Life Among Giants (22 page)

11

Etienne was terrified in my house the first few nights, slept on the pullout in the living room, claimed later to have made peace with the ghosts upstairs, who he didn't think were my folks but much younger people, a beautiful young pair. And with that understanding he and RuAngela made the move.
Party mode, we toured the restaurants of Fairfield County, three and four a day, little of note, then into New York City, only an hour away on the commuter train, days on end. Mornings, Etienne and I cooked and experimented, crowded into the little kitchen at Hochmeyer Haven. We laid out menu schemes, excitement growing along with what in a dance company would be called repertory. RuAngela modeled various gowns and make-up protocols, always dressing for work, but she also drew up charts, gradually put the Restaurant Firfisle concept on paper—she had a great brain for numbers, projections, percentages. In my vivid dream, salt waves washed up against the Trompetta family's seawall throwing spray at our restaurant's newly installed windows, our delighted guests eating and laughing, kitchen clanking and steaming like a fine old engine.

Back on earth, RuAngela worked up a lowball bid for the building and I duly submitted it: $40,500, not a chance they'd bite, but RuAngela was firm.

A
FTER A COUPLE
of weeks with no word from the Trompetta's people, I drove my new partners up to see Kate and Jack in Madison.
Th
e restaurant was to be kept secret—I had Jack in mind as a possible investor, if it came to that, but we'd need to have our burner knobs all in a row before he heard or suspected anything, a perfect business plan that is, which might or might not mean our being up and running and already showing our success—we'd have to see about that. I had money enough to get the doors open, and the cash from Ma and Pa at Floridiana was on its way, no doubt, plenty to see us through. And so the story was that my friends were just visiting: not a word about living with me, not a word about real estate.

We arrived with a big box of produce. Kate hugged Etienne in the doorway, patted his face, hugged him more, touched the tattoos again. He clearly couldn't believe how truly gorgeous she was, tested the hem of her absurdly short skirt as if to see if she was real, put his finger to the flaw of her lip, a kind of blessing. Meanwhile RuAngela in a sensible tweed skort and spangled blouse took Jack's hands in hers, introduced herself, laid it on thick: “Your house! A church! You bought it from fucking Jesus Christ Himself!”

He recoiled, the subtlest thing, but something you didn't miss. Certainly RuAngela didn't miss it. She turned to hug Kate, gave Kate a long look. Jack took the chance to clutch me, pretend to kiss my cheek, whisper in my ear: “Let's wrap this up before dinner. Before your sister extends any invitations.
Th
ree o'clock, okay?”

“Jack, fine.”

“And nothing about detectives, none of that.”

“It won't come from me.”

“She's been a little wired, David.” He puffed a breath, about to say something more, but RuAngela took his arm, tugged him into the living room, plunked him on the plump couch.
“Everyday Joy!”
she said, as if it were his secret name.

“You've read it?” he said warily.

“Honey, I've read it twice, who hasn't? Etienne and I have done all the trust exercises—wonderful—every one. You changed the way we
talk
to one another.” And so on: I hadn't thought about it, but singing at bedtime was a Jack suggestion in
Joyful
Couples,
which was his newest book, and might explain my housemates' little nightly arias in reedy voices, harmony both figurative and real, pretty nice. Taking both of Jack's hands in hers, RuAngela carried on, perfectly sincere: she knew the books chapter and verse, really knew them. And Jack was pleased; you could actually see him relax, see him falling for her, looking in her shirt, our queen of illusions.

“Let's cook,” Etienne said.

He and Ru-Ru and I had stopped early morning at two farms she'd been courting and taken away everything we needed for a lunchtime frittata, excellent eggs from chickens we'd had to shoo off the car, potatoes straight from the furrow, rainbow selection of peppers, a big purple cabbage, baby squashes, and herbs by the handfuls. Etienne had brought his knives along, of course, and handed me the biggest as Kate led us into the kitchen.

Immediately she lowered her voice: “David, I've been thinking about Dad's briefcase.”

“A beautiful home,” E.T. said loudly, instant conspirator.

And Kate murmured: “I think I know where it is. I mean, I think I've worked out where it must be, given all the variables here.”

I said, “Kate, we're not supposed to talk about this subject.”

“David, I'm not saying anything about ‘this subject,' just the fucking briefcase, okay?”

“Kate, Daddy left that briefcase on a train.”

“Oh,
bullshit,
David. You
know
that's not true.”

“Gorgeous kitchen,” said E.T.

“It's true,” I said.

Kate hissed, “When did you ever believe Dad? I have the key. He gave me the key.
Th
e key to the briefcase.”

I couldn't suppress my interest: “Okay, and where is this key?”

“
Th
e windows!” Etienne exclaimed. “
Th
e harbor out there!”

“Right here.” She tugged a necklace up from inside her shirt. “I've been wearing it all these years.”

Oh, sure. I knew it well. Her necklace. I'd assumed Jack had given it to her, just a little golden key on a delicate golden chain. She'd never said a word about it. RuAngela had Jack laughing in the next room, really busting a gut, a miracle.
Th
ey were getting to their feet, soon to join us in the kitchen. “But wait,” I whispered. “
Th
at briefcase had a combination lock. A little row of numbers you turned, remember? Like four little wheels. We played with it all the time.”

She did remember, of course she did. “But David. Daddy gave me a
key,
this key. He came all the way up on the train to deliver it. He was supposed to be at work.”

“And where did he say the briefcase was?”

“He didn't say. He said he'd let me know. And then, of course, they got him.”

An image came to me, our Dad sneaking down the lawn to the pond, that big manila envelope in hand. Jack was telling RuAngela something about the Bonnard. Urgent Kate pulled the necklace over her head, stuffed it into my hand, pretended to give me a kiss, laughed falsely, hissed in my ear: “David. Will you please look for the briefcase? We have to find Daddy's briefcase, all right?”

