“Carlyle Hotel,” answered a voice on the other end. I knew the Carlyle. It was not far from our old apartment. It had a famous bar with paintings of animals on the wall. Bobby Short sang there at night. My parents had taken me once years ago.
Confused, I said, “I’d like to speak to Cesca Bonet, please.”
“One moment, please.” Silence. Then, “I’m sorry, sir. We have no guest here under that name. Might there be another name?”
I thought. What was the name? “How about Oppenheim? Gavin Oppenheim?”
“Thank you, sir. Connecting you now.”
The phone rang. There was no answer. “I’m sorry, sir. There doesn’t seem to be an answer,” interrupted the clerk. “Would you like to leave a message?”
“No. Please let it ring some more.”
Finally, Cesca answered.
“Hello, Cesca? It’s Wylie.”
“Wylie,” she said. Her voice sounded panicked. “I’ve been waiting for you to call. I left you a message hours ago.”
“I know. I just got it. I was out. Are you all right?”
“Yes. I don’t know. I’m so confused. Can you come over? Where are you? I need to see you.”
I hesitated. My college was two hours away.
“Please come. I’ll wait.” She gave me her room number.
It was nearly nine on a Tuesday night, and I had classes the next day and an early morning training run with the heavyweight crew. “Of course. I’ll come. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“Thank you.”
I sped down the Merritt Parkway. I still had my old pickup. The roads were empty, and I made good time. Less than two hours after I had spoken with her, I was driving through the familiar streets of the East Seventies, and, not wanting to waste time hunting for a parking spot, I put my truck into the garage next to the hotel. I checked my wallet and hoped I had enough to cover it. I would also need to buy gas.
Just before eleven, I walked into the empty lobby. No one challenged me, so I went to the elevator and took it to her floor. At the door, I rang and then knocked. There was no answer. I rang again, leaning on the buzzer. Once. Twice. Finally Cesca came to the door. Her eyes were bleary.
“You came.” Her voice thick.
“I said I would.”
“Sorry. I fell asleep.”
I followed her into the suite. There was a bedroom on the right. We went into a little sitting room. There were boxes and bags everywhere.
She sat on a sofa. A table in front of her had an empty vodka bottle and a full ashtray on it. She was wearing only a long dark T-shirt. Her legs and feet were brown and bare. Red toenails. When she uncrossed her legs, I could see a glimpse of white lace.
“Do you want a drink?” she asked. “I have more vodka in the kitchen.”
“Sure.”
She stood and wove to the little kitchenette. I heard her grabbing ice from an ice maker. The sound of ice falling on the floor. Then, “Oh shit.”
“Can I help?” I called.
“No. Everything’s fine.”
She returned carrying two glasses filled with vodka and sat next to me on the couch, where she lit a cigarette.
“Thank you for coming. I didn’t realize how late it was.”
“I was happy to come. I was worried about you. You sounded terrible on the phone. What’s the matter?”
She leaned forward and buried her face in her hands. “Oh God. I’m such a mess.”
I put my hand on her back. “What’s the matter?” I asked again.
She began to sob.
“Cesca?”
“I don’t want to get married.”
“Why not?”
Another sob. “I don’t love him.”
“What do you mean?”
“Gavin. I like him. He’s rich. Good-looking. He treats me well. We have great sex. But I’m not in love with him.”
“Where is he now?”
“Who fucking knows? I can’t remember. Europe. Australia? He travels all the fucking time. This is his apartment. I’ve been hiding out here for a week, not wanting to see anyone. He’s never here.”
“When did you talk to him last?”
“Yesterday. No, two days ago, I think. I can’t remember.”
“Did you ever love him?”
She leaned back and took a sip of her drink. “No,” she answered, shaking her head. “No, I don’t think so.”
“So why did you agree to marry him?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she groaned. “I suppose it seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“But not anymore?”
“No.”
“Does he love you?”
“I don’t know. I guess so. At least, he tells me he does.”
