The Other Typist

by Rindell, Suzanne

  Oh! But once again, I am getting away from my point. The truth of the matter is the two women in question were fundamentally different in how they treated the people to whom they lied. Helen’s lies demanded that you affirm her, that you collaborate, that you play stupid. Her mendacity was an insulting nuisance if there ever was one. Odalie understood it was sometimes your will to want to be tricked; she did not need you to affirm her world. She would create it with or without you. Instead, she invited you in ever so casually, and somehow—even when her lies were shabbily wrought—you would find yourself wanting to go in, if only out of an insatiable curiosity. She knew, too, not to pressure you to proclaim your belief in her untruth. That would be asking too much; in asking for that, she would risk daring her listener to pull at the loose threads she carelessly left behind and unravel it all. Her comprehension of this simple fact made all the difference.

  Just then I felt Odalie looking at me. The fringe of her bangs gave a fey little flutter along the line of her dark eyebrows as the ocean breeze lifted them with a gentle, lazy ease. “C’mon, let’s not dwell on Gib’s nonsense. We ought to be having fun,” she declared. She led me toward a waiter shuttling a tray of champagne. “How about we have a refreshment like civilized people and find our hosts, eh?”

  I nodded and we took off to roam the garden, Odalie still holding my hand in hers. I had to admit I felt a twinge of irresistible pride, I realized, to have people look at us and see that we were such intimate bosom friends. I suppose this was because I liked for people to think I might have such a beautiful and charismatic friend. Some girls don’t like to stand next to a pretty girl, for fear they will look more drab by comparison. I know for a fact there were several shopgirls with whom Helen refused to become friendly for just such a reason. But I’d always felt as though my value increased when I stood next to Odalie. As if extraordinary people could only be drawn to other extraordinary people, I fantasized that some of my plainness melted away.

  The unbearably hot day in the city had been translated into a very warm but pleasantly bright day in the seaside garden where we now found ourselves. I looked around, inventorying my surroundings like a settler happening upon a strange but fruitful land. Persian rugs covered a wide stone terrace where a series of tables were laid out with an array of picturesque delicacies befitting a sultan. White tablecloths flapped in the ocean breeze. Colorful lanterns hung from every bare tree branch; they jigged about gently in the wind as though waiting impatiently for dusk so they might light the way for the festivities to continue late into the night. Among the stone statues of Apollo and Aphrodite, a string quartet played on a grassy knoll. The back lawn sloped a bit as it unfurled the distance downward from the house and finally gave way to the beach, its green tufted edge curling like a lip just over the beginning of a fine white sand. Far out on the navy sapphire of the sea, two sailboats slid along the horizon, lazily exchanging positions. We laughed and careened around the garden, the points of our heeled shoes digging into the lawn as we strolled first in one direction and then another.

  From across the lawn I saw a young man shading his eyes and squinting at us. He didn’t wave, but as we staggered in sociable circles about the lawn, his eyes trailed us until eventually his body followed suit. At first, I thought nothing of it; Odalie often attracted attention wherever she went. But after thirty minutes or so it was clear this young man’s interest was particularly piqued by our presence. He wore the simultaneously focused yet distracted expression of a person trying to place an old acquaintance, and I wondered if he already knew Odalie, perhaps from yet another version of her history I had not yet heard. Eventually, he approached.

  As he drew up close, I saw how extremely young he was. There was a freshly minted collegiate air about him; he could not have been more than a year or two out of preparatory school. He was not exactly short, but he was small and lanky, with a very diminutive head and slender neck, all of which lent a costume air when combined with the heavy suit he wore, as though he were a boy playing in his father’s clothes. I recall the word doll-like floated involuntarily into my mind. He had pale, baby-smooth skin, with the exception of two very angry-looking pink blemishes on his chin, the sores made all the more bright by the contrast they struck with his smooth white cheeks. His eyes were blue and clear, with very sparse eyelashes acting as a frame, and his hair was the lightest sort of brown that could’ve just as easily been called blond, given a slightly greater dose of sun.

