The Little Clan

by Iris Martin Cohen

  Stephanie’s eyes got hard and there was a sudden flash, and Ava sensed an unspoken threat, and it scared her and she wanted to reach for Stephanie, but an overpowering feeling of helplessness prevented her. Of course Stephanie could always leave again. She could leave at any time, and life would rush up to greet her and carry her away to new adventures, new people, new best friends. She would probably never even remember the woman she left behind, alone and forgotten, stuck in a dusty library for the rest of Ava’s life. The terrible weight of her dependency pressed in on her, and she trembled, hoping that Stephanie might somehow not notice.

  But Stephanie noticed everything, and she clamped her purse shut and came to sit next to Ava, wrapping an arm around her shoulder. “We’re a team, Ava. We have been ever since that day I made you go to that first party in college and you didn’t want to and I dressed you up and you got so wasted you danced all night.”

  “You went home with that soccer player, and I threw up all over the guy you tried to set me up with.”

  “Sure, whatever, but the point is, you had fun. Look, you’re going to be a writer, a famous writer one day, but you have to live a little first. This is how you’re going to get from point A to point B. You just have to trust me.”

  Ava was trying not to burrow into the warmth of Stephanie’s armpit, as if she could absorb strength and consolation through the slight pressure of her friend’s bony ribs. “What are we going to tell them? We don’t have any money to renovate with.”

  “We’ll think of something. If you smile hard enough, no one pays attention to what you’re saying anyway.”

  This didn’t sound likely, but Ava didn’t want to break the moment by arguing. “I finished our proposal.” She pointed to her paintings, a little sad when Stephanie hopped off the chaise to examine them.

  She looked at them for a long time while Ava nervously ate another Oreo. Finally, Stephanie rubbed the bridge of her nose and sighed. “Ava, those look insane. We’re trying to be professional.”

  “I am being professional. I thought we wanted things to look old-fashioned.”

  The buzz of a BlackBerry interrupted them. “Hold on, I have to take this.” Stephanie held up a finger and faced the wall as if this afforded any privacy in Ava’s tiny studio. “Yes, love, I know, but if we can’t get on the guest list by five, it’s just not worth it.”

  Ava fed Mycroft the cream of her cookie, finding comfort in his eagerness.

  “I know, but she owes me everything. I introduced her to him. Call her again and then call me back.” Stephanie hung up. “God, sometimes it feels like I just have to do everything.”

  The BlackBerry buzzed again, and she started tapping in response, jamming her thumbs against the buttons with an aggrieved quickness.

  In the sudden withdrawal of attention, Ava felt a chill again. Where exactly had Stephanie picked up so many other friends?

  “I’m already killing myself trying to get us some money,” Stephanie mumbled as she typed. “You’re no help with that. Are you sure you can’t just ask your mom again? She did bail you out that one time.”

  Soon after moving to New York there had been an incident with a rented U-Haul, and what the cop had called “reckless driving” when Ava, Stephanie in the passenger seat, had somehow hit one hundred miles an hour on a deserted FDR Drive. Ava’s mother had bailed her out of a holding cell that night and swore that she would never again support Ava’s vulgar and immoral lifestyle with that “unspeakable girl.”

  “She won’t do it.”

  “Fine.” The BlackBerry landed in Stephanie’s open purse with a thud. “So what are we going to do about these?” She returned to the drawings, picking each up, holding it out and tilting her head as if the view from a different angle might align it more closely with her desires. “Oh, well, I guess we don’t have a choice. Come on, get dressed. We’ve got to go knock some old ladies dead. I probably shouldn’t say that, just in case.”

  Still a little hurt, Ava put on a necklace and slipped a dress over her head. “Fine, but you’re overdoing it. You look like Pat Nixon.”

  “Well, your hem is coming out,” Stephanie replied, and Ava didn’t have an answer because it was, and she had been meaning to fix it for a while. As they waited in the hallway among the welter of cats, she consoled herself that her pearls were real, unlike Stephanie’s, but then felt guilty for the thought and so let Stephanie enter the elevator first.

