Rich Boy

by Sharon Pomerantz

  They got out of the pool and walked toward the others, shaking off water. Crea sounded defiant, almost arrogant, as she told them that they were going home to take a nap.

  “Weren’t we going out on the boat?” Mark said. “Wasn’t that the plan?”

  “We’re going off plan,” Crea said gently. “We’ll sail tomorrow. Have a drink, Mark.”

  Now, four hours later, Robert looked back on his day. Having swam for miles then made love twice to his girlfriend, somehow he had allowed himself to be dragged off for a before-dinner “walk” with Crea that turned into a two-hour hike in the woods, which forced them to half-walk, half-jog back, shower together not half as quickly as they should have, and rush down, both with damp hair and flushed faces, just as her father was firing up the barbecue. Everyone looked a little drowsy except Crea. On their walk, she had told him, “I’m always happiest in Tuxedo; it’s such a peaceful place, isn’t it?”

  Robert wasn’t sure if peaceful was exactly the word he would have used—active, perhaps, or civilized—but he replied that she was lucky to feel that way about a place, and left it at that.

  Mark Pascal, who was manning the bar, came over to where Robert stood by the table and asked him if he wanted a drink. “Maybe later,” Robert replied. What he needed right now was coffee, but he settled for iced tea. He poured a glass, drank it down and, though it was a little sweet for his taste, poured another.

  When Jack had decided that the steaks and corn were done, and the salad and fresh tomatoes from the garden had arrived along with giant bowls of potato salad, the older men joined the others around the table. Crea’s father’s face was shiny pink from the heat. He and Mark’s father sat at either end like the heads of a corporation. Robert sat between Mignonne Pascal and Claudia Trace, and, across from him, Crea sat between Mark and Tracey.

  He didn’t know how to talk to Claudia. Sitting next to him, she hardly said a word. Still beautiful, with large hazel eyes and the same sleek black bangs, she was much thinner than he remembered. Her short red dress came up high at the neck, but it had no sleeves and her arms were thin as twigs. She reminded him now of Audrey Hepburn, a good actress to be sure, but he’d never fantasized about bedding Audrey Hepburn and he didn’t know a man who had. He asked Claudia to pass the salad, wondering if she could lift the bowl, and when she turned toward him, he blurted out, “Claudia, I remember dancing with you to ‘The Shoop Shoop Song.’”

  When she smiled, he noticed a furrow between her eyes. “I danced with a lot of boys to ‘The Shoop Shoop Song,’” she said softly.

  She didn’t remember him. What a relief. Not knowing what else to talk about other than the past—her brother? her marriage? all minefields of their own—and still somehow unable to let go of the fact that she had once rejected him, the only woman to do so, he pressed on.

  “I don’t think I treated you very nicely,” he said, a statement he only half-believed. Really, he thought it was she who’d led him on.

  She shrugged, as if to ask why he bothered. “I had just gotten engaged, hadn’t I? Now I remember.” She toyed with her food, and then motioned to Tracey, who, though seemingly involved in conversation with Crea’s father, passed her a package of cigarettes and a lighter. Robert picked up her lighter and lit her cigarette for her.

  “I’m sorry about your fiancé,” he began, wondering why on earth he had chosen this line of conversation. Yet he had begun, and how to switch directions?

  “First husband,” she corrected. “Charlie and I were married before he shipped out.”

  She stared into her plate and he tried finally to talk about the quotidian—the beautiful weather, the coincidence of Crea bringing him here. “I missed Tracey, you know?”

  “Yes, Tracey is a good friend,” she replied, smiling so sadly that he knew, in that moment at least, she had decided to show him something of her real feelings. Tracey would have been a safe choice, an accommodation.

  They’d reached an impasse—for him to acknowledge that he understood that look, and why, would have been impossible here or, perhaps, anywhere. He had to settle for communicating to her, somehow, his sympathy. Quickly, furtively, he squeezed her hand. She remained silent, still as a statue, and now, awkwardly, he searched for another topic, feeling as if he were drowning. “So,” he said, taking a sip of tea, “what’s it like living up here full-time?”

