The Conservatory

   Finding herself on Quincy Street, in front of the Harvard Faculty Club, Margaret hesitated, then entered the Club, where a woman welcomed her and asked if she had come for tea, which they would soon be serving in the library or, should she care for something stronger, would she prefer to be seated in the conservatory.

“Actually,” Margaret said, “I just wanted to look around for a minute or two if that would be all right. I wasn’t intending to enter, but the truth is I seem to have lost my bearings a bit … and here I am, I suppose.”

“Well, you are, aren’t you, dear,” the woman said.

“I used to come here a long time ago,” Margaret explained, “When I was a little girl, I often came here with my father.”

“Well, how lucky for you—and for us—that you found us again,” the woman said. “But please do come in and rest for a while. And do at least let me show you the conservatory, which did not exist when either of us were girls. It’s only been open for a few years, and we believe it’s an outstanding addition, one in which we take great pride.”

Margaret let the woman lead her through the lobby, which looked familiar—lots of dark wood paneling and plush armchairs—and into a sun-filled room where a glass cupola let in bright, mid-afternoon light and illuminated a large moss-colored chandelier. Straw baskets and plant holders housing bamboo and ferns, white-arched trellises covered with fig vines, orchids on glass tables, striped pink-and-white fluffed pillows on wicker furniture, a massive bouquet of exotic flowers on a handsome buffet table, an oriental rug in soft shades of salmon and teal at the room’s center, yet the room itself barren of people … it took Margaret’s breath away. Such an oasis of peace and quiet—of beauty—in a place that held some of the only pleasant memories she had of her father.

“It’s lovely!” Margaret exclaimed.

“Yes,” the woman said. “It is lovely, and others often have the reaction you’re having, which makes us believe our troubles were worth the effort. May I seat you at a table, or would you prefer to sit at the bar?”

“The bar, I think,” Margaret said, and then: “I’m feeling a bit emotional, as you’ve clearly sensed. I just left my daughter Julia, who moved to Cambridge recently—she’s pregnant and lives nearby—I live in New York City—and only a few minutes ago she informed me that my grandchild is going to be a girl, and that, in memory of my mother, she and her husband are going to name the child Claire.”

“What a lovely name—and what a thoughtful gesture,” the woman said. “My name is June. I’m the director of the Faculty Club, and I’m a grandmother many times over, so please allow me to offer you a congratulatory drink on this special day.”

June seated Margaret at the bar, put down a place setting—napkin, silverware, plate, water glass—and informed Margaret that they would be serving complimentary appetizers in a short while.

“Thank you,” Margaret said. “I’m a bit surprised at how nervous I am—how affected—a kind of delayed reaction to the good news, perhaps, and I appreciate your kindness.”

“I’ll leave you to your thoughts,” June said. “If you need anything, now or later on, please feel free to call upon me. Frank Corby, our barman, will be with you presently.”

   When the room was about half full—mostly middle-aged and elderly women, along with several men in business suits, but no students or young people—a man sat down next to Margaret at the bar, put out his hand, introduced himself as Mark Reilly, and began to make small talk. He wore a blue blazer and Harvard tie and, pointing to Margaret’s empty wine glass, offered her a drink. Margaret thanked him and said that yes, she would appreciate another glass of wine.

The man continued to talk, and when, after the wine came, he asked Margaret about herself, and what brought her to the Harvard Club, she told him what she had told June—that she was visiting from New York, that her daughter, who lived in Cambridge, was pregnant, and that she had often come here with her father—to the Club, not the conservatory—when she was a child.

Her father had raised horses, Margaret said—thoroughbreds—and when one of his horses was running at Suffolk Downs, and especially when he’d had a winner, they would come here to celebrate. Her father had loved holding forth about his horses, and also—what in her memory made those days so wonderful—had loved bragging about her to the other men.

