PART FOUR
Sext
Audrey announced she was taking the boys for a summer vacation to her family’s estate in Oak Bluffs on Martha’s Vineyard.
Reggie should have known then what was up. She’d always claimed she didn’t want the boys anywhere near all that, and now she was proposing that they sail each day with the black princes and princesses of America. Hadn’t he listened to her rant—for eighteen years—against her family, about how she despised the culture of elite clubs, coteries, and cotillions, complaints so far from Reggie’s life experience that it seemed like something out of Star Wars. Hadn’t he listened to her childhood story of riding in the back of the family Mercedes down K Street in Washington, D.C., of peeking out the tinted glass windows to see black children running through spouting fire hydrants, cooling off from the swampy summer heat that settled over the city like sludge, and she, chilled to the bone from the air-conditioning, begging her mother to stop so she could play with the other kids, longing to soak her clothes and splash and giggle, and her mother saying, as she said so many times before and after, You play with your own kind of people.
Audrey’s childhood had included weekends with the Jack and Jill Club, a by-invitation-only social club for elite black children, and summers at Martha’s Vineyard or Sag Harbor. She was a graduate of Georgetown Day School and a debutante presented by the most prestigious (black-elite-by-invitation-only) Washington men’s club, the Bachelor-Benedict Club. Her father, Lawrence Syphax Carol, traced his descendants back to Charles Syphax and the illegitimate daughter of George Washington Parke Custis, grandson of Martha Washington. The Carols had been wealthy for over 150 years, a most important family of the Washington black upper class. They socialized neither with whites nor with common blacks but solely within a circle of established elite black Washington families. Their children were expected to become doctors or lawyers; no other occupation would do. They were expected to go to one of three black colleges—Howard, Spelman, Morehouse—or perhaps Harvard. No other schools would do. They would marry into their own class, their own race, from a “good family,” someone with skin no darker than a paper bag, hair straight as a ruler. They would marry an Episcopalian. No other religion would do. And don’t even think—not in a million years—about marrying a white.
Few elite black children rebelled; they might whine and occasionally get wild, but reject all that wealthy, power, and history, to try to survive the urban jungle, to breathe the anxious anger of an underclass, to suffer the scorn of white trash? It was not done.
But that was precisely what Audrey did. Even at a young age, she preferred playing with the maid’s little girl to the daughters of her mother’s friends in their starched dresses, starched accents, and starched postures. At school she sought out the scholarship kids. She grimly attended the Jack and Jill black-tie dances and backyard tennis parties, but they seemed to her so phony, clinging to the manners and concerns of another era. None of it seemed to have anything to do with her or the life she saw around her. She spent most of her time reading in her room.
At seventeen, she demanded to go to UCLA. Her parents were horrified. She would be mixing with kids from South Central Los Angeles? Hadn’t she seen videos of the riots? No better than niggers. Did she really want to be around such people? Finally, they relented. UCLA was a good school, after all, with an excellent premed program.
There she fell in love with Reggie, tar black, kinky-haired, Catholic, foster child, ghetto-born and -raised, who wanted to be a cop. Wasn’t that why she loved him, because he was the opposite of everything her family wanted for her?
But now she was leaving him.
It was only when she told Reggie she might interview at Georgetown University Law School that he fully understood. When he asked her to talk about it, she flew into a fury, saying she was tired of talking about how they never talked. She needed some time to herself, she said, and it didn’t take a genius to see he was having an affair, and if he wanted to save their marriage, he’d better do some soul-searching himself while she was away. She hadn’t given up her life to watch him drift away and dump her for a younger woman. A white woman, at that.
As usual, she did the talking. Reggie listened, astonished. His head spun, shards of glass scratching at the base of his skull. How had it come to this?
“I called you at Tae Kwon Do Studio. They said you’d canceled classes for a month. That’s not what you told me when you left the house this morning.”
Reggie had canceled classes so he had time to investigate. They seemed so empty without Laura anyhow. His heart wasn’t in it.
