Leap Year (16 page)

“Down the road.” He gestured. “A ways.”

“What’s it called?” It was really quite easy, once begun.

“Chez Claude.”

“Is it French?”

“I try.”

“Can I come to it?”

“I don’t think I can stop you.”

Nothing could stop her. “I’m Lillian,” said Lillian.

“I know. Mrs. Loesser told me all about you.”

“I didn’t know Mrs. Loesser knew all about me.”

“She thinks she does.”

“Well, she didn’t tell me anything about you.”

The man raised his eyebrows. “That puts you at a disadvantage.”

“Yes,” said Lillian.

“How do you like country life?”

“Aren’t you going to tell me your name?”

“Oh. Claude. Get it: Chez Claude?”

“But of course,” said Lillian.

“So what else do you want to know?”

Lillian smiled. She looked down into her basket. “What else do I need in here? To maintain the balance?”

Claude peered into the melange of fruit. He considered. “Blueberries,” he decided.

It was the middle of the afternoon. Lillian had gone to buy corn for dinner. Loren was reading
The Bonfire of the Vanities
on the terrace. Kate and David were floating on a raft in the middle of the pond. Kate was all on the raft and David was half on—his legs dangled in the water. They ate cherries and talked.

“Can you swim backward?” Kate asked.

David said he could, and demonstrated.

“Can you swim upside down?”

“How do mean?”

“With your head down in the water and your feet sticking up.”

“I don’t think so,” said David.

“Try.”

David tried, and failed. “That’s hard,” he said, sputtering, having swallowed some water in the attempt.

“Heath can do that,” said Kate.

“Can he?” said David. “How do you know?”

“He told me. He told me he was a swimmer on TV but he was on after my bedtime.”

“Heath told you that?”

“Yes. But Mom told me Heath isn’t your boyfriend anymore.”

“She’s right,” said David.

“Do you hate his guts?” asked Kate.

“No,” said David. “I like Heath. I’m just not…he’s not my boyfriend anymore.”

“How do you know?”

“Because…well, I realized I didn’t love Heath anymore. That I love Mom instead.”

“So you stopped loving Heath?”

“Yes,” said David. “I guess so.”

“Maybe you’ll stop loving me,” said Kate.

“No,” said David. “I’ll never stop loving you. Never ever ever.”

Kate thought for a moment. She spat a cherry pit into the water. It sunk slowly and was mouthed by fish the whole way down. “How do you know?” she asked.

“I just know,” said David. “I could never not love you. It would be impossible.”

“Impossible?” asked Kate. “What’s that mean?”

“It means it can’t happen. Like, it’s impossible for fish to fly.”

“Fish can fly,” said Kate. “They’re called flying fish. We saw a movie at daycare.”

“But they don’t really fly,” said David. “They just jump out of the water. They’re really swimming.”

“No,” said Kate. “I saw them. They were flying.”

Heath had spent an exhausting and discouraging morning in mid-town Manhattan trying to register with a temp agency. It seemed no one wanted to employ alleged murderers. Even Debbie Cusack, his counselor at Temp Around the Clock, the agency that had sent him to David at
Altitude
, told him she could do nothing for him until he was “one hundred percent clean.”

Heath had become a little desperate for money despite the fact that his grandmother, who had never forgiven him for “turning queer and not going to medical school,” had surprisingly volunteered to pay his legal fees. Apparently the idea of a convicted criminal in the family was more than she could bear. Heath had made about twenty thousand dollars from the sale of his photographs, but for some complicated legal reason this money was being held in escrow. Now that the temp agencies had refused him, his only hope was to wait a couple of weeks and try the Hysteria again.

Heath arrived home to find Gerard lying on the living room floor, naked, surrounded by a posse of fans. Most of these fans had been salvaged from the street and rejuvenated. Gerard was curiously mechanical. Heath took off his shirt and sat on the couch. A soap opera silently unraveled on the TV.

“Any luck?” asked Gerard, who was being uncharacteristically understanding and helpful about everything.

“No,” said Heath. “And I thought temp agencies would take anyone. I mean, they cater to losers.”

“Maybe you should have given them an assumed name.”

“Everyone recognizes me. I have to wear my sunglasses on the subway.”

“You and Jackie O.”

