Guilt by Association (29 page)

She turned, checking from every angle, looking for anything that might be amiss. But everything was just as it should be.
With a satisfied sigh, she picked up her purse, let herself out of the apartment and walked over to Lexington Avenue in search of a taxi that would take her to the West Side.

“It’s just a small get-together for my brother’s fortieth birthday,” Nancy had explained in early September. “He’s been an absolute recluse since his wife died and I want to do something special for him. Joe’s sister and brother will be there with their spouses and offspring.”

“But it’s a family gathering,” Karen objected. “I don’t belong there.”

“Of course you do,” Nancy insisted and would hear no argument.

In truth, the Yanows were almost like family. In the past six months, Karen had been in and out of their house as if it were her second home. Although she’d never met the guest of honor, she probably knew Nancy’s husband and their children better than she knew her own niece and nephew and brother-in-law, now that Laura had moved to Boston.

“Can I help with anything?” she asked.

“Yes,” Nancy replied. “I have my eye on that new Rankin, the little one with the clown. I think my brother would love it.
If I give you a deposit, do you think you could put it away for me?”

The painting was a whimsical Rankin, with the subject balancing nonchalantly on a unicycle while the rest of the circus whirled all around him with dizzying speed. “Sanity-in-san-ity,” Mitch called it, and it always made Karen smile.

“Done,” she said. “But I won’t put it away. I’ll just mark it ‘sold’ and leave it hanging. Better for business.”

Now the painting was wrapped and waiting in Nancy’s study and all there was for Karen to do was get herself crosstown.

Joe Yanow answered her ring. A jovial man, even rounder than his wife and almost as short, with crinkly laugh lines and thinning hair, he gave her a broad smile and a big hug. It was a Mitch Rankin kind of hug and Karen had become used to it.

“Nancy’s in the kitchen, the kids are up in the playroom, and everyone else is in the study watching the Orioles cream the Pirates.”

“I’ll try the kitchen,” Karen decided as a huge groan escaped from the study, “in case the hostess needs a hand.” She had never been able to muster much enthusiasm for baseball, not even the World Series.

The kitchen was in turmoil, which meant that Nancy had everything under control. After the barest of greetings, the hostess shoved a platter of canapés into Karen’s hands.

“With all the complaining going on in there, a diversion is surely in order,” she suggested.

Karen carried the assortment of ham rolls, stuffed celery and deviled eggs into the study.

Up close, there was a good deal of resemblance between Ted Doniger and his sister except that Nancy was short while Ted stood at almost six feet. They shared the same sharp nose, easy smile, square jaw and blond hair, but Nancy’s eyes were a cool blue,
while Ted’s were a rich hazel with warm gold flecks in them.

He was wearing gray slacks and a pale-yellow turtleneck sweater that looked like cashmere, and he was smoking a pipe that smelled delicious. He might not have been what some considered handsome, but Karen thought he had a nice face, a comfortable face.

“I’m not sure what all the excitement is about,” he whispered as he helped himself to a ham roll and a deviled egg from the plate of canap6s. “We hated the Pirates when we were kids growing up in Reading.”

“That’s okay,” Karen whispered back. “To me, a strike is when workers want more wages, a batter is what I whip up to make pancakes, and a run is something I’m always getting in my stockings.”

The gold flecks began to dance in his eyes. “That’s pretty good,” he said appreciatively. “Of course, some of the others might consider it heresy.”

“Then I won’t repeat it,” Karen told him as she moved on with her platter.

As if by design, the children clambered downstairs the moment the final pitch was thrown. Roger and Emily rushed to give Karen a hug, but the others hung back.

“The snot-nosed monsters are mine,” Joe’s sister announced, nodding to two scruffy little boys.

The three Doniger girls peered out from behind their father.

“I don’t think she bites,” Karen heard Ted whisper.

The oldest, blond like her father, round and blue-eyed like her aunt, took half a step forward.

“I’m Gwen,” she said. “I’m twelve.”

“Hello, Gwen,” Karen answered with a smile. “I’m Karen. I’m thirty-seven.”

Gwen gasped and the others giggled.

“That’s pretty old, isn’t it?”

“It depends on the day,” she was told.

“I’m Jessica,” the middle girl ventured. She had straight brown hair and her solemn brown eyes were fixed warily on the strange woman. “I’m almost nine.”

