The Little Clan

by Iris Martin Cohen

  It wasn’t until she was shivering in the back seat of a cab, wet and mortified, that the thought cracked through the lingering haze of drugs and alcohol, that probably Steve Buckley would not be offering any further support to the House of Mirth, and that she had messed everything up once again.

  * * *

  When she told the whole sordid story the next day, looking for sympathy, while they waited in line for coffee, Stephanie was horrified. “Ava, that’s one of our members, for fuck’s sake. How unprofessional can you possibly be?”

  Ava snapped the lid back on a bottle of ibuprofen, and put it back in her purse. “What, are you saying you haven’t slept with him?” she said around the two pills on her tongue.

  Stephanie offered her iced coffee with a disappointed shake of her head. “Of course not. What do you take me for? This is business.”

  “Can we just not talk about it anymore?” Ava drank most of the coffee in one long sip trying to ignore the brutal sweetness of Splenda that was setting her teeth on edge and then realized she needed to go home, immediately, and stay there for at least a day.

  * * *

  A day spent in her darkened bedroom did nothing to relieve the vertiginous feelings of regret and dismay that surged up and over Ava in successive waves. How could she have come to this? She tried writing, but every time she sat down to the quiet of her own head, it immediately filled with recrimination about the night before. She tried reading Thomas Hardy, but his heroine Bathsheba Everdene was so noble and virtuous and independent that Ava couldn’t bear the comparison. She moped from bed to chaise and back again, trying to avoid the condemning eyes of all the portraits around her apartment—the plaster Athena, the portrait of Balzac looking all rumpled and sweaty, as if taken aback at her transgressions, and worst of all, Arthur Rimbaud with his beautiful eyes and his noble brow, and that other young man that he still called so strongly to her mind. Even Mycroft seemed to be avoiding her and spent the day napping behind the toilet.

  Every time she accidentally remembered the feel of Steve Buckley against her tongue, the sharp acrid smell of him resurfaced and filled her with nausea. Why did women agree to do such things? How perfectly revolting. Eventually her stomach was protesting so much, she started to wonder if maybe she was just hungry; she had already gone through the last of the saltines, the one crumpled sleeve was all she had to eat in her apartment. She waited anxiously for four o’clock, the hour that the Lazarus Club laid out the cheap Brie and pâté for its members at cocktail hour. Now that she was so desperately poor, she often made do with this for her dinner.

  She brushed her teeth and ran her fingers through her hair and, slipping into the reassuring dowdiness of a cardigan, ventured out into the world. As soon as she entered the ballroom, she was glad to see George. In a black overcoat whose previous owner had been about six inches shorter and fifty pounds heavier, George was hovering over a table laid with a white cloth with a cracker in his mouth and one in each hand. The strap of a messenger bag across his chest seemed the only thing preventing him from falling headfirst into the hors d’oeuvres.

  “Hi, George, just arrive?” she asked.

  He nodded. “Had to tie on the feed bag straight away. My dining hall credits ran out last week.” A dab of spinach pâté fell out of his mouth and onto the strap of his bag.

  “You’re going to come down with gout if you keep eating all of your meals here.” She delicately spread a tuft of goat cheese on a cracker. “I guess we both are, although once in a while I go home and eat some greens.”

  “Vegetables.” Indicating a green mound of dubious vegetarian pâté with his elbow, George made little sandwiches out of cheese and Melba toast, wrapping them in napkins for later. “I have a hard time picturing you returning to the quiet homestead and butchering a head of kale.”

  She took a sprig of grapes and bit one off. “True, those were richer times, but still. This stuff is pretty bad.”

  “I’m supposed to go to a party with Stephanie later, some launch for a fitness magazine or something, so maybe their offerings will be a tad healthier.”

  “I feel like you’ve been out with her every night this week.” Ava tried not to watch as he spread a layer of pâté on a layer of Brie and laid a slice of cheddar on top.

  He popped the whole edifice into his mouth before he answered, so Ava was privy to each stage in its mastication. He smiled. “I know. They keep putting me on the guest lists, and not just as a plus one. To my astonishment, George Harazi has become quite the social commodity. I’m considered an excellent raconteur, and not a few women have complimented my style. This acclaim is so unaccustomed, I have a theory I was actually in some terrible accident the morning I got this job, and all that has followed has been the fantastical imagining of my dying breath, à la Ambrose Bierce.” He began filling his pockets with napkin-wrapped bundles of cheese. “I mean, surely you agree that all this can’t possibly be real.”

  “I wish none of it were real. I’m never going to one of Stephanie’s parties again.” A squeal floated across the room from Aloysius. “So Stephanie and I, we’re only figments of your imagination?” Ava asked.

  George looked down at her with a funny gentleness. “You two are the least believable part of the whole thing.”

