A Certain Age (10 page)

A single blow, and Man o' War shot forward. In a few strides, he was half a length in front; the jockey hit him again, and Grier was beat. I don't think I'd ever screamed like that. I jumped up and down on the bench, yanking on the Boy's firm hand. Six seconds later, Man o' War streaked past the finish pole, a length and a half in front of gallant John P. Grier, setting a whole new American record for the mile and an eighth, and they say Grier was never the same. His heart broke right down the middle that afternoon, and while he was still a good colt, maybe even the second-best of his generation, he was never again a great one.

Man o' War went on to smash several more records that year, and won every race.

Afterward, we couldn't find the others, and the Boy offered to drive me back to Southampton in his secondhand Model T, though he expected it might be dark by the time we reached our destination, Mrs. Marshall.

I said yes.

AS SOMEBODY MENTIONED EARLIER, THE
Boy was staying with the van der Wahls that summer, the summer he got back from France, right before he took the job selling bonds at Sterling Bates. Ned van der Wahl had once worked with the Boy's father at Morgan bank, I believe, and though the Boy wasn't quite of the same social caliber as the van der Wahls—too new, too dark—old Ned was always a gentleman, always the kind of man who'd offer to put up an old colleague's war hero son in his guesthouse for the summer, without regard for the vowel at the end of his surname.

So the Boy has a few connections in our little world, here and there, and I'm always a little anxious that we might bump into each other at some gathering or another, the way we did at the van der Wahls' swimming pool, the way we bumped excruciatingly throughout the rest of that summer of 1920 out on Long Island, pretending we were just the Boy and Mrs. Marshall, exchanging pleasantries regarding the weather and the quality of the company. Anxious and perhaps more, because it
is
a bit of a thrill, those accidental bumpings: an absolute nerve-zapping thrill, to see the Boy's sleek head appear without warning in somebody's drawing room, and his white collar against his golden skin. To talk about stock prices when we really want to talk about sex. Sometimes I think he does it on purpose, just to warm up my blood, to wind up the anticipation for what comes after the party, when we've left the rest of the world behind us.

But he doesn't appear this evening at the Schuylers' Park Avenue apartment, even though I've dropped the details of the affair in his ear more than once. Instead, as I stir my way through the living room to bid farewell to my hostess—I'm a woman of the quaint old manners, you understand, and hostesses must be attended to, even if they were formerly secretaries—I find I am entirely alone, though surrounded by faces I've known my entire life, in drawing rooms and ballrooms and clubs and ocean liners, and the fact of my isolation presses against my temples and my chest in such a way that I'm finding it difficult to breathe. Or maybe it's the smell of cigars drifting from the library.

I discover my host first. “Philip, love,” I say, “I'm looking for your charming wife.”

“She's putting the baby back to bed. Apparently all our noise woke the poor little tyke, and she wandered into the dining room just as my aunt Prunella toppled into the punch bowl. Can I be of assistance, perhaps?”

I like Philip Schuyler. I like him a great deal, in fact, for I suspect he's a man of fundamental decency, for all that he's nearly as fond of the sauce as he is of his pretty new wife. He has polished blond hair and a face poised handsomely on the verge of ruin, and should one arrive on his doorstep in one's
time of trouble, he would undoubtedly deliver up gin and sympathy by the bucketful. He crushes out his cigarette in a nearby ashtray and offers me a look of expectant impatience: a host with
countless
demands on his attention, but he still makes time for you.

To which I shrug. “Just wanted to pay my respects before I left.”

“I'm happy to convey them to her.” He lifts his glass, but it turns up empty, and his expression of abject, blue-eyed disappointment would soften the hardest heart.

“Do that, love. Tell her I had a smashing time and all that. The food was divine, the company sensational.”

He rubs one temple with his thumb. “Did young what's-his-name find you?”

“My brother, you mean? Yes, he did.”

“Not your brother. The other fellow. Ned's protégé, the pilot.”

One of my shoulders has escaped my coat. I turn my attention to the errant mink sleeve and say, “Why, no. Was Mr. Rofrano here?”

