Blame: A Novel (19 page)

Nadia touched her shoulder. Your father? she whispered.

Cal Sharp was talking to Brice by the punch bowl. Then Cal saw her, and light slid over his face.

Landlord, Patsy said, getting to her feet. Excuse me.

Hey, Cal, she said. You’re our first party crasher.

Had to make sure you weren’t wrecking the place.

Ah, but the night is young, she said, even as she waved to four more departing students. I hope you’re hungry.

I am, he said. I’ve been hearing about some tortellini goulash all week.

Patsy handed him a paper plate and gazed at the Lyster’s silly green shutters. Of course: Cal was here for Gilles, and for the maiden flight of Gilles’s Meals. And she had thought, for a moment, that he’d come for her.

Gilles, at his bossiest, had insisted on dressing her. Mother has a million gowns she never wears. She says come over and find something.

This was for Sarah’s wedding. She’d be seated with Ian, Sarah told her, but he couldn’t pick her up. As best man, he had to be with Henry.

So she was not a bridesmaid after all.

Then again, all summer she had seen Sarah only a handful of times. For coffee. A few walks around the Rose Bowl. At the shower.

Patsy browsed through plastic-sheathed dresses in Audrey’s walk-in closet. This, Patsy said, pulling out a white silk shift brush-painted with pink peonies.

Too much white. Mustn’t upstage the bride, said Gilles. S’rude.

Of a stretchy, multicolored Missoni skirt and structured silver jacket, he said, Too hospital benefit.

Patsy was three inches taller than Audrey, and larger all around, but with flats, she could pull off a backless bronze silk dress with beadwork at the neck.

She curled her hair, then piled the curls atop her head. Long wisps escaped, framed her face.

Gilles drove her to the house. Now, stand up straight, he said. Shoulders back. Chin up.
Formidable!

She arrived moments before the ceremony began and was directed into the backyard, where white chairs were arranged in a semicircle. Torches had been lit, and small white lights glittered in the trees. Patsy sat to one side, toward the rear. A quartet played Mozart, crisply. On this warm, smoggy summer night, in a sea of tailored linen, only one other woman, a teenager, had gone backless. And one small woman
with choppy black hair wore what looked like a dark green slip with crude red beads and a large cross on her chest.

Patsy? Annette Keller, the ancient German professor, swathed in purple gauze, squinted down at her. How elegant you look, dear.

Patsy clasped her hand, though she hardly knew the old woman.

Judith Farmingham, twentieth-century American lit, lifted her chin in greeting. Filing into the next row, Melanie, the department secretary, didn’t—or wouldn’t—catch Patsy’s eye.

Patsy had worried about seeing her colleagues again, so much so, Silver had been stern with her.
You’re there to show up for and support the bride
, she said.
It doesn’t matter what anybody else does or says.

A tall, unsmiling Henry Croft and his two groomsmen took their places at the front. Hair spilled over Ian’s forehead; his bow tie was crooked. Patsy was sorry she hadn’t found him beforehand, smoothed and straightened him.

The music changed to a march. A little girl strewed rose petals down the aisle, ignoring her mother’s loud hiss to
slow down
. Sarah’s sister came next, followed by none other than Lorianne Gull, biology.

Skinny, dull Lorianne was Sarah’s bridesmaid? She’d been at the shower, but this honor wasn’t mentioned, not to Patsy. To see Lorianne hunched in pink satin, wringing her bouquet, was so astonishing, Patsy couldn’t stop looking, even as everybody stood for the bride. So Lorianne was who Sarah chose when Patsy was away. And continued to choose, even though Patsy was back.

Patsy surreptitiously checked to see if anyone was registering her humiliation. Of course not. All eyes were on the bride.

Then everyone sat down.

Someone, Patsy saw, had steered Sarah to beauty. The final dress was white, a simple A-line, crepe de chine. Tiny rosebuds had been woven in her hair.

A friend of Henry’s, ordained by a mail-order church for the occasion, instructed the couple to exchange vows. They complied so quietly, Patsy caught only
To care for, encourage, and amuse
.

•

Ian found her as people milled for cocktails. I know nobody here, he whispered, touching her elbow, her lower back.

But then he was called away for more photographs.

