Close Relations (37 page)

“You keep testing people, Marcia. You poke away at pretensions. You never accept any givens until you can prove them real. And if you sniff out a phony …”

“I don’t know,” I said, sitting on the edge of his couch.

“I know. That’s why you have so many problems with your family. Yes, they’re pretentious. They posture. Yet underneath you know there’s something real, something valuable.”

“You’ve read too many oversentimental chicken-soup novels. I don’t know any such thing.”

“You do. And it’s terribly difficult to resolve all the contradictions facing you. But enough about that. Think of me. Indulge my selfishness. I need you. Please look at me. I need you to bring me out. I need you to help me recognize that someone with whom I haven’t quite felt comfortable for ten or fifteen years is a jerk. Remember when you said, after the dinner party with that criminal lawyer, that he was a big jerk?”

“Of course he was a jerk. He kept talking in Latin phrases all night. Who the hell does he think he is, the Pope? And the way he kept sucking and licking that monster cigar, like it was—”

“But you saw that right away. I’ve known it subliminally for ages, but because of his background, his credentials, I never allowed myself to think it. But you helped me see it. Marcia, I need you to help me find my way past my own pretensions, past my own defenses. All right? And please, don’t feel pressured.”

“But David, it’s overwhelming. Look, I want to feel we can just be ourselves, and that if anything happens, it will happen for the right reasons, because you like what I do to your defenses or because I trust you or love you in bed or whatever—not because I’ve been strong-armed by my family into being cowed by your pedigree or credit rating. Okay? Do you understand?”

He paced in front of the fireplace. Then he turned to me. “Yes. I guess so. In any case, no more pressure. I understand you’re tired, feeling overwhelmed. Do you want me to call your mother and tell her I think you’re horribly déclassé?”

“I think she knows.”

“Good. Now I want to make love to you. Where will it be? Here? The bedroom? Kitchen? A closet?”

Afterward, I fell asleep on a couch in the small office he had set up in a spare bedroom. At midnight, he woke me. “Are you going back to your apartment tonight?” I shook my head and tried to wrap the short afghan he had covered me with under my feet. “Come, Marcia.” He led me into his bedroom. I fell right back to sleep.

“Marcia,” he called, sometime later.

“What time is it?”

“Two. I’ve been up thinking. Listen to me. You’ll go back to sleep in a minute. Remember you said you were under pressure. Well, I’m under pressure too.”

“Okay.”

“I’m spending huge chunks of time away from my firm, having other attorneys service my clients, trying to play watchdog for my uncle’s campaign expenditures, trying to help preserve my aunt’s sanity—and her solvency. I can’t spend an hour at my own office without some relative calling, intimating that I’m letting the family down by not spending every moment sniffing around Appel headquarters. Suddenly I’m supposed to be an auditor and a politician and keeper of the Hoffman honor, whatever that is. So try to understand that this is not the greatest time for me either.”

“I understand. Come here. Hug me.”

“No. Hear me out. Despite all the pressure, I still have to live the rest of my life. I can’t ignore you or put you off until after some election. I care about you now.”

“I care about you too, David. You know that.”

“But I’m not willing to set an arbitrary time limit on my feelings.”

“Okay, David.”

“Good. I’m glad you understand. So I’ll just say it once. With all the pressure, I care about you very much. In every way. Not only here in bed. I’ve never been able to talk to anyone the way I can to you. And I have so much fun with you.”

“Me too. It’s just that—”

“I love you very much, Marcia. I want to marry you. I understand you may not be able to answer me now, or even consider it, but I wanted to let you know.” He paused, perhaps waiting for me to say something, but I could think of nothing. After several silent seconds, he bent over and kissed me. “I know that’s a lot for this hour. Go back to sleep.”

I pulled up close to him. Surprisingly, I fell asleep a moment later. The next morning I woke still tired and nauseated, aching. “I have a virus,” I told David.

“Stay here, then. Rest. I’ll come home around one and check up on you.”

But I dragged myself to headquarters and spent a half hour with Paterno—before he began the day’s personal appearances—rehearsing a speech attacking Appel’s plan to restructure the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

“My voice,” said Paterno, rubbing his Adam’s apple. “So strained. You sound awful too.”

