The Love Season Part 19

Renata nodded.

"They bought the house when you were four."

Renata swirled her whipped cream and chocolate together, like a child mixing paints. She had yet to take a bite.

Marguerite paused. Her task was impossible. She could speak the words, relay the facts-but she would never be able to convey the emotion. Candace had spent months preparing Marguerite for the news-saying that she and Dan were looking at houses off-island, saying they'd found a house in a town they liked, Dobbs Ferry, New York, less than four hours away. Marguerite never responded to these announcements; she pretended not to hear. She was being childish and unfair-they were all adults, Candace and Dan were free to do as they liked, they had Renata to think of, and Nantucket in the winter had few options for the parents of small children. The warning shots grew nearer. One day Candace had the gall to suggest that Marguerite join a book group or a church.

You need to get out more, she said. You need to make more friends.

What she was saying was that she couldn't carry the load by herself. She was going to be leaving. But Marguerite, stubbornly, would hear none of it.

You can't leave, Marguerite said. She picked Renata up, kissed her cheeks, and said, You are not leaving.

But leave they did, in the autumn, a scant three weeks after Porter returned to Manhattan. In the final days, Candace called Marguerite at the restaurant kitchen every few hours.

I'm worried about you.

Dobbs Ferry isn't that far, you know.

We'll be back for Columbus Day. And then at Thanksgiving, you'll come to us. I can't possibly do the dinner without you.

We're leaving nearly everything at the club. Because we'll be back the first of May. Maybe April fifteenth.

On the day that Candace left, Marguerite saw them off at the ferry. It was six thirty in the morning but as dark as midnight. Dan stayed in the car-Renata was sound asleep in the back-but Candace and Marguerite stood outside until the last minute, their breath escaping like plumes of smoke in the cold.

It's not like we'll never see each other again, Candace said.

Right. Marguerite should have been used to it, sixteen years Porter had been leaving her in much the same way, and yet at that moment she felt finally and completely forsaken.

"Your mother leaving was painful," Marguerite said.

Candace had phoned every day during Renata's nap and Marguerite-despite her claims that she would be fine, that she was very, very busy-came to rely on those phone calls. After she hung up with Candace, she poured her first gla.s.s of wine.

"I traveled down to the new house for Thanksgiving like your mother wanted. We cooked three geese."

"Geese?"

"Your uncle Porter took the train up from the city. It was a very big deal. That was the only time in seventeen years that I ever celebrated the holidays with him."

Marguerite closed her eyes for a second and was gone again. Three geese stuffed with apples and onions, served with a Roquefort sauce, stuffing with chestnuts, potato gratin, curried carrots, brussel sprouts with bacon and chives-Marguerite made everything herself, from scratch, while Candace did her best to help. Porter, bald and with a belly, did his old stint of lingering in the kitchen all day, drinking champagne, shaving off pieces of the exotic cheeses he'd brought in from the city, providing a running commentary on the Macy's parade, which played on TV for Renata, who stacked blocks on the linoleum floor.

At the dinner table, they all took their usual spots: Marguerite next to Candace, across from Porter. It was a careful imitation of their dinners at Les Parapluies, though Marguerite keenly felt the difference-the strange house, the evanescence of the occasion-in three short days, she would be back on Nantucket alone, and Porter, Dan, and Candace would return to the lives they had made without her.

Later, though, Porter cornered her in the kitchen as she finished the dessert dishes-Dan was in the den watching football; Candace was upstairs putting Renata to bed. He pushed Marguerite's hair aside and kissed her neck, just like he used to all those years ago in the restaurant. She nearly broke the crystal fruit compote.

I have something for you, he said. Call it an early Christmas present.

Marguerite rinsed her hands and dried them on a dish towel. Christmas used to mean pearls or a box from Tiffany's, though in the last few years Porter's ardor had mellowed or matured and he sent an amaryllis and great bottles of wine that he picked up at one of the auctions he attended in New York.

