A Place at the Table: A Novel

by Susan Rebecca White

  Part Four

  Bobby and Amelia in New York

  17

  The Truth Never Hurt Anyone

  (New York City, 1990)

  I haven’t seen Aunt Kate since things blew up between Cam and me, almost six months ago. I didn’t even see her over the Christmas holidays, when I, quite frankly, fled, taking Lucy and Mandy down to one of those all-inclusive resorts in the Bahamas with vague promises that their father would try to join us, and then feigned disappointment when I reported he got tied up with work, and then a teary New Year’s Eve confession that actually, we had separated, which did not come as news to my daughters at all.

  “It’s been pretty obvious,” said Lucy, pulling on her lower lip with her pinky, same as she did when she was a girl.

  Over the past six months Aunt Kate and I have spoken on the phone, briefly, but never about anything more significant than which courses Lucy plans to take during her spring semester at Emory, or the fact that Mandy is dating a senior at Hotchkiss, or the cute thing Lulu, Kate’s fluffy little lapdog of a mutt, did that morning.

  Ever since I phoned Kate, after that first terrible night with Cam, I’ve carried around a stone of resentment toward her, resentment that she wasn’t able to really listen to me when I needed her most, resentment that she made me feel that if I didn’t end my marriage that very morning, I was an idiot, deserving of abuse. But maybe that’s not what she said at all. Maybe I wasn’t able to hear what she was really saying because I wasn’t yet ready to hear the truth.

  Six months of distance. It occurs to me that I’ve gone much longer without seeing my father, and I could certainly go that long without seeing my own mother—and be none the worse for it. (Though duty forces me to Roxboro once a month to sip a tepid martini with Mother in the parlor while she goes over her litany of daily grievances: the neighbor who snubbed her, the repairman who overcharged.)

  But Kate. I miss Kate. And then, as if she can hear my yearning from her office in Manhattan, she telephones to see if I might take the train into the city tonight, so she can take me to dinner at Café Andres, her old haunt that nearly went out of business in the early eighties, but was brought back to life by Bobby Banks, the energetic young chef from the South who took over the kitchen, introducing Upper East Siders to citified versions of corn grits and cheese biscuits and banana pudding. (I remember him, of course, as the sweet man who offered me a towel when I, in the middle of a Cam crisis, inadvertently interrupted some private event he was having.) I’m excited to go to the restaurant, to taste his cooking, and I’m even more excited to see Kate.

  I agree to the dinner with childlike enthusiasm. “Yes, yes, please. Yes!”

  • • •

  God, I love the city. As I make my way up the escalator from the train terminal into the main hall of Grand Central Station, the good mood I’ve been in all day only intensifies. Here is the bustle; here are the people! Rushing to their commuter trains, rushing to meet a friend, a relative, a loved one. Rushing away from someone they don’t want to see. Rushing, rushing, rushing—so many lives, set loose in this mighty space.

  I move through the station with the crowd, happy not to be lugging a suitcase behind me, though it occurs to me that perhaps I should have brought one, as I might very well want to stay overnight at Kate’s. I feel like staying up late, talking. I feel like sharing a bottle of wine. I feel like not being alone.

  • • •

  Walking east on Fifty-first Street, toward the restaurant, I catch a glimpse of myself in a storefront window, but it is one of those moments when at first you don’t recognize you and think you are seeing someone else. Of that someone else I think: I would like to be friends with her. I am wearing a burgundy-colored wool dress that contains a touch of spandex in the fabric, with three-quarter-length sleeves and a hem that hits just above the knees. It is one of those dresses that looks simple but costs three hundred dollars because it is expertly tailored to hide belly fat and other imperfections. I have on textured stockings and a pair of shoes Lucy gave me for Christmas, Mary Janes with stacked heels, also burgundy, made sparkly with a little glitter. To be honest, they look a bit like what a stripper from the 1940s might have worn, certainly not anything Taffy Two would be caught dead in.

  Well, good. Betty Page wouldn’t be caught dead in beige, either.

