CHAMPAGNE BLUES

by Nan

  A table and four chairs were in the center of the cell. Petit Meurice smiled as he took an envelope from his inside breast pocket. Determined not to crease any of the small white place cards he had lettered the night before, he set them carefully in front of each chair. Mrs. Simon. Mr. Simon. Mrs. Benjamin. Mr. Benjamin.

  CLIFFORD raised his head to admire Emma’s breasts. The windows were wide open, and the pale blue silk curtains fluttered in the breeze. A very white sun filled the room. Clifford could feel it on his bare back as he crouched on his knees over Emma. She was staring at the yellow roses the concierge had given her.

  “They claim the first champagne glass was molded on Marie Antoinette’s breast,” Clifford said. “That’s why they’re shaped that way.”

  “And here I always thought Bloomingdale’s was responsible.”

  “Emma?”

  “Yes, Clifford?”

  “They should have waited for you.” He put his head on her breast. “Emma?”

  “Yes, Clifford?”

  “Why do you think people make love at night instead of in the morning?”

  “I don’t know, Clifford. Maybe it’s cheaper at night.”

  He lifted his head and looked at her. She was smiling. He sighed and sat up to show her he was erect.

  “Now, that’s just gotta be from Bloomingdale’s” she said pointing to his penis.

  “Wrong again, kiddo. It’s strictly Sex Fifth Avenue.” He moved up to put his penis beween her breasts. She stroked it absently as though petting a kitten. “I was hoping for more than a Walt Disney fuck,” he said.

  She smiled and put her arms up to him. “Darling, you are a hopeless G.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “G-rated sex, Cliffy. All ages admitted.”

  He leaned over and held her face in his hands. “What’s wrong? You’re not the old you.”

  “I am the old me. That’s what’s wrong.”

  Clifford kissed her gently. “Hey, kiddo, what’s the matter with you? Didn’t I promise we’d spend our lives in Never-Never Land and never never grow old? Em, baby, you had the incredible good fortune to marry one of the original lost boys. Who, I might add, just happens to be in the middle of one of his most terrific hard-ons.”

  She took hold of his penis, raised her head and kissed it. “Cliffy, they must have run out of fairy dust. Somehow I got to be thirty-six.”

  “You just think you’re thirty-six. It’s because the evil Captain Shnook put us in this dungeon.” Clifford sat back on Emma’s stomach and pointed to the ceiling. “It’s those cherubs up there. The velvet drapes. The plush carpets. The marble toilet. A bedroom with a desk, yet, and a lounge. And then the fiendishly clever touch of a living room! My God, it’s enough to make anyone feel thirty-six! Fear not, my darling, I’ll take you out of all this.”

  She smiled. “It’s not the room, Cliffy.”

  “You’re right.” He jumped off the bed and ran over to the room-service cart, pointing out each item. “First champagne, then caviar. Lobster. Pâté. A double portion of truffles. What a fool I am! You’ve been poisoned! I should have known, Tink. You ate everything to save me! That’s why you’re growing old!” Clifford knelt on the floor and spread his arms. “Oh, please, if you believe in Emma and don’t want her to grow old, applaud.” He looked at her. “Applaud!” he urged. There was silence.

  Emma got up and put her arms around him. “Clifford, I am a very rich thirty-six-year-old woman. And you are a very rich forty-two-year-old lost boy.”

  He smiled and lay back on the carpet. “Isn’t that the cat’s ass? You know, Em, I never did it for the money. I still don’t!”

  “But I do. Even though it didn’t start out that way.”

  He sat up. “I remember how we began. It was so wonderful. No one had the idea before us, Em. We staked out a piece of the world and made it ours. We proved travel isn’t just for rich people. Together we proved good times don’t depend on champagne and caviar.”

  “You bet, Cliffy,” she said sadly. “We sure proved that one.”

  “It’s not just a job, Em. It’s a whole view of life.”

  “But it’s the same one we had fifteen years ago.”

  “And I still believe in it! You didn’t always think that view was so terrible. You used to love it as much as I did.”

