Close Relations (32 page)

“I guess she was afraid you’d think I wasn’t a virgin.”

David erased his lines. “To tell you the truth, I rather assumed you weren’t after she told me you had been married for a while.”

“Then you’ve gotten my whole biography.”

“Only the highlights.” He plowed the wet sand with his toes. “Look, Marcia, I’ve had a very enjoyable afternoon with you. I don’t know what your living arrangements are, but I’d like to see you again, if that’s at all possible.”

“Well…”

“Even if it’s just for a friendly evening. But I’ll leave that up to you. I’m in the phone book. David C. H-o-f-f-m-a-n, Fourteen East Sixty-seventh. And I promise not to ply you with drink to get Paterno’s secrets.”

He smiled and I smiled back. And a quarter hour later, when we returned for the barbecue of enough protein to feed Swaziland for six months, my cousin Barbara smiled. So did Philip, Aunt Estelle, Uncle Julius, and Mr. and Mrs. Drexler. And so did my mother.

“Have a nice walk?” she asked sweetly.

J
erry was no dope. He knew how to soothe an anxious heart. So I was wooed long distance. From Schenectady he murmured that my hair had the texture of flower petals. “Like cornflowers,” he began.

“Cornflowers are blue,” I said.

“Don’t interrupt a compliment, sweetheart.”

From Rome he extolled the enticing curve of my small waist as it flowed into my generous, womanly hips.

From Oswego, he proclaimed I was in perfect balance: a keen mind coupled with a gentle heart.

From all over he told me how he wanted me. He couldn’t wait to see me again. And I couldn’t wait for him.

I sensed a turbulence only Jerry could calm. The Fourth of July feeling would not wear off. I caught myself thinking like a member of my family. I longed for elegance. With Jerry around, I would have no eye for rich fabrics, no nose for bluebelled hankies. He filled all five senses. With him gone, I felt empty.

I grew angry at the dirt and bleakness of headquarters, the squawking voices of the city. I was irate that I had to be exposed to the rank body odors of a summer subway ride. I daydreamed about sitting at the edge of Barbara’s pool, wiggling my toes in the water, picking at a bowl of seedless grapes on the brick patio beside me. I could see myself with one of Philip’s leather-bound volumes of Henry James, lounging in a hammock between two of the fine Drexler oaks.

“Can’t I come upstate for just a day or two?” I asked Jerry.

“Marcia, it’s the middle of a campaign.”

“But it’s awful here. Humid. The air feels filthy. And we could have such a fabulous time.”

“You’re just tense. Tired. Don’t worry. I’ll be back soon and I promise you, I’ll make you feel better.”

I wanted a little gracefulness. I called David C. Hoffman and asked if he still had the second ticket: I would like to listen to Chopin.

“Of course I have it. I’m glad you called. Shall I pick you up?” I suggested we meet at Lincoln Center, by the fountain. “You’re not worried about someone catching us, in flagrante, listening to music?”

I answered truthfully. “I’ve never heard of anyone who would go to hear Chopin during a campaign.”

“Then we’re safe. Would you prefer dinner before or after?”

“Oh, I don’t know. How about after, so I won’t feel guilty about leaving too early.”

I got a little gracefulness. The pianist played with such fineness that I was drawn out of myself and into a mist of pleasure. I might have been George Sand, listening to an étude I had inspired a few hours earlier.

“Isn’t he good?” David asked during intermission.

“Wonderful.”

David was a relaxed concertgoer, leaning back in his seat and letting the music flow to him. Unlike Barry, he did not hunch forward, as if panicked that a note might give him the slip. Nor did he grab my hand, blow in my ear, or try to play games with my knee. He listened.

“David, what a pleasure that was,” I said, as he held open the door of a taxi. I did not mention that I hadn’t been to a concert since my divorce.

“Well, it’s a pleasure to go with such a music lover,” he answered.

We arrived at an expensive northern Italian restaurant—it had a doorman and a blue canopy in front—and the maître d’ was thrilled to see Signor Hoffman again and so obsequious that he nearly licked David’s shoes. David ordered a pasta called angel hair first. It was so delicate I hesitated before piercing it with my fork.

Our chatter was breezy. David offered some amusing stories about Harvard’s history department, which I had never before considered as a source of humor. I managed one or two sallies about the city’s fiscal policies, and David seemed to find them witty enough.