Philip snaps his fingers. “Rofrano! That's it. Yes, he was. And not in a social frame of mind, I'm sorry to say. Peppered me with all kinds of indecent business questions, and then charged off in your direction. You've got to teach him some manners, Theresa, or he'll never fit in.”

“I don't need him to fit in.” Rather coldly. And then: “What sort of questions?”

“Oh, I don't remember. Something to do with an old client of mine, which of course I couldn't discuss. Confidentiality.” He taps his temple, this time with a well-tended index finger. “Very bad form, as the English say.”

“How strange.”

Philip shakes his head and stares down into his empty glass, and for an instant I imagine he's actually pondering something. “Funny, though. I hadn't thought about that old case in years.”

“What old case?”

He looks back up, and a bit of shrewd lawyerly suspicion shapes the squint of his eyes. He picks up my hand and kisses the gloved knuckles, like
a man who does that kind of thing often. “Now, why don't you just ask him yourself? Two good friends like the pair of you.”

I extract my hand and gather up my pocketbook. “Trust me, love. Friendship has nothing to do with it.”

I have begun the evening alone, and alone I remain as I travel down the elevator directed by one red-coated attendant and allow another red-coated attendant to hail me a taxi from the frozen street outside. The coldest day of the year, the cabbie informs me, setting off down Park Avenue toward the beckoning lights, and I tell him I'm not surprised to hear that.

I've never felt colder.

“THERE YOU ARE,” I TELL
the Boy, when at last I slide atop a neighboring stool at the Christopher Club, the place next door to his apartment. Our usual haunt. I set my pocketbook on the bar and signal the proprietor, all of which serves to disguise my relief at the sight of the Boy's heavy black hair, gleaming under the lights.

“Here I am.”

“I thought we agreed to meet at your place.”

“I got a little restless. I figured you'd know where I was.”

I accept the martini between my fingers and nod my gratitude to Christopher. The musicians are taking a break, it seems, and the Boy's dear voice is rather eerily audible, in the absence of trumpet and saxophone. “You might have left a note, just to be sure.”

“I guess I might.”

The martini is pure corrosive and peels my throat. One of these days I'm going to die of gin like this. I set down the glass and cover the Boy's hand with mine. “Let's not fight, hmm? It's much nicer for both of us when we don't fight. Give me a kiss.”

He turns his head and kisses me, but his lips are hard and his heart's not in it. I ask him what's the matter. Have I done something awful?

“No.” He fingers his glass. There's an ashtray at his elbow, filled with
the sordid remains of perhaps five or six cigarettes. Another one decorates his hand, half-finished. He lifts it to his lips.

“Has someone else done something awful?”

“Maybe.”

“Come on, now. Talk to me, Boyo, or nobody gets to have any fun tonight.”

The Boy drinks the rest of his whatever-it-is—whisky, I guess—and signals for another. “It's nothing, okay? How was your evening?”

“My evening was delightful. You'll never guess who turned up. Ox's little bonbon, just as sweet as could be.”

“
Sophie
was there?”

“Is that her name? I'd forgotten. Anyway, she was just darling. She was wearing the prettiest little dress, all in pink. It brought out her round sweet cheeks. Like a doll, really. I can see why Ox is so smitten, aside from the money, of course. I think they're perfect for each other.”

“He's far too old for her.”

“I don't think he minds.”

“I meant her.
She
should mind. A used-up old bachelor like him.”

“Boyo, darling, are you casting aspersions on my brother?”

“He's got the brains of an orang-utang and the morals of an alley cat, and you know it.”

The gin doesn't burn so much now. Indeed, it's rather refreshing. I drain the chalice and ask the Boy if he's got another cigarette. “I never heard you object to poor Ox before,” I say, as he lights me up.

“He's never tried to marry an innocent young girl before.”

“Not
tried
to marry.” I blow out the smoke in long gusts. “
Is
marrying. She's agreed to marry him, very much of her own accord. That was your doing, remember? She looked awfully jolly at the party, by the way. Smiling the whole while, just as pleased as could be. She's wearing her manacle. I made her take off her glove to show me. Made such a fuss over her. It's a shame you weren't there.”

