"I leave it in the vault when I"m dressed like this, or when I"m negotiating with a vendor or an employee union, or when I"m going to a place where I think people will judge me by a big, ostentatious diamond ring-people who vacation in a small Yankee inn with no frills, no midnight buffets-"
"And no Jews."
"Exactly."
"You noticed?"
"I guessed."
"Because?"
"The place, the guests, the feel of it ... something in her eyes."
"Mrs. Berry"s?"
Linette widened her eyes and smiled Ingrid"s unblinking, slightly deranged smile.
"Screw her," I said. "This is nineteen seventy-five."
Linette intoned with perfect pomposity, "Our Israelite brethren are welcome anywhere in our fair land."
We both laughed. With no outsiders in the car, and our pa.s.sage a.s.sured, we could.
Ingrid, dressed in camel-hair trousers and a matching Perry Como cardigan, said only, "Welcome," in the same rote way she greeted all guests, as if the word itself did the job. Linette was reintroduced from 1968, recast in her most favorable Cornell light: hotelier, cla.s.smate, and thoughtful pal who had extended a hand as soon as she read about Robin in The Alumni News.
"Of course I remember you," said Ingrid, many degrees more charming for Linette, rich girl and Halseeyon scion, than for me. I was greeted coolly with, "You"re looking well, Natalie. We have a new cook. Did Kris tell you? She has a degree in nutrition, and so far-" Ingrid crossed her fingers and wagged them prayerfully.
"Kris didn"t tell me," I said.
"Kris didn"t realize she was anything but a stop-gap measure," said Kris, his tone reproachful.
"She"s very much at home in this kind of setting," said Ingrid.
"A nursing-home kitchen is not a hotel dining room," said Kris. "I wish you had talked to me about this."
Ingrid"s round face was a portrait of unexpressed annoyance. Who do you think you are that I would consult you about a personnel matter? I read in her eyes. Above them, a microscopic arching of her brow was the unspoken corollary: When was I supposed to consult you? As you were commandeering my company vehicle to G.o.d-knows-where with misguided romantic ambitions?
I asked Ingrid how the guests liked the new cook.
"March is quiet," she said.
"Any complaints?"
"No more than usual."
"What about compliments?"
Linette spoke up for the first time. "How many entrees do you offer at dinner?"
"Two," said Ingrid, the number ending in a purse of the lips.
"Two?" Linette repeated, as if Ingrid had said, "Zero."
"We"ve always done it that way. No one"s ever gone hungry."
Kris volunteered that at the Halseeyon there were six or eight full-fledged offerings and-get this, Ma-you could order as many as you wanted. You could get all of them-take one bite, try the next.
Ingrid smiled her tight, superior smile. "The Catskills are known for that. Our guests don"t come here expecting every meal to be a feast, the way New Yorkers do. It"s not the raison d"etre of their vacations."
Linette remarked, in a voice full of counterfeit wonder, "Ya know, I"ve heard of that."
"Me too," I said.
"I"ve read about it in the literature," she added.
"What literature?" asked Ingrid.
"Hotel management-food customs and preferences, broken down by region and ethnicity. Jews, Italians, and Lebanese love to eat. The French do too, but not over here. They hate margarine and sliced white bread."
"Ouch," said Kris.
I listened to Linette addressing Ingrid in a breezy, almost imperceptibly disdainful way, which I now wanted to adopt. "Haven"t you found that to be true, Natalie?" Linette was asking. "That the average American diner has a less sophisticated palate than the average French peasant?"
I said, Yes, absolument. Inspired, I turned to Ingrid. "I"ve always thought you could use a little zalts un fefer in your meal planning."
"I beg your pardon?" asked Ingrid.
"Literally? "Salt and pepper." "
"But," Linette amplified, "when grandmothers say it, it"s disparaging, as in "No excitement, no personality." " She and I nodded: Total agreement; excellent translation, by the way.
Nelson had been standing slightly apart, flipping through mail that looked, from its hand-addressed square envelopes, to be stockpiled sympathy cards. Finally, he asked, "Where"s Dad?"
"Kris"-Ingrid actually snapped her fingers-"go find your father."
"Where is he?"
"In the woods," she answered, as if such a thing were obvious and annoying.
"Where?"
"He saw some mushrooms he wanted. Out back. Yell. He"ll hear you."
"I"ll go with you," I said.
We cut through the kitchen. At the spot where we had once wiped dishes and hidden from mourners, two women in hair nets were pounding cube steaks. Kris made a quick left into the pantry, me in tow, and found a familiar linoleum-topped counter to maneuver me against.
"What if they come in?" I asked, my lips on his.
