“Okay, you two! Now it’s time for me to go get dressed.”
When Clover came downstairs again, she looked completely different. Gone was the cute little bluebird whose soft blond hair was often messy. She had on a cool black linen sheath. Her lashes were very black and her lips were very pale pink, almost white, and her hair was smoothed back into a bun at the nape of her neck. She looked grown up and rather serious. But glamorous. Definitely glamorous.
Then she threw a beautiful soft pink-and-red shawl over her shoulders, which made her look more like an artist, which she was.
“Aunt Theo got this for me once, in Budapest.”
“Oh, Clover!” I said, marveling at her transformation, at how many women one woman can be.
She smiled and said, “Don’t forget. I am your chaperone.”
Bemelmans Bar was located all the way on the Upper East Side at the Carlyle, which is this very swanky hotel. As soon as we went inside the bar, I figured out why it’s called “Bemelmans”—because that’s the last name of the guy who did the Madeline books and his drawings are all over the walls. Valentine figured it out too.
“Cool,” she said, sounding for once not like she was trying to be seventeen and unimpressed with everything. It was like there were stars in her eyes when she exclaimed: “Madeline!”
Mom used to read us those books at bedtime when we were little, and then later on when we started learning French they were some of the first things we read in the language. So we felt that we knew Madeline like she was a real person, and it was exciting to be here at Bemelmans Bar with the mural of all these darling bunnies wearing green jackets and sitting under peppermint-striped umbrellas.
“See how delicate and how intimate Bemelmans’s hand is,” said Clover, pointing. “I love how the images aren’t perfect, you know. You can imagine his hand kind of wavering over some of them.”
We sat down in the most comfortable seats ever. They were made out of this red velvet that was unlike any other velvet I had ever known. The touch was just that much richer.
“Oh my God, I could sleep here,” said Valentine.
“Well, before you nod off,” said Clover, “which waiter do you think is the cutest?”
“That one.” Valentine pointed at a young, broad-shouldered blond busboy who I could just tell was totally conceited. So then I pointed to an older gentleman behind the bar and said, “No, that one.”
I wasn’t kidding. There was something about him that had caught my eye. For one thing, he was remarkably tall, well over six feet. Something about his height, as well as the important way he carried himself, made him appear theatrical, as though he were a bartender in a play, just waiting for his cue. He was going salt-and-pepper now, but I knew that in the past he’d been just as tall, dark, and handsome as could be. His hazel eyes had laughter in them. I thought: I bet he could tell you stories.
Valentine said, “Oh no, Franny. He’s old. My waiter is much cuter.”
But Clover said, “Well done, Franny. That’s Warren.”
She waved to him, and he did the most exciting thing—he bowed.
Valentine and I giggled. We were hardly used to men bowing, these days.
Clover said, “Warren’s an actor.”
Aha! So I had been onto something. Valentine would never have guessed that.
Our waiter came over to the table, and Clover ordered something called a Lillet Blonde.
“It matches your hair?” asked Valentine, dazzled.
“Well, sort of,” said Clover. “It’s pale.”
Then she ordered food for us to share: some Bemelmans mini burgers, smoked salmon on toast points, shrimp cocktail, and Caesar salad with lobster.
“The thing is, we’ve had all of that stuff before,” Valentine complained. “Like, shrimp cocktail and Caesar salad are on restaurant menus everywhere.”
“No, no,” said Clover. “You’re missing the point. These dishes are classics and also very chic. You might as well say, oh, I don’t want another little black dress, I already have a black dress. But you can never have too many little black dresses. Also! Don’t worry, girls. We can order really fancy desserts!”
That cheered Val up, as she always thought that dessert was the most important part of any meal.
So then Clover got her Lillet Blonde, which was pale and served in a tiny glass, and we got Shirley Temples. Valentine wasn’t going to get one at first because she didn’t want to look childish, and I could tell she was jealous that Clover got to look at the cocktail list. But I said, “Come on, Val, you know you like them,” and you know what? I was right. She slurped hers up as soon as she got it.
