I looked out the window, and across a field I saw a cow, standing alone, wondering where the hell she was.
We were set up in a four-pole tent on the grounds of an estate with the sound of the ocean crashing just outside. I stood on a platform behind a lectern loaned by the local Episcopal Church and I looked out at many of my regulars and some comparably affluent strangers and they were in their boaters and chinos and late spring silks and I looked at all their faces once, twice. Mrs. Fielding was there, near the back. John Paul Gibbons was on the right side in the second row, and he winked at me. This was becoming a discomforting motif. And suddenly I figured I knew whose request it was that I be auctioned off.
I began. To an ancient little lady I did not know—I presumed she was a permanent Hamptons resident—I sold the services of Puff Daddy to hip-hop her answering machine message. I had an order bid in my book for a hundred and fifty but I squeezed six hundred dollars from the old lady, invoking the great, thinking beings-of-the-deep in their hour of need. I’d gotten a cello lesson with Yo-Yo Ma up to sixteen hundred dollars—having ferreted out two sets of parents, each with a child they’d browbeaten into learning the cello—when Trevor appeared at the back of the tent. He lifted his chin at me, as if he was tasting his coffee.
We’d never spoken of this event during the week we’d just spent together. I didn’t expect him. I felt something strong suddenly roil up within me, but I wasn’t sure what. I focused on the next bid. “It’s against the couple down in front. How about seventeen? Seventeen hundred? What if your child meets their child in a school music competition?”
They hesitated.
“Whose butt will get whipped?” I cried.
They bid seventeen hundred. But I felt it was over. The other couple was hiding behind the heads in front of them. I scanned the audience a last time. Trevor was circling over to my left. “Fair warning,” I called.
There were no more bids and I sold Yo-Yo Ma for one thousand seven hundred dollars as Trevor found a seat. Oddly, I still didn’t know how I felt about his being here. I threw myself into the lots on Arthur’s list and I was good, I was very good. The whales were no doubt somewhere off the coast leaping for joy. And then I reached lot nineteen.
“The next lot …” I began and I felt my throat seizing up. I felt Trevor’s dark eyes on me, without even looking in his direction. I was breathless against the wall of the elevator and all I could hear was the bell and the pop of Trevor’s breath as he moved and my mind had begun to wander a little bit and he was right about how he smelled whenever he visited his mother’s apartment, he smelled of lilacs—no, not of lilacs, of lilac sachet—and my head thumped against the wall and I said “Oops” but he did not hear and I thought about her pillows and though I was glad I was not in her bed, I figured I’d accept those dozen pillows on the floor of the elevator so I could lie down in a soft place for this.
“The next lot …” I repeated and I pushed on. “Number nineteen. Dinner for two at Fellini’s in Soho, with wine and your auctioneer.”
There was a smattering of delighted oohs and chuckles.
I almost started the bidding at a measly fifty dollars. But this impulse did not come from my auctioneer self, I instantly realized. There was a shrinking inside me that I did not like and so I started the bid for what I thought to be an exorbitant amount. I’d simply go unclaimed. “Who’ll open the bid for four hundred dollars?” I said.
I saw John Paul’s head snap a little, but before I could congratulate myself, in my peripheral vision I could see a paddle leap up without pause. I looked. It was Trevor.
Suddenly there was something I had to know.
I said, “I’m sorry, ladies and gentlemen, let me stop right here for a moment. Before we begin, I need some more information on this lot.”
There was a ripple of laughter through the tent and I stepped away from the lectern. Arthur was standing off to my right and I stepped down from the platform and I approached him.
He must have read something in my face. He blanched and whispered, “What is it? You’re doing a smashing job.”
“Who asked to put me up for bid?”
“Sorry, my dear,” he said. “That’s a bit of a secret.”
“You’re starting to sound British again. You know you’re in trouble. And you are. Give it up.”
He tried to wink and shrug and say nothing.
“Arthur,” I said as calmly as I could. “I don’t want to grab you by the throat and throw you to the ground in front of all these good clients. Tell me who.”
