A Certain Age

by Beatriz Williams

  He’s mine, yes, the Boy is thoroughly mine once more.

  The Boy has principles, and he’s not going to engage in unbridled sexual intercourse with a woman if his intentions aren’t fixed upon marriage.

  SPEAKING OF MARRIAGE! THERE SHE is now, the blushing bride. I’ll admit she looks ravishing, far more than she ought. Her dress is cherry-red and trimmed in jet, and her hair, without actually being bobbed, is parted on the side and arranged in ripples over her ears, then gathered at her neck in such a way that it suggests bobbing. I believe she’s actually wearing lipstick. She’s standing under a palm tree with Julie Schuyler, sipping champagne—Sylvo’s vintage Pol Roger is being sacrificed for the occasion—and when she turns the other way I can’t help noticing that her dress plunges into an alluring U at the back, adorned by a web of jet beads dangling right down her spine. I believe I’ve got a similar necklace myself.

  “Holy cow,” says Billy, handing me a martini. “Who’s that?”

  I tip the glass to my lips and drizzle a measure of gin down my throat before I reply. “Your new aunt.”

  There’s a second or two of awe.

  “I need another drink,” Billy says, and he turns on his heel and heads back to the bar in the Amazon.

  Left adrift, I turn to engage a few ladies to my right. Of the Boy, there’s no trace. I suspect he’s curing in the smoke of the library with the other recluses. It took me ages to persuade him to attend the party at all—he insists that we shouldn’t make our association public until after the divorce—and so we’ve got to continue pretending cordial indifference, to the amusement of our guests. The blushing groom is equally absent—no, there he is, chatting in the corner, looking starched and handsome in the muted lighting, merely mellowed instead of dissipated—and my attention falls on a woman standing by herself, a few feet from Ox’s shoulder, looking as if she’s been elbowed aside by a more ambitious arm and doesn’t particularly care.

  I murmur a flattering excuse to my companion and edge my way through the throng—growing nicely, it seems, while a column of new recruits still marches two-by-two past the welcoming jungle—toward this unfamiliar woman, whose face reminds me of someone I’ve met before.

  To be sure, the face is unadorned, and the dress beneath it—dark green, high-waisted, long-skirted—is as old and tired as her hairstyle. I’d call her pretty, except that beauty’s the last thing on her mind. Her lips are pale, and her eyes are dull. Her skin is creamy and unlined, suggesting youth, except for the faint furrows that appear between her brows, when you approach close enough to say hello. Not a trace of rouge or powder or blacking, and still she arrests you. It’s her eyebrows, I think, thick and straight and slanted a few degrees upward at the ends; or else the shape of her bones, which are graceful and permanent beneath that lackluster skin, rescuing her from plainness. Austere, I think they call it, and nothing like the big-eyed, heart-shaped charm of Miss Sophie Fortescue. Except—

  “Why, you’re her sister, aren’t you?” I burst out, quite unlike me.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  I extend my hand. “I’m Theresa Marshall. I believe we’re shortly going to become related.”

  “Oh, yes! Of course. Virginia Fitzwilliam.” She shakes my hand, and the touch is far more firm and confident than I might have expected. Her palms aren’t delicate at all. “I believe we missed you when we arrived.”

  “I’m afraid I took entirely too long getting dressed. This headpiece!” I touch a papier-mâché pineapple and laugh. My wrists ache triumphantly at the memory. Bang, bang, bang. “I’m enchanted to meet you at last, however. Sophie’s such a dear, sweet thing. My brother is beside himself.”

  “Indeed,” she replies carefully. “We’re terribly grateful for the welcome. It’s the kind of party one only reads about in the newspapers.”

  “Is it? How kind. But you’ll find yourself accustomed to them in no time, I assure you. Ox loves a good party.”

  “Ox?”

  “My brother. I see you haven’t got a drink yet, which is absolutely scandalous.” I signal to one of the waiters and pluck a glass of champagne from the tray. “Here you are. Go on. It’s not going to kill you, whatever those rabble-rousers say.”

  “I’ve had champagne before, Mrs. Marshall,” says Mrs. Fitzwilliam, rather sternly. “It’s just that my daughter’s been ill, and I would rather not indulge myself.”

