City of Hope (12 page)

“Oh—he chose me over her, it seems. She's aged badly, Ellie . . .”

“But she can't have been that much older than us?”

“Too thin, and quite dowdy, since moving back from New York and in with that ghastly old husband of hers. Turns out he's a real boring old toad—very rich, of course, but fat and so
dull.
I felt rather sorry for her actually.”

I had met Mr. Adams only once during my time working for his wife in their Fifth Avenue apartment. Bridie Flannery had always described her male employer in hushed tones.
“A real gentleman, Mr. Adams is. Old money, but no airs—the only stupid thing he ever did in his life was marry that idiot upstairs.”

“Oh, guess who I went to see yesterday?” I said.

I told her about old Mrs. Flannery and her predicament, and while Sheila pretended to listen, I could tell she was disinterested in news of the old lady.

“I told her we might call up and take her for tea one day? It would be such a treat for her.”

“That aul' bitch—no, thank you,” she said. “She was perfectly
horrible
to me when I worked for Isobel.” Then she added as a courtesy, “Of course, I am sorry for her trouble.”

We talked only about the past from then on, and touched rarely on what had happened to us both in the years in between. My success in business, her success in social circles, news of our families, the health and wealth of our marriages we left for another day. She planned to stay with me at The Plaza for two full weeks. There was plenty of time to fill in all the details in the coming days. For the time being our fond remembering helped me to forget—and I was content with that.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTEEN

With Sheila there to amuse me, my efforts to distract myself were cemented. For the next few days we shopped, took lunch in various hotels and restaurants, and in the evenings after dinner we retired to my room in The Plaza, where we talked and sat easily in each other's company. We read magazines and gossiped about the film stars of the day. We tried on each other's clothes, and played with our hair and makeup as we had done as girls. In those first few evenings I was comforted by the familiarity of Sheila's voice, the smell of her perfumed skin in the bed beside me. The intimacy of our friendship mimicked the intimacy of my marriage. We were so happy to see each other again, it was a type of falling in love.

As the week went on, however, Sheila's mood toward me changed.

On the fourth day she had seemed somewhat unsettled in herself. She had snapped at a young shop assistant who was trying to fit her with a hat, and had barely touched any food all day, only puffed on cigarettes constantly. In the afternoon she stopped at a pharmacy and bought a bottle of decongestant medicine that she sprayed up her nose (in a most unladylike fashion) as soon as we got out onto the street. She staggered backward slightly, laughing, then seemed to think about offering some to me before putting it in her bag. She had no symptoms of a cold and, when I pressed her about it, she said sharply, “My ailment is boredom, Ellie.”

I didn't know what she meant, except that I must be boring her. Sheila immediately pushed the cruelty aside, saying, “Darling Ellie—let's go and annoy the girls on the perfume counter at Saks again.” She was markedly jolly for the rest of the afternoon, although it was a while before I noticed her furtive sniffs from the medicine and realized she was getting high. I felt such a fool for assuming she was ill that I said nothing. This was some new fashionable behavior, no doubt, that her hick Irish friend was unaware of.

As I collected my key, the girl behind the desk handed me a card. For a moment I became excited, imagining it was a letter from Katherine, or Maidy. But there was no envelope, only a square of expensive card with elongated black lettering. Beneath today's date it read: “
Solomon R. Guggenheim Collection of Non-Objective Paintings
. Solomon Guggenheim invites you to view six new works by the artist Wassily Kandinsky in his private suite.”

Sheila was craning to read it and, as I handed it to her, she exploded with excitement.

“Oh my goodness, Ellie—Solomon Guggenheim!”

“There must be some mistake,” I said to the concierge. “I don't know this man.”

“It's a public viewing, Madam,” he said pointedly, looking at Sheila, who was hopping about with pure pleasure, “although this is a rather exclusive preview for Plaza guests only.”

“Will Solomon himself be there?” Sheila asked, trying and failing to attain some measure of decorum in her voice.

“I have no idea, Ma'am,” he replied. He looked from me to Sheila, taking in the measure of us both. Much as I was embarrassed by my friend's sudden burst of energetic keenness, I did not like his snobbish attitude, especially not toward a paying customer. I took my key from the desk and walked away without thanking him.