This was convincing. “Trevor Martin,” he said.
I felt a flash of anger. Why? I demanded explanations from myself as I stepped back up onto the platform: Surely this was something I wanted. I wanted Trevor to pay big bucks for me and take me to dinner like he should. But what’s this “should” stuff about? Why should he do that? And why should I expect—as part of me did—a sweet and gentle invitation to dinner in an elevator instead of a hot five minutes of sex? I’d been thinking about the sex, myself. I’d been wanting it. I couldn’t let myself be a hypocrite.
I cried, “We have four hundred from Mr. Martin. Who’ll make it five hundred?” and all the explanations vanished in my head and I was left with an abrupt realization: there was something being put before this crowd that had a value in need of being articulated. I pointed to one of the paddles in the back. It was held by the little man who’d bought the second-rate Renoir, who’d want to talk about heaven knows what over dinner, maybe the time he’d seen his pudgy mama in the nude, after her bath. “Five hundred,” I called and that suddenly seemed way too low.
“I am not a Renoir,” I said. “But I am … not six inches square, either.”
It was a start.
“I am in excellent condition,” I cried. “For an object my age. Who’ll make it a thousand?”
It was a big leap. But I found myself feeling ready for a big leap.
There was only a moment of hesitation and I saw a paddle go up to my right and I looked and it was John Paul Gibbons. All right. “A thousand dollars to John Paul Gibbons. Who’ll make it eleven hundred?”
And now I looked to Trevor. He raised his paddle instantly. “Eleven hundred to Mr. Martin. And this is still an unconscionable bargain. I am rare. I am. Who else knows so many of you so well? Who else has filled your homes and emptied your wallets? Who’ll make it fifteen hundred?”
I turned back to John Paul and he winked again and lifted his paddle and he glanced over his shoulder toward Trevor.
I said, “I am a perfect size, thanks to my ongoing efforts. Neither too big nor too small. Who’ll make it two thousand?”
I also looked at Trevor and he smiled that faintly patronizing smile of his and he lifted his paddle, and I was caught by his smile, the smile that he gave me the first time I saw him, the smile he’d given me as we walked past the doorman last night and into the warm evening air and he said, “I think I’ve begun to move into the rest of my life.”
His life. But what did I want in the rest of my life? I’d like to have seen the inside of his apartment by this point. I’d like to have been asked to dinner, just the two of us, without a price put on anything. He takes his first step in the elevator, when it’s least expected, and he arranges to buy his next step. This was his mother’s way. I lowered my face. My book lay open before me. I lifted my face. “I am authentic,” I said. “You must look into me now, as I’ve looked into you.” And I took my own challenge. And I looked. And I said, “Three thousand to the book.”
There was a little gasp. A private tour of Dollywood, Tennessee, with Dolly Parton herself as guide, had gone for twenty-eight hundred, the biggest bid of the auction.
I looked at John Paul. He blew me a little kiss and kept his paddle on his lap. I turned to Trevor. “It’s against you, Mr. Martin,” I said. “Thirty-five?”
The smile was gone. But he lifted his paddle.
“Three thousand five hundred to Mr. Martin,” I cried,
and I instantly added, “Four thousand to the book.”
Now there was a great hum that lifted in the crowd, resonating, perhaps, with the one from the sea. “It’s against you, Mr. Martin,” I said. His face slowly eclipsed itself behind the face in front of him, a jowly man in a shirt and tie, a Wall Street lawyer who collected Stieff teddy bears.
“Fair warning,” I cried, scanning the faces before me. I let the warning sit with them all for a long moment, and then I said, “Sold to the book for four thousand dollars.”
I did not waste any time in fulfilling the bargain. The next Monday night I sat at the newest chic Soho restaurant with the faces of Anita Ekberg and Marcello Mastroianni and Giulietta Masina and Signor Fellini himself all about me on the walls, and two places were set at the table. But I was alone and waiting for no one. And yet, I lingered over the linguine, eating it strand by strand, sipping my wine in tiny, dry sips. The book, of course, had been empty. I’d bid for myself, and I’d won.
