by Rand, Naomi;
He slid it away and put his arm through the girl’s. Then they were off, rounding the corner, leaving her behind eating their dust.
Dead. Dead twelve years. Gone. Gone without her. This was his grandchild. She saw the resemblance, of course; it was what had fooled her initially. The color of the eyes, the wide shoulders. Genetics were so powerful. There was the experiment all Biology students had to replicate, Mendel’s principles proved by mating fruit flies to find the dominant genes. Vestigial wings or normal ones, brown eyes or white.
She had to wake up. She was done. Shutting her eyes, she wished for the miracle to occur. She needed her body to be sucked back. She wanted hot air to wash over her. She needed to hear the ocean tapping at her feet. Enter here those for whom all hope is lost, she begged.
Nothing changed. Someone bumped into her and said, “Sorry.” She was on Montague Street. She gave in, letting the crowd take her with them to the subway entrance. She walked down the stairs and purchased a token.
This time she was all alone touring the city. No Louise. No G.P. No Winston Manning. Even her fame had abandoned her. There were wonders to behold, though. Twin towers gleamed from the tip of Manhattan Island. The banks of elevators shook as they rose. On the roof deck, she joined crowds of tourists clutching their cameras. You could see imperially far, north, south, east, and west. Along the Palisades, huge apartment towers tilted at the sun. The city had expanded everywhere at once.
CHINATOWN WAS OUTSIDE the Canal Street F train stop. In the more authentic restaurants she was one of the few white patrons. Amelia ordered fried chicken feet. All manner of dumplings were served in woven nests, proffered from rolling carts. She went north to Little Italy to get a cup of bitter espresso and a cannoli. Further north and west she found art galleries. On the walls, blotches of paint were smeared across huge canvases. She disliked much of it; what was wrong with representation? One artist appealed to her though, a man named Diebenkorn. His series of paintings was titled Ocean Park. It reminded her of the light, the depth, the wonder she’d seen watching the Pacific. Soothing. Remarkable.
Outside, music blasted from a store, the singer demanding, “Should I stay or should I go?”
She didn’t seem to have a choice in the matter. She took the train to Thirty-Fourth and emerged to find a line of schoolchildren. Joining them, she admired the Macy’s windows. Inside, the story of the Nutcracker unfolded, complete with sugarplum fairies. Altman’s was no longer across the street, but the Empire State was down another block. The view from the observation deck was still striking, although eclipsed by the one visible from the upper-most floor of the trade center.
Her biggest disappointment was with the subways. They were filthy, the windows of the trains painted over. And people were camped out inside the subway stations. Many were mad, muttering to themselves. When beggars came through the cars, the other passengers usually ignored them. She always gave something.
It was a different New York, better in some ways, worse in others.
South to Coney on a warm day, she discovered that where there had been pleasure and elegance, there was now a broken boardwalk. The beach was dirty, bottles and litter all over the sand. Yet, there was still that magnificent view and, of course, the ocean. A world away, she’d crashed and watched her plane sink, then she and Fred had swum to shore. A world and several lifetimes away. Amelia sat on the garbage-strewn sand, watching as ships passed across the edge of the horizon.
A WEEK WENT by like this. Seven full days before she found the courage to go back. Inside the coffee shop, he was sitting in the same booth. She ordered at the counter. She watched the steady stream of people come and go and understood that whatever he was doing, it was illicit. It was obviously why he’d been suspicious of her, although wouldn’t anyone have wondered what it was she wanted of them?
He came up to her finally.
“You told her what I said?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“What do you think you’re going to get out of me?”
“Nothing,” she said.
“Why come back?”
“I want to give you your reward.”
“Reward?” He laughed. “That is so bogus. For what?”
“You saved my life.”
“It was a set up.”
“No. You did save me. I wish to thank you.”
“You wish to thank me?” Winston Barry gave her a hooded look. “Fine. Buy me something. It’s her money, right?”
She wasn’t going to argue, if it pleased him to think that, so be it.
