Being Mrs. Alcott

by Nancy Geary

Genres: General Fiction

Synopsis

A Cape Cod housewife deals secretly with an illness and confronts losing the home that has been the cornerstone of her family life.

Release date: October 15, 2007

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 336

Sample

Acknowledgments

I thank Jamie Raab for helping me to grow. This book could not have been written without her encouragement, support, and thoughtful editorial suggestions. Thanks to Ben Greenberg for his helpful comments during the early stages of this story, to Laura Jorstad for her careful copyedits, to Sharon Krassney for managing the details, and to Tina Andreadis for her publicity efforts, energy, and friendship.

Many thanks to Pam Nelson, Levy Home Entertainment, and the Get Caught Reading at Sea crew for their tremendous support of my work. And thanks to Barb Garside at Webbtide for her meticulous attention to my Web site and constant good cheer.

Thanks to everyone at Nicholas Ellison, Inc., for their dedication and commitment. I thank Abby Koons for her hard work, unfailing support, and optimism. Thanks to Jennifer Cayea for all her foreign rights work on my behalf. And, as always, I remain deeply indebted to Nick Ellison, who has believed in me since we first met and has yet to lose faith. I thank him for encouraging me to take risks, offering a safety net, and always answering the telephone.

I am forever grateful to my wonderful friends. Thanks to Amy Kellogg and Missy Smith for their advice, patience, laughter, and help. Despite our distance, they have supported me more than they know. Thanks to Susan and Craig Hupper, who have welcomed me into their family for holidays and vacations and come to my aid when I needed it most. I appreciate their concern and their wonderful company. And thanks to Ann Espuelas for all the conversations about writing, cooking, love, life, and raising little boys. I cherish our friendship.

For her patience and prayers, I thank the Reverend Lynn Harrington. Her spiritual and practical advice guides me, and her friendship gives me strength. Thanks to Anne Testa for her overwhelming support, and to Donna Lutton and Maryann Kann for their kindness, generous assistance, and encouragement. I am blessed to be part of the St. John’s community.

I could not have survived the past year without the love and support of my extraordinary family. I thank my mother, Diana Michener, for her compassion and help. She has shown me what it is to be a parent long after her daughter has left home. Her grace, elegance, intellect, and creativity inspire me. I thank Jim Dine for his patience and pragmatism. Together, their love and advice have kept me safe. I thank Natalie Geary for her friendship, support, and care. I admire her courage; I rely on her help and pediatric advice; I am eternally grateful for her love. Thanks to Ted Geary, Jack and Dolly Geary, and Daphne Geary for their encouragement and good humor.

And I thank Harry, my greatest blessing and darling son. Because of him, I never wonder why.

The Present

Prologue

Undergarments are like seasonal slipcovers; they need to be replaced every six months.” Her mother, the late Eleanor Montgomery, had issued this directive so many times over the years that it had become a mantra. And Grace remembered it perfectly now. “God forbid an accident befalls you and someone you don’t know should discover you or attempt a rescue.” She’d even received the instruction on her wedding day over three decades before, as she’d been arranging the thin diamond tiara amid her golden curls. That time, her mother had leaned forward so that her own handsome face shared the mirror with her daughter’s, opened her chestnut eyes wider than usual, and whispered, “Imagine if there were a stain!”

Every first of June and September, Grace had heeded her mother’s warning and purchased all-new brassieres and underpants. She’d never had the courage to raise the obvious question. She’d simply accepted that worrying about impropriety after death was just as worthwhile as worrying about it ahead of time. And today of all days, she didn’t feel like gambling that a corpse couldn’t be embarrassed. Not after Dr. Preston’s news.

Over the years, she’d always selected the same Swiss brand, the same cotton fabric, and the same colors. She bought three matching sets in white and three in nude. At one point just around her fiftieth birthday, she’d debated black, but ultimately rejected it as impractical. So her choices remained uninspired, but the lingerie was well made and feminine without being tawdry. When she’d moved from Boston to Cape Cod four years before, she’d found a small shop in Osterville that carried exactly what she’d been able to find at Neiman Marcus in Copley Place. And so the tradition continued uninterrupted, the new undergarments being folded neatly into the top drawer of her bureau along with a fresh lavender sachet, and the old being wrapped in a paper bag and discarded in the kitchen trash.

