The Irresistible Henry House Part 12

Martha scowled. "On the bus?" she asked with evident horror.

"Yes."

"Your regular school bus?"

"Yes."

"And what did she say?"

He shrugged again. "I'll tell you later," he said, already knowing that he never would. "I'm missing the Mouseketeers."

HE KEPT THE SET ON AFTER The Mickey Mouse Club. The Mickey Mouse Club. He watched He watched Kukla, Fran & Ollie, Kukla, Fran & Ollie, and after that and after that Sergeant Preston of the Yukon. Sergeant Preston of the Yukon. The Yukon, as usual, was covered in snow; the trees in the background were black and gray; Preston's Mounties uniform was gray and white; Yukon King was gray and black. As Henry watched, his mind wandered. He thought about Betty, wondering if he looked like her, wondering if Australia looked like the Yukon, wondering what either place would look like in color. More darkly, he thought about Martha. He wondered what other secrets she'd kept, what other lies she had told him. He a.s.sumed that there had been many of both. Trust was not a muscle he knew how to use. The Yukon, as usual, was covered in snow; the trees in the background were black and gray; Preston's Mounties uniform was gray and white; Yukon King was gray and black. As Henry watched, his mind wandered. He thought about Betty, wondering if he looked like her, wondering if Australia looked like the Yukon, wondering what either place would look like in color. More darkly, he thought about Martha. He wondered what other secrets she'd kept, what other lies she had told him. He a.s.sumed that there had been many of both. Trust was not a muscle he knew how to use.

IT WAS AFTER DINNER that Betty showed up. Martha had known she would come again, but she had expected her earlier in the evening, and, was.h.i.+ng the dishes and drying them, she had allowed herself to relax for the first time in two days. The ringing of the doorbell was a mild a.s.sault.

"Go wash up now," she told Henry.

He felt fairly certain that it would be Betty at the door, and also that it would be better not to talk to her with Martha there.

But he sat listening at the top of the landing, his hands around the spindles of the bal.u.s.trade.

"What do you want?" Martha asked Betty.

Even given the circ.u.mstances, it surprised Henry to hear Martha's lack of civility.

"You know what I want," Betty said.

There were a few moments of whispering, and Henry clutched the spindles more tightly.

"You know," he heard Martha say. "You don't know anything about raising a child Henry's age."

"Neither do you," Betty said swiftly.

"I know this child," Martha said. "I know every single thing there is to know about this child. And I know he wants to be with me."

Henry could hear the hiss and strike of a match against a match-book, and he could even hear Betty exhale. "Why would he want someone who lied?" she asked.

"Why," Martha replied, "would he want someone who left?"

THOSE WERE THE QUESTIONS. At the top of the stairs, Henry tried to answer them for himself. He tried to want someone. He couldn't. He tried to imagine something. He couldn't. If he wanted anything, it was to scream at Martha for lying, scream at Betty for leaving. He went to his room, sat at his desk, and stared at the shadows on the wall until he found shapes and patterns.

"ARE YOU TAKING ME WITH YOU?" Henry asked Betty when she met him at the bus stop the next afternoon. She seemed smaller than she had the night before. Her breath smelled sour and sharp, and he tried to keep away from it.

"No," Betty said. "Not yet."

"Then why did you come?"

Betty's eyes got wet, and she looked down to snap open her pocketbook. Henry thought she was reaching for a tissue, but instead she took out a photograph. She handed it to him proudly, wanting him to look at it.

"Why did you come," he asked her, not looking at the picture, "if you're not going to take me with you?"

"I'm going to tell you the truth," Betty said, with an emphasis on the first word. "I want to take you with me. My father won't give me the money, and I don't have enough of my own."

"We could get a job," Henry said.

"I will will get a job," Betty said. "And I get a job," Betty said. "And I will will come back for you," she said. come back for you," she said.

"What if I'm not here?" Henry asked.

"I'll find you."

A slow tear, like a drop of syrup, ran all the way down her nose. Henry thought maybe he didn't want to go with her after all.

"I want you to keep this picture of me," Betty said.

Henry looked down at it. It was black-and-white and had a generous crease in it, but Henry could tell that it was a picture of Betty, only when she was so much younger and prettier that it didn't matter to him at all. He looked back at Betty, and in what may have been his first completely intentional act of cruelty, he said: "You don't look anything like this anymore."

9.

Eastern Standard Time

Only five days later, Betty Gardner boarded a train heading east, to New York City, where her father had decided that her unfortunate past might be less objectionable, or at least less noticed.

With the help of a former Wilton professor, Dr. Gardner had arranged to have Betty try out as a researcher at Time Time magazine. It would be a new start, he told her, insisting that she be grateful for the opportunity. magazine. It would be a new start, he told her, insisting that she be grateful for the opportunity.

