The Gilded Life of Matilda Duplaine

by Alex Brunkhorst

  “Being passionate is never a weakness,” Matilda declared. “The best things in the world come from passion.”

  “It can be a weakness too, though—passion.” I thought of the many nights I burned for Willa, long after I was even a memory to her.

  “I don’t believe that.” Matilda leaned closer to me, and she whispered into my ear, “This week was flawless. Thank you. Thank you for every minute of it. And I can’t wait until Friday. I hear that Dad’s having a costume party at the museum. Shall we arrange for a game of croquet and take-in? You can come at six because Dad’s going to be leaving early.”

  “I’m sorry.” I played with a wisp of Matilda’s blond hair. “I have to go to the party. It’s a work thing. I would much rather be here, with you.”

  Matilda’s expression deflated.

  “Are you taking a girl?” she asked.

  “Of course not.”

  I thought of Matilda’s bowling ball, by itself on the rack.

  “Why? Has there ever been another guy? Is there someone who gets Thursdays?” I said to make light of a situation that had suddenly turned heavy.

  It was quiet for a long moment.

  “This isn’t going to make any sense to you probably, and you’re going to think I’m weird,” Matilda began. “But sometimes, when I look down at the swimming pool at night from an upstairs window, I see a blonde girl treading water. She’s alone, under a sky that looks way too big for her. She has no friends. I know something that she doesn’t—I know that she’ll be treading water in that same spot the next night, and the next after that. I look down at this girl, through old leaded glass that distorts her a little bit and cuts her off at the panes, and I think ‘Who is that poor girl?’ And then it all comes into focus, and I have the terrible realization that the girl is me.”

  Matilda rolled over, and she put her face so close to mine our noses touched. Her hands were crossed on my chest.

  “There hasn’t been anyone else,” she said. “And because of you this is the first time that I’ve looked out my window at a girl who I wanted to be—a girl I didn’t feel sorry for.”

  I thought of that bleak time in Manhattan, when I was a guy I felt sorry for, too. Just like Matilda, I had transcended that. We were more alike than either of us realized.

  “I’m sorry about the party,” I said, meaning it. “Why don’t you pick a costume and I’ll sneak out after—to see you?”

  “Really?” Matilda’s face was aglow with the stars and our newfound plan.

  “Yes, we’ll have our own costume party—here. Who needs the museum?”

  “You’re exactly right. Who needs the museum? We have all this important art here. That’s a wonderful idea. We can do it here—our own costume party. Oh, Thomas. You’re absolutely perfect. I’ll spend the whole week working with Hector to coordinate a costume—one that will take your breath away when you step in the door and see me in the garden.”

  I put my hand over Matilda’s, caressing the little blue veins that swam just below the skin and squeezing the chunky black pearl-and-diamond ring that adorned her middle finger. Happiness washed over me. We were in a magical place between warm sky and cool grass, between a soft cashmere blanket and a glittering sky. There were so many stars they seemed to rain like confetti at a celebration, and I felt as if Matilda and I were its guests of honor.

  Fifteen

  Whether by serendipity or fate, I was publicly named associate editor of the Los Angeles Times the day David Duplaine’s wing opened at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

  I was both modest and self-aware enough to know that the announcement wasn’t a big one, but it was still released to the Associated Press. David Duplaine and George Bloom were both quoted, and I couldn’t help but think that Lily Goldman had been the one to call in the favors.

  The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is a nondescript building at a busy intersection. But the new wing was an architectural wonder—all glass and modern. When I drove up I was conscious of my old car; it seemed like a tin can among the sea of gold. And when I walked through the pathway lit with lanterns, I was glad I was in costume, dressed as someone else. Despite the invitation, I felt like a party crasher.

  Cocktails were first, and the hundreds of costumed guests milled about in the atrium with the art. I didn’t know anyone—or at least anyone I recognized in costume—so I walked through the crowds alone, feigning interest in a painting or a sculpture, pretending it was the most fascinating piece in the world. There were two pieces of art I recalled seeing on the estate, and as I looked around I realized that, due to the odd circumstances, I was one of the only people who had ever been to David’s house, one of the few who had seen his private collection.

