by Rand, Naomi;
In this waiting room, a mother comforted her wailing child. A man sat patiently, his arm in a sling. Dusty was wrapped in a blanket. His color had returned, pinches of red on each cheek. Luke got up and let Sam and Lucy sit on either side of him.
“Sam I am,” he said to her. “You brought me back from the brink. Wait till I tell Win.”
Poor Win. He’d been the one to find Brooke after she took the bottle of sleeping pills. He’d stuck his finger down her throat and made her throw up, then called 911 again. Win and Sam came home to find her with a gun after another miserable breakup. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” Win demanded, but he told Sam to go into her bedroom. He got the gun away, hid it, and made Brooke promise him never again.
Her promises were worthless. He knew it. Sam knew it. It was why Sam had chosen Barnard. Why she stayed close. It was why she was going to be a doctor, so she could be ready. Of course, she also liked the idea of helping people and she was good at it. It wasn’t just because her mother might need her in extremis. Poor Win. How could he really leave when Brooke said things like, “I’m thinking Russian Roulette, for fun.” Win tried Las Vegas. He tried the desert. He tried Mexico. He tried college. He tried everywhere he could think of, but he could have gone to China, for all the good it would do him. He would have ended up back there in that apartment, vigilant, angry, and evidently, terrified.
That was the sort of love they felt for their mother.
They were both suckers. But it wasn’t that simple. Nothing was ever that simple. There was another Brooke. There was another mother. That Brooke had announced, “Today’s your special day.” Sam was told to choose anything she wanted so she decided on a ride in a hansom cab round the park, then ice cream at Rumpelmayer’s, wolfing down every bite of the massive banana split. That Brooke said, “You are the best girl in the entire world, how did I ever get so lucky?” That mother said, “Straight A’s. Marvelous. Where on earth did you come from?” That doting parent said, “So dashing,” as she dressed up Sam as the pirate king for their rainy day theatrical in the living room.
That Brooke was the fun mother, the cool mother. That Brooke had taken her to the Fillmore East when she was seven to see the Allman Brothers. They had backstage passes because she was always a VIP.
“Isn’t she sweet,” the man with the ponytail said when they visited in the dressing room. “Woman, you surprise me. I didn’t know you had kids. Wow.”
“Wow, indeed,” Brooke agreed.
She and Sam exchanged a knowing look. Sam wasn’t a kid; she was a pal. She was Brooke’s best pal and knew everything there was to know about making her way in the world. Brooke told her that and that she was “stupendous.”
In the cab on their way home, Brooke asked her what part was best.
“When that man looked at you and played you the song,” Sam said.
“That wasn’t me he was looking at,” Brooke said. “It was you.” Then Brooke ruffled her hair. That was the other mother, the magical mother, the one with the radiant, heart-shattering smile.
18
Muriel
January 5 1981
MURIEL DUNKED THE toast into the soft-boiled egg and listened to the shower run. She’d woken up to the sound of footsteps. “Who is that?” Then she’d seen him. Virgil was bringing her breakfast in bed. Of all things! What a romantic.
Muriel swallowed the toast and sipped on the coffee. The curtains were open. Outside it was brilliantly sunny, the kind of sunny day that came in winter and fooled her into thinking she was back in Los Angeles again, back at the beginning, twinned to her sister. It was a nice image to hold onto. She felt so oddly peaceful.
“Hey,” Virgil growled as the door to the bathroom opened. He stepped out, wrapped from the waist down in one of the hotel’s towels. He was hairless, not even a little sprinkling on his chest.
Virgil sat down next to her on the bed and tucked his arm round her, then gave her a gentle squeeze.
“I’ve got to get over to the meeting,” he said. “They’re taking us out to lunch, so I won’t be back till around five.” He kissed her, and she tasted Crest toothpaste, minty fresh as advertised; underneath it, the bitter aftertaste from the last sip of coffee he’d drunk.
