A Roadmap Through Paradise : Kids by estory |
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The Hutchinsons lived in the ritzy village of Millbrook, over on Dogwood Lane. Robert Hutchinson was a stockbroker specializing in initial public offerings. He worked very long hours, departing on the six thirty train before anyone else in the house had gotten up for breakfast, and rarely arriving back on anything before the seven thirty p.m. local from Penn Station. Sometimes he worked Saturdays, if there was a really big offering coming up. His wife, Elizabeth, was the only child of a corporate lawyer and a tennis instructor, neither of whom spent much time at home with their daughter. Most of Elizabeth's fondest childhood memories revolved around playing tennis with her mother, and helping their cook, Suzanne, in their well appointed kitchen. There she learned how to make crepe suzettes, chocolate souffles, duck orange and crème vichysoisse; things that seemed to embody human emotions, to her. After she married Robert, she never complained about staying home with her kids, playing tennis with them, or baking white chocolate macadamia nut cookies for them to munch on while they did their homework. They had two sons; Alexander, and Edward.
While Robert Hutchinson was off on his mission to make life as comfortable for them as could be imagined, Elizabeth spent much of the day wandering around their sprawling house and its gardens by herself. She dragged her sons along. By the time they were five they were playing tennis, planting foxgloves, and watching Woody Allen movies like Love and Death and Annie Hall on the big screen TV their mother installed in the enormous living room. They watched with a kind of predetermined interest as their mother decorated and redecorated their colonial style mansion. She must have redecorated it two or three times, probably out of sheer boredom; first in royal blue, then in coffee cream, and finally, in crimson damask. Her parents rarely visited, and Robert's parents were quite stiff and formal; not very good company. She soon tired of her few friends, who spent most of their time going on shopping sprees on Fifth Avenue or attending garden club seminars. Her sons were the apples of her eyes, so to speak, her life's work, and she threw herself into their little lives with all her pent up enthusiasm. It was Elizabeth who went to the PTA meetings, the art shows her sons participated in, the tennis matches in which they competed. If one of their creations did not receive a blue ribbon or a gold medal, she would have a word with one of the teachers in the hall. If a judge ruled the ball out on one of their baseline serves, she would protest loudly; so loudly that she was once escorted out of the stadium. You would have to say that they came to rely on her, in their progression through life. Their snappy sports suits, their stylish taste in music and movies and theatre certainly opened doors for them; pr at least granted them a kind of status. It was Elizabeth who picked out their Christmas gifts: motor bikes, television sets, stereos with enormous speakers, guitars and even a fancy cooking center with which Edward had once almost set the house on fire while trying to bake a chocolate layer cake. If you looked through the windows at her, waltzing around the kitchen in her tie dyed t shirts and bell bottom jeans, you would have thought she was trying to relive her own life through them. She hummed along to the rock songs they played on their record players and she organized the family tennis tournaments that they always played in starting on Memorial Day. It didn't seem to matter that there were only three of them; Elizabeth actually preferred it this way. Robert Hutchinson never had many definite house rules, but he did expect good grades, and he lectured his sons on career choices. He was determined that whatever they did, and he didn't seem to care exactly what, it would make them financially successful. He suggested banking, of course, and law. So he was not thrilled when Edward announced that he wanted to be a chef; like a sous chef, or something, as he put it. Alexander had learned to play the electric guitar Elizabeth had bought him one year [Elizabeth arranged and paid for the lessons he needed], and he wanted to be in some sort of rock band. He had a friend who played drums, and they knew this other kid who dressed in outlandish outfits who wanted to be a lead singer. It all looked exciting, adventurous. Something their mother would take satisfaction in. Robert Hutchinson didn't exactly approve of these career choices, but after they graduated high school, he sent them to college anyway. There was simply nothing else to do. Neither of them had ever worked say, in a restaurant or a recording studio. Edward went to a cooking academy in the city, and Alexander majored in music at a small, local college. Elizabeth steered them into staying at home, rather