Venus Envy (31 page)

Laura Armstrong, starved to perfection, sat at a table with Pete Barber and his wife. Laura had shipped in a date from New York to prove to the masses that she was capable of attracting a handsome man—but then who wasn’t if she paid the bills?

Laura had other bills to pay too. The last detective’s report had informed Frazier that her sister-in-law visited doctors in Richmond, Washington, and even Norfolk to
keep getting prescriptions for that old stand-by Valium and a host of mood elevators.

Frazier paid off the detective but kept the information to herself. If the divorce got ugly she would give it to Carter’s lawyer.

Then, too, it gave her some pleasure to know that Mrs. Perfect wasn’t.

Pete Barber paid his bill to Frank the minute he read the newspaper attack. Frank was finding out who his friends really were and he hadn’t expected this of Pete. It was as wonderful a surprise as Fred Vanarman, the stockbroker, was a disappointment. Fred’s response to the price-fixing allegations was to ask his lawyer to investigate the tab for his quarter-mile driveway. He made a point of snubbing Frank as he walked through the tables, passing and repassing.

Wilfreda Gimble, that worn coin too long in circulation, relished the spectacle of the Armstrongs
in extremis
or what she thought to be
in extremis.

Billy Cicero, Camille Kastenmeyer on his arm, paraded onto the dance floor. He made a special point of coming in from Richmond to show off his bride-to-be as well as his white tie and tails. Kenny Singer, back in town, sidled over to Frazier and leaned down. “Nothing wrong with Camille except she doesn’t have a chin.”

“Neither did the Hapsburgs. It didn’t hurt them any,” Frazier replied.

“True, but they were smart enough to grow beards.” Kenny laughed. He paused. “I’m sorry about this thing with your dad.”

“Me, too, but it will blow over. Dad’s on top of it. There must be something wrong with Mother, though. It’s not like her to miss the opportunity to wallow in a major tragedy.”

“Speaking of wallow.”

Laura Armstrong whirled by in the arms of her wavy-haired date. She smiled lavishly at Libby, who returned the gushing tribute. Laura followed this display of dentistry with an animated conversation in the ear of her date.

Carter didn’t even notice. Sarah did.

Courtney walked over to retrieve Kenny. She paid her respects and Kenny promised to come back for a dance as Courtney hauled him out onto the floor. Frank asked his wife to dance and Carter followed suit with Sarah. She belonged to the python school of dance.

The three unescorted ladies, Frazier, Mandy, and Mary Russell, observed the writhings.

“Shall I assume my nephew is a happy man?” A wry smile played over Ru’s lipstick, pure red.

“Rapturous.” Frazier folded her arms across her chest and watched people watching her. Oh, it was a small town indeed.

“How much do you think Laura spent on that dress? A thousand at least. Carter’s money. Poor Carter.” Mandy cupped her chin in her hand.

“Carter’s plastic. He doesn’t have any money,” Ru informed her.

Billy Cicero, enlivened by a malignant gaiety, twirled Camille close to Frazier’s table and she could just overhear him say to his fiancée, “Lifelike, isn’t she?” Camille’s laughter twinkled.

“Bad to the bone.” Auntie Ru reached for the wine bottle on the table, thought the better of it, and called the waiter over for some coffee. “Billy’s the result of too much money too soon. That and being told by every woman in his life, beginning with his mother, that he’s charming. It takes a mother twenty years to make a man out of her son and another woman twenty minutes to
make a fool out of him. Of course, in Billy’s case he never made it to being a man.”

“Because he’s gay?” Mandy innocently asked.

“Hell, no.” Ru dumped cream in her coffee. “Because he won’t assume responsibility.”

Frazier spoke up. “I’m not his biggest fan right now but he runs Atlantic Tobacco with brio and brilliance.”

“I mean emotional responsibility. Watch out, girl,” Ru said to Mandy. “Dr. Yancey Weems is bearing down on you like a freight train.”

Mandy hadn’t time to turn around because Yancey appeared beside her and asked her to dance. She graciously agreed to do so as Ann Haviland, already tanned and in pink, glided onto the dance floor too. She pointedly ignored Frazier and all the Armstrongs but she smiled big for Laura.

Frazier moved to the next chair to be closer to her aunt. “I think Dad’s going to be okay, especially if Mom leaves him alone.”

“He’s a strong man. Still waters run deep. People mistake Frank’s quietness and gentle manners for weakness. He’s a tank when the bomb drops. He didn’t win those medals in Korea for nothing and he never talks about them. Won’t talk about the war,” Ru said.

