Rich Friends (3 page)

“Helping Caroline fix the cake.”

“Daddy and I have to leave before she cuts it.” Mrs. Linde glanced at her small gold Bulova. “You'll stay, won't you? It's the correct thing to do.”

“I want to.” Beverly glanced at Lloyd.

He flushed happily, saying, “I'll walk you home.”

Mrs. Linde said, “We've already made our apologies to the Wynans and”—she smiled—“the Reeds. There's fried chicken in the refrigerator for you—and Lloyd, too.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Linde,” Lloyd said.

“We're eating at the Los Feliz Brown Derby,” said Mr. Linde. Invariably, he told his daughter where he could be reached. “We're playing bridge after. At the Marcuses'.”

At this possibly Jewish-sounding name Beverly tensed, aching (1) to fly, (2) to murder this desire, and (3) to sneak a look in her compact to make sure her face wasn't betraying her. Without realizing, she moved closer to Lloyd. She didn't notice the gathering of fine wrinkles around her mother's mouth or the deepening of worry lines above the bridge of her father's spectacles.

The Lindes' concern was unnecessary. They could have asked Beverly how interested she was in Lloyd, and most likely she would have replied that she enjoyed his quiet company, and no more. But the Lindes didn't ask. They prided themselves on being circumspect, noninterfering (and therefore non-Jewish) parents. Assimilated. Yet, at the moment that Beverly took a step toward Lloyd—long, skinny, Catholic Lloyd—Mr. and Mrs. Linde glanced at one another. Each saw fear reflected.

4

Lucidda, an invited guest and also the Wynans' daily maid (Glendale police made life intolerable for any Negro servant who stayed overnight) bumped the cloth-draped kitchen cart across the worn wood doorstep. A boy shouted, “The cake!” and champagne-lubricated young throats took up his chant. “The bride cuts the cake, the bride cuts the cake.” Em and Sheridan made their way to the patio, followed by Dr. and Mrs. Wynan. Sheridan's parents had remained in Wichita, unable to waste money on fares and new clothes. Three mousy bridesmaids appeared, as did the roseate Caroline. The photographer posed the bridal party behind the tiered cake. Everyone crowded up three patio steps, the Family making a phalanx, protecting Mrs. Van Vliet, the only surviving grandparent.

“A lovely boy,” Mrs. Van Vliet pronounced in a voice as light and clear as ringing crystal. “He and Em make a fine couple.”

Em slid the first piece of cake onto a plate, and glancing anxiously up at her husband, tiptoed to fork feed him. “No more pictures,” he said, closing his mouth on spongy whiteness.

Old Mrs. Van Vliet, next to Caroline, raised her smart flowered hat toward her granddaughter's ear, murmuring, “The Christian feeds the lion.”

“Well, well,” Caroline whispered back.

“Did you ever see such an expression?”

“
You
said he was a lovely boy.”

“An appropriate remark for Glendale.”

Caroline reached out for borrowed china with its cube of cake. “Here, ancestress,” she said loudly.

“At my oldest grandchild's wedding,” Mrs. Van Vliet said in her normal, clear tone, “I don't need reminders of the aging process. And I prefer to eat sitting down. Come inside, Caroline.” She handed Caroline back the plate. Someone opened the French doors to the living room and Mrs. Van Vliet proceeded like one used to having doors opened. Regally.

Caroline shouldered the doors closed, wondering, as did everyone, how old was her grandmother? Mrs. Van Vliet kept her age secret, but she must be well into her seventies. Not that she looked younger. Her face was tapestried with amused wrinkles, her beautifully waved hair completely white, yet she gave off an indefinable scent, the odor of youth. She made you think of a young girl dressed in a trim old body. She was vain of her appearance, and under plucked white brows her eyes snapped with wit. Caroline admired her grandmother almost as much as she loved her. She didn't realize how alike they were. Mrs. Van Vliet did, which was why Caroline was her favorite grandchild.

“Blessed cool,” Mrs. Van Vliet breathed, sitting straight-backed on one of the pair of dun tweed couches that flanked the mantel. She gazed at puppy-stained hooked rugs, crocheted afghans, purplish needlepoint footstools, creweled pillows, the results of her daughter's thick, industrious fingers and total lack of taste, smiling when she came to the jarring note of elegance, a gilt-framed, life-size portrait of herself holding a single white camellia, painted during her first pregnancy. For this reason alone she had given it to Mrs. Wynan. Mrs. Van Vliet did not part easily with possessions.

