The Three Weissmanns of Westport

9

Betty marveled at the new houses that seemed to lurch out of the ground at ever-decreasing intervals, each one bigger and in a more complicated interpretation of a greater mixture of historical styles than the last. Each new house had a garage with three doors, behind which were three cars, which explained, she supposed, the constant traffic in the town. She drove her own car slowly and disapprovingly to the supermarket and wandered stupefied through the wide aisles. When she marveled at the size of the supermarket, at the abundance of produce and the gigantic cereal boxes of every brand imaginable, Annie told her she was like a Russian refugee in 1983, and she might just as well have been a refugee, that was how foreign she felt. In New York, she had fought her way through the cramped aisles of Zabar's and Fairway or stopped on the corner at the little produce market to pick up some flowers. The bags were delivered, and the doorman kept them for her if she was not home, bringing them upstairs when she arrived, carrying them into the kitchen. Here, she pushed an oversized shopping cart to her car, struggled to get the bags into the trunk, struggled at home to get them out of the trunk and into the house. She enjoyed her shopping trips when she set out. The supermarket spread before her as a place of boundless opportunity, something new and vast and exciting, the way the prairie must have looked to the first settlers of the West. But by the time she got home, Betty was tired and defeated and longed for her old life.

My old life, she would think. And then she would muse on the irony of the phrase. She was young in her old life. She was old in her new life. It didn't add up. She wished she had a doorman.

She never let her daughters know how she felt. What would be the point? Annie went off swimming at the beach in the early morning. Miranda took walks in thunderstorms. They seemed to have adjusted to this country life very well. She would stay in Westport for the time being, for their sakes.

It was not easy. She was not a youngster just starting out. It had not been easy for her in Westport when she was a youngster just starting out, so how had anyone imagined it would work this time? Lou had meant no harm, of course. But Joseph, Joseph of all people, should have known better than to consign her to a cottage in a town with traffic but no place to go.

In New York, Betty and Josie had often entertained when they were younger, and even in the last few years they would invite old friends to dinner. More often than not, though, they would meet their friends at restaurants. There were always new restaurants in New York about which to read, at which to make reservations a month in advance, in which eventually to overeat and overspend. Restaurants had taken the place of movies, which had all become so violent and crude, and children, who had all grown up, in the social lives of the Weissmanns and their circle. Betty wondered where that circle was now. They had perhaps circled around Joseph, for they had certainly not drawn their wagons around her. There were a few close friends — the Harveys and the Littmans — who called regularly and tried to make dates with Betty. And there were her friends from college, Judith and Florence. Nothing changed those friendships, which were intimate and deep and existed still, as they had for decades, almost exclusively on the phone. But Social Life, as Betty once knew it, was gone. The restaurants in Westport were dull and overpriced. There was no movie theater, even if she had wanted to see a film and could have found a friend to accompany her. There was nothing to do, no one to do it with, and she wouldn't drive at night, so on top of everything else there was no way to get there. She daydreamed about the buses in New York with their interesting bits of poetry or quotes from George Eliot, their ads for Con Ed or the Bronx Zoo. How civilized and communal New York seemed from the vantage point of this lonely land of cars and crows and Lanes and Drives and Crescents.

"Oh, it's so peaceful here," her friend Judith said when she came to have lunch and go to the Westport Playhouse with Betty one day. They walked along Main Street, peering into shop windows. "You can see the sky! All the stores we have on Madison Avenue, but on this quaint little street. A theater, too! It's got everything New York has, really."

In some perverse way this was true — the play turned out to be just as dreadful as most of the theater in New York, the shops were frequented by the same loud, slender mothers as the ones who shopped in the city, the styles were too young for Betty, just as they were on Madison, the sky was the same gray swathe high above.

"Very cosmopolitan little town," Betty had answered her friend in her most chipper voice. But Westport struck her as neither cosmopolitan nor little. In fact, it did not even strike her as a town. It was large and spread out and bustling and provincial.

"If you have to be in exile, Betty, you could do worse," said Judith, who was no fool and had known Betty such a long time.

Betty smiled at her. How lucky she was to have friends who understood what she meant rather than what she said. "You're absolutely right," she said. But as they drove out of the parking lot onto the Post Road, she could not help adding, "Look at this traffic!"

Cousin Lou's latest event was a particularly large dinner party in honor of Rosalyn's father, Mr. Shpuntov. Mr. Shpuntov had changed his name to Sherwood many years ago, on October 24, 1929, to be exact, Black Thursday. He was eighteen years old on that day, and fearing the Jews would be blamed for a stock-market crash as they were blamed for every other disaster, Shpuntov looked into the future and saw himself as Sherwood.

