by Alice Adams
But slowly digesting this series of powerful notions, as she might the courses of an overrich meal, Polly begins to relax a little. She feels overfed, quite stuffed with new information, new ideas. Her very body sags with spent energy, the weight of absorption.
A little later, however, a much simpler thought comes to her. She thinks, Well, of course. It is marriage much more than the actual Charles that Celeste has missed; along those lines old Charles was probably not much to mourn. It’s the marriage that she feels the lack of, and what could be more logical, more perfectly Celeste-like (so practical, so efficient) than to do it again? To go out and find a brand-new Charles. This Bill could even be an actor, impersonating Charles. A new edition, as it were. After all, Polly thinks, we’ve got an actor in the White House. Impersonating a President.
Dudley too has reeled from this whispered announcement from Celeste, which she also was given on arrival. But the effect on Dudley has been quite curious, once those odd words (“I’m getting married”) were absorbed. Dudley has been thrown into a kind of mania. Overexcited, she can’t stop talking, chattering. And all her chatter is a substitute for talking to Celeste, she knows that—a very poor substitute for the deep, long conversation for which she yearns. A conversation that is absolutely out of the question now. But even if she could have this talk with Celeste, Dudley reflects, most of the questions that she would like to ask are inadmissible.
She would like to ask, and she will! Why didn’t you tell me? I had no idea that things were so serious with you and this Bill. And I couldn’t quite hear when you said what he did. Did you say doctor, or actor? Or was that some kind of joke? And how incredibly he does look like Charles! At least you could have warned us all about that, Celeste.
Even these more or less conventional questions and responses, then, are not to take place for the moment, despite close friendship, true intimacy. And how much more forbidden are the deeper questions plaguing Dudley’s overheated brain. The sexual questions. The life-and-death questions. The prurient, the essential.
* * *
The weather that night has for once not conformed to the wishes of Celeste, who would surely not have chosen such a storm, such lashing gales, wild rains, such violent gusts of wind each time the door is opened, as repeatedly it is. People keep arriving late, from everywhere. Delayed by weather, saying, “Well, you would not believe the Bayshore. An absolute flood. I thought we’d never get here.”
Brooks Burgess and his group from Ross, the farthest away, have been especially late. Passionately observed by Dudley, they enter at last, five people—all shedding wet slickers, Burberrys, dark wet furs smelling of animals. All shed onto the strong dark dry arms of the maids. (Dudley, watching so intently, sees no flicker on those impassive Indian-Spanish-Mexican faces, but how can that be, Dudley wonders. Such wetness, so heavy.)
And although she is standing some distance from them, from that new wet group, Dudley could almost believe herself among them, so clearly does she see and feel the vibrations as Celeste breathes her secret to a chosen one of them, a beautiful dark young woman—someone’s daughter, probably. Dudley feels it as that young woman in her turn reels, as she tries to hide her shock, as she murmurs, “Oh, wonderful.”
And Dudley can hear Celeste as with an out-of-character trilling laugh she tells this daughter (possibly of Brooks Burgess?)—as Celeste says, “In a year, if I’m still alive.”
Chilling! Those words have shivered through Dudley, who quite suddenly, acutely longs to be with Sam, to be with him alone. Sam, who is perversely nowhere to be seen.
Only, there is Brooks Burgess, to whom she had so girlishly looked forward, until this moment of actually seeing him.
Brooks is approaching her now, all purposeful, with an expression that Dudley in one quick instant dislikes. He looks so, so exactly what he is, she thinks: an elderly investment counselor, a senior money man, all slicked steel hair and narrow mercantile eyes. And even though his general look is very sad, and he has visibly aged, Dudley still is hardened toward him.
However, she chimes into his hearty “How great to see you! Much too long” with her own “Marvelous! You haven’t changed!” And she wonders, Is there any way to speak politely without quite so many total lies?
Standing there together, separated for a moment from the party, Dudley and Brooks regard each other with looks that are almost hostile—is each of them, then, so much less than the other expected? Or has that extraordinary announcement of Celeste’s thrown everything off balance, unhinged the whole atmosphere of this party, a sort of greenhouse effect? Wondering all this, Dudley concludes that any explanation at all might do; the important thing is they not remain alone, isolated in this way, for very long, he and she, who have less than nothing to say to each other.
