A Changed Man

by Francine Prose

  You wouldn’t expect a statement like that to work like a sexual come-on. But it’s funny, how the most unlikely phrase can suddenly make it clear that he and Miss Governor-of-Puerto-Rico’s-daughter could work something out, if they wanted.

  Except that now, from across the room, Vincent sees Bonnie searching for him. Her face has that naked, terrified look you see on mothers yelling for lost toddlers. Does she think he’s gotten stage fright and skipped? Doesn’t she know him better than that? Vincent lets her sweat a minute before he catches her eye and saves her.

  Bonnie stands on tiptoe and waves. But as she comes closer and sees he’s with Colette, her expression changes from relief to…what? Who knows what she’s registering on her female antennae. If Bonnie were anyone else, Vincent would swear that she looked jealous.

  Bonnie can’t find Vincent anywhere. She searches the party, avoiding eye contact with people she should be chatting up, ignoring the sympathetic or irritated expressions of strangers who sense her panic. It’s how she felt when the boys were little and they’d wander off in the supermarket. She used to imagine the grisly scenarios—the voice on the PA system, driving home without them—in such detail that sometimes she’d burst into tears when she finally found Danny and Max in the breakfast-cereal aisle.

  That first day Vincent showed up at Brotherhood Watch, Meyer warned her he might disappear. Since then, she’s worked so hard, given so much of herself. Even so, if he vanishes now, it won’t matter how much she’s done. It will still be her fault. Vincent has to be here.

  Her day has been tough enough. First the New York magazine photographer canceled, then changed his mind, and she’d had to double-check to make sure there were going to be a few semi-celebrities present and willing to pose with Meyer. Which is Roberta’s job. Bonnie called twice to confirm with the city councilman’s wife. Welcome to Fundraisingland. Is this what Meyer meant by kicking things up to a higher level? Besides which, she dreads going to the Met, where it requires an effort not to think about being there with her father.

  She’d made herself stay focused on the Iranian cartoonist, released from jail this morning—who could ask for better timing?—and presently en route to Paris with his wife and children. Another life saved by Brotherhood Watch. It’s the least Bonnie can do to make a couple of phone calls and now nearly faint because she can’t find Vincent.

  When she finally spots him over by the wall, she relaxes, then tenses again. Vincent’s holding a wineglass. Bonnie asked him not to drink. He’s talking to Colette Martinez, the Times journalist who wasted their time and wrote one dinky paragraph. Why isn’t she out doing her job, working the crowd, reporting?

  If Bonnie didn’t know better, she’d think that they were flirting. The former skinhead, the Latina reporter, both reasonably attractive. They make a handsome couple. Why wouldn’t Colette flirt with him? Because Bonnie hasn’t. For Vincent to live with her and the boys has meant ignoring the fact that Bonnie is a woman and Vincent is a man. A fact he’s probably never noticed. Why would he? Bonnie’s a middle-aged divorced mother of two—half a lifetime beyond whatever Vincent and the young woman from the Times may, or may not, be involved in. It knocks the wind right out of her. Bonnie can hardly stand it.

  But why is Bonnie tormenting herself? Forty-one isn’t ancient. Every day, women older than she is marry and have kids. Anyway, Bonnie reminds herself, her annoyance has nothing to do with whatever’s transpiring between Vincent and the reporter. It’s what a coach might feel if he saw his star athlete chatting up some girl right before a game. A player needs to concentrate. Anything else is distraction.

  In twenty minutes, half an hour, depending on how long people take to find their tables and how long Meyer speaks, Vincent will have to get up and tell this terrifying crowd how he was converted from ARM to Brotherhood Watch. Bonnie has spoken to groups of donors, at conferences and board meetings. But she’d find this one difficult. How brave Vincent was to agree.

  She and Roberta decided to schedule the speeches during dinner, instead of at the more usual time—before dessert—on the chance that some guests might have another engagement. And also (Bonnie’s secret reason) because she thought that Vincent might be a more persuasive speaker before he’d had a chance to loosen up and enjoy the evening. But why is she worried about Vincent? He should be worried about her. The last time someone drank too much, it was Bonnie, at Meyer’s. Vincent is worried about her. She sensed it earlier this evening. How tenderly they have begun to monitor each other’s substance intake.

