Gilded Age (14 page)

“He is.” Ellie shrugged.

“I don’t think he’s been doing too well recently. I’ve heard about some setbacks.” Jim had told me this, and I’d promised to pass it on. Jim’s mentioning it to Ellie first thing made me think that Gus’s situation must be worse than I imagined. Either that or he was trying to get me in trouble with Ellie. Was there something he wasn’t telling me? “Wouldn’t want you involved in a bad situation.” Jim took a swig of his beer.

“It’s been good so far,” Ellie said.

“He’s over his head right now.” Business gossip in Cleveland flew faster and farther than any other kind, save that concerning adultery.

“Actually, he’s helping me find a place to live. I’ve been looking at some condos, and he thinks he knows one that’s an excellent investment. That’s pretty solid, right? Real estate?”

“They’re saying we’re probably at the bottom of the market. Great time to buy.” Jim nodded, but I could see he’d gone a bit pale. “Anyway, I just wanted you to have the information.”

“So sweet,” she said, suddenly turning to me. “So protective. You really did nab one of the last decent men out there.” She took a canapé off a passing tray.

I was going to ask Ellie where she’d been headed after our lunch the other day when we were besieged by Gus.

“Ellie-belle,” he said with a strange proprietary air. “Come let me introduce you to some people.” He guided her off with a hand low on the small of her back, almost on her ass. Jim was swept away by a group of men wanting to discuss the latest squash brackets at his club.

William Selden came over to me then, dressed in a dark blue suit with a rumpled white shirt open at the neck, no tie. He looked both rakishly handsome, as if he’d just fallen out of bed, and plainly austere—a pleasing combination.

“Half of the happiest couple I know,” he said, kissing my cheek. “How do you feel?”

The perpetual pregnant-lady question. For just a moment I thought of answering with the truth: “Every day I feel like I’m slightly hungover—either tired or nauseated or a little of both.” But I thought this unbecoming in a mother-to-be. And so I said, “Fine, thank you.” His calling me happy echoed around in my head—a compliment that lingered like a question in my mind.

“How’s your new class?” I asked. “Ellie told me.”

“Hard to teach the first term of a new course, but it’s going well.”

“You know, I’ve been thinking about auditing a class. I thought it might give me something to do while gestating.”

He smiled. “You’d be more than welcome to sit in on a few of my classes. I didn’t know you liked poetry.”

I cocked my head to the side, considering for a moment whether or not William Selden would ever give his wife a bicycle for an anniversary gift, and decided probably not. Some poetry maybe; certainly Selden plied women with poetry, not workout gear.

“I’d love that. Maybe I’ll bring El,” I said.

“Oh, don’t do that,” he said quickly, and then to cover: “It’s just hard for me when someone I know sits in, yeah?”

I left aside the obvious fact that he knew me. But it was then that I noticed that his gaze never seemed to leave Ellie as she chatted her way around Julia’s foxhunting-inspired living room.

For dinner, I was pleased to be seated next to Cinco. He’d probably scoped out the place cards and had thoughtfully avoided me during cocktails so we wouldn’t talk ourselves out, his dancing school manners impeccable.

On my other side was Gus Trenor’s cousin Jeff, who was visiting with his wife from Manhattan and had three boys. He came home to Cleveland often and was sought out by my mother and her friends at intergenerational Christmas parties and benefits because he was chatty and wore a bow tie, which they adored.

Cinco held out my chair for me, part of Julia’s massive Chippendale set that seated twenty-four with ease. Her mother’s Venetian green glass filled with orchids and foliage sparkled in the center.

Even though our hostess was young, Julia’s dinner parties maintained a formal schedule where guests were expected to talk to the person on the left for the first course and the person on the right for the next, and dessert was served in the living room, where people could then jockey for their preferred gossip partner.

I knew how painstakingly Julia arranged her table. A reason lurked behind each seating choice, if only that you were the old friend whom she could inflict her dull cousin-in-law from New York on, as was the case with me seated next to Jeff. I knew that in consolation she’d put Cinco on my other side.

“So now we run into each other all the time,” Cinco said, placing his napkin in his lap and nodding to the waiter when offered wine.

