A Dual Inheritance (39 page)

“Secretly.”

“Secret shyness? I don’t know, Vivi.… You might need to learn to paint your features.”

“Just because your own shyness is so obvious—”

“Hey, I managed to meet you on the first day of school, didn’t I?”

“Doesn’t count,” said Vivi, still scrutinizing her canvas. “I was the one who introduced myself. You were following me, but you never would have said anything.”

“See—you’re not remotely shy. And you think everyone is following you.”

Vivi shrugged.

“You
do
! I swear I’ve never met anyone more … confident.” Vivi started to laugh and shrugged again. “I’m just willing to see what’s right in front of me.”

“Like what?”

“Well, let’s see. Off the top of my head? Okay.” She took a dramatic breath. “Nobody really looks like me. I am not as smart as you. Smartness is overrated. Also? My friends from freshman year? Not my friends anymore. Not sure when that happened, maybe it was my fault, but, whatever—there’s nothing there now.”

“Does it bother you?”

She nodded. “I’m sentimental.”

“You?”
Rebecca wasn’t being sarcastic, but as soon as she’d said it, she realized that of course Vivi was sentimental. She’d just never thought of her that way.

Vivi blushed, and her face was so deeply, so unexpectedly red—it was almost uncomfortable to watch. “Oh, and here’s another thing. This painting? Bad. And,” she took a generous pause, “every painting I’ve ever made is bad.” She chewed on the end of one of her cornrows, which she did only when deliberating. “I’m going to stop painting and try photography.”

Rebecca looked at Vivi’s painting. It wasn’t good. Nor were her grades. But instead of noticing all the various ways in which the painting was lacking or thinking that Vivi should have gotten her grades up last spring in order to get into a better college, Rebecca found herself impressed that Vivi could move on so quickly, that she didn’t cling to the idea of making the painting better, that she cared more about expressing herself than she did about her college placement. Part of Rebecca’s inability to try even the most minor of creative endeavors (like baking a long-promised coconut cake for her friend Dan’s birthday last August) was that she knew she’d never know when to let the idealized version go. She knew she’d be up all night baking that stupid cake, convincing herself that she could make it better than it could ever actually be. “I think,” said Rebecca, “this is a good call.”

“Okay, then, we’re in agreement there,” said Vivi, still focused on the canvas. “I totally suck as a painter.”

“No, come on—”

“What are you doing for Thanksgiving?”

“My mother’s boyfriend’s beach house. Remember?”

“Oh, right. What’s it like?”

“I don’t know.” Rebecca shrugged. “Decorated?”

David’s house in Southampton was exactly the kind of place that Vivi loved hearing about. But Rebecca did not tell her about the antique Mercedes convertible that was used just for going to the beach or that
there was a whole other “cottage” for the year-round chef. She did not share how, during her last visit during the summer, every morning there was a newspaper for each and every guest—the sections already separated and neatly stacked alongside the breakfast spread. She did not mention the breakfast spread—the baskets of croissants and pastries and bagels from E.A.T., the platters of smoked fish and exotic fresh fruit and made-to-order omelets. Or how there was a giant Calder mobile on the lawn leading to the clay tennis courts. Or that one of her early memories was of her father taking her from the Museum of Natural History straight across town to the Whitney, where he pointed out
Calder’s Circus
and told Rebecca he preferred Calder to dinosaurs. Rebecca did not tell Vivi how her father would have been so jealous if he saw that Calder—maybe even more jealous than if he saw her mother kissing David—because her father wanted to own what he loved.

“Is that where you want to go for Thanksgiving?” Vivi asked.

“Sure.”

“Really?”

Rebecca pictured the white four-poster guest bed and how she knew she’d have trouble sleeping under the same roof as her mother and David. She already knew that she’d long to feel close with her mother and yet would barely be able to look at her, forget about touching her, not even a hug goodbye.

“No,” Rebecca admitted. “That isn’t where I want to go.”

“So come with us instead.”

“To Haiti?”

Vivi shook her head. “We’re going to Anguilla.”

“Your family goes to
Anguilla
?”

