The Book of Other People (21 page)

‘The reward’s not for me. It’s for Bree here. An eleven-year-old girl who’s too honest to take the money from your cheap wallet.’

‘Well, thank you, Bree,’ he said to Gabrielle. ‘Sometimes kindness is its own reward. Maybe your mother hasn’t learned that yet?’

Gabrielle looked at Soleil. Her hair was wild, her eyes glazed over. She looked beautiful.

‘Do you know what kind of lesson you’re teaching this child?’ Soleil said. ‘I can’t stand people who think they don’t owe people anything. What kind of world is that? I’m going to write down her address here and when you become a decent person, I want you to send her the reward money.’

Soleil took a piece of paper from her purse. ‘What’s your address again, Bree?’ she asked.

Henry Sam Stewart shut the door on them.

Soleil clenched her fists, tilted her head to the sky and mimed screaming. Then, composing herself, she wrote down Gabrielle’s address and pushed the paper under the door.

‘Moron!’ she yelled.

 

Gabrielle first saw Katy through the window of her living room. She was bent over, brushing the underside of her blonde hair furiously, as if beating a rug.

Soleil knocked on the door and walked in. Katy turned upright, her face pink, her hair enormous.

Soleil and Katy kissed each other on both cheeks, and then Katy kissed Gabrielle on both cheeks. Katy had the air of being pretty, with a small nose and a golden tan.

‘We brought groceries,’ Soleil said.

‘You’re always the best guest,’ Katy said.

‘I’m always a guest.’

‘Not settled down yet?’

‘Catch me if you can.’

‘Gin and tonic?’

Soleil answered by clapping her hands together.

‘Bree?’ Soleil said. ‘You want a Coke?’

An hour later Soleil and Katy were drunk. Rod Stewart sang from the record player, and Katy and Soleil were trying on clothes and dancing around the green-carpeted living room. Gabrielle sat on an itchy plaid couch. Her job, the women said, was to rate their outfits. They were taking a dinner-boat cruise on the lake that night.

‘We want to look like a million bucks,’ Soleil said.

‘It’s a fine line,’ Katy added, ‘between looking like a million and looking like you cost a million.’

Soleil laughed. If this was a joke, Gabrielle didn’t get it. Soleil and Katy modeled outfits that would have been right for an opera; they modeled outfits that would have looked appropriate on the moon. Finally, they settled on dresses that required them to adjust their bra straps with safety pins. Katy’s hemline was high; Soleil’s neckline was low; watching them standing side by side, Gabrielle thought they looked like they’d gone crazy with a pair of scissors.

‘Now it’s time for us to dress
you
up,’ Katy said.

‘It sure is,’ said Soleil and pulled Gabrielle into Katy’s bedroom with a force that scared her.

Katy followed them, and she and Soleil stood looking at Gabrielle’s reflection in the closet mirror.

‘You would look so good in ivory,’ Katy said. ‘Your skin is so olive-y.’

‘It’s her dad’s skin,’ Soleil said.

‘Jack?’ Katy said to Soleil in a hushed tone.

Soleil nodded, and closed her lips tight. Gabrielle watched the women’s faces, and saw the stern look that passed between their inebriated eyes. She felt as though she’d swallowed a stone and it was making its way to her stomach.

‘If I were you, I’d show off those legs,’ Katy said, turning her attention back to Gabrielle. ‘I have just the thing.’

Katy pulled an ivory slip out of her dresser drawer and draped it over Gabrielle’s head.

Soleil examined her with one eye closed. ‘I think you need a piece of jewelry so it’s clear you’re wearing it as a dress. Hold on a second.’ She left the room.

‘You look like a picture of a girl I saw in a French painting!’ Katy said. ‘It was a painting of a girl who dropped her pail . . .’

‘Here,’ Soleil said, returning with something in her hand. The electronic heart pin. Soleil pinned it onto the slip, right above Gabrielle’s real heart, and turned it on.

‘What do you think?’ Katy said.

Gabrielle stared at the mirror. She couldn’t focus on anything she was seeing - she saw a ghostly shape and a flashing light. She didn’t look anything like herself, and, at the moment, this was an enormous relief. The stone in her throat was gone.

‘Look at her,’ Soleil said. ‘She’s fucking gorgeous.’

