“Well, that’s really incredibly moving, Dad,”Daniel says, gathering up the photographs, closing the folder, handing it back to his father.“Maybe you better hang on to these, okay?Who knows? I might disappoint you after all, and you wouldn’t want any ofthis fine furniture falling into the wrong hands.”
Throughout that day he taps his feet beneath his desk while he pretends to listen to clients, and then in court he keeps one hand clenched in his pocket while he enters a plea ofnot guilty in a criminal mischiefcase.
Thoughts ofIris have completely eclipsed any reflections he might have had over being cut out ofhis parents’will.All he can think ofis getting out ofhis office and driving past her house.He likes to see where she lives, the house, its reality pleases him.There is something at once sacred and pornographic, knowing she is in there.Today is Friday, a particularly im-portant day to drive by.It is the day that Hampton, her husband, returns from the city for his weekend at home.The sunset looks like melted ver-milion, the houses and trees are drawn in black ink.He navigates his car down Juniper Street, listening to DinahWashington sing“What a Differ-ence a Day Makes”on the car stereo, and it strikes him that all his life he has been in love with black women—DinahWashington, Billie Holiday, IrmaThomas, IvieAnderson, Ella Fitzgerald, Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith.
Juniper Street is only four blocks long, lined on both sides by singlefamily houses, some with a will toward grandness, others compact Dutch dollhouses, tight little structures painted brown or yellow, with churchy windows and bronze plaques over the doorway announcing the year oftheir construction.As he rolls closer to Iris’s house, he turns off the music, slows to practically a stop.Her house is white clapboard, with a small porch, red shutters, a quartet ofmaple trees on the front lawn.
The windows are dark, they hold a faint reflection ofthe sunset.Iris’s car is not in the driveway, and Daniel, no stranger to her comings and go-ings, in fact having more knowledge ofthem than he would ever admit to anyone else, realizes she has left for the train station to pick up Hamp-ton, whose train is coming in at6:05.Daniel can hardly bear to think of this—imagining her on the platform peering into the windows ofthe train as it pulls in, trying to see ifit’s him, or him, or him, and then there he is, the conquering hero, home from a week ofshuffling expensive pa-per, with his Hugo Boss suit and shaved head, his Mark Cross leather satchel, his Burberry raincoat draped over his shoulders like a cape, here comes the Count ofVenture Capital, and now the inevitable kiss, the child between them, symbol oftheir unbreakable bond, the little wink over Nelson’s head, a promise ofa fuller, more intimate reunion later on: by now Daniel’s mind is a scorpion stinging itselfto death.
He resists speeding over to the train station and instead drives home, out six miles east oftown to Red Schoolhouse Road.It’s Kate’s house, her down payment, but surely his halfofthe monthly mortgage entitles him to feelings ofownership.It is a two-hundred-and-fifty-year-old farmhouse, calm and elegant like Kate herself, with French doors, an im-mense fireplace, ten acres, the remains ofa barn.The dark gray night has healed over the gash ofthe sunset;a wind is coming offthe river.When he pulls into the driveway, he sees an old winter-ravaged Dodge parked next to Kate’s impeccableToyota, and when he lets himself in he sees Ruby in the living room, sitting on the sofa with her baby-sitter.
“Look, Daniel! I have a baby-sitter!”Ruby cries out, with incongruous elation.
The sitter is a high school girl named Mercy.Daniel figures Ruby’s joy must mean she has extracted a promise from Mercy to let her watch TV.He chats with the two girls for a minute, and then goes upstairs to find out where he is going tonight, since as far as he knew there was no plan in place.
He finds Kate in their bedroom, a dark-green room with odd angles, wide plank floors, a Persian rug.She is putting on lipstick and keeping an eye on the portableTV, which has become indispensable to her.The sound is offand she continually checks the set—sometimes in the mir-ror, sometimes turning around to face it—in order to see ifthere’s any-thing on the news about O.J.Simpson, who for the past several months has been on trial for the murder ofhis ex-wife.
“Any news?”asks Daniel, just to be polite.
”Nothing, same old, same old.”
“What ifhe’s innocent, Kate?”
“Yeah, right.”
