The Hazards of Good Breeding (15 page)

Until this afternoon, the diorama has been collecting dust on a shelf in the corner. Jack was too parsimonious to throw it away, but at the same time unable to finish. But the abandoned husk of it has begun to strike him as a reproach or sign of failure. He is not, after all, the sort of man to leave unfinished business.

The work left to be done is more challenging than he expected. Without Rosita's help, Jack is stuck with the task of crafting a likeness of Ruth Westly and he has no idea how to make a woman. In all his years of model-building Jack has built only one other indoor scene—the marriage of Mary, Queen of Scots, which was a wedding present for Faith. And even that, which was more stylized (he could go out and buy, for instance, a porcelain Mary, Queen of Scots, figure) took him weeks to finish. Faith, who is a lover of all tragic elements of British royal history, particularly tales about anyone who was beheaded, cried when he gave it to her. But Jack suspects this was because she was disturbed rather than moved by the meticulously constructed lintels, pews, and tiny stained-glass windows he had put together. She was never a great fan of his hobby. She worried that the glue he used might contain dangerous chemicals, that the sharp knives would somehow find their way into the children's hands, that something about the concentration it required betrayed a certain mental depravation.

Jack picks up the permanent black Magic Marker from the table and begins drawing, in bold strokes, over one of the minutemen's brown caps. He will turn this into a knot of hair, wrap a piece of material around his waist, and stand him at the miniature Franklin stove stirring a pot of porridge. Jack's fingers are clumsy with the pen, though, and despite the fact that it is unnecessary—foolish, a waste of time, really—his mind keeps serving up the fact of Rosita: pregnant. Running into the kid on the golf course last night jarred him—seems to have started long-submerged things bobbing back up to the surface of his mind.

It has been nearly six months now since he fired Rosita—not so much by design as by sudden clarity of vision. It was a fiercely cold Saturday full of new snow as fine and dry as dust. The back lawn looked like some white dune-filled Saharan desert, with Eliot traipsing around its edges—a small figure in a dark jacket and bright red hat. Ordinarily Jack would be driving Rosita to the station for the train back to Boston, where she stayed until her return on Sunday evenings. But she was getting picked up by her brother-in-law, who was to drive her to Revere for a family event of some sort—a christening of a niece or nephew? A wedding? She had on a new dress: cheap-looking and bright orange, and, Jack thought, too tight and low-cut to be respectable. Hank Krasdale was at the house, dropping off some idiotic edible bribe baked by his wife, and trying, once again, to yak Jack into selling the field across from his stables.

The brother-in-law was not what Jack expected. He pulled his pickup truck nearly onto the front steps, driving over the snow-covered flower border and walking through the snow in his ridiculous shiny—could they have been patent leather?—dress shoes, not to ring the bell, but to rap arrogantly on the glass like someone intimately acquainted with the house and its inhabitants. He was short and heavy, wearing a flashy, expensive-looking suit and dark shirt and reeking of cigarettes and aftershave. He looked smug and pretentious, taking in the house, the kitchen, Jack, and Hank Krasdale with wry, unapologetic interest. And he spoke no English, just nodded curtly at Jack and talked in sharp dictatorial bursts of Spanish to Rosita, who to Jack's surprise became meek and placating, as if, in fact, she was impressed by this obnoxious little man. As the door shut behind her—Rosita in her sensible boots with her shoes in a plastic bag in her hand and the man ruining his fancy footwear—Hank elbowed Jack in the ribs. “That's a hot number you've got, here,” he said with an enthusiastic leer.

It was as though Jack had been sleepwalking and had wakened with a start to find himself out on a narrow ledge with a sharp dropoff.
You know a nice girl by her body
, Jack's grandfather always said,
the less you see of it, the better she is
. Rosita was gone by the start of the next week, vanished as quietly and completely as a pile of snow in the first spring sun. At Jack's request, Wheelie delivered a letter and check to her—a generous severance package: three months' pay and health insurance. He is responsible, after all, for the environment his son grows up in. Rosita had to move away, Jack told Eliot. And Jack has not spoken with her since then. There was a letter from her about a month afterward, which he didn't open, didn't even hold on to. He is a believer in absolutes. A closed door should not be reopened. Jack has not even thought of her since. Not really. Until, of course, Colby Kesson. The now-familiar electric prickle runs through his mind at the words.

Jack scribbles the marker viciously over the little plastic figure. His efforts have made the man ridiculous—the black ink looks more like a giant cockroach than a neat knot of womanly hair. In his hand, the minuteman-cum-Ruth Westly stares up at him balefully. There is something shameful and perverted about his efforts. Jack tosses the little figure across the room into the garbage can. It makes a satisfying pinging sound when it hits. Then he stands up, flicks the lights off in his studio, and makes his way through the darkness of the basement, tripping over boxes and old shelving in the dark.

