Fall Love

by Anne Whitehouse

  The door to the roof was open, and they stepped out to the cold air. They heard tinkling bells. Floodlights illuminated a fantasy scene, like a small stage planted in the roof’s expanse. There was a striped pole decorated with ribbons and streamers and strings of tiny bells. There were green wreaths and boughs and icicles made of glass and a trellis wound with lights.

  “How wonderful!” Jeanne exclaimed.

  Hand in hand, they walked under the streamers and the bells. Rock music was seeping out of the penthouse. Through the windows they could glimpse people moving about.

  “Let’s not go in just yet,” Jeanne urged. “Let’s walk around the house. I want to see the other side of the roof.”

  She led him around to the back of the house. He was just as curious as she was and the more astute observer of structures and design. Although he was critical of the penthouse’s construction, he liked its site on the roof. Jeanne absorbed his judgments, then changed the subject. “Let’s dance,” she cried, and began to sway to the strains of the music.

  Here there were no decorations, only the lanterns, and no one in sight. It was a dreary place to dance, and they stopped after only a couple of minutes. They circled the house and arrived by the long way to the garden, with the raised flower-beds blanketed in white and studded with markers, the deck around them, and the fountain, now bone-dry. Next to the fountain stood Althea, talking to a man.

  To Jeanne she looked regal and beautiful in a long silk kimono, with a sweater flung over her shoulders and a black half mask perched on her head like a pair of sunglasses. The sight of her stirred Jeanne like an old memory. For a moment Jeanne’s life stood still, as she recalled another New Year’s Eve party a decade ago, in Connecticut, when she and Althea were teenagers.

  That party was in a beautiful old house of white limestone, with a view of the surrounding hills and a formal garden which, like this one, had a fountain. The father of the boy who was giving the party—his name was Jon, Jeanne recalled—was president of the small Catholic college that owned the house, so Jon’s family got to live there. That New Year’s Eve, Jon’s parents were out of town, and he had invited all of his friends, who’d brought their friends.

  Jeanne suddenly remembered how on that night, just as now, she’d come upon Althea standing by that other fountain. Only on that night she was kissing a boy. For an instant, that earlier image replaced the present one. It was snowing very lightly, Jeanne remembered. Snowflakes drifted in Althea’s long hair and in the hair of the boy she embraced. Was it Alex that year? Jeanne tried to recall. Yes, I think it was.

  Now, on Paul’s roof, Althea made no sign that she’d noticed Jeanne. She appeared deep in conversation with a handsome, rangy, older man dressed like a harlequin from a Picasso painting. Jeanne did not know him, and she was reluctant to break in.

  “Why look at that!” René’s voice held a note of wonder. “Those are toe shoes stuck in the snow. There are so many of them.”

  “Why so they are,” said Jeanne. “I didn’t look closely; I assumed they were markers of some kind. And where did the snow come from? There’s none on the street. They must have brought it in from somewhere.”

  “It’s artificial,” said René knowingly. He started to approach the garden, but Jeanne held him back. “That’s Althea,” she said, “but I don’t want to interrupt her. I’ll introduce you later. Let’s go inside and find the party.”

  As she took René’s hand, leading him toward the house, Jeanne remembered how at Jon’s party, she’d also begun to walk away, leaving Althea and her date undisturbed. But suddenly Althea had looked up, as if she’d known all the while that Jeanne was there. “Come over here and see us,” Althea urged. She sounded happy, and she and Alex had smiled at Jeanne, as if they didn’t mind at all that she had discovered them.

  I did go to them, Jeanne recalled, and Alex put his arm around me, and we began talking. I have no idea what we said; I only remember that Althea seemed so protective of me, so maternal. I had the feeling she would watch over me and take care of me.

  But this time Althea did not acknowledge Jeanne, and Jeanne kept her thoughts locked in her heart, as she and René went inside the house to join the party.

  * * *

  For over an hour, it seemed to Bryce, he had stood rooted to the spot, as if he were a plant lashed to a stake. He greeted people as they came in, exchanging a few words with each one, before going on to the next person. He wore a tuxedo with a black silk cummerbund, a pleated white shirt, and a black bow tie. A domino covered half of his face, but he assumed he was known and did not introduce himself. He had almost forgotten what he looked like. Piled high on a silver tray sitting on a small table near him were masks identical to his. He encouraged each guest to select one.

