Three Rivers (52 page)

It was little over an hour before Alexis went to her. He opened the curtains and sat down on the bed next to her.

“How are you feeling?”

“Unhappy, and depressed and thoroughly sorry for myself. Almost as sorry as I am feeling for Kate and Ava,” Isabel said. “I do not want to cry, or maybe it is more that I cannot cry.”

There was a tap on the open door. It was Alexander. He went to the two of them sitting on the bed. Isabel pulled herself up on the pillow, and when she did, Alexander stroked her hair and said, “Go repair your face, and you, Alexis, go pull out that silver whiskey flask of yours. I have a horse and carriage downstairs. We are going out to get some fresh air. This is all too depressing. I do not mean to be flippant about this, Isabel, dear heart, but they were a bad lot in life, and they are a bad lot in death. That is the truth. Now come, you two. I think the three of us could do with seeing some life around us.” He clapped his hands, and Alexis, with a look of thanks to his friend, jumped up. He went to get Gamal to fill the flask.

Isabel pulled a comb through her hair, put some rouge on her cheeks, added a touch of lipstick, and then the three of them went down to the waiting horse and carriage that had trotted over from the fountain in front of the Plaza Hotel.

There was no question about it, Alexander’s idea was inspired. From Fifth Avenue, they turned into the park. They swigged whiskey from the silver flask, and the city moved their heads and hearts again. It was a sweet, crazy afternoon. They were all three a little tipsy and maybe trying a little too hard to forget about Kate and her death, but whatever it was that drove them on, in time they were laughing and chatting.

They came out of the park and their carriage passed the Guggenheim Museum. Alexis called out to the cabbie to stop, and they went in to see the current exhibition. Then
their horse trotted them down the avenue and out across to Madison, and Alexis pulled out three joints. They lit up and smoked their way down the street and window-shopped.

Like three naughty, happy-go-lucky, rich children, they stopped along the avenue whenever there was something they fancied. Alexander started off by dashing into one of those elegant boutiques, to come out with a magnificent Patagonian-fox car robe backed in beige felt. That went to Isabel with a kiss. “It is really for your Rolls,” he said. “But we can cover ourselves with it now; it is getting a bit nippy.”

The three of them snuggled together under the fur rug as the carriage rolled them down toward Fifty-seventh Street. There were ties for the men from Alexander Shields, and big fat cigars from an exclusive tobacconist on Fifty-seventh Street.

It was mad and extravagant and perfect. There was a fabulous new lynx coat for Isabel, because Alexis said she needed a coat with sleeves and the window dresser was draping one just at the right moment in Henri Bendel’s window. There was the most enormous box of handmade white chocolates with real cream centers, flown in daily from Belgium, from the Godiva Shop at the St. Regis, because suddenly the joints they had been smoking had given Alexander a desperate sweet tooth.

A window display of the newest handmade fishing rods for fly-fishing stopped them at once, and twenty minutes later, the carriage had three rods carefully packed along with the proper waders and the latest book on fly-fishing.

When they stopped for a red light, it was Isabel who spotted a magnificent vicuna sports jacket in Brooks Brothers’ window and insisted that Alexis should try it on. He loved it and they bought it. Time was running out for them, but they did manage to make Saks on Fifth Avenue fifteen minutes before closing and, sticking to the ground floor, they purchased an enormous bottle of Norell perfume, handkerchiefs for the men, a Gucci silk scarf for Isabel and a pair of black fishnet stockings, spotted by Alexander, which Alexis bought for Isabel.

The bells rang, the immaculate dust sheets came out and the store closed. A good thing too, for now they could barely get into their carriage, which was looking more like
a goods wagon. The three of them laughed when they looked at their cabbie, who had an enormous Havana cigar stuck in his mouth and was searching through the huge box of chocolates trying to find one he wanted.

Then it was on to drinks at the Carlyle, where Pierre, the wine steward, instantly produced a magnum of Bollinger ’69, and Alexander made a date with a Southern belle just seconds before her fiancé arrived. Tentatively Alexis suggested the opera, but Alexander said no, as the Bollinger sparkled. “What we need tonight is some of New York’s finest luxuries.”

