The Irresistible Henry House Part 40

Ethel talked about the magazine, the growing worry that still photographs were being eclipsed by TV.

He ate a burger and French fries, reveling in their American flavor the same way he had his hotel shower. He told her about London, the Beatles, and Peace.

"Were you in love with her?" Ethel asked him.

"Absolutely," Henry said.

"And are you still?" she asked him.

He pictured Peace lying naked on the floor of Geoff Whitehall's studio.

"No," he said.

"Peace," Ethel said.

"Yes."

"That was really her name?"

"Yes."

"Serves you right. You should never date anyone whose name is a noun."

Henry laughed, wondering if the rule applied to Mary Jane.

Ethel offered to help him save money by moving back in with her. He was only briefly tempted. He did, however, accept her help with finding a job. She scoffed at his suggestion that he might teach drawing somewhere while pursuing his art career.

"And live on what?" she asked him. "This is New York, for G.o.d's sake."

SHE KNEW A LOT OF PEOPLE in the publishing world, and that-even more than her friendly, almost big-sisterly att.i.tude-would be her real help to Henry.

"I got you an interview in the art department at Simon and Schuster," she barked at him one morning. "Go buy yourself a decent pair of pants and a decent jacket."

"Define decent," decent," he said. he said.

"Decent, as in as in I'll lend you the money if you need me to, but get them, for Christ's sake." I'll lend you the money if you need me to, but get them, for Christ's sake."

In the next few weeks, Henry would wake in the morning, shower and shave, pick up a New York Times New York Times at the corner, and read it while eating breakfast at the coffee shop he had gone to on his first morning back in New York. He would sit at the counter, looking through the cla.s.sified ads and trying to find a job that a background in animation and art could let him try for plausibly. In the afternoons, he would walk the streets of New York, which warmed slightly as February thawed. He went to museums, parks, movies. And every blond woman he saw made him think about Mary Jane. at the corner, and read it while eating breakfast at the coffee shop he had gone to on his first morning back in New York. He would sit at the counter, looking through the cla.s.sified ads and trying to find a job that a background in animation and art could let him try for plausibly. In the afternoons, he would walk the streets of New York, which warmed slightly as February thawed. He went to museums, parks, movies. And every blond woman he saw made him think about Mary Jane.

Finally, in March, he was hired at Farrar, Straus by the woman who oversaw the book jackets.

For the next three months, Henry worked from nine-thirty every morning until seven or eight each night. His hope was that he would be able to design or ill.u.s.trate some of the book jackets himself. For now, however, he was merely a.s.signed to help out with the pasteup and to color-check the proofs.

In a life that was remarkably like the one Betty had told him she'd lived during her early days at the Barbizon, Henry came back each night to a dark, empty hotel room, only to sleep and to think about the reunion he wanted. For the first time, he understood what it had been like for her to live one life with the main hope of achieving a different one. He was absolutely determined that, unlike Betty, he would succeed.

IT WAS ON A SAt.u.r.dAY IN EARLY MAY-and for no particular reason except that he couldn't wait any longer-that he decided it was time.

He reached Mary Jane at home. She yelped and told him to come straight over, and, riding the subway downtown, he closed his eyes and braced himself for the meeting they would have. He had a.s.sumed, from the tone of Mary Jane's voice, that George, or at least some boyfriend or other, was going to be present as well. She hadn't sounded like a woman who was waiting to be saved from a lonely life. It even crossed his mind, if briefly, that she might have gotten married.

He would take that on if he needed to. He would do whatever penance it took. Whatever punishment came his way would be fitting for all the choices he'd made: choosing Peace over Mary Jane, and Alexa over Mary Jane, and Lila over Mary Jane, and even, way back in their nursery school days, choosing not to make a choice.

He wanted to make a choice now. The rest-how they lived or where he worked or maybe even what he did-wouldn't matter, he thought. Mary Jane was what mattered, he thought: the most authentic part of his life.

She met him at her front door with a long, warm, unromantic embrace. He looked at her left ring finger and was relieved to find it unadorned.

She was living in a narrow carriage house in the heart of Greenwich Village, just a few blocks from Washington Square Park. Vivid green ivy slipped hopefully around her front door, which was painted bright yellow.

"Are you going to let me in?" he asked her. "Or don't you want me to meet him?"

"Him?" Mary Jane asked.

"Him," Henry said. "Is it George? Or is there someone new?"

They stood in the front hallway. The bright front door had led Henry to expect that there would be color inside her house, a Charlie-and-Karen paint box, perhaps. But the walls turned out to be tenement white, the furniture used and drab.

"There is someone new," Mary Jane said.

Henry nodded, neutral, trying to suppress the jealousy he knew he had no right to feel.

"But it's not a he," she added, and just at the moment of his greatest confusion-nothing being called to his mind in images, thoughts, or precedent-a little girl with white-yellow hair came running into the hallway and reached her arms up toward Mary Jane, who seemed to bend down, lift her up, and hug her all in one motion.

