Bright, Precious Days

8

ONCE AGAIN IT WAS THE HOLIDAY SEASON, that ceaseless cocktail party between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, when the city dressed itself in Christmas colors and flaunted its commercial soul, when the compulsive acquisitiveness of the citizenry, directed outward into ritual gift giving, was transmuted into a virtue and moderation into a vice. Mendicant sidewalk Santas rang bells beside buckets dangling from chains on tripods. Doormen were suddenly eager to perform their jobs, opening taxi doors and carrying shopping bags, which were abundant, and maîtres d’hôtel greeted their regulars with extra obsequiousness. As the end of the tax year approached, the philanthropic impulse became more acute. The directors of great museums and charitable foundations awaited the mail as eagerly as did the bankers and analysts and brokers of Wall Street, whose bonuses would soon flood the streets with gold. Fantastical landscapes materialized in the windows of Saks and Bergdorf and Lord & Taylor, and legions of actors and dancers answered the call to service, signing up with the catering companies that orchestrated and provisioned the great corporate and private holiday fetes. The children became manic, fueled by sugary treats and the anticipation of gifts; the lions on guard outside the New York Public Library donned spiky wreaths. Redolent of mothballs, furs and tweeds were liberated from storage. Furtive blondes draped in sable and mink emerged from the backseats of black Mercedes and Escalades, darting across the open tundra of the sidewalk into the refuge of Madison Avenue boutiques. The once-verdant island called Mannahatta was reforested, coniferous thickets springing up on sidewalks and in vacant lots — dense stands of Scotch pine, blue spruce and balsam fir tended by upstaters wrapped in layers of down and fleece.

Russell loved this time of year more than any other, loved the city most when it was imbued with the familiar rituals of his youth, amplified or distorted as they might be, loved sharing it all with the children. For six weeks every year he nearly suspended judgment, choosing not to be offended by the blatant commercialism and the clichés, by the mercenary undercurrent of the bonhomie. He perused the Times food section for the latest wisdom on preparing the traditional Thanksgiving bird, varying from Pierre Franey and Craig Claiborne’s roast young turkey with giblet gravy to R. W. Apple’s brine-cured roast turkey and Mark Bittman’s improbable, and not entirely successful, forty-five-minute turkey. The question of whether or not to stuff the bird was a perennial stickler. This year he decided to brine and slow-cook the turkey, a heritage breed ordered two months in advance from a farm near Woodstock, and to cook his mother’s traditional pecan stuffing on the side. The cast in their loft included, in addition to the Lee and Reynes families, both Washington’s mother and Veronica’s. Much to everyone’s relief, Corrine’s mother had chosen to invite Hilary and Dan to her house in Stockbridge for Thanksgiving after her arguments for a reconciliation fell on deaf ears, thus sparing the Calloways the inevitable vodka-fueled domestic drama.

Then, with increasing frequency, a series of outings: The Nutcracker at Lincoln Center; family lunch at ‘21’ with the Salvation Army singing carols; Russell’s and Corrine’s respective office parties; the Reyneses’ Christmas cocktail party at Doubles. And then the selection of the tree — a ritual that engaged all of Russell’s aestheticism and sense of ceremony, even as it delighted the kids. He’d inherited this fixation from his own father, who had sometimes visited three or four purveyors in suburban Detroit before finding the ideal evergreen. They walked the three blocks over to the tree sellers on the corner of Chambers and Duane. The notion of a portable forest inspired Russell to tell the children an abbreviated version of Macbeth, and about how the thane’s demise was ordained when the prophecy of Birnam Wood moving to Dunsinane was confirmed.

“But how did the witches know?” Jeremy asked.

“That’s their job,” Russell said.

“There must have been an awful lot of soldiers to chop down a whole forest and move it.”

“Well, I’m not sure they actually moved the whole forest. They probably just chopped off some branches to camouflage themselves.”

“That sounds kind of improbable,” Storey said.