“When I was nine,” Karen responded, “I was in the fourth grade.”

“I’m in the fourth grade,” Jessica said.

“I’m Amy,” the youngest piped up. “I’m five and my mommy’s in heaven.”

Karen smiled at the towhead with her father’s golden eyes. “You’re very grown up for five,” she said, “and I’ll bet your mommy is looking down at you right this minute and feeling very proud of you.”

“Do you think she can see me right through the roof?” the little girl asked, searching the heavy beamed ceiling.

“I think she can see you anywhere,” Karen declared. “That’s what’s special about being in heaven.”

“Do you think Herman can see me, too?”

“Oh, Amy,” Gwen exclaimed.

“Who’s Herman?” Karen asked.

“He’s our hamster,” Jessica explained. “He died last week and we buried him in the yard.”

“I think all those we love find a way to stay with us,” Karen said, “even after they’re gone.”

The five-year-old tucked her hand inside Karen’s and leaned close. “I kept his little red ball,” she whispered. “It was his favorite toy. I sleep with it under my pillow.”

“When I was your age, I had a kitty,” Karen whispered back. “When he died, I did the same thing.”

Nancy had stretched her classic Sheraton dining room table to its limit to accomodate the eight adults and seven children who crowded around it. She had planned to seat Karen between Joe and Ted, but Amy insisted on sitting beside her new
friend and Gwen slipped quickly into the seat on Karen’s other side.

“Well,” Nancy said and smiled, “so much for my place cards.”

The dinner was sumptuous. Mrs. Peagram, the stout matron who kept house for Ted and the girls, did the serving and clearing,
which allowed Nancy to stay with her guests.

The company made its way through lemon consommé and butter-lettuce salad to individual Rock Cornish hens stuffed with wild-rice pilaf and served with tiny glazed carrots and onions and tender tips of asparagus. Karen wondered where Nancy had found fresh asparagus this time of year.

“Shouldn’t they have let this poor chicken grow up first?” Gwen murmured.

“It’s not a chicken—it’s a special kind of hen that doesn’t get any bigger,” Karen just had time to reply before she felt a tug at her sleeve.

“Would you cut my meat for me, please?” Amy asked. “I’m too little to do it by myself.”

Karen smiled. “One meat-cutter coming right up.” She started to slide the child’s plate over and then changed her mind. “If I put my hands on top of yours,” she suggested, “we can do it together. Then, when you’re old enough, you’ll know how.”

“Oh, let’s do it that way!”

Karen placed Amy’s small hands in the correct position on the knife and fork, then covered them with her own hands and carefully guided the utensils until they had reduced the hen to bite-sized pieces.

“Oooh, that was fun,” the little girl exclaimed. “Can we do it again next time?”

“Only if you promise to eat every morsel.”

Amy’s eyes widened in dismay. “But I’m a picky eater,” she exclaimed.

“Who told you that?”

“Mrs. Peagram,” came the solemn reply. “She says it all the time.”

“Well, I used to be a picky eater, too,” Karen confided.
“Then one day, I ate everything on my plate. That plate was so clean it didn’t even have to be washed, and everyone was so surprised that their mouths hung open. After that, they called me a piggy eater.”

Amy giggled and then frowned. “But I don’t like to eat what’s good for me.”

“Oh, but that’s not how it works,” Karen told her. “You don’t eat because you have to—you eat because it’s so much fun. Corner that onion, crunch that carrot, down that rice, chomp that hen. The carrot says, ‘If she thinks I’m good for her, she won’t eat me and I’ll escape.’ The onion says, ‘If I make myself slippery, she won’t like me and I’ll escape.’ It’s all a big game,
you see—you against the food. Now, the question is, who’s going to win, you or the food?”

Amy turned immediately to her plate and speared a piece of carrot with her fork. At the foot of the table, Nancy grinned.
Across the table, Ted Doniger watched.

I
don’t know,” Mitch said, cocking his head to one side. “It still looks crooked to me.”

Karen leaned as far back off the ladder as she dared and squinted up at the painting.

“We’ve almost got it,” she insisted.

“A little more on the left,” Mitch directed.

“My eye tells me more on the right,” she replied.

“Look, I’m the artist,” Mitch insisted. “I tell the manager. I say, on the left.”

