My Summer With George (6 page)

I thanked him and asked about the conference.

“Well, it’s the damnedest thing! You know, you come to New York, great liberal city, you expect to meet people who are sophisticated about race, religion, gender, but damned if these people in this seminar aren’t the most uptight conservative bunch I’ve ever met—God, we’re more liberal down in Kentucky!”

“Well, who are they? Are they New Yorkers, or do they come from all over?” I don’t like to hear my adopted city slandered.

“Oh, they come from all over. A few of them are Brits, there’s an Australian and a guy from Hong Kong. But the leaders are all New Yorkers, and they sound just like the others. One guy had a cut on his head and a black eye, and someone asked him about it at the coffee break. Turns out he’d been mugged last Friday. So they got talking about poverty and cultural deprivation and single mothers, but you knew damned well they were really talking about
black
people. They talked as if blacks were the only people who were poor, or had babies without being married, or mugged people in the street. One of them even brought up the argument that criminals have a gene that predisposes them to crime. So I asked him if he thought the guys who arranged the Watergate break-in had that gene. Or Reagan and Oliver North. And he acted shocked, appalled that I’d say such a thing. He backed away from me as if he’d just found out I was carrying the plague. If you don’t agree with them, they look at you as if you’re a real subversive. And when they say crime, they mean street crime, not crimes committed by government figures, bankers, brokers. White-collar crimes aren’t crimes—they’re just common practice that had the bad luck of being caught.

“Even after a black editor, Darcy Meeks—a terrific guy—joined us, they went right on talking that way. They acted as if they expected him to agree with them. Damn!”

“Yes, I’ve heard that too, the new code, a whole new set of euphemisms for blackness.”

“The Louisville
Herald
was the first paper in the South to hire blacks, and for our size, we have the most blacks and the most women of any southern paper today. People still talk about the South as if we were benighted, but I tell you, we’re way ahead of most northern cities.” He leaned back and lit a cigarette.

I somehow doubted that, but I didn’t argue. I didn’t even wonder why I didn’t argue. “Are you going to persist in your efforts to enlighten them?” I smiled.

“Sure. Why not?”

“I wish I could hear you,” I said, with what I knew damned well was a fatuous admiring smile on my silly face.

“No, no!” He sat up sharply. “You don’t want to come!”

“What, are the sessions open?”

He backtracked. “There are some observers,” he admitted uneasily. He looked away. “I could probably get you in. But don’t come! I don’t want you to come.”

“Why not?”

“I’d be too embarrassed. No.” He shook his head.

We moved to other subjects. I hadn’t even finished my iced tea when George laid some money on the table and stood up. “Got to get back.”

I wiped my lips on the napkin. “Oh! Okay.”

“You can stay if you want, but I’ve got to get back.”

“No, no, I’m finished.”

He walked me to my apartment, explaining, “I’ll just cross the park and get the subway on Central Park West.” He stopped briefly at my building’s door.

“Thanks for lunch.”

“Sure. How about tomorrow? You free for lunch?”

“Yes. Yes.” I nodded, confused.

He turned, striding off. “See ya then—twelve-thirty, okay?”

“Okay.” I glanced at my watch. He had picked me up at twelve-thirty today, and it was one-thirty now. He had allotted exactly an hour for lunch.

I walked into my apartment excited and happy, but with just a tinge of unease. I was happy because he still seemed eager to see me, and because I liked what I’d seen of his politics, or values, or whatever you want to call them. I deeply believe you can’t be close to someone whose politics you despise. But I was a little disappointed that he’d spent so little time with me. And I wondered how come he looked at me with what in any other man would have to be called desire but didn’t even reach out a hand to touch me, didn’t so much as brush my cheek with his lips, hello or goodbye? Men I’d met once did that much. Of course, they weren’t southern. Maybe southerners had a different code of behavior. Maybe he was shy. Maybe he was a gentleman. And I hadn’t made any moves toward him, either.

I let it go. I had to work that afternoon to make up for my nap the previous day, and I had a date for the ballet that night with Alicia Masterson. Maybe I could talk to her about it.

