The Nest Read online

  “The Upper West Side is not exactly Calcutta,” her husband, Walter, would gently argue. But she got scared. The thought of them wandering the city without her protecting their flank made her heart thud, her palms sweat. They were sweating now. When they’d all disembarked at Grand Central that morning, she hadn’t wanted to let them go. On a Saturday, the terminal was full with tourists checking guidebooks and train schedules and trying to find the Whispering Gallery. She’d kissed them good-bye and had watched until she could no longer see the backs of their heads—one blonde, the other brunette. They didn’t look like visitors; there was nothing tentative about how they moved through the crowd. They looked like they belonged to the city, which filled Melody with dread. She wanted them to belong to her, to stop getting older. They didn’t confide every last thought or desire or worry anymore; she didn’t know their hearts and minds the way she used to. Melody knew that letting them grow and go was the proper order of life. She wanted them to be strong and independent and happy—more than anything she wanted them to be happy—but that she no longer had a fix on their inner workings made her light-headed. If she couldn’t be sure how they were moving through the world, she could at least watch them move through the world, right there in the palm of her hand. She could at least have that.

  “Leo’s never paying you back,” Walter had said as she was leaving for the train station. “You’re all dreaming, wasting your time.”

  Though Melody feared he was right, she had to believe he wasn’t. They’d borrowed a lot of money to buy their house, a tiny but historic building on one of their town’s most beautiful streets, only to watch the economy collapse and property values sink. The fluctuating interest rate was about to rise on the mortgage they already couldn’t afford. With little equity in the house, they couldn’t refinance. College was approaching and they had next to nothing in the bank; she’d been counting on The Nest.

  Out on the street, Melody watched people tug off their gloves and unwind scarves, lift their faces to the sun. She felt a tiny surge of satisfaction knowing that she could spend the entire afternoon indoors if she wanted. The main reason Melody loved the bar at the Hyatt was because she could access it through an underpopulated, nondescript hallway connecting the hotel to Grand Central. When it was time for lunch, she’d return to the terminal through her secret corridor and head downstairs to the Oyster Bar. She would spend hours in New York City and not have to step one sensibly shod foot onto pavement, could entirely avoid breathing the Manhattan air, which she always pictured as rife with gray particulate. During her and Walt’s brief stint living in Upper (upper) Manhattan where the twins were born, she’d waged a ferocious, losing battle with the city’s soot. No matter how many times she wiped the woodwork with a dampened cloth, the flecks of black would reappear, sometimes within hours. Minus any verifiable source, the residue was worrisome to her. It felt like a physical manifestation of the city’s decay, all the teeming masses being worn down to grimy, gray window dust.

  She caught sight of another woman across the room holding a wineglass, and it took a moment for her to recognize her own reflection. Her hair was blonder than usual—she’d chosen a lighter shade at the drugstore and hoped the color would soften the elongated nose and strong chin both she and her sister, Beatrice, had inherited from their father’s New England ancestors. Somehow, the strong features that worked in Bea’s favor (Madam X, Leo used to call Bea, after the Sargent portrait) just made Melody look unintentionally dour. She particularly resented her face around Halloween. One year when the girls were little and they were out shopping for costumes, Nora had pointed to an advertisement featuring a witch—not an excessively ugly one, no warts or green face or rotten teeth but still, a witch—standing over a boiling cauldron and had said, “Look! It’s Mommy!”

  Melody picked her bar bill up from the table and handed it to the waiter with a credit card. He’s never paying you back, Walt had said. Oh yes he is, thought Melody. There was no way that one night of Leo’s stupidity, his debauchery, was going to ruin her daughters’ future, not when they’d worked so hard, not when she’d pushed them to dream big. They were not going to community college.

  Melody looked at the map on her phone again. There was another private reason she loved the blue dots with their animated ripples so much; they reminded her of the very first ultrasound where she and Walt had seen twin heartbeats, two misshapen grayish shadows thumping arrhythmically deep inside her pelvis.

  Two for the price of one, the cheerful technician had told them as Walt gripped her hand and they both stared at the screen and then at each other and grinned like the starry naifs they were. She remembered thinking in that moment: It won’t ever get better than this. And in some ways she’d been right, had known even then she would never feel so capable, so stalwart a protector once she pushed those vulnerable, beating hearts out into the world.

