THERE WAS NO MESSAGE from Alice when he got home to Bridgehampton late that Friday evening. He did, however, find one from Charlotte, recorded in the afternoon, and a note on the kitchen table from Carrie, beside a vase full of white and pink peonies from his garden, saying Welcome, Schmidtie, we have news for you. It was a few minutes past midnight, much too late to call Charlotte. The pool house and Bryan’s apartment over the garage were dark. If Bryan had met him at the airport, he would have told him Carrie’s news unless it was to be a surprise and she had sworn him to silence. But he had been picked up instead by one of Mike Mansour’s chauffeurs in the security detail’s huge gray SUV. The news, and the telephone calls to Alice and Charlotte, would have to wait until morning. Sy was on the kitchen table, looking at him with adoring eyes and tapping on his sleeve. This was a message Schmidt never failed to understand. It said, I want a snack, and I want it now!
He was up early, and although it was Saturday he was sure that Carrie and Jason would be up as well. Operations at the marina started at eight. His breakfast finished, he put the New York Times aside and was about to go over to see them when they both appeared. It was three weeks since he had last seen her. The hillock under her paisley top had become an alp. And she had become more beautiful to a degree he thought was supernatural. When had she been a waitress at O’Henry’s, the local steak and hamburger joint? Almost four years ago? O’Henry’s, the joint where she would serve him his meal, and when she was tired late in the evening remind him of Picasso’s Woman Ironing. Picasso had never painted a Madonna. If he had, before the need to push his art forward led him to decompose faces and bodies, the result might have been a likeness of Carrie as she was now. Or if Bellini had fallen in love with an olive-skinned, languorous working girl, perhaps a street urchin bearing a child of an unknown father, whom he had invited to pose in his studio. Jason beaming beside her, the blond mountain—whose paintbrush had painted him? Of course, Norman Rockwell! Portrait of a young line repairman, in his overalls, setting out for a day’s work after a hurricane.
Hey Schmidtie, she cried after embracing him, big news! Jay and I are lawfully wedded! We went to Riverhead last Friday morning and did it! Isn’t that something? Bryan and one of the girls from O’Henry’s were the witnesses.
It is big and wonderful news; I’m so happy for you. He embraced Carrie again and once again vigorously shook Jason’s hand. I only wish I could have given a wedding lunch for you!
We didn’t want you to, Carrie said, it’s a hassle. That’s why we were sneaky and got it done while you were away.
Carrie’s extraordinary tact: in truth Schmidt had been turning over in his mind what he would do when those two finally got married. A reception on the lawn following a morning ceremony? Something in the house or under a tent if it was in the evening? Should he have a band or a DJ or no music at all? And above all, who would be the guests? Carrie’s parents, Mr. Gorchuck, the Board of Education employee, and Mrs. Gorchuck, the Puerto Rican cook with swollen limbs, Mr. and Mrs. McMullen, Jason’s Nova Scotia father and mother, Mike Mansour and Gil and Elaine Blackman, Mike’s staff, at least those whose services at Mike’s house could be temporarily dispensed with, the boys and girls from O’Henry’s, and who else? Perhaps Jason’s pals from the New York police force, if he had kept up with them. A strange group and a strange social occasion! Now he would be spared this trial. That left little Albert’s christening. He was to be the godfather! Would he be expected to give a reception, presumably for the same group?
Dear Carrie and Jason, he replied, I would have so much liked to do it here, on the lawn.
That half lie took him right back to Charlotte’s wedding, to her cruel—in his opinion—and stupid choice of a restaurant in Tribeca as the setting, rather than the house in which she had been brought up. He took a moment to collect himself.
It’s too early in the morning to talk about such things, but I want to give you a handsome wedding present. Jason, you listen to me. You’re the practical one in the family. You figure out what would be best and tell me. The sky is the limit.
In that at least he was 100 percent sincere.
Gee, thanks, Schmidtie, was Jason’s response.
He might have said more, but Carrie took over. Say it with cash, Schmidtie, she told him, the new house, little Albert, the marina, it’s like a drain. Money goes out, and very little comes in.
