Mourning Glory (16 page)

As she came back into the house and passed by the kitchen,
she felt Carmen observing her. Looking up, she caught her sneer. Grace hadn't
expected this kind of opposition. She shrugged it off. There was no point in
setting up a reason to be paranoid.

She reviewed various options of behavior. Above all, she
must act nonchalant, interested but standoffish. She rejected voicing any
criticism of Carmen's attitude.

On another level, she observed that she liked this man. He
was gracious, self-effacing, polite and pleasant. He was quite good-looking,
too. His maturity was an asset, and he carried himself with confidence, despite
his grieving. She hoped that she had engaged his interest. It seemed so, but
she was afraid to trust her own instincts. Perhaps he was simply lonely,
looking for human contact, and she was merely there.

Carmen had set the table in a room off the kitchen.

"This is the breakfast room, but it's okay for us to
have lunch here."

It wasn't much of a joke, but she chuckled anyway.

Carmen came in and put a carafe of coffee on the table. Her
manner was surly and the way she set down the carafe seemed a provocation. If
Sam noticed, he ignored it.

"I hate to eat alone," Sam said. "Normally I
would lunch at the club after a few sets of tennis, but I haven't been feeling
like going back to it just yet. Do you like tennis?"

She was tempted to say yes, but the lie would have little
chance of sustaining itself. She had never played tennis.

"Never touched a racket," she said, feeling good
about her honesty.

"You'd like it," Sam said, biting into his
sandwich. "Anne was a great tennis player. Used to beat me at singles. She
was very focused. More so than me. I play at it." He put down his sandwich
and studied her.

"I suppose you're a golfer."

"No, I'm not."

"Bridge player, right?"

"Sorry."

"Me, too. I'm not much for games."

She wondered if her honesty was making her less and less
interesting. But if she told blatant lies that could be confirmed by action,
sooner or later they would be found out and her motive would become obvious, as
obvious as it was to Carmen. She didn't want to set any traps for herself.

"So what interests you ... I mean, aside from your
charity work?" Sam asked.

"There's my daughter, of course. She'll be seventeen
in a few months," Grace said, searching her mind for answers that would
enhance, not diminish her chances. She knew what that meant: lies.

"Tough age," Sam said. "Parenting doesn't
come with a handbook. Gets worse as they get older."

"That's not very encouraging."

"Unfortunately, it's a fact."

"My Jackie's a wonderful girl," Grace said. His
taking on the frustrating obligation of helping to raise a teenage girl,
especially one with Jackie's propensities, was a consideration she had not
thought about. Quickly, she erased the idea from her mind. It was blind, stupid
optimism, reminding her suddenly of Jason and his foolish dreams.

"One more year and she'll be off to college,"
Grace said, unable to quite banish the idea, as if she were hoping to minimize
Jackie's involvement as an issue between them, another stupidly hopeful
premise.

"What college are you thinking of?"

She grew thoughtful for a moment, watching his face as he
waited for an answer. In too deep now, she decided, searching her imagination
for more fictional signposts. Was this reinventing of herself a form of
madness?

"She's at the top of her class. Ivy League definitely.
Princeton is her first choice. That's where Brooke Shields went. You know how
teenagers like to emulate," Grace said, moaning in her soul.

"Really ... that's where Bruce ... my son ... went as
an undergraduate. Maybe I can be of some help."

"I don't think she'll have any trouble getting
in," Grace said, panicked now, conscious of her clumsiness, feeling like a
criminal bungling a burglary. Plunging ahead, she knew she was painting herself
into a corner. "She's a very dedicated student. Her marks are excellent.
Quite a young lady."

"What is she considering studying?"

"Medicine, probably. She has expressed an interest in
being a doctor."

In her mind's eye she crossed herself and heard the words
whispered in her own voice, "Forgive me, Father, I know not what I am
doing."

"Wonderful," Sam's voice intruded.

"Yes. I'm quite proud of her," she said without
missing a beat.

