“I’m always divorced or divorcing,” Max said. “But Mother’s fine. She’s ninety and going strong. And all my other ex-ladies seem to be thriving quite happily on my money, thank you.”
Titles of any sort impressed June, especially English titles—though those of any monarchy, living or defunct, would do in a pinch.
“Anyway,” June went on, “do you believe, they found Russell Cole?”
Max and I looked at each other, then back at her. “What?!” we said, practically in unison.
“Dead or alive?” I asked her.
A look of beatific happiness illuminated June Kahn’s thin little face as she spoke the five most treasured words in her vocabulary, “You mean you haven’t heard?”
When both of us confirmed our ignorance by shaking our heads, June immediately changed direction and accompanied us up the stairs, eagerly telling us the story. She seemed particularly excited to be telling Max, whose grand aloofness only heightened June’s eagerness to please.
According to June, two local fishermen had picked up Russell in Bridgetown, Barbados, two days after he disappeared. The fishermen said they noticed him because he was acting strange, “like he was drunk,” and he stood out from the largely local crowd on the wharf. They said he asked them if he could work for his passage and they took him on as far as Saint Lucia, where they dropped him off. The reason they hadn’t come forward sooner was because they’d been at sea for two weeks and it wasn’t until they returned and spotted the photograph of Russell Cole, which the authorities had circulated all over the island, that they understood who their passenger might have been. They claimed to have had no knowledge of the million-dollar reward Carla Cole was offering for the recovery of her husband, which made their story even more credible. They had simply come forward in order to help.
“So anyway, there’s a man fitting Russell’s description being held in the jail in Castries. He has amnesia and the police are trying to find out who he is.”
“Are they sure it’s Russell?” I asked her.
“I think so. I mean, who else could it be?”
Suddenly I smelled June’s talent for exaggeration. “Where did you hear this, Junie?” I asked her.
“It’s going to be in the papers tomorrow,” she said. “Reporters have been calling Lulu all day, asking her to comment. Carla’s apparently flown down there, playing the dutiful wife. It’s all a big fat act, if you ask me.”
June suddenly looked at her watch and cried, “Oh my God, the time! I’ve got to go find Charlie. He’s always late. We’re in Lulu’s box, too. Tell her not to worry. We won’t miss the curtain!”
June turned around and pushed her way downstairs through the ascending crowd. I stared at Max.
“Are we in Lulu’s box?” I asked him, dreading the answer.
“We are indeed,” he said in a chipper tone.
“You’re kidding.”
“No, my dear. Why? Is there a problem?”
I pulled Max over to the side of the corridor. “Max, I think I mentioned to you that Lulu and I don’t get along. And besides, didn’t you two used to go out together?”
“You asked me that in Barbados,” he said with a smile. “And I told you then, Lulu and I are just friends.”
I was flustered. I didn’t quite know what to think, or to say.
“Won’t she think it odd, your bringing me?”
“On the contrary, she was thrilled I was bringing you. Look, I understand that years ago you two had some sort of misunderstanding. But I think that’s all water under the bridge now, at least as far as she’s concerned.”
“Well, it’s not as far as I’m concerned.”
He tilted his head back and said slyly, “Oh, that’s right. I forgot about your motto, You may not remember, but you never forget.” Then he took my hand, looked deeply into my eyes, and said seriously, “Would you rather not go, my dear? I can easily make our excuses.”
I swallowed hard. I didn’t want to make a scene. I loathe scenes. I didn’t want Max to think I was being difficult. I also remembered that Ethan would be there and I could always turn to him for moral support.
“No, that’s all right. I’ll be fine, thanks. But if the opera’s boring, I’m leaving.”
“Frankly, Mrs. Slater, I doubt anything could be boring with you.”
I was flattered. Max had a way of making one feel special. As he opened the door to the box, he whispered to me, “Do we really think they’ve found poor old Russell Cole?”
“With June Kahn as the source? Are you kidding? It’s probably Jimmy Hoffa.”
“We’ll ask Lulu,” Max said.
