Jane Smiley - Golden Age

She got Henry to go with her to clubs. She didn’t care if they were gay or straight, and she didn’t care if anyone looked at her, though she dressed nicely; she wanted to see what people were wearing, how they did their hair, what sort of accessories they carried. She said it was research, and maybe it was, because maybe you didn’t buy so many pink quilts in Chicago as you did in Des Moines. Claire corrected him — you didn’t buy pink even in Des Moines, but there was a great demand for moss green. They laughed a lot, and Henry remembered that they had done that as kids — their senses of humor were as ever like two different notes that harmonized, even when no one else thought something was funny.

Claire was now rummaging through his closet in search of something interesting to wear to Buddy Guy’s, a club that had opened in the summer. Henry knew vaguely where it was — maybe Wacker, maybe Wabash. Claire maintained that, in the history of fashion, now, 1989, was a uniquely bad year, and might never be surpassed in baggy violet strangeness. Henry, standing in the doorway, said, “I didn’t know you had so many fashion rules.”

She pulled out a sweater and took it to the window. She said, “No high waists, no pants with front pleats, no fake leopard skin, no lime green.” She liked everything in his closet and sometimes asked to be allowed to wear a sweater or a shirt. As her agreeable faux husband, he let her, and she looked good. She put the sweater back — a deep, winy red — and emerged a moment later with an old fedora he had from the forties — an antique when Philip gave it to him. She walked to the mirror and put it on, saying, “And no enormous shoulder pads.” The fedora looked raffish ( rif et raf , Old French, “to strip and carry off”) and flattering. She smiled at herself and said, “The buyer for designer wear told me that they train the sales force always to bubble over in delight when a woman comes out of the dressing room, no matter what she really looks like. In our department, all we do is turn on the switch of the Kitchen Aid or say, ‘Yes, the Le Creuset is very heavy,’ but we never mention that you might drop it on your toe if you don’t watch out.”

Henry said, “What were we like as kids?”

“Were you ever a kid?”

“Mama would have said no. She said I rejected the breast as soon as I learned to read.”

“Which was at two months old, right?”

“I doubt I waited that long.”

They laughed.

They took her car — not “used,” but “vintage,” as she called it, a silver Datsun 280Z that her older son, who called himself “Gray” now, had talked her into buying for him, but lost interest in when his girlfriend declared it unsafe. Its all-too-apparent lack of safety was why Henry liked it — all options were on the table, including death. That seemed the realistic way of looking at things.

Somewhere around Rogers Park, she said, “There are a couple of places to look at in this neighborhood. You want to go with me? I think there’s an open house somewhere, too.”

“Why don’t you just live with me? I’m getting too old for three bedrooms.”

She glanced quickly at him. Through her window, he could see the darkness of the lake. The fedora was pushed back on her head the way you always saw it on gangsters in the movies. She said, “What if I make a mess?”

“I’ll clean it up.”

“I accept.” She said it quickly, as if afraid he would take it back.

“What about your furniture back in Des Moines?”

Claire said, “Hate that crap.” Henry leaned across the center console, the shift, and the lever of the emergency brake, and kissed her on the cheek. He was the one who was grateful.

—

AS SOON as Claire walked into Andy’s house in Englewood Cliffs, she saw that if this Christmas visit was to come off, her expertise was needed. Arthur, Debbie, Hugh, Carlie, and Kevvie were expected, as well as Richie, Ivy, and Leo. When Andy had called after Thanksgiving, she’d said that the unaccustomed celebration was all about Leonard Frederick Langdon, named Leonard after V. I. Lenin and Frederick after Friedrich Hayek (according to Frank, a true hybrid), August 14, seven pounds, four ounces. Claire gathered that “Leo” was a triumph of modern obstetrical science.

Gray would come up from Philly for the day with his girlfriend, but Michael had gone to California (Loretta was strict about Christmas), Tina had the shop in Idaho, and realtors like Dean could never get away, so there would be no discussion of the savings-and-loan crisis. Claire bought potatoes, butter, milk, turkey, onions, celery, and bread for stuffing, cranberry sauce, canned pumpkin, shortening for piecrust, and Häagen-Dazs vanilla ice cream. She baked rolls just the way Lois had taught her. She strung Christmas lights, hung ornaments, bought holly and pine boughs. She simmered some cider with spices on the stove, and all the time, Andy followed her around, saying, “Oh, that’s a good idea. I hadn’t thought of that.” Sometimes Frank walked through and kissed both of them on the cheek.

Claire and Henry agreed that the weirdest part was that Henry had been put in Frank’s room (Claire in the maid’s room, which was sunny and pleasant). Frank was sleeping with Andy. This information had led to raised eyebrows, but nothing verbal. While she was cooking and decorating, Claire decided that she should have been a housekeeper rather than a wife. She didn’t mind doing this stuff — she was organized, she liked things to smell good and taste good. Perhaps she was more like her mother than she had ever cared to admit. She was happy each time the front door opened and the bundled-up revelers who came in from the cold smiled, took deep breaths, and threw off their coats, which Andy then piled in her arms and carried to Janet’s old room. Frank kissed everyone and even hugged them — he seemed to be wearing an invisible Santa suit. Claire and Henry raised eyebrows a few more times. Then Frank carried Leo, who at almost four and a half months was wiry and bright-looking, around the room, jiggling him a little bit. He showed him off to Arthur, to Debbie, to Kevvie, who gawked uncertainly. Richie hovered nearby, ready to catch Leo, but Frank, possibly the worst father ever, made babbling noises. Finally, Henry and Claire exchanged a glance and laughed aloud.

At dinner, Claire slipped into her serving mode: she carved the turkey, dished up the mashed potatoes, made sure that the gravy was hot, watched the plates passing to see that none of them tilted dangerously. It was pleasant to eavesdrop. Jesse had told Frank that he and his dad had gotten 115 bushels an acre this year, about average, but better than last year (which Claire remembered was seventy-five or something like that). Loretta’s dad had been diagnosed with emphysema, then went out that afternoon and branded cattle. Did you hear about those tornadoes in November? One of them had struck a house in Yardley that Dean had finished showing only an hour before; a big one had struck the same day up in Quebec; wasn’t that amazing? Someone should make a tornado movie — but how could you? No one would go besides Midwesterners. Noriega had been removed because he was working for the CIA; Noriega had been removed in spite of the fact that he was working for the CIA. Everyone looked at Arthur, who continued to eat without commenting or even turning his head. Ivy was almost back to her pre-pregnancy weight already. Janet had bought a horse named Sunlight; you could ride year-round out there; the stable was three miles from a Neiman Marcus. That boy Charlie was around New York somewhere — his girlfriend was studying at Columbia now. The Dow was around 2,000; it would never hit 3,000. “I remember,” said Frank, “when it hit eight hundred. I decided to buy some shares in American Motors.”