Because She Is Beautiful

by Cameron Dougan

  "We put on a good show, eh?"

  She began to smear hot wax between Kim's legs with a wooden spatula. Nadia liked to talk as she applied the gauze strips. Her purring voice was a welcome distraction.

  "Meryl Streep was here yesterday. She's shooting a new movie. I did her eyebrows. They had to be like so." She cupped a hand like a crescent moon. "I think she is fabulous, no?"

  Kim caught Nadia peeking out the window.

  "I promise nobody is looking," Nadia said, her eyes dark and shimmering like her hair. She smiled.

  That moment just before the rip of the first strip, nothing ever seemed funny.

  "Nadia, a little lower." Kim drew a line with her finger. "He likes less," she said.

  "We give him what he likes. . . . As long as we are getting what we like."

  On her way out she stopped back at the Chanel boutique. Tim, the clerk, was busy with a customer, but he excused himself to come over.

  "I have a jacket for you in the back," he said. "It's that gorgeous."

  He nodded in the direction of the other woman he was helping.

  "This may be a while, though."

  "You don't have to show me," she said. "I trust you. I'm on my way home now. Just send it over."

  "Timothy." The other woman was calling.

  Kim thanked him. "I don't know how you do it," she said. "You have the patience of a saint." Her fingers were fanned so that the nails wouldn't touch. "Hey, do I look like a scarecrow?"

  Tim laughed.

  "I feel like one," she said.

  On the way home, she stopped at a liquor store and sent her father a case of his favorite scotch. After every airline incident now he would call, forcing her to lie.

  One time a 727 skidded off the runway at Kennedy. "How could you not have heard?" he would say. "I was afraid you were on that flight." He was relieved to hear her voice. Then he started in with the questions, expecting her to know information that hadn't yet been made public, details she couldn't fabricate. He'd hang up and then call later to apologize.

  If she told him how she really passed the days, would he be proud?

  That same year Averell Harriman died, survived by his wife Pamela.

  "La grande horizontale," said Robert, on the telephone.

  "What?"

  "Darling, we should take French lessons together. Mine is so rusty."

  "There's going to be a new museum in Paris," she said. "I just read about it: the Musée d'Orsay. It's in an old train station. Listen, let me find the article."

  She flipped pages and sipped her coffee, cradling the phone against her shoulder.

  "Enough news. I want to see you."

  "So come over."

  "I have a better idea. How quickly can you be ready?"

  "For what? I'm not even dressed."

  "Lunch."

  "What kind?"

  "Formal."

  "I need time, say two hours."

  "One."

  "An hour and a half."

  "Okay. There's more, though. I have to give you instructions."

  "A lunch with instructions?"

  "Those are the best kind, darling."

  "Where are you right now?"

  "I'm not in the city. I'm in Banksville."

  "Banksville? What are you doing there?"

  "You'll see."

  There seemed to be no end to the wealth of surprises, the stolen moments.

  She had to call the Banksville Police Department.

  "You're what?" said the chief of police. He put her on hold. He came back on with a chuckle. "Well, if it's okay with the restaurant, I don't see why not."

  She wore a simple black dress with gold earrings. Joseph met her downstairs and dropped her at 60th Street and the river. There was a tiny fenced-in tarmac with a square cinder-block office. The pilot was waiting, a short man dressed in khaki with wraparound sunglasses. He waved when he saw the car and climbed into the helicopter and started the engine. Wup-wup-wup: The blades turned, their long sweeping shadows growing faint as they sped faster and faster, then disappearing altogether. The tall grass at the edge of the tarmac flattened, and bits of garbage, a paper cup and the page of a newspaper, swirled and blew against the fence and stuck there.

  "I've never done this," she called to Joseph, ducking and clutching the hem of her dress to keep it from blowing up.

  "Don't be scared," he shouted.

  "Of flying? You should know better."

  He waved and his lips moved, but she couldn't hear him.

