Scott Spencer - A Ship Made of Paper

“Daniel?”She pats him on the arm.“You look a little crazy.”

“I do?”He blinks, as ifjust awakened.And then they see them, moving quickly along ManchesterAvenue, hurrying, arm in arm.

“Hello!”Daniel calls out, eagerly raising his hand as ifhe were a schoolboy with the right answer.Iris is wearing a gray overcoat, black pants, boots, a kind ofAfrican hat.Everything seems a couple sizes too large, she is like some goofy kid wearing her mother’s clothes.Not so with the husband.Hampton—his skin pale toffee, his emanation of coiled energy, his aura ofwealth—is wearing a sumptuous, practically edible-looking cashmere coat, a paisley silk scarfwith tassels.He has those round little glasses, steel framed, gentle, scholarly, that Kate iden-tifies as deliberately reassuring, nonsexual, a little eunuchy, really, the signifying eyewear ofthe black professional.

Daniel kisses Iris’s cheek, and Hampton, seeing this, plants a quick kiss on Kate, with all the tenderness ofa clerk stamping a bill paid.

The four ofthem make their way into the church.St.John’s is for Leyden’s upper-class Episcopalians, and for those who like to pray with their betters.It’s chilly, Spartan, like a lodge high in theAustrianAlps.All that woodwork, the fresh white flowers, and the Episcopalian flag that reminds her ofthe Red Cross.She and Daniel, and then Iris and Hamp-ton, find places in a back pew.The orchestra is already tuning up as they arrange themselves.Daniel and Iris seem to be intent on not making the slightest eye contact.

Kate tries to keep her attention riveted upon the orchestra and the chorus throughout the concert.The conductor is Ethan Greenblatt, pres-ident ofMarlowe College, a handsome young academic superstar with an explosion ofcurly hair and a fussy bow tie.He is pushing the musicians through the piece at breakneck speed, as ifafraid ofdetaining the audi-

ence past its attention span.But from time to time, Kate must glance at Daniel.His eyes are closed, but she’s sure he’s awake.Hampton takes Iris’s hand, brings it to his lips, while she stares intently ahead.And then, Kate sees Daniel glancing at Iris.Their eyes meet for a moment, but it has the impact ofcymbals crashing.It is a shocking, agitating thing to see.It’s like being in a store with someone and watching them steal something.

Afterward, the four ofthem walk to the GeorgeWashington Inn, where Iris has made dinner reservations.The Inn is redolent with Colo-nial history—low, beamed ceilings, wormy old tavern tables, an im-mense blackened fireplace.A high school girl serves them a basket of rolls, then comes back to fill their water glasses.She pours Hampton’s last and accidentally fills it to the very top;in fact, a little ofit laps onto the table.“Oops,”she says, but Hampton looks away.His jaw is suddenly rigid.Iris touches his knee, pats it, as ifto calm him down.With her other hand, she is dabbing the little dime-sized puddle with her napkin.

A moment later, a waiter appears to take their drink orders.Daniel and Kate are used to this waiter, middle-aged, vain, and formal.Hamp-ton, however, sees the waiter’s extreme tact as an extension ofthe bus-girl’s spilling his water, and he orders a vodka martini in a surly voice.

”UseAbsolut,”he says.“I’ll know ifthe bartender uses the house brand.”

Iris looks down at her lap;when she raises her gaze again she sees Daniel is looking at her, smiling.It startles her into smiling back.The two ofthem seem so happy to be gazing at each other, and Kate feels like Princess Kitty standing at the edge ofthe room and noticing the joy that floods their faces whenVronsky’s andAnna Karenina’s eyes meet.Kate wonders exactly how far along these two really are.Is it too late to stop them?

“So, Hampton,”Kate says,“tell me.I hear all about Iris from Daniel, but nothing about you.You’re in the city most ofthe time?”

“I come up here on the weekend,”Hampton says.“During the workweek, I stay at the apartment where we used to live before Iris got into Marlowe.”

“It’s a beautiful apartment,”Iris says.She glances at Hampton, who smiles at her.

“So what keeps you down in the city all week?”Kate asks.

”I’m co–managing director oftheAtlantic Fund,”Hampton says.

”He’s an investment banker,”Iris says, in the same anxious-to-please tone in which she said their apartment was beautiful.To Kate, Iris sounds like a woman whose husband has complained about how she treats him in public.

“TheAtlantic Fund provides capital toAfrican-American business,”

Hampton says.“It’s sometimes difficult for black-owned businesses to get what they need from the white banking structure.”He cranes his neck, looks for the waiter.“Just like it’s hard to get a white waiter to bring you a drink.”He breathes out so hard his cheeks pufffor a moment.“I’ve never come here, and now I know why.”

“Have we really been waiting that long?”asks Kate.“It seems like we just sat down.”She looks to Daniel for confirmation, but all Daniel can manage is a shrug.He is on a plane and he has just heard something in the pitch ofthe engine’s roar that makes him feel the flight is doomed.

“God, that music was so wonderful,”Iris says.

”The first time I heard Handel’s Messiah, I was four years old,”Hampton says, his eyes on Kate.“My grandmother was in a chorus that per-formed it for Richard Nixon, at theWhite House.”This comment is in keeping with remarks he’s been making since they left the church.Al-ready they’d heard references to his grandfather’s Harvard roommate, his great-grandfather’s Presbyterian mission in the Congo, his mother’s spending five thousand dollars on haute couture in Paris when she was eleven years old, his aunt Dorothy’s short engagement to Colin Powell, the suspicious fire at theWelles vacation compound on Martha’sVine-yard.He boasts about his lineage in a way that Kate thinks would simply not be allowed from a white person.

“Thurgood Marshall was a friend ofthe family and he was there, too, ofcourse.Unfortunately, he fell asleep after ten minutes.Gramma said they all sang extra loud to cover Justice Marshall’s snoring.”

Kate wonders ifHampton is trying to put Daniel on alert.He, too, must sense what’s happening.She has to admit that she is enjoying this foursome more than she’d dared hope.It captures her imagination in some creepy, achey way, like sucking on a tooth that’s just starting to die.

“Is this the same grandmother who played the cello?”she asks. Maybe

if you thought a little less about your grandmother’s pedigree and a little more about your wife, she wouldn’t be squirming in her chair and eyeing my boyfriend.

“No, the cellist wasAbigailWelles, ofBoston, my father’s mother.The singing grandma was Lucille Cox, ofAtlanta, on my mother’s side.”

“I have many Coxes in my family,”Kate says.“On my mother’s side, many ofthem from Georgia, too.”

There is a briefsilence, and then Kate says what she guesses must be passing through everyone’s mind.“Ofcourse, there’s a chance that one of my Coxes held one ofyour Coxes in slavery.”

“In that case,”says Daniel, lifting his wine glass,“dinner’s on us.”

For the first time that evening, Hampton smiles.Beaming, his face grows younger.His teeth are large, even, and very white, and he casts his eye downward, as ifthe moment’s pleasure makes him shy.Kate can imagine the moment when Iris first saw that smile, how it must have drawn her in and made her want to fathom the secret cave ofselfthat was his smile’s source.

“Hampton,”Kate says.“That’s an interesting name.”

“My family’s full ofHamptons,”he says.“We come from Hampton,