The Summer Invitation (11 page)

“Oh, yes, Franny, my sweet,” said Clover, eyes wide. “Every, every time.”

13

Belgian Chocolates at the Sherry-Netherland

Theo’s old friend Leander came to town a couple of nights later. With Clover’s permission, we had agreed to meet at this old hotel, the Sherry-Netherland. Clover dropped me off outside the entrance. I was wearing the cream sharkskin sheath and the black velvet bow in my hair. It was a hot evening, but I loved how cool my neck and shoulders felt with my new haircut. I just felt this kind of keenness.

“Won’t you come in with me?” I asked her.

“It’s your night, Franny.
Your
entrance.”

And then she smiled and waved goodbye, disappearing down Fifth Avenue into the dusk.

I had never been to the Sherry-Netherland. But I remembered it being mentioned in
Eloise
when she talks about there being pigeons on the roof of the Sherry-Netherland, so I knew it had to be near the Plaza. The name had stuck with me all these years because it was just so luscious. The Sherry-Netherland: it sounded like a big box of chocolates.

Speaking of the Plaza, Val and I snuck in there one time just to use the bathroom. (Clover gave us that tip: hotel bathrooms are the best. Just hold your head high and walk in
like a lady.
) Well, the bathrooms at the Plaza must be the most splendid in the whole city if you ask me, and Val loved the whole place, the deep reds, the leopard pillows, the hot-pink lights, everything. But when I looked around the lobby of the Sherry-Netherland, I knew that it was much more to my taste than the Plaza. I’ll tell you the difference: the Plaza is like a big glitzy engagement ring, a new one. The Sherry-Netherland is like a tiny delicate one in an antique setting. Maybe it even has a few tarnishes here and there but it’s truly romantic. The Sherry-Netherland is like an old jewel sunk in the city. The decor is soft terra-cotta reds and dusty chocolate marble and dull golds. I
love
it.

Leander was waiting for me at the bar. I knew him instantly because it was August now, the city was starting to empty of people, and there were only a handful of people at the bar. Who else could the distinguished white-haired gentleman be?

I went up to him and introduced myself, using my full name, the way Aunt Theo would have wanted me to: “Hello, I’m Frances Lord.”

“Charming,” Leander said. “But please tell me that you really go by Franny.”

“Sometimes,” I said. “But I’m growing out of it a bit now, you know. I’m fourteen.”

“Of course you are,” said Leander. “But of course you are.”

“My sister is seventeen,” I went on. “She used to go by Val, but now everyone calls her Valentine. It’s much more appropriate.”

“Theo told me there were two sisters. She said the older one was supposed to be very beautiful but that from what she could gather the younger one was more interesting. I can tell she was right, Franny … May I call you Franny?”

“Certainly.”

There was a pause, and we considered the drinks menu. Leander got scotch and soda, and I got a soda and bitters, which is nonalcoholic but not sweet. I didn’t want to order a sweet drink in front of Leander. Val would have done that; she would have had no sense of subtlety. Here we were at the Sherry-Netherland. I couldn’t sit there sipping a
Shirley Temple
for Lord’s sake.

It was starting to occur to me that for an old man Leander was rather handsome. He had a fine, sharp profile and his white hair had a kind of crispness to it. Actually he reminded me of the Sherry-Netherland itself. He had this old-time elegance, wearing white linen trousers and a brown seersucker blazer, a bit frayed around the cuffs. His butterscotch-colored loafers were old and obviously Italian. Since this summer in New York, I was beginning to be able to identify these things.

“Theo bought me these shoes,” he told me. “This one time, in Florence. She was always very generous with her money and I’ve never had a penny. She was having an affair with a count—”

“A
count
?”

“Why yes. And a handsome young waiter or two.” He laughed.

“How did you meet Theo?”

“In Paris. Spring of ’63, at a café under the flowering chestnut trees. Do you know the French word for chestnut tree, by the way? It’s very beautiful…”

“Le châtaignier,”
I answered promptly. Leander looked surprised, so “Val and I go to French school,” I explained.

“Of course you do, you creature of Salinger, you! Anyway, I met Theo in Paris in the spring of ’63 under the flowering chestnut trees. She had just graduated from Radcliffe and was in Paris working as a runway model. Now that I think of it, her hair was rather like your hair, the same haircut. Very becoming if a girl has good bones.”