“But you don’t feel like he does?”
“How do you know when someone loves you? I mean, really know. Does it mean they treat you differently? Are they kinder to you? More patient? More honest? I really don’t know. You know what I think it means? I think it just means that you lie more to people. You pretend more to spare them pain until one day you can’t lie and pretend anymore and your real feelings come out and then it’s all over. My parents were in love and looked what happened. Your parents too. And don’t even get me started on Uncle Roger. The only perfect relationship I’ve ever seen is my grandparents’. But I don’t know that for a fact either. They come from a different generation. My grandfather never hid anything from my grandmother. She knew everything because he told her, and she accepted it because what choice did she have? Back then, people married for life. They were braver.”
“And you don’t think that Gavin and you can be that brave?”
“I know I can’t. And I don’t want to get married to someone who I have to lie to. When we’re together, he’s always so polite, so considerate, but I know he’s not telling me everything either. Why get married just to be miserable?”
“Then don’t.”
“It’s not as simple as that. I was nearly married once before, and I called the wedding off. That was awful. I promised myself I’d never do that again.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. It’s so fucked up.” She lit another cigarette.
I sat there silently for several moments.
“So why am I here?”
She looked at me. “You’re here because I trust you. For some reason, you’re the only person I’ve ever met who has never judged me. Even my family. My mother would be furious. Gavin’s handsome, rich, charming. He’s also family. My third cousin or something. I don’t know.” She waved her hand vaguely in the air and took another drink. “Whatever.”
I reached out for her hand and gently massaged it, stunned by her words, grateful for them.
“So what do you think I should do, Wylie? Where did you get that name, anyway? Wylie, Wylie. It’s a hell of a funny name. It’s like being named Sly or Tricky, isn’t it? Are you sly or tricky, Wily Wylie?”
“It’s an old family name. From my mother’s side.”
“An old family name. Aren’t you grand? We don’t have any old family names in our family. We’re a new family. I’m getting another drink. Excuse me.”
When she returned, she sat on the couch next to me, her feet tucked up under her legs, and asked, “So what should I do, Tricky Wylie?”
“Well, would you consider marrying me?”
She laughed and put her hand on my cheek. “You’re so sweet. But I’m trying to get out of a marriage, not into one.”
“Okay, is there anyone else you’d rather marry?”
“No. I don’t want to get married. The whole idea scares the crap out of me.”
“So what brought all this on now? The wedding’s months away, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but all the planning. I received samples of stationery yesterday. Jesus. That’s when it hit me. I thought, I can’t go through with this.”
“Well, it seems to me that you’ve only got two choices: marry Gavin or
not. If you don’t want to, then you should tell him as soon as possible so you don’t drag things out.”
“Fuck, I don’t want to think about it,” she groaned and lay sideways on the couch. Then, sitting up: “Am I a bitch? Am I a bitch for wanting to marry someone for love?”
“No, of course not.”
“Wouldn’t you want to marry someone for love?”
“My offer still stands.”
She smiled. “Of course it does. Dear, sweet Wylie. Maybe I should take you up on your offer. Would you like that, Tricky Wylie?”
This time she leaned over and kissed me on the mouth. Her breath tasted like vodka and cigarettes. She was on top of me. We kissed on the couch for several minutes before she stood up and said, “Come with me,” and led me by the hand into the bedroom. The room was dark, the only light from the living room. The bed was unmade. Clothes were scattered over the furniture. I nearly stumbled on a shoe.
“Sorry it’s such a mess. I told the maid not to come today,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”
She went into the bathroom and closed the door.
I stood there, staring dumbly after her. Thinking that if there was a god of second chances, I should be thanking him.
I was sitting on the bed when she emerged from the bathroom, naked. More glorious than ever. The light from the bathroom shining behind her.