“You got a sitter for Ruby?”
“You said you wished we went out more.So.Presto!We’re going out.”
“Great.Where we going?”
“Iris Davenport called this afternoon.”She glances at Daniel to see his reaction in the mirror.Nothing.She’s impressed.He’s standing up well to this.“She was trying to arrange something or other for the children.I’m sort ofsurprised she didn’t arrange it with you, that seems to be the way these things get done around here.But, anyhow, she mentioned that she and her husband were going to a concert tonight and the next thing I knew I had volunteered us to go along with them.”She turns toward Daniel, puts her hand against her throat.“Is that all right?And dinner after?”
“I thought you don’t like eating with strangers,”Daniel says, struggling to keep it casual.“I thought you don’t like watching them put food in their mouths.”
Kate’s attention is momentarily seized by something on theTV screen, but it’s another black athlete, walking over a pulsating green landscape oflittle hills with a golfclub over his shoulder.TigerWoods.
How can there be no O.J.news today? Like millions ofothers, Kate has become obsessed with the case—with not only the defendant but the lawyers, the judge, the DNA experts.Stalled on her novel, unable to touch it, often unable even to think about it, she has become facile as a journalist and lately she’s been writing about the case, and since the jury is sequestered and she is not being paid for her objectivity, she has been having no trouble in clamoring for Simpson’s conviction.
“I thought you’d be happy I made these plans,”Kate says.“You mention her constantly.I figured it was time we got to know them, another couple, like actual grown-ups.”
“I mention her constantly?”
“I don’t know, probably not.I’m not trying to give you a hard time.
I’m trying to make you happy.”With rich, shining brown hair, smooth skin, and the scent ofperfume on her, she glides to Daniel’s side.She would like to put her arms around him, but it might seem she was forc-ing the issue.
“You dolikethem, don’t you?”she asks.A surviving bit ofher old southern accent stretches the“i”in“like.”
“I don’t really know him.”
“Do you like her?”
“Iris?”
She gives him a look.Ofcourse Iris, who else are they talking about?
”Yes,”he says.“Sure.Why not? She’s Ruby’s best friend’s mother.
That’s got to be worth something.And she’s nice.She’s funny.”
“Tell me something funny she’s said.It’ll whet my appetite for an evening ofunbridled hilarity.”
“Okay.”He takes a deep breath.“Last spring—”
“Last spring?You have to gothatfar back in time?”
“Actually, it was the summer.She got a mosquito bite, and I guess she was scratching it and scratching it.”His eyes shift away from Kate’s;he realizes he is talking himself into a hole.“And she turned the bite into a sore, you know how that happens.And so she took a pen and wrote‘ouch ouch ouch ouch’in a circle all around the bite.”
“That’s it? She wrote ouch on her arm?”
“You know what, Kate? I think we should call them and say we can’t make it.”
She wouldn’t mind doing just that, but she’s already set her course.
“Nonsense,”she says.She holds her pearls out to him and he comes be-hind her to fasten them.In her scoop-necked dress, Kate’s collarbones look as sturdy as handlebars.
“You look nice,”Daniel says.He seems to mean it.He even touches her hair.“You look beautiful.”
She cannot fully believe that Daniel has embarked on some flirtation.
Daniel back then had been a lawyer in the firm that represented Kate’s publishing house and he, too, was recently out ofa shabby affair, this one with a woman who turned out to have a hair-trigger temper and a pen-chant for violence.Kate and Daniel used to joke with each other about be-ing the last normal people on earth, and the joke turned into a kind of emotional contract;they were promising each other affection with tran-quility, a life ofmeasured gestures, respect for boundaries.It would be a levelheaded alliance;they would be Swiss bankers ofthe heart.
“I can’t believe you did this, put this…this evening together,”he issaying.
She watches his face, carefully.Despite her beliefthat he would never actually have an affair, he seems to be a man who wants to take a jour-ney.He hasn’t booked passage, he doesn’t have a ticket, he doesn’t have the guts.Kate is certain that he has not betrayed her.It hasn’t gone that far, not yet.It’s still an affair ofthe mind.He thinks a love affair will res-cue him.From what?Yet in a way, that no-idea-what’s-wrong sort oflife might be exactly what he wants to be rescued from.Kate feels curious but removed.She has decided to let it play out.