He turned away to dress. It was funny, his trying to be modest at his age. He put on his jockey shorts, pulled on a pair of blue serge suit pants, added a crisp, pin-striped oxford button-down shirt, and topped it off with the jacket, then over that a tan cashmere coat. The last touch was the shoes and they were serious, black cordovans.
“You look swell,” she said.
“Do I?” It was an old time word, but they were old timers. Virgil took a look at himself in the hotel mirror. He didn’t bother with a tie. A tie didn’t fit with him, Muriel thought, and she liked that she knew that about him.
Virgil picked up his briefcase. They made quite the picture, she thought, a man heading out the door for his office, his loving wife seeing him off. Except Muriel wasn’t Virgil’s wife. He wasn’t her husband. It wasn’t illicit what they were doing, but it also wasn’t anyone’s business. A relief to discover that she was past putting names on things, or worrying about what people thought.
“Good luck,” she said.
“You too.” He kissed her. And then he was gone.
Muriel turned to check the clock. It was just after eight.
She got into the shower and let it run hot, so hot that it almost scalded her, but nothing could burn his touch off. She shut her eyes and remembered everything that had happened between them. She recalled the conversation they’d had, afterward. Virgil had talked about how angry he was and what he was going to do to fight against the idea that novels could influence young people to act in certain ways, this notion that fiction was the devil’s workshop and somehow encouraged young people to be promiscuous. As if they had to be encouraged when their hormones were raging? Didn’t they have sex wherever they could, in movie theatres, in the back seats of cars, in their parent’s homes, in public parks? To which she’d added, mischievously, “Don’t leave out hotel rooms.” He’d laughed. He understood the reference, how could he not? Don’t leave us out. Others would ask, “This, at your age?” If not now, when, exactly?
She got out of the shower, dressed, and then opened the curtains. Yellow cabs, cars, and trucks rushed past below. It was exhilarating, this city. Funny, Amelia was the reason she was here. Not just to give the talk, though that was one piece of it. It was the moment of pure jealousy she’d experienced at that wedding, when Virgil brought up Amelia. It had forced her to see herself so clearly. To understand that she really liked this man. And of course, he’d acted on impulse himself. To think, she might have missed out on all of this.
Instead, here she was.
But Muriel glanced at the clock. Time for her to get a move on, she was expected.
Downstairs, the doorman called her a taxicab.
She had envisioned an auburn-haired pixie with an impish smile and she could not have been more wrong. Samantha Barry’s long black hair fell to just below her shoulders. She was quite attractive, with an angular face and a serious expression that made her look older than her seventeen years.
“I can’t believe you’re actually here,” the girl said. “I’m so excited to hear your talk.”
“Don’t set the bar too high.”
“You’re being modest.”
“I prefer to think of myself as a realist. But I hear you have your own news. Congratulations.”
“Oh, yes. Thank you.” She blushed as she led Muriel through the wrought iron gates and onto campus.
“You must be exceedingly talented,” Muriel said.
“I don’t think it has much to do with talent,” Samantha Barry said. “It’s more about being in the right place at the right time.”
“Don’t undersell yourself. My sister never did,” Muriel said, amiably.
They walked along the red brick path onto campus. Columbia. Amelia had joked it was “the gem o
f the ocean.” Hardly a gem from an architectural standpoint, the campus was a hodgepodge of old and new, brick facades stuck next to severe looking granite monoliths.
Still, Low Library stood guard atop the quad.
They climbed the marble stairs.
“This way,” Samantha Barry said, and Muriel realized they were making for the library.
Inside, the ground floor was gutted of books. It was now a lecture hall. Folding chairs were set out to face the lectern and the only thing familiar to her was the cobalt blue arched ceiling.
A man bore down on them, extending his hand. “Mrs. Morrissey? I’m so glad you could make it. It’s such a thrill for all of us.”
This had to be her pen pal, Professor Price. He was exactly as she’d imagined him right down to the tufts of hair that sprung wildly off either side of his head, making him look a little too much like a crested penguin.
“My pleasure,” she said, taking his hand.
