I
watch Alba mix the water and the wheat together, and I think of Alba at ten, at
fifteen, at twenty. It is not nearly enough, yet. I am not done, yet. I want to be
here. I want to see them, I want to gather them in my arms, I want to live-
"Daddy's crying" Alba whispers to Clare.
"That's because he has to eat my cooking" Clare tells her, and winks at me,
and I have to laugh.
NEW YEAR'S EVE, TWO
Sunday, December 31, 2006 (Clare is 35, Henry is 43)
(7:25p.m.)
Clare: We're having a party! Henry was kind of reluctant at first but he seems
perfectly content now. He's sitting at the kitchen table showing Alba how to cut
flowers out of carrots and radishes. I admit that I didn't exactly play fair: I
brought it up in front of Alba and she got all excited and then he couldn't bear to
disappoint her.
"It'll be great, Henry. We'll ask everyone we know."
"Everyone?" he queried, smiling.
"Everyone we like ," I amended. And so for days I've been cleaning, and Henry
and Alba have been baking cookies (although half the dough goes into Alba's
mouth if we don't watch her). Yesterday Charisse and I went to the grocery store
and bought dips, chips, spreads, every possible kind of vegetable, and beer, and
wine, and champagne, little colored hors d'ouvres toothpicks, and napkins with
Happy New Year printed in gold, and matching paper plates and Lord knows
what else. Now the whole house smells like meatballs and the rapidly dying
Christmas tree in the living room.
Alicia is here washing our wineglasses.
Henry looks up at me and says, "Hey, Clare, it's almost showtime. Go take
your shower." I glance at my watch and realize that yes, it's time.
Into the shower and wash hair and dry hair and into underwear and bra,
stockings and black silk party dress, heels and a tiny dab of perfume and lipstick
and one last look in the mirror (I look startled) and back into the kitchen where
Alba, oddly enough, is still pristine in her blue velvet dress and Henry is still
wearing his holey red flannel shirt and ripped-up blue jeans.
"Aren't you going to change?"
"Oh-yeah. Sure. Help me, huh?" I wheel him into our bedroom.
"What do you want to wear?" I'm hunting through his drawers for underwear
and socks.
"Whatever. You choose." Henry reaches over and shuts the bedroom door.
"Come here."
I stop riffing through the closet and look at Henry. He puts the brake on the
wheelchair and maneuvers his body onto the bed.
"There's no time" I say.
"Right, exactly. So let's not waste time talking." His voice is quiet and
compelling. I flip the lock on the door.
"You know, I just got dressed-"
"Shhh." He holds out his arms to me, and I relent, and sit beside him, and the
phrase one last time pops into my mind unbidden.
(8:05p.m.)
Henry: The doorbell rings just as I am knotting my tie. Clare says nervously, "Do
I look all right?" She does, she is pink and lovely, and I tell her so. We emerge
from the bedroom as Alba runs to answer the door and starts yelling "Grandpa!
Grandpa! Kimy!" My father stomps his snowy boots and leans to hug her. Clare
kisses him on both cheeks. Dad rewards her with his coat. Alba commandeers
Kimy and takes her to see the Christmas tree before she even gets her coat off.
"Hello, Henry," says Dad, smiling, leaning over me and suddenly it hits me:
tonight my life will flash before my eyes. We've invited everyone who matters to
us: Dad, Kimy, Alicia, Gomez, Charisse, Philip, Mark and Sharon and their kids,
Gram, Ben, Helen, Ruth, Kendrick and Nancy and their' kids, Roberto, Catherine,
Isabelle, Matt, Amelia, artist friends of Clare's, library school friends of mine,
parents of Alba's friends, Clare's dealer, even Celia Attley, at Clare's
insistence...The only people missing have been unavoidably detained: my
mother, Lucille, Ingrid...Oh, God. Help me.
(8:20 p.m.)
Clare: Gomez and Charisse come breezing in like kamikaze jet fighters. "Hey
Library Boy, you lazy coot, don't you ever shovel your sidewalks?"
Henry smacks his forehead. "I knew I forgot something." Gomez dumps a
shopping bag full of CDs in Henry's lap and goes out to clean the walks. Charisse
laughs and follows me into the kitchen. She takes out a huge bottle of Russian
vodka and sticks it in the freezer. We can hear Gomez singing "Let It Snow" as he
makes his way down the side of the house with the shovel.
"Where are the kids?" I ask Charisse.
"We parked them at my mom's. It's New Year's; we figured they'd have more
fun with Grandma. Plus we decided to have our hangovers in privacy, you
know?" I've never given it much thought, actually; I haven't been drunk since
before Alba was conceived. Alba comes running into the kitchen and Charisse
gives her an enthusiastic hug. "Hey, Baby Girl! We brought you a Christmas
present!"
Alba looks at me. "Go ahead and open it." It's a tiny manicure set, complete
with nail polish. Alba is open-mouthed with awe. I nudge her, and she
remembers.
