by Rona Jaffe
The family’s one luxury had been that they owned a little cabin on Candlewood Lake, and every summer they went there for two weeks and for weekends while the boys were growing up, until the boys grew up and grew apart, and made excuses not to come there anymore. Then she and her husband went alone. When he died, everyone was surprised that the cabin was worth so much more than they had paid for it.
It was gone now, and so was her apartment. She lived in this neat little room, with a roommate. There were two twin beds made up with chenille bedspreads, a shared night table on which was a small framed photograph of each of the respective dead husbands, a round table with a vinyl tablecloth and a live plant on it, and two chairs. In the corner there was a television set which Roger had bought her. There was no space for anything else.
She was sitting on the edge of her bed with her hands in her lap, doing nothing, when Roger and Olivia walked in. She looked up. They never knew in advance whether she would recognize them.
“Roger!” his mother said happily. Maybe it would be a good day.
“Hi, Mom.” He hugged his mother and handed her the cookies.
“Hello,” Olivia said. She put the new plant on the windowsill. She didn’t want to call his mother Mrs. Hawkwood after all these years, but she felt uncomfortable calling her Mom since she and Roger weren’t married, and it somehow seemed disrespectful calling such an elderly woman by her first name, although she knew that was her own problem, so most of the time she didn’t call her anything.
“Hello,” his mother said to her, with a friendly smile and eyes that showed no recognition at all. Well, maybe it wouldn’t be such a good day.
“We brought your favorite cookies,” Roger said.
‘That’s nice. Sit down.” Olivia sat on one of the two chairs and Roger sat next to his mother on the bed. “Do you want a milkshake?” his mother asked. “They bring you anything you want.”
“No thanks, we just had lunch.”
“The food here is good,” his mother said. “Where’s Virginia?”
“She’s not here.”
“Why not?”
“We’re divorced, Mom,” Roger said. “Long ago.”
She looked stricken. “Divorced?”
“You knew that.”
“Why did you get divorced?”
“We didn’t get along.”
“When did this happen?”
“Years ago.”
She nodded, thinking about it. “What’s over is over. Don’t be upset.”
“I’m not.”
“Good.” She patted his hand.
“This is Olivia, Mom.”
“Hello,” his mother said, still as if she had never seen Olivia before.
“Hi,” Olivia said, and smiled at her.
“Do you like your room?” Roger’s mother asked him.
Where are we now? Olivia wondered. Sometimes his mother thought this was a hotel.
“I’m not staying here.”
“If you don’t like your room you can sleep here in mine,” his mother said, concerned. “See, there’s another bed.”
“It’s okay.”
“Look at the ocean,” his mother said. She stood up and went to the window, where you could see the East River glittering below in the afternoon light. “Isn’t it beautiful? This is a very nice ship.”
Roger nodded. “Why don’t we have some television?” he asked, and got up and switched it on. There was a news program with a story about children. His mother looked at it for a moment and then turned to him, confused.
“Those children,” she said. “Are they here?”
“No.”
“Yes they are,” she said, nodding. “There’s a nursery on the ship for the children and they play there.” She ignored the set until the picture changed to a story about rioting and then she looked alarmed. “Oh!” she said. “Oh!”
Roger turned off the set.
His mother looked relieved. She sat down on the bed again. “Maybe we should have some tea,” she said. “The people who work here are very sweet. You can have anything you ask for. It’s wonderful to be able to afford a trip like this.”
“Yes,” Roger said quietly. He sighed.
“Did you see the water?”
“Yes.”
“Where are we now?”
“Where?” he asked.
“Where is the ship? You know sometimes I forget things.”
There was a pause. “Venice,” Roger said.
“Venice!” his mother breathed happily. “Ahh . . .”
They sat there for a while in silence, each with their own thoughts. Olivia watched them, moved. It was this way more and more often lately: Roger’s mother steeped in her fantasy, Roger trying to bring her back to reality and finally joining her in her world because it brought her contentment. Sometimes he even seemed to enjoy it, and led the game. It didn’t matter to either of them that what she thought was a ship was not a vaporetto, and that Venice had canals.
“Where’s Daddy?” his mother asked.
“On deck.”
“Where’s Mike?” Michael was Roger’s older brother. “I don’t want him to fall in the water.”
“He’s with Daddy,” Roger said.
“That’s good. When are we going to get off?”
“Well . . .”
“When we get closer we’ll get off and look around,” she said. “Tomorrow.” She smiled at Olivia. “And ask your friend to come.”
“Okay,” he said. “And the next day, guess where we’re going then.”
“You tell me,” his mother said.
“We’re going on to Rome. You always wanted to go to Italy.”
His mother nodded politely, her eyes bright, not sure where she had wanted to go but glad to be where she thought she was. “You’ll be there, too?”
“Yes.”
“It’s wonderful that we can all be here together.” She took his hand in her gnarled little one and held it tightly. Then, in a sweet, high voice, she began to sing.
