The After Party (20 page)

“Where is everyone?” I asked Louis, stirring my martini with the green, shamrock-topped swizzle stick, trying to sound casual, as if I didn't much care where everyone was. I wasn't Joan anymore. That had only lasted long enough to get me up here. Now I was Cece, and the sip I took of my martini was so terrible and astringent it was all I could do not to spit it out.

Louis said nothing, and I felt my cheeks redden.

“I don't know why people want to be up so high,” I said, staring into my drink. “If Russia drops the bomb we're toast, up here. Better to be down there”—here I raised my eyes to Louis. He was watching me, quietly. I pointed to the floor—“than up here, closer to the sky.” I couldn't stop. I opened my mouth to go on,
but Louis reached across the bar and put his hand, cool from handling ice and cold metal shakers all night, over mine. Louis was as old as my grandfather would have been. I decided his hand over mine was a kindness.

“Miss Fortier is behind that door,” Louis said. He took his hand away and pointed to the door closest to us. “She's not alone.”

I went to the door and, before I could convince myself not to, flung it open. At first I couldn't see a thing, and then, gradually, my eyes adjusted to the dark. I had screwed up my courage for nothing. I was in a long, empty corridor with another door at the end.

I clutched my martini to my chest, spilling some on my dress. The carpet was plush, tricky to navigate in heels. I couldn't help but think of the long hallway in Sugar Land, Texas, all those years ago. I had gone somewhere unknown for Joan then, too. And here I was, five years later, a wife and a mother, doing the same thing.

The scent of the Sugar Land house came back to me: potpourri, the plastic that covered the furniture, the ghost of Joan's perfume.

When I reached the second door I pressed my ear against it, but heard nothing.

I twisted the knob, half expecting it to be locked—Sid and Joan might have been in there together, having sex, but I didn't care.

The door wasn't locked, and I saw right away Joan wasn't in the room, either. Only Sid, and three men who faced me as I entered.
They were standing by a glass table, looking at something. Papers. I spotted a briefcase, a crystal decanter of brown liquor. A pen. The various accoutrements of men.

“Sid,” I said, my voice shaky. I tried to steady it. “Cece. Cecilia Buchanan.”

I held out my hand—for him to shake? To kiss? I didn't know. But Sid's face was impassive, his vitality, which had been on public display just an hour ago, a distant memory. This was Joan's Sid, but he seemed like a different person entirely.

His friends—his associates?—watched me with the same blank expressions, and I remembered the first time I'd seen him, how he'd scared me and I hadn't known why. I set my martini on the brass side table near the door and turned to go—“I'm in the wrong place,” I murmured, or something to that effect. I was a woman among strange men. I had thought Joan might disappear, but now it occurred to me that I might disappear, too. We could all disappear, so easily.

I was so close to leaving—my hand was on the knob. But no, I had to find Joan.

I turned back around and met the eyes of one of the men, idly spinning a cigarette between his fingers. He stopped, gave his attention to Sid, and I understood that I had nothing to fear from Sid's company, only from Sid himself.

“Joan,” I said, and I was proud of how clear my voice was, like a bell in this silent room.

“She's in there,” Sid said after a moment, though I had no idea where “there” was. He needed to make me wait. I would wait. “In the bedroom,” he said after another moment, and pointed to a
pair of French doors at the far end of the room. And then he waved his hand, dismissing me.

This was a suite, I realized as I entered: Sid and his associates were in the living quarters, and Joan was in the bedroom. This was where Sid would retire when he was finished with whatever it was that occupied him out there; he would send the men away, and come into this room and wake Joan and they would have sex. Or perhaps he wouldn't wake her. Or perhaps he wouldn't send the men away. All those years ago Joan had let herself be used by men she barely knew. She'd done it once. Who was to say she wouldn't do it a second time? Hadn't already?

Joan was asleep on the bed in her beautiful white dress, her makeup perfect except for a speck of ash, from the fireworks, on her cheek. I gently wiped it away with my thumb. There. She looked perfect now.

I stood over her for a moment, two. Or maybe it was ten. I lost track of time. She was inert and vulnerable, and I felt a protectiveness I had not felt since Tommy's birth. I checked my watch; it was three thirty in the morning. Ray was surely downstairs, looking for me, but Ray might have been a million miles away.

Joan opened her eyes. She stared at me in silence for so long I thought she might be dreaming.

