Any Place I Hang My Hat (38 page)

Freddy hadn’t confided in Thom Bowles’s handlers that he was looking for love. Bowles had every reason to think Freddy was a nut job or an extortionist. What had changed his mind—or at least his behavior? A call to his lawyer from Freddy’s lawyer, Mickey Maller? A warning from his advisers to love his son or lose the Latino vote? Or was I afflicted with the curse of journalists, uncontrollable cynicism? Wasn’t it possible that upon seeing this child born from his youthful love, Thom Bowles’s heart had melted?

Halfway through my first slice of pizza, I decided to track Freddy down. In a day so short on results and long on questions, maybe I could get some answers. But how could I elicit his help? Not by being vague. I could let him know we were in the same boat, tell him my story, and ask what he would do in my place. No. I’d already stepped over the ethical line by recommending a lawyer to Freddy; I still had to deal with people on the Bowles campaign staff throughout primary season and, in the unlikely event Thom Bowles became the Democratic nominee, beyond. I couldn’t be a confidante of his son.

Having finished off my pizza, I was debating between another beer or a sugar-free, fat-laden ice cream bar that had the pleasantly minty flavor of Elmer’s Glue. It occurred to me then that I could call Freddy, ostensibly to find out how things were going, and simply start asking questions about what he’d been thinking all the times he’d tried and failed to talk with his father. Maybe he’d say something that could help me.

I opted for the ice cream bar and called Freddy’s cell phone. I closed my eyes for a moment to marshal my resources to deal with the New Freddy, throwing off sparks of vim and cheer.

“Hello,” he said. Forget vim and cheer. He spoke slowly, heavily, sounding as if he could use an electroshock treatment.

“Hi, Freddy, Amy Lincoln. How are you doing with all the fried chicken and bougainvillea, or whatever they’re serving up in South Carolina?”

“I’m back in New York.”

He might as well have said goodbye. He showed not a hint of desire to talk. However, this was not an unheard-of situation for a journalist. “Was Thom on one of those in-out trips, just make a speech or whatever?”

The silence was so long I was able to finish half the ice cream bar. “Amy, anything I tell you …”

“Totally off the record. You know that, Freddy.”

“I feel like the biggest asshole in the universe.”

“Well, you’re not. What’s going on?”

He did some of that audible breathing that depressed people do before speaking. Finally he said: “It’s like this. I met him at Teterboro. He has a private plane for the campaign. Anyway, he said something about he has to do some reading on the trip down but we’d have some time together once we got there. So I figure, that’s okay. I even brought along a book I’m reading. About ENIAC.” He paused. “It’s considered the first electronic computer.”

I said “Uh-huh” to let him know I was listening.

“Thom has his own office, room, whatever, on the plane. He went in there. His people kept going in and out. Moira especially, and one of his pollsters. And the guy who’s his administrative assistant in the Senate but who’s on a leave of absence for the campaign, Yancey Wilson. Do you know him?”

“Yeah.”

“He’s a little—I don’t know. Strange. He stares at you and kind of squints and doesn’t look away even if you look him right in the eye.”

“He does that with everyone,” I explained. “He’s trying to get people to think he has supernatural powers. The ability to read minds or see people naked. But for what it’s worth, he has a good reputation in the Senate. He’s too odd to be liked, but people on both sides of the aisle seem to trust him.” I walked to the sink to get a glass of water to dilute the taste of Elmer’s. I couldn’t figure why Freddy would have more than a nodding acquaintance with Yancey Wilson. “Did you have any dealings with Wilson?” I asked.

“Kind of.”

“Freddy, you sound less than happy. What’s going on?”

“It’s Thom. I mean, everybody except me was going to the back of the plane to talk to him. He was supposed to be doing some important reading, but he wasn’t alone for more than five minutes during the whole flight down.”

“Maybe he shouldn’t have used the word reading. Very often candidates do business on planes, catch up on phone calls. Even though Thom Bowles comes from a wealthy family and has made money on his own, he’s not bankrolling his own campaign. Fundraising is a huge part of what these guys do.”

“Pretty soon after we landed, he said, ‘If you need anything, anything at all, speak to Yancey.’ I thought that was pretty nice, but the whole time we were down there, the only time I saw my father was during public appearances. Before audiences and any meeting …” His voice trailed off and became a sigh.

“Any meeting in which there was someone who might be Latino?”

