In Search of Love and Beauty (18 page)

Mark's relationship with Kent was far more complicated. All week in the city Mark kept long office hours and had meetings and site inspections and all sorts of business to attend to, and during that time he could only hope that Kent was, if not profitably, then at least innocently, employed. Of course he called frequently—and it was remarkable how often Kent was at home, so that it was really unreasonable for Mark to be so agitated when he was out. Whenever that happened, Mark called again and again, every ten minutes sometimes, in between all his business, and when Kent at last
answered, Mark couldn't stop himself from saying first thing: “Where
were
you?” Kent didn't answer that question, and when Mark held out an excuse for him—“Were you out taking pictures?”—he didn't take it up, too proud or too indifferent either to account for himself or to tell a lie.

For his own social pleasure, Mark wouldn't have gone anywhere near the Old Vienna. But he sometimes took out-of-town people there—businessmen from Oregon or Oklahoma with whom he had property dealings. Some of them brought their wives, eager to see exciting aspects of New York, and with them the Old Vienna was always a great success. They didn't realize that they were mainly excited by people like themselves who had been brought there for the same purpose. In vastly increasing its popularity, the Old Vienna had changed its character. While in earlier years—in Leo and Louise and Regi's heyday—it had been a gathering place for theatrical and other well-heeled bohemian circles, now only the audience of this former clientele remained. If people connected with the arts came in, they were mainly agents or publicity managers. But these were certainly impressive enough to give full satisfaction to Mark's guests: they dressed very stylishly, ordered lavishly on expense accounts, and spoke famous names often and loudly. The management had, over all these years, not only maintained the standard of its performance but brought it up to a higher pitch. Chandeliers, mirrors, and blue velvet were there in such profusion that they were almost a parody; the dishes on the menu had retained their exaggeratedly Viennese quality; and while the cooking was nothing to write home about—who came to the Old Vienna to eat, anyway, except Leo—there were some wonderful drinks. Made up of a basis of vodka or brandy mixed with fruit juice and liqueurs, these were sweet, pungent, and unexpectedly potent.

One day, when Mark came in with a couple from Portland, Oregon, Mr. and Mrs. Cross, the first person he saw
sitting there was Kent. He was with an older man, who wore a pink shirt and had gray hair beautifully modeled in a boy's haircut. They had one of the tables for two down the center—as it happened, Regi and Louise's table—so that Mark, whose party was in an alcove at the side, had a good view of them. Although electrically aware of Kent's presence, Mark in no way neglected his guests. After ordering the house specialties for them, he casually mentioned some of the interesting people who had figured there in the past. He pointed out Leo's table; he explained the signed photographs of other celebrities which could be glimpsed through the potted lemon trees; he greeted people here and there and murmured their connections; he drew their attention to the hatcheck girl—into her fifties now—who had once been slapped at her post by a famous actress. It did not take much of this to enchant his guests—especially Mrs. Cross (Alice) who sat next to Mark on the velvet banquette; her husband faced them, overflowing his little gilt Viennese chair.

Mark liked Mrs. Cross, and it seemed she liked him. She had pressed her leg against his, and he good-naturedly left it there. It didn't make any difference to him though probably a lot to her, reminding her of much earlier days when she had sat with her leg pressed against the young man who was taking her out. Mark was used to this; it often happened to him with the middle-aged matrons whom he had to entertain in the course of business along with their middle-aged husbands. He had worked it out that it was being around these social scenes that excited them and brought back the time, full of possibilities, when they had been pretty girls. They tended to recall scenes from that time—at this very moment Mrs. Cross was talking about the party her parents had given for her and some of her friends at the country club on their high school graduation. She had worn a dress of lemon-yellow net over silk and had petted in the rose arbor with a youth called Philip whom she had liked all through senior year but until
that night had thought to be more interested in her friend Lynn. The party had been less successful for Lynn—in aqua net over silk—and in the early hours of the morning she had had some sort of crisis in the changing room by the pool. Alice talked about all this with a tender, nostalgic smile on her pretty, wrinkled face. Mark found her delightful—he loved these wives—and so did her husband. Mr. Cross was a big, bearlike, ugly man, self-made and rich, but as he listened to his wife he wore an adoring, utterly weak and tolerant expression. While pressing her thigh against Mark's, she also exchanged smiles with her husband and their eyes spoke to each other in a way that moved Mark and made him glad to be with them.

