The Four Temperaments (22 page)

OSCAR

A
s they
sat together in the American Airlines terminal at JFK, Oscar gripped Ruth's hand tightly. It was morning, and they were all cried out. They cried when Ruth got the call about Penelope; they cried while they hurriedly packed their bags, called the airline and hailed a taxi. They cried all the way out to the airport. Now they were waiting for their flight to take off, and for the moment, the crying had stopped. The airport was not very crowded. There were only two other passengers waiting for the flight. One was sleeping and the other reading the
Wall Street Journal;
neither had any interest in Oscar or Ruth.

“We should have gone out there sooner,” Ruth said, breaking the silence. Oscar didn't answer. “It might have helped. At least we would have tried. Instead, we left it alone and now look. And I was worried about a divorce!” Her voice was low, but Oscar heard the tears that were in it. What could he say? That he was wrong, and they should have flown out to San Francisco as soon as they learned Ginny would be there with the company? But what good would that have done? Gabriel was an adult. He made his own choices. Just like me, Oscar thought. Because deep down, he felt he was responsible for all this. He was the one who had brought Ginny into their lives. He could remember that spring evening he sat with her in the coffee shop. He could still taste the doughnut, feel the black scald of the coffee in his mouth. By the time he had finished, he was thoroughly, completely in her thrall. And this was where that sensation of falling, headlong, had brought him. Had brought all of them.

“We'll call Caroline as soon as we get there,” he said to change the subject. He and Ruth had argued over that. Oscar thought they should call her immediately. Ruth felt that they should wait until the morning. “Why deprive her of the last good night's sleep she'll be getting for a long time?” she had reasoned. “We'll call her from San Francisco. Then we can reassure her about Isobel.” In the end, he went along with her, not because he agreed, but because he could not face calling Caroline himself.

“Maybe she'll want to fly out with us,” Oscar had said in a last attempt to sway her.

“Is that what you want?” Ruth asked. “To spend five hours sitting next to Caroline when we know what Gabriel did to her daughter?”

“It's not like he killed her, Ruth. He wasn't even there when she was hit.”

“No, he wasn't. He was with that girl. While his wife was lying dead on the pavement and his daughter was alone!” Oscar had no reply.

“Yes, we'll call her as soon as we get there,” Ruth agreed now. She didn't bother to mask the exasperation in her voice. The flight attendant called for the passengers to board the flight and Oscar and Ruth were the first in line.

On the flight, Oscar slept. And while he slept, he dreamed, fretful, unhappy dreams, in which Gabriel was a child, crying for comfort. But Oscar was a child too, even younger and smaller than his son. There was no comfort he could give. He woke to see the attendant holding a shiny metal pitcher of coffee. Oscar shook his head and went back to sleep. This time, he was marrying Ruth all over again. Only instead of the temple on Ocean Parkway in Brooklyn, they were standing—hands joined, heads bowed—before the rabbi in what seemed to be a sewer or a well. Everything was dripping and sodden. The hem of Ruth's white dress was dark with filth. Oscar shook himself awake and looked around. Now Ruth was asleep. He fervently wished her better dreams than his own. He gestured to the attendant. No coffee—coffee was too brutal for his unsettled stomach—but he gratefully accepted the tea bag and plastic cup of not very hot water that she offered. With it there was a sticky, jelly-filled bun, wrapped in cellophane. Oscar opened the wrapper quietly and raised it to his mouth. A bit stale, but satisfyingly sweet nevertheless. He glanced out the window and saw nothing but clouds.

In San
Francisco, they took a taxi to Gabriel's apartment. He met them at the door looking white and haggard. Oscar hugged his son tightly and realized he had not done so since Gabriel was a little boy. Why had he waited so long? “Thank you for coming,” Gabriel said. His voice sounded strange and hoarse. He too had been crying. “Isobel is asleep,” he said in answer to Ruth's anxious question. The three of them peered through the open door to her room. Isobel was stretched out in her crib. Her mouth was open and she was breathing peacefully. Against her pale skin, the inverted arcs of her dark lashes smiled. “I don't think she's ever slept in the crib before,” Gabriel said quietly, so as not to wake her. “Before she always slept with us . . .” He stopped, visibly trying to regain control of himself. “But she was so tired out by the time we got home, I don't think she cared where she was.”

After they looked at the baby, Ruth went into the kitchen, where she attempted to prepare some sort of meal. However, the ingredients in Penelope's kitchen—rice milk, dried seaweed, a head of kale, soy powder and the like—were unfamiliar to her and she abandoned the idea. Instead, she boiled water for the herbal tea she found in the cabinet. When she brought the steaming cups to the table and set them down, Oscar took his and blew on the surface to cool it. “About Caroline,” he began hesitantly. “Isn't it time she knew?”

