Autobiography of Us (30 page)

“You must have your hands full.” I glanced at Bertrand, who was examining his wineglass as though he expected to find something fascinating in its depths. “I can’t imagine what it’s like with three.”

She squinted at me. “It’s hell,” she said. “If you’re asking my honest opinion. Are you?”

Bertrand ran a finger around the rim of his plate. “Some people find motherhood quite rewarding.”

“
Some
people,” Alex announced, “are assholes.”

I tried to hail a passing waiter. “More water, please, when you get a chance.”

“And one more of these,” Alex said. She waved a hand at her glass. “Speeds the recovery process,” she said, catching my glance. “I read a study on it somewhere.”

“I’m sure,” I murmured. I was trying not to watch Bertrand, the way his mouth moved as he scanned the menu, opening and shutting like a fish’s. The way, every so often, the tip of his tongue pushed forward between his lips and I caught the flash of it, pink as an ear.

“We should order a few things to start,” he said. “Whet the appetite.”

I rubbed the thick paper of the menu between my fingers. “The shrimp sounds nice.”

“Isn’t anyone going to say how funny this is?” I glanced up to find Alex looking at me again. “Or are we all just going to sit here and pretend it isn’t the most hilarious thing?”

I feigned absorption in the menu. “Maybe the crab cakes?”

“It’s not like it was all that long ago, when you get right down to it,” Alex went on doggedly. “Seven years? Eight?”

“Is that it?” I willed myself to look at her; she was smiling that odd smile of hers, the corners of her mouth pointed down. “Gosh, it seems like forever ago.”

“I might try the soup,” Bertrand said. “Steak sounds good.”

“They’re known for their béarnaise,” I told him.

Alex leaned across the table. “You can have him, if you like.”

“Excuse me?”

She cocked her head in the direction of Bertrand Lowell. “The husband,” she said. “He’s all yours.”

“Alex—” I glanced at Bertrand, who was gazing intently at the ceiling. “We really should get you something to eat. A nice cold soup, maybe? Vichyssoise?”

“All I’m saying is,
Je ne regrette rien
,” she said, looking amused. “But maybe you do.”

“Apologies, everyone.” Paul came around the corner as though on cue, briefcase under one arm. “Gosh, I’m sorry. Meeting ran late and then traffic was hell—anyway, drinks on me. Just keep them coming. Where’s our guy? Has he been by yet?” He stooped to kiss Alex on the cheek. “And this must be the latest addition. Isn’t she a beauty,” he said admiringly. “Hello, darling.” He kissed the top of my head. “I
am
sorry. There must have been some sort of accident in the Midtown Tunnel. Police cars crawling all over everything and First was jammed up like you wouldn’t believe. Forgive me? Sweetheart?”

I squeezed his arm. “I’m glad you’re here.”

He gave me a distracted look. “I came as fast as I—but where are my manners? You must be Bertrand.” He stuck out his hand. “Hello there.”

“Pleasure.” Bertrand half-stood.

Paul shook his hand and sat down. “Don’t let me interrupt.”

“I was just about to ask Bertrand about his work,” I said quickly. “Real estate, isn’t that right?”

Bertrand nodded. “Something like that.”

The waiter arrived with Alex’s drink; Paul motioned at his empty glass. “Scotch,” he said. “Rocks, splash of water. Just a drop.”

Bertrand raised his finger. “One more.”

“Anyone else?”

“I’m fine.”

“Oh, don’t be such a dishrag,” Alex announced. “Take the edge off. It’s a special occasion, for crying out loud.” She smiled up at the waiter. “Two more, please.” She gestured at her drink. “Doubles, both of them.”

“Bertrand, you were saying.” Paul closed his menu.

“What I do is basically a glorified version of buying and selling.” Bertrand rested the tips of his fingers on his bread plate. “I find buildings run to shit—excuse my French—and I buy them at rock bottom. I fix them up, turn them around.” He lifted his fingers and spun them in the air, rotating an invisible cylinder. “Quick, easy profit. Taking candy from babies.”

“He’s awfully talented at it. They call him the Jackal at work.” Alex leaned one elbow on the table, resting her chin on her open hand. “A champion at picking out the weak member of the pack.”

“What is it that you turn around?”

“Houses,” Alex said brightly. “Places people were living before he spotted them.”

Bertrand’s eyes lifted slowly toward his wife. “It’s the business,” he said. “You have to know what will sell.”

