by Holly LeCraw
Seniors in good standing were invited, by long tradition: Win’s idea, years before. He thought they should be treated like responsible adults. The joke was that they would stand by the bar and try to mix themselves drinks, waiting to get caught by Bethie Salter, who long ago had appointed herself overseer. By now the exchanges were as stylized as kabuki. The only student who had ever succeeded in spiking the punch was Henry Bankhead.
The tree stood in the foyer and was twelve feet tall, blanketed with the ornaments that people brought every year. (Tonight Dex Pentecost had triumphantly produced a tiny toilet with “Plumbers’ Local 1” painted on it in red and green, provided by his brother, Amos, ’00, who knew the drill and had been on the lookout.) All was illuminated with big, blinking colored bulbs. Otherwise the only light, throughout the house, was dozens of candles. Around every door were paper chains and evergreens and mistletoe, and in the dining room enough food for a multitude of parties. The fires in all the fireplaces—dining room, living room, library, front hall—were lit. In the kitchen it was nearly impossible to move, and seated around the table were a dozen people of varying ages, playing penny poker.
I made a polite circuit and ended up in the front hall next to the tree. Through the wide doorway into the dining room, I watched as May and Nick stood next to the table, examining the food. They made no move to pick up plates. May was in a navy velvet dress that was nearly off the shoulder. Her collarbones begged for a finger to run along them and admire their fearful symmetry; with luck Nick would think of this.
I edged a little closer to the doors, staying half hidden. Sip of eggnog: high-octane. You’ve got raw eggs here, Win said. You need the bourbon, you see, to kill the bacteria. Health precaution, he said, and glug-glug-glug went the amber into the punch bowl. The merest of twinkle in his eye.
That doorway: nestled in it were the pocket doors. Since Win had restored them, they’d glide on their tracks with a touch of a finger. He’d showed me, proud as a child with a tower of blocks.
Now May and Nick were holding hands. A bold move! I noticed students noticing. Minnie Zheng, on the other side of the table, loading up on Divya’s samosas, swept her gaze over the two of them like she was reading a flowchart, and then whispered something to Marina Hirschfeld. Darius Flake and Will Bolling cut their eyes over and then nodded in admiration. These kids assumed they were looking at their own bright futures. No matter their current state, someday they too would be good-looking and in love. Singlehandedly, Nick and May made adulthood appealing.
With an air of great purpose, I turned and went up the stairs. On the second floor the electric lights in the hallway made the house ordinary again and the party noise from below, muted and equalized, became the essence of nostalgia, the sound of every good party that had ever been, every wonderful life: every night where you flirted with someone and were flirted with in return; where you felt her eyes on you and knew finally that you weren’t imagining things, that the person you’d come to the party hoping to see had thought the same of you, and you were about to enter into that mutual understanding that, being tacit, still had enough edge of uncertainty to make it excruciating and delicious. Hi, Mr. Garrett. Miss Bankhead. You’re home. Yes. Are you drinking the adult eggnog, Miss Bankhead? Certainly not.
Going up to the third floor, the stairs were uncarpeted, and narrower. Meant for the servants, after all. Even the moldings became plainer, made with a simpler knife. I found the light switch and flicked it. Plain fixtures along the passageway, which was empty, and I heard no scuttering of either mice or people: no intrepid students had made their way up here to make out. Too well behaved, our kids today. Too meek and unadventurous. Henry Bankhead probably scored up here at least once.
Ahead, at the end of the short corridor, the door to the attic. Another switch, now bare lightbulbs. Here it was so cold I could see my breath. Ahead the round window. I flipped the good strong brass locks, nudged the frame, and it opened with a woodeny pop, tilted out on the horizontal axis—and there, below, was the labyrinth, edged in white. It had snowed perfectly earlier that day, obscuring the outlines just enough to make them look devilishly confounding to those who didn’t know the pattern. And now the moon was out and the shadows were sharp and blue, and the voices floated brightly up.
