The Cousins

by Rona Jaffe

  “If you buy shirts, use my charge card at Julia’s,” Olivia said.

  “Since you don’t use it.”

  They chuckled at each other, more a shared sound of affection and memories than because it was funny. “I miss you,” she said.

  “I miss you too, but you’ll be back tomorrow.”

  “Late.”

  “I’ll see you then. I love you.”

  “I love you.”

  He hung up and she dialed room service for coffee. Now that she knew he was safe and sound and loved her, she felt liberated, ready to enjoy her day, glad he wasn’t there so she didn’t have to worry about whether or not he was bored.

  At the temple Olivia slid into the seat next to Grady. Sitting between Grady and her husband Tim, Taylor was wearing a long flowered dress that looked like something from Little House on the Prairie, and she looked about twenty-five even though she was thirty-three. She leaned over to Olivia. “What am I supposed to do?” she asked nervously. Olivia realized it was probably her first bar mitzvah.

  “Nothing,” Olivia said. She smiled at Grady, who gave her his curly little smile, the one that held secrets and mischief and sweetness; and at Taylor’s husband, Tim, who smiled back trying to look dignified and nodded, his long hair tied neatly in a ponytail under the yarmulke he had been given.

  Taylor pointed at Tim and Grady and smiled, too. “My two men,” she said.

  Kenny was in the front row; Olivia recognized the back of his head. Then, rushed and slightly late, a couple dressed in ethnic clothing came down the aisle looking for their seats. The woman was wearing a sari, which did not disguise the fact that she was a Bronx blonde, and the beaming little man was wearing a black Nehru suit with an embroidered pillbox hat. They were Gloria and Tenzing. Gloria had lost some weight and her skin was radiant; she looked better than Olivia had ever seen her. They disappeared into one of the front rows and the service began.

  Olivia had never had a religious education because she had refused to go to Sunday school, and her parents didn’t push it, although they would have if she were male. She thought Jason looked like Gloria as a nervous teenage boy. He had been studying and preparing so long for this morning. His hands were shaking but he looked very proud. She didn’t know any Hebrew, but still she felt a part of her cousin’s rite of passage, of the importance, the tradition. She could sense how alien Grady and Taylor felt to the whole event, and therefore to the family, and it made her a little sad.

  Jason had finished his prayers and was making his speech. Now that he was speaking English, Tim began signing for Taylor so she could follow it.

  “I have a pen pal my age who is a Russian refusenik who recently emigrated to Israel with his parents,” Jason said. “We’ve been writing to each other for a year. My rabbi arranged it as part of our school studies program. Through our relationship we’ve both learned a lot about other people. Although our lives are very different, in many ways we’re alike, too. What I am going to do is take one third of the money you have all been so kind to give me as gifts, and donate it to help develop my friend’s little town in Israel, where the need is great.”

  A soft rustle and sigh went through the room: surprise, admiration. What a mature young man, what a nice thing to do. Grady raised an eyebrow at Taylor.

  “In conclusion,” Jason said, “I want to thank my father, and my mother, and Tenzing, who has been like another father to me.”

  How sweet, Olivia thought. Another father. Her throat closed up and she tried not to cry. Knowing only the bones of family scandal, it had never occurred to her that they all got along so well.

  The bar mitzvah was over and they filed into the next room where a table had been set up with little glasses of wine for the adults, grape juice for the children, and cookies. Everybody was milling around. Kenny was beaming, proud and happy, his arm around Jason’s shoulders. Gloria came plowing through the crowd to Olivia.

  “Do you remember me? I’m Gloria.”

  “Of course I do,” Olivia said. Does she wear the sari on treks, she thought, or does she wear jeans?

  “You’re looking very good,” Gloria said.

  “So are you.”

  “It’s been a long time.”

  “Yes.”

  “Nobody ever understood my relationship with Kenny,” Gloria said. “I thought somehow that you did.”

  “Maybe I did,” Olivia said.

  “Kenny and I were always best friends,” Gloria said. “We still are. Kenny can’t do anything without consulting me. He’s always on the phone—what should I do about this, about that. That’s why he never remarried. He’s too dependent on me.”

  Maybe if he remarried he wouldn’t have to be, Olivia thought, but she nodded agreeably.

  “I know no one ever forgave me for running away,” Gloria said.

  “Kenny and Jason did,” Olivia said. “That’s all that matters.”

  “You’re right,” Gloria said, pleased. “I knew you would understand.”

  They stood there looking at each other. There wasn’t that much to say.

  “Well, it was nice seeing you,” Gloria said.

  “You, too.” And she was gone, back into the crowd again.

  “Was that Gloria?” Grady asked. He had Taylor in tow and was translating for her. Olivia could see Tim in the corner talking to Uncle Seymour.

  “Yes,” Olivia said.

  “We were saying,” Grady said, “that you should come visit us sometime. Now that we’ve got you to come this far.”

  “I’ll try. You know I’d like to.”

  “I’d love you to see my new house,” he said. “It’s right up in the trees. You can stay in the guest room. I’ll take you for a ride on my motorcycle.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Olivia said. “I can’t ride a motorcycle.”

  “You just hold on to me.”

