So Close (22 page)

“I don’t even know what to say.  I love it.”  I blushed at the thought of the fraying corners of the black pleather one in my bag. 

Suddenly she hugged me, her cheek warm against mine.  She smelled like the cold and her hair was soft on my face.  I should say something, I thought.  Warn her.  But of what? 

Chapter Ten

The next morning our takeoff out of O’Hare was delayed due to snow piling up on the runways faster than the plows could clear it.   While Lindsay, Michael and I steeped ourselves in the stats on out-of-pocket costs for treating the five most common cancers, I stole glances across the aisle to where Tom was scouring the web for press coverage of his trip to Chicago.  Tap, swipe.  Tap, swipe.  “Hey, Jeanine,” he called even though she was all of five feet away.  “How come
People.com
didn’t run the pictures of me
with
Lindsay?”

“I’ll ask, Tom.” 

Lindsay’s jaw flexed.  She’d been tense since I met up with them at the hotel checkout.  In a specific way I had lived with many times.  When—despite Delilah’s avid intensions—some relationship she had started to count on was going south.  She would push herself to move through the day—stripping the sheets for the Laundromat, scraping out the mayonnaise jar—but her muscles would be flexed rigid.  

I think Lindsay has been looking forward to Tom joining her in Chicago as an opportunity to show him Team Davis in action.  While I don’t know if he’d expressed any of what I overheard in the suite it seemed clear that his agitation had bled over into their evening.

I couldn’t understand it—with Lindsay’s popularity driving Tom’s donor base how could he feel so resentful?

On the other hand I had been privy to how unrelentingly charming and gracious Tom had to be to every single person who thrust their hand in his face.  It wasn’t unreasonable that, given the exhaustion and nerves, he’d had a tantrum. 
Maybe that’s all it was
—I told myself,
a tantrum
.  No different than Chip and Collin getting overtired and kicking on the floor while we waited to be airborne. 

We all just needed a break. 

Instead I was headed to West Palm for Christmas. 

When Pax had asked me if I had plans for the holidays I told him in Tallyville we didn’t have ‘holidays,’ plural, no ski-gear drying by a stone fireplace or steel-drummed carols played by a tikki bar.  We had Christmas, December twenty-fifth—which, depending on seniority, you may or may not have off.  The question, from the time you were old enough to scoop or sling, was simply, “You workin’ Christmas?” 

              “How much time do you have til your flight?” Lindsay asked me as we unbuckled the kids and helped them find all their little plastic pieces.  Tom was already jogging down the stairs to the tarmac. 

              “Forty minutes.”

              “Leave this—I can handle it.” 

              I found a toy helmet the size of a grape under my seat and handed it back to Chip. 

              “Oh God.”  Lindsay adjusted her watch.  “All our parents will already be at the house.  I was hoping Tom and I could finally have a few quiet hours by ourselves.”

“You both have so much going on,” I sympathized, carrying the poster of her book cover signed by the Chicago Bulls, along with my binder on Social Security by district.  “You guys are seriously due a vacation together.” 

“I’d settle for a date,” she answered, shepherding the boys down the steps. 

“I hope you guys get that over the holiday—maybe a night away?”

She watched them run across the tarmac to where Tom was waiting in the private terminal.  She sighed, then forced one of those Lindsay smiles.  “You haven’t had kids yet, but you’ll see—that first year—well, my friend, Ally, she said, just take divorce off the table.”  Lindsay let out a punch of laughter.  “You don’t know what end is up, you’re bone tired, you don’t have time to connect and when you do you can’t form a sentence.”  She turned to me.  “This last push to next November—that’s all this is.  Just like it was with the kids.  A tough year.  But we’ll get through it.  We’ve done it before.  And then one day you just suddenly find you have your lipstick back on, and the candles are lit.”  She slid her sunglasses on as Tom picked Chip up and swung him around.  “So maybe we’ll get that date—maybe we won’t.  But I’m not looking for big romance right now—and neither is he.  We’re just getting through.”

As I raced to catch my flight I felt comforted by Lindsay’s assessment of intimacy.  I didn’t know the first thing about marriage.  Theirs was the first one I had witnessed close up.  And I wanted—and needed—Lindsay to be right. 

In the plane bathroom I changed out of my wool work clothes and into one of the outfits Becky and I had packed from every shift dress, nautical-themed t-shirt and cable-knit sweater we could ransack from the J Crew outlet. 

