A Ship Made of Paper

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

”The first time I heard Handel’sMessiah,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 ofmyCoxes 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,

Virginia.A few ofus attended Hampton University, back when it was Hampton Normal andAgriculture Institute.”

“Hampton Hawes,”says Daniel.

”What?”says Hampton.

”He’s a jazz piano player, West Coast.”

“Daniel knows everything about jazz,”says Kate.“And blues, and rhythm and blues.”

The waitress arrives and presents them with yellowfin tuna, coq au vin, filet mignon, risotto funghi.“Look,”says Iris,“everything looks so good!”

“Is that tuna?”Hampton asks, peering at Iris’s plate.

Every marriage, Kate thinks, seems to have one person wanting what’s on the other’s plate.

Iris smiles, but she doesn’t look pleased.“Do you want some?”

“Okay, a taste.”He watches while she cuts her sesame-encrusted tuna in halfand then transports it carefully to his plate, next to his charbroiled slab ofsteak and French fries and homemade coleslaw.He doesn’t offer her so much as a morsel ofhis food.

“Iris doesn’t share my interest in family traditions,”Hampton says, cutting into his steak.

“All I ever said is that sometimes they can be a little limiting,”says Iris, trying not to plead, but Kate can tell she would like to.“InAmerica you can make your own history.”

“Dream on, my sweet,”says Hampton.

”All right, then I will.And in the meantime, can we just relax and enjoy being alive?”

“So you work onWall Street?”Kate asks.

”Does that surprise you?”asks Hampton.“That I’m an investmentbanker?”

“Yes,”she says,“I thought maybe you were a tap dancer.”

Hampton smiles, points his finger at Kate.“That’s funny,”he says, instead oflaughing.

“I wrote a piece last year about the stock exchange,”Kate says.“I love all those men crawling over each other and shouting out numbers as if their lives were hanging by a thread.And then the final bell rings and everyone cheers and goes out for drinks.I loved the whole thing, in-cluding the bell and the drinks.”

“That’s not what I do.But I’d like to read your article.”

“Oh no, please, no.The only way I can churn that crap out is to tell myselfthat absolutely no one will ever set eyes on it.”She catches the waitress’s eye and gestures with a twirl ofthe finger:more drinks over here.“It’s just to pay the bills.And wrap fish.”

“Do you mostly write about financial topics?”Hampton asks.

”What I’m supposed to be doing is working on my next novel, but that’s been the case for quite a while.So in the meanwhile, editors call me up and I give them whatever they want.It’s amazing how easily the stuffcomes when you don’t really have your heart in it.Right now, I’m doing a piece about the O.J.trial and about this woman artist calling her-selfIngrid Newport.”

“What kind ofartist is she?”Hampton asks.

”She’s sewn up her vagina,”Kate says.She can practicallyhear

Daniel’s heart sinking.He worries about her when she drinks.And then he does something that strikes her asintolerable.He actually looks over at Iris and shrugs.

“They keep on assigning me these sexual mutilation pieces,”Kate says.“It’s becoming sort ofmy specialty.My little calling card.”Is this putting Iris in her place? Kate has no idea.Iris may be one ofthose rare monsters:a person ofunshakable sexual confidence.“I tell them,‘Hey guys, how about a piece about the reemergence ofthe lobotomy as an accepted psychiatric practice,’but, no, they say,‘What we really want is fifeen hundred words on Peter Peterson, that guy in Dover, Delaware, who crucified his own penis.’They all tell me I write so well about gen-der issues, by which they really mean sex.I guess I should be pleased.No one ever said I did anything well when it came to sex.”Kate laughs.“But now I’m getting a lot ofO.J.assignments, so that’s good.Have you all been following the case?”

No one’s taking the bait on that one.Getting this crowd to talk about O.J.would be like trying to convince them to take offtheir clothes right there in the restaurant.Kate feels sour and self-righteous, the way you do when you seem to be the only person willing to face something ugly.

Iris’s eyes are locked on her meal.She seems to be hurrying to finish it before Hampton tucks into it again.Kate watches her hands as they del-icately maneuver her knife and fork.She finds her cute but hardly irre-sistible.Lean body, broad shoulders, big behind.Kate feels sorry for black people with freckles, it’s like they’re getting the worst ofboth worlds.

“You know what we should have done?”says Daniel, his voice bright silver.“Kept the kids together, with just one baby-sitter.”

“Wasn’t I lucky to have found someone like Daniel?”Kate announces.

“When my marriage broke up and I was left with my kid, I thought I’d be alone forever.But Daniel’s a better parent than I am.”She waits for Daniel to contradict her, but he doesn’t.“Well, maybe notbetter,but he is so good to Ruby.”

“She’s a great kid,”Daniel says softly.

”She is,”says Iris.

”And she so loves Nelson,”Daniel says.His face colors, and he looks to Kate for relief.“Doesn’t she? How many times has she talked about him? Right?”

“Kids can fall in love,”Kate says.“In fact, in childhood, we may be at our highest capacity to just go head over heels for another person.I was in love with a little boy when I was five years old.A little black boy with the perfect little black boy name:Leroy.Leroy Sinclair.”She signals the waiter for more wine.In for a penny.“His mother cleaned the little med-ical arts building where my father had his office.He was a real butterball, Leroy.Just as fat as a tick, but with the most charming, lazy smile, a real summer-on-the-Mississippi smile.He wore overalls and high-topped sneakers.His mother had to take him to work and apparently she fed that poor boy sweets all through the day to