No one else said anything. But Tom and Scarlet looked at each other and then averted their eyes, trying to suppress their smiles.
III
proximate and ultimate causes
ten
MAY 2002
“I WALKED ALL NIGHT,” Lou says, breathless, barely nodding as she accepts the mug of coffee Cora has poured for her. She throws herself into the cushioned rocker by the window, flinging her legs over one arm of the chair and taking a gulp of the coffee. She looks less like someone who’s walked all night than a diva who’s just stepped onstage. She’s dressed in fashionably wrinkled linen pants and a cashmere sweater, and she leaves a clean, haunting scent in her wake; she’s a woman who even wears perfume gracefully. Her entrances, as far back as Scarlet can remember, have always been this grand.
Louise Sandrine Begley—she’d kept her own last name when she’d married Ted in 1975; Addie had been delighted by that, impressed by Lou’s courage—though maybe it had taken less courage in Washington, D.C., in the mid-’70s than it would have required in Bucks County in 1967. She could have been onstage, a diva—maybe not a singer, but surely a powerful actress. She has remained stunning through the births of two daughters and a series of painful betrayals and eventually the bitter implosion of her marriage. Her skin is clear and youthful, even at fifty-eight; her dark hair is so fashionably cut that the wind has only made it look better, her makeup intact despite a night spent on the restless beach and quiet streets of Cider Cove.
“Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve done that? Probably not since Burnham, not since Addie and I took the bus into New York and walked around Greenwich Village until dawn. Remember, Cora? Remember when we used to do that?”
Cora nods distractedly. It’s clear she’s frustrated to have been interrupted after the bit of news Scarlet has just dropped in her lap. Scarlet is frustrated too, but also relieved. She will have to tell Cora more about her pregnancy eventually, but she’s not particularly eager to do so.
Cora picks up her newspaper again. Often she seems to be trying to tune Lou out. Theirs is a friendship Scarlet has never understood, and she wonders if it will continue now that Addie—who seemed to be the one thing they shared—is gone.
“I recall you doing that more often than Addie did,” Cora says, pausing to hand the basket of muffins over to Lou. “But I do remember the night you both missed the last bus back. You came back to our room and drank a pot of coffee, and then Addie went off to the Art Building and you slept for twenty-four hours.”
“Yes!” Lou bites into a muffin with gusto, then swings her legs to the floor and leans toward Cora and Scarlet conspiratorially. “But not till I’d gone off to find someone to sleep with. New York did that to me, every time; all that art, all that life—it made me just starving, for food, sex, everything.”
“Ah, yes.” Cora nods, remembering this as well apparently, and as always Scarlet is flummoxed by the lack of censure, the same lack of judgment or criticism as in Addie’s responses to Lou. Was it her imagination, or was Cora much primmer than this? And wouldn’t Addie have seen this kind of talk, and this kind of behavior, as hopelessly frivolous?
It’s possible that her picture of Lou as frivolous, promiscuous, a bit of a lightweight intellectually—a rather silly, if harmless, woman—came from Tom. It always seemed to Scarlet that he never really warmed to Lou.
“Who might it have been then?” Cora asks, glasses perched on her nose, looking disconcertingly grandmotherly. “You didn’t know Ted yet, so it couldn’t have been him. Maybe that theater major? Arthur something—what was his name?”
“Oh, who knows? It could have been any of a number of theater majors, art majors. Psychology majors were always the easiest to find, as I recall. Lord, that campus was full of beautiful, obliging boys.”
They all know this is a kind of show, and everyone is expected to participate. So Scarlet smiles and raises her eyebrows, assuming her role. “That’s a version of the story I’ve never heard before,” she says.
And then she is torn, as she always is with Lou. Or at least as she’s been for the last sixteen years, since that dreary fall when Addie was hiding out in Lou’s house, when Scarlet traveled to Washington with Tom to visit her on the weekends, all of them pretending there was nothing all that unusual about meeting up this way, furtively, enjoying Lou’s lavish dinners and good wine, making over her pretty, spoiled daughters, Suzy and Liz. Ted was there on occasion too, also trying to act as if this was normal. For people like Addie and Tom.
