A muffled conversation ensued. At last Clay came to the phone.
“Hey,” he said. She strained to interpret his tone.
“Hey.” Silence fell. Music pulsed behind her in India’s living room. Her heartbeat was out of sync.
“I didn’t think you’d call,” he said.
Someone in the living room turned up the volume. “I’ve tried. I didn’t leave a message. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” She listened to his soft breathing, and the sound of talk radio near the phone. Maybe he was in Barbara’s room, sitting on those satin sheets. She thought she could hear Reagan’s voice. “I mean about your dad,” she said.
“Philip?” Clay said flatly. “He’s not my dad anymore.”
“Because he was with a boy?”
“No. I’ve known for a long time. Just never had to see it up close. It’s because he left us.”
“He must have been very unhappy.” Justine thought about what Stanley had said about living a lie. And then she thought about having everything in the whole world and still being miserable.
Through the phone she could hear the president more clearly. He was congratulating the Space Shuttle. India’s buzzer was ringing again. Dino scurried by her in the kitchen, followed by a flurry of squeals at the front door. Raymond was kissing Dino on both cheeks.
“Sounds busy over there,” Clay said.
She glanced into the living room at Dino and Stanley dancing, Stanley’s T-shirt rolled over his skinny shoulders and Dino pumping his lacy pelvis.
Raymond was leaning down, pushing India’s hair aside, whispering into her ear. Her eyes were half closed as if learning the secret from the serpent.
“Stanley’s here, and this guy Raymond just arrived.”
“The dude from the gallery?”
“How do you know that?” Justine asked.
“He’s a coke dealer, everyone knows Raymond.”
She should have figured it out.
“Jus, I would have invited you but . . .” She heard Clay sigh. Resignation? Maybe it didn’t matter anymore.
“But what?” she asked.
“I . . . after my Dad . . . I guess I wasn’t sure you’d be able to deal with my mom too.”
How could Barbara be worse than Philip? “You should see my parents!”
“Sorry, I’m sure it’s all in my head. Would you please come?”
“Uh, sure, why not?”
“Pick you up in an hour.” He hung up.
* * *
—
Justine pulled an army surplus bag from her closet and examined what she had. Parachute pants, a tattered jumpsuit, and a pair of jeans with safety pins jammed up one side. She threw them onto the futon. As she did, she noticed Stanley’s matches, turned them over, and opened them. But the minimalist design divulged no clues.
In the living room, Stanley was lounged out poring over a book of Dino’s Pasolini poems. It was hard to imagine him cleaning toilets in a janitor’s uniform.
He looked up.
“Thanks for the advice,” Justine said. “Clay’s on his way over.”
“Do unto others,” Stanley said, and returned to the book.
Dino looked at her duffel. “Going somewhere?”
“I’m about to split for the Hamptons.” God, it felt good to say that.
“Want some blow?” he asked, handing her a small plastic bag. “Raymond was generous. Take it for the road.”
* * *
—
The buzzer rang again and Justine leaned out the window. Clay was leaning on a wood-sided station wagon, under a flickering streetlight. He had on white shorts with a sweater loosely tied around his waist. She motioned for him to wait.
“Indi, Clay’s here!”
“Cannnn’t,” India slurred from the floor.
“You packed?”
“Wablingda.”
“Barbara’s waiting, come on!”
“Gowitoutme.” India’s eyes were half closed, the whites showing.
“What about Mr. Ed?”
“Miss ’im. Sssssooo much.”
Justine grabbed India’s hand but it slipped from her grasp, and the limp arm flopped to the floor with a thud.
Justine ran to the window and gestured for Clay to come upstairs. She unlocked the metal rod and left the door ajar.
“India’s too fried to get up,” she said when he came in. He did not try to kiss her.
“Since when’s she coming?”
“Sorry. She was going to take the Jitney, I think. Can’t we just drop her at her house when we get there?” It suddenly occurred to Justine that she had no idea where India’s summer house was. She didn’t begin to understand the geography out there.
