The Last Lovely City (10 page)

It seems to me simpleminded to label all nurturing impulses “maternal,” especially in this instance, but I do like to cook, and I would have liked to ask Mr. Solomon to dinner. However, I felt that I didn’t know him well enough, and there is always the female dread (still!) of being misinterpreted, of being perceived as predatory, a sexual aggressor. Or just as lonely.

But since Patrick had this Justin Solomon connection, when he asked me for lunch and began to go on about drivers, I thought, and then said, “What about Justin Solomon?”

“Oh! Well! I hadn’t exactly planned to invite dear Justin, it’s not exactly his kind of party, but I’ll think about it.”

“You’ll let me know?”

“Of course.” He laughed. “Or I may leave it to be a surprise. I’ll surprise you with a driver.” He laughed again. “I’ll send a stretch limo.”

The neurotic truth is that I don’t much like surprises. I like to know pretty clearly what’s going to happen. A kind A.A. friend tells me that this comes from having had alcoholic parents, but I did not want to get into any of that with Patrick. Also, I really thought it likely that he would ask Justin, and had only wanted to tease me.

In the interval between that phone call and the Sunday of the lunch, I had many fantasy conversations with my new best friend, Justin Solomon, as we drove from my house, on Green Street, to Patrick’s, in Sausalito. In the course of these talks just possibly he could point to some spot of hope in what I saw as the hopeless awfulness of most recent events, in Russia and Bosnia, in Africa. In Washington, and even L.A.

But as a terrible corrective to this intimate fantasy, I thought too about the stereotype that I feared, of the eager, elderly woman, and I cringed. There must be a lot of such ladies “after” Justin, I thought.

And so I was rather torn about the prospect of my drive to Sausalito, with whomever, and I gave it far too much thought.

What actually happened was that Patrick’s friend Oliver picked me up; he had to get some special bread for the lunch at a delicatessen down on Chestnut Street, and so he combined the two errands, me and the special Italian bread.

I was deeply disappointed. I tried not to think about it, or to show it.

Which brings me back to the lunch, the boring too-young actor, Tom, and the nice dog over in the corner of the deck, near the still-flowering azalea.

“Venice is like, like really beautiful,” said Tom, as I thought, It’s not
like
beautiful, you silly jerk. It
is
.

Tom is very handsome, I guess, with a round blond unlined and (to me) entirely uninteresting, unsexy face, and a deep insistent voice. “Then we did a shoot in Dubrovnik,” he said, intoning. “A tragic city—” (At least he did not say it was like a tragic city.)

Many years of practice have enabled me to smile at what I believe and hope are appropriate pauses, though with this Tom it hardly mattered, so concerned was he with his speech, so little aware of his victim-audience. Unless, as I have sometimes suspected of considerable bores, he was doing it on purpose; having sensed my perhaps unusual failure to respond to his charm, he set out to bore me to death.

The lunch was not very good, although Patrick’s intentions were generous; gray, overdone slices of cold lamb, and underdone potato salad. Patrick, a somewhat competitive person, does not like to admit that Oliver is the better cook. (Earlier I had even wondered if some misplaced competitiveness with Justin for my friendship had made Patrick not invite Justin to this party.)

I looked over at the dog, who was looking wistfully in the direction of the party, the people, I thought. I also thought how
polite of him not to come over and beg for food. And then, as though acknowledging my thought, he turned his head away, showing a profile that was both proud and noble.

“But hey! I really love those guys!” said Tom the actor. Serbs? Bosnians? Venetians? No matter, he was now talking to someone else, and I no longer had to pretend that I was listening.

Very carefully and (I hoped) unobtrusively, then, I packed all my lamb into my napkin, and as though heading into the house I got up and went over to the dog. I knelt beside him and began to feed him the nice cold meat, whose toughness he did not seem to mind. He took every piece very tidily from my hand, with no slobber or visible greed. He looked at me with his beautiful dark-brown–purple velvet eyes, and I felt that an important connection between us had been established.

After maybe five minutes I went back to my table, and the party continued much as before.

And later Oliver took me home at a reasonably early hour, although I could happily have left even earlier. I did not see the dog around as I left.

