The Ramblers (5 page)

Maybe Smith is right. Maybe she's being far too dramatic about this. It's true, it wasn't as if she lied outright, but what troubles her is that she's been consciously withholding something significant, editing herself around him to play it safe. It's just that it's been so nice to get swept up in this other world, the dates and the romance, and plus, she was so sure it was just a fling anyway. She saw no reason to burden this unsuspecting man with her dark childhood tales. But now something has shifted, and she can't shake the feeling that they really don't know each other. They've skipped over some important steps.

“I have to tell him. I need to tell him everything, lay all my cards on the table.” She says this almost as if to reassure herself, but the very thought of this panics her.

“You should. Henry's a grown-up. He's not some immature asshole who can't handle real life. He'll understand, Clio. It might even bring you closer. Think about that.” It's as if Smith can read her mind. She looks up at her friend, who appears pensive, like she is thinking very hard.

“Let me ask you something simple, okay?” Smith says. “What do you want?”

“That's something simple?”

What does she want? The problem seems to be that she has no idea what she wants. The problem seems to be that she's never quite believed that she's allowed to want anything at all. She didn't grow up in Smith's charmed world where desires were voiced, dreams trumpeted. What she wants? She wants to stop worrying so much, to stop having these crippling attacks of anxiety, to live her life. She wants to see her mother one last time. She wants to sleep soundly at night and wake up each morning and do her research and give her lectures and lead her tours.

Does she want to commit to a man who is so much older, who lives in a
hotel
,
of all places? Isn't that alone strange enough? Who lives life in a hotel? Eloise, a character from a children's book who also happens to share her mother's name, that's who. A fictional creation. And everyone knows that women outlive men by an average of five years. What if he gets sick? She's survived one loved one's illness; she doesn't know if she can handle it again. Wouldn't it somehow be easier to cut her losses now and be alone? All these years of throwing herself into her hard work at the museum and at Columbia and coming back here night after night to fall asleep reading her research have brought her immense satisfaction, yes, but they've also been years of avoidance. As long as she's stayed busy, she hasn't been able to consider this question.

The truth: she doesn't know what she wants.

“You love him, Clio,” Smith says. “In all the time I've known you, I've never seen you like this. You're a different person with him. You're glowing. You smile more. You love him. You are in
love
with him.”

I am,
Clio wants to say, but she stops the words before they can fall from her. She's never felt this way about a man. Yes, there was Jack, the boy next door in New Haven, but that was friendship, not love. There was that one night in her bedroom, but he was practically a brother to her. And then there was the handful of men she dated after college—well, slept with a few times and then cast off for one lame reason or another. But even in the relatively brief time she's been with
Henry, she can tell how different this is. She wakes up each morning thinking of Henry, goes to sleep wondering about him, conjuring up a list of questions she hopes she will get a chance to ask. Her fascination with him is not wholly unlike her passion for hummingbirds, how they hover and eat and sleep. She wants to know everything about him: Does he remember his nightly dreams? Has he always preferred vanilla to chocolate? What places must he visit in his lifetime? But with love comes fear. She knows just how invested she is because when she pictures a life without him she feels miserable, terrified.

“Just tell him,” Smith says, determination spiking her words. “No one on earth has a perfect family, Clio. You and I both know that firsthand.”

Funny for her to say,
Clio can't help but think. Smith likes to fuss about her family, how overbearing they can be, how materialistic and entitled they are, but Clio has a hard time feeling too sorry for her friend. Yes, her father, Thatcher, can be imperious and controlling and has always made Clio feel uneasy, but Bitsy, despite her sometimes meddling ways, is a devoted and mindful mother. She brings chicken soup when her daughter has even a whiff of a cold and happily stocks the fridge with Smith's favorites from Zabar's—smoked salmon and herring and peppery rotisserie chicken; mini black-and-white cookies and rounds of brie—when she's busy with clients. All four of them—the parents and both sisters—live here in this building and gather at least once a week for dinner. Smith talks to her mom and sister several times a day. Clio is willing to concede that every family has its issues, but the situation with the Andersons has always been pretty enviable to her. All she wanted growing up was one ounce of the consistent attention and affection Smith continues to receive on a daily basis.

“I know you don't believe this, but you're a catch, Clio,” Smith says as they walk together toward the kitchen. “You're smart and fascinating and, well, I mean
look
at you. Let's just say you've come a long way from your
college look
.”

“My college look?” Clio says, laughing.

Smith disappears for a moment and returns clutching a photograph of the two of them in their caps and gowns on graduation day. “Evidence,” she says, placing the frame in Clio's hands.

Clio looks at the image of her younger self, pale, thin, her round eyes hidden behind big plastic-framed glasses. Smith's right; she has evolved.

