in another state, the other lived across town and never invited me there. I sat down beside Billy’s pot and wept.
Chance handed me down a crisp, snowy linen handkerchief. It was starched and folded, solid as a book, perfect and unusable. I took it, then looked up at him. “I can’t use this,” I said.
“Of course you can’t.” Billy, understanding, handed me a wrinkled blue tissue from her pocket. She crouched beside me, stroking my back with her chapped hands, her fingernails black with clay. “What is it, Una? Do you have the moving-in blues?”
“That must be it,” I said, snuffling. “I’ve never bought a house before.” That made me think of Monica and Chip’s homey place two floors below, and I started crying again. I hate Early American furniture and could never live with it, but it symbolized things that would last.
Billy patted my back until I was calm. She hummed a sad tune—“Once Upon a Time.” “Chance, remember when we moved into our first place?”
“In Darien.” I could see his sharply creased pant leg out of the corner of my blurry eye.
“Yes, it was a tiny place,” Billy went on. “We closed on it in early April. Upstairs there was one little room where I was planning to set up my studio. It faced north, and like
all
artists, I wanted a studio that faced north. The day we moved in was beautiful. It was sunny, and new leaves were on the trees. While the men carried in our furniture, all I cared about was setting up my studio. I ran upstairs, and I almost died. Outside the window was a maple tree—I hadn’t even noticed it when we first looked because it had no leaves. Suddenly there was the maple, covered with baby leaves, blocking every bit of light. I cried and cried.”
“What did you do?”
“We pruned the tree,” Chance said. His manicured hand stroked his wife’s hair.
I loved that story. I felt sodden with tears, and I felt as though I could fall asleep with my head on Billy’s lap. Through my closed window the traffic steering downtown on Hudson Street sounded distant, and a jet of steam whistled out of my coiled radiator.
“Sounds like a good heating system,” Billy said.
“It does,” Chance said, nodding vigorously. “This is quite a place. I think we’d better celebrate. How does dinner at Café des Artistes sound to you two?”
“Oh, Lord,” Billy said, frowning, looking down at her hands. “I hadn’t planned on cleaning my fingernails tonight.”
February, because of Valentine’s Day and the Washington’s Birthday sales, is a big time for soap opera actors to make appearances at department stores, malls, and anywhere else the general female population might be inclined to spend money. I tried to reason with Art Panella: if Delilah is supposedly at large in the wilds of Lake Huron, won’t the viewer think it peculiar to find her signing autographs at the Rose Garden Mall in Stamford? Art admonished me, saying I should give him credit for some brains. They
know
that Una Cavan is not
really
Delilah Grant. I understood that, but I had something more important on my mind: that night I was invited to Lily and Henk’s apartment for the first time.
Two long black limousines bearing me, Stuart MacDuff, and my soap opera lover, Jason Mordant (a.k.a. Beck Vandeweghe), along with a camera crew, stopped at the entrance to AmbiMart. A group of mall employees unrolled a red carpet that stretched from the car to the store. Wet snow was falling. We stepped out of the car, and a woman four inches shorter than me held a flowered umbrella over my head; she had to struggle to make sure it covered both of us. It took great willpower for me not to grab the umbrella away from her and hustle both of us inside. The crowd, mainly women of all ages, called “Delilah!” For weeks there had been posters in the stores and thirty-second spots broadcast on radio and local TV stations, promising all patrons of the Rose Garden Mall that Paul, Delilah, and Beck would soon
Chance handed me down a crisp, snowy linen handkerchief. It was starched and folded, solid as a book, perfect and unusable. I took it, then looked up at him. “I can’t use this,” I said.
“Of course you can’t.” Billy, understanding, handed me a wrinkled blue tissue from her pocket. She crouched beside me, stroking my back with her chapped hands, her fingernails black with clay. “What is it, Una? Do you have the moving-in blues?”
“That must be it,” I said, snuffling. “I’ve never bought a house before.” That made me think of Monica and Chip’s homey place two floors below, and I started crying again. I hate Early American furniture and could never live with it, but it symbolized things that would last.
Billy patted my back until I was calm. She hummed a sad tune—“Once Upon a Time.” “Chance, remember when we moved into our first place?”
“In Darien.” I could see his sharply creased pant leg out of the corner of my blurry eye.
“Yes, it was a tiny place,” Billy went on. “We closed on it in early April. Upstairs there was one little room where I was planning to set up my studio. It faced north, and like
all
artists, I wanted a studio that faced north. The day we moved in was beautiful. It was sunny, and new leaves were on the trees. While the men carried in our furniture, all I cared about was setting up my studio. I ran upstairs, and I almost died. Outside the window was a maple tree—I hadn’t even noticed it when we first looked because it had no leaves. Suddenly there was the maple, covered with baby leaves, blocking every bit of light. I cried and cried.”
“What did you do?”
“We pruned the tree,” Chance said. His manicured hand stroked his wife’s hair.
I loved that story. I felt sodden with tears, and I felt as though I could fall asleep with my head on Billy’s lap. Through my closed window the traffic steering downtown on Hudson Street sounded distant, and a jet of steam whistled out of my coiled radiator.
“Sounds like a good heating system,” Billy said.
“It does,” Chance said, nodding vigorously. “This is quite a place. I think we’d better celebrate. How does dinner at Café des Artistes sound to you two?”
“Oh, Lord,” Billy said, frowning, looking down at her hands. “I hadn’t planned on cleaning my fingernails tonight.”
February, because of Valentine’s Day and the Washington’s Birthday sales, is a big time for soap opera actors to make appearances at department stores, malls, and anywhere else the general female population might be inclined to spend money. I tried to reason with Art Panella: if Delilah is supposedly at large in the wilds of Lake Huron, won’t the viewer think it peculiar to find her signing autographs at the Rose Garden Mall in Stamford? Art admonished me, saying I should give him credit for some brains. They
know
that Una Cavan is not
really
Delilah Grant. I understood that, but I had something more important on my mind: that night I was invited to Lily and Henk’s apartment for the first time.
Two long black limousines bearing me, Stuart MacDuff, and my soap opera lover, Jason Mordant (a.k.a. Beck Vandeweghe), along with a camera crew, stopped at the entrance to AmbiMart. A group of mall employees unrolled a red carpet that stretched from the car to the store. Wet snow was falling. We stepped out of the car, and a woman four inches shorter than me held a flowered umbrella over my head; she had to struggle to make sure it covered both of us. It took great willpower for me not to grab the umbrella away from her and hustle both of us inside. The crowd, mainly women of all ages, called “Delilah!” For weeks there had been posters in the stores and thirty-second spots broadcast on radio and local TV stations, promising all patrons of the Rose Garden Mall that Paul, Delilah, and Beck would soon
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