Tiny Little Thing

  “I think you’re a little overwrought, Tiny,” says Mr. Hardcastle in a very low voice.

  “I don’t think I’m overwrought at all. I don’t think my husband is constitutionally helpless to keep himself from cheating on me. Look at Caspian. Your nephew. I don’t think he’d cheat on his wife.”

  “He doesn’t have a wife.”

  “But if he did, he’d be loyal.”

  Mr. Hardcastle releases a giant sigh, the kind you spend on children and lunatics. “Caspian is not a great man, Tiny. He’s not a mover of events. He’s a soldier. A good one, but a soldier. The history books won’t be written about him.”

  “He’s a better man than any of you, I suspect. At least you can trust him.”

  Mr. Hardcastle switches back into the right lane, which is temporarily clear of opponents, but he doesn’t slow down. “That’s true. Cap’s a loyal man. You’re right about that.”

  “You see? It’s possible. And I absolutely refuse to put up with . . .”

  I hear the screech almost before I feel the pressure of deceleration against my chest. The heavy black car swerves to the side of the road in a series of fishtails, drowning out the sound of my scream. We stop in a lurch, and the sudden quiet turns me weightless with fear.

  “Is that an ultimatum, Tiny?” Mr. Hardcastle asks softly.

  “No. Not exactly.”

  “Then what is it? What do you mean, refuse to put up with it?”

  I release the door handle and smooth my skirt about my legs. My hands flicker a little too quickly. “I mean Frank needs to understand that this behavior isn’t acceptable. That I can’t just go on being a . . . a good wife, a picture-perfect wife, if he keeps on humiliating me like this.”

  “Humiliating you? Surely he’s been discreet.”

  “The campaign staffer. Josephine. He was with her last night, before he came to bed.”

  “Josephine? You’re sure?”

  “It’s too obvious for words. The way she looks at me.”

  Mr. Hardcastle stares at my mouth. “Very well. Then she’s gone.”

  The cold delivery of the words—she’s gone—dissolves my last nerve.

  “You don’t need to fire her,” I whisper. “I’m sure she’s good at her job. The campaign part of it. It’s Frank who needs to . . . to . . .”

  He turns his head to gaze through the windshield. “I’ll speak to him.”

  “But he’s not going to change. He promised me, right before the wedding, that there wouldn’t be any more women. He said marriage would change him. But it hasn’t. It won’t. It will only get worse, the more successful he gets, because that’s what happens when you think you’re invincible. You think you have a right to women.”

  The cars whoosh and rattle past us, making Mr. Hardcastle’s black Lincoln sway ever so slightly as we sit there on the shoulder, staring together at the dark asphalt, the clean white stripe, the heavy gray sky above the treetops. The air conditioner whirs in the spaces between them.

  “What about financial compensation?” says Mr. Hardcastle.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “A settlement of some kind. In ten years, fifteen years, when we’ve gotten where we want to go—”

  “You must be joking.”

  Mr. Hardcastle reaches across the bench seat and covers my fisted hands with his own. “I assure you, Tiny, I’m not. I will not allow my son’s career to be derailed by some harebrained impulsive move on your part, made at a time when your emotions are running amok. Surely you’ve always understood that you’ll be rewarded handsomely if you behave yourself. The sky’s the limit, Tiny. Dream as big as you want. You could be the most famous, the most envied, the most photographed woman in the world. I mean that literally. In the entire world, Tiny.”

  “Maybe I don’t want that anymore. Maybe I only thought I did.”

  “Every woman wants that, if she dares to admit it.”

  “I’m quite sure I don’t. In fact, I dislike it intensely. Being photographed.”

  “You like having money.”

  “Money’s lovely, I won’t deny it, but there are more important things.”

  “I’m sure we can find them for you. But the reverse is also true, you know.” He puts the car back into gear and checks the mirror. “The stick, as opposed to the carrot.”

