figure it, you’re just the guy to help her.”
“Help her?” Howard said.
3
Tea at Amanda Miller’s
“Darling heart,” Mrs. Goldblum said, “all women go a bit mad in their thirties. That’s why it’s so terribly important to marry well.”
The younger woman blinked.
“You see, dear,” Mrs. Goldblum continued, “in her twenties, every girl believes she knows what she wants out of life, and she settles into the life she is convinced will bring it to her. And no one can tell her differently.” She smiled into her teacup and took a discreet sip. “And then the thirties arrive and she suddenly realizes the world can say no to her, and she becomes convinced she has made all the wrong choices…and,” Mrs. Goldblum sighed, “she realizes that, instead of knowing everything, she knows very little.” Mrs. Goldblum smiled. “It is not an easy time.”
The younger woman nodded, thinking.
Mrs. Goldblum took a delicate bite from the small pepper jelly and cream cheese sandwich on her plate. The women were sitting across from each other at a round table in front of the largest of the living-room windows. The four corners of a white linen tablecloth hung nearly to the floor; the silver tea service sparkled in the afternoon sunlight; across the room a fire was burning in the fireplace, the brass fender set gleaming in the contrast of lights.
Both women wore black, but it was not in melancholy. Instead, it was fitting. The room in which they sat had furniture from an earlier century—dark, massive, gleaming products of English workmanship, settees and chairs covered in deep burgundy velvet. There was an enormous oriental rug, and the fringed edges highlighted the dark wood floors that were exposed around it. Old paintings of every size adorned the walls; the high ceiling was an intricate work of white panels and carved plaster. And there was clutter in the room. On every surface—table tops, shelves, even along the enormous mahogany mantel—there were bits and pieces of brass and hand-colored glass, and there were antique frames with pressed flowers and porcelain vases with dried flowers, and little leather Shakespeares and ivory elephants and all kinds of other small distractions.
The older woman sat perfectly erect. The black dress—whose era was anyone’s guess—though faded slightly, still draped from her shoulders in flattering folds. A small gold brooch rested on the left of her chest; a gold charm bracelet on one wrist occasionally made small tinkling sounds. Her breath was gentle and slow; her hands moved gracefully, unobtrusively, often finding rest in each other’s company on her lap. Her hair was pure white, the complexion beneath pale and sweet, and her face conveyed enduring strength of some seventy-seven years.
Her glasses were the only thing out of place. The lenses being thick, they distorted the woman’s languid brown eyes into something almost comical. But they weren’t comical. They were searching the face of her companion, looking for clues as to the younger woman’s thoughts.
“I never liked him, you know,” Mrs. Goldblum said.
The younger woman laughed. “You certainly deceived me there.”
“Of course I had to be polite. You seemed so keen on the young man, I vowed I would come to like him in time. I never did, however.”
The younger woman shook her head, looking down to her lap. Mrs. Goldblum reached across the table to cover her hand with her own. “Drink your tea, dear. You’ll feel better.”
The young lady raised her head. Her eyes, usually bright, were rather tired. A smile was pressed into use and her face changed considerably. It was a fascinating, striking face. But it was not beautiful. Every feature, though brilliantly conceived on an independent basis, was in contrast to the next. The large, hazel eyes competed with the strong, perfectly chiseled nose (that decidedly linked her to the portraits on the walls). The high cheekbones did not know the wide, full mouth, and the olive of her complexion was at odds with the light brown of her hair. And her hair, long and straight, parted in the middle and spilling down over her shoulders, certainly did not know what to make of the black dress and pearls. And the contrasts did not end there. Her ample breasts made no sense of her thinness; her hands, whose fingers were long but large, hinted at a line of heritage that once knew the fields—or service under the people from whom her nose had come.
Mrs. Goldblum watched Amanda Miller take her suggestion regarding the tea. She smiled, nodding slightly. “Better now?”
“Yes, thank you,” Amanda said. She cleared her throat. “I must apologize—I’m not quite myself today.”
On that note, Rosanne came in, wafting her arms in the air as though she were a loon in descent toward water. She came to a rest at Mrs. Goldblum’s side—with Mrs. Goldblum none the wiser as to how she had traveled there—and pulled down on the crisp black uniform dress she was wearing. Every Tuesday, Rosanne cleaned Amanda Miller’s apartment until early afternoon and then changed for the ritual of serving high tea at three. (“You gotta be kiddin’,” Rosanne had said when Amanda first suggested it. “Well, maybe,” she had reconsidered, once a generous offer of financial compensation for such an ordeal was discreetly tendered. “Ah, geez!” she had cried during her first “tea etiquette” lesson. “You make me do that [a curtsy] and I’m gonna go down like a house of cards.”) All in all, the arrangement had worked out fairly well. As for Rosanne’s etiquette, once she had latched onto Glinda the Good Witch in The Wizard of Oz as a model for her demeanor, she had gained a rather peculiar but nonetheless pleasant form of grace.
“Would you care for some more sandwiches, Lady Goldblum?” Rosanne said.
“Lady,” Mrs. Goldblum chuckled, looking over at Amanda. “Oh, my, my.” She turned back to Rosanne, softly touching her wrist. “No, thank you, dear.”
“Very good,” Rosanne said, curtsying. She raised herself onto her tiptoes and teetered over to Amanda, waving her imaginary wand once in her face. “And you, Empress?” she asked.
“No, thank you, Rosanne,” Amanda said, laughing, covering her mouth with her napkin.
“Very good, ladies,” Rosanne said, curtsying. Once she was safely behind Mrs. Goldblum, she raised her wings and glided back into the kitchen.
Mrs. Goldblum turned to make sure that Rosanne had left the room, looked back to Amanda and said, softly, “There is a lesson to be learned, Amanda dear. She married the man she thought she wanted—and she will waste her life waiting for him to be the man she wants him to be.”
Something crashed in the kitchen.
“I realize it is difficult to understand, Mrs. Goldblum,” Amanda said, “but I never wanted him—” Her eyes settled on a silver napkin ring. “I was not, am not, in love with him.”
Mrs. Goldblum apparently did not hear the crash or Amanda. “To love and be loved in return is the greatest gift life has to offer. To love those who don’t love themselves is—” Mrs. Goldblum refolded her napkin in her lap and then smoothed it with the palm of her hand, over and over. “I was very fortunate,” she finally said. “Mr. Goldblum and I had a wonderful marriage.”
“Why?”
Mrs. Goldblum looked surprised. “Why, compromise. Every good marriage is one of compromise. Of acceptance. The pleasure and satisfaction of knowing that you both are willing to give up certain things in exchange for