And for a time that night at Fellini’s, I was uncommonly happy. I enjoyed the manager’s confusion about my missing companion. Eventually I told him to take the other place away and I ignored his pitying look without even getting pissed about it. I enjoyed eating slowly. On the night I sold Missy I ate slowly, too. Probably for the first time in my young life and for the last time till this moment. Though I’ve always eaten even faster when I’m angry, the night of my seventh birthday I was in such a serious rage at all of the people in the other room that I slowed way down. They thought I’d be unhappy with my meal, but boy did I savor the food.
Boy was I savoring this food at Fellini’s.
And the thing that had brought me here.
It’d been a grand gesture.
I’d won myself.
So now what?
I got up in the middle of my pasta course and headed toward the ladies’ room.
I pushed open the door marked donne and stepped in. The rest room was bright and astringent and a man said, “Buona sera.”
I looked around sharply and after a brief pause the same voice said, “Good evening.” The voice was coming from the ceiling, I realized. And then, after another pause, he repeated, “Buona sera.”
He paused again, waiting for me to repeat the phrase.
Fellini’s was piping in an Italian language lesson for its peeing diners.
I stepped into a stall and sat and a woman’s voice on the tape replied to the man, “Buona sera. Come sta … Good evening. How are you? … Buona sera. Come sta.”
“Bene, grazie,” I muttered.
“Bene, grazie,” the man said. “Fine, thank you. Bene grazie.”
My body clamped up in the presence of this man. I was having trouble doing my business here. And he grew bolder.
“Che professione esercita?” he asked. What’s your profession.
I ignored him and tried to relax.
“Sono attrice,” the woman answered. “I am an actress.”
“Sono attrice,” I repeated with her.
“È sposata?” the man asked. “Are you married?”
I wished my Italian wasn’t so limited. So while he asked it again in Italian—nagging like my mother—I answered him in English, which he obviously also spoke: “None of your fucking business.”
“No, sono nubile,” the woman said. “No, I am single. No, sono nubile.” The second time she said it in Italian, her voice had gone all gooey.
“Slut,” I said.
I hadn’t heard the rest room door open and close. A woman just outside the stalls said sharply, “What?”
“Non parlo inglese,” I said. I don’t speak English.
The woman went into an adjoining stall. I finished my business, did a quick hand-wash, and beat it out of the rest room while the Italian actress with no self-respect agreed to meet this boorish guy for a drink and arranged for him to pick her up at her hotel. As far as I could tell, these two didn’t even know each other’s name.
When I got back to my table I could see Alain Bouchard getting a drink at the bar.
I sat down before my linguine and stared at it.
I still felt as if I’d done something important.
I twirled some linguine onto my fork.
I glanced up very discreetly and looked out toward the bar.
Alain was being discreet, as well. He leaned against the bar, keeping his profile toward me, angling his head just enough to observe me in a general way in his peripheral vision. I sensed that if I ignored him, he’d quietly slip away.
What the hell was this all about?
What was the appropriate response for a self-possessed woman?
I put my fork down and I raised my face forthrightly to him. I waited for him to realize I was staring at him. He chickened out, turning his profile away from me.
I pushed back, stood up, strode across the dining room and out to the bar and I approached him. I stopped and confronted the back of his head. He did not seem to know I was there. “Monsieur Bouchard,” I said.
He bucked and swung around and it was pleasant to see him struggle to turn guilty tumult into routine surprise. He focused tightly on my eyes and smiled. “Hello, Miss Dickerson,” he said.
He was taking a breath to say more and I cut him off. “Don’t let’s get off on the wrong foot,” I said. “You’re about to say, ‘What a surprise,’ but that’s not quite true, is it?”
“Not quite,” he said. “I was surprised when I first walked in, but not just now.”
I frowned at this. He picked up on my reservation at once.
