She was looking at him, now, with dismay, at a man she felt she knew too well. “Do you mean to say that that was all it was for you—just keeping your job?”
“It was more than a job, Essie. It was a career. It was my life.”
“And in order to have me—and your career—you—”
“I admit I wanted both. Why wouldn’t I? Can’t you understand?”
“I understand one thing,” she cried to him across the length of the canoe. “I understand that I’ve been used—used for more than thirty years! Used as another little stepping-stone in your career! Right from the beginning, Charles Wilmont, because where would you be if it hadn’t been for me? Who brought you to Jake in the first place? Where would Jake be, for that matter, if it hadn’t been for me—but most of all, where would you be? Who sat with you—for three years—trying to break that—habit of yours? Who kept your bloody little secrets for you? Who helped you keep your cake and eat it too? Was that all I was for? And now that you’ve got both—me, and your career, you say no to me!”
“You’re being hysterical, Essie.”
“Oh, I see exactly what’s happened,” she said. “You’ve turned out to be exactly like Jake Auerbach. That’s what you’ve turned into. That’s who you’re married to—not the company, but Jake! Jake had his cake and ate it too—your mentor, the man whose shoes you’ve filled!”
He turned completely in his seat to face her, the paddle still across his knees. “Essie, don’t ever say such a thing to me!” he said.
“It’s true! I see it in your face, and I can hear it in your voice. It’s Jake!”
He raised his paddle. “Essie, I warn you,” he said.
“Are you going to strike me with that? Jake hit me once. Is it going to be your turn now?” She stood up in the canoe and lunged toward him, and he also rose, the paddle held across his chest toward her off. “Sit down!” he shouted and, with that, the canoe overturned.
“Oh, help me!” she screamed. “I can’t swim!”
Near her, she heard his voice say calmly. “Just put your feet down, Essie. The water’s only about three feet deep.” And then, “Come on. Help me pull this thing to shore.”
When they had waded ashore, and pulled the overturned canoe up onto a strip of sandy beach in the cove, and stood, panting for breath, on the beach, looking at each other—two people in their seventies, in dripping wet clothes—they both began to laugh. They were still laughing after Charles had waded back out into the lake to rescue the floating paddles, and had righted the canoe again.
“Look at us.…”
“We’d better get out of these clothes. We’ll both get pneumonia.”
“Thank goodness it’s a warm day. We can dry our clothes in the sun—on those rocks there.”
“Our picnic’s at the bottom of the lake.”
“The fish will enjoy it.”
“Caviar sandwiches?” They were still laughing.
When they had stripped off their clothes and had arranged them on the rocks to dry, and lay down in the sun on the beach near the water’s edge, Essie let herself look across shyly at his naked body. Yes, they had both grown old, but with half-closed eyes she could still see the well-muscled body of a much younger man, in clear outline, and with one hand she reached out and ran her fingertips through his chest hairs. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean any of those things I said, Charles. You’re your own man, and always were. There’s only so much you can give me. I don’t want more.”
“Are you sure?”
“You’ve given me so much. I shouldn’t have brought up marriage.”
“There’s another thing,” he began, speaking slowly. “It’s not just how your children would take it. You mentioned my so-called secret past. If you and I got married now, that would be bound to come out. Don’t forget we’re both pretty well known now, you and I. A wedding—if we were to get married—there’d be publicity. Reporters—they’d dig around. Harvard. Business school. They’d find out none of that was true. You wouldn’t want that to happen, would you, Essie? That was really what I was thinking. That would just embarrass us both—and Josh, and the others. I’ve lived most of my life with my little secrets. I’d like to be buried with them now, if I can.”
“I understand.” But I understand much more than that, she thought. What made me feel I had to put him to the test at this point? Only to find that Charles is Charles.
He leaned toward her on his elbow and, with his free hand, drew a series of circles in the sand. “But that doesn’t mean that it wouldn’t be nice to be married to you, Essie. Let me put it more formally. Will you marry me?”
“No! Why should we marry when we have it all anyway?”
He sighed, leaned back.
“Do you remember that night? At The Bluff? Joan’s party?” she asked him.
“Of course I remember!”
“Here we are again.”
He turned to her. “Do you still love me?”
She smiled. “Always.”