Still smiling, she drew off one French kid glove. The great diamond flashed light in the dim room. Caroline handed her the cake plate.

“He is attractive.” Mrs. Van Vliet nibbled, made a moue, set down her fork. “Common but attractive.”

“Em is
crazy
about Sheridan, Sheridan is
wild
for her.”

“Don't get on your high horse with me.”

“I'm—”

“You're loyal,” Mrs. Van Vliet said. “You are, Caroline. Just look how you stand by the little Linde girl—stop frowning. Do you want wrinkles? You know I'm no bigot. A snob, certainly, but not a bigot. Frankly, I've always seen Em with someone like herself.”

“From a richer family, you mean?”

“Money isn't what we're talking about. Though I daresay he's impressed.”

“With what? This?” It was Caroline's turn to glance around the comfortable, ugly room. “Our fort-yoon.” She and Em received an annual income of $712.50 from Van Vliet's preferred stock.

“Coming from good people doesn't mean much to those who do. I hope he won't take it out on Em. But, Caroline, it's you we're talking about.”

“We are?”

“Yes.”

“Grandmama,” Caroline sighed, accenting—as always—Grandmama in the French manner.

“Listen to me. The most important quality in a husband is that he's good to you.”

“Words of wisdom, I'm sure, old luv. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.”

“You girls are marrying younger and younger.”

“For
love.
”

“That's a bonus.”

“And how is this wondrous
good
quality apparent?”

“There are ways.”

“That only you know? I promise I'll bring over any prospect.”

“Do that little thing,” her grandmother said, the small, ringed hand closing on Caroline's large, well-shaped hand. “Is there one?”

“Not as far as human eye can see.”

“I want you to be happy.” Veined fingers tightened. “You must be happy.”

“That sounds like an order.”

“It is. You're my reincarnation. Didn't you know?”

5

Beverly watched Caroline undo the tiny satin-covered buttons in back of Em's wedding gown.

Caroline said, “You've got a stain, Mrs. Reed.”

“How? Back there?” neat little Em wondered. And at the same minute Beverly said, “I can't get used to it. Mrs. Reed.” And Caroline cried, “Mrs. Reed,
Mrs
. Reed!”

Mrs. Reed stepped out of ivory satin and stiff, hooped underskirt. “My room's so bare.” The beds and dresser already had been moved to the apartment. Boxes were stacked along one wall.

“It's jammed with loot,” Caroline pointed out.

“But the room's not mine,” Em said earnestly. “This isn't my home, not anymore.”

“Yes,” Caroline exclaimed. “No,” Beverly murmured. They meant the same thing. Em shook talc on her shoulders and under her arms, smoothing with a big puff. Beverly picked up the heavy gown.

“A wedding,” Em went on in the same sober tone, “is an end to something.”

“It sure is, luv!” Caroline laughed.

Beverly laughed, too. Em didn't. And Beverly noticed her expression as the small, cruelly frizzed blonde head emerged between the straps of a new slip.

“Em,” Beverly said, softly, “you're a whole new person. Think on it.”

Caroline said, “I bet Lloyd asks
you.
”

“You kill me.” Beverly.

“He will. But me,
I
'll be stuck forever. An old maid.”

“That'll be the day,” Beverly said, twisting the top of the quilted hanger, attaching it to the top of the closet door, high, so the train wouldn't touch the floorboards.

Caroline reached out, one well-shaped arm about her sister, the other circling her best friend, and then the three of them were hugging one another in a fierce embrace. Beverly was Caroline's friend, not Em's, yet Beverly felt a welling of tears. This moment, she thought, is an hourglass, endings sifting to become beginnings, this moment is a deep, endless seal on our three lives. This moment is crucial to our future. Later, Beverly would look back and wonder whether she had been given some precognition, whether she had somehow blundered into future knowledge of the Laocoön twinings of an unborn generation. But at the moment her ideas were soaring and growing until she could no longer decipher them.

The square little room was filled with girl odors, light sweat, Camay, various colognes. Atoms of talc hung in warm air. Party chatter came through crisscross-curtained windows and a glass crashed on patio tiles. The three girls kept hugging one another wordlessly. Caroline, Em, Beverly. They were close, close.