“Yeah, a real shame.”

“Of course, I still have my reservations about that curious father of hers, and how he got his money, and how much he's really got. But if you haven't found out anything awful . . . Have you, Boyo?”

“Have I what?”

“Found out anything awful about the Fortescues.”

Christopher—not his real name, by the by, but then I expect you already guessed that—Christopher slides by and presents the Boy with another drink. The Boy takes the glass between his fingers and sort of rotates it on the surface of the bar, clockwise, making wet little interconnected circles in the wood. (The Boy usually drinks his whisky neat, but tonight there's ice for some reason, ice on the coldest day of the year.) The hum of voices around us is more subdued than usual, the mood less reckless and more maudlin, as if everybody's stayed home because of the frozen streets, the smell of impending snow in the air. The instruments sit abandoned on their chairs in the corner of the room, and I'm beginning to wonder if their owners are planning to return.

“Boyo?”

“Yes?”

“The Fortescues.”

He picks up the whisky at last and takes a drink, maybe half a glass in one gulp. The ice clinks and falls. “Still asking around.”

“Well, let me know what you find out, won't you? Before too much longer. Not that I'm not coming around to wonder whether it matters. These are modern times, aren't they? Love conquers all. Who really cares if the old man's hiding a skeleton or two? My God, haven't we all got
skeletons
!”

The Boy winces slightly, and I'm not sure whether it's my words, or the brittle quality of the laugh that goes with them.

I continue. “It's a lovely ring, isn't it? The Ochsner family ring, I mean. Did you know that my—”

“You know what, Theresa?”

“What's that, darling?”

“I think I'm going to call it a night.” He slings back his whisky and rises from the stool.

I stub out the cigarette in the ashtray, attend to my drink, and follow him up. “I was just going to suggest the same thing.”

“I mean
alone
, Theresa. I'm sorry. It's been a long week.”

A few notes wobble softly from the trumpet behind me. The musicians have returned after all, it seems.

I say lightly, “The coldest night of the year, and you want to sleep alone?”

“I'm sorry. Maybe I've got a flu coming on, or something. I'm tired as sin.”

“Ah, but not so tired that you couldn't make an appearance at a certain party uptown, isn't that right?”

The Boy's eyes widen a little. His mouth tenses at the corners, and admits defeat. “I looked around for you. You must have been hiding.”

“Who, me? I was in plain sight, I thought. Unless I just fade into the background for you now.”

“You know that's not true.”

The saxophone's joined the trumpet, and a bass player thrums a question. I lift my hands into the Boy's hair and pull him down for a kiss—kissing's so much easier than talking—and for a second or two he obeys me, opening his mouth, allowing me a taste of himself. Relief! Triumph! I still have my Boy; he's still
mine
, God knows why, warm and green and relentless, the source of all life. His lips are charged with whisky, and it tastes better than gin. Better than anything. I test his tongue, and he pulls away.

“Not here, Theresa.”

“Then let's go.”

“I said not tonight. I'm not up to it.”

I step backward. The band has begun to play in earnest, filling the air with noise, noise. My throat hurts.
Not up to it.

“All right. Find me my coat and a taxi.”

“I'll drive you back.”

“That's not necessary. After all, you're a tired Boyo tonight. Tired as—what was it? Tired as sin.”

He brings the coat, and a moment later we stand silently on Seventh Avenue, examining the approaching cars while the wind whistles along the brims of our hats. One of the vehicles swerves toward us. The Boy opens the door for me.

“Good night, then,” I say.

He bends down to kiss me. “Good night.”

“And Boyo?” I reach up and touch his icy cheek with my thumb. “You're going to have to learn how to lie a little better, or you'll never get on in this world.”

I climb swiftly into the taxi and slam the door all by myself, so he won't have a chance to answer me. Not that he seems to have anything plausible at the ready, though, judging by the stricken young expression on his face as it slides past my frosted window.