The Swan House (47 page)

“Yes?” came my dad's voice.

“Mista Middleton? I'll be goin' now.”

“Fine, Ella Mae. Thank you. Has Mary Swan gotten home yet?”

“Yessir, she done just arrived.”

“Well, could you tell her to come here, please?”

But Ella Mae didn't answer. She disappeared into Daddy's study, and I, of course, listened by the door, which stood slightly ajar. “Mista Middleton, 'scuse me for sayin' so, but I thinks you be makin' one terrible mistake. You be messin' up yore chile, sir, in a bad way. In a real bad way.”

“What do you mean, Ella Mae?” Daddy's voice was glacial.

“I ain't neva' seen Mary Swan so happy as when she's he'pin' out with the poor, Mista Middleton. She does a mighty fine job there, an' if'n ya take that away from her, 'scuse me for sayin' it, but I b'lieve you is not the man I worked fo' all these years. I b'lieve ya done lost ya mind and ya heart with yore Sheila. I'm mighty sorry, Mista Middleton, but don't ya treat Mary Swan this way. She's okay. She doin' all right. Don't take this away from her, sir. She done lost enuf as it is.”

I think that was the longest conversation Ella Mae had ever had with my dad, and before he had time to answer her, she had turned and left the room. Her face was stern and fearful when she came out, but I just ran up and hugged her before she could amble out the back door. “Thank you, Ella Mae. Thank you.”

Right away, things began to change at our house. First of all, on Saturday afternoon, Daddy went out and bought a baseball glove. When he got home, he stood at the bottom of the stairs and called up to Jimmy, “Son, how 'bout throwing a few balls with me?”

Jimmy, who was normally not the king of enthusiasm, came racing down the steps with a wide grin on his freckled face. “Sure, Dad.”

While they tossed the baseball back and forth late that first afternoon with dusk settling abruptly around them, I stood in front of the big picture window in the
atelier
and watched. Daddy was throwing the baseball way up high, so that Jimmy had to hold out his glove and run for the ball in the near dark. I heard them laughing together, and that sound, the sound of a father enjoying being with his son, was as beautiful to my ears as Jean-Pierre Rampal playing the “Largo” from Handel.

Muffin seemed to be laughing too, in his canine way, yelping excitedly, and watching for his chance to intercept the baseball. He dashed after every ball that went past Jimmy's reach. He'd grab the ball in his mouth and then, tail wagging, run in circles while Daddy yelled, “Muffin!! For heaven's sake, put down that ball! Jimmy, haven't you taught that dog a thing?” Then Jimmy would tackle Muffin and wriggle the ball out of his mouth while Daddy leaned over, hands on his knees, breathing hard and roaring with laughter.

But the most amazing thing happened on Sunday afternoon. I'd just returned from riding at Rachel's, and my face, hands, and feet felt numb with cold. I decided a cup of hot chocolate was imperative. But before I could get to the kitchen, Daddy called to me from his study, “Mary Swan? Could you come here for a sec?” His eyes were down, looking at something on his desk. “Mary Swan, I was wondering if you'd like to go to the City Club for lunch tomorrow. They've got a big New Year's Eve special luncheon. The big tree is still up on the Rich's bridge, and well, I thought maybe you'd enjoy . . .”

“Are you asking me on a date, Daddy?”

He looked up with a hesitant smile on his face. “Yes, sweetheart, I guess I am.”

“Then I accept!”

I had butterflies in my stomach as I rode the bus downtown on Monday morning. I had carefully chosen my outfit, with Rachel's help: a light green wool suit, which Rachel claimed showed off my eyes. I wore my hair back in a silky green headband that matched the suit. Daddy's office was in the Candler Building, which sat at a point where Peachtree, Houston, and Pryor streets joined. On the outside of the building, way up high, hung an enormous flashing Coca-Cola sign. Aside from that, the building was very ornate and sophisticated. Two sculpted men sat on either side of the Peachtree Street entrance, and inside in the lobby, the elevator doors were made of brass, and so were the letter boxes, and everything else was made of marble that Daddy said came from a famous quarry in the Georgia hills called Amicalola. The marble winding staircase had all kinds of elaborate objects carved into it. But I didn't take the stairs. Daddy's brokerage firm's offices were way up on the fourteenth floor, so I rode the elevator.

