silk skirt suit and is smiling, leaning against a tree in a small Alphabet City park her dollars had restored. The cover text had read, “A Woman of Uncommon Energy.” Nor had she asked for the photo beside that one! If the decorator’s made one mistake, two, what else has been misplaced? This photo is eight, maybe nine years before the Town & Country shot: she’s boarding a private plane, up the glinting steps on the tarmac, baby George in her arms. She’s turned back in front of the open door to have the picture taken. Patricia is hiding behind her skirt, her arms wrapped around CeCe’s waist, a red-yarn bow and a pigtail. Hawaii, but who took the picture? Not Walter. Walter, already inside. His leg is there in the photo, jutting out onto the carpet, as he was seated. It is a beautiful photo, joy in her face, her eye to the camera, but his wicked leg ruins it. The plane, on loan from a friend. Walter ignored her once they were introduced to the only other passenger in the otherwise empty private terminal—that year’s Miss America, a girl from Wisconsin on a press stop with Holiday magazine. CeCe made sure they weren’t photographed side by side. As they were escorted across the runway, Walter called CeCe Fatty Dolores. He pinched her arm in front of Miss America and the children. (He’d taken to calling her Fatty Dolores the year she had a producer’s credit on a musical version of Lolita she’d thought was brave. Fatty because she’d been pregnant with George when the show closed. Dolores because Walter was so many years her senior. There was nothing, when she met him, to suggest what lay ahead.)
“Yes,” she says to George, “the room is fine.” She tries her best to look pleased. “Although I don’t like how the photos have been arranged. And I don’t like anything else.”
“Adjustments take a while,” Dr. Orlow says. “I’ll leave you to it. Do you have any more questions, for the time being?”
Through the initial visits to the hospital, CeCe prided herself on accommodating each bit of bad news with ladylike discretion, even cheer. No need to make the doctors feel bad, to make things messy. Yes, she bullied the help for a bit of relief. She complained about the food, the spongy pillows, the fussy bedside manner, and the yoga pants worn by the new wife. She told George the nurses were stealing money from her purse. She told the nurses Iris was stealing money from her purse. The nurses were not seen again. What better fun, she asked George, once it was all straightened out, are nurses and children for? She would not apologize; there wasn’t much else she was able to do to keep her spirits up. But entering this room, she is overcome—never until today has she noticed that all her furniture, all inherited, is decorated with a leaf or a flower or an animal. That it’s all of a woodland theme. She feels her hands reaching up to her mouth, she finds her mouth is open.
“Forest,” she says to George, meaning also to say motif , and something against the decorator, for she doesn’t know what kind of chairs and tables she would have chosen for herself, had she chosen for herself, and now she will not ever. She reaches up and throws her fist into her son’s lapel. The linen absorbs the impact with an unimpressive whump. She notices Dr. Orlow has halted mid-departure and that a woman is in the room, in some kind of nurse’s costume; Jean, here to orient her, presumably. George’s gaze unfocuses to the ceiling, as it had when she would scold him as a boy. Weakling, she thinks, unclear as to whether she means him or herself. She seizes his chin and pulls his bright green eye down to hers and tells him it is time to go home, now, now, now, incanted as calmly as any witch would lay a curse. She wheels her way out of the room.
“I’ll get her,” George says, but before he moves to follow, he is mesmerized by the look of her hands on the light gray rubber. He has never seen her touch a wheel of
“Yes,” she says to George, “the room is fine.” She tries her best to look pleased. “Although I don’t like how the photos have been arranged. And I don’t like anything else.”
“Adjustments take a while,” Dr. Orlow says. “I’ll leave you to it. Do you have any more questions, for the time being?”
Through the initial visits to the hospital, CeCe prided herself on accommodating each bit of bad news with ladylike discretion, even cheer. No need to make the doctors feel bad, to make things messy. Yes, she bullied the help for a bit of relief. She complained about the food, the spongy pillows, the fussy bedside manner, and the yoga pants worn by the new wife. She told George the nurses were stealing money from her purse. She told the nurses Iris was stealing money from her purse. The nurses were not seen again. What better fun, she asked George, once it was all straightened out, are nurses and children for? She would not apologize; there wasn’t much else she was able to do to keep her spirits up. But entering this room, she is overcome—never until today has she noticed that all her furniture, all inherited, is decorated with a leaf or a flower or an animal. That it’s all of a woodland theme. She feels her hands reaching up to her mouth, she finds her mouth is open.
“Forest,” she says to George, meaning also to say motif , and something against the decorator, for she doesn’t know what kind of chairs and tables she would have chosen for herself, had she chosen for herself, and now she will not ever. She reaches up and throws her fist into her son’s lapel. The linen absorbs the impact with an unimpressive whump. She notices Dr. Orlow has halted mid-departure and that a woman is in the room, in some kind of nurse’s costume; Jean, here to orient her, presumably. George’s gaze unfocuses to the ceiling, as it had when she would scold him as a boy. Weakling, she thinks, unclear as to whether she means him or herself. She seizes his chin and pulls his bright green eye down to hers and tells him it is time to go home, now, now, now, incanted as calmly as any witch would lay a curse. She wheels her way out of the room.
“I’ll get her,” George says, but before he moves to follow, he is mesmerized by the look of her hands on the light gray rubber. He has never seen her touch a wheel of
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