Summer Sisters

  Maia and Paisley were heading out to the Hamptons to look for a summer share. They’d wanted her to join them but Vix said, “Not this weekend.”

  “She’s probably got a hot date lined up and doesn’t want us to know,” Maia joked.

  “Something like that,” she told them.

  For added luck, she wrapped her piano shawl over her raincoat. She felt exotic when she wore it, like a flamenco dancer. And if she didn’t exactly find luck in At lantic City, she found Luke. She wouldn’t tell Maia and Paisley they met at the craps table. No one ever had to know the truth unless she and Luke wound up together. Then Maia would say, Can you believe Vix met Luke at a casino in Atlantic City? At the craps table?

  No, they wouldn’t believe it. She kept her impulsive side to herself. She’d once overheard Maia telling a friend at school, Victoria is the least spontaneous person in our entire class, but I’d trust her with my life.

  Actually, she didn’t really meet Luke at the craps table. She watched him. He was hot, on a roll, with a stack of chips in front of him that doubled and tripled every time he threw the dice. He was boyish, flush with excitement. She didn’t know it was a twenty-dollar table until she tried to place a bet. Embarrassed, she quickly retrieved her dollar chips. She hung around to watch anyway, as the crowd cheered Luke on, betting with him. He looked up once, caught her eye, and smiled.

  At the end of the day, as she was playing a slot machine, he came up behind her, dropped a quarter into the slot, covered her hand with his, and pulled the handle. Three cherries, clanging bells, and twenty … thirty … fifty dollars’ worth of quarters came spilling out. He caught them in a cup as she stood with her hands over her mouth, fighting the urge to jump up and down and shriek. “Some days you just can’t lose,” he said.

  He was slight, just her height, charming, with bedroom eyes. “Have dinner with me,” he said. When she didn’t answer right away he pulled out his wallet, fished out his driver’s license with its photo ID, held it up for her to see. “Luke Garden,” he told her. “New York City. Thirty-one, single, respectable, straight, Cornell ’80, sports management. I just won big!”

  So she had dinner. She told him her name was D’Nisha Cross. She told him she worked at ABC, in development. Two things borrowed, nothing blue.

  “Stay,” he said after dinner. “I’ve got a suite. Two bedrooms, two bathrooms. You get to sleep wherever you want. Really. Here …” He pushed a key at her. “Check it out.”

  So she checked it out. While he filled the Jacuzzi tub, turned on the music, and turned down the lights, she wrapped the piano shawl around her naked body like a strapless gown. When the scene was set he slowly unraveled it, letting it fall to the floor.

  The next morning he was gone. She found him in the casino, playing blackjack. She took the next bus back to New York and never said a word to anyone. If she were Paisley, she’d write his name on her list. But she didn’t need to write down names. For her there was still only one that counted. Only one she’d loved.

  A postcard from Caitlin, dated April 4, 1989, Seattle.

  Ran into some bad luck. Donny sick. Plans for restaurant postponed. Will call when I can.

  Abby

  SHE TELLS LAMB they should get on the first plane to Seattle and see what’s going on for themselves. But Lamb says they have to allow Caitlin, and all the grown children, to work out their own lives. To solve their own problems. How else are they going to learn to make their way in the world?

  This friend of hers, Donny, who’s in hospice care, has the disease. Not that Caitlin’s said anything, but she can read between the lines. She admires Caitlin for wanting to be there for her friend but she can’t help worrying. She’s been reading everything she can find on the subject and it’s horrifying, even if it’s not contagious in the usual way. And really, how can they be sure Caitlin hasn’t been intimate with someone …

  Another postcard arrives asking them to respect her time with Donny. Please don’t leave messages on her machine. She can’t return their calls right now. And tell Vix, will you, that she’s not out of touch, she’s just … preoccupied.

