“We all protect each other,” she said, wading back carefully across the beams toward me. “Or we try, anyway. That is what my little outburst was all about.”
“Oh.” I took a sip of my champagne before remembering that I usually didn’t drink.
“Welcome to the club,” she said, put her arm around me, and gave me a little squeeze.
“Thanks.” I wanted to say I was sorry Mary wasn’t interested in Grace, instead of those young girls who left Mary in the summer, but I was afraid Grace would think I was being sarcastic, so I didn’t say anything.
“We better go back before someone spots us,” she said, and started down, turning now and then, to make sure I was following her.
When we returned downstairs, she took up a position at the bar to watch the news, and I decided to roam the gallery again, to hear what would be said about the canvases now that the guests were well fed, had too much to drink, and had sunk into a state of complacency that was prone to revelation. I was standing in front of a still life painting in which a bust resembling the Voodoo Woman sat on a table with a vase and bowl of fruit and stared out the window at a whole woman, who resembled the bust, and was reaching up to pluck an orange off a tree, when Lance approached me and said, “There’s been some revisionist theory on this one.” He tapped the picture frame proprietarily.
“I suspected as much. Go ahead. Dish it.”
“The Garden of Eden theme, before and after The Fall.”
“I see.” I nodded and stroked my chin. Antaeus came up to us bearing a champagne bottle and refilled my glass. I thanked him.
“You were supposed to let me pour your first one,” he said, “but I’ll let it go by this time.” He clinked the bottle against my glass. “Thanks again for your help with the liquor license appeal.” He watched me drink, then refilled Lance’s glass. “An unappreciated genius, don’t you think?” he added, tilting his forehead toward the canvas.
“He’s appreciated,” Lance said, “just not in the right circles.” Antaeus let loose one of his uncontrollable laughs, a laugh that sounded like relief, and walked off to fill other champagne glasses. When he was out of earshot Lance said, “What do you think of the penthouse?” I furrowed my brow and tried to look puzzled but Lance just smirked. “Alright,” he said, “I’ll tell you something you really don’t know.”
“Do I want to know?” I said.
“Of course not. If you did, what fun would there be in telling you?” He took a sip of his champagne. “See the Mother of the Year, and the Yeast Infection, over there?”
I nodded. Lance sometimes referred to the Voodoo Woman as the Yeast Infection. “Well, they’re finally leaving Antaeus. The Mother of the Year is going to Paris to model with the Casablancas Agency, and The Voodoo Woman is going with her.”
“I know,” I said.
“But do you know what that means? It means that, once Antaeus gets his penthouse apartment built, he’s going to have to find new imbroglios to people it with.”
I nodded. We looked around absently, as if we were suddenly bewildered. I tried to imagine Antaeus’ penthouse peopled with imbroglios. It was easy — the whole town was like that. My life was the same way.
Lance noticed Cosmo approaching them. “Uh oh,” he said, “it’s the man himself,” and slipped away behind The Garden of Eden: Before and After, which was mounted on one of the free-standing walls.
Cosmo clinked his glass against mine. “Cheers,” he said.
“I like the new work,” I said, motioning toward The Garden of Eden.
He nodded and looked around distractedly. “Nichole hasn’t shown up yet,” he said flatly, so it was neither a question nor a statement.
“She’s coming?” I said, and then realized my mistake.
“You haven’t talked to her then?” Blaine came by just then, refilling glasses, and Cosmo held his out to her.
“No, I’ve been meaning to stop by the house.”
Cosmo looked at his shoes. “So have I.”
Blaine held the champagne bottle too high, as if she were displaying it. “If you mean Nichole, she’s at the bar.”
The three of us watched Nichole procure a drink from the bartender. She joked with Grace and Elaine, pointed to the television set and said something that made them all laugh.
Blaine attracted Nichole’s attention by waving the champagne bottle at her. Nichole made excuses at the bar and started over to them, greeting people, stopping to tease others, and exchanging pleasantries along the way, as she had when she hostessed at the restaurant, making everyone feel welcome, feel that they belonged, that they were smarter and handsomer and more accomplished than they had realized. Nichole had always been good at that.