  I want to tell him I’m not a donkey, and, in any case, I don’t particularly like carrots. But the urge is smothered by an instinct, a poker player’s instinct, to hide my cards from the dealer. You don’t try to beat the house, do you? You keep your head down and your cards close to your chest until you’ve gathered enough chips to cash in and walk out the door to a waiting automobile, packed and rumbling by the curb.

  Mr. Hardcastle merges smoothly back into traffic. “Don’t think I’m insensitive to your plight, my dear. I like you very much. We all do. We’re here to make you happy, if you let us.”

  I say yes, of course I understand, and neither of us utters another word down the length of the highway, through the village and down the lane to the Hardcastle property. When we pull up before the entrance to the Big House, right between the stone urns of bright yellow marigolds, I take off my pointy shoes and tell Mr. Hardcastle that I think I’ll take a little walk before lunch, to clear my head.

  • • •

  Pepper props her legs up on the dashboard and chews her sandwich. “And what brought about this sudden change of heart?”

  “Frank’s having an affair.”

  She swallows and tears away another bite. Peanut butter, no jelly, just like she used to eat when we were kids. The smell tweaks my nose like an old friend. She reaches for the bottle of Coke on the floorboards. “I’d say more than one.”

  “Why would you say that?”

  “Just a hunch. Put it this way: you find out a lot about a man when you go out for the evening in his company.” She waves the Coke bottle. “He wasn’t turning them away at the door, if you take my meaning.”

  “Funny. He pretty much said the same thing about Caspian.”

  “Caspian?” She laughs. “No, the good major just sat there with a beer or two, fending them off with one arm. Frank was the one collecting votes.”

  “Yes. Yes, of course he was. How stupid of me.”

  “At least he had the decency not to make a move on me. Now that’s a gentleman for you.”

  “Pepper, you’ve really got to raise your standards.”

  “As the kettle said to the pot.” She sets the bottle back down. “He’s your husband, after all.”

  “Yes, he is, isn’t he?” I raise my stockinged feet to the dashboard, to the right of the steering wheel. The nylon slips against the liquid smoothness of the wood. “You don’t happen to have a cigarette, do you?”

  “Back at the house. Sorry. I suppose a good sister would be offering you a vodka and a smoke at a time like this. All I’ve got is peanut butter and a Coke.”

  “Well, it isn’t as if I haven’t always known. There were always other girls. I never saw them, he was decent enough for that, but I knew they were there.”

  “Then why did you marry him? Assuming you cared.”

  “Because, my dear Pepper, I didn’t just want to be any old housewife. I wanted a life with purpose. I didn’t want to be Mums, running around, drinking and sleeping around, doing absolutely nothing at all when I could have done so much. And—well, this is the stupid part. I thought he would stop when he got married. I really did. He sat me down and promised me, a week before the wedding, and I was so . . . so jangled up and just sick inside, at that particular moment, I decided to believe him.”

  “You’re right. That was about as stupid as it gets.”

  “Yes, I realized that pretty quickly.”

  “So why didn’t you divorce him then? At the first instance? Admit you were stupid?”

 
“What, admit I failed, Pepper?”

  “Yes. Why not? Everyone makes mistakes.”

  I sigh. “Look, I know it’s hard for you fearless and rambunctious girls to understand this, you and Vivian, but I’m very good at turning my head and pretending unpleasant things don’t exist. It’s how I survive. You survive by striking your own trail and climbing the mountain, I survive by finding the road around it.” I pause. “I know you both sneer at me for it. I know you think it’s a weakness. Trying to be good, trying to make the best of things.”

  She leans her head back and stares at the roof. Somewhere up there, tucked into a nook where one beam meets another, lodges a discreet nest of baby starlings, fed at intervals by an anxious mother starling. We noticed them last week. It’s transfixing, the sight of those desperate little beaks. You can’t help thinking, God, how fragile. I wonder if they make it.

  Pepper says softly: “Maybe I understand that a little better than you think.”

  I wiggle my toes on the dashboard. “Do you mind if I finish your Coke?”

  “Be my guest.”

