People Like Us (47 page)

“When Hubie goes, Hubert, I hope you’ll agree with me that there should be nothing in the obituaries about the cause of death,” said Lil.

“Sure, Lil,” said Hubert.

“Laurance can handle all that.”

“I’m sure he can, Lil,” said Hubert.

“It’s Justine I really want to talk about, Hubert. What a crushed little creature she has become,” said Lil, sipping a glass of white wine.

“She really loved that television announcer,” said Hubert.

“I should never have allowed that marriage. Never. Nor should you have, for that matter,” said Lil.

“Spilt milk,” said Hubert, signaling the waiter for another martini.

“I don’t particularly enjoy hearing that my daughter was seen walking down Park Avenue with a can of beer in her hand,” said Lil.

“Do we know it’s true?” replied Hubert Altemus.

“Of course, it’s true. Ezzie Fenwick saw her himself.”

“Of course it would be Ezzie who saw her,” said Hubert, who had no patience for Ezzie Fenwick. “I’ll talk to Justine.”

“I want you to do more than talk to her,” said Lil. “I want you to take her up to Bedford with you. Keep her there for a week or so. Make her ride and do all those things. She needs to get away from New York. She thinks everyone’s talking about her. Everyone
is
talking about her.”

“I’ll talk to Belinda,” said Hubert.

“Oh, we need permission from the former Miss O’Brien, do we?” asked Lil, who could never hear the name of Hubert’s present wife without reacting adversely. She had once described Belinda O’Brien as the kind of woman who calls men at their offices.

“Ah, there’s Belinda now,” said Hubert, rising, with a look of pleasure on his face, and waving to his wife, who stood at the door of the restaurant.

“Belinda? Here?” asked Lil, gathering up her things.

“Yes, I asked her to meet me here.” Belinda, waving back, smiled and made her way toward them through the crowded restaurant.

“I don’t know how you could do this to me, Hubert,” said Lil.

“Do what?”

“Ask that woman to come here to this table with everyone in the restaurant looking at us,” said Lil.

“That woman has been my wife for twelve years,” said Hubert, “and I don’t see a single soul in this restaurant looking at us, except Chick Jacoby, who wants the table for Lord Biedermeier, who just arrived without a reservation, and, just to be perverse, I’m going to let Lord Biedermeier have a nice long wait.”

“Hello, Lil,” said Belinda, walking up to the table. Belinda Altemus, in her forties, was still pretty, although she had begun to put on what she herself called a few extra libs. Her face gave off a look of good humor, as if nothing bothered her. Her blond hair was what Lil Altemus called “touched up,” and she wore what Lil called wet-looking lipstick.

“Hellohoware?” answered Lil, not looking up at her as she rose to leave. Hubert made no effort to detain her.

“You’ll call me, Hubert, about the matter we discussed?” asked Lil.

“After I talk with Belinda,” he answered.

Lil turned and walked out of the restaurant. Belinda and Hubert looked at each other. Hubert shrugged.

“I think she’s still in love with you,” said Belinda.

“Hardly likely,” replied Hubert.

“Tell me something, Hubert. Did you ever love her?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I probably thought so at the time. What it really was, I suppose, was the utter perfection of the union, smiled on by both sides.” They both laughed. “Did I tell you today how beautiful you are?” he asked.

“Tell me that when you’ve had a few less of these,” she said, tapping her very red fingernail against his empty martini glass.

Hubert smiled at her. “Want some lunch?”

“Sure,” she replied, looking around the dining room. “How come we don’t have any flowers on our table?”

Hubie clung stubbornly to a life that had brought him little happiness. Justine, back from Bedford, visited him daily.

“Beautiful,” he said about the large bunch of white peonies that Justine had brought him. “My favorite flower.”

“I remember,” said Justine.

“There was this guy in my class at Simsbury. Bobby Vermont. Do you remember him? He was Mom’s friend Teddy Vermont’s son by his third marriage. A sad, lonely guy at school. I probably would have become good friends with him if I hadn’t been kicked out.”

“I remember Bobby Vermont,” said Justine. “He threw up at my coming-out party.”

