Vivian In Red (47 page)

When they all briefly give us a moment’s peace, distracted by the wailing of a great-grandchild who has bonked her head, I lead Alex out the door, down the front stoop, and onto the sidewalk.

It’s evening now, and has grown cloudy without me noticing. With the sun veiled, the autumn chill has a bite. Alex shrugs out of his leather jacket and rests it on my shoulders like a cape. I think of putting my arms through the sleeves but know it will be hilariously large, so instead I cross my arms underneath it. It smells like pot and old records.

“I’m glad he’s better,” Alex says, matching my slow amble. He pulls the tie out of his hair and shakes it out. This causes a couple of Upper West Siders walking their Pomeranian to double take. “I hope the results don’t do him in, when we get them.”

“In a couple days, I’d guess. Maybe sooner if we’re lucky.”

“Then what will happen?”

“I don’t know. We tell him, and your mother, and see what they want to do. He can talk to us now, thank God for that. We don’t have to rely on gestures and guesswork. He’ll probably call the lawyer, Naomi will insist on it if nothing else. We’ll probably have to test again, to convince them.”

“What about the book?”

I hate the book now. I hate the day they ever thought of it, and hate that Uncle Paul pushed me into writing it. I’m not even a writer anymore. I don’t know what I am.

“I suppose I’ll have to mention it.”

“‘It’ being my mother?”

“The situation, Alex. You know what I mean. I just don’t know… How’s that going to work? An asterisk in the 1937 chapter, oh by the way, a woman he had an affair with gave birth to his child he never raised or saw…”

“An asterisk. Nice.”

“This is supposed to be a book about his work, not his love affairs—”

“Yes, speaking of that, his most famous song’s lyrics written in Vivian’s writing.”

I can’t walk another step suddenly, and I lean against the stoop of some other townhouse, staring down at my flats. The breeze prickles the skin on my bare shins. It’s gotten so cold so quickly. I seem to forget, every single autumn, that the sun sets and it gets chilly. My dad used to say that’s a “self-correcting mistake” but clearly not for me.

“What’s on your mind?” Alex asks. He’s stopped next to me, leaning on the adjacent side of the square post.

“I can’t do it,” I say, almost surprising myself by saying the words aloud. “The book. I can’t.”

“Who’s going to tell the truth, then?”

“What truth is that exactly?”

“About my mother, and those lyrics.”

“We don’t know anything about lyrics.”

“But we’re going to ask him, right? Now that he’s better? You said you would. You promised you would.”

“He’s my grandfather.”

“Maybe mine, too.”

I sink down into his jacket. “Don’t be flip. You’ve just met him and you see him as a means to an end. A piece of biology.”

“That’s not fair.”

“No? Then why won’t you shut up about the notebook for a day and give me a minute with my talking, alert grandfather before you want to ride in there and give him another stroke.”

He stands up off the stoop and I sense him coming around to face me, though my eyes are still on my shoes and all I see are his own scuffed and faded Chuck Taylors, toe to toe with me.

“I need my keys and wallet. You can wear the jacket, though.”

I start to take the jacket off but he stays my hand with his own, pulling the jacket closed again, under my chin. “You’re cold and I’m not. I’ll get it later.” He reaches into his own jacket pockets, taking out his wallet and keys, and walks away from me. He’s going the wrong way to the subway, but I can’t find my voice to call after him.

I
play the happiest melody that comes to my mind on the piano in the parlor, reveling in the full use of both my hands.
We’re in the money, we’re in the money, we’ve got a lot of what it takes to get along!

Did we ever love that song back then, funny enough when you think how almost no one had money to throw around, or if they did they were scared half to death to lose it, or that their parents or kids or neighbors would lose it.

I have been prodded and measured and monitored and declared fit as I ever was, by my grandson Dr. Joel and plenty of others, too, down at Beth Israel, just making sure I was truly right as rain. Joel keeps shaking his head and muttering things like “astonishing” because stroke patients aren’t supposed to talk and move again suddenly—bam!—just like that. Esme says it’s a miracle. Our family feels a bit squirmy about religion when it comes right down to the brass tacks of it. Mostly everyone’s going around saying how happy they are and leaving it at that. I’m in no rush to clarify, and I don’t know what I’d say even if I had the notion.

I’m stronger, too, able to get up and around pretty much like I did before I fell down in the first place, though it seems I won’t be walking any distance outside anymore. Cabs and cars for me, which really isn’t such a bad thing, though some days in this city walking is faster, even with my old-man shuffle.

Finally the throng of family hanging around me is shrinking down a bit so maybe I can finally grab a minute alone with my granddaughter the biographer, this poor kid who thought she’d just write a nice book and ended up with a mess right in her lap.

