The Loved Ones

by Mary-Beth Hughes

  A whole series of ideas had got Jean this far, to this walk with a slumping sleepy girl across an indoor recreation room on this ocean liner early, early in the dark blue morning. Wait, said the girl, Stephanie, who’d caught something on the heel. Just a minute please. She sounded like a girl Lily might go to school with.

  Stephanie’s parents had the suite on the level just below the Devlins. On the AA level, the Devlins resided on A. The best of the best, just as Nick would always have it, or nothing at all. And hadn’t nothing been visible for a long time now. Stephanie’s mother had not taught her to cover her mouth when she yawned. The girl had an enormous tongue, white with sugary soda and some residual braces on her bottom back molars. Her shoes looked like Mary Janes with a modest heel. Something for a preteen, but Jean was guessing fifteen and just. She hadn’t been much older when she met Nick so didn’t she know the way it felt. And he couldn’t help it, if he didn’t know how to turn that off. He was like a flower: he bloomed and then the bees came around.

  A flower! her father had bellowed at her. She’d made the mistake of telling him this theory. Such a mistake. But when he finished calling Nick a list of names—she couldn’t remember a single one—she understood her motive. She’d been lonely, and now she’d be lonelier. As long as she understood that, she could contain herself. She always knew her father had loved her. One thing he’d said she took to heart. That Lily should be told what had happened, all of it. So she’d never be caught unawares by some prying nobody. All right, Jean said. He’d asked for a promise, and she’d given him one she meant to keep. But not yet. Because wasn’t that the best thing about this move; it would buy them all a little time.

  She looked down at the crouching girl and felt the tiniest rocking under her feet. This Stephanie had extremely fine hair at the top of her head; even in the half light her scalp was nearly visible. Your mother must worry about you, said Jean. Let’s try not to wake her.

  Part II

  10

  Delays at Heathrow, then an interminable search in U.S. customs at Kennedy last night, every pouch, every zipper, well after two when he’d finally sunk into this elaborate bed at the Sherry-Netherland and now a noonish green light severs the blackout drapes he failed to draw closed completely. He didn’t quite get undressed, apparently, and still wears his shirt, open; one cufflink bites into his side. The phone blinks red fast and then calms down to a pulse. He’d had the wherewithal to turn off the ringer. The woman beside him looks familiar. As he rises to sit, he sees that she, at least, has folded a tiny dress with some care on the pink chaise longue. She has black hair that rises in a confection over her face and a trace of raspberry-colored lipstick still pretty against her skin. She’s a pretty girl. Very pretty girl. A pretty girl who seems to have bled all over the bedding. A sodden tampon lays neatly next to her charm bracelet on the bedside table. The whole room smells like beef and freesia, her misguided perfume. He thinks he might be sick and finally juts himself upright onto his feet and veers into the loo.

  The glare of the white marble tile is piercing even with the shade drawn. He tosses the joint on the sink into the unflushed toilet, dashes water on his face. His eyes burn. He can still catch her butcher’s scent on his hands, wipes them on a towel and ignores the fast blinking red on the wall-mounted phone. He’s got a belly now from all the cortisone, and his face is swollen, too, under the eyes, puffed along the jaw. Moonface he calls Lily, but he has one himself this morning; he looks like her, he thinks, then forgets about her. A suit hangs pressed in the dressing area, a blue striped shirt with a white pointed collar, ironed and starched; his shoes are polished. Someone’s been in here, when did that happen? He slides up the shade and watches the tiny yellow taxis push and grind to cut each other off on Fifth Avenue. From this height, with a squint, they look just like the Matchbox cars Cubbie crashed together. He stares for a while. The park treetops mesh in the sun already so high the light washes away the green. A point he made a while back to Billy Byron—the light and color thing. Listen to Picasso here, Billy said. But Billy got it. They should be thinking day and night, right? Night and day. And that was the launch of a whole new line of foundations in development. We’ll name it after you, sweetheart, Irving Slater said.

  He was useful and he was insightful and that was a surprise to everyone. That this was actually working was news he’d like to keep from Lionel. He hears a low groaning laugh from the bedroom. His watch is in there somewhere; maybe she’ll just take it and go. He screws on the shower taps to blistering. Then picks up the receiver on a telephone and dials 0.

