It's Not About Sex

by David Kalergis

  The prospect of Linda seeing an attorney and Thanksgiving separated from my family was brutal evidence of its disintegration. Why would Linda see a lawyer if she wanted us to stay together? I could only think that it meant the opposite: she wanted to negotiate an official divorce.

  My depression must have been evident because Lennie asked me about it during our morning walk the next day.

  “Is everything okay, Bradley? Is there anything I can do?”

  “I don’t think so. You’ve done so much already. I talked to Linda yesterday. We haven’t seen a counselor yet, and now she says she’s considering looking for an attorney after Thanksgiving. She said I should think about it too.”

  “Well, that is a depressing thought,” he replied.

  We had walked to the back of the property, near Claude Rhodes’s house. Noboro and Ray had charged ahead, leaving us to bring up the rear.

  “Let me know if you need a name,” he said. “I know them all, from conciliators to bombers—mostly bombers.”

  Divorce was a topic in which Lennie was well versed. His own debacle nine years ago had been juicy enough to make the tabloids.

  “Do you hear a dog barking?” I asked.

  “Maybe. Well, no, but it wouldn’t surprise me. Claude Rhodes lives over there.” He pointed through the woods to the northwest in front of us.

  “There it is again,” I said. “Can’t you hear it?”

  “I don’t hear a dog, Bradley.”

  I’d forgotten that Lennie was a bit deaf.

  “I’ve heard a dog barking every night this week,” I said. “The sound comes from far away, but it keeps me awake.”

  “I know what you mean. When I get depressed, I can’t sleep either.”

  He called out to Ray and Noboro, and when they looked back he signaled to indicate our allotted walking time was half over. “Elisabeth and Highat—Nora’s parents—are coming for Thanksgiving,” he said. “They want to meet Ray . . . and you and Noboro, of course. They actually went to see Ray’s show the day before it came down. Apparently Nora’s mother was impressed. I can’t believe she went to Soho.” He mimicked a woman’s voice. “I mean, the place is crawling with Negroes, trans-genders, and other undesirables.”

  I’d never met Nora’s parents, but Lennie’s imitation, combined with what I’d overheard from Nora and her cousin April at dinner, gave me a clear snapshot.

  “Elisabeth despises me,” Lennie continued. “Or rather, I’m in the doghouse. With Elisabeth and Highat, there are only two conditions—you’re either in the catbird seat or the doghouse. They use all these foxhunting and horsey expressions and words that have special meanings in the family. It makes me want to puke.”

  “What crime put you in the doghouse?”

  “I’m not sure. Elisabeth has a whim of steel.”

  “How long have you been in there, Lennie?”

  “Almost eight years.”

  Noboro and Ray had walked ahead of us again, and Lennie called, “Ray!” They stopped.

  “You have a new fan,” he yelled, his voice booming. “Nora’s mother is coming from New York to meet you next week—at Thanksgiving. Her father too.”

  They paused while we caught up with them.

  “Why does Nora’s mother want to meet me?” Ray asked.

  “She saw your work at Edison’s Electric. You’ve impressed her. We want you and Bradley to have Thanksgiving with us, and of course Noboro will be there . . . and Tamara.”

  “What does Nora think about that?” asked Ray.

  “She thinks it’s a wonderful idea.” Ray and I must have looked dubious, because Lennie said, “Well, maybe not wonderful, but she told me specifically to say that you’re both invited. I know you had a tiff about her horses the day you rode back from Buzzard Hill. But don’t worry, it’s blown over now.” He fixed us both with a clear gaze, smiled and nodded in Ray’s direction. “She knows you’ve been looking for a thing to give us, and she thinks that’s a nice gesture. Very Schoolcross-onian of you.”

  “I’ve already found an amazing thing to give you. But how did she know I was looking for one?” Ray asked. He turned his head and stared at me. I certainly hadn’t told Nora about Ray’s plan.

  “Tamara told her,” said Lennie.

  Ray relaxed and we continued walking, but his mind was working now, and the follow-up question must have reached us both at the same time: what else had Tamara told her about him?

  “What’s the thing you found, Ray?” I asked.

  “It’s a surprise. I’ll bring it on Thanksgiving.”