than dorming out. They did alright, although it must be said that she helped them out quite a bit. She baked most of the Bavarian cream pie in Edward's final exam one year, and she made a few phone calls and offered some money to get Alexander's band a gig in a local bar, and an opportunity to record an album. The video they shot to go along with the album was a disaster, but Elizabeth continued to insist that they practice in the garage, over Robert's strenuous objections. It turned out that they would not have to put up with his objections for long. Robert Hutchinson died of a heart attack at the office. His funeral was largely attended by members of his firm. Elizabeth and her two sons seemed distraught enough. They all wore black and wiped away a few tears with their handkerchiefs. They were not great on emotional gestures, but Elizabeth did lay a bouquet of roses on his coffin before it was lowered into the ground. The boys stood at the edge of the grave staring into it with their hands in their pockets, as if they weren't quite sure what was happening, and what was to become of them. He did leave them quite a bit of money. There was a life insurance policy, of course, and trust funds, and a privately managed investment account. Elizabeth put in a rose garden which she called 'Robert's Garden', and a pool. She bought the boys sports cars, and let them fly to Cancun for a week that spring, to take their minds off of the tragedy. As for herself, she did recuse herself from the garden club, and stopped playing tennis with her few friends. She seemed to spend more and more time fussing around her sons. She prepared these elaborate, candlelit dinners for them, with courses of soups and salads, seasoned roasts, wine and fruit tarts and chocolate covered strawberries and things like that. They would sit around the table in their crimson damask dining room, the three of them, Edward and Alexander in their snazzy suits, and Elizabeth in a little black dress with her hair done up and everything. Sometimes Edward would bake a crestfallen soufflé, and they would dip their spoons in it as though it were raining outside or the stock market had crashed. Elizabeth seemed quite content with this arrangement. She walked around the house humming along to the tunes Alexander's band thrashed out in the garage while they practiced, or showing Edward a few tricks in the kitchen. She would serve turkey club sandwiches for lunch, and then suggest they go for an impromptu swim in the pool or play tennis. After that, she would make dinner for them again, and then they could go for a movie together or take a ride into the city to catch a Broadway show. The boys took it as a matter of course. They had lived all of their lives this way, and seen plenty of acclaimed art exhibits and concerts and musicals in the bargain; all without having to pay for anything. As they got older, though, there could be no denying the fact that they needed girlfriends, or that at least they were beginning to think of finding girlfriends for themselves. There were several girls who hung around Alexander's band. One of them was Stephanie, and Alexander brought her home a few times. She wasn't bad looking, and actually quite charming. She was impressed with their house, and tried to pay polite compliments to Elizabeth, but anyone could see that Elizabeth didn't like having her around. She shrugged stiffly at Stephanie's attempts to curry favor, and turned her back when she walked into rooms. Once, she 'accidentally' spilled soup on her during Alexander's birthday dinner. Other times, she would sit on the sofa, watching Stephanie sitting with her son on the other side of the room, staring at her from under her brows while she stiffly sipped her drink. Alexander enjoyed Stephanie's company though, and he argued with his mother about it. He would tell her that she should give Stephanie a chance, but Elizabeth would just frown. "You can do better than that, Alex," she would say. "That girl isn't in our league." "What's that supposed to mean?" Alex would say. "It means she doesn't meet our standards." "Nobody's going to be perfect enough for you, mom." Then she would sit down on the couch, cross her legs, and pick up a martini glass with two fingers and look out of the picture window at Robert's Garden. "I wouldn't say that," she would say. At times like that Edward would take his jacket and go for a walk around the grounds. He often came back smelling of pot smoke. Once, Elizabeth flushed his stuff down one of the toilet bowls, but then, when Edward asked her for a hundred bucks 'to buy ingredients', she would give him the money. He managed to get a job in a diner by the railroad station, but it didn't look like he would ever amount to much more than that. He started seeing this waitress at the diner, and he started showing up at Alexander's concerts with her. She had green hair, and a tattoo of an angel wrapped in barbed wire