Second Chances (35 page)

Of them all, it is Celeste whose loss has been most severe. Sara was killed (along with Alex and the pilot) in a helicopter crash, the day after she arrived in Nicaragua, and for Celeste her death has been close to unbearable. For such a very young person to be uselessly killed seems particularly horrible: Sara at forty was on the threshold of her life. And Celeste deeply loved Sara. Sara would have been a friend for the rest of my life, is how she puts it to herself, by which she means, in part, that it should have been Sara who would live on to absorb the blow of Celeste’s own death. Of the two of them, it was surely Celeste who was slated to go first.

Edward’s anguish has been over Freddy, who a month ago (dear Lord, it was on a Christmas note) sent the following: “I do in fact have
AIDS, as I thought last spring that I did. Please do not come here. I love you, I will love you wherever I go, eternal. But I am not now any more your pretty boy, and I do not wish you to see me. Also you must go and take the test.”

As though he too were mortally ill, Edward stayed in bed for four or five days (he later cannot remember this time clearly, this blur of pain), pretending to his friends that he was down with the flu. He could not read; his only activity was the occasional opening and heating of a can of soup. And writing to Freddy, the first of the letters that were to become his chief—and at times his only—occupation.

He knew that he should go and take the blood test for AIDS, but he knew too that it would be negative. After all, he and Freddy had not—not done anything of that nature (even to himself Edward has trouble with the words), not for years. Nor anyone else (he is somehow sure that the boy at Celeste’s crazy yellow party didn’t count).

And he is right. He takes the test: negative. Which, horribly, seems almost a further rejection by Freddy, in the sense that at worst Edward almost wishes that he were carrying the virus. Perhaps he instead of Freddy? After a time, though, he recognizes the sheer insanity of that line of thought: If that is how I feel, I might as well get on with suicide, he says to himself. Which he quite simply decides not to do.

The alternative that suggests itself, after a couple of weeks, is what his mother would have called “something constructive.” He gets in touch with the Shanti Project in San Francisco, and learns that in many cases just visiting would be much appreciated. Somewhat hesitantly he tells them, “I could read aloud. I’m rather good at that, if anyone would like it.”

And that is what Edward has begun to do. On Monday, Wednesday and Thursday afternoons he drives to certain addresses, mostly in his own area, in Gilroy and Cupertino, Salinas, Watsonville. He knocks at doors, he is shown to certain rooms, sickrooms, and there, sometimes in the presence of another person—a mother, a lover, once a wife—but more often alone, he talks to and often reads to the frail, dying man who is the inhabitant of that room. The stand-in for Freddy.

“I have never agreed with the sentiments of Mr. Eliot. That business about the last temptation being the greatest treason, doing the
right deed for the wrong reason. Poor Thomas Becket, remember? Even if you do something mildly useful for a silly or crazy or even a quite crass reason, it’s still something mildly useful that you’ve done.” Edward said all that to Dudley, as a sort of postscript to telling her what he was doing. “Scratch an old New Englander and you find an obnoxious do-gooder,” he added, as if in apology.

“Not me, I don’t think,” Dudley told him. “But, Edward, what you’re doing is really good.”

The rumor that Edward had sold his house to a Chinese doctor turned out to be inaccurate, the truth being that Edward, as realtor, sold a house in Aptos to such a person, a scholar-doctor whose avocation is translating medieval French poetry. In the course of property negotiations he and Edward became quite friendly. Edward also likes the doctor’s wife, a painter, a very pretty young woman, in Edward’s view. Dr. and Mrs. Thomas Tan.

Also, the house involved was expensive, thus Edward’s commission was sizable. Making him for the moment relatively solvent.

As gently as he could, he told Celeste that he simply did not believe their living together would work out well. But maybe in a year or so they should consider it again.

He gathers that Celeste has had more or less the same conversations with Dudley, who, like himself, seems to prefer living alone. Still. For the moment.

Dudley herself has not undergone severe personal tragedy since the death of Sam—as though that were not enough, she has said to herself. But in quite a different way she also cared enormously for Sara, who was just becoming an important, even a necessary friend. And she cares about Freddy, whom she has known for so many years, whom she loves.

So awful that you can’t use the word “gay” anymore, Dudley thinks; Freddy was—well, he
is
genuinely gay. Warmhearted. Fun. A generous, good person. And so attractive. And of course she also feels Edward’s pain, as well as Celeste’s.

She still sees Brooks Burgess, though less. Christmas came and
went, and she did not go up to Ross, surely not as Brooks’s fiancée, nor as his “friend.” And Dudley has come to understand that Brooks is actually quite content with things as they are between the two of them. He does not really want to be married again, any more than Dudley does, really. He simply wants the appearance of wanting to be married. He likes the idea of himself as a suitor, laying siege. And so it is only necessary for Dudley to tell him from time to time, very gently, that she doesn’t think she wants to marry again. She misses Sam.

She is still negotiating the trip to Ireland with her magazine, along with a couple of more practical, more immediate articles. And sometimes she considers asking Brooks to come along to Ireland; at other times she thinks she will ask Celeste. I really have more fun with Celeste, she thinks. And maybe Edward too? Well, why not?

Walking along, that January day, the three of them form a rather straggling line. Celeste, much the smallest of the three, walks fastest, in the lead. Then comes Dudley, whose arthritis has recently afflicted one knee, so that she limps a little. And then Edward, who has the least breath, who huffs and puffs along.

