People Like Us

by Dominick Dunne

  “I have some news for you, Mother,” she said, finally.

  Lil realized that Justine was not interested in hearing about her trip. She rang her silver bell. “Parker,” she said, when her butler appeared.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Will you tell Gertie that the vinaigrette has too much oil?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “But the asparagus is delicious. Perfection, tell her.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “My dear,” she said, when the butler had disappeared, “the Todescos’ chef could make a vinaigrette sauce like you never tasted before. Something about egg whites, I think.”

  “Oh, Mother, so what?” said Justine, impatiently, bursting to tell her news.

  Lil looked at her daughter with surprise.

  “You’ve changed,” she said.

  “You haven’t,” replied Justine, meeting her eye. She remembered that Hubie used to sing, “It seems to me I’ve heard this song before,” when their mother went on and on about the same things year after year.

  Lil thought about making a retort to her daughter’s rudeness, or what appeared to her to be rudeness, but decided to let it pass. “Do you know that your Uncle Laurance, even in the hospital, even with his stroke, is thinking about his family? Do you know what he said to me today? ‘Get out of the market,’ he said. As they were wheeling him to the stroke center for his therapy, he said, ‘Get out of the market.’ ”

  Justine nodded. “Young Laurance called me about that today,” she said.

  “Do what he tells you. Your Uncle Laurance always knows. Have you been to the hospital to see him?” asked Lil.

  “I sent a note, and flowers,” said Justine. “And I stopped by the apartment to see Aunt Janet.”

  “Janet’s fallen apart completely,” said Lil, who was proud of her reputation in the family for holding steadfast in crises. People still remarked about how bravely she had dealt with Hubie’s death.

  “Herkie Saybrook said that young Laurance said that Uncle Laurance didn’t really want to see anyone until he moves a bit better. Bad for the business or something if everyone knows his mouth is on the side of his face and his left hand just hangs there,” said Justine.

  “Still, you should have gone. You’re not just anyone. You are his niece, after all.”

  “I will, when he can move better,” replied Justine.

  “In no time, he’ll be as good as new. The Harcourt Stroke Center at the hospital is the best in New York, and I’m proud to say that I personally am responsible for raising a million dollars for it at the annual spring dance at the Rhinelander.”

  Parker cleared away the asparagus plates and reappeared with plates for the main course.

  Lil placed her hand on her plate to see if it had been properly warmed.

  “Herkie said—”

  “Herkie, Herkie, Herkie. How many times are you going to tell me what Herkie Saybrook said?” Lil had still not forgiven Herkie Saybrook for writing Hubie’s will. “The sole looks marvelous, Parker. Tell Gertie perfection.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Herkie’s on the board of the hospice, and I see him at the meetings, and we talk.”

  Lil shook her head impatiently. The hospice. The Hubert Altemus, Jr., Hospice. She could not bear that her son’s name was connected to it. She believed that the money should have been contributed anonymously, if it had to be contributed. She could not bear also that her daughter worked there with such passion.

  “How long are you going to continue working there? Hasn’t this Nurse Edith Cavell performance gone on long enough?”

  Justine stared at her mother. “As long as they need me,” she answered, evenly.

  “What about your child?”

  “My child, as you call him, has a name, Mother. He’s called Hubie, after my brother, or your son. He’s a year old and you’ve never called him by name once that I can recall. ‘Your baby,’ you say, or ‘your child.’ Never Hubie.”

  “That’s not a very attractive tone of voice, Justine.”

  Justine did not reply.

  “How is, uh, little Hubie?” Lil asked. The name pained her.

  “He walks. He talks. Most grandmothers would be ecstatic to have such a divine creature, but, then, you’re not most grandmothers,” said Justine.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Oh, Mother, let’s not fight. You’re just back. Uncle Laurance is sick. I’m being cranky. And I have something important to tell you.

  “You’re not getting married again, are you?” she asked, excitedly. “If you want to make your old mother happy, that’s what she wants to hear.”

