by Susan Isaacs
“Yes. Do you remember it? The soup kitchens—”
“Nicholas, I won’t be home for Christmas.”
“I know. But you’ll be home soon after, and you’ll feel much better.”
“I don’t think so.”
“You will. The doctor is very optimistic that you’ll be better.”
“He said that the last time. Maybe there were two times. I don’t know. Were there?” Nicholas nodded. “It’s all right for a while. I go home, and your grandmother has me to lunch with all the girls I went to school with, and for a day or two your father—I’m so tired.”
“I know.” Her shoulders had once been so broad. Now they sloped and the straps of her nightgown had slipped off. She let them hang. Nicholas wanted to lift them for her. When he was younger, she was always fidgeting, aligning the fingers of her gloves, centering the clasp of her pearls. Now, obviously fatigued by the conversation, she was utterly apathetic. If breathing hadn’t been an involuntary act, she would not have had the strength to inhale again. “I’ll come back tomorrow. Tom and the girls will be home by then. Michael and Edward are coming the day after. Is there anything you need?” She did not answer. Nicholas lifted one of the straps and placed it on her shoulder. It slipped back off, but Winifred did not seem to notice, nor did she realize that, after Nicholas kissed her cheek, stood, and walked to the door, his shoulders had the same defeated sag as her own.
For the next few days he let the whirl of activity exhaust him until he was too weary to think. Thomas arrived from college in Connecticut, Michael and Edward from Trowbridge, and his sisters, Olivia and Abigail, from their school in New Hampshire. He shepherded them all. All six went to a nursing home in New Jersey where their old nurse, Nanny Stewart, was living. All six were invited to dinner at their grandmother’s. Maisie, in her early eighties, looked so regal with white up-swept hair and a cameo at her throat she might have been a caricature of a grande dame. All six went ice skating in Central Park. Nicholas took his sisters, along with Diana, to a matinee. He drove Michael, who had a term paper in botany, to the greenhouses of the Bronx Botanical Garden and spent an afternoon helping Edward catch up on his trigonometry assignment. He called an aunt, the wife of one of Winifred’s brothers, and got the name of a hairdresser for Olivia. Despite her hysterics, he refused to allow Abigail to go on a date with a boy she had met at the Museum of Modern Art. He and Diana took Tom to a Dixieland nightclub to celebrate Tom’s nineteenth birthday.
In other words, Nicholas behaved more like a father than an older brother, but that was just as well, because James did not appear to relish his role. At breakfast, he seemed stunned to find six adult-sized children. Most of the time he was silent, staring into a space between the salt and pepper shakers, allowing Nicholas to organize the day’s activities and pass on specific requests. When he did speak, he sounded like a lawyer making small talk with clients. He preceded the names of the younger four with an “um,” allowing himself another second to attach the right name on the right child. “Um, Michael, are you still on the—the team?”
“Soccer. Yes.”
“Good.”
“Um, Edward?”
“I tried out for basketball, but I didn’t make it.”
“Well, next year.”
“No. I stink at sports.”
James appeared to divide his children as he did his life: into pre- and postwar periods. Children of hope and children of disaffection. He behaved as though the last four had developed parthenogenetically from Winifred and he had been named guardian. To Thomas, who had been conceived before the war and born when he was in the OSS in France, he was somewhat warmer, but he would have had to be catatonic not to respond to Tom’s moon-shaped, smiling, freckled face and easy, gregarious nature.
But Nicholas knew his father loved him best, although it no longer gave him the deep secret pleasure it had when he was a boy. And so, on Christmas morning, when James put his hand on Nicholas’s shoulder (a gesture he never made to the other children) and said, “Let’s go into my study for a few minutes and shoot the breeze,” Nicholas glanced about the living room at his brothers and sisters and saw how they each stared at the hand, imagining it on their own shoulders. Nicholas wanted to shove it off. Instead, reluctantly, he followed James out of the room, knowing five pairs of eyes were following them.
