“Well, I’ve had my share of romances too. But I’ve never been engaged. Acting is very important to me, and it takes up a lot of time. It doesn’t give me much chance to meet anyone. Not that I’ve been wanting to get…married. That’s been far from my mind at all times. I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready for that.”
Sam cocked his head. His eyes looked amused. “What is ‘ready’?”
I thought about it, feeling embarrassed. Actually, I was just blowing off hot air. I felt so relieved to be having this talk, I wanted it to continue. I thought fast. “Ready for marriage? I guess I mean deeply in love and ready to sacrifice acting. Not all of acting, but some of it.” Then I thought of Susan, blissfully married to Louis. What of acting was she sacrificing? Nothing.
“Yeah? Like what?”
“Well…say I fell in love with a man in New York and got a movie part with Emile Balfour. I mean, what if I had to work in France?” Tiptoeing around reality.
“Well, movies don’t go on forever. You’d come back eventually.”
“Even if I kept working on
Beyond the Bridge
. There are mall appearances all over the place and even overseas. I mean, like next week.”
“For a couple of weeks. Not forever.”
“This is true.” Outside the turret the storm was really heating up. Sheets of rain smashed against our windows. A lightning bolt zigzagged to earth mere yards away. It scared me into a clutching hold on Sam. He wrapped his arms around me and held me tight. We kissed; it felt like hot rain drenching both of us. Another lightning bolt flashed by, the kind Zeus would hurl from Olympus, the kind artists draw in comic strips.
Sam stopped kissing me and we watched the storm. Thunder cracked all around us. “That last lightning was a close call,” I said.
“This place is grounded,” Sam said with confidence. “Didn’t you notice the lightning rods?”
“No, but if you say so…” My eyes blinked with every flash. My breath came from the back of my throat.
“Haven’t you always wanted to make love in the middle of a thunderstorm?” Sam asked, beginning to fiddle with my pants zipper. “Here we are in the turret, with a tempest raging outside.”
“Raging,” I said, my eyes full of the latest flash. We could be killed, I thought. Sizzled in our very bed for merely thinking about sex. I had a friend who was asleep beside her boyfriend in a house on the Vineyard and was thrown from her bed, clear across the room, when lightning struck. Of course, the bed was metal. My hand reached back, behind my head, to check. It gripped a wooden post. But what about the box spring? Those metal coils. “Listen,” I said, hiking up on my elbows. “I don’t feel too safe here. I think we’d better go downstairs.”
“We’re okay, I promise,” Sam said. He had unzipped my pants now and was pulling down my underpants at the same time. “I’m a scientist. I know about these things. Aren’t you going to trust me?”
“Yes,” I said after a minute, and kissed him. I touched his zipper and started pulling it down. It’s metal, I thought, grasping the brass pull, but that thought slid from my mind. The thunder outside was growing distant, the storm was passing. A new storm was gathering.
That night Margo and Matt threw me an early birthday dinner. Sitting on the front porch, we started with champagne and oysters (Margo and I said, “Dear little oyster from the bottom of the sea” in tribute to Lily, distant Lily). The rain had stopped, but the air was chilly and damp. We wore sweaters and wool jackets; the wind blew our candles’ flames, making thick waxy drizzles on the tabletop. I sat huddled against Sam’s warm chest on the metal glider, watching Margo get more and more excited as the time for me to open presents approached. I watched her fondly; she had always loved presents. Her own or anyone else’s. At birthday parties she always maneuvered to get right next to the birthday girl. She loved the sound of the paper tearing, the recipient’s shortness of breath, the squeals of delight. Watching her on the porch of the Ninigret Inn that night, I reminded myself to try to squeal with delight.
“And now for the main course,” Matt said, raising one eyebrow at me. His expression was apologetic. Couldn’t they get fresh sole? I wondered, and then the waiter wheeled out a cart with four prime rib dinners.
“Oh. Prime rib—great,” I said, staring at my center cut. I do enjoy a slab of beef now and then, but it was a far cry from filet of sole. Matt avoided my eyes as he dished out the crisp green beans.
