by Toby Devens
“Go see her, Jude. Take her for a walk in the garden, just the two of you. She loves that garden. So what if he’s there?”
“He’d better not be around,” I fumed. “He did say he’d be gone in a week or two, didn’t he?” I grasped for that sliver of hope.
“After he’s finished seeing the sights,” Geoff said.
“After he’s made my mother fall for his bullshit again. Then he’ll take off like he did before.”
“Say, for the sake of argument, you’re right. Say he does and she does. You know what? She’ll survive as she did before. The way she’s done all her life. And it is her life, Jude.”
“Yup. To screw up.”
“Maybe to screw up. We all have that right,” he said, gazing into his coffee. “As I don’t have to tell you.”
• • •
Our kitchen shrink session must have worked. I played much better in the second hour.
I did an okay job on Strauss’s Don Quixote, then gave my all to the chunk of Brahms. Its serenely gorgeous cello melody seemed to emerge liquid from the strings. Geoff applauded at the finish. For the last piece, I’d made a sprightly start on the overture to The Bartered Bride when the phone rang.
“Focus,” Geoff warned above my voice on the outgoing message.
The nearest phone, the one with the answering machine, was in the next room. The volume was set louder than I’d remembered.
“Get used to it. You’ll have distractions,” Geoff was saying above my recorded voice. “When I auditioned for my first job, a light crashed from the rafters onto the stage. I soldiered on and won the seat. Don’t stop. Play over it.”
But this distraction wouldn’t be played over. It came through loud and clear and nearly toppled me from my chair.
“Hi, Ju-ju. It’s Charlie. Listen, slight change of plans for tomorrow night. I’m hoping you can meet me at the hotel at six instead of six thirty. I’d like to get to the party a little early to see Uncle Ed before the crowd arrives and swamps him. I left the same message on your cell phone. I’m a belt-and-suspenders kind of guy. Looking forward to a wonderful evening. Call only if the time change presents a problem. Otherwise, see you at six in the lobby of the Mandarin.”
I played on throughout. Wildly, badly. Geoff never took his eyes off me. Not my fingers. My face.
When the passage was over, he rose, expressionless. “Out of control,” he pronounced. No kidding. “We’ll need to work on that. Next week, same time, same station. Yes?”
So we were going to ignore the Harvard-educated elephant in the music room. Disregarding large, disturbing obstacles in our relationship was quintessential Geoff. For once, that was fine by me.
When we were a couple, he’d come in and out of my house at his pleasure. Now, as if he were a guest, I walked Geoff to the door. On the threshold he turned, his smile tightly wound. “Well,” he said, “looks as if we’re off to a decent start, Judith.” He leaned forward to kiss my cheek, then thought better of it.
I backed up a step. “Thanks for everything,” I said. “I really appreciate it.”
“Sure. Ah, yes, almost forgot, and now is as good a time as any. Excellent time in fact.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out my house key, the one I’d given him a year earlier, when we’d been at a high point. He pressed it into my hand.
It was a plain metal copy of a common key, but it lay in my palm as heavy as a stone, carrying the weight of lost hope, I suppose, or regret. But hope for what? Regret for what? Entering our relationship, I hadn’t known exactly what I wanted from it. Now I was exiting and I still didn’t know what I wanted. Except something more. Had I ever told Geoff that? No, I’d just added it to the stacks of words unspoken, risks untaken that both of us were so skilled at building.
Even now, we weren’t exactly saying good-bye—he was still a part of my musical life—so what was there to say?
He thought of something, but it took him a moment. I’d pocketed the key and he was halfway down the path to his car when he called back over his shoulder, “Don’t forget. Work on that focus, Jude.”
He’d timed it so I didn’t have to look in his eyes.
Chapter 17
I passed on the Donna Karan sheath my mother had bought me at Loehmann’s and wore my lucky dress to the Georgetown reception. Of course I had a lucky dress. Superstition had its very own gene on my chromosome string. Two, in fact.
