I'll Take Manhattan (12 page)

Cutter Amberville was, indeed, more than welcome wherever he went. He was tall, six feet two inches, with a body molded by those sports which build the kind of long, elegant muscles that make a tailor purr. The distinctive looks that had made him outstanding as a boy had matured as he grew older, and now Cutter was an unusually handsome man. He was deeply tanned and his hair was bleached by the sun of California summers. His nose was large and perfectly shaped between eyes as blue as the sea in Sicily, as cold as the water of a fjord, and he had an ascetic, keenly etched mouth that no woman could ignore. He didn’t have bulk but he had power, and there was a strong suggestion of what Byron called “the light-limb’d Matadore” when Cutter walked into a room. For all his blondness he had a bull-killer’s sternness and dark purpose, he moved with an assurance and a self-esteem so ingrained that no one would ever believe that he had trained them into his stance, with as much will as he had trained warmth and sincerity into his smile.

His undeniable charm of manner was now completed, part of his core, his essence; that pleasing, flattering,
necessary
charm of an envious man whose life was dedicated to gaining the attention and affection he believed had been so unfairly denied him as a child.

The eleven years that separated Cutter from Zachary had come to seem like more than a generation to him. Although nothing could ever happen to make him give up the deep, gnawing hatred he felt toward his brother for overshadowing his youth; although no amount of personal success in his own world could ever compensate for the eternal loss of what he knew had been due to him, his hatred had become so familiar that, from time to time, he could almost
put aside his litany of injustices, almost allow the worm in his heart to sleep.

Yet even if Zachary and Zachary’s enormous success, success following success as if to torment Cutter, could be temporarily ignored, there was no possible way to simply take them for granted, to come to terms with being Zachary Amberville’s younger brother. Cutter could never make himself feel, in his profound self, that Zachary’s success did not
subtract
something essential from his own life. He was
diminished
forever, unfairly diminished, and it had to be Zachary’s fault. Cutter, for all his singular appeal, a handsomeness that verged on beauty, was a man who wore invisible bitterness as permanently as if it had been tattooed onto his heart. He nourished and cherished his hatred; if it had disappeared he would have had to restructure his world, explain it in some other way. But there was no chance of that, not with the Amberville publications appearing weekly and monthly on the newsstands, their brilliant new covers beckoning, growing thicker with advertising month by month, not with
T. V. Week
an automatic purchase made by millions of Americans each week, visible next to the television set in every library into which Cutter walked.

When Cutter first arrived in New York it had been a year since Tobias’s disease was diagnosed, yet except for his night blindness, he seemed to continue to see as well as ever, as far as Lily could tell. She and Zachary had told no one, not even Nanny, about their visit to Dr. Ribin. They had consulted another specialist who confirmed the diagnosis, but since there was nothing anybody could do, they kept their silence. They couldn’t endure any discussion of Tobias’s future, not even with each other. Particularly not with each other.

“Hereditary.” Both doctors had agreed. There was no blindness in the Ambervilles’ family history, nor in that of the Andersons, the Dales or the Cutters. But there had been a blind Marquis who had been Lily’s maternal grandfather, and a blind uncle, also on her mother’s side of the family. No, they couldn’t possibly discuss Toby, for the
only words either of them could think were words they would never say. Her genes, thought Zachary. My fault, thought Lily. Unfair, utterly and absolutely unfair. They both knew those words were unfair, but they could not,
not
think them.

The enormous silence, the void that was created by this silence penetrated into the heart of their life together and they were as aware of the unspoken words as if they were palpable, a glacier that was inexorably creeping over their always fragile intimacy.

By the time Lily was twenty-four she was recognized as the most impressive woman to emerge in several generations of New York society. Women thirty years older than she, women of wealth, cultivation and immense standing, went to great lengths to meet her, for not only was she the daughter of Viscount and Viscountess Adamsfield, but she was Mrs. Zachary Amberville, wife of the man who had just given a million dollars to the Metropolitan Museum’s collection of American paintings, and contributed two million dollars to Columbia University for its general scholarship fund; gifts he gave in Lily’s name.