“What a meal,” Sam said. He held his knife in one hand, ready to get started as soon as politely possible. “In graduate school I spent a year aboard the
Knorr
in the Indian Ocean, and I didn’t taste beef that whole time.”
“Beef is sacred over there,” Margo said, passing clean goblets around the table and filling them with red wine from a bottle whose label she ostentatiously allowed us to see: Chateau Margaux, premier cru, 1964.
Sam laughed loudly and brushed his dark hair back. “You don’t say
beef
is sacred. You say
cow
.”
Margo waved her hand and gave me a significant look. “They’re both bovine,” she said.
“Great prime rib,” Sam said, chewing heartily. I sipped my Bordeaux and smiled at him. Between bites, when he put down his steak knife, he would rest his hand on my knee. I covered it with my own. For Matt and Margo’s sake, I made a mighty effort that night.
Finally it was time for the presents. A waiter cleared the table and another waiter, surrounded by the inn’s entire staff, came out with my birthday cake. It blazed with thirty candles. Its white icing was decorated with gaudy pink and blue roses: my favorite kind of birthday cake. Everyone sang “Happy Birthday,” and I smiled modestly at my hands on the table, adoring the hoopla. No one enjoys their thirtieth birthday, but I did. Everyone was very concerned about my feeling sad, and I was the absolute center of attention. Sam kissed me before I had a chance to blow out my candles. Margo piled three bright packages on my lap. I blew hard, extinguishing every candle, and my entourage cheered.
“Happy, happy birthday, baby,” Margo said, grabbing one package off the pile. “You have to open this one last.”
“Okay, open mine first,” Sam said. In four seconds flat I had torn off the wrapping: three paperbacks by Rachel Carson.
The Edge of the Sea, Silent Spring
, and
The Sea Around Us
.
“Oh, thank you. I love them,” I said. I
did
love them, but it has to be admitted, I had hoped for more. Holding the perfect little package, I had hoped it would contain something fabulous. A tiara? A diamond necklace? I never wear jewelry, but I had secretly hoped for Sam to give me some. Something that would sparkle and tell me secrets.
“Next package,” Matt said, tapping a long thin one with his index finger. I opened it, more slowly than I had Sam’s. It contained a silk scarf: exactly the shade of the fish in my dream.
“It’s exquisite,” I said, allowing Sam to drape it around my neck. “Did you pick it out, Matt?”
“I cannot tell a lie,” he said, smiling at Margo.
“Well, thank you. Both of you.”
“Now, this one’s from Lily,” Margo said, handing me the small package. “She and Henk sent it, and she made me promise you’d open it last.” She placed it on the table, and all of us leaned over it, admiring the shiny silver paper and blue bow.
“Looks expensive,” Sam said.
“Here goes,” I said, placidly tugging on the ribbon. It came off easily. Then I undid each piece of tape, trying not to tear the paper. I finally gave up and ripped out a navy blue leather box stamped “Tiffany” in gold.
“Holy crow,” Margo said.
Lying on the puffy satin was a pair of dangling diamond earrings. They positively dripped with stones. Platinum settings glinted in the candlelight. I lifted them, allowing them to drape over my finger. They weighed heavily on my hand.
“Put them on,” Sam said.
I stared at them. Nothing about what I felt made sense. Two minutes ago I had been disappointed to get books instead of jewels from Sam, and now I felt like screaming at the sight of diamonds from my sister. Oh, contrary one! Thirty years old, and no accrued wisdom.
“I can’t,” I said. “These are for pierced ears.” I did not have pierced ears. I had never had pierced ears. During our school-days, when all our friends were going crazy buying “fun studs” at the malls, I had proclaimed the practice of ear-piercing barbaric. Had Lily thought my lobes would spontaneously puncture?
“This is glamorous stuff,” Sam said. “Just right for a movie star.”
“I can’t believe it,” Margo kept saying. “I cannot believe that Lily bought you diamonds.” She pronounced it
dye-ah-monds
.
I closed the box on them. “They’re really something.”
