“Of course, Mr. Greenwald.”
I sat down in an armchair and straightened my skirt and fiddled with my umbrella. Miss Galdone cleared her throat and asked if she could bring me a drink, a cigarette. I said no, thank you.
Nick reappeared a moment later, looming before my chair, wearing his hat and holding his umbrella. “Miss Galdone,” he said, without looking at her, “I’ll be out for the rest of the day. Please make a record of all my calls.”
“Yes, Mr. Greenwald.”
Nick walked me to the elevator without speaking and stood aside while I entered. There were three men already inside, wearing dark suits, hats pulled down over their foreheads in anticipation of the rain. We said nothing, simply watched the numbers descend, bearing the silence together. When the doors opened, we spilled out into the lobby, and Nick turned to me. “Shall we get some coffee?”
“Yes, please.”
There was a coffee shop right outside, overlooking the subway entrance, but Nick passed it by and kept walking up Broadway, guiding us through the traffic with exquisite timing, in the unspoken rhythm of New York City. Our umbrellas bumped as we made our way up the sidewalk, dodging pedestrians and taxicabs and delivery trucks. When we reached City Hall, Nick turned left and led me to a quiet little drugstore with a counter along one side. He helped me onto one of the stools and signaled for coffee. When it came, he set his hat down on the counter and sat on the stool next to me. His long legs fit awkwardly under the counter; he had to cant sideways, toward me, and our knees brushed together.
“Are you all right?” he asked, the first words he’d uttered since we left the office building.
“Yes. Physically, I mean. I gave Graham back his ring this afternoon. The engagement’s off.”
Nick’s face didn’t change, not by so much as a tremor of muscle. He drank his coffee and reached into his jacket pocket, pulling out a pack of Chesterfields. He held it toward me.
“Thanks,” I said, taking one. He lit me up first and then himself, and reached for an ashtray. The two ribbons of smoke curled between us, mingling. I looked at Nick’s hand, holding his coffee cup, and thought it seemed to clench the plain white china a little too hard. I was breathless from his nearness, from the long-sought intimacy with Nick, from the proximity of his large hands, which had once touched my body with such loving tenderness. “Do you remember when I took you home to meet my father?”
He let out a humorless laugh. The skin around his eyes crinkled beautifully, just for an instant. “Do I ever.”
“There was a little girl named Maisie in the corridor outside. You were very nice to her; I remember that. Anyway, she’s all grown up now. Well, not quite. Sixteen or seventeen, I suppose, but well grown for her age, if you know what I mean.”
Nick nodded over his coffee cup and did not quite meet my eye. “I think I do.”
“You know Graham’s been staying in our apartment, because he’s let out his own to someone on the team.” I drank my coffee, nursed my cigarette, chose my words. “This afternoon I came around to surprise him, and Maisie was there with him, and she was . . . kneeling in front of him on the sofa, and . . . her mouth . . .” I waved my hand.
“Oh, God.” Nick put down his cup. “Oh, damn, Lily.”
“Don’t say you’re sorry. Don’t be sorry. I’m glad. I knew . . .” I shook my head. My hands were rattling my coffee cup in its saucer. “I don’t know. I knew he liked women. I knew women liked him. I’m lucky I caught him early, before we were actually married.”
“But you must have been very hurt.”
“No, I wasn’t. Not really. It was just a shock, that’s all. I didn’t love him, not the way I should. Not the way I pretended.” I flicked ash into the tray. “But you know that, of course. Wise old Nick, watching us all make idiots of ourselves all summer long.”
“That wasn’t it at all. I was in agony, watching you two. Knowing I had no right.” He said it quietly, into his coffee, his head bowed low. “You don’t know, Lilybird.”
The single word Lilybird floated in the smoke between us.
“Then why did you come at all? Why did you stay all summer?” I asked at last.
“Because I had to. I had no choice.” He stubbed out his cigarette and stood. “I want you to come with me, Lily.”
I stood, too, nearly bumping my nose in the middle of his sober-suited chest. “Come where?”
“Drinks. Dinner. You look like you desperately need a drink. God knows I do.” He pulled out a dollar bill and tossed it on the counter.
