A Certain Age (24 page)

At least if she were able to calm down and stay home, she would have something to read; and if she went out, she could say she had just bought thus-and-such. She longed to think of herself as the sort of person who might easily spend a quiet night at home, thoughtfully reading, answering letters. She wasn't hungry, but in case she might be later, she stopped at a gourmet delicatessen and bought a container of cold gazpacho, for seven dollars, and a half pound of tomato, basil and mozzarella salad in virgin olive oil.

But when she got inside she knew at once she was going to be unable to stay put. Please let there be an invitation to go out, she thought when she saw that the message light on the answering machine was flashing.

"I was going to try and pick you up." It was Darryl Lever. "But I'm running late, I'm barely going to have time to run home and change—could you just meet me at Avery Fisher at a few minutes before eight? The tickets are in my name."

It came back to her—she had agreed on Sunday to go with him to some concert at Lincoln Center. How she wished she hadn't agreed! She must have been more drunk than she remembered. She had forgotten about it completely. If not for his message she could have taken a cool bath, put on her white cotton pajamas, gotten into bed between her Egyptian cotton sheets . . . Now she had no desire to go out whatsoever. There had to be some way to reach him and tell him she wasn't well. She called his office. The receptionist had left for the day; there was no way to leave a message, the machine merely stating his hours. At first it had seemed there would be nothing worse than having to stay home— now she saw that to sit at some concert while Darryl held her hand would be far worse. "God damn it!" She could just blow him off, not show up, wait until he called and say she was sick, but that just seemed too vicious. It wouldn't even have been so bad if he could just accept that there was nothing between them but friendship; she always had the feeling, however, that he thought if he waited long enough, there would be more.

She opened her Filofax and was about to leave a message for him at home when she saw she had written a couple of things down for today: an inaugural cocktail reception for an exhibition of works by a nineteenth-century French artist, at a fancy gallery off Madison Avenue in the sixties, six to eight (a girl she knew who worked there had added in ink, "Hope you can come!"); and another party nearby at around the same time. She had received the first invitation in the mail; the second, by telephone a few days before—the hostess was throwing this cocktail party for a jewelry designer visiting from Egypt.

If she was going to sit through some dreary concert of classical music, she might as well dash over to the two cocktail parties first—at least that way by the time she met Darryl she wouldn't feel like staying in; she might even be a bit oblivious.

She peeled off her petal skirt and jumped in the shower. Her hair felt lank and droopy. She washed it and ran a comb through it and was about to put on a black sleeveless silk cocktail dress when she decided against it and instead put on a red-and-white-checked cotton dress, fitted at the top, with a flared skirt—it was cooler, less dressy, and she knew that all the other girls, at the first two events anyway, would be dressed in tight black cocktail dresses—why look exactly the same as they? She had a pair of strappy bright red patent leather sandals, very expensive, slightly slutty, and she wore these with bare legs.

The art gallery was in a former mansion some blocks away; the gallery was family-run and specialized primarily in old masters, French academy and so forth; the front doors were glass-covered, with ornate iron bars. An armed security guard examined her suspiciously before pointing across the marble-floored lobby to a reception desk where names were being checked off on a list. Fortunately, the woman who had invited her, Marisa Nagy, was standing nearby, waved hello and ushered her in past the check-in line.

Marisa, tall and black-haired, was dressed in a black cocktail sheath. "Oh, it's so good to see you! How've you been?" Florence couldn't understand why Marisa had invited her, but she must have—her card had been included in the invitation; she had never been invited to an opening at this gallery before. Marisa worked there, in the research department, they had some mutual friend in common, both had gone to Sarah Lawrence—but Marisa was four or five years younger than she. "I want you to meet my boyfriend." Marisa pointed to a putty-faced man in his late thirties who was holding a glass of champagne. "John Henry Pugh, my friend Florence Collins."