“Well,” his father said. “How are things? Want a cigar?”
“No, thanks.”
“Ever smoke them?”
“Once in a while.”
“You don’t smoke a pipe, do you? Or cigarettes?”
“No.”
“How do things stand with law school?” James reached into a humidor, extracted a cigar, lit it with a gold and malachite table lighter Winifred had given him, then let the smoke drift out of his mouth. He rotated the cigar between his thumb and index finger. Every movement he made was easy and elegant. Diana was always coming up with the name of another movie star to compare James to. A stronger-featured Cary Grant, she’d say, or a blond, older Rock Hudson, or an intelligent Troy Donahue’s father. None of the comparisons were right. Nicholas gazed at James’s face, filmy behind a second drift of smoke.
It was too compelling and clever a face to have set its eyes on plain Winifred Tuttle without an ulterior motive. His father moved deeper into his tan leather armchair. His face was still handsome, Nicholas conceded, but with deep vertical creases in the cheeks and forehead lines that mimicked the arch of his eyebrows. The high color had faded after years of hard drinking. Nicholas remembered his father coming to kiss him good night when he was six or seven; James had seemed so bright in the dimness of the nightlight Nicholas half believed he glowed in the dark.
“Well?” James said.
“I’ve applied to Columbia and NYU.”
“And?”
“That’s all.”
“Not Harvard? After all my years of contributing to their damned alumni appeals?”
“You have five other children.”
“I’m not talking to them, am I? I’m talking to you.”
“I don’t have the grades.”
“Did you bother to apply?”
“No. I want to stay in the city.”
“What’s the attraction?” This time, James drew hard on the cigar and blew out a jet of smoke between pursed lips.
“Everyone’s here.”
“They’re all away at school.”
“They come back. You and Mother are here. And Diana’s family is here.” Nicholas watched his father arrange his face into a neutral mask. He’d observed James respond to women often enough to realize his father did not find Diana appealing, and if a woman did not appeal to James, he had no use for her. Nicholas did not know why, but this indifference angered him.
“Are you planning to marry her?” James inquired.
“I think so. She has one more year of school, but that will give me time to get settled in law school.”
“Columbia’s not bad.”
“I doubt if I’ll get in.”
“What do you mean?”
“I have a three-oh. They want about a three-two, and my boards weren’t all that good. Not all that bad, either. I’ll get in NYU. It’s one of the top ten.”
“You can do better.”
“No I can’t.”
“I don’t like your tone. What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing.”
“You were so busy with that damn playacting you pissed away your shot at Columbia. Just pissed it away on that nonsense.”
“I didn’t piss anything away.”
“What do you call it, then, a little foray into the arts?”
“Let’s just forget it, all right? I enjoyed it. You might have too, if you’d come up.”
“I had my hands full.”
“I’ll bet you did,” Nicholas blurted. Suddenly he felt so flushed with anger the top of his head throbbed. Across from him, his father swallowed hard.
“What do you mean by that?”
“What do you think I mean?” Nicholas rose.
“Sit down,” James commanded. “Who the hell do you think you are?”
Nicholas sat, but his anger expanded, pressing against his chest and throat. He had to push out his words. “You’re so busy with your outside activities you haven’t visited Mother. You haven’t been to see her once.”
“There are some things you don’t understand.”
“Don’t I? Don’t you think she knows why you haven’t been to the hospital? Don’t you know how it must hurt her?”
“She thinks I’m out of town.”
“Don’t you care about her at all?” he shouted, but his throat was so tight his voice came out hoarse. “She’s your wife. Can’t you even care enough to come up with a new excuse, something she won’t see through?”
“You’d better watch yourself. You’re way out of line.”
“She’s in the hospital, goddammit, getting shock treatments. She’s as down and out as a person can be, and you give her a slap across the face with your lousy transparent excuses.”
“Shut up, Nick. I’m warning you.”
