The Summer Invitation (6 page)

Not that I want you bustling around the city like tourists. I do want you to treat your time in New York like you live there. But:

You ought to have some nights to remember. And so, ask Clover to take you someplace swanky, but for Lord’s sake don’t make it too trendy. And do, do, do dress up! No trousers.

Report back to me on your progress. I’ll be interested to see if a girl of your generation can write a decent letter, but, Frances my dear, I have a feeling you can.

XXX

Theo

Someplace swanky but not too trendy … the Plaza, obviously. We could go there for cocktails! Well, Clover could get a cocktail, and we could get Shirley Temples or something. I suggested this to Clover. She groaned and said:

“Oh, Franny! You’re sweet to think of it, but the Plaza’s not like it was when Eloise lived there, you know. It’s just not like that anymore. Why, Donald Trump owns it.” She shuddered delicately at the name.

I suddenly felt very young and foolish and not like a New Yorker at all.

But then Clover smiled at me and said, “Oh, don’t worry, I know just the place. Let me just make sure we go on a night when Warren’s working.”

“Where?” I asked.

“Who’s Warren?” asked Valentine.

“Warren is an old flame of Theo’s.”

“Oh,” we both said. It figured.

“And the destination?” I asked.

The destination,” said Clover, “is Bemelmans Bar.”

7

The Older Man

A couple of nights later, we all got dressed up to go to Bemelmans. Clover said that I could wear my Catherine Deneuve dress, the navy-blue shift with the white Peter Pan collar. I said I thought maybe it wasn’t dressy enough but she said: “Oh no, trust me. It’s exactly right.”

That’s a phrase of Clover’s.
It’s exactly right.
She says it whenever she approves of something. Which makes you think that in her world a lot of other things must go under the heading:
exactly wrong.
Here is what she told us in a nutshell about the world today: “We are hardly living in the golden age.”

Meanwhile, Valentine said, “But I don’t have anything fancy! We just wear jeans or leggings in San Francisco. It’s true what they say about the East Coast. Everyone here is so uptight!”

Clover took a good long look at her and said, “You know, I think we’re about the same measurements, you’re just so much taller. You already have quite the figure actually. If you don’t mind something being short on you, I bet I can find you something of mine.”

A little while later, she came back with a backless sea-green sheath dress in a light, breezy silk. It looked like something to have cocktails in in an old movie. But Valentine said, “No back, that’s weird. I wish it were low-cut.”

Clover said, “Trust me, this way it’s much more subtle.”

“Subtle?” echoed Valentine. “But, Clover, I don’t want to be subtle.”

Clover laughed and said, “No, at your age, I don’t suppose you would,” and ended up letting Valentine get away with borrowing a pair of alligator pumps of Theo’s (“Don’t tell”) and putting on gobs of dark green eyeliner. Then she said, “Put up your hair. No, no, not straight back. Up, up in a twist. Then pull some of the curls out in front. That’s it, you’ve got it.”

The dress was very short and very tight on Valentine and she looked absolutely fantastic and she knew it.

I thought how crummy it was to be fourteen years old and have to look all
jeune fille
in a Peter Pan collar and my pale pink ballet flats, when my sister was trotting around in a pair of the great Theodora Bell’s alligator pumps.

Clover, as if sensing this, said, “You look very pretty tonight, Franny, and very Parisian.”

“Thanks, Clover.”

“Okay, you two! Now it’s time for me to go get dressed.”

When Clover came downstairs again, she looked completely different. Gone was the cute little bluebird whose soft blond hair was often messy. She had on a cool black linen sheath. Her lashes were very black and her lips were very pale pink, almost white, and her hair was smoothed back into a bun at the nape of her neck. She looked grown up and rather serious. But glamorous. Definitely glamorous.

Then she threw a beautiful soft pink-and-red shawl over her shoulders, which made her look more like an artist, which she was.

“Aunt Theo got this for me once, in Budapest.”

“Oh, Clover!” I said, marveling at her transformation, at how many women one woman can be.

She smiled and said, “Don’t forget. I
am
your chaperone.”

