Rich and Pretty (2 page)

H
uck and Lulu throw parties.
It's their thing. The second act of their American lives. Huck does other things, too: teaches those sought-after seminars colleges trumpet in their promotional materials, gives talks at the Council on Foreign Relations, takes the shuttle to D.C. to meet think-tank people to do think-tank things, writes querulous letters to the editors of policy journals, shuffles to his office on the fourth floor of the house to produce op-eds or the introductions to books his friends and students have written. Henry “Huck” Thomas (CNN's chyron usually includes the quotation marks; the nickname's origins are forgotten): not a maker of history, but present at its conception. Confidant to presidents (some of them, anyway), an ambassador to the world on behalf of what he's always believed to be its greatest nation. Huck is hardworking, sure, but it's possible to view his rise as evidence of something else—luck; right time, right place; the indomitable spirit of a certain kind of white man. Arriving at the State Department just as one presidency was collapsing, then proving himself invaluable as the subsequent officeholder tried to find his feet.
That brief American presidency had birthed Huck's long and successful career. He knew enough about the game to get his wife's assets out of Venezuela by 1979, and, from there, into all the right places. They've been millionaires for at least that long. That is his specialty: being a step ahead of things.

Huck's office has dormer windows from which you can see the backs of all the houses on the next block over. Lauren and Sarah used to smoke cigarettes in there, fanning the smoke out of the open window, even though no one would have smelled it because at the time Huck himself went through half a pack a day, the Kents burning away to nothing in the ashtray as he typed furiously about what Johnson got wrong in Vietnam or the welfare state's inherent evils. They were idiots as teenagers.

Lulu is retired. Her one album—a couple of traditional corridos, a Chilean tune closely associated with Joan Baez, a few folky pop songs—remains a cult favorite, had a bit of a renaissance when one of her originals was used over the opening titles of what turned out to be a blockbuster holiday film. Royalties: one way the rich get richer. The voice is not entirely gone, though it's changed, deepened, grown slack, as female voices do with age. She'd never seriously made a go of it, had ended up married while only twenty-four, which was how it was done at the time. She'd followed the rest of the script: decamping to New Haven and making lunches and dinners for Huck, as though he were her child, tagging along to Washington and dressing to impress for various, boring parties, giving birth, going out to dinner, decorating the Connecticut house, hosting fund-raisers for this and that. It's time-consuming, being a part of this family. Lauren never knew three busier people. It's remarkable that none of them actually have jobs.

They're throwing a party tonight. Something to do with a book, maybe, she can't remember, but Sarah has insisted that she come, has reminded her about it with weekly e-mails for two months now, as well as helpful voice-mail messages:

    
Hey Lolo, it's me, don't forget, Thursday night, my parents' place, you promised promised promised, wear something amazing, be your usual beautiful self, but don't be late, I'm going to have no one to talk to because Dan can't make it because who cares OK, I'll see you the day after tomorrow.

Lauren's office is freezing. You could keep butter on the desk. You could perform surgery. Every woman in the office—they're all women—keeps a cashmere sweater on the back of her chair. They sit, hands outstretched over computer keyboards like a bum's over a flaming garbage can. The usual office noises: typing, telephones, people using indoor voices, the double ding of an elevator going down. For some reason, the double ding of the elevator going down is louder than the single ding of the elevator going up. There's a metaphor in there, waiting to be untangled. They make cookbooks, these women. There's no food, just stacks of paper and editorial assistants in glasses. She's worked here for four years. It's fine.

Today is different because today there's a guy, an actual dude, in the office with them, not a photographer or stylist popping by for a meeting, as does happen: He's a temp, because Kristen is having a baby and her doctor put her on bed rest. Lauren isn't totally clear on what Kristen does, but now there's a dude doing it. He's wearing a button-down shirt and jeans, and loafers, not
sneakers, which implies a certain maturity. Lauren's been trying to get him to notice her all day. She's the second-prettiest woman in the office, so it isn't hard. Hannah, the prettiest, has a vacant quality about her. She's not stupid, exactly—in fact, she's very competent—but she doesn't have spark. She's not interesting, just thin and blond, with heavy eyeglasses and a photograph of her French bulldog on her computer screen.

