18
I
T WAS SUMMER
, hot and unbearable in New York, and almost time for Olivia to take Roger on his significant-birthday trip to the Plaza Athénée Hotel in Paris. The idea that had once seemed so sentimental and generous now seemed to her like a silly charade. Maybe she should call it off. His way of dealing with it had been to avoid talking about it, but she still had the tickets and the reservation. How were they supposed to travel—as friends? To be his friend or his lover was the same thing in her mind, so both had betrayed her. Why should she give him this reward? She didn’t want to pay for Roger’s half. She didn’t want to go with him at all.
Now she remembered how hot it was in Paris in the summer, how in many places there was no air-conditioning, and wondered why they hadn’t thought of that in the first place. When she had planned the trip she had told the travel agent to be sure their room had a double bed. Now, if they did go, she would have to ask for twin beds, an embarrassing change, letting a stranger know more than he should about them, but a suite was too expensive in a place she didn’t want to be in the first place.
He would remember his fiftieth birthday for the rest of his life. It should have been wonderful; she had wanted to make it that way. It was his fault, not hers, that he would remember it as something strained and sad.
In the time that had passed since she had confronted him she had managed to put a kind of protective coating over her wounded spirit. There were hours that she was without pain, even hours that she didn’t think about him. She knew there were other women who could put something like Roger’s affair with Wendy out of their minds and say, Oh, well, that’s just the way he is; but she wasn’t one of them. She wondered if she would ever again be the relaxed and happy person she had been before.
“We should talk about Paris,” Roger said, finally, over dinner.
“I know.”
“I’d like us to go, but I don’t want you to pay for it. You shouldn’t give me a present. I want to pay for both of us.”
“You really still want us to go?”
“I thought . . . maybe . . . we could use the trip as a chance to start over,” he said.
“Reconcile?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve never fought with another woman for a man,” Olivia said. “I don’t know how. It’s not in my nature. Why should I have to do it?”
“You wouldn’t be.” He looked injured. “This has nothing to do with Wendy.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’m not sleeping with her anymore,” Roger said. “It’s completely finished between us. I’m just doing a little final persuasion to get her to realize that.”
“Not sleeping with her is a good hint,” Olivia said.
They looked at each other. “I wish none of this had ever happened,” Roger said.
“So do I.” But that doesn’t mean it didn’t, she thought.
“Think about Paris,” Roger said.
“Like a second honeymoon, or a blind date?”
“Like a courtship. There’s no one in the world I’d rather spend this birthday with than you.”
“I’ll think about it,” Olivia said. How could she not? It was on her mind all the time anyway.
* * *
Kenny called. His cheerful voice seemed like a greeting from another, almost forgotten, life. “What are you doing next weekend?” he asked.
“Nothing much. Where are you?”
“Santa Barbara. Pam and I are eloping next weekend. We just decided. You have to come to the wedding.”
“Congratulations!” Olivia said. “I’m glad. But if you’re planning it and inviting people, it’s not eloping.”
“We like to call it that.” He chuckled. She had never heard him so upbeat. “Should I put you on the list?”
“I don’t know if I can come to California on such short notice,” she said reluctantly. The tension she had been living through these last months had left her feeling exhausted and drained.
“We’re getting married in New York,” Kenny said. “We want the family there, and New York is closer than Santa Barbara.”
“That’s really sweet, Kenny,” she said, touched. “But the whole family’s away. Why do you have to elope?”
“We want to. And they’re almost all coming. Jenny and Paul, Melissa and Bill, Nick and Lynne, Uncle David, Uncle Seymour and Aunt Iris, Aunt Myra, even Taylor.”
“Taylor?” Taylor had always hated New York, which she called New York City—there were too many people, too much traffic, it was big, ugly, dirty, dangerous. She hadn’t been there since Aunt Julia’s funeral, and when she and Tim went to Sam’s bar mitzvah in Cambridge they had taken a flight that didn’t stop in New York.
“Taylor and Tim have to see Uncle Seymour about the store. She’s inherited all Grady’s stock. Now you and Taylor have more shares than anybody else in the family.”
“I didn’t realize that.”
“You’re rich. You should enjoy yourself.”
