Outside the penthouse window, one tall fir tree, standing in its own tub, fought back the sun. Along the glass fence, holly bushes and mistletoe had been planted that week. The earth was still moist and turned. The winter light splashed the roofs of the other apartment buildings, which stretched as far as the East River in this direction, each one of them studded with evergreens growing out of miniature walled gardens, high up in private communion with the sky.
A little later, Josephine and I sat on the light blue linen sofa in the living room, sinking deeper into its wide cushions, watching The Big Top, a live circus show for kids. I was glaring at the set. The front door slammed and Grandpa swooped in, still wearing his hat and coat, trailing cold air. His delicate hooked nose was red, and behind his bifocals, his blue eyes watered.
“Hello, girls,” he said, meaning Josephine and me. “Where’s your pa? I was going to steal Ray away from his daughter for a chess game.”
“Good afternoon, Mr. Abram,” Josephine said. “Mr. Chace hasn’t arrived. He hasn’t called either. I can’t imagine.”
“Well, I’m going to my study. Let me know when he shows up,” he said.
I tried not to look at him when he kissed me before he went away.
Grandma was still at Elizabeth Arden, getting made over. My mother had gone out for a long lunch with some writer friends. The phone had not rung since after breakfast, so when it did, Josephine patted my arm and said, “That’ll be him, to say he’s on his way.”
A second or two later, Bridget appeared in the doorway and nodded. Josephine went to the phone in the hall, followed by me.
“Yes, yes, I understand. Circumstances,” she was saying into the phone. “We were expecting you at one for lunch, but that’s all right. Just hop into a cab. Janet is so anxious to see you.”
I tugged Josephine’s elbow. “Does he want to talk to me?”
“No, no. He just called to tell us he’s on his way.”
“Where is he, in New York?”
“He’s in New York, right outside Grand Central. He was detained, but now he’s coming,” Josephine said as she hung up.
“Didn’t he want to say hello to me?”
“He’s on his way,” she said. “You’ll see him in person in a few minutes.”
“How many minutes?”
She hesitated. “Fifteen.”
I pulled my nurse’s wrist down and read her watch. “It’s exactly two twenty-one.” I began counting with my fingers. “Two twenty-one plus ten plus five, two thirty-six. He’ll be here by two thirty-six.”
“If not before,” Josephine said, and we went back to take our places on the sofa.
At three o’clock I got up and changed the channel. A still shot of the city at night flashed on the screen. The theme from Gone with the Wind played behind the familiar voice of the announcer introducing this afternoon’s “Million Dollar Movie,” Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid. I had seen the last half of it three times that week after school. I loved the part, without knowing exactly why, where the mermaid lay close to Mr. Peabody, drinking out of a glass, a helpless creature, locked in a fish’s tail, rolling around on his patio. I didn’t know whether it was funny or sad. The mermaid wore bright red lipstick; even when she popped out of the sea she was wearing lipstick.
After the movie ended, with Mr. Peabody looking out his New York window at the falling snow, Josephine put her arm around me, patting my shoulder. “There, there,” she said. That made it worse. I shook off my nurse and went to the picture window. Directly across from me, the deep orange sun began to slip behind the left tower of the Majestic. Suddenly, in between bare trees, the streetlights in the Park came on. An occasional car wound along the drive inside the Park. It was that time of day on a weekend in winter when people find themselves alone and caught off guard by the early darkness.
The doorbell rang. Josephine leapt to her feet like a fat girl jumping rope and went to the door. Maggie rushed in, the cold air surrounding her like a strong perfume. She threw her dark, sheared beaver coat over the banister. She looked like her father, short and compact, the same periwinkle-blue eyes set in a heart-shaped face. She was wearing a fitted gray flannel suit with a deep red fox collar. A little gray suede hat perched itself at an angle on her head from which flew a gray veil, covering her forehead like a gossamer flag. Her fine hair shot out in loose waves from underneath her hat, suggesting angles in her plump cheeks. She was grinning, as if someone had just told her a joke and she was still laughing. Clutching her purse, she walked deliberately on her high heels, as if she were following chalk marks on a stage floor, and stood at the wide entrance to the living room. Then she was no longer smiling.
“Where’s your daddy?”
I turned back to the window.
“He called, missus,” Josephine said. “He’s running behind.”
Maggie looked at her slim gold watch. She tossed her head. “Well, that figures,” she said.
She went over to me, reached out to touch my face. I pulled away as if I had been stung and moved closer to the window.
“I’m sorry, honey,” my mother said. “You know he means well. He just can’t help it.”
The doorbell rang. Everyone turned to face the sound as if they were expecting the enemy. The bell rang again, three rapid sets of ding-dongs. The two women and I sank back. It was Grandma then. Bridget ran out from the kitchen, taking mincing steps as if she were hobbled, and pulled open the door. She half curtsied in an eager dumb show of fear. A tiny woman wearing long blond hair swept up in combs shuffled through the door. She was bowed under the weight of a silver fur. Bridget stood with her arms outstretched at the old woman’s back, ready to receive the coat.
“Good evening,” Grandmother said.
“Good evening,” Bridget said, as she scooped up Maggie’s abandoned sheared beaver from where it had fallen on the stairs and threw it on top of the undulating mink.
My grandmother’s eyes were the color of ice on a lake. She turned and peered into the living room. “Don’t you people believe in electricity?”
The room was dark. Josephine hurried around it, first turning on the running lights along the bookshelves and then a three-way standing lamp in one corner. The old woman smiled without showing her teeth.
“Good, I’m glad everyone is here. We won’t be late for dinner. Mr. Abram is in his study, I take it?”
“Yes, madame,” Josephine said.
“Well, I’m sorry that I missed Rayfield. Such an attractive man. You will tell him how sorry I am, won’t you, Maggie, the next time you speak to him?”
“He hasn’t been here, Mother,” Maggie said.
“Oh?” the old lady asked without surprise. “I had understood that he was visiting Janet today.”
“Well, he stood her up,” Maggie said. She went to put her arm around me and I pulled away.
“Perhaps he will turn up yet. Bridget, kindly tell Anna that there will be one more for dinner and set another place.”
“No, Bridget,” Maggie said, walking over to the maid and retrieving her coat, which she hung in the closet behind them. “That won’t be necessary. I don’t want him here drunk.”
“Maggie, must you continually contradict me and confuse the servants? Set another place, Bridget. That will be all. I don’t want to be disturbed until dinner.” The old woman disappeared into her room. They heard her door slam.
Bridget pulled a large, polished oak hanger from out of the hall closet and very gingerly folded the big coat around it. “Will you need anything, Mrs. Margaret?” she asked my