Three Daughters: A Novel (54 page)

“What’s an exotic vegetable?”

“Carrots aren’t. Too homey. It’s got to be string beans with slivered almonds or poached endive. Ugh. And the potatoes—mashed is my favorite, but forget it. And you must have a gal serving, although I’m going to be the gal tonight.”

“I’ll help.”

“Better not. Chuck wouldn’t like it. The whole thing would be solved if we had a buffet. I prefer a nice ham or turkey myself and everyone helping themselves.”

“What would happen if you served turkey?”

“Gee.” Larraine looked puzzled. “They’d eat it, I guess.”

If Larraine had been born twenty years later, she’d have been involved in the women’s movement. She had the heart and questioning mind of an independent woman, the kind who would come into full flower in the seventies and eighties. In 1955, she was often bewildered by her own frustrations. The gift of humor and a high metabolism saved her, but she could smell something phony a mile away. She saw a lot of phoniness in their social life.

Star wasn’t as cynical. For one thing Paul loved the dinners and became very animated. He needed the order of that life and those clearly defined goals. Being around death and disease made him crave structure and control. The other men respected him and she saw that he often held the floor in a discussion. Even Sterling Hargrove, the senior man among them, took Paul aside for private consultations. She knew—he had told her countless times—that they also admired him for having landed her. Paul’s present status was the result of foresight and skill. He was exactly where he wanted to be.

Around the end of November, she noticed they were both more relaxed. He had begun to attend auctions with one of the other doctors and it was a good diversion for him. The odd piece of furniture or accessory made his face light up and it was something he liked to talk about.

Star accepted the status quo—she no longer winced when she heard her new name. It didn’t occur to her that there wasn’t that unity of purpose that would have made them a team. During the best of times, she and Paul were chugging along parallel lines, but it was always for a short run. She seldom mentioned Larraine because it brought forth unwanted information about Chuck. He had a girlfriend with whom he was seriously in love. It was just a matter of time.

On a dismal morning in early December, Larraine came by with puffy eyes and a cheerless face. “I think Chuck and I will probably get a divorce,” she said hopelessly.

Star said nothing, hoping she had misunderstood and in the next breath Larraine would make a joke. They both sat silently, eyes cast down, playing with their hands. She realized Larraine was serious. “I’m so sorry.”

Larraine, who looked ready to cry, struggled to get control of herself. “I’m sick of crying. What I’ve got to do is find a way of earning a living.”

Surely there must be a good sincere phrase of consolation, but she couldn’t find it. Everything she said sounded so unconvincing. “Could you go back to college?”

“I can’t afford to go to school just to enlighten myself and make good conversation. I’ve got to find a way to make a living. I was thinking nursing, but that would take too long.”

“Nursing?” Star was shocked. “I’d think you’d want nothing more to do with medicine.”

“Yeah . . . maybe that’s my torn psyche trying to hang on. It’s a relief, in a way—the divorce. If you’re expecting an avalanche every day it’s a relief when it comes as long as it doesn’t bury you. I hope it doesn’t bury me.”

“Do you still love him?” She couldn’t imagine loving Chuck, but then she hadn’t known him as a young lover or borne his child.

Larraine bit her lower lip to keep from crying. “I guess. He was very passionate. We had sex all the time and I’m going to miss it.”

Star had no response. The idea of sex was a distant secret that she couldn’t inspect or try to understand. The maneuvers she went through with Paul were best kept out of mind. “How can I help? You know I would do anything.”

“Moral support. That’s about it. What I’ll do, I think, is take a real-estate course. That’s something women can do that’s a little interesting. It appeals to me probably because my Irish grandmother was almost religious about owning property. Owning a piece of the earth was very important to her. She kept her money in a handkerchief until she had enough to buy the next plot.”

“Where will you live?”

“Chuck’s taken an apartment and I’m staying in the house until we sell it. Eventually I’ll have to look for something smaller. And cheaper.”

Star touched Larraine’s hand with her own. “I’d be very sad if we stopped being friends. That won’t happen, will it?”

“Of course not. I was even thinking you could take the course with me for something to do. You’re always saying you’d like to fix up every dilapidated house you see on the street. Here’s your chance to get into the business.”

“I’ll talk to Paul.”

“Sure. Ask him.”