But this month she’d been distracted. Preoccupied as the engine of her taupe sedan idled at the exit to the covered parking lot at Massachusetts General Hospital, she’d suddenly realized that today was the fifth of June, and that the task hadn’t been accomplished. Something in the parking attendant’s face had reminded her even as her hand trembled reaching into her purse for change to pay. Perhaps it was the girl’s youth, the freshness about her smooth chocolate skin and neatly braided plaits, that conjured a sense of optimism. Grace wouldn’t be wasting money. Regardless of what might befall her, in whatever state she might be found, she wouldn’t compromise now.

Although she made her resolution to adhere to her biannual ritual, she hadn’t been able to face Mrs. Worthington, the proprietor of A Woman’s Elegance: Discerning Lingerie for the Discerning Woman. White-haired Mrs. Worthington had a small, neat shop on Main Street with lace curtains in the storefront window, a powder-pink, upholstered slipper chair in the dressing room, and a large plaque proclaiming her membership in the AARP above the register. She’d offer to model some formfitting, curvature-slenderizing, tuck-the-tummy lingerie, despite the fact that Grace had no hips or stomach to hide. Or she’d produce an absurdly suggestive nightgown they both knew Grace wouldn’t consider. Each time this happened, Grace would smile politely and shake her head. Then Mrs. Worthington would return the garment on its quilted hanger to the rack with a look of disappointment on her face. “It’s never too late to add a little spice to your life.”

Normally, Grace welcomed the familiarity, the camaraderie, but not today. She feared Mrs. Worthington might be able to read her face as clearly as if her forehead flashed a newsreel. She didn’t want to be questioned. She didn’t want to risk breaking down, bursting into tears, falling to her knees, losing control of herself. All she wanted was fresh underwear.

And so she’d ended up at the ghastly Cape Cod Mall, a place no sane person would ever want to visit, let alone patronize. But she’d wanted anonymity, and Filene’s had a lingerie department.

The sprawling cement-block building was unmanageably huge, and as the automatic doors swung open she wondered for a moment whether she could lose herself inside. Had she found an abyss off Exit 6 that would swallow her whole, leaving nothing but her parked car outside as the only trace of her existence? The thought of poor Bain struggling in that circumstance almost made her laugh. She could not imagine her husband attempting to find her here. Elegant Bainbridge Forest Alcott II, in his blue blazer, golf shirt, white trousers, and driving moccasins, had rarely crossed the Bass River since he’d retired to Chatham. He’d stayed east of Exit 9, enjoying the peaceful off-seasons and the social summers, lowering his handicap from an eleven to an eight, admiring the harbor view, and swimming laps in his heated pool. Navigating this parking lot would be traumatic; a venture inside the mall to retrieve his wife would be hell, perhaps a worse hell for him than letting her disappear.

Filene’s was nearly empty. At two o’clock on a Friday in early June, the lunchtime shoppers were gone and the summer hordes hadn’t arrived. She read the store directory and navigated the escalator only to wander through tightly spaced racks and racks of leisure wear and weekend wear, designer sections filled with brands of which she’d never heard. She stopped to examine the clothes: bright-colored business suits with faux pockets and handkerchiefs sewn in, coordinated tops with large bows at the neck, slacks that came with attached gold-buckle belts, loosely woven acrylic sweaters, and acid-washed jeans. It seemed a sea of colors and textures and labels, an array of merchandise priced at $99.99 or $59.99 or two for $79.99. Finally, she spotted pajamas off in the distance and homed in on her destination. She knew then she was close.

Forty-five minutes later, Grace now stared at the Formica counter where she’d piled her six packages of Jockey for Her. It was an odd choice, especially given her allergy to horses. She’d never worn underwear that came sealed in plastic, but she couldn’t find her usual brand and the package said these were cotton, or at least mostly so, give or take a small percentage of Spandex. Plus the model on the front with a towel around her neck and her bottom tilted toward the shopper looked alluring. Would that sex appeal rub off, hide her varicose veins and tighten the loose skin that draped from her backside? She wished she could envelop her whole body in a single transforming garment, a youth-producing unitard, anything to turn back the clock, even just to yesterday.

The checkout girl with an artificial stripe of red hair down the middle of her otherwise brown locks swiped her American Express card twice without success. “The magnetized strip must have gotten wet,” Grace offered weakly, even as she sensed that there might be a more ominous explanation. And so the girl, whose badge identified her as KIM, called for authorization.

