After the Reunion
A Novel
Chapter One
The bright sunlight of another California morning woke Emily at eight o’clock. She moved around and stretched in the large bed and felt the familiar little pinch of desolation, as if she’d been deserted, that she felt every morning. Ken was gone again, off to his interesting day, without even saying good-bye. He would have called it consideration. He was the phantom of the house, and she should be used to it after all these years. But still, like a child, she ran to the hall window to look down at the driveway, to see if his little sports car was still there. It wasn’t. There was nothing but her own two-seater Mercedes, all alone. She hoped no one would drive by with robbery or worse on his mind and know there was only one person in the house. That’s why she hadn’t wanted to sell the station wagon, but Ken said it was silly to keep it now that the kids were living on their own, and besides, he had to buy them cars, and neither of them would be caught dead driving around in something as square as a station wagon.
Somewhere out of sight she could hear the voices of the men who worked on the grounds of other people’s houses—Mexicans, Japanese—and the sound of someone clipping a hedge. Otherwise all was stillness. A bird squawked. A car drove by, very fast; someone on the way to work. Far away, soft in the morning smog, she could see Los Angeles, where all those other people were starting their day. She might as well start hers, before Adeline came, or she wouldn’t have a moment’s peace.
It was too late. Engine growling, exhaust smoking, there was Adeline’s enormous, ancient convertible, low to the ground like a boat. She got only nine miles to the gallon on it, as she never tired of complaining to Emily, even though Ken paid for her gas. They should have given her the station wagon. But Ken, who adored Adeline, said Emily was crazy to think of it. Why not, Emily asked, since other people bought cars for their housekeepers, and the station wagon was old and not worth very much? He’d just blown up at her. Ken, who had been the most generous of men, had started to act stingy about the strangest things. He’d go out and order cases and cases of the best, most expensive wine, because someone had recommended it, and then he’d glare if Emily bought a dress, which she hardly ever did anyway as she wasn’t much of a shopper. She didn’t like it when Ken called her crazy—it reminded her of when she had been, and she wished he would think of anything else to call her but that when he got annoyed. He knew how she felt about it, and she had the terrible feeling he did it on purpose, which again was just so totally unlike him. Maybe they could sit down and talk about what was happening, if she could ever catch him when he was alone and not harassed.
Adeline was sitting at the kitchen table having breakfast and reading the morning papers when Emily came down. The smell of fried bacon hung like a reproach and a challenge in that abstemiously red-meatless house.
“Good morning, sweetie!” Adeline sang out.
“Good morning, Adeline. Don’t bother, I’ll get my own, you just finish your breakfast,” Emily said. She poured a cup of coffee and dropped a slice of diet bread into the toaster. Adeline had come to work for them five years ago, and had gradually exerted her power to where she ran everybody. She had Emily absolutely cowed and behaving like one of the children. Half black, half American Indian, huge, willful, and inscrutable, she seemed ageless and she wasn’t telling, but Emily had to pay her in cash to stay. Adeline did all the cooking now, and Emily went to the supermarket with a list—she who had been such a gourmet cook and had taken so many courses in the cuisine of any country you could name was now allowed into her own kitchen only on Adeline’s days off. Ken thought Adeline was a gem, Kate and Peter liked being spoiled by her, Emily couldn’t stand her but no longer could do without her, and nobody ever knew what Adeline thought.
The kids were coming for dinner, and Emily could already see the long shopping list on the kitchen counter, and the cookie sheets laid out in readiness. She wished at least she could make the cookies. Cookies were love.
“You better go early before Gelson’s get too crowded,” Adeline said.
Oh, God, Thursday! Coupon day. The day when there were all those ads about specials in the newspapers. Adeline should have sent her yesterday … or she should have remembered and insisted.
“Maybe I’ll go somewhere else,” Emily said timidly.
“I like Gelson’s,” Adeline said, in a voice that clearly meant Emily was making a big mistake. Emily remembered that voice from her childhood, when she’d gone to buy clothes with her mother. Was that why she was so afraid of losing Adeline’s good will that sometimes her throat closed up with anxiety when Adeline didn’t agree with her? After all those years of analysis, wouldn’t you think she’d be over her compulsive need to please everybody? She was the good child, the good wife, the good mother, and the invisible person.
“All right, I’ll go to Gelson’s.”
By the time she’d taken a shower and washed her hair and dressed, and put on a little makeup because you never knew if you’d run into somebody who’d tell people you were looking awful, Emily knew it was already too late. She drove around and around the underground parking lot beneath the giant market, looking desperately for a space, and finally found one so far away it belonged to another store. Then the endless walk through thick carbon monoxide fumes from all those cars, trying not to breathe, knowing it would seem twice as long on the way back with a loaded cart. Adeline remembered everything Peter had ever liked to eat or drink and had put it all on the list, planning to send him home with a CARE package. Kate ate very little because she wanted to stay thin, and although she always very politely took cookies home, Emily was sure she gave them away.
