At the bar, Luke stood behind a redheaded socialite known for her wit. “I was married to Tom for six months,” she said to her girlfriend. “It was a case of mistaken identity, basically. Someone said he was the biggest prick at Time Warner and I misheard the verb.”
She’d said the same thing to Luke at a previous benefit, when she was still married to the man in question, who had subsequently moved into the Carlyle when the couple split. Word was that he’d left her after catching her with her head between the legs of his partner’s wife. To which one listener replied, “Yeah, but why did he leave?”
Carrying the two drinks, he looked around for Sasha and caught sight of her huddled with Melman, the only man present to whom even the movie stars paid court. He watched from a distance as Sasha whispered in Melman’s ear and the deputy mayor waited respectfully for his moment. Melman was perhaps not quite as small as Luke liked to imagine him, although the hulking bodyguards who accompanied him everywhere—which some saw as an affectation to underline his importance—did nothing to make him seem taller. Bernie was one of the few corporate raiders of the eighties to have flourished in the subsequent decade. Time travelers from that era would scarcely have recognized the socially prominent philanthropist who was practically this evening’s unacknowledged guest of honor. Although he had left in his wake a Hoxsey’s army of disappointed investors and wrecked companies, it was said that he had never been on the wrong end of a deal, and, unlike some of his peers, he’d never been indicted. Very few people had the knowledge or the interest to evaluate his arcane financial dealings, and his victims tended to dwell in the outer provinces of the republic, where goods were manufactured, or in the arid regions of corporate finance, far from the gossip columns and society pages of Manhattan. During his early years in New York, he had been caricatured as a barbarian and a parvenu. His current eminence and good press stemmed as much from genuine admiration for his vast fortune as from fear of his power and influence, which now included certain branches of the media. The rumors of his impending divorce seemed plausible—Melman and his wife hadn’t been photographed together in months. There was also, Luke knew, a certain buzz surrounding his friendship with Sasha. They had been spotted lunching together recently, not at the Four Seasons or Aureole or one of the consecrated stations of their mutual circuit, where their presence would be so conspicuous as to merit no reproach, but at a dowdy Italian spot on Third Avenue in the Fifties. Sasha had explained the rendezvous plausibly enough—she was hitting him up for a big donation on behalf of the ballet, on whose board she served—if not the unlikely venue, where they might have believed it was unlikely to see anyone they knew. Luke found it more than curious that his wife, of all people, would have chosen to dine anonymously with such an illustrious acquaintance, rather than showing herself off from a choice banquette in the Grill Room or on the sidewalk in front of La Goulue. As it turned out, some helpful soul called in the sighting to the Post’s “Page Six,” which reported it the next day with the comment that the restaurant in question hadn’t seen such glamorous diners since Kennedy was president.
3
How’s it going in here?” Russell asked, sticking his head in the kids’ bedroom. “Dad, it’s just girls, okay?”
Storey, naked and pink, was showing Hilary her wardrobe—the various outfits spread out on the bed. Hilary had a towel wrapped around her chest and another around her head. In this refuge of dewy femininity, Russell felt like an intruder—a hulking male animal. “Mom wants you in your pajamas,” he said, as if uncertain of his own authority, and retreated to the living room—or so he thought of it, having grown up in suburban “colonials”—loft living presenting certain problems of nomenclature. Jeremy was wrestling with Washington, who, for all his dangerous proclivities, was remarkably good with kids. Unlike Russell, he was looking very downtown, black suit over a black shirt with a seriously long and pointy collar—black on black on black. Ever since his bald spot had taken over, he’d been shaving his head.
“Yo, Crash, you better change before the other guests get here.”
“I am changed,” Russell said.
“’Scuse me, bro. I thought you’d just gotten back from guest lecturing at some fu—” He stopped short in deference to Jeremy, who was now on his shoulder. “—some freaking prep school.”
“My Transformer can change into a battleship,” Jeremy said.
“Now that’s cool. If only your dad could be as hip as you are.”
