The Great Man (4 page)

“Of course,” said Lila, seeing right through her ploy and accepting it as the small peace offering it was. “Anyway, who’s this new one?”

“His name’s Ralph Washington,” said Teddy. “Sounded wet-lipped on the phone.”

“What did you think of the first one, besides the fact that he was earnest?”

“Henry Burke? In the end, I liked him. He was insulted at first that I’d made him a tan-colored mush; then he took a couple of bites.” She paused a moment to remember something, smiled inwardly, and added dryly, “I think he fell a little in love with me, actually.”

“Really?” said Lila. “How old is he?”

“I would say forty, maybe a little older.”

“A boy,” said Lila.

Teddy said with a gleam in her eyes, “I bet I could have seduced him.”

“How would you know? I’m not sure I would be able to tell such a thing at my age.”

“He was…ripe for the taking, in a general sense, and he was surprised by his attraction to me, which is always an advantage in seduction. When a man is tipped off balance, there’s nothing easier than knocking him over.” Teddy flicked the air with her index finger.

“Did you
want
to?”

“Only to prove I could. And at my age, that’s not enough of a reason.”

“At your age, I’d say that’s a great reason.”

“So I could tell you all about it over breakfast today?”

“Of course,” said Lila.

“I bet you can’t wait to get these biographers to yourself.”

“Oh, come on, Teddy.”

“Actually, Henry didn’t care for my lack of proper humble womanly devotion to Oscar any more than you ever did; it almost scotched the whole deal. But once we got off the topic of Oscar and onto the topic of his sex life, he was all mine, although he may not have realized it.”

“His
sex
life?” Lila sputtered with laughter. “What did he say?”

“That he’s married to a forty-two-year-old woman in love with her newborn baby boy. I bet they tried and tried and tried, and Henry mistook this bonanza of sex for lust for him, and once she got what she wanted, wham-o, no more blow jobs to get him hard and afternoon quickies and hot couplings at the kitchen sink. He’s shunted aside, useless, the cast-off male….” She stopped, went off into some private reverie again. “I know, let’s make a bet. Let’s see who can fuck a biographer first.”

Lila waved her away. “What are you going to cook for this second one?”

Teddy cocked her eye at Lila. “No bet?”

“No, no, I’ll just live vicariously through you,” said Lila, trying for light teasing, but dismayed by the edge in her voice.

“You’re right,” said Teddy, not missing a beat. “The whole idea is ridiculous.”

“Besides,” said Lila after a silent deep breath, “it doesn’t seem right, an old woman with a much younger man. Remember that movie
Harold and Maude
? That wrinkled crone with a teenage boy. I never understood why so many people loved it.”

“Me, neither.” Teddy laughed. “But I wouldn’t mind seeing my old carcass in bed with a nubile forty-year-old body…. For him, no doubt, it would be terrifying and distasteful, but for me it would be glorious. All the men our age are so…old, aren’t they? They have ear hair, their teats droop, and they look cadaverous. Not for me, thanks. I’ll take a sapling.”

“Speaking of which…” said Lila coyly.

“Speaking of what? You’re simpering. Cough it up.”

“I am not
simpering
! No one simpers anymore.”

“Well what?”

“I met a nice man…. There he was with his big black dog upon Manhattan Avenue, and I stopped to pet him, the dog, and we started talking, the man and I. His name is Rex. He lives way over on Devoe Street. He asked me to dinner.”

Teddy said through a flash of something she hoped wasn’t envy, “When are you going?”

“Tonight,” said Lila with apprehension.

“And you’re just telling me this now?”

“It didn’t seem as important as all these biographers.”

“Rex…he’s Italian?”

“No, he’s not any ethnicity I could guess. He’s a graphic artist.”

“How old is he?”

“I would guess early to mid-sixties,” said Lila.

“A nubile young thing…”

“He’s actually pretty youthful, come to think of it. I don’t know why he’s single. He has the look of a confirmed bachelor, though—you know what I mean, the collector type with stuff like boxes of valuable old blues records or a model train with a whole town built around it.”

“Still,” said Teddy. “A nice, eligible, interesting younger man. So? Is he picking you up, or are you meeting him somewhere?”

“He’s coming by to get me at seven…. I’m a little nervous. What will I wear? What will I do when he eventually catches sight of my fat old naked body? He won’t want me; he can’t possibly…”

“Lila, you’re hyperventilating. It’ll be okay….”

