The Real Liddy James

by Anne-Marie Casey

  “Will you marry me, Rose?”

  If Curtis was annoyed that Liddy had ignored his repeated summonings to meet in the office, he gave no sign of it. He made no comment on Liddy’s explanation that she had hurled her phone into a lake by the side of a road, and accepted that she had not wanted to speak to him. They knelt in silence, side by side, in a pew in the small chapel on Lisbeth Dawe Bartlett’s estate in Montauk, at the simple and moving family service to mark her death.

  Chloe Stackallan, visibly distressed in her immaculate black, read Psalm 23, the King James Version, “The Lord is my shepherd . . .” She returned to her seat and clutched the arm of the handsome, broad-shouldered man sitting beside her. He leaned over and pulled her closer to him.

  Curtis stood up to read the poem “If” by Rudyard Kipling, as Lisbeth had asked him to. When he returned to Liddy’s side, his hands were shaking, so she held them.

  She felt the collective sorrow of the congregation. Like Curtis, many people were no doubt remembering the incomparable Lisbeth, her flamboyant life and the many generosities that had touched them. But some others bowed their heads in grief and remembered other losses, their own regrets at chances missed and words unsaid.

  Liddy watched as Lisbeth’s three elderly sons lifted her featherlight coffin and proceeded out of the church. The organ played “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.” The incense rose toward the stained-glass windows. Liddy sat still; she had learned how to be still, and she listened to the music. She thought of her death.

  What will Matty and Cal remember of me when, in fifty years, or ten years, or one year, or one day, I am gone?

  Outside, the mourners huddled together in the graveyard, under a canopy of black umbrellas, as Lisbeth was buried next to her assorted husbands and animals and it rained an insistent fall rain.

  Liddy thought of her life.

  What do I want them to remember?

  Afterward, Curtis was waiting for Liddy, as arranged, in a coffee shop in the town square, perched on a stool at the counter in his black suit and tie. As Liddy entered, Curtis was sipping his Americano and nibbling on a granola muffin while staring at the other pastries. Liddy knew he was wondering how much better they might taste, and she experienced a feeling of momentary disorientation. It was exactly as if they were back in the Viand Coffee Shop on Madison, meeting surreptitiously outside the office to discuss things like an asset division strategy, or how to let go of an unsatisfactory associate. She felt the quickening within, her intellect sharp like a steel rake cutting through mud or, yes, a shark’s fin rising through the water. She lifted her right hand in a confident wave and marched over to him, kissing him damply on both cheeks.

  “What would be your position on a premium payment over and above a prenup for serial infidelity?” he asked, characteristically avoiding unnecessary pleasantries, as if the funereal start to the day had never happened.

  “We have numerous precedents of renegotiation for confidentiality, so in the case of a high-profile client, or one embarking on a subsequent marriage, I’d go for it.”

  Liddy ordered a coffee and a bagel, surprising the girl behind the counter with the rapid-fire rat-tat-tat of her speech, aware that Curtis was scrutinizing her to see if she was still fucking nuts. But in her slim navy skirt and crisp white shirt, she looked exactly the same, and as she scraped black currant jelly on top of her cream cheese, she felt relief condense off him like steam off a wet dog.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Not fucking nuts.” She looked at him. “The funeral was done beautifully.”

  “Lisbeth planned every detail—apart from the weather, that is.”

  “I’m sorry, Curtis. I’m sorry for your loss.” Liddy nearly reached her hand across to touch him, but the moment for physical connection had passed. “‘If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster,’” she continued, and Curtis allowed himself a small smile. (This surprised him because he had expected he would have to fire her. But here she was, Liddy James again, and he was mesmerized by her, a woman unlike any other he had met, a woman who was just like him, only wearing a skirt, a thought that as always both repulsed and excited him.)

  “So. What’s going on?” he said.

  Liddy had hired a car and driven from the city to the Hamptons early that morning. On the way, she had listened to the Keith Jarrett CD she had stolen from Sebastian’s gate lodge and stopped to look at the ocean, before visiting Springs and the Pollock-Krasner House.

  “Liddy! Wake up,” said Curtis, and in exasperation he pulled out his iPhone and started to check his e-mails, a gesture that Liddy found poignant. Part of her had pined for the rush of busy-ness; the hours apportioned into thirty-minute increments between 5:30 a.m. and 11:30 p.m.; the ability to measure exactly what had been achieved in a day.

  “I’m not coming back, Curtis,” she said.

  As she had passed Shinnecock Inlet, the wind had howled and risen, whipping the rain into swirling sheets that thundered onto the windshield. Liddy had pulled into the parking lot by the beach and watched as a group of maverick surfers towed themselves out to ride the enormous, rolling waves. In their midst was one woman, her blond hair blowing over her black wetsuit. “You go, girl,” whispered Liddy, with admiration and a little fear. She had turned on the heater and was happy, safe in the car listening to “My Wild Irish Rose.”

  Curtis put the phone back in his pocket. “What? I’ve spoken to the publicists, they have ideas about how to rehabilitate your image. In fact, it could work for you, the power of vulnerability, you’ve heard of that, right? It’s very now. You could do a TED talk.”

