not-sure-how-long look, that look of goodbye.
'I have to go to L.A.... I don't really know how long,' Kit said. He turned back to Miranda. 'Look, I'm so sorry about tonight... I mean, I'm sorry period.'
Miranda took Henry's hand again. 'L.A.' She wanted to explain to Kit that L.A. was too far away, that even a short trip was interminable, that one day would be one day too many. She wanted to explain that she had had a vision of their lives together, she wanted him to understand what she had just discovered, that her heart had found a home at last.
Instead, controlling her voice as well as she could, she asked if Kit would like to leave Henry with her. 'Won't that make it easier for you? I mean, if it's a short time...'
Kit drummed his fingers on the roof of the car. 'Look, Miranda, I don't know how long it will be. And his mother will be back soon, so she can get him, right?'
His mother. Miranda held Henry's hand against her cheek, pressing it there, absorbing the touch of each small finger.
'I'm really sorry about all this...' Kit was saying. 'I'll miss you, Miranda. We'll both miss you.'
'Hey, don't be sorry,' she forced herself to say. 'A part in a movie! It's great, Kit.'
'Yeah.' He shrugged and looked miserable.
'What?'
'No 'what.' It's great.'
'Jesus, cheer up, then. Right, Henry?' She leaned farther into the car and pressed her face against Henry's. He made kissing, smacking sounds, then pushed his sugary lips on her cheek. 'I love you, Henry,' she whispered.
'I love Randa,' he shouted.
Miranda stood up. She felt off balance, disconnected from the little car, the man in front of her, her mother, her sister. How silly of her. They were just going away for a while. She had no claim on either of them. Visions were dreams. Dreams were fiction. Fiction was lies. 'Break a leg,' she said to Kit with her big public smile.
'Yeah. Thanks. Well, I'll call you.' He gave her a quick hug. 'I really will.'
Betty noted the 'really.' She reached out for Miranda's hand and squeezed it.
Miranda pulled her hand away. 'I'm fine.'
'Randa!' Henry cried with sudden desperation as they pulled out of the driveway. 'Randa! Randa!'
'Oh God,' Kit was saying. 'Not now, Henry, please.'
Miranda waved and called goodbye to Henry, who waved a chubby hand as his father reached back and shoved a pacifier in his mouth.
Miranda stood in the driveway beneath the dying pine tree. Her smile faltered, sagged into heavy, slack resignation.
'I realize he just found out and he had a plane to catch. But, boy, that was so sudden,' said Annie.
'We'll miss Henry,' Betty said. She could not bring herself to say anything about Kit. 'Cute little fellow.'
Miranda said simply, 'They're gone.'
Betty tried to ignore the visceral, light-headed wave of empathy. Emptiness was so unexpectedly heavy, so solid and massive. So pervasive and muffled. So hateful. 'Well,' she said, trying to shake herself out of it. 'We all must have boundaries, and we all must learn to separate. All the therapists on television agree on that. Anyway, the boys will be back soon. And L.A. is not very far away, is it?' The clatter of her own voice rang unconvincingly in her ears. 'Not in this day and age.'
'That's true, Miranda,' Annie said.
'Oh Christ, what do you know about it?' Miranda snapped. 'Either of you?'
When they arrived for Rosh Hashanah dinner at Lou's big house overlooking Long Island Sound, Miranda was quiet and subdued. She had barely spoken a word to her mother and sister since the departure of Kit and Henry. Annie was surprised Miranda had even agreed to come with them. There had been a moment when, after coming out of her room dressed and made up and looking beautiful, if a little grim, Miranda's hand had gone to her forehead and her eyes had closed and Annie had braced herself for some sort of histrionic display. But Miranda had merely pushed her hair back, opened her eyes, and said, 'Oh, let's get it over with.' Perhaps with the real difficulties that had befallen them, Miranda had finally grown out of her stormy theatrical fits. Annie decided to take Miranda's passivity as a good sign. Yet when she stole a glance at her sister's face, colorless, expressionless, she almost wished Miranda would give a good rant, would fume and tear out her hair.
'It won't be as much fun without little Henry here,' Annie said, looking around at the crowd of senior citizens, most of whom continued to refer to themselves as middle-aged. She did miss the presence of the little boy, but she also meant to convey some kind of sympathy — although Miranda did not always appreciate sympathy from her sister, usually interpreting it as pity or criticism. 'I'll miss him.'
'You have your own children.'
'Well, yes, but...'
'But nothing,' Miranda said savagely, then turned on her heel and stalked off, leaving Annie and Betty nonplussed and, both, somewhat embarrassed.
A knot of people were already gathered in the living room and engaged in fervent conversation. The surgeon had complimented the cultural minister of Estonia on breaking away from the Soviet Union thereby escaping socialized medicine, because just look at Canada, to which the lawyer responded that Canada had no privacy laws. At this, the woman from the YMCA pool said that if you have nothing to hide, privacy should not be an issue. The metal sculptor pointed out that you could still live a bohemian life in Montreal, what with cheap rents and government grants, even without privacy and a falling U.S. dollar, to which the surgeon replied that a government grant would not be much solace if you had to wait six months for a knee replacement by a doctor who spoke only French, which caused the inventor to lament that French President Sarkozy's flamboyant behavior was perhaps not as good for the Jews as he had at first hoped.
'President Bling-Bling,' Cousin Lou said, savoring the sound of the words.
'Oh, Betty!' cried Rosalyn. Seeing her cousin and suddenly reminded by the word 'bling,' she waved her wrist with its heavy gold-and-emerald bracelet. 'What do you think?'
'Beautiful. Beautiful.'
'Not too much? I don't want to look gaudy. The economy is so bad, it could be offensive. I try to be sensitive to these things.'
'They're cabochon, that tones it down.'
'I'm a limousine liberal,' Lou said. 'Why not be comfortable?'
'You were always an iconoclast, dear,' said Rosalyn, patting his arm indulgently.
There was very good wine. Rosalyn had tried, in the early years, to economize by serving lesser wines to the constant flow of guests, but Lou had prevailed.
'But they're here every night,' Rosalyn had said.
'And so are we,' Lou had explained.
Rosalyn bowed to what she understood to be self-interest, but in fact Lou would have served his guests good wine even if he'd been a teetotaler. He enjoyed raising a glass of the good stuff with his guests, however, then raising another. On this Rosh Hashanah night, he held his third up to the light to watch the liquid cling to the sides as he gently swirled it. It has legs, he thought happily. Like a play that is a success. Like a showgirl. Like a table. Lou loved the English language. English was part of his American identity, and so he cherished it. He had been told that when he left a message on an answering machine, you could hear his German accent, but he dismissed that information as complete nonsense, making sure however, from that moment on, if someone did not pick up their telephone themselves, to hang up and try again later.
'Beautiful,' he murmured now, meaning the wine, its legs, the word 'legs,' legs of all kinds, the room, the people in it drinking wine, and always, the view of the water, over which an enormous harvest moon rose in slow, round orange motion.
Annie, seated on a low bench, also looked out at the moon and wondered what Frederick was doing.
'Why is he always talking to me?' Mr. Shpuntov was saying in a loud angry voice. 'Why does he bother me?'
'He's your
Miranda, pacing nervously in front of the picture window, did not hear Mr. Shpuntov or Cousin Lou or
