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catches sight of the flap end of Solomon’s gray suit as he disappears into a taxi. The little bald head dips. The slam of yellow. Into the traffic and away.
He does not even know about the visitors—she will tell him sometime, but not yet, no harm. Perhaps this evening. At dinner. Candle and wine. Guess what, Sol. As he settles in the chair, fork poised. Guess what.
A slight sigh from him. Just tell me, Claire, honey—I’ve had a long day.
Nimble out of her nightdress. Her body in the full- length mirror. A little pale and puckered, but she can still stretch out of it. She yawns, hands high in the air. Tall, still thin, jet- black hair, a single streak of badger gray from the temple. Fifty- two years old. She passes a damp cloth over her hair and brushes it with a wooden comb. Turns her head sideways and presses the hair lengthwise against her palm. Tangled at the split ends.
Time for a trim. She cleans out the comb and dumps the strands in the foot- flip garbage can. They say the hair of the dead still grows. Takes on a life of its own. Down there with all the other detritus, tissues, tubes of lipstick, toothpaste tops, allergy pills, eyeliner, heart medicine, youth, nail clippings, dental floss, aspirin, grief.
But how is it that the gray hairs are never the ones to come out? In her twenties she had hated the badger streak when it appeared overnight, dyed it, hid it, chopped it. Now it defines her, the elegant swift ray of gray, sideways from the temple.
A road in my hair. Do not overtake.
Things to do. Hurryhurry. Toilet. Toothbrush rub. A light swish of makeup. Some blush. A little eyeliner and a lipstick dab. Never one to fuss with makeup. At the dresser she pauses. Bra and panties in simple beige. Her favorite dress. Aqua and green silkscreen, with a shellfish motif. A- line. Sleeveless. Just above the knee. Bows on the slits. Zip behind. Fashionable and feminist at the same time. Not too fancy or show-offy, but contemporary, modest, good.
She hitches the hem a little higher. Extends her foot. Legs that glisten, said Solomon years ago. She told him once he made love like a hanged man, erect but dead. A joke she had heard at a Richard Pryor concert. She had sneaked in alone, using a friend’s press pass. A one- off. Found the concert neither too risqué nor boring. But Solomon pouted for a week—
three days at the joke, four days because she went to the concert at all.
Women’s lib, he said. Burn your bra, lose your marbles. Small, sweet man.
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Devoted to good wine and martinis. The last little peninsula of hair on his head. Needs sunscreen in summertime. Freckles on his dome. Boy-hood summers still around his eyes. When they met at Yale he had an overhang of hair, fair and thick over his eye. In Hartford as junior counsel he would walk along the narrow paths with Wallace Stevens, of all people, both men in sleeveless shirts. It did not give of bird or bush, Like nothing else in Tennessee. Home to her, they would make love on the four-poster bed. They lay on the sheets and he would try to recite poems in her ear. He could seldom recall the lines. Still, it was a sensual wonder, his lips against the tip of her ear, the side of her neck, down to her clavicle, the glow of enthusiasm about him. The bed broke one night from their hijinks. Nowadays it is not often, but often enough, and she still reaches up to hold the back of his hair. Not so woody anymore. The end of the stem where the fruit once was. The thugs in court are quiet until they’re sentenced, then the anvil comes down and they scream and shout and thrash, call him filthy names. She no longer goes downtown with him to the dark wood- paneled room to observe—why endure the abuse? Hey, Kojak! Who loves ya, baby? In chambers there is a photograph of her, beachside, with Joshua, just a boy, both leaning together, mother and son, heads touching, the dunes behind them endless and grassy.
She feels a little murmur at her ribcage, a swell of air. Joshua. Not a name for a boy in uniform.
The necklace with a phantom hand. Sometimes it happens. She gets a little rush of blood to the throat. A clawing at her windpipe. As if someone is squeezing her, a momentary restriction. She turns to the mirror, sideways, then front, sideways again. The amethyst? The bangles? The small leather necklace Joshua gave her when he was nine? He had drawn a red ribbon on the brown wrapping. In crayon. Here, Mommy, he said, then ran away and hid. She wore it for years, around the house mostly.