Patsy slipped into a downstairs bathroom and, from there, into the library, where she sat on Sarah’s old Herculon couch and skimmed an article in the
New York Review of Books
about Winston Churchill’s rise to power. The key to Churchill’s character, the author wrote, was his unassailable faith in himself.

•

For supper, the ballroom was lit with hundreds of tapers and not a single electric bulb. The light was soft, flickering and lively. Faces were ruddy and burnished, the crystal and silver glinted modestly. Plates of food looked like Flemish still lifes. Patsy did not begrudge Sarah Henry Croft, but the grand enchantment of this house was impossible not to envy.

They’d been seated with her Hallen friends. Well, don’t you look smashing, said Wes, the history chair. You’ve been doing something right, said Anne Davis, Renaissance, who then colored deeply.

Her colleagues talked mostly among themselves after that. Patsy was quiet, being with Ian and not drinking. Drinking, she would’ve barged into conversations, told stories, insisted on the spotlight. But it was good to be more self-contained. The food kept them busy, then coffee and dessert.

Ian had spotted the black-haired fine-boned woman in the little slip; then he couldn’t stop staring. The black cross on that bony chest did look anything but religious. Patsy held her shoulders back, her chin up. Nobody need know her insides were turning into tar.

The bride and groom made their rounds. You look fantastic, said Sarah.

Who’s the woman in her underwear? Patsy said.

Helene? Oh, that’s Ian’s old girlfriend. We had to invite her, Henry knew her first. Poor Ian was so worried about seeing her. I told him to take you, and Helene would rue the—

The bandleader called Sarah and Henry up for the toasts. Sarah’s father took the mike. Champagne glasses were filled. Patsy watched as strings of tiny bubbles formed and wobbled to the surface of her glass. She imagined the faint fizzy abrasion in her throat, the headachey high.

I gotta get out of here, she said to Ian.

But Ian had to give his toast, which he did so quietly nobody heard it. She poured her champagne into his glass. Then he had to dance with the bride. After that, as soon as they could, they fled.

At the Lyster’s door, with a quick upward glance, he asked to follow her upstairs.

She was more careful this time. She made no noise and kept her eyes closed. They wouldn’t exceed themselves as they had before—at least she wouldn’t. In an hour, when Ian slid his legs out of bed, she watched him dress and leave and she didn’t say a word.

•

He was back at her door, in his spattered work clothes, a few nights later. I’ll go, he said, if it’s not okay.

It’s fine, come in, she said, keeping her voice dull to mask her triumph.

He smelled like a wet painting. She made them cups of twig tea, but by the time it brewed, they were in bed. Afterward, he fell asleep. Patsy remained wide awake as his smooth, compact body breathed and twitched on top of the sheets. She kept watch lest he up and disappear.

Then he woke up and disappeared.

Something of a pattern emerged. He often came Thursdays after his evening class and Saturdays after ten at night. But he showed up on enough random nights that she was always wondering if he would come, always waiting for him. One Thursday, knowing better, she asked if he was coming on Saturday. He didn’t know, he said, and didn’t show up. Thus, she learned not to ask.

•

Who answers the door? said Silver.

I know I know. But by then I’ve been good so long—like I’ve been with a strict chaperone all week. So when he shows up, it’s like I got what I wanted by being so strict with myself.

How are you strict?

You know. Going to meetings. Meditating. Reading, getting ready to teach. Not calling him ten times a day—or ever.

Out of curiosity, and don’t think too hard—how old is the part of you that needs a chaperone?

Oh, I don’t know. Twelve.

And what was going on in your life when you were twelve?

Twelve? she thought. Books cascading from shelves. The sofa’s squat legs thrusting skyward, dust bunnies festooned on black webbing.

That’s the year my dad got sober, she said. The last year of his drinking.

What was that like?

Toward the end, he tore the house apart, god, two or three times a week. He’d go on the rampage—that’s what we called it. We got so we could tell by how he slammed the car door and burst into the house: Uh-oh, he’s on the rampage, we’d say. He’d destroy the place, starting with the bookshelves. Then he’d turn the furniture over, yank down the curtains. My mom constantly had the plasterer and painters in to fix where the curtain rods came out. She’d say, If I could only get the darn kids to stop swinging from the drapes.

