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Fiction
R. Parker McVey

A Professional Daughter

Peter held the heavy steel door for them with one hand, and a thick oil brush in the other. A line of olive paint crossed his cheek upward from the edge of his mouth. Holly and Patrice entered the building, each planting a kiss on Peter's clean cheek as they passed. They were his cousins in a generation that was waiting, with now awful impatience, for the family money to come to them.

As they walked up one flight the women noted the poor condition of the building. Peter opened another heavy door for them, and they stepped into a long, high loft that smelled faintly of turpentine. It was not what they expected, not like the lofts they more often visited. It was no surprise to them, however, that in his need to prove thrift and self-reliance to his father, Peter was sharing rent that was just a fraction of what he easily could afford.

Calvin, who paid the other share, was lounged out in an old easy chair. He got up from watching a baseball game and politely introduced himself to the cousins. Peter, easily disturbed by spontaneous behavior that was not his own, frowned nervously when Holly let her hand linger in Calvin's.

"Great place," Patrice bubbled to Calvin, as if to draw his attention from Holly. "Great," she repeated, "really a lot of potential."

The loft was lit by bare bulbs running lengthwise, a dozen feet apart, down the middle of a fourteen-foot ceiling. The floor was painted deck gray.

"Anything to drink?" Holly asked Calvin in a low, chilled voice.

"Beer or orange juice, that's it," he said. The beer was his, the juice Peter's, and for whatever reason Peter saw it as an issue.

"I'll pick up some wine at the corner," Peter said.

"I'll have a beer," Holly replied, again to Calvin, ignoring her
cousin.

Holly was a stunning woman, a true knockout. Her black hair was long and soft. She wore little makeup and her natural complexion was clear and healthy. Her features formed at gentle angles and were controlled by an unnervingly calm demeanor. Calvin had that feeling that strikes occasionally of having seen a person before, but he could remember no time or place.

Peter abruptly directed his cousins to the front of the loft, where he had his studio. While Patrice stayed with Peter to heap praise on his paintings, Holly gave them just a quick glance. Bottle of beer in hand, she fairly strolled back to the island of chairs and sofas that gathered in the center of the loft, where Calvin had resumed watching the game. She fell into a worn crimson chair. He lowered the sound of the television.

"This is such a nice big place," she said. "My sister's apartment is so small it gives me a headache."

"You don't live in the city?" he asked.

"No," she said, filling in no blanks.

"Where do you live?"

"Around. My family has houses all around. When I'm here I try to stay with Patrice. We miss each other. So what do you do, Carl?"

"It's Calvin. I teach school."

"High school?"

"Yes."

"What do you teach?" she asked.

"This coming year, two Biology classes and a Chemistry honors class."

"So you're a good chemist," she said, fixing her eyes on his, aggressively. It was dry, coarse flirtation, and it made his legs ache.

"Need another beer?" he asked, breaking the connection.

"Please," she said.

He got one for her. As he handed it to her she looked up at him, and from that angle he saw that she was afraid of him.

"Tell me something," she said, "do you think Peter's art is any good?"

"I like some of it. I'm not easy to please."

"I bet you're not," she said quietly, muttering it to herself. He left it alone.

"Are you an artist?" he asked.

"No," she said, again volunteering nothing.

"What is your line of work?" he asked less patiently.

"I'm a professional daughter, thirty-one, an acknowledged expert in the field. Father is the best manager in the world and very careful about the competitions he enters me in."

"And your father lives here in New York?" he asked, but she ignored the question.

"The championship events are the Al Smith dinner—the Cardinal comes to that—and the Westminster dog show. Father enters his Irish wolfhound. I'm expected for those."

To Calvin, there was something humorous about this, but it did not make him laugh.

"So you don't work?" he asked, not giving in.

"No, I do," she said, "I studied to be an architect, believe it or not. I mean I am an architect. I design homes, nice homes."

"Why didn't you just say that in the first place?"

She shrugged and batted the question back with an intentionally cheesy grin. Now he laughed a little. She caught his eyes wandering to her left hand.