“I saw the way Henry looked at you last night. The man is smitten. He could have anyone, Clio, and he's chosen you for a reason. Because you're special. Give the guy some credit that he will accept
all of you
.”

As Smith retreats to the kitchen to get the coffee started, Clio ducks into the laundry room and eyes a pile of dirty clothes. Instinctively, she begins separating it into lights and darks, like she used to. In their first years here, when Clio couldn't contribute much financially, she'd do their laundry to feel better about the situation.

“Stop, Clio. You don't need to do that,” Smith says insistently, as she always does, but Clio continues. “You should at least let Henry know you're okay. He's probably worried sick.”

“I texted him when I got here to tell him that I'm alive.” Clio pauses and smiles. “Do you remember that night after our first date when we Googled him?”

Smith nods. “Of course. We stayed up forever.”

I met someone,
Clio said that night when she returned to the apartment. She'd tried to sound nonchalant. For a moment, Clio thought she saw Smith flinch, as if she'd been punched in the stomach. But then Smith reached for her laptop so they could Google him. At first Clio felt a flare of resistance to this idea; part of her wanted to stop her friend, to put off the information-gathering and just let this play out. But she said nothing and sat by Smith's side as she clicked her way through Henry's past.

All they had to do was type in
Henry Kildare Ireland hotel
and they learned quite a lot. Of his birth in 1963 in Stranmillis, a suburb of Belfast; his graduation with honors from Oxford, where he studied business. The names of his hotels in Northern Ireland and here in the
States. The awards he'd collected for his professional and philanthropic greatness. A profile of him in
Vanity Fair
revealed that he moved to the United States in 1994. Two sentences in this article popped:
I'm not looking to get married. I'm married to my work.

Sound bites. A cliché. At the time, all of it an immense relief. Reading this about him, Clio felt hopeful and encouraged. On the topic of marriage, she was not indifferent. The fear in her was real, jagged. Possibly a bona fide phobia, she learned. It had a clinical name even:
gamophobia
. While friends like Smith giddily anticipated this step in their lives, the idea of it petrified Clio. She was willing to feel love, to commit to a point, but the concept of forever, of a legal binding to another person, haunted her. Henry, with his five decades of bachelorhood and demanding professional life, seemed a safe bet, a man who wouldn't push her toward something she wasn't ready for.

And then there were pictures. Images of Henry, always appearing slightly disheveled in his quirky, tweedy finery, old-fashioned suits and hats, those old Dubarry boat shoes, always the same subtly crooked smile, a litany of swan-necked socialites draped on his side. Also: a younger Henry with his banker father, Declan Kildare, and with his late mother too, Dublin-born Aoife Kildare, an administrator for the Grand Opera House. Clio could see that Henry had her almond-shaped eyes. At the flurry of images, Smith grew excited.
Look at you, finding a blue-eyed George Clooney.

The details had a funny, almost dizzying effect on Clio. The more she learned, the less real he seemed. The image in her mind of this bedraggled, intelligent man on the park bench began to recede as she took in image after image of the same yet different man. The hours spent searching made her feel like what happened in the park was fiction, a footnote that would be lost.

But then she read
Here Is New York,
the little book that he'd clutched in his hands and raved about. When she finished the book, a piece of paper floated to the carpet of Smith's guest room and she scrambled to retrieve it.
You might just be my thing.

Clio checks the time, sees that it's coming up on nine. “Oh no. I'm going to be late for my tour.”

Clio scrambles to get dressed. In the bathroom, she splashes water on her face and wipes away some of last night's makeup, which still lingers. She pulls her hair back in a ponytail. Back in Smith's guest room, the room she's come to think of as hers, she looks around at all of her books and boxes of papers, her small collection of binoculars.

Will she leave this room and go live in a hotel with Henry? Staying here was always meant to be temporary anyway. The plan had been to find her own place, but this was never in the cards; all those years working on her PhD at Columbia, doing research at the museum, and this was the only way she could afford to live in Manhattan.

Clio felt guilty that she wasn't contributing enough, but Smith insisted she not worry, that she wasn't paying either—her parents were—and besides, she wanted Clio around. It would be a continuation of college. But Clio did worry and worry some more, then and particularly now that she's still here after all these years. She's wired to worry, to fret, to feel shame. It comforts her that after several years of not being able to contribute anything at all, she's now paying half the monthly maintenance, but she wishes she could do more. Quite simply, she can't; she has her college loans to repay. She knows Smith understands, but it all continues to make Clio feel uneasy even though Smith's been nothing but generous. Even when she was with Asad, when he was here all the time and Clio was concerned that she should get out of their way, Smith made genuine efforts to involve Clio, to have her around.

