All summer, she had done her best to be cheerful for her guests. But they knew she was brokenhearted. It made her feel better to be with her friends, especially Leonard. He was her closest confidant, and he offered her a calm, reliable presence.
Now summer was at an end, and only Leonard and Margaret remained. Leonard painted, using Margaret as his model. The day before, Leonard had painted Margaret sitting in her white rocking chair, looking down while holding a green apple. Today, the fog enveloped the world around them, and he felt inspired to paint her as a heavenly saint. She scoffed but agreed to pose. He placed her on the couch with a drape over her bare legs. She teased him that this painting would ensure her immortality. She wanted to be one of those women who posed for famous artists. He assured her that he had a long way to go before getting famous, so she might want to achieve immortality some other way.
Almost as soon as Margaret got situated and Leonard took out his brushes, they heard a boat pull up to the dock. All they could see out the window was the fog’s heavy white mist. Leonard put down his brushes and told Margaret to keep her position; he would go see who was there. She waited for a moment before getting up to look at the painting. He had turned her blond curls a dark brown, but it was her. Those were her own eyes staring back at her.
Margaret was still looking at the painting when she heard Leonard chatting with Bill Gaston. She hurriedly returned to the couch and repositioned herself, pulling the drape on her leg a little higher. Leonard entered the room, but Bill stayed in the entryway. He knew how angry Margaret was with him, and he kept a respectful distance. He asked her to come for dinner to meet his wife, Lucy.
Margaret already knew a great deal about Lucy. Margaret had paid an investigator to dig into Lucy’s life and was eager to meet this Texas Slitch, but she feigned disinterest. She sighed in agreement to come over later that day. Bill looked at the painting from where he stood, then skulked out.
The only sound for a long while in the house was that of brushstrokes. Then Margaret realized Leonard was humming. She wondered if he always did that while he painted. She wondered what he was humming. It sounded familiar, like a symphony, but it took time for her to place. It was the song “Bill” from the musical Show Boat. The woman sings it through tears, remembering her own husband who abandoned her. Like Margaret, she knows he was no good for her, but can’t stop loving him.
*
At the dinner, Margaret quickly sized up his new wife as a liar. She knew from the investigator’s report that Lucy Gaston’s background was not the one she had told Bill. Back in the city, Margaret’s resolve to keep Bill at bay melted. It wasn’t long before Roberta caught him sneaking out of Margaret’s apartment early one morning and berated her sister for carrying on with a married man. Margaret also was disappointed in herself. She entered psychoanalysis in the hopes that it would help her to understand why she was drawn to someone like Bill, who was so clearly wrong for her. On her doctor’s instruction, she documented her dreams, and each week they discussed their subconscious meanings. Psychoanalysis was emotionally draining for Margaret, but she believed it would heal her.
Many of her dreams centered on her problems with her mother. Her father and sister also figured prominently in those sessions. It didn’t take therapy for Margaret to see that she missed the close bonds of the family she’d once had. Her mother and father were separated. Bruce lived on his boat or at his club. Maude lived in Manhattan and worked at B. Altman’s department store—a friend of Margaret’s who was the manager had hired Maude as a favor to Margaret.
Even though Maude lived close by, Margaret seldom visited her. The times she did were bleak. Maude’s health was poor and her attitude downtrodden. Margaret tried to be upbeat, bringing her mother books and flowers, but in a short time, she always became anxious and couldn’t wait to leave. Margaret always left her visits with Maude feeling guilty.
Things were not much better with her father. Christmas holidays and summer vacations that had once stretched out for weeks had been reduced to dinners punctuated with casual conversation. Margaret underplayed how much she earned to him, hoping to keep the allowance he handed her each month. Still, she craved his approval and wanted him to be proud of her many career accomplishments, so she always gave him copies of the books she wrote. He seemed not to notice.
Margaret had spent the Christmas of 1939 in Aiken, South Carolina, with Dot, the young girl she had tutored years before in Connecticut. They had remained close over the previous four years, and their relationship had grown from tutor-student to an actual friendship. Dot attended a boarding school in South Carolina and was alone for the holidays. Margaret knew all too well that feeling of loneliness around the holidays and of being trapped at a boarding school. She took the train south, with the hope that the warm weather would help her get rid of a lingering cough.
She soon felt well enough to ride horses with Dot and to chase rabbits with a beagling group based there. Dot was as adventurous as Margaret and, like her, unafraid to take a shortcut through briars when they ran with the dogs. Dot had matured into a beautiful young woman. She and Margaret looked so similar that people often asked if they were sisters.
When Dot returned to New York on spring break, she and Margaret reminisced about their Christmas holiday together. It had been a wonderful time—one of Margaret’s happiest holidays in ages. She told Dot that she yearned for Christmases long past when she would sing carols around the piano with her family and then curl up in bed with a cup of eggnog. Dot had an idea: Why not celebrate Christmas whenever you wished? Why not celebrate it now, in the middle of spring? It was a splendid idea. Margaret called friends to join her for a Christmas party that evening. The only stipulation was that each of them had to bring a wacky gift to exchange.
Leonard arrived carrying a large stuffed pheasant, which had brought him lots of stares from his fellow passengers on the city bus. Weather vanes and lobster pots were bargained for, and the whole party was so much fun that the group decided to form a club dedicated to these types of impromptu celebrations. Any member, at any time, could declare it to be Christmas, and they would assemble. They called it the Birdbrain Club, a nod to H. L. Mencken’s Smart Set, and considered it their own silly Algonquin Round Table. Membership was based on who Margaret, Dot, or Leonard wanted to be included. Proposed inductees, they decided, were required to exhibit a high degree of forgetfulness, an intense curiosity, or, at the very least, a short attention span. This flock of friends became Margaret’s closest allies. They were the people she relied on to cheer her up, and they knew all her secrets. They became her new family.