  They crossed into the parlor, with its distinctive odor of floor wax and mildew, a smell George referred to as “pine-scented funeral home.” An old man snored on a damask settee, his chin resting on his crested blazer. A woman clawing a Reader’s Digest looked up as they passed and frowned, muttering to herself about trollops and Saracens. Ava looked at George, but he seemed unconcerned, carefully putting away several napkin-wrapped bundles of crackers into his shoulder bag.

  “Just be careful, George,” Ava said, rubbing her temples that had started to throb again. “I would hate to see you lose yourself in all this. High society can be very corrupting, you know.”

  They sank into chairs on either side of a large bay window. It had started to snow. “I know, I know, I’ve read all the novels too, how easy it is to stray from the path of virtue, et cetera, but when such opportunities present themselves, some of us, and I’m not necessarily including you in this denomination—” He cleared his throat. “Some of us need to seize the day lest we end up old and alone, in shit-stained pajamas, living on cat food and the lost promises of our golden youth. You’re a pretty girl, so such an end is far more unlikely, and in truth, for me as well, now that I’m so damn popular, but really, why take chances?”

  “Jesus, George. That’s pretty dark.” They sat for a moment and watched the snow, and Ava was taken by a longing so strong to return to the path of virtue, she could actually feel it rising up her chest and constricting her ribs. But at this point, she couldn’t even imagine what that would look like.

  George cleared his throat. “So speaking of Stephanie...”

  “Were we?”

  “Aren’t we always, really?” When he recrossed his legs, Ava noticed a small dab of Boursin embedded in the corduroy of his knee. “She mentioned you might be taking steps to get our mirror fixed? Aloysius stopped by today, and I managed to distract him with some well-timed questions about Portuguese water spaniels, but I’m not sure how long I can keep up the subterfuge. My knowledge of dog breeds is sadly limited.”

  “She put you up to this, too?”

  George considered. “It seems our best option, and also, I kind of miss having Ben around the place. He had a kind of uprightness that really elevated the tone. Also he was teaching me how to rewire our lamp, and I’d like to finish the job.” He handed over his phone. “His number’s in there from coordinating lumber deliveries. Per aspera ad astra, as my high school yearbook urged repeatedly.”

  As she held the phone, Ava felt just how much she desperately wanted to see Ben, a longing that made her insides ache—his bright, clear expression, his soft work clothes, his dedication and his bla
meless poverty—fuck it, she decided, and pressed his number.

  When the phone clicked through, she thrilled to hear the familiar voice.

  “Hello?” He sounded a little different than she remembered, higher, softer. Absent the righteous anger that had only grown in her memory, he sounded like such a nice, forgiving guy.

  “Hi, it’s Ava. Don’t hang up.”

  The pause was only a breath, but it was enough to let Ava know his indulgence was precarious. “That would be a pretty rude thing to do,” he said. “I’m not a total jerk.”

  She felt the aspersion. “How are you doing?” she asked.

  “I’m fine. How are you?”

  An expectation that she would explain her call seemed to weigh on each word, an awkward lag to the normal rhythm of conversation, while she frantically tried to think of an excuse besides the favor she needed and which felt totally inappropriate. She happened to glance at George who gave her an enthusiastic thumbs-up, and it struck Ava that he would never offer such condescending encouragement to Stephanie and then thinking of her partner, a solution popped into her mind and she lunged for it. “I just called to let you know I’ve got some money for you. I wanted to pay you some of what we owe.” She turned her back on George’s surprised expression.

  “Oh. Really?” The hopeful rise in his voice must have betrayed some conflict on Ben’s part because there was a pause, and when he spoke again, his voice had resumed its normal register. “Thanks.” When he continued, he sounded embarrassed. “That would really help me out right now.”

  “Maybe we could get together sometime. I could give it to you in person.”

  The promise of payment made him amiable. “Sure, we could get a drink or something. You can fill me in. I saw you guys in the Times. It sounds like you’re doing pretty well.”

  A flush of embarrassment at the thought he might have seen her latest article was joined by an equal flush of pleasure that he had. “It was just the style section, so...” She laughed a little too brightly. “But yeah, it’s been pretty crazy. Sorry it took me so long to call.”

  “Yeah.”

  This seemed dangerously ambiguous, so Ava wound up the call before he could elaborate. They made their plans to meet the next week, and she gave George back his phone with the funny vertigo of finding she had quite easily accomplished something she had been determined to refuse.

  “You’re in charge,” George said with a shrug.

  This confirmation of authority was gratifying, and seemed to reassert her place in everything. She was safe. He offered her another cracker, but Ava shook her head, distracted by the large window through which she could see the early winter darkness pressing against the snow. Ava found the shame of her lie dissipating rather quickly in the benevolent glow of the fast-descending hibernal twilight and the promise of seeing Ben again so soon. And Stephanie would be so pleased.

