The Little Clan

by Iris Martin Cohen

  He ducked away from her with an expression of such desperate self-deprecation that, to spare him further embarrassment, she left to pack the last of their teacups from the bar.

  Trying to imagine what it would look like to start this process all over again somewhere new filled her with dread, and to chase it away, she consoled herself again that in planning their last event, she would have finally made her mark on this mess of a project, impressing upon it, at last what she, and maybe George, wanted it to be.

  * * *

  The night of the event, Ava got dressed with an unusual amount of care. Her regular skirts and cardigans seemed boring and lackluster, but maybe it was just the unaccustomed disorder of her room that made it feel so odd to be putting on her usual clothes, as if she should physically reflect the change in her circumstances. Just for once she wanted to stand next to Stephanie and not suffer in the comparison. While packing, she had found the dress she and Stephanie had bought together so long ago, forgotten ever since, and now she decided to try it on. It felt different this time. She looked in the mirror, touching the soft underside of her arms with a caress that made her skin prickle. The dress skimmed her body, dark fabric revealing the outline of a figure she usually kept hidden, and she was surprised by a sudden desire to be seen. She looked good, after all, the pale skin of her chest and arms glowing, exposed. She looked like Natasha from the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons. She decided to wear it; although to ameliorate its effect just a little, she put on her glasses.

  When she arrived at the library, George started a little. “You look—” he paused “—different.”

  “Get me a drink before I lose my nerve and put on a sweater.” A helpful volunteer ran into the bar and returned with a glass of wine, which he offered, standing too close.

  Ava stepped a little farther away and looked around. Empty of all their things—the tufted couch, the extra books, the broken printer and the card table George used as a desk—the room expressed a melancholy grandeur. The shelves once again stood bare except for fluttering candles. Strangely, in this moment of dissolution, the space had regained the aura of limitless possibility, and the impression it made was curiously hopeful. “What we did here was really special, wasn’t it, George?”

  Before he could answer, Stephanie arrived with a large rectangle wrapped in brown paper and a flimsy easel under her arm. “Wait until I show you guys,” she said, setting the easel down. “Not to brag, but I’m fucking amazing.” She grinned and unwrapped the package. “I got Richard Denkins to donate a bunch of paintings. We’re having a silent auction for our new place.” She set the painting on the easel. “Isn’t he a genius?”

  It was an oil painting of a woman in red panties, legs spread, painted in such hyper-realistic detail that every tuft of pubic hair was discernable under the thin red satin. She sneered down at them over pendulous breasts. “No,” said Ava.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. These are so hot right now. They sell for like twenty grand. George, I left some more paintings down in the lobby. Go get them.”

  “It has an appeal,” he said, glancing at the image as he left the room.

  “Stephanie, I’m not going to ask Constance to read in front of a bunch of up-skirt pictures.”

  “Why not? Everyone knows she’s a huge dyke. She’ll probably love them.”

  “She’s not like that,” Ava said, defensive, before she could stop herself.

  “Oh, spare me, Ava. She’s just a midlist, midlife nobody that you are for some reason obsessed with. I’m just trying to add some dazzle to this event. I’m off to Richard’s loft to pick up one more. Also you won’t believe this, but I got Joe Reed to come, too. It’s insane. Check your email. Tonight is going to be off the hook. Be back in like an hour.” She waved triumphantly.

  “Wait, this is Constance’s event,” Ava said, but Stephanie was already gone.

  George came back with a large painting, a pair of glossy red lips tonguing a melting popsicle. “They have a certain je ne sais quoi,” he said, propping it up.

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” Ava shook her head. “Did you get an email from Stephanie today?”

  “You mean you haven’t seen it?” George ran for his laptop and held it open for her. “She sent this out a couple of hours ago. I thought I was accustomed to her abilities,” he said philosophically. “But even now, she manages to awe.”

  Announcing the House of Mirth Grand Moving Benefit, featuring spoken word by Joe Reed, additional readings by Constance Berger. Silent Auction. Tickets $50 at the door. Cash only.