  “You have a daughter? But you’re so young!”

  She smiles, but it’s not the smile of flattery acknowledged. It’s a smile that says she knows she’s being flattered, and she sees right through you. She extracts a few drops of champagne from her glass and says, “I’m nearly twenty-seven, I’m afraid.”

  “But where’s your husband?” Fingertips to mouth. Quick, shocked gasp. “Not the war, I hope.”

  “My husband’s in Florida at the moment, looking after some investments.” She admits another sip, more generous this time.

  “How very dull. But at least your father’s here, I hope? I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting him yet. Such an accomplished fellow; I think I’ll shiver in my shoes when we’re introduced at last.”

  “He does have that effect.” The smile again. “But he’s not terribly social, I’m afraid. He’s promised to look in for an hour or so, but I expect he’ll just stay in the background.”

  “Well, do bring him over to say hello, at least. It won’t do for us to meet for the first time at the ceremony.” Mrs. Fitzwilliam looks a little uncertain, and I add: “The marriage ceremony, I mean.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  We appear to have exhausted Mrs. Fitzwilliam’s capacity for conversation, and yet I find I can’t quite abandon her to the wolves. I cast about, and my desperate gaze falls at once upon Sophie Fortescue—well, she’s hard to miss, isn’t she, all jet-beaded and cherry-dazzling—and I remark on how well she seems to be enjoying herself.

  At last, a warm channel opens up in Mrs. Fitzwilliam’s frozen voice. “Sophie’s always had a tremendous capacity for joy. It’s what I love most about her. Everyone does.”

  Those last two words, I think, are unnecessary. Here I stand, still pulsing with confidence, my skin still bearing the imprint of the Boy’s reassuring desire for me, and Mrs. Fitzwilliam must go and say a thing like that. Everyone does. Everyone loves Sophie.

  Really, how uninvited.

  “No doubt,” I say. “She certainly enjoyed herself in Connecticut with Mr. Rofrano, the other weekend. Or so I’ve heard.”

  Rather like the Boy, Mrs. Fitzwilliam doesn’t react much to the stab of this little arrow. The two of them, they’re cut from the same scratch-resistant cloth. But those are the ones who feel it most, aren’t they? The ones who don’t show the scratches.

  “In Connecticut? Oh, yes. I’d forgotten about that.”

  “He drove her all over. They even visited the town where he grew up. I can’t imagine why. He’s just sentimental like that, I suppose.”

  “The town where he grew up,” she repeats. “And where is that, exactly? I don’t recall what Sophie said.”

  “One of the shore towns. Greenwich, I believe.” I tap the corner of my mouth and nod. “Yes. Greenwich.”

  “Greenwich. I see.” She isn’t looking at me, but rather at Miss Fortescue herself, who’s flown over to the corner of the room where the musicians have just filed in. There’s going to be dancing, you see, right after we toast the newly engaged couple and send them off in a happy fox-trot around the drawing room. “I didn’t realize that you and Mr. Rofrano were acquainted, Mrs. Marshall.”

  “Didn’t you? But that’s how Ox found him to begin with, you know. I suggested Mr. Rofrano as the perfect man for the job.”

  “Cavalier, you mean?”

  “Cavalier and private investigator.” I laugh, very light. “One has to make sure one’s dear brother has picked himself out a suitable bride. And Octavian’s marvelously thorough, in everything he does. A perfect fellow for the job.”

 
Mrs. Fitzwilliam’s face is quite pale: though, on second thought, it was pale beforehand, and maybe I’m only now noticing how awfully pale it is. As if her life’s been drained away from her face. She continues to stare across the room and maybe across the Hudson River itself, and her voice is cold, cold. “Then I certainly hope Sophie’s met with your approval.”

  “Naturally she has.”

  Her face turns at last, but not toward me. She looks past my left ear toward the foliage in the foyer. “And there’s my father now. If you’ll excuse me, Mrs. Marshall. I need to have a word with him.”

  I follow her gaze, and to my surprise, the great man looks rather ordinary. He may be earning millions, but they haven’t put a single pound of flesh on his gray-trimmed frame, nor an ounce of ease in his bearing. His ears are enormous, the first thing you notice. He peers around him, bewildered, and lights on our direction with relief.