Corrine came out as the guest of honor emerged from the elevator with his wife. Jim Crespi was turning forty-five, although he could have passed for thirty-five in his vintage sharkskin suit and his record-store clerk’s glasses. He proffered a bottle of Cristal to his hostess.
“You’re not supposed to bring a present,” Corrine said, unsettled by such extravagance from a man facing bankruptcy.
“Jim believes in cutting back on the necessities,” Judy said, “but he can’t imagine drinking Mot.” Her fresh Jean Seberg haircut emphasized the fierce planes of her face, which seemed too taut to accommodate a smile.
“Let’s open it,” Jim said, “before the bank repossesses it.”
It was hardly an auspicious moment in their lives, the production company he’d founded and taken to such heights having collapsed this past spring in a heap of lawsuits. When it became clear that Judy wasn’t going to throw the usual surprise party, due to heightened domestic tension verging on violence and legal counsel, Russell had stepped in. By his own account, Jim had nearly everything tied up in the company, and Judy, who sold multiacre apartments to very wealthy clients, deeply resented the fact that her husband had squandered his fortune, although, like most fortunes of the era, its existence had been more virtual than actual. When she’d first met him, Jim had been the wittiest and the sexiest man in the room, in almost any room, riding the success of the little indie movie that had grossed fifty million; he had dated half a dozen of the most sought-after women in town, including at least two whom Corrine would have been pleased to see him settle down with. But perhaps because Judy reminded him of his mother, he’d somehow fallen in love with the only one his friends universally disliked, who, after selling him an apartment, proceeded to make him miserable until he married her and then made him more miserable still. It was hard to tell if this latest trouble was terminal, since the marriage, viewed from the outside, had been on life support for years, despite having produced two healthy, well-adjusted children. Since Jim was Russell’s friend and Corrine had no independent communication with Judy, she couldn’t really tell; Russell was reluctant to pry, or perhaps it was more relevant that both he and Jim were men, bound by the code of heterosexual masculine stoicism. Whenever she asked Russell how Jim or any of his other friends were doing, the answer, invariably, was “Fine.”
The gathering achieved critical mass with the simultaneous arrival of Carlo and Nancy, stepping out of the elevator together like some kind of binary visual joke, a one and a zero; Michelin man Carlo bearing bags full of cheeses, greens, and oils, and stick-skinny Nancy in her Pucci, carrying yet another bottle of Cristal. Carlo joined Russell in the kitchen while Nancy attempted to communicate with the children, who could tell that she had no real interest and therefore ignored her accordingly.
Corrine put the children down when Russell gave her the fifteen-minute warning; they demanded a story from their aunt.
“Aunt Hilary’s busy with the grown-ups.”
“She promised us a story,” Jeremy said.
“She promises a lot of things, but I’m the boss around here.”
“Are you mad at Aunt Hilary?” Storey asked.
“I love your aunt Hilary. She’s my sister.”
“But sometimes you seem mad at her.”
“I’ll send her in to say good night,” Corrine said, for once happy to pull their door shut behind her.
“When I got to Hollywood, the studios were dead,” Cody Erhardt was telling a rapt audience, “but they didn’t know it. They k
ept making Doris Day movies right through the sixties. Then Easy Rider came along and they finally realized they didn’t have a fucking clue. They rolled out the red carpet for anybody who had long hair and a film degree. Me and Marty and Peter and the gang. That’s when the kids took over the administration building. Chinatown, Five Easy Pieces, The Last Picture Show, Shampoo.”
After Hilary named his own contribution to the list, Corrine caught her eye, signaled toward the children’s room.
Erhardt shrugged—an approximation of modesty.
“Didn’t you know Ashby?” Hilary said.
“Did I know him? He practically lived in my guest room. If I could remember half of the shit we talked about… Well, the whole thing lasted six, seven years. I knew the glory days were over the afternoon I went to Frank Mancuso’s office and saw that Market Research had moved next door to the head of Production. That was all she wrote. I could give you the exact date if I had my journals. Or it might have been the day that Jaws opened wide. But then, Steven was a mole, just pretending to inhale, playing for the other side.”