  Justine shook her head. “No, I’m not getting married.”

  “Are you in love then? Oh, how marvelous, Justine. You have been holding out on me.”

  Justine shrugged. “I have what’s called the occasional suitor. Herkie Saybrook takes me out to dinner, and would take me out more if I gave him a bit of encouragement, and there’s a doctor I met at the hospital who’s attractive, and I see him from time to time, but I’m not planning to get married, at least not right now. If it happens, it happens, but it’s not my priority. I like the work I do at the hospital, and I’m good at it, and the patients like me and ask for me, and it has given me a great deal of satisfaction. And, Mother, I’ve been asked to be the executive head of the hospice.”

  “Is that what your news was?”

  “Yes, Mother, that’s what it was. I know it’s not in the same league of importance as the Todescos’ chef’s recipe for vinaigrette sauce, or the length of Loelia’s skirts.”

  “Please don’t be sarcastic, Justine. If that’s important to you, then it’s very nice, but I would like to point out to you that all the Van Degan women have always felt a responsibility to the city of New York.”

  “Yes, that’s what I feel, Mother.”

  “I’m not finished, Justine. I think that perhaps where you can be of greater service to the city is if you come on the board of the Van Degan Foundation. I’ll talk to Uncle Laurance tomorrow when I go to the hospital.”

  “I don’t want to be on the board of the Van Degan Foundation, Mother, and I am very much aware that the Van Degan Foundation does many good things for the city, but I have found something in my life that is really important to me.”

  “Hmm,” said Lil.

  “Mother, all my life I’ve been identified as Laurance Van Degan’s niece, or Mrs. Van Degan Altemus’s daughter, or, worse, the Van Degan heiress, as Dolly De Longpre always calls me in her column. Now I’m Justine Altemus, all by myself, without even the terrible word socialite in front of it, because no one knows I’m Uncle Laurance’s niece, or if they know, it’s not any more important to them than it is to me.”

  “I think we’ll have coffee in the library, Parker,” said Lil. “And bring some cookies for those naughty doggies, will you? And tell Gertie the eggplant soufflé was yummy.”

  For a moment after Lil sat in her regular seat in the library, Justine thought her mother was going to cry. Then she lifted her face and looked at her daughter. “Why don’t they call it the Juanito whateverhisnamewas Hospice, rather than the Hubert Altemus, Junior, Hospice?” asked Lil.

  “Good-bye, Mother,” said Justine. “I’m going home to my baby.”

  “You’re not staying for coffee?”

  “No, I’m not staying for coffee.”

  Justine rose and walked out of the room and out of the apartment.

  54

  The previous day the stock market had fallen five hundred and eight points, exactly as Elias Renthal had told Ruby, and Max Luby, and Laurance Van Degan it was going to do, and exactly as Laurance Van Degan had told his sister, Lil Altemus, it was going to do, and a mild hysteria swept the lunch crowd at Clarence’s where all the familiar faces were occupying all the best tables, and people were waiting three deep at the bar for the familiar faces to finish their chicken paillard and decaffeinated cappuccino and leave, but
no one wanted to leave that day.

  “How come Elias Renthal called Laurance Van Degan from prison with a tip to get out of the stock market?” asked Constantine de Rham. Everyone knew that Laurance Van Degan had felt that his sterling reputation had been tarnished in both the business and social community by his endorsement of Elias Renthal, especially at the Butterfield, and had publicly turned his back on Elias Renthal during the months of his disgrace.

  “Listen, Constantine, Elias Renthal is first and foremost a businessman, and he probably wants to keep a finger in the pot. He’ll be getting out of prison in a year or two,” said Lord Biedermeier. He removed his pincenez and cleaned the lenses with a napkin, so that he could survey the crowd at Clarence’s. He noticed that despite the economic hardships that might be coming on the nation, the restaurant was filled to capacity. He noticed also that, because of his luncheon companion, Constantine de Rham, people who might ordinarily wave hellos to him, like Lil Altemus, chose not to cast their eyes in his direction.

