Girl in the Moonlight (22 page)

One Saturday in early October, I met some old school friends in Central Park to play football. After the game, I was invited to go with them for dinner. A Thai place downtown. Some other people would be joining us. In we walked, and there at a large, empty table in the center of the room sat Kate. For the first time, we were formally introduced.

“I’m Wylie,” I said.

“I know. I’ve seen you around. I’m Kate.”

I sat next to her. We spent the whole night talking to each other exclusively. Our interests and experiences overlapped to the point that we found ourselves laughing at the coincidences. She had lived in Paris during her junior year. At Princeton she had rowed crew. She had even gone to the same girls’ boarding school as my mother.

We continued the conversation long after dinner ended, back in her loft. Rummaging under her sink for whisky, looking at
blurry Kodaks in old photo albums, she told me about her father and her brothers. About her mother, who had died when Kate was a child. “That’s me with the pigtails,” she said, indicating a skinny towhead on the beach with a pail and shovel. Pictures of her father, rakishly handsome, in a convertible wearing a tweed jacket and dark glasses. Her oldest brother in a football uniform. A black-and-white of her grandparents sitting on the lawn in front of a large Georgian Revival house. Kate playing field hockey. Rowing on Lake Carnegie. Another of her whole family taken at Christmas.

This became a pattern. Over the next few weeks, we met every night after work and stayed up late talking. The loft she was renting in Tribeca was decorated with furniture inherited from her grandmother. There was a large Japanese screen from the Edo period. When I had lived in Tokyo, I had spent many hours at the Imperial Museum in Chiyoda-ku admiring the collection. Hers was a fine example. It took up half a wall. She said it depicted a scene from
The Tale of Genji
. The young man kneeling on the lower right has come to ask a lord for the hand of his daughter in marriage. Is he worthy? Does the daughter love him? We’ll never know.

The loft had no real bedroom. Her bed was in the corner. The first night I stayed over I slept on the sofa. We did not even kiss for several weeks. I wanted her to know I was interested in more.

She invited me to a Halloween party in Haverford, near where she grew up. Friends of hers gave it every year. They covered the pool and put up a tent. There was a band. People from all over the Main Line came and parked on the grass. It would be a chance for me to meet her oldest friends. Her family no longer had a house down there. The last one had been sold years before. Cousins had moved away. Pinehurst. Palm Beach. Montecito. Manhattan. At one time the family had owned hundreds of acres of land in the area. Also, banks, railroads, utilities.

The house where her father had been raised was now a golf club. Her great-grandparents’ home, a convent. She no longer had a place of her own, so we would be staying at the house where the party was being held. She had gone down on Friday to help set up and in her costume picked me up the next evening at the local train station. I had never been to the Main Line before. We drove past grand estates, country lanes. She pointed out landmarks. “That’s Ardrossan,” she said as we passed a large wrought-iron gate flanked by two brick pillars.

There was glitter in her hair and on her cheeks. Under her coat she was dressed as a sea nymph. As were two of her friends, also beauties. King Neptune was the host. They were part of his court. He turned out to be a cheerful old gentleman with a large stomach and a little white mustache. My costume was a set of Japanese robes I had bought in Tokyo.

We arrived at a party already in full roar. The house was immense, an exact copy of a palazzo overlooking Lake Garda and built at the turn of the century by a railroad baron. Kate took me upstairs to change. “This is our room,” she told me. “Is that all right?” It was a small room with a single bed. Apparently it belonged to one of the boys in the family, a few years older than Kate, who would be bunking in with his brothers. There were four brothers and four sisters. Kate was practically family.

The guests were of all ages. Everyone greeted Kate with affection. It was obvious she was a favorite. The most beautiful girl in town had lived up to the promise of her youth and become the most beautiful woman. She introduced me to her friends, who welcomed me. The older men were dignified, despite being in costume. The women well preserved. Some of the younger men were more guarded, maybe even envious. They had grown up with her. As comfortable as cousins. One of them came up to me at one point, a little drunk, and asked, “How did you do it? I’ve been trying to get into her pants for years.” I nearly hit
him but instead walked away. “ ’S matter?” he called after me.

