The Cosmopolitans (25 page)

The only one
, Bette noted.

“But if I tell you,” Valerie seduced. “Then I will lose my allure. You will have power over me, and then I will have to remove you from the scenery. Telling the truth is a momentary impulse with terrible long-term consequences.”

Bette was breathless. “I learn so much from you,” she said. And it was true. “I listen to everything you say.” And that also was true. In fact, this moment was the only authentic interaction Bette had had with another human being since the day Earl admitted that he did not love Hortense. The truth felt so familiar, nourishing, rehumanizing. It was valuable, important, loving, true. Bette felt love and relief.

“Well, look at me,” Valerie invited. “I am an Irish girl from Hell's Kitchen. Surprised?”

Bette looked. She had imagined Boston Brahmin or a belle from a plantation in South Carolina. Or a rancher's daughter from west of the Rockies. But now that it was on the table, that Irish girl was in there somewhere.

Valerie spoke in her native tongue, the beer-soaked New York brogue of the dismal West Forties. “My
fadda wuz a cop,” she said. “My mudda wuz a maid.” Like everything else, this also looked natural on her. “Do you understand what I just said?” She let the washerwoman within simply drop away and resumed her sophisticated, tough-as-nails, free-spirited, entrepreneurial image. It looked natural as well.

“Yes,” Bette said. “Your father was a police officer and your mother scrubbed other people's dirty underpants.”

“Yes,” Valerie said. “And they wanted the same for me.”

“But you wouldn't let them ruin your life.”

“No,” Valerie said very calmly. “I would not.”

This is what the two of them held in common. Some profound survival instinct, even with the people they loved. Bette's losses passed through her. Her family. Earl. Hortense. The familiarities and kindnesses. The fun. The irreplaceable knowledge of comfort with another human being. Her belief in Earl. That he could do the right thing. She still held it. That loss would be unbearable. It would never leave her.

“Did they ever understand?” Bette asked.

“No.”

“Never?”

“No,” Valerie smiled.

Always smile
.

“They tried to stop me,” she said. “Surpassing your family is a huge commitment. But I did it! I worked hard and became . . . not a cop, not a maid, but . . . A TEACHER!”

This came out with an uncharacteristic bitterness. One she had never let Bette see before. The contempt
in Valerie's voice for herself was startling. It was the first critical moment, this self-disgust for her previous life. How much she mocked it.

“What is wrong with being a teacher?”

“Oh, Bette.” Valerie opened Bette's cigarette case, but it was empty. “I naively believed that working inside someone else's system was better than letting my father run my life. But, it was just another version of the same hell.”

Bette knew that there was an unopened pack of Luckies in the top kitchen drawer, but she preferred to watch Valerie be uncomfortable.

“Then, one day, I was walking to work, and I passed a display window filled with television sets. Everyone stopped in their tracks, staring. What they were seeing in that display window was more important than dinner, waiting paychecks, or their lover panting in anticipation at home. And the pretty girl standing next to me leaned over and whispered, ‘I wish they would watch me like that.' And I thought,
I wish I could make them
.”

“Why?”

“Because I wanted to.”

“For what reason?”

“Just to do it.”

It had never occurred to Bette that someone would go to all this trouble, all this investment and commitment, that someone would change the way they act and order what they do without a larger goal. Simply to have the power over others. For the
hell
of it.

Literally.

Bette could not imagine going to these lengths without
the goal of ending Earl's shunning. How could someone choose this path as a kind of unarticulated sport? Bette hardly knew what to think. Did this make Valerie an even more dangerous figure in Bette's field of action? Or, was she now less threatening for having no motive? Or, was the empty motive actually more compelling than the full one? Was its possessor entirely amoral and therefore lethal? Only time would tell.