Over the veal, he asked me about being an only child. “I wasn’t typical,” I said. “No one tried to spoil me. My mother wasn’t very demonstrative, so I never felt overwhelmed.”

“You were very lucky.”

“No. I would have loved to have been spoiled rotten, have millions of presents showered over me, have someone worrying about me all the time, telling me to button my coat and eat my vegetables.”

“Eat your vegetables, Marcia,” he said, indicating my zucchini. “Don’t you think she might have left you alone because she sensed you were enormously competent?”

“Oh, come on.”

“But you’re so self-sufficient. Maybe she felt intimidated by such a strong child. Maybe she felt inadequate.”

“David, a ten-year-old kid may be able to dress herself, but she still needs to feel protected, to know there’s an adult in charge of her life. It’s very frightening to realize that no one’s worrying about you.” I peered at his plate. “You ate your vegetables first. What a good little boy you must have been.”

He smiled a little and shrugged.

“Were you?”

“I guess so. I was one of those solid-citizen types, the kind of child who can always be relied upon to behave, keep busy, and not bother anyone.”

“Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

At first he didn’t answer. Then he said, “A brother. He’s two years younger.”

“Oh. Are you close?”

“No.” He paused. “You see, he’s retarded. He’s institutionalized.”

“David, I’m sorry.”

He looked around the restaurant, almost as if to see if there was an emergency exit for escape. But then he looked straight at me and spoke quickly, much faster than his normal measured pace, as if to rush away from his ingrained propriety, to flee from his world where family flaws are not discussed. “I never even knew about him until after my mother died, when I was nineteen. They never mentioned him. They just threw him away. Oh, it was a nice place they threw him in, but it was like he was some disgusting piece of refuse they wanted to get rid of. They never visited. I only discovered him by accident, when I was talking to one of the lawyers about my mother’s estate. He said something about ‘your brother.’”

“My God. You must have been stunned.”

“Shocked. My father denied he existed. It took me two years to get the information from my Aunt Marjorie.”

“Did you see him?”

“Yes. I went there; it’s in New Jersey. He’s badly retarded. He can’t feed himself properly or get dressed. But he smiles at me. I mean, there’s a trace of humanity there. I go every few months.”

“Do you think he remembers you from time to time?”

“No. But I take him things. A hat, one of those wool ones with a big pompon. Candy. He seems to like it.”

“I’m sure he does. He must sense you’re someone special, someone who really cares about him.” He looked away again. “What is it, David? Tell me.”

“He looks like me. It’s eerie.” I nodded. “Anyway, enough happy memories,” he said. “Tell me how a nice person like you got into politics.” He waved to the waiter and ordered another bottle of wine.

The next night I had to write a speech about bond ratings, so we only had time for drinks at the Plaza. We sat at a table in a dark wood-paneled room, sipping wine and discussing our marriages.

He and Lynn were third cousins. They met when they were twelve at some mutual relative’s birthday party. They had the same cultural interests, the same passion for riding, even the same straight brown hair and hazel eyes. They knew they were well suited, and everyone was pleased by the match. He never dated another girl—or woman—until after his divorce.

“Never? Not one?”

“No. When did you meet Barry?”

“When I was almost seventeen. But I had dated other boys. I mean, nothing much happened except for some intense kissing, but at least I had a vague idea that boys came in different varieties.”

“Well, I was amazingly naïve. We both were.” As he spoke, I began to sense that they had had more fun on top of their horses than on top of each other.

“Where did you ride?”

“In Central Park or at my family’s place in Pennsylvania.”

“With high boots and those funny little hats?”

“Sometimes. Have you ever ridden?”

“No. And don’t look at me that way. I would never consider it.”

“Never? Just to try?”

“Not as long as there are taxis.”

I told him about my marriage to Barry, and he nodded with polite interest until I mentioned that the only reason we had lasted as long as we had was because of our sex life. “Really?” he said. His eyes widened. His eyebrows lifted. He seemed fascinated.

“Yes,” I said, looking into my wineglass.

