“Better probably,” I said.
“I think it’s for the good, Mom.” I told her.
“I think it’s for the great, Iris.” Glenn said. Funny, I felt like he and I were kind of a team, doing our little number to keep up Mom’s morale. She was being a trouper, but having been on her own with me all these years, and then having this guy suddenly appear, a guy with plenty of money who had never even wanted to find out how she was, how we were, had to be heavy. I’m sure she didn’t give a damn about the money. Or being ignored. Just figuring out how she should deal with it that was bothering her. He hadn’t given her much time.
“What’s my father’s name?” I wanted to know. “Roberto Baroncelli. But no one ever called him Roberto. Everyone called him Baby,” Mom said.
“Baby?” Glenn and I said together. I suppose we were thinking of the same thing.
“In Europe calling someone ‘Baby’ isn’t the same thing as it would be here,” Mom said. “Everyone was called Johnny or Harry or some kind of American name. It was the chic thing. I think someone was trying to call him Bobby and it just came out Baby. I guess. I suppose. Who the hell knows? He was Baby Baroncelli when I met him, but he wasn’t much of a Baby. He was like a movie star. Like Robert Taylor. That look.”
I drew a blank. Glenn looked a little miffed. Evidently Robert Taylor must have been very good-looking.
“Anyway, we’ll see how much of those looks survived. You must be braced for anything, Hugo. He always lived very fast and he could be pretty much a wreck. I hope not, for your sake.”
“For my sake, Mom? I couldn’t care less.” I got up and put my arms around her and we looked in the mirror over the fireplace together. I put my head against hers. We have pretty much the same face. She kept her arms down by her sides, so as to not encourage me. “You’re my dad,” I said to her in the mirror. “You’re my dad and my mom and my granddad and my grandmother and the whole shooting match. And you’re well up to it. I kind of hate to think what it would have been like if all the rest of them had been on hand. I’d be crushed to a little smidgen of dust from all the supervision.”
“You’re a very good boy, Hugo.” She pushed her hands up through my arms and squeezed my face. “I’m going to give you a baby kiss.” She put her lips on my face and rubbed them up and down in a blubbery way that left a lot of spit, just as babies do.
“Mom, you know I hate that,” I said and tried to pry myself away from her, but she’s strong. Glenn pulled himself up from the couch. “Nobody ever gives me baby kisses,” he said, heading for the door.
“Count yourself lucky,” I yelled after him as I headed for the stairs. In the door I could hear Mom calling good-bye and that she would call him tomorrow.
the strand
The Strand. You know the Strand. Where all the models go. Or all the people who would like to meet models. Or all the people who want to be models. Handsome Eric was at the door. So handsome I would think most other male models would have a sinking feeling of “what’s the use of trying?” Eric was a famous model and now owns the Strand. Mom and he spoke French a little. That usual “Comment ça va” variety. He gave her that look that only French men seem to give. An “admiring” look. Not coming on, but that “how do you get so beautiful” look. If I were a woman I would think that would be a very nice reaction to get. Rather than that “let me touch your tits” routine American men do.
Eric was very nice to me, too. “You should model,” he said. “He’s already past that stage,” my mother said. And we were shown to the Baroncelli table.
I could feel Mom kind of gathering herself. As we came up to the table the candlelight didn’t make it too easy to see, but I could make out three people. Two men and a woman.
Mom walked up and said to the man in the middle, “Baby, it’s me.” The man turned and looked up. He had dark hair and a dark tan and deep lines on either side of his mouth and between his eyes. He was handsome like a Mexican movie star and there was something a little devilish about him. Long eyebrows, maybe. He was the guy who, with his little friend, had tried to pick up Fred and me backstage at the Bomber Club.
My father stood up. He was tall. A navy blazer and no necktie. He came around the table and I think he was going to hug Mom but she stuck out her hand and made him shake it. “Iris, darling,” he said, “how wonderful you look.”