  “Darling, we had the best times ever. We were pioneers. Thumbing our noses at the Establishment.”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “Nothing. Except now we are the Establishment.” She put her hand to his face and lay down next to him on the carpet. “Youth is a great place to visit, Cliffy. But I can’t live there anymore.”

  “Then where do you want to live?”

  “Anywhere. As long as it’s in the present tense.”

  There was a long silence as they both lay naked on the carpet, staring up at the cherubs. “Emma.” He moved closer and looked into her eyes. “Emma, forget about the goddamn money,” he pleaded.

  She raised herself on one elbow. “Listen, you mushroom, I worked as hard as you did. I stayed in every one of those goddamn rooming houses. I ate every one of those Oliver Twist meals. Without one word! I worked hard for my money, Clifford. And I didn’t even have the kick of playing Peter Pan. It’s dishonest not to want to spend it. And it’s even more dishonest to ignore it. What’s wrong in keeping pace with your own success?”

  “You mean, keeping pace with you.”

  “I told you. They ran out of fairy dust.”

  He leaned over her. “Emma, I love you. I want there to be adventure always.”

  “You can’t be a virgin every time.”

  “Next thing you’re going to tell me there’s no Santa Claus.”

  She smiled. “Cliffy, you are a pineapple! Instead of complaining about the cherubs, why aren’t you letting them watch while you eat lobster on my belly? Why aren’t you chasing me across the goddamn plush carpets, pouring the goddamn champagne in my goddamn hair? Oh, Cliffy, why don’t you carry me into the living room and feed me caviar with your fingers?”

  “You mean you wanna do it in the living room?”

  “We used to.”

  “Yeah, but we were kids then.” Suddenly he realized what he had said.

  She saw how painful the moment was and reached out. “Cliffy?”

  “What is it you want, Emma?”

  “I want you to ask me what I want.”

  “All right.” He lay on top of her. He moved her legs apart. He brought her hand down to guide him inside her. “Take hold of my cock. Now tell me what you really want.”

  “No, Cliffy. That’s not fair.”

  “Take hold of it, Em. Ease it in. I’m asking you what you really want. Tell me. Make believe it’s the first time.”

  She pulled her hand away. “You’re asking because you need to know.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said, entering too quickly, “I’m still asking!”

  Emma moaned. “Your rules again, Cliffy. It’s always your game.”

  “Is it terrific, Em? How is it? I’m asking you! Me! Clifford! Not some fairy Peter Pan!”

  She stretched to catch sight of the yellow roses, but could not see them. Emma reached around him and brought her hands together. She began to applaud slowly. “Doesn’t anyone here believe in Emma?”

  DWIGHT lay on a pink velvet sofa dressed in the robe he had worn onstage in Private Lives. Lily sat on the love seat. She wore an embroidered blue satin kimono, and between sips of champagne, she was mending a torn seam in her cranberry velvet evening skirt.

  “Eight dollars!” Dwight said as though passing sentence.

  Lily sighed and poured more champagne into her glass. “Oh, Dwight. I thought we left all that behind in London.”

  He held out his glass, and she filled it. “Lily, darling, you simply cannot escape reality. Our liquid assets total eight dollars. Blame not the messenger for the message.” He drank the champagne.

  Lily reached over an
d snatched the four ten-franc notes from him. Defiantly, she tore them up. “There. Now that’s not half so depressing!”

  “Lily, that was our last eight dollars!”

  “Dearest, I simply will not allow you to waste time worrying about eight dollars. Better to worry about larger sums. So much better for the ego, darling!”

  Dwight slumped back on the sofa. “How do you plan on getting your ego to dinner and the opera tonight without that eight bucks for cab fares!”

  “Pshaw,” she said, pronouncing the “p” with vigor. “This is a job for SuperLily!” She picked up the phone. “Concierge, s’il vous plaît. . . . Merci. . . . Claude, mon cher, Monsieur Simon et moi, nous voudrons un Rolls-Royce avec chauffeur pour ce soir. . . . A quelle heure? . . . Très bien.” She smiled at Dwight. “Oh, Claude. Encore du champagne, s’il vous plaît. . . . Merci, darling.” She hung up the receiver. “So you see, my love, the only thing eight bucks can buy us is a taxi. No bucks gets a Rolls and more Champagne.”

