“Well, don’t tell Hal that.”
“I don’t like him, either. He’s got no social skills and he’s friends with Rex.”
“He’s not that bad,” says Louise. “I mean—neither of them is. And, I mean, there’s going to be a lot of people there. We might not even see them.”
“Vinny would be furious if I even spoke to them,” Cordelia says. “Anyway, I haven’t got anything to wear to that sort of thing.”
“You could borrow something of Lavinia’s? I’m sure she wouldn’t mind.”
“She hates it when I borrow her clothes without asking.” Cordelia considers. “What were you going to wear?”
Louise hesitates.
“If we both borrowed something, she couldn’t very well stay mad at us both.” Cordelia breathes in. “Besides, if she wanted us not to borrow her things she should have come back and worn them herself—right?”
“Right,” says Louise. “Exactly.”
“It serves her right.” Cordelia smiles. “Rex coming all the way here—and she’ll never even know! You kept your promise, right? You didn’t tell her?”
“I didn’t tell her.”
“Good. Don’t.”
Cordelia goes to the closet. She fingers Lavinia’s things.
“I’m going to be very polite to them both,” she says.
* * *
—
I’m sorry, Louise texts Rex.
I couldn’t just leave her alone.
Rex Reads it. No answer.
We can still have fun! We just have to be discreet, that’s all.
Blushing Przewalski’s horse emoticon.
She sees the ellipses on the screen that mean he’s typing. They go on for five minutes.
ok.
That’s all he says.
* * *
—
Louise does Cordelia’s makeup.
She shows Cordelia how to straighten her hair, to transform the wilderness of her curls into something neat and smooth. She shows her how to put on lip liner, so that the lipstick will stay within the bounds of her mouth. She highlights Cordelia’s eyes with mascara (how blue they are, she thinks). She puts Lavinia’s lipstick on Cordelia’s lips.
She helps Cordelia choose a dress.
Cordelia fingers a red one, silk, cut along the bias.
“This one, do you think?” She stops herself. “No, I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“My breasts are too small. And I’ll look ridiculous.” She sits on the bed. “This is silly—you should just go without me.”
“No—no, you should come!”
Louise doesn’t even know why it matters.
“I’ll look stupid!” Cordelia says. “I don’t—I don’t even know how to stand.”
“I’ll show you,” says Louise. “Just—put it on.”
Cordelia does.
It hangs long and loose on her.
“It looks like a tent.”
“You’re not standing right,” says Louise. “You have to, you know, pose. Arch your back a little—right there, good.”
“I feel like a cobra.”
“That means you’re doing it right. And put your tongue behind your teeth when you smile.”
“Why?”
“It makes you smile with your eyes.”
Cordelia looks dubious.
“It comes out better in photos.”
“So?”
“Just—trust me, okay?”
Cordelia’s lashes are so dark when they flutter, now.
“Will you take a picture of me? I mean—I don’t want to post it, or anything. Just—just for me to have?”
Louise does. She shows it to Cordelia.
“I look ridiculous,” Cordelia says.
Actually, Cordelia looks beautiful.
“Will you send it to me?” Cordelia asks.
* * *
—
They take a cab to the Yale Club. Louise pays.
She has $402.63 in her checking account.
* * *
—
When they pull up, Hal is already there. He is smoking a cigar on the steps. Beowulf and Gavin are with him.
Hal does a double take when he sees them.
“I heard you were in town.” He looks Cordelia over. “You’ve sure been causing trouble, haven’t you?”
“It’s nice to see you again, Henry,” Cordelia says. “It’s been a while.”
She shakes his hand.
“Last time I saw you, you had braces.”
“Last time I saw you, you were thin.”
Hal grins.
“Are you even legal?”
“Only in New Hampshire.”
“Shame.”
“No,” says Cordelia. Her mouth twists a little. “Not really.”
Then: “You’re Henry Upchurch’s son.”
“For my sins.”
“What’s that like?”
“Go read his books.” Hal puffs on his cigar. “That’ll tell you everything.”
“I’ve read his books,” says Cordelia. “I thought Folly’s Train was cliché and every character in A Dying Fall was too easily redeemed.”
Louise bites her lip so Hal won’t see her smile.
“I’ll have you know, little girl,” says Hal, “that Henry Upchurch is the greatest American writer of the past fifty years.”
* * *
—
“Don’t worry,” Hal says to Louise, as Cordelia checks her coat. “I’ve been briefed. I’ll be good.” He hands her a drink. “It seems like a whole lot of fucking trouble, if you ask me.”
“I didn’t,” says Louise.
Hal reaches out to grab Rex by the arm.
* * *
—
“Now, do you two know each other?” Hal’s tongue lolls a little to one side. “Or do I have to introduce you.”
“Hal, don’t—”
Louise squeezes Rex’s elbow, just a little, and feels so pathetic for doing it. Rex smiles—or maybe grimaces.
Cordelia sees them.
