What Nora Knew

by Yellin, Linda

  Bruce excused himself to procure a plastic baggie. He’s not a handsome man; he’s stout, pumpkin-faced, bald—but fastidious. Pamela once confided that he waxes his back. I could have lived a perfectly happy life without ever learning that particular nugget, but Pamela seemed to find it adorable. Bruce’s family owns half the gas stations along the Eastern Seaboard. She also finds that adorable.

  “About time we met!” she said to Russell. She hugged him hello and nodded at me over his shoulder, her eyes saying, This one looks decent. “You two get the Daisy Room. It’s Molly’s favorite.” She gave Russell a quick tour of their sixteen-room house and told us we’d have plenty of time to change for dinner. I hadn’t planned to change for dinner, but fortunately I’d brought along some extra sandals.

  Russell and I unpacked in our daisy-drenched bedroom—the wallpaper, curtains, and furniture, all in the same insanely cheery pattern. It’s like a drugged version of something you’d see on the cover of Architectural Digest. After settling in—Hamptons talk for “unpacking”—we were instructed to meet in the lanai—that’s what Pammie and Bruce call their covered porch furnished with three full-size sofas and a table long enough to hit the border of Westhampton. When you own more than a seven- or eight-room house, you start making up names for the overspill rooms.

  Downstairs in the lanai-porch-living-room-type room, we were subjected to nonstop food. Cocktails were offered. Snacks were offered. Bowls of steaming pasta and heavy plates of grilled vegetables were offered. That’s the main activity at one of Pammie’s weekends. Food. And conversations about the food. I couldn’t even tell you who was staying in the Tulip Room or the Lily Room or the Pink Carnation Room. I was too busy eating.

  By Sunday morning, lying together beneath our daisy-design quilt, I turned to Russell and asked, “You up?” His response was somewhere between a growl and a snore. On weekends he has a completely different morning personality from his up-and-at-’em, go-getter workday personality. He looked a mess with his hair scrambled and his sleep mask askew. I was happy for Pammie in her shiny Pamela life. My girlfriend was nice. My boyfriend was nice. Lying with my boyfriend on my girlfriend’s four-hundred-thread Frette linens was nice. On paper, my life was perfectly nice, but something felt off. Not always. But more often than I wanted to acknowledge.

  It would sneak up on me, this nagging sadness, a wistful sense of longing. People were dying of cancer, blind, deaf, sick, starving, and there I was thinking I even had the right to not be happy? Really, Molly, what’s wrong with you? I was with this lovely man who somehow considered me wonderfully likable. Count your blessings, Molly.

  Russell stirred and lifted his mask. Awake now, he pulled me closer, and I soon felt better.

  * * *

  The big event of the weekend, besides sex and indigestion, was the Sunday luncheon the Bendingers were hosting for forty of their favorite neighbors. Here’s the secret about the Hamptons: devotees are willing to plop down sizable chunks of change to build mega-mortgaged homes, in what used to be a giant stretch of potato fields, because of the air. It’s not normal, everyday breathe-in-breathe-out air. It’s not even normal ocean air. It’s lighter, fresher, infused with a magical silver light. The beaches sparkle, the wide green lawns sparkle, the people and their conversations about food sparkle. Air like that’s worth celebrating, so everyone throws parties. Especially the Bendingers.

  “Anything I can do to help?” I asked Pamela before the luncheon guests arrived. “Skim the pool? Fold napkins into swans?” I should have offered to help with valet service. I couldn’t believe how many cars showed up from people who lived a few blocks away.

  Cocktails were served and hors d’oeuvres passed on the patio. Harry Connick Jr. played on the built-in speakers overhead. Russell was having a marvelous weekend. I’d watched him play badminton and croquet, sunbathe and swim laps, and ask the other guests how they slept the night before. If anyone complained about a bad back, he’d promptly produce a business card. I admired his opportunistic drive, found it mortifying but admirable. As we stood together next to the crudités table, with Russell sipping a gin and tonic, me sipping a vodka tonic, he whispered, “Everything’s so fancy here.”

  “Yeah? Well, I knew Mrs. Fancy when she was still spending Saturday nights barfing into a toilet bowl.” I waved cheerily over at Pammie. She was speaking with a man wearing dubious pink pants and a polo shirt. “Let’s mill about,” I said to Russell. “We’re at a party. Let’s mingle and mill. Maybe I can get some quotes for my article.”

