After the Reunion (31 page)

I have also decided what I want to be when I grow up. I want to be a writer. It’s a great relief to get that decision out of the way. St. Martin’s has a very good English department, so maybe I should stay there. I’ll see.

While I’ve been home this holiday I could see how lonely it is for my mother now that my parents are divorced. Some of the people she thought were her friends don’t call anymore. But she likes her job. The only bad thing is that the woman she works for won’t let her take a week off to take us skiing, because she just started there, so we can’t go this year. My father won’t take us because he’s going to the Caribbean with his girl friend. Matthew and Sam are going skiing with their friends because they’re old enough, but I just have to hang around.

I guess I will spend the time reading some good books and trying to prepare for my future career. Of course I’ll also see my friends. It won’t be so bad.

This year we’ll be here for Jonathan’s birthday, I asked my mother if we could go to visit him, his grave I mean, and she said yes. I can’t believe that she and I are able to have these conversations now. I just can’t believe how far we’ve come.

Chapter Twenty-seven

It was February. The store windows Daphne passed on her way up Madison Avenue to work were filled with Valentine’s Day decorations and gifts: candy, cards, ruffled pillows with sentimental inscriptions. It always made her think of when she was a child. Even after she’d had her own children, some holidays reminded her of herself more than of them. She was certainly nobody’s valentine these days.

Since the divorce the women she’d thought were her friends seemed afraid of her. She knew why. She was single now, and too attractive; therefore a threat. And her “perfect” marriage had fallen apart, which threatened theirs. If it could happen to her … They probably thought their husbands would want to start something with her, now that she was alone. They said how sorry they were that they didn’t know any nice men to introduce her to, and then excluded her from their dinner parties because she was no longer half of a couple. She supposed she should entertain, and then they would feel guilty and have to invite her back, but she wasn’t sure she liked them enough anymore to bother.

The weekend before Valentine’s Day there was a huge blizzard. Everyone was snowed in. For her it was just another weekend alone with the dogs and her books and sketch pad. The only difference was she couldn’t drive to the supermarket for her weekly shopping, but since the boys had gone back to school her own needs were very small.

Teddy sent her a valentine. He had made it himself. Daphne carried it in her handbag for days. It had never occurred to her to send valentines to the boys because they were too old for that now, and when Teddy sent her one anyway she cried. She had to keep remembering how sensitive and loving he was, her genius son of the secret journal, carefully disguised as a carefree Ail-American Boy. She was finding herself in tears often lately, having opened herself up to the vulnerability she had denied for so many years.

If she was friendless in the suburbs she had new friends in the city. Chris and Annabel, and Emily even though she and Emily hadn’t seen each other since Emily went back to California. And now Chris had invited her to a dinner party; without a date, without a husband, and with no utilitarian ulterior motive of finding her a new one. It was tonight, Friday, and Daphne had driven in instead of taking the train. All the guests would be coming directly from work, so the dress she was wearing would be suitable. She had brought makeup in her handbag, and prepared herself for the party in the employees’ ladies’ room at the gallery. It was a rather wretched little bathroom, and reminded her of the one at college, and that depressed her.…

That was the last time she had been unattached, and getting ready for a party or a dance had been an occasion filled with excitement and the promise of adventure. She had been so popular. She always met new men at parties then, and they took her to football games, and out dancing, and to other parties, where she met more men who pursued her. But tonight all she felt was relief that she didn’t have to go home yet, that there was somewhere to go where she wouldn’t be alone. She no longer expected anything particularly exciting at all, and that made her feel old.

Chris and Alexander lived in a very elegant Fifth Avenue building. Daphne hadn’t seen Alexander since college, as he hadn’t come to the reunion, but she recognized him right away. He was still extraordinarily handsome, perhaps more so. She had never really known him well at college, but she remembered he had always seemed so grumpy and gloomy; now he was urbane and charming. And he seemed very devoted to Chris. Their apartment was both attractive and comfortable. A uniformed maid opened the door and took Daphne’s coat, another offered her a drink and some small hot hors d’oeuvres. Chris took her around and introduced her to people. There were nine. Annabel was there, and Chris’s former diet doctor, Dr. Michael Fields; Chris and Alexander, two other couples, and herself. Nine.
Somebody doesn’t have a date
, Daphne thought,
and it’s probably me
.