  “Does she mean Joe Reed the rock star?”

  George nodded. “I have no idea how she did it, but yeah. I guess he’s reading some of his poetry.”

  “But this is not the event we planned. What is she doing?”

  “I guess she’s making good on her threat to fund our move.”

  Just then a young couple wearing Joe Reed and The Velvet Revolution T-shirts wandered in. “Excuse me, is this where we buy the Joe Reed tickets?”

  More people started to trickle in, bunching up behind the original couple, now claiming their spot with an aggressive immobility. “But my event. Constance. This was not supposed to be like this. How can she do this to me?”

  George was looking toward the door. “We might want to get set up. I’m guessing this could get a little out of hand.”

  Struggling against a mounting panic, Ava grabbed the nearest volunteer and set him to tearing open packages of plastic wineglasses and stacking them on the bar. “Is Joe Reed really going to be here?” he asked, a wayward curl slipping down over one eye.

  “No idea.” People started arriving, and Ava began handing out wine.

  “You guys are so cool,” he said. She glanced at the young man, and his admiration seemed to bounce off her, leaving no mark. She was a brittle, reflective surface, a million years old. The noise had increased quickly. People soon lined up four deep, those at the bar fighting to hold their place. The event wasn’t due to start for an hour. The thought of Constance Berger arriving to this chaos made Ava’s heart sink. She needed to find her first and explain. She would wait for her outside.

  “Do the best you can,” she told the young man who paused every so often to rearrange his drooping curl with tentative, self-conscious fingers.

  The next room was just as full. Looking for Stephanie, she struggled to the door where George, the patch pockets of his blazer bulging with money, stood cheerfully accepting twenty-dollar bills. He leaned close, and his breath smelled of marshmallow and juniper. “We are making so much money. I don’t even know where to put it all.” He bent down and took a large gulp of the drink at his feet. “Of the many difficulties I have learned to weather while working here, this is a new one.”

  A line of people stretched the length of the hallway and down the main stairs of the club. “Jesus!”

  “Yeah,” he agreed.

  The Lazarus portraits looked especially put out as Ava followed the trail of impatient humanity. Two girls, their hair the same expensive shade of yellow, sat comparing manicures. A well-known writer asserted his prestige, asking loudly for Stephanie. A small white dog in a white leather bag let out an urgent yip every few minutes. Rodney caught up with her at the top of the stairs. He was carrying a large box.

  “This is crazy.” He cocked his head at the line. “Is it true? Is Joe Reed really playing at your place?”

  “I don’t know. He’s supposed to read poetry or something. I had nothing to do with it. Has Aloysius seen this yet?”

  “I don’t think so. Last I saw him, he was bug-eyed and slurring—a sure sign he’s been awake for too many days, so maybe he’ll sleep through it all. I saw a few board members, and they looked pretty sore. But what else can they do, right? It’s not like they’re going to call the cops. At this point, I think bad publicity might be the only thing these guys hate worse tha
n you.”

  “I think that’s Stephanie’s attitude, at least. What’s in the box?”

  “I figured you gals might not be prepared for these kinds of crowds.” He dropped it against his hip and reached in to show her a bottle of Southern Ease whiskey. “They never drink this stuff downstairs. It’s a little better than that bubble gum gin you ladies serve.” Rodney raised the box over his head and weaseled through the crowd with a professional grace.

  “Thanks.”

  Downstairs, Castor was writing in his notebook with a small gold pencil, ignoring the press in front of his desk. Ava snuck past into the balmy night. A few smokers had abandoned the queue, and Ava overheard much excited speculation about Joe Reed. She wondered if Stephanie had in fact succeeded in getting him to come or whether someone, likely herself, would have to inform all these soon-to-be-drunks that they should just go home. Maybe she should start telling them that now. She anxiously drummed her fingers against one of the brass poles of the awning. She had no idea what she would say to Constance, or how to apologize. She was straining to see into the shadowy back seats of passing taxis, heart fluttering in her throat, when she was startled by a voice at her elbow. “Hey, stranger,” said Ben.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I wanted to say goodbye to my bar. I worked pretty hard on that thing. Should I not have come?” he asked testily.

