Tiny Little Thing

  He laughed deep. “Quit! That’s right, I could quit, couldn’t I? Before they ask me to resign from the partnership. I could just goddamn quit. Wouldn’t your mother be so proud.” He drank the milk. “Proud as ever.”

  I covered his hand. “But she is proud of you.”

  “No, my dear, she is not. Why should she be? If she’d married the right man, she could have been First Lady. She could really have been somebody. Instead she married me.”

  “Mummy loves you, though. She does.”

  At this, my father leaned forward, and though he was not a man of strong passions, though he was not an intimate kind of daddy, he looked at me like he meant it, and his eyes became fierce. I had never seen his eyes like that. I had always thought of my father as a man without any fire at all.

  “Listen to me,” he said. “A little fatherly advice. You’re a lovely girl, Tiny, a good sweet girl, but you’re tender. Your sisters, they can take care of themselves, they’ll be happy running around town making trouble all their lives, but you need a husband like a vine needs a tree. So I’ll tell you this. You want to be happy? Marry a man who can take you places. Marry a man you can be proud of, a man with a future ahead of him. A woman’s never happy if she can’t respect her husband.”

  “But Mummy does respect you.”

  He leaned back and smiled and shook his head, and that was all. Fatherly advice, over and out. We finished our milk and went to bed, and I lay awake on my pillow, staring at the ceiling, until I heard my mother arrive home, the sound of her heels skidding on the parquet hall, and I thought, for the first time, My God, she’s miserable, isn’t she?

  And then: Maybe he’s right. Maybe I’m just a vine after all, a vine in search of a tree.

  • • •

  You can’t tell Granny Hardcastle about the car,” I say.

  Frank cranes his neck toward me, keeping his eyes carefully on the road. The engine of his little yellow roadster is loud; the wind is even louder. “What’s that?”

  I cup my hand around my mouth and lean toward his ear. “The car! You can’t tell Granny Hardcastle!”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it!” he shouts back. “But why not?”

  “She’ll put a stop to it.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “She puts a stop to everything.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Everything!”

  He makes a sort of half smile and nods, at the same time straightening himself before the windshield to end the conversation. To save his voice, which he’ll need tonight.

  I want to say: How much did you hear? Do you agree? Are we having enough sex? Are we in love? Were we ever in love? Are you having sex with other women? Because politicians are sexy, and you’re only human.

  I want to say: I have something to tell you. A few tiny little things to tell you. A bit of a confession, in fact.

  I look down at my lap. My pocketbook rests in the crease of my thighs, which are covered in a skirt of blue linen, below a neat square jacket of blue linen and a necklace of fat irregular freshwater pearls. Matching earrings, of course. Shoes of blue. Stockings of nylon. Gloves of white kid. Legs long, waist trim, lipstick pink. Bones dainty and symmetrical, hair dark and obedient. You’ll have to hurry and get ready, I’m afraid, Franklin had said, as we strode across the driveway oval to the Big House. Cocktails start at six. I’m sorry to have to drag you out, I know you’re happier here, but Dad thinks you need to be there. So considerate, Frank. Not a single allusion to Pepper’s provocative conversation. Not a single raised eyebrow, not a shared conspiratorial wink, husband to wife: We know better, don’t we, darling?

  I say, “Do I look all right?”

  He doesn’t hear me. His hands are steady on the wheel; the hot wind ruffles his hair. I think, That’s odd, he looks a little pale. A little tense around the mouth. The eyes, squinting intently at the windshield, focused on some detail far away from the two of us.

  I lean closer. “Are you all right?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Are you all right?”

  He reaches for my hand and squeezes it. “Yes, all right! You?”

  “Yes!”

  There’s no point saying anything else, when he can’t hear me.

  • • •

  Frank’s father is waiting for us in the hotel suite, drink in hand. I set my pocketbook on the coffee table and kiss his cheek.

  “I’m sorry to drag you into town,” he says. “Hot day like this. Drink?”

  “Yes, please. Vodka tonic.”

