Surface (22 page)

Gail took one of each before the waiter left. “So, how are you really doing, honey?”

“Well, the situation with Nicholas has been emotional and scary, to say the least. He’s doing much, much better, but . . .” She closed her eyes for a moment. “Michael and I are not in a good place, Houston Holland just hit on me, and it seems a lot of people know more about my personal life than I do.” She opened her eyes and saw stars, as well as Houston Holland crawling along the border of the rug in search of something. “God, what is that man doing now?”

They both stared at what looked like a blind camel nosing through sand. “Um, looking for his glass eye?” Gail laughed.

“Actually, he’s probably trying to pick up all those names he’s dropped tonight.”

Gail fixed the kindest smile Claire had seen in months on her, and hugged her a second time. “Aw, welcome home, honey.
You
are the Febreze this stale, overstuffed den needs. Seriously. I don’t know why Carolyn entertains these people. And I don’t know why we keep coming.”

Claire was beginning to feel light-headed as she pondered the same question, and wished she’d taken one of the canapés. “The whole thing is just so surreal. I mean all of it, not just this party. Honestly, I feel like I’m just spinning.”

“Ooh, did I just hear y’all talking about spinning?” A tall, slender woman in a leopard slip dress and spike-heeled Manolos paused to survey who she’d interrupted. Helenn Hamilton-Hayes, of Fort Worth. Via Beaver Dam, Kentucky. “Oh, hello, Claire, what a surprise to find you here. I haven’t seen you since, what? The Met Ball?” Her chandelier earrings dangled like drumsticks as she spoke. “You just look so fantastically skinny. What’s your secret?”

Claire tried to smile through her urge to spit. “I guess you could say I’ve been busy.”

“Well, you look great. Considering.”

“The body lies,” she replied under her breath.

“Hmm?” Helenn looked Claire up and down. “Anyway, y’all were talking spinning, and as I started to say, I have found the most fabulous Yoga Spin instructor, and you just can’t believe what he has done for my glutes.” She gave her rear end an affectionate tap.

Claire stared incredulously at the scene, wishing somehow to bolster her resolve, but it was like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall. The more she smiled and tried to play the game, the farther floorward her composure slid. For a split second she imagined tossing her own drink at Helenn’s perfectly spun derrière. Instead she set her glass down on the mantle and made a hasty retreat to the powder room.

Locking the door behind her, Claire walked over to the sink and splashed cool water onto her face. A stabbing pain hit her between the eyes. And there, in the candlelit glow of the Spencers’ bathroom, she finally, mercifully, lost it.

C
HAPTER
28

C
laire sat curled up on the floor like a frightened caterpillar, fat black tears coursing down her cheeks. She opened her mouth to let out the muffled roar she felt building in her stomach, but nothing emerged. She longed to scream and hit the walls, to pound her fists into Andrew’s chest, and Michael’s and Cora’s. She pictured herself bursting through the door of the bathroom to tell all the finger-waggers that she didn’t give a damn about them, but instead she cupped her face in her hands and pictured the Edvard Munch
Scream
painting, the grotesque distortion of the screamer and his hellish world, and she felt hollow and powerless. Coming to this party was another colossal mistake, that much she now knew.
I know these people. I
was
one of these people.

A gentle knock came at the door. “Claire, honey, it’s Gail. Are you all right? You’ve been in there for a while,” she stage-whispered.

Claire lifted her head from her knees and raised her eyes to the ceiling, but the attempt at tear stoppage proved futile. She held her breath and pulled herself up to her feet, holding on to the painted porcelain doorknob, and opened the door just enough to allow Gail to pass through. “Oh, God, Gail, the last thing I need is to cause a scene here, but I’m a mess. Look at me.” She reached for a tissue. “I don’t know what the hell I was thinking, coming here tonight,” she said, wiping her nose and eyes. “I thought it would help me, but everything’s such a convoluted disaster.”

