The First Warm Evening of the Year: A Novel

by Jamie M. Saul

  “You’re very good at keeping secrets.”

  “I think you’re giving me too much credit.”

  “I bet if I asked you not to tell anyone what I’ve told you today, you wouldn’t.”

  “Why don’t you ask me in twenty years.”

  She stopped smiling now. “What I said before, about your being dangerous. I meant it.”

  “I never doubted you.”

  Marian and I walked down the flagstone path in the cool night breeze. As I started to open the car door, she stood just behind my shoulder and said in a low voice, “Bacon on buttered toast, and very strong coffee with cream.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “What I like for breakfast on rainy Sundays,” she said.

  The full moon was high above the trees. The wind began to pick up, making a deep and rushing sound through the branches, like ocean waves. It made me think of those tempest-tossed characters in mythology and Shakespeare who wash up on unfamiliar shores, their sudden arrival inducing transformation. They are no longer who they were only moments before. That’s how I felt with Marian, listening to her, talking with her.

  As I drove away, with her face barely visible in the rearview mirror, I was incapable of imagining what I might do that would allow me to forget Marian Ballantine.

  Seven

  I left Shady Grove that night feeling even more unsettled than I had before I’d seen Marian. What had I accomplished except upsetting her life? There was no pleasure to be had from that.

  I was the only car on the dark country roads, and I drove until I found a bed-and-breakfast, about thirty miles from Shady Grove, near Great Barrington, Massachusetts. I wasn’t ready to go back to the city, not just yet. I didn’t want to be so far from Marian. Not that I had any intention of lurking about Shady Grove, appearing in the grocery store, showing up at the house again. I just liked the idea of Marian being nearby. At least for the night.

  But I didn’t go back to New York the following day, either, or the next three days. I drove around the Berkshires, sleeping in strange beds, walking quiet streets, looking through antique stores and book barns, shopping for clean clothes. It was fine weather for early April. The spring sunshine had a restorative effect. I didn’t even mind the static of my own company.

  I thought perhaps this break was just what I’d needed and I could go back to the city and my life with a feeling of renewal, and satisfaction. I’d had my visit, I could shake off my doldrums.

  Instead, I thought about Marian most of the time, the way she looked with the sun backlighting her hair; and when she described her gardens, even when she made her case for never seeing me again, the way her voice welled and faded.

  One afternoon, while I was having my lunch, I noticed a couple sitting a few tables away from mine. I watched the man reach across the table and touch the back of the woman’s hand with the tips of his fingers; with a graceful sweep she pushed a few strands of hair away from his forehead; when they spoke to each other, how enthusiastic their faces were. It made me think of Simon talking about Laura and Steve. Telling me: “They were so in love, I found it unbearable.”

  I thought of the way Marian’s hand had brushed against my wrist while she introduced me to her friends. And how I liked the way we touched when we spoke to each other. Then I was thinking of the way Rita’s legs lay exposed in the gray light of her bedroom after we made love, and would I ever want to make love to her again?

  That afternoon I went back to New York City. I’d always liked coming home to my apartment after a trip, whether I’d been gone a few weeks or a few days; the perfunctory greetings from the men in the garage, the doormen. The comforting rituals, gathering the mail, playing back messages on the answering machine, reading e-mail. Just like that, the routines of life waiting inside the apartment, like an obedient dog.

  One of the messages was a last-minute invitation to a friend’s apartment for a party, and I decided to go. I wanted the distraction.

  It was a relaxed Sunday gathering in the apartment of Richard Davidson, whom I knew through work. It was nothing very formal, Bloody Marys, Mimosas, and finger food, in one of those spacious Upper West Side apartments with long hallways and high ceilings, a view of the Hudson River and, on this particular night, filled with dozens of people and that exhilarating sound of tinkling ice cubes and adult conversation.

  I was sipping my drink and talking to Felicia Robeson, a choreographer I’d known for a few years. She’d come back from Mexico about a week ago, and was telling me, “My mind just refuses to leave the beach,” when Amy Brennan came over, kissed Felicia on the cheek, then me, and wanted to know, “How’s that executor business coming along? I still think it’s so intriguing.”

  “Not that intriguing,” I said.

  “What’s intriguing?” Felicia asked.

  Amy answered the question.

  “You know,” Felicia said, “I’d trust Geoffrey with my last remains.”

  “That’s a grim thought.” It was Richard, our host.

  “Are you still going on about that?” Amy’s husband, Nick, had now joined us. “What’s happening with it, anyway?”

  “We’re about to find out,” Amy said.

  “Is there something I should know?” Richard asked.

  “Absolutely nothing,” I said.

  “Then why is everyone talking about it?”

  “Who’s everyone?” Felicia answered.

  Richard squeezed Amy’s arm, said, “I’m too sober for this conversation,” walked to another circle of people, while Felicia and I went over to the bar for refills.

  I asked her, “What’s the occasion, anyway?”

  “Richard’s celebrating his daughter’s divorce.”

  “Oh?”

  “He never liked the son-in-law.”

  “The daughter must have come over to his side.”

