“I don’t need to hear this,” Janey said.
“Yeah? Well, you do. Because you’ve been hearing a lot of drivel from Comstock Dibble. Jesus, Janey. The guy wants to fuck you. You’re a smart girl, or at least you pretend you are. You know men will say anything to get laid.”
“He doesn’t need to.”
“Oh. So you’d just fuck him anyway? Who are you kidding, Janey? We both know how you are. Did he pay for this house?”
“He’s in love with me.”
Bill pulled deeply on the joint. “Janey,” he said, holding the smoke in his lungs and then exhaling. “Comstock Dibble is one of the most ruthless men in the movie business. He’s incredibly charming until he gets what he wants. When he’s finished with you, he’ll drop you so fast you won’t know what hit you. You’ll turn around and every door will be locked and bolted behind you. Get it?”
“I don’t believe you,” Janey said. “I’m so sick of hearing this kind of shit from people. You’re just jealous because he’s more successful than you are—”
“I know actresses who have slept with him. Beautiful actresses. Do you think you’re the only one who wants to sleep with him? Do you think you’re doing him a favor because he’s ugly? Get a clue. Does he fuck you up the butt? And only fuck you up the butt? Because that’s what he does. So there’s no risk of anyone getting pregnant.”
Janey was silent.
“Considerate, ain’t he?” Bill said. “If there’s one thing an old Hollywood hand knows, it’s how to avoid those messy situations called life.”
“Get out,” Janey said quietly.
“I’m going,” he said, standing up and pulling on his shirt. “I’ve said my piece.”
“I knew I shouldn’t have talked to you on the beach that day.”
“That’s right. You probably shouldn’t have.”
“You want to destroy everyone else’s dreams just because your own have been destroyed.”
“Oh Janey,” he said sadly. “Where do you pick up that kind of sentimental crap?”
“I’m just trying to do something with my life!”
“So do something with it. But at least be honest about it. Put in an honest day’s work and take your lumps like everybody else.” He went out and banged the screen door behind him. Then he came back. “You’re right about one thing,” he shouted through the screen. “We are alike. We’re both pathetic!”
* * *
They didn’t speak for a week, but then they ran into each other on the beach again. They pretended that nothing had happened, but it seemed like a pall had been cast over the summer. Every day was ninety degrees. The little cottage was stifling, and the attic bedrooms were unbearable at night, so Janey had taken to sleeping fitfully on the couch. She tried to write in the mornings, but found, after thirty-eight pages, she couldn’t go on. She had gotten to the part where “the girl” (as Janey had come to think of the main character) is on the movie set for the first day, and the director comes into her trailer and guilts her into giving him a blow job. The story was supposed to be about her life as a model and actress and the struggles she’d gone through to be taken seriously as a person, but it seemed to have no point. Where would it end? Everybody said you had to have sex in Hollywood to get ahead. Why had she believed it? It hadn’t helped her. But once you did it a couple of times, it got you over the shame of having to do it again.
Or so you thought.
A strange incident happened. She was in the King Kullen supermarket when she spotted Helen Westacott in the condiment aisle. Janey hurried past with her head down, hoping that Helen wouldn’t see her, but when she looked back, Helen was staring at her with a strange, conniving expression on her little face. Janey kept thinking that she saw Helen out of the corner of her eye—in front of the soft drinks, by the meat counter, near the toothpaste; but every time she looked up, Helen wasn’t there. Janey did her shopping quickly, picking up the few items she’d come in for, and when she was checking out, her cart was bumped softly from behind.
Janey looked up. Helen was behind her, her hands on a cart, her two sons next to her. Helen said nothing, just stared. The two boys, who were beautiful and dark-haired with large brown eyes, gazed at her curiously. Janey gave Helen a half smile and noticed with horror that her cart was empty.
Helen followed her out through the parking lot. Janey wanted to run, but realized this would give Helen too much satisfaction. Then Helen veered off and got into her car.
