18mm Blues

by Gerald A. Browne

  Grady was well aware of the direction he was headed and, when Harold had come right out and propositioned him with a bit more than a promise but less than an inevitability that a partnership of some kind would be down the road, Grady had joined HH and felt he was on the right course.

  Meanwhile there’d been Gayle.

  Brown-eyed, honey-haired Gayle, probably the most beautiful woman Grady had ever been around, and surely the most unrepressed. She was usually there when Grady got together with Harold, sometimes expensively dressed at lunch, often barely dressed at the pool or on the boat. Grady had plenty of opportunities to steal looks at her body, and frequently she caught him at it and sentenced him to solitary with a defiant stare.

  The first time they were alone together at night was after a supper following the symphony. It was raining and she had volunteered to give him a lift home. They were in evening clothes, and she’d had her dress pulled way up to free her legs for driving. Grady had kept about half his attention straight ahead. They were going up Geary, the cadence of the wipers contrary to the tempo of Luther Vandross singing “She Doesn’t Mind.” Gayle wasn’t teasing. He doubted that she ever had been, when, late going through an amber light, she reached over and got his hand and led it to her, to the in between that she swung open for him.

  Loose leg holes. Just a strip of silk, no impediment.

  She told him later, and it was only half a fib and a commending one at that, that within the twenty blocks to his place she’d come twice. Because the touch had been his, she’d said.

  For the following two months Grady had felt off-register, altered by so much sexual wallowing. The power she admitted he had over her body was flattering. Whenever he’d said he was burned out, one way or another, she’d ignite him. Had his system always had the potential to produce so much semen? Wasn’t too much of anything toxic?

  “We needn’t get married but we should,” she’d told him one night when she was on top and they’d both just come and he was softening.

  He’d known from the start she was clever. Had taken pride in that aspect of her, witnessed it often in the way she maneuvered, charmed out of uncomfortable situations, white lied so credibly. However, it wasn’t until the fifth married year that he’d learned she was and had been most clever with him.

  The ninth floor of the St. Francis Hotel.

  Suite 908, where Grady had kept an appointment to show goods to George Keller, a client from St. Louis. Nothing unusual about that; quite a few clients preferred the courtesy. He’d come out of 908 at the very moment when the door to 909 across the way opened and a dark-haired middle-aged man wearing a hotel towel pushed a room service cart out into the hall.

  Grady had caught at most a five-second glimpse of Gayle in 909, nude in an armchair. She was unaware that he’d seen her and denied it when he’d confronted her but only stood her ground for a half hour. Then she’d shifted her tack to confession and tears. It was, she contended between choking sobs and a lot of nose blowing, a first-time slip, a dumb dalliance. She pleaded forgiveness. Reasoned for it. Wasn’t she deserving of one carnal error? (Her exact words.)

  That her passion with him hadn’t ever waned was in her favor. Was it possible she could come home from all those specious shoppings at Neiman Marcus, girlfriend luncheons at Fleur de Lys, browsings of Chinatown and so on, and still be able that same night to make such responsive love with him?

  He thought so.

  But he gave her the benefit of the doubt. Let her squirm off the hook for the St. Francis stray. Even if he couldn’t forget it, he wouldn’t ever bring it up.

  Gayle was disappointed.

  As though she felt he hadn’t been adequately provoked by the chink in her that she’d exposed. She was determined that he should be. Increased her shoppings and browsings, made guesswork out of them and thinned her excuses until they were thoroughly transparent. It had been a sort of perverse campaign during which she taught him to decipher her lies the moment she was telling them.

  And now this—the inevitable divorce from Gayle and the sudden severance from Harold Havermeyer.

  Fuck them. And fuck Aunt Miriam in Rancho Santa Fe, who was most likely a dark-haired, middle-aged man or lead guitarist on tour with some heavy metal group currently playing Milwaukee.

  Sand fleas were excited around his bare toes.

  A gull swooped to see if he might leave a scrap.

  He wasn’t bilious bitter, but he did feel a seven-year chunk had been taken out of him, one out of every five of his days. Gayle wanted the house? Well, she couldn’t have it, at least, not all of it. He had four hundred thousand equity in the house. Gayle could have what she was legally, if not morally, entitled to. Half. She could also have all her catgut-strung wooden tennis rackets, old framed photos of Yale rowing crews and other crap. If he had to, he’d fight and fight dirty for his two hundred thousand share. He was going to need that money and more … to get the Grady Bowman Company on the door and off the ground.

  CHAPTER THREE

  During the cognac and coffee phase of a sit-down dinner for ten last November, the conversation had somehow gotten onto the subject of wills, the legal kind, and Julia Elkins, with nothing to contribute, not even mild interest, had tuned out. Now she sort of wished she’d listened. Not that she felt it vital at age thirty-four to know more about wills than she’d managed to glean from certain books over the past couple of weeks, but perhaps, she thought, she’d missed something that would have put her on surer ground. She had to trust that this lawyer, Martin Browderbank, in whose reception room she was now seated, would understand the simple kind of will she wanted. It wouldn’t do if he complicated and took weeks to draw up the papers for her signature. In fact it wouldn’t do if he took days.