The girl was left to “mind the store.”
They walked over to Square Circle. Inside, he was well known. Lots of chatter went on before he asked for what they’d been keeping for him. “She’s paying for me,” he said. The record was titled The Beatles Yesterday and Today. On the cover, four handsome young men with oddly long, bowl-shaped haircuts were holding pieces of raw meat and dismembered dolls.
“This is what you want?”
“Yes.”
It was nineteen dollars. She could easily afford the money.
“You must like the Beatles,” he said. “Or are you more of a Presley type? Wait, I have it, James Brown! You like to get down and dirty.”
She had no idea what he was referring to, but it clearly amused him.
Outside the store, he shook her hand and said, “Mission accomplished. Now you can send in your report on me.”
That was it, as far as he was concerned. But as for her?
THE NEXT MORNING the woman at the front desk was distraught. Some crazy acolyte had murdered John Lennon, the former Beatle. Wasn’t it horrible? Who would do something like that?
Beatles? She read the coverage. It was tragic. She knew all about this sort of insane devotion and what it spawned. She thought immediately of the boy, Winston Barry, and how he would take it. She went to find him at the coffee shop but he wasn’t there. Not that day or the next. Amelia stood outside the window of the apartment, waiting for him. He never emerged. She read on, fascinated by the fans’ heartbroken laments, the outpouring of grief and affection.
On Saturday, Amelia went to Central Park. She thought of it as Olmsted’s triumph, his vision of a wilderness artfully tucked inside a teeming metropolis. Amelia joined the steady stream of people heading for the band shell.
Love, love me do
Love was what this group sang about.
She’d heard the band’s songs in every store this week. And blaring from street vendors radios. The park crowd was silent. Respectful. It was like Will Roger’s funeral, she thought, when every movie theatre in the country went dark in mourning. Amelia had gone to see her dearest friend privately, slipping in ahead of the line of fans to view the casket, then going home to lock herself in her bedroom and cry.
The crowd began to sing Imagine.
There was no set age; bearded men, fresh faced boys, girls in jeans and short skirts, and children perching on their parent’s shoulders made up the crowd. A voice over the loudspeaker announced it was time and the clock struck two.
Not one person spoke. No one broke the silence. Being so tall, she could see around her. She searched for Winston Barry as one minute ticked on into two. No one broke ranks. They stood transfixed, trapped in their own memory of this singular person.
He’d been a pacifist, this John Lennon, although Amelia thought it a little silly when she’d read about his bed-in for peace. Still, the impulse was genuine. That poor bereft widow beating at the policeman with her fists, screaming that it had to be wrong, it just wasn’t possible. Those two had apparently had a passionate love affair; he’d left his wife and given up his famous band-mates for her, turning himself into a nonentity of sorts, wanting to just be a husband and father and upstanding citizen of this same city. His mistake had been to try and find the limelight again. Fame was its own reward. Now there was an odd saying.
By the time she ran into Winston Manning again, Amelia was the most famous woman in
the world. It had been years since she’d broken it off with him on that corner near the library. Years and years since she’d come into her own, leaving him and all that they’d planned together, behind. Amelia kept tabs on her former beau. He’d gone and married a rich society coed from Barnard, a Katherine Benet. She pored over the grainy photos of the perfect society wedding. Sneered at it, almost. And eventually, she too had married, giving in to G.P.
When she attended that gathering on the Upper East Side, reading and discussing her best selling book, Twenty Hours, Forty Minutes: Our Flight in Friendship, it had been four full years. She’d sat at the back of the room, signing the flyleaves, writing inscriptions. And asking the same question over and over and over again, “Is there something special you’d like me to add?”
“Whatever you think might be appropriate.”
Amelia knew his voice immediately. She swallowed hard, looking up at Winston.
“Go ahead,” he said, and she opened the book.
There was a slip of paper there, inside the front cover. She quickly slid it inside her jacket pocket. She could have thrown it away. Instead, later she unfolded it to find an invitation.
