A Perfect Life (13 page)

“You're not just saying that? You promise?” She buried her face in the washrag she had been using to clean her son.

“It wasn't anyone's fault,” I repeated, and she tried to kiss my hand.

In one house, we met a man who tied his sister to the bed because he couldn't afford a nurse to stay with her while he worked. We met a woman who supported her children by knitting sweaters for a company in Bath. Since her husband hadn't waited for his Valentine's to kill him but managed to shoot himself first, she hadn't been allowed to collect his in
surance. Even Sumner seemed moved. He was childless and divorced, but he bought three sweaters from the woman, including a tiny red one with a reindeer on the front.

Among rich and poor, we found neglect. We found people who lied about their relatives (“He didn't really join them Shakers, they snatched him as a child”). But more than neglect or lies, we found the sort of self-sacrifice that is unimaginable for those who aren't called upon to make it. We met a woman in her seventies who cared for twin sons. Although each of “the boys” was taller than his mother and weighed fifty pounds more, she diapered and bathed them and rolled them in their beds so their skin wouldn't get sores. Miriam's suggestion that she send them to a nursing home was met by a puzzled stare. “Oh,” the woman said, “that won't need to happen unless I die before them. But I'm hoping it will be the other way around.” She took out a beaded purse. “I want you to have this,” she said and handed me a ten-dollar bill. I tried to refuse but finally gave in and stuffed the money in my coat, making a mental note not to spend it on myself.

“Christ! Ma! Need you! Need you! Ma!”

The woman turned to go.

“I'll come back to visit you,” I said.

“Of course you will,” she said.

I tried to say,
Really, I promise I'll come back,
but the woman was already hobbling toward her sons.

On our last night in town, the mayor invited me to dinner. I tried to beg off. I was exhausted, I said. But I couldn't
hurt the feelings of someone to whom I already owed so much. He sensed my hesitation. The fact was, he needed my opinion.

Couldn't I give it to him here?

No, he said, it wouldn't be nearly as convenient.

He wasn't the sort of man you could accuse of trying to seduce you. So what could I do but climb on the bike he must have borrowed from some child—it had pink-and-white streamers and a daisy-covered basket—and pedal along beside him.

We rode for fifteen minutes into the setting sun, the water lapping the rocks beside us. “There it is.” He pointed to a cottage with lacy blue eaves and a white wicker swing creaking on the porch.

“It's beautiful,” I said. And really, it was. I had never seen a prettier place to live. He held the door and we went in. The walls were china blue with cornflowers stenciled near the ceiling. A braided rug lay before the hearth. There were a china hutch, a wood trunk, and shelves and shelves of books. Paul went over to the stove, put on a pair of oven mitts, and took out a covered dish. Staring at his back, which was so much narrower than Willie's, I grew angry and sad.

He offered me a taste of whatever food was in the dish, but I turned away, repulsed by the sight of that spoon coming toward me. Long ago, I had vowed never to let anyone feed me. I took the spoon and fed myself. It was something chewy and bland.

“I was hoping you could help us think of a name for it,” the mayor said.

“For what?” I asked.

“The product I was telling you about. We can't exactly market it as ‘shaped and molded fish by-products.'” He offered me another bite, then waited so expectantly I had the crazy notion he would tie me to a chair and keep spooning this tasteless stuff in my mouth until I told him what he wanted.

“Why don't you just call it ‘seafood'?” I suggested.

“Sea Food,”
he repeated. “That's not bad. A housewife could say, ‘Let's have Sea Food tonight,' and everyone would say, ‘Sure! Let's have Sea Food. Everyone loves Sea Food.'” He was looking at me so adoringly you might have thought I had revealed the secret name of God. I was remarkable, he said. Sure, he admitted, he got lonely. The town wasn't exactly overflowing with women his age, not to say women who had gone to college. But he also didn't mind telling me that I was one of the bravest, most intelligent women he had ever met.

“You hardly know me,” I said.

Well, he could
get
to know me, couldn't he? I would be returning to New Jerusalem. And he had a convention of New England mayors to attend in Boston the following month.

The idea of sitting in a restaurant discussing waterfront development and fish by-products with this man made me blurt out that I had a boyfriend, and even though I stumbled on the word, the lie felt truer than anything else I might have said.

