Close Relations (33 page)

The next morning Paterno demanded an analysis of his performance at the previous night’s rally. “You were brilliant, Bill. The best yet.” He nodded, concurring with my assessment. Then I disappeared into my office, put my head on the typewriter, and fell asleep. The telephone woke me at noon, when David called to announce he was making me dinner at his apartment.

And that night, Jerry came home. I froze as I heard him open the door, my hand clenched over a pair of small but genuine pearl earrings Barry had given me for our first anniversary. Only my eyes darted about, like someone psychotic or guilty. I had been caught.

“Marcia,” Jerry said, gaping. “What did you do?” I was wearing makeup. He had never seen me in it.

“Don’t you like it?” I asked, clutching the earrings even tighter and gazing at the loosened knot of his tie to avoid being flustered by his face.

“Sure. I guess so. You look so different. What made you do it?”

“You’re still holding your suitcase,” I observed, licking my lips. The gloss tasted like raspberries. Each time I inhaled, I smelled the moisturizing cream made from—the woman at the makeup counter assured me—the essence of almonds. I desperately needed this balm, she confided, because my skin was screaming for lubrication.

Jerry did a shallow knee bend and put his suitcase down in front of his dresser. His skin was darker than usual, glowing from the upstate sun. He needed no almonds.

“Where are you going?” he demanded. He sounded stunned, as if I had metamorphosed into a different species, a tree or a swan. He stepped closer to inspect me. I shut my eyes so he could see my subtle, creative use of three different shades of blue eye shadow, which the saleswoman had told me would bring out the color of my eyes. I used the time to think of a fast lie.

“I’m going to the theater. With Barbara and Philip.” I opened my eyes. Jerry closed his briefly.

“With makeup?”

“Why not? I’m thirty-five years old. Anyhow, I need color.”

“Blue?”

“I got tired of looking at the same face.”

Jerry ran his hand down his chin and over his neck, as if trying to come up with some urbane rejoinder. He could not. “If you’re going to the theater, why are you wearing all that makeup? You’ll be sitting in the dark.”

“I don’t know. We’ll probably go out for a light supper afterward.”

“Oh,” he said, in a drawing-room-comedy butler’s voice, “madam may be having a light supper after the theater. How divine.”

“Come on, Jerry. I’ve been working every single night. I needed a break. I didn’t know you’d be coming back.”

“Of course you didn’t. And how can an evening with me compare with a night out with the Drexlers. Are they picking you up in the Rolls, my dear?”

“I’m not going to even bother to answer that.”

“Of course not. A person of your refined background wouldn’t deign to get into a cheap discussion with a peasant.”

“Why is it that you can come and go whenever you feel like it, have a night out with the boys two or three times a week if you want to, and I have to stay home, ready for you? Why is that?”

“Marcia, we’re being unfair, aren’t we? I wouldn’t dream of interfering with your social life. Have a wonderful evening with Cousin Barbara. Do give her my love.”

“For God’s sake, Jerry …”

“Au revoir, my pet.” He began to undress, slowly, teasingly, letting his tie drift to the floor, opening his shirt buttons with the self-consciousness of a stripper, keeping his eyes on his audience. “Have a rich cultural experience.”

By the third button, I was involved in his performance. While I cannot recall my thoughts, I’m sure I considered leaving David to watch his salad wilt and catching the rest of Jerry’s show. But something pushed me out of the apartment. I tongued my raspberry lips, whispered a fast good night, and ran on my new high-heeled sandals out of the apartment and down the stairs.

David was waiting for me. “Marcia! Don’t you look glamorous! Come in.”

He was not as tall as Jerry, but he seemed larger because he was broad-shouldered and big-boned. He wore a yellow cotton shirt with the sleeves rolled up and gray slacks. “I thought you’d be wearing a maroon silk smoking jacket,” I said.

“I’ll buy one tomorrow.” Then, in what was either an example of Ivy League good manners or keen intuition that I was nervous, he asked, “Would you like to wash up after that hot ride uptown?”

“Yes. Please.” He led me down a long entrance hall and opened the door of a guest bathroom. “Thanks.” He said he’d meet me in the living room.