  “Why, hullo there. Don’t I know you?” he called in a familiar tone as he approached. Surprisingly, his voice was a deep bass and struck me as oddly matched to its owner. His face bore a funny expression; it was a kind of shy half-smile. He seemed nervous about something as he tramped across the grass toward us. Odalie turned in the direction of the young man approaching us in order to better take him in and suddenly froze. For the slenderest of seconds she resembled a silent movie-star, in that both of her hands fluttered upward to stifle a scream that was never heard from the tiny hollow of her open mouth. But it was as though she had merely flinched, or experienced a sneeze or hiccup of some sort, for the reaction passed so quickly that it was difficult to be sure it had happened at all. Before I knew it, she was smiling at our assailant with her typical cool composure, her stony feline eyes revealing nothing.

  “How do you do,” Odalie said in a pleasant enough voice, yet with a decided lack of inquiring inflection. Mechanically, she put out a hand.

  “Oh,” he stammered in a baffled way, looking at the outstretched hand with the incredulous air of the uninitiated. It was as though he had never witnessed a handshake in his life and didn’t understand why Odalie was offering her hand. “I’m Teddy,” he said. Odalie sought out his hand with her own and finally, when she’d managed to acquire it, aggressively shook it.

  “Of course. Nice to meet you, Teddy.”

  “Teddy Tricott,” he said, touching his chest as though to ensure we understood who he meant and placing special emphasis on the last name.

  “Odalie Lazare,” Odalie said, imitating his gesture. She smiled smugly. At this, the young man’s eyes went wide. He jerked his hand away.

  “Oh!” he exclaimed. “Oh—I thought . . . oh . . . oh!”

  “I’m Rose,” I said, breaking into the rather awkward, inarticulate conversation with the hopes of hurrying it along. Having barely detected my presence up to that point, Teddy now turned to me, his eyes still wide, and appeared suddenly cognizant of my person.

  “Oh, of course.” He shook himself as though coming back into his right mind. “Sorry—yes. Of course, of course.” He put out a hand, and I briefly gave him the tips of my fingers. As soon as he released my hand, Teddy resumed staring, goggle-eyed, in Odalie’s direction.

  “Forgive me,” he said. “It’s just that you look like—”

  “I get that all the time.” Odalie waved the apology away with a magnanimous toss of her wrist. I wondered which starlet Teddy had been about to name as Odalie’s doppelgänger. There were several to whom Odalie bore an admittedly strong resemblance. At least now the boy’s odd behavior was beginning to make a bit more sense. Odalie smiled again but could not hide the fact the smile had become hollow; I could tell she was quite done with the young man who stood before us and was ready to move on. “Say—Teddy, you wouldn’t happen to know where our hosts might be hiding, would you?”

  “The Brinkleys?”

  “The very ones.”

  “Oh, uh, sure! Let me take you to them.” Still a little shell-shocked from his mistaken movie-star sighting, he ambled in the direction of the stone terrace. Odalie hesitated, and I detected a faint reluctance to follow the young man. Then, pushing back her shoulders with an air of purpose and adopting a casual stroll, she trailed along in cool pursuit.

  “How do you know the Brinkleys? Are you a relation?” There was a strange tone to Odalie’s voice; something about it put me in mind of Helen rehearsing lines f
rom one of the vaudeville plays she adored.

  “Me? Oh, no. But I suppose I’m on pretty familiar terms. I like them well enough. They’ve always been very accommodating to me. Their son Felix would sometimes bring me home to their place in the city on weekends, back in the days when we were at Hotchkiss together.”

  “Well, that was very nice of him.” Odalie had resumed her usual state of half listening.

  “Indeed,” Teddy nodded with a serious air. “Sometimes the trains to Newport were just too much of a nuisance, and it was nice to be able to get away from school and go somewhere, you know?” Teddy hesitated and looked at Odalie from the sides of his eyes. “Say—don’t suppose you’ve spent much time in Newport, have you?”

  Odalie stiffened. “Not particularly,” came her vague reply.