He put the casserole on a trivet and stood there with the oven mitts on his hands. “I guess I do have a tendency to come on a bit strong.”

Oh, no, I said, I should have told him earlier. About this boyfriend, I meant. We had only become involved a few weeks earlier.

“So it isn't that serious?” he asked me hopefully.

Oh, I said, but it was. Willie and I hadn't known each other for more than a few weeks, but we had such a lot in common. Both of us had had parents who had died of Valentine's.

That I had given this boyfriend a name made the lie more convincing. “I only hope he appreciates his luck,” the mayor said.

I hoped he did, too.

The mayor set the casserole on the table. If the “seafood” had seemed rubbery and bland before, eating it now was like chewing on a hose. He offered little besides the casserole—soggy peas, a slice of bread, watery tapioca. We sat sipping a pot of coffee I suspected had been boiling since dawn when the telephone rang.

“Yes,” the mayor said. “She's here, I'll put her on.” He held out the receiver, assuming, I supposed, this must be my boyfriend, Willie.

“I hope I'm not interrupting anything.” The voice was Vic's. “Miriam Burns told me where you were.”

“It's fine,” I said. “Don't worry. The mayor and I were finishing our dessert.”

“I just got in from that meeting in California, and I had to find out how everything went. And, well, I wasn't sure what effect all this would have on you.”

Hearing Vic's concern was like hearing someone inquire about a narrowly averted accident. Only then, think
ing back on all the families we had seen with Valentine's, all the vials of blood we had drawn, did I grow shaky and need to sit.

“I should have flown up there to be with you. But I needed to write that grant. And there was that meeting in Palo Alto.”

I told him that he could trust me.

“I do trust you,” he said. “You've done a wonderful job with all this. But it's the most important work that's going on in my lab right now, and I feel as if I ought to be doing more.” To someone in the background I heard him say: “Shh. Yes, it's her. No, I won't hang up.” And then, back to me: “Just a second. It's Maureen.”

I heard the clatter of the receiver being dropped, and I pictured Maureen lifting it between her wrists.

“Hi there. Vic'll fill me in on the science. I just wanted to make sure you weren't doing anything I wouldn't do.”

“I'm being good,” I said.

“That's what I was afraid of. Go out, okay? Enjoy the sights. Bring me a souvenir. You know, a seashell or a fisherman or something. Can't wait until you get back! Bye! ”

“I miss you, too,” I said and then hung up.

The mayor pulled off the oven mitts and bent his head like a defeated boxer. “I suppose I ought to ride you back over to Miriam's place.”

Before he extinguished the candles I saw what he would return to—a house that was unbearable if you didn't have someone to live there with you. “I know a woman in Boston you should meet,” I said. It occurred to me that the mayor might be offended by my efforts to fix him up. But he was
right about New Jerusalem being short on eligible women my age. If he found my nearness to Valentine's disease romantic, if he was attracted to intelligent female scientists, maybe he would find a female scientist with arthritis to be romantic. “You'll like her,” I said. And, as I said this, I decided that Maureen might also like Paul.

We walked out on the porch. A breeze from the ocean rocked the swing.

“Is she as interesting as you are?” he asked.

She was a biologist, I said. She was searching for the cause of a mysterious form of blindness that affected a small community of fishermen in Peru. This was particularly difficult, I said, because she was confined to a wheelchair.

“A wheelchair?” he said. “From what?”

As I went on describing Maureen's illness, Paul stroked his beard. Clearly, he found her interesting. “What sorts of things does she like to do in her spare time?”

I said she liked to go dancing.

“Dancing? In a wheelchair?” He frowned. “I don't dance much myself. Unless you count square dancing. I don't suppose that's the kind of dancing your friend likes to do?”

No, I said, it wasn't.

“Well,” he said, with an eagerness to please I found endearing, now that it was no longer directed at me, “I've taught myself how to be a librarian. And how to be a mayor. And how to process fish. I don't suppose there's any reason I can't teach myself to dance.”

