The guard gave him a curious look—a look that said, I’m on to you, Mister, but he slid the pane shut without comment.
Millard advanced into the courtyard. Judiciously manicured stands of hydrangea and viburnum guarded the brickwork—but the atmosphere was overly lush, almost oppressive, like the interior of a hothouse. Squirrels, gray and black, gamboled raucously on the adjacent lawn, where signs warned pedestrians off the grass. A trio of luxury sedans lazed nearby, two wheels banked indifferently atop the curb. Nothing prevented Millard from darting back through the entryway, past the security booth to freedom—nothing except his own will, somehow warped and corrupted by Carol’s proximity. He did not have the mettle—the impudence—to turn back. Rather, he sensed that, all along, his psyche had secretly intended this visit, that each step closer to Carol’s lair was a manifestation of what Hal Storch called a “fit of the unconscious.” What could he do? Opposite the second set of doors, a solitary mockingbird chirruped from the depths of a rhododendron. He crossed into the air-conditioned vestibule and glided up to floor fifteen.
The door to 15-C stood slightly ajar. He pressed the bell.
“Come in,” cried Carol—more command than invitation.
He dared not cross her threshold under false pretenses. He thumbed the bell again.
“It’s open! I’ll be with you in a minute.”
Millard waited what felt like an hour and rang a third time.
“All right, all right,” called his ex-wife, her voice laden with pique. “I left the door open for a reason,” she said, her words growing closer. “Really, Lysander, I don’t—”
And then they were facing each other in the doorway.
How old Carol looked—how old, and yet, still beautiful, her skin stonewashed and her hennaed hair bound in a no-nonsense bun.
“I should phone the police,” she said. “This is trespassing by deception.”
That sounded like one of those ersatz offenses from television crime dramas.
“There’s no such thing.”
“Well, there should be.”
A new notion unsettled Millard: she might not be alone.
“If you’d like me to go . . .” he offered.
Carol shook her head. “No, you don’t need to go,” she said.
She stepped out of the doorway, effectively inviting him inside.
Her apartment was spare, almost austere, furnished as though ready to let. A plinth coffee table. A wall-mounted television. Jonquils in a countertop vase. Carol’s color scheme ran a narrow gauntlet from ivory to obsidian. She’d insisted on moving out after his infidelity, although he’d offered her the apartment. From you, she’d said, I want nothing.
“Let me look at you,” he said.
She sported a chambray blouse and a knee-length burgundy skirt. While he appraised her—as though admiring a fine work of art—she blushed ever so slightly.
“When you’re finished ogling,” she said, retreating toward the window, “would you mind telling me to what I owe this honor?”
“I’m having lunch with your son at the Overlook,” he said. “I was in the neighborhood . . . .”
“You were in the neighborhood and the urge seized you to barge in on your ex-wife?”
Now Millard felt self-conscious. “I guess you might say that.”
She drew open the drapes, bathing the white upholstery in white light.
“Heavens, Millard. Please stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
But he knew precisely what she meant.
“Like I’m about to perform a striptease. That’s like what,” she snapped. “I’m just a woman of a certain age, as they say, and when someone leers at a person at my age, it’s not flattering. Quite honestly, it’s suspicious.”
“I’m sorry. It’s just . . . well, I forgot how beautiful you were.”
Carol snickered. “You’re being ridiculous . . . . I’m just a discarded old lady. You want a cocktail? Now that you’re here . . . .”
“Sure. Why not? I’d love a cocktail.”
Millard couldn’t remember the last time he’d touched anything other than wine. And he would be returning to the hospital later—but it wasn’t as though he were a neurosurgeon. What would they do if he had a nip of vermouth on his breath? Give him the heave-ho? Suddenly, he sensed that Carol was staring at him, expectant. “What kind?” she prodded.
He’d nearly forgotten that cocktails came in varieties. Like women.
“Oh. How about a Rob Roy? Or is that too much to ask?”
“I can make you a Manhattan. This isn’t a nightclub.”
Carol vanished into the efficiency kitchen and returned several moments later with a pair of collins glasses. “A Rob Roy. Seriously?” she mused as she handed him his drink. She settled herself opposite him on the sofa, her legs crossed.
