by Rita Ciresi
“What’s the matter?” Strauss asked.
“I have a headache.”
“You can’t be getting your—”
“No. I forgot to take my pill yesterday and I had to take two this morning. Please stop frowning at me. I’m only human and I make mistakes.”
“I wish you’d be more careful. You have been careful up to now, haven’t you? Lisar, you really look ill. Do you want to sit down?”
“Not in here. This Christian stuff is creeping me out. Doesn’t it bother you?”
“I prefer it to the mall at Christmas,” he said, putting his arm around me and ushering me into the next room.
After we sat down in the huge hall dominated by some Turner harbor scenes, we continued our tour and ended up in the East Gallery all by ourselves. Strauss admired a long portrait of a woman in black by Whistler. “Very elegant,” he said.
“She looks constrained to me.” The woman was painted in profile and proudly lifted her chin to show her independent nature. Nevertheless, her bosom thrust forward and her belly seemed unnaturally pulled in. “She probably had on a whalebone corset and fainted every five minutes.”
Strauss gestured at the accompanying portrait on the other side of the door-a tall, thin man in white gloves and cravat who held a cane. “He doesn’t look too happy either.”
“Maybe they’re married,” I said.
Strauss frowned. “Maybe they’re not.”
He consulted his guidebook. He told me the man—Robert, Comte de Montesquiou-Fezensac—served as the model for Proust’s Baron de Charlus.
I was tempted to snort and tell Strauss—who had never read Proust—that Charlus seduced boys. When Strauss read in the brochure that the other portrait was of a mistress of Whistler’s agent named Rosa de Cambrier, I also was tempted to tell him Rosa looked more like a man to me than a woman.
“Which woman do you think is more attractive?” I asked Strauss. “The woman in the Ingres or the woman in the Whistler?”
“Is that a trick question?”
“Are you evading it?”
“Which one do you think is more attractive?”
“This one,” I lied, pointing to the Whistler, perhaps because the woman’s black dress reflected my somber mood at the moment.
“You look like the girl in the other portrait.”
“You think?”
“I know.”
“But she’s so chubby.”
“How can you say that? This woman here looks emaciated to me.”
When we exited the gallery, we passed by the Ingres again, and I slipped into a habit I had—one I desperately wanted to break—of comparing myself to other women, even if they were two-dimensional portraits hanging on the wall posing no threat whatsoever to me. Strauss was right—the woman in the Ingres had my intensely pale skin and brown hair; she had my round face and the big eyes that looked like any moment they would begin to weep. But she was plumper—and much prettier—than I was, and her shiny, luxurious blue dress and jeweled bracelet bespoke an elegance I’d never attain. Her lips were permanently pressed together. She’d never stick her foot in her mouth.
Back at the Pierre, Strauss got me two aspirin and stood over me while I downed them with water. We packed our bags and were silent during the long wait for the elevator. In the lobby, we had the bad fortune of bumping into a wedding party. Who got married on a Sunday? I thought, until I realized either the bride or the groom—or both parties involved—probably were Jewish. But the bride, the kind of woman who didn’t realize how carefully you had to dress after you turned thirty, had the appearance of an Irish maid gussied up in some hideous concoction of cut-through lace and seed pearls and hooped tulle that made her look like Zsa Zsa Gabor on top and Scarlett O’Hara on the bottom. Just like both of those commanding ladies, the bride had her hands on her hips and was bossing the groom—an ugly duck in a yellow cummerbund—to check on the flower arrangements before they entered the Café. “I told them I didn’t want the centerpieces in the center of the table,” she kept repeating.
I averted my eyes. Strauss also looked away. He at least could concentrate on clearing the bill. At that moment I wouldn’t have dreamed of looking over his shoulder at the room charge. I needed no further proof at this point that it had been a high-stakes kind of weekend.
After asking for the car to be brought around, Strauss ran back inside. He said he forgot to leave something for the maids. He left me standing next to the bellhop, my ears ringing from the sound of cars honking in stalled traffic.
I stood there awkwardly for a few minutes, feeling decidedly shabby in comparison to the well—dressed people who were entering the hotel, probably to attend that fatal wedding reception. I thought, if I married Strauss … well, we’d have to elope. No one in my family would behave themselves at our wedding; Strauss’s parents probably would not approve of me, his brother—in—law would go ballistic, and we would hardly have the blessing of the folks at Boorman. So who would stand up with us, besides the rabbi or the priest or the third guy in the joke? Yes, it would have to be the third guy, a minister—some Unitarian in sandals—because neither one of us would give in and convert.
It was easier to be Strauss’s lover. Or so I thought until (in one of those coincidences I could blame only on the stars) a cab pulled up to the curb, and who stepped out but the new fool in charge of Boorman’s advertising team—Ed “Hook” Roberts—who clearly did not recognize me even though I recognized him. He looked like the kind of macho man who went to sports bars after hours to belt back a few brewskies. His fullback shoulders and beefy neck gave him the appearance of a state trooper. All he needed was a pair of mirrored shades, a Smoky Mountain hat with a black plastic chin strap, and a radar gun, and he’d be all set to pull you over and request to see your license, ma’am—clocked you at eighty.