I also know it’s been several days, over a week, since they snuck that man in to draw some blood from me, and this is not often far from my mind, nor Eleanor’s, I can tell. And I further know that even though I’m stronger, and my voice is back, a certain visitor has not left the premises.

I scoot over on the piano bench, just a tiny bit, this impulse irresistible even though Vivian isn’t real, and can’t possibly need the room.

So, kid, is this your doing?

Is what? I wish you’d keep playing. I like it. I never used to hear you play.

I couldn’t afford my own piano until…

Until after I was long gone.

I meant, is my voice back because of you?

You always did like to blame things on me.

Who’s blaming? I’m giving you credit, if anything.

Good to know I get credit for something.

Aw, Vivian. I didn’t mean for all that stuff to happen. I can’t fix it now, anyway.

Can’t you?

I wish you’d told me about the kid.

A girl doesn’t know right away, you know. It’s not like we get a telegram.

You could’ve told me when you knew. I would have…

My brain stumbles on that “what I would have” statement. What would twenty-five-year-old Milo have done, truth be told? The same kid who banished this scary and troublesome woman far, far away from him, even when she looked him in the eye and asked to stay? The same Milo who never wrote her back, even when she recounted her loneliness, and pleaded with him?

It feels cold next to me suddenly, and where I’d just been seeing some brown curls in my peripheral vision there is now only the indistinct blur of the parlor around me.

I close my eyes and hold my hands over the keys. It’s been so long… And it was never my melody, anyway.

But I let it unwind in my memory, those old notes, and my hands go where they need to, and without really meaning to, I sing it to myself, though quietly, because no great vocalist am I.

I once was uptown, now I’m down, no more kid gloves, top hats or spats

And yet you keep coming around, with your diamonds and fancy hats

I don’t understand it at all, no good can come of this!

I’m not worthy, yet you, dear, just blew me a kiss…

You might just love me… I guess.

Though I’m not so … well-dressed.

I can’t guarantee that with me

You’ll always be … impressed.

You might just love me … I think.

Did you just give me … a wink?

How can we go out to a show

If you don’t have … a mink?

Take my advice and please heed it, get out while the getting’s good

Together we’ll just be defeated; do what pretty rich girls should…

So you still love me … it seems

We’ll make the strangest … of teams

Come take my hand, let’s make our stand

And live the grandest … of dreams!

“Grampa.” Eleanor is next to the piano now, standing as if she were a torch singer, leaning on its side. “You never play that song, much less sing it.”

“I’m feeling sentimental about old times, I guess.”

“I have to tell you something.”

“Yeah?”

“Alex called. The mail is here.”

I nod my understanding. Eleanor says, “Maybe we’ll look at it up in the office? It’s private there. Alex is bringing it over because I had it mailed to the Midtown apartment.”

“I might need a hand going up the stairs.”

“You’ve always got my hand, Grampa. All the hands I’ve got to give.”

We begin a halting progress, grandfather and granddaughter. It’s not that I’m so weak, just out of practice. As we go up the bend in the stairs, I flash back to one of the apparitions that scared me so bad it all went black, but today the sun is bright and the room is well lit and it’s just a patch of floral rug.

“You okay, sweetheart?” I ask her, patting her hand where she’s got it crooked in my elbow, steadying me, and maybe I’m steadying her back, just a bit.

“Sure.”

“You seem so quiet. Quiet even for you.”

“Someone I know is mad at me, and I can’t fix it.”

“Why can’t you fix it?”

She’s quiet for a few more steps. I know she heard me, so I’m patient.

“Because he wants me to do something I can’t do. I even think he’s probably right to ask me, but I can’t do it.”

“Is it something awful? Morally wrong?”

“No, nothing like that. Just something that’s beyond me.”

“For the record, I think very little is beyond you, but I’ll give you this for the sake of argument. Can you tell him that? What you just said. You even think he’s right, but you can’t.”

“It won’t matter.”

“You’d be surprised. Not saying things always seems like a better idea in the moment, until you don’t say it once, and you don’t say it a hundred times, and the fact of your not saying it grows so big it gets bigger than everything else.” We have reached my office doorway. “Listen to me on this, sweetheart. I know from secrets.”

I settle into my office chair, at this desk now blanketed in unfamiliar paper, Paul’s paper. Eleanor goes to stare out the window at the street, watching for Alex and his mail, no doubt. And so we wait in our own private silences.

I know that Alex is approaching when I see Eleanor move away from the window and take a seat in a chair opposite the desk. We both turn toward the doorway, and I startle just a tiny bit at Vivian leaning there, inspecting her deeply red fingernails. She’s wearing a gown now, a sweeping lilac-colored thing that has a deep V-neck, small waist, and fluttery sleeves. A jewel pattern decks out the shoulders. It’s more glamorous than what I ever saw her wear, because mostly in our time together we were working, so she’d be wearing a suit or day dress.