Until the moment Betty left, Martha felt as if she was virtually incapable of any emotion but fear. And even after Betty's departure, Martha couldn't help feeling that the visit had left a pall, a layer of emotional ash that had changed forever the way that Henry was going to look at things. Martha blamed this largely on Betty and even, to some extent, on Betty's father. It did not occur to her that there was any other blame to be a.s.signed.

IN 1955, Pa.s.sENGERS ARRIVING at New York's Penn Station walked off their trains, up to the glorious concourse, and into a reality that rarely fell short of whatever superlatives they had heard in advance. The celestial ceiling, with its vaulted arches and its web of wrought-iron window frames, was churchlike and dizzying, fearsome and immense. Hanging in the smoky air between the ceiling and floor-like a man-made sun-was the famous clock, with its heavy Roman numerals, precisely squared-off minute marks, and, in capital letters, its nonnegotiable message: EASTERN STANDARD TIME. From tall white poles around the vast room, modern loudspeakers hung in cl.u.s.ters like giant, incongruous lilies of the valley. Thousands upon thousands of people strode through the concourse without hesitation or apparent fear.

Her two suitcases on either side of her, Betty stood for at least ten minutes, taking the whole panorama in. It occurred to her that she had not felt this much like a child since she had first arrived in Australia and gone looking for Fred's address at the Melbourne post office. Thank G.o.d she was not a child now, she thought: A few moments later, she had gathered her bags and taken a seat in an all-but-empty bar called Brown's.

An exhausted-looking waitress came over to take her order.

"Gin and tonic," Betty said.

"Any particular kind of gin?"

Despite her fear, her fatigue, and even her sadness, there was something to be said, Betty thought, for a city in which even a tired-looking waitress asked you what kind of gin you wanted.

SHE HAD LEARNED to drink gin in Australia. She had learned to drink everything there, discovering the sweet and sharp contradictions of booze: the cus.h.i.+ony insulation and the flat, hard taste. She had needed both the softness and the hardness for dealing with Fred, who drank even more than she did and with far less apparent consolation. Neither of them had had a clue about how to build a marriage, let alone a life. It became clear after a while that they would each protect their own secrets and garner more. What little they'd had in common before the war had long since been outgrown. Betty had become a mother and Fred a soldier, and both had been deserters. Yet neither of them could acknowledge just how useless with shame their hearts had grown.

"First time here?" the waitress asked as she brought Betty's drink.

Betty nodded and stirred the gin and tonic with a heavy plastic brown swizzle stick.

"Where're you from?" the waitress asked, apparently grateful to have some company.

Betty took a sip and welcomed the coldness and warmth, flowing simultaneously.

"I'm from Australia," Betty said.

"Australia? Well, you couldn't have taken the train from there."

Betty smiled. "No, I was visiting my son. In Pennsylvania."

"What's he doing there?"

"d.a.m.ned if I know," Betty said, and drained her gla.s.s, feeling the ice cubes kiss her top lip. "Bring me another, okay?"

She studied the c.o.c.ktail napkin, ate some peanuts, tried to get one more taste of gin from the still-large ice cubes. She thought for the first time about what she would say when people in New York asked her about her past. It struck her that she could lie and that there was almost no reason not to lie. But with this waitress, for some reason, it seemed even more tempting, almost exotic, to tell the truth. Looking into those tired, pale eyes, Betty had an instant and grateful understanding of the freedom that would be granted her by the anonymous city.

"He came from a one-night stand, my son," Betty said after a long sip from the fresh drink.

The waitress looked over her shoulder carelessly, then sat down. "And they made you give him up?" she asked.

Betty nodded. "When he was just a year old," she said.

"You weren't married?" the waitress asked.

"I was. But not to the father."

"Oh."

The waitress leaned on her hand, a heavy elbow on the small table. "But you had the baby a whole year?" she asked.

"Well, I wasn't living with him, but I got to see him a lot."

"You're lucky," the waitress said. "My cousin had to give hers up before her milk was even dry."

Betty's impulse to share her story changed almost harshly into the need for her story to be understood.

"Lucky!" Betty said. "One night. One guy. And pregnant like that."

"Yeah," the waitress said.

Then Betty told her about Martha, the practice house, and Dr. Gardner. She told her about the long, pale Australian nights and the futility of Fred's attempts first to get, then to keep, a job.

"And did you ever tell him about your son?"

"No. Yes. No." Betty laughed at her own confusion. "At the very end I did," she said.

"Why?"

"Because we'd tried for eight G.o.dd.a.m.n years to have a baby of our own, and he kept saying I just wasn't made to be a mother."