She walks over. She’s measured and unsteady in Lavinia’s heels.
“Hello, Rex,” she says. Her voice is low.
They shake hands.
* * *
—
“I’m prepared to be civil,” Cordelia announces, “if you are.”
Hal bursts out laughing.
“However you like it,” says Rex.
Hal raises his glass.
“To your sister,” says Hal. “Who has brought us all together.”
Everybody clinks glasses.
Nobody drinks, except Cordelia, who closes her eyes and drinks her champagne in one gulp, and then makes a face.
* * *
—
The Yale Club is like a wedding cake—white, gold-shot, confectionary: with its curved windows, its white, whipped curtains that seem to flutter up to the sky. There are so many people here who know Henry Upchurch, or don’t and want people to think they do, or who have never heard of Henry Upchurch but who want to drink for free.
Louise drinks. Hal drinks. Rex drinks. Cordelia drinks.
She drinks more than anybody else.
“It’s not so bad,” she says, on her third glass. She hiccups.
She claps Rex on the shoulder.
“You’re not so bad, either,” she says. “I’ve decided.”
Rex doesn’t say anything.
“You’re a fool,” she says. “But I forgive you. If Vinny weren’t my sister, I wouldn’t be able to stand her, either.” She smiles. “Cheer up, Rex—maybe she’ll take you back, after all. If she ever comes back. Who knows, with Vinny? You never know what she’ll do!”
Rex forces his drink down.
“No,” he says. “You’re right. You never know.”
* * *
—
“Come on,” says Hal. He puts his hand on the small of Louise’s back. “I want you to meet my father.”
* * *
—
Henry Upchurch is old.
Also, he’s fat.
He looks like a little sphere glued to a bigger one. He has a flap in his neck, like a turkey’s. He sits because he is both too old and too fat to stand. He doesn’t speak.
Beowulf is stuck to his side, his fragile girlfriend hovering over them both like a mosquito. Beowulf is midway through his discourse on A Dying Fall, which Louise has already heard. He’s talking about that famous scene where the protagonists get into a fistfight over Latin conjugations, and he is making the point that in today’s world, with today’s sensitivities, you could never write a scene like that and have it be understood by hoi polloi (he is very careful not to use the article) because the you-know-what brigade is always turning over rocks to look for homosexuality and there’s no time for discussing what it means to be a man, in the Classical sense.
* * *
—
Rex stands close by but doesn’t touch Louise.
This is what the two of them agreed. It hurts anyway.
“I bet,” Hal says into Cordelia’s ear, close enough for Louise to hear, “that Beowulf Marmont gets off picturing his girlfriend fucking black men.”
“What?”
“Exactly.”
“You’re disgusting.”
“I’m honest,” says Hal. “Some men are like that, young Cordelia. Better you learn now the ways of the world.”
“I know the ways of the world just fine!” She pronounces it wheyze.
Hal pours some whiskey from his flask into his champagne flute. “Henry Upchurch just loves Rex. Doesn’t he?”
Louise isn’t sure whether Hal is trolling Rex, or trolling Cordelia, or trolling her.
“It’s a good story, actually,” says Hal. “Rex has never even read A Dying Fall, have you, Rex? But Rex is a good little Classicist. He went on some tangent about Greek verbs when he came over for tea—Christ, ten years ago, now? About how substantia and hypostasis mean the same thing, etymologically speaking, but are totally opposite theologically speaking.”
“It’s true,” says Cordelia, suddenly. “There’s one substantia and three hypostases in the Trinity.” She hiccups. “Or is it one hypostasis and three ousia? I forgot.”
Hal ignores her.
“They’re nouns,” says Rex, under his breath.
“Henry Upchurch was so impressed—he wrote one of your Yale references, didn’t he, Rex? Weren’t you impressive?”
Rex is looking down at the carpets.
“There’s a stain on this carpet,” he says, without looking up.
“He always asks about you,” Hal says. “Every single fucking time he and my mother come in from Amagansett. How’s your clever friend Rex doing? Isn’t he clever?”
“You would think,” Rex says, “that in a place this expensive, they’d clean their fucking carpets.”
He jerks his head up.
“I’m going for a smoke,” he says.
Louise can’t follow him.
* * *
—
“I’m getting another,” Cordelia says.
She glides off.
* * *
—
Now Louise meets Henry Upchurch.
Hal steers her to him once Beowulf has been dismissed.
“Louise Wilson,” Hal says, in that half-whine whose sincerity Louise still cannot ascertain, “is going to be one of the great writers of our generation.”
Henry Upchurch lifts his head with very great effort.
“My name is Louise Wilson,” Louise says.
She sticks out her hand. He looks so confused and so she grabs his hand, which is flabby and unsteady, and shakes it firmly. She looks him straight in the eye. “I write for The New Misandrist and The Egret and The Fiddler.”
“Ah,” says Henry Upchurch.
