In a corner, she spied a small wooden box on the floor. The workmen had gone, but Trish’s maid entered, carrying a small silver tray. On it quivered Trish’s second Campari and soda of the afternoon.
“Thank you, Francesca,” Trish said as she sipped her drink. “Oh, dear?”
Francesca turned back. “Jes, Madame?”
“Would you get a hammer or a screwdriver or something and open that small box there?” She pointed with her cigarette hand.
“Jes, Madame,” Francesca said, disappearing into the kitchen.
Trish glanced out the window to the lawn and the occasional rush of cars on the road beyond her far off hedge. It would all die down, she thought. Soon enough, it’ll all be back the way it was. She thought of ways to fill her weekend, what with Winston staying in town on business, then flying to Washington on Monday.
Winston. He was quite a case, practically choking whenever she brought up the subject. Why hadn’t she read his damned editorials? Because she’d heard enough of his opinions at dinner and at night, that’s why. Who could she talk to? Who could she call that wouldn’t simply pour out with sappy sympathy? Blaine? She would understand. Justine? No. Mother? Possibly.
She turned and watched as Francesca returned and struggled a bit with the small crate, prying it open with a thick screwdriver.
“Is like Christmas, no?” She grinned as Trish hovered over her. As the lid came loose, Francesca pulled away the wood shavings and foam, then unwrapped paper from around a heavy object. Trish winced, trying to admire her gift.
“Take the Remington and put it on the table, then put
that
on the mantle,” she said pointing to the vase. Francesca shuffled the two clashing sculptures.
“We’ll put the Remington in Mr. Fuller’s room. This will be just new things.”
“Jes, Madame. Is bedy nice.” Francesca smiled and stuffed the papers in the box.
Trish stepped up to the vase and picked off small bits of dust and packing foam. “Yes. It’s by some new artist. Mai Ling sent it to me, a sort of sympathy gift, I suppose. You remember Mai Ling, that Oriental violinist we had for dinner a few weeks ago?”
“Oh, jes,” Francesca nodded.
Trish sipped her drink, then looked back to the vase. Francesca backed silently away and into the kitchen. The Campari had begun to kick in and Trish began talking more to herself than to Francesca. “Yes, it has a certain pop charm.”
She gazed at it a moment, her eye noticing the way the sun caught an emerald color in a section of the glazed depiction of ancient slaves serving coffee. Below it were the scribbled words:
We are Happy to Serve You.
“It’s a bit tacky,” she surmised. “But at least it matches the Warhol.”
39
For the wedding of the investment banker and his fiancè, a producer at
CBS, Alex booked the staff too early in the day. They had set up quite promptly and were told they had an hour to relax. The hour soon became three.
Most of the waiters sprawled out on the spacious acreage of the groom’s father, relaxing and lounging like subjects in a Hudson River school landscape, with apparel by the Gap.
Marcos lit a cigarette, careful to keep it downwind of Ed, who for once spared him a lecture on the evils of tobacco. They reclined on the soft grass under the shade of a large elm.
“I got a call from Che Guevara.”
“Who?” Ed asked.
“Lee. Mister MIA.”
“Oh. Really?”
“He’s doing some wacky activante fundraiser. ‘The Two-Thousand-Dollar Pink Pyramid.’ It’s a game show of gay trivia. Isn’t that wild? Wants me to DJ. It’s at Crowbar next month.”
“Are you gonna do it?”
“Of course. Already got Mona Foot to host it!”
“He and Cal are working on another video.”
“Is that paying the rent?”
“He’s getting some production work.”
“How thrilling.”
“Well, it’s the same money without the hassle. He definitely likes it better than catering.”
“He always had a bug up his butt about it. I wondered when he was gonna crack.”
“It’s not that. He just, I don’t know, awoke all of a sudden.”
“Came out of his shell?”
“Have you seen him? He’s got the sharpest haircut.”
“The whole new clone look.’
“Well, he hasn’t gotten his nose pierced yet.”
“But he’s hung up his tux?”
“Actually, he – he threw it out. He borrowed my old one for a demonstration recently. Did you hear about it?” Marcos shook his head. “This time they went to a dinner at the Ritz and yelled at Cardinal O’Connor.”
“Moving up in the world.”
“He even got arrested.” Ed grinned with fatherly pride as Marcos dropped his jaw in mock amazement. Ed didn’t tell Marcos that he’d spent a few evenings with Lee and Kevin Rook going over the floor plans of New York’s most familiar museums and ballrooms.
“Well, I’m glad somebody’s doing all that. I mean, I’m happy to help out, but they can do all that screaming without me.” Marcos crushed his cigarette into the cool dirt beneath the neatly clipped grass. “I mean, I understand his rage, I suppose. Did you go to Philipe’s memorial last week?”
“No. You?”
“No.” Marcos looked away, then turned back, a slight grin on his face. “I hear the food was excellent.”
They both shrugged out an attempt of a chuckle. A warm breeze passed, shushing through the tree limbs.
“So, what about the creature?” Marcos asked. “Has he written or called?”
“Just a post card. From Sitges this time. He’s ...” Ed bent over.
