Lily White (69 page)

“I don’t understand,” Leonard said warily.

“Sure you do. He couldn’t make it as a lawyer and you gave
him the perfect out: a thriving business. What a life he had with you! All he had to do was find some way to continue it without dragging me along. And he did. He found someone who hated what I had accomplished as much as he did, and together they were able to make their dreams come true: to bring me down and keep living high—off you. That’s what happened.”

“Then I guess this news is making you happy. You’re probably thinking: This is justice. They got what they deserved. All of them.” He waited, but Lee did not say: It doesn’t make me happy, or You did not deserve to come to this. “I’ll tell you why I’m here,” Leonard said, just before the pause became unbearable. “Besides your mother. Do you want to hear?”

“Do you want to tell me?”

“Hart’s Hill.”

“What about it?”

“Fos and Ginger can’t keep it up anymore.”

“They couldn’t keep it up twenty years ago.”

“It’s on the market now for next to nothing. Three mil. That’s a
steal.
”

“And?”

“We’re hoping to keep it in the family.” Lee studied the thin, gray man across from her. Had he lived with his own illusions so long that he now believed he and the Taylors were one? “I know this is a long shot, but hear me out. Hart’s Hill means something. It has meaning for your daughter. It’s her heritage. She’s a Taylor.”

“It may be part of her heritage. But the other part is a fourteen-year-old Jewish kid from Port Washington who gets ten bucks a week from me and baby-sits for the rest. Three million is a little steep for her.”

“Lee,” her father said, moving to the very edge of his chair, putting his dry hands on her desk. There was still a shadow of grace in his movement. For just an instant, she saw the man who
could hold up a rat’s skin and convince some rich matron it was better than mink. “Come on,” he urged. “How about it?”

“How about what?”

“How about you? Who better? Think about it: You don’t just have one Taylor, you have two living with you! Kent. He actually grew up there. And can you imagine how thrilled Valerie would be to move—”

“I don’t have that kind of money.”

“You don’t need as much as you think. Jazz talked the whole thing over with Fos. He’s willing to take back paper. He said he always liked you. Fos, I mean. And if it goes to a stranger … Don’t you see? It would be out of the family.”

“I don’t care. It’s not my family. My family lives with me in Port Washington.”

Leonard pushed himself up using the edge of her desk, but he didn’t get very far. Embarrassed, he pretended he had not tried to get up at all. “You’re a lawyer. This is a good business proposition. The next real estate upswing, you could double your money.”

“By the time the next upswing comes around, I’ll be double my age.” He braced his hands against the arms of the chair, but he did not try to stand. “Are you all right?” she asked. “Health-wise?”

“I’m fine.” He pushed and, finally, with a grunt, managed to get up. “Don’t close the door on this, Lee. For the sake of your child.”

“For her sake and my sake, she’s going to have to make her own way in the world.” Leonard turned and moved to leave. Lee walked around her desk and held the door for him. “Does Mom need nurses?” He shrugged. “I’ll be glad to help you with that.”

“That you have the money for?”

“Yes, for that I do. My checkbook’s at home. I’ll have an envelope messengered to you tomorrow.” Up close, just beside his
mouth, she could see a small patch of white whiskers his razor had missed.

“You know what’s interesting?” Leonard inquired.

“What?”

“From our room, lying in bed all day like she does: You look out the window and what’s the only thing you can see? Hart’s Hill.”

The following day, Lee wrote a check. She took it herself to the house in which she grew up. When her father answered the door, she handed it to him, along with a list of nursing care agencies. It was four in the afternoon, and he had not yet shaved. The white whiskers near his mouth had grown, and they stuck out of his face like an on-off button. She told her father that her check would cover one week’s worth of nursing care. After that, the agency could send the bills to her: simpler bookkeeping.

They both understood that Lee did not trust Leonard to spend thousands of dollars on a dying woman who was not in pain.

Lee told him she wanted to see her mother. He said he would go up and see if it was okay. She waited in the front hall and looked into the living room. She was not surprised that none of the furniture was familiar. Asian, she thought. Some country that had become stylish during the eighties. Sri Lanka, maybe, or Burma. Will would know. The fieldstone floors were bare. She wondered if that had been stylish or if they had sold the rugs. Leonard came down and said: You can go up. I guess I don’t have to show you the way.

