Trading Up (13 page)

He joined the small crowd that was making its way across what appeared to be the playing fields of a high school, thinking that while he didn’t have an inherent objection to socializing, he preferred to spend his time in a constructive way. In Los Angeles, manners were crude or nonexistent, but at least “socializing” consisted of 18947_ch01.qxd 4/14/03 11:22 PM Page 68

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the driving forward of deals and relationships, while here, its only point appeared to lie in the phenomenon of being “seen,” as if implying that if one weren’t, one would disappear. It was a soulless pursuit, and often, as he stood at these events, holding a glass of cheap champagne and nodding absentmindedly, he wondered if any of these people longed for beauty and nature, for a connection that went deeper than the coincidence that they all happened to be thrown together in the same little world. And now, giving his name once again to another faceless young woman in black with a clipboard and headset, he suddenly wished that he’d followed his instincts and taken out his boat instead.

And he would have, he thought with anger toward himself, if it weren’t for that damn Janey Wilcox. For the past month he had stupidly and foolishly contrived to be at every event she was, thinking that if she saw him enough and got to know him, she’d see his inherent value. But she had rejected him at every turn, scoffing at his invitations to dinner with a disdainful, “Really Selden, dinner on a Saturday night in the Hamptons in June? I’ve got four parties to go to,” and he was finally beginning to accept the fact that she wasn’t interested and never would be. For a month now, he had fervently believed that if he could only get her away from this world, the real Janey Wilcox would blossom, for he thought he had seen in her the same intellectual love of beauty and art that he himself possessed. She could talk extensively (and surprisingly intelligently, given the fact that she had never attended college) about literature and movies and paintings, but he now guessed that her conversation wasn’t the result of deep passion, but a mere party trick, employed to gain the attention she craved to further her place in society.

As he made his way along the fence behind home plate, he decided that he was through wasting his time with her. New York was filled with hundreds of accomplished, beautiful young women, and he was an eligible single man; if he couldn’t have Janey Wilcox, certainly he could find someone else as good if not better. But then the satisfying
thwack
of a ball striking wood brought him out of his reverie, and he followed its trajectory.

The ball rose high in the air over third base, and suddenly, as his eye was caught by the sight of Janey sitting between George Paxton’s two boys, all of his resolve went out the window. It was if she’d been captured unawares in some secret snap-shot, for her face had an unusual softness he’d never seen before. The child was snuggled next to her breast (and how he longed to be there himself ); her expression held the radiant kindness of a Madonna. His heart leapt and the world regained its equilibrium, for he saw that he had been right about her all along. He must save her from herself; she was wasting herself on this path of frivolity and superficiality, and it was his duty to lead her to a higher and more meaningful plane. He pictured her bent over their own children (and their children would certainly be more appealing 18947_ch01.qxd 4/14/03 11:22 PM Page 69

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than George’s), and then, as if fate were confirming his plans, she glanced up and caught his eye, and a soft, knowing look seemed to pass between them.

In any case, she waved—and Selden thought her hand as graceful as the fluttering wing of a butterfly.

Jack Paxton was going to get sick. He never should have shoved that hot dog, nearly whole, down his throat, but Georgie had dared him, and Jack hadn’t had a choice.

And now, standing in the parking lot on the perimeter of the cluster of adults, Jack felt his stomach turn over with the inevitability that signals an impending puke. His biggest fear in life was of having puke come out of his nose, as it had when he was three years old—indeed, his earliest memory of his father was of getting sick and then saying, “Daddy, puke came out of my nose,” and his father saying, “I know, son—” and right after that, his father had left home.

Jack felt the blood drain from his face. The game was over, but as usual, it was taking forever for the adults to leave. “There’s a cocktail party on Flying Point Road,” Roditzy Deardrum was saying. She was like a small, yappy dog, running around the legs of the adults and jumping up for attention. “I don’t know,” Patty said vaguely. She glanced up at Digger, smelling the sweat on him and thinking about sex. She wanted to lose herself in his finely sculpted body (he was 6'4" and weighed 180 pounds) and his strange, otherworldly eyes, which were widely spaced and shaped like marquise-cut diamonds. She knew he was thinking about sex, too, because his arm tightened around her waist and, cocking his head toward hers, he gave her a wink.