It is finally Edward who says, “Ladies! Shouldn’t we have a short rest?”

Halted, Celeste breathes hard, unable for several moments to speak, and Edward too is literally out of breath.

Dudley, though, seems quite all right, in terms of breath, and so it is she who first speaks. “Edward, you remember this time last year? Oh, it seems so long ago, but it’s gone like, like nothing.”

“We went for a walk?” Edward frowns, not quite remembering.

“Of course we did, and we talked about—well, we were talking about you, dear Celeste.”

Still breathing hard, Celeste smiles up at her friends. “I can quite imagine that you were. That was my crazy period. Bill.”

“Well, you were giving that party. None of us had met him yet,” admits Dudley.

Celeste’s great brown-black eyes can be seen to fill. “Nor poor Sara.”

Dudley’s eyes tear too as she simply says, “No, she wasn’t here yet.”

But Celeste is programmatically opposed to even small moments of mourning: such a waste, such expenditure of spirit. Very briskly she tells them, “He’s back in the CIA, Bill is. Or still there. Living in McLean.”

Digesting the terribleness of these facts: Bill returned from Nicaragua safe and sound, and Sara dead and buried there (Celeste: “No, I am not going to have that poor child dug up and ‘re-interred.’ I am not interested in bodies”)—taking in as best they can that dreadful, preposterous unfairness, the three of them are quiet for a time, all breathing hard. However, they are all of an age to have witnessed worse instances of injustice. Life itself is very unfair, they all know that.

“But look, what an incredible day this is,” exclaims Celeste, and she points toward the hazily golden west, where soon the sun will set. Now, in late afternoon, the blue air has begun to chill, though still perfectly clear. From where they stand, on their green hill, they can see all their houses.

And they can see much of the town. San Sebastian, their town. Only, it isn’t our town at all, Dudley is thinking. We’ve quite consciously kept ourselves out of it, back from it (all of us except Polly, that is). Dudley finds this frightening, not in any specific way: she does not imagine that those particular townspeople will rise against them, three relatively innocuous elderly people—but rather in a general way that those long ignored, those dealt with most unfairly, if dealt with at all, must eventually challenge the ruling complacency.
Terrifying
. She imagines cataclysms.

“Well,” Celeste announces. “My house for tea. It’s time. But I have to stop off on the way to feed Polly’s cats.”

“I’ll just stop by my house to check the mail,” Edward tells them. “I’ll be there in a jiff.”

In his mailbox Edward finds exactly what he would have most hoped for, a card from Freddy—and Freddy on a trip to Oaxaca, where his sister lives. (Edward remembers this fact about Freddy instantly, as
he remembers everything connected to Freddy.) The picture is from the Tamayo Museum, a green pottery jar of exceptional beauty, to Edward’s greedy eyes. “This week I am visiting here,” Freddy writes. “A place that I love. We have perfect weather. I wish that you could be here too. All love from Freddy.”

Edward seizes on these words, which he will continue for days to ponder. Famished, he scrutinizes constructions, he searches out possible signals.

The first and most obvious meaning is that Freddy is feeling better, he was able to make this small trip—although Edward knows that the reprieve may be temporary. But: “I wish that you could be here too.” Well, of course Edward could be there, in a flash. In less than a day. But is that what, literally, it means?

In any case, something to think about. Happily. By the time he gets to Celeste’s, his face is out of control, Edward feels. He can’t not smile.

Celeste and Dudley too have a card to show him. From Polly, in Barcelona. “My favorite city,” Polly writes. “I’ll hate to leave. But back Jan. 25. See you then. Love, Polly.” On the other side is a picture of the Maritime Museum, a great vaulted interior of glass and stone, in the foreground the bare wooden ribs of a ship. And the picture has a caption, a motto:
Navegar es necesario. Vivir no es necesario
.

“ ‘It is not necessary to live.’ How very Spanish, and how very like Polly, don’t you think?” Edward, who is still smiling, asks them this.

They agree.

“The twenty-fifth is next week, though,” Celeste exclaims, in some alarm.

“Well, isn’t that all right? You sound as if Polly isn’t supposed to come home so soon,” Dudley gently chides.

“No, of course that’s not what I mean. I just meant, what do we do now? About, uh, them?”

“You mean, the fact that they are together?” Dudley teases. “Polly and, uh, Victor?”

“I suppose I do mean that. But you must admit, it is odd? We haven’t exactly known him before.”

“Do you mean, do we have a dinner for them?” asks Edward. And he adds, “Why not?”

“I think so too,” agrees Dudley. “It’s what we always do, isn’t it? Someone coming back from a trip?”

“Well, fine then. But who else will we have?” asks Celeste. And then she answers herself, “Maybe, just ourselves? In fact, I think that will be perfect. A little celebration.”

Books by Alice Adams

Careless Love

Families and Survivors

Listening to Billie

Beautiful Girl
(stories)

Rich Rewards

To See You Again
(stories)

Superior Women

Return Trips
(stories)

After You’ve Gone
(stories)

Caroline’s Daughters

Mexico: Some Travels and Travelers There

Almost Perfect

A Southern Exposure

Medicine Men

The Last Lovely City
(stories)

After the War

The Stories of Alice Adams

Alice Adams was born in Virginia and graduated from Radcliffe College. She was the recipient of an Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. She lived in San Francisco until her death in 1999.