Margaret said that on those days she had usually worn her favorite outfit—a frilly white lace top, a pleated black satin skirt, and gold-tipped ballet slippers. To the man’s questions—and his compliment: that she looked like a woman who had been a ballet dancer once upon a time—she said that yes, she had, as a child, and well into her adolescent years, been a dancer, and that her father had shown her off occasionally to the other men by having her do a few basic turns.

She laughed, and said there was something else she was remembering that could, these many years later, be revealed: that although her father wore a Harvard tie, he had not gone to Harvard—had not, in fact, finished high school—and that he also owned ties that represented other Ivy league schools—Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, Columbia—and that before they left for Suffolk Downs—their horse farm was located in the western part of Massachusetts—he would ask her to help him choose the tie-of-the day. “‘Would you fancy me a graduate of Harvard again,’ he would say to me, ‘or shall I be a Yalie this time?’ and he would always add—the line I waited for—and with a conspiratorial wink, that his only true ties to Harvard and the other Ivy schools were, in fact … ties!”

“And I’ll wager you another drink, and dinner too if, as I’m hoping, you’re available, that he was an Irishman like me,” Mark said.

“Oh he was Irish all right,” Margaret said. “Thomas Callaghan Riordan of the County Cork Riordans.”

“My family knew some Riordans,” Mark said, “and they were a rambunctious crew even when they were not on the sauce!”

“Truth be told, with or without drink, my father was a cruel and nasty man most of the time,” Margaret said. “And yet those days with him, here and at the track, remain precious to me.”

“I understand—oh I surely do,” Mark said and, as if to emphasize how sympathetic he was, he let his hand rest on Margaret’s lap.

Margaret stared at his hand.

“And I’ve won the bet, haven’t I—” Mark said “—and you are available for dinner, I take it.”

“No,” Margaret said.

Mark unfolded his napkin, leaned toward her and, as he did, he dropped the napkin so that it lay above his hand.

“Ah but you’re lovely, Miss Riordan,” he said. “You must have been a great beauty in your time, as you remain, for you still have what it takes to set a man’s blood to singing.”

“Please remove your hand,” Margaret said.

“And I have to say, if you’ll allow me, that though I’ve met many a lovely lady in these environs,” Mark whispered, “you’ve got that distinctive Irish charm that stirs both my heart and my loins.”

Mark moved his hand along her thigh.

Margaret set down her wineglass, turned away from him, lifted a fork from the counter.

“Please remove your hand,” she said again.

“And how I love a lass who has fire in her!” Mark said. “I had a feeling, when I saw you here by yourself, that …”

Margaret recalled a scene from a foreign movie—French? Spanish?—where a young girl, taunted at mealtime by another girl in an orphanage, stabs the other girl in the back of her hand, thereby nailing the girl’s hand to their communal dining table. Deciding that using the fork would be far too melodramatic a gesture for the occasion, and one that would attract more attention than was necessary, Margaret set the fork down.

Touching the man’s ear with an index finger, she gestured to him to come closer so that she could tell him something, and when he came closer, she blew into his ear lightly, then bit down on it until she tasted blood, after which she took the napkin he had placed on her lap, placed it in his hand, and had him press the napkin against his ear.

She stood, sipped the last of her wine, and walked toward the entrance, where June, holding a silver tray of appetizers, was waiting.

“Thank you, dear,” June said, in the same gracious manner with which she had welcomed Margaret to the Club. “You run along now, and enjoy the rest of your afternoon. We’ll take care of this and, I must add, we’ll do so with great satisfaction.”

Outside, to her surprise, Margaret found that she was neither trembling nor breathing hard. She walked for several minutes until, at the intersection of Waterhouse Street and Massachusetts Avenue, she came to Cambridge Common. She sat, and found herself part of a seemingly picture-perfect scene—children with their mothers and nannys, students playing frisbee, elderly couples strolling arm in arm, young lovers fondling one another—and she found herself seeing her father, a man not unlike Mark Reilly, though rarely as ill-mannered, and she saw that her father, having witnessed the scene in the conservatory, was smiling proudly in the way he had when she was a child and he’d had her dance for his friends.