Page 24 of One of Them

D elia left the campus at the end of the week.

She packed up all her belongings and arranged for them to go into storage at a warehouse near the Hudson River, not far from where they lived on Eleventh Street.

That way she could show up with a small overnight bag, so it would look like she was just home for the weekend, and put off telling her father what had happened, at least for a while.

But when she arrived home, Helga told her that Simon and Harriet had gone to Long Island for a few days, which gave her a reprieve.

Also a chance to intercept the letter, on Vassar stationery, that the dean had sent: Dear Mr. Goldhush, I regret to inform you that it has been decided not to allow your daughter, Delia, to continue her education at Vassar.

Although she is an uncommonly bright girl, it has come to my attention that. ..

Delia didn’t need to read any more. Neither did her father.

And when he did return a couple of days later, he was glad to see her and didn’t bother to ask why she was there, preoccupied by his own plans and with Harriet, who by this time had moved into the house.

Still, Delia knew he would notice that she was staying longer than a weekend.

Before he had a chance to ask, she told him that she’d applied to—and been accepted by—Barnard as a transfer student.

“Poughkeepsie is so dull,” she said. “I needed to be in a city again.”

“Brava!” said her father. “I always thought Barnard was a better choice for a girl like you. Is there any paperwork for me to sign? A check I need to send?”

“I’ve taken care of all that,” she said. “And if it’s all right, I’d like to live here. Dorm life isn’t exactly for me.”

“Of course you can live here!” He smiled and gave her hand a little squeeze.

So it had been as easy as that. Well, her father always had been this way—loving but fundamentally inattentive.

And with Harriet in the house, there was even more to distract him.

His girlfriend’s various belongings—gloves, bedroom slippers, a paper fan, packets of hairpins, reading glasses, lipstick-smeared hankies and napkins—joined the general clutter, which Delia found upsetting; Harriet had supplanted Sophie so easily.

But when it came to the gallery, Harriet was extremely organized and kept things running smoothly.

She cultivated relationships with a number of critics, which would help in getting reviews of the shows when they opened.

And more importantly, Harriet and Simon never seemed to quarrel; Delia had to admit that she didn’t miss the combative atmosphere of her childhood.

Also, Harriet made an effort to include Delia; she would invite her to go shopping or to dinner if Simon was otherwise engaged.

If Delia declined—and she usually did—Harriet would bring her some small treat: a package of lavender-scented sachets for her drawers, a pair of embroidered slippers, a pin in the shape of a poodle.

But Delia had to wonder how long she could keep this fiction going.

At some point her father would expect her to graduate from Barnard, and then what would she do?

She had no answer for that, at least not then.

As spring approached, she frequently saw George Frost out in his garden.

Soon his coat was replaced by a jacket, and then a nubby oatmeal-colored sweater.

The pinned sleeve made it seem as if someone were touching him on the shoulder, a comforting, even tender, gesture.

He seemed very engrossed in his activities back there, and managed to do a lot—dig, rake, carry—with his single remaining arm.

But while she admired his spirit, she kept out of the yard and did her best to avoid him; his self-sufficiency seemed like a reproach.

Instead, she found herself leaving the neighborhood entirely, and several mornings a week, took the train uptown and got off at 116th Street, where the Barnard campus was located.

At first she just wandered around, looking at the imposing iron gates, the various patterns of the bricks lining the ground, and the large and not particularly interesting buildings; the architecture at Vassar was certainly superior.

She watched the students walking around in groups of twos and threes—chattering, laughing, sharing a cigarette in the chilly air—and realized that she missed the friendship and camaraderie of other girls.

She was lonely. But when a girl actually approached her, Delia hurried away.

Not that she wouldn’t have welcomed the conversation, but she was worried her outsider status would be exposed, and she’d be banned from campus.

Sometimes she went inside; she looked like she could be a student, and no one questioned her presence when she sat in the library reading or poring over back issues of the New Yorker and National Geographic .

