Everything and More (80 page)

Family and friends converged on September 25, 1983, to celebrate NolaBee’s eighty-fifth birthday. From Georgia came white-haired, shrunken cousins, from London Sari and Charles and their three children, Billy and his wife from Manhattan, Marylin and Linc from Rome.

Roy and Marylin threw the party, giving carte blanche to Per Hennecken, the feloniously expensive “in” Beverly Hills caterer. He tented the entire back garden, decorating his clear plastic bubble with rented crystal chandeliers, tubs of European blooms. Gilt chairs and small round tables draped in matching emerald cloths circled a dance floor. As always with any Wace party, though, an irrepressible note intruded, a sloppiness that couldn’t be blamed on the caterer—or the hostesses. After all, Marylin and Roy could hardly
not
serve the big, honey-cured Georgia ham brought by a Greenward kissing cousin, and neither could they ignore the cheesecakes and chocolate-mousse pies presented at the door by NolaBee’s friends, so the ham found a place of honor on a folding card table and the desserts were displayed on the hastily dragged-in barbecue table.

After the buffet, most of the adults sat talking while the children—led by the Firellis and BJ’s troop—gyrated in joyful, unpartnered confusion across the waxed boards. Sari and Charles shared a table with Billy and his slow-voiced wife.

Sari retained that look of a leftover flower child, with the untrammeled cloud of dark hair and Frye boots showing below the anachronistic ruffles of a lace skirt that she had discovered at a Knightsbridge antiques shop. Billy, though, had suffered a sea
change. The curly brown hair had receded, and an additional thirty pounds were held in by his staidly tailored dinner jacket, the only formal masculine attire at the party. Billy had never forgiven Marylin. His magic gift of humor had disappeared someplace in Vietnam’s blood-dyed rice paddies—or maybe in Althea’s Fifth Avenue co-op. Charles had made the initial arrangements for him to enter the Coyne New York Bank, but after that Billy had skyrocketed on his own power. Within a year of his entry into banking, he had courted and wed Grover T. Coyne III’s sweetly stupid daughter—and her prodigious trust fund. When Three had succeeded Archie Coyne as ruler of the Holy Coyne Empire, William Fernauld wore the purple shoes of heir to the imperial throne—the goal Althea had envisioned for Charles.

Billy’s wife, wearing black enlivened by a strand of magnificent pearls, sat close to Charles.

Like Sari, Charles showed remarkably few changes: he still possessed the build, the lean command that goes with an immense fortune, but his old expression of aloofness was gone, replaced by a near-visible aura of contentment. His career of disbursing funds for Coyne International Relief and his marriage to this slight, love-filled woman had lifted him from his old stiffness.

At a nearby table, Marylin and Linc held hands under the green tablecloth, laughing with Roy and a pewter-haired lawyer named Cary Armistead. Roy had finally reconciled herself to her curly hair, and the graying fluff formed a nice halo to a freckly, pleasant face that was quite youthful—when not adjacent to her older sister’s flowing loveliness.

Per Hennecken approached the co-hostesses, whispering that his staff was primed for the cake cutting. Rising, the sisters wound around the tables, bending over chairs of kith and kin. “It’s time, it’s time,” they chorused, moving through the flower-swagged French windows into the dining room.

In the quiet living room a few of NolaBee’s circle chatted, while Mrs. Cunningham, her recessive chin drawn down, nodded in agreement. These now were her friends, too. An unlikely friendship had grown between the raffish, still-juicy NolaBee, who had not a cent beyond the support of her daughters, and Gertrude Cunningham, a timid browser on the edge of her immense fortune. Several times a week the Belvedere chauffeur delivered NolaBee for lunch or dinner, happy visits when each widow elevated her dear departed to sainthood and NolaBee repetitively embellished enjoyable anecdotes about “the dear children”—as they called their mutual great-grandchildren.

Marylin, smiling to the elderly group, laid a hand on the rounded shoulders. “Aunt Gertrude,” she said loudly, for Mrs. Cunningham had grown hard of hearing, “Mama’s going to cut the cake.”

Mrs. Cunningham, as best friend, led the teetering ladies to the plastic tent.

Marylin paused to examine a framed painting, Thea’s birthday gift to her great-grandmother, a watercolor picnic scene that for all its joyous, ebullient primary colors was far from naive, a remarkable accomplishment for a twelve-year-old.

“Where on earth does Thea get it? I can’t even draw a stick figure.” Marylin spoke ruefully to cover her pride. “Nobody on either side of the family that I know of ever painted.”

“Althea did when she was young.” Roy spoke too loudly. “And don’t they say all the arts are one? You’re an actress—”

“Was,” Marylin interjected.

“And look at Joshua’s Oscars.”

“Let’s not forget Firelli,” said Marylin. “Firelli was the genius among us.”

Roy’s cheeks and earlobes went yet pinker, and she hastily changed the subject. “That Valentino is fabulous on you, Marylin. Everybody’s saying you’re more gorgeous than ever. A walking ad for matrimony.”

Marylin winked. “Now, if only I could cook.”

In the Parioli flat, the mustached Giulietta managed magnificent pastas and veal dishes while her daughter handled the laundry and cleaning. Marylin Wace Fernauld Fernauld for the first time in her adult life did not work: in the nearly ten years there had been one cameo appearance in a Costa Gavras film.
The Rain Fairburn Show
residuals and the lease money from the estate on Mandeville Canyon brought in far more than enough for her obligations to NolaBee. Marylin indulged herself with reading or puttering in the mornings while Linc researched. Afternoons, the couple would stroll hand in hand like children through Rome’s ancient, narrow streets, either shopping or browsing or visiting the antiquities for Linc’s work—he took photographs on request of his clients.

