The Private Lives of Pippa Lee (15 page)

The small elevator reeked of gardenia perfume, with an undertone of fried garlic. I sat down on the leather bench. It felt cool against the backs of my thighs, which were bare because I was wearing the cocktail dress Herb had given me. I pulled the old cardigan I was wearing around me and looked up at the walls, which were upholstered in heavy, amethyst-colored linen. I was
just imagining moving into the elevator – where would I put the bed, the sink, a little carpet – when the doors opened right into Herb's apartment. And there was Herb, his emperor's face creased into a smile, his long arms open.

‘Beautiful,' he proclaimed. I tottered out of the elevator in the massive heels he'd bought me that afternoon. He gave me a hug. He was wearing a soft brown sweater. It felt like a rabbit. He smelled like limes. When he let go, I looked around. It was an old apartment, he said. Built before the Second World War. Gigi had decorated the place in red and blue and yellow. ‘It's a bit like a home for disturbed children,' said Herb.

We sat down on either end of the poppy-red couch, bashful now that we were alone in his apartment. A large Yves Klein painting with imprints of naked women in blue paint on raw canvas hung on the wall opposite us. Herb went into the kitchen and came out with a bottle of champagne. We drank. I was so hungry; I felt the alcohol behind my eyes immediately. I imagined what Suky would think if she saw me now, sipping champagne in
costly garments
, as she used to say. What a mix of excitement and jealousy would be sloshing around inside her. I finished my glass, and he poured me another, brought out a bag of potato chips.

‘I let the maid go home, so I'm afraid it's just me tonight. You won't have the service you deserve.'

‘That's okay,' I said. All I could think about was his broad trunk, the reassuring baritone of his voice, the way his corduroys fit him so loosely, Mr Brown had worn pants like that. Was that why I was here? I wondered. Because of a pair of corduroys? All of a sudden, I was overcome with sleepiness and wanted to lie down. I ate a handful of chips. ‘Dinner's almost ready,' he said, standing up. ‘Don't despair.'

The dining room was all white: Lucite table, marble floor, translucent plastic chairs, crystal chandelier. Herb pulled my chair out, then put a big glass bowl of pasta with tomato sauce between
us. ‘I hope the sauce is okay,' he said. ‘I haven't cooked anything since I was thirty.' It was the best food I had ever tasted. I ate like I was starving. He put more in my bowl. ‘So, Pippa. Shall I tell you some of the things I like about you?'

‘Okay,' I said, my mouth full of spaghetti.

‘Well, let's see. You're not a show-off, but I think you're damn smart. You've got an original way of living, for this town. You're in it for the experience, is that right?' He made being utterly lost sound like a good thing. ‘You're beautiful, but you're cool about it. You don't even seem to know how lovely you are. And … I don't know, I suppose there's sadness there, and I like sadness. In moderation.'

‘I like your corduroys,' I said.

‘Is that it?'

‘No. I like your face. Your voice. I … This is going to sound weird.'

‘Say.'

‘It's like I feel what you're feeling. If you're feeling sad, or nervous, or happy – I feel it in my body, in my fingers.'

‘What a remarkable thing.' He sat and looked at me for a moment. Then he said, ‘I don't ever want you to have to censor yourself around me. I want to know you, Pippa. I want to know who you are. Tell me one thing about yourself. The most important thing.'

I thought about that for a while. Then I took off my cardigan, stood up, took my pasta bowl, set it on the cold marble floor beside his chair, went down on all fours in my finery, and ate out of the bowl like a dog. I knew he could see the marks Shelly and Kat had left on my back. I have never felt so naked, before or since. After a few seconds, he gripped me around the waist, lifted me onto his lap, dipped his napkin in his water glass, and washed off my face. His eyes were glistening. ‘No, no, no,' he said. ‘I don't believe it. Who did this to you?'