We made love that night for the first time. The party had ended, and the last guest had gone home. After saying good night to our hosts, she had led me upstairs laughing, kissing me on the landing. The door closed behind me. “Keep the lights off,” she said. The silver moonglow through the open window illuminated the room. I reclined on the bed, speechless, watching her remove her clothes, her back to me, before turning and revealing herself. I held my breath as she approached. “I choose you,” she whispered in my ear, her arms around me as I took her in my arms. It was an anointment.

Like all new lovers, we escaped from the world, floating above, lost in ourselves. Gradually, we returned, reaching out to friends and family, eager to share our happiness. I got to know her friends, of which there were many. Lovely women from her childhood, from school, from her year in Paris, who all considered her their best friend. They would call her with their problems, valuing her advice, protective of her, eyeing me suspiciously.
You better be good to her,
they all seemed to imply as they smiled at me with their teeth bared.

I met her family. Her father now lived in a small apartment in New York overlooking Central Park and spent most of his time playing backgammon at his club. A genial old rogue with gin blossoms on his nose and a wandering eye, he had been married four times. “Each one worse and more expensive than the last,” he liked to joke. Kate treated him like a child, always asking if he was eating enough, did he remember to wear his scarf? After her mother’s death, that role fell to her. She quickly adapted. Learning how to cook, do the laundry for her father and brothers.

Although her father had nominally been a stockbroker, his primary income was derived from two other sources: a trust fund established by his grandfather and his gambling winnings.
The former was regular if, for his needs at least, inadequate. The latter fluctuated wildly, depending on how his luck was running. But he could not draw more than what the trust paid him on a quarterly basis, which while generous was not nearly as generous as he was to himself and others. By the end of most quarters his bank account would be empty, his credit limits reached. Nor could he touch the principal, an ironclad term laid down by his grandfather. As a result, some years they were flush, other years lean, depending on his success at the backgammon table or racetrack.

They changed houses constantly, sometimes a grand estate, sometimes a little cottage, reflecting her father’s liquidity. He would acquire paintings, give his wives jewelry, take the family on holidays to Saint-Tropez. The next year the telephone might be turned off for nonpayment. Staff came and went. More than a few times there were concerns that he might not be able to cover school fees. His wives would get fed up with his profligacy with both money and other women, and eventually leave him.

Like all gamblers, Kate’s father possessed a sort of reckless style. He played in backgammon tournaments around the world. Nassau. Cairo. Hong Kong. But also chess, poker, even baccarat. Once at Belmont his horse had paid 20 to 1, and he had won so much money he could barely fit all the bills in the pockets of his suit. On his way out he spotted a black Rolls-Royce, the kind with a long, elegant bonnet, and immediately walked up to the owner and asked, “How much?” This was in the sixties and the man suggested what was then an astronomic price.

“Done!” said Kate’s father, handing him stacks of bills while still having plenty of his winnings left.

He laughed heartily telling that story. For several years, he even had a liveried chauffeur named Morris, who would drive Kate and her brothers to school every morning in the car.

“Do you still have the Rolls?” I asked.

“Alas, no,” he replied. “I had to sell it years ago to cover a debt. It was a beautiful car but an absolute fortune to maintain.”

Luckily for Kate, she had money of her own, a small trust established by her grandmother, who saw that her son’s dissoluteness would leave his children without any inheritance. It came to Kate when she turned twenty-one, and she kept a careful eye on it, speaking regularly with her financial advisers and even, from time to time, giving her father money to cover his bills. He insisted on calling them “loans” and made a big to-do about paying her back, but Kate showed me a file of bounced checks from his account. “I just gave up a few years ago,” she said with a smile. “He’s my father. What else am I going to do?”