Hook paid the driver and reached his hand into the backseat to help his wife (I spotted a wedding band and an engagement ring with a diamond big as a hoppy—toad on her carefully manicured hand). He began to brush past me and the bellboy, who stood beneath the shade of the canopy. Yet who should come through the revolving door right at that moment but my partner in crime.
“Yo, Strauss,” Hook Roberts boomed, and actually echoed Strauss’s words from this morning. “Small world.”
“Isn’t it,” Strauss said, and his hand seemed unnaturally pale when he reached out to accept Hook’s handshake. He then greeted Hook’s wife. Her name was Lorraine.
“We’re here for a wedding,” Hook said, leaving plenty of room for Strauss to explain what had brought him into the city. Then came the moment when Strauss looked beyond them and sized up the situation—the moment when he had to decide whether to acknowledge me or ignore me. “No,” I silently mouthed, and shook my head, trying to let him know I hadn’t been spotted. But he already had decided to do the right thing, of course.
“Do you know Lisar Diodetto?” Strauss said, carefully using my whole name and also carefully admitting—up front—that I was in the Editorial department.
“What was your name again? Oh Lee-sa! No, I haven’t had that pleasure,” Hook said, although he had met me just the week before on his introductory whirlwind tour through Boorman. He turned to check me out. He saw the suitcases at my feet and the bellhop next to me, from which he clearly could tell we hadn’t been there just to dine at the Café Pierre, where a cup of coffee cost more than a paperback book, and an appetizer more than a hardcover.
“It’s a pleasure,” Hook repeated as he shook my hand, then introduced me to his cara sposa, who looked like she had just risen from a Wolff tanning bed to don her Talbot’s special—occasion beaded dress. Lorraine took my hand with just the slightest touch of her pale French—manicured fingertips and waited for Hook to release us. But Hook clearly was having a merry time watching our discomfort. After finding out that we went to Lincoln Center last night (No kidding, you guys really like opera? Or is it just him, Lisa, and you’re along for the ride?), he pointed
to my left breast, where I had stupidly left on my Frick admission sticker, and said, “You left your handle off the name tag; you traveling incognito?” Lorraine stood there, looking bored, undoubtedly inured to his buffoonery, while he smiled and laughed like a great—uncle razzing the groom at a wedding and did everything short of winking at Strauss and clapping him on the back. That was how I knew for sure that Strauss—the sole bachelor of the upper echelon at Boorman—was probably the butt of many a single-man joke and the object of ugly speculation when the bigwigs got together, rumors that already had reached Hook, who’d been on board less than one week.
Strauss handled the whole thing well, but I could tell he was relieved when the valet pulled the Audi up to the curb. More handshakes were exchanged all around, and then Strauss ushered me into the front seat. Strauss was so distracted he practically pulled away from the hotel without tipping the poor schmuck who had to bring the car around.
He sighed as he edged—and then lurched—the car out onto Fifth Avenue.
“I’m sorry that happened.”
“Bad timing,” I said. “You couldn’t control it.”
“I got rattled.”
“I did too,” I said. “I mean, I hated the way he looked at me—”
“You see what I mean now,” Strauss said.
I stared out the window, and what I envisioned gave plenty of competition to the stark mannequins posed in grotesque postures in the Henri Bendel storefront. Within twenty—four hours Strauss and I would be crushed—mortar—and—pestle style—in Boorman’s rumor mill. Strauss would be criticized by some—but admired by others—for screwing one of the gals in Editorial. I would be marked as the office hussy. Bets would be taken on how soon I would be promoted and how soon I would become the proverbial day-old doughnut that not even the cleaning woman would deign to eat when she found it stale and dusty by the coffee machine in the early morning. Both of us could plan on getting drubbed down—either publicly or privately—by Peggy.
“Yes, I see,” I was about to say, when Strauss said, “Of all the people to spot us, it would have to be that sonofabitch.”
Except for that crack at his brother—in—law, this was the harshest thing I’d ever heard Strauss say. His hostility toward Hook seemed to surface out of a sense of chivalry (which was about as hip as the handkerchief in his pants pocket, but I couldn’t help what I liked, so why fight it?). His hatred also seemed to stem from a feeling of inadequacy. Strauss probably didn’t like those linebacker types any more than I liked the Betty Crockers who surrounded me in Editorial—because they made us question just how manly-man or girly-girl we were. A man like Strauss, who always returned his library materials on time, naturally would loathe a no-necker like Hook, who surely would take the prize for doing the most push-ups at the next company retreat.
“So I guess you didn’t head the search committee who hired Hook,” I said.
“If you only knew. How strongly Peg went to bat to keep them from hiring him—”
“Did you join in?”
“What do you think?”
I bit my lip. “Why did you introduce me?”
Strauss had that pained look in his eyes that came from trying to concentrate on driving and conduct a serious conversation at the same time. “Because when you try to hide something, it looks like you’re doing wrong even when you’re not.”
“But I shook my head at you,” I said. “I don’t think he saw me. And if he did, I don’t think he knew who I was. He didn’t remember me.”
