The Summer Invitation (9 page)

Finally, the theater darkened and the movie started.
Claire’s Knee
was an old film, but at least it was in color. It began with a shot of a beautiful red-and-white motorboat in the canal, with rows of swans parting the water on either side. I thought it was such a delicate image, like something out of a storybook, out of one of the Babar books Mom used to read us at bedtime, and I sat there transfixed. What happens in the movie is this: The man in the boat goes to this summerhouse, which is on Lake Annecy, in the French part of Lake Geneva. There he meets two sisters, though he meets the youngest one, Laura, first. Laura has dark hair and is flat-chested but very intelligent. I wouldn’t say she has a pretty face, but it’s what you would call an
interesting
face; it comes alive when she’s talking. This man, whose name is Jerome, takes her opinions very seriously. They have these incredible, long conversations about Love. Usually they have them sitting in the garden drinking tea, and one time they go on a hike. Laura starts to have a crush on Jerome. You can just tell.

But then her sister Claire shows up. Oh, I forgot to mention—Laura and Claire aren’t real sisters, they’re half sisters. Claire is older than Laura and very beautiful; she’s the blonde you see in the movie poster, wearing a straw hat. Most of the movie she spends in a bikini, though there’s this one scene when she’s climbing a ladder where she has on this dress I loved, robin’s-egg blue, with pleats. I was thinking I’d try to find one like that at the vintage store we went to with Clover. I can just imagine Clover saying, in that way of hers:
Trust me. It’s very sophisticated.

Anyway, the scene where she’s climbing the ladder is where Jerome falls in love with love, which you can kind of see coming right from the minute he meets her, because she’s so beautiful and always filmed in this beautiful, gauzy, late afternoon light. What happens is, she’s on a ladder picking apples when all of a sudden Jerome notices her knee. The idea is, he falls in love with her knee. Her knee is girlish and delicate. But I guess it’s her girlishness that must be attractive to him.

Imagine it! Falling in love with another person based on their
knee
, based on any body part! It reminded me of this time, just a couple of days ago, when we were walking down the street with Clover. It was a very hot night and we’d just gone to get ice cream in the Village and were walking back to the apartment when we passed this really cute guy. Val squealed and said, “Cute!” so loud I think he might have heard her. “Shh!” I said, embarrassed. “What?” said Clover, totally innocent: she hadn’t noticed the guy. “You didn’t notice him?” demanded Val. “But he was absolutely gorgeous.” And then Clover said she didn’t much notice men based on their looks: “I happen to require more information.” I took note of that phrase, to bring back to San Francisco with me. It sounded so grand.
I happen to require more information.

You know something? I think that when I grow up, I’m going to require more information too.

But this man in the movie, this Jerome, didn’t require any more information than long shiny blond hair and a pair of pretty knees. If you ask me, Laura is a much more likable character than Claire: she has all these interesting thoughts and feelings, while all Claire does is stroll around in a tiny blue bikini. She hardly speaks at all. So what is the point of the movie? Beauty is enough? Love is illogical? Both of these things?

Near the end of the movie, Jerome finally does get to touch Claire’s knee. They’re left alone at the summerhouse together and he tells her that her boyfriend’s been cheating on her, which is true, but still, it’s not very nice of him to just break the news to her out of the blue. It’s raining outside, really coming down. So, Claire starts crying, and the rain keeps falling, and it’s very dramatic. Jerome sits down next to her as though he’s going to comfort her but you can see what he’s after—her knee! She’s wearing a short black sweater dress. And Jerome lets her cry and hands her a handkerchief but then slowly, very slowly, he reaches out and places his hand on her knee. He starts massaging it
for a really long time.

The camera pulls away, and you see the lake looking all misty. The rain stops.

That’s all that happens between them. He doesn’t try to get away with anything else.

But just as I started shifting in my seat, figuring the movie would be over soon, I looked over at Valentine, and Julian was stroking
her
knee. Val had this blissful expression on her face, sort of like, you know, when you take your first taste of Nutella and you can’t believe how utterly silky and delicious it is? Like that.

I turned my eyes back to the movie screen. I was getting a little embarrassed. I didn’t want them to catch me looking. And anyway the movie wasn’t over. Jerome describes the experience of touching Claire’s knee to his friend Aurora, the lady novelist. He seems very proud of himself.