“What the hell did she ever do to you that was so bad you treat her this way?” He stood. It took the little control he had left to stay away from his father. His fingers contracted, ready to grab the lapels of James’s bathrobe. Nicholas pressed his calves hard against his chair so as not to rush forward. His legs trembled. He unclenched his hands and rubbed them hard up and down his thighs. “Tell me,” he yelled, “what did she do to deserve your nonsense excuses everyone can see through? Your whores you don’t have the decency to hide? You come home stinking drunk or you don’t come home at all.”
“Shut up!” James shouted back, stabbing his finger in the air toward Nicholas. “Shut your fucking mouth!”
Nicholas had never heard his father use language like that. It sobered him like a hard slap. Then he spoke quietly. “She needs you.”
“To hell with both of you!”
“Dad.”
“I’m getting out of here.” James threw his cigar in the ashtray and stood.
“It’s Christmas.”
“I have to go to the office.”
“Jesus Christ, how can you do it? Who is so important that you walk out on us on Christmas? We need you. You’re our father. Don’t you care?” James did not look at Nicholas. He strode toward the door and, as he passed, almost as an afterthought, slammed his elbow into Nicholas’s chest. Nicholas doubled over. The pain radiated through his breastbone. A spasm of nausea followed, so violent he dropped to his knees.
“Merry Christmas, you little bastard,” James said.
Nicholas tried to lift his head. He could not catch his breath. As James opened the door, he managed to whisper, “You have five kids out there.”
“Fuck them,” his father said. “Fuck all of you.”
“How was your vacation?” Nicholas asked.
“Wonderful,” Jane said. “How was yours?”
“Great.”
“Good.” She paused. “Actually, mine was pretty awful.”
“It was?”
“Yes.”
“So was mine.”
“Oh. Do you feel like talking about it?”
“No. I don’t know,” Nicholas said. “Do you?”
“I guess so. It’s really nothing. I mean, it’s going to sound somewhere between boring and pathetic. Closer to boring. You’ll probably doze off before I get to Christmas Eve.”
“Come on, Jane.”
“You go first.”
“Ladies first.”
“What if I tell you everything and then you decide you don’t want to tell me anything?”
“Then I’ll have something on you and I’ll spread it around. I’ll tell all my fraternity brothers your deepest secrets, and if you’re still able to show your face on campus after that I’ll publish them in the Daily Herald.”
“Nick—”
“What happened?”
The two letters had come the day before: one from New York University Law School saying that Nicholas had been accepted; the other from Columbia, that his name had been put on their waiting list. They both were in his back pocket, a little soggy from the damp ground. He lay on his back stretched out on a patch of new grass, his eyes half closed, the sweet, moist smells of early spring mingling with the manlier odor of the Seekonk River that flowed a few feet away. From far away, he heard crew practice, the coach calling “Stroke, stroke,” with rhythmic monotony.
He turned his head to look at Jane. She sat on her raincoat in her favorite position, Indian style, trying to whistle through a blade of grass between her thumbs. Her head was bent and her hair, pulled tight into a ponytail, was so black in the sunlight it reflected glints of blue. The ponytail had fallen over her shoulder and spilled down the front of her green sweater, rising high with her breast, then falling in a loose wave below her waist. She was intent on her grass whistle, peering down at her thumbs slightly cross-eyed, but he knew any minute she’d drop the blade of grass and begin toying absentmindedly with her hair. He pictured her holding her ponytail in her right hand and combing it with the fingers of her left. He sighed and closed his eyes.
The stirrings of an erection made him open them. Embarrassed, he turned over onto his stomach. Nothing of that sort had ever happened to him with Jane. It was inappropriate and discomforting. He lay pressed to the ground and rested his head on his arm, concentrating on the weave of his pale blue cotton shirt, noting that some of the threads seemed inky blue, a few white. He examined the sparse, pale grass near his arm and then, closing his eyes, listened for river sounds. He heard “Stroke,” but it was fainter than before. Closer by, a car’s horn sounded three long impatient honks. The stirrings passed. He glanced at Jane. She’d wrapped her hair around her hand as if it were a bandage. “Well?” he asked. “What do you think?”