“Oh, the hills and the hollows
and the bales of hay,
Where the road goes I’ll follow
till the end of the day . . .
of the day . . .”
“Of the day . . .” Roger joined in softly. Olivia fought back tears.
“I used to be pretty once,” his mother said.
“You still are.”
“Oh,” she said, and winked at Olivia. “Little boys just love their mothers.”
8
IT WAS THE SEASON between Thanksgiving and Christmas. The leaves had fallen off the tree in Olivia’s backyard, and without them and the flowers that were long gone the area she liked to think of as the garden looked pathetic. The metal furniture that had seemed so charming in summer now trembled in the wind like old bones. She hadn’t even gotten around to buying any Christmas presents yet, and every morning when she opened the New York Times the Bloomingdale’s ad with the big calendar of the days remaining to shop jumped out at her like a reproach. She would go to Julia’s of course. If she had to give something away she liked having the discount—she wasn’t as completely rebellious and crazy as the family thought.
Grady called. He was in New York, staying at his grandmother’s apartment. Because of the recession he hadn’t been able to sell it for nearly a year now, not even a nibble. He had decided to fix it up to look more modern, have it painted white, take off the faded old wallpaper in the kitchen and bathrooms and replace it with “something cheap, just to make it look good.” He and Taylor were paying maintenance every month, annoyed about it because they didn’t intend to live there. Olivia invited him to come over for Sunday lunch and spend the afternoon.
Hearing his voice on the phone, she was reminded of Mandelay, when she thought she knew him. He was an
adorable, bright and active child, and there hadn’t seemed much more to have to know. How intensely she had loved him! Life had seemed so much simpler then, but of course it had never been simple, it was only that she had been young and didn’t understand.
“I’m going to leave you two alone to discuss all your family stuff,” Roger said.
“Oh, you don’t have to,” Olivia said. “Grady would love to see you.”
“I’ll go to the gym. Maybe I’ll start on my Christmas shopping.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.” It occurred to her, as it sometimes did, that Roger hardly ever had any time away from her, that they were always in the same building, at work and at home. This space would be good for both of them.
“Okay,” she said. “I think I’ll make pasta and a big salad. He’d better not want red meat.”
“He’s from California,” Roger said. “I’m sure he doesn’t.”
Grady arrived at twelve thirty. The dogs nosed their way through the front door, barking and protective, and then decided he was a friend and bumped against him in greeting. He scratched their heads.
“Down,” Olivia said. “Enough.”
“It’s okay.” He had cut his hair in an unbecoming crew cut, and he looked tired and tense. When she hugged him he seemed bigger, more muscular than she remembered, hard as wood. He was so remote and formal she might as well be embracing a statue for all the warmth he gave her. Olivia held on to him for a moment, pouring her affection into him, and then he relaxed and smiled his curly little smile and became Grady again.
“Hello,” he said. “Where’s Roger?”
“Buying me a present, I hope. Come in.” She took his sheepskin coat. “Can I get you something to drink?”
“Bloody Mary,” Grady said. “Do you want me to make it?”
“Please.”
“One for you, too?”
“Not right now. I’ll have champagne with lunch. It’s not supposed to go with spaghetti, but as far as I’m concerned champagne goes with everything.”
“I like it, too,” Grady said.
They settled down in the kitchen. “How long have you been in New York?” Olivia asked.
“Two weeks.” He noticed her look of surprise and hurt. “I’ve been really busy. There’s a lot to do on Grandma’s apartment. And I saw Uncle Seymour. I think someone should watch how they’re running the store.”
“You do?”
“They can do anything they want. None of us care. We just get our checks.”
“But they’re big checks,” Olivia said. She wished he wouldn’t make trouble. She didn’t even want to think about it.
“I’m going to watch them from now on,” Grady said. “I’m going to look at the books. I’m going to come here more often, ask questions.”
She was surprised at the bitterness in his tone. He finished his Bloody Mary and poured another from the pitcherful he had made. “Will you have time?” she asked.
“Oh, yeah. Work has been really slow. I haven’t had a job in a year. That picture in Canada? I lied. Taylor and Tim and I just took a vacation.”
“But I thought you were Harry Hubbard’s stunt double,” Olivia said. Harry Hubbard was a macho, middle-aged star whose action movies Olivia would never have gone to see if it weren’t to watch Grady—or Grady’s body, which was really all she saw, usually hurtling through the air.
“Well,” Grady said, “he hasn’t had a job in a year either.”
“Why not?”
“People don’t like him as much as they used to. You know how that is. His last two movies bombed.”
“I never could figure out how you could do his stunts when you don’t even look like him.”
“Yes, I do,” Grady said. “Same body type. Same coloring. Same shape face. And I can move like him. I’m just younger, which I have to be to do what I do, but I don’t feel it anymore. I’m getting real beat up. I’m thirty-five years old and I’ve already had a hip replacement.”
“That’s terrible,” Olivia said, shocked. “Maybe you should quit and do something else.”
There was a pause. Grady finished his Bloody Mary and poured himself another. “I don’t think so,” he said.
