Toxic Bachelors (32 page)

“The guy just has no flex, there's no give in what he expects.” They both knew from their own lives that in a relationship one had to bend. “He said she lied. Shit, who doesn't sometimes? It happens. People do stupid stuff.” Sylvia nodded, curious about what had happened.

“What did she lie about?”

“He didn't say. My guess, judging from past history, is that it wasn't something important, but he used it as an example, or an excuse, to illustrate that she could lie over something big. That's usually how it works. It's like Kabuki. He makes a lot of ugly noises and faces, and acts shocked. He 'can't believe …' Believe me, I know the drill. It's just such a goddamn shame. He's going to wind up alone for good one of these days.” In fact, he already had.

“Maybe that's what he wants,” Sylvia said thoughtfully.

“I hate to see that happen to him.” Gray smiled sadly at her. He wanted to see his friend as happy as he was himself these days. Everything between him and Sylvia was great, and had been since they met. They laughed sometimes over the fact that they hadn't had a single disagreement, or even a first fight. They knew that something would come up one of these days, but it hadn't yet. They seemed to be perfectly matched in every way. The honeymoon was still in full bloom.

Charlie showed up at exactly six o'clock on Thanksgiving Day. He brought two fabulous bottles of red wine with him, a bottle of Cristal, and another of Château d'Yquem. They were all set for a terrific evening of great wines, good food, and good friends.

“My God, Charlie, we could open a liquor store with all this,” Sylvia exclaimed. “And it's such fantastic stuff.”

“I figured if we were going to have hangovers tomorrow, we might as well do it on great stuff.” He smiled at her.

Sylvia was wearing black velvet pants and a white sweater, and had wound her long black hair into a knot. She was wearing small diamond earrings, and she smiled tenderly every time her eyes and Gray's met. Charlie had never seen his friend so happy, and it touched his heart. Gone were the nutcases and neurotics, the psychotic ex-boyfriends threatening their lives, the women who left him for someone else at the drop of a hat, or tried to set fire to his paintings on the way out. Sylvia was precisely what every man should have. And it was obvious to anyone who saw them that Gray meant just as much to her. Charlie was relieved to see that she treated him like a king. It warmed his heart to see it, but at the same time it made him feel left out. In the company of people who loved each other to that extent, one always felt the absence of all one didn't have. It was bittersweet for him. Sylvia had prepared a delicious meal with Gray's help. The table looked beautiful, the linens perfect, the flowers she had arranged herself just right. Gray was living well, and basking in the warmth of the love he shared with her.

The subject of Carole didn't come up until halfway through dinner. Charlie never mentioned her, but Gray finally couldn't stand the suspense anymore, and brought it up.

“So what happened with Carole?” He tried to sound casual as he asked him, but he sounded anything but, as Sylvia gave him a glance. She was sure it was a painful topic, and she didn't think Gray should ask. But it was too late to stop. He had jumped in with both feet. Charlie didn't react. “What did she lie to you about?”

“Oh, just a minor matter, like who she is. She didn't even tell me her right name. Apparently, she's traveling through life incognito, and didn't think it was worth telling me the truth.”

“Wow, that's too bad. Is she hiding from an old boyfriend or something? Some women do that.” He was trying to make excuses for her. Knowing how terrific Charlie had thought she was, he hated to see yet another good one wind up in the trash. For his friend's sake, if nothing else, he wanted to give their failing romance CPR. But from the icy tone of Charlie's voice, it sounded like it was already dead and Gray's well-intentioned efforts came too late.

“No,” Charlie answered slowly, “she's hiding from herself.”

“I've done that, so have you. Some people do it all their lives.”

“I guess that's what she had in mind. I found out by accident. I thought she was lying about her credentials at first. It turned out to be more complicated than that. She was concealing her identity from everyone. She pretends to be a simple girl who hates the fancy social world, and only respects people working in the gutters of life, as she is, which is admirable, but her humble origins are bullshit in her case. She had me feeling guilty for everything I am and have, how I live, and where I was born. I was even afraid to tell her about the boat.”

“So? She's not what she claims? She's a princess in disguise?” It didn't sound like a death penalty offense to Gray. But to Charlie, it was.

