Maggie Darling

by James Howard Kunstler

  Sherlock craned around the room until he spotted the couple. “Laura Wilkie,” he reported. “She’s an analyst.”

  “Gosh, she’s awfully young for a shrink.”

  “No, an analyst with us. Tells us what’s hot and what’s not. Princeton. Smart.”

  “Ah. How long?”

  “She came on in, oh, September.”

  “Really? How long has Charlie been going out with her?”

  “Hey, it’s news to me they’re going out. Good for old Charlie.” Maggie, flushing, held out her champagne flute to a passing waiter for a refill.

  The musicians concluded “The Waters of Holland,” and a ripple of excitement passed through the big room. Frederick Swann, the English rock star (he recorded for Earl Wise’s label), took stage, so to speak, at the center of the dance floor. All chatter ceased until the only sounds in the room were a few coughs and the crackling of the hearth. Without any introduction, and accompanied only by someone in the balcony playing a small lap harmonium, Swann sang an early American song of such compelling and stately beauty that women around the room goggled at him in a transport and not a few of the men became light-headed. Togged out in a sort of dueling blouse, black leather pants, and an embroidered red silk vest, Swann’s nimbus of long frizzy blond hair framed his head like an angel’s halo in a Florentine fresco. Swann was capable of bravura vocal feats à la Ray Charles—indeed, he was usually accused of imitating the master—but tonight he sang in a pure ringing tenor that startled those familiar with his usual work:

  My days have been so wondrous free

  The little birds that fly

  With careless ease from tree to tree

  Were but as blest as I

  Were but as blest as I

  Ask gliding waters if a tear of mine

  Increased their stream

  And ask the breathing gales

  If ever I lent a sigh to them

  I lent a sigh to them.

  Swann sang the verses twice and bowed deeply. The harmonium above played a lilting coda, and an eerie silence followed as the astonished guests joined in applause that rose to cheers and whistles. Then Swann faded back into the admiring crowd. The Fiddle-Di-Diddlers struck up “Maiden Lane,” and Maggie, as amazed as anyone, floated out of the ballroom to the kitchen.

  6

  In Camera but Not Obscura

  Nina and her four assistants already had the counters and stoves wiped down. A ziggurat of plastic tubs and hampers filled with leftovers remained on the big scrubbed pine table awaiting storage. Maggie decorked two bottles of Veuve Cliquot La Grande Dame and poured the champagne into a set of etched amethyst flip glasses for the kitchen crew.

  “Everything was absolutely splendid,” she told Nina. “I’m so proud of you. Of all of you.” Maggie hugged the sturdy Nina. The gang made short work of the two bottles. When Maggie emerged back into the party, she was tipsy. She couldn’t remember the last time she drank too much. It might have been as long ago as the seventies—perhaps the night Nixon flew away for good in his helicopter. On her way back to the ballroom, in the library, she came upon Earl Wise and Frederick Swann huddled with Ed Parrot of Paramount and Antonio Zarillas, the rising filmmaker widely expected to snare an Oscar nomination for The Book of Moonlight starring Jack Nicholson. The four men ceased their obvious and rather shameful business schmoozing as Maggie crossed the room to them. Wise introduced her to Swann.

  “You are a very great lady,” Swann said in a caressing voice that was a good stage Mayfair. Maggie wondered about his upbringing, having assumed, perhaps wrongly, that he was some kind of Southwark lumpen prole. It occurred to her that Swann was a very capable actor, besides being a soul crooner, and that, in fact, the huddle she had interrupted had something to do with a possible career move. As he spoke, Swann’s eyes roved up and down Maggie like a pair of busy hands until she had the peculiar sensation of standing before him absolutely naked. She touched her neckline to reassure herself that her gown was still actually there.

  “You sang like an angel,” she said. “Such a lovely song. I’d never heard it before.”