She was seven weeks away from dying, but Sylvia looked better than her husband did. Her frosted blonde and gray hair, pinned softly on top of her head, emphasized her fine-boned face and long, thin neck. She looked like Katharine Hepburn would have
looked if Katharine Hepburn’s forebears had come from a Galician shtetl. “Come in,” she summoned Lee. Asia had been carried up to the second floor. The bed was a huge four-poster of white wood, every inch carved with flowers and—Lee looked closer—animal heads. It was the only piece of furniture in the room. For some reason Lee was not sure she comprehended, the bed stood at a forty-five-degree angle in the middle of the room. “Like it?” Sylvia asked.

“Yes. Beautiful.” Lee stood at the foot. The bottom of each post tapered into the head of some big cat—panther, maybe, or jaguar, dangerously stupid, with a flat, broad skull and fashionably elongated snout.

“Turn-of-the-century. Ceylon.” Lee realized her mother was watching her examine the room’s bareness, its white-painted walls and white-stained wood floor. “You’ve heard the expression ‘Less is more.’”

“Yes. Mies van der Rohe.”

“I don’t know anymore. I’m not sure he was right.”

“I hear you’re not well,” Lee said. She had to force her eyes from the white-lacquered flowers onto her mother.

“You heard what it is?”

“Yes. I’m sorry.”

Sylvia made a cynical sound, a sniff, a laugh. “How have you been?”

“Fine.”

“I was positive you’d remarry.”

“No.” Lee knew that if her sister had been there in her shoes, she would have had the sense to perch on the edge of the bed and confide about each and every man she had dated, being fair about their assets—a firm chin, a thriving rheumatology practice, a powerful backstroke—laughing at their devastating liabilities. Why couldn’t she do that? The woman was dying.

“Are you seeing anyone special?” Sylvia pushed herself higher
up against a pile of white pillows. She looked interested, almost hopeful. The pillows were serious white: not a ribbon or a ruffle had been permitted. Her nightgown, too, was unadorned white, as if it had been made from one of the sheets, although Lee guessed it had been hand sewn by exploited child laborers. “I mean, seeing someone you’re thinking of marrying?”

“No.” She saw her mother expected at least something more, so she gave it to her. “I wish I could find someone. I tried not to be too exacting, but if a guy pees on the toilet seat—”

“Urinates.”

“Or if he wears a gold ID bracelet there is no way I can marry him, much less love him.”

Her mother smiled. “You can wipe off the seat, but the ID bracelet … Did you ever get over Jazz?” she asked quietly, as if afraid of being overheard.

“Yes. Do you want to know why?” Lee was surprised to find herself sitting on the edge of the bed, beside her mother. “Because there wasn’t that much to get over. I missed his liveliness for a while. His energy. Jazz could make a party in a paper bag. And I missed the sex.” Sylvia did not blanch, but she paled a bit. “I’ll answer your unasked question,” Lee went on. “Yes: He may have been carrying on with Robin for years, but right up to the end, he was getting two for the price of one.”

“I always wondered,” Sylvia said softly.

“Now you don’t have to wonder. But getting back to the ‘did-I-get-over-him’ issue—”

“You really are a lawyer. Like my father. That’s where you get it from. You can pick up right where you left off.”

“Usually. I got over Jazz because my love for him was never that profound. He wasn’t that profound. I guess that means I wasn’t either. But beyond lack of depth, he wasn’t interesting. He wasn’t good.”

“Good at what?”

“He wasn’t a good person.”

Sylvia studied her wedding ring. “Well …,” she said. It was a syllable pregnant with meaning. Pull it out of me, it seemed to say. It
wants
to come out. It may not surprise you. I might say: He’s a good father. He had a good business head. Or: He’s been a good husband to her. Not good. The best. Sensitive to her sensitivity like you would believe. But it may be precisely what you want to hear. He had a bad business head: If that fool had had any foresight, we would still be mink marketers to Manhattan’s elite. Or: He’s not good. He’s cheating on Robin. Has been for years. Well, why shouldn’t Lee be midwife to all the unfinished business of her life? It wasn’t a hard job. She understood that all she had to say was: Come on, Mom. Please? Not in a pushy way. By being cute. A little tease in the voice. And out it would come. Such a small effort, and she would be the daughter this dying woman had always wanted her to be. And the dying woman had so much she could tell.