Janey went to parties, but the people at the parties were always the same, and everybody had run out of things to say to one another. They asked her about her screenplay. “I wrote five more pages,” she’d lie. She got drunk a lot.
Comstock left to stay on some movie star’s yacht in the Greek Islands. Janey was hoping he’d ask her to go with him, but when she mentioned it, all he said was “I already got you a house.” This was not a good sign. Then she asked him if they could have sex the regular way, and he said he wouldn’t be able to get a hard-on. This was not a good sign, either. He promised he’d be back in three weeks, in time for Patty’s wedding on Labor Day weekend.
“I’m just trying to be your friend,” Bill said. “Do you know what a big deal that is for me?”
It seemed like the summer would never end.
VIII
“Okay, everybody! Remember, at the end of the day, it’s just another party.” The wedding planner, a slim young man with floppy dark hair, clapped his hands. “Do we all know our places? Patty, I know you know what to do. Any other questions?”
Janey’s mother, Monique, raised her hand.
“Yes, Mrs. Wilcox?” the young man said faux-patiently.
“I do not weesh to walk barefoot. I weesh to wear my shoes.”
“Mrs. Wilcox,” the young man said, as if he were explaining to a small child, “we all decided that no one is going to wear shoes. It’s a barefoot wedding. It said so on the invitation.”
“But the feet. They are so ugly.”
“I’m sure your feet are very beautiful, Mrs. Wilcox, just like the rest of you.” The young man paused for a moment, looking around the room. “This is the social event of the season, folks. So let’s make it dazzle!”
There was a round of applause. Janey looked over at her mother. She was just as bossy and self-centered as ever. Almost since the moment Monique had arrived for the wedding two days ago, she’d been nothing but trouble, questioning the caterers, flirting with the cameraman (someone was making a documentary of the wedding for Lifetime), and terrorizing Digger’s mother, Pammy, to the point where Pammy, a small gray-haired woman with a perm, a flat midwestern accent, and a Samsonite suitcase full of Keds sneakers, now refused to come out of her room.
“Janey,” her mother had said within an hour of her arrival, “what is this nonsense I hear about you writing something? Patty is the smart one. You must work on your modeling and on finding a husband. In two years it will be too late for the children and then you will not be able to find a man. A man does not want a wife who cannot bear his children.”
“Maman, I don’t want a husband,” Janey said between clenched teeth.
“You girls are so foolish,” her mother said, lighting up a cigarette (she chain-smoked Virginia Slims). “This business of living without a man is nonsense. In five years you will be very, very sorry. Look at Patty. She is the smart one to marry this Deegar. He is young and he is reech. You don’t even have a boyfriend.”
“Well, Patty always was the perfect one, Maman,” Janey said bitterly.
“No, she is not perfect. But she is smart. She knows she has to work at life. You are very beautiful, Janey. But even if you are very beautiful, you must work at life.”
“Maman, I do work at life,” Janey said. “That’s why I’m writing.”
Her mother rolled her eyes and blew smoke out her nostrils. Her hair was perfectly coiffed into a blond helmet, and she still wore frosted pink lipstick. It was so typical of her, Janey thought. She was always
right and always dismissive of how she, Janey, might really feel; Janey’s feelings were completely irrelevant unless they dovetailed perfectly with hers.
“Your mother is soooo fantastic!” Swish Daily kept saying. He’d designed Patty’s and Janey’s dresses (Janey was the only bridesmaid), and had cut short his vacation on the Italian Riviera to be there.
“My mother is very old-fashioned,” Janey said dryly.
“Oh no. Quite the opposite. She’s absolutely modern,” Swish said. “So chic. And soooo seventies. Every time I look at her I want to start singing ‘Mrs. Robinson.’”
The wedding planner held up his arm and tapped his wristwatch. “Fifteen minutes until the guests start arriving,” he said. “Places, everyone.”