My mother consulted a mudang. As a kid, I hadn’t been allowed to shampoo my hair on the morning of a school test because I would wash away my memory. And no cutting of your nails at night. Animals might eat the clippings and thus consume your spirit. Such Korean mishegoss. Craziness.
On my other crazy side, Aunt Phyllis wouldn’t sew a loose button on Uncle Arnold’s shirt while he wore it for fear of stitching up his brain. So it wasn’t farfetched for me to choose for my date with Charlie the dress I’d worn the night I played for the Dalai Lama at a benefit for Tibetan earthquake victims, and at a Blair House chamber concert for the vice president of Malawi. Also on my first day back with the orchestra after my aneurysm. That it was the same dress Geoff had frenziedly unzipped the first time we made love never entered my zone of irony.
Besides, I looked great in it. I have super narrow Korean shoulders and bountiful Jewish boobs that at forty-nine were only beginning to lose their lift. The deep V of the neckline made the most of my cross-cultural configurations. Needless to say, the dress was black. As an orchestra musician, my closet contained the wardrobe of a perpetual mourner—one from America, not Korea, where death calls for something chic in white. So it was a matter of which black dress, and this one had always given me a boost. Plus, it gave me a waistline, which was something of a menopausal miracle.
“You look stunning,” Charlie said as he rounded one of the marble columns in the lobby of the Mandarin Oriental, a foyer that looked like the entrance to Xanadu. Charlie was the only straight man I knew who could get away with using the word “stunning.”
He looked pretty stunning himself. Okay, dashing. He did not drop women in their tracks the way Geoff did with his height and naturally blond streaked hair. But Charles Evans Pruitt cut a fine masculine figure. Dignified. Obviously moneyed. His suit appeared custom-made and, like its wearer, classic. It could have been purchased yesterday or twenty years ago. That kind of disregard for time was an emblem of those who could afford to buy it.
Charlie took my hand and led me through the lobby. “I’m going to leave the car in the garage. We’ll grab a cab. Parking in Georgetown is hell.”
We walked the final block of the cordoned-off street and, IDs checked, got wanded on the steps of a handsome town house. In the hall, an obvious agent—they were all so much of a type that the secret in Secret Service seemed a misnomer—extended his hand. “Your Honor. A pleasure to see you, sir.”
“This is all for the big boss, I presume,” Charlie said on the shake.
An almost imperceptible nod from the agent.
“The president?” I whispered as Charlie moved me along. My heart gave a flutter. I was a commander-in-chief groupie. I identified with our fearless leader. We were both half-castes.
Charlie said, “I heard he and the first lady might drop in, but I didn’t want to get your hopes up.”
Drop in. Not quite like Mrs. Santos, our neighbor in Bed-Stuy, who’d show up at our door to borrow our Raid.
The home’s sunny front rooms were handsomely furnished and filled with a galaxy of the brightest stars in the Washington universe. We got maybe a minute of face time with Justice Braithwaite, a tall New England aristocrat brought to emaciation by his lung cancer. He nearly bent in half to hug Charlie. He laid a hand on my shoulder as he told us he was eager to return to private life in Amherst, was looking forward to sailing with Charlie in Maine that summer, and hoped to see me again. Not a word about his illness, of course, and then we
were absorbed into the crowd.
There were senators I recognized and congressional reps Charlie pointed out. Celebs of a higher order. Nobel-winning authors, film stars fighting hunger and land mines worldwide. And there was Yo-Yo Ma, who waved hi to me, impressing Charlie. In turn, he nearly bowled me over by introducing me to the secretary of state, Eleanor Aldridge, who just happened to be his first cousin on his father’s side, a fact he’d never bothered to mention.
We wove our way through a majority of the Supreme Court justices. Bumped shoulders with media pundits trying to appear harmless while nibbling hors d’oeuvres and listening for dropped gossip. After a while I lost count and then interest. More tantalizing was my first sight of Kiki Pruitt, who stood in the dining room balancing on a cane. Behind her, a middle-aged woman in a white uniform leaned forward to catch Kiki’s nonstop commentary. The private nurse, I presumed.