  I’m playing a role, I am unreal, said Bryce to himself in those snatched seconds when he had time to think at all. It’s odd that I should be standing here like a figurehead, claiming the party as if it were mine, when, really, I’ve had so little to do with it. “Hello, Romula. Hello, Nicky. Hello… and you’re?… Oh yes.” Bryce clasped hands; he kissed cheeks. “Coats in the bedroom down the hall, drinks in the living room.” Like an usher, he waved his guests by. “Paul? He’s somewhere about.” Bryce suddenly felt envious that Paul, since he could not stand for long, was relieved of these duties.

  Everyone seems more unreal in one way, more real in another, he thought. It’s partly the clothes—fancy dress and evening dress—and the atmosphere. There’s a sense of freedom. One can say things that one is too inhibited to say in ordinary life. But not me, not yet anyhow. He shook his head.

  The front door opened again. “Jeanne, how nice to see you.” Bryce extended his hand, but not his cheek. I’m speaking by rote, he thought. I don’t really mean it. He cringed slightly, his hand was limp. I felt the same way when I saw Althea, he reminded himself, and so he wasn’t listening when Jeanne introduced René, though he nodded automatically. “Coats in the bedroom down the hall, drinks in the living room.” He repeated the lines like a formula. “And don’t forget to take a mask.”

  He watched them proceed. Then he felt a tap on his shoulder. It was Jane Vaughan in a short black dress. “Paul sent me to relieve you. You’ve manned the door long enough.”

  “I feel almost as if I’ve ceased to exist,” he confessed. “I’d like a drink. I want to join the party, too.” Still he hesitated. “Are you sure you don’t mind?”

  “Not a bit,” she assured him. She looked so serious and lovely—her hair like silk, her skin like milk—that he hugged her. “Do you think it’s a success?” he whispered.

  “Smashing. Now run along; I’ll do the honors for a while. After that, the stragglers can fend for themselves.”

  * * *

  Jeanne walked past Bryce with a shiver. When he shook her hand, it was like being pierced by a splinter of ice. If I were not with René, she thought, it would have been unbearable.

  The pulse of music drew her, allowing her to forget Bryce’s cold greeting. She got caught in the crowd in the hallway, dancing in a line, hands on each other’s hips, and was swept along. There must have been eight people, all dressed in disguises. She wasn’t ready for this; she still had on her coat.

  “René!” she called, and he clutched her wrist, to prevent her from being pulled away.

  “Let’s get rid of our wraps.” She had to speak loudly to be heard over the music.

  The bedroom was full of coats, covering the bed, piled on the floor. Jeanne walked in first, with René behind her. She thought to herself, Paul and Bryce sleep in this room. She tried to picture it cleared of coats. Impulsively, she turned around and kissed René on the lips. He swayed against her and kissed her again, opening her coat, caressing her. His kiss was like charity, creating desire by holding back nothing at all. She slipped his coat from his shoulders and tugged it off his arms, as he twisted from side to side to help her. He was wearing a long, loose blue blouse, cinched at the waist with a black belt, and jeans.
“What kind of costume is it?” Jeanne asked, as she pressed her cheek against the soft cotton.

  “It’s the uniform of a French porter of fifty years ago,” he told her.

  “How did you ever acquire it?” she wondered.

  “I found it when I was a teenager. It was hanging in a closet in my parents’ Paris apartment. No one knew how it had gotten there. Probably it had been left by a previous tenant. It reminds me of a costume out of La Bohème, something a nineteenth-century artist in a garret might wear. In my self-conscious youth, I used to wear it all the time and feel picturesque. Now I never wear it, except for special occasions, because it’s gotten so worn.”

  As René spoke, he fanned her hair from her head, smoothing it carefully.

  “To me, you look more like an artisan than an artist,” she said.

  “Tant mieux,” he said. “Et puis, mon petit papillon, je te mets les ailes.”

