Gilded Age (7 page)

Gryce was distractedly listening to Viola describe the need for urban gardens for the inner-city youth of Cleveland as Ellie watched. Even from across the table I could read Gryce’s face. He frowned into his soup, likely worried that he was unwittingly eating some errant butter or chicken stock. He ever-so-slightly leaned away from Viola on his left, worrying no doubt that she would hit him up for a check any minute now. His wineglass was conspicuously empty.

I had a flash of Ellie’s future stretching out before me. I’m sure she did too—the dinners of healthy, flavorless food, the passion for things and plants but not people. What of passion, I thought, or intoxication for that matter—intoxication with life, love, sex, with her?

Gryce turned away from his close conversation with Viola toward the table in general and announced to all in a loud voice, “It’s like I was telling Ells today about foraging …”

I thought I saw Selden flinch at Gryce’s use of a nickname.

“People have to pull themselves up by their bootstraps,” Gryce said. “Be self-sufficient. You can’t help someone who doesn’t want to help themselves. Addicts and things—they’re hopeless.”

The cook was at Ellie’s arm then with a bottle of champagne.

“Just water,” she said a little too loudly.

“But the gardens are for children,” Viola countered quietly. “In poverty. The plants inspire them so much. The teenagers work for minimum wage. They’re dying to, actually. We have five times the number of applicants to spaces for the jobs.”

“See, they’re helping themselves,” Gryce said. He seemed very young to me then, a boy dressed in his mountain-man suit playing Indian with his precious collection of artifacts.

Viola fiddled with her knife on the table. “But they wouldn’t have the opportunity if our program didn’t exist. They wouldn’t be exposed to nature like this.”

“A lot of nonsense. No offense, Viola, but you have the cream of the crop there. They’d find something else to do that was worthwhile even if it wasn’t your urban gardens. You shouldn’t underestimate them.”

“Perhaps,” Viola said, defeated. I thought then that Gryce should give her gardens some money. He loved plants. What better cause than helping poor children love them too? I made a mental note to send Viola a small check when we got home.

“There aren’t that many jobs downtown, P. G.,” Selden piped in. “It’s decimated right now—especially for teenagers, yeah? And not everyone has a family who can expose them to history, anthropology, conservation, and market auctions like yours has you.”

On the one hand this was a rather flattering portrayal of Gryce’s family’s hoarding artifacts; on the other it implied Gryce had been handed his life on a silver platter. You’re a privileged bastard, Selden was saying. Shut it.

But Gryce didn’t get it.

“True, not everyone has a family like mine,” Gryce said with obvious pride and a complete lack of guile.

I thought I heard Selden groan. Jim rolled his eyes at me across the table.

“Or yours,” Gryce said, turning to me.

I was mortified to be implicated in his snobbery. My family may be old and decently well-off, but I detested talking about it. My three options whenever put in this situation depended on how much I liked the speaker. If I really liked the speaker I could 1) make a joke, preferably self-effacing, if I could think of something witty fast enough; if I didn’t know the speaker I often 2) changed the subject, which alerted everyone to my discomfort and usually put the topic aside permanently; or if I didn’t like the speaker I could 3) say absolutely nothing and let everyone marinate in the weird discomfort of the silence.

I chose option three.

The table was silent for two full beats before Gryce swallowed a bite of vegetable and then turned to Ellie.

“Ells knows what I’m talking about,” he said, and smiled adoringly at her. “How foraging makes one feel self-sufficient. Gives you pride in yourself. More people should do it.”

Ellie smiled a tight, close-lipped smile at him and nodded.

“These mushrooms are heaven,” Julia interrupted then in a forced cheery voice, spearing a mushroom on her fork. “Now, tell me again where you found them, P. G.” Excellent hostess that she was, she easily steered us back to calmer waters. “I’ve found blueberries, but never very many as the birds get them all.”

And Gryce was off recommending books and discussing bird nutrition. Dan mentioned his new binoculars, and the table was then on to a safe subject.

Selden got up from his seat and walked to Ellie with the third bottle of Perrier-Jouët to go around the table. He gestured toward her glass, and she shook her head. He frowned and leaned in close to whisper something in her ear.

“Just water,” Ellie said, her voice a hoarse whisper.