It seemed like everyone had been waiting weeks for Patty’s wedding. The guest list included four hundred people and was A-list, meaning the people on it were either famous, or had a recognizable tag line after their name, such as “editor in chief of fashion magazine” or “architect to the famous.” Janey didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. For the past ten years she’d been climbing the Hamptons’ social ladder, trying to stay in the best houses and going to the best parties, and in one season Patty had arrived on the scene and floated effortlessly to the highest rung. She and Digger had a genuine nonchalance about it, as though they really hadn’t noticed, which was coupled with an attitude of careless entitlement, as if it were completely natural—even inevitable—that they should find themselves in this position. And meanwhile, Janey felt like she was begging for scraps: allowing herself to become the secret lover of a powerful man who fucked her up the ass so she couldn’t get pregnant, and attempting to enter a new career in which even she, despite her arrogance, could see that she had no aptitude for.
How had this happened, she wondered, as she smiled and greeted the guests, delicately holding a glass of champagne between her thumb and forefinger. She had obviously made a wrong turn somewhere, but where? Why hadn’t anyone ever told her?
“Janey!” Peter called, sweeping her into his arms and lifting her off her feet. “I haven’t seen you all summer. You look fantastic, as always.” Peter! Well, of course he was invited, he was Digger’s lawyer. “I’ve been thinking about you. We should get together.”
“We should,” Janey said, noncommitally.
“Hey, you know Gumdrop died.”
“Oh Peter. I’m so sorry,” she said.
“Yeah, well, dogs are like women. They can always be replaced.” He moved on with a half smile. How sad he was. In ten years, he’d be fifty-five. What would happen to him then?
“Hello, Janey,” Redmon said.
“Oh Redmon,” Janey said. She kissed him on both cheeks. “I’m sorry about . . . about last summer . . .”
“What about last summer?” Redmon said. “All I remember is that I had a great time.”
“Well, then. So did I,” Janey said.
“Well, well, sister of the bride. I hope it’s not always a bridesmaid, never a bride.”
“Zack!”
“Had your good summer, luv?”
“Oh yes. And I didn’t even have to spank anyone.”
“Harold my darling.” She bent over and gave him a hug.
“I so wish this was your day, crazy kid. Maybe next year, huh?”
“Maybe,” Janey said. She looked up past the crowd. A large chauf-feured Mercedes was pulling into the driveway. The driver hopped out and opened the door. Comstock got out, stretched, and looked around. Then the driver went around to the other side. He must have brought the movie star with him, Janey thought, but instead, a tall, dark-haired woman got out. She came happily around the back of the car. Comstock took her hand.
“Janey! You look so pretty!” Allison said. She leaned in. “Did you see Zack Manners? He looks terrible. You must be so happy you’re not with him. I heard he was pulled over for drunk driving and got caught stuffing a vial of cocaine into his sock. Socks! In the summer! When is your house over?”
“Tomorrow,” Janey said. “But my landlord said I could have it for an extra day.”
“Goodie. I’ll come and visit you,” Allison said.
“Sure,” Janey said. She watched Comstock approaching out of the corner of her eye. She knew that woman he was with . . . why was he holding her hand and whispering in her ear . . . he looked so pleased with himself, and so did she . . . oh God . . . she was that socialite—the one who’d been married to that Hollywood guy and then that guy who ran for president—but she was so ugly! She had a face like a horse, you could tell even though she was wearing huge black sunglasses like she was afraid of being recognized. . . . She was supposed to be really scary and really rich: What was he doing with her?
“Hello, Janey,” he said.
“Comstock,” she faltered.
“I’d like to present my fiancée. Morgan Binchely.”
“Hello,” Janey said. She couldn’t take her eyes off his face. She hadn’t seen him for three weeks, and for the first time she saw that beneath the ugliness was cruelty. His eyes were cruel. Without those cruel eyes, he could have never overcome his ugliness. People would have dismissed him or taken advantage. He smiled, his pink lips parting slightly to reveal the gap in his teeth. His expression seemed to sneer Show me.
She’d show him, all right.
“This is happy news,” she said. “When did you get engaged?”