  “Well, ’tis American, you know,” Swann said, thumbs in his vest pockets, assuming at once an unlikely, but entirely charming, donnish air. “Perhaps the first composition by a native American—the music, at least. Fellow named Francis Hopkinson penned it in 1759. He was one of those lads who could do everything: painter, writer, solicitor, a real man of parts. Signed your Declaration of Independence too, the impudent rascal …”

  It happened that Maggie’s eye caught something moving in the background, as the human eye will even in a crowded room. Across the library and halfway down the hall that led to the ballroom was the bathroom where Maggie had had her anxiety attack. From it now emerged the young woman in the black strapless gown, Laura Wilkie, who had been standing between Charlie Duckworth and Kenneth before supper. Laura Wilkie carefully closed the door behind her and, smoothing her dress, vanished down the hall.

  “… The words, however, are by the English poet Thomas Parnell, from his ‘Love and Innocence’ …” Swann continued.

  Meanwhile, Lucius Milstein waddled into view. He tried the bathroom door but, finding it locked, waited outside. Maggie felt an impulse to go down and inform him that the room was unoccupied, but seconds later the door opened. A familiar bald head thrust out and glanced down the far end of the hall toward the ballroom. Maggie instinctively drew back behind Swann, barely peeking past his brawny shoulder. The bald head swiveled to glance up into the library, the face revealing itself to be Kenneth’s. He emerged fully then and, straightening his necktie, strode out of sight toward the ballroom.

  “… I collect musical antiques,” Swann went on. “I should love to do an album of them someday, but I suspect Earl would sooner sign K. D. Lang to do an album of Canadian birdcalls. Are you, uh, quite all right, Mrs. Darling?”

  In fact, Maggie had gone white and she appeared to wobble.

  “I’m fine,” she lied, “but I’ve just remembered something terribly urgent in the kitchen. Would you gentlemen excuse me?”

  Maggie backed out of the library and made her way unsteadily to the kitchen, groping for the backs of chairs, tabletops, and newel posts along the way, like an old person expecting to fall down. Her head swam. Her thoughts seemed to swirl in a thick, opaque, boiling sauce, like béchamel.

  Nina and the other cooks had gone. Two Yale boys and the Sarah Lawrence girl sat at the big table smoking cigarettes and drinking champagne. They got up and skulked away when Maggie appeared. Ignoring them, she emptied a quart of milk into a saucepan, spooned in cocoa powder and sugar, added a splash of vanilla extract, and stirred the mixture just short of boiling. Next, she filled a large stainless-steel thermos bottle, grabbed two mugs, snatched her canvas field jacket off a peg near the door, and slipped out into the night.

  7

  Out in the Cold

  A light snow still fell, but the wind had died down, lending the darkness a soft calming presence, like death at its most gentle and poetic. Perhaps two inches carpeted the ground and cloaked the yew hedges that lined the driveway. Maggie stumbled forward toward the west meadow, which had been set up as a parking lot for the occasion. Two more Yale boys stood there in hooded, insulated jumpsuits—provided by Maggie, of course—slapping their sides, stoically fending off the interminable boredom of their assignment.

  “I’ve brought you something warm,” she said gravely, pouring them each a mug of cocoa, and herself some in the thermos cup.

  “Why, jeez, thanks, yeah thanks, Ms. Darling,” they said.

  “What are your names?”

  “I’m Roger and this is Mark.”

  “What do you want to do in life, Roger?”

  “International law.”

  “How about you, Mark?”

  “Just regular law. You know, a lawyer.”

  “Divorce?”

  “Sure, why not?” Mark chortled. “Hey, this hot chocolate’s awesome.” />
  Through an awkward pause in which the young men couldn’t think what to say to their employer, who was herself apparently lost in thought, a Christmas carol could be heard thrumming inside the house. Janet Higgenbotham’s piercing soprano carried above the other voices. The great arched window of the ballroom glowed like an amber tombstone in the distance.

  “Sounds like some party in there,” Roger observed.

  “Oh, it’s been a most amusing night,” Maggie said. The leaden irony, which went right over the boys’ heads, choked Maggie like a wad of underchewed beef. The next moment car headlights cut through the gateposts of the fieldstone wall that hid the house from the prying eyes of passing motorists. The car proved to be a familiar black Saab, one that belonged to Kenneth once upon a time. It pulled into the meadow, stopping beside the three standing figures. Maggie’s son Hooper rolled down the window.

