Tiny Little Thing

  “Tiny . . .”

  “Good night, sis!” Pepper waves her hand, without looking at me, and takes the flashlight right from Caspian’s fingers. “See you in the morning.”

  • • •

  A knock on the bedroom door interrupts the promise of an hour’s quiet contemplation. I tuck the manila envelope back beneath my silk slips and close the drawer. At my feet, Percy releases a shaggy sigh.

  “Come in.”

  Granny Hardcastle opens the door and doesn’t mince words. “Well. That sister of yours.”

  “That sister of mine.” I shrug.

  “I hope you had a word with her.”

  I straighten my back and turn around, bracing my arms against the chest of drawers. “Actually, Granny. Now that you raise the subject. I think you were abominably rude to her.”

  Granny, in the act of settling herself in the chintz armchair in the corner, flinches backward like I’ve struck her with a stick. She collapses the last few inches into the cushion. “I beg your pardon.”

  “Pepper’s outspoken, I’ll grant you that, but you practically accused her of sleeping with her employer. In an outrageously vulgar manner, I might add.” My palms are sweaty against the chest of drawers, but I hold them fast. Hold the wood for dear life.

  Granny’s steely backbone could hold up the Chrysler building. “Really, Tiny. I believe Miss Schuyler herself began the descent into vulgarity. I was only speaking to her in the language she understands best.”

  “Granny.” I smile. “That sounds a great deal like She started it.”

  Granny’s flamingo lips press together so tightly, they disappear into her mouth. “My son and I were just discussing how out of sorts you’ve been lately. Not yourself. How you need a bit of rest to pull yourself back together before September.”

  “I need a lot of things, Mrs. Hardcastle, but rest isn’t one of them.”

  “I understand Frank hasn’t quite behaved as he should—”

  “That’s between me and Frank, Mrs. Hardcastle.”

  “—but every marriage goes through its troubles, Tiny. Its stages, if you like.” Her lips soften into a smile. “I know my son may have been a little harsh with you. Like most men, he has certain notions of how wives should behave. But I understand how it is, believe me. My husband always had a weakness for a pretty girl; it’s only natural, really. But there’s no reason the goose can’t have a little sauce, too, now and again, to keep up her spirits.”

  Oh, Christ. I was expecting any number of angles to Granny’s lecture, but this wasn’t one of them. My fingers curl around the edge of the top drawer. “I don’t need any sauce, Mrs. Hardcastle. I just need Frank to . . . to . . .” Well, what did I need Frank to do? “To stop messing around with his campaign staff, right before my face, for starters.”

  Granny leans back in the chair and places her wise arms on the armrests. “Now, Tiny. We’re women of the world, aren’t we?”

  “I don’t know. Are we?”

  “Let’s not pretend you didn’t know the bargain you were making, when you married Frank. Every woman makes a bargain when she marries. This is part of your bargain.”

  “No, it isn’t. He promised me. He promised me it wouldn’t be part of the bargain.”

  She waves her fingers, without lifting her arm. “Men make loads of promises, Tiny, in order to keep us happy.”

  I form my right hand into a fist and bring it down on the wood behind me. “No. That was the deal. You know my family. You know I grew up in the middle of a fashionable marriage, right smack in the middle, my mother taking lovers and my father turning the other way, and sometimes picking up a girlfriend of his own, and—”

  “But it worked for them, didn’t it? Don’t your parents love each other?”

  The question brings me up short. Because, tucked in there amongst all the bad memories—running into Daddy and some impossibly young secretary enjoying dinner at the Stork Club, walking in on Mums during a little afternoon splendor with the Russian emigré prince who was supposed to be appraising the art in the drawing room—yes, tucked in among the bad ones lived a few good ones, a few moments of crystalline contentment. The time we went on vacation in Europe, and I caught Mums dancing with Daddy in the middle of an evening downpour in the Tuileries, and the expression of joy on her face, and the expression of tenderness on his, turned my breath into smoke. And wonder. Because how could you forgive him for the secretaries? How could you forgive her for the Russian princes? How could you say to each other: Oh darling, it’s really all right that you had sex with someone else, that you made love with lots of other people? It’s all right that you put your mouth on someone else’s mouth and kissed it, that you undressed and joined your nakedness with someone else’s nakedness, that you shared an orgasm in all its marvelous messy glory with someone else? How could you love someone and then engage in the most intimate of acts with another person?

