I'll Take Manhattan (40 page)

But whatever sinister mystery was going on “back East” as she found herself saying, in the same way the English stuck for life in some Indian garrison town used to say “home” when they meant Britain, India intended to find out about it at first hand. Tomorrow she was flying to New York, her bags were packed, the beastly dogs were in a kennel that charged only a little less than the Beverly Hills Hotel, and by evening she’d know what was up with her oldest and her only best friend.

Maxi couldn’t have been serious about that absurd plan she had to publish a magazine about … zippers? Her story had been hard to follow, interrupted as it had been by bouts of self-recrimination and violent outbursts against her wretched uncle. Except for Lily, who was so often photographed, it was hard to visualize Maxi’s family, India thought. She’d caught glimpses of Toby and Justin a few brief times all those years ago when she and Maxi were both teenagers doing their homework together. After Maxi’s first marriage, her contact with the Amberville family had been maintained purely through what her friend told her. If Maxi hadn’t visited from time to time during these last six years in California they would scarcely have laid eyes on each other since Maxi’s first divorce, when India was in the process of leaving Manhattan for her freshman year at college. She had managed to catch up with Maxi and to spend a few days on board the yacht when her friend had decided to take on heavenly Bad Dennis Brady,
in Monte Carlo, but she’d missed the miserable Scottish years entirely. A shame about that; the Countess of Kirkgordon must have been a priceless, not-to-be-forgotten piece of miscasting.

Now Maxi w
as
her family, India reflected. Her own parents were dead, but Maxi had remained the one fixed point in her life. Even though ninety-nine percent of their contact was by phone, they could read each other’s minds through the receivers. What’s more, she was Angelica’s godmother, and made up for her lack of physical attendance by sending her marvelous presents. You wouldn’t think a nice little girl would lie like that to her own darling, lovable, gift-sending godmother, would you? She’d have to have a long talk with the youngster about Emerson and the importance of the truth. With Maxi for a mother there was no way of knowing what bad habits she might have fallen into, India told herself with a dubious shake of her head. She’d straighten the kid out. Give her the benefit of some of Doctor Florsheim’s insights, buy her some decent sheets.

Maxi was having a Rolodex housewarming. Everyone listed in her Rolodex had been invited, and had accepted. Working through one morning with Julie, neither of them off the phone for a minute, out of sheer
joie de vivre
at the thought of her precious dummy being transformed by Rocco, she had put the party together in the way she liked best. “Parties should just pop up out of nowhere, for the same night,” she said to Julie. “If you give people time to plan what they’re going to wear and get their hair done and wonder who else will be there, you take the bloom off the rose. And if they’ve made other plans, they can always bring their friends with them. It’s like a marvelous surprise package.”

It was a zoo, a very choice zoo for only the best species. Gazelles, peacocks, antlered stags, superb panthers, sleek seals, self-satisfied lions and, here and there, a delicate monkey. Manhattan animals all, the decibel level of their voices reaching a pitch that no group in any major city of the world could, or would desire, to produce.

The front door was left wide open because the doorbell could not be heard inside. India, followed by the elevator man carrying her luggage, paused on the threshold, bewildered. She started to turn around and leave. Obviously this was no time for a surprise visit. She’d go to the suite the studio kept at the Palace and call tomorrow. Parties made her more horribly shy than usual.

“Godmother!” Angelica, as reverently as possible, lifted her six inches off the floor and looked at her, stunned. “It’s you! You yourself, in person. Totally awesome! Ma tried to call but you weren’t home. How did you know about the party?”

“You … are … Angelica?”

“I know, I’ve grown. I’ll put you down. I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

“Of course not. You just—surprised—me. Now, listen here, Angelica, you told me your mother couldn’t be disturbed because she was working and I walk in on a madhouse. What’s going on?”

“She
was
working, Godmother, until last night. Macabre! Now she’s relaxing.”

“And why do you have three holes punched in each of your ears, Angelica? And why are you wearing feather-tufted studs in them? Have you joined a religious cult?” India asked as severely as possible in the face of the consternation Angelica’s unexpected beauty caused. Had she any idea of what she would become?

