Gilded Age (30 page)

“I know,” I said.

“Tell me you know.”

“I know you love me,” I said, and in that moment, I did believe.

He pushed into me then, that first moment of elemental pleasure.

“Only you,” he said in my ear, picking up his rhythm, and then I set the pace until thought disappeared, and there was only the feel of my body surrounding his and the sound of his voice in my ear, whispering my name.

The Girl’s Room

S
un flooded the dining room the next day as I got the house ready for Henry’s baptism. The party would be here after church on Sunday, and I was laying out my mother’s silver, my wedding china, my grandmother’s porcelain teacups.

In recent days I’d actually started to debate going through with the baptism. Jim seemed more intent on it than I was, and so I would not call it off. But for the first time in my life, I was questioning tradition.

And this was not only because I was considering letting the whole Ellie-as-godmother thing slide. In the end, I’d invited her to the baptism, and she’d dropped off a present yesterday when I was out. That’s the way things were going to stand. P. G. and Viola would be more than adequate godparents.

Not that I wanted Henry to grow up without being baptized, but at the same time, I wasn’t at all sure that I thought it meant anything.

I did not think Henry was tainted by original sin. I did not believe in hell or that an infant would be sent there if it did exist. I wasn’t sure the whole thing wasn’t just an enormous act of voodoo.

So why was I going through with it, you ask? Well, the reasons I
came up with ranged from the concrete to the ephemeral. I wanted Henry’s options open should he ever decide to get married in a church or become involved in the church. Perhaps it’d mean something to him one day, and I wanted to have done my duty by him, like making sure he knew how to swim or chew with his mouth shut. Also, it was a tradition in both Jim’s and my family and that also seemed a good enough reason to go on. It was an excuse to have a party, and after months of pregnancy and caring for the baby I’d been a lax hostess. And finally I thought that it at least acknowledged a spiritual side of life. It acknowledged that we’re all of us more than duties and traditions and our lives as we put them together, but that there is the unknowable in every life, the part of us that needs faith in something.

I was setting out the starched linen napkins that Jim’s aunt had given me when we married when the phone rang.

My mother was asking if I needed help in any way in preparing for the party. She asked who had RSVP’d and who had canceled at the last minute.

“Is Julia Trenor coming?” she asked.

“No, I heard she’s still in Ellicottville. Viola and P. G. will be there of course.”

“I’m just glad we never gave Gus money.”

She asked if Ellie was coming.

“No, she never responded,” I said, not wanting to go into the whole thing with her. “But yesterday when I was out, she dropped off a present.”

“You know,” my mother said, “I’m a little worried about Ellie.”

“Oh?”

“Well, I know some of the things being said about her now. That she’s been acting a little … wild.” I was almost sure then that my mother hadn’t heard the rumors about Ellie and Jim, because if she had there was no way she’d have described Ellie’s behavior as wild. She’d have described it as outrageous, vulgar, or hateful. She was my mother after all. “And I just got off the phone with your Auntie Hart, who told me she hasn’t spoken to Ellie in three weeks.

“So I was hoping that you might be able to run over there for us and check on her,” my mother continued. She’d definitely not heard the rumors or else she’d never have been asking me this. “I’d go, but I’m an old lady and I don’t want to look like I’m spying on her or something.”

“She won’t think you’re spying,” I said. “Why don’t you go tomorrow?”

“Your Auntie Hart usually talks to her Saturday mornings. This is the third Saturday in a row they haven’t spoken.”

“Mom, I don’t think I’m the best person to go over there right now.”

“No?”

“Ellie and I, we’re just … well, it’s awkward right now.”

My mother cleared her throat. “You married a man, dear, not a lapdog. They do this sometimes.”

I sat there in stunned silence.

“I really don’t want you to
have
to discuss this with me,” she said. “You haven’t mentioned it, so I figured you wanted some privacy.” She sounded miffed. “But if what I heard was true, it was a small kiss. That’s the extent of it?”

She waited for me to confirm.

“W-well, yes …,” I stammered.

“You should forgive him,” she said quickly, before I could say more. “Men are wired differently than we are.”