Consider it done, Schmidt said.
Hey, we have more news. Little Albert! The doctor wants him to come out on June fifteenth. He’s so huge and well developed he thinks I may have made a mistake figuring out his due date. She laughed and nudged Schmidt with her elbow.
Another overwhelming wave of feeling. Because the baby was almost there, because the earlier it had been conceived the less certain was the paternity of the blond Viking nodding and wiping tears on his sleeve. In which case—no, he wasn’t going to think about it yet. Let the baby come, let his features tell the tale. But for the record he told them: I’m so glad I’m back and that I’m not going anywhere until sometime in June. Hooray for Albert, Mama and Papa, and the doctor!
Schmidtie, that’s not all! Carrie replied. We’ve signed the contract on the house in East Hampton. The closing is in eight weeks to give the people living there time to move out, and the guys are going to get to work on it right away. We’ll be out of your hair before Labor Day!
Out of my hair! Never, never. The door will be always open; when you’re here, you’re at home.
They said it was about time they headed for the marina, and he accompanied them to the front door. Holding it open, he watched them get into Jason’s pickup. His elected family: Carrie, his young mistress; the blond giant who virtuously and rightly had taken her away from him; and the mysterious child about to be brought into the world.
Nine o’clock. In a half hour he could safely call Charlotte. He poured himself another mug of coffee and began to go through the stack of mail. Ninety percent was junk. The rest was bills that he set aside along with his bank statement and communications from his two investment advisers, who seemed to be sending more and more bulletins on the state of the economy and its future. Out of a sense of duty, he skimmed them. What a waste of paper! Every reader of the Times knew that George H. W. Bush had bequeathed to Clinton a mess that the Republicans seemed bent on making worse, but the investment advisers found it in themselves to see the good in their shenanigans. Of course, their clientele wasn’t all mavericks like Schmidtie, disloyal to their social and economic class. The poor guys had to play to their public. The country really had deserved better than that silly man with his silly preppy personality and habits. It must be easier to fool the country than your high school classmates. Schmidt knew people older than himself who had been to Andover with Bush and were ready to certify that even then he was a creep. All the same, Schmidt was taken aback by his own rush to judge and condemn. Silly Bush. Appalling Popov. Why exactly had Popov been so appalling at college and ever after?
Clearly, Popov’s being a Bulgarian didn’t help. Knowing nothing about Bulgarians, Schmidt didn’t like them. They were a backward nation, he believed, steeped in Eastern Orthodox religion, using the Cyrillic alphabet, and teeming with bearded and unwashed married priests. Could anything be more unattractive? Popov fit right in. There was something unwashed about him as well, then and now. That black suit, for instance, that he had worn at a time when practically no one at Harvard College wore a suit unless going to a funeral or a wedding, and, even then, nothing like that black double-breasted number plus a shirt of dubious whiteness, a frayed necktie narrow like a ribbon, and an outrageous red pocket square. Did any of that really matter? No, it didn’t, but it managed to make Schmidt uncomfortable. The two or three men who wore suits whom Schmidt liked and respected were golden-haired boys born with gold or silver spoons in their mouths. Was it then Popov’s seeming poverty that made him repellent? No, it really was more the pasty white face and evident want of personal hygiene. All right, Popov was a slob, and a slob whose roommate Bill, also Gil’s friend, was an even bigger one. Yes, but who was Schmidt? A dress-code enforcer or a housemother inspecting her little charges’ fingernails? No, there was more to it. Popov had made him uncomfortable, talking over his head, pulling rank as a sophisticated European—a European born into a powerful family, a fact that was not then unknown to Schmidt—taking advantage of an American who wouldn’t get to Europe until the summer after his sophomore year, for whom the ballet and the opera were terra incognita, and, worse yet, so far as Popov and his actor roommate were concerned, who believed that Truman had been right to go to war over Korea and didn’t consider Eisenhower a moron. Gil, the wonder-boy Jew from Brooklyn, already held the full set of requisite liberal ideas—including an unshakable conviction of Alger Hiss’s innocence—played the piano, had brought a record player and a stack of opera LPs with him to Cambridge, and had been to Europe twice. Gil’s father was a surgeon and his mother a dress designer, and so Brooklyn wasn’t somewhere in East New York but a brownstone in Brooklyn Heights. It was obvious to Schmidt why he wasn’t meanly envious of Gil, why he didn’t resent him: he had had a late-blooming schoolboy’s crush on him that in some form still endured. One thing was certain: Schmidt’s dislike for Popov would not have taken on so sharp and invidious an edge without its lining of resentment and guilty curiosity.