Lauren has it all planned out. She'll walk past his desk a couple of times, which isn't suspicious because his desk isn't far from the kitchen, and the kitchen is where the coffee is, and by the third time, he'll follow her in there, and she'll make a wisecrack about the coffee, and he'll say it's not so bad, and they'll talk, and exchange phone numbers, e-mail addresses, whatever, and then later they'll leave the office at the same time, ride down together in the elevator and not talk because they both understand that the social contract dictates that sane people do not talk in elevators, and then he'll let her go through the revolving door first, even though she's pretty sure that etiquette has it that men precede women through revolving doors, and then they'll both be standing on Broadway, and there will be traffic and that vague smell of charred, ethnic meat from the guy with the lunch cart on the corner, and he'll suggest they get a drink, and she'll say sure, and they'll go to the Irish pub on Fifty-Fifth Street, because there's nowhere else to go, and after two drinks they'll be starving, and he'll suggest they get dinner, but there's nowhere to eat in this part of town, so they'll take the train to Union Square and realize there's nowhere to eat there either, and they'll walk down into the East Village and find something, maybe ramen, or that Moroccan-y place that she always forgets she likes, and they'll eat, and
they'll start touching each other, casually but deliberately, carefully, and the check will come and she'll say let's split it, and he'll say no let me, even though he's a temp and can't make that much money, right? Then they'll be drunk, so taking a cab seems wise and they'll make out in the backseat, but just a little bit, and kind of laugh about it, too: stop to check their phones, or admire the view, or so he can explain that he lives with a roommate or a dog, or so she can tell him some stupid story about work that won't mean anything to him anyway because it's only his first day and he doesn't know anyone's name, let alone their personality quirks and the complexities of the office's political and social ecosystem.

Then he'll pay the driver, because they'll go to his place—she doesn't want to bring the temp back to her place—and it'll be nice, or fine, or ugly, and he'll open beers because all he has are beers, and she'll pretend to drink hers even though she's had enough, and he'll excuse himself for a minute to go to the bathroom, but really it's to brush his teeth, piss, maybe rub some wet toilet paper around his ass and under his balls. This is something Gabe had told her, years ago, that men do this, or at least, that he did. Unerotic, but somehow touching. Then the temp will come sit next to her on the couch, please let it be a couch and not a futon, and he'll play with her hair a little before he kisses her, his mouth minty, hers beery. He'll be out of his shirt, then, and he's hard and hairy, but also a little soft at the belly, which she likes. She once slept with this guy Sean, whose torso, hairless and lean, freaked her out. It was like having sex with a female mannequin. The temp will push or pull her into his bedroom, just the right balance of aggression and respect, and the room will be fine, or ugly, and the bedsheets will be navy, as men's bedsheets always are, and there will be venetian
blinds, and lots of books on the nightstand because he's temping at a publishing company so he must love to read. She'll tug her shirt over her head, and he'll pull at her bra, and they'll be naked, and he'll fumble around for a condom, and his dick will be long but not, crucially, thick, and it will be good, and then it will be over. They'll laugh about how this whole thing is against the company's sexual harassment policy. She'll try to cover herself with the sheet, and he'll do the same, suddenly embarrassed by his smaller, slightly sticky dick. When he's out of the room, to get a beer, to piss, whatever, she'll get dressed. He'll call her a car service, because there are no yellow cabs wherever he lives. They'll both spend the part of the night right before they fall asleep trying to figure out how to act around each other in the office tomorrow.

Or maybe not that. Maybe she'll find a way to go up to him and say, what, exactly,
Hey, do you like parties? Do you want to go to a party . . . tonight? No, the jeans and tie are fine. It's not fancy. A party. A good party. Good open bar, for sure. Probably canapés, what are canapés exactly, whatever they are, there will probably be some. Last party, there were these balls of cornbread and shrimp, like deep fried, holy shit they were great. That was last year, I think. Anyway, there might be celebrities there. There will definitely be celebrities there. I once saw Bill Clinton at one of these parties. He's skinnier than you'd think. Anyway, think about it, it'll be a time, and by the way, I'm Lauren, I'm an associate editor here and you are?
She can picture this conversation, the words coming to her so easily, as they do in fantasy but never in reality. They call it meeting cute, in movies, but it only happens in movies.