  Thanksgiving festivities at the Big House commenced at noon, and this time we were prompt. The Foxes and Tamara were also invited, but the boys wouldn’t be coming. Lars had left the farm in a rage the night of Nora’s last party, with little more than the clothes on his back. This wasn’t the first time he’d stormed off angry, but it was the longest he’d ever stayed away. Mario was gone too, living with friends in the Meatpacking District of the West Village. Nora, who kept up with Mario by telephone, said that he was searching frantically for Lars in their old Manhattan haunts. Everyone was worried.

  Lennie greeted us at the front door, then herded us toward the sitting room and Nora’s parents, as if he were a sheepdog and we were his little flock. Ray had been nervous about this moment for days, and I could feel him hanging back. Mr. and Mrs. Van Leuyden, who stood with drinks in hand near the glowing fireplace, turned out to be everything I’d expected.

  Nora’s mother, Elisabeth, was a distinguished-looking woman in her late sixties, dressed in a severely elegant blue crepe dress and a stunning necklace of graduated black pearls. She looked strikingly like Nora, except that her cheekbones were even higher, her cheeks thinner and slightly sunken in upon themselves.

  Nora will look like this in her coffin, I thought.

  Nora’s father, Highat, was a bantam rooster of a man, at least six inches shorter than his wife, wearing quite the finest old houndstooth sport coat I’d ever seen. He had a face like a bulldog, albeit a kindly bulldog, and wore a hunter green ascot around his neck with as much aplomb as a basketball player wears sneakers. The contrast with the pathetic Stanley of Eagle Hill was so stark that I hoped for an opportunity to point it out to Ray, who’d followed me into the room, and to Nora, who’d also come in, slightly flushed, from the hot kitchen.

  I didn’t hear Lennie’s introduction, but I shook the extended hand of Nora’s mother and nodded to her politely. Her hand reminded me of a bejeweled possum’s paw. Highat was next in the little receiving line, and I wasn’t surprised by the firmness of the grip.

  “A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Van Leuyden,” I said. Lennie’s eyes shot skyward, as if he were beseeching heaven. Then he shook his head and said, “Now you’re the one in the doghouse.”

  Highat clapped me on the shoulder and laughed. “My name’s not Van Leuyden, Mr. Brindley.” His accent was English. “It’s Longworth . . . Highat Longworth. Don’t be embarrassed. The mistake has been made before.”

  He smiled at his wife and gave my arm a friendly squeeze, but hard, right through the muscle of the biceps, to the bone. The affectionate gesture almost brought tears to my eyes.

  Luckily Nora was at Highat’s side and came to my rescue.

  “Bradley,” she said, “it was my maternal grandmother, Victoria Van Leuyden, who owned Schoolcross. I was Nora Longworth before I married. You knew that, didn’t you?”

  The room turned bright white and I thought I was fainting, but the light was from Tamara, who’d come up beside us and popped a flash about three feet from my face. She was photographing Noboro and Will, who were playing backgammon on the little table.

  I grabbed Elisabeth’s hand again and shook it vigorously.

  “Of course,” I said. “Mr. and Mrs. Longworth. Please excuse me. Delighted.”

  “You’re quite excused, Mr. Brantley,” she said.

  “It’s ‘Bradley,’ Mummy,” said Nora.

  “Bradley, then,” said
Mrs. Longworth. She inspected me as if I were one of her horses, then barked, “Uncle Otto! He’s the spitting image of Uncle Otto.” Highat moved closer and peered at me. I expected him to take out a monocle to get a better look.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Mummy,” said Nora. She was always telling people not to be ridiculous. “Uncle Otto was totally bald. He didn’t even have any eyebrows.”

  “You didn’t know him then,” Nora’s father told her, “but he once had a fine head of hair and a soup strainer, like Mr. Branston’s.”

  “He means mustache,” Lennie translated for me.

  “‘Bradley,’ Daddy . . .” Nora corrected.

  Highat continued to look me up and down.

  “Yes, there is a resemblance, dear,” he said to his wife.

  “Highat, you old fool,” she said. “What do you mean, Nora never knew Otto when he had hair? He rescued her when she was kidnapped in 1967, and he didn’t develop the circulation problem until 1968.”