Bemelmans Bar was located all the way on the Upper East Side at the Carlyle, which is this
very
swanky hotel. As soon as we went inside the bar, I figured out why it’s called “Bemelmans”—because that’s the last name of the guy who did the
Madeline
books and his drawings are all over the walls. Valentine figured it out too.

“Cool,” she said, sounding for once not like she was trying to be seventeen and unimpressed with everything. It was like there were stars in her eyes when she exclaimed: “Madeline!”

Mom used to read us those books at bedtime when we were little, and then later on when we started learning French they were some of the first things we read in the language. So we felt that we knew Madeline like she was a real person, and it was exciting to be here at Bemelmans Bar with the mural of all these darling bunnies wearing green jackets and sitting under peppermint-striped umbrellas.

“See how delicate and how intimate Bemelmans’s hand is,” said Clover, pointing. “I love how the images aren’t perfect, you know. You can imagine his hand kind of wavering over some of them.”

We sat down in the most comfortable seats ever. They were made out of this red velvet that was unlike any other velvet I had ever known. The touch was just that much richer.

“Oh my God, I could
sleep
here,” said Valentine.

“Well, before you nod off,” said Clover, “which waiter do you think is the cutest?”

“That one.” Valentine pointed at a young, broad-shouldered blond busboy who I could just tell was totally conceited. So then I pointed to an older gentleman behind the bar and said, “No, that one.”

I wasn’t kidding. There was something about him that had caught my eye. For one thing, he was remarkably tall, well over six feet. Something about his height, as well as the important way he carried himself, made him appear theatrical, as though he were a bartender in a play, just waiting for his cue. He was going salt-and-pepper now, but I knew that in the past he’d been just as tall, dark, and handsome as could be. His hazel eyes had laughter in them. I thought: I bet
he
could tell you stories.

Valentine said, “Oh no, Franny. He’s
old.
My waiter is much cuter.”

But Clover said, “Well done, Franny. That’s Warren.”

She waved to him, and he did the most exciting thing—he bowed.

Valentine and I giggled. We were hardly used to men bowing, these days.

Clover said, “Warren’s an actor.”

Aha! So I had been onto something. Valentine would never have guessed that.

Our waiter came over to the table, and Clover ordered something called a Lillet Blonde.

“It matches your hair?” asked Valentine, dazzled.

“Well, sort of,” said Clover. “It’s pale.”

Then she ordered food for us to share: some Bemelmans mini burgers, smoked salmon on toast points, shrimp cocktail, and Caesar salad with lobster.

“The thing is, we’ve had all of that stuff before,” Valentine complained. “Like, shrimp cocktail and Caesar salad are on restaurant menus
everywhere.
”

“No, no,” said Clover. “You’re missing the point. These dishes are classics and also very chic. You might as well say, oh, I don’t want another little black dress, I already have a black dress. But you can never have too many little black dresses. Also! Don’t worry, girls. We can order really fancy desserts!”

That cheered Val up, as she always thought that dessert was the most important part of any meal.

So then Clover got her Lillet Blonde, which was pale and served in a tiny glass, and we got Shirley Temples. Valentine wasn’t going to get one at first because she didn’t want to look childish, and I could tell she was jealous that Clover got to look at the cocktail list. But I said, “Come on, Val, you know you like them,” and you know what? I was right. She slurped hers up as soon as she got it.

“I remember how at your age,” said Clover, “I used to be so big on sugar. There was nothing I wouldn’t do for a chocolate bar. Those were the days.”

“You don’t eat sugar anymore?” I asked her.

“Not like that,” she said sadly, “not like that.”

“What, do you have to watch your weight?” asked Valentine. I thought that was unkind of her, and she must have only asked it because she was mad that Clover had made her feel like a child by saying, “I remember how at your age…”

“No,” said Clover. “It’s just that after a certain point, one finds one’s cravings change. There start to be—other things…”

“What things?” Valentine demanded, determined for Clover not to have any secrets, but then before Clover could answer, our food arrived.

And then later on, before we even had a chance to look at the dessert menu, the most magical thing happened.
They sent us dessert.
Without us even asking! The desserts just appeared, delivered by, of all people, the young blond busboy Val had admired at the beginning of the evening.