“It took two or three years to get over Jazz,” Lee said. “What I have never gotten over is the betrayal of my mother and father and sister.”

“Oh.”

“I’m sorry, but that’s the truth.”

“If you want to know the truth,” Sylvia said, “I thought the whole thing was terrible. Tacky.”

“No. ‘Tacky’ is for tasteless clothes. This was treacherous.”

“Whatever. I cried over it. I wanted to say something. I don’t mean to Robin. I
did
say something to her. I said: ‘Don’t you have any feelings? Don’t you care about what people are going to say? Your sister’s husband!’ And I even wanted to say something to you.”

“What?”

“I can’t remember. It was too long ago. But your father said: ‘Keep your mouth shut, Sylvia.’ Actually, he said ‘yap,’ not ‘mouth.’ ‘Keep your yap shut. There’s nothing we can do. We
can’t take sides. We have two daughters. And Jazz is my business partner.’”

“So you listened to him.”

“He’s my husband.” Sylvia closed her eyes. Her head wobbled until it found a place on a pillow. Her breathing was deep, untroubled. Lee thought she had fallen off to sleep. She got up from the bed. Sylvia opened her eyes. “What could I do?” she went on. “Go against my husband? Do you think he would have stood for that?”

“I don’t know. We’ll never know.”

“I couldn’t risk it. He could’ve walked out.”

“I told Dad I’d take care of paying for nurses for you.”

Sylvia perked up. This was clearly news to her. “Starting …?”

“Starting now. For however long you need them.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“They’ll give me sponge baths.”

“Yes. Whatever you want. They’re going to be well paid, so let them treat you royally.”

“Can you believe we’ve come to this? No money.” Sylvia was not sad. She was offended, as if someone had pulled a cruel practical joke on her. “He canceled the gardeners. It’s a good thing there hasn’t been too much rain this spring.”

“I’m glad I can help out.”

“How come you’re doing this? So you don’t have a guilty conscience later?”

“I’m doing it”—Lee bent over and kissed her mother’s cheek—“because it needs to be done. Okay?”

“Okay. I didn’t mean that. About a guilty conscience. It just came out.”

“Don’t worry about it. If you need anything, call me. Or have Dad or your nurse call me.”

“Lee.”

“Yes?”

“I like your shoes.”

Lee kissed her mother for the last time. What could she say? I hope it goes well? I love you? Good luck? Goodbye? Bon voyage? She said nothing. As she pulled back from Sylvia’s cheek, she glanced past the foot of the bed, out the window. From her mother’s eye level, she could see green lawn, the aqua pool, the trees, and just beyond, the poison-ivy-blanketed bluff at the end of the Whites’ property, which rose toward the Taylors’. But her father had lied to her. You could not see Hart’s Hill when you lay in that bed. It was much too high.

Lee White and Will Stewart did not stay long at the victory party in the catering hall on that first Tuesday in November. Being Holly Nuñez’s first supporters and having made the most generous contributions the law would allow, they were now not only members of the inner circle but also on a hugging basis with her. So as “Happy Days Are Here Again” was played for the one hundred sixty-second time that night, they dutifully hugged Holly, congratulated her yet again, then allowed her to be swept away from them into a sea of red, white, and blue balloons by a wave of delirious Democrats.

Will walked Lee to her car in the parking lot of the Chateau Briand, a catering hall that featured linguine in clam sauce, shrimp teriyaki, fried wontons, and absolutely nothing that was remotely French. “Well?” he asked. “How does it feel to be a queenmaker?”

“She was wearing hair spray tonight. I smelled it when I hugged her.”

“Not an impeachable offense.” Lee searched through her handbag for her Jeep key. “Are you tired?” Will asked.

“I’m forty-five and premenopausal. How can I not be tired? The point is, I’m not overtired. What about you?”

“I’m not menopausal.” She took out her key, but he leaned against the Jeep, right beside her, against the door.

“What’s up?” she asked.

“What time is it?”

“A little before midnight. Is your watch broken? A hundred billion dollars for that fancy Swiss thing, and it’s broken? You can’t even call it a watch. ‘Timepiece.’”

“It’s not broken,” Will said. “It’s later than I thought.”

Lee looked up at him. If the hard yellow light of the sodium-vapor lamp was unflattering to Will, she could only imagine how she looked at almost midnight. “Is this later than you thought business about the time? Or are you making a cosmic statement?”