“Yes.”

“So where did Yancey Wilson fit into this?”

“I guess he was what they call my minder. Thom didn’t have his campaign bus down there, just a bunch of cars for the staff. So, a couple of times I asked Yancey if I could sit with Thom. You know, when there were twenty-minute, half-hour drives. And every time he’d make some excuse.”

At first, I couldn’t conceive of someone on Yancey Wilson’s level being assigned as a hand-holder. That was a job they’d give to some engaging, cold-blooded kid just out of college. Then I realized that the Bowles campaign viewed Freddy as both an asset and a potential liability. If for any reason he became disenchanted with his father, or with how he was being treated, Freddy had become enough of a public figure in his own right that when he railed against Thomas Bowles, people would listen. He might be a one-day wonder, but his mouthing off might be enough to make some voters have doubts about the candidate.

“Did you ever get to see your father alone?”

“The final ride of the day, after a talk at a junior college on the way to the airport. Thom said he was so sorry, blah blah blah, about not being able to spend any time with me. This is what pisses me off: My mother was a very smart woman. Thom’s a very smart man. Why doesn’t he give me credit for inherited intelligence? Why does lie think I’m so fucking dumb that I don’t realize that his treatment of me means one thing?”

“And what’s that, Freddy?”

“That he has no feelings for me. That I was a big problem, or at least could have been, so the best thing to do was to pretend to give me what he thought I wanted. Love.”

I heard a sniff and realized he was trying to keep from crying. “I’m so sorry,” I told him. “Look, there’s always the possibility that Thom is a guy who can’t walk and chew gum at the same time, that the mere fact of you is too much of a distraction during a presidential primary campaign. Maybe once this is all over, which I think it’s safe to predict will be sooner rather than later, he’ll be more himself.”

“The truth, Amy. Does being more himself mean that even though I’m an adult, he’ll consider me his son?”

“I don’t know. Obviously he knows you are in terms of paternity. But Freddy, if what you’re looking for is a family, a place to belong now that you don’t have your mother, I can’t say whether it will be with Jen and April and Brooke and Thom. I just don’t know.”

“Do you think he was just using me?”

“I’m a reporter, Freddy. I’m cynical by nature. So if you want a reassuring answer, I’m not your girl. On the other hand, having had a checkered childhood myself, I can only tell you I understand your need for family. You might not get it with the Bowles clan. Public people often have limited abilities to sustain private relationships. You’re a great guy and whether it’s with the girlfriend you have now or with someone else, you’re going to have a fine, deep relationship. You’re going to be part of a family. Trying to get love from a United States senator can be like trying to get blood from a stone. Even if something oozes out, it’s not real blood. Freddy, you’re a great guy. You deserve the real thing. Go for it.”

Since Preshie had spent most of Tatty’s childhood either drinking, recovering from hangovers, or getting dried out, much of Tatty’s upbringing had fallen to the household help. Even as a toddler, my guess was, Tatty could be imperious. In any case, nannies came and nannies went. The cook and the housekeeper, however, stayed put. They were the ones who taught Tatty her skills. Besides her business of creating cakes, Tatty grew up to be a homemaking genius. She could iron a pleated tuxedo shirt, unclog a shower drain, cook sauces from béarnaise to zabaglione, and, in minutes, whip up a round tablecloth with matching napkins on a sewing machine.

Since my intelligence was mostly linear and hers visual, in our friendship I was the designated reader/thinker and she was the aesthetician/shopper. At one point, shortly before John and I parted, I’d casually handed Tatty twenty dollars and mumbled something about needing a new shower curtain. If, in her near-daily shopping expeditions, she saw something she liked, she should buy it for me. She’d stared at the twenty-dollar bill with incredulity and annoyance. Impossible, she’d sniffed, but I knew she’d view it as a challenge.

The day following my conversation with Freddy, she called me at work to announce she’d finally found a king-size sheet imprinted with flowers like the ones in those seventeenth-century Dutch still lifes. She said she’d be over between seven and eight to take measurements against my shower curtain liner.

“This is really pretty,” I told her. “I can’t believe a sheet like this could be on sale for $11.95!” The dark green, almost black, of the background emphasized the beautifully detailed flowers, making them appear illuminated from behind.

“It’s decent for a shower curtain, if one’s taste runs to florals. But seriously, Amy, can you believe someone would actually put this on a bed?”