He carried me into a bedroom. It was not his room – he told
me it was not his room. He said I was a queen. ‘I don't know who put this spell on you, darling. But if I'm good for anything, it's to show you how wonderful you are.' When he put his hand on my abdomen, I felt a sudden, deep, pulsing ache, not pain but desire, desire in my womb. That's the only way I can describe it. I was so wet it soaked through my dress onto the sheets. That was the first night I really made love. It wasn't my pleasure and his pleasure, a transaction – ‘and here's your change, ma'am' – it was just wordless, thoughtless, and complete, like two waves crashing together and becoming the same water.

And that's how we buried Gigi Lee, kicked the sand over her perfect body with our bare feet as we wriggled toward each other in her very own guest bed.

Herb rented me a studio apartment on Seventieth and Lexington in a building with shining brass doors and a doorman called Nathan. I felt like an alien uptown; I was dressed wrong for everything, even buying milk. But Herb came over with something new for me to wear every few days, until I didn't feel dressed wrong anymore. I just felt like I was impersonating somebody else. Herb picked me up every afternoon at my new job in a fancy shoe store on Madison Avenue and walked me up to my little apartment. The walls were stark bluish white. There was a pine table in the kitchen, a black couch in the living room. I kept the place immaculate. I wanted it to be blank, a place for a person to change into another person. I took no pills. I got into no trouble. Herb said I was his true wife; he had found me at last.

When he told me, I was thrilled, incredulous, laughing. ‘What are you, fucking crazy? That's the last thing you need.'

‘I see something in you,' he said, looking at me steadily and sweeping the hair from my eyes. ‘Something you don't see.'

‘Anyway,' I said somberly. ‘You have a wife.'

He threw himself back on the pillows. ‘If I have to live with that lunatic one more week, I'll hang myself. For years I've been hoping she'll have an affair so I can get out of it. But she won't do it. The bitch.'

I yearned to say yes, but I was scared of Gigi, and I was afraid of what I would do to Herb. I hurt everyone I loved, everyone I met, practically. How could I trust myself with marriage?

The doorbell rang, which was a bad sign. I hadn't ordered take-out, Herb had keys. No one else knew where I was. I said ‘Hello' and heard Gigi's voice. Fright flashed through my wrists. I said I was on my way down. I thought I would be safer on the street. Just as I was pulling on my jacket, there was a knock on the door. I contemplated running down the fire escape, but then I opened the door. There she was, looking over-the-top gorgeous, like something out of
La Dolce Vita
, a black dress and a fur coat, long dark hair and bangs, that drooping, voluptuous mouth, mascara bleeding around her tragic eyes. She walked around the place on stiletto heels without saying anything, looked the kitchen over, stalked into the bedroom, the bathroom. Then she stood there and took me in. I was in a tank top and sweatpants, my stringy hair scraped back in a ponytail. I looked like I should be her masseuse or maybe her tennis coach, but not her replacement. No way. ‘You whore,' she said. That was nice.

‘I'm not a whore,' I said.

‘Is not a whore paid for sex? What do you call this? I knew it the minute I laid eyes on you. I knew you were no good – a predator, and the worst kind, the unconscious kind. Things just “happen” to you, don't they? And before you know it you steal my husband!'

I tried to check inside her open coat for a weapon. I thought if she was unarmed, I could defend myself. ‘I'm sorry,' I said.

‘He told me he loves you,' she said.

I don't know how she ended up clutching my knees. I looked down, and she was kneeling, her coat splayed out behind her like the train of a dwarf queen. ‘You can stay here, see him, have a love affair, but do not take him, please, don't take him –'

I don't remember what I said. It was something like ‘Okay, I won't,' I think, because she was out of there like a puff of smoke.