She shook the man's hand. He had on a gray suit almost the same shade as his skin. He looked well-to-do but not fabulously rich, and a bit more human than Marisa, who was too perfect. Her cocktail dress was tight-fitting and of some matte fabric, perhaps crepe de chine, with a wide band of black satin around the hips; there was a little matching jacket flung over one arm, and even in this heat she wore sheer black stockings. The pumps were black satin and, Florence noted, just a tiny bit too big in the heel. Her legs were not as good as Florence's either. But her body was nearly perfect, and her face, with thickly lashed huge brown eyes and tiny nose, had on hardly a speck of makeup and was superior to any fashion model's. A fashion model had to appear drab and understated or she would be announcing that she was wrapped up in her own beauty. A nonmodel, on the other hand, could afford to advertise herself a bit, and most of the time the nonmodels wandering around were more beautiful than the models to begin with. Marisa's costume was that of the woman advertising herself for sale as wife to a wealthy man.

Florence took a glass of champagne from a waiter; another waiter came around bearing a tray containing triangles of smoked salmon and crème fraîche on pumpernickel toast points.

"How've you been?"

"I might come in to see you, Marisa. You want to have lunch this week? How do you like working at Saskeleone's?"

"Yes, let's have lunch. I love working here! It's been such a learning experience! You know, I've been in the research department, but I've just started to do a bit of dealing, which has been great."

She realized Marisa hated working there. Still, if she had lunch with her, Marisa might know who had just left work or been fired elsewhere, and Florence could apply. She turned to John Henry. "And are you in the art business?"

"No, no," he simpered, and from a platter took a miniature pastry tart stuffed with what appeared to be tiny cubes of buttered mushrooms. "It's a subject I know very little about." Perhaps he was richer than he appeared. Or had Marisa simply grown desper-

ate and, seeing that the prospects were slim, settled on him while hoping something better came along?

"Oh? What field are you in—"

"John Henry, I want you to come and meet my boss." Marisa took his arm. "Excuse us, Florence, I have to go and check things downstairs. We'll see you in a bit."

She was left alone observing the crowd. She knew no one else in the room; this was the environment of the genuinely rich— elderly women with gray bouffant hairstyles in ancient black beaded evening gowns and amethyst-colored suits, teamed with gray-haired men who walked with shuffling steps. There were scarcely any young people here, but the room was powdery and decayed, perfumed with money.

Cocktails were not permitted in the viewing galleries. Black security guards gleefully restricted guests from entering until they had put their glasses down on trays. The floors were covered in plush gray carpet, like pads of soft fat. The paintings themselves were bland, pleasant scenes—sailboats, the French Riviera in 1880, fishermen, "The Grape Harvesters," a mountain village— banded in heavy gold frames, intended to be hung in the homes of the affluent and never noticed again; it was hardly more subtle than hanging thousand-dollar bills in diamond-studded frames. But there was something soothing about the taupe-and-custard-colored scenes, the artful spotlights casting satin hues, the paired-off wealthy couples who were the last vestiges of their kind in Manhattan. They would go off to dine in dim French restaurants that no one young and fashionable had ever entered, or in dining rooms in apartments facing Fifth Avenue. She would willingly have accepted one of the shuffling old men if it brought with it acceptance and needlepoint cushions. But none of these rich men would bring acceptance with him. The men who were part of this world, if seeking to remarry, would choose someone from their own group. They gave her a wide berth, though she saw, from time to time, one or another glance at her, slightly leeringly, and quickly pretend to be studying whatever painting she was positioned by.

She made her way downstairs, halfheartedly searching for Marisa on the way; she should thank her, mention again about getting together for lunch—she should say "I want to take you to lunch" to let her know she was paying—and make a concrete stab at establishing a friendship. There was no sign of Marisa, however, and she was slightly relieved not to have to express public gratitude for having been invited. It was too similar to a ritual of dogs; she would have to display her submissiveness, and she already felt too lowly to do the dance that would enable Marisa to demonstrate her grandeur.