For the first time all day the gravity of turning thirty struck me. What had I managed to accomplish in thirty years anyway? All that came to mind was the fact that I had once hitchhiked from Old Saybrook, Connecticut, to Princeton, New Jersey, and that I was a pretty good swimmer. Who cared about acting on a soap opera? Who cared that my mentor had bamboozled me into a movie audition? Balfour probably owed Chance money or something. At that instant I felt desolate, and tears filled my eyes.
Sam did not notice, even though I kept my profile canted in his direction. “Come on, Matt,” he said. “We’ll clear the table and give the birthday girl a chance to enjoy her largesse.”
“That’s why we have
waiters
,” Matt began, but he must have gotten a signal from Margo because he was soon following Sam into the kitchen with an armload of bloody plates.
Margo stared at me. She was slouched in her chair, playing with a wax drip on one candle. I could feel her gaze, even though I was watching the wax.
“What’s the matter? Huh, Una?” she asked.
“Nothing. It was a great party.” Then, more convincingly: “I’m thinking about my trip to Europe.”
“Oh.”
“I’m not sure I’m ready for it.”
“Huh. Did you like your presents?”
(Laughing, wry shaking of the head.) “Of course. Can you believe
diamonds
from Lily?”
“I think she’s showing off. How
rich
Henk is.” (Watching my reaction very carefully, trying to determine the source of my misery.)
“It was very generous.”
“And what about Sam’s books? Aren’t they nice? I mean,
paperbacks
, but still…I think they’re meant to remind you of the times you spent at that tidal pool. I wonder if they’re inscribed.” She began flipping open the covers. “Oh, this one is.” She passed
The Sea Around Us
across the table to me. I read “To Una, Watch Hill belongs to us. Love, Sam.” I felt terrible, even worse than I had opening the presents, at that moment. Sam had written a lovely inscription, and I hadn’t even bothered to look for it. How disappointed he must have felt, sitting at the table and waiting for me to read his words!
“That’s so wonderful,” Margo said, reading his inscription.
“It is.”
“Hey, did you like dinner?”
“Yes,” I said, finally meeting her eyes. “But why did you serve beef? I did love it, but I thought Matt said something about fish.”
She leaned closer to the candle. Conspiratorial. Her eyes sparkled. “I was thinking about Sam, actually. I know you’re leaving tomorrow, and I wanted to help things along. A little snare—men
love
rare roast beef.”
I grinned. Good old Margo. I kissed her and went to find Sam.
Our last night together before I left. Sam and I lay on the bed in the turret room and touched each other naked. The sky had begun to clear; autumn constellations blazed in the night. I nuzzled his hairy chest. “That was a dear thing you wrote in my book,” I said, my voice muffled.
“Yeah?”
“I know I didn’t look for it right away…”
He squeezed my shoulders and pulled the covers higher. Cold air swept down from the north to frost the brass monkeys that night. “It was private. I didn’t want everyone to read it anyway.”
“Even though they did, eventually. Margo saw it, and she showed Matt…”
“They feel responsible for us. They feel as though they brought us together.”
An understanding thought, coming from an only child. Things about the future filled my mind: what will happen while I’m in Europe? When I get back to New York? When we’re not in Watch Hill? I ached with the thought of leaving him. My train pulled out of the Westerly station the next morning at 8:24. What would happen after that? What would happen after? What would happen?
“Did you like dinner tonight?” I asked.
“Sure. Did you?”
“Margo planned it for your benefit. She figured beef would be right up your alley.”
“I know,” he said, laughing, squeezing my shoulders again. He slid under the covers, until we were smiling straight into each other’s eyes. “Matt told me.”
Chapter 12
A
whirlwind tour of Europe, and I could think only of Sam. The Concorde (the flight being Billy and Chance’s thirtieth-birthday present to me), Daimler limousines, fine hotels, and a hefty expense account. Also, a weeping Jason Mordant.
Jason had lost his lover, this time for good. On the plane, between nibbles of Beluga caviar and
tarte aux truffes
, he told me the story. Terry had been cheating on Jason with a cast member of
The Fantasticks
.