  “I thought he couldn’t trade anymore. I thought he was barred for life,” insisted Constantine, who enjoyed other people’s ill fortune.

  “You’re right, he can’t trade, and he is barred for life, but that’s not to say he can’t get someone else to trade for him. Max Luby, for instance. Max trades; Elias calls the shots.”

  “He won’t be giving any more society balls,” said Constantine, with grim satisfaction.

  “No, he won’t be giving any more society balls, and he won’t ever get inside the front door of the Butterfield again, even as a lunch guest, but when he makes a new fortune, and he will, people will start seeing him again. Even Laurance Van Degan. They’ll have lunch, at some obscure place, and pretty soon everyone will have forgotten. It’s the way of the world.”

  Constantine wondered but did not say that no one had ever taken him up again. It was as if Lord Biedermeier read his thoughts. “Even you, Constantine. People will see you again. Write a book.”

  “About what?” asked de Rham.

  “Playboys, my dear Constantine, are very fashionable this year. There is an enormous interest in Ali Khan and Rubirosa, and you are their heir. Look at the Monaco Princesses. The public can’t get enough of them. That is why I thought that you perhaps would want to talk about the accident in Paris when that beautiful young girl lost her head. And all the rumors that have plagued your life,” said Lord Biedermeier.

  “But those rumors were utterly false,” said Constantine, indignantly.

  “It doesn’t matter,” replied Lord Biedermeier.

  “They were never proved.”

  “It doesn’t matter. People who haven’t spoken to you in years will be all too glad to have you to dinner again if you have a hit book. All this happened years ago when you were very young. You didn’t understand what you were getting into. Think about it. The public loves reformation.”

  “But I don’t know how to write,” said Constantine.

  “The least of our worries. If you could read the marvelous manuscript Elias Renthal has just handed in about life in prison, and he didn’t have to write a word of it. I simply sent an author to visit him once a week in Allenwood, and they talked and talked. It will guarantee him acceptance when he gets out of prison.”

  “Hmm,” said Constantine.

  Ruby Renthal was the first to say that only her dentist or her gynecologist could entice her to make the trip to town, for semiannual checkups, and it was the former who brought her to the city on the same day that Gus Bailey returned to New York. They met in the waiting room of Dr. Chase’s office.

  “Gus, my God!” said Ruby, surprised when Gus walked in.

  “Hello, Ruby,” replied Gus, as surprised as she. For an instant they looked at each other. When she held out her hand, he took it and leaned to kiss her on the cheek.

  “I didn’t know you were out.”

  “Just. The courts don’t take your first shooting seriously these days,” he said.

  “Oh, Gus, don’t joke.”

  “I’m not joking. It’s the truth. I got less time than Elias.”

  “I wrote to you,” she said.

  “I know.”

  “You didn’t answer.”

  “I thought I’d brought you enough notoriety already.”

  “Gus, for God’s sake, you saved my life.”

  “I didn’t really. You had a gun.”

  “Let me tell you something about that famous gun, Gus, and I don’t mean that it used to belong to Queen Marie of Rumania. I always carried it because Elias wanted me to carry it, but what Elias never knew was that it was never loaded. I couldn’t bear the idea of carrying a loaded gun.”

  Gus looked around him in the waiting room, aware that other patients were looking at them.

  “Have you already been to the doctor, or are you going?” he asked.

  “What do you have in mind?” she answered.

  “A little lunch maybe?”

  “You’ve got me.”

  “Let’s get out of here.”

  Without a moment’s hesitation, Ruby called into the receptionist’s office and said, “Tell Dr. Chase I’ll call back for another appointment.”

  “But he’s ready for you, Mrs. Renthal,” said the receptionist. “Mrs. Lord is just leaving.”

  “I’ll call back,” she repeated, taking her mink coat off the coat rack and following Gus out the door.

  In the elevator, she said to him, “I watched you on television.”

  “A ghastly kind of fame, isn’t it?”

  “At least he didn’t die.”