W
hen he comes back up to
the kitchen, there are no lights on and the sink is overflowing with dirty dishes. It is a gray day, cool from the rain this morning. Eliot is hunched over a book at the table.

Jack flicks the overhead light on. “You want to go blind?” he says.

Eliot stares at him, blinking. “You can't go blind from reading.”

“In the dark,” Jack says. He takes a carton of milk out of the refrigerator and pours cornflakes into a bowl. There is a loud pattering as what is left of the night's rain blows off the trees and against the side of the house. Jack leans on the counter and takes a spoonful of cereal; the milk has gone sour. “Shit,” he says, spitting into the sink.

“The milk is bad,” Eliot volunteers in a calm voice.

“Well, thanks for telling me.” Jack dumps the rest of the carton over the dirty dishes in the sink. The refrigerator offers little else by way of breakfast: a half loaf of wheat bread and no butter, three greasy white boxes of Chinese food leftovers, an empty pizza box, a bag of mini-carrots, ketchup, mustard, and chutney. The vegetable drawer is full of peppers and broccoli and mushrooms, which Caroline buys and steams for herself to eat in the place of normal food. “What did you eat?” he asks Eliot, who glances at the clock. It is nearly one, Jack realizes. He has been down there for hours.

“Toast.”

“With . . . ?”

Eliot shrugs and turns back to his book. “Plain.”

A sour milk smell is now rising from the sink. A surge of disgust shoots through Jack's gut. He throws the empty milk carton into the trash, which is full to the top. It bounces back out and falls to the floor. “I'll go get donuts,” he says without picking it up. “What kind do you want?”

“I don't want any,” Eliot says without looking up this time.

Jack stares at the crown of his blond head bent over the book. What kind of boy does not want donuts? What kind of boy likes to read in the dark all morning? His son has become unknown to him over the last seven months. It is as though he is staging some sort of strike or protest.

“Okay,” Jack says.

“Has Rosita sent you her new address yet?” Eliot's voice accosts Jack as the screen door screeches open under his hand. It is not a question, but a demand Eliot makes at least once a month.

Jack straightens and looks back at his son. “No,” he says evenly. “She hasn't.”

12

T
HE WEST LOBBY
of the Fair Oaks Retirement Home is a gallery of time's masterpieces—a room littered with bodies from whom all distinguishing marks of sex, experience, and personality have been exchanged for the uniform gray wash of old age. It smells of Lubriderm, air freshener, mucus, and sloughed cells.

Waiting just inside the sliding door while Stephan parks, Caroline wishes she were at home sorting through her college photos, or organizing her papers, or, for that matter, staring at the ceiling—just not being here. She should have told Stephan to come straight to Lilo's “Comfort Cottage,” which in comparison to the west wing is a cheerful hub of sprightly, sentient activity. Or actually, she should have told Stephan not to come at all. Instead, she has been almost overly helpful and conscientious in securing him permission to film what Rock refers to as “the aging heart of the blue blood gene pool.” She has gotten not only Lilo's go-ahead, but the misguided endorsement of the nursing home administration, which, she realized only
after
she made the call, she had been hoping would bar the whole endeavor. Which is not exactly the mark of an ace production “liaison,” the title Stephan has informed her over breakfast will be most appropriate to put on her résumé. It can hardly come as a surprise that it is her connections rather than her production skills he is after, but somehow it felt like a betrayal all the same.

Behind Caroline, an orderly is rounding up bodies, pushing wheelchairs back to their rooms, and speaking in kind, reassuring tones about medication, the weather, the carpeting. “This way, Mrs. Sitwell,” a willowy young black nurse is saying to a shriveled woman in a checked Chanel suit who is clinging to her hand like a small child. “Just a few more steps,” the young woman says, and the older one's eyes fall on Caroline with a look of surprise and recognition followed immediately by confusion, as if maybe, for a moment, she thought Caroline was someone else—or actually that she
herself
was someone else, and then looked down and saw her tiny withered hand pressed against this firm, capable palm. How is it possible that she, a grown woman, is walking through a set of sliding doors into a roomful of people, holding hands?

Caroline ducks her head apologetically, but the woman is now caught up completely in her own private world of bewilderment, casting big watery eyes around her like a newborn. “Come on, now,” the black woman says gently, and gives Caroline a sympathetic shrug. There is something that seems significant about the exchange—that reinforces Caroline's feeling that she is a menace here. And then there is Stephan starting across the driveway with his camera case and tripod hanging at his side. Caroline starts toward him with a sudden, inexplicable urge to stop him from entering the lobby and further unsettling poor . . . what was it? Mrs. Sitwell? She hurries out into the hot air of the drive through the automatic glass doors, which swish closed behind her.