How improbable, it seemed, that in a long-gone age he’d possessed the audacity to propose to this brilliant woman—at once so lovely and so austere. He remembered strolling with her as they examined the mounted butterflies with the exotic names: the chocolate albatross, the tawny rajah, the common Mormon. And right beneath the common Mormon, he’d been seized with the insane notion that he might build a life with this byzantine beauty, only twenty-two years old and already publishing doctoral-level work in array processing—whatever that was. How bold he’d been, and how naïve. Yet he’d certainly gotten what he bargained for. What was that old advertising slogan? “It does exactly what it says on the tin.” Well, Carol Sucram had proven as brilliant and austere and implacable on the last day of their marriage as she had on the first. Only after intercourse, as she lay on her back, eyes shut, lips slightly parted in a faint smile, did he ever sense her vulnerability. Usually, like now, her front appeared impregnable.
“Do you really feel old and discarded?” he asked.
“Good God, Millard. What kind of question is that? Are you a fool . . . ?”
“It’s just . . . Well, I’d like to think you could forgive me.”
Carol rose from the sofa and paced. “Amazing. Just amazing. You still think the universe revolves around your likes and dislikes, don’t you?”
“I didn’t mean—”
“Of course, you didn’t. You never did. But you started this, so I’m going to finish it.” She set her glass down on the cusp of a bookshelf. “Do you remember Howard Logan?”
“Vaguely.”
“Widower with a salt-and-pepper beard. His daughter played field hockey with Sally.”
“Wait. Tennis, right? He’s the guy you played mixed doubles with.”
“God, you’re a chump sometimes,” said Carol. “Howard wasn’t my tennis partner. Howard was my lover.”
Carol stood with her back toward him, the knobs of her shoulders fluttering with her diaphragm. He couldn’t process this information—not now, not with her standing only feet away. It was the sort of revelation he’d want to sleep on, to consider fresh on the morrow—only in this instance, there would be no morrow. She turned toward him again; her faced had hardened, its texture like that of a clam shell.
“I don’t understand,” said Millard. “But why? If you also wanted out . . .”
“Who ever said I wanted out?” Carol lowered her voice. “I don’t resent you for the cheating,” she said. “That could be normal—healthy—in a marriage, for all I know. Within certain limits. What I resent you for is the humiliation. For God’s sake, Millard, why do you have to do everything in public?”
“I didn’t think . . .”
“Everything always had to be dramatic with you. All or none. I’m surprised you don’t set yourself on fire in front of an embassy like one of those Buddhist monks . . . .”
Maybe, feared Millard, she had a point. He had a thousand questions to ask: When had her affair started? When had it concluded? How many of his trivial deceptions—a late night at the hospital, a day conference in New Jersey—had actually facilitated his own betrayal? How much guilt had he sho
uldered for naught? He dared not inquire. An image rose before his eyes of the ouroboros, the serpent devouring his own tail.
“I haven’t seen Howard Logan in twenty years. Last I heard he’d moved to Nevada and was involved in commercial real estate,” she said. “And they’re all yours. All three of them.”
That was so quintessentially Carol. Laying out the facts. Going straight for the jugular.
He sipped from his cocktail, fearful of what else his ex-wife might divulge.
“Now that we have that out of the way,” she said, “why are you really here?”
One had to credit any woman who could degrade you from a contrite philanderer to a cuckolded dolt over midday cocktails—and then change the subject.
“I’m worried about Lysander,” said Millard, grateful for the familiar ground. “He’s lost.”
Carol laughed. “You’re just realizing that? He’s been lost for years.”
“I guess I wasn’t paying enough attention. We won’t live forever . . . .”
“Nor will he,” replied Carol. “You know Stanley and Livingstone, right? Well, Livingstone didn’t consider himself lost, even if Stanley chose to find him.”
“So what are you saying? That we give up?”
Millard sensed he was fighting a battle that had long been decided—like a colonial minister advising Mad King George not to let his colonies slip away. If Carol, who fed on a currency of status and credentials, had chalked off Lysander as a capital loss, who was he to insist that the boy might yet rise to his promise? He cupped his fist in his palm.
