Dive From Clausen's Pier (33 page)

“Why not be one now?” I said, looking at his profile.

He glanced at me and smiled ironically. “It’s too late, I already am who I am.”

Who was he? A Princeton graduate. A former Second World War
buff. The son of a woman who ate goose. I looked away from him, out at the water and then up at the sky, where, off to the south, a plane descended toward Newark.

“Let’s do something,” he said. “Let’s go to the top of the Empire State Building.”

“What, now? Is it even open on Thanksgiving?”

“It should be.”

We found a cab and rode uptown, the streets muted; it was strange to think of how many Thanksgiving dinners had been eaten in such close proximity. At 34th and Sixth we got out and walked east, the wind shuttling toward us. We had to ride an escalator downstairs for tickets, then another up to wait in line for the elevators. At the top, I bought a postcard of the building for Mike, angular against a bright blue sky. I felt terrible that it had taken me so long, but every time I’d thought of it I’d been stymied by what I could write, what tone to take. With Kilroy watching I put the card in my purse.

The wind was even fiercer on the viewing platform. I pulled my coat close. High above the city, we tried but failed to find the riverside spot where we’d been half an hour earlier, the Hudson itself a swath of crinkled black taffeta, creased with light. Below us the city multiplied and divided, neighborhoods and blocks and buildings—but within the buildings whole countries, whole worlds. The lights went on and on, and we walked to the north side of the platform and saw Central Park, like an enormous dark lake ringed by spangled forest. Fifth Avenue ran down the side of it, lit up and glowing.

“That’s where your parents live, isn’t it?” I said. “The Upper East Side?” I hadn’t even known I’d thought so until that moment. The Upper East Side—where the rich people lived.

Kilroy nodded. “A-yup.”

We continued walking, and he showed me Queens and Brooklyn, both vast and diffuse. Finally, at the south end of the platform, we stopped. The wind was stronger than ever, and I knotted my scarf tighter and tucked my gloved hands under my arms.

Kilroy shoved his hands into his pockets. “What does Maura do?”

I was surprised by the question, so out of the blue. “Maura, Lane’s Maura? Investment banking, why?”

He raised a shoulder and let it drop. “Just curious,” he said casually, but there was something artificial in the casualness, as if he’d really wanted to know—as if he’d suspected, in fact, and had thought to ask for verification precisely because we were staring down toward Wall Street.

He turned and leaned his back against the barrier, rubbing his bare hands together against the cold. “I was figuring her for a boho wannabe like the rest of them,” he said. “A sculptor or something—she has the hands for it.”

I stayed silent for a moment. “Why is it so awful to want to be something?”

A flicker of surprise passed over his face. “It’s not, unless it’s just a way to avoid having to think of yourself as ordinary.” He wrapped his arms around his chest and hunched his shoulders against the wind.

“What about you?” I said. “Did you ever want to be something other than what you were?”

“Sure,” he said. “I did and I do.”

My heartbeat picked up a little. “What?”

He shrugged. “Quiet in my head.”

My eyes filled, and I held them open wide. I imagined him on his couch reading, on the sidewalk walking. In McClanahan’s shooting pool, a look of sweet concentration on his face. Quiet in his head. He stood just a foot away from me, yet I felt there was a huge gap between us, a gap full of noise: the world’s and mine. Here it was, confirmed.

A woman with big blond hair and a red coat walked by us just then, and when she saw my teary eyes she gave me a look of pity.
No
, I wanted to say,
it’s not like that
—but I didn’t know what it was like, either.

C
HAPTER
24

Early in December Rooster called one Sunday when I’d returned to the brownstone to shower and change my clothes. I congratulated him on his engagement and he thanked me, saying, “Bet you thought the day would never come. I sure didn’t.” His voice was familiar, and yet somehow also unfamiliar—tinged with uncertainty. He seemed unsure how to talk to me, this person whom he’d known forever. This person who’d run away.

“So are you guys busy planning?” I said.

He laughed. “Joan’s real organized. Every now and then she’ll haul me somewhere to taste cake or whatever, but mostly she’s doing it with her mom.”

“Mike said late December?”

He hesitated. “Yeah.” There was a silence, and I thought he was going to say more. When he spoke again, though, it was to change the subject. “So you’re having fun? You like New York?”