  Bonnie needs to get Vincent and Meyer and start them moving toward their table. So why should she find it humiliating to bear down on Vincent and Colette and break up their tête-à-tête, like some prudish chaperone prying apart a prom couple humping on the dance floor?

  Colette is wearing a tiny black dress, a square yard of sexy perfection, sculptural in its stylish neatness and obscene in its suggestion of how rapidly it could be shed. What made Bonnie think that she could get away with the gown she wore to Danny’s bar mitzvah, a clingy outfit that’s bunched in unflattering creases across her spreading hips?

  “Colette,” she says. “How nice to see you. I loved your little piece in the Times.”

  “Sorry about the littleness,” Colette says. That she can afford to be gracious has something to do with the fact that she’s standing close to Vincent, and Bonnie isn’t.

  Bonnie turns to Vincent. “Showtime!” she says, stiffly.

  “Wish me luck,” Vincent tells Colette.

  “Break a leg,” she says.

  “See you later,” Vincent tells her.

  “Nice to see you,” repeats Bonnie. She takes Vincent’s arm. It’s shockingly pleasurable to feel a male bicep beneath a tuxedo. She practically drags Vincent along as she sets off in search of Meyer.

  Spotting Irene, Bonnie takes a roundabout path to avoid her. Irene will be all over them, staking her territorial claim to the young man whose change of heart has made him the star of the evening. He’s her boy. She sat next to him once at her apartment.

  Vincent lets Bonnie lead him. This is her world, her work. Moved by his faith in her, Bonnie takes a brief but heartfelt vow not to let him down.

  He says, “Don’t say I never did anything for the foundation. I sweet-talked that Rican chick from the New York Times for a good half hour and then you came over and blew all my hard work. Little article. Great.”

  For a moment, Bonnie forgets about Meyer and stops cold, struck by the conspiratorial intimacy of what Vincent has just said, by her certainty that he’s lying about what was happening between him and Colette, and by a sudden dread that he’ll use a word like Rican in his speech. Only Bonnie hears those words now. It’s because he trusts her.

  “Let’s find Meyer,” says Bonnie.

  Meyer is hidden deep in the crowd. Bonnie feels like a soldier hacking her way through enemy jungle. Last week, straightening Max’s room—a rare occurrence, but the mess had gotten so bad she couldn’t open Max’s door—she’d found a waterlogged copy of Soldier of Fortune. How had it gotten into the house? Did Max borrow it from Vincent? Or had he gone out and bought it because she’d invited a Nazi home?

  “There he is.” Vincent rarely uses Meyer’s name. He still doesn’t know what to call him.

  How typical of Meyer that, in this mob of important people, he’s managed to steal a moment with Sol and Minna. It’s wonderful that he’s so real, so unimpressed by status. On the other hand, he could be doing more to help Bonnie shake loose some donations. Bonnie makes a point of having Vincent in tow, as a signal that she’s come to collect Meyer as well.

  No one’s going for it. Minna shifts over to make room for Vincent and to exclude Bonnie. “Vincent, how lovely to see you. We can’t wait to hear what you have to say this evening.”

  “Me, too,” says Vincent. “I mean, I’m still trying to figure out what I’m going to say.” He’s swaggering, thinks Bonnie. Or at least she hopes so. Why didn’t Bonnie insist that
Vincent go over his speech, word by word? What possessed her to trust him when he said he didn’t want to ruin it by overpreparing? Vincent said he could do it, and she’d believed him because the two of them have persuaded themselves and each other that he can just get up and be his reconstructed, authentic, decent self.

  Even Meyer asked her to look over some notes. It was pretty much what she’d expected. The kindness of strangers. Forgive but not forget. Plus some new experiments: the moral bungee jump, and something about…faith cells? Bonnie’s often wanted to warn him against repeating himself. Almost everyone in the room has heard his act before. Maybe that’s why ticket sales were slow at first. But Meyer knows what he’s doing. These are his people, his crowd. Vincent may seduce New York Times reporters, but Meyer makes miracles happen.

  Sol asks Meyer, “Did you watch the evening news?”

  “I was getting dressed,” Meyer says. “What fresh horror did I miss?”

  “The McVeigh execution,” Minna pipes up.

