42

SUNDAY
PART II: CASSY COMES BACK
FROM MINNESOTA

Alexandra was waiting at the gate at Kennedy. In sunglasses. And a scarf. Until she took Cassy’s hand, Cassy wasn’t even aware that it was she. “Don’t be angry,” Alexandra said, taking Cassy’s overnight bag from her. “I’ve got a car waiting. I needed to see you,” she added, pulling Cassy along.

“Alexandra—”

She stopped and the sunglasses swung in Cassy’s direction. “I needed to see you,” she repeated quietly.

Cassy sighed, looking somewhere over Alexandra’s shoulder. “Of course you do,” she finally said, looking back at the sunglasses. She offered a sad smile, lowered her head, and then slung her arm through Alexandra’s. “Let’s go.” They walked through the rest of the airport without speaking.

Alexandra had a limo waiting. After the driver closed their doors Alexandra took off her glasses and untied her scarf. Shaking out her hair, she said, “He can’t see us. He can’t hear us.” Cassy’s expression was blank. “The driver,” Alexandra explained.

“Oh,” Cassy said.

“I’m sorry to surprise you like this,” Alexandra said, “but I knew it would be the only time I could see you.” She reached for Cassy’s hand. It was given, reluctantly, and after a moment Alexandra released it “So he’s in,” she said.

“He’s in,” Cassy said, nodding, looking at the dark glass between them and the driver.

“Is it—was it a nice place?”

“Oh, yes,” Cassy said, still looking ahead. “Very. And they were very nice.” Pause. “He was so frightened. It’s very strange, you know—seeing him so frightened. Crying, sober. I’ve never seen him cry when he wasn’t drinking.”

Silence.

The car pulled out onto the expressway.

“Cassy,” Alexandra said softly.

After a moment Cassy turned to look at her.

“I want to help you,” Alexandra whispered, reaching for her hand again.

Cassy swallowed and turned away. “I’m afraid you can’t.” She sighed. “Not this time.”

Silence.

“I don’t want to lose you.” Cassy dropped her head, closing her eyes. “I know we can’t—” Alexandra stopped, her lower lip starting to give way. “I need you. As a friend. I’m willing to just be—”

“We’ve gone too far, Alexandra.”

It was said in scarcely a whisper, but Alexandra heard it. She turned to her door, jammed her elbow down on the rest, and looked out the window. In a few moments she started to cry.

Cassy slumped back in her seat and looked up at the roof, blinking back tears.

Alexandra’s crying eventually subsided and she tried to pull herself together. “I always knew he’d come back,” she said, wiping her eyes with a tissue, looking at herself in a compact mirror. She snapped it shut and slid it back into her purse. “I feel rather stupid carrying on like this.”

Cassy rolled her head to the side, looking at her. “Come here,” she said gently, holding out an arm. After a moment Alexandra moved over to be held. She started to cry again. Cassy, resting her chin on top of Alexandra’s head, stroking her hair, started to talk. “I don’t think I’m stupid for caring for you,” she murmured, looking ahead. “You’re one of the most wonderful things that has ever happened to me. The timing...” She sighed and was quiet for awhile.

“I love Michael, I’ve never lied to you about that. But, sometimes, I wonder if I even know what love is. Or what kind of love it is I have for Michael—or if I even know who he is anymore. Or who I am, for that matter.” She absently kissed the top of Alexandra’s head. “I’m not even sure how you happened to me.”

A low moan came from somewhere inside of Alexandra.

Cassy swallowed. “I’m a mother, Alexandra, and that...You know I have to see this through, see my family through. Twenty years...” A sigh. “I’ve got to see what this will mean—if things will—oh, Lord, I don’t know, it may be too late. I just don’t know. But I’ve got to find out.” She shifted suddenly. “But—Alexandra—” Cassy brought her face up with her hand to look at her. “You mustn’t wait for me. Hope that we can—really, it’s so very important that you don’t. That you go on with your life because I have to go on with mine.” She swallowed and whispered, “You so badly need someone who can give you what you need, what you want.”

Alexandra closed her eyes and resettled her head under Cassy’s chin. A long sigh. “I need you.”

“No, Alexandra, you don’t,” Cassy said. “You need someone nearer your own age, for starters. You’re just coming into—into”—sigh—”into what I’m leaving.”

“Age isn’t the issue and you know it.”

Pause. “It is an issue. An important one. One day you’ll know it. Feel it.”

“God,” Alexandra said, “I wish you’d give that up.”

“What?”

“Your obsession with age.” She reached to touch the diamond of Cassy’s engagement ring. “If I married a forty-one-year-old man, no one—not even you—would say a word. You’d think it was great.”

Cassy shifted slightly, moving Alexandra’s head a bit. “It’s very different with men.”

“Tell me about it.”

Cassy gently laughed. “No, that’s not what I meant.”

“I know what you meant.”

“I know you do,” she said, patting her back.

Silence.

“I really fell in love with you, you know,” Alexandra said.

Silence.

Alexandra sat up to look at her. “When I was in college I thought I was in love with Gordon. Later I thought I wanted to marry Tyler, but then Lisa—” She let out a slow breath, eyes drifting away.

“When Lisa happened, all I knew was that getting married to Tyler was not such a great idea. Not until I figured out what it was I was looking for.” Her eyes came back to Cassy’s. “I didn’t want to fall in love with you, Cassy. I wanted you to be like Lisa. But you weren’t.” Her eyes started to fill. “Where I want to go, the world I want to work in—Cassy, you are the biggest handicap I could choose. But I haven’t had a choice since I met you. It’s you I want. With me.”