Kate’s two older brothers were equally receptive to me, taking the line that if their sister liked me that was good enough for them. All three had the same mother, their father’s first wife. They had forged a close bond, enduring his wives and unpredictable whims, realizing that their best chance for survival lay in presenting a unified front. In adulthood they had all gone their separate ways. Chauncey, the eldest, worked as a screenwriter in Los Angeles and had no intention of marrying. The younger brother, who was a year older than Kate, was Jack. He was a straight arrow, everything his father was not. A steady family man and lawyer who lived on the Main Line, he was a member of Merion, where he played golf on Saturdays, and on Sundays he went to St. George’s Church. His son attended Haverford School, his daughter, Agnes Irwin. They both played lacrosse. Kate adored her brothers and they adored her. They comforted each other like veterans who had made it through the worst.

There was much I admired about Kate. Her decency, her kindness, her loyalty. Her strength of character. Her beautiful blue eyes. Her elegant hands. For the first time in my life, when I reached out in the night, it was not Cesca I was thinking of.

At the end of each day, we raced out to meet each other, either for a drink or for dinner near one of our offices or to her loft. Kate was a terrific cook, and she loved to throw dinner parties. To her the shopping was as much fun as the eating. We bought cheese from small shops in Little Italy where the mozzarella was made by hand in the basement. Every afternoon it would be brought up still warm in large trays, smoke emanating from the kitchen like the daily election of a new pope. There was a special bakery too. Another place that sold fresh pasta. Extra-virgin olive oil. Things I had never known about. She taught me how to chop vegetables, showed me how to tell that meat is properly cooked when it feels the same as pressing a finger against the ball of the thumb. Among her favorite dishes: whole orato roasted with fresh rosemary. Osso buco. Roast chicken with garlic shoved under the skin.

The guests would sit at her grandmother’s old table, the dishes presented like a reward. If there were too many people, we ate off our knees. This was more than food. During those months, I always went to bed happy. I loved Kate. She loved me. My friends loved her too. Paolo in particular was smitten.

I had taken her over to their farmhouse for dinner one weekend in winter. Night comes on early that time of year, and we drove to Springs in darkness. It was bitterly cold but clear, the heater in Kate’s old Bug barely working. A dusting of snow on the fields. “Take a left at the end of that fence,” I said. She turned in to the now-familiar driveway. It had been years since Aurelio had first brought me there, but I had never lost the sense of wonder that Paolo and Esther’s home instilled in me.

“I wish you could see it better,” I said to her. “We’ll have to come back when it’s light. This place is magical.”

They were waiting inside, the long kitchen bright and cheery despite the temperature outside. Both were now in their eighties. Esther’s hair was snow white except for a streak of black down
the middle. They had always been short, but now they seemed even smaller. Paolo looked frail, but he perked up when he saw Kate. “Wylie Coyote, you have brought me a beautiful woman!” he exclaimed, his charm as vibrant as ever, even if the voice was weaker. Embracing her, he said, “Come and sit by me and let me admire you!”

It was a lovely evening. Paolo twinkled with life and good humor. We drank red wine and nibbled olives. Over roast chicken, he recited poetry in Italian. Kate happily flirted back. He pronounced her name “cat.” “What makes you purr, cat?” he asked. “Are you a catcher of mice or men’s hearts? You have already caught mine, no?” Esther smiled patiently, loving her husband even more, happy to see that he still possessed the youthful fire that had attracted her so many years ago. It would be a bad sign when he became too old to admire a pretty girl.

“You must come tomorrow to see my studio, cat,” said Paolo as we were leaving. “Come in the late afternoon, after my nap. I will leave a saucer of milk out for you.” We did go back, staying for hours in his studio, listening to him talk until the light began to fade.

Before we left, he gave her a small canvas of a man and a woman, lovers, on a beach. “Please take it,” he said. “Paintings are like little seeds. You plant as many as you can so that they live on long after you are gone. All I expect is a little kiss in return. A fair trade, no?” Kate was overwhelmed by the generosity of the act.

She had the painting framed and hung it in a special place in her loft. For she who had inherited so much, it was original, a gift meant only for her. “That’s us,” she would say, looking at the painting. “I want us always to be together like that.”

