The Summer Invitation (12 page)

“It’s just … in the air,” I said. Sounding rather knowing and mysterious, I hoped.

We were dressed just the opposite of each other tonight. I had on my black linen dress and the black velvet bow in my hair. But Val meanwhile was dressed very simply—at Clover’s suggestion—in a long white cotton dress. And around her red curls she wore the soft, floaty green chiffon scarf she got at that vintage store in the Village. I thought the two of us must have looked just elegant walking up the broad steps of the Academy. Val’s dress looked practically Grecian, the length and the sweep of it.

Also, we were
decades
younger than everyone else who was there. These people were
old.
A lot of the men wore bow ties and the women did their hair in these big upsweeps with Victorian-looking tortoiseshell combs.

Inside the building, there was this grand staircase and these cozy libraries and galleries full of famous paintings.

“See,” Val whispered to me. “Pretty ritzy. Julian was telling me that, like, Jackie O used to come to this event back when she was alive.”

Our names were on the guest list. We got to wear name tags saying “Franny Lord” and “Valentine Lord” written out in this lovely black cursive. I vowed right away to save mine afterward—it would be a memento from the summer.

Julian’s string quartet played in a cool white room on the top floor. We watched them set up while the room filled with people. There he was—Julian, and wearing a tuxedo too! I had to give Val credit: he
was
handsome, the dark, the distinguished, living-in-New-York-City classical musician. The girls in the quartet wore black cocktail dresses.

Once everyone was seated, the president of the Academy got up and introduced the quartet. Apparently he was a famous poet, though naturally we’d never heard of him. He was this funny-looking little man,
but interesting
, with a purple ascot and his arm in a sling. The ascot and the sling just seemed to go together somehow, like they were parts of a costume. I mean, it was hard to imagine the poet
not
wearing the sling, even once his arm got healed.

After rambling on for a while about the Academy and its members and which ones had died this past year and blah blah blah, he said a few words about Julian’s quartet and the piece they were going to play.

“We’re going to hear the Swan movement from the
Carnival of the Animals
by Saint-Saëns,” the poet said, caressing the word
swan.
A sigh swept through the audience. “I know, I know,” he said. “It will take you back to your childhood, it will make you melt.”

I couldn’t help but notice that when he was playing, Julian stared right at Valentine, right
into her eyes.
Nobody had ever looked into my eyes like that, but then, I reminded myself, I was only fourteen: surely somebody would someday. But then, the more they played, and as the music swelled, my thoughts got carried away. You know how music can bring up the strangest emotions? Well, suddenly I had
this flash.
And the flash said: I will never be young again.

After the quartet was finished playing, everyone went downstairs and sat down to dinner in the library. There was endive salad with blue cheese and Bartlett pears, followed by beef Wellington, which is beef and buttery mushrooms in a pastry shell, so pretty much the height of luxury. I found myself seated between the wife of the president of Juilliard, who didn’t speak to me much, and a cranky old nature essayist and biographer who did. He was nearly blind and needed my help identifying the food on his plate. Val wouldn’t have helped him, or she would have acted a little put out if she did. Val’s not so big on old people, but I like them, and I liked the nature essayist, in spite of his being a little on the cranky side. He was wearing a suit, like all the other men here, but the difference was he had on a hunting cap with a very striking green feather in it. It wasn’t a playful, delicate feather, like you might see on a ladies’ hat. It was a very masculine feather. I asked him to tell me about it.

“Oh, this,” he said. “From the Texas Green Kingfisher. A fan sent it to me once. That was back in—let’s see—1967, I think it was.”

1967! My goodness he was old.

Meanwhile, Julian and Valentine weren’t even
attempting
to make conversation. They were just staring at each other across the candlelit table, pretty much drowning in each other’s eyes.

The dessert arrived, bitter chocolate pot de crème with raspberries.

“What is that?” asked the essayist, poking.

“Chocolate,” I said.

“Oh, chocolate. Good! Berries,” he said, in a wondering tone, poking again. “Blackberries?”

“Raspberries.”

