One Dangerous Lady

by Jane Stanton Hitchcock

  Carla, a striking woman in her late thirties, had asymmetrical features and an exotic aura. She was truly what the French call a jolie laide—a “beautiful ugly.” Her nose was slightly too long, her eyes were set too close together, and her lips were thin, like two slashes. Yet all together, they formed a fascinating face, enhanced by her inner vivacity and the allure of a throaty foreign accent. She had luminous skin, which, despite the fact that she spent most of her time on a boat, was creamy white, as if she never saw the sun.

  “Oh, look! There’s Russell and Carla,” Betty said. “I’ve gotta talk to Carla about tonight. Come with me.”

  As we quietly edged our way closer to the Coles, there was a sudden, faint swishing noise in the branches above. Mina went on high alert.

  “There!” she said, pointing up. “He’s there!”

  Betty and I paused to look. I saw the glint of what could conceivably have been a simian face—or, more likely, the knot of a tree exposed when a gust of wind parted the surrounding leaves. I couldn’t tell which, and I seriously doubted if anyone else could, either. Nor, I might add, did we care.

  “See him there! There!” Mina cried out.

  Betty and I kept our eyes peeled, straining to see what some of the others apparently saw, until finally young Woody Brill threw his hands up in exasperation and stormed off, saying, “Forget it, Mother! That bloody monkey’s a figment of your imagination!”

  The spell effectively broken, everyone began chattering away, obviously filled with relief. Betty and I continued heading over to the Coles and to Max, who was standing nearby.

  “Carla, darling!” Betty shrieked. “You’re here!”

  “Well, of course, we are, darling,” she said in her husky Italian accent. “We could not let you have the bridal dinner in the water, after all.”

  Forced laughter all around.

  “And, of course, you both know Jo Slater,” Betty said.

  “Jo!” Carla cried. “So nice to see you again! We were very excited when Betty told us you were coming.”

  Carla and I air-kissed on both cheeks. I had always preferred the younger woman to Russell’s first wife, Lulu, who had dropped me the second I lost all my money and, indeed, had befriended my late husband’s mistress. But that’s another story.

  “Hello, Carla, it’s so nice to see you again. And Russell. How are you?”

  “Hi, Jo,” Russell said with his usual reserve.

  “We never see you guys around New York,” Betty said. “You’re both so busy gallivanting around the world in that big, beautiful tub of yours.”

  Russell gave her a thin smile. It was well known that Russell adored his yacht The Lady C.

  Betty leaned in and whispered conspiratorially to Carla, “Do you know Max Vermilion?”

  “Well, we have met, of course,” Carla said. “But I cannot say we know him, no.”

  I noticed how Carla referred to herself as “we,” as though she and Russell were one person. Then Betty said something that made me want to kill her.

  “I want to fix Jo up with Max. He’s such a fabulous eligible, and we all know how much he loves attractive, rich, and cultivated women!”

  My teeth clenched as I cringed with embarrassment. “Betteeee . . .” I said softly.

  Betty was someone who thought that the love life of all single women was fair game for general conversation—even among relative strangers. It was one of her most annoying traits.

  “Oh, come on, Jo, now don’t be shy,” she went on, irritatingly oblivious to my discomfort. “I’m going to take you over and introduce you to Max this minute.”

  She grabbed my arm, but I demurred.

  “Not just now,” I said, shrugging her off. I couldn’t think of anything worse than having Betty drag me over to Max like some sort of prom wallflower who had asked to meet the most popular boy in senior class.

  It was not long, however, before Max approached us with a mischievous twinkle in his eye. He tapped Betty on the shoulder and said in his very laid-back, upper-crust English accent, “I say, is that the bride or the mother?”

  Betty whirled around.

  “Max!” she exclaimed, throwing her arms around him. “How’re ya, kiddo?”

  “It’s the mother! I could hardly tell the difference. Betty, dear, how lovely to see you. Don’t you look marvelous!”

  “You look pretty swell yourself. Divorce obviously agrees with you.”