“Funny you should remember that. It’s the first thing he said to me. ‘Has your sister ever forgiven me for throwing up at her coming-out party?’ ”

Justine laughed. “What about Bobby Vermont?”

“I ran into him here at the hospital the other day.”

“What’s he here for?”

“Same thing I am.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Poor Bobby, but at least you have a friend here then.”

“Had a friend. He died yesterday.”

“Oh, dear.” Justine turned away from her brother and placed the white peonies in a vase. “Mummy sends her love.”

“Send her mine.”

“She’d come, Hubie, but she couldn’t cope after her visit. She doesn’t mean anything. It’s just that it’s too much for her.”

“The way I look, huh?”

“Yes.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Of course it matters, but that’s the way she is.”

“You’re not trying to explain my mother to me, are you?”

They both laughed.

“What are you going to do about your money, Hubie?” asked Justine.

“Leaving it all to Juanito,” said Hubie.

“Don’t.”

“I didn’t think I’d hear that from you, Justine.”

“Hubie, it’s ten million dollars.”

“So?”

“Leave him five hundred thousand dollars. A million even. But don’t leave him the whole thing. You know what Uncle Laurance will do. He’ll take it to court. He’ll call it undue influence on the part of Juanito. He’ll expose everything there is to expose about Juanito: the drugs, those terrible bars he goes to. He’ll find a way to prove that Juanito is the one who gave you the AIDS.”

“It’s not undue influence, Justine. No one is forcing me to do this. It’s what I want to do. That’s why I went to Herkie Saybrook to make out my will, rather than some gay lawyer in the West Village. Our own kind, that’s Herkie Saybrook. You don’t need the money. Certainly Mother doesn’t need the money. Who else am I going to leave it to?”

“You could do something marvelous with it, Hubie. Give it to medical research, or something like that.”

“I know,” said Hubie, looking off at the river outside, thinking about what his sister was saying. “There’s something in me that makes me want to get even with Uncle Laurance and young shitface Laurance. All my life they made me feel like I was nothing.”

“Think about it, Hubie,” said Justine.

Hubie looked at Justine and held out his hand. She took it and squeezed it. “What’s with the television announcer?” he asked.

“Flown off to wherever it is they fly off to these days for a quickie divorce.”

“Did you see him before he went?”

“Yes.”

“How’d it go?”

“We did not go down Memory Lane, if that’s what you mean.”

“You taking it okay?”

“I loved him, Hubie. I really loved him.”

Hubie looked at his sister. “One of the nicest things about you, Justine, is that with a mother like ours, you didn’t get tough.”

Justine started to cry.

“We’re a pair, aren’t we?” continued Hubie. “The rich Altemus kids, they used to call us, like we were something special. What happened to us, Justine?”

“I’m going to miss you, Hubie,” said Justine.

Still holding her hand, Hubie drifted off to sleep. When he awoke, Justine was still there.

“You were right about the money, you know,” he said. He could speak only in a whisper. “Can you get Herkie Saybrook to come down here? I can still leave Juanito well cared for, but the bulk should go to a hospice for all these guys here who have no place to go and no one to take care of them.”

“I’ll call Herkie,” said Justine.

“Better do it quick,” said Hubie.

She nodded. “Guess what, Hubie?”

“What?”

“I’m pregnant.”

Hubie, dying, was still interested enough in life to be amazed. “By Bernie?” he whispered.

“Who else?”

“Does he know?”

“No.”

“You going to tell him?”

“No. I don’t want him back like that.”

“Does Mummy know?”

“No.”

“Are you going to tell her?”

“Not yet.”

“Are you going to keep the baby?”

“Oh, yes, and I’m going to be a wonderful mother.”

Hubie, tired now from the excitement of the conversation, could only pat his sister’s hand in admiration.

“Want to know what I’m going to name it if it’s a boy?” asked Justine. She knew Hubie was not strong enough to answer her, so she continued without an answer from him. “Hubie. Hubie Altemus Slatkin.”

Hubie nodded his head and signaled for his sister to come closer. She put her ear near to his mouth as he said, “Hubie Slatkin. It has a certain insouciant charm.” He smiled.