  VIX WAS WORKING on three accounts at Marstello—a former Miss America starting her own line of cosmetics, a political consultant who had written a memoir, and an off-off-Broadway theater company they were representing pro bono. She’d become friendly with Earl, the writer/producer/director and sometimes hung out at the theater in the evening, watching rehearsals. Earl was ruthless in his revisions. He never threw the rejected scenes into a wastebasket like a normal person. He was paranoid enough to think someone might find his discarded work and plagiarize it so he bought a mini shredder, a cheapie on sale at Staples. He could feed it just a page at a time. Watching him, Vix sometimes wondered what would happen if you could do that with real life. Revise and shred.

  She dropped a few notes to Caitlin, saying she was thinking of her and hoping it was going okay with Donny. Earl had already lost two of his closest friends and was sure his own days were numbered. She didn’t share that with Caitlin. She tried not to think of it herself.

  She brought in her first major client, a cutting-edge fashion designer. When Vix asked how she had heard of her, the designer said, “Caitlin Somers.”

  “You know Caitlin?”

  “We met in Milan. I was an apprentice at Gucci. Caitlin did some modeling for us. We got to be friendly. I ran into her in Seattle. She told me to look you up now that I’ve got my own shop … says you’re the best. You are, aren’t you?”

  Gus

  CAITLIN CALLS HIM on June 5, screaming, Goddamn it, Gus, you’re a reporter, aren’t you? Why aren’t you doing something about this massacre?

  The massacre’s in China, he reminds her, but even if it weren’t, what do you think I can do?

  I’m not talking about Tiananmen Square, you fucking idiot! I’m talking about here. People are dying. Does that mean anything to you?

  Okay … let’s start again, he says.

  What’s the point? She slams down the phone.

  What was that all about? Should he call someone? Abby and Lamb? No. No need to upset them. Maybe Vix? But what would he say?

  39

  PAISLEY DRAGGED HER to a fall fundraiser at the public library, where they filled in at the ABC corporate table. Paisley was becoming known on the benefit circuit and told Vix and Maia it was a great way to network, not to mention meet the right men. Vix gave in and bought a dress on sale at Bloomingdale’s. Black lace top. Elegant yet sexy, the salesperson told her.

  Will approached her on the grand staircase where she’d stopped to watch the dancing below. “Great cheekbones,” he said.

  “A gift from a Cherokee ancestor,” she told him. She’d been waiting a long time to try that line.

  “A drop of Cherokee blood means the tribe can claim you forever, but not before I claim you for the night.” He extended his hand. “C. Willard Trenholm. But my friends call me Will.”

  “Victoria Leonard.”

  “Glad to meet you, Victoria.” He guided her down the stairs and out onto the dance floor. He was tall, maybe six five, and even in heels she came up only to his chest. He knew how to fox-trot, waltz, and lindy hop, all to music played by Peter Duchin himself. If her family could see her now!

  She heard Bru’s voice chiding her but she pushed it away and concentrated on her feet, trying to avoid being trampled or, worse yet, stepping on Will, since she had no idea how to dance that way.

  Later Paisley approached to say she’d met someone and was leaving with him. “Take a cab home, Victoria … okay? I mean it, no subways tonight.”

  Vix nodded, then returned to the dance floor with Will. She didn’t have to worry about getting home. He took her to the Rainbow Room for a nightcap and to admire the view. In the cab on the way back to her place, they made out like teenagers. When the taxi pulled up in front of her building, Will leaned forward and told the driver to go around the block again.

  She saw him three times t
hat week. And the weekend after that. He sent flowers to her at home and Godiva chocolates to her office.

  “A person could get used to this,” Maia sang.

  Vix began to flirt with the idea of being a rich girl, of never having to worry about money again. You were wrong when you told me I wouldn’t fit in … she’d say to Tawny.

  Money was Will’s favorite subject, sex his second. He chased her around his family’s Park Avenue duplex, playing hide-and-seek in the gallery, which was lined with suits of armor, like a museum. In the forest green library he unbuttoned her shirt and admired her breasts. “Beautiful,” he said. “Are they implants?” She assured him they were the real thing. “I thought so,” he said, “but you hardly ever get the real thing these days.”