“He was pretending not to remember you, so he could lean over and inspect what he called your name tag—which was an excuse to stare at your breasts.”
“So that wasn’t my imagination; I thought he was checking out my boobs too—oh, Strauss, watch out for that cab!”
Strauss hit the brakes and my hand flew up to the dashboard to brace myself. A cacophony of car horns began and ended.
“Are you okay?” Strauss asked.
I nodded, although I was feeling green from the sudden lurch of the car. “Just drive,” I said. “Just drive carefully.” Because I wanted to get home in one piece, although I was certain now that Boorman would be more than willing to pay for my funeral.
“There’s a very simple solution to all this,” Strauss said.
“What?”
“Let me handle it.”
“I don’t want you to handle it. How are you going to handle it?”
“I’ll talk to Peg.”
“Are you nuts? I don’t want you to talk about me to Peg.”
“Peg is a human being. I have a good relationship with her. But she has certain idears—that I don’t always agree with—about the way people should interact—”
“Tell me the truth. Does she disapprove of me?”
“But what are you talking about, she’s practically adopted you, look at how close you’ve gotten to her in just the short amount of time you’ve been on board—”
“You’re the one who reminds her to take her Dramamine.”
“She’s obviously taken some sort of shine to you, with this dear—sir—and—madam stuff, and I’m warning you, she’s going to ask you to go golfing—”
“Tell her I don’t play—”
“I don’t tell her anything, and when you do come into the conversation, I wait it out because I don’t dare change the subject. But now this has got to stop once and for all. Now that it isn’t necessary to hide it, it’s best to explain the situation. Put it above board.”
“I’m not comfortable with that,” I said.
“I am.”
“I’m not.”
“I thought we agreed to get along with one another, Lisar.”
“That doesn’t mean we have to go along with what you say.”
“It’s a long ride home,” Strauss said. “Think about it. And if you can’t see it from my point of view, then be prepared to present an alternative battle plan.”
Although I’d always been pretty good at games of strategy—so good that by age nine only Dodie could sustain a game of checkers with me that lasted more than a quarter of an hour—I could not see more than one uncertain move ahead in this tournament. The only thing I knew for certain was that Strauss was getting bossy—in a way I didn’t like—which meant all of a sudden Strauss (not Hook) seemed like the opponent who had backed me into the corner and made me sweat my next turn.
I tried to concentrate on Hook. What were the odds he would leak something at the office? Very strong. He was new; he probably was aware that Strauss and Peggy had opposed hiring him; he would have nothing at all to lose by contributing an interesting factoid to the humdrum lore at Boorman, unless he wanted to hang on to the information for blackmail. There seemed no reasonable way—beyond putting cement shoes on Hook and sinking him to the bottom of the Hudson River—to silence him.
At my place Strauss pulled into a shady spot in the parking lot and killed the engine. Neither one of us moved.
“Well?” Strauss said.
“I need more time.”
“I guess you’ll have it, whether I like it or not.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Don’t you remember you’re going home tomorrow? And I’m in Atlanta for the rest of the week? I’d rather not talk about something sensitive like this on the phone with Peg.”
I nodded. With relief. But then I realized that come Wednesday I would be at Boorman without Strauss around to protect me if Peggy should blow a cork. Who would she go after more vigorously—him or me?
“I wish you weren’t going away for so long,” I said.
“And next weekend. It’s my father’s birthday. I have to take him to a doubleheader at Yankee Stadium.”
“Well. Bring back a Cracker Jack surprise for me.”
He hesitated. “This is awful timing. I wanted to take you home—”
“Don’t feel obliged.”
“I mean, I would like you to come home and meet my parents. Do you want to?”
&
nbsp; “Of course. Yes.”
“But this coming weekend is out. My sister and her family will be at my parents’ too. It would be too much—”
“You mean your brother-in-law would object to my presence.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t give a goddamn what he thinks. Nor would my parents. It just doesn’t seem like the right time, the proper forum—” He stopped. “Trust me. It’s got nothing to do with what happened in New York.”
“What did happen?” I asked. “In New York?”
“I don’t know. I just felt like we had turned some kind of corner. And now it’s got to change; please let me hold the floor just one more minute without interrupting—”
“I’m not interrupting!”
Strauss looked down at the steering wheel and he shamed me by telling me that although he had doubted it—and maybe even fought against it almost every step of the way—he now knew he cared for me, very deeply, and corrected himself by hurriedly saying, “I mean, all weekend I’ve been trying to tell you I love you.” Before I could open my mouth to answer, he held up his hand and announced, “You don’t have to say anything back. Yet. Don’t say anything.”
I sat there, amazed that he would try to shut me up at such a moment. With a flush I remembered how he said, “Let me handle it.” Was that selflessness—wanting to save us both from harm—or just another power trip for him? He always picked up the check. He drove. We slept in his bed. Even though he whispered it with what I thought was love in his voice, he had ordered me to lie still in bed that morning and had insisted on working me over like there was no tomorrow. He had given me a pink slip, and I wore it.
I wore it.
“I need to get out of this car,” I said, and reached for the lever. But I couldn’t open the door.
“Are you all right?” he asked.