But the tension was so thick it made Scarlet feel sick. She’d arrive back at Cora’s late on a Sunday night and go immediately to bed, not emerging from her room for an entire day, skipping school, talking to no one. Cora never asked questions.
One dinner in particular has stayed with Scarlet, from later in Addie’s time in Washington, near the end, when she finally went home to Burnham. Addie seemed more subdued on that visit, almost distracted, and Tom asked Scarlet to join the so-called adults for dinner instead of eating early, with Suzy and Liz.
“Everyone behaves better when you’re there,” he said, though Scarlet hadn’t seen any evidence of that.
It was a particularly oily meal. For years Scarlet would remember the oil of the freshly made salad dressing, pasta swimming in olive oil, some rich cut of meat dripping fat on her plate, its pink center leering up at her. She picked at the food, wishing she could have just had macaroni and cheese with the girls an hour earlier, tuning in and out of the conversation. It was much the same as usual. Ted talking academic politics, Tom trying gamely, at first, to join in. But that night he seemed especially tired. “I suppose it’s a different game at a school like Georgetown,” he finally said, apologetically. “Or maybe I’m just too old for the game by now. I don’t know, Ted, I mainly teach my classes and do my research.”
Then some rejoinder from Lou. “Imagine that, Ted? Teaching and doing research, instead of getting drunk after Friday colloquia and chasing the nearest skirt?”
An awkward silence after this, nothing but the clinking of glasses and forks for a while, until Ted turned to Addie. Scarlet was prepared for this, though she wondered why he kept bothering. Every time Ted (or Lou, or anyone for that matter) tried to reason with Addie about her passions, her despair over unchecked development, the contamination of groundwater, global warming, anything, she’d argue for a while, then put up her hands and say, “It’s a simple question really, isn’t it? If I’m wrong, who loses? Various multimillionaires. If you’re wrong, who loses?” Then she’d pause, and smile. “Your children.” Another pause, and then, “So I’m not sure why you’re arguing with me.”
Her moral superiority, her absolute confidence, were actually admirable, Scarlet sometimes felt. She kind of enjoyed these qualities of Addie’s, when she wasn’t on the receiving end.
On this occasion, though, Ted took a slightly different approach. “So, Addie,” he said, “what is it with you and these youthful anarchists you’ve been consorting with?” He’d had several glasses of wine by this time.
Addie stared at him before taking a slow, deliberate sip of water. “I’m not sure what you mean by ‘anarchists,’ Ted.”
“Well, isn’t it a form of anarchy to set several new homes on fire? I can hardly think of a better example, actually.” He looked around the table for corroboration. Tom stared at his plate, and Scarlet set down her fork, unable to pretend to eat any more. Lou’s lip was curled in a nasty sneer; she was ready for this, it was clear. Probably she’d been waiting for it all day.
“Well, that surprises me, Ted,” Addie said. “I’d think you’d have all kinds of time to come up with far better examples, there in your cozy Georgetown office, far more interesting examples of ‘anarchy’ and ‘dissent ’ than our little battles up in rural Pennsylvania.”
Lou snorted with laughter.
Ted smiled, then tipped his glass toward Addie. “On the contrary, Addie. I’m fascinated by your little battles. And so I
really must ask you, how did it feel to strike that match? Or wait, surely you’re not going to tell us you didn’t actually do it. Why in the world would you be spending all this time at my house if that’s the case?”
“Ted,” Lou said then, as Tom rose from the table and excused himself. But Ted ignored her.
“Of course, I could understand your enjoying all this time with my lovely wife, the fine wine, the wonderful meals she serves—”
“Ted, just shut up, please.”
He looked over at Lou. “Why? Why should I shut up? I’m simply trying to understand Addie’s strategy here.” He turned to face Addie again. “Is this a strategy of some sort, Addie? All part of some master plan you and your friends have?”
Scarlet expected Addie to take her usual approach. So what if Ted was twisting the argument a bit this time, personalizing it, making it a little more uncomfortable for Addie, for everyone? Surely, Scarlet thought, Addie would still find a way to her moral high ground, the perch she always landed on, smiling down at everyone below her. So it surprised her, when she looked over at her mother, to see her staring at her plate, speechless, and—though Scarlet could hardly believe this—seemingly on the verge of tears.