“Oh.” He seemed disappointed.

When we got up from the table, the essayist gave me his mailing address, in Vermont. Another correspondent for me!

We walked downstairs and I watched all the fancy old people get into limousines. There so many of them, stretched all the way down the block! I’d never seen limos before, not in real life. I guess I was so busy paying attention to the limos, I somehow lost sight of Valentine. I looked around and couldn’t find her until I saw the whisper of a long white dress: she was the only woman in the whole crowd who had on a dress that color. I guess women must stop wearing white dresses after a certain age, like after they get married. She and Julian were strolling down the hill toward Riverside Drive. The sky was pitch-black now, and you could see the lights throwing these sparkly streamers on it. Julian was carrying his black cello case, and I thought that between that and Val in her white dress, they made a gorgeous picture.

I started to follow them, and finally I shouted, “Hey, Val! Valentine!”

But it was Julian, not Val, who turned and looked at me. They stopped walking.

“Hey, Franny,” he said. “You have a good time tonight?”

“Oh—yes!” I said. “But—”

The limos were driving off, and I started to wonder how we were going to get home. Probably by subway. As long as Julian was with us, I figured it would be okay.

“But?”
asked Val, sounding very impatient.

Mom and Dad had said that whenever we were out late, we should call Clover to let her know when we’d be home. If it was ever
really
late, Clover would come and get us. I mentioned this to Val.

“Well—shouldn’t we call Clover to let her know that we’re out of the event?”

Then I saw Val glance at Julian, rather helplessly.

“I think—” began Julian, but Val interrupted him, saying, “Sorry, can you excuse us for a sec?”

So then Julian stood back from us with his cello, trying to pretend he wasn’t listening to us.

“Franny,” said Val, her eyes flashing in the moonlight, “I’m
not
coming home tonight and there’s
no
way you can make me and you’re
not
going to call Clover.”

“But, Val…”

“Oh, please, Franny, for once would you not ‘But, Val’ me? Come on, you’ll get home fine and you’ll just tell Clover,
but only if she asks
, that I’m coming home later. I’m coming home later, and I’ll be
fine.
”

I thought that Val was taking advantage of Clover being such a nice chaperone, and I said so.

“Clover’s all right, Franny, but Clover couldn’t possibly understand.”

“Understand what, Val?”

Valentine tossed her red curls and said, “Being in love,” as though I were an absolute idiot.

Meanwhile, Julian was pacing in the background and had started to look a little impatient, and suddenly I started to feel very young, and I was very embarrassed to be treated this way.

I turned to see if there were any limousines left. There weren’t, but I did see a couple of regular yellow taxis. And then just as Julian called to us, “Hey, Franny, why don’t we town with you?” I drew myself up straight and addressed him but
not
Valentine. I knew she wouldn’t like that. Trying to keep my voice cool, I said: “Thank you, Julian, but I think I’d prefer a take a taxi back by myself if you don’t mind.”

“Let me walk you,” he said, but I wouldn’t let him. I walked off and got into a taxi. I couldn’t help but hope that Val was looking at me as I did it and thinking how grownup I looked.
She
didn’t have a proper little black dress yet, I remembered, and
I
did.

But once I got inside the taxi I didn’t feel quite as tough as before, little black dress or no little black dress. For one thing, the ride seemed to go on forever and ever. We were really very far away from Aunt Theo’s, since it was all the way downtown. Sometimes you forget how big New York City is, and then you see it at night from the inside of a car: it’s glamorous, all right, but also kind of
threatening.
I got the sense that it was true: I was only one person out of millions in this city. And all of a sudden I started to feel lonely. Not just lonely—sad. I was sad because of Valentine. It was all over, our life together in San Francisco, as girls. When we got back home, everything would be different. Would we ever sing out loud again?

If it takes forever I will wait for you

For a thousand summers I will wait for you …

15

Where’s Valentine?

“Cash,” the driver said.

After all that, I finally had arrived in front of Aunt Theo’s building and I had just taken out Mom and Dad’s credit card, which they said to use only on special occasions or in emergencies. I figured that if this didn’t count as an emergency, what did?

