The Summer Invitation (15 page)

Valentine put the dress on and smiled for the first time since yesterday when she looked at her reflection in the mirror. Clover also gave her the pair of emerald-green sunglasses she’d worn on her date with Digby, adding: “Those are on loan, mind you. No tucking them in your suitcase. But do wear them today. It is always a good idea to wear sunglasses after a breakup, one never knows when one may feel like bursting into tears. Oh, also, you might get your nails done later.” Valentine’s toenails at the moment were dark red, but terribly chipped. “And you might,” Clover continued, “consider getting a new color. Freshening these things up a bit is always good for morale.”

We took a cab uptown, another concession to Valentine’s fragile state: “One can’t brave the New York City Transit System on a broken heart,” Clover said. The Frick is just up the street from the Sherry Netherland, and it isn’t a big museum like the Met—Valentine and I had been to the Met
twice
this summer
,
and we couldn’t get through it. The Frick is in this mansion where someone once actually lived. I always have loved portrait paintings and the Frick has some of the best. One you have probably already seen because it’s very famous is
Comtesse d’Haussonville
by Ingres. It shows a young brown-haired lady in a soft blue gown leaning against a fireplace. There is something about her gaze I just love. She looks like she has a secret.

We went to the Museum of Modern Art too when we first got to New York, but I don’t know, I guess I like eighteenth-century painting best. It’s so realistic, you can stare at the painting and come up with a story.

There were also pieces of French sculpture, which Clover, being a sculptress, made much of. But I’ve never liked sculptures as much as paintings because they don’t lend themselves to stories quite the same way. A sculpture just stands there, it doesn’t let you in.

Valentine acted a bit bratty at first, swanning about the museum and sinking onto the benches in her Missoni patio gown and emerald-green sunglasses. People turned to look at her, and I had the thought: She will be in love again in no time. It seemed to me that my sister was made for Love with a Capital L, though I also knew that, Valentine being Valentine, she would milk her broken heart for sympathy for as long as she could.

“Girls,” said Clover, “girls, come, this is what I wanted you to see especially, the Fragonard Room.”

“The what room?” asked Valentine.

“Fragonard. He was a rococo French painter, one of my favorites. Come, up, up, up, Val, this way.”

Sighing, Valentine pulled herself up from the bench, and we followed Clover.

Clover was right: the Fragonard Room was absolutely marvelous, like if a pink-and-gold valentine could be a room, it would be the Fragonad Room. It consists of murals, which I love, because, talk about making up stories! Murals are the best when it comes to that. The murals in the Fragonard Room are all on the theme of
The Progress of Love.

“Which one are you most immediately drawn to?” Clover asked us.

I pointed at one mural, and Valentine at another.

“Interesting,” said Clover. “Very interesting.”

“What’s interesting?” I asked.

“Well, which mural you choose says a great deal about your romantic sensibility, I think. You, Valentine, chose
The Lover Crowned.
”

The Lover Crowned
showed two lovers in a garden of red roses under a lush blue-green sky.

“I did not,” said Valentine, to whom this must have been quite humiliating on the day when she was nursing a broken heart. “I meant to choose Love
Disparue.
”

Clover laughed lightly and said: “Well, there is no mural by that name, though perhaps there should be. And anyway, you chose the one you already chose:
Love Triumphant.
Which in my opinion is an excellent sign for your recovery, Valentine. You are not a true Romantic, but rather a true optimist and sensualist. And you have the good fortune to be beautiful. I see a most happy and active love life in your future.”

“Happy?” said Valentine, practically spitting the word. “Happy, you say? And I’m
not
a true Romantic?”

“No, I’m afraid you’re not. Your sister is the true Romantic. See, Franny, you chose
Love Letters.
Isn’t it delicious, by the way?” Clover gestured to the painting, which also showed two lovers in a garden, but the colors were softer and the painting was much more wistful than
The Lover Crowned.
“That pink parasol, did you ever see such a tender shade of pink? A tender sensibility is what choosing this painting connotes—tender and sentimental. The person who chooses
Love Letters
will treasure and remember things. Not so, the person who chooses
The Lover Crowned
, they’ll forget, they’ll tumble into love all over again. But also, to choose
Love Letters
means that you will be forever disappointed. It means that you prefer expectation to consummation, and that, Valentine, is the true Romantic condition.”