Emily was sort of sorry both her children were coming to dinner on the same night, because when they were together they seemed to have secrets from which she and Ken were excluded. Elusive, smoky-voiced Kate, whose eyes held you at a distance … Emily had often wondered who, if anyone, was ever let into Kate’s world, except for Peter, and she wasn’t even sure about him. Peter was unfailingly polite and respectful to his parents because he felt that was the way one should be. It had little to do with feelings. Sometimes Emily wondered if he had any feelings at all, so deeply were they hidden. He refused to admit fear or vulnerability or even doubt of any kind. If he asked you a question, and he asked many, it was to learn. He was careful to tell you often that he wanted to learn as much as possible. He wanted to learn so that he could become a success. Neither Kate nor Peter ever touched their mother if they could help it; they never kissed her. They of course allowed her to hug and kiss them if she wished to. That was the only polite way to treat one’s mother. But they slapped each other on the back, they laughed and winked and cast each other shorthand looks covering a whole life from which other people were excluded. They were like two children who had to hold on to each other to keep from drowning.…
Two little wet heads, sleek as baby seals, bobbing above the surface of the water. A turquoise swimming pool … bare little tan arms, the bright orange life jackets locked away in the utility closet …
And a mother who never came when Kate screamed …
Emily cleared the visions from her mind and marched determinedly across the underground parking lot, pushing her heavy grocery cart. Tonight there would be a delicious dinner, and everyone would have a really nice time. All of that was a long time ago, when she was almost a child herself. Maybe they didn’t even remember.
How could they not remember? Kate had been the one who told Ken. And then Ken had gotten a baby-sitter and driven Emily to the mental hospital and made her sign herself in. The children certainly remembered she had left them; she’d been gone six months. After that Emily had been so busy with her own problems, trying to get well, that it had never occurred to her to find out if what had happened had really hurt them. She’d been so busy being a good mother, driving Kate and Peter to the events of a crowded Southern California day; school, lessons, social life, sports—and trying to work out with her analyst why she still resented them, until she didn’t resent them at all, not a shred of resentment remained.
Except for those few moments when she realized they had their whole lives ahead of them and hers was over. And that they were so much braver than she had ever been.
Back home, Adeline helped Emily unload the car. “God, it’s hot,” Emily said.
“Sure is. I can’t stand the heat.”
In the kitchen Emily drank a can of artificially sweetened iced tea and glanced through the mail while Adeline finished putting the groceries away. She didn’t know why she always felt she had to stay in Adeline’s presence, instead of having the tea by the pool or in her room; but something, that same unnamed guilt perhaps, made her follow Adeline around, trying to get on her good side.
“I forgot to write down butter,” Adeline said.
Emily sighed. “Do I really have to go back?”
“Can’t cook without butter. I’m sorry, sweetie.”
Emily drove back down the winding road resentfully. She does this all the time. I don’t know why she does this to me. And I like my cookies better than hers anyway; hers are all greasy. Mine are soft and chewy and wonderful … She stopped at the superette that was closer than the market and bought two pounds of butter, making sure it was Adeline’s favorite kind, even though it wasn’t her favorite kind. She didn’t want to risk being fixed with Adeline’s gimlet-eyed glare and listen to her banging pots around for an hour. By the time Emily got back to the house it was time to rush off to her job at the hospital.
Children’s Hospital was new and beautiful, decorated in cheery primary colors to cheer up little children whose lives were filled with sickness and pain they could only partly understand. The other volunteers were mostly Emily’s age, the nurses were young, and the Play Lady, Suzanne, who was Emily’s boss, was twenty-eight. The Play Lady was allowed to wear street clothes, but Emily had to wear a silly pastel pinafore. The Play Lady was almost twenty years younger than she was. It was the kind of authoritative job Emily had had years ago, when she was first married to Ken and had been a psychiatric social worker, respected. Now she was just the general flunkey. But still, it made her feel fulfilled for a few hours to help the children act out their fears and anger, and to hope she’d made life a bit more bearable for them. They liked her and she got along well with them. If one was missing she always got frightened—you knew if they were going to be allowed to go home because they talked about it beforehand, but if they just disappeared you knew something terrible had happened. She was relieved today to see that everyone she knew was still here. There was one new small scared face, under a baseball cap pulled way down. Bald: chemotherapy. Cancer. She glanced quickly to see if he still had both legs.
“Hi! My name is Emily. What’s yours?”
A sad little mumble. Emily hugged him.
“Emily, go get the paper and paints,” Suzanne said. “We’re going to play Matisse today. Or Star Wars. Depending.” Emily went to the wall of cupboards and brought out the supplies. “Oh, we’ll need a lot more than that,” Suzanne said.
“I’m getting more,” Emily said, trying to sound pleasant. Why did everybody order her around? But still, she was so lucky to be healthy and to have healthy children, and to be out of the house, she shouldn’t complain about anything.
The hours passed quickly. The new little patient told her his name and she painted gold stars all over his baseball cap. She let him paint a monster on her arm and hair on her hand and claws on her fingers. Soon he was laughing. After the play session was over Emily and Suzanne went into the lounge to have coffee.
“Hey,” Suzanne said. “One of the women told me you’re Kit Barnett’s mother.”