We took the lift to Guggenheim's private suite, presenting our invitation to the uniformed boy as we entered. I had dressed plainly in an expensive navy dress, while Sheila was wearing a trouser suit.

“It will be an ‘arty' crowd,” she had exclaimed as we were preparing for our outing. “We must look elegant, but understated, Ellie—on
no
account are you to wear the green polka dots!” Her frothiness had begun to grate on me, and I tried to push back my growing reservation that spending so much time in her company had been a mistake.

“I wonder who will
be
there? Oh, come on, Ellie—you look as glum as a nun!”

Sheila would not stop talking, and far from cheering me up as I had hoped, her incessant babbling and all her nervous energy was having the opposite effect on me. As she was fixing my hair I felt suddenly tired and craved the release of sleep: the escape, the solitude of it.

“There,” she said, clipping the pearl barrette to one side of my bob, “all done.”

The navy dress seemed black in the muted lamplight of the hotel room and, decorated only with a simple set of beads, I looked dressed in mourning. With the sight of my features set in, I forced a smile and said, “Let's go.”

The lift opened straight into the foyer of the Guggenheim apartment. It was large, but not nearly as ornate as I had been expecting. Sparsely decorated with white paneled walls and occasional tables and chairs, all squared off in black and glass lines, its symmetry was reinforced here and there with mirrored panels.

The paintings themselves stood out in colorful contrast, which, I supposed, was the idea. It was just eight o'clock and there were perhaps a dozen people milling around, taking wine glasses from uniformed waiters.

“I don't see Solomon here,” said Sheila, looking about her for fellow social butterflies, her eyes flicking over my shoulder to see what fresh blood might be coming out of the lift.

I stood and looked at the nearest painting. It was a series of triangles and lines, mathematical forms thrown together in mashed shapes. It made no sense to me, but I found the bright colors—blues, reds, yellows—and the clean black lines that joined them, strangely hypnotic.

“Oooh, look,” Sheila said, “
men
!”

She walked off, but I didn't follow her. I wondered what the painting meant and took a step back, almost colliding with another observer—a woman of about my age. She wore a large black dress-coat with a wide purple shawl collar.

“It's hypnotic, isn't it?”

Her accent was foreign, German perhaps, but with the tinge of American that everyone seemed to pick up, after even the shortest time living in New York.

“Yes,” I said, “what is it, do you suppose?”

“With Kandinsky one can never be quite certain; he is as much of a prophet as an artist, but the color—the shapes—the perfect, exciting geometry of it—that is enough in itself to enjoy, I think, without learning what is behind it. Hilla Reband,” she said and held out her hand. “I'm the curator.”

“Ellie Hogan,” I said.

“Do you like art?”

We stood for a few moments and had a most interesting conversation. She was Mr. Guggenheim's art adviser, she said—and an artist herself. She had hopes that the philanthropist would open a gallery at some point in New York, so that the wider public could share the collection that she was helping him build. As she talked I became enthralled by her, not so much by what she was saying, her academic style of speaking, but by her confidence, her sense of purpose. As she was excusing herself to move on and mingle, she passed by Sheila, who, unaware of her importance, gave the artist a blunt and disinterested look.

“Come on, Ellie—we're going,” she said, taking my arm.

“But we've just got here.”

“This is Eric and . . .”

Two men had joined us.

“Geoff,” the older one said, holding out his hand and grinning.

I didn't like the look of them. Although they were impeccably dressed in smart evening suits and silk scarves, I knew by the cut of them they were typical good-time Charlies, and Sheila's eyes were glittering with excitement and adventure.

“Eric and Geoff are taking us to El Morocco!”

“The nightclub,” Eric chortled, “not the country.”

I was not in the mood for exploring New York nightlife.

“Excuse me,” I said, taking Sheila aside. “I'd really just rather stay here for an hour, then go to bed,” I said. “I'm tired—and we don't know them.”

“Oh, for God's sake, Ellie—you are such a
bore
. Fine, I'll go by myself.”