Meanwhile, something within him keen as a hunter was poised in Kent's direction. He saw that Kent's companion was really putting himself out. He was a man considerably older than Mark, and much older than Kent. But he had kept himself together pretty well and presented a distinguished appearance with his gray suit matching his gray hair and the ensemble lightly relieved by his pastel shirt. He appeared to be a successful professional man—an actor's agent? a show business lawyer?—and with his good manners and pleasant life-style supported by easy means, he would make an excellent, not to say delightful, friend: this would be the aspect of himself that he was just then presenting to Kent. Mark guessed their acquaintance to be in its earliest stage, for Kent's companion was making conversation with him in that rather formal, mannered way—weaving his hands in stylized gestures—that showed he was going through the introductory passages in which he would be trying both to impress Kent and to test him out.

Kent was listening in the impassive manner that Mark knew well. He also knew that this manner would be as exciting to Kent's companion as it used to be to himself. It always suggested that Kent was thinking of something else—that in
spirit he
was
somewhere else, somewhere more beautiful and pure like in a meadow or by a stream. In fact, however, Mark reflected rather sadly, Kent wasn't there at all nor did he want to be. In spite of his faraway look, he was very much here in the Old Vienna, with waiters running around to serve little drinks and leaning sideways under trays of hors d'oeuvres; and moreover, though appearing to ignore them, he was perfectly attuned to the meaning of his companion's gestures and knew how to respond or, if he so chose, not respond to them.

Alice Cross, smiling at the recollection, wondered what had happened to Philip, the brightest boy in the class of—(well, never mind, she said, with a wink at her husband, not giving any dates away). He had been really something—all the girls had had a thing for him, and he had been voted not only “Most Likely to Succeed” but also “Most Stylish Man of the Year.”

Mr. Cross had information: “He failed in the air-conditioner business and, as far as I know, moved to Roseburg.”

“You never know with people, do you?” mused Alice. She told Mark, “You remind me of him, a bit. It's the way your hair grows.” And she touched it at the temple, in a manner that was partly maternal and partly not so.

“You look out now,” her husband warned him, twinkling at the two of them across the table. “She was the belle of Beaverton High, the rangers' mascot and all of that.”

“That was just kid stuff,” smiled Alice, touching up her hair a little.

“I had competition, I can tell you.”

Mark entered into their smiling good mood; he pressed his knee against hers lightly, like a friendly, reassuring, almost paternal pressure of the hand.

Kent never glanced toward Mark's table. He sat there in lordly abstraction—one long leg stretched out along the carpet, a hand resting on his hip. Nevertheless, Mark knew that
Kent was as aware of him as he was of Kent: each feeling the other's presence more intensely than anything else that went on in that crowded place.

“The one thing I don't like in the Fifty-fourth Street lot is that crappy little house bang center,” Mr. Cross said.

“He'll sell, don't worry,” Mark assured. “He's already offered air rights.”

“Oh, please, must you, you two?” Alice said. “Spoil my evening?” She pouted in the way wives are supposed to pout when their husbands talk business on social occasions.

Mr. Cross humored her: “Someone has to pay the bills on all that shopping. Can you believe it?” he appealed to Mark. “The whole morning in Lord and Taylor's.”

“And you know very well what for,” she replied. Her leg still snug against Mark's, she too appealed to him: “I had to get his mother one of those warm robes with fleecy lining—you know how old people feel the cold.”

“Like we have no stores back home,” Mr. Cross pretended to grumble.

