Rich Friends (47 page)

Mumbling.

“Positive it's okay?”

Mumbling.

“Then come on in.”

Cricket returned, followed by Orion. He greeted them, was introduced to RB, refused champagne and/or grass, sat on the floor helping himself to cubes of jack cheese.

“No, no problems.” He was answering Roger.

“Recurrences?”

“None.”

And to Cricket's surprise, Orion lifted a frizz of hair. Normally he kept the scar hidden. Roger looked closely at the patch of smoothness. “Fine,” he said.

Orion let the hair drop.

“Gotten it checked out?” Roger asked.

“No.”

“It looks fine, but you should.”

“Did you graduate?” Orion asked.

“This week.”

“So now you're a doctor?”

Vliet laughed. “The lowest form. Intern.”

Cricket was watching Orion. His thin face was different, but she couldn't pin down why. Something within him had withered and something else had flowered, and she knew only that under the sparse beard Orion was different.

“And you?” Roger asked. “What've you been doing?”

“Working.”

“Where?”

“Oh, round Carmel.”

“But everything's fine?”

“I'm not in REVELATION.” Orion bit into pale cheese.

Roger said, “Look, if there's some way I can help?”

Alix, now sitting, put her lips to his ear. “Easier on you, Doctor,” she whispered, “to stay a bit more aloof sometimes.”

“I'm going back,” Orion said.

“You are?” Cricket exclaimed. This, then, the difference?

“There's one thing and I'll have squared things.”

“With Genesis?” Roger asked.

“And the Eternal Now,” Orion said.

“For some reason,” RB said in her tired voice, “this scene plays a trifle hazy.”

Vliet replied, “It's complicated—unless you're among the initiated.”

“Principals front and center,” she said.

Orion asked, “Are you an actress?”

Vliet, pouring final drops from the third Taittinger's into his and Roger's glasses, emphasized, “RB Henderson.”

Orion blinked, bewildered. In his former life RB had been an unknown. The Rule proscribed movies, radio, magazines, television.

Vliet said, “Famous star of famous films.”

“
One Step, Two Step,
” Cricket explained.

“Oh. That one,” Orion said, examining RB. The advertising campaign had been extensive. The logo used on billboards and in newspapers was RB, nude, half turned, bending to adjust a sandal.

“What'd I tell you?” Vliet was laughing. “Nobody recognizes you with clothes on.”

Everyone laughed. Except Orion. None was drunk, none stoned, they were happy, and so they laughed. Cricket, with ash down her T-shirt, Vliet's hand resting lightly on Roger's shoulder, and Alix, her head again on Roger's lap. RB flexed her toes, which had maroon nails. Orion sat a little apart.

“You guys going to be here long?” He glanced at Vliet, then Roger.

“I'm sleeping over,” Vliet said.

“We are?” RB looked up from her toes.

“Wanta break up a family reunion?” Vliet asked.

Her shoulders raised. Either way, the narrow shoulders said.

Cricket looked at Orion. “Why?” she asked.

“It's late. I figured I'd go to bed.”

“You're staying here?”

“If it's no problem.”

And Vliet said, “Problem, man? In our great-aunt's mansion are many rooms.”

5

On the sagging, cracked court, Roger and Alix played hard, for the first time using their new rackets, aluminum ones Alix had bought as part of Roger's graduation hoard. Winning the match, he flung himself, panting, on semimowed grass, gazing up at the elm that shaded him from eleven o'clock sun. “When the house goes, the trees will, too,” he said.

“Progress.” Alix wiped his face with a towel. “It's sad.”

“After the others get up,” he said.

“Then what?”

“We'll go see our families.”

“I guess.”

“Which do you want first?”

“Yours. Get it behind us.”

“I'll hold your hand,” he said. He was smiling, but he meant it.

“Pants or skirt?”

“Sunday,” he said. “Better wear a skirt.”

“I'll shower.”

“After you, then,” he said. And went up with her to get his
Atlas of Anatomy
, pausing on his way back for Cricket's radio. He stretched under the elm. The Dodgers were playing a double-header in Shea Stadium.

Cricket ate dry granola. She was in the living room, and through open windows came Sunday sounds, water running, a baseball game, Buster barking.