              “What should I expect?” I asked as Pax drove me from the airport back to the house.

              “Taggart’s whole family is down from Connecticut.  Pym has brought some guy named—I shit you not—Freemont who is the male her.  He has his own hedge funs and do not, I repeat do
not
get sucked into playing a game with him.  He has zero sense of humor and he plays Boggle like he will cut a bitch.  If they ever have children I will sleep with my door locked and one eye open.”

              Laughing, I leaned over and kissed his cheek.  “I’m glad I’m here.  I’m bummed to miss seeing Ray Lynne open the doll house, but pretty much everything else I’m glad to be missing.”

“Delilah gotten a job yet?” he asked. 

“Believe it or not she has a second interview after New Year’s.  Doing admin on a citrus farm—seated and with health insurance—it’s like Jesus was listening.  I want this so badly for her I’m ready to ask Tom to wear a Hanover Orchards tee-shirt to his next televised stop.”

“Amanda, that’s awesome—you were so annoyed that she wasn’t going for clerical stuff.”

“Well, she’s started seeing someone and apparently he put her up to it.”

“He?”

“Daryl.  In keeping with her type, Daryl is currently ‘between gigs,’ but apparently super invested in
her
job search.”

Pax winced.

“I know,” I said as we pulled into the Westerbrook drive.  “I kind of wish I was there this weekend just to look him in the eye and get a read.  He did just finish a stint on one of the deepwater rigs in the Gulf, which means he has a skill, so that’s new.  Wow.”

  The gate, the trees, the stone banisters—all were all festooned with tiny white lights—it looked like a fairy village designed by Cher.

“Yeah, Mom’s decorators go a little crazy at Christmas—she’s kind of cool with it as long as they don’t use red.”

“So Rudolph can go fuck himself?”

“Darling.”  There she was in a black velvet sleeveless dress swanning down the entry steps to greet him like he hadn’t just run to the airport. 

“Mother, you remember Amanda,” Pax said as he hopped out.

“I don’t, apologies.” 

The corners of Pax’s mouth turned down.

She took my hand as I stood and gave me a smile as warm as the diamond snowflake pinned to her dress.  “Dear.”  She addressed him, still holding my hand.  “We’re just starting Christmas Eve champagne on the veranda.  Ping made those little rice balls I just adore.  You’re not going to be believe this.”  She placed her other palm  conspiratorially on his forearm.  “Richard’s wife asked to put on carols.  Aak!”  She mimed clawing at her own skin.

I reached into the back seat and withdrew a shopping bag of gifts for his family.  I loved the wrapping paper I’d found at Target—ice-skating penguins and polar bears.  “Where should I put these?”

“Oh.”  She peered into the bag, grimacing.  “Not in the living room.  Here.  I’ll take them and find a spot.  But do join us once you’ve changed.  I’ve put her in the room next to yours, darling—no point being puritanical.”  It should have been friendly, warm, welcoming, honest—it was none of those things. 

With every step I followed Pax up the white poinsettia-lined staircase to the second floor I felt less like an adult and more like an anxious teenager.  He led me under the birch wreathes to the ‘children’s’ wing where I quickly changed into my next ensemble—a floor length silk skirt and cashmere sweater.  Page 78 of the catalogue.  Fall of last year. 

In one corner of the double height living room was a fresh tree trucked down from Kentucky, bathed in white lights and clear glass ornaments.  Below were stacked white on white plaid boxes tied with white velvet ribbon.  Along the mantle twenty white Nutcrackers lined up to salute.  It was beautiful, but like a sea anemone is beautiful.

“Amanda,” Pax beckoned me outside with a glass of champagne.  One of his cousins across the patio was unmistakably wearing the same skirt.  I couldn’t tell whether I was supposed to feel validated or embarrassed so I settled on both. 

“Merry Christmas.”  I kissed his cheek.  “So when do you do presents?”

“You sound excited.”

“I am.  I love that part.”

“Really?”

“Yes.  Believe it or not Delilah really excelled at the gift exchange.  She’d have me make a list for Santa early—like October before prices went up.   Then she’d ask me which one was the thing I really
really
wanted.  And it would be there Christmas morning.”  

“Now it’s my turn to say wow.”

“I know.  Somehow with all the things she has just never gotten—the importance of one disappointment-free day was crystal clear for her.  What about you guys?”

