Nancy’s Theory of Style (32 page)

She propped herself up on one arm. “Are
we back to Bailey? It’s sweet of you to worry. I know he’s ambitious and
calculating, but he’s also a good partner for someone who wants to live a more
dynamic life.”

She looked into Derek’s lovely face. “I
know this will have to end when you get tired of my girl parts, but I really
want to enjoy it while we can.”

“I’m not tiring of you.”

She laughed and said, “Do you know that
Milagro even asked if I was sure you’re gay. Can you believe that?”

“It’s easy to see what you want to see. What
did she mean when she said that you thought everyone should have their own
runway music?”

“We should each have a song that we imagine
when we’re walking down the street and the wind is blowing back our hair
because life is the ultimate runway, even though life doesn’t let us walk in
slo-mo.”

He laughed. “I’ll add that to your
notebook. What’s your song?”

“It varies. Lately it’s been ‘Walking on
Sunshine.’”

“Do I have one?”

She rolled on top of him. “Sometimes you
look so serious, I think it should be ‘Behind Blue Eyes,’ but you’re not a bad
man, so maybe it’s Tom Jones’s ‘Sex Bomb.’”

He clutched her hips and said, “I’ll try
to live up to it.”

A knock on the front door startled both
of them.

“Who could that be?”
Nancy
asked, getting out of bed and reaching
for her clothes. “Maybe Birdie got in the building. Can you answer it?”

Derek was already pulling on his boxers.
“Yes.” He was stepping into his trousers when there was another knock.

Nancy
dashed into the bathroom and heard him
call out, “One moment, please!” The phrase whore’s bath came to mind as she
cleaned herself with a washcloth and threw her clothes on. She ran a brush through
her hair, dabbed on lip-gloss, took a few calming breaths, and walked out.

When Derek heard her coming, he stepped
away from the open front door and said, “Miss Winkles has come to invite us to
tea.”

The old lady gave
Nancy
a knowing look. “Not you, Girl
Carrington. I can see how extremely busy you are.”

Derek said, “I was just explaining that
my fountain pen had splattered on us, and we were trying to clean up my jacket
and…”

“And your socks,” Miss Winkles said
looking down at his bare feet. “When you get the ink out of them, you can bring
Eugenia up to tea at 3:00. I told her she could look at my photo albums and
through the spyglass. See that you arrive promptly.”

He said, “Miss Winkles, I appreciate
your kind invitation, but I have tasks…”

“Oh, I’m sure Girl Carrington can spare
you for half an hour.”

Nancy
smiled and said, “Of course, Miss
Winkles.”

Miss Winkles left and Derek shut the
door. “She knows.”

“Binky Winkles is famous for having a
bad opinion of everyone. Why does that crone remember Eugenia’s name and not
mine?”

“Would you like me to find out?”

“Yes. We’ll buy some flowers for you to
take to her and you can disarm her with kindness.”

Eugenia was thrilled with her invitation
to Miss Winkles. She had brought home a painting that she wanted
Nancy
to put up. “It’s a
boat,” she said and indeed there was a brown splotch on blue splotches that
could be water.

“Very aquatic. Thank you, Eugenia.”
Nancy
used a magnet to
add it to the collection of drawings on the refrigerator.

“That is a splendid painting,” Derek
said.

“I’ll make one for you and one for Miss
Wiggles. I need paint.”

“Miss Winkles,”
Nancy
corrected. “Use the crayons Milagro
brought you. Paint is too messy.”

“Crayons are for babies.”

“Crayons are not for babies. Great
artists have used crayons. I used crayons. Derek, did you have crayons in
England
?”

“Crayons are international favorites.”

Nancy
mouthed thank you to him. “See,
Eugenia, everyone loves crayons.”

The girl squinted her eyes and said,
“I’m going to ask Miss Wiggles if she has paint.”

When Derek and Eugenia went upstairs to
tea with Miss Winkles,
Nancy
decided to call her mother. She felt more comfortable doing it without anyone
overhearing her conversation.

The housekeeper answered and said she’d
call Mrs. Carrington to the phone.

A few minutes later, Hester said
groggily, “Hi, Nanny. I was napping.”

“I haven’t heard from you in ages. How
are you?”

“Wonderful, dear. Has it been that long
since you visited? Time slips away somehow.”

“How was the anniversary party?”

There was a pause and finally Hester
said vaguely, “The dinner party? Lovely. Always so nice to see friends. How are
you doing? Is the girl still with you?”

“Yes, Eugenia is still with me. Didn’t
Daddy tell you that Birdie sent me a letter from
Corfu
?
That and a naked painting of herself.”

“Good heavens.”

“It’s a good painting, but unnecessary. What
have you been doing?”

“Did I tell you we got an injunction
against that dreadful man who wants to do new construction?”

As
Nancy
listened to her mother describe the intricacies of the legal process, she
thought not for the first time that her mother should have gotten a job that
took her out of the house.

“I’m so glad you are doing something to
preserve the character of the neighborhood,”
Nancy
said. “Eugenia is having tea with Bitsy
Winkles. Miss Winkles has never invited me up to tea and she always calls me
Girl Carrington, but she knows Eugenia’s name.”

“Well, Nanny, you might try to be a
little nicer to her.”

“I am nice! I smile and ask how she is
and hold the door for her. I’m a delightful neighbor. Have you heard from
Blaire or Ellie lately? ”

“Your sisters haven’t called in, I can’t
remember. The time difference makes it hard for them to call.”

