She helped clear the living room, and while Alexandra washed the dishes, Cassy had her permission to poke around. Cassy was stalling about going home (to God only knew what), and she knew Alexandra knew it. They were both yawning their heads off.
Cassy started looking at the photographs hanging just outside the kitchen in the front hall.
“I can spot your mother a mile away,” she called out.
A laugh. “We all look like Mom,” Alexandra called back.
“But you have your father’s mouth. This is your father—this man sitting at the desk?”
“Yes.”
“What does he do?”
“He used to be a congressman. Now he’s in private practice again. As a lawyer.” Alexandra came out into the hall, drying the steamer.
Cassy’s brow furrowed. “Your father isn’t Paul Waring, is he?”
“Uh-huh.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No.”
Cassy looked at his picture again. “I remember his health insurance bill.”
“That got killed,” Alexandra finished, returning to the kitchen. “They called him a socialist.”
“Is he?” Cassy laughed.
“No.”
After a while, “How many brothers and sisters do you have?”
“Three brothers, one sister. Paul’s the oldest. Then Elizabeth. Lincoln and David. And then me.” She came out again, holding the dish towel. She pointed to a group wedding photograph. “That’s Mom, Dad, my grandfather, Paul—he’s an assemblyman; that’s Linc, he’s a rock singer; David’s a lawyer; and Elizabeth teaches high school English.”
“Lincoln’s a rock singer?”
“I know,” she laughed. “You’d never know from that picture. He has orange and purple hair, last I heard.”
Cassy smiled. “Anyone married?”
“They’re all married. Right out of college. Linc got married in college.” She pointed. “These are my nieces and nephews.”
“Wow,” Cassy said.
“I know. The Warings are known for propagating at an alarming rate.”
“Hmmm,” Cassy said, straightening up. “It’s sure a good-looking family. “
Alexandra smiled, folding the towel.
“Who’s that?” Cassy asked. It was a picture of a young blond woman waving from a dock. “She’s very pretty.”
“An old friend,” Alexandra said, moving near Cassy to look at it.
Cassy waited for details but none came. “What’s her name?” Cassy finally asked.
“Lisa,” Alexandra said, walking out.
Cassy looked at the picture again and fiddled with one of her earrings, thinking. She leaned closer, examined the picture again, and then walked out to the kitchen. “Alexandra?”
“In the living room,” came the answer.
She was rewinding the video cassette.
Silence.
“I liked Gordon very much,” Cassy said.
Alexandra was watching the digital counter. “We knew each other at Stanford.” She glanced over. “He’s been great to me since I moved here.”
Silence.
“Quite frankly,” Cassy said, lowering herself into an easy chair, “I was jealous that night.” Alexandra’s head shot around. “All the way home I wondered what it would be like to go home with Gordon instead of Michael.”
Alexandra turned back to the machine.
Cassy crossed her legs and smoothed the denim on the top. “Does that sound awful to you?”
“No. It sounds very normal to me.” The tape stopped and Alexandra pushed the eject button. “Gordon liked you too. If you want... “she started, putting the tape back in its case. She smiled at Cassy. “Well, I mean, if you ever—” She laughed, embarrassed. “Of course you could have anyone you want,” she finished, moving across the room to put the tape back.
Cassy laughed slightly and then said, “You certainly don’t sound very attached to him.”
“I am,” she called from the work area, “but not the way you think.” Pause. “I was once—we lived together, actually. But,” she said, coming back into the room, “that was a long time ago.”
Cassy watched Alexandra as she walked over to the couch, drumming her fingers on the arm of the chair. “I really should be going home,” she said.
Alexandra sat down and tossed a pillow in her hands. “You’re welcome to stay as long as you would like. Or come again. Any time.”
;Cassy let her head fall back against the chair. “It’s been quite a day.”
“Yes,” Alexandra agreed, catching the pillow.
Silence.
“You really haven’t ever slept with Michael, have you?”
“Cassy!”
