Lily White

by Susan Isaacs

  Smells: The odor of dog shit enraged him. Once, he had to restrain himself from grabbing the leash of a toy poodle from a woman on Lexington Avenue, just down from Le Fourreur, and strangling her with it. In his mind, he could picture the skin of her neck reddening, puckering under the leather leash, and it gave him pleasure, as did imagining the squoosh sound as he pushed her dying body into the tiny brown pile her shitty little dog had made.

  Sounds: The thwomp! of tennis balls from the Taylors’ court moved him to melancholy to wrath and back again. The Taylors were a large family, and each member seemed to have a hundred friends who played, so thwomp! went on from seven on Saturday mornings to dusk on Sundays. Once, when Sylvia’s parents were over for Mother’s Day, the Judge had whispered: “Your neighbors play a lot of tennis, don’t they?” Leonard became disconsolate. All he could do was nod. Then he excused himself and went into his bedroom, locked the door, and called Dolly, breaking his own No Contact on Weekends rule. They talked dirty for two and a half hours, until Sylvia banged on the door. “Leonard? What are you doing in there? Is anything wrong?” He didn’t bother covering the mouthpiece. He never did. He had no secrets from Dolly. “It’s Jack Feldman, Syl. You know, from Siberian Sable. They had a warehouse fire. Please, I can’t get off the phone now.” Sylvia apologized and went back to put on the charcoal herself.

  Actually, Leonard did have one secret from Dolly. He knew she was game for anything, but although he was dying to play Mr. and Mrs. Taylor, he didn’t have the courage to suggest it. How he wanted to put on that accent from Princeton or wherever and be Fos (“Ginger, dahling, I am not like all those other chaps on crew, am I?”). Dolly would be Ginger, which was not such a stretch, since she was actually slender as a reed. But as powerful as Leonard’s desire was, so was his fear that, knowing this about him, Dolly, if she turned against him, could blackmail him for everything he had. And he would give it to her, that’s how horrible it would be if anyone found out his secret.

  Of course, if he left Sylvia and married Dolly, they could play Fos and Ginger all the time. So how come he didn’t? Ah! That was one more secret Leonard kept from Dolly: that he would never marry her. Even if he could get free without Sylvia killing herself, which he doubted, and even though he loved Dolly with all his heart, he knew she wasn’t good enough for him. She was trying to be, taking French lessons at Hunter at night and going to matinees on Saturday; she had seen almost every play on Broadway and could discuss them very intelligently. She was taking riding lessons in Central Park. But if something terrible happened and Sylvia died and he was free, he wouldn’t marry Dolly. He would want the real thing.

  Seven-year-old Lee, of course, knew nothing about her father’s affair, although in the intuitive way of smart children, she knew there was something fishy going on with Dolly. Why was Dolly so inexhaustibly wonderful to her? Dolly would practically gasp with delight on those rare occasions when Leonard brought Lee to work with him. “Lee! What a surprise!” she would gush, and then look toward Leonard: “Please, Mr. White, would it be okay if I took Lee out for an ice cream sundae?” And her father would consent. When they’d get to Schrafft’s, Dolly would ask Lee what seemed like hundreds of questions about second grade and about Robin and her mother. And no matter what she said, Dolly was thrilled. Even if she said something stupid, like: “Uh, gee, I dunno what my favorite color is.” Dolly was very sweet, and always looked beautiful and smelled like flowers, but the child wished she’d just shut up so Lee could concentrate on her sundae. Peach ice cream with hot fudge, whipped cream, and a cherry, although they were a little cheap with the fudge this time. Lee hoped Dolly would notice and ask her if she wanted more, and she’d say: Maybe just a teeny bit. But then the man behind the counter would think she looked like a real nice girl and feel awful she’d gotten so little hot fudge, so he’d give her two—no, three—of those big spoons full. But instead Dolly was waiting for her to say something. Oh. Favorite color. “Uh, yellow. No, red.” Dolly would gasp: “Red! I can’t believe it! I love red too!”