“Yes, and Norleen? Girls want something different from what everyone is wearing. . . . I got her the cutest little outfit you ever saw—cerise, with a darling row of buttons here and its own little blue blouse to go. She'll love it. She'll have it on her in a minute and call everyone to see.”

Mr. Cross turned red with pride: “I've never met a girl like that Norleen for going crazy over clothes. Except,” he twinkled across the table, “her mother here.”

“There he goes,” said Alice.

But Mr. Cross's attention was back on the Fifty-fourth Street lot, and Mark, always entirely alert when it came to business, responded. In the ensuing discussion, both of them forgot ahout Alice. She was used to that, and was sensible about it; this trip to New York was business-
cum
-pleasure, and she knew the business came first. And it was a privilege for her to have been brought to this place where famous people
came and to be sitting there in the company of a good-looking young man. Strange, the way his leg rested against hers; strange but nice, stirring up nice memories. As her eyes roved around the restaurant, she smiled a little to herself: she loved her life in Portland—her family, her lovely home, her reading group, her work with dyslectic children—but of course she did like glitter; she always had. Norleen was the same; her mother saw it every time she caught her looking at herself in the mirror—wondering, no doubt, if she could be a fashion model or something of that sort. It was silly, a dream, but one that never entirely faded, so that whenever Alice was anywhere really nice, like this place, glamorous, or even when she just heard a tune she liked from way back, suddenly it would be there again, filling her with strong, sweet feelings. And overcome by these, she pressed her thigh closer to Mark's: but was shocked, bewildered by the way he withdrew it as though he had been stung.

And for a moment that was just what it felt like to him. Engrossed in his business talk, he had as completely forgotten about her leg attached to his under the table as he had about her sitting beside him. Next moment he was sorry; he saw the look on her face and interpreted it exactly. He had lived close to women all his life and knew about their feelings. Not only that, but he had these feelings himself. He only needed to look across to where Kent sat with the other man to be aware of that.

Kent appeared to be in a deep reverie. He had his head back as though he were lying in a field looking up at the blue sky instead of at the chandeliers of the Old Vienna. But the more abstracted he became, the more intensely determined was his companion to hold him. The older man was talking volubly now, his hand gestures had become both more stylized and more frenzied; he frequently patted his hair and his fine necktie. Their table was too far away for Mark to see the
expression on his face, but he knew what this would be. He had often seen it on the faces of middle-aged men like Kent's companion: and the more sensitive they were, the more intelligent, the finer their nature, the more marked this expression of—what was it? Desire was one word for it, but desire in so poignant, so refined a form that it reached to what Leo, in his later teaching, had characterized as The Point.

Mr. Cross was weighing the pros and cons of various types of mortgage. Mark nodded intelligently; at the same time he placed his hand on Alice's knee under the table and smiled at her over it. He wanted to make it up to her for his momentary forgetfulness. He felt a bond with her as he did with Kent and Kent's companion. Only Mr. Cross—successful male, husband, father, Elk—was out of it.

Marietta insisted that Natasha be brought back to the city because it was time for her checkup with the dentist. Natasha had terrible teeth, but it was always a struggle to get her to keep her dentist's appointments. In earlier years, she would argue for days: “Supposing I was poor. Supposing we couldn't afford a dentist.” “You're not. We can,” they had answered her. But nowadays they didn't go into any of that with her. Mark just told her to get in the car, so she apologetically took leave from Leo and told him she would be back in a day or two. “Hm,” Leo said; he was listening to Wagner on his stereo and may not have heard what she said.

But if Leo didn't care whether she came or went, Marietta did. She wanted Natasha to stay with her, and when Mark came to take her back, she was reluctant to let her go.

“She has to go,” Mark argued. “She's got a job.”

“She doesn't need a job. And specially not with Leo.”

“Well,” Mark said, “so far he's been the only person willing to keep her.
And
he actually pays her.”

“It's you,” Marietta, who was a lot shrewder than Natasha,
said. “You made him. Probably you're paying her salary too. Isn't that something?” she said when he couldn't contradict. “I need her, and you pay her to go away.”