fast—“yeah. Sorry. Didn’t mean to go off.”
“That’s okay.”
Silence. Her eyes on mine. But unlike Kitsey—who was always at least partly somewhere else, who loathed serious talk, who at a similar turn would be looking around for the waitress or making whatever light and/or comic remark she could think of to keep the moment from getting too intense—she was listening, she was right with me, and I could see only too well how saddened she was at my condition, a sadness only worsened by the fact she truly liked me: we had a lot in common, a mental connection and an emotional one too, she enjoyed my company, she trusted me, she wished me well, she wanted above all to be my friend; and whereas some women might have preened themselves and taken pleasure at my misery, it was not amusing to her to see how torn-up I was over her.
xxix.
THE NEXT DAY—WHICH was the day of the engagement party—all the closeness of the previous evening was gone; and all that remained (at breakfast; in our quick hellos in the hallway) was the frustration of knowing I would not have her to myself again; we were awkward with each other, bumping into each other coming and going, talking a little too loudly and cheerfully, and I was reminded (all too sadly) of her visit the previous summer, four months before she’d shown up with “Everett,” and the rich passionate talk we’d had out on the stoop, just the two of us, as it was getting dark: huddled side by side (“like a pair of old tramps”), my knee to her knee, my arm touching hers, and the two of us looking out at the people on the street and talking about all sorts of things: childhood, playdates in Central Park and skating at Wollman Rink (had we ever seen each other in the old days? Brushed past each other on the ice?), about The Misfits, which we’d just watched on TV with Hobie, about Marilyn Monroe, whom we both loved (“a little springtime ghost”) and about poor ruined Montgomery Clift walking around with handfuls of loose pills in his pockets (a detail I hadn’t known, and didn’t comment upon) and about the death of Clark Gable and how horribly guilty Marilyn had felt for it, how responsible—which somehow, oddly, spiraled into talk of Fate, and the occult, and fortune-telling: did birthdays have anything to do with luck, or lack of it? Bad transits; stars in unfortunate alignment? What would a palm reader say? Have you ever had your palm read? No—you? Maybe we should walk over to the Psychic Healer storefront on Sixth Avenue with the purple lights and the crystal balls, it looks like it’s open twenty four hours a day—oh right, you mean the lava-lamp place where the crazy Romanian woman stands in the door belching? talking until it was so dark we could hardly see each other, whispering though there was no reason to: do you want to go in? no, not yet, and the fat summer moon shining white and pure overhead, and my love for her was really just that pure, as simple and steady as the moon. But then finally we had to go inside and almost the instant we did the spell was broken, and in the brightness of the hallway we were embarrassed and stiff with each other, almost as if the house lights had been turned up at the end of a play, and all our closeness exposed for what it was: make-believe. For months I had been desperate to recapture that moment; and—in the bar, for an hour or two—I had. But it was all unreal again, we were back right where we started, and I tried to tell myself it was enough, just to have had her all to myself for a few hours. Only it wasn’t.
xxx.
ANNE DE LARMESSIN—KITSEY’S godmother—was hosting our party at a private club which even Hobie had never set foot in, but knew all about: its history (venerable), its architects (illustrious), and its membership (stellar, running the gamut from Aaron Burr to the Whartons). “Supposed to be one of the best early Greek Revival interiors in New York State,” he’d informed us with earnest delight. “The staircases—the mantels—I wonder if we’ll be allowed in the reading room? The plasterwork’s original, I’m told, really something to see.”
“How many people will be there?” Pippa asked. She’d been forced to walk down to Morgane Le Fay and buy a dress since she hadn’t packed for the party.
“Couple hundred.” Of that number, maybe fifteen of the guests (including Pippa and Hobie, Mr. Bracegirdle and Mrs. DeFrees) were mine; a hundred were Kitsey’s, and the remainder were people whom even Kitsey claimed not to know.
“Including,” said Hobie, “the mayor. And both senators. And Prince Albert of Monaco, isn’t that right?”
