Leap Year (9 page)

They both took a sip of champagne, but Amanda had trouble swallowing hers. She was suddenly giggling. She put her glass on the table and covered her face with her hands.

“I’m so sorry,” she said through them, snorting a little in an effort to regain her composure. “This is all rather emotional for me, you see. As I’m sure it is for you.”

“Yes,” agreed Heath.

“Oh, my, oh, my,” sighed Amanda, uncovering her face. “You see, Heath, this—your show—is a swan song of sorts for me. After lo, these many years, I am leaving the Gallery Shawangunk, and your first show will be my last.”

“Really?” said Heath.

“Yes, I am afraid it is so. The time has come for me to move on. But I am not moving far. I have accepted a curatorial position at MOLTCATO.”

“Mulatto?” said Heath.

Amanda laughed, a bit hysterically. “No, no, no, my darling: MOLTCATO. Museum of Late Twentieth Century Art, Toronto. You’ve not heard of it?”

“No,” admitted Heath. “I haven’t.”

“They have the Schwickers’ collection and money. It’s an extraordinary collection. I’ll be buying for them in New York.”

“That sounds great,” said Heath.

“I’m very excited,” said Amanda. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to devote myself to your show. I hereby pledge you my heart and soul.”

L
YLE
W
ALLACE, IN PREPARING
to receive custody of his daughter, had purchased a new bedroom set. It was, in fact, the same bedroom set Loren had bought for her Kate’s room on Greene Street, matching Kate’s original bedroom set, which remained at David’s. It consisted of a small white bed carved with flowers, above which floated a star-scalloped canopy, a white bureau with knobs the shape and color of violets, and a white rocking chair.

This felicitous coincidence was lost on Kate, who by now assumed that every girl’s bedroom across the country was furnished uniformly. A few nights after her plane ride, she sat up in bed, fingering the familiar flowers carved into the tiny headboard, perfectly at home in the room intended for Kate Wallace.

Lyle Wallace was sitting in the rocking chair, although he was much too big for it. He appeared to be all legs. “What are you thinking?” he asked Kate.

Kate liked Lyle, but thought that he asked odd questions. “What?” she said.

“What are you thinking?” repeated Lyle, who believed children had a keen sense of the abstract, if properly coached. “What are you telling yourself inside your head?”

“Ms. Mouse has six toes,” Kate offered.

“Who is Miss Mouse?” asked Lyle.

“She’s my dad’s cat,” said Kate.

“Do you miss him?” asked Lyle.

“Yes,” said Kate. “He sleeps with me. But not under the covers. If Ms. Mouse goes under the covers, he won’t breathe and die. He’ll smother.”

“I meant your dad,” said Lyle. “Do you miss him?”

Kate traced a tulip with her finger and considered Lyle’s question. “No,” she decided.

“You’ll see him soon,” Lyle said. “Your mom, too. In a couple of days, probably.”

“Okay,” said Kate. “Is the light in the pool still on?”

“No,” said Lyle. “We turned it off. Remember?”

“We could turn it back on,” suggested Kate.

“Tomorrow night,” said Lyle.

“Can I watch
Lady
tomorrow?” asked Kate.

“Don’t you want to watch something else? How about
Dumbo
?”

“No,” said Kate. “I want to watch
Lady.
I like dogs.”

“Okay,” said Lyle. “Whatever you want. But now it’s time to go to bed. Do you want a drink?”

“No thank you,” said Kate.

Lyle extricated himself from the chair.

“Turn the duck on,” said Kate.

“It’s a goose,” said Lyle. He turned on a plastic goose-shaped lantern that sat on the floor, and then killed the overhead light. “Good night,” he said.

“Good night,” said Kate.

“Sleep tight,” said Lyle. He shut the door.

Sleep tight, thought Kate. What did that mean? She snuggled down in bed and pulled the covers tightly around her. She screwed up into a tight little ball and looked at the goose. It looked back at her. Kate lay there in bed, waiting for the goose to speak.

Gregory lay in bed, watching Loren pack. She had received a call at about ten o’clock from Sonia Sanchez-Wheeler, informing her that the Lyle Wallace impunity papers had been finalized. She and David were flying out to L.A. first thing in the morning to sign them and reclaim Kate.

Loren seemed to be packing for an extended trip. As she lay her clothes on the bed, Gregory could feel their weight accumulate across his legs. “Why are you taking so much?” he asked.