“I’ll try,” Olivia said.
“I’ll put Roger’s name down, too,” Kenny said. “The dinner and dancing after the wedding will be at the Rainbow Room, on the sixty-fifth floor, and the ceremony itself will be at the Radio City Suite on the floor below. I was lucky we could get so many people into the Rainbow Room at such short notice, but it’s summer, and also I know somebody. Next Saturday at five o’clock.”
“I’m looking forward to meeting Pam,” Olivia said.
“She wants to meet you, too. See you then.”
When Olivia told Roger she would appreciate it if he came with her, he agreed immediately. Of course; he was on his good behavior. She hoped the family wouldn’t notice they were different together, and then she realized that they had seen him so seldom they would never know.
The Radio City Suite was Art Deco, cozy and elegant, decorated with Bakelite radios from the 1930s. Huge windows overlooked the city spread out below, simmering in the late afternoon sun, but in here it was cool and nice. There was the main room for the ceremony, where Kenny and Pam had had them put up a
chuppah
made of white silk with flowers wound around the poles, and there was another room where the bride could dress. Waiters were walking around with trays of champagne. The cousins were all happy to see each other again, and hugged and kissed. They didn’t seem to mind having been pulled away from their summer country vacations to make this unexpected trip, or if they did they were hiding it well.
Kenny, beaming, was walking around introducing Pam. She was an attractive blonde: fresh and trim and active-looking—a tennis player marrying Winnie the Pooh. There was also an air of great sweetness about her. She was wearing a white suit with a little veil and carrying a bouquet of flowers, but she didn’t seem like a timid bride meeting his family for the first time; she seemed like a warm and happy hostess who wanted them all to enjoy themselves.
“I’m so glad to meet you,” she kept saying. “Now you go on and have a good time.”
“She’s perfect for Kenny,” Olivia whispered to Roger.
It was a small wedding. There was most of the family, Pam had invited three people and that was it: twenty in all. Kenny’s son Jason was there, the only nonadult who had been included, wearing a suit and tie with a flower in his lapel and a big smile. He was probably relieved that his stepmother-to-be was old enough to be his mother, not his sister, unlike the stepmothers of most of his friends.
The ceremony was short, and when the bride and groom kissed they were so attracted they couldn’t let go. Everybody laughed good-naturedly. Kenny had lipstick smeared all over his mouth, and when he finally wiped it off everyone laughed again.
I remember when Roger and I were like that, Olivia thought, getting depressed. Except I never even bothered wearing lipstick. It seems so long ago, before we settled down and thought we knew what life would be like forever. She glanced at Roger and looked away.
They all went upstairs to the Rainbow Room. It also was elegant and Art Deco, but vast, with enormous windows for the spectacular view, a circular dance floor and tables set on two tiers. She and Roger had been there before; the other cousins hadn’t. There were two big round tables with place cards, in their own little area, for the wedding party. Olivia was delighted to see that she and Roger were sitting with Jenny and Melissa and Taylor, and their husbands; and they looked glad and relieved, too. They would always be the girl cousins from Mandelay. . . .
They talked about their vacations and their kids; they said they were pleased to see Kenny settled down with what seemed like such a nice woman; they basked in their small circle of closeness and familiarity, and drank champagne and ate, and when the orchestra came they danced with their husbands. No one danced with anyone they were not married to. And as the evening went on and the sun set and the city started to twinkle, they began to seem like couples on a date in this romantic place, on this sentimental occasion, away from the responsibilities of their normal lives.
Olivia danced with Roger because they didn’t want to look different from the others. She had not been this close to him physically for two months, and part of her yearned for him while another part of her wanted to push him away so she wouldn’t need him so much. She and Roger never danced together; he didn’t like it because he said he wasn’t good at it. But tonight he was courtly and she was gracious, and it didn’t matter that he couldn’t dance very well. They didn’t speak.
Then they all went back to their tables and Pam and Kenny cut the first slice of their wedding cake. Jenny looked at her watch. “We’re driving back tonight,” she said. “I don’t want to leave the kids too long with the housekeeper.”
“But it’s such a long trip,” Olivia protested.