  Over the dress, I wear Mother’s ancient cashmere coat, black with a fox fur collar. Even though it is February, I wear the coat open and unbuttoned, as I have worked up a sweat walking so fast. God forbid I run into a group of keyed-up animal rights activists while wearing this thing. But really, they should know better than to target vintage fur. I mean, this coat has been around for forty years. This fox has been honored.

  The woman I glimpsed in the window (me!) looked fierce with her fur collar and her wild head of curls. She did not look like someone coming into the city from a Connecticut outpost; she looked like someone who belongs here, someone who can walk right into a New York restaurant and assume she will be given a good table simply because of her style, her confidence. And indeed, once I make my way through the long entry hall and into the cavernous, baroque interior of the café, I am given a great table, the one in the rear corner that allows a view of everything and everyone. Granted, it’s not me who is given such a prime spot, but Kate, Kate who is already seated.

  Kate rises to kiss me, European-style, a peck on each cheek, putting her hand on my shoulder while she does so. Though her hair color has changed from dark brown to silver and there are wrinkles around her eyes and mouth, to me Aunt Kate looks much the same as she did when she was a young woman and I was a girl. Probably because she is careful about what she eats or, rather, careful of the portions she consumes. She’ll order a steak anytime she wants but will eat only half of it, boxing up the remainder for lunch at her desk the next day. As always, she wears her hair parted down the middle in a blunt cut that hits just at her shoulders. She is dressed in a sort of kimono-like jacket, the color of poppies, which she wears over a pair of black wool trousers. Her shoes are narrow and sensible.

  “I’m awfully glad to see you,” she says. “It’s a cliché to say, ‘It’s been too long,’ but for us, it really has.”

  We remain standing, facing each other, and my eyes fill with involuntary tears. “Oh, Kate,” I say. “I have so much to tell you.”

  “Sit,” she says. “I’ve ordered a bottle of wine. I presume that’s okay?”

  I nod as I seat myself. It’s more than okay.

  “Have a biscuit,” she says, pushing the basket toward me. They are warm. I bite into one. It is delicate and tender and tastes of cheddar and green onion.

  “Before we start catching up,” Kate says, “I want to apologize. I don’t think I did a great job of listening when you called last September. I’m sorry I wasn’t able just to hear what you were going through.”

  Tears push against my eyes again, and I take another bite of the warm biscuit.

  “I love you like a daughter, Amelia. You know that.”

  “Don’t set the bar so low,” I say, sounding more bitter than I intend.

  “Susan had a tough time,” she says.

  I feel something tighten in my throat. I’m so damned tired of justifying other people’s bad behavior—Mother’s, Daddy’s, Cam’s. For the majority of my life, this is what I have done. Justified the adult children peeing in the baby pool. I want to make my way into deeper waters, with adults who can actually swim.

  “Cam and I are getting a divorce,” I say.

  It still feels strange to say those words aloud, accurate as they are.

  “Do you have an attorney?” Kate asks.

  “I do, but I think I need another one. The one I hired has a pretty good hourly rate, and her retainer was low, but she never returns my phone calls.”

  “Sweetheart, don’t skimp on an attorney. Fire her and get someone good.”

  Kate is right.

  “Do you have a recommendation? I don’t want a
shark. I don’t want a long, protracted fight. But I think I need someone who can stand up to Cam better than I can.”

  “Almost all of my authors have been through at least one divorce, and half of them live in Connecticut, so I’m sure I can find the numbers of a few for you to check out.”

  “Thank you.”

  I love this about Aunt Kate, her eternal competence. By the end of next week she will have called and given me a list with several names of excellent attorneys.

  There is a server standing above us with a cold bottle of Pouilly-Fuissé. She opens the wine while asking if we’d like any starters.

  I pick up the menu and try to read about the delicious food being offered, but the words blur in front of my eyes. I can’t stop tearing up. I place the menu back on the table. “I’m having a hard time making any decisions,” I tell Kate. “Could you just order for me?”