“I guess everything goes on without me,” Nichole said when she reached us.
“Not exactly,” I said.
“What do you mean?” she asked. “You’re still introducing innocents to dykes at the bar, still sleeping with everything that wears a front zipper — ”
“Nichole,” Blaine said, and laid her hand across Nichole’s wrist like a reproach.
“And my father here is still as hypocritical as ever,” Nichole waved her glass around. “Expounding the Protestant virtues of home, family and fidelity, then cheating on his wife and when he gets caught, chastising his mistress and exiling her from town, as if she were the only one who had bothered to participate in the crime.”
“Don’t,” Blaine said. “Please.” She knocked the champagne glass against her own thigh, as a sort of frustrated plea.
Nichole looked around the gallery. Then she looked at the painting, The Garden of Eden: Before and After. “I despise you,” she told her father evenly. “You reek of dishonesty and hubris.” Then she began to shout, and everyone in the gallery stopped what they were doing to look at her. “I despise all you people and your petty squabbles, your backbiting and your vicious senseless gossip. Who are you to judge me? Who the fuck do you think you are? God, how I hate this town of Puritans, masquerading as Bohemians.”
Nichole tossed her drink down. She didn’t throw it at me, she didn’t really fling it into Cosmo’s face, though part of it splattered and landed on his goatee. She just let the glass fly. Then she turned and walked from the gallery with such a fierce grievance in her expression that no one dared stop her.
The minute Nichole had left, the bar erupted into total chaos. People were shouting, pouring champagne on each other’s heads, jumping up and down. The revelry spread to the hors d’oeuvres table, where a chorus of “God Save the Queen” struck up, followed by the “Marseillaise” and a cacophony of high school anthems. Cosmo and I couldn’t imagine what they would be celebrating, until Lance brought us the news: the Harper Martin case had been settled in pre-trial arbitration.
“This bites the hairy wet one,” Lance said, and then explained that Harper had been found guilty of U.S. Trade violations and U.S. Customs violations, he would be fined, and also pay fees and surcharges, the amounts of which were undisclosed, but there would be no jail term. The government had returned the crates of figurines to Harper’s art dealer and Harper had been released in Manhattan. His current whereabouts were unknown, and he had not yet talked to reporters, but the government spokesman said that Harper planned to return to Provincetown briefly to arrange for painting assistants before going to Malibu, California, to begin work on the mural in the Temple of the Jaguars at the Getty Museum.
“They haven’t shown Harper on the TV,” he said, “but they’re promising a special report on recreating the Temple of the Jaguar murals.”
“No jail term,” I said.
“No jury trial,” Cosmo said. “I wonder what they’re going to do with all the Defense Fund money from this Benefit Week we’ve been having. Ruth and that New York lawyer couldn’t possibly want all of it for the work they’ve been doing, I mean, my God, how long have they been at it, only a few days.” He looked at me and we remembered that Nichole had just denounced us both, walked out, and neit
her one of us had gone after her. We looked toward the door.
In the alcove behind The Garden of Eden: Before and After, a group broke out singing “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.” Others had gone out on the patio to pour champagne on the people in the street below and deliver the good news. I left Cosmo with Blaine, who was trying to console him, and wandered around the gallery, listening to people talk about the news. They speculated on the amount of fines Harper had to pay, bidding into the hundreds of thousands. They offered nominees among the Provincetown painters they thought would accompany Harper to the Temple in Malibu, to paint the Jaguar mural. Someone started a rumor that Harper was coming home incognito, by private yacht, to avoid the fuss of reporters and well-wishers, while others planned the homecoming reception. There was even talk of a parade down Commercial Street to the wharf — a reception reserved only for the Bishop for the Blessing of the Fleet, followed by a ceremonial baptism, which could be achieved, someone suggested, by throwing Harper into the bay. It appeared that the information about Harper receiving royalties from the Temple of the Jaguar exhibit proceeds was common knowledge, and some people imagined the enormous popularity of the exhibit. They said the lines for it would wind through the Getty Museum grounds like those for the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland; they described the people on Sunset Boulevard, Santa Monica Beach, Fifth Avenue and Soho wearing Harper’s string ties and fedoras during the day, then dressing up for the evening in Mayan Ballplayer’s garb, and the Goddess of Sin’s fish-head skirts and squid necklaces. Someone imagined rubber and plastic dolls of the skeleton man, the whistling couple and the two-headed woman, sold in the museum shop, with contraband copies sold downtown on the sidewalks of Venice, and in the boutiques in Chelsea.