She would like to take a closer look at Iris.Lately, he has been mentioning her, telling stories that have no point except to give him an oc-casion to say“Iris.”Kate, thus far, fails to see the appeal.Iris is ten pounds too thin, fidgety, psychologically evasive but physically a littletoopres-ent, with a cat-on-a-hot-tin-roofquality to her, a woman used to being sought after, loved, but not really satisfied, used to adulation, a daddy’s girl, perhaps.
Ofcourse, her blackness is a part ofwhat draws Daniel to her, Kate is certain ofthis.All those blues records, all that soul music, and even gospel music, the man listens to Sam Cooke singing about Jesus and gets tears in his eyes, though he himself has no more beliefin Christ than he has in the Easter bunny.He must have been preparing himself for this all along.Getting the soundtrack down for his big movie spectacular.The story ofhis life taking shape, the story ofhimself as a great romantic hero, crossing the color line.How passé! How pathetic!As ifgetting involved with anAfrican-American could be the solution to his problems.As ifit would give him something to believe in.The poor little unloved son sud-denly draping himself in three hundred years ofanother people’s history, the invisible man taking shape beneath the swaddling ofblack bandages.
“Do I have time for a shower?”Daniel asks.
The night is chilly.A stiffwesterly wind blows through the trees and black clouds are snapping at the moon.A steady procession ofconcert-goers march into St.John’s, where tonight the Leyden Musical Society is performing theMessiah.To Kate, even after three years in Leyden, it’s a procession ofstrangers, but Daniel knows most ofthe crowd by name.
She watches him waving, smiling at whoever makes eye contact.She is often exhausted by his outwardness.His smile can grate on her as ifit were a cough.Kate realizes that in the vast literature ofwifely com-plaints this doesn’t register with great intensity, but Daniel smiles too easily and she doesn’t care for it.The man smiles while he sleeps.
Yet even as he smiles, he’s craning his neck, on the lookout for Iris and Hampton.Kate doesn’t mean to think in racial terms, but it seems to her that black people are always running late.Maybe it’s a bit ofag-gression toward whites, maybe with each other they’re as punctual as the six o’clock news.She watches Daniel, swiveling his head around like an adulterous owl.
“Daniel?”She pats him on the arm.“You look a little crazy.”
“I do?”He blinks, as ifjust awakened.And then they see them, moving quickly along ManchesterAvenue, hurrying, arm in arm.
“Hello!”Daniel calls out, eagerly raising his hand as ifhe were a schoolboy with the right answer.Iris is wearing a gray overcoat, black pants, boots, a kind ofAfrican hat.Everything seems a couple sizes too large, she is like some goofy kid wearing her mother’s clothes.Not so with the husband.Hampton—his skin pale toffee, his emanation of coiled energy, his aura ofwealth—is wearing a sumptuous, practically edible-looking cashmere coat, a paisley silk scarfwith tassels.He has those round little glasses, steel framed, gentle, scholarly, that Kate iden-tifies as deliberately reassuring, nonsexual, a little eunuchy, really, the signifying eyewear ofthe black professional.
Daniel kisses Iris’s cheek, and Hampton, seeing this, plants a quick kiss on Kate, with all the tenderness ofa clerk stamping a bill paid.
The four ofthem make their way into the church.St.John’s is for Leyden’s upper-class Episcopalians, and for those who like to pray with their betters.It’s chilly, Spartan, like a lodge high in theAustrianAlps.All that woodwork, the fresh white flowers, and the Episcopalian flag that reminds her ofthe Red Cross.She and Daniel, and then Iris and Hamp-ton, find places in a back pew.The orchestra is already tuning up as they arrange themselves.Daniel and Iris seem to be intent on not making the slightest eye contact.