“Cee,” she said. “You shouldn't be here.”

She seemed lucid enough. That was the first thing I noticed. And then she sat up, and I saw a bruise on her shoulder, where her dress had shifted.

She followed my eyes, touched the bruise, then returned her hand to her lap.

“I found you,” I said, as if we had been playing a game, and Joan was the prize. “Who are those men out there?” I asked.

Joan said nothing.

“Who is Sid, Joan? Tell me who he is.”

Still she said nothing.

“Joan,” I said, “you need to leave. Come with me.”

“Where do you want to take me, Cee?”

I hadn't thought about where I'd take her.

“Home,” I said, firmly. “I'll take you home.”

“My home or yours?”

Taking her to my home was out of the question. And her own home—it was Sid's domain now.

“Evergreen,” I said.

She grimaced. “Evergreen. I think you and Mama are the only people who call it that anymore. My father would, of course, if his mind hadn't turned to cotton.”

I held out my hand. “Let's go there.”

She stared at my hand, then looked up at me. “Cece, I need you to leave.”

“Leave?”

She nodded. “Leave here. Leave me alone.”

“I can't,” I said, simply. “Don't you know that by now?”

She rose, walked steadily to the window—she wasn't drunk—then drew back the deep-green curtain. She rested her cheek against the glass, and I could almost feel the delicious coolness against her hot skin.

“Evergreen's the last place I want to be, and you're the last person I want to see.”

“Evergreen is your home,” I said, ignoring the barb.

“I left my home a long time ago.”

Beyond Joan the city was lit up with a million glimmering lights, evidence of its industry, its breadth. Joan had a home: Houston. The city she could not live without, the city that could not live without her.

“I'm afraid Sid is going to hurt you.” I went to her. “I'm afraid for you,” I said at last.

“The last time you were afraid you went and told Mama, and I was sent away, and I came back and I was good for a while, wasn't I? I was golden. But now I'm tired.” She closed her eyes again.

She'd never before spoken of being sent away; we'd never mentioned that night in Sugar Land. We had so much history, Joan and I, that it had always seemed easy to pick and choose which parts of it we recognized.

Yet here Joan was acknowledging what had remained unspoken for so long. Perhaps the similarities between then and now were obvious to her, too.

“How are you tired, Joan? Tell me.”

“I'm tired of all of it.”

“I've seen you like this before,” I said, and I knew I was coming close to dangerous territory. I'd never spoken so frankly of that time in her life before. Of that time in our lives. “Do you remember the night I found you? In that—that house.” It felt thrilling, to finally talk about it. I couldn't stop. “You were dead to the world. With those men. They could have done anything to you.” My voice broke; I brought my hand to my mouth. “Maybe they did.”

She opened her eyes. I thought she might be crying, but she wasn't. Our faces were so close I could see the mole on her right temple beneath a thick layer of powder.

“I liked what they did to me. Is that so hard to imagine? I wasn't made to do anything I didn't want to do.”

I shook my head. “I don't believe you.”

“Believe what you want. But I'm not like you, Cece. I never was.”

“What I believe,” I said, “is that you convinced yourself you liked it. Because you were different that year. You came back from California and you were changed.”

“Something happened the first time you went away. California was cruel to you, that was it, wasn't it? Something happened to you there.”

She watched me.

“Hollywood didn't treat you like Houston,” I said.

“Pardon?” But she'd heard me. She was daring me to go on.

“You weren't a star there. You were just like everyone else. You thought you were going to make it. And you didn't. And—”

“Oh God,” Joan interrupted, her voice shrill. She turned and picked up a silver cigarette case from a small table—her back was shaking. I had made Joan cry. I tried to think—had I ever made her cry before? I felt ashamed; I'd gone too far. I moved to hug her, but she spun around to face me. She was laughing.

“Why is Dorie back?” I asked.

She jerked her head up.

“Dorie,” I said. “I saw her in the kitchen. At Evergreen. What was she doing there, Joan?”

Joan shook her head. “I have absolutely no idea.”

“But you do!” I cried. “Tell me, Joan. Please tell me.”

Joan looked from me to her cigarette, which she stubbed out on a silver coaster. There was an ashtray by the bed. Even in my state I'd noticed it. Because that's what women like me did: noticed things. Kept the world in order. And women like Joan were always undoing our careful, hard work. Women like Joan were always creating messes for other people, unthinkingly, like children. But you couldn't be mad at a child for being a child. How could you be mad at a woman like Joan, who was all action, no thought? It was like being mad at a horse for running, at Ray for wishing I would leave Joan alone. At me for being unable to comply.