After circulating throughout the gallery, I ended up at the bar, where the more restrained celebrants were drinking scotch and bourbon, discussing the possible ways the remains of the Defense Fund money would be spent and keeping their eye on the television for news about Harper. “So what’s going on?” I asked Lance, and pointed to the television.
“They’ve brought in specialists. The economist says that Harper’s release is a victory for free enterprise. The foreign affairs advisor says that, thanks to Harper, with the nation’s heightened awareness of our military presence in Nicaragua, we’ll be less likely to repeat the catastrophe of Vietnam.”
***
On Sunday afternoon, those people who were in-the-know sat on the cement retainer wall at St. Mary’s of the Harbor beach, or stood in the church parking lot behind it, drinking beer and scanning the horizon for the yacht that would bring Harper Martin back to Provincetown. Lydia Street straddled the wall and drank a Heineken. The parrot Sydney Greenstreet was perched on Lydia’s shoulder, pacing back and forth restlessly, as if he were impatient for Harper to arrive. He was carrying a miniature American flag in his beak, and if anyone took it out he would immediately squawk: “Welcome Home, Harper! Welcome Home, Harper!” until they put the flag back in again.
Getz leaned against his jeep in the St. Mary’s parking lot, talking to Lance and Angelo about the new Ice House renovations they could see were taking shape next door, and the bad news they had heard on television, that one of Harper’s figurines was reported missing from the crates the federal government had returned. Joe approached them and peered into the jeep, which had been stocked with cases of champagne that the welcomers planned to uncork as soon as the yacht came ashore. Joe showed them Harper’s photograph on the cover of the New York Times, and told them about the missing figurine; they said they already knew.
I went for a walk on the beach below St. Mary’s and stopped to inspect the Ice House renovations. They must have started building overnight, the minute they had
received word that Harper had been released. Workers installed plumbing and wiring walls and windows went up, the existing brick and concrete were being repaired and augmented. Landscapers planted shrubs around the periphery of the building and installed window boxes; roofers measured for skylights and laid down tar paper; the parking lot was being leveled and scraped and poured with a layer of broken shells; there were even carpenters out on the old boat launch, replacing the rotted boards.
Whitney approached me and stood with me awhile, watching the renovations.
“I thought you rebuilt in stages,” she said, “first the plumbing and wiring, then the walls and roof, then the parking lot, then the landscaping, then the boat launch, then the mailboxes, then maybe a few umbrellas and chaises longues.”
“That would be the sane way to do it,” I said and patted Whitney on the shoulder. I turned and walked up the beach toward St. Mary’s.
“I guess we’ve all gone crazy then.”
“It looks that way.” I started to climb the buttress up to the retainer wall.
“I got an apprenticeship with Helen Frankenthaler in New York. She saw the Incident in Fialta on the Harper Martin Profile and wants me to work with her.”
“That’s great. So what are you so gloomy about?”
“Elaine’s not coming to New York with me.”
I sat on the wall and looked down at her. “She won’t come?”
“She says I really like boys, that I’m just on a holiday from them.”
“Is it true?”
Whitney shrugged. “How the hell would I know? I don’t know anything anymore. I mean, how did they get the Ice House fixed up so fast? Nobody was there yesterday. Have they been working all night?” Whitney wandered off down the beach, shaking her head.
