A Woman of Intelligence

by Karin Tanabe

  “No,” she said, laughing. “Let’s just say I don’t have the dexterity of a panda. And I slept with someone.”

  “No!”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  She started laughing. “How about you don’t lose sleep over it, and I promise that whatever I did, it won’t get either of us arrested.”

  I picked up the receiver and held it to my ear, thinking of all the conversations I’d had on it. Eleanor Roosevelt herself had even called me once when she couldn’t find my boss. I put the receiver back in its cradle and smiled at Ava.

  “Now, this is a present.”

  “Good,” she said, leaning down and kissing Gerrit this time. “I’ve got to dash. Back to the Eden, which, with my air-conditioning going in and out, feels more Inferno than Paradiso.”

  I leaned forward and hugged her before she dashed. She still smelled like jasmine and oranges.

  “Ava!” I called out when she was down the block.

  She turned and looked back at me.

  “You’re a gem.”

  She tipped her hat and walked off.

  America hater, I reminded myself as I watched her disappear. Treasonous woman. Still, I clutched the bag as if it held all of my youth and turned the stroller toward the park.

  Two hours later, all of us looking like we’d lost a wrestling match with a fire hose, we walked back into 820.

  “Mrs. Edgeworth,” said Sam as we rolled in. “You have a telegram.”

  “Thank you,” I said, taking it from him.

  “Do you need any assistance, Mrs. Edgeworth?” he asked, looking at the shopping bag cutting into the crook of my elbow.

  “I’m all right,” I said, heading for the elevator. “But thank you for asking.”

  “Mrs. Edgeworth?”

  “Yes, Sam?”

  “I spoke to Mrs. Kirkland earlier. She asked if your husband was home.”

  “My husband? Not me?”

  “Your husband,” said Sam neutrally.

  “Thank you, Sam. Maybe I will take that help after all.”

  When Sam left the apartment, I gave him three dollars, and it wasn’t for his help carrying the shopping bag.

  Inside the apartment, I stripped the boys and let Peter crawl naked over to the couch to pull himself up as Gerrit ran wild. I tore open the envelope, certain it was a message from Coldwell or Turner. It was not.

  “I’ll be in New York on July 10,” it read. “Please meet me for a drink. 6 p.m. El Morocco. Only respond if you can’t make it. But know that if you do, I’ll ignore it.—Faye Buckley Swan.”

  If I had to fake my own death, I would be at El Morocco.

  I hid my telephone on the top shelf of my closet and thought about the lies I could spin to arrange to meet Faye. If Carrie had already spoken to Tom, I wouldn’t have a chance.

  Asking Amelia if Jilly could watch the boys was the easiest solution, but I needed to save her for more important occasions. I could fake an emergency of sorts, but most emergencies were medical, and I cohabited with one of Manhattan’s best doctors. I could stage my own kidnapping, could simply disappear—or perhaps I could try something novel with Tom. I could tell him the truth.

  When I finally heard the elevator ding and the doors open, it was nearly midnight. Tom wandered into the living room a few moments later, his movements betraying his exhaustion. Still, he smiled when he saw me, glancing down at the book in my lap.

  “You’re home early,” I said jokingly.

  “At least I’m home the same day I left,” he replied, taking off his suit jacket. “That’s something.”

  “It is indeed.” I didn’t mention that these days, the hours Tom kept were a blessing.

  He leaned over and kissed me on the cheek.

  “It must be nice to read a book,” he said, sitting beside me. “I miss having time to do such things.”

  I wanted to tell him that it was a prop. That I hadn’t absorbed a word, because I was too exhausted from watching Gerrit run from the cyclists in the park like they were the bulls in Pamplona.

  “Le Deuxième Sexe,” he said, looking at the cover. “Beauvoir. That women’s book was a bit of a thing, when? The year we got married?”

  A bit of a thing. And written in a little language. Surely the only big things that happened were in the company of men at Lenox Hill. I put the book down on the couch next to us. “I’d call it more of a sensation.”