I regretted mentioning sex. There was something fastidious about my conversations with David. We were fairly intimate for near strangers, but it was a chaste intimacy. Since the afternoon at the Drexlers’, when he held my hand at the beach, he had not attempted to touch me. He was always the gentleman, unfailingly correct. This suited me, although I was starting to sense that he was waiting for a signal from me to initiate something beyond the talk.

When I looked up, I saw his eyes had that moist, unfocused look of people who are thinking about sex. “It’s getting late,” I said. “And I have a horrendous day tomorrow.”

But I agreed to see him again. The following night, most of the staff members were driving up to Rockland County for a Paterno rally. Several people stuck their heads into my office and I told them I already had a ride; I would see them at the rally. I didn’t. I saw
Measure for Measure
in Central Park with David. On the way to dinner, we had a fairly heated disagreement about Shakespearean comedy. “Do you have any idea how wrong you are?” I demanded.

“I’m right. I’ve never been more right.”

“Well, at least it’s nice to talk to someone who has an opinion about Shakespeare, even if it’s wrong.”

We had dinner in the outdoor garden of a Czechoslovakian restaurant. I could feel my curls getting tighter in the humidity. I glanced at the strings of colored lightbulbs that looped from tree to tree, then at two cats who meandered around the tables, looking for a friend.

“Watch it, Marcia,” David said.

“What?”

“No cat-food comments. I know you’re prone to them.”

“Just one?”

“No. Come on. Talk to me. Tell me about you and Barbara. Would you like some more noodles?”

“No thank you. I mean, no noodles and no Barbara. If I talk about her then I’ll get onto my Aunt Estelle and from there it will be my mother and then my father’s death and I don’t feel like it tonight. Let’s discuss something frivolous—offshore tax shelters or something.”

“In a minute. Tell me, how old were you when your father died?”

“Ten. Why do you keep cross-examining me?”

“I’m not cross-examining you. I’m not a litigator. I’m just interested. Tell me about him. What was he like?”

“Very quiet. Undemonstrative.”

“Like your mother?”

“No. Look, David, I really would rather not go into it.”

“All right.”

“The weekend before he died he took me to the Museum of Natural History. I just remembered this. We spent hours looking at the stuffed animals. Mainly the birds. Here he was, this little nebbishy accountant with an absolute passion for birds. And I’d never known it before that day. He’d never given any indication about caring deeply for anything. ‘That’s a puffin,’ I remember him saying. ‘It’s a sea bird.’ And I told him it looked like a penguin and he began to explain the differences between the two, and he was so articulate, so self-confident, like I’d never seen him before and … shit, David. Why did I start this?”

I was crying. Not just a couple of tears straying down my cheeks, but a flash flood, so when I put my head down they dripped into my lap.

“Here.” David handed me his handkerchief. “I didn’t realize, Marcia. I’m sorry.”

“No more of this. It’s awful. People are staring.”

“Don’t worry.”

I sobbed, then sniffled into his handkerchief for a few minutes.

He reached across the table and patted my hand. “I had no idea it would still be such an emotional topic for you.”

“People are going to think you’re telling me good-bye, the way you’re patting my hand, that you’re running off with a tall thin brunette.”

“I only bother with tall thin brunettes when I’m desperate. Anyway, how could I even consider one of them when I have you?”

I stuffed his handkerchief into my handbag. Until that minute, I hadn’t realized I was doing anything that might jeopardize my status quo. I wasn’t cheating on Jerry, I told myself, because David was behaving like a friend. There was no sex. It was like going out for dinner with Barbara or Eileen. He was certainly no threat, no Noreen Ostermann like Barry brought home to our bed. I could imagine David in a tuxedo, in jodhpurs, in tennis shorts, but not naked, sweaty, rolling on top of a sheet. He was too fastidious, too mannerly.

But when we stood on Third Avenue waiting for a cab, he put a hand on the back of my neck and massaged it softly. “Whenever you’re ready,” he said. “I don’t want to put any pressure on you.”

I rolled around the bed that night alone, unable to find a part of the mattress tempting enough to seduce me into sleep. I didn’t desire David, but I didn’t want to tell him good-bye. I could, in my old promiscuous mode, let him take me to bed and keep himself amused; I could remain aloof. It wouldn’t be actually cheating on Jerry since we weren’t married. Technically there would be no adultery because I was a free woman; Jerry himself had determined there would be no ties. My insomnia mushroomed.