“I don’t want any confessions,” she said. “I don’t want to hear your denials. I don’t want to hear anything about it. I just want you to figure out what you really want, Reggie.”
He didn’t bother denying an affair. He took Audrey’s hands and kissed her fingertips, then pressed her buttercup palms against either side of his face and held them there. He felt such a terrible yearning in his chest that he imagined his heart was creaking like a wooden hull. He reached across the deck of his boat to her, his prow banging against the dock, waves rolling beneath him, his stomach lurching, the tethers loosening; he was slipping away. He clung desperately to her, but he risked pulling her into the water. He imagined her sinking beneath the waves, her face upturned, gasping for air, then tranquil, transforming slowly into… Laura?
Laura’s image jolted him, burned through the center of him like a torch. It was wrong. He must stop it. He needed to tell Audrey he loved her, he needed her, but while this was true, and while everything that nourished him—air, food, light, love—was Audrey and only Audrey, he relaxed his grip and let go.
He looked up to see her angry eyes softening to worry. He held her gaze, seeing beyond her to a blank future. “I’ll miss you, babe,” he said, his voice husky with emotion.
That melted her.
She pulled him close, pressing her mouth to his so hard he cut his lips on his own teeth. She gasped as if pricked by a pin, her hands diving under his shirt collar, pulling off his clothes as she tore off her own, pressing herself against his skin like she was trying to get inside, running her tongue down his chest and between his abdominal muscles, her thumbs massaging small urgent circles on the inside of his thighs until he was hard, his breath short. But after they made love, she started to cry, angry again, hitting him softly with her fists. She was sick and tired of having sex every time they ought to be talking, and sex didn’t solve anything and she was still going and he’d better think about what his priorities were because she was ready to move on if that’s how things were gonna be.
Now the house was empty. For the first time since he’d come out to Los Angeles twenty years ago, he was utterly alone.
He sat in the living room in the dark. His eyes were drawn to the Tiffany chandelier hanging over the dining room table in the next room, a room they never used except to pass through.
Would he leave his family for Laura? No. That was ridiculous. She never expressed interest in him that way. Besides, she’d packed up and disappeared. But what if Laura called him up, said she wanted to see him, reached out to him for comfort, her graceful white arms trembling with fear and passion? Could it work? Even in Los Angeles, mixed relationships were problematic, and she was ten, fifteen years younger than he, so East Coast sophisticated, and they couldn’t possibly live here in Inglewood, and would his sons get teased at school, and . . .
Stop it! That’s not how he wanted her. An affair. It wasn’t like that, not at all.
But why couldn’t he stop thinking about her?
Was this yearning merely a biological drive to spread his sperm among as many available females as possible? No. It was desire beyond lust, a yearning that made him jittery and hungry. It made him want to leap off the earth and fling himself into outer space.
He understood why Audrey had to leave. Her pain and frustration were like knives in his chest. Why couldn’t he reach out to the woman he love
d, who meant everything to him? It was something he couldn’t explain. Part of him felt that if he gave in to Audrey, he would be settling; not in the sense of settling for a lesser woman—Audrey was the most beautiful and vibrant woman he’d ever met—but missing out on some unexplored aspect of himself. In a way, it felt wrong to succumb to Audrey, as if he would be neglecting his mission in life.
Laura was different. He imagined that Laura could see in him something Audrey never would, the man in him beyond the sexual man, the working man, the political man. Man as he stands naked before God.
Why couldn’t he reveal this man to Audrey? Perhaps Audrey knew him too well. Perhaps he couldn’t show this vulnerability (if that’s what it was) to the woman who depended on him to be strong, the man in the family. Perhaps he couldn’t risk her not liking this man.
He then understood that this was exactly what Audrey wanted, what maddened her, what drove her away. She wanted him to reveal his true self.
And yet he couldn’t. It was to Laura he desired to reveal this man, not Audrey.
It was as if his life depended on it.
* * *
Scott was late for another showing. He locked up and was headed out the door when the phone rang. He dashed back to grab the receiver.
“Hello, is this Scott?” a woman’s voice asked.
“Sure is, sweetheart. What’s up?”