  A tall man in overalls held the helicopter door open and helped her in and latched it shut. There was a seat beside her and two behind. The front windshield was curved like the side of a goldfish bowl. The man in the overalls slapped the glass and gave the pilot a thumbs-up.

  "Welcome aboard," said the pilot, looking back over his shoulder. "My name's Mitch."

  He was strapping on a heavy pair of headphones.

  "I have a basic idea where we're headed, but you're gonna have to steer me."

  "Banksville?" she said. "It's right on the border of Greenwich."

  "The city I can find. It's the restaurant I'm worried about. I have to say this is a first for me. Are you buckled in?"

  "Roger," she said.

  The helicopter lifted and she clutched the armrests. She expected the movement to be jerky, but it was smooth, as if riding in an elevator. They rose, and the tarmac shrank beneath them.

  "I've got no coordinates," he said, "so we're gonna wing it. I figured we'd head up the Merritt Parkway."

  "Just like we're driving."

  "Yeah, but there's no traffic, and I gotta be honest with you, the view's a hell of a lot prettier."

  She opened her purse and took out a pad on which she'd written the directions.

  "Okay," she said. "Hold on. Take the Merritt to North Street."

  "Gotcha."

  "Go north a couple of miles. The restaurant's right on North Street. We should be able to recognize it."

  "Sounds like a good plan."

  They were heading up the East River, the FDR speeding beneath them and, ahead, the Triborough Bridge. The side windows were like a car's, so she pressed her face to the glass and gazed down at the water, at boats that seemed so close she could touch them, and at the whites of the choppy waves. They were flying so low—"Low as a crow," Mitch said—so they wouldn't get lost.

  They headed toward Connecticut and eventually picked up the Merritt. The nose of the helicopter pitched forward slightly and they accelerated. The force pressed her back into the seat.

  "Can you see the exit signs?" she said.

  "Crystal clear."

  Trees spread beneath them like bushes, the parkway like a stream. The sky was a clear and steady backdrop to the undulating flash of foliage; this whooshing, roaring roller coaster of a ride. It was preposterous: wonderful and preposterous. The restaurant, La Folie, was every bit as good as, if not better than, the finest restaurants in the city. "An experience," Robert had said on the phone. What he was doing in Banksville, she didn't ask. To her these impromptu meetings were part of a grand design, his plan of showing her a life that few could see but he was privileged to offer, and which she would never question.

  They banked at the North Street exit and followed the break in the trees, the shadow of the helicopter shooting up the sides of houses, leaping across rooftops. They flew another two miles and then slowed, creeping through the air, hovering over any building that resembled a restaurant.

  "He said we'd have no problem spotting it," she said.

  "Things look different from up here."

  "It's in a big colonial house."

  "What's that?"

  Mitch spun the helicopter and tipped sideways. Below, in what appeared to be a backyard, a man dressed in all black was waving a napkin.

  "Bingo. Let's take it down."

  "Can we fit?" she said.

  "We'll make it."

  He leveled out and began the descent as gradually and stead
ily as they'd taken off. The tips of pine trees rose to meet them and slipped upward past the window as though they were growing before Kim's eyes, getting higher as the helicopter sank toward the ground. The man in black had cleared out of the way and was standing at the foot of a short flight of porch steps. Waiters and busboys were crowding the porch now, leaning over the rail to see. They applauded as the helicopter touched down and Mitch cut the engine. He jumped out and came around for her door.

  "Here we are, ma'am."

  The man who had signaled them was corralling the others with sweeps of his arms.

  "Back inside," he was saying, as they turned and piled through a screen door. "Excitement's over. Back to work. Miss Reilly," he called. Now he was coming toward her. "You made it. A pleasure."

  She nodded to Mitch, and he took off his glasses and smiled.

  "I'll be waiting," he said.

  "This is an extraordinary pleasure," said the man. "Let me escort you around to the front. I am Charles, the maître d'. Everything is ready for you. Did you have a pleasant flight?"