“Mom, that is the biggest bunch of bullshit. I can’t believe—”

“Language.”

“So they’re excused from having morals?”

“They’re different. That’s all I’ll say. There have been studies and things. Haven’t you seen them? I adore Jim, you know I do. But if he ever seriously hurt you …” Her voice trailed off. “This is a very minor thing.”

“Mom, did Dad ever—” I stopped, hoping she would fill in the rest for me, but she didn’t.

“Ellie is your oldest friend,” she said, ignoring my question. “And no one, as far as I can tell, has heard from her in weeks. It’s very worrying.”

“Well, I heard from her. I told you, she dropped off a present here
yesterday for Henry. A silver frame—really heavy, and she’d had the strangest Bible quote engraved on it.”

“Which one?”

“I’ll go get it.”

I fetched the heavy package from the front hall. The frame was sitting in the white box with the undone navy bow from the same jewelry store where we’d been looking at the brooch so many weeks ago. “Ecclesiastes 7:4,” I said into the phone. “‘The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.’”

“That is odd. I’ve never heard of that one being associated with babies.”

The phone line was silent for a moment.

“Will you just run by there?” she asked again. “Thank her for the present or something? She’s clearly not herself. Do this for your old mother, and I’ll feel so much better. Your Auntie Hart is beside herself down there in Florida.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Ellie is prone to trouble and drama, you know.”

I, as much as anyone, knew that Ellie was partial to trouble and drama. “All right,” I agreed.

“Call me when you get there,” my mother said, and clicked off the line, no doubt calling Florida to assure Aunt Hart that I was going to check things out.

After I’d hung up, Jim came downstairs with Henry in his arms and kissed me. When I told him what I was doing, he frowned. “Your mother really thinks that necessary?”

I shrugged. “You kind of thought that yourself at Cinco’s party.”

“That she was in trouble?”

“Yeah, I’m going to go check.”

“Today? Right now?”

I sighed. “She seemed to think it was important. I can take Henry with me,” I said, reaching for him. “We need to get out for a stroll anyway.”

“He can stay here with me,” Jim said, holding Henry close.

I didn’t know what I was going to say to her once I got over there. “Hi, just making sure you’re okay”? I needed to come up with a reason to go. “I need an excuse to be over there. I thought I’d thank her for the frame. Makes sense if Henry’s out walking with me.”

I packed up the baby and snapped him in the stroller, and he cooed the entire walk over to the Harts’ yellow colonial in Shaker Heights.

I thought about what my mother had said. My first thought was that the gossip was truly all over town now, and I suppose there was something liberating in having nothing to hide. I imagined Ellie had felt something like this when she’d come home from New York.

But my mother’s cavalier justification that men are just like that saddened me—biology as destiny. Last night with Jim had seemed like a step away from mere physicality toward true connection, and here she’d brought me right back to our chemical natures. Her argument depressed me, and I wondered if someday I’d be giving a daughter the same advice. If I’d be making justifications, God help me and God willing, to a daughter-in-law for Henry’s behavior. I shuddered. Progress. I did believe we were making progress, right?

When I arrived at the Harts’ house, newspapers were piled on the front porch. It didn’t surprise me—Ellie was sometimes sloppy—but the sight of them gave me an ominous feeling now.

I was getting Henry out of his stroller when a car pulled up behind me, William Selden at the wheel.

“Hey,” he called, taking dark sunglasses off so that I got the full impact of his hazel eyes.

“Hey.” I hefted the baby out of the stroller.

“Are you meeting Ellie?” he asked.

“No,” I said, wary for some reason. “I’m just dropping by. Are you meeting her?”

“I came over because she won’t take my calls.” He ducked his head.

We were on the porch now. Selden stooped down to pick up the papers and put them under his arm.

A folded piece of paper was shoved in the door, and I took it out.

E—You can’t hate me forever. Though I wish you’d leave (it’s not good for you here) I promise to help, if that’s what you want. Call me for campaign advice, counterattack planning, and some major battle armor (I just did a green ruched cocktail that would look amazing on you). If you won’t call me, call your sponsor.

I love you—Steven

We rang the bell a few times and waited.