“Honey, you’ll be fine,” Gail said, parting Claire’s hair out of her face with her fingers, and assessing the damage. “
I’m
going to help you, but it’s going to take some work to get you out of here looking unscathed.” She opened her bag and pulled out a silk makeup tote. “Here we are,” she said as she unzipped the bulging case, revealing concealer, powder, foundation, and every other Laura Mercier product imaginable. “What I’ve got in here could make a raccoon look glamorous. Or a woman look like a raccoon.” She sat Claire down on the toilet. “Now, let’s forget about Lynn and batshit Helenn, and get to work. I’m sure that woman prays for the flu each winter to get in a couple extra days of weight loss on the can.”

Claire snorted back the tears that clogged her sinuses. “Oh, God, I’m so pathetic,” she said, covering her eyes again with her hands.

“Yes, hon, you are.” Gail wiped the snot from Claire’s lip with another tissue and placed the makeup case in her lap. “But we can fix you.”

Claire held the case tightly. “Do you always carry the store with you?”

Gail reached in for a Q-tip. “Just the basics, hon. I have an entire room at home devoted solely to skin- and hair-care products, shelved and alphabetized. It used to be the second husband’s closet, but I took it over before he even knew what hit him.” Gail winked and walked over to the sink and dampened her tools. “Actually,” she said, waving a Q-tip, “that may have been one of the reasons the marriage ended. But he was a hapless bastard.”

Claire was surprised at the cavalier brush-off. “Why did you break up with Max? He seemed like such a great guy.”

“Honey, I wasn’t talking about Max. I adored Max. Except for that little legal issue. I was referring to Warren. He came before Max, before I knew you. And I just couldn’t live for another day with that toupee under my roof. Besides, the man was the sexual equivalent of Valium
and
a clitourist.”

“A what?”

“A clitourist, honey. In the bedroom. He would not ask for, much less take, directions. He was just lost and wandering down there.” Her voice dipped. “A stranger in a strange land.”

“God, I’ve missed you.”

“And I’ve missed you, too, my sweet mess of a friend. But we need to wipe all that mascara off of your face before it runs down your cleavage.”

“I don’t know what happened to me out there. I guess I just wasn’t ready for . . . people,” Claire said while her friend erased the evidence of her breakdown. She thought for a second of Cora’s confounding prescience, and began tearing up again. “Oh, jeez, here we go again.”

“Shh,” Gail put her fingers on Claire’s lips.

“But I . . .”

“I’m serious. Not another word out of you. You’re not ready to talk about this without the necessary hysterics, and this isn’t the place. Besides I’ve almost got you looking perfect again, and I do
not
want to start over. We’ll have lunch at my house. No makeup, lots of Kleenex and champagne. It’ll be good therapy. But in the meantime, we’ve got to get you out of here with minimum fallout.”

“I’ll need to say good-bye to Carolyn.”

“Right. They’ll be serving dinner shortly. I’ll go tell Carolyn that you’re not quite up to the rest of the evening. She’ll understand, and we’ll get one of her minions to remove your place card and seat from your table so you won’t be so conspicuous in your absence. Then we’ll walk you out together in deep, animated female conversation so no more of those gimlet-eyed assholes can bother you.”

Claire felt skeptical, but no other options rushed to mind. “I guess it sounds like a good plan,” she said as she checked her makeover in the mirror. “You’re a lifesaver, Gail. You know, if you ever had to go back to work, you could always have a career as a makeup artist.”

“Ugh, I couldn’t stand being in women’s faces all day long. I much prefer being up close and personal with men.” She smoothed her long black hair and retouched her lips in scarlet. “In fact, we should get moving. There could be someone fabulous out there just waiting to meet me.”

“Are you seriously looking for number four?”

“Honey, if I wanted to play mommy to a twenty-nine-year-old man any longer—fabulous as Austin is—I’d be on Craigslist. Besides, you never know where the next future Mr. Gail Harrold will appear. And one must always be prepared. He’ll just be signing a more airtight prenup this time.” Gail foraged at the bottom of the makeup bag and pulled out a small, jeweled atomizer, and, bending over, repositioned her breasts in her low-cut blouse and sprayed a fine mist between them. “Although tonight my chances really don’t look so terrific. Carolyn has me seated next to her very gay hairdresser from New York. We’re practically wearing matching outfits, and his ass looks better in the Galliano pants than mine does.” She held her hand out to Claire. “So, you ready, hon?”