“Wonderful,” said Isabel, picking up her lynx coat, pouring the last of the champagne into a glass, sweeping out into Seventy-sixth Street and presenting it to a no longer startled driver. Gratefully, he thundered off down Park Avenue to El Parador for dinner. As they jolted along, they laughed and lit up joints. At El Parador, the elegant and handsome Carlos was delighted to greet them and, as usual, offered them a perfect table, the most divine Mexican food and, of course, the best margaritas in the world.

The horse and carriage had been paid off at El Parador and the driver turned back to the Sherry Netherland, where he delivered the packages to the doorman and a note instructing that the Rolls be sent to wait for them.

By this time the Rotten Apple was not merely the Big Apple, it was the Apple Strudel — whipped cream and all. They were having a fantastic time and joined in a conversation with two Texans who were as big and as bold and as colorful as their state.

They left El Parador very high, and as they were about to get into the waiting Rolls, a woman in smart tweeds and brogues with the face of an elderly angel, screamed at them, “You miserable, mother-fucking, capitalistic perverts!”

Alexander smiled sweetly at her and said, “How perceptive of you, madam!”

Driving uptown they smoked a little more and snorted some coke. They were all flying high, wide and handsome.

It was time for Studio 54, and naturally, they didn’t have to wait in line. When they arrived, the chain was removed and they passed through. It was wild that night. The light show, the snowstorm, the dazzling effects. Pretty girls, beautiful girls, young girls, smart, snappy-looking
chicks, all high-stepping. And Isabel joined in. They were all turned on fast and stayed that way.

Men on the make, handsome New York blades with money, more without, smart, well-dressed, dirty old men acting like dirty old men, and the handsome gigolos seemed to be everywhere. Gay boys kissing and cruising, two men sucking on a spaced-out chick’s tits and a coked-up French rock singer with an enormous cock, beating off in the upper balcony, were just a few of the side-shows. Isabel and Alexis were fascinated. They all went onto the floor and danced, danced, danced. Isabel, to Alexis’s delight, found herself with four handsome men; the two Texans, as she soon noticed, were lovers.

They left long after the sun was up and rode down to the Fulton Fish Market and the Battery and watched New York come back to life again.

Despite the coke, they were starving, so the Rolls slid uptown to Barney Greengrass’s and they ate bagels and lox, scrambled eggs and slices of sturgeon and drank lots of black coffee. They ate, and as they ate they listened to the babble around them.

“So, how did you make out last night, Abe?”

“So, who made out, forty-six years old and she’s playing the Virgin Mary. I said, ‘Sylvia, you wanna fuck?’ She, said, ‘What kind of question is that to ask a lady?’ So already I knew I was in trouble. So I said, ‘All right, already, so you don’t wanna fuck, come on, I’ll take you home.’ She says to me, ‘Look, Abe, we don’t have to go home, we could talk, try and communicate,’ so I said, ‘Look, Sylvia, what’s to talk about? I talk all day, I communicate all day, at night I like to keep quiet and fuck.’ Then she laid it on me. ‘Abe, have you ever heard of EST?’ So I said, ‘EST? EST? What’s that? Some kind of perfume?’ ”

Isabel laughed, and the laughter, deep draughts of it, came to her like a tonic. She nudged Alexis to listen.

The waiter was standing there poised, ready to take an order at another nearby table. Isabel, Alexis and Alexander switched their ears to that table.

“Good morning, Mr. Vinklebaum, and good morning to you, young lady.”

“Good morning,” said the young lady.

“Vell, Mr. Vinklebaum, vat’s it to be this morning? The usual?”

“Yeah, Lester.”

“Scrambled eggs with fried onions and lox, bagels toasted with a side order of cream cheese, coffee with milk. OK, and, you, vat’ll it be for the little lady?”

“I’ll have a soft-boiled egg, please, three minutes, and a ryvita, no butter and tea.”

The waiter looked at her as if she were insane. Mr. Winklebaum looked at his lady and said, “Jesus, Mary-Louise,” and turned to the waiter and said, “Lester, she will have coffee with milk, a toasted bagel and lox, no butter, but cream cheese, forget the soft-boiled egg.”

“Right, Mr. Vinklebaum.”

When the waiter had left, the curly-black-haired young man turned to his young lady, an exquisite, doll-like blonde. A beauty with a vacant, almost dumb look on her face, who spoke in a soft, almost breathless kind of whisper.

