by Susan Isaacs
“Yes. Beautiful.” Lee stood at the foot. The bottom of each post tapered into the head of some big cat—panther, maybe, or jaguar, dangerously stupid, with a flat, broad skull and fashionably elongated snout.
“Turn-of-the-century. Ceylon.” Lee realized her mother was watching her examine the room’s bareness, its white-painted walls and white-stained wood floor. “You’ve heard the expression ‘Less is more.’”
“Yes. Mies van der Rohe.”
“I don’t know anymore. I’m not sure he was right.”
“I hear you’re not well,” Lee said. She had to force her eyes from the white-lacquered flowers onto her mother.
“You heard what it is?”
“Yes. I’m sorry.”
Sylvia made a cynical sound, a sniff, a laugh. “How have you been?”
“Fine.”
“I was positive you’d remarry.”
“No.” Lee knew that if her sister had been there in her shoes, she would have had the sense to perch on the edge of the bed and confide about each and every man she had dated, being fair about their assets—a firm chin, a thriving rheumatology practice, a powerful backstroke—laughing at their devastating liabilities. Why couldn’t she do that? The woman was dying.
“Are you seeing anyone special?” Sylvia pushed herself higher up against a pile of white pillows. She looked interested, almost hopeful. The pillows were serious white: not a ribbon or a ruffle had been permitted. Her nightgown, too, was unadorned white, as if it had been made from one of the sheets, although Lee guessed it had been hand sewn by exploited child laborers. “I mean, seeing someone you’re thinking of marrying?”
“No.” She saw her mother expected at least something more, so she gave it to her. “I wish I could find someone. I tried not to be too exacting, but if a guy pees on the toilet seat—”
“Urinates.”
“Or if he wears a gold ID bracelet there is no way I can marry him, much less love him.”
Her mother smiled. “You can wipe off the seat, but the ID bracelet … Did you ever get over Jazz?” she asked quietly, as if afraid of being overheard.
“Yes. Do you want to know why?” Lee was surprised to find herself sitting on the edge of the bed, beside her mother. “Because there wasn’t that much to get over. I missed his liveliness for a while. His energy. Jazz could make a party in a paper bag. And I missed the sex.” Sylvia did not blanch, but she paled a bit. “I’ll answer your unasked question,” Lee went on. “Yes: He may have been carrying on with Robin for years, but right up to the end, he was getting two for the price of one.”
“I always wondered,” Sylvia said softly.
“Now you don’t have to wonder. But getting back to the ‘did-I-get-over-him’ issue—”
“You really are a lawyer. Like my father. That’s where you get it from. You can pick up right where you left off.”
“Usually. I got over Jazz because my love for him was never that profound. He wasn’t that profound. I guess that means I wasn’t either. But beyond lack of depth, he wasn’t interesting. He wasn’t good.”
“Good at what?”
“He wasn’t a good person.”
Sylvia studied her wedding ring. “Well …,” she said. It was a syllable pregnant with meaning. Pull it out of me, it seemed to say. It wants to come out. It may not surprise you. I might say: He’s a good father. He had a good business head. Or: He’s been a good husband to her. Not good. The best. Sensitive to her sensitivity like you would believe. But it may be precisely what you want to hear. He had a bad business head: If that fool had had any foresight, we would still be mink marketers to Manhattan’s elite. Or: He’s not good. He’s cheating on Robin. Has been for years. Well, why shouldn’t Lee be midwife to all the unfinished business of her life? It wasn’t a hard job. She understood that all she had to say was: Come on, Mom. Please? Not in a pushy way. By being cute. A little tease in the voice. And out it would come. Such a small effort, and she would be the daughter this dying woman had always wanted her to be. And the dying woman had so much she could tell.
“It took two or three years to get over Jazz,” Lee said. “What I have never gotten over is the betrayal of my mother and father and sister.”
“Oh.”
“I’m sorry, but that’s the truth.”