I couldn't make love to Herb after that. I knew I should move out, but I really didn't have enough money for a security deposit anyplace unless I found a roommate, and I didn't know anyone anymore. I couldn't go back to Jim or Trish or Suky or the loft. I mean, I could have gone back, but I knew it would lead to disaster. Herb was very understanding. He insisted I stay in the apartment on my own, even though that meant he had to stay in a hotel, because it was so painful to be with Gigi, now that she knew. He called and told me he loved me ten times a day, sent me flowers, sent me a necklace. I didn't want to talk to him. When I came home from work, I just curled up in bed and tried not to think about getting high. There was a Catholic church down the street, and, though I was not Catholic, I went there often. Not for Mass so much, just to sit there and pray and ask forgiveness over and over and over. All I ever did was cause misery and distress, and I was still doing it. I wrote my parents a note to say I was well and had a place and please don't worry and I think it's probably best I stay out of the way from now on, given the circumstances. I didn't intend to put a return address on the envelope, but then I did.

*

One morning, Herb let himself into the apartment, dragged me out of bed, dressed me, stuffed me into his Jaguar, and drove me to his beach house just so I could take a walk on the sand, breathe in the sea air. As we drove up to that glass-encased dollhouse, I was deluged with feeling for Herb, the same heady certainty that had gripped me when I watched him at Gigi's party: that I knew him, understood him, craved his company. So it was very smart of him to bring me back there.

On the way home, it was night. We were on a narrow country road. Herb's headlights raked a little fawn on the side of the road.
Its legs were folded up underneath its body, and it had its ears pricked up. Herb pulled the car over. We got out. As we approached, we could see that the creature was frightened, trembling, but it didn't run; drew its ears back and bowed its head. ‘Maybe his mother got hit by a car,' I said.

‘His legs are broken,' Herb said. ‘Otherwise he would have run away.'

‘Should we bring him to a vet?' I asked. Herb lifted up the fawn's body. Its two hind legs dangled, useless and bloody; its front legs made a pathetic galloping motion in the air.

‘They can't help him,' he said.

‘We can't just leave him here,' I said.

Herb gently laid the deer back on the ground and got back in the car. I sat next to him. He was silent for a long time. He took in a long breath, let it out again. ‘Close your eyes and cover your ears,' he said.

‘Why?' I asked.

‘Just do it,' he said. He backed up the car about five yards. Through the windshield, I watched the fawn, frosted ghostly white by the headlights. Herb put the car into gear, stepped on the accelerator. I screamed, but he didn't swerve. I squeezed my eyes tight, felt the thud as we hit the deer. The car had stopped. Herb backed up, got out, checked to see that it was dead. Then he steered the car back onto the road and drove us to the city.

We didn't speak on the ride home. When he stopped outside my building, he looked at me. ‘It would have starved or frozen or been devoured,' he said. ‘You know that?'

I nodded. He slept at my place that night. Very early in the morning, I was woken by the sound of him weeping. I turned him over, wiped his tears away. I loved him then. To have the courage to do something that hurt you so much. A strange act of kindness. It was then that I knew, absolutely. ‘I will marry you,' I said.

‘You will?' He sounded baffled.

‘How could I not?'

Herb called me from a phone booth on Park Avenue.

‘I told her we're getting married.'

‘How was it?'

‘Horrible, and then … slightly less horrible.'

‘Come home, then,' I said. He did. We scrambled eggs, toasted bagels, watched bad TV in bed till three in the morning. We were so happy.

‘You need to be a little careful,' Herb said, ‘about Gigi.'

‘What do you mean, she's going to try and kill me?'

‘No, no, no. But she's volatile. And feeling scorned. So if the buzzer rings and you're alone here, don't answer.'

‘What if I ordered in?'

‘Don't order in unless I'm here.'

A few weeks went by. Herb gradually moved his things over: boxes of books, a couple of framed posters of old films, and his limited but high-quality wardrobe. The divorce papers were being drawn up. Gigi stayed away. We lived inside a little nutshell of contentment. We saw almost no one. Only Sam Shapiro, Herb's trusted ally, was allowed in on our secret. A couple of times a week, the three of us would go out, and Sam would regale us with stories about his disastrous love life, or gripe about his new novel.

One such night, Sam got to the apartment before Herb did. He sat back on the ink black couch sipping a glass of pineapple juice, watching shivering saffron squares of sunlight appear and disappear on the wall as the sun set. His young, taut, raptor face shone with humor and curiosity. ‘Don't you have any hooch?' he asked me.