‘I wish,’ Katy said, ‘I wish I had a pail for her to carry.’

 

They arrived at the boat late.

‘We were about to leave without you,’ said the man taking their tickets. He was wearing jeans with suspenders. Gabrielle looked around: all of the passengers appeared to have come straight from a game of tennis or a hike. Was anyone else wearing lingerie as a dress?

A horn blew and the boat started moving. Soleil and Katy waved at the two or three people on the shore as though they were setting out on a two week cruise.

At the dinner buffet, Gabrielle moved quickly, passing over food she liked, anything to expedite getting to a chair and not bringing attention to her clothing. She spotted an empty table at the back of the dining room and suggested they sit there.

‘What? No, this one’s better,’ Katy said, pointing to a table near the dance floor. Two men wearing patterned shirts were already there.

‘It’s your lucky night,’ Katy said to them, as she and Soleil and Gabrielle sat down. Their names were Keith and Peter, and both had firm handshakes and deep tans. As the sun set and the cold came over the lake, Gabrielle wished she had brought a jacket. Her mother would have packed one for her.

A man with a sombrero came by each table with roses. Keith bought one and gave it to Gabrielle.

‘Really?’ she said. Keith’s eyes, she noticed, were like her dad’s - green and feline.

‘Yes, a rose for a budding rose,’ Keith said.

‘It smells amazing,’ she said, though it didn’t.

Soleil looked at Keith intently, as if he were a full glass of wine she didn’t want to spill.

After dinner Keith danced with Soleil, and Peter danced with Katy. Gabrielle moved to the edge of the boat and stared out at the water, at the moon. Everything looked the way it was supposed to look; nothing looked spectacular. She held the rose upright, twisting the stem in her fingers.

‘You’re too young for flowers,’ a voice said. Gabrielle turned to find two elderly women dressed in rain gear.

‘You should be at least fifteen before you get flowers,’ the other woman said. ‘Especially a rose.’

Gabrielle wanted to look at the sky and mime screaming, the way Soleil had done. But she couldn’t fake a scream. She couldn’t say a word. Instead, she walked away from the women and sat down at the table, watching the dance floor, and for the first time in her life she believed she understood the word
regret
. She regretted not saying anything to the women, she regretted the prickling of pride she’d felt when Henry Sam Stewart had mistaken Soleil for her mother.

The song ended, and Peter had his hands on Katy’s shoulders, steering her in the direction of their table. Soleil was pulling Keith by the hand, and he mockingly resisted. ‘Moon River’ began playing and he tried to twirl her. She twirled twice and Keith dipped her. It was the wrong sort of dance for the music, but Soleil looked thrilled. For a moment Gabrielle had an image of Soleil at age eight, riding a bike down a hill, her hands in the air.

Peter and Katy sat down clumsily at the table, and Peter slid a glass of water toward Katy and removed the glass of wine that sat in front of her.

‘What’d the grandmas want?’ Soleil asked, as she and Keith joined them. Gabrielle recounted what they had said.

‘Some people . . .’ Soleil said. Everyone waited for her to finish her sentence, but instead she refolded her napkin.

‘Hags!’ said Keith. ‘People get so jealous when they’re not getting any.’

‘Well, Bree’s not exactly getting any,’ Katy said. ‘And they’re still jealous.’

Everyone laughed, and Gabrielle made herself laugh too. If she didn’t, the joke would be on her.

 

By the time the boat docked, it was clear alcohol had affected Katy and Soleil in different ways: Soleil was loud and Katy was quiet. Peter and Keith drove them all back to Katy’s house. Gabrielle was anxious for the night to be over, for Katy and Soleil to wake up the next day, sober and casually dressed.

‘Goodnight, thank you,’ Gabrielle said, when Keith’s car pulled up to Katy’s house.

Everyone laughed again.

‘They’re coming in for a night-cap,’ Soleil explained, as Keith circled around the car, opening each of the doors.

They all spilled into Katy’s living room, which, Gabrielle thought, suddenly seemed too small to accommodate their limbs, their smells, their shrieks. The adults must have felt the same way: within a minute Keith and Soleil pretended to race each other into the guest room; Peter and Katy stumbled into the master bedroom.

Gabrielle slept on the itchy living room couch. Or tried to - noises filled the house. Doors closed and toilets flushed and a bed squeaked like a child’s toy.

