All the other kids had stared at him as he took out his notebook and pencil case and the lunch box he wouldn’t need today. Everyone knew that his mother was sick, of course. That she was gonna croak. He had felt the eyes tracking him as he trudged to the door, to the waiting principal, whose face wore the same sympathetic mask as Miss Flaherty. Had felt those speechless young eyes transforming him forevermore into Cap Harrison, the Boy Whose Mother Died.
Now, be nice to Cap, their moms would say, as they handed out lunch boxes and pencil cases and mittens the next day, before the school bus trundled around the corner. He has no mother now. A motherless boy.
They had stopped at his sister’s classroom first, before proceeding to the office. She had come out crying, and he had put his arms around her in the backseat of the car, as Dad drove them to Granny’s house, where Granny was waiting in her chintz chair in the living room, wearing a navy-blue dress and flamingo-pink lipstick. By the time they reached Brookline, Cap’s shoulder was wet through with his sister’s tears.
He dialed her up now. “Janet?”
“Cap? Jesus! Hold on.” A child was crying in the background. Her second, from the high-pitched sound of it, a girl improbably named Ursula. The older one never did cry much; she was too busy consoling her mother. Janet had gotten pregnant at age seventeen by a junior officer in Manila, a nice fresh West Point boy who did the right thing and married her, started sleeping with other women almost immediately, and then progressed along the spectrum of infamy until he was regularly hitting his wife by the time the baby was born. She’d hung around a year before she divorced him and started having a little fun herself, to make up for the misery. If she knew who fathered Ursula, now two years old and a sulky little beauty, she wasn’t telling. The crying stopped, replaced by canned television laughter. “Where are you? What time is it?”
“I don’t know. Seven o’clock, maybe. How are the girls?”
“They’re great. They love California. Is everything okay?”
“Sure, everything’s okay.”
“Because you sound upset.”
“Just wanted to check in. See how you’re getting along out there.”
“I’m good, Cap. I am. The job’s going well. Night school’s going well. Even Dad might be proud of me.” She allowed a touch of sarcasm. She and their father had never really gotten along. He had been too taciturn, and she needed affection. She needed a mother. She needed a father who hugged her and called her his princess, not a man stuck in perpetual mourning for a woman his daughter could never match.
Cap sighed. “He always was proud of you, Janet.”
“No, he wasn’t, Cap. Let’s not have this argument again. So why did you really call?”
He sighed again. The line crackled with his breath.
“Come on, big brother. This call is costing you. Coast to coast. Make it snappy.”
What the hell was he doing here? Why was he calling Janet, of all people? He almost hung up, and then: “All right. There’s this girl.”
A shriek.
“Calm down. Christ. She’s engaged.”
“Oh, engaged. Well, that’s nothing. You’ve got it all over the other guy.”
“You don’t even know the other guy.”
“I know you.”
He stared down at the beige box of a telephone, at the numbers and finger holes spaced evenly around the dial. The cradle beckoned, the twin plastic buttons. He could just press one down and end the call now. Save himself a few bucks. Janet’s breath popped and crackled down the line, her faith in him. He closed his eyes.
“It doesn’t matter anyway,” he said. “She just left.”
“Left for good?”
“I don’t know.”
“Aren’t you going after her? Find this guy of hers and punch his lights out?”
“Hadn’t planned on it.”
“Then why the fuck are you calling me, big brother?” she said, exasperated, mindless as usual of the child in the room behind her.
He rose to his feet and walked to the limit of the cord. “I don’t know. Shit. I don’t know.”
She laughed. The television noises were gone; maybe she’d moved to the kitchen. He pictured her tiny house in San Diego, the corner kitchen with the peeling fruited wallpaper, Janet carrying the telephone from one room to the other, the receiver cradled between her ear and shoulder, the line stretching out behind her to the jack in the wall of the living room, under the window. “Dad used to hate it when we swore,” she said.
“Washed my mouth out with Ivory soap.”
