23

“You’ve got to do something about your mother’s drinking,” Brad said to her. This was in the summer of 1960, during her father’s first year as the company’s new president. “She called me at the office this afternoon, and I couldn’t make head nor tail out of what she wanted. When she’s drunk, she gets belligerent. The first thing I knew, she was shouting at me and calling me foul names. I finally had to hang up on her and tell my secretary not to put through any more calls from her.”

“Everybody’s tried everything,” she said. “I used to pour her liquor down the drain, but she just found cleverer places to hide her whiskey. I tried to close her charge account at Sherry-Lehmann, and she just went to another liquor store. We had a doctor prescribe something called Antabuse; it’s supposed to make you deathly ill when you take a drink. But she wouldn’t take the pills. I’ve tried to get her to join Alcoholics Anonymous, but she won’t attend the meetings. I’ve tried calling her early in the morning, and have had friends call her, to catch her during the hangover period, to give her pep talks. It doesn’t help. I even went to a group called Al-Anon, which is supposed to be for the families of alcoholics. But all those people seem to do is sit around and hold each other’s hands—and pray.”

“Well, somebody ought to do something.”

“What else is there to do, Brad? Tell me.”

“What she’s doing is ruining her reputation.”

“But she just doesn’t care about her reputation, don’t you see?”

“They’re even talking about it at my office. Those girls at the switchboard—they know what’s going on.”

“Or is it your reputation you’re worried about? Is that it, Brad?”

“I just wish you’d do something about it.”

“You wish I’d do something?” she said, suddenly angry. “Why must it be me? Why is she suddenly all my responsibility?”

“She’s not my mother,” he said. “My mother doesn’t behave that way. My mother’s not a drunk.”

“Oh, no,” she said, letting her voice fill with sarcasm. “Of course not. Because your mother’s a real New England lady. That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it? Your mother’s a proper Boston Brahmin, and my mother’s a drunken slut. Is that what you’re trying to say to me?”

“Skip it,” he said. “Let’s see what’s on TV.”

“No, I won’t skip it, Brad. I want to know what it is exactly that you’re trying to say to me.”

“All I’m saying,” he said, “is that I can’t understand what it is about you people that makes you feel you don’t have any control over your lives.”

“Now wait a minute,” she said. “Just what do you mean by ‘you people’? Do I detect a faintly anti-Semitic slur here?”

“Of course not. But I was brought up to believe that if there was a problem in a family, there was usually a solution to it, and someone in the family took charge. And I’m saying that if you don’t do something about your mother’s drinking, nobody will. Your father doesn’t seem able to control her. He doesn’t even seem to try.”

“My father happens to have more important things on his mind right now!”

“Then that leaves you, doesn’t it?”

“Oh, yes,” she said. “That leaves me. But what about you? Have you offered to do anything to help? Of course not.”

“As I said before, she’s not my mother.”

“Have you offered to help in any other ways? Everybody else in this family has been making sacrifices. Look what poor old Granny’s doing! Even Edwee’s loaned Daddy money, but what have you done?”

“Edwee didn’t loan him any money. All he did was purchase a few more shares of Miray stock.”

“It amounts to the same thing, doesn’t it? Cash? That’s what the company needs now, isn’t it? Even Nonie’s been making sacrifices. She’s fired her servants, she’s looking for a smaller apartment. But we haven’t done one damn thing!”

“We?”

“You, then. I don’t have any money. But you seem to be doing all right. But I haven’t seen you offering to write out any checks!”

“I don’t know anything about the beauty business. I don’t want to get involved in it. I have my own career to worry about.”

“Oh, of course!”

“And our livelihood, yours and mine.”

“Of course. Why don’t you come right out and admit it, Brad? You find the beauty business a little common, don’t you. Not quite tuned to your fine New England taste. You—you’re down at Sixty-seven Wall Street with all your Social Register snobs!”

“Well, if you’re so hot on helping out your father, why don’t you do something?”

“What could I do, besides offer to take over the company and run it for him? Which I could probably do, by the way. I know a few things about the business. But I hardly think he’d take kindly to that suggestion. Do you?”

“You could do something.”