And went. How could she not? She wore a black wig, a long dark dress, glasses with see-through lenses, and a hat that obscured her face. They sat above the ballroom floor, talking. When the main act came on, they went downstairs to dance. The woman singer had a sweet, silky voice. They danced cheek to cheek under the colored lights of the ballroom. No one seemed to recognize her. That was a relief. Winston leaned in and whispered, “Anything worth doing involves taking risks.”
“It’s unfair to use my own words against me,” she told him.
“What’s that?” Putting a hand to one ear, he pretended deafness.
It was, actually, more than fair. She knew that better than he did. She had become Amelia Earhart, brazen flier, the bravest woman in the world. She’d piloted the Atlantic solo, married her promoter, and started a clothing line. She’d been feted in Europe and had ticker tape parades given in her honor. Yet with him, she’d played the coward. She’d come to tell him the entire story. Why she’d done what she’d done to him. She was going to get it off her chest and let him judge her cleanly, clearly. Yet, she found that, when she was with him, she was afraid to do it. In this one thing, she lacked the courage of her convictions. She just couldn’t bear for him to have a bad opinion of her. It would, quite literally, break her heart. He would never have to know, she told herself. What was the harm in keeping quiet now?
Back in Central Park, they were at seven minutes and counting. The cold pierced her bones. Striated sunlight dappled the crowd. People spilled out everywhere. There had to be enough gathered here to bring the city’s humming heart to a stop.
Wrong. She heard the faint rush of traffic. Life went on, regardless.
Winston Manning’s clearly had without her. She’d gone to the library right after she discovered he was dead and read his impressive obituary in the New York Times. He’d built his father’s business into a hugely successful company. He’d gotten out of munitions and into making steel beams for construction projects. Manning is survived by his loving wife Katherine, his daughter, Brooke, and two grandchildren, Samantha and Winston.
This, the same Katherine his grandson had accused her of working for, irony of ironies. The same woman Winston had claimed was barren. Had he lied to her about it? Perhaps. What mattered was he’d had a child with his wife after all. He’d had a full life. The granddaughter’s name couldn’t help but strike her as familiar, and then she knew why. It was the name of the girl who was corresponding with Muriel about that talk at Columbia. She’d looked over her sister’s shoulder enough times in that stifling office to be certain of that.
Oh, the perfect synchronicity of it all.
Nine minutes and counting. Winston Manning had told her that if she went away and never came back, it would kill him. Clearly it hadn’t. She was glad to know that. In fact, he’d had many more years without her, than with her.
She turned, trying to find the grandson’s face in the crowd. If she told him her truth, he’d think her truly mad. Still, she thought she might try. What did she have to lose?
Ten minutes.
There he was, just at the edge of the crowd. Time was up. A collective gasp and then everyone began to disperse. He stood alone, a miserable, lost, and lonely boy.
Just then, the sky changed from crystalline blue to gray, and from above, white flakes rained down like God’s own tears.
17
Sam
December 25 1980
SAM SAT IN the Westcott’s living room Christmas morning. She had a cup of homemade cocoa, warming, in her hands. The marshmallows on top floated like tiny rectangular islands of processed sugar. The Westcotts were so nice to each other. Sam wasn’t used to it, or to the host of holiday rituals that were a part of their Christmas. The youngest child gave out the presents. That was Lucy, but she would lose her place soon. Jack’s wife Doris was pregnant, her huge belly covered by a pink maternity smock.
Pink just like those curtains, Sam thought. That first day they’d met each other seemed a million years ago. Sam had expected to find pink everywhere in the house, but Alma’s taste was much more sedate. The walls were taupe or off white; the décor staid, plaid sofas and faux Chippendale chairs. Every spare table held a dried flower arrangement. Photographs showed the entire brood at every possible developmental stage, from posed infant on a bearskin rug, to toddler bopping a clown or playing in the snow, to boys in sports uniforms, to Lucy astride a Pinto quarter horse. The boys looked alike, all towheads with military haircuts. It was impossible to distinguish them by birth order because each photograph was snapped individually, but one had to be Donnie.