“Nick,” I said.
“Let’s start again, Lily. Let’s forget what came before. I’ve wanted to talk to you all summer, but everything stood between us.”
“Everything still stands between us.”
“Yes, but we’re not in Seaview now, are we? We’re in Manhattan. The air’s clearer here. Come with me, Lily.” He put on his hat and took my cigarette and tossed it into the ashtray, still burning. The satin-polished handle of his umbrella hooked over one arm. He held out his hand to me, palm upward.
I looked into the center of Nick’s upturned hand, at the crisscrossing lines and outstretched fingers, and back up to his earnest face. Nick’s face, his familiar lips, his cheekbones, his eyes, soft again and pleading in the hazy artificial brightness.
I took his hand without speaking, and followed him out of the drugstore and into the rain.
17.
LAKE GEORGE, NEW YORK
January 2, 1932
A charcoal-gray light surrounds my eyes when I blink them open, hours later. My nose is cold, but my body is cocooned in lambent warmth.
Nick lies beside me, the source of all heat, his gravitational mass impossible to ignore. I know he’s awake. I sense the careful movement of his breathing, as he tries not to disturb me. I sense the shape of him in the darkness, displacing the air.
I turn my head. “What time is it?”
“I have no idea. Not quite dawn, I think.”
“You should go back to sleep. You need your sleep.”
“Not a chance.” His hand steals under the sheets to rest on the buttons of my shirt, right atop my navel. “I’ve been watching you sleep, Lilybird.”
“In this light?” Nick’s palm lies so heavy on my belly, it seems to sink inside me. The shirt has rucked up around my waist, leaving open everything underneath.
“Enough to see your shape. Your hair on the pillow. I was thinking, Greenwald, you’re the luckiest man alive, waking up to this sight for the rest of your life.”
I am relaxed, sleepy, confident. I turn on my side and catch the scent of his skin, made dizzyingly unfamiliar by the floral hotel soap. “I am so glad we’re here.”
Nick’s hand covers my bare hip. “Jitters?”
“Gone.”
Nick kisses me deeply, unbuttons the crumpled shirt with one hand and removes it carefully from my body. “I don’t want to hurt you. You know it might hurt, at first.”
“I know. I don’t mind.”
“I’ll be so gentle, I promise. Don’t be afraid. We have all the time in the world. If you need me to stop, I’ll stop. I’ll try to stop, anyway.” He exhales into the hollow of my neck. “I will stop. Trust me. Just tell me what you want from me.”
“I don’t know what I want. You’re supposed to know that, right?”
“God, you think I’m an expert, don’t you?”
“Aren’t you?” I follow Nick’s finger as it traces my skin. “I like this. I like your hands, and . . . this.” I rub against him, tentatively.
His breath sucks in. “All right, then. All right. Wait a moment.”
He slides away from me, goes to the wardrobe, and rummages in his coat. “Managed to find these when we stopped for lunch,” he says, dropping something on the bedside table. “God knows I’ve got you in enough trouble as it is.” He peels away his undershirt and his trousers and climbs into the bed, where I am waiting, waiting, clamoring for him from head to toe.
Naked, he seems even larg
er than before, immense, covered with acres of flushed skin. I don’t know where to touch him first. I lay my hands on his chest, just below his clavicle, and splay my fingers as wide as I can.
“Ready?” Nick whispers.
I nod.
He is as good as his word. He is terribly gentle, terribly attentive. He kisses my breasts and my belly, kisses me without end; he glides his fingers up my legs in unthinkable freedom, while I gasp and hold his head and press my forehead into the hollow of his shoulder. He strokes me until I am shaking with eagerness, tugging at his arms and hips, crying his name.
All right, easy now, hold on, he says, and stretches his long arm across me to the bedside table.
I hold on, not moving, not breathing. I’ve never even seen a rubber before; I hardly know what a rubber is. I watch Nick put it on in the dimness. I ask him if it hurts, and he chuckles and says no, Lilybird, and lifts himself above me. With quiet assurance, he arranges my limbs, nudges apart my legs and raises my knees. He asks me again if I’m ready, and I lock my hands around the nape of his neck and tell him Yes, Nick, yes.