  The waiter was coming toward her now with a worried look on his face. She sighed and opened her wallet again. “I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said, handing her the Visa she’d hoped had a little more juice on it, “but this was declined.”

  “It’s okay,” Melody said, digging out the secret card she’d activated without telling Walt; he would kill her if he knew. Just as he’d kill her if he found out that even though the SAT place in the city was cheaper than the suburban private tutor she’d wanted to hire, it was still twice as much as she’d admitted, which was why she needed the extra card. “I meant to give you this one.” She watched the waiter back at his station as he swiped, both of them holding perfectly still and only exhaling when the machine started spitting out a receipt.

  I like our life, Walt had said to her that morning, pulling her close. I like you. Can’t you pretend—just a little—to like me, too? He smiled as he said it, but she knew he sometimes worried. She had relaxed then into his reassuring girth, breathed in his comforting scent—soap and freshly laundered shirt and spearmint gum. She’d closed her eyes and pictured Nora and Louisa, lovely and lithe, clothed in satiny caps and gowns on a leafy quad in a quaint New England town, the morning sun illuminating their eager faces, the future unfurling ahead of them like an undulating bolt of silk. They were so smart and beautiful and honest and kind. She wanted them to have everything—the chances she’d never had, the opportunities she’d promised. I do like you, Walter, she’d mumbled into his shoulder. I like you so much. It’s me I hate.

  AT THE OPPOSITE END OF GRAND CENTRAL, up a carpeted flight of stairs and through the glass doors that said CAMPBELL APARTMENT, Jack Plumb was sending his drink back because he believed the mint hadn’t really been muddled. “It was just dumped in there as if it were a garnish, not an ingredient,” he told the waitress.

  Jack was sitting with his partner of two decades and legal husband of nearly seven weeks. He was confident the other Plumbs wouldn’t know about this place, which was the former office of a 1920s tycoon, restored and reimagined as a high-end cocktail bar. Beatrice might, but it wasn’t her kind of spot. Too staid. Too expensive. There was a dress code. At times the bar could be annoyingly full of commuters who were in mercifully short supply on this Saturday afternoon.

  “Version 2.0,” Walker said as the waitress placed the remade drink in front of Jack.

  Jack took a sip. “It’s fine,” he said.

  “Sorry for your trouble,” Walker said to the waitress.

  “Yes,” Jack said as the waitress walked away, under his breath but loud enough for Walker to hear, “terribly sorry for making you do your job.”

  “She’s just delivering the drinks. She’s not making them.” Walker kept his voice amiable. Jack was in a mood. “Why don’t you take a nice generous sip of that and try to relax.”

  Jack picked a piece of mint from his glass and chewed on it for a second. “I’m curious,” he said, “is telling someone to relax ever helpful? It’s like saying ‘breathe’ to someone who is hyperventilating or ‘swallow’ to a person who’s choking. It’s a completely useless admonition
.”

  “I wasn’t admonishing, I was suggesting.”

  “It’s like saying, ‘Whatever you do, don’t think about a pink elephant.’”

  “I get it,” Walker said. “How about I relax and you do what you want.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I am happy to go to this lunch with you if it helps.”

  “So you’ve said. About a thousand times.” Trying to provoke Walker was mean and pointless, but Jack was trying anyway because he knew that snapping at Walker would briefly loosen the spiraling knot of fury at his core. And he had considered inviting Walker to lunch. His family preferred Walker’s company anyway; who didn’t? Walker with his rumbling laugh and kind face and bottomless bonhomie. He was like a clean-shaven, slightly trimmer, gay Santa Claus.

  But Jack couldn’t invite Walker because he hadn’t told the other Plumbs yet about his early September wedding to Walker, the wedding to which they hadn’t been invited because Jack wanted the day to be perfect and perfect for Jack meant Plumb-free. He did not want to listen to Bea’s worries about Leo’s accident or hear Melody’s lumbering husband telling everyone who might listen that his name was Walter-not-Walker. (That Jack and Melody had chosen partners with almost the exact same name was something that still rankled both of them, decades on.)