Had to sew it back together twice. But not now, not today, no. She tucks it back in the drawer. Too much. A necklace is too dressy anyway. She dithers at her reflection. Oil crisis, hostage crisis, necklace crisis. I’d rather be deep- solving algorithms. That was her specialty. College days.
One of only three women in the math department. She got mistaken for the secretary as she walked the corridors. Had to go along with eyes downcast. A woman of two shoes. Knew the floor very well. The intricacies of tile. Where the baseboards broke.
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We find, as in old jewelry, the gone days of our lives.
Earrings, then? Earrings. A pair of tiny seashells bought in Mystic two summers ago. She slides the small silver bar into the piercing. Turns to the mirror. Odd to see the strain of her neck. Not mine. Not that neck.
Fifty- two years in that same skin. She extends her chin and her skin tightens. Vain, but better. The earrings against her dress. Seashell with seashell. She sells. By the shore. She drops them in the jewelry box and scatter- searches through. Casts a look at the dresser clock.
Quick quick.
Almost time.
She has been to four houses over the past eight months. All of them simple, clean, ordinary, lovely. Staten Island, the Bronx, two on the Lower East Side. Never any fuss. Just a gathering of mothers. That’s all. But they were drop- jawed at her address when she finally told them. She had managed to avoid it for a while, but then they went to Gloria’s apartment in the Bronx. A row of projects. She had never seen anything like it before.
Scorch marks on the doorways. The smell of boric acid in the hall. Needles in the elevator. She was terrified. She went up to the eleventh floor.
A metal door with five locks. When she rapped, the door vibrated on its hinges. But inside the apartment sparkled. Two huge chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, cheap but charming. The light chased the place free of shadows. The other women were already there—they smiled at her from the deep, pouchy sofa. They air- kissed, all of them, and the morning drifted smoothly. They even forgot where they were. Gloria bustled around, changing coasters, swapping napkins, cracking the windows for smokers, then showed them her sons’ room. She had lost three boys, imagine—three!—poor Gloria. The photo albums were thick with memory: hairstyles, running meets, graduations. The baseball trophies were passed around the room. It was a lovely morning, all in all, and it drifted, drifted, drifted. And then the clock on top of the radiator clicked to noon and the talk came around to the next time. Well, Claire, you’re up next. She felt like her mouth was made of chalk. Almost swallowed it as she spoke.
Like an apology. Looking at Gloria all the time. Well, I’m on Park at Seventy- sixth. Silence, then. You get the six. She had rehearsed that. And then she said: Train. And then: The subway. And then: Top floor. None of it came out right, how she said it, like the words didn’t quite fit on her tongue. You live on Park? said Jacqueline. Another silence. That’s nice, McCa_9781400063734_4p_02_r1.w.qxp 4/13/09 2:33 PM Page 77
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said Gloria, a dab of light on her lips where she licked them, as if there were something to be removed there. And Marcia, the designer from Staten Island, clapped her hands together. Tea with the Queen! she said, joking, no harm meant, really, but still i
t pulsed, a brief wound.
Claire had told them, at the first meeting, that she lived on the East Side, that was all, but they must have known, even though she wore long pants and sneakers, no jewelry at all, must have intuited anyway, that it was the Upper East Side, and then Janet, the blonde, leaned forward and piped up: Oh, we didn’t know you lived up there.
Up there. As if it were somewhere to climb. As if they would have to ascend to it. Ropes and helmets and carabiners.
She had actually felt faint. Like there was air in the back of her legs.
Like she might be trying to show off. Rubbing their noses in it. Her whole body swayed. She stammered. I grew up in Florida. It’s very small, really.