He advances with shattering slowness, elbows braced at my shoulders, whispering, Is that all right, Lilybird, darling, sweetheart, am I hurting you? I don’t tell him yes, he is hurting me, he’s too much, he’s splitting me apart, because I’m afraid he’ll stop if I do. I ask him once to wait, and he waits, kissing my lips, kissing my cheeks, until the air returns to my lungs, until I’m ready for more. Okay? he whispers, and when I say yes he pushes onward, he gives me more, he gives me all the time in the world, over and over, bowing his fierce face next to mine, tender and patient almost to the very last; until I have forgotten the pain and know only the flex of Nick’s back beneath my hands, the quickening rhythm of Nick’s legs and belly, the impossible pressure of Nick’s body stretching mine; until I am composed of nothing but Nick, have transformed to a perfect pulsing particle of Nick.
After his shuddering flesh has gone still, after the final breathless frenzy has descended into calm, he eases himself out and kisses my breasts, kisses my throat and wrists and the tips of my fingers. My body stings at his absence.
I can’t bring myself to open my eyes. I am an ember, glowing from the inside out. The dark and silent room keeps everything else at bay, every sensation, except the two of us, Nick and Lily, who have just made love.
I listen to Nick’s breath next to my ear, still rapid.
“Are you all right?” he whispers. “I wasn’t too rough at the end? Oh, God, you’re crying. I’m sorry.”
“I am wonderful, Nick.”
“How wonderful?” He is anxious.
“I didn’t even know. I had no idea. Why were you keeping this from me?”
Nick kisses my wet cheek. “I’ll be right back.”
When he returns from the bathroom, he gathers me up and turns me around, so my back curves against his chest and stomach, and my bottom nestles into his hips. We fit each other with uncanny symmetry. His skin is still damp and fevered, like mine. His hand cradles my breast; his unshaven cheek scratches my temple. I close my eyes and imagine I am absorbing Nick through every pore.
“You’re sure you’re all right?” he says. “Happy?”
“I am. You?”
He is silent.
“Nick?” I turn my head.
I wish I could see him better. I wish I could make out the expression on his face, the look in his eyes. I wish I could read his mind, that I could know what he knows: the other women he’s slept with, the other beds he’s shared. (I’m certain, now, there were more than one.) The other darkened hotel rooms, perhaps, with turned-down sheets. What were they like? Is this different? Does love make lovemaking better? Does Nick feel this holy consummation, this wonder and beauty, this eternity, the way I do? Or is sex simply like this, designed by Nature to fool us all into multiplying?
The slow winter dawn breathes around us. I wait, and wait, and turn my head back to the window.
Nick speaks into my hair, so quietly I strain to hear him. “I’m sorry. I don’t know how to describe it. There’s no word that I can think of. Just . . . yours. I’m yours, Lilybird. God, how do I even explain? Physically yours, as if you’ve filled me up with yourself. Filled me somehow, with all your love and your trust, your innocence, and made me part of you.”
I can’t speak.
He kisses my ear. “Does that sound strange?”
I tell him no, it doesn’t sound strange at all. I lie there secure in his arms, drowsy and warm, stinging and alive, listening to the falling snow outside.
I ask: “Was it the same for you? The first time you did this?”
He stirs, as if he were nearly asleep. “What do you mean?”
“Did you love her?”
“Oh, Lily. Why do you ask me these things? Why do you worry like this?”
“It’s just easier, knowing. Wondering is much worse.”
“Then don’t wonder.”
“I can’t help it. Wouldn’t you?”
Nick’s limbs lie heavy around mine, weighing me deep into the mattress. His hands caress me absently. I think for a moment that he’s not going to answer me, and then he says: “All right. If you must. It was last summer, in Europe with my parents. A hot summer, we were all bored and restless. She was older, divorced, living in Paris, a friend of my mother’s, the old cliché. She seduced me one afternoon; I was flattered and somewhat shocked and more than willing to be seduced. We carried on secretly for a few weeks.”