But as Sherwood ne Shpuntov got older and began to forget more and more, one of the things he remembered perfectly was his old name. He had stopped responding to Sherwood about a year before. He disliked younger people calling him Izzy, thinking it impertinent, and as there was never anyone present who wasn't younger than his ninety-eight years, he prevailed. Shpuntov he had been, and Shpuntov he became.

Mr. Shpuntov was seated between Betty and his son-in-law, Lou. His daughter, her hair coaxed into its stiff, elaborate swoops and valleys, sat across from him.

"My father and I were just marveling at the farmers' market phenomenon here in Westport," Rosalyn was saying to a woman sitting beside her.

"That man has a terrible comb-over," Mr. Shpuntov said loudly to Cousin Lou, pointing his chin at his daughter. "Comb-overs... never liked 'em myself."

"That's Rosalyn, Mr. Shpuntov," Cousin Lou whispered nervously.

"Dad has a theory about farmers' markets," Rosalyn continued, in a louder, determined voice. "Don't you, Dad?"

"He looks ridiculous," Mr. Shpuntov said, glaring at his daughter.

Rosalyn glared back.

"I would like to make a toast," she said suddenly. She stood up. "To my father, who has come to live in our house. We hope to make his waning years happy and comfortable." She bowed to Mr. Shpuntov. "To your waning years!"

"What's he say?" Mr. Shpuntov asked.

"Hear, hear," said Cousin Lou quickly, at top volume. "Hear, hear!"

Hear hear's echoed down the table, drowning out Mr. Shpuntov.

Waning years, thought Betty. Oh dear. I don't like the sound of that. Poor fellow. "Never mind," she said to the old man. "You're as old as you feel."

"Why is that old woman talking to me?" Mr. Shpuntov said to Cousin Lou. "I'm as deaf as a post."

It was Lou who had insisted on taking his father-in-law into the house. The old man had been living with his girlfriend, a younger woman of eighty-two. But she had died suddenly of an aneurism, leaving Mr. Shpuntov and three unruly dogs in an apartment in Queens. Rosalyn suggested a home, and Lou assumed she meant their own. When she realized his mistake, it was already too late: the arrangements were much too far along and, more important, much too public to countermand. Mr. Shpuntov moved into the big house in Westport and was assigned a bedroom and an attendant. (The dogs, thank God, had been taken in by the deceased girlfriend's son — there had to be some limits, after all. Though, with regard to Lou and his hospitality, Rosalyn had yet to discover what they were.) And so a permanent place was set for the old man at Lou's long table. Rosalyn attributed opinions and bons mots to him, and he, increasingly petulant, wondered aloud why the skinny old man with the comb-over kept badgering him.

"Beautiful baby," Lou had begun singing, winking at Miranda.

Miranda was sitting next to Kit, the beautiful baby in question. At the other end of the table was the pensive Roberts in a sprightly yellow bow tie. Lou now made some comment about September and May and romances in those lovely but different months. He seemed to amuse himself by casting Kit and Roberts against each other as rivals for Miranda's affection. Annie thought her cousin was remarkably indelicate on this matter. Still, she could understand where he got the idea — her sister was so beautiful, so lively these days. Annie's heart went out to Roberts. He caught her glance, and his mouth twitched into a slight, tentative smile.

More and more, she'd found herself engaging Roberts in conversation, as if it were her duty to compensate somehow, to provide some small diversion for the spurned lover by offering him her less glamorous attention. He was, indeed, difficult to talk to at first, shyly answering questions with monosyllables that made any continuation of conversation on that topic almost impossible. But as she spent more time with him, Annie observed that he grew more comfortable, and as he grew more comfortable, Roberts grew interesting and surprisingly amusing.

"How come people call you by your last name?" Annie asked him. "Why does everyone just call you Roberts?"

He smiled modestly. "It's kind of a rock-star thing."

The weeks passed and the days began receding, becoming shorter and darker, drawing themselves in, curling in on themselves like sleeping animals. Crows dozed among the turning leaves. Fatter and fatter credit card bills arrived in the Wisemen mailbox, but still Betty and Josie had not ironed out the wrinkles in their separation, still Annie heard nothing from Frederick Barrow, and still Kit spent almost every day, and evening, with Miranda.

Kit joined Miranda on her morning walks, with Henry, sleeping or singing or whining from an olive-green backpack, coming along for the ride. They walked slowly and watched the sky expand into the silver light, and they talked.

After the initial days of questioning Miranda, Kit had begun at last, as expected, to talk about himself. Miranda dutifully prepared herself to listen, as she always listened to everyone, waiting for the confidences she knew would come.