  15

  In the distance, his narrow figure stood dark against the snowy street. He was facing away from her, and she recognized the hunch of his shoulders; from behind he almost looked as if he were cradling something against his belly, like a knot whose tensile strength rests deep in its center. Ava thought of ships and rigging, twisted hemp straining against the elements. As she got closer, she saw these impressions of sailors and the sea were maybe just due to the fact that he was wearing a peacoat.

  He turned as she approached, and she instinctively walked slower, wanting to pull away, suddenly shy, but he had seen her, so she continued her advance, experiencing the pleasure of being so obliged. She thought she remembered what he looked like, but in trying to piece his features together in her memory, she saw now she had forgotten the bones. The way the smooth planes of his cheekbones and prominent brow ridge formed a topography so hard and unyielding, her own face, pretty as it could be on occasion, was like a pile of uncooked dough next to his, her features floating in softness. This quick reminder of his essential difference registered as a threat, but it was such a quicksilver impression, it had fled before she covered the few feet left between them, only to return with an electric shock when he smiled at her.

  “Hey, nice to see you.” She looked into his face for a reprimand, but saw only a raw glow that made her think he just had shaved. “I thought you might be into this place.” Hands in his pockets, he extended an elbow toward the door of a bar. “It’s an old speakeasy, but I guess it’s closed.”

  Ava cupped her hands against the window. “It looks nice. Thanks for meeting me.”

  A gust of wind keened down the short street—two blocks lost among the convoluted geometry of the West Village. Ben rested a boot against an iron rail that was guarding the roots of a wide, bare tree. He kicked once, and a little shower of snow shimmered onto the sidewalk. “Sure.”

  Now that he was relatively close to her and speaking with his familiar intonations, the pleasure of his company made her momentarily forget her anxiety at how she was actually going to proceed with him. Being so far from Stephanie’s company made it harder to assume her gestures and her cast of mind; a lie that had slipped so easily into being on the phone seemed almost impossible to imagine face-to-face like this. Maybe he wouldn’t ask for a while, and she could enjoy just being here with him. She shed the snow that had been accumulating on her head and shoulders with a canine shake.

  “Let’s just walk,” he suggested. “I’m sure there’s a million bars around here.” She agreed and held down the wool pleats of her dress as wind cut up her black stockings and brought its icy breath to the bare strip of thigh above her homemade garters. The thick elastic she sewed into satin ribbons to hold up each separate leg, while very Victorian in spirit, was impractical without a couple of layers of long flannel petticoats. And, as Stephanie often mentioned, made her thighs look bulky. “I’m usually better prepared. I could source you any kind of building material in the tristate area, but this kind of thing is hard. I wanted to impress you.”

  He said this casually, tossing the compliment at her feet as if such things were of little consequence, and to maintain that pretense, Ava had to try and pretend he hadn’t said it in order to hide the embarrassing flood of happiness it gave her. They started walking, leaving deep footprints behind them in the snow. In a crosswalk, a Boston terrier sat in protest against the sinister substance pilling around his argyle sweater. Ben smiled. “My dog, Betty, doesn’t like the snow either. I tried cutting holes in an old wool sock to make a balaclava for her, but she wasn’t into it.” The light changed, and they left the dog in a mounting furrow, paws extended against the leash’s persuasion.

  “I didn’t know you had a dog.” This sudden insight into his domestic life acted like a flare, and in its sudden illumination, she saw just how vast the expanse of his life was that was obscure to her.

  “A dachshund, and you did know because you told me they were called ‘liberty pups’ during World War One.”

  “Oh.” Ava conceded that this sounded like her. “I make stuff for my cat, Mycroft, too. I tried to make him a ruff out of paper doilies once. It looked very regal, but he wasn’t having it.”

  “It’s a funny thing to have in common.”

  It was, and as Ava tried to layer this new paternal dimension across the scaffolding of her idea of him, it occurred to her that none of the heroes of her novels seemed to have pets. It then struck her that few of the books she read had animals in them of any kind, and it seemed a strange omission. She would put a dog, maybe even two, into her book if she ever got back to it. She so rarely thought of her book these days that just the fact of it crossing her mind seemed like an excellent sign, an indication that Ben’s company had, as she hoped, an inspiring, not to say ennobling, effect.

  They passed a wine bar, dark and cozy, its name scrawled in gold across a wide front window, just made for watching a snowfall. Ben didn’t seem to notice, so Ava kept silent. She would have happily paid for the privilege of gett
ing out of the snow, which was coming down heavier all the time, but maybe the lovely wine bar would be too expensive, and she didn’t want to embarrass him. Or bring up the subject of money.