Almost Perfect (30 page)

Justine could use more free-lance work; life in New York is both more expensive and more difficult than she imagined; simply getting from one place to another seems difficult. And Stella is serious both out of helpfulness to Justine and because she has not been interviewed before simply as herself: she has been part
of a group of women reporters, or, with Simon Daniels, there to talk about her father. She now has some sense of stepping out onto a stage.

Since what they are doing together is unfamiliar (an interview?), they have chosen unfamiliar grounds for it, Justine’s hotel room, courtesy of the magazine. Large and pale, its furniture and fabrics of an even, nondescript pastel (probably called “sand”), the near-opulent room could be in any city, any country, except for the view, which is almost identical to that from Stella’s new studio workroom: same bridge and boats, same seagulls.

Although Justine has her tape recorder turned on, it soon becomes apparent that this is a conversation that cannot be contained, or controlled. They digress, and digress—until it becomes silly for Stella to say, each time, “Of course you can’t use this,” and for Justine to agree, “Of course not.”

Ostensibly there to discuss Stella’s new project, her
Mexicans in San Francisco
tome (for which agent Gloria got her a whacking advance, even in these parlous early-Nineties times), they have not exactly given that topic short shrift, but certainly they have wandered from it.

One immediate but minor (very minor) problem, at which they nevertheless seem to stick, has to do with dinner: should the four of them, Justine and Bunny, Stella and John, go out together? Possibly not; on the other hand,
why
not? They all like each other, in various ways, and Justine is not here for long; she presumably wishes to maximize her time both with Stella and with Bunny, with whom she is now carrying on a bicoastal romance, which, as she more or less predicted, he loves. But so does she; it works.

However, the very idea of this foursome makes the two women laugh with embarrassment. “For one thing there’re these neat age gaps all around,” is Justine’s comment, or one of her comments. “You’re older than John—”

“Thanks for reminding me,” Stella cannot help saying.

“And Bunny’s older than I am, and of course I’m older than you.”

“I think there’s just this hint of incest.” Stella laughs.

“I sure can’t see myself as your mom.”

“But it’s okay, none of us are getting married.”

“No, it’s just a dinner.”

“So what are we fussing about?”

“Okay, let’s go back to work.”

“There is just so much I have to learn.” That is Stella’s strongest sense of her project, which she sometimes sees as literally beyond her, a mammoth bulk of facts, a monolith, that she can neither move nor comprehend. “So much,” she repeats to Justine. “Hundreds of thousands of Mexicans, all kinds of Mexicans, coming to San Francisco. And all their sisters and brothers and aunts scattered around in the valley towns, or down in L.A. Mexicans often think California is still part of Mexico.”

Speaking (recorded), there in the bland, expensive and characterless hotel room, with her friend Justine, Stella is thinking less of Mexicans in San Francisco than of Mexico City itself, how she both loves and hates it there, the smog and smells and flowers and lunatic architecture, the teeming crowds of dark large-small happy mourning people. Who remind her of herself. She now sees that she has always felt more Mexican than New England. She is more Delia—and Serena—than Prentice.

A couple of days ago Margot called to say that she had had a card from Andrew, in Mexico City. “He said, ‘R. and I will be pushing on to Guymas,’ ” Margot told Stella. “Could R. be Richard, do you think?”

“I don’t know. I suppose. I guess it could.”

Since then Stella has been sure, at times, that Richard is indeed in Mexico City. She can see him there, so tall and blond among all those dark people. As handsome as Cortés.

But at other moments she very much doubts this: how
could
Richard be in Mexico City? He could be a homeless person in San Francisco. He could be dead. (But if he were dead she would know it, Stella believes.)

*  *  *

For most of the afternoon, though, they manage, Stella and Justine, to talk about Stella’s project. Her plans and even her working habits. (“I know it’s boring, but I have to ask you this, people like to hear this nuts-and-bolts stuff.”)

And from time to time they digress.

“Well no, I’m not,” says Stella, in answer to a later, personal question. “Not at all in love with John. But I like him a lot, we mostly have fun, and I guess I’m lucky he’s around.” A pause. “I don’t see it lasting very long, though. He’ll get restless. Or I will.”

“How long were you with Richard, in all?”

“Almost two years. I was just thinking, I met him the day I’d been interviewed by Simon Daniels. I was supposed to interview Richard that same day, remember?” She suddenly smiles. “On the way to Simon’s, there was this little black girl who asked me what I was going to be on Halloween. Of course I didn’t know.” Stella laughs.

“Two years. It sure seems longer.”

“Especially to me,” Stella tells her friend. “But you know, Richard was so complicated. He was so many different people that it was like having a lot of love affairs.” She says, “When I think the words ‘in love,’ I think of Richard. But it has less and less to do with the actual Richard Fallon. If you see what I mean.”

“I think I do.”

“Richard is the name I give to a certain set of emotions,” Stella attempts. Like music left in the air when a concert is over, she thinks. The bright reflection of peonies in a mirror.

The scent of roses in a room where no flowers are.

“I just don’t give it much time anymore,” she says to Justine, with a small smile. “I’m really busy.”