The labyrinth was overtaken by kids, the only ones game enough to leave the warm indoors. They bumbled along, caroming off the shrubs, and I almost yelled out right then: Take care, you little bastards! But there was Booker Middleton, his arms folded, watching. Ah, a true groundsman. He would appreciate the labyrinth, the work that went into it, the care.
And also, I now saw, Dex Pentecost, blue blazer, no coat, red hair shining an unearthly brown in the moonlight—he was also scolding. “Guys, easy,” he was saying. “No cheating, heh, heh,” when Will Bolling made to crash through the boxwood rather than follow the path. And next to Dex, Marina Hirschfeld too. God love them! Yes, indeed, love them. Why couldn’t I? And what a couple. I’d been blind! Dex and Marina! Solid, solid citizens. In the next ten years, I’d get a wedding invitation, baby announcements. Twenty, and we’d be interviewing their kids. They’d visit at homecoming, seek me out—I’d be gray at the temples but otherwise the same, they’d say it, You look great, you look just the same, delighted that their memories were safeguarded in our preppy Brigadoon, and relieved, too, that they could leave and go back to their own world which moved (they would no doubt believe) in a line, not an endless loop.
The work of two minutes to marry them off and exile them to a center-entrance colonial in Lexington or Rye! To a menorah and a Christmas tree both—they’d manage! To the PTA, to wealth management! Was that love? I had said I wanted to love them.
A door opened directly beneath me, two floors down, and babbling and music spilled out into the snow; several people emerged, I couldn’t tell who, not yet, from the tops of their heads; then the door closed, and the bright voices took over again. “I’m stuck!” someone cried.
“No you’re not!”
“You guys!” someone hollered. “This is supposed to be spiritual!”
Then I saw, midway between the center and the far right edge of the labyrinth, Celia and Zack, deep in conversation. Or rather Zack was talking. Pleading? He was hatless and in an odd, illogical reflex I worried for that head, exposed, as though cold would hurt the bruised brain inside. He was bending over her, too close—was that possible for those two? Yes, it was, it had become possible: she was rigid, shrinking away. Other kids edged past them, giving them as wide a berth as possible in the narrow path; arguing couples were kryptonite. Besides, no one would tell Zack Middleton to move.
Then suddenly Zack turned and began to push his way straight through the maze—through the boxwood. He made it through one wall but the next one was sturdier and he kicked once, twice, at the branches with his enormous foot. “HEY!” I shouted. “ZACK MIDDLETON! Cut it out!”
I knew Booker was right there. Did I think I was tipping him off, that he’d take over? But instead every face swiveled up to me. The spy unmasked.
Zack was cutting straight across to the back border of the maze and the dark yard beyond. The double lot sloped downward and away; in the moonlight the other houses receded. At the next barrier, more vicious kicking. “ZACK!” Another ragged hole. “Goddammit, what are you doing! Stop it! You little shit!”
I whirled around, leaving the window open, the ghostly maids shivering in their pinched little rooms. Down the stairs. Second floor, the party near again. Down one more flight, a tunnel of sound opening up, and sudden heat and multicolored light; no one here knew anything was amiss. Smiling faces turning to me in inexplicable expectation: what was I bringing them? The dining room and then the library, the French doors to the outside. By now Divya was following me, disapproval trumping concern. “Charlie, what is the matter?”
I opened the doors and stepped out into the cold. “Booker, what the hell?” I waved at the broken hedges. “Win planted those!”
“Charlie!” Divya said. “Charlie. Stop now.”
“He kicked right through them! Zack did!” Booker’s face was stony. “Do you know how old these are?” I hollered. “Do you know how much Divya spends on this?”
Divya looked, eagle-eyed, between Booker and me. “Charlie, it doesn’t matter,” she said.
“It does matter! Look at that. Look!” Now I could see: the branches were broken all the way at the base and they flopped to the ground, seeming for all the world like the pitiful stiff legs of some dead songbird. I wanted to prop them up. See if they would mend themselves. And then I saw him, far at the edge of the yard, in the shadows, watching, it seemed, waiting. “Zack.” I looked around at the staring faces. “Let me go,” I said, but no one was stopping me.