“Like be a saleslady at Macy’s, you mean. Something—while you do nothing! No, I’ll tell you why you won’t do anything to help, Brad Moore. It’s because you’re a cold-blooded, cold-hearted New Englander—a cold-fish Yankee, long on pedigree but short on feelings. At least we Jews have feelings. At least we Jews pitch in and pull together and help each other out when the chips are down! You and your Puritan stoicism! Puritan selfishness is all it is!”

“Look,” he said, “we shouldn’t quarrel like this. Let’s stop.”

“I think I know what this is all about,” she said. “When you married me, you thought I was going to inherit a lot of money. Now that it turns out I didn’t inherit a lot of money, you turn on my family and start criticizing them.”

“That’s hogwash, Mimi, and you know it’s hogwash.”

“Is it? I’m not so sure, I think you thought it was okay to marry a Jewish girl as long as she was a rich Jewish girl. But now that it turns out she’s not a rich Jewish girl, but a poor Jewish girl, it makes all the difference, doesn’t it? Then you start criticizing, finding fault. Well, I apologize for the fact that the money you married me for failed to materialize!”

“Hogwash,” he said again.

“Listen,” she said, “speaking of ‘you people,’ I know how you people talk. A poor person who’s an alcoholic is called a drunken bum. But if you’re talking about a rich person who’s an alcoholic, you say, ‘Old So-and-So’s been hitting the bottle a bit lately.’”

“Please, let’s stop this, Mimi. You’re getting into things that have nothing to do with—”

“You started this!” she said. “All I did was ask you how your day went, and your started in on my mother—whom I happen to love.”

“Your mother pretty much managed to ruin my day!”

“See? There you go again!”

“Look, we’re all under a strain,” he said. “I know that, and fighting with each other won’t help. And, you know, I was thinking. Maybe if we were able to make a baby … maybe that would help. What do you think? Shall we try again tonight? Without your … you-know-what.”

“A baby?” she cried. “Are you out of your mind? You’d drag an innocent baby into this mess?”

“Maybe it would make us feel more like a family, you and me. Maybe it would help take our minds off … all the other business.”

“You see? That’s all you want. You want to put all of Daddy’s problems out of your mind. You just want to forget about what’s happening to my family. You want to get everything out of your sight, and out of your mind.”

“Think about it, Mimi,” he said, reaching out to take her hand. “Let’s try—”

“No,” she said, pulling away from him. “Don’t touch me. I want nothing to do with a man as cold as you are.”

He rose from the sofa and headed toward the door.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going to spend the night at the Harvard Club.”

“Good!” she called after him. “Perfect. That’s the perfect address for you! Go to the Harvard Club. Go—and stay. Stay as long as you want. You can stay there forever as far as I’m concerned! Cold-blooded Yankee WASP bastard!”

The next morning, he returned and packed a suitcase, while she watched him wordlessly.

“You told me to call you if I needed you,” she said. “I think I need you, but I’m not sure what I need you for.” They were sitting in his huge, high-ceilinged living room on Riverside Drive. “I’m frightened, Michael. I don’t know what to do.”

He gave her a long, sideways look, saying nothing.

“They sent me away to school,” she said. “To learn. I don’t think I learned very much. Everyone says you’re very smart. They say—”

“You’re growing up,” he said. “When I first met you, you were just a little kid with a broken skate lace. Then you broke my heart.”

“I probably shouldn’t have called you,” she said. “I probably shouldn’t be here.”

“No, I’m glad you called me.” He rose and crossed the room and sat down beside her on the sofa. “I think you need a friend,” he said.

She studied her lacquered fingertips. “Yes, that … and perhaps something else,” she said, choosing her words carefully. “Advice, perhaps. You’ve made a lot of money, haven’t you?”

He smiled. “Yes, I’ve got to admit that’s true,” he said.

“People all over New York are saying you’re a brilliant businessman.”

He shrugged and spread open the palms of his hands in a Jewish-peddler-parody gesture. “Just schlepping along,” he said.

“Please. I’m serious. I want you to tell me the truth. Is my father a brilliant businessman, or isn’t he?”