  Dwight leaned over and extended his hand. “You must marry me!”

  “But Count Vronsky, I am, I fear, already married.” They laughed, and as Lily sat down, she handed him the room-service menu. “Have a sandwich on the expense account, Your Highness.” Lily continued her mending.

  “My God, how I hate club sandwiches.”

  “But they’re so wickedly expensive, darling.”

  “I don’t care. Even though I always order them, I hate club sandwiches.” He looked up at her. She was still mending. “Why don’t you give that to the maid?”

  “Because the label says, ‘Save Marie Antoinette’!”

  “Mmm,” Dwight mumbled. He snapped his fingers. “Why not good old breast of chicken?” The telephone rang. “It must be New York.”

  Lily raised her eyebrows, “Places, please!” She went to the other phone. “Good luck, darling!”

  Dwight blew her a kiss and said, “Break a leg!” Then he reached for the phone. “Curtain going up!” They each lifted a receiver.

  Charles Evron, their publisher, shouted, “It’s too late this time, Lily! Not one goddamn syllable can be changed!”

  “Charles, darling, how are you?” Lily asked.

  “Last year it was the plumbing in Monte Carlo. The year before it was the kitchens in Baden-Baden . . .”

  “How is dear Miriam?” asked Dwight.

  “Marjorie! Miriam was my second wife. You know what time it is here?”

  “My dear Charles, we have a reputation to uphold!” Dwight said.

  Lily pointed thumbs up and winked at Dwight. “A public trust!” she exclaimed.

  “Do you know what time I went to bed last night?”

  Lily took a deep breath and cleared her throat. She put one hand to her forehead. “Charles,” she began slowly, “Paris has fallen!” Dwight blew her a kiss. Lily bowed.

  “Oh, Jesus.”

  “It’s the Louis Q.”

  “It collapsed?”

  “It might as well have, darling.”

  “Lily and I must have twenty-four hours more,” Dwight said.

  “But the book is going on press tomorrow.”

  “Charles,” she said, clutching at the phone cord, “we must protect our readers.”

  “But Lily—”

  “I will not have their faith in us violated for the sake of the printers’ union!” Lily protested.

  Charles paused. “How’s the weather?”

  “Darling, there’s only so much I can be responsible for.”

  “By the bye, Charles . . .” Dwight began.

  “How much?”

  “We’re broke again, darling,” Lily said.

  “You’ve been broke again for years.”

  Dwight took a deep breath. “Charles, the bank in London’s rather testy about the mortgage.”

  “How far behind are you?”

  “Three measly months,” Lily said.

  “Would you send them a thousand for goodwill?”

  “Yes, Dwight.”

  “And then, darling, we have not a sou in our knickers.”

  “I thought NAA was paying all your expenses.”

  “They are. But, darling, not even Zarathustra could anticipate all of our expenses. We need mad money.”

  “I’ll cable you a thousand.”

  “She said mad, Charles, not slightly pissed.”

  “How much, then?” he asked wearily.

  Lily held up three fingers. Dwight shook his head No and said with a flourish, “Five thousand.”

  “You two use up your royalties faster than you earn them. You spend money as though it were a disease.”

  “It is a disease, darling.”

  “Let’s face it, Charles. We’re terminal.”

  “Hopeless.”

  “No cure in sight.”

  “What in the hell would you two do if your books didn’t sell?”

  “God knows,” Dwight said. “We’d probably be broke!”

  SOMEONE knocked on the door. “Lily, there’s someone knocking on the door,” Dwight called.

  “Well, we know it’s not opportunity,” she said through the closed bathroom door. “Be brave, my darling. I’m still soggy.”

  “But I was lying down,” he muttered. “All right, I’m coming.” He opened the door.

  “Monsieur Simon.” It was Marie-Thérèse. “I am so happy to see you. I was wondering if perhaps there was something I might do for you?” She looked into the room. “Or for Madame?” Dwight pulled her into the vestibule and closed the door behind them. Marie-Thérèse threw her arms around him. “Chéri, I thought I would have to wait for the next edition!”