“I suppose,” Claire said. As she straightened her suit jacket, a crumbled piece of pinstriped notepaper fell from her pocket.

Gail picked it up and unfolded it.
“Call me, dollface,”
she read in disbelief. “God, that man is about as ridiculous as overalls.”

“Welcome to my new life.”

“Well, I have just the place for this charming invitation.”

“Where?”

“Lynn Wexler’s purse. I’m sure it’ll make for fabulous conversation with her husband.”

Gail left a strong trail of Flowerbomb behind in the powder room, and Claire felt somehow calmed by her crazy savior in purple and red. She adjusted her hair and looked into the mirror again for any obvious signs of distress. She looked tired, but not as dreadful as she might have. Moments later there was a tap at the door.

“The coast is clear. Come on out, sweetheart,” Gail said in an awful Humphrey Bogart imitation. Claire slipped out into the quiet foyer and Gail walked her toward the front door where Carolyn was waiting with a soft smile. “Carolyn’s got everything covered, and she’s coming to lunch with us tomorrow.”

Claire moved as quickly as she could through the door, then stopped in her tracks. “Oh, God, I totally forgot, I’m supposed to meet my sister tomorrow.”

“Great, bring her along. I need to work my chef a little more these days. He’s getting bored with me.”

Carolyn placed her arm around Claire’s shoulder and gave her a squeeze. “Claire, I’m sorry this was not the greatest homecoming for you. Really sorry. Especially about Robert and Lynn. I’d like to wring both of their necks. Are you going to be all right?”

“I’m sure I will be. Eventually.” She smiled over her shoulder and walked down the steps to the street.

 

She left her shoes pigeon-toed where she had stepped out of them at the door of the bedroom and undressed, flinging her suit and lingerie across the chair in the corner. Naked but for her jewelry, she climbed into bed and turned out the light. The mattress felt lumpy under her back. Her legs were restless, and the bed seemed emptier and colder to her than any bed had in years. She closed her eyes and lay there waiting for sleep to come while her mind wandered to the aloofness and hypocrisy of old “friends.” And husbands. Propping herself onto her pillows, Claire stared blankly into the darkness, kicking the sheets loose from their hospital corners.

When sleep did not come, as was becoming more customary, she switched on the light, washed her face in the yellow dimness of the bathroom mirror, and took off the pearl earrings and the wedding band she couldn’t imagine ditching. The subtle indentation and tan line on her finger would be more painful to glimpse throughout the day than the ring itself. She returned to the bedroom and prayed for just a few good hours of rest. And by some lovely miracle she fell into the security blanket of her dreams of Nicholas.

Padding drowsily down the hall and into his blue-and-yellow nursery, she looks into her infant’s crib with nervous anticipation. Assured that he is alive and breathing, Claire stares at the beautiful sandy-haired boy lying there with the contented smile on his face and the hint of breast milk crusted on his cheek. She sits down in the rocking chair next to the crib. In the filminess of the predawn light, she peers through the slats, watching and listening to each breath he takes.

C
HAPTER
29

“H
ey,” Claire said as she reached out to relieve her sister’s arms of their Starbucks cargo. “Look at you.” She stood back and took in Jackie’s transformation. “More to the point, who are you?” The unruly brown curls that usually hid her eyes were pulled back into a sleek ponytail. Her freckles were subdued under well-applied makeup; her athletic frame accentuated in a slim skirt and kitten heels. “And when was the last time you wore a skirt?” Claire asked with mock disbelief. “It’s Ralph Lauren, isn’t it?”

“Two years ago. And yes, it’s Ralph.” She twirled through the door. “You gave it to me, remember? I just haven’t had the right occasion for it since our anniversary trip to San Fran with you and the jerk. Ooh, sorry, I mean your husband.”

