The Little Clan

by Iris Martin Cohen

  “Yeah, it’s not here. I’ve been waiting all day.”

  “Give me your cell phone.”

  George reached into his breast pocket. “Also the party rental place only brought fifty chairs.”

  She took the phone. “We were supposed to get a hundred.”

  “Those guys were way sketchy.” George frowned. “I tried to argue and got quite the dressing-down. Armenian, I think the language was? Jeremy was here.” He pointed to a small young man in a not quite matching gray suit who nodded vigorously.

  Ava, waiting for someone to pick up the other end of the ringing line, tried to look mature and composed, while the young man shifted his weight, catching the rough tread of one sneaker against the laces of the opposite foot, and wobbled precariously. “This place is really awesome,” he said, regaining his balance.

  Ava smiled at him and then spoke into the phone in a panicked whisper, “Stephanie, where is the liquor?” To preserve her dignity, she walked back into the hallway. “It’s not here.”

  “That’s totally absurd,” Stephanie informed her. “It has to be there.”

  “What are we going to do? People are going to be here soon.”

  “Let me work on it.” The line went dead.

  Ava ran back into the bar. “Why don’t you guys start setting up the chairs we have? Let’s put the reader in the big room in front of the bookcases.” She handed the phone back to George. “Have you set up the microphone?”

  George straightened his collar. “You should come look at it. The Lazarus microphone is really ancient and made a lot of noise when I tried to plug it in to the speakers, so I had to reroute an extra cord through my laptop.” Ava had no idea what he was talking about, but at least someone else was worrying about it. Behind her, boys began unfolding and setting up chairs with a lot of clanking and shuffling. “And we had the wrong kind of extension cord, so I just left this part of the plug sticking out, but I covered it with electrical tape, so it should be okay, but it might be a good idea for one of us to stand near it, just in case it catches on fire.”

  “Um, okay.”

  “Then I was going to print out the guest list, but our printer, which is really crappy, by the way, ran out of ink, so I went to the copy place.” He pulled a sheaf of paper from his back pocket. “I think the girl who works there and I are really starting to come to an understanding.”

  Ava flipped through the list. “Why is it so long? We can’t fit this many people in here.”

  “I guess Stephanie got more emails? I figured me and the guys could work the doors.”

  “I guess that’s a good idea.” She turned around. The chairs stretched in two long lines, one behind the other. “Okay, guys, why don’t we make more rows here? Sort of bunch everyone up closer to the reader. I’m going to see what else I can find for people to sit on.”

  “Oh, by the way,” George called after her, “I think I got the bar dry enough as long as we don’t use cocktail napkins. Skin is okay, but paper still sticks to the varnish. So there’s that.”

  “Thanks, George. There is that.”

  As Ava tapped back down the hallway, she held out her arms, trying to dry the damp spots starting to seep from her armpits. She thought of taking off her ridiculous blazer, but by now the white silk underneath was probably visibly damp. She passed the bathroom, considered trying to throw up to relieve her growing nausea, but decided it would take too long. At the main staircase, she peered cautiously over the banister for signs of Aloysius before slinking up to the third floor. Here, there was another large parlor that no one ever used.

  At the top of the stairs, she checked to make sure that Aloysius’s secretary was gone for the day. It was hard to tell; every surface was piled with paperwork, and manila folders teetered in arbitrary and precarious stacks. Except for a blue parakeet that immediately started shrieking, the office appeared empty. She proceeded to the parlor, where to her dismay there were no chairs, only couches and divans, all of which looked too heavy to haul downstairs. She didn’t feel right asking her poets to risk their backs. There was, however, a large Persian carpet.

  Once she had cleared all the mismatched settees, Ava knelt on the hard floor and began rolling up the carpet, kicking it when necessary, sliding around in her stocking feet. When she finished, she realized whatever movie image she had in her head of someone jauntily carrying a rolled-up rug on one shoulder was totally inaccurate. The carpet weighed a ton. Only by wrapping her arms around the tight circumference of one end and exerting all her might, could she just drag it along the slippery floor. It smelled of wet goats. “Hey, boys,” she called breathlessly. Two poets wandered in with an irritating lack of alacrity. “Will you set this up in front of the microphone and line the chairs up behind it?”

