Diary of a Yuppie (12 page)

I don't know why she bothered. She never came to the little place except to do one thing, and that, as often as not, was done in the dark. Sylvia became a different person when she made love. She never spoke or uttered a sound unless it was such a cry of satisfaction as had awakened her son; she might have been going through some sort of gymnastic exercise, necessary for her well-being but not to be acknowledged or even spoken of. Was it love? Anyway, I felt that she cared very much about pleasing me. And I always knew at parties that, even though she never seemed to be looking at me, she was aware of everything I did. It was clear that I had come to play an important role in her life, but she wouldn't discuss it—just as she wouldn't discuss anything abstract: religion, an afterlife, the deeper meaning of things. Sylvia lived for the here and now as did no epicurean I had ever known, and she was quite as serious about it as my hero, Marius. With her the moment not only had to be lived for; it had to be created. As she used to say, if a poor widow with a child to support didn't look after herself, who would?

Well, wouldn't I? Wasn't that what she had to be thinking? Wasn't I being groomed to be the consort of Sylvia Sands? What kept me from worrying too much about it was the peculiar confidence that she inspired in me that, whatever she wanted and however near she might come to obtaining it, she would never insist. She might say in the end: "Well, here it is. Do you want it or don't you?" and if the answer was in the negative, she might simply shrug, perhaps with a bit of a frown, and turn to other fields. This quality in her struck me as gratifyingly unfeminine, for I still believed that women were more designing in the sexual game than men. I found that I trusted Sylvia as I should have trusted one of my own sex.

The society into which she introduced me is difficult to define, except that it was obviously the highest in town. There are many New York societies. There are the descendants of old families who huddle over backgammon and bridge tables in the Union, Knickerbocker and Colony clubs; there are the worlds of the cultural institutions and of academe; there are tycoons of un-fathomed new wealth, who tend to dwell in semi-isolation, surrounded by little "courts." Sylvia's society included some of the very rich, but not necessarily the richest, with a few old names and a lot of new, and it seemed loosely united by the determination, at least in its women, to look beautiful, even in advanced age, and to live beautifully, with the best in art and decoration. But its members also contributed substantially to the cultural and charitable institutions of the city, and they managed the businesses that affected public thought: broadcasting, newspapers, theatres, publishing firms. They were much written up in the media, and they tended to speak of one another in hyperbolic terms: "Isn't Ethelinda wonderful?" or "Don't you just adore Lila?" I wondered if ever before had an upper class been so civic-minded. Even if they were so only because it had become the thing to be, they were still beneficent.

Sylvia, as I soon perceived, had only one real entrée into this world, and that was Mrs. Low, but that was quite enough. She had been almost adopted by the old lady; they talked on the telephone every morning, and people had learned that at large parties the great Ethelinda liked to be assured of a small circle of intimates of whom Sylvia was definitely one. And "great" Ethelinda was rightly called. It was not only the way she gave away chunks of the fortune that Low had left her outright and that, childless, she had no reason to hoard; it was the almost formidable exquisiteness of the great gilded shells that she had constructed for herself in New York, Southampton and Palm Beach, and in the happy hand she showed in filling them with amusing and active people. Ethelinda was without illusions and without pretensions; she had a sharp eye, a rough tongue and a kind heart. There were friends of her late husband, I heard, who sneered at her origins and expressed amazement at the people who flocked to her door, but Ethelinda's group gave only moderate marks to background and lineage. Such assets were never tickets of entry by themselves.

She was certainly very candid about her plans for Sylvia.

"I am going to set up a charitable trust on my death," she told me one night at dinner. "I promised my husband that I would do so, and of course I shall be good to my word. He had already looked after his children and grandchildren, so I needn't be concerned with them. I shall feel free to leave legacies to my friends, but mostly of works of art. I am leaving Sylvia the little Boudin beach scene that she admires, but more importantly I plan to make her a trustee of my trust. It will be she who will be doing me the favor. That girl will have an x-ray eye to spot the phonies among the applicants."