"Engagement ring!" She made a sound like a game show buzzer and held up her diamond.

"And he's a professional son?" Calvin asked.

"No, he's an amateur bore, with outstanding bloodlines. Just like father's hounds."

"I can see you're crazy about him."

She stretched her arms back over her head and puckered her lips, weighing this ticklish matter.

"Well, he has almost no interest in sex; there's a check in the plus column," she said, allowing a high heel to dangle from her toes.

Peter and Patrice walked down from the studio, and their accelerated art conversation put an end to the flirtation.

"I have purchased a painting," Patrice announced in a zesty, carbonated voice.

"Peter," Holly said, "I'll take one too."

"Which one?" Peter asked eagerly.

"Patrice?" she cried with lock-jawed pomp.

"I know the right one," Patrice fizzed.

"Good, that's the one I want. I always trust Tree's judgement. Will American Express be all right, Peter?"

Peter snapped at her with a nervous grin and said that a personal check would be fine.

Patrice stepped over to Calvin to shake his hand before he could get up from his chair. She was a bit pudgy and she stood right on top of him, a gesture that mixed a breed of friendly intimacy and a natural inclination toward dominance.

"Very nice meeting you," she said, turning quickly right where she stood. Calvin wondered if she was sticking her rear end in his face intentionally. Was he supposed to kiss it?

"Holly, we have to get going," Patrice said.

Holly was up quickly, keeping her eyes away from Calvin. She flung a hasty "goodbye" in his direction and fell in with her sister's ever-bubbling mood as they walked out the door together.

Three days later Holly called the loft and asked for Peter. Calvin told her that Peter was in Vermont visiting his grandmother.

"She's mine too," Holly said.

"That's right," Calvin said. "Do you visit her?"

"Babe, that's what the cousins call her, forgets who I am now. So there's not much point to visits. I see her on the holidays when they roll her out. Anyway, are you busy?"

"No," he said, after a pause.

"Can I drop by?" she asked. "I'd like to look at my painting."

"Just look? You'll want to take it with you?"

"That, like the painting, remains to be seen."

"I'll be here."

She pushed the buzzer a half-hour later. He went downstairs and opened the door for her. She was wearing a white exercise suit and twirling a set of shiny car keys on her finger. The suit fit her tightly.

"Come for a ride," she said.

Calvin saw an ancient Mustang convertible double-parked in the street. The car was in mint condition, as though she had just driven it off a showroom floor.

"Let me lock my door," he said. He went back up to the loft and grabbed his wallet and keys. When he climbed into the car he saw that she had added sunglasses and a pair of leather driving gloves.

"Do you have a license?" he asked, being a wise guy.

"Don't start up with me," she said, seriously. "I don't need it today." It was not the mood Calvin had met at the door.

"All right," he said, fastening his seatbelt.

She sped away, and did not speak again until they were in the dark of the Holland Tunnel.

"Do you mind a motel?" she said flatly, as though she were granting herself permission to smoke by asking a rhetorical question.

"As the first item on the agenda that's a tad presumptuous."

"Well put your mind at ease. I've got a bottle of vodka. We can work on the rest of your agenda when we get a room."

He truly did not like this, but that lost any contest with how much he found himself suddenly disliking her.

"Let's take a ride first," he said.

"I don't have that much time."

"Make time."

"I have an important dinner tonight." Her low voice took on a hard, commanding edge.

"How often do you do this?" Calvin asked casually.

She ignored him. They came out of the New Jersey end of the tunnel and took a ramp that led to a northbound truck route. Soon they passed along a strip of short-time motels. Holly inspected and rejected several of them and then pulled into the lot of one that looked like all the rest.

"Do they have miniature golf?" Calvin asked.

"Don't ruin this. Just get out and get us a room."

He did as told. When they got inside the room she pulled a fifth of vodka out of a big shoulder bag, twisted the top off and drank hard from the bottle. She passed it to Calvin and he imitated the way she drank, but Holly missed the mimicry, or pretended to miss it.