When that began to wear thin, she found she could slip into some of the larger lecture classes where her presence would not be noticed.

There was an anthropology class that met three times a week, and she found that interesting enough.

Better was a music appreciation class where she could sit and listen to recordings of symphonies and chamber quartets.

Best of all was the astronomy class, where, as for the art history lectures at Vassar, the lights were dimmed and the professor showed slides of star-filled skies, renderings of the solar system, and the pocked surface of the moon on a large, flat screen at the front of the auditorium.

Listening to these lectures was absorbing in and of itself; it also gave her enough conversational fodder to participate in dinner-table talk, though in truth her father never really listened to what she said, despite his habit of heaping both lavish and inaccurate praise on her.

When she mentioned the music class, he turned to Harriet and declared that Delia had an “exceptional voice.” Exceptional?

Hardly, and besides, when had he even heard her sing?

She remembered his prodding in Vence, in front of their guests.

But she just smiled. Her father’s blurry and vague form of love made it possible to avoid his scrutiny and any probing questions it might lead to.

In April, Simon told Delia that he and Harriet were taking a trip to Santa Fe. “We’re going to meet with Georgia O’Keeffe!” he said. “I think she’s going to let us have a painting for the show. Maybe even two.”

“That sounds exciting.” Delia was familiar with O’Keeffe’s work—the animal skulls, the giant flowers. “How long will you be gone?” It would be nice to have the house to herself.

“A week. Maybe two. I love that part of the country. Spring in the desert...” He seemed to be picturing it in his mind. Then he looked at Delia and said, “Come with us. You’ll get to meet her. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

“I have classes.” This was, of course, a lie, but he didn’t know that.

“Skip them. Or at least some of them. She’s a great American artist. What class is more important than that?”

“I’ll think about it,” Delia said. But she knew she wouldn’t go; she would just be a third wheel.

By the next day, Simon seemed to have forgotten that he’d brought it up.

Amid hugs, kisses, and Harriet’s promises of souvenirs— We’ll bring you a turquoise cuff, no, a squash blossom necklace, like the ones O’Keeffe wears —her father and his girlfriend finally climbed into the bulbous yellow cab that would take them to Idlewild.

Once they were gone, Delia could feel the house relax and ex pand around her, as if it too were catching its breath.

Without Harriet and her penchant for creating a mess, Helga embarked on a cleaning frenzy, tossing, scrubbing, and polishing as she went.

When she was done, the windows shone brightly, the floors were washed and waxed, the beds crisply made with fresh sheets, and the pillows plumped and standing proudly on the sofa and the chairs.

“Take a few days off,” Delia told Helga.

“No, Miss Delia. It’s not right.”

“It is if I tell you it is.”

“But you’ll be alone...”

Exactly , Delia wanted to say. But instead she said, “I’ll be fine. You’ve been working so hard, and you deserve a rest.”

Helga finally agreed, but before she left, she prepared several dishes for Delia to heat up—chicken paprikash, her notable stew, and baked cinnamon buns, chocolate chip cookies, and a nut cake with a filling of raspberry jam. There was no way Delia would eat it all, but she appreciated the effort.

Since for the time being she could drop the pretense of being enrolled at Barnard, she could stay in the neighborhood and also in the house.

It was the latter that interested her. She had the feeling that Simon wasn’t being entirely truthful about the missing sculpture.

Maybe there was something he wasn’t telling her, information he wasn’t sharing.

He was still angry at Sophie. Perhaps he didn’t want to extend himself to look for her work. But Delia did, and this was her chance.

On the first morning after Helga left, she went straight to the desk in his study.

After twenty or so minutes of fruitless searching, she turned instead to the pair of gray-green metal file cabinets that stood side by side.

These were more organized than the desk, on which papers, letters, and the like had been heaped rather haphazardly; the files, in contrast, were alphabetically arranged, and it was a very easy matter to find the sheets listing all the sculptures that had been stored in the Paris warehouse.

But Delia had seen these before; there was nothing new here.