T
HE NEXT MONTH I RECEIVED AN INVITATION IN THE MAIL
. My name handwritten on the heavy envelope in calligraphy. It was to Aurelio’s show. On the front of the card was a reproduction of one of his paintings, one I had never seen before. It was beautiful—the colors rich, the technique masterful—but menacing, almost brutal. It depicted a man obviously in great pain but suffering like a saint. On the reverse ran the words “Aurelio Bonet.
El retrats dels morts
. Portraits of the Dead.”

Underneath in pen was a note:
Hope you can make it, Tricky Wylie. X C
.

There was no question that I would go, and that Kate would come as well. I wanted her to meet Aurelio. I wanted her to meet the whole family—and I wanted them to meet Kate.

I had purposely avoided speaking about them. And especially about Cesca. That was a part of my life Kate knew nothing about. I had purposely kept it hidden. When I told Kate about the show, I gave her a loose idea of who they were and why it was important we go. They were old friends. An astonishing
family. Gifted, beautiful, blessed. I had known them practically my whole life; they had in many ways helped shape the man I had become.

I said little about Cesca, merely that she was the eldest of four. But she would be there. Part of me was worried about seeing her, another part was eager to meet the challenge head-on. After all, look where I was now. I was an architect, a graduate of a distinguished school, doing well, earning the appreciation of my seniors and the respect of my peers. I had a beautiful girlfriend. A decent salary. In my closet, good clothes. Money in the bank. My life had never been better. I wanted to show Cesca what she had missed. But also that I had moved on.

Kate was happy to go. She had heard of Cosmo and had even bought one of his CDs, of which there were now several. “I didn’t know you knew him,” she said. “Do you think he’ll be there?”

The night before the show, I woke up in a sweat. I had an old dream. I was following Cesca through a house in the country, a house I didn’t recognize. She was ahead laughing. There were other people there, strangers, but I felt as though I knew them. I wandered from room to room trying to find her. Someone said it was lunchtime. I saw my father at the other end of the table. I was surprised to see him. There was something important I had to tell him but couldn’t remember what it was. Then I woke up.

“What were you dreaming about?” asked Kate drowsily.

“Shhh. Nothing. Go back to sleep.” She rolled over. I lay there for the rest of the night staring at the ceiling.

We walked to the gallery. The evening had a spring chill. Outside there was a small crowd on the sidewalk, chattering and greeting each other as though it were a cocktail party. There was a guest list. The gallery was on the second floor, and you had to take an old-fashioned elevator. Only a few people could go up at the same time. Town cars and limousines dropped off
patrons and guests; some idled by the curb. It was a dramatic-looking congregation, deliberately bohemian. Women in black with pale faces. An elderly Englishman in a wide hat with a cigarette holder. Men with heavy, rounded eyeglasses. Fruity voices. Scarves. It was like the opening of an underground play. The work secondary to the satisfaction of being considered important enough to be invited.

Upstairs the gallery was already crowded. I looked around for familiar faces. In one corner I saw Roger, but he was too engaged in conversation to notice me. I purposely kept my head down, hoping to delay seeing Cesca for as long as I could.

“Let’s look at the paintings,” I said, guiding Kate by the arm.

They were horrifying, gorgeous. Larger than life-size. Faces painted with a feverish intensity, the colors lush, staring at you like those about to feel the noose slip around their necks or the pistol against the backs of their skulls. The torment of savoring a last moment of life and the determination to die with dignity. They were men and women, most of them young, black and white, at one time attractive but now wasted, hollow shells of their former selves. Lips were cracked. Skin ashen. Some wore clothes but most were naked, revealing stark rib cages, sores, mottled skin, slack breasts. One man held an IV stand. In the upper left-hand corner of each portrait was a first name, followed by, presumably, a birth date and a death date. Only a few looked older than forty.

I was stunned, and so were a number of the others in the room. It was like entering a charnel house. To my relief, Kate obviously had the same reaction. One never knows how others will respond in such situations. There is always the temptation to look away in discomfort, to do or say something inappropriate. But she said and did nothing as we walked slowly around the gallery. I was amazed at how loud the room was. On the wall next to each painting was a little piece of paper with information
about the painting: its title, dimensions, when it was painted. All were done within the past few years. Many of them had little round red stickers affixed to them indicating that they had already been sold. The prices were available on request.

