She knew he had no friends in the city and was untrusting of his parents—across town in their separate San Marino homes. He had no one else to stay with. “I’ll take you over to meet the Tadovitches,” she said.
“So I can stick around here and listen to you tear apart Father Genesis?” His voice was cold, hateful.
“I wasn’t.”
“What were you doing?”
“He’s gotten so different.”
“See?” Yet more cold and hateful.
Over eggs, though, he relented. “Father Genesis doesn’t want you to change. The others have to.”
“Orion, does he really think he can alter the world?”
“He has to start someplace.” Orion pushed away his half-eaten eggs. “I’d give anything to get back where I was. I’m so lost, so terribly lost without him.” The him sounded capitalized.
“But where’ll you stay?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
3
They arrived that night around eight, hot and grimed with grit from the Mojave Desert.
“Wow,” Alix said. “Built by the Addams family.”
“Van Vliets,” Roger replied, reaching for the bell.
As his finger hovered, the door was flung open. A huge shadowy cave engulfing one small, freckled girl. “It doesn’t work,” Cricket said, hugging Roger. “Doctor, doctor, doctor.” And she turned to embrace Alix. “Come in,” she said. “I’ve got eggplant casserole. Or would you rather shower first?”
“Shower,” they cried in unison. And laughed.
Wet-haired, they sat at the kitchen table, devouring Cricket’s casserole, mopping up tomatoey strings of cheese with whole-grain bread, the FM behind them giving Elton John while Cricket, without innuendo, transmitted family news.
“Vliet’s flying down,” she said.
“He’s not here?” Roger asked.
“No. Seattle.”
“Seattle? He didn’t write me that.”
“Saturday night he should be in.”
“Tomorrow?” Alix asked.
Cricket nodded.
A June breeze played with ivy on the gable. The big kitchen was cool, the big old house comfortable. Secure. They smiled at one another. Three already were home. Tomorrow they would be complete.
Alix woke before Roger. Covering his bare shoulders, she went to the window. She stared into the green of the huge old elm, leaning forward, delighted to find a nest on the branch below her. From tangled hedges birds sang. A dog poked his yipping snout between boards of the service yard fence. The Tadnitzes, wasn’t that what Cricket called the caretakers? Must be theirs.
“Alix?” Roger mumbled drowsily.
“They’ve got a Doberman.”
“Wha’?”
“The Tadnitzes have a killer dog.”
“Tadovitches,” he said. “Buster. He belonged to Aunt Raphaela, and he’s, let’s see, around fifteen. Very gentle.”
“Obvious cover-up.”
Roger folded his hands under his neck. “Today,” he said.
“What about it?”
“We tell ’em.”
“Tell who what?”
“Our families. That you’ve landed a self-supporting MD.”
“Not to put you down or anything, but self-supporting is hyperbole.” She sat on the bed.
“I won’t be paying tuition,” he said. “I’ll earn like you earn.”
“You’ve got some complex about that.”
He said, “Thursday.”
“Then what?”
“It takes three days to get a license, and—”
“Roger—”
“—we’re due in Palo Alto next weekend.”
“I mean, let’s keep it nice and slow and easy.”
“It’ll be more like a wedding down here.”
“Wedding?”
“What do you think I’ve been talking about all year?”
“Hopkins,” she said.
“Look, in Phoenix we agreed.”
“Phoenix. I remember Phoenix distinctly. You promised screwing would take up the slack between night calls and astronomy lessons. Oh God! And this was such a beautiful morning.”
Sunlight moved patterns on the comforter. A minute passed. Another.
She said, “Not that I’m afraid.”
“What of, sweet?”
“Everything. Them. Us.”
“It doesn’t matter what they say.”
“To me it does. Always.” She sighed.
“This cover-up, I hate it,” he said.