Clay knelt down and touched India’s forehead.
He sighed. “Her house isn’t too far, but Barbara’s not much of a driver. Not when she’s been smoking.”
I can drive, she thought. Anything to help India. Clay scooped his hands under India’s back, and picked her up in his arms. “Wow, she weighs nothing,” he said.
Justine followed Clay down the stairs as he carried India like an awkward bundle of sticks. Barbara climbed out of the station wagon as Clay was folding India’s legs into the back seat.
“Sleeping beauty?” Barbara trilled.
Justine said, “Hope it’s no trouble.”
“Nah,” Clay said, straightening up, not meeting her eye.
“So glad you’re joining, dear!” She embraced Justine in a cloud of perfume and stale pot smoke. “No, no, both of you ride up front with me, let the girl sleep. Clayton, be a doll and sit in the middle.”
They drove through the Midtown Tunnel and onto the Long Island Expressway in silence. Clay’s warm leg was touching hers. The foot well was a mess of magazines and 8-tracks. Miles seemed to think a clean car would result in its longevity, and kept the Volvo spotless, despite the faulty wiring.
Justine picked up a copy of New York and scanned the cover story: “AIDS.” The article called it a “gay men’s epidemic.” She tried to imagine Stanley’s father wielding a shotgun and locking him in the garage.
Barbara was humming along to an opera. “How’s work?” she asked between arias.
“Good,” Justine said, letting the magazine slide back to the floor.
“Theater, right?”
“Prop warehouse.”
“And the apartment?”
“It’s great.”
“Such an interesting neighborhood.”
“You mean sleazy,” Clay muttered.
“Speak up, Maria Callas is drowning you out,” his mother said.
India groaned from behind them. Barbara yawned.
“You okay to drive?” Clay asked.
“Just a little sleepy,” Barbara replied, her eyelids drooping. The tape ended with a loud click. “Find me Act Two, dear.”
Clay bent over and started scrounging in the foot well. Barbara reached across and patted Justine’s shoulder. “He really likes you a lot, you know,” she said, “but his father never taught him how to treat women. You’ll have to be forgiving. Cigarette?”
Justine pulled her pack out and gave Barbara one. She pushed the car lighter in as Clay straightened up and inserted a cassette.
Barbara pulled the glowing lighter from its hole and lit the cigarette dangling from her coral-lipsticked mouth. She balanced it on the steering wheel as she cranked the window open and exhaled into the night.
“You shouldn’t smoke,” Clay said.
“Darling, this cigarette is a life-saving device, so I don’t careen off the road,” Barbara replied, waving it in the air and swerving slightly. The oncoming headlights glinted off her bangles. Barbara flicked her ashes in the ashtray. “Oh, hush, this is right before she stabs him to death.” She
turned up the tape player.
Clay turned it down. “God, I hate opera,” he said.
“You’ll change. I think there’s some rock down there somewhere,” Barbara said, and chucked her half-smoked cigarette out of the window. They had left the highway and were on a narrow country road. Their headlights illuminated scrub pines and a sandy verge.
“How much farther?” Justine asked.
“Not much.” Barbara yawned again. “Rats, we should have stopped at the last gas station. Want to drive, Clay?”
Justine thought Barbara was slurring her words slightly.
“That’s only a felony,” he said.
“Better in jail than dead,” Barbara said.
Justine showed him the small packet of coke.
He shook his head.
“Whatcha got?” Barbara asked.
They did not respond.
“Divulge, children.”
Justine glanced at Clay again. He shrugged in defeat.
“A little coke from a friend,” Justine admitted.
Barbara sat up straighter. “Set me up. Use the back of one of the tapes. I’ll replenish your supply when we get home.”
India groaned again.
Justine picked up a tape from under her feet.
Justine cut the line on the 8-track case—Rumors, the powder dusting the balls hanging between Mick Fleetwood’s legs. She didn’t have a straw. “Clay, hold this a sec.”