He was stroking her breast now, supple and pendulous, the tender nipples, the soft places of her flesh, and he—rounded, smooth, feathery as corn silk, still cool, shrunken and moist from the lake water—was in her hand. “Forgive me,” he said, “but I’m not the randy fellow I once was.”
“Oh, yes, you are,” she whispered, and then, as their stroking became more determined and her breath began to come a little fast, she said, “Look. It’s like a garden here, isn’t it. This lake is our garden, and you are the tall birch tree growing up by the shore. Here. Let me water it with my lips. Think of nothing. Move a little here. Here, by this soft grassy spot. No pebbles. I will make a garden of my body. What did the girls in Delancey Street say? They could make gardens of their bodies, even in the shadows of the tenements, even in winter … my knees are like mountains. Let me taste your tree in its grassy place again.”
After a time, he lay back again. “No use. Too old.”
“No! Try that. Yes, let me try that. What did those girls say? I pretended not to listen, but I did anyway. Put your hand there, let me do the rest. There, you see? Oh, Charles, come to me in my garden. See, there it is, like a tree. Don’t move for a moment, darling. Just lie still in my garden. There is a golden thing growing—yes, oh, oh, yes, do that. Is it warm there? Are … is … oh, yes … oh, my love. I do, did, can, will. Have done, do. Do!”
Afterward, they had fallen asleep and when they woke the sun was low over the trees and their clothes were stiff and dry on the rocks. A loon was calling.
“We’d better get back.”
Then why, after that, when they were paddling back across the smooth lake in the righted canoe on a perfect summer evening, had she suddenly felt tears come? “What do I have, Charles?” she asked him. “Why am I crying?”
“What’s wrong, Essie?”
“I have everything, don’t I? Children … grandchildren … beautiful houses … beautiful things … all the money in the world … you …”
“What is it?”
How could she tell him that she felt as though she had flown out of her body, and was weeping for all lost things from some other past: Mama, Papa, Prince, Jake’s old self.
“Here, let me do the paddling. You’re feathering again. What’s wrong, Essie?”
“No … no.…” He would never understand, not in a lifetime of explaining it. And she had wept all the way across the lake, sobbing uncontrollably, leaving him to pilot the canoe alone. And when they came to the landing, she had scrambled awkwardly, still weeping, up onto the dock, and had hurried down its length and up the path, into the big log house and up the stairs to her bedroom and flung herself onto the bed. He had followed her up and sat beside her on the bed, rubbing her shoulders. “Essie, please tell me what’s the matter,” he kept repeating.
“No … no.…”
“Please. Was it me, Essie?”
“No … don’t you understand? I’m afraid. I’m afraid to die.”
“You
’re not dying, Essie!”
“I’m old … we’re old … where did everything go?”
“You’re not old, Essie. We still have everything.”
“No … no.…” Still she could not stop. She had continued to weep, noisily, like a child, for what seemed like hours while he sat there with her in the darkness—wept until her pillow was as drenched with tears as her dress had been that afternoon from the lake, until there were no tears left, weeping for nothing at all.
At least that was the way she remembered it.
It may not have been that way at all.
You know.
Twenty-eight
Now Essie and Josh are seated in the wide backseat of the limousine, and Mary Farrell sits on one of the jump seats facing them, a briefcase on her lap. The car moves slowly through the uptown traffic on the East River Drive, toward the Triborough Bridge and LaGuardia Airport. A light snow is falling, and Essie adjusts the soft fur robe across her knees.
“Do you have your little speech down pat?” Josh asks her.
“As pat as it’ll ever be. At least Mary thinks so.”
“You’ll be fine,” Mary assures her. “Besides, you’ll have the words right on the podium in front you, Mrs. A, if you should happen to lose your place. Which you won’t.”
“Ha! Don’t be so sure. Let me look at it again, Mary.”
Mary removes the sheet of paper, neatly typewritten, triplespaced, from her briefcase, and hands it to her.
“‘My husband, Jacob Auerbach, was a pious man …’” she begins. “Oh, but he wasn’t, Josh! That’s the trouble with all this. He wasn’t the least bit pious, and you know it.”
Josh touches her gloved hand. “That’s just what’s called a lead-in, Mother. To get to the Talmudic part, which we all like so much. He was interested in history, which is the point.”
“Was he? I don’t seem to recall this interest in history, unless it was trying to get one of his great-grandfathers related to the Rothschilds. Now tell me again who’s going to be there.”