Chapter 26

F
ive minutes later, Bette was still thinking this over. Why hadn't Valerie asked Bette for her own reasons? Maybe Valerie's feigned acceptance of Bette's elaborate plan was not feigned at all. She simply didn't care. It was all the same to Valerie, she assumed that everyone else was as ruthless as she was. Every deed, honest or dishonest, moral or corrupt, was assumed to be a gesture toward a goal. The content of that goal didn't matter. It was the strategy that mattered. And she assumed that everyone had one. Valerie had to understand other people's strategies so that she could beat them.

Assume
, Bette noted.

The doorbell rang a few times before Bette heard it over her own thoughts and the sounds of Mel Tormé. But Valerie was still speaking, so Bette let someone else attend to it.

“I knew you would understand,” Valerie told her. Girl to girl. “After all, Bette, you have your own allure.
I'm intrigued by the next task on your list.” She held the chart up to Bette's face, then turned it toward her own and read out loud, “‘Tell Crevelle the truth.' About what, I wonder?”

The doorbell rang more insistently. Hector and Crevelle were dipping and turning, they would not respond. So, finally accepting the responsibility of hostess, Bette rose to answer. She wondered if it would be a neighbor complaining about the noise. That was another new experience. Making noise.

“Excuse me,” she nodded gracefully to the other partygoers, winding her way to the door, picking up plates and glasses on the way, and nodding happily to the happy guests.

Bette opened to find an angry, middle-aged, balding man. He was slightly overweight, so typical and absolutely defined by his rage. Was he the new tenant who had moved in down the hall? She had noticed the boxes but had yet to meet the inhabitants.

“GET OUT OF MY WAY!” he yelled at Bette, as though being in his way was her only function on this planet. He pushed past her and stormed into the room, casting his eyes about the personnel.

“Can I help you?” Bette asked, futilely.

“Where is my . . . CREVELLE!”

Crevelle was still dancing with Hector, but turned, mortified, mid cha-cha, and she paled with an expression of absolute terror. Her voice jumped from fear.

“Frederick,” she gasped.

“So it's true,” he spat. “You are a tramp.”

Floundering and trapped, Crevelle said whatever meaningless words that happened to come to mind.
“What are you doing here?”

“
WHAT AM I DOING HERE?
You stupid bitch. Look at you. How could you? Idiot!”

At this point everything stopped. Everyone froze. Only the record played.

“What are you doing here?” she repeated, having lost all that remained of her wits, which had been meager in the first place.

Then he slapped her.

“Hey,” Hector said, although he made no move forward toward action. In fact, he stepped back and out of the way.

Grabbing Hector by the shoulders, Frederick shouted in his face, “You're that bastard playboy, Hector.” Spit landed on Hector's cheek.

Hector, having never been in such a highly frazzled state of risk in his entire life, summoned up a level of emotional indignation also previously unknown.

“Get off me!” he yelled back, and punched Frederick in the jaw, propelling the fellow to the floor. Hector then immediately pivoted and ran to hide behind the couch.

At the thud of Frederick's landed weight, the needle jumped off the record, and the room was suddenly without soundtrack.

In that silence, Crevelle, still three steps behind the action, turned to Hector, crouched beneath the couch cushions. “This is my husband,” she said blandly.

“Oh, I'm sorry,” said Hector, half rising as though to shake hands but really not. He was suddenly distracted by his new, unfamiliar personality. Dissociated from his own actions, he fell back on his most reliable
self, returning to the state of apologetic half-wit who hoped to never do anything wrong. Head between his hands, he wished to disappear.

Finally, gathering what remained of her abilities and relying on years of social training, Crevelle accepted the reality of the present moment. She was a wife. She had certain things that had to be done and said, and so be it. She readjusted. Crevelle ran to her husband and reached for his arm.

“Darling,” she said, as if he'd simply slipped. “It's not what you think. This is the man putting our daughter on TV.”

“And that's supposed to make it all right?”

“Well, it's . . .”

“It's what?”

“It's fun,” Crevelle admitted, hauling up his carcass.

“Fun?”

