Maggie Darling

by James Howard Kunstler

  The small chamber, hardly seven by nine, contained a chaise lounge draped with brocaded throws, a smallish padded armchair, a darling little Hepplewhite scrivener’s desk, and a great deal of tactilely satisfying bric-a-brac: ceramic glove forms, onyx and malachite eggs, vermeil snuff boxes, the gold and jade finial that once adorned a mandarin’s hat, a jeweler’s brass magnifying loupe, and a silver Newport tankard filled with thirteen Bakelite fountain pens (twenty-five bucks for the lot at the East Rowney auction). Botanical prints adorned the walls. Most significantly, the room did not have any windows. This was hardly the fatal flaw it might seem, for rather than inducing claustrophobia, it lent an ambience of the securest coziness, completely blotting out the wide world and all its agencies of harm and woe. The little room reminded Maggie of a train compartment—some of her fondest memories were of the overnight trips to summer camp in a Pullman—and here Maggie liked to imagine that she was crossing the Alps at night or that she might throw open the door to discover Istanbul suddenly at her feet.

  It was to this refuge, this luxurious bunker, that Maggie led a still somewhat groggy Lindy to place the fateful call to Los Angeles at seven o’clock sharp.

  “I don’t know if I can go through with it,” she said.

  “Be brave, dear heart.”

  Lindy huddled at the edge of the chaise staring at the telephone. Maggie poured Lindy a cup of tea, which she ignored. Instead she methodically ate all the lemon fingers, madeleines, and hazelnut meringues that accompanied the tea, one after another, with bulimic determination.

  “Would you like me to dial for you?” Maggie asked.

  “Wait a minute.”

  “It’s seven.”

  “He’s not going anywhere. Don’t utz me. I’m not so anxious to find out if I’m gonna be dead next Christmas, okay? I prefer not knowing for ten more seconds. Did you ever wish you were a cow?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You know, you drive out in the country and the cows stare blankly at you as you drive by.”

  “Yes?”

  “They don’t have a single thought in their heads, those cows. Not a shred of a thought. They don’t think about tomorrow—hell, they don’t think about five minutes from now. Or yesterday. Or five minutes ago. They’re not tortured by regrets. They don’t worry about money, about making deals, about whether some asshole director is going twenty million over budget, about what’s for dinner, about their husbands turning gay. I’d like to be a cow. If I die from this shit, that’s what I’m coming back as. Okay, I think I’m ready to make the call—”

  But as Lindy reached for the handset, the phone rang and she recoiled, as from a rampant cobra. Maggie picked it up, holding an index finger aloft to signal that she would deal with the caller swiftly. Lindy rolled her eyes.

  “Hello.”

  “Maggie Darling?”

  “Speaking.”

  “Lawrence Hayward here. Say, that was quite a shindig you put on Christmas Eve.”

  “Glad you enjoyed yourself—”

  “You’re good with food. Anyone ever tell you that?”

  “A few, here and there. Listen—”

  “Never meant much to me before. Think I might have missed out. Say, where can you get something to eat around here?”

  “Huh … ? Where are you exactly?”

  “In my apartment. Fifth Avenue and Eighty-first. Can you just fire me a recommendation? Thought I’d try eating, you know, some better food for a change.”

  “Oh. Well. Try Civita on Seventy-sixth off Madison.”

  “What should I order?”

  “Coniglio in salmi’. Listen—”

  “What the heck is it? Some kind of spaghetti?”

  “Jugged hare. You’ll like it. Lawrence, I can’t talk just now. Forgive me, but I left something on the stove—”

  “’Course, ’course. Nothing to forgive. Well, thanks for the tip. Bye.”

  Maggie stared at the phone as though it were some strange artifact from another planet.

  “Excuse me a moment,” Lindy said. She vanished down the hall and returned shortly cradling her vodka bottle. “I’m not a lush, okay? But this is extraordinarily stressful, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Oh, certainly.”

  “Got any valium?”

  “Lindy! You can’t mix downers and alcohol!”

  “Of course you can. Grow up.”

  “Well, I’m sorry, I haven’t got any.”

