Crazy in Love (10 page)

Clare and I were aware of small intrigues and rivalries. Everyone vied for Lil, the unmarried great-aunt. Everyone sought to please her by letting her sleep late, bringing her lemonade and beer on a cute little silver tray I never saw except when she visited, offering to buy her nail polish. No one could stand Edna, Henry’s wife. Edward, Gert’s husband Buddy, and my father steered clear of Granddamon. Pem and Honora seemed always to be on opposite sides of the room, making sure everyone had what they wanted. Aunt Kat and Uncle Homer were the most fun, constantly swearing, smoking, and gossiping about Lil and her secret beau, Nettie’s son’s dyslexia, and the connections of various well-known politicians to the Providence mafia. Achilles, whom all his great-grandchildren called “Grampa,” would play cards with everyone, sitting in the same place as long as possible to avoid moving his wondrous bulk. He was totally bald. Clare and I would stare admiringly at his shiny scalp for hours.

Pem would wait until the fireworks were in full swing before carrying the Fourth of July cake onto the porch. Everyone would cease watching the show and remark how beautiful her cake was that year. It seemed the most reverent tribute, that anyone could take their eyes away from those explosive fountains and sizzles long enough to look at a cake, but that is the sort of attention Pem commanded. No matter who was speaking, Pem had merely to clear her throat for silence to fall over her family.

“She was a holy terror when she was little,” Aunt Gert told us.

“In fourth grade she got caught passing a note that called the teacher a namby-pamby fat-assed grumble midget,” Lil said.

“Oh, she used to take my dolls and switch their heads,” Nettie said.

“We took her on canoe rides and she always capsized,” Henry and Edward said.

“Ain’t she sweet?” Grampa asked.

Clare and I would hear those stories, and although we didn’t quite believe them, we respected them, for Pem certainly had power over everyone. Part of it came from their affection for her, but part of it came from something else.

Only my father would continue watching the fireworks when Pem brought out her cake. He would sit in his corner, beside Uncle Edward and me or Clare, smoking a cigarette, watching the sky. “Look at the cake,” I said to him one year, when his arm held me tight and kept me from jumping at every crashing boom. “Mmmm,” he had said, gazing skyward.

Pem always noticed that he refused to look. She never said a word, but I could see her lips tighten. Then she would forget to cut him a piece of cake. I’m not sure whether my father ever tasted the Fourth of July cake.

After the fireworks, Clare and I would each have the lap of our father or Granddamon. Cards would shuffle softly. The pitch of Providence accents formidable, stories would commence. The great-aunts and -uncles told about block dances in Thornton, skating on Silver Lake, bonfires on Neuticonkinet Hill, taking the steamers from Providence to Newport. With much screeching they told about Harriet Grady’s quest to do her brother out of the family inheritance. Aunt Gert told us about the origins of belly buttons, of how babies came out of an oven and God tested their soft tummies with his finger, saying, “You’re done, you’re done. . . .” Even then Clare and I had thought it brave of her to tell that story in the presence of two dedicated scientists, although both our parents had laughed at it. Honora was the beloved niece, Clare and I her children, Timothy her brilliant and therefore distant husband. Clare and I adored those gatherings. Every year we saved a piece of Fourth of July cake, precious as wedding cake, and froze it, to keep until the next year.

ALL THE GREAT-AUNTS
and great-uncles, Grampa, Granddamon and my father were dead now. Many of them had died in their nineties, but Grampa had lived to be one hundred and Gert, his oldest daughter, one hundred and two. She had died last year. Granddamon had died in his sleep at seventy-one, and my father had died at forty. He was the youngest and the first to die.

The year his oil rig toppled, Clare and I looked forward more than ever to the Fourth of July. Honora quit the New Bedford television station, and we moved from Woods Hole to Black Hall. What had been our summer place was now our home. Pem and Granddamon lived right next door. After school every day I would sit on Pem’s lap in the Boston rocker, my head against her big soft bosom, and tell her how much I hated school. She had hated school too, so she understood. Pem showed me the best trees to climb, and Granddamon shagged fly balls for me when he came home from the bank. Clare and Honora were nearly inseparable, speaking French to each other or making botanical drawings, until a New Haven station picked up
Weather Woman
for its Saturday morning lineup and Honora went back to work.