  “He has a beautiful house,” Taylor said. “Or you could stay with us.”

  “Do you ride motorcycles, too?”

  “No.”

  “Good.”

  “I ride horses. Are you scared of them?”

  “I only deal with small animals,” Olivia said.

  “Remember you’re invited,” Grady said. “Thrills and spills.” He gave her a wicked grin and she thought how sometimes, just for an instant, he did remind her of his father.

  “Do you guys ever see Kenny?” Olivia asked.

  “No.”

  “But he lives so close.”

  “We just don’t.”

  “Nobody in the family has ever seen my house,” Taylor said.

  “They haven’t seen mine either,” Olivia said. “It isn’t even new anymore.”

  “I never hear from anybody,” Taylor said. “Nobody cares about the half-breed in California.”

  Poor Taylor, Olivia thought. She hoped Taylor was only kidding, but she knew she wasn’t. “They do care about you,” Olivia said. “Nobody calls you because they don’t have a TTY, but the other cousins almost never call or write to each other either. And you don’t write them. It’s nothing personal.” She remembered what Jenny had said: They will always love you. “That’s why we have to come to these family events, to keep up.”

  “Well, that’s why I come.”

  “I’ll visit you when I get some time. I promise,” Olivia said. “And now we have the rest of the day together and tonight’s the party. Let’s have fun.”

  Taylor and Grady both gave her the same quizzical look. It was amazing how alike they were. “Fun,” Grady said.

  “Try,” Olivia said. She thought of Roger. He would have said the same thing. Suddenly she missed him very much, and the festivities ahead without him stretched long. It had made perfect sense for him not to want to make the trip, and she couldn’t fault him, but all the same she wished he were with her, inste
ad of in New York.

  4

  IT WAS A PERFECT September Saturday in New York. The sky was blue, the leaves in the park were beginning to turn, the air was crisp and cool with an overlay of sunshine that made it comfortable walking weather. There are very few such days in New York, and they are precious. Everyone seemed to be out—tourists with their cameras, families shopping, lovers holding hands, divorced fathers taking their kids to the zoo on custody weekend. On this bright and lovely early afternoon, Roger Hawkwood entered an almost empty movie theater, and after a moment of looking around chose a seat on the center aisle.

  The lights had not yet been dimmed. Background music played. The movie quiz was on the screen, over and over, with the scrambled names of stars. He noticed some elderly couples and some people alone . . . mostly women. The women who were alone were all reading something, usually the newspaper, and they had carefully chosen seats that had several empty seats around them so no one would intrude on their space. But he knew they were lonely. He could always tell. He opened the newspaper he had brought and pretended to read it, glancing at the young woman three seats to his right.

  She was about thirty, and beautiful, with a classic profile. When she moved her head her hair swung across her face like a sheet of butterscotch-colored silk, and then she ran her fingers through it, pushing it back with the nervous gesture of a teenager. She was wearing jeans and a sweater. She was tall and slim and full-breasted, like a model. You would wonder why someone who looked like her didn’t have anyone to go to the movies with or, indeed, anything better to do this afternoon in the first place. She finished reading her newspaper and put it into her tote bag, and then she sensed he was looking at her and turned to look at him. Her eyes were an amazing bright clear blue.

  Roger smiled at her. She appraised him for a second and then smiled back. He knew he didn’t, after all, look dangerous. A kind, merry face, pressed jeans and Gap T-shirt and Armani jacket, his expensively cut hair still thick and dark auburn, with a little help from his barber—they were called hairdressers now and he still couldn’t get used to it—he seemed as out of place here in the Lonely Matinee as she did.

  “Would you like my newspaper?” he asked, holding it out to her. “I’m finished.”

  “Thank you,” she said, and took it, her slim hand reaching across the empty seats between them. She wore no wedding ring. Of course, neither did he. “Oh,” she said, and smiled at him again. “I already read this one.”

  They should be having lunch together at an outdoor cafe, enjoying the early autumn day. He thought of Olivia. They had met in a movie line so long ago, but they had both gone there to see the picture. He hadn’t come here today to see this picture, he had come to indulge his fantasy. A beautiful stranger, interest at first sight, let’s run away together, I have the whole weekend. Tell me why you chose me. Turn me on.

  “I’ve seen you,” she said. “In the neighborhood. You have a golden retriever.”

  “Yes,” he said. “Buster.” His heart began to pound.

  “You’re sweet with him.”

  “I’m a sweet guy.”

  She pondered this for a minute. “You should have an Irish setter,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “To match your hair.” She’s flirting. I’m going to get this one. Yes!

  “Then I guess you have to have my retriever,” Roger said lightly. “To go with yours.”

  “Can I really trust a man who would give away his dog?”

  “It would give me an excuse to visit him.”

  She fastened her gaze to his and chewed down on her lip, as if she was asking herself what kind of man tried to pick up women in movie theaters. But he thought men probably tried to pick up a woman who looked like her wherever she went. Besides, she was picking him up, more than the other way around.

  “Isn’t this silly,” he said, indicating the space between them. “I can’t hear you.”

  “You’re not waiting for anybody?” she asked.

  “No.” I’m waiting for you.