“Golly, I—”

“I used to think he was. But now I’m not so sure. Since my grandfather died, I’ve tried to learn a little bit about this business. After all, I’m the only grandchild. Someday—who knows?—I might be in a position to take it over. But from what I’ve learned, I now think my father has made some very serious mistakes. And now there are all these lawsuits, charging mismanagement. Recklessness. Fiscal ineptitude. What do you think, Michael?”

He scowled. “I don’t know anything about your dad’s business,” he said. “All I know is what I’ve picked up on the street. And, since I’ve become at least peripherally involved with your family, I’ve kept my ears open.”

“And what have you heard?”

“Well, to be frank with you, most of what I’ve heard has not been good. People in the business are saying that this new merchandising strategy of his is suicidal.”

“Yes,” she said quietly. “That’s what I’ve heard, too. I’ve read it in the newspapers. What’s going to happen, do you think?”

He spread his hands again. “I don’t know. How much longer can your grandmother keep pouring money into the company? She’s going to run out of properties to sell at some point, you know.”

“And that’s another thing. I see all this money of Granny’s going into the company. But I see nothing coming out. What’s happening to those funds, Michael?”

“I have no idea. Why don’t you ask him?”

“I’ve tried. I’ve tried to meet with him, tried to talk about it. But he’s too … preoccupied. And the thing is, too, that I’m a woman. Women in this family—the whole female sex—have never exactly occupied a position of respect. But I’m thinking that if a man, a businessman like yourself, could talk to him, man to man, maybe he’d listen to you. Maybe you could help him, guide him. And also find out what’s happening to Granny’s money.”

“Someone like me,” he said flatly.

“Yes.”

“It seems to me that if someone were to do that, it should be your husband.”

“Brad is too … too preoccupied with his own career,” she said. “He’s been made a partner in his firm. There’s been talk of him running for public office. Brad has ambitions of his own that have nothing to do with my family’s business. Besides, Brad thinks that the beauty business is a little bit—”

“Too Seventh Avenue for his Christian taste.”

“Yes, perhaps,” she said lowering her eyes.

“You and he have had words on this subject, I gather.”

“Yes. But what if you were to try to talk to Daddy?”

Suddenly he sprang to his feet and began pacing the white room, his hands thrust deep into the back pockets of his jeans, pacing and bouncing springily on the balls of his sneakered feet. “Why would he talk to me? Why would he listen to anything I had to say? I only met the guy once before.”

“He has great respect for what you’ve been doing for Granny.”

“What could I tell him, Mimi? What could I tell him without looking at the company’s books? And why would he let me look at the company’s books? It’s a private company, you know, and he could simply tell me to go to hell. Why would he let me look at his company’s books? Why would he let me look at a single balance sheet?” He continued pacing up and down the length of the white-carpeted floor, his shoulders hunched forward, pantherlike, or like a boxer sizing up his opponent in the ring. “No way,” he said, pounding his right fist into the palm of his left hand. “No way he’d let me do that, Mimi. Now your grandmother, she’s another story. She could ask to look at the books. She’s entitled, after all.”

“What would she be able to tell from looking at the books?”

“But me? No way.”

She sat forward in her chair. “But would you at least try it, Michael?” she said. “For me?”

All at once he stopped pacing and stood in the center of the room gazing at her, his dark eyes seeming to grow wider and deeper. He tossed the sandy forelock of hair back from where it had fallen across his forehead and began to smile that slightly crooked smile, revealing the perfect teeth and the three dimples, one at each corner of his mouth and one in his chin. Pink spots of excitement lighted his cheekbones, and with her fingertips Mimi touched her own cheeks because she could feel them reddening as well.

“Well, if you put it that way, of course I will,” he said. “For you, I’ll do anything. For you, I want everything. For you, I want towers—yes, towers. Towers and minarets and spires, and palace gates, forests, shores and islands, gems and pearls and scepters and all the emperor’s diamonds, and every brilliant in King Oberon’s crown. You shall have temples and mosques and fountains, rings on your fingers and bells on your toes, fountains and waterfalls and tapestries and flowers and thornless roses from the spice islands, and …”

And as he spoke he moved around the room again, opening and closing doors of the mirrored built-in closets and cabinets.

