After the Fire

“Easy. It makes me feel professional.”

  Concentrating, she fell silent. For an instant, she saw herself at the easel with a brush in hand; she felt the same peaceful absorption in creating a shape, making something out of nothing. She pinned and took out and pinned again. The material slithered under her fingers. It would go more easily with a firmer, better fabric. The line of the skirt below the hips would be crisper, like the diagonal of a triangle. Still, this was not going to be too bad.

  “There's a full-length mirror in the bathroom,” she said at last. “Go in and tell me how you like yourself.”

  In a second, Francine returned. “I don't believe it,” she cried. “Putting a dress together in no time. You, Hyacinth.”

  “Well, we have big-name designers coming to teach. If you pay attention, you can learn something, that's all.”

  “You had this skill before you went there. Don't tell me everybody in the school picked this up from a few lectures.”

  “It's not quite like that. There's a lot of hands-on work, too. Would you like me to sew this for you? Would you wear it?”

  “Why, darling, I'd put a sign on it with your name! I'd be as proud as Emma was when you made the rose dress for her.”

  At the mention of Emma, there was an instant silence. Francine's sigh was barely audible before, with obvious intent, she spoke cheerfully.

  “I see now how art led you into this. Everything's carried over, hasn't it? The sense of form and proportion— it's all there. You know, I have to apologize, Hyacinth. You were right about making this career choice, and I was wrong in objecting. I told myself I had no right to an opinion because I don't know much about art, yet the truth is—well, what you're doing now is really brilliant. This seems almost effortless. This time it's the real you.” She stopped. “I hope I haven't hurt your feelings,” she said softly.

  Francine and Will Miller. Two people who never knew each other and never would. She had kept her opinion to herself, and he had bluntly thrown his into her face.

  “Do you still go into any of the R. J. Miller stores?” she asked.

  “No. The one at home closed recently, and now the one where you used to live, in fact the whole chain, has been bought out by some conglomerate. They were old and nice but behind the times, I guess.”

  Hyacinth felt like a fool for remembering a man with whom she could not have spent a total of more than six or seven hours. Yet now and then on the street, she would see somebody who for some trivial reason—long strides, horn-rimmed glasses, or a ruddy face—reminded her of him. There was no reason for it.

  “I miss you,” Francine said. “At least I used to be able to get in the car every couple of weeks and drive over.”

  “So now you can take the train and be here just as quickly. Isn't your room nice?”

  “Very. But I didn't know you'd have a room for me. I left my bag at the hotel.”

  “You didn't! You went to a hotel? Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you understood.”

  “No problem. Next time I'll know. At least I've seen where you live, and I feel better.”

  “I pay half nothing for it, too, remember.”

  “You don't really believe Arnie's story, do you?”

  “Why shouldn't I believe it?”

  “Because this is a very expensive building, and people scarcely do things like this for their own brothers, let alone for a friend. No, dear, Arnie is paying for it and giving you a handsome present.”

  “Dad would say, ‘Francine, you're off the deep end again.’ Can't you hear him?”

  “Oh, really?” Francine's eyebrows rose. “Well, we'll see. What are you going to say when he asks you to marry him?”

  “He won't,” said Hyacinth. “I've told you that. It's ridiculous. I'm not his type, and he's not mine.”

  “Well, we'll see. It would be a tricky connection, anyway. Too close to Gerald.” For a moment Francine paused, frowned slightly, and then impetuously burst out, “What are you going to do about your children? I don't understand you. When are you going to tell me what this crazy business is all about? Am I a stranger whom you can't trust? Am I?”

  The black wave came back and swept over Hyacinth. Determined not to drown again, she fought back.

  “It's not a matter of trust. It's a matter of privacy. Yes, you're my mother and I'm your child, but I'm not a child.”

  Last week the authorities had found a man who, ten years before, had set fire to his estranged wife's house. They found him in Oklahoma. How they found him, Hyacinth didn't know. She didn't want to read the whole article. Somebody must have seen him or heard some-thing—what was the difference? It seemed to her that hardly a month went by without her reading about somebody who thought he was safe but wasn't.