  * * *

  The meeting was at the top of the club across from Aloysius’s office. He met them in the hallway with a whisper. “Important club business being discussed. You girls wait out here. I’ll come get you when it’s time.” Directed to two chairs in the hallway, they waited primly, trying to ignore the yelling coming through the wall. Stephanie squeezed her hand, and Ava was grateful. It felt so familiar, waiting just on the edge of something and wanting to sink through the floor, but held in place by Stephanie’s narrow hand. More shouting rumbled through the closed door. They looked anxiously toward Aloysius’s secretary, a plump redhead in bifocals who rolled her eyes from the open door of his office.

  Finally, Aloysius stuck his head out and waved them in. With one last squeeze, Stephanie led the way into a room filled with frowning old ladies. They took seats at a large shiny table, and after a brief introduction from Aloysius, Stephanie stood up to make their case. With the room’s attention directed elsewhere, Ava calmed her nerves enough to see that there were only eight old ladies present plus two old men, one of whom was asleep while the other leaned forward, alert and suspicious, his chin on his cane. Mrs. Van Doren smiled at her encouragingly and then continued turning the pages of a fashion magazine. The table was littered with sweating glasses of iced tea and cans of generic caffeine-free cola.

  As Stephanie started her pitch, which from repetition was getting pretty breezy, about private clubs being all the rage for the young and hip, the animosity in the room quietly began to build. This audience didn’t want to be lectured about the novel charm of exclusive clubs; they already saw themselves as the gatekeepers of these very values, tasked with defending their territory against invaders like Stephanie. She paused, and the board members began to pepper her with questions—Who would be employed by their club? How would Castor, the doorman, identify members? Who would be enforcing the dress code? What did they mean by “literary events”?

  Stephanie, feeling that they were missing the essential genius behind her plan, was beginning to get testy, so Ava jumped in. “When I found the Lazarus Club, not only was it the most beautiful place I had ever seen, but for the first time in my life, I felt like I truly belonged somewhere. This amazing place felt like home. I want to share that love.”

  “I recognize you.” A lady with a pair of glasses on her nose and another on her head spoke. “You’re that little girl that’s been hostessing in the dining room.”

  This was not true, but Ava smiled at her and pressed forward. “I’m just afraid that not enough people my age appreciate the Lazarus Club. I think so many would find it an honor to be in such an important place, architecturally, culturally, historically.”

  “Membership rolls, Arthur,” Aloysius said ominously toward one of the old men, who snorted disdainfully.

  “I like young people,” another woman chimed in. “My granddaughter always has such amusing hairstyles.”

  “Exactly. Don’t you think she would want to be involved? And since our idea is a literary club, with readings and famous authors, we would really be carrying on the Lazarus tradition of arts and letters while making sure to promote the club.”

  Stephanie was catching on. “I think the kind of publicity this would bring, the right kind of publicity, of course, could only help expand the next generation of Lazarus Club members. We want everyone to love this club as we, here in this room, already do.”

  “Why is the waitress going to start a literary club?” asked the f
irst woman in a loud whisper to her neighbor.

  “I actually work in the library, which is why this is so perfect.” Ava brought out her watercolors. “See all the improvements we plan to make?”

  Another old woman seemed to jolt out of sleep. “The lien for improvements was settled ages ago. The city has no grounds for any lawsuits. They want to bankrupt us. A pox on the building inspectors.”

  A quick shushing went around the table, and Aloysius scowled at her before loudly complimenting Ava’s drawings.

  A tiny old lady who had been silent thus far picked up one of the pictures. “Oh, this is lovely. Did you girls do this?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Ava smiled again with the immolating politeness she had learned at an early age.

  The woman passed it to her neighbor. “Margery, look at how nicely she handles the wash in this section of the background.”

  Margery nodded. “Very nice work indeed. Some of our members run a watercolor group every fifth Tuesday,” she explained to Ava, passing it to a third lady who also nodded gravely.