on her shoulder. He wouldn't dare invite her over for dinner with his mother. The waitresses name was Krystal. "Why don't you just move out, and we could get an apartment together?" Krystal kept asking him. Edward was non committal. He came up with all kinds of excuses. He wasn't making enough money, he would say. Or he was thinking of going back to school. Sometimes she would break up with him, but after a week or two they could be seen in the movies together, or watching Alexander's band play in some bar. Elizabeth suspected something and started showing up unexpectedly at the diner. She made some sight, in her hair do, in her thousand dollar dresses, sitting at the greasy tables. She always seemed to make sure she got the waitress with the green hair, and kept her busy ordering steaks and having them sent back. Once, she asked to see the chef, and when Edward came out to her table, she demanded that he see her outside. "That girl in the green hair is an absolute mess," Elizabeth told him. "I hope you never bring home a girl like that." "Of course not," Edward told her. And so it went. Weeks turned into months. Months turned into years. Years turned into a decade and a half. And still Alexander's band was playing in the Cave, and Edward was cooking raw steaks at the diner by the station. Stephanie stopped coming to the house on Dogwood Lane, but still could be seen at Alexander's shows. The waitress with the green hair could be seen there too. And Elizabeth seemed to be secretly enjoying it all; the scenes at the diner with Edward, the rock band practicing in the two car garage, the afternoons spent floating in the pool after the tennis tournaments. And the Hutchinsons continued to have dinner together, the three of them, in their fancy new clothes, with the candelabra on the table in the red damask dining room. Elizabeth would make a comment about Stephanie's hair, and Alexander would tell her to mind her own business, and they would start arguing and Edward would take his jacket, go for a walk, and come back smelling of pot smoke. By that time, most of the guys that they had gone to college with had become stockbrokers or investment bankers, engineers and graphic designers or architects, gotten married, bought houses, and some cases, even had kids of their own. Whenever Alexander mentioned that he was thinking of getting his own place with Stephanie, and Edward would stand next to him with his hands in his pockets, Elizabeth would get up, pour herself a drink, and threaten to cut their trust fund access or close their credit card accounts. Then she would suggest that they take their fois gras al frescoe, by the pool. She would start talking about the cars she wanted to buy for them, the upgrades she wanted to make to the sound equipment in the garage, the pastry academy she could send Edward to. She would ask the boys if they wanted to go to Paris or Australia or Machu Pichu. And they would end up like they always did, drinking martinis and listening to rock music, floating in the pool with their sunglasses on. Alexander was getting sick of it though, by the time he was in his early thirties. He had resolved to move out and get an apartment with Stephanie, no matter what his mother said. When he told Elizabeth, she dropped a bottle of vermouth. She told him she would convert the garage into an arboretum, but Alex had taken a job as a bartender, and there was nothing she could do. This was Edward's chance as well, and he took it, although with somewhat halting steps. He was moving in with Alex and Stephanie, 'to do the cooking', as he called it. It would mean that he could see more of that waitress, Alex promised him. Elizabeth told them neither of them would get a dollar from her, but it was no use. They still moved all of their guitars, amps, pots and pans, all packed into Gucci suitcases and apple boxes. Stephanie ferried it all to the new apartment with her van. Elizabeth sat on the porch with her drink and watched them going about it without moving a muscle to help them. "Sorry mom," Edward said apologetically, carrying out the last of his things. "This is something I've got to do." She frowned. "We'll see," she said, cryptically, "What becomes of all this." She left strange messages on their answering machine, sometimes not saying at all. She drove her Mercedes Benz over to their apartment and parked it across the street, sitting in it wearing sunglasses like some spy, until she saw one of them open the front door. Then she would stride over to one of her sons and invite herself over for a martini or a cup of coffee, commenting on how messy the apartment was or how bad the bathroom smelled. If she saw Stephanie or Krystal, she would frown, finish her drink, and take off, without saying another word. Alex went over to their house on Dogwood Lane one time to talk to her about it. He found Edward sitting in the dining room, in his suit, having an orange duck dinner with their