“Yes, we’ve talked about that.”
“But if I were to try to think of anything from that very important time in my life that I wanted to talk about, or anyone I would even be inclined to mention... Now my two closest friends were both from Buffalo and both in Phi Ep with me.”
“Dan and who else?”
“A fellow named Mickey Ginsberg. I don’t know if you would have known him. He married a Baltimore girl and hasn’t been seen since. Those were my two best friends at college, but there were also several other guys I was very close to, extremely close to, and you know how it is at that stage of your life. I was sure I would never lose touch with them.”
“Yes.”
“I never invited them to the wedding. Never even sent them an announcement. Just a couple of years, but it makes that much difference. I never would have thought so at the time. I think you mentioned Winkie at one time or another.”
“I’m sure I did.”
“But you lost touch, and it’s been fewer years for you.”
She nodded.
“Were you very close?”
“She was the closest friend I’ve ever had.”
“Any idea why she would kill herself?”
“Not really.”
“Did she ever—”
“No.”
“Any history of emotional instability? Anything in the family, anything like that?”
She glanced at him, then broke her gaze when she realized she was staring. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I suppose she was a little crazy. We were all crazy, all the good guys were crazy.”
“How do you mean that?”
“I don’t know. She had a very original mind. She had as good a mind as anyone I’ve ever known. And she was terribly sophisticated — mercurial, I guess you could say.”
“Ups and downs?”
“Huh? Yes.” She paused to light a cigarette. “Intensity. That’s the best way to describe her. Everything was so desperately important and intense.”
“You mean she took things too seriously?”
“No, no, no. I don’t mean that at all.”
“Well, don’t bite my head off.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, baby. Come here.” She moved over and drew his head down into her lap and stroked his forehead with the tips of her fingers. “I didn’t mean she was serious. God, she had the most antic wit I ever came across. But she was — ‘intense’ is the only word I can come up with. Every moment was so very urgent and important.”
“Isn’t part of that the age she was when you knew her? College kids are always more intense.”
“And then you grow out of it.”
There must have been something in her voice because his eyes widened for a moment. “I wouldn’t put it that way exactly. Not a matter of outgrowing it necessarily. But it’s rare for that kind of intensity to last throughout a lifetime.”
“Unless the lifetime doesn’t last very long.”
He didn’t say anything. She went on stroking his forehead. She liked these times, this silent closeness, but tonight she felt both closer and more remote than usual.
“Eileen Fradin,” she said suddenly.
“What about her?”
“She never could have had that intensity that Winkie had.”
“You didn’t know her until recently.”
“No, but I know her well enough to know that about her. And in the same way I know Winkie didn’t stop living intensely, feeling things deeply. Maybe that’s what killed her.”
“You’re reaching, don’t you think?”
“Am I? Maybe she burned herself out.”
“Maybe.”
“Which isn’t likely to happen with Eileen.”
“Where does Eileen come into it? You sound as though she doesn’t measure up.”
“No, I don’t mean that.”
“She’s a good friend to you, isn’t she?”
“Yes, I guess she is,” she said slowly. “I don’t really know her. I spend a lot of time with her but we don’t really talk about anything. I’m not close with her the way I was with Winkie. I don’t think I ever could be.”
“You might be surprised. How long did you know Winkie? A couple of years at college and a couple of years in New York?”
“I hardly ever saw her in New York.”
“Well, we might be friendly with Eileen and Roger for the next forty or fifty years.”
“God.”
“Does it sound that unpleasant?”
“No. I just never thought in those terms. But it’s true, isn’t it?”
“And you and Eileen have things in common that you and Winkie didn’t.”
“You’ve got that backwards, don’t you?”
He shook his head. “Not at all. No, not at all. You and Eileen grew up together, whether you really knew each other at the time or not. Their son’s older, but their second baby’ll be about the same as our first. Roger’ll join Northlawn in a year or so. He and I get along reasonably well. After the baby comes we’ll want a house, and if we don’t buy in Amherst we’ll probably buy near the Fradins, and if we do buy in Amherst their next house will probably be in Amherst. Add up all the different variations on those themes over thirty or forty or fifty years and compare them to what you had in common with what’s-her-name, Winkie. And all that really amounted to was that you happened to go to the same girls’ school at the same time.”
“You’ve thought about this.”
“Not really.”
“It sounds as though you resent Winkie. Do you? I can’t imagine why you would.”
“I don’t. Sometimes, oh, I don’t know.”
“What?”
“Sometimes I think you take people like Eileen for granted.”
“But that’s not fair!”
“Hey, I’m sorry. Baby? Don’t be upset. Listen, let me put on some records. Is there anything special you’d like to hear?”
“Anything at all,” she said.
Was there anyone she should call? Anything she should do?
July 17th, the Alumnae Bulletin had said. That was more than two months ago. And no one had called her.
But who would have called? Dana? Dana would probably have learned the same way that she learned — if Dana even bothered to keep up with alumnae news. And Dana wouldn’t call her any more than she would now call Dana. There was no one who might have called her with the news, and there was no one for her to inform in her turn.
She had never met either of Winkie’s parents. They had been long divorced and Winkie had never been enormously fond of either of them. Andrea’s parents had met Winkie twice. No, three times. They had seemed to like each other well enough.
That was one person she could tell. “Mother? You remember Winkie Welles, don’t you? Well, she killed herself two months ago. It’s too late to go to the funeral, not that there would have been any reason for you to go in the first place. I won’t say what she died of but she took a lot of sleeping pills, so as far as where to send the contribution—”
Where? Was there an American Suicide League to accept contributions? An institution that collected funds and sponsored research that mapped those black holes on the edge of thought?
Oh, but there was always the prayer-book fund. And that would be quite perfect. For every three dollars you sent they purchased yet another prayer book for the temple, and a bookplate inside the front cover memorialized the deceased. “Presented in Loving Memory of Winifred Crispin Welles.”
Excellent. She would write a check herself, payable to the prayer-book fund of Temple Beth Sholom. And no acknowledgment need be sent, thank you.
Winkie, wherever you are, you’ll get a laugh out of that, won’t you? Won’t you?