Kate tries to keep her attention riveted upon the orchestra and the chorus throughout the concert.The conductor is Ethan Greenblatt, pres-ident ofMarlowe College, a handsome young academic superstar with an explosion ofcurly hair and a fussy bow tie.He is pushing the musicians through the piece at breakneck speed, as ifafraid ofdetaining the audi-
ence past its attention span.But from time to time, Kate must glance at Daniel.His eyes are closed, but she’s sure he’s awake.Hampton takes Iris’s hand, brings it to his lips, while she stares intently ahead.And then, Kate sees Daniel glancing at Iris.Their eyes meet for a moment, but it has the impact ofcymbals crashing.It is a shocking, agitating thing to see.It’s like being in a store with someone and watching them steal something.
Afterward, the four ofthem walk to the GeorgeWashington Inn, where Iris has made dinner reservations.The Inn is redolent with Colo-nial history—low, beamed ceilings, wormy old tavern tables, an im-mense blackened fireplace.A high school girl serves them a basket of rolls, then comes back to fill their water glasses.She pours Hampton’s last and accidentally fills it to the very top;in fact, a little ofit laps onto the table.“Oops,”she says, but Hampton looks away.His jaw is suddenly rigid.Iris touches his knee, pats it, as ifto calm him down.With her other hand, she is dabbing the little dime-sized puddle with her napkin.
A moment later, a waiter appears to take their drink orders.Daniel and Kate are used to this waiter, middle-aged, vain, and formal.Hamp-ton, however, sees the waiter’s extreme tact as an extension ofthe bus-girl’s spilling his water, and he orders a vodka martini in a surly voice.
”UseAbsolut,”he says.“I’ll know ifthe bartender uses the house brand.”
Iris looks down at her lap;when she raises her gaze again she sees Daniel is looking at her, smiling.It startles her into smiling back.The two ofthem seem so happy to be gazing at each other, and Kate feels like Princess Kitty standing at the edge ofthe room and noticing the joy that floods their faces whenVronsky’s andAnna Karenina’s eyes meet.Kate wonders exactly how far along these two really are.Is it too late to stop them?
“So, Hampton,”Kate says,“tell me.I hear all about Iris from Daniel, but nothing about you.You’re in the city most ofthe time?”
“I come up here on the weekend,”Hampton says.“During the workweek, I stay at the apartment where we used to live before Iris got into Marlowe.”
“It’s a beautiful apartment,”Iris says.She glances at Hampton, who smiles at her.
“So what keeps you down in the city all week?”Kate asks.
”I’m co–managing director oftheAtlantic Fund,”Hampton says.
”He’s an investment banker,”Iris says, in the same anxious-to-please tone in which she said their apartment was beautiful.To Kate, Iris sounds like a woman whose h
usband has complained about how she treats him in public.
“TheAtlantic Fund provides capital toAfrican-American business,”
Hampton says.“It’s sometimes difficult for black-owned businesses to get what they need from the white banking structure.”He cranes his neck, looks for the waiter.“Just like it’s hard to get a white waiter to bring you a drink.”He breathes out so hard his cheeks pufffor a moment.“I’ve never come here, and now I know why.”
“Have we really been waiting that long?”asks Kate.“It seems like we just sat down.”She looks to Daniel for confirmation, but all Daniel can manage is a shrug.He is on a plane and he has just heard something in the pitch ofthe engine’s roar that makes him feel the flight is doomed.
“God, that music was so wonderful,”Iris says.
”The first time I heard Handel’sMessiah,I was four years old,”Hampton says, his eyes on Kate.“My grandmother was in a chorus that per-formed it for Richard Nixon, at theWhite House.”This comment is in keeping with remarks he’s been making since they left the church.Al-ready they’d heard references to his grandfather’s Harvard roommate, his great-grandfather’s Presbyterian mission in the Congo, his mother’s spending five thousand dollars on haute couture in Paris when she was eleven years old, his aunt Dorothy’s short engagement to Colin Powell, the suspicious fire at theWelles vacation compound on Martha’sVine-yard.He boasts about his lineage in a way that Kate thinks would simply not be allowed from a white person.
“Thurgood Marshall was a friend ofthe family and he was there, too, ofcourse.Unfortunately, he fell asleep after ten minutes.Gramma said they all sang extra loud to cover Justice Marshall’s snoring.”
A Ship Made of Paper Page 3