  “I’m sorry I snapped at you,” Jack finally said.

  Walker shrugged. “It’s fine, love.”

  “I’m sorry I’m being an asshole.” Jack rotated his neck, listening for the alarming but satisfying little pop that had recently appeared. God, he was getting old. Six years until fifty and who knew what fresh horrors that decade had in store for his slender-but-softening physique, his already-fraying memory, his alarmingly thinning hair. He gave Walker a feeble smile. “I’ll be better after lunch.”

  “Whatever happens at lunch, we’ll be fine. It will all be fine.”

  Jack slumped deeper into the leather club chair and proceeded to crack the knuckles on each hand, a sound he knew Walker loathed. Of course Walker thought everything would be fine. Walker didn’t know anything about Jack’s financial straits (another reason Jack didn’t want him at lunch, in case the opportunity arose to tell Leo exactly how much the little escapade on the back roads of Long Island was costing him). Their retirement account had taken a terrible hit in 2008. They’d rented the same apartment on West Street since they’d been together. Jack’s small antique shop in the West Village had never been hugely profitable, but in recent years he felt lucky to break even. Walker was an attorney, a solo practitioner, and had always been the wage earner in their partnership. Their one solid investment was a modest but cherished summer place on the North Fork that Jack had been borrowing against, secretly. He’d been counting on The Nest, not only to pay off the home equity line of credit but because it was the one thing he had to offer Walker as a contribution to their future. He didn’t believe for a second that Leo was broke. And he didn’t care. He just wanted what he was owed.

  Jack and Leo were brothers but they weren’t friends. They rarely spoke. Walker would sometimes push (“you don’t give up on family”), but Jack had worked hard to distance himself from the Plumbs, especially Leo. In Leo’s company, Jack felt like a lesser version of his older brother. Not as intelligent, interesting, or successful, an identity that had attached to him in high school and had never completely gone away. At the beginning of ninth grade, some of Leo’s friends had christened Jack Leo Lite and the denigrating name stuck, even after Leo graduated. His first month at college, Jack had run into someone from his hometown who had reflexively greeted him by saying, “Hey, Lite. What’s up?” Jack had nearly slugged him.

  The door to the bar opened and a group of tourists barged in, bringing in a gust of air too cold for October. One woman was showing everyone her soaking wet shoe, a cheap ballet flat in a tacky shade of red. “It’s completely ruined,” she was saying to her companions.

  “Silver linings,” Jack said to Walker, nodding to indicate the shoe.

  “You probably shouldn’t be late.” Walker lifted his wrist, presenting the watch that had been a wedding gift from Jack, a rare Cartier tank from the ’40s in perfect condition. It had cost a small fortune; Walker had no idea. Just another thing to resent about Leo’s fuckup, how now Jack couldn’t help but mentally affix a huge neon price sticker to everything they owned, regretting briefly every single purchase of the last year, years, including all the not-insignificant expenses surrounding their otherwise idyllic wedding.

  “I love this watch,” Walker said, and the tenderness in his voice made Jack want to fling his glass against the opposite brick wall. He could almost feel the sweet relief that would flood in as the leaded crystal smashed into a million tiny pieces. Instead, he stood and placed the glass back on the table, hard.

  “Don’t let them rile you,” Walker said, placing a reassuring hand on Jack’s arm. “Just listen to what Leo has to say and then we’ll talk.”

  “Will do.” Jack buttoned his coat and headed down the stairs and out the door onto Vanderbilt Avenue. He needed a little fresh air before lunch; maybe he’d take a walk around the block. As he muscled his way through the sluggish weekend crowds, he heard someone calling his name. He turned and it took him a minute to recognize the woman in the beret, grinning madly above a pink-and-orange hand-knit scarf, waving and calling after him. He stood and watched her approach and in spite of himself, he smiled. Beatrice.