* * *
—
His head bobbles, just a little bit. He drools. Louise thinks, at first, that he is nodding, but it’s only a tremor.
“Louise is looking for representation,” says Hal. He’s still smiling, like he doesn’t even notice that his father’s snot has pooled on his tie.
“Ah,” says Henry Upchurch.
His eyes are glassy. He doesn’t look at either one of them.
“I’m going to send her to have lunch with Niall Montgomery, okay?”
“Ah,” Henry Upchurch says.
He dribbles into his tie.
* * *
—
“That’s just his trick,” Hal says. “Everybody knows really powerful men don’t talk. It just means everybody has to work harder to engage him. Niall Montgomery is his agent. A friend of the family. We’re going over there, tomorrow, for Christmas lunch. I’ll mention you.”
“Why are you being so nice to me?”
“Because,” he says. “You’re in on the joke.”
“What joke?”
Hal grins. “The joke.” He wiggles his eyebrows at her. “You get it. And I get it. And none of these other poor fuckers gets it. Least of all Rex. Poor, poor Rex.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” says Louise.
“There are some benefits,” Hal says, “to being the ugly friend. Don’t you think?”
* * *
—
Then Louise sees Cordelia.
She’s standing in a corridor, talking to Beowulf Marmont, who is leaning in so intently. She is swaying, just a little bit.
They’re standing under mistletoe.
“I am nothing,” Beowulf Marmont is leaning into Cordelia’s ear, “if not a man of tradition.”
That’s when he leans in to kiss her.
Cordelia starts to put her hands up, but she’s too late, or else Beowulf pretends not to notice that she’s doing it, and he grabs her by the back of the neck and pulls her in and jams his tongue so confidently down her throat, and it takes Louise yanking him off her and shouting she’s seventeen straight in his face before he stumbles away.
To his credit, he looks horrified.
Cordelia stands very still.
She doesn’t look at Louise.
“Do you have a tissue?” she asks.
Louise hands her one.
Cordelia rubs her mouth raw.
She lets it fall.
“That,” she says very slowly, “was my first kiss.”
She hiccups again.
“I’m going to be sick.”
* * *
—
Cordelia doesn’t even make it to the bathroom.
She throws up in a wastepaper basket in the corridor outside the function room.
Louise holds her hair back and strokes her shoulders.
* * *
—
“It’s fine,” Louise says. She has done this so many times before. “Don’t force it. You’ll feel better once you’ve thrown it up.”
“I shouldn’t have drunk so much.”
“It’s my fault,” says Louise. “I should have been watching you—I didn’t realize—” And then she stops herself, because it should be obvious that most people can’t drink a bottle of champagne on an empty stomach without vomiting.
“I’m not your fucking problem!” Cordelia says. She chokes out more phlegm into the bin.
It’s the first time Louise has ever heard Cordelia curse.
“It’s my fault,” Cordelia says again. Louise can’t tell if she’s convulsing because she’s sick, or because she’s so
bbing. “It’s my fault—I betrayed her.”
“How?”
“I spoke to Rex! And Hal! I shook his hand—oh, God! God! She’ll never forgive me!”
“She will!”
“I shook his hand! I want to burn it off!”
Cordelia starts rubbing it on the carpet, like she can blister off her sin.
Louise tries, so vainly, to shush her.
“I’m awful!” Cordelia cries.
“You’re not.”
She begins to sob, so brokenly, in Louise’s lap.
“It’s all right,” Louise says, like she knows what to do, like she knows how to handle any of this. “It’ll be all right.”
“She hates me.”
“She won’t. I promise.” Like that, too, is a thing she can assure.
“How do you know?”
“Because,” Louise says, at last, “she was fucking Hal!”
That’s when Cordelia finally, finally looks up, to see Rex and Hal behind them.
* * *
—
Rex doesn’t even bother to first ask if it’s true.
He punches Hal anyway.
* * *
—
They fight like dogs do.
They roll on the carpet. They smash each other’s faces into the wall. Hal forces his fist into Rex’s mouth. Rex kicks Hal in the stomach. They roll on top of one another. Rex grabs a fistful of skin from the back of Hal’s neck. Hal grabs Rex by the hair. Rex slams Hal’s head into the ground.
It takes Gavin and Beowulf (really, Henry, at your own father’s fête!) to separate them.
When they separate them, Hal is laughing.
“And they say,” he wheezes, “that men aren’t men anymore.”
Louise watches Rex go.
* * *
—
She wants so badly to follow him. For a second she thinks she will.
But Cordelia is sobbing, again, in her arms, and blowing her nose on Louise’s skirt which is really Lavinia’s skirt, and getting makeup all over her red silk dress which is Lavinia’s dress. The only thing Louise can do is take her home, in a cab, which costs thirty of the three hundred eighty dollars Louise has left in the world, and whisper it’s okay, it’s okay, and haul Cordelia up the stairs, and take off her clothes, and put one of Lavinia’s crisp nightgowns over her head, and tuck her in.
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