All Is Vanity (35 page)

“Maybe,” she suggested, “they could just stand around. It’s supposed to be informal, remember?” she added, a touch defensively.

“Won’t it be kind of empty and cheap looking?” I prodded. “Just a blank terrace? Unless you have dancing. But even then, people need to sit down. In fact, it’s probably even more crucial to have seating if you have dancing than if you don’t. Are you going to hire a dance band?”

“Um … I don’t know. I hadn’t thought of it.”

“Well, it just seems a shame to return the stuff before this party, since it sounds so perfect with the cocktail tables and all.” My words slithered, unstoppable, from between my lips. “I mean, aren’t these the kind of people who’ll notice if your party looks half-baked? It might affect how they perceive Michael.”

She was quiet for a moment. “You’re right,” she said, finally. “I can always return the stuff after the party.”

And even though convincing her had been my intention, I was surprised to hear her agree, since, obviously, I was wrong.

“You’re lucky, Margaret,” she went on, “that you don’t care what other people think.”

Shame rose in a dark wave in my chest. Futilely, I closed my eyes against it. I wished that what she’d said were true. And then, I had a flash of brilliance, a plan to help us both.

When I’d hung up the phone, I started for the bedroom, but stopped just before the door. The story pressed at me from within, pushing me back irresistibly toward the closet/study. I turned on my computer and waited impatiently through its hemming and hawing. At last the screen was blank and my fingers pounced upon the keys.

At nine, Lexie is sipping a late cup of gourmet mocha java, ground only moments before her German-made coffeemaker dribbled steaming hot water through its fragrant dust. She’s created an oasis for herself on her new, cordovan-colored, leather-covered loveseat, apart from the chaos of renovation, the whine of the saws, the pounding of the hammers, the swearing of the sweating construction workers. With anticipation, she pours forth from the canary yellow accordion folder a sheaf of clippings to garner ideas for the next stage of her grand project. Onto the red-brown leather slide a photo of a slate shower, directions for building a backyard gazebo, guidelines for ordering special rocks from a special canyon in Montana with which to frame the fireplace in the master bedroom,
and also a cache of envelopes, some stamped in scarlet “Second” or even “Third Notice.”

That morning in Los Angeles Letty (and Lexie) fished three credit card offers that had arrived the day before out of the trash, so as to take advantage of their cash advances, and at nine-thirty in New York (six-thirty in San Francisco), I called Warren, knowing he’d be in his office when the market opened.

“About that Genslen,” I said. “How good is it?”

“Why?” he said. “Have you been putting in a little overtime with the ol’ knife and fork?” I always cringed when I talked to the persona Ted and I referred to as “Office Warren.” While at home my brother was dry and reserved, at work he was a jovial, slap-on-the-back, throw-around-lines-from-movies kind of guy and I couldn’t reconcile the two.

I explained Letty’s need to make money quickly.

“Dumb idea,” he said, in his most investment-bankerish, least brotherish tone. “Stocks are too volatile. You don’t want to monkey with them unless you can hang around for the long term.”

“I know all that,” I said. “And, of course, I agree, theoretically, but Letty’s really in a bind. She needs cash in the next few weeks.”

“And if the next trial bombs and the stock tanks, then what will she do?”

“Now, Warren,” I said, employing the slightly exasperated, big-sister tone I’d developed in our childhood and honed as a teacher, “do you really think that’s going to happen? You have Dad invested in this stock.”

Warren sighed. I could hear in that exhalation the struggle between the portfolio manager and the younger brother.

I pressed my advantage. “How many trials have there been so far?”

“Two.” He answered guardedly, as if he worried I might trick him into revealing information he’d rather keep secret or drawing conclusions he’d prefer not to face. Such things had been known to happen in our collective past.

“And the drug performed well in both of those?”

“Yes,” he allowed.

“I know there’s always some chance that things will go wrong, but as I understand it—and I do read a great deal, Warren; I’m up on my current events—the FDA is always overtesting these drugs. People are dying and the government won’t let them take a pill in case it turns their fingernails blue.” Given that we were talking about a diet drug, the last point was excessive, but still, I reasoned, rhetorically effective.

“Well, this wouldn’t be the FDA,” he said. “It’s not that far along.”

I regrouped and charged again. “Still,” I said, “it’s been tested twice. Aren’t the chances good that the third test will get the same result?”

“They’re good,” he agreed. “But they’re not guaranteed.”

“Nothing’s guaranteed. All I’m asking is that you give Letty the same chance for a good return on her investment that you’re giving our parents. You’ve known her as long as you’ve known them, you know.”