“Mine, too. Didn’t help. So listen, Mr. John Wayne, strong and silent type. Your lips taped shut. I know you don’t want to talk about it anymore, so I’ll just say this. A woman wants to know you’ll fight for her. That you want her badly enough. If she’s going to leave this fiancé of hers, she wants to know it’s worth her while. So is it worth her while?”
“Hell, no. I’m shipping out in two weeks. This guy’s a prince. I’m just a soldier, blood all over my hands, a grunt with no—”
“Jesus, Cap. It was a rhetorical question. Of course it’s worth her while. Soldier. Grunt. For God’s sake, you’re a decorated officer. You’re the best. You’re the best—” Her voice got all scratched up. “The best brother in the world. Rescued me over and over, when anyone else would have given up on me. You pay my damned rent every month. My girls, they fucking adore you. Shit, you’re making me cry, Cap. Just go out and make some girl happy, okay? Some lucky girl.”
“Janet, I don’t know where she lives. I don’t even know her last name.”
“Go find out.”
Go find out. He stared at the wall of photographs, on which he’d tacked a large print of Tiny in the upper right corner, soaring off the edge of the plaster in an arc of inexpressible grace. Her face turned away. “Are you coming to Frank’s wedding?” he asked.
“Frank’s wedding? You mean cousin Frank? Who’s he marrying?”
“I don’t know. Some Park Avenue girl, I think. Couple of weeks. New York City. I’m stopping there on my way out.”
She chuckled feebly. “I guess I wasn’t invited. Can’t have the unwed mother hanging around the corner of the ballroom, eating up the canapés and disgracing the family name, can we?”
Damn it.
“I’m sorry, Janet.”
“Don’t be. Enjoy yourself. I’ll see you in a couple of weeks, right? Before you report?”
“I’ll be there.”
“Bring your new girl so I can meet her.”
“I’ll try.”
“What’s this try business? That doesn’t sound like my big old brother. Just do it, Cap. Execute.” She said it just like their father used to, when confronted with disappointing report cards or cars that needed washing on a raw February morning. Execute. Get it done, no excuses.
Except that Tiny wasn’t a report card or a dirty Chevrolet. She wasn’t a problem that could be solved with a little determination and elbow grease. Just because he wanted her in his present bed, in his future life; wanted to write to her from the jungle and tell her every last thing, to write her his soul; wanted to read her letters, to tuck her picture in his pocket and stare at her image until he fell asleep and dreamed of her, too; wanted with an irrational fierceness to know that Tiny would be waiting for him, suntanned and bare-armed, in a small rented house in San Diego a year from now when he stepped off the Lockheed C-130 a free man: just because he wanted all these things, didn’t mean he should have them.
Didn’t mean he could have them.
“All right, Janet,” he said. “Whatever you say.”
“Do you want to talk to the girls?”
“Sure. Put them on.”
He spoke with his nieces for a few minutes, first an incomprehensible Ursula and then her more rational sister, Pamela, whose front teeth had com
e in at last and forced away the final traces of her lisp. He said good-bye and hung up the receiver, hard, so the bell gave off a startled ding, and he stared up at the ceiling—he was on the sofa, now, in the exact squishy spot he cradled a shuddering Tiny yesterday—and wondered what it would be like, having kids with Tiny.
That’s how crazy he was.
• • •
But he was a man of action, after all. Not a man who sat on sofas and stared at the ceiling, kicking a beige telephone on the floor with his toe.
Execute. His father’s voice, or his sister’s?
It didn’t matter. The echoed word in his head was enough to start the inevitable chain reaction, the chemical combustion that set him in motion. He jumped to his feet, grabbed his wallet and keys, slammed the door behind him. He thundered down the stairs and out on the sidewalk, where the sun was still high enough to be seen above the housetops, and the air had only just begun to cool.
He reached Boylan’s Coffee Shop in four minutes flat, just as old Boylan was flipping the OPEN sign to CLOSED.
“What’s up, Boylan? Closing early?”
“I’m too old for this shit. What the fuck was you doing, getting blood all over my nice clean floor the other day?”