‘Nope,' I said. ‘But I could make you a sandwich.'

‘You sure have cleaned up your act,' he said, looking over at me skeptically.

I laughed. ‘You don't believe it?'

‘There are two schools of thought regarding change in human beings. Yes, and no.'

‘What do you think?'

‘Fundamentally … no. But I hope I'm wrong. For my own sake.' His ironic tone was shot through with wistfulness.

‘What would you change about yourself if you could?' I asked softly, leaping, I knew, forward, toward him.

He thought for a few seconds. ‘I would be less of an observer. I'm sick of being the specter at the feast. You see, Pippa, I'm one of those unlucky beings who don't fully exist. I live off other people. But all writers are vampires, hasn't Herb told you that?'

‘Not yet.'

‘If I find the right girl, she'll make me real.'

‘Do you really believe that?'

‘
You're
real.' He looked at me then with genuine longing. The shape of our narrative could have melted then and there; Herb might have come home to two young people falling in love. But I didn't topple. I really had changed, I realized. I wasn't going to seduce or be seduced anymore. Not even by this ravenous creature here, tempting as it was to evoke some actual passion from his ever-watchful, ever-thinking being. I looked away and stood up, aware of something having shifted inside me, some internal door closing. I had been tamed at last.

‘So, Dracula, am I gonna end up in one of your books now? The little fuckup who went straight?' I asked.

‘I don't think you'd fit into any of the stories in my head,' he said, back to his usual, arch tone.

‘How come?'

‘You're too … I don't know, really. I was going to say primi tive, but that's not it. That sad little smile, but you really do enjoy
life. Winsome but naughty – you're an ingenue femme fatale – oddly calm, almost remote … You're hard to put a finger on, Pippa.' He smiled at his own pun.

That night, in the cab going downtown, and sitting in the movie theater, I felt especially safe, wedged between these two men, protected by their solicitude and desire. Herb took Sam's crush as a compliment to him. It didn't bother him in the slightest. We all knew I was Herb's girl.

Then, one day, the phone rang. Herb answered. ‘Hi,' he said, surprised, anxious. He listened for a long time, interjected little. When he hung up, he said, ‘Isn't that the most extraordinary thing.'

‘What?'

‘Gigi wants us to go out to the beach house for lunch.'

‘Why?'

‘She wants us to come and make the switch there.'

‘
Make the switch?
'

‘She wants to be civilized, she wants to be sophisticated and show she doesn't mind losing me. I don't know.'

‘You mean you want to
go
? What happened to not answering the door in case she sticks a knife in my chest?'

‘No, no, her voice was totally different. Calm. Gigi has a rational side, it kicks in at the damnedest times.' He shook his head, chuckling. ‘I'll bet you she has a man. That has to be it. She's going to unveil him at this lunch. Everything is about vanity for Gigi.'

So, the following Saturday, we drove to the beach. The glass casing of the house glared in the sun. Inside it, the quaint little cottage looked like it was on display in a museum of the future. Beside it, there might have been a sign reading: ‘This is a reconstruction of an early-twentieth-century dwelling, complete with art and cooking implements.' Herb sprang out of the car. I stayed in my seat as though magnetized, my limbs leaden. The skin on my face felt heavy, like clay. I was becoming very sleepy.

Herb's tread on the gravel sounded brisk, optimistic. I heard
the trunk click open. I opened the door, stuck my head out, and looked back at him, trying to see what he was doing.

‘Can I go to the beach for a while?' I asked. I thought if I lay down in the sand, I might get my strength back. I could see only the top of Herb's face; the lid of the trunk obscured the rest. When he slammed it shut, he was holding his tennis racket. He was grabbing on to Gigi's offer of a conciliatory lunch a little desperately, I thought. He just couldn't resist the idea of a civilized finish to his second marriage. His first, dissolved acrimoniously over thirty years ago, he dismissed as the bloodless coupling of two neophyte intellectuals who mistook a shared passion for
Also
Sprach Zarathustra
for love.