  Or did I know the answer to that question already?

  “So maybe it works for them, somehow. But they aren’t happy, not like ordinary people, not contented . . .”

  “Is that all you want, Tiny? Contentment?” She puts one hand on each armrest and rises to her feet, and in her stance and her expression I see a much younger woman, the ambitious one who took her money and beauty and bought a blue-blooded Bostonian with it, and so created a potent alchemy of ancient social prestige and bottomless lust for power, the modern Hardcastle family. “Do you really want to be an ordinary person?”

  I tilt my chin to meet hers. “There’s nothing wrong with ordinary.”

  “You wouldn’t have said that two years ago.”

  “Maybe I’ve learned a thing or two.”

  “Oh, Tiny.” She places her hand on my shoulder, and good Lord, you wouldn’t think a grandmother born in the previous century could still maintain a grip like that. “For God’s sake. Listen to you. You’re not seeing the big picture. This is larger than all that. This is history.”

  “Oh, Granny, really—”

  “What happens to Frank if you leave him, hmmm? What happens to all of us? The family. The people of Massachusetts. The country, the world.”

  I open my mouth, but I don’t know how to answer her. Her hand turns gentle on my shoulder, kneading me through the cotton sleeve like a mother would, if I’d had that kind of mother.

  “You see? You’ve already made your choice, my dear,” says Granny. “You can’t go back.”

  The phone rings.

  “I expect that’s Frank,” I whisper.

  She glances at the telephone, releases my shoulder, and walks to the door. “Then I think you’d better answer it, hadn’t you?”

  I let it ring a few more times—drrring drrring drrring—into the solemn air. I think of those cartoons, where the phone actually jumps into the air, shocked by the electricity on the line.

  “Hello?”

  “Tiny, it’s me.”

  “Hello, Frank.”

  His voice is low and subdued. “I spoke to Dad. Well, he came over and spoke to me.”

  I hook my fingers under the cradle and carry the telephone to the indigo horizon outside the window. Behind me, to the west, an unseen sun drops below the sky. To the left, the houses have put on their porch lights. Except Caspian’s house, which is still dark and uninhabited. “And what did your father say to you, Frank?”

  A deep sigh electrifies the line. “Tiny, you’re wrong about Jo.”

  “Please, Frank.”

  “No, really. I admit, she’s a pretty girl, we flirt a little, but that’s all.”

  “I’m not an idiot.”

  “I’m not a liar.”

  “No, of course not. I’m not sure you would consider this a lie, a real one. You probably think it’s a white lie, a harmless little fiction to keep your marriage going, to keep your wife happy, to keep anyone from g
etting hurt.”

  “Jesus. Is that what you think of me?”

  I press my nose against the window. A film of fog creeps up the glass, obscuring my vision. “I don’t know, Frank. I don’t know what I’m supposed to think of you anymore. I don’t know if I ever did.”

  Silence fills the receiver. I imagine Frank sitting at his desk in the office, staring at the blotter, wondering what to say. Which lie, possibly, to tell.

  I continue. “The thing is, it doesn’t really matter if you slept with her or not. If you’re telling the truth or not. The point is that it could be true. That it’s been true before. That it will be true someday, maybe not now, but in a year or two, when we’ve had a fight or you’re under strain or you’re away on a trip or something. Some excuse to let things slip. And then some pretty girl gets the better of you. It will happen. It will happen repeatedly. I know it will.”

  “That’s not fair, Tiny.”