Claire looked pathetically at her sister. “Don’t, Jax. I don’t want to get sucked into that vortex.”

“Just sayin’ ...”

“That was a fun trip, wasn’t it,” Claire said, lost for a second in memories of the Clift Hotel and Tadiches and toasts to many more years of wedded bliss for all of them.

“I
am
sorry he’s being such a prick now.” Jackie gave her one of Cora’s vintage “Oh my God can you believe the nerve” harrumphs, followed by a kiss on the cheek.

“Yeah, well ... Anyway, you look très, très chic.”

“I actually got worked up about having lunch with the
ladies,
and changed three times before I was feeling the vibe. And Steve pinched my ass as I was walking out the door. I think he’d forgotten how well I clean up when I want to.” Jackie looked around the apartment. “I bet I get lucky tonight.”

“You always get lucky.” Claire gave Jackie a pinch with her free hand.

“The place looks nice.”

“Thanks, I’m getting there.” Claire set the tray on the kitchen table. “I told you I was making coffee, why’d you go to Starbucks?”

“Because you told me you were making coffee.”

“Funny.” She put out napkins and placemats, and peeled the wrapper away from a muffin. “I never even had dinner last night.”

“Yeah, so what happened? You weren’t very forthcoming on the phone.”

“Ugh, I’ll give you the abbreviated version. We should probably leave for Gail’s soon.”

Jackie listened as Claire recounted the evening, from the call to Carolyn, to the call from Cora, to her deflating odyssey from drawing room to powder room.

“I like Carolyn,” Jackie said as they closed up the apartment and headed to the elevator. “She was very pleasant to me the two times we were together at your place, but I can’t believe you wandered back into that wasp’s nest thinking there’d be no buzz. It was dumb, Claire. Cosmic dumb.”

Claire pressed the down button, wondering how Cora could still manage to be right, in the middle of being wrong on so many other counts.

The elevator arrived, and Jackie continued her monologue. “The people in that world you lived in obviously don’t give a damn about what you’ve had to manage. Tell me again what, exactly, you were trying to accomplish?”

“I don’t know. I guess I was just hoping that with the time and distance, people would be willing to see me the way they used to—you know, as a human being—and I could try to start my life again. And I needed to not sit around and stew.” They stepped out of the elevator and walked to the Jeep. “But obviously I made another error in judgment.”

“Oh, and there wasn’t some small part of you trying to prove a point to Mother and Michael?”

She turned and looked into Jackie’s big brown don’t-bullshit-me eyes. “Maybe. But at least Gail and Carolyn are willing to give me another shot.”

“Why do you need them to?”

“I need for someone other than you to know I’m not a monster. And I’m tired of living in Siberia. I need friends!”

“They can’t give you absolution, you know.”

“I know, but they’re here for me. They were part of my world, and I want them to understand.” Claire shifted in her seat, trying to make her chafing discomfort disappear.

Jackie shook her head, her ponytail wagging like the pendulum tail of the Felix clock they had in their kitchen when they were kids. “Okay, kiddo. Whatever you say.”

 

As they made their way down Gail’s cobblestone drive, Jackie’s running commentary about the vast grounds and the evergreen bushes that were fashioned into a maze reminded Claire of the summer they’d cruised the mansions of Piedmont with their mother on weekends—Cora pointing out to them the finer details of moneyed landscape architecture and, best of all, not minding how loud they played the radio with the windows open. While Claire had been more intrigued by the design of the homes themselves, Jackie actually appreciated the garden tour and cultivated a prodigious green thumb by the time school had started in the fall, along with a small crop of pot plants in their bedroom closet.

Claire gazed at her sister’s profile and clung for a moment to that leafy Pat Benatar summer. She parked the car and led Jackie to the entrance of the sculpted hedgerow labyrinth. She started to hum “Love is a Battlefield,” and they walked with their arms linked and Jackie laughing under her breath. The temperature had drifted into the sixties, and any remnants from the frost earlier that week had vanished into the thirsty earth.