mother. He was supposed to be cooking at the diner. "What are you doing here?" Alex asked him. "He's having dinner," Elizabeth said firmly, "Because I invited him. Sit down. I made enough for all of us." Alex instinctively sat down. "Mom," he said, "You've got to stop hanging around our place, and coming over unannounced. You've got to call first. Stephanie and I need our privacy." Elizabeth carved a slice of duck for him and spooned him a portion of bean casserole as if she hadn't heard a word. And Alex didn't say anything more either. He poured himself a glass of Chardonnay and ate his dinner the way he always did. After he had finished his plate, he walked out onto the patio and sat down next to the pool with his drink. Edward came out and sat next to him. "What's wrong with us?" Alex asked him. "What are we doing here?" "I don't know," Edward said. But neither of them moved; in fact, they refilled their glasses a few more times, and listened somewhat sympathetically as their mother complained about how empty the house was now that they had gone. She didn't have anyone to talk to. She had no one to play tennis with. There was no music. A couple of weeks later Alex and Stephanie were sitting in their apartment watching television when the phone rang. It was Elizabeth. She was experiencing chest pains, she told Alex. She was afraid. She wanted to go to the hospital. Alex told Stephanie that his mother was having a heart attack, he grabbed his jacket, and headed out the door. Stephanie did not follow him. But she did call Edward, who left the diner with all of his dishes on the stove, and the waitress with the green hair. They both arrived at the house at the same time. Elizabeth was lying on the couch with her hand on her chest, staring at the ceiling. The boys stood over her, with their hands in their pockets, looking unsure of what to do. "How are you feeling, mom?" Alex asked her. "Terrible," she said, frowning. "Are you going to die, mom?" Edward asked. He sounded more afraid than she did. "Just take me to the hospital," she said, sitting up. The boys waited in the lobby while the doctors performed their tests. Alex called Stephanie, and told her he would be there for a while, and she came down with some McDonalds for them to eat. She sat down on one of the couches and tried to hold Alex's hand, but he kept getting up and pacing around the lobby. Edward just stared at the TV without saying a word. Finally, the doctors came down and told them their mother would be fine. She was resting. It was not too serious. They could go up to see her. Stephanie said she would wait for them in the lobby. The two of them went up to the room where Elizabeth was lying on a bed surrounded by a curtain. They sat down. She stared at them for a moment, looking down her long nose. "The doctors say it isn't too serious," Alex said. Elizabeth sniffed. "What do the doctors know? Do they have my heart? I want you boys to come home. I feel weak. I feel like something could happen to me at any moment. I might be swimming in the pool and have a seizure or something, and then what? Do you want me to drown in my own pool?" Alex grimaced. "Mom, I like my apartment. I like my life with Stephanie. We love each other. She'll leave me if I move back home." "It's too far away," Elizabeth complained. "What if I have a stroke? By the time you get to me, I'll be dead. Is that what you want?" "But the doctors say you'll be OK, and it's only across town," Alex argued. "Alex, this is your mother speaking." "But what about Stephanie?" "Alex," she insisted, "I need you. Don't you remember everything I did for you? The guitars I bought, the concerts I took you to, the trips to Europe and Japan? You're not going to turn your back on me, Alex." "I'm moving back," Edward blurted out. "I'd never forgive myself if something happened to you. At least I can do the cooking for you." Alex looked at him, aghast. "You know I can't afford the rent without you," he told his brother. "Well, that's not my problem." There was nothing else Alex could do. He went downstairs and told Stephanie he had to move back home. She stood up and grabbed her purse. "Alex, I'm going home," she said, "And if you move back in with your mother, it's over between us. That's it. I can't take any of this crap anymore." "Will you wait a minute?" Alex pleaded with her. "No, I will not." And with that, she walked out. Alex and Edward moved back home to take care of their mother. Alex never saw Stephanie again. Edward quit his job at the diner, and the waitress with the green hair began dating the chef who replaced him. So they ended up the way Elizabeth wanted it, sitting around in the dinner table of their red damask dining room in their suits and cocktail dresses, planning their next trip to Vienna, listening to rock music on the stereo, eating stuffed pork chops and sipping martinis in the candlelight.
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