“I am not hyperventilating. God, you make me sound like a swooning old maid. I’ve had two husbands, Teddy. I know how to—”

“Take a deep breath.”

Lila sighed deeply, then asked, “Do you have spider veins on your thighs?”

“Of course I have spider veins on my thighs; I’m seventy-four years old.”

“But, Teddy…are you getting bald…down there?”

“We all are. Stop obsessing. He won’t be looking at every detail; men never do. All they see are lips, boobs, and cunt. As long as there aren’t too many negatives, you’re fine.”

“A balding snatch isn’t a negative?”

“A balding snatch could be a fetish.”

They both laughed.

“Honestly, Teddy, tell me you wouldn’t be nervous, too.”

“Have a couple of drinks before he picks you up. Two glasses of sherry and you’ll be relaxed and confident as a twenty-year-old.”

“God, if only I still were.”

“We were so incredibly beautiful,” said Teddy. “Well, at least we knew it. At least we enjoyed ourselves.”

“That gets me through many a night.”

Teddy leaned back in her chair and looked out at her friend’s yard. “The male cardinal is back,” she said. “That’s good luck. Where’s his mate?”

“She’s around here somewhere. She likes to keep a low profile, unlike him.”

“Like me and Oscar. Anyway, I made a soup for Ralph Washington. Something to disappoint him initially and woo him eventually. Like the saffron chicken stew I made for Henry. What a funny question about the spider veins. Haven’t you had them for decades now?”

“I only got them recently.”

“Your skin is so much younger than mine.”

“That’s because I’m fat,” said Lila. “All that adipose is holding my face up.”

“My wrinkles used to bother me in my early fifties,” said Teddy, “but I don’t mind them anymore now that I’ve had time to get used to them. Now I feel like a well-worn old leather handbag with all sorts of intriguing bobby pins and sticks of gum in my crevices. No telling what you’ll find if you go digging around.”

Lila laughed. “What kind of soup?”

“Lentil, a very good gourmet one. I pulled out all the stops from my spice rack and added some beautiful-smelling merguez and chopped grilled artichoke hearts I couldn’t really afford. I’ll serve it with cheese biscuits made with some of that cheddar—you know, the very inexpensive cheddar that tastes so good baked in things…Cracker Barrel. And of course a devil’s-ear salad. And Sancerre.”

“What will you serve for nibblies?”

“For appetizers,” said Teddy, cringing silently at “nibblies,” “I got some simple antipasti from that hippie-dippy place on Manhattan Avenue, stuffed grape leaves, grilled peppers, goat cheese, olives, babaganoush…. Where are you and Rex going for dinner?”

“I hope he doesn’t take me to one of those places all the kids go. I’d hate to walk into one of those dark, noisy hot spots looking like someone’s grandma, which I am, but you know, it’s like being a humpback with two heads around here. I hope he takes me to that mafioso seafood place near the river. Even though the food is mediocre, I wouldn’t feel out of place there. But I have a sinking feeling…. He has that confirmed-bachelor air about him—the kind of ex-hippie who still lives like he’s thirty and has a budget to match….”

“I know exactly what you mean.”

“I guess I could offer to pay for dinner, of course. What pride does anyone have about such things at our age, really?”

“He might surprise you. Maybe he’s more mature than he looked.”

“He was wearing a T-shirt and jeans.”

“What kind of shoes?”

“Black loafers.”

“Could go either way. Old-man shoes are very in right now. Was there anything written on the T-shirt?”

“No, it was plain. Blue.”

“Besides, so what if he still lives like he’s thirty? Maybe that means he can still get it up.”

“Maybe. It’s been so long, you know. I don’t know what they’re using nowadays, how they get around that. Well, Viagra, but isn’t there a new thing that makes them hard for four days? I hope he doesn’t have that.”

“So where’s he been all this time?”

“He was living in Amsterdam last winter, designing a catalog for a Dutch furniture company.”

Teddy rubbed her eyes and swallowed a sleepy yawn. While Lila was being fed bits of lobster by this youthful, successful graphic designer who could probably still muster an erection, she would be drumming up old stories about Oscar and serving forth a meal for some wet-lipped Oscar worshiper who would of course take no romantic interest in her whatsoever, all her earlier braggadocio aside. She had been yearning lately for male attention and companionship, although sex would have been nice, too.