He took the tape and balanced it over the dashboard, his lip curled in disgust. Justine dug in her bag for a bill.
“Just hold it under my nose,” Barbara said.
Justine could feel Clay’s resistance just by the touch of his thigh. She wondered how she would feel if this were Cressida. The thought made her sick.
“There’s no shoulder,” Barbara said, “and I’ve done this a million times.”
“You’ve snorted coke while driving? Before or after Philip?” Clay asked.
Barbara let out a sigh of exhaustion. “Just stick it under my nostril, darling.”
“I’ll do it,” Justine said.
Clay handed her the tape and bent into a tuck, his head sideways on the dashboard. He glowered at Justine, who held the cassette and the bill for Barbara. What choice did she have, Justine wanted to ask. Still holding the steering wheel, Barbara quickly snorted the line and sat back up, wrinkling her nose.
“That’s great stuff. Who’s it from?”
“Raymond,” Justine said. “Shit. I shouldn’t have told you that.”
“Why not?” breezed Barbara.
“He works for Margot.”
“That makes sense.”
“Why?”
“Margot’s a coke addict. No doubt that’s why Raymond works there.”
* * *
—
At the end of a driveway between high hedges, the station wagon’s headlights swept over India’s large shingled house with white columns. Barbara killed the engine, leaving the lights blaring on the garage doors. It reminded Justine of a drive-in.
Clay nudged her. She climbed out, inhaling the smell of ocean and salty dune grass. Stars glittered in the moonless sky.
Justine wondered why India would live in a walk-up when her dad had a spread like this, then she remembered India saying, “Nobody can find me there.”
India was sprawled in back, half off the seat.
Clay bent in the door and shook India gently. She stirred but did not open her eyes.
“We might have to carry her,” he said.
“No, s’okay,” India mumbled, sitting up unsteadily. She pulled a tendril of hair from her mouth and slid toward Clay.
He helped her to her feet, and Justine took her arm on the other side.
“Hi, Barbara,” India said. Clay’s mother was scissoring through yoga poses in the headlights, her silhouette projected onto the garage doors like a shadow play.
“Justine, dear, give her some of that candy cane. It gave me a fabulous second wind,” Barbara said, lunging.
Justine and Clay helped India up the porch. Clay tried the door, but it was locked. India collapsed onto the bench.
“Keys.” She pointed under the porch.
Clay hopped down and peeked under the side.
“Of course Barbs wouldn’t have a flashlight,” he muttered. His mother had folded her hands like a massive praying mantis.
Justine tossed matches to Clay.
He slid under the porch. She heard a sulfurous flare, and Clay emerged holding a metal key.
The moment he opened the door, the stench of rotting food hit them. A grand stair hall painted glossy apple green led to a kitchen with an enamel stove and marble counters. The place was a pigsty, glasses overflowing with cigarette butts and dishes encrusted with food. It was as if the police had shown up and the partiers had fled.
“She can’t stay here,” Justine said, wondering what kind of person would leave such a mess in this beautiful house.
Clay pulled the offending trash bag from under the sink. “Just open a few windows and let’s get her into bed.”
Justine couldn’t leave India here alone, to wake up to this wreckage, however much she wanted to be with Clay. She followed him back to the porch.
Together they helped India up the stairs. At the top was a black-and-white photograph of a woman with a sixties hairdo and big dark eyes, naked except for a pair of go-go boots. She looked just like India.
Clay headed down the hall and opened the door to a bedroom. They helped India into a canopy bed with frilly covers. A Hardy Boys poster was taped to the wall. India’s breathing was ragged, her eyes half open. Clay pulled up the covers and tucked them under her.
He took Justine’s hand and led her from the room. “What if . . .” Justine suddenly remembered how Edie Sedgwick’s boyfriend had described her breathing as if there were a hole in her lung. In the morning, Edie was dead.
“She’s on her side,” Clay said.