  We got three steps before bumping into a couple with matching golden tans.

  “Darrin Aschbacher,” the man said, holding his hand out to me, “entrepreneur.”

  “Molly Hallberg,” I said, shaking his hand, “salaried person.”

  “I’m Marya,” the woman said, “with a y.”

  “Y where?” I asked.

  “Everyone thinks my name’s spelled with an i, but it’s a y.” Her tone said, My cross to bear.

  “I’m Dr. Russell Edley,” Russell said, shaking hands with Darrin Aschbacher, entrepreneur.

  “What specialty?” Marya asked.

  “Chiropractic,” Russell said.

  “Oh, that kind of doctor.” She couldn’t have looked more dismissive if he’d said he delivered pizzas.

  “A lot of dancers from the New York City Ballet go to Russell,” I said.

  “My chiropractor claims that,” Marya said.

  “They all claim that,” Darrin said.

  Then we played the “How do you know the Bendingers?” game. Oh, really? Yes! How do you know the Bendingers! I figured it was as good a time as any to slip in a quick interview. I said to Marya, “You seem like a happy couple. How did you know Darrin was the one?”

  “The one what?” she asked.

  “The one for you.”

  “You mean why’d I marry him?”

  “Yes. I suppose I do.”

  “That was thirty-five years ago,” Darrin said.

  “Thirty-seven,” Marya said.

  “Who can remember these things?” Darrin said, shrugging.

  Russell and the Aschbachers moved on to chatting about back pain while I noticed a couple arriving across the lawn. I recognized Heike Vogel from newspapers; she’s one of the most powerful women producers in Hollywood—the grand total of women producers adding up to about five. Two years earlier she’d produced a notorious bomb, a May-December comedy starring Justin Bieber and Diane Keaton that went straight to DVD. Everyone said Heike was ruined after that, but she bounced right back with a Jennifer Aniston hit. EyeSpy gave the movie a half-star review but the public loved it, saving Heike Vogel’s reputation.

  It’s easy to recognize Heike. She has bright-pink hair and wears oversize, black-frame glasses and used to be famous for sleeping with old-time Hollywood studio czars and legends, but now she’s in her late sixties and most of the legends are dead. Her escort wore a Cincinnati Reds ball cap that stood out more than Heike’s hair. Ball caps are rarely seen in the Hamptons, and Cincinnati Reds caps are never seen. Two women walked up and kissed him hello. Heike headed off in the direction of the bar. The man removed his cap and stuck it in his back pocket; he looked at least twenty years younger than Heike. Was he her son? Her lover? Her baseball coach? Another woman scurried up and greeted him.

  “Oh! Do you know who’s here!” Marya said to me.

  “No.”

  Without saying good-bye or excuse me or please step aside before I mow you down, she made a beeline to Mr. Reds Fan.

  Russell and Darrin had moved on to discussing financial opportunities in neck braces, and I excused myself to refill my drink and maybe get to meet Heike. A quote from her, for my soul-mate piece, would be a total coup. She was standing by herself at a cloth-covered table lined with bottles of liquor and wine, holding her phone out the distance of a neighboring state and speed-tapping with two thumbs. I can never do that—that double-thumb thing. I headed toward her, trying to act cool and jo
urnalistic.

  “Damn cell service,” she said, tossing her phone into a large straw tote. She picked up a glass of wine and eyed me over the top of her big frames. “Who are you?” she asked. She immediately glazed over and looked past my shoulder. “Oliver! Darling!” she cried.

  I turned to see Oliver West. Oliver is a darling of the art world, at least for those who like expensive paintings of women with no faces. Oliver and Heike double-cheek air-kissed, and I said, “Hello, Oliver, nice to see you again.”

  “We’ve met?” he said.

  “I believe so,” I said.

  His expression went from puzzled to blank. “Oh, yes, I recall. Didn’t you purchase Nude on a Window Ledge?”

  “I believe not.”

  “Oliver, how’s your ex-wife?” Heike interrupted.

  I ducked away. Bruce was shaking hands with the Cincinnati Reds guy, and Russell was giving his card to the entrepreneur guy. I waited until Pamela was done talking to a server guy, then pulled her to the side.

