by Rae Lawrence
“I know what I want,” Jenn said.
“Well, what are you waiting for? Why let all these other girls get the jump on you?”
“It’s more complicated than that.”
“You’re just afraid, that’s all. Afraid of doing something your parents don’t approve of. Because nice girls want everyone to approve of them all the time, and you’re a nice girl. Your mother’s daughter.”
“I’m not so nice.”
“Really.”
“I don’t know.”
“It’s okay. Nice girls have nice lives. They have nice marriages to nice men and go to nice jobs, come home to nice apartments to take care of their nice children. They just don’t get very far, that’s all.”
“My mother was a model, she was a big model, and she wasn’t even all that young, and—”
“I’m sure she told you a pretty story. But I was there. Some dried-up geezer wanted to get into her pants, and he happened to own Gillian Cosmetics, you can connect the dots from there. That’s how the world works.”
“I’m only fifteen.”
“Darling, when I was fifteen I knew exactly what I wanted and exactly what I had to do to get it. And here I am. I’m the best actress in the world, and that’s official.” The Oscars were sitting on their rented mantelpiece. Lyon had tried to talk her out of bringing them to East Hampton (“It just isn’t done,” he’d pleaded), but Neely had insisted. What was the point of winning if you couldn’t show it off?
“Maybe my mother would let me do a little catalog work. Or something like Seventeen.”
“Seventeen is for kids. That’s your big dream, to be in Seventeen?”
Jenn shrugged.
“You think I went to New York thinking, Hey, maybe I can get a job singing jingles, maybe I can get into a chorus line, wouldn’t it be fun to be someone’s understudy? No, ma’am. I went there thinking, I’m gonna be the biggest star Broadway has ever seen, I’m gonna do whatever it takes to get to the top. So I had to take a bunch of shitty jobs on the way up, but when I got home at night and turned off the lights, you know what I was thinking of? That little gold statue. You know how many times I rehearsed it in my head? What I would wear, what I would say. Only about eight zillion times. That’s what it takes.”
“I think about it too,” Jenn said. Her fantasy was the cover of Vogue, and she had imagined it down to the smallest details: her makeup (smoky eyeshadow, sheer plum lipstick), her clothing (just the straps of a satin evening gown peeking up from the bottom of the photograph), even the color of the type (red, a rich classic red).
“The only thing stopping you is you,” Neely said.
“First I have to get an agent,” said Jenn.
“I can help you,” said Neely. “If it’s really what you want.”
“You would help me?”
“Of course. What are stepmothers for?”
1994.
It was a piece of amateur videotape that people would remember forever, it had run so often: Neely O’Hara fleeing the house in Santa Monica, the flames just a few feet behind her, her red hair falling in disarray, her right cheek smudged with ash, her green satin dressing gown flying open in the hot wind, the handsome fireman reaching out for her elbow, an Oscar clutched in each sooty fist.
Anne was in the editing room, working on a piece about insurance fraud and natural disasters. It was an unseasonably warm Saturday in February, the kind of day that fools you into thinking spring is just around the corner, and the rest of the city had taken to the streets and the parks, giddy in the thin sunlight.
“Just another half hour and we’ll have it,” the film editor said. “Promised I’d be home by four.” He ran the tape again. “They never get sick of seeing this one. Must drive Neely O’Hara crazy.”
“Oh, but she loves it,” Anne said. “She looks great, and that’s all she cares about.”
“But she’s covered in schmutz!” the editor said.
“It’s sexy schmutz,” said Anne. Neely thought she looked glamorously tragic, like a young Italian actress in a film about war-torn Italy. The tight sash of her robe showed off her slender waist. When the robe fell slightly open, an inch of her best cleavage-boosting bra was revealed. Her legs were trim, and the glow of the flames had cast perfect lighting on her lifted profile. “It’s her best angle,” Anne said. “That’s all she cares about.”