  Lindy knocked back a bracer, gasped, washed it down with some tepid tea, and snatched the phone up, hitting the keys with her long-nailed thumb.

  “This is Lindy Hagan calling Dr. Eugene Brill. About my test results. What test? Listen, honey, just tell him it’s me, he’ll know what this is about. Huh? Well, it’s really rather personal. I don’t care if you’re a nurse, I don’t want to discuss it with you. Just shut up and tell the doctor who’s calling, okay? Why, you little bitch!” Lindy lowered the phone into her lap.

  “What happened?” Maggie asked.

  “She hung up on me.”

  “You were a bit rough on her.”

  “Hey, whose side are you on?”

  “Yours, of course.”

  “Did you hear anything she said to me?”

  “No.”

  “Then how dare you assume that I was the only one being rude?”

  “Lindy, I realize this is difficult for you—”

  “I’ll show you difficult!” She redialed rapidly. “Hang up on me again, little missy, and you’ll be emptying bedpans in the back wards of Canoga Park State Hospital tomorrow. This is Lindy Hagan. Yes, Missus Buddy Hagan. That’s right, the producer. Sure I’ll hold.”

  Lindy poured another snort into her now empty teacup. Her hand shook so violently that the bottle clattered against the china.

  “Ah, is that you, Dr. Brill? Yes, I’m just fine, thank you. A little concerned about whether I’m going to be around this time next year— ha ha. What? Sure, I’ll hold.”

  Maggie crossed and recrossed her legs, nibbling a knuckle as she watched Lindy nervously twine her dark hair into a slick frayed cord.

  “Ah, you’re back,” Lindy said. “No kidding? I didn’t know you dabbled in real estate. It sounds like a pretty good buy to me. What? Pico and Crenshaw. Well, it’s not very close to the freeway, is it? How the fuck would I know the comparables, Dr. Brill? Yes, I’ll hold.”

  “What on earth are you two talking about?” Maggie whispered.

  “Some broker’s trying to sell him on a six-unit in mid-Wilshire. There’s a very hot restaurant on the ground floor: Urkh M’ghurkh. Mongolian. Investment property.”

  “I can’t believe he’s treating you this way.”

  “Hey, I don’t want him to hang up on me.”

  “It’s atrocious.”

  “It’s California. See why I love it there? Motherfucking doctor makes three million a year treating movie stars’ sore throats and it’s not enough money, okay? He needs more— Uh yes, I’m here, Dr. Brill. No. Well, actually I’m in Connecticut. At a friend’s. No, he’s not with me. I haven’t seen the bastard since he broke the news. No, I don’t think that’s too expensive for Benedict Canyon. Well, if it’s a complete tear-down, of course. Say, Dr. Brill, I wonder if you happen to have my test results handy. No, it was an … uh, uh, uh, an AIDS test, remember? Yeah, I’ll hold.”

  “You should call the state medical ethics board,” Maggie stage-whispered.

  “You don’t have to whisper, Maggie!” Lindy shouted. “We’re on fucking hold again!”

  Maggie retreated into the padded chair, drawing her heels up on the seat under her skirt. Lindy poured herself another vodka.

  “Yes, I’m still here, Dr. Brill. What? You’re opening the envelope? What the fuck is this? Oscar night? Sorry. Yes, I want to hear the results. Okay. I’ll stop cursing, I swear. Say that again. I am—?”

  Maggie seized both sides of her own face, making deep indentations in her cheeks.

  “—How re
liable is this test? Hmmmm. I suppose that’s reassuring. I mean, it’s great news. What? Well, I’m glad you’re glad, but I assure you nobody’s gladder than me. No, I won’t be returning to L.A. anytime soon. Well, I don’t consider it a shame. I’m hardly in a state of mind to consider dating. In fact, Dr. Brill, I wouldn’t go out with you if you were the last straight man left on the planet, you moneygrubbing little prick. Yeah, good-bye, asshole.”

  Lindy flung down the phone.

  “Are you going to be all right?” Maggie asked.

  Lindy was able to nod before her eyes rolled up into her skull and she spiraled off the edge of the chaise lounge onto the creamy carpet.

