A Certain Age (20 page)

there were any empty chairs left, they were empty for a reason— broken legs, ugly styles, cheap imitations.

Outside, the morning air had fled. The day-turned-to-after-noon was no longer so pleasant. It was unnatural, the weather in New York, with each day or even half day unconnected to the rest, as if someone on top of a skyscraper had access to various temperature-control switches and dials. It was beginning to grow humid. A chemical cloud seemed to have blown in from New Jersey, and now that the breezes had died down, it languished overhead, gray and foul-smelling. There were still forty minutes until she had to meet Marge, not enough time to go to the gym, not really enough time to do anything. It occurred to her again she had left Virginia Clary's jewelry at home, though she had meant to bring it in to work. The thought weighed her down.

She waited on line at a row of corner pay phones. A drug-addict-type woman with a pimpled face, dressed in a purple nylon jogging outfit, swung at the end of the metal telephone cord, turning to face the sidewalk, then back to the phone again, chewing gum, yodeling and chortling, oblivious to the fact that others were waiting to use the phone; or perhaps she was fully aware and was reveling in her power. A messenger type, in a pair of tight nylon shorts, a T-shirt, and a long shawl over his head, huddled in the middle booth. The last phone was out of order, the receiver dangled limply between the legs of the booth.

There were several others ahead of her; the druggy woman still didn't get off the phone, but the messenger left and the next man departed without making his call. Another man—really a boy, he had to be ten years younger than she—came and stood behind her. "Are you waiting for a phone?" he said in a voice so low it was practically a mutter. He wore a blue-and-pink bow tie, a silly checked jacket and striped trousers. His hair was plastered down and he had on old-fashioned round horn-rimmed glasses—one of those types trying to appear as if he lived in an earlier era. She nodded. His eyes lit up with a zany love, he couldn't stop staring at her. At least someone found her attractive. When the man in

front of her had finished, she dialed Raffaello's number. His machine answered and she hung up. She was about to leave when the boy in the bow tie blocked her way. "Is your name Kerry?" he said.

She shook her head and started to go around.

"No, wait!" he said. "I—I'm sure I—did you go to Bennington?"

"No, I didn't." She pushed past him and headed back toward work. She decided she might as well pick up the hats now. She was allowed to shop on her lunch hour; Marge couldn't control her free time, and there was no way she wanted to make this detour on her way home from work, even though she had originally planned to come back this way.

She was turning into the door of the hat shop when she realized the idiot had followed her. The poor moron had a cigar clamped between his teeth, which he removed like a horse freeing itself from the bit. "Excuse me!" he was calling. "Excuse me!" She rolled her eyes and stopped. "I'm sorry to bother you. I know . . . you're a woman, men probably bother you . . . it's just that ... let me introduce myself: my name is Spencer Hubert Fairbrother the Third." He paused, as if she would either be impressed with this information or feel obliged to offer her name in return. "I'm sure . . . well, I'm fairly certain I did meet you, at a party, or at least I saw you. But now I'm thinking: do you occasionally go to Quayle's, the auction house?"

"I work there," she blurted, taken aback that he actually had seen her before.

"Oh!" He was pleased with himself and puffed on the cigar before remembering it was unlit. "I knew I knew you from someplace. It's your smile. You have such an unusual and kind smile, almost as if you didn't realize it when you were smiling. I know this is probably somewhat presumptuous on my part, but I was wondering if you wanted to join me—and a group of friends—later this evening."

"Probably not." He couldn't have been twenty-two; was he oblivious to her age? She could see herself with him and a bunch

of his friends, all twenty years old, rich boys pretending to be Round Tablers at the Algonquin. It was too cute. On the other hand, did she have anything to lose? Maybe his father, divorced, or widowed, fabulously wealthy, the owner of the restaurant, whatever, would stop by.

Spencer Hubert Fairbrother the Third looked at her from behind his thick glasses. His eyes were huge, timid, the color of cement, yet at the same time his expression was superior and bemused. "Why don't I write down the information and you can give me a call if you change your mind?"