“I don’t think Jackie O rides the subway,” said Heath. He went into the kitchen for a beer. It was only two in the afternoon, but he felt he deserved it. When he came back into the living room, Gerard was sitting up. Gazing down at the floor, with his arms resting on his knees, he looked like a Robert Mapplethorpe photograph, sans pedestal.

“Do you want some more bad news?” he said.

“No,” said Heath. He stood there with his beer. Then he said, “What?”

“Sit down,” said Gerard.

Heath sat. “What?” he repeated.

“Solange Shawangunk is dead,” said Gerard.

Solange Hatier Shawangunk, a gallery owner and international socialite, died yesterday at St. Vincent’s Hospital, New York, of complications resulting from a gunshot wound she sustained in a shooting that occurred in the Gallery Shawangunk last July 13. She was 44 years old.

A nursing supervisor at the hospital, Laleel Bundara, said that although Ms. Shawangunk had been in a coma since the shooting, she had made excellent progress and not been expected to die.

A doyenne of the downtown art scene and a luminous presence at cultural events on two continents, Ms. Shawangunk was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. She was educated at St. Therese de l’enfant Jesus, Belle-Anse, Haiti, and at the Sorbonne. She lived in Europe for several years, and moved to New York in 1976, with her husband, Anton Shawangunk. They opened the Gallery Shawangunk the following year. One of the first galleries to be located in SoHo, it exhibited the work of the then fledgling photographer Holly Pierson and maxi-expressionist Gilberto Arnot. In 1983 Ms. Shawangunk resigned as director of the gallery but remained an involved owner.

Heath Jackson, a photographer whose show, “Out of Control: The Photographs of Heath Jackson,” opened at the gallery in July, has been accused of the attempted murder of Solange Shawangunk. His trial is scheduled for the fall.

Ms. Shawangunk is survived by her husband, Anton Shawangunk, a half-brother, Marco Hatier of Mustique, and a half-sister, Leonora Hatier Trumpet of New York City and Volterra, Italy.

SHAWANGUNK, Solange. The staff and artists of The Gallery Shawangunk mourn the passing of our dear friend and guiding force on the sad occasion of her tragic death. Our sympathy goes to her devoted husband, Anton. A memorial service will be held at the gallery on a date to be announced.

Amanda Paine, Director,

and Margot Geiger, Assistant Director

The Gallery Shawangunk, New York

Neither Loren nor David was sleeping. They lay awake, not touching, on the bed. It was Sunday night—their last night in the country.

After a long while Loren said, “Why can’t we fall asleep?”

“I don’t know,” said David.

“I know,” said Loren.

David did not reply. He was staring at the ceiling; Loren was looking out the window. She could see the tops of trees and stars. She thought she could see shooting stars, but she did not trust herself to see such beautiful, extraordinary things.

“You’re sad,” said Loren. She watched the stars and waited for David to answer. When he did not verify or deny her observation, she rephrased it. “Why are you sad?”

“Kate thinks I’m going to stop loving her.”

“Oh,” said Loren. She paused. “Kate is very confused. I told you about my talk with her.”

“Yes,” said David.

“Is that what you’re sad about?”

“I didn’t say I was sad.”

“But you are.”

“You’re sad too.”

“No,” said Loren. “I’m not.”

They were silent for a moment, and then David said, “I wish we could go back to the beginning. Isn’t that awful?”

“The beginning of what?”

“The beginning of us.”

“There are more awful things to wish,” said Loren. She turned away from the window. David lay, naked, uncovered, and she stared at his body. In the dark it looked familiar and unprotected and a little pitiful. If you look at anything closely enough, long enough, Loren thought, it will break your heart. She looked away. “Everyone wants to go backward,” she said. “It’s universal. But you have to resist it. You have to realize there are good things behind you, sure, but there are bad things, too. And there will be good and bad things in front of you. You just don’t know them yet.”

“I wasn’t talking about life in general.”

Loren touched his arm. “I think what I said still applies.”

“You think there are good things ahead for us?”

“Yes,” said Loren. “Of course I do. You have to believe that.”

“I think I’m sad because I don’t believe that,” said David.

“Oh,” said Loren.

For a long time neither of them spoke. They had come as close as they would come to acknowledging that it was over. It seemed pointless to talk about it—they both knew they both knew it.