Orion came in. “You never sat here before.”

“It's too large,” she said. “Want some?” She extended her bowl.

He shook his head. “It's no smaller now.”

“There's people,” she said. “People make a place all cozy.”

He sat on the rug near her. “I guess you're wondering about last night?”

“You had made it clear you couldn't be with Roger.”

“I changed my mind.”

“You're, well, different.”

“How?”

“It's not easy to explain.”

“High?”

“Not really,” she said.

“No, you wouldn't say someone who's taken the sacrament is drunk, would you?”

“Peyote.” She set the half-empty bowl on the couch. “Orion, you really are going back?”

“Yes.”

“I'm glad,” she said. “Really glad.”

Some cheese remained from the night before. He took a cube. “Alix is beautiful.”

Cricket nodded.

“I don't think I ever saw such a beautiful girl.” As he spoke, uncertainty flickered on his face.

And it was then that Cricket realized the difference. This, Orion's one sign of uncertainty since he'd returned to the house. Last night, for the first time since she'd met him, he'd been neither hesitant nor shy. He had not clawed at his beard or equivocated or worried into apology. He had been sure.

“How did Genesis tell you?” she asked.

“We talked. Alone. For a long time.”

“And he understood how terrible it's been for you?”

“Yes.” Orion slid a finger under hair that covered his scar. “There's acts of contrition.”

“What?”

“Oh, nothing.”

RB sat naked on the edge of the carved rosewood bed that had belonged to Dormin Van Vliet. She was brushing her lank brown hair. Pausing, she held up a strand for examination.

“They're splitting,” she said.

“Who's splitting?” Vliet called from the adjacent bathroom where he was using his Remington Electric.

“My ends,” she said.

Noisy shaver to his cheek, Vliet looked through the open door at her. Unwrapped, the body proved disappointing. The knobs of her spine were purplish. The body, to be frank, was breastless, pale and scrawny. The cinematographer on
One Step, Two Step
had genius, her ex-husband had genius, and possibly in a role RB projected genius. As it was, here sat a flat-chested ectomorph chick with split ends.

“I shouldn't've stayed,” RB said. “I've got this publicity deal at one.”

“No sweat. We'll be there.”

“Two's fine.” She yawned. “Sunday, who's up before two? But, Vliet, these ends.”

Orion said, “Okay to use the phone?”

“Sure.”

“It's not a toll or anything.”

She heard him dial, she heard him say, “Let me talk to Father Genesis. It's Orion.… Father Genesis … Yes, it's for the good.… I understand.… The only way …” And so on. Sunlight cut through dusty leaded windows that soon would be broken by a wrecker's crew.

He returned. “Thank you,” he said. For some reason his gratitude sounded like an apology.

“Welcome,” she said. “Orion, have some breakfast.”

“Not yet.”

“Sure?”

“Sure,” he said, squatting. He put both hands to her cheeks and gently, very gently, kissed her. His beard was soft, his lips cold. This the first and last time Orion—Lance Putnam—would kiss her. She heard footsteps coming down the hall. She felt Orion's breathing, and she thought of Genesis on that terrace, his mouth a purplish wound gaping amid gray hairs as he spoke of destruction. Orion pulled away.

“What's that for?” she asked.

“It's something I wanted to do, always.”

“Why didn't you, then?”

“It's against the Rule.”

“And now?”

“Now everything's going to be right,” Orion said.

Vliet buttoned the fresh blue shirt he'd had in his flight bag. RB continued brushing lank hair.

“That Orion's one creep,” she said.

“You should see the rest of them.”

“There can't be more.”

“Hundreds. All purer than St. Augustine,” Vliet said.

“He's a creep.”

“So you said, RB.”

“I know your cousin sometimes limps, but.…”

“Even a basket case can pick and choose?” Vliet asked pleasantly.

RB shrugged, unmalicious, uncaring. She held out a clump of hair so she could see it. “Shit. All these ends. I've got to condition.”

“Why?”

“Splits make me nervous,” she said. “Are you getting me conditioner or aren't you?”

“I wasn't quit sure that's what you were after.”

She yawned.

“What's your pleasure?” he asked.