After reading off the account number, Kim seemed to be placed on hold. Several minutes transpired. To pass the time, the girl picked at something in her teeth with her long black fingernail and then stared at the underside of the nail in an effort to discern what the particle was. Finally, she said, “Yeah. Okay,” as she glanced at Grace with a stern expression. Replacing the receiver, she opened a drawer under the counter, removed a large pair of black-handled scissors, and cut the plastic card in two.

“What are you doing?” Grace asked, even as she realized it was too late.

“You want the halves?” Kim extended a hand.

“I . . . I,” she stammered.

“They told me to do it. Amex isn’t a credit card.”

She felt dizzy. Bain dealt with all the bills. He’d always kept the checkbook, never delegating the task to a secretary or assistant even when he had one. He liked organization. He liked the control that came with knowing exactly what came in and what was spent. Although she knew there were problems—he’d explained as much in urging her to be careful with her personal expenditures—she never would have expected something so dire.

“I’ve been a member for decades,” she pleaded, as if Kim held the power to change a corporation’s mind. Membership has its privileges. What kind of a promise was that if it was revoked at the tiniest hint of difficulty?

“You’ve still got to pay on time.”

Grace felt as though she might collapse. She looked around, wondering who else had witnessed her humiliation.

A heavyset black woman waiting patiently behind her with an armload of merchandise smiled knowingly. “You should think about a MasterCard.”

“Yes. Yes. I’m sure you’re right.” She stared at the two pieces of her credit card, which Kim had placed on the counter in front of her. She remembered clearly the day Bain had given it to her just after they were married. It had been linked to his, two cards on the same account, the sort of permanent convenience a husband and wife should have. Now the scissor cut separated the t’s from the rest of her last name, the name she’d taken from her husband along with the card.

Alco. It sounded like a cleaning service or a dog food.

She grabbed the halves and slid them into the interior pocket of her purse. “I’m sorry for the inconvenience,” she managed to say. “It won’t happen again.”

The mall’s interior was a mass of fluorescent and neon bulbs reflecting a glare onto the black floor tiles. Grace stared at the industrial-strength planters, each potted with some species of palm willing to grow without a hint of natural light. The piped-in overhead music mixed with a blare of sound from a nearby record store. Leaning against a planter for balance, she watched as a gum-chewing couple walked by, the girl seemingly oblivious to the fact that her boyfriend had his hand down the back of her pants.

“Noooo. No.” She heard a high-pitched wail.

A mother dragged two crying children toward the exit. With a look of utter desperation, the woman in a shirt with a plunging V-neck and jeans that hugged her wide hips yanked on their small arms even as they both collapsed to the floor. “Just wait till I tell your daddy how bad you are,” she snarled. “You’ll be sorry then.”

Her threat only made the little girl with light brown hair and dirty knees scream louder.

“I’ve a mind to spank you right here and now, you little brat.”

The mother released the arm of her son and, with her free hand, slapped the girl on the side of her head. The small child looked up, momentarily silenced. Her cheeks were streaked with tears.

The girl sniffled several times, wiped her nose with her T-shirt, and then took her brother’s hand. They shuffled just in front of their mother, who had lit a cigarette even though prominent signs throughout the mall proclaimed that smoking was prohibited. The mother swatted at the girl’s head several more times as they slowly moved toward the exit.

Grace felt the sudden urge to sweep the crying girl and her sibling up in her arms and comfort them both. A daughter. A healthy little girl, who needed a bubble bath, a glass of warm milk, a bedtime story to make her sadness go away. Perhaps The Lonely Doll since she resembled its sweet heroine, Edith, and could think the book had been written about her. She could tuck her into the canopy bed with a feather duvet, adjust the little angel night-light, and pull the pink-and-yellow-flowered drapes. Grace could share the nightly ritual she craved, the simple tasks of which she’d dreamed, with this little stranger.

Didn’t this unkempt woman realize how lucky she was?

But instead Grace walked away. There was nothing she could possibly do to help, and no doubt publicly embarrassing the mother would only exacerbate the situation when they were behind the closed doors of their two-bedroom Cape.

She tried to distract herself by staring at the window displays of the variety of low-end shops. Athletic shoes. Plastic beach tumblers. Sun visors and caps. Fragranced candles in tub pots.