“Hey,” Stephan says, and Caroline realizes she has been nearly jogging toward him in her haste. “Nice digs your grandma has.” He grins.

“Let's go,” Caroline says. From behind the plate-glass walls, she can feel the old woman's eyes looking after her as one might look after a thief.

Harriet, Lilo's faithful, long-suffering attendant, comes to the door of the cottage full of apologies—for the weather (too hot), the entrance hall (undusted), Lilo's appearance (not dressed yet). “I told her the blue suit would be lovely, but she thinks
you
should tell her what to wear.” This Harriet says with a shy glance at Stephan, avoiding eye contact. She is a sweet, mild-mannered Irish woman, no more than ten years younger than Lilo herself, who has somehow put up with Lilo's extravagant tantrums and mean-spirited manipulations for the last twenty-five years.

“Stop monopolizing the visitors,” Lilo bellows from the sitting room. “They're here to see
me
, Harriet.”

“
And
you, Harriet,” Caroline apologizes. “This is Stephan.”

Harriet accepts Stephan's hand hastily, as if it is an illicit gesture to be carried out quickly and discreetly, and then hustles them into the sitting room—a sunny, cluttered chamber that feels like a bomb shelter outfitted by the DAR. In it, Lilo is seated on her favorite wing chair, surrounded by all her most special, most favorite possessions from the four-floor brownstone she lived in on Beacon Hill: a grim portrait of Lilo's godfather Grover Cleveland (“dear dear Grover—such a rare breed of man”), a set of stiff-backed candy-striped chairs that once belonged to Lady Astor, a corner cupboard filled with Revere silver, two life-sized china dogs with red eyes and horrific inbred grins. And a collection of nearly a hundred antique clowns.

“There you are,” Lilo says, flashing her widest smile. “Let me look at you,” she says as Caroline bends to kiss her cheek. “Haven't you just wasted away!” She holds Caroline at arm's length. “You know”—she gestures at the braid hanging down Caroline's back—“this almost makes you look like a Jewess.”

Caroline can see Stephan's face light up at this. He is already unzipping his camera bag.

“Let me meet the young man.” Lilo claps her hands together before Caroline can even respond. “I've been in the movies already,” she says, turning a wide, insincere smile on Stephan. “I was interviewed last year for a Smithsonian film about early American china. They wanted me to show my collection—a charming young man, really, who they hired to make it—he explained all the fundamentals of screen presence.”

“Great,” Stephan says, extending his hand. “You look like a natural.”

“Well.” Lilo inclines her substantial head in a display of false modesty.

Lilo, Helen Whittier Dunlap, is a handsome woman, in an impressive, almost manly way. She has remained lean and tall with age—the only part of her body to take on weight as she has gotten older seems to be her head. This is fleshy and square, haloed by a great many durable-looking iron gray curls.

“Bring out my lavender gown to show him,” Lilo barks at Harriet. “And the green silk—unless they pressed it wrong again. They're always ruining things here—” She lowers her voice conspiratorially. “All the laundry people are
Spanish
and they have no idea about nice things. You tell me what to put on.” She smiles coyly at Stephan. “I'll be your humble subject.”

She is really pulling out the stops for him; Caroline can tell by the extra tinkly quality her voice has taken on that she has decided he is someone to impress. Which makes Caroline nervous. Lilo is at her worst when she is trying to be impressive. But this will be good for Stephan's film, which, in turn, will be good for her now that she is his production liaison, she reassures herself. Which has the effect of making her feel even hotter and more out of sorts.

“I'd love to start filming now, if that would be all right,” Stephan says. “And then you could go change and I'd get you in whatever you—in the green silk let's start with, we'll see how everything plays on film.”

Lilo's face, which had fallen at the first suggestion of immediate filming, brightens again at this logical explanation for starting prewardrobe. Caroline suspects it is more for the spectacle than for color analysis that Stephan would like to start filming pronto. And Lilo
is
a spectacle, which is, of course, why Caroline even mentioned her to Stephan to begin with. She is truly an absurd and self-obsessed woman, shaped by the worst possible influences of every time period she has lived through. She has the stinginess engendered by having come of age during the Depression, the moral righteousness of the 1940s, and the stark, unapologetic prejudice of the 1950s. Around her there is always the possibility something truly terrible will be said—some deep and disgusting sentiment unearthed and tossed out as carelessly as a handkerchief.

“This is . . . ?” Stephan says, standing in front of a photo of Caroline's older brothers in their Harvard hockey gear when Lilo has disappeared back into her room for another costume change.

“Oh—my brothers.”

Stephan raises his eyebrows. “The ones who stole the goat—”

Caroline nods. “They're crazy.” She offers this almost as an apology.