Almost no one was out on Madison Avenue; the East Side always seemed shut down at night, except for the rare entity darting into one of the scattered restaurants or the occasional building. It was as if the rich grew naturally furtive or wary at night. For their own protection they scuttled as if they were mice while owls huddled behind the gargoyles overhead. The other cocktail party was only fifteen blocks away. She could have walked, but she still didn't know whether or not she would bother to meet Darryl at the concert—if she was going to meet him, she wouldn't have much time at the next event, so she jumped into a taxi.

Lisa Harrison was divorced. Her apartment was smaller than the one she had lived in with her husband, but was still at a good address; Florence hadn't been here before. Lisa must have had help from a decorator. Everything was chintz, porcelain monkeys, gold mirrors, windows heavy with balloons of pink-and-white-striped taffeta topped with contrasting plaids and paisleys. A waiter at the door asked if she wanted white wine or Perrier. It seemed rather sad that Lisa couldn't or wouldn't provide more than that. The minimal space between overstuffed furniture was occupied by men and women in their thirties—the men in suits, the women in the ubiquitous black cocktail dress.

As she stood there Lisa tottered down the stairs—the apartment was a duplex—followed by three wheezing pug-dogs. There

was a blank, startled expression on her face, as if she hadn't a clue to where she was. She took Florence's arm. She was wearing a gray satin dress, badly fitted, her blond hair in an elaborate bouffant atop her head. "I only just came down," she said. "I was hiding in my bedroom. I just got my period. Actually—in all confidentiality"—she raised her voice—"I'm in the middle of having a miscarriage! It's the second time this has happened to me; the last time was much worse, I was much further along, and it was in the middle of a reception at MOMA. I suddenly realized my shoe was all wet, and I looked down and I realized it was absolutely full of blood, and my stockings were drenched! So I went down to the ladies' room, leaving, of course, a trail of blood everywhere—" She turned as another guest came into the room. "Oh, hello, Maura, I'm in the middle of telling Florence about my last miscarriage, I'll be with you in a minute. I can't believe I agreed to do this—it's so tacky, a party for some jewelry designer! I can't understand why I decided to do this. I met him in Cairo, I bought some of his jewelry, and I said, 'Give me a call when you come to New York and I'll organize something.' But I never thought he'd actually turn up! This is awful."

She was already drunk. She had a reputation for drinking too much and taking pills, but at least she had a marriage in her past, to a wealthy Chinese restaurateur; it somehow put her in a better position than if she had never been married. Lisa tottered off—she wore immensely tall high heels—and Florence crossed the crowded floor to the dining room, grabbing a stalk of asparagus from a waiter. She was starving. She felt she couldn't go on another minute without gorging herself with food. But whenever she saw a waiter he had a tray of flaky pastry made of butter and stuffed with cheese, or something equally fattening.

The party looked as if it had potential. Lisa knew only rich people-—she made sure she knew only rich people. Probably she would want something from Florence in the near future. It seemed hard to believe she had forgotten Florence wasn't rich. Then she remembered it was a party to buy jewelry. Anyway, Lisa didn't

know how poor she was—she assumed Florence could afford to buy the things. The jewelry designer, as round as a punching bag, wore a fez decorated with cutout felt bunnies and was standing beside the dining room table, which had been covered with purple velvet. The jewelry was scattered on the surface, huge gaudy chains made of commercial-grade emeralds and rubies that looked like glass nuggets, plastic baubles. She picked up a choker. "Let me fasten that," the designer said. "It looks fabulous."

Florence shrugged. "How much is it?"

"This one?" He opened a little notebook. "Three thousand. It's all made by hand, you know." He studied her with greed disguised as friendliness. "It looks beautiful on you! Are you a model? If you buy it, I hope you will allow me to photograph you for my brochure. Look, look!" He snatched up a similar choker of blue stones, this one with a dangling thing in the middle, and held it up to his neck. "You may wear it like this, or this way—each piece is designed to be multipurpose. You know the work of the

designer ----------?" He named a well-known fashion designer.