After the Reunion (7 page)

“Enjoy your dinners,” the waitress said, putting huge platters of steaming food in front of them.

“Thank you,” they both said in unison.

And then he started to talk. Chris was so relieved and grateful she began to relax. The moment of danger seemed safely over. She drank another glass of wine and allowed herself to admit how attractive he really was, now that she knew he would never know she felt that way. His hands weren’t shaking anymore. She leaned back peacefully against the leather. It was too bad the two of them hadn’t met at some other time in their lives. But then, at what time of her life had she ever been available in her heart, even when she was alone? It was a shame she was so woefully unable to handle something like this. Another woman in her place would have thought she was lucky to have the chance.

After dinner he drove back through the desert under the sky full of stars. She had her hand on the seat between them. He put his hand next to hers, innocently, but the air between them seemed to vibrate. If either of them moved just a little they would be touching.… She clenched her hands together in her lap and stared straight ahead out the windshield. No, it wasn’t over.

When they reached the motel Chris could still hear the music from the party, and the sound of people laughing. Cameron stopped the car at her door. “Thank you,” she said. “That was wonderful.”

“Yes, it was fun, wasn’t it.” He was looking at her, waiting to be invited in for a drink, afraid to ask, afraid even to touch her, because then she would know. But she already knew.

“Goodnight,” she said quickly, and was out of the car and gone.

The next day Chris sat through the meetings with her heart pounding, thinking of nothing but him. They passed each other going to lunch and he smiled, and she knew that even though tonight was the final banquet which they would both have to attend, there was afterward, and her room, and their last chance. In the afternoon she saw him watching her when he thought no one was looking. “See you at the cocktail party,” he said, his voice too casual, when they passed again.

“Right.” She went to her room and put her dress for the evening on the bed. She looked at the king-size bed, and the drapes at the windows that could be pulled tightly against the world, and at her wedding ring. Then she called Cameron’s room.

“It’s Chris. I’m going to have to rush back to New York tonight because my son isn’t feeling well.” She hoped he would mistake the tension in her voice for concern. Then she fled.

She was alone in the apartment. Alexander was still in the country, as was Mrs. Gormley, and Nicholas had been away for ages. It was very late.
Oh, God, I’m safe
, Chris thought. But she knew Cameron would be back in New York tomorrow, and so would Alexander, and nothing would have changed with either of them; so she was not safe at all. She took a shower and looked at herself in the mirrored wall of the bathroom. This was the body that one man wanted so badly, and another man—although he loved her—did not. It was so stupidly unfair. She sighed, and then she put on a robe and went into the kitchen. She hadn’t even remembered she’d missed dinner.

She made a sandwich of whole wheat pita bread with melted cheese and alfalfa sprouts, and drank a glass of wine with it. She found some cold chicken and ate that. There was a half container of butter pecan ice cream that had been hanging around because nobody liked it, so she finished it up. Then she saw an entire pint of chocolate chip ice cream, which she did like, so she let it soften on the counter while she had some crackers and creamy Valembert with another glass of wine. The ice cream was nice and soft then, so she took it to bed with her, eating it slowly and sensually in front of the television set. She was starting to feel a little nauseated. When she took the empty container back to the kitchen to throw away she started in on the cookies. Before she had finished everything in the cookie jar she was already tearing open a new package of cookies with her teeth, dumping some of them into the jar and eating the others with a glass of milk, dipping them into the milk to soften them, then sucking at them and finally letting them melt on her tongue. She was beyond nausea; she couldn’t stop. There was an empty, starving place deep inside her stomach, and no matter how much she ate she couldn’t seem to fill it up.

She ate toast with butter and peanut butter and jam when there was nothing else to eat. She even took Mrs. Gormley’s awful supermarket coffee cake, and ran her finger around the inside of the tin when it was finished, to get every last greasy crumb.

When she had finished eating, Chris went back to the bathroom and brushed and flossed her teeth carefully to be sure she wouldn’t get any cavities. She cleaned off whatever makeup might still be left after her shower, put on moisturizer, and combed her hair. Then she put on a nice, fresh nightgown, got into bed, and fell asleep instantly, as if she had been drugged.