“Just saving your customers from getting shot up, old man.”
“The fuck you were. That nice Mrs. Larkin, the one with the big tits, she got a hole in her shoulder the size of a baseball, she says.”
“She’ll be all right. Give her a good story at the bridge club. Listen, I need your help.”
“Cops all over the place, drinking all my fucking coffee. Are you coming in, or what?”
Cap stepped inside the restaurant and discovered he was starving. He made himself a sandwich in the back while Boylan hunted down Em’s phone number in the office. Turkey and Swiss cheese. Mustard and mayo. He could have used a drink, too, but that’d have to wait. The kitchen reeked of Lysol. Maybe the cops took one look at the stove and sent over the health department.
“Here you go.” Boylan shoved a piece of paper in his hand. “Andrew four-five-oh-two-six. You better not be messing with my waitresses, you dumb cluck.”
“Can I use your phone?”
Em was surprised to hear his voice. No, she didn’t know Tiny’s address, the lady lived a few blocks away on Dartmouth, that’s all she knew. Her last name? Not sure. Something to do with the sky. Skylark?
“Schuyler?” he said.
Schuyler. Tiny Schuyler. Her name.
“That’s it. Now be gentle. She’s a nice girl. And she’s nuts about you.”
The weight on his shoulders lifted a fraction. A few meager stacks of bullion. “I sure as hell hope so, Em.”
Tiny Schuyler proved easier to find than he imagined. There were several Schuylers in the phone book, but only one Miss C. Schuyler resided on Dartmouth Street, at number 26, apartment 2B. He shut the directory and realized he’d just done the same detective work Tiny did, two days ago. The both of them, tracking each other down in turn, trying to find a way in.
He hoped Em was pouring herself a drink and putting her feet up.
In no time, in a lifetime, he wheeled around the corner of Dartmouth Street and into the volcanic glare of the dying sun. He wondered what the C stood for, but only for an instant, because number 26 stood only a couple of houses down the block, a regular door, a regular building. A genteel, well-kept old town house, divided into genteel, well-kept apartments, suitable for young women living alone. The front door was polished, the stoop clean, the knobs brass. He’d passed this door a dozen times in the past month, and probably a hundred since he was a kid, and what do you know? Tiny Schuyler’s door. He found the button for 2B and pressed it. SCHUYLER, said the label above, in typed black capital letters. His pulse beat in his throat.
The intercom made a noise that might or might not have been a human voice.
“Hello?” said Cap. “Tiny?”
Static.
“Tiny? Tiny, it’s me. Cap.”
The door buzzed, and Cap threw it open before it shut off. The hallway smelled of old sunshine and cigarettes. He bounded up the stairs to the second floor. Apartment 2B. The B flat would be in the back, wouldn’t it?
He turned his head, and there at the end of the hall leaned a beautiful woman in the open doorway of apartment 2B, one leg crossed over the other, holding a cigarette between the first and second fingers of a bejeweled right hand, and a highball glass in the bracelet-framed palm of the left hand.
Cap rested his hand on the bannister. “I’m sorry. I was looking for Miss Tiny Schuyler.”
The woman straightened her elegant long body and crossed her arms, keeping careful hold of both drink and cigarette. “I’m Mrs. Schuyler. The mother of the bride. Who the hell are you?”
Tiny, 1966
The phone rings at dawn, just as I’m about to take Percy for his walk. I snatch it up on the first ring, because who dials a telephone at dawn? Only bearers of bad tidings.
“Tiny, darling. Thank God.”
“Mums?” There’s no point in trying to hide my astonishment. At five o’clock in the morning, my mother might just as well be heading for bed as rising from it.
“I just had the most awful dream about you. Are you all right?”
“Of course I’m all right.” I wind the cord around my finger. “How are you? This isn’t like you, calling so early.”
“I couldn’t go back to sleep. I thought you’d be up.” She pauses. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Absolutely. Just the usual summer nonsense.”