  "Very smooth."

  The restaurant was an old brick house that had been converted, with ivy growing up the side and red rosebushes clinging to a white painted lattice, the last blooms of summer beginning to unclose.

  "I am afraid our secret is out," he said.

  "Secret?"

  "The noise. I am afraid the other guests are aware of the mode of your arrival. There is much excitement—talk, talk."

  "Oh," she said.

  "It is an honor."

  He held the front door open and nodded for her to enter. She stepped into a long blue-carpeted hall.

  "This way," he said, taking the lead.

  They passed through what had once been the living room. A fire was burning in a large marble fireplace. Everyone was smiling at her.

  "Bravo," said a woman. The man she was sitting with was Senator Gary Hart. Kim recognized him from the papers, which were already proclaiming him a Democratic hopeful.

  "Enjoy your lunch," he said.

  She followed Charles through what had been the original dining room of the house into a library with floor-to-ceiling book-lined walls. There were only two tables. Robert was standing at one of them.

  "We are here," said Charles.

  Robert touched Kim's arm just above the elbow. His lips grazed her cheek. He said nothing and smiled, and she thought how dashing he was. He looked the same as the day they'd met, and if there were more lines around his eyes—he complained that there were—they only added to the sincerity of his expression. His eyes never broke from hers as they sat. Charles welcomed them yet again and signaled to the headwaiter, who was standing at attention.

  The food could have been awful and it wouldn't have mattered. Nothing could undo the thrill, because in a way, the moment was already in the past and she could see herself looking back on the lunch as magical.

  "Did you see who was in the other room?" she said. "He's even more handsome in person."

  "You mean the senator?" He shrugged.

  "You're more handsome, though," she said, extending her hand to touch his.

  The soup was vichyssoise. They shared a T-bone steak and a bottle of red wine.

  When she told the whole story to her manicurist, Nadia, she described the food as magnificent, but honestly she could not remember a single taste. She could not describe the decor or the presentation. The only details she remembered after sitting down to lunch were Robert's satisfied smile and the moment they were finishing espressos when the maître d' returned to the table and announced, "Mr. Sanders, Miss Reilly, the pilot would like to know, should he start the engine?"

  Each fall, the tree in front of Kim's building flashed a gorgeous yellow before fading. The sidewalk became slippery with its leaves. Every morning the doorman from the neighboring building hosed them into the gutter, and every afternoon there'd be more. They'd catch in the hood of Kim's coat or stick to her shoes and she'd find them in the apartment hall.

  The grocery stores stocked up on turkeys. Soon it would be Thanksgiving, then Christmas. She was always alone on holidays. Robert had to be with his family.

  "We'll celebrate the day after," he would say. Sometimes she would wait a week or two. Browning Christmas trees would lie out by the curb with the garbage bags and slush.

  "You do understand?" he would say tenderly, as though prepared to explain why he had to preserve the facade of his marriage. It was something he had built and was a part of, which she could benefit from indirectly but could not share. She could appreciate when his children made him happy, the compliments from Christine's schoolteachers, the tales Davis would tell about sneaking girls into the dorm and almost getting caught. Their problems drew out a paternal side of Robert, which made Kim feel involved, even if only as an onlooker. And certainly that had its advantages as well. Perhaps she would never meet his children in person, but she knew them through stories, which was to say she knew them through the extent of Robert's affection.

  Robert's clothes took up a section of her closet. His toothbrush stood in a cup in the bathroom. If she wanted to, she could go to the medicine cabinet and smell his cologne. His belongings reminded her that she was not alone. There were others who were less fortunate, who had no one to think about but themselves.

  She tried to remember the first Christmas after they were together—what she had done to pass the days waiting for Robert to return so they could celebrate. She tried to remember holidays before Robert, when she was truly alone.

