As they approach the dining room, he takes her arm and stage-whispers, “This building was designed by Stanford White, you know.”
Fernanda’s seen that film, she thinks. She chances it, shyly.
“Wasn’t he that famous architect with the mistress? The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing? Wasn’t he murdered by her husband?”
“Evelyn Nesbit. That’s the one!” He beams at her delightedly. “Granddad was there when he was shot. It was White, you know, who added that wing to the house.”
“Really?” Fernanda is genuinely impressed. History has happened to someone he knew. She feels so … small-town.
Passing through the dining room’s double doors, she’s impressed by a pair of giant crystal chandeliers that could never light so vast a room were it not for the mirrors between the windows. On the parquet floor there’s the largest oriental carpet Fernanda’s ever seen. It stretches from the oak-paneled walls to the stone fireplace and, on its patterned surface, circular tables have been laid with damask cloths and candles and silver flatware.
The captain has just seated them near a window overlooking Fifth Avenue and the Park when a wizened waiter arrives to take their drink order.
“Have whatever you like,” Clary Howell offers solicitously. Not solicitously, paternally, Fernanda decides.
Because she’s grown used to an initial strangeness when she goes out with older men. While she doesn’t feel the slightest generational difference at all (naturally), her escorts tend to try to treat her gingerly, like a daughter, or a niece. And she doesn’t mind, to tell the truth. Now and then it seems almost charming, although it does suggest that they’re not taking her seriously, she thinks, nor themselves as her “date.” More often than not, the experience makes her feel she should just order a Shirley Temple and give up.
“I’ll have white wine,” she says firmly to the waiter.
Since that night at the casino, Fernanda’s avoided mixed drinks, especially Bloody Marys.
“I’ll have a glass of red, whatever’s good tonight,” her escort adds as their waiter proffers a stiff white card on a silver tray. He scribbles on the card and hands it back.
“Well, now.” His hands folded on the tablecloth, he regards her … playfully.
Niece-time, Fernanda thinks.
“Well, Mr. Howell,” she says, “Welcome to the city. And I imagine you’re looking forward to that wine?”
“Now how did you guess how much I’d like a glass of wine tonight? Traffic on the Expressway was God-awful this morning, and the medical stuff was worse. The whole damned thing made me remember just why it is I come into the city so seldom anymore.” That sweet sidewise grin. She’d forgotten that. “Although I’ll admit, sometimes, I miss it.”
“But you’re all right? With the doctors, I mean.”
“No, no, I’m as all right as they expect me to be. I’m just a bit stressed this evening, that’s all.’
‘I retired – it must be sixteen years ago – but coming in to the city every day never seemed this much of an effort back then. Maybe because I enjoyed what I did so much.”
“What did you do back then? She waits politely for the law firm or Wall Street.”
“Oh, I see. You thought because I lecture at post on Long Island now that it was a “retirement” thing. Well, no. I’ve always been a teacher. I taught ‘Love and Death in Early Medieval Society’ at Columbia, for starters.”
Fernanda sits back in her chair. So much for Shirley Temple.
“I had no idea. Whatever got you interested in such an obscure subject?”
He grins and takes a sip of water. “I’ve no idea myself. Or possibly, it was the fact that the old man – about whom I was, and still am, ambivalent – didn’t expect me to do anything at all. Like him.”
“You mean he didn’t work?”
“That’s right. No one in the family has worked in generations. I’m the first.”
He squares his shoulders. He’s proud.
Fernanda’s never known anyone who didn’t need to work. She’d always supposed that was the kind of thing limited to the occupants of English country houses on public television. Or, she realizes now, the descendants of the kinds of people who were there when Stanford White was shot. Still, who would willingly spend a lifetime not working? What purpose would there be to life? How would you feel, well … worthwhile? And what would you do with yourself if you didn’t work?
She couldn’t ask, though.
“I’m sorry for you, and I have to say I’m puzzled about your family. I think I’d always want to work, no matter what. But I guess, too, I’m kind of impressed.”
“I understand why you’re sorry, although I can’t say I would have understood that when I was young. But nobody’s parents worked then. Or rather, nobody I grew up with worked. It was when I was at boarding school that I decided I wanted to do something useful with my life, not just tennis and shooting and winters in Aiken. So after Harvard, I made up my mind to teach.” He tests the edge of his knife on his thumb, refolds his napkin. “And I’d always been interested in medieval Europe. Ever since seeing Bergman’s Seventh Seal, I guess. How’s that for highbrow inspiration? You’re too young to know that one, I guess.”
“No. I know it.”
Did she give away something there?
“You do?” he asks. “I didn’t think people your age were even aware of Bergman.”
Fernanda hurries on.
“Oh yes it’s a kind of cult thing for some of us. Do you like movies? I do.”
“Are you kidding? I practically grew up in the local movie theater. Brother Waldo and I went to a double feature at the Manor every Saturday and Sunday afternoon from about the age of six, I guess, on.”
So did I, Fernanda is ready to confess when the menus arrive. And the ticket cost twelve cents, remember?
After he orders (“and the lady will have the trout”) he turns to her expectantly.
“Tell me about our painting.”