  “What are you doing out here, Mom?”

  “Entertaining the troops.”

  “We decided not to go to Belize after all,” Hooper said.

  “I’m so glad you’re home,” Maggie said, riven by emotion. She reached inside the window and hugged Hooper’s beautiful blond head. Her tears left one whole side of his face damp.

  “Gosh, get a hold of yourself, Mom,” he said. Just then, Maggie noticed a girl in the passenger seat. “Oh, this is Alison,” Hooper inserted, offhandedly. “Alison, my famous mom.”

  “Nice to meet you, Maggie,” the young woman said with a flip of her hair. It was hard to see her face in the lights of the dashboard. She seemed pretty in an undergraduate way, but Maggie detected the gleam of metal in one nostril and her lower lip.

  “Thought we’d camp out in the orchard cottage,” Hooper said, referring to the guest house. Maggie seemed distracted. “That all right, Mom?”

  Maggie knew that Hooper had brought girls there before. But in the past he’d always sneaked them in. She didn’t like the idea of giving the two of them explicit permission to sleep together on the premises, but she could not bring herself to object. She had been sleeping with Kenneth in his parents’ pool house when she was younger than Hooper, for goodness sake. To thwart them seemed ethically insupportable and grotesquely prudish. Yet she hated the idea. It tinged all the rue she was feeling with rage.

  “You’ll have to make the bed,” she said dryly.

  “No problem, Maggie,” Alison said.

  “Quit calling me Maggie,” she snapped. “Do you think we’re best friends or something?”

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Darling.”

  “Don’t call me that either,” Maggie retorted, her voice cracking. “Aw, hell.”

  Roger and Mark inched away clutching their mugs.

  “What should I call you?” Alison asked.

  “I don’t know,” Maggie said, dissolving in tears.

  “Are you okay, Mom?”

  “Party’s a disaster,” was all Maggie could say. “Complete fiasco.”

  “We’ll just go down to the orchard house, Mom. We won’t even peek into the party.”

  “Get some food,” Maggie said between sobs. “Kitchen’s loaded.”

  “Okay.”

  “And sleep tight,” she said and then reached in and hugged his head again, desperately, saying, “I love you so much.”

  “I know, Mom. Hey, parties come and parties go. You know that better than anyone. It’ll be all right. You’ll see.”

  “I’m sorry you’re having such a tough time,” Alison added.

  “You’re sweet,” Maggie said, suddenly adoring the girl. “Be good to my boy.”

  “Merry Christmas, Mom. We’ll see you in the morning bright.”

  The car swerved out of the meadow and down a snow-covered lane behind the enormous house. Maggie stood in the darkness bawling, she knew not how long, but a duration sufficient to clear her mind.

  8

  The Little Cookie

  At one-thirty in the morning, the last guest had gone, the ballroom was cleared and swept, all the glasses and plates and platters and party things had been washed and stowed back in the enormous pantry, the help had been paid in crisp bills and set free. The house stood cocooned in winter stillness, except for the reassuring tick of the Aaron Willard arched-hood grandfather clock (circa 1790) in the upstairs hall. Kenneth sat on the chair in front of Maggie’s vanity heaving sighs of exhaustion. One sock dangled stupidly half off his right foot.

  “Come to bed,” said Maggie, who sat propped up against the cherrywood headboard perusing a rival’s new book of Tuscan-inspired recipes, busily annotating the pages with a felt-tipped pen.

  “I’m so tired,” Kenneth moaned.

  Maggie patted the mattress briskly. “Come on now.”

  Kenneth pulled his tuxedo shirt over his head like a lacrosse jersey, without undoing the studs, wadded it up, and flung the thing in the direction of his closet. It landed on the carpet with a mild thud. This sort of slovenliness usually drove Maggie up a wall, but she said nothing. Next Kenneth stood up and dropped his pants and underpants and, stepping forward, left them mashed together in an unappetizing heap. His triathlete’s face sagged, and despite the meaty pectorals, bulging deltoids, and rippling abdominals, he looked middle-aged. Maggie drew the quilt open, inviting Kenneth into his customary side of the bed. He crawled in, flopped this way and that, pounded his pillow, and finally settled on his back, pulling the quilt up to his chin.

