Blue Rose In Chelsea (33 page)

     The girls are thrilled at the window displays.  I feel a tug at my heart, recalling Sinclair’s
 
enchanted winter wonderland display at Bergdorf’s a decade ago.  Little Claire is mesmerized by a mechanical puppet in the storefront of Macys, a
 
small pink elephant with blue spots.  The little elephant moves its head slowly from side to side, and even rears on its hind legs.  Claire presses her pink mittens to the glass, where they become stuck from the gritty ice.  She has yet to make even one request to Santa,
 
until now.  Dylan looks relieved, but then whispers into my hair, “Great, where am I going to find a pink and blue polka dotted elephant?”

     “FAO Schwarz, where else?” I whisper back.

     Wiry elves with almond eyes hypnotize Isabel, a queen and her prince.  The prince’s arms magically move, presenting his Queen with an azure-colored crystal ball that holds within its facets a snow-globe
 
wedding scene.
 
I soon discover the reason for Isabel's trance-like state: the puppet prince looks exactly like Isabel's latest obsessive crush: the actor Jim Carrey.

     I help Claire to unstick her mittens; she looks worried that they might stick there for good.  She has taken to wearing red lip-gloss, like her Aunt Haley.  She
 
nagged her mother incessantly over it until Colleen, in exasperation, blotted some onto her little
 
lips.
 
 
We wear nearly matching outfits, red
 
tights and black skating skirts and
 
white sweaters.  Isabel, ever the tomboy but clearly Dylan’s daughter, is dressed in denim leggings and a sweater emblazoned with the American flag.

     Brandon shows up.

     “Dude,” he says, giving Dylan a playful karate kick in the butt.  This is Isabel’s signature move.  Colleen and I tried to interest Isabel in ballet class, but
 
she prefers martial arts and often practices her moves by ambushing the unsuspecting Dylan.

     “Happy Birthday.”  Brandon plants a kiss on my
 
flushed cheek.  "Remember, coffee and a kiss on the cheek? ” he
 
teases.
 
When I inhale his steaming Styrofoam mug of coffee with longing, he surrenders it to me.
 
He looks unusually animated, as if he is up to something.
 
I can only assume
 
he has
 
a new
 
female conquest on his ever-changing registry.
 

     “I see you have your requisite winter tan, courtesy of---what letter are we up to?”  Brandon likes to
 
brag that he
 
is doing all the Caribbean islands in alphabetical order.

      "Martinique," he says,
 
flashing
 
teeth that
 
look
 
professionally whitened, or perhaps the tan is making them appear more blinding than usual. 

     “Soho’s answer to George Hamilton,” the always-tactless Dylan replies, shielding his eyes from the toothy glare.

       "How would you kiddies like to do some shopping with Uncle Brandon?" Brandon offers, fanning his wallet lined with
 
a rainbow of
 
credit cards.
 
The girls’ eyes widen, but their good manners keep them from answering until Dylan gives the okay.
 
Dylan and I go on ahead to the rink.  We sit in the open air, the international flags snapping in the distance, as we lace our skates. 

     “The girls love spending time with you,” he says, in an uncharacteristically tender moment.

     “And vice versa,” I reply.  I’m suddenly not feeling up to conversation.  The ghosts of long ago are appearing in my mind’s eye.  I can see Sinclair in his red Baron cashmere scarf and impenetrable mittens skating away so as to allow Evan to join me.  And there I am, a younger version of myself, convinced that I was at the mercy of outside forces whereas, now, from the vantage point of wealth, I feel more a sense of mastery over life.

     “Do you ever think about having any of your own?” he asks.

     “I don’t know.  I just don’t know,” I say dreamily.  “Maybe I’ll adopt.”

     “Evan has a daughter.  I think she’s close to Isabel’s age, maybe a year or so older.”

     “Well, bully for him,” I snap, suddenly angry at what seems the unfairness of life.

     “Evan’s been widowed for about a year now, I think.  His wife died in some kind of small plane accident.”

     I feel an avalanche of happiness at the thought of Evan being free, and then remorse that his freedom should come at such a price. “That’s sad,” I say, softly, although I feel a mixture of hope, and then anger, that this information was kept from me.

     “Would you ever consider it, Haley?  Trying to find him?  Going to Texas like you were supposed to do all those years ago?”

     I am shocked; as this is the first time that Dylan has acknowledged, in words, the sacrifice I made all those years ago.

     For a long while I can’t answer.  “No, it’s too late for that.  Who knows what kind of person he’s become?  He may not be the same. I may not feel the same.”

     And then Sinclair’s words come back to me, as if he himself were speaking to me from some illuminated inner chamber deep within myself where memories live:
You’ll wonder what he’s doing, what he looks like, if the years have aged him.  Somehow you know, that no matter how he looks today, he will always look to you as he did the last time you saw him, forever young, bright with potential.  You’ll obsess, does he still have the same essence of personality, or is he changed?  Is he more lighthearted, or has he grown heavy with the weight of experience?  Has suffering softened him or hardened him?  You will see a man on the street, loading groceries into his car, and you will think, ‘That could be him.  He might look like that now.’

    
“He was always a good guy.  People don’t change,” Dylan encourages gently.

     “You didn’t think so back then!”  I wrap this accusation in ironic laughter. 

     Dylan hangs his head, and then looks up at the blue sky.

     “My life is here now.  Maybe ten years ago uprooting and going somewhere totally new would have been exciting.  It is easier to adjust to new surroundings when you’re younger.  Now it would just be wrenching to leave everything.  Besides, my life is here with you and the girls.  Mom is well into her seventies; I’m not going to leave her now.”

      “Mom is as spry as someone half her age.  She’ll be around for a long time yet.”