“I went for it, Godmother,” Angelica explained. “Do you think it was a mistake? I feel like a freakazoid, to tell you the truth. But do you like my to-die-for denims? Hot, huh? I think they were made in a leper colony somewhere. Macabre!”

“I can relate to them,” India said carefully, reaching as far back as she could into the seventies for a suitable response. “The holes in your ears will grow back together if you take the studs out and could you please stop calling me Godmother?”

“If you insist,” Angelica agreed, a little crestfallen. “I’ll take your bags to the guest bedroom … India.” Angelica lifted them easily and began to lead the way into the apartment.

“No. Stop. I couldn’t possibly stay here. It’s jammed,” India said, ready to flee.

“The bottom line. India. is that I will clear the guest room out for you in five seconds. You’re the guest of honor. Could you be totally into that?”

“Do you always talk this way, Angelica?”

“I try. I try,” Angelica said, picking up India’s luggage and clearing a pathway for her.

That child needs help, India thought, as she quickly changed her clothes in the locked guest room. It was lucky she had come. It might not be too late. Obviously Maxi had neglected her education. India wafted out of the room, wearing a dress of white lace and white chiffon from Judyth van Amringe that floated so lightly that it seemed to be held together only by her brooch, an antique Creek coin set in cabochon sapphires and emeralds, which she’d pinned just above one hipbone. Her beauty was a creature of seasons, Lacking only a winter; a changeable, endlessly mesmerizing parade as she flowed from the embodiment of bewitching spring to full summer to ripe autumn, depending on the demands of the director or the script. Today, left to her own decision, she was springtime in all its promise, all its freshness.

Shy as she was, India was realistic. There was no way to find clothes that would make her disappear at parties so she might just as well look like a star. People expected it and essentially it aroused less attention than did the tatty, ratty, why-should-I-bother-to-dress-for-you. Diane Keaton look that just made people curious and hostile. Nor, in a year in which clothes glittered, would she give in to it, because anything that sparkled made her feel like an Oscar presenter and she was, after all. an Oscar winner.

India went in search of Maxi, moving with a deliberate drift, a technique she’d perfected for parties, designed to keep her in motion at all times. If stopped, she still suggested constant movement by the way she leaned away from the person who talked to her She never carried a glass so that if she found herself stuck in conversation she could say. “Oh, I must find a drink, I’ll be right back.” and disengage herself. Or she could ask the man she was talking to—women never seemed to want to say anything to her—
to be an angel and get her a drink and then escape in another direction. If India actually wanted a drink she went to the bar, got it from the bartender, drank it straight down and gave the glass back immediately.

India always looked into the air above people so that they couldn’t catch her eye, zigzagged slightly as she drifted, so that she presented a moving target, and wore an expression that instantly conveyed that she was intent on joining someone she knew terribly well on the other side of the room. This combination enabled her to attend the necessary Hollywood parties without actually having to speak to anyone except the agents from Creative Artists who were everywhere and who ignored her act and tended to hug her a lot. As a client, she didn’t intimidate them, for how could they be intimidated by any woman, no matter how fabled a beauty, when that beauty was theirs to sell and her income was automatically reduced by their commission?

Actually, India thought, as she drifted, hoping that she was insulated by her mannerisms, she never felt shy with her agents or the men who were physically involved in the making of movies. They knew she was just another girl, once they’d graduated from apprenticeship and reached the stage of second assistant to a second assistant to someone or other. Doctor Florence Florsheim said that there was no difference between being an elusive motion-picture star and a plain, everyday wallflower, India thought, fighting the beginning of panic.

“What was the worst thing that could happen if you did get involved in a conversation?” Dr. Florsheim always wanted to know. India couldn’t explain to her own satisfaction. Her mind blanked out at the conversation itself. It
was
the worst thing. Something about the way she looked stopped conversation dead, leaving the burden of human exchange on her incurably reluctant shoulders. The best thing about Dr. Florsheim was that she never looked at India, except when she came in and when she left the office, and she never permitted small talk.