“Listen, dickhead, I’m not one of your bimbos. You got that? So don’t even think of using that Dean Martin women-melt-when-they-see-me voice.”
“Who is this?”
“This is Vivian. Laura’s friend from New York.”
Scott suppressed a groan. “I should’ve recognized you by your lyrical phrasing.” Scott first met Vivian on a vacation he and Laura took to Manhattan. He thought her loud and bossy, and recalled that all through the dinner they had at the Russian Tea Room, she had grilled him hard. She had acted so possessive that later, he asked Laura if Vivian was a lesbian. Laura had laughed and said definitely not, but he suspected that Laura was naively mistaken and thought it might be interesting to check it out for himself.
“Look, bastard”—that voice again—“I’m not going to waste my time with you. I want to know where Laura is.”
“I haven’t a clue.” Scott knew he couldn’t use the ill-mother story—Vivian knew Laura’s mother was dead.
“She isn’t answering her emails, so I called, and her phone’s been disconnected.”
“Maybe she’s run off with her new boyfriend.”
“She doesn’t have a new boyfriend. She’d tell me if she did. Anyhow, she wouldn’t go anywhere without telling me.”
“She must’ve lost her head.” Scott smiled to himself. “You know how it is when you’re in love. Or maybe you don’t.”
“Fuck you. What did you do to her? Did she have to get an unlisted number because you were harassing her? She told me about you stalking her, shithead.”
“I don’t know where she is, and I don’t care.” That was half true; he often found himself wondering where she might’ve drifted. “I haven’t spoken with her in months.”
“That’s not what she told me.”
“She made it clear she didn’t want to see me and I respect her decision.”
“You’re so full of shit.”
“They teach you to talk like that at Vassar?”
“Fuck you.”
“I’m sure you’d like to, but alas, you’re in New York and I’m in Los Angeles.”
“Listen, prick, I’m on the next plane out if you don’t tell me where Laura is.”
“Let me know when, and I’ll pick you up at the airport. It’d be delightful to see you again.”
Vivian gave a contemptuous laugh. “Yeah, right. I don’t know what you’re up to, but trust me, I’m gonna find out.”
Scott was pretty sure she was blowing smoke. Even if she did come to L.A., what could she do? She’d get the sick-mother story. No one knew anything he hadn’t told them. It’d been a month since the arms washed up. The papers were filled with tales of new violence: a teacher in upscale Brentwood shot by an eight-year-old; a hostage situation on the pier; riots at the Democratic National Convention. The cops were busy. No one was likely to make a connection.
“I’m sorry I can’t help you, Vivian. I’m sure she’ll call and entertain you with the details of her new affair. Or maybe she’s afraid you’ll scare him off.”
“Fuck you.”
“It’s so nice to hear your voice, Vivian. Feel free to call again.”
Scott hung up thinking he handled that pretty well.
* * *
Vivian slammed down the telephone, her body trembling. Something was wrong. She was sure Laura was in trouble.
She looked around at the SoHo gallery she owned. She was in the middle of hanging a new exhibit and, of course, Amaldo hadn’t shown up to help her. The huge framed photographs leaned against the walls. The lights would have to be changed for photography. It would take until midnight to finish.
Vivian was excited about the new exhibit, a new batch of the highly erotic photography of Wendy Sharpe. This group was full of dismembered mannequins, grotesquely arranged in pornographic poses, interposed with young naked models and fake blood. When Wendy first showed Vivian her new work, she said somewhat apologetically that she was going through a divorce. Vivian didn’t need an apology. The work was brilliant. It was hot.
All of Wendy’s work was highly controversial. Feminists called it misogynistic, others thought it liberating. One famous feminist accused Wendy of “trying to set back the women’s movement to the time of the Salem witch trials.” This stuff would knock their socks off. It made Mapplethorpe look like Norman Rockwell. Well, not quite. But controversy was good. Controversy meant big sales. Vivian would price them at thirty thousand a piece.
