August 19, 1989

Thankfully, most of that day is a blur to me now, but certain odd and assorted details persist vividly in my memory like bits of a dream. I recall, for example, slipping off to the window on the far side of the living room, away from the crowd, and fixing my attention on the scene 15 stories below. There was nothing unusual out there, nothing I hadn’t seen on innumerable other occasions, but that brief interlude of observing the larger world constituted a moment of grace which rendered me blessedly oblivious, if only for an instant, to the scene taking place around me.
I set my scotch on the windowsill and stared down at the idle young men and women sprawled over the front steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art across the street. Though I had observed these creatures and their compatriots over the course of the 22 years I had lived on Fifth Avenue, I had never before taken the time or trouble to consider why they would spend their time sitting outdoors on those hard, dirty steps. Were they there by choice or default? Did they actually enjoy that milieu or were they trying to escape something else? Were they happy? Was anyone? Did it matter?
For one very strange moment, I imagined myself among them. In my fantasy, I wore tight black jeans, a black T-shirt, a plain black blazer and a pair of those enormously heavy work boots the young seemed to favor. I half-reclined on the museum steps–sort of like Ingres’ “Grande Odalisque,” only a little more erect–and read a paperback book of poetry. Sylvia Plath. I melded into the crowd so completely that I became an integral part of the urban landscape, an aspect indistinguishable from any other.
But I was snapped back to reality by the touch of a hand on my shoulder, which brought the absurdity of my reverie into sharp focus. The sad fact of the matter was, no matter how much black I covered myself with, I would never fit into any environment as naturally, as confidently, as casually as these denizens of the steps. I would look stiff, clownish and, above all, ancient in the midst of such callow characters. For that day, at the age of 45, I was the oldest woman in New York.
I turned away from the window to find the hand on my shoulder was attached to my best friend, Mitzi Stone. I started to force a smile, but when I looked past her and saw the roomful of people I lost the energy to dissemble. I felt my facial muscles collapse and my knees start to buckle. I grabbed Mitzi’s arm for support.
“It’s okay,” she whispered, then gave me a moment to regain my bearings before gently guiding me to a chintz-covered chair.
As I sank heavily into its cushions, I wondered whether I would ever summon the means to lift myself back out. Perhaps I would be devoured by this soft, sweet chair, never to be heard from again. I smiled at the notion of spending eternity deep in the embrace of the feathery upholstery.
“Are you all right?” Mitzi asked.
The left corner of her mouth pulled down as she spoke and her right eyelid twitched slightly; I recognized the tics as her peculiar indicators of anxiety, and I knew what she was anxious about. She was afraid her best friend had become unglued, as they say. That she had gone nuts, crazy, insane. That she was playing without a full deck. That her elevator didn’t reach the penthouse. That she was one fry short of a Happy Meal. I smiled again as these idiotic phrases reeled through my mind and I realized how very apt they were.
Mitzi’s lips smiled back at me, but her eyelid still twitched. “Can I get you anything?”
“My scotch,” I said. “I left it on the windowsill.”
“Are you sure you…?”
“I’m not drunk,” I said.
“Of course you’re not, but....”
“Please, get me my scotch.”
She moved toward the windowsill but stopped to talk with a small clutch of solemn gentlemen dressed in dark suits. As they chatted, each one of them ever so discreetly sneaked a surreptitious peek in my direction.
Loony, out to lunch, unburdened by sanity. I amused myself by coming up with euphemisms to describe what these people no doubt perceived as my state of mind, but the novelty soon wore off. I wished Mitzi would stop talking and get the drink. I didn’t really care about drinking it; I mostly just wanted to hold it. The smell reminded me of Charles and of my life. Not this farce in the living room, but my real life, the one that had ended on Tuesday, just four days earlier.