“Our” painting. Oh, she warms to that. And is he a little less fatherly, now? Unless it’s the wine.
“Well,” she begins, “you’re incredibly lucky, because this is the best moment to have a magic name like Botticelli to sell. So besides the museum interest – which we’d normally expect – there are the foreign buyers now, the Russians, of course. You may have read about it all in the Times, although everyone’s very into Contemporary these days. Still, the Russians like their “names.” And your painting is certainly a name. And …” she pauses dramatically, “it’s fresh to the market, too, which means it hasn’t been auctioned every five or ten years or so. Buyers love that.”
“Where is it now? Are you showing it to the public? Or is it draped in garlands of popcorn – or hundred-dollar-bills – in Berger’s executive offices?”
Fernanda laughs aloud, then covers her mouth and glances around. No one is looking.
“Right now it’s sitting in its nice humidified room with all the other paintings on panel. We can’t have it warping on our watch.”
“But how does this work? I’ll be frank with you, Fernanda. One of my boys suggested I ask about your commission. He thought, maybe, because our painting was going to have such a high estimate, Berger’s might be willing to accept less than its usual – what is it? – twenty-five percent?”
He covers his awkwardness by sipping at his wine, which has just arrived.
“I have a surprise for you, Mr. Howell.”
“Clary, please.”
“Well, then, I’ll be Fernanda, okay?”
They smile at each other, and a feathery tickle of – is it hope? – prolongs her smile.
“What’s your surprise?” he says.
“Berger’s will absorb the commission on the sale. Which means it won’t cost you a thing. We’ll also absorb all subsidiary costs, and we’re planning to give it a full four pages in the catalogue. The department has made the decision to go all-out on your picture, Clary. And it’s just my personal opini
on,” she leans towards him, lowering her voice while noticing that something he’s wearing is fragrant with something like … wood smoke? “But it’s not impossible that your Botticelli will go for many millions of dollars.”
Fernanda pauses to butter a length of crispy toast and to savor his reaction.
“But if you’re doing all that, how will Berger’s make anything on the sale? And what about you? Are you getting credit for it? Or a raise?”
Fernanda’s astonished. More than that, she’s touched. This was the last thing she’d expected him to say.
“Oh, we’ll still have our twelve percent buyer’s premium, you know. That’s the extra percentage the buyer pays on top of the winning bid. “Besides,” with her palms she cools the wine-flush on her cheeks, “I’m not exactly well paid, but I love, love, love what I do, and Berger’s is thrilled with this ‘find’. And I think they do appreciate me. Now, how’s that?”
“Perfect,” says Clary, raising his glass to her. “So I needn’t worry about you at all.”
If he only knew how much he should worry about her.
Their starters arrive, and during the course of dinner she realizes she hasn’t been treated to such a gracious meal in all these months in Manhattan. And absolutely not by anyone even close to this appealing.
But of course he’d appeal to me, she thinks, relishing the trout. We’re about the same age. We share a past. Our values are alike.
True, many of the snowballs are her contemporaries. That’s exactly why many of them are even bearable. But on the whole, they carry metaphoric blue pills: giant egos; self-centeredness, lots of arrogance. Plus actual blue pills, of course.
Clary Howell, on the other hand, hasn’t made the slightest overture or (except for taking her coat) even touched her. And he isn’t weighting this civilized dinner conversation with smarmy double-entendres, either, which only confirms her initial opinion: he’s what used to be called a gentleman.
By the time their espresso arrives, Fernanda has made up her mind.
“Would you like to come up to my apartment after dinner? I think I’m not willing to part with you so soon.”
“You beat me to it,” he grins. “And wasn’t that my line, anyway?”
“Hey, women are empowered these days. You and I are equals, I hope you know.”
“I do know, and I’m inclined to think you’re very much more equal than I am. You’re a city girl, at least … er, woman. I’m only the visiting country mouse.”
“From all the way out there in rustic Locust Valley?” Fernanda nibbles at the last macaroon. “You might have a point, though.”
“Well, you may think we’re sophisticated,” he continues, “and we may even be sophisticated in a certain way – but we’re also pretty provincial out there. And limited. Different from Manhattan in so many ways.” He glances around at the glittering room and its decorous diners. “Being with you this evening – being part of this world again – has been, well, I have to say it, reinvigorating.”
He sets his napkin on the table.
“Ready?”
Fernanda smoothes and folds her own napkin neatly, pats it down on the tablecloth and stands. “Reinvigorating.” What does that mean?
“I’m ready.”
With a practiced flourish, Fernanda throws open the door to her apartment and waits for the usual reaction to her astonishing view. But Clary surprises her once again.
“What a nice place,” he comments. “Somehow, I’d imagined a young woman like you would want something modern, but this is furnished like … my house.”
“You’re right!” She’s incredibly pleased, “although of course it doesn’t compare. “I suppose you could say I sort of … grew up with old things. I have kind of an old soul.” She takes a huge, deep breath. “Anyway, I feel more, well, ‘myself’ around things like these. Would you like red or white? And please sit.”
She’s feeling oddly keyed-up.
“Red, please.”