  “You did and you made something beautiful. I’m glad you came. You deserve to be here.”

  “It was a cool thing you guys tried to do with this place. I’m glad I got to be a part of it.” He shrugged. “And I like Joe Reed.”

  Ava felt the gentleness of this overture, and she remembered all the reasons she liked him. “Thanks. Look, I’m sorry,” she began.

  Ben stopped her. “Not everyone is meant to date, and that’s fine, but if you wanted to chat about the Franco-Prussian War or something sometime...”

  “I would love to,” Ava said. They smiled at each other for a minute.

  A taxi pulled up, and Constance Berger unfolded herself from the back seat with the spindly precision of an egret alighting. “Constance!” Ava waved an arm.

  Constance’s gaze climbed the Lazarus facade. “They really should fix this up. It’s criminal to let all that lovely stonework just crumble like that.” She glanced at Ava. “You look very sophisticated.” Ava hoped this was a compliment. “Is this your young man?” She extended a hand in Ben’s direction.

  “No,” Ava said too quickly. “This is Ben Wheeler. He did some work for us.”

  Ben shook Constance’s hand with a curious look toward Ava. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Quite a crowd.” Constance discreetly turned her attention from the two young people.

  “We had a last-minute addition to the evening,” Ava apologized. “Joe Reed will also be reading. He has a lot of fans. We’re having a sort of fund-raiser. I’m so sorry about all this. I was organizing a much quieter event and then things got a little out of hand.” She held the door for Constance. Three old ladies in pearls were yelling their objections to everything at Castor, who was listening with a polite lack of interest.

  “I remember Joe. We used to hang around the same clubs sometimes, but then everyone did. That was New York in the seventies.”

  “Really?” Ava tried to clear a path through the crowd. “I didn’t think that was your type of thing, I mean. I’m sorry. I don’t know what I mean.”

  “Well, we all have hidden depths,” Constance said with a laugh.

  Ben was watching them. Then he kind of laughed.

  “What?” asked Ava.

  “Nothing, don’t worry about it. It actually makes me feel better about everything.” He patted her on the back. “I’m getting a drink.”

  “I think I’ll get one, too,” Constance said with a sympathetic tilt of the head. She gave Ava an encouraging squeeze of the elbow, that sent an electric shock down her bare skin, and left for the bar.

  Felicitously, Rodney appeared at her side. She nodded and held the back of his shirt for guidance as they pushed through to the edge of the room where the crowd was a little thinner. Ava sat heavily on a radiator beneath an open window while Rodney stood next to her, loosening his Lazarus bow tie and scanning the crowd. “I’m pretty sure this is illegal,” he said, handing her a bottle. “Fire codes.”

  Ava opened the bottle to the ripping sound of the plastic cap and took a big swig. Alcohol and a thick coating of indeterminate sweetness burned her tongue. She drank deeply, trying not to gag at the powerful notes of grape soda and dishwasher fluid. She indicated the room with the bottle. “Why are you so nice to us, Rodney? This. Us. We’re everything you hate.”

  He looked at the floor. “I don’t know. It’s just going to be awfully dull around here without you two, you especially.”

  Just then Ava caught sight of a familiar shade of blond in the crowd. “We’re colorful. I’ll give you that. Hold this.” She gave him the bottle and started toward the glint of yellow. Rodney took her place on the radiator with a sigh and raised the bottle to his lips.

  It wasn’t Stephanie. Ava let herself be jostled by strangers for a few minutes. She didn’t find her business partner until they had all gathered near the microphone, Stephanie waving her over above the crowd. Joe Reed leaned his head back, contemplating her through nearly closed eyes. “So you’re the other chick.” Ava ignored him. “Hey, Connie, I haven’t seen you since the Cock closed down in ’82.”

