Bright, Precious Days

28

“CORRINE, WE HAVEN’T SEEN YOU IN AGES.”

“Hello, Sara. Athena.”

“We’ve been thinking of you.”

“That’s good to know.”

“If there’s absolutely anything we can do…”

“I’ll absolutely be sure to let you know.”

No matter how early Corrine arrived to pick up the kids, Sara Birkhardt and Athena Goldstein always seemed to be waiting outside the school, inseparable and inevitable as the gargoyles adorning the Gothic Revival building across the street. In fact, she often chose to delegate picking up the kids to Jean, which seemed to constitute a form of malign neglect to these Battery Park harpies in their pastel Lululemon tops and black leggings. Even worse than their disapproval, she realized this afternoon, was their faux sympathy and sugar-coated schadenfreude. But Jean was taking a sick day and she’d had no choice but to make the pickup — Russell could sometimes buzz down from work, but she hadn’t even bothered to ask him today. God knows he had enough to worry about — a few days earlier he’d been bushwhacked by a TV news crew outside his office.

Some of the sixth-grade parents let their kids find their own way home, but Corrine wasn’t ready for that. She’d arrived in New York just a few months after Etan Patz had disappeared between his parents’ SoHo apartment and the bus stop on his very first unescorted morning expedition, and while the city was far safer now than in 1979, she saw absolutely no reason to tempt fate.

“We all love Russell,” Athena said.

“He’s a terrific father,” Sara said.

“He really is,” Corrine said.

The other mothers were acting studiously ignorant, quietly conferring or staring at their BlackBerries while the Caribbean nannies formed a separate cadre a little farther up the block.

“Please give him our love.”

“I certainly will.”

Taking out her own cell phone and staring at it blindly, she hoped to ignore her ostensible support group. She was dying to tell them that her kids weren’t long for this shitty school, having gotten into Hunter, but if they hadn’t heard already, they’d find out soon enough.

“He must feel terribly betrayed.”

She decided this observation didn’t require an answer.

“I mean, they were friends, weren’t they?”

“Not really,” Corrine said. “Associates, obviously, but it wasn’t as if they were close — more a question of circumstances throwing them together, like when you find yourself socializing with people just because your kids go to school together.”

It was hard to tell whether this was overkill, or too subtle by half; both women were still absorbing and evaluating the insult when the doors swung open and the kids started pouring out, a trickle of older boys at first, pushing and testing out their voices in the open air, then successive waves of liberated children, her own emerging separately, Jeremy first, his friend Nicholas tugging on his arm and shrieking about some unfinished business, then Storey in her little gang of four — Taylor, Hannah and Madison, three new friends so precious that she kept them as far away from her family, or at least her mother, as possible.

“Hey, Mom, it’s you,” Jeremy said, sounding pleasantly surprised. “Can Nick come home with us?”

“Not today, honey. You have karate, remember?”

“Oh, right.”

Storey huddled with her crew up the sidewalk.

“Are you taking me to the dojo?”

She nodded.

“In a taxi?”

“If we see one.”

“Nick says the subway is for poor people.”

She hated that sort of thing — it was precisely the kind of attitude they’d hoped to avoid by keeping their kids downtown, not that they’d had much choice, of course, until the kids had been old enough to take the test for the gifted program at Hunter. But these distinctions were losing their relevance in an era when hedge funders were colonizing SoHo and TriBeCa.

Storey finally tore herself away from her friends and slouched over.

“How was school, honey?”

“Same old, same old.” As they started walking north, she said, “Taylor says Dad’s a criminal.”

Corrine stopped in her tracks, half-tempted to troop back and find the little bitch’s mother, whom she’d seen among the waiting parents. “Tell me exactly what she said.”

“Is it true?”

“Of course it’s not true. What did she say?”

“She said that it was in the news that Dad published a book that was full of lies.”

She squatted on the sidewalk in front of them, allowing a curious mother and son to pass by before saying, “Listen, you guys, your dad made an honest mistake. He trusted someone he shouldn’t have trusted.”

“That guy Phillip,” Jeremy said.

“That’s right. Your dad published his book, having every reason to believe that it was true.”

“Wait a minute,” Jeremy said. “I thought Dad published fiction.”

“Dad usually does. That’s probably what he’s best at. But this was supposed to be a memoir, a true story — except now it looks like it wasn’t. Your dad got fooled, along with a lot of other people. But he didn’t do anything criminal. Stupid, possibly, but not criminal.”

“Whoa, Mom,” Storey said. “I can’t believe you just said that.”

“I’m trying to be honest with you guys.”

“But Dad’s incredibly smart.” This was a point of faith with the kids, a tenet of the family creed. Dad the brilliant, Dad the Oxford scholar.

“Smart people sometimes do dumb things. And the guy who wrote the book is pretty smart, too. But besides being smart, your dad is generous and honest and he believes other people are honest, too. Which, of course, isn’t always true.”

“I knew that guy was a jerk,” Jeremy said.

“You thought that?”

“Yeah. He just seemed kind of phony. He had this way of trying to talk to kids, trying to seem cool. It was just totally fake.”