Just as Herb was about to answer me, Gigi came out of the house. The light breeze molded the fine cloth of her orange caftan to her statuesque form, making her look like a bustier version of the Winged Venus. She held out her arms, then thought better of it and put her hands on her hips. ‘Welcome,' she said. Now I really had to get out of the car.

We walked into the house. The sweet, full smell of jasmine hit me like heat, seeped into my brain, and conjured up a memory of my first visit – the sight of Herb and Gigi on the beach, the sweet iced tea, the brief sense of ownership I'd felt when I looked down at the sea from the porch. Let's face it: I had coveted Gigi's life at that moment. It wasn't the money – no, not exactly that. It was just that the money made everything seem all right. It made you feel safe. The smell of fresh flowers in a guest room. The taste of iced tea made by someone else. It was the oppos ite of chaos, the opposite of everything I had known until that time. I wanted to be sheltered at last. Yes, I confess: I wanted what Gigi had, and in a blind, unthinking, but ruthless way, I set about getting it.

As we entered, Jerzi the butler gave Herb a look of the darkest humor, his eyelids drooping, face impassive, one eyebrow raised. Herb shrugged and allowed himself to smile slightly. Seated in
the glacial white leather couch was Sam Shapiro, looking awkward and surprised. I turned to Herb, who greeted his tense young friend with a hearty handshake, a quizzical look on his face. Could Sam be sleeping with Gigi? That would be too neat. Yet the way she let her fingers linger on Sam's hand when she passed him a drink, her stage whisper for him to get the cheese and salami out of the kitchen, when Alfonsa would be doing it in moments – it was all adding up. Herb paid special attention to Sam, slapping him on the back and asking him how his novel was going, when he had spoken to him the day before on that very subject, just to let him know it was okay if he
was
sleeping with his soon to be ex-wife.

Gigi hadn't managed to look at me directly. She was all smiles and bustle, flushed and seemingly happy to be doing this highly original thing. Yet there was something acted about her movements, gestures, expressions, as if she was imitating herself. I was filled with unease. Herb was grinning, teeth clenched, determined to get through this ordeal so he could have what he wanted. Sam looked like he wanted to disappear. The little ocher cottage in the center of the room had its white shades drawn demurely, as if lowering its eyes in embarrassment. It occurred to me that I hadn't really spoken yet. In fact, no dialogue seemed required of me in this play we were all enacting. It was more than enough for me to simply exist. I was, after all, the reason we were all here, in this new configuration. I needed no more lines than Helen of Troy. Pippa the Destroyer.

Champagne was poured; we each drank a glass. Gigi poured Herb a second glass, glancing up at him with impish insouciance, her tiny nose retreating into her face as it did when she was about to smile but didn't. Was it possible that she was flirting with him? The champagne left a dull weight on my forehead. Again, I wanted to lie down, to sleep, to be gone. I wished they could do it all without me. Alfonsa was looking worried as she put the finishing touches on the table set for four. She kept changing the location
of the butter dish, the saltcellar, her eyes traveling back and forth over the table as if she were speed-reading. ‘You can bring in the food now, Alfonsa,' said Gigi, gently chiding, as though encouraging a forgetful child. She ushered us out onto the porch with a sweep of her arm. ‘Take a few breaths before we eat,' she said.

‘There's oxygen in here, too,' said Herb, adopting his old teasing way with her. Gigi giggled, and for a moment I thought it was all going to unravel; we would drop the scene as written, go back to our old parts. Herb and Gigi: worldly married couple; me: adoptive waif kept around as a decent-looking pet, a sort of representative of the Order of Flotsam; Sam: the brilliant friend who haunted his own life like a ghost, hunted down by his talent and sheltered, as I was, in the home of two knowing benefactors. I almost wished it were true. It would have been safer that way. I looked at Herb. He seemed impossibly old, from another world. I wanted him to hold me, to break through this web I was weaving around myself, to make us real again.