“We need more tests. It’s too soon to tell anything conclusively. Why don’t you take the weekend, talk to Bain, and call me on Monday? I’ve scheduled an appointment with a specialist, but it’s not until Wednesday.” Dr. Preston had a calm, collected tone, the sort that reminded Grace of voice-overs for investment commercials. There was a certain reassurance in such low male timbres. Your retirement fund is safe. Your husband will take care of everything. You’ll live to be a hundred.

Staring at the series of X-rays on the light board that hung on the wall, she didn’t believe a word.

Grace stepped through the entrance of Victoria’s Secret and was consumed by the sweet-smelling perfumes, the bordello lighting, the salesladies with curled hair and black dresses. Tucked into alcoves along the pink-striped walls were nightgowns, shorties, pajamas, and bathrobes in all styles, colors, and sizes. Satin push-up bras and lace thongs dangled from plastic hangers. Throughout the store, scantily clad dummies modeled styles that would make a Vegas dancer blush. She wondered whether this display was designed to appeal to the women who would wear such garments, to attract the men who wished they would, or to titillate the prurient browsers.

Round tables were piled high with panties. Size small was on top. Grace reached for a single pair of red underwear with lace covering the entire front.

She stepped up to the cashier and handed a twenty-dollar bill to the attractive blonde with full lips.

“Will this be all?”

Grace did not reply.

“If you buy two, you get one free,” she said in a chirpy voice.

She stared again at the wisp of fabric. “No, thank you.”

One was quite enough for her purpose.

1967-1968

Chapter One

A visitor’s first impression of Harvard Square was that of a hippie swarm. On any given day—but especially between September and June—the educational crossroads was a mass of guitar-playing, candle-lighting students who had managed to corner the bead market despite the marijuana haze in which the days disappeared. Women wore loose skirts, sandals, no bras, and even less makeup. Men wore beards.

But amid that swarm, there were plenty of young women just like Grace Montgomery, attractive students of art history, English literature, and landscape design, who preferred Lilly Pulitzer to tie-dye, and who wouldn’t consider ingesting anything more intoxicating than a glass of Fumé Blanc. These women were intent on getting a proper education and graduating with a good degree, a process made slightly more exciting by the prospect of meeting an eligible bachelor along the way. Each wanted a husband, too, and preferably one with no facial hair.

Grace had come to Harvard Square in the fall of 1964 from across the river, the only daughter of Eleanor and William Montgomery of Chestnut Street. As most of her peers had done, she’d applied and received admission to Radcliffe and Barnard. She chose to remain in Cambridge, heeding her father’s advice. “You can concentrate on your studies without the distractions of Manhattan. That city could swallow alive the most sophisticated of New England girls and you, my dear Grace, are not one of those. I don’t want to imagine your fate once you were to cross the Willis Avenue Bridge.”

William’s reservations about his daughter venturing beyond the borders of Route 128 had been well founded. She hadn’t gone to boarding school or even summer camp. Despite her classic beauty, her lithe figure and heart-shaped face framed in blond curls, shyness got in the way of accepting dates, and she’d had no experience with men. She wouldn’t have attended her senior prom except that her second cousin agreed to escort her.

William had never publicly acknowledged her innocence, but it was there in her face, her childlike enthusiasm reflecting off her porcelain skin.

Plus she seemed so happy in Boston. She liked the quaint brick sidewalks of the Back Bay, the beauty of the Public Garden and the Charles River, Brigham’s ice cream and the Red Sox.

Most of all, there was no reason for her to consider leaving because no other place in the world could replicate the lively atmosphere of 37 Chestnut Street. Her father’s work as an economic consultant to public and private institutions alike, and his brief term as undersecretary to the Cuban ambassador, meant the Montgomerys had an array of personal friends and professional colleagues, and the family’s elegant town house was a gathering place for what she’d been raised to think of as the best of Beacon Hill society. Her parents did more than their fair share of entertaining professors, business leaders, political strategists, philosophers, and even the occasional out-of-towner. Grace passed many an evening lying on the floor of her attic bedroom, listening to the hum of voices several stories below her and staring at the night sky through the window in the small gable. Whether it was improvement of the Emerald Necklace of Boston’s urban parks, fund-raising for Children’s Hospital, or acquisitions for the Museum of Fine Arts, these adults shared intense conversation while consuming Eleanor’s overcooked flank steak washed down by the contents of William’s ample wine cellar.