  He turns to the cabinet and unscrews the top of the vodka bottle. Frank walks to the window and lights a cigarette. The room is full of polished brown furniture. A stack of briefing folders sits in the center of a rectangular sofa, upholstered in the kind of murky florals that can disguise any stain, no matter how guilty. Frank always likes to overnight in a hotel when he’s campaigning, even when we’re in Boston. The separation from our domestic environment puts him on his game, he says.

  “Photo call at five,” says Mr. Hardcastle, as he plucks ice cubes from the bucket, one by one, “and then the donors come in. Cocktails at six, then dinner. You brought evening clothes, I hope?”

  “Yes. Frank filled me in. I’m all packed and ready.”

  Frank turns around and leans against the windowsill. “She knows what to do, Dad. Don’t worry about Tiny.”

  Mr. Hardcastle smiles and hands me the drink. “I never do. Thanks for coming in, my dear. I hope it wasn’t an imposition.”

  “Not at all.” I sip and swallow. My gloves are still on, my hands sweating beneath.

  “You’re feeling better, then? Join us on the campaign trial?”

  “Of course. You only have to ask, you know.”

  “Well, we appreciate it. It looks a hell of a lot better, you know, when the wife’s by his side. To say nothing of your personal charm with these donors we’ve got tonight.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that.” The room is hot. I set down my drink, take off my gloves, and unbutton my jacket. The blouse beneath is silk, pale cream. Mr. Hardcastle glances briefly at my chest, at the spot of dampness between my breasts.

  “Franklin, open the window,” he says. “The other thing is, the poll numbers are slipping.”

  I look between Mr. Hardcastle and Frank, who has turned to open the window. His suit jacket is off, his sleeves rolled up to the elbows. “I didn’t realize that.”

  “We didn’t want to worry you. It’s this goddamned Murray, he’s hitting hard on Vietnam, rousing the fucking—excuse me—rousing the rabble.” He slams his drink onto the cabinet and looks at Frank, who has turned around again and propped himself against the open window, the yellow afternoon sun. “Nothing we can’t handle. We have a plan. You’re part of it, if you don’t mind. For one thing, you photograph like a dream. Murray’s wife can talk, all right, she can talk your fucking ear off, but she looks like a constipated rat.”

  “Dad.” Frank shakes his head and nods at me.

  “I beg your pardon, my dear. You’ll excuse the plain speaking; we were up late last night. Strategy meeting.” He lifts one hand to his forehead and massages the loose skin with his fingertips.

  I swirl the liquid around the glass. Frank’s face is still pale, the cigarette still jerking up and down. Mr. Hardcastle’s anxious fingertips rise from his forehead to his hair, raking through the gray threads. Son and father. Their stares, as they regard me, are curiously alike: the same blue eyes, the same expressions of wary calculation.

  To be perfectly honest, I haven’t given this campaign much thought. It’s the maiden race, a gimme, Frank the Thoroughbred against a pack of anonymous local nags. He’s supposed to win handily. Going away. Outclassing the field in a single blinding Hardcastle smile. The idea of Frank failing at this—failing at the first hurdle, the September primary, F
rank who has never failed at anything—causes the world to turn upside down before my eyes.

  “How bad is it?” I ask.

  “We’re six points behind at the moment,” says Frank. He reaches for an ashtray and crushes out the cigarette.

  “I see.”

  “We’re not sure why,” says Mr. Hardcastle. “Just looks like they don’t trust us. The old story: rich boy from Brookline, buying his seat. That’s the view.”

  I allow a smile. “Imagine that.”

  Mr. Hardcastle’s face reacts as if it’s been dipped in wet cement and left to dry. “So we want to humanize him. Bring out the wife. You’ve been almost invisible this summer.”

  “I didn’t realize I was needed.”

  “Frank insisted we didn’t push you. He wanted you to stay put out there. On the beach.” Mr. Hardcastle’s voice is very soft, in contrast to his eyes, which penetrate the space between my eyebrows.