The table around us started buzzing with conversation and laughter aided by the cocktail hour. I shook my head no when offered wine and stilled myself. The smiles, the overwhelming scent of the flowers—the room suddenly felt hot, and I felt huge. I tried to catch Jim’s eye, but he was listening closely to what Julia was saying to him. That she seated him next to her was a sure sign of her fondness for the both of us.

“I’ve been thinking about what you said at the wedding,” Cinco said, interrupting my thoughts. He’d been talking for a while, and I hadn’t heard a word he’d said.

“What’d I say?” I asked, but I knew exactly what he was referring to.

Endive salads on tiny plates appeared over our shoulders and were set down in front of us.

“You were so happy at the idea that I’d sold the farm …,” he said, trailing off, forking up a bite.

“It’s a lot, especially for someone as young as you. Especially since your wife’s not from here.”

“What do you mean?” he asked. “You’re saying a Clevelander wouldn’t be overwhelmed with the farm?”

“No, no,” I said, backtracking. The edge in his voice startled me. “But it might have been easier if she had her own family here. Or she might have known what she was getting into, maybe.”

“I think it would have been way more difficult with anyone but Corrine.”

“Way,” I agreed, mocking his slang, but it came out bitter.

We ate in silence, listening to the conversations buzzing around us for a few minutes. The sharp salad dressing made me feel a little sick. I’d only taken a few bites. Cinco was almost done with his. I took a deep breath.

“I should apologize,” I said. “It’s not really any of my business what you guys”—I nodded toward Corrine—“do out there.”

“No, I think I should apologize,” he said.

“No, no,” I said, interrupting him. He stopped, smiling, and I went on. “I really didn’t mean anything other than I would be daunted by a project like that myself.”

“Yes, you’ve made that clear.”

“Good, then I hope you know I didn’t mean anything by it.”

He chewed a bite of salad. “No, really I should apologize to you. The way we left you at Vivian’s wedding was a little …”

I shrugged. “You’re married.”

“And trying for a baby.” He winked at me.

I never know how to address this information. I mean, what does one say to a person like Cinco Van Alstyne? “Have fun”? “How’s that going?”? And of course it immediately brought to mind the idea of
them having sex. I looked at Corrine across the room as she nodded at what Dan Dorset was mumbling in her ear. Very calm, very comme il faut. I couldn’t picture them in bed, and not only because she looked like his sister. I’d never slept with Cinco. As I mentioned there were kisses and things. I’d always suspected he was tightly wound. But given his recent attentions to his wife, perhaps I’d judged too quickly.

I nodded.

“We’re going to have to go down that whole …” Here he waved a hand in front of his face. “Doctor thing soon, I think.”

Was he mentioning this because of my pregnancy? I was wearing a velvet shroud; surely he knew. Did he want to compare notes? I wasn’t sure, but this subject demands a careful tread, and so I thought I’d wait for him to speak.

But before he could, the waiters cleared the salad plates and like a weather vane, Julia turned to her right, as did everyone at the table.

“So you don’t know what you’re having?” Jeff Trenor asked me as the unobtrusive help placed a plate of shepherd’s pie in front of me. I hoped it was the Oprah chef in the kitchen.

I tried to swallow my bite so I could tell him. Unfortunately the potatoes were gluey.

“But you want a girl.”

I smiled. “I want healthy.” I didn’t want to correct him after he’d just answered his own question. He was on a tear anyway.

“Well, let me ask you something. Let’s say you have a boy.” I smiled. “When he comes of age—I don’t know what that age is nowadays,” he said with a world-weary sigh, as if bemoaning the state of the world. “But I’ve been thinking about this with my own boys.” His oldest was eight. “What will you tell him about marriage? What advice will you give? About how to do it well. What would you say?”

“I don’t think I’m the expert on doing it well,” I said.

“You have a happy marriage, no?” he said, twirling the stem of Julia’s etched crystal wineglass. There it was again, this calling out my marriage as a happy one. It wasn’t something I thought about very often—whether I was happy or not—which is likely a sure sign that
one
is
happy. But twice in one night and with the fight this afternoon, I was beginning to feel like an example—and a fraudulent one at that. It made me nervous.

I nodded. “Yes, I do.”

“Well then, what advice will you give?”

“My advice,” said Cinco on my other side, “is don’t have a baby in the first year.”

