Guilt by Association (26 page)

Demelza gazed thoughtfully past Ione’s shoulder. For the past thirty years, she had intended to live and die in her beloved Greenwich Milage, but times had changed. Starving artists were no longer in fashion, and “bohemian” had become a derogatory term. The war in Vietnam was over and the country was trying to heal itself. Long hair and love beads were out, the Establishment was in. Different was tiresome, causes were boring. It was everyone for himself.

Thanks to Karen, the Washington Square Bookery was doing a brisk business dealing in titles that were unavailable anywhere else, but the customers were now largely citywide and the locals who used to drop by for tea and sympathy had grown fewer and farther between.

The Milage was metamorphosing. Most of the innocents who wanted to change the world were gone, replaced by drug addicts and chronic malcontents. The coffeehouses, those bright spots of sawdust and magic where gentle visionaries sang their songs of protest, had become dark corners where sinister shadows dealt their deadly panaceas. Hope had become despair, protesters had become terrorists, love had become sex, music had become noise, “us” had become “me,” and the quaint little community was rapidly becoming pass6.

So Demelza did the only reasonable thing—she went uptown. She sold the Bookery and added her money to Ione’s. The two women knew exactly what they wanted. It took five months before they finally found the right rental on Madison Avenue, and after that, they never looked back.

The result was part gallery, part boutique, part café and part drawing room, concocted of velvet and lace and ribbon, rich woods and lemon oil. It was bright and spacious and cozy and charming and chic all at the same time.

Mitch’s paintings adorned the walls as they would in any fine home. Jenna’s fashions peeked out of armoires in the upstairs boudoir. Rare books and periodicals filled the shelves in the paneled library. Felicity’s one-of-a-kind jewelry creations
sparkled from a circular showcase in the foyer. And a selection of superb sculptures done by Jenna’s live-in, John Micheloni,
were judiciously placed throughout.

Armchairs and sofas that Demelza had procured and Jenna had recovered were scattered everywhere. Small tables and chairs graced the balcony, where coffee and tea and baked goods were served. And wafting into every corner were the gentle strains of Bach or Mozart.

Stepping through the front doors was like stepping into another time, a bit of Victoriana that they had managed to create in the middle of a city that couldn’t seem to wait to tear down its past in favor of its future.

It was fresh and fun and trendy, and it caught on. A month after the shop opened, there was a small write-up in the
Times.
After that, people wanted to be seen at Demion Five. Slowly, Mitch’s paintings began to sell. Several of Jenna’s creations made their way to fashionable Manhattan events. A few of John’s sculptures found niches in discriminating homes. And Felicity was accepting commissions that would keep her too busy to pine for Broadway. The partners of Demion Five and their little consortium were becoming successful and embarrassed.

“I’ve compromised every principle I ever had,” Mitch declared when he agreed to do a painting for Gracie Mansion, the mayor’s residence. “I took a wife, I quit drugs, I pay taxes, I wear suits, I grovel before idiots incapable of understanding my work,
and worst of all, I’m getting rich.”

He and Ione had married shortly after the birth of their daughter Tanya. The Rankins still lived on Sullivan Street, because it was so near NYU where, along with tenure, Ione had an associate professorship. But they now owned the run-down tenement and were in the midst of a total renovation.

The rest of the family had moved on. Jenna and John shared a loft in Soho. As soon as the Vietnam war was over, Kevin Munker completed his bachelor’s degree. Shortly thereafter, to everyone’s amusement, he applied to graduate school and went off to Boston. Felicity took a flat in Chelsea.
Demelza traded Bleecker Street for West End Avenue. Ethan never came back.

“I never had any principles to compromise,” Felicity said with a sigh. “But it is a little awkward having so much money.”

Jenna giggled. “I opened a savings account. I think it was maybe the third time I’ve ever been inside a bank.”

“I made more money in 1978 than my daddy made in any ten years of his life on the docks,” said Demelza. “I keep thinking there must be something immoral about that.”

The taxi slid up in front of the dun-colored house on Sixty-third Street, between Lexington and Third, which Karen had called home ever since she had become the assistant manager for Demion Five. Her parents had been so thrilled by her decision to move uptown that, although she no longer needed their assistance, they had underwritten the rent for two years.