  “Must be all those drugs,” Maggie remarked.

  “Oh, I wasn’t so bad tonight, Mags,” Kenneth replied, eyes closed. “Didn’t put a lampshade on my head.”

  “No, you didn’t put a lampshade on your head.” She carefully placed her book on the night table and slid down off the great raft of pillows so that her head lay on Kenneth’s meaty chest.

  “I’m tired, Mags,” Kenneth said, code words meant to signal that he was not especially interested in sex at this time.

  “You just relax now,” Maggie said.

  “Hey, at least turn off the light, babe.”

  “In a minute.”

  She pecked a trail of perfunctory kisses down his sternum to his navel and then a little below, where her sensitive nose picked up what she suspected: a telltale aroma of bluefish and cumin, a combination that uncannily simulated the natural perfume of female sexual equipment. In fact, Maggie once made such a dish of bluefish in cumin seed—baked in parchment paper with cilantro and lime—and she and Nina had turned to each other with exactly the same thought. They ended up making a joke about it. Bluefish à la puta they had named the dish. And here it was now, all over Kenneth’s groin. She recalled the scene in the library earlier: the girl exiting the powder room, then Kenneth slinking out moments later. He wanted to be caught! Maggie was sure of it as she resurfaced now above the quilt.

  “How long have you been banging Laura Wilkie?”

  Kenneth’s eyelids rolled up like windowshades in a cartoon. “Who?” he asked.

  “Laura Wilkie.”

  “Who’s Laura Wilkie?”

  “I see. You’re going to pretend that you don’t know who I’m talking about. The little cookie in the black strapless thing that Charlie Duckworth’s supposedly going with.”

  “Her? You think I’m banging her?”

  “She works for Throop, Cravath, doesn’t she?”

  “Not in my department.”

  “How come you pretended not to know her name?”

  “I am not ‘banging’ this Laura Wilkie creature.”

  “Kenneth, you are really such a lousy liar, I don’t see how you can even make a living on Wall Street. I can smell her all over you.”

  “I was dancing, for God’s sake. I got sweaty.”

  “That’s not sweat, you bastard. It’s bluefish and cumin!”

  “Huh … ?”

  “Pussy, you dolt. I can smell her all over you!”

  “Oh, please … Can we talk about this in the morning?”

  “No. You’re not going to be here in the morning.”


  “Ha!” Kenneth said with a little snort and closed his eyes again as though challenging her. Maggie rose to her knees, put both hands together as though clasped in prayer, and brought them down as hard as she could on Kenneth’s solar plexus. Springlike, his body catapulted weirdly off the bed, as though he had been launched like a missile, and then he was crawling rapidly around on the carpet emitting the most peculiar shrill noise, just like the pigs they had seen being slaughtered for market in northern Spain years ago. For several moments, Maggie worried that she had actually stopped Kenneth’s heart. But then he stopped squealing and commenced gasping for breath, and she understood that she had simply succeeded in knocking the wind out of him. A few more moments and he was merely breathing hard and coughing. He even managed to mutter “You bitch!” between breaths, and she knew he was perfectly all right.

  In the interval she grabbed the fireplace poker out of its brass stand.

  “I saw you come out of the bathroom ten seconds after Laura Wilkie came out, you lying, stupid sonofabitch,” Maggie growled. “Out,” she demanded. “Out of the house!” When Kenneth failed to move, she whacked him across the buttocks with the poker. The blow seemed to propel him to his feet, and he took an apelike stance, as though to menace Maggie physically. She let him have it again, this time on the shins.

  “Ow! You crazy bitch!”

  “Out! Out of my house!”

  “This is my house too.”

  “Not anymore,” Maggie barked. “You threw it away for a five-minute standing fuck in a toilet.”

  She brandished the poker overhead again. This time Kenneth lunged for the fireplace tool stand and seized the little brass broom. “Come on, Mags,” he said, taunting her like one of the characters out of the rumble scene in West Side Story. “Come on. Try and hit me again.”