People Like Us (46 page)

“Stay married to my daughter for four more years and then divorce, and I will make it worth your while.”

Bernie, who did not usually smoke, leaned forward and took a cigarette from a box on a table by his chair, lit it, inhaled deeply, and smiled as he exhaled, shaking his head at her at the same time. He stamped out the cigarette in a Meissen dish, threw the stub in the fireplace, and rose. “I never understood people like you, Mrs. Altemus. I never will,” he said.

“And what does that mean?” asked Lil, aware that she was not going to convince him to change his mind, as she had not been able to convince him to live in Justine’s apartment in the same building she lived in, or to use Cora Mandell to decorate the new apartment he had insisted he and Justine move to when they got married.

“Stay married for four more years and then divorce, is that it? A five-year marriage is less of a flop than a one-year marriage. It all has to do with face, doesn’t it, how it looks? Your daughter is far too good for such an arrangement as that. Good-bye, Mrs. Altemus.”

“I never liked you, Bernard,” she said, wanting the last word.

“I never liked you either, Mrs. Altemus,” said Bernie, getting the last word.

“You’re a womanizer,” she hissed at him.

“That’s right. That’s what my problem is,” he answered, staring her down. Lil registered surprise that he had not denied the accusation. “And I don’t want a wife who is a tragic figure. ‘Poor Justine. Her husband cheats on her.’ ”

“Get out.”

“Remember this. I came by summons, not by choice.”

The word was out on Hubie Altemus’s illness. The previous night, at Maisie Verdurin’s, Ezzie Fenwick,
who had heard that afternoon from Jamesey Crocus, who had heard from Juanito, whispered it to Maude Hoare, and Maude told Buster Dominguez, and Buster told Matilda Clarke, and Matilda told Gus Bailey, although there was no word on the matter from any of the members of the family.

The next day Gus was walking up Madison Avenue and passed Lil Altemus as she was coming out of the Wilton House Book Shop with a shopping bag in her hand. She looked as handsomely put together as always, but drawn.

“I’m sorry to hear about Hubie,” said Gus.

Lil stiffened. It distressed her to think that people knew the news and were discussing it. A tear came to her eye. “I’m on my way to the hospital now,”—she said, indicating the bag of books she was carrying.

Their eyes met.

She mouthed but did not speak the word
lymphoma
, as if it were a release rather than a sentence. Gus understood that she was avoiding the subject that was so painful to her.

“How are you doing, Lil?” Gus asked.

“I’m all right,” said Lil. “Really I am. I have been nipping a bit at the brandy and soda, but at least I’m no longer thinking of going out the window.”

Gus, touched, reached out to take her arm.

“I couldn’t figure out what to wear,” she said, making a joke of it. “That’s what saved me. Do you remember when poor old Mimi Chase wore a trench coat when she jumped, after they fired her from the magazine? I didn’t want to wear a trench coat. I didn’t ever have a goddamn trench coat, but I wouldn’t have worn one if I had. Oh, Gus, it’s been so awful. I don’t know if I can live without him. No one understood it, I know, what we had, but I adored him. I absolutely adored him.” She spoke of her son as if he were already dead.

In the several years they had been together, Juanito
Perez had never been as kind to Hubie Altemus as he was in the months of Hubie’s dying. Lying in bed at St. Vincent’s Hospital, Hubie watched Juanito standing at the window looking out. Juanito was the only one now who could make Hubie laugh, telling his stories of the goings-on in the subterranean world that he still frequented, despite the dangers of the disease that was killing his lover. There were certain of their mutual acquaintances in the art world whom Juanito referred to with a gender switch, and it never failed to make Hubie laugh. That afternoon he was regaling Hubie with a tale concerning Jamesey Crocus, through whom he had met Hubie, and whom he always called Janie, or the furniture queen.

“So Miss Crocus kicks her train around and says, ‘Those console tables are fakes, Ruby,’ and walks out in a huff,” finished Juanito.

By this time Hubie could only talk in a whisper. “You are awful, Juanito,” he said, when he finished laughing.

As Juanito went on with his tales of the night before, Hubie watched him with affection. He wondered if Juanito’s diligence in caring for him was because of the money he knew he was going to inherit, or because he really cared in return, but he decided not to allow it to occupy his mind for the time he had left, grateful that the caring existed at all, no matter what the reason. The only thing at that moment that bothered him was that his mother was coming to pay a visit, and he did not know if he had the strength to deal with his mother and Juanito in the room at the same time.