  He stared at his feet, appearing to take an extreme interest in the tips of his shoes. Then he looked up.

  “I have plans for you, Liddy. Val’s getting soft. You must have noticed.”

  Val Tynan, the managing partner, had recently had a triple bypass.

  “Curtis, I’m not coming back.”

  As a child, Curtis had always won the “don’t blink” game as, at age seven, he had perfected a technique to hold his eyes wide by biting the top of his upper lip. This had proved surprisingly useful in the course of the next fifty-three years, but today he didn’t bother.

  “Okay. You win. What d’you want?” She knew he was bracing himself for a list of Scandinavian-style demands, no doubt including “working from home,” which he considered simply a cover to sign for furniture deliveries.

  “I can be flexible. Look, I’ve been giving everyone Friday afternoons off for the summer.”

  Typical, thought Liddy, the pioneers get the arrows, the settlers get the land.

  “This isn’t a negotiation,” she said.

  “Everything’s a negotiation.”

  Liddy shook her head.

  In the house in Springs, she had stood in Jackson Pollock’s studio as the rain beat down outside and had stared at the floor, which was covered in multicolored splatters of paint, overlayed into a deep pattern that made no and yet total sense.

  “What will I tell everyone?” he said.

  “That I’m spending more time with my family.”

  “Then everyone will think you’ve been fired. You should come back for six months. Facilitate the transition.”

  “If I come back, I won’t want to leave.”

  And it was true. At the thought of anyone else in her files, Liddy found herself worrying about her poor little job in its designer room (despite the toile de Jouy and cashmere throws). No one can look after it better than me, no one is more devoted to it, she thought, and then she countered with, but I don’t love it anymore. She had been a high priestess of the cult of overwork, and she did not underestimate what leaving would do to her. She had promised to give herself a year to get over it, but she knew it would be one day at a time. I am a recovering workaholic.

  Curtis stared at her uncomprehendingly, so much so that his mou
th drooped open ever so slightly and he instantly aged ten years. “God help me, I don’t understand. What do you want?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He rescrutinized her. He had wanted to forgive her, but he had made a mistake. She was serious, and she had clearly lied earlier. She was totally fucking nuts.

  “What I do know is that I have to spend more time with the people in my life to whom I am irreplaceable.”

  “What about me?” he wailed.

  “I am not irreplaceable to you.”

  They both thought of Lisbeth, and then of her three elderly sons, bowed with grief, carrying her coffin out of the chapel.

  “If you take any clients, I’ll have you disbarred,” he said.

  “Understood.”

  “I wanna buy back your share options.”

  Liddy didn’t blink. “We’ll do a deal. I need the health insurance.”

  Curtis admired her style, and because he didn’t want to lose her, he was furious.

  “You should promote Sydney,” she said.

  He drank the last of his coffee with a savage slurp. He slid off his stool (with an embarrassing trip at the end). He slapped a ten-dollar bill next to the charity box. He walked out of the shop and into the street, where the sun had come out and was blazing. Liddy followed him.

  Waiting at the curb was a large black car, and standing beside it was Vince. He hastily pulled on his jacket despite the heat and opened the door. When Liddy saw him she waved, then turned to Curtis.

  “Here comes the sun,” said Liddy cheerfully, and then, “Look,” for in the distance there was a rainbow arching across the sky. “My son Cal, he asked me the other day what happens to the pot of gold when the rainbow goes into the water.”

  Curtis was unmoved by the idea of the cozy motherly chat or the image of the rainbow. “It doesn’t mean anything. It isn’t a sign that you’ve done the right thing. In fact, you’ve just done an incredibly stupid thing.”

  “I’ll call you next week. Then I will call my clients. And I will help facilitate the transition.”

  Curtis paused before he began his final soliloquy, more in sorrow now than in anger.

  “It’s all so unoriginal, Liddy. The only thing you haven’t said is some bullshit about work/life balance. I thought you were different. I thought you were like me.”

  “No, Curtis. It turns out that I am like me.”

  Curtis got into the backseat. Vince closed the door.

  Liddy looked at Vince. “He’s gonna miss me.”

  Vince grinned. She reached out a hand to him, and after a moment they embraced.

  “How are you? How are the boys?” she said.

  “All good. Vince Junior got into Harvard.”

  “You must be very proud.”

  “We are. How are Matty and Cal?”

  “All good too.”

  Curtis momentarily stopped seething in the backseat to hammer on the inside of the window.

  “How’s he treating you?” asked Liddy.

  “Easy.” Vince turned to go, then paused and looked back conspiratorially. “He works less hours than you.”

  Liddy nodded, stepped back, and watched as the car pulled away. So that was that, she thought. She found herself looking up again at the rainbow, which was fading, washing out like a watercolor. Her phone rang and she grabbed it, knowing Rose would be calling to see how the meeting had gone.

  But instead there was an echo on the line, a pause and then, “Liddy? . . .” Another echo and then again, too loud, “LIDDY? . . .”

  “Don’t shout. I can hear you.”

  Liddy had summoned all her formidable resources to expunge Sebastian Stackallan from her day-to-day thoughts, and had largely succeeded, but now that she heard his voice she was more delighted than she would have guessed to hear from him.