Ted, however, was only warming up. He took a big swallow of wine, then reached up to loosen his tie. He’d grown heavier in recent years, his neck thicker, a slight paunch pressing against the buttons of his well-pressed shirts. He was still handsome, though, his wavy hair peppered with gray, kept just long enough to give him a youthful, casual look. Except for the expensive suits, and the paunch, he could have been modeling himself on Tom. At times it shocked Scarlet to recall that her father had once been this man’s teacher.
“You get to be the hero for a while, maybe? Is that it?” He smiled at Addie as he spoke, ignoring her obvious discomfort. “To hell with your husband and daughter, to hell with any kind of normal life for them. What’s more important is being a hero for the cause, right?”
Lou, on the other hand, wasn’t smiling now. “I said shut up, Ted. Just shut the fuck up!”
He turned to her. “Oh, and I suppose you’re suddenly ready to defend this kind of juvenile behavior? Didn’t you just say, at this very table two nights ago, that you’re surprised Addie hasn’t outgrown all of this by now?”
Now Lou slammed down her fork, then her big linen napkin. It was a shame, Scarlet thought at the time, that all that rich food was going to go to waste; she didn’t get the sense that Lou and Ted ate leftovers. For a moment, she let herself get lost in interesting, if irrelevant, questions about how Addie might be dealing with all the excess, and all the waste, in a household like theirs. It was easier to think about that than about what Addie might be feeling at that moment. Or about the fact that, deep down, some part of Scarlet was enjoying this. Weren’t these the very questions she had longed to ask Addie herself?
Now Addie excused herself. “Fuck you, Ted,” Lou said, and ran after her.
Scarlet carried Addie’s and her plates into the kitchen and headed upstairs to say good-night to Suzy and Liz. When she glanced into the dining room on her way past, Ted was eating again, and reading a magazine. Later, when she went outside to get her bag from Tom’s car, she could hear Tom and Addie arguing, in the apartment above the garage. No one said anything about that evening for the rest of the visit. And after that evening, Scarlet always ate dinner with Suzy and Liz.
Suzy and Liz, who were only five and seven at the time, were already angry; they were difficult kids. But who could blame them for their surliness? Scarlet thought. They were only reacting to the same things she hated: fake gaiety, too much drinking, all that explosive anger under the surface, occasionally erupting in nasty exchanges like the one that night. Exchanges that, amazingly, no one ever commented on later.
Tom, who mostly sat back and watched, eating well but drinking little, often left for long walks alone: he looked like a confused child himself. How in God’s name did we get here? Scarlet knew he was thinking. She felt, watching him, that he must hate Lou. Lou, who kept on making the dinners and orchestrating the museum visits and gathering everyone for movies at night, even though it was clear—because she did, in fact, say it often enough, at dinner, after a cocktail or two and a couple glasses of wine—that she thought Addie’s actions were foolish.
Scarlet wanted to hate Lou too, for reasons she couldn’t explain. But even then—in the midst of that gray and bitter fall, when her mother fled Pennsylvania, accused of colluding in an ideologically driven act of arson—even then she could see the tenderness Lou felt for Addie. The way she cared for her, despite the obvious strain it put on her already crumbling marriage. Despite the fact that she professed to find Addie’s convictions ludicrous.
To this day Scarlet remains uncertain, divided—still torn between impatience with Lou’s childish narcissism and admiration for her chutzpah, her thumb in the eye of propriety and womanly sweetness and other forms of wasted energy. For a while she thought she wanted to be like Lou. Beautiful, pampered, sharp-edged, and memorable. What she didn’t want was the sadness behind it all.
“What I always heard about was the coffee and the Art Building and the sleeping for twenty-four hours,” Scarlet says now, continuing to play along. “Somehow the sex with beautiful boys part got left out.”
“Yes, well, you’re what, thirty-four now? And enjoying your own series of beautiful boys, I hope. Maybe now you’re ready for the awful truth, Scarlet.” Lou laughs and swings her legs over the arm of the rocker again. She apparently walked all night in one of the more beautiful pairs of sandals—sleek, strappy things—Scarlet has ever seen. She is admiring Lou’s perfect pedicure when Lou points an accusing finger at her.
