The Saint Louisans (16 page)

I took the Metrolink to downtown. That's our fancy new light rail, a belated answer to other cities subways or trolleys. The cars stream past the
debris of Midtown and its backside of offices and warehouses. The skeletons of brick and scrap. Old factory boxes once productive, like the lettering of one reading Dixie Cream Donut Flour, now boarded up, its lettering fog-like. UPS trucks surround a brick building next door like messenger hogs at a trough. Gang graffiti borders warehouses with names like Becke Cobbett Steel; the spray paint making jagged splashes of color like a psychedelic seismograph reading. Streaming under the overpasses, I see the decaying highway's iron rods stick out like exposed bones. It was a relief to submerge, and when I exited, to smell damp rock and oil as I sped to my rendezvous with Saul.

Metropolitan Square is one of our newer towers, only thirty feet lower than the Arch. Its skin of granite and glass skirts modern Gallic origins whose steep roofed gables and angled dormers are supposed to hint at French Renaissance, but they remind me of bat's ears.

My heels clicked on the polychrome marble veneer that shone like dark ice. Laptop folk slicked past. At the cavernous lobby is a series of murals called
Urban Odyssey
, rising fifty feet off the surface, depicting the story of Ulysses using St. Louis backgrounds. The Sirens are office girls downtown on a lunch break. Circe holds court at the monkey house in the Zoo, etc. Ulyssees, in collar and tie, is buffeted from one adventure to another; not unlike how Saul sees himself. Colors are shadowed blues and moody greens, a marriage of Thomas Hart Benton and Rod Serling.

I studied the murals and Saul as he spoke to a trio of youngish men in black shirts and jackets with wild ties the color of peach melba. The one in the middle whose five o'clock shadow was going to midnight held a small camera.

“A city should love it's waterfront,” he said. “Europeans know how to maintain and integrate them into the life of the city, so they are pleasurable and useful. Waterfronts are treasured. Here, we cut ourselves off from them. Highway 70 severs us from the Mississippi. It's our life, the reason St. Louis became someplace. A strategic position, one of the world's greatest rivers, but we turn our back on it.”

He looked down, lost in thought, again as I see him, a man gazing at his lost kingdom. “River ways are vital. When the oil runs out, we're going to need them and damned fast.”

“Sure,” one of the men said, “but then you bitch about the Arch.”

“It's dead.” Saul shrugged. “An example of funeral sculpture. A necropolis of empty grass and an oversized croquet post.”

“It's a curve,” joked the other man, “like the Bell Curve.”

“What can I say?” Saul wearily shrugged, “St. Louis is a bell curve kind of city.” The two men laughed as Saul continued.

“St. Louis wants to destroy itself. Most American cities do. There's no past to them. To Americans, cities are a product of the industrial age, and the jury is still out on what that was all about.” He smiled at the ripple of laughs. “St. Louis, like the rest of the urban gang, has been a constantly expanding place of noisy, smoky, industrial growth that never settles down, because it fills up with one migrating horde of immigrants and arrivistes after another.” Saul looked up at Ulysses. “We're an idea of a place instead of a real home.” He paused, then one of the men turned off the camera.

“Great,” another man said.

“Yeah,” Saul said, “I can't wait to raise the suicide rate.”

“No, man,” the third one smiled, “just send us all to the bars. So, on that note, you coming with?”

Saul winked to me. “Raincheck, guys.”

He kissed me lightly on the check as we met beneath the mythic scenery. “Urban junkies in town for a wrap-up on urban planning, and Prestler, the one with the camera, wants a spot from me on his website. Tit for tat. I'm really on the circuit these days. The mad little Einstein and his nutty theories. Everyone wants to have a look. Like they used to when the Zoo had Phil the gorilla.” He kissed my hand, the rad urban planner turned gallant count. “What's the latest on L'affaire Desouche?”

I filled him in on my meeting with Terri as we stood beneath Ulysses.

“I can't believe Dan Smatters hunted you down,” said Saul. “Even going into an organic grocery store.”

“He has to be in league with Terri. That's my theory.”

“Yeah, the ducks are lining up. Smatters with Terri, Pierre and Moot.” He stood under Ulysses as he faced Circe. “And what is Sonia's stake in this?”

“Corn Mother, apparently.”