At first Paul was against her taking the course, but the very next day he brought it up again and said he had a talk with Chuck, who thought it would be a good idea if Larraine had a friend to bolster her up. “He’s relieved that she wants to do something constructive,” said Paul. “Go with her if it’ll make you happy.”

“I’m not doing it to relieve Chuck,” she said, “but it will make me happy.”

The course began the third week in January. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at five o’clock she and Larraine squeezed into the number-seven rush-hour bus that cut off to Rhode Island Avenue, where the class met in the basement auditorium of a bank. Together with fifteen other fledgling Realtors, they sat alert and willing in front of Fred McKay, whose family had been in the business for three generations and managed a large realty office in the District and two branches in Montgomery County.

“Property,” he told them that first day, “any property—even a vacant lot—is more interesting to me than anything else in the world. Property is more tangible and more interesting than mere money. It’s a spot on this earth and you know there are only so many spots. So . . . whoever passes up the opportunity to acquire his portion of the earth is just plain stupid.” He was hoping to entice some of them to work for him as agents. He wanted to teach them how to excite the buyers, but he also wanted to spark the hope that one day they’d be buyers, too.

“Now,” he continued, “this is something you’re not going to believe. The United States government will pay for anything you buy in the way of property. That’s right. Every year they reduce your taxes because you own that property. They feel sorry for you. They say, ‘Oh, you poor thing, that property is becoming older and more decrepit every day. Pay us less taxes and keep the money for yourself.’ Of course everybody but Uncle Sam knows that the exact opposite is true. The property is appreciating in value. Also, we can use it as collateral to buy another piece of property that the government will pay for again. Now. Are you going to go up to Mr. Eisenhower and whisper what’s happening in his ear?” He shook his head. “Neither am I. Isn’t it foolish not to take advantage of this astounding moneymaking situation? You bet it is!”

By the time they walked out of the room into the crisp winter air, Star and Larraine were trying to push away the wild fantasies. They couldn’t even speak during the first few minutes. “It’s hard to believe what he says about the government being so stupidly generous. I wonder if he’s telling the truth,” said Star.

“He must be. He teaches this course every year. If he weren’t telling the truth, some student would have come back and shoved him around a little,” said Larraine.

Each week, Fred McKay tackled a different aspect of buying and selling property, and he had a truckload of success anecdotes that made his students drip saliva onto their shirts and blouses. They learned about financing, land values, zoning laws, tax credits and shelters. One of the most provocative evenings was on the subject of “cheap bait,” which amounted to hints on tapping into the buyer’s subliminal awareness. “You can add a couple of thousand to the offers you’ll get for a one-family house by boiling a cinnamon stick in water just before the buyer arrives. He’ll start to think of his mother’s apple pie and his boyhood and he’ll feel totally at home.”

Fred McKay encouraged his students to answer ads in the paper and go through at least twenty-five properties and give them a rating as investments and for value. During the week Star and Larraine looked at ten one-family houses, two multiple dwellings, and two business properties. When they returned home, bone weary, their notebooks crammed with particulars—cash flow, city taxes, heating systems, sewer systems, schools, and the quality of the drinking water—they were both on the verge of confessing something to the other that they feared was immature and irresponsible.

“Most of the people in that class are learning to sell real estate. I don’t want to sell real estate,” said Star.

“You don’t? You don’t like it?”

“There’s something I think I like better.”

“What’s that?”

“I’d rather own something of my own. I’d like to take one of the properties we saw—maybe that row house on Seventeenth and M—and redo it. What appeals to me is fixing something up with a fresh coat of paint and new shutters.”

“Yeah,” said Larraine, “then what?”

“Well . . . you could either rent it or”—she shrugged—“sell it. Although it might be tough selling something you just saved from ruin.” Larraine was silent, which was unusual. “What’s wrong? You think I’m unrealistic?”

“No. I feel pretty much the same way. We’re both unrealistic, but I’m even more so because I can’t afford to fool around. I’m going to be supporting myself.” She took a deep, meaningful breath. “How much money do you have? I don’t mean Paul’s money, I mean cash you can get your hands on.”

“Two thousand dollars.”

“Really? Does Paul know about it?”

“No. It’s in my drawer. My grandmother gave it to me and told me not to tell Paul I had it.”

“I have three thousand that I saved when I was working. Chuck knew about it, but when he started earning big money he must have forgotten.” She chewed on her cuticles and thought. “Even if we could make a down payment with five thousand, how could we get a mortgage? We don’t have any collateral.”