  “Are you having fun?” she asked.

  “The funnest,” I said. “Who’s that man talking with Bruce and Marya?”

  “She spells it with a y, you know. Isn’t that peculiar?”

  “The peculiar-est. What’s with that guy in the Reds cap?”

  “Cameron Duncan. Heike Vogel brought him,” Pammie said. “She’s optioned the rights to his last two books. Crime crap. Aimed at women. Nothing we’d read.”

  “We’re women.”

  “He’s got this ongoing detective character, Mike Bing, who’s sensitive and caring and never kills the bad guys; he just sends them to jail.”

  “Crime crap,” I said.

  “Detective Bing falls madly in love in each book but the girlfriend always dies. One on the tower of a nuclear power plant. Another on top of the Washington Monument. The women are always in these high-up locations and he can’t save them.”

  “You read these books, don’t you?”

  “Busted,” Pammie said with a good-natured smile. “Hey, why’d Russell need to borrow salt this morning?”

  “He’s a gargler.” I blew bubbles in the back of my throat, but stopped when I realized I was making fun of my boyfriend. “Pammie, how’d you know Bruce was the man for you?”

  She looked around at her big, snazzy house, and out at her sweep of lush landscaping, and said, “I just knew.”

  I wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “You were always perceptive.”

  Pammie was glaring toward the far end of the lawn. “Unbelievable!” she said. Marya Aschbacher and another woman were rearranging the place cards. “I hate when people do that!” Pammie turned to me. “You should talk to Cameron. You’re both writers. Time for lunch!” she announced, and circulated through the guests encouraging everyone to head down to the afternoon meal.

  I found Russell and interrupted his speaking to a guy wearing madras Bermuda shorts and suspenders—not the grandfather kind of suspenders, the Wall Street kind. Russell was handing the man his business card. “This is my girlfriend, Molly,” Russell said. “Molly, Thatcher Kamin.”

  “Mergers and acquisitions,” Thatcher said to me, shaking my hand.

  “Great!” I said. “Pamela wants us to acquire lunch.”

  “Ah,” Thatcher said. “I must find my wife.” He wandered off.

  I linked my arm through Russell’s as we promenaded with the other guests to the back forty of the lawn. “That’s Oliver West, the artist,” I told Russell, nodding my head in Oliver’s direction. Oliver was walking with Heike, who was shaking her finger in his face. “I posed nude in front of him for over two years and he didn’t recognize me.”

  “Maybe he doesn’t recognize you in clothes,” Russell said.

  “Should I show him my tits?”

  At which point Cameron Duncan, who must have sonic hearing, was walking past with half the couple staying in the Tulip Room—the female half—and grinned at me. For all the estrogen-laced fussing over him, he wasn’t handsome. He had this high forehead and short, dark curls. I couldn’t tell if his forehead was high because it was high, or if his forehead was high because his hairline was receding, but one eyebrow was straight and the other angled up as if he were constantly amused. His mouth also tilted to the right. That was what made him attractive, even though he wasn’t attractive—his crooked, twinkly smile.

  I leaned in closer to Russell and sped up my walk.

  A white-clothed table with white china place settings was set up across the expanse of the yard. I felt like we were entering a scene out of The Godfather. The guests circled the table looking for their place cards, while Pamela frantically tried to rearrange them the way she’d originally wanted. “I set things up girl-boy, girl-boy!” she said, making a few quick switcheroos until two women grabbed seats musical-chairs style and another threw down her purse, staking her claim. Pamela finally gave up, snatching one last card for one last change, resulting in two groans and several complaints.

  She’d seated me next to Cameron Duncan on her end of the table. Bruce was holding court at the other end. Somewhere along the free-for-all, Russell had been relocated two seats over on the opposite side, next to a lovely young woman with a Southern accent who introduced herself as Lindy Sue Michaels, interior design. Across from me, next to Lindy Sue, a woman introduced herself as Rachel Starr, horticulturist.