And then, he bowed! Just as Warren had bowed behind the bar.

And then, he actually said: “Ladies, with our compliments.”

The desserts were bittersweet chocolate cake and crème brûlée, and they were everything we ever dreamed of.

“A palate cleanser, I think, Warren,” said Clover after we had finished the desserts and were thoroughly stuffed and Warren finally had come away from the bar to sit down with us and visit. “Do you still have that delicious strawberry ice? That used to be my favorite.”

“Of course.” He looked around the dining room and caught the eye of the blond busboy. “Alex,” he said. “For the young ladies, how about some strawberry ice?”

Now, I liked Warren, and up close I still did think he was very handsome even though he was old. But here’s the thing: he kept on paying attention to Valentine. I know she looked so grownup what with Clover’s green backless dress and Aunt Theo’s pumps, but still. She’s only seventeen and not very mature, not really, if you want to ask me, and I would be the one to know.

“I am an actor,” Warren announced. “And you,” he said to Valentine, “are an actress.”

Valentine said, “A singer actually.”

“Torch songs,” he said. “Am I right? You must sing torch songs. Broken hearts, lost loves, all that…”

“They sing in the Girls Chorus of San Francisco,” said Clover, looking very amused.
“And
they go to French school.”

“Charming!” said Warren, giving Valentine’s hand a little squeeze. “Absolutely charming.”

Now she couldn’t look bored: no way could she pull that off. Her eyes under their gobs of dark green liner got very wide, and I knew she’d be bragging about tonight
for weeks.

Our ices came, and Clover said, “Tell them a story, Warren. They’ll like that. Tell them the story of how you met Theo.”

Here is the story that Warren told us while we were eating our ices.

“It was in Harvard Square in the seventies. I had just moved to Boston and I was very young, oh, twenty-two, twenty-three. Theo was older. She’d graduated from Radcliffe in the mid-sixties and had been living in Paris for a number of years. Modeling and all that. But when she was about thirty, she moved back to Boston for a while, I think it was around the time her father was dying and he wrote her, begging her to come home—”

“It’s like something out of
The Ambassadors
,” interrupted Clover.

“What’s that?” asked Valentine.

“Henry James. Oh, you’re probably too young for him.
Daisy Miller
, maybe. Warren, continue.”

“I met Theo one autumn day at the Blue Parrot. Which was a wonderful place that like a lot of places isn’t there anymore. Anyway—I used to be a waiter there. At the Blue Parrot. By the way, being a bartender is totally different from being a waiter: whole other set of skills. It relies on more of a human dimension. Back then I was waiting tables at the Blue Parrot and one night Theo and her cousin Honor come in wearing these new dresses they had around that time, they were all the rage, this Swedish brand called Marimekko.”

“Finnish actually,” interrupted Clover.

“Whatever. Point is, pow! A lot of girls, they couldn’t pull off those dresses. They’re real short and this kind of square cut with all these crazy graphic patterns. They’re really
alive
, you know? They just bring back that whole time to me. I remember that the one Theo had on that day was black and white actually, and that just shows you. She didn’t need to wear a bright color to just pop. Her cousin didn’t look too shabby either, she went on to become this famous modern dancer here in New York, Honor Linden, but Theo was the one who took my heart, right then and there, and she never gave it back.

“Now, a good waiter is not supposed to eavesdrop. But: I was not a good waiter. Never was. Bartending’s the thing, with me. So I couldn’t help eavesdropping on Theo and Honor, and what I figured out was that Theo had left behind some guy in Paris and now it was all over and Daddy didn’t understand, he’d been the love of her life. Who was this guy in Paris? I never knew. When I had to bring them the check, it was like my heart was breaking, I couldn’t bear the thought of never seeing her again. Well, lucky for me, I
was
pretty good-looking in those days, I don’t mind telling you, and I didn’t have too bad a time with the ladies. So I remember that after they had paid I put my hand out and I said, ‘My name is Warren,’ and I asked for her number.

“She said, ‘What’s your last name, Warren? Honor here and I believe in using one’s last name when introducing one’s self.’”