“Yes.” This was the first time anyone at the hospital had spoken to her in a tone of respect.
“I didn’t know. The name’s different.”
“It’s still Kate Buchman. She calls herself Kit Barnett professionally.”
“I think she’s terrific,” Suzanne said. “I saw her in a couple of things on TV. When I read she’s going to be in something I try to watch it.” This was also the first time the Play Lady had spoken to Emily at such length. “What’s she like?”
“Like?”
“In real life. What’s she like?”
I’m not sure I know. She’s my daughter but I don’t really know her either. “Just a normal young woman,” Emily said lightly. “Hard-working, dedicated. I’m very proud of her.”
“Well, when you see her, tell her she has a fan.”
“As a matter of fact,” Emily said, “I’m going to see her tonight.”
“Hey. Well.” Suzanne nodded and smiled, and Emily nodded and smiled back, and then they went their separate ways. “ ’Night, now,” Suzanne called after her.
In the car, creeping along with the rush hour traffic, Emily thought: I’m famous. I’m Ken Buchman’s wife and Kit Barnett’s mother. My freshman advisor back at Radcliffe would be thrilled.
The kitchen smelled delicious. “Doctor Buchman called,” Adeline greeted her. “He has to meet somebody and he says to start without him and save him something.”
Emily’s heart sank. “Did you remind him the children are coming?”
“He remembers.”
The last several times Ken had had “meetings” they’d lasted until ten or eleven o’clock, and he’d come home surly and refusing to make conversation. She’d been so sure all that with his women was over, but now she wondered. What else could it be? Dermatologists didn’t have meetings, and they didn’t work until eleven o’clock at night. Maybe he was just having a drink with another man at the Polo Lounge, the way he sometimes did; but it was inconsiderate of him to do it when the children wanted to see him, too. They always ate at seven so Adeline could get home. A person could certainly have enough drinks by seven o’clock. Well, she wasn’t going to argue with him. She would do her best to make it a pleasant evening for everyone.
“Hi, Mom! Hi, Adeline!” Peter, her tall, tanned, handsome son, smiling.
Adeline put her palms together and bowed the way Ed McMahon did on the Johnny Carson show. “The Little Prince!” Adeline said, and bowed again. Peter laughed and hugged her. He let Emily hug him.
“You’re looking beautiful, Mom,” he said. “What’s for dinner?”
“Your favorite things and a surprise,” Adeline said before Emily could answer.
“I saved you all the copies of The Wall Street Journal,” Emily said.
“I have my own subscription now,” Peter said cheerfully. “The Little Prince is going to be the little tycoon. Or big tycoon someday, I hope. Where’s Dad?”
“He’s going to be late,” Emily said.
“Something I said?” Kate asked, smiling, slipping into the room like a wraith. A head taller than Emily, but still fragile-looking, with a froth of dark hair and big gray eyes, she looked a lot like Emily did at her age, minus the fear. The shrill voice of her babyhood was gone—that piercing, demanding little voice that had driven Emily to distraction so many years ago—replaced by an interesting husky tone. That was one of the things that distinguished her from other young actresses, but even more importantly it was her eyes; something mysterious and withheld, a challenge; even though her manner was friendly. Emily was aware of this on the screen, as was everyone else, but she also saw it in her own home, and she knew it was Kate’s look; there was a place beyond which you could not go.
Kate gave Adeline a quick hug, suffered her mother to hug her, and put her arm around her brother. “Let’s have some wine out by the pool,” Emily said. “It’s so pretty this time of the evening.”
They marched out with a carafe of white wine, glasses, and a cooler, and arranged themselves in front of the sunset. Emily noticed for the first time that there was a bruise on the side of Kate’s face, as if someone had struck her. “What’s that?” she asked, alarmed.
“What’s what?”
“Your face. It looks as if you hurt yourself.”
“Oh, I have no idea,” Kate said calmly. Her voice made it quite clear that she was not going to discuss it.
“How’s work?” Emily asked quickly.
“I’m up for something, but if I tell anybody I’ll jinx it,” Kate said.
“Well, I have my fingers crossed. You tell me just as soon as you know.”
“I will.”
“I have a chance to sell my car to a girl at school,” Peter said. He took a sip of his wine. “What kind of wine is this?”
“Just jug wine,” Emily said.
“Oh. Anyway, I was thinking, then I could buy a used BMW and learn to fix it.”
“You’re too young for such an expensive car,” Emily said. “We’ve talked about this already.”
“But it would be good for me to learn how to fix a car. If it was my own car I’d have an incentive.”
“I want you to spend your time studying, not fixing cars,” Emily said.
Peter sounded pained. “I get all A’s. You said if I sold my car I could have another one.”
Where’s Ken? she thought. I hardly see him anymore. I miss him and I want to be with him and it isn’t fair. “I thought we decided you were going to get a Toyota,” she said.
There was a silence while Peter mused on his fate. “Do you think a white car is too feminine?” he asked.
“Too feminine?”
“Yes. Girls have white cars, and so do fags.”
