The Condition

by Jennifer Haigh

  Paulette eyed him nervously. “Frank, is everything all right?”

  “Right as rain, dear.” He reached for her hand and pressed it briefly to his face. “You run along now. I’m going to have a visit with our friend Neil.”

  He watched her go, her slender legs, the swell of her hips. “She still looks good,” he told Windsor, who’d obediently taken a seat. “Don’t you think she looks good?”

  “Frank, what’s the matter with you? Are you drunk?” Windsor looked concerned, his brow furrowed.

  “Jesus, listen to you. You’re like an old woman.” Frank smiled. “How was the meeting?”

  “The Academy?” Windsor patted his sparse hair, as if making sure it was still there. “Well, it was eventful. As I’m sure you’ve heard.”

  “Why’d you do it?” Frank’s heart pounded slowly, the final spasms of a dying thing. With his last strength he would reach across the table and break Windsor’s arm.

  “Do what?” Windsor looked stricken. “My God, Frank. You think I challenged you?”

  “Can we admit that we’ve always been competitive? The publications, tenure, Progen.” He paused. “Paulette.”

  “Paulette,” said Windsor, as if the rest didn’t matter. As, in fact, it didn’t. “What about her?”

  “Oh, come off it,” Frank said. “Don’t bullshit me. I know.” He felt swollen with outrage. He had carried it for years, a sturdy mass lodged in his innards, actively growing. Over the years it had invaded his muscularis mucosae, his submucosa, his muscularis propria. The malignancy was stage B, he judged. Infiltrating, but without metastasis.

  Windsor blinked twice, rapidly. “She told you? When?”

  “A long time ago.”

  “Oy. Thank you,” he told the waiter, who’d appeared with coffee. “So all these years—Frank, I’m speechless. Why didn’t you say something?”

  Frank stared ahead, avoiding Windsor’s eyes. He focused very deliberately on the life moving around them, the diners chewing and swallowing, the scrape of cutlery, the waiters serving drinks. “Why didn’t I? Jesus, Weisberg. You were my best man. My best friend. You should have told me, at the very beginning. But you never said a word.”

  “My God, what should I have said?” Windsor lowered his voice. “I loved her; I was crazy about her. Would you really have wanted to know that? And what did any of it matter, if she didn’t love me back?”

  “She didn’t,” Frank repeated, in the interests of clarity. Of getting the facts straight.

  “No. Look, amigo: it was forty years ago. We’re all old now and neither one of us has her. The End.”

  Frank nodded. The End, the End.

  Windsor stirred his coffee. “Now this other business. The Academy. You really think I did that? Knifed you in the back?”

  Frank stared at him, doubt prickling his skin. “You knew the whole story. The postdoc, the phony data. I spilled my guts to you. And Grohl has kept a lid on it; nobody else has any idea. So if you didn’t challenge me, who did?”

  Windsor sipped his coffee. “Know a guy named Alan Manning?”

  Frank frowned, trying to place the name.

  “Well, he knows plenty about you. The data, and the girl who got suspended. He implied that she was a scapegoat.”

  Frank blinked. “He said I falsified data?”

  “No, not exactly. Just that you were probably aware of it, or should have been. And I’m here to tell you, my friend: you should have been.”

  “She must have told him,” Frank said slowly. “Manning was her mentor at Baylor. I hired her away from him.”

  “Seems like he took it personally.”

  “She has that effect on men.”

  Windsor smiled crookedly. “Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”

  “Nothing happened,” Frank said, profoundly ashamed—of how little he understood of the world’s workings, of the fierce conviction with which he could be wrong.

  “Don’t say anything to Paulette,” he added. “About the girl. She would misunderstand.”

  “Believe me, that is not a conversation I want to have.” Windsor rose. “This has been fun, Frank, but I have a plane to catch.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Frank. “I shouldn’t have accused you. I had no right.”

  “You have no idea.” Windsor grinned. “I’m the idiot who nominated you.”

  Frank covered his eyes with his hand.

  “I’m a new member. I’m supposed to sit there quietly, behave myself, raise my hand when I want to take a piss. Instead I go out on a limb and nominate a schmuck like you.”

