Second Chances (8 page)

“My husband worried that he was small. Not tall, I mean.” Celeste hurries over this, then asks, “You’re not married either?”

“No. I was, but he died,” and now Dudley too hurries. “It seems like years ago by now.” She adds, “Thank God.”

At still another party, this time near Gramercy Park, at a corner of the buffet table the two young women, Dudley and Celeste, exchange information as to where they live: Celeste, on Park Avenue, near Eighty-ninth. “It’s tiny, really minute, but so quiet, and all my own.” And Dudley: “Mine’s pretty far uptown, near the end of the A train line. It’s called Isham Park. A funny sort of enclave. Some professor friends of a Socialist aunt of mine were there. Oddly enough I have more space than I need, and it’s so cheap I can’t afford to leave.”

“You must make up for it with cab fare.” Quick practical Celeste.

“Oh, I do.”

Tacitly acknowledging whatever affinity has drawn them into so much conversation, they further exchange phone numbers, along with proper names. They mention meeting for lunch, maybe some Saturday, at one or the other’s apartment. Maybe.

*  *  *

Not quite luckily, the day that Celeste is to come up to Dudley’s apartment for lunch is the day after the night that Dudley and Sam Venable first met—and spent the night together, which was not a usual occurrence in those days.

Quantities of bourbon, much love and no sleep have produced in Dudley a high, emptied trance-like state. Very slowly, before the arrival of Celeste, she straightened up her apartment; fortunately she had had it all cleaned the day before, for Sam, her “blind date.” And she and Sam really did not make much of a mess, only their two glasses and two sheets, which, with a slight blush at their condition, Dudley thrust into the hamper before remaking the bed. Two coffee cups and saucers, which she washes along with the glasses. Sam had a downtown appointment at ten this morning, in some ways a stroke of luck. But dear God, how drunk they got! What quantities of booze.

Having done all the cleaning in slow motion, Dudley commenced the peeling and cutting up of fruit for salad, reflecting that fruit salad is really the last thing she would choose to have today. She would really like—oh, she would love!—a strong, spicy Bloody Mary, and then maybe a piece of cheese. But from observation she has gathered that Celeste does not drink.

But mostly she is longing to hear from Sam—she is dying to hear from him. She cannot wait for more of Sam. Although for much of the evening they were so drunk that she is not entirely sure just who he is.

Sam Venable. A good-looking, not very tall painter, from somewhere in the South. Who works in advertising, which he hates. A dark man, with slant green eyes.

Isham Park indeed is, or was, a small, rather pleasant space of grass and trees, up above the clamor and dirt of upper Broadway. A park surrounded by a modest group of two- or three-story apartment buildings. Where Dudley lives.

Where now, coming up through the trees, beautifully picking her way in what must be very high heels, Celeste arrives. Celeste in pale gray, something soft, a long fringed scarf. To Dudley, watching, Celeste is a vast surprise, although expected; she simply looks so unlikely in that place.

Nimble Celeste, slightly hurrying, no pauses for any audience, soon disappears into the building’s entrance as, up above, Dudley has the odd thought that it must be difficult to be so extremely beautiful. Many people would dislike you just for that, your beauty; they might even assume you were stupid, or mean, and certainly that you were self-centered, a narcissist.

And Dudley further thinks: This is the worst hangover and at the same time the best one I have ever had. My head could go anywhere. It could fly!

Celeste, greeted and made welcome, then announces, “What I’d really like—for some reason I was thinking of it walking across your park, which I must say is charming—what I’d love would be a Bloody Mary, but without the vodka. Is that called Bloodless?”

“I’m afraid it’s called a Virgin Mary.”
Wonderful
, Dudley is thinking. She can have her Virgin and I’ll just slosh some vodka into mine.

But just at that instant the telephone in the front hall rings, and Dudley runs for it.

Sam’s laughing voice. “I just had to check on you. Are you
real?
In my mind you feel like some woman I made up.”

Gesturing to Celeste: Please, go in, sit down—Dudley’s throat constricts. “Very real,” she manages to say. “How are you?”

She hears his laugh.

Sam says, “I’m fine. The most peculiar hangover of my long mostly hungover life.”

“Oh, me too.”

