No one ever understood what possessed me to cultivate a friendship with him. They always said I was insane for attempting to get to know him. I never once listened to them. Of course, when you’re sixteen, you don’t often listen to people who are "in your way." He phrased it that way, anyway. The simple truth was that he listened to me. He took the time to understand my complaints and my fallacies. I respected him and never tried to impress other people by telling them that we knew each other. And in return I received kindness.
I don’t know that you could have even called us friends. He was so private, so complex, so involved in his wife and son, that it was next to impossible to become a so-called friend. In fact, more than once he stated that he didn’t have any friends, that friendship was a romantic illusion that it didn’t exist. And that was understandable. In my experience, a "friend" was someone who would merely take advantage of your good qualities, expose the faults to others, and ultimately betray you.
Let me travel back to the beginning of the story, to my as yet bourgeois home life in Connecticut in August of 1979. I was not yet sixteen years old, but I yearned for the day when I would be free to explore, to come and go as I pleased, to live the way I chose. My father was a stockbroker, one of the people whom John would have most certainly disliked had he ever met him. He was arrogant, cunning, and ruthless when it involved business. In fact, one could use all three adjectives when describing him with his family as well. Mom was fifteen years Dad’s junior. It was always clear that she married him for his money, and gave birth to me simply for the purpose of having an heir.
And as for me? I was creative, passionate, and utterly depressed. I was constantly under the surveillance of our servants; my parents were rarely present. Yet although I had been brought up with a plethora of possessions (excuse the assonance), I knew there had to be something more to life than money, power, and nine-to-five work days followed by six-to-eight shopping, then nine-to-one dinner parties. How could there not be? When I looked at the sky, or at the snow that gently fell outside, or listened to a rainstorm, I knew that there was another purpose for me.
One unbearably hot day, I was sitting in our parlor, writing feverishly, when Mom breezed through the door in a cloud of Chanel No. 5. "Alida, you had better get packed," she said. I could smell the alcohol on her breath even from where I sat. In fact, the gardener probably could have smelled it.
Her words surprised me. "What? Why?"
"Oh, didn’t Henry tell you?"
"No," I said impatiently, "he did not. What is it?"
"We’re moving to New York in a week."
"The city? In a week?" I was on my feet abruptly. "Why?"
"Your father wants to be closer to his workplace," she replied, going to the bar and mixing scotch and coke.
I was having an extremely difficult time figuring this out. "Mom, Dad’s work is here in Connecticut. You’re tipsy."
"Oh, I suppose we neglected to tell you the other part. He’s switching to a different place."
Now I was close to furious. It was strange how conversations with my mother affected me that way. "Mom," I said slowly, trying not to pick up a knife and use it, on her or myself, "when was this decided? Why didn’t anyone tell me?"
"I don’t know. I guess we simply forgot, with all the preparations we’ve been making. And you’re fifteen, darling. Old enough to figure such things out. After all, you regularly listen in on our conversations."
"I do not," I fumed, lying my face off, "eavesdrop."
"Alida, is it our duty to tell you all our business? Really." She was slurring her words more and more as she became increasingly intoxicated. It was as if I were listening to millions of bees buzzing around the hives out back. I had to put my hands over my ears as she ranted on about how I was far too nosy. "Don’t put your hands over your ears like a little child!" she exclaimed, pulling them off and slapping them. "You’re far too old for that."
"According to you, I’m far too old for my jeans!" I shot back. It made little sense, but I knew I could fool her when she was that drunk. "Mom, you should tell your daughter when you plan to make a move that affects her life! I’ll have to start all over again!"
"Don’t be silly. You’ll manage. And if you don’t, well, don’t blame us. You’re idiotic if you can’t." She turned and began walking back to the bar, clumsily removing her heels as she did so. It wasn’t the first time she’d insulted me, and surely wasn’t the last. Still, I reached for the knife, only to pull my hand back before even touching it. It wouldn’t be worth it. It might obliterate half of the beating I received. I doubted it would result in that. Dad would probably beat me twice as often if I did that. He’d have no one else to beat if she died.
Instead, I simply let out a sigh. "Look who’s talking," I mumbled. Fortunately, she didn’t hear me. I left the room, escaping to the safety of the back yard garden. The garden had always been my favorite place. It was a place of comfort. It was a welcome change from the material things that the house was inundated with. In the garden, I could dream, laugh, think, talk; I could reveal the inner person that I concealed so well at school and with my parents. Roses grew, along with tulips, daisies, and an assortment of other flowers. I lay amog them and dreamt of an existence far removed from this one. One where I could be prosperous without lying and cheating. Where I could give love and receive it in return. In essence, where I could be happy. The obstacle was that I saw no possible way of achieving such an existence.
"Miss?" It was Sallie, our maid and cook. I looked up and, nearly blinded by the sun, saw her plump outline standing over me. I realized I’d either been asleep or so lost in a daydream that I’d lost all track of time and my surroundings.