Janey saw the exchange between Patty and Digger, and, standing in the parking lot in the dull, afternoon heat, torn between her longings for Zizi and her desire to punish him by paying attention to Selden, she was suddenly struck by that quiet display of secret, unshakable intimacy between a man and a woman. She had always thought of love as a vague, formless feeling, but in that small moment, as the glamorous crowd made its way toward their cars, she suddenly saw that love had a definite shape, a firm form that could be expressed in actions and gestures. She wanted what her sister had, and looking around at the three men—Digger, Zizi, and Selden—saw how insignificant Selden looked next to the tall, young energies of Digger and Zizi. Selden was trying to catch her eye, trying to move her away from the group, but she was suddenly sure that she would never feel that way about him, and that it was hopeless to try. And knowing this, she knew that she could never take up with Selden, no matter how fruitfully it might serve her purposes.

“I’m going to show Janey my new pilot,” Selden said.

Janey glanced at him in horror. She didn’t like the way he spoke so firmly, as if there were something decided between the two of them. There was a tension in the 18947_ch01.qxd 4/14/03 11:22 PM Page 70

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group of time running out and she looked at Mimi and then Zizi, sensing that both she and Mimi wanted to go wherever Zizi was going. But Mimi had the children.

“You can’t take Janey,” Roditzy said to Selden. She was one of those people who only ever thinks about her own agenda. “Sophia Loren’s son is going to be at the cocktail party.”

“I have to
go,
” Zizi said. He was tanned and his teeth were hard and white; he looked like a young, shining god with his aura of self-contained independence that was so irresistible to women.

“We’re with you,” Digger said. Again, that secret look passed between Patty and Digger, filling Janey with an envious ache. If she could just get away from Selden, she might be able to follow Zizi, or at least find out where he was headed.

“We’re going,” young Georgie said to Jack. He had been anxiously observing the group from the outside, trying to keep abreast of their movements, for he had a feeling that Mimi was perfectly capable of forgetting all about them and leaving them behind. A strangled cry came from the other side of a car, and Georgie looked around to see Jack standing unsteadily, his eyes tearing and his face a rather unnatural shade of green. But as Mimi was kissing everyone good-bye—in a minute or two she would probably take off without them—he whispered impatiently, “Hurry up!”

Jack made a valiant effort at pulling himself together. Clutching the autographed baseball Digger had given him (at least the adults hadn’t lied about that), he stumbled into the middle of the group. “I think there’s something wrong with that kid . . . ,” Roditzy Deardrum said warningly, just before Jack’s stomach turned over with a painful heave. Squeezing the treasured baseball between his knees, he bent over and opened his mouth as the hot dog inched searingly up his throat and, with one final wrench of his stomach, deposited itself nearly whole on the tip of Roditzy Deardrum’s shoe.

. . .

Seated in the cool, marbled interior of the Wanamaker mansion, Janey shook the ice cubes in her glass with undisguised annoyance and said, “He’s only a child, George.” Normally, the opulence of her surroundings would have soothed her—she was now in and out of Mimi’s house with such regularity that it had almost begun to feel like her own—but the day had taken on a jangled, disordered feeling that for once couldn’t be mediated by a rich setting.

“I suppose it wasn’t his fault,” Mimi said. She was moving restlessly around the vast living room, as if she couldn’t decide whether or not to sit, or even if she wanted to be in the room at all. Mimi had insisted that Janey come back to the house to help her with the kids, and Janey had agreed, partly because it meant she wouldn’t have to go to Selden’s and partly because she had made it a policy never to turn 18947_ch01.qxd 4/14/03 11:22 PM Page 71

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down an invitation to Mimi’s. But as soon as she entered the house she realized she’d made a mistake—the marble hall with its gilt mirrors and Roman busts suddenly seemed overdone, and her relationship with Mimi felt oppressive, as if she were drowning in somebody else’s life. Looking down into her ice water, she wondered why she’d let herself become lieutenant to Mimi’s captain, and she longed to be anywhere else—anywhere where she might once again be the star of her own life.

