Rushing Waters (14 page)

The hotel Charles had found for Gina and his daughters turned out to be better than he had thought it would be. It was small and certainly not elegant, or as pleasant as the apartment that Gina had rented on the Lower East Side, with her own money and support from him, but it was adequate for what they needed now. Gina still hadn't gone to check on her apartment, and didn't know if the police would let her. Many areas were considered dangerous and inaccessible, and she wasn't sure about the status of hers, and Charles didn't want her to go there yet anyway. It was still chaotic downtown, where the power hadn't been turned on yet, so she'd be checking out her apartment in the dark, like so many others. He told her he'd help her when they knew it was safe.

The hotel they were in was in the East Fifties, not too far from Central Park, and he took Gina and the girls there to play and go for walks around the model boat pond, which Lydia and Chloe loved, and then they had tea at the Plaza, and he bought them the book about Eloise. Gina wasn't surprised—he had always been a good father, just not exciting enough for her. When they'd married eight years before, she had been forced into a life she wasn't ready for and hadn't wanted at the time. But after a year in New York with Nigel, she was less enamored with the fast life than she had been when she met Charles. And the people in that world could never be relied on, as Nigel had just demonstrated.

Charles took them out for every meal, and thought of fun things for the children to do, and he stayed with them when Gina wanted to do some shopping. She was still worried about Nigel, although she was upset with him. She hadn't heard from him since he'd come to see her at the shelter. She was half annoyed about it, and half concerned for him and the dangers in Red Hook described on the news. She would have liked to hear from him, and had tried to call him, but he still had no cell service where he was.

And true to his word, Charles was sleeping on the floor in their hotel room, and a good sport about it. She had offered to take turns with him, every other night, but he'd bought a sleeping bag, and said he was perfectly comfortable on the floor, and he had bought some jeans and casual shirts to go out with the kids, so he didn't look ridiculous in the business suits he'd brought for work. And as usual, Gina looked spectacular in whatever she wore, mostly T-shirts and tank tops, miniskirts and skintight jeans. She could put on rags and look great, although he was dismayed to see that she had gotten a tattoo on her back. It was a flower, but it wasn't his thing, and he didn't comment when he saw it. She was no longer his wife, as he had to remind himself when they went out together. Sometimes when they were with the girls, it felt like the old days when they were a family, and he had to tell himself again that they were divorced, and she was in love with someone else.

But in spite of that, one night when the girls were asleep, he asked her if she would consider coming back to England for a few weeks—not to get back together, which he knew she didn't want, and it was obvious she was still in love with Nigel, whether he was worthy of it or not. But he wanted her to come home with him so she and the girls could recover from the ordeal they'd been through, and to avoid the mess in New York right after the hurricane.

“Just so you and the girls can catch your breath. Their school will be closed till Christmas anyway.” It was being used as a shelter for hurricane victims, so they had no school until January.

“I don't know.” Gina looked surprised by his suggestion. “I might. But I want to be here for Nigel,” she said honestly. “I don't want to just run off and leave him.” Yet he was doing exactly that to her, with two children, and not even checking on her. From what Charles could see, Nigel was concerned only about himself. And Gina and her daughters were not high on his list of priorities.

“Just keep it in mind,” Charles said easily. “I have no ulterior motive. I just think it would be good for you and the girls, and I'd love having them in London for a few weeks, while New York gets put back together.”

“Maybe they could go back with you,” Gina said thoughtfully. “Let's see what Nigel says when I hear from him again.” Charles nodded, still trying to be fair to a man he loathed and had no respect for. He thought his behavior at the shelter had been deplorable, but he said nothing to her. And Charles wondered when Nigel would show up again. He seemed to be in no hurry for news of her, and assumed she could take care of herself. She probably could, Charles realized, but why should she have to if Nigel was in love with her? Charles's views on the subject were far more traditional than Nigel's. And yet it was men like Nigel who turned Gina on. Although Charles could tell she was upset by Nigel's lack of communication with her after the hurricane, he could also see that she was clearly not ready to give him up. Whatever his failings in Charles's eyes, all that mattered was what Gina thought about him.

Ellen had spent the first morning in Jim's apartment calling her mother's insurance company and reporting what had happened. They had promised to get an appraiser there as soon as possible to assess the damage, but said it might not be anytime soon. Everyone in lower Manhattan was calling their brokers to have them come and assess flood damage and their losses. But at least now they were in line. And she called several real estate brokers Grace knew, and told them that her mother would need a temporary furnished apartment of some kind for several months. Grace was still determined to repair the damage, however long it took, and go back, and Ellen was hoping to reason with her in the coming days. She couldn't see her mother taking the chance that a hurricane could wipe her out for the third time, in two years or five or ten. It was too dangerous and too stressful. Ellen thought it was time for her to get sensible and get out of Zone 1, but she knew it was too soon to broach the subject with her. And for now what Grace needed was a place to stay. She couldn't stay at Jim Aldrich's forever, they hardly knew him, no matter how kind and hospitable he was, and Grace was the kind of woman who needed her own space and own life. She was too independent to be a houseguest for many months, no matter how generous her host.

The realtors told Ellen that half of New York was looking for temporary furnished apartments, and it wouldn't be an easy task to find one, but they would check through the listings they had and get back to her. And in the meantime, Grace was comfortable at Jim's, and they had their work cut out for them. They had to empty the unsalvageable debris from Grace's apartment, send whatever they could to restorers, and put the rest in storage, until the apartment was livable again. And that could happen only when the building was habitable, the electrical systems had been restored, and Grace had had the apartment repaired. They had been through it all before. And Ellen and Grace both knew the entire process would take months and cost a fortune, but Grace was undaunted by it, and insisted she was an architect and used to restoring homes, and might even make some changes. Her mother loved her apartment, the neighborhood, and the building where she lived, and she was not ready to give it up, no matter what her daughter said.