“Won’t that be tricky?”
“How so?”
“Well, won’t it smack of intrusive concern to assume that Lulu would be interested in the fate of the man who had once so publicly humiliated her?”
Max shrugged. “I don’t think it matters a bit.”
The presidential box was dead center in the grand horseshoe. With its lofty view of both the stage and the audience below, the seats in this prominent aerie were supposedly the best in the house—although Ethan Monk, a real aficionado, said he much preferred the orchestra for sheer quality of listening. However, the center box was certainly the best place to be seen if not to see, and as we walked in, I could feel all inquisitive eyes upon us. Ethan was there as promised, and didn’t seem surprised to see us. Lulu had obviously tipped him off. He said hello to Max and greeted me warmly, giving me a surreptitious wink.
Lulu Cole was standing down front, talking to friends in the neighboring box. She cut her conversation short and swept forward to greet us. Dressed in a honey-colored sheath shimmering with hand-sewn bugle beads, Lulu had changed quite a bit since the days when I first knew her. Thanks to artful plastic surgery, she still held some claim to the wholesome prettiness everyone had remarked upon when she first moved to New York, but her wide-eyed, little girl face was clearly older, harder, and sadder. Her smiles looked like frowns and her laughter often sounded like sobs.
Lulu was one of those women whose perfection of dress makes them oddly less chic than they suppose themselves to be. Everything fit perfectly; everything matched. Consequently, there was nothing unexpected or offbeat to amuse the eye, which is the hallmark of great style. Her place on the Best-Dressed List was due to the vast amount of money she spent in the couture houses, and not because she was truly chic. What she did have, however, was a lean and well-proportioned body with exaggerated good posture. She held her black-haired head very high, with her little nose angled upward. I have to say she always looked to me as if she were sniffing the air, trying to detect the source of an unpleasant aroma, but others thought her regal. In fact, there was a certain innate arrogance about her which may have been beyond her control. Even her cordial welcome to us came across a bit like the benign boredom of a duchess viewing a delegation of tradespeople. She gave Max a kiss on both cheeks. I quickly stepped back to prevent even that perfunctory intimacy. She got the drift.
“Jo, I’m so happy to see you,” she said, shaking my hand. “Thank you for coming.”
“Thank you for including me,” I replied coolly, unable to forget how badly she had once treated me.
“Such an exciting night,” she said. “Nellie Bergsen is my favorite opera singer, and Tosca, well . . . heaven, no?”
Silence.
Sensing the tension between us, Ethan piped up and said, apropos of nothing, “I used to have a cat named Tosca!”
Max then complimented Lulu on her showstopping antique pin—a stalk of diamond flowers cascading down from the left shoulder of her dress. The petal clusters were en tremblant so they moved slightly, sparkling softly as they caught the light. Lulu touched it automatically, without thinking.
“Thanks. I love it, too,” she said. “Russell gave it to me for our fifteenth anniversary.”
Lulu was clearly annoyed. “You ran into June! Trust June Kahn to turn a dubious sighting into an absolute certainty. Look, this man hasn’t been reliably identified. We don’t know for sure it’s Russ. The media is grasping at straws because that’s what sells papers. But I’ll bet you the price of that tacky yacht of theirs it’s not Russell,” she said, angrily confident.
“It would be nice if it were though, wouldn’t it?” I said softly.
“Yes,” she said. “It would be.”
Max excused himself, ostensibly to go say hello to some pals in a neighboring box. Ethan and I were left standing with Lulu.
“The Bromires and the Kahns are joining us,” she said. “And my daughter, Courtney.”
“Little Courtney. I haven’t seen her in ages,” Ethan said.
“She’s not so little anymore, dear. She’s in business school.”
“God, time flies, doesn’t it?” Ethan said.
Silence.