“I go out with a man who has a white car,” Kate said languidly. “He’s not a fag.”
“Maybe I’ll get a white car and have the windows tinted black,” Peter said. “That would really look great.”
“How are you going to see?” Emily asked.
“You can see,” Peter said.
“Oh, rub my back,” Kate said. “It’s killing me.” She bent over double and Peter began kneading her shoulders. “Mmm … that’s great,” she said.
“I wish I had my own money,” Peter said. “I wish I were phenomenally rich.”
“You will be,” Emily said encouragingly.
Peter smiled. “Then I’d get a glamorous beach house, a gorgeous live-in girlfriend, an expensive sports car, and a killer dog to protect it all.”
“You’ll get them,” Kate said.
“Well,” he said, “I’m trying.”
“Dinner is served,” Adeline called cheerily.
They went into the dining room, bringing what remained of the wine. Emily had put one of her white orchid plants in the center of the table, and around it had arranged small, fat white candles. She lit them now, and dimmed the light in the overhead chandelier to a faint golden glow. The room looked very pretty and she wished Ken were here to make the evening complete.
“I’m starving,” Peter announced happily.
Adeline came in bearing a huge platter of her famous oven-fried chicken, surrounded by mounds of corn fritters. I didn’t know she was going to fry everything, Emily thought in dismay. She noted with relief that there was a large glass bowl of salad on the sideboard.
A glare of bright light hit her like a physical assault. Adeline was standing by the dimmer on the wall, and had turned the overhead light on as high as it would go. “If I cook, you’re going to look at what I cook,” Adeline snapped. She stood there, arms folded, thin lips pinched in a straight line, waiting for any backtalk. Of course there was none. They all smiled at her and began to eat heartily in the blinding light until she was satisfied and went back into the kitchen.
Emily was furious, but she knew there was nothing she could do. Ken would never have let Adeline get away with it, but then, Adeline never tried anything like this when Ken was around. When Emily tried to complain to Ken he just told her she ought to be able to control her own help and was acting ridiculous. Kate was giggling. She thought Adeline was hilarious; the more outrageous Adeline was the more Kate loved it.
“Adeline, this is delicious,” Peter called.
“When you’re rich and have your beach house I’m going to give her to you,” Emily whispered. Kate stifled another giggle and Peter just kept on gorging himself.
They had finished dinner and were having coffee when Emily heard the sound of Ken’s key in the lock. “I’m here!” he called. He put some packages down in the hall and walked into the dining room. How tired he looked! He still had the boyish, sandy-haired looks that belied his age, but now instead of compact and athletic he seemed too thin. She wondered with a little start of fear if all this time there had been something physically wrong with him, some secret, almost unnoticed illness, and that was why he had been so irritable.
But he wasn’t irritable now; he was charming with everybody. He pushed his food around the plate and ate nothing, but Emily pretended not to notice so he would stay this sweet.
Kate and Peter left soon after dinner, both with work to do; both carrying the boxes of food that Adeline had left for them before she went home. By the time Emily had turned out the lights and set the alarm system Ken was already upstairs.
“What did you buy?” she asked him cozily, as they were undressing for bed.
“What?” he asked—that strange, irritated voice again, like a stranger.
“Those packages,” Emily said.
“Oh, just some socks.”
“I would have bought you socks, Ken. You should have told me.”
He turned quickly and glared at her as if he wanted to strike her. “Can’t I even buy my own socks? Can’t you let me breathe?”
She felt as if she were going to cry. “What did I do?”
“Stop whining.”
“I’m not whining. If I’m whining then I’m sorry I’m whining. I’m just upset because you’ve been acting so weird lately. You’re so unpredictable I don’t even know how to talk to you anymore. Everything I say or do seems to make you mad at me.”
“Go to bed,” he said, dismissing her. He put on his swim trunks.
“What are you doing?” she asked stupidly.
“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m going for a swim.”
“Ken, please talk to me. If something’s upsetting you I want to help you. Do you feel all right? You look sick … I don’t really mean sick, I mean … not well.”
“I’m fine.”
“Would you tell me if you didn’t feel right?”
His face flushed with rage, actual rage. What had she done now? “Shut up,” he said. He left the room.
Emily stood there with her arms wrapped around herself, shivering. Her teeth were almost chattering. Why did Ken act as if he suddenly hated her? Maybe there was another woman again, but maybe this time he was in love. It was possible. He was forty-seven, at the vulnerable age when men started to feel their own mortality. There were all those beautiful younger women everywhere he went, and who wouldn’t want Ken? This time it might not be just cheating, not just a fling; it could be serious, and he’d want to get rid of her, the old, boring wife …
Maybe he was dying and didn’t want her to know. But their family doctor would have told her; the wife had to be told, even the old boring wife he wanted to be rid of.… No, she knew Ken well enough to realize that if he loved her so much that he wanted to protect her then he wouldn’t treat her the way he was now.