  “Well, then,” she said lightly, and ran her fingers through her hair. Then she got up and moved to the seat next to his.

  “I’m Roger,” he said. He held out his hand and smiled.

  “I’m Wendy.”

  They shook hands. Hers was cool and delicate. He felt his getting damp and he could hardly catch his breath. He hoped his voice didn’t sound odd. “We’ve made a terrible mistake,” he said.

  “Oh?”

  “Coming here to this stuffy place on such a beautiful day. There may never be a day like this ever again.”

  The lights went out and there was a drawing of a soft-drink cup and a container of popcorn on the screen. “Refreshments are on sale in the lobby,” a deep voice said from the sound system.

  “Wouldn’t you rather have champagne?” Roger whispered.

  A pause. “Yes.”

  “Outdoors. At a sidewalk cafe.”

  “I like that.”

  Work fast, he thought. When the picture starts she’ll get caught up in it and you’ll have to wait till it’s over. By then she’ll be a different person.

  The drawing changed to one of pursed lips with a finger on them. “Please, no talking in the theater,” the voice admonished.

  “Talking,” Roger whispered, “is a vanishing art.”

  “But are you good at it?”

  “I pretend to be.”

  She smiled.

  “Shush!” the elderly woman in front said, turning around to glare at them, and turned away again.

  A bright ray of light touched a drawing of a trash can with a ping. “Please deposit all trash in receptacles,” the deep voice said. Roger held up his ticket stub.

  “Such as this?” he whispered. Wendy smiled again. “Come on,” he said, and held out his hand. She gave him a long and careful look, while he felt the thumping of his heart rock his body with the combination of the fear of rejection and the anticipation of the relief of success. Then she took his hand. They ran up the aisle together and out into the sunlight on the street.

  He took her to a restaurant on Madison Avenue with little tables set out on the sidewalk, with white tablecloths and tiny bunches of flowers on them. Everyone there looked European and was smoking cigarettes. They ordered champagne, which came in delicate flutes.

  “What do you think of fantasies?” he asked.

  “Nothing wrong with fantasies as long as they don’t hurt anybody.”

  He thought for an instant of Olivia and then shut her out of his mind. She was in California and she would never know. “You’re so pretty,” he said. “You don’t have an angle in which you’re not beautiful.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Why did you pick me?” Roger asked.

  “You picked me.”

  “But you let me.”

  “I love your face,” she said slowly. “I love your eyes. And your hands. They’re very sensitive.”

  “I’m a doctor,” he said.

  “I’m not surprised.”

  “A veterinarian.”

  “Then you are kind.”

  “I am,” he said.

  “Kindness,” she said, “is more of a lost art than conversation.”

  “Who could ever be unkind to you?”

  “Oh . . .” she said, and let it trail off. She sipped her champagne.

  “I would protect you forever,” he said, and just for that instant he meant it. He wondered what it would be like to have her in bed for a week. In this fantasy there was no AIDS, no danger. And besides, in the real world he had a package of condoms in his pocket.

  “Say that again,” she murmured.

  “I would protect you forever.”

  “You’re turning me on.”

  “Am I?”

  “You have no idea. Do you do this
often? Strange women in movie theaters?”

  “Never,” he said.

  “Public places?”

  “No. Do you?”

  “No,” she said. “I’m a stockbroker. I’m extremely straight and proper. I work very hard and I like to be alone. It helps me unwind. It’s just that you . . . you brought out something in me. I don’t know. I really never act like this.”

  “I never did but I always wanted to,” Roger said. “Just once in my life.”

  “Can we take a walk now?” she said.

  They walked hand in hand up Madison Avenue, and when they reached the corner where there was a red light they kissed and held each other. He knew she could tell he was aroused, but she didn’t move away until the light changed. “Where are we walking to?” he asked.

  “My apartment.”

  He felt the throbbing in his groin and thought how crazy it was, and hoped they didn’t run into anyone he knew. “Do you really want to do this?” he asked.

  “Yes. Don’t you?”

  “You have no idea.”

  She lived in a big old white building with a formal lobby and a doorman. They walked in, out of the autumn sunshine, into the soft golden glow of artificial light.

  “Miss Wilton,” the doorman said, nodding. “Dr. Hawkwood.”

  “Hello, Victor,” they both answered pleasantly.

  As soon as they got into her apartment they tore off their clothes and Roger entered her without foreplay. He did not use the condom in his pocket. She began to come almost immediately, and after what he considered a decent interval of self-restraint he did, too.

  He had been having an affair with Wendy for six months now—his first affair since he had met Olivia eleven years ago. He had met her at the gym. The Stairmaster, the nineties equivalent of the singles bar. She was seductive and playful and he was surprised that she liked him. He had bought her a juice. Before they finished it they had sensed a kind of complicity in each other.

  The next time they met at the gym he took her to lunch. She was so wise, so knowing, reaching into a part of him he had been too serious—or perhaps too afraid—to see. After a brief period, when they realized they were sexual conspirators, he stopped working out three times a week and worked out only twice, telling Olivia he was going to the gym four times, and therefore leaving two days a week when he could sneak away to have sex with Wendy.