  “Goddamn,” Frank said. “This looks bad for you.”

  Windsor shrugged. “What are they going to do? It’s like being on the Supreme Court: they can’t unload me. Like I can’t unload you.”

  chapter 9

  For most of her life, Paulette had loved Sundays. As a little girl she’d walked to the corner store with her father early in the morning, to get the newspapers before church. For some reason her brother and sister were excluded from this ritual, and for Paulette this was half the pleasure. Her father bought the Sunday Globe and, every week, a lottery ticket. The ticket was a secret between them. Paulette was to tell no one, especially not her mother, a promise she had never broken. Later they drove to Concord for Sunday dinner at Grandmother Drew’s, a crowd at the adult table: Aunt Doro and Aunt Tess and their husbands, Paulette’s parents and grandmother, her maiden aunt Grace. And, at what was called the young people’s table, were Roy and Martine and Paulette, their cousins Trudy and Peter and Gabby and Abigail and Dick.

  As a young bride she’d found Sundays glorious. To her initial displeasure, Frank refused to attend mass with her, but this had its compensations. Sunday was the one morning of the week when he would linger in bed instead of springing up at dawn and racing to the lab. He would make love to her early, before she was quite awake, and fall back to sleep afterward clutching her, a lover’s embrace. For this she would miss a year of Sunday masses, and did. Billy—she was sure of this—had been conceived on such a morning. She’d been accused, by her mother and Martine, of favoring her eldest, and Paulette supposed it was true. Billy was her Sunday baby. Of all her children, he had been conceived in the greatest love.

  Later, her marriage ended, her children gone, it was on Sundays that Paulette most felt her aloneness. In the Sunday Globe she read about a massive antiques show in southern Maine, two hours’ drive away. The long drive had been a selling point, a way to fill the empty hours. The size of the show overwhelmed her, the crowd and commotion, the hundreds of vendors showing their wares. The buyers were men and women of all ages: some expensively dressed, others down and out. Most, like her, were alone. That year she went to shows in Framingham and Brattleboro and Derry and Hartford, in Bristol, Rhode Island; in Katonah, New York. She bought copies of Kovels’ and Warman’s, studied photographs and price lists. When she learned about the Mount Washington Glass Company, based in New Bedford, a bell of recognition sounded inside her. New Bedford! Clarence Hubbard Drew! In a real way these plates and vases seemed connected to the Drews, to the family she’d once had. Her husband and children had deserted her, but her ancestors weren’t going anywhere.

  She made her first purchase, the Mount Washington biscuit jar, at a price she now knew to be exorbitant. She’d suspected this at the time, but found herself unable to bargain with the seller. In a year haggling would become second nature to her, but at the time she’d been too embarrassed to speak. Her family had never discussed the price of anything. It was Donald Large who’d taught her to speak up, to ask for what she wanted, to admit wanting of any kind. Who had lovingly provided for her future; who in a real way looked after her still.

  Bless Donald. He had left her better than he’d found her, in every possible way.

  Since his death, more lonely Sundays. Drinking her tea, she scanned the paper. Recently she’d developed an interest in politics. For years she’d had virtually no idea who was running the countr
y; since the Kennedy assassinations she’d found the whole business too painful to contemplate. Now she followed obsessively the career of Madeleine Albright, who’d been in Martine’s class at Wellesley: ambassador to the United Nations, the first female secretary of state. Reading about these achievements, Paulette felt keenly her own wasted potential. At Wellesley she’d studied French and art history, planning to graduate with both majors. Then she’d met Frank, and hadn’t graduated at all.

  Now she cherished her tenuous connection to Madeleine Albright, who was not merely an eminent diplomat but also elegant and feminine. How different from awkward Janet Reno, the spinster attorney general, who seemed not to own a lipstick. Reno with her boyish haircut, her unflattering baggy suits, her flat, matter-of-fact voice.

  My heavens, Paulette thought.

  The attorney general was much older and more than a foot taller, but in other respects the resemblance was uncanny. She was an aged, lanky version of Gwen.