  Mr. Devlin, good afternoon, sir, says a young Irish voice. Messages? he asks. Several, sir. She reads off a list, including Lionel. He grimaces into the mirror, studies his back teeth, feels his heavy beard, rubs his tender scalp. There’s a saddle-shaped bloodstain, a big brownish butterfly, across his upper thighs, his dick. He says thank you, hangs up, then retches. Okay in there, lamb? The girl calls out. He remembers her name—Vivienne—then kicks closed the door and retches some more.

  Been to Versailles lately? asked Irving Slater when Nick came into the meeting. He’s referring to the hair pomade tester Nick dutifully wears that stinks of thyme and gardenias. So wrong, really a downer, and only experience will convince Billy that flowers and herbs have no place in the modern men’s line. Nick was on the minute, yet the meeting was already under way and Billy Byron was in a rage. Not only were the new Scheherazade lipsticks corrosive in the test markets, but his wife, Bunny, had come home from the Colony Club yesterday evening with devastating news about the whole backstory. I thought this was about seduction! Right? Of course he was right the eight executives parked at the table frowned and nodded. So right. Scheherazade: Don’t Say a Word. Whose idea was that? No one could remember at the moment.

  Now I’m getting a whole thing about the dead wives. Bunny beside herself. It turns out the girl is a big talker. Is this really what we’re after? This lipstick keeps your date from chopping off your head? He laughed. It’s ludicrous. Such violence. Believe me Bunny couldn’t sleep. And all the stories are about cuckolds. The wives are screwing everything—garden boys, genies, demons, each other. It’s mayhem for the husbands. They have to kill the wives just to keep things under control. Scheherazade understands that. So, she anticipates her husband’s completely natural reaction to their wedding night—he’ll need to keep her in line once she’s had a taste of the unquenchable experience, so she tells him a story of unfaithful wives offed and satisfies the urge. So the story replaces the act. Get it? Interesting. Something in that we can use, but what? asks Billy.

  Well, said Nick. I thought the stories were more about heroes, actually, which is a plus. Anyway, the lipstick names could alter the stories in our favor, like . . .

  I’m speaking metaphorically. When I want your opinion, I’ll ask. Plus there’s another problem. A key test group in suburban New Jersey had lips that required the emergency attention of a doctor. Not just cracked, cratering! said Billy. One actually contracted herpes, but legal has already asserted that can only happen to those with the predilection. But for fuck’s sake. Kiss Me? Kiss Me Sheer? Kiss Me Frosted?

  Now they’d have to go out to the labs themselves; that was the only solution.

  Irving, Irving, get the mechanics, said Billy, meaning the drivers. Then he collapsed back into the pale blue swivel chair at the head of the conference table and spun to the windows overlooking Central Park. He hid the side of his face with his hand. The eight men around Nick visibly gauged whether they would need to travel to Perth Amboy today. He rubbed along his swollen jaw. Billy hadn’t even glanced his way. What the hell was he doing here. Why had he flown to New York on an hour’s notice? Five housewives in Brielle with chapped lips needed the attention of UK marketing?

  Mrs. Blatt? said Irving to Billy’s secretary, throwing up his hands. What’s the delay? And she looked alarmed and placed the call from the nearest extension. The cars will be waiting on the Madison side in fifteen
minutes, sir.

  Fifteen minutes? said Billy, still facing away. It’s an emergency. Call back, Mrs. Blatt. Five minutes.

  Nick’s training period—the sitting around at Saks and Bamberger’s watching women peer down into countertops, clocking their interest, seeing what whetted the appetite for more and what they could pass on—hadn’t included the laboratories in Perth Amboy, New Jersey. Some fluke of timing, so Nick was curious. For the others, from the looks of the downcast resignation, dropping in to shock the geniuses screwing up at research and development was a tedious routine.

  The cars pulled around to a service ramp in the back of a long gray warehouse not far away enough from the Amboys to quell the stink. Foul odor seeped into the waiting cars from the oil refineries while one of the drivers jimmied the lock on the cargo entry. Billy in the car, examining his palms, was quiet. He still hadn’t acknowledged Nick, though Irving had shoved him toward this car with the two of them and Mrs. Blatt. Nick thought he was being tested, but like a child is tested, given the cold treatment until he came around to some right way of thinking.