  Actually, even though Lee knew Dolly’s delight in her was, well, phony, she liked Dolly. It was wonderful to sit there with someone who felt you were important enough to fake pleasure in your presence. With her mother …

  It had never been good. True, Lee was clever enough to know that when her mother brought home a box that said Tailored Woman and took out a suit or a dress, she had to say: “Mommy! That’s beautiful!” Not only that: Having gone through all that trouble, Sylvia wasn’t really satisfied unless her daughter added something original—and cute. But what qualified as cute? One time, as her mother took a yellow chiffon dress from its tissue-paper bed and held it up against her to model it, Lee asked: “Mommy, can I have that dress when you die?” Her parents thought that was very cute, or, her father’s new word for cute, “droll.” So the next time her mother got something—a Balenciaga coat—she asked if she could have the coat when her mother died. This time, though, her mother snapped: “Stop it!” So she had to think up something else cute. It was very tiring, or, as her father said, “wearing,” to be droll all the time, because her mother bought something new nearly every day.

  And if she wasn’t cute, her mother wasn’t happy with her. Not angry, to be fair. Not mean. Just … bored. Her mother found her boring because the things Lee found interesting—the collie, her new bike with training wheels, her Madeline book, and thinking about what she was going to get for lunch—her mother had no interest in.

  But Lee was determined to win over her mother. Just then, gazing down from her window, she noticed her mother setting down the paintbrush. Why was she doing that? Oh, there: It was Ethel, the latest live-in maid, walking across the lawn, bringing out Robin after her nap. Through the open window, Lee could hear a faint “Mimmy,” as Robin cried out for Sylvia. (Lee knew this was a bad sign for Ethel, because by forcing Robin onto Sylvia, Ethel was Not Taking Responsibility, which meant Sylvia would talk to Leonard and Leonard would fire Ethel first thing Saturday morning. Firing maids made him very crabby, so it would be a bad weekend.)

  “Mimmy!” Robin’s voice wasn’t so high that it made you cover your ears, but its pitch worked its way through your semicircular canals and into your head and grated your nerves; a few more “Mimmy”s, and Sylvia’s and Ethel’s teeth would start grinding. Nonetheless, Lee had to admit Robin’s curls were golden. Even more ominous, Lee realized, Robin was showing dangerous signs of Fashion Smartness. Just the other day, sitting on the kitchen floor, she’d pulled on the ribbon of Sylvia’s espadrilles and said: “Pretty!” Sylvia’s color had gone all rosy, and she’d laughed and said: “Yes. Pretty and very expensive.” Lee jumped out of the apricot-and-pink lounge chair and raced downstairs.

  By the time she got across the backyard, Robin was sitting on the grass and whimpering. “What’s wrong?” Sylvia was demanding, her hands on her hips, her brush dripping dark-green paint onto the grass. At the sound of her mother’s displeasure, Robin’s whimpering changed to whining. While this did not displease Lee, she did understand that the short, sharp spikes of grass on which Ethel had plopped her sister were prickling the little girl’s legs. So Lee hauled Robin up, drew her over to the swing set, and sat her on the glider. “Thanks, sweetie,” her mother called out, and went back to her painting.

  It was a lazy August afternoon. Now and then a bird tweeted or a bee buzzed on its way to Sylvia’s rose arbor. Lee sat across from her sister and glided, slowly, so as not to scare Robin. Day camp was over, third grade was two weeks away, her best friend, Dorie, was visiting her grandmother in New Jersey, and she’d torn up her paper dolls and flushed them away because her mother had said: No more toys. You have the nice paper dolls. Lee had come to her and said: I can’t find the paper dolls. Unfortunately, her mother had found a paper leg (wearing paper Capri pants) floating in the toilet bowl and Lee was being punished with no Ed Sullivan on Sunday.

  “Want to go inside and play with my dollhouse?” Lee asked Robin.
/>   “No.”

  “Want to put on our bathing suits?” Lee tried to make it sound like the opportunity of a lifetime. “Turn on the sprinkler?” Her voice reached heights of delight. “Run in and—”

  “No!”

  “Want to color?”

  “No.”

  “In my Peter Pan coloring book, Robin. You can use my crayons.”

  Robin started to climb off the glider. Quickly, Lee brought it to the fastest, smoothest halt she could. Still, Robin fell onto the ground and went screeching back to Sylvia. “Mimmy!” Sylvia slammed her brush into a can, threw Lee a dirty look, and, grabbing Robin by the wrist, half led, half dragged her to the patio.