"Sure," she said. "Write it down. If I can't make it tonight, maybe I'll give you a call some other time. By the way, what's a good place to buy cigars?"

6

Because she stopped in
a tobacco shop and bought a ridiculously expensive device to nip off the ends of cigars, she was late for her meeting with Marge. She couldn't navigate around pedestrians so quickly carrying the huge hatboxes. Then the elevator was stuck somewhere; she finally took the stairs and arrived in Marge's office out of breath. Marge was on the phone and nodded regally for Florence to take a seat. Then she continued with her phone conversation. Florence waited. Ten minutes passed. She gazed into

space with the expression of someone thinking deep, inner thoughts. She knew this would drive Marge crazy, when she noticed; Marge wanted to torture her. It occurred to her she had learned this technique—of staring vaguely into space—from her mother, who could switch on or off seemingly at random.

Marge might have been punishing her for being late to the meeting. Or it might always have been part of the plan. "Then I'm going to meet Carlos for a week in Morea. He's got that place that belonged to his father. You know, his Alzheimer's seems to have stabilized." Marge had a high, imperious voice. On the telephone it cut into the ear of the poor listener like a metal probe. She wasn't even discussing business. Finally she put down the phone and looked at Florence as if hoping she was going to ask about her upcoming trip to Morea. Florence continued to gaze off into the distance, and at last, as if rousing herself from a more important event, she turned to Marge with a dismissive smile.

"I'm sorry I wasn't able to see you yesterday. I had an appointment out on Long Island I was unable to cancel."

"I know," Marge said. "Anyway, that isn't what I wanted to talk about. I'm afraid I've been meeting with Caspar Baumgarten"—he was the associate director of Quayle's—"and he's felt for some time it's necessary to make some cutbacks. He met with the board of directors last week and basically the conclusion was to reduce staff in several departments: Estate Jewelry, Musical Instruments, African and Oceanic Art were the first three areas. Unfortunately, Florence, he left it to me to let you know."

"I see." She deliberately kept her voice as calm and disengaged as possible. "And are you offering me any severance?"

"It's a difficult time. Even Sotheby's and Christie's are making cutbacks. It's this new taxation. Quayle's profit margin has always been much weaker than the larger concerns. However, I did speak to Caspar about this. He would like to offer you a week's pay for each year you've been with us. I think you've been here four years."

"Four and a half."

"Yes, well, I'll have to speak to him about those six months. Anyway, at least that's a month's pay; and of course you have a few vacation days—"

"Ten."

Marge, though in pain, appeared to be enjoying herself, as if she were scratching a mosquito bite or poison ivy rash. "And he wants you to know he's going to keep you on Quayle's health insurance program for ninety days."

"I'd like him—and you—to provide me with letters of recommendation." She was surprised at how cool her voice was.

"Yes, well—I'll certainly bring that up at our next meeting. Anyway, why don't we just round it out to two months' pay—and that, plus the three months' health insurance, should certainly see you through to your next job, Flo. And you really don't have to worry, do you? I mean, you're just working here for fun."

"Yes." She gave Marge a cold, superior smile. Now she was sorry she hadn't worn a suit to work that day: something sharp and crisp, more expensive and glamorous than anything gawky, awkward Marge had in her closet. Two months' pay! That would give her around thirty-two hundred dollars; remembering Quayle's payroll department, she knew her taxes and Social Security would automatically be taken out. It would scarcely cover a month's mortgage and maintenance. Quayle's offered no pension fund; although, as she recalled, they would have matched two thousand a year if she had started an IRA. That would have been sixteen thousand dollars, but she hadn't put any money away in a retirement fund. In the back of her mind she had always thought something—someone—would surely come along to rescue her before then. What good would it have done if, at age sixty-five, she had several hundred thousand dollars in a retirement plan? By then the money would be worth the equivalent of only several thousand dollars. She had always thought that she was better off spending the money on improving herself—making herself into a more marketable commodity. Well, at least she wouldn't have to go and buy any new outfits for her job hunt.

