People Like Us (38 page)

“Everyone will be there,” said Justine wistfully,
although she knew, even as she said those words, that they would not entice Bernie to change his mind, because, unlike most of the people she knew, missing a party where “everyone” would be was not a matter of great concern to him. What Justine feared more than anything else in the whole world was that Bernie was going to tell her that they were going to be transferred to Los Angeles and that he was going to have his own show as sole anchorman. Justine hated, absolutely hated, Los Angeles.

She didn’t want to tell Bobo, after all his work, to take out the flowers and ribbons because she wasn’t going to go to the ball at the Renthals’ after all, so they were still in her hair when Bernie came home from the newscast. When she called Ruby to back out of the dinner, she was told that Ruby was attending a wake in Queens, which seemed odd to Justine, but that she would be back by seven, an hour before her dinner.

“Who is this speaking?” asked Justine, not recognizing the voice.

“This is Mrs. Renthal’s calligrapher.”

“Her what?” asked Justine.

“Her place-card writer.”

“Oh,” said Justine. “Just the right person. Will you tell Mrs. Renthal that an emergency has arisen, and Mr. and Mrs. Bernard Slatkin will have to cancel for this evening.”

“Oh, dear,” said the calligrapher.

When Elias and Ruby made their second call of the day on the family of Julio Martinez in Queens, this time at the Margetta Funeral Home, for the wake, they expected to stay only ten minutes. Neither realized that the arrival of Father Francis X. Mulcahey, from the Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow, whom they felt it was politic to meet before departing, signaled the saying of the rosary.

“It’s a great pleasure to meet you,” said Father Mulcahey. His gentle voice still bore the traces of his
Irish birth. “Poor Teresa has told me of your generosity to the family during their great loss. Now, if you’ll just sit here behind Teresa and the children, we’ll be kneeling for the rosary. Are you Catholic, Mr. Renthal?”

“No, no, I’m not,” said Elias.

“Mrs. Renthal?”

“Uh, no,” said Ruby. She had been once, but wasn’t anymore, and didn’t want to get into the matter, at least at this time, with forty guests arriving for dinner in two hours, and four hundred for dancing thereafter.

“We’ll be saying the Sorrowful Mysteries,” said Father Mulcahey.

Elias and Ruby looked at each other, dismayed. The massive bouquets of lilies and roses that they had sent were displayed near Julio Martinez’s closed casket, mingled with the carnation and stock sprays, with lavender ribbons and gold condolence lettering, that had been sent by family friends and relations, and the air in the un-air-conditioned room was oversweetened and close.

“I hate the smell of stock,” whispered Ruby. She took a perfumed handkerchief from her bag and held it up to her nose. “How many of these Sorrowful Mysteries are there?”

“You’re asking me?” Elias answered.

“The first Sorrowful Mystery. The Agony in the Garden,” said Father Mulcahey. “Our Father, Who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done,—”

“Bobo’s coming to do my hair at six,” whispered Ruby, pulling back the sleeve of her dark blue suit to steal a look at her oval-shaped Cartier watch with the Roman numerals that had once belonged to the Duchess of Windsor.

“He’ll wait,” whispered back Elias.

“Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee,” said Father Mulcahey, and the other mourners in the room prayed along with him.

“I still have to put out the place cards,” whispered Ruby.

“Just don’t seat me anywhere near Rochelle Prud’homme,” whispered back Elias.

“The second Sorrowful Mystery,” said Father Mulcahey. “The Scourging at the Pillars.”

Dorisette, the youngest of Julio Martinez’s children, began to cry. “Daddy, Daddy,” she wailed, by the side of her father’s casket, as Teresa Martinez held on to her, and her older brothers and sisters patted her head.

“Do you think I dare faint?” whispered Ruby.

Elias looked around him in the crowded room of the funeral parlor and considered the logistics of his wife’s suggestion. If his chauffeur and his bodyguard had been in the room, he could have signaled them to pick up Ruby after her faint and carry her out, but he had asked them to remain in the limousine, so as not to appear conspicuous during what he had supposed would be a ten-minute call. He arrived at the conclusion that a faint would cause further delays with the upheaval that would certainly occur among the mourners. “No,” he whispered.

“Then make a beeline for the door after the last Sorrowful Mystery,” whispered Ruby.