“Do I?” she said. “I think I’ve looked more wonderful in my time. This is Hugo.” I stepped up and shook his hand. It was large and a little moist. I didn’t like the way it felt.
So this was my father. It was sort of like doing a scene from a show. I didn’t feel what might be a genetic pull. It was hard to imagine Mom and him as a couple. It felt good that he wasn’t my father now. Macha’s folks wouldn’t have liked him at all and they love Mom.
“This is the Count and Countess De Vecci del Vecchio,” he said, turning to the couple. The count was kind of a little old man. He stood and shook mom’s hand. The countess did not rise. She was a blond lady in a pink dress with a rather stiff face. She said, “Hi. It’s wonderful to meet you. Roberto has been telling us all about you folks.” Mom sat down beside the little old count. I sat beside the pink countess. Mom sat up very straight with her hands on the edge of the table. She spoke to the count in Italian. He said in English, “You are Italian? How very interesting. But we must speak English as my wife doesn’t speak Italian.”
“Hell,” said the countess, “I don’t even speak English, I don’t know how anyone could expect me to learn Italian.” She was like some kind of wind-up doll, the countess. Behind her sort of flat, expressionless face I got the impression there was an old ex–Texas cheerleader. “It would be impolite as Hugo doesn’t speak Italian, either. I just felt like speaking a few words to see if I still could,” Mom said.
“When did you come to the United States?” the count asked. “Oh, long ago,” Mom said. My father, Baby, sat down between the count and the countess, sort of beaming at both of us, and occasionally at the count and countess. I wondered if he was on something.
I think just about then Mom doped out that my father hadn’t told these people that this was his former wife and present child. “How do you happen to be here?” Mom said very politely to the three people facing her. “We have an apartment on Fisher’s Island,” the count said. “This is our first time, and we love it,” the countess said. My father said, “The count and countess asked me to come with them. We’ve known each other for a long time, Enrico and I from Rio. And of course, Lorene for a number of years too, now.”
“So, Roberto, you just happened to be in Miami and decided to look Hugo and me up? Is that it?” There was a little edge to Mom’s voice. I could see that both Enrico and Lorene had directed their attention to her. I suppose in their world ugly scenes at restaurant tables were old stuff. And it would give them something to talk about whenever they went back to wherever they came from.
“Do you like Fisher’s Island?” I asked Lorene. The menus arrived. “It’s pretty much like all these places,” she said. “The Costa del Sol, the Costa Smeralda, what’s that place on the Mexican coast that Goldsmith girl has? They all kind of look like they’re made out of plaster over chicken wire. But they gave us a great deal because of the count’s title. What they forget is that I am the former Lorene Fogel of Lubbock, Texas, and I knew all those rich assholes when I was married to Gus Fogel.” This was pretty weird coming out of that tight little mouth with the pink lipstick. I really did wonder what she used to look like before they stretched her face all over the front of her skull. I kind of liked that voice.
“Haven’t you ever been to Fisher’s Island?” she asked Mom. “I thought you were in real estate.”
“I am,” Mom said, “but not in that league. I sell houses mostly here in Miami Beach. And Hugo goes to school at Miami Beach High.”
“Are you a widow?” Lorene asked. Now the fat was really in the fire. Mom looked straight across the table at her and said, “I’m a divorcee, but
I wish I were a widow.”
“That bad, hey?” said Lorene, from that gash of a mouth. I was really beginning to dig her. I looked at the count. Enrico knew something wasn’t going right but he wasn’t quite sure what. Roberto, my father, was studying the menu very carefully.
Handsome Eric came to the table. “Is everything all right?” he asked. Mom smiled at him and said, “Eric, I’d like you to meet my former husband, Roberto Baroncelli. And his friends, the Count and Countess … del Vecchio? Did I get that right?”
“Close enough,” Lorene said. “Did I hear you say that this is your former husband?” She gestured toward me with her menu. “Is this your son together?” She didn’t wait for an answer. Poor Eric was standing by the table, cool and collected but realizing he’s walked into some kind of booby trap. “I’m sure you’ll excuse me,” he said and glided swiftly out of sight.