“You’re psychic.”
“Let’s go home.”
“Don’t kill me but I think I have to stay with her.”
He leaned down and kissed her. Geishas winked at them from the wallpaper.
“Can I have my matches back? I need a smoke if I have to clean up all that shit.”
He handed them to her.
“Sorry,” she said.
“For what?”
“Giving your mom coke.”
“Don’t ever apologize for saving my life.” He kissed her again and headed down the stairs.
SEVEN
India woke early, her mouth sticky and her arm stiff. She dragged herself to the pink-tiled bathroom with the gold taps shaped like leaping dolphins, the handles like mermaids’ tails. Holding her hair back, she drank water from the dolphin’s mouth.
India looked in the mirror, her hair like a tangle of thorns. Mademoiselle used to be the only one who could get rid of the knots. Mademoiselle used to tell her the story of the man who sold his watch for a comb, his wife selling her hair for a watch chain.
India went back to her room, where she put on her jodhpurs and riding jacket. Down the hall, past the Scavullo portrait of her mother. Your mother had a sadness that no man could touch.
Vague memories of last night filled her mind, the smooth vinyl of the back seat, the headlights, Mrs. Bradley, Justine tucking soft covers around her. Perhaps Justine was asleep in the guest room, or maybe she was at Clay’s. India would be back well before anyone else got out of bed.
A low mist hovered over the fields, still deeply green. The sun was just above the horizon, the sun that would turn these fields to brown by August. As India strode down the road, she could hear whinnying from the barn and quickened her pace.
Nobody was at Toppings stable this early, and India hurried past stalls with shiny ri
bbons in blue and canary yellow tacked up to their drab doorways, the brass plaques that read SCARBOROUGH FAIR, MONTSERRAT, and RUDOLPH VALENTINO. Even though he didn’t have a fancy name, Mr. Ed was Toppings’s best horse, a thoroughbred descended from Harpagon of Chantilly.
Mr. Ed recognized her from afar and jerked his head in excitement. India hurried to him, kissed his brawny jowl. As she unlatched the stall door and attached his harness, she was pleased to see he had gained weight and his coat was almost shiny again. Standing on a stool, she mounted Mr. Ed’s bare back and rode him across the Gibson Lane path. Although he snorted with impatience, she held him to a trot, his hooves clopping on the blacktop as they headed toward the beach.
The mist was starting to burn off as the sun moved higher, and Mr. Ed’s hooves sank into the sand as India steered him to the water’s edge. Sunlight glinted on the silver waves that muscled their way onto the beach. Far away, almost on the horizon, a white yacht was visible. Maybe it was the Mata Hari.
India gave the horse a nudge and Mr. Ed broke into a gallop. As they flew over the swirling water, she grasped his mane, her thighs hugging his flanks. India’s spirits lifted, and she concentrated on the rhythm of human and horse. She would never need anything else. Jubilant, that’s what her darling was. If only Kiki had experienced happiness like this, maybe things would have been different.
They galloped toward Sag Pond. At the edge Mr. Ed slowed, but India encouraged him and the horse waded in. Water rose past India’s boots, then her thighs. It lapped over the horse’s shoulders, and just as the water reached India’s waist, Mr. Ed’s hooves lifted and he began to swim. She held on to his neck as they glided across the surface like some forgotten mythological creature.
India remembered coming here with Mademoiselle, tying raw chicken necks onto twine, lobbing them as far as they could into the water. They’d wait, motionless, until they felt the gentle tug. Slowly, gingerly, they’d reel in huge blue crabs, checking the tummy to make sure it wasn’t a female with eggs. Later Mademoiselle would boil the males in Old Bay seasoning.
Had her mother been at those dinners? India could remember her mother’s soft dark hair and perfume. Most of the people who had been close to Kiki were dead. Her father was useless—drugged or hungover. Massimo Sforza must have information, he could fill in so many of India’s blanks. She knew she would go to him, and soon.
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