Smaller and thinner than Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who up close and in person was prettier than in her photos, Kiki with her deep Palm Beach tan and a shar-pei’s worth of wrinkles resembled nothing so much as an animated prune. There’s a saying that by the time you reach sixty you’ve earned the face you deserve. There was no doubt in my mind that over her lifetime Kathryn Pruitt had accumulated more creases, crumples, and puckers for nastiness than the puny pile she’d netted from her treatment of me.
Charlie spotted her, I was sure of it, and made a sharp turn into the library, where he introduced me to one of the lock-jawed Braithwaite cousins. For the moment, I let the detour slide, but my date was now on probation. Did he have the guts to present me to his mother or was he still scared shitless of her? As much as I’d been dreading meeting up with the witch, as soon as I’d seen her, as wrinkled and irrelevant as an old love letter, I knew I could take her.
The Braithwaite cousin faded into the crowd and I turned to Charlie.
“Where to now?” I asked, giving him every opportunity.
He inhaled a deep, steeling breath. “Well, it’s rude we haven’t said hello to my mother.”
He’d passed the first test. “Then let’s do it,” I said.
He looked at me admiringly, as if I’d passed mine. Then, simultaneously, we swiveled our glances toward the dining room. Kiki had us in her sights. “I have to warn you, the strokes have done their damage. There’s no censor between her brain and her mouth. She’s been known to make very inappropriate comments.”
“Some things never change,” I said, and heard his shaky laugh. His hand in mine was clammy as he threaded us through the crowd.
Kiki arced forward, her patrician nose inches from my cleavage as if she were inspecting produce. I expected her to reach in, grab one of my boobs, and squeeze it for ripeness. Charlie, buzzing alarm, insinuated a shoulder between us. My hero.
She strong-armed him out of her way. “And who is this pretty thing?” She cackled. Okay, so she didn’t cackle. Her voice was still musical. Maybe not the elegant flute of middle age, but a rich oboe. I backed up and thought I caught a flash of recognition in those colorless eyes as she took me in. One spark only; then they settled into a pleasant daze.
“Mother, I’d like you to meet Judith Raphael.” He made it sound as if she and I were meeting for the first time. I slid him a look that said, Yellow belly. Quickly he tried to make up, but from his face I realized even this small concession was painful. “Judith is an old friend.”
Kiki seemed to have spun the attitude wheel and landed on charming. “Lovely coloring. And what pretty eyes you have. Such an interesting almond shape.” And slipped a notch to fairy tale wicked. Oh, she knew me all right. The strokes hadn’t wiped out the memory center.
“That’s from my mother’s side,” I drawled. “The Ryangs. Of the Hwanghae Ryangs?” She looked confused and I immediately felt contrite.
But not for long. As clear and strong as the glass of vodka I held, she then asked, “What is your background, dear?”
“I’m half Korean.” As she processed that, I added, without mercy, “And half Jewish.”
Kiki’s nurse reached for her charge’s elbow, but the old lady stayed steady on her feet. Charlie was another matter. He swayed slightly.
“What an odd combination.” She turned to her son. “Wasn’t that awful girl you used to see up in Cambridge half Jewish and half some kind of Oriental?”
“Mother, for God’s sakes.” It was embarrassing to hear Charlie croak. He hadn’t been drinking, abstaining to keep his wits, I suppose, to be able to referee the play-off between Kiki and me. And for what? She’d rendered him speechless. I handed him my glass and he drained it.
“I’m that awful girl,” I said.
Kiki’s eyes remained narrow, calculating, unsurprised. Of course she’d known all along.
She reached out and placed her talon over my free hand. “But you’re lovely, dear. Much more attractive as an older woman than as a young one. Isn’t she, Chip, very attractive for an older woman? Not even a wisp of gray in your hair. And so straight. None of that kinkiness from your other side.”
Charlie had begun to laugh. The chuckle was low but maniacal. This was completely out of his hands and he knew it. From outside, growing closer, the sirens of the president’s escort cars spiraled a warning.
“Yes, Korean hair turns gray late,” I said sweetly. That’s how I’d just decided to play this. Sweet. Let him see sweet.