That afternoon, in the prestigious law firm of Weldon & Stinchfield, a weeping young lawyer named Byron Macumber was arrested and handcuffed and taken out the rear entrance and down the service elevator, so as to attract a minimum of attention. It happened that Gus Bailey, still investigating the financial affairs of the late wife of Jorgie Sanchez-Julia for the article he was writing, was in the law firm at the time and witnessed the hasty exit.

“What happened?” Gus asked.

Beatriz Love, the young lawyer with whom he was meeting, simply shrugged her shoulders in a gesture that indicated she knew nothing of the matter at hand. She pushed her horn-rimmed spectacles up on her nose
with her forefinger and returned her attention to the court papers in a manila file folder in front of her.

Gus Bailey knew when not to press, and he went on with his questions about the tangled estate of the crippled septuagenarian millionairess Geraldine Sanchez-Julia, establishing a friendly rapport with Beatriz Love at the same time. It was when he finished his questions and was ready to leave that he said, referring back to Byron Macumber, “Rather a dramatic exit for that poor fellow, wasn’t it?”

“Hmm,” answered Beatriz.

“Must have a wife and kids, a young man that age,” said Gus.

“Two daughters,” said Beatriz Love.

“Whatever could he have done?” Gus asked, in a rhetorical fashion, as if he didn’t expect an answer. Gus had a way, even with lawyers, of having people tell him more than they planned, so he was not surprised when she added, “Something about an account in a Swiss bank in the Bahamas.”

“Ah, the plot thickens,” said Gus.

“Look for a very big head to roll,” she said in a low voice, looking out the door of her glass cubicle to make sure that no one was watching.

“Here at Weldon and Stinchfield?” Gus asked.

“Oh, goodness no, not here.”

Gus stared at her, knowing that more was to come. She mouthed but did not speak the two words, “Elias Renthal.” If he had not been so stunned by the name she mouthed, he would have asked Beatriz Love if she knew Lil Altemus.

After he had said good-bye to her and thanked her for her help on the Jorgie Sanchez-Julia story, Gus, leaving, asked, “Does Elias Renthal know?” But Beatriz Love merely shrugged her shoulders. She had told him quite enough, far more than she intended, and she started putting Geraldine Sanchez-Julia’s will back in the file folder.

“He’s giving a ball this evening,” said Gus.

“Oh, yes, I’ve read about the Renthals’ ball in Dolly De Longpre’s column,” said Beatriz. “Didn’t the Duchess of Richmond give a ball on the night before the Battle of Waterloo?”

All the way uptown in the subway Gus wondered if he should tell Ruby Renthal what he had heard. He felt very close to Ruby since the first night they met at Maisie Verdurin’s party when she told him about her violent experience with Lefty Flint.

Late in the day he telephoned her.

“Oh, my God, Mr. Bailey. You’re not backing out of dinner, are you?” asked the social secretary who answered the telephone. There was a note of hysteria in her voice. “Mr. and Mrs. Slatkin just backed out, and Mrs. Renthal is going to have a
fit
when she returns. It throws off the whole
placement
, and it’s next to impossible to get anyone at this time of the day to fill in.”

“Mrs. Renthal is not there?” asked Gus, surprised.

“No, the Renthals are attending a wake in Queens,” said the secretary, in an exasperated voice that plainly said that she didn’t understand what people like the Renthals were doing attending a wake in Queens, of all places, in the late afternoon of the evening of their ball when there were tables to be seated, decisions to be made, and a temperamental Mickie Minardos to be dealt with, not to mention Bobo, the hairdresser.

“Do you know what time they’ll be back?” he asked.

“You’re not backing out, are you?” she asked again, as if she could not deal with one more problem.

“No, no, I’m not backing out.”

“Thank God.”

“Would you have Mrs. Renthal call me when she returns? There’s something rather important I must talk to her about,” said Gus.

“Oh, Mr. Bailey, I really don’t think it will be possible for her to call you when she returns. The calligrapher is going to have to do the new place cards when Mrs. Renthal finds someone to replace the Slatkins,
and Mr. Minardos has a million problems for her to deal with, and, oh dear, Bobo, her hairdresser Bobo, is out of his mind with anxiety that she’s not here, because he has to go from here to the Rhinelander to do the First Lady’s hair. Oh, my God, I wasn’t supposed to mention the First Lady. Forget I said that, will you, Mr. Bailey, so you see, it won’t be possible for her to call you, but perhaps you can pull her aside during the evening and tell her whatever it is. Is that all right?”