“Dad wonders why a man should get a medal for killing other men. Speaking of military heroes, did I tell you that George Demerius is moving to Arizona? Selling everything.”

“Frank told me. Told me about Carter too. This may be Carter’s turning point and you know, Frank has to rely on him. It’s good for both of them. I love Frank but he was hard on Carter. Not that I expected Carter to extend his adolescence to age thirty-seven.” She scanned the room. “But then, Wilfreda Gimble has pushed hers into her fifties. I believe she’s in her sixties myself.” She
swallowed more welcome caffeine. “Honey, why don’t you get up there and dance? You’re a beautiful dancer.”

“Now that the whole goddam town knows I’m gay I suppose they think I don’t like to dance with men. I don’t know. Maybe they think it rubs off—you know, you’ll get a little queer juice on your palm or something.”

“Or that you haven’t gone to bed with the right man. One spectacular roll in the hay and you’ll be cured. Ah yes, male vanity marches on, oblivious to reality.”

Oblivious
applied to Yancey, who sought to impress Mandy with his liberal credentials. She politely listened but wished white people would keep their guilt to themselves.

“Being a physician, I see things you wouldn’t believe,” he said. “For instance, the best families in Albemarle County, the best white families—I mean we’re talking aristocracy here, Mandy—they’re suffering from sickle cell anemia. Not that I tell them that. I tell them they have leukemia. They couldn’t face the truth about their ancestors, you know.”

While Yancey continued, Laura, that ruthless monologist, prattled to her date, and Carter, feeling the music, feeling good and feeling that he had the most beautiful girl at the party in his arms, couldn’t resist brushing by his wife. She recoiled for an instant, then relaxed into her date’s arms, her eyes growing particularly lustrous. That and the fuck-me dress she was wearing—a side-slit up her thigh—made her feel fetching, even if Carter was, in her opinion, being crude and trying to hurt her. What Laura couldn’t grasp was that she wasn’t the center of attention in her husband’s mind.

“Those two must be joined at the hip,” Laura giggled to her date.

“That’s not where they’re joined,” he said.

She threw her head back, making a big show of laughter.

“Academy Award performance.” Frazier tapped the table with her fork.

“Carter married in haste and repented in leisure. Wonder how much it will cost to dump her?”

“Ru, whatever it costs, it’s worth every penny.” She glanced at her watch. “I think I’ll go down to the fireworks. I checked out everything this afternoon but I’ll check once more. Send Mandy down when she’s finished her dance.”

“Frazier, it’s hard for you to sit here, I know, but I’m glad you’re doing it. People need to see that you’re not ashamed, that you have nothing to hide. Same with Frank. You have as much right to be here as anyone else.”

“You’re the best, Auntie Ru.”

“Well, I don’t know about that, but being an old lady I sit home and think a lot. I think a lot in the truck too. And you’ve got to give people a chance. You can’t expect them not to be blown off course a bit. They’ve known you as one thing and now they have to adjust. You haven’t lied but you’ve not told the truth either. Maybe we can say you were flying under false colors.” Ru patted her hand. “But give people a chance. Imagine if the situation were reversed.”

“What do you mean?”

“What if homosexuality were the norm and heterosexuals had to hide? Well, who would we see? We’d see pimps and prostitutes. We’d see dysfunctional people because the productive ones would pass, as you passed. Under those circumstances you can’t expect that anyone would have a good opinion of heterosexuals, right?”

“I never thought of it that way.”

“As I said, I’m an old woman. I have the luxury of
time to think. So give people a chance. And if more women and men like you would be truthful, I think our society might grow up a little. People are people.”

“Oh, how I’d like to believe that, but as long as women can lose their children, lose their jobs, lose their standing in their communities, I think there’s more reward for lying than telling the truth. God, it’s all so sick.”

“How do you feel inside now?”

Frazier played with her napkin, turned the question over in her mind. “I feel clean. I feel whole but I feel a rage I never knew I carried. I don’t know if it’s over this gay crap or if it’s directed at Mother or the insane pressure to conform but I’m willing to bet what landed me in the hospital in the first place was nerves. I plain couldn’t breathe. I can breathe now and I’m breathing fire.”

“So far you’ve been a paragon of poise. The fire isn’t showing. I guess all that money Frank dropped for cotillion paid off.” Ru laughed.