“An employed graphic designer; that means he’ll probably be able to afford a nice dinner,” she said.

“Maybe,” said Lila, obviously comforted.

“What are you going to wear?” Teddy asked, stifling another yawn. She hadn’t slept well the past few nights. All the wine and reviving old memories with Henry had kept her awake after he’d left; then she had dreamed vividly about Oscar during the short time she’d been able to fall into a trance deep enough to be called sleep. The past few nights had followed a similar pattern.

“Oh God,” said Lila. “Clothes…I need help here, Teddy. I don’t think I have anything…. It’s been so long.”

“Let’s go in and see what you’ve got.”

“I’m telling you, nothing.”

“Come on.”

Upstairs in Lila’s bedroom, Teddy rifled through her closet.

“Maybe I don’t want to wear a dress,” said Lila. “I don’t want to seem old. Aren’t dresses sort of old-seeming?”

“Look,” said Teddy. “I can’t believe you’ve still got this.” She pulled out a bottle green granny dress with an embroidered bodice. Lila had worn it all weekend once at a rock festival in the late sixties. She and Teddy had taken the kids, all five of them. Lila’s three boys were older than Teddy’s twin girls, so they couldn’t all play together in one satisfying clump; they had to be monitored in two distinct groups. Lila and Teddy, with the help of Lila’s boys, had pitched two big tents side by side in a field, spent the entire weekend soaked with rain, marshaling their offspring to and from makeshift outhouses, feeding everyone peanut butter sandwiches, making sure no one drowned in the creek, while all around them, people not much younger than they were, tripping on acid, danced to meandering guitar solos in the downpour, flowers in their hair and beads around their necks. Still, it was a weekend they’d looked back on together through the years with a sense that it had been memorable and amazing in some way they couldn’t quite identify; the memory of it made them both nostalgic for something, although they weren’t sure what or why.

Lila and Teddy looked together at the dress for a moment; then Teddy put it back into the closet. “I don’t think dresses per se are old-looking,” she said. “Look, what about this one? This one is beautiful and youthful and I think it’s very sexy on you.”

Lila took the dress Teddy handed her, a deep blue sundress with fitted bodice and full skirt. She held it against herself and looked down, patting the dress against her stomach. “You think this is all right? My arm dingle-dangle won’t gross him out?”

“He’ll fall at your feet,” said Teddy.

Lila laid the dress on her bed and wandered out of the bedroom and down the curved staircase. Teddy quickly cased the boudoir, pretending to be a potential suitor, looking for any telltale old-lady signs. Nothing but a pill bottle, which she knew contained Lila’s hormone-replacement therapy, which she’d told her for years not to take because it probably caused cancer (although really, what didn’t these days?), and a threadbare flannel nightgown that very well might have hailed from Lila’s first marriage. She scooped up both and hid them in Lila’s underwear drawer, then went out to the landing and called, “Where did you go?”

“What are you doing up there?” called Lila, who was tidying the living room with exactly the same thing in mind as Teddy, hiding her copies of
Active Senior
magazine and the special pillow that allowed her to sit without bothering her occasional hemorrhoids.

“Hiding your grandma nightie and your hormone pills in your underwear drawer,” called Teddy on her way downstairs.

“Come in here, Teddy,” Lila said in a different tone. “Look what I found.”

When Teddy came into the living room, Lila handed her an envelope. “It was on the floor by the front door. I must have missed it when the mail came yesterday. Look, it’s from Oscar’s sister.”

“Maxine? Why is she writing to you?” Teddy opened the envelope and slid out a piece of paper carefully folded into thirds. On it was a brief handwritten note. “‘Dear Lila,’” Teddy read out loud. “‘I don’t know whether you know about Oscar’s two new biographers. Their names are Henry Burke and Ralph Washington, and they’re both nosing around Oscar’s family and friends this summer in hopes of getting information about him for their respective books. I imagine they’ll contact you, as the best friend of Oscar’s mistress. If they do, please notify me before you speak to either one of them. There are a few things I’d like to discuss. Thank you. Sincerely, Maxine Feldman,’ and then she wrote her phone number.”

“You call her,” said Lila. “She’s got nothing to do with me.”

“You’re scared of her.”

“She’s some kind of fanged beast.”