The next day I called Patrick to thank him for the lunch, and I also said, “What a nice dog that was; I really liked him.”

And Patrick said, “Oh, that’s Max. Poor baby, he is. Terribly nice, and his people have deserted him. Moved back into town, except on weekends.”

“Couldn’t you and Oliver adopt him?”

“Well,
I’d
love to. But you know, Oliver’s allergies. And the poor dog’s so lonesome, he howls all night.”

That wrenched my heart; I truly could not bear it. Lonesome Max at night. And although I do have three cats, one of whom is skittish to a point of near psychosis, I was thinking that maybe I could take Max. Emma was already so crazy; she would just have to cope, as the rest of us do.

But at that moment a small and vivid memory filled my
mind: on a recent walk in Cow Hollow, where Justin Solomon and I both live, I had come upon him on Jackson Street, near Alta Plaza park. In his old brown sweater and chinos, Justin did not look like a lawyer, even retired. Together for a few moments that day, we observed the frisking dogs whose recreational terrain that park is, and Justin sighed as he said, “I should get a dog. I’d really like one, but I don’t seem to get around to it.”

Excitedly I now told Patrick, “Listen! Justin Solomon wants a dog; he told me. You know him. Call him and tell him about Max. Max would be perfect for Justin, they’re both so polite.”

As I might have known he would, Patrick saw this as a less than wonderful idea. “In the first place,” he told me, “the Fowlers probably have their own idea for Max. They may have left him there on purpose. To guard the house.”

That seemed a reasonable point, although I argued, “But couldn’t you call them? Say that Max is keeping you awake?”

That last was inspired; Patrick likes to complain. A legitimate gripe makes him very happy.

I was right. Patrick agreed to call the Fowlers.

“And if that doesn’t work you could call the SPCA,” I suggested.

But, hanging up, I felt a little glum as to the possible outcomes of my interference, although at that point I saw my motives as pure. Very likely nothing good would come of this, and I could have made things worse for Max if the SPCA got into it; they might haul him off to a shelter. I considered taking a cab to Sausalito, somehow finding Max and luring him into the car. Taking him home, and even sedating Emma.

Typically, Patrick did not call for several days, during which I had more bad, sad thoughts about lonely Max, howling in Sausalito.

And then Patrick called, and he asked me, “Are you sitting down? I have some really, truly great news.”

Well, he did. He had called the Fowlers, and Mrs. Fowler, who turned out to be nice but a little silly, told Patrick that she was so sorry, she too was sad over Max. But they had to be in town most nights. If only they could find a nice home for Max, who was no longer young; he was six, she said. Patrick said he would try to help; he was sorry that his friend was so allergic. And then he actually called Justin Solomon and said that he had heard (“I didn’t think you’d want me to say it was you”) that Justin might want a dog. And (“this is the part you won’t believe”) Justin just happened to have an errand in Marin County
that very day;
and Justin came over and met Max and
took him home
. “On approval, he said,” said Patrick. “But I could tell that he was in love.”

“Patrick, that’s really the best story I ever heard.” And it was, a totally satisfying story, marvelous: lonely nice Max in a good kind home, and lonely Justin with a very nice dog.

The only missing element for me, and I had to admit this to myself, was my own role. I actually would have liked it if Patrick had given me the proper credit, of course I would. Better to be thought a little indiscreet than to remain almost invisible, I thought.

In fantasy, then, I saw myself again running into Justin—and Max!—somewhere in the neighborhood. It was too much to expect that Max would remember me, despite all the lamb, but I would certainly know him, and his name. And in greeting Max I could explain to Justin how it all came about. Taking full credit.

But would that necessarily lead to our becoming friends? Might not Justin, a somewhat formal man, simply say, “How very kind of you to have thought of me.” So that we would continue as before, acquaintances who rarely saw each other, and then only by chance.

What I probably needed, I thought a little sadly, was a dog
of my own. A really nice dog, with beautiful eyes. Like Max. Even Emma would get used to him in time, probably. The one needing a dog is me.