“Can Miss Barry get you something? You must be famished. Tea? Coffee? A snack?”
“Tea would be heavenly.”
“How do you like it?” Samantha Barry asked.
“A little milk.”
The Barry girl returned with a Styrofoam cup and a slice of pound cake. Meanwhile, Fabian, as he insisted on being called, was telling her all about his undergraduate years at Tufts. “Imagine, you living right nearby all that time!”
“Yes, imagine,” she agreed, although she had no idea what it was they were imagining. The man beamed at her as if they were long lost friends, reunited. He was professorial down to the faded cardigan and the sagging corduroy trousers.
“That Miss Barry is a gem,” he said as the girl went off to greet the people streaming in through the open doors.
“And an award winner, too,” Muriel noted.
“I wasn’t on the committee. I didn’t even know until two days ago myself.”
Miss Barry reappeared, and Professor Price excused himself.
“This is Lucy Westcott,” she said, introducing a statuesque blond.
Muriel shook hands, noting the contrast. Physically, they were polar opposites.
This Lucy Westcott said how interested she was to hear the talk, and that she’d known very little about Amelia Earhart until Sam had filled her in. Behind her, the room was getting crowded.
Muriel felt a horrible whirring sensation in her stomach, as though genies were spinning round inside her. She had imagined an intimate group but there were at least a hundred in attendance and more coming through the doors.
“I wonder if I could look over my notes,” she said.
“Of course.” It was Miss Barry who took her behind the lectern and then guarded the way so no one could interrupt her.
Muriel pretended to read over the pages, although really what she was trying to do was to calm herself down. The panic always came whenever she had to speak to a crowd. She tried to remind herself that it would subside once she began. The waiting was always the hardest part.
The Barry girl was at her elbow. “Can I introduce my family?”
“Of course.”
“This is my mother, Brooke Barry, my brother, Win, and my grandmother, Katherine Manning.”
The mother wore a purple dress with a sweeping neckline. It did her hourglass figure justice. The brother was handsome with a shock of blond hair that kept threatening to fall into his eyes. He swept it back with one hand, unconsciously. The grandmother had to be close to her own age. She was one of those women who sported a perpetual tan. She’d undergone some sort of cosmetic surgery as well. She had a wide-eyed, deer in the headlights, look. Miss Barry turned from one to the next, her own anxiety touchingly evident.
But Professor Price was tapping the microphone. It emitted a horrid shriek, and Miss Barry ran forward to adjust it.
19
Amelia
January 5 1980
WHEN THE SUBWAY doors opened, Amelia saw a man crouched by a wall. He was drawing with chalk. There were strange looking animals and a crude airship with flame spurting from its tail. It was the beginning of the story, but she wasn’t going to get to see the end. The doors shut, and they lurched off.
At one hundred and sixteenth street, she exited the train and walked upstairs to find the campus gates. They were much as she remembered them but other things had changed. New buildings dotted the quad. Still, Alma Mater ruled, gripping her staff. And there was Winston Barry, standing in front of the library. The woman with him wore quite a coat. Was it made of horsehide? Possibly. It was piebald, brown spots on a white background, and cut short to reveal her legs. Her bright red hair completed whatever this look was.
They went inside. Amelia followed at a distance. Luckily she was cautious, pulling back at the entrance when she saw them huddling together. She overheard an older woman chiding the pair. “Can’t you ever get anywhere on time?” The woman’s hair was dyed an unearthly orange, and her skin was the same hue. Still, Amelia recognized her. This was his Katherine. Industrialist’s heir weds society beauty the headline had read. A beauty no more, there was that.
“Let’s go,” Katherine Manning said sternly.
“And so it begins,” the woman with Winston, clearly her daughter, said, sotto voce.
Families. As always, they were a mystery.
The former almost child bride, Katherine, wore an elegant black dress and high heels. She was dressed for a soiree.
Amelia had devoured the stories; the new Mrs. Manning’s sublime figure, her mane of red hair, her peaches and cream complexion. Winston Manning’s choice had been purposeful. The girl was the opposite of Amelia in every possible way.