“Sorry.” She got up and pulled down her sweater. She smiled and walked over to the couch. “I’m sorry, it just occurred to me that it would kill me if I found out later that all along you had been—you were—” She sat down on the end of the couch. “What I mean to say is—thank you for everything you did today, for being so wonderful. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”
Alexandra drew her back up against the end of the couch. “You’re welcome.”
“And I’d like to be a friend to you too. Help you, if I can.” She looked down at her hands, turning her wedding band. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
Silence.
“Alexandra—” She raised her eyes. “Don’t go with Michael. Under any circumstances, don’t go with him. Not now. Not the way he is.” She lowered her eyes. “It was inexcusable for me to talk the way I did today bringing up that idea.” Pause. “I wasn’t thinking—” She pounded her thigh with a fist. “Damn it,” she said, looking up at Alexandra, “I was thinking. I was thinking of him, of his career—at the risk of yours.” Pause. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”
Alexandra smiled.
The eyes.
“There’s nothing to be sorry about,” she said gently. “We were only talking.”
“Still... “Cassy touched the leaf of a plant on the windowsill behind them.
Silence.
“Cassy.”
Alexandra had her arms wrapped around her legs and was resting her chin on her knees. She dropped one hand to pluck at her sock. “There’s something I want to tell you—about me.” Alexandra’s eyes skipped up briefly—checking to see that Cassy was listening—and dropped again. “You’ll be able to blackmail me for a thousand years.”
Cassy waited.
“I, uh—” Alexandra exhaled, slowly, and bounced her chin on her knees three times, debating.
Silence.
After a moment Cassy said, “I think I know what you’re going to say.”
Alexandra’s eyes met hers.
“It’s okay,” Cassy said. She smiled. “This is New York, you know.”
Quietly. “Do you really know?”
Gently. “That you’re gay.”
“Oh, God,” Alexandra groaned, “is that what you think?” She fell back and looked to the ceiling. “One affair makes me gay?” She sat up. “Please don’t say that. Even I don’t know what I am—please.”
“I’m sorry,” Cassy said, “I spoke too quickly. I just—well, I thought there was—you—I don’t know, I—” She sighed, smiled and then shrugged. “What the hell do I know? You tell me.”
Alexandra looked agonized. She ran a hand through her hair. “This wasn’t such a great idea,” she said, blinking rapidly. She took a deep breath and let it out. “Well, anyway, now you know who Lisa is. Was.”
“Alexandra,” Cassy said quietly, reaching forward to touch her arm. Alexandra looked out the window. “It doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t. Who you love is not important—the fact that you can love is. Really. The rest of it—” She gestured with her hand. “Look at me. I’ve been Miss Goody Two-shoes my entire life and look what it got me.” She shook her head, slowly. “Alexandra—You’ve got to live the life that makes you happy. And whether it’s a woman or a man�
��whose business is it?”
“The whole world’s,” came the reply, “or at least the tri-state area’s.”
“Are you worried about that?” Cassy leaned forward. “Alexandra, dear darling girl, I hate to tell you, but you’re not the first-bisexual-woman to be in the public eye.” She fell back with a laugh. “You’re going to have to do better than that to win sympathy from me.”
Silence. Alexandra brought her hands to her face and Cassy realized she was crying.
“Don’t,” Cassy said softly.
“It’s easy for you to say,” Alexandra said, springing from the couch. “Nobody gives a damn about what goes on in your marriage, just so long as you’re married.” She whirled around, covering her mouth with her hand. “Cassy, I’m sorry,” she said, sinking back down onto the couch. “I didn’t mean that. I’m just—I’m—” She lowered her face into the crook of her arm on the back of the couch.