  “No, it’s not fair. It’s really not. Because the other thing is, the harder thing is that you’re a good man. You’re a smart man and a good man. You’ll make the world a better place. You’ll do great things, one day.”

  “I can’t do them without you, Tiny.”

  Another long pause. I count the pale shadows of the rollers washing ashore, one after the other, all the way across the Atlantic Ocean to our little patch of Hardcastle beach.

  Frank ventures: “Do you want me to come out there?”

  “No. You need to keep the campaign going.”

  “This is more important. I need you, I’ve always needed you, I need you to keep me straight—”

  “Well, I’m not ready to see you yet.”

  “Tiny—”

  “I have to go, Frank. I have to think. Good night.”

  I hang up before he can reply. I set the telephone back down on the nightstand and take my shoes off, one by one, and then I slip through the door and down the stairs in my bare feet.

  Outside, the sand is still warm. I dig my toes in to the knuckles. A moon has appeared out of nowhere, a hazy half-moon, just bright enough to pick out the curls of foam on the beating ocean ahead. Down the line of Hardcastle houses, someone is having a party, playing some music. The Beatles. The bass chords rattle the air, overlaid by the high pitch of teenage giggles.

  I form my arms into a circle before me and arrange my feet into first position.

  It’s not easy, dancing on the soft piles of sand near the dunes. I have to force out the party music and listen to the notes in my head. My legs aren’t what they were. I stay on the pads of my feet, I concentrate on posture and extension rather than the movement itself. The movement always comes last, the icing on the cake, the skin over the frame.

  But the muscles do warm, eventually. The memory returns, and while I can’t raise my legs as high as I once could, and I can’t quite launch myself aloft with the same power, I can still leap. I can still spin, perfectly balanced, rhythmic and fearless, and when I finish, panting, staring out at the ocean while the waves tumble over each other, I find I am myself again, Tiny Schuyler, perched on the brink.

  I turn back to the Big House, and as I do, I catch sight of a light through a second-story window of the Harrison cottage, overlooking the beach: the corner bedroom that belongs to Caspian.

  “Tiny. Fancy running into you here.”

  I jump probably as high as the chimney stack.

  “Tom. My goodness. You startled me.”

  “Just out for a walk.” He’s carrying a drink in one hand, a cigarette in the other.

  I sniff. Actually, it’s not a cigarette.

  He holds the joint up. “Drag?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “No, of course not.” His teeth are white in the moonlight. He nods at the Harrison house, at the light in the corner bedroom. “Looks like someone’s still up, anyway. Dreaming about stabbing little Oriental babies with his bayonet.”

  “I thought grass was supposed to make you mellow, Tom.” I cross my arms.

  “Yeah, well. He just pisses me off, that’s all. The way everyone worships him. It’s like they’re blind, they don’t see.” He swishes his ice, drinks, swishes some more. “What about you?”

  “What about me?”

  “I mean, you see through it, don’t you? You’re not a robot.”

  “Oh, I’m a robot, all right.” I make jerky movements with my arms. “A true believer.”

  Tom takes a step closer.

  “Where’s Constance?”

  “Watching the kids. You’ve heard the news, right?”

  “What news?”

  He holds up his joint with thumb and forefinger and smiles as he takes a drag. “Connie’s pregnant. Due in March.”

  “Congratulations.”

  “Yeah, I may not be Frank Hardcastle, but I’m good for something, right?”

  “You know what, Tom? I think it’s time you went home to your wife.”

  “Yeah, you’re probably right.” He holds out the joint again. “Come on, Tiny. Just one little taste. Loosen you up. You’ll be a new woman.”

  “No, thanks.”

  “It’s better for you than this stuff.” He jiggles his drink.

  “I said, no thanks.”

  “You’re so fucking scared, Tiny. Just imagine what life would be like if you were a little bit braver.”

  There is a pain in my chest, a sharp squeeze, like they say you get when you’re having a heart attack. I reach out and slap Tom across the cheek: a little too low, more jaw than flesh, not quite the dramatic noise I was hoping for.