“Yeah, great,” he sighed. “Our Lady of Archer Daniels Midland.”

He gestured to the last mural, where Ulysses arrives home to Penelope
below the murky clouds of one of our June thunderstorms, Ithaca bearing an uncanny resemblance to Webster Groves. “The witches are circling the cauldron.”

“I have to be impartial. There's some kind of sadness with this family. Before I take any kind of cut—which I don't want—I've got to find out what's really going on with them. They are, after all, kin.”

Saul shook his head. “Waste of time. You're the one with the white hat. Go forth and angel.”

“You're still going to the ball with me?”

“Sure. It's for Margot.” He looked up at the mural. “It's probably her last social event, right?”

“Yes. She's going downhill.”

“Damn,” he said softly, a curse on tiptoes.

That night, I had my usual closet battle deciding what to wear to the Ball, any Ball. Sky complained about women's fickleness in pondering their wardrobes, as if our patron saint was Imelda Marcos. He'd just grab a shirt, smell the underarms, and if they didn't stink, it won the prize. Ah, the sexes. I thought of going strapless, did a flesh check and decided my arms had one more year before they went flabby. That meant the electric green. Yul kept howling as I tramped about. Across the hall came toodling from my neighbor's saxophone.

Kenyatta Holmes, a reclusive semi-artist who could give the Grinch pointers in churlishness, has a running gun battle with me because he claims Yul's cries screws up his music. I began to do my makeup as the door thumped.

I frowned, pulled on my robe, and opened the door, grabbing my recalcitrant cat before he could make a break.

We confronted Kenyatta. His shock of white hair and poker face not the sight you want outside the door. He was a Bill Cosby of sulk, goatee bristling, holding the sax like a shiny Tommy gun. “You know,” he growled, “I'd like to try this riff in C major … without the cat.”

“I'm sorry. Yul gets like this.”

“Yeah, he gets like it a lot.”

“Hey, Ken, back off. The cat's excited. Anyway, you're making more noise.”

“What, you gonna report me for that? You the one that's been reporting me?”

I closed my grip on a struggling Yul. “Me? No. I like a good sax, but not the paranoia. I'll make Yul chill, okay?”

Ken scowled and lowered the glasses that perched on his crown. “Like that kid of yours. Didn't do so well telling her to chill, did it?”

I pursed my lips. “Have a nice day.”

The one guy in the neighborhood Jama scammed for three hundred had to be my across-the-hall neighbor; he who has groceries delivered and has probably only been seen outdoors twice in three years. I looked at the cat, and plopped him on the couch.

Back in front of the mirror, I held lipstick in hand, deciding how much to beautify, how much to conceal. Grace Kelly said one of the reasons she got out of acting (besides becoming a fairy tale princess, which is a very good gig), was the five o'clock call. On the set, her make-up call was at eight. The older an actress got, the earlier the call. At the five o'clock call, Grace warned, it was time to get out of the business. I looked hard into the mirror. Chin cushy, bags, crow's feet, frown lines. Six thirty. Okay, six twenty-five. Thus assuaged, I turned to the mirror as the sax started up again.

The Hotel Plangent sparkles on Fourth Street with a bustle of cars and limos at its shiny brass doors. Its granite face was once an old office building, now redesigned so the newer hotel balloons out in back. Saul told me this is facading, where the old remains, but only facially.

He met me in the lobby and led me past jolly lettering:
Do Your Pageant at the Plangent!

The Veiled Prophet Ball was up the escalators and waiting for us, so my childhood fantasy finally took place in one of our fair city's newest crash pads, not venerable, nor truly St. Louis like the old Kiel Auditorium or the Chase; for the Plangent sprouts throughout the sunbelt and claws into the Midwest, a Starbucks of hotels.

Saul nudged me.

“So how do you feel, Ms. Bridger? Living your fantasy?”

We went up the stairs. The hotel's marble trimmings shone as if Midas did the interior touching. Bell boys in jackets whose frogging looked like it belonged on the shoulders of Civil War soldiers, bowed to all.

“Somewhat nervous.”

“Of what?”

“What they say. ‘The anticipation always exceeds the actual event.'”

“Who said that? Wilde?”

“Snoopy.”

