Now and Yesterday (30 page)

“We cut it right after you came back from London, remember?” said Herman. “We needed room for . . .”

“Listen,” said Colin, “I'm not blaming anyone. It's a process. There's always the next issue. I just want us to be smart when we're assigning pages. I want us to really support the ideas we believe in. That's what our job is—to fight for our ideas.”

The latter was directed at Will, and would have been interpreted by anyone who heard it as a gilt-edged validation—the award of more heft to wield in future editorial meetings, which would soon result in more pages, more access to people and places.

“Got it,” said Herman.

“I'm seeing this girl tonight, I'm told,” said Colin.

“At the Julian dinner?” asked Herman.

Colin nodded yes, but didn't look at him.

“And I feel like I'm walking in there knowing less about her than I'd like to know,” he continued, tossing the magazine back on the table. “Not a feeling I like.”

“OK, well, just so you know: She's just as serious about her art as she is about her music,” said Will.

“Really? Those sculptures—they're good?”

“They're
assemblages,
made of found objects, and yes, they're amazing. She's shown them in Paris and London. Her father teaches art in Dakar.”

“Interesting.”

“We had to cut all this stuff she had about the way light changes everything we look at, even as the things themselves remain the same....”

“Huh.”

“All about these supposedly hidden colors that you're still subliminally aware of. . . .”

“She said that—‘hidden colors'?”

“Well, no, that's
my
phrase—a phrase I used—but that's what we were talking about.”

“Do you still have the original?” asked Colin.

“Interview? Sure, on my computer,” said Will.

“Send it to me.”

“OK.”

“Your instincts are sharp, Will. Keep it up.”

Colin stood up, as did Will and Herman.

“Meanwhile,” said the editor, “I want to bump up your Xiomara story. We just made it the cover.”

“Really?” said Will. Xiomara was a Spanish singer and guitarist whom he had proposed for a feature. She was beautiful and young, and had unexpectedly just won a Grammy.

“Yup,” said Colin. “Nicole isn't working out. Besides, I'm not hearing good things about the movie.” Herman, already at the door, was nodding weakly again.

“Wow,” said Will.

“And I'm feeling Xiomara, I'm feeling Latin,” said Colin, with an exaggerated gesture that made his watches clink.

“That could be a smart move,” exclaimed Will. “She just got a part in that new—”

“Right, I heard—the Judd Apatow,” said Colin. “So let's go for it, huh? We'll get Payam or somebody to shoot; you'll do the interview. See where she is. If you need to travel, we'll work it out. But, Will, I want you to come up with a concept, OK? A real direction—and then you and I will talk about it with Payam. Let me see what you're really thinking. Have something for me at the meeting.”

“Great,” said Herman.

“And, gentlemen,” said Colin, “let's protect this one. This is the real deal.”

 

“You're gonna direct the shoot, too?” said Luz. Two more platters of dumplings had arrived and their wedge of communal table was as crowded as it could be.

“Can you believe it?” said Will. “It's major. That's on the level of what Olivier does—the other big cheese.”

“Can you do that?” said Luz. “I mean, do you actually know
how
to do it?”

“Of course I do,” said Will. “You just have to dream up some concepts, think them through, see what might work.”

“Put her in a hotel room, in heels and a bra, crouching next to a steamer trunk, with a naughty bellboy looking on?”

“Better than that,” laughed Will. “That's something Olivier would do.”

“So is he gonna be happy with this new role of yours, Olivier?”

“Who knows? He stopped by my office, as I was getting ready to step out the door. That's very unlike him. He must have heard it from Herman, like, immediately.”

It was the first time the fancy French editor at large had been nice to him, thought Will, as Olivier stood there at the door.

“She is so fabulous,” burbled Olivier, in his liquid accent. “This will be such a pleasure for you!” His eyes sparkled and his manner was insinuating. It was the same warmth Will had seen Olivier use at parties with his circle of friends and the celebrities he treated like friends. And though Will didn't particularly like or even respect Olivier, he did feel grateful for the warmth, even if it was fake, because it was so much nicer than the indifference Olivier had thus far shown.