“What are you doing?” she whispered.

“Turning off the stereo, turning off the computer terminals, turning off the telephone, so we can make love in the afternoon.”

“Michael, I didn’t come here for this,” she said. But even as she spoke, she knew this wasn’t true, because once again the air between them was charged, electric, the way she remembered it from nearly three years ago. The current in the air that separated them was so strong that it was almost tangible, a thick and ropy presence that seemed to draw her toward him, and her voice choked when she tried to speak. And she knew that this, yes, was of course what she had come here for, for this reason above all others, to see if this would happen again, and that all the rest had been just an excuse—an honest excuse, forgive me for that, she thought—for this, and now that it was happening again she was overwhelmed with desire for him, that overpowering Michael feeling.

His eyes were blazing now, and from her place on the sofa, she tried to stare him down with her own eyes, but his wide, smiling eyes defeated hers, and she looked down at the changeless pattern of the thick white carpet, feeling weak and not quite ill.

“I want to make you … happy,” he said at last.

“Michael, I …”

He pressed a button, and the electric drapes across the wall of glass drew silently closed. One narrow shaft of sunlight remained between the closed drapes and fell directly into Mimi’s eyes, and she raised her left hand to shield her eyes.

“Don’t,” he said. “Your eyes have little white stars in them when the sun shines in them. I want to remember this when you have to go. The sun in your polished-silver eyes.”

“The world’s gotten to be such a small place,” she said.

“Yes. Here we are again.”

“Is it …?”

“Yes.”

“Should we …?”

“Yes.”

“It isn’t ended, then?”

“No.”

“Can we?”

“We can. We must. I must. You must. You must,” he said. “We can.” And on noiseless, sneakered feet he moved toward her, took her outstretched hand, and lifted her gently to her feet.

When it was over, his laugh was almost boyishly exultant. “I saw them again!” he said. “Litde white stars—in my brain, when it happened! Did you see them too, darling?”

“Yes, I think I did.”

“Little white stars!”

Soon he was asleep, and Mimi rose and moved about the mirrored half-darkness of his bedroom. In his bathroom, she found an oversized white bath towel and wrapped herself in it. Then she began exploring his closets, opening the mirrored doors and drawers and touching his things: the suits, the shirts, the racks of neckties, the tiers of shoes, the drawers of handkerchiefs, sweaters, socks, and underwear. Suddenly she was aware that he was awake again and watching her.

“Your sock drawer is a mess,” she giggled.

He held out his bare arm for her, and she went to him again.

“You’re the only girl I ever loved,” he said. “You know that, don’t you? You’re the only girl I’ll ever love. At least I can finally have you for a little while. At least, for a little while, we can have each other. The way it was supposed to be.”

“I love you, Michael.”

Did I say that? she asks herself now. It all seems so long ago, and in another world entirely, and their affair only lasted two weeks—two weeks, at the most, was all it had been, give or take a few days. Two weeks, she thinks. That was the title (wasn’t it?) of a novel, Two Weeks, yes, by Elinor Glyn, a steamy romantic novel of the 1920s, set in some mythical Graustarkian kingdom, in which the heroine and her lover rolled about on leopard-skin rugs in the lover’s palace.

But there had been no leopard-skin rugs in her affair with Michael, and the palace had been only Riverside Drive. In her mind, now, the affair seems not only long-ago and passionate, but at the same time somehow banal. He seemed to bring out a domestic, housewifely side of her that she had not known existed. She had discovered, for instance, that he was a terrible housekeeper. His, or his decorator’s, passion for built-ins was based on the fact that he used the built-ins to conceal his clutter. He hid his laundry under his bed. He stored his firewood behind the skirts of one of the big living room sofas. She bought him a laundry bag and made space in a closet in which to hang it. She found a sheltered corner of his terrace on which to stack the firewood. She took his suits to the cleaner’s and, when they came back, saw that they were hung neatly in even rows, on matching wooden hangers, and in plastic garment bags. She dusted and lined up his shoes in their trees. She organized his tie racks, for he had a habit of hanging up his neckties without undoing their knots. She arranged his shelves of shirts and sweaters according to color and long-sleeve, short-sleeve. She paired and folded his socks. Though Michael employed what he called “my dusty lady” as a maid-housekeeper, dusting seemed to be the dusty lady’s sole field of expertise.

