People Like Us (13 page)

“But—”

“The invitation said black tie. It did not say half black, half red tie. If there’s going to be a new fashion, we aren’t in any position to be the ones setting it.”

“Yet,” said Elias.

“Yet,” agreed Ruby, smiling at him. She looked back at the empty table next to her. “I wonder what happened to Mickie and Loelia.”

10

“I thought I might get a little drunk if you don’t mind. Or even if you do mind,” said Hubie Altemus. “All this terribly good champagne just sitting here.”

“Why did I think you weren’t drinking?” asked Lil, looking at her son through the mirror of her dressing table. He looked back at her as he picked up a bottle of champagne from a silver tray and poured himself a glass. Lil bent her head and concentrated on fastening the clasp of a diamond and sapphire bracelet on her wrist.

“I really don’t know why you thought that, Mother,” answered Hubie.

“What’s he called, that friend of yours from the gallery, with the Spanish name?”

“Juanito?”

“Yes, Juanito. I thought Juanito got you to stop drinking.”

“He did. I’m on what’s called a slip in some circles, in honor of the bride- and groom-to-be.”

“You will behave in front of the family, won’t you, Hubie?”

Hubie poured another glass of champagne, all the time looking at his mother.

“I really wish you’d worn a suit, Hubie. Not those damn jeans. And you’re going to have to borrow a tie. With the whole family here, you simply can’t dress like that. You know how Uncle Laurance gets.”

Hubie laughed.

“What did Uncle Laurance say, Hubie?” asked Lil. “You did see Uncle Laurance today, didn’t you?”

“He said I was a disgrace to the family. He said I
had no consideration for you whatsoever. Stuff like that. He said that he always thought people like me shot themselves.”

“He didn’t say that!” said Lil.

“He said it was the last time, the very last, that he was going to get me out of trouble. He said from here on in he didn’t give a flying fuck what I did.”

“Really, Hubie. You know I can’t bear that kind of talk.”

“He’s your brother, Mother. You asked me what he said, and I told you.”

“You won’t get in trouble again, will you, Hubie?” Lil looked up at her son. For an instant their eyes met, and then they both looked away. “Look, darling, let’s just get through this damn party, and then we’ll sit down and have a real talk.”

“I’m not staying for the party, Mother,” said Hubie.

“Of course you’re staying for the party. We’ll find you a tie. It’s your own sister’s engagement party. And your old mother needs all the moral support she can get.”

“I can’t stay.”

“Fulco made this bracelet for me years ago with the stones from Granny B.B.’s tiara, but I never, not in thirty years, have been able to work this goddamn clasp. Fix it, will you, Hubie?” She held out her wrist to her son. “Why can’t you stay? Don’t you like Bernie Slatkin?”

“I like Bernie Slatkin fine. I just wish he was as gung-ho on this wedding as Justine is,” said Hubie.

“What are you
talking
about?” asked Lil, waving her wrist in the air, waiting for Hubie to take it.

“Just what I said.”

“Oh, don’t be silly. He’s
mad
about Justine.”

“No, Justine’s mad about him. It ain’t the same thing.”

“Push that bell for Lourdes, will you, Hubie? She’ll find you a tie. There must be some in your old room. Or in the present drawer.”

“Mother, I said I’m not staying for the party.”

“But why?”

“I can’t face all those fucking Van Degans,” said Hubie. He picked up his mother’s wrist and fastened the clasp for her.

“Even your grandfather is coming.”

“That’s what I mean. Grandfather Van Degan. Uncle Laurance. Aunt Janet. Young shitface Laurance and his dreary wife with her homemade dresses. I can’t stand any of them. Except poor Dodo.”

“There’s the doorbell. People are beginning to arrive. Answer it, will you, Hubie?”

“That’s what you keep a butler for, Mother. I’m going out the back way.”

“Justine will be so disappointed.”

“If anybody will understand, Justine will understand.”

“You look tired, Hubie.”

“I’m not sleeping well.”

“You stay out too late. That’s your problem.”

“Not anymore.”

“Don’t you think you’re getting too thin, Hubie?”