  “Ava,” George called.

  “Give me a second.” Ava scurried back up to the third floor, sliding a little on the hardwood and reminded of being a kid and barefoot in stockings at her grandmother’s elegant parties. She reappeared, her arms full of sofa cushions, which she dumped on the carpet, kicking them into piles. “People can sit on these. It’s kind of bohemian. Will you guys go see if you can find any more?”

  George squatted and ran his hand through the nap of the carpet. A plume of dust sprang up. “This rug is really dirty.”

  Ava set an old brass vase on one corner and grouped pillows around it. “Hopefully everyone won’t notice until they stand up to leave. Have you heard from Stephanie?”

  George stood up. “Uh, yeah, the liquor isn’t coming.”

  Ava stopped scattering lily petals around the rug. “What do you mean?”

  He assumed the kind of distant air that he had developed lately as a coping mechanism. “She said we should go to a liquor store.”

  “Phone.” Ava held out her hand.

  “She said her phone was about to run out of battery but that she would be here as soon as she could.”

  Ava sat down heavily on a metal folding chair. “People are going to be here in fifteen minutes.” None of this was fun anymore. She wanted to be alone in her apartment with the door locked, so alone that she could be dead for ages before anyone noticed, until Mycroft began to eat her. After three days, a household pet will start on your mouth and eyes. Where had she learned that? It didn’t sound so bad.

  “She says we could have it delivered.”

  Ava looked up. George was reading from his phone. “I thought her phone was dead.”

  “The text says ‘fone almost dead. have liq store deliver. charge it.’”

  “‘Charge it,’ says Eloise.” Ava put her head down, allowing one more brief moment of despair. “Okay. The closest liquor store is on the corner. Buy three cases of their absolutely cheapest wine. My purse is over there. There’s a card in it. At least with wine you can’t tell how cheap it is from the bottle. Buy bottles, by the way, no boxes.”

  “Or I could buy some bottles and a funnel and we could just refill them from boxes.”

  “George, in our darkest hour, you shine ever brightly.”

  “I endeavor to be of service, milady.” He bowed deeply, his orange socks visible under his safety-pinned cuffs.

  The poets came in with more cushions, and Ava kicked them into place. “What took you guys so long?”

  One of them answered, “We ran into this crazy guy that thought we were stealing and started screaming at us.”

  A different one corroborated, “He was wearing a yellow bathrobe over a tuxedo. He called us Bolsheviks.”

  The first one interrupted, “He called you a Bolshevik. He called me a Sandinista. I don’t even speak Spanish, and anyway, I’m Puerto Rican.” He frowned.

  “I’m sorry. That was Aloysius, the club president. He’s just like that.” Ava started biting her cuticles. “Did you tell him you were bringing them here?”

  “He said he was going to come ta
lk to you about that.”

  “Okay, fine. You guys see if George needs any help.”

  Calmly, Ava left and walked to the bathroom. She closed the door and crawled into the empty tub. She pressed her foot against the faucet and felt the metal behind her toes. Then, she leaned her head against the side of the tub and counted the tiles on the floor until eventually, there was a knock at the door.

  “Ava? Are you in there?”

  It seemed pointless to lie, especially as she now remembered she had forgotten yet another thing on their list of absolutely essential tasks to take care of before the opening—installing a lock on the bathroom door. “Yes.”

  Stephanie opened the door in an avant-garde confection of a dress, a sort of cardigan from which revealing sections had been cut away, the end result both grandmotherly and strangely indecorous. She kept one hand on the neckline that kept sliding off her shoulders. “What are you doing in here?”

  “What are you wearing?”