Her eyes prickled as she packed her things, though she was

determined not to cry. Within moments Sonia had appeared in the door, plugging the room with her smug presence. "So what are you going to do?" she whined.

"Actually, a friend has wanted me to go to work for him for a while," Florence said. "He has a private foundation—he's funding all kinds of enterprises in China." She was surprised at how quickly the fiction poured from her mouth.

"Oh!" Disappointed, half disbelieving, Sonia shuffled away. "Well, that's great! You should tell Marge. She's been very upset about this whole thing, you know. She really likes you."

"Mm." She didn't know if she should just trash the stuff in her desk, or actually go and start searching for a box to lug the things home. It was remarkable how much she had accumulated in her time at Quayle's. Expensive bottles of nail polish, stockings with runs, extra pairs of new stockings, a pair of dirty stockings, which she had taken off when she had arrived at work after staying the night at some guy's apartment. Toys she had bought during her lunch hour to cheer herself up: a tiny kaleidoscope, its exterior made of polished rosewood and brass; inside, the glass shards when shaken fell into patterns resembling elaborate molecular structures. She peered into it, holding the end containing the bits to the light. It made her think the universe had been tapped with a hammer and tossed into a garbage pail. Two plastic windup toys, one in the shape of a chicken, which waddled and clucked; the other, a minute hopping kangaroo. A bag of glistening, gemlike lollipops, some of which had fallen out and in the heat melted to the metal surface of the desk drawer. An empty tin of currant-flavored pastilles. A horoscope booklet, a year out of date, on her sign of Scorpio. A Mont Blanc pen with chipped enamel. A small, partially consumed bottle of vodka. Quayle's Christmas gift of last year—a bottle of wine, still in its silver foil wrapping. A Looney Tunes mouse pad for her computer, Tweety Pie sweating in her cage while Sylvester, red-nosed, in a frenzy of aggressive lust, panted just beyond the bars. A broken opal that must have fallen out of some jewelry setting, quite a nice one apart from the fact that one side was split, almost black with flecks of prancing col-

ors. It wasn't hers—but whom to return it to? She swept it up with the other junk.

"Oh, but you can stay until the end of the week." Marge was in the door. "In fact, I'd like you to stay until the end of the month. I wasn't expecting you to go today! I'd like to go over everything you've been working on—your files, the cataloging—before you go. I don't want to lose all the material for the October sale."

In that case, you should have waited to fire me, she thought. Or made that a contingency of my severance. She turned and smiled sweetly at Marge. "I'm afraid that won't be possible. A friend wants me to start working for him right away, and I'd like to have a few days off in between." Somehow this didn't come out as credibly as when she had spoken to Sonia.

Marge suddenly looked flabby and watery, as if her face were a slice of zucchini boiled a bit too long. "You won't stay until the end of the week?"

Florence shrugged. All these years Marge had never given her a single extra day off, deducting time spent at the dentist, hovering over her every second and in between regaling her with stories about various eligible bachelors who had been at parties the night before—parties that Florence could have attended had Marge not snatched the invitations (a dinner at the Met, which had been sent to both of them; a lecture followed by dinner at Asia House) without telling Florence until the day after. Or had wined and dined the interesting and important clients or dealers and not let Florence join them. Which was the least she should have been included in, considering what Quayle's paid her. There had been a cruise in the Bahamas—Marge was to lecture for free passage. She couldn't go, but could have suggested Florence. And on and on. The woman was fifty-four years old; by her age, shouldn't she have acquired some generosity of spirit?

"I'm afraid in that case I'd like to see everything you're taking home with you. It's simply part of our new security program."

"Of course. Take a look." As if after all these years she had been so stupid as to snitch jewelry and keep it stored in her office. Marge no doubt thought this would be humiliating, but what did