  Dwight glanced nervously over his shoulder. “You mad, crazy, wonderful little fool!” he whispered. “I must be with you. This afternoon. I’ll get away somehow. Around six.”

  “I have missed you so.”

  “And I you, you impetuous imp. But go. You must!” he implored. “She’ll be out any moment!”

  Marie-Thérèse took Dwight’s hand and placed it on her breast. “I was wondering, Monsieur,” she said loudly, “how you were feeling.” Marie-Thérèse opened her mouth and lifted her face. They kissed. Dwight’s hand moved inside her blouse.

  “Well, darling,” Lily said posing in the doorway. “So you’ve decided on breast of chicken after all.”

  Dwight turned and stretched his arms toward Lily, as if his empty hands would exonerate him. “Lily, dearest, it’s Marie-Thérèse!”

  “Practically one of the family,” Lily said.

  “Well, that’s exactly it!” Dwight exclaimed. “I was merely thanking her for the VIP guest list.”

  “The quintessential tit for tat,” Lily proclaimed.

  “How well you are looking, Madame.” Marie-Thérèse did not attempt to button her blouse. Nor did she take her eyes from Lily.

  “How well I am seeing, Mademoiselle.” Lily turned to Dwight. “Darling, did we bring the nylons and Hershey bars for her?”

  “I must go,” Marie-Thérèse said, reaching for the doorknob.

  “Really?” Lily asked. “I had hoped you would stay and take a nap with us.”

  “Monsieur.” Marie-Thérèse nodded to Dwight and gently closed the door behind her.

  Dwight straightened up. “That was quite an unnecessary performance!”

  “I was about to give you the same notice. But then, darling, it’s been said about you so often.” She paused. “The Anderson play, wasn’t it?”

  “I wouldn’t ring up the curtain on that one, Lily! Lest you remind me of some equally forgettable moments.” He began to cough.

  “You loathsome beast!” Lily walked across the room to the window. She raised one arm, framing herself in the entrance to the terrace. “Everyone adored my Camille.”

  “The only one who adored your Camille, my dear, was the critic from the Harvard Business Review, for whom you personified conspicuous consumption.”

  “Wretch!”

  “Doo-doo unto others, Lily, as
they doo-doo unto you.” She leaned her head against the door, staring out onto the rooftops of Paris. Dwight put his arms around her. “It’s Paris, Lily.”

  “I know,” she said wearily. “Land of the C–cups.”

  “Darling, you musn’t get overwrought.”

  “God knows, Dwight, there’s enough to be wrought over!”

  “Lily. Don’t. Look out. Ahead. Never back, darling. Out there is our beloved Paris.” He kissed her. “No one can ever share the stage with you. I merely wanted to prove that my Lily’s titties were still the best.”

  She pulled away. “Old Lily’s titties, you mean.”

  “Indeed not!”

  “Lily’s old titties?”

  “Stop it!” he exclaimed.

  “You stop it, Dwight! You’ve been president of the Tittie Research Society long enough.”

  He smiled as he held her close. “I like to keep a hand in.”

  “Don’t, Dwight. It’s the wrong time. The wrong year in my life for that. Lily needs you, darling.”

  Dwight poured them each a glass of champagne. “And I need you.” They clinked glasses.

  Lily drank the last of the champagne and leaned back on his shoulder. “Look,” she said staring out at the sky. “That cloud. Isn’t it the most perfect one God ever made?”

  A pause. “It is lovely, dearest. But see over there? The cloud that’s almost a full circle? That’s the perfect one!”

  “Oh, no, Dwight. It’s such a banal little cloud. It doesn’t have the elegance by half of that one, or that one. Oh, see, darling? All the way up there? That one!”

  THE Simons and the Benjamins traveled in different circles. But at four that afternoon, as the Benjamins came out of Suite 550 and were locking their door, the Simons walked out of Suite 500. After a moment of quadraphonic panic, Lily began to laugh. “My great Aunt Fanny! You won’t believe who just crawled through the looking glass.”

  Emma sighed. “Hello, Lily. Dwight. We heard you were staying here. A little vulture told us.”