Waves of gowns, jewels, and men of wealth, both bulky and svelte, undulated before us. At the entrance to the ballroom, a covey of ladies-in-waiting clustered. I still expected the white deb gowns of my childhood TV fantasy, but colors shone in resplendent variety, from blood red to lime, canary and shades of white covering the gamut from ivory to milk.

I waved to Margot, who leaned on her cane as she conversed with other ladies, her silver gown a Milky Way of sequins, wearing a satin Spencer. She and I embraced.

“Lee,” she said, “you look so divine tonight. Saul, you're quite the dish.”

“Hopefully low-cal but filling.”

“I want you to meet someone.”

Her face was full of color. Margot had been pale the last three days, and we discussed increasing her dosage because of pain. Now she was vibrant, the cane less leaned on.

I scanned the Veiled Prophet's court: men wore purple ribands around their necks denoting membership in the Society. Bengal Lancers stood guard in colorful red coats and turbans.

Chandeliers glittered like a giant's teardrops. When I was a girl watching the Ball on TV, I was thrilled and princessy. Now, I was aware Margot's life was ending. She rallied tonight, would hopefully have a good Christmas, then …

Margot's wrinkles broke out into joy. “This is one of my best girls.”

Her hair and complexion were Barbiesque, but her ocean blue eyes had real vivacity. Her gown a shiny moonlit snow, displaying well-rounded shoulders. Margot and she embraced.

“Lee,” said Margot, “this is Kelly Farnum. She's one of the candidates for queen and one of last year's ladies-in-waiting.”

“Oh, that's not such a big deal,” Kelly tossed off. “Mrs. Desouche really
puts more into it than it should be. But it's just so beautiful tonight. You're Lee?”

“In the flesh.”

Kelly's eyes lit up. “Mrs. Desouche has said so much about you. I mean, it's really awesome meeting you. She's done so much for all of us.”

Margot's smile was benign. “I just encourage you girls to be the best you can be.”

Kelly beamed at this, letting Margot explain her history. Kelly was one of the Farnums of Ladue and furrowed the social soil of upper crust St. Louis: elementary school at Oak Hill, then Mary Institute and Saint Louis Country Day School, finally graduating from Saint Louis University. Kelly was at the
Fleur-de-lis
Ball, the coming-out-event for Catholic society, all debs in impeccable white gowns being presented to the Bishop. Kelly had combat experience for the VP Ball. She was a deb in overdrive.

“I mean,” gushed Kelly, “you can't imagine what a great night this is. I was in, you know, Tanzania building houses for Catholic International, and last month I practically put up one single-handed so I could fly back here.”

I fancied seeing Kelly in gown, gloves and tiara, gleefully hammering together walls for grateful natives. We bid Kelly farewell as she chirped off to her fellow maids, who vanished for the presentation.

Margot's voice was not easily disregarded in VP circles. She was a queen maker of sorts. As I was introduced to friends, I noticed how people watched from the corner of their eyes. I was the woman quietly whispered about in society.

On one wall, a large white curtain displayed the Veiled Prophet coat of arms. A man next to us turned away from eying the court pages in purple tunics and lots of leg. “Tell me. What does that writing say?”

Saul raised an eyebrow. “
Mene, Mene, Tekel Upharsin
.” As Margot talked to friends, he leaned closer. “It wouldn't have killed her kids to have come.”

I shrugged. “She doesn't need the tension.”

Margot nodded as applause pattered for another maid's presentation to the court. One of the Kellermans. Of Creve Coeur.

Margot gladly explained the dynastic frictions of St. Louis. What seasonal feuds were in vogue; how the French families still kept their distance from the German families, those nineteenth-century merchant princes like the Stixes, Florsheims, and Pulitzers.

“Jewishness,” Margot explained, “was never held against them. Only that they were in trade. Lord knows we French were in trade when we weren't grabbing land. The Buschs, on the other hand, with their beer making and Adolphus Busch's perceived crudities, were never really accepted.” She looked back to the ramp. “I've been neglecting our young ladies. Did I miss Kelly?” Margot beamed. “Oh, there she is.”

Kelly was announced, and Margot gave a wise smile to her stately procession to the Veiled Prophet's throne, his veil thick like a white cloth, helmet shiny brass. She took my hand when Kelly curtsied.

“That was well timed,” she said. “I taught her. It was my bow.”