More immediately, though, I could telephone Justin Solomon? Identifying myself, I could include knowing Patrick. I could tell him about the lunch, the lamb. Me and Max. “I’d really love to see him again,” I could say. “Should we meet for a walk, or something?”

That seems the best plan, and that is what I will do tomorrow, if not sooner. And then, in the course of the walk, I’ll invite him to dinner, and I’ll cook something good, with bones—for Max.

“She’s just dying to see you, so excited, and you really can’t refuse a ninety-two-year-old,” said Miles Henry to his old friend Grace Lafferty, the famous actress, who was just passing through town, a very quick visit. Miles and Grace were getting on too, but they were nowhere near the awesome age of ninety-two, the age of Miss Louise Dabney, she who was so very anxious to see Grace, “if only for a minute, over tea.”

“I really don’t remember her awfully well,” Grace told Miles. “She was very pretty? But all Mother’s friends were pretty. Which made her look even worse. Miles, do we really have to come for tea?”

“You really do.” He laughed, as she had laughed, but they both understood what was meant. She and the friend whom she had brought along—Jonathan Hedding, a lawyer, retired, very tall and a total enigma to everyone, so far—must come to tea. As payment, really, for how well Miles had managed their visit: no parties, no pictures or interviews. He had been wonderfully firm, and since he and Grace had been friends forever, if somewhat mysteriously, it was conceded that he had a right to take charge. No one in town would have thought of challenging Miles; for one thing, he was too elusive.

The town was a fairly small one, in the Georgia hill country,
not far from Atlanta—and almost everyone there was somewhat excited, interested in this visit; those who were not were simply too young to know who Grace Lafferty was, although their parents had told them: the very famous Broadway actress, then movie star, then occasional TV parts. Grace, who had been born and raised in this town, had barely been back at all. Just briefly, twice, for the funerals of her parents, and one other time when a movie was opening in Atlanta. And now she was here for this very short visit. Nothing to do with publicity or promotions; according to Miles she just wanted to see it all again, and she had carefully picked this season, April, the first weeks of spring, as being the most beautiful that she remembered. Anywhere.

It was odd how she and Miles had stayed friends all these years. One rumor held that they had been lovers very long ago, in the time of Grace’s turbulent girlhood, before she got so beautiful (dyed her hair blond) and famous. Miles had been studying architecture in Atlanta then, and certainly they had known each other, but the exact nature of their connection was a mystery, and Miles was far too old-time gentlemanly for anyone to ask. Any more than they would have asked about his two marriages, when he was living up North, and his daughter, whom he never seemed to see.

If Grace’s later life from a distance had seemed blessed with fortune (although, four marriages, no children?), one had to admit that her early days were not; her parents, both of them, were difficult. Her father, a classic
beau
of his time, was handsome, and drank too much, and chased girls. Her mother, later also given to drink, was smart and snobbish (she was from South Carolina, and considered Georgia a considerable comedown). She tended to say exactly what she thought, and she wasn’t one bit pretty. Neither one of them seemed like ordinary parents, a fact they made a point of—of being above and beyond most normal parental concerns, of not acting like “parents.” “We appreciate Grace as a person, and not just because she’s our
daughter,” Hortense, the mother, was fairly often heard to say, which may have accounted for the fact that Grace was a rather unchildlike child: precocious, impertinent, too smart for her own good. Rebellious, always. Unfairly, probably, no one cared a lot for poor wronged Hortense, and almost everyone liked handsome bad Buck Lafferty. Half the women in town had real big, serious crushes on him.

Certainly they made a striking threesome, tall Grace and those two tall men, during the short days of her visit, as they walked slowly, with a certain majesty, around the town. Grace’s new friend, or whatever he was, Jonathan Hedding, the lawyer, was the tallest, with heavy, thick gray hair, worn a trifle long for these parts but still, enviably all his own. Miles and Grace were almost the exact same height, she in those heels she always wore, and in the new spring sunlight their hair seemed about the same color, his shining white, hers the palest blond. Grace wore the largest dark glasses that anyone had ever seen—in that way only did she look like a movie star; that and the hair, otherwise she was just tall and a little plump, and a good fifteen years older than she looked to be.