“Come here,” she said, biting her bottom lip and giggling. “I know this is what you want.” She grabbed my belt buckle, pushing me onto the bed. As before, she engulfed me, devoured me. Hers was nothing like the limited, tentative lovemaking I had encountered with other girls. It was fierce, passionate, relentless. She left me drained, spent, unable to move. All the time I was thinking, This is Cesca’s neck, Cesca’s breast, Cesca’s hand, this is her, this is her, this is her. I remembered it all.
In the morning I lay on the pillow staring at her while she slept, her head on my chest. I didn’t ever want to move. I wanted to burn the perfection of the image into my brain. It was like finding out that God is real or how Columbus must have felt when he did not sail off the edge of the world and instead put his feet down on the dry sand of San Salvador. The overwhelming relief. The gratitude. The immeasurable, unalloyed joy. Later, when she stirred, we made love again, slowly this time, fearlessly, our bodies revealed by the sunlight coming through the window. She shuddered in ecstasy, demanding everything I could give her.
We slept more and then ordered room service. College was forgotten. Unimportant in comparison. Crew practice was long over, so were most of my classes. I would have to answer for my absence later, but at this moment I had the outlaw’s scorn for the orthodox. “Stay,” she said, over coffee. “Please. We’ll make a day of it. I don’t want you to leave just yet.”
I needed little persuading. We spent what remained of the morning naked, and then, in the early afternoon, we went out. On Madison Avenue, I felt like a tourist even though I had been raised in this neighborhood. With Cesca by my side, everything became unreal, new, possessing depths of beauty and fascination I had never perceived before. The familiar buildings seemed different, the items in the shop windows particularly alluring. She was pulling me along, caught in her gravitational wake like an asteroid around a planet. The force of her will, the extraordinariness of her beauty, the way that strangers would stare at her in the street, all seemed somehow bigger, more significant; compared to her the rest of the world was dross.
New York in early winter. There was no snow on the ground yet. The trees were barren. Already women were wearing furs, marvelous scarves. It was cold. I had on only an old tweed jacket of my father’s, turned up at the collar. Cesca offered to buy me a coat. I refused, but she insisted. We walked into a store where I tried on several Italian cashmere overcoats. Blue, tan, black. All of them rich and warm. They cost hundreds of dollars, a thousand or more. It was an absurd amount of money. We left the store laughing, coatless. “We should have stolen one,” she said.
In the Frick. There were groups of schoolchildren. Senior citizens. We passed by Lippi’s Annunciation, Gainsborough’s pale beauties. “These are my favorites,” she said in the Fragonard Room. “You see?” she said, standing in front of a large canvas depicting a young woman in a long silk dress leaning against a column in the middle of a lush pleasure garden. “That’s me, dreaming of love.”
We walked through Central Park and later had a drink in the Carlyle’s bar. I had noticed with great pleasure that she had removed her engagement ring. We sat side by side at a banquette in the corner, our thighs touching, holding hands. “Do you like martinis?” she asked. The room was dark, and faintly magical in its late afternoon emptiness. We were the only ones there besides the bartender, who was busy polishing glasses, and our waiter. Tables stood waiting for evening. A grand piano sat unplayed. On the walls elephants skated and giraffes doffed their caps. The world outside had ceased to exist. It could have been four in the morning. Time no longer applied to us, we were superior to it.
I laughed with delight. Everything was new, sparkling. I would have done anything for her, tried anything. Upstairs was our bed. The rest was forgotten. “I don’t know. I’ve never had one.”
“Never? Well, then, it’s time to introduce you.”
“Two vodka martinis,” she ordered. “Up. With three olives.”
They made me quite drunk. I was still learning how to hold my liquor. Like most college students, I was more familiar with beer, my father’s Jack Daniel’s, and sweeter concoctions, such as rum and Coke. The martini’s taste was aseptic, strong, yet there was something about the directness of it. After the second, my head started to swim. The room went in and out of focus. I started kissing Cesca, who kissed me back and then said, “Enough. Let’s go upstairs.”