  “Where are you?” he asked.

  “I’ve just been to Lisbeth’s funeral.”

  “Ah,” he said. “I heard. She was a magnificent woman.”

  “Where are you?” she said.

  “I’m standing in the field behind the wood with Seamus, trying to wrangle a runaway cow.”

  “And you thought of me? How touching!”

  “Don’t start!” he said, and even though he was thousands of miles away, she knew he was smiling.

  “How did you get my new number?”

  “Sydney. Now, there’s someone who’s got a thing for me.”

  Liddy ignored this. “I’m looking at a rainbow.”

  “How very Darby O’Gill and the Little People. How are you?”

  “I’m going to try journaling to find out.”

  There was a pause, then a peal of laughter.

  “And I just told Curtis Oates I was quitting my job.”

  “Holy God, I wish I coulda seen that. Why?”

  “I can’t do it anymore. Or for the moment, certainly.”

  In the background the wind blew and the cow mooed.

  “So,” Liddy said. “Were you calling for a reason?”

  “Yes,” he replied. “I’m sorry I disappeared like that. I . . . Look . . . I was thinking about everything . . . the moving to Ireland business and the not-waiting wheelchair stuff and so forth. . . .”

  Liddy said nothing.

  “I think we’d better have a proper date first.”

  “Sorry, I can’t hear you . . .” she said, but she had heard him perfectly.

  “Will you go out with me?”

  “How? On Skype?”

  “No! I still have to visit New York. I’ve got a board meeting next week.”

  She grinned. “I’m not a lost cause, you know,” she said.

  “Pardon?”

  “You don’t need to save me.”

  “What on earth are you on about?”

  “Nothing, nothing. Call me when you get in.”

  “Good,” he said calmly. “I want you to know I feel curiously optimistic. What are you going to do now?”

  “I don’t know. That’s the truth, but it’s not good enough, is it? What do I want? How shall I live? How can I do the best for my boys and still be me? All these questions and I find myself saying the same thing over and over again. I don’t know.”

  In the field behind the wood, Sebastian Stackallan thought for a moment.

  “Then ‘I don’t know’ is the answer,” he said.

  NEW YORK CITY, OCTOBER 5

  Tonight is my last night in this apartment and, as I sit here surrounded by crates and cardboard boxes and color charts left by Lloyd’s interior designer, I suspect this will be my first and last go at journaling.

  I can already tell it’s not my thing.

  I’ve organized enough work to keep the family afloat for the foreseeable future, but it’ll be a three-star life for the boys from now on. I’m going to consult for Marisa at Rosedale and Seldon, and I’m giving a few lectures at Columbia University. I’ll be working from home too, in the new place in Prospect Heights, which is good because I have a lot of furniture to be delivered.

  Cal has started at the local school there.

  Peter has put the house in Carroll Gardens on the market and soon he and Rose and baby Grace will be moving to Connecticut. (Rose has already found a cottage with a shed in the garden for him to escape to when baby Grace is crying and Matty has friends to stay.) I have accepted his offer of half the proceeds—my pride left me, along with my dignity, in front of three million TV viewers. I am glad to be secure.

  Matty will live with me during the school week and he will see Peter and Rose on the weekends. Things with him are no picnic, that’s for sure, and I strongly suspect it will all be rather messy, and I hate mess because I am a Virgo, but I know it’s time to embrace the random and the chaotic and the shapeless, because my attempts at overcontrol did not work.
The unfortunate truth for those of us who rely on force of will and extreme organization to get through the days is that, in the end, you might be lucky, or you might be me.

  I talked to Marisa the other day about it and she surprised me. Out of the blue, she said that she believes every woman who wants a career and children is carrying an unexploded bomb around with them, and while the consequences of it might not be quite as dramatic as mine, each of them will have their moment in the hurt locker. It was a bit melodramatic for my taste, but I do know what she meant.

  You cannot spreadsheet your kids.

  I called my parents yesterday and spoke to Mum. She was in the communal garden and I told her all my news and my plans, such as they are, and I said I wanted to bring the boys to visit whenever it suited them. I could tell that this made her happy, but she didn’t embarrass either of us with any great display of overemotionalism. She said, “What about next weekend?” as if it was a completely normal occurrence. I was happy too. How else were we to do it? (Now I just have to brace myself for the sight of the dotty neighbor’s bush.)

  I told her I had spent the summer in Ireland and that I had brought the boys to see Grandma’s house. She asked me if I had knocked on the neighbor’s doors, or visited my cousins, and when I said no she seemed disappointed. I said I would be going back soon, that I had met an Irishman, and when I told her his name she said, “He sounds a bit posh,” but she laughed.

  She only irritated me once. At the end of the conversation she said, “I never thought you’d be able to do this, Lydia. I never thought you’d walk away from everything you worked so hard for.”

  Afterward, though, I realized she was admiring, not critical.

  I have been the slave of my own life force—the restless force within me that has always had something to prove. I have kept moving, and allowing things to happen, and I have never questioned my decisions or my feelings. This is what has made me the woman I am today. But I know there is something unfinished about me.