Alicia is one of my closest friends. She’s a lawyer and very smart. She made partner in a prestigious law firm in only five years. We both love art and dance, and we get together every few weeks to see a ballet or go to a gallery or museum show. Alicia is stunning, thin, with high cheekbones and satiny dark-chocolate skin. Her black hair shines so, it looks silver in the light. She’s had a variety of relationships—she was married to an African-American painter I never knew, and then to an Irish bard, a drunken total madman who was lots of fun. I understood why she divorced him, but I missed him. Since then she’s had relationships mainly with women, usually artists of some sort. But she’d broken that pattern recently when she got involved with Adele Poniatowska, a high-flying bond saleswoman who spent her life traveling around the country giving speeches to groups of investment bankers.

Alicia and Adele were really in love; you could see it in their eyes and gestures when they were together. And because Alicia loved Adele, I tried to, but it was hard. Adele had made tons of money and was used to being truckled to; Alicia earned a lot of money herself and never truckled to anybody. It seemed to me that although Adele despised people she could impress with her wealth, she was a bit resentful when she couldn’t. Because every once in a while, she’d pull a real superior act on Alicia. I’d seen it. Alicia never seemed upset by it, though. She overflowed with love; she’d laugh and hug her, say, “Give me a kiss.” But Adele made Alicia unhappy by her frequent absences. When Adele was away, Alicia’s eyes looked bruised.

Her eyes were bruised tonight. We met at the Joyce Theater and saw the new Eliot Feld ballet, which wasn’t as exciting as we’d hoped. Still, it was a pleasant evening. Afterward, we took a cab downtown to Alicia’s local in the Village, Chez Jacqueline, which served a magnificent brandade de morue, one of my favorite dishes. We began with asparagus vinaigrette, which I ate hungrily. Alicia dawdled over hers.

“Adele away?”

“Umm-hmm. Tulsa. What a place, huh?” She put a single asparagus tip in her mouth and chewed it. “Can you imagine the nerve of her, leaving
moi
for Tulsa?” She had a merry jingling laugh. She always sounded happy, and I always wondered how she managed it.

“She’s a fool,” I agreed. “Though I might understand her leaving you for Venice.”

“If she were in Venice, I’d be with her.”

“The two of you talk any more about moving in together?”

“She wants to, but…” Her eyes teared; she wiped them with her hankie, then laughed. “I’d have to get a cat for company!”

She sent her asparagus back with only the tips eaten, and then she toyed with her main course, rare duck breast sliced thin. She talked a bit about a couple of interesting new cases she was handling—omitting names, of course—but conversation dwindled as we finished the bottle of wine, and I thought it might be all right to bring up George.

“I’ve met a man,” I began.

She put her wineglass down hard. “Really!”

I smiled, but I knew my smile was more a self-satisfied smirk. I hated myself for it but couldn’t control it.

“Well, I
think
so.”

“Tell me!” Her hushed voice sounded awed.

I gave her a brief description.

“Wow, he’s really pursuing you, isn’t he?”

“Seems to be.”

“Oh, Hermione, I hope it works out!”

“You know, I have this feeling about him. About it. As if it could really be…”

“Really be…?”

“Oh, you know. Serious. Long-term.”

“Happily ever after,” she said softly.

“Yes,” I whispered.

“I know that feeling. I had it when I met Adele. I still feel that way about her. I love her to pieces. I’m mad for her. We get along so well, we like to do the same things, we both love art and dance, we even like the same books. We both like to travel—but I like it within limits!” She laughed again, even as tears sprang to her eyes. “But she’s never there for me. You know, last week I had a little emergency. I had to go to the hospital—”

“What!
Why didn’t you call?”

“Oh, it was nothing, just a little ulcer attack, but you know me, great big baby.” She laughed. “I thought I was having a heart attack or something…”

“Alicia, an ulcer attack isn’t little! Oh, I wish you’d called me,” I scolded, knowing perfectly well that she hadn’t called me because I wasn’t the one she wanted.

