A Certain Age (22 page)

When a girl marries, she exchanges the attentions of many men for the inattention of one.

—HELEN ROWLAND

THERESA

A dozen blocks north, two hours later

Y
OU CAN
tell right away if a party's going to rise or fall, can't you, and this one's soaring straight up to the heavens. Like a helium balloon on a cold morning.

I'd like to claim all the credit, but that wouldn't be fair. In the first place, the weather's showing a bit of thaw, at least temporarily, and there's nothing like the thawing-out of a cold February to lend everyone that bubbly springtime feeling, like there's hope for the world after all. And there
is
hope, my goodness! Business is picking up again, I've heard, and people are beginning to shed that haze of dread that's hung about ever since the war ended. All those fears—communists, anarchists, influenza—are lifting from our shoulders. Maybe another disaster isn't waiting around the corner, after all. Maybe we can take our shoes off and have a sneaky drink and a good time, and fate won't sock us for it. Or maybe fate will sock us anyway, whether we're having a good time or not, so we might as well have a good time while we can.

Or maybe it's just me. I'm happy, really
happy,
for the first time in ages.
Everything's working out. Sylvo's being a gentleman about the divorce—taking all the blame, offering plenty of compensation—and the Boy seems to have forgotten his passing fancy for the Fortescue girl. We're making plans to head out to California, once the papers are signed—the Boy says he's
through
with New York, he wants to make a whole new start, far away from old Manhattan Island—and the only thing left is to break that news to Ollie and Billy. But they won't mind, will they? California's only three days away, ensconced in a comfortable Pullman car, and when you get there, you have sunshine and clean air and a nice wholesome ocean. And oranges! You can pick them right off the trees, I've heard.

So that's settled, and in the meantime there's this party. I decided on a South America theme, just to whet the appetites of the happy couple, and the place really does take your breath. I've spared no expense. There's an Amazonian jungle in the foyer, and the drawing room is Rio de Janeiro. I've dressed the staff in native garb, as depicted in the color plates of
The Illustrated Guide to South America,
and while I'm afraid the cook had some difficulty in finding authentic recipes for the aboriginal cuisine, we do have a sufficiency of imported pineapples.

As for my costume. Well! I think I've quite outdone myself. The Boy's eyes practically swelled with admiration when I emerged from my dressing room, and while I can't exactly move my head with ease, the entire ensemble's really more comfortable than you'd think. For example, when the Boy set down his drink and set about testing my seams, we were able to arrange ourselves on the edge of the dressing table without too much trouble, hoisting skirts and unbuttoning trousers, and the very haste and passion with which the Boy consummated his admiration made the effort all worthwhile. Why, he didn't even stop to put out his cigarette: just
bang, bang, bang,
while the fag dangled from his teeth, and his desperate fingers dug into my hips. It was exactly what I needed, at such a moment, and while my wrists still ache from the effort of bracing myself on that damned table, my hair is nonetheless full of the Boy's hot breath, and my skin is flushed, and every rocky doubt has melted away under the geological pressure of copulation.

He's mine, yes, the Boy is thoroughly
mine
once more.

The Boy has principles, and he's not going to engage in unbridled sexual intercourse with a woman if his intentions aren't fixed upon marriage.

SPEAKING OF MARRIAGE! THERE SHE
is now, the blushing bride. I'll admit she looks ravishing, far more than she ought. Her dress is cherry-red and trimmed in jet, and her hair, without actually being bobbed, is parted on the side and arranged in ripples over her ears, then gathered at her neck in such a way that it
suggests
bobbing. I believe she's actually wearing lipstick. She's standing under a palm tree with Julie Schuyler, sipping champagne—Sylvo's vintage Pol Roger is being sacrificed for the occasion—and when she turns the other way I can't help noticing that her dress plunges into an alluring U at the back, adorned by a web of jet beads dangling right down her spine. I believe I've got a similar necklace myself.

“Holy cow,” says Billy, handing me a martini. “Who's that?”

I tip the glass to my lips and drizzle a measure of gin down my throat before I reply. “Your new aunt.”

There's a second or two of awe.

“I need another drink,” Billy says, and he turns on his heel and heads back to the bar in the Amazon.