  I look at Frank’s creased forehead and back at my father-in-law’s hard squint, and my organs shrivel up inside my belly. This failure of Frank—a failure saturating the atmosphere with cigarette smoke, creasing Hardcastle foreheads and squinting Hardcastle eyes—spreads across the room to sink down upon my head. It’s my failure. I’ve failed them. A good wife belongs at the candidate’s side, well-groomed and smiling. A good wife follows the candidate’s campaign, familiarizes herself with his constituents and their concerns, knows every minute fluctuation in the polls. A good wife poses for the camera with her best foot forward (to elongate the leg, you see, and emphasize the curve of hip) and her best smile hiding her troubles. A good wife produces equally photogenic children to illustrate the candidate’s qualities as a family man. A good wife conceals no shaming secrets, sells no affectionate Christmas jewelry, admits to no untoward desires.

  For some reason, the accusation in Mr. Hardcastle’s gaze is easier to bear than Frank’s worried sympathy. I turn back to my husband anyway. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize.” I manage a smile. “My first campaign, after all. Push me all you like.”

  Before Frank can reply, Mr. Hardcastle says, “Good. The Globe’s been asking to do a feature on the two of you. You’ll be hosting a reporter at your table tonight. Tomorrow morning at ten, they’re sending the same reporter and a photographer to Newbury Street to do the usual piece, candidate and his family at home.”

  “If that’s all right,” says Frank. His arms are crossed, one finger tapping the other elbow.

  “Of course it’s all right. We haven’t any groceries, but . . .”

  “I’ve sent over one of the staffers already to fix things up. Fill the icebox, plump the pillows. Put out fresh flowers.”

  “I see.” Failure, failure. Now one of the campaign staffers is filling in, performing the duties I should have overseen myself. I add, a little desperate, sinking fast: “I’ll be up early, of course, to make sure everything’s in order.”

  “There’s no need. Better you get plenty of rest.”

  I think of the floor of the shed, scattered with car parts. My room in the Big House, which I left in disorder, in the frantic haste of showering and packing but also the unsupervised laziness of the past few weeks. A jar of face cream sits open on the counter. My earrings were left out on the bureau last night. Worse: a dress, unironed, stained with red wine, lies casually over the top of the slipper chair in the corner.

  “I’ve had plenty of rest. I’m ready to work.” I lift the sweating glass to my lips.

  “Good girl,” says Mr. Hardcastle. “We’ll put our best foot forward tonight. The lovely wife. The wounded cousin.”

  I cough up a drop or two. “The what?”

  “Cap.” Frank pushes himself off the windowsill to reach for the cigarettes. “We’ve asked Cap to join us tonight.”

  “Caspian?”

  “You don’t mind, do you, darling? I’ve told him to be on his best behavior. No throwing punches, no matter what the hecklers say. Not that there’ll be hecklers tonight.”

  I finish my drink and set it down on the coffee table next to my pocketbook and gloves. “Not at all. If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll just freshen up a bit before I change.”

  • • •

  In the white marble bathroom, I drop my skirt and blouse in a pile and stare at myself in the mirror. My dewy white skin, my clinging silk slip. My eyes, large and round and brown. Like a doe, my mother used to say, appraising me like a fine painting, adding up my market value as a series of individual components. Pretty face equals x. Delicate figure equals y. Air of virgin innocence equals z.

  But she was wrong. It isn’t just an algebra of components, is it? It’s the whole package. It’s how you hold it all together.

  There is a knock on the door. For an illogical instant, known only to my subconscious, I imagine it’s Caspian Harrison.

  “It’s me,” says my husband.

  “Come in.”

  Frank appears behind me in the mirror, so suddenly that I’m startled by his good looks, by the width of his shoulders in comparison to mine. He only seems large to me like this, when I see us together in the mirror, the physical difference between my body and his. Or maybe it’s just that I’m such a small and insignificant creature. Such a tiny little thing, my mother used to say, giving my cheek an approving caress.

  He smiles. “I have something for you.”

  His hands appear, and with them a slim rope of diamonds alternating with glittering navy stones, sapphires probably. Before I can gasp, he loops them around my neck.

  “My God, Frank!”