"I went to Brooklyn College," he told her.
"Damned fine school. But my real education was out in the jungle. I became
a businessman." He took a bite of sandwich and washed it down with coffee.
"And you, Grace, where did you go?"

"Johns Hopkins," she said after a moment's
hesitation.

It was a reflex reaction. But it was a logical lie. After
all, she was, like Johns Hopkins, from a place called Baltimore. She was well
aware that she was puffing herself up beyond all possible validation.
Please,
she begged herself,
put on the brakes.
She needed to bring her background
down a peg. It was totally unsustainable at this level. She felt lost in a
labyrinth, not quite Alice in Wonderland, more like Gretel, who with Hansel,
was thrown into an oven by the wicked witch.

"We lived in Baltimore, you see. My parents didn't
want to send me out of town. I'm an only child. They were very
protective."

"What did your father do?"

"An engineer," Grace replied. It had been the
first thing that popped into her mind. She knew she was beyond saving now.
"Mom was a piano teacher."

"Too bad they're both gone."

"That's life." She giggled nervously.

Forgive me, Pop,
she told
herself, feeling the quicksand crowd in around her.

"A great school, Hopkins. What did you study
there?"

Oh, Jesus, she thought. This man is relentless. Damned if
she does, damned if she doesn't. Her mind was reeling with the effort of
invention. Of course, she had to answer his question.

"Political science," she replied.

"Did you work in politics after graduation?"

"I did. I worked in Washington for awhile."

"I was an economics major, with a minor in
English," he said.

Actually, she remembered, she hadn't been a bad student,
but there was never a chance that her parents could find the money to send her
to a good college, and she wasn't scholarship material. Average and ordinary,
she sighed.

"Where did Anne go?" she asked, hoping to change
the focus from herself.

"Wellesley," Sam said. "She started out as a
biologist. Phi Beta Kappa. She was on to her doctorate at Columbia when we
married. She never did finish."

Grace's heart jumped into her throat. With barely a year at
Baltimore Junior College, the comparison was embarrassingly awful. How could
she possibly fill Anne's shoes? Despite her misgivings, she smiled at the
reference, remembering suddenly the rows upon rows of shoes on rotating display
in the woman's closet. The humor somehow relieved the sudden pain, but it
totally excised her appetite.

"We met on a blind date. Friends fixed us up. The
moment we were introduced we knew." He sighed and shook his head. "It
was a great forty-year run."

"And she had no regrets? I mean ... not finishing her
doctorate?"

"Who knows?"

His mind appeared to wander, and he sucked in a deep
breath. It seemed an odd response. He was silent for a long time and his eyes
glazed over. She left him to his silence, sipping her coffee, which had become
lukewarm. She wondered if he was tiring of her presence.

"And your husband? What did he do?"

"Lawyer," she said, again without thinking but
hoping she showed no hesitancy.

"Poor woman. We have too many lawyers as it is. What
was his specialty?"

He was like a finger persisting in worrying a scab, and she
was growing agitated.

"No specialty. General law," she said, groping to
keep the explanation logical.

"Too bad it didn't work out."

"I have no regrets," she said. It was the first
really honest remark of their exchange.

"Here I am, prying into your personal life. Forgive
me."

"It's all right," Grace lied. She wished he had
been less curious, so she'd had more time to think things out. They were silent
for a while, and at what seemed to be a proper interval she spoke.

"I think I'd better get going."

"I expect I've been taking up too much of your time. I
hope you haven't been bored," he said.

His comment seemed incongruous, and she wondered if she was
approaching this correctly.

"Not at all," she said.

"At least I'm not crying as much as I was. One of my
doctor friends diagnosed it as a manifestation of senile depression brought on
by the loss of one's spouse. He had a Latin name for it, but I told him to
spare me."

"You seem to be holding up very well," she said.

"Compared to what?"

"To yesterday."

"God. I was a mess, wasn't I?"

She felt him looking at her.

"You helped, Grace."