“I thought you could pay with a card,” I said. I was certain that you could pay with a card. It was true that until tonight I’d never taken a taxi by myself, but I’d seen Clover pay for them with cards before and also I had checked to make sure that there was a credit card machine inside the car tonight before it started moving.

“Cash,” the driver repeated.

“But I thought—”

I don’t like to argue with grownups, or with anybody, really. But I didn’t have enough cash on me to pay for the ride. FYI, the cost of taking a taxi from West Harlem to the Village? Outrageous! I can’t even bear to tell you exactly how much it was.

“Cash, miss. The machine—it’s not working. Broken,” he enunciated.

I wasn’t sure, quite frankly, if he was telling the truth about the credit card machine not working or not, but even if he wasn’t, what could I do about it? It was his taxi and I was just the passenger.

“But I don’t have cash!” I exclaimed, and was embarrassed that my voice when I said this sounded on the brink of tears. All of a sudden I felt very young and very alone and very unprotected, and I think he knew it too. I wished that I hadn’t let on, but I couldn’t help it.

“You girls today, you never carry cash,” the driver was grumbling, and then I thought of something. It was so late, Clover must be at home. I could ask Oscar to buzz the apartment and she could come down and get me.

“I’ll get somebody to pay it,” I said.

“Who?” he said, sounding suspicious. Of me—and I’m only a fourteen-year-old girl!

“My chaperone,” I said importantly, and got out of the cab.

“Your
what
?” I heard him asking after me.

Thank God Oscar was there at the front desk, looking as suave as ever, though when he saw me coming in at this hour he did say, “Good evening, Miss Franny, and what are you doing out all by yourself at this hour?”

“Oscar, please buzz Clover. There’s a cab outside”—I pointed—“and the driver’s waiting for me to pay the fare and I don’t have enough cash on me and—”

“Now, now,” said Oscar smoothly, and buzzed Clover. It took a few buzzes to wake her up, but eventually she came downstairs, carrying cash, as instructed. She had on her crepe de chine robe and her cheeks were pink.

“Franny, dear!” Clover cradled me close to her; she smelled good, of lavender soap from her bath, I thought. “Where’s Valentine?”

“Oh, she’s—” I hesitated.

“Franny,”
said Clover, suddenly chaperone-like.

I gave up protecting her.

“She’s with Julian.”

“Never mind that now,” said Clover, and went outside to pay the cab fare. After the wild evening I’d had, I felt safe and rested inside the lobby with Oscar. When we got upstairs, Clover boiled me a cup of hot milk—something Aunt Theo used to make her when she was a child, she said—and put me to bed, smoothing my hair and saying: “Don’t worry, Franny. It’s been a long evening for you. Just go to sleep and I’ll wait up for Valentine.” Sometimes you don’t want to be all glamorous, I realized. Sometimes you just want to be safe.

True to her word, Val stayed out all night. But then right around dawn she finally came home, waking me up. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes. Beautiful, creamy pale yellow August light was pouring through our curtains.

“Franny.”

“Clover is up. She’s been waiting for you to come home.”

“Oh, Clover! Clover, Clover, Clover. She’s on another floor, dummy.”

It was then that I noticed that Val was still fully dressed. I looked over at the alarm clock on my bedside table. It was nearly five in the morning. My sister’s long white dress was soiled with grass stains. But the grass stains were a soft green and almost beautiful, as if the dress had been gently touched with tie-dye.

I studied Valentine, standing there in the pale yellow light. I thought of a painting, of all the paintings at Aunt Theo’s, all the nudes, and how the painters always painted them against a single color, just like Val against the yellow. There was something different about her this morning …

Yes, something was different. Earlier this summer, ever since we got to New York, Valentine had looked triumphant, with her wild red curls and green eyeliner and the way she was always striking poses in front of the mirror. But for some reason, this morning she looked more serious than she had before. Some goofy life force that used to make her my older sister, my Val, some spring in her step was missing. Now I could tell she would always and forever be Valentine.