  “Ah,” Teddy said. “That’s really too bad.” He continued stealing little suspicious glances at Odalie as we ascended the sloping lawn. When we reached the house, we followed Teddy through several drawing rooms and into a dark-paneled office where a group of people stood in a clustered circle, busily admiring an oil painting that presided over a stone fireplace. The diamond-patterned, leaded-glass windows in the room had been opened in an attempt to attract the ocean breeze beyond, but nevertheless the atmosphere was quite stuffy, and I had the instant sensation of claustrophobia.

  “Yes, yes,” a woman in a summery, lilac-colored gown was saying, waving a hand toward the painting. “Why, practically everyone says I resemble her, but even if that’s so, it’s entirely coincidental, because the relation is all on Max’s side, you see.”

  I took a good look at the woman speaking, and my mind slowly clicked: This was Vera Brinkley. Her face was memorable. She was what people often referred to as a handsome woman. Her hair was carefully waved and swept back, revealing high cheekbones and delicate shadows of the hollows just below. She would’ve been beautiful if not for the length of her jaw, which ran a little too long and squared itself off a little too sharply, infusing her countenance with a vaguely horsey impression. Her body was thin and freckled and fashionably hipless, and she was of indeterminate age: Her face whispered rumors of her late thirties or very early forties, but her neck suggested another ten years could possibly be added to that score.

  “Mrs. Brinkley?” Teddy tapped her discreetly on the shoulder. The woman turned.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Teddy. You’re not in school anymore. You’re a college-man now. Call me Vera.” Teddy nodded, but also blushed.

  “I have some ladies here who’ve been hunting about for their hosts.”

  “Oh! Certainly, my boy. Max! Come over here, dear. Teddy has some people he’d like us to meet.” A very prim man wearing a monocle and dressed in a morning suit looked up from the box of cigars he had presently unlocked for the benefit of a group of bankers. Just as it was with Vera Brinkley, Max Brinkley had an odd combination of youth and maturity about him. His body was quite thin, yet his fleshy face was as placid as a glacier lake and his cheeks ended in two rather slight but unfortunate jowls just under each side of his jaw. His snub nose gave him an air of youth that was instantly contradicted by the monocle perched on the apple of his left cheek. It was as though he were simultaneously twenty-nine and fifty-nine, but no age between the two. He crossed the room and peered questioningly from Odalie to me, and then back to Odalie.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Brinkley,” Teddy began, but, receiving a sharp look from Mrs. Brinkley, quickly modified his approach. “Ahem. Max and Vera, I give you . . .” He suddenly drew up short, realizing that despite our belabored introductions, he had already forgotten our names.

  “Rose Baker and Odalie Lazare,” Odalie quickly supplied.

  “Yes—Rose Baker and Odalie Lazare,” Teddy repeated, gesturing in turn to each of us. Apparently he had no trouble discerning which was which, as he made a gesture first to me and second to Odalie.

  “Oh! I almost forgot,” Odalie added, smiling one of her most endearing smiles. “I suppose I should give you this.” She handed over the letter of introduction, which Max Brinkley took and lifted before his monocled eye. The corners of his mouth twitched while he read the words.

  “Oh—yes, yes,” he grumbled amicably once he had reached the bottom of the letter. “As I always tell my wife, any friend of Pembroke’s is a friend of ours!” This statement seemed to tickle his funny bone, and he laughed aloud, a strangely low-timbred guffaw issuing from his thin frame. I detected we had just crossed over some invisible threshold. A mood of more relaxed welcome extended itself as though a train of dominoes were tumbling over. Vera laughed, Odalie laughed, Teddy laughed, and then I found myself joining suit, although still to this day I’m not certain I truly understood what was so funny. Mr. Brinkley folded up the letter roughly and stuffed it into an inside jacket pocket. “I hope you don’t mind—there’ll be others staying this weekend, too. A small party, in fact.”

  “We don’t want to intrude, of course . . . ,” Odalie said, but there was a veneer to her voice, and I knew immediately her protest was insincere.

  “Nonsense. It’s no intrusion at all. Besides, it’s clear Pembroke wants you to be well cared for, and perhaps even”—he paused and winked at Odalie—“chaperoned.” Odalie’s lips tightened into a thin, polite smile. Mrs. Brinkley frowned, ever so briefly, at the floor. “I’ll send Felton for your things,” Mr. Brinkley continued. “He can carry them up and show you to your room. Felton!”