I was at our home in East Hampton. It was one of those brilliantly sunlit August mornings when the damp air shimmers in a thousand colors like pointillist brushwork. I had just finished swimming my morning laps, the full fifty. I pulled my goggles off, tossed them onto the deck, lay back in the clear water and started to do a luxuriously slow backstroke, my reward for finishing the laps in good time. I concentrated on the feel of the cool water sliding across my body and the sun baking the kinks out of my arm muscles which were still tense from the vigorous stroking. I paddled lazily with one hand and touched my abdomen with the other, enjoying the taut feel of it.
I closed my eyes and pondered the day’s schedule. I had lunch with Mitzi and Caroline in Southampton, and then had to pick up a few things at Saks before my 3 o’clock tennis game with Sally Fromer at the Maidstone Club. Singles. I made a mental note to stop at the florist afterwards to make sure they had the centerpieces for Saturday night’s Great Gatsby Picnic under control. The tulips had to be Dutch, even if they were from a hothouse; I was not going to put up with those garish South American ones again this year.
The annual Gatsby party frankly had become a burden. It was a ridiculous tradition to begin with and one that seemed to require more effort every year, but it was an evening people had come to expect. Our friends anticipated it for months, and the press post-mortemed it for weeks, so while it was far from my idea of a good time, it was not negotiable.
As I flipped over to do an easy breaststroke, I saw Mitzi standing at the far edge of the pool. Dressed in khaki shorts, an ivory linen camp shirt and her big Jackie O sunglasses, she just looked into the water without moving. I swam over to where she stood and grabbed the side of the pool.
“I never thought I’d see you awake at this hour,” I said. “What’s up?”
“I have something to tell you.” Her voice was oddly flat; she spoke in a monotone that reminded me of a cartoon character under hypnosis.
“So, tell me,” I said as I took off my cap and dunked my head back into the water to smooth my hair.
“Get out.” Mitzi’s statement was neither an invitation nor a request. It was a command.
Puzzled and honestly a bit frightened by her demeanor, I did as I was told. I grabbed one towel and wrapped it around my head, then
dried my arms, legs and torso with another. For some reason, it seemed important that I act as if nothing was the matter.
“What is it?” I asked, trying to sound casual. I propped my foot up on a chair and carefully dried the skin between my toes. “Why are you here?”
“Sit down.” It was another command.
I bundled myself into a heavy white terrycloth robe and turned to her. “Would you please tell me what this is all about?”
“Sit down.”
To avoid prolonging the unpleasantness, I once again obeyed and sat on the edge of the padded lounge chair. “What is it?”
Mitzi sat down beside me and looked straight ahead. She opened her mouth as if to speak, but no words came out, just a little squeaking noise. She took my right hand in her left and stared at it with an odd, twisted expression. “It’s about Charles.”
I shook off her hand and yanked on the ends of my robe sash, tightening it so much I could hardly breathe. “What about him?” My husband had returned to Manhattan a week earlier to take care of some business and was due back in East Hampton on Saturday, in time for the party.
“Daniel just called.” Mitzi referred to our houseman in Manhattan who had been with Charles longer than I had. “He asked me to tell you.”
“What?” I stood up and reflexively tugged again on the ends of the sash so hard it cut into my waist. “He asked you to tell me what?”