Kiki removed her hand from mine and swept it over her hair. It was silver, still youthfully glossy, pulled taut from her forehead to reveal every age spot along the horizontal rails of wrinkles—like the notes on a staff—and drawn into a chignon at the back of her neck.
“But your brains are pure Jewish, aren’t they?” She smiled, ivory teeth showing. Beside me, Charlie’s laugh escalated into madness. “I’ve always respected the Hebrew culture. Such a clever people with—”
Her critique of my heritage got drowned out by a call for attention from the front of the room. A path had been cleared down its center and lined with Secret Service. “Ladies and gentlemen,” our host announced, “the President of the United States and the First Lady.”
Chapter 18
Henry Kissinger once said, “Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac,” and you knew he had to be speaking from experience. I mean, come on. The man had a thickly accented growl, accordion-pleated hair, a major paunch, and duck-splayed feet, but as Nixon’s secretary of state he’d become the hottest piece of Washington property since the White House burned in the War of 1812.
To clarify, I wasn’t turned on by the current president, who, as we moved down the makeshift receiving line, clasped my hand for approximately five seconds. Charmed, yes. Impressed, of course. But those lanky, long-lashed looks just didn’t do it for me in the sizzle department. Now Charlie Pruitt—that was a different story. I’d always been drawn to Charlie in part—probably my worst part—for his proximity to power and privilege. Even better, for the easy grace bred though generations of American aristocracy. Of course, those were the same attractions that did me in once upon a time, but I told myself we were in a new fairy tale here.
When the president clapped Charlie’s shoulder and said, “Good to see you, Judge. How’s the tennis game coming along?” and Charlie said, “Holding my own, Mr. President,” it was enough to make my legs go soft and my nipples hard. Not right there, but potentially.
“Very modest of you, but Rob Griffin told me you cream him on the court with regularity.” Robert Griffin was New York’s senior senator, a Republican. “I’d like to take you on myself one of these days.” Oh God. Tingling.
“I’d be honored, sir, but not enough to rein in my backhand.”
The president reared his head in a burst of laughter and I fanned myself with one hand.
Then again, I chalked up some points myself as we faced the first lady. Her hand swooped from a brisk handshake to thumb the material of my sleeve. While Charlie looked o
n, foot tapping nervously, she said, “Love your dress. Is it an American designer, I hope?”
“Vintage Galliano.”
“Shame.” Her brown eyes warmed. “You’re with the Maryland Philharmonic, right? I spotted your entry on the guest list. I love the cello. I only play campfire guitar, but I think every child should learn an instrument. Our older daughter is taking cello lessons. She’s not big on practicing, though. She says she’ll never be really good at it, so what’s the point?”
“I felt the same way,” I said. “But my mother used to quote a Korean proverb to me. ‘After three years in the village schoolhouse, even a cat can recite a poem.’”
It took the first lady a moment to get it. Then she flashed a radiant smile. “Wonderful. I’ll use it. A very wise woman, your mother.”
“Yes, she is,” I said. As we got nudged on, I thought of how thrilled my mom would be to hear that comment from that source.
Charlie was also pretty happy. “Nice going.” He was beaming. “Very nice going.”
• • •
When the president of the United States is a guest at a party, you’re stuck there until he leaves. The Secret Service wants him clear of the site before you can even duck out for a pee (although, in this case, the bathrooms had been checked out by sniffer dogs before he arrived). So we waited.
Kiki waited less patiently. Citing weakness in her legs, she declined to make her way down the receiving line—for which blessing Charlie was going to slap an extra hundred bucks in the offertory tray at St. Bart’s on Sunday. She sat ramrod stiff in a Queen Anne chair, casting a disdainful eye at the mixed-blood liberal president. When he made a touching little speech praising Ed Braithwaite, she bit her lip and stared at her cuticles. And when the door closed behind the presidential party, she was the first one up, a bit wobbly on those spindly sclerotic legs, to peck the justice good-bye.
Charlie had fetched my shawl on the way back and now he draped it around my shoulders. “Come on, we can get out of here now. And I’ve got something to show you back at the hotel.”