  “I’m glad you and Tracey are in touch again,” she said, pushing some potato salad around with her fork. “So many of his friends have moved away. He only lives up here because of me, really. I can’t take crowds. And I need the fresh air, and my garden.”

  “Tuxedo isn’t much of a sacrifice,” Robert said, suddenly aware that the others around the table were involved in another conversation. He and Claudia, relieved, turned their attention outward. They were all talking about real estate.

  Tracey had been made vice president of the Tuxedo Park Association, which represented the home owners within the Park. Tracey, Jack, Mark, and Trenton talked about land development—the village of Tuxedo was one of the last places in Orange County with so much untrammeled space, not to mention two forests, but some of that space was owned by a corporation that was anxious to develop, and there was litigation going on around some of the town’s restrictive zoning. Strangely, it was the people in the Park, the old families, who were for the development, while those outside the Park, the younger and more upwardly middle class, fought it—probably because it was their view and quality of life that would be affected.

  “I wouldn’t have expected you to be for development,” Robert said to Tracey. “I mean, I just assumed that you’d want to keep this all as it is.”

  “We’re not for development, exactly, so much as we know it’s inevitable and we want to try to control it,” Tracey said. “The people who want to stop the corporation from developing land that they own already have their heads in the clouds. Change is inevitable.”

  “Taxes will go down with development,” Robert said. “Property values will go up.”

  “Money isn’t the issue,” Crea’s father snapped. “Maybe for some, but for those of us at this table, a larger issue is the future of this place. There’s not enough young blood coming in, so we need a younger tax base. Will my grandchildren still want to come here?”

  “What grandchildren?” Crea asked, with excellent comic timing.

  Jack clearly did not like to be interrupted—but Crea could do anything, Robert supposed, because he laughed like the rest of them, then continued: “Can we exert some influence in how the area will look? Look at that night sky, Robert. Have you ever seen so many stars? No skyscrapers to interfere. This is about more than money!”

  He sounded angry; Robert wondered why.

  “Our taxes are astronomical,” Claudia whispered, patting Robert’s arm sympathetically.

  Had Robert touched a nerve? He rather enjoyed it, actually. As Dinah cleared the plates away, Robert addressed his next comment to Tracey, from whom he could, at least, depend on a dispassionate reply. “Isn’t it a terrible time to build?”

  Pascal answered instead. “The corporation’s doing a joint venture. Believe me, they’ll make money. Too many incentives these days not to pounce. But a lawsuit’s pending. The situation is more complicated than we’re going into —”

  Robert doubted the situation really was so complicated. They just weren’t going to discuss it in front of him anymore. Crea, sensing that he was getting annoyed, said she was finding all this real estate talk dull. Then Dinah came back carrying a big strawberry shortcake decorated with gobs of fresh cream. All conversation stopped as the guests broke into applause. Jack praised Dinah’s desserts to Robert, who nodded and pretended to be pleased, when his mind was elsewhere, trying to translate what had just happened.

  He had assumed them a closed community, insular. And perhaps they still were, at least in their club memberships, but they were practical, too. The world was changing, had changed already, and old money acknowledged t
his when new money somehow could not. Maybe it was possible to learn from the past. He wanted to be optimistic, wanted to believe that this world, like Crea herself, was easily comprehensible. It had not been to him in college, but in dating Crea, Robert stood even closer, had lived through more in the interim, and told himself that now he might finally learn to feel at home.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Robert discovers a few more things about Crea

  After returning from Tuxedo, Robert was busy at work, had finally been given something interesting to do: research for a partner who specialized in air rights—and air rights fascinated him. Only in New York was the air over buildings literally for sale, used endlessly as a negotiating tool. The associate who’d given Robert the task had assured him that his memo would only go into another memo that would then go to a partner. It wasn’t much, but it was better than combing through tax filings. Coming on the heels of his trip upstate, Robert wondered if this sudden change wasn’t in some way due to Crea’s father. Likely Jack had far too much to do to be bothered, but what if Crea had been right and the trip had improved his profile? More likely Phillip Healey had seen how dour Robert looked in the halls and asked someone to toss him a bone. Robert stayed late, typing the memo himself.