“I’m the manager,” Karen declared. “I
sell
the artist. I say on the right.”

“Get the spirit level,” Mitch demanded.

“What spirit level?” Karen retorted. “I’ve never needed a spirit level. I’ve got a perfect eye.”

“Then get another opinion.”

“A little more on the right,” a voice behind them said.

Karen turned so abruptly that she almost fell off the ladder and Mitch had to grab hold of her to make sure she didn’t. Ted Doniger was standing there with his feet apart and his hands in his pockets.

“That’s what I said,” she affirmed.

“How can you say that?” Mitch argued.

Ted shrugged. “I’ve got a perfect eye,” he replied with a smile.

“You’d better believe him,” Karen told Mitch. “He’s an architect. He also owns one of your paintings.”

“And if you stop fussing over this one long enough for me to get a good look at it,” Ted said, “I may own two.”

Mitch looked at Karen. “A little more on the right,” he grumbled.

Karen pushed the right corner up a fraction of an inch and climbed down off the ladder.

“There,” she said to Ted. “Now you can look all you want.”

Mitch had taken to the sea this time to create a violent storm that threatened to topple a solitary sailboat into the teeming,
roiling depths.

“The movement is great,” Ted observed. “The urgency, the recklessness, the precariousness—all balance so well. It’s got very much the same feeling as my clown, and yet it’s totally different.”

Karen smiled. “I wasn’t sure at first, but Nancy really did choose the right gift.”

“Nancy spent too much money,” he replied.

“So, what brings you here?” Karen asked.

In the month since the birthday party, she had seen him several times—at a Sunday brunch, once or twice in passing on the weeknight evenings when she and Nancy worked on their book, on the Saturday afternoon when they had all gone to the Hayden Planetarium—and a friendship had begun to grow between them in the nice slow way that lasting friendships always grew, like her friendship with Mitch and John and Joe Yanow had grown.

They found they had a lot in common and that it was easy for them to talk to each other. They made each other laugh.

“I come bearing an invitation,” Ted announced.

“Sounds promising so far,” Karen said with a warm smile. “Speak more.”

“Mrs. Peagram is making the turkey, Nancy is making everything else, and the girls and I would very much like you to come to our place for Thanksgiving.”

The smile dimmed. Thanksgiving was the one traditional holiday that Beverly Kern took very seriously. Friends and relatives were culled from as far away as Palm Beach and Grosse Pointe. Laura and family were coming down from Boston, of course, and Karen’s appearance at Knightsbridge Road was mandatory.

“I wish I could,” she sighed, “but that’s the one day of the year, above all others, that I’m obligated to spend with my parents.”

The disappointment showed clearly in his eyes. “That’s too bad,” he said. “We’ll miss you. You’ve sort of become part of the family.”

It was true. As the Sullivan Street set had once accepted her into the fold, so now did the Doniger/Yanow clan, going out of their way to include her in many of their activities.

“That’s because you’ve made me feel so welcome,” Karen responded. “It’s been a little like discovering a whole new brother and sister I never knew about.”

“I’m very glad you feel that way,” he said. “I mean, you know, comfortable with us.”

Karen grinned. “So comfortable I don’t even mind you seeing me in my sweats.”

He had caught her one Sunday morning, dropping off a book Joe had ordered from Demelza, when she was in a hurry and hadn’t bothered to dress.

“But I like your sweats,” Ted protested. “They look very … comfortable.”

The two of them laughed.

“Someday,” she said, “you wait and see, sweats are going to become haute couture.”

“Are you going to be spending the whole Thanksgiving weekend with your family?” he asked.

“Not a chance. I have to work on Friday. It’s always one of our busiest days.”

“Well then,” he declared, “all is not lost. You can come for leftovers.”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

“One condition, though—you have to promise to wear your sweats.”

Karen poked him in the ribs. “Very funny.”

Ted turned back to Mitch’s oil. “How much?” he asked.

“Forty-five hundred,” Karen told him.

“Why not bring it with you when you come and we’ll see how it looks.”

It was the first time Karen had been invited into the downstairs half of the house on West Seventy-eighth Street, and it was every bit as dramatic as the upstairs, with the same high beamed ceilings, exposed brick walls, and polished floors. But the resemblance ended there.