FORTIFIED BY THE DRINKS and emboldened by her confessions, Betty left a large tip for the waitress and dragged her bags out onto the street. It was mild for October, sunny and clear. Graceful cane-shaped streetlamps arched along Fifth Avenue. A billboard several blocks away advertised Knickerbocker beer. Two-toned taxis in every color drove by, and it took Betty a while to realize that when the lozenge-shaped signs on top of them were lit up, that meant they were empty, not full.

The leather seat inside was soft and cool.

"Barbizon Hotel for Women," Betty said. "One forty East Sixty-third Street."

"What's the problem, you don't like men?" the cabbie asked.

Betty didn't answer, just sat back in the seat and sensed the energy beyond the window. After all the years of hearing about New York, she knew immediately that she would love the rhythm of the place: the peculiar set of expectations and flas.h.i.+ng intensity, the steam coming from the backs of buses, the rounded streetlights, and the sense of power.

"FIRST TIME HERE?"

Now it was the red-haired clerk behind the check-in counter at the Barbizon Hotel.

Betty laughed again.

"I suppose that's 'yes,'" the redhead said.

"People keep asking me this," Betty said. "What is it, do I look that young?"

The redhead shook her head. "Just scared out of your mind," she said nastily. "Not young."

THERE WERE TWENTY-THREE FLOORS in the Barbizon Hotel, and on all but the first, no men were allowed. Looking at the cl.u.s.ters of single women in the lobby, and the prim, perfectly dressed elevator girl on the way up to Nine, Betty wondered if she was the only woman in the whole hotel who no longer owned a pair of gloves.

Her room, 903, was small and drab. The walls were pale yellow. A beige desk and a beige dresser stood awkwardly side by side. The beige striped fabric on the narrow bed and the draperies matched, except that the drapes had been faded by the sun. The rug was nondescript and industrial.

Betty unpacked, listening to the traffic noises rising from the street. Cars were honking and a man was cursing, and intermittently she heard what sounded like drilling. From higher up-presumably somewhere in the hotel-came the sound of a singer rehearsing, and from outside, in the hallway, there was occasional laughter and running.

At the bottom of one suitcase was the photograph of Henry that Ethel Neuholzer had taken nearly a decade before, and there was the yellow tin canister holding the roll of film that Betty had managed to take of him just this week.

Henry. The smell of his baby neck came to her, somehow. The nights in the rocking chair.

It was not as if she viewed her right to him as unequivocal.

She knew that she had left him, and under normal circ.u.mstances-if she had been like the dozen other girls in the Home, for example-she would have left the hospital a week after his birth and never seen him again. She knew, too, that if she and Fred had managed to have their own baby, she would never have come back-or, probably, ever wanted to.

"But I've seen him," she had said to the waitress at the bar that afternoon. "I know him. I helped take care of him when he was little. And I do know where he is."

BETTY'S IMMEDIATE GOAL, however, was to land the job at Time. Time. Not even the best-educated women-the graduates who came directly from Wellesley or Smith or Cornell-were spared a six-month audition. And Betty-whose lack of formal education had been barely finessed (the former professor had said Betty came "well-recommended from Wilton College")-was certain to be no exception. Not even the best-educated women-the graduates who came directly from Wellesley or Smith or Cornell-were spared a six-month audition. And Betty-whose lack of formal education had been barely finessed (the former professor had said Betty came "well-recommended from Wilton College")-was certain to be no exception.

The tryout took place on the clip desk, which existed so that research files at Time Time could be kept current for the in-house library. Subjects ranged from the obvious-world leaders, movie stars, moguls-to the less predictable-maple syrup, shoemaking, children's toys. To work at the clip desk, you needed a soft green pencil, a sharp pair of scissors, a rubber date stamp, a stack of folders, and the ability to concentrate long past the hour when words began to fox-trot across the printed page. could be kept current for the in-house library. Subjects ranged from the obvious-world leaders, movie stars, moguls-to the less predictable-maple syrup, shoemaking, children's toys. To work at the clip desk, you needed a soft green pencil, a sharp pair of scissors, a rubber date stamp, a stack of folders, and the ability to concentrate long past the hour when words began to fox-trot across the printed page.

Everyone worked hard. The magazine closed its pages in sections, so there was always a deadline looming, and the women-unfailingly cast into supporting roles-did more than their share of the heavy lifting. By her third week on the clip desk, Betty had already gotten the sense that if she was going to be hired full-time and, more important, if she was going to succeed once she was, then she was going to have to fake a lot of knowledge that she didn't have. Faking a past was the least of her worries. If anyone at the magazine had noticed her yet, they hadn't had time to let on.

THE RESIDENTS OF THE BARBIZON noticed her from the start. Not since her days at the practice house had Betty known more gossipy women. They rarely referred to each other by name. Whenever they talked about those not present-and that was the main staple of their conversation-they called them by room number.

"Have you seen 202's new pumps?"