“I remember how at your age,” said Clover, “I used to be so big on sugar. There was nothing I wouldn’t do for a chocolate bar. Those were the days.”
“You don’t eat sugar anymore?” I asked her.
“Not like that,” she said sadly, “not like that.”
“What, do you have to watch your weight?” asked Valentine. I thought that was unkind of her, and she must have only asked it because she was mad that Clover had made her feel like a child by saying, “I remember how at your age…”
“No,” said Clover. “It’s just that after a certain point, one finds one’s cravings change. There start to be—other things…”
“What things?” Valentine demanded, determined for Clover not to have any secrets, but then before Clover could answer, our food arrived.
And then later on, before we even had a chance to look at the dessert menu, the most magical thing happened. They sent us dessert. Without us even asking! The desserts just appeared, delivered by, of all people, the young blond busboy Val had admired at the beginning of the evening.
And then, he bowed! Just as Warren had bowed behind the bar.
And then, he actually said: “Ladies, with our compliments.”
The desserts were bittersweet chocolate cake and crème brûlée, and they were everything we’d ever dreamed of.
* * *
“A palate cleanser, I think, Warren,” said Clover after we had finished the desserts and were thoroughly stuffed and Warren finally had come away from the bar to sit down with us and visit. “Do you still have that delicious strawberry ice? That used to be my favorite.”
“Of course.” He looked around the dining room and caught the eye of the blond busboy. “Alex,” he said. “For the young ladies, how about some strawberry ice?”
Now, I liked Warren, and up close I still did think he was very handsome even though he was old. But here’s the thing: he kept on paying attention to Valentine. I know she looked so grown up what with Clover’s green backless dress and Aunt Theo’s pumps, but still. She’s only seventeen and not very mature, not really, if you want to ask me, and I would be the one to know.
“I am an actor,” Warren announced. “And you,” he said to Valentine, “are an actress.”
Valentine said, “A singer actually.”
“Torch songs,” he said. “Am I right? You must sing torch songs. Broken hearts, lost loves, all that…”
“They sing in the Girls Chorus of San Francisco,” said Clover, looking very amused. “And they go to French school.”
“Charming!” said Warren, giving Valentine’s hand a little squeeze. “Absolutely charming.”
Now she couldn’t look bored: no way could she pull that off. Her eyes under their gobs of dark green liner got very wide, and I knew she’d be bragging about tonight for weeks.
Our ices came, and Clover said, “Tell them a story, Warren. They’ll like that. Tell them the story of how you met Theo.”
Here is the story that Warren told us while we were eating our ices.
“It was in Harvard Square in the seventies. I had just moved to Boston and I was very young, oh, twenty-two, twenty-three. Theo was older. She’d graduated from Radcliffe in the mid-sixties and had been living in Paris for a number of years. Modeling and all that. But when she was about thirty, she moved back to Boston for a while, I t
hink it was around the time her father was dying and he wrote her, begging her to come home—”
“It’s like something out of The Ambassadors,” interrupted Clover.
“What’s that?” asked Valentine.
“Henry James. Oh, you’re probably too young for him. Daisy Miller, maybe. Warren, continue.”
“I met Theo one autumn day at the Blue Parrot. Which was a wonderful place that like a lot of places isn’t there anymore. Anyway—I used to be a waiter there. At the Blue Parrot. By the way, being a bartender is totally different from being a waiter: whole other set of skills. It relies on more of a human dimension. Back then I was waiting tables at the Blue Parrot, and one night Theo and her cousin Honor come in wearing these new dresses they had around that time, they were all the rage, this Swedish brand called Marimekko.”
“Finnish actually,” interrupted Clover.
“Whatever. Point is, pow! A lot of girls, they couldn’t pull off those dresses. They’re real short and this kind of square cut with all these crazy graphic patterns. They’re really alive, you know? They just bring back that whole time to me. I remember that the one Theo had on that day was black and white actually, and that just shows you. She didn’t need to wear a bright color to just pop. Her cousin didn’t look too shabby either. She went on to become this famous modern dancer here in New York, Honor Linden, but Theo was the one who took my heart, right then and there, and she never gave it back.