  I pick up the bottle from the floorboard and lift it to my lips. The air in the shed brims pleasantly with grease and warm grass, with the faint whiff of the nearby ocean. Behind my back, the old leather seat is as comforting as ever. Pepper doesn’t seem to have made much progress. The hood stands open, and the floor is littered with random bits of machinery, pretty much the way I left it yesterday.

  “I’m pregnant,” Pepper says to the starlings.

  The Coke sputters from my lips.

  “Isn’t it stupid? Here you are, wanting a baby so much, Frank’s messing around with other girls, and here am I, the fallen woman . . .” She shakes her head against the leather. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t going to tell you. I haven’t told anyone.”

  “Not even Vivian?” My voice lands somewhere between a whisper and a squeak. I wipe the Coke around my mouth with the edge of my dress. Surely I’ve misheard her. Or she’s joking. One of Pepper’s jokes.

  “No. She’s off in East Hampton for the summer. It’s not the kind of thing you just bring up over the phone. Anyway, she’s got her own bag now.”

  I set down the bottle and lay my forearms over my belly. “How are you feeling?”

  “Oh, fine, actually. I’m like a peasant woman. A little woozy when I’m hungry. And I can’t face bananas, for some reason. My boobs hurt, though. They’ve started busting right through my brassiere. Look.” She unbuttons her blouse, and sure enough, her breasts are spilling out the top of the pretty lace-trimmed silk, plump and creamy, like a pair of overambitious soufflés.

  I gaze at the abundance of her, the living proof, unable to look away. “Have you decided what to do?”

  “Do you think I’d be hiding out around here if I had?”

  “What about the . . . you know . . .”

  “The father?” She laughs him away.

  “Does he know?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Is he married?”

  “He might be.”

  “Oh, God, Pepper.” I turn my head away from the mesmerizing sight of her pregnant breasts and look through the bars of the steering wheel to the dull curved metal of the Mercedes hood. Pepper has a baby inside her. A real live baby, the kind that didn’t die in your womb. How could a baby possibly die, with vibrant Pepper to nourish its dividing cells?

  Pepper pregnant. Pregnant by a married man, a man she probably knew from Washington. Maybe someone I know. Frank knows a lot of people.

  “Well, anyway. I know you were wondering why I’ve been hanging around like this. I probably owed you an explanation.”

  “No. I mean, you didn’t. But thank you for telling me.”

  “Thanks for not telling me how stupid I am. How I get what I deserve. Oh, Pepper, how on earth could you get yourself into a mess like this?”

  “Well, I already know how you get yourself into a mess like this. I’ve been trying to get myself in the same mess for two years now.”

  “I’ve always been careful, you know. Honestly, it’s a mystery. Some fucking determined little sperm.”

  “I always figured you were on the Pill.”

  “You’d think, wouldn’t you? A fun-loving girl like me. My mistake.”

  “His mistake, too.”

  She shrugs.

  “You have to tell him, Pepper. It’s his responsibility. He should do something for you.”

  “Really? And if your husband was to get some girlfriend pregnant, you’d want him to do something for her?”

  An image materializes before me: pretty Josephine, her triumphant belly curved with Frank’s baby, her breasts spilling out of her expensive career-girl brassiere. Frank lifts her hair from her bare shoulder and kisses her skin. She gazes past his head and smiles smugly at me. My hands curve into fists.

  “I’m sorry,” says Pepper. “Jesus. What a dumb thing to say.”

  “No. Fair point.”

  “I’m going to hell, aren’t I?”

  “Probably,” I say, “but we all make stupid mistakes, don’t we?”

  “Except you. My perfect sister.”

  “Oh, I’m not so perfect.” I unclench my fists and raise them to the edge of the windshield to hoist myself up. “I think I’m going to go back to the house and get changed.”

  • • •

  When I reach the front door of the Big House, shoes and stockings dangling from my fingers, Mrs. Crane is there to greet me.

  “Oh, there you are, Mrs. Hardcastle! There’s a Mr. Lytle on the phone for you.”

  I set down the shoes and roll my stockings into a ball. “Did he say why he was calling?”

