A Certain Age (8 page)

"Florence Collins," she muttered. "And this is Charlie Twi-gall."

"How do you do?" Raffaello said. He was incredibly handsome, in an artificial way, as if a magazine page for men's cologne had been pumped into life by the exhaust pipe of a vacuum cleaner. His black hair was sleeked back, his navy suit was sharp-shouldered and expensive, he gazed at her with the expression of a man accustomed to assessing sports cars. The only thing that

wasn't quite right was the suit, a little too flashy-Italian, a bit on the gangster side—too much for the Hamptons, midsummer. "I could not help noticing you when you were coming down the stairs," Raffaello said. "It was very amusing, how you pulled yourself together only as you reached the bottom of the flight. You have, as they say, an inside persona and an outside person you show to the world. For one moment, I am thinking, your inside persona is let accidentally slip. But for me, I could tell something had happened even before I caught a glimpse of your face."

She smiled weakly. He was expressing interest in her, she supposed. But to be evaluated—summed up—was to also let her know that he was in the superior position, and she the inferior. He was too handsome, too alien in his Europeanness; it made her nervous and he knew it.

"Here's a plate, Florence." Charlie reached around and handed her a plate from the top of the stack as they got to the head of the line.

"I helped make some of the food, last night!" Florence said. A waiter stood behind the table, carving a flank of tuna steak, dried and charred on the outside, bright pink and raw inside. After carving, he plonked each slice on top of a dollop of mashed potatoes and then drizzled some kind of pink sauce over it. For a moment Florence was mesmerized—the whole thing was so hideous.

"May I help you to some of this pasta?" said Raffaello. The pasta was a huge bowl of mushy-looking curly noodles embedded with chunks of tomatoes and congealed lumps of spinach glistening with oil. He spooned some onto her plate, and as he did so he leaned into her, pressing against her from behind. Through his thin trousers she could feel his erection.

She stepped away and gave him a flattered look of disbelief. "You—you're outrageous!"

"And you are just my type. Except for your provincialism—it is so American to pretend to be shocked. Tell me, which is the food you have prepared? I will take that, specially." He certainly had some kind of S and M routine worked out—it was like getting

petted and slapped almost at the same time. "Some kind of Brazilian dish," she said. "I was chopping the onions."

"You must be very good at chopping onions."

She felt witless in the presence of such cynical smirkiness. "I think there's tripe in it."

"Not a popular dish, here in America!" he said. "However, for myself, I love what you call organ meat. I am very English, in that respect. You like tripe? Or kidneys? And the sweetbreads—that is my favorite."

"Are you friends of Natalie's? Or John?"

"Oh, of both," he said, helping himself to some dry slabs of white turkey meat. "And you?" He made it clear that her question was banal. Next to the turkey was the dish that she had participated in preparing—a heaving mountain of black beans, from which gray things resembling human digits protruded at various angles.

There were a few other dishes on the table: some bright green peapods, all positioned in exactly the same direction; a salad of orange segments, onion slices and lettuce leaves; and something that might have been a rice pilaf—she was uncertain. There was something that might have been beef or lamb stew, and a platter of chicken legs in a yellow-and-cream-colored sauce. As usual with these buffet dinners, nothing seemed to quite go with anything else; it was almost as if you had to create food in stranger and more peculiar concoctions than had previously been thought of, so that a meal had become the food equivalent of "The Emperor's New Clothes," with people smacking their lips and commenting "How delicious!" over a plate full of garbage.

She had only a few more minutes to decide whether to sit with Raffaello, abandoning Charlie, or wait until Charlie had finished serving himself and act as if it were only natural for the two of them to sit together. Two hundred million dollars! How her life would be changed! In one split second she had mentally purchased an apartment—penthouse duplex, terrace, fifteen rooms— and furnished it: Biedermeier, French club chairs, Mies van der Rohe. The closets were full of clothes, the maid was dusting,

admiring friends had arrived, she was debating whether to fly the Concorde—when she quickly realized there was no use in such fantasies: if she indulged in them, she would never get to live them. She stopped the thought as if it were an insect under the edge of her fingernail. "Tell me, what field are you in?" she asked Raffaello.