All those racks of blood from which DNA had to be extracted. All those cells to immortalize. The months, if not years, of running gels and blots, hunting for a pattern that might betray the gene's hiding place. On those rare nights I got to sleep, I dreamed of dropping vials, misplacing them, contaminating a sample with bacteria. What if all this effort went for nothing? What if we never found the gene? What if we did?

None of my labmates wanted to help. They knew the project could drag on for years. Vic held a lab meeting at which he threatened to cut off people's salaries if they didn't spend at least half their time on the Valentine's project. A while later, I overheard Susan gripe to Vivian Gold, the lab technician, that Vic was ruining their careers because he was “head over heels in love with Little Miss Valentine.” I wanted to step out from behind the P-3 partition and slap Susan's face. But I couldn't afford to lose what little support she and Vivian might be willing to give.

In the weeks that followed, I transformed and spun down nearly sixty vials of blood. Though tedious, this part
of the project wasn't daunting. Its limits were well defined: so many vials done; so many left to do. The next part entailed slogging through an astronomical number of pairings of enzymes and probes. I could spend the rest of my life trying combinations, propelled by the thought that the next key, or the next, might finally yield the payoff.

In the middle of all this, Willie sent me another postcard. This one showed a famous New Hampshire rock formation called the Old Man of the Mountains, which looked remarkably like Willie's own profile, with that craggy nose and chin. All he had written on the back was “COME UP AND SEE ME SOMETIME.” I thought about writing back. But what could I have written? After all the suffering I had seen in Maine, how could I imagine getting any more involved with a man who, like me, might carry the gene for Valentine's? I refused to marry anyone who stood a fifty-fifty chance of coming down with the disease himself. Bad enough if I ended up taking care of my sister. I couldn't take care of my husband, too.

On top of everything, the benefit was coming up. With all the new developments, Honey and my father expected to raise more donations than ever. My father's foundation was paying the expenses of everyone involved. This included Paul Minot, who had been calling Maureen twice a day from Maine and was escorting her to the dinner. Willie would be there, too. How would he react if Paul told him that he was lucky to have a girlfriend like me? I was tempted to ask Maureen to help me keep the two men apart, but that would have entailed admitting that Paul had propositioned me before I had passed him along to her.

I did allow her to take me shopping. I had agreed to give a speech outlining the technical aspects of the project, and I couldn't very well address such a gathering in jeans. “Don't worry,” Maureen kept telling me. “When I'm through with you, this stepbrother of yours won't even know you.”

From the display in the window of the funky boutique she took me to, I figured this was true. One mannequin wore a flowered plastic cape with nothing underneath. Her wrists were bound behind her, and her neck was provided with a leash.

When I yanked Maureen's wheelchair up and over the threshold and pushed her through the door, the salesgirls stopped chatting. “Hi,” Maureen said. “I'm looking for a little something in a size two. I can't do zippers or buttons. So I'm looking for, I don't know, a tunic sort of thing? And leggings? And maybe a belt like this?” The belt she picked up was as wide as a tire, with pointy silver studs. “And shoes to go with it. I like yours, those are great.” Maureen pointed to the Lucite sandals on which one of the salesgirls balanced, the heels thin as pipettes. “After I've found what I'm looking for, we can help my friend Jane find a little something, too.”

With an energy born of relief, the salesgirls darted around the store, bringing Maureen various outfits to try on. The fitting room was too narrow for the wheelchair, so she changed in full view. The salesgirls cooed encouragement, flying back and forth with accessories. At last, Maureen decided on a silver lamé minidress, silver shoes, and silver earrings shaped like twin nudes, one female, one male.

“Do you think he'll like it?” she asked. “Maybe it's a bit too wild.”

“He'll like it,” I said.

She looked up at me suspiciously. “Jane,” she said, “there's something you're not telling me about this guy.” She stroked the male earring. “You slept with him. And he couldn't get it up. Or he's a born-again Christian who thinks anything except the missionary position is sick.”

I assured her Paul was perfect.
Too perfect
, I thought, but I kept that to myself.

“I believe you!” she said. “I talked to the guy for an hour and a half last night. What I can't believe is that this is happening to me.” She motioned me lower. “Don't tell a soul, but I think I've figured out something about my blindness gene.” She looked around, as if one of her competitors might be hiding behind the rack of bustiers. “It's a gene that's not a gene.”