Smith reappears. Hands Clio her favorite stainless steel travel mug, a gift from Jack from years ago, filled with hot coffee. “Extra sweet. Just how you like it.”

“Thanks, you.”

“Clio?”

“Yes?”

“Look, I know it's scary, but if you open up and let him in, it will
bring you closer. And if it doesn't, Clio, I hate to say this, but maybe that means he's not the right person. You deserve to be with someone who loves all of you, even your messy parts.”

“I know,” Clio says. “Either way, I'll survive.”

And she will. She's survived much more than this.

“I'll see you after your tour,” Smith says.

Clio smiles weakly at her friend, grabs her binoculars, and slips out the front door.

“It's too late.”

I
t's a bitterly cold morning. It will no doubt be a quiet day of birding, but Clio doesn't mind. Quiet is fine. Quiet is better on a day like today when she hasn't slept much and her mind is far away. She shivers and pulls the collar of her jacket up over her mouth. All these Manhattan winters and she still hasn't invested in a proper parka, one of the puffy sleeping-bag coats everyone seems to live in as soon as the temperature drops. She wears the ski jacket she's had since high school, a cheerful cherry red, and layers it over a thick wool sweater. The coffee Smith made does the trick, waking her up just enough to function. She approaches the dock at Turtle Pond, where the week's group waits for her. She waves.

She slips her phone from her pocket to check it one more time as she heads over to join them. Still nothing at all from Henry. Just a lonely
Okay
in response to her texts in the middle of the night telling him she had a panic attack but that he shouldn't worry because she was fine and safe and needed a bit of space.
Okay.
That's it. Her exhaustion is thick like fog and it's hard to tell what she feels most right now. Fear that she's irrevocably botched the one romantic relationship she's had in her life. Disappointment that he didn't race after her, down those steps, out onto the blustery sidewalk. Anger that she can't react normally to a romantic gesture.

Clio wears her dark glasses, a pair she's had forever, the lenses scratched and earpieces subtly bent. She feels safer behind them today, like she's hiding from the world.

At the dock, she scatters hellos and answers questions about her trip to the Andes. There are a few new people today who read about her in
New York
magazine, but at this point in the season, most of her birders are her regulars, the only souls who would venture out in this breed of cold.

There's Bob, probably seventy, a retired environmental engineer, and Jewel, fifty-five or so, who teaches high school English, and Sophie, a slight woman in her eighties who had a big career in fashion, and Jackson, a fourteen-year-old boy. His mother came for the first walk and pulled Clio aside and told her that her son was on the autism spectrum and that he knew an impossible amount about birds. This has proven to be true. Jackson is often the first to identify the birds they encounter. Oh, and Lillian, in her sixties, who is a widow and a breast cancer survivor, and Victoria, a sophomore at Columbia and one of Clio's former students.

She scans the cast of characters, and though distracted, she smiles. Never does she lose perspective about how wonderful this is, coming here and doing this, spending time with this cluster of eccentric binocular-wielding New Yorkers who arrive here each Sunday. The details of these folks are not lost on her—the tattered too-short khakis
and orthotic walking shoes, the little dog-eared copies of Sibley's bird guide clutched in gloved hands, the misshapen baseball caps emblazoned with company names, the plain faces—no makeup, no masks.

Everyone is on the same page: eager to see birds and have a peaceful morning outdoors. Even today, she appreciates this. Or tries to. As she waits for a few late stragglers to join the group, her mind wanders. She imagines what Henry might be doing now. It is the hotel's first day and he's no doubt down in the lobby greeting guests. But surely he's hungover after last night, and this brings her some solace, it does, the idea that he's suffering too.

Jackson asks if she's heard the rumblings about the five Long-eared Owls spotted nearby, and she has and answers robotically in the affirmative, wondering if Henry is thinking about her. It's entirely possible that last night is troubling him as much as it is plaguing her. But it is just as possible that he has already moved on, written her off as unstable. The male brain is highly specialized, wired to compartmentalize these things, a neurological trait she once admired but now resents. Clio shakes her head to make these jumbled thoughts disappear.

“Okay, gang, let's get going,” she says. “I'm so happy to be back. It's certainly chilly, but that shouldn't stop us.”

Clio leads the group toward the Ramble, her very favorite thirty-six acres in the world. It's a magical oasis, with its rocky outcrops, wooded hills, serpentine paths, peaceful coves around the lake, a pond, and a stream called the Gill. Over two hundred species of birds have been identified here, particularly during spring and fall migrations. Standing in the middle of the Ramble, she can even forget she is in Manhattan.