“Leave, Cece. Go back to Tommy. He needs you. I don't.”

I stood there helplessly, my hands by my sides. Our moment was over.

“Go,” she said, her voice firm. I nodded. There was no sense in staying.

“Cee,” Joan called out when I was opening the door. “What did he say? Tell me.”

“‘Ma,'” I answered. “He said ‘Ma.'”

I let myself out of the suite. Sid watched me leave, winking as I passed by him, and I was so confused. Sid was a horrible threat, or Sid was just a man with whom Joan was entertaining herself while she waited for the next man, or Sid meant more than I understood, or Sid meant nothing at all.

Downstairs, I checked with the valet: Ray had already gone, but left the car. Neither of us was in any state to drive. I was too tired to care that Ray had abandoned me. I took a taxi home, let
myself in with the spare key hidden beneath the back mat, and went straight to Tommy's room. I put my hand on his warm back and he stirred; he would have no memory of this night, of his mother coming into his room so very late. But I would remember it
always.

1957

R
ay was gone when Tommy woke me the next day. I had passed out in his rocking chair. I decided to pretend it was a workday. That was probably where Ray had gone, anyway, even though his office was closed for the holiday. Where else would he go? I trusted him. That he did not trust me in the same way was a thought on which I tried not to linger.

I called Maria's cousin and waited for Maria to call me back, and then promised her double pay if she would come in. She hesitated, and I felt guilty—who knew what she had planned for today—but she wasn't in a situation where she could refuse extra money, so she said yes. Maria bought her own food, the fabric for the clothes she made. She paid her own bus fare. She needed
money not for fine dresses, or to eat at private clubs: she needed it to survive.

When she arrived she smiled at me, and it seemed genuine enough. What choice did she have but to forgive me? My family was how she made a living.

I knew where Idie was working now, because I had provided a reference. It was the second family she'd been with since she'd left ten years ago. She was a live-in at a house in West University, over by Rice, near Ray's parents.

It was all easier than I thought it would be. A maid answered the phone. I knew from the way she said “Hayes residence” that she was not a Hayes herself—and a few moments later, I heard Idie's voice.

“I'll take the children to Hermann Park after lunch,” she said, after a moment. “You can meet me there.”

Her tone was clear, unaccommodating. If I wanted to see her I would have to come to her.

There hadn't been any reason for Idie to stay, after my mother died. I had left, for Evergreen. But Idie wouldn't have stayed with me even if I'd begged, even if my father had doubled her salary. She knew what Joan and I had done.

The houses here were nice, but they weren't River Oaks. They felt more a part of the outside world; River Oaks was its own world.

Idie was still pretty. I noticed that first as I drove up, parked my car by the edge of the park. In another world—a world in which Idie was white—she would have been the wife of an oil executive instead of nanny to an oil executive's wife. She was slender, with a
high forehead and clear, alert eyes. I'd forgotten how young she and Dorie must have been when they'd been our nannies. Idie had never married. Dorie had—her husband had worked as a gardener in River Oaks. But Idie remained alone. Neither sister had children of her own. Nannies rarely did.

She sat on a park bench, her hands folded in her lap, watching her charges—three straw-colored blondes—play on a swing set. Seeing her turned me into a child again, six years old and standing by her bed because a bad dream had woken me. Eleven years old and playing down the street, turning my head at the sound of Idie's voice, calling me home. Fourteen years old and sitting at the kitchen table, avoiding Idie's glare, in trouble because I smelled of cigarette smoke. I had thought Idie would remain with me forever, that she would be a nanny to my own children when I was an adult. And it might have happened as I'd imagined it, had my mother lived.

Idie was like a mother, except that she had been paid to attend to me. Except that after I had disappointed her, she had removed her affection.

When I was seven she had spent days at the sewing machine creating a miniature wedding dress, for no other reason than I'd asked for it. There was no beginning, with Idie—in my earliest memories, Idie is present. But there had been an end.

Her attention was on her charges, completely. And then, when my car door slammed shut, she turned that focus to me. I remembered that focus. My mother always seemed half available, half here, half in another world. But Idie had always seemed completely present.