“Mother’s on her way here,” he said finally, hoping that Juanito would gather up his possessions and be off before her arrival.

“My mother-in-law here?” Juanito asked.

“Any minute,” whispered Hubie.

“I’ve been dying to meet her.”

“You’re going to stay then?”

“Of course I’m going to stay.”

“Juanito?”

“Don’t ask me to go, Hubie.”

“I’m not. When she’s here, don’t call Boy Fessenden Girl Fessenden, if his name comes up. Okay?”

“What do you think I am, from the slums?”

“Listen, one more thing.”

“What?”

“Will you take off your earring before she arrives?”

“That’s going to butch me up, is it, not wearing my earring?” asked Juanito, irritated, as he always was when Hubie acted embarrassed about him in relation to his family.

“No, that’s not it,” said Hubie.

“Then what? I like this diamond earring.”

“That diamond was my mother’s engagement ring from my father. She gave it to me when she thought I was going to marry Violet Bastedo.”

Juanito and Hubie looked at each other, and both started to laugh. “That’s the first good laugh I’ve had in weeks,” said Juanito, unscrewing the diamond from his earlobe. He went over to Hubie and hugged him.

It was in this position that Lil Altemus saw them when she walked into the hospital room with her bagful of books. It was the first time Lil had seen Hubie since Easter night. He looked smaller to her, as if his face had shrunk. His teeth seemed bigger. His arms looked like the arms of an old man.

“Hello, my darling,” said Lil, staring at him aghast.

“Mother, this is Juanito Perez. Juanito, this is my mother,” said Hubie.

“Hellohowareyou?” said Lil, not looking at him.

“Ma’am,” said Juanito.

“What a nice room, Hubie. My word, is that the World Trade Center out the window? Prettier from this angle than when you see it from Laurance’s boat.”

Neither of the young men answered her.

“Your grandfather’s funeral was enormous, Hubie. You probably read about it in the
Times
. The governor. The mayor. All the Van Degans. The church was packed.

Young Laurance gave the most lovely eulogy. We all went up to Laurance and Janet’s afterward. Not the governor and the mayor. Just the family, I mean.” Even to herself, she sounded rattled.

“How’s Dodo taking it?” asked Juanito.

For the first time Lil looked at Juanito.

“Dodo?” she asked, raising her eyebrows in exaggerated surprise.

“She buys my paintings,” said Juanito.

“Oh.”

“How is she?”

“Mrs. Van Degan is coping well under the circumstances,” said Lil.

Juanito looked over at Hubie. He could see that Hubie was suffering, although Hubie managed to make a slight wink of reassurance.

“I’m gonna split, Hubie,” said Juanito. “I’m sure you and your mother have things to talk over.”

“When will you come back?” asked Hubie.

“I’ll stop by tonight. Good-bye, Mrs. Altemus.”

Lil nodded, occupied now with her shopping bag of gifts. She realized, as he was leaving, that she wanted him to stay, so that she would not have to be alone with Hubie. She wished that Justine was with her. She knew that she didn’t know what to say to her own son, whom she loved, so devastated was she by his appearance.

“Did you see Justine?” she asked when Juanito had left.

“She was here earlier.”

“How was she?”

“Drunk, I felt.”

“Drunk? Justine? Never!”

“I repeat, drunk.”

“That son of a bitch has left her.”

“I never heard you say son of a bitch before, Mother.”

“I’ve never said it before,” she replied. “It’s all so embarrassing.” Lil looked down at her bag. The word
all
, Hubie understood, included him as well as Justine.

“Justine feels hatred for Bernard now,” said Lil.

“I didn’t get that impression.”

“Oh, yes, hatred without limits.”

“You weren’t very polite to Juanito, Mother.”

“I’ve brought you some books, Hubie,” said Lil, putting the shopping bag from Wilton House on his bed. “Arthur thought you’d like the new book on the Princesses of Monaco.”

“Arthur couldn’t have thought that,” said Hubie.

“No, I thought it. Do you remember when your old mother thought you’d be perfect for one of those girls? Can you imagine?”

Hubie looked at his mother and smiled.

“And the new magazines are all in there too,” she said. “Now, I’m off.” She was out the door.

