The Indian menu undid me: I didn’t know Tandoori from Vindaloo, so Thea chose. She ordered vegetable curry and chicken tikka masala and instructed the waiter to tone down the spice with a coy smile in my direction. She probably meant it as thoughtful, but it felt strangely condescending, as if they shared a joke about me.
“I have something to tell you that I want to get out of the way,” she said when the waiter had disappeared. I cracked open the bottles of Singha we’d brought along to the BYOB venue, and we tapped our bottles before she spoke.
“Happy Valentine’s Day,” I said.
She took a gulp, then blurted out her news. “Livvie, I got two job offers.”
“Wow,” I said. “Which schools?”
“Spelman and Wellesley.”
“Wow. Congratulations.” I touched my bottle to hers a second time, the clinking sound reverberating in my ears.
“I’m disappointed about Hamilton. I thought I aced that. But my choices aren’t shabby.” Both were prestigious colleges, but Spelman was historically black, which carried a special appeal for her. “It’s an established department, though, so I’m not sure how much room there is to grow.”
For most of our dinner, I listened to her voicing first her enthusiasm and then her concerns about each school. Sometimes it seemed as if Spelman was winning, but other times she leaned toward Wellesley. Never once did she acknowledge that the biggest drawback, from the standpoint of our wobbly relationship, was distance— Spelman was in Atlanta, and Wellesley just outside of Boston.
“Of course, with Atlanta I’d be closer to home . . .”
I had heaped food onto my plate, but I ended up picking at it. Not because Indian cuisine disappointed me; the aromas alone were enough to make a novice like me get high. But I kept picturing Thea’s cousin Malcolm loading her possessions onto his truck.
“You sure are quiet,” she had observed over after-dinner chai. “I know you aren’t happy about my news.”
I forced a smile. “I am,” I insisted.
“Liv,” she said, her stern tone piercing my bullshit. “This isn’t about you. Or us. It’s about something really big for me. I don’t think you get it. Well, you couldn’t. You’re not in academia, and you aren’t black.”
Her emphasis on what I wasn’t stung, but I didn’t react. I was determined to act grown-up and supportive, even if my inner adolescent was screaming, It’s just not fair!
“I get it,” I replied, then joked at my own expense. “I’m not that much of a stupid white girl.”
She backtracked. “I’m sorry. Nobody thinks you are. Hey, would I go out with stupid?”
“You know, I can get it and be happy for you and sad for myself— for us— at the same time. I’m sorry I let the sad part show.”
What might be our last evening as a couple was in danger of dissolving into an exchange of apologies. So I reached into my jacket breast pocket and pulled out a tissue-paper wrapped package that I inched across the table toward her.
“Oh, Liv!” she said with what sounded like genuine delight.
“It was supposed to be a Valentine’s present, but now it’s kind of a congratulations present, too.”
She leaned down and brought a package out of her bag. I could tell from the rectangular shape that it was a book, and I was relieved it looked too thin to be But Some of Us Are Brave.
“You first,” I said.
She ripped the paper and gasped at the pearl necklace nestled in the folds. A jeweler near the agency had fixed the clasp beautifully.
“You can’t afford this!” She fingered the strand warily, and I worried for a moment that she might refuse it. Hallie had returned every present I’d bought her, and when she ended our affair, she actually gave me back all the notes and cards I’d ever written to her.
“It’s Clio’s,” I explained. “It’s the necklace she’s wearing in the Man Ray photo. That really famous portrait?”
Thea shook her head and pushed it across the table. “Oh my God, no! You can’t give this to me! You have to keep it.”
“Do I look like I’ll ever wear pearls? It’ll sit in the back of a drawer for the rest of my life.” I slid it toward her again. “It’ll look great on you. You can wear it when you’re an academic star and get your author photo taken.”
Thea lifted both eyebrows, like she was poised to tell me to take my quietly snide comment and shove it. But she held whatever she was thinking and reached back into her bag to produce a penny, which she pushed firmly into my outstretched palm.