“I can’t stand this,” Loren finally said. “I’m going for a swim. Do you want to come?”

“What about Kate?”

“If she wakes up, Lillian’s here. She knows where to find Lillian.”

“Okay,” said David, “I’ll come.”

They got out of bed and put on some clothes. On their way downstairs they stopped to check on Kate. Kate slept beautifully. David and Loren watched her for a long time because it made them feel better about themselves, about everything. Loren thought, If we could always stay here, watching Kate sleep, if this were all, we would be fine. But of course it was not all. It was the tiniest part. It was just a few minutes, late at night.

They walked through the dark house, out the French doors, across the terrace. The garden was poised, stunned by the heat. The dry lawn bristled underfoot. In the woods Loren took David’s hand, and they walked silently through the trees to the pond.

They stood for a moment looking at it. It was so still. Do fish sleep? They seemed to be—even the water seemed to be sleeping.

“I’m sorry,” said David.

Loren let go of his hand. “Forget it,” she said. “Okay?”

“Okay,” said David. He sat down on the bank. Loren took off her clothes and waded out. The noise she made seemed ridiculously loud. She sunk slowly under water, surfaced, and swam out toward the middle. She swam far enough out so she could not see David squatting on the bank. She treaded water and gazed up at the stars. They were shooting, ever so slowly, one after the other, losing their niches and falling.

David watched Loren swim out into the darkness. He could hear her, but he could not see her. He was thinking of the beginning of them, the first time they had met, on the beach at Cape Cod. They had gone back to the beach that night. David remembered how Loren had peeled off her clothes and charged into the dark water, dived under the waves, then reemerged, run up the beach like a huge, wet goddess and grabbed his hand; how she had pulled him into the surf, how they had swum close together, kissing underwater; how his mouth had found different salty-tasting parts of her; how later they had lain on the wet sand, just below the high-tide mark, making love; how he did not know if he were licking shells or the coil of Loren’s ear, kissing seaweed or her wet tangle of hair. David remembered how when it was over, Loren had pulled him on top of her, held him tightly, ran her large hands up and down his spine. How she had said to him, “Make me warm. Keep me warm.”

A
MANDA ENTERED THE SALON.
She teased off her gloves and lifted her veil. “I’m so awfully sorry,” she said. “Please accept my most sincere condolences.”

“Thank you, Miss Paine,” said Anton. “Thank you so much for coming.”

“Will you excuse me?” said Dominick Carlisle, the funeral coordinator. “I think it’s time I opened the chapel.”

“Of course,” said Anton.

“I’ll come get you when we’re ready, Mr. Shawangunk. May I freshen your drink?”

“I think not,” said Anton.

“May I have a drink?” said Amanda.

“Certainly,” said Mr. Carlisle. “What could I get you?”

“Vodka,” said Amanda. “Just the teeniest splash.”

“Ice?”

“Please.”

Mr. Carlisle levitated a bar from the depths of a credenza. He splashed some vodka in a tumbler full of rocks.

“Perhaps a tad more,” said Amanda.

Mr. Carlisle complied. Splash, splash. Splash. He handed Amanda the drink and concealed the bar. “I’ll be back for you in about half an hour,” he said to Anton.

They were left alone. There was a moment of silence, and then Amanda let out a small, ecstatic whoop. “We did it,” she said, raising her glass. “Or rather,
you
did it. You did it, my darling: to you!”

“I did nothing,” said Anton.

“What do you mean? Didn’t you—”

“I did nothing. I couldn’t do it.”

“Well, she died,” said Amanda. “That’s the main point. Our problems are over.”

“We have a new problem,” said Anton.

“What? Tell me!” Amanda sucked the last splash of vodka from her rocks and sat beside Anton. “There is no problem I can’t solve, my darling.”

“Don’t be so sure. Solange’s corpse has…disappeared.”

“Disappeared?”

“The body that was delivered here…is not hers. And her body cannot be found at the morgue. I’ve made some inquiries, but far be it from me to navigate through New York City’s bureaucracy.”

“So what’s in the coffin? What are we burying?”

“Sandbags,” said Anton.

“Do they know? I mean, our henchman-friend here, does he know?”

“Of course.”