Cassy leaned forward, patted her back and let her hand rest there a moment. Alexandra’s shoulders were trembling. “It’s okay, Alexandra, it’s okay,” she murmured. “We’re both so tired—so much has happened today.” Pause. “You must know though, Alexandra, that what you’ve told me makes me respect you all the more. Admire you all the more.” Pause. “You’re a wonderful young lady, you know. And you’ve got one of the biggest and brightest careers ahead of you... “Sigh. “And I understand,” she said, patting her back again, “how difficult things are for you right now. Living in a strange place... all the excitement... all the pressure that’s on you... “Cassy withdrew her hand.
Alexandra sat up and wiped her eyes with her sleeve. She cleared her throat, swept her hair up with both hands and held it there. She sniffed. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then she dropped her hands into her lap. “But would you understand,” she said, “if I told you I think I’m falling in love with you?”
16
AMANDA AND HOWARD
AND MISSY THE CAT
Before Amanda and Howard left St. Luke’s Hospital, an orderly had run up from the emergency room waving Mrs. Goldblum’s keys. “She kept talking about her cat and I promised I would get these to you,” he had said, handing them to Amanda. “You’ll take care of the cat, won’t you?”
And so Amanda and Howard were standing in Mrs. Goldblum’s apartment, and Amanda was staring at the cat as if it were from outer space. It meowed. “I think it knows,” she said, wincing.
Amanda didn’t know anything about cats. On her grandmother’s farm they had run wild and eaten field mice. Howard had grown up with a dog, not a cat, but had enough of a suburban heritage to remember his friends who had had one—and he tried to remember all the things they would need. Let’s see, there was food. And something to carry the cat in-a box or something. Oh, and yes, something for the cat to go to the bathroom in.
They could only find half a can of cat food in the refrigerator. The kitty litter box was a mess, and there didn’t seem to be any extra litter around. And then Amanda sat down and started to cry that Mrs. Goldblum couldn’t come back here and live alone and where was she going to live... Howard stood next to her and rubbed the back of her head, talking softly, telling her that everything was going to be all right and that, right now, at this very moment, everything was all right. Mrs. Goldblum was safe and sound.
They gave the cat the half can of cat food and set out to find a store that was open where they could get what they needed. They ended up throwing themselves on the mercy of a delicatessen owner who kept a cat in his store. (It was sleeping in the window, under the heat of the lights, in the grapefruit bin.)
The deli owner gave them a box to put “keety” in. He handed them cans of cat food and some dry food in foil envelopes called Tender Vittles. (“How utterly bizarre,” Amanda said to Howard, looking at the packages, “hillbilly cat food.”) He lugged out a twenty-five-pound bag of kitty litter, and they all agreed that a gigantic aluminum-foil roasting pan would do for a litter box. “Vat else?” the deli owner pondered.
“Don’t I need a toy or something?”
“Take dis,” he urged, scooping up a Super Ball from the rack by the register.
They went back and got Missy the cat. Missy did not like the box at all, and howled and scratched inside of it until Amanda was tearfully convinced she must be killing it. Howard said the cat probably thought it was going to the vet’s, and took the box from her. Amanda struggled with the sack of kitty litter and the other deli purchases and they pressed onward down the Drive.
Missy loved Amanda’s apartment. As soon as they opened the box in the front hall she sprang out of it and shot down the hall to the living room. Amanda and Howard scrambled after her, arriving in time to see her climb up the curtains. Howard stretched up and just missed grabbing her as she leaped to the ground and skidded out through the passageway to the kitchen. She ran flat out—ears back—to the writing room, sailed up onto Amanda’s writing desk, hit manuscript pages, slid all the way across, and landed softly on the ground on the other side. Her back paws furiously clawed the wood floor for a running start and then she was off again, her rear end swinging around the doorway. She flew down the back hall to the bedroom and, at long last, came to rest under Amanda’s bed.
On their hands and knees, peering under the bed and seeing nothing but two shining eyes, Amanda and Howard decided to leave her be.