“I know,” Paul said cheerfully. “It’s a horror. And I’m the one who has to drive.”
“We’re going back tonight, too,” Melissa said. “Jake has a swimming competition tomorrow. Besides, I miss them when they’re not around.”
“I want to have a baby,” Taylor said.
They looked at her, surprised. Taylor had always said she never would.
“Soon, when I’m off Prozac, we’ll try,” Taylor said. She glanced at Tim, who smiled at her. “I don’t have to be a bad mother like mine was. I can learn.” She paused. “I knew Grady would never have children. Now I need to before it’s too late. A family shouldn’t just stop.”
There was a silence. Olivia knew they were all thinking about Grady’s suicide. She was sure that despite her protestations of ignorance, Taylor on some level had understood that Grady was gay. Or had she really believed him when he said he couldn’t trust anyone enough to marry, that like her, he was only afraid to carry on the family mistakes? Why would he have tried to fool her anyway, the only person he did trust; his sister, his soul mate? Taylor must have known he wasn’t straight . . . hadn’t she?
A family shouldn’t just stop
. Olivia thought about herself. She had never wanted children, still didn’t, but Taylor’s words hurt. She hoped the rest of them weren’t thinking about her: the maverick, the disappointer. She knew Taylor was only thinking about herself and Grady.
“You would have an adorable baby, Taylor,” she said.
Pam came back in a black linen dress to say goodbye and she and Kenny left. The party was breaking up. Aunt Myra came over and gave Olivia a kiss. “I didn’t even get a chance to talk to you,” Aunt Myra said.
“I know.”
“Hello, Roger, how are you?”
“I’m fine.”
“They’re going to China on their honeymoon,” Aunt Myra said, and giggled. “I wouldn’t want to go to China, would you? I hear the living conditions are just terrible.”
“I would,” Olivia said.
“Oh, you. You’re going to Paris, that’s what you like.”
Roger put his arm lightly around Olivia’s shoulders. “We’re just sybarites,” he said, and smiled.
“Sounds sensible to me,” Aunt Myra said, and moved on. Roger dropped his arm.
I wonder if any of the others is as big a fake as we are, Olivia thought.
“We’re going to Cape Cod tomorrow,” Taylor said to her. “I want to see the Atlantic Ocean. Can you have brunch with me before we go?”
“Of course. Do you want to come to the house?”
“Too much trouble for you. You pick a restaurant.”
“There’s a nice little place near your hotel,” Olivia said, and gave them the address.
“Noon,” Taylor said.
“Do you want me to come with you tomorrow?” Roger asked when they got home.
“I don’t care,” Olivia said. She was very tired.
“You like to be alone with your family,” he said.
“And you can run to see Wendy.”
“I told you that’s over. Besides, she goes away every weekend. You’re perfectly safe. Not that you aren’t already. I thought I could go to the gym.”
“The gym.”
“We’re going to eat a lot in Paris,” Roger said.
“If we go.”
“If we go. I hope we do. Hoping, I’m going to try to get svelte for you.”
“All right,” Olivia said. “You were nice enough to come to the wedding. You don’t have to go to the brunch.”
“I enjoyed it,” he said.
“No, you didn’t.”
“I sort of did.”
“All those years, were we together too much, you and I?” Olivia asked. “Was that the problem?”
“It was never your fault,” Roger said. “Don’t ever think it was.”
“Sometimes I wonder. I have to.”
“You mustn’t blame yourself,” he said.
Then I have to blame you, she thought. That almost makes it worse, because then what can I do to keep you from having another affair with someone else? “Good night,” she said softly, and went to her room.
* * *
The restaurant where she met Taylor and Tim looked like the dining room of a small English country inn. There were pots of strawberry jam on the tables, and a waitress brought big, warm, fresh popovers. “Remember these from Mandelay?” Olivia said, tearing one apart.
Taylor smiled. “You always pulled the inside out and ate it first,” she said. “And left the outside. You still do.”
“It’s the best part.”
“Not to me.”
They had hot, strong coffee and scrambled eggs. “We saw Uncle Seymour,” Taylor said. “I have Grady’s stock now.”
“I know. You and I have more stock than anyone else in the family. We could get together and run things.”