"Oh, I am in the wine business," he said, retreating into his predatory eye routine once again. The wine business. Did that mean he owned a vineyard in Italy? Or worked in a liquor store? With her luck, it was probably the latter. If only she had the courage to be blunt and ask. But it had seemed rude enough to ask him what he did. His eyes were an intense blue, outlined in black. "And you?" he inquired. "What is your field?" His tone made it perfectly obvious he knew that whatever she did was of no importance whatsoever.

"I work at Quayle's. You know—the auction house?"

He snorted. "Yes, of course. In which department?"

"I'm in jewelry."

"You're kidding!"

She couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic. "No. Why would that be so shocking?" Before she knew it he had picked up two sets of silver wrapped in napkins, gesturing that one was for her, and Florence followed him outside to one of the little café tables, ignoring Charlie, who was still hovering wistfully nearby. She was spreading her blue-and-white-plaid napkin over her lap when Natalie emerged from the house and, looking across the patio, steamed toward her.

"What do you think you're up to?"

"What?" Florence said.

"The only reason I was ever friends with you is because our mothers were friends; my mother's always asking how you're doing, did I help you find a boyfriend. In less than twenty-four hours—as my guest—you've screwed my husband and almost drowned my daughter."

Florence looked around the patio, panic-stricken, but none of the other guests were looking in her direction.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Natalie, really. I said I was sorry about the accident with Claudia." The others dining on the patio ceased talking. Three waiters had gathered by the pool bar, motionless, straining to hear. Florence turned and went back inside.

"I think you know what I'm talking about." Natalie was not giving up; she had followed her into the house. "John's not without blame, but you're a total slut; you didn't have to come on to him. And you lock him in your bedroom just before I have a party? Is that supposed to be funny? I don't even want you on my property. I think maybe you should leave."

A droplet of liquid fell onto Natalie's forehead and rolled down her nose. Oblivious, she brushed it away and did not seem to notice when a second appeared. Surreptitiously Florence looked up. The water was coming through the ceiling. A bubble of plaster, like the blister on a burn, bulged ominously, tender and swollen. Another drop of water plashed down.

6

The third-floor Carpeting
was squishy underfoot. She packed and came down the back stairs into the kitchen; hopefully, she would avoid running into Natalie—or anybody else. Perhaps there would be a train schedule or the jitney timetable. Through the kitchen window she saw Charlie in the side garden. He was staring in a somewhat slow-witted, doltish way at a dish-shaped pink flower the size of a dinner plate. Both were illuminated in the glare from the building's security lamps. She put down her suitcases and went out the door. "Oh, Charlie!" she said. She tried to drape her

arms around him, but he stepped back, so she knew he had already heard. "This is so awful! I didn't sleep with Natalie's husband—and I never meant for anything to happen to Claudia. Please say you believe me."

"Ah . . ." he said, half turning but not looking at her. "I'm just waiting for my driver. I told him to be back around now." She looked at her watch. To her surprise, it was after eleven.

"What am I going to do?" she said. "I don't think the trains or the jitney back to Manhattan run this late, do they?"

"Oh, are you . . . going back to the city?" he asked. "Well, if I don't see you again, have a great . . . trip." He still avoided her gaze and looked nervously through the French doors that led to the dining room, as if he might be under the observation of someone indoors.

"I don't know what to do," she muttered.

"I don't think there are any trains this late," he said, as if he were just now receiving her question through a telephone on the other side of the world.

"What a pretty flower!" she said desperately. It was hideous, the flat pinkness of it, with a wibbly-looking phallus in the center.

"My favorite." He brightened slightly and cupped the bloom in both hands. "Malva." There was the sound of car wheels on the gravel behind them, and both turned as a dark maroon Jaguar pulled up in the drive. "Well, there's my car. I never stay out late when I'm in the country."

