“Okay,” says Rona, “so I’m not pressuring you about a date now. Just one thing. Do you like tulips?”
I grip the notepad.
“I’ve always thought tulips were lively.” Rona caresses the word like a lucky pair of dice. “You will want floral arrangements, right?”
“Rona. We don’t even have a date.”
“Well, I was just thinking, and I had this idea. Tulips aren’t traditional, you know. But I think they’re lively.”
“Rona, I’m at work right now. Tulips are just fine, for whenever the wedding happens. I’d just need”—this conversation is surreal—“to ask George.”
There’s a long pause. “I don’t see what anyone could have against some nice tulips.”
“I’m not saying—”
“Well, you ask your George if you like.”
Her hurt reverberates in my silent office.
Outside in the unremitting rain, I curse the weather, my balky umbrella, my aunt, myself. Rona, I know, will echo my mistake back to me into the indefinite future. Rather than indicating my personal tulip friendliness, I should have punted the question, asked George what he thinks of fucking tulips, and come back with a united-front response. If this man and I marry, and if the ceremony does not involve tulips, years from now Rona will still be asking what sort of man—callous, unwholesome, obdurate—doesn’t like her beloved tulips. The relationship between my husband and aunt will begin strained, burdened by Rona’s offense.
We. I was supposed to say we.
George’s father and sister spend one night in New York. We arrange to meet at a midtown restaurant: a tasteful, moderately priced sample of a Manhattan that Earl and Paula indict in George’s kidnapping. George spends the afternoon with them. When he phones from Paula’s room at the Mayflower to fill me in on dinner plans, he greets me with a tense “Hey” that makes me want to carry mace along to the meal.
When I meet George at his apartment he’s alone; his father and sister, who wanted to rest after the afternoon’s walk in Central Park, will take a cab to the restaurant.
“I didn’t expect them to embrace New York.” George rubs the back of his neck. “But I expected some expression of appreciation. Even if they do think it’s the den of iniquity, et cetera. Even Paula just sort of glanced at the skyline, and then her eyes zeroed in on all the dirt, and she didn’t say a damn word. I’d have expected her, at least, to be more open-minded. But both of them just stared at the gritty buildings and gritty people. The things that are only atmosphere when you live here.” He blows out air. His face looks uncharacteristically gaunt. Then, after a moment, it’s softened by a smile. “But I’ve got something for you.” He opens his briefcase and removes something. Gently he unfolds my hand. On the center of my palm he sets a small and lightweight green velveteen box.
“I couldn’t wait anymore,” he says in a quiet voice. “If you don’t like it we can pick another. But I’ve been saving up, and I borrowed a bit too.”
“You borrowed? But you said—”
George nudges me to open the box.
The ring is a small square gem set in a narrow gold band, two dark green stones on either side. The diamond is exquisitely bright, a fragment of life dancing against the emeralds and green flocking. The stones look like stars.
The ring is beautiful. The gesture is beautiful. The whole moment is as beautiful as a frigid pristine night that silences speech. I stare. “George—” I have no idea how much such a ring costs but the expense is a dreadful heaviness in my gut. My voice is unrecognizably girlish. “Thank you,” I whisper.
He slides the ring up my finger. “I love you,” he says. “With everything I am.” Then, pressing my hand between his until the too loose band digs into the neighboring fingers, George unfurls a sigh as long as all the miles he’s traveled in the last thirty-seven years, and I hear it: the watermark left by his loss.
I love you, too.
A battered yellow cab wrests us downtown.
At the restaurant they’re already seated. Paula stands as we approach the table and beams up at me: a diminutive gentle-faced woman my age, with her mother’s straight brown hair and soft brown eyes. I recall what George said on the way over: She was always a serious kid. It was like she knew life was going to be hard, and she took to the Bible like an instruction manual. Trying to open his sister to different ideas—something George attempted in his twenties—was futile. He respects her, though. Now and then when he’s in Toronto, after her kids and husband go to sleep, the two of them sit up and talk—something they both look forward to, though their worldviews are barely in the same galaxy. From time to time one of Paula’s daughters asks if George believes in Jesus. When George says no, his niece asks why he wants to go to hell.