  “Splendid!” I say. “I’ll come along and you can introduce us.”

  Now she turns and fixes me, and my goodness, you wouldn’t think such a slender, queer, plainish thing could deliver such a ferocious stare. “I’m afraid it’s a private matter, Mrs. Marshall. But I’ll bring him around later.”

  And she walks away from me, just like that. As if she isn’t scared of me a bit.

  AS I SURMISED, THE BOY’S in the library, smoking in the company of the other tobacco-worshipping gentlemen. He’s even speaking to one of them, next to a window that’s been cracked open just enough to support life.

  “There you are,” I say, quite without regard for discretion. I snake my arm through his and smile at his companion, whose name escapes me at the moment, though his face is familiar. I’m told this is a consequence of turning forty. Your brain is so stuffed with useless bits of information that when a new fact trots in, wagging its tail, wanting a treat, something’s got to give.

  The Boy gives me an odd look. “Mrs. Marshall? Is something the matter?”

  “Goodness me, no! Nothing matters anymore, hadn’t you heard?”

  The other gentleman laughs. Canning, that’s it. And his sweetly stout little wife, the one with the earlobes that sag beneath the weight of too many diamonds, because Canning’s money came in railroads and he got out before the creditors got in. Sylvo told me this, many years ago, chuckling as he said it. Wily fellow, that Canning.

  But the Boy doesn’t smile, only lifts his eyebrows expectantly. I ask him if he’s seen the lucky man lying around somewhere.

  “Lucky man?”

  “Why, my brother, of course! I seem to have lost track of him. I don’t know if you’ve caught sight of his fiancée, but she’s making a real stir out there. I’m wondering if it’s time to make the toast before someone gets hurt.”

  The Boy’s eyebrows aren’t satisfied with this answer, but he makes the best of it. “Right over there,” he says, after only a brief pause, and I follow his nod to a cozy pair of armchairs next to the fire, where my brother sits deep in single-malt conversation with my nearly ex-husband, cigars twirling in the breeze.

  I clap my hands, and the room snaps to guilty attention.

  “Gentlemen,” I announce, “if you’ll snuff out your cigars and follow me to the drawing room, it’s time for our main attraction.”

  BY THE TIME WE REACH the drawing room, I’ve exchanged the Boy’s arm for that of the lucky man, who seems to have developed a case of the nerves.

  “You’re awfully quiet, Ox, for a man who’s about to see his dearest dreams come true.”

  “That’s why I’m quiet.”

  “Ox. You, superstitious?”

  “There’s such a thing as things going too well, Sisser,” he whispers back.

  “Nonsense. Buck up. Have you seen her dress?”

  “Sensational, isn’t it?”

  “I suppose that’s one way to describe it.”

  We turn the corner from the hallway, and Rio de Janeiro spreads out before us, populated by a throng of overdressed and half-ossified New Yorkers from the very best families. You can pick out Miss Sophie Fortescue right away. She’s the one holding a glass of champagne (a different one from the first, I’ll bet) and surrounded by all the admiring gentlemen, lapels flapping in eagerness to make a good impression for that moment (soon enough, they’ll bet) when the joys of matrimony wear thin.

  The orchestra leader is watching me dutifully. I make a signal.

  Trumpet flourish.

  Only a short one, however. I enjoy a touch of the theater, but everything must be in good taste. Even my palm trees contain just three or four imitation cocoanuts each. I lead my brother along the obedient parting in the crowd, in the manner of a father walking his daughter down the aisle, to the exact circle where the delectable Sophie awaits, holding her champagne against her cherry-red breast, admirably collected, betraying not a single stray nerve.

  But there’s something wrong, isn’t there? I’ve seen plenty of aspiring brides in my time, believe me, and none of them regards the approach of her beloved with that kind of coy arch to her eyebrows, with that kind of mischievous curl to her bottom lip. As if she’s got a secret she’s just bursting to tell us all. She lifts one hand to fiddle with the tiny beads at her throat, and I’m only slightly mollified to see that she’s still wearing her engagement ring, which splinters the light from three separate electric sconces and sends it dancing in graceful leopard-spot patterns on the walls.

