Gilded Age (27 page)

“I warn you, my French has not improved at all.” He wore a ratty linen jacket, torn jeans, and scuffed brown Church’s. Tortoiseshell glasses added to the professorial effect.

I smiled. “Something tells me your French was pretty good to start with.”

He made a face and quoted an aphorism about improving on perfection as he leaned down and smiled at my still-sleeping baby.

“You’re back,” I said.

“For the summer.” He straightened. “They’ve extended an offer to have me return in the fall.”

“And you’re going?”

“They invited me to give a series of lectures.”

I noted that he’d not answered my question. “Sounds good.” I nodded and loaded up my tomatoes to take my leave. “Good to see you.”

He tugged at my sleeve then. “Come get a cup of coffee with me.”

“Now?”

“I can use some of your insights. You always know what’s happening around town. I’ve been gone for months.” This, I knew, was him wanting news of Ellie.

“I can’t,” I said, gesturing toward the bottom of the stroller. “I’m shopping with a ticking time-bomb.”

We both looked at sleeping Henry.

“Are you walking home?” he asked.

I nodded.

“I’ll walk with you then.”

We paid for our purchases. He bought only a bottle of wine and a bag of pears. The bachelor life, I guess.

Once I’d settled everything, including Selden’s bag, in the bottom of the stroller, we set off up the hill. We walked on Fairmount past some of the biggest houses in town, Normandy- and Palladian-style mansions built in the twenties for the haute bourgeoisie. We passed a huge Georgian manor, brick with white pillars, and saw the front half-circle drive littered with plastic children’s toys and tricycles.

“I don’t know if you know much about my leaving,” Selden said as we turned left down one of my favorite streets. He paused, to see if I would fill in some blanks for him. I was sorry then that he was walking me home. It was one of my favorite times of day, strolling past these houses and imagining the lives that went on in them—all of the husbands and wives happy and in love. How could you not be, when you were living in that perfect Dutch colonial with the herb borders, or that Greek revival with the sunken garden on the side? I didn’t want to think about Ellie anymore, and Selden kept her in my mind. Seeing I was off somewhere else, he continued on a different track. “I know you’re Ellie’s best friend.”

“Oldest friend,” I said reflexively, for I’d started thinking about her that way recently. “It’s different.”

He noted my check and veered off. “I suppose you’re right that Ellie doesn’t have that many friends, not true ones. But you’re as close as they come, and I want to know how she’s doing.”

“You haven’t been to see her yet?”

He shook his head. “I wanted to get the lay of the land first.”

He seemed cowardly to me. If he had unfinished business with her, why talk to me? Then again Selden had run away. Avoidance was his default strategy.

Henry stirred, and I walked faster, hoping to make it home before he awoke.

Selden kept pace with me.

“She’s not good,” I said, thinking back on my meeting with Viola. “She’s floundered a little while you’ve been gone.”

This seemed to cheer him. Because it was a confirmation that she missed him, or because he wanted to see her hurt, I didn’t know.

“She’s had money trouble,” I said.

“The Gus thing—”

“Yes,” I interrupted. “He’s lost a lot of people’s money, including hers.”

He raised an eyebrow at this; perhaps he meant something else—like her supposed liaison with Trenor.

Why I said what I said next, I’ll never know. Did I want him to know the truth? Maybe I was fed up with his indecisiveness about Ellie and his romantic musings and wanted him to just cut the ties already.

And I’ll admit now that in some dark part of myself I knew I was sealing Ellie’s doom. That’s how I think of it. You might think me overly dramatic, but I don’t. For someone who had always thought herself above petty gossip, above spiteful social jockeying, when Ellie was lying in the mud, I, just as much as any of them, took my turn grinding my heel on her. I’m disgusted with myself now, but then the thrill of it egged me on. I told him that Ellie had slept with the traveling
squash player. I wouldn’t tell him about Jim and the kiss—that was too humiliating.

Selden’s head was down, studying the pavement as we walked.

“I think she’s having some issues with drinking and … things. I think that’s what led to this,” I said.

“A squash player, like a college boy …?” Selden trailed off. “She’s partying again?”

“She’s been hanging out with Neil Vonborke and that crowd.”