“In Greece,” Morgan said. The accent in her voice hinted at finishing schools and horseback riding in Connecticut. “It was quite a surprise, I must say.” She tightened her hold on his arm. “We’d only been seeing each other for—what?—six months?”
“That’s right,” Comstock said.
”Mon dieu! Mr. Comstock Dibble?” Janey’s mother said, suddenly appearing at her side. “But I should curtsy. You are a king. A king of the movies!”
“This is my mother, Monique,” Janey said.
“I know all your films,” her mother said, dramatically placing her hand on her heart.
“You’re very kind,” Comstock said.
“You are a friend of Janey’s?” her mother inquired, linking her arm through hers.
“Janey is writing something for me.”
“I see,” her mother said curiously.
“Excuse me,” Janey said.
“Janey!” Comstock said
Janey turned. She looked at Comstock and shook her head.
“Tch! Let her go,” her mother said. “She is always—how you call it—martyr.”
They all laughed.
IX
“What I’d like to do now is to go around the room and have everybody introduce themselves. And please say a few words about why you’re here.” The instructor, a fifty-year-old man with a mustache and an ill-fitting suit that looked like it had been dry-cleaned too many times, nodded at a woman in the front row. “Why don’t we start with you,” he said.
“Well,” the woman said. “I’m Susan Fazzino and I’m forty-three . . .”
“We don’t need ages,” the instructor said.
“Okay . . . I’m married and I’ve got two kids, a boy and a girl, and I was a teacher and I’m looking for a way to make more money. With flexible hours.”
“Very good,” the instructor said. “But if your career in real estate takes off, you’ll be working twelve hours a day.”
“Oh! I didn’t know that.”
Janey sat back in her chair and tapped her pencil on her notebook. God, this was boring. She’d only been in the course for ten minutes, but already her mind was wandering.
“I’m Nelson Pavlak . . .”
Well, she supposed she was lucky to have gotten off as easily as she did. “Janey,” Comstock had said. He actually had the nerve to stop by her house the next afternoon on his way back to the city as she was packing up her things. “Nothing has to change just because I’m getting married. We can continue. Morgan knows me. She knows that I’m not going to be faithful to her. She just doesn’t want it in her fa
ce.”
“Why would anyone marry a man who they knew was going to cheat?” Janey said viciously. “She must be pretty desperate.”
“She’s European,” he said, unwrapping a cigar. And then: “Christ, Janey. Don’t be so conventional. It’s such a bore.”
“Do you fuck her up the butt too?” Janey asked, folding towels.
“Actually, I don’t. We’re trying to get pregnant. . .”
“. . . I’m Nancy McKnight. And I’ve always wanted to be a real estate agent . . .!”
“. . . Everybody knows why he’s marrying her,” Allison had said. “And it’s not love. She’s got money. And status. I’ll give her that. But doesn’t she understand that he’s using her? Someone should warn her. Christ on a cross. She must be forty-five. She’s already been married twice. You’d think by now she’d know better.”
“She’s what he wants,” Janey had said. She was surprised at how little she felt, considering she’d thought she was madly in love with him.
“Of course,” Allison said, pouring herself the last of Janey’s wine. “Think about it. No matter how much money he has, or success, or power—I mean, who cares if he is the head of a movie company and hangs out with actors—the one thing he couldn’t get was Fifth Avenue. What co-op board,” she asked, “would let him in?”
“Now they all will,” Janey said. She imagined Comstock in the lobby of a glossy Fifth Avenue apartment building. His suit would be wrinkled and he’d be sweating, handing out twenty-dollar tips to the doormen . . . .
“. . . And what about you?” the instructor said, nodding at Janey.
Janey jumped.
“I’m . . . Janey Wilcox. The model,” she said. “Or anyway, I used to be a model. I’m . . . trying to change my life. So I thought I should probably change my career as well . . .”
“We have lots of people who change from another career into real estate. But how much education do you have? There’s a lot of math involved in real estate.”
“Well,” Janey said. “I have a year and a half of college . . . and I think I used to be good at math when I was a kid.”
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