I couldn't let Sheila walk off into the night with two strange men, and was irritated that she still had the same shallow desires, the same irresponsible urges that had got us into so much trouble in our twenties.

“Come on, Ellie.” She squeezed my arm, seducing me as she always could. “It's the most exclusive club in Manhattan—all the stars will be there. We'll dance and have fun—never mind those two, we'll drop them as soon as we're there.”

I looked over at Geoff and Eric, loitering and confiding like schoolboys. Waiting for the fun-loving girl's sensible friend to give the green light to their lascivious intentions.

“I've checked them out—Geoff has an apartment here, and they are both
very
rich
,” she whispered in my ear, “and so they'll surely behave like gentlemen. Come on, Ellie, what harm can it do?”

She was right. We were in New York, the night was young and it had been so long since I had danced or listened to jazz. I wasn't an innocent child anymore, and this was, after all, why I was here: to enjoy myself and forget.

“Come on then,” I said.

Geoff was the older man, in his mid-forties perhaps and not as dashing or handsome as his younger friend, Eric. He had his own car and driver waiting outside, but made a point of opening the car door for me himself, then guided Eric to sit opposite us in the back of the luxurious, leather-seated limousine. The car pulled up outside and our host thanked the doorman by name, then ushered us straight past the awning and inside. At the door Geoff made a show of having booked his “usual booth,” then stepped aside to let us ladies walk before him into the club. It was a small act of courtesy to impress on us his gentlemanly status, but for all that it was contrived, I found his good manners nonetheless somewhat comforting.

The older man sat next to me in the booth, keeping a respectable distance and offering me a cigarette from his gold case, before taking one himself. He asked me questions about myself, but I revealed very little, as did he. I didn't mind. I wasn't remotely interested in him, beyond the fact that I had been dragged along by Sheila, who was already flirting with Eric, whispering in his ear and giggling. Both men were undoubtedly married (although neither of them wore rings), but I did not feel we were in depraved company. This was 1934 after all—modern times—and we were just four people enjoying a night out.

The place was lively, with a buzzing crowd listening to fast jazz, and the walls were covered in the distinctive black-and-white zebra print that was familiar to me from society photographs in
Vanity Fair
magazine. I decided to relax thoroughly and allow myself the pleasure of feeling as if I had “arrived.” I was back in the place I had always loved—the world of society and fashion that I had tried to re-create in the elegance of my small apartment—I was here again at its epicenter. Dancing, exotic foods, bubbling champagne, jazz music, elegant people in beautiful clothes swirling around me; sucking my shaken, uncertain center up into a whirlpool of life.

Geoff ordered us food and champagne with great aplomb, and as it was the first time I had eaten lobster, he charmingly helped me negotiate the small silver hooks to dig out the sweet meat from the strange pink claws.

As the champagne took hold, I got the urge to dance. Geoff was an ungainly dancer, but he made me laugh. He was quite sweet, I thought, as he threw his arms up in the air in an old-fashioned Charleston, trying to impress me. We had fun. Sheila and Eric had gone from the booth when we got back. They had been canoodling in full public view while we were dancing, and although my tolerance toward Sheila's undignified behavior was muted by the fun I was having myself, I still feared the worst. Geoff kindly demurred and went to find them. I sat on my own, picked at the tray of sweets that had been left for us, and poured myself another glass of champagne. I felt utterly happy, giddy and laughing slightly to myself at the memory of poor Geoff's dancing. Sheila had been right after all. This was what I had needed. To forget. To feel alive again.

Geoff was only gone for a few minutes, but when the three of them came back, something in the atmosphere had changed. Nothing I could quite put my finger on, but it seemed to me that they were sharing a secret. I thought perhaps that Geoff had found something out about Eric and Sheila, but they were all smiling and the younger man took my friend straight up onto the dance floor, where they threw themselves about with almost comical speed and abandon. I felt suddenly uncomfortable at how drunk I was, and asked Geoff if he could order me some coffee. He shoved himself in closer to me on the banquette and smiled at me, rather stupidly, before clicking his finger at the hostess and calling, “Over here! More champagne!”