Stepping off the elevator, I pulled open the heavy glass doors leading into the brokerage firm complex. A young woman sitting at the reception desk looked up and asked, “Are you Miss Middleton?”

“Yes.”

“Well, come right this way. Your father is expecting you.”

Daddy's face lit up when he saw me. “Hello, sweetheart.” He gave me a warm hug, which caught me off guard, and I stiffened involuntarily. He didn't seem to notice. “Leslie, could you fix Mary Swan and me a cup of hot apple cider?” He whispered to me, “Those of us fool enough to work on New Year's Eve decided we have a right to a little festivity.”

Daddy's office was a square cubicle, three sides of which were glass. Just walking inside brought back memories of other times I'd visited him at his office. I remembered when I was little that I'd pointed to a small plastic tube on his desk and asked, “What's this for?”

And Daddy had replied, “That's a pneumatic tube. It carries customer orders from my desk to the wire room, which in turn sends them to the floor of the New York Stock Exchange to be executed.” He had stuck a paper in the tube, opened the hatch, slid in the tube, and it disappeared.

“It's almost like magic, Daddy,” I had enthused.

From his desk, I picked up a family photograph of the four of us from a few years earlier. Beside the photo there was a big smooth rock, painted by a childish hand in a variety of colors, that Daddy used as a paperweight. I had painted it for Daddy when I was eight and given it to him as a Christmas gift. I had always felt so proud that my paperweight adorned his desk. On the only real wall hung a painting by Mama, one of her many representations of the Swan House.

“Come around and greet some of the gang,” Daddy interrupted my inspection.

I watched the ticker tape move across the wall near the ceiling and remembered how fascinated I'd been by it long ago.

“Keeps us up-to-date on the stocks,” Daddy had explained, as though I would understand. “It gives the company's symbol, the number of shares bought and sold, and the price.”

He saw me studying the ticker tape. “Today's very slow, since it's New Year's Eve.”

It looked to me like most everyone in the office had decided to work on New Year's Eve. Only they weren't really working. They were joking and drinking cider and eating home-baked goodies. Daddy introduced me to a whole bunch of stockbrokers, some of whom I had already met at parties at our house or meals at the club. Most every broker greeted me merrily and said something like “Great to see you, Mary Swan! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!” Then they'd turn to Daddy and admonish, “JJ, where have you been hiding this beautiful young lady!” which, of course, made Daddy beam. And a few even said, “You look just like your mother, God rest her soul.”

Right around noon, we left the Candler Building and walked down to Five Points, so named because of the five roads that came together at that particular intersection: Peachtree, Marietta, Edgewood, Whitehall, and Decatur. Christmas lights were still strung across Peachtree, and lampposts were actually decked in what looked like boughs of holly, just like the song said. The air was biting and fresh and filled with a holiday cheer. We turned onto Alabama Street and walked a few blocks to where it crossed Forsyth Street and stopped across the street from a four-story enclosed-glass bridge that joined the two buildings that made up the Rich's department store. The glass bridge crossed above Forsyth Street and permitted pedestrians easy passage between the buildings without ever stepping outside.

I looked up to see an enormous Christmas tree perched on top of the bridge. Every Thanksgiving night for as long as I could remember, choirs from all over Georgia had performed from metal stands on each floor of the glass bridge. Near the end of the program, all the choirs joined in singing “O Holy Night.” When they got to the line “Fall on your knees,” a huge Christmas tree, imported each year from the forests of North Carolina, lit up like fire from heaven above the singing choirs, to the delight of the thousands of pedestrians who were standing in the streets, watching. I had wonderful memories of being scrunched in the crowd with Mama and Trixie and Jimmy and Lucy, staring up expectantly, waiting for the lights to flash on.

Seeing the tree, so magnificent in its Christmas garb, brought tears to my eyes. Some things did not change. “Oh, Daddy. Since we're here, can't we please ride the Pink Pig?”

“The Pink Pig? Mary Swan, are you serious? That's for little kids.”