“Not give up. But maybe we need to lower our expectations,” said Carol. “You’re the one who wanted to name him after the great Spartan lawgiver . . . .”
“That was Lycurgus,” said Millard. “Lysander is named after an admiral.”
A smirk flickered across Carol’s lips. “Do you always have to be right about everything?”
The reality was that they’d both been that way. Stiff-necked; pigheaded. In the era before Internet searches, they’d argued for hours—without respite or irony—over whether the Great Wall of China could be seen by the Apollo astronauts and if the actresses Jean and Maureen Stapleton were sisters. For two straight days, they’d spoken only when essential, divided by the riddle of which hand Australians used to hold their forks while dining. (A phone call to the consulate had ultimately vindicated Carol.) Neither of them had been willing to let anything slide, so life degenerated into constant scorekeeping, an endless quarrel over trivia—often literally—with both of them tabulating mental chit sheets. During their marriage, Carol might even have insisted that Lysander had been a lawgiver. How frivolous it all seemed at a distance of thirty years . . . .
“I’m sorry,” apologized Millard. He glanced at his watch. Nearly noon. “I should go.”
She retrieved the glass from his hand. “I’m glad you stopped by,” she said. “Truly I am. I’d like to do this again . . . if you would. Maybe have lunch?”
“Sure,” agreed Millard. “I’d like that too.”
“How about tomorrow? Japanese?”
That was when he sensed that she might seek more than an armistice. He had mentioned nothing of Delilah—so how could she know? After all, he had spent forty-five minutes leering at her as though she were the reincarnation of Betty Grable.
“Call me tomorrow,” he said. “Okay?”
“Very well. I’ll ring you up at ten,” said Carol, pleased. To his surprise, she added, “I already have the number.”
“I’m so glad I had a chance to see you,” said Millard. “Really, I am.”
Yet as the elevator descended into the blistering heat of the courtyard, he wasn’t even sure that this was true.
7
Lysander showed up at the restaurant with his dogs.
As Millard entered the majestic lobby, its walls lined with Tiffany mosaics and ringed with ornate Gothic friezes, he heard the commotion before he saw it—and immediately he recognized that, one way or another, his younger son would be at the center of the uproar. This didn’t especially surprise him. He was accustomed to Lysander’s role in spawning mayhem, however unwittingly: bringing a crippled raccoon that he found in a drainage ditch, and that later proved rabid, to his brother’s engagement party; stopping his rental car at an intersection to help an elderly woman change a tire, but forgetting to engage his parking brake. Yet if this latest trouble wasn’t unexpected, it was nonetheless disappointing. Millard had been looking forward to a quiet tête-à-tête over squab pie and Westphalian ham. He recalled the rare occasions when his own father had invited him to the Overlook—once, before the birth of Arnold, for a homily on parenting, and on another occasion to discuss revisions to his will—and he regretted already the lost comfort of the oak-backed chairs and the reassuring strains of the full-time harpist. Yet one glimpse of Lysander—lumbering, prematurely stoop-shouldered, a horseshoe barbell glinting from his septum like a medieval torture device, and his chin-length hair already sprinkled with frost, as though he’d forgotten to shake out the snow—told Millard they would have little choice but to dine elsewhere, that the Overlook was no place for an overgrown teenager.
Lysander stood beneath the rotunda, at the base of the marble stairs, remonstrating with a tungsten-faced bellman. Or, rather, the bellman appeared to be doing the remonstrating while Millard’s son listened, slack-jawed, his collie mutts yapping playfully at his knees. An elderly porter in livery stood behind the bellman, arms akimbo, further barring Lysander’s path.
Onion and Puddle, thought Millard. Those were the names of the dogs. Leave it to his boy to find the least canine names in the history of cynology.
“It’s all right, Edgar,” called Millard—glad that he recollected the bellman’s name, and that he’d tipped him generously at his last visit. “That’s my son. Lysander.”
Edgar’s eyebrows raised slightly, his only concession to surprise. “Good afternoon, Dr. Salter,” he said. “I did not realize the gentleman was your guest.”
“It’s hard to fathom, isn’t it?” said Millard.