“What I really need—well, mostly I need to see you. Tonight? The other thing I think I need is a Bloody Mary. I wish we could—”

“Oh, so do I! In fact a friend is here for lunch, and we’re just—”

“Oh.” He has understood. “Well, then. But he won’t hang around? I’ll get to see you later?” His voice has gone stiff, as though rebuked.

“
She
.” Dudley laughs, a little hysterically, from sheer nerves. “In fact a beautiful woman named Celeste. And yes, tonight, I want to see you—”

Confidence restored, Sam too laughs. “Baby, I can’t wait. I really can’t.”

But actually I was supposed to have dinner with an old friend, Edward Crane, Dudley does not say. Instead, “Shall I meet you down there again?” she asks.

“No, I want to come up to you.”

Disjointedly, they say goodbye to each other. If voices can be said to cling, theirs do—they longingly cling to each other.

“Well,” says Dudley, now back in her living room. To Celeste, her beautiful guest.

Something in her face, her voice, in her whole demeanor, has made Celeste laugh. She laughs, and she echoes Dudley’s “Well.”

Which allows and even encourages Dudley to explain. “I went out with a new man last night. One of the lawyers I work for knew him, and decided to fix us up. God knows why.”

“You liked him.” Celeste is highly serious now.

“Oh, yes. But we drank so much. Oh
dear
.”

“Well, a drink now should help you. And do put the tiniest splash of vodka in mine. I’m sort of celebrating too. My really closest friend had a baby yesterday, out in California. What’s your friend’s name?”

“Sam Venable.”

Celeste frowns, concentrating. “I think I met him somewhere, maybe. Once. A painter, Southern, good-looking? Sort of rumpled? Green eyes?”

This description of Sam is a thrust to Dudley’s heart, as is the fact that Celeste has met him “somewhere.” (A fact that Celeste seems later to forget, and Sam never to admit, giving rise to Dudley’s fantasies:
had
they actually known each other, and if so how well?)

In any case, that day was both the day that Dudley and Sam Venable met and the day that Sara was born. And on that day Celeste became for better or worse quite closely involved with Dudley and Sam. For the first years of that love affair’s unsteady and at times calamitous progress, Celeste was to hear a lot about it. She was to be the sole witness of their City Hall marriage, some ten years later. And Dudley was always to have a particular, slightly odd regard for Sara, whom she did not actually meet until the fifties. But Dudley always remembered hearing of her birth, on that particular day.

Now the two women, new friends, simply toast each other with their drinks, along with the absent Sam and the infant Sara.

“It’s very brave of Emma, really, I think,” Celeste tells Dudley. “Having a child all alone. Brave or nuts, I’m not sure.”

“Probably both?” Dudley is thinking that if Sam should leave her, would she want a child? But then instantly she dismisses this half-formed thought. She does not even want children; at twenty-five she is already much too old, she thinks. (Although on that day much of her mind could be a sixteen-year-old’s.)

She asks Celeste, “There’s no chance of their getting married?” as she wonders: Do I want to marry Sam Venable? And what a crazy speculation that is! To be thinking of children, marriage, after one single night in bed with a handsome, drunk man.

“His wife has some sort of stranglehold on him, I gather,” Celeste explains, of Emma, her California friend. “You know, generally they do. Especially when the husbands involved are prone to affairs with young women. But I must say, I do feel very aunt-like toward this baby Sara.”

“Oh, that’s so nice!”

“Well, it’s surely easier than being a mother.”

They smile at each other.

One of Dudley’s several strict rules of life is that engagements of any sort whatsoever once made are never to be broken. In her view this is both moral and pragmatic; it saves on indecision. However, today, as she talks in a pleasant, if slightly keyed-up way while she serves their lunch, she is also thinking that it is very important that she see Sam tonight—she
must
. It is not simply that she wants to see him—oh, violently! There is also an emblematic significance: to see him the night after their meeting is crucial.

And so, both because she already likes Celeste very much, and also because she senses Celeste as a person of authority, in all ways a definite person (Dudley’s sense of herself is often somewhat amorphous), she asks her, “This is probably a silly question, but tell me, do you ever break dates? I mean, if something you’d much rather do comes up?”

Celeste laughs. “Well, almost never.” She then adds, “You were supposed to see someone tonight, and now—”

“Exactly. I was supposed to have dinner with an oldest friend—not even a beau, I mean. In fact, I think he’s, uh, queer.”