“Yeah, I do,” he answered.

“We all love to be thin. ‘You can’t be too rich or too thin,’ as the Duchess used to say to Mother, but there’s a limit.”

“Good-bye, Mother.”

“You should understand something, Bernie,” said Justine.

“What’s that?” asked Bernie. They were standing in Lil’s drawing room waiting for the guests to arrive, while Hubie was in with his mother.

“Sometimes my mother can be dreadful. Polite and charming, you know, but dreadful.”

Bernie laughed. “I read my Edith Wharton. I know all about people like your mother.”

Justine kissed Bernie on the cheek. It fascinated her that he was not intimidated by her family or her life. Bernie, with Lil or the other Van Degans, was always polite and charming, but he never backed down
when disagreeable subjects, like politics and religion, came into the conversation. Once he even mocked the President and First Lady, fully aware that Lil and her friends revered and sometimes even entertained them, and, after the silence that followed, did not disagree when Uncle Laurance explained to the family that people in the media more often than not held liberal views.

“It’s just one of my boring old migraines,” said Lil Altemus to her father, Ormonde Van Degan, who, after his eightieth birthday almost four years ago, rarely ventured forth to any social event, much less a cocktail party. Lil lounged elegantly on a deep tufted red damask sofa at the far end of her massive drawing room overlooking Fifth Avenue during the whole of her cocktail party to announce Justine’s engagement to Bernard Slatkin.

Once Ormonde Van Degan had commanded as much respect in banking, political, and social circles as his son Laurance presently commanded, but age had diminished his capabilities, and pity among Lil’s and Laurance’s friends and suppressed smiles among the next generation had taken the place of the awe he inspired in earlier times. As he shuffled through his daughter’s drawing room, forgetful now, only Dodo Fitz Alyn seemed able to communicate with him. Dodo Fitz Alyn, a Van Degan poor relation and the object of family jokes, had the job of leading Ormonde Van Degan around the room in his walker to greet all the family members. Poor Dodo, as she was referred to behind her back, had long since abandoned hopes of marriage and ceased to care about weight or appearance. Her wispy hair was parted in the middle and pulled together behind her ears with a rubber band, or, on party occasions, like today, with a black ribbon.

“Dodo, dear, take Father around the room, will you?” said Lil, with effusive cordiality, as if she was speaking to a beloved nanny who had long served the family well, instead of a relation.

“I have taken him around the room, Lil,” said Dodo.

“Tell him Matilda’s coming,” said Lil to Dodo, in front of her father, as if he were deaf and blind, rather than merely old. “He’s always been so fond of Matilda, and he adored Sweetzer.” With that instruction taken care of, Lil went back to her guests. It was not lost on any of them that it was Lil and not Justine who was the center of attention at Justine’s engagement party. She held a glass of champagne, which was constantly replenished by her maid Lourdes, and lifted her cheek to be kissed by her old friends like Matilda Clarke and Mary Finch and Cora Mandell, and practically the whole of the Van Degan family.

“Dodo Fitz Alyn always leaves the chair seats warm when she gets up. Have you noticed?” asked Cora Mandell, when she lowered herself into a black Regency chair next to Lil’s sofa that Dodo had just vacated.

“Poor Dodo,” said Lil, rolling her eyes.

“Bernie’s
so
attractive,” said Mary Finch to Lil. “Lucky, lucky Justine. I was always
mad
about men with dimples in their chin. Who was that movie star who had the dimple? You know the one, in the picture about Africa, that one.”

Bernard Slatkin watched the spectacle of the Van Degan family and their friends with an amused and remote smile. He stood near the piano, on the other side of the long room from Lil, talking and joking with Justine, often with his arm around her waist, and fulfilling his social obligations by chatting charmingly with each person that Justine introduced him to.