“It’s amazing.” I sounded flat, and I tried again: “It’s really great.” I was disappointed that he wasn’t telling me more about the wedding.

“So what?” he said. “You’re living in some tenement or something? For free?”

I explained about the brownstone. “Eventually, the guy who owns the place will either remodel or sell it, but for now it’s basically the lowest rent around, and
no
rent for me.”

“That’s pretty lucky.”

“I know.” I’d told Simon recently that I felt guilty not helping with the rent, but he’d brushed off my concern.
Yeah, it’s a real problem for all of us that your stuff—not even you but your stuff—occupies a tiny bit of floor space that couldn’t be used for anything else
.

“Carrie?” Rooster said hesitantly, and now I saw I was waiting for an
invitation
to the wedding—that I wanted one. That was why I’d been disappointed earlier.

“Yeah?”

“I’m mad at you,” he said. “I mean, I have to be mad at you, you know? But I also get it. You were under a lot of pressure.”

My throat felt full. I remembered the day outside the library, back in July, how he slammed his fist against the wall. And how, visiting Mike right afterward, the two of us could hardly look at each other. “Thanks,” I said.

“But I am mad,” he said.

“I know.”

“The other thing—” he began, but then he broke off talking, and silence fell along the phone line. I had a sudden intimation of how hard this was for him. He’d talked about it with Joan. They’d planned what he would say. “Well,” he said, “this is probably selfish or something, but it would mean a lot to me if I thought you were happy for me.”

A warm feeling rose through my chest and into my face. I thought of all the years I’d known him, the Rooster who’d scared off dates with flowers and too much enthusiasm, the Rooster who’d shown up at my apartment on the odd Sunday morning to report sheepishly to me and Mike about the girl he’d just left, how she’d been weird waking up:
like she was
mad
at me
. It came over me all at once: Rooster had never had this before. Love. He’d never had it.

“I am,” I said. “I’m very happy for you. She’s lucky, Rooster. Really. And I always thought she seemed really nice.”

“She
is,”
he exclaimed. “She’s
really
nice. And she, like, likes me. I mean obviously, but—” He broke off. “Look,” he said, “this is awkward, I don’t know what your plans are, but Joan and I would really like to have you at our wedding, that’s all. That’s really what I called to say. It’s going to be on December twenty-third, and you’re invited.”

“Rooster.” Tears seeped from my eyes. “Thank you so much. I’ll be there, I accept. Thank you.”

“Really?” he said. “You’ll come?”

“Yes.”

There was a brief silence. “Can I tell Mike?”

I hesitated. Tell Mike what? I’d come back to New York afterward—I knew it without having to think about it. I’d come back and get a job. Obviously I wasn’t going to just float along like this forever.

“Carrie?”

“You mean tell him that I’ll be at your wedding?”

“Yeah.”

“Sure,” I said. “Go ahead.”

“OK, I will.”

I’d get a job, and Kilroy and I—would we live together? Maybe it would be better if I had my own place somewhere, tiny, maybe shared. Or maybe he’d ask me to move in with him.

“So,” Rooster said, “I’ll send you an invitation, but it’s going to be at our church at four o’clock.”

“Your church?”

“What, you mean because Joan’s from Oconomowoc? Normally I guess it’s in the bride’s hometown, but this way makes it a lot easier for Mike to be there.”

“That’s really nice,” I said.

“There’s no way I’d get married without Mike there.”

“I know you wouldn’t.”

He took a breath, then let it out. All that couldn’t be said hung there, between us. What he’d do for Mike. What I wouldn’t.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” he said. “There’s going to be a dinner thing at my folks’ house the night before, too. I mean, if you want. It’s going to be small—just our families and Mike and the Mayers. Oh, and Jamie and Bill.” He chuckled a little. “The new item.”

“What?”

There was a brief silence. “You don’t know?”

“Know what?”

He laughed. “Jamie and Bill are
dating.”

I was stunned. “Since when?”

“A few weeks ago, and you can’t imagine what they’re like together. It’s like, if they were capable of this, how could they have known each other all that time and not gone crazy?”

“Capable of what?”

“Major PDAs. I don’t even want to think about what goes on behind closed doors. Jamie’s completely manic—I can’t believe she hasn’t told you.”