  She nods, telling the waitress we’ll start with an order of fried oysters with a champagne mignonette sauce and a shaved fennel salad, both to share.

  “Fried sounds nice,” I say.

  “You’ll have to come in the summer when Bobby puts fried okra back on the menu. It’s become one of his signature dishes. He gets it so crispy, and he puts in just the right amount of salt.”

  “It’s hilarious to me that New Yorkers are eating okra. How’s Jack?”

  “He’s good. He’s actually in California right now, for work. I miss him.”

  “Amazing. So many years later, and you’re still in love.”

  “The downside is that I’ve found myself fixating on the fact that, in the not too distant future, he’s going to die. He’s almost seventy, you know. We don’t have forever.”

  “But he’s healthy,” I say.

  “We’re lucky. Last week I accompanied an author to an event in D.C., and when I got back late that night Jack had made a pot of chili and left it for me on the stove. He had already eaten dinner himself, at the pub down the street, but he knew I’d be hungry when I got home.”

  “I want that,” I say. “To be tended to like that.” I start to cry in earnest. Embarrassed, I dab at my eyes with my white cloth napkin.

  “Oh, sweetheart, you’re closer to having that now that Cam is gone. I’m sorry to say it, but I think it’s true.”

  I nod. I think it’s true, too.

  “Ever since Cam left, I’ve been thinking a lot about my dad,” I say. “Do you know it’s been over ten years since I last saw him?”

  Kate exhales audibly, takes a sip of her drink.

  The waitress brings our shaved fennel salad, topped with walnuts and ribbons of Parmesan, along with a plate of fried oysters, golden brown, a small dipping sauce filled with chopped scallions in its center. She also brings two empty white plates. Kate takes charge, filling one of the plates with the salad and the fried oysters, then setting it before me. It is lovely to be served. Kate makes a plate for herself, and we tap wineglasses before eating. I dunk an oyster in the mignonette and pop it in my mouth. It is perfect: hot and crunchy on the outside, creamy on the inside, the acid from the sauce balancing it all out. I take a sip of the wine, which is dry enough to cut through the rich flavors.

  “There is nothing wrong with this,” I say, motioning to the food with my fork.

  “No, there is not,” agrees Kate.

  “Did you and Daddy ever talk after your big fight?”

  “Which big fight?”

  “When you brought that cookbook to Connecticut—the one by that black chef, Alice Stone. And Daddy said, you know, Daddy said that you were exploiting her.”

  Kate’s fork is halfway to her mouth, but she puts her uneaten bite back down on her plate and takes another sip of wine instead.

  “It’s so odd you should bring up Alice. Did you know that she was the original chef at this restaurant? That’s why I used to come here all the time—and why I got the idea that she should write a book about her experiences growing up in North Carolina. And now she’s sort of serving as a mentor to the new chef, Bobby Banks. They bonded over their southern roots.”

  “Oh, of course. I did know that. That’s probably why I started thinking about that book once I sat down in here.”

  “Actually, you met her once, sort of. Though you weren’t formally introduced. It was the day you found out Cam had a houseguest in your absence and you came to find me at the restaurant. Do you remember?”

  “I don’t. I was so absorbed in my crisis with Cam. I only remember meeting Bobby.”

  I eat another oyster. They are so good. “So why do you think that book made Daddy so mad?”

  “How old were you when that happened?”

  “Fourteen.”

  “Hmm,” she says. She stares at her plate.

  “What?”

  She glances at me. “Nothing, nothing. This is all just divine, isn’t it? We’ll have to get Bobby to come out and say hello.” She pours herself more wine from the bottle, though her glass isn’t even half empty.

  “Why are you acting so weird? What’s going on?”

  “I’m just surprised you remembered that fight. That’s all.”

  “It was nuclear. You and Jack left. In the middle of cocktails, you two just flew out, Daddy screaming at you from the door. How could I not remember?”

  “Of course you would. I’m sorry. I’m naïve to think it would have gone over your head.”