“Come on. Share a glass with me,” I thought I heard him murmur. The voice of Bacchus could not have been more seductive with its promise of pleasure and abandon. For an instant Ellie had a look in her eye that I hadn’t seen since we’d been living in New York.

“A taste,” I heard her say. Selden, I noticed, poured her glass to the rim. And then he set the bottle down next to her place with a jaunty wink behind his glasses.

I wondered at his forcing champagne on her. Surely he’d heard she’d had struggles. Perhaps it was Gryce’s priggishness that brought out the rebel in Selden.

Diana Dorset smiled a bright hateful smile at Ellie.

At first Gryce didn’t notice Ellie sipping. But midway through his polenta with special mushrooms, it became clear to everyone at the table that he kept a continual eye on Ellie’s diminishing glass.

When dinner was over, we sat in the living room for dessert. Ellie refilled her glass herself. I started to worry. The whole room was tense watching her.

I think Selden wanted to diffuse the tension. Because after Julia had served the apple pie, he left and came back with a polished ebony box.

“Treats?” Diana asked, animated for the first time since Ellie had come downstairs.

Selden opened the dugout to reveal a stash of very green, very fragrant marijuana and a narrow pipe—a one-hitter used for medicinal purposes—the instruments of an adept and tidy pothead. Was it me or had he directly looked at Gryce after he’d opened it?

“Who’ll smoke?” he asked.

I saw Viola and Gryce stiffen. The Dorsets were enthusiastic yeas. Gus Trenor eyed the pipe resignedly and Julia laughed. “I haven’t been stoned since college. You’ve got to be out of your mind.”

Ellie shook her head no.

“Come on, El,” Diana Dorset said loudly to all. “Selden’s bound to have better stuff than that ditch weed we smoked at Cinco’s the other night.”

Gryce’s head snapped toward Ellie. She didn’t respond.

“After a good roll in the hay,” Dan said, “old Cinco likes a little puff as dried out and nasty as hay.”

We laughed, and Ellie was off the hook. But I noticed that Gryce was appraising her from the other side of the room. Diana’s comment had hit its mark, and I couldn’t help but feel a little angry with her for so uncharitably blowing Ellie’s cover.

Selden expertly packed a tight little pipe. Though I had smoked a bit here and there, it had been a good decade ago, and now in my pregnant state there was no way I was getting a contact high. I wanted to get out of the room as unobtrusively as possible. As quietly as I could, I got up and headed for the stairs. Jim caught my eye and nodded slightly.

Julia was on her feet at once. “Don’t go. We’ll make Selden go outside.”

“Oh no, I’m exhausted,” I said, embarrassed and not wanting to end the party. “Good night.” Before she could further protest, I was upstairs and in my room.

I closed the door, glad of the silence, happy to be away from Diana’s meanness and from witnessing Selden’s corrupting influence on Ellie. Seconds later there was a knock on my door.

“It’s me,” Ellie said, peeking around the door looking as wary as a child. “I’ve been sent to tell you it’s okay. Jules sent them all downstairs into Gus’s man cave.”

“I really am tired.” The pregnancy had me in bed most nights before Jim. I didn’t want to talk. I knew she’d want bolstering, and I wasn’t sure I was the person to do it. Ellie could convince herself of most anything, and I didn’t want to help convince her she was in love with P. G. Gryce and his prim starchiness after witnessing him and Viola at dinner.

“Come back down,” she said. “Julia will fret all night if you don’t.”

“Tell her I already had my nightgown on,” I said, though I was still dressed. I went in the bathroom and started brushing my teeth.

Ellie sat on the edge of the bed, champagne glass in her hand. “What did I tell you about Gryce?”

“A regular Ranger Rick,” I said after I’d rinsed out my mouth. “You weren’t kidding.” Here it comes, I thought. I was used to hashing over men with Ellie. We’d done it regularly when we’d both been living in New York. Truth be told I got a little thrill out of it. My dating life had never been as exciting as hers. And it was touching to me that she seemed to value my opinion, though I’d never understood why. I was less experienced with men than she, and certainly less glamorous.

“But nice,” she said. “I’d never have to worry about cheating or other women or anything.” It was certainly true that a man like P. G. would never stray sexually.

“Not with him, no,” I said. “Definitely a one-woman type if you ask me.”