  He got out of the office at just past ten and did not want to go to Crea’s—rather, he wanted to, but at the end of the day she wanted conversation from him and he wasn’t in the mood. He ate dinner at his desk and declined the firm car home, hoping a walk in the evening air would clear his mind. He walked west to Fifth Avenue, then continued on Central Park South, staying on the park side, past the men offering carriage rides and the vague odor of horse manure. Then he crossed Columbus Circle, bought a newspaper, and walked up Broadway, turning onto Columbus. He was approaching Eighty-first Street when he saw Tracey coming toward him, accompanied by another man.

  “What are you doing on the West Side?” Robert asked, shaking his hand.

  “On my way to dinner with Juan Carlos,” Tracey said, as if that were explanation enough. He introduced Robert to the short, dark-haired man, who smiled vaguely in response. “I’m in the city until Friday,” Tracey continued. “Come for dinner tomorrow?”

  Robert agreed and Tracey gave him the address, in the East Fifties, near the Museum of Modern Art. “Tomorrow at nine, then? Must run…”

  Robert watched them turn onto Eighty-first, heading toward the park. That block, he knew, had no restaurants. The enormous Beresford apartments took up most of it, with its long stretch of office space and endless side doors, and then a small tourist hotel attached only to a coffee shop.

  THE NEXT NIGHT ROBERT ARRIVED at Tracey’s while his host was still preparing dinner—meaning a waiter from a nearby restaurant was arranging two serving dishes of pasta and several sides on the table. “I remember that you liked Italian. I hope that’s okay,” Tracey said.

  “I’m starving,” Robert said. “I’m not sure I even need a plate.”

  “Use one anyway,” Tracey said.

  The man who’d brought the food bowed and left. Robert noted how Tracey, being Tracey, had paid and tipped him when he got there, so no money had to change hands in front of a guest. He told Robert to help himself, and Robert heaped Pasta Bolognese onto his plate. The smell was heavenly. As Tracey poured the wine, Robert reflected for a moment on how wonderful it was to be back in his friend’s good graces, how comfortable he now felt with him.

  “So will we see you next weekend in Tuxedo?” Tracey asked.

  “I’m still recovering from my last visit. Not to mention my trip to Jack’s place in the city.”

  Tracey took a sip of wine. “Claudia and I were hoping you and Crea would be regular weekenders in Tuxedo. You’re one of my few old friends whom Claudia actually likes talking to. You’d do me a favor if you made a point of drawing her out a bit. You’re good at that.”

  “When I’m up there, if I’m up there again, I’m happy to talk to Claudia for as long as she likes,” Robert said, thinking this an odd conversation.

  Tracey smiled. “You’ll be back sooner than you think, I’d wager.” He took a sip of his drink. “You remember Claudia in college, how she never shut up? Now she’s quiet. I find her silence very companionable, actually—part of what attracted me in the first place. But sometimes I think she spends too much time alone or with just me.”

  “I think they call that marriage,” Robert said, shoveling a big forkful of pasta into his mouth. He hadn’t eaten since noon, was so hungry that it was hard to remember his manners. “Does Claudia eat? She’s much thinner than I remember.”

  “I like them on the thin side, Vishniak,” Tracey said. “Thin women look better in clothes.”

  Robert wiped his mouth. “Women with a little meat on them look better out of clothes.”

  Tracey put down his fork—he had hardly touched his food—and sat back in his chair. “As you know,” he said, “I prefer my women dressed.”

  “So nothing’s changed there?” Robert asked, staring into his plate.

