West of Paradise (28 page)

“I'm not many people,” Kate said.

“That's why I called,” said Wendy. She turned towards the wooden-latticed railing, so her face would be visible only to the swans, gliding on the artificial lake below. But the slight quiver of her chin was unmistakable.

“I'm very glad you did,” Kate said.

When she turned back, there were wells of tears in Wendy's eyes. “Have you a lot of friends?”

“Not really. Certainly not in L.A.”

“I had only one great friend here, and I'm afraid she's turned out to be rather small.” A single tear slid down her peaches-and-cream cheek. She wiped it away with a quick, barely perceptible gesture, her hands expert at wiping away tears faster than anyone could see them. Her fingers came to rest on the arm of the wicker chair.

Without even meaning to, not knowing if it would constitute audacity, but unable to control the conciliatory gesture, Kate touched Wendy's hand. “I'm sorry,” she said.

“Have you a big family?” Wendy asked her.

“I'm an only child,” she said.

“I, too. That makes it lonely when you're little, don't you think? And your parents?”

“My father died. But they were divorced,” Kate said, hearing how cruel the word suddenly sounded. Below them a florist had approached the white pillared gazebo, arms laden with white and apricot roses. Two assistants trailed her, carrying greens. The garden of the Bel-Air was famous for weddings, Kate knew from her forays through the social pages. She also knew it was Wendy's favorite hot-watering spot, the place where she often took tea. Right now the hotel was apparently setting up for another ceremony. Salt on Wendy's wound, Kate thought, hoping that with her back to the proceedings, Wendy might not note what was happening. She might not see the sheaves of leaves being wound around the white-painted pillars, softening them with greens like streamers, pinning them with white satin bows.

“I feel it's a kind of bond, your returning the note. So forgive me if I seem impertinent.”

“You're the least impertinent person I've ever met,” Kate said.

“I haven't been on my own to make friends since O levels. I'm not quite sure what to ask. But I would like to know about you.”

“Well, I only recently moved to Los Angeles. I'm a writer.” She hoped that Wendy would know nothing of the Fitzgerald tale. Kate couldn't imagine that she read the trade papers. “I'm from Nebraska.”

“Nebraska,” Wendy said. “How wonderfully American. One can practically hear the wheat grow.”

“What luck! Wendy!” A tall, lean, red-haired man approached their table. As he did, the security man stepped forward, checking Wendy's face for recognition.

“Binky!”

Kate took in the full formality of his gray three-piece suit, an actual weskit beneath the jacket, warm as the day was. His collar was starched, as his attitude seemed to be, his diamond-printed tie tightly knotted, the handkerchief that peeked from his pocket a not-quite-perfect coordination to the tie, the border of it red.

“I'd heard you moved here,” the man said. “May I join you for a moment?”

“Of course,” Wendy said. “What are you doing here?”

“But I live here,” said Binky, pulling out the chair.

“At the hotel?”

“In Beverly Hills. Hello, you,” he said, fondly.

“This is Kate Donnelly,” Wendy said. “Binky Danforth-Smythe.”

“Delighted.” His smile was ready, but flawed, the teeth a little small, and not very white.

“Would you like some tea?” Wendy asked.

“I'm British,” he said.

She signaled for another cup.

“I say, you're looking better than ever.”

“Really?”

“Absolutely. You … I don't know … you've matured.”

“Hardened,” Wendy said.

“On the contrary. You look softer. Prettier, actually.”

“You're flattering me.”

“As a matter of fact, I am. But you deserve to be flattered. You've been really impressive.”

“Stiff upper lip?” Wendy said.

“Well, in my opinion, it isn't you who's been stiff. You've made us very proud.”

“You've married?”

“No, I meant all of us. The English.”