  “All right. Maybe you'll think better of it someday.” Francine stood up. “It's late, and I've got a day's worth of errands tomorrow. I don't get to New York that often.”

  Hyacinth, too, stood up. And pleading now, she said, “Don't be angry. Please. It's very hard—”

  “Yes, hard and sad, and I'd best drop it. I'm sorry I brought the subject up because we never get anywhere with it, do we?” Francine put on her jacket, belted it smartly around her narrow waist, and took her handbag. “I guess we won't be seeing each other for a while. The Child Welfare League is sending a committee to Mexico, and I'm to be there as a volunteer observer for six weeks. I thought I'd stop off in Florida on the way. One thing that's good about knowing Arnie is that I can call him when I want to see Emma and Jerry. I'll give them your love.”

  “I speak to them almost every day, you know.”

  “Even so. Well, I'll be going.”

  They kissed, and Hyacinth said, “I'll really make the dress if you want it. And if I can manage, you'll have it in time to take with you to Mexico.”

  “Thanks. I'd love that, but don't push yourself. Take care of yourself.”

  “You, too.”

  The elevator came. Francine stepped in and vanished. Another cool leave-taking. Discreet, polite, and cool, thought Hyacinth. I think all the time about the way it used to be when the children were babies, and how fresh and jolly and close we all were.

  Gerald had thrown a stone into the pond, and the ripples were still spreading.

  Time, she read. And again she read Tennyson's old words, old but still true, and so befitting to her own condition.

  And Time, a maniac scattering dust,

  And Life, a Fury slinging flame.

  Flame! How apt, she thought, and closed the book.

  It was late. From where she sat, on an evening some weeks later, the city existed as a scattered sparkle against the night sky, itself stained faintly pink by the sparkle. No sound carried fourteen stories above the street, so the room was filled with silence. In the summers of her past life, the nights had been loud with cricket chirps, interrupted on occasion by a dog's bark or the slam of a screen door.

  At the end of the hall, the children were asleep. Tomorrow they would be going home, back to Gerald's house. Magnanimously, she thought with a bitterness so sharp that it pained her chest, he had allowed her these two weeks. In a way it was more painful to have Jerry and Emma here so briefly and then to part with them, than it was to speak to them on the telephone; the intervals between visits were too long, but the telephone, thanks to Arnie's intervention, was always there.

  Thanks to Arnie. He had predicted that the apartment would bring luck, and it had indeed brought much improvement. At least the children knew they had a “place” with their mother; the loss of the old house had disturbed them more deeply than she had expected it to. And she reflected now upon the influence of “things,” for it had seemed plain that they had missed the house more than they missed her!

  Granny's clock bonged eleven times. It was too loud, but the children slept soundly through every stroke. The reverberation died away, and still Hyacinth sat, wide awake, thinking that she ought to go to bed. There were only a few hours left; tomorrow Jerry wanted to go to the Museum of Nat
ural History to see the dinosaurs again. After that they would have lunch, and after that, late in the afternoon, Arnie, who had taken advantage of this weekend for one of his business trips to New York, would fly back to Florida with them.

  He had come to seem almost like family. Often it was easier to talk to him than to Francine. He never questioned. And the children had so much fun with him, not that Francine ever failed to be wonderful with them, but Arnie was different.

  He and his horses were now a big part of their lives. It was amazing to watch Jerry's relaxed handling of a creature so much larger than he, and to hear him talk about the Thoroughbred and the Tennessee Walker. Arnie would chuckle and encourage him.

  “You'd better keep up,” he would tease Jerry, “because in a couple of years Emma's going to trot right along with you.”

  “Then I'll canter,” Jerry would retort.

  “I suppose I should learn to ride,” Hyacinth said once, and Arnie had agreed that she certainly should. But what for? For these occasional trips to Florida? Let them enjoy their horses with Arnie.