That was the moment.
As I reran the scene in my mind, I recognized that particular instant at the pool as the last moment of my real life. The interminable moments since then had constituted a whole new state of being–or non-being. Something entirely unconnected to anything belonging to me.
When Mitzi finally brought my scotch from the windowsill, I inhaled its aroma before taking a drink. The smoky smell and tinkling sound of the ice cubes were familiar and good. I took a sip and tried to will myself into a kind of Proustian state. If madeleines could transport one to a world of the past, I reasoned, why not Balvenie?
“Keep them away from me,” I said.
Mitzi crouched down so she could speak to me without raising her voice. “Keep who away?”
“All of them.”
“But Lauren–”
“Please.”
“I’ll do what I can.” She stood up, took a deep breath, and walked into the crowd of people that filled my living room, the room that used to be Charles’-and-my living room.
I rested my nose on the rim of the glass and inhaled again, slowly and deeply. Though the scent conjured up a vague, indescribable sensation that spoke of Charles, I could capture neither a visual image nor any suggestion of his voice. I could see articles of clothing–the navy blue blazers he wore in the Hamptons, the tweed jackets he wore at home in Manhattan, the tuxedos he wore for benefits and the ancient, wrinkled khaki pants he wore whenever he could get away with it–but I could not see his features. I could recall words he had spoken at dinner speeches but could not hear the notes of his voice. Deeply ensconced in that chair, I tried to create a world in my mind where everything was as it had been before. Once created, I decided, I would live there. I was lucid enough to know that living in such a place–a place with no basis in current, tangible fact–constituted insanity, but that didn’t matter to me in the least.
A man’s voice suddenly penetrated the borders of my new world. “Lauren, darling, we’re so sorry.”
I turned in the direction of the voice and found two faces which were familiar but to which I could attach neither names nor associations. One belonged to an olive-complected man wearing pinstripes and a cobalt blue Hermes tie dotted with little yellow clovers; the other was affixed to a female head covered with nicely highlighted hair. As the faces moved toward me to plant wispy air kisses next to my cheek, I viewed them as if through a fisheye lens. They zoomed in, each face in turn morphing into an enormous conical nose trailed far behind by pinprick eyes.
“He did so much for so many people,” the man said. “We’ll miss him terribly.”
“Thank you so much,” I replied, the appropriate words and gracious tone of my own voice taking me completely by surprise. Just to see what would happen, I tried it again: “And thank you for stopping by.” Not bad. I sounded almost normal.
“We’re here if you need anything, darling,” the woman said.
As soon as they walked away, a tall, gray-haired man approached. “I wish I could say something that had some meaning, Lauren.” He placed a hand on my shoulder.
“Thank you,” I said.
As soon as he stepped away, another platitude-spouting couple appeared, and Mitzi came up behind my chair. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I tried to keep them away.”
I began to realize I could get through this party–was that what they called it after a funeral?–by simply sitting here and thanking people. Yes, I would just thank them all, regardless of what they said, while continuing to pursue my own thoughts. And so I did, sniffing the scotch and taking an occasional sip between encounters.
If the past was real, I thought, it had to be out there somewhere, for nothing turns to nothing. Wasn’t that physics? If that were indeed the case, I should be able to reclaim the past in some form. If, on the other hand, the past was not real, then I hadn’t lost anything anyway, which seemed positive but left me rootless. This was becoming complicated.
When Charles’ brother, Findlay, came over to see how I was doing, I asked him to refill my drink. He did so without comment and brought it back with a small plate of hot canapés, which he placed on the satinwood table beside me. He planted a kiss on top of my head and walked away.
The smell of the food made me nauseous; I had not eaten anything but a few crackers since Tuesday. I pushed the plate away but the stench of crabmeat remained in my nostrils. That’s what we would have been eating at the Gatsby Picnic, I thought. Crab legs. Tonight. I had to give him credit; Charles had finally found a way to get out of that damn party.

“What did Daniel ask you to tell me?” My voice sounded shrill, even to me, as it echoed off the ceramic tile wall that ran alongside the pool. My fingers were sore from clutching the terrycloth robe ties so tightly, but I couldn’t release them.
Mitzi shook her head; a tear crept out from under the dark lens of her glasses.
“Is Charles sick? Was he in an accident?” I grabbed her by the arms and shook her, as if I could somehow shake a response out of her.
“No.”
“What is it then?” My voice was an octave too high and far too loud.
“Daniel found him in bed. He’s dead.” She just said it. Just like that.
“Jesus Christ.” I sank down onto the lounge chair. I had heard the word “dead” but couldn’t quite assimilate its meaning in this context. I watched bits of sunlight dance across the pool’s blue water as I tried to absorb the message. “What happened?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Not sure?”
“I don’t know,” Mitzi said.
“When….?” I asked.
“This morning. Charles didn’t come down to breakfast, so Daniel went upstairs to check....”
“When did he die?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I guess during the night.”
“Jesus Christ.”
Mitzi draped her arms awkwardly around me.
“What....what do we do?” I asked. The words didn’t sound appropriate, but I had no others.
“Jimmy’s on his way,” she said. “He’ll take us back to Manhattan.”