She had a glass of white wine and talked to Annabel, feeling shy. Annabel seemed subdued, not the flirt Daphne remembered. But that was so long ago. “Dr. Fields is attractive,” she said quietly to Annabel. “Is he with you?”

“No. We’re all here alone. Chris, thank God, is beyond the stage of giving parties that resemble Noah’s Ark.”

He had brown hair with gray in it, kind-looking blue eyes, and chiseled features. Not like Richard’s, so picture perfect, but more accessible, more human. And she noticed he was lean and nicely built, an encouraging example for his patients, but with none of the gristly look of the fanatic about him. It had been a long time since she’d looked at a man that closely, but then of course there hadn’t been any close enough to look at.

“He’s available,” Annabel said. “Or at least he isn’t married. I don’t know about the available part. His wife died last year. He’s probably got a few twenty-year-olds tucked away; most of them do, don’t they?”

“Or thirty-year-olds,” Daphne said, remembering Melissa.

“He also has two children,” Annabel said. “A son and a fat daughter. Poor thing—a diet doctor with a fat child. And it must be hell to have a diet doctor for a father. They probably haven’t got a thing in their refrigerator but skimmed milk.”

Daphne laughed. “How do you know all that?”

“Chris told me. When she was going to him she had a major crush on him. She found out all about him from his nurse.”

“But not quite all …”

“No,” Annabel said. “If we aren’t disgraceful, hunting him down like he was the last living man on earth.”

“I’m not hunting him down,” Daphne said. “I haven’t even spoken to him.”

“You will. Chris has seated him between us at dinner. If you like him, please feel free to whisk him away, because I am still in love with someone.”

“Oh?” Daphne said. “Where is he?”

“I have no idea,” Annabel said lightly. “Just another broken heart, the story of my life.”

“The story of mine,” Daphne said.

She was so safe and content fantasizing about Dr. Fields and making a joke of it that when he saw them standing there and came over it was almost an intrusion.

He smiled at them. “I’ll just stay here for a while so those other people can eat their hors d’oeuvres,” he said, glancing at the couple he’d just left and looking amused. “People are always afraid to eat in front of me just because I’m a diet doctor.”

Daphne looked over and saw them accepting small stuffed mushrooms from the maid and popping them into their mouths with a look of starved relief. “They’re not even overweight,” she said. “Are you such an ogre?”

“Not at all.
I
don’t care what people eat as long as they’re not my patients.”

The maid came to them and she and Annabel took cheese puffs just to prove they were not intimidated, and then they both looked at each other and at him and laughed, because they
were
intimidated. “How awful,” Annabel said. “It’s like meeting a psychiatrist and trying to pretend you’re normal.”

“You should see what it’s like when I go to restaurants with friends,” he said. “Everybody’s afraid to order until they see what I’m having. Or else they ask for dry broiled fish. These overweight people who you know never ate a piece of dry broiled fish in their lives.” He smiled.

“I wonder what Chris will offer us tonight,” Daphne said.

“I’m sure whatever she wants,” he said. “Chris and I have laughed about this. The funniest story is the carrot cake. Hostesses always serve carrot cake for dessert when I’m there because somehow they think it’s healthful or dietetic because it has carrots in it. Actually it’s one of the richest, most fattening things you can eat. If I have to go to another dinner party where I have to look at another piece of carrot cake …”

“That
is
funny,” Daphne said. She looked at him. He was the first man she’d found attractive in so long that she couldn’t even remember how long it had been. She hadn’t bothered to think about other men that way when she had been married to Richard. And now she would have to stop thinking about the years of Richard; they were over, and she didn’t want them back. She smiled at Dr. Fields. “Do you prefer being called Michael or Mike?”

“Michael, please.”

“Dinner is served,” Chris said.

“That’s good,” Michael said to Daphne and Annabel. “Because I’ve just run out of all my best anecdotes.”

He was shy … And yet he covered it nicely, and could even admit it. She hoped he wasn’t dull. Well, if he was, she was experienced at small talk; she’d been a good hostess and a good guest for so long.