  Like Gwen, Janet Reno refused to present herself in the way women were expected to. She was not feminine. To Paulette that word had always seemed complimentary, like romantic or decorative; though in actual fact, none of those words was necessarily positive. To Paulette feminine meant something very specific—a womanly appearance, not just dressing and hairstyling but a way of walking and speaking, of moving through the world. But why, exactly, were these things important? What was the actual point?

  The point was to attract men.

  And once a man had been secured, to marry and have children. Mothers too were feminine: as a matter of reflex they smiled at babies, their own and other people’s, and cajoled them in a sweet singsong voice. That voice was useful for soothing and encouraging children; but Paulette was struck by how many women of her own age, their families grown and gone, still spoke in these dulcet tones. Increasingly, she found this irritating. If a woman had no children to soothe and encourage, why should she go through life simpering like a nursemaid? And if she had no interest in attracting a man—which, increasingly, seemed a wise attitude to adopt—why should she wear lipstick? Undoubtedly Janet Reno had more pressing concerns than her hairstyle. And so—the thought struck Paulette like a gust of wind—so, perhaps, did Gwen. She thought back to those frustrating Christmas Eve suppers, her daughter’s monologues about her job at the Stott. Consumed with anthropology or archaeology, Gwen had tried to share what was most important in her life. Paulette had only pretended to listen.

  I am changing, she thought.

  She turned her attention to the Globe. The local section covered yesterday’s Battle Road reenactment in exhaustive detail. For the first time in eleven years, Paulette had not attended; she’d handed over her interpreter duties to Harry Good’s wife. I’ll be visiting my sister in New Mexico, she’d lied. A few weeks before, an envelope had appeared in her mailbox: no postage, delivered by hand. Inside was a postal money order for four hundred dollars, and a scrawled note: It’s not much, but it’s a start. Thanks for everything. Best, Gil. Now Paulette couldn’t bear the thought of seeing him in uniform, firing the musket of John Hawes Gilbert. She didn’t want to see him at all.

  Imagine her surprise, then, to glance out her kitchen window last week and find him standing in her own backyard, chatting easily with her son Scott. A shiny new truck was parked next door at the Marshes’, where something—a floor? a bathroom?—was being replaced. She’d listened dizzily at the open window, but they had talked only of carpentry. He hadn’t even spoken her name.

  Later Scott had questioned her eagerly: How did she know Gil Pyle? Did she realize the man was a genius?

  Apparently he’s a fine carpenter, she said mildly. Where is he living these days? With his family in New Hampshire?

  Nah, said Scott. With his girlfriend. In Providence, I think.

  She’d understood, then, that whatever had passed between them—or hadn’t; perhaps she’d imagined the whole thing—had come to a close. She and Gil Pyle would never be lovers, or even friends; to him she was merely a creditor. The money she’d lent him—Donald’s money!—would come back to her slowly. Each time he made a payment, her heart would ache. Under these circumstances it was absurd to look out the window ten times a day, to see if his truck (her truck? their truck?) was parked next door.

  She was past the age of love. Her fascination with Gil Pyle had been its last flowering; she saw this now, in sadness and in relief. It seemed suddenly idiotic that this one small part of life should be the focus of so much weeping and gnashing. For a few years men and women flattered and chased and pined for each other; then the rest of life stretched ahead of them, to fill with whatever else the world contained. Which was, when you thought about it, quite a lot. So how to account for all the novels and operas, the plays and poetry and pop songs on the radio: was love really so fascinating, so consuming, that nothing else was worth singing about?

  Perhaps it was. But Paulette, finally, had had her fill. It was time to think about something else.

  She turned to the classifieds and scanned the ads, looking for estate sales. With Donald she’d made great finds at such sales—her Roseville jardinière, a few pieces of Rookwood, a full set of Scroddleware in near-mint condition, having spent its life in a stranger’s china closet. But without him she found the sales disheartening, whole houses turned inside out and opened to strangers, families dispersed or died out or simply uninterested in the boxes of framed photographs: unsmiling children, sepia toned, dressed like tiny adults. These photographs unsettled her profoundly, the children gazing somberly at the camera as if foreseeing a bleak future. Children who were dead now, or ancient or dying, abandoned to nursing homes. Sorting through the photos, she’d been overwhelmed by a feeling she couldn’t name, the realization that these lives, now extinguished, had once been as real as her own, as passionate and confused and pained. Like all young people, she’d once harbored the unconscious conviction that the world had begun the day she was born. Time had disabused her of this notion. It was, she supposed, the fundamental difference between youth and age.