I broke into a jog past the boxwood. He waited. Then I had my hand on his arm. “Zack. What the fuck was that?”
He looked betrayed. “I’ll pay for it.”
“You certainly will,” I said, but the fire was going out of me. “What happened?”
His chest was heaving. He looked back at the house, the lighted windows, the floodlit labyrinth. “Tell her I’m sorry,” he said. “Ms. Lowell. I’ll fix it. Okay? Please?” His face was suddenly younger. “Please, Charlie?” And then he saw something, someone, behind me, and his face hardened again. “Get the fuck out of here.”
I turned. Nick was standing there, his hands up like he was surrendering. “Zack.” He looked at me. “I saw. I just wanted to help.”
“You’re a fucking fraud,” Zack snarled. “Get away from me!”
Nick took a step closer. “I know I’m a fraud.” His hands floated down to his sides. His face was slack, empty. “I know it. You’re right.”
Zack stared at him. And then slowly shook his head. “No,” he said. “No. You don’t get to do that.”
“Zack, I don’t know what I’ve done—”
“Get away from me.”
“Nicky,” I said, and shrugged: I don’t understand either. But just go. His hands rose again, he backed up a step, two, and his face, turned full to Zack, filled with concern and regret before he turned and walked back to the lights and the labyrinth.
We watched him go. And then Zack said, “Celia’s always talking about him. He has ideals. He’s brave. He cares about others. All that hearts-and-minds bullshit. He’s perfect.” His voice trailed off. “You don’t believe that, right?”
I absorbed this, and then I said, “Do you love her?”
“Yeah.” He nodded and swiped at his eyes, full of shame. “So much,” he whispered.
“Oh, Zackie Bear,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
He looked at me with dread. Then he turned and slowly walked away, into the dark at the edge of the yard, and then broke into a run, back toward school.
Seventeen
Two days before Christmas, Nick and I drove to the airport, in Boston. We parked the car and headed to the baggage claim but Anita was already there, standing straight, at the curb.
She hugged us both and I admit there was a moment of pure disbelief, something close to excitement, that we were all standing here in foreign Boston together, in the gray, winter airport atmosphere; it was as though the three of us had met to begin a journey, rather than to fetch Anita at the end of one. Nicky started chattering away: How was the flight? Wasn’t it cold? She made good time! She just had the one suitcase? Well then hey, where were his presents?
And I felt myself receding, as I always did when it was the three of us. I let them love each other, let them carry all the energy. I trundled along, Charlie the driver, but as they talked, although I felt separate as ever, I found myself aware of my mother as I never was in Atlanta. I realized, in this foreign and neutral place, this way station, how the flow of Nicky’s talk wrapped itself around her, both slightly annoyed and relaxed her. I was acutely aware that she’d never been here before—felt it, was inside her senses: I tasted the metallic air, here so close to the water; noticed the white slashes of seagulls wheeling and crying and realized how strange their presence would be to her, these summer beach birds roosting on concrete, in this bleakness of terminals and parking decks. I saw unsmiling people hurrying in dark coats, saw the ridges of black salt-pocked snow along the road. Snow to southerners was fluffy fairy-tale stuff. How had she let me come so far away, and stay?
But Boston was always foreign to me. We needed to get out of the city. That was all.
“Mom,” Nick said, “are you limping?”
“I’m stiff from the plane.”
“You’re awfully stiff.”
“It’ll walk out.”
“Did you get that graft? Or whatever it was?”
“What graft?” I said.
“No,” Anita said. “I didn’t do it.”
“In her leg,” Nick said. “Hardening of the arteries or something.”
“Doctors like to overreact,” Anita said. “Never talk to a surgeon if you don’t want an operation.”
“Why were you talking to a surgeon?” I said.
“Son,” Anita said, “I am fine, and I am here to have a good Christmas.”
I couldn’t remember the last time she called me Son. She was hobbling along beside me through the parking lot, dragging her suitcase herself, her mouth set. “Well, Mother,” I said, “I like it when people have clear goals.”