The plumbing is shocking. The roof’s a mess. She was about to say that she didn’t have help—not servants, she would never have said servants— when Gloria, dearest Gloria, said: Hell’s bells, Park Avenue, I’ve only ever been there for Monopoly! And they had all laughed. Reared back and just flat- out laughed. It gave her a chance to sip water. Squeeze out a smile. Take a breath. They couldn’t wait. Park Avenue! Jeepers creepers, isn’t that the purple one? Well, it wasn’t the purple one. The purple one was Park Place, but Claire didn’t say a word, why show off? They left together, all except Gloria, of course. Gloria waved from the eleventh- floor window, her patterned dress against the window bars across her chest. She looked so lost and lovely up there. It was the time of the garbage strike. Rats out by the trash. Streetwalkers by the underpass. In hot pants and halters, even in the snow flurries. Sheltering from the cold. Running out to the trucks when they passed. Clouds of white breath coming from them. Terrible cartoon bubbles. Claire wanted to dash back upstairs and bring Gloria with her, take her away from the horrific mess. But there was no going back to the eleventh floor. What could she say? Come, Gloria, pass go, collect two hundred, get out of jail free.
They had walked to the subway in a close group, four white women, their handbags held just a little too tightly. Might have been mistaken for social workers. All of them neatly dressed, but not overdone. They waited for the train in a smiling silence. Janet nervously tapped her shoe. Marcia fixed her mascara in a small mirror. Jacqueline swept back her long McCa_9781400063734_4p_02_r1.w.qxp 4/13/09 2:33 PM Page 78
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red hair. The train came, a wash of color, big curvy whirls, and in they got.
It was one of those carriages covered head to toe in graffiti. Even the windows were blotted out. Hardly a moving Picasso. They were the only white women in the car. Not that she minded getting the subway. She just wouldn’t tell them that it was only her second time. But nobody looked sideways at them, or said a rotten word. She got out at Sixty- eighth just so she could walk, get some air, be alone. She strolled up the avenue, wondering why she had ever gotten together with them in the first place.
They were all so different, so little in common. But, still, she liked them all, she really did. Gloria especially. She had nothing against anyone—
why would she? She hated that manner of talk. In Florida, her father had once said at dinner: I like Negroes, yessir, I think everyone should own one.
She had stormed from the table and stayed in her room for two days. Her dinner was slid in under the door. Well, not slid under. Handed around the doorknob. Seventeen and about to go off to college. Tell Daddy I’m not coming out until he apologizes. And he did. Clomped up the curving stair-case. Held her in his big round southern arms and called her modern.
Modern. Like a fixture. A painting. A Miró.
But it’s only an apartment anyway. An apartment. Nothing more. Silverware and china and windows and trim and kitchenware. Only that.
Nothing else. Homespun. Ordinary enough. What more could it be?
Nothing. Let me tell you, Gloria, the walls between us are quite thin. One cry and they all come tumbling down. Empty mail slots. Nobody writes to me. The co- op board is a nightmare. Pet hair in the laundry machines.
Doorman downstairs in his white gloves and creased trousers and epaulets, but just a little secret between you and me: he doesn’t use deodorant.
A quick shiver splits through her: the doorman.
Wonder, will he question them too much? Who is it today? Melvyn, is it? The new one? Wednesday. Melvyn, yes. If he mistakes them for the help? If he shows them to the service elevator? Must call down and tell him. Earrings! Yes. Earrings. Quick now. In the bottom of the box, an old pair, simple silver studs, seldom worn. The bar a little rusty, but no matter. She wets each stem in her mouth. Catches sight of herself in the mirror again. The shell- patterned dress, the shoulder- length hair, the badger streak. She was mistaken once for the mother of a young intellectual seen on television, talking of photography, the moment of capture, the McCa_9781400063734_4p_02_r1.w.qxp 4/13/09 2:33 PM Page 79
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defiant art. She too had a badger streak. Photographs keep the dead alive, the girl had said. Not true. So much more than photographs. So much more.
Eyes a little glassy already. Not good. Buck up, Claire. She reaches for the tissues beyond the glass figurines on the dresser, dries her eyes. Runs to the inner hallway, picks up the ancient handset.
—Melvyn?
She buzzes again. Maybe outside smoking.
—Melvyn?!
—Yes, Mrs. Soderberg?
His voice calm, even. Welsh or Scottish—she’s never asked.
—I have some friends dining with me this morning.
—Yes, ma’am.
—I mean, they’re coming for breakfast.