They put down some newspaper on the kitchen floor and set out a saucer of water and some of the hillbilly cat food. Cupping his hands around his mouth, Howard tried out various ways of calling her—while Amanda laughed and laughed—and then, when he started making psst-psst-psst noises, all of a sudden there was Missy the cat, arching her back, rubbing against the kitchen doorway. She spotted the food and trotted over, tail held high, and sniffed at it. Then she went over and, to Amanda’s delight, rubbed against her leg. “She likes me,” she said, bending and tentatively patting the cat on the head.
They decided to set up the kitty-litter operation under the sink in the powder room off the writing room. “We have to show her where it is,” Howard said when they were finished, and he went back to the kitchen to get her. He plunked her down into the litter, the cat sniffed, scratched once and then bolted, sending kitty litter everywhere.
“I thought cats were supposed to be clean,” Amanda said.
Back in the kitchen, Amanda poured them each an Amstel Light and fixed a platter of sliced apples, pears, bread and cheese, and Howard tried calling home. No answer. No answer. “Melissa went to the dinner party,” he said, hanging up.
They sat down at the kitchen table and talked about the afternoon. The food did much to perk them up; Amanda’s color had come back and so had her smiles. Howard carved a face out of a piece of apple and held it up to her mouth. “Hi,” he said.
Amanda looked at it and said hi back. And then she ate it.
When they finished eating, when they were both on their second beers, Howard carefully, calmly, told Amanda about Rosanne’s husband. He was nervous that Amanda might break down again, but he was wrong. She didn’t. Instead, she just looked sad, sighed, and listlessly toyed with the cheese with the knife. “It was bound to happen, sooner or later,” she finally said. She dropped the knife on the plate. “He was a drug addict, you know.”
“Was he? Melissa said something about that once.”
Amanda nodded, still staring down at the cheese. “Yes. I posted bail for him once. They told me that, the police did. They warned me I’d never see the money again.” Amanda got up from the table. “I am feeling a bit strange,” she said softly. “Would you mind if we sat in the living room?”
Howard followed her in and Amanda turned on a single lamp. He sat down on the settee. Amanda set a match to the wood in the fireplace and stood there, hand on the mantel, watching it for a few minutes. She put the screen back in place, took an afghan out of a cabinet under the secretary, and then curled up in the wing-back chair across from Howard to watch the fire.
“It’s a t
errible thing to say,” Amanda said quietly, “but perhaps it’s for the best.” She brought the afghan up higher over her shoulders, eyes still on the fire.
Howard sipped his beer and rested the glass on his leg.
“Have you ever lost anyone?” Amanda murmured.
“Just my grandparents.”
“Hmmm. Me too. My grandmother—Nana—” For the first time, she looked over at him. “When Nana died, it wasn’t real to me. I told myself she had just gone away. I suppose that was the only way I could accept it.” She looked back to the fire and snuggled her head against the wing back. “It didn’t really sink in until I left Christopher. I went down to Nana’s, to the farm...” She squeezed her eyes shut.
“You loved your grandmother very much.”
Amanda nodded. She opened her eyes and Howard could see them glistening in the firelight. “And she was awful, really.” She sniffed and turned to Howard. She laughed under her breath. “Nana was terrible to my mother—she disowned her when she married my father. Because he was Jewish.” She chuckled and shook her head. “She sure loved me, though. And she loved Mother too. And my father, eventually.” She dropped her voice. “Her nose was just terribly out of joint over Mother not marrying a Baltimore buffoon.”
“What about your grandfather?”
“Oh, Grandfather?” Amanda rubbed her forehead. “Grandfather never spoke, not that I can recall. He was always shut up in his study. Mother says she thinks he had something going with the cook.” Another chuckle. “Nana used to say that Grandfather was more sociable dead than he was when he was alive.”
Howard laughed.
“I never knew my father’s parents. They died when he was very young. Of influenza, can you believe it? And Father’s brother died in the war.”
“Who is that?” Howard asked, pointing to the portrait over the fireplace.
“Nana’s mother, Amanda Tinker.” She bowed her head. “My namesake. It has been said that I resemble her.”
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