It was the first time that she had forgotten to call Alexander. It was the first time in all the years of their marriage that she wasn’t where he thought she was.

Chapter Four

Everyone said the Caldwells were a perfect family; attractive, bright, rich, charming, social, athletic, and Daphne was also artistic. Their four well-behaved sons would be a source of pride to anybody. They had lived in Greenwich, Connecticut, for a long time now, and the few people who remembered things in their lives that were not perfect would certainly not mention them. There was, for instance, Richard’s first, unfortunate marriage, when he was barely a teenager; nothing really unusual about it except that his wife had been a roadhouse waitress and he a socialite, and their son (who was also named Richard Caldwell, so you couldn’t avoid the coincidence) was a rising star in liberal politics, who was written about in
People
magazine, and he and Richard had had nothing to do with each other since he was an infant. And there was Daphne and Richard’s youngest child, the daughter, the “different” one who lived away from home. No one ever mentioned her, either, and by now people had either forgotten about her or had never known.

There was about those perfect Caldwells a certain blandness that was a kind of denial of anything that was disruptive or weak. They gave enough of themselves to make you think you knew them, and for their circle of friends that was certainly enough. It never occurred to anyone that they kept as much secret from one another as they did from the world.

Daphne was aware of this only in relation to herself. She knew she would always be the Golden Girl she had been at college, simply older. She knew Richard always gave away anything that wasn’t perfect. She had seen it, and denied it, and made excuses for it, just as he had. Richard’s whole life was
Rashomon
. He always had a persuasive reason for anything he did, and seemed bewildered, even annoyed, at the evidence that he had caused anyone pain. A gentleman was someone who never did anything hurtful by accident, and a Caldwell never would do it on purpose either. He tiptoed considerately through lives he had wrecked, smiling his glittering, winning smile. Daphne loved him. There was nothing else to know.

It was another lovely summer. The boys were home from school: Matthew, sixteen, Sam, fifteen, Jonathan, fourteen, and Teddy, twelve. The huge old trees around their house were rich with cool leaves, her rock garden was filled with tiny colorful flowers which she arranged with pleasure in little vases, there were days filled with water-skiing and swimming and laughter, weekend picnics, friends, entertaining, movies, some jaunts to the city to the theater or a special restaurant for just her and Richard alone. The mirror in the dining room reflected six golden heads, Richard’s a little graying at the temples now, only making him more attractive. Daphne didn’t find it so attractive on herself, and had been coloring her hair for years. The boys all had her patrician, delicately sculpted face. She looked at them sometimes with awe that she had been able to create such wonderful creatures. They were her immortality, hers and Richard’s. This life—a comfortable home, happy children, and Richard—were all she had ever wanted. Although she did volunteer work for the Junior League, because that was what one did, she would have been quite happy staying home reading, running with the dogs, and sketching, her new hobby.

Today was Sunday. Two couples were coming for an early dinner. Steaks were marinating; Richard would grill them later outdoors on the barbecue. He still enjoyed cooking as much as ever, but now he only had time to do it on weekends, and during the week they had a cook. Daphne had given him an ice cream maker, and he delighted in inventing new and exotic ice creams and sherbets, several of which they were going to have for dessert tonight. Sam and Matthew had gone jogging, Jonathan was up in the attic in the photography studio they had outfitted for his special interest, and Teddy was in his room doing who knew what. The two older boys and the two younger ones had paired off for years now, the older ones more outgoing, the younger two more interested in quiet, solitary pursuits, although all of them could keep up a conversation and were properly charming to adults.

The evening was as nice as she had expected. There was only one tiny, unexpected sting of pain. After dinner, when the boys were playing touch football on the lawn in the last rays of the dying sun, the adults were talking about their various children, and Dan and Janet Mason, who were new to the neighborhood and had a precociously sexy and beautiful fifteen-year-old daughter, were complaining about the older boys who took her out. They gave her drugs, Janet was sure. It was so hard to control a girl who looked like a woman and acted like a child. They were thinking of sending her to a strict all-girl boarding school, but what would they do about vacations?

“No matter what anyone says,” Richard commiserated, “the double standard still exists.”