“Wella Balsam.”

“Maybe Alix has some.”

He knocked on the back-bedroom door and Alix answered. Sashing a long yellow skirt, she regretted she used whole milk on her hair.

“She wants a name brand, and I have to get the damn stuff. Tag along?”

Any excuse to put it off, Alix thought. “We do need dinner,” she said.

They went downstairs to the sunny, weed-filled garden.

“I'm going to pick up some groceries,” she said to Roger.

He held a finger to his place in the heavy book. “I want to go over this again, anyway,” he said, rubbing a tiny emerald insect from his shoulder. “When you get back I'll be ready.”

She gave him a too-brilliant smile and forgot to kiss him good-bye. Vliet opened the screen door for her.

“And now?” they heard Cricket say.

“Now everything's going to be right,” Orion said.

Vliet pointed at his cousin. “We're off to Chalet Gourmet,” he said.

“Join us?” Alix said.

“No, thanks,” Cricket replied.

“Yes,” Orion said.

“Why?” Cricket.

“Why not?” Vliet said.

“Cricket,” Alix said, “let's barbecue tonight.”

“Would a Van Vliet's please you?” Vliet asked. “No way as elegant, but you do have stock in the company.”

“Go.” Orion pulled her to her feet.

“But—”

“I'll scramble myself some eggs.”

“Alix made pancake batter, and I could—”

His face convulsed and he turned to the empty, baronial fireplace. “Please go!”

“What is it?” she asked.

But there was Vliet grinning down on her. “We need someone to push the basket,” he said.

Cricket picked up her sandals.

They went out to Vliet's car, an Austin-Healy, getting in gingerly because the leather was hot. Sunday. Kings Road was free of its weekday racket of hammers, saws, cement mixers. Vliet steered his new car around hillocks of sand fronting a huge construction in the raw lumber stage:
SINGLES/NOW LEASING FROM $185/SAUNA/STEAMROOM/THREE RECREATION ROOMS/NIGHT TENNIS
. “Not to mention night screwing,” Vliet said, turning onto Santa Monica Boulevard.

Cricket was bent, buckling her sandal, otherwise she would have seen it. The old school bus swerving onto Kings Road.

6

Vliet pulled into a Jack-in-the-Box. “I need my coffee. Ladies?”

“Milk,” Cricket said.

“A root beer for me,” Alix said.

He parked in the shade of the building and they leaned against the car. Cricket swirled her straw in the milk carton. Vliet and Alix bantered. Every word she said was filler to distract her from this afternoon's torture sequence—the meeting with Roger's parents.

In Chalet Gourmet Cricket watched lobsters lumber over one another. Trout flashed in a nearby tank.

Vliet waited with Alix at the meat counter. Frilled lamb chops, opaline-white veal scallops, impressive pork, ruby roasts set like great jewels on a velvet bed of parsley. A high-class operation for a high-class trade, Vliet thought. He pushed his playboy image, the image of a guy to whom things came easily. This covered the sweat. But. When Cricket or anyone called him shrewd, Vliet felt as if he were passing. He was unaware that from those he called the Dutchmen he'd inherited a knack of blue eye for seeing each turn of profit.

The huge porterhouses he'd selected were being wrapped. “And we worry,” he said, “about getting the optimum cuts per carcass.”

“But now Seattle will have large steaks?”

“More cleverly wrapped is all. But I do covet the luxury end.”

“I could acquire a taste for it, too,” Alix said.

“Alix, you always had a taste for it—thanks.” The butcher was handing over a heavy white package.

“My Beverly Hills background?” she said. “Is that what gets your parents?”

Vliet pushed the basket over carpeting. He had dated Miss September, he had dated a novelist who promoted her bestseller by being more pneumatic than Miss September, he had dated three models, one of them nymphomaniacally inclined, he had dated a stunning philosophy doctoral candidate who popped Ritalin, he had dated RB Henderson—this had got him in Joyce Haber's column. These women roused in him the same emotions as fine tailoring. They looked great on his arm. Nothing they said or did could pierce his cool. Alix was by that barrier. And the last thing he cared to do was get into a discussion, however oblique, about her relationship with his brother.