Hubie started to drift off to sleep.

When he woke, he looked out the window at the skyline of lower New York, watching a barge go slowly by. On the bed he saw the shopping bag from Wilton House that his mother had left earlier. Unable to sleep again, he took out the magazines and the new book on the Princesses of Monaco, about whom he had no interest. Inside, at the bottom of the bag, he saw a dark brown plastic container. He reached in and took it out. Inside there were fifty Seconal pills.

Hubie reached down and undid the drawstring of his pajamas. For a while his hand rested on his stomach. Then he allowed his fingers to slide down between his legs, resting in his pubic hair. He moved his fingers around, massaging himself lightly. When his penis was semierect, he made a fist around it and pounded himself. For the two minutes and thirty-four seconds that it took to complete the act of masturbation, Hubie Altemus forgot that he was going to die at twenty-seven.

Lil Altemus fainted when she left St. Vincent’s Hospital. If her chauffeur, Joe, who had been with her for years, had not been there to rescue her, she might have been put into the same hospital where her son was a
patient, but Joe understood her panicked look and delivered her back to her apartment on Fifth Avenue, where Lourdes cared for her, and Justine was sent for.

“I cannot bear it that that man is there,” said Lil, resting in bed, about Juanito Perez.

“They’re a couple, Mother,” said Justine.

Lil shuddered.

“Under the circumstances, he has as much right to be there as we do,” Justine continued.

When Lil was with her son, before his illness, and Hubie made what she thought was an inappropriate remark, such as Justine had just made to her, she would cover her ears and exclaim, “You know I can’t
bear
that kind of talk!” Under the same circumstances, with Justine, Lil pretended not to have heard. It was a way she had of snubbing people who had gone too far.

“He makes Hubie laugh. He makes him forget that he’s going to die,” said Justine, who didn’t care that she was being snubbed by her mother.

Hubert Altemus, the father of Justine and Hubie, always gave the impression, even in town, of a country gentleman. His tweed jacket fit too loosely on his lanky frame, but it was too loose by the mutual choice of its wearer and its wearer’s tailor, and, to their refined tastes, altogether right. He had been summoned to town by his former wife, whom he had not seen since the day of Justine’s wedding, to discuss the unraveling lives of their two children. Hubert did not enjoy going to Lil’s apartment, where he had lived when he was married to her, nor did his present wife, Belinda, enjoy having him go there, so the lunch between the two was arranged for Clarence’s, after he had visited Hubie in the hospital. They had, after desultory greetings, sat in silence until Hubert finished the first of the three martinis he intended to drink before they ordered lunch. As always, in the presence of her former husband, Lil, who rarely felt ill at ease, felt ill at ease and said to the waiter, Michael, with the small ponytail, who was always
so nice to her daughter, “Will you take this thing away, please?” waving her hand over a vase of three pink carnations.

“Don’t like flowers, Mrs. Altemus?” asked Michael, in his friendly way, obviously unaware that she had a dying son and a divorcing daughter.

“Yes, I do. I like flowers very much. I just don’t happen to like those flowers,” replied Lil.

With that Michael removed the offending vase.

“I cannot bear carnations,” said Lil to Hubert, and Hubert nodded, knowing perfectly well that the carnations were not what was bothering her, that she was simply looking for something to find fault with to overcome her discomfort.

“Who was the guy with the diamond in his ear?” Hubert asked finally, not referring to Michael, who also wore a diamond in his ear, but to the man he had just seen in his son’s room at the hospital, whose diamond earring was larger by far than Michael’s.

“Pedro. Or Geraldo. Or some name like that,” answered Lil, who often pretended not to know things she knew perfectly well, just as she now knew that her former husband was referring to their son’s lover, Juanito Perez, or their son’s catamite, as her brother Laurance, who was checking him out, referred to him.

“Who is he?”

“Justine says he is the man Hubie loves,” answered Lil, looking away from Hubert as she said it.

“Jesus,” said Hubert. He took a long drink from his martini and swallowed the olive at the same time. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think that diamond in his ear was from the engagement ring I gave you when we got married.”

“Oh, don’t be silly,” said Lil. At the same time she said the words, she realized that Hubert could be right, especially as she had given the ring to Hubie when she thought that he was going to marry Violet Bastedo, but that was not the subject that she wished to deal with now.