“It turns out she's a Van Horn, for chrissake. She's just as 'fancy' as I am, if you want to call it that. I didn't even bother mentioning it to her, but as I recall, her grandfather had a bigger yacht than mine.”

“A
Van Horn
Van Horn?” Gray looked surprised.

“Yeah.” Charlie said it as though she had had sex with his best friend in plain sight in the lobby of the Plaza Hotel, while being filmed by the press.

“Wow! That's pretty impressive. The Van Horn thing, I mean. Shit, Charlie, that should make things easier for you. Why the hell are you pissed off? You're not playing Pygmalion here, which is hard to do. You know, 'you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear' and all that stuff, although a lot of people try, but it's damn hard and usually doesn't work. She has a pedigree of her own, which may even be better than yours. Is that what's bothering you?” Gray said insightfully, as Sylvia winced. Gray was not hiding what he thought.

“No, of course not. I'm not jealous of her pedigree.” Charlie looked annoyed. “I don't like the fact that she lied. She made a fool of me. There I was thinking that she was feeling shy about my kind of life, while I was tiptoeing around and apologizing, and it turns out she grew up just like I did. She may not like that world, but it's home base for her too. Simply put, she's full of shit. All that humble simplicity is just a lot of pretentious phony bullshit in her case.” He sounded furious as he said it, and Gray laughed.

“Don't hesitate to tell us what you really think,” he teased. “Okay, so she's pretending to be a nobody. So fucking what? That can't be an easy name to wear with the kind of work she does. Neither is yours. Maybe she doesn't want to play Lady Bountiful coming down to the masses from on high. She wants to be one of them and not have to deal with all that shit. Can you blame her, Charlie?”

“Yes, I can. It's fine to lie to the people where she works, if that's what she wants. But it wasn't okay to lie to me. She told me she lived in a one-room studio. Hell, she lives in a ten-million-dollar brownstone on the Upper East Side.”

“Really, how disgusting of her,” Gray said scathingly. “I'm shocked! And what do you think your apartment on Fifth Avenue with the breathtaking view of Central Park is worth these days? Five million? Ten? And let's see, what did you pay for
Blue Moon
? I can't remember. Fifty million?… Sixty?”

“That's not the point.” Charlie glowered at him. “The point is that if she lied to me about her name and who she is and how she grew up, she'd lie to me about something else, and probably already has.”

“Maybe not,” Gray said bluntly. It sounded like the proverbial tempest in a teapot to him. At Carole's expense. Charlie had poured the tea right over her head, and stormed out. It didn't sound like a fair fight to Gray. With Charlie, it never was. And in the end, although he didn't see it that way, Charlie lost. That much was very clear to Gray, especially now. His whole perspective on life had changed in the past few months. “Maybe all she wanted was to be like everyone else. Don't you want that sometimes? Do you always want to be Charles Sumner Harrington? I'll bet you don't. Shit, Charlie, give her a chance. Okay, so you felt stupid when you found out who she was. But is that so terrible? You really can't forgive her something like that? How perfect are you, for chrissake?”

“I don't lie to people I love. I don't even lie to my friends. I've never lied to you.”

“Okay, that's why we love each other. But I'll tell you one thing right now, I'm not leaving Sylvia to marry you.”

“Damn,” Charlie said with a laugh, “I was hoping you would.” He glanced at Sylvia. “Sorry, Sylvia, I saw him first.”

“I'm happy to share him with you,” she said honestly, and then decided to put in her two cents, for whatever it was worth. “I don't mean to butt in, and I see your point. It always worries me too when people do something I don't like. I figure there's more hidden somewhere that I don't know about yet, kind of the tip-of-the-iceberg theory. But I suspect in her case, her heart was in the right place, or it could have been. For people like you, and her, you never really know what people want, or who they see. I think Gray may be right in this case, she may have just wanted a clean slate. She should have told you at some point, and maybe sooner than she did. It's unfortunate you had to discover it for yourself. But she sounds like a terrific woman, from everything you said, and you have a lot in common. Maybe you should give her another chance. We all need a break sometimes. And you can always walk if you get another whiff of something you don't like. You're not committing for life. There are compromises in every relationship, as we all know. Unfortunately, none of us are perfect. You may need a bit of indulgence from her at some point. It's a trade-off in the end, a lot of things you love about someone, for a few things you don't. As long as the scale stays weighted on the positive side, it's worth putting up with a little shit. And it sounded to me, before this happened, that there's a lot about her you do like.” She fell silent as Charlie looked at her. She saw two deep pools of sadness in his eyes. There was a lot of pain in his soul that he never shared. There were tears in his eyes when he looked away.