“For my thoughts?”
“I have to pay you something,” she said. “Getting pearls as a gift is bad luck.”
“Since when?”
“Since forever,” Thea replied, fastening them around her neck. “Your mama or grandma never warned you?”
“Pearls weren’t exactly something they could afford.” It came out a little snippier than I intended, and I softened my tone. “Clio said Flora gave her the necklace. I wonder if she knew about the superstition.”
“Well, Clio’s literary reputation sure didn’t suffer any bad luck.”
The secret behind The Dismantled almost bubbled up out of me. The necklace rested elegantly against Thea’s black sweater, and a compliment seemed like a good way to shift my thoughts. “Looks like it was made for you.”
She smiled and raised a hand to the necklace. “I’ll wear it always.”
Thea had wrapped her present for me in a thin-striped paper that looked like something left over from Father’s Day. She reached a hand across the table to stop me from opening it. “Let me take it back and get you something better.”
Inside the paper were two slim volumes of poetry: The Black Unicorn by Audre Lorde and A Wild Patience Has Taken Me This Far by Adrienne Rich. My lack of appreciation for poetry was something we’d debated more than once, and Thea had only half-mockingly threatened to “force” me to appreciate it. “How can you be an editor if you don’t read everything?” she’d said.
“These are great.” I tamped down my disappointment. “I will finally be more educated about poetry.”
I flipped open the covers, but she hadn’t written in either one, and relief coursed through me.
“I couldn’t think of anything that didn’t sound trite,” she explained.
“No problem. Really.” I tucked them back into the paper.
The waiter brought our check, which we split down the middle, and it was time to go. Other couples were waiting for our table. But for a final long minute, we stole shy glances at each other, like we were on our first date and neither of us was brave enough to take it to the next level.
“So,” I said.
Thea stood up and put on her coat. “You want to go somewhere else?” she ventured. Even though we both knew our affair was careening to an end, I did very much want to hold her again, to experience something of what we had the first night we spent together. I was about to ask her back to my place, when she added, “Ariel’s?”
And that’s where we were headed when everything shattered.
• • •
It was a mild evening and we decided to walk. At first, I regretted the choice. Awkward silences stretched between us as we snaked our way to Astor Place and then across Eighth Street, dodging in and out of the other pedestrians and glancing into shop and café windows. Then, when someone jostled her as we waited to cross Fifth Avenue, Thea suddenly looped her arm through mine like a promise. The gesture sent a ripple of excitement straight down my legs, and I think I squeezed her hand and whispered something sexy as we continued on our path to Sixth.
The exact details are lost to me, though. Because in that long block, even as we nudged closer to each other, siren squeals pierced the night and fire trucks and ambulances roared up Sixth. We sped to the avenue, where several blocks up I could see the emergency vehicles jolting to a stop.
I tasted vegetable curry all over again. Somehow, I disengaged from Thea’s arm and began sprinting.
S
he was a runner, though, and was next to me in a flash. “Livvie, stop!” This time, she took my arm with force, and I’m pretty sure she was screaming my name when I yanked away from her again and tore across Sixth.
A crowd had formed on the sidewalk in front of the Milligan Place gate. I recognized the white-haired guy from the second floor, now shivering in his flannel pajamas while a medic wrapped him in a blanket. The middle-aged woman in 1B whom I sometimes ran into at the mailboxes clutched her overweight pug and repeated, “dear God, dear God” like a mantra. And propped against the gate with a wild look on her face was Gerri, holding— improbably— a bouquet of long-stemmed red roses.
My feet stopped moving, though, and I couldn’t wend my way to her. I watched, like I was watching a movie, as Thea appeared from behind me and rushed to hug Gerri, crushing the roses between them. I watched Gerri’s frantic gesticulations and her tearful explosion against Thea’s chest. I watched Thea’s eyes travel toward the courtyard. I watched her turn back to the crowd, scanning. When she caught my eye, my legs failed me completely. I staggered from the fray and sank down heavily on the sidewalk.