I
couldn’t believe she hadn’t told him she was never speaking to me again. And her with Bill: I couldn’t believe that either. What had she said
at the going-away brunch for Christine?
The Beav looks grieved
. I remembered Bill across the table from me, stroking Christine’s hair. Christine was up in Boston now, just a day’s drive away. Did she know? Did she care?

“I thought you’d know,” Rooster said.

“Well, I didn’t.”

We talked for a little longer, but soon we ran out of things to say. There was only so far we could safely go, or so I felt. I was in the kitchen, and after I hung up I walked over to the door and looked outside. An old picnic table sat in the backyard, not far from where a Weber grill balanced on some crumbling bricks. In the summer Simon and his friends had reportedly run an extension cord out there and made piña coladas in the late evenings, when the sky was just falling to darkness. The idea reminded me of summer nights at home, a group of us eating sour cherry pie on my second-story porch. Mike and I and our attendants, Rooster and Jamie. Who were attending no more. Life had clicked onward. Now it was their turn.

I needed something wonderful to wear to the wedding. I had in mind something quietly stunning, something to set me apart as different now, changed. For the next few nights I lay awake late, dreaming up outfits. With Kilroy asleep beside me I imagined a brown stretch-lace T-shirt over a long brown taffeta skirt, a knee-length burgundy satin dress with a matching swing coat. I wanted something dark and rich for a Christmastime wedding. A gold peplum jacket over a paisley brocade skirt, a deep red wrap dress with a plunging V neckline. I’d need shoes and a bag. I’d need about ten thousand dollars.

On Wednesday I put on a pair of the side-zip black pants I’d made and a nice chenille sweater and went to Midtown, where I left the slow-moving crowds of shoppers on Fifth Avenue and entered Bergdorf Goodman. I just wanted to browse. To see what was available.

I’d been in plenty of department stores in my life, in Madison and Chicago, but never one like this, thick-carpeted and deeply quiet, a museum of the expensive. I moved through Accessories and Perfume, circling the hushed and scented ground floor, studying the exquisitely dressed saleswomen. There were few other customers: a pair of tweed-suited dowagers looked at gloves, while a tall blond couple in riding clothes examined a shiny wallet, talking softly in a foreign language.

The escalator rose quietly. Upstairs I wandered around, past clothes
hanging like art in carefully lit tableaux. I liked a stretchy gray pantsuit, then a midnight-blue beaded sweater with silk embroidery on the cuffs. In another department I found a deep purple top with a wide U neck shown over a two-layered wrap skirt in purple and silver. A gorgeous copper dress hung nearby, sheer taffeta with a slinky brown underslip visible inside.

A knee-length dress of green velvet beckoned me closer. It was a deep forest green that was almost black at certain angles, the velvet silky and deep, lush as a dense woods. The design was fitted and plain, with a round neck and a sculpted shape. A row of small satin buttons ran down the back, the same green as the velvet. There were satin cuffs, too, long and fastened by three more buttons, and hanging from one of these was a price tag that said $3,000.

“Would you like to try it on?” a saleswoman asked, appearing out of nowhere.

I followed her to an enormous dressing room with a chintz armchair, an adjustable three-way mirror, and lights dimmed to flatter. I took off my clothes and slid the dress on, the lining cool and silky going over my head. Just as I was wondering how I was going to button it up again, the saleswoman returned and did it for me, smoothing the velvet over my shoulders. When she was gone I looked in the mirror. The dress fit perfectly, the curved seams answering my curves, the sleeves fitted but supple enough for movement, the satin cuffs riding my wrists like silk bracelets. Exquisite.

I managed to unbutton enough of the buttons to get out of it, and then, idly, I turned it inside out and glanced at the lines of the seams.

“Do you need anything?” the saleswoman called, and I righted the dress, then put on my clothes and went out, telling her with a sad smile that it was just too big in the shoulders.

Dark green velvet. That’s what I wanted. The pinch of my poverty gave me a suffocated feeling, and I took a deep breath, then slowly let it out again. It was still early December. I had time to find something.

On the ground floor I wandered around again, touching scarves, walking through the just-sprayed mists of hundred-dollar perfumes. In Jewelry I looked at strings of black pearls, at intricate, sculptural earrings. My little diamond seemed frail here, from another time, another world. I wondered if Mike ever thought about it, if he guessed I was still wearing it. I wondered how he felt, knowing he’d see me in a few weeks.