And how adolescent this all is, Dudley next thinks, this quick descent from lust, from sexiness to enmity. And, as she has before, she wonders if old age is indeed, in its way, to be a repetition of adolescence. And she thinks, Oh dear, I cannot go through all that again.
Oh, where is Edward? Just now when she needs him, where is he? For it is to Edward, and to Edward alone, that she could voice such a probably preposterous notion.
Edward, though, is across the room, she can see him. In an almost cloistered corner he is talking to Sara. And there (oh dear!) not far from them is Freddy, who is talking to the young man from the diner whom Sara so much dislikes. That David—and how very odd indeed of Celeste to invite him. Celeste’s fantasy of “fixing up” David with Sara persists.
“Well, how’ve you been?” Brooks Burgess asks her.
But just at that moment they are saved from each other by, of all people, Sam, unruly, unreliable, most inefficient non-businesslike Sam, arriving so punctually in response to Dudley’s need of him. “Darling, you remember Brooks Burgess?” (She can hear a small tremor in her own voice.)
“Oh, of course. How’ve you been?”
The two exchange hearty handshakes.
Sam in fact has been watching Dudley for some time; deliberately he positioned himself so that he could see her perfectly, whereas to her he remained invisible. (He knows himself to be good at this: I am an artist of camouflage, he has said to himself.) She was hidden by the corpulent bright madras body of some old pal of Charles’s from Woodside, a former Stanford football great. A conveniently huge man.
Sam could watch, then, the greeting and the ensuing scene between Dudley and Brooks Burgess. A scene of which Dudley has dreamed for years, Sam knows: since that party, which must now be ten years back, the golden harvest moon party, the sultry sexy party at which everyone seemed to have taken some sort of erotic energy pill, Sam thought, some sexual spike in the punch. And since then all Dudley’s sexual fantasies have had Brooks Burgess’s name on them. Impossible to say how Sam knows this: surely not from anything said by Dudley. He simply knows, and he is always right, about Dudley.
Observing Dudley, Sam is also as acutely observant of himself, and he inwardly remarks: Twenty years ago, or thirty—and good Lord, I’ve spent most of my life with this woman, this crazy foreign Bostonian, this Dudley—in those days I would have been watching her hot and sick with jealous blood, my whole body poisoned, enflamed, and very likely I would have made some god-awful scene about this, big shouting, schoolboy words thrown out like garbage. Not hitting anyone, at least I never hit, but a lot of ugly noise, and then lurching out. With or without Dudley. Blind crazy drunk.
And now, he thinks, now I am old and sober, and instead of jealousy I feel the most excruciating tender compassion for my wife, who is also old and sober and sometimes very silly. And I hardly know which emotion is the more difficult to bear.
He sees then, from her gestures and her posture, that Dudley is no longer interested, not in any way, in Brooks Burgess. But there the two of them are, in a social trap of their own making: they are standing alone, they have to talk for a while. It’s enough to make Sam laugh a little, which he manages not to do: invisible people
don’t laugh; it’s one of the rules of camouflage.
He sees that Dudley would very much like him to come to her rescue, even though she cannot see him, and after a few more minutes, which he has to admit he enjoys, Sam does just that: he goes over to where Dudley stands with that Brooks Burgess.
And when Dudley says “Darling, you remember Brooks Burgess?” that fellow soon takes himself off. He is not all bad, Sam judges; he knew when to go.
Brilliant-eyed, as though she couldn’t wait to speak, Dudley asks him, “But what do you think?” She holds his arm as she whispers. “Celeste,” she breathes. “Getting married!”
“I think it won’t happen,” Sam tells her. Until the words appeared he had not known that that was his thought.
“Oh, Sam, how can you say that? What do you mean, it won’t happen?”
He does not know what he means, nor does he want to explain, not even to try. And this is a familiar stance of his, quite enraging to Dudley, he knows that. But he can’t, he can’t help it. “I could be wrong,” he temporizes.