  She was about to set aside the classifieds when she spotted the ad.

  LAST-MINUTE SUMMER RENTAL. LARGE HISTORIC HOUSE IN TRURO, SECLUDED, SLEEPS 16! SLEEPING PORCH, OCEAN VIEWS, MANY EXTRAS. CALL NOW!

  It couldn’t be. But there, astonishingly, was the address: 1 NECK ROAD.

  She phoned the agent and placed a deposit.

  You don’t want to see it? he asked, stunned at his easy good fortune.

  Not necessary, Paulette said. I’m familiar with the house.

  This settled, she called the children. For the first time ever, she called Gwen first. As the phone rang she imagined walking with her daughter along Mamie’s Beach, deep in conversation. She would listen, really listen, to whatever Gwen wished to tell her. She would learn about anthropology or archaeology; she would accept her daughter exactly as she was. Seeing this, Gwen would open up to her. There would be no more strained silences between them. They would have much to discuss. Not just the Ricos of the world, or the Gil Pyles, but the world full stop.

  Paulette waited, but Gwen was not at home; she was out doing whatever people did on a Sunday morning in Pittsburgh. Finally a recording answered.

  “I can’t wait to see you,” Paulette said, feeling only slightly foolish at saying this to a machine.

  She phoned her sons. Scott, naturally, was free all summer. Billy did not answer; Paulette supposed that he was on call. It seemed to her that he was always working. Of her children, only Billy was truly ambitious. In that way, only Billy resembled his father.

  His father.

  She hadn’t quite recovered from the shock of seeing Frank at the Harvest. The intent way he’d looked at her, the queer urgency in his voice. He had seemed slightly unhinged. She’d been flabbergasted when he pressed her hand to his face—an inexplicable gesture, more intimate than a kiss. And how strangely he’d behaved with Neil! The two men’s friendship had always confounded her—the competitiveness, the animos
ity barely concealed. How unlike her friendship with Tricia James, for example. Paulette considered this. Well, perhaps not so different.

  She had called Tricia immediately after she rented the house, bursting with enthusiasm, unable to contain herself. “Darling, that’s wonderful!” Tricia crooned. “How many are you expecting?”

  “Why, just the children,” said Paulette. “And Scott’s family, of course.”

  “Not Gwen’s boyfriend?”

  “I didn’t tell you? That’s over and done with.” Paulette said this lightly, trying to recall what had possessed her to confide that particular bit of news to Tricia in the first place. “Gwen came to her senses. She’s back in Pittsburgh now. All is well.”

  How relieved Tricia was to hear this! How concerned she’d been, positively beside herself with worry.

  “And what about Billy?” she asked. “Will he be bringing someone?”

  “He isn’t dating at the moment,” said Paulette.

  “Well, you ought to invite him to bring a guest. He may have a girlfriend he isn’t telling you about.” Tricia paused. “And what about Frank? Surely he’d like to spend some time with the children.”

  “Heavens, no,” Paulette said. “What an outlandish thought.”

  Hanging up the phone, she’d felt the beginnings of a headache at her left temple. Lately Tricia seemed to have that effect on her. The last time they’d spoken, Paulette had been hit with a full-blown migraine. Swallowing aspirin, she considered canceling her autumn visit to Philadelphia. Perhaps this year she and Tricia would take a break.

  From the safety of his bed, Billy watched the Boston Marathon on television. Two hours had passed since the firing of the gun, the elite men blasting off from Hopkinton. Soon the front-runners would be turning the corner onto Boylston Street, the Hancock Tower coming into view.

  He would never run Boston.

  Billy glimpsed his reflection in the bedroom mirror. He looked haggard. His sleep had been troubled lately, interrupted by savage dreams. He was chased by armed assailants, beautiful boys with guns, knives, clubs. That the boys were attractive made the visions more terrifying. He woke exhausted.