  The driver finally broke the lock and waved them in. Billy looked up then addressed his palm. Why are we coming in this way?

  A surprise? said Irving.

  Good, right, but Clifford always takes us to the awning.

  True, said Irving. But this is unexpected? This will answer the right questions; we won’t get the usual obfuscation techniques.

  I see. You know, Clifford is hitchhiking to Georgia. His mother is ailing. Were you aware?

  No, I wasn’t, said Irving.

  I’m concerned.

  Well.

  I mean the situation just being a person down there, Jewish, Negro, it doesn’t matter. It could be me. You know what they do, right?

  Well, at least he’ll be traveling alone. No mixed signals. Irving smiled at his own wit.

  Yes, good point. What do you think? Billy nodded his chin toward Nick, but kept his eyes on his hands, now the nails, began buffing each one with his pointer finger.

  I think, said Nick, trying not to watch the wiping finger, something mildly repellent in this, the waxy liquid shine on the nails, the circular caress. I think that Clifford is a good man.

  Maybe a stupid one? asked Billy.

  Maybe he knows how to handle himself.

  I wouldn’t lend him a vehicle. He asked, you know, but what would that look like, right? I don’t have anything appropriate for him in the pool to drive out of uniform; the car would be a signal. Hitchhiking he’s normal. It’s a protection, you see. But still, I worry. He’s the only one who seems to know anything around here. Did the moron get the door unbolted.

  He did.

  Well, what are we sitting for. You’re a time waster, Devlin. You’re pretty and you’re smart, but tell your brother I’d like what he promised sometime soon. We clear? Now, let’s get the fuck out of the car. And Irving, try not to look like you ate the goldfinch. Because believe me, you did not.

  Once they’d walked past all the cages of stunted rats and then the pens of frightened, injured rabbits and then vials of sludge that looked and smelled of shit, not even the intriguing new wall systems, just installed, designed in Denmark for this very conference room could shift the mood. It’s a slaughterhouse out there, said Billy. Plain and simple. Why didn’t anyone tell me? Why has this been kept a secret? When Clifford drives we go straight to the laboratories, sniff the tubes, test the colors. No rabbits with chopped off paws.

  Billy put his face in both hands, covered his eyes, and appeared to be stifling a sob. Sir? tried Irving. Billy, sir?

  Billy Byron shoved back his modified captain’s chair and bolted from the room. They all waited, speechless, around the teak table. It was common knowledge that conference rooms were visible and audible from outside. So many executives had been sacked for whispered quips when Billy left the room that silence was almost mandatory. They sat there. The lights were dimmed by some remote switch and the heat cycled on and off, then around five, a janitor opened the door dragging a garbage trolley and surprised them. Oh, Mr. Byron went a long time ago, talked to all the rabbits like he knew them personally. Such a good, kind man. He raised bunnies on the farm as a little boy, you know.

  That’s nonsense, said Irving. He grew up on Flatbush Avenue behind the Esso station. Where of course it’s possible his mother kept a pen or two. Christ. Let’s get out of here.

  Nick pushed the lower buzzer on the angled townhouse on East Sixty-Second Street and felt a slight shock, like there was some kind of short in the wires. He hadn’t been here in months and from the pile of collapsed construction debris just inside the iron fence under a moldy tarp, progress on the renovation appeared stalled.

  He half expected a party, then Lionel opened the door in his kimono and looked nearly asleep, which didn’t rule out a dozen intimates in the kitchen. But it was only Kitty and the baby. Kitty’s gauzy Indian blouse opened to the waist, one enormous breast revealed, her nipple dark as rust with the baby’s sleeping cheek flattened to it. Baby Lionel. Lionel Katherine Ivy Devlin. They were calling her Junior.

  The baby winced at her dreams, her legs a series of chafed red folds, her diaper, from the doorway, smelled saturated. Beautiful, Nick murmured coming in and he kissed the top of Kitty’s head. Nicky, she whispered. At last.