Their bedroom terrace overlooked the swimming pool. Ken had turned on the lights all around the pool and in the water. She went out on the terrace and looked down at him, a dark little figure in the water, tossing up glittering spray, plowing through the rocking waves he was creating, frantically doing laps. Back and forth, back and forth, seemingly tirelessly, as if he had to exorcise a demon. It was cold out here in the night; Southern California was desert country. Emily began to shiver in earnest.
He apparently had never noticed Kate’s bruise, and she and Ken had become such strangers to each other that she hadn’t even mentioned it to him after Kate left. What was happening to them?
Her husband was exorcising an unknown demon, and she was in the desert. She was all alone.
Chapter Two
Annabel had always been blessed with beauty, intelligence, good health, and an almost euphoric joy in the anticipation of the possibilities of life. She loved people, parties, adventures, champagne, sentimental little objects, sex, and romance. All her life strangers had turned around to look at her, especially men; partly because of her striking auburn-haired looks, and partly because it was unusual and pleasurable to see someone who looked so happy.
So when she started her own business she knew that because it was going to be an enormous amount of work and take up nearly all her time, she determined to do it only if it was fun too. She had been earning enough for her needs working as a buyer at Bloomingdale’s, but she had become bored. Walking to and from her job she would look at the little boutiques, particularly the ones on Madison Avenue, and think idly how she would have done that window differently, or carried more interesting merchandise; and eventually the idea took hold that she really wanted to have a boutique of her own.
There was one she’d particularly had her eye on, in the Seventies, which carried very expensive, very tacky evening dresses, the kind worn by old ladies who also wore henna-colored mink coats. When she saw a sign in the window that it was going out of business she wasn’t a bit surprised, because she figured their clientele had probably all died off. She went immediately to the real estate person and embarked on the first business deal of her life.
Her father had left her a significant amount of money. She used it as collateral against a loan, named the new boutique after herself, and began demolition and renovation. She wanted it to be comfortable—the sort of place customers would stay in for hours. There were nice dressing rooms with good chairs to sit on, and plenty of hangers, and best of all, room to move around. Everything was done in white and no-color beiges, with slightly tilted mirrors to make you look tall and thin, but not so distorted that people would get home and decide the dress that had looked so chic in the store was really a mistake.
She remembered when she was a little girl her mother had taken her to stores where models actually came out and modeled clothes for you. At the time that had seemed very glamorous. Now it was an artifact of the past, but she intended to recreate it. And there would be tea served in the afternoons, with little sandwiches and pastries, and in the mornings of course there would be coffee and croissants. Never mind that the maid who brought these refreshments into the dressing rooms was the same kid who unpacked and hung up the stock, or that the model doubled as the salesgirl, or that Annabel hovered around giving all that nice personalized attention to the clients because she couldn’t afford two salesgirls … when her boutique finally opened it was a success.
None of this would have worked if it hadn’t been for the clothes, or Annabel’s sense of style. The talent to put together a marvelous-looking outfit from a bit of this and a piece of that, which had started her on her career so long ago, was still Annabel’s strong point. She could tie a scarf just so, add a belt, take something away, put an Anne Klein jacket with a Perry Ellis skirt and prove that the colors and patterns blended perfectly. Her stock was not large, but it was eclectic, from Chloe to unknowns from SoHo. She might show up at work in an Adolfo suit with a T-shirt under it. “Why not?” she’d say. “Fashion is to be enjoyed.” And because she did enjoy it, and wore her clothes with such flair, people came out of her boutique having bought much more than they’d intended to but happy about it.
She had been right about the hard work. Annabel’s was open six days a week, from ten to six, so she had to be there at nine in the morning to open the store and often couldn’t leave until nine at night. At the beginning she did everything herself, from doing orders, reordering, bookkeeping, and even cleaning up. She did the window displays, and changed them every other day. She designed her own logo, the paper, the bags, the boxes; simple raised white on white. She’d discovered that—given a choice—people didn’t particularly like carrying shopping bags with ads on them in the street, but if you gave them a neutral, good-looking shopping bag they’d reuse it over and over until it fell apart. So, in fact, her Plain Wrap was her own ad.
She was using an accounting firm now, and her two helpers looked as if they were going to stay around for a while. Maria spoke six languages, which was good because they often had foreign customers. Pamela didn’t mind dressing up as the maid because she planned to open her own boutique some day and this was good experience. Since Pamela was only twenty-two and didn’t have much money, Annabel didn’t think she’d have to worry about replacing her too soon. The three of them saw so much of each other that they had become a sort of family. And Sweet Pea sat docilely in her basket, or took a nap in the window if the sun fell to her liking, adding a nice domestic touch.
Chris came by once in a while to say hello, even though she and Annabel spoke to each other on the phone almost every day. Annabel’s daughter Emma, if she was in New York and between jobs, came by too, just to hang around. Chris bought clothes (Annabel gave her a discount), and sometimes Annabel managed to force a free outfit on Emma, but Emma’s idea of high style still remained in the area of army surplus clothing.