For reasons she could not fathom, Kate didn't like him. The way he'd said “Hello, you” had made her the slightest bit bilious, a familiarity in the intonation that sounded distasteful as well as cloying. Maybe she was just being possessive, poised as she'd been on the brink of this unexpected friendship. She could feel Wendy's heart, how good it was, and cracked. Kate had thought so much about herself since coming to Los Angeles, been so caught in trying to advance, that the prospect of being able to help someone else had made her really happy. Self-absorption seemed to float on the local air, like pollen, afflicting everyone, even those who didn't know they were susceptible. She resented his having interrupted their getting to know one another.

“What are you doing that lets you live in Los Angeles?” Wendy asked, as she poured.

“I have a travel agency,” he said. “Here's my card.” He took one from his wallet, handed it to Wendy, saw that Kate was watching him. “Wouldn't want to seem rude,” he said, and handed one to her. He turned his full attention back to Wendy. “Is there anywhere you'd like to go?”

“Into a hole, like Alice. Milk?”

“Nothing, thank you. I can think of better places. Puerto Vallarta, for instance. They're running an amazing special. I've been considering going there next weekend. Would you like to join me?”

“I don't think I can,” said Wendy.

“Well, don't think,” said Binky, and took a hearty gulp.

To Kate's unforgiving delight, it was apparently a little hot. She watched him struggle not to react.

“Well, hello!” Wilton Spenser said, jogging over to the table in workout clothes. There was a band around his close-cropped hair. Over his shoulder he carried a man's leather purse. He looked past Kate at Wendy. “No wonder you dropped me.”

“I didn't drop you,” Kate said good-naturedly, smiling. This was a more welcome interruption than Binky's had been, funny as Wilton was, outrageous. She only hoped he wasn't carrying any of his goods in the purse. “I've been really busy.”

“So I see.”

“Do you know … how do I introduce you?” she asked Wendy.

“Just Wendy.”

“Wendy. Wilton Spenser.”

“Chawmed,” he said deliberately, and kissed her hand. “Is that alright to do if I don't drip sweat?”

“Behave yourself,” Kate said.

“Well, this is really nice,” Wilton noted. “All the royalty. Real royalty. Literary royalty…”

“Stop,” Kate said firmly. “Wendy and I were just finding out who each other
really
is.” She underlined the word with her diction, warning him with her eyes.

“I'm Binky Danforth-Smythe,” Binky said.

“I would have known that without your saying anything,” said Wilton.

“You've heard of me?” Binky asked, surprised.

“No. I just knew you had to have a hyphen. Oh, I've waited so long to meet a hyphenate, I thought the day might never come. And to think you're also a Binky!” Wilton clapped his hands together.

Binky made no attempt to conceal his distaste. He turned towards Wendy. “May I phone you?” He took out a small black book from his pocket, with a tiny gold pencil in its leathered loop, and handed it to her. She took it and started to write.

“Beware of men with little black books,” Wilton said.

“Beware of men who carry purses,” said Binky.

“I have to make a delivery,” Wilton said, and kissed Kate's cheek. “Call me when you return to the common people.”

“Is he some kind of grocery boy?” Binky asked condescendingly, watching him go.

“He's an actor,” Kate said.

The three of them stayed on the terrace till people began to gather below, and the string quartet started to play. It was at the sound of Pachelbel that Wendy's eyes grew moist again. “I have to go,” she said, getting up a little too quickly, all but running from the terrace restaurant, signing the check on her way towards the veranda, followed at a fevered clip by her security guard.

“She's very fragile,” Kate noted, protectively.

“You needn't tell me about her,” Binky said. “We've known each other since we were children.”

She looked at him and tried to imagine him as a child so she'd feel better about him. There would have been just as many freckles then. The nose might not have been so pointed, downturned at its tip. The thatch of red hair had probably had a cowlick: it was plastered down now, pomaded. Somehow she had the feeling he'd been a nasty little boy, the kind that pulled at girls' braids, dipped them in inkwells. His eyes had likely always looked too close together, a signal to her of malevolence, as whites showing below the eye, as they did in Wendy, were a warning of doom. Marilyn Monroe had had eyes like that.

“She must have been a sweet little girl,” Kate said.

“Yes, rather. Spoilt, though. Self-indulgent. We didn't like each other much as children. But she's really grown.”