To Alix, marriage was a handleable concept—in the future. The remote future. Right now she feared it would gum things up: any change (especially one formalized in the presence of family) might well ruin them. Roger, though, all along’d had this archaic feeling he was doing her dirt, and ringing her finger with gold was his way of handling his problem. She made a small, sad grimace. “Thursday,” she assented.
He took her hand, the one with the antique garnet that she wore in trust for their future female infant. Awkwardly—it wasn’t Roger’s style—he kissed her palm, bending her fingers around his kiss.
Her lips parted and after a moment she stretched on the bed next to him, and they began exploring one another. They moved dreamily, as if time had forgotten them. Leaves filigreed shadows on their naked legs, a faint smell of must inhabited the bosomy old bed, the Doberman gave a series of yelping barks. Alix drew a long, trembling breath.
“Alix,” Roger said.
She opened her eyes.
“Forsaking all others, keep me only unto thee as long as we both shall live.”
Her pupils were huge, mysterious.
“To have and to hold,” he said, “from this day forward.”
“Roger,” she whispered.
“With my body I thee worship.”
“Darling?”
“What, sweet?”
“Without you, I don’t exist.”
“Or me without you. Ahh?”
“Yes yes yes.”
Later, they stood together under the lion-mouthed shower head. He fingered soap on her neck.
“I seem to have bruised you.”
She felt. “Mmm, there?”
“Yes.”
“Kiss.”
He kissed. “With this kind of injury,” he said, “you better rest.”
“Tomorrow, then?”
“One day,” he said. “Don’t we deserve one day home without their hassling?”
So they didn’t phone the Grossblatts or Philip Schorer. They didn’t take the Glendale Freeway so the Reeds could congratulate their son the doctor. Later the Reeds would blame this omission on Alix. They would put the blame, as they always did, on Alix.
4
“Cricket,” Vliet said, “you always huddle in the smallest room.” And bore his Taittinger into the living room. He made ceremony of the opening. The cork, gratifyingly, popped to the ledge that ran along the north wall. He poured champagne into the ragtag of glasses that Cricket had dug up.
He raised his green tumbler. “To Dr. Reed.”
They drank.
“And to me.”
“For what?” Alix and Roger asked at the same moment.
Vliet, bowing with a click of heels as for a Heidelberg duel said, “I was in Seattle getting it together. Regional manager. Fifteen outlets is all, but mine to lead.”
There was hubbub. Roger pounded his brother’s shoulders. “Hey, Vliet, hey.” Alix kissed his cheek. Cricket gave him her artless smile.
Only RB Henderson didn’t react. RB had picked up Vliet from the airport—Vliet had phoned asking her to, although he hadn’t seen her since borrowing the Carmel cottage: he had the ability to drop and pick up with girls as easily as he traded in his sports cars. RB’s legs remained stretched to the ottoman, legs so slender that sharp ankle bones stood out. She continued to smoke with yellowed fingers. Alix wondered that anyone so devoid of emotional response could be an actress. But undeniably RB Henderson was
an actress. The film she had been shooting in the Bay Area had sealed her reputation as an actress. This, the year of One Step, Two Step, an incision of changing American sexual mores. RB’s ex, Loomis Henderson, had directed One Step, Two Step, casting RB in the role of vulnerable young wife to a middle-aged tycoon, eliciting from her every ounce of bruised sensuality.
“Got us some music,” Vliet said, going to his car, returning peeling cellophane from Handel’s Messiah.
Roger groaned.
“Medical men are notorious for their lack of culture,” Vliet said. “Where’s the stereo, Cricket?”
“My room,” she said. “The library.”
He called, “Your needle’s shot,” and sacred music came into the old house.
Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. The music blended with their voices and they accepted it and were oblivious to it, all except Vliet, who from time to time cocked his head with choruses that the others didn’t hear. RB, curling one foot, sipped from her glass. Cricket watched Vliet as he talked to Roger.
Vliet was all keyed up. “The youngest regional manager,” he said, circling to pour more champagne, “unless you go back to our late, revered Uncle Hend. Smell a whiff of nepotism?”