  “No, ma’am.” She glances at the slender leather pumps on the floor, the stocking ball in my hand. “It’s the second time he’s called.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Crane. I’ll take it in the library.”

  Lytle’s voice is low and confidential through the long-distance cables. “Mrs. Hardcastle. How are you?”

  “I’m well, thank you. Mr. Lytle.” I say his name with particular emphasis, to make it quite clear that Jack is an expedient of the past.

  “Are you alone?”

  “For the moment.”

  “I just wanted to let you know that I consider this morning’s interview—the whole twenty-four hours, really—to be off the record. I mean that.”

  “Do you really?”

  “Look, I know how it can be for you wives. I don’t envy you. But I do have a job to do, Mrs. Hardcastle, and I’m working on a lead or two now that . . . well, you might not like what you hear.”

  “What sort of lead is that?”

  “Like I said, I’m just doing my job. I like you, Mrs. Hardcastle, and I’d hate to see you get hurt, but that’s the nature of the business. I don’t think it’s any secret that I’m digging around, up here. I just wanted to let you know, as a courtesy . . .”

  “I quite understand. Is that all?”

  “Yes. Yes, I suppose it is.”

  “Thank you for calling.” I pull the receiver away from my ear, which has taken on a kind of numbness, a cold cotton stuffing, and at the last instant I hear a faint Wait!

  I return the receiver to my ear. “Yes?”

  “Maybe you can help me with something, Mrs. Hardcastle.”

  “I can’t imagine what.”

  “I don’t suppose you’ve heard anything in the family, any explanation for a certain incident in Mr. Hardcastle’s junior year at Harvard. Anyone ever discuss that with you?”

  “What sort of incident?”

  “A disciplinary incident, Mrs. Hardcastle. Surely you’ve heard about it.”

  I turn my gaze to the wall of the library, where Frank’s Harvard degree hangs on the wall next to his father’s, and his grandfather’s, too, framed in burl wood. The c
omfortable Latin words are identical in all three, down to the typescript: OMNIBVS AD QUOS HAE LITTERAE PERVENERINT SALVTEM . . .

  “Mrs. Hardcastle?”

  “I’m sorry. I can’t imagine what you mean. My husband’s record at Harvard was exemplary. He was the salutatorian. He gave a speech at the commencement ceremony, a very stirring speech.”

  “No one’s ever referred to any dealings with the dean’s office?”

  “The dean’s office? What sort of dealings?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to find out, Mrs. Hardcastle, and I must say it’s been slow going. Records missing, that sort of thing.”

  “I’m at a loss. I’ve never heard of such a thing. I’m sure you must be mistaken. Did the suggestion come from our opponent’s office? Because it’s completely out of—”

  A shadow falls across the doorway, in the corner of my vision. I startle around to find Mr. Hardcastle standing just inside the threshold, hat in hand, jacket over his arm, watching me quietly.

  “Mrs. Hardcastle?”

  “Out of character. I really must go, however. Thank you for calling.”

  I settle the receiver in its cradle, straighten my skirt over my bare legs, and smile at my father-in-law.

  “I hope I haven’t interrupted,” he says.

  “Not at all.”

  “I’m just heading back into town. I’ve spoken with my mother to fill her in. We’re both in agreement that you should continue here at the Big House for the time being, until you’re feeling better.”

  “Actually, I’m feeling quite well. I—”

  He steps forward, kisses my cheek good-bye, and puts on his hat. His hand lingers around my upper arm, and his smile is bland. “Don’t try to sneak away, now.”

  He turns and leaves the room, and it isn’t until the front door latches faintly from the hallway that I realize he never asked me who was on the telephone.

  Caspian, 1964

  The day Caspian’s mother died, the principal came to his classroom and beckoned to the teacher, Miss Flaherty, and Miss Flaherty, after a whispered conference, had arranged her face into a sympathetic mask and walked up to his desk and said, “Caspian, gather your books; your father is waiting for you in the office,” in a voice just short of a sob.