“Your mother and I only want what’s best for you, Isabel. For all three of you girls.”
“I know,” she said, but he went on as though she hadn’t spoken.
“Sometimes it’s hard, as a parent, to believe that your children are all grown up, even if they are legally adults. You worry they’re not seeing things as clearly as they might. You want to keep them from making the same mistakes you made. Or different mistakes.”
“I think I’m seeing things clearly,” Isabel said. “Or at least, more clearly than I used to.”
“A colleague of mine has an apartment to sublet in Old City. The price would be reasonable for the right tenant. I just thought I’d mention it.”
“Thank you,” Isabel said.
“The last few days, with you at the house, I’ve been thinking. I reacted badly when you first told us about you and Theo. I guess I thought you could have hung on if you wanted to, that there would have been integrity in that. But what you did had its own kind of integrity. Anyway, it was your decision to make. I should have behaved more impartially. I can’t change that, but I would be happy if I could help you now.” They had reached Alice’s building. There was nowhere to park, so Judge Rubin pulled into a loading zone and put on his flashers.
Isabel kissed his cheek, feeling the sharp bone beneath the skin. She put her arms around him and he hugged her back, smelling of clean cotton and shaving cream. The smells that, all her life, had meant righteousness.
She got out and watched the car drive slowly away down the dark street. She didn’t envy him, on his way back to the woman who had worn, one summer afternoon, a yellow bathing suit, and to whom he had bound himself for life on what might have seemed, in hindsight, rather flimsy evidence.
On the other hand, she thought, reaching into her pocket for Alice’s spare key, maybe he was happy to be going home to her, looking forward to making coffee and telling her about his conversation with Isabel. To climbing into bed beside her: the bed they had shared all Isabel’s life. How did you know what went on in other people’s lives? In other marriages. Isabel unlocked the door and ran up the narrow steps. Who knew? Maybe they did love each other after all.
It was nearly two in the morning when Isabel, asleep on the sofa bed in the living room, was awakened by the apartment door opening and the hall light coming on.
“Oh!” Alice exclaimed. “I’m sorry!”
Marco, whose arm had been around Alice’s waist, let go and took a step back.
Isabel sat up. “Oh, hello!” she said in confusion. “Come in—I didn’t realize—”
“It’s my fault,” Alice said. “I didn’t think—”
Neither of them could finish their sentences.
“It’s okay,” Marco said. “I’m going! It’s late. Alicia, buenas noches.”
“Don’t let him go,” Isabel begged Alice. “Make him come in. I’ll put my robe on.”
“We were just going to have coffee,” Alice said tentatively.
“Marco,” Isabel said, “please come in and have coffee! I’m getting up. I’m up. Come in and help me fold this thing.”
“No, no,” he said. “I just wanted to make sure Alice got home safely.”
“You have to help me,” Isabel said. “It’s stuck. I can’t do it myself.” She pretended to be unable to fold the foot of the bed back onto itself.
“You don’t want to fold it up,” Marco said. “Go back to sleep.”
“No, I want a cup of coffee. Alice, hurry up and make the coffee, will you!”
At last Isabel prevailed, and they were all seated in the tiny living room, each holding one of Alice’s bright, Aztec-patterned mugs. Isabel was quite sure this was not what the other two had had in mind. “Was it a good dance?” she asked.
“Wonderful,” Alice said.
“So-so,” Marco said. “It wasn’t the usual band. Alice is going to come back next week for the real experience.”
“I should be gone by next week,” Isabel said quickly. “The first of the month and all.”
“That’s not necessary,” Alice said. “I like having you here.”
“But I need my own place.”
Isabel expected her sister to put up a little more resistance, but Alice just sighed and said, “Everyone’s moving! Tina and Soren have found some palatial house near the art museum.”
An awkward silence fell. No one could think of anything to say, there in the cluttered room under the lights in the middle of the night.