I spotted Aurelio sitting in the corner. He was in a wheelchair, dressed like an old man in a heavy coat that was now too large for him. On his head the knit cap. But still the same aquiline beauty. A dying prince. Kitty and Lulu stood by him like sentinels, shielding him from all but the most welcome of well-wishers.

“Hello, Lio,” I said, after waiting my turn, kneeling beside his chair. “Your big night at last. It’s a triumph. Congratulations.”

“Wylie,” he said, managing a smile. “I’m so happy to see you.”

“Hello, Kitty. Hello, Lulu,” I said. “Lio, I’d like you to meet someone. This is Kate. Kate, this is Lio. This is his mother, Kitty. And Lulu.”

Kate smiled at each of them. I was learning that she always had the right reaction to everything. “Lio, Wylie’s told me so much about you. It’s an honor to be here. Your paintings are incredibly powerful. Thank you for sharing them.”

Lio smiled weakly. “Thank you. Wylie, where did you find her? Not only is she beautiful, but she has wonderful taste in art.”

There were more people waiting behind us. He was like a groom at a wedding. There was no time to talk at length. We moved on.

“You would barely recognize Aurelio if you’d seen him a few years ago,” I said. “He was the best-looking guy I ever met. Tall, strong, passionate. Confident yet at the same time sweet.”

“I’m sorry.”

“We’re all sorry. It doesn’t seem fair, somehow. Look at the incredible paintings around us. He’s a great painter. If he dies, what a loss.”

It was at that moment I noticed Cesca. She was watching me, with a faint smile on her lips, waiting for me to notice her.
For a few moments she held my gaze and then returned her attention to whomever she was speaking with.

Even though I thought I would be, I was unprepared to see her again. Like the memory of a cathedral, it is possible to remember a woman but it is easy to forget how overwhelming the reality can be. It is only in the face of that reality that one can be fully conscious of the sheer physical presence, the exquisite beauty, the inexplicable awe, the irretrievable secrets. As the eyes take in what the mind recalls, memory is obliterated. All that remains is the beating of one’s heart growing louder with every passing second.

I stopped momentarily, unsure of how to proceed. Cesca had no such uncertainty. She came right up to us. “Tricky Wylie,” she said, leaning in her cheek for a kiss, first on the right, then the left. The warmth of her skin, the familiarity of her scent. Jasmine and roses. It was intoxicating. She had cut her hair. It was now shoulder length, which in the dress she was wearing emphasized her magnificent shoulders and clavicle. She looked tan and rested, like a movie star between films. “I was hoping you’d be here. It’s been far too long.”

“Hello, Cesca.” I was almost reluctant to speak, fearful my words or my voice would somehow betray me, making it obvious to Kate who Cesca was and what she meant to me.

It was as though Cesca understood what I was feeling and was slightly amused by it. “And who’s this?” she asked, with her brightest smile.

I cleared my throat. “Kate, this is Cesca. She’s Lio’s older sister.”

“How do you do?” said Kate.

“Wylie, she’s beautiful. Kate, it’s very nice to meet you. I’ve known Wylie here since he was a little boy. When you fell out of the tree, remember?” She laughed, and I joined her. I was
slightly annoyed that she would bring this up. “Has he ever told you about that?”

“No,” answered Kate. “Should he have?”

“You should get him to. Even then he was ambitious,” Cesca continued. “Always reaching a little higher. Are you still like that, Tricky Wylie?”

I blushed. “Well, yes, I suppose I am. What about you?”

“I never reach for anything,” she said with a laugh. “You should know that.”

“I heard you have a shop in Soho now,” I said, changing the subject.

“Yes, you can design your own perfume. It was an idea I came across in Istanbul. I was in the bazaar, and there was this little shop where there were all these little bottles, all of them containing wonderful things with wonderful names like vetiver, ylang-ylang, burnished attar rose, and emerald jasmine. It was magical. We have nothing like it here, so I decided to do it.”

“It sounds very exciting,” said Kate.

“It is. You should come by. It’s an incredible experience to have a perfume that was created only for you.”

“How is Lio doing?” I asked.