  Only a matter of minutes later, we found ourselves happily ensconced in a plush, sunlight-filled bedroom upstairs. Odalie sat at the vanity and moved a brush through her glossy bob while I pushed open a window and gazed at the shimmer and twinkle of the sea beyond, slightly dulled now by the angle of the late afternoon sun. I can only assume somewhere out there in the vast populous world there really was a Pembroke, although I wouldn’t go so far as to naively assume Odalie had ever made his acquaintance. As it was, I scarcely heard the name mentioned again, despite the fact it had served as the crucial turnkey to our seaside accommodations.

  As I watched Odalie brush her hair and stare absently into the mirror, I realized she was not thinking of Pembroke, but rather someone else altogether. A distracted frown marred the lovely oval of her face. “Can you believe it! What ridiculous rubbish,” she grumbled to herself. “Newport folk ought to know they’re supposed to stay in Newport. Who ever heard of coming down here for the summer? It’s absolute nonsense!”

  I was taken aback by the vehemence of her tone and looked at her in puzzlement, but she took no notice.

  “We’ve got to keep an eye on that boy,” she murmured.

  I wasn’t sure if she was addressing me or had forgotten I was still in the room.

  “What?”

  “Teddy.” She ran an absent finger over one smooth black eyebrow. “He’s trouble.” Her voice was full of the kind of deep thought and quiet calculation that forbids further prodding. There was a knock at the door, and Felton deposited our baggage in the room. I kept my questions to myself and set about unpacking our two suitcases.

  16

  One got the sense the Brinkleys’ summer life kept a regular rhythm, and this rhythm consisted mostly of leisure sports in the mornings, garden parties in the afternoons, and tasteful feasts around the dinner hour, all followed by a waltz or two late into the more velvety hours of the night. If Mr. Brinkley had a profession, I’m not sure I could tell you what it was. One thing was certain: Whichever Brinkley had originally procured the family fortune had done his part at least two or three generations ago, as the Brinkleys currently in residence seemed to remain utterly unharassed by the so-called pressing matters of business. What’s more, their estate accommodated all of their favored activities, and I daresay they rarely—if ever—left the grounds at any point throughout the entire duration of the summer. Instead, they became the center around which a small universe of New York socialites revolved, and Odalie and I were only too
happy to fall into orbit.

  Once we’d arrived and had been shown to our room, we dressed for dinner and reemerged just as the hot summer day finally stretched itself to the outermost end of its length. The final result was a bright, thin twilight. Coming downstairs, we made our way to the veranda and discovered four very long dining tables had been draped with pale blue tablecloths and set with white candles and white china. At the center of each table an enormous roasted pig rested on its belly, complete with a candied apple in its mouth. Place cards were laid out in front of each setting, and I thought I glimpsed the slight twitch of a frown on Odalie’s face as she observed Teddy’s name inscribed on the place card next to her own.

  When Teddy came over to take his seat next to Odalie, he wore a vaguely embarrassed yet sly smile, and it occurred to me perhaps he had switched a few place cards from their original positions just prior to our arrival downstairs. There was nothing terribly shocking in this, and I hardly thought anything of it; men were always maneuvering to achieve a greater degree of proximity to Odalie. But what was surprising was that throughout the meal, Odalie kept her back to Teddy, refusing to make conversation with a polite but very stubborn twist of her posture. Even eye contact seemed a burden to her. I’d never witnessed anything like it. Odalie had always been one to hold court; she was kind to even the most lowly of her admirers (one never knew whose favors might come in handy). I couldn’t help but wonder what sort of grudge she could possibly harbor against a boy who was not even old enough yet to have racked up any serious social offenses. All we knew of him was that he had mistaken Odalie for a movie-star (a far cry from an insult), he hailed from Newport, and at one time he had attended Hotchkiss—hardly grounds for the thorough snubbing Odalie was giving him that night as she sat with her whole body twisted away from him, more raptly engaged with my own conversation than she had ever been in the history of our friendship.