“Hey, who’s the editor in this family, anyway?” Russell said. “Let’s have a little suspension of disbelief here. And let’s pick a great tree.” He surveyed the offerings with a critical eye. A stickler for symmetry, he rejected Jeremy’s first choice, a sort of droopy Scotch pine, as being obviously lopsided. Storey’s first choice was crooked and lamentably sparse on one side. Eventually they started picking obvious rejects just to torment him, bursting into laughter even before he had a chance to unleash scornful commentary. Despite these provocations, he eventually found the perfect tree, a seven-foot blue spruce, which he lugged, bound in twine, back to the loft. He spent the rest of the day washing off the fragrant sap.

The evening was devoted to decoration, Russell first stringing the lights and then setting the kids loose with tinsel and finally hanging glass balls and assorted handmade ornaments, including some monstrosities they’d crafted at school over the years.

On Christmas Eve, the Calloways rented a car and drove north to Stockbridge and Corrine’s mother’s, the residue of dread from previous visits alleviated by the sudden appearance of snowflakes dancing in the headlights on the Taconic Parkway. And that night, after the kids had opened one present each, he read from “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” as they sprawled on either side of Corrine, alternately comatose and twitchy.

And then the unaccustomed benediction of a week at Tom and Casey’s house in Saint Barth’s, sunbathing among plutocrats and pop stars, drinking Provençal rosé the color of onion skin, eating insanely expensive lunches of lentil salad and grilled langoustines that lasted until dusk. At one of these endless feasts at a beachside restaurant, Russell was startled to see Phillip Kohout holding court at the head table, the center of a large and boisterous group that included a Hollywood actor and a Paris-based fashion designer. Later, retreating to the men’s room, he collided with the writer, who was coming out of a stall, bumping him hard enough to dislodge something he was holding in his hand, which clattered to the floor — a small glass vial filled with white powder.

“Russell,” he said, bending down to retrieve his stash. “This is so amazing, man. How long has it been?”

“How are you, Phillip?”

“Let me tell you, I’ve been a whole lot worse.”

“So I heard.”

“I mean, Waziristan was pretty bad, but the debriefing in D.C. — now that was a fucking nightmare.”

“Looks like you’re making up for lost time.” Russell hadn’t meant to sound pissy, but realized he did.

“Well, carpe diem, you know? That’s one thing I learned wearing a hood for two months.”

“No, yeah, definitely,” Russell said, unintentionally covering all the bases.

“We should hook up back in the city,” Phillip said.

“That would be great.”

“Yeah, definitely.”

Phillip took a step toward the door, then turned to wrap Russell in a bear hug. “Look, I’m really sorry about that business with the second book. It was a crazy time.”

“Long forgotten,” Russell said.

“We’ll catch up for sure in Madhattan.”

—

And all too soon they were back in the city, returning tanned, dulled and sated, awakened from the dream by a brisk slap of cold air on the jet bridge at JFK.

Then, a snowstorm on Valentine’s Day: It had been coming down heavily since they woke; school had been canceled, much to the chagrin of Storey, who was apparently expecting some pledge of troth from her classmate Rafe Horowitz. That night they left the kids with Jean and trudged, heavily bundled, to Bouley, their traditional Valentine’s destination, a temple of haute cuisine that was, conveniently, a short walk from the loft. Corrine held Russell’s arm with one hand and an umbrella with the other as they negotiated the heavy snow on the sidewalk, admixed with hail, which had a granular texture, like wet beach sand. Corrine had made it clear she would have been happy to stay in tonight, but Russell had insisted that the holiday be observed with a romantic meal.

He discussed the wine list with the sommelier while Corrine visited the kitchen to pay her respects to the chef, who was on the board of her organization. He had just settled the debate over the merits of Chablis versus Chasselas when she returned. He stood up as she approached; his father had drilled him in the forms of chivalry.

A few minutes later when he looked up from his menu, he saw that Corrine was crying.

He reached over and put his hand on hers. “Sweetheart, what’s the matter?”

“Oh, Russell, is this it? Roses once a year and maybe an obligatory drunken fuck? We’re fifty years old. Where’s the romance? Whatever happened to the romance?”

Russell had no idea where this was coming from — having thought things were relatively good between them — but this kind of outburst was by no means unprecedented. And while he believed, after all these years, that he knew her better than he knew anyone on earth, he sometimes suspected there were parts of her psyche that were inaccessible to him, vast regions beyond the beacon of his understanding.