They finished up twenty minutes later. Anne left her heavy winter coat behind and headed out in leggings, a thick off-white fisherman’s sweater, and a pink cashmere muffler. She ducked into Saks to check out the shoes on sale. She was making good money now, excellent money, but it was mostly going into savings, and she rarely bought clothing at full price. Who knew how long this job would last? She bought two pairs of Italian loafers, then headed to the men’s department to pick up a tie for Bill. He had offered to come down for the weekend, but she’d told him she’d be too busy working. Now she felt slightly guilty—it was going to be a gorgeous weekend, and with Jenn in Miami on a shoot, she had it all to herself.
The ties were fanned out on a mahogany table: pale yellow, olive green, soft pink, a hundred different blues. She held up one with a pattern of gold buckles on a red background. Very Connecticut. Very banker. Very Bill.
“Why can’t a man find a decent paisley tie anymore,” came the English accent to her left.
“Lyon,” she said. “Hello. I didn’t know you were in the city.”
“On my way back from London. I’m staying at the Stanhope for a couple of days.” He looked at the red tie. “He’ll love it.”
“I’m not sure,” she said, putting it back. She ran a hand through her hair. “Beautiful weather.”
“Beautiful weather.”
“Glorious. As Jenn would say. Well, I’m off.”
“Let me walk you.”
They passed St. Patrick’s Cathedral. A crowd had gathered to watch wedding pictures being taken on the wide steps. The bride had lifted her full silk skirt to reveal red stockings underneath.
“What would the cardinal say,” Lyon said.
“Times sure have changed.” She couldn’t remember the last time they had had a conversation that went on for more than a few sentences that wasn’t about money, or Jenn, or airline schedules. He looked thinner than she remembered, with more gray at his temples. There were new leather buttons on his green loden coat, the same coat he’d worn when they’d brought Jenn home from the hospital.
“Let me buy you a drink,” he said. “We can talk about, I don’t know, what can we talk about.”
She laughed. “There must be something.”
“Your fabulous career. Your impending nuptials.”
“Why not,” she said. Bill had pointed out how tense she got when she was on the telephone with Lyon. He had made peace with Camille, thought it proved that they had both gotten past the bad marriage, and wondered why Anne couldn’t do the same. It was just five o’clock: one drink and she’d be home by a respectably early seven. She could call Bill and maybe he’d even still find a way to get down to the city. “Someplace close by,” she said.
He took her to the Lancer Bar, one of the few places in midtown that wasn’t filled with tourists.
“They’re everywhere,” Lyon said. He and Anne were seated at a banquette in the back. “They’re taking over.”
“It’s great for the economy,” Anne said.
“I feel like the New York I fell in love with is disappearing. The city is turning into something else, and I don’t like it very much.”
“Oh, New York is still here. You just have to look a little harder,” said Anne.
They spent the first half hour talking about Jenn. The modeling was going well; Gloss magazine was running a small picture next month, and the photographers enjoyed working with her. They had worked out a tutoring arrangement for the missed days of school. The other students often traveled—many of them were the daughters of diplomats or people in government—and Anne was assured that if Jenn kept up w
ith her assignments, she would be graduated with the rest of her class.
“I still don’t understand why she can’t just be Jennifer Burke,” Lyon said. “It’s a perfectly good name.” Lyon liked to make one or two disapproving comments about Jenn’s modeling work. He was determined that Anne never find out about Neely’s help.
“I guess there are too many Jennifers,” Anne said. “Anyway, you should be flattered.” Jenn had taken the name of Lyon’s Spanish grandmother: Consuelo. It was exotic and elegant, with a whiff of old money.
“So it’s going well, with Bill.”
“It is,” said Anne. Her sapphire flashed in the light.
“Set a date?”
“Not yet,” Anne said. “I’m working like a dog, there isn’t a moment to think about a wedding. And Bill wants the whole nine yards: the parties, the church, the reception. Maybe next summer.” Anne and Lyon had gotten married at City Hall, with just two witnesses.