The minister came over to the chintz chair where I sat sniffing and sipping my scotch. He crouched down so his face was level with mine. “I have to go now, Lauren.” His voice was deep and theatrically somber. “Are you going to be all right?”
I instinctively averted my face so he would not get the full impact of my alcohol-drenched breath. “I’ll be fine.” That came out surprisingly nicely. “And thank you for everything you’ve done.”
“I’ve done nothing compared to what Charles did for the church all these years, and for so many others,” the minister replied. “Really nothing.”
This was a twist. Was I supposed to comfort him now? Make him feel better about his meager efforts? I gave it a shot. “You’ve been wonderful to me, Harold. I couldn’t have done it without you.” Done what? I wondered as I said it, for I had not, in fact, done a thing since Tuesday. Nonetheless, I smiled.
The minister returned my smile, very sweetly, rather sadly. “You’re so brave,” he said, taking my hand. “I think the mayor did a wonderful job of summing up Charles’ generosity in his eulogy. It was a lovely tribute.”
I nodded.
“Please remember I’m here for you. I’ll call tomorrow.”

Jimmy Willis arrived in East Hampton around noon, full of kind words and condolences. He helped Mitzi and me into the back seat of the Lincoln, and we took off for Manhattan.
Jimmy had driven us for over a decade, shuttling us from place to place in Manhattan and to and from East Hampton. But once he delivered us out here to the far tip of Long Island, away from the gridlock traffic and parking problems of the city, we both enjoyed driving ourselves. I loved to put down the top of my little Mercedes and let the wind blow through my hair. It was one of the few things in my life, like swimming, that made me feel young.
None of us spoke on that dreadful trip to Manhattan until we were well west of the Hamptons, passing through the endless landscape of strip malls, superstores and suburban housing tracts that constitutes so much of Long Island.
“How did it happen, Jimmy?” I finally asked.
“I beg your pardon, Mrs. Acheson?” Jimmy tilted his head back and to the side, as if to hear better.
“How did Charles die?”
“You don’t know?” I caught him sneaking a look at Mitzi in the rearview mirror.
“No, I don’t know; that’s why I’m asking.” I regretted my tone of voice, as I was very fond of Jimmy.
“I...uh...I don’t know either, Mrs. Acheson.”
“Tell me,” I said.
“You’ll have to ask Daniel, ma’am.” Jimmy gave the car a bit more gas. “I wasn’t there. Daniel just called me at home and asked me to come get you.”
Mitzi reached across the broad back seat and patted my hand. “We’ll be there soon.”
“I’m really sorry, Mrs. Acheson,” Jimmy murmured.

After the minister left, I curled myself more snugly into the soft chintz chair; but for the company, I would have rolled up into a full fetal position. I finally nibbled on a tiny quiche, but it made me feel so ill I had to take a swig of Balvenie to push my stomach contents back down.
I looked across the room, with a kind of detached interest, at the sad expressions on the faces of the few remaining guests. Findlay
was pale and even thinner than usual; he wore an expression so melancholy the corners of his mouth dragged along his jawbone. Mitzi’s husband Paul wiped his brow with a linen handkerchief as he talked to a neighbor. Mitzi herself looked ten years older than she had four days ago.
I, on the other hand, had yet to shed a tear, at least not that I could recall, though the past four days were such a blur I didn’t know precisely what I had done. To be honest, I was grateful for the oblivion even though I sensed it was unnatural and somehow inappropriate. This was, after all, a time for mourning, and I knew I was supposed to be the chief mourner. So, while I accepted kudos and words of admiration about my “bravery,” “courage” and “quiet strength,” I knew none of those were accurate characterizations. Zombie, completely without affect, unfeeling, cold, heartless, out-of-it, in a fog. These came closer to the mark.
As I lifted my head ever so slightly, Whistler’s “Nocturne” came into my line of vision. I had never liked this painting and had only allowed it to be hung in this hidden corner of the living room because it was Charles’ favorite. I preferred more decorative works, like the Monet with its blood-red poppies, the golden sunflowers of van Gogh or the chubby little Renoir girl. I even preferred the 17th-century Dutch still lifes that hung in Charles’ library to this abomination. They at least had some color, some arguable beauty, and were characterized by a degree of craftsmanship in the execution that seemed completely lacking in this Whistler painting of smog.
But now, as I examined it through my own haze, I could vaguely detect an entire, fully imagined scene behind those atmospheric veils of dull color. For the first time, I began to perceive a living, pulsating city under there, obscured by the fog. How remarkable. If Whistler was a genius, as Charles had contended, perhaps his special gift lay in his understanding that the spark of life could be so deeply buried that it could disappear entirely from human perception.