  “No, but settlements do,” he said dryly.

  “Do you know everyone here? Russell and Carla Cole? My best friend, Jo Slater?”

  Max bowed slightly to the Coles. “We have already greeted one another,” he said. “But I haven’t seen this charming lady in a very long time.” He mock-kissed my hand. “I wonder if you remember me, Jo. We met years ago on a private tour of the Tate.”

  “I remember it well, Max. You love Louis the Sixteenth furniture as much as I do, as I recall.”

  “Indeed. How lovely to see you again after all this time.” His bright blue eyes met mine. Even in a crowd, he made me feel as if I were the only one he was really interested in talking to.

  Max was still an able flirt. What would have seemed rather oily in another man, merely added to Max’s veneer of charm. I think that’s because he had a slightly mocking air about him, as if he didn’t take anything seriously, least of all himself. It was obvious why he was catnip to women.

  “And where is my good friend Gil? Scouring the island for hidden treasure?” Max said, referring to Betty’s art dealer husband.

  “On the golf course, where else? Christ, if you think I could get Gil over to look at gardens and invisible monkeys, you’re crazy.”

  Max smiled somewhat tolerantly at Betty’s brashness. He looked like he was going to say something dismissive like, “You Americans . . .” but he resisted.

  Mina then stalked over and looped her arm through Max’s arm and dragged him off to the next point of interest, her orchids. He looked back at me rather soulfully, I thought, as if he’d rather have stayed behind. Betty and Carla followed suit, walking away together, deep in conversation about the upcoming bridal dinner that night. I lagged behind with Russell Cole. I didn’t want to look as if I were chasing after Max. Also, Russell hung back from the crowd, and I sensed he wanted to talk to me.

  “It’s so nice to see you again, Jo,” he said. “A friendly face from the old days.”

  By “the old days,” he meant premillennium New York when Russell was married to Lulu and I was married to my first and only husband, that rat, the late Lucius Slater—a time that now seemed to me as distant and uncomplicated as the Stone Age. We chitchatted about this and that, how time flies, how people change—or don’t, as the case may be. I asked Russell if he was enjoying the peripatetic existence of the perennial yachtsman. He said he “rather liked” traveling the world, “deciding where to go, as we go.” He then described a life of endless options.

  Picking up anchor whenever one felt like it and sailing anywhere in the world on a moment’s notice may sound idyllic, but I knew from observation that that sort of eternal aimlessness can easily wear thin, and eventually lead to only one real destination, boredom. And, indeed, as Russell and I strolled together and he aimlessly brushed some leaves with his hand, I sensed that the old, deep-seated weariness had returned. He had lost his exuberance and seemed a bit the way he was during his final years with Lulu—polite but distant, slightly distracted, a touch melancholy, and shy of crowds.

  “That was an awful thing that Lucius did to you,” he suddenly said to me.

  “Yes, it was,” I said softly, as we continued to stroll.

  “And you had absolutely no idea? No sense that he was betraying you?”

  “Not a clue. I can tell you, it was a quite a shock. But all’s well that ends well, as they say. And here I am.”

  That episode of my
life now seemed like a bad dream. Russell was, of course, referring to the fact that my late husband, who had been carrying on an affair for a year behind my back, compounded the outrage of his infidelity by leaving all his money to his mistress when he died. I figured that was the reason Russell had hung back to talk to me, to let me know he empathized with what I’d gone through. But it was over now and I saw no point in dwelling on it.

  “Do you think it’s possible to ever really know another human being?” Russell asked me.

  “Well, based on experience, I’d have to say no,” I replied, half joking, thinking of how profoundly my husband had deceived me.

  “No, I don’t think so, either. Because so few of us really know ourselves, you see. And if we don’t know ourselves, how can we possibly expect someone else to know us?”

  “That’s very true,” I responded, although when I looked at Russell I realized that he was talking more to himself than to me.

  Then he said, “How well do you know yourself, Jo?”