  He invited her to the ballet. She’d never been and borrowed a crushed velvet suit from Paisley. The following week it was Shakespeare at the Public, followed by dinner at Chanterelle.

  Maia began to call her The Heiress.

  “She wouldn’t be inheriting,” Paisley said, setting the record straight. “She’d be acquiring.”

  “Either way …” Maia said.

  That night the three of them sat around the coffee table, eating Chinese food from the cartons, while they watched Don’t Look Now on the VCR. As Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland chased one another around Venice, Maia said, “I hope Vix will invite us to Venice … to her palazzo on the Grand Canal.”

  “Mmm …” Paisley shoveled in chicken with cashews. “I’ve always wanted to see Venice.”

  “How do you feel about Cincinnati?” Vix asked. “Because that’s where the business is based. That’s where the patriarch has his palazzo.”

  Will had his own place in the East Sixties with a view of the Russian Consulate. “I think of you every night, Victoria,” he said, breathing heavily, when he finally took her there. His hand was under her skirt. “Have you been thinking of me? Have you?”

  Well, yes …

  Will had a king-size bed, a gray comforter, down pillows. When he kneeled over her sporting a hot pink condom she thought, a penis dressed as Malibu Barbie, and she tried not to giggle. Maybe her mother was right. Maybe the rich were different.

  She was flattered by his attention and curious about his world but she couldn’t say she was in love with him. She found him arrogant and, at times, even boring. They spent a long rainy weekend at an expensive inn in the Berkshires. While he read Forbes, Barrons, the Financial Times, Vix found herself fantasizing about Bru.

  At Sunday brunch Will said, “Tell me about your family, Victoria. Aside from the fact that you’re from Santa Fe I don’t know anything about you.”

  “What you see is what you get, Will.”

  “But what does your family do there?”

  “My father manages a restaurant and my mother is the amanuensis to the Countess de Lowenhoff.” She was glad to finally have the chance to use Abby’s description of her mother’s job.

  “Restaurant …” he said, raising his eyebrows. “Amanuensis. How charming. What about your grandparents?”

  “There are no grandparents.” She smiled at him. “Are you checking out my ancestry, Will?”

  “I’m interested in everything about you, Victoria.”

  “Well … my sister’s on welfare and my brother enlisted on his eighteenth birthday. I went all through school on scholarships. I owe my benefactors everything. They invested in my future so I could hold my own with snobs like you.”

  Will laughed, then applauded. “Brilliant!” He leaned over and kissed her. “You should write novels, Victoria. With your imagination and flair …”

  What was she doing with him?

  On the drive back to the city she decided to end it. “I’ve enjoyed our time together, Will … but I don’t think we should continue to see each other.”

  She waited for his reaction, then realized he hadn’t heard a word she’d said. She leaned forward and snapped off the CD player.

  “What?” he asked.

  “It’s over, Will.”

  “No, it’s not. He does ‘Say You Say Me’ next.”

  “I’m not talking about Lionel Ritchie, I’m talking about us.”

  “What about us?”

  “It’s over … we’re over. Fini, finis, finito.”

  “But we’re just getting started,” Will argued.

  “That should make it easier.”

  “Give me one good reason to end it now.”

  “We have nothing in common.”

  He took her hand and pressed it to the front of his pants. “We have this.”

  She shook her head.

  “Oh, come on, Victoria … just one more time … so you’ll have something to remember me by.”

  She hadn’t expected him to let go so easily and was angry at herself for feeling disappointed.

  “Feel how hot he is for you. He’s been such a good boy, waiting patiently all day.”

  “Sorry, Will. Send him my regards … I mean, my regrets.” She opened the door at the next red light, grabbed her bag, and jumped out of his car.

  “Really Victoria … you’re hopeless,” Paisley said. “Not that I’m pushing marriage. I’m all for making a life on your own first, but if it falls out of a tree and hits you on the head, you can’t just walk away from it, especially when it comes with that kind of financial security. I mean, do you know how few straight, stable, single guys there are in this city … not to mention husband material? You could count them on one hand. One hand.”

  “Your southern roots are showing, Pais,” Maia said.