I was about to tell him I’d gotten the haircut today and that it was Clover who’d suggested it, but then I decided to let him think I had come up with the idea all on my own. It was better that way.

“Her lips were pale and her eyes were dark. That was the fashion then. But what I remember most about Theo, that afternoon, apart from her considerable beauty, was that she had been crying. There were teardrops on those black Mod lashes of hers. I went up to her and introduced myself. She said, ‘It’s no good talking to me, whoever you are. I’ve been weeping.’ I said, ‘But I am
always
weeping.’ She laughed and after that we were fast friends.”

“Lovers?” I tried to make the word sound casual.

“Actually, no. Not that I wasn’t quite in love with her, at first. Any man would have been. But it was Paris in the spring in that golden era and love was mine for the taking. Oh, the girls crossing the avenues in their plaid skirts, their blue striped dresses! When it rained they wore trench coats…”

“What
has
become of the trench coat?” I asked, imitating Leander. He laughed his crazy laugh, and this time I liked it because I knew he thought I was being witty.

“What indeed? Well anyway. Theo and I were friends and friendship is something altogether different from love. In a way, one finds, it’s much rarer … more precious.”

Now this, this was incredible to me. Friendship
rare
? But back in San Francisco, Val and I had so many friends. Girlfriends were ordinary everyday entities. Love was the miracle. I tried saying so to Leander. He sighed and asked me: “How old are you again?”

“Fourteen. I’ll be fifteen in February.”

“Oh, you’ll live a lot between now and then, don’t worry. By the time February comes, you’ll feel as though you’ve aged
decades.
But permit me: fourteen is still very young. And what an enchanting age it is. You’ll find, as time goes on, that innocence is the ultimate aphrodisiac.”

“What does that mean?” I had a vague idea that an “aprodisiac” was a fancy word having something to do with sex.

“Aphrodisiac, from the goddess Aphrodite. Presumably your schooling has encompassed the Greek myths? So an aphrodisiac is a substance that is said to heighten desire. Oysters are a rather clichéd example. But for me a better way to look at it is that an aphrodisiac heightens eros, love, beauty. And furthermore, an aphrodisiac must be personal. To each their own. So for me, an aphrodisiac might be a certain flavor bubble bath my Danish wife, Annebirgitte, used to use when we were first married. Annebirgitte, say it to yourself, Franny, it is a very beautiful name. The bubble bath she used was pine. It smelled of the woods and when I was first courting her.”

“I don’t think I have any yet,” I said.

“Any what?”

“Aphrodisiacs.”

“You do, or shall I say … you will soon. I should think that this summer…”

“What about this summer?”

“Well, being here, in New York, under Theodora Bell’s tender tutelage…”

“There was something you said earlier, Leander.”

“Yes?”

“You said that when you met Theo that afternoon in Paris in the café, she had been
weeping.
But I just can’t see Theo ever
weeping.
”

Leander laughed. “Precocious! How precocious this one is. You are quite right, Franny, quite right.”

“I think of Theo as being … almost inhuman. You know, terribly glamorous and sharp and jaded and all that.”

“Oh, yes, oh, yes. I’ll tell you what, Franny! Are you hungry? I know I am! Let’s order chicken salad sandwiches, why don’t we?”

“Chicken salad sandwiches? I didn’t see them on the menu.” I had seen oysters, shrimp cocktail, and extraordinarily expensive cheeseburgers. What is it about New York City and paying so much for cheeseburgers, anyway?

“We’re in one of the finest hotels in one of the finest cities in the world, are we not? Do they not have chicken? Mayonnaise? Bread? Lettuce? Could they not whip up the if anything quite modest meal of my fantasies and in doing so transport me to the past?”

And so they did. And Leander was right: a simple cold chicken salad sandwich on toasted white bread can be delicious. After we finished our sandwiches, the bartender sent us a plate of Belgian chocolates in fluted red paper. Apparently that was what the hotel guests got overnight on their pillows. I ate only one of them because I was full, so I put two of them in my pocketbook, to share with Val later that night.