I knew Selden wouldn’t approve of that.

Neil and Mary Vonborke were at the center of a small group of wild couples who were the subject of much scandal. Most of my friends regularly declined invitations to their parties, which were a revolving door of acquaintances and, if rumors were to be believed, offered serious drugs, ecstasy and cocaine, and swinging too, trading partners—though I’d always disbelieved this. It seemed ridiculous to me, a holdover from the seventies. Swinging in such a close social circle—really? And how did it work exactly that you slept with your friend’s wife and then played eighteen holes of golf with him the next day? I’d always chalked those rumors up to bored gossip and maybe even a little envy—the Vonborke crowd was all good-looking and glitzy. But really, how different was it than the crowd Jim and I hung out with? Our friends smoked pot and a few had affairs. It was all a matter of degree—wasn’t it?

Then again, lots of things in life were a matter of degree.

Jim and I had attended one Vonborke party where we’d left soon after someone suggested, in jest, wife swapping. Jim was mumbling as we got in our car.

“As if,” Jim had said as we drove away.

“As if what?” I’d asked.

“As if fucking around is going to fix their existential angst and despair.”

He’d taken my hand as he drove, brought it to his lips, and kissed the back of each of my fingers, lingering on the ring finger on my left hand.

It was bittersweet now to remember that he’d said that.

Selden sighed, looking at me as we turned down my street. “You think she’s in trouble?”

I shrugged. “Isn’t that why you’re still walking with me?” What I really wanted to ask him was what, if anything, he intended to do about it, though I knew it’d sound silly. Selden, after all, wasn’t her father, or her husband for that matter.

Henry stirred and started small cries of protest.

I pushed quickly down the last half block to my house, glad to have an excuse to be rid of Selden now.

“You need to get back to your day, yeah?” Selden said, nodding to the baby.

I fished Selden’s bag out of the bottom of the stroller.

“It was good to see you,” I said, handing the sack to him.

He nodded, turned on his heel, and started his walk back down to his car in the grocery store parking lot.

The Falls

A
few weeks went by, fueling an uneasy détente between Jim and me. He came home early. He took the baby so I could have a bath, read a book, get out of the house, and go shopping—all without my having to beg, à la Jeff Trenor’s advice. He was tiptoeing around me. Clearly he knew he’d been in the wrong. It made me feel surprisingly awful, like a battle-axe, henpecking wife, like he was cringing around me—a dog waiting to be kicked. Really, we barely spoke. This feeling of guilt made me even shorter with him. Things were rapidly spiraling out of control. And yes, all over one stupid little kiss.

Because what is a kiss really when you get down to it? A meeting of lips, a mingling of breath. Is that really so intimate, so awful? I’d started to convince myself it wasn’t. Not a big deal, a small slip. And each time I was almost convinced, a small voice suggested that perhaps we were now heading down a slippery slope. That first there’s a kiss, and then there’s a tryst. And then I’d be mad all over again.

I was in this cycle—ruminate, rake husband over the coals, feel guilty, repeat—when I went shopping in Chagrin Falls, leaving the baby at home with the sitter. I sped on Fairmount Boulevard, heading
east with the stereo loud and the windows down. Driving my car, all alone, made me feel like I was back to myself, back in my body. Still, a funny absence radiated from the backseat, from the empty car seat. So I pushed the pedal down farther and turned the radio up louder and the sun shone brighter.

I had a flash then of being carefree. Of maybe sneaking a smoke and driving to meet someone, some man, for a drink. When I was single this kind of cheerful irresponsibility often included Ellie. She’d be either by my side or meeting me. Immediately I felt tinged with sadness.

I strolled down Main Street feeling free and younger than I had in a year. In my favorite clothing boutique, I bought a little black number in chiffon and gabardine by an Italian designer for too much money. I was feeling optimistic, I guess. Maybe I’d have occasion to wear the dress with Jim as we started to put things back together. The dress looked good on me now; it’d look great after I’d lost a few more pounds.

I was waiting in line for a coffee at the shop next to the falls, with my shopping bag slung over my arm, when a familiar voice and gleaming set of eyes accosted me.

“But where is your baby?” Diana Dorset asked me before even saying hello.