Ellen met her mother after lunch at the apartment to clean up what they could. Bob helped them drag debris into the hallway, with a handyman from the building who put it in a Dumpster. They stopped for a break, as Grace stood ankle deep in water, impervious to the stench of sewage, and wearing rubber gloves to deal with whatever she picked up or threw away. Bob said he was definitely going to sell his apartment once he got it cleaned up. Two hurricanes in five years were enough for him.

“Are you serious?” Grace looked shocked. He had mentioned it once before, but she hadn't believed him.

“We could have all drowned this time, Grace,” he said sensibly. “I'm too old to start again from the ground up, every five years.” And he had lost some first editions and mementos that he loved. “You have more energy than I do,” he said admiringly. She had told her office that she wouldn't be in for two weeks until she got her apartment cleared and organized and dealt with the insurance. But she was more than willing to start again. “It's too depressing,” he said. “It's like living on the edge of a volcano. And sooner or later, this is going to happen again. Climactic conditions are such, and changes in the planet, and the city can't afford to put all the necessary safeguards in place to protect us down here. They've been talking about them for five years, and they've implemented a few, but not enough, and not the important ones, which are too costly. This mess is an even bigger one than Sandy was. I can't go through it again. I talked to my kids about it the other night, and they think I was nuts to stay after Sandy. So I guess I'm done. I'm going to look for a place uptown. And I think you should think about it too. I know Ellen worries about you, and if she hadn't been here the other night, you might have stayed. And none of us want to lose you,” he said gently, and she smiled.

“You won't. I would have left in time,” she said confidently.

“You nearly didn't,” he reminded her. “It would be a tragedy if something happened to you. You can't always gauge it that closely. And do you really want to risk going through this again?” He glanced around her apartment, and Grace didn't answer for a minute.

“I don't want to move uptown,” she said sadly. “It's so stuffy. I used to live there and don't want to anymore. I love it downtown.” Grace was wistful as she said it.

“It's too risky for me,” Bob said with a sigh. And the Village, Tribeca, SoHo, all the areas they loved looked like a war zone and would for a long time. None of them even had electricity yet, and some wouldn't for many months. And their building was severely damaged. All the tenants had to move out for at least six months, even those on higher floors, while the electricity and mechanical functions were replaced.

Grace was quiet as they continued throwing things away that afternoon, some of them beautiful and expensive, others irreplaceable. Her white mohair couches were unsalvageable, as well as her beautiful rugs, all the upholstered chairs, and they were going to send them to restorers, but Ellen knew that many of her wood pieces, even antiques, had suffered irreparable damage. A great many things went into the Dumpster, and Grace looked tired and a little beaten when they went back uptown. It had been a depressing afternoon for all of them, and the work to clear the apartment was by no means done. Ellen had taken photographs for the insurance of what they had to throw away. The smell of sewage was so strong from the soaked upholstered pieces that they couldn't keep them to show the appraisers, and put them in the Dumpster after photographing them.

Grace went to lie down when they got back to Central Park West. Ellen called Phillippa, her assistant in London, to report on what was happening, and then Bob and Ellen went out to the kitchen for a cup of tea. They were both exhausted, and Ellen was worried about her mother insisting that she wanted to repair the apartment and move back in.

“It's too dangerous,” Ellen said unhappily, and Bob agreed with her.

“Maybe it's too soon for her to give up.” He smiled at Ellen. “She's a fighter. She doesn't concede easily, but she's not foolish. She may come around eventually. Right now she wants to fix what she lost. Sometimes it's hard to move on,” he said, looking thoughtful. “It took me a long time to give up the life I had in California, and let it go. My wife and I got divorced, I was hoping to convince her to try again, and then she died. I wanted to stay there and live in a shrine. And then I finally realized I was hanging on to the memory of a woman who didn't want to live with me, didn't like being married to me, and didn't like me very much. Her dying allowed me to create a fantasy for a few years, about how much we loved each other. But I'm not sure we ever did. The marriage never really worked, right from the beginning. I finally gave it up, sold the house, got rid of everything, and moved here. I was a lot happier when I did. We waste a lot of time sometimes, crying over what we never really had in the first place.

“The hard part here is being far from my kids. They like California better, but they're grown up, they have their own lives. They both live in L.A., my son is a filmmaker, my daughter is an attorney in the entertainment business, and if I lived out there, I'd just be hanging around annoying them waiting for them to see me. This way I have my own life, and I'm much better off in New York. I have a life here. I never liked L.A. when I lived there, even if they do. We can't hang on to our kids. We're on our own after they grow up. It's hard to accept sometimes, but that's the way it works. Look at you, you live in London, your mother's here. She's not trying to hang on to you, just like I can't with my kids.” Ellen looked pensive as he said it, as though he had told her something she didn't know. It was rare for him to talk about himself to that extent, but he felt comfortable with her. Normally, he was a man of few words and kept his private life to himself.

“Somehow I always thought children were forever.” She was thoughtful as she said it.

“Not really. Technically, that's true, but in reality, they grow up and move on, and they should. And I can't complain about mine. I was never really there for them when they were growing up. I was always writing, and busy with my work. There's no reason for them to stick around now. And they should have their own lives. So I live and work here, and they're busy and happy in L.A. We enjoy seeing each other, but it's all very brief and temporary at this age. We don't get them for long. I wish I'd known that when mine were young. I might have been around more.”

Ellen could see the regret in his eyes and felt sorry for him. But he had made her realize that the babies she wanted so badly wouldn't stay babies, and wouldn't be hers for long, especially if George had his way and sent them to boarding school at seven and nine. And they were children for all too brief a time.