“Hilary,” Corrine said, “the children would like to borrow you for a moment.”
“Forget cultural stereotypes,” Washington was saying when the sisters returned from settling the children. “Girls are vicious, man.”
“You had to have kids to figure that out?” Nancy Tanner asked.
“I’m taking Tamara to a birthday party on Park; it’s the usual fucking madhouse, baby-sitter late, crosstown traffic, so I arrive half an hour late. All the other little girls have already formed into packs. And even her friends treat her like some leper, simply by default, because they need a scapegoat, someone to vent their nastiness on. Salt and bile and everything vile. That’s what they’re really made of. Except for Tam, of course.”
“They’re just really clannish at that age,” Corrine said, somehow afraid the whole racial issue was about to rear its head. She didn’t want the fact that Tamara was the product of a black father and a white mother to be the real reason for her social banishment, even though she always immediately suspected exactly this kind of injustice.
“If you think it’s something they grow out of,” Nancy said, “try being the only single girl at a big dinner party on Park Avenue.”
“Or Brentwood,” Hilary added.
“The veal, she is here,” Russell announced, carrying a steaming tray to the table and presenting it with a flourish, dipping it ostentatiously in Carlo’s direction. “Why don’t we just pass it?”
“Looking good,” Carlo said. “Nice glaze. That’s the sign of a chef who knows how to make a sauce.”
“Oh my God,” Nancy said, “my eyes feel fat just looking at that thing.”
Corrine stood up to help with the side dishes.
“Russell has decided it’s fall, despite the weather.”
“And that’s pink Peruvian salt in the little black dish,” the host pointed out.
Washington looked appalled. “Pink Peruvian what?”
“And the other one’s fleur de sel from Gurande.”
“Would a line of either,” Nancy asked, “do a girl any good?”
“This is such an amazing view of the towers,” Judy said, motioning toward the downtown skyline framed in the window. Possibly, she was trying to make up for remarking on her last visit that if they put fifty grand into the place, they’d have “a nice cozy little loft.” Her clientele would consider this raw space, with its exposed wiring, patched walls, and undulant wood floor. Judy had gotten their own loft renovated, trading favors with designers and contractors she worked with.
“It’s nice at night,” Corrine said of the view, “but the thing is, we’re in shadow half the day.”
“What are we drinking?” Jim asked, holding up the bottle.
Oh, Jesus, here it comes, Corrine thought: the wine speech.
“It’s a Super-Tuscan,” Russell said. “Sangiovese and cabernet. We discovered it on a trip a few summers ago. It’s produced at this beautiful hilltop estate outside Greve.”
“What makes it so super?” Nancy asked.
“Throw back six or seven glasses and you’ll be flying,” Jim said. “Able to leap tall buildings.”
“A few more and you’ll be impervious to pain,” Carlo added.
“Here’s to superpowers,” Hilary said, raising her glass.
“It’s a technical term,” Russell explained somewhat peevishly, “for new-style wines grown in the old Chianti region.”
Carlo piled veal onto Nancy’s plate while taking the opportunity with his free hand to squeeze her waist. “Hey, baby, we gotta put some meat on those bones.”
When Corrine returned with the asparagus, her sister was in the middle of one of her movie-star stories.
“So, we’re on this loch, you know, in Scotland. And in between takes, he strips off his clothes and dives in, swims around for a bit. And, you know, the water’s like forty degrees. Then he climbs out and walks across the fucking heather. Heather, gorse, whatever they call it. The best boy and the gaffer are sitting there gawking. They can’t believe what they’re seeing; it’s like a fucking tree trunk. And he notices them staring and he stops and says, ‘What are you fucking looking at? Yours doesn’t shrink in cold water?’”
Corrine had definitely missed something. “Who’s this?”
“Next you’re gonna tell me he can dance,” Washington said.
“It’s actually true,” Cody said.