“At home with the sitter.” I smiled. I hadn’t talked to her since her dinner party. “He’s doing so well. So sweet.”

She smiled at me, gripping her huge coffee. I wondered if that was why she always seemed so lively, if caffeine was the fuel for those eyes. She nodded and steered us both through the doors back out into the bright sun. “So great to run into you like this. I can’t get enough of this weather, can you?” she prattled. I wondered if she’d run into Jim if she’d have asked him where his baby was. Of course not. Something about the expectations and requirements of Henry chafed today—maybe it was the sun, maybe the new dress. I knew I was being churlish, ungrateful for my gifts.

“Look at that,” Diana breathed, shaking me out of my self-concern, squeezing my forearm tighter as we walked out into the sun.

Across the street in a parking lot was Ellie’s old and beaten red BMW and next to it was a huge shiny Lexus SUV. The trunk of Ellie’s car was open and she was showing a woman with a Bottega Veneta bag and Fiorentini and Baker boots the contents of her trunk.

“What
is
she doing?” Diana asked. But I knew exactly what I was looking at.

The woman was smiling and laughing and pointing to something in Ellie’s trunk, then the woman leaned over to rummage around. Ellie smiled, her eyes hidden by her oversized sunglasses. The woman straightened up then with a pile of clothes in her arms.

Diana snorted. “Holy shit, she’s selling her clothes out of the back of her car.” I heard just the faintest glee in her voice, and it reminded me of her schadenfreude that night at her dinner party. Julia Trenor’s warning from Ellicottville rang in my ears. It’s easier to have Diana as a friend than not. I didn’t want to be her friend anymore, but I certainly didn’t want to be on her bad side either. I started leaning away from her, thinking of ways to make a quick departure.

It was then that Ellie turned and looked across the street, almost as if we’d called her name. I could see her blush scarlet under her glasses.

The woman loaded the clothes into her SUV, oblivious to Ellie’s distress and our stares. She fished a wallet out of her bag and handed a wad of bills to Ellie. Ellie took them, furtively stuffed them into her skirt pocket, and slammed her trunk shut.

The woman drove away in her SUV, and I turned to Diana. We’d both been so enrapt watching the transaction that we’d not said anything or moved. After the SUV glided past, Ellie crossed the street with purpose.

“Shit,” Diana mumbled under her breath, watching Ellie advance. She swept me up in a hug. “I’ve got to dash. I’m so late. Lovely to see you. Call me, okay?” She looked directly at Ellie, turned on her heel, and strode the opposite way down the street.

My first impulse was to leave like Diana, to turn and run. Ellie looked luminous in the sunlight wearing a silk halter, short skirt, and thigh-high suede boots. Every mother with a stroller on the street
watched her with a combination of outrage and envy. Reports of her looking haggard were not to be believed. I was trying to remember where I parked, calculating routes to get there as quickly as possible, when she waved, effectively stopping any getaway.

I suppose I stood there frozen—the deer in the headlights, the whole thing. And then she was in front of me, reaching out a hand to pull me close and hug me. She smelled herbal-clean, like quince blossoms and birch bark—her smell that I’d known since childhood. As she let me go the underlying stink of cigarettes and burned coffee swirled out from under her hair. Her arms were freckled, and as she embraced me I had an overwhelming urge to pinch the back of her arm, hard, like I’d seen her do a few times on the playground when we were children, but I didn’t.

I’d not actually seen her since Cinco’s party.

“Hey,” she said. Now that she was closer I could see she was wearing a thick mask of orange makeup that had settled into the lines around her nose and caked on the dark circles under her eyes. Her blouse was rayon and too shiny, her boots scuffed. Wadded money bulged in the pocket of her skirt.

“Hey.” I was trying not to let her catch me doing a panicky scan out of my peripheral vision to see if anyone we knew was there, watching.

“I was just …” Her voice trailed off and she started again. “I’ve started dealing in some vintage clothes. You know, stuff I find around. New stuff too. That woman was psyched with one of Steven’s dresses. He’s getting so much press now. Everyone knows about him.”

I nodded, mute, not knowing what to say. Here she was, Ellie, and she was selling things out of her car. I was angry at her, uncomfortable as hell, but there was a not small part of me that felt sadness.