I didn’t trust Lulu as far as I could throw her. She had been downright cruel to me once, and I wasn’t going to let her off the hook so easily by being charming and helping make conversation. It was clear that she had no idea what to say to me, and with Max off talking to someone else, Ethan was left holding the ball. Shy by nature, the Monk’s discomfort was palpable. I just knew he was going to put his foot in his mouth in an effort to allay his anxiety. In fact, I even saw the lightbulb go on over his head as he suddenly thought of something to break the silence. The Imp of the Perverse was about to take control when Lulu looked at me directly and said, “Listen, Jo, I want to say something to you.”
“Yes?” I was wary.
“I know I behaved badly toward you in the past, and I owe you a profound apology. But believe me when I tell you that I didn’t do it out of malice. I just wasn’t thinking. I don’t know, I guess I felt sorry for Monique because everyone was so against her. And she convinced me that she had absolutely no idea that Lucius was going to leave her all his money. But I understand that doesn’t excuse the fact that I was disloyal to you. I know I was and I deeply regret it. You ask June. I’ve wanted to say this to you for years. I apologize to you, Jo, I really do.”
“Thank you,” I said.
Ethan tugged nervously at the droopy collar of his tuxedo shirt, looking as if he were about to crawl under his seat with embarassment.
“I’m not even hoping you could forgive me, because I’m sure that’s too much to ask,” she went on. “But I do want you to know how truly terrible I feel. If I could go back and do things differently, I would.”
When Lulu said this, I softened slightly toward her. Who among us wouldn’t do certain things differently if we could go back in time? I had to admire her courage in apologizing to me after all these years, particularly in front of Ethan.
“And I think at this time, when a certain person is moving to New York, we should all band together and take a stand,” she said pointedly.
I knew the person she was referring to was Carla Cole. I felt June Kahn’s not-so-subtle hand behind this. June was busy circling the wagons, trying to unite old antagonists against a new enemy. Ethan, obviously unnerved by all this, pulled out the wrinkled, white handkerchief stuffed in his breast pocket and patted the perspiration off his brow.
Thank God for the Bromires!
Trish and Dick’s timely entrance into the box broke the tension. Trish gave us all a fluttery wave hello. Lulu went to greet them.
When Lulu was out of earshot, Ethan said, “Now you know why I prefer paintings to people. Paintings can’t talk.”
Trish seemed all recovered from her lunch. An athletic former beauty queen from Florida, fifteen years younger than her husband, she looked appropriately seasonal in a red-and-green satin evening suit and a parure of big emeralds and rubies to match. Betty affectionately referred to Trish as “the Shabanou of Park Avenue,” on account of Trish’s penchant for wearing much too much gaudy jewelry at any given time.
Dick Bromire, a beefy man in his mid-sixties with thinning hair and the jowly face of a hound, had put on a good deal more weight since I last saw him, due in part, I imagined, to all the tension he was under as he awaited his trial. Like many husbands, Dick Bromire was dragged to cultural events by a wife who enjoyed them more than he did. He viewed them as a chore, like washing the dishes, only they went on longer. I’d observed Dick nodding off though more ballets, operas, and concerts than I could count. The year that Trish was the chairman of the Municipal Ballet’s gala evening, Dick had unwisely confided in a reporter, who had asked him what he thought of the ballet, “I only like it when they jump.” The remark had caused a minor uproar, but I suspect many men secretly agreed with him. And though Dick may have dozed off during performances, he always came alive for socializing at the intermissions.
The Bromires had been invited to Missy Waterman’s wedding, of course, as well as to the coveted bridal dinner aboard The Lady C. But because Dick was under a court order that prevented him from leaving the country, he couldn’t travel to Barbados. There was a moment when Trish toyed with the idea of going without him—just a quick trip, down and back in their private plane—but Betty persuaded her this was not a good idea.
“Stand by your man, kiddo. Otherwise you look like shit,” Betty had advised her.
Trish wisely took Betty’s advice, and the Bromires had laid low in their house in Southampton over the holidays, inspiring everyone at the now infamous wedding to say how devoted Trish was to Dick and how fortunate they were to have missed the event from hell.