“My father would give me money if I asked him, but I’m sure Paul would feel insulted if I did that.”

“You’re right,” she said glumly. “He’d have a fit.”

“There’s a trust fund from my grandfather, but it isn’t due for a couple of years.” She was chagrined to admit that she had never asked the amount of the trust. (She wasn’t even certain it was money.) If it were a dazzling figure, it would boost Larraine’s morale. Many times she had the urge to do something nice for Larraine—surprise her with a baked pie or iron her clothes—although it wouldn’t make a lasting difference. It wouldn’t make Chuck love her again. Once she had thought of telling her about James.
Larraine, I had a lost love, too.
But the words—she couldn’t formulate a satisfactory opening sentence—stuck in her throat. The hurt and disappointment were still with her. “We could ask McKay,” she said brightly. “He just loves to make it look like child’s play, so let’s see what he has to say.”

The aimlessness of the previous year—and the loneliness, too—were replaced by purpose. She felt useful and on the verge of something. Paul sniffed out her new mood and was suspicious that she wanted to take her energy and interest out of their life together and place it elsewhere. He would flatten his mouth and shift both eyes sideways, as if he were exasperated. “There’s something I have to say to you.” She came to dread those words. The
something
was always a warning:
Don’t be naive. Don’t get carried away. Don’t get too chummy with Larraine.
She thought some of the junk he brought home from the auctions made him seem naive, but she would never have said so. She still respected him deeply for saving people’s lives. Next to that, any small fault was inconsequential.

37.

OH, JAMES . . .

I
t was the simple desire for revenge that gave Delal the initial furious energy to chase James. She was near him and Nijmeh was not. That was extracting retribution. But James was a man who had been presorted at birth to invade women’s fantasies, and Delal wasn’t immune. She kept imagining a moment when he would be driven to kiss her.

A bonus of coming to Edinburgh was her appreciation of university life. Graying, clear-eyed men served up knowledge as if it were the key to a worthwhile life. She became smug and pious over her intellect. She also wanted to get rid of her virginity and learn to smoke.

She needed a place to live, which she envisioned as a garret with sloping ceilings. After a street-by-street search—Edinburgh was a canyon of heavily ornamented gray structures—she found two tiny rooms (with the toilet and sink inside but the bath, which she paid extra to use, in the hall). The apartment faced a barren courtyard but had a domed skylight—she could see Orion’s Belt from her bed—and a tiled, working fireplace. It was an ordeal to drag logs up four flights of stairs, but struggle was now an ennobling part of her life.

Oriental rugs and pink bulbs in fringed lamps made the room (and Delal) look softer and prettier. She was satisfied that she had seen a room like it in a Charles Boyer film.

When the semester was under way, she began a social life of sorts by inviting acquaintances to her place on Friday evenings and urging them to bring friends. Her rooms were underheated, like everyone else’s, but she had a phonograph and the latest long-playing records. The landlady was supplied with schnapps to forestall any resentment over the traffic.

It took her a long time to find James. During the first few empty weeks, she was convinced he wasn’t there. It was with relief and stomach-jolting joy that she spotted him late one afternoon lounging back on the steps of the quadrangle with his face upturned to the sun. Too unnerved to attempt conversation, she waited and followed him to see where he lived. She monitored the quadrangle each afternoon and discovered that one of his classes let out there on Tuesdays and Thursdays. What’s more, he often stopped to browse in a secondhand bookstore halfway between the university and his rooms, and she chose that cozy unhurried setting as the ideal place for them to “meet.”

They were standing between shelves, their privacy assured by thick walls of books. “You . . .” He was more than a little surprised to see her. “. . . here?”

“Hello. It’s Delal,” she said stupidly. There were new lines on his face, but the overall effect was so much more enchanting than any vision of him she could have dreamed up. The flesh-and-blood James sent her heart racing with anxiety. Self-assurance fled. Next to him she felt frumpy. The red muffler around his neck was just one sign of his confidence and dashing nature. His hair fell in a silken clump over his brow. How wonderful it must be never to plan the effect that put you in the best light.

“Well, hello,” he said finally. “How are you?” Good, civilized James. Asking how she was as if they were having tea. As if she hadn’t changed his life and come thousands of miles to ensnare him.