“I just don't want to get hurt. Life is hard enough as it is.”

Sylvia reached out and touched his hand, as they sat next to each other at the beautiful table she had set. “It's harder alone. I know,” she said, with a lump in her throat. He looked back at her and nodded, but he wasn't sure he agreed. It was hard alone, but it was harder still losing someone you loved. He knew she had been there too. Her last lover's suicide had nearly taken her down with it.

“I don't know,” he said sadly, “maybe you're right. I was just so furious. I felt so ripped off. And I felt like such a fool when I found out. She has an absolute aversion to her own world and her own kind. She hates everything it represents. How healthy and normal is that?”

“Maybe her life wasn't so easy either as a kid,” Gray added. “We all think everyone has it so great. We don't know who was dumped on, who was abused, who was kicked around, who was neglected, who was molested by their uncle. You just don't know. We all have tough stuff to live with. No one gets off scot-free. Maybe hers wasn't such a cakewalk either. I've read a lot about her father, he's a pretty important guy, but he doesn't sound like a sweetheart to me. I don't know, Charlie. Maybe you're right, maybe she's just a lying piece of shit, and she'll break your heart, and your balls. But what if she isn't? What if she's just a decent human being who got sick and tired of being who she is, and growing up as the kid of one of the richest guys who ever lived? It's hard to imagine for someone like me, but you of all people should know that the responsibilities that come with who you are aren't a lot of fun sometimes. To tell you the truth, I love the things you have, and I have a hell of a good time on the boat with you, but honestly, when I take a good look, I'm not sure I'd want to be you every day. Sometimes it looks like a lot of hard work and goddamn lonely to me.” It was as honest as Gray had ever been with him, and Charlie was touched. More than his friend knew.

“You're right, it
is
hard work, and lonely at times. But you don't get a choice in the matter. They pass you the baton at some point, sometimes sooner than later, as happened to me, and off you go. You don't get to sit on the sidelines and whine, and say you don't want to play. You do the best you can.”

“It sounds like she is. Maybe she just needed a break from being her.”

Charlie looked pensive as he pushed some crumbs around the tablecloth, thinking of what Gray and Sylvia had said. There was a possibility that it was true. “The woman who told me who she is said that she'd nearly had a nervous breakdown when her marriage fell apart. She pretty much told me that herself early on. Her ex-husband sounds like an abusive bastard, and a sociopath. I've met him, and he's not a nice guy. He made plenty of money on his own, but I think he's a real shit. I have a feeling he may have married her because she's a Van Horn.” Gray had made a good point. Maybe she needed to take a break from all that. She had been living her life in hiding for nearly four years. She felt safer on the streets of Harlem than she did in her own world. It was a sad statement about her life, and all that had happened to her, some of which he knew she hadn't told him yet. It was just too hard for her. “I'll think about it,” he said, and then they all breathed a sigh of relief as the subject of conversation moved on to other things. It had been heavy for all of them talking about his feelings about Carole. They all had issues of their own, scars and pain and fears. Life was about how you managed to get around the shoals and reefs of life without running aground and sinking the ship.

Charlie stayed with them until ten o'clock that night, talking and chatting about what they were all doing. They told funny stories about themselves and each other, about living together. He talked about the foundation, and the subject of Carole never came up again. He felt nostalgic and hugged them both when he left. It touched his heart to see them so happy together, but increased the sharp focus on his own loneliness too. He couldn't even imagine what it felt like to be like that, two people slowly weaving their lives together after so many years on their own. He would have liked to try it, he thought, but at the same time so much about it frightened him. What if they got tired of each other, or betrayed each other? What if one of them died, or got sick? What if they simply disappointed each other and the erosion of time and the ordinary agonies of life just wore them down? What if tragedy struck one or both of them? It all seemed so high-risk.