  Stephanie looked down and laughed. “I know, funny, isn’t it? A designer friend lent it to me. I thought it was kind of librarian-y.” She put the lid of the toilet down with a bang and sat, a large glass decanter cradled in her lap. “Why are you hiding in the bathroom? Aren’t you hot in that?”

  “Yes,” admitted Ava. “I was hiding from Aloysius.”

  “You’re such a wimp,” Stephanie groaned. “We have just as much a right to be in this club and using the facilities as anyone. Anyway, I just ran into him and told him someone from Vanity Fair was coming tonight. He practically kissed me. He’s coming later.”

  “He’s not mad about the cushions?”

  “You’re so silly sometimes. Look, I brought this for the wine.” She held out the decanter.

  “I thought your phone was dead.” Ava started to get mad again. “What happened to this guy who was supposed to be giving us all that free booze?”

  Stephanie shrugged. “I don’t know. He’s a flake. If we use pitchers like this, no one will see how cheap it is.” She hitched up the falling shoulder of her dress again.

  Ava slid farther down against the smooth back of the tub. “I don’t want to. I hate parties. Why are we doing this?”

  Stephanie glanced into the mirror above the sink, running her finger along the corner of her lips to remove excess lipstick. “Because otherwise you would be in that tiny room making pickles.”

  “Why do you always accuse me of preserving?”

  “Well, something equally boring. This party is going to be filled with writers and people who like books, and you know more about books than anybody I know. Everyone’s going to love you. That’s what this is about, right?” She put the decanter under her arm, pressing its slender neck against her ribs, and grabbed Ava’s hands. “This is it. This is the moment you become a fabulous salonista. When I think of you rambling on about Proust and writers and salons, in that tiny dorm room all wrapped up in those silly flannel nightshirts you used to wear—who would believe that we would actually make it happen? But we did. We made it happen. Come on, get up.”

  Ava allowed herself to be pulled and stepped over the side of the tub. “I know I’m going to say something wrong. I don’t know how it happens, but it always happens, and it’s going to hurt so much after all this work when no one wants to talk to me.”

  Stephanie wasn’t listening. “Where are your shoes?”

  “I left them upstairs. I’m wearing the black T-straps and they were kind of slippery.”

  “I don’t think you should wear the black shoes with that outfit.”

  “I’m being serious, Stephanie.”

  “So am I. Everyone’s eyes will be on us. We need to look right.” Stephanie’s smile was implacable. “Go grab another pair. Hurry, so we won’t be late.”

  “I really don’t think it matters right now.”

  “Just go. I’ll wait for you.” She pushed Ava out of the bathroom and toward the hall. “Wait until you see. I bought tea lights. Hurry.”

  Rather than argue any more at this critical moment, Ava followed Stephanie’s instructions. Maybe she was right, she did seem to have an unshakable faith in her priorities, while Ava was constantly wavering in her own. A kind of power emanated from conviction, and Ava bowed to its force. She didn’t want to spoil everything.

  When she returned, Stephanie nodded her approval and rubbed Ava’s shoulders. “Wait until you see.”

  They stopped at the threshold of the library. Small candles flickered on the mantelpiece, measuring out the marble expanse in dots of flame, their reflections repeating in the mirror above. In the spacious twilight of the grand room, the silhouettes of interns passed back and forth, placing dozens of white tea lights on the bookshelves, now nearly hidden in shadow. Seduced by the delicate glow of so many lights, Ava still thought of, but decided not to mention, the fire hazard. In the flattering light, the dirty Persian carpet and pillows looked like the artist’s studio of Ava’s intentions, and she fleetingly wished she could plop herself down next to the urn and the lilies, naked, and be painted in oils. This was the nineteenth-century novel she had dreamed of—candles and wine and the importance of art and men of genius and literary ideals. Out of the longing of her solitary and romantic imagination, the space had sprung into being like Athena from the head of Zeus, and now it lay there, realized and tangible. Any minute now, other human beings would float through the most secret and unironic regions of her heart; she would preside over this magnificent salon—charming, admired, envied, like the beautiful Duchesse de Guermantes. She wondered why, in the reflected glow of the scenery she had worked so hard to create, she felt a small internal deflation, a sigh, a hesitation; it didn’t quite feel as satisfying as she had expected. Also the red heels she had changed into always pinched her feet.