  He didn’t answer, pulling off his tie and draping it on the edge of the couch.

  “I have a favor to ask you, Tom,” I said after we’d chatted about his day and he’d relaxed a little, crossing his legs, right ankle over left knee. Carrie Kirkland clearly hadn’t said a word.

  “Okay…” he replied. I could hear the hesitation in his voice. He put his foot back on the floor.

  “When I was in Los Angeles…”

  At the sound of those two words, Tom’s body shifted.

  “When I was at the Beverly Hills Hotel,” I amended as his spine straightened even more. “I met a woman, a lawyer, whose company I really enjoyed. She was intelligent, witty. She reminded me of the girls I used to be friends with in college, and at the United Nations. Punchy women, if that makes sense.”

  “Aren’t you still friends with punchy women? Carrie is quite punchy,” Tom offered.

  “Carrie is far more placid than punchy. Not that I like her any less for it.” That was a lie. I did like her less for it. Racism and veiled threats. She was actually far worse than placid. My only other friends with children had had them far earlier and didn’t want to relive the baby phase. And as Marianne had made clear, the ones without children had no desire to experience mine.

  “I suppose I’m not punchy,” said Tom.

  “You, Tom Edgeworth, are perfect, not punchy,” I replied honestly, looking at his weary face, his hands that pumped life back into children. “You’re too good to be punchy,” I added, guilt creeping up my spine. I looked again at his hands. No bolt of electricity shot through me.

  “I’ll take that as a compliment,” he said, his posture relaxing as he again crossed his ankle over his knee.

  “I don’t know how to put it, Tom,” I said, pausing. “I suppose I just felt good talking to this woman. I felt alive. I haven’t made a friend in a while—it’s hard to when you have no job, or a university crowd to belong to—but Faye and I could become very good friends.” Of course, I was already making another rather punchy friend, but now wasn’t the time to mention my new communist confidante. Selling him on Faye was proving to be hard enough. “Which brings me to the favor,” I said brightly. “She’s in New York and would like to meet me for dinner at El Morocco tomorrow at six.”

  “Tomorrow?” Tom echoed.

  “She lives in Los Angeles and is only here for a very short time,” I lied. Faye could have taken up residence in New York for all I knew. “She sent a telegram to say as much. Do you think it would be all right if I went? Would you mind? Perhaps we could ring your mother and ask if she and Jilly could help like they did when we went to the Millses? Or we could hire a babysitter?”

  “A babysitter? As in someone we don’t know? To watch the boys in our home?”

  Tom looked at me as if I’d suggested picking up the local heroin dealer and having him show Gerrit how to juggle needles.

  I nodded, but stopped as his frown grew even deeper. If he knew that every ten days his sons were with a babysitter for twelve hours straight, he would simply drop dead on our overpriced Swedish sofa.

  “Preferably Jilly and your mother, of course.”

  Tom stood up and massaged his temples. Deciding whether to let me out into the wild was very stressful.

  “Tomorrow at six?” Tom clarified.

  “That’s right.”

  “And you feel this is something you…”

  “Something that I’d like to do. Something that would make me very happy.”

  He walked over to the windows and opened the only one in the living roo
m that wasn’t already.

  He turned around, leaned against it, and looked at me. “All right, then. You go. I don’t want to disturb my mother’s routine or poach Jilly from her yet again. It’s a Saturday. I’ll watch the boys.”

  “You? No, Tom,” I said, standing and walking toward him. “I think, I mean, why not try Jilly? I’m sure she would enjoy spending time with the boys.”

  “Katharina,” he said, his voice dropping. “Jilly is not just a woman for hire. She does more than clean and cook, she manages my parents’ home. She’s very busy,” he concluded firmly, as if the Edgeworth residence were Standard Oil.

  “Of course,” I replied apologetically. “Jilly is phenomenal, like family, but a break from managing the home, your parents’ lives, to spend time with children, it could—”

  “I’ve been meaning to spend more time with the boys. Work has been all-encompassing, and I miss them. Peter still hasn’t walked yet, has he?”