Marguerite turned to him, smiling but not happy. Porter sensed her misery, she knew, and he would do anything short of performing a circus act to get her to snap out of it.

He handed her an envelope. So not the amaryllis or vintage Bordeaux after all. Marguerite's hands were warm and loose from the dishwater, too loose-she fumbled with the envelope. Inside were two plane tickets to Paris. It was like a joke, a story, something unreal, but when she looked at Porter his eyes were shining. She grabbed his ears and shrieked like a teenager.

"Just after the first of the year, your uncle took me back to Paris," Marguerite said to Renata. "Finally. After nearly seventeen years."

"How was it?" Renata said. "Was it like you remembered?"

"No," Marguerite said. "Not at all as I remembered."

Marguerite had convinced herself that Paris was the answer to her prayers, the key to her happiness; her expectations were dangerously high. There was, after all, no way to re-create their earlier time in Paris: Too much had happened; they were different people. Marguerite was nearly fifty years old, and Porter was beyond fifty. They were professionals; they were seasoned; they had money and tastes now. Instead of being caught up in the throes of fresh love, they were comfortable together; they were, Marguerite thought, a pair of old shoes. And yet she held out for romance-a promise from Porter, a proposal. She believed the trip to Paris was a sign that he was finished with his bachelor life in New York; he was done with his string of other women; the sparkle had worn off; the effort wearied him; he was ready for something lasting, something meaningful. Marguerite had won out in the end for her perseverance. She would finally belong to someone; she would finally be safe.

No, it wasn't the same, though still they walked, hand in hand. Marguerite had compiled a list of places she wanted to visit-this fromagerie in the sixth, this chocolatier, this home-goods store for hand-loomed linens, this wine shop, this purveyor of fennel-studded salami, which they ate on slender ficelles, this butcher for roasted bleu de Bresse. It was January and bitterly cold. They bundled up in long wool coats, cashmere scarves, fur hats, leather gloves, boots lined with shearling. Despite the temperature, Marguerite insisted they visit the Tuilieries, though the gardens were brown and gray, dead and dormant-and afterward Le Musee du Jeu de Paume. The museum was smaller than either of them remembered; it was overheated; the bench where Porter had fallen asleep was gone, replaced by a red circular sofa. They revisited the Cathedral of Notre-Dame. When they opened the door, the draft licked at the flame of five hundred lit prayer candles. Marguerite paid three francs to light one herself. Please, she thought. At Shakespeare and Company, Marguerite lingered among the Colette novels and picked one out for Candace while Porter, to her astonishment, bought something off the American bestseller list, a thriller penned by a twenty-five-year-old woman.

"All my students are reading it," he said.

They were staying in a suite at the Plaza Athenee-it was all red brocade and gold ta.s.sels; it had two huge marble bathrooms. It was sumptuous and decadent, though a far cry from showering together under the roses. One afternoon, while Porter worked out in the new fitness center, Marguerite lounged in the bubble bath and thought, I should feel happy. Why aren't I happy? Something was missing from this trip. An intimacy, a connection. When she got out of the tub, she called Candace.

"Why are you calling me?" Candace said, though she sounded happy and excited to hear from Marguerite. "You're supposed to be strolling the Champs-Elysees."

"Oh, you know," Marguerite said. "I just called to say h.e.l.lo."

"Just h.e.l.lo?" Candace said. "This must be costing you a fortune. Is everything okay? How's Porter?"

What could Marguerite say? Suddenly, with Candace on the phone, her worries seemed silly, insubstantial. Porter had brought her to Paris; they were staying in a palace; Porter was sweet, attentive, indulgent. He hadn't so much as called his secretary. She couldn't possibly complain.

"Everything's great," she said.

Each night, they dressed for dinner-Porter in a tuxedo, Marguerite in long velvet skirts or the silk pantsuit Candace had sent her from Saks. They went to the legends: Taillvent, Maxim's, La Tour d'Argent. The service was intimidating; the food was artwork; the candlelight was flattering to Porter's face as Marguerite hoped it was to hers. She worried that they might run out of things to talk about, but Porter was as manic and charming as ever; he was so filled with funny stories that Marguerite was surprised he didn't burst from them. And yet she couldn't combat the feeling that he felt it was his job to keep her amused.