  The chairs, made of white wire mesh and resembling a cupped hand, were parts of an ensemble of metal outdoor furniture Leonard had ordered from France. They left funny marks on the backs of your legs if you were wearing shorts, Lee knew, but they were comfortable. Her mother lit up a cigarette, closed her eyes, and smoked. When she exhaled, she pursed her lips into a little bird mouth. Robin, seeing her mother’s eyes safely shut, brought her foot up to her mouth and started biting her toenails. “Stop it!” Lee mouthed, but Robin ignored her. Lee closed her eyes, leaned back in the wire chair, and smoked an imaginary Pall Mall, breathing out a perfect thin column of smoke.

  So neither Lee nor Sylvia noticed when Robin slipped out of her chair and headed toward the swimming pool. The gardener had finally oiled the gate of the white iron fence surrounding the pool (after receiving a nasty note from Leonard on the subject, enclosed with the monthly check), so neither Lee nor Sylvia heard a thing when Robin reached up and, with remarkable dexterity, flipped up the childproof latch. And of course, when Robin walked down the four steps into the pool, there was not a sound, because by the time her feet reached the bottom of the pool, the water was over her head.

  Peril ought to be accompanied by the roar of a tidal wave or the screech of metal crushing metal in a car crash. Not by silence. Sylvia smoked on. But Lee opened her eyes. Something was not right. What? Oh, the absence of Robin crying, sniveling, or even shuffling. Lee swiveled her head, checking out the field-stone wall of the house, the swings, the perennial garden, the woods that rose up the hill. … But she couldn’t spot the buttercup color of her sister’s playsuit. Lee climbed out of the wire chair. “Mommy.”

  “Shhh.”

  “Mommy, where’s Robin?” Sylvia, sluggish from the heat, listless with boredom occasioned by her own art, shrugged and inhaled deeply. It must be said that she did not comprehend the import of Lee’s question. Without malice, it can be said Sylvia was in another world: picturing how to achieve the most drama in an arrangement of pineapples, grapes, and melons for a fruit platter she was planning for a Labor Day pool party. A flash of yellow caught Lee’s eye.

  In an instant, she flew across the crew-cut lawn to the pool. Before her mother had a clue that anything had gone wrong, Lee White opened the pool gate and took a step into the pool. Robin was in the shallow end, but too far to reach from the steps. Another step down. The water was overheated. It lapped around her calves and felt awful, almost hot. The stench of chlorine was so strong, as if it were masking some other, terrible smell. She should get out, call her mother. “You’re not the boss of Robin,” her mother was always telling her. “I am. Leave her alone.” One more step, up to her waist. She could dog-paddle, but then what could she do about Robin? She couldn’t grab her and swim with just one hand, could she? Robin was right at the spot where the shallow part got deep, over both their heads, so she’d be stuck out there too.

  “Mommy!” Lee called, but Sylvia didn’t hear her.

  Robin was just floating there. No, not quite floating, because she was a little bit under the water. Not moving, her arms held out, limp, as if she were pretending to be a dead bird. Was this what drowning was? In the cartoons, you always hear “Heeeelp! Save me!” But not a sound, except the glub-glub of bubbles from the pool filter. Drowning? Yes!

  And what could a seven-year-old child do? Run get her mother? Dial O and say, the way they taught you in school: “This is an emergency. My stupid sister is drowning”? There was nothing to do. Which was when the nascent trial lawyer took over and, nevertheless, did. Lee plunged forward into the water, swimming over to her sister. Dog-paddle, dog-paddle, she thought. Uh-oh, I’m in over my head. I could drown. I’m not allowed out this far. Keep going. Dog-paddle.

  Like Lassie. So Lee thrust her head forward and, with her teeth, grabbed the yellow playsuit—and, in doing so, dragged her little sister out of the jaws of death.

  Sylvia, roused by the splash of the paddling, was there when Lee brought Robin up the stairs. “Oh God!” Sylvia screamed over and over. “My baby! Oh, God.” Shut up, Lee thought, as her mother, shrieking, grabbed Robin away from Lee, as if Lee had done something wrong. “Oh, God in heaven!” Sobbing, Sylvia held the limp child so tight that, through sheer luck, she squeezed some of the water out of Robin’s esophagus. The child regurgitated up the rest all over her mother, to Lee’s satisfaction. “What happened?” Sylvia cried, a question directed toward God more than Lee, planting anguished kisses over the little girl’s head and face.