“They invited Prince Albert. I seriously doubt he’s coming.”
“Oh, just an intimate thing then. For the family.”
“Look, I’m just showing up and doing what they tell me.” It was Anne de Larmessin who had seized high command of the wedding in the “crisis” (her word) of Mrs. Barbour’s indifference. It was Anne de Larmessin who was negotiating for the right church, the right minister; it was Anne de Larmessin who would work out the guest lists (dazzling) and the seating charts (unbelievably tricky) and who, in the end, it seemed, would have final say about everything from the ringbearer’s cushion to the cake. It was Anne de Larmessin who had managed to get hold of just the designer for the dress, and who’d offered her estate in St. Barth’s for the honeymoon; whom Kitsey phoned whenever a question arose (which it did, multiple times per day); and who had (in Toddy’s phrase) firmly installed herself as Wedding Obergruppenführer. What made all this so comical and perverse was that Anne de Larmessin was so disturbed by me she could hardly stand to look at me. I was worlds from the match she had hoped for her god-daughter. Even my name was too vulgar to be spoken. “And what does the groom think?” “Will the groom be providing me with his guest list any time soon?” Clearly a marriage to someone like me (a furniture dealer!) was a fate akin—more or less—to death; hence the pomp and spectacle of the arrangements, the grim sense of ceremony, as if Kitsey were some lost princess of Ur to be feasted and decked in finery and—attended by tambourine players and handmaidens—paraded down in splendor to the Underworld.
xxxi.
SINCE I DIDN’T SEE any particular reason I needed my wits about me for the party, I made sure to get good and looped before I left, with an emergency OC tucked into the pocket of my best Turnbull and Asser just in case.
The club was so beautiful that I resented the press of guests, which made it difficult to see the architectural details, the portraits hung frame to frame—some of them very fine—and the rare books on the shelves. Red velvet swags, garlands of Christmas balsam—were those real candles on the tree? I stood in a daze at the top of the stairs, not wanting to greet or talk to people, not wanting to be there at all—
Hand on my sleeve. “What’s the matter?” said Pippa.
“What?” I couldn’t meet her eye.
“You look so sad.”
“I am,” I said, but I wasn’t sure if she heard or not, I almost didn’t hear myself saying it, because at exactly the same moment Hobie—sensing we’d fallen behind—had doubled back to find us in the crowd, shouting: “Ah, there you are…”
“Go, attend to your guests,” he said, giving me a friendly parental nudge, “everyone’s asking for you!” Among the strangers, he and Pippa were two of the only really unique or interesting-looking people there: she, like a fairy in her gauzy-sleeved, diaphanous green; he, elegant and endearing in his midnight blue double-breasted, his beautiful old shoes from Peal and Co.
“I—” Hopelessly, I looked around.
“Don’t worry about us. We’ll catch up later.”
“Right,” I said, steeling myself. But—leaving them to study a portrait of John Adams near the coat check, where they were waiting for Mrs. DeFrees to drop off her mink, and making my way through the crowded rooms—there was no one I recognized except Mrs. Barbour, whom I really didn’t feel I could face, only she saw me before I could get by and caught me by the sleeve. She was backed in a doorway with her gin and lime, being addressed by a saturnine spritely old gentleman with a hard red face and a hard clear voice and a puff of gray hair over each ear.