“You can’t let children sit out in the hot sun, Mimi,” she said sharply, and as soon as the words were out of her mouth, she realized she was angry, and that Mimi’s behavior toward Zizi was the reason. She
would
talk to Mimi about Zizi, she thought, catching Mimi’s eye in the large mirror that hung over the fireplace; she couldn’t let it go any longer. If George would only
leave
. . .

Mimi’s expression looked decidedly guilty, but being Mimi, she simply changed the subject. “George, you
will
be nice to Comstock when he and Mauve come for dinner, won’t you?” she asked.

George rolled his eyes, looked at Janey, and winked. He seemed to find his wife endlessly amusing, if not terribly serious, and Janey knew that he loved goading her.

“That depends on what you mean by ‘nice,’ ” George said. “As long as you don’t expect me to
sleep
with him . . .”

“Oh, George!” Mimi said, as George let out a burst of high-pitched laughter.

George also, Janey noted dryly, seemed to find himself endlessly amusing. He turned to Janey for confirmation of this fact, and Janey gave him a wan smile.

“So you don’t like Comstock,” she said.

“The truth is, I can’t stand him,” George said, watching Mimi. “But Mimi insists on having him over.”

“I don’t insist,” Mimi said. “It’s one of those social things. He’s Mauve’s fiancé, so he can’t be avoided.”

George’s thick eyelids suddenly closed halfway, giving his eyes a hooded look and focusing his normally bland expression. “You’re entering into dangerous waters, Mimi,” he said warningly.

Mimi spun around. “Oh, come on, George. Just because he’s the only man who ever beat you in a deal . . .”

“If he had beaten me, it would have been fine,” George said coldly. “He cheated me fair and square. And then to have the man in the house . . .”

“It was a long time ago,” Mimi said.

“So was Auschwitz,” George shot back.

Mimi drew herself up. She could be terrifyingly arrogant when she thought she’d been challenged, and so cold and dismissive she made you feel like she might never talk to you again. It was an effective technique, and one that Janey was trying to copy, but Janey wondered why she was being so insistent on picking a fight with George.

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“George Paxton,” Mimi said, rolling her vowels in a voice that was meant to intimidate, “that isn’t how we do things in polite society. We don’t let business inter-fere with friendship. If we did, no one would speak. Besides, I’m sure that one day you’ll have a chance to do in Comstock, and then you two will be best friends.” George raised his eyebrows and, as if not the least bit affected by her speech, said, “A friend’s a person you can do business with, Mimi.”

“Yes, but I wouldn’t want to be friends with any of your business associates. I think I’d die of boredom,” Mimi said with finality.

They stared at each other in a stalemate, and Janey heard a phone ringing somewhere in the recesses of the house, and a maid answering, “Paxton residence.” Janey took the opportunity to try to escape. “I think I should be—”

“Oh no, Janey,” Mimi said, turning to her with a frightening smile. “I want to talk to you.”

A maid in a gray and white uniform entered the room. “It’s for you, Mrs. Paxton.”

“Thank you, Gerda,” Mimi said gracefully. “I’ll be right back. George, don’t let Janey leave.”

“And that was a command,” George said, as Mimi exited the room.

Janey sighed and sat back in the white silk armchair. George was right—when Mimi spoke that way, there was no arguing with her, and with some annoyance Janey mused that it was an affectation of those who were born rich to assume that everyone—especially those who weren’t rich—would do their bidding. But her mind was mostly focused on Zizi. Was his elusiveness a game, or was it possible that he really wasn’t interested?

But then George stood up and, crossing the room, took a seat on the edge of the couch nearest her.

Janey raised her eyebrows at him as if to question what he was doing. She wasn’t comfortable being alone with him—when Mimi was around, he was fine, but on the one or two occasions when Mimi had been upstairs and Janey had been forced into conversation with him, he had given her the impression that she had only to say the word and he would sleep with her, as if that were anything she’d ever want to do. It wasn’t what he said in particular, but rather his undisguised leering glances as his eyes slipped toward her breasts. On the other hand, she knew how to handle men like George Paxton—she’d been doing it all her life. Not bothering to cover up her boredom, she said, “How have you been, George?”