Then school was over and it was the Fourth of July. Clare and I had been counting the days. We had even cut new state flags out of a
National Geographic
and attached them to virgin toothpicks. Wearing red, white, and blue bathing suits, we waited in the yard for the first cars. Edward’s blue Cadillac bearing his family and Grampa arrived first, followed immediately by the others. The great-aunts and -uncles filed up the hill, and we instantly knew something was wrong. How solemn the procession, how silent! Everyone kissed us, cooing about our father, and Clare and I started to cry. Other people could kiss and coo, but not the great-aunts. From them we wanted whoops and shouts, card games and gossip and presents. After everyone hugged Honora things improved, but not much. All the stories seemed to be reverential ones about Timmy. Clare and I had loved our father, but even we could recognize that he was not the proper subject for stories told by Pem’s people. He was too reserved, too quiet, too kind to inspire the sort of malicious joy that infused their customary tales. All that day I sulked on the rocks, feeling angry at everyone for spoiling the tradition. I had expected them to be the same as ever, to save their phony polite restraint for the funerals of people they knew and loved less than us. But it wasn’t phony. Everyone was truly sad.

That night, waiting for the fireworks to start, I sat between Granddamon and Uncle Homer. The sun set fast that year, and the show started right away. I jumped at the first explosion, and my grandfather held my hand. The rockets flew with clashing, terrible sounds that reminded me of trees crashing, of the worst thunderstorms, of Moby Dick sounding for the last time, dragging Captain Ahab behind him. Oh, I heard the sea crack and part and swallow them both, and I shuddered and began to cry. My grandfather squeezed my hand tighter. “Shh, little one,” he said. “They’re just fireworks.”

“You love fireworks,” Honora said from across the porch, from her safe spot between Aunt Lil and Aunt Nettie. “Remember we told you how they’re just a chemical reaction?”

I remembered, and I stopped crying, but the terror I felt grew and grew. The great-aunts were quiet that year, the big man beside me couldn’t stop my fear with the gentle weight of his arm across my shoulders, and when Pem brought forth the cake, everyone would be watching her.

“OH, THEY’RE WONDERFUL!”
Casey called, watching the twinkling blue ash darken and fall into the bay. A red starburst turned green, then gold, then disappeared. Four bright rockets exploded, followed by a gentle silver fountain.

“Pretty,” Pem said. “Did you see that red one?”

“How about a little cake?” Clare asked.

“No, watch the fireworks!” Eugene said.

“The rule is, cake as soon as the show starts,” Honora said sternly. She lifted the silver knife, the same one Pem had always used, and handed it to Pem.

“The show’s nearly over,” I said. “Why don’t we wait?”

“No,” Honora said, nudging Pem’s forearm, but Pem was spellbound. She sat there, her mouth barely open, watching ashes shower the bay. “Mother!” Honora said.

“Here comes the finale,” Donald said. Everyone watched lights fill the sky, flashing every color, the noise ferocious, and then the lights stopped, the noise grew muffled, then stopped.

“Well . . .” everyone said.

“Now can we have cake?” Eugene asked.

“Cake!” Pem said, waving the knife over her head.

Clare and Honora were glaring at me. “What?” I asked.

“You know, it’s been three years since you spent an entire Fourth here on the Point,” Clare said. “And I think you’re forgetting the traditions.”

“We never wait until the show is over before we cut the cake,” Honora said. “Never. This is the first time in my life that I ever have eaten Fourth of July cake without watching fireworks.”

“You could have cut it before if you wanted to,” I said, amazed at the direction of this conversation. “I just suggested we wait because the boys were so wrapped up in the fireworks.”

“How are the boys supposed to learn traditions if we don’t teach them?” Clare asked.

“Well, I’m sorry,” I said, feeling as though I might burst out laughing. I had the feeling they were miffed that I had visited Nick’s family instead of spending the day with them.

“Clare has a point,” Nick said. “The Fourth of July is a nice tradition. Georgie and I flew like the wind to get back in time.”

“How is your family, Nick?” Honora asked, leaving her cake untouched, in protest.

“Fine, fine.”

“I hope you gave them our love,” Clare said.

“Of course we did.”

Pem cleared her throat, then started to sing: “‘No matter where I wander, no matter where I roam . . . I was born in the land of Uncle Sam, the good old U.S.A.!’ ”

Then Eugene asked if we could sing “It’s a Grand Old Flag,” then Clare started “Yankee Doodle Dandy.” We all sang along, Pem at the top of her lungs.