Mary was leaning against the wall of the church itself, talking to Raphael Souza, who was more nervous than usual because he had been elected to give the speech on Harper’s behalf at the end of the parade, when they reached the wharf. Raphael spotted Whitney coming toward them from the beach and waved to her. She waved back, started to climb the concrete buttress over the retainer wall, then changed her mind, jumped back down into the sand, and stood there looking out to sea.
“Kate! Kate!” Angelo yelled. He ran up to me from behind and draped all his cameras over my neck and shoulders, one by one.
“I’m beginning to feel the weight of your predicament,” I said.
“Kate, Kate, guess what I got?” he said, and sat down next to me on the retainer wall.
“Your own pet Killer Whale.”
“A book contract with The Sierra Club. They want me to move to Greenland for the winter, live with the Eskimos there, and then write a book about Polar Bears.”
“You’ll freeze. When do you leave?”
“In a few days.” He tugged at one of his cameras. “Aren’t you excited for me?”
“Of course. Oh, and you can use the footage of me and the dolphin.”
“Fantastic. You’re such a sweetheart.” He lifted the cameras from me, kissed me on the cheek, and walked down the wall toward Lydia Street and Sydney Greenstreet, taking pictures of them along the way.
Mary left Raphael at the wall of the church and sat down next to me, her back to the bay. “Have your forgiven yourself yet?” she said.
“For which crime?” I asked
“For everything.”
I spotted a boat on the horizon and whispered: “Is that him?”
Mary twisted around to look. She shook her head. “Just a trawler.”
“So what about you?” I tried to ask after Mary’s news, since it was not as forthcoming as other people’s.
“I’ve decided to go to Boston this winter and live with my dad. Keep him company. This first winter is going to be rough.”
“Your dad likes me.”
Mary laughed. “I guess you’ll have to come visit.”
“I guess.” I shifted my position on the wall. “Will you bring Grace with you?”
Mary stood up in the parking lot, and walked behind me. “Why would I bring Grace?” she said, and began to massage my shoulders.
“I just thought it would be nice.”
“Elaine wants to go. She feels bad now th
at she cut Whitney loose.”
“Maybe Whitney will go down to New York, check out the scene, realize the grass isn’t greener and insist Elaine comes down to visit her. Then they’ll get back together.”
“Maybe. I think that’s what Elaine is hoping.” She patted me on the back. “You can come visit you know.”
“I know,” I said. “I will.” I turned around to see Mary, who gave me a kiss on the forehead.
“In the meantime, work on forgiving yourself,” she said, knocked me lightly upside the head, and walked back to the church to talk to Raphael, who had been joined by Edward with his blind collie. They stood together pointing at the Ice House, admiring the renovations. Edward thought the umbrellas and chaise longues should be blue to match the cornflowers in the window boxes, but Raphael insisted they should be green or yellow.
Getz sat down next to me. “The Voodoo Woman says I have a magnet inside me,” I explained. “You know what she says about you? She says you’re indelible.”
“That’s what all the girls say about me,” he said, and then laughed quietly to himself.
I did not think I had ever seen him laugh, and told him so. He bowed his head and kicked the retainer wall with the heels of his sandals. “It’s true. Usually I’m too serious. But with all this going on” — he waved his hand around at the beach and the parking lot — “you just have to laugh. I mean really, don’t you think it’s funny?” I agreed that it was. “Nothing’s ever got to me like this. It’s really funny.”
“Getz, can I ask you something?” He put his hands down on the wall and nodded. “Why did you drop me over the whale watch boat?”
“Gabe asked me to. He said it would help you. I trusted him, and I knew you were safe.”
“And it didn’t matter that I hadn’t agreed to it, that I didn’t know what was going on?”
Getz looked at me with that severe, intense look he usually wore. “You call most of the shots,” he said. “I didn’t think one moment against your will would hurt. And if I’d thought he had something mean in mind, I would have talked him out of it.”
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