  11

  The trickle of people that started the evening had quickly become a river flowing toward the bar, and Ava let it swirl around her.

  A quartet of tall, thin blondes were clustered nearby. One, hitching a tiny bag farther onto her shoulder, asked, “Is this the way to the booze?”

  Ava nodded and heard George calling from the next room. “May I offer you ladies a libation?”

  Alarmed by the size of the crowd, Ava hurried into the bar. “Do you need help?” she asked George.

  He answered with a harried look, so she grabbed a bottle of wine and began handing cups to outstretched hands. The blessed repetition of required motions: opening another bottle, turning, extending, smiling, gave her something to do, and each drink had a set exchange, friendly and impersonal, that passed before Ava had to worry about what to say beyond hello and you’re welcome.

  Eventually, she began to enjoy the sensation; she was performing, and the impression of having an audience spurred her to enact the part of someone serving drinks with an extra concentration and vivaciousness, a slight fillip at the end of each pour, smiling brighter at faces whose features she didn’t even see. She perched forward, imitating the queenly posture of a barmaid she vaguely remembered from some impressionist painting. The bustle of the bar lapped around her like so much froth from which she, the owner and founder of a literary salon, rose like Venus from the sea, delighted to hide for a minute in this flattering image. A tall young man in a sport coat with an upturned collar asked her, “You guys serve whiskey?”

  “No.” Ava indicated the field of red wine being raised toward mouths.

  “A pretty thing like you should serve something stronger than wine,” he said with a smile.

  This statement seemed such a thrilling confirmation of her metamorphosis into a new and dazzling creature that, unconcerned whether he wanted it or not, Ava handed him a cup of wine, which he frowned at and left behind on the counter.

  Phillip Goldman had arrived, and Stephanie had backed him into a corner of the bar where he kept laughing loudly and yelling, “Oh, you girls,” in a plummy acce
nt that carried over the rest of the noise. Ava noted with grudging admiration that his tie was a double Windsor, although she didn’t like how often his hand seemed to slip down the small of Stephanie’s back.

  At some point, Stephanie grabbed her arm. “Stop flirting, we have to talk.”

  “I’m the one who’s flirting?” Ava objected, as Stephanie pulled her from behind the bar and into a corner.

  “He doesn’t want to read his Wharton biography,” she whispered. “That was his last book. He’s got a new one that he wants to read from.”

  “What do you mean?” Ava tried to loosen the desperate grip on her wrist.

  “He’s working on a novel, and he wants to read from that. He didn’t even bring the other one, and I don’t have a copy. Do you?”

  “Did we really not even buy the book that we based this whole big event around?” They looked at each other. Ava finally pried Stephanie’s fingers loose, but not to be dissuaded from whatever support she was gleaning, Stephanie grabbed Ava’s other arm. Ava thought about how drowning people occasionally down their rescuers with the insistence of their grip. “I guess we have to let him read what he wants. What’s it about?”

  “A married professor who has an affair with an intern or something.”

  “Oh, gross, no. I hate books like that.”

  “I don’t think we have a choice.”

  A young woman in a pair of sea-blue eyeglasses bumped into them, and they both smiled forcefully at her. “So this will be our first event,” Ava said in what she hoped was a cutting voice. “I hope you’re happy.”

  “What do we say? I had a whole intro prepared, and now it won’t make any sense. I can’t just blab about how our name comes out of this great tradition if he’s not even going to talk about our name.”

  “I guess you have to tie it in to a different book. Talk about Lolita or something.”

  “Can’t you be more specific?” Stephanie asked, annoyed, and Ava guessed that she hadn’t read it. Then, in a surge of excitement, Ava knew she would be able to use her particular set of skills at last. “I could do it, if you want. I think I could do a good job. I have a lot of feelings about that book.”