"I did?"

"Suddenly there you were. A breath of fresh air, and I
was forced to crack open the shell."

"I had nothing to do with it," she said, feigning
modesty. The panic of the earlier course of the conversation had receded. She
knew it was a temporary respite.

"I like the idea of your fulfilling Anne's wishes
about the clothes. I'm sort of hung up on things like keeping one's word. It's
a caveat of the way I do business. I believe in the concept of the handshake.
It underlines the bond of honesty."

"You're saying you're a man of your word."

"Bottom line," he said. "It may sound corny,
but I have found in business that honesty and integrity always wins. It has
stood me in good stead. I'm not saying that I don't believe in contracts that
outline conditions, but essentially, with me, it is that sense of trust when I
look the person in the eye. I think the secret of my success in business is the
ability to quickly size up what a person really is. Sometimes it happens almost
instantly in the first few seconds of contact."

She felt heartburn begin in her chest. Here she had fed
this man a pack of lies and he was going on about the virtues of honesty and
being able to tell what a person really was instantly. She felt diminished, as
if his words were some kind of a warning. Had he sized her up? Was this
business between them a cat-and-mouse game, merely a diversion from his
tragedy?

"Would you like more coffee?" he asked.
"Look, you've hardly touched your sandwich."

"I'm fine," she said. "I ... I really have
to get going."

"Carmen," he called. "Pour me some more
coffee."

Carmen came in with the carafe and poured some coffee in
his cup. She seemed to deliberately ignore Grace's presence, but he didn't
notice and she didn't care.

"Where do you live, Grace?" Sam asked suddenly.

"Oh..." His question caught her by surprise.
"Over in West Palm Beach."

"One of those beautiful new high-rises?"

Grace nodded, thankful for the much-needed help.

"Great views, I understand."

"Glorious."

"Used to be the place where wealthy Palm Beach
residents housed their servants."

"Did they?"

"Was lily white here in Palm Beach, meaning no Jews.
It still has its boundaries, but its not half as bad as it was.
Meshugana
goyem."

The last words seemed to be in Yiddish, which she didn't
understand. Nevertheless, she nodded as if she did.

"They weren't so hot on Catholics either. Blacks weren't
even a factor. The joke is that we Jews think we've won the battle. Wrong. They
captured us. We've become like them. White bread and mayonnaise. Joke's on
us."

She was confused by his explanation, having never heard the
term "white bread and mayonnaise" used in this context.

"Anne used to hate it when I said things like that.
She was very political, a real knee-jerk liberal. It caused some lively
discussions, I can tell you. I loved it. The give-and-take. Anne was very
passionate in her views. You must know that, of course. As a political science
major, you must be very interested in politics."

He was leading her to more shaky ground. She was vaguely
interested in politics, but she wished she were better informed. Also, she
hadn't quite expected their conversation to take such a sudden turn in that
direction. She reviewed in her mind the names of the state's important
politicians. She knew the name of the governor and only one senator and
searched her mind in vain for the name of the other senator and the congressman
who represented her district.

"Yes," she said, not embellishing the point,
fearful of both retreating from the subject and being exposed as ignorant.

"She hated the idea that I became a Republican twenty
years ago. I guess it's because I understand business, and government is
running a lousy business. But don't get me wrong, I'm not exactly a
fanatic." He looked at her. "And you, Grace?"

"I'm an independent," she said quickly, satisfied
that she had responded well to his query. "I vote the man ... or woman,
not the party."

"I kind of expected your answer, Grace. You strike me
as someone who is her own woman, not doctrinaire."

She wondered what that meant, but he came to her rescue, as
if he knew she didn't know.

"You know what I mean, somebody too damned rigid. You
strike me as someone who would rather keep an open mind. Go with the flow. Am I
right?"

"More or less," she replied. The fact was, the
flow she always went with moved downward. She silently contradicted his view of
her as having an open mind. If she really did, he would see how empty it really
was. At that moment she felt very self-deprecating.