  Gus nodded. “Do you know what I think, Ruby?”

  “What?”

  “I think at that last second when my eyes met his, that Becky, from wherever she is, pushed my arm just enough to the side so I didn’t kill him.”

  “Looking after her father, you mean?”

  “Right, that wasn’t the way. I realized it as I was pulling the trigger.”

  “You’re not sorry it turned out this way, are you?”

  “Not anymore. I was obsessed for three years with that man. Nothing mattered but that I kill him. That was all I could think of. That obsession has lifted, thank God.”

  “How much time did you serve?”

  “I got a year. I served nine months.”

  “Do people talk to you?”

  “I don’t know. You’re the first person I’ve seen. But I don’t care if they don’t. It’s time for another beginning.”

  “Good for you, Gus. I’m a great believer in new beginnings.”

  They looked at each other.

  “Do you see Elias?”

  “Oh, sure. I go to visit.”

  “Do you see the old crowd?”

  “Heavens, no.”

  They laughed.

  “How about Clarence’s for lunch?”

  They laughed again. “Perfect.”

  “Laurance knew all this was going to happen,” said Lil, who was lunching at the window table with her friends Matilda Clarke and Cora Mandell and Ezzie Fenwick, who had just told them about the fight over money at the Bulbenkians’ house the night before. “Laurance has been saying for some time that the market was at an unsustainable high level.” Lil Altemus quoted her brother more than any person in her life. She spoke with the ease of someone whose fortune would remain intact throughout any financial crisis. “Laurance got out of the market a week ago, and, of course, I did too, and so did Justine.”

  Ezzie, who had lost money, at least on paper, was testy that day and spoke of canceling a trip to Egypt that he had planned. When Michael, everyone’s favorite waiter at Clarence’s, placed his plate in front of him, Ezzie lifted his dark glasses and examined the plate with his good eye, which was not the eye that looked like a poached egg.

  “I want tartar sauce with my crab cakes,” said Ezzie, loudly. “That’s not tartar sauce. That’s mayonnaise.”

  “We’re out of tartar sauce,” replied Michael, with the courtesy and tact with w
hich he was known to deal with difficult customers.

  “Out of tartar sauce? How can you be out of tartar sauce?” asked Ezzie, raising his eyebrows in assumed exasperation.

  “We are,” said Michael.

  “Then tell the chef to make some more, or send to the market and buy some more,” ordered Ezzie.

  “Yes, sir,” said Michael, retreating to report to Chick Jacoby the latest incident from the quarrelsome Ezzie Fenwick.

  “Never let them have the last word,” said Ezzie, as if giving his friends a lesson in deportment, before resuming his account of the Bulbenkians’ fight, which Lil had interrupted.

  It was then that the reclusive Ruby Renthal, so long out of sight, and the just-released-from-prison Gus Bailey walked into Clarence’s, without a reservation. “My dears, you will not believe who just walked into this restaurant,” said Ezzie, all good humored again. Ezzie’s companions, and everyone else in the front part of the restaurant, where all the good people, as Ezzie called them, sat, turned to look at the curious duet who stood quietly just inside the door waiting for Chick Jacoby to hurry forward to greet them.

  “You watch,” said Ezzie, in his nasal voice. “Chick will move Lord Biedermeier and Constantine de Rham over to his own table, as if he’s giving them a big treat, and put Ruby and the jailbird there.”

  Of the three women with Ezzie, only old Cora Mandell, who had decorated the spectacular Renthal apartment, waved a greeting. Ruby smiled back but made no attempt to speak to the others, as she sat at the table just vacated by Lord Biedermeier and Constantine de Rham.

  “Talk to me, Gus,” Ruby said.

  “About prison?”

  “Make any friends there?”

  “I wrote a book there.”

  “Ezzie Fenwick always said you were going to write a book.”

  “For once he was right.”

  At that moment Matilda Clarke appeared at their table.

  “Gus Bailey!” she said.

  “Hello, Matilda,” said Gus, rising.