Mimi cleaned out his medicine chest, discarding many empty tubes of toothpaste, cans of shaving foam and deodorant, spent razor blades, bottles of cologne and after-shave, and … bobby pins. She felt a slight twinge of guilt throwing out the bobby pins but decided he had no further use for them. Ancient prescriptions, long past their shelf life, along with an imposing collection of used Q-tips, also made their way into the garbage. He was, she discovered, a penny saver. A gallon jug was filled with copper coins. She counted and stacked these in paper rollers, took them to the bank, and exchanged them for bills.

She attacked his refrigerator, throwing out many objects of dubious age, identity, and odor, including a drawerful of what may have once been recognizable as species of vegetables but were now pulpy and discolored blobs. She bathed the refrigerator’s interior with detergent and baking soda. In the process, she discovered that his eating habits were erratic, at best, and that he lived primarily on carry-outs—pizzas and Chinese food. She restocked his larder with health foods, his freezer with wholesome frozen vegetables, his refrigerator with fresh milk, eggs, fruits, and juices. He made jokes about her efforts to organize and systematize his household and life and told her she was “turning into a typical Jewish mother.”

But the process of discovery and change was not at all a oneway street during those few weeks. In their lovemaking, he took her on a journey of discovery to a destination she had never known about before. He called it “little white stars”—an implosion of them from an inner, unexplored galaxy.

“Did you see them?” he would ask her.

“Yes … oh, yes.”

They had never once spoken of Brad.

“I’m going to see your father tomorrow,” he said.

“Thank you, darling.”

“After that, how’d you like to drive over to East Orange and have a look at the house I’m building there?”

“I’d love that.”

“Good. I’ll pick you up at your house at four. You’ll be my pick-up,” he said.

In Henry Myerson’s office, he took a seat opposite the company president’s big desk.

“It’s funny,” Henry Myerson said, “that you should have asked to see me, because for the last few days I’ve had it on my mind to call and ask to see you.”

“Is that so?” Michael said.

“Yes. It’s occurred to me that you might be able to be of unique service to me, Mr. Horowitz.”

“Well, that’s what I’m here to offer you,” Michael said. “To be of any service that I can.”

“I know you by reputation,” Henry said. “As a builder and developer—as well as what you’ve been doing for my mother.”

“Excuse me, sir,” Michael said, “but I don’t think you realize that we’ve met before.”

“Have we?” Henry said, looking flustered. “I’m sorry, but I don’t recall—”

“About two and a half years ago, your daughter and I came to your house to tell you that we wanted to get married.”

“Oh,” Henry said, shaking his head as though to rid it of dusty memories. “Was that you? I’m sorry, but I didn’t … forgive me, but that was a very emotional time for all of us, I’m afraid. Very emotional. I’m sorry I didn’t connect the name—not an uncommon name, after all. And I’m afraid that meeting wasn’t a very pleasant occasion for you, was it? Sorry about that.”

“No, sir, it wasn’t pleasant. It wasn’t pleasant at all.”

“Well, these things work out in the end,” Henry said. “Mimi’s happily married now. Fine fellow, Brad Moore. Lawyer downtown. He’s made her very happy.”

“Yes, sir. I’m sure of that.”

“And you—I’m sure you’re married yourself by now.”

“As a matter of fact, I’m not.”

“Well, then,” Henry said a little lamely, “it’s good to see you again.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Now then,” Henry said, and he rose from his chair, walked to his window, and stood looking out, his hands in his pockets, his back to Michael. “You’re a builder, you’re a developer, Mr. Horowitz.”

“That’s correct, sir.”

“Primarily in New Jersey, I gather.”

“I also have a project going up in Manhattan, on the Upper West Side.”