And she looked at me like I’d caught her at something. I remembered how she used to say You are so smart. So smart, Charlie, and it had bothered me because it meant she knew what I was saying was clever but didn’t understand why, or did not approve of my sarcasm, or was refusing, once again, to laugh at herself; but this time she smiled. I reminded myself that I was not going to be lulled by our old complicity.
She wasn’t exactly short of breath—that is, she didn’t stop walking, I didn’t hear wheezing. But she was surrounded by a cloud of effort, transforming her, blurring some essential outline of intentionality she had always had.
NICKY STAYED OVER both Christmas Eve and Christmas night, which I enjoyed more than I ever would have admitted. Anita seemed to view herself as a charity guest on an Elderhostel tour, which suited me just fine; she was polite and appreciative and private. I knew I could not keep up my own good behavior forever—sharing the kitchen at breakfast, making bland, polite conversations—but as inoculation I thought often of Anita marching herself painfully over that asphalt, in a straight line, all decisions made, my only job to follow in her wake. She did seem to improve, physically, too. We walked around my property, we walked around the campus. It was true that when Nicky wasn’t paying attention she would slow down. I pretended not to notice and she pretended not to notice me not noticing. All was smooth. The line was straight.
In my living room I had a tree (I didn’t always) and on Christmas morning Anita said, with satisfaction, that it was nice. Meaning the morning, the scene. She was supremely unsentimental—I had forgotten, really. A holiday for her was just a day, and the fact that I had bought the lights for the tree two weeks before, and the ornaments on sale at the drugstore, and that memories and meaning did not drip from them—well, that was fine with her, it was what she expected. It was Nick who might want more, Nick who expected magic to pop out of a box or a song, but Anita and I could lovingly stare him down—together we could have no expectation, no buildup or letdown.
I hadn’t expected this truce, and I didn’t trust it.
On Boxing Day we woke and had coffee and eggs and then Nick said he had to go home and get some clean clothes. Nick never cared about clean clothes. I asked when May was coming back. She had gone to Providence.
“Today,” he said.
“Aha.”
He looked from me, to Anita, back to me. I was acting as well as ever, so well that he broke into a grin.
“Go, you,” I said.
By now we had thoroughly discussed the labyrinth incident. Nick said he had no idea what Zack was talking about. Yes, they were both in his class. Yes, Nicky talked to Celia outsid
e of class, in groups, like he did with everyone else.
“Why’d he say you were a fraud?”
“I don’t know—”
“Why’d you agree?”
“I’d had too much of that fucking eggnog,” he’d said. “That’s the truth. I just wanted him not to be upset. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I should try to talk to him again—”
“Absolutely not. He wants someone to blame. He’s getting his heart broken. Teen drama,” I’d said. “Don’t attach much weight to it.” And so after that when I saw him with May, even when I caught them snuggling in his classroom, I was relieved.
After breakfast, once he’d left, Anita said, “Do you know what you’re doing?”
“Nope.”
“Charlie.”
“I don’t see how I could know. I’m no fortune-teller. And if I did know, it wouldn’t matter,” I said. “My knowledge and vision are irrelevant here. I would say this is a fairly unique set of circumstances. A baroquely odd pickle.”
“Charlie,” she said again. Her voice was soft.
“Look, Mother, I think they’re in love. Okay?” And as soon as I said it out loud, I knew it was true. It was what I’d been seeing. It was past infatuation. Maybe Celia even sensed it! The strength of it. And was jealous, in an illogical teenaged way. “Did you see his face?”
“I did. And does she love him?”
“Yes.” Out loud, it was solid. “Yes, she does.” I shrugged. “Nicky is Nicky. Nicky gets the girl.”
“Charlie.” She sighed. She couldn’t say honey or sweetie.
We needed Nick to come back. Anyone. What I wanted to say was, This is why I can’t be alone with you. The last thing we needed was to start telling the truth.
“He’s easy to love,” Anita said.
I got up and poured more coffee into my mug. Sat down again. I said, “I don’t know what the hell that’s supposed to mean.”