“I think you’re probably crazy,” she said.
“Why?”
“Hey, you have grass stains all over your behind.”
“Jane.”
“Well, you are crazy. Any sane person would weigh his chances of success and realize that the odds were pretty darn good in law school—”
“You really have a midwest accent. I can’t believe you think you’ve lost it. ‘Durn’ for ‘darn.’”
“I don’t say ‘durn.’”
“You just said it.”
“I did not. What I just said was that you are crazy, and that’s why you changed the subject.”
Nicholas turned over and sat, pulling up both knees and resting his arms on them. “I thought you of all people would say to take the chance.”
“But I am saying that. I think you’re brilliant. I mean it, Nick. You have enormous talent, and you know I wouldn’t tell you that if I didn’t mean it. It’s a terrible, rough life, and anyone with even a touch of mediocrity shouldn’t try to be an actor. If I had any doubts I’d say don’t do it. It would be cruel to encourage you to face all the awful things you’re going to have to face.”
“Then why do you say I’m crazy?”
“Because you’ll be giving up a sure, safe career. You’ll be trading prestige and money and maybe even interesting work—for what? A three-week run in an off Broadway play or a chance to play Mr. Halitosis in a toothpaste commercial. You’re crazy because you have a choice between security and insecurity, and you choose insecurity. You have a choice of having your rich family pay for law school—”
“We’re not rich.”
“What are you then?”
“I don’t know.”
“You sound pretty rich to me. Well, whatever you are—were—it won’t be yours. Your family is going to cut you off, so you won’t have any money. What are you going to do without money? You’ve never worked.”
“I worked as a counselor at a camp three summers ago. I coached lacrosse.”
“Good. I’m sure there are lots of part-time job opportunities for lacrosse coaches in Manhattan
. You can make more than enough to cover your rent and food and clothes and acting lessons—”
“You’re going to try to do it.”
“But I’ve worked before. I’ve spent summers scrubbing toilets and making beds. I’ve worked in the library and as a waitress. I’m not the one who’s going to miss the ballet and the French restaurants, Nick. I won’t feel deprived not being able to go to Europe because I’ve never been to Europe. And I’m not doing anything that will upset anyone. No one really cares whether I become an actress or an English teacher or a chambermaid. I’m totally free and clear. I’m not pinned to someone who thinks the only place to be in a theater is center orchestra.”
“That’s not fair,” Nicholas snapped. Jane pulled in her lower lip and gnawed on it. She looked so miserable he wanted to comfort her. Her remorse was too excessive for the crime. “Jane, stop it. You didn’t say anything that terrible. Anyway, she’ll come around.”
“She will?”
“Well, she’s very upset. Not because of—I don’t know. I think she sees me as a very straightforward, well-adjusted person.”
“You are.”
“But actors aren’t. Not in Diana’s view, anyhow. Besides, you just said I was crazy.”
“But you’re crazy with cause. You’re gifted.”
“Well, talented anyway. I hope. If I didn’t think I had a shot I wouldn’t have the guts.”
“You’re more than talented. You’ll see.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Well, maybe.” He looked at Jane and grinned. “When I’m world-famous I want you to feel free to come backstage to my dressing room. I’ll have my valet let you in to see me in my Mr. Halitosis costume and—don’t worry, I won’t forget poor little Jane Heissenhuber—I’ll give you my autograph. And a free tube of toothpaste.”
“You’re a classy guy.”
“Thanks.”
“Even if you’re not rich.”
“Jane—”
“Nick, listen to me. Seriously. If there’s any justice in this world, you’re going to make it.”
“What if there is no justice?”
Jane tilted her head to the side and shrugged. “Then you’ll become the world’s oldest living law school student.”