Lady in the Lake(2)
So when you saw me—and you did, I’m sure of it, our eyes caught, held one another’s—you saw my ratty clothes, but you also saw my green eyes, my straight nose. The face that gave me my nickname, although later I would meet a man who said I reminded him of a duchess, not an empress, that I should be called Helen. He said it was because I was beautiful enough to start a war. And didn’t I just? I don’t know what else you would call it. Maybe not a big war, but a war all the same, in which men turned on one another, allies became enemies. All because of me.
In a flash, you showed me where I wanted to go and how to get there. I had one more chance. One more man.
I did not imagine that day that our paths would ever cross again, small as Baltimore can be. You were just the woman who married the nasty teenager who used to torment me, and now the nasty boy was a nice-looking man who was burying his father. I need a husband like that, I thought. Not a white man, of course, but a man who could buy me a coat with fur at the neck and the cuffs, a man who would command everyone’s respect. A woman is only as good as the man at her side. My father would have slapped me if he heard such words come out of my mouth, make me find and memorize all the Bible verses about vanity and pride. But it wasn’t vanity on my part. I needed a man to help care for my boys. A well-to-do man needs a beautiful woman. That’s what I figured out that day. You were there to comfort Milton, to help him bury his father, but you were also an advertisement for his work and success. I can’t believe you left him a year later, but death has a way of changing people.
God knows, my death has changed me.
Alive, I was Cleo Sherwood. Dead, I became the Lady in the Lake, a nasty broken thing, dragged from the fountain after steeping there for months, through the cold winter, then that fitful, bratty spring, almost into summer proper. Face gone, much of my flesh gone.
And no one cared until you came along, gave me that stupid nickname, began rattling doorknobs and pestering people, going places you weren’t supposed to go. No one outside my family was supposed to care. I was a careless girl who went out on a date with the wrong person and was never seen again. You came in at the end of my story and turned it into your beginning. Why’d you have to go and do that, Madeline Schwartz? Why couldn’t you stay in your beautiful house and your good-enough marriage, and let me be at the bottom of the fountain? I was safe there.
Everybody was safer when I was there.
October 1965
October 1965
“What do you mean you’ve invited Wallace Wright to dinner?”
Maddie Schwartz longed to take the question back the second it was out of her mouth. Maddie Schwartz did not act like women in television variety shows and songs. She neither nagged nor schemed. She did not need to hear a Jack Jones song to remind her to fix her hair and makeup before her husband came through the door at day’s end. Maddie Schwartz prided herself on being unflappable. Invite the boss home at the last minute? Surface with two never-before-mentioned cousins from Toledo, show up with an old high school friend? Maddie was always ready for the challenge. She ran her household much as her mother had run hers, with a sly wit and effortless—effortless-seeming—organization.
Unlike her mother, she accomplished these domestic miracles by spending freely. Milton’s shirts went to the best laundry in North Baltimore, although it was miles from her usual routes. (She dropped off, he picked up.) A cleaning girl came twice a week. Maddie’s “famous” yeast rolls were out of a can, her freezer full of staples. She used caterers for the Schwartzes’ most ambitious parties, the New Year’s Day open house for Milton’s colleagues from the law firm and the spontaneous spring party that was such a success that they felt obliged to keep having it. People really loved that party, spoke about it throughout the year with sincere anticipation.
Yes, Maddie Schwartz was good at entertaining and therefore happy to do it. She took particular pride in her ability to throw together a dinner party with almost no warning. Even when she wasn’t enthusiastic about a certain guest, she never kvetched. So Milton was within his rights to be surprised by her peevish tone on this afternoon.
“I thought you’d be excited,” Milton said. “He is a little, well, famous.”
Maddie regrouped quickly. “Don’t mind me, I’m just worried that he’s used to dining in a grander style than I can manage on short notice. But maybe he would be charmed by meatloaf and scalloped potatoes? I guess life is all lobster thermidor and steak Diane when you’re Wallace Wright.”
“He says he knew you a little? Back in school.”
“Oh we were years apart,” Maddie said, knowing her generous husband would infer that Wallace Wright was the older one. He was, in fact, two years younger, a grade behind her at The Park School—and many rungs down the high school social ladder.
He had been Wally Weiss then. Today, one could barely turn on WOLD-TV without being subjected to Wallace Wright. He hosted the noon news show, where he interviewed celebrities passing through Baltimore, and also did “Wright Makes Right,” a relatively new evening segment that took on consumer complaints. Lately, when the beloved WOLD anchor Harvey Patterson enjoyed the rare evening off, Wallace filled in for him.
And, although it was supposed to be a closely held secret at WOLD, Wally also was the voiceless tramp who hosted Donadio, the taped cartoon show that aired on Saturdays. Baltimore’s unimaginative answer to Bozo, Donadio never spoke and his face was hidden beneath layers of makeup. But Maddie had seen through the ruse when Seth watched the show as a child.