“People will see her,” Crevelle explained.

Frederick felt as though the world had gone insane and lost all its order. This was not ordered. “You sold your virtue to put your child on television? And I am supposed to nod my head and understand? What kind of man do you think I am?”

Crevelle was faced, now, with the reality that she had no way out. She had taken a wrong turn, made the wrong move, and hence she was going to pay. It was irredeemable.

“Darling, I . . . oh my God . . . what have I done? Please forgive me . . . I didn't mean . . .”

“You didn't?” Frederick screamed. He was free to scream as he went about his daily life at home, and this special occasion benefited from that habit. “Well,
then, if you didn't
mean it
, how did the entire country become aware of your treachery?”

“I . . .” Crevelle was confused now. As was the rest of the room. There was more to this story than even they knew.

“Thank God,” Frederick reached into his breast pocket. “Thank God that someone in this insane world had the decency to send me this letter.” He pulled it out and waved the evidence before the mob.

“Letter?”

Crevelle was stymied for the moment. She had a lot to contend with. And now she had to incorporate a letter. Who in the world would write a letter? And then, the world split open and Crevelle realized. She realized the level. The level of deception. She turned to Bette, standing by the door.

“YOU! YOU HORSE! YOU HAVE BETRAYED ME!”

Bette thought of Valerie and smiled.

Frederick stepped forward and grabbed his wife's arm as if it were a raincoat or a golf club, as if she were a person who was under arrest. No will, no agency, no choice. “Blaming your lies on the maid isn't going to help you.”

“The maid?” Crevelle had her only laugh. “Yes, yes, she is the maid. The old maid. Oh, Frederick. Yes, the maid. The maid.”

Frederick looked at Bette. There was something vaguely, uncomfortably familiar.

“Who are you?”

Bette had waited thirty years for this moment. And now it had come. And strangely, it was Earl who had brought it to her. It was Earl who had woken her up
from her happiness and forced her to seize her own fate. Make it happen the way she needed it to happen. Her needs. And here they were. Here it was. Frederick was no longer shunning her. Instead, he was standing in front of her, in her own home, looking at her and speaking to her. Even if he was angry, it was still an interaction, a relationship. There was still a back and forth. Not an erasure but an engagement. Her heart overflowed. She felt a simple peace in just seeing him. At being spoken to. A long-desired satisfaction at having finally made him notice all the pain he had caused surged through her. She felt good. This was the way that things should be. People must face each other and speak honestly. They can't throw the other away as if she doesn't matter. Everyone matters. Everyone deserves acknowledgment. There is no amount of privilege or currency or deception or wish that can keep any individual, in the long run, from that moment of accounting.

“Bette?” he asked.

“Yes, I am Bette.”

“You got my daughter into this hell.”

She had anticipated the possibility of this degree of weakness. She'd had thirty years to assimilate the extent to which Frederick was a liar. She had done the work to accept that he took no responsibility for his actions. She had faced the level of pain that he was willing to cause. Bette had fully come to terms with the degree to which Frederick would rather destroy someone else's life than tell the truth and make amends. So, the fact that he was blaming her, once again, for something that she did not cause was not a surprise.
She stood there and calculated. Frederick had caused his own carousing. He had caused the alienation of his daughter. He had caused his unloved wife's desperate greed for attention. All of this, he was now blaming on her. That fact did not surprise Bette in the least.

She told him the truth.

“Hortense came to me looking for help and guidance, and I took her in and loved her because she is your daughter.”

“Guidance?”

“I feel so happy to see you,” she said from her purest heart. “I know that we can solve this by talking, finding forgiveness, and making amends.”

This was the moment for him to accept her gift.

“This is all your fault.”

Immediately she forgave him again. This time for continuing to lie.

“Don't fall back on your habit, Frederick. Be kind now, and everything will be all right.”

“What do you want?” He stared at her like she was a faded mirror refusing to release the promised reflection.