  But still. A slap.

  Tom’s eyes bug out a little. “Hit a nerve, did I?” he says.

  “Go to hell.”

  “I like it. I like it when you get pissed off. Come on, let’s get pissed off together. Let’s tell the whole fucking family where they can shove—”

  I turn around and stride through the sand, in the direction of the house.

  “Tiny! Come back!” Tom is laughing.

  I walk faster, into the gap between the porch lights, kicking up sand as I go. I breathe in angry little gasps, furious at the ruins of my evening.

  A hand snags my arm, and I open my mouth to scream.

  “Everything okay?” says Caspian.

  I look up and relax into his grip. Home, my brain assures me. Safety.

  Though of course, this isn’t safe at all. Not the least bit safe, meeting Caspian here like this, unexpectedly, under a darkened sky, in the pocket of shadow between our two houses.

  “Fine. Just Tom being Tom.”

  “I saw,” says Caspian.

  I realize he’s wearing a plaid dressing gown crossed over a white T-shirt. My pulse hits my neck. “You were watching me?”

  “It’s good to see you dancing again.” He nods at the beach, and I follow his gaze. There’s no sign of Tom now, as if he’s dissolved into the sea. Maybe I imagined the whole thing. But I can still smell the weed. I can still hear the jingle of ice. Caspian says idly, “Should I go after him?”

  As if to say, Shall I kill him for you?

  “God, no. It’s not worth it.”

  “What was he saying to you?”

  “He wanted me to smoke a joint with him.”

  “Stupid ass.”

  “He said . . .” I hesitated.

  “What?”

  “Oh, you know. The usual rant. That you bayoneted babies and all that.”

  Caspian lifts his hand to his hair. “Well, I didn’t.”

  “I know.”

  This is so unexpectedly easy, talking to Caspian in the intimacy of darkness, beyond the sight of any other eyes. Even the moon is hidden behind the roofline of the Big House. Caspian’s hand remains on my arm, cupped around the elbow, just the right pressure and location that a straight young matron like
me couldn’t really feel guilty about it. His breath smells of toothpaste, warm and minty sweet, and I think of him standing at the sink, getting ready for bed. I think of him rising from the sea this morning, the shape of his missing leg between his knee and the jetty below. That gap of empty air, which contains so much.

  “Are you okay, Caspian?” I say. “Are you going to be okay?”

  He knows what I mean. “No, I’m not okay. But I’m alive.”

  “I keep imagining you in that helicopter—”

  His hand drops away from my elbow. He looks back at the beach, in the direction of the jetty. “Well, don’t. Because I don’t actually remember it, myself.”

  “Any of it?”

  “Not until I woke up in a Saigon hospital a week later. So you see, I’m lucky. I’m pretty fucking lucky. Luckier than I have any right to be. And once I got over feeling sorry about my leg, feeling sorry about my buddies who didn’t make it . . . not that you ever really get over that, you just find a way to live with it . . .” He looks back at me, and though we can’t see each other very well, I feel the touch of his gaze as if he’s laying his hands on my face.

  “Yes?” I whisper.

  “I came home,” he says. He reaches out and brushes my chin with his thumb, and this touch is guilty, no question about it. This is how a lover touches you. “Good night, Tiny. Keep dancing out there.”

  He turns and disappears into the sand.

  I hold myself still, staring at the patch of shadow where he used to stand, and I think, this pain, this squeezing in my chest, I wish it were a cardiac attack. Because anything would feel better than the way my heart is beating now.

  Caspian, 1964

  She hadn’t eaten, so he made her an omelet with chopped tomato and plenty of Cheddar cheese.

  “I won’t be able to eat it. I’m too nervous,” she said.

  He lifted the edges of the egg with a spatula. “You have to eat, Tiny. Look at you.”

  “What’s wrong with me?”

  “Nothing’s wrong with you. But you’re not carrying an extra ounce.”