  “Your Uncle Otto rescued you when you were kidnapped?” I asked Nora.

  “Mother,” she said, ignoring my question, “I was only four years old in 1967. How could I remember Uncle Otto when he had hair?”

  “Well,” Nora’s mother said, “he had a fine head of hair, and when he did, he looked remarkably like this man.”

  She pointed as if she were identifying me for the police, just as Tamara popped another flash near my face. I staggered a half step backward before catching my balance.

  Nora’s mother spoke again. “You’re an adorable creature,” she said to Tamara, “but please, put the camera away. The flash is annoying.”

  Spying Ray, she said, “Ah, the triumphant artist,” and offered her hand.

  He was wearing his best clothes—the ones Lennie had bought and that I had picked up for him at Paul Stewart before the opening at Edison’s Electric—but he looked less professorial than he had on that evening. He wasn’t wearing his wire-rim spectacles, probably because his nose was still puffy and distorted from smashing it into the poll of Mr. Constant.

  “I’m Ray Martin, Mrs. Longworth.”

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Martin. Nora tells me that Templeton Williams was your foster father. And you prepped with my nephew, Topper Longworth, at Episcopal.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Ray. “I guess you could say that.”

  “I knew Temple Williams. In fact I danced with him at the Deep River Hunt Ball when I was a girl. There’s a photograph somewhere.”

  “Small world, isn’t it,” said Lennie, deadpan.

  “I’d come with Snavely Lamont,” she continued, ignoring Lennie. “The father, of course, not the son. Even now, twenty years after it happened, I’m shocked that Temple is gone.”

  “It took time for me to accept too, ma’am,” Ray said.

  “Well, Raymond, I understand you’re as bold a rider as Temple over . . .” She stopped abruptly. “You don’t mind if I call you Raymond, do you?” Continuing before he could answer, she said, “Templeton Williams was as bold a man over fences as I’ve ever seen.”

  “I’m hardly a rider at all,” said Ray.

  “There’s no shame in a broken nose, young man. That was the same fence where Nora broke her nose when she was eight. We were returning from Harkaway. Do you remember, Highat?”

  “As if it were yesterday, my dear.”

  “I’m going to be ill,” Lennie stage-whispered into my ear. “I’ve been in the doghouse continuously for eight years. Why does Ray automatically get the catbird seat?”

  Nora’s mother turned on him. “How can you dare talk about doghouses, Leonard?”

  “The man doesn’t keep a single hound on the place,” sniffed Highat, in explanation of his wife’s wrath, as he extended his hand to shake Ray’s.

  “I’m allergic to dogs,” said Lennie. “Even foxhunting dogs.”

  “Hounds!” said Nora, Ray, and Highat simultaneously.

  “Never ‘dogs.’ It’s ‘hounds,’ Leonard,” said Mrs. Longworth.

  “Mother, you know he does that on purpose,” Nora said.

  “I know he does,” said Mrs. Longworth. “To irritate me.”

  “Dog? Hound? What’s the difference?” asked Lennie.

  “A hound’s temperament is very different from a dog’s,” said Ray.

  “Bully!” said Highat. “Good show!”

  Lennie hissed at Ray, “Traitor!”

  There was a shocked silence in the room, and then everyone laughed except Nora’s mother, who raised both eyebrows.

  Thanksgiving dinner was a traditional feast, laid out buffet style in the studio. There was corn pudding, spinach soufflé, roasted new potatoes, and an enormous golden brown turkey with bread-and-oyster stuffing. A dish of homemade cranberry sauce was placed beside the turkey, and Kathleen Fox had made a pumpkin pie cheesecake for dessert.

  In a stroke of brilliance, Lennie had asked Noboro to carve the turkey. I accompanied him back to the kitchen and watched as the sword master checked the edge on the carving knife, added a few touches with the sharpening steel, and set to work on the enormous bird. When he was finished, the meat lay on the platter in perfect, even, slices.