“To answer that, I need more information,” Roger replied.
“What’s wrong with a few hereditary favors?” Vliet asked.
“Daddy said you got the promotion because you’re a shrewd merchandiser,” Cricket put in. “And hardworking.”
“Hardworking?” Roger chuckled. “Vliet?” In school Vliet had been a notorious goof-off.
“He made Orange County profitable.”
“No kidding,” Roger said. “So quickly?”
Vliet smiled, triumphant. This rivalry-love thing had been with him all his life. He never had baffled over it as Roger had. Yet the brothers were so intertwined that each had problems telling a victory over the other from a defeat. Even now, Vliet yearned to throw himself—as he had as a kid—into a spontaneous wrestling match which he must lose. Christ, where’s the rivalry in self-immolation? he thought. That Cricket had let his brother in on his success delighted Vliet.
“There you go, Cricket, ruining the playboy image.”
He stroked her arm. She pulled away. Her small, freckled face turned pink. She loved him, and Vliet knew it. (Oh, he called this love a hung-over crush and he’d been successful in blocking that Arrowhead night. In his own way, though, he cherished Cricket. He sensed that Vliet Reed would be diminished if at some future, unbelievable hour, this small, plain girl quit loving him.) Her love was part of him. Roger was part of him. And in a painful way, Alix Schorer was part of him.
Alix rested her head against Roger’s shoulder. “To our self-made man, another toast.”
RB said languidly, “With this.” And from a Virginia Slims pack, she took a joint, lighting it, offering it around. Alix, Cricket, and Vliet dragged. Vliet handed it to Roger.
“Pass,” Roger said.
RB drew a square with her forefinger, giggling. Either grass worked on her instantaneously or she’d popped something with her champagne. Vliet turned the three records, turned them again, Alix rested her head in Roger’s lap, in the hall the grandfather clock chimed elaborately, and it was after ten when the door knocker banged.
Vliet said, “Stuff that damn thing!”
“Anyone could smell,” Cricket said, rising.
“So if it’s the law, don’t ask ’em in.”
Cricket floated on Septembral odors. They couldn’t see the front door, they could hear Lift up your heads, O ye gates. And Cricket’s clear voice.
“They’re all here,” she said.
Mumbling.
“Yes, Roger,” she said.
Mumbling.
“Positive it’s okay?”
Mumbling.
“Then come on in.”
Cricket returned, followed by Orion. He greeted them, was introduced to RB, refused champagne and/or grass, sat on the floor helping himself to cubes of jack cheese.
“No, no problems.” He was answering Roger.
“Recurrences?”
“None.”
And to Cricket’s surprise, Orion lifted a frizz of hair. Normally he kept the scar hidden. Roger looked closely at the patch of smoothness. “Fine,” he said.
Orion let the hair drop.
“Gotten it checked out?” Roger asked.
“No.”
“It looks fine, but you should.”
“Did you graduate?” Orion asked.
“This week.”
“So now you’re a doctor?”
Vliet laughed. “The lowest form. Intern.”
Cricket was watching Orion. His thin face was different, but she couldn’t pin down why. Something within him had withered and something else had flowered, and she knew only that under the sparse beard Orion was different.
“And you?” Roger asked. “What’ve you been doing?”
“Working.”
“Where?”
“Oh, round Carmel.”
“But everything’s fine?”
“I’m not in REVELATION.” Orion bit into pale cheese.
Roger said, “Look, if there’s some way I can help?”
Alix, now sitting, put her lips to his ear. “Easier on you, Doctor,” she whispered, “to stay a bit more aloof sometimes.”
“I’m going back,” Orion said.
“You are?” Cricket exclaimed. This, then, the difference?
“There’s one thing and I’ll have squared things.”
“With Genesis?” Roger asked.
“And the Eternal Now,” Orion said.
“For some reason,” RB said in her tired voice, “this scene plays a trifle hazy.”
Vliet replied, “It’s complicated—unless you’re among the initiated.”