  Rather a heavy question for a casual afternoon stroll, I thought.

  Flashing back on all I’d gone through, I replied, “Well, I believe I’m better acquainted with myself than I once was. How about you?”

  “Me?” He seemed surprised by the question. He thought for a long moment, a pensive look on his face, and finally said, “I’m kind of like that monkey in the tree.”

  His intriguing answer made me smile. “How so?”

  “Well, sometimes I think I get a glimpse of myself. But I can’t be sure if it’s really me or not. And then . . .” He stopped suddenly, as if deep in thought.

  “And then . . . ?”

  “Then I disappear,” he said with a little shrug.

  Chapter 2

  “So whaddya think of Max?” Betty said excitedly on the way back home from the Brills’.

  “From the little I saw of him, I thought he was pretty attractive.”

  “He likes you. I can tell.”

  “How on earth can you tell that? We hardly said two words to each other.”

  “Oh, don’t be so coy, Jo. He couldn’t take his eyes off you.”

  “Let’s not exaggerate, Betts. I think that’s more a reflex than true love.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m seating you next to him at the wedding. And I told Carla to be sure and put him next to you tonight at the bridal dinner.”

  “Betty, overkill. Hello!”

  “Listen, sweetie, you know as well as I do that you gotta grab ’em while they’re available! Exposure, that’s the key. Just imagine Max as a stag with a pack of couture dogs on his trail. You’ve gotta be fast and strong and ready to pounce. I remember when Gil and I were courting and I invited him up to see my etchings. Literally. I kid you not. Faint heart ne’er won rich eligible.”

  “Whatever happened to the idea of men pursuing women?” I asked her.

  “Whatever happened to quill pens?!” she said in exasperation. “Listen to me, Jo, just getting these guys to sit still long enough to really get to know you is almost an impossibility nowadays. Here you have not one, but two great shots at one of the world’s most desirable bachelors. I say go for it.”

  Betty had a point. I liked Max, or at least I liked my impression of him, and as I dressed for the bridal dinner that night, I took special care with my appearance as one does when the scent of romance is in the air. The humidity of the tropics is not exactly conducive to good grooming, however, and my short blonde hair was not cooperating as well as it might have. It looked less like a sleek helmet and more like a straw hat. However, after I applied my makeup and put on a form-fitting cream-colored silk sheath and some colorful vintage costume jewelry, I looked in the mirror and thought, Well, not too bad.

  I’d fared pretty well over the years. I’m about five foot, six inches tall and not what you would call a beauty, by any means, but my blue eyes are set far apart and I have small, regular features that seem to complement one another well enough. In my youth I was considered quite pretty. And while age has taken its toll somewhat, I still have a good sense of style, which in the long haul is more important than looks. I favor a simple cut in clothes, and I’m back in shape now, doing exercises with a trainer four times a week and usually sticking to my diet. I occasionally toy with having a face-lift, but I’m holding out for the time when they invent a form of Krazy Glue where you can just go home, hike your face up to where you want it, and cement it in place.

  I think Betty was more nervous about me and Max getting together than she was about her own daughter getting married the next day. When I walked out onto the terrace, she looked me over with a critical eye.

  “Couldn’t you have worn something a little sexier? I mean, you look great, but you look like a column,” she said.

  She was a fine one to talk. Betty, who was famous for her truly terrible taste in clothes, would disappoint none of her detractors that night. She looked like an enormous trellis of bougainvillea, dressed as she was in a long dress studded with tiny fuchsia chiffon flowers. Not only did the color clash with her red hair, the effect of the dress made her look a lot heftier than she actually was.

  “Well, I think Jo looks divine. In fact, I think you both look divine,” Gil said, ever the chivalrous husband.

  “You look pretty spiffy there yourself,” I said to Gil, as he handed me one of his lethal rum punches.

  Gil Waterman was a tall, athletic man in his fifties, with craggy good looks and a jutting jaw. He always wore thick-framed, black glasses and an earnest expression. On this eve of his only daughter’s wedding, he looked particularly dapper in his custom-made tuxedo and black needlepoint pumps embroidered in red with his initials.