Later, leaving, Justine stopped at the door of the hospital room and looked back at Hubie. When he looked up at her, she said, “I’ve loved being your sister, Hubie.”

Hubie understood that it was Justine’s way of saying good-bye. He raised his hand and waved good-bye.

Justine nodded and looked away to avert a tear that was forming.

“I’m so proud of you, Hubie,” she said.

That night Hubie died. Herkie Saybrook never knew that Hubie wanted to make a new will. Only Juanito was with him at the end, holding on to his slight body. The last words Hubie heard were Juanito crying, “Don’t die, Hubie.”

37

Despite the prominence of the family, there was very little made in the obituary columns, at the family’s request, about the death of Hubert Altemus, Jr., the son of Mrs. Van Degan Altemus of New York City and Mr. Hubert Altemus of Bedford Village, New York, and the brother of Mrs. Justine

Altemus Slatkin. If it hadn’t been for Ezzie Fenwick, who read the obituary page before he read anything else in the newspaper, not just the prominent names in the news stories of the dead, but the long columns of names in the paid announcements, Hubie Altemus’s passing might have gone undetected, as the family wished, until after the funeral, by which time Lil would have left for Europe.

Ezzie, a surprisingly early riser for one who spent every night dining out, called Matilda Clarke with the news, and then Maude Hoare, and then, in lieu of Loelia Manchester, who had still not returned from Europe, Loelia’s mother Fernanda Somerset, and Matilda and Maude and Fernanda all made their six or eight calls, and by noon everyone who knew the Altemus and Van Degan clans knew that Hubie Altemus had died of AIDS, although that was a word not to be mentioned, under any circumstance, to family members, as the official story was that poor Hubie, who really never had much of a life, Ezzie commented over and over, had died of leukemia.

Leaving Lil Altemus’s apartment after paying a condolence call, Ezzie Fenwick ran into Cora Mandell in the lobby of Lil’s building.

“Oh, Ezzie,” said Cora. “I guess I’m going to the same place you’re coming from.”

“Rather a sparcity of merriment in that household at the moment,” said Ezzie. “Not that it was ever a barrel of laughs at Lil’s, or at any of the Van Degans’, now that I come to think of it.”

“Who’s up there?” asked Cora.

“All the predictables. Aunt Minnie Willoughby. Matilda. Janet and Laurance. Dodo, and poor Justine. Get the pic?”

“Evangeline wanted to come, but she was too drunk,” said Cora.

“Just as well. Lil has enough to contend with, without Evangeline,” said Ezzie.

“How is poor Lil?” Cora repeated.

“Stoic. Absolutely stoic. Not a tear.”

“Lil always does things so well,” said Cora.

“I’m off to Sibila’s cocktail party,” said Ezzie.

Making her way down Madison Avenue to meet with Lorenza about flower arrangements for Hubie’s funeral, Justine Altemus, who had decided to return to her maiden name, ran into Bernie Slatkin, who was on his way to interview Max Luby for a future television segment on Wall Street practices, although that subject did not come up in their brief exchange. If Justine had not been lost in thought and had seen the approaching Bernie before he saw her, she would have ducked into a shop in order to avoid the encounter, as it was the first time they had met since Bernie returned from his tropical-island divorce. In advance, she had agonized over how she would behave when that meeting came to pass. Seeing him, she dropped her eyes and hoped that he would do the same, until they had passed each other, but, alas, Bernie was not born for such subtleties of behavior.

“Justine,” he said, reaching out to touch her arm.

“Oh, hellohoware?” she said, sounding more like
her mother than herself, as she withdrew her arm from his touch.

“I’m so very sorry about Hubie,” he said.

“Thank you,” she replied. Her words were polite, but her tone was impatient, as if he were delaying her mission.

“I know what a wonderful sister you were to him,” said Bernie.

“He was a wonderful brother to me,” replied Justine. She made a gesture of moving on. Bernie looked at her, struck by the change in her. Gone was the lovesick attitude he had grown to despise. She had returned to the remote and distant heiress he had first spoken to in an elevator leaving one of Maisie Verdurin’s parties. For an instant she looked beautiful to him again, and unattainable, or beautiful because she was unattainable. She met his eyes, as if understanding his thought.