“My aunt Kitty is a decorator, and she’s doing up a house there. She’s done a bunch of these houses in the Caribbean and then she sells them at a gigantic profit. Mom gave her the idea. My father totally disapproves and thinks it’s obnoxious and that she’s ruining the island’s integrity, but he’s coming anyway. I think he feels bad about disappointing Aunt Kitty. Plus my cousin J.K. is in rehab—poor J.K.—which is really expensive. I had no idea rehab was so expensive. Did you?”

Rebecca shook her head. She looked over at a still-life display; a white sheet was crumpled at the foot of a table. She felt like pulling that sheet over her head and waking up with Vivi’s family in Anguilla, where nothing was remotely familiar. People adored one another and stayed married, and made even a trip to rehab seem okay. People spent their lives working with incredibly poor and sick people, got paid next to nothing, and vacationed in Anguilla.

“I can’t come,” said Rebecca.

“Why not? I just invited you.”

“But—”

“I really mean it. You’re invited. I understand the importance of an invitation.”

“Huh. I find that hard to believe.”

“What does that mean?”

“I think you probably walk through a whole lot of doors without an invitation. In fact, I bet your un-American globetrotting life is like one big fat American game show. What’s through door number one? The Caribbean! Oh, wait, what about door number two?” Rebecca knew that she was being more than a little confrontational, but she wasn’t exactly sure why. She waited for Vivi to take offense, but Vivi only began to place her canvases alongside other painted canvases, under a sign cheerfully labeled:
FEEL FREE TO PAINT OVER!

“You’re invited,” said Vivi definitively, with a somewhat eerie disregard for Rebecca’s rotten behavior. “You should come.”

Chapter Fourteen

NYC/Velocity

During a fit of Zionism combined with a feckless desire to rid his collection of a Philip Pearlstein (the model looked like Jill), Ed had donated a painting to the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. He had learned for the first time of Jill’s struggles with fidelity, and though it was several years before they actually signed divorce papers, he’d thought of that painting’s journey to Israel as representing the bitter end of their marriage. He went as far to picture himself as the painting: crated up, stuck in limbo, waiting to emerge. He should have, in fact, held on to the Philip Pearlstein. If he still had the Pearlstein he would be able to sell it along with the rest of his collection in the coming year (if it came to that—which it could have).

It could, in fact, come to that.

However.

Having made the donation, he received invitations to anything remotely suggestive of contemporary art or Israel, and, over the past few years, he’d taken to attending one event per week. Though he hadn’t finished packing and his flight was in the morning, and though he’d never previously been to China, he was far too socially careful these days to miss an event for which he’d RSVP’ed. He abandoned his suitcase and his checklist and strolled over to Roseland on a late October
evening. As a kid, fall had been his favorite season—he loved returning to school—but as an adult he found it disheartening. It was getting dark earlier now, and the air was crisp; everything was beautiful in that sad kind of way that he absolutely fucking hated. A party was what he needed; he needed to feel like a sociable person, which—for him—entailed talking with people who didn’t know him yet. He heard the swing band, the muffled chatter, the clinking glasses and silver, and as he entered the room, the first two people he saw—the very first two, as if this all were nothing more than one of his ridiculous Ziegfeld-style dreams—were Ted Kennedy and Connie Graff.

They were dancing. Teddy twirled Connie, who was wearing a low-cut red taffeta number; they were both laughing. It was still cocktail hour, and they were the only ones cutting a rug. Teddy was very red and very large. He had a presence. It didn’t matter that his dance moves weren’t terribly fluid. He was a friend of the Jews. Ed swiped a glass of champagne. A toast-and-salmon canapé. He didn’t know whether to laugh or leave, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the senator and Connie. He watched them through a fine rendition of “I Get a Kick Out of You,” and, when they were finished dancing, Connie whispered something in the senator’s ear and—to Ed’s great surprise—they came right over.

“Ed,” Connie said.

He kissed her on the cheek. She smelled citrusy, metallic. One of her diamond earrings nicked his cheek. She made the introduction.

“Senator,” said Ed, pumping his meaty hand. “Good to meet you.”

Ed asked how they knew each other, and Connie and Ted Kennedy had a good laugh. Finally Connie offered, “Oh dear, that’s a long story, but we met while vacationing. If you can believe it, I stumbled down a rocky cliff, and who helped me up but this fella. Imagine my surprise. Teddy’s good in a crisis, I can tell you that.”