So here was yet another message about Love. That it doesn’t last? That desiring what you want is more interesting than finally getting it?

I couldn’t help it, I looked over at Val again. But I didn’t look at her knee this time; I looked at her face with the same blissful, drifting expression. And you know what? Suddenly, for the first time this summer, I wasn’t jealous of her. I was worried. Julian took us all the way downtown and dropped us off at Aunt Theo’s after the movie. I knew that Val wanted to show off our address for the summer. When we entered the lobby, she made a big point of saying hello to Oscar, the Viennese doorman. “Why, hello, Oscar,” and he said right back, “Good evening, Miss Valentine.” I thought she might invite Julian upstairs with us, but she didn’t. She kissed him good night in front of the elevator, slipping away just as the doors closed.

Inside the elevator she looked very satisfied, and I said, “Quite the movie star, aren’t you?”

“Come off it, Franny. You’re just jealous. Now. Isn’t he handsome? Did you see he has—”

“Deep blue eyes and wavy black hair?”

“Well, he does, doesn’t he?”

We got out on the seventeenth floor and let ourselves into the apartment. But when we let ourselves in, there was Clover, lying on the sofa in a crepe de chine robe, weeping.

11

Lemon Soufflé

“Carlo,” she said. “Carlo’s dead.”

“Oh,” we both said, rather disappointed. In a way, I’d been hoping for some big
drama.
I pictured Carlo’s plump, wiggly green body, in that beautiful shade of rich clay green, wiggly no more. By now Clover had stopped weeping, but there were still faint tears running down her face and her eyes were red. I went to the stove and put on another pot of tea.

“Where did you find him?” asked Valentine.

“Val!”
I said. I didn’t think that was a very sensitive question.

“Oh it’s fine, Franny,” said Clover, getting up from the sofa and carrying her teacup over to the kitchen. “On the roof-deck. On that green velvet love seat, actually. I went out there to read my book, and I tried nudging Carlo over, he always did hog that love seat, but no luck. His body was just kind of—
stiff
—and I knew.” She wiped a tear from her eye with the sleeve of her robe and went on, “It’s so silly, crying like this over a
turtle.
But I’d had him for years! And then, Theo gave him to me, you know,” she added, as if that explained everything.

“We have a dog in San Francisco,” said Valentine, again, I thought, not with a great deal of sympathy. “His name is Pommes, like
pommes frites.”

“I know,” said Clover. “You’ve told me.”

“I want cookies,” Val said. “Oh! I know. Mint Milanos. I have to have Mint Milanos. Franny—”

“I will not,” I said. “If you want cookies, you can go get your own cookies.”

“How did you know I was going to ask that?”

“Because you’re always asking me to do things like that. You’re always bossing me.”

“I am not!”

“Girls!” said Clover. “Girls, you’re normally very well-behaved, but I don’t have the strength for this tonight. Anyway, I’ll tell you what we’re going to do: we’ll make a lemon soufflé.”

“Lemon soufflé?” said Val, pouting. “But I want chocolate.”

“One of these days, you’re going to have to cultivate your palate beyond chocolate, and lemon soufflé is an excellent place to start. And anyway, I think we have all the ingredients in the apartment already.”

“What do we need?” I asked; lemon soufflé sounded just lovely to me.

“Oh, let’s see. Lemons, eggs, sugar, cream, a bit of salt…”

With a little bit of rummaging around, I found all of these things. Then Clover took out a cutting board and started on the lemons, and put Val on egg-breaking duty. Val sighed first, but got to it.

“I used to make this in Sag Harbor,” said Clover, in a dreamy tone of voice, grating the lemon skins.

“Sag Harbor?” I said.

“That’s where I used to go every August, with Theo. She had a house there.”

“Oh.”

”Franny, why don’t you break the eggs? And I know, Valentine, why don’t you mix?” We switched places. Meanwhile, Clover sighed and poured some heavy cream into the bowl of egg yolks and lemon. Then she poured the mixture into a baking pan and put it in the oven. Then she mixed herself a gin and tonic and we all went and sat down in the living room. By now it was dark out, and Clover turned on Aunt Theo’s rickety old table lamps. They shed rosy light on the room and on all the paintings of the nudes, looming over the three of us.

“What was the house like?” I asked Clover.

“A big brown Victorian,” said Clover, remembering. “With blue shutters.”