“Fine. Just fine. I wasn’t sure if you were here.”

“I’m here,” he said.

“So am I.” Just then her toughness ran out. She was afraid of ruining it and decided not to linger. “I’m in kind of a hurry now, but why don’t you drop by on Friday night? Twenty-two Thierry . . . can you remember that? Top floor. It’s sort of a standing open house.” She stalked off briskly, her heart pounding like a jackhammer.

When she saw his large head filling her doorway that Friday night, she had a moment of pure happiness. He had come to her. The thing to do was not to make a fuss. Act as if it didn’t matter. She hardly spoke to him the entire evening other than to catch his eye across the room and ask him to stoke the fire. When the evening ended, she felt emotionally exhausted, as if she’d taken a grueling exam. The next time she would allow herself more conversation.

She bought a black jersey dress and had her hair cut but then blamed these calculated lures when he didn’t appear that Friday or the next. It had to do with trying too hard, which mostly resulted in failure. She felt dull, as if her bright hopes were ill placed, and it took until Thursday to recuperate and shrug off that deadly feeling of rejection.

On the third Friday he was back. She met his eyes over the heads of the crowd and began to tremble so uncontrollably she had to hug herself and bury her hands inside her arms. Part of the trembling was the thrill of being saved yet one more time. The other part was fear. She had begun to understand how seriously she had interfered with his life.

He had come alone and while he wasn’t officially her date, at least he wasn’t entrenching himself in another woman’s life. He found a spot on the floor and did his share of talking. She caught a word here and there . . . Hegel . . . synthesis . . . Vittorio De Sica . . . Two girls circled him all evening, but he left alone while there was still a crowd. All Delal could do was drape herself against the doorway and urge him to come again.

Of course seeing James made her think of Nijmeh. Sometimes she would imagine that Nijmeh was at her house on a Friday night and James would walk in. She could see them turning to each other wordlessly but with tears of happiness. He would take her in his arms and smother her face against him. Then they would leave without even a good-bye and never return to 22 Thierry.

Nijmeh deserved what had happened to her. She should have followed James to the ends of the earth, but she had no imagination. She didn’t know who she was and then was grateful when someone decided for her. Her father had decided she was his alter ego, meant to fulfill his fantasies. Now Paul, no doubt, was turning her into his handmaiden. Did Paul ever make her really hot? Probably not. Well, they deserved each other. Delal knew what was best for Delal and went after it. The trick was never to admit defeat.

Nat King Cole’s perfect smoky voice was coming from the phonograph. “Dance, ballerina, dance. And just ignore the seat that’s empty in the second row . . .”

“What a callous jerk.” Delal blew a puff of smoke at the ceiling. “It’s her big night and he didn’t show up.” She had her head thrown back on the hard horsehair sofa, her legs stretched out in front. It was a pose meant for philosophical reflection after an evening of wine and music.

“Who didn’t show up?”

“The man in the second row. Her love, I suppose. Why couldn’t he have been happy for her success? Why did it have to be love or success? If it had been the other way around, she would have been there cheering him on.”

He was sprawled next to her, groggy from having consumed at least three-quarters of a bottle of Beaujolais, but her statement made him sit up and look at her. “Delal, you’re the oddest girl. You’re analyzing the song?”

“Why not? Millions of people are listening to those lyrics and all of them are critical of this poor girl who simply wanted to use her talent.”

He shook his head and sank back, but she could see he was amused. “I can always count on you for the unexpected.”

Good. That means I’ve got your attention.
She was conscious that the wine stupor had loosened his body and made him sink closer against her. His head was almost on her shoulder. “I like to think things out.”

“Yes, that’s it. And you’ve got a very logical mind. One and one”—he reached over, took her hand, and isolated the fingers—“had better add up to two or you’ll have Inspector Delal beating the bushes.” He had the two fingers squeezed inside one of his hands and it made her heart jump around like a rabbit. Was he going to take her fingers to his lips and kiss them? Was he going to use them to pull her against him? A look of surprise came across his face. At that moment all of her expertise in human relations was for naught. She was helpless. Unendurable desire pulled her to him, but she couldn’t kiss him. Suppose he didn’t want to?
Please . . . you’ve got to kiss me or I will die . . .
His other hand went around her neck as an anchor. A sweet agony overtook her.
Now!
She parted her lips in anticipation as he brought his face close and placed his mouth against her.
Oh, James . . .

“I want to take your temperature. Open your mouth.” Star was still half-asleep and had only opened her eyes to see the time.

“I’m not sick.”

“This is not because you’re sick. It’s to be sure you conceive. I want you to get pregnant.”

“Is it necessary to do it this way?”

“We’re not doing it the other way,” he said sarcastically. “Open your mouth.”

She had been wondering herself why she wasn’t pregnant. Many nights he didn’t touch her and she thought that maybe she was for show and he had someone else for sex. He came in at all hours, sometimes two or three in the morning.

She tried to care and feel outrage, but instead she felt guilt and humiliation that she had failed on every level. She hadn’t kept her part of the bargain. She hadn’t learned to love him. But he didn’t love her either. The truth was that Paul, while he might be proud to have her for his wife, didn’t really trust or like her. To herself she reasoned,
Why are we having a baby?
But the consequences of saying such a thing out loud were too serious.

Her involvement with McKay was a pocket of security. It was something safe and engrossing to give her purpose and faith in her own identity. What had started out as a playful speculation was becoming more real as McKay showed them the mechanics of the trade. She and Larraine had hopes of going into business, but she couldn’t tell that to Paul. At least not yet. They had divided the city into quarters, systematically following leads and answering ads. There were many possibilities. They had pinpointed an area north of the Capitol Building as a realistic starting point. It was run-down but showed signs of reviving. If they could afford anything it would be in a neighborhood that hadn’t yet been found.

“Never say die,” said Larraine. “If we want it badly enough, something will break. You could offer yourself to the loan officer, sugar. Just kidding.” It was seductive to daydream.

That past week they had traipsed—with trepidation—through the new bohemian turf lined with coffeehouses on the edge of China-town. “See those men?” whispered Larraine. “They don’t work. They think we’re all crazy and our values are crazy. They think we’re emotionally dead. They write the filthiest books. Every other word is
fuck
. Fuck this and fuck that and this fucking thing and that fucking thing. They use it as a noun, an adjective, and a verb. They call women ‘chicks’ and money is ‘bread.’ They lack drive and that’s putting it mildly. But sometimes when I’m a little drunk I think they might have something. Maybe we are emotionally dead.”

Every day for two weeks Paul stuck the thermometer in her mouth before she got out of bed and recorded the reading on a chart he had posted on the wall. “You’ll see,” he volunteered after a week, “it’ll shoot up when the egg drops. It’s a very reliable system. This is what I advise for my patients who have trouble conceiving.”

She wasn’t having trouble conceiving. They didn’t have sex frequently enough. This seemed such a cold-blooded way to go about it.

On the fifteenth morning he read the thermometer, but instead of getting up to record the figure he began whistling and put it down beside him on the floor. “This is it! We’re gonna make a baby!” He seemed more lighthearted than she’d ever seen him. He pushed the blanket away and pushed up her nightgown and rolled on top of her. The sun was streaming in the window and she felt horribly self-conscious. “Hey, don’t look so happy,” he quipped.

“It’s so bright.”

“Yeah . . . well, we’ve got to make hay while the sun shines.” He grinned and she could feel the beginnings of his erection. He bent over her as if he had a job to do. “It would help if you put your hand down there.”

They had a routine. He would feel a breast and she took it as a signal to let her hand travel down. He engaged in routine foreplay before climbing on top of her, pushing her legs out and up and putting himself inside. If he were particularly tired, he’d whisper, “Lift your fanny so I can get in deeper.” Once astride he braced himself on his elbows and executed an agile series of thrusts, which, while they benefited him, never allowed contact for her. Occasionally he’d whisper his progress: “Wait . . . don’t move. I don’t want to come too fast.” She’d lie still, afraid to breathe.

Most of the time they said nothing. Star became mildly aroused about the time he climaxed. She didn’t feel resentful or deprived. She felt relieved that he was through.

When James had kissed and touched her, she had responded with love and arousal. Her body had been extravagant, gathering liquids and pouring them out, radiating heat, pushing for unfathomable closeness. Afterward she’d felt opulent and languorous and sated. When Paul’s hands traveled under her nightgown, she let it happen because he was supposed to have access to her body. Sometimes she stayed in the bathroom until he was asleep, but her conscience didn’t allow her to do that too often.