“Mayor Byrne, Chuck Percy, Vice-President Bush …”
“I mean family.”
“Everybody. Except Babette and Joe. Oh, and Linda. Linda can’t get the time off from her job. And Babette says she won’t be under the same roof with Joan.”
“Why not?”
“She’s suing Joan, Mother—remember? For pirating her trust. So under the circumstances—”
“And what’s Joan doing about that?”
“Well, she’s hired Roy Cohn as her lawyer. Need I say more?”
The car has moved out of the heavy traffic now, and moves smoothly up the curved access ramp to the bridge.
“So who does that leave?”
“Mogie and Christina, Joan, Karen and Daryl.…”
“Daryl?”
“Karen’s new husband, Mother, remember? You were at the reception.”
“Of course I remember. Now don’t try to rattle me, Joshie. I’m nervous enough as it is. What about Daisy?”
“Daisy says she’d rather not be at the speakers’ table. But she’ll be in the audience. She’ll also be coming to your little cocktail party tonight at the hotel.”
“Cocktail party? What cocktail party?”
“Mother,” he says patiently, “I went over all this with you last week. Just a small cocktail party, in your suite at the Ritz. You don’t have to do anything, the hotel will handle it all. It’s just for the family. And—of course—Daisy.”
“Of course. Well, I’m glad she’s coming to that.”
“Then, the plan is for you to have a quiet Room Service dinner in your room. You can invite anyone you want to join you. But I’d suggest early to bed, so you can be fully rested for tomorrow.”
“Charles,” she says.
“Hmm?”
“I think I’ll ask Charles to dine with me. He’s coming, isn’t he?”
“Of course. We’re all meeting at the plane.”
Essie looks out through the blue-tinted glass at the passing shapes of the city, as Manhattan gives way to the less prepossessing aspects of Queens. “What must people think of us?” she says.
“Who, Mother?”
“People. Watching us drive by like this. Like royalty.” And then, “Chicago. It used to take a full day or a full night to get there on the train. Now it takes—what?”
“Less than an hour, Mother. And with the time change, we’ll actually get there a few minutes before we left.”
“I’d forgotten about the time change,” she says.
“So you get an extra hour of sleep tonight.”
“Yes.”
“Would you like to go out to see The Bluff tomorrow? We can fit it into the schedule, if you’d like.”
“No. Definitely not. Whatever they’ve done to it, I don’t want to see.”
“Very nice housing, actually. It’s called Lake Bluff Estates.”
“Well, nice housing or not, I don’t want to see it.”
“You were wise to sell it when you did. In today’s market—”
“Wise? I just wanted to stay in New York.”
“But still—”
They ride in silence for a while, and Essie studies the typewritten words on the sheet of paper in front of her in the fading afternoon light. “Of course this is temporary,” she says.
“What’s that, Mother?”
“This,” she says, shaking the cane that rests against the seat beside her. “Didn’t I tell you? I tripped on the rug in the library. But it’s just a mild sprain. Nothing broken.”
“I know, and remember what I told you, Mother. I think you should replace that Aubusson with a good wall-to-wall carpet. The Aubusson tends to bunch up. It’s dangerous.”
“And get rid of my Aubusson? Never.” She looks out the window. “Now where are we?”
“Coming into LaGuardia. The jet’s parked in the Eastern Shuttle terminal, and the driver will take us right to the plane.”
“I never met him.”
“Who?”
“Mayor LaGuardia.”
Mary Farrell shifts her position in the jump seat. “Now, there’s nothing at all to worry about, Mrs. A,” she says.
The car turns through a gate in a hurricane fence marked NO ADMITTANCE, moves slowly across the tarmac, and comes to a stop in front of the Eaton & Cromwell jet. The chauffeur hops out, moves quickly around the car, opens the door on Essie’s side and offers her his arm. “This is only temporary,” she explains, showing him the cane. Nonetheless, he holds her elbow firmly as he helps her out of the car. Then Josh is at her other elbow, and they move slowly toward the short flight of steps leading up into the plane. At the top of the steps, a young man in a white mess jacket stands at attention. “Mother, this may be a little slippery, because of the snow,” Josh warns her.
“I’ll be fine.”
“And this is our steward, Jim Ulrich,” he says.