She didn't even know the Ramble existed until she came to New York, and it wasn't until she discovered it and started visiting regularly that the city truly felt like a place that could one day be her permanent home. Like so many New Yorkers she's met, Henry didn't even know about the Ramble either until she gave him a tour through it last May during the peak of spring migration. It was the best kind of
day, having rained in the morning, the wind blowing from the south, and Clio pointed out bird after bird—a Cerulean Warbler and then a Golden-winged Warbler too, both relative rarities, and then the Gray-cheeked Thrush and an American Redstart. It was clear on his face that Henry was quickly becoming enamored with this spot in the park. Predictably, he found a way to tie it all back to E. B. White, digging up a piece the author had written about the city's attempts to “unscramble the Ramble.” He did his own research on the sly, coming up with odd trivia about the Ramble and its designer, American landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted.
Did you know that he was supposed to go to Yale, but then he abandoned his college plans when sumac poisoning hurt his eyes?
No, she did not.

She quickly checks her phone again. Again, nothing. When she looks up, she sees someone striding toward them, a tall, broad-shouldered man wearing a familiar knit newsboy cap. Her heart lifts—Henry. But as he approaches, Clio sees it is Patrick. Henry's brother.

In the daylight, he looks different. Tired. His eyes, warm last night, hold worry. Clio knows that he's not here to see birds.

“So! This is the famous Ramble.” He flashes an unconvincing smile. “Sorry I'm late for the tour. May I join?” he asks, hands in his pockets.

“Of course, of course,” Clio says, panic building inside her. “So, yes, this is my little corner of paradise.”

“I'm sure it's lovely in the summer,” Patrick says, looking around at the stark trees against the sunless sky.

“Hey, Northern Ireland isn't exactly a tropical paradise.”

“But I live in
California
now,” Patrick says. “So, where are the hummers? Henry says they're your favorite. Will we see any today?”

“No, sadly,” Clio answers, nervously kicking the ground. “It's too late in the year. They've all migrated south for warmer climes.”

“Ah, so they're smart birds, too.” Patrick assumes his spot at the back of the group.

“A Varied Thrush!” Jackson says, pointing at the bare branches of
a nearby tree. He tilts his head skyward, lifts his binoculars. Others follow suit, including Clio. She sees nothing. She's missed it.

“Could be,” she says. “Good eye, Jackson.”

She continues to walk, looking hard at the bushes and trees, willing herself to spot something, eager to make it up to her group, who have but the dregs of her attention. She reminds herself to breathe, to keep going, but Patrick's presence is more than unnerving. How much does he know about last night? Is he here to conduct due diligence on his brother's crazy girlfriend?

They walk east along the double-arched bridge and she sees it, a Hermit Thrush balancing on a thin, delicate branch.

“Look!” she says in a forceful whisper, but loses the bird. She trains her binoculars on the branch, waits for the slightest movement to find the bird. She does find it, and a faint and familiar sense of victory pulses through her. “Up there! See how her feathers are puffed up for insulation?”

Clio feels something lift inside, but then her phone buzzes, pulling her from the moment. She sneaks a peek and it is a text from Henry. Relief and apprehension rush through her.

Henry: We should talk tonight.

Clio: Okay.

She writes that one weak little word and waits for a follow-up text, something more affectionate and reassuring, but it doesn't come. She turns off her phone and puts it away. She looks over at Patrick, studies him for clues, but his poker face is enviable. He catches her staring and she turns away.

The rest of the walk tumbles by in a blur. This is typically the highlight of her week, the hours during which she's most present, most attuned to the world, but she's a shell of herself today.

In the end, they have some good sightings—the regular wintering White-throated Sparrows and Dark-eyed Juncos, but also the less common at this time of year Gray Catbird and year-round Carolina Wren. It's also a fine day for ducks; they spot Mallards and American Black Ducks and Northern Shovelers, Buffleheads and Ruddy Ducks. A solid morning, particularly given the cold, and Clio tries to convince herself it wasn't a total bust, but she can't shake the shame she feels, the knowledge that she has fallen short, that she has let these good people, virtual strangers she's grown inordinately fond of, down. She leads them south along a park drive and back up to the Humboldt statue across from the museum. The pine dinosaurs flank the entrance, evidence that the holidays aren't far off. Steel bleachers are being erected along the avenue for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. When the floats go by, Clio will be home in New Haven packing. The movers come in just a week. She can no longer avoid thinking of all that this means.

“Thanks, everyone. Have a great Thanksgiving and I will see you the weekend after next,” she says to her walkers, her eyes suddenly wet with tears.

The air is crisp, vaguely damp, and smells faintly of roasted chestnuts. Clio shakes a few hands. Lillian lingers and embraces her in a hug. Maybe she can tell something's wrong. “I would love to hear more about the Andes sometime. It's my dream to get there.”

“Oh yes, I'd like that very much,” Clio says, and means it.

Everyone scatters, but Patrick remains.