Lily entertained so discreetly and yet so lavishly, with piles of money exquisitely spent, that she stayed out of the newspapers, yet when she departed from New York for a trip to London or to France it was felt as a loss, a diminution of the luster of Manhattan. When she returned every fashionable florist had a dozen orders to send her baskets of welcoming blooms, the homage that was her due, and the pace of the life of the city’s society took on a quickness that made her large circle feel that things were in place again, that a gala season had started.

Lily was a generous patroness of every ballet company, and took her hour at the barre every morning without fail. She led in all of the anointed cultural events that brought New Yorkers of a certain class together, yet she was rarely a member of any committee; her mere appearance at a benefit or opening night as delicately dominant as a rising moon, always dressed in Mainbocher, her hair worn back from her
face in a heavy chignon, was enough to stamp an evening as significant.

Brisk New Yorkers, quick of speech, rapid in calculating social weights and measures, appreciated the quality of Lily’s initial diffidence and understood, with their canny, native perception, that it represented the kind of superiority that they were willing, in fact pleased, to acknowledge. Her superiority only enhanced their own. The mere fact that she had decided never to use her “Honorable” gave them the delight of telling the uninitiated that she was a Viscount’s daughter, a nineteenth Baronet’s daughter. Soon
not
telling became a matter of pride to those who knew her—who
thought
that they knew her—best.

Long before Toby had shown any signs of disease, Lily had abandoned the notion that there existed some passionate physical pleasure that she would finally experience. She believed that she was made by nature so that she didn’t need the kind of sex for which some women seemed to live. There were degrees of everything after all, and some women actually lived for chocolate and others for martinis. Lily wasn’t rebellious about her lack of desire since life contained so many delectable and obtainable objects for which she had an endless appetite that never failed, no matter how much she acquired.

Zachary, for his part, had gradually come to think that Lily’s coldness was incurable. He never lost his gentle patience, but nothing seemed to bring her to sensual life. She had never turned away from him, but his passion for her grew less as he understood that it couldn’t be returned. His love only deepened as it was tinted with a pity for his wondrous girl who never complained.

“This one,” said Maxi, pointing to a word on the
Racing Form
. The four men, seated with her in a box at Belmont Park, looked at the little girl questioningly.

“So the kid can read, Zack?” Barney Shore wondered in amusement.

“Can you read, Maxi?” her father asked. Anything was
possible with a three-year-old. She might have taught herself.

“This one,” she repeated.

“Maxi, why that one?” Nat Landauer wanted to know.

“I like that one, Uncle Nat,” Maxi replied.

“
Why
do you like that one, young lady?” Joe Shore asked in a quiet voice. All four men fell silent, waiting.

“I just do, Uncle Joe,” Maxi said imperturbably. “That one.”

“What’s its name, Maxi … can you tell Uncle Joe its name?” he persevered.

“No, but I like it.”

“The young lady can’t read,” Joe Shore announced with authority.

“But maybe she can pick a horse … maybe she’s a … you know, an idiot savant, like those guys who can tell you when it’s going to be Thursday a thousand years from now,” Barney Shore said in excitement.

“Please, a little respect for the young lady,” his father commanded. “What kind of expression is that to use in front of a child?”

“Sorry, Dad. Maxi, do you like any of the others?”

“No, Uncle Barney, just that one.”

“To win, place or show?” Barney persisted.

“To win,” she responded immediately. She hadn’t known that there were games where you could just choose to win.

“Come on, Barney, you’re not taking this seriously, are you?” Zachary protested halfheartedly.

“It can’t hurt to listen to Maxi. The four of us put together can’t handicap a mouse. Maybe we just need a fresh point of view. Woman’s intuition, Zack. You’ve always been a believer.”

“And how much could it cost?” added Nat Landauer. “Two dollars each, that’s not too much to lose … last year I figure I dropped ten thousand.”

“Two dollars to win for each of us, my treat,” Zachary proposed. After all, Maxi was his responsibility.

“I’ll go buy the tickets,” Barney volunteered.