He wasn’t dull. At dinner Daphne discovered he knew about art, was widely read, and had a sense of humor. She felt comfortable with him, and was also beginning to be attracted to him. Because there were only nine people everyone talked to each other and it turned out to be a good dinner party. There was roast rack of veal, very tender and juicy, without sauce and not needing any, and an enormous green salad with feta cheese in it. And then …

Carrot cake. Chris looked at Michael and he at her, and both of them collapsed into laughter. The other two couples didn’t know what was going on. “This is for you,” Chris said to him.

“Thank you.”

“Oh, poor thing,” Annabel whispered, and then the maid came out with a crème brûlée.

They all lingered at the table, and then they went into the living room for brandy. Daphne didn’t have any because she was going to have to drive back to the country. Suddenly, in that warmly lit room filled with pleasant people, the thought of going home alone to her empty house hit her with a jolt of desolation.

She felt the dangerous imminent presence of tears again. Pretending she was looking for the powder room, she went blindly down the hall until she found a private room that seemed to be the den, and then she began to cry.

She couldn’t bear any more loneliness. It was worse after being with people. It was like being handed a life preserver for just one moment and then having it yanked away. She didn’t know what was wrong with her. Actually she hadn’t been alone for a very long time, but it seemed like an eternity. Nothing had prepared her for a life like this.

Michael was standing in the doorway looking at her.

“Are you all right?”

“I’ll be fine,” she lied.

She glanced at him, embarrassed, her nose running, her eyes red, her mascara streaked, making a scene; and she saw that he was gazing at her as if she were the most beautiful creature in the world. “Is there anything I can do?” he asked.

Yes, don’t leave me
, she thought. “No … thank you,” she said.

“Everyone’s leaving,” he said. “May I take you home?”

“I have my car. I have to drive to Connecticut.”

“Then why don’t I drop you off at the garage?”

“Thank you,” Daphne said. “That would be very kind.”

She repaired her makeup in the bathroom off the den so no one would ask questions, while he waited for her in the living room. But all the other guests were gone. She thanked Chris and Alexander for the lovely evening, and then she and Michael took a taxi to her garage.

“I really enjoyed meeting you,” he said.

“And I you.” She got out of the taxi, and then, on an impulse, she leaned into the open window before he could get away. “Would you like to come to the country for lunch tomorrow? You could bring your children if you like. There’s a lake nearby with ice skating …”

“My children are very popular and have dates, but I’d be delighted to come,” he said.

“You could take the train to Greenwich. There’s one that gets in at twelve thirty. Is that all right? I’ll meet you.”

“That would be great,” he said happily.

“Then I’ll see you tomorrow,” Daphne said.

She had never done anything like that before in her life.

The next morning she bought good things for lunch from her local gourmet take-out store. She was at the station early, waiting. When Michael got off the train Daphne was relieved to see that he looked just as attractive in daylight as he had the night before. He had brought her a bottle of wine, and a bunch of roses.

“I thought bringing flowers to the country was redundant,” he said. “And then I thought: not in February.”

“You make me feel guilty,” she said. “I should have invited you for the weekend.”

Before lunch she took him on the mandatory tour of the grounds. Then they went back indoors to thaw out in front of the fire she had lit in the living-room fireplace. She had not been able to decide where to serve lunch. The dining room was so big, and it seemed so empty with only two people in it. But the kitchen might seem too casual. She would let him choose.

“By the fire,” he said immediately. “I’ll help you carry everything.”

He was shaking up her life already. She liked it.

They sat over lunch for hours and talked and talked about themselves. She found herself able to tell him everything, all the things she had been saving up with no one to tell them to, and all the things she had hidden. She told him about her protected, privileged childhood, and the stigma of her epilepsy when she was dating, and her marriage, and Elizabeth, and Jonathan; how maybe he’d been miserable and couldn’t tell them because they all had to pretend to be so damned happy—but she would never know—and she told him about her other boys; especially Teddy, who was her miracle. And he told her about his own life, his hardworking middle-class Jewish parents, medical school, his marriage, his wife’s death from cancer, and his children; the unhappy overweight fourteen-year-old girl who ate for comfort no matter how much comfort he tried to give her, and his son, who was twelve and seemed all right. They told each other their feelings and their thoughts, and as they did Daphne realized that although they came from such totally different backgrounds it seemed as if they had known each other all their lives.