Frazier rose and headed back toward the fireworks. As she did so, Debbie Noakes, Kimberly’s twelve-year-old daughter, in her first grown-up dress, rushed out to greet Frazier. She knew her from Girl Scouts, and Kimberly, in typical indirect, middle-class fashion, told her daughter that the reason Frazier wasn’t participating any longer was because she had too much work to do.

“Miss Armstrong, I’m so glad to see you.”

“Me, too, and how pretty you look. This is the best party because everyone dresses up.”

Kimberly, prodded by her mother, rose from her chair and called with saccharine smiles. “Debbie, honey, come on back to the table. You know how busy Miss Armstrong is.”

“Mom is being weird. She’s always weird,” Debbie moaned but did as she was told.

As Frazier moved by the table she heard Kimberly’s own mother, the ancient Tiny Lockett, say, “You shouldn’t expose the child to those kinds of people.”

Frazier kept walking but she heard Debbie ask, “What kind of people?”

By the time she reached the fireworks Frazier was grateful to be away from the crowd. She wondered how she could give people a chance when most of them preferred to sit in judgment rather than learn about another complicated human being. She crouched behind the scaffolding. A giant dogwood would be the last firework lit. The various types of explosives and the lighting tapers were neatly laid out and numbered, as she liked to set off her fireworks in splashes of color. Every time she performed this task it made her think of Monet, Renoir, Pissarro. She thought of fireworks as celestial impressionism, something seemingly dashed off at the moment but requiring technique and planning.

The image of Vulcan standing at a distance from his father on Mount Olympus crossed her mind. Was Vulcan in charge of fireworks? Perhaps he should be. Even on Olympus there are outcast children, less than perfect offspring, and for an odd moment her heart went out to the sweating, crippled god, yoked to Venus, who at least didn’t hate him but didn’t love him either.

“Il Penseroso.” Mandy plopped down beside her.

“Don’t remind me of John Milton, now or ever.”

“You looked thoughtful.” Mandy smiled.

“Thinking about the fireworks and if they’re under the protection of Vulcan.”

“The painting again.” Mandy smiled again. “Some kind of mojo in that painting.”

Jim Burguss joined them. “About time. The band’s playing its theme song.”

“‘Dixie,’” Mandy wryly noted.

“Nah.” Jim patted her on the back. “‘Red Sails in the Sunset.’ It’s more their speed.”

“Now that Russia’s cracked up we could amend that to ‘Red Sales in the Sunset.’ S-a-l-e-s.” Frazier spelled it out.

“You’re slipping, Frazier, slipping. Then again, our government is slipping too. If we let Russia get away from us this time, if we don’t help, then we’ve failed twice, you know. First at Archangel in 1917 and now.”

“Jim, I forget that you’re a student of history.”

“If more people studied history we’d save ourselves a lot of trouble.” He saw the band stand up. “Okay, there’s the signal. I’m going back up to the patio.”

“Fine.” Frazier reached down and lit her first taper. Mandy stood at the ready. The first rocket up was a screamer with a boom, followed by a sunburst that faded out into spangles and glitter.

The oohs and aahs of the crowd gave Frazier a shiver. She loved pleasing an audience.

“Wow, that blue star is incredible.” Mandy shielded her eyes. “Say, did you see Ann?”

“I was spared that.”

“She’s overdoing the femininity thing.” Mandy watched a red burst go up, followed by green, then iris with a screamer ripping through the air. “Wow, those are sensational! Well, anyway, Ann is tottering on stilts, as in high-heeled shoes, and her voice is so high only a dog could hear it.”

“Wonder why men like all that phony femininity?” Frazier bent over the next batch. “Doesn’t turn me on. Gags me. Hand me that, will you?” She pointed to a fresh taper.

“Hey, maybe it does to them what ‘Honey, don’t you worry your pretty little head about a thing, I’ll take care of it’ does for us.”

“I hate to admit this but no man in my life ever offered to take care of anything. Guess I don’t arouse their protective instincts.”

“Could be. Showing more cleavage would help.”

“You’re on a roll. Hey, how do you like those golden fishtails?”

“My fave.” Mandy plugged her ears for the boom to follow. It was delayed and went off just as she took her fingers out of her ears. “Sneaky. Very sneaky.”

Lurching out of the crowd, dragging her crewcut date, Bob Alton, behind her, came Ann. She’d been deep in the grape. She neared Frazier and pointed. “Why, if it isn’t the little match girl.”