People start leaving the office around five thirty. It's summer, still light and lovely outside. Some of her coworkers say good-bye
and good night to everyone, stop to check in about one another's plans for the evening. She prefers to bolt. Sunglasses on, checks her bag four times for phone, phone charger, keys—she once forgot her keys, had to come all the way back, it was fucking horrible. She does this now, throws everything into the bag, checks for the keys, opens her wallet and frowns into it—thirty-seven dollars, enough for a cab home, but not enough for a cab to. She'll walk. Abrupt wave to Dallie (Dallie, yes, that's her name), a nod to Hannah, a “Good-bye!” from Antonia across the office, and she's out into the lobby, then scanning her ID card on the little white pad to get in the door on the other side, which opens to the offices of the imprint they share the floor with (serious nonfiction about wars and maritime disasters) and the ladies' room. Ladies' room, what an idiotic phrase. When she and Sarah lived together, that first terrible apartment in the East Village, the summer after graduation, she tried for a time referring to the bathroom as the Shit House, which Sarah did not care for.

The lighting is not good. There are no windows. Lauren washes her face, but maddeningly the faucet is the kind that you press and water comes out for about twelve seconds then shuts off so you have to keep pressing it again and again. She brushes her teeth, checks her armpits, which are fine; she hasn't sweat since her walk from the subway to the office. She pulls her hair away from her face; it still gets a little wet but it doesn't matter. Her hair looks great, it always does: It's thick, falls in this subtle wave that's natural and not studied, and that some girl in college once told her she was lucky to have and ever since then she's been proud of it. She doesn't wear jewelry, not even a watch. She's got on a sort of hippie dress that she found somewhere, vaguely Mexican. It's
prettier than she normally wears to the office, and under the belted sweater she keeps stashed on the back of her chair, and with the heels she's just slipped on, it looks like a real I'm-going-to-a-party outfit. A bit of color on the lips, something on the lashes. She hurries, she doesn't want anyone to see her in the bathroom and think she's primping for a date like some kind of loser.

She takes the bus east on Fifty-Seventh Street and waits eight minutes for another going down Second Avenue, but grows impatient and decides to just walk. Even when she sweats she's not very smelly. It should be fine. She takes her place among confused tourists, the occasional jogger, dog walker, little old lady, coworkers and friends drinking cold wine at sidewalk cafés; al fresco dining in Manhattan, she's never understood that, the whole thing smells like exhaust and urine.

Huck and Lulu's house is covered in ivy. The window boxes—Lulu's handiwork—look bountiful. The parlor windows are open, and Lauren can hear those party sounds drifting out: polite chatter, the occasional decorous laugh, ahems and footfalls on parquet, the cell phones of rude guests. Though it's still light out, in her mind she sees the house theatrically illuminated, light spilling onto the stoop, onto the sidewalk, the windows offering a glimpse of something, another way of life, like the dioramas at a museum, the vignettes in a department store. The house was always lit up as though for a party, life with Huck and Lulu and Sarah is always a party.

You don't ring the doorbell at this sort of party, and anyway, it's been years since she used this particular doorbell. She comes and goes with impunity, or she did, once upon a time. She walks in, and there are people in the parlor, attended by a pretty girl
in a black polo shirt and black pants, cherry red apron around her waist, passing a tray of something that looks tasty even from far away. The men are wearing jackets and ties; these parties are attended exclusively by the kinds of men who wear jackets and ties everywhere, possibly even to bed. There are women, too, of course, and somewhere in the distance she can hear Lulu, because you always can hear her, that big laugh from deep in the throat, the mix of tongues in which she speaks, her native Spanish, her never-wholly-Americanized English, a touch of French, when warranted, for emphasis. Lauren can picture her; she'll be standing in profile, head tilted back a bit, kind of like the woman in that Sargent portrait that so scandalized the public he had to revise it, adding a dress strap. That's how Lulu always stands; she thinks it shows to best advantage her “good side.” In her cotton dress, Lauren's underdressed, but her relative youth makes up for this. She's not one of the powerful matrons in geometric, collarless blazers, not a Ph.D. in a pencil skirt. She's just some girl. She doesn't see Huck anywhere. She climbs the staircase.