I kept the key for two weeks or so, long enough for her to settle down, I hoped, then sent it back in a nice little box, her one real memento of the old man.

L
IKE THE PAIR
of worried parents they were becoming, Etienne and RuAngela had begun to irritate me, always asking if there weren't some kind of club I could join or some kind of class I could take to meet women, maybe a victims-of-violence support group. Something like Kate had had at McLean and still attended weekly, a major undertaking for Jack, as my sister had lost her license permanently, not that he ever complained, not once. RuAngela invited single women for dinner most weekends, ostensibly as tasters for the developing menu—the hygienist from her new dentist's office, the lady from the dress shop, the woman who ran the animal shelter, her Vietnamese manicurist—all of them really nice people, all of them very available, all of them answering to RuAngela's fertility-goddess taste in women. Not that I wasn't tempted, it's just that I wasn't particularly in the market, wasn't in the market at all.

Meanwhile, Etienne's confidence had fled. He was anxious, lots of hand wringing, quick to tears, quick to embarrassment and guilt over his dependency on me and over the Health Spot crash, which had really roughed him up, catastrophes looming everywhere he looked. RuAngela was the positive one at our house, spent large portions of every afternoon on her face and clothing, plucking hairs from here and there, working on her wigs, getting ready for the night's adventures, even if only a walk outside.

“Am I beautiful?” she asked me once.

I knew what she meant—beautiful to a heterosexual man. I just said, “Yes, yes, my God, are you kidding?” And there was truth in that—she turned men's heads all right, that body of hers, always the high-high heels on a person already tall, narrow pretty calves, bubble-butt (padded, but still). And her skin was beautiful indeed, her cleavage smooth and brown as a 74 percent cacao mousse, hormonally induced breasts lovely to contemplate, never a bra, confusing appeal. I didn't tell her the next thing, that her manly jaw, her heavy five-o'clock shadow, her deep voice, the knowledge of the existence of fully functional male equipment tucked down in there somewhere definitely got in my way, sexually speaking. I mean, she peed standing next to me in the backyard like any old dude. She didn't talk about sex-change operations, either. She was already what she was and wanted to be. Which among other things was a good friend to me.

Th
e letter from Lionel and Carter's legal team when it finally came threw me into a funk, but not RuAngela: she immediately began a campaign of guilt and shame, playing momma. Supposedly the independent audit had shown Restaurant Floridiana operating at a deficit for the entire five years of its existence, pure fuckery. My buyout share—which was to have been the startup cash for Firfisle—was
zero.
I wasn't one to sue, not over a lost cause like that. RuAngela wrote a letter of protest for me to sign, and then she dressed me down. Self-respect, that was the word. She got Lionel on the phone, carried on so dramatically that a settlement offer arrived the next day by FedEx, and later a check, mid five figures, exact recoup of my investment.

Which is how the Firfisle Express got through Christmas and New Year's (1989, the year the Berlin Wall would fall), even past Valentine's day. We had a month of menus planned and tested, suppliers lined up, knives honed. RuAngela began interviewing wait staff and kitchen people. We just needed our building. So, Ru wrote another letter to Chase, the bank that held the old Trompetta property, and
lowered
our offer: $35,500. I felt the whole thing slipping through our fingers, felt the stupidity of having got stuck on one building.

“You watch,” RuAngela said.

I
RAN INTO
Miss Butterman at the town library, where I was checking out a new pile of world cookbooks. She looked no different than she'd looked in history class, same wry look in her eye, same wig of short hair. “Have you recovered?” she said warmly.

I shook my head even saying “Yes,” managed a rueful smile.

“No, you can't,” she said, more cheerfully than not. And then she caught me up on a number of my classmates, a lot of corporate jobs among them, a lot of births and marriages and divorces and deaths, smallest details. She complimented me on some specific touchdowns from my Miami career.

“Oh, and Linsey's been ill,” she said to finish. And then, confidentially: “His stepmother writes me. Sylphide, you know.”

“Yes,” I said, making it sound as if I were as privy to the star's secrets as she, though I'd only read it in the papers: “A heart attack.”

“David, I think our fine-feathered friend would like a note from you. He's in New York there on Sutton Place. He can't do the world travel any more. But they keep such good people around him. And he's able to go to his school still. He has a girlfriend.”

Home, I wrote the note, all right, just a few sentences for someone to read to him. I had an absurd stack of old Dolphins promo shots—me smiling in my shoulder pads—clipped the note to one, sent it off. Of course I had the thought that Sylphide might see it, might cast her green gaze upon my face and feel a flood of warmth and appreciation, a woman just rising from divorce.

I
SCRAMBLED UP
from a power nap when the phone rang one March afternoon, raced to answer, only slowly waking. Formal voice on the other end, much static. It took me several sentences to realize that it was not the Trompetta's people but good old Desmond, Sylphide's very butler, phoning me from Chile, where the dancer and her company were in the midst of a two-week engagement. Gradually, I deciphered that Linsey's health had taken a bad turn, no warning at all. His heart, of course. Dr. Chun and two of Linsey's trainers had taken him to Doctors Hospital, not far from Sutton Place. But the bad news was that he was probably not going to make it.

“He loved your photo,” Desmond said. “He's been sleeping with it under his pillow. He's rather ruined it.”

Th
e sadness welled up in me as Desmond went on: the dancer needed a favor. Sylphide's foundation jet had been grounded due to sudden political trouble in Chile.
Th
ere were very few commercial flights going anywhere, and it might take days, though Conrad Pant, her manager, was trying to arrange a military helicopter to get them to Buenos Aires. Could I get into the city? Be by Linsey's side? Just in case? “We'd rather he didn't die alone,” Desmond said.