" Thank you, Aunt Charisse."
"You're welcome, Alba."
"Go show Daddy," I tell her, and she runs off in the direction of the living
room. I stick my head into the hall and I can see Alba gesturing excitedly at
Henry, who holds out his fmgers for her as though contemplating a
fingernailectomy. "Big hit," I tell Charisse.
She smiles. "That was my trip when I was little. I wanted to be a beautician
when I grew up."
I laugh. "But you couldn't hack it, so you became an artist."
"I met Gomez and realized that nobody ever overthrew the bourgeois
capitalist misogynist corporate operating system by perming its hair."
"Of course, we haven't exactly been beating it to its knees by selling it art,
either."
"Speak for yourself, babe. You're just addicted to beauty, that's all."
"Guilty, guilty, guilty." We wander into the dining room and Charisse begins
to load up her plate. "So what are you working on?" I ask her.
"Computer viruses as art."
"Oooh." Oh, no. "Isn't that kind of illegal?"
"Well; no. I just design them, then I paint the html onto canvas, then I have a
show. I don't actually put them into circulation."
"But someone could."
"Sure." Charisse smiles wickedly. "I hope they do. Gomez scoffs, but some of
these little paintings could seriously inconvenience the World Bank and Bill
Gates and those bastards who make ATM machines."
"Well, good luck. When's the show?"
"May. I'll send you a card."
"Yeah, when I get it I'll convert our assets into gold and lay in bottled water"
Charisse laughs. Catherine and Amelia arrive, and we cease to speak of World
Anarchy Through Art and move on to admiring each other's party dresses.
(8:50 p.m.)
HENRY: The house is packed with our nearest and dearest, some of whom I
haven't seen since before the surgery. Leah Jacobs, Clare's dealer, is tactful and
kind, but I find it difficult to withstand the pity in her gaze. Celia surprises me by
walking right up to me and offering her hand. I take it, and she says, "I'm sorry to
see you like this."
"Well, you look great," I say, and she does. Her hair is done up really high
and she's dressed all in shimmery blue.
"Uh-huh," says Celia in her fabulous toffee voice. "I liked it better when you
were bad and I could just hate your skinny white self."
I laugh. "Ah, the good old days."
She delves into her purse. "I found this a long time ago in Ingrid's stuff. I
thought Clare might want it." Celia hands me a photograph. It's a photo of me,
probably from around 1990. My hair is long and I'm laughing, standing on Oak
Street Beach, no shirt. It's a great photograph. I don't remember Ingrid taking it,
but then again, so much of my time with Ing is kind of a blank now.
"Yeah, I bet she would like it. Memento mori." I hand the picture back to her.
Celia glances at me sharply. "You're not dead, Henry DeTamble."
"I'm not far from it, Celia."
Celia laughs. "Well, if you get to Hell before I do, save me a place next to
Ingrid." She turns abruptly and walks off in search of Clare.
(9:45 p.m.)
Clare: The children have run around and eaten too much party food and now
they are sleepy but cranky. I pass Colin Kendrick in the hall and ask if he wants
to take a nap; he tells me very solemnly that he'd like to stay up with the
grown-ups. I am touched by his politeness and his fourteen-year-old's beauty, his
shyness with me even though he's known me all his life. Alba and Nadia
Kendrick are not so restrained. "Mamaaa," Alba bleats, "you said we could stay
up!"
"Sure you don't want to sleep for a while? I'll wake you up right before
midnight."
" Nooooo." Kendrick is listening to this exchange and I shrug my shoulders and
he laughs.
"The Indomitable Duo. Okay, girls, why don't you go play quietly in Alba's
room for a while." They shuffle off, grumbling. We know that within minutes
they'll be playing happily.
"It's good to see you, Clare," Kendrick says as Alicia ambles over.
"Hey, Clare. Get a load of Daddy." I follow Alicia's gaze and realize that our
father is flirting with Isabelle. "Who is that?"
"Oh, my god." I'm laughing. "That's Isabelle Berk." I start to outline Isabelle's
draconian sexual proclivities for Alicia. We are laughing so hard we can hardly
breathe. "Perfect, perfect. Oh. Stop," Alicia says.
Richard comes over to us, drawn by our hysterics. "What's so funny, bella
donnas?"
We shake our heads, still giggling. "They're mocking the mating rituals of
their paternal authority figure," says Kendrick. Richard nods, bemused, and asks
Alicia about her spring concert schedule. They wander off in the direction of the
kitchen, talking Bucharest and Bartok. Kendrick is still standing next to me,
waiting to say something I don't want to hear. I begin to excuse myself, and he
puts his hand on my arm.
"Wait, Clare-" I wait. "I'm sorry," he says.
"It's okay, David." We stare at each other for a moment. Kendrick shakes his
head, rumbles for his cigarettes. "If you ever want to come by the lab I could
show you what