“Just fatigue, I think, or a mild virus.”

“Do me a favor then. Move your chair back a little. I can’t afford to come down with anything. You look pale. I’ll tell them to send you in some tea. Tea and lemon, that’s the thing. No sugar. Sidney Appel’s going to have a heart attack when he hears this speech, the way I make fun of him while sounding serious.”

I spent the morning in my office. My electric typewriter had jammed so I was working on a recalcitrant manual which lacked an operable “q.” Around eleven thirty someone knocked on my door but I kept typing, thinking that all the important staff members had my extension number. I half feared it was Jerry, ready for a showdown. I had muttered something to him about spending the night at my Aunt Estelle’s, but by now he must be seeing through my subterfuges.

The banging continued. “Come in,” I finally called.

The door opened and in poked the head of a volunteer. It was a typical volunteer face: young, slightly overweight, earnest, and Jewish. “Excuse me. I hate to bother you,” she said.

“Yes?”

“There’s a woman out front who wants to make a contribution. I wasn’t sure…”

“I’m Marcia Green, the speech writer. Finance is the next door down.”

“I know, Ms. Green. She specifically asked for you. I tried to explain to her, but she was very insistent.” The volunteer’s voice was soft.

“All right,” I said, rising. “What did she say her name was?”

“She didn’t.” I marched down the hall, the volunteer beside me. “Whoever she is,” the girl continued, “she’s a real goddamn pain in the ass, throwing her weight around like she was the fucking Queen of Sheba.”

Aunt Estelle stood right in the center of the reception area, forcing everyone else to detour around her. “I know. I know. You’re busy. I came to give a check to your candidate and take you out to lunch, but it has to be soon because I’m meeting my decorator at one thirty to look at sconces.” Staff members, volunteers, messengers passing through the hall stared at her, at her summer black dress and summer black shoes and summer black straw hat. And white gloves and pearls. She was formidable, like the head of a Matrons for Eisenhower committee who had somehow kept her job through the decades. “Marcia, get me a pen and I’ll make you out a check.”

“Aunt Estelle,” I whispered, “you can’t just come in here like this.”

“You’re finally wearing some makeup and you look very, very nice,” she announced. “I’m glad to see you’re using a light hand with it, not those hideous dark colors.”

I guided her toward my office, ostensibly to give her a pen but really to get her away before she began to berate me in front of six or seven political operatives for wearing shoes with no stockings in Manhattan or to proclaim the advantages of sober Semites over the besotted Irish. As I held her silky, fleshy arm and steered her down the corridor, she was saying, “Such a fine person he is. And brilliant.
Law Review
at Harvard with Philip. Did he tell you that?”

“Who?” I asked.

“Don’t get cute with me, Marcia,” she snapped. “I came into the city early today because it’s obvious someone has to talk to you and you’ve got your mother and even Barbara walking around on tiptoes and bending over backward not to interfere with your liberation, so it’s fallen on me to be honest with you. And believe me, I’m not afraid to do it.”

“I know you’re not,” I began, and would have finished quite sharply, except I saw Jerry walking down the hall toward us. I smiled and murmured “hi” while opening my office door and nearly shoving my aunt inside. He smiled vaguely at both of us and kept walking.

“Did you see that man?” she demanded. “Did you? He looks like Tyrone Power. With a little Victor Mature thrown in. And those eyes. Blue. What we used to call…”

“Aunt Estelle …”

“… bedroom eyes. Did you see how he smiled at me?”

“That was Jerry Morrissey, Aunt Estelle.”

“That’s the one you’ve been—”

“Yes.”

“Handsome,” she said. “Very nice-looking. But no character in his expression.” She peered around my office. “This is where you work, in such ugliness?”

“It’s temporary. We just rent it for a few months, for the primary. My office in City Hall is much nicer.”

“How old is he?”

“David?”

“The other one.”

“Forty-seven.”

“He looks fifty. Now go wash up and I’ll take you out to lunch. Barbara told me the name of a lovely restaurant a few blocks away and told me to put it on her charge there. They specialize in fine salads.”

“Aunt Estelle, I’m sorry, but I can’t go to lunch. I feel awful. I have a ton of work.”

“You just don’t want to discuss it.”