Karen tipped the cab driver extravagantly, emptied her mailbox, and let herself into the first-floor apartment, turning on the lights and the stereo on her way to hang up her fur-lined coat. WQXR was featuring a Brahms symphony during this hour and the flowing melody suited her mood.

The apartment was a study in browns and whites. White walls, white window treatments, white area rugs, brown velvet sofas and chairs, warm wood accents, polished parquet floors, a few lithographs displayed here and there for a dash of color, and the soft glow of lamplight throughout.

There was a wonderful painting of Mitch’s at Demion Five, done in his inimitable serrated palette knife style, that would have been perfect over the fireplace. On the surface, it was a simple clearing in a wood, yet the longer one looked, the more complex it became, until the outwardly deserted space was seen to be inhabited by hundreds of creatures. It was a riveting canvas, but even with her acceptable salary, beyond her reach.

Karen dropped the mail on the entry table and clacked down the hall into the bedroom, where she kicked off her pumps, shrugged out of her navy gabardine suit and silk blouse, and slipped into fuzzy gray slippers and a shapeless
robe. Padding into the kitchen, she tossed some ice cubes into a glass and poured herself a Scotch. Then she headed for the living room, pausing on the way to pick up her mail.

She was completely alone, to do whatever she wished whenever she wished. Even after five years, she hadn’t quite gotten used to the idea. Part of her still listened for Arlene’s key in the door. More than once she caught herself setting two places at the table. Then she chuckled because all that was behind her.

This place was hers alone. At least, the first floor of the town house was hers. There was a gay man in the basement apartment who taught English literature at Hunter College, and an elderly couple, German refugees who wore long sleeves to cover the tattooed numbers on their forearms, who lived upstairs. But each had their own space, as she had hers. And each had their own secrets, as she had hers.

Once the door was shut, Karen was surrounded by her own choice of furnishings. She knew exactly where things were, she could eat as she pleased, mess around with her thought pages without fear of prying eyes, watch the television programs she preferred,
and she didn’t have to see or talk to anyone unless she wanted to. There were even times when she would let the telephone ring unanswered.

“I called you last night, but you weren’t home,” her mother would say on those occasions. “Where were you?”

“Out to dinner,” Karen would reply glibly, because she knew her mother would prefer the lie to the truth.

“With anyone special?”

“Just friends.”

Beverly sighed. “Not those peculiar people you’re in business with?”

“Formerly peculiar,” Karen corrected her. “Now they’re all fine upstanding members of the Establishment.”

“I’m glad they’re so successful,” her mother said with a sniff.

“But they’re still not good enough,” Karen remarked. “No doctors, no lawyers, not a dentist in the bunch—and none of them even came close to going to Harvard or Yale.”

“Well, really,” Beverly protested, “you make me sound like such a snob. I thought, once you moved out of that degenerate neighborhood into a decent part of town, you’d be in a position to find more, shall we say … suitable companionship. You’re not getting any younger, you know.”

Karen had stayed on at West Twelfth Street after Arlene got her Ph.D., married her orthopedist and moved to Scarsdale, because it was familiar and convenient and close to her friends. She originally intended to find another roommate, if only to ease the financial burden on her father. But, as the months and then the years passed, she came to understand that she didn’t really want anyone moving in on her. By the time she was ready to move uptown, it never occurred to her to seek a roommate.

It was her sister Laura who told her about the apartment on Sixty-third Street. An ex-roommate from Mount Holyoke and her husband were being transferred to Chicago. It was a real find and Karen should rush right over to see it. She did and it took her all of a minute and a half to make up her mind.

Now, as she sat on a brown love seat that faced its mate across a walnut coffee table and sorted through the mail, she wondered about the vagaries of life that could put one in the right place at the right time just as easily as they could put one in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Although she never spoke about that night, now almost half her life ago, the memory dogged her like a relentless shadow. The few men who were persistent enough to get her to agree to a date were soon put off by her aloofness and her insistence that they meet and part in very public places. She didn’t mind. Somewhere along the way, she stopped mourning for the life she had lost and learned to live with the life she had, and quite happily spent her time with what she had come to think of as the Sullivan Street set.