Paula takes the hand I offer, but instead of shaking squeezes, then kisses me once on each cheek. When she’s finished we’re both blushing.
The resemblance between George and his father is breathtaking. Earl is a tall, spare man, good-looking in a chiseled way. His cheekbones are prominent and his color high; his forehead shines where the cropped silver hair has receded. He and Paula look like white middle-class relatives from central casting. Not, I am forced to concede, the glassy-eyed fundamentalists a liberal education has trained me to expect.
We sit, Paula beaming, Earl looking dispassionately patient, as though this dinner were a business obligation he’d been unable to avoid.
The waitress brings menus. We read in silence. When she returns, Paula, George, and I order. The waitress, a lean brunette with a crewcut and a nose ring, scrawls on her pad. Earl watches, his gaze decidedly unfriendly.
He snaps his menu shut. “Nothing for me,” he says.
“Dad,” Paula coaxes, but Earl raises his hand.
Paula smiles ruefully at George. “Interesting menu,” she says.
Earl’s hand settles back on the tablecloth. I watch it: the dry lined skin of the knuckles, the fingers thickening with age. Its inert weight on the tabletop.
George, beside me, says nothing. Beneath the table I lean my knee against his. His leg sways away under the pressure.
Paula is watching me. Her warm eyes, apologizing into mine, welcome me, caution me, and telegraph a request: keep the conversation flowing. Turning to the waitress, she interrogates her closely about the preparation of the seafood dish she’s ordered, receiving each answer with an expression of enthusiasm.
After the waitress leaves, the table is silent.
“So, Tracy.” Paula stirs her tea noisily. “Are you kosher?”
It depends how I’m killed.
“No.” I offer the sugar bowl, which Paula declines. A quick glance at Earl—who looks away—confirms that I am to address myself to Paula alone. “The truth is that I’ve never been very religious.”
Earl’s jaw tightens.
Paula tucks her own opinion into a long sip of tea.
“George tells us you’re an English teacher,” Earl says abruptly.
Beside me George stirs.
“That’s right.” The warmth in my own voice shocks me. Earl’s surliness is his power. In the space of minutes I’ve become willing to applaud this man’s every nonaccusatory utterance. I lower my voice to a less welcoming pitch. “I teach English literature to undergraduate and graduate students.”
“It’s a very good job for a woman,” Paula chimes in with pleasure. It’s obvious she and her father have discussed this. “It makes it easier to have a family.”
At this reference to my future childbearing, Earl turns his gaze on me. His brown eyes traveling slowly, he looks me over in a frank appraisal that’s unlike any I’ve ever been subjected to. I hunch forward for a sip of water, then sit back with my arms crossed over my breasts.
“Tracy is an English professor.” George addresses his father as though they were the only two at the table. His cheeks are pink, his face alive. He looks like the man I fell in love with. “Her students are lucky to have her. Whatever she decides to do about w
ork and family, she’ll be great at it.”
The waitress, suddenly Paula’s best friend, arrives with bread.
George lays a palm on my thigh. Whatever current pulled him away from me earlier has subsided. He squeezes my leg: wordless assurance of solidarity. As his sister busies herself with the bread basket he reaches for my left hand and caresses the ring, running the pad of his index finger over the three stones as though they were worry beads. His breathing slows. Before eating he turns to me with an expression that makes full apology for his faults, and declares humble appreciation for my companionship at this painful cornerstone of his life, where he’s taken no lover before.
That night I dream we scuba-dive through caverns, hands tightly clasped. George, moving gracefully beside me, is more beautiful than I could ever have imagined. His eyes are filled with wonders; his face, shed of mourning, is radiant in the depths. Pulling me forward through the cool water, oblivious to my dwindling air, my repeated attempts to make my hands execute the signal to surface, he dives ever deeper.