  I shook my head.

  “Concerning. Perhaps he will for his father.” Tom looked out the window as the sounds of a car honking drifted up to the room. “I’ll do it,” he declared when it was quiet again. “We’ll have a great time. And you’ll be home by what, ten?”

  “Ten? Faye is only in town for a few nights, so I’m sure she’ll want to have a drink after dinner,” I said, keeping my voice light. “But you’ll be asleep by then anyway, no? And Peter, now that he’s not—” I had almost said it. Breastfeeding. “Now that he’s well over a year, he doesn’t wake up until almost three if he wakes up at all. He sleeps through the night most of the time.”

  “Still. I’d be more comfortable if you were home around ten,” Tom said firmly. “And please don’t drink.”

  “Chocolate milk for me all night. Thank you, Tom. It’s really very good of you.”

  Tom smiled, looking proud of himself. I watched him stand up, walk to the refrigerator, and examine the food I had made for him. He took out a beer instead, opened it, and walked off to the library to drink it alone. I watched him go, wondering where the man I married had gone, wondering if he felt the same about me. I’d become estranged from the women I’d been closest to, I’d lost the badge of honor that came with working at the United Nations, and I’d almost lost every shred of my independence.

  But still, Faye wanted to see me again. Me.

  * * *

  I had been to El Morocco a few times with Tom after we were married and before we had children, but it had never been his speed. Full of society types, celebrities in dark corners, and good-looking people desperate to be photographed, a scene that Tom had seen too much of in his youth. Now he preferred serious people doing serious things. But I still enjoyed a dip in the fishbowl.

  I sat back in the taxi and took in the city. It looked so different when I was alone, better. Despite the temperature, I rolled down the window and draped my arm on the door, remembering that even when the sun started to set, New York refused to go with it. The city didn’t rest in the evening, it glowed with electric lights and candlelight in cafes and restaurants, with cigarettes burning and headlights, with vice and possibility. Even when the world was growing dark in your mind, New York refused to agree. She always kept a light on for you. And when the sun started to fade, when our minds welcomed the worst of our thoughts, she was there with her vigil, her open arms.

  Tonight I felt like her open arms were ready to wave me forward, to guide me to something delightful.

  The taxi shot down Fifth Avenue, the driver weaving through traffic, the moguls of New York. We glided past the side of the Plaza and the Pulitzer Fountain, and I imagined all the women who had perched prettily on its edge, holding on to someone’s hand. I had done so, surely Ava had, too. I could picture her listening to the water as she looked away from the city’s iconic hotel, when most of us looked right at it. New York was a town that lured beautiful women, but something about Ava made it feel like she’d lured New York. I didn’t need to lure Manhattan, I just needed the freedom to fall in love with it again.

  “Visiting?” the driver asked, catching my wistful expression in the rearview.

  “No. This city is mine, from spark to dark.”

  “Poetic,” he said as he stopped the car. “That’ll be fifty cents, Emily Dickinson.”

  “Here’s a dollar,” I said, winking at him.

  Invigorated by my ride alone, by the night ahead, I walked into the restaurant, tipped the doorman, and surveyed the fishbowl. The faces were new, but the desire was the same: to see and be seen, and hopefully get photographed while doing it. Everyone I passed was picture-perfect. Sitting at the center banquette against the wall, a position usually reserved for celebrities of Bergman’s ilk, was the queen of the room, Faye Buckley Swan. Her pale shoulders were exposed, just as they’d been in Beverly Hills, her dress was ink black, and she looked so good that it seemed as if the restaurant had been built around her. That she was not only patron, but muse.

  When the host and I were halfway across the room, she looked up, smiled, and gave me an approving once-over. “So, this is what you look like sober,” she joked as she kissed me on the cheek after I’d greeted her.

  “How do you know I’m sober?”

  “Because I know what you look like drunk. The dress fits you better, too,” she said, pointing to my knee-length red Chanel.