  Here, take mine, said Lionel and pulled the big padded desk chair back from the red lacquer table. Lionel sucked in and squeezed between the end of the countertop and the wall to the back corner and into an elaborate bamboo patterned dining chair. He swept his big hands across to gather up the playing cards spread out on the table. Honeymoon bridge, he said. Mrs. Ivy is staking me.

  Looks like a rummage sale in here, Nick laughed. The two of you, a pair of hippies, now?

  Yes, we are, said Kitty. We really are now, fully, and I want to be, really, all the freedom and love. That’s what we want for our girl.

  Yes, and Kitty’s mother is upstairs resting so she can provide the auxiliary freedom and love. This is Junior’s first snooze in several days. But Lionel looked surprisingly happy.

  You both look good on no sleep.

  Well, that’s Mrs. Ivy’s job, right darling? She wouldn’t let us stay up if we wanted to, said Lionel.

  That’s right, Nick. Mummy wants us to rest. So I can recover.

  Yes, I was sorry to hear you had a hard time. Jean was concerned. We both were.

  Aces now, said Lionel, reaching his hand toward the baby. Yes, it was big melodrama around here.

  It was! smiled Kitty. And Lionel knew exactly what to do. He was a miracle worker.

  Oh? said Nick, trying not to sound surprised. Lionel usually evaporated in any kind of medical emergency. Allergic to hospitals he liked to say. His scarcity when Cubbie was in so much trouble still galled. Lionel was just a coward, and suddenly Nick couldn’t remember why he’d come here.

  Well, Lily, of course, Lionel was saying. So I had some experience. What an ordeal! Kitty was shaking her head. I can’t even imagine, she said. I mean we had our moments—she paused to beam at Lionel—but nothing like that. Poor Jean, poor Lily!

  Nick wasn’t sure what they were talking about. He tried to make sense of it, but then spotted the small wooden penis-shaped hash pipe tipped in the crystal ashtray among a carton’s worth of cigarettes. Just the usual nonsense. But something half jabbed at his memory that he couldn’t really bring to mind. It was as if Cubbie had erased much that came before, or even since.

  She’s turning fourteen, you know, Nick said. Right after Christmas. She’s very young for her class. They didn’t reply, and he began to wonder if he’d spoken aloud when Kitty rearranged her hold on the baby and reached out to touch his hand. Of course, we know, Nicky.

  Lionel was frowning. He sighed and said, Let me show you something. You’ll like this. He began to wrestle himself up out of the corner. The kimono opened and Nick caught a glimpse of the sagging belly, the drooping cock, an old man’s apparatus and it sh
ocked him slightly, as if Lionel could never be anything but invincible. He looked up as if the thought were a betrayal, even if Lionel was a bastard. Lionel was studying Nick and Nick now saw the display was a calculation, a ruse. He wouldn’t fall for it; he’d find out what Lionel had promised Billy Byron, because he remembered that’s really all he’d come for, though he was touched to see Kitty, and the baby, despite her name. Standing, he bent down to kiss her again, No! Don’t go! she said. Not yet!

  He’ll be back, said Lionel. Come look, you’ve got to see this.

  Oh, Lionel, called Kitty, but they were already trudging up the inner staircase. Just wait, said Lionel. An eerie lavender light seeped down the stairs. Nearly there! shouted Lionel, and below the baby began a tentative howl. Oh shit, well never mind, Mrs. Ivy’s a bulldog; she’ll take care of it. Look, look! My masterpiece!

  Nick craned his neck to see the huge skylight Lionel had concocted and commissioned. Some stained glass—it’s all antique Tiffany, said Lionel—had been deformed into an image of a gnome gripping a red wand. It was lit up by an ad-hoc series of black lights clamped at random onto the banister. That’s obscene, said Nick, half laughing.

  Don’t be ridiculous; it’s priceless. It’s Billy Byron discovering his first lipstick formula. Get it?

  What?

  Yes, and there’s more. We’re doing a whole series of painted murals, like the stations of the cross, up the entire staircase. More modest, of course, nothing to steal from the grand finale. I have this young Italian kid. He’s already penciled in the pivotal moment when Billy fires his older brother, Melvin Bolkonsky. I’ll show you. Then we’ve got the nail formula they could finally sell. Anyway, twelve separate images. Billy won’t believe his eyes. Though I’ll have to reignite the place to pay for it, Lionel laughed.