"How did you want to do this?" she asked him.

"You're the expert."

"I got us here. The ball's in your court."

"So the whole routine ends behind the beige door?"

"I just met you and liked you, on the spot. Is that okay? You're a regular guy, right? That's what I'd call you. I don't know much about regular guys. The crowd I run with didn't go to public school."

Calvin's body felt heavy all of a sudden, as though it would go crashing through the chair he sat in.

"Well?" she asked impatiently.

"Holly," he said obediently, "take your clothes off."

After that day, when Calvin didn't hear from her for several weeks, he assumed that he never would. And she had not suggested that he call her. He was not tormented by the experience, but neither could he shed the feeling of her body against his.

The summer ended and he returned to teaching school. In late October, on a Friday, he got home late from work. When he let himself into the loft, there she was standing and talking with Peter. Another man was with them, a muscular blond fellow with a young, meaty face to which a permanent, almost painful smile had been fastened.

"You remember Calvin?" Peter said to Holly.

"Of course," she said. "How have you been? Calvin, this is my fiancé, Hank."

Calvin shook the fiancé's hand; it was a cold, moist vise. The contact caused the voltage of Hank's white neon smile to drop for a split second.

"We're on our way out to find a decent restaurant," Holly told Calvin. "Will you join us?"

"Thanks," he said, "but I'm beat. I'm headed for the couch."

"Are you sure?" she said with glittery, troublemaking eyes. "We would love your company."

"No, please, go ahead. I've had a long day."

Calvin let them out and locked the door. He stood there for a while, his hand lingering on the bolt. Her strange chemistry had set off in him a slightly dizzy, smoldering state of passion.

She called him Saturday morning.

"What did you think of Hanky?"

"He's rich?" Calvin asked.

"Stupendously rich."

"Then what more needs to be said?"

She loved that and laughed out of control.

"So how have you been?" she asked.

"Without you, Holly, how could I be anything but blue?"

"Silly."

"Been down to the motel lately?" he asked coldly.

"No. Do you remember that day?"

"Talking to you does sort of jog the memory, yes."

"I told Hank about it."

"You what?"

"Just kidding," she giggled.

"You're a real joker."

"Hank couldn't believe it when Peter told him that you taught school. Hank just said 'What?,' as though he couldn't believe it. He said he thought you looked normal."

Calvin's impression of Hank nearly gurgled behind his lips, but he left it unspoken.

"Holly," Calvin said, "I want to see you."

The words surprised him and lingered in the telephone line. The immediate silence suggested a serious breach of protocol.

"It meant that much to you?" she asked, finally.

"No," he said coyly, "I just want to discuss Hank's insensitive remark."

"Is Peter there?"

"Out on his Saturday gallery crawl, won't be back for hours."

She showed up within the hour. This time there was no hard act. She embraced him tenderly and they made love.

"I don't understand this," she said afterwards, and meant it.

The next day, Sunday, she came and took him upstate to go riding on a sprawling farm. She wore jodhpurs and riding boots. He wore jeans and sneakers. He had not ridden in years and was nervous about it. Holly was comfortable on horseback, in command.

They rode out along a trail that led through a pasture. When the trail cut into deep woods, she took off at a gallop. He let her go, holding his calm mare at a walk. He lost sight of Holly.

It was twenty minutes before Calvin saw her horse in a small clearing off the trail. He dismounted and left his horse with hers. A narrow path led out from the back of the clearing, but he wasn't sure what to do, whether to call for her or wait or try to find her. For all he knew she might only be relieving herself out of view. That thought, of catching her with her pants down, appealed to him.

He took the path. It led through a patch of high grass and then to the soft dark floor that formed under the permanent shadow of the trees. He walked a little farther and saw her first.

She was sitting with her rear wedged against a rock. She had pulled her jodhpurs down over her boots and her knees were spread wide apart. Her head was curled forward and her hands were between her legs, and he thought that she had hurt herself in the saddle and was assessing the damage.