It occurred to Annabel, as she was packing for her trip to Europe to look at the ready-to-wear collections, that the only thing that was missing from her life at the moment was a nice young man. It had been over two months, and surprisingly she hadn’t even noticed! She wondered if that was a sign her taste was improving. She hoped it didn’t improve too much. Maybe she’d meet someone in Europe, or better yet, on the plane coming home. That could be her little present to herself for all the hard work.…
When Annabel got to Paris after two days at the showings in Milan she was already over her jet lag. She checked in at her hotel, where the tickets for the collections were waiting for her. Rich buyers stayed at the Plaza Athénée, and a lot of others at the Meurice; Annabel was staying down the street from the Meurice at the St. James et Albany, where the year before she had discovered her favorite room at a price she could afford. It was actually a duplex suite, with a two story high ceiling, tall French windows looking out on a quiet courtyard garden, a small kitchen, and a dining table she could use for her paperwork. She unpacked quickly and went outside to the street.
It was late afternoon, chilly but beautiful. She loved Paris, even now when it was in chaos because of all the people who had come for the collections. She was too excited to be tired, and she began to walk through the city, her breath catching in her throat with joy. Two years ago all of this had been a dream. Now it was her work. She wondered if she should go to the Ritz for tea, and look at all the chic people, or right down the street to Angelina’s, a tearoom that was enormously popular with the fashion buyers and where she might find someone she knew who would invite her to a party. Or maybe she should just have a quiet dinner and go to bed. Tomorrow she would be running around from early morning to late at night, going from one show to another, taking notes, trying to remember what she wanted to buy. She still had a limited budget and had to be careful what she spent for the boutique, and she couldn’t afford to make even one mistake.
Who would have dreamed she would turn into such a serious person! The Annabel who never missed a party and a chance to get dressed up and flirt was now a woman preoccupied with lists and figures: dressing other people to go to their own parties. To tell the truth, she hadn’t seen much around to flirt with anyway. There were a lot of attractive young men, but they were looking for men, not for her.
Finally she settled for window shopping, wandering, and a sandwich and glass of wine in a little café. She felt peaceful and content. Not that she’d given up the idea of a fling in Paris, but first she had business to do.
The next four days were as crazy as she had anticipated. Being a newcomer, she always had the worst seats, in the back row. Five thousand people, packed in a tent like sardines, trying to see over each other’s heads. She could tell two of the models were on cocaine—they kept taking a reinforcement backstage between changes, until finally at the end of the day they were so glassy-eyed one of them nearly fell off the runway. Annabel went to almost every show; some to buy, others, like St. Laurent, just to drool. And she went to some just to get ideas of what was going to be happening. She would grab a bite to eat in stand-up bars between shows and appointments, fighting the mob of people and thinking how, for all of them at least, Paris was far from a gastronomic adventure.
Her last afternoon a woman she knew slightly from New York invited her to go to a disco that night with a group of people, but she said no. The next day she would have to get up early to go to London to see what the kids were wearing on the streets. Her head was spinning and she was tired. She just wanted to do something passive and relaxing, like go to a movie, so after the last showing she took a taxi to the Champs-Elysées, where there were a lot of movie theaters, and saw to her delight that Gone With the Wind was playing, in English with French titles. It was her favorite movie, since she had always thought of herself as Scarlett O’Hara anyway.
Waiting in line to buy her ticket, an attractive young man with touseled black hair and interesting topaz eyes smiled at her. She smiled back. He was wearing jeans and a leather jacket and looked as if he might be a university student.
“This is supposed to be a very good movie,” he said to her in French. He had a merry voice which she liked.
“Oui,” she said.
“You’re American,” he said in English. He had a French accent.
“Oh, God,” Annabel said. “I said only one word and you knew.”
“It’s okay,” he said. “I have an ear. I go to a lot of movies. It’s what I’m studying. It’s my dream.”
“Well, this is an extraordinary movie,” Annabel said.
“You’ve seen it before.”
She thought. “Eight times.”
“It must be fantastic. You come to Paris to see Gone With the Wind.”
“Not exactly. I came for the Prêt-à-Porter. This is my relaxation.”
He sat next to her in the theater. He didn’t speak to her at all during the movie, which she appreciated, and when it was over he turned to her and smiled. “May I invite you for a coffee?” he asked.
Annabel smiled back at him. “Only if you liked the film.”
“I loved it.”
“I hope you’re not lying to get on my good side.”
“But if I am, that’s a compliment, isn’t it?”
“It is,” Annabel said, and took his arm.
They went to a café on the corner and took a table inside because the night was chilly. His name was Mathieu and he was twenty-three. She wondered if he was going to be her Paris fling. Frenchmen were supposedly very attracted by the sophistication of an older woman.
They talked for two hours about their lives and their work, and had three coffees, and Annabel decided he was definitely sexy. It grew on you. The line of his cheekbones above where he had stopped shaving was covered with pale down, almost baby fuzz, which she found touching. He seemed tender, but there was nothing childish about him; he was a charming, sweet young man, and he seemed eager to make a good impression on her.
She thought how truly inane the progress of a conversation with a stranger was; you revealed things that were interesting but not too personal, just enough so that he thought he knew you, and he did the same. You couldn’t share too much or you’d scare each other off. And that was a date.