There were murmurings of assent.

“I had a close friend who had a honeymoon baby, and it looked like an awful time,” he continued.

Jeff nodded. “You’re getting used to being married to this person and then you’ve got a newborn on top of it to deal with as well.”

“Plus”—Cinco was not done—“I think you should have some time to enjoy being a young married couple, newlyweds.” He nudged me. “Don’t you agree?”

“Oh, absolutely,” I said.

“Well, my advice, and Jim”—here Jeff raised a glass toward my husband—“listen up.” The table fell silent at this. “My advice is to take the kids every once in a while. Don’t ask, don’t plan, just take them off your wife’s hands for a chunk of time each weekend, or one weekday night. Let your wife have some alone time that she doesn’t have to beg for.”

The table started twittering in approval. Jeff’s wife, seated on Julia’s other side, nodded. “It’s true, he does it almost every weekend,” she said. Everyone was talking at once about fathers pitching in.

Jim winked at me quickly across the table.

Jeff turned back to me then. “You’ll see.”

This bit of advice alarmed me. I was not naïve enough to think that Jim and I would be sharing all child duties equally. He worked, and I was at home. But I wasn’t anticipating needing to beg for anything. Jeff’s advice filled me with dread.

“My advice on marriage,” said Ellie, and here the room fell silent, “would be, don’t try to change someone.”

“That old saw,” someone said.

Jeff sliced his dinner with a clack on the china. I noticed Selden was listening attentively.

Ellie continued. “People can’t really change. It is true some men can be changed a little, but they wind up hating you for it. Look at Anne Boleyn.” She dragged a finger across her neck. “Why do you think she got the ax?”

“She couldn’t produce a male heir,” Cinco said.

“Trivial in the face of true love,” Ellie replied. “I think she just required that he change too much. Change the church for instance. Change what he believed about the purview of God and the role of man.”

The entire table was quiet for one full beat. Ellie’s wrestling with questions of divinity had distracted everyone.

“It works both ways though,” she continued. “Women end up not respecting men they change. Look at Camilla Parker Bowles or the Duchess of Windsor—do you think either could even stand their loves after the men changed so completely?”

“All royal examples,” someone said. “Why is that?”

“They have everything, and they can’t get it right,” Julia said at the head of the table. “Making these huge messes. I mean, why did he have to abdicate for her? She wasn’t even that pretty.”

“But so stylish.” This from Steven. “The way she wore clothes—”

“Men don’t care about that,” Selden popped in. “Contrary to what people think, men actually care about what’s on the inside. I mean, beauty is the attractor. But connection at the soul level, that’s what everyone’s looking for, right? I mean, that had to be the attraction to Camilla Parker Bowles. No matter what might be ruined, that had to be true love, yeah?” Here Selden looked directly at Ellie.

“I forget there’s a poet in the room,” Gus Trenor said, giving Selden a withering look.

“Yes,” Ellie said, taking a little sip of water. “He changed so much, put so much in jeopardy. Everything he loved, really. Don’t you think he must hate her a little bit for it?”

Talk overtook the table now. I heard agreement with Selden,
agreement with Ellie, and then a loud “Those royals are all emotionally retarded inbreds anyway,” from I don’t know whom.

I saw that Jeff had a little smile on his face. His job as ringmaster raconteur had been fulfilled. “So,” he said, turning back to me. “Why do you think we’re fascinated by royals in another country? I mean, who cares about them anyway?”

“We’re like the Greek chorus,” I said. “We need something to comment on.”

“Yes …,” he said, taking a bite of the shepherd’s pie. When he finished chewing he said, “So, Ellie,” and gestured with his emptied fork to the other end of the table where she sat. “She’s a good friend of yours?”

“I’ve known her since we were girls.”

“I knew her in New York a little. I’d run into her at parties.”

I nodded. “Oh.”

“You know, contrary to what she said, people can change even if you’ve known them all your life,” he said, considering me out of the side of his vision. “Don’t you find her changed?”

“We all grow up, but a person’s core doesn’t really change—does it? She’s essentially the same person I knew.”

“You don’t think our moral compasses change after childhood?”

I was taken aback by his dropping his bantering tone and tried to cajole him back into it. “Isn’t that what we were just talking about? How things really don’t change?”