  “Are you kidding? You and Daddy never spoke again.”

  She is silent, and when I look at her I see beads of sweat along her hairline.

  “What’s going on?” I ask. “You and Daddy did speak?”

  She takes her napkin and dabs at the sweat. “I swear, I thought I was through with hot flashes, but anytime I get agitated they just come on.”

  “Why are you agitated? It was so long ago.”

  “I’ve held back for so long.”

  “Oh my God, Kate. Did you and Daddy have an affair?”

  I don’t know where that idea sprung from, but suddenly it makes sense. His fury toward her (passion gone wrong?), his sudden departure to Palo Alto, the falling-out that Mother and Kate had soon after.

  I look at her with wide eyes. She needs to tell me the truth. She is shaking her head, about to speak, but the server returns, asking if we are ready to order. Kate starts to send her away, but I say, “No, let’s go ahead. If you’ll order for me.”

  Kate orders the crab cakes and the chicken potpie, though I’m not sure who’s getting which. The server, seeing that our bottle of wine is nearly empty, asks if we would like anything else to drink, and Kate says no, but then I surprise myself by ordering a ginger ale. It just sounds comforting. Once the server walks away, Kate speaks.

  “No, sweetheart. No affair between your father and me. Nothing like that. It actually wasn’t anything I was involved with at all—just something I came upon. A connection your dad had, to Alice Stone. And to be completely frank, Amelia, I wanted to tell you about it back then, but I ran it by your mother first, and she was adamant that I not do so. I was torn. In the end I decided that you were her child, not mine, and I should respect her wishes. I’ve never known whether or not that was the right decision.”

  “Whatever it is, I think it’s important you tell me now.”

  Though I speak calmly, I am surprised by how powerful and authoritative my voice is.

  “I know,” she says. “But I don’t know if I can.”

  I push away my plate, though I haven’t touched the fennel salad. I no longer want this food. All I want is the glass of ginger ale and ice the server has silently placed on the table.

  “Well, at least tell me what you can. Tell me more about the night of the fight. It never made any sense to me.”

  “Okay. Okay. Well, at first it didn’t make any sense to me, either. And I admit, the whole drive back into the city, all I could do was rail against your father. I was so angry at him, so angry at his elitism, his spurious concern for Negroes, his judgment of me.

  “Jack let me rant
, but he kept saying, ‘I think there’s something else going on. Benjamin’s reaction just doesn’t make sense. There’s something we’re not seeing.’

  “I snapped at Jack, actually, told him to quit trying to excuse Benjamin’s horrible behavior, that I was sick of it, sick of how we all accommodated him, sick of how Susan let him do whatever the hell he wanted, leave the house for weeks at a time, run off to his lab anytime something started to bother him.”

  It was true. Daddy would just leave. Any upset and he simply drove off. We never knew when he might come back.

  “At home Jack fixed me a nightcap, and I tried to go to bed. But I was too agitated. Too worked up. I loved Alice’s book. I was so proud of it. And I had been so looking forward to showing it to your father. I thought he would love it, he who was so concerned with homegrown tomatoes and homemade bread and eating as close to the land as you could. He who was also the son of humble farmers, who also made something great of himself.

  “I got out of bed, made myself a cup of tea, and sat at the kitchen table, Alice’s manuscript before me. It was so beautiful, this book. So unexpected. I started talking to your father while I was flipping through its pages, arguing over its merits: No, Benjamin! Writing about a beautiful experience of a black family in the South does not negate a history of horror! Yes, there was horror. Unbearable horror, not to be diminished, not to be ignored. But there was also love, life, joy—and to ignore that is just as dehumanizing.

  “I got so worked up looking over the pages that I actually telephoned your father in Connecticut. I simply could not understand his reaction. I admit, I didn’t think he would actually pick up. I assumed he would have taken off, headed to his lab, or a bar, or wherever it was he went when conflict arose. But he did pick up, on the second ring, as if he were waiting for me.