  They announced they were ready for us, and curtains opened and we were escorted into a spectacularly staged room. Every inch of it had been covered in flowers, crystal, china and expensive linen. And not only that, dozens of twelve-foot olive trees had been imported for the occasion, and lighted crystal globes hung from their branches. I felt as if I had been transported to the rolling vineyards of Tuscany.

  Calligraphy numbers written on fine stock waited for us, and I picked up the one with my name. While others scurried about, referencing the numbers in their palms, hoping for prime placement, I went directly to the front of the room, to Table 1.

  Our round eight-person table was set for seven, and I was the first there. I leaned against the back of a chair with both hands, marveling again at how expeditiously I had been swept into this glamorous world of privilege.

  “Thomas, so glad you could make it,” a voice said.

  I turned around and found David standing behind me. He was dressed in an ancient Florentine costume.

  “Leonardo da Vinci,” he said, outstretching his hand.

  “Emperor Nero,” I responded, as I shook it.

  I rubbed up against David’s life all the time now, but I hadn’t seen him since the dinner party at Carole’s. He was shorter than me and skinnier, but he loomed taller and broader because his aura took up space.

  “Gimlet?” he asked, and on cue a waiter showed up.

  “Good memory.”

  “Always remember a man’s drink.”

  “In Milwaukee we said you should always remember a wife’s name.”

  “In my experience men are more faithful to drinks than to wives,” David said.

  I looked at David’s drink. He sipped what looked like an Old-Fashioned. Reddish-bronze liquid coated a single cube of ice.

  I was certain David didn’t know I was seeing his daughter, but his presence scared me nevertheless. As I pushed my hands farther into the back of the chair, I felt the beginnings of sweat on my back. My costume must have weighed twenty pounds. I looked at the table, where an eighth person should have been. I longed for Matilda to be there. I imagined her dressing for the costume party—a party for only two.

  “Congratulations on a well-deserved promotion,” David said.

  “Thank you, and thank you for the nice quote in the press release. Sorry, I should’ve said that earlier.”

  “My pleasure.” David inhaled deeply and scanned the room, like a lion who had just fed.

  Silence seemed conversational in its own right, and while David stood there quietly, passing a wave to a partygoer here and there, I studied him. His eyes were brown. His hair, what little of it he had, was very dark. His mannerisms were deliberate and in no way fanciful. Matilda must have resembled her mother. I wondered if David had loved her.

  “Thomas, darling, you’re here!”

  I turned to find Lily dressed as Florence Nightingale. She kissed me warmly before straightening out my spine in my costume.

  “I’m so happy you could come. Associate editor of the Los Angeles Times—how proud you must be.” Lily’s enthusiasm wasn’t c
ommensurate with the situation, particularly since I was standing beside a man who had just donated an art wing. She then turned her attention to David, placidly, and he responded with his slightly impish smile. I hadn’t noticed it before, but Lily and David turned almost childish beside each other. “I’m so immensely proud of you, too,” Lily said, rubbing David’s impressive biceps. “I just wish that Dad could be here to see this. I guess our timing was off.”

  “I guess so,” David responded, as if death was something that could be timed. My eyes followed David’s hands as they rotated the clasp of Lily’s diamond necklace ever so slightly so it rested exactly at the base of her neck. The diamonds refracted the light, tossing white sparkles on partygoers around us.

  “What time are we leaving tomorrow, doll?” Lily asked David.

  “Ten, give or take.”

  “Thomas, dear, Phil tells me that you’re going to New York, as well?”

  “Yes.” I looked down, though I didn’t know why. I needed to learn to be more like my counterparts and wear my successes with pride.

  “Why, I hope you’re not planning on traveling commercial. David, do tell Thomas there’s room on the plane. Plenty of it, in fact.”