“I’m hardly a rube, but wow. Just . . . wow! Gail lives here alone?”

“Oh, God, no.”

Jackie cocked her head as they climbed the steps, sniffing the plump pine twig she’d snipped from a maze bush. “I thought you said she was divorced.”

“She is. Times three. She just has several live-in staff to keep her company.”

“My life is so plebeian.”

“Well, we all have our little trade-offs,” Claire said.

They stepped up to the front door and a uniformed housekeeper showed them in before they had a chance to ring the bell. “Ms. Harrold will be down momentarily. Please make yourselves comfortable in the sunroom.” She led them through the terrazzo marble gallery and into a sunlit room overlooking the backyard terrace and garden. Palm trees arched from celadon fishbowls, and the room’s golden walls gave an illusion of tropical warmth. Floor-to-ceiling windows were draped in cerise satin, and striped pillows in black, white, and crimson dotted nearly every lounge-able piece of furniture.

Claire wandered over to several overstuffed chairs grouped around a leopard-print ottoman, while Jackie continued to soak up the surroundings. “She doesn’t do anything small, this one, does she?”

“Oh, you have no idea,” Gail said, striding into the room in skin-tight black leather pants that evoked visions of a sleek quarter horse. “Hello, ladies. Have a seat.” Gail gathered her long hair into a twist and secured it with a red lacquer comb. “How’re you feeling today, Claire?”

“A little less train-wreck-ish than I did last night. Thank you again for rescuing me.”

Gail kissed her on the forehead. “It was my great pleasure.”

“Do you know my sister, Jackie?”

“Lovely to meet you, Jackie.” Gail picked up a tray of iced tea that had materialized seemingly from nowhere, and handed the drinks to her guests. “Carolyn’s running a few minutes late, so I can tell you that the twenty minutes we spent together in the powder room last night, hon, were the highlight of my evening. It really was not one of her better soirées.” As she spoke, Gail plopped down onto the satin love seat across from Claire and Jackie, and kicked off her velvet flats and tucked her feet under her thighs. “Usually she seats me with some fabulously eligible bachelor, but instead I got Mr. and Mrs. Nigel Boring from London, and of course, Francois the hairdresser. Five minutes into his assessment of my current cut and color, we both realized we’d met about ten years ago at my mother’s house in Montauk, when he was Frank the dog groomer. Needless to say, he was
not
as charming and entertaining as he might have been.”

“Oh my God,” Jackie said, unable to stop laughing, “I’d love to have seen the look on his face when he was outed.”

“It was fairly priceless. But other than that, no real gossip to report from the front, girls.”

Claire studied the Tabriz rug at her feet. “Did anyone wonder why I left early?”

“Not so much,” Gail replied before deftly turning the focus back to her mother. “Zibby, by the way, sends you her very best, Claire. I spoke to her this morning.”

“That’s sweet. How is my favorite Boston Grande dame?”

“Feisty and wacky as ever. She’s taken to wearing caftans and eating only on paper plates. But still in full jewels.”

“Ah,” Jackie said to Gail, piecing together the puzzle, “so it’s
your
mother who’s made Claire’s visits with Michael’s parents so entertaining.”

“Yes, and thank God for Zibby.” Claire sighed. “She’s the only person at their club who blows the mustiness off all of that old money on a regular basis.”

As the three women chatted, another housekeeper showed a very pale-faced Carolyn into the sunroom.

“Bit of the cocktail flu?” Gail said under her breath.

Offering apologies for arriving late, Carolyn pecked the air near Claire’s cheek, and then Jackie’s. “It looks like there was a Versace explosion in here. When did you redecorate?”

“Honey, I’m always redecorating.” Gail turned to Jackie. “I’ll give you a little tour of the casa after lunch, if you’d like. And if you think this is over the top, wait till you see my boudoir.”