“Aha.” He steps back and focuses his camera on it. He is just moving on to the portrait of Grover Cleveland when Lilo comes out in what looks like a giant, multilayered kimono. “Now, how shall we do this?” she emerges saying. “You want to ask me questions or shall I just begin at what my mother always referred to as the ‘original sin'—the beginning.”

“Perfect,” Stephan says, focusing the camera. “The ‘original sin.' ”

“Well, when I was very young—oh, we'll skip my babyhood and all that dreary stuff—James LaFond, of the Ohio LaFonds, claimed he had lost his heart to me and everyone thought it was such a lark until he actually proposed. I was all of fourteen and as the story goes I looked him right in the eye and said, ‘don't you think you're a little old for me?' And of course it would have been a fine match—I don't half wonder if Mother and Father didn't just hate the fact it wasn't four years later. He wasn't a bad-looking man and he had the finest manners—really top-quality. It's not something I suppose you would appreciate even today, since no one gives a hoot whether a man tucks his shirt in or holds the door open for a lady or . . .”

Caroline has heard this story, complete with its segue into the lament on the loss of common politeness, at least ten times. Behind the camera, she imagines, Stephan is probably delighted. So why should she have this sinking feeling? This is the woman who told her at age thirteen that she was lucky she wasn't fat because she certainly wasn't going to be a beauty. But still—there is something that makes her feel a twinge of guilt at having served her up, practically shrink-wrapped, for the camera.

“. . . and it's hard for you to appreciate, but it didn't used to be this way,” Lilo is now saying. “Of course, if you look far enough back, everyone in America has someone in their family who was once a social climber, so I try to keep that in mind. But it wasn't like this—these people just thinking enough money can buy them right up to the top of the waiting list.”

Caroline has a sudden memory of visiting Lilo, when she was much younger, maybe fifteen years ago, or even longer than that, and Lilo still lived on Beacon Hill in the house with the long churchlike windows and old-fashioned iron boot-scrape at the door. There had a been a lunch of some kind—all Lilo's best silver and china out on the table and some sort of molded fish pudding, little sandwiches with the crusts cut off, and Harriet's brittle, crumbly brownies. And a minister? Or a diplomat? Some old bowlegged Roosevelt whom Lilo wanted desperately to impress. And she had seated everyone around the table and made some sort of toast about how sad it was that this distinguished guest had come back to Boston to find the Somerset Club, like so many of Boston's most venerable organizations, so
changed
in its membership. Lilo had been smug with self-satisfaction at having been, even as a woman (and therefore not a member), so intimately acquainted with the club's workings and so devastated by its apparent degeneration—the whole of her remarks addressed like a loving serenade to this bowlegged bald man. And then, after she had seated herself back at the head of the table, he had stood and begun his own speech with a casual remark that actually the club had needed a good shake-up—that it was in danger of becoming downright provincial. Caroline had happened to look at Lilo at that moment and her face had been completely distorted by dismay and uncertainty, as if suddenly the earth had heaved under her feet or the moon had bounced in its orbit. It was the same shocked, almost childish bewilderment that had registered on the old woman's face in the lobby of the west wing this afternoon.

“. . . clown collection.”

“What?” Caroline asks, startled out of her train of thought.

“That's quite a clown collection,” Stephan repeats. Caroline is once again in the room alone with him.

“I know.” Caroline grimaces. “No one's told her clowns have turned into the exclusive property of serial killers, poltergeists, and child molesters.” Her voice comes out sounding more sorrowful than she intended.

“The fall of the clown.” Stephan laughs anyway. “There's a good documentary subject.”

It is hot in the cluttered room—the sunlight cuts a woolly swath across the pink sofa on which Caroline is sitting. “It's funny to think clowns used to just be, you know, cheerful,” she says distractedly. She is trying to come up with a casual way to ask if Lilo's full name will be used in the movie (why on earth didn't she ask him to begin with?), when Lilo herself calls Caroline's name from the bedroom.

“Coming,” she says automatically, and pulls herself up off the stuffy embrace of the sofa.

In the bedroom, Lilo is sitting at her dressing table in a shocking state of undress—baggy pizza-dough-like white flab hanging over the top of some impossible flesh-colored girdle and stiff white brassiere. There are about twenty-five colorful dresses spread out on the bed in front of a dismayed-looking Harriet.

“You are a woman now, so I am turning to you,” Lilo begins with an elaborate, theatrically knowing look. Caroline has a sudden fear she is about to describe some awful age-related feminine problem. “There is something I really think you should see.”

“Right now?” Caroline asks, thinking of Stephan sitting on the other side of the wall, but Lilo is already reaching behind a row of china boxes along the top of her windowsill.

“Here,” she says, straightening up and holding something small and square in her hand. Her eyes are gleaming. “A philatic.” She pronounces the word with a breathy sense of victory.