  “Well, there she is,” Gil said, pointing out at the sea. “I can’t believe I’m finally going to get to see her.”

  A large white yacht was anchored in the distance, shimmering on the dusky water.

  “Wow,” I said admiringly. “That’s a big boat.”

  “Not that big by today’s standards, but très luxurious. Russell built it for Carla,” Betty said. “It’s their real home.”

  “Don’t they have an apartment in New York?” I inquired.

  “Not in years. Russell hates New York,” Gil said. “He goes there as little as possible.”

  “That’s because Lulu’s there,” Betty said. “The town ain’t big enough for the three of them. The whole continent isn’t.”

  “No,” Gil said thoughtfully. “I think Russell just hates the city. He’s not a big one for social life, you know.”

  “I know, but I don’t see how Carla stands it all the time on that tub. I don’t care how nice it is. Can you imagine spending your life on a boat? I’d go completely nuts,” Betty said.

  I seconded her. “Who was it who said, ‘Boats are prisons on which you can drown’?”

  “Me!” Betty cried.

  Just then, Missy Waterman walked out onto the terrace. The twenty-seven-year-old bride-to-be had eschewed her trademark shaggy grooming and funky clothes for neat hair, an elegant blue silk evening dress, and the heirloom sapphire-and-diamond necklace Betty and Gil had given their beloved only child as a wedding present. A self-styled “video artist,” Missy had lived at home like a teenager for years, keeping odd hours and odder friends, going through the rugged patch of experimenting with drugs and alcohol, which her art dealer father tactfully referred to as Missy’s Blue Period. Gil and Betty were understandably thrilled that their unconventional daughter was finally settling down, and that she had chosen a husband not from the ranks of the tortured, tattooed, body-pierced boyfriends she had favored in the past, but Woodson “Woody” Brill, who was a nice, clean-cut young man and from an eminently respectable family.

  Gil, obviously moved by the sight of his daughter, gave Missy a little hug. His eyes grew moist and then he said, “Well, I guess we’d better get going.”

/>   “Now have fun tonight, sweetie,” Betty said. “Enjoy your freedom, because tomorrow you’ll be hauling an old ball and chain around like the rest of us.”

  Betty had a tough time with sentimental moments.

  “I can’t wait to see the Cole collection,” Gil said to me as we walked down to the dock.

  “Oh, Gil, all you ever think about is art,” Betty said dismissively.

  “That’s not true. I think about golf . . . anyway, you’re all in for a treat.”

  Gil explained to us all that the Cole collection had been started by Russell’s father in the days when some of the greatest Impressionist and post-Impressionist pictures were still on the market. Russell, who loved art, had added significantly to his father’s legacy after his father died. He expanded the collection to include twentieth-century masters like Pollock, Rothko, Jasper Johns, de Kooning, and Lucian Freud, to name but a few. Unlike some collections that are simply a catalog of famous signatures on mediocre works, the Cole collection was truly remarkable for the superb quality of each and every one of its paintings.

  “Russell Cole has the three things an important collector needs, a great eye, a great fortune, and a great dealer—me!” Gil said with a wink.

  Missy, who referred to her godfather as “uncle,” said, “You sold Uncle Russell a lot of his paintings, didn’t you, Dad?”

  “I most certainly did,” Gil said proudly. “The Lady C is a floating museum. I’m hoping Russell will take us on a private tour before dinner. Can you believe I’ve never seen this boat?”

  “That’s because you’re such an old stick in the mud, honey. God knows they’ve invited us to cruise with them. But you won’t go. You won’t go anywhere but Southampton,” Betty said.

  “I go to Lyford,” Gil said defensively.

  “The only way you could get Dad on a boat for any length of time is if they had a golf course on board. Right, Dad?” Missy laughed and gently nudged her father.

  “I see nothing wrong with liking golf,” Gil said.