At the front of the room Winston hugged a young girl. She had to be his sister, Samantha. There was Muriel, shaking Katherine Manning’s hand. The plot thickens, Amelia thought, and then, the game’s afoot. She smiled.
AT THAT READING long ago when he’d handed her, her own book to sign, Winston Manning requested Amelia write something personal. She’d complied.
For Winston, may your life always be a grand adventure, AE.
Later that night, in their room at the Hotel St. Georges, he’d claimed he’d never stopping loving her.
“You’re married,” she’d said. “What’s that about then?”
“I made a mistake,” he said. “At least I can admit it.”
She didn’t respond. He couldn’t expect her to give up everything now. She was Miss Earhart. She’d gotten more attention than she’d ever dreamed of. But it wasn’t the attention that counted, it was what came with it, she could finally be who she wanted to be.
Within reason.
Sadly, there was always a catch.
Winston Manning had run his hands down her body and pushed her lightly backward onto the bed. Then he lay down and set his mouth against the tip of her nose. His hand caressed her cheek. “It is you,” he kept saying as his fingers unbuttoned the top button of her dress, then the next and the next. He smelled of aftershave and under that, the musky scent that was only his. Her dress was removed. His clothing. They were fully exposed. Years had passed but it seemed like nothing. He’d barely aged; a few more laugh lines in the corners of his eyes, but physically not much else had changed. Yet everything else was different. They were married to other people. Still, he was able to do what he’d been able to do before, stop her thinking, bringing her here, right here, into the urgency of now. And that was when she accepted that she was starving for him. They fell onto and into each other.
You’re lucky if you have one great passion in life, Amelia thought. But I got greedy. I wanted to have two.
THE MAN AT the front of the room leaned into the microphone. In response there was an ear splitting shriek.
Samantha Barry ran up to adjust it. She bore little resemblance to her brother. Her eyes were brown, his blue; her complexion tawny, almost Semitic, his pale, lily white.
The speaker thanked her a little too profusely. He wore corduroy trousers, a cardigan sweater, and an
ardent moustache. “Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Dr. Fabian Price. As chairman of Barnard’s Biology Department it is my great pleasure and privilege to be your host on this banner day. Today we give out our very first Amelia Earhart Award. This wonderful and prestigious scholarship is being given to one outstanding female undergraduate who has chosen to complete her pre-medical training here at Barnard. I know some of you may be as ignorant as I was about that part of Miss Earhart’s life. Most of us know of her exploits as a pilot. But before she conquered the air, she was a student right here at Columbia. She wished to go on to medical school and become a doctor. Miss Rachel Morrow, our generous benefactress, is a keen scholar of all that is Earhart, as well as a Barnard alumnae. It is her generosity that has made this award possible. Miss Morrow, would you stand?”
A woman with gray hair and a no-nonsense demeanor acceded to his demand. Amelia didn’t know her. There was a round of applause.
As it died down, he continued. “We are extremely lucky to launch this scholarship with a lecture. Amelia Earhart’s own sister has graciously agreed to come all the way from her home in Medford, Massachusetts, to be with us today. So without any further ado, our speaker, Mrs. Muriel Earhart Morrissey.”
Muriel took over at the podium. Amelia leaned back against the far wall, wondering what subject she’d finally settled on. Was it the story of the rat and the rifle, subtitled Murder Most Foul? Or the one that exposed her supposed bad behavior here at Barnard, or rather, above their heads on the roof? I’m likely in for it now, Amelia thought.
Muriel’s eyes swept the room without settling on any one person. Amelia recognized her own trick to calm the nerves. “Let me begin by congratulating the recipient of this award, Miss Samantha Barry.” There was a round of applause and a war whoop from the front. Amelia was positive Winston was the culprit. “I also wish to thank Professor Price for extending this most unexpected invitation. I’m most grateful to be here today. Finally, I want to give thanks to Miss Morrow, for her most generous support.” More applause.