“Now, a good waiter is not supposed to eavesdrop. But: I was not a good waiter. Never was. Bartending’s the thing with me. So I couldn’t help eavesdropping on Theo and Honor, and what I figured out was that Theo had left behind some guy in Paris and now it was all over and Daddy didn’t understand, he’d been the love of her life. Who was this guy in Paris? I never knew. When I had to bring them the check, it was like my heart was breaking. I couldn’t bear the thought of never seeing her again. Well, lucky for me, I was pretty good-looking in those days, I don’t mind telling you, and I didn’t have too bad a time with the ladies. So I remember that after they had paid I put my hand out and I said, ‘My name is Warren,’ and I asked for her number.
“She said, ‘What’s your last name, Warren? Honor here and I believe in using one’s last name when introducing one’s self.’
“‘Vittadini,’ I told her.
“She said, ‘You’re tall for an Italian.’
“I said, ‘My mom’s side’s Irish.’
“She turned to Honor and said: ‘Honor! Give Warren the Irish-Italian waiter my number.’ And she did, and the rest is history. Many years have passed, there have been other women. But she was the great love of my life.”
* * *
The next morning, I remembered that Aunt Theo’s letter had said, “Report back to me your progress.” She was expecting me to write her a letter. But, oh dear—on what? I didn’t have any stationery. So I found this great Italian stationery store called Il Papiro, up on Lexington Avenue. Clover had told me all about it when I told her I needed to get stationery, and I’d been excited to check it out. Once I finally got there, I chose this cream paper with two lonesome-looking silver swans printed on the bottom. And then a navy-blue pen. I’d never had a fancy pen before, but I thought that when you wrote to Theodora Bell, you couldn’t use just any old pen.
But that night Val saw me writing the letter and said, “Oh God, Franny, are you writing a letter? I mean, letters are okay for an old lady like Aunt Theo, but for you? Nobody sends letters anymore.”
“Just because nobody does a thing anymore,” I said, “doesn’t mean it isn’t worth it to do.”
“But the world changes! Why not keep up with it?”
“Clover says—”
“Oh,” Val threw up her hands, “Clover says, Clover says, Theo says! I mean, I’m so glad Aunt Theo let us come to New York for the summer and all, but honestly, sometimes I feel like we’re living in, I don’t know, a museum in her apartment.”
“But who wouldn’t want to live in a museum?” I asked. “Remember how when we were little we wanted to go live in the Palace of Fine Arts?” That’s in this absolutely beautiful old building in San Francisco. “Remember, we wanted to go and put a tent up on the grounds, and feed the swans in the lagoon?”
“Yes,” said Val, “but, Franny, we were just children then.”
I paused. I supposed she had a point.
Here’s what I decided to write.
Dear Aunt Theodora,
Reporting on so-called progress. Valentine suggested the Plaza. Can you believe it? When everybody knows it’s owned by Donald Trump. Luckily I came up with Bemelmans Bar.
When I go to a place like that, I start to see what you mean about California having no true style to speak of.
Anyway, they sent us dessert and everything was just divine.
Oh, we met your old flame Warren. He says hello.
XXX
Frances
P.S. Please, Aunt Theodora, I think I should let you know I’ve just about filled the beautiful pink-and-gray journal you sent me from Paris. Would it be too bold to ask for another?
A week passed, and a package for me appeared in the mail. It was the same type of journal, but different colors, darker and richer this time, not pink-and-gray but plum suede with mauve pages. I couldn’t help but notice they were more like the colors Aunt Theo would choose for herself. A woman’s and not a girl’s.
The letter she had enclosed with the package had two words of advice: “Take notes.”
8
Ballet Lessons
Then Valentine fell in love, which of course is what we’d both been waiting for.
It happened this way.
Ever since we went to the Carlyle and Warren flirted with her, she’d been pretty much insufferable, flouncing around the apartment in her underwear and making mysterious faces in the mirror.
