Close Relations (38 page)

“I know. No pressure. Would you make me an omelet for dinner?”

My mother called at least once a week with what appeared to be an agenda for a mother-daughter chat. It began with an inquiry into my health and my work and then proceeded into several well-thought-out observations on the state of the world, the nation, and the region, clearly garnered, in page order, from the “Week in Review” section of the Sunday
Times.
Then she’d ask, “How is David Hoffman?”

“Fine.”

“Just fine?”

“How else should he be?”

Once she said, “You know his father, Leo Hoffman, is a very sick man. A heart condition.”

“I’ve heard.”

“Is David an only child?” she asked coolly, trying to be subtle. I told her I wasn’t sure and ended the conversation.

David hated his father. It was not merely profound dislike of a cold parent whose only expressions of interest were “Your jacket is too big” or “You ride like a ranch hand.” His father had isolated him from his brother and his mother and not allowed him anything in compensation.

David’s mother was forty when he was born, and he said she never got over her surprise. Eleanor Cutler Hoffman had been a sculptor of minor repute. She was a charmer, a great hostess, also quite beautiful, with green eyes and thick pale brown hair.

“She always treated me like a guest,” David explained, stretching out his legs on his coffee table. “I would come into her studio to see her, about five in the afternoon, and she’d always sit up straight and say ‘David!’, as if I’d dropped in unexpectedly but she was thrilled to see me. She’d give me tea and we’d talk. I only saw her for an hour, but it was the highlight of my day. She was always so pleased when I came through the door.”

Leo Hoffman joined them occasionally and would tell his wife—in front of David—that she coddled him too much. “He’s a boy, Eleanor, not a suitor. Don’t ruin him.”

David said, “He tried to get her to agree to send me to boarding school in England when I was nine, but she wouldn’t go along. Then he held out for prep school and she almost agreed, but I kicked up such a fuss that she finally convinced him to let me stay home and go to school in Manhattan. You see, she really liked me. When I got older, she stopped giving me tea and offered me a cocktail every afternoon. There I was, a fifteen-year-old boy, drinking whiskey and soda and discussing Nevelson. But it all seemed very natural. We’d laugh, have a great time. She was always so delighted with whatever I said.”

His parents traveled a lot. David believed his father encouraged his mother to spend her winters in Boca Raton and her springs in Europe to keep them apart.

“You really think your father was that venomous? Or was it just that he didn’t care?”

“I think he was venomous. I can’t prove it. But I always felt his feelings were a lot stronger than indifference. I think he saw me as a rival.”

“I think you’re being unfair to him. He didn’t threaten your mother with bodily harm if she didn’t go to Europe. She went because she wanted to go. Don’t overromanticize her. She knew that traveling meant being away from you.”

“She loved me.”

“I’m sure she did. Why shouldn’t she? But if she had really wanted to spend more than an hour a day with you, you know damned well she could have managed it.”

“And your mother was so much better?”

“David, this isn’t a contest. My mother stayed with me because she didn’t have enough money to get to Manhattan, much less Europe. All I’m saying is that maybe you’re putting too much blame on your father.”

“This is a useless discussion. She’s dead.”

When David was in his freshman year of college, his mother discovered she had cancer. She announced it to him on Thanksgiving day. “The doctors are very hopeful,” she told him, patting his hand. By Christmas, he saw the doctors were wrong.

“My father hired private nurses, had an army of doctors. But he was in charge of everything. And he wouldn’t let me come home. He said it would interfere with my schooling and that it was too great a strain for her. She called me, though, once a week, but wouldn’t agree to see me. She said, ‘David, your father asked me not to and I must defer to him. He’s the one who will be around, the one you will have to deal with.’ She said she was feeling fine, getting the best possible care, and I should go ahead with my plans, go to Italy that summer. ‘I’ll be here when you get back,’ she said. I kept trying to change her mind but she refused to defy my father—and I could see the conversations were painful for her. Fatiguing.”

David’s eyes were filmed with tears, but he continued to speak.