“Mrs. Auerbach, welcome aboard.” Jim Ulrich is all youthful smiles, and his fine brown hair is blowing in the wind. “Here, give me your hand.…”
“This is only temporary,” she says again, indicating the cane. And then, sharply, “Mary—have you got my speech?”
“Right here, Mrs. A,” Mary says, patting the briefcase.
“Good! Don’t lose that!”
Mary, who has many other Xeroxed copies of the speech in the briefcase and in various other pockets of her luggage as well, says nothing.
Helped aboard the plane, Essie sees the various members of her family rise from their seats to welcome her. There is Katie, Josh’s wife, and there is young Josh; there is Karen and What’s-his-name, her new husband, and there are Joan, Mogie, and Christina, and there indeed is Charles. Essie waves them all a distracted greeting. The interior of the plane is like no other she has ever seen—more like a small lounge on an ocean liner than an aircraft. It is all done in blue and gold which, of course, are the Eaton & Cromwell company colors, and instead of ordinary airplane seats there are
a series of swivel club chairs and sofas in blue leather, each with a coffee table in front of it. On each table, there is a white telephone. In the front of the cabin is a bar, with barstools, and over this hangs a large television screen. The entire cabin is carpeted with thick gold carpet. “I want to sit in the back,” Essie says.
“You’ll get a better view from up front, Mrs. A.”
“No. Whenever I read about a plane crash, it’s always the stewardesses sitting in the back who get saved. Everybody else gets killed.”
“Wherever you like, Mrs. A,” Mary says, and they head toward the curved blue leather sofa that wraps around the tail end of the jet.
“When do we leave, Josh?”
“As soon as you’re settled, Mother.”
“Can I get you something from the bar?” Jim Ulrich asks her.
“Yes!” Essie says, perhaps too loudly. “A martini. Gin. Very dry. On the rocks.”
The door of the plane is closed and, beside her, Mary Farrell helps Essie extricate the seat belt from the tufts of the blue sofa, and helps fasten it about her middle. “Let’s keep your coat on till the plane warms up a bit,” Mary says. The plane begins its taxi toward the runway and, over the loudspeaker, the pilot’s voice is saying, “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard Eaton and Cromwell’s flight to Chicago. There are a few facts you might like to know about our aircraft and our flight today. We are flying a Gulfstream Three, one of the newest, fastest …” Essie realizes that she has to go to the bathroom, and she whispers to Mary Farrell. Mary takes Essie’s hand and says, “Can you wait a minute or two until we’re in the air?” But it is too late and, throwing Mary an agonized look, Essie feels the warm water gathering in her underthings, her dress, and in the folds of the lining of her mink coat. “Ssh,” Mary whispers. “Pay no attention. No one will notice. We’ll take care of it later.”
The twenty-eighth-floor suite at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel is certainly very nice, and Josh, who has overseen the arrangements, certainly appears to have thought of everything. The sitting room and dining room are filled with flowers. Though Essie has never been personally fond of florists’ “arrangements,” preferring simpler treatments with just two or three blooms, there are bowls of spiky gladioli interspersed with calla lilies, anthuriums, rosebuds and baby’s breath, dramatically framed by tall ti leaves. Bowls of salted nuts and Godiva chocolates have been placed about on tables, along with two baskets of fresh fruit and cheeses, with appropriate napkins and silverware. A full bar has been set up, and bottles of iced champagne are chilling in silver coolers. The kitchen refrigerator has been stocked with orange juice and sweet rolls, and Josh has even thought to provide her with a small stack of dollar bills, in a silver money clip, to be used as tips for maids and waiters. Essie has bathed and changed, and her laundry, including the mink coat, has been sent out for cleaning—with a discreet explanation from Mary of the problem, and with the promise that everything will be returned first thing in the morning. Now it is six o’clock, and a waiter has arrived with a large trayful of hors d’oeuvres—smoked salmon, caviar, stuffed artichoke bottoms, little Vienna sausages in a chafing dish—and soon the others, who are all staying in the hotel, will be gathering, and Mary is lighting the candles. “We’ve asked for three waiters,” Mary says. “One to tend bar, and two to pass. I think that’s everything, Mrs. A. If you need anything, my room is right across the hall. I’ve written the number on the note pad by your bed. Just pick up the phone.”
The Auerbach Will Page 41