Fernanda busies herself with the wine. She hears a lamp switch click, and turns to see him studying the paintings. His back to her, he remarks, “It looks like you’ve collected some really interesting things. Not that I know anything about art.” He turns to catch her eye, and smiles. “As no one knows better than you.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she sees him drift to another wall. There are gaps all over it now: the mothers and children are hidden away.
“Have you been collecting long? I guess, given your background, you have.”
My background, Fernanda thinks. What background?
“Not really. I came into some money recently, so most of what you see – actually all of what you see – I’ve bought within the last several months.”
“Really?” He looks at the paintings more intently.
She hands him a glass half-full of garnet wine, and he takes it by the stem but doesn’t sniff, which, for no earthly reason, makes her very glad. As he brings it to his lips, she becomes aware that something about his being here in her apartment, something about him, is making her more than usually conscious of herself. Of her body. A warm sort-of-tenderness is mixing just now, she’s becoming aware, with some serious – and growing – lust.
“Thanks so much,” he says, taking a sip, placing the glass carefully on the coffee table, relaxing back into his chair and taking in the room. “Well, you obviously have a wonderful eye.” His eyes return to her. “It was you who recognized the Botticelli, wasn’t it? Tell the truth.” Fleetingly, his smile reveals the boy he must have been: soft-eyed, ruddy, that same sturdy jaw.
Fernanda settles at the sofa’s edge and crosses her legs at the knee. She hears the sexy swish of skin brushing skin, and hopes he hears it, too. Balancing her wine glass on her knee, she touches his arm.
“Clary?”
He turns to her expectantly.
“Do you want to sit here and discuss my paintings or would you rather come to the bedroom?”
He goes pale.
Oh God, she’s misjudged him again. She watches the apology gathering behind his eyes.
He’s appalled. Disappointed. Her heart shrinks into its shell.
“Oh, Fernanda.” He falters. “What a nice invitation. In fact I did think for a moment you’re asking me here was the clichéd figment of an old man’s imagination.”
Awaiting the inevitable “but,” Fernanda grips the sofa’s arm.
“Oh, please don’t say any more, Clary. That was so inappropriate. I can’t imagine what came over me.”
For a second time with Clary Howell, Fernanda wants to die.
But she can’t imagine. That was so forward. So unlike her actual self. She was just overcome – not just by lust, really, she’s totally at home with lust. But more like yearning. A deep and boundless, Frannie-like, ache.
“But we were both thinking it, weren’t we,” he says, “so it can’t be inappropriate. And you are, frankly,” he leaves his chair and comes to sit beside her, “the most desirable young woman I’ve ever had the good fortune to spend an evening with. But I have a very good – or, to be accurate, very bad – reason for not being able to accept your invitation. Your truly tempting invitation,” he corrects himself and smiles.
He takes her limp right hand and presses it hard against his chest.
“It’s my heart. Here, Fernanda. Feel. I have an ICD in there, an implantable defibrillator. And it’s there because without it, I’ll have a heart attack. They set the thing to fire any time my heart rate beats dangerously fast. Like during sex.”
Tenderly, he returns her hand to her lap and looks away from her. He covers his eyes with his hand.
“My wife and I didn’t have sex for three years before she died. I’ve never told anyone that.” He looks up. “We had a wonderful marriage, and she minded – I know she did – but she never mentioned it. Ours, you may have heard, was the Silent Generation.” He smiles wryly and rotates the stem of his glass. “I’m sure you’re astounded to hear that people my age even
care about sex. They do, though. We did.”
She is silent, too. It was her generation, after all.
He stands and walks to the window wearily, to take in her marvelous view, and Fernanda stares at her lap, unwilling to see him in pain. After a moment or two, he comes back to sit beside her. “Aside from that, and from having to give up playing singles,” an unconvincing chuckle, “I’m fine.”
Clary pulls her close.
“Now here’s the other thing I have to say.
‘I think if I were ever to look for someone else – and I don’t say I’m not lonely and haven’t thought about it … I think she would have to be someone my own age. Not that you’re not dazzling, Fernanda dear. You’re everything a man might want and more. Smart, warmhearted, talented, beautiful. It’s only that women my own age, well – they wouldn’t expect so much physically. Not what you need, no doubt, and should certainly have. For instance right now, I very much want to go to bed with you, but my heart rate – just thinking about it now” he touches his chest – “could kill me. On top of that, those more mature women,” he squeezes her shoulders regretfully, and she’s, once again, a niece, “well, we’d share the same history. Eisenhower, the Marshall Plan, you know. NASA. Khrushchev. Elvis. So I don’t want you to feel hurt, but I don’t want to spend whatever remains of my life having to explain all my references and allusions. Let alone my jokes.” He forces a crooked smile. “I just don’t have the energy. Or possibly, even, the time.”
And Fernanda has been watching him age as he sits here, and it strikes her, all at once, what a long, long day this must have been for Clary Howell. And that he really should be starting for home right this minute, before he takes another sip of wine, before he says another well-meant, awkward word. More crucially, before she succumbs to her own overwhelming desire to tell him everything about St. Louis and Stanley and Randi. To tell him that Frannie Turner – who might well be resurrected very soon – is precisely the woman he needs.
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