I tried the door; locked, and this seemed ominous to me too.

“Ells,” he called so loudly that I was sure the neighbors heard.

We waited on the porch, the baby looking back and forth between our two faces as if we were playing a game.

“We could try around back,” he said. “She almost never locks that one. I mean, since we’re here … leave a note or something, yeah?” He nodded toward the piece of paper in my hand from Steven.

We walked down the driveway that ran along one side of the house and opened the gate.

“Hopefully it won’t look like breaking and entering if I’m with a lady and a baby,” he joked.

He climbed up the porch steps and turned the handle to the back door. When the door opened, Selden turned and flashed a weak smile at me and leaned his head inside.

“She came to visit me the other day,” he said. “She was so upset, undone, and I started worrying about her.” He poked his head in the door and yelled her name, throwing the newspapers in a pile on the kitchen counter, to which I added Steven’s note.

There was a stillness in the house that immediately let me know something was off. It was silent, as if it’d been silent for a while.

“Ells,” he called again loudly, and turned back to me. “I’m afraid I wasn’t very nice to her. I kind of fucked up.”

A chill shot through me when he said that.

As I’ve said, Ellie’s father had died when she was very young. Given the absence of men in the house, the rooms were furnished in a feminine way—pink and green needlepoint in the living room, which
was now swathed in white sheets to keep dust off the furniture; blue and yellow ruffles in the breakfast room, which now smelled of pine cleaner and mothballs.

We walked through the lemon-yellow kitchen, old vinyl and a scarred wooden floor.

“I came to …” He paused. “You know so much about us. I suppose it doesn’t matter if you know more. I need to convince her to come back with me to Paris. I was awful to her. I didn’t know. She showed me …” He trailed off and started another line of thought. “We never seem to be able to get it together. Someone’s always off, or dating someone else, and I said some things that I didn’t mean. I was being stupid and judgmental, hypocritical I guess. But I think now’s the time. I think now she’ll come. It was only a few days ago that I saw her. I know I can convince her now. Maybe it’s been a week or so, but don’t you think she’ll come?”

He kept moving up the stairs, not waiting for an answer, chattering like a gibbon to fill the stillness—because he felt it too. I was thinking we should leave a note and go, but I also thought of Ellie’s mother in Florida. So I followed him, the midday sun lighting the pictures on the walls up the dark staircase, all of Ellie—in cap and gown, on a bicycle with training wheels, as a bride at her wedding, blowing out candles on a birthday cake.

We came to her bedroom, and I was surprised to see again the frills and ribbons of her girlhood. The bedroom was still decorated in a chintz of faded pink cabbage roses with lavender stripes. Flounces and ribbons adorned the curtains and the canopy bed, which was hung in tatted crochet. Glittery stickers of kittens and turtles reflected off the chipped headboard. A stuffed lamb lay on its side on the floor.

A pair of dirty jeans lay crumpled next to the lamb. A stuffed dog sat on the window seat, underneath a neat row of identical empty vodka bottles that lined the sill above the little toy—like a display in a college frat house.

I remembered coming here when Ellie was a teenager and every surface had been littered with makeup and adornments. But they
were gone now and all that remained were the vices of her adulthood and the toys of her youth.

“Ells,” Selden called, walking over to her sleeping form under pink blankets edged in eyelet, though it was warm outside. “Wake up, honey.”

He stirred dust motes and old glitter as he walked to her bed.

In the corner I saw a child’s table with a pair of grinning blond-haired dolls sitting around an ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts. Under the table a pair of roller skates with rainbow laces—the exact skates I’d often envied Ellie for—gathered dust.

I knew then, standing in the doorway, what we were looking at—the many orange pill bottles on the nightstand next to the half-empty bottle of Grey Goose, the completely still form under the covers. A stuffed green frog grinned vacantly next to Ellie’s shoulder.

All the oxygen seemed sucked out of the room. Selden said her name twice, each more loudly, verging on panic. My heart stopped. Henry stopped squirming in my arms, and I think he even held his baby breath. I couldn’t think at all what to do next. Couldn’t think what it was that people do in this situation.