“I saw her just twice, right before and after I went to Italy. I was so stunned the first time. She was so thin and so weak. She hardly had any strength in her hand. And then when I came back, it was as if she was barely there. I wanted to stay there, just stay. But my father insisted I get back up to school. And then she stopped calling two weeks after the beginning of the term. I kept waiting and didn’t hear from her. I called my father and asked him what was happening. He said. “Your mother is very ill.” I said I knew that and wanted to see her. He said she was in a hospital, but he wouldn’t tell me where. He said she was comatose and wouldn’t recognize me anyway. I waited six more weeks, and then my Aunt Marjorie—not my father—called to tell me when the funeral was.”

I pulled him next to me, holding him, kissing him, wiping his tears away with my fingers.

“And do you know what the irony of it is?” he whispered. “I always did everything my father wanted of me. I did well socially, academically, professionally. Even during those six weeks, I kept studying as though nothing were happening, as though she were just away for the winter. I got all A’s that semester. And my father congratulated me, said it showed great forbearance. He said, ‘I’m proud of you, David.’ “He stared at the rug for a moment. “I’m going inside for a little while. I feel like being alone. Excuse me.”

I met my cousin Barbara for lunch the next day. “Tell me about David’s father,” I demanded. “What’s he like?”

“Well, I only met him a couple of times. He seems nice. He has a kind of old-fashioned courtesy and a real dignity. I liked him.”

We sat at a table at Tavern on the Green, a restaurant surrounded by the moist leafiness of Central Park. Barbara leaned back in her chair. Her heavy, dark hair was pinned up on her head, but stray curls fell along her temples and the back of her neck. It looked artless, but she had just come from the hairdresser.

“We have been here over fifteen minutes,” she said, “and all you’ve done is make polite conversation. Now come on, I want to know absolutely everything.”

“What would you like to know?”

“I want to know every minuscule detail about you and David. Really, I think you owe it to me. First of all you met him at my house and … never mind. Just talk. I’m going to sit back and sip sangria and you’re going to fill me in.”

“Okay. I went out with him the Wednesday night after your party. We went to hear Claudio Arrau play Chopin. It was a very nice evening.”

“Marcia, please. I’m leaving tomorrow and I’ll be gone the rest of the summer. How can I go abroad with a clear head if I don’t know what’s happening?”

Every once in a while, the spirit of Aunt Estelle possessed Barbara and would speak through my cousin’s mouth: a word like “abroad” would emerge, a signal that the transfer of souls was complete. “Abroad” was one of those words that my aunt decided demonstrated delicacy of breeding. My Aunt Estelle believed that if you said “sofa” for “couch” and “purse” for “pocketbook,” people would immediately recognize you as gentry. My cousin Barbara had been worked over by her mother for too many years simply to go to Europe.

“What’s happening is that we’re seeing a lot of each other.”

“I know that. He told Philip that.”

“What else did he tell Philip?”

“Well, he implied that the two of you are quite serious.”

“We are and we aren’t.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I care about him very, very much. He’s the finest person I’ve ever known.”

“So? What’s holding you back?” I didn’t answer her. She leaned forward and mouthed, Sex? Then she said, “Stop laughing. How am I supposed to know what’s going on with you two?”

“Look, without going into detail, everything is fine. He’s wonderful. He’s bright and he’s charming and—”

“Then what in the world is wrong?”

“I don’t know. Everything is happening so fast. I feel very pressured: by David, by your mother, by the fact that I’m thirty-five.”

“But if you’re so happy with him, why not relax and enjoy it?”

“I’m trying to. But everyone keeps talking marriage and—”

“Marcia!” she said, putting down her glass. “Has he actually proposed?”

“If you tell anyone, Barbara, and I mean anyone …”

“I swear. Oh, my God, this is fabulous.”

“I don’t know that it’s fabulous. I don’t want to get swallowed up.”

“What are you doing, involving yourself in some Kierkegaardian snit over marriage? Do it!”

“No, I can’t just do it. I don’t know if I could handle the whole package, being a lawyer’s wife, dealing with a whole different class of people, with his children—”

“They’re adorable.”

“They may be. Everything about David is terrific, so why not his children? But I don’t want to become his wife just because there’s no reason not to. Do you understand me?”

“I understand that you’re frightened.”

“I’m cautious.”