“You’re never wrong, that’s what’s so irritating. Oh Sam! But where did she find him, do you know? So amazing, the resemblance to Charles.”
“I think she said they met at the IRS,” says Sam in a deliberate, factual way.
“The IRS? Darling, what an awful joke. You’re losing your hearing. I can’t believe Celeste would have said that. I thought he was an importer.”
“You mean, even if it were true Celeste wouldn’t say it?”
They both laugh at the accuracy of this: impossible to imagine Celeste ever saying, Actually I met him at the IRS.
“But actually,” Sam tells Dudley, “they don’t look so much alike, this Bill and Charles. It’s more like someone just wearing Charles’s clothes.”
“Darling, whatever do you mean?” (She is always asking him this, Dudley knows—hopeless, he hates explanations.)
“Just what I said. Don’t ask me to explain.”
“But Sam.”
However, at that moment, some beautiful woman from somewhere, someone they both know, arrives with flurries of kisses and greetings for them both, thus occupying Dudley, so that Sam doesn’t even have to pretend to explain what he means.
This is a familiar sense, for Sam: that of having said everything quite clearly but in such a way that no one, not even Dudley, could understand. And to Sam his own meanings are always so clear. Obvious, even. This Bill (will they always call him “this Bill”?)—this person, Bill, does not really look much like old Charles. They are merely about the same size, with faces shaped the same. All of the more important aspects of impression are very unlike, though; it’s that simple. Annoying to be asked.
More pressing and far more severe just now than that annoyance, though, is a dizziness, quite physical, concrete, that Sam at this instant experiences. The party seems so hot, all those candles, they seem to emit more heat than light. He feels swollen with heat. If he took one bite of Celeste’s quite predictably elaborate buffet, he would burst, an obscene display of guts all over Celeste’s too lovely house.
He feels drunk. Drunk and sick, after one long glass of club soda.
Dudley will think he just doesn’t like the party if he tells her that he is going home—as Sam now sees that he must, and soon. Well, better for her to think that. She can deal with Sam-the-bad-sport much better than she can with sick Sam, he knows. Or maybe she is right, and it is not real, what he feels. He is not sick, only bored.
Reconnecting with Dudley—not easy: the rooms are so full of silk- or satin-straining flesh, with a few thin wraiths in black, like dead trees; getting through them all has been like traversing some horrible surreal forest, for Sam—he tells her that he has a headache. Nothing serious, and clearly having to do with an ugly note that afternoon from his former dealer. He doesn’t really feel like being at a party, okay? Edward and Freddy can drop her off later, on their way home.
He will not seek out Celeste. He will simply, quickly, get out as soon as possible. Before he is sick, or sicker. Before he bursts.
And he almost makes it. Just at the final door, however, coming out of the powder room is Bill, and since they have barely met, some conversation seems required.
“Oh, you’re off?” from Bill.
“Yes, unfortunately a headache. But I couldn’t seem to find Celeste. Would you—? If you could—”
“Oh, sure. Don’t let it make you uncomfortable. Can I get you anything though, like aspirin?” Making this vague offer, Bill smiles, so very unlike Charles.
“Oh, no. Thanks.” In fact, an aspirin would have been a good idea, but Sam simply wants to get away. Right now.
“Well, I hope we get a chance to talk sometime,” says Bill. “Celeste feels so close to you, you and Dudley.”
“Me too! Great!” Haste fuels an insane enthusiasm in Sam—just before he rushes through the door. He is propelled by pain: a worse pain has attacked him, encircling his chest. A heart attack? No, heartburn. Gas. He has had this before. As he runs toward his car, impeded by his pain, and his very weight, his heavy old misused body, Sam still quite consciously thinks: This Bill, who does not sound or really look like Charles, who is he?
Amazingly, to Edward, who is fussy in these matters, Sara looks almost beautiful tonight, at this party. It is quite as though, Edward thinks, Celeste-the-strong has willed her to be so, like a fairy godmother. “Be beautiful for my party,” Celeste could have commanded. (Edward would not put that past her.) It is clearly not a matter of clothes, though; had that been the case, a discreetly expensive “wonderful” dress, Celeste’s urgent, controlling hand could have been clearly implicated. But Sara is only wearing some gauzy white “import” thing, most likely from Cost Plus.