I was beginning to feel faint.

“Here,” said Alex. She pushed her glass into my hand, jiggling the baby absently with her knee. “You’ve gone pale as a ghost.”

“Not expecting yourself, are you?” Bertrand folded his lips into an imitation of a smile. “My wife claims it’s contagious. Spreads like wildfire, she says.”

The rim of the glass was so thin I could have snapped it with my teeth. “I’m a little tired, that’s all.”

He sat back in his chair and watched me. “Alex was just reminding me you used to have a keen interest in medicine.”

“Our resident girl genius.” Alex nodded. “Our own Marie Curie.”

“You’re exaggerating.”

Bertrand kept his gaze on me. “Quite popular with the gentlemen too, if I remember correctly.”

“Now you’re confusing me with your wife,” I said sharply.

“Is that right?” Paul took a sip of his drink. “And here she’s always led me to believe she was a plain Jane. Bookish.” He looked at me with an expression of mild appraisal. “Sweetheart. You’re too modest.”

“Could be I’m remembering wrong.” Bertrand shrugged. “We didn’t know each other all that well.”

“Selective memory,” Alex informed me from behind her hand, cupped as though she was whispering. “He’s blocked most of high school and the U. Hard for him to remember his glory days, considering. Fall from grace and so forth.”

“So what happened?”

“Sorry?”

“Medicine,” Bertrand said, a little impatiently. “It’s coming back to me now. You were rather hot under the collar. And then, what—you met this handsome guy?”

I looked down into the glass where a single hair, black and fine as a wire, curled around an ice cube. “Something like that.”

“Christ, we all used to be on our way to
something
,” Alex declared.

“That’s right.” Paul smiled. “The actress—our very own Rita Hayworth.”

“I always preferred the ‘Katherines’ myself,” she said. “Hepburn, Deneuve.”

“She was terrific,” I said quickly. “Really. Phenomenally talented.”

“Can’t say I recall that particular description being used in reference to
moi
.” Alex pressed her fingers briefly to her temples. “Though you’ve reminded me. I’ve got a bit of good news—I’ve been invited back, can you imagine? Tiny little theater, right down the street. Hardly anyone pays attention to it, but it just so happens they’ve got this brilliant director in from London. I don’t have the faintest how they lured him down there. Anyway, he’s got it in his head he’s doing
Medea
.”

“Euripides?”

She gave me an impatient nod. “Who else? I happened to bump into this director at the store a few weeks ago, in any case. We were both wandering around the dairy aisle like lost lambs and we got to talking. He told me I’m born to play her.” She looked around the table. “Medea,” she said. “Absolutely born.”

“Alex!” I clapped my hands. “That’s terrific news.”

“Isn’t it?” She took her drink back, and I saw that her fingers were shaking. “Isn’t it the most terrific thing?”

“Except I’m going to be gone for business most of next month,” Bertrand said ponderously. “So, as we discussed previously, the timing’s impossible. The twins are out of school in a few weeks. They’ll be needing you.”

“Don’t forget baby,” she said quickly. “You’re always forgetting about her.”

“There must be a good sitter in the neighborhood—” I began, but she cut me off immediately.

“That’s the thing about children, isn’t it? They need their mothers. There’s no substitute for the real thing—central maternal figure providing warmth and comfort, see Harlow and the baby monkeys.” She was still speaking too fast, one word running into the next. “It’s not enough that we provide food. We’re meant to give actual, honest-to-God love and nurturing on a twenty-four-hour-a-day basis or else they die. Shrivel up into little husks. Never mind if you happen to be one of those mothers made of wire rather than terry cloth. Never mind if you don’t happen to have been born with one nurturing bone in your body—”

“I don’t know if that’s exactly—” I interrupted, but she barreled on.

“It’s in the way they glom on to you, isn’t it? The way they grab
,
their sticky little hands. You can
feel
the need pulsing through them. It’s like the umbilical never fully detaches.” She looked around the table at us. “No one tells you that. Why doesn’t anyone ever tell you that? Wouldn’t it be nice if someone sat you down and said, now, look, darling, I’m going to give it to you straight. You’ve got to understand you’re getting these things for life. They’re not going anywhere, and frankly you might as well tie the goddamn cord around your goddamn throat for—”

“Hormones,” Bertrand broke in. “Sometimes she says these things. I’ve found it’s best to ignore—”

“Christ, Bertie,
they
know.” She appealed to me. “Becky? You understand, don’t you? Paul? Everyone gets it sooner or later. The bug, the itch. Just because we’re not midlife doesn’t mean we aren’t entitled to our crises. Not to mention, God only knows how long any of us is going to live. Technically
,
you could be midlife at ten and not know it.
Technically
, we might all die tomorrow.” She smiled brilliantly. “Some of us certainly go around screwing everything in sight as though we think we will.”