She admitted that she found the work disturbing. The composition and colors were beautiful until you realized what the pink chunks and red blotches were. The pictures made Vivian’s heart hurt; they made her think of Laura. She’d been trying to get ahold of her since Wendy came in last week with her new work.
Vivian dragged the stepladder to the wall and lifted up a photo she particularly liked, a waifish model in a T-shirt and white socks, face streaked with tears, sitting cross-legged, genitals exposed, plastic body parts and fake insects strewn around her. It was pure Stephen King.
When Vivian stood back to see if it hung right, she thought again of Laura. She didn’t know why. Perhaps the model looked a little like her, straight dark hair pulled forward as if to hide her face. Not that Laura ever wore her hair that way, but there was something—a common woundedness.
Vivian remembered touring Europe with Laura one summer during college. Vivian was hit with hepatitis in Florence. She had a fever for weeks, diarrhea, vomiting. She couldn’t remember half of what Laura did for her. When the fever finally broke, she found herself in a bed beneath a window that looked out over an orchard of almond trees. It was an ancient country house in Tavarnuzze, a tiny town just south of Florence, in rolling hills of olive groves and Chianti vineyards. It had cool red tile floors and thick stone walls. There was no glass in the windows, only thick wooden shutters they closed at night. On a rough kitchen table sat a vase of freshly cut daffodils and iris.
Vivian later learned that when she first got sick, Laura went to the American Embassy and got the name of a doctor who taught at the American University in town. He diagnosed her and told Laura she couldn’t travel for at least a month. The family of his Italian wife had a weekend cottage; he arranged for the two to stay there. Laura nursed Vivian for six weeks, fed her, helped her learn to walk again. When Vivian was well enough to ask Laura to keep track of the costs so she could pay her back, Laura dismissed it with a flick of her hand and ignored Vivian whenever she tried to bring it up again. As soon as Vivian was well, they traveled on to Greece and Turkey as if nothing ever happened.
Vivian was sure Laura had saved her life. She felt a feroc
ious loyalty to her.
After college, when they shared an apartment in New York, Vivian became a maniac at the slightest perceived injustice against Laura. She was a pit bull sniffing out a crackhead, a grizzly bear guarding her cubs. The punk who whistled at Laura, the slimy landlord who made a pass, the doctors who said Laura could never dance again, none of them ever saw it coming, a whirling dervish of fury completely out of proportion to the transgression.
It frightened Vivian, this violent protectiveness that overtook her, even after Laura moved to California. If, when she called from Los Angeles, Laura complained about a boyfriend or someone at work, Vivian felt a madness smolder inside her. She would be preoccupied for days, wondering what she could do to solve Laura’s problem. She jogged around Central Park, exhausted herself at the gym, but nothing gave her relief. There was nothing she could do, nothing she should do. Laura was a grown woman who could take care of herself.
Or could she?
Vivian knew Laura needed her now. Laura was in danger. Vivian could feel it. After the opening this Friday, she would let Amaldo run the gallery and do the follow-up. She could take a week off. She hadn’t seen Laura in almost a year, and she missed her. Besides, she had some business to do in Los Angeles, clients to see, new artists to check out.
Vivian could already smell the jasmine, sage, and eucalyptus—the moist fragrant air of Los Angeles.
* * *
Reggie felt a burst of energy, the energy of the righteous, the sheriff, the cowboy in a white hat. He drove up Fairfax Avenue until he got to Third, then turned into the Farmer’s Market parking lot.
That morning, he’d woken from a fabulously sexy dream. Audrey was in it, and Laura, too. He was amazed at how a dream could set up your day and linger, even if you couldn’t really remember it. Sometimes his dreams were so intense that he woke up more tired than when he went to sleep. Those were the dreams that replayed his day, the dead bodies and lying perps. Other times he woke up jubilant, kicking at the sheets like a kid, joyful to get out of bed. That was the way it had been this morning. He woke up diagonally across the bed, and his first thought was how great it was to have the bed to himself. He tried to dive back into that luscious luminosity, but the images grew faint, drying up as quickly as breath on a mirror.
Good Morning, Darkness Page 13