“Please. We'll fit.” The Pink Pig was as much a part of Christmas in Atlanta as the great tree. It was a children's ride, a monorail with pink cars that curved slowly around the flat rooftop of the Rich's building. Children loved to sit in the front car, which was the head of the pig. And today, rather reluctantly, Daddy joined me in a pink car, his legs pulled up so tight that his knees practically touched his chin. I looped my arm through his as the Pink Pig meandered along. I was recapturing some ecstatically happy moment of my past, when Mama had ridden beside me in the Pink Pig. But today, it was the sweet sound of Daddy's laughter that filled my ears.

“Ready for lunch, sweetheart?” he asked when we were back down on the street. I nodded happily as we took off back up Peachtree, passing the Candler Building and walking several blocks to where the Capital City Club sat at the corner of Peachtree and Harris. The City Club, the downtown subsidiary of the Capital City Country Club and the oldest private club in Atlanta, was housed in a dignified and beautiful beige brick building with a long front porch that looked out onto Peachtree Street. The porch's wrought-iron railings were draped in evergreen boughs, which were tied at the rails with bright red velvet bows. Inside the club, a portrait of Robert E. Lee hung in the elegant hallway, and in the lobby back by the window, another beautiful Christmas tree rose up high, almost brushing the sixteen-foot ceiling.

“Mr. Middleton,” said a tall, mustached man with golden skin and a foreign accent. “This must be Mary Swan.”

“Yes, Leonard. Yes indeed.” Then he turned to me. “Mr. Hourizadeh is the director of the City Club.” I had only been there for two fancy meals, and never, ever alone with Daddy.

“Nice to meet you,” I answered with a smile.

“I believe you'll be in the Mirador Room.” He motioned for us to take the elevator to the second floor.

Philip T. Shutze, the same architect who had designed the Swan House, had designed the Mirador Room. I had heard about this circular room and its famous mirrors. Shutze had lowered the ceilings in a former ballroom to create an intimate supper club feeling. He also wanted to create the illusion of space and openness in a room that had no windows and was small. So he designed mirrors that appeared to be windows through which plants and birds indigenous to Georgia sprang into view from “outside.” Shutze had commissioned an artist named Athos Menaboni, a native of Livorno, Italy, who specialized in birds and landscapes, to paint the mirrors.

Daddy and I walked into the Mirador Room, and right away, I began studying the famous mirrors. They were long, in simple gold frames, and did indeed look like windows. One had big dogwood leaves and white blossoms painted all across it along with a crested flycatcher about to snatch a mosquito in its mouth. Another mirror depicted a limb of a magnolia tree with its big, waxy green leaves and white flowers. Still another showed a snowy egret flying out of cattails with their long straplike leaves and dark brown thickly flowered cylindrical spikes. The autumn leaves of a grapevine were entwined beside a big pink water lily with its large bluish green circular leaves, and a hummingbird fluttered above. And I liked the mirror showing Georgia cotton ready for picking, its leaves brown. My favorite mirror was of the Georgia pine tree with its long green needles and the three pinecones, two closed and one fully opened. A blue jay with its crested head and blue plumage sat on the limb, cawing, and morning glory twisted around the lower limbs.

“Swannee?”

Daddy's voice brought an end to my observations, and I sat down beside him at a small table for two. The band was playing “Happy Holidays.”

I took the crisp white linen napkin, which had been folded into an accordion, from my water goblet and placed it in my lap. A tuxedoed waiter handed me a leather-bound folder containing the menu. I opened it and began to study the choices. That's when I noticed that Daddy was staring at me.

“You do look beautiful, Mary Swan.”

“Thank you, Daddy.”

It was after we had ordered and the waiter had brought us our first course, a bowl of vichyssoise, that I asked, “Is it true that I look like Mama?”

“Yes, sweetheart. Yes, it is.”

“Does that make you sad, Daddy?”

“Oh no, Swan. No.”

“Because I can't change my looks. I could cut my hair, though.”

“No, don't change a thing, Swan. You're perfect just as you are.”

I set my spoon down beside the bowl of vichyssoise. “Do you really mean that, Daddy? Really?”

“Why, of course.”

“Because if you do, it's the first time you've ever told me I was perfect just the way I am.”

“I do mean it.” His face fell. “And I'm sorry I never said it before. I'm sorry about a lot of things, Swan.”

“Like what?” I wasn't about to let Daddy off the hook, now that we at last had this time together.