He said, “Startled, yes. You came upon me very silently.”
“So you just happened to wander into Fellini’s on the night I’m here?”
“What is the alternative explanation, Miss Dickerson? Am I stalking you?”
“I don’t even want to go there,” I said.
Alain flickered a bit with incomprehension.
“It’s an idiom,” I said. “Look, now that you’re here and I’m here and I’m clearly interested in who the hell you are, come sit down and bring your drink.”
Even I could hear how nasty that sounded. To Alain’s credit, he didn’t flinch at all at my tone. He nodded and smiled warmly and said, “I’d be delighted.”
I led him toward my table and I considered what I’d just said and it was absolutely true in both word and tone. I’d always been pretty blunt, but I wondered if self-possession would effectively remove what little editor there was left in my head. I hoped not.
When we were seated, Alain said, “I trust you don’t take my ready acceptance of your invitation as a sign I’d been orchestrating all this.”
“Given how bitchy the invitation actually was,” I said.
Alain took a deep breath and sat back. In the slight pause that followed, it occurred to me that I should help him out. I figured I’d presented him with two alternatives—blatantly lie to me or openly agree that I’d been a bitch. But as he’d done to us at the lunch with Arthur, I decided to let him dangle.
He was up to the challenge. He said, “My father was a diplomat. Mostly in the Far East. Japan immediately after the war. Indochina a little later. I was conceived, I’m told, in the Hotel Continental in Saigon in the final days of our misbegotten empire. He went to Geneva in 1954 and helped work out the language of the final accord.”
Alain leaned forward again and smiled at me, very gently, as if I’d just said something sweet instead of shitty, and I wondered if he was gay. This thought came upon me abruptly, but fortunately the editor in my brain hadn’t totally vacated the premises. I needed a long moment, a deep breath, and a sitting back, a concerted act of the will, but I put that whole question aside. Instead, I was about to say, “Would you like to give him a call right now for advice?” But I was even able to intercept that impulse.
Alain sipped his drink and I smiled back at him, carefully matching his warmth, and I said, “My daddy was in cattle and oil in Texas. The oil was his shrewd sideline that made us all very comf
ortable, but it was the cattle he loved. He didn’t run a feedlot. He’d mostly raise them to weanlings, though he did get into the feed stuff for a while, doing yearlings, but either way he’d pamper them and then move them on. You’re looking at a lady who can smell cow shit in the air and get misty-eyed for her childhood.”
I could feel Alain being careful with all this. He waited to make sure I’d finished and then he said, still soft-edged, “For me, it is traffic fumes.”
I didn’t understand for a moment.
“To become misty-eyed,” he said. “The traffic of Paris. As a boy, I would walk to my school along the Boulevard St. Germaine and I loved the automobiles, of course, the Citroens in particular. The smell of the automobile exhaust is my cow shit.”
“You’re lucky,” I said. “I don’t smell much cow shit around New York. Only metaphorically. You have plenty of cars.”
“Ah, but it hasn’t been quite the same in America since the catalytic converter, I’m afraid.”
“I’m sorry.”
We fell silent again and I looked at my food.
“It grows cold,” he said.
I glanced up at him and he nodded toward my pasta.
I noticed the manager hovering at the edge of my vision and I turned to him and Alain did too. The manager asked, “Shall I set a place for signore?”
Alain looked at me briefly but made up his own mind. “No. Thank you. I won’t be staying.”
I thought to contradict this, but before I could, the manager vanished and Alain leaned a little closer and said, “I don’t mean to intrude. Really. Though I do admit I was curious to see who had recognized your excellent value at the auction.”
I didn’t know how to read this admission, or the slightly heavy-handed compliment. And I hadn’t seen him in the Hamptons. “Were you there?”
“No. But I heard from Arthur.”
With his use of the familiar “Arthur” I decided that if his curiosity was not idle, it was simply professional. He was gay.
“So how far out of your way did you go to see?” I asked.
“Not far. I’ve taken an apartment a few blocks along.”
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