Her expression tightened. “Not well. Mare and Lulu spend all their time taking care of him, but he just keeps getting sicker and sicker.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s been hell, quite honestly. I thought that having this show would actually kill him it was so much work and worry.”

“It’s an incredible show,” said Kate.

Cesca nodded. “Yes, it is. Look, there’s a party after back at the house. Why don’t you both come?”

Kate and I left soon after and had dinner nearby. “Are you all right?” she asked.

I told her that I had been upset by seeing Lio and his paintings, which was partially true. What I did not mention was my reaction to seeing Cesca again. But Kate wasn’t entirely fooled.

“She’s one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen,” she said.

“Who is?”

“Cesca.”

“Yes. Yes, she is.”

“Is there anything I should know?”

I stared at her. “No. Why do you ask?”

“The way you acted around her. I’ve never seen you so nervous.”

I laughed. “Well, I suppose I had a bit of a crush on her when I was younger. You never really get over that sort of thing. I see her, and I feel like I’m a kid again.”

She then proceeded to tell me about a crush of hers, a boy from tennis camp. She was nine, he was eleven. He was golden, had a killer backhand. All summer long, she trailed after him like a puppy. She’d run into him last year. He was fat and already losing his hair. “So much for childhood crushes.”

But Kate didn’t mind going to the Bonets’ for the after-party. She had a beautiful woman’s confidence in herself; it was unthinkable that anyone else could be more alluring. When our taxi pulled up at their town house, every light was ablaze. The same limousines and town cars that had been in front of the gallery appeared to be there. The front door was open, and guests streamed in and out. Music blared. The high-ceilinged living room was filled with couples dancing. People were drinking on the stairwell. I saw Carmen and waved. To my surprise, Cosmo approached me, holding out his hand and smiling. He had put on weight since I had seen him last but was still darkly handsome.

“Wylie,” he said. “Good to see you. Who is this beautiful woman? You must introduce us.”

“Kate,” I said. “This is Cosmo Bonet. Cosmo, this is Kate Henry.”

“A pleasure, Miss Henry.”

“Wylie said you might be here,” she said. “I’m a big fan.”

“Are you now? I’m flattered. It is one of my greatest joys to meet someone who likes my music—especially when they are as lovely as you. Tell me, which album do you like the most?”

She blushed. “
Land of the Castles
is my favorite.”

“Is it? You know that’s what many people think the word
Catalonia
originally meant.”

“Cosmo’s father is Catalan,” I pointed out helpfully, but Cosmo ignored me. I listened to them chat for several moments. Or rather, to Cosmo talk about himself. Kate didn’t seem to mind though. I excused myself to get a drink.

I found Lio in a small study surrounded by admirers. Lulu, as always, hovering in the background. On his right, a handsome older man who looked very familiar, but I couldn’t quite place him. Lio was smiling, laughing, buoyed up by the success of the evening.

“I sold out, Wylie!” he exclaimed. “Every painting! Can you believe it?”

“Congratulations!” I said, leaning over and hugging him gently.

“Wylie, this is my father, Ugo,” he said, indicating the older man. To his father, he spoke in rapid Catalan, pointing at me.

“I remember your father,” said Ugo Bonet, offering a large hand, his accent strong. “You look more like your mother. She was a beautiful woman. I hope she is well?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“I am glad to hear it. Please remember me to her.”

“I will.”

“There you are!” said a voice behind me. It was Cesca. She
came in, walking past me and kissing both her father and her brother. “Lio, it’s a party in your honor. Everyone wants to see you, but you’re hiding away in here.”

Lio smiled. “When I was healthy, I hated parties. Now at least I have an excuse.”

“All right, darling. I understand. I just wanted you to know how many people here love you. We are all so proud of you.”

“I know. Thank you. I think I am just going to go to bed. I’m exhausted.” He held out his hand. Lulu stepped forward and helped him to his feet. I also stepped forward, reaching out my hands. “It’s all right, Wylie,” he said. “I’m not completely feeble yet.”

His father also rose to his feet, saying something to his son in Catalan, his hand on Lio’s back.