One night, at a bistro that had been written up in Bon Appet.i.t, they drank three bottles of wine and when they got in the cab they spoke to the driver in fluent French. When they reached the hotel, they were laughing and feeling extremely pleased with themselves. Porter looked at Marguerite seriously, tenderly; he seemed to recognize her for the first time during the trip and maybe in years. They were standing outside the door to their suite; Porter had the old-fashioned iron key poised above the lock.

"Ah, Daisy," he said. He paused for a long time, searching her face. Marguerite felt something coming, something big and important. She wanted him to speak, though she was afraid to prompt him; she was afraid to breathe.

"This is the life," he said.

This is the life? Marguerite nodded stupidly. Porter unlocked the door on his third try; then he shed his tuxedo and called her to bed. They made love. Porter fell asleep shortly thereafter, leaving Marguerite to brush her teeth alone among so many square feet of marble and turn off the lights.

As she climbed into bed she realized she felt like crying. She was too old for this kind of rushing emotion, this kind of searing disappointment, and yet the sorrow persisted; it lay down and embraced her.

"A few weeks after your uncle Porter and I returned from Paris, something happened that took me by surprise. Porter called to say that he had fallen in love with his graduate a.s.sistant. Caitlin. She was twenty-four years old. Now, I knew he dated other women in New York. It was a source of enormous heartache for me. He took other women to plays and dances and benefits and restaurants. Once, he took a woman to j.a.pan. He wasn't exactly open about this, but I knew it and he knew that I knew. I never learned a single woman's name except for the woman he took to j.a.pan; that was a favor he granted me. I presumed they weren't important enough to be named. He told me he loved me; he used to say I hung the moon. But he would not commit. I thought maybe when we were in Paris...but no. Paris was good-bye. He already belonged to somebody else; every hour he spent with me, he was thinking of this other person. This girl. But I didn't know that. Until."

Until the phone call. Marguerite sensed something wrong immediately. Porter's voice, always booming and upbeat, had been resigned and sorrowful. You're the greatest friend I have in all the world, Daisy, he'd said. And I'm afraid I'm about to hurt you very badly.

Marguerite had listened, without comprehending a word he said. Back in September, he'd fallen in love with his graduate a.s.sistant, twenty-four-year-old Caitlin Veckey from Orlando, Florida. She was red haired and freckled, fresh faced, naive, she was young enough to have grown up in the shadow of Disney and Epcot. Marguerite imagined her as a cartoon character, a two-dimensional, Technicolor fairy like Tinkerbell. It was all wrong. If Marguerite was going to lose Porter, finally, after so many years, she wanted it to be to a worthier opponent-a sultry, dark beauty who spoke seven languages fluently, a sophisticate, someone with European sensibilities. Or even one of the women Marguerite had imagined Porter with over the years: Corsage Woman, Overbite Woman, j.a.pan Woman. An aging ballerina or show jumper with a degree from Va.s.sar and a trust fund, a closetful of shoes. But it was not to be. Porter had been stolen away by a child, a Lolita. He was in over his head, he said, in love beyond reason, and the only way he could make things right-with the university, certainly, but also in his own heart-was to marry Caitlin.

I'm getting married, Daisy, he said.

She thought of Paris and felt deeply betrayed, embarra.s.sed even. All the usual signs had been absent. There had been no mysterious phone calls, no suspect gifts purchased that she knew of. There was the book he'd bought, and the way he'd worked out religiously at the hotel's fitness center. Twice he'd skipped dessert and he had pa.s.sed up the Cuban cigars. Are you getting healthy on me? she'd asked him, teasing. Now she saw.