I’m not sure how long I sat there before a medic tugged at my jacket sleeve and asked if I needed assistance. “She’s okay,” I heard someone else say— a familiar voice that turned out to be Gerri’s. “She wasn’t inside the building.” She knelt next to me on the cold ground, still holding the roses. They were so red I couldn’t look at them.
My head was squeezed and dense as if I had a hangover. A trail of disjointed words reached my ears: Alarm. Courtyard. Axe. Chainsaws. Clio. Smoke. I watched Gerri’s lips, trying to understand how the words all fit together. She reached over and took my hand, a tender gesture that had never before passed between us.
Then Thea was towering over us, saying, “They brought her out!” and sourness filled my mouth again. I swallowed back the bile and stopped myself from vomiting onto my pants, onto Gerri’s roses, onto Thea’s cute black boots.
I peeled myself up from the sidewalk and attempted to push my way through to the ambulance, but a wall of blue interceded. Just over one cop’s shoulder, I could make out the gray halo of Clio’s hair on the stretcher. “I know her!” I explained to the cop, who looked unimpressed. “Please! That’s Clio Hartt!” When he continued to ignore me, I called out directly, “Miss Hartt! Miss Hartt! Miss Hartt”— like if I screamed her name enough, she would hear me and wake up.
“Stop, honey, stop.” Thea enfolded me in her arms. Her peacoat was thrown open and Clio’s pearls pressed against my collarbone. “I don’t think she can hear you.”
The words lurched out of me like hiccups. “It’s my . . . fault! I told . . . her … not to . . .”
“Not to what?” Thea’s hand reached up and massaged the back of my neck. Mesmerized, I leaned in to the sweet, insistent pressure and stopped trying to explain.
While Thea worked at calming me down, we lost track of Gerri. By the time we saw her again, two ambulances had sped off, one carrying Clio, one another resident. The swarm of bystanders thinned out. Gerri made her way directly to us, and I saw she had abandoned the roses and was cradling something else.
“A fireman rescued him from the fire escape,” she said, stroking his head. “He was terrified, poor thing.”
“How did he get there?” Thea asked.
“Clio must have put him out the window.”
I knew that window, with so many coats of paint that it opened no more than six inches— not enough for a human to escape, and not enough to dispel the smoke that was filling the apartment and hallway. But enough to push an undersized cat through.
I badly wanted to keep Remington, but Ramona had been firm about her no-animals policy. Instead, Gerri brought him with her to Renee’s, where he and Alice unexpectedly took to each other and became siblings.
Chapter 27
After the Fire
By the time I spotted her on the stretcher, Clio was already gone. She was the only casualty of the fire. A neighbor who was rushed to the ER survived.
Clio’s part of the building sustained the most damage, partly from the fire but also from the rescue efforts. Water ruined tenants’ belongings, and the firemen carved holes in the roof with chainsaws to release the smoke.
All this hastened Gerri’s move back to Sheridan Square— but it was something she and Renee both wanted anyway. She had picked up roses for her one true love on the way home from work and had stopped at Milligan Place just to change her clothes for their special date night. But when she arrived at the gate, the fire alarm was blaring, and tenants were already spilling out of the building.
After the fire, Thea had wanted to see me home, but I stoically refused. In the morning, following a night of tortured sleep, I had tried to get out of bed but was so dizzy I was unable to stand. Bea instructed me to stay home, and Ramona brought me chicken soup every evening after work for the rest of the week as if I had a cold or the flu. Thea accompanied me to the doctor, but he couldn’t find anything wrong and sent me home with some sort of prescription I didn’t fill.
By the weekend, the papers reported that the Milligan Place fire had originated in an apartment down the hall from Clio and Gerri. A space heater that an older tenant, Mr. Alfred Rossi, 79, was using to warm up his chilly apartment had malfunctioned, creating a spark that sent his curtains up in flames. In his escape, Rossi had panicked and left his apartment door wide open, which allowed the blaze to engulf the third floor in short order. Clio had suffered a stroke before the firemen could reach her, and some combination of that and smoke inhalation had killed her. Her terrible end haunted me— the fact that she had gotten Remmie out but couldn’t save herself. Or did she give up trying and resign herself to her fate? After all, she’d been anticipating her own death for weeks.