“What? That I’m seeing David Hoffman? There’s nothing to discuss.”

“He’s a wonderful boy.”

“He’s no boy.”

“Marcia, I hope you’re not making it too easy for him. Don’t get angry with me. For years you’ve been going out of your way to mingle with all sorts of shkotzim just so you could show how independent you are. You’re thirty-five years old—”

“And no spring chicken, right?”

“You’re thirty-five years old and that’s too old to be rebelling against your family. Working in a place like this. That man. What has he ever given you besides a face full of sunshine? And now with David—”

“Do you honestly think before I make a decision about anything—a man, my career—that I sit down and think, ‘How can I manipulate this situation to hurt my family?’ Yes, I want to be independent. I want to find some decent values, and I won’t find them deluding myself that I’m an aristocrat. I want to find out—”

“And how do you find your values? Living with someone who only wants one thing? Is that values? I call that rebellion. But that doesn’t matter. Forget us. We’re not important anymore. What’s important is you. Your future. Do you want emptiness, or do you want the things David Hoffman can give you?”

“You never let up, do you?”

“Someone has to be honest. Listen to me, darling. David is no fly-by-nighter. He’ll always be there for you. He’s one of your own kind.”

M
y family decided to love me. My aunt called me every day to check on my well-being. “Your virus better? You’re still wearing makeup, aren’t you? Five minutes each morning. That’s all it takes, and what a difference it can make in your life.” She lowered her voice and told me that David had confided in Philip that I was very intelligent.

In the beginning of August, my Uncle Julius telephoned the office. “Sweetheart!” he bellowed. “How’s my girl?”

Had my aunt been near him, she would have ordered him to lower his voice. “You needn’t speak so vociferously, Julius,” she would murmur, like a queen giving the king a tiny royal reminder.

“Fine, Uncle Julius. It’s good to hear from you.”

“Listen, dollface, you know this is August and it’s the middle of my busy season. I mean, some of those ladies on the beach are suddenly realizing that in a few months they’re going to need a fur to keep them warm.” My uncle pronounced “fur” as “fuh.”

“Right, Uncle Julius. I remember.” The air conditioner had resigned its cooling function and seemed willing only to blow hot wet air into my office. My skin was glossy with perspiration.

“So before I get too swamped, I just thought I’d ask you if you want a garment. I have right here—I’m standing in the back of the workroom, you understand—I got a lovely garment, a sheared beaver that wouldn’t overwhelm you.”

“It’s really such a bad time for me now, Uncle Julius.”

“Sure. How many people have the foresight to think of fur when it’s ninety-eight degrees? But come November and you’re shivering—”

“I mean, I really hadn’t budgeted for it. But I appreciate your call.”

“Sweetheart, would I call my own niece soliciting business? This is a gift, sweetheart, from me and Aunt Estelle. Look, you’re going around in good company now. You have to make the right appearances. You’ll come out for dinner one night and we’ll take a drive over to the store and I’ll show you what I have in mind. I’ll fit you myself. People think you can just walk in and buy a garment off the rack, like it was a cheap dress or something.”

“Uncle Julius—”

“I know. You don’t have to say anything. No thanks necessary. We’re family. Just call Aunt Estelle and make a date for dinner.”

David sat at the edge of the bathtub and laughed. “Sheared beaver. It sounds like something in a men’s magazine.”

“It probably looks like it too. It makes me so mad.” But I was calm, lying back in the cool water.

“Don’t get upset.”

“Never,” I said, “never in all those years when I really needed Uncle Julius, when my mother was desperate, did he do anything. A one-hundred-dollar bill every year. And suddenly he’s handing out sheared beaver so I’ll look furry enough to impress you.”

“Of course. Get out of the water. You’ve been in for a half hour and you’re starting to look chilled.” He handed me a towel. “He’s clever, your uncle. First you snare me with sheared beaver, and once I’m hooked I’ll spend the rest of my life buying mink and sable from him.”

“You know, sometimes you talk like a born politician. How devious you are. But I think you’re right.”

“Take the beaver. You’ll get your sable at Bergdorf’s.”

“If you’re trying to buy me, I’d prefer to deal in cash.”

“All right. Are you ready to negotiate?”

“No. I told you, David—”