 

In the morning Gabrielle woke to Soleil’s voice coming from the porch: ‘Are you sure I can’t make you waffles?’

Gabrielle sat up and looked out of the open window.

‘That’s okay, doll,’ Keith said. ‘I gotta skedaddle.’

At the edge of the porch, Keith kissed Soleil hard and then walked toward his car. Without turning around, he lifted his hand and waved goodbye.

Soleil came back into the house. Her eyes met Gabrielle’s. ‘W-w-w-what are you l-l-l-looking at?’ she said.

Gabrielle ran out the door and followed Keith to his car. ‘Excuse me,’ she called out.

‘Well, look who’s awake,’ Keith said, putting on his seatbelt. The top button on his shirt was hanging from a long thread. ‘Good morning, camper.’

‘Do you have a piece of paper and a pen?’

He opened his glove compartment and handed her a pad of paper and a pen. At the top of the pad was a cartoon drawing of a man skiing. The caption said: ‘Life is good.’

‘Here’s where I live,’ Gabrielle said, as she wrote down her address. ‘Soleil will be home with my family after the weekend.’

‘Okay, partner,’ Keith said, taking the paper from her like it was a receipt. ‘I thank you kindly.’

Gabrielle had no idea why he was talking the way he was. She walked back to the house, where Soleil was standing in the living room. It was clear she’d been watching through the window. ‘What were you doing?’ she said, accusingly.

‘Giving him my address.’

‘What?’ Soleil said.

‘So he knows where to find you this week.’

‘W-w-why would he need to find me?’

‘To apologize,’ Gabrielle said.

Soleil tightened her fingers into fists. She mimed screaming at the ceiling, she mimed screaming at the wall. Finally, she turned to Gabrielle with eyes that were strangely dull, dark as wet soil. ‘Oh, grow up,’ she said.

Twice I have sat next to a famous man on an airplane. The first man was Jason Kidd of the New Jersey Nets. I asked him why he didn’t fly first class, and he said that it was because his cousin worked for United.

‘Wouldn’t that be all the more reason to get first class?’

‘It’s cool,’ he said, unfurling his legs into the aisle.

I let it go, because what do I know about the ins and outs of being a sports celebrity? We didn’t talk for the rest of the flight.

I can’t say the name of the second famous person, but I will tell you that he is a Hollywood heart-throb who is married to a starlet. Also, he has the letter V in his first name. That’s all - I can’t say anything more than that. Think espionage. OK, the end - that really is all. I’ll call him Roy Spivey, which is almost an anagram of his name.

If I were a more self-assured person I would not have volunteered to give up my seat on an overcrowded flight, would not have been upgraded to first class, would not have been seated beside him. This was my reward for being a pushover. He slept for the first hour, and it was startling to see such a famous face look so vulnerable and empty. He had the window seat and I had the aisle, and I felt as though I were watching over him, protecting him from the bright lights and the paparazzi. Sleep, little spy, sleep. He’s actually not little, but we’re all children when we sleep. For this reason, I always let men see me asleep early on in a relationship. It makes them realize that, even though I am five feet eleven, I am fragile and need to be taken care of. A man who can see the weakness of a giant knows that he is a man indeed. Soon small women make him feel almost fey - and, lo, he now has a thing for tall women.

Roy Spivey shifted in his seat, waking. I quickly shut my own eyes, and then slowly opened them, as if I, too, had been sleeping. Oh, but he hadn’t quite opened his yet. I shut mine again and right away opened them, slowly, and he opened his, slowly, and our eyes met, and it seemed as if we had woken from a single sleep, from the dream of our entire lives. Me, a tall but otherwise undistinguished woman; he a distinguished spy, but not really, just an actor, but not really, just a man, maybe even just a boy. That’s the other way that my height can work on men, the more common way: I become their mother.

We talked ceaselessly for the next two hours, having the conversation that is specifically about everything. He told me intimate details about his wife, the beautiful Ms M. Who would have guessed that she was so troubled?

‘Oh, yeah, everything in the tabloids is true.’

‘It is?’

‘Yeah, especially about her eating disorder.’

‘But the affairs?’

‘No, not the affairs, of course not. You can’t believe the ’bloids.’