Let The Great World Spin: A Novel - By Colum McCann Page 0,139

molding. On the shelf, a small four-legged clock in a glass bell. My flowers were sitting in the center of the table. They had already begun to open a little in the heat.

The others were giddy with Park Avenue, I could tell. When Claire disappeared to the kitchen, they kept picking up their cups and glancing at the bottom to see what sort of stamp was there. Janet even lifted a glass ashtray. There were two cigarette butts squeezed into it. She held it up in the air to see if she could find some mark there, like it might have come from Queen Elizabeth herself. I could hardly contain my smile. “Well, you never know,” said Janet, in a fierce whisper. She had a way of flipping her hair sideways without hardly moving her head. She placed the ashtray back down on the table and gave a little sniff as if to say, How dare you. She rearranged her hair with another flick and looked across at Jacqueline. They had the white-woman language going between them, I’ve seen it enough times to know, it’s all in the eyes, they dip a little to the side, they hold the gaze a moment, and then they look away. They got centuries of practice at it—I’m surprised some people aren’t frozen in it.

I glanced towards the kitchen, but Claire was still beyond the louvered door—I could see her thin outline, bustling away, getting more ice. The snap of an ice tray. A running tap.

“Be with you in a jiffy,” she called from the kitchen.

Janet stood and tiptoed over to the portrait on the wall. He was painted very fine, the husband, like a photograph, sitting in an antique chair with his jacket and blue tie on. It was one of those paintings where you’d hardly notice a brushstroke. He was looking out at us very seriously. Bald, with a sharp nose, and a little hint of wattle at his neck. Janet slid up next to the portrait and made a face. “Looks like he’s got a stick up his rear end,” she whispered. It was funny, and true, I suppose, but I couldn’t help but feel a tightening in my chest, thinking that Claire was going to come out of the kitchen at any moment. I said to myself, Say nothing, say nothing, say nothing. Janet reached across and put her hand on the frame of the painting. Marcia had a wicked smile on her face. Jacqueline was biting her lip. All three of them were on the point of bursting out in laughter.

Janet’s hand moved up along the frame and hovered over his thigh. Marcia threw herself back on the couch and clasped her mouth as if it was the funniest thing ever to happen. Jacqueline said: “Don’t excite the poor man.”

A hush and a few more giggles. I wondered what might happen if I were the one to get up and touch his knee, run my hand along the inside of his leg—imagine that—but I stayed rooted, of course, to the chair.

We heard the push of the louvered door and Claire was out and about, a big jug of ice water in her hands.

Janet stood away from the painting, Marcia turned into the couch and pretended to cough, and Jacqueline lit herself another cigarette. Claire held the plate out to me. Two bagels and three doughnuts. One with glazing, one with sprinkles, one plain.

“If I have another doughnut, Claire,” I said, “I’ll spill out into the street.”

That was like letting the air out of a balloon and allowing it to fly around the room. I didn’t mean for it to be that funny, but by all accounts it was, and the room let out a big breath. We soon fell to talking again with our serious faces on—truth, it was good talk, honest talk, remembering our boys, how and what they were, and what they went and fought for. The clock ticked on the shelf near the bookcase and then Claire walked us down the corridor, past the paintings and the university diplomas, to her boy’s room.

She pushed open the door like it was the first time she’d done it in years. It creaked and swung on its hinges.

The room looked as if it had hardly been touched. Pencils, sharpeners, papers, baseball charts. Rows of books on the shelves. An oak dresser on tall legs. A Mickey Mantle poster above the bed. A water stain on the ceiling. A creak