The count looked like he had just had the face-lift. Not a speck of expression. And my father had the same look. Everything just smoothed away. Lorene was quite the opposite. What was left of her facial muscles were working overtime. In a completely different of voice, quite low, she said, “You shit. I’m going to say this for your wife—former wife. She’s too much of a lady to do it I’m sure. You are a shit. You invite your wife and son to dinner. You haven’t seen them in years. This kid probably never. And you ask us to come along? And don’t even tell us?”
“I didn’t know what to say, Lorene. I was going to explain later,” this guy who is my father says.
“Not. You were going to just slip them in and out of your life like they were old acquaintances from the past. You are absolutely empty, Roberto. Empty. And now I know why Eduardo didn’t come tonight. Headache, my ass.”
I was really liking Lorene. My mother stood up from the table and I did too. We had finally gotten the attention of the table full of models and their Latin boyfriends at the next table. “Don’t go,” Lorene said, reaching out her hand. It was very scrawny and speckly, like a chicken’s foot, with a great big diamond ring and bracelet on it. “Don’t go. Or if you go I’m going, too. Really, Enrico, can’t you say something?”
“Roberto is my friend,” he mumbled down into his plate. I was figuring out that those diamonds Lorene was wearing hadn’t come from him.
Lorene turned to me. “What do you think, Hugo? What do you want to do?”
“I think we should stay. We’re all hungry and everything’s out on the table,” I said to Mom.
“But the food,” Lorene said.
“Let’s stay, Mom. You haven’t seen mmmmh”—I nodded toward my father—”in a long time. Let’s not just run away. Come on, sit down.” And she did.
“Spoken like a little diplomat,” Lorene said, clutching my hand with her chicken claw. I figured that Lorene and Mom and I could have a really good time together, and we’d fit the two stiffs in somehow. Lorene swiveled in her seat. “Waiter,” she cried out into thin air and one magically appeared. She was used to that, I guess. “We must have some wine immediately,” she called out, as though he was still halfway across the room. “Bring us a good red wine. Right now. Don’t bother with the wine list. Just bring some wine right away … and some water”—looking around the table a little wildly—”and for God’s sake some food.”
And so we ate. I had swordfish. Don’t ask me why. I don’t particularly like it. I guess at least I knew what I was going to get. Mom had a Caesar salad.
There wasn’t much to say, really, except to scream at each other. There was no way I could tell anybody that it was my father who had tried to pick me up at the Bomber Club on closing night with his little boyfriend. For one thing, Mom doesn’t know I worked there, and why bother since it’s closed? Baby Baroncelli, my father, didn’t look very fussed that the kid he had tried to pick up was his son. He hadn’t flickered an eyelash when he saw me and he wasn’t giving me any meaningful looks now. In fact, he wasn’t giving me any looks at all, and few to Mom. Strange, huh? Here’s your genetic father and it’s somebody you don’t like. Somebody you could never like. Somebody you wouldn’t mind if you never laid eyes on again in your whole life.
All these stories about adopted kids who spend years trying to find their real mom, or look for a father who deserted them young. All that stuff. Like it was going to make a difference. The fact they stayed out of your life all those years doesn’t exactly suggest a lot of loving, does it?
Thank God Lorene was at the table. She was really nice. Or at least she knew how to act the part of a nice person really well. Which is just as good.
She asked me about school and what I wanted to do. I told her I would like to be a writer. She said, “But you should be an actor, you’re so good-looking!” She added, “But not at all like your father.” Kind of to take sides, I guess. Mom told her that I’d done a TV pilot that perhaps was going on the air this fall and I would probably work in it some more if it was successful.
My father kind of woke up when he heard this. He asked Mom, not me, if I had made a lot of money. She told him I would make more money if the show was successful, and that, yes, I had made some money but didn’t particularly like acting. “But why?” he wanted to know. “When he’s off to such a good start.”