“Oh, think of the ghosts that are smiling at those old songs,” Honora said sadly when we had finished.

“Shut up, Mama, and eat your peanuts,” Pem said.

Then Nick held my hand, squeezing it to let me know it was time to go home. We made our way around the porch, kissing everyone, telling everyone what a wonderful evening it had been. I wrapped a piece of cake in my napkin and handed it to Casey. “Put this in the freezer and save it till next year,” I said.

“You’re a good girl,” Honora said when I got to her.

Nick and I walked home through the dark, his arm tight around me. Waves splashed the jetty, sending spume into our faces. Our path seemed darker, the night stiller, after watching fire in the sky. I thought of the family ghosts who had visited that night, of Nick’s and my journey across two states and two families, and I loved him more than ever.

7

IN THE HEAT OF DEEP SUMMER, I WAS
summoned to meet the Avery Foundation’s board of directors. Since their offices were in New York, I booked a room at the Gregory. Nick, consumed by the insatiable Project Broadsword, had brought work home every night; he was relieved when I provided him with the chance to stay in the city—my reasons were legitimate and impeccable. My business required it. I asked everyone what I should wear. Clare thought my white cotton skirt with a blue lisle pullover would be best—not at all sophisticated, giving me the look of an unworldly scholar. Honora advised me to wear something unusual, like a sari or clamdiggers. Nick said to wear my black linen suit, and since he was the most experienced in matters of business and making a good impression, I followed his suggestion. The humidity was so oppressive, it was like sitting in a bath. Although I took an air-conditioned cab from the Gregory to the foundation, my backbone and the backs of my thighs were drenched by the time I arrived.

I buzzed and was admitted into the narrow stone building on East Sixty-fourth Street. One glance told me this was the perfect place to house a foundation. A pale oriental rug over the hardwood floor, furniture covered in gray-striped satin, a receptionist with the correct head tilt: efficient, not curious. After I gave her my name she offered me a glass of Bristol Cream sherry. My skin began to dry. I leaned back, sipping. I wondered why they wanted to meet me. The letter had been quite pleasant, like an invitation to tea. “Could you possibly come by our offices 24 July, so that we may have the chance to meet and talk with you?” It had been signed “Cordially yours, Julia Avery Buchbinder, Secretary.” Nick and I had speculated whether John Avery would be present. John had said nothing to Nick at work, and Nick thought Project Broadsword was too hectic to allow John to attend a family board meeting. Perhaps they would demand I account for the money they had granted me: Spent it on phone bills and my new telephone line, I would tell them. Actually I felt unconcerned. The Swift Observatory had existed before the Avery Foundation had heard of it, and it would exist without their money. Mainly I enjoyed the credibility the grant had given me, and, now, the chance to wear a nice suit, be served sherry, hobnob with my patrons.

One minute after I set my empty glass on the leather-topped side table, the receptionist led me down a corridor. Vivaldi played in the distance. We entered a large bright room where six people including John Avery stood around an oval table.

“Hello, Georgie,” he said, shaking my hand.

“Hello, John,” I said, and then I was introduced to the board of directors: Julia Buchbinder, Jasper and Helen Avery, all brothers and sisters; Ralph Gower and Tucker Chase, cousins. There were empty sherry glasses in front of each of their places at the table, and I wondered why I had had to drink my sherry alone, in the reception area. Ralph, Tucker, and Jasper had the same sort of solid, confident good looks as John Avery. They all wore dark suits and red ties, as if they had just run out of their law or investment banking offices for this meeting. I looked more closely and realized that each of them wore exactly the same red tie: dark red background with horizontal gold and navy blue stripes. Julia and Helen stood together but appeared very different. Although older than Helen by at least ten years, Julia had chestnut-brown hair and Helen had gray. Julia wore pearls around her neck and a shirtdress that clung to her broad figure. Badly applied blue eye makeup emphasized her puffy eyes, but she had a glorious smile. Helen looked about forty, too young to be totally gray, and she had a pale complexion. She wore a brilliant yellow, green, and orange caftan.

“Now, to business,” John said, placing both palms on the table. I recognized that he was the family ringleader. Everyone sat, with me between Helen and Jasper.