Marguerite held the receiver long after Porter hung up, staring out her bedroom window. Snow was falling, blanketing Quince Street. She remembered back to the first moment she saw him, she remembered the quiet sounds of him waking up on that bench in the Jeu de Paume, the way he'd blinked his eyes rapidly, unable to place himself for a moment. She remembered his worn leather watchband, and the first time his long, tapered fingers touched her hair. That was a Porter Harris this Caitlin person would never know, never understand.

"Your uncle Porter called to say he was marrying Caitlin," Marguerite said. "He called to say our relationship was over."

"You must have been devastated," Renata said.

It was like learning of her own death; she'd always known it was coming, but so soon? In this ridiculous way? She was shocked, incredulous; her ego was like an egg found cracked in the carton; she was angry, insulted-and worried for Porter's sake. He'd been tricked by beauty and youth, by s.e.x. He didn't know what he was doing. The end of a seventeen-year relationship seemed too fantastical to Marguerite to be taken seriously. Porter said it was over, he said he was getting married to this young girl from Florida, and he promised he would never bring the girl to Nantucket, meaning he would never return himself. So Marguerite would never see him again. It couldn't just end, she reasoned; their relationship couldn't go from a rich and layered creation to nothing. Her way of life, her ident.i.ty, her whole world, was threatening to shift, to tilt, to dump her into cold, unfamiliar water. She and Porter were no longer together? It was impossible. So yes, devastated was a fair choice of words. But the hurt was located in distant parts of her-her brain, her reason, her nerves. (Her hands shook for hours; she remembered that.) Her heart cried out for one person, the way a hurt child called out for her mother, and that person was Candace.

"I called your mother to tell her what happened," Marguerite said. "The weather was bad, it was snowing, it was horrible weather for traveling, and yet I asked her to come up. She wanted me to come to Dobbs Ferry, but I couldn't move. I was immobilized."

I want to come, Daisy, she said. Believe me, I do. But Dan is in Beaver Creek looking at a second property and so I'd have to bring Renata- By all means, bring her.

I'm worried about traveling with her in this weather. Have you looked at the TV? It's awful. Is it snowing there?

Snowing, yes. Quietly piling up outside.

Okay, Marguerite said. It's okay. I'm okay.

Are you?

No, she said, and she dissolved into tears. Of course not.

Daisy, don't cry.

Do you understand what's happened? Marguerite asked. You cannot reasonably tell me not to cry.

Okay, I'm sorry. There was a long pause, the sound of shuffling papers, the sound of Candace's sighing. Okay, we'll come. We're coming.

Marguerite should have backed down at that point; she should have listened to the reluctance in Candace's voice. What did another day or two days or a week matter? It was blizzarding. Asking anyone to travel in that weather was absurdly selfish, cruel even. And yet those words, we'll come, we're coming, were the words Marguerite craved. She needed to know there was someone in the world who would do anything for her. That person had never been Porter.

"That night, your mother was on my doorstep, holding you in her arms."

"I came here?"

"I remember it like it was yesterday. You were wearing pink corduroy overalls."

Marguerite had been pacing her house for hours when the knock finally came. She opened the door and found Candace and Renata, bundled in parkas, dusted with snow. As soon as she saw them she felt ashamed. She had guilted her best friend into traveling three hundred miles through a blizzard with a child. Candace had caught a flight from White Plains to Providence, where she hired a car to take her to Hyannis, where she caught the freight boat, which was the only boat going. And yet, in her gracious way, she made it sound like an adventure.

It's a miracle, Candace said. But here we are.

"I remember being embarra.s.sed that I didn't have dinner ready. All that jangling around the house, I could have been making a stew. Instead, we ordered a pizza, but the pizza place refused to deliver, so your mother trudged down Broad Street to get it. All those years I had cared for her, but she had turned into a real mother hen. She set the table, whipped up a salad, made me a cup of tea-I wanted wine, of course, but she said no, alcohol would only make things worse-and she stared us down until we'd eaten a proper dinner, you and me."

Renata smiled.

