Slaves of New York (27 page)

"But, Fiona, I'm quite flat-chested," I said.

"That doesn't matter," she said. "What they want is variety. You could easily make thirteen pounds a day."

I said I'd think about it. Then we went to the party. It was near the Tower of London, at the home of a well-known shoe designer. The shoe designer was dressed like the Mad Hatter. He wore a bright blue top hat and a row of light bulbs around his waist which flashed on and off. The party was in honor of Pancake Day, an annual English celebration. At one in the morning the guests gathered outside and raced across the lawn flipping pancakes in the air. I wasn't impressed. Mitch and Fiona came around to collect me. It was time to leave, and they seemed very insistent that I go home with them.

I said thanks but no thanks. They lived in the wrong direction. The subways had stopped running and there were no taxis in sight. Finally I begged a ride with a group of French people; none of them spoke to me on the drive home.

It was something to write to my mother about. In my letter, I described the pancake toss in great detail: the drunken guests, clad in polka-dot taffeta ball gowns and jumpsuits made entirely of rubber and fake gorilla fur, staggering across the grounds with huge frypans, lumpy pancakes landing everywhere. I left out the part that no one had spoken to me all evening.

In the office of Lord Simeon, the secretary poured me a tiny, paper-thin glass of sherry. I drank it in one gulp. Then I real-

ized my faux pas. I pretended I hadn't finished drinking it, and continued to sip from the empty glass. I was sorry now about the green hair. The secretary was wearing a tweed suit, her blond hair neatly coiffed. I sat gingerly on the edge of a leather armchair, hoping she'd offer me another glass of the stuff. My palms were hot and sweaty. I couldn't understand now why I had ever obeyed my mother's command and written such a strange letter to Lord Simeon. I should have at least been smart enough to go to the library and find out what it was that Lord Simeon had written. Perhaps he was an expert on diseases of tropical birds, or Renaissance furniture (I was taking a course in this, so I knew something about the subject), or Sheridan's plays.

Finally a group of men entered the room. I half rose, half sat, half rose again. There were all kinds of rules of etiquette that I only faintly remembered my mother mentioning. Well, my lack of manners had always been due not to rudeness but to nervousness and stupidity. Sometimes I was far too formal, at other instances I slammed doors in people's faces.

So far, however, people had always pointed out my tasteless behavior to me. One afternoon, in my meanderings across London, I stopped in the lobby of a hotel to use the restroom. As I was drying my hands, a woman burst into the women's room and began to shout at me: "Look at this place, it's an absolute mess! Why haven't you changed the towels in here!" She was dressed in white, she looked totally demented. I shrugged my shoulders and walked out. I was too afraid to point out to her that I didn't work there.

Another time, following my modeling fiasco, I made an appointment with a modeling agency. It was my dream to become a top fashion model. From abroad I would send my mother money to buy a sports car, a fur coat, our lives would be changed. In the office of the head of the agency, I took out a red lollipop—my mother had sent me a box, following a particularly homesick letter from me—and began to lick it while waiting for her opinion. She gave it to me: I was extremely rude to lick a lollipop in her presence, how and where had I

been brought up? I was humiliated, of course the woman was correct. Still, wasn't it just as rude of her to embarrass me'.' She went on to tell me that I had potential: if I would pay her one hundred pounds for photographs, she would consider taking me on. But I was too ashamed to tell her I had no money for such things.

Lord Simeon, very jovial, introduced himself to me. He was plump and quite bald, with a pair of half-sized spectacles that hung precariously on the end of his nose. The other men looked at me with curiosity and kept staring at my hair. Introductions were made; Lord Simeon commented that he was an old friend of my mother's. I wondered whether we were all to lunch together, around a long medieval table in some great hall, toasting each other with pewter mugs. Then I remembered what my mother had told me: "You will be Zuleika Dob-son, Zuleika, the belle of Oxford." Everyone was in love with Zuleika; out of unrequited love the jolly dons and Oxford lads threw themselves en masse into the local river. My mother had said that all of London was waiting for one such as me, I had to get over this business of low self-esteem. I shook everyone's hand and smiled, tossing back my green hair.