“A couple of times, that I could stand,” Jason said, “but this was love. I mean, they bought a town house together. Off Seventh Avenue South, I don’t even feel like saying the name of the street. You can see it from the Buffalo Roadhouse, which used to be our hangout. It really makes me feel sick, Una.”
“I’m really sorry, Jason,” I said, but I kept my voice closed off. I wanted privacy to savor the memory of Sam. Why hadn’t I taken any pictures of him? I always wish I had photos to remind me of how people I love look, but I didn’t even own a camera. In my luggage was a pillowcase from the turret room, full of Sam’s scent, but that was stowed in the Concorde’s hull, and, besides, the scent would soon fade.
The flight attendant plumped small white pillows beneath our necks. The lights were dim and yellow, and there was a lulling buzz of the craft flying through the night. The window burned at the touch, from the friction of flying at a supersonic speed. Sam felt more distant with each passing time zone. I kept touching the hot window with my fingertips, to shock myself. Jason was turned away from me, his stifled sobs shaking his thin body. I covered his hand with mine. When one is in love, it is easy to give comfort to someone who is hurt. Their pain seems alien. It has nothing to do with
your
love. With your life. On
Beyond the Bridge
Jason’s character and mine shared everything. Our viewers and
Soap Opera Update
had just voted us “Soap Couple of the Year.” Watching Jason dissolved in agony, I tried to soothe myself with thoughts of Sam. Finally I had stumbled onto a love that would redeem me. Sam didn’t bring out the macho in me, nor did he require me to be a little girl. He let my nature take its course. I watched Jason and thought: I am nothing like you.
Winging east, my father appeared to me. I have never been hypnotized, but that night I am sure I had the sensation of hypnosis. My eyes were closed, and I breathed in steady, sleepy breaths, but I was aware of the flight, the silently moving flight attendants, the sleepless passenger behind me, Jason dozing. My father wore a white robe. He flew alongside us, outside the aircraft. He motioned for me to roll down the hot window, and I did, as if it were a window in the Volvo.
“The Concorde, that’s my girl,” he said, patting the sleek hull with one hand. “The Cavans go first class or we don’t go at all.”
I smiled at him and reached for his hand. He zoomed through the sky, parting the air into turbulent black eddies. There was no body movement, however. He simply zoomed. Occasionally the plane would gather speed, and my father would lag slightly behind. I would have to lean my head out the window and look back at him, watching him try to catch up, his mouth open like that picture of a man in a wind tunnel, moving in words that were drowned out by the plane’s wind.
“Why haven’t you come back?” I asked, when the plane slowed to a steady speed. “Since that time in Newport? I thought I’d see you in the turret room.”
“I’ve been busy. Things to do that you can’t begin to understand, Una.”
“Oh,” I said, feeling abysmally sad.
“But I’ve been watching you, sweetheart. You’re doing great. You’ve really turned over a new leaf.”
Had
he been watching me? Could he say that if he knew about Joe, about Sam? I blushed and shrugged my shoulders. I had to avoid his eyes, which were sunken into his sockets. He looked much worse than he had the last time. The sight of him made me want to weep.
“I know what you’re thinking, honey,” he said, bringing his hand to my cheek. “You think I haven’t been doing my job. But I’ve seen it all. I know you’ve made some mistakes—we all do. That’s for sure. But you’re on the right track. You’re heading in the right direction. That’s all I ask.”
Behind me the sleepless passenger asked the flight attendant for a glass of pineapple juice. I wondered whether the air from my open window was bothering him.
“Your movie audition, for example,” my father said. “I’ll be right there when you have it. It makes me so damn proud. My daughter, a movie star! A regular Katharine Hepburn!”
“Well, it hasn’t happened yet.”
“No, but you’re making headway. Not to mention that Sam. He’s a hell of a guy, a real gentleman. I know you two made a couple moral slip-ups, but I just turned a blind eye. It’s the intention that matters.”
“What is his intention?” I asked, burning to know.
“Why, he wants to marry you,” my father said, his white robe rustling behind him like God’s or an angel’s. “It might take him some time to ask you, but he will. That’s something I know for sure.”
“What do you think about Lily and Margaret?”