“Wait a minute,” Corrine said. “When did you ever make a movie in Scotland?”
“How about a little suspension of disbelief?” Jim said.
“It is true,” Nancy said.
“What’s true?”
“What? You’ve, like, seen the organ in question?” Russell asked.
“Actually, no,” said Nancy apologetically, as if at a loss to explain how she had failed to get up close and personal with this particular penis. “But I have a friend who, uh, sampled the goods. And hobbled for three days afterward.”
“Well, then it must be true,” Russell snorted.
“Do I hear the sound of masculine insecurity?” Hilary asked.
Seeing Russell blush, Corrine came to his rescue. “Russell has nothing to be insecure about.”
He rewarded her with a look of sheepish gratitude.
She almost added, At least not that I can remember, since she wasn’t sure when she’d last come into physical contact with the subject of this allusion.
“That’s sweet,” said Nancy. “Of course, Corrine hasn’t been doing a lot of comparative analysis over the last twenty years.”
“Really,” Hilary chimed in. “We’re not too sure about her expertise in this area.” The party girls showing a flash of slutty solidarity.
Corrine laughed with the rest, although she resented the implication. How did they know what she’d been up to? She was sick and tired of playing the role of model wife for their friends, for whom Calloway was a byword for marital stability—or was it stagnation? Everyone had long since forgotten their separation, their decade-old troubles; she wanted to jump up and remind them, say, Hey, remember when I fucked his best friend?
She wanted to say that people have secrets—even secret lives. True, her own portfolio of secrets was slim and yellowing with age. A long flirtation with Duane Peters that stopped just short of consummation. And, long ago, Jeff Pierce, Russell’s best friend and alter ego… the bittersweetness of that love sealed forever by his death. Hardly a day went by—no, that wasn’t true. The saddest thing of all was that many days did go by without her thinking of Jeff, though she had for a long time afterward. She and Russell had survived that revelation, barely, partly because she’d downplayed it, made it sound like a one-off, an accidental crime of opportunity. She’d thought of Jeff again tonight while listening to Jim, who had some of the same reckless charm, that Dionysian air of passionate excess, although Jeff had a streak of self-loathing that counterbalanced his egotism… and anyway, it all began
to seem faintly ludicrous—like long hair—beyond a certain age. Fame, however, could extend that horizon almost indefinitely—especially for men. Cody Erhardt, for example. Who was a little overweight and currently a little drunk.
“I grew up in the era of the existential hero,” Erhardt was saying, pounding the table with his fist. “We’d inherited modernism and we were running with it. The quest for meaning in a meaningless universe. Breathless, La Dolce Vita, Taxi Driver. We took up the challenge when the novelists retreated to their universities and their metafictional masturbation. It was a tag-team event between rock and roll and the, if you will excuse the expression, cinema—the search for authenticity. That was back in the seventies, when you guys were watching Sesame Street. Seven years ago, I saw Pulp Fiction and I thought, Fuck me, I’m over the hill. That’s it. That was pretty much the birth of the ironic hero. The whole wink-and-nudge school of directorial sensibility. The glorification of the inauthentic and the ersatz. Everything I believe in’s thoroughly out of date.”
Was it her imagination, Corrine wondered, or was there a little cross-table chemistry between Jim and Hilary, who seemed to be aiming her Hollywood reminiscences in his direction.
“I had a part in that movie,” she was saying. “Just a walk-on. I was the girl who gets out of the cab just before the motorcycle chase scene.”
“I remember that,” Jim said. “But what exactly was the dramatic justification for your toplessness?”
Hilary threw a piece of bread across the table at him. “I wasn’t.”
“If only,” Carlo said. “Jesus.” Staring at Hilary’s chest, he seemed genuinely moved by this hypothetical vision. His large appetites were part of his charm, though probably not to his wife. He seemed, to Corrine, like an octopus—reaching out with one hand for the bread and meat, smoking with another, drinking with yet another, while simultaneously groping the nearest females in sight, drawing everything toward his mouth, which couldn’t possibly be big enough….