“Yeah, I think so,” said Will.

“I saw her just last week at the party and she told me she was going to be spending a few days in Patagonia next month, to recharge her batteries,” confided Olivier. Dressed in a royal-blue blazer over a bright green crewneck sweater, with a boldly patterned pocket square, he looked older than Will had thought he was. Had he ever been this close to Olivier's face, ever had a chance to look at it for this many consecutive seconds? The mouth was so beautifully formed, the teeth so perfect, and there were very fine laugh lines at the corners of the eyes.

“The malaria party—I know,” said Will. “I was there, too.”

“Oh, splendid,” laughed Olivier. “Well, I am here to help, if you need.” If the editor was surprised or perturbed by the fact that Will was now operating on his turf, he didn't let on.

“Thank you,” said Will, whereupon Olivier slipped away with a ladyish
“Ciao-ciao!”

I bet it'll be kiss-kiss now, when we run into each other at a party,
thought Will.

“Do I hear the sound of power shifting?” asked Luz, as she poured them each another cup of tea.

“I guess,” said Will.

“So this means you're not gonna take that job that your friend offered you—the guy who has cancer.”

“Oh, no, I don't think so.”

“I was gonna say.”

“I mean, it's sweet of him to try to take care of me like that, but can you imagine? They're trying to see if I can fly down to Argentina and meet up with Xiomara, to go trekking on a glacier.
That—
versus sitting in an office.”

A fifth plate they'd ordered impulsively arrived: special crab Rangoon. To make room for it the server placed one remaining shrimp dumpling on the half-empty scallion pancake plate, took the empty dish, and nudged the remaining dishes into a tighter formation—a move noticed by Luz's large neighbor with another glance.

As they tore into the crab, Will told Luz how much his respect for the editor had shot up during the morning's meeting and how happily surprised he was by this development. It was the first time he'd ever been able to talk with Colin at length, one-on-one, and he could see now why the guy was such a superstar. Colin was not only smart and intuitive; he also had backbone. He worked from conviction, and that was inspiring. Herman, on the other hand, though smart and probably good at keeping the magazine's monthly schedule on track, was spineless—clearly unused to thinking for himself or standing up for ideas except for those of his superiors. Olivier was hardly better: the remains of an intellectual enshrined in the urn of a glamorous career. Why did editorial talent not necessarily entail, or derive from, qualities like journalistic valor? That it didn't was one of the biggest shocks that the big city held for a Santa Barbara boy—along with the fact that beautiful people, rich people, and famous people sometimes expect their advantages to dissolve the other criteria by which they might be judged.

“How is the gentleman doing, anyway—the one with cancer?” asked Luz later, after lunch. They were on the sidewalk, in front of Excellent Dumpling, saying good-bye before running off to their respective afternoons.

“Ugh—not so good,” said Will, shaking his head.

“I'm sorry,” said Luz.

“He's selling his place—the beautiful apartment. I don't think he's been there even a year. He's moving upstate.”

“Really?”

“He has a place there—a town called Hudson—which is beautiful, too, so . . .”

“OK.”

“He plans to spend . . . I guess the rest of his time there.”

“Do they know how long?”

“Can't be long.”

“Jesus.”

“That's why Peter and I are going up next week.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. And Peter's much more upset about the whole thing than he lets on.”

“He's a little uptight emotionally, isn't he?”

“Locked-up, is the way I think about it. And, you know,
I'm
more upset about it than
I
can let on.”

“You are?”

“I knew Jonathan before I knew Peter.”

“Oh, that's right.”

“Remember?”

“One of your
cli-
ents.” Luz pronounced the words in her best Locust Valley Lockjaw.

Will smiled wanly. Far above them, his expression was echoed by the wise-ass smirk of the teenage star of a new cable comedy, her face almost filling an entire billboard mounted on the roof of the dumpling restaurant.