My father smiled, and most of his teeth were black. Two were gold. “Dad, you should see a dentist,” I said, alarmed.
He brought one hand to his mouth, exploring his teeth with one finger, his eyes troubled. “Yes, they’re all rotten, aren’t they?”
“Yes.”
Suddenly, with a wave, my father veered off into the night. A swirling black-and-purple wake, glittering with tiny stars or bioluminescence, followed him until he disappeared, leaving me to wonder whether he had meant his teeth were all rotten, or that Lily and Henk and Margo and Matt were rotten. Behind me the sleepless passenger plunked down his empty glass on the tray. I took that as a signal of irritation, and I rolled up the window. But I didn’t stop scanning the blackness until much later, when the jet hit an air shear, jostling me out of sleep.
I wakened wondering whether my experience had been no more than a strange dream.
Chance had arranged for Jason and me to spend two days in Paris before beginning our tour. Our itinerary would take us to visit United States Army installations at the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers in Europe, better known as SHAPE, in Belgium; the First Armored Division in Nuremberg and the Seventh Corps Headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany; the 509th Airborne Infantry in Vicenza, Italy. But first we were directed to recover from jet lag and enjoy Paris. I was to contact Emile Balfour. We had accommodations at the Hôtel de Crillon, the Schutzes’ favorite, between the Tuileries and Jardin des Champs Elysées.
Paris in late September. For the first morning I did no more than sleep deeply beneath white percale sheets and featherlight blankets. My room contained pale green-and-cream silk curtains and Louis XVI furniture. The windows overlooked the hotel’s interior courtyard. I would waken, glance around the unfamiliar and luxurious room, and fall back to sleep. Finally I wakened for good. Lifting the receiver, I said, “
Café filtre et un brioche, s’il vous plaît
.” Margo had prepared a list of useful phrases for me. We had approached it like a computer dating service, with Margo matching the phrases with my habits. She spent an hour asking me questions like “Do you prefer butter or preserves? What
kind
of preserves?”
I had finished breakfast and had already written a long letter to Sam on the Hôtel de Crillon’s cream vellum stationery when I finally called to leave a message with Emile Balfour’s secretary. I had not even had time to work myself into a nervous frenzy when he called me back.
“Miss Cavan,” he said in perfect, gracious English. “Welcome to France.”
“Thank you.” I straightened up, pulling the covers over my breasts, as if he could see me. I had left the window open to let in the cool night air, and now I heard voices in the courtyard. Low, female voices speaking in French. The clink of a china coffee cup being placed on a saucer.
“I know your business will take you to several locations before you return to France. Perhaps you will read for me on your return?”
“I would be delighted to. Enchanted,” I said, trying to decide whether or not to say “
enchanté
.” I have always disliked using foreign words such as
ambiance, cachepot
, and
manicotti
because I do not feel I have the authority to pronounce them properly. Who am I to say “manigotte”? “What will you have me read?” I asked.
“Ahhh—” I could almost hear his shrug. “We do not have that type of formality. I will decide on a scene when you arrive. Will that be acceptable?”
“Of course.” Emile Balfour, asking me whether it would be acceptable. He came from the same school as Chance Schutz.
“So, listen: are you free tonight? You would like to go to Palace, see something else of Paris?”
“I’d love to!” What the hell was Palace? I pictured some Gothic château on the banks of the Loire, with crenellations and a moat, towers and balustrades. But the Loire was far away; were there castles on the Seine?
“Great. I will come to you at ten tonight. We will have supper.” Then he hung up.
I added a long postscript to Sam’s letter, dressed, and knocked on Jason’s door. When he answered I could see that I had wakened him. The room smelled of heavy sleep; the curtains and shades were drawn, and the only light was that which slanted in from the hall.
“Want to be my fellow tourist?” I asked. I hung back, not wanting to get too close. I was afraid of what might spring at me from the dark.
“What time is it?”
“Nearly noon. We should get hopping.”
“No, I haven’t even thought about coffee yet. You’d better go without me.”