Half past nine. He called Charlotte. After three rings, a sort of milestone of promptness in his telephone communications with her, she answered.
Dad, where were you?
Yes, I called three times and finally left a message.
Actually I was on a plane returning from Paris. I made another short trip. But I sent you a letter before leaving, with my itinerary and all that.
Jon or I must have tossed it. We had such a stack of junk mail when we got back.
Of course, thought Schmidt, who would bother noticing his return address on the envelope?
I’m sorry, he told her. I didn’t change the message on my telephone because people now say that if your message announces that you are away you’re inviting burglars. There have been a couple of burglaries around here. Did you have a good time?
Are you near a chair? Yes, then sit down. Dad, I am pregnant. The baby is due in September! And we know it’s a boy! I haven’t told anyone except Jon’s parents until now. I wanted to be sure he’d stick around. We’re calling him Myron. Jews can’t name a child for a living parent, but Renata has an uncle whose name is also Myron, so that’s all right. We’re in the clear.
He wished she hadn’t told him about that name just yet, but really it didn’t matter, not at all. With great effort he managed to speak: Sweetie, sweetie how absolutely marvelous, I’m so happy. How I wish your mother were alive! She would have been over the moon. Is Jon there? I would like to congratulate him.
That would have been the first time he had spoken to his son-in-law in a long while, longer than he cared to remember, and he was relieved to learn that it was not to be. Jon was at the gym and afterward would be heading straight to the office. She would transmit Schmidt’s congratulations. He decided he would put the question—perhaps, given the truce they had declared, it was not out of order and wouldn’t bring her wrath on his head. Was there any chance of luring her and Jon to Bridgehampton—for instance, over the Memorial Day weekend?
Guessed wrong.
Dad, she replied, the syllable stretched into Daaaad, we just can’t, I’m taking a maternity leave from my office—it will have to be unpaid, of course, they only pay for one month—and moving up to Claverack.
Claverack was where she and Jon had bought a house in order to be closer to the senior Rikers’ property, refusing the gift he had offered to make her of his interest in the house in Bridgehampton, the house where she had been brought up.
And what if I scooted up to the city? he asked.
Really, Dad, can you just stop and imagine what’s involved in the move? I haven’t got one moment free.
He noted that she wasn’t inviting him to Claverack.
Yes, she continued, Renata thinks it would be best for me and the baby if I got out of the heat and hassle in the city, and I think she’s right. Jon will come up every weekend, and then he’ll take what’s left of his vacation.
Oh, said Schmidt, and then you’ll come back to have the baby in New York?
I don’t think so. There is a very nice modern hospital in Hudson, just about seven miles away. Low stress, no hassle. They encourage midwives and breast-feeding, which is what I want. You can come to see the baby when we bring him home.
I see, said Schmidt. Very well, thank you for telling me. Good luck. Stay in touch.
Then he did sit down and wished it were later in the day, that the sun were over the yardarm. He needed a drink. Reflecting on his need and the time of day, and the absence of anyone on the premises who might reprove him, he got out the bottle of bourbon from the liquor closet and the quart of milk from the refrigerator and made himself a very tall drink, one-half milk and one-half booze. He allowed it to soothe him. It was too early to call Gil Blackman. He let another half hour pass before trying Gil’s New York office and was told by the secretary that Mr. Blackman was at his country house in Wainscott. She would connect Mr. Schmidt.
The familiar voice cried, Schmidtie, how terrific! Are you in Bridgehampton or are you speaking from Kharkov? If you’re here, would you like to have lunch? The usual? At one?