“Oh, Medora,” he was saying, rocking back on his heels. “Still a constant delight. Darling old girl. Rare and impressive. Nearing ninety! Her family of course of the purest Knickerbocker strain as she always likes to remind one—oh you should see her, full of ginger with the attendants—” here he permitted himself an indulgent little chuckle—“this is dreadful my dear, but so amusing, at least I think you will find it so.… they cannot now hire attendants of color, that’s the term now, isn’t it? of color? because Medora has such a proclivity for, shall we say, the patois of her youth. Particularly when they are trying to restrain her or get her into the bathtub. Quite a fighter when the mood takes her, I hear! Got after one of the African American orderlies with a fireplace poker. Ha ha ha! Well… you know… ‘there but for the grace of God.’ She was of what I suppose might be called the ‘Cabin in the Sky’ generation, Medora. And the father did have the family place in Virginia—Goochland County, was it? Mercenary marriage, if ever I saw one. Still the son—you’ve met the son, haven’t you?—was rather a disappointment, wasn’t he? With the drink. And the daughter. Bit of a social failure. Well, that’s putting it delicately. Quite overweight. Collects the cats, if you know what I mean. Now Medora’s brother, Owen—Owen was a dear, dear man, died of a heart attack in the locker room of the Athletic club… having a bit of an intimate moment in the locker room of the Athletic club if you understand me… lovely man, Owen, but he was always a bit of a lost soul, ceased to live without really finding himself, I feel.”
“Theo,” said Mrs. Barbour, putting her hand out to me quite suddenly as I was trying to edge away, as a person trapped in a burning car might make a last-minute clutch at rescue personnel. “Theo, I’d like for you to meet Havistock Irving.”
Havistock Irving turned to fix me with a keen—and, to me, not wholly congenial—beam of interest. “Theodore Decker.”
“Afraid so,” I said, taken aback.
“I see.” I liked his look less and less. “You are surprised I know you. Well, you see, I know your esteemed partner, Mr. Hobart. And his esteemed partner Mr. Blackwell before you.”
“Is that so,” I said, with resolute blandness; in the antiques trade, I had daily occasion to deal with insinuating old gents of his stripe and Mrs. Barbour, who had not let go my hand, only squeezed it tighter.
“Direct descendant of Washington Irving, Havistock is,” she said helpfully. “Writing a biography of.”
“How interesting.”
“Yes it is rather interesting,” said Havistock placidly. “Although in modern academia Washington Irving has fallen a bit out of favor. Marginalized,” he said, happy to have come up with the word. “Not a distinctly American voice, the scholars say. Bit too cosmopolitan—too European. Which is only to be expected, I suppose, as Irving learned most of his craft from Addison and Steele. At any rate, my illustrious ancestor would certainly approve of my daily routine.”
“Which is—?”
“Working in libraries, reading old newspapers, studying the old government records.”
“Why government records?”
Airily he waved a hand. “They are of interest to me. And of even greater interest to a close associate of mine, who sometimes manages to turn up quite a lot of interesting information in the course of things… I believe you two are acquainted with each other?”
“Who is that?”
“Lucius Reeve?”
In the ensuing silence, the babble of the crowd and the clink of glasses rose to a roar, as if a gust of wind had swept through the room.
“Yes. Lucius.” Amused eyebrow. Fluty, pursed lips. “Exactly. I knew his name would not be unfamiliar to you. You sold him a very interesting chest-on-chest, as you recall.”
“That’s right. And I’d love to buy it back if he could ever be persuaded.”
“Oh, I’m sure. Only he’s unwilling to sell it, as, as,” he said, shushing me maliciously, “as I would be too. With the other, even more interesting piece in the offing.”
“Well, I’m afraid he can forget all about that,” I said pleasantly. My jolt at Reeve’s name had been purely reflexive, a mindless jump from a coiled extension cord or a piece of string on the floor.
“Forget?” Havistock permitted himself a laugh. “Oh, I don’t think he will forget about it.”
In reply, I smiled. But Havistock only looked more smug.
“It’s really very surprising the things one can find out on the computer these days,” he said.
“Oh?”
“Well, you know, Lucius has quite recently managed to turn up some information on some other interesting pieces you’ve sold. In fact I don’t think the buyers know quite how interesting they are. Twelve ‘Duncan Phyfe’ dining chairs, to Dallas?” he said, sipping at his champagne. “All that ‘important Sheraton’ to the buyer in Houston? And a great deal more of same in Los Angeles?”
I tried not to let my expression waver.