     “Well, maybe I need her more than she needs me,” I say.  “Besides, I want to see my nieces grow up.”

     Dylan watches me as if he were trying to gain the courage to say more, and then he watches the skating crowds, as if searching for something.  “Okay,” he says, agreeably.  “You go ahead.  I’m just going to sit for another moment.”

     “You’re going to sneak off to that hot dog stand,” I taunt, because Colleen has been making him watch his cholesterol.  She’s gotten the girls on board, and they have proven to be rather reliable tattle-tales, especially since they discovered, to their horror, that hot dogs are made from cute little pigs. 

     Dylan grins.  “No, I’m not.  And if I did, I would hope I could count on your collusion.  We’ve always been a team, Sis.  You go ahead.  I’ve got a business call to make on my cell.
 
I'll meet you out on the ice.”

      I groan.
 
"No business calls on my birthday!"

      He grins the sarcastic Dylan grin.
 
"This could be the
 
best call I ever make, or the worst," he adds in afterthought.

       I roll my eyes, lacing the last of my white
 
skate.
 
"I'm not five years old anymore," I
 
whine when he gestures impatiently for me to run along ahead of him.

       "If only you were, we could do it all over differently."

        This stops me in my tracks.  I've never in all my life heard Dylan express regret, but Dylan is adamant in shooing me along, as if I was a stray dog.

        I bend my head into the wind, wading through the crowds and onto the rink where I lean against the railing and kick the blades into the ice to adjust the skates.  When I look up, it’s into the face of Evan.

     “I think this belongs to you.”  He hands me a small shopping bag.  Inside is the Technicolor Dreamcoat in all its original glory.  The years have been kind to the coat, kept well in Evan’s care.  Its plush velvet is still richly black as a night sky, and sewn with its colorful quarks of stars. I can almost see Sinclair at his sidewalk table at Coopers, spearing his melon salad while revealing his royal origins, on that warm and windy end-of-summer
 
day when he first presented me with the magical cloak.

     “Just in time; I was starting to get cold,” I say, my words almost prophetic,
 
and Evan helps me into the coat.  We skate in silence around the rink, taking turns glancing at one another when the other isn’t looking, as if to privately assess the changes the years have wrought.

     “I heard about Sinclair.  I’m really sorry,” he says.  “How’s Joe doing?”

     “Surely, you mean
Joseph
.”  I cast a whimsical glance, for The Joseph’s pomposity level has only increased with age and increased affluence, although it’s become an indelible part of his charm.

     “He took it very hard.”  I tell Evan how my mother and I went over to Scotland for the funeral.  We ended up staying for a month because my mother’s presence had a stabilizing effect on Joseph like no one else; perhaps a substitute for the maternal bond he’d missed out on with his own mother.  I tell him how Aubergine Castle is keeping Joseph busy around the clock with its full roster of guests; how its demands are a blessing in disguise, affording him copious interactions with people so there’s little time to slip into isolation or slide too deeply into grief.  It’s been years since its first renovations, so he’s immersed himself in ideas for new changes.  “My mother and I try to get over there for a few weeks every year.  We’re hoping that, in time, he’ll make a new life with someone.”

     Evan nods, looking down at his black skates with the white laces as we circle about and head in the opposite direction.  He wears black jeans and a striking pale blue peacoat.  I glance at his hands, the once beautiful hands, now calloused and suntanned, but more sensual than ever.

     “I’m sorry about your wife,” I say, and it takes every effort on my part to squeeze out the words
your wife
.

     He nods.  Evan always preferred to talk about emotionally charged things in his own time and his own way, and so I leave it at that.

     “I heard you got married, too.  I’m sorry it didn’t work out.”

     “Are you sorry?  How disappointing.  I was hoping you’d be delighted.”

     Evan’s smile always starts like a sunshower, lots of subtle warning and then a downpour.  He laughs suddenly aloud, full-bodied, as if releasing some pressure previously bearing down on him.  “You’re still the same, Sylvia.  Thank God!”

     And at that moment the years seem to melt away, as if my harmless little comment was a sleeve wiping away vapor on a windowpane and allowing in the light.

     “What happened there?” he asks.  “What sort of fool gives you up?  Or maybe I should be asking myself that,” he says, his voice trailing off.  “I heard bits and pieces about your divorce from Brandon,” he falters.

     “
Let’s not speak of that.  That was not happy
.’” I quote Sinclair quoting Ralph.  “That’s what Ralph Touchett says to Isabel at the end of the book when he’s dying.”

     “Neither of us is dying, are we?” he asks, with that mixture of earnestness and mockery that is his trademark.

     “I’m healthy as a horse.”  I offer a wimpy neigh for effect, in a goofy reference to his horse ranch.    

     Again, he laughs.  “Oh, we’ve got to work on your equine impressions,” and then, “You know, I finally read that novel that you love so much.  It took me
 
ten years to slog through it,” he reports with the lopsided smile.  “I have to say, I just don’t get what the big deal is all about.” 

     “What do you think of the ominous ending?  Do you think Isabel and Casper finally get together?”

     “I think so,” he says, with a knowing nod, looking into the crisp city air at the distant avenue filled with harried shoppers.  “I think stories should have definite endings; it’s not fair to leave the readers hanging.  Wow, that night at Delta seems so long ago.  Is Delta still there?”

     “I have no idea, to be honest.  I don’t get into the city much, not since we moved to the vineyard, and when I do come to the city I try to avoid passing the old places.  So many of
 
them are gone.  Coopers Café isn’t there anymore, and I’m not sure what replaced it, and I don’t think I want to know.  I can’t bring myself to go up to 83
rd
and Columbus, not since Sinclair died.”