—Yes, Mrs. Soderberg.
She runs her fingers along the dark wainscoting of the corridor. Dining? Did I really say dining? How could I say dining?
—You’ll make sure they’re welcome?
—Of course, ma’am.
—Four of them.
—Yes, Mrs. Soderberg.
Breathing into the handset. That fuzz of red mustache above his lip.
Should have asked where he was from when he first started working.
Rude not to.
—Anything else, ma’am?
Ruder to ask now.
—Melvyn? The correct elevator.
—Of course, ma’am.
—Thank you.
She leans her head against the cool of the wall. She shouldn’t have said anything at all about a correct or incorrect elevator. A bushe, Solomon would have said. Melvyn’ll be down there, paralyzed, and then he’ll put them in the wrong one. The elevator there to your right, ladies. In you go.
She feels a flush of shame to her cheeks. But she used the word dining, didn’t she? He’ll hardly mistake that. Dining for breakfast. Oh, my.
The overexamined life, Claire, it’s not worth living.
She allows herself a smile and goes back along the corridor to the liv-McCa_9781400063734_4p_02_r1.w.qxp 4/13/09 2:33 PM Page 80
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ing room. Flowers in place. Sun bouncing off the white furniture. The Miró print above the couch. The ashtrays placed at strategic points. Hope they won’t smoke inside. Solomon hates smoking. But they all smoke, even her. It’s the smell that gets to him. The afterburn. Ah, well. Maybe she’ll join them anyway, puff away, that little chimney, that small holo-caust. Terrible word. Never heard it as a child. She was raised Presbyte-rian. A small scandal when she married. Her father’s booming voice.
He’s a what? A yoohoo? From New England? And poor Solomon, hands clasped behind his back, staring out the window, adjusting his tie, staying quiet, enduring the abuse. But they still took Joshua to Florida, to the shores of Lochloosa Lake, every summer. Walking through the mango groves, all three holding hands, Joshua in the middle, one two three weeeeee.
It was there in the mansion that Joshua learned to play the piano. Five years old. He sat on the wooden stool, slid his fingers up and down the keys. When they got back to the city they arranged
lessons in the basement of the Whitney. Recitals in a bow tie. His little blue blazer with gold buttons. Hair parted to the left. He used to love to press the gold pedal with his foot. Said he wanted to drive the piano all the way home. Vroom vroom. They bought him a Steinway for his birthday and at the age of eight he was playing Chopin before dinnertime. Cocktails in hand, they settled on the couch and listened.
Good days, they come around the oddest corners.
She grabs her hidden cigarettes from under the lid of the piano chair and walks to the rear of the apartment, swings open the heavy back door.
Used to be the maid’s entrance. Long ago, when there was such a thing: maids and entrances. Up the rear stairs. She is the only one in the building who ever uses the roof. Shoves open the fire door. No alarm. The blast of heat from the dark rooftop. The co- op board has been trying for years to put a deck up on the roof but Solomon complained. Doesn’t want footsteps above him. Nor smokers. A stickler for that. Hates the smell.
Solomon. Good, sweet man. Even in his straitjacket.
She stands in the doorway and drags deep, tosses a little cloud of smoke to the sky. The benefit of a top- floor. She refuses to call it a penthouse. Something leering about that. Something glossy and magazine- y.
She has arranged a little row of flowerpots on the black tarmac of the roof, in the shade of the wall. More trouble than they’re worth some-McCa_9781400063734_4p_02_r1.w.qxp 4/13/09 2:33 PM Page 81
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times, but she likes to greet them in the mornings. Floribundas and a couple of straggly hybrid teas.
She bends down to the row of pots. A little yellow spot on the leaves.
Struggling through the summer. She taps the ash at her feet. A pleasant breeze from the east. The whiff of the river. The television suggested yesterday a slight chance of rain. No sign. A few clouds, that’s all. How is it they fill, the clouds? Such a small miracle, rain. It rains on the living and the dead, Mama, only the dead have better umbrellas. Perhaps we will drag our chairs up here, all four of us, no, five, and raise our faces to the sun.