Gilded Age (18 page)

Selden started and then blushed deep magenta. People turned in their seats to stare at him. He kept his eyes fixed straight ahead, not smiling.

I realized then that Ellie had made a serious miscalculation. For all his bohemian, world-weary, pot-smoking ways, at heart Selden was still a conventional boy from the Midwest. However much he might not mind, might applaud even, a wild display like Ellie’s tonight, the
woman he loved should never do such a thing, never be seen as aggressive, especially sexually aggressive. Such conservatism, such modesty, had been bred into him. And when something like that was bred into you, you couldn’t get it all the way out.

The dog jumped on the end of its leash. Ellie reached down to settle it and then rose, striking the pose with an intent look on her face, and I knew that she’d realized her error.

I hardly remembered any of the other tableaux. No one did. There was great applause at the end.

During the cocktail hour I found Ellie and Steven surrounded by admirers. Her chest was covered now, and she wore the leopard skin around both shoulders as a wrap. A newspaper reporter was asking questions. Steven was expounding on the human form in art, Diana the huntress, and Jeff Koons’s porn star ex-wife showing a breast during Italian political rallies. Ellie slipped away and took my arm.

“Incredible,” I said. “You’re the talk of the evening.”

“I didn’t think it would be that big a deal.”

I smirked. “Seriously?” I asked. “Ummm, Janet Jackson at the Super Bowl? You had to know all of Cleveland would talk.”

“About a boob?” She shook her head. “They’re not scandalized by the painting, and it’s been hanging there for years.”

“Yes, but you showed your actual breast.”

“Much more exciting than a painting of one, I guess.” I noted with concern that she took a glass of champagne off a passing tray and gestured with it toward a group of Gus Trenor’s friends in close conversation. “All of them probably watch porn on the Internet. Really, I thought it might cause a little talk, but what
is
the big deal? Steven wanted me to do it. He told me it’d create a ton of publicity for him.”

She had to know it would cause a scandal, much more than a titter. I suspected she wanted to be the talk of the evening. I wondered why. “Well, Steven was right,” I said as we both turned toward the group swarming the designer. “Good for him. Do you think he’ll be able to do anything with it?”

“I hope so,” she said.

Steven looked sharp in jeans, a white T-shirt, and combat boots with a halo of blond stubble highlighting his jaw and his lip piercings—very much the artist in residence tonight. His outfit was calculated, I’m sure, to stand out among the other men in their black tuxedos.

“The Amazons fought with one breast exposed,” I heard him say. “It’s said the sight of just one female nipple stopped male warriors in their tracks.” All the reporters laughed.

Diana Dorset came up to introduce Ellie to an important board member, the head of a large tire company in town—a florid, fat man with a cane who stared at Ellie’s now-covered chest.

I’d lost Jim, and in looking for him I wandered over to one of my favorite pieces in the museum, the
Cocktails and Cigarettes Jazz Bowl
. The large black ceramic bowl had been glazed in turquoise with Deco scenes of the city, people dancing, cocktails rising up toward the skyline, smoke curling up from their cigarette holders. It’d won the museum’s May Show back in 1931.

“I’ve always loved that,” a deep voice said, and I turned to see Cinco Van Alstyne standing next to me.

I smiled at him and gestured toward the small plaque next to the piece stating that it had been a gift from his family. “Apparently your great-grandmother did too.”

“My uncle found it a couple years before my grandmother died when they were trying to sort out the farm. It was in a bottom cupboard in the pantry. Someone had filled it with Tupperware and old keys that didn’t fit any locks anymore—amazing it didn’t get chipped. Still beautiful, isn’t it?”

“Nice of them to donate it,” I said, feeling oddly uncomfortable as I remembered when we’d talked, at Julia’s. He’d said the same thing about me.

“The easy way out when everyone wants it,” he said. “Eleanor Roosevelt had one too.”

“Did they ever use them?” I asked, hoping to keep the conversation light.

He shook his head. “Completely nonfunctional.” He smiled at me with an arched eyebrow. “Insert joke about my family here.”

I laughed.

“Crazy to see it here, though,” he said, looking at it, and then more quietly, “Crazy to see you here.”

“I’ve always loved this place.” I gestured around at the galleries. “Love to support it.”

He nodded. “I meant in Cleveland.”