  “Was that today?” Meyer slaps his forehead so hard, Bonnie winces. “My God, how could I have missed it? What was I doing? Fastening my cufflinks? Bonnie, why didn’t you tell me?”

  Bonnie, why didn’t you tell me? Bonnie’s spent weeks trying to second-guess the dietary and social needs of five hundred people, and at the same time grooming Vincent, coaching him to appeal to the guests. Even now she’s struggling to help Meyer and Vincent to their table…and Meyer’s criticizing her for not making sure he watched the McVeigh execution?

  How much can you ask from one person? But once again, Meyer’s right. Bonnie should have set up a TV for the office staff, the way she sometimes does for broadcasts of critical government hearings.

  “Man, how did I miss that?” There’s grief in Vincent’s voice.

  “How could we?” Meyer asks Vincent.

  How could Bonnie have been so shortsighted, concentrating on this dinner, which is only about money, donations, a budget, while a human being was being put to death today, in their very own country? But why was it up to Bonnie—out of everyone in the office—to remember that today was the day on which McVeigh was slated to die?

  “I’m ashamed of us all.” Meyer voices Bonnie’s thoughts.

  “Please. You were busy,” says Sol.

  “What did they say on the news?” Meyer asks.

  “It was filthy,” Sol says. “They spliced together interviews with all these journalists who’d watched it. One sound bite per talking head, one face flashing after another. One reporter said: He stopped breathing. Another said: His pulse quit. Another said: The end was peaceful. How the hell did they know how peaceful the end was?”

  Minna says, “Sol, sweetheart, you’ve got to relax. The guy was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of innocent people. I’m not saying I support—”

  “All right, enough,” Meyer says. “Excuse me, Minna, Sol. Bonnie will never speak to me again if I don’t go quietly.”

  “Go ahead,” says Sol.

  “Good luck,” says Minna. “There’ll be a brunch on the first Sunday after we get back from the Cape.”

  “Before that, I hope,” says Meyer. And he and Bonnie and Vincent are gone.

  “Do you have my notes?” asks Meyer.

  “You do.” Bonnie’s sure she gave them to him, after she photocopied them, enlarged so he won’t have to wear his glasses. Steering the two men through the crowd feels like taking her boys to the dentist. Bonnie finds Meyer and Vincent’s place cards and gets them seated before she takes her seat beside the empty chair in which Larry Ticknor—the real estate magnate whose wife, Laura, is one of Brotherhood Watch’s most generous supporters—will sit between Bonnie and Irene.

  Roberta is the first to show up. She kisses Bonnie and Meyer, then does an awkward dodge in front of Vincent and winds up shaking his hand. Relations between them, always cool, got chillier when the Times piece ran small. Did Roberta blame him?

  Roberta asks Bonnie, “Did the Times send anyone? I can’t figure out who’s here.”

  “Colette Martinez,” says Bonnie.

  “Too bad,” says Roberta. “But what can you do? I guess it’s become her story.” It cheers Bonnie to be discussing Colette as a public relations issue instead of as a pretty girl who monopolized Vincent’s attention.

  Irene has found Laura and Larry Ticknor and is steering them over. The Ticknors are an attractive couple, approximately Bonnie’s age, but so much richer that it’s as if they’re much older. Irene, Laura, and Larry are all wearing expensive, severe black suits. The three of them are fashion holograms, sculpturally snipped by the A-team of hairstylists and designers. Bonnie feels like a bag lady. But what she’s wearing is not the point. The point is for Larry and Laura to fund more food drops and phone calls to Iran, and buy less Calvin Klein.

  “Oh, Irene!” says Roberta. “You look fabulous!”

  “Hello, Roberta,” says Irene.

  Roberta extends her hand halfway between Larry and Laura Ticknor. “I’m Roberta Dwyer. Publicity.”

  Larry shakes Roberta’s hand. His wife blows off Roberta and looks around in the panic that Bonnie has often seen in the eyes of celebrities when they find themselves stranded in a crowd of unknowns and are suddenly terrified that some ordinary citizen is about to waste their precious time. How relieved they are to spot someone equally famous, or, failing that, someone who knows how famous they are and will treat them accordingly. For now, Laura will settle for Bonnie’s relatively familiar face.