I had chosen my outfit carefully. I wanted to appear modest for Idie, evidence of my life as a mother. And yet I wanted my clothes to carry me, as they always did. People said I had a knack for dressing but really I had a knack for wearing clothes that made me two or three notches superior to plain old Cece. So I'd worn a pale yellow skirt that came past my knees, tailored to make my waist look small. Then a simple white blouse that was so light it felt like wearing air. The blouse was silk, the skirt custom-made, and both had cost a fortune. But Idie would never guess that. She would, I hoped, take me in and decide I was dressed appropriately. Like the young mother of a young child. Like a good person, a person deserving of her love.

I presented myself to Idie gracelessly, my hand in an awkward half wave; the sight of her turned me breathless with want. I waited for her to stand, to hug me, but she simply observed me, and I felt foolish.

I saw, now that I was close to her, what I could not see from a distance: tiny wrinkles around her eyes, a missing tooth when she smiled. I saw that she had aged, and I was, for an instant, unspeakably sad. I turned to watch the children so Idie wouldn't see the tears in my eyes.

“They're beautiful,” I said, and then immediately wished I hadn't spoken. These weren't Idie's children, and perhaps hearing them complimented reminded Idie that she had no children of her own. In that other world, Idie would have been a mother as well as a wife. Motherhood suddenly seemed like an unfairly allotted privilege.

But I had been mistaken. “Thank you,” she said, and there
was pride in her voice. “I've been with them since the oldest—Lucinda there—was a baby.”

“A long time,” I said, and Idie nodded.

“I haven't seen you in forever,” I said, as I tucked my skirt beneath me and sat next to Idie on the bench.

Idie shook her head. “No.”

“Ten years.”

“Has it been that long? I suppose it has. Lucinda,” she called out, across the playground, her voice a warning. “Don't.”

I laughed. I couldn't help it.

“It's just, I remember that voice,” I explained. “I remember it very well. It meant I should stop whatever I was doing immediately, or else.”

“Or else,” Idie repeated. “You didn't know what ‘or else' was. But you were a good girl.”

“Was I?”

“Oh, yes,” she said, and the fervor in her voice surprised me. “Very good. You wanted to please, Cecilia. You always wanted to please, and that's all you can ask for in a child.” She pointed. “Ricky and Danny want to please. Lucinda doesn't care. She's a fireball.”

I was jealous of Lucinda the fireball. It was ridiculous, but
I
wanted to have been a fireball, not the child who wanted to please. I wondered who I was now, as an adult. Surely I had changed.

“Joan was a fireball,” I said. Idie stiffened next to me. “She still is.”

The wind picked up and I caught Idie's particular smell, a mix of the lotion she used to rub into my skin after bath time and
something unidentifiable. The urge to lean into her was so strong it was nearly unbearable. I had felt a certain electricity between us since I'd sat down: we had once loved each other, after all. Idie had brought comfort to my life.

I would do no such thing, of course. Idie was gone from me, had been for a long time. If I leaned into her she would scoot away as if burned; the moment would not be tender. It would be strange, intolerable.

“Joan was a fireball because she had a mother who cared about her. You wanted to please because your mother didn't notice you.” She turned to me. “Children are simple creatures, Cecilia. The simplest creatures in the world.”

“My mother cared about me,” I said, and I wondered why I felt the urge to defend her. “She was a difficult woman.”

Idie nodded. A colored woman in a white uniform pushed a stroller and waved in our direction. Idie nodded back. This was Idie's domain; the woman was deferential, stayed at a respectful distance, did not stare at the nanny talking with a well-dressed white woman. This was Idie's life, as I had once been.

One of her charges—the younger boy—ran up and announced he was hungry.

“You're always hungry,” she said, but her voice was kinder with him than with me. “We'll leave soon. Get a snack at home.”

He pouted for a second, and then turned to me. “Who's that?” he asked, pointing.

“Don't point,” Idie said. “This is Miss Cecilia.”

“Where did she come from?”

Idie laughed. “Cecilia, where did you come from?”

“I came from nearby,” I said, grateful for the boy's presence. He softened Idie. The boy eyed me warily; he hadn't liked being the object of Idie's laughter. “Idie used to watch me, when I was a little girl.”

“It's true,” Idie said. She leaned forward and dusted off the boy's shorts, straightened his shirt. He looked from me to Idie, not so much confused as uninterested. That Idie, whom he clearly loved, had had a life before him, would have a life after him, was beyond his comprehension.

