People Like Us (14 page)

Loelia turned away quickly, aware that her color was rising, as Ned passed by her into the entrance of Lil’s apartment.

“You look lovely, Charlotte,” she said to her daughter. She had forgotten her children would be invited to this family party. Charlotte passed her mother without speaking and hurried after her father.

“Bozzie,” said Loelia.

“Hello, Mother,” said Bozzie.

“How grown up you look,” said Loelia. “And handsome, too.” They looked at each other and smiled.

“Thank you for my birthday present, Mother,” said Bozzie.

“I thought it would be perfect for Bermuda.”

“It Is.”

“I hope the size was right.”

“It was.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t get to your party, but, you know, I was on the committee for the Opera Guild benefit that night, and—”

“It’s all right.”

“Charlotte didn’t speak to me.”

“Charlotte was afraid you might be here with Mr. Minardos, and she didn’t want to see you with him,” said Bozzie.

Loelia blushed.

Charlotte reappeared in the entry. “Bozzie, Daddy wants you to meet Uncle Ormonde Van Degan.”

“Good-bye, Mother.”

“Good-bye, Bozzie. Good-bye, Charlotte.” Loelia stepped into the elevator and turned to look back to face her children.

“You look beautiful, Mother,” said Bozzie. As the elevator door was closing, Loelia looked at Charlotte, who stared back at her mother without replying. Alone in the elevator, Loelia sank back against the mahogany-paneled wall and closed her eyes. Then she opened her eyes and turned around to face the elevator mirror, but there was no mirror.

“If I lived in this building, I would insist that there be a mirror in the elevator instead of all these wood walls,” said Loelia to the elevator man.

“Yes, ma’am,” said the elevator man.

Loelia opened her gold minaudier and took out a mirror and looked at herself. She wiped away a tear at the corner of her eye and pinched some color into her cheeks.

“Shall I ring for a taxi, ma’am?” asked the elevator man.

“What?”

“A taxi. Do you want me to ring for a taxi?”

“No, thank you. I have a car.”

When the elevator door opened, Loelia pulled her raspberry satin coat with the sable collar and cuffs around her and walked through the lobby to the door. The doorman opened the door for her and she walked out under the canopy onto Fifth Avenue. A limousine that had been double parked pulled up to the entrance of the building. Before the driver could get out, the back door was opened by someone inside, and Loelia stepped quickly into the car. Mickie Minardos, in evening clothes, was seated there.

“Are you all right?” asked Mickie.

“Why do you ask that?” Loelia replied.

“I saw Ned and the children get out of a taxi and go in.”

“Did they see you?”

“I don’t know. I ducked down in the seat.”

“It was awful. Ned didn’t speak to me. Neither did Charlotte. Only Bozzie. It was awful.”

“Do you want to skip the party and go back to the hotel?”

“No. I want to be occupied. I don’t want to have to think. I’m desperate to get a bit inebriated.”

“Are you sorry?”

“Sorry?”

“Sorry this has happened, between you and me?”

“No, I’m not sorry. I’m madly in love with you, Mickie Minardos.”

“Even if you can’t include me in your family gatherings?”

“Even if I can’t include you in my family gatherings.”

The next morning Bernie Slatkin read of his engagement to Justine Altemus in the
New York Times
. It said that the Van Degan family had been prominent in the affairs of the city—socially, politically, and in business—since the beginning of the century. It was the first time he knew that Justine was descended, not just from the Van Degans, but from the Rhinelanders and the Republican branch of the Whitbecks as well. He thought he’d better call his Aunt Hester and Uncle Sol Slatkin, in Weehawken, New Jersey, to tell them of his engagement before someone else told them first.

11

“Maisie, will you explain to me why this horror I am looking at is a work of art?” asked Ruby Renthal, perplexed, as she stared up at the huge canvas. She had asked Maisie Verdurin to take her on a tour of the SoHo galleries on a Saturday afternoon.

“A horror! How can you say it’s a horror?” asked Maisie Verdurin, aghast.

“All those broken cups and saucers stuck into that canvas. I don’t understand why that is great art. I’m perfectly willing to learn, but you must explain it to me.”

It interested Maisie that Ruby never pretended to like something that she didn’t like, even if it was enjoying a great success. “I think perhaps Julian Schnabel is not your cup of tea,” answered Maisie.

“Tell me what is then.”

“Elias has developed a great fondness for Rubens and El Greco,” said Maisie.

“I can’t bear all those martyrs with blood coming out of their wounds hanging on my living room walls,” said Ruby.

“I think the Impressionists, or the Post-Impressionists will be more to your liking,” said Maisie. She was used to dealing with wives of rich men who needed pictures to hang on their walls. “You liked the Monet, remember.”

“I liked the pink in the Monet. I’d rather put the money into jewelry myself,” said Ruby.

“But people don’t come to your house for dinner to see your jewelry. They see your jewelry when you go out. People come to your house for dinner to see your pictures, though,” said Maisie. It was an argument she
often used to explain to the wives of great financiers the social advantages of collecting art.

“Ah ha,” answered Ruby, understanding immediately. More than anything, Elias wanted to be made a member of the board of directors of the museum and was anxious to develop a great collection as soon as possible. “No wonder everyone says you’re the best at what you do, Maisie. Let’s give some more thought to the Impressionists, or the Post-Impressionists.”