A gene that wasn't a gene? I squatted so she wouldn't need to crane her neck.

“Look,” she said. “This thing only acts like a gene. Because it runs in families. But other things run in families besides genetic weirdness.”

“For instance?”

“The way a family acts. You know, whether they drink or smoke. Or the foods they eat. Or religious rituals. Maybe a certain family smokes some crazy herb. I haven't got it nailed yet. But I have some ideas.” She clasped my hand. “You watch. This is going to be a terrific time for both of us. Me and Paul, and you and Willie. Both of us will get these really big papers in
Cell
.” She flicked the lever on the arm
rest and spun her chair, flinging light from her minidress. “Okay, now it's your turn. Get in that fitting room and wait for your fairy godmother.”

I did as I was told. I unbuttoned my blouse and jeans, then stood before the mirror and inspected what I saw. The Jane Weiss in the fitting room reached out to touch fingers with the Jane Weiss in the glass.

“Oh, sweetie,” Maureen said. “Never mind those dresses. You want this Willie character to fall head over heels, go to the benefit just like that.”

I crossed my arms.

“No. If I looked like you, I would sit in front of a mirror all day. Here, put this on.” She handed me a dress so skimpy I needed the salesgirls' help to wriggle into it. One woman zipped up the back while the other salesgirl clasped a rhinestone choker to my throat.

“Wow.” Maureen whistled. “That gown makes you look fifteen years older.”

I tried not to flinch. Wearing a dress that made me look older wouldn't bring the disease any sooner. I turned and kept turning, my eyes fixed on the mirror, and for the longest time, I couldn't bring myself to take off that gown.

In the end, I bought the gown, plus a blue cashmere suit to wear to my father's wedding. I maneuvered the wheelchair out the door, Maureen with a stack of boxes on her lap, me with plastic bags slung about my arms. It was a Saturday afternoon and Harvard Square was crowded. The cobblestones were quaint, but the uneven bricks kept catching
Maureen's wheels. Tourists had parked their cars in front of the curb cuts, and I struggled to lift her chair above the curb. A tide of Japanese schoolgirls flowed around Maureen; they made me think of Achiro and his daughters, and I wondered if their mother had come back home and, if she hadn't, who cared for the girls while Achiro worked at whatever company now employed him.

As I waited for the girls to pass, I noticed a store that sold travel guides and maps, solar-powered calculators, and, in the window above these items, a magnificent globe. I tried to figure out what the globe was made of. Porcelain? Ivory? The colors were rich yet subdued, the deserts a burnished gold, the forests a mossy green, the seas a heartbreaking blue. The dotted routes of explorers, with tiny hand-drawn ships, were labeled with the names
Vasco da Gama, Magellan, Admiral Byrd,
Thor Heyerdahl
,
Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci
.

I knew the globe would make a perfect gift for my father's wedding. But the shop could be reached only by a flight of stairs, and the aisles were so crowded that Maureen wouldn't be able to maneuver through them. I asked if she would mind waiting on the street while I went in.

She puffed a wilted spike of hair from her eyes. Go on, she said. She needed to catch her breath.

Was she sure? I hated to leave her sitting there.

“Sweetie,” she said, “sitting on street corners is one thing I'm good at. One way or another, I'll probably take in a few bucks.”

I climbed the steps and approached the globe slowly. I pressed my palms to either side—the surface was surpris
ingly warm. A tag tied to the globe's North Pole said $800. That was half my entire savings, and I had just spent the other half on clothes. Still, how often did a person's father get married?

I found the manager and asked if he would keep the globe at the store until I had a better idea of when the wedding would be. Honey's renovations had become so elaborate the ceremony had been postponed until September. I bought them travel guides for Italy, England, France, and Israel, then wrote out a check for nearly nine hundred dollars, which left forty-seven dollars in my account.

The transaction took ten minutes, but when I went back outside and saw Maureen primping her hair and trying to look as if she hadn't been abandoned, I was overcome with guilt. I leaned down and kissed her. “I hope it all comes true,” I said. “The blindness gene. And you and Paul.” And right then, I wished I could have bought Maureen the world, too.