Isabel turned to Marco, handsome in his black tuxedo pants and white shirt and his silk tie. “Work going well?” she asked brightly.
“Yes. I have lots of jobs. All over Devon, and Tredyffrin. Newtown Square. Your mother recommended me to some people, and then they recommended me.”
“Good for Doc,” Isabel said. “Lawns, mostly?”
“Lawns, mulching, pruning. Flowers. A few landscape designs. I’ve never done that kind of work before, but I like it. There are so many plants people never think of using.”
“Not just roses, then?”
“I think that should be my slogan when I get business cards,” Marco said. “‘Beyond roses and rhododendrons!’ I know this supplier who has the most beautiful hellebores. Fothergilla. Cherry dogwoods.”
“You can’t do all that work yourself, can you?” Isabel said.
“I hired someone last week, but I’ll need somebody else pretty soon, too.”
“And a truck,” Alice said. “He needs a truck. After all that work I did to get him his motorcycle back.”
A few hours after going to sleep, Isabel and Alice were awakened by the door buzzer. Isabel stumbled out of bed and pressed the button for the intercom. “Hello?”
There was a silence, and then Tina’s voice said, “Isabel?”
Alice’s bedroom door opened as Isabel said, “Come on up if you want to,” and buzzed her in.
Isabel folded up the bed and opened the curtains so that the sun streamed in onto the rug. Alice dumped out the dregs of last night’s coffee and put on a new pot. Even half-asleep in her old cotton nightgown, her hair rumpled, some of the glow of the night before clung to her. What a contrast to Tina, whose face when she came in was pale and hollow-eyed, and who flinched at the smell of coffee brewing. She was, however, beautifully dressed in cream linen trousers and a plum-colored linen sleeveless blouse. At her neck, heavy gold links glistened, and two thick bangles clanked on her wrists. She looked around at the fusty room, and at her yawning sisters, and she said, “I never thought I’d be waking you up.”
“I know you think we go to bed at eight o’clock. Like nuns,” Isabel said.
“I’ve been up for hours,” Tina said. “I don’t sleep well. I don’t understand how people can get pregnant more than once on purpose! I can tell you right now, this baby is going to be an only child.”
“You’d better get your tubes tied, then,” Isabel said. “And with Soren, even that might not be enough.”
“Where is Soren?” Alice asked quickly. “You should have brought him with you. We could have all gone out for breakfast.”
“He’s with his lawyer. So many papers! What’s the point of it all?”
“The baby needs legal protection,” Alice said patiently. “It’s a good thing in the long run.”
“You sound like Dad,” Tina said irritably. “He can’t keep his nose out. This is supposed to be the happiest time of my life, and all anyone can do is harass me! But that guy yesterday really takes the cake.”
“What are you talking about?” Alice asked. “What guy?”
“The one from the anniversary party! I should have known he was bad news, seeing how he’s a friend of Anthony’s.”
“Simon went to see you?” Isabel said. “Why?”
“To make trouble! Did you know he was a journalist?”
“What kind of trouble?” Alice asked.
“First of all, he got in on false pretenses,” Tina said. “He said he had met me at the anniversary party and co
uld he come in, and then the minute he was inside he started badgering Soren about the whole marriage license thing! He said he was going to write a story for the Inquirer about Soren trying to commit bigamy. He said people would be interested because of the Zank Foundation, and all the money Soren’s giving to environmental causes. All the good he’s been doing, and this jerk wants to turn it against him!”
“I don’t understand,” Alice said. “How did he even find out about it?”
“Because of Anthony!” Tina said. “Anthony and Soren have the same lawyer, right? And now that Anthony’s back in California, he went to see this lawyer about something and he mentioned that he had met another client of his, Soren Zank, and that the lawyer had done two divorces for each of them. And the lawyer said yes, but that Soren’s second divorce never went through, and Anthony mentioned this to this Simon person. How he knew Soren was planning to get married again I have no idea! He must have picked it up around town somewhere. Soren is quite well-known, you know.”