  “You’ll find them in my bag. They’re gossamer wings, small, not too showy,” she said. “They’re attached to a sash that loops around my shoulders and ties in the back. I borrowed them from the Green Heron Theater. I guess I’m really a moth, not a butterfly.”

  With her coat off, she was a black silhouette in turtleneck and leggings. Crouching on her knees among the coats, she retrieved the bag she had dropped. It seemed to her that his kiss had armed her. She felt safe with him.

  When she joined the party, she was in disguise. She wore one of Bryce’s masks and a headdress of her own devising. Two wobbly black feelers attached to a black velvet headband extended several inches above her head. They looked like giant pipe cleaners curled into spirals at the ends. These antennae nodded as she inclined her head, but the pair of stiff little wings at her back didn’t move. They were made of silvery gauze stretched over wire frames.

  So many people converged in the candlelit space of Paul and Bryce’s apartment that some breath seemed to go out of Jeanne, and she felt dimmed in the presence of so many flames. Gratefully, she accepted a glass of wine from a waiter balancing a silver tray full of glasses, one for René and one for herself. She watched a man she didn’t know lift his glass high in a toast and loudly declaim over the music and conversation, “La vida, la vida—we’d be dead without it!”

  She spotted Paul across the living room. He was not wearing a mask. He looks like a Renaissance prince, she thought, noting his robe of dark blue velvet, the high-backed chair where he sat, with carved wooden arms like a throne, and the people who surrounded him like courtiers.

  “There’s Paul,” she said to René. “Come, I want to introduce you.”

  She was excited by the thought of showing René off to Paul. It was delicious to imagine Paul reacting with curiosity, perhaps even a twinge of jealousy. Yet it also struck her as odd that her first thought was of Paul and not René. It was only after she realized this that she began to wonder what René might think, what he might guess. I love René, not Paul, she thought. Still, it’s a testimony to Paul’s power that I still care so much what he will think.

  As she approached Paul, his foot in a cast propped up on a footstool, leaning back languidly, apparently immersed in a conversation with people she didn’t know, she was shocked to see his glance fall on her and then look past her, as if he had not seen her at all. He doesn’t recognize me, she realized, at first with dismay and then with pleasure. The costume’s a success.

  Preening a little, she broached the small group around Paul, demanding him to notice her. He smiled at her, his lips curved, his eyes still uncomprehending, as he welcomed her casually, “So glad you could come.” There was a pause. “Bess?” he guessed, his voice rising in a question.

  She shook her head, only a giggle escaping her, not yet willing to give herself away by speaking to him.

  “Come here,” he urged her, beckoning her to kneel beside him. He spoke to her as if there were only the two of them there. Without thinking, she obeyed him. The touch of his long fingertips was as soft as a web on her face. Deliberately he lifted her mask. The conversations around them ceased.

  “Jeanne! It’s you!” Paul exclaimed. “I thought you were a dancer I know from Minneapolis. You look fantastic.”

  As he spoke, his voice trembled slightly. Jeanne looked at him closely. To her more careful eye, he appeared frailer than her first impression. Her pity was awakened, and so she spoke gently, “Paul, I want you to meet René Duval. René, this is Paul Carmichael.”

  She stepped aside to bring the two men face to face. “Delighted,” said René, shaking Paul’s hand. René’s back was to her; she couldn’t see his face, but she saw Paul look searchingly from René to her and then back to René. His gaze pierced her for an instant, then fixed on René. It made Jeanne feel lightheaded to watch her former lover and her current lover begin a conversation, while other conversations resumed around her. She moved closer to René, partly to claim him, partly to see him. He removed his mask, clasping it in his hand. His amber, dark-lashed eyes shone; a dimple danced in his cheek. He drained his glass.

  * * *

  Around Bryce was a buzz of conversation and casual innuendo, of introductions forgotten on the spot and perfect strangers who confided in each other like intimate friends. While he had been welcoming guests, the party had developed without him. Now he hung back shyly, his face still masked, sipping white wine. He made his solitary way into Paul’s dance studio, where some people had gathered. He recognized Mary Blaine and Robbie Upshaw, the two Pamplona sisters, his former law school classmates Terence and Miles. He saw Tommy Jackson and Ed Winslow and Tommy’s Fire Island friends whose names he couldn’t remember.