Maintaining her seemingly purposeful course, but picking up speed, India went from room to room, panic mounting as Maxi didn’t appear. Soon she’d have to start
looking at people instead of above them, and that meant the risk of catching someone’s eye.

“I’m
sorry
!” She had bumped directly into a man, causing him to spill the two glasses he was holding all over his suit. “My God, I’m clumsy, I wasn’t looking, let me help mop up, oh dear,” she babbled, blushing with confusion.

“It’s just vodka, don’t worry. No harm done,” he reassured her, and there was something in the resonance of his voice, something that she caught at his first words that utterly dissolved her panic. He would probably be in control of the situation if
he’d
spilled the drinks on
her
, she thought, amazed at his ability to calm her down. Only a few film directors had ever been able to do that with so few words, and they had been the great ones.

“You seem to be looking for somebody,” he remarked. “Can I help?”

“No,” India heard herself answering. “I was just wandering around.” Maxi could wait, she decided, daring to actually look at the man she’d just drenched. He was almost a head taller than she was, probably in his early thirties, and as he stood there calmly, ignoring his wet jacket, she found herself wondering what he’d look like if he were in love. A passing waiter took away the two glasses he was still holding. She grabbed a handful of cocktail napkins. “Couldn’t I just … you’re dripping on the carpet,” she laughed, making a tentative swabbing motion. He took the napkins out of her hand and held them.

“Vodka evaporates and doesn’t leave a stain. There’s enough body heat in this room to make it disappear in a minute.” The words were simple enough but there was a meditative expression on his face, as if, somehow, he were dreaming and as if the dream were one of gallantry. So fascinated that she forgot her habitual fear of anyone unknown, India found herself looking at him as particularly inquisitive and tactless people sometimes looked at her, as if they could learn something just from the way her features connected with each other. There’s a courtliness to him, she thought, something to do with being kind and firm and confident, something about his mouth, formed for … no,
by
bravery. And an impatience at the same time. There was
a kind of impact of … was it concentration? He was, somehow, electrokinetic. She hoped he wouldn’t go away to whomever he had been bringing the drinks, but he seemed disinclined to move. They stood together in the middle of the restlessly busy room, an island of two tall, isolated people. She peered into his eyes and it seemed to her that he was looking at her urgently, with intensity, yet with no sign of recognition, of the deference or bedazzlement she was resigned to seeing.

“I like your voice,” he said.

“Thank you.” For the first time in her life she didn’t feel that she had to apologize for a compliment. His confidence seemed to be contagious.

“It makes love to the air,” he added.

“Well, you know that there’s always the chance that perhaps it’s just a trick,” she answered, using, in a sudden, unexpected rush of her old sense of mischief, the accent she had learned to play Blanche DuBois, slurring her pronouns with a kind of breathless, giddy emphasis on the verbs, ending the sentence with her voice vaguely going up at the end of the phrase.

He smiled as if she were deliciously, childishly silly, and India felt ridiculously proud of herself.

“A plantation voice,” he said, “I’ve always liked a girl with a plantation voice, but it’s not precisely suitable to you. You’re too timid to be Southern … that’s their charm … they never let their shyness show so they don’t arouse it in others.”

“And mine shows?” she asked, downcast. She’d always believed that she hadn’t been really good as Blanche, even if everybody said she had been.

“Instantly. To me, anyway. But I like that too. To be timid at times is universal to the human race, but in this city people become aggressive just so that their natural, normal, inevitable shyness won’t be revealed. The result”—he gestured—“is what you hear. It’s tiring to listen to, and hard to combat. Half the time I whisper … you can be heard more easily under the noise than above it.”

“I had a coach once who told me that.”

“A coach?” He bent toward her and peered at her even more closely.

“A … vocal coach,” she said, bewildered.

“Are you a singer?”

“I’ve been known to sing,” India answered, utterly astonished. It had been so many years since she had met someone who didn’t know who she was that she hardly knew how to treat this fact. Her eyes sharpened with sudden suspicion. Oh Lord, let him not be one of those people who pretended not to recognize her. They were worse than gawkers. No, whatever he was he simply wasn’t a moviegoer or a magazine reader. In his household she obviously wasn’t a household word.