“He was the last, before I turned away from my life of sin,” he said. “And it's nice that we've been able to stay friends, and that his friend is now my friend, blah-blah-blah. It's just that . . .”

“You still haven't told Peter.”

“Nope.”

“But you're gonna.”

“I guess.”

“When the time is right.”

“Sure.” Not ready to discuss the subject, he was humoring her.

“And when will that be?”

“Oh, my little roomie, I don't know, I don't know,” whined Will, gathering her in his arms.

“There's no shame, sweetie,” she said.

“I know. And knowing Peter, he may think better of me for it.” Will paused. “
May
think.”

They gave each other a kiss and then Will released her. Both were wearing shades they had donned upon stepping out of the restaurant.

“Need a cab?” said Will.

“Thanks, sweetie—subway,” she said.

The day's slight chill had given way to something almost balmy. All around them, the world looked bright and cheerful—even the piles of recyclables sitting at the curb, bottles and cans bagged in blue plastic, boxes flattened and bundled with packing tape.

“Spring never gets tired, does it?” said Will. “After all these years.”

“Uh-
uh,
” said Luz.

“Every spring, my mother used to bring
tons
of wisteria into the house, from this grove we have on the ranch. She would open up the windows, and there would be this amazing breeze between the hills and the ocean, and you took a breath and had this feeling that anything could happen—the future would be amazing. Doesn't it feel like that today, Luzzy—I mean, except for the wisteria?”

 

“So you're coming?”

“Yes.”

“Will, too?”

“Of course.”

“We're preparing the big guest room.”

“We're in the same room?”

“You are and you will deal with it.”

“Fine with me.”

“I want you guys to become better acquainted.”

“I didn't know you cared so much.”

“I care about all my friends.”

Jonathan was sitting in a wheelchair in the dining room of the Chelsea apartment, speaking on the phone with Peter. Next to him, on a little Shaker table, with his laptop, a legal pad and pen, and a small plastic bottle of diet peach iced tea, with a straw. Aldebar had positioned him and the table near the room's great window, where the light would be pleasant for half an hour or so. Except for Jonathan and his little stand of things, the room was empty. The baronial dining table and its ten chairs were gone; the Hepplewhite sideboard, and mirror, and custom-made rug, gone. There and in the living room, everything was gone—the important antiques carted away to the auction house, along with most of the art, and the upholstered pieces and rugs having been given away. Some of the smaller pieces had been sent up to the house in Hudson, along with the Eliott manuscript, some early-twentieth-century first editions, and most of the other books. As Jonathan spoke, the echo of voices floated across the empty floor from the library, where Aldebar was overseeing a team from Christie's that had arrived to pack up the Asian pots and take them away.

“And how are you?” said Peter.

“Ucch,” said Jonathan. His voice was weaker now, and he spoke in shorter sentences, separated by silences that Peter noticed were lengthening—the result of fatigue, perhaps, or heightening discretion as to what merited saying, or some new drift of the mind.

“Working?”

“Oh, yes. Taking apart the house is a kind of work.”

“I can imagine. But I meant the film.”

“That, too.”

Breaking up the home whose creation had taken him and his designers several months to accomplish made an interesting counterpoint for the film he was trying to finish, he told Peter. And it was hard these days to avoid thinking in terms of failure and success, in these and other tasks. Impending death seemed to insist on assessment, he said, but he had never thought about life in those terms before, and he was tired of both thinking that way and trying to avoid it. Suddenly, he couldn't help comparing his accomplishments thus far to what he had always hoped he might do. Without the balance of his lifetime, what could remain? Would his name now wind up in history books? The Oscar nomination that might have come in two years, the Oscar itself in five, the party would have taken place in the very room where he was now sitting—all those hopes were gone. And of course the richest accomplishments to come would have been more personal. Every stick of furniture for the apartment had been selected for the setting of great parties with great friends, and perhaps the appearance of a second great love, and a stage of life when unremitting self-acceptance might have outshone even a golden statuette.