“Principals front and center,” she said.
Orion asked, “Are you an actress?”
Vliet, pouring final drops from the third Taittinger’s into his and Roger’s glasses, emphasized, “RB Henderson.”
Orion blinked, bewildered. In his former life RB had been an unknown. The Rule proscribed movies, radio, magazines, television.
Vliet said, “Famous star of famous films.”
“One Step, Two Step,” Cricket explained.
“Oh. That one,” Orion said, examining RB. The advertising campaign had been extensive. The logo used on billboards and in newspapers was RB, nude, half turned, bending to adjust a sandal.
“What’d I tell you?” Vliet was laughing. “Nobody recognizes you with clothes on.”
Everyone laughed. Except Orion. None was drunk, none stoned, they were happy, and so they laughed. Cricket, with ash down her T-shirt, Vliet’s hand resting lightly on Roger’s shoulder, and Alix, her head again on Roger’s lap. RB flexed her toes, which had maroon nails. Orion sat a little apart.
“You guys going to be here long?” He glanced at Vliet, then Roger.
“I’m sleeping over,” Vliet said.
“We are?” RB looked up from her toes.
“Wanta break up a family reunion?” Vliet asked.
Her shoulders raised. Either way, the narrow shoulders said.
Cricket looked at Orion. “Why?” she asked.
“It’s late. I figured I’d go to bed.”
“You’re staying here?”
“If it’s no problem.”
And Vliet said, “Problem, man? In our great-aunt’s mansion are many rooms.”
5
On the sagging, cracked court, Roger and Alix played hard, for the first time using their new rackets, aluminum ones Alix had bought as part of Roger’s graduation hoard. Winning the match, he flung himself, panting, on semimowed grass, gazing up at the elm that shaded him from eleven o’clock sun. “When the house goes, the trees will, too,” he said.
“Progress.” Alix wiped his face with a towel. “It’s sad.”
“After the others get up,” he said.
“Then
what?”
“We’ll go see our families.”
“I guess.”
“Which do you want first?”
“Yours. Get it behind us.”
“I’ll hold your hand,” he said. He was smiling, but he meant it.
“Pants or skirt?”
“Sunday,” he said. “Better wear a skirt.”
“I’ll shower.”
“After you, then,” he said. And went up with her to get his Atlas of Anatomy, pausing on his way back for Cricket’s radio. He stretched under the elm. The Dodgers were playing a double-header in Shea Stadium.
Cricket ate dry granola. She was in the living room, and through open windows came Sunday sounds, water running, a baseball game, Buster barking.
Orion came in. “You never sat here before.”
“It’s too large,” she said. “Want some?” She extended her bowl.
He shook his head. “It’s no smaller now.”
“There’s people,” she said. “People make a place all cozy.”
He sat on the rug near her. “I guess you’re wondering about last night?”
“You had made it clear you couldn’t be with Roger.”
“I changed my mind.”
“You’re, well, different.”
“How?”
“It’s not easy to explain.”
“High?”
“Not really,” she said.
“No, you wouldn’t say someone who’s taken the sacrament is drunk, would you?”
“Peyote.” She set the half-empty bowl on the couch. “Orion, you really are going back?”
“Yes.”
“I’m glad,” she said. “Really glad.”
Some cheese remained from the night before. He took a cube. “Alix is beautiful.”
Cricket nodded.
“I don’t think I ever saw such a beautiful girl.” As he spoke, uncertainty flickered on his face.
And it was then that Cricket realized the difference. This, Orion’s one sign of uncertainty since he’d returned to the house. Last night, for the first time since she’d met him, he’d been neither hesitant nor shy. He had not clawed at his beard or equivocated or worried into apology. He had been sure.
“How did Genesis tell you?” she asked.
“We talked. Alone. For a long time.”
“And he understood how terrible it’s been for you?”
“Yes.” Orion slid a finger under hair that covered his scar. “There’s acts of contrition.”
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