She stared into her cup. There were no leaves indicating a trip, no specks that meant money, no twigs that were tall dark strangers. There was only a soggy tea bag.
Part IV
In November, Dr. Laurie MacGregor flew down from San Francisco to spend the Thanksgiving holiday with her husband, Tom Aragon. Considerable time was wasted on the problem of what to do with the live twenty-five-pound turkey which Smedler had sent to each of his employees from his brother-in-law’s turkey farm. The turkey, after a tranquilizing meal of grain sprinkled with vodka, was taken to the local children’s zoo, having lost no more than a few feathers and two friends.
At the club Mr. Henderson decorated the dining room with life-sized plastic skeletons, thus cutting some of the losses entailed by the Halloween Hoedown. People who questioned the propriety of the decorations were given an explanation which Henderson had cunningly devised to foil his critics. The skeletons were reminders of death and hence of the resurrection, for which everyone should be thankful on Thanksgiving. Little Miss Reach, who was ninety and closer to the subject than most, suggested that it would have been better to wait until Easter. Henderson made a note of this for future reference. There was a chance, however slight, that he and maybe even Miss Reach would still be around by Easter.
For Christmas, Cordelia Young received a new Mercedes from her parents. Her thank-you speech was brief: “Oh, dammit, I wanted a Ferrari.”
During the same week Mr. and Mrs. Quinn were sent official notice from Mr. Tolliver, Headmaster, that their son Frederic would not be welcome back for the spring term or any period thereafter. Frederic’s speech was also brief: “Hurray!” Mrs. Quinn told Frederic her heart was broken. Mr. Quinn said his was, too, but Mrs. Quinn said hers was more broken than his. During the ensuing argument Frederic was forgotten. He went up to his room, retrieved his Hate List from under the desk blotter where it was hidden and crossed off Mr. Tolliver’s name. It was silly to waste a lot of good clean Hate.
On New Year’s Eve, Charles Van Eyck attended the Regimental Ball to keep alive his contempt for the military in general and his brother-in-law, Admiral Young, in particular. He went through the receiving line three times, audibly noting the amount of gold braid and ornamental hardware and estimating their cost to the taxpayer. His sister, Iris, struck him on the shin with her cane. The Admiral was more tactfuclass="underline"
“My dear Charles, I’m afraid you’ve had too much to drink. You mustn’t make an ass of yourself.”
“Why not?” Van Eyck said amiably. “All you fellows are doing it.”
Van Eyck was also busy during February.
Amy Lou Worthington received anonymous and somewhat belated acknowledgment of her deflowering in the form of a sympathy card: “Sorry to Hear of Your Loss.”
Ellen Brewster found on her desk an old-fashioned lace-and-satin valentine with an old-fashioned message:
Van Eyck had brought it up to date and more in line with his sentiments by penciling out the last line.
Ellen went out to the terrace to thank him in person, but Van Eyck was having one of his sudden and mysterious attacks of deafness. He cupped his right ear and said, “Eh? What’s that? Speak up.”
“The valentine.”
“Eh?”
“Thank you for the valentine.”
“Eh?”
“An earthquake has struck Los Angeles and the entire city is in ruins.”
“It’s about time,” Van Eyck said. “I predicted this forty years ago.”
At intervals throughout the fall and winter Aragon thought of Miranda Shaw. He’d heard nothing about her at the office, and when he remembered to ask, it was always at an inconvenient time — the middle of the night or over the weekend when the office was closed or during Smedler’s and Charity’s separate but equal vacations.
It was in April that he saw her on the street, waiting outside the entrance to an underground garage that served a block of stores downtown. Whatever had happened to her during the past months, she had kept up appearances. She was perfectly groomed, her hair in a French twist at the nape of her neck, her dress a flowered silk with a voluminous pleated skirt and scarf. Though she was small, and standing very quietly, she couldn’t help being conspicuous among the housewives hurrying to sales and the clerks and secretaries to their jobs. The dress was too fancy and her makeup too theatrical for nine o’clock in the morning.
At closer range he noticed the subtle changes in her. Her red-gold hair seemed a little brassier and there were blue circles under her eyes and lines around her mouth that the makeup didn’t hide.
“Good morning, Mrs. Shaw.”
“Why, Mr. Aragon. How nice to see you again.”
They shook hands. Hers was thin and dry as paper.
“You’re looking very well, Mrs. Shaw.”
“I’m surviving. One mustn’t be greedy.” She hesitated, glancing over her shoulder as though checking for eavesdroppers. “I suppose you know my husband’s will went through probate in February and the bad news became official. He spent all of his own money and a great deal of other people’s.”
“How have you been living?”
“Strangely.”
“Strangely?”
“I believe that’s a fair way to describe it,” she said with a faint smile. “I have a job. It’s not exactly what I would have chosen but it makes me self-supporting for the first time in my life. I even have a social security number. Yes, it’s all quite official, I’m a working woman. Surprised, aren’t you?”
“A little.”
“The salary isn’t much but I get room and board and I won’t starve. Do you remember Ellen Brewster at the Penguin Club?”
“Oh yes.”
“It was her idea. I never thought I had anything worth teaching anyone, but apparently I do... Here they come now. Pretend we’re not talking about them.”
He didn’t have a chance to wonder who “they” were. Cordelia and Juliet were emerging from the underground garage, blinking in the sun like giant moles. They looked at Aragon without recognition or interest. He had no part in their world, there was only room for two.
“Cordelia rammed a concrete pillar,” Juliet said. “But it wasn’t her fault. There was an arrow pointing left and an arrow pointing right and she couldn’t make up her mind, so she hit the pillar which was in the middle.”
“An honest mistake,” Cordelia admitted cheerfully. “It could happen to anyone.”
“But especially you,” Juliet said.
“We learned a lesson from it, though.”
“It’s a dumb way to learn a lesson. Which I didn’t anyway.”
“You did so. You found out a Mercedes is no better than any other car when it comes up against concrete. Crash, bang, crunch, just like an ordinary Cadillac.”
“Pops won’t care but Mrs. Young will be furious.”
“Girls,” Miranda said. “Girls, please. Forget the car for a moment and pay attention to your manners. I’ve told you repeatedly not to refer to Admiral Young as Pops. He is your father. Wouldn’t it sound better to call him that?”
Cordelia shook her head. “Father is what you call somebody with his collar on backwards. Or like in our father who art in heaven. That kind of father belongs to everybody.”
“Our personal father is Pops,” Juliet said. “His wife is Mrs. Young.”
“Girls, please. I don’t want to be harsh with you but I must ask you not to call your mother Mrs. Young.”
“Why not? You do.”