Jackie’s enthusiastic appraisal of Gail’s home and gardens continued through more pleasantries, and only subsided when Carolyn asked about her children and her teaching job. Claire enjoyed watching her perfectly clad confidante acclimate to the alien surroundings and to her rather alien friends, without judgment. She eyed her sister gratefully. But now she had a job opening for equally nonjudgmental divorce nurses. She surveyed her two candidates, just as Carolyn announced a desperate need for some painkillers to ease a migraine. She also noted Jackie’s poorly concealed shock at their hostess’s quickness to supply a Percodan among a disturbingly varied supply of pharmaceuticals—which she arrayed on the ottoman. Claire huddled deep into the love seat, her mind flashing to Nicky unconscious on the floor.

With fortuitous timing, Lucy arrived with a tray of beluga, smoked salmon, and champagne, alleviating the mounting edginess. “Blinis, anyone?” Gail exclaimed, dipping a mother of pearl caviar spoon into the crème fraîche. Carolyn picked up a flute of the Perrier Jouët, swallowed her Percodan and raised her glass in a toast. “To feeling fabulous—all of us.”

“Didn’t I tell you you’d love it here?” Claire said to her sister with equal amounts of doubt and hope, as they all touched glasses.

Finally, after a lull in the chitchat about farm-raised versus wild salmon and outrageous mothers, Carolyn apologized for the previous evening’s debacle. As she fumbled for the words to express her regret, Gail rescued her with her typical forwardness and turned to Claire.

“Hon,” she said, liberating her enviable hair from the comb, “so what’s the
real
story with you and Michael? What happened?”

What
indeed. Claire smiled the grim smile of a defendant on the witness stand. And knowing that what she had come to this house for would require serious mettle, she downed her champagne and considered where to start and how to make them understand what she was still wrestling with. Jackie raised a skeptical eyebrow.

“I had this friend at the hospital in LA ask me about the happiest times in my marriage,” she started. “And the odd thing was, the question kind of stumped me in that moment. I’d always thought Michael and I had a good marriage. In fact, I never thought we had anything even resembling
bad
until there was suddenly no marriage at all.” She acknowledged the beauty of their life together while trying to convey that her early sense of feeling connected and vital and exceptional in that life had somehow vanished along the way.

“Oh, sweetie, we all were exceptional,” Carolyn interjected while looking vacantly at her wedding ring. “And then we married men with the need to be even more exceptional, and we disappeared. Welcome to marriage.”

Jackie shot Claire a not so subtle “WTF?” look. But Claire just kept talking, hoping that all of the unexamined feelings that were bubbling up would somehow begin to make sense, at least to her. “I guess I wasn’t prepared for that. And then before I knew it, Nicholas was a teenager and Michael was ready to send him off to Andover. I was so nervous about Nicky’s diabetes and, well, that’s a whole other story. I’m just sort of thinking out loud here, and—”

“That’s exactly what you should be doing, hon,” Gail said, her voice full of froth and encouragement. “Talk therapy is fabulous. And
we’re
much cheaper than my shrink.”

“Snacks aren’t bad either.” Carolyn refilled Claire’s champagne glass and pushed the caviar and a box of tissues toward her. “We want to help, sweetie. We do.”

Claire took a sip, and bit by bit let flow the gilded emptiness of weeks at a time after Nick had gone and when Michael would be in Asia or off fishing with investors, and she would immerse herself in projects that seemed to need her or take her own jaunts—their once frequent getaways à deux all but a memory in the last couple years. And the way life would sail on as they ran their separate little fiefdoms within their seamlessly decorated world. “I thought we’d avoided the inevitable slow fade because we were busy. But apparently,” she said, looking around the room at her eccentric support group, “it was happening right in front of my closed eyes.”

Carolyn clenched her jaw in what seemed like woeful recognition. Gail looked as if she’d eaten a bad mouthful of caviar. And Jackie, who maintained perfect posture as she clasped Claire’s hand, managed to appear both uptight and regally hopeful. For a second, Claire found herself reflecting on the absurdity of this scene that she never could have written. She also found herself surging with emotion.