Isabel looked out the window at the opposite apartment building. Alice asked, “What did Soren say?”
“That he would finalize the divorce! Not that it was that simple. That newspaper guy was in our suite all morning until finally Soren pulled the rug out from under him by calling his lawyer and saying he was accepting the settlement terms after all.”
Isabel couldn’t help smiling at the picture of Simon, sitting in a replica Louis XV chair in the suite at the Four Seasons, his face a mask of dogged sincerity, hounding Soren until the poor man picked up the telephone. She thought how angry she had been just a few days before at Simon’s meddling in her family’s business, but now all she felt was an embarrassed gratitude.
“I’m so afraid I’m going to have to get the wedding dress let out,” Tina said, running her hands up and down her waist. “I’m already swelling up like a balloon.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
On Monday morning Alice went to work, and Isabel sat down with a piece of paper to try to organize her life. She made a list of items from the Quince Street house that she wanted: books and pictures, some pots and plants, clothes and dishes. She was in a good enough mood that she could smile over the question of the Royal Copenhagen china, whether she had lost her claim to it now and should return it to her mother, or perhaps even give it to Tina. Certainly there would be no place for it in the small apartment she pictured herself occupying, which she hoped would be less cluttered and crowded than the one she sat in now.
Alice had left the Sunday paper spread on the table, and Isabel brushed off the crumbs and read through the classifieds. One or two ads caught her eye, but in the end she called her father instead. Why not let him help her? She might never go back and finish her doctorate, but she could at least look at his colleague’s apartment, maybe even go see his friend at the dealership.
“Do you think they allow dogs?” Isabel asked him on the phone as they arranged to meet and look over the apartment together.
“We can ask,” Judge Rubin said. “I’ll take you to lunch afterward. Remember how we used to have lunch when you were at Penn?”
“I remember how you used to tell me all the courses I should take.”
Judge Rubin laughed. “All the courses I wished I had taken,” he said.
Isabel thought about that now, folding the newspaper and stacking it with the others on a chair. Maybe it wasn’t possible to reach her father’s age without wishing you’d done some things differently—taken different classes in college, chosen a different career or a different town in which to raise your children. A car that got better gas mileage. Maybe she was lucky to have recognized her mistakes early, while there was still time to rectify them. But who knew what new blunders she was making even now? She felt clearheaded, clear-eyed, as though the dark clouds inside her had been chased away by a strong wind, but maybe that was just a new kind of delusion.
Still, she couldn’t worry about it too much. She could only move forward and hope for the best. Hope she found an apartment she liked, to start with. Someplace with a lot of windows and a deep bathtub. She had never liked the bathtub in the Quince Street house.
And after that—who knew? The big decisions still lay ahead of her, waiting just over the horizon. What kind of work would she do, for one thing: veterinary medicine or zoo consulting? Landscaping? Garden design? Maybe Marco would take her on, she thought—lightly at first, but then more seriously. They could go into business together. He had the expertise, but she knew some things, too, and she had capital. She could afford a truck—or would be able to once the house was sold.
Or perhaps it wasn’t a good idea. Maybe what she needed was to strike out on her own in some new direction entirely. Was it too late to go to medical school? The idea made her sit up suddenly, either because it rang a chord inside her or because it was appalling, she couldn’t tell which.
But if she became a doctor (say it, she thought: like my mother), she knew she wouldn’t be able to have children, too. She was too old to be able to crowd into the rest of her life two such inflexible, exhausting callings. No, better to choose something else, something that wouldn’t preclude having a family later.
Or maybe not. Maybe that was the worst choice she could make, she thought, as cars honked outside the window and a man’s voice sang in Spanish and the pigeons fluttered onto the fire escape in a shimmer of green and gray. She felt tired and discouraged and put her head down on the table, then sat up again immediately and rubbed the jam off her forehead. Maybe she wouldn’t ever have children. How terrible, then, to have held herself back in other ways. To have left space for what she most wanted and to end up with nothing at all.
