He told you that?
He doesnt have to say it for it to be obvious. He just wants you home in one piece. The bullshit around that man is piled so high you cant even see him past it.
Hed take my place if theyd let him.
Even if thats true, it doesnt mean a goddamned thing. The only thing hes ever been afraid of is regular life. Come home and live a regular life and impress me. Forget about my father.
She could almost hear him straighten up.
Tell him Ill make him proud, he said.
She sighed. Tell him yourself. Hell be where you left him, in that damned recliner. He doesnt go anywhere. Everybody comes to him.
I will.
Good-bye, Pat, she said, and then she thought, Good-bye, Pat, in case she was really saying it. She waited to hear him hang up.
7
She began to look forward to the day when she would take another mans name. It was the thoroughgoing Irishness of Tumulty that bothered her, the redolence of peat bogs and sloppy rebel songs and an uproar in the blood, of a defeat that ran so deep it reemerged as a treacherous conviviality.
Shed grown up around so many Irish people that shed never had to think much about the fact that she was Irish. On St. Patricks Day, when the city buzzed like a family reunion, she felt a tribal pride, and whenever she heard the plaintive whine of bagpipes, she was summoned to an ancient loyalty.
When she got to college, though, and saw that there was a world in which her father didnt hold much currency, she began to grasp the crucial role the opinions of others played in the settling of ones own prospects. Eileen she couldnt get rid of, but if she could join it to something altogether different, she might be able to enjoy her Irishness again, even feel safe enough to take a defensive pride in it, the way she did now only on those rare occasions when her soul was stirred to its origins, like the day just before her nineteenth birthday when President Kennedy was elected and she wept for joy.
She wanted a name that sounded like no name at all, one of those decorous placeholders that suggested an unbroken line of WASP restraint. If the name came with a pedigree to match it, she wasnt going to complain.
It was mid-December 1965. She was in a masters program in nursing administration at NYU after getting college done in three years, as shed planned. Between classes, she met her friend Ruth, who worked nearby, under the arch in Washington Square, to head to lunch together. It was an unusually mild day for December; some young men had on only a sweater and no jacket.
Well, its not that he needs a date, necessarily, Ruth was saying as they walked toward the luncheonette on Broadway. He just doesnt have one.
Eileen sighed; it was happening again. Everyone always believed theyd found her man for her, but more often than not he was a blarneying, blustering playboy whod charmed her friends and the rest of the bar and whom she couldnt ditch fast enough.
Im sure one will turn up, she said. Tell him good things come to those who wait.
The men that stirred her reliable ones, predictable ones were boring by other girls standards. She didnt meet enough of these men. Maybe they couldnt get past the guys who crowded around her at bars. If they couldnt at least get to her, though, they werent for her. Shed rather be alone than end up with a man who was afraid.
Im sure one will turn up, she said. Tell him good things come to those who wait.
The men that stirred her reliable ones, predictable ones were boring by other girls standards. She didnt meet enough of these men. Maybe they couldnt get past the guys who crowded around her at bars. If they couldnt at least get to her, though, they werent for her. Shed rather be alone than end up with a man who was afraid.
You are impossible! Ruth said. I am trying to look out for you here. No you know what? Fine. Thats just fine. Ruth fastened the buttons on her coat.
Eileen could feel Ruth burning. In front of the luncheonette, Ruth stopped her. Heres the thing, she said. Frank asked me to do this favor, and we just started, so I want to come through for him. I dont care what you do on New Years. You want to miss the fun, thats fine by me. You want to be alone the rest of your life, thats fine too. Ive tried. I even set you up with Tommy Delaney, and look what you did with that.
You think youre safe with a West Point man, Eileen said, as though to herself. You think hell have a bit of class. She watched a cab stop at the corner and a man with a newspaper tucked under his arm pay his fare.
Tommys a fine man, Ruth said.
Oh, Im sure hes swell, Eileen said. I have no way of knowing. He couldnt sit still long enough to say two words to me. He spent the whole time making sure every back in the place got slapped.
Tommy has a lot of friends.
He bought everyone a round and said I didnt know it yet, but he was my future husband. There was a big cheer. The nerve!
The man with the newspaper got out of the cab. He was tall and handsome, with dark cropped hair and striking eyeglasses. She imagined he was a visiting professor, Italian or Greek. She took her eyes from him before he turned in her direction.