12

Cora Mandell, the fashionable decorator, knew everything about everyone in society and gossiped on to Ruby Renthal, who never got sick of hearing her stories, especially her stories about Loelia Manchester, whom Ruby admired more than any other woman, and whose friend she yearned to be. Ruby now knew, from Cora, that Loelia Manchester’s brothers and their wives had sided with Ned Manchester and not Loelia in the approaching divorce, and that Fernanda Somerset, Loelia’s mother, did not speak to Matilda Clarke, and had not for years, although Ruby did not yet know the reason. She felt a connection to the last bit of news, as Ruby was herself now the owner of Matilda Clarke’s apartment, although she wished fervently that people would stop referring to it as the old Sweetzer Clarke apartment and begin to refer to it as the Elias Renthal apartment.

Ruby and Cora were seated facing each other in Elias Renthal’s company jet. Between them the stewardess had set up a table for them to go over the revised floor plans for the new apartment. In tote bags on the floor beside Ruby were four Fabergé eggs that
she had just bought at an estate sale in New Orleans, and a gold tea service that had once been given to the Empress Josephine as a wedding gift by the island of Martinique. Cora had said it was much too expensive when they saw it at an antiques shop on Bourbon Street, but Ruby had insisted it would be a perfect wedding present for Justine Altemus.

“Oh, are you going to the Altemus wedding?” asked Cora, hoping that the surprise she felt did not show in her voice.

“Yes,” said Ruby.

“I didn’t know you knew Lil Altemus.”

“I don’t.”

“Justine, then.”

“Not even Justine. I sat next to Bernie Slatkin at my first New York party, at Maisie Verdurin’s.”

“Oh, I see,” said Cora, as if the problem was solved. “You’re a friend of Bernie Slatkin’s.” That made more sense to Cora, who knew that Lil Altemus abhorred all the New People, and the Renthals could not be classified as anything other than New People.

“No, I’m not,” answered Ruby. “I never saw him again after that night.”

“Oh,” said Cora, dying of curiosity, but she couldn’t bring herself to ask Ruby how she had received an invitation.

“Elias and Laurance Van Degan do a great deal of business together,” said Ruby, understanding what Cora was thinking.

“I see,” said Cora. She did not say that Laurance Van Degan did business with a lot of people who would certainly not be getting an invitation.

“Go on with your story, Cora,” said Ruby.

“Where was I?” asked Cora.

“Bitsy and Brassy,” prompted Ruby.

“Oh, yes. Bitsy inherited all the money,” said Cora. “She’s gone off somewhere, I don’t remember where. Antibes, I think. Someplace like that. The other sister is called Brassy. Actually she’s a half-sister. She married
Harry Kingswood, but they were divorced years ago. Her son by Harry died of a heroin overdose. Did I tell you that story? Awful. Brassy didn’t marry again. They say she’s a lesbian with one of the English duchesses, but I don’t believe it. They both love horses. That’s all. People are so quick these days to say that women are lesbians when they’re just great friends.”

Bitsy, Brassy, Harry, dykes. Ruby closed her eyes to store all this information. She always wanted to take notes when Cora told her stories, so she could repeat them all to Elias, who was as interested as she was, although he sometimes missed the point, the way he did when she told him about the marriage of Justine Altemus’s aunt, Grace Gardiner, who had had, according to Cora, “
a mariage blanc
, and a very happy
mariage blanc
,” until the death of Winkie Gardiner.

“What the hell is a
mariage blanc?
” Elias had asked Ruby, giving the words the exaggerated pronunciation he always gave to foreign words, which embarrassed him to speak.

“A marriage of companionship, friendship, that sort of thing,” Ruby had answered, in her explaining voice, giving Elias the same explanation Cora had given her when she asked the same question.

“You mean, no fucking? Is that what you’re trying to say?” Elias had said.

“Oh, Elias,” Ruby had replied in an exasperated voice.

All this time Ruby had been perusing the revised floor plans of her apartment on the table between them. She knew that if her apartment ever got finished, it would be the most discussed apartment in New York, but it drove her mad that everything took so long to complete, especially when she was willing to spend any amount of money to speed things along. She could never say to Cora, who had just told her that a fringe she had ordered from Paris for the window hangings in her persimmon drawing room would not arrive for another six weeks, that she felt her New York life could
not begin until she was in her grand apartment, receiving all the people she was only hearing about and reading about and watching from afar.

“Where’s my bidet in this bathroom?” asked Ruby Renthal, changing the subject, as something caught her eye on the floor plans.

“Oh, there’s not going to be a bidet in that bathroom,” answered Cora Mandell.

“Who said there’s not going to be a bidet in that bathroom?” asked Ruby.

“Elias said he only wanted to spend thirty thousand doing over that bathroom, and it would cost an additional ten to remove the tiles to put the bidet in, so we decided to dispense with the bidet,” said Cora.

“Let me get this straight,” said Ruby, slowly and carefully, drumming her long red fingernails on the floor plan. “You made the decision that I wasn’t going to have a bidet. Is that correct?”

“No, Ruby, I didn’t make the decision,” replied Cora evenly. “It was Elias who said he didn’t want to spend—”

“Never mind about Elias,” snapped Ruby, who was really annoyed about the six-week delay of the French fringe. “The bottom line is that you made the decision that I wasn’t to have a bidet. Is that it?”

Cora Mandell began to finger her three strands of pearls as she stared back at the beautiful young woman with the beautiful jewelry who was behaving in a manner Cora would have described as ungracious. “It was not a decision I made by myself, Mrs. Renthal,” Cora said, aware that her shift from first name to formal address was not lost on Ruby. “It was after I showed the plans to your husband at his office that the decision was arrived at.”