But instead of describing sexual abuse at boarding school or stepfathers who beat him or a sordid struggle with crack cocaine, Kit talked about his happy boyhood in Maine, the walks through the woods digging up rare wildflowers with his parents and brothers and sisters; the evenings on the rocky beach splashing and digging for clams in the frigid water. The picture of this group of beautiful human beings — for surely they all looked like Kit — plunging headlong through the verdant Maine woods beneath the cheerful songs of warblers or standing windblown knee-deep in the surf made Miranda long to be in Maine herself. The smell of the pines. The breeze hurrying the bright white clouds through the infinite blue of the sky. It was true that Miranda could smell pines perfectly well right where she was, and that the breeze was hurrying just the kind of bright clouds through exactly the infinite blue sky she imagined right there on Compo Beach, which was probably what made her think of pines and clouds and infinity in the first place, but still she longed for Maine, the land of Alex Katz and E. B. White.

"I thought lobster at a bar mitzvah was totally normal..." Kit was saying.

Miranda smiled at him. She looked at Henry, asleep at the moment, his pink mouth pressed into his father's shoulder. She listened intently to Kit, not hearing him. What a luxury his stories were, like a vacation. No tortured memoir here, no Lite Victory. Just tender reminiscence. She had never seen eyes like Kit's, she thought. His best friend, Seth, he was saying. His words passed over her like a silky breeze. Bright, pale gray eyes as deep and translucent as air — look at them — the lashes thick and dark, above and below, like a horse's lashes. His eyes were as dramatic as the eyes of a silent-film star. Oh, she could go on and on about Kit's eyes. At Seth's bar mitzvah, Kit said. Bar mitzvah, Miranda thought, trying to pay attention. Seth's bar mitzvah. She was probably the same age as Seth's parents. But surely she was better preserved than Seth's parents, whom she envisioned as a weathered couple in matching track shoes and kelly green fleece jackets.Appetizers of oysters and chopped liver, said Kit.

Henry woke up, and Kit put him down on the sand. Miranda and Kit stood together and watched Henry dig a hole. It seemed to Miranda that this must be the most beautiful time of the year, the air cool, the light soft and clean.

But I'm too old, she thought, and Kit's too young.

Then Kit took her hand and put it to his lips.

Now, Kit's parents, of course, were older, she remembered, definitely older than she was, Kit very presciently being the youngest of four children, each three years apart. And how well they all got along, the three of them, she and Kit and Henry.

Miranda dropped suddenly down on one knee and patted some sand into a pile. "Castle," she said.

Henry nodded vigorously. "Yes," he agreed. "Castle."

Miranda wondered what life would be like with this small, busy person at her side, day in and day out, waking her in the middle of the night with a bad dream and a soggy diaper, banging a gummy spoon on the kitchen table, crying in wild, piercing simian shrieks in the grocery store while grabbing at boxes of cereal. When Henry cried, his face crumpled so immediately, so completely. He was not crying now, though she was sure he soon would be, and for some reason she could never have anticipated — an ice-cream cone dropped yesterday, suddenly recalled; a filthy cigarette butt found in the sand and confiscated; the sand itself, suddenly deemed itchy and hostile; the wind, the sound of the waves, a gull swooping low? It could be anything, it would be something. But right now Henry was sitting on his heels poking holes in the wet sand with a stick. The yellow light held him in an embrace. His face was serious and beautiful.

She felt a hand on her hair and looked up. It was Kit, smiling down at her. She had almost forgotten he was there.

Once, Miranda asked Kit why he didn't return to his apartment in the city or move into his Aunt Charlotte's big house.

"I know this place is adorable and picturesque and all," she said, looking around at the boathouse. There were three rooms, all painted a glossy nautical white — a living room containing two Adirondack chairs, a rag rug, a tiny two-burner stove, and a half-size refrigerator; a small bedroom with a maple dresser and a brass bed from the time when people were apparently shorter and thinner; and an even smaller room with an ornate and old-fashioned crib. "But it's all sort of built for hobbits."

"Or Henry."

"But even little Henry needs screens. What do you do, pull out a mosquito net at night? Do you have a fan? Do you have heat? It's not winterized, is it? I hope you have hot water. You do, don't you?"

Kit laughed and nodded.

"But seriously, wouldn't you two be more comfortable in that big rambling mansion?... Manderley," she added in a thirties movie voice, suddenly self-conscious, worried she had crossed some sort of line.

"Aunt Charlotte would like nothing better, believe me, and I love Aunt Charlotte to death, and I'm really happy to stick around for a while to help her out with a few things before Henry and I go back to New York, but live with her? In the same house? No, thank you. And don't worry, my little homemaker. We not only have hot water, we have heat, don't we, Henry?"

That night when she returned home, Miranda told her mother and sister about this conversation.

"No screens? Feh," said Betty.

Miranda imagined Aunt Charlotte as someone like Big Edie from Grey Gardens.

"I lean more toward Miss Havisham," said Annie.

But they were never able to discover which one was closer, for none of them, not even Miranda, could ever think up a reason to meet the reclusive Miss Maybank, and Kit never offered to introduce the old lady.