He liked you. He wanted to make an impression.
An impression!
Look, this one is different, Ruth said lamely. He wont be trying to win you over. He doesnt want to be there any more than you do.
Whats the problem with him? Is he queer?
Eileen didnt know why she was still resisting. She would normally have done her friend Ruth this small favor, but she wasnt in the mood for disappointment, not on New Years Eve. She watched the taxi launch off from the curb, only to stop again up the block to let a young couple pile in. The sun came back out from behind a cloud. Ruth unbuttoned her coat.
Hes a grad student at NYU. A scientist. Franks in an anatomy class with him. Hes obsessed with his research. He never leaves the library. Frank is worried about him. He wants to get him out.
Eileen didnt say anything. She was trying not to believe in the promising picture she was forming in her mind, for fear of disappointment.
So what Frank told him is that I was nagging him to find a date for my friend for New Years.
Absolutely not! Eileen said. I will not pretend to be somebodys charity case.
Hes a gentleman. He couldnt resist a woman in need. Its the only thing that would have worked.
Ruth!
A pair of girls pushed past them into the luncheonette. Eileen could see the counter seats filling up and could make out only one empty booth.
Would it help if I told you hes handsome? Frank even said it himself. He said all the girls they know think hes very handsome.
Let them have him, she said, not meaning it. She couldnt believe she was feeling defensive about this man.
Just do this for me and Ill never bother you again, Ruth said, putting her hand on the door to open it. You can go become an old maid after this.
Fine. But Im not going to pretend to be grateful he went out with me.
In the interval between the setup and the date, shed convinced herself that this was nothing more than a good deed she was doing. When the bell rang at Ruths, though, she was seized by nerves. She ran to the bedroom and locked the door.
Come on! I have to answer the door.
Im not going. Tell him I got sick or something.
Come out and say hello! Ruth whispered forcefully as the bell rang again.
She heard Ruth invite them in. She liked his voice: it was soft, but there was strength in it. She decided to open the door, but not before resolving to give him the hardest time she could. She wasnt going to have any man thinking she needed him there, certainly not some spastic recluse shed have to lead around the room by the sleeve.
Before she had a chance to say anything sarcastic, Ed rose to his feet. He was indeed handsome, but not too pretty; neat and lean, with clean lines everywhere, including those in his face that gave him an appealing gravity when he smiled.
He leaned in and whispered in her ear. I realize you didnt have to do this, and I promise to try to make it worth your time.
Her heart kicked once like an engine turning over on a wintry afternoon.
He could dance like a dream. When he pressed her close, his substantiality surprised her. The glasses, the neatly combed hair, the chivalry on the sidewalk and at doors made an impression, but the back and shoulders let her relax. The girls at their table thought him the most polite man theyd ever met. When she first heard him speak in his articulate way that was oddly devoid of accent, she thought he was like the movie version of a professor, but without the zaniness that emasculated those characters. Still, he was refined in a way that might have raised eyebrows among the men of her set. He could discuss things they didnt understand. He didnt so much drink a beer as warm it in his hand as an offering to the gods of conversation. She fretted over how hed get along with her father, and so she brought him around earlier than she would have otherwise, in case she had to cut him loose, but something in Eds carriage disarmed the big man. Eventually she had to feign annoyance at how well they got along. She shouldnt have been entirely surprised. Hed been a neighborhood kid, the kind who knew how to throw a punch when a friend was in trouble and could talk everybodys way out of it before it started the kind men listened to because the way he spoke suggested he wasnt telling them anything he thought they didnt know already.
He was a natural athlete. They went to the driving range with her old friend Cindy and her husband Jack, who was into golf. Ed teed up and smacked the ball so soundly that when she saw it next it was a tiny pea at the end of its parabolic journey.
They headed out to Forest Hills one weekend to see her friends Marie and Tom Cudahy. There was a tennis court near the Cudahys townhouse. They borrowed tennis whites from their hosts and the four of them hit the ball around in doubles, no keeping score or serving, just volleying. Ed returned shots he shouldnt have been able to get to in time. At the end, Tom asked him to play him solo, and Eileen turned and saw the embarrassed look on Maries face. They both knew what was coming. Tom had been a letterman at Fordham and had a powerful serve, and though he mostly kept his competitiveness in check during mixed doubles, he liked to throttle his counterpart for a while afterward.