“Mary-Louise, how many times do I have to tell you that you don’t come to Barney Greengrass’s to eat a three-minute, soft-boiled egg. A three-minute, soft-boiled egg you eat at home. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Irving.”

“Mary-Louise, why are you fidgeting; stop fidgeting.”

“I’m nervous.”

“Nervous? Christ, what have you got to be nervous about, doll?”

“Well, as long as you asked, Irving, it makes me very nervous every time I have to leave the house early in the morning like this, hide all my clothes and pretend that I don’t exist. Irving, you are going to have to tell your mother about me some day. Irving, it is three years now, surely she must know that we live together?”

“Listen, Mary-Louise, with my mother, she only knows what she wants to know.”

“Well, as long as you asked, Irving, I don’t think it is very fair to me. It makes me so upset, this. It is going to drive me to a head-shrinker. Irving, are you going to marry me or aren’t you? I would just like to know. I am tired of pretending I don’t hear your mother on the telephone when she calls and asks if you are still going out with that ‘filthy
shiksa
.’ I don’t think she should call me a filthy
shiksa
. I am very clean. She says
shiksa
like it is some terrible dirty word.”

“Look, Mary-Louise, to my mother
shiksa is
a dirty
word. Listen, baby, we talked about marriage before. You don’t want to go through that hassle, honey; you would have to study for years to become Jewish, because, you know, I could never marry a girl who was not Jewish. Then you would have to go through that business of changing your name.”

“Changing my name, what business? Every girl changes her name when she gets married, silly.”

“Not their first name, Mary-Louise.”

“Why would I have to change my first name, Irving?”

“How can you even ask such a question? How could you go through life with a name like Mary-Louise Winklebaum? No, you would have to change your first name, and then you would not be my Mary-Louise any more. Listen, we are very happy the way we are now. Eat your bagel and lox. After all, you would not want to lose your identity, would you?”

And with that subject closed, the young man, very annoyed with his doll-like beauty, snapped open
Women’s Wear Daily
and began to read as he shoveled forkfuls of a Barney Greengrass’s special into his mouth.

They called for the bill. As they waited to pay, they saw Irving leave, and watched Mary-Louise, with big tears in her eyes, ask the waiter for an Alka Seltzer. And, at last, the Rolls purred back to the Sherry Netherland.

Just as silently, Isabel and Alexis undressed and collapsed into bed to fall asleep in each other’s arms. They slept until ten o’clock that night. When they awoke, they made love, then bathed and went back to bed again. They ordered a light supper. It was served to them in bed on trays, and then they watched television. Then they went back to sleep again.

Two days later, Alexander left them to return to London. He had a few minutes alone with Isabel, and it was then that she thanked him for all that he had done and especially for taking them out that day in the carriage. She told him that she loved him very much.

He kissed her hand and said, “That is what you are supposed to do. I told you that you would like having two men in love with you.” Then he kissed her good-bye with great tenderness, as he held her very close to him.

As chance would have it, a long time would pass before the three of them would be together again. They talked
often on the telephone and surprise gifts arrived and were sent between them, but they did not see each other; their lives changed.

Kate’s belongings were delivered and unpacked in one of the guest rooms for Isabel’s inspection. One day, Isabel finally plucked up the courage and went to the room. The ever-faithful Gamal had the room locked, and so Isabel had to ask for the key. He gave it to her and went to Alexis, who was in his office with his secretary.

By the time Alexis arrived at the room, Isabel had picked up one or two small things and looked at them. All the silver was spread out, all of Kate’s dearest possessions. How many times had she said that she only polished them and cared for them in order to give them to her children after she was gone?

She was weeping uncontrollably when Alexis came to her. All she kept saying was, “Get it out, Alexis, I never want to see it all again, get it out.”

Alexis was frightened. He took her to the bedroom, undressed her and put her to bed with the help of Juju. She was put under sedation and slept all that afternoon and through the night. When she woke up the next morning, she told Alexis how sorry she was for having lost control but that she really did not want to see the things again, they had no meaning but that of pain. Just things. Kate’s last stab.

All the things that Kate dragged with her to her death were finally packed up and sent to the home for the aged in the town where they had lived in Massachusetts, the town where her father was buried, the place where her mother thought that she would always end her days.