Lorene picked up on it right away. She turned to me. “It’s as though you’re not even here, Hugo. Hugo the Thing.” I had to like her. I said, “Maybe it’s because I’m only seventeen.”
“Why only?” she said. “Seventeen isn’t so young. Thirteen isn’t so young. All this Michael Jackson furor. Where were all these people when they were thirteen?”
Mom had been listening out of one ear. She turned and said, “I was in a convent school.”
Lorene said, “Well, I suppose that does exempt you, but I’m not even sure of that from all the things I’m reading in the papers lately,”
“This was in Italy,” Mom said.
“Oh, I’m sure that made all the difference,” Lorene said. She was kind of a hot old dame.
She took out her lipstick and her compact and redid her lipstick. She said, “It was the Duchess of Windsor who made it all right to redo your makeup at the table. She was right of course. Why spend a fortune on these compacts if no one ever sees them?” She finished and slapped the compact shut. Very pink mouth. I asked her, “Did you ever meet the Duchess of Windsor?” “I was at a couple of dinner parties she and the duke were at, yes. She was really rather terrible. She liked bawdy stories and I thought she drank too much. You certainly didn’t get the impression that she was from anywhere but Baltimore.”
“Is that bad?” I said. She really focused on me.
“Have you ever been to Baltimore? No. Of course not. No one has. Doesn’t that tell you something? My husband knew her better than I did. And the duke. Before we were married.”
I looked at the count. “But he loved her very much, didn’t he?” He looked back at me as though he couldn’t quite make up his mind what to say. “He counted on her. You know she outlived him by quite a few years. I think she saw that as her task. To always take care of him all his life. And that’s what he wanted. He was never a celebrity, you know. He never had the temperament for that. She was a celebrity and he liked the life that went with that.”
“And of course he was always faithful to her,” Lorene the countess added. She didn’t say it in any special way but the count said no more. Then she said, “Don’t you sometimes long to live a life in a cheap little flat with nothing of value? All Formica and puckered seams?” Mom said, “My life isn’t so far from that.” Lorene didn’t even look at her but said, “I’m sure that’s far from true, far from true.”
Suddenly Mother straightened up. She said, “Hugo, you and I must go. Someone is waiting for us at the bar to see us home.” I looked over in the direction she was looking and saw Glenn Elliott leaning against the bar with a drink in his hand, looking at us. He was wearing a black and white check jacket and looked very handsome. My heart jumped, just as my mother’s had, I suppose. It wa
s like seeing your real father when someone had been trying to pass themselves off as your dad and you know it’s not true.
Everyone decided to leave at the same time and as we all moved into the bar on our way out Glenn Elliott came over. My mother at her politest introduced him as Mr. Paul to the count and countess and to my father, whom she only said was Mr. Baroncelli. Everyone shook hands very politely. “What a handsome fellow you are, Mr. Paul,” Lorene said. She paused, looking at Mother standing beside him. “You make a very good-looking couple.” She could really be cruel. The count and my father had on their lizard faces. Nothing showing. They were leaving. Mother shook hands with the count and countess and then she took me by the arm and pulled me up close to her. “I’m not shaking your hand good-bye, Roberto. I don’t think it would be correct. We’re just going to say good-bye, and leave it at that.” She didn’t really sound angry and the people around us didn’t notice anything unusual.
The countess said, “You’re perfectly right, my dear. Perfectly right. It was a great pleasure to meet you and I won’t say I look forward to seeing you again, because I think that’s doubtful. But it was a pleasure. I learned something tonight, and at my age that is not usual. Good-bye. Good-bye.” She took the men by their arms and walked away with them. We saw them waiting for their car outside. They didn’t seem to be talking to each other.
“I liked her,” Glenn Elliott said.
“She was the good one,” Mom said. “I used to know a lot of people like that. Good people in a world of not-so-good people, but they manage to hang on to their goodness. And all their little badnesses don’t count for much.”
My Worst Date Page 19