  Part Four

  A Virtuoso at Work

  1

  Rescued from the Void

  During the months of January and February that year, the Businessmen’s Lunch Posse struck five more Manhattan eateries, but not just at lunchtime. They swept into Le Cirque, the Post House, Aureole, and Lutèce in broad daylight but hit La Grenouille at night, where an indignant young sous-chef ran out of the kitchen with a cleaver aloft, naively intending to “defend the establishment’s honor”—as it was later reported by his coworkers—only to be blown away in a shit storm of nine-millimeter slugs.

  The detectives on the case, in this time of dwindling city services, were able to deduce little beyond the perpetrators’ ethnic persuasion, basic modus operandi, and unfailing good taste in victims. The posse members, for their part, grew more brazen about sampling the cuisine wherever they struck, snatching tidbits of ginger carpaccio off a plate here, grilled monkfish there, and offering instant reviews—“Yo, this shit is fine as a motherfucker!”—as they made their rapid and disciplined exit to the van waiting outside.

  “Shorn Like Lambs!” one tabloid newspaper put it after the Lutèce caper, quoting a Brooklyn community organizer who gleefully referred to the gang’s exploits as “New York’s newest, most politically inventive growth industry.” It became necessary for restaurants to hire private armed security guards, and those who couldn’t afford it watched over empty dining rooms, cried over spoiled produce, and ultimately saw their businesses die.

  Yet, life as it was practiced on Kettle Hill Farm in West Rumford, Connecticut, 56.3 miles from the Plaza Hotel, took on a merrier air than it had known in many years. To Maggie’s happy surprise, Hooper and Alison both actually found intern positions at MTV and Calvin Klein, respectively, and began a regimen of commuting into the city as soon as the holidays, with all their bothersome festivities, drew to a close.

  Lindy Hagan, with a clean bill of health, a future to consider, and a somewhat battered worldview, did not return to California. Instead, she took a place in the household as a sort of psychological reclamation project for Maggie, with most encouraging early results. She put on ten pounds, and in the right places too, for Maggie maintained a rigorous schedule of daily workouts. In turn, she helped Maggie and Nina with the business of Good Taste and seemed to relish her simple duties—as an improving patient relishes the little victories of occupational therapy in one of the better sanitariums. Hardly a whiz in the kitchen, Lindy could be counted on for rudimentary production tasks like baking muffins in quantity, deveining snow peas, and filling cored cherry tomatoes with curried crabmeat. Altogether, the household fell into an easy and amiable rhythm that fostered a general striving toward brighter futures for all concerned.

  Kenneth Darling remained absent and incommunicado. A few preliminary letters arrived from his attorney, full of threats and promises of withering legal battles to come. Maggie’s lawyer reassured her that they represented little more than bluster, though, and said that behind all the tough talk her husband could easily be viewed for the pitiful helpless wiggling white worm that he was.

  It was a Thursday afternoon in late January, during an odd interval with no one else in the house, when Maggie herself stumbled psychologically. Lindy was in Westport enjoying a session with her new psychiatrist, Dr. Irwin Klein (author of The No-Fail High Self-Esteem Diet). Nina was off solo, handling a simple afternoon tea for thirty at the Ridgefield Historical Society, the kids were at work in the city, the maids done for the day and gone. There were no photo shoots, no editorial wrangles, no product endorsement sessions, no dinner guests, not even any phone calls from the environmental charities about their tiresome rain forests and interminable whales. For the first time in weeks, Maggie was completely alone.

  Gazing out the kitchen window at the sleeping garden and the windblown snow and the long, blue shadows, she felt herself slipping helplessly into that silent void between all the thousandfold chores and obligations of her life. The void frightened her and the stillness of the snowy landscape amplified her fear into a kind of free-falling despair. She longed at that moment to be enfolded in a man’s strong arms to keep from pitching into that void, and it occurred to her more than fleetingly, for the first time in weeks, that there was absolutely no man in her life. She suddenly craved one, craved all the brawn and musk and stupidity and courage of a man.