  BEATRICE PLUMB WAS A REGULAR AT MURPHY’S, one of the commuter pubs that lined the short stretch of Forty-Third Street perpendicular to Grand Central Station. Bea was friendly with the owner, Garrie, an old friend of Tuck’s from Ireland. Tuck approved of how Garrie pulled a pint and of how when the bar was quiet, Garrie would sing in his light and reedy tenor—not the usual touristy fare, “Danny Boy” or “Wild Rover,” but from his repertoire of Irish rebel songs—“Come Out Ye Black and Tans” or “The Ballad of Ballinamore.” Garrie had been one of the first to show up at Bea’s door after Tuck died. He’d taken a fifth of Jameson’s from his coat pocket and poured them each a glass. “To Tuck,” he’d said solemnly. “May the road rise up to meet him.” Sometimes, in the right light, Bea thought Garrie was handsome. Sometimes, she thought he had a little crush on her, but she didn’t want to find out—he felt too close to Tuck.

  “You’re on the early side today,” Garrie said when she arrived a little before noon.

  “Family lunch. I’ll take that coffee with a splash.” Garrie uncorked the Jameson’s and poured a generous amount into the mug before adding coffee. The sun was bright and low enough in the cloudless sky that it briefly blinded Bea as she sat in her favorite spot, next to the small front window. She stood and moved the rickety barstool into the shade and away from the door. It felt more like January than October. The room smelled like furnace and dirty mop and beer. “Aroma of the gods,” Tuck would say. He loved nothing more than a dimly lit bar on a sunny afternoon. The jukebox started up and Rosemary Clooney and Bing Crosby were singing “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” Bea and Garrie exchanged a smirk. People were so reassuringly unimaginative.

  Bea was eager to see Leo but also nervous. He hadn’t taken any of her calls at rehab. He was probably mad at all of them. She wondered how he would look. The last time she’d seen him, the night in the hospital, they’d been stitching up his lacerated chin and he’d looked wan and petrified. For months before the accident he’d looked terrible: bloated and tired and dangerously bored.

  Bea worried today’s lunch was going to be confrontational. Jack and Melody were becoming increasingly unhinged about the situation with The Nest and she assumed they were both coming prepared to stake out their respective plots of neediness. What Bea needed from Leo was not her primary concern. Today, she wanted to keep her ordinarily disagreeable siblings somewhat agreeable, if only for one afternoon, just long enough to get Leo to—well, she didn’t know what exactly. Put some kind of plan in place that would placate Jack and Melody for a bit and give Leo enoug
h breathing room so that he wouldn’t completely shut them down—or flee.

  She could feel the whiskey loosening her limbs, taking the edge off her nerves. She lifted her bag from the back of the barstool. Just feeling the heft of it gave her a little thrill. Bea was a writer. (Used to be a writer? Was a writer who—until very recently—had stopped writing? She never knew how to think about herself.) Sometimes, not often anymore, but occasionally at the literary magazine where she worked, someone would recognize her name. Beatrice Plumb? The writer? the conversation would optimistically begin. She knew the sequence by now, the happy glimmer of recognition and then the confused brow, the person trying to summon a recent memory of her work, anything other than her early long-ago stories. After a decade of practice, she knew how to head off the inevitable. She was armed with a fistful of diversionary dead-end replies about her long-awaited novel: a well-worn self-deprecating joke about writing too slowly, how if she amortized her advance over the years, it became an hourly wage best counted in half-pennies; a feigned superstition over talking about unfinished work; amused exasperation at her ongoing perfectionism.

  From her oversized canvas bag she pulled out a deep brown leather satchel, one Leo had spotted while roaming around the Portobello Road Market in London years ago when she was in college and had starting writing in earnest. He gave it to her for her birthday. From the early 1900s, it was the size of a large notebook and looked like a miniature briefcase with its small handle and leather straps, like something someone might have carried around Vienna at the turn of the twentieth century. She’d loved it and had thought of it as her lucky bag until it seemed all the luck she’d once enjoyed vanished. Weeks ago, she’d found the satchel on an upper shelf of a closet and took it to a local shoe repair to have one of the straps mended. They’d cleaned and polished the leather and the case looked almost new, with just the right patina of age and use, as if it had housed years of successful manuscripts. She undid the straps and opened the flap, taking out the stack of pages covered with her loopy handwriting. Bea had written more in the past few months than she had in the past few years.