With great reluctance all the gentlemen except Lord Simeon said how nice it was to meet me and left the room.

Lord Simeon asked if I had had a glass of sherry.

"Oh, yeah, thanks," I said.

"We're to lunch in the tower," he said. "I hope that's all right, generally I take lunch here, rather than go out and fight the mob."

On the way up the stairs, I questioned him about the empty case in the entrance of the building which stated it contained the body of Jeremy Bentham.

"Oh, there's a rivalry with King's College," he said. "Their rugby team annually steals the body and returns it for a ransom."

"Yeah?" I said, stumbling up the worn stone steps. It was too bad we weren't going to dine out, I would have liked to have had interested, prying eyes upon us, no such luck. His

study was four flights up a set of very narrow steps. The room was octagonal, with tiny slots for windows. The table was set: china patterned with the college's seal, a bouquet of flowers on the center of the table.

A tall Indian man, dressed in a white Nehru coat resembling a strait jacket, entered the room. I stood up. "How do you do?" I said.

"This is my valet, Virez," Lord Simeon said.

The valet glared at me. Lord Simeon pronounced the word valet with a hard "t." The whole business really struck me. I had never met a valet before. The valet poured us wine from a bottle breathing on the table. "Well, cheers," Lord Simeon said, holding up his glass. "I'm so terribly pleased to meet you at last, I enjoyed your letter a great deal."

"Oh, that," I said, drinking my glass of wine in one gulp.

"Just a light luncheon, I hope that's all right with you," Lord Simeon said.

"Fine," I mumbled.

"I never eat too much at lunch, it puts me to sleep." He poured me a second glass of wine.

The valet brought a silver platter to my side. It contained an arrangement of very dry-looking pieces of salami and some cubes of cheese. I helped myself with the fork and spoon, sullen, thick instruments. At home, we had dined on plastic plates. "Now tell me," Lord Simeon said as I struggled with a cube of cheese, "how is Clarice?"

"Oh, you mean my mother?" I said.

"Do have some bread with that," Lord Simeon said, passing me a basket containing large, hard rolls.

I glanced over at the valet. He was leaning against the wall with his eyes shut. His face was long and Dickensian, a sallow brown. He let out a sigh. His eyes opened momentarily, glared at me, then shut again. I drank my second glass of wine. "She's fine," I said. "She got divorced. Then she remarried."

"What a remarkable woman, your mother," Lord Simeon said. "How marvelous of her to put you in touch with me."

"Yeah, really," I said.

"It must be ten years now since I saw her last," Lord Simeon said. "Your mother was absolutely stunning. Of course, she didn't have your green hair."

"It's red."

"You know, when I was eight years old I was sent to stay with my Aunt Helen," Lord Simeon said. "Ever since then I've had a weakness for women with tiny mustaches. I shouldn't ought to admit something like that, I suppose."

"Why not?" I said. "It's very interesting. Like my brother —in second grade a little blond knocked him down on the playground. To this day he won't even look at a brunette."

"What fun," Lord Simeon said, refilling my glass. "Will you have some salad?" The valet brought around a plate of lettuce. I sneezed. The dressing was made of mustard. I quickly drank more wine. "Oh, this is so delicious," I said. "I love the dressing.

"Do you?" Lord Simeon said. "Do you really? Oh, I'm so pleased. It's my own special formula. You know, I made it myself." The valet returned to his leaning position against the wall.

"It's really good," I said. The wine tasted like bitter mold. I was afraid to ask the surly valet for a glass of water. "I'd love to know how you make it," I said.

"You know, it's my very own special secret recipe," Lord Simeon said, leaning forward. "But I'm going to tell you how I make it; I'm afraid I'm just not appreciated by my family. I use a teensy bit of dry mustard, walnut vinegar, and olive oil. Then I crush the peppercorns—"

I chewed on a bit of salami and removed a strip of paper from my mouth. The valet let out a sigh.

"Now, I want to hear everything about your experiences in London thus far," Lord Simeon said.