  “Laura,” says Bonnie. “Welcome.”

  Bonnie guides Laura around the table. First Meyer rises, then Vincent. Laura likes being placed between the two stars of the evening. Brotherhood Watch is her charity, and her annual donation is sort of a love-gift-slash-reparations-payment from the compulsively unfaithful Larry. Bonnie hopes that Laura will bring a lot of her philanthropic friends on board for this worthy cause that she was the first to “discover.” Across the table, Larry sits down next to Irene with as much wriggly pleasure as if he were snuggling between her breasts, which—bared tonight by her low-cut suit—are remarkably firm and unblemished for a woman Irene’s age.

  The seating plan is a huge success. Everyone jumps right into the evening. Irene’s chatting up Larry Ticknor with an expertise distilled from generations of Viennese flirtatiousness. Vincent’s focused on Laura, using whatever magic he seems to have always had, or to have developed in the last few weeks, the charm that worked such wonders on Irene and Colette. Roberta Dwyer has no one to talk to, Bonnie notices with guilty satisfaction. Meyer is staring into the middle distance, probably—or so Bonnie hopes—going over his speech, which Vincent should also be doing, an even better use of his time right now than talking to Laura Ticknor.

  Bonnie glances at Meyer, who flashes her his warmest smile. Meyer understands how hard she works, how much more she wishes she could do. That’s why he has chosen her from this crowd of beautiful people, selected her to fix with that steady beam of gratitude and friendship. So much of this—the guests, the room, the food, all the countless details that will make the evening a failure or a success—is Bonnie’s doing. And Meyer understands that. Getting paid to feel this way is more than Bonnie could ask for.

  She almost wishes that Joel were here to see what she has accomplished. But he would find a way to spoil it. How she used to hate those summer fund-raisers for the Clairmont Museum, on the sweeping riverfront lawn of somebody’s gorgeous mansion, attended by her rich neighbors who had come to show off their picture hats and filmy garden dresses—and without the slightest intention of donating money. Afterward, Joel would point out how she’d spent the afternoon futilely kissing morons’ asses to get them to finance the purchase of bad nineteenth-century prints. The meanest part was that Joel knew he was saying what Bonnie thought. Joel was a cardiologist. What he did was important.

  But no one, not even Joel, could say that the foundation’s work doesn’t matter. Bonnie helps make it possible. And Meyer Maslow knows that.<
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  Her private communion with Meyer ends. His gaze returns to the ozone, but Bonnie knows that he is fully present, simultaneously lost in thought and exquisitely attentive. He will know when it’s right for him to stand and walk to the podium and start speaking, without fanfare or introduction. Having no introduction was Meyer’s idea. This crowd knows who he is. What could anyone say about him that they haven’t heard? It was also Meyer’s idea to end his speech by introducing Vincent. How humble of Meyer to volunteer to be the opening act instead of the main attraction.

  Bonnie surrenders to the pleasure of the moment, which feels almost like that oddly relaxed interlude that comes when you’re early for a lunch date and are waiting for a friend. Let the crowd produce those rising swells of anticipation, of false or real excitement punctuated by laughter. Let the others decide which person, on which side, to talk to and try to hear, and when to address the problem of the mesclun salad. Bonnie hopes they eat their salad. She knows how much it costs. She has the figures, broken down, on her desk at the office.

  At the edge of her peripheral vision, Bonnie sees Irene watching Meyer.

  Finally Meyer rises, and the room goes still. It’s as if everyone who has been pretending to converse and eat their greens has really been focused on him. He walks up onstage and takes his place at the podium between the stone pillars guarding the entrance to the temple. In his elegant black tuxedo, he looks like a temple priest, like a chiseled gleaming knife blade of purity and moral courage. Electricity seems to pulse in shimmering circles around him.

  The hush deepens as Meyer leans toward the mike.

  “Thank you,” says Meyer. “Thank you all for taking time from your impossibly busy lives to vote with your presence, your body and soul, for what Brotherhood Watch is doing.

  “My friends, what can I tell you about us that you don’t know? Probably I should talk about the Iranian journalist, the crusading cartoonist and the loving husband and father who just today—today!—was freed from the jail in which he was imprisoned and tortured.”