That’s what I had hoped, Schmidt replied. I’ll see you at one.
The Polish cleaning women were making a racket in the house, running the vacuum cleaner, shouting to one another. Schmidt took a sweater, just in case, and headed for the beach. As often happens in May, when the moon is in the last quarter, the ocean was like a lake, lapping the shore lackadaisically. There was no one else in sight, no footprints on the brilliantly white sand. Schmidt walked fast as far as Gibson Lane, checked his watch, and turned back. He was home by twelve.
The blinking light told him there was a message on the answering machine. Jon Riker’s voice, asking Schmidt to call him at the office. He repeated the telephone number. Quite possibly, Jon was on a peacemaking mission, not a bad idea from any point of view, and, as a practical matter, necessary now that there was going to be a grandchild. Riker came to the telephone at once and said nothing. At a loss for words himself, Schmidt offered his congratulations. Since Riker remained silent, Schmidt told him it was too bad that he had to spend a beautiful May Saturday at the office rather than with his pregnant wife.
That elicited an answer: Can’t be helped, times are bad for the legal profession right now, so we all have to hustle. You should be grateful this doesn’t apply to you; it wouldn’t fit with your established habits.
A stupid and malicious thing to say, Schmidt thought, but he wasn’t about to allow himself to be riled. He said nothing. The silence sank in, and Riker spoke again.
There was a reason for my call, Al. It’s your grandson. What are you going to do for him?
Riker knew very well that Schmidt loathed being called Al. Why was he doing it, and what was it that he wanted? He replied calmly: Can you explain what you mean?
Al, you must know what I mean. Are you going to set up a trust so the kid can sail on his own bottom?
So that’s what it was. The man was a swine.
I see, said Schmidt, and what do you mean by little Myron’s being able to “sail on his own bottom”? Being able to pay his bills? You’re going to charge him room and board and make him pay for his visits to the pediatrician? I hadn’t realized you were broke.
Jesus, Al, don’t play dumb. I’m not talking about room and board or visits to the pediatrician. Have you heard how much nannies cost or preschool or kindergarten or elementary school and high school? I’m not even talking about college and law school or medical school!
I will make myself clearer. Do you earn so little, are you so broke, that you can’t take care of your own family?
Are you trying to be funny? You do know that my parents are hard up. My mother has said that she told you. So I’m helping them. Doing what’s needed.
A hideous weight of fatigue had descended on Schmidt.
Look here, he said, I can’t help wondering which one of you thought up this request—if that’s what it is—your father, your mother, you, or Charlotte, and I guess I don’t much care. You tire me. There is no end to the trouble you make.
Jesus, Al, you’re off the reservation!
Oh yeah? thought Schmidt, where had Jon learned that expression, the favorite locution of the same W & K presiding partner who had booted Jon out of the firm.
Shut up, he told Jon. I’m telling you the truth. Now listen carefully, and if you like make a tape of what I’m saying. One, Charlotte is my daughter and my natural heir. Unless she drives me up the wall—I don’t really care what you and your parents do or say—she will inherit money on my death. I’m not saying all my money; she’s already had a lot. Two, Charlotte’s children will be the natural object of my generosity. I mean just that: natural object of my generosity. I don’t exclude—depending on how you and Charlotte are fixed financially—helping pay for your children’s preschools, schools, and so forth. You forgot to mention summer camps: yes, I’d help even with summer camps. But I won’t be badgered by you or Charlotte into making gifts to little unborn Myron or any other kid you may have that aren’t currently needed and that under the tax laws are murderously expensive. Have you heard about the gift tax? Or the generation-skipping tax? Why should I throw my money out the window to pay unnecessary taxes? When the time comes, I will be generous, but that time isn’t now. As for your helping your parents, that will be part of your financial circumstances I will consider. I am truly sorry about their difficulties. Being a psychoanalyst today and not getting paid can’t be fun.
Thereupon Schmidt hung up. It was the first time he had hung up on a member of his family and one of the exceedingly rare times he had hung up on anyone other than a salesman making cold calls.