THE FLOWERS WERE PINK AND WHITE on the trees in Washington Square Park. Every petal looked like a dab of paint. Henry felt as if he and Mary Jane were walking through an animation cel from Mary Poppins. Mary Poppins. He knew their starting position: hands in their pockets, elbows occasionally brushing, eyes on the path they were walking. He knew what he wanted their end position to be: kissing under a shower of petals, promising everything. He would have loved to have an in-betweener move them through the intervening scenes. He knew their starting position: hands in their pockets, elbows occasionally brushing, eyes on the path they were walking. He knew what he wanted their end position to be: kissing under a shower of petals, promising everything. He would have loved to have an in-betweener move them through the intervening scenes.

They walked under the Washington arch, and Henry tried to ignore the memory of the arch in Paris, with Betty standing under its shadow, tipsy and ashamed.

"How old is she?" he asked Mary Jane.

"Nineteen months."

"So she was born-"

"In October."

"I was still working on Submarine." Submarine."

"I know."

"You could have told me about her," he said.

"You disappeared, remember? And anyway. I wrote you that I had a project, didn't I?"

A bus drove by. A dog pulled on its leash. A teenage couple perched on the back of a bench laughed and shared a small bra.s.s pipe.

"Whose is she?" he asked Mary Jane.

"She's mine, doofus."

"You know what I mean. Who's her father?"

Mary Jane looked surprised. "It's George, of course. Who do you think?"

"And he flew the coop. Useless creep."

"He didn't fly the coop, fly the coop, Henry." Henry."

He grabbed Mary Jane's left hand and held it up, her pale, unadorned fingers fanned out against the background of the flowering branches.

"Where's the wedding ring?" Henry asked.

She laughed. "You're so conventional, Henry."

"Please."

"Did it ever occur to you that I I didn't want to marry him? Maybe I like him just coming and going." didn't want to marry him? Maybe I like him just coming and going."

"I wouldn't go," Henry said huskily, and Mary Jane burst out laughing, a little too forcefully, as if her laughter would be able to keep his evident purpose in check.

"I mean it," he told her.

She laughed again. "Are you out of your tiny mind?"

"You find this laughable?" Henry asked.

She looked at her wrist.w.a.tch.

"Don't let me keep you," he said acidly.

"The babysitter's only staying till six."

"I'M GLAD YOU LEFT THAT PEACE GIRL, anyway," Mary Jane said as they walked back to her house.

"You only met her for two minutes," Henry said.

"True. But you've never met George, and you've already called him a worthless creep."

"Actually, I said a useless useless creep." creep."

"Same difference."

"Where is he, anyway?" Henry asked.

She turned the key in the front door, ignoring his question completely. Within seconds she was a.s.saulted by the toddler at her knees.

The little girl was wearing red Keds, blue jeans, and a red T-shirt. On another child, the outfit would have looked boyish, but the delicacy of her features and her winsome eyes made her utterly little-girlish.

"Haley, say h.e.l.lo," Mary Jane said.

Henry bent down and looked into both her eyes-her two undamaged, perfect blue eyes-and realized that this was what looking at Mary Jane must have been like, years before.

"Hi, Haley," he said.

He started to extend his hand in greeting, but Haley instead used one hand to spread two fingers on her other into a tiny, perfect peace sign. Henry followed suit, then pressed his two fingers onto hers.

"Hi," she said.

"Hi."

Mary Jane asked the babysitter to stay while she started dinner.

THE KITCHEN WAS A MESS. Toy pots and pans vied for counter s.p.a.ce with the real items, as did toy plates, cups, and one well-smudged wooden toaster.

"She's beautiful," Henry said.

Mary Jane tried to hide her smile by opening the refrigerator door.

"She looks exactly like you," Henry said.

Mary Jane handed Henry four potatoes.

"See, I know that," Henry said, "because I knew you when you were just a little older than she is now."

"Potatoes," Mary Jane directed, handing Henry a potato peeler.

"I'm serious, you know," Henry said.

"I know."

"We grew up together. Think of everything."

"Just because we have a past doesn't mean we have a future."

"But it should," Henry said.

He embraced her. It was as tender a moment as any he'd had with Annie, as pa.s.sionate as any he'd had with Peace. He had a hand on either side of Mary Jane's face, and he wanted her to feel completely encompa.s.sed, held and met and lifted up. He kissed her, watching till her one eye closed, and then he closed his own.

Then she took his right hand in hers and kissed the back of it, emphatically, three times.

"No," she said, and then repeated it when she saw the expression on his face.

Henry looked at her, shaking his head. Mary Jane sent him to the living room.

"Not now, Henry," she said, which he chose to interpret as meaning "maybe someday."

"Go be with the other kids," she told him, laughing.

"SIT?" HALEY ASKED HIM after the babysitter had left.

She was sitting at a low wooden play table.