  “There’s room on the plane, Thomas. Plenty of it, in fact,” David said.

  “That’s okay. I already have a ticket I should use—”

  “Knowing the Times you’ll be in cargo or, best-case scenario, 26C,” Lily interrupted. “It’s decided, Thomas. You heard David. You’ll be traveling to New York with us tomorrow on the plane.”

  Just then Emma and George approached—with flair. Emma was dressed as Holly Golightly, and to the common observer George appeared dressed as himself. Emma carried a long cigarette holder with a joint at its tip and she wore a black dress adorned with strands and strands of pearls. I heard a slight hiss and I noticed that the fur that draped on Emma’s arm wasn’t fur at all, but the leopard cat, apparently dressed as Holly’s Cat. He looked bored, as if he’d rather be at home.

  “Emma, doll, you look divine,” said Lily. “And, George, I knew Truman well, and you are far better looking.”

  “Well I didn’t know Nurse Nightingale, but I’m certain her beauty paled in comparison to yours,” George said. “And, as for Capote, it was an easy costume. All I needed was a drink in hand.”

  Carole and Charles arrived next. Charles, dressed as a pretty true rendition of Sinatra, was overshadowed by his glamorous wife, who was dressed as a Vegas showgirl—all sequins, breasts and legs as long as a June day. The outfit in its blatant sexuality was out of character. Carole scanned the group and seemed most interested in the leopard cat, burying her hand in his neck folds. The animal purred under her touch.

  Lily leaned in and kissed Carole on the side of her cheek, leaving a slight red lipstick mark. Lily looked twice, as if debating whether to rub it off, and then decided to leave it.

  Emma looked over at Carole affectionately. “Hi, darling. Who knew you had it in you? If your day job doesn’t work out there’s always the Bellagio. Or strip clubs.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment,” Carole said, smiling that same off-center grin that had graced the cover of the July Vogue.

  “Good, because it was meant that way,” Emma said. “Seduction is a woman’s greatest power. Feminism had it all wrong. No man ever got off on a woman because she was a hard worker.”

  Emma laughed at her own joke, and then she spotted a flamboyant fashion designer in the distance and darted off in his direction. My eyes absently followed her as she was absorbed into conversation, and I thought of strategic socialization. The world of the Los Angeles rich was its own version of high school—a popularity contest with stakes like private planes and studio jobs.

  By the time I looked back at the table, the group had dispersed to their own cocktail cliquery and I was left alone with David and Carole. I pretended to occupy myself with a gimlet that had arrived not a second too soon.

  Out of the corner of my eye I noticed David looking at Carole. She looked straight ahead, but she glowed, like women do when they know they’ve caught a man’s eye.

  “The boys at the strip club only pay five dollars a picture,” David joked under his breath. “Not the twenty million you’re used to.”

  “The boys there are much less work, though,” Carole said, still looking ahead, as if she was talking to an imaginary man in front of her. “Much easier to get off than studio heads.”

  “You’ll have to do your own stunts,” David responded with a glint in his eye.

  “I’m surprisingly good at those,” Carole said.

  “Nothing surprising about that,” David whispered under his breath.

  Carole didn’t respond; she just pursed her pillowy lips together and adjusted a bobby pin in her hair so a pin curl loosened around her full face.

  I suddenly felt like an intruder in a private conversation I wasn’t supposed to hear. I glanced around to see if anyone else had returned. No one had. Lily spoke with a talent agent; Emma had disappeared; George schmoozed with a country music star; and Charles, the man who had the greatest stake in the conversation, was across the room at the bar.

  “You have lipstick on your cheek,” David said, as his eyes followed the pin curl that now rested on Carole’s sculpted cheekbone.

  “Dear Lily, always trying to leave her mark.” Carole presented her flawless cheek in David’s direction. “Would you mind rubbing it off?”