The downside of younger-brother pliability was younger-brother defensiveness. “Margaret, Genslen’s only a small percentage
of their portfolio. I’m managing their money in a responsible, well-diversified way.”

“No one said you weren’t,” I broke in, but Warren was having his say now.

“Letty can buy the stock, if she wants it. No one’s stopping her. I just don’t want to be responsible if she loses her money.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Warren. Don’t be so dramatic.
I’ll
be responsible. And when she turns a huge profit and solves all of her financial problems in one simple transaction, you can’t take the credit for that either. Anyway,” I assured him and myself, “Michael’s expecting a big salary jump within the month. If, by some wild chance, they lose this money, he’ll be able to make it up.”

Warren therefore agreed to open an account for Letty and to buy the stock for her, if she wired him the cash.

Over the next few weeks, Genslen continued to rise at a breathtaking clip, and this, together with the money Michael was bound to get any day now, made Letty more comfortable with their immediate financial state. Lexie, after a morning of panic, during which she used her cell phone to place an hour and a half call to her sister, Mary, in Iceland, bought a stock called Genlock, well on its way toward regrowing hair, and also relaxed. Once she’d purchased the stock, however, it wasn’t very interesting to watch her simply keep track of her growing fortune on the monthly statements. There’s only so much a writer can do with the opening of an envelope, the satisfied nod, the sips of black decaf while pondering: should I sell now or hold? I stretched various poker metaphors this way and that; I put a letter opener shaped like a tiny saber in her hand; I let
one statement get lost in the mail for a few tense days, but the chapter grew dull, Robert-like. I sent an e-mail.
“Letty,”
it read,
“what’s going on over there?”

Dear Margaret
,

Unbelievable. People seem to think that as guests they can actually order the party of their choice. Even more unbelievable—it seems they’re right, because I am indeed listening to their demands. “It looks like we have to have a full bar,” Michael said the other night. I was tucked in bed, or actually in futon, which, you may recall, was our bed when we were first married, and which functioned most recently in the old house as a safe infant play zone. It was supposed to become a dog bed in this house, but we got rid of marriage bed #2, the one my Aunt Pearl gave us when she bought herself the adjustable kind advertised on interminable late-night TV commercials. Anyway, we ordered a new bed, an original Case Study bed, zinc and maple, very understated (we toyed with the California king idea, but it sounded excessive, and then we would have had to buy new pillows) but, as I think I’ve mentioned, it’s in the garage because it would look ridiculous in the living room, and, as I’ve probably noted several times, we have, as yet, no bedroom. So the old futon is, for the time being, our bed once again, shoved into the one corner of the living room that isn’t occupied by the toaster and the jar of Tang (did you realize that you can still buy Tang?) and the coffeemaker and the half-emptied boxes. (We’re working on the kitchen again.)

Anyway—in said futon, I was diligently paging through year four of five years’ worth of
Bon Appétits,
marking with Post-its the pages of recipes for unusual finger foods. “But I thought we decided on sangria. Remember? Summery, festive, fruity?” I shuffled through my pile of magazines, looking for July 1991, in which I’d seen pitchers of ruby liquid, shot through with yellow, green, and orange, arranged on stone tables under
olive trees, from which peered adorable, tree-climbing goats. I reminded Michael that we were leaning toward a “Mediterranean” theme. “Full bar sounds more like Monte Carlo to me,” I said. “Besides, I already bought the pitchers.” “I guess a lot of people don’t like sangria,” he replied, tossing his trousers on top of the other clothes that we’ve mounded on the club chairs. (This is just until the closet is finished upstairs.) “You took a poll?” “No, but apparently Harvey Price did. We had lunch together today.” (Harvey Price is in charge of twentieth-century sculpture acquisitions—very glamorous.) Our conversation veered then into a list of what they’d consumed for lunch, still a subject of perpetual fascination for us (scallop enchiladas, saffron rice, ginger flan—Michael; grilled vegetable salad with shrimp, chocolate bread pudding—Harvey; and, by the way, cottage cheese on leftover toast—me. Ivy is currently obsessed with cottage cheese, so it’s handy; also, have not quite mastered quirky settings on new Italian-design, chrome, six-slice toaster, so have much leftover toast, some raw, some extra-crispy). “So how does Harvey know people don’t like sangria?” I asked, returning to the important subject. “He’s assuming,” Michael said, carefully tucking the blankets on his side tightly under the futon. (You know how he likes to sleep in an envelope of bedclothes.) “Actually,” he went on, “I think he’s the one who doesn’t like sangria specifically. But, still, he made clear that people expect a full bar at these things. He very deliberately let me know his favorite single malt.”