  Constance laughed. “Times change, don’t they? And now we’re elder statesmen.”

  He nodded. “That’s the truth of it. I hear you’re working the uptown beat, selling your soul for a cushy, faculty appointment.”

  Ava was indignant, but Constance answered with the indulgent tone reserved for naughty children. “I teach a few classes.”

  “We’re so lucky to have both of you to make our last night in the Lazarus Club so special,” Stephanie interrupted. “It means so much to Ava and myself.”

  “Is this going to be okay?” Ava asked Constance.

  “Oh, his sort is always very keen on integrity.” Constance brushed off her concern. “That sort of thing stopped bothering me once I realized I like to pay my electric bills.”

  When Ava stood to introduce Constance, looking out into the crowd crammed into the large room that now felt so small, she once again had an ache for what this project might have been. Constance waited beside her, poised and enigmatic, keeping her place in the book she was about to read from with a finger that bore a huge jet ring. The audience sipped their drinks in wary anticipation. Even bereft of trimmings, this room had that ineffable feeling of enchantment that pervaded the Lazarus Club. These people would ask themselves, years from now, did we actually go see a reading in some derelict mansion where we drank alcohol that tasted like bubble gum and smoked illegal cigarettes with abandon? Or was it just a dream? That quality of unreality had felt so comforting to Ava, so welcoming, when so much of her life had been lived in that fluid space of daydreams and imagination. But now the sense of promises unfulfilled pressed in on her with the heat of so many bodies, and Ava wanted to apologize, for not knowing what she wanted, for having failed to enact it. She took a deep breath and then, despite having two full crumpled pages of introductory notes in her hand, Ava realized she had nothing to say. This was not her medium. This was not how she wanted to express herself. She had so many ideas and feelings, and she wanted to cover page after page after page with them, lovingly constructed and put together into sentences in the silence of her room. But here, beneath the expectant gaze of so many faces, all she wanted was to slip quietly onto the sidelines. She motioned to Stephanie, who accepted her place at the front of the crowd with some surprise and then a blinding smile of gratitude, which she then turned on the audience. “Let’s give a round of applause for my beautiful, fantastic partner, Ava Gall
anter,” she said. “Now, what can we say about this magical journey we’ve all been on here at the House of Mirth? This journey that has only just begun as we leave our nest here at the Lazarus Club and prepare to spread our wings.” Stephanie quickly warmed to her own eloquence, and it was quite a while before she let Constance finally take the stage, after many exhortations to everyone to be generous at the silent auction later that evening.

  The next twenty minutes were as bad as Ava had been afraid they might be. No one listened, instead shuffling, fidgeting, spilling drinks, shouting impatiently for Joe Reed. Constance read on, unflustered and at ease, her figure a dark gash against the huge painting behind her—a woman in pink panties bent over a bicycle seat. Constance’s reading glasses were black and round, and as she turned another page, she blinked, a sparrow amused by some secret joke. The magnificent amour of her self-possession hung around her casually, absently, without effort, and Ava wondered enviously at this imperturbability. Eventually, Constance finished and sat down to a resounding cheer, which was less appreciation than an enthusiastic farewell.

  Mortified, Ava hid with a bottle of liquor, cross-legged on the floor next to the fireplace, surrounded by a thicket of calves and feet. Since they had unthinkingly packed their microphone, and since Joe Reed apparently talked like his jaw had been wired shut, his poetry was interrupted every few minutes by some yelling from the back to “speak louder.” Reading from a small lined notebook, the shades of his large sunglasses flipped up, but with no lenses underneath, he grew more irritated at each outburst, and seemed to lower his voice out of spite. To curry favor, the audience at the front began yelling at the people at the back to “shut the fuck up.” Through it all, Mr. Joe Reed mumbled on, refusing to pause for the disturbances. Now that everyone realized that they were not going to be able to hear, a dissatisfied murmur rose, causing even more people to demand that everyone shut up. Stephanie, standing at his elbow, listened rapturously, swaying just a little on her heels like a buoy in a strong current.