“We think the Swift Observatory is a fascinating enterprise,” Julia said, with patrician emphasis. She fumbled for gold-rimmed half-spectacles, which she put on. Smiling, she glanced at me and began to speak, referring to a sheaf of papers before her. “As you may know, the Avery Foundation funds a variety of projects. Some of these are very important. We underwrote the exhibition of Etruscan art at Bartlett Hall in 1982. We supported Leo Guziewicz’s research during his lean years.”

I gasped because she had paused expectantly, and I tried to recall: hadn’t Leo Guziewicz won a Nobel Prize for something? She went on. The list of whom they had supported included accomplished artists, writers, and musicians, research projects, fledgling newspapers and magazines, small specialized museums, and inventors.

“You see you’re in good company, Georgie,” John Avery said.

“I truly am. Thank you,” I said, fighting the urge to bow my head.

“It is practically unheard of for us to meet grant recipients face to face,” John continued. “I can think of four, maybe five instances.”

“Four or five,” Tucker Chase said. He seemed about John Avery’s age; I wondered whether they had been the sort of cousins who had grown up together, sharing everything, closer than brothers because they didn’t have to battle for their parents’ attention. They seemed to check with each other now and then, glancing across the table and analyzing the other’s expression. Jasper Avery, on the other hand, looked everywhere in the room except at John. John played the part of oldest brother, but Jasper appeared older by several years. I heard him crunching, not jingling, the coins in his pocket.

“Perhaps my connection with Nick makes it easier for us to invite you here. We have some cards that we want to lay on the table, and it seemed provident to do that with you present.”

“Maybe I should have brought my lawyer,” I said, and although everyone smiled, no one laughed.

“We both know that your lawyer is up to his ears on Wall Street,” John said. “I promise you, one day the deal will be done, and he’ll be all yours again.”

“I hope so,” I said, wishing Nick were with me to hear the proposition.

“We want to increase your grant,” John said.

Everyone was watching me: Julia, with a small smile; Tucker, John, and Helen with generous grins; Ralph and Jasper, both expressionless.

“You do?” I said finally.

“Your first grant was very small,” John said. “Two thousand dollars—a pittance, really. Some would call it ‘seed money.’ We plant a seed, we watch it grow. That is how we commonly operate. Sometimes we fund a project just once, then never again if it doesn’t meet our expectations. You see, we never want to exert influence, but we do expect a certain standard of quality. We think the Swift Observatory has untapped potential. Tucker?”

Tucker Chase cleared his throat, and his left hand jostled his tie knot. “All through the world are venerable institutions called think tanks. They take a problem, analyze it, examine it from all angles, and come up with a solution. We think of the Swift Observatory as a ‘look see tank.’ ” He smiled. “I’m not trivializing it, Miss Swift. To the contrary—we think it could take its place among important centers of thought.”

“On a smaller scale, perhaps,” Julia said.

“Tell us some of your ideas,” Helen said. “Are there more stories like Mona Tuchman’s?”

I mentioned my series on mom-and-pop groceries, the piece on what goes on in a family when one of the children joins a religious order, the interviews with brides-to-be. “I’ve been trying to arrange an interview with Caroline Orne—you may have read about her?”

“Yes, the woman who shot the man who killed her mother,” Helen said excitedly.

“She’s in prison in Chicago,” I said. “I haven’t been able to speak with her on the telephone, and she hasn’t answered my letter.”

“See what I mean?” John said, more to Jasper than anyone else, I thought. “With a larger grant, more could be accomplished. The scope could be larger. The Observatory would not be so regional, so East Coast.”

“Wasn’t Caroline Orne a teacher?” Helen asked, frowning.

“Yes, eighth grade. She lived at home; she was just out of college at the time of the murder. Her mother was robbed and killed coming home from the theater one night. They caught the man who did it, and Caroline bought a gun, went to the prison, and shot him,” I said.

“Gad, what sort of security do they have at that prison?” Jasper asked.

“You’re missing the point, as usual,” Julia said dryly.

“We shouldn’t take up more of Miss Swift’s valuable time than necessary,” Tucker said. “Let’s get to the point. We would like to increase your grant to twenty thousand dollars.”

“That would enable you to travel if necessary,” John said. “Let’s see what happens when you spread your wings, study humanity on a nationwide scale. Is human nature different in Chicago than, say, Tallahassee?”