Sylvia was pleased, later that night, to hear that Mrs. Low had confided to me her plans for her will. She was quite aware of them herself. She was also aware, I discovered, of the difference between a foundation, whose directors might receive only a nominal compensation, and Ethelinda's proposed charitable trust, whose fiduciaries would earn substantial commissions.

"You're really getting on with her wonderfully," she said approvingly. "But we have to remember that although she talks about changing her will, she hasn't done so yet. Gil Arnheim, her lawyer, keeps putting it off."

"He's probably put himself in the old one as a trustee and doesn't want to share with you."

"Well, he might not so much mind sharing. What he's afraid of is being replaced."

I did not altogether like the faint menace in Sylvia's tone. Now why was that? Was I being a male chauvinist? Why should she not be just as calculating as I? She should, of course. I changed to a lighter subject.

"Do you think Ethelinda's taking the trouble to correct my language is a sign of favor?" I asked.

"How did she do that?"

"When I said I was taking you to my parents' 'home' for the weekend, she said, 'You mean, their house.' And she wrinkled her nose when I referred to the new curtains in her living room as 'drapes.' Is there a special vocabulary for society?"

"I suppose that dates Ethelinda. I wouldn't worry about it. When she had to break her way in forty years ago, the old Knickerbocker families could still be pretty silly about terminology. But even then, if they liked you, you could call an evening dress a 'formal' and get away with it."

"Why shouldn't I call an evening dress a 'formal'?"

"Go ahead, if you want. A handsome young man who's getting on can say almost anything."

"What about a handsome young woman?"

"Oh, women always have to do better."

"That doesn't seem very fair."

"I don't bother with what's fair and unfair. All I need to know is the rules."

"So you think I can just relax and be myself?"

"I'd put it even more strongly. I think you
must
relax and be yourself. It's the only way to crack the world you're trying to crack."

"So there
is
a world I'm trying to crack?"

"Of course there is, silly. You're not 'in' with a handful of dinner parties. Any extra man can be asked to dinner."

"You're not forgetting that I'm a working man, are you?"

"My beautiful boy, isn't it precisely the thing that I
am
remembering? In the great world, you must learn, there's no difference between work and play."

I had few moments those days to think of myself and where I was going. If I worked three nights a week, I was in a black tie others, and when I took Sylvia home after a stop-off at my flat I was so tired as to sleep a dreamless sleep. Yet there was a kind of narcotic in my busy-ness. I liked my work; I liked meeting important people in gilded dining rooms; I liked making love to Sylvia. Was I falling in love? I do not think in that period I often asked myself the question. Perhaps a man is not so apt to ask it if the woman doesn't.

The office was much amused when a photograph of me dancing with Sylvia appeared in
Women's Wear Daily.
But if my reputation soared with the stenographic staff it did not do so with the sardonic Douglas Hyde, who spent such evenings as he could spare from his law labors with his wife and six young children in their house in Scarsdale.

"I see we're moving in the highest society," he observed caustically.

"We can't all stay in Dullsville. Some of us have to get around."

"And I note there's a big do at the St. Regis Roof tonight. No doubt you'll be there."

"As a matter of fact, I shall."

"Why not? I can take over the closing dinner for Ace Investors."

I saw that Douglas was not being wholly humorous. He believed that I should be at that dinner. In a sudden fit of compunction, and feeling, too, that Sylvia and her friends were beginning to take me a bit for granted, I decided to change my plans. I called Sylvia's office and told her secretary that I had to give out of the St. Regis party. It was ominous that she did not call back.

When I rang her the next morning she refused to pick up the telephone, and her secretary gently chided me.

"I'm afraid we're mad at you, Mr. Service. Where were you last night?"

"I had an emergency at the office."

There was a pause while she consulted Sylvia.

"Mrs. Sands says you
may
be forgiven if you meet her for lunch at twelve-thirty at the Amboise."

"But she knows we have a firm lunch today ... Wait! Okay. Tell her I'll be there."

At lunch Sylvia was benign but firm.