  This longing, this physical hunger for enfoldment, resolved into a clear picture of Maggie’s predicament, like a reflection on the surface of a pond once the wind dies down, and her fear and despair clarified into a thrall of simple loneliness. She looked out at the wintry garden beds and saw her future in the cold blue barren snowdrifts. And, as sometimes happens in those odd moments when our little lives call out to the vast looming void where the true spirit of the world dwells, the void answered—Jung would have called it an instance of synchronicity—this time, happily, in the very longed-for form of a man’s voice.

  “Swann here,” the voice seemed to sing at the distant end of the phone wire.

  “Uh—” Maggie struggled for words as the fearful void reeled back in her consciousness. “Um, yes? Maggie Darling, speaking.”

  “Frederick Swann. Remember me, Mrs. Darling?”

  Suddenly, Maggie was combing her thick silver-blond hair with her fingers. “Frederick Swann the … performer?”

  “Oh, I like that. Hadn’t thought of myself quite that way before. Mrs. Darling, I wish to scold you. Three weeks have passed since our chance encounter and you have not answered my note. I am bereft.”

  A pregnant interval ensued before Maggie burst out laughing. “Don’t you … have groupies?” she struggled to say.

  “Oh, I see. You imagine that I’m hip-deep in adolescent kitty cats. Well, I suppose I could be, but that is not to my taste, Mrs. Darling. You are more to my taste.”

  “I’m … very flattered, Frederick.”

  “Swann. Swanny to my intimates.”

  “You are very swanlike.”

  “I take that as a compliment.”

  “It was intended to be.”

  “Yet if anyone is swanlike, it is you, Mrs. Darling—and conversely, ‘liked by Swann.’”

  “I hardly know what to say.”

  “Say you’ll have supper with me tonight.”

  “It’s rather short notice, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. I should not like to give you any time to reflect on the proposition, because I’m afraid that you’ll find any number of reasons to wrinkle your lovely nose and say no thank you. What do you say?”

  “I say I’m too old for you.” She laughed again.

  “Nonsense,” Swann retorted as though disposing of a little fluff of lint. “I suppose you’d like to argue the point, though.”

  “I don’t like to argue about anything.”

  “Splendid. Then you’ll dine with me tonight?”

  “You are persistent.”

  “Oh, just please say you will.”

  “I … will,” Maggie said impulsively, horrifying herself.

  “Good. I’ll send a car.”

  “Where do you propose to dine?” she said, falling helplessly into his cadence of speech.

  “Why, here, of course. The Royalton. The car should arrive at your establishment at roughly seven o’clock. Dress for comfort. Any questions?
”

  “Yes. Do you know that I am a married woman?”

  “I have intelligence, Mrs. Darling, that some time ago you showed your husband the door, that you are, these days, married as a matter of legal circumstance, and there it ends. Do I have this correctly?”

  “That’s a fair, if glib, summary. Who told you that?”

  “Let’s just say I made inquiries. The source is reliable. I’m thrilled by the prospect of our evening together. Till later, then, Mrs. Darling. Good afternoon.”

  2

  The Fetching

  Lindy returned from her headshrinking session at quarter to six and found Maggie upstairs in her bedroom amid heaps of separates. It was at once apparent to Lindy that Maggie had a date with someone. Though Lindy begged and pleaded with her, Maggie would not reveal the date’s name until she was satisfied with her costume: a demure claret cashmere scoop-necked jersey worn with a simple black merino skirt, black tights, and Holly Borghese black velvet, gold-buckled slippers. Only then would she utter the words Frederick Swann, and when she did, it was as though Lindy had been thrown against the wall by a poltergeist.

  “You’re old enough to be his mother!” Lindy whispered, hoarse with amazement.

  “Technically, perhaps,” Maggie agreed, closing the clasp on a simple gold chain that dangled a jade heart just above the cleft between her breasts. “I made the same point to him, but he doesn’t seem to care.”

  “Where did you meet him? How did you get to know him? What’s he like? What about the other guys in his band? Oh, Maggie, you be careful, now.”

  “Well, what’s the worst that could happen?”

  Here they shared a knowing glance and commenced to hop up and down and squeal, until it was as though they were back in the college dormitory and all the men in their world were like so much delectable barbecue.