I was not sure whether “wash up” was upper classese for going to the bathroom; my mother had skipped that lesson. But I did anyway, sitting on a cool, sophisticated black toilet seat and studying my surroundings. It was an elegant room, tiled in large squares of black marble and lit by a small bronze fixture. In the sink, in a crystal dish, were tiny spheres of alabaster soap; on the rack, linen guest towels that appeared old and fine and ironed by a maid. I opened the door and continued down the hall toward the living room.

David stood as I came in. “White wine tonight? Or champagne?”

Aunt Estelle had told me never to order the most expensive item on the menu. “White wine will be fine.”

I had expected a big apartment, and it was, but only its size conformed to my expectations. The wealthy bachelor look which I had anticipated from my recollection of Doris

Day/Rock Hudson movies—long, low couches, dim lighting, and stereo equipment that responded to remote-control instructions—was absent. Instead, David’s living room was very much like David: tasteful, pleasant, rich.

“Are you nervous?” he asked.

“No. Actually, yes, but I’m not sure why. Let’s not analyze it.”

“Okay.”

I sat on what I assumed was an antique French chair covered in a white brocade. David sat across from me on a long couch upholstered in a nubby dark-blue silk. To my right was a fireplace with an elaborate beige marble mantel. Between us, a beautifully polished mahogany coffee table; on it was a china basket heaped full of raw vegetables and two bowls beside it, full of thick, tasty-looking sauces. I dipped a carrot into one of them.

“Delicious. You did this all yourself, David?”

“I was hoping you wouldn’t ask.”

“Okay. I take it back.”

“No, I’ll confess. There’s a store on Madison that does this kind of thing. But I’m fixing the steak myself. And I picked out all the wines. What do you want to start with, Montrachet or Chablis?”

Dinner was like that too, filled with choices between good and better. Beaujolais or Bordeaux with the steak? Grapefruit ices or chocolate cake for dessert? Or both? Back to the living room for brandy or a cordial—or should we try the terrace?

Initially, our conversation was less personal than on our other nights, as if we had to fulfill a quota of chitchat before our relationship could move along. We debated the validity of psychohistory. We talked about New York in the twenties, Germany in the thirties, and growing up in the fifties. We even touched on the campaign, at first dispatching Uncle Sidney as if he were a comical villain in a farce. We also dismissed Paterno quickly, because he was too intense, too hungry for the New York that twinkled before us as we sat on the terrace. The city sparkled in the first cool of the evening.

David took a sip of brandy from a snifter worthy of Ronald Colman. “My uncle by marriage is thinking of spending another half million for television time.” It was the first time he had trusted me with one of the details of the Appel campaign.

“He’s panicked?” I asked casually. “The polls?” Normally, I would be leaning forward to seize each word as it tumbled from David’s mouth, grabbing it and sticking it onto my memory so I could hand it over verbatim at the morning staff meeting. But I merely lounged on the wrought-iron chaise, ran my hand over the green-and-white-striped cushion, watched as a cloud floated over the moon, took a sip of orange liqueur, and wiggled my newly pedicured toes.

“He’s beyond panic,” David remarked coolly. “He’s insane. His whole self-image is wrapped up in this campaign, and just because there’s been a little slippage he sees the entire State of New York on the verge of rejecting him.”

“Good,” I said but without my usual primary venom. “The more inadequate he feels, the worse he’ll perform. I can’t wait for the next debate.”

But I could wait. Another debate would mean late nights of rehearsals, of firing questions at Paterno until he became an old smoothie on dairy price supports, Medicaid abortions, and drug-related deaths. It would mean tuna on wet white bread at my desk instead of poached salmon by candlelight.

“Well, I don’t mind his making a fool of himself,” David explained. “It’s just that I’m fond of my aunt, and when he gets upset he takes it out on her.”

“Why did she marry him?”

“Why does anybody marry anybody else? I don’t know. I guess he seemed very vital, very alive to her. You see, she was very sheltered. During the thirties, when most of my grandparents’ contemporaries were minimally tightening their belts, my family was flourishing. They had invested in a pet-food company as an afterthought, and suddenly, when the rest of their portfolio was reduced to almost nothing, this business was thriving. They didn’t object to the income it produced, but they were terribly embarrassed by living off … well, basically, living off cat food instead of the quiet commerce they had always been involved in. They were a little nuts, I guess. Very defensive. My father and my Aunt Louisa were older, so Marjorie got the brunt of it. They pulled her out of boarding school and had tutors for her at home. They said they didn’t want her to be teased by her classmates.”