Upon her fifteenth birthday, she was invited to join in her parents’ soirees, to hear firsthand the intellectual debate, and to add her own opinions so long as she’d thought them through. Although she rarely availed herself of this opportunity—by high school she had friends and dreams that consumed her time—there were certain evenings amid her parents’ company that she would never forget.

It had been a Thursday in August. Grace had graduated that spring from the Windsor School for Girls, and had already begun to pack her trunk for her impending move to Cambridge.

The cherrywood table was set for only seven, a small gathering by Montgomery standards. Lace place mats, starched white napkins, and an array of glasses accompanied each place setting. Light from the taper candles reflected off the polished silver pepper shaker and footed salt dish. To Grace’s right was a visiting professor of political science from Columbia, a relatively young man in a tweed blazer and an ascot who emitted a strong odor of sandalwood. On her left was the assistant rector at Christ Church in Cambridge, who was under consideration for a faculty appointment at the Harvard Divinity School. It was between these gentlemen that the “Vietnam situation” was transformed from an issue seemingly to circulate in the air as she walked to the Charles Street T-stop into something tangible in her conscience.

Eleanor had forgotten about the pumpkin dinner rolls warming in the downstairs oven, and a faint smell of charred bread permeated the room. Politely ignoring it, the professor opined about the political instability in the region and the need to control communism. “Congress was absolutely justified. Johnson needed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. We’ve got to stop this aggression.”

In terminology she didn’t completely understand, he then expounded on Truman’s Cold War policy. “We don’t want to have to put his domino theory to the test.”

The minister disagreed. His voice was gentle but firm, and his bushy eyebrows seemed to dance on his forehead as he spoke. “Imperialism as a goal cannot be justified.”

“You saw what the North Vietnamese did to our destroyers.”

“Because we have no business there.”

Eleanor lit a cigarette, to which William didn’t object. “The images are so haunting. You must remember that poor monk last year? I can’t imagine what it feels like to self-immolate,” she offered.

“The war is immoral,” the minister persisted. Grace somehow expected him to add Amen, but he didn’t.

“Immoral,” the professor scoffed. “That’s the kind of language that colors the debate, that makes people afraid to be honest. What war is ever moral? The Crusades were supposed to be, and they were the bloodiest massacres in history.”

Grace listened intently, turning her head left and right to watch each man as he spoke.

“Why should we pick up the mess the French left behind?” her father asked as he poured more wine and settled into his chair. “They lost the fight—even with our assistance—and now we’re supposed to correct the situation. But I ask you, if they no longer care, why should we?”

Eventually her eyes grew heavy, and Grace excused herself long before the debate reached a conclusion. But as she lay in her bed in the moments before sleep overcame her, she mused again over what a complicated matter the war seemed to be. That her brother, Ferris, would return to college instead of enlisting only muddied the issue. There had been no discussion of his deferment—at least in her presence—but she wasn’t sure that meant her parents disapproved of the war. Although from what she’d deduced, Ferris seemed to be drinking his way through his four years, her parents put the highest premium on education. It wouldn’t surprise her if, in their view, the South Vietnamese simply had to wait for him to obtain his bachelor’s degree before they could enjoy his aid.

All these thoughts spun around in her mind, keeping her awake, and she only managed to quiet the noise by remembering that her opinion didn’t matter anyway. The men in Washington would determine the right course of action.

Radcliffe as a choice for college held additional appeal to Grace beyond its proximity to home. Ferris was a junior at Harvard by the time she arrived, and a very popular one at that. While still at Windsor, she’d visited him regularly and met many of his friends. They were confident, striking, articulate young men who seemed so worldly, so experienced, and so very, very handsome. As she wandered the elegant brick-and-ivy campus, gazing up at the myriad clock towers each set to chime a few minutes apart, it was difficult not to be impressed. These men could do anything to which they set their highly intelligent minds.

So it was no great surprise that she fully believed Bainbridge Alcott when he informed her that he planned to write “the great American novel.” He made his proclamation as they sat on a plaid blanket on the Esplanade with a crew race along the Charles River as their backdrop. It was the fall of her junior year and their second date. Grace had spread out her carefully made picnic of egg salad sandwiches, cold roast beef, carrot sticks, and homemade shortbread before them. For his part, Bain had surprised her with a bottle of champagne, which he’d popped as she’d cried out with delight. Perhaps it was the heat, perhaps it was the company,. . .