“The usual” was O’Henry’s, where at one time Schmidt had felt obliged to evade the attentions of superannuated and misshapen literary widows who regularly lunched there, and where he and Mr. Blackman had accustomed themselves to meeting because the hamburgers and steaks were good and the wine, if they overpaid, met Mr. Blackman’s exacting standards. The great filmmaker was already there, at the table to which his worldwide fame, assisted by Schmidt’s standing as Carrie’s former sugar daddy, entitled them. As though their greeting had been choreographed, each opened his arms to embrace the other. They had not seen each other since before Schmidt’s first April visit to Paris. Mr. Blackman had been filming a television miniseries based on The Scarlet Letter, to be released in the fall. Great to see you!, spoken by them in unison, resonated in the half-empty restaurant. They ordered rapidly.
How did it go? asked Schmidt.
The filming? I’m pleased. I’ve got little Kyra Sedgwick playing Hester. She’s marvelous. Chaste as new snow atop a volcano of passion.
Fabulous! And Dimmesdale?
Sam Waterston. He’s perfect. Great actor and the contrast between him and Kyra is perfect too—it leaves me speechless. I’ll just say it’s exactly what I had hoped for. But that’s not what I wanted to talk about. Elaine is on a tear about the amount of time I’m spending in L.A. Of course she knows what I’m doing is important and brings in big bucks; of course I’ve told her that she is welcome to join me there, but entre nous that’s a disingenuous offer. I know she hates Southern California and wouldn’t stay more than a week. The truth is that she has a very good sense of smell. She knows I’m not spending all my days on the lot and my evenings planning the next day’s shoot. Her solution is to make my life miserable when I’m there by calling every fifteen minutes in the evening and, when she gets me, by complaining. She says she’s going to invite the Mummy to come and stay!
The Mummy was Gil’s sobriquet for Elaine’s aged, rich, and, to hear him tell it, prodigiously mean mother.
How are you really spending your evenings, you old rascal?
Remember my old flame Katerina?
How could I forget?
Katerina had been Gil’s secretary, a Greek beauty of the sort Cole Porter must have had in mind when he wrote of a two-timing husband that his business is the business that he gives his secretary, who had left Gil for a stockbroker and fellow Greek she met over a holiday in Jamaica.
I can’t either, replied Mr. Blackman, every time I do it with my new girl I think of her. She’s the same type, half Greek and half Italian—a dynamite combination! Guess what her name is!
Venus.
Wrong! Aphrodite. The Greeks carried the day.
And you call her Aphro?
Guess again. No, you’ll never get it: DT.
By Jove! Pardon me, by Zeus!
You wouldn’t believe, she’s so great, and not just in the sack. She has ideas and a point of view, she can talk, and she’s talented, really talented.
A starlet?
No, she’s in production. The plain fact is that I can help her, I can make her career, and she knows it. It will keep her on the straight and narrow. She wants to move to New York, so we can be together more easily once I’ve finished editing.
Is that a good idea? With Elaine’s acute sense of smell? And anyway hadn’t you told me after Katerina that you were going to bury your staff certain fathoms in the earth?
True, true. I am a repeat offender. I love Elaine, and when I don’t give her reasons to get on her high horse she is the best of wives, but when I’m with DT, when I touch her skin, when I have her breasts in my hands, it’s so good that my head spins. What can I tell you? I want her. Every inch of me wants her.
I understand that. And you think you can keep her on a string because of her career? Aren’t you setting yourself up for real trouble?
Mr. Blackman reflected. Real trouble? I don’t think so, because I’m not going to give her a job in my organization. Anyway my organization doesn’t amount to a hill of beans. I’ll help her get in with other people. That may not be very nice, but at least it’s not illegal. The bigger picture? Let’s be realistic. Why would a girl like DT let herself be banged on demand by an old schnook like me? It’s not for my pretty teeth or beautiful eyes or abs of steel. One gives what one has. And what about you?
What’s left at the bottom of this bottle won’t last us while my tale unfolds.