“Was she beautiful?”
“I suppose so. People thought so.”
“Did you love her?”
He laughs. “No. I was a little infatuated, I suppose, but it was a temporary affliction. We parted in August with no regrets, with my parents none the wiser, at least so far as I know. I went back to college and met you and fell hopelessly in love. Is that enough for you?”
“I suppose she was very experienced.”
“Very.”
I think of tangled expensive sheets and throaty laughs, of liquid afternoon light and Nick’s sun-soaked body undulating atop another woman. I can’t see her face, but I can see her white legs wrapped around him, her long, jeweled hands spread over the blades of his shoulders. She is guiding his movements, teaching him the rhythm of copulation, the way he has just taught me. My eyes squint shut. I force out a laugh and lighten my voice into carelessness. “What a difference, then, making love to someone with no experience at all.”
Without warning, Nick rolls me on my back, stretches my arms high above my head, and kisses me so deeply I gasp for air.
“All the difference in the world, Lilybird. Now go to sleep, and don’t think anymore about other women. There aren’t any. From now on, there’s only you.”
SOMETIME LATER, I half awaken to Nick’s hands stirring around me, lifting my hair from across my cheek. The window is still dark.
“Nick.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
I turn and put my arms around him. “You can wake me anytime.”
Nick kisses me and asks me if I’m tired. I kiss him back and tell him I’m not tired at all, not me.
So Nick makes love to me again, and it’s even better this time, because I know now what lovemaking means, because I’m no longer content to lie back and receive him in innocent submission; because I’m free of every restraint, free to touch Nick and taste Nick and marvel at the seamless intersection of Nick and Lily; free to learn every texture and every dimension of the body that surges with mine.
This time, when Nick returns from the bathroom, pirate-eyed and magnificent, I sit up on my knees and spread out my arms for him. I laugh when he lunges across the sheets and tackles me and blows hungry raspberries into the hollow of my throat. I whisper something shocking in his ear, and he laughs back and rolls me around and tickles me without mercy, and we fall asleep that way, tangled and smiling, in mid-tickle: my hand at his waist, his leg between mine, young and in love and full of hope.
18.
MANHATTAN
Tuesday, September 20, 1938
Nick took me to a place I didn’t know, somewhere in Greenwich Village, where I had hardly ever ventured. It was dark and discreet, with candles on the tables, with the bare minimum of a languid orchestra in one corner and a space for dancing, though nobody did.
We ordered martinis and drank them without saying anything. What do two people say to each other when dangling consciously above the brink of an adulterous love affair? I certainly didn’t know. I took refuge in the drink, which was flawlessly dry and ice-cold, and I was nibbling on my olive, staring at the table, when Nick spoke up at last.
“We forgot to toast. What should we toast to?”
“Isn’t it bad luck to toast with empty glasses?”
“Then I’ll order more.” He signaled to the waiter and asked for two of the same. “Well, Lily?” he said, when the drinks arrived.
I picked up my glass. “I don’t know. To honesty, I suppose.”
Nick clinked my glass. “To honesty. You’re sure you’re all right?”
“All right? Are you kidding? I’m the opposite of all right. Everything’s a mess, isn’t it?” I sipped my drink. “What are we doing here, Nick?”
He put down his glass and covered my hand. “I’m comforting a friend who’s just suffered a shock.”
“Is that what we’re calling it?”
He withdrew his hand and didn’t reply. The waiter brought menus, and I studied mine with great concentration, though the small black letters made no sense at all. When the waiter returned, I heard myself order a cream of asparagus soup and a steak, medium rare, though I could not remember deciding on either. Nick said he would have the same and a bottle of claret, the ’24 Latour if they had it.
I raised my eyebrows. “Still like your claret, do you?”
“That particular wine is my favorite vintage.”
“Nick.”
His hand went back to mine. “You’re shaking, Lily. Don’t shake. I don’t want you to think about anything right now. I want you to enjoy your drink, enjoy your dinner. Don’t worry about anything. It isn’t a sin, having dinner. If it is, it’s on my shoulders.”
A Hundred Summers Page 24