Kate Christensen - The Great Man

“Oh God,” said Lila. “Clothes…I need help here, Teddy. I don’t think I have anything…. It’s been so long.”

“Let’s go in and see what you’ve got.”

“I’m telling you, nothing.”

“Come on.”

Upstairs in Lila’s bedroom, Teddy rifled through her closet.

“Maybe I don’t want to wear a dress,” said Lila. “I don’t want to seem old. Aren’t dresses sort of old-seeming?”

“Look,” said Teddy. “I can’t believe you’ve still got this.” She pulled out a bottle green granny dress with an embroidered bodice. Lila had worn it all weekend once at a rock festival in the late sixties. She and Teddy had taken the kids, all five of them. Lila’s three boys were older than Teddy’s twin girls, so they couldn’t all play together in one satisfying clump; they had to be monitored in two distinct groups. Lila and Teddy, with the help of Lila’s boys, had pitched two big tents side by side in a field, spent the entire weekend soaked with rain, marshaling their offspring to and from makeshift outhouses, feeding everyone peanut butter sandwiches, making sure no one drowned in the creek, while all around them, people not much younger than they were, tripping on acid, danced to meandering guitar solos in the downpour, flowers in their hair and beads around their necks. Still, it was a weekend they’d looked back on together through the years with a sense that it had been memorable and amazing in some way they couldn’t quite identify; the memory of it made them both nostalgic for something, although they weren’t sure what or why.

Lila and Teddy looked together at the dress for a moment; then Teddy put it back into the closet. “I don’t think dresses per se are old-looking,” she said. “Look, what about this one? This one is beautiful and youthful and I think it’s very sexy on you.”

Lila took the dress Teddy handed her, a deep blue sundress with fitted bodice and full skirt. She held it against herself and looked down, patting the dress against her stomach. “You think this is all right? My arm dingle-dangle won’t gross him out?”

“He’ll fall at your feet,” said Teddy.

Lila laid the dress on her bed and wandered out of the bedroom and down the curved staircase. Teddy quickly cased the boudoir, pretending to be a potential suitor, looking for any telltale old-lady signs. Nothing but a pill bottle, which she knew contained Lila’s hormone-replacement therapy, which she’d told her for years not to take because it probably caused cancer (although really, what didn’t these days?), and a threadbare flannel nightgown that very well might have hailed from Lila’s first marriage. She scooped up both and hid them in Lila’s underwear drawer, then went out to the landing and called, “Where did you go?”

“What are you doing up there?” called Lila, who was tidying the living room with exactly the same thing in mind as Teddy, hiding her copies of Active Senior magazine and the special pillow that allowed her to sit without bothering her occasional hemorrhoids.

“Hiding your grandma nightie and your hormone pills in your underwear drawer,” called Teddy on her way downstairs.

“Come in here, Teddy,” Lila said in a different tone. “Look what I found.”

When Teddy came into the living room, Lila handed her an envelope. “It was on the floor by the front door. I must have missed it when the mail came yesterday. Look, it’s from Oscar’s sister.”

“Maxine? Why is she writing to you?” Teddy opened the envelope and slid out a piece of paper carefully folded into thirds. On it was a brief handwritten note. “‘Dear Lila,’” Teddy read out loud. “‘I don’t know whether you know about Oscar’s two new biographers. Their names are Henry Burke and Ralph Washington, and they’re both nosing around Oscar’s family and friends this summer in hopes of getting information about him for their respective books. I imagine they’ll contact you, as the best friend of Oscar’s mistress. If they do, please notify me before you speak to either one of them. There are a few things I’d like to discuss. Thank you. Sincerely, Maxine Feldman,’ and then she wrote her phone number.”

“You call her,” said Lila. “She’s got nothing to do with me.”

“You’re scared of her.”

“She’s some kind of fanged beast.”

“‘Oscar’s mistress’?” Teddy repeated. “Good God.”

“What do you think she wants?”

“I think she just wants…power. What she always wanted. I’m sure it’s about that bet with Oscar. I’ll call her, don’t worry. I’d better go, Lila. I have so much to do in the backyard, and I have to get ready for this guy, what’s his name, Ralph Washington.”

“Don’t go yet,” said Lila. “Have some more coffee.”

“It’ll be fine, Lila,” said Teddy, following Lila into her kitchen and somewhat reluctantly accepting another cup of coffee. “Do you want to come and have lunch with us? The kids are supposed to come over, but I know Samantha will cancel at the last minute, and anyway, there’s plenty of food.”

“Why would she do that?”

“Because she doesn’t want anything to do with Oscar or his biography. She’s mad at him; Ruby’s mad at me. So complicated with kids, even when they’re almost forty. Jesus, if I’d known, I might have opted out of the whole circus.”

“No, you wouldn’t have, Teddy.”

They went back out to the porch and sat down again and looked out over the garden. Teddy noticed that Lila’s hyacinths were flourishing; last summer they had moped and drooped.

“‘They call me the hyacinth girl…’” Teddy recited dreamily.

“I know, aren’t they thriving this year? So mysterious, plants…” Lila replied just as dreamily.

“You know what I miss the most?” said Teddy with a sudden jolt of erotic nostalgia. “Being in a man’s house, a man you’re about to fuck for the first time. Looking at the things he has, his masculine things…God, that was exciting. Having him make you a drink, put on music that he’s chosen, a man you really want with all of yourself. Oscar had a hot plate, a small refrigerator, a mattress on the floor. He had an old record player and a portable radio…. Everything was spattered with paint. Such a cliché of an artist’s studio. I remember teasing him about it, accusing him of spattering everything with paint so women would swoon over him. God, Oscar…I felt like I was going to throw up if he didn’t touch me. He played the radio, but I was sick to my stomach with sexual excitement — remember that feeling? — so I don’t recall a single song, but I remember the sound of Billie Holliday’s voice, which I’d never liked much, but it didn’t matter. It was early fall and the windows were open, and we sat facing each other on his mattress and ate the spaghetti with canned sardines he’d made and drank warm vodka, passing the bottle back and forth between us. That was the best meal I’ve ever had in my life…. We got drunk, but we weren’t drunk…. It was the way he smelled, the look in hiseye, the way he asked me questions and paid attention to my answers, really looking at me. We knew we were going to devour each other the minute we’d wiped the sardine juice from our chins, and it made the meal taste so good and last forever…. I seriously thought I was going to explode with hot juice and electricity.” She stopped. “But why me? Of all the women who wanted him. He was married, famous; I was his lawyer’s secretary…nobody.”

Lila considered this question. Her date with Rex seemed anemic in comparison. What did they have to offer each other that was in any way biography-worthy?

“Of course you,” she said.

“I never asked him for anything,” said Teddy. “Never asked him to leave Abigail, never asked him for a cent. When I was sick, I told him not to come around. When I gave birth, you brought flowers, not Oscar.”