Jimmy got us back to the city by three that afternoon. He escorted Mitzi and me into the co-op, then left. Daniel and Findlay were waiting for us in the library, along with Charles’ lawyer and his physician. The four men stood as we entered the room. Each of them gave each of us a kiss on the cheek or a small squeeze in the nature of a weary hug. Each one told me how sorry he was and murmured nice words about Charles. Then we all sat down.
“What happened?” I asked.
All four men were silent. Findlay turned to Mitzi who slowly, almost imperceptibly, shook her head. I looked at the floor and waited.
“Daniel found Charles this morning,” someone finally said.
I thought it was Gerald, the lawyer, but couldn’t be sure because my eyes were focused on the delicate rosy pattern of the Persian rug.
“I’m so sorry, ma’am.”
That was Daniel.
“It was too late. There was nothing anyone could have done at that point.”
That must be the doctor, I thought, whose name I couldn’t remember.
“Jesus Christ, Lauren, it’s horrific. Unbelievable.”
That was poor, dear Findlay.
When I was able to raise my head, I looked at each man, one by one. “How did he die?”
No one answered. I folded my hands in my lap and waited for a response, though my worst suspicions had already been confirmed by the men’s demeanor and their stalling.
“Pills,” the doctor finally said.
“What kind of pills was he taking?”
“These were not pills I had prescribed,” he said quickly. “They were sleeping pills he had procured on his own.”
“I never knew Charles to have trouble sleeping,” I said. I’m not sure why I felt compelled to make them verbalize what they didn’t even want to think about.
“It wasn’t an accident,” Findlay said.
I stared at him for a long moment, then turned toward the loaded bookcases.
“He swallowed the entire bottle,” Findlay said quietly. “He died choking on his own vomit.” In an effort to stifle a sob, or maybe in empathy, Findlay gagged.
I wanted to breathe deeply just then but feared that doing so might open me up to more horrible news, so I kept my breathing shallow and labored.
“Why?” I asked weakly. It was the only word I could manage.
Once again, the men were silent for a long moment.
“We don’t know,” Gerald finally said.
“Was there a note?”
“A short one,” Findlay said. He pushed himself carefully up off the chair, as if he were very fragile, and walked over to Charles’ mahogany desk. He took a piece of heavy ivory paper from the blotter and brought it to me.
I fingered it; I put it to my cheek and felt it. The creamy stock was Crane, the bold pen stroke was from Charles’ favorite Montblanc pen, and the writing was definitely his. I held it down close to my lap and explored each twist and turn of the black ink marks but my eyes wouldn’t focus clearly enough to make out the words–or maybe my mind wouldn’t.
“Are you all right?” the doctor said.
I nodded but kept my attention on the note. Each letter was formed like textbook copy for the Palmer Method. Charles’ writing was so elegant he had often joked that while he had nothing worthwhile to say he said it quite beautifully. I stared at the page, willing my mind to make words out of the marks and sense out of the words.
Please forgive me. I just don’t know what it’s all about, and I am too tired to go on pretending I do.
My first thought, strange as it now sounds, was that even in a suicide note Charles had put the comma in the right place, between the two independent clauses, just as he had once instructed me to do. Then my mind flashed on a profile that had appeared recently in a German magazine, just after Charles had purchased a Holbein etching of the Holy Family at auction in Berlin. The headline was “Charles Acheson’s Love of Art and Life.”
“Can I get you something, ma’am?” Daniel said. “Something to eat? A glass of wine? Brandy?”
I shook my head.
“Would you like to get some rest?” the doctor said.