I wake with my hands urgent on his body. We’re making love, our breath sharp in the dark room. We pause only long enough for a condom, then knock pillows to the floor, tumble across the bed’s surf of white sheets, lie still.
It’s as good as ever. So why, as I slip back into sleep, do I grieve?
I exit the elevator and am greeted by Steven, who is positioned beside the departmental mailboxes with coffee in hand and an insouciant expression. He raises his mug in salute. “How’s it going?”
Nearby, Elizabeth is absorbed in study of the faculty bulletin board.
I nod. “And you?”
“Couldn’t be better.” Steven gestures toward my mail slot. “I think you’ll like what you find in there.”
I draw the stack of envelopes from the slot, irritated at this further confirmation that the contents of faculty mailboxes are no secret—not to those who loiter in Eileen’s presence.
From her desk, Eileen, who has awaited this moment, preempts my good news with a loud singsong. “Look who’s gotten an invitation to the holiday party.”
I glance up at her, then down at the top envelope on the stack. The paper is thick, cream-colored, and the flap bears the gold-embossed crest of the university. I open the stiff envelope with some difficulty and draw out a single card that begs my presence at a private holiday gathering, hosted by the president of the university, to be held in three weeks in the Howard Perry Room of the faculty club.
“What’s the Howard Perry Room?”
“Holy of holies,” says Steven. “Only the deans and provosts and such use it. This is the inner-circle party.”
I look up. “How do you know this stuff?”
Steven smirks.
I study the invitation. “Since when do junior faculty get invited to these things? Or visiting professors, for that matter?”
Steven takes a conspiratorial step closer. “I’ve made some friends here. My chairman at Oxford roomed with Dean Hopkins at Andover. I was introduced around in September. Word must have spread that I was a thoughtful bloke”—he punctuates this with a grin—“and that you were an up-and-coming. You and I championed a contemporary curriculum, and that approach is winning. These things get noticed. You and I are invited. So are Manning and Judson, of course”—a.k.a. Grub and Paleozoic—“but nobody else from the department.”
“I didn’t champion a contemporary curriculum. I just asked for balance.”
“This is great for you,” he says. “If the people whispering in the president’s ear start tapping you for the Perry Room, you’re untouchable. Things are changing here. The traditionalists are in for some unhappy surprises.” He doesn’t look the least bit sorry for them.
I study Steven. “Thanks,” I say.
He winks.
“Wear something elegant.” Eileen draws out the word. “Not like you wear to teach.”
A quick mental catalogue of the contents of my closet finds them inadequate. Filing away the wearying prospect of dress shopping, I slide the invitation into my briefcase for later scrutiny. I hesitate, then address Steven once more. “I just don’t want to give the impression I’m siding against anything written before nineteen hundred.”
“Aren’t you?” he teases.
“No.” I fumble. “I mean, I’m the biggest Melville fan there is. I’d teach him—and some earlier writers, too—if my schedule allowed it.”
Another wink. “No worries,” Steven says.
I give my best inscrutable smile and start for my office.
“No!” Elizabeth’s ferocity arrests me midstride. I turn to find her facing Steven, fists clenched by her sides, her forehead knit with fury. Steven steps back. His elbow bumps the mailboxes and a wide slosh of coffee hits the floor.
“Tracy isn’t ignoring earlier writers at all!”
A half-alarmed smile curls on Steven’s mouth. “Whoa,” he says. “Relax there, friend.”
“She’s got a ton of respect for earlier works! Her whole new project is about Tolstoy. And taking on the whole idea of tragedy. And considering American literature within and against that paradigm. And she’s going to break open the whole question of happy endings in American literature.”
My face is burning.
Steven no longer looks alarmed. He looks amused. He slides the sole of his shoe into the spilled coffee and taps a pale dotted arc on the linoleum floor. “Really?” he says. He looks at me.
I make a noncommittal gesture.
“Isn’t that a bit broad?”
“Not the way she’s going to do it,” says Elizabeth. “She’s picking all the right examples. It’s going to be really big.”