"Would you be able to give me a lift to the station?"

"What are you going to do there?" he said. "You'd be better off waiting until morning." She followed him down the drive. "Oh, there you are. Tibor!" he called as a pimpled boy in his twenties got out of his car. "Mother's driver. Tibor!" He waved. The boy came over to the hedge. He was not unattractive, with large brown eyes and lashes, high cheekbones and broad shoulders, quite a nice slim body—but cheap-looking thin blond hair, brushed back and blow-dried, and a ghastly gray-and-red-patterned acrylic suit jacket that might have been made in Turkey or Rumania, of the sort worn only by Eastern Europeans and Pakistanis. He looked at

Florence, his eyes traveling up and down her tight outfit, and grinned nervously, almost involuntarily. "I'll just be a moment, Tibor," Charlie said. "I have to say good-bye to the host and hostess."

"Excuse me," Tibor said to her as if he were supposed to be inspecting her and had been interrupted.

"Where's he from?" she asked brightly, trying to think of anything to stall Charlie. If she could get him to chat . . . she might suggest they go for a drink, and over drinks ask if he could put her up for the night. Surely his house had a guest bedroom, a cottage, even a couch would do.

"Russia," said Charlie. He began walking back to the house. There was a grin on his face that seemed to say he was delighted to be getting even with her for sitting with Raffaello at dinner, for thinking uncomplimentary thoughts about him. He had everything going for him. He was a man, he was rich, plenty of women swooned over him. He might marry and begin a family at sixty, if he chose. Or seventy. Florence had been around too long. At thirty-two, without a good background (anyway, an ordinary background,
ordinary,
pet rather than show quality), without money of her own, having slept with a few too many men—who was going to want her? She was like an overripe banana marred by brown spots, diminished in value. "Good to see you, Florence!"

So she was dismissed. She would be damned if she'd beg him again for a lift to the station. She supposed she could sneak back into the house and call a taxi service to pick her up. The first morning train probably came in at six-thirty or seven. She would simply spend the night sitting on her bag in some train station or shelter. At least it was safe out here, in this ghetto of rich people. Then she realized she didn't even have to go back in to call a taxi. It was true the station was probably five miles away, but what else did she have to do but walk? It would take up some time and might help to calm her down. She hoisted her suitcase onto her shoulder and set off down the gravel drive. "Florence! Florence, wait!" a voice called to her from the front door; she didn't turn around. Whoever it was ran after her, the pebbles rustling dully

underfoot. "What are you doing?" It was Darryl Lever. He tugged on her arm and took the suitcase in hand.

"I'm walking to the train station." She tried to yank her bag from him.

"I'll give you a lift. But I don't think there's another train until morning."

"I don't care. I'll wait."

"You want me to drive you back to the city?"

She almost collapsed with gratitude. "Would you?"

"Sure."

"Oh, God. Thank you. Everything's been so awful. Everything's been just horrible."

"You wait here. I'll go get my car. We have to swing by my house so I can pick up my things, if that's okay."

"I don't care. I just want to go home."

It was after eleven. For the first time all weekend the traffic had diminished; they spent the next twenty minutes in silence. His car was a big old Cadillac convertible, rusted to bits; it must have been fifteen or twenty years old—the smell of old gasoline fumes rose through the floor and dashboard. "I'll just run in and grab my stuff," Darryl said at last, turning down a driveway. "Do you want to come in?"

"I'll wait."

The trees along the private road were illuminated by old-fashioned streetlamps. The house was so splendid Florence thought for a minute it was some old hotel or country club—what was Darryl doing here? It had probably been built around the turn of the century: dark wooden shingles, a porch that extended across the entire facade. It was three stories high, with turrets and cupolas, and across the circular drive and parking lot, there was an old carriage house converted into a garage and caretaker's or chauffeur's quarters. He circled the car around to the front and hopped out. "I'll only be a minute," he said. "I'm not going to come back this weekend. Everyone's probably already gone to sleep, so I want to leave a note."