  He fastens the necklace at my nape with his expert fingers. I touch the stones in the hollow of my throat, which are larger than the others, anchored by a central sapphire the size of a dime.

  Frank kisses my earlobe and stares in the mirror. “Beautiful. Just as I thought.”

  “What’s this for?”

  “For being you. For putting up with your busy old husband and his busybody family.”

  My eyes are already filling up, all wide and oily in the mirror, and I hardly ever cry. Tears never got you anywhere in the old Schuyler apartment on Fifth Avenue. “Of course,” I say stupidly. “Of course.”

  “I didn’t mean to put you on the spot like that. Back there with Dad.”

  “You should have told me things weren’t going well.”

  “I didn’t want to push you, after what happened. Anyway, it’s only summer. We have months to go.”

  “But I’m your wife. I’m supposed to be helping you.”

  “You are helping me. You’re a wonderful wife.” He kisses the side of my neck, above the diamonds and sapphires. His lips are cool and worried. “I’m sorry I’ve been neglecting you like this.”

  The shed is so far away, Pepper’s conversation is so far away, that I stare at the glint in Frank’s sandy hair for a few seconds before I catch his meaning.

  “Oh, God. Don’t listen to my sister. She’s just oversexed, that’s all.”

  “You know I’m just giving you time to get better, don’t you? After what happened. Trying to be a respectful husband.” He smiles into the mirror.

  I lay my hand on one of his. “Of course I know that.”

  He squeezes my arms gently. “Are you feeling better, Tiny? I know it’s still soon.”

  Here’s the thing about drought: when the rain comes again, you’re not quite sure what to do with it. The drops fall on your dry skin, scattering the dust, and you don’t know how to absorb it. After the first miscarriage, the doctor told me I could resume relations with my husband as soon as the discharge (yes, that’s exactly what he called the remains of my pregnancy, the discharge) had finished. You need to get right back in the saddle after a fall, he said. I did as he instructed, I followed his prescription because he was a doctor, and because a good wife doesn’t refuse her husband, and as soon as my uterus was demonstrab
ly empty again I reported this fact to Frank—we were just climbing into bed, I in my nightgown and he in his silk pajamas—and he said All right and settled in closer, and I thought, No, this is wrong. He kissed me, and my mouth, which was filled with grief, found him intolerable. He took off my nightgown, and in that instant, as the lamplight struck my body, my flesh cringed away from his, my whole heart screamed No, I don’t want you, I don’t want you inside me, I only want my baby back, my precious little baby who never had a chance, who is gone without a trace, never to return, never to be known to me.

  But here’s the thing: I never said it out loud.

  Well, you know me. I do my duty. I do what makes people happy. So I lay there while Frank made love to me, his silk pajama shirt flapping valiantly against my chest, his eyes screwed shut in concentration, and I hated him for doing it, and myself for letting him, and when I thought he fell asleep I curled into a ball and cried carefully into my pillow. I didn’t think he heard, but we didn’t make love again for a month and a half, and it took a lucky accident, a combination of too much champagne and a sultry bitch making her move on Frank at a cocktail party one night, to unfreeze my body and lock us back together, panting, reckless, on the living room sofa at midnight, a thing we had never done before or since.

  After the second miscarriage—which occurred shortly after the telephone jangled with the news that Frank’s cousin Caspian had been airlifted from the Laos border two days earlier with critical injuries, and was not expected to survive—Frank was more careful. My God, I don’t think he even hinted at sex for two months, and even then we endured several awkward efforts before we were back to normal. Twice a week or so: a pleasant, steady matrimonial rhythm for an attractive young couple hoping for a baby.

  “I know it’s soon,” Frank says, and you can’t blame him for that, poor man.

  I don’t know how to soften my body, how to receive him. I need champagne, I need a woman in a black dress putting her hand on my husband’s chest in the corner of a drunken room. I need to silence the back of my brain, whispering Caspian’s here, Caspian’s back, you’ll see Caspian tonight. I need to concentrate on this, my marriage, the two of us, Frank and Tiny. What is real. What exists. What cannot be altered.