Occasionally she saw Jill Hartman. Not unexpectedly, the Hartmans had divorced soon after Andy finished law school. Their daughter was now a delightful teenager.

A lot of things had changed since she and Jill had been girls together. Divorce, for one thing, which had been such an
anathema a generation ago, was now an acceptable solution to marital problems. Legalized abortion had removed the necessity for shotgun weddings. And, perhaps most ironic of all, careers were now something that women were looking forward to rather than falling back on. Whereas, twenty years ago, girls had dreamed of marrying doctors and dentists and lawyers, today they dreamed of
being
doctors and dentists and lawyers.

“God,” Jill liked to say, “were we ever raised in the Dark Ages.”

The Dark Ages, indeed, Karen thought now as she sipped her Scotch. Just the other week, she had read about a man who was actually on trial for raping a woman he had taken on a date. They even called it that—date rape. The prosecution argued that a woman who accepted a date with a man was not automatically agreeing to have sex with him, that she had the right to say no, and he was obliged to believe she meant it. The pendulum had swung. Karen didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

She turned resolutely to the mail, separating the thick stack into four piles: advertising circulars to be tossed away unopened,
magazines to be read at a later time, bills to be paid on the tenth of the month, and, finally, the cards—more than two dozen of them, to be opened and read right now.

Today was February 8, 1979, and Karen was thirty-seven years old. Tomorrow, after work, she would make a trip out to Great Neck to be fussed over by her family. Laura had dutifully landed her lawyer and now had two adorable babies, whom Karen took enormous pleasure in spoiling. Winola would make one of her special double-chocolate birthday cakes and her mother would fudge the number of candles on top and no one would dare breathe a word about spinsters or maiden aunts or unmarried women.

But tonight was hers, to scrutinize herself in the bathroom mirror and pluck out the stray gray strands that had mistakenly wandered into her dark hair, open a can of soup instead of taking the time to prepare a proper dinner, contemplate the
inexorable passing of time, and wonder how the next year of her life would differ from the last.

The Brahms symphony concluded and she was on her way to the kitchen for another Scotch when the intercom buzzed.

“It’s Ione,” the art history teacher replied to Karen’s query. “Can I come in and talk?”

“Sure,” Karen replied.

“Mitch and I had a fight,” Ione groused, following Karen into the living room and dropping into the nearest chair. “I had to get out of Eden for a while.”

Of all of them, Ione had changed the least. With her short blond hair, big gray eyes and tomboy body, she still looked more like a schoolgirl than a forty-five-year-old wife, mother, professor and business mogul.

“I’m having Scotch,” Karen offered.

“Make it a double,” said Ione.

When Karen returned with the drinks, Ione was gazing balefully at the stack of cards.

“It’s your birthday,” she moaned. “I forgot it was your birthday.”

“No you didn’t,” Karen reminded her. “You sent an adorable card.”

“I mean I forgot right now. You probably have big plans for tonight and I just barged right in.”

Karen shrugged. “I didn’t have anything important on. Actually, I’m going out to my folks over the weekend and I was just planning to wash my hair tonight.”

“Well, the least I can do to make up for spoiling your evening is to take you out to dinner.”

“Nonsense,” Karen declared. “I can whip up something right here and you can stay and share it with me.”

“I’m too restless to hang out,” Ione replied. “I feel like kicking up my heels, going to an extravagant restaurant and raising a little hell. Come on, say you’ll go with me.”

“Well, I don’t know …” Karen began.

“Please,” Ione urged. “I don’t want to go alone.”

“Okay,” Karen gave in.

“Great!” Ione cried, pushing her in the direction of the bedroom.
“I’ll give you ten minutes to get dressed. And you can choose the restaurant.”

Karen wore the only one of Jenna’s originals she could afford to own, a flowing patchwork dress made of colorful bits of silk and velvet and brocade with a high lace collar, and chose the Sign of the Dove, a nearby French restaurant that featured the most charming garden room. It had been the group’s favorite since they had come uptown.