“I don’t know what the weather will be like,” Loren said.

“It will be hot,” said Gregory. “Sunny and hot.”

Loren was unconvinced. She continued to pack.

“It’s funny that it’s you packing to go to L.A.,” Gregory offered.

“How is it funny?”

“Well, maybe not funny,” said Gregory. “I mean ironic. It’s usually me packing late at night for a quick trip to L.A.”

Loren didn’t answer.

“Just think,” said Gregory. “This time tomorrow, you’ll be with Kate.”

Loren closed her eyes. She wished Gregory would stop talking. Talking might jinx it. She didn’t want anyone to say anything until Kate was safe.

“Do you want me to come with you?” asked Gregory.

“Oh,” said Loren. “I don’t think so. Why?”

“I just thought you might want me there,” said Gregory. I hoped you might need me, he said to himself.

“David will be there,” said Loren.

“I know,” said Gregory. “That’s not what I meant.”

“I’m sorry,” said Loren. She put down her espadrilles and sat on the bed. She lay her large hand on the center of Gregory’s warm chest. She felt his heart beat. “I think it would be better for Kate if it were just me and David. We want to make things as normal as possible.”

Gregory put his hand on top of hers. “I could stay at the hotel,” he said.

“No,” said Loren. She withdrew her hand and stood up. “I think it’s best if I go alone.”

Gregory looked up at her. She had been so distant these past few days, and he understood that. He had felt a little of her horror and had some idea of what she must have been going through. But something else had been happening all week—this slow, cautious withdrawal from him, this refusal of any comfort he offered. “Okay,” he said, “whatever you want.”

Loren closed her suitcase and put it on the floor. “I’ll be right back,” she said. She disappeared into the bathroom. Gregory sat up and waited for her. He could feel his plan coming undone. Loren wasn’t going to move to L.A. with him. They would never live together in the shadow of a palm tree, in a house with a veranda in a valley or a canyon… it was all unraveling, all impossible, this sunny, pacific life he had so fervently imagined.

Henry Fank and Judith were rowing on Central Park Lake. Actually, Henry was trying, not too successfully, to row.

“I am not so very good at this,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re getting better,” said Judith. “But don’t pull so much, I think. You’re trying too hard.”

“Do you know, at breakfast this morning, who was there?” Henry asked. He was a breakfast chef at the Parker Meridien Hotel.

“No, who?”

“Lee Iacocca,” said Henry. “He had some blueberry pancakes.”

“I like blueberry pancakes,” said Judith. “Sometime I’ll come for breakfast.”

“Yes, you must,” said Henry. He seemed exhausted from his rowing.

“Why don’t we just drift for a while,” suggested Judith.

“Drift?”

“Yes,” said Judith. “Stop rowing, and we’ll just float. Here,” she said, showing him how to rest the oars across the top of the boat. “Now relax,” she said.

Henry removed a white handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his brow. “I sweat,” he said, “I’m sorry.” He carefully folded and replaced the handkerchief. “So your husband is in India,” he said.

“Yes,” said Judith.

“Why don’t you go with him?”

Judith put her hand in the water, but then removed it when she remembered where she was. Not Lake Arthur. “Well,” she said. “For many reasons, I suppose.”

“You did not want to visit India?”

“No,” said Judith. “I would have liked to go to India. It’s just that, well, you see, we’ve been married a long time, and we wanted to spend some time apart. So Leonard went to India, which was something he wanted to do, and I came to New York, so I could do some public health work, which I wanted to do.”

“And how long will you spend this way?”

“About a year,” said Judith.

“A long time,” said Henry. “Don’t you think?”

“Yes,” said Judith. “I guess it is.”

“Myself, I cannot imagine such a thing. It is very odd to me. To spend time away from someone you love, when there is so little time. That is what I realized when my wife died: How little time is.”

“When was that?” Judith asked.

“She died two years ago, when I came here. We travel on a boat that was not a good boat, and too many people on it. She got sick and there was no way to make her better. There was no doctor such as you. Many people die. Her sister, she die, too.”

“That’s very sad,” said Judith.

“I think so,” said Henry. They drifted for a moment and listened to the shushing noise of the water. “I’m sorry,” he said. “This talk makes you sad, and that is not…it is too bad. Not my intention. Shall I row some more?”