“ ‘Museum quality pieces.’ Of course—” including Mrs. Barbour in this—“we all know, don’t we, that ‘museum quality’ really depends the sort of museum you’re talking about. Ha ha! But Lucius has really done a very good job of following some of your more enterprising sales of late. And, once the holidays are over, he’s been thinking of taking a trip down to Texas to—Ah!” he said, turning from me with a deft little dance-like step as Kitsey, in ice-blue satin, swept in to greet us. “A welcome and ornamental addition indeed! You look lovely, my dear,” he said, leaning to kiss her. “I’ve just been talking to your charming husband-to-be. Really quite shocking, the friends in common we have!”
“Oh?” It was not until she actually turned to me—to look at me full-on, to peck me on the cheek—that I realized Kitsey hadn’t been a hundred percent sure that I would show up. Her relief at the sight of me was palpable.
“And are you giving Theo and Mommy all the scandal?” she said, turning back to Havistock.
“Oh, Kittycat, you are wicked.” Cozily, he slipped one arm through hers, and with the other reached over and patted her on the hand: a little Puritan-looking devil of a man, thin, amiable, spry. “Now, my dear, I see you are in need of a drink, as am I. Let’s wander off on our own, shall we?”—another glance back at me—“and find a nice quiet spot so we can have a good long gossip about your fiancé.”
xxxii.
“THANK HEAVENS HE’S GONE,” murmured Mrs. Barbour after they had wandered away to the drinks table. “Small chatter tires me terribly.”
“Same here.” The sweat was pouring off me. How had he found out? All the pieces he’d mentioned I’d shipped through the same carrier. Still—I was desperate for a drink—how could he know?
Mrs. Barbour, I was aware, had just spoken. “Excuse me?”
“I said, isn’t this extraordinary? I’m astonished by this great mob of people.” She was dressed very simply—black dress, black heels, and the magnificent snowflake brooch—but black was not Mrs. Barbour’s color and it only gave her a renunciate look of illness and mourning. “Must I mingle? I suppose I must. Oh, God, look, there’s Anne’s husband, what a bore. Is it very awful of me to say that I wish I were at home?”
“Who was that man just now?” I asked her.
“Havistock?” She passed her hand over her forehead. “I’m glad he is so insistent about his name or I would have had a hard time introducing you.”
“I would have thought he was a dear friend of yours.”
Unhappily she blinked, with a discomposure that made me feel guilty for the tone I’d taken with her.
“Well,” she said resolutely. “He is very familiar. That is to say—he has a very familiar manner. He is that way with everyone.”
“How do you know him?”
“Oh—Havistock does volunteer work for the New York Historical Society. Knows everything, and everyone. Although, just between us, I don’t think he’s a descendant of Washington Irving at all.”
“No?”
“Well—he’s altogether charming. That is to say, he knows absolutely everyone… claims an Astor connection as well as the Washington Irving one, and who’s to say he is wrong? Some of us have found it interesting that many of the connections he invokes are dead. That said, Havistock’s delightful, or can be. Very very good about visiting the old ladies—well, you heard him just now. Perfect trove of information about New York history—dates, names, genealogies. Before you came up, he was filling me in on the history of every single building up and down the street—all the old scandals—society murder in the townhouse next door, 1870s—he knows absolutely everything. That said, at a luncheon a few months ago he was regaling the table with an utterly scurrilous story about Fred Astaire which I don’t feel can possibly be true. Fred Astaire! Cursing like a sailor, throwing a fit! Well, I don’t mind telling you that I simply didn’t believe it—none of us did. Chance’s grandmother knew Fred Astaire back when she was working in Hollywood and she said he was simply the loveliest man alive. Never heard a whisper to the contrary. Some of the old stars were perfectly horrible, of course, and we’ve heard all those stories too. Oh,” she said despairingly, in the same breath, “how tired and hungry I feel.”