“It’s like they’ve forgotten we exist.”

“Nanny, they’re busy. Blaire emails me whenever
she can and Ellie sends cards and gifts.”
They talked a while longer about
Nancy
’s events
and business and then
Nancy
realized that her mother was responding with rote expressions of “That’s nice,”
and “How lovely,” so she said, “Mom, get your rest, okay?”

“Thank you, darling. Come visit, soon.”

“We will.”

Nancy
was wondering if she should go upstairs
and rescue Derek and Eugenia, when she heard their footsteps pounding down the
stairs and Eugenia’s high laughter.

Eugenia ran into the living room grinning
wildly, her eyes gleaming. There was a smear of pink frosting on her face. “We
raced and I won!”

Derek came a second later, laughing. “You
were supposed to wait until I counted to three.”

Nancy
said, “I want a full report. Eugenia,
did you have a nice time with Miss Winkles?”

“Yes!” Eugenia shouted. “We ate cupcakes
and sang songs. She is going to teach me to play the piano.”

“Really?”

“Miss Winkles has a sweet light voice,”
Derek said. “She had me bring boxes of photographs down from the closet because
she thinks I look like someone she knew.”

“Everybody thinks you look like someone,
but I don’t find your looks common. Eugenia, what did you see through the
spyglass?”

“I saw boats and a pirate island. Miss
Wiggles says I can visit every day and play piano.”

“Did she? That was very nice of her. Don’t
touch anything until we’ve washed your hands,”
Nancy
said, thinking that she would have
liked a cupcake, too.

As Derek was leaving for the day,
Nancy
slipped into the
entry hall with him. “Did you find out why Miss Winkles calls me Girl
Carrington?”

“She said she’d tell me next time.” He
looked through the doorway and made sure that Eugenia was not looking. Then he
pulled
Nancy
to
him and kissed her. “Until tomorrow, Mrs. Carrington-Chambers.”

“Night, Derek.”

She closed the door and turned to see
Eugenia looking at her.
Nancy
didn’t know how much the girl had seen. The girl pulled the string of her
stuffed parrot, which let out a recorded squawk of “Scurvy dog!”

 
“Eugenia, we are going to clean all that sticky
frosting off your face and hands. Come along.”

“Scurvy dog!” Eugenia shrieked and ran
out of the room clutching her parrot. “Scurvy dog! Scurvy dog!”

When
Nancy
had caught the girl and put her in the
bathtub to play and calm down, she asked, “Why do you like pirates?”

Eugenia poured water from one plastic
yoghurt container into another. “Do you want yummy tea?”

“Yes, thank you.”
Nancy
took the container and pretended to
drink. “Delicious. Is it because pirates wear big boots?”

“Do you want more tea?”

“Yes.”
Nancy
handed the cup to the child who dumped
the water back in the tub and filled it again. “Is it because pirates’ have
swords?”

“Uhm.” Eugenia was playing and didn’t
seem interested in
Nancy
’s
question.

Nancy
washed the girl’s hair with the
tearless baby shampoo she’d bought. She made sure to rinse the soap out from
behind her small pink ears and to clean her fingers.

Eugenia suddenly said, “Pirates take
their house with them all the time,” and then she submerged herself under water
and blew bubbles, her fine hair floating out behind her.

Nancy
ached thinking what it must be like to
be Eugenia, without a home of her own.

Nancy
had put Eugenia to bed when her phone
rang. It was Todd.

“I’m out front,” he said. “Can I come up
to talk?”

“Oh,” she said, looking around at the
toys scattered on the floor. “Yes. Just give me a minute to put some clothes
on.”

She picked up all of Eugenia’s things
and threw them in the laundry room. She ran to the bathroom and touched up her
makeup. Then she went to the entry hall and buzzed the front door.

Nancy
smoothed her clothes as she waited for
Todd to come out of the elevator. He was wearing clothes that she’d put aside
to give to charity: a blue and white striped shirt with a white collar and
cuffs and those pleated trousers that made his hips look wide.

“Hi, Nance.”

“Hi, Todd.”

They looked at each other for a moment
and then he leaned in to kiss her cheek. “Can I come in?”

“Of course.” She let him in, wondering
what he wanted.

He glanced around the apartment and
said, “It looks better without all that pink stuff.”

“I liked the pink, but the room serves a
dual purpose now.”

“Yeah, well. So how’s Froth going?”

“Really well. Thanks for asking. How’s
everything with you?”

“Good. A little lonely around the house.
I miss having you around. I cut the cleaning people down to once a week, but
they don’t do things right without you to supervise them. Do you have something
to drink?”

“Would you like water or a glass of
wine?”

“Wine would be awesome.”

Wine would be awesome. She went to the
kitchen wondering how she ever could have lived this Visigoth.

When she returned he was standing by the
fireplace, his hands jammed in his pockets, even though she’d told him a
thousand times that it stretched and bagged the gabardine.

She handed him the wineglass.

“You’re not going to have a drink with
me?” he asked.

“I don’t really feel like a drink now.”

“Bailey told me you’re going out again.”

So that’s why he’d come. “Just as
friends.”

“That’s cool. He’s already promised me
that nothing will happen. I’m glad he’s watching out for you.”
“It’s so nice that you two are negotiating my honor. Maybe you could give him
the spare key to my chastity belt.”

“It’s a guy thing, Nance. You wouldn’t
understand, because with females it’s always competition and backstabbing.”