  “She’s quite happy about it.”

  “How long were they married?”

  “Eight years. She’s in Maui. Having her own celebration.”

  There was laughter coming from somewhere down the hall, and laughter closer to us; a gentle swirl of perfume . . . a woman’s hand resting on my shoulder . . . a voice introducing itself . . . “How have you been . . .” “What have you been doing these days . . .” “I haven’t seen you since . . .”

  Outside the open window, the setting sun floated above the New Jersey Palisades, holding off the dark for a few minutes more, for we had entered the time of longer days. I listened to the jagged noise of the city lifted on the air and into the room, adding its voice to the conversations.

  A dark-haired man came up behind Felicia, wrapped his arms around her waist, kissed her on the neck, and said, “You’re just going to have to have dinner with me soon. It’s been way too long.”

  “Yes.” She turned to face him. “Much too long.”

  “You come, too,” he told me.

  “I’ll make sure of it.”

  Then he whispered in Felicia’s ear and walked away.

  “I have no idea who that was,” Felicia told me.

  “Never saw him before,” I said.

  “He has very soft lips.”

  Amy came back to tell us, “When you two are ready to leave, find Nick and me.”

  None of this was alien to me, not the noise, not invitations from strangers, nor the conversations going on around me, and if I didn’t know the evening’s subject, I was no stranger to the context.

  “Are you having a good time?” Felicia asked me.

  “I always have a good time.”

  “You do. Why is that?”

  About an hour later, Felicia and I found Amy and Nick, and the four of us took our small piece of the party downtown to Nick and Amy’s place, where we had a few more drinks, some Chinese takeout, and more conversation.

  The
n Felicia told us about her new show, a flashy musical. Amy was excited about the work they were doing on their apartment. Nick thought there was nothing wrong with the apartment the way it was . . . and they talked about a trip they were planning, Oslo, Copenhagen . . . and did Felicia and I want to go with them, and of course, I should bring Rita.

  Felicia said she’d be too busy with the new show. I said I’d have to see what I had scheduled, and was my choice of companion limited to Rita. Everyone laughed, but a quick, discernible sense of discomfort and regret passed through me because I wasn’t making a joke. For a moment, I wanted to tell my friends about what had happened between Marian and me in Shady Grove and to declare, “I’ve met someone under the most unusual circumstances, and I can’t get her out of my mind.”

  The next morning, I phoned Rita. That night we were in my apartment, sitting together on the couch, Rita wearing a gray sweater and black stretch pants, hair pulled back and tied in a French knot. Her shoes were off, her bare feet were tucked under her legs. She was sipping a glass of wine, her lipstick traces stained the rim.

  She put the glass on the coffee table, and moved closer to me.

  I told her, “You’re looking very chic tonight.”

  She said, “Don’t try sucking up to me. You took your sweet time returning my call.”

  “I was out of town. I drove up to Shady Grove.”

  She turned and brushed her lips against my cheek, laid her head on my chest, then pressed her hand against the back of my neck; her flesh felt soft against my flesh. She raised her face to mine, her mouth parted. Her dark red lipstick appeared like liquid in the lamplight.

  “It’s good to be back,” I said.

  “How long were you gone?”

  “A couple of days.”

  “That’s not very long.”

  “It seems longer than that.”

  She moved her mouth close to my ear. “You should have told me you were going.”

  “Oh?”

  “Then I could have missed you. It’s nice knowing someone misses you when you go away.”

  She uncurled her legs and stretched them past the edge of the couch. I turned and when I kissed her it was one of those moments when in an instant the mind flashes a myriad of considerations—when all that was happening was nothing but a kiss. Just a kiss. Something we’d done countless times before. Only now I was aware of both the assurance in our actions, and the assumptions, and I wanted to reacquaint myself with those assumptions. I wanted to reacquaint myself with all the things that I liked about Rita.

  The way she said, “Wouldn’t it make you worry if I started keeping my clothes here?”

  She said this after I told her that I’d like her to spend the night, and she said she’d have nothing to wear to work tomorrow. Then she put her head on my shoulder.

  “Would it worry you?” I asked back.

  “Maybe I should try it sometime. Like Grace Kelly in Rear Window, showing up with her little Mark Cross overnight case.” She laughed. “My clothes popping up in the corners of your closets like mushrooms? Wouldn’t it make you feel just the worst kind of claustrophobic? I bet it’s bad enough seeing my toothbrush.”

  This made me think about our “very New York romance,” which seemed most desirable at the moment. It also made me think about Marian and if she would ever declare a thing like that, living alone in her cozy country house with the sweet gardens outside. I didn’t know her well enough to be certain of anything she might declare about sharing her closets and with whom, but I knew Rita, and no one’s clothes cluttered her closets, no desires for sweet gardens and a cozy country house cluttered her brain. It was that dissimilarity that made Rita so attractive to me at that moment. It was what I wanted to reacquaint myself with.

  She lifted her head, kissed me on the mouth, then said, “I was just thinking how much I like you.”

  In the morning, while the coffee brewed, Rita stood wearing only my bathrobe, phoning her assistant to make sure there was nothing on her morning schedule.