My heart skipped a beat, and I felt my face grow hot.

“I just can’t figure out why after everything, you came back here,” he said, moving closer to me.

I said nothing, looking at the bowl in front of me.

I couldn’t believe he was picking up our conversation from the estate sale again. Our parting years ago had been mutual. What was he trying to start? I thought it best to brush him off.

“I told you why.” I smiled. “I’m nesting, same as you.”

“But like you said, I was always coming back.”

I shrugged.

“You coming back here changed everything, and you know it,” he said quietly in my ear, standing right next to me.

“No,” I said.

“Yes,” he said. “And you know it.”

An elderly lady in a sequined jacket admiring the bowl on the other side of the case gave us a quick glance before she politely moved off.

“You’re happy,” I said, thinking of his wife, of the wedding, of the dinner party. “Don’t pretend you’re not.”

He ignored this. “I want to know why.”

“Why not? It’s a good place to wind up. To raise a family.”

“No,” he said, clear gray-blue eyes staring me down. “I want to know why it wasn’t me.”

Did he really want to know, or was he trying to stir up some drama, some excitement in musty old Cleveland? “The condition to being with you was coming back here,” I said. “I didn’t want someone with conditions.”

“But you came anyway.”

“Like that matters. We were never like that. You had conditions. You’d never be with someone who wouldn’t come back here and that, to me, isn’t true love. You have to be willing to give up everything.”

“Everything?” he asked. “What complete bullshit.”

“Everything, no conditions, no strings.”

He narrowed his eyes at me. “So if Jim cheated on you, you’d still love him.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“I mean you have conditions of your own—fidelity, responsibility. Don’t tell me you love him with no strings. Love is not some unconditional thing.”

“I do love him with no strings,” I said. “Love should be completely unconditional.”

He snorted, drained the last of his drink, and muttered, “Bullshit,” under his breath.

Jim interrupted us then. Sensing the tension between us, he immediately drew me under his arm. He stuck his other hand out at Cinco, who shook it with maybe more vigor than was needed. Cinco’s cloak of respectability descended as he leaned over to accept a kiss from a stout older woman in heavy gold jewelry who hustled up to him. Then he begged off, claiming to see someone he needed to talk to.

Jim studied me. “You okay?”

I nodded. “What do you think of this piece?” I asked, turning toward the Van Alstynes’ bowl.

He watched Cinco across the room. “So you and Cinco?” he said. “You grew up together?”

I shrugged. “I knew him growing up.”

“Were you ever together?” he asked. I should have known Jim’s intuition would be as strong as ever.

“We dated a little,” I said.

He was staring at me, and so I turned back to the bowl. “Love the idea of that era,” I said. “The flapper, the cropped hair, the women getting the vote and their smokes.”

“The idea is probably better than the reality. Look at the first thing they did with their vote.”

“What?” I said.

“Prohibition.” He smirked. “Sick of getting the snot beaten out of them by drunk husbands, you know. Decided to try and get the law on their side.”

Here was a bit of conditional love. I’ll love you as long as you don’t hit me. I’d never thought of it that way.

I was glad for Jim’s arm around me. My past with Cinco wasn’t something I had brooded over, until now. He hadn’t loved me like that. He’d been looking for someone to come back and deal with the farm—a partner—even if he wouldn’t admit it to himself. I hadn’t wanted someone so convention bound, so decided.

I suppose we would have looked perfect on paper—two good Cleveland backgrounds. A part of me did wonder what it would have been like with him. Could I have gotten him to leave the farm and his preconceived life? Not that it mattered. My head looped around these questions, circling back and forth—all over someone I hadn’t thought of seriously in years.

Yet, I was convinced that Jim and I belonged to one another. I suppose I was naïve, yes. But I really didn’t think there was anything Jim would ever do to make me love him less.

“Everything okay?” Jim asked low in my ear.

“Of course,” I said, my voice sounding forced and unnatural, even to my ears. “What do you mean?”

We made our way to the food, where, to my surprise, I saw William Selden and Randy Leforte having what looked like an intense conversation while each stared into a platter of vegetables. Jim shook hands with a tall balding man in a tie printed with tiny dachshunds, a business acquaintance I was sure.

I hated playing the adoring pregnant wife with Jim’s business contacts of the older generation. They rarely attempted conversation with me in my pregnant state. It was as if I was an untouchable or wearing a sign around my neck stating that, yes, I had sex with my husband.