“And what about you?” Marylin asked. “I really like that Cary. Mmm?”

“I
told
you, Marylin, he owns the unit next to mine, and that’s all.” Roy was blushing again.

After Althea’s death, the journalists and writers had stormed her house with their insinuating questions about the gunshot, a persistent harassment that had distorted and fed her own doubts. She had needed five hours a week with Dr. Buchmann. The psychiatrist had
suggested that in her fragile state the reporters were too much for her. Selling the tract house, she had bought an opulent condo in a Beverly Hills full-security building. Recently the next unit had changed hands and the new owner, a well-to-do middle-aged widower, had become a frequent guest in Roy’s bay-windowed dining ell. He gave her red roses and suspense novels, he took her out to movies. Roy, whose masculine friendships consisted of expense-account lunches with hearty-smiling designers or manufacturers’ reps, didn’t know what to make of Cary Armistead’s undemanding affection—or her emotions toward him. She knew only that for the first time in many years she looked forward to going home at night. “Just a neighbor.”

“I reckon he figures he’s a mite more.” Rain Fairburn was not entirely dead—Marylin’s fond, arch mimicry proved that.

“Well, who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men,” said Roy.

BJ poked her head into the room. “So here you guys are,” she said. “I’ve been looking all over. What a fabulous party! I’ve been having such a ball I forgot to show you the valuable heirloom.”

“Heirloom?” Roy said, laughing. “We’re all heirlooms.”

“This one has to do with my first triumph—and yours, Marylin.” BJ slowly, portentously opened her purse to draw forth a yellowed photograph folder imprinted with a palm tree and the words “Sugie’s Tropics.”

“Ye Gods!” Roy cried. “Where did you dig that up? There hasn’t been a Tropics for thirty years.”

Marylin reached for the folder. The sharply black-and-white glossy showed four smiling girls crowded into one side of a booth. Their shoulders were padded, their lips darkened. Roy and Althea had flowers tucked into their tall pompadours. “The night of the junior-class play . . .” she murmured.

Roy took the photograph. Althea’s proud, happy young face smiled up at her. Fifteen years old . . . or were we fourteen? The irreconcilable grief for the dead came to squat like a toad on Roy’s heart. Oh, Althea, best friend, worst enemy, rival, I would give everything I possess to have you here tonight.

Those charming, radiant young faces. . . . How come we were so positive we were dogs? We were all really quite pretty. Marylin, of course, was spectacular. What’s that clunky pendant she’s wearing? Of course, Linc’s ring. Poor thing, that’s why her smile is so heartbreakingly sad. She thinks he’s dead.

Roy held the photograph to a lamp, scrutinizing it in an attempt to recapture what had occupied the hearts and minds behind those callow, unlined faces.

Love, she thought.

We wanted to love and be loved. Love’s what we talked about endlessly, conjectured about, yearned for.

Maybe it was a flicker in the electricity, but Althea’s plucked, arched brows seemed to raise, sardonic and knowing.

Am I being sentimental? Roy asked herself.

No, she answered herself firmly. No. Love’s what we wanted then, and love’s what we’ve searched for ever since. Materially, we’ve had everything—and more. But our careers, our worldly successes, have always played second fiddle to the search for love. Old-fashioned, maybe, cornball, yes, but true. BJ appeared to have found the warmth early on. Marylin took most of her life to find real happiness—but now, oh how the joy shines from her. Althea’s inscrutable wounds denied her love. And I . . . I got to the center of the mystery, only to have love devour me alive.

She touched the slick paper. These four girls smiling with dark-lipsticked mouths would intermingle their dreams, their frustrations, their hopes, their lives, their blood. And in the end, all that would remain of them was this chemical imprint—and the mortal products of their love.

In the tent, the band struck up a fanfare.

Roy closed the folder, handing it back to BJ. The three women hurried to the tented bubble.

The cake had been wheeled in on a linen-draped cart to where NolaBee waited. Holding out her low-tar cigarette, she rested her other hand on the hip of her loose, short silk dress—a shrunken Southern-belle flapper. “Come on, you all, cake time,” she was calling to the few guests who still sat at their tables. Waitresses edged through the crowd, proffering trays. Everyone, even the teetotalers and children, took a glass of Mumm’s.

It was prearranged that Linc make the toast.

“I’ve known this delightful Southern lady since 1943, soon after she moved to Beverly Hills, a town she has enriched by her lively presence. She’s related to me in a great many ways that are too confusing to go into, but even if she weren’t, I’d have fallen utterly for her. She charms everyone who comes in contact with her. I give you our most beloved birthday lady. NolaBee Wace. Mama.”

The assembly raised their tulip-shaped glasses, toasting.

“Now Linc,” said NolaBee coquettishly. “I reckon that was a nice-enough speech, but you mustn’t go around mentioning all those dates. Don’t want the folks here to figure out my age, do we?”

Laughter.

As NolaBee plunged the beribboned knife into rich chocolate cake, the band played. “Happy birthday . . . happy birthday dear NolaBee [Mama, Grandma, Great-Grandma, Aunt, Cousin] . . .”

The munificent shared warmth surrounded Roy, and her singing wavered.

Charles—Gerry’s son—gripped her hand, and Linc, who was holding Marylin’s shoulders, put his free arm around her. The sisters turned to each other: their eyes were wet as their lips curved in smiles.

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