“Can I have a hot dog, please, Daddy?” Maxi asked. Zachary looked at her perched composedly in her seat, a
little like a Japanese doll with her straight black bangs and her thick hair neatly trimmed in a circle just at the nape of her neck. She wore a yellow dress with a white collar, smocked at the yoke and at the cuffs of its short sleeves, white socks and black patent leather Mary Janes. The piquant, droll deliciousness of her face astonished him no matter how often or how long he looked at her.

“Daddy? Please, a hot dog?”

Nanny would kill him if she found out. “No, darling. I’m sorry but the hot dogs here aren’t good for little girls.”

“They smell awfully good.” She gave him a tentative smile.

“They don’t taste as good as they smell.”

“So many other kids are eating them.” Maxi’s smile grew more tentative and now it became gently pathetic, the smile of someone who understands why she cannot have a glass of water when she is dying of thirst, the smile of someone who forgives the person who denies it.

“Maxi, it’s not safe to eat hot dogs at the track,” Zachary pleaded.

Maxi took his hand in hers and nestled against him. “All right, Daddy. I wish … I wish …”

“What, darling?”

“I wish I’d had more lunch,” she said with patient sadness.

“Are you hungry?”

“Yes, but it doesn’t matter, Daddy. I don’t mind.” She looked up at Zachary, a tiny tear brimming in each eye. “Really, I don’t mind at all.”

“I can’t stand this,” Nat Landauer announced. “I can’t take it, you inhuman, hard-hearted unpatriotic son of a bitch! Uncle Nat will get you a hot dog, Maxi.”

“No thanks, Uncle Nat. Daddy says I shouldn’t eat them.”

There was a silence. Joe Shore looked pained and gave a deep sigh. Zachary Amberville glared at his brother-in-law. Nat Landauer glared back at him. Maxi looked from one to another, holding her breath. A tear crept down each of her cheeks.

“O.K., O.K.! But no mustard!” Zachary shouted.

“The mustard’s the best part, you schmuck.” Nat’s teeth ground together in anger.

“Young lady, do you like mustard?” Joe Shore asked, a smile restored to his face.

“I like ketchup on hot dogs.”

“Ketchup’s perfect,” Zachary said hastily. Kids lived off ketchup, even Nanny liked it.

He held Maxi up so that she could watch the race. She daintily ate her hot dog while her horse won.

Barney Shore went to cash in the tickets. He returned beaming and extracted an amazing amount of cash from his pocket. “I bet a hundred each to win and another hundred for Maxi. You guys are pikers. Somebody could say ‘thank you Barney.’ ”

“Thank you, Uncle Barney,” Maxi said. She really liked this game. She decided to give Uncle Barney a kiss, to reward him for being so nice.

“And of course, I don’t have to introduce the two of you,” said Pepper Delafield, moving away from Lily and Cutter to greet a new group of guests.

“It would look odd if we shook hands,” Cutter said, taking Lily’s hand in his and holding it. “I should kiss you on the cheek, but that would be odder still, from one stranger to another.”

“The oddest thing of all is that we’ve never met before. Every time Zachary and I visited San Francisco you were on a trip out of town. And you never came to New York …” Lily’s voice trailed off and she withdrew her hand. She had no idea that whenever Cutter had seen photographs of her in
Vogue
or
Town & Country
he had turned the page quickly and angrily, dismissing her with scorn as a typically bland little English face whom his brother had probably married for her title, like someone buys a particular cupcake because it has a cherry on top. He’d seen Zachary, of course, for his brother had paid all his bills until he started making a living, but he drew the line at playing the younger brother-in-law to the Honorable Lily.

“I’m here now,” he said, “for good.” Around them the large party had taken on that sound that reassures every
hostess no matter how experienced, the sound of lively, laugh-punctuated, easy conversation, seamless and as constant as the bubbling of a big stew on just the right degree of fire, a sound that covered up the awkward pause that fell between Lily and Cutter. She stupefied him, this woman he could no more dismiss than the law of gravity. Until this minute he had known only American girls, debutantes or post-debutantes of the East and West Coast Establishments, girls, he understood immediately, who had patterned themselves, consciously or not, on an ideal, the ideal that was Lily. How glorious she was! She had a quality of consummate rarity: every detail of her face was heightened, as if he were looking at an enlarged photograph, yet the whole was simplified, as only the purest beauty is simple.