“If you want to know the truth,” Sylvia said, “I thought the whole thing was terrible. Tacky.”
“No. ‘Tacky’ is for tasteless clothes. This was treacherous.”
“Whatever. I cried over it. I wanted to say something. I don’t mean to Robin. I did say something to her. I said: ‘Don’t you have any feelings? Don’t you care about what people are going to say? Your sister’s husband!’ And I even wanted to say something to you.”
“What?”
“I can’t remember. It was too long ago. But your father said: ‘Keep your mouth shut, Sylvia.’ Actually, he said ‘yap,’ not ‘mouth.’ ‘Keep your yap shut. There’s nothing we can do. We can’t take sides. We have two daughters. And Jazz is my business partner.’”
“So you listened to him.”
“He’s my husband.” Sylvia closed her eyes. Her head wobbled until it found a place on a pillow. Her breathing was deep, untroubled. Lee thought she had fallen off to sleep. She got up from the bed. Sylvia opened her eyes. “What could I do?” she went on. “Go against my husband? Do you think he would have stood for that?”
“I don’t know. We’ll never know.”
“I couldn’t risk it. He could’ve walked out.”
“I told Dad I’d take care of paying for nurses for you.”
Sylvia perked up. This was clearly news to her. “Starting …?”
“Starting now. For however long you need them.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“They’ll give me sponge baths.”
“Yes. Whatever you want. They’re going to be well paid, so let them treat you royally.”
“Can you believe we’ve come to this? No money.” Sylvia was not sad. She was offended, as if someone had pulled a cruel practical joke on her. “He canceled the gardeners. It’s a good thing there hasn’t been too much rain this spring.”
“I’m glad I can help out.”
“How come you’re doing this? So you don’t have a guilty conscience later?”
“I’m doing it”—Lee bent over and kissed her mother’s cheek—“because it needs to be done. Okay?”
“Okay. I didn’t mean that. About a guilty conscience. It just came out.”
“Don’t worry about it. If you need anything, call me. Or have Dad or your nurse call me.”
“Lee.”
“Yes?”
“I like your shoes.”
Lee kissed her mother for the last time. What could she say? I hope it goes well? I love you? Good luck? Goodbye? Bon voyage? She said nothing. As she pulled back from Sylvia’s cheek, she glanced past the foot of the bed, out the window. From her mother’s eye level, she could see green lawn, the aqua pool, the trees, and just beyond, the poison-ivy-blanketed bluff at the end of the Whites’ property, which rose toward the Taylors’. But her father had lied to her. You could not see Hart’s Hill when you lay in that bed. It was much too high.
Lee White and Will Stewart did not stay long at the victory party in the catering hall on that first Tuesday in November. Being Holly Nuñez’s first supporters and having made the most generous contributions the law would allow, they were now not only members of the inner circle but also on a hugging basis with her. So as “Happy Days Are Here Again” was played for the one hundred sixty-second time that night, they dutifully hugged Holly, congratulated her yet again, then allowed her to be swept away from them into a sea of red, white, and blue balloons by a wave of delirious Democrats.
Will walked Lee to her car in the parking lot of the Chateau Briand, a catering hall that featured linguine in clam sauce, shrimp teriyaki, fried wontons, and absolutely nothing that was remotely French. “Well
?” he asked. “How does it feel to be a queenmaker?”
“She was wearing hair spray tonight. I smelled it when I hugged her.”
“Not an impeachable offense.” Lee searched through her handbag for her Jeep key. “Are you tired?” Will asked.
“I’m forty-five and premenopausal. How can I not be tired? The point is, I’m not overtired. What about you?”
“I’m not menopausal.” She took out her key, but he leaned against the Jeep, right beside her, against the door.
“What’s up?” she asked.
“What time is it?”
“A little before midnight. Is your watch broken? A hundred billion dollars for that fancy Swiss thing, and it’s broken? You can’t even call it a watch. ‘Timepiece.’”