Left adrift, I turn to engage a few ladies to my right. Of the Boy, there's no trace. I suspect he's curing in the smoke of the library with the other recluses. It took me ages to persuade him to attend the party at all—he insists that we shouldn't make our association public until after the divorce—and so we've got to continue pretending cordial indifference, to the amusement of our guests. The blushing groom is equally absent—no, there he is, chatting in the corner, looking starched and handsome in the muted lighting, merely mellowed instead of dissipated—and my attention falls on a woman standing by herself, a few feet from Ox's shoulder, looking as if she's been elbowed aside by a more ambitious arm and doesn't particularly care.

I murmur a flattering excuse to my companion and edge my way through
the throng—growing nicely, it seems, while a column of new recruits still marches two-by-two past the welcoming jungle—toward this unfamiliar woman, whose face reminds me of someone I've met before.

To be sure, the face is unadorned, and the dress beneath it—dark green, high-waisted, long-skirted—is as old and tired as her hairstyle. I'd call her pretty, except that beauty's the last thing on her mind. Her lips are pale, and her eyes are dull. Her skin is creamy and unlined, suggesting youth, except for the faint furrows that appear between her brows, when you approach close enough to say hello. Not a trace of rouge or powder or blacking, and still she arrests you. It's her eyebrows, I think, thick and straight and slanted a few degrees upward at the ends; or else the shape of her bones, which are graceful and permanent beneath that lackluster skin, rescuing her from plainness. Austere, I think they call it, and nothing like the big-eyed, heart-shaped charm of Miss Sophie Fortescue. Except—

“Why, you're her sister, aren't you?” I burst out, quite unlike me.

“I beg your pardon?”

I extend my hand. “I'm Theresa Marshall. I believe we're shortly going to become related.”

“Oh, yes! Of course. Virginia Fitzwilliam.” She shakes my hand, and the touch is far more firm and confident than I might have expected. Her palms aren't delicate at all. “I believe we missed you when we arrived.”

“I'm afraid I took entirely too long getting dressed. This headpiece!” I touch a papier-mâché pineapple and laugh. My wrists ache triumphantly at the memory. Bang, bang, bang. “I'm enchanted to meet you at last, however. Sophie's such a dear, sweet thing. My brother is beside himself.”

“Indeed,” she replies carefully. “We're terribly grateful for the welcome. It's the kind of party one only reads about in the newspapers.”

“Is it? How kind. But you'll find yourself accustomed to them in no time, I assure you. Ox loves a good party.”

“Ox?”

“My brother. I see you haven't got a drink yet, which is absolutely scandalous.” I signal to one of the waiters and pluck a glass of champagne from
the tray. “Here you are. Go on. It's not going to kill you, whatever those rabble-rousers say.”

“I've had champagne before, Mrs. Marshall,” says Mrs. Fitzwilliam, rather sternly. “It's just that my daughter's been ill, and I would rather not indulge myself.”

“You have a daughter? But you're so
young
!”

She smiles, but it's not the smile of flattery acknowledged. It's a smile that says she knows she's being flattered, and she sees right through you. She extracts a few drops of champagne from her glass and says, “I'm nearly twenty-seven, I'm afraid.”

“But where's your husband?” Fingertips to mouth. Quick, shocked gasp. “Not the
war,
I hope.”

“My husband's in Florida at the moment, looking after some investments.” She admits another sip, more generous this time.

“How very dull. But at least your father's here, I hope? I haven't had the pleasure of meeting him yet. Such an accomplished fellow; I think I'll shiver in my shoes when we're introduced at last.”

“He does have that effect.” The smile again. “But he's not terribly social, I'm afraid. He's promised to look in for an hour or so, but I expect he'll just stay in the background.”

“Well, do bring him over to say hello, at least. It won't do for us to meet for the first time at the ceremony.” Mrs. Fitzwilliam looks a little uncertain, and I add: “The
marriage
ceremony, I mean.”

“Yes, of course.”

We appear to have exhausted Mrs. Fitzwilliam's capacity for conversation, and yet I find I can't quite abandon her to the wolves. I cast about, and my desperate gaze falls at once upon Sophie Fortescue—well, she's hard to miss, isn't she, all jet-beaded and cherry-dazzling—and I remark on how well she seems to be enjoying herself.