Ed was not only afraid that Connie had made a tasteless joke but that the senator was actually going to laugh in response. But then Ed realized she was being completely serious. To Connie, he was not the Kennedy who killed a girl; he was the Kennedy who was her friend.

“You know I came only to dance with you,” Ted said, kissing Connie’s cheek. “Pleasure to meet you, Ed.”

“Next month,” Connie called after him. “Don’t forget.”

“You look terrific,” said Ed, the minute Kennedy walked away.

“Thank you.” She smiled broadly, but it didn’t feel as if she was smiling. Her teeth were very white. “And thank you for coming.”

He must have looked confused.

“You might want to read those invitations more carefully from now on.” She waited a moment, but he was still too disoriented to rescue her. “I’m co-chairing this event.”

“Oh,” Ed stammered, “oh, but of course you are. I only meant—”

“Save it,” Connie said, still smiling. “You remain in the running for the world’s worst liar.”

This awkward encounter was nothing if not proof that he never should have gone out the night before such an important trip. “Fine,” he said. “You’re right. I somehow missed your name on the invitation.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Connie. “You’re here.”

“So … you invited me?”

“Not exactly. But I did consider that you might be here this evening. Please, Ed, don’t look so terrified.” She flipped her thick hair behind her shoulder. “It’s good to see you.”

“You, too!” And, quickly, because he’d finally found something to say: “I see you had the good sense not to cut your hair.”

“Sorry?”

“All the women I know seem to be doing that these days. It’s good to see your hair, that’s all.”

“Thanks,” she said, with a note of bitterness so faint he almost missed it. “I’m glad you approve.”

With Connie’s one bitter note, he felt officially nervous, and it galled him. “I do,” he said, not backing down. “I definitely approve.”

The band stopped playing and a bespectacled gentleman took the podium. “Good evening,” he said, and, aided by a thick Israeli accent, his bespectacled-ness seemed less professorial and more edgy, avian. “I
hope you all can—like the song that was played by this … very nice band—forget your troubles and … get happy.” A polite laugh from the crowd.

“I know many of you still feel the sting of last year. But as we say in my country:
Yihyeh beseder
. Everything will be just fine. I can tell who is Israeli by those of you who are laughing. Because”—he squinted out into the crowd—“you know that we say this in opposition to reality. We say this as things get worse.” He smiled, this charmer of a positivist, and raised his glass.

“Great motivator, this guy,” Ed whispered to Connie. “Who is he?” But she said nothing in return, and Ed felt like the class screwup—trying to impress the straight-A girl with his lame quips.

After thanking all the appropriate people and saying something minorly uplifting about art, the Israeli finally left the stage.

“What I don’t understand,” said Connie, “is money.”

He was surprised by her digression; she’d seemed so doggedly focused on the Israeli’s introductory remarks. “What’s to understand?” Ed shrugged. “It’s gone. Boom. That’s why they called it a crash.”

“But all the money all those people invested—including yours truly, of course: Where did it all go? I mean, literally, where did it go?”

“You see that candle?” said Ed. He pointed to one of the cocktail tables. “You see how it burns down?”

“Well,” said Connie, “I’ve never understood candles, either.” She suddenly seemed a little woozy, as if the energy she’d expended thus far in being friendly to Ed had already worn her out.

“You wouldn’t be much of a pioneer woman.”

“What?”

“You know—candle-making. They all had to do it, those women.”

“I would have been a fabulous pioneer woman. You should taste my meals these days.”

“I hope you haven’t forsaken Chinese takeout. I think of you every time I eat General Tso’s chicken, you know.”

“I heard about your divorce.”

He nodded.
Fair enough
.

“I was sorry to hear it.” He was no longer surprised when anyone knew. “I was sorry,” she repeated.

He must have made a terrible little grin, because Connie said, “Oh, come on. You think I’m still upset at you for dumping me in the early seventies?”

He started to laugh like an idiot, because what else could he do? He
did
think she was still upset about it. And—what a schmuck—he did not want this belief taken from him. Not tonight, not right now.