There was no memorial service for Clio. Her friends from the Paris generation had preceded her in death, except Berenice Abbott. The great photographer told The New York Times that she hadn’t seen Clio since the ’40s, although they talked on the telephone twice a year. “No more, no less,” Abbott said, outlining a routine that seemed to me quintessentially Clio.
In lieu of a physical gathering, Bea wrote a stunning “appreciation” of Clio that appeared in The New Yorker just as the city’s crabapple trees were starting to bud. The essay didn’t gloss over Clio’s faults, but showed her in high relief, her strengths and flaws perfectly chiseled. Unknown to me, Bea had maintained a journal of their conversations over the years, to keep Clio’s turns of phrase fresh in her mind. The essay was full of both love and frustration. “I have never known a more maddening person,” she wrote, “or one so hauntingly brilliant.”
Per the instructions in her will, found in a strongbox in her apartment, Clio’s remains were shipped back to the mountains. But instead of being buried in the Crab Creek Baptist churchyard with her parents and siblings and cousins, Clio rested by herself in Hendersonville, in the historic Oakdale Cemetery, as if in recognition that she was both part of and separate from the Threatt clan. Not far from her grave, but facing in the opposite direction, was the stone angel Thomas Wolfe’s father had carved that lent its name to the novelist’s first novel, Look Homeward, Angel.
“She can’t possibly have requested that,” Bea complained, when we heard about her grave’s placement. “She didn’t like Wolfe. Poor soul will probably be cringing for all eternity.”
When I went home for Easter to meet Sue’s new baby boy, I visited the grave. Clio’s adopted name graced the marble tombstone, with “Neé Birdie Threatt” in smaller block letters toward the bottom, followed by a quote from a man she’d been on a first-name basis with: “The end is where we start from. – T. S. Eliot.” It sounded appropriately poetic, but it left me puzzling over what message she wanted visitors to take away.
Random House rushed Clio’s story collection into production, and by early June it was a handsome volume on bookstore shelves. The publisher held a launch party, and Bea enlisted Joanne Woodward
and Jeff Daniels to read from the stories.
I spent the spring and summer falling in and out of depression. Ramona gave me the name of a therapist her shrink recommended, but I never used the referral. Clio’s death left a yawning hole in my routine. I no longer needed to be at her apartment at a set time. I didn’t have to swing by Bigelow’s to fill her prescriptions, or stop at Jefferson Market to pick up whatever sparse order she’d called in. My weekends were entirely my own.
And then Thea chose Spelman and Atlanta.
The last time I saw her, Thea handed me Clio’s pearls in the same wrapping paper I’d used for her Valentine’s Day present.
“Those are yours,” I objected. “You paid me good money, remember?”
“You need to keep them, Livvie,” she said, pressing the lumpy package into my hands. I had to admit, it felt right to have them back, even though I doubted they would ever grace my neck.
The break with Thea intensified my malaise, and Ramona agreed to let me stay on as her roommate. Our unspoken agreement was that I would continue to feed her whenever the spirit moved me to be in the kitchen. “I’m used to you,” she told me, in what passed as affection.
My spare hours at work quickly filled up. Bea assigned me to reading manuscripts from the slush pile. It was a welcome distraction, and it proved important in my editorial education by helping me hone my critiquing skills. Still, it was probably fall before I stopped expecting a message from Clio on my answering machine: “Miss Bliss, I need you!” or “Miss Bliss, I simply cannot find my pen!”
It took a while, too, before I could get “back in the saddle,” as Gerri put it. My social life consisted entirely of work-related events— book parties, readings, lunches that Bea let me tag along on. Nights when Ramona and I both wound up at home, we watched TV at opposite ends of the couch in our PJ’s and slippers, like an old married couple.
Clio Rising Page 27