"Your mother brought a prescription of Valium with her, thank G.o.d. She gave me two, tucked me into bed, and I fell asleep. I woke up at four in the morning and made a pot of coffee. Your mother woke up, too, and sat with me in the dark kitchen, but neither of us spoke. We didn't know what to say. It was like we'd known all along the sky was going to fall and then it fell and we pretended to be taken by surprise. Then Candace's face brightened like she'd had some inspiration, like she'd devised some fool-proof way to get Porter back, to make everything right again. But she did the strangest thing. She insisted on cutting my hair. My hair hadn't been cut since I was a child. Candace said, 'Time for a new look.' Or a new outlook. Something like that. She'd cut her own hair that winter-it was short and she wore a bandanna to push it off her face. She wouldn't let me say no. We pulled a chair over by the kitchen sink and your mother wrapped me up in an old shower curtain."

Marguerite sat in the makeshift salon chair. As Candace wet her hair, ma.s.saged her scalp, combed the length, and snipped the ends, holding them up between two fingers, something dawned on Marguerite. Something transpired. Marguerite could barely breathe; the truth was so obvious and yet so startling. This was what she wanted, all she wanted, Candace here, her warmth, her voice in Marguerite's ear. Marguerite filled with longing. It wasn't Porter's love she sought, and it hadn't been, maybe, for years. Marguerite wanted Candace; she loved Candace. With Candace fussing and clucking around her, with Candace touching her, Marguerite experienced a new realm of emotion. It was terrifying but glorious, too.

"When she was finished, your mother blew my hair dry and styled it, and when she handed me the mirror I started to cry."

Candace's face had fallen apart. You hate it.

"I was crying; then I was laughing," Marguerite said. "I put down the mirror and I took your mother's hands and I told her that I loved her."

I love you, too, Candace said. You're the greatest friend I have.

The greatest friend I have. Marguerite faltered. Those had been Porter's exact words and Marguerite thought, These are the words the Harrises use when they are leaving you.

I don't care about Porter, Marguerite said. I loved the man dearly at one time, and we were intimate. Yes, we were.

You're better off without him, Candace said. I've been wanting to say that since I arrived. You will be better off.

It doesn't matter, Marguerite said. Because when I heard, when Porter told me, my heart cried out for you. You are the one person I cannot bear to lose. I love you. You are the one that I love. Do you hear what I'm saying? Do you hear?

Confusion flickered across Candace's face. Marguerite saw it, though it only lasted a second. Did Candace understand what Marguerite was saying?

You're the best person I know, Candace said. I can't believe what my brother has done to you.

Say you love me, Marguerite said. Please say it.

Of course I love you. Daisy, yes.

I want you to love me, Marguerite said. I don't know where this can lead. I Don't know what I'm asking....

Candace's hands were cold. Marguerite remembered that. She remembered the cold hands; her friend was frightened. Marguerite dropped the hands, and as soon as she did so Candace turned away.

I think I hear Renata, she said, though the house was silent.

You don't want me, Marguerite said.

I don't even know what those words mean, Candace said. What are you asking me for? You're upset about Porter. He hurt you. You asked me to come and here I am. What else do you want me to say?

You don't feel the same way that I do. Marguerite said.

What way is that? Candace said. Are you saying you're in love with me?

Marguerite looked at herself in the mirror. The short hair now. She was a stranger to herself. What was she saying? Did she want to take Candace to bed, do things neither of them could imagine? Did love fall into categories, or was it a continuum? Were there right ways to love and wrong ways, or was there just love and its object?

I can't help the way I feel, Marguerite said.

You don't know how you feel. Right? Porter hurt you. You're confused. Aren't you confused?

I don't feel confused, Marguerite said. I'm as sure about this as I've been about anything in my whole life. Since the second I met you, when you kissed me. I thought you were Porter's lover, but you kissed me.

I kissed you, Candace said quickly, because I knew we were going to be friends.

Friends, yes. But more than friends. The hundreds of dinners, their mingled laughter, the walk through the moors, the winter evenings by the fire, the trip to Morocco. Candace there, that was all Marguerite had ever wanted.

It's been since the second I met you, Marguerite said. This feeling.