"Sallie, what time is it?"
"It’s time to eat, Miss Alida," she replied, smiling. "Come, child, up with you."
As we sat and ate together, I said, "Sallie, will you be coming with us when we leave?"
A sad look crossed her face. A feeling of dread swept over me. "Sallie, you aren’t . . . you aren’t staying behind, are you?"
"I don’t know, Alida. Master and Missus haven’t asked me to go, nor to stay behind."
"Well, I’m asking you. I beg you, Sallie. You must go. What would I do without you?"
Sallie had always been one of my dearest companions. I hesitated to call her a friend; I didn’t believe in friendship at the time. She was an excellent listener, and could converse with such ease that I felt I could confide nearly everything in her. Still, I could not bring myself to believe that she was a friend.
"Oh, Miss Alida, you’d manage somehow." I was always hearing that phrase; You’ll manage somehow. I was infinitely disgusted with it by that point.
"Sallie, there are only two people I cannot manage without, and you are one of them."
"Who else?"
"Ellen," I said, smiling at the very mention of a washmaid who was eighteen, beautiful, and one of the kindest people I’d ever met, considering there weren’t many kind people I’d become acquainted with. That brought a smile to Sallie’s face as well.
"No, it’s hard to get through a day without hearing a kind word from her," she agreed. "Only two people you can’t manage without? No one else?"
"No one," I confirmed. "And when we move to stuffy, smog-ridden New York, you must come with us."
"Miss Alida, I don’t want to try to survive in that horrid place," she said, dropping the "h" in horrid. She was from London, and it was evident in both her manner and her speech. "Why, I’d certainly die of poisoning!"
I laughed. "Well, we’ll all eventually die, so why not go out with a bang?"
"I didn’t say I was going to die in a nuclear explosion," she retorted. We both laughed at that comment. Typical Sallie. Then again, the former was a typical comment from me.
"Maybe you’ll meet someone from England," I said helpfully. "Such as Mick Jagger."
"That git?" Her broad shoulders were heaving with laughter. "No, thank you, Miss Alida."
"You know," I said thoughtfully, "he once seduced my mother. Back in the sixties."
"I know all too well, young lady. Your mother didn’t stop prattling on about it for weeks," she said, shaking her head in disdain. Sallie had been in the service of my mother’s family ever since 1949, when she was eighteen.
"Well?"
"Well, what? There’s not much to tell, Alida."
"Did he ever come over for supper?"
"A few times, yes."
"What was he like? Pompous? Arrogant? A son of a --"
"Now, now," she said, grinning. My curiosity had always lead to erotic fantasies of events, usually profane, and this was no exception.
"Actually, not at all. I had gathered that he would be exactly as you said, but he wasn’t. He was quite humorous and polite and even charming."
"Probably how he seduced Mother."
"I don’t know. He seemed sincere."
"Oh, well. Perhaps his libido led him to his reputation."
Sallie burst into laughter. "Miss Alida, if only your mum could hear you saying such things. She’d have a nervous breakdown. I can’t believe you didn’t rebel and become a would-be nun."
"I may be rebellious, Sallie, but I am no candidate for a nun," I exclaimed, laughing equally hard. "No, honestly, I believe that a person’s downfall can lead to an eventual destruction of a good reputation."
"Very mature," she said, ruffling my hair. "And very insightful. Sometimes I find it `ard to believe that you’re only fifteen."
"Do you?"
"Of course. You’re so smart, it almost boggles the mind. Smart for your age, tha’ is."
"So what you’re saying," I said teasingly, "is that people my age aren’t as smart, but people older are smarter."
"I didn’t say that. You can think wha’ever you like." She was smiling, so I knew she had caught on. After finishing my meal, I sighed heavily.
"Sallie . . . please, do come with us. I couldn’t bear to live in New York City without you around. And Ellen."
"I’ll try my best," she said solemnly. "Really, I will, Miss Alida. I’d like to see New York."
"You are most likely the only one of us who truly wants to see it," I mumbled. "I have no desire to go. I do want to see the world one day, but I don’t necessarily want to live in every place I see."
"Is that what you think your mother is doing?"
"Yeah. She travels so many places, and in a fog of alcohol and who knows what else, she suggests to Dad that we live there. Naturally, he beats her."
Sallie stroked my hair, which was falling down my back like a mass of black silk. "Miss Alida, hold your head up, dearie."
"I try, but every time I do, someone kicks it," I said, managing a smile. My chin was quivering. Oh, no. God, don’t let me cry now. I never cry.
"They won’t be kicking you forever," she said soothingly. "I know they won’t, miss."
"Oh, Sallie, I hope not," I said softly, hardly even hearing myself.
I was lost in thought again, in my daydream mode. Everything seemed to
slip away once again, and I was alone with my fantasy.
C.J. © 2001