"There's one thing, my dear, you must get straight. This evening life I'm arranging for you is a serious thing. I grant that the people whose parties we go to would not hesitate to throw you over if business or even pleasure interfered. But they do not expect to be thrown over themselves. For any reason. That's the difference. The day will come when you can do as they do, but that day is not yet. And in the meanwhile you must stop telling people how hard you work. They don't care. Besides, it's the mark of an underling. A big man is master of his time."

"Sylvia, darling, I appreciate what you're doing for me, believe me. But sometimes I think you don't understand that what really builds up a law practice is expertise and hard work."

"Of course I know that. Do you take me for a complete ass? But just look in
Martindale's
at the number of lawyers swarming up and down this skinny island. Do you think I can't find a dozen experts ready and willing to take on any job that Robert Service can handle?"

"I'm afraid you can."

"Very well, then, face it. Getting the business is half the job. Unless you're such a wizard the whole world flocks to your door. You'd be surprised if you knew how many queries I've already had about you."

"Really? And what do you say?"

"That you're the best—but very expensive."

"With all due respect, I haven't noticed that any have come calling."

"Give them time, honey. You remember Alva, the cosmetician? She's thinking of coming to you for a will. And she'll probably put you in it if you'll only slide your hand up her leg under the table—well above the knee!"

"That old fortress! You wouldn't have me do that, would you, Sylvia? Seriously?"

"No." She laughed at my worried eyes. "But it's important for you to know the effect you have on people. Otherwise you can't use it. Admit I've been reasonable, Bob. I haven't overworked you, have I? You have plenty of nights for the law. Probably too many. And look at you. Fresh as a daisy!"

As I looked at her, so smoothly smiling, so relaxed, perhaps so happy—how did I know?—and yet still so aware of where she was and who else might be at what table, so eager to look after my wants, my needs, my soul—why not?—I felt I was a churl not to meet her terms.

"I'll be good," I promised. "Only let's order. I have to be back in the office."

"Leave it to me," she said, catching the eye of the headwaiter. "You'll be out of here in exactly thirty-five minutes."

I
N THE SHORT TIME
that these things take in our culture, Sylvia's and my lives began to blend into domesticity. On weekends we would take our children to walk in Central Park. I was not at all sure that Audrey and Sally liked Sylvia, but they were certainly intrigued by her. She seemed to make no effort to gain their affection; she treated them with the same calm, mildly amiable objectivity that was her manner with adults. But I thought I could glean the secret of her success in that she never asked them a perfunctory question. When she sought an answer to something she gave every appearance not only of wanting it but of insisting on getting it. Children do not like to feel their time is being wasted. My daughters respected Sylvia; they may even have been afraid of her. She showed none of the vulnerability of needing to be loved by children that children can smell as sharks smell blood. I was actually proud of her, noting that when we walked in the park, Audrey and Sally held themselves as straight as she did.

Sylvia's son, Tommy Sands, was a beautiful, delicate and enchanting child of ten, very blond and pale, who seemed to have no Hamlet complex. On the contrary, he was inclined to take my hand on our strolls instead of his mother's. Obviously the poor child was dying to have a daddy like his friends, and he saw no reason that I should not do. I was charmed, of course. In some ways I felt closer to the gravely confiding Tommy than to his sometimes impenetrable mother.

One Saturday afternoon when I took the girls back to Alice's apartment, she sent them to their room and invited me to have a drink. Alice was wearing an unfamiliar air; she seemed determined to be bright, cheerful and, well, I guess polite.

"There's something I don't quite know how to say, Bob."

"About some man you're seeing?" I was startled at the instant grating of jealousy in my tone.

"Why no, not at all," she retorted, surprised. "It's quite the opposite, as a matter of fact. Of course, I've heard that you were going about with Mrs. Sands. Naturally, the girls have told me, and—"

"I hope they were polite about her."

"Very polite, Bob. Don't be so on the defensive. Nobody's objecting to your seeing Mrs. Sands. After all, when I walked out, I could hardly expect you to live like a monk. No, what I'm trying to tell you is that if you and Mrs. Sands find me an obstacle, I'm perfectly willing to get out of your way."