“Put some clothes on, Val,” I told her.
“Oh, just because you don’t have any boobs yet,” she said, which I think was absolutely uncalled for.
Incredibly enough, she went on, “Of course you might be one of those women who never really gets boobs. But that’s okay. There are so many different kinds of clothes you’ll be able to wear.”
“Val.”
“Well, just ask Clover. She was saying it used to be so hard going shopping with Aunt Theo, because, you know, Aunt Theo’s so tall and skinny and used to be a model and all and Clover’s so short. But Aunt Theo always made her feel better by saying that she, Clover I mean, had the kind of body that looks prettiest naked.”
“Val!”
“Suit yourself,” she said, and went back to applying her eyeliner in the mirror. It was Saturday morning, and she was getting ready to go to this ballet class at Lincoln Center. The reason for that was because an old friend of Aunt Theo’s turned out to be a former ballerina who now taught classes there for beginners. Clover had arranged for us to attend her classes for free if we wanted, but only Valentine wanted to; I did ballet once when I was little and wasn’t any good at it, so I didn’t want to make that mistake again. But Valentine loves dancing and was excited to give it a try.
“If you don’t finish up with that, you’re going to be late,” I warned her.
“Oh, hush! There might be boys there.”
“In ballet class?”
“Just, you know, around,” she said mysteriously.
After class, Valentine and I had planned to meet at this tearoom on the Upper East Side called Sant Ambroeus. Clover had recommended it to me earlier that morning, thinking that we would be sure to enjoy it. Valentine was walking across the park to meet me, and so I got there before her and had a chance to take it all in. You know something? I kind of like eating in restaurants alone. There is such opportunity for observation then. When you’re with someone else, you don’t notice things the same way.
Clover had recommended Sant Ambroeus because it’s Italian, Milanese to be exact, and very old. It seems like everywhere Clover recommen
ds is old but has style. Sant Ambroeus definitely does. The pastries are in shining cases and there are crystal chandeliers. The waiters wear pink shirts and black pants and all seem to be just incredibly handsome. One young man filling water glasses looked a bit like a piece of ancient sculpture.
Oh, when I go to college the first thing I want to do is take Italian! Aunt Theo and Clover speak it from going abroad so much. I don’t think it will be too, too hard for me to pick up since I’m fluent in French already. Here were some of the beautiful-sounding words on the menu: Asparagi Freddi, Polipo al Profumo de Limone, Vitello Tonnato …
“Franny, what are you doing, talking to yourself?”
I looked up and saw Val. Her black leotard was sliding off her shoulders and her twist was coming undone. If she hadn’t been so gorgeous, I would have felt embarrassed to be seen with her in the dining room of Sant Ambroeus.
“Oh,” I said, caught, “you’ll think it silly, but I was just practicing my Italian.”
“Your Italian, Franny? You make it sound like you already speak it! Well, tell Mom and Dad you want to learn it, and see if they’ll fit it into your schedule. Just imagine”—Val sighed all melodramatically—“going back home, and having to do homework, and activities, and Girls Chorus.” Then she picked up a menu and said, “God, Franny, you expect me to eat octopus when I’m in love?”
“You mean Polipo al Profumo…” I began, showing off my accent and knowing full well that it annoyed her I didn’t ask right away about the guy, whoever he was.
“Well, I just can’t eat when I’m feeling all light and breathless…”
“Oh.” I couldn’t imagine ever being in such an emotional condition that I wasn’t fond of eating. Especially here, at Sant Ambroeus!
“Aren’t you going to ask me?” she demanded.
“All right, Val. Who is he?”
“His name is Julian,” she said, with a proud lift of her head. “He has dark hair and blue eyes.”
“Oh,” I said. I did have to admit that was an attractive, and rare, combination.
Julian. I pondered the name. “Wavy dark hair,” she went on. “And deep blue eyes. And he was carrying a cello. Turns out he goes to Juilliard. That’s just about impossible to get into!”
The Summer Invitation Page 5