“It’s not broken,” Will said. “It’s later than I thought.”
Lee looked up at him. If the hard yellow light of the sodium-vapor lamp was unflattering to Will, she could only imagine how she looked at almost midnight. “Is this later than you thought business about the time? Or are you making a cosmic statement?”
“It’s fairly cosmic.”
“You’re feeling old?”
“I’m ten years older than you, kid. Keep that in mind.”
“But you don’t show your age the way we do.”
“Which ‘you’ is this?” Will asked. “Blacks or gays?”
“I was thinking of blacks, but now that you mention it …” He shifted his weight from one foot to another, then back again. “What’s with you?” Lee asked. “Is something wrong? You’re acting strange. Nervous.”
“Will you marry me?” Lee’s head whipped around as if looking for someone to ask: Can you believe this? But they were alone. All the gladsome Democrats were still inside. She turned back to him. “I’m serious,” Will said.
“I’m sorry. I just can’t believe it.” She hesitated, then added: “It’s one thing to switch parties for an election. But to switch your sexual orientation?”
“Please! Do you think I’m harboring an illusion of some elaborate conversion ceremony to heterosexuality? A notch on my foreskin and a Master Mechanic wrench set? Come on. I asked you a question: Will you marry me? I deserve an answer.” There was no wind, but it was a chilly night. She looked to see if he was shivering. No. If his hands were in his pockets. No. “There are no better friends in the world than we are,” he added.
“I know,” she said.
“Neither of us is really the mushy sort, but we do love each other.” She nodded. “Lee, you can say ‘yes.’ It’s not binding.”
“Yes, of course we love each other. I said it. Are you happy?”
He moved from the car and stood in front of her. “Not yet.”
“I don’t think you’re going to be.”
“We speak to each other first thing in the morning, last thing at night.” Lee had watched him trying cases so many times. Will was a great planner. He believed in rehearsals. But in court he would stop, think, talk, then stop again. So he didn’t trip up. So he didn’t look slick. His performances always worked. Judges, juries, court reporters: They all believed Will Stewart was thinking as he talked, and talking right to them. From the heart. This time, though, there were no hesitations. Will being Will, she knew he had thought out everything he was saying. But he had not rehearsed. This time, there was not a single prearranged stumble, not one practiced pause. He was allowing his heart to be as articulate as it could be. “We’re a unit. There are no decisions—other than about sex—that we don’t make in consultation with each other.”
“‘Other than about sex’? That’s one of the main reasons people get married, Will. For sex.”
“What about the other reasons? For companionship. For fun. For love. For family. For a mutuality of interests. For security. For the social convenience. We have every single one of those reasons in our relationship. We’ve never had sex and we never will. But doesn’t it mean something that every holiday we’re together? Doesn’t it mean something that when we win or lose a case, or we read about a new attachment for the KitchenAid, or we hear there’s a new Sondheim show opening, we call each other? We’re together five or six nights a week. I hold your wool when you wind it. You go to Mets games with me. Do you realize both of us got private lines in our office three or four years ago? How come? It wasn’t to facilitate our sex lives. Those guys still have to go through our secretaries. It’s because we both felt more natural making and getting—what is it?—seven, eight calls a day right to one another. ‘Hi. It’s me. I just got back from State Supreme in Suffolk County and I found wonderful bread-and-butter corn at a farm stand.’”
“So why can’t we just continue the way we are?” she asked.
“Because it’s later than either one of us thought. Because I don’t want to be alone anymore. Because I hate it every time I have to leave. Every damn time. And so do you.”
Will was facing her, so he did not see the doors open and a few celebrants emerge from the victory party and head toward their cars. “We would only hurt each other,” Lee told him.
“How? I know all about Terry. You know I go to the city one or two nights a week. Would you be standing by the door with a rolling pin in your hand when I got home?”
Lee rested her head against the cold glass of the car’s window. “What if one of us met the man of our dreams?” she asked. “An available man of our dreams.”