“That makes no sense at all,” said Valentine. “A true Romantic would enjoy the consummation. A true Romantic would choose
The Lover Crowned.
”

“Oh, no,” said Clover. “A true Romantic knows that the inner life is the thing, the only thing that really matters, in the end. And that’s what makes the pursuit of human connection so tragic.”

“That’s just crazy, Clover,” said Valentine, shaking her head.
“Crazy.”

“What’s your favorite mural, Clover?” I asked, feeling that the two of them were never going to reach the end of this conversation unless I interrupted it. Clover sighed.

“When I was younger,” she began, “when I was younger … I think I liked
Love Letters
too, Franny, like you. I
never
cared for
The Lover Crowned
, I think the red in those roses is, I don’t know, violent somehow. I have always had this thing against brassy reds. In any event. Now the Fragonard painting I like best isn’t in this room, it’s in the Music Room. Let’s go look at it.”

What Clover liked best were three slender decorative panels of hollyhocks. I always thought of hollyhocks as being that wonderful shade of purple-blue but these ones were white and wintry. They made me sad. But knowing what I knew of Clover’s life, and how devoted she was to protecting her solitude, I could see why she was drawn to them.

“Boring,” said Valentine, who had not forgotten Clover insulting the color red in
The Lover Crowned.

“You do have to be older to appreciate these,” said Clover. “You have to be older and you have to have lost things.”

“I’ve lost things,” said Valentine, hands on hips. “I’ve suffered. I’m suffering right now.”

“Oh, I meant,” said Clover with a little laugh, “you have to have lost things again, and again, and again.”

Was she thinking of her love affair with Digby, I wondered, or were there other men she was thinking about too? Also—and this question was very important—when I got to be Clover’s age, would I be the keeper of so many secrets myself?

After this we went and sat by the fountain in the middle of the courtyard. Clover said that this was one of her favorite places in the whole city, and I could see why. I loved the delicate sculptures of swans and marine nymphs, which reminded me of Clover’s own sculptures and her “old-fashioned sensibility.” But most of all, I loved the gentle sound of the running water. We cooled ourselves by sitting there before going out again into the hot city. A question occurred to me, sitting there:

“What is Aunt Theo’s favorite mural, do you suppose?”

Clover laughed, and said, “Oh, that’s easy.”

“Well, which one?”

“The second mural,
The Pursuit.
Before you get to
Love Letters.
”

“Oh? Why do you think that?”

“Because, silly,” Clover said, “Aunt Theo is all about handsome strangers and secret admirers. Intrigue; desire; mischief.”

18

Thunder!

Clover wanted to take Valentine and me out to dinner at this old French restaurant in the East Fifties called La Grenouille. But as the afternoon wore on, none of us felt like it. It was so hot out; we were in the middle of a heat wave. Clover said that most people who had the money to get out of the city in August did, but that she kind of liked it at this time of year.

“You
do
?” said Valentine, yawning. Now that things hadn’t worked out with Julian, she was ready to get back to San Francisco, and school, and especially her friends.

“Well, for one thing, all the summer places are way too crowded right now. I’m contrarian that way. I like to go to the seashore
after
Labor Day. I like the beach in winter.”

“Are we really supposed to go out for a big dinner later on?” Valentine went on, sounding a little ungrateful, I thought. But I had to admit that she had a point: who wanted to go to a
French
restaurant in the middle of a heat wave and have to eat all of those fatty things in thick creamy sauces? And I
love
French food, just not tonight!

Clover, as if reading my mind, said, “Well,
we
could cancel our reservation, I guess. Come to think of it, La Grenouille is really more of a winter restaurant. I’ll take you there sometime, though, sometime when you come back to New York.”

“But what are we going to
do
?” wailed Valentine. “What are we going to do if we don’t go out to dinner?”

“How about the Oyster Bar? Oysters can be so cooling,” added Clover.