“It was nothing, really; they just kept me overnight. But the symptoms were unclear, so Ellen—my doctor, Ellen Langner—told me to go to the emergency room, she’d meet me there. She’s really great. So I went over in a cab. Adele was in Dallas. And I thought, She’s always going to be in Dallas. Or Tulsa. Or Los Angeles. And this isn’t it, you know? This isn’t what I want, isn’t what I bargained for. Love everlasting I can promise, but only to somebody who’s going to
be
there everlastingly. Or as everlastingly as anyone
can
promise to be. It’s too painful. It’s so painful that it poisons even the good times we have together. We do nothing but fight. She says I’m trying to control her, change her, ruin her life. She’s lived this way all her life—well, anyway, for the last ten years or so. And she loves it, being on the road, meeting people.” She wiped her eyes. “I’m the big bad bitch. And I start to feel like one.”

I sighed. I reached across the table and took her hand. “Is there no compromise?”

“Well…,” she said, a faint smile curling at the edges of her lips, “I called Adele from Saint Vincent’s. But the next plane from Dallas to New York was very late; she wouldn’t have gotten in until the morning. So she chartered a jet and flew back to New York. She arrived around eleven, came charging into the hospital, her arms overflowing with flowers, visiting hours be damned! She stayed with me all night, holding my hand. So”—she raised her huge warm eyes and smiled broadly—“it worked out fine!”

Little tease.

I spent another long, sleepless night, lying awake, but this time I was inventing futures, not recalling the past. I kept thinking about the warm gleam in George’s eyes as he gazed at me over the lunch table, the interest he showed in everything I said, the shape of his long, graceful fingers resting on the table. I had wanted to lay my hand over his, but of course, I didn’t. He was too spooky, a horse about to bolt.

My mind would not rest; it invented and discarded one scenario after another for George and me. I had us commuting, him coming north, me going south once a month, spending the time either at Fifth Avenue or my Sag Harbor house or at his wonderful, modern glass-and-wood house in the Kentucky hills. In an inspired moment, I decided he was offered a job by
The New York Times
and moved to New York. I knew he could not afford to live in my building, but he found a lovely airy studio on Central Park West, almost directly across the park from me. With binoculars, we could wave to each other across the park, like Woody and Mia. He didn’t miss Louisville at all, because he found Manhattan so fascinating. We saw each other several times a week and spent most weekends together. He liked my friends and they liked him. Even my children liked him, understanding his curmudgeonly affection. We cooked together on weekends; our favorite dish was penne with a sauce of green and yellow peppers, tomatoes, onions, zucchini, and sausage.

Most mornings, I rise early, long before Ko Chao arrives at nine and turns on something noisy—the vacuum cleaner or the floor waxer or the dishwasher—long before my assistant, Lou, arrives at ten-thirty, bearing the morning mail. I have coffee and a croissant and read the
Times;
then I begin to work, concentrating without a break until noon. I keep the telephone turned off, treasuring the lovely silence. Thus I missed George’s call Wednesday morning.

In fact, I didn’t get his message until I stopped working, when I picked up the pile of messages and mail that Lou had placed on the side of my desk. She had written that some unidentified man had said that something had come up and he couldn’t make it for lunch that day. He left no number where I could contact him. He said he’d call later.

I felt bitterly let down. I’d been so high a moment before, about to dress for lunch, humming to myself, wondering what to wear—always such a delightful problem. I sank back in the chair and stared out over the park without seeing it.
Why
couldn’t he make lunch?
What
had come up? I was not just disappointed but angry, mainly at myself. I knew perfectly well that I would stay in all afternoon so I wouldn’t miss his call. I was acting like a moony teenager, something I’d never been when I
was
a teenager. I hated that. I couldn’t get past my frustration that I hadn’t picked up the phone when he called.

I was exhausted again, so despite my resolution against it, I took a nap after lunch. But I firmly instructed Lou to wake me if a George Johnson called. He didn’t. As I dressed for dinner, I was grateful I was meeting Marsha that night. My friend Marsha Wolf loves the theater, and we had tickets for Lynda Barry’s
The Good Times Are Killing Me
that night. Afterward, we would have dinner and talk. I needed to talk to someone wise and caring, who would understand what I was going through and could calm me down. Marsha is intelligent and compassionate without being sentimental. She exudes warmth. Her very voice embraces you. I was sure she’d comfort me.

Just the sight of my old friend standing in front of the theater warmed me. She’s tall and so thin she’s skinny. Her skin is as white as paper; her dark hair is cut short and hugs her head like a skullcap. Wearing layers of linen topped by a long, embroidered vest, she looked like a priestess for some ancient religion.