Lysander did not appear offended. Nor did he look the slightest bit fazed by the chaos he’d engendered; quite the contrary, he seemed amused. Don’t you realize this is the last time we will see each other? Millard thought. That you’re spoiling our final lunch? The poor boy had no inkling, obviously. He assumed they’d continue lunching forever. Hadn’t Millard taken his own father for granted in the same way?
“I was explaining to the gentleman that with the exception of service dogs, we do not permit animals in the dining room,” said the bellman. He had a crescent scar across one cheek, as though he’d shaved drunk with a cutlass. “I am afraid that exceptions cannot be made.”
“I totally get it,” interjected Lysander. “But since we’re already here, I was hoping you—or someone else—could look after them for an hour or so. While we eat.” He turned to Millard and asked, “We won’t be more than an hour, will we?”
“That’s simply not possible, sir,” said Edgar.
“It would be a huge favor,” Lysander persisted. “They’re extremely well-behaved . . . .”
Rarely, reflected Millard, have two men stood in such contrast: Lysander in slack, ragged cargo shorts that made one think—mistakenly—that he’d lost considerable weight, and the caparisoned bellman who spoke with an affected lockjaw reminiscent of William F. Buckley or George Plimpton. “Forgive me, sir,” said Edgar, addressing Millard. “But my responsibilities here are not consistent with tending to house pets.” His tone hinted at grave professional duties, like protecting the president from assassination or maintaining the eternal flame of Vesta.
“Of course they’re not,” Millard apologized. “I’m sorry about this. We’ll be lunching elsewhere today, I’m afraid—but let me give you something for your troubles.”
He fished a crisp fifty from his billfold and tucked it into Edgar’s palm over the bellman’s half-hearted protestations. “And something for
you as well,” said Millard, slipping another bill into the hand of the red-capped porter. A man with two million dollars in the bank and eight hours to live can afford to be magnanimous. “Now if you’ll excuse us . . . .”
Lysander led the dogs into the street and Millard followed. The heat hit them like a wrecking ball as they departed the vigilantly controlled atmosphere of the lobby.
“Glad we’re not eating there,” said Lysander, scratching his groin. He’d sweated through the underarms of his T-shirt and a comic book protruded from his shorts pocket. “I don’t mean to sound judgmental, but that dude had a stick up his ass.” He squatted down and rubbed the tousled heads of the collies. “Isn’t that right, Onion? Good girl. Aren’t we glad we’re not eating in that stuffy old prison?”
“He was just doing his job,” said Millard. He didn’t want to bicker—not today. “Anyway, I’m very glad to see you. I feel like it has been ages.”
Lysander shrugged.
“I didn’t realize you were bringing the dogs,” said Millard. “Foolish of me. Let’s find an outdoor café and have some lunch.” He scanned the block: a stationery shop, a supplement retailer hawking vitamins and quackery, a half-constructed Columbia University dorm—nothing remotely resembling a bistro with sidewalk seating. “Do you know a good place around here? Or should we wander until we find something?”
Lysander shrugged again. “Can we walk in the park for a bit? Puddle is getting restless.”
“Isn’t it rather hot for a walk?”
“Only because you’re dressed like an Eskimo.”
Millard had good reasons for his sweater and slacks—not just formality, but the brutal air-conditioning system that cooled his basement office like a butcher’s locker. Yet he strenuously wished to avoid an argument—at least, an extraneous one—so they strolled into the park, descending the steps that separated the upscale heights from the miasma of Harlem below.
This was not, to paraphrase the expression, his father’s Morningside Park anymore. When Millard had visited his brother at business school in the 1950s, a sign had warned Columbia students: It is not safe to enter at any time of the day or night. Even in the 1980s, when he’d visited colleges with Arnold, the narrow, tortuous lanes of greenery had been a magnet for crack dealers and unemployed young men wielding tire irons. Three decades later, following the steep path along the lichen-clad retaining wall, they encountered only a West Indian nanny chaperoning three young children and a group of Scandinavian tourists. One of the dogs scooped up a discarded chicken bone, prompting a stern rebuke from his master. You had to give Lysander credit: He cared for those mutts as though they were royalty. If only the boy could muster such passion for something more productive.
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