  She saved all her shopping for Christmas Eve now. It gave her something to do. In the morning, she went to the corner and picked out a tree. A young man took it up by the trunk and heaved it over his back and carried it to her apartment. He even put it in the stand for her. She gave him twenty dollars, and he took off his ski hat and thanked her.

  "Merry Christmas," he said.

  There was a bookstore she liked on Madison Avenue. An antique wooden mannequin decorated the window. It was always posed differently. There was also a small mouse, standing on its hind legs, waving a paw. In some of the displays the mouse was not easy to find, and she would stop to look for it, amused by the game. One time it wasn't there and she had to ask a clerk. He went to the window and found it for her. She laughed and clasped her mouth, embarrassed.

  "I thought it was gone," she said.

  "It's there."

  She picked out books for Robert and cheated, choosing one for herself as well. She had it wrapped with the others. All the books would be staying at her apartment anyway.

  She went to a store on 55th Street and Park and bought Robert several ties and a pair of chamois dress gloves. Then she picked out shirts to go with the ties.

  "Can you carry all that?" the clerk said. She could barely fit through the door.

  "Maybe you could help me get a taxi."

  It took him five minutes, and he didn't have a coat. He was shivering but still managed a smile.

  When she arrived back at the apartment, the doorman from next door waved and told her to wait. He was always helpful and accepted deliveries for her. He appeared with a gigantic package under his arm.

  "It came today," he said. He helped carry her bags up to the apartment. She had an envelope for him.

  "Merry Christmas."

  There were plenty of things to do: presents to wrap, the tree to decorate. She took her time. She ordered in Chinese food and turned on the television and opened a bottle of red wine and sat on the floor. She watched a movie, sorting boxes of decorations during the commercials. Most of the ornaments she had found at street sales in Chelsea, put out because they were old and damaged in some way. There was a copper wire angel she loved, blowing on a bent trumpet, and a round Santa with a cotton beard and one eyebrow missing. She imagined the stories behind them. She would never dream of putting new ornaments on a tree.

  When she was done, she plugged in the Christmas lights and turned off the overhead and lay on the couch. She fell asleep
with the television on, staring at the tree, the red, yellow, and blue reflection in the ceiling and the shadow of the star.

  In the morning she plugged in the coffeemaker. She put in a fresh filter and spooned in grinds, spilling some. She wiped the counter with a sponge and tossed it in the sink and went back to the living room. She puffed up the sofa cushions, straightening them, and opened the blinds and looked out over the fire escape at the building beyond the courtyard. The windows across from hers were dark. It was still early. There was a small round barbecue she'd bought and never used. It sat next to a frozen bag of charcoal, dark like the rusty iron rail. By the time she poured her coffee and returned to standing before the window, lights were coming on.

  She decided to open her package. She got the bow off and the lid open and peeled back layers of tissue. She sat for a moment clasping her chest. Then she unfolded the coat and jumped up and ran to the mirror. She slipped it on and pressed the brown fur to her cheek and shut her eyes and felt the weight of the coat on her shoulders. She twisted her hair up and stood on tiptoe and turned sideways, looking at herself. She went to her bed and spread the coat out and lay down on it, squirming to feel the fur against her flesh; then she opened the blinds and rolled onto her stomach, supporting herself with her elbows, and watched the apartment windows across the courtyard—the shadows of people moving about.

  The phone rang. She knew it would be her father, because he always called. He was living in a small town outside of San Francisco, close to the base where he'd been stationed years ago. He liked it there.

  "Never wanted to leave the first time," he told her. "Did you get the present I sent?"

  "It's under the tree. I'll open it now."

  She set down the phone to unwrap the package—a sky-blue cashmere sweater.

  "It's beautiful, Dad."

  "How's work?"

  She folded the sweater back into the box. He would ask about benefits, insurance, whether the recent strike had affected her. She had answers for every question. She would reply quickly, without hesitation. What she said didn't matter as much as the way she said it. He cared, but he didn't. He listened only for the things he wanted to hear—that she was secure, moving up in the world, and her colleagues looked up to her.