“She does,” Gabriel said, to Oscar's relief. From the look on Ruth's face, it was clear she shared his reaction. “I called her myself.”

“Oh,” said Oscar. He sipped the tea and made a face. What was in it that made it taste so bad? “How did she take it?”

“Not too well,” Gabriel said quietly. “I'm sorry someone wasn't there to tell her in person.” Oscar and Ruth said nothing. “I told her you were coming. And that we'd call her together. To talk about the funeral.”

“The funeral,” repeated Oscar. “I hadn't thought about the funeral.”

“Caroline wants to have it in Connecticut. That's where Penelope's father is buried.”

“That sounds reasonable,” said Oscar, looking over at Ruth. She had been very quiet. Usually she had opinions about everything and was seldom afraid to express them. At least to the members of her family. Did she perhaps object to the idea of the funeral being held back east? But why?

“Actually,” Gabriel was saying in a low voice, “I didn't say this to her on the phone, but Penelope always said she wanted to be cremated.”

“Well, people do that and bury the ashes,” Oscar said uneasily as he glanced again at his wife.

“No, she didn't want to be buried. The idea of being underground bothered her. She wanted the ashes to be scattered someplace that was wide open. Over the water. Or a huge field or something,” he said, looking beseechingly at his parents.

“Oh, so she didn't want to be buried?” said Ruth, finally joining in. “She would deprive her daughter of a decent place to mourn? Well, fuck what Penelope wanted!” Her voice was so filled with fury that Oscar and Gabriel could only stare, bewildered and alarmed, at her angry face.

GINNY

S
potting was
a way of focusing your eyes on the same fixed point—like the small crack in the wall above the mirror or that weird, oily smudge right next to it—every time you whipped your head around in the turn. Before you could learn to turn, you had to learn to spot. Ginny had known that for a long time. If you didn't spot, you got dizzy and wound up on the floor instead of on your feet. And if you were doing turns that traveled across the stage, like chaînés, you might even end up in the orchestra pit.

Ginny actually did start turning before she had really learned to spot. She was a natural, she could feel that, even as a child, and she spun around in a neat triple pirouette before she had a clue about what to do with her eyes. She liked turning so much that she did it a lot, in spite of that dizzy, sick-to-your-stomach sensation she had when her eyes couldn't focus and the room spun madly and out of control. Then Wes taught her how to spot and she never forgot it. Turning became pure pleasure: a perfect balance between abandon and control.

But the morning when Gabriel called her to tell her that his wife had been hit by a car and killed, she felt the way she did before she learned to spot. Her hotel room, with its chenille bedspread and braided rug, seemed to whirl; she thought she might throw up. She didn't, though. Althea appeared while Ginny was still holding the receiver in her hand. “Is anything wrong?” she asked, taking in Ginny's tight, drawn face.

“Even a soloist has a right to a private life, right?” Ginny reminded her. Althea didn't ask anything else. Ginny got dressed quickly and went to class, where everything was all right, though the turning-without-spotting sensation came and went throughout the entire hour and a half.

The next
day, Ginny saw Gabriel for breakfast early, before her ballet class began. He looked terrible. His face was yellowish-gray and there were rings under his eyes. She could barely stand to look at him. But when he took her hand, it felt as warm and familiar as ever. He looked down and saw the bracelet on her wrist. “I'm glad you're wearing it,” he said, and drawing Ginny's hand to his face, he kissed her palm.

“What will you do?”

“I'm not sure,” he said, closing his eyes and rubbing his cheek against her hand. “The funeral will be in Connecticut. At her mother's. Then I'll fly back here to empty out the apartment.”

“You're leaving San Francisco?”

He nodded.

“And going . . .?”

“Back to New York. At least for a while. Though maybe I'll stay. It all depends.” Depends on what? she wanted to say. But she kept her eyes focused on an open sack of coffee beans somewhere just beyond Gabriel's left shoulder. She was spotting, even while she was sitting still. The pressure of his hand felt good. Still, Ginny was not prepared for his next words. “I'd like to see you again before I go.”

“You would?” He reached for her other hand then, and held both of them tightly in his.

“I know it's crazy, it's depraved, it's awful, but, yes, I would.”

Well, what could she say to that? They met the next morning, after company class, in a motel room that Gabriel found all the way on the other side of town.

At first, it seemed strange, as if his wife were in the room with them. Did he feel it too? She couldn't bring herself to ask. Instead, she stared straight up at the ceiling as they lay on the bed with their clothes on, not kissing or touching. Then Ginny put her arms around him and he put his around her. That felt right, and so one thing led to another. It wasn't like it was before, but, then, what ever was? Afterward, they remained there for a while, still not saying anything. His eyes were closed, but at least he had some color in his face now; he didn't look so gray.