Gigi went into the house to check on the food. We all sighed at once.

‘Well, this is one odd situation,' said Sam.

‘Sorry you got roped into it,' said Herb.

‘I didn't know it was happening till you drove up,' said Sam.

‘Listen, it's a load off my mind,' said Herb, putting his hand between my shoulder blades.

‘What is?' asked Sam.

‘You and Gigi.'

‘
What
? She invited me over to lunch! That's
it
!'

‘That's what
you
say,' said Herb, smiling slightly at Sam's new predicament.

Sam looked over at me appreciatively and shook his head. ‘The mystery girl,' he said.

Gigi opened the glass doors then and ushered us in. Our repast was laid out on the table like a grim offering to some vengeful god. A severed calf's head stared out at us mournfully; a leathery
suckling pig had its mouth stretched wide, a too-big apple stuffed into it. Between these monstrosities, a bowl of perfectly browned potatoes and glistening salad seemed like no-man's-land.

‘This lunch is in honor of telling it like it is,' said Gigi, seating Herb to her right, Sam to her left, and me across from her. Herb was on edge now; I could feel it. ‘You know, how we all eat chops and things and we don't think of the faces, of who gets killed.'

‘It's lucky no one's a vegetarian,' Herb said.

‘In America,' Gigi said, ‘you are very realistic. I mean to say, grand gestures have no place for you. Here is the truth as I see it. A pig for a cow. A fair exchange.'

‘Who's who?' Sam couldn't help asking.

Gigi shrugged, tears in her eyes.

‘Sorry,' said Sam, staring into his plate.

‘Let's just have lunch,' said Herb in a subdued tone, picking up a carving knife. ‘Who wants pig?'

‘First,' said Gigi, ‘a toast.' She raised her wine. Sunlight streamed through the glass wall behind her and glinted off the crystal; a star of light exploded out of her hand. ‘To transformation,' she said. We all raised our glasses dutifully, drank. Then she opened the little drawer in the table, the secret little drawer where she kept her bell, and took out a shiny, black thing, no bigger than a mouse. It was hard and perfect in the palm of her hand.

‘Gigi,' said Herb, standing up. ‘Give me that thing.' He reached out. ‘Give it to me.' She smiled up at him, a strange smile of satiation, of victory. ‘Isn't it funny,' she said, ‘how men always marry women who are easier and easier to dominate, until they end up with an imbecile?' Sam sat rigid, his face pale with terror. Gigi rested her elbow on the table, her wrist slack, the little black gun dangling in her hand like the droopy head of a fading flower. Then she turned to me. I waited for the bullet. I wondered if it would be in my chest, my head. I saw myself running to the door, shot in the back. Her eyes on mine, she parted her lips as if to speak, and wedged the tiny gun into her mouth. Herb lunged for
her, grabbing her shoulder as the shell exploded. As he pulled her toward him, her head dropped to the table, and a fine spray of blood the shape of a huge Japanese fan surged out of her serpentine black hair, spattering him, all of us, like lava shooting out of an angry volcano. The glass behind her was coated ruby red. Herb was bent over his wife as if petrified, his face covered in blood. Alfonsa was screaming, running back and forth senselessly. With horrible slowness, the body slipped from the table, the chair, then flopped bonelessly to the floor.

I turned then and ran out of that bloody glass box, through the French doors, onto the porch, down the rotting wooden stairs, following the narrow path, the branches of the scrub pine snagging my dress like clawing hands. I staggered onto the beach; the sand tripped me up, it felt thick as towels. I flicked my shoes off so I could keep running, the hot sand searing the soles of my feet, and fled into the cool sea. All I remember is wanting to go under, far under, into the darkest, most frigid part of the water, where I could wash the blood off. I think I was screaming; a man came running toward me, a white dog by his side. After I went under, he pulled me to the surface and asked me what had happened as the dog paddled desperately beside me, barking. I couldn't answer him. What
had
happened? Was it a suicide, or was it a murder? And if it was a murder, who did it?