"Ten seconds," he murmured.
It was sweet and almost bashful, as if it were that lost kiss; as if we hadn"t just spent three nights in a huge round bed, sleeping in a knot, exhausted from what we had both confessed was s.e.xual gusto of an overdue, unquenchable, and highly compatible variety.
I whispered, "What about tonight?"
"What about tonight?"
"The sleeping arrangements?"
Kris said, "You"re talking to the night manager."
We stayed that way for another minute. I said, "I feel something."
Kris closed his eyes and said with a grimace, "Okay. I"m thinking about ice fishing." He jiggled each leg in turn and did a few shallow knee bends. "I"m ready," he said. I checked and said, "You"re fine." I couldn"t resist-one more kiss to a soft stretch of neck.
"No more," he said. "Not until I can do something about it."
I touched only his hair, lifting one hank that was across his forehead. "I"m crazy about you," I said.
Mr. Berry, with a sad, chewed-up, feminine-looking basket at his side and a trowel in his hand, was gingerly prying a clump of small brown mushrooms from the base of an overturned stump. "Why, look who"s here," he said with a shy grin, rising and exposing wet knees on his shabby corduroys. He looked past his son to put his arms around me for a hug. Over his shoulder, I smiled at Kris, who shrugged as if to say, Who knows?
"We were sent to fetch you," I said.
"Nelson brought Linette," said Kris.
"Linette?" said Mr. Berry.
"Feldman. From Cornell."
I knew that without me present Mr. Berry would have said-benignly enough, merely for identification-"The Jewish girl?" but said instead, "Of course."
"We were up at her family"s place in the Catskills."
"Busman"s holiday," I said.
"Did you all come together?"
"I stopped in Newton to get Natalie-remember Linette called here looking for Nelson?-and I tried to convince him that a change of scenery would do him good."
"Did you succeed?"
I answered first, playing against Mr. Berry"s unswerving innocence. "Kris? Would you call our trip to the Catskills a success?"
He replied, "Dad. All I can say is-yes, it was a success. Beyond my fondest hopes." He turned to me. "Is that what you were going to say, Nat?"
I said, "G.o.d, was it a success."
"What happened?" said Mr. Berry, nodding his sweetly befuddled encouragement.
"I don"t think you want all the details," said Kris. He touched his father"s shoulder, signaling him to lead the way on the path. "They"ll be wondering what took us so long," he said, with a quick, private adjustment to make me laugh.
"This was the night they got engaged," Ingrid was saying, pa.s.sing a snapshot to Linette. She dipped into a shoe box and selected another photo. "This is the engagement party at the Fifes" house in Farmington.... This is our Gretel. With Robin." She looked away quickly in phony, stoic silence as the three of us came through the kitchen door into the meeting room.
"She offered," Linette said helplessly, a photo in each hand.
"Let"s put those away now," Mr. Berry said gently. "It"s much too soon."
"Do you remember our Gretel?" Ingrid asked Linette.
"Of course I do. Blond ringlets and saucer eyes."
"I"m not usually emotional," Ingrid said, "but this is the first time I"ve seen Nelson since New Year"s, so it makes it that much fresher."
"Why look at pictures if they"re going to upset you?" Nelson asked impatiently. He walked over to the hot plate, a new addition to the bar, and poured an inch of overcooked black coffee into a discolored mug.
"Maybe we shouldn"t have descended without warning," Kris said. "Although I didn"t think it was necessary-a Sunday in March."
Linette helped herself to coffee, and offered it all around.
"We"re spending the night," said Nelson. "I"m taking a sick day tomorrow."
Kris said, "And Natalie might stay for a couple of days."
"Have you found work?" Ingrid asked me.
"As a matter of fact, I have."
"I see," said Ingrid. Then, after a pause, "Are you on holiday?"
"I start soon."
"Not only does she have a job," said Kris, "but she"ll be running the show."
Ingrid wasn"t interested. She turned to Linette. "I a.s.sume you work for your family"s hotel chain?"
"Chain?" She laughed. "No chain; one big white elephant with two eighteen-hole golf courses, but it"s all one joint."
"You"re confusing the Feldmans with the Hiltons," said Nelson.
"I thought-" Ingrid began. "Must have been another cla.s.smate."
Linette said, in her now-familiar born-yesterday voice, "You wouldn"t be confusing me with Jodie Levine, by any chance? She was in our program. Her father owned a bunch of HoJo"s."
"No," said Ingrid firmly.
"That happens," said Linette. She shot me a wry look that said, Among the goyim.
Mr. Berry announced, in dotty-aunt fashion, "We"re getting listed in a guidebook that A.A. puts out."