“I was nearly your age when I decided it was time to put an end to all that and get married and really mean it, and have a family and settle and put down roots, and blah, blah, blah.” She rolls her eyes and sweeps her hand through her hair defiantly. “It’s a trap that you can still avoid, if you’re smart enough to do so.
“And look at you! You look fantastic—you’ve got at least ten more years of sex with beautiful men if you keep doing whatever it is you’re doing.” She takes a lusty bite out of a second muffin, then adds, “Have I told you, Scarlet, that you look lovelier than I think I’ve ever seen you? Doesn’t she, Cora?”
Cora nods, and the corners of her mouth twitch—with either a suppressed smile or a suppressed rebuttal, or both. Maybe, Scarlet thinks, she does look better than ever. She’s been running faithfully, her skin is in good shape, her hair suddenly seems to have a thickness and waviness it never had before. She is too awash in a sea of unfamiliar hormones to have any real confidence about her physical appearance, but enough people have told her, recently, that she’s “glowing” for her to believe everything people say about what pregnancy does for you.
“What in God’s name are you using to get your skin to look like that, by the way?” Lou asks, reaching for the carafe of coffee.
Scarlet feels the heat rising to her cheeks; a compliment from Lou—the only person from her parents’ generation, Addie and Tom included, ever to notice, much less comment on, her appearance—has always had this effect on her.
Cora seems on the verge of saying something, but Scarlet shoots her a look that says no. Not now. Not with Lou. And Cora nods, almost imperceptibly.
“I guess Cider Cove agrees with me,” is all Scarlet says, shrugging.
Lou stares at her for a moment, then smiles. “All right, fine. Keep your secrets. But if it’s Botox, I want to know where you’re getting it.” She laughs loudly, then suddenly grows pensive.
Scarlet is stunned for a moment; she can’t quite imagine where this has come from. Botox? she thinks. Please, Lou—I’m Addie and Tom Kavanagh’s daughter. I’ve given up caffeine and the occasional joint I used to smoke, and I’m no longer highlighting my hair. I’ve already scheduled an appointment with a group of midwives in New York, and I’m reading up on breastfeeding. Please, Lou.
And then Lou is sobbing, her face buried in her hands.
“Why not?” she says as she cries, her voice harsh and needlessly loud. “Why not Botox? Don’t you want to talk about Botox and all the other things the women I know talk about—when they aren’t talking about their decorators or bitching about the help, that is? Botox, plastic surgery, liposuction. Microdermabrasion. Laser vein therapy. Cosmetic dentistry. We’re a fascinating lot, let me tell you. Remarkably diverse in our interests.”
She laughs bitterly, then stares ahead of her, as if she’s talking to someone else, not to Cora or Scarlet. “What else do women have to talk about, at my age?” she asks, her voice dripping with contempt.
She covers her face with her hands again, and when she speaks, a minute later, her voice has suddenly changed. “All I’m saying,” she says, so softly Cora and Scarlet both lean forward to hear her, “all I’m saying, Scarlet, is remember what a fucking pack of lies it is, all of it.” She sniffs, wiping her eyes on the napkin Cora has handed her.
“Just don’t have children,” she says then. “That’s when it starts, that’s when it all crumbles around you. Look at us, look at all of us. My daughters barely talk to me.” She points to Cora. “Think of all Cora’s gone through. And Addie . . . oh, God, I won’t pretend to understand Addie. But much as she loved you and Tom, and of course she did, obviously she did, but still, look how crazy it made her, trapped there at Burnham with all those throwbacks to the nineteenth century, nowhere to go with all that talent, stuck there in that rotten old cabin.”
Cora seems to be staring into her coffee cup. “Stop it, Lou,” she whispers through clenched teeth.
“It’s all right,” Scarlet says. “I want to hear this.” She turns to Lou. “Go ahead, Lou.”
Lou looks up and out the window, then sighs deeply. “Christ,” she says at last. “Christ. You have to know I don’t mean that Addie shouldn’t have had you, Scarlet, that any of us shouldn’t have had kids. Or that Addie’s life was any worse than mine, or anyone else’s.”
In Hovering Flight Page 11