  Tomorrow was Thursday, the eighteenth of June, the deadline she’d set on her mind’s calendar. An arbitrary date, yes, but procrastination wouldn’t become an adversary as long as she didn’t let it get started.

  Having a will was an afterthought, really. From her point of view what she could leave anyone wasn’t much. Her collection of her own paintings were the most valuable and would be more so afterward. Then, there was her Jeep Cherokee, and a few minor pieces of jewelry such as the strand of pearls she now wore. She wanted Royce to have the paintings. For six years he’d been the steadiest, most dependable person in her life. Her next-door neighbor Royce, who couldn’t help but lilt and be light of foot and drop the famous names he claimed he’d been with, which was how he put it. It didn’t matter to Julia that Royce’s homosexual escapades were figments. They were entertaining and amusing and, she believed, according to her extended way of believing, they were true. Kind, thoughtful, gentle-minded Royce, who looked after her cat, Maxx, and had surprised her several times when she’d returned from trips to find he’d put her studio in impeccable order. Royce, who really did know how to make the best crème brûlée she’d tasted since her days in France. He loved her in the way that had become acceptable to her. Their relationship was complex only in its simplicity. He was the only genuinely asexual person she’d ever known.

  It was he who’d insisted she wear this hat today. (He was often around to be involved in her getting dressed.) This insouciant construction of felt touched with a few small feathers. She’d bought it at I. Magnin last year on an afternoon when she’d had some frivolous energy. Had tried on twenty hats and decided on this one only because she’d already tried on twenty. Ever since then it had been kept from dust in a tied tight plastic bag up on the second shelf of her bedroom closet.

  The giving in to wearing it today had set off a chain reaction. The hat had demanded that her natural blonde hair be not so relaxed and more attention be given to her makeup. The slacks and sweater she’d planned on wearing were not at all right, but a short-sleeved afternoon dress of sleek, somewhat animate rayon was, in a rich blue shade that complemented both the hat and her eyes. Then required were compatible shoes, a pair of medium-heeled pumps only a year out of style and hose
that unobviously idealized the complexion of her legs.

  Although it wasn’t how she’d intended to look, she was now rather glad she’d been influenced. There’d been a time in her life when fashion had been important to her, however not lately. It didn’t matter that with her height and slender figure she looked well in clothes, nor that she had the taste required to exceed safe, repetitive choices. Fashion, like most other things of that nature, had become degree by degree, season by season, irrelevant. Anyway, the image of the artist was better served by inelegance, she rationalized.

  As though prompted by those thoughts, Julia took up from the reception room side table the June edition of Vogue. Paged through it mindlessly until it occurred to her that the women of the photographs, they with their put-on ennui or predation, exemplified detachment. Who could touch them? How could they possibly be anything other than misunderstood? There, in those crowded challenging eyes and impatient mouths and insubordinate stances, was insularity most blatant. They knew, these lanky sisters mired in vanity, perhaps temporarily medicated by vanity. They knew even if they weren’t yet aware that they knew.

  Julia came to a perfumed page, sniffed it obediently, then, for a respite, lowered the magazine. Enough so her eyes overlooked the crease of its binding and focused upon the man seated across the room.

  She’d noticed him before, of course, but now, she had the opportunity to more than merely notice. He seemed to be napping. At least his eyes were genuinely closed. Perhaps he was resting his eyes. What was she doing? Just something to pass time, Julia told herself. She wasn’t studying him because he was a man and an attractive one at that. Had the person with whom she was occupying this waiting space been an older woman or a child she’d have done the same. It was a practice she’d come to rely on, the observing of others in detail, the mental painting of them, so to speak. Often it had helped cool down the buildup within her subjective furnace.

  The first thing she contemplated were his shoes. Shoes usually betrayed the person. His weren’t new, nor were they cheap. Black, cap-toed, probably self-shined. Italian made, according to their better leather and more delicate soles. How neatly he’d tied his shoelaces, she noticed. His plain dark gray socks revealed by the seated hitch-up of his trousers said nothing except that they were plain dark gray, appropriate for his suit, a conservative, subtly striped gray on gray worsted that fit him well. He had ample shoulders for the slouchy cut of the unpadded jacket and his white shirt appeared soft, not at all punishing to his neck. However, that tie, the bow tie, spoiled everything. It was wine colored with a small gray geometric pattern. Looked like some rare species of butterfly about to take flight.

  Julia despised the tie but forgave him for it. At least it wasn’t a clip-on sort. Perhaps he’d been in need of a rebellious note that morning or perhaps he believed bows provided jauntiness to his cachet and he was phobic when it came to mirrors.

  Except for the bow, she approved. He was, she guessed, in his midthirties, no gray yet at his temples and nothing contrived about his hairstyle. Dark brown hair combed straight back. Tended eyebrows but not overtended. A good honest nose and some extra strength in his chin. His hands weren’t relaxed; they were half clenched, only a swift reflex from becoming fists. What was he ready to fight? Julia wondered.

  He stirred, opened his eyes.