  I poured coffee for us, and we went into the living room. Rita sat in one of the chairs while I pulled back the curtains, looked out the window for a moment, then sat in the chair nearest to her. Rita wasn’t quite smiling at me, but her expression was not quite lacking amusement, and there was an aspect to it that I wanted no part of.

  She kept on looking at me, while I tasted my coffee, then with that expression still in place said, “Tell me, darling, about last night. You didn’t happen to take the vow of celibacy while you were away?”

  “Just tired. That’s all.”

  “Being an executor seems to have taken more out of you than you expected.”

  Alex’s office was in a ground floor apartment on Seventy-eighth Street and Park Avenue. It was quite modest, the waiting room in the front and the office at the end of a short hall. There was a small kitchenette in between. Not that I’d ever seen him use it for anything more than boiling water for his tea.

  The blinds were always down, which gave the sensation of stepping into perpetual twilight, even when the lights were on. There were three old and comfortable chairs in the room, the one Alex sat in was behind and to the left of the patients’ couch, the other two chairs were separated by a drum table. A built-in bookcase filled one of the walls, and several abstract paintings covered the others, with a desk and phone in the far corner between two windows.

  It was after eight in the evening. Alex was supposed to have finished with the day’s last patient, and we were going to have dinner together, but when I got to the building, the doorman told me Alex had gone out, and said I should wait inside. He unlocked the door and turned on the lights in the waiting room and closed the door for me. I let myself into the office, turned on all the lights, and sat in what looked like the most comfortable chair.

  By the time Alex showed up, it was nearly nine-thirty. I’d flipped through all of his magazines, and was reading a book I’d taken from the bookcase.

  He managed to say hello, but he was already standing at his desk, looking through his appointment book, writing with one hand, unbuttoning his coat with the other. There were lines around his mouth, and dark rings under his eyes. All vestiges of his two weeks at the spa were gone, and what had taken their place looked exhausted and worn out.

  He lay down on the couch, still wearing his coat, and closed his eyes. I was certain that he was falling asleep, but all he did was yawn and turn his head toward me.

  I said, “A day at the clinic?” As much an expression of sympathy as an observation.

  “Clinic? No. Two hours with the masseur and a manicure, which left me barely enough time to rush over to the most wonderful cocktail party, from which I just couldn’t tear myself away . . .”

  “Sarcasm will get you nowhere.”

  “You think I don’t get invited to cocktail parties?”

  “At least try to keep your eyes open when you ask that.”

  “A lot of parties.”

  “You probably have to turn people down, you get invited to so many.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, I’m glad we got that cleared up.”

  He sat up, slipped out of his coat with no small effort. Then he narrowed his eyes at me, the way a marksman would, and said, “You saw her. That friend of Laura’s.” He adjusted one of the pillows and lay down again. “Did she come to New York, or did you go up there?” Before I could answer: “You went up there. I heard it in your voice when you called. So? What happened?”

  “That all depends on what you mean by ‘happened.’ ”

  He laughed. “So that’s what our little get-together is for.”

  “You’re a very smart man.”

  “That all depends on what you mean by ‘smart.’ ” He yawned again. “Would you mind very much if we went up to my apartment instead of a restaurant?”

 
; “I love your apartment.”

  “Don’t overdo it.”

  Alex’s apartment was on the seventh floor in the same building as his office. At first glance, you would think no one lived there, or at best that the occupant was never home.

  The only room worth talking about was his study, designed for comfort with two soft sofas and a couple of overstuffed chairs.

  Alex had changed his clothes, and was now wearing a pair of wrinkled khakis, a frayed oxford shirt, and a pair of slippers; and while we ate ham and cheese sandwiches, a beer for me, ginger ale for him, I told him about the things I’d been doing since we last saw each other.

  “Let me understand this,” he said, “you slept with Rita and couldn’t get it up?”

  “Didn’t even try. I wasn’t interested.”

  “Oh, that’s too bad. I’m writing a paper on conflict and impotence, I thought I could use it.”

  “Sorry to disappoint.”

  “You never disappoint me, Geoffrey.”

  Alex got up, brought our dishes into the kitchen, and came back with two generous slices of coconut cake on fresh plates, handed one to me, sat down, took a bite, looked pleased and took another bite.

  I wasn’t in the mood for cake, and put my plate on the coffee table.

  “Later, I mean after Rita left and I was alone,” I said, “I realized how dishonest my actions were. Then I started thinking about Marian, and that I was dishonest with her, too. Don’t you think?” Alex didn’t say anything. “And then I started thinking about what Marian told me about Eliot, and what I’d asked her to do by my driving up there. Only now I could understand what she was talking about, because I feel the same way about Rita, not the way Marian feels about Eliot, but a responsibility to her, to our relationship, and I can’t walk away from that.”

  “The feeling or the responsibility?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “No wonder you feel conflicted.” He took another bite of cake. “You’re worried that you’re not the person other people think you are.”

  “What if it turns out I’m not the person I think I am?”

  “You don’t really see that as a possibility.”