Everyone nodded. “The idea of a college girl trying to corrupt Sam or Jonathan …” Dan said, and laughed.

“Matthew would love to have one corrupt him,” Richard said, and Daphne smiled.

“You’re so lucky to have only boys,” Janet Mason said.

“Yes, yes,” Richard said genially, and Daphne felt the stab.

We have a daughter too
, she wanted to say. But, of course, she didn’t.

And that night in bed, when she and Richard were alone together at last, she didn’t mention it either. There were things they hadn’t talked about for years, and Elizabeth’s existence was one of them.

“Another wonderful weekend over,” Richard said. “Oh, tomorrow night I have a dinner meeting in town. Just wanted to remind you.”

“I remember.”

“I won’t be home very late.”

“All right.”

He’d had quite a lot to drink, but still he made love to her. Or perhaps that was why. But Daphne, who was still addicted to Richard’s sexuality and her own, thought they were lucky that after all these years their passion for each other was still special. She had so little to complain about in her marriage. Other people had so much less happiness. She could see it on their faces, and they told her things she would have been embarrassed to tell to anyone. Now that she thought about it, it had surprised her a little that the Masons would talk that way about their daughter, even though everyone really knew.

The next day, when Richard was in New York working, and the boys were amusing themselves, Daphne got into her car and drove on her semimonthly pilgrimage to see her own daughter.

The road was so familiar by now that she drove it by rote. So many years had gone by, and yet she always had the same image before her eyes: the baby being carried away by a stranger, herself turning and driving home alone. Elizabeth, nine years old now, going on three. The baby, the little girl who would be another Daphne, the one Richard had persuaded her to have even though she was afraid she was too old, too tired, had pressed their luck too far. But Elizabeth was not epileptic like her mother. Elizabeth was retarded. And Richard, who had so begged and cajoled for her arrival, had with the same sweet reasonableness made Daphne put her into a very nice home for “special” children.

Richard always gave away anything that wasn’t perfect.

That’s why I was always afraid he would give me away
.

How many hugs and kisses she had stored up for her daughter, the only one of her children she was still allowed to cuddle.… Daphne lit up another of her too-frequent cigarettes. Her boys were “little men” now, and hugs and kisses were reserved for reunions and farewells. Sometimes she allowed her hand to linger for a moment on Teddy’s silky hair, her youngest boy, or touched Matthew’s broad shoulder lightly when she gave him money to go out with his friends and told him to drive carefully in her borrowed car. But Elizabeth would always be a baby; her feelings open, her needs direct, and her understanding limited to the world she knew, which did not include the tall, kindly woman who called herself Mother when she came to visit and bring presents. To Elizabeth, Mother was Jane, her cottage mother; the woman who took care of her at the home and showed her the most kindness. Other children sometimes were adopted, or went to foster homes, but Daphne would never allow that. Elizabeth would stay in this very expensive place, and when she was eighteen she would go to a group home with her friends. That time was so far away that Daphne could not even allow herself to imagine it.

The home looked like a large country estate, with a main house and several small ones, painted in pale, cheerful pastel colors. They were expecting her; Elizabeth was wearing one of the many party dresses Daphne kept bringing. Jane had cut her blonde hair in bangs. Daphne felt a stab of resentment.
I didn’t tell her she could cut my child’s hair
. But Elizabeth looked so cute. She was small for her age now, and the dresses Daphne chose, decorated with flowers or ducks or rabbits, were always for a child much younger. Since the physical therapists had trained her to hold her tongue in, it sometimes occurred to Daphne in a flash of optimistic madness that Richard would accept her. You could see she was Daphne’s and Richard’s child. The coloring was the same. There were Daphne’s slanted cornflower-blue eyes, but the telltale eyelid flap made them not really Daphne’s eyes at all, but a sort of sad parody of them. Years ago, in the hospital when she was born, Richard had asked angrily if Daphne thought normal meant being toilet trained at eight. Well, Elizabeth was toilet trained at nine, and could feed herself with a spoon, drink from a cup, and spoke in short phrases. To Daphne, who had seen the way she had been at the beginning, it was a miracle of progress. But Richard would find nothing to take pride in.