“I should meet him,” Lyon said.
“At some point.”
“He’s a good man.”
“He is.”
“And you’re happy.”
“I am.”
The waiter brought another round of drinks.
“It’s so different, this time,” she said. “I know what I want.”
“Well, we should all get together. You and Bill and Neely and me. For a nice civilized dinner.”
“Sure,” she said, hoping it would never happen.
“You’re not serious,” he said. “I can’t imagine a more frightening evening.”
She laughed. “Me either. This,” she said, waving a hand across the table, “this is about all I can handle.”
“I keep hearing about these people who get divorced and then become friends.”
“We can’t ever be friends, Lyon.”
“Thank God. Let’s toast. To never being friends.”
“Never,” she said, smiling. “So, and how is it with Neely? Never mind, I can’t believe I asked.”
“No, it’s all right. I mean, it’s all right to ask. And it’s all right with Neely, too. It’s a, it’s the right kind of marriage for me.”
“Oooh, what does that mean?”
“It’s taken me a long time to realize this, and I hope it doesn’t come out wrong. But sometimes it’s simpler to be married to someone who expects less of you.”
“That doesn’t sound like Neely.”
“Oh, believe me, there are days when I think she’s the most demanding person on earth, and she is that, but the things she wants—she knows exactly what she wants, and the things she wants are luckily the things I know how to give.”
“I can’t believe you’re saying that! It sounds like therapy talk.”
“Dreadful, isn’t it. Well, I’ve been in California enough years, I’m picking up their lingo.”
“I didn’t mean to make fun. I understand,” she said.
“I know what I am. Far from perfect. Neely takes me as I am.”
Anne realized the waiter had at some point brought Lyon his third Scotch and that Lyon was already halfway finished with it. She felt their conversation was slightly disloyal, but what she couldn’t figure out was, disloyal to whom? To Bill, who liked to tease Anne by referring to Lyon as “the third Mr. Neely O’Hara”? To Neely, who wouldn’t be amused by the thought of Anne and Lyon having a quiet drink in this dark old bar? But Anne didn’t owe Neely anything anymore. Anne was living by some code—a code of how women were supposed to treat each other, not because they were friends, but just because they were women and those were the rules—and it was a code that Neely herself had never observed.
Anne leaned back. “So, are you being a good boy?”
“What does that mean?”
“You know what it means.”
“As good as I can be,” he said.
She laughed. “And I know what that means.”
“I have little slips,” he said. “Nothing that matters, nothing that really means anything, nothing that ever goes beyond a night or two.”
“And she knows?”
“On some level she must. But it doesn’t come up. Don’t ask, don’t tell. I’m thoroughly discreet. As is she. Don’t make a face. I have to guess that Neely has her little adventures, too.”
“And it doesn’t bother you?”
“We’re people, Anne. It’s human. Monogamy is relative. If Neely’s on the set for three weeks … well, we both know what that’s like. I’m not going to sit around worrying about her. If she has a little fling, it’s just that, a little fling. Our marriage is working, that’s what counts.”
Anne was shocked but also pleased: satisfied to discover that what she had been unable to do—keep Lyon faithful—was possibly something that no woman on earth was capable of.
“Everyone is made differently, I guess,” she said. “I’m sure of Bill.”
“Good, that’s good,” Lyon said. “You deserve a man like that.”
Outside, it had just grown dark. They walked up Lexington, past the crush of shoppers outside Bloomingdale’s. Anne felt the whiskey now. Her legs felt loose as they pushed through the crowd. The scent of roasted chestnuts seemed like pure happiness. New York when slightly drunk: there was nothing finer.
“Ah, Gino’s,” Lyon said as they passed their old haunt.
“It never changes,” Anne said. “The zebras are still there.”
They turned right on a side street. “I always wanted to live in one of these brownstones,” Lyon said.