“I bet you’re starving. I’ll start lunch.” She put a pot of water on to boil for the thick spaghetti she liked and hoped he wouldn’t get drunk. She had never thought of him as a heavy drinker, but then she knew so little about him these days, and in fact hadn’t for years except for the news from Aunt Julia. She put some feta cheese and a bowl of kalamata olives and a fresh baguette on the kitchen counter. “Nibble on this. Do you want to eat in the dining room or the kitchen?”
“Whatever you want.” He took an olive.
“I would think that having been Harry Hubbard’s stunt double and being so good you would be hired to do other work,” Olivia said.
“Oh, I would,” Grady said. “It’s just that you have to eat crow to work, and it’s not worth it to me. There’s not what I’d consider real money, and with the income I’m getting from the family it would put me into a higher tax bracket so I’d end up getting less than if I didn’t work at all.”
“But you want to work . . . ?”
“Sure,” he said. “So the stunt coordinator called and asked if I wanted to do a full body burn on a fan descender—that’s a device with an air brake on it on a spool. I would fall seventy-five feet through the air, and crash through a plate-glass window . . .”
“On fire?” Olivia said.
“Of course; it’s a fire gag. So he offers me four thousand dollars. I give him a bid of seven thousand because that’s what it’s worth to me. He says no, that’s too much, it’s not fair to the company, and he gets somebody else. So then there’s another picture, and I’d get eighteen hundred for the week, and roll a car at the end of the week. You get an adjustment for the stunt, and since this one involves a car rollover I say okay but I want three thousand more. He laughs at me. He gives the job to a friend of mine who I know did it for just an extra twelve hundred. A lot of guys are working cheap just to worm their way in. I could get hurt and my career could be over tomorrow; I want to make a lot of money. Now the word is out that Grady Silverstone is difficult. They say I have a big ego, that I’m pricing myself out.”
“Well, it’s very dangerous,” Olivia said. “They couldn’t pay me enough to do something like that, ever.”
“I love it, it’s what I do, but I’m not going to kiss butt to do it,” Grady said. “Especially since it ends up that I’d be paying the government for the privilege.”
It’s the family money, Olivia thought. It’s taken the edge off his ambition. If he loves being a stuntman so much, why does he care about his tax bracket? But the thought nagged at the back of her mind that there was something more, and she didn’t know what it was. “That’s awful,” she said.
“And that’s why I haven’t worked for a year.”
“You should try to be a stunt coordinator.”
“Not if they don’t like me,” Grady said. “In this business it’s all whether they like you or not.”
“In any business,” Olivia said. “Mine too.”
“Besides,” Grady said, “if you’re a stunt coordinator you’re never home. I’m tired of packing bags and living in hotels and eating movie food.”
“Well, today you’re going to eat my food.” She put the spaghetti into the boiling water and took the salad out of the refrigerator. “So what do you do all day when you’re not working?”
“I have plenty of things to do. I work out. Clean my motorcycles. I do work on my new house.”
“We’re going to eat soon.”
“Where’s the bathroom?” Grady asked.
She showed him where it was and decided to set the table in the dining room because it would be more festive. She used the good silver
and china because she wanted to make him feel special. She had two bottles of champagne chilling in the refrigerator, so Roger could have some with them when he came home, and she took two of the beautiful old cut crystal champagne glasses from the set of glasses her mother had bought long ago to use at Mandelay for family parties and put them at the places she had set for herself and Grady.
“Can I help you?” Grady called from the kitchen.
“It’s okay.”
“I’ll take the spaghetti out,” he called. “It’s ready.”
She wanted to say be careful, but she didn’t. And suddenly there was a loud, horrendous scream from the kitchen and Grady came running out with his sleeve on fire. “Owwwww . . .” he yelled, weaving around in pain. He ran to the window as if he were going to set the drapes on fire in his panic, and then he came running full tilt toward her as if he were going to set fire to her. He was drunk and frightened and she was terrified.
“Come to the sink!” she cried and tried to take hold of him, but he was too fast for her and went back to the kitchen screaming. The dogs were barking hysterically, getting underfoot. “Grady!”
She heard water running. Then he walked calmly out of the kitchen with his eyes gleaming in mischief, and the sweetest little smile, holding a wet towel to his blackened shirtsleeve, and then lifted the towel like a chef taking the silver cover off a special dish, revealing his completely normal, unburned arm.
“Gotcha,” he said.
“Grady! You shit!” She almost fainted from relief.
“I tested the spaghetti before I lit the match,” Grady said. “It should be ready about now.”
“How did you do that?”
“Zel Gel. I took some home from the set on my last job. It’s a fire-retardant gel. I coated my arm and hand with the gel in the bathroom, put on my shirt, put rubber cement on my sleeve, and set fire to that. Were you scared?”
He was her little cousin Grady again, and she didn’t know whether to hug him or shake him, so she did both, although he was too big and too solid to shake and she ended up rocking against his chest. “Yes, I was scared. Don’t do anything like that to me again.”