She told him where she’d gone to college; and she admitted she’d hated it, because that was amusing. She didn’t tell him why she’d hated it, that she’d been an outcast; that was all so long ago anyway. She told him, when he asked, that she was divorced, that she’d married the wrong man. She omitted the details of just how awful it had been to be married to a fool, because after all these years that seemed self-evident, and besides it was boring. She didn’t tell him that she’d married the wrong man because before that she’d been engaged to the right man, but he’d jilted her. That could be made to sound dramatic, but what was the point? If she’d married Bill he might have turned out to be even worse than Rusty … you never knew!
She mentioned her daughter Emma, who was such an important part of her life, and told him how Emma was working in films as a glorified gofer, with dreams of becoming a producer and director, the same dreams he had. She commiserated with him about how hard it was.
She did not mention Max. You didn’t say that there had been only one man in your life who had always been there for you, but that unfortunately he was murdered by a psychopath he’d picked up in a gay bar. No, that was definitely too bizarre. You did not discuss tragedies when you were talking to a potential one-night stand.
She was in Paris, at night, with a beautiful, affectionate-looking young man, and who could ask for more at this moment? She liked his voice, and his cat’s eyes, and his mouth. She looked at his mouth and imagined kissing him. Yes, he was what she wanted. She glanced at her watch.
“It’s late,” he said, apologetically. “I’ll get you a taxi.”
“Would you like to come back with me and have a drink?” she asked.
“Oh, yes,” he said, delighted.
Making love with him was even better than she had anticipated, and Annabel wondered for an instant why she had gone so long without this; the delight that was so great it always surprised her. He was hers: the hard, smooth muscles under the silky skin of his lean young body, all the energy and the tenderness of him, hers to touch, to share, to enjoy. She read him with her fingertips. The downy cheekbone that had been forbidden across from her at the tiny table in the café was hers, as was everything: nothing forbidden in that bed, everything giving more pleasure and excitement. They devoured each other with all the greed and yearning they had been hiding during their civilized mating dance.
Afterward he lay with his head on her shoulder and she stroked his thick hair. The sex had been terrific, and usually she felt marvelously relaxed and happy. But not this time. Annabel watched the sky go pale with morning through the double-height French windows and wondered why. For just a few moments, for no reason that had to do with him, she felt a little bit sad.
He was happy as a puppy in the morning, and that made her feel guilty and almost melancholy. She used to feel that way, not a care in the world, so pleased with herself. She shared her morning coffee and rolls with him, and then he watched her finish packing.
“I hope the next time you come to Paris I can see you again,” Mathieu said.
“Of course,” Annabel said.
“If I ever get to New York I’ll call you.” He smiled. “Maybe by the time I get to New York I’ll be famous.”
She smiled back; Annabel the Southern Belle, the flirt, the charmer. “I bet you will be,” she said.
She was glad to be in London again. There was something about London that always made her feel at home, as if she’d been there in another life. She stayed at a sweet little bed and breakfast place which was much less expensive than the big hotels, and all day she ran around the streets looking. Some of the kids seemed to have nothing to do but try to look like members of punk rock groups and hang out with their other unemployed friends. It was a sign of a depressed economy and lost young people, and it disturbed her. But the beautiful old houses, the winding little streets, and the parks that were always green, even in the winter, cheered her up again. She had a very dignified, solitary dinner at The Connaught Hotel Grill, having carefully reserved in advance from New York, and the Scotch salmon, Dover sole, and the solid, peaceful atmosphere made her glad she had planned this special night out just for herself.
She stayed in London only two days, and then flew back to New York. Sitting next to her on the plane was an unattractively loud man her own age, wearing a wedding ring, who asked her if she would have dinner with him in New York, and when she said no he spent the rest of the trip trying to make a date with the stewardess. Annabel felt sorry for her, having to put up with him and be polite. She busied herself with her paperwork, looking forward to going home.
When she walked into her apartment, Emma was there, sitting on the living-room couch, wearing one of Annabel’s robes, freshly washed hair up in a towel, Sweet Pea on her lap, both of them avidly watching an old black and white movie on television. “Emma!” Annabel cried in delight. “I didn’t expect you till next week.”
They hugged each other. “We’re ahead of schedule,” Emma said. “That’s the only good thing I can say about Wesley Knoll, The Weaselly Troll, he shoots fast. I was going to call you, and then I thought I’d just surprise you. How was Europe?”
“It was wonderful,” Annabel said. “I want to tell you all about it, and hear all about your job.”
“I bought food,” Emma said. “And I put a bottle of champagne in the fridge. We’re going to be here a week, and I get the weekend off, which I desperately need, so we can spend a lot of time together.”
“Oh, good. I have to take the girls from the boutique to dinner tomorrow night to tell them about the trip—I hope you can come too.”
“I am totally at your disposal,” Emma said.
“No boyfriend?”
“Well, of course there’s a boyfriend,” Emma said cheerfully. “But he has parents in Connecticut and he has to go see them. He wanted me to come too, but I said no I wanted to see you. Is it okay if he stays with us here next week? That way he can keep his per diem, because he’s just as poverty-stricken as I am.”