I stood in the hall, regarding Jason in his handsome dark-silk robe. His tan skin looked sallow in the room’s blackness, and there were shadows beneath his eyes. I wanted to yank him into the light, shake his shoulders, tell him to pull himself together. “Well, okay,” I said doubtfully. “Would you like to meet this afternoon?”
“Oh, knock on my door if you’re in the neighborhood. Don’t make any special trips, though.”
“Maybe we should plan on lunch. I’ll come back around one-thirty—”
“Listen, you’re not being paid to keep an eye on me,” he snapped, then immediately grabbed my forearm. “Forgive me, Una. I’m a crank when I first wake up.”
“That’s all right,” I said cheerfully, heading down the hall, feeling as though someone had just poured gravy on my head. I hate having people yell at me, especially when I don’t deserve it. It reminds me too much of being young, of trying to please everyone in sight.
This was my first visit to Paris. I walked alone on the Faubourg St.-Honoré. It reminded me of a celestial version of Madison Avenue. Hermès, Au Bain Marie. Shops of expensive hand-painted and hand-embroidered articles. Jewels. Cafés. I walked into a tiny children’s store and bought a fuzzy white lamb. With some difficulty I directed the shopwoman, who spoke shaky English, to send it to Lily in New York. Even on these streets the French women carried shopping bags, the way peasant women did in picture books of French life, only here the bags were of fine leather instead of cotton net, and they contained snakeskin wallets and Turkish cigarettes instead of leeks and turnips. I wandered along the Champs Elysées toward the Arc de Triomphe. It stood before me, carved with intricate reliefs, seeming to block the street. I wished I had had the presence of mind to buy a guidebook in New York. I thought of the Louvre, the Rodin Museum (where I wished to buy something for Margo), Notre Dame. But instead of exploring, I found a small café with wrought-iron chairs and tables on the busy sidewalk beside a flower market and wrote another letter to Sam.
The scent of out-of-season irises, tulips, and peonies mingled with car fumes and the smell of strong coffee. I drank mine black.
Dear Sam,
I wrote
,
Well, here I am, the American in Paris, watching
tout le monde
(Margo will translate) from this sidewalk café. Gertrude Stein, Gertrude Stein, Gertrude Stein. Are you reading this on the beach? Are you within sight of the black zone? Shouldn’t the neap tides be along any day now? I have been reading Rachel Carson avidly.
As I mentioned in my letter earlier, I’m going to meet Emile Balfour tonight. He’s taking me to something called “Palace.” Do you have any idea? I feel this need to act very cool, very suave with him. After all, if he’s going to make me a movie star, I have to act the part. Of course, he’s probably a perfectly humble nice guy and Palace is probably his local bowling alley, and I’m all hepped up over nothing.
Two transvestites just walked by.
I can’t believe I’m in Paris. I’m actually sitting in the shadow of the Arc de Triomphe. Everything is magnificent, but so far jet lag prevents me from feeling totally fine. I’m walking the streets in a real daze. First of all I can’t speak the language. Second of all I don’t know anyone except Jason, who’s in a blue funk. It’s very sad—his loved one left him. I can’t imagine being in Paris with a broken heart—
How are Matt and Margo? Margo will be mighty pissed off when you get two letters from me and she gets none, but tell her I’ll write from Brussels or somewhere.
I wish you were here with me. I loved being with you at Watch Hill. This trip, by all accounts, will last for two weeks, and then we can meet in New York. After today I’ll start sending letters to your New York address. I miss you, Sam.
Avec beaucoup d’amour,
Una
Margo, along with her pragmatic French phrases, had given me some romantic French phrases to use in letters to Sam. How I love letters! They allow you to say things that might be difficult face-to-face. You can think about the words, erase them if they aren’t perfect, hold back if you are unsure. But that day, sitting at my café table in the Paris sun, I did not feel unsure. I pictured Sam, walking along the sand flats. In Watch Hill it would be early morning. He would be walking slowly, his hands deep in the pockets of his khaki shorts, his messy black hair falling into his eyes. He would be looking east, across the Atlantic, facing the shores of France, squinting into the rising sun. We were separated by the mere element of water.