“Oh, you and Val go. She’s never been there before and I have. And anyway—”

“What is it, Franny?”

“I think I’d like to spend tonight alone.”

Somehow it seemed to me that this was the best way to truly experience New York: alone. Clover understood immediately what I was talking about, exclaiming, “Of course, Franny! Do whatever you like. Just promise me you won’t get into any trouble! And call me right away if you need anything.” Ever since the night I’d taken the cab ride by myself all the way from West Harlem, Clover had been acting more protective in her duties as “chaperone.”

“You wouldn’t let
me
go out and do whatever I like,” Valentine sulked.

“Because
you
would get into trouble and Franny wouldn’t. That’s the difference.”

I love Clover, but to tell you the truth, her saying that hurt my feelings just a little bit. Nobody wants to be told that they’re
not even capable
of getting into trouble! Maybe that’s why, later on that evening, when Clover and Valentine set off all dressed up for the Oyster Bar, I left the apartment at the same time but didn’t tell them where I was going. I had on my white sharkskin dress and sunglasses. Valentine pointed to the sunglasses and said, “But, Franny, it’s about to get dark out!”

“Not for a while yet,” said Clover soothingly.

But Valentine was right: the days were definitely getting shorter now. It was that time of the year.

I’d decided to go and check out this thing called the High Line, which I’d only ever heard of because Julian took Valentine there on one of their first dates and because it was supposed to be
very romantic.
I could even walk there easily from Aunt Theo’s apartment, if I just kept on going west. Was it going to rain? I wondered, looking at the sky. Then I figured oh well, I wouldn’t mind if it did. The air was still so hot outside, it just might be a relief.

The High Line is this park that runs above the Lower West Side of the city. Before they got the idea to put up the High Line, it used to be just part of this elevated railroad that nobody used anymore, and now it’s
all fancy.
Even Clover, who usually dislikes new things, admitted that she likes what they’ve done with the High Line.

I could see why: it’s so nice to see green things growing in the city! I really appreciate nature more in New York than I do in San Francisco, where there’s a lot more of it. The colors in San Francisco are pale—California colors—so when you come across something green, it doesn’t stand out. But in New York, the colors are darker, and the green stands out so much when you see it. And not just green! I stopped to take in the garden plots. There were soft flowering quinces, and asters, and small star-shaped purple flowers I didn’t know the name of, and all these different exotic kinds of grasses, bluish green and rusty pink, making me think, somehow, of the kinds of colors you see in an aquarium. It was all very magical!

I got so carried away looking at the flowers and the grasses that I almost forgot to check out the view. But that was silly, because of course the whole point of the High Line is that it’s
above
ground and that you can look down on the city streets while you’re up there. I was staring down into the streets of Chelsea, trying to pick out a couple of tiny figures to stare at and make up stories about, which is something I love to do about strangers, when all of a sudden—thunder!

For a split second, as the first drops started to crash down, I thought of how Clover and Valentine would be so cozy and safe indoors at the Oyster Bar and I almost wished I was with them. But no. I had wanted an evening of adventure. An adventure I would have
on my own.

There are different kinds of rain, though. This was the kind of rain that actually hurt, it was coming down so hard. And wouldn’t you know it, I just had to go and have on a white dress tonight. I looked down at it. It was all spotted and practically see-through! Time to go home. I started running in the direction of the exit, or so I thought, when a stranger approached me, saying, “Here, here, come underneath.” Then he gestured to his umbrella.

“Oh no, I couldn’t poss—” I began. I thought of how Valentine and I had been raised
not to speak to strangers.
But this young man looked perfectly presentable.

“You’re soaked,” the stranger said. He sounded gentle and, besides, I was relieved to see that he was young—about Valentine’s age, I thought. Maybe seventeen or eighteen, tops. I don’t know that he was wildly handsome or anything but there was something sympathetic about his face. He was tall, with sandy blond hair, and was wearing beige corduroys and brown lace-up shoes, even in the summer; I’ve noticed that this is a very East Coast look for men. And I wondered, vaguely, if he went to a prep school.