“Oh, Cricket does not do toys.  My Santa list was filled by the house manager, who she sent to ToysRUs with her credit card.  Once James is old enough to appreciate a good broadcloth she’ll hit Worth Avenue for him like she does for me now.”

I nodded.  This was starting to feel like a bad idea.  Being here was making Pax sound cynical and blasé, a version of him I hasn’t seen since I walked out on him in St. Augustine.   

“Are you Amanda?” another cousin asked—a teenage girl who would be breathtaking once her braces came off.  And her mother stopped trying to stuff her into puffed sleeve dresses on holidays. 

“Yes.”

“You’re the one who works for Davis.  I
love
him.  My friends—we make cupcakes and sell them in front of our building to raise money.”

“Thank you.   Where do you live?”

“Park Avenue.  Can I get his autograph?”

“You give me your address and I’ll see it gets to you.”

She squealed and ran away. 

“Wow,” I said to Pax.  “Fourteen year-old girls in Tallyville are not baking cupcakes to raise money for politicians.”

“Welcome to the rarified air we breathe.”  He meant it as a joke, but it tempered my smile because I didn’t understand any of this—why red was bad—or why a string of rooms occupied by adults was still called the children’s wing.  It felt like every surface was covered in invisible rules and I had neglected to pack the necessary black light.

“Where are the chestnuts?”  Cricket asked.  “There’re supposed to be chestnuts.”  She left the room. 

“I want to give you your present,” I said to Pax. 

“Me, too,” he answered.

I went to the wide hallway that ran the length of the house, where Cricket had dropped my bag of gifts as I went up to change, but it wasn’t there anymore.  I walked down, peeking in each room as I had the day I came to fetch the luncheon program. 

“Cricket, you have
got
to lay off him.”  It was Pym’s voice behind the door to Cricket’s study.  “Pax likes her—he isn’t marrying her.”

“But what if she gets pregnant?  He’ll be saddled for life.” 

I felt one foot pull me to the staircase, to my suitcase, to a flight home.  The other continued right in.  “Sorry to interrupt, I was just looking for the presents I brought.” 

Pym had the good taste to make a choking sound, but her stepmother only slowly pivoted.  “Oh, Amanda,” Cricket said languorously, no sign of embarrassment in her soft smile.  She raised one of her strands of pearls from her tan sternum.  “You’re not offended.  You’re a smart girl.  You know how unsuitable you are for each other.  But I’d be doing exactly the same thing in your shoes.”

“I don’t want his money.”  It was all I could think of to say.

“Well that’s good, because he doesn’t have any.  Ah, you didn’t know that,” she said.  Then she looked at Pym.  “Maybe I am making progress.”  She turned back to me.  “My father didn’t acknowledge Pax—even after Taggart adopted him—so James is the only one with a trust from my side.  Pax’s father should have set one up for him, but who the fuck knows?  He may have forgotten he has a kid.  Taggart was looking kindly on Pax for awhile when he was working for the firm, but now that he’s doing this lobbying thing Taggart has washed his hands.”  It was like she was talking about a dog no one wanted.  “So you see?” she said.

“Yes,” I managed.  “I do.  Thank you,” I said as I turned and left, which I knew sounded weird, but it made sense in my head as the first part of an unfinished answer.  Thank you for being blunt about your dislike for me.  All I’ve ever needed is to know where I stand.  Tell me when the gas is going to run out.  Tell me when we’re out of food.  I just didn’t like to be surprised by a cold stove or an empty fridge. 

I found the gifts in the coat closet and ceremoniously placed them under the tree while Taggart put on choral music and a tray of hot chestnuts was set on the coffee table.  “Here,” I said to Pax, who sat in a club chair in the corner while the other Westerbrooks milled around drinking.  “I’m sorry, this isn’t broadcloth, whatever that is.  And the paper is red because I think that’s cheerful and I love carols and someday I’d like to have Christmas somewhere cold.” 

“Are you okay?” he asked as I sat on the ottoman.

“Your mother just tried to scare me off by telling me you don’t have a trust fund.”

“How do you feel about that?”  He avoided my eyes by untying the ribbon. 

“Well, it’s pretty frickin’ funny.”

“Why is that funny?”

“Because growing up I set my bar at ‘no criminal record’ so I don’t care if you have a stock portfolio.  I’m actually kind of relieved you don’t.”