  Julia brought the Vogue up. A stockbroker, a marketing or publishing person or something of that sort, she thought. Married to his college sweetheart and wishing they hadn’t had so many kids so soon. Such was life. And hardly a moment to consider what it was until there weren’t many moments left. Distractions, including the unpleasant ones, were a blessing while they lasted. Fortunate were those who could make them last all the way from oblivion to oblivion.

  She placed Vogue back on the table, decided not to look into the edition of People that was there. Glanced across at the man, and because his attention happened to be upon her, she smiled. A mere acknowledging smile. He responded with a smile, more of a smile than hers. She liked his smile, so she couldn’t take too much of it, looked aside, not really seeing the fox-hunting print on the wall, looked down at the Persian area rug on the walnut-stained hardwood floor, then at her watch, which told her it was already ten minutes past her ten o’clock appointment. And the man over there might be scheduled ahead of her. She had things she needed to accomplish, mainly the painting she’d promised the gallery, a commission from her last show. She’d gotten up at dawn and done some work on it in order to be able to finish it on time. Anyway, she didn’t want to spend a good part of this day of all days in this legal box.

  She asked the man, “Are you waiting for Mister Browderbank?”

  “No,” he replied, “Mister McGuin.” McGuin was the other half of this law firm.

  “Is he running late?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Seems to be the nature of the beast.”

  A resigned shrug by the man.

  A concurring sigh from Julia.

  Silence entered the exchange. Julia recrossed her legs. Her hose caused a frictional sound, much like a sizzle. She was arranging the skirt of her dress when the pearls happened.

  For no apparent reason, the thread between the sixth and seventh pearls down from the clasp of Julia’s twenty-eight-inch-length necklace chose that instant to give way. A surprised oops from Julia as, like some living thing, the necklace slid down her front and out of her lap. Proper knots prevented some of the pearls from coming loose, however a great many rolled free, scattered individually in every direction, as though delighted with the prospect of escape.

  Julia began retrieving them.

  The man helped.

  At first they bent over and picked up from the surface of the Persian rug those most obvious. Next they were down on their hands and knees, searching and finding the creamy white spheres. The more evasive ones had rolled all the way to the baseboard and to corners. Some necessitated reaching way in under the couch.

  “I didn’t realize they were so small,” Julia commented as she found one of four millimeter size trying to be overlooked behind the back leg of a chair. She deposited it into the man’s cupped hand. For some reason Julia now felt the necklace was safer with him.

  “Do you think we’ve found them all?” she asked.

  “Probably not, but nearly. When did you last have them restrung?” he asked.

  “I never have,” she replied. “Oh, how embarrassing!”

  “Happens to people all the time.”

  “Really?” Nervous laugh. “How do you know that?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Do you go around helping people pick up their pearls?” she asked lightly. “Is that what you do?”

  He was examining the pearls, tossing them respectfully back and forth from hand to hand, causing clicks, holding up those that had remained stranded. “Hair spray, perfume and such gets to the thread and eventually rots it. Pearls should be cared for and restrung twice a year, anyway at least once.” He continued to look at them, saw they were only fair quality but nice enough. Four to eight millimeter graduated. Twelve hundred retail. “These weren’t properly strung to begin with,” he told Julia.

  “They should have been,” she said. She’d bought the necklace from a New York jeweler, on Fifth Avenue at that.

  “There weren’t proper knots between each pearl,” the man explained. He seemed about to hand the pearls over to her when, as though on second thought, he said, “I could have these restrung right for you. On silk.”

  “Don’t bother.”

  “No bother, really.” He gave her a business card.

  She saw that the Harold Havermeyer Company and its address and telephone number had been neatly crossed out but not Precious Gems and Grady Bowman. A telephone number was hand-printed near the name. “My new ones are being printed,” he told her and read her ambivalence. “No need to worry. I won’t make off with your pearls.” He smiled her an even better smile. “If you want I’ll write you a receipt f
or them.”

  “That won’t be necessary.”

  “Okay then, I’ll have them for you within a week. How can I get in touch with you?”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  At half past noon that day Julia arrived home from attorney Browderbank.

  Found that two birds, common sparrows, had gotten into her studio by way of a broken pane of the skylight. The week before some boys and perhaps a girl or two higher up on Potrero Hill hadn’t been able to resist that expanse of panes and had flung some heavy hexagonal-headed bolts at it. Evidently it was mischief they’d needed to get out of their systems as they hadn’t been throwing since. Julia, instead of driving up and complaining to parents and all that, had decided what the hell, let them have this fling.

  But now the sparrows. Were they lovers come in searching for a softer more private place to nest? Or a couple of buddies on an expedition for better quality crumbs? Well, they had regrets now. Way up there, two stories up, out of help’s reach, panicking, beating hysterically against one pane and then the next, fooled by the clarity, believing what looked to be sky was sky.

  The sparrows had Maxx crazed. Julia’s Russian Blue cat. He was up on the tallest possible thing, which happened to be the top of a seven-foot-high metal storage cabinet. Up there despising his futility but keeping his eyes so fixed on the birds he seemed to be trying to will them into the fatal error of giving up their twelve feet of protective altitude.