  “Please, let’s never talk about that dress,” I said, sitting down across from her. “It proved to be a hangman’s rope in disguise. I should have just worn a bedsheet.”

  Faye Buckley Swan was very pretty. Her redwood-colored hair looked darker in the nearly windowless El Morocco, and it gave her an air of mystery I hadn’t noticed before. But more than that, she had presence. The kind of presence New York society girls, California society girls, even Cleveland society girls dream of having but that some women just have naturally—even lawyers.

  “I’m so sorry about all that,” I said as she leaned back in the blue zebra-striped banquette, her spine seeming to float against it instead of sinking. “I’m dreadfully embarrassed. You did get my flowers and the note of apology, I hope?”

  “I did. They were beautiful. Thank you,” she said, picking up her aperitif. “But really, no need. I loved that evening. All quite exciting. And then captured by the newspapers so we could have the memory forever. Here,” she said, reaching across the table and opening her small handbag. “I brought you the clipping from Daily Variety in case you wanted to—”

  “Oh, please, no!” I said, putting out my hand to stop her. “Please, I don’t think I can look at it.”

  “Rina, don’t be silly,” she said, grinning at me and removing her hands from her purse. “Of course I didn’t bring it. I’m not a monster. I’m kidding.”

  “Oh, thank God,” I said, exhaling. “I want to see that picture of me about as much as I want to return to the Beverly Hills Hotel.”

  “What picture?” she said innocently, shrugging in her black cocktail dress. “Anyway, she should have laughed it off.”

  “Bergman?”

  “Sure. Anyone with millions should laugh most things off. Especially if they were also gifted symmetrical features and doting admirers.”

  “Did she? Laugh? The only thing I could see was the waxed floor—and my life flashing by.”

  “No,” said Faye, starting to laugh herself. “Not at all. Perhaps she would have if she’d married someone more amusing. Or maybe she shouldn’t have married at all. In my line of work, I’m learning that’s usually best for Hollywood types. Or legal types.” She picked up her drink and looked around the room. “Half of these people look very ready to have me cut the ties that bind them. I should just sprinkle my business cards around the restaurant.”

  “I take it you’re not married then? Just a wild guess.”

  “Actually, I was. I did the whole ring by spring thing. The ring was pretty, but the result wasn’t. I’m divorced now. Have been for the last three years. It’s been glorious. Conveniently, I served as my own
counsel.”

  “And no children?”

  “Certainly not. They’re just obligatory accessories.”

  I burst out laughing. “How do you figure?”

  “Well, after you’re married, the pressure is on to have them. It’s why my husband wanted a divorce. That, and my lover. Actually there were two of them. Three if you count the Italian count. Though that only lasted about thirty minutes.” She waved her hand in the air. “A tale for another time. Anyway, these days, children are expected in a marriage. There’s no more ‘Oh, I simply can’t bring a child into this war-torn world.’ So even if you don’t want them, there they are. Obligatory accessories. Canes, sunglasses, crutches, children.”

  “There’s a certain amount of truth to that. But I do love mine, most of the time.”

  “And I’m sure those with a busted leg love their crutches. Come, let’s get you a drink and discuss your marriage.”

  She raised her eyebrows at the waiter, who immediately stopped what he was doing and approached. I realized what it was about Faye that gave her such presence. It wasn’t beauty, it was self-assurance. She knew she was lovely to look at, but more importantly, she knew her mind worked faster than most.

  “It was something Tom, right? Your gin. Tom Thumb?” Faye asked.

  “Tom Thumb?” I said, grinning. “What is that? Gin for babies?”

  “Now, there’s an idea.”

  “Just a coffee for me,” I said to the waiter. “I’m trying to drink less, actually,” I explained to Faye. “After the incident, I thought it would be best.”

  “It would be best. But not tonight. Any night but tonight. I need to laugh, and you don’t seem ready to prostrate yourself in front of any starlets this evening, so we need another source of mirth.”