In this cheapo dress, though, tonight Sara is beautiful. And Edward in his mind ticks off the virtues that make her so, in a visual way: good skin, if a little on the dark side; a long, strong-looking neck (it could be a little thinner, but no matter). Heavy, almost straight-across dark eyebrows. And her eyes: no qualifications there, her eyes are wonderful, so large and dark, with those (naturally) heavy lashes. Really clever of her to add nothing to them, no touch of mascara, even. Another woman, aware of such beautiful eyes, would have made them up, and made too much of her eyes. Whereas Sara looks as though washing her face and her hair had been the sum of her effort.
They have of course been discussing Bill. “This Bill.”
“She hadn’t said a thing before about getting married,” Sara has earlier told Edward—to his considerable surprise: such a step should surely have been discussed with someone? “Honestly,” continues Sara, “I was as startled as anyone.”
“Do you think it could have been a last-minute decision on her part?”
“Possibly.”
And since that initial flurry of conversation they have managed as best they can to continue above the din of the party. But by now some taped music is issuing from loudspeakers, which is no help at all.
“God, what is this music?” asks Sara.
Older, more knowledgeable Edward laughs. “It’s from way before your time, my dear. All forties classics. That hoo-ha trombone sound was very big in those days. What we’re hearing at this precise moment is called ‘Moonlight Serenade,’ by Mr. Glenn Miller.”
“It’s kind of dull, don’t you think? Sort of slow, repetitive?”
“Oh, indeed. But Celeste really loves this stuff. Come to think of it, so did Charles. I think she played these same tapes at a party about ten years ago, and everyone went mad. All us oldsters.”
“I like this one better. What’s it called?”
“This, my dear, is ‘Little Brown Jug.’ Played by, I think, Mr. Jimmie Lunceford.”
“At least it moves along. Edward, you see that young man across the room?”
Edward hesitates. “You don’t mean Freddy?”
“Of course not. David, the guy from the diner. Celeste asked him here tonight for me, can you imagine? She said I sh
ould see more people of my own age, and she doesn’t know anyone.”
Not at all wanting to go into this, Edward tries for another gambit. “It is quite remarkable,” he tells Sara, “how this Bill resembles our Charles. Quite striking. Startling, really.”
“I don’t know. I mean, I hardly knew Charles. I probably didn’t really look at him,” and Sara laughs. “I was probably too busy fighting him. His politics were so, so retro, I thought. But this Bill does look like someone I used to know. A long time ago.” She laughs again. “His last name was Priest, so we always referred to him as Judas.”
Typical Berkeley sort of joke, thinks Edward, who has begun to feel that Sara talks too much, once she starts.
“In fact, it’s a little creepy,” Sara tells him. “Very unnerving. My past all crowding back,” she continues, quite unaware that Edward is no longer listening.
The most observable fact about Bill—and he is most meticulously observed, by a number of people—is his excessive animation. “The man can’t seem to stop,” Brooks Burgess noted to a friend from Ross.
And his conversation, as with most non-stop talkers, is mostly about himself. He seems to have a curious knack, though, for relating phases of his own history to that of his audience-of-one. (Bill can be seen to shy away from groups, clearly preferring an intimate tête-à-tête.) He has told Freddy about a town just south of Oaxaca, in the mountains, where he, Bill, found the most extraordinary pottery, much more remarkable than anything in Oaxaca itself. He speaks feelingly to Polly about the plight of the San Francisco poor: some people he knows, he says, have a plan for “creating a space” where all those people could go for food and shelter. He announces to Dudley that he has never before felt comfortable with anyone from Boston; he feels that he and she should spend more time together, should really talk.
Watching him as best she can while maintaining and continuing her hostess chores, overhearing what she can, Celeste wills herself to believe that all this is Bill’s way of ingratiating himself to her friends. He is simply very eager to please.