They ordered another bottle of wine, and Schmidt told his story. The story of the first meeting with Alice in Paris and being smitten and having almost at once hit a home run. He withheld what she had told him about Tim Verplanck. It had no bearing on his feelings for her. He continued with the events of the second visit to Paris, and confessed the escapade with Danuta. The rape of Schmidt by an oversexed Pole!
Schmidtie, my dear Schmidtie, heaven is smiling on you! Alice seems made to order. Court her, humor her, don’t crowd her with commitments. She’s got a job she likes, she lives in a fabulous city, don’t ask her to move to your château in Bridgehampton and give up the world. That’s like taking holy orders! She can come here—especially if you pay the airfare—and you can pop over to Paris. You’ll have fun! I’m so happy for you, and I can’t wait to tell Elaine.
Thank you, said Schmidt, that’s exactly the kind of advice I needed. I will follow it. I think I can do it. And what about Danuta? You don’t think that episode means that I’m not really serious about Alice?
My dear old pal, you and I have been made to want to screw. What was it you told me? That you think there will be no Danutas if you get to live with Alice? I think that’s exactly right. But even if some enchanted evening you succumbed to the charms of Danuta’s little sister, it wouldn’t be the end of the world. Not if you were very discreet about it and Alice didn’t find out. Do you remember the film I made of Rigoletto years ago?
Of course, great film.
Not half bad. Well, I’m thinking of going back to filming operas. My next project will be Così fan tutte!
They had gotten around to dessert, and since it was late it seemed right to follow the waitress’s recommendation: rhubarb pie. Coffee later.
It’s time for comic relief, said Schmidt. I had a bizarre lunch with Alice and your old pal Popov.
Gil listened to Schmidt’s account and said, Popov, Popov, you’ve always had a thing about him. Such a surprise in the case of the broad-minded, unprejudiced, thoroughly rational Albert Schmidt, Esquire! What have you got against him except that he doesn’t bathe or change his underwear?
That’s only a part of it: you forgot pompous and full of himself. Also: Having Alice set that lunch up on my last day in Paris, when I had hoped to be with her alone, and letting Alice pay for it. And the stuff about having married a member of the high aristocracy! As the kids in the W & K mailroom used to say, give me a break!
Poor Popov! That’s part of the problem: he is poor. The wife—Chantal? Ghislaine? Isabeau? one of those funny names—is the daughter of a duke.
Solange.
That’s right: Solange. She’s the daughter of a duke who is poor and a duchess who has bags of money. It’s lucky that Popov can tap into the money because the care of Solange costs a mint. Of course I’m sure he enjoys having a huge apartment on rue de Lille in the ducal palace and vacations he can spend at the ducal château, and so on, but he’s really hard up. That’s why he and Solange are still together. Money and real estate: that’s what keeps marriages intact, not children. Not that I feel too sorry for him. The last time I saw him, four or five years ago, he told me that he had somebody on the side. Didn’t tell me who, but someone he thinks is pretty great.
And the young duchess? She has no objections?
Who knows? She was paralyzed right after those boys were born. Is it possible to have sex with someone paralyzed from the waist down? I’ve no idea. Maybe it’s fantastic. I’d assume that she thinks it natural that Popov find relief elsewhere.
You’re probably right as always. Now some family news: Charlotte informed me this morning that she’s pregnant, and it’s a boy! He’s due in September!
Fantastic. Congratulations! Wait till I tell Elaine. This news on top of Alice—she’s going to dance a jig.
You are my best and dearest friends. Schmidt’s voice broke. The little boy’s name will be Myron. Same as Jon’s father. That’s OK with me. But let me tell you about my conversation with Jon. Please don’t mention it to Elaine. You understand. I’m stuck with that guy. One day he and Charlotte may start coming here again.
Mr. Blackman listened to the account of the telephone conversation, nodding his head.
It’s awful, he said. Jon is a prick. Come and have dinner with us tonight.
It was close to four by the time Schmidt got home. He tried Alice’s number, on the off chance. There was no answer. Evidently she was in Antibes. Sy wanted to play, and afterward he made it clear he needed a treat.
So did Mr. Schmidt. He was going to take a nap before dinner with Gil and Elaine.