On the days Kit needed to go into the city, he left Henry with Miranda.

"Now, don't let your friend take advantage of you," Betty said, thinking of the talk show she'd seen about grandmothers stuck raising the toddlers of young, irresponsible parents. She was not technically Henry's grandmother, and she liked the little tyke well enough, but if there was one thing she had learned from the many therapists adorning television's daytime couches, it was the need for boundaries. She had grown up thinking one was supposed to transcend boundaries in life, but it appeared she had been wrong.

Miranda laughed. "No, no," she said. "This is just what the doctor ordered."

And it did seem to do her good, the days spent on the beach searching for shells and sticks, digging saggy tunnels and building uneven, lumpy mounds. Her life in the city, her love affairs, even her work, seemed to fade. The agony of failure rose up and clutched at her still, but less often, with less force. She woke in the morning eager to get out of bed, to bathe with the lavender soap that Henry said smelled like tea. She and Henry had tea parties, just like the ones she had had as a child, with the exception of the fireplace ladies, who were invited, Miranda told Henry, but could not attend due to a previous engagement. She told him all about the fireplace ladies. He nodded sagely and poured his tea, which was really apple juice, on the floor, watching the puddles with scholarly absorption. When she gave him bubble baths, he took the plastic measuring cups and bowls provided for him and imitated her ritual of tea preparation. She was touched, to a degree that surprised her.

Sometimes she would sit Henry atop the ceremonial cannons at the beach and listen to him talk. He would tell long tales about a fox named Higbee.

"And then?" she would say, not paying attention, closing her eyes against the dying autumn sun and the sharp wind, her arms around Henry's waist, her shoulder against his leg. The joy of not listening — why had she never tried it before? Henry's voice was like music, a pretty little piccolo, the chant of a boy in his own boys' choir. No wonder people had children, she thought. A child replaced art and work and culture. A child, so small, so loud, took up all the time, all the energy, all the love. It was so easy: just give in, just let your life be ruled by this simple and tender embodiment of need. No choices, no decisions except those that related to one person, one little demanding Napoleonic person. She felt relief flood through her body: being with Henry was so clear-cut, so obvious, so essential, so undeniable and absolute.

When the stories got too boring even to ignore, Miranda took Henry down and they walked slowly home, stopping to examine the offerings of low tide — mussels, the abandoned, upturned armature of a horseshoe crab, a white pebble, a tangle of russet seaweed, a smell of salt and brine and smooth, sparkling muck.

One evening, Annie caught sight of Kit on the train coming home from the city, pushing the strands of boyish hair back from his face, smiling a rather dazzling smile. Seated in the back of the train car, she watched him walk past her, down the aisle, and she saw heads swivel to look at him, one, then another, as he passed by. He actually turns heads, she thought, amused. Annie could understand it. He was a magnificent creature to look at, a peach ripening on a branch. Annie caught herself noticing his strong young arms beneath his shirt. Even his wrists looked young and manly to her. For years, Annie had been aware of the physical beauty of her sons' friends. They would come and stay during college vacations and sleep piled in their rooms like a pack of dogs, then wander into the kitchen shirtless and sleepy, their hair tousled, their torsos long and smooth as ancient Greeks'. They would blink and stretch and eat, unconscious of their beauty, of the limber physical eloquence of youth. Annie had anesthetized any simmering physical response as quickly and thoroughly as possible. But you could admire them. In fact, how could you help but admire them?

Remembering those shaggy morning parades of boyish beauty, Annie found it natural to fall into a state of admiration for the handsome young Kit, and would have felt no unease if Miranda had done the same. But Miranda's reaction to Kit was not what Annie expected. First of all, Miranda rarely spoke of him, never extravagantly extolled the virtues that would later be cataloged as vices. Nor did she call him on the phone at short, regular intervals. She did not buy him absurdly expensive presents. She did not loudly announce her intense happiness, at last!, to salesgirls and crossing guards and the man behind the meat counter at the grocery store. This one time, Miranda did not fall impetuously in love, announcing that here at last was the one and only man for her. She did not spend every waking minute with him for four weeks and then weep her eyes out when she discovered that he was a fundamentalist, a lush, a Republican, whatever it was that rose up and disappointed her. This time, Miranda, depressed and disoriented by the collapse of her life of the past couple of hard-earned decades, had apparently not had the energy to throw herself into one of her accustomed ferocious love affairs. Her relationship with Kit was different, more even, more peaceful, more plain. Miranda seemed happy, which made Annie happy. But there was something worrisome, too. For who'd ever heard of a temperate Miranda? Without her cloak of extravagance, Miranda seemed so unprotected. She had let down her guard: her gaudy, frenetic, romantic guard. Which meant, Annie thought with dread, that anything could happen now.