Em and Sheridan, rice pelting around them, ran to Dr. and Mrs. Wynan's wedding gift, a 1941 Ford coupe, the newest-model car anyone could buy in Glendale. Late models had just started off Detroit's reconverted assembly lines but these were being sold in communities more able to pay huge under-the-counter bonuses. Em, blushing and anxiously flicking rice from her tan going-away suit, moved to the middle of the seat. Sheridan slammed into reverse. Down the hedged drive jerked the Ford, crushing empty cans tied to the rear bumper. Guests were overflowing the front yard onto the street. A few ladies, Mrs. Wynan among them, dabbled at tears. Omega Deltas clutched tiny white boxes of cake—they dwelt in an age beyond superstition, yet this sliver of wedding cake was something on which to dream up a husband. Caroline's high color was intensified by excitement. Beverly stood a little apart. Sheridan inched the Ford through the crowd, moving into blue shadows of eucalyptus. Good-bye, good luck, good-bye, God bless you.

“Live happily always,” Beverly called. “Be happy forever and ever.”

Chapter Two

1

That night, after eating their cold fried chicken, Beverly and Lloyd sat on the couch, which smelled of upholstery shampoo. On the Atwater Kent console was one of Lloyd's records, a Bach fugue.

“Yesterday,” Lloyd said, “a man from du Pont was on campus.”

He rarely spoke during Bach. Beverly pulled away. She saw herself twinned in his pupils.

“About when the Navy's through with us.”

“Oh?”

“They're big on research.”

“Du Pont?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Is that in New Jersey?”

“Delaware,” Lloyd said. “They're interested in me.”

“Lloyd, that's wonderful.”

“I'm not in them.”

“But didn't you want research?”

“Here,” he said. “In California.”

The light from the floor lamp shone through his hair. He's going thin in front, Beverly thought. The idea rather pleased her. Mr. Linde was bald. She smiled.

“It's quite a place to live, Los Angeles,” he said. His sun-chapped lips remained expectantly parted. Woodwinds rose in orderly progression. She felt her smile turn rigid. He swallowed, drawing her head back to his shoulder.

“Good,” Lloyd admired behind her.

She jumped. It was the following Monday afternoon, and she hadn't heard him enter the backyard. She clutched her charcoal, hunching protectively over her pad. She'd been sketching the wisteria, and to have anyone look at her work, unfinished or not, made her squirm. She would have preferred to turn over the big pad, but mightn't that hurt Lloyd's feelings?

“Have you resigned from the US Navy?” she asked.

“John's covering for me,” he said. He was peering over her shoulder. With a few black and gray lines she had captured pendant blossoms. He said, “I never realized you were so good. Aren't you going to finish?”

She shook her head.

“Beverly. Don't!”

But already she was ripping, crushing the sheet in one hand. “It's rotten, rotten,” she said, dropping the ball of paper.

He sat on the grass, raising long, skinny legs to bridge fallen lavender blooms. “You weren't thinking of good or rotten before I came.”

“I wasn't thinking, period.”

“Then?”

“I was working. Lloyd, could you do a calculus problem if I were in your room?”

He flushed. “Now,” he said, “we get down to the basic differences.”

“Girls feel the same,” she said. “Or haven't you noticed?”

They both reddened. A robin landed nearby, poking his yellow beak in mud surrounding the leaky sprinkler head.

“It's nice and cool here,” Lloyd said.

“I love summer.”

“Why?”

“Oh, I have time to draw. And I'm not forced into the ominous world of people.”

“About du Pont,” he said. “You wouldn't want to live anywhere but Los Angeles, would you?”

And reached for her hand, the one clenched around charcoal. Now. Lloyd might have stretched his body along the length of hers, open mouth to open mouth, he might have kissed her small breasts which were astonishingly white and shaped like peaches, but this, taking her hand, was on another plane. At that time a boy and girl didn't hold hands, not if mothers were likely to see from a window, not unless the couple were engaged—or at the very least, pinned. Beverly and Lloyd, both, had been raised to this fine distinction. She jerked back her hand. Lloyd's face glowed with naked hurt. And the world of lavender blossoms and fernlike leaves rushed around Beverly. She never had taken pleasure in conquests. She could not, like Caroline, inflict the teasing ambiguities of flirtation. She could not bear the thought of causing minor humiliation in anyone, much less Lloyd. He gave a muted, nervous cough. Here, Caroline would have laughed and made rapport. Beverly could not trust herself to speak. Charcoal snapped in her fist.