I told him about my experiences as a hair model. Lord Simeon muttered, "Extraordinary. Extraordinary." I wondered again about his age. He appeared so terribly ancient, with his bald head, his ruddy complexion. The room in the tower felt

as if it were spinning around. Probably he was about forty-five years old. What a shame, he really was so nice. But I couldn't see myself becoming the mistress of a man who was such an antique. I drank some more wine. Lord Simeon asked me how I liked curry.

"I've never had it," I said.

"Never had curry!" Lord Simeon said. "But you have to have curry! I make a delicious curry!"

"That," I said, putting down my empty glass, "that would be wonderful."

"Or, I know a terrific Indonesian restaurant, you'll have to promise to join me for dinner one evening."

"Oh, yes," I said. I took a dark purple lipstick out of my pocketbook and smeared it carefully across my mouth.

"Now, will you have tea or coffee with the sweet?" Lord Simeon said.

"Coffee," I said.

"Just as I thought!" Lord Simeon said. "I know how you Americans love coffee."

With the coffee the valet brought out a fondue pot of wonderful, bitter chocolate, into which we dipped huge English strawberries. By now, however, I was too drunk to enjoy this. The combination: the wine, the dry salami, the salty cubes of cheese, the lettuce with mustard dressing, the coffee, and now the chocolate—didn't seem terribly auspicious. The strawberries, almost as large as tomatoes, certainly looked beautiful, each dark red and flecked with green seeds.

Lord Simeon and the valet appeared very pleased with this dessert; the valet emerged from his position against the wall by about two steps, and though he tried to maintain his bored expression, he kept glancing over at me. "But you must have another," Lord Simeon said. "I'm terribly afraid this lunch wasn't to your liking."

"No, everything was very good," I said.

"I'm so glad," Lord Simeon said. "Did I tell you I've been called in as consultant on a movie? It's rather fun, actually.

They're filming at Elstree—I'm coaching Al Pacino on his accent."

"Yeah?" I said. "Neat."

"Well, I must be going," Lord Simeon said. "I wish I could stay here all afternoon, but I have all kinds of dreadful appointments."

I stood up. "You know what?" I said. "I can't wait for that curry dinner, I'm really looking forward to it." I looked into Lord Simeon's face, I figured I'd ask him then if I could go with him to visit the set of the movie.

"Oh, I'll ring you soon," he said, shaking my hand. His eyes did not look into mine.

As I passed the students in the hall, I wished there was some way I could announce to them that I had just had lunch with their professor. Really, it wouldn't be all that terrible to have an affair with him. It would open endless doors for me, I would have the most interesting time. My mother would be pleased.

During the bus ride back to my dormitory, the bus rounded a curve and I slid off my seat onto the floor. The bus was empty except for the conductor, who came to my side and helped me up. "Had a tot too much?" he said. "That's a nice color hair you have, love."

As soon as I got back to my dorm room, I lay on the bed and shut my eyes. I was thinking about my mother. She had tried to teach me to be a femme fatale, I don't know why her lessons hadn't taken before. I guess she had started too late. Now I could see my life was going to be different. Then I passed out.

Anyway, that was eight years ago. Lord Simeon never called me for dinner. I made jewelry that didn't sell too well, and had a boyfriend who didn't want to be seen with me in public. It was hard to be almost thirty years old and so unlovable. My mother's second marriage had worked out quite well: she had two sets of antique dishes, and liked to give parties.

Weeping into my fondue, with Stash's dog Andrew looking up at me with a worried expression, I decided to call my

mother for reassurance. Our relationship had always been good. I still took my directions from her, even though it did seem a lot of the time her ideas backfired. I let her phone ring once, a signal for her to call me back. That way the money I owed Stash for phone bills was kept to a minimum. "My apartment's all ready," I said. "A moving man from the
Village Voice
is coming to help me move my things tomorrow. He said he weighs two hundred and seventy-five pounds." I started to bawl. "Stash is right," I said. "My self-esteem is too low, I'm too messy, no one can live with me."