She covered for him.

Oh, completely.

And what would you do when your father was on the rampage?

Go to my room.

Where was your mother?

In her room.

And your brother?

His room.

What would you do in your room?

I’d sort of crouch near my door and listen. I got so I could tell what he was doing. That’s the armchair. There goes the sofa. Oh god, the china cabinet.

And what would’ve happened if you went out there?

It’s funny you ask. Because I did. I hadn’t heard him come home and was on my way to the kitchen, and there he was, his arms around an armchair like he was wrestling with it, like he had it in a hold and wanted to flip it. But each time he made his move, it would scoot away, with him sprawled out behind. Then he’d crawl up and try again. The look on his face—he was concentrating so hard. When he saw me, he stood up, all meek and embarrassed.

What did you do?

I was like, Uh, don’t mind me, I’m getting a drink of water. And he
motioned, like, Go on, go ahead, but I went back to my room. He left, I think.

You never talked about it?

Why? He wouldn’t have remembered. He’d wake up the next day and ask why the house was in such a shambles.

Let’s say you had a chaperone. What would this chaperone have done?

Watched out for me, I guess.

Like a parent?

Like a parent should’ve done, yes. That’s right.

So someone watches out for you all week, Silver went on. Making sure your work gets done, you stay sober, keep up your spiritual practice. Then Ian shows up, and where’s the chaperone? Who’s watching out for Patsy then?

Patsy wanted to get up, move around the room. The chaperone, she said, is making sure I’m not being too needy. Or bugging him.

What about him bugging you? What about him showing up without calling and leaving when he feels like it? Who’s watching out for Patsy then?

I know I shouldn’t put up with it. But I’m hooked. And I hate it. But at least it’s not drinking, or drugs.

But it was like that, of course. All the time waiting for him.

•

She read a book, a cultural history of World War II, until the sun set, the sky darkened, and she could barely see the print. The phone rang. Are you sitting in the dark waiting for your painter man? said Gilles.

Not really.

Liar. Do you have any onions? he said. Can I come get one?

The moment Gilles walked in, someone knocked at her door. And exactly what she never wanted to happen, happened.

Oh hello. Are you the famous Ian? Gilles said.

I just stopped by, Ian said. I can’t stay.

Let me get Gilles his onion, said Patsy.

From the kitchen she heard Gilles chatter. For my cold. An old wives’ cure from France. You slice the onion, sprinkle it with sugar, let it sit overnight. You drink the juice that comes out. Completely vile, but your cold is gone.

I think I’d rather keep the cold, Ian said.

This one’s lasted months, said Gilles. I’d drink motor oil if it would help.

Heads up! Patsy called, tossing the onion. Gilles caught it handily.

Thanks, Patsy. Lovely to meet you, Ian, he said, I’ve heard so much.

The door shut.
What
was that! said Ian.

For a moment she saw Gilles the way Ian did, silly and extreme.

That’s Gilles, she said. He lives—

God, he’s like a poster boy for pedo—

He’s my best friend, she cut in.

Maybe I should leave, said Ian.

But he didn’t.

Auntie has invited us all for dinner. You, me, and Brice, and Mother’s coming too.

Patsy put on her white peasant blouse with the crochet work and her red crinkled skirt—skirts were required in the Mojave’s formal dining room. She was surprised, then, when instead of heading north into Altadena, Brice turned the Bweek onto the freeway heading west. Where are we going? she asked.

Cal’s house—didn’t I say? cried Gilles. And it will be terrible! Poor Auntie can’t cook, and his housekeeper is worse.

Maybe we should eat something on the way, said Brice. We could have the London broil appetizer at the Trestle, and tortilla soup.

Oh let’s, said Gilles.

But well before the restaurant Brice drove into the neighborhood of deep yards and vast homes, where oaks had been left growing in the middle of the streets like tiny, one-tree islands. Gilles said, You’ve been to Auntie’s, right?

To the barn a couple times, she said. The kitchen once.

Oh my god, said Gilles. He and Brice exchanged a glance.

Why, is it terrible? she said.

Very Sister Parish, said Brice. All chintz and American folk art.

Aunt Peggy was the opposite of Brice, said Gilles. Tastewise.