  A Van Leuyden, or, rather, a Longworth tradition was to serve Champagne at Thanksgiving, and bottles of Taittinger flowed freely. Two of the wooden tables had been placed end to end in the studio so that all ten of us could sit together. Ray looked quite happy, sitting silently between Mrs. Longworth and Tamara. Mrs. Longworth was telling him about long-ago incidents at Schoolcross—stories from Nora’s childhood—as Tamara leaned against his shoulder, listening. Highat chimed in from time to time.

  “Did you really have an Uncle Otto who rescued you when you were kidnapped?” I asked Nora.

  “Absolutely,” she said. She paused for a moment. “At least that’s the family story. I have only the vaguest memory. Probably what happened is that I didn’t get out of the cab, and no one in the family noticed until it drove away.”

  “And your Uncle Otto?” I asked. “Is he your father’s brother?”

  “No, his uncle. Otto’s been dead for years.” She was distracted and kept glancing down the table to where her mother, Ray, and Tamara were chatting cozily.

  “And he lost all his hair? Even his eyebrows?” I asked.

  “Yes, that part’s true. He developed some kind of medical condition and it all fell out.” She took a bite of spinach soufflé. “That’s one of my most vivid childhood memories. He’d often be in the apartment in New York wearing carpet slippers and a silk robe. When he’d walk, the slippers would go ‘swoosh, swoosh,’ and finally everyone in the family would yell at him to lift his feet—sometimes even the servants.”

  Highat had been listening. “I finally tossed those slippers in the waste bin myself,” he said. “I couldn’t bear hearing the women complain about them anymore.”

  “Then he died,” said Nora.

  “But that’s not why,” added Highat. He reflected for a moment. “The slippers didn’t mean that much to the man,” he said, pursuing some thought of his own. “He was a German.”

  Nora was caught up in reminiscence. “He carried a tiny hairless dog in the sleeves of that old robe,” she said, “and he used to like me to polish his head.”

  “The dog liked you to polish his head?”

  “No, silly. Uncle Otto. With a soft cloth and a drop of oil, as if I were shining a pair of boots. Having his head polished was the only way it ever felt warm.”

  Elisabeth had begun listening to our conversation. “It was disgraceful,” she said. “Otto would sit on the footstool with his ratty old kimono hanging open, and she’d stand on the chair behind him, a girl of seven polishing an old man’s head.”

  “There was no harm in it,” said Highat. “He was my uncle.”

  “If anything, that makes it worse,” Elisabeth said.

  “Did you like polishing Uncle Otto’s head?” I asked Nora.

  “That’s what everyone wanted to know. I
never admitted it, because I knew they’d make me stop, but, yes, I did enjoy it. It obviously gave the man such pleasure.”

  “You see,” said Elisabeth to Highat.

  “He used to say, ‘Ah, ah, ah,” said Nora.

  “Stop being disgusting, Nora,” said her mother.

  “What I remember best is the dog that lived in the sleeve of Uncle Otto’s robe,” said Nora. “I was terrified of the creature, and yet fascinated at the same time.”

  “Hairless Crested Fever Dog,” said Highat. “Very rare. No fur at all, except for a topknot. Always runs a natural fever of one hundred and five degrees. The Mandarins kept them in their sleeves during the winter so their arms would stay warm.” He popped a small buttered biscuit into his mouth.

  “I couldn’t help wondering what it would be like to be that dog, with those little bug eyes,” Nora said. “To have been bred hairless and all feverish like that, on purpose. And to live in a sleeve all your life.”

  “I never heard the dog complain,” said Highat. “It was doing what it was bred to do.”

  “All of God’s creatures have their place,” said Elisabeth. “Breeding is everything in a dog.”

  “Hound,” said Lennie, who’d begun listening.

  “Dog!” said Mrs. Longworth. “We weren’t talking about a hound, we were talking about a dog.”

  Ray excused himself, saying he needed to get something from the Quaker Cottage. I was anxious to see this amazing thing he’d found. Lennie had told us earlier that he had a gift for the kendoists, so I had brought a house present—a jumbo-sized wicker basket of Georgia fatwood from the L.L. Bean catalog. With Champagne and gifts, the occasion was as much like Christmas as Thanksgiving.

  I decided to let dessert wait and instead wandered through the house, looking at the extraordinary things the family had collected over the years. I picked up an old walking stick, one of about half a dozen that leaned in a corner of the hallway.