A long sigh rushes down the copper wires, from the tip of Long Island to the tip of Cape Cod. “Well, then.”
I hesitate, and then: “What was the dream about?”
“I don’t remember exactly. It was terrifying, though. Absolutely terrifying. My heart’s still thundering.” A faint and familiar clink underlines her words.
“Go back to sleep, Mums.”
She yawns. “No, I’m up now. How’s Pepper?”
“Pepper’s fine. Pepper’s . . . Pepper’s blooming.”
“Pepper’s what?”
“Groovy. Pepper’s groovy.”
“Is that some sort of slang? I wish you wouldn’t use slang, darling. It doesn’t suit you. God knows, Vivian’s bad enough, but from you? I don’t think I can take it. Not this early in the morning.”
“Well, you were the one who called me, Mums.”
More clinking. “Maybe I’ll drive up and join you two for a bit. See for myself.”
“Mums, I’m fine. Really. We’re both fine. You’re the last thing we need.”
“I just can’t get this out of my head. It’s too awful.”
I glance at my watch. “I’ve got to run, Mums. I love you. Smooches to Vivian and the boys.”
I stare at the telephone for a moment or two after I’ve hung up, tracing the dial with my forefinger. Because I could call her back. I could tell her that I’m in trouble, that I’ve screwed up, that I’ve made a few mistakes, a few doozies, and need a little help from the old Schuyler matriarchy. That maybe her dream isn’t so far out, after all. That maybe the good daughter, the tiny perfect one, is the greatest disappointment of all.
At my feet, Percy whines and nudges my ankles. I crouch down and take his soft bumpy head into my chest. I whisper into his ears, “You’ll still love me, won’t you, Percy? You’re on my side.”
The old house is silent as the grave. We hold our embrace for a moment or two, Percy and I, until at last he nudges me gently in the stomach to tell me it’s time to get moving.
• • •
I spot a swimmer, out past the breakers, stroking steadily from north to south while the sun nudges up the horizon. Percy wants to join him.
I whistle, and Percy bounds obediently out of the uncurling surf, back toward me.
He shakes the water free in an expert rattle of fur, from tip on down to tail, and then he looks up and whines, all huge eyes and cocked ears and general canine persuasion.
“Come on, doggin-boggin. Let’s not bother the poor guy. He’s working too hard. Anyway, you can’t swim out that far, you silly boy.”
You see them from time to time, the ocean swimmers. They’re the diehards, the merfolk, born with saltwater veins and seaweed hair; locals, usually. Sometimes I think there must be something addictive about it, plowing through the virgin sea, the gold water sunrise. My cousin Lily Greenwald swims out every morning, down the coast in Rhode Island, and it keeps her fit as a fiddle, though she must be in her fifties now. You have to be confident to swim like that. You have to have been doing such things all your life, to plunge so fearlessly through the waves of concussive surf and into the rollers beyond, to crawl atop the skin of the ocean while the vast volume teems beneath you.
This morning’s swimmer trundles along in a steady rhythm. His arms pump as regularly as pistons, and as I watch him swim, as I calculate the unceasing beats of his progress, I perceive that he lifts his head to draw breath on every fourth stroke.
Percy pads along behind me, resigned. I keep up a brisk pace, as if I might possibly outrun my thoughts, if I move fast enough. Last evening, Granny Hardcastle invited Constance and Tom and the children for dinner, along with a couple of other cousins. A merry bunch. Pepper appeared about halfway through, still in her dungarees, dressed in dust and a smear of grease. She grabbed a chicken leg and went upstairs, without even looking at me, and I haven’t seen her since. I couldn’t; how could I? If I forgive Pepper, if I even acknowledge her, I must also acknowledge and forgive Josephine. I must acknowledge and forgive Frank. I must acknowledge and forgive myself. The awfulness is still sinking into my bones. The enormity of what I have to face. The mountain I have to scale, because there are no more roads around it. I stand before Everest, with no hobnails and ice pick, no oxygen tank, no rope and no parka, no wise Sherpa to advise me. Just myself. Tiny me.