There was a small silence. Bertrand sighed, a long exhalation that left him seemingly deflated, all the bluster knocked out of him.

Paul waved at a passing waiter. “Can we order? Somebody?”

Alex pressed a finger to her lips. “I’ll shut up now. Promise. I’ll button it up. Boundaries, et cetera.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “I’ve been getting that kind of thing horribly mixed up lately.”

“You must be exhausted,” I began.

“What I
am,
” she said loudly, “is bored out of my skull.”

“In L.A.?” Paul gazed at her inquiringly. “I’d think it’d be just the place for a modern girl like you. Mind you, I’ve never been—”

“You have no idea,” Alex interrupted. “It’s completely vapid. Beige.”

“Beige?” I looked at her.

“B-e-i-g-e.” Alex put her free hand on the edge of the table and gripped, her knuckles gleaming white. “Everyone there is an f-u-c-k-i-n-g i-d-i-o-t.”

Paul frowned at the baby sleeping peacefully in Alex’s arms. “Do you two follow those new-wave shrinks, the ones who think they absorb that kind of thing?”

“We follow ourselves, actually,” Alex declared. “The World According to Family Lowell. We’re a bunch of geniuses over here. Ask Bertie. We’re a house of regular i-n-t-e-l-l-e-c—”

“Cut it out,” said Bertrand sharply. “I mean it, Alex.”

Alex smiled. “O-K—”

“Bertrand,” I broke in. “Let’s hear more about this job of yours. How did you end up in real estate? How fascinating.”

He turned his head and gazed at me as if he hardly knew who I was. “Any number of reasons.”

“Money?” Paul toyed with the edge of his napkin. “Thrill of the chase?”

Bertrand waved one large hand. “Family business, honestly. Path of least resistance.”

“Honesty’s one of Bertrand’s best qualities,” Alex said quickly. “Why, just the other day—”

“Alex.” Bertrand’s tone was warning.

“Come on, darling, it’s funny.” Alex covered her mouth with her hand. “God, it’s downright hilarious.”

“We really should try to get something to eat.” No one was paying me even a bit of attention.

Bertrand shifted in his seat. He bowed his head and put one hand to his face, cradling it in his palm. I was surprised to see how tired he looked in that moment, as though the years had physically worn him down, leaving not much more than bones and a draping of skin.

“It’s the Sunday before my birthday,” said Alex, “back in March—no, never mind,” she dismissed my apology, “and this handsome man,” she gestured at Bertrand, “calls me into the garage. He’s got a surprise for me
,
he says. So in I go and there’s my Bertie standing in front of three boxes. Gift-wrapped, all of them, bows and everything. The whole nine yards.”

The only person to move was Bertrand. He dropped his hand to the table, where it lay next to his napkin like a dead fish.

Alex sat up very straight, tucking a stray piece of hair behind one ear; a thin loop of vein began to shiver just above her jaw. “Here’s the deal. He throws out multiplication problems and I’ve got to give him the answer. Ten seconds for each. He’s timing.” The baby’s head twitched from side to side; Alex glanced down absently. “Fair enough. Except I’m an idiot with numbers. Which is a shame, because Bertie here has been having a rocky time of it at the office and, honestly, it would have been swell if someone could have kept a tighter rein on our numbers.” She leaned in closer. “Turns out some people, when kicked out of their homes, tend to sue.”

Everyone around us was eating and drinking and moving their silverware up and down. They were doing all the things normal people do when they go out to a meal at a restaurant, discussing the movies or the weather, the latest bets on the baseball season. I found myself staring at Bertrand Lowell’s hands, the marks on Alex’s neck those months earlier thin dark rings, I remembered, one stacked neatly on top of the next like the necklaces those women wore to stretch their necks—where? Namibia? Botswana?

Alex was looking across the table at him, one hand fiddling with the buttons on her blouse. “But he scraped something together for me, anyway. Didn’t you, my love?”

“What’s that?” Paul swiveled his head in one direction and then the other, a spectator watching a game of tennis. “Sorry—diamond ring?”