“I always seem to like those men too,” Celeste comments. “And they
love
me. But they make me feel good. They’re fun, most of them.”

“Actually Edward’s the only one I know, but I’ve known him so long. And he’s so sensitive. Oh dear.”

One of the pleasantest features of Dudley’s apartment is its outlook onto trees, the oaks and maples of Isham Park, just now all feathered out in soft pale green. Which is where Celeste’s gaze is directed as Dudley observes her profile.

It is very severe, that profile. Celeste’s nose determines her whole expression, and it is such a strong, high-boned, authoritative nose. Dudley considers that nose, and hopes it does not mean that Celeste is going to scold her.

“Such a divine view” is what Celeste first says, turning back to Dudley. “Such lovely trees.” And then in a very serious way she asks, “Suppose you simply told your friend what happened? Just said that you’d met someone you think you really care a lot about.” She smiles. “I have a sort of motto. Well, actually a lot of them. But this one goes: When in doubt, tell the truth.”

“Well, that’s right,” agrees Dudley. “In a way I do that too, and it works.” But even as she is saying this she is thinking, But no, it would never do with Edward. For one thing we never discuss our love affairs with each other, we don’t even mention the fact that we have them. I suppose because Edward can’t, or he feels that he can’t. And maybe he really doesn’t. Oh dear, poor Edward.

At that instant, though, from down the hall the phone again rings, and Dudley goes to answer.

And it is Edward, sounding terrible. “Sweetie, I am so sorry to do this to you, but I woke up with the most frightful cold, which I simply could not bring myself to inflict on you. I feel dreadful.”

Having reassured Edward, as she walks back to Celeste in the living room Dudley is aware of a strange elation, a sense that she has been especially blessed. She has even, from somewhere, been given a sign.

*  *  *

Years later, wildly drunk, insanely raging, Dudley shrieks at Sam: “Even Celeste, you said you’d never met her, but she had met you, she said she had. You lie, you’ve lied to me from the start!”

“You crazy drunk bitch—”

But all that is later, and is happily unforeseen.

Now making coffee in her kitchen, though light-headed, nearly breathless, Dudley still makes plans: as soon as Celeste goes, she will walk down the hill to the butcher and buy a really great steak. A chateaubriand? Just a perfectly simple steak dinner. Last night they barely ate, they just drank and drank. Tonight, lots of food, and maybe no drinks at all? But that would seem censorious, Dudley decides, by which she means that she is afraid Sam won’t like rules.

Perhaps (after all, they are grown-ups, supposedly civilized) one Scotch before dinner, and a nice split of Beaujolais with the steak? A sober evening, all around. Lots of food. Moderate drink. Love.

In the meantime, there is still her new friend Celeste to talk to. Celeste, with her delicate wildflower look, her air at once fragile and hardy. She is like some cross between a flower and a faun, Dudley thinks, and of course does not say. Something rare and wild.

And although she is glad of the presence of Celeste, just then, it would not do to talk about Sam—thinks carefully brought up Dudley. And so, serving coffee, she asks, “Please tell me more about Emma, your friend.”

Half-laughing, Celeste very affectionately describes Emma, her impetuous, impractical and danger-courting friend. And as she listens Dudley thinks of her own danger-prone friend, Polly Blake, with her nutty small-magazine jobs, her leftist intensity, her mania for good works and her absolutely veiled (if indeed it exists) private life.

In fact, as Celeste, in her rather clipped and very discreet way, describes Emma’s clandestine love affair with the labor organizer in San Francisco, Dudley not for the first time thinks that Polly could very well be involved
right now
in just such an impossible liaison. There have been certain signs with Polly: last-minute changes of plans, always with profuse apologies from Polly: “Dud, I’m so sorry,
I just can’t tonight. Something, work—” (Polly evidently cannot bring herself to invent a lie.) Plus strong, if indefinable changes in Polly’s voice, in the expression of those amazing pale eyes.

Yes, Dudley thinks, yes, of course Polly must be having an affair with someone who is married. (But she does not think, she would never think, for Polly, of famously charming, famous Charles Timberlake.)

The steak, rubbed with garlic and oil, lies on the kitchen table, achieving, perhaps surpassing, room temperature. Potatoes are in the oven, baking, baked. The salad is crisping in the refrigerator. And Dudley is bathed and dressed, all lotioned, scented, brushed and powdered.