Good Lord, she was fading. That was it. Just fading. From radiance to glow. Like her eyesight, her face was fading. Reading glasses she had almost resigned herself to, but when it’s your face—what do you do, wear a mask?
Yes. But you call it makeup.
Was it worth it, this life? In love with Henry in the odd moment he expressed a need for her, in love with her television station, in love with her schedules, DETAILS, in love with ignoring the passing days of her life. When, exactly, was it that she had stopped insisting they drive out every weekend to the house in Connecticut? When was it she had decided to let the garden go, and not care if the house was painted or not? When had she stopped wishing they had a dog?
When had Cassy Cochran stopped wishing for anything?
Someone was knocking on the door. “Just a minute,” she called out. And what was this singsong in her voice? Why didn’t she just gently cast flowers from a basket as she walked?
It was Rosanne, balancing a tray of hors d’oeuvres on her hip. “Henry’s on the phone. The kid sounds funny so I thought I better get you.”
Cassy’s heart skipped a beat, for Henry never sounded “funny.”
“I’ll take it in the study.” Cassy walked down the hall and opened the door to the study. It was off limits at parties because it was here that the Cochrans harbored what they did best—sift and sort through work and projects. There were three television sets, two VCRs, tons of scripts, computer printouts and magazines. There were two solid walls of video tapes; the other two walls were covered with photographs of the Cochrans with various television greats over the years and, too, there were a number of awards: Emmys, Peabodys, a Christopher, a Silver Gavel, two Duponts, and even a Clio from a free-lance job of Michael’s years ago. What a lovely mess. Pictures and papers. What they both understood completely. His chair, his desk; her chair, her desk; the old sofa they couldn’t part with, where Henry had been conceived so many years before.
“Henry?”
“Hi, Mom.”
He does sound funny.
“What’s wrong?”
Pause. “Well, Mom, I’m sort of in a situation where I’m not really sure what to do.” Pause. “Mom?”
“Yes?”
He sighed and sounded old. “I’m over at Skipper’s and the Marshalls aren’t home yet.” Pause.
Let him explain.
“Skipper was drinking beer at Shea and then here…Mom, he’s kind of getting sick all over the place and I don’t know what to do.” He hurried on. “I tried to get him to go to bed but he threw up all over the place and then started running around.” Little voice. “He just got sick in the dining room. Mom—”
“Listen, sweetheart, don’t panic, I’m coming right over. But listen to me carefully. Stay with Skipper and make sure he doesn’t hurt himself.”
“He’s sort of out of it.”
“If he starts to get sick again, make sure he’s sitting up. Don’t let him choke. Okay, sweetheart? Just hang on, I’ll be right there.”
Cassy grabbed her coat and purse and went back into the party to find Michael. Easier said than done. Where had all these people come from anyway? Some woman was playing “Hey, Look Me Over” on the piano, while Elvis was belting “Blue Suede Shoes” on the stereo.
Where the hell is Michael?
Where the hell is Alexandra Waring?
Well, at least Cassy knew who was with whom.
The Marshalls lived on Park Avenue at 84th Street. Skipper was a classmate of Henry’s, a friendship sanctioned by Michael since Roderick Marshall was the longtime president of the Mainwright Club, of which Michael yearned to be a member. (He was turned down year after year.) As for Cassy, she thought the Marshalls were stupid people. Period. And because she felt that way, she had become rather fond of Skipper for openly airing all of the family secrets (his mother had had two face lifts; his father went away on weekends with his mistress; they had paid two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to marry off Skipper’s hopeless sister…).
While Cassy wouldn’t have chosen Skipper as Henry’s buddy, she did appreciate one of Skipper’s attributes—he absolutely worshiped the ground Henry walked on. And he was bright; he understood all of Henry’s complicated interests; and he was loyal, not only to Henry, but to all of the Cochrans. (Whenever Cassy told the boys it was time to go to bed, Skipper always made a point of thanking her for letting him stay over. “I really like it here,” he would declare. “I would really like it if you liked my liking it—do you, Mrs. C?”
“Yes, Skipper, I do,” Cassy would say, making him grin.)
The poor kids. Cassy found Henry sitting shell-shocked on the lid of the toilet seat in the front powder room while Skipper snored on the tile floor, his arm curled around the base of the john. Lord, what a mess. Henry held Skipper up so that Cassy could at least wash the vomit off his face and take off his shirt. They took him to his room, changed him into pajamas, and then put him to bed in one of the guest rooms since his own was such a mess. With Henry’s help she found the number of the maid and Cassy called. Would she come over since no one knew where the Marshalls were, or when they could come home? She would.
Cassy stripped the sheets in Skipper’s room and, with Henry, cleaned up the worst from the carpets around the house. Aside from answering her questions about where things were, Henry hadn’t volunteered anything. Cassy checked on Skipper again; he was long gone, in a peaceful sleep now.
They sat in the kitchen and shared a Coke.
“Are you sure the Marshalls didn’t leave a number?”
Glum. “Yes.”
“Henry,” Cassy asked after a moment, “do you like to drink?”
He glared at her. “Mom.”
“No, sweetheart, it’s okay. I mean, I know all kids experiment sometime. I just wondered about you. About how you felt about alcohol.”
He shook his head and looked down at the table, restlessly moving his glass.
“Henry—”
“I hate it.” His voice was so low, so hostile, Cassy wasn’t sure she’d heard it right.
“What, sweetheart?”
He looked up briefly, let go of his glass, and leaned back on the legs of the chair. He caught his mother’s look and came back down on the floor with a thump. Back to the old tried and true position. “I hate the stuff. It makes me sick.” A short pause. “Why do people have to drink that stuff? It just makes them act like jerks and it’s not good for your body, so what’s the point?”
Cassy’s mind raced with that one. After a moment she asked, “Does Skipper drink a lot?”
Henry gave her a does-he-look-like-he-does-silly-old-Mom look. “He tries to.”
“Has he ever said why?”
Another look, not dissimilar to the last. “No. He just does it whenever he’s pissed at his parents.”
“Angry.”
“What?”
“Angry at his parents.”
“Yeah, anyway—today his mother told him he couldn’t go to Colorado.”
“Why not?”
Henry shrugged. “Bad mood, probably. She’s like that.”
By the time the maid arrived, Cassy had changed her mind about what to do. She apologized to Angie for bringing her over,