  Stephanie and Ava exchanged a quick, confused look, but the tenor of the room seemed to have changed. A few strained smiles lit up around the table.

  “Ava makes quite a good cup of Darjeeling,” Mrs. Van Doren said to the woman next to her.

  “Well, I’m willing to let them try it on a provisional basis,” a fourth woman observed, drumming peach-polished fingernails on a can of cola. “Running the literature committee has been exhausting. We had a reading here three years ago. It was quite successful,” she added defensively to no one in particular.

  “There’s nothing in the budget for this.” The old man who was awake sternly introduced himself as a Mr. Dearborn, the club treasurer. The smiles vanished, as the whole room waited for Ava and Stephanie’s response with such suspicion. Ava couldn’t help but think of the gray-haired citizenesses knitting at the foot of the guillotine.

  “Oh no, we would love to take all that work off your hands. This is really a passion for us. We just want to help the club.”

  “You won’t get a penny from us,” he repeated warningly.

  “We plan to be totally self-sustaining. By cultivating a select group of patrons, and maybe charging a nominal fee for some of our more popular events, our plan is to help support the club, especially by undertaking some of the desperately needed historical preservation in the rooms we’re talking about.”

  “Oh, that cursed landmarks commission,” a lady sighed. “In my day, what went on in your own home was your own business. That inspector almost tricked me the other day, saying he was from Zabar’s, but I figured it out and slammed the door in his face.”

  “Good girl.” Aloysius patted her bony hand.

  Mr. Dearborn folded his hands over his chest, the cuffs of his jacket extending over his knuckles. Ava thought his whole suit looked too big, as if he had been quietly shrinking inside his clothes and hadn’t noticed it yet. “They look like a pair of strumpets to me,” he said to himself, loudly.

  Everyone ignored this comment, and Stephanie clapped her hands. “Fantastic. Provided we will fix the space up and operate independently, I think this will be a beautiful partnership. The Lazarus Club and the House of Mirth.”

  “I always liked that book.” Mrs. Van Doren opened a flap in her magazine and the room filled with the overpowering scent of perfume. “Edie Wharton was such a firecracker in her own way.”

  There was some murmured agreement and a few burps.

  “The subject is put to rest,” Aloysius announced. “Conditional on certain repairs being made, these two are allowed use of the rooms adjoining the library. Approval may be rescinded at any moment. Also, could you girls please do something about that bathroom up there? It’s just dreadful.” And rather abruptly, he shepherded the girls into the hallway.

  “Doesn’t there need to be a vote or something?” Ava asked timidly.

  “You have a call, Mr. Wilder,” his receptionist called from the office. “The Department of Labor.” She paused ominously. “Again.”

  “Later,” he yelled. “You two have my full support,” he said, pushing them each by a shoulder. “I’ve always liked the look of subway tiles in a bathroom.” Then he disappeared behind the boardroom door, and they could hear the muffled skirmish start up again.

  “I need a drink,” Stephanie said as they walked slowly down the dark hallway.

  “What just happened? I’m so confused.”

  “It’s good enough for now.” Stephanie shrugged. “They didn’t say no. At least those old crones can recognize an opportunity when it falls into their laps.”

  When they arrived downstairs at the library, still arguing about whether or not they would actually be able to do the needed renovations in the space, they were surprised to find ten or so confused college-age students milling around the rubble. “Oh crap, I totally forgot, I told Castor about this.” Stephanie hung her purse on a broken coatrack and ran her hands over her high bouffant. “I put an ad on Craigslist for an employee. I figured we’re going to need another set of hands when this thing takes off.”

  “I thought this was just going to be us,” Ava whispered. “We can’t have an employee. We don’t have any money.”

  Stephanie laughed. “Oh my god, you don’t have to pay college kids. You just say it’s an internship. We’re going to be a cultural institution—such valuable experience for a young person. You’ve got to think big if you want to be big, Ava.”

  “That doesn’t sound very fair.”