And so I edged my way over to Selden and Leforte. They stopped talking the minute I was close enough to hear, and though I realized I was interrupting, I grasped on to them.

“Do you know Randy Leforte?” Selden asked, turning to me.

I was about to say that I did when Leforte stuck out his hand.

“Randall Leforte,” he said formally. “Nice to meet you.”

I’d met Leforte a half dozen times before, and he always forgot and greeted me as if we’d never met before. I should have said “Yes, we’ve met,” but I already felt bad crashing his conversation, and so I smiled and shook his hand.

Leforte turned to Selden then. “We should get a drink sometime. You should call me.”

Selden gave a little jerk of his head up once—an agreement and a dismissal. “Sure.”

“Just thought you should have all the information,” Leforte said, as if in apology, and then edged into the crowd.

“Asshole,” Selden breathed. He turned then, as if he realized I was there. “Sorry.”

I was taken aback by his uncharacteristic acerbity. “I’ve met him a few times,” I said. “Jim knows him better than I do.”

“He just told me the goddamnedest thing,” Selden said, and then took my elbow and steered me toward the bar. “I need a drink.”

He ordered straight tequila, which gave the bartender a start. Selden rolled his eyes at that, downed the drink, and then asked for another. When he’d finished that too, he turned to me.

“I know you’re her good friend,” he said, nodding. “Leforte just told me that Ellie is being kept by Gus Trenor.”

“Kept?” I scoffed. “Like this is the nineteenth century or something?”

“Like they’re having an affair.”

“I know Gus has made some investments for Ellie. I think he’s managing her money.” I started twisting my cocktail napkin.

William shook his head. “He implied they were lovers and he was supporting her, had bought her an apartment.”

William was usually so easygoing that it unsettled me to see him upset. “People can be mean about Ellie, you know, because she’s so beautiful. Ellie’s still living in her mother’s house, I’m pretty sure,” I said, the napkin fraying in my hands. I was actually used to setting the record straight about Ellie. Rumors always flew around her. But Selden’s intensity made me nervous.

“He told me he’d been seeing Ellie for a while, but she broke it off. I don’t understand you people sometimes,” he said, gesturing toward me.

“What people?” I asked, confused now.

“You guys. Women. Is that what you like? Leforte?” He was angry. Things must have been serious with Ellie.

“Umm … no …,” I said, the napkin coming apart in my hands, bits of it fluttering to the floor.

“The man’s as slimy as they come. And Gus Trenor? I suppose he’s powerful. That’s what you guys like—right? Being dominated?”

I almost choked on my sparkling water. “Dominated by an old gym sock like Gus Trenor? Yes, most women are dying for that.”

This brought a weak smile from Selden.

“Plus he’s married,” I said as I set my drink and my shredded napkin on a passing waiter’s tray.

Selden rolled his eyes. “Naïveté doesn’t suit you,” he said acidly.

“Harsh,” I said, wincing.

“Oh right,” he said, looking at me. “Of course you’re married to a solid guy, yeah?”

“Ellie’s not interested in Gus Trenor beyond his keeping track of her money. She has enough options without resorting to married men.”

Selden gave me a funny look then.

“It’s probably just gossip. Leforte’s not the most subtle man in the world.”

Just then Ellie walked up and kissed Selden on the cheek. Seeing this register no effect on him she said, “Please don’t tell me you’re scandalized. I am catching so much grief for showing a little tit. You’re an intellectual.” She kissed his other cheek. “Aren’t you supposed to be above the middlebrow flock?”

“Drink?” Selden asked, taking her champagne glass and walking away before she could answer.

I didn’t like Selden’s tone or that he was getting her another drink. She gave me a puzzled look, and I shrugged as if to say I had no idea either.

But I did understand, and I thought Ellie probably did too. Selden idealized love. His specialty was the Romantic poets, for God’s sake. So though he might have affairs, he was looking for a true love to settle down with, someone to have children with and grow old with. He was a romantic, an innocent, at heart a hypocrite. Even though he might be involved in an extramarital affair, the woman he loved and eventually married should never be involved in such a thing. Now that I saw this clearly, I realized this was probably why he was still a bachelor. Add the wink and the boob, and things didn’t look good for Ellie.