“Elizabeth!” I cut in. She stops speaking, gives me a frustrated look, and turns back to the bulletin board.
“That’s enough on that subject,” I say, although Elizabeth no longer seems interested in the conversation. I turn to Steven. “It’s just an idea. Just in the beginning stages. I talked about it vaguely with Elizabeth.”
Steven pats the toe of his shoe in the coffee. It makes a faint plashing. “It’s bold, all right. You’re probably crazy.” Stepping to the verge of the corridor, he grinds his shoe into the rug, drying it more thoroughly than it could possibly require. He stares at me. “Or maybe you’re incredibly canny. If you could pull that off, it would be colossal.”
In a confusion of alarm and pride, I nod. Steven leaves, presumably for his office.
“What’s so controversial about this project of yours, Tracy?” asks Eileen.
“It’s . . . complicated. Okay if I tell you some other time?” Before Eileen can respond I turn my back on her and take Elizabeth’s elbow.
Leading her down the hall feels like ushering a reluctant school-child to the principal’s office. At one point she literally drags her feet, and I have to put my hand on her shoulder to coax her forward.
“You’re angry at me,” she says when I’ve closed my office door.
“You bet.”
She looks miserable. Then, from some heretofore dormant depth of Elizabeth, defiance flares across her face. “It’s stupid to be ashamed,” she says. “It’s a great idea.”
“I’m not ashamed. I’m prudent. At least I was, until you decided to out my project to the entire department.”
“I’m sorry,” she bats back. It’s obvious she doesn’t mean it.
“Elizabeth, what’s going on? Don’t you remember promising to keep my project under wraps?”
She picks up a pen from my desk and clicks it repeatedly.
“I’ve known you for a few years now,” I say. “Elizabeth, something’s changing. What’s going on?”
She sets the pen sharply onto the desktop. “I’m all right. Yes, I used to get a bit flighty. But I’m fine now.”
“What do you mean, flighty?”
She watches me. “I get stressed-out, that’s all. I’ve got a lot of stress. You know all about that, you’re the one who’s been standing up for me.”
She doesn’t answer.
“Please, Elizabeth, don’t talk about my project in public again.”
“I promise.” This time she sounds sincere.
She leaves. I settle into my chair. Before forcing myself into The House of Mirth, I indulge myself in a brief replay of Steven Hilliard’s voice pronouncing the word “colossal.”
My mother, who does not buy outfits, has bought outfits for this holiday in the Catskills. She fusses with the buttons of her new sweaters and is painfully shy around George. With me, she is abnormally voluble.
The grassy, starlit parking lot is deserted. The air smells of woodsmoke. In the dark beyond the parking lot the hills roll on for miles, beckoning me with a blunt, chilly clarity I trust. There’s no sound but the wind in the bare trees around the inn. No evidence, other than a half-dozen parked cars, of the mountainside inn’s other patrons, tucked away in their lamplit rooms, presumably readying themselves for tomorrow’s Thanksgiving feast.
Still, my mother, suddenly a font of gossip, whispers. “You remember Theresa and Watson from next door?”
“The ones from L.A.?” I can’t help whispering in reply.
“They have a terrible fertility problem.”
I hoist my weekend bag higher onto my shoulder.
“The problem is Watson’s,” she continues. “They’re seeing a specialist.”
The injustice of it stuns me: now that I’ve made a life choice she understands, she’s eager to provide a map of the world.
Silhouetted in the inn’s lighted doorway, my father claps a hand to George’s neck and waves. I follow my mother toward the entrance.
Since George and I greeted my parents at the airport this afternoon, my father has hardly spoken to me. Instead, he’s peppered George with questions and nodded vigorous approval of every answer. And George—I couldn’t help noticing as I sat speechless in the back seat—was perfect. Courteous, solicitous without being smarmy, funny without crossing any lines of propriety. The two of them fell into a hearty friendliness that continued as George piloted us north in the rented car, the tension of their postures easing in the front seats as their conversation grew steadily more genuine.
Tolstoy Lied : A Love Story (9780547527307) Page 23