  Stephanie rolled her eyes and turned to address the students. “Good afternoon. Thank you all for coming. We will be interviewing you one at a time in the next room.” She pointed at a candidate sitting on the edge of the egg crate mattress. “You first.”

  Ava’s doubts about the necessity or ethics of the situation were soon absorbed in the novel sensation of being a boss. Each applicant, slightly sweaty in his or her button-down shirt, bore the unease of wearing clothes more formal than they were used to. Fidgeting, blinking like calves, they tried to explain with convincing enthusiasm why they wanted a career in literary event planning or hospitality. Ava had long known, without really believing, that no one in life was as confident and put together as they appeared, but she rarely got to see it this clearly from the other side. These kids squirming beneath her gaze would never know the extent of her shyness, and so for as long as they sat before her, it ceased to exist. It was liberating. Her empathy for their discomfort meant that she could have been friendlier, tried to mitigate the intimidating force of Stephanie’s beauty and condescension, but it felt glorious to be among the victors, and she didn’t. “You realize this will be a very exclusive club,” Stephanie was telling a young woman in a misbuttoned cardigan. “I don’t know if you’re accustomed to dealing with celebrities.”

  “Not really,” the girl sighed with the resignation of the already forsaken.

  After two hours, they had a stack of résumés and were finally leaving for their long-desired drink when a young man burst into the room. “Is this where the donnybrook happens?” he asked, running a hand through his hair and looking around from under the raised tangle he had created. “That doorman downstairs—quite the gauntlet. I just barely squeaked past.”

  “Are you here for the interviews? You’re late,” Stephanie said coldly.

  Taking a crumpled handkerchief from his pocket, he dabbed at the sweat running down his hairline. “Unforeseen circumstances of absolutely unavoidable import,” he said, transferring the handkerchief to his left hand and extending his right. “George Harazi: scholar, poet, scrivener, bon vivant, jolie laide, intern extraordinaire. Bit of a history buff too, I’ve been dying to get a look inside this place.” The cuffs of his shirt flapped around his forearms, and his striped tie had what looked like ketchup on it. He hurriedly put on the blazer he had been carrying under his arm. “It’s ru
mored one of Ziegfeld’s mistresses died on the premises, but I can’t imagine they would have let a member of the tribe roam freely through these halls like that. Do they let Jews in here now?” He looked around nervously.

  “You’re Jewish?” Ava asked and then felt maybe it was indiscreet.

  “Don’t let my dark good looks fool you, it’s the Yemenite heritage, although I won’t lie, it’s been a doubtful advantage these last few years. However, I’m sure the TSA guys are just doing their job. And the subway cops. And the crossing guards. And the guys that hang around outside the bodega on my corner.” He sighed. “But anyway, I digress...”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean,” Ava started to apologize.

  He waved her off. His sleeves were a few inches too short. As he smoothed his hair down into a part and shoved his handkerchief into the breast pocket of his coat, a debonair charm fell over him like a rumpled sheet. He rocked back and forth on the heels of his sneakers and looked around. “This place is fantastic. Astounding. Alistair Cooke, black magic after tea and crumpets sort of place. Crazy baronets in the familial keep. You’ve got to admire the unhinged ebullience of these upper classes.” He smiled at them and bowed. “Ladies, my references.” He handed over a piece of paper, carefully folded, from his back pocket.

  Stephanie was still trying to look stern and commanding, but Ava was pretty amused. A junior at Hunter College, enrolled in honors classes, literary magazine, school paper, student government, he was probably more qualified to run this business than either Ava or Stephanie. They added the résumé to their pile, nodding to each other. There was a certain indefinable inevitability about George Harazi that bore acknowledging.

  “Come on. We were on our way to get a drink. You can tell us more about yourself and why you want to work at the House of Mirth,” Stephanie said.

  He stood aside politely to let them go first. “That name,” he said approvingly. “It’s a bold choice, if I may say. You ladies aren’t pulling any punches.”