Afterward Leander and I said goodbye to each other on Fifth Avenue.

“Promise me something,” he said.

“What?”

“That you’ll write to me sometimes when you get back to San Francisco.”

“My sister Valentines says nobody writes real letters anymore.”

“Ah! But that’s your sister Valentine. You, Franny, I have a feeling about you…”

“You do?”

“Yes. I have the feeling that you may grow up to become a writer. So writing letters will be excellent practice.”

I decided that I liked what he said about me growing up to become a writer. Also, he would write back to me, and I just love getting real letters in the mail. Between Leander and Aunt Theo, I’m going to be quite the
correspondent
when I get back to San Francisco.

I was putting on my nightgown, my Amour Baby-Doll in Wild Rose that Clover bought me the day we went lingerie shopping, when she knocked on my door.

“You home, Franny? May I come in?”

“Sure.”

Clover opened the door wearing her blue-check artist’s smock and a pink chignon in her hair. There were specks of yellow paint on the smock that looked like they hadn’t quite dried yet, so I could tell she had been at her studio.

“Oh, how pretty you look! Wasn’t I right about how important it is to have a pretty nightie? Now, tell me all about your evening.”

I tried to think of something to say other than the question that was on my mind. Eventually I decided to say: “We had chicken salad sandwiches.”

“At the Sherry Netherland? I would have had oysters, myself. Or … shrimp cocktail, maybe.”

“Oh. Are you fond of oysters?”

“Oh, very! The food of the Gods, and so acquatic.”

“Do they make you think of Sag Harbor?” All of a sudden, I remembered her story of the summer she was seventeen.

“Well, yes, I suppose they do, now that I think of it.”

“Would you call them an aphrodisiac?”

“Heavens, Franny, what a strange question! Though to be perfectly candid: come to think of it, yes.”

“Leander says there is no aphrodisiac like innocence.”

“Does he? Well, that sounds like Leander, all right. Anyway, I hope you had fun? And isn’t the Sherry Netherland lovely? The Plaza is so
obvious.
”

I couldn’t help pointing out: “Val loves the Plaza.”

But Clover only said, “Why not? People do,” and kissed me good night before going on her way.

I lay in bed in my Amour nightie, but somehow, I couldn’t fall asleep. It was as if I had drunk champagne, when it was only soda and bitters. I was all abuzz. And it’s hard to sleep when you are feeling that way in New York, because outside, you know that so much is going on. As they say, it’s the the city that never sleeps …

When I woke up the next morning, I discovered that the Belgian chocolates I’d saved for Val were melted in their pretty red paper cups. It was a shame, but when I told her they were all melted, she said, “Oh, thanks, Franny, but don’t feel
too
bad about it, you know. It’s funny, I’m just not craving anything sweet right now.”

And then a memory came to me of the time we were at Bemelmans Bar and got Shirley Temples and Clover remarked that once she grew up she didn’t much care for sugar anymore: “It’s just that after a certain point, one finds one’s cravings change. There start to be—other things…”

14

Carnival of the Animals

Just when I’d given up on Val including me in anything ever again, she surprised me. Julian had an extra ticket to this fancy event where his string quartet was playing, and he and Val asked me if I wanted to come along. At first, I didn’t want to act
too
excited because that would have been kind of embarrassing, but then Clover said, “Oh, that will be so much fun for you, Franny. What are they playing?”

“Oh.” Val shrugged, not all that interested. “You know, that piece—the one with the sounds of all of the animals—
Circus of the Animals.
”

“Oh!” exclaimed Clover. “Carnival
of the Animals
, you mean. Delicious!”

Julian’s string quartet was playing at an event at the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Clover says that’s a very prestigious organization that goes way, way back, and in order to be a member you have to be a famous author or musician or painter. It’s in this big old mansion all the way up in Harlem, right on the edge of Riverside Drive, on a street that goes down to the water. When we got there, the light falling over the river was very beautiful, and I remarked to Val, “You know how sometimes you can
forget
that Manhattan is actually an island?”

“I never really thought about it,” said Val.

“Well, I just did,” I explained, “because being here I really remembered. It’s like getting—I don’t know—a whiff of the ocean.”

“The ocean? Really, Franny?”