“It’s perfectly all right,” Annabel said.
She was already in jeans and a sweater from the plane trip, and didn’t bother to unpack anything except the bottle of perfume she’d bought on the plane for Emma. They opened the cold champagne and sat in the kitchen, drinking it and eating sandwiches, happy and cozy together, just like all the old times. Emma had kept coming in and out of her life unexpectedly ever since she’d left Radcliffe after only one year because she wanted to go to the NYU film school and concentrate on movie making. She had lived with Annabel for a while, met some girls and decided to share an apartment with them because she’d never lived on her own like that; gotten bored with it, lived with a boy she thought she was in love with, got scared when he proposed, and came back to Annabel until graduation; and then off to California, because that was where the work was. Annabel kept Emma’s room ready for her, just in case, and was always overjoyed to see her.
“Let me tell you about my glamorous life,” Emma said. “I have to go to the set at five in the morning to tell the trucks where to park and tell the extras where to go. It was freezing cold and snowing all last week, and before that we had mud. Weaselly decided he wanted to use real convicts for extras because they were so real-looking. Ex-cons, I mean. I felt sorry for them because they thought they were going to be in the movies, and all it was for them was eight hours of standing around, and get paid thirty-five dollars and good-bye.”
“Convicts!” Annabel said, alarmed.
“They were okay,” Emma said, calmly. “At least they didn’t make me get out of bed at two in the morning to go buy a pint of gin for the star, who was shacked up in the local motel with his girl friend. I mean, a pint of gin! Talk about gross …”
“You had to do that?” Annabel said, more alarmed.
“I have to pay my dues. I’m aware of it. But I’m twenty-two already, and I’m starting to wonder how long.” Emma grinned, and Annabel realized with a little shock of pride how genuinely beautiful she was: the amused, innocent green eyes, the flawless skin with the faintest gilding of tiny freckles, the mane of auburn hair glinting with gold lights. She was her mother’s daughter all right, with her mother’s spirit too. “I’ve been making everybody I work for give me a letter of recommendation after each job,” Emma said. “And I always make friends with the cameraman and everybody else I can on the set to learn things. My day will come.”
“Soon, I hope,” Annabel said.
“Not too soon to suit me,” Emma said. Sweet Pea jumped into her lap again, and Emma fed her bits of turkey. “So how was Europe, anyway?”
“Hectic. Fun. Some of the clothes were really ugly. But by the time they get popular, in a year or two, people won’t be able to imagine how they lived without them.”
“Did you meet anybody?”
“Any men?”
“Yeah … any men?”
“Well …” Annabel said, and they both laughed.
“Was he cute?”
“I would say he was cute, yes.”
“And …?”
“It was just a date,” Annabel said.
“Like me when I’m working on a movie,” Emma said. “I get a big crush, and then when the movie’s over, it’s over too. We’re still friends, and we run into each other sometimes, but we’re both on to different things.”
“It wasn’t even a crush. It was attraction.” For an instant Annabel felt again that little touch of sadness she had felt after sex with him.
“That’s not so bad,” Emma said consolingly.
“No … but I dread to think how many dates I’ve had in my time. I think in the natural order of things one gets to a saturation point.”
“And then?”
“And then one becomes a serious person,” Annabel said. “One looks seriously for another serious person.”
“You mean you’d go looking for a man who’s straight, single, unattached, terrific, and good enough for you? Oh, my God! There’s nothing like that out there.”
Annabel laughed. “Oh, Emma—do you realize a personality change like that could blight my whole life?”
Chapter Three
Chris’s office was a hermetically sealed place of peace and luxury in the middle of Manhattan, so high up she could see for miles. When she had first come to work there she had been a little squeamish about those enormous windows with their low sills, no curtains, and a view—if one wished—of cars the size of gnats. She’d particularly disliked the fact that her eminent position of Managing Editor, putting the magazine together, bore with it a corner office, so she was almost surrounded by air. Once she saw a plane that seemed to be on the same level as her window, and she was not happy about it. But she soon adjusted, and after a while even got to appreciate how pretty it was; the other office buildings all different colors, their windows glittering as they caught the light.
This good job had been an accident. When she’d still been working as a copy editor she had gone to a publishing party and met Bill Cameron, the financier who owned a lot of magazines, one of which was the new one he was going to start, Fashion and Entertainment. They were both quick-witted, and liked each other immediately. She knew he was about fifty, that he was married to his second wife, who was much younger, and that they had two small children. She thought he was very attractive; burly and dynamic, with bright blue eyes that missed nothing, thick gray hair, and, despite his expensively tailored suit, the manner of an old street fighter. She also knew right away he was very intelligent, even an intellectual, which she appreciated. He brought her another glass of wine, although people were trying to get his attention and talk to him, and then he asked her why she was wasting her time when she could be working for him.
The second glass of wine had made her brave, so she laughed merrily and said she didn’t know. The next thing she knew she was working for him, in a difficult job that she really liked, and she realized he had been right: she had been wasting her time before.