  David wet his right index finger with his tongue and then moved his finger to Carole’s face, erasing the lipstick slowly, exactly. He cupped Carole’s face with his left hand, letting it linger under her square jaw a moment too long.

  They were having an affair. It was as clear as a winter night in the mountains.

  I studied my drink, feeling the driving need to walk away. I scanned the crowd for a recognizable face, but there was none. I already had my drink, so a trip to the bar was unnecessary. I decided a cigarette was in order. I glanced around, choosing an escape route through a cluster of olive trees. As I walked past Lily, I heard:

  “Thomas, dear, where are you going? I don’t want you to miss the first course. You must be famished.”

  “Excuse me for a second. I think I see Arthur Shields over there.” I pointed in the general direction of the bar and referred to the publisher of the Times, a man I didn’t even know. “Work thing.”

  In fact, I walked outside to the garden. Abstract sculptures peppered the grass—the vague outline of a man, a few sticks I couldn’t recognize as anything, blobs I think were a man and a woman lounging, a simple circle, a star and a bench with the etching Use What’s in a Culture to Dominate It Quickly.

  I sat on the bench and the cold marble sent a chill through my Nero costume. I lit a cigarette, which I was sure wasn’t allowed in a public park in this city of good health, and then I leaned my elbows on my thighs and looked up. On the wall of the building I saw a piece of projection art two stories in height.

  I Lie was all it said, in golden lights so bright and bold I was sure you could see it in New York.

  * * *

  The rest of the dinner progressed uneventfully, if you can call such a spectacle uneventful. Two major pop stars performed, and David gave a speech chronicling his passion for art, a passion that had begun in his early twenties, when he had combed flea markets for pieces of interest. Publicly, he only thanked two people: Lily Goldman and her father. But I knew there was another family member David should have mentioned: his daughter. I wondered if he thought of her when he was onstage.

  I trudged through four courses methodically, fielding the very occasional question, but generally just observing the greatness around me and counting the minutes until I could slip out to see Matilda. Lily was in a better than usual mood, as she always seemed to revel in her friends’ accomplishments. Charles remaine
d quiet throughout the evening, even going so far as to sit on his hands through most of it, George tossed his wide game-show-host grin to partygoers, and Emma missed multiple courses to hobnob with a table of fashion designers.

  As for David and Carole, I scolded myself for not seeing signs of their affair sooner. Tonight alone there were a multitude of clues: Carole’s pupils lived in their lower corners, looking to David. To the outsider, David spent the evening basking in congratulations, but it was Carole’s long fingers that captured his attention. He didn’t touch them, but she kept them splayed on the table deliberately. I thought back to Emma’s garden, to the shadows I now realized were inappropriately close. And I recalled the evening Charles adjusted Carole’s earring and she had recoiled at his touch.

  Los Angeles is, ironically, an early-to-bed city, and by ten o’clock the party began to disperse. Lily invited me to go with the group to a film director’s house in Beverly Hills for an après-opening drink. I lied, insisting I needed to prepare for the trip to New York.

  I went outside alone and gave the valet my ticket. My old, dirty car was parked in front, just between Lily’s and David’s sedans, which gleamed as if they had been washed for the occasion. Table 1 must have come with premier parking.

  It had been the social event of the year—a million-dollar party. Sure, the invitation had been a kind one and, whether an illusion or reality, as I drove away it was nice to feel that I was starting to belong among some of the most celebrated people in the world. But while I traveled down Wilshire Boulevard, sad storefronts asleep for the night and empty intersections’ stoplights blinking red, I thought again that the imported olive trees, elaborate costumes, pop-star performances and world-class art all paled in comparison to Matilda. I wondered who she would be dressed as, for hers was the only costume that mattered.

  * * *

  I arrived at the garden door, and it was locked.

  The circumstances were strange. Matilda and I definitely had a plan to meet in the garden in costume, and since her social life wasn’t exactly bustling, she wouldn’t have forgotten. I played back my last conversation with Matilda, wondering if I had done something wrong to be relegated to the street.