“I’ve thought of that. Quite a bit, because I’ve wanted to have this discussion since right after the whole Torkelson business. When it was over and you were thanking me, do you remember what you said?”
“I guess so.” She remembered nattering on and on, but could not think of exactly what statement he was alluding to.
“You said the reason you loved me for what I did wasn’t that I was brilliant and got Mary out of jail—although that hadn’t hurt. It was that I knew my place was at your side, even when the shit hit the fan. Especially when the shit hit the fan. So my answer is this: I truly do not believe I could betray you or you could betray me. I love you. I would be your husband. That means for better for worse, for—”
“I’m acquainted with the language.”
“Lee, you were conned by a couple of pros. You got hurt. Haven’t you learned anything from that? Don’t you know by now what’s false and what’s the real thing?”
“But it wouldn’t be a true marriage.”
“It wouldn’t be a marriage with sex. And to the extent that it would provide a cover for me, that I could parade around as the Happy Hetero, it’s pretense. But what’s between you and me is real and true. And you know it.” He held her face in his hands. “That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have an affair with a dream man. That doesn’t mean it wouldn’t break my heart if he said goodbye. Not if. When. But this is the bottom line: I want to spend the rest of my life with you.” He put down his hands. “I want a home. I’ve never had one. I was a black kid in a white world, a gay man in a straight world. When I’m in your house, with you, with all of them, I feel what I’ve never felt before. I belong here. This is my home. Now tell me your bottom line about me.”
Her face still felt warm from his holding it. She wished he would put his hands back. “All right. My bottom line: I love being with you. There’s nothing I do that isn’t better with you along.” She hesitated. “Except one thing.” She waited for him to pat her head, amused. Or kiss her cheek. But he did not, so she stood on tiptoes and kissed his. “Don’t take that as encouragement.”
“I want you to ask: What’s in it for me,” Will told her. “Go ahead, ask.”
“What’s in it for me?”
“Family.”
“I have a family. Do you feel you need one to pass or something all of a sudden?”
“Need one? No. People accept that I’m a bachelor. I don’t have to say: ‘This is my wife.’ I’m not talking about the pretense of family. I’m talking about the real thing.” He heard sounds and turned away from her. When he saw the people spilling out of t
he party, heard the car doors starting to slam, he turned back. “You know how important Val and Kent are in my life.”
“And you in theirs.”
“But they’re adults. You’re not the kind of woman who thrives on an empty nest. Everything I know about you—and I know a lot—tells me you would love to be a mother again.” She knew he was waiting to see if she would deny his assertion. She could not. Will continued: “And all my life, I’ve wanted a child of my own.”
“To have—”
“We could go to the lab together, hold each other’s hands.”
“While you’re whacking off into a test tube? No way!”
“If you don’t want to get pregnant, or if it’s too late for it to be a healthy proposition, we could adopt.”
“You could adopt as a single parent.”
“But I want the child to have a mother. And more, I want you to be my wife.”
Headlights came on. “You just want to go out and buy a Dress Stewart receiving blanket.”
“You guessed it. And have it embroidered with the Weissberg family crest. Well, Lee? What do you say?”
She was not able to say anything, for at that moment, Holly Nuñez, trailed by her press secretary and two campaign aides, was upon them. “Hi!” Holly chirped. “God, you’re still here! Hope I didn’t interrupt anything. Did I thank you enough? The two of you! So great. I thought you left ages ago. How come you’re still hanging around? It is cold out. You weren’t standing here plotting my overthrow, were you?”
Will shook his head. “Not at all. We were planning your next campaign, Governor.”
“Senator,” Holly replied.
“I have no doubt we’ll get to that,” Lee told her. “But do you know what Will and I were planning just now?”
“What?”
“Our wedding.”
As soon as they were finished with Holly’s hugs and the press secretary’s mazel tov and the campaign aides’ Hey, fantastic! and waved goodbye, Lee put her hand into that of her future husband. “I have something to confess.”