“A regular person would have walked through the house and not noticed anything missing,” Birdie said. “And that spoke volumes. Grant had never been vested in our home life. His life was elsewhere-at the office, on the golf course. He was more at home at Gallagher’s than he was at our house. So when he left, what I felt was regret that I hadn’t asked him to leave earlier.”
“Really?” India said.
“Really,” Birdie said. She stubbed out her cigarette, then reached for another, and India scrambled to light it for her. “I wasted my life with him.”
“You didn’t waste your life,” India said. “You have two beautiful children.”
“And what else?”
“A lovely home.”
“Don’t you think I expected more from myself than that?” Birdie asked. “We were educated. I went to Wellesley, for God’s sake. I expected great things from myself.”
“You did great things.”
“I won the women’s member-guest in 1990,” Birdie said. “A golf tournament. Golf, which I despise, which I took up solely to spend time with Grant, who didn’t like to play with me anyway, because I wasn’t good enough. I won that tournament just to spite him. I started a book group, the first of its kind in Fairfield County, because I wanted to read really good contemporary literature and talk about it, and what happened? It devolved into being just like everybody else’s book group-drinking Kendall-Jackson chardonnay and reading The Secret Life of Bees.”
“You raised the girls,” India said.
“The girls are the girls,” Birdie said. “I’m not going to take credit for the girls.”
India said, “You’re a wonderful person, Birdie. You’re being too hard on yourself.”
Birdie said, “I look at Chess and I feel so jealous.”
“Jealous of Chess?” India said. “The girl is miserable.”
“Miserable now,” Birdie said. “But happier in the long run. She stood up for herself. She stood up for her life. What if I had done that? What if I had fended off Grant Cousins and all his money and focused on myself? I could have been an expert in fine carpets.”
India lit herself another cigarette. “That’s right, you always liked carpets.”
“The language in carpets is fascinating,” Birdie said. “I used to know a little about it. Now-well, it’s like trigonometry. I’ve forgotten it all.”
“You’re a wonderful gardener,” India said.
“See? I could have been a landscape architect. I could have made a fortune in New Canaan alone. I could own my own business. I could be a landscaping mogul.”
“You’re talking like you’re all washed up,” India said. “You can still do it.”
Birdie stood up from the bed and looked out the window. India’s window looked northwest, toward North Pond and Muskeget. “I want to go home,” she said.
“You do?” India said.
“Yes,” Birdie said.
When Birdie first walked into the room, India had been wondering how to tell her that she would be leaving on Wednesday. But over the course of the conversation, she realized she was enjoying herself, and she was connecting with her sister, which was far superior to dealing with the potential bullshit transpiring in the cauldron that was Center City, Philadelphia, in July. (Independence Mall on July Fourth, mobbed with tourists from Kansas and Bulgaria: India shuddered.) And now, just as India had pretty much decided to stay put, Birdie announced that she wanted to leave?
“Give yourself a chance to settle in,” India said. “Please?”
Birdie exhaled smoke, said nothing. Her eyes were far away.
CHESS
Day two.
That night, I left the Bowery Ballroom with Michael, and Rhonda left with Nick. My heart was sliced and diced like an onion, or maybe not that neatly. I liked Michael, I did. On paper, he was perfect for me. He was what I thought I’d always been looking for: an Ivy League scholar-athlete with plans to conquer the world. He would, someday, be rich and successful; he would pass on his excellent genes to our children. He was earnest and kind. But I desired Nick; I knew that the first night. Nick was chocolate and cigarettes and whiskey and danger, everything I should stay away from. I asked Michael about him in the taxi to my apartment. He had always been in trouble, Michael said. His life lacked a clear direction. He had barely graduated from high school, and then it took him seven years to get through Penn State. He played the guitar in bars in State College; he recorded an album with a band, then the band broke up. He currently lived in a studio on 121st Street. The apartment was paid for by their parents, but Nick didn’t have any money for furniture, or the cable bill, or food. He spent whatever he made on new guitars, on recording space, on expensive equipment for rock climbing, which was his second obsession after music. But the new band, Diplomatic Immunity, was good, it was great. Nick had to hold steady and not blow it. He drank a lot and he was temperamental. Michael worried about him.
I nodded. “Mmmmm,” I said. Nick, as expected, was not the brother I should be after.
But I wanted him.
I was distraught that Nick had left the bar with Rhonda. Rhonda was irresistible and I couldn’t stand the thought of Nick and Rhonda, together, a floor below me. But as it was, Rhonda reported that Nick had been a gentleman. He delivered her to the lobby of the building but wouldn’t escort her up. (“Which sucked!” Rhonda said. “What better way to end the evening than with some really hot rock-star sex?”) He kissed Rhonda at the elevator bank, then left without asking for her number.
“I think he was kind of into you,” Rhonda said. “He asked me a lot of questions about you.”
“Me?” I said.
I started seeing Michael. I liked Michael. We had fun together. We jogged together after work, then went out for Vietnamese food. I cooked for him in my apartment. He was a good eater, he appreciated the ingredients and the technique, he helped me in the kitchen. We liked the same movies; we started reading the same books and talking about them. He was romantic-he sent me flowers, he took me to Café des Artistes, he made coffee and brought me a cup in bed. He was a good lover, considerate, earnest, eager to please. Too eager? I thought about Nick in bed more times than I cared to admit. I wanted to smolder. There was no smoldering with Michael. With Michael, sex was clean and athletic.
Michael met my parents and it was a tremendous success. My father loved him. My father would not have loved Nick.
I met Michael’s parents. This happened in their house in New Jersey, and Nick was there. He was in jeans and a paint-splattered T-shirt; to earn some money, he was painting the upstairs bedrooms of his parents’ house. This was the first time I had seen Nick since that night at the club, but Michael had a Diplomatic Immunity poster framed and mounted on his kitchen wall, so Nick stared at me and I stared at Nick as I made Michael dinner and as I ate my eggs in the morning.
I said to Nick, “It’s nice to see you again.”
He said, “It’s nice to see you.” Again, the penetrating stare. He wanted me, I was sure of it, but then not sure at all. I felt lucky to be liked by Michael. I wasn’t vain or confident enough to believe that I could be attractive to Nick, too.
That dinner was tense, and it had nothing to do with Cy and Evelyn. Cy and Evelyn were easy, they were delightful, they liked me, I could tell, and I liked them. I answered all their questions correctly; I got a gold star. Nick stared at me. I would look at him and his eyes would hold me like I was in his arms.