“I remember.”
“I love the idea of a house that’s only twelve feet wide. Look,” he said. They stopped in front of a house with a red wood door. No one was home. “It’s perfect.”
“New York is full of beautiful houses,” Anne said.
“And beautiful women,” Lyon said. He took her by the elbow.
He was going to kiss her. It seemed like the most natural thing in the world. She lifted her chin and closed her eyes, waiting, curious. His hands in her hair, on the small of her back; the familiar press of his mouth; the scent of his cologne; the smooth wool of his old coat: her husband. How many times had they stood on a street just like this one, kissing. Anne remembered Lyon once saying the great cities of the world were the ones where people kissed on the streets.
She kissed him back, waiting for the feeling, the old feeling of her insides flipping over, like bedclothes tossing in the drum of a hot dryer. But nothing. Everything was exactly the same: his tongue, his teeth, his hands. But nothing.
She pulled away. “I have to go.”
He started to speak, and she laid a gloved hand across his mouth. “I’m fine from here, it’s just a few blocks.” She turned away and began the walk home, her first few steps almost a run. She wondered, if she turned back, would he still be standing there, looking at her, waiting for her to return? Or would he already have gone?
“Goodbye, goodbye,” she whispered as she crossed Third Avenue. The answering-machine light was blinking, but she didn’t check her messages. She put on an old Joni Mitchell tape and lay on the sofa with the lights turned off. Smooching, she thought, there’s a word no one uses anymore.
She knew, at last, all the way down in her bones, that she was finally over him. It was the most deliriously happy feeling in the world. She took off her boots and danced around the living room, waving her arms to the swooping melody.
But what if it wasn’t Lyon, what if it was her? What if no man could ever make her feel that way again? What if that part of her life was over? She looked out the window. In front of the corner fruit stand, a couple was kissing. They kissed and kissed and then made a run for the crosstown bus. Passion, Anne thought. What if I never feel passion again. The light turned green and the bus pulled away. The next song was slower, and in a minor key, filled with high notes that the singer hadn’t been able to hit for years. How awful it must be, Anne thought, to have once had a voice like that, to hear your young self constantly on the radio, and know you would
never be able to sing that way again.
Anne had read that the singer didn’t care. She smoked cigarettes and painted and did other things. Anne rewound the tape and listened again from the beginning. Better to forget, she thought, twisting her ring, better to forget.
Con-sway-low,” Caitlin said, her midwestern accent fattening the vowels. “What kind of name is that?”
“Should we call you Connie?” said Megan. “I have an aunt named Connie. She collects cookie jars.”
“Consuelo,” Jenn said. “It was my great-grandmother’s name. She was from Spain.”
The three girls were in Miami Beach for a week-long catalog shoot. They had each brought a suitcase filled with almost identical items: a stack of white T-shirts, well-worn 501s, Great Lash in pink tubes, M.A.C. lipstick in Twig and Mocha. Their two-bedroom apartment was just four blocks from the ocean, but except for shoots they almost never went to the beach. There were three twin beds in the larger bedroom: one for Jenn, one for Caitlin, and one for Megan.
“Consuelo,” Caitlin said again, her pronunciation improving. “I think it’s pretty.” She took out a framed photograph and set it on her narrow Formica-topped dresser. “My soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend. Isn’t he a hottie?”
“Why ex?” Jenn asked.
“Because I’m never going back!” she replied. Caitlin was seventeen, fresh from Ohio, where she had been discovered in a shoppingmall modeling contest. “Do you have a boyfriend in New York?”
“Not really,” Jenn said.
“What does that mean?”
“I guess it means no.”
“I have, like, two boyfriends,” Megan said. “My official boyfriend and my secret boyfriend.”
Caitlin bounced on her bed. “Tell, tell, tell.”
“The official boyfriend is the one my parents know about. He goes to my high school and is very … I don’t know, like …”