“And smart. Interesting I guess.”

I nodded. Though P. G. seemed to have the farthest thing from an original and exploratory mind, I suppose he’d been to the proper schools.

“And rich of course.”

And there it was. “Of course,” I said, smiling.

She smirked. “Don’t think that about me.”

“Ellie …” I was going to protest, but then again Ellie and I had known each other too long to be coy. But P. G. Gryce, I thought. He was such a prig, such a bore. After seeing him tonight I’d come around to Julia’s way of thinking. Could she really do it?

“I know what you think,” she said as she finished her glass. Perhaps she was tipsy. “You’ve never had to worry about these things.”

“You don’t know what I think.”

She paused, waiting for me to tell her.

“You’re a realist,” I said. “You know what you want.” I tried to phrase it as gently as I could.

She nodded deeply. “I do. It’s true.”

“I think you have perspective on it too, having been married once before.”

“Money wasn’t the problem there.”

“But you know it’s important to you.”

“To me?” She sounded a little angry. “Like it’s not important to every single one of them down there?”

“Except Selden,” I said, wanting to know exactly what had been going on between them since I’d seen them at the orchestra. I suspected she was the reason he’d come up here. I didn’t know why, but I liked the idea of Ellie and Selden. Perhaps if she found love it would ground her. Ellie, my friend, had always been searching. Didn’t true love take care of yearning like that?

When she didn’t answer I asked, “Ellie, what are you doing?”

“Nothing.”

I went in the bathroom and put on my nightgown. Then I crawled into bed, Ellie seated at the foot. “Selden just makes me a little crazy,” she said.

“What brand of crazy?” I asked with my eyes closed. “There’s the crazy-in-love crazy, the angry crazy, the actually nuts crazy …”

“When I’m around him, he makes everything I want seem tawdry. He lives just fine off his salary. He worries about dusty old books, and he’s fine. He judges me, I know.”

“Well, you work too.”

She snorted. “I’ll never make any real money. All my jobs are just time fillers. Do you know what I’d have to do to make the kind of money Gryce has? It’d be impossible.”

True, but Gryce had everything handed to him. When you got right down to it, how different was having everything handed to you by your ancestors from having everything handed to you by a husband?

“Gryce didn’t make the kind of money he has,” I said. “There’s a lot of room in between Gryce’s money and supporting yourself well. You could do it.” Ellie always did have the most ambitious, expensive
taste. If she just came down and lived like the rest of us, I was sure she could find happiness.

“But there’s no freedom in that. That’s the only thing money’s really good for anyway. Freedom. It’s not meant for cars and diamonds.”

“Oh, you might enjoy opening a wing of a hospital or something,” I said, yawning.

“Yeah, but Gryce wouldn’t,” she said in a deadly serious voice.

Of course, she’d noticed at dinner. “He lacks a certain …”

“Compassion,” she finished for me.

“Ability to take another’s perspective,” I said.

“Think I could teach him?” she asked. Again, it always flattered me when she asked for my opinion.

“Pull a Mother Teresa and show him by example? Sure.”

“I’m not the Dalai Lama.”

“No, but he strikes me as pretty malleable,” I said, wanting to sound encouraging. If anyone could change a man, it was probably Ellie.

She shook her head then, and I thought I saw a tear, which made me immediately anxious. “Seriously, I don’t even have a design degree. I’ve had all these dead-end jobs in fashion adding up to a résumé filled with nada. Plus, I haven’t worked in four years. The economy’s shit. I’m lucky to get this gig with my friend as a favor.”

I sat up and put an arm around her. “You don’t know what’s in the future. You don’t know where this job could lead.” I meant it. Ellie, I felt sure, could conquer the world if she’d just figure out what she wanted to do.

She stood up then. “Which is why I’m going down and sitting with P. G.”

There was a knock on the door then and Jim came in. “You better go down,” he said to Ellie. “Julia’s missing you.”

Ellie leaned down and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. “Sleep tight.”

Jim came in and lay down on top of the covers next to me. “You coming to bed already?” I asked.

He kissed me long and lingering. “I could, sugar.” His hand snaked under the covers, bunching up my nightgown as he reached for skin.

I kissed him back but then froze.

“Get downstairs,” I said, pushing him off me. “They’ll all think we’re up here …”