  Let them be the beneficiaries of his kindness. We, my children and I, she thought, are only one among all his charities. He was an extraordinary giver, Gerald had told her, one of those rich, childless men who love to give of their money and their time.

  Francine, of course, had a different explanation, and although she had not said as much, Hyacinth had an idea that she would actually welcome some attachment, marriage or otherwise, between Arnie and her daughter.

  “Now that you're free,” she had counseled more than once, “you should be getting out more. A young woman needs some emotional attachment”—meaning obviously, “You are too young for a celibate life.”

  As if anybody in good health were ever too old! But it wasn't all that simple. She longed to be loved! But there is no one, she thought. I work all day among students younger than I am, or else they are already committed to someone else. Or else they are not—and many of them are not—interested in women at all. There is no one.

  The clock bonged midnight. On stocking feet, she went to her children's beds to stand in the hall's pale beam of light, just gazing at them. Life. Life and Time.

  “Don't you know I always like to do things in style?”

  Arnie made a joke of the question, but he meant it nevertheless. And he knew that Hyacinth knew it, too. He had hired a limousine to take them to the airport.

  Emma and Jerry were tired and half asleep. They had tramped through the museum from top to bottom to top and back, and then walked through the park to the apartment and fetched their suitcases; now they had what Hyacinth told them were “museum feet.”

  “You'll sleep all the way on the plane,” Arnie said. “And when you arrive, the attendant will wake you because this plane doesn't go any farther.”

  Hyacinth was startled. “Attendant? Do you mean you're not going with them?”

  “I have to stay over and meet a guy tomorrow morning about some property. They'll be fine. That's what I was talking about just now with the attendant.” And when she looked dubious and distressed, he assured her that thousands of children all over the country traveled between their divorced parents these days.

  “Signs of the times. I phoned Gerald this morning and he approves, and nobody could be more careful of his kids than he is. You'll have to give him that much, Hy.”

  Still anxious, she asked Jerry, “Do you mind flying back without Uncle Arnie?”

  “Aw Mom, I'm nine years old,” said he, jutting his jaw and stiffening his small shoulders. “I can take care of Emma.”

  “You will not! I take care of myself!” Emma shrieked with such an air of insulted dignity that Hyacinth had to laugh.

  So she watched until they were out of sight at the end of the jetway. Jerry was carrying both suitcases, while Emma, perhaps forgetting her dignity, trotted behind him holding closely to his jacket. If it had been permitted, their mother would have run and clasped them both again.

  “You angry at me?” asked Arnie as they turned away.

  “A little. You should have told me.”

  “Then you wouldn't have let them go alone.”

  She had to admit that was true. Sometimes he annoyed her with his way of giving advice and taking charge. Absurd as it would sound if it were put into words, she had a feeling that he was treating her possessively, as a husband might, for her own good.

  “I've reserved a table for us at my hotel,” he said abruptly.

  Having planned to go home and get into bed to read, she was not entirely pleased. And thanking him, she very tactfully said that she had to get up early and would love to do it the next time.

  “You're not going to bed at eight o'clock,” he insisted. “I'll have you home early enough. Don't disappoint me.” And he gave her his very attractive smile, part coax and part plea.

  Through gathering darkness, the heavy car rolled smoothly down the highway. Lulled after a while by the gliding motion, she willed her shoulders to relax their tension. The plush, comfortable little space in which she was sitting gave her a feeling of safety and protection. It was a long time since she had been aware of such a feeling; she had grown unused to it. And silently, to herself, she repeated: relax, relax.

  The dinner, as expected, was the best, as were the surroundings, softly rose and gray with flowers in harmony, and unobtrusive piano music in the distance at the far end of the room.

  Arnie was watching her. He was amused when she took out a palm-sized notebook and scribbled something beneath the protection of the table.

  “Working here, too?”

  “Sorry. It's become a habit. The thing is, if I don't get something down on paper when I see it, I risk forgetting it. And you never know when some little thing will catch your eye. It might be something on the street or at a costume movie.”