At last, a warm channel opens up in Mrs. Fitzwilliam's frozen voice. “Sophie's always had a tremendous capacity for joy. It's what I love most about her. Everyone does.”

Those last two words, I think, are unnecessary. Here I stand, still pulsing with confidence, my skin still bearing the imprint of the Boy's reassuring desire for me, and Mrs. Fitzwilliam
must
go and say a thing like that.
Everyone does.
Everyone loves Sophie.

Really, how uninvited.

“No doubt,” I say. “She certainly enjoyed herself in Connecticut with Mr. Rofrano, the other weekend. Or so I've heard.”

Rather like the Boy, Mrs. Fitzwilliam doesn't react much to the stab of this little arrow. The two of them, they're cut from the same scratch-resistant cloth. But those are the ones who feel it most, aren't they? The ones who don't show the scratches.

“In Connecticut? Oh, yes. I'd forgotten about that.”

“He drove her all over. They even visited the town where he grew up. I can't imagine why. He's just sentimental like that, I suppose.”

“The town where he grew up,” she repeats. “And where
is
that, exactly? I don't recall what Sophie said.”

“One of the shore towns. Greenwich, I believe.” I tap the corner of my mouth and nod. “Yes. Greenwich.”

“Greenwich. I see.” She isn't looking at me, but rather at Miss Fortescue herself, who's flown over to the corner of the room where the musicians have just filed in. There's going to be dancing, you see, right after we toast the newly engaged couple and send them off in a happy fox-trot around the drawing room. “I didn't realize that you and Mr. Rofrano were acquainted, Mrs. Marshall.”

“Didn't you? But that's how Ox found him to begin with, you know. I suggested Mr. Rofrano as the perfect man for the job.”

“Cavalier, you mean?”

“Cavalier and private investigator.” I laugh, very light. “One has to make sure one's dear brother has picked himself out a suitable bride. And Octavian's marvelously
thorough,
in everything he does. A perfect fellow for the job.”

Mrs. Fitzwilliam's face is quite pale: though, on second thought, it was
pale beforehand, and maybe I'm only now noticing how
awfully
pale it is. As if her life's been drained away from her face. She continues to stare across the room and maybe across the Hudson River itself, and her voice is cold, cold. “Then I certainly hope Sophie's met with your approval.”

“Naturally she has.”

Her face turns at last, but not toward me. She looks past my left ear toward the foliage in the foyer. “And there's my father now. If you'll excuse me, Mrs. Marshall. I need to have a word with him.”

I follow her gaze, and to my surprise, the great man looks rather ordinary. He may be earning millions, but they haven't put a single pound of flesh on his gray-trimmed frame, nor an ounce of ease in his bearing. His ears are enormous, the first thing you notice. He peers around him, bewildered, and lights on our direction with relief.

“Splendid!” I say. “I'll come along and you can introduce us.”

Now she turns and fixes me, and my goodness, you wouldn't think such a slender, queer, plainish thing could deliver such a ferocious stare. “I'm afraid it's a private matter, Mrs. Marshall. But I'll bring him around later.”

And she walks away from me, just like that. As if she isn't scared of me a bit.

AS I SURMISED, THE BOY'S
in the library, smoking in the company of the other tobacco-worshipping gentlemen. He's even speaking to one of them, next to a window that's been cracked open just enough to support life.

“There you are,” I say, quite without regard for discretion. I snake my arm through his and smile at his companion, whose name escapes me at the moment, though his face is familiar. I'm told this is a consequence of turning forty. Your brain is so stuffed with useless bits of information that when a new fact trots in, wagging its tail, wanting a treat, something's got to give.

The Boy gives me an odd look. “Mrs. Marshall? Is something the matter?”

“Goodness me, no! Nothing
matters
anymore, hadn't you heard?”

The other gentleman laughs. Canning, that's it. And his sweetly stout little wife, the one with the earlobes that sag beneath the weight of too many diamonds, because Canning's money came in railroads and he got out before the creditors got in. Sylvo told me this, many years ago, chuckling as he said it. Wily fellow, that Canning.