“No,” said Judith. “Let me.”

“You can row?”

“Of course,” said Judith. She stood up. “We must do this very carefully, or we’ll tip the boat over.”

“Oh, please,” said Henry. “I am not good swimming, I think.”

“We won’t tip,” said Judith. “Stand up. Give me your hand.”

Henry rose and held onto Judith’s hands with a terror that she found delightful. “Now slowly,” she said, “you turn this way and I’ll turn that.” They began to rotate and as they did, Judith looked over Henry’s shoulder, glimpsing the lake and the trees and the gorgeous skyline of Central Park South, and felt for a second curiously euphoric. She gripped tighter to Henry’s hands and guided him safely to his seat.

If 72428’s sperm, which had been introduced to Lillian’s reproductive system several weeks ago, had made itself at home there, the ensuing results would have manifested themselves in a chemically detectable way. But Lillian had decided not to use a home pregnancy test. She wanted the baby—if there was to be a baby—to announce itself with natural harbingers.

It was Saturday. Lillian had cleaned her apartment, and then gone to the office and caught up on some work. She took a nap on the couch in the reception room, and awoke, disoriented, late in the afternoon. She lay still and let her life filter slowly and disappointingly back into place. She felt solitary, knowing that at that moment she was in no one’s thoughts. How little my life sticks to anything! she thought.

On the way home she stopped and sat in the park. As the light faded, people collected their blankets and magazines, their coolers and Frisbees, their children and lovers and dogs—all the accoutrements of a day in the sun—and walked either east or west to the lighted noisy avenues. Lillian stayed behind. As she sat in the emptying park, a feeling awoke inside her, a feeling that she was at the end of something, that these were the last moments in this era of her life. And so it was in this way, by sensing that something had ended, that Lillian realized something—or everything—was about to begin

LEAP YEAR, (otherwise bissextile), the name given to the year containing 366 days. The astronomers of Julius Caesar, 46 B.C., settled the solar year at 365 days 6 hours. These hours at the end of four years made a day which was added to the fourth year. The English name for the bissextile year is an allusion to a result of this interposition; for after Feb. 29 a date “leaps over” a day of the week.

Of the custom for women to woo during leap year no satisfactory explanation has ever been offered. In 1288 a law was enacted in Scotland that “it is statut and ordaint that during the rein of hir maist blissit Megeste, for ilk yeare knone as lepe yeare, ilk mayden ladye of bothe highe and lowe estait shall hae liberte to bespeke ye man she likes, albeit he refuses to taik hir to be his lawful wyfe, he shall be mulcted in ye sum ane pundis or less, as his estait may be; except and awis gif he can make it appeare that he is betrothit ane ither woman he then shall be free.” A few years later a like law was passed in France, and in the 15th century the custom was legalized in Genoa and Florence.

Encyclopaedia Britannica

A
MANDA
P
AINE AND
H
EATH
Jackson were sitting in the office of the Gallery Shawangunk, selecting the pieces for his show. Actually Amanda seemed to be doing the selecting. She sat with Heath’s portfolio on her lap, leafing through the pages of prints. A friend of Amanda’s, Kennedy Cooley, a tall black woman in a sea-green sundress, stood looking over her shoulder. Amanda paused over some photographs, but none of them moved her to speak. She was smiling a small, cryptic smile. Kennedy Cooley would periodically glance over at Heath, as if trying to match him up with a particular photograph.

“Well,” said Amanda, “they look wonderful.”

“Yes,” agreed Ms. Cooley. “Much nicer than Arnot’s paintings. You were right to bump him.”

“You’re really not doing an Arnot show?” Heath asked.

“No,” said Amanda. “We’re doing you instead. As a surprise to Anton. Don’t you think he’ll be surprised?” she asked her friend.

“Yes,” said Kennedy. “I think he will. If I were he, I would be surprised.”

“I see you’ve been working,” Amanda continued, before Heath could ascertain the nature of Anton’s surprise. “Some of this new stuff is rather good. I especially like”—she opened the book and flipped—“this,” she said, showing him the picture of Ms. Mouse eating the noodle out of David’s eye.

“Yes, I liked that too,” said Kennedy Cooley. “It’s very sexy.”

“And I like how it goes with the show’s name. We’re calling it ‘Simultaneous Organisms: The Photography of Heath Edward Jackson.’ ”