“Here—” feeling sorry for her, leading her to an empty chair—“sit down. Would you like me to get you something to eat?”
“No, please. I’d like you to stay with me. Although I suppose I shouldn’t hog you to myself,” she said unconvincingly. “Guest of honor.”
“Honestly, it won’t take a minute.” My eyes sped round the room. Trays of hors d’oeuvres were going around and there was a table with food in the next room, but I urgently needed to talk to Hobie. “I’ll be back as fast as I can.”
Luckily Hobie was so tall—taller than virtually everyone else—that I had no difficulty spotting him, a lighthouse of safety in the crowd.
“Hey,” said someone, catching my arm as I was almost to him. It was Platt, in a green velvet jacket that smelled like mothballs, looking rumpled and anxious and already half-sloshed. “Everything okay between you two?”
“What?”
“You and Kits get everything hashed out?”
I wasn’t entirely sure how to answer this. After a few moments of silence he pushed a string of gray-blond hair behind one ear. His face was pink and swollen with premature middle age, and I thought, not for the first time, how there’d been no freedom for Platt in his refusal to grow up, how by slacking off too long he’d managed to destroy every last glimmer of his hereditary privilege; and now he was always going to be loitering at the margins of the party with his gin and lime while his baby brother Toddy—still in college—stood talking in a group which included the president of an Ivy League college, a billionaire financier, and the publisher of an important magazine.
Platt was still looking at me. “Listen,” he said. “I know it’s none of my business, you and Kits…”
I shrugged.
“Tom doesn’t love her,” he said impulsively. “It was the best thing that ever happened to Kitsey when you came along and she knows it. I mean, the way he treats her! She was with him, you know, that weekend Andy died? That was the big important reason why she sent Andy up to look after Daddy, even though Andy was hopeless with Daddy, why she didn’t go herself. Tom, Tom, Tom. All about Tom. And yeah, apparently, he’s all ‘Endless Love’ with her, ‘My Only Love,’ or so she says, but believe me it’s a different story behind her back. Because—” he paused, in frustration—“the way he strung her along—leeched money constantly, went around with other girls and lied about it—it made me sick, Mommy and Daddy too. Because, basically, she’s a meal ticket to him. That’s how he sees her. But—don’t ask me why, she was crazy for him. Completely off her head.”
“Still is, it seems.”
Platt made a face. “Oh, come on. It’s you she’s marrying.”
“Cable doesn’t strike me as the marrying type.”
“Well—” he took a big slug of his drink—“whoever Tom does marry, I feel sorry for them. Kits may be impulsive but she’s not stupid.”
“Nope.” Kitsey was far from stupid. Not only had she arranged for the marriage that would most please her mother; she was sleeping with the person she really loved.
“It would never have panned out. Like Mommy said. ‘Utter infatuation.’ ‘A rope of sand.’ ”
“She told me she loved him.”
“Well, girls always love assholes,” said Platt, not bothering to dispute this. “Haven’t you noticed?”
No, I thought bleakly, untrue. Else why didn’t Pippa love me?
“Say, you need a drink, pal. Actually—” knocking the rest of his back—“I could use another myself.”
“Look, I just have to go and speak to someone. Also, your mother—” I turned and pointed in the direction where I’d seated her—“she needs a drink too and something to eat.”
“Mommy,” said Platt, looking like I’d just reminded him of a kettle he’d left boiling on the stove, and hurried off.
xxxiii.
“HOBIE?”
He seemed startled at the touch of my hand on his sleeve, turned quickly. “Everything all right?” he said immediately.
I felt better just standing next to him—just to breathe in the clean air of Hobie. “Listen,” I said, glancing round nervously, “if we could just have a quick—”
“Ah, and is this the groom?” interjected a woman in his eagerly hovering group.
“Yes, congratulations!” More strangers, pressing forward.
“How young he looks! How very young you look.” Blonde lady, mid fifties, pressing my hand. “And how handsome!” turning to her friend. “Prince Charming!