Marcos first thought Ed might be sobbing, until he threw his head back in a hoot of laughter.
“He’s a featured gogo dancer at a nightclub,” Ed gasped. “Room, board and pay for the whole summer. And he’s already posed nude for some horsehung Italian photographer who’s bringing him to Milan for a fall fashion job.”
Several other lounging waiters stared as Ed and Marcos literally rolled over on the lawn.
“Well, we’ll look forward to seeing him in
Vogue
and
Mandate,
won’t we? That whore. You know, I coulda told you it would happen sooner or later.” Marcos lay back, his eyes lazily enjoying the canopy of tree branches.
“Yes, but I wouldn’t have listened. No one listens to anyone else.” Ed grinned wistfully.
“At least you can start seeing other guys,” Marcos flirted.
Ed shrugged. “I guess.”
“Come on, you are one of the most wanted A-gays on the scene.” Marcos sat up. “Girl, you could snag anyone of these queens. They’re all a bunch of bottoms just waiting. One push, and it’s helium heels.”
“I dunno,” Ed blushed. “I don’t think like that.”
“Oh, get on with your life. Just pick one out. You’ll be making out on the bus home!”
The two laughed loudly as Billy Heath approached to sign them up for the “La Bamba” pool.
The bride rode down from a rolling hillside in a horse-drawn carriage to welcome three hundred of her dearest relatives and friends. Adjoining the main dining tent, a canopied walkway wrapped in imported Italian grapevines and Virginia lilies covered the pathway to the outdoor altar. After witnessing the wedding in the smaller green tent, the guests left the area and its ornate shrubbery surroundings, which were trucked in from a Connecticut nursery.
The largest tent in the back yard was lined to the ceiling in a trail of four thousand cream and pink roses that had taken three days to assemble and decorate. Each of thirty tables, adorned in matching cream and pink tablecloths and napkins, featured a full centerpiece of five dozen equally perfect cream and pink blossoms. Their sweet perfume crowded the tent like the toilet water of a hundred debutantes. The wooden tile dance floor lay waiting to be trod upon. The fifteen-piece dance band played a jazzy version of “Here Comes The Bride,” while the DJ, hired to play a select list of favorites chosen by the newlyweds between the band’s breaks, shuffled through his stack of records.
Dinner included Dijon chicken, potage en croix and the ubiquitous French vegetables with baby carrots. The wedding cake, delicately shipped in a separate van, sat waiting in the third tent which housed the kitchen. The tiered cake was six feet tall.
Just another simple wedding in Alpine, New Jersey.
“I heard things slow down in the summer,” Carl, a new waiter, murmured to Marcos. They stood guard by their table as guests circulated in after-dinner chat.
“Slow down?” Marcos mocked. “Kid, you are not in the loop. I am booked through July for parties.”
“Where?”
“The Hamptons. The Pines. Montauk. I’ll be workin’ on my tan between meals.”
“Well, jeez, which company?”
“A private booker.”
“Can you give me his name?”
“Well,” Marcos hesitated. “If you’re nice ... and if you switch tables with me so I don’t have to serve those brats who think this is a Denny’s.”
Carl nodded agreement. Marcos continued. “Then I’ll take your name and give it to my booker as highly recommended.”
“Oh, that’d be great,” Carl grinned.
“Then maybe, just maybe you can avoid a summer of desperate living.”
“You’re wonderful.”
“I know I am.”
By the time dessert was served, coffee poured, and the remains of the wedding cake returned to the kitchen, the band began to pack up. The DJ had played a good number of dance tunes. Even the most rotund uncle had been coaxed to the dance floor. Marcos won thirty-two dollars in the “La Bamba” pool, having guessed the correct time it would be played, at exactly ten-fifty-eight.
In a warm mood between pop songs, the DJ put on Frank Sinatra’s “The Summer Wind.” Already the more experienced waiters had wandered off to the dark recesses of the woods to smoke, chat, drink a bit of pilfered champagne, or make out.
Half an acre beyond the neatly trimmed estate hedges and the tents, Ed lay on the cool grass with Geoffrey, a new waiter, hired late in the season. It was his first party.
“Just think,” Geoffrey said with amazement while they gazed up at the moon in the darkening night sky. “All the food we sent out here, all of us packed into buses to entertain them. It’s quite absurd when you think about it, to say nothing of the cost of the flowers. The band, the horses, I mean–”
“Do me a favor?” Ed lifted the young man’s head off his lap. They both stood, wiping dew from their suits. Despite his naivete, he looked a lot like Brian, a resemblance that Ed was desperately trying to ignore.
“What?”
“Say nothing.” Ed pressed his right hand against his partner’s back, took his left palm in Geoffrey’s right.
People strolled and chatted along the outskirts of the glowing tent as it hummed with chatter, music, and the soft clattering of dishes. Any spirit or bird passing overhead might have mistaken the gathering for a small circus.
Swaying under the moonlight on the grassy plain, Ed glanced over to a few straight couples dancing at the far end of the field. The women’s gowns glowed like dim lampshades. Soft giggles were heard as they kicked off their heels in the near purple light, their partners in black nearly invisible.