  The woman on my non-Cameron side leaned forward to reach across me and shake his hand—actually it was more of a lingering squeeze—and said, “I’m Blair Kamin.” Apparently Thatcher Kamin didn’t locate his wife in time to avoid having his place card moved. Thatcher was sitting next to Bruce. “I’m thrilled,” Blair said, her elbow in my face. Cameron was surrounded by a sea of female fans. Heike Vogel on his opposite side. Marya Aschbacher across from Heike. And of course, Pamela, the closet Cameron fan.

  Bruce stood and made a toast welcoming his neighbors and welcoming summer. Pamela seconded the toast, and everyone agreed and toasted each other. Cameron Duncan smiled when he clinked my glass. He smiled at Rachel Starr when he clinked her glass. He smiled for Heike and Marya and Pamela and reached his wineglass across the bread basket to Lindy Sue. Every woman got clinked.

  Lindy Sue winked as he clinked. “Is that my water glass or your water glass?” I heard her ask Russell.

  “Your water glass,” he said.

  She winked at him. She was wearing a fitted vest with a fringed scarf draped around the front of her neck and over her shoulders. No blouse. Just the scarf and vest.

  Thatcher Kamin stood and made a toast, thanking Pamela and Bruce. Amid more clinking and sipping, Cameron clinked me again and said, “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” He wasn’t content with all the drooling women, he had to win me over, too. “What do you do?”

  “I’m a writer at EyeSpy,” I said. “I cover human interest.”

  “Major responsibility.”

  “Yes. There are a lot of humans out there.”

  The end of the toasting signaled the onslaught of food, a parade of servers presenting platters of Spanish dried sausages and applewood-smoked meats, fresh foie gras, Portuguese cheeses, trays overflowing with sliced Scottish salmon, chèvre wrapped in fig leaves; the server poured tender cabernets and smooth merlots.

  While passing the salmon, Rachel said to me, “I can’t believe you’ve never read any Mike Bing mysteries. His heart gets broken at the end of every book when his girlfriend gets killed.”

  “He doesn’t sound like a very good detective,” I said.

  “Oh, he’s amazing,” Lindy Sue said, winking at Cameron.

  “Pamela, I love your sausages,” Marya said.

  “Thanks,” Pamela said. “I love your earrings.”

  Lindy Sue turned to me. “Mike Bing’s stopped a drug cartel, a nuclear bomb attack, and in book three he saved the national treasury. But the books are really about crimes of the heart.”

  I could see Russell perk up. “Did you see National Treasure?” he asked Cameron.
r />   “Nicolas Cage is my hero,” Cameron said.

  “What’s the name of your book?” Russell asked.

  Heike halted her texting. “Books,” she corrected. She picked up a fork and stabbed at a turkey meatball.

  “Books,” Russell repeated. I could tell he didn’t want that fork stabbing him.

  “Will there be a new love interest in your next novel?” Rachel, horticulturist, asked Cameron.

  “They never survive?” I said. “Not one of them? What woman would date this guy?”

  Rachel scowled at me.

  “I’d date him!” Blair said. “I cried in book two when he sent Monique a white rose every Monday and then buried her with white roses. You know what women want, Cameron.”

  Yes, nice funeral flowers, I thought. The truth is, I was jealous of this Cameron guy. Nobody ever fawned over my writing. I never got fawning. “How’d you become such an expert on women?” I asked.

  “Four sisters,” he said. “All older.”

  “Any brothers?” Lindy Sue asked with a wink. I admire good winkers. My winks look more like a tic.

  “No. Just me,” Cameron said. “I’m the baby in the family.”

  Did he just refer to himself as the baby in the family?

  “That is so sweet,” Marya said.

  “Adorable,” Rachel said.

  “No wonder you’re so sensitive,” Blair said. “And Mike Bing’s so romantic.”

  Cameron did this fake aw-shucks, shy-guy thing, complete with humble shrug and sheepish smile. “I think men are much more romantic than women give them credit for,” he said. “What man doesn’t love Sleepless in Seattle?”

  The women all cooed. The men all looked confused.

  “Is there any more corn?” I asked.

  After a short discussion praising the delicious garden-fresh zucchini, and who had Lyme disease, Rachel said, “I hated when Mike Bing couldn’t save Sasha on top of the power plant. Darn arachnophobia.”

  “Acrophobia,” Cameron said, smiling. “Heights. Not spiders.”

  “I can’t wait for the movie,” Blair said from one side of me across to Cameron on the other side of invisible me.