Ah, relief
. She felt so happy. He had finally asked her something, something that needed to be asked. The blaming had stopped now. And finally, with this question, the real conversation could begin. Quietly, Bette felt a leap of joy. Something so long buried finally returned to her life. Hope.

With this hope, Bette was fully alive again. She was again the person who mattered, the young girl with a life of love before her. A person to whom others would be accountable. Hope.

“I want you to tell the truth so that there can be a healing.”

“The truth?” Frederick looked around shyly. Hector, Crevelle, Valerie, and Bette were watching him. He felt strangely boyish, now. Nervous. Frederick felt naive, almost innocent. It was easy to feel this way. “The truth is . . .” He looked around again. The faces of the others were blank. They seemed to say
go on
. “This is so hard to say.” He actually gulped. “The truth is . . .”

“Yes?” Bette was filled with love.

“The truth is that you offered yourself to me, knowing that I was about to marry your cousin. And when I turned you down flat, you pretended that I had been disloyal to Crevelle. I have never been disloyal to Crevelle.” There, he'd said it. He'd pulled it off. Everyone was listening, and he'd said the right thing. Frederick felt happy.

Bette's heart fell so low. Lower than it had ever fallen. “That is not the truth.”

“Yes, it is.”

Bette watched him. His lips twitched. He was vicious. He would not confess.

“Look,” Bette said. “It doesn't matter. You don't know how to do right. I forgive
you
. Do you hear? You can't allow anything real to happen, but I can. I am not dependent on you, Frederick. Your life is filled with inauthentic relationships of mutual use. I forgive you.
Now
, you can forgive me so that we can be a family. Frederick, please.” This was the third time in Bette's life that she had begged: her brother, Earl, and now this. “Please, choose forgiveness as an act of will.”

Would he?

Bette watched him. She saw the young man within the old, the lover within the user, she recognized every good thing that had ever been and could ever be.

“You are insane,” he said. “You ruined Hortense's life.”

The spell was broken.

It was over. The opportunity. It is amazing what people will throw away.

Then, from somewhere far off came a siren. It was Crevelle, shrieking with the glee of the victorious cruel. “Don't you pretend to be good,” Crevelle splattered. “You are not good. You are evil.
Evil
. We are good.”

“I am helping you,” Bette whispered. “I am helping you become real.”

They were all frozen then. It was a climactic moment and everyone knew it. Capitulation hung in the air, a threat that would never be indulged. It was quiet, and then, the moment passed.

Frederick grabbed Crevelle's hand, “Let's go.” He dragged her to the door.

As Crevelle attempted to pull off a victorious exit, she knew that a beating was waiting for her on the other side of triumph. Would he berate her in the hall or wait until they got to the street? And then she would have to go back home and face his rage forever.

“Stop!” Bette screamed.
He can't leave now. This is the moment for change
. “Wait!” she yelled. And then she plunged into the strongest impulse she'd ever had. The one she'd always fallen back on, the one that had come to define her more than any corpuscle or cell. The
impulse to tell the truth. “Frederick keeps Mildred Tolan in an apartment over the movie theater. And he goes there on Monday and Thursday nights.”

“Those are your poker nights.” Crevelle's face blanched through her shame.

“Now, wait,” Frederick, embarrassed, assessed his audience.

“Don't you see?” Bette said. “I am telling you all the truth.”

“I curse you,” Crevelle said. But she had no punch. It was just a fact.

“You curse me, Cousin? But everything I tell you is true. It is true that you have no husband. It is true.”

“But I do not want to know what is true.”

“But I do.” Bette finally tired. “The lie serves you, but it destroys me.”

Frederick realized that there was nothing further to be gained. He knew from years of crooked, small-town business deals that the current damage was already the result of engaging too long.
When you can't come out ahead, cut and run
. That was his motto and it had worked all his life. If someone is going to be uncomfortable, it's not going to be Fred. Nope. He'd rather eat glass.