I tried to pay, but she laughed and said, “Don’t worry. It’s all on Gavin.”
Dinner was from room service that night. She ordered a magnum of champagne. Caviar. We made love many times. She was tireless. Crying out, not caring if anyone heard. We knocked over a table. Several lamps, the telephone. Later we lay in bed, casually naked, and talked—about Gavin, Aurelio, her parents. She unburdened herself, sometimes drifting into long moments of silence. I said nothing. Then she would stop, and we would make love again. This went on for hours until, exhausted and satiated, we finally slept.
In the morning I awoke late, realizing I had to get back to school. No one knew where I was. I had obligations, work to catch up on. Cesca tried to get me to stay. She had assumed I would. We hadn’t talked about it. Looking back on it, I wish I had stayed. But I had to leave.
“Gavin doesn’t come back until tomorrow,” she said. “We can have one more day. Please stay. It’ll be fun.”
“I wish I could, but I can’t.”
“Fine,” she replied, covering herself with the sheet and sitting up in bed to light a cigarette.
“I’m sorry. It’s Thursday today. I can be back tomorrow night.”
“That won’t work.”
“Why not?”
“I told you. Gavin is coming back. I have to see him.”
“What are you going to tell him? That you can’t marry him?”
She blew smoke out of her nose. “I haven’t decided yet what I am going to tell him. But I think I am going to go ahead with it.”
This surprised me. It shouldn’t have, but it did. After what had just happened between us, I thought that the marriage would definitely be off. How could it not be? Didn’t it mean as much to her as it did to me? “I just thought . . .”
“What did you think? That I’d break my engagement to Gavin because we slept together?”
That was exactly what I had thought. But I was clearly wrong. I didn’t know what to say.
She laughed. “You just don’t get it, do you?”
“I understand that I love you. What more do I need to understand?”
She shook her head. “Let’s not go there, okay? I’ve got my own problems to sort out. Please don’
t make my life more complicated than it already is.” She sighed. “Excuse me,” she said, standing up and walking to the bathroom, letting the sheet slide to the floor. She closed the door behind her and locked it.
I sat there for a while, feeling foolish. My cheeks were burning. Slowly I pulled on my pants. I knocked on the bathroom door. “Do you want me to go?”
From inside: “No. Wait a minute. I’ll be out soon.” The sound of running water. Eventually she emerged, her head and body wrapped in towels. She went to the bureau and withdrew a black bra and panties. I couldn’t help but watch her. The perfect line of her leg. The curve of her breast. Trying to memorize them, suddenly aware that they were about to be taken away from me again.
“Turn around,” she giggled. “You’re embarrassing me.”
When I turned back, she was dressed in black jeans and a long black shirt. Her feet were bare, her hair still wet.
“Are you mad at me?” I asked.
“Don’t be silly,” she said, coming over and giving me a kiss on the cheek. “I shouldn’t have snapped before.”
“It’s all right.”
She put her hand soothingly along the side of my face. “Don’t think that this didn’t mean anything to me, Wylie. It always has. It’s always very special being with you. If I do wind up marrying Gavin, I’ll never forget.”
“Cesca, I . . .”
She placed her index finger across my lips. “Shhh. I know. You should go now.”
“May I call you?”
“We’ll see.”
Rising up on her toes, she kissed my cheek. “Thank you for everything. Good-bye, Tricky Wylie.”
Somehow the door closed, and I was in the hallway, carrying my jacket. Then I was in the elevator and out on the street, with the doorman tipping his hat, offering to get me a taxi. It was all a dream. No, it wasn’t. It had been real, but there was nothing to prove it had happened, no physical evidence. No souvenir, no keepsake. Not even a book of matches to remind me of it all. I went to the garage next door. Handing over my ticket, I braced to learn how much I owed, fearing the bills in my wallet would be hopelessly inadequate. My bank card only worked in Connecticut. I could have gone to my father’s office and asked him for the money, but it would have been awkward. Why wasn’t I at school?
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