Loelia Manchester entered the party in a whirl of raspberry satin, on her way to another party. Mickie Minardos was not with her, as Lil Altemus’s drawing room was practically home ground for Loelia and her estranged husband Ned. As always, people turned to look at Loelia, because of her clothes and because of her scandal. Thin beyond thin, fashionable beyond fashion, Loelia had taken to wearing her now very blond
hair pulled back into a tiny knot, a style favored, people said, by Mickie Minardos, but a style deplored by the popular hairdressers of the city who feared, because of Loelia’s influence in matters of taste and style, that it might become a rage. Loelia’s eyes moved rapidly around the room, even as she was kissing relations and old friends on first one cheek and then the other, or greeting Justine, or being introduced to Bernie, not wanting, if possible, to have to come into contact with Ned Manchester, who would certainly be there.

“When you set the date, Justine, let me know immediately, and Mickie and I will give a little dinner for you and Bernie at the Rhinelander,” said Loelia. “I’m so pleased to meet you, Bernie. I always watch you, and Mickie thinks you’re the best, absolutely the best, of all the anchormen.”

Every time Bernie received a compliment, on his work as an anchorman, or on his good looks, or both, Justine beamed with pride and moved even closer to her fiancé.

“Thank you, Mrs. Manchester,” said Bernie, who seemed to be enjoying all the attention he was getting. “I’d like you to meet some of the gang from the news staff,” and he pulled over his coanchorman and his weatherman to meet the glamorous Mrs. Manchester, whom they had all read about in the newspapers and magazines.

“Who’s the little Chinese eating all the cheese puffs and talking to Dodo Fitz Alyn?” asked Cora Mandell, surveying the scene.

“Oh, Charlie
quelque chose
,” answered Lil, rear-ranging the pillows behind her. “And don’t say ‘Chinese.’ They get so upset. He’s Korean, or Vietnamese, one of those. He’s the weatherman on Bernie’s show, and the other one, with the salt-and-pepper toupee and the drink in each hand, is Bernie’s cohost, or coanchor, or whatever they call them.”

“I’ve never seen poor Dodo so animated,” said Cora.

Lil screened her lips with her left hand and said to Cora Mandell, “Whisper to Loelia that I told Ned not to come until after eight, so she can relax for an hour. Ned was thrilled to come late because it won’t interfere with his squash game.”

“Do you think it’s true that Ned won’t agree to give Loelia a divorce? It was in Dolly’s column,” said Cora.

“I know it’s true,” answered Lil, “but Ned is my cousin on the Altemus side, and I’m godmother to Charlotte, and I just can’t take sides. I mean, what’s happening to everyone these days? I suppose it’ll be poor Dodo and the weatherman next.”

“Lil, how sad you’re not feeling well,” said Loelia Manchester.

“Hello, Loelia. Kiss kiss.”

“How exciting this must be for you, Lil,” said Loelia. “Mickie thinks Bernie is just about the best of all the newscasters. When’s the wedding going to be?”

“Too soon for this old mother to make all the proper arrangements,” said Lil. “You look different, Loelia.”

“How do you like my new face?” asked Loelia.

“I liked your old face, and I’m sure I’ll get to like your new one,” answered Lil. Loelia looked at Lil Altemus and decided to let the jibe pass.

“I want to say hello to Uncle Ormonde,” she said, indicating with a little half wave to Lil that she would slip out without saying good-bye, like an experienced leavetaker who had another party to attend.

“I don’t think she liked what you said,” said Cora.

“Well, you know, since Mickie Minardos came into her life, Loelia’s seeing all the New People in New York. She’s moved on from us.”

The elevator door opened. “Big hug,” said Loelia to Matilda Clarke in farewell and turned to get on the elevator. Getting out of it at the same time as Loelia was about to get on were Ned Manchester with Charlotte and Bozzie, Ned and Loelia’s children. Ned and
Loelia stared at each other. As always Ned’s hair was wet, as if he had just showered after his afternoon game of squash. Loelia noticed that hardness had come into Ned’s face and that his look showed cold dislike for her.

“Oh, hello, Ned,” she said to her husband.

Ned, who had loved her so much for so long, nodded, shifted his eyes, and replied, “Hello.” Loelia remembered once when his mother, Honoria, long dead, had replied to someone she disliked who had greeted her in a public place. “Hello,” she replied. Nothing more. It was exactly the way her husband had greeted her.