Wouldn’t you want me to be able to say to you, ‘Everything I have belongs to you and to you alone? Always and forever?’”
Oh, yes, but Howard wanted that, and Howard sold his car after Melissa dumped Stephen once and for all in favor of giving Howard his chance to win her heart. He learned to relish chaste kisses; he learned to meet her train in the morning and walk her to work. He took her to expensive restaurants for dinner, to the theater, the ballet, and he went out to New Canaan on Sundays to spend the day with the Collinses.
He hated “Daddy” Collins from the beginning, but—since Melissa was utterly devoted to him—Howard learned to let him beat him at golf, lecture him on the swizzle-stick business, and suffer his observations about publishing. (“Kind of a faggy way to make a living, if you ask me.”) Mr. Collins hated him too, Howard quickly realized, but things between them improved once Daddy found out that Howard—as a doubles partner—meant that he could finally “beat the shit out of those assholes at the club.”
Mrs. Collins, on the other hand, was wonderful. And it was from her that Melissa had inherited her regal looks. But Mrs. Collins was very quiet, very, very gentle, and by the time Howard met her, was bedridden with the cancer that was slowly killing her. She never complained of the constant pain she was in, and her eyes always lit up when Howard came in to see her. They spent a great deal of time together, actually. And once Howard started bringing her Anthony Trollope novels to read, even Melissa found it difficult to lure Howard away from their talks about them. (“Always see the mother before you commit,” Ray Stewart had told his son, “so you can see what you’re getting into.” Cancer or no cancer, Howard often wondered if he hadn’t fallen a bit in love with Mrs. Collins.)
It was clear to everyone in that mausoleum of a house that things were getting serious. Daddy Collins was getting ruder and ruder, Melissa started talking about how grand it was going to be when she was the president of Manchester Hannonford and Howard was the president of Gardiner & Grayson, and Mrs. Collins, well…
One Sunday afternoon Mrs. Collins took his hand (which she often did) and asked Howard if he was in love with her daughter. Howard said yes. And then Mrs. Collins had closed her eyes, thinking, and when she opened them again she said she hoped she would not offend Howard but…
But?
Did Howard realize that Melissa was—was rather special?
Yes, yes, he certainly did.
She had smiled, though her eyes had not smiled. Slowly, carefully, she said that Melissa was her only child, that she loved Melissa very, very much, but…
But?
Howard could see how spoiled Melissa was, yes?
Spoiled, nonsense!
A chuckle from the invalid lady. “Oh, Howard, she’s dreadfully spoiled, and she always will be. Her father has seen to that.”
Silence.
“My husband, and please, do understand, Howard—it is out of his love for Melissa that he did it—”
“Did—”
“Looked into your background. Your parents, your father’s—real estate business…”
Sigh. “Mrs. Collins, my father’s not in real estate, he’s in the landscaping business.”
“Yes. I know. Howard—listen to me, Howard.”
Silence.
“You must sit down and explain to Melissa. She—and I’m sure you did not misrepresent it to her—but Melissa led my husband to believe that your father owns half of Columbus.”
Oh, boy.
“And you must set my husband straight—now, Howard, before he…”
Mrs. Collins had started to cry.
“It’s okay, Mrs. Collins, it’s okay.”
“She so needs a man who understands her. She’s fragile in ways…Oh, Howard, promise me that you’ll help Melissa leave this house. She won’t be able to do it on her own and I’m too ill…”
Howard explained everything to Melissa that afternoon, prompting her to moan, “Oh, my God, what will I tell Daddy?” and flee to the guest house. And then Howard found Mr. Collins in the playroom and set him straight about the exact state of his finances and those of his family. Though he had readied himself for a fight, Howard was frankly a little scared when Mr. Collins grabbed the wrong end of a cue stick and smashed the sliding glass door with it. “Goddam carpetbagger!” he screamed, face turning purple. (Mr. Collins was from the South.) He broke the cue stick on the corner of the billiard table and slammed the remaining portion down on it, again and again, ruining the mahogany. “A fraud, a goddam fraud, strutting around here like the King of England!”
(Years later, Howard realized that it was not the state of his finances that had so enraged Mr. Collins, but that he—having volunteered the information before proposing to Melissa—had disarmed Mr. Collins of the weapon he had been planning to use to get rid of him with. Ill as she was, Mrs. Collins had been quite on the ball.)
Howard did not hear from Melissa for five days, and then she had called him at work. Could he come to New Canaan? Please, could he? Right now? They needed him, Daddy and she did, desperately. “Oh, Howard, Mother died this morning.”
Harrison gave him some time off and Howard went out to New Canaan. (Poor Harrison. It had been some time since he had got any real work out of Howard, what with this time-consuming business of courtship.) Mr. Collins didn’t say a word to him, but he did seem relieved that there was someone to look after Melissa as he went through the ordeal of funeral services. And then, after the burial, Mr. Collins disappeared to have some time to himself and Melissa became so hysterical that a doctor had to be called to sedate her.
“Why did he leave? Why?” she kept crying, Valium seeming to do very little but confuse her and slur her words. But after a few days she started to come around and soon she was not hysterical but furious with her father. She started cursing Daddy and endearing Howard. She started discounting Daddy (“He has no imagination, none”) and overpricing Howard (“No one is smarter than you, Howard, I’m sure of it”). And then she started tearing Daddy apart (“He is heartless and cruel and selfish”) and building Howard up to ever increasing heights (“You are the finest, greatest man I have ever known”).
(Howard didn’t know what the hell was going on, but he knew he liked it a good deal better than Melissa locking herself in the guest house and Mr. Collins calling him a carpetbagger.)
And then—and then, the night Howard came upstairs to check on Melissa and found her on her knees, crying next to her mother’s bed. Howard had knelt down beside her, held her close, and told her he loved her. He was not good enough for her, he knew, but he would do everything in his power to make her happy. He loved her, God, how he loved her, and he would take care of her. He would never ever leave her. No, never, and they would have each other, forever and ever and always. “Oh, Melissa, please let me take care of you so you’ll never be hurt again.”
“Hey, Howie?” Rosanne called from the hall.
“Yeah?”
“I want ya to come see Mrs. C on TV. She’s doin’ an editorial or somethin’ and I told