“Blue and brown together,” sniffed Valentine. “That doesn’t sound very pretty.”

“Oh, no, it was, Valentine, it was. A kind of a rich, fudge brown with Tiffany blue shutters.”

“What shade’s Tiffany blue again?” asked Val, still unconvinced.

I rolled my eyes.

“Like the store, Val. The color of the boxes the jewelry comes in.”

“Oh, right.
That
shade.”

Clover continued: “It was one of those old houses that always smelled of the sea and the marshes. And also it smelled like ashes that were left over from last year’s fires in the fireplace. Theo just
loved
having fires. She used to sit by the fireplace with these Polish scarves wound around her hair…”

“Why Polish?”

“Because she had all these friends in Krakow and Budapest. She was always going over there and coming back with scarves. I can show you some of them later if you’re interested. Some of them are quite gorgeous, really.”

“Were they from admirers?” I asked.

“Everybody’s always talking about admirers this summer,” Valentine groaned. “Admirers, admirers! You’re just using that word because you heard the grownups use it, Franny. You’re always imitating the grownups.”

“Am not,” I said, though, in fact, Valentine had a point about that; I just didn’t want to admit it in front of her.

“Anyway, what I want to know is—” Val tossed her red curls and paused.

“What, Valentine? What is it that you want to know?”

“No, no, I can’t ask it. Never mind.”

“Oh, don’t say that. You girls should feel free this summer to ask me anything, anything at all.”

“Well—” she was still hesitating. “What I want to know is how old were you when—”

“Oh,” said Clover, understanding immediately.

She’s asking about boys, I thought to myself.

“Seventeen,” I heard Clover say. “I was seventeen when I fell in love for the first time. It happened in Sag Harbor too.”

“You were my age!” exclaimed Valentine.

“Yes, I suppose I was, come to think of it. It happened on a rainy night, I remember, you could hear the wind howling through the pine trees outside. I have always loved being by the ocean when it rains…”

“What happened? Keep going,” prodded Val. “I want to hear about the guy.”

“Oh, him,” said Clover, smiling. “Well, I was trying to set the scene before I got to the man.”

The use of the word
man
caught my attention, even though it appeared that she was telling the story for Valentine more than for me.

“Man?” I repeated. “Man, or boy, do you mean? You said you were only seventeen at the time.”

“Man, then, if you insist. He was older—much older than me…”

“How old?” I asked.

“Not
old-old
, I hope,” said Valentine. “Right?

“Older,” said Clover sternly, and I knew from that tone of voice that this was as much as she was ever going to tell us.

“Was it fun, though?” said Val.

“First love, fun? Of course it was!”

“But you weren’t his first love, it doesn’t sound like,” Val pointed out.

“Hardly,” admitted Clover, with one of her light little laughs. But then turning more serious she went on, “One thing I’ve always remembered about that night is: the next morning he wasn’t there. I remember I got up and I decided to walk straight to the beach. I had on a yellow eyelet dress, funny, I never seem to wear the color yellow anymore. I stared out into the sea and I thought: So this is the summer. The summer I will always remember. Girls, you will have one summer like that too. The summer that you will remember all your life.”

I was still thinking about Clover’s story by the time the lemon soufflé was ready. It filled the apartment with the clean scent of citrus. When I tasted it I thought it was absolutely delicious, and said so.

But Val tasted it and said, “Good, but not as good as chocolate.”

And Clover, with a far-off look in her eyes, said something else: “Not as good as the
first
lemon soufflé I ever had.”

Lying in bed later that night, I couldn’t fall sleep. I
always
sleep soundly, so something was up. Val appeared to be sleeping all nicely in the bed next to mine. I got up to get a glass of water from the kitchen. When I turned on the lights, something caught my eye on the counter. It was a blue envelope, the same good thick quality as the stationery Aunt Theo used. The envelope was addressed to “Miss Clover Leslie.” But the handwriting wasn’t Aunt Theo’s—it didn’t slant and swoop like hers and it wasn’t so mysterious or so feminine. I had the feeling that this handwriting—so straight and bold—belonged to a man. There was no return address, but it was postmarked from Rome. I turned over the envelope and saw that the upper right corner was torn. So Clover must have opened it already, which made me feel not too, too bad about what I was going to do. Slowly, the way you pause before you open a present, I took the letter out of the envelope. It read: