phrase it, all he wanted was for Jill to sit beside him, to ease this moment of telling her what Hy—whom she had never trusted—had told him.
The rain fell onto the roof, patterning the windows and the skylight.
As Jill looked at her watch, his mind cast about for comfort, and there was Provence when Rebecca was one—it had rained then, too. There they’d seen the French countryside through rain on windshields and windowpanes. But his most vivid memory was not of the rain, or of any châteaus or excellent wine, but of sitting with Jill in a rented Peugeot on the side of an ordinary road. On the way to a Michelin-starred restaurant, Rebecca had fallen asleep in the car, and rather than try to move her inside and cope with the potential consequences of her interrupted nap, they’d both agreed to let the Michelin star go, and, instead, they bought sandwiches at some kind of gas-station café. He remembered the slightly soggy baguette, the ham and cheese and butter, and how they’d eaten in silence. Only it wasn’t the same as silence, because they were listening to Rebecca sleep.
Then, over the sandwiches and lemon soda, Jill had told him more about her late grandparents, whom—up until then—Ed had mostly heard lovingly described as cunning enough to have (on limited funds) bribed their way out of Vichy France and into New York at precisely the right time. As the rain fell in sheets, Jill told him about these grandparents, a pair of Russian peddlers who’d made it to Paris on sheer dint of will, who’d spent summers on Lake Gérardmer selling embroidered linens to tourists, and who—later—loved to see their granddaughter dressed beautifully; how they’d enjoyed sitting on park benches and telling her these stories; how neither of them had ever seemed bored.
“Ed?” Jill demanded now. She was gripping her car keys and the heavy Cartier key chain he’d once given her for Mother’s Day.
He wanted to say, Please come here, but instead he said, “I wonder where Rebecca is.”
“She’s eleven,” Jill said. “It’s rain.”
“That’s what everyone said when she was a baby. When she and Solange were caught in the park.”
“You weren’t crazy to worry then, okay? Is that what you want to hear? You were not crazy to worry. Do you want to hear that not only should you worry now but that I should worry, too? That we should all be just as worried as you?”
“Her fever was so high she had to be hospitalized. All I’m saying is that I wasn’t overreacting.”
“All you’re saying is that you were right.”
Please sit, he wanted to say. I’m in real trouble here.
But she didn’t sit; she was late for a doubles game. He knew without asking that she assumed the rain would clear.
And so he didn’t tell her.
Part Three
1988
Chapter Thirteen
The Woods and the World
Forget about her dorm—small white clapboard house, quiet roommate from Ohio—and forget about her classes (excellent, she had no complaints): Rebecca met everyone through smoking. The Pines. The River. The Mountain. The Tree. The Watertower. The air growing cooler; sunlight streaking through the black-green trees. There was a place called Canfield, a clearing in the forest. Kids sat around, facing an ancient Pepsi can nestled in the dirt, as if it were a mesmerizing bonfire. Dan, her best friend from home, had warned her
to stay away from DHs (Dirty Hippies, he’d deadpanned; his older sister, Adina, had spent four years on this very campus and then chose to attend Santa Cruz, based on the “clothing optional” clause in the literature), but there was Rebecca, one month into boarding school, sitting on a log. There she was accepting a light from Brian, the Dirty Hippie King.
There was Rebecca Cantowitz chatting with Ariel, fat and beloved, who ate green apples while she smoked. There she was with a girl named Merry (weirdly pronounced Murray, like Rebecca’s grandpa), who was frequently tripping on acid; Merry took Rebecca’s hand and said, Your lips are like a baby’s lips, and Hassan laughed because Rebecca so clearly had no idea what to say. Hassan was six foot five and perpetually slouching; it was hard to see his eyes through the thick glasses and mass of black hair. He hung around Stephan, Mike, and Josh, who each wore flannel shirts and had more or less sandy hair, more or less lanky good looks. They laughed without making much noise and rarely spoke to anyone besides one another and Chris Huang, who, for some reason, was referred to only by his full name.
She had found them all on the very first day of school, because she’d followed a tall girl with white-blond cornrows, in an electric-blue dress, across a covered bridge. When the girl turned around, she looked Swedish or vaguely elfin. Her eyes were light green.
Rebecca took a calculated risk. “I’m looking for a place to smoke.”
“Oh, Lord,” she said, in a way that made Rebecca want to laugh. There was suddenly nothing Swedish or elfin about her. “You freaked me out. You look so serious. I thought you were going to start reciting poetry or something.”
Rebecca kept silent but finally said, “What are you talking about?”
“You’re new, aren’t you?”
Rebecca nodded.
“I’m Vivi,” the girl said, more as an explanation than introduction. She’d resumed walking and led Rebecca into the woods.
When they’d arrived at a thick cluster of pine trees, Brian was playing hacky sack with particular flair, as a tinny recording of what Rebecca was pretty certain was a noodling Grateful Dead guitar solo played from a boom box. And even though Rebecca disliked hacky sack and thought “Uncle John’s Band” was profoundly grating, she couldn’t take her eyes off Brian’s glossy brown hair, his almond eyes, his skin so freckled it looked tan. Vivi approached Brian, who didn’t stop hacking, and for a second Rebecca locked eyes with her and saw that Vivi was seriously pissed. Whether she was pissed because Rebecca had been staring or she was just that angry with Brian had been unclear.
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