Then the day seemed to grow deliberately silent. She withdrew a hypodermic needle from a vein in her groin and let it dangle in her fingers. It fell to the ground. She leaned back against the rock and saw him. She smiled sickly and a glaze settled in her eyes.

He walked over to her and crouched down.

"You wanted me to catch you."

She nodded. It was true.

"I don't get it," he said.

She shook her head slowly from side to side. She did not get it either. It was several minutes before her rush subsided and she focused herself and seemed to be coming out of it.

"You've got to make sure you get the vein inside the bikini line," were her first words. Then she looked at him and said, "You think a lot less of me now."

"I'm afraid for you," he said. "How long has this been going on?"

"Years."

"You're kidding. I can't believe you do this to yourself."

"Believe me," she said, "it's much uglier when someone does it for you."

"That's not what I mean. Is life this bad?"

"It must be. My life must be pretty empty. This fills it up for a few minutes."

"Why did you let me see this?"

She had no answer and began to pull up her jodhpurs. Soon she was on her feet arranging herself.

"What are you going to do with that?" Calvin pointed to the hypodermic.

She crushed it with the heel of her boot and swept it behind the rock with her foot.

"All gone," she said in a singsong voice.

They went to the horses and rode slowly back to the stable. She took Calvin into the stone farmhouse and asked the housekeeper to fix them lunch.

They sat in a cozy room with a fireplace, and Holly just stared out the window. When the housekeeper told them that lunch was ready they took it in the kitchen. The housekeeper left and didn't return. Calvin began to wonder if he was playing a part in a ritual, if the housekeeper had prepared this meal before, if Holly had eaten it with other men on other autumn days.

"Where's Hank today?" he asked for no particular reason.

She shrugged and picked at her sandwich.

"Calvin," she said, tilting her head, "I'm very scared of how I feel about you."

He did not hear from her after that day. The winter came and turned into a cold one, and he suffered a loneliness he had never known before. He and Peter rarely spoke, and Calvin realized that it was he who ignored Peter.

In early spring he heard Peter discussing Holly's upcoming wedding on the phone and asked him about it, careful to show only passing interest. The wedding would be large. It was to be held in St. Patrick's Cathedral and celebrated by the family bishop. The date was set for the second Saturday in May.

Calvin waited for Peter to go out. Then he went into Peter's room and got hold of his address book. There were three phone numbers for Holly, all in the city. At two of the numbers there was no answer. At the third a woman with a thick German accent answered. Holly was not there. He asked if she was expected. The woman was not sure.

"If she comes in, please ask her to call Calvin. She knows my number." The very cautious woman agreed to that.

Holly called him back after midnight.

"Peter told me about the big day," he said.

"Oh, that," she said blandly.

"Don't do it," he said flatly, meaning it.

"Calvin, don't," she said in the tone that appeals for restoration of good sense.

"You don't want to marry Hank. Your life isn't a business. You're marriage doesn't have to be a corporate merger."

"What I want doesn't make any difference," she said.

"Are you insane? Listen to what you're saying."

"You don't understand, do you?" she said.

"Explain it to me. Tell me why what you want makes no difference."

"I can't explain it. It's just that way. It has to be."

"Where are you?" he asked.

She told him. He flew out of the loft and took a cab to the address she had given him. It was a townhouse on the upper east side.

Holly met Calvin at the door and embraced him. She was drunk and had been crying. They held each other for a long time and then sat in the kitchen, drank coffee and talked. She did all she could to give him no answers about her coming marriage. But by fishing persistently at the edges, Calvin got her to put a picture together for him.

Holly's father was no fool. He saw past her appearance of robust good health and her breezy ways. The father's school was the old one, and so he did what he had known to work in the past. Holly had an ultimatum to get married, and to the right man, absolutely the right man, or she got the very shortest end of the stick her father could give her when it came to the family wealth. And he had more than a little control over that.