  He wandered out into the hall. He took off his mask. Beautiful Emily Lloyd came up to him in a white strapless gown, her blonde hair unfurling in soft curls over her shoulders. She was smoking a cigarette in an impossibly long holder. “Hello, dahlink,” she said, captivating Bryce. She wore a glittering rhinestone necklace around her neck and a fur stole with a fox head. Awed, Bryce giggled.

  Playing to him, she batted her false eyelashes and blew out three smoke rings.

  “Whom do I have the honor of addressing?” he asked.

  “Why, Tallulah Bankhead, dahlink. And you?”

  Bryce thought to himself, I’m not quick enough tonight to play along. He shook his head a little sadly. “No one in particular. Somehow, I wasn’t inspired.”

  He felt her searching, intelligent look behind the pose of a sultry vamp. She put out her cigarette. “Why are you standing here all by yourself?” she asked, flirtation erased from her voice.

  He shrugged, and she smiled at him. “Let’s find out what else is going on.”

  As he let her lead him down the hall away from Paul’s studio, he felt pleasantly passive. She’s so lovely, he thought, noticing the delicate curve of her chin and neck, the admirable smoothness of her skin and hair. With equal force he felt both the enchantment and his insusceptibility to it.

  In the living room, people were sitting in a circle on the floor, succumbing to gales of laughter. He couldn’t tell what amused them so. Emily, too, seemed intrigued.

  In wordless accord, Emily and Bryce approached. Bryce saw Paul among the seated circle, his right leg extended in the cast, with Michiko on one side of him, and then Jeanne and René. He saw Colette Ireland and Barbara Hale and Ben Jacobson and James Craig. No one had masks on anymore.

  “It’s your turn now,” he heard Michiko say to James. James nodded, and then Bryce saw his expression distend in a grimace. Slowly, deliberately, James passed his hand over his face, and the expression disappeared, as if it were peeled off. He raised his hand, as if he were actually holding something. He flung his arm back and then propelled it forward, like a pitcher throwing a baseball. He seemed to take aim at René, who pretended to catch whatever it was, passing his hand over his face, then imitating, in reverse, James’s action, so that, when he moved his hand away, he, too, was grimacing.

  “Could I have looked like that?” James mocked.

/>   “Pretty near,” said someone—Bryce wasn’t sure who.

  “It’s your turn to throw now, René,” said Jeanne.

  Paul raised his hand like a policeman stopping traffic. “Hold off a second, René.”

  No one had taken notice of Bryce or Emily, but now Paul addressed them. “Colette has taught us the face-throwing game. Do you know it? One makes an awful face and then wipes it off with the hand and throws it at somebody else, who has to reproduce it, and then make another awful one and throw it at somebody else.”

  “It sounds like fun,” said Emily.

  “Come join us,” urged Colette, opening the circle to make room for them. Bryce found himself being taken by the hand by Emily and given a place next to her and Colette. James was on Emily’s other side. René scowled again and threw his face at Emily, who caught it eagerly and, frowning terribly, threw her face at Ben. But she wasn’t used to trying to look awful, and her effort was lame. She shook her head ruefully.

  When the laughter died down, Ben refused to go next. “I’ve had my turn,” he said. “Let Bryce try now.”

  All of a sudden everyone was looking at him. Bryce writhed inwardly at their inspection. Until now, he realized, I’ve remained at the periphery of the party. I haven’t tried to join it; I haven’t wanted to.

  He looked away from them, his eyes cast to the floor, preparing himself. He wasn’t certain what he was going to do. His glance fluttered up inadvertently, and he saw Paul watching him. He thought Paul looked supercilious, superior, as if he were more sure of Bryce than Bryce was. Suddenly overcome by rage, Bryce hid his face in his hands. Anger rose in him and filled his thoughts, crowding out his other intentions. He stared straight at Paul with a look on his face full of hatred and loathing and bitterness. It was a look of enmity, stung with new reproaches that he had not allowed himself to speak.