“Sure,” said Gus.

“I loved your article on the dictator’s wife.”

“Thanks.”

When Ruby returned home at seven, she called Justine right away and said, “You can’t. You can’t do this to me, Justine. I’ll never be able to replace you at this hour.” Poor Justine, who wanted to go more than anything in the world, begged Ruby’s forgiveness but said there was nothing she could do, absolutely nothing, and was, when Bernie arrived home, still smarting from the ice-cold freeze in Ruby’s tone of voice when Ruby said good-bye to her. She thought of calling back and suggesting Nestor and Edwina Calder as replacements, but then remembered that they were going to Maisie Verdurin’s dinner before the ball. Then she thought of the Trouts, everyone’s favorite poor couple, the Trouts, who could always be counted upon to change their own plans and substitute when there was a
placement
emergency, like the one she had just created. But then Bernie arrived home, and it was not a problem that she felt she could inflict on Bernie, who never had understood the importance of things like that, which was one of the things she most loved about him.

For a while the inevitable conversation they were both dreading, for different reasons, was postponed as they decided at what restaurant they would have dinner. Bonita, their cook, was off, because Justine had thought they would be dining at the Renthals’, but the cook was off most nights, as Bernie and Justine had never, in the
ten months of their marriage, dined at home unless they were having guests. Justine hated Joe and Rose’s, which was Bernie’s kind of restaurant. Too meat-and-potatoes for her. And Bernie hated Harry’s, which was Justine’s kind of restaurant. Too “Hi, darling,” for him. In the end Justine suggested Clarence’s, even though she had had lunch at Clarence’s. It was easy, she said. Nearby. And, of course, there was never a problem of getting a table, even if the place was packed, because Justine was a particular favorite of Chick Jacoby’s, and room was always made for Justine Altemus, which Chick persisted in calling her, even after she became Justine Slatkin, with or without a reservation. Besides, she said, Clarence’s would probably be empty tonight, because everyone, absolutely everyone, was going to be at the Renthals’ ball in their new apartment.

For a long time, during the salad and the chicken paillard, Bernie talked about Reza Bulbenkian, an Iranian American who had made a fortune in oil tankers in the Persian Gulf, and had moved to New York after the death of the Shah, where he had increased his fortune by buying up small companies who were likely targets for takeovers, in much the same manner that Elias Renthal was doing. Justine realized that the conversation about Reza Bulbenkian, whom Bernie had interviewed on television earlier that evening, was a way of avoiding the conversation about whatever it was that was so damn important they had to miss the Renthals’ ball, but each of them clung to it desperately, as if what Bernie was saying really mattered.

“I’ve seen him. He has an enormously fat wife,” said Justine, feigning interest in the conversation, while she kept staring at Yvonne Lupescu and Constantine de Rham, who were dining together in silence farther back in the restaurant. Justine wanted to tell Bernie to turn around and look at the outfit Yvonne was wearing: a red turban, red blouse, and red knickers with red bows tied at her knees, but there was something about Bernie tonight that made her think it was wiser to listen to him
talk about Reza Bulbenkian, in whom she had no interest whatsoever.

Once, when she thought the moment had come for the topic at hand, which she still assumed to be his transfer to Los Angeles to become sole anchorperson of his own news program, she delayed the conversation by describing to him the latest news on the wonders of the Renthals’ ball, descriptions of the dresses that her friends would be wearing, and an account, as reported by Bobo, of the terrible fights that had occurred between Mickie Minardos and Lorenza, hoping that he might say, still, this late, “Oh, hell, let’s go,” but he didn’t.

“I’m surprised to see the Slatkins here,” said Yvonne Lupescu to Constantine de Rham. “Certainly they were invited.”

Constantine, who had still not told Yvonne that he had been invited but she hadn’t, postponed telling her, fearing her rage. Although he knew that she would never shoot him again, he feared that she would make a spectacle of herself, in her rejection, and do something untoward, like crashing the party, as she had crashed Justine’s wedding. True to his word, Elias Renthal had left an invitation for Constantine with his secretary for Constantine to pick up. It was only for the ball. It had not been arranged for him to attend any of the ten big dinner parties that were being given before the ball, the two major ones being the Renthals’ own dinner for forty in their dining room for the Earl and Countess of Castoria, their guests of honor, and Maisie Verdurin’s dinner for sixty.