  “Maybe,” Paisley said. “Or maybe it’s that a person never gets over her first love.”

  “Not that old song again,” Vix said.

  Her life was full. It was interesting. A person didn’t necessarily have to be in love. She signed up for a yoga course, took on another student through the School Volunteer Program, vowed not to waste her introductory membership at Crunch. She met Jocelyn for lunch a couple of times and confessed she’d never experienced the creative high of Five Minutes in Heaven in the real workplace. They talked about doing a documentary together, forming their own production company. “You have to keep chasing your dreams,” Jocelyn said.

  A postcard from Caitlin, dated December 20, 1989, Zacatecas, Mexico.

  I’ve seen death and it’s ugly. Ugly and frightening.

  No mention of James or Donny. Vix called the Seattle number, was told it was disconnected at the customer’s request. She called Abby, trying not to show her concern, and told her she’d misplaced Caitlin’s number. Abby said, “She’s in Mexico, Vix. At a monastery. You can’t call. None of us can.”

  New Year’s Eve. They decided to stay at home—Maia, Paisley, and Vix—to celebrate together. They ordered in, rented Annie Hall, and Vix laughed, then cried, remembering the night Lamb had taken Caitlin and her to see it. And after, how they’d begged to ride the Flying Horses but instead had found Von in the alley with some girl’s hand wrapped around his Package.

  By ten, friends began to drop in—Jocelyn, Earl, Debra. Each of them brought a few of their friends. They sent out for more food. Abby and Lamb called from Mexico City to wish Vix a happy New Year. They were on their way to the monastery, hoping to see Caitlin. “Send her my love,” Vix said. “Wish her a happy New Year for me.” Daniel and Gus phoned from Chicago, where Gus was visiting his family. They sounded smashed. So what? It was New Year’s Eve. They’d thought of her, just as she’d thought of them. Old friends. Coming of age together. The end of one decade, the beginning of another.

  40

  ON A WEDNESDAY morning in late March, just after Vix stepped out of the shower, the phone rang. It was the woman named Frankie calling from Santa Fe. Vix’s father had had chest pains during the night. He was in the hospital. They didn’t know yet how serious it might be. Could she come right away? She called Angela, her boss, at home, explained the situation, threw some things into a bag, and headed for the airport.

 
The news in Santa Fe was better than she’d expected. Her father had had a severe angina attack, but no real heart damage. By the time she got there they’d done angioplasty to remove the blockage. He was asleep. Frankie, an ample woman in sweats, with rusty hair, freckled skin, and fringed moccasins, gave Vix a hug. “Thanks for coming, sweetheart. We’re mighty lucky.”

  Vix excused herself to use the public phone in the hall where she called Tawny. “I’m in Santa Fe,” she told her. “Dad’s sick … it’s his heart.” For a minute Tawny didn’t respond and Vix thought they’d been disconnected. “Hello …” she said. “Are you still there?”

  “I’m here,” Tawny said quietly. “Does it look serious?”

  “How can it not be serious? I just told you, it’s his heart!”

  “Get hold of yourself, Victoria. They can do a lot these days. There are procedures …”

  “He’s already had the procedure.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Are you coming? That’s all I want to know.”

  “I’m not married to him anymore. He’s not my responsibility.”

  “I didn’t know the divorce was final.”

  “It’s final enough.”

  “Well, nobody told me.”

  “How can I tell you if you never call?”

  “I have a phone, too, you know, but I haven’t had any calls from Key West lately.” She waited for Tawny to say something. Anything. When she didn’t, Vix said, “Is that it, then? That’s all you have to say about the man you were married to for …” She tried to remember how many years it had been.

  “Send your father my wishes for a speedy recovery, Victoria.”

  “Send them yourself!” She slammed the receiver down, then looked around, chagrined, as the other people in the waiting room quickly looked away. After all, they had their own problems. She had no idea how to get in touch with Lewis so she tried Lanie’s number next. Amber answered. “Mommy’s in the bathroom with Ryan. He’s got diarrhea. Who’s this?”