“In the physical or the California sense?”

“I have to go,” said Binky.

*   *   *

“Who was the queer?” Wilton said, when Kate got home and called him.

“You think he's gay?”

“I'm gay,” said Wilton. “He's
queer.
”

“You thought so, too? He made me uneasy.”

“What's happening with your career?” he said. “I guess since you were having lunch with the fallen duchess, you're pretty hot.”

“She needed a friend,” said Kate.

“We all need friends. But after the publicity you're obviously into the higher echelons.”

Actually, Kate was amazed as well as appalled by the circles the hot air had lifted her into. She'd had a meeting with Victor Lippton himself to discuss the awful script. He'd been so impressed with her contempt for it he'd asked if there was anything else she wanted to do. She'd told him her idea about Larry Drayco. He'd dismissed it, holding out for the Fitzgerald story. “They all want Grandpa's book,” she said.

“What you probably ought to do,” said Wilton, “is write the unpublished Fitzgerald. You know so much about him, you could probably do it.”

“That's fraud,” Kate said.

“Linus was right. You are cute. ‘Fraud.' What do you suppose this business is about? Who do you think started it? Short little men from Chicago who had to bring in people to show them what forks to use. Whose English was so bad all anyone had to do was talk with a British accent and they'd put him in charge. That was the way it was here in the twenties. And you think it's come that far? Look at how everyone slobbers over the duchess.”

“She's really very touching,” said Kate.

“
You're
touching. Still trying to be sincere. Look through your files. Maybe you can find his manuscript.” There was a click on the line. “Oh, I hate that fucking call waiting. It's so rude.”

“Then why do you have it?”

“I might miss something,” said Wilton. “Hold on.” He was gone from the line for a moment, came back. “I have to go. It's a customer.”

“Aren't you embarrassed?”

“What? In this town? I feel proud to be a dope dealer. I don't hurt anybody. How many people here can say that? I wish I could hang out a shingle. I wish I had a son, so I could take him into the business. Spenser and Son. I'll call you.”

*   *   *

“What I'd like to know is, how did that microphone get under your mattress?” Victor Lippton said. They were in Alexa's house in Benedict Canyon, the one she'd bought to make it easier for him, so he could stop on his way to and from the studio on days when he couldn't make it to the gym. She'd also taken a little pied-à-terre in Santa Monica, so if he got all heated up while doing his workout on the neighboring treadmill, they'd have someplace to go.

“It had to have been my maid,” Alexa said. “The bitch. After I brought her whole family up from Guatemala.”

“Rosa doesn't even speak English,” Victor said, having gone through his own frustration with her on the telephone. He leaned towards that telephone now. It was a decorator French phone, ivory, old-fashioned, with a gold-surrounded dial and a gold cradle for the receiver. They had spent many fevered evenings with him on the other end, calling from his cell phone, with Alexa like an odalisque naked on this bronze satin sofa, as she'd described herself in minutest sexual detail to him, while she fingered her nipples and played with herself and drove him crazy. Even now, with his marriage on the line, and maybe his life if his father-in-law found out, just watching her undo the pearl buttons on her silk blouse to reveal a glimpse of the great pointed breasts in their lace embroidered sling clouded his mind, obscured the intelligence that had chaired a dozen boards, not all of them commandeered with his money.

“She knows enough to have gotten ambitious,” Alexa said. “That happens as soon as they cross the border.”

“But you'd have to be pretty sophisticated to know what to do with a tape.”

“Probably someone bribed her to set it up.”

“In order for someone to do that, they'd have to know you were involved with me. And you swore no one knew.”

“No one but my astrologer.”

“You told Serena?” Shock softened his erection.

“I didn't have to tell her. She saw you, conjuncting my Venus. She saw you before you even appeared. A handsome, powerful Gemini, with a beautiful cock.” She started to unzip him.

“Never mind,” he said, and stopped her hand. “Maybe they've hidden a camera.”

“Oh, darling, no harm can come from the tape. All you have to do is give that Lila person what she asks.”