  “Most of the time, no,” Tracey said. “But things are good between us. I love her, Vishniak. Maybe not the way you love Crea, but I love her.”

  At the mention of his love for Crea, Robert was anxious to change the subject. “You own this place?” he asked. The apartment was smaller than he’d expected, cozy, with bright area rugs and Dutch Modern furniture. The view stretched so far down to the east that he could see a narrow slice of the river.

  “Bought it after college. We’re all called ‘Penthouse’ up here, all three upper floors. Marketing.” Tracey shrugged. “It’s my private retreat. I’m particular about who I invite.”

  “I’m honored,” Robert replied. “Looks pretty exclusive.”

  “People mind their business, which I like. It’s not so hard to get into a building like this really, if you have the right name, know the right people. Which is of course my specialty.”

  “But Crea knows the right people, and she made a point of saying how hard it was for her father to get into Tuxedo, said the same thing about the apartment where she grew up. Pascal, too, made some comment to me about his father and Crea’s being so close, and Trenton having a hand in helping Jack Alexander get into Tuxedo. What do they put you through?”

  “You’re considering a place on Park Avenue?”

  “God, no, I just—they seem to assume that I know what they’re talking about.”

  “Don’t you?”

  “Is it about money? Because I sure have noticed how no one talks about that.”

  “For the Alexanders it would be a little harder.”

  “How so?” Robert asked through a mouthful of pasta.

  “I don’t need to explain it to you of all people. What do you care about people’s silly prejudices?”

  “What prejudices?”

  “I assumed that was part of your appeal to Crea.”

  “What appeal?!” Why was Tracey being so obtuse?

  “I mean the fact that you’re both Jewish,” Tracey said, shaking his head and pouring his now-silent friend more wine.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  First fight

  All week, Robert felt annoyed with Crea, but he couldn’t articulate exactly why. Finally they were lounging in bed that Friday, watching Johnny Carson, when she asked him how dinner had been with Tracey.

  “Fine,” he replied, as she picked up the remote and lowered the volume on the television.

  “I wish we could see the two of them in the city,” Crea replied. “It drives me crazy how that woman won’t leave her house. She was such fun when we were younger. I looked up to her. Now she’s, well, maudlin.”

  “She’s had a hard time.”

  Crea rolled her eyes in response.

  “Not everyone is as strong as you are, Crea.”

  “I’m not talking about me!” she snapped. “She acts like she’s the only person who’s suffered. Thousands of Americans lost loved ones in Vietnam. Thank God Nixon got us out.
”

  “It may be about the only thing he did right.”

  “History will be kinder to him.”

  “Did you read that somewhere?” Robert asked. “Because no matter what, Nixon is still going to hell when he dies.”

  “I don’t want to fight about Richard Nixon,” she said, trying to take the remote from his hand. She looked at him. “You’ve been picking fights with me all week. What’s wrong?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were Jewish?”

  “Why would you care?”

  “I don’t,” he said, but as he said it, he knew that, in fact, he did. Had she been Christian or Buddhist or anything else, her religion would make little difference. Barry had made a point, while visiting California the year before, of going to Disneyland on Yom Kippur. Much shorter lines, he said. But if his family’s Judaism—with the exception of his mother’s occasional Saturday synagogue attendance—was more culinary than scriptural, and if they didn’t always exactly pay attention to what they were, well, they certainly knew what they weren’t, and that was Jews who bought Christmas trees, changed their surnames, and attempted to pass for Episcopalian. He was somehow bothered by the “help” that the Pascals and Traces had given to the Alexanders to get them into the Jewish apartment—there was one, he knew, one Jewish apartment in most of the exclusive places on Park or Fifth, reserved for Jews who didn’t look or act too Jewish, who kept a low profile and were just as anxious not to live around their own kind—and this disgusted him in a way he could not explain. Meanwhile, he stuttered on, oddly inarticulate, then began to cough.