I was considering how to answer. I was flattered, certainly, but I felt as though something were being taken away from me. They all seemed too interested, almost proprietary. Looking around the table, I imagined that each person present, with the exception of Jasper, had his or her own ideas about what I should observe and where I should observe it. And how could I agree to travel when the point of the Swift Observatory was that I could work at home? If only I hadn’t mentioned the Caroline Orne idea. Added to these worries was the fact that John Avery was Nick’s boss, and I felt leery of saying anything that might offend him.

“We’d like you to expand,” Julia said, almost apologetically. “Take on some additional observers, perhaps. There are people who would do it without pay.”

“I’m afraid of these conditions,” I said. “Travel, expansion. I’m not sure I want the Observatory to change.”

“Change is crucial to all of us,” Ralph said.

“Let her think about it, let her think about it,” Julia said.

“No, this is a no-strings-attached offer,” John Avery said, firmly settling the case. He leaned forward, resting his chin in his hands. “You might say we’re acting as the
Avery
Observatory now.” He smiled at me. “We’re going to give you the money and watch what you do with it.”

“Fascinating enterprise,” Tucker said, tossing his head.

“This is unexpected,” I stammered. “And wonderful. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” John said, rising, giving me my cue to leave. I shook everyone’s hand.

“I’ll walk Georgiana out,” Helen said. She took my elbow and we walked down the cool, dark corridor where Vivaldi still played. “We always have pet projects going,” she told me when we reached the reception area. “And yours is our pet just now. Ralph and Jasper don’t quite approve; you probably picked up on that. They like projects more easily defined, like a failing ballet company, or a promising young artist. Things they can point to years later, saying, ‘Oh yes, remember when we saved the Portland Ballet?’ ” Deepening her voice, she did a remarkable imitation of Jasper. “Your project is too unconventional, and I think it embarrasses them to tell people they fund an observatory that has nothing to do with the heavens. But that’s exactly why the rest of us love it.”

“I’m surprised, to tell you the truth,” I said. “I never expected the foundation to take such an interest.”

“We take an interest in every project. Even John, Tucker, and Julia, and you know how busy they are. Tucker’s a lawyer at a firm as big as Hubbard, Starr, and Julia’s the president of Jazzline Graphics. The foundation comes first, always.”

“That’s really wonderful,” I said, wondering how the foundation could come first to a man who had to work as hard as John Avery. What if Nick had a foundation that came first, in addition to his law practice? Where would love and family fit in?

“Is John married?” I asked, feeling awkward but needing to know.

“Divorced. Poor John. All alone, but then so am I. Maybe that’s why we all love the foundation so much. It really is our family. Our ongoing, never-ending family without end.” Her face turned several shades redder; her eyes flickered around the room—from the window to the portraits on the wall to the brass doorknob. “Our mother died when we were very young—was murdered in fact. Maybe that’s why we all are so drawn to your tales of vengeance. There’s not one of us that wouldn’t have liked to stab that devil’s black heart.” She stuck her index finger into her open left palm. “Well, I should let you go.”

“Yes,” I said, feeling dazed. I shook her hand, then walked out the door into a barricade of heat.

The humidity was brutal. I dragged down Fifth Avenue, trying to make sense of my meeting with the Avery Foundation. Two black limousines drove by, tinted windows shielding their air-conditioned occupants. I imagined John and Tucker and Julia riding downtown to their offices. If they weren’t paying me, I would have liked to do a study of the Averys. I wondered when their mother had died and how old each of them had been. Why had Jasper, the oldest brother, been stripped of his stature? No one paid him any attention at all. Why was Helen’s hair gray? The one question I didn’t have to ask was why John was divorced; considering his workload at Hubbard, Starr, if the foundation came first, what lunatic would stay married to him?

Back at the Gregory, I called Nick to tell him the news, but Denise said he was in a meeting. I turned the air conditioner to high and lay across the bed. The machine rattled, but I discerned no movement of air. Closing my eyes, I pretended to have a fever. I was lying in the jungle, dying of malaria. Because I was delirious, I allowed myself to have these thoughts: I would use my grant money to travel around the country, interviewing the most extraordinary people I could find. The ordinary man made exceptional by events in San Francisco, Tulsa, Green Bay. I would fly to Chicago, visit Caroline Orne in prison. In my fever state, I began to envision her: long blond hair, prison garb of blue and white ticking, like a mattress cover, bruised eyes. Imagining her made her real, and I imagined visiting a travel agent, booking a flight to Chicago, choosing my hotel, buying a Chicago restaurant guide. Then the fever broke.