“Good. Lots of development going on, on the West Side. Lincoln Center and all that.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I suppose—or at least I gather,” Henry said, “that as a builder and developer, dealing with unions in the building trades and that sort of thing, you have occasion to do business, and come into contact with, people—men—who are members of what I believe is called the Cosa Nostra.”

“I’m not quite sure what you mean by that,” Michael said carefully.

“I mean, I’ve heard, I’ve read—and surely you have, too—that building contractors, in dealing with the unions and so forth, often have occasion to deal with some questionable types, people who at least have connections with the Mafia.”

“Yes, I’ve heard that, sir. But I personally—”

“There’s never been anyone you’ve suspected of being connected with any of this?”

“Well, I’ve had my suspicions, yes. But in my business, I try—”

“So at least you know who these people are. You see, Mike—May I call you Mike?” Henry Myerson went on, “This company faces a lot of problems right now—problems of transition, from old management to new. Most of these problems we’re going to be able to deal with, I’m confident of that. But there is one problem, a persistent problem, that’s not going to go away unless a certain individual is … eliminated.”

“Eliminated?”

“Yes. This is an individual of no moral worth whatsoever, a scourge on society, a person society would be better off to be rid of. I’ve been thinking about this for some time, Mike. I assure you I’m a moral man and have never considered taking means as drastic as I’m thinking of to dispose of an undesirable, totally worthless person, a lowlife of the lowest possible order. But under the present circumstances—”

“You’re talking of having someone killed,” Michael said.

“Well, that’s a rather crude way of putting it, but yes. And it occurred to me that someone like you, a developer, with your connections, might have access to—”

“Does this individual have a name?”

“Nathan Myerson.”

“A relative?”

“In a sense, yes.”

“Well, let me tell you this, Mr. Myerson,” Michael said. “In my business, I’ve run across people whom I’ve suspected of Mafia ties—I won’t deny that. But I’ve personally tried to steer clear of any of that. I don’t want my business, or my reputation, tainted with any of that. Whenever I’ve had an inkling that a person I’m dealing with isn’t straight, I stop doing business with that person. Immediately. I will not knowingly do business with those people.”

“You couldn’t even supply me with a name?”

“I’m afraid not, sir.”

“I assure you, you’d be helping rid the earth of one of its worst scum.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t help you.”

“There’d be money in it, of course.”

“I’m sure there would be, but the answer is negative.”

Henry Myerson turned from the window, spreading his hands. “Well, there was no harm asking, was there?” he said. “I thought there might be something you could do to help us.”

“There is nothing,” Michael said, getting to his feet. “There is nothing I can do, except to say, if anyone asks me, that I know nothing at all about a man named Nathan Rosenblum.”

“Myerson. Nathan Myerson.”

“The name is Rosenblum. The name of the man I remember discussing with you in your office today is Nathan Rosenblum. If I’m asked if we discussed a man named Myerson at this meeting today, I’ll say no, it was Rosenblum. Do you understand? I’m doing this for your sake, Myerson, and for your daughter’s sake.”

“Mimi could benefit, greatly, in the long run, if this were done.”

“I think I’ll be the judge of that,” he said.

In East Orange that afternoon, she had not noticed anything particularly different about him, except that he seemed to be talking unusually rapidly. They were walking around the grounds (or what one day would be the grounds) of his new house, but the grounds that day were not much more than mounds of excavated earth and rock, scattered with pieces of heavy building equipment.

“This will be a flagstone patio,” he said, “leading off the glassed-in garden room. The pool goes here, and over there will be the tennis court. I may put in two tennis courts; I haven’t decided yet. My landscape guy, Tommy Church, is pushing for two, and what the heck? There’s plenty of room. There’s five-acre zoning here, and I have fifteen. The courts can be lighted, because there are no neighbors within sight of this to complain. Tennis courts should be lined up north-south, did you know that? So the sun never gets in the players’ eyes. The things a guy learns when he gets rich … Amazing.…

“Over here I’m going to put a greenhouse. Not a humongous greenhouse, just a fair-sized one to grow fresh flowers for the house. This whole hillside is going to be terraced, with field-stone retaining walls, all the way down to the brook, and of course all this will be planted. And look at the view, kiddo! All of downtown Manhattan in my backyard, from the tip of the Battery—look!—up to and including the Empire State Building. And see over there, through the trees, that green shape? The Statue of Liberty! Those trees are coming down, so there’ll be a better view of her. You should see it at night, the view.…”

Inside the house, which had been roofed over, the partitions between the rooms were still marked by bare upright studs and lintels, and they picked their way across bare floors scattered with sawdust and carpenters’ nails.