And then he darted off, without warning, in the way of children.

“I have a child,” I said. “Thomas. He's three years old.”

“I know.”

“Dorie told you?”

She was silent. “Why are you here, Cecilia?”

I closed my eyes against the sun. We were sitting in the shade, but still, if I sat here too long I would burn.

“I came to see why Dorie is back.” I had nothing to lose. I might as well be honest. Idie might appreciate my honesty.

“I figured as much,” she said. “I haven't heard from you in ten years.” Her voice tightened as she spoke. “I knew, the instant I heard your voice, you wanted to know something about Joan.”

I thought about defending myself, but Idie wouldn't believe the truth, which had been apparent to me as soon as I'd seen her: I'd wanted to see Idie for a long time. But I had known she did not want to see me.

“You've always disapproved of Joan,” I said instead. “Since we were girls.”

“Is that what you think?” She stood, and the children, as if tethered to her invisibly, spun around to face her. “One minute,” she called out, across the playground, and tapped her wrist, though she wasn't wearing a watch. “One minute and then we go home.

“I only cared about you, Cecilia. Joan made no difference to me. She was Dorie's. You were mine.”

“But why did Dorie leave? Where did she go?”

Idie shook her head. “If you don't know, I can't tell you. It's not my business.”

“Please,” I said. “I need to know.”

Idie raised her hand. “It's not mine to tell.” She touched her neck, and I noticed her tiny gold cross was gone, lost to the years. “It's not for men to interfere in matters of God.”

A deep unease rose in my throat, and I felt like I might vomit into the grass.

“Matters of God? What are you talking about, Idie? Please.” I clasped her hand. “Please tell me.”

“The children will be here soon,” she said, taking back her hand. They walked toward us, timidly, as if they did not want to interrupt us. I wondered, briefly, what they made of us.

“Please,” I said again, though I knew it was useless.

“Ask Joan. It's her story. And your own story, Cecilia? I often wonder if you regret.”

“No,” I said. And it was true. I did not. “I don't regret it. Joan did what I could not. I'm forever in her debt.” I paused. “It was what my mother wanted.”

“She didn't know what she wanted.”

The children reached us; they no longer looked curiously at
me. For a moment I had been interesting, but I had stayed too long.

Idie straightened the children's clothes, neatened Lucinda's hair, then spoke again.

“Go play,” she said to the children. “I'll call you in another minute.” Then she sat back down beside me, and I was thrilled, though I knew I shouldn't be. “I heard what your mother told you.”

“What my mother told me?” My mother had told me so many things; at first I didn't understand.

“When she was dying. I listened sometimes, outside her door, to make sure she wasn't being cruel.”

“She wasn't.”

“I know.” She paused, brushed a speck of something from her lap. “She told you not to let Joan take you.”

Ah. I remembered exactly. My mother had just swallowed her pill. I had blotted her chin with a napkin.

“She was sick,” I said. “She was losing her mind.”

“But she hadn't lost it completely, had she?” She met my eye, in a way that meant I had to answer.

“No,” I said. “No, she hadn't.” Because it was the truth.

“She told you to be careful with Joan.”

“She told me Joan would rip me in two.” I remembered the heat of my mother's room, the cloying smells. She was always cold, as she was dying, and I was always warm, as I was nursing her.

“Yes. What would happen to you after she died was her great fear.”

“No,” I said, reflexively. “It couldn't have been.”

“Why? Because she could be cruel? She wasn't meant to be a
mother. I grant you that. But she had a mother's instincts, all the same.”

“A mother's instincts,” I repeated. I was close to tears. “What are those, I wonder? I couldn't move through the house without her telling me I clomped like a horse. I still think of that, sometimes. I remember how much she hated the way I walked.”

“Your mother loved you.”

“I can't remember her ever telling me so.
You
told me. You told me all the time. But never my mother.”

“All the same.” Idie pressed her finger to her lips, as if to stop herself from speaking. But she went on. “I used to think it might be God's providence, that she died just as you were becoming a woman. She couldn't have mothered a young woman. She didn't have it in her.”

“Do you still think it was God's providence?”

“You know what I think.” She stood. “Children,” she called. “It's time to go home.”

Idie had been my home. I put my hand on my chest. I was a child again, waiting to be led somewhere safe.