Dick Bromire made a beeline for Max, who was still engrossed in conversation down front. The moment the two men clapped eyes on each other, however, they shook hands warmly. I later learned that Dick and Max were old shooting buddies in England. On several occasions, Dick had rented the shoot of Max’s aristocratic neighbor, Sir Edward Wiloughby—pronounced “Wilby.” Max was always invited to stroll over and help “the Americanos,” as Sir Edward termed the renters, divest the skies of hundreds of fowl. Trish, of course, preferred what she called the “après-shoot,” which included all the fancy lunches and dinners that leavened the slaughter and gave her a chance to parade her couture outfits.
Max made a point of telling me that he liked Dick Bromire from the little he knew of him on the field, though he did it in a backhanded way: “Clothes, too new. Aim, too bad. But other than that, he’s a rather nice chap, what?”
There were air-kisses all around and a smattering of polite conversation before June and Charlie finally showed up just as the curtain was about to rise. I braced myself for a scene between Trish and June on account of the now notorious lunch, but they barely said hello and studiously avoided each other for the rest of the night. Carla was already having an effect on our close-knit little set.
“Junie,” I whispered as she came to greet me, “I think you owe Trish an apology.”
“Well, that’s very interesting because I think she owes me one,” June said loudly so Trish could hear.
Trish ostentatiously turned her back on June. I was sorry I’d brought it up, but I felt I had to make the effort. I hated to see two of my close friends fighting.
Charlie Kahn, a thin, shy, aristocratic-looking man with gray hair who expressed his individuality by wearing garishly colorful cummerbunds and matching bow ties, gave my hand a timid little squeeze, as was his wont. I was much indebted to Charlie. He’d helped me out once upon a time when I was in dire straits, and I knew him to be a loyal, discreet sou
l who was much cannier than people thought. He kept silent as his wife nattered on. He adored June despite her flightiness, accepting her unthinking behavior with the tolerant air of a long-suffering vicar who accepts yet another cross to bear—in this case, his wife. But I think he believed she was a little nuts on the subject because he leaned in and said to me, “I don’t know what’s gotten into June lately. She’s obsessed about Carla Cole. I wish she’d let this whole thing drop.”
“Can’t you try and reason with her, Charlie?” I said.
“Reason with June?” he said as though the very idea were an oxymoron. “Jo, you know what she’s like when she gets a bee in her bonnet . . .” He shrugged.
What I knew was that June Kahn’s bonnet was basically the whole hive. Carla Cole was just the latest in a long line of June’s obsessions.
As the lights dimmed, Max and I sat down front together. Max enjoyed the opera, I could tell. Leaning back with arms and legs crossed, he focused on the stage, moving his foot up and down in time to the music, occasionally mouthing a word or two of an aria he knew. My own attention for singing intrigue was short, however, and I grew restless. Glancing behind me, I noticed a young woman slipping quietly into a seat at the back of the box. The light from the stage cast a glow on her pale face and glinted off a pair of gold, wire-rimmed glasses. I was right in assuming this was Courtney Cole. During the first intermission, Lulu introduced her daughter to us.
“Everybody, please, your attention! This is my daughter, Courtney. Courtney, darling, this is Mr. and Mrs. Kahn, Mr. and Mrs. Bromire, Mr. Monk, Mrs. Slater, and, of course, Lord Vermilion. . . .”
Courtney Cole took no pains to enhance her looks. In contrast to her famously chic mother, she purposely played down every aspect of her physical appearance, wearing no makeup, granny glasses, and an ill-fitting, high-necked black dress. She could not, however, hide a pair of keen brown eyes, which, despite the unflattering spectacles, projected a sharp intelligence.
As the shy, thoughtful young woman went around the box shaking hands with each of us, it was clear from the way she self-consciously looked down, avoiding eye contact, that she could barely tolerate her mother’s social enthusiasm. Lulu treated Courtney almost as if she were an obedient pet, patting her after the social ordeal was through. With the introductions over with, everyone filed out of the box to get some refreshments and mingle with friends in the opening night crowd. Max and I were walking out together when Courtney hesitantly approached me and said, “Excuse me, Mrs. Slater, can I talk to you for a minute?”
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