“A piano would look lovely in that corner,” she said.

“Hey! Great idea! Not that I can play a note. The room’s big enough—forty by fifty. Off this hall, here, goes a powder room, and down the hall, there, will be my study. Here’s the dining room.… Think the kitchen’s big enough? And talk about organized. If you think you organized my kitchen in the city, this one’s really going to be organized. There’s going to be storage for everything. This will be for a walk-in freezer. In the center goes the appliance island: plenty of counter space, an eight-burner range, two double ovens, plus a microwave. Dishwasher … double sinks. Here,” he says, leading them along, “is the butler’s pantry. Hey, get me! I don’t have a butler yet, but I’ve got a butler’s pantry! In here: laundry room. Washer, dryer, lots more linen storage. Ceramic tile floor.”

“A butler to polish your George the First silver every day.…”

In just ten years, he would declare this house too small for him and would be building an even larger one.

“You haven’t said how your meeting went with my father this afternoon,” she said, when they finished the tour.

“Not good,” he said, avoiding her eyes. “He wouldn’t let me look at his balance sheet. That’s his right, of course. But without seeing that, there’s nothing I can tell him.”

“Oh,” she said, trying to hide her disappointment. “Well, thanks for trying, anyway, Michael.”

“Know something?” he said. “It was pretty funny. He didn’t even remember me.”

They moved outside again, where rutted, muddy tracks marked where his driveway would curve in, between tall stands of birches, from the street beyond. “Four-car garage,” he gestured. “Heated, of course.”

“It’s going to be a beautiful house, Michael,” she said. “It ought to have a woman for you to share it with.”

He said nothing.

“Could it be me, Michael?”

His look darkened, and he tossed the sandy lock of hair back from his forehead. Finally, he said, “Sit down a minute, Mimi.” He indicated a pair of carpenter’s sawhorses. “There’s something I’ve got to tell you.”

They sat, and he said, “It can’t be, Mimi, and for a couple of reasons. To begin with, I’m crazy about you. I think you know that. I have been since I first met you, and I probably always will be, but that’s not really what I want to say. What I want to say is that you’ve made your choice of husbands, and I think you made the right one. How old are you now, Mimi? Twenty-two? You’ve got your whole life ahead of you, and the world’s a beautiful place, and there are a whole lot of wonderful and beautiful things and places in it, and you wouldn’t want to spend the rest of your life with a guy like me. Don’t interrupt. Listen to what I say. Me? I’m all over the place—I’m here and there, one place to the next. Even with this house, I know I’ll never settle down anywhere for very long. It’s not me. I’m too restless, too ambitious. I’m not solid, Mimi. Your husband’s solid. I need a woman who’ll take care of me, pick up after me. You need a man who’ll take care of you. That’s the man you married. You knew what you were doing, and you did it.

“And let me tell you something else, kiddo. I’m Jewish, and you’re Jewish, but there’s a difference, and your grandpa saw that. Your husband’s a goy, and that’s important for someone like you. He can take you places and show you things that I never could. I’m not ashamed of being a Jew, but I’ll tell you, Mimi, in this world we live in, being a goy is better. That’s just a fact of life, and anybody with any sense admits that. I mean, you’re blond but they’re blonder. If life’s a crapshoot, the goyim have the better odds. If life’s a poker party, the goyim hold the higher hands—that’s why the guy you married is a better choice than me. What’s more, the guy has class and he has style—like you do, which is why you need a guy with class and style. Me? I have no style, and I have no class. I’m just a schlepper—an honest schlepper, maybe, but a schlepper just the same. The guy you married will give you a beautiful life, Mimi. I don’t want you to schlep through life with me. An old New England family, it said in the paper. He can give you that; that’s class on top of class. I can’t give you that. Now, listen very carefully, because I’m going to tell you what I want you to do. I want you to call him at the Harvard Club—”

“How did you know he’d moved to the Harvard Club?”