  The warning bells clang in my head. I have the strangest idea that I’ve transformed into Charon, and am leading my poor unwitting brother into the underworld. His palm is awfully damp next to mine. So maybe I’m not crazy. Maybe he’s feeling this, too.

  A swell of applause lifts us along the final steps. Nothing to do but go on, straight into the teeth of Miss Fortescue’s mischievous smile.

  “Mesdames et messieurs.” I reach her and take the ringed left hand into mine, so that I’m standing at the intersection of Fortescue and Ochsner, holding a hand from each, a human link between fiancée and fleeced. “My dear friends. I am so delighted to have you join us this evening, as we celebrate the engagement—at long last—of my darling brother Jay, the light of my life, the thorn in my side, and once the most confirmed bachelor of my acquaintance”—my God, the girl is absolutely squirming now, like a fish on a hook—“to my dear and lovely sister-to-be, Miss Sophie Fortescue. Miss Fortescue—Sophie—let me be the first to embrace you, before I turn you over to my eager brother—”

  “Actually—” says Miss Fortescue, just as I turn to plant a quelling kiss on that dewy young cheek.

  “And now, I give you Ox!” I exclaim, slinging my brother into her arms, in an effort to stifle what comes next.

  “Actually—” she says again, and I signal desperately to the orchestra leader, who whips the musicians into a noisy fox-trot. Ox wraps his hand around her waist and snatches her fingers, spilling champagne on the floor, as if I gave a damn about floors at the moment.

  “ACTUALLY—” she shouts, above the music and the applause and the laughter and Ox’s frantic dancing. “EVERYBODY! WAIT!”

  She tugs herself free from Ox’s embrace and staggers to the orchestra leader, and I’ll be damned if she doesn’t snatch the baton right from the poor fellow’s hand. The musicians—astonished, rudderless—trip all over the notes and land in a discordant heap atop the next measure.

  “That’s better,” says Miss Fortescue, and she doesn’t need to shout this time, because the room has fallen into the most delicate, primeval silence. She spins slowly to the bodies arrayed before her, all the rich and the great in this fair city, and not one of us can move a finger. Not even me. Certainly not Ox. We wait—breathlessly, fearfully—for her to speak.

  The mischievous smile is all flattened out, replaced by a most solemn, big-eyed charm. She touches her rippling hair with one hand and lifts her half-empty champagne glass with the other.

  “I’m afraid there’s been a change of plans,” she says.

  CHAPTER 16

  When you
see what some women marry, you realize how they must hate to work for a living.

  —HELEN ROWLAND

  SOPHIE

  At the very same instant

  FOR THE first time in over two weeks, Sophie experiences a moment of doubt.

  Julie warned her about this, so it’s really no surprise—standing there in front of all those legendary people, wearing a daring dress, holding a champagne glass and a ridiculous baton—that the nerves jolt back to life and fizzle under her skin. The beads stick to her rakishly exposed back. Is it her, or has the room grown intolerably humid in the past few minutes? Or perhaps that’s all part of Mrs. Marshall’s tropical theme.

  Just remember what you’re trying to achieve, darling, Julie said. Remember the alternative if you fail.

  The alternative. Sophie glimpses Jay, entombed in shock at the front of the crowd. A terrified lock of hair has broken free from the glossy shield on top of his head, to drag untended across his brow. Poor Jay. Was she really in awe of him once? He looks like a schoolboy in the grip of some terrible aging disease. A cocoanut hovers dangerously above his skull. He will be terribly, terribly disappointed, won’t he? But he’ll get over it. Some other girl will accompany him to South America, if she can afford it. Some other girl will make the bargain.

  As all these women have. They are all ages, spread out before her, all stages of love and matrimony and divorce. All hair colors, all shapes, all degrees of beauty. Some are dressed fashionably, some frumpily. Some entertain glints of intelligence in their eyes, and some are irreversibly dull. But they have all exchanged their independence for security. Not one woman, Sophie’s willing to bet, ajoins her husband right now, like a loving married couple. Not a Vanderbilt, not an Astor, not a Morgan nor a Schuyler nor any other of the illustrious names ringing in Sophie’s ears, the people with whom she will be expected to associate, as the wife of an old Knickerbocker scion.