  “She went into the pool,” Lee explained.

  “Why didn’t you stop her?”

  “I didn’t see her.”

  Now that Robin was coughing and gagging and clearly alive, Sylvia laid her gently on the flagstone pool deck and, weeping, almost silently, crouched over and dipped her forearms into the pool to wash off the vomitus. She rubbed and rubbed, then sniffed her skin and pulled her head back in disgust.

  “Mim—” Robin gasped.

  “Baby,” Sylvia said, taking the child back into her arms, although admittedly averting her nose from the stench.

  “Mimmy.”

  “Baby.”

  Lee turned and walked back into the house. Neither her mother nor her sister noted her departure or her absence. And that would have been that, except for Ethel, the eighth maid to whom Sylvia had said, upon hiring her: I hope you’ll soon be a member of the family. On being fired by Leonard that Saturday, Ethel, twenty-three years old and up from Macon, Georgia, knowing there was more to the world than picking peaches, and not willing to take any guff from a white man who had just told her she was Not Willing to Do Her Fair Share, told him he was a mean ole dog with a ninny for a wife—

  “I’ve heard enough!” Leonard shouted at her.

  —and he should tell his girlfriend not to wear so much makeup because it came off on his shirts, even if the ninny didn’t see it, and did he know Lee saved her little sister’s life when the ninny fell asleep and the baby almost drowneded in the swimming pool. Huh? Did he know that?

  “What happened?” Leonard was shouting at Sylvia.

  She closed their bedroom door so he wouldn’t wake the girls. “Nothing.”

  “She wasn’t drowning?”

  “No!”

  “Goddamn it to hell, Sylvia. I’m sick and tired of having to deal with these maids, and if you can’t make do with the next one, then you’re stuck. Stuck. Either you train them properly or you make the beds yourself. Do you understand me?” His voice rose even louder, filling every inch of the room. There was no corner safe from his anger. “I will not fire another goddamn one of these stupid girls and have them open up a fat mouth to me and—” The knocking on the bedroom door must have been going on for some time, but Leonard and Sylvia didn’t hear it until he paused for breath so he might continue his tirade. Instead he opened the door.

  “Mommy? Daddy?” Lee wore a pale pink nightgown with tucking all over the chest. She would have preferred Little Lulu pajamas, but her mother had said no, this is much finer-looking, and besides, the pink is perfect in your room. She squinted to keep out the bright lights of her parents’ room. “I heard yelling and I got scared.”

  “Lee,” her father began.

  “Stop it, Leonard,” said Sylvia, trying to cut him off.

  “Lee, did anything happen in th
e pool with Robin?” Lee was no dope. She knew her mother wanted her to keep quiet. But she had been like Lassie. Brave and keen. And no one had said: “You are a noble-hearted creature, Lily Rose,” or even: “Thank you.”

  “Robin was drowning,” she said, cocking her head to the side in order to look pert and putting on (it has to be conceded) an obnoxiously smug smile. “I saved her. Like Lassie.”

  “Where was Mommy?”

  “Mommy was …” Too late, Lee realized this was a subject better left alone. She shrugged as if to say: Gee, I forgot what I was gonna say.

  “Where was Mommy?” Her father’s voice was so loud it shook the mirror over her mother’s dresser. “Where?” She could feel the voice in her stomach. “Where?”

  “On the patio,” Lee whispered.

  “What was she doing?” Lee looked to her mother. Her mother looked away, as if there was something behind the bathroom door that was demanding her attention. “WHAT WAS SHE DOING?”

  “Smoking.” Lee mouthed the word rather than enunciated it. “Her eyes were closed for a second. That’s why she didn’t see. Just for a second.”

  Her father sent her away then, without asking to hear the details. That’s what she had wanted to tell him about. The details. They were so wonderful: the too hot water, the dog-paddling, the chlorine taste when she grabbed Robin’s soaking playsuit between her teeth, the water down her throat and up her nose, what a load Robin was, so don’t think she’s so skinny compared to me. And to hear her father say: Lee, you were brave and keen.