Lucy most resembled her father. On the mantel, he sported his high school football jersey, holding the trophy above his head. The inscription read, ALL STATE CHAMPIONS 1951.
The den was stuffed with memorabilia, including Tom’s own personal trophies for Most Valuable Player and All State Defensive End. Sam had no idea what that was, but then she was ignorant when it came to team sports. In this house, sports were a birthright. Every member of the family excelled at something; baseball, football, basketball, hockey, and in Lucy’s case, barrel racing.
A glass case at the end of the room held Tom’s medals. Sam counted eleven. There were also plaques. One was from a battleship; the other, a submarine. Each had his name engraved next to the dates of service.
It was the most all American family she had ever come in contact with, a living, breathing Norman Rockwell portrait.
“Now isn’t that lovely,” Alma said. She held a pale green silk scarf up for all and sundry to admire.
“It’s so you, Mom,” Lucy said.
“Do you like it?” Phyllis, the second oldest brother Mike’s wife said, her voice shrill.
“Of course.”
“I was worried, wasn’t I, Mike?”
“She sure was,” Mike agreed. “Driving me nuts about it. We went everywhere looking.”
“Well, it’s perfect, just perfect,” Alma exclaimed. She got up to kiss her daughter in law on the cheek.
“Thank you, Mother,” Phyllis said.
Mother. Father. It was so quaint, Sam thought.
Alma wrapped the scarf twice round her neck. She’d already put on the bracelet Jack’s wife, Doris, had gotten her. Doris was a big boned blonde with extremely pale skin. She was almost as tall as her husband. Indeed, every member of the family towered over Sam who, at five six, had never before imagined herself as diminutive. Here she was surrounded by a grove of redwoods. Even straining, Sam couldn’t see the topmost branches or make out what these people actually thought through the thicket of pleasantries. It drove Lucy nuts, but to Sam, civility was a blessed relief. Lucy had no idea what it was like to have Christmas in that other world where everyone said whatever they liked, regardless of how much pain it caused.
“Isn’t that cu
nning,” Doris exclaimed. Lucy had given her a gold pin shaped like a butterfly.
There had actually been a load of gift-wrapped packages in Lucy’s luggage.
“When did you buy those?” Sam asked, panicking.
“Don’t worry,” Lucy said. Once in Appleton, she’d taken Sam to the general store where Sam bought boxes of chocolates for everyone. “You’ll be the most popular person in the room. At least they’ll like that present. We all pretend to be thrilled, then we stuff whatever we get in the back of the drawer and forget all about it.”
“Here’s one from Sam,” Lucy said, handing it off to Tom, who gave Lucy a warm, genuine smile.
Sam had witnessed the first of these at the airport. It came right after the endless bear hug, his eyes welling up as he clung to his daughter. Sam couldn’t help choking up herself. It was like when she watched certain crappy TV shows, not to mention Love Story. Sam was envious. Since the divorce, her father had never shown up for Christmas. But Tom loved his daughter, and wasn’t ashamed to show it.
Tom shook the rectangular package. “Hmm,” he said. “I’m betting it’s a tie.”
“Dad.”
“You know how I love ties.”
Lucy had gotten him a light blue one. When he opened the package, Tom immediately stripped off the one he had been wearing to exchange it for hers. His uniform was the same as his sons, a neatly pressed button-down shirt and a pair of khaki slacks with the seam standing up straight, saluting. They all were shod in brown leather shoes. The two older boys wore sports jackets. This family’s idea of casual was a far cry from what Sam was used to. She was ashamed of her faded blue jeans and short sleeve t-shirt.
“A book!” Tom said, managing to sound authentically surprised.
He held it up. The general store had a small selection. Sam had chosen Famous Naval Battles, one of those coffee table tomes that were printed for just this sort of occasion. It would likely sit on the table gathering dust. But not today, today they would all leaf through it. “Boys, take a look, there are some incredible pictures in here.”