Corrine was impressed. “Actually, I thought so, too,” she said. “Your dad can be a little too trusting.”

“Are you mad at him?” Storey asked.

She sighed, wondering how nuanced you can be with your own children. “No, I feel bad for him.” Of course she’d been supportive and sympathetic in the three days since the scandal had broken, but her sympathy had indeed sometimes given way to anger. She’d always had a bad feeling about the book, not only the dizzying and unprecedented advance he’d laid out, but also about the project itself, both author and publisher having abandoned their proven métier for reasons of fashion and commerce. And now they were all four going to suffer for the mistake. And she was upset with Russell for defending Kohout that crucial first day after the news broke, giving that halfhearted statement of support to the Times instead of instantly acknowledging his mistake. She could hardly bear to look at her husband the next night as they watched Kohout, who appeared to be sedated, try to defend himself on the Charlie Rose show. But she felt guilty, too, that she’d never told Russell about the time Phillip had hit on her not long after his first novel had come out. Maybe that would have helped tip the scales against him.

—

While Jeremy practiced his high kicks and his kata at the dojo on Lower Broadway, Corrine took his sister shopping at Necessary Clothing and All Saints, browsing with her amid the endless racks of jeans and cheap sundresses. Anything that Corrine picked out elicited either a shrug or a sneer, and the items Storey picked seemed chosen to provoke.

“What’s wrong with it?” Storey said, holding up a tiny sequined halter.

“I think it’s a little…trashy.”

“You think anything cool’s slutty.”

“I did not use that word.”

Why was her daughter so irritated with her? she wondered. It was possible that Storey’s mood reflected her distress about her father and the recent scandal. In the end, Corrine swallowed her reservations about the skimpiness of a two-piece bathing suit and about the price of a pair of True Religion jeans, in hopes of scoring a few points.

Back home, while the kids settled down to homework, she went to the bedroom and gave in to a long-simmering impulse.

“How are you?” Luke asked.

“I’m fine.” She tried to sound light and casual; she’d thought about calling him several times over the last few days, but now that she heard his voice, she wasn’t at all certain about confiding in him. On reflection she saw that her troubles were joint, marital property, that sharing them with Luke would be disloyal to Russell, a principle she clung to even though it was rendered somewhat absurd by the fact of her serial betrayals.

“I was a little worried. I heard — well, about that book.”

Luke was in London, and for a moment she was surprised to learn this news had traveled across the Atlantic. On the other hand, it seemed to be everywhere right now. She was afraid to pick up a paper or turn on the TV.

She sighed. At least she wouldn’t have to pretend everything was fine.

“Well, I’ve had better weeks. As has Russell.” It seemed important at this point to mention his name, something she very rarely did in conversation with Luke.

“Should I ask how he’s holding up?”

“Probably not, but I’m sure you can imagine.”

“I suppose so. I’m so sorry.”

She was beginning to wish she hadn’t called.

“Is there anything I can do?”

“I can’t really think of anything. Unless you have access to a time machine, so I could go back and somehow prevent this mess.”

“Sorry.”

“Just checking. As a person of limited means, I find it strangely comforting to know there are apparently still things that money can’t buy.” She knew this sounded vaguely antagonistic, maybe even specifically so, but she couldn’t help it.

“I can assure you there are many of them, Corrine.”

“I’m afraid I wouldn’t know about that.”

She had a feeling that the sooner she got off the phone, the better. She knew Luke was trying to be sympathetic, and she wasn’t really mad at him, but neither did she think he was the right person to comfort her on this occasion. That was her mistake. Even though she loved him, she couldn’t muster any sweetness toward him at the moment.

“I just want you to know—”

“Let’s talk later, okay? This just isn’t a good time right now. I’ll call you soon.” Every phrase sounded more perfunctory than the last, but she couldn’t seem to help herself. She could feel the hurt and confusion in his silence. If she hung up now, she was afraid they might not recover, and perhaps that was all for the best; perhaps this was the moment to end it, however unexpectedly. But she wasn’t necessarily ready for that, and knew this feeling would probably pass, that she’d wake up in the morning yearning for him, as she so often had since seeing him walking up West Broadway covered in ashes, so she said, “I love you” before hanging up on him.

“Who was that?”

Corrine gasped for breath as she turned to see her daughter framed in the doorway. “Just a friend.”

“Who?”

“No one you know.”

“Why do you look so guilty?”

“You startled me.”

“Does Dad know this friend?”

“As a matter of fact, he does. Are you through with your homework already?”

“Why are you changing the subject?”

“Because the subject is finished. There’s nothing more to say about it.”

Storey kept staring at her, and Corrine found it hard to meet her judgmental gaze. When had she become so hostile? And why? Was the question of biological motherhood finally resonating? Or was this just a function of her age?

“Is there some reason you’ve become so critical of me recently?”

“I’ve just become more observant,” Storey said. “Plus, you and Dad taught me to have high standards.”

“I hope we also taught you a little about the value of compassion and empathy.”

“Whatever,” she said, turning and disappearing from view.