“That is nuts.”

“Very.” David adjusted the gold band of his watch. “They supervised her social life to such an extent that she had no real friendships. They even had a fiancé picked out for her. They were just waiting for her eighteenth birthday to announce the engagement.”

“And then?”

“They owned some property upstate, and my grandfather hired Sidney to drive them around. Sidney was about twenty—a porter at the local railroad station but a real go-getter. Anyway, Marjorie began developing a fondness for mountain air. She was always happy to go upstate with my grandfather. And she started taking long walks; she’d go out to the barn of a farm they owned and meet Sidney. That was in June. By July my grandparents sensed trouble, so they took her off to Europe. And by August she announced she was pregnant and wanted to marry Sidney.” David swallowed. I thought briefly how much Jerry would enjoy this story. “Well, it was Sidney Appel or die. She threatened to jump out of her window at the Plaza Athenée if they didn’t agree. She was wildly in love.”

“And Sidney loved her?”

“No, of course not. But he was delighted to marry her. And finally my grandfather agreed. So they got married and Sidney kept her quiet and pregnant for the next few years, until my grandparents died. And then he started managing her money. You know the rest.”

“Of course. People like us can’t be too careful. I’m so wary of fortune hunters.”

“Come here,” he said, patting his lap. I rose and walked across the terrace. The floor was covered in tile, and I was afraid I’d trip on my new high heels and sprawl over him or splatter over East Sixty-seventh Street. When I reached his lap I sat quickly, as though it were a haven.

David interpreted this as eagerness. He pulled me close and kissed me, first tentatively, tasting and testing me with small, soft kisses. Then he grew more fervent. For a moment I tried to rise. It was partially panic. It was also uneasiness; I was afraid I was too heavy on his lap and he was too polite to say so. But his breaths grew deeper. He seemed as solid as he looked and held me firmly on his lap.

I sensed it was my turn. With clinical coolness I licked his lips and put my tongue in his mouth; he tasted sweet. I snuggled closer. David bit my tongue between his big front teeth. I began thawing and pulled back in surprise before I could melt into his lap.

“I don’t think this is a good idea.” My voice was hoarse.

“Let’s go inside.”

“David, no.”

He stood, taking me with him. “It’s much more comfortable in there.”

“I didn’t bring anything,” I whispered as he led me through the living room. I had decided that bringing my diaphragm to David’s would make my sleeping with him a fait accompli. I had deliberately left it behind.

“Don’t worry. I have something inside.” I closed my eyes, hoping he understood me and meant a condom. “Come on, Marcia.” He led me along another long hallway, this one carpeted by a dark Oriental rug that glinted red and blue under somber lights.

His bedroom was dark, its blackness barely pierced by the low light in the hallway. He held me by the wrist and guided me into the room until I banged against the edge of the bed.

“Let me undress you,” he said.

“No.”

“No?”

“Yes.” He did it smoothly, fondling me as he took off my dress and slip. For a while, he fumbled over the hooks of my bra but finally flung it across the room in triumph.

He left my underpants on while he undressed, interrupting himself occasionally to run his hand through my hair or to bend and kiss me so as not to lose me in the dark. He whispered my name. Then he helped me lie on the bed and drew off my pants. I reached out for him and found his chest. It was hairless and appropriately solid. I drew my hand down to his belly, where a patch of soft hair began, and then lower still, where the hair grew stiffer. Then I said, “Oh, my God!”

David Hoffman had the biggest penis in the world. I had never seen—or, more accurately, felt—anything that could compare to it. I caressed the head of it and then moved on down slowly, as if to see whether he was pulling some sort of bizarre trick in the dark. He was not. He covered my hand with his and pressed it against him, as if showing off its astounding size again, its unyielding stoniness.

“Oh, my God,” I echoed.

“Kiss me, Marcia.” I was not sure where he wanted the kiss, but I put my mouth on his. We held each other, kissing for a long time, before he reached for my breasts and behind. His touch grew harder then, grabbing at me, and I tried to pull away once or twice. But I was back before he could even begin to coax me.