  “What did you see just now?”

  “Don't laugh. A man came in wearing a dark blue suit. The woman with him was wearing chocolate brown, and the colors were perfect together. I want to remind myself of that.”

  “You really like what you're doing, don't you?”

  “Well, it's not exactly what I wanted to do with my life, but that's the way things are.” She stopped. Then, having had no previous intent to ask this question, she did ask it. “Does Gerald ever say anything about me? Does he really know how much you do for Emma and Jerry?”

  “He never says anything about you, Hy. I would tell you if he did. We don't get a chance to talk much, anyway. We've a busy office, a madhouse some days. When we're not working, we go our separate ways. Maybe that's why our arrangement works out so well. Gerald's got his own social life.” Winking at Hyacinth, he added, “He's younger than I am. But yes, he does appreciate the fact that the kids like me.”

  Hyacinth was touched. If anything were to go wrong, Arnie's shrewd insight would recognize it. The nanny was all right enough, but you couldn't have the same faith in her judgment. She would still take any problems to Gerald, not to me, she thought. The nanny does not approve of me.

  “I'll never know how to thank you,” she said. And she raised the wineglass to her lips to hide the moistening of her eyes.

  “It's been a hard day for you, Hy, having to see them leave.” He laid a kind hand over hers. “Buck up. You're doing great. You're a great girl. You've got heart and stamina, like a great horse. Come on, I'm kidding you. You're no horse, you're a damn handsome woman, and you need another glass of wine. Don't argue with me. And eat. You've lost too much weight. Don't you do any cooking in that nice kitchen you have?”

  The mention of “kitchen” brought something to mind. For a while, Francine's idea about the apartment lease had seemed foolish, and Hyacinth had dismissed it, but now in an odd way, as she felt the warmth of Arnie's hand, it did not seem quite as foolish.

  And she said suddenly, “My mother doesn't believe that the apartment rents for so little. She doesn't believe your story that your friend reduced the rent as a favor.”

&
nbsp; “No? And so who reduced it, if not my friend?”

  “Nobody. You pay the balance every month.”

  “Well,” he said. “Well.”

  “I was stupid and childish not to have guessed that you were doing it.”

  “For a childish woman, you aren't doing too badly.”

  Now his hand was stroking hers. His nails were immaculate, and she liked that; too many men were careless about their black-rimmed nails. His wristwatch was a sculptured gold band, like a bracelet; tiny diamonds were embedded in his gold cuff links, and she did not like that. But the second glass of wine was beginning to buzz in her head, and what difference did it make, anyway?

  “I wanted you to have a decent place for the kids, Hy. And for yourself, too. You're a lovely woman. The women I meet are all the same, interchangeable, you know what I mean? They look the same and they talk the same, mostly nonsense. You're a bookworm, and still you're never boring. I've never felt this way about anybody. You're probably too good for me to get any idea about you. I guess I've told you this before. If I haven't, I meant to.”

  Hyacinth switched the subject. “You're too kind to me, Arnie. As soon as I finish up and get a job, I'm going to pay you back for everything.”

  “Don't be a fool. Do you think I'd accept it? Drink the wine. It's a hundred and fifty dollars a bottle, for God's sake—don't waste it. And caviar—eat it up! I won't even tell you what that costs.”

  “He sprinkles money,” Gerald had said. “You'd think it was water. Well, he's got no wife, no children, no house—that makes a difference.”

  “When we're through here, I want you to come upstairs a minute, Hy. I want to show you something.”

  “Not your etchings?”

  She was not sure whether her remark was witty or merely stupid. But at any rate, he laughed and explained that, no, the things were only some toys he had bought for the kids and hadn't wanted to entrust to their care on the plane.

  Upstairs in his room, he displayed a fancy, expensive calculator for Jerry and a marvelous doll in riding clothes, complete from helmet to jodhpurs, for Emma. When these had been wholeheartedly admired, he brought out a small velvet box.