“You know how sorry I am,” Ginny said. She hadn't intended to say anything, the thought just bubbled up and out.

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” he said, opening his eyes. “I'm the one who should be sorry. She was my wife. I betrayed her. You didn't.”

“Are you sorry?”

“Yes. No. I don't know. Of course I'm sorry that she's dead—God, am I sorry about that. But I'm not sorry about you.”

“You'll be in New York soon. And so will I.”

“I know. We can see each other there. If you want to, that is.”

“Gabriel, of course I want to,” Ginny said, but inside she was hardly so sure. She looked at the glowing red numbers on the digital clock by the side of the bed and jumped up. “I've got a rehearsal at two,” she said. “I'd better go.”

It was then that Ginny noticed the big, purple hickeys he had left all over her neck, where they would absolutely show in class and onstage. She would need a tube and a half of concealer to cover them. She dressed quickly. Good thing she had that long magenta scarf with her; she could wrap it around her neck for the time being.

Gabriel hadn't moved. He was still lying there in that extra-large-sized motel bed with the blanket pulled up around his chin. “I'll call you when I'm in New York,” he said as she slipped on her shoes and hoisted her bag up and onto her shoulder. All the while, his eyes never left her face.

After that,
Ginny just couldn't settle down to do anything right. She screwed up in class several times and even once onstage in San Francisco, where she fell, flat on her face, in the middle of the grands jetés en tournant. There was nothing quite so humiliating as falling in front of an audience. There you were, willing them to believe in the illusion of your weightlessness, your perfect control, and all of a sudden, it was over, you were mortal again, lying there with your nose scrunched up against the floor and your backside in the air. Of course, you would be up in a flash, up and dancing again. Most times, the audience even applauded, but the applause was all wrong too, a paltry consolation prize when you were going after the gold ring.

Althea took Ginny aside after the matinee performance and asked again if anything was wrong. “I've never seen you fall onstage before. Are you okay?” She looked like she really wanted to know. Ginny wasn't ready to tell, though. Not yet, anyway.

“I'm all right,” Ginny lied. But she wasn't. Back at the hotel, she found a phone booth in the lobby, so she could have some privacy. She didn't want Althea hearing the conversation she hoped to have with Wes. She didn't actually think he would be in, but even the sound of his voice on the answering machine would be comforting. To her surprise, he picked up right away.

“Virginia,” he said. “Your mama sent me your reviews. I'm not surprised. Are you calling with some more good news?”

“I wish,” Ginny said. He was the only one who called her Virginia. It suddenly made her want to cry. But she didn't. Instead, the whole ugly story came pouring out, about Oscar, Gabriel and most of all about Penelope. Wes was quiet while he listened, so quiet Ginny thought he might have gone away from the phone. “Wes?” she said. “Wes, are you there?”

“I'm here,” he answered. “I'm just trying to think of something to say to you.”

“Was it my fault?” Ginny asked.

“You think it was.”

“At first I didn't think so. But now I don't know. He was with me when she was hit. No one could call to tell him because he'd turned off his phone.” There was a long pause in which Wes didn't say anything. Ginny thought he might have hung up.

“I think you need a different kind of answer than the one I can give,” he finally said.

“What are you talking about?”

“Pray.”

“Pray?” Ginny couldn't believe he was telling her this. “Pray for what?”

“Forgiveness, understanding, guidance. It doesn't matter. Just pray.”

“You mean in a church? What kind of church?” Wouldn't it be just like Wes to tell her that?

“Catholic, Protestant, Baptist. Pray in the street or in your hotel room. Anywhere you can. God is always listening.”

“Wes!” she said in frustration. That was the kind of advice her mother always gave, and Ginny had been in no hurry to call
her.

But once she got off the phone, she left the hotel and went wandering around the streets of San Francisco, looking for a church. It took a while, but she did manage to find one. And it was a Catholic church too, with a round, stained-glass window, a whitewashed tower and a very tarnished bell. Now wouldn't Wes take that as a sign?

The building was small and, at the moment, unoccupied. Ginny slipped into a pew and bowed her head. Wes's words came back to her: forgiveness, understanding, guidance. She tried to pray but instead found herself remembering the long, hot Sunday mornings in Bakerstown, her mother at her side. She had been required to pray then, though she often felt nothing at all, and simply pretended, so Rita would leave her alone. But now she was by herself, no one watching. Just God, she supposed. That's what Wes thought.

She looked up at the stained-glass window. The colors were pretty, though she couldn't figure out what it depicted. Ginny didn't know the stories of all those saints; Baptists didn't go in for that sort of thing. She stayed in the church until she started to get cold. As she left, she took a last look at the stained glass, but since the light had faded, even the colors had gone dark.