I nodded.
He asked Mitzi to help me get ready for bed. “And give her two of these.” He handed Mitzi a bottle of pills with no apparent recognition of the irony involved in pushing sleeping pills at this particular moment.
“I want to go to the guest room,” I said.
“Of course,” Mitzi said, and guided me upstairs to the largest of the three guest bedrooms.
“Should I want to go to that bed–our bed–the bed where he died?” I asked as I sat on the side of the guest bed.
“Of course not,” said Mitzi.
I took off my shoes and let my toes dig into the deep carpet pile. “Can’t I get you something to eat?” she asked. “Sadie’s made vichyssoise. It might be soothing.”
I shook my head. I didn’t feel the need to be soothed; in fact, I felt calmer, at that moment, than I could ever recall feeling. Frighteningly calm. So calm I vaguely wondered what distinguished that state from death. But there was a tentativeness to my tranquility, a hint of recognition that if my oblivion were pricked by even the smallest of pins I might explode, like an overblown balloon, into a thousand pieces.
As I sat there on the bed looking around me, I wondered what had ever possessed me to create such a ridiculously cheery room. Why had I chosen these saccharine yellow and blue Mario Buatta fabrics? I dug my fingernails into the heavy padding of the quilted bedspread, vowing to redo it all in black if I ever found the energy.
Mitzi left the room briefly, then reappeared with a blue nightie and a glass of water. She started to undress me as if I were a doll, so I responded as such, neither helping nor hindering the operation. She unbuckled my belt and unhooked my trousers, then undid the buttons of my cotton shirt and pulled it off. She coaxed me into a standing position, unzipped my trousers, and let them fall to the floor, She unhooked my bra and set it on the bedside table, but left my lacy panties in place. Then she slipped the satin nightie over my head and let it slither coolly over my torso.
She handed me the glass of water and two small blue pills, which I carefully placed on my tongue. They tasted bitter, which seemed perfect. “The water,” Mitzi reminded me, though one of the pills had already dissolved.
I took a long sip, fascinated by the peculiar sensation of that single, lonely pill swimming around in my mouth. Then I swallowed.
I climbed into the bed linens, savoring the cool crispness of the Pratesi sheets, then lay my head on the pillow and closed my eyes.

I took one final swig of scotch and slumped further down in my chair as the party, or whatever it was, drew to a close. The few remaining guests stopped by to offer words of comfort and consolation as well as help, company, anything at all you might need. I knew it would be
difficult to make good on the offers since everyone would be heading back to the Hamptons now that their unpleasant duty here had been fulfilled. Not that it mattered; I wasn’t planning to need anything.
As I nodded, tossed off tiny smiles as gifts, grasped hands and gave thanks to those who paid me court, I tried to comprehend the notion that life around me would go on as usual. Indeed, life most likely had been going on as usual since Tuesday. It was only for me, not for the world at large, that life as I knew it had ceased to exist.
After the last guests said goodbye, when the only people left were Findlay, Mitzi and the help, I did what I had wanted to do all day long. I curled up in the chair and fell back into that dazed state somewhere between sleep and death, confident that my own fog would not lift any sooner than Whistler’s.

To be continued....

Judy Pomeranz, an Arlington-based freelance writer, critic and lecturer, is élan’s Contributing Editor for arts and books. In 2003, we published her novella, Lies Beneath the Surface.

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