In short, Holly was an embarrassment. Her father would correct that by threatening her with her worst fear. The money was as important to Holly as a sturdy pair of shoes are to the poor. She was that closely in need of it. But by breaking too many of the unwritten rules, she had put her claim on the money at risk. Hank was her shot for acquittal on these unnamed and unmentionable charges. A loveless match made on club grounds.

Calvin rejected this as plain weirdness. But she knew what he thought and there was no need for him to say it. Now, too, he understood why she feared him. It was because there was just none of this corruption in him. He had been raised a different way by a different kind of people, and he admired them too much to ever live a life believing so fervently in money. Holly had felt the strange, to her, gravity of his values from the beginning. To a house of cards even a gentle breeze is the very maelstrom at time's end.

"Let me talk to your father," he said. "Maybe I can reason with him."

"He does all the reasoning, Calvin. He would think you are crazy and throw you out. Then suddenly a half-dozen men would be looking into your life. You'd be lucky if you didn't find yourself out of a job."

"Now that is crazy," he said.

"It is the way things are done."

"No," he said, "the way things are done is that people meet, they fall in love, they get married and their parents keep their mouths shut."

"That's your world, not mine."

"My world. We don't live in the same world, Holly? What is your world called, Mars?"

He knew, finally, that it might as well be. He relented and let her lead him off to bed. For the first time he stayed the night with her.

The next morning he called school and took a sick day. When the German housekeeper arrived, Holly gave her the day off. They stayed in bed until noon, and then Holly tried to fix him breakfast and burned everything.

She was ready to cry, but Calvin laughed when he saw the mess, and she began to laugh with him. He remade the breakfast.

They spent the afternoon watching television from a leather couch in an office den no one used. She held onto him. They lingered into the early evening until the time came for him to leave.

In the weeks that followed, Calvin tried to see himself as one of many safe lovers she'd had. When the weekend of the wedding finally approached, he waited around the loft, hoping that Peter would bring up the subject. He had planned to watch Peter get ready on the day itself and to hear the details afterwards, all to help rid himself of his feelings for her.

But the second Saturday in May came and went. Peter went to no wedding. Calvin waited a full week before he pried.

"Wasn't your cousin getting married?" he asked.

"That wedding was called off," Peter said, making a pained face.

"You're kidding?"

"No, Holly's always been a fruitcake. My uncle was really pissed off."

"What happened?"

"According to Patrice, two weeks before the wedding, Holly went to my uncle and told him that she had a, quote, substance abuse problem."

"Her? That's ridiculous."

"Nope," Peter said. "Patrice told me that Holly confessed to shooting up, and told my uncle she did it because of all the pressure he had put on her. What bullshit. He gave her anything she wanted. None of the cousins ever got away with the things she did."

"Huh," Calvin shrugged, "she struck me as being perfectly in control, a proper lady."

"She's wacked. Heroin. What a jerk."

"What happened to her?"

"My uncle put her in a fancy rehab clinic. It's costing him."

"And what's his name?"

"Hank? She blew that. He's gone. Called the whole thing off. She'll never get another guy like that. He was A-list."

"Too bad," Calvin said.

She came to the loft in late August, unannounced. Peter greeted her with a big hug and told her how fantastic she looked. She waved to Calvin, who was reading a newspaper.

He got up and quietly walked over to her and shook her hand.

"How's school?" she asked.

"School's out," he said.

"That's right," she said, "where have I been." She turned to Peter. "Do you have anything to drink, I mean a diet soda or anything like that."

"I'll go downstairs and get something," Peter said.

"You're a dear," she said, "this heat has me so thirsty." She fanned her face with her hand.

Peter was barely out the door when Calvin and Holly fell into each other.

"I understand you've been away?" he said, squeezing her.

"I know this lovely place," she said. "It's right over in New Jersey."

"And this is a place frequented by truck drivers?"

"Yes," she said, "that place."

Peter was halfway down the block, returning with a small bag of groceries, when he saw his cousin and Calvin get into her car and drive away.

"What the hell is this?" he asked himself, aloud, so deeply offended.

© R. Parker McVey and Union Square Journal 2000
All rights reserved