In the course of this, Cassy had closed her eyes. A single tear was now working its way out from under one lid.

“I’m not trying to talk you out of what I know you have to do,” she continued, sniffing, wiping at one eye. She dropped her hand back down onto Cassy’s shoulder. “I just wanted to tell you this, so you would know— because I’ll never bring it up again.” She paused. “I want us to stay friends.”

Cassy opened her eyes. After a moment she pushed Alexandra’s hair back off her face. “We need to give it time,” she said.

Alexandra let out a breath. “I can handle it.”

Cassy sighed, a faint smile on her lips, twisting a strand of Alexandra’s hair between her fingers. She let go of it and eased Alexandra away from her. “It’s not you I’m worried about,” she said. “You don’t know it, but you’ll get over me a lot quicker than I’ll—” She clamped her eyes shut and covered them with her hands, sucking her breath in through her teeth. “Damn it,” she said, dropping forward into her lap.

The rest of the ride was no less difficult.

By the time the limo pulled up Riverside Drive, neither was able to talk. The driver opened Cassy’s door and she simply gave Alexandra’s hand a squeeze and got out. The driver handed her bag to the doorman and he took it into the lobby. As the driver was walking back around the car to get inside, Cassy ran back to the door and opened it.

Alexandra just looked up at her, eyes a wreck.

Cassy hesitated, mouth trembling, and then leaned down. “I did love you, Alexandra,” she said, kissing her on the mouth. “Don’t think I didn’t.” She pulled back—hitting her head on the roof—but cared about nothing except getting the door closed between them. And then she stood there, looking down at her own reflection in the window.

The car pulled away.

Cassy held her face in her hand for a moment, composing herself. And then she turned around and saw Rosanne. Standing there. Looking at her. Her expression was one of shock, and one of concern, and Cassy did not want to see it. She walked past Rosanne into the building. “Are you coming or going?”

“Coming,” Rosanne said, following her in.

Cassy did not meet Rosanne’s eyes once. Walking into the elevator, she said hello to the elevator man, turned around, watched him close the gate, and said,” Mr. C will be home in six weeks.”

“Great,” Rosanne said. And then, “I’m sorry I had to switch Friday on you. With Jason and the move and everything—”

“It’s quite all right,” Cassy said, watching the floors go by. “In fact, it’s better.” She transferred her bag from one hand to the other. “Henry’s girl friend is coming for dinner tonight.”

“Oh,” Rosanne said.

Cassy got off the elevator first and led the way to the apartment. “I thought you might bring Jason,” she said, turning the key in the door and opening it.

“He’s at Amanda’s.”

“Henry?”Cassy called, throwing her keys in the bowl and walking on.

Rosanne closed the door and stood there a moment, thinking. When she walked into the kitchen, Cassy turned from the counter. “He went to Connecticut to pick the girl up,” she said, tossing the note in the trash. She shook her head. “Can you imagine? Our little Henry?”

“He’s not so little anymore,” Rosanne said, putting her bag down and going to the pantry.

“No, he sure isn’t,” Cassy said, walking on with her bag to the back hall.

Rosanne took out the bucket of cleaning supplies and a fresh cloth and headed for the living room. She put the bucket down and started picking up magazines and neatly stacking them, throwing out newspapers and fluffing the pillows of the couch and easy chairs. She was in the process of taking everything off the tables to dust when Cassy came in.

“Rosanne,” she said, folding her arms and leaning against the side of the bookcase.

“Yeah?” Rosanne glanced back at her; her expression was innocent.

Cassy sighed and held the bridge of her nose for a moment. Releasing it, she said,” Tell me what you’re thinking.”

Rosanne’s eyes slid away and she bent over to take a can of Pledge out of the bucket. “What do ya mean?”

Cassy pushed off the bookcase and took a step forward. “I mean I don’t want you to—”She couldn’t finish.

Rosanne looked at her. “I saw,” she said. And then she proceeded to spray Pledge on the coffee table. “And I’m glad it was me and not Henry.”

Cassy rubbed her face. Dropping her hands, she walked over and threw herself down in a chair. Rosanne was polishing the table. “It’s over,” Cassy said. When there was no response (except a very well polished table) she said,” I can’t pretend I have a good explanation for why or how—”

“Look, Mrs. C,” Rosanne said, suddenly straightening up. She paused and then turned around. “I’m on your side—always was, always will be. I just don’t want to see the kid get hurt. Or you,” she added. She tossed the cloth into the bucket, sighing. “I knew there was somebody, ya know. I just didn’t figure it to be—” She gave a little laugh, yanking on her bandanna. “You know who I thought it was—for a while?”

Cassy was not up to answering.

“Mr. W. Yeah.”

“Oh, Rosanne,” Cassy said, holding her forehead in her hand.

Rosanne looked at her for a moment and then came over to stand in front of Cassy’s chair. “Look, Mrs. C,” she said, kneeling down and resting the can of Pledge on the floor.

Cassy was shaking her head.

Rosanne thought a moment and then spoke. “If she likes you, then I like her.” No reaction. Mouth cinched up to the side, thinking. And then, “It happened ‘cause of Mr. C, didn’t it?”

“I don’t know,” Cassy said honestly.

“And it’s over ‘cause of Mr. C, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know,” Cassy said honestly.

Rosanne shrugged, playing with the can of Pledge.

“How did you know?”

“What?”

Cassy wiped at her eye with the back of her hand. “How did you know?”

“The new underwear,” Rosanne said.

“Good God,” Cassy sighed, looking to the window.

The two women sat there for a while longer. But they did not speak of it again. Ever.