“You know the answer to that.”

“Bed linen should always be white. No exceptions. You know that, but you don’t really care. That’s the pity of it. I’d rather spend a night walking the streets of a foreign city filled with purse snatchers than sleep in a hotel on peach-colored sheets. That happened once, in Venice, at the Cipriani, except there were no streets to walk. And get that stupid smile off your face, like Oh, she’s exaggerating for a change.” We pushed furniture aside. Then we laid the vinyl shower curtain liner over the sheet. Tatty knelt down and attached it with paper clips. “Pins leave hideous holes,” she said. “Would you please get down here and help me? Oh, before I forget: Don’t worry, you won’t have to deal with the curtain blowing around.”

“I’m not worrying.”

“You wouldn’t. When I sew up the hem on my machine, I’ll put in drapery weights so the curtain stays out of the tub.” We finished the paper-clip business and she started marking where the curtain holes would go to match up with the liner’s. “I want to get married again,” she said suddenly.

I looked over to her, but all I could see was the top of her head, bent over the curtain. “You want to get married again as a general proposition?”

“If that means do I know who to, the answer is obviously no.” She switched from sidling around on her knees to sitting cross-legged on the floor. “I don’t even know anyone right now that I’d want to go to a movie with, much less have a baby or two.”

Pleased at this chance to get off my knees, I leaned back against my couch and stretched out my legs. “This time,” I said slowly, massaging my knees, “I hope you won’t go looking in bars. The last two—”

“I know what you’re going to say. You’ve made this point a thousand times before, so don’t even bother—”

“I’m going to bother. Unless you want to wind up re-creating your parents’ marriage and having cocktails every night from six to ten, you need a new source of manpower.” Tatty screwed up her mouth so it looked as if she’d just eaten something she was going to spit out. She made a move to shift her position and start marking shower curtain holes again. Still, her butt and the floor remained in contact, so I kept on. “The other problem is this. Even if you don’t wind up with someone who’s a major alcoholic, if you marry one of the Aren’t I sophisticated downing seven martinis even after they ran out of olives? guys, you run the risk of getting a mean drunk. To be brutally honest, your father’s an okay drunk. I know you get upset when he gets sloppy and drips shrimp cocktail sauce onto his tie. But you had one husband who got into fights with waiters and another who wrecked furniture. If you wind up with another big drinker, you and your children could be risking more than a potential black eye.”

“Every guy who drinks isn’t a drunk. You know that.”

“Of course I know that. But so far, you’ve had two out of two. Even if that’s too small a sample for any poll, it’s a statistic to be concerned about when you’re talking on a personal level.”

“There are hundreds of nice guys in bars,” Tatty said, loud enough to show she was angry.

“Tatty, there are hundreds of guys, nice ones, in other venues, too. Go to tennis matches, car things—you’re always saying you want to go to a Jaguar rally. So go. Listen, you and I both know that you could stand on the corner of Park and Seventy-second and within the hour get two marriage proposals. Men like you. Not only like you, they want to marry you.”

“I know.” She took up the hem of the curtain, removed a paper clip, then placed it back about an eighth of an inch from where it had been. “Sometimes I think it’s a mistake to cook for them. It makes them happy and comfortable. Other times … you know.”

“Damaris dough?” I asked. That was how we’d always referred to her parents’ wealth. She nodded. “Well, you have a choice. Tell the next potential husband that you’re going to renounce every cent of any money you inherit so you can be judged on your own worth.”

“That’s not funny.”

“Or you can deal with the fact that someday you’ll be really rich and start thinking not just what money will buy but what it will do.”

“Charity?” Though not as bad as her father, Tatty tended to believe charity began and ended at home.

“Yes, charity. Or like thinking about the fact that you didn’t earn this money, that it’s been handed down to you and you’re the steward. Tat, you’re thirty. You’ll be making choices in the future: Do I want to not save a dime and spend it all on Valentinos and Chateau Latour? Or donate the whole bundle to the Costume Institute at the Met or some other cause?” For a fraction of a second, she looked intrigued. “Do you want to marry a rich guy and spend his money and save yours? Do you want to marry a middle-class guy, like a teacher or a Legal Aid lawyer, and use your money to live a little better than you might on his salary? There are so many interesting ways to live if you just stay away from the men who don’t have the capacity to stay sober. Then there’s only one way to live. Your life will revolve around his drinking.”