She shut her eyes, opened them again, got up from the table and went to wash her hands, wash the breakfast dishes, put out the recycling. The smell of burnt toast and scented candles hung in the air. She couldn’t understand why Alice liked scented candles. I have to get out of here, she thought, suddenly breathless, as though the candles had sucked all the oxygen out of the room.
Later in the day, Alice called. “Would it be a big problem if I didn’t make it home for dinner tonight?”
“Tonight? But I was going to make beef Wellington and pot de crème. No, of course it wouldn’t be a problem.”
“Marco wants to take me out. But, I mean, it’s nothing important.”
“Go, by all means! I won’t wait up for you.”
“I won’t be late,” Alice said.
Isabel laughed. “Be late,” she said. “In fact, I’m going to bolt the door from the inside, and I won’t let you in until at least two A.M.”
“No, really,” Alice said. “I have to work tomorrow. And Marco gets up at five.”
“Who needs sleep when you have love to sustain you?” Isabel teased.
“You’re as bad as Doc,” Alice said. “We don’t even really know each other very well yet.”
“Poor Doc,” Isabel said. “After all these years, events have finally come up to the level of her emotions.”
When she got off the phone, Isabel found that she was thinking about Simon Goldenstern and the amount of her family’s current good fortune that was owed to him. Not only had he run interference between Alice and Anthony, but he was responsible for Tina’s good luck as well—if marriage to Soren could be considered good luck. Somebody should say something to him, she thought. Since Alice wasn’t coming home for dinner anyway, Isabel took the Civic and nosed her way through the afternoon rush hour.
She found Simon drinking beer on his front porch, sitting in a kitchen chair among the piles of sports equipment and stacks of old newspapers. He looked tired and gloomy, but when he saw her he stood up immediately and assumed something of his usual aura of restless energy.
“Bad day?” she asked.
“No, no. It’s just Mondays. The shock of transition and all. The boys go back to Marla’s. She lives out in the suburbs where the schools are better.”
It was hard to know how to respond to his mixture o
f irony and honesty, and Isabel’s own embarrassment didn’t make it easier. “Which suburb?” she asked.
“Wynwood.”
“That’s not too far.”
“If they’re not actually in the house, they might as well be in Kuala Lumpur as far as I’m concerned.” There was a pause. “Want a beer?” he asked her.
She followed him into the house. The gray cat looked up from the sofa.
“Remember Isabel, Merlin?” Simon said. “She saved you from the jaws of death.”
“Merlin’s a good name.”
“Bill named him. Of course. Ethan wanted ‘Whiskers.’”
“The boys like him, then?”
“Bill’s pretending not to, but yeah. Merlin was in his bed this morning when I got him up for school. Thanks for rounding him up. He’s just the ticket.”
Isabel said quickly, “I should be thanking you. I found out yesterday what you did. About my sister Tina, I mean. I’m very grateful. You can’t imagine how upset my family was about the whole thing.” She felt awkward and ridiculous, but she thought the best thing was to be as straightforward as possible.
“Interfering again. Poking my nose into your family’s business. You must think I’m quite obsessed with you Rubins.”
“No, really. Thank you.”
Simon smiled, the playful, ironic smile she had come to recognize and to like. “Actually, I enjoyed it. They say information is power, but in general I find that power is power. If information has its day once in a while, it gives me a kind of thrill.”
“That’s the journalist in you,” Isabel said.
“No, the journalist in me would have written the story. It’s the ten-year-old boy in me. Honestly, I thought you would be furious if you found out.”
“No. Not furious at all,” Isabel said. She paused, and then, gathering her courage, she said, “You’ll think I’m totally capricious, especially since it’s only been about two days. But you said if I changed my mind about, you know. Dinner. That I should let you know.” She made herself look at him and saw him regarding her thoughtfully with his golden eyes.
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