“We live in a small town, Mimi. New York is a village. Everybody who’s anybody knows where everybody else who’s anybody is living. Call him at the Harvard Club, and tell him you’re sorry about whatever you said or did that made him move out on you. Ask him to forgive you—I mean, beg him to forgive you. Tell him you love him, tell him you want him back, beg him to come home—I mean, get down on your knees and beg him! Because I’ll tell you something else about this guy I’ve never met: he’s proud. They all are, the goyim. I mean, I’m proud to be who I am, but he’s prouder to be who he is. I want you to deliver a real performance, Mimi, appealing to his pride, his honor, his dignity, his sense of duty. Tell him you need him back because you can’t live without him. He’ll come back because, believe it or not, I know him very well, this guy I’ve never met. Because I know he loves you. If he didn’t love you, if you hadn’t hurt his pride, he wouldn’t have moved to the Harvard Club. He’d have moved back to Boston.

“I want you to do this for me, kiddo. If you love me at all, you’ll do it. If you want me to have any more respect for you, you’ll do it, because I know it’s the right thing, the only right thing, for you to do. You see, you deserve a guy who belongs to the Harvard Club—not me. Oh, kiddo, kiddo, it’s so hard to say good-bye.” She saw there were tears in his eyes.

Sitting outside his unfinished mansion, in the ragged ruins of his unfinished garden, Mimi’s own eyes focused on banal objects—an idle Bobcat tractor standing ready to move more earth to shape his driveway, a pile of slate that would one day become a terrace, a stack of two-by-fours—and for a moment her own life seemed as broken and surreal as that broken and unfinished, almost lunar, landscape. She thought: How can I have let myself be hurt this way again? And by him. Again. Squeezing her eyes shut and making fists of her hands, she offered up to God, if there was a God, a great crimson promise and a prayer: Dear God, if there is a God, I promise that as long as I live I’ll never let myself be hurt this way again.

Then she stood up. “We’d better get back,” she said, patting smooth the creases in her denim skirt.

They drove back to the city in his car that afternoon, saying nothing. There seemed to be nothing more to say.

Was that me? She asks herself now. Was that naive girl me, nearly twenty-seven years ago? We can never go back to that place again, that much is certain. The past is too recent, too new, and it is also too long ago. We cannot remake ended things. She and Brad had been married less than two years then, and perhaps Michael had been right, it was too soon to end that. “Think it through,” he had said, “you’re not a child anymore.” Yes, she had been angry, and hurt, and yes, she had thought: I will show him. I will show him that I can make this marriage work, and someday he will come back and be sorry that he did what he did then. And now he has, and he wants me again. I think. Or so he says. But he can never hurt me that way again.

She and Brad had settled on their wedding date: October 10, 1958. Her mother had come into her room, looking anxious. “Have you checked the calendar?” her mother asked.

“The calendar?”

“Yes, the calendar. Are you sure the date is … all right?”

“Of course it’s all right. It’s a Friday, and it works out well for both of us.”

“But, I mean, it’s still four months away. Have you checked your calendar, to figure everything out?”

“To figure what out, Mother?”

“Oh, Mimi. I’m talking about your calendar. You know what I mean. Your wedding night—he’ll want to—you should check your calendar. To be sure the date’s all right.”

“The date is fine, Mother,” she said.

That was the closest her mother had ever come to discussing love with her, or marriage, or the facts of life.

Is it possible, she had asked herself as they drove back to New York that afternoon, to be in love with one person as easily as with another? All she knew was that it was important, desperately important, for a woman to love someone, for a woman to be in love. Love was the prize, it was what one lived for, just to be in love. Without love, life had no meaning, no message. All her friends at Miss Hall’s School had told her that. Then was it possible to be in love with two people at the same time? she asked herself. Perhaps, she had answered. Perhaps. Why not?

That, she thinks now, is how young I was.

It was two months after Brad moved back into their apartment that she discovered she was pregnant. “This cements us,” he said.