“Do you love him?”

“I don’t know. I wish I could just say ‘whoopee’ and collapse in his arms. But I can’t. I know I love aspects of him. His intelligence, his decency, his polish. He’s so at ease all the time. He always does the right thing. Even when he’s angry or tired, he’s still courteous. But that’s unnerving too. He’s like a magnificently oiled machine that always works.”

“I think you’re just a little intimidated by his background,” Barbara said. “May I ask you something? Do you love him—well, sexually? I don’t want you to think I’m a voyeur or anything.”

“Sexually most of all.”

“Imagine. David Hoffman. It just goes to show that you never really know your friends.”

“But you know your cousin, so take my word for it. He makes my teeth curl. But is that enough to make a marriage?”

“Well, added to his other qualities. Anyway, Mar, be a little selfish. Aren’t you tired of running from pillar to post? Wouldn’t you like to indulge yourself, to buy expensive clothes, travel …?”

“Let’s order lunch. Paterno was acting more irrationally than usual this morning. There’s a meeting in his office at two thirty.”

“You’re upset with me. You think I’m mercenary, don’t you?”

“No.” The waitress came and took our order. Barbara described the salad she wanted in lush green detail, and even though it wasn’t on the menu, the woman promised Barbara she’d convince the chef to prepare it.

“You do think I’m mercenary,” she insisted. “It’s because you think there’s something intrinsically wrong with letting a man pay for things.”

“Barbara, come on.”

“But on the other hand, you’d also like nothing more than a nice duplex on Central Park West and three in help.”

“I’d rather have a penthouse on Park. I don’t like the West Side. It’s full of reformers and out-of-towners and old ladies who look like Grandma Yetta. Feh. Hey, Barb, remember the engagement party your mother made for the Drexlers, when Grandma took out her teeth and put them on the salad plate?”

“God, I repressed that. I wanted to die.”

“Remember your father-in-law? He didn’t even look away. He just acted as though it was the sort of thing that happened at most of the dinner parties he went to.”

“He’s wonderful. And Philip is just like him. But the West Side. You know David and Lynn lived there?”

“He told me.” I poured some more sangria. “Tell me about Lynn.”

“Well, she was intelligent. She had a master’s in English from Harvard. She wasn’t particularly pretty—but
very
big on top.” She paused. “Frankly, I couldn’t stand her. So tedious. I mean, her family had as much money as David’s, so she should have had some flair. But you’d go to their house for dinner and the food would taste like hay. And they had a cook. But Lynn would say—after we choked down four horrid courses—’Can you believe that everything we served tonight was made from soy flour?’ And of course you could.”

“What would have attracted David to her?”

“I’m not sure. I think it was simply the fact that she was there. They got married very young, when they were about twenty. They’re distant cousins and I think childhood sweethearts. And he tried to make it work. I mean, he was loyal, considerate. He seemed genuinely proud of her intellectual attainments. And she was the mother of his children, and that counted a lot with David. He’s a fabulous father.” The waitress came with the salad and presented it to Barbara. “Aren’t you wonderful!” Barbara said to her. “Just what I wanted. Thank you.”

“Do you always eat salads for lunch?” I asked.

“Always. It’s my curse. Anyway, Lynn. She was studious, dull, and not very much at ease socially. I mean, David travels in pretty high-powered circles and there was Lynn, with those awful handmade leather sandals that wrapped around her legs. She got them at some halfway house for the mentally ill. I really don’t see how he stood her. She was always going around sprinkling wheat germ on the children or inviting socialists to dinner.”

“Maybe she was all he had at the time.”

“Maybe, but he’s such a catch. You don’t know how lucky you are.”

“Your mother already told me.”

“At length, I’m sure. Anyway, what about the other one? Don’t look blank. Jerry.”

“What